Baku-Pottsville-Paris Connection

This month I am going to ask readers to travel nearly 6,000 miles from home to discover some faraway connections, deep and strong, to Pottsville and Schuylkill County.

First, we’re going to board a jet, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and then the Mediterranean and Black Seas. As we land, our plane swoops over the Caspian Sea, in reality the biggest salt lake in the world, to begin our descent into Heyder Aliyev International Airport, an ultramodern landing terminal and gateway to Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, about 250 miles from that country’s border with Iran.

We hop a taxi and travel the 12 miles between the airport and center city. Wide boulevards are packed with Hummers, SUV’s, luxury cars and state-of-the-art electric busses; construction is underway everywhere. We head to the Old City within fortress walls, where traffic is restricted and pedestrians can roam narrow streets scented by roses in bloom. We check into our hotel and head back out. Our first destination: the birthplace of piano teacher extraordinaire Julie Askernia, who has her studio at the Art Center on Mahantongo Street in Pottsville.

I’ve done it. I’ve made my “Pottsville-Baku” connection, thanks to Julie, whose talent, personality and, most importantly, friendship wakened my interest in this part of the world. Now I stand in front of the building where Julie spent the first years of her childhood, a typical solid home of golden stone with a view of the nearby Caspian Sea.

When Julie was born, Azerbaijan was a Soviet Republic, and the city carries the mark of that presence, with many buildings constructed in what is known as the “Soviet Orientalist” style: the train station, the National Academy of Sciences, and many big apartment and office buildings found in the modern city’s vast pedestrian zone dotted with fountains and parks.

Julie’s life is marked by that presence as well. Once she completed her piano studies in Baku, she went on to study at the Moscow Conservatory of Music, the training ground for some of the greatest pianists in the world. Three of my favorites (besides Julie) studied there: Lazar Berman, Radu Lupu and Bella Davidovich, who like Julie was born in Baku.

My sister Jane, my niece and nephew, and I have studied with Julie. From my first lesson, I knew something exceptional was happening. This was not simply a piano lesson, I was experiencing music at is best. Julie opened new worlds by simply teaching me to place my fingers differently on the keys, to obtain a different sound, to “make music.” I was partaking, at my modest level, in that long and demanding Russian tradition of taking music seriously and playing joyfully.

With or without my trip, in Schuylkill County, a solid connection is already in place to Baku, Moscow and one of the greatest piano-teaching methods in the world, thanks to Julie Askernia, a musical gift to us all.

Today, in Baku, things are changing fast. The city is becoming a showcase of contemporary architecture. Dominating the skyline, three flame-shaped skyscrapers burn in the night, thanks to the LED-screens covering their surface. These Flame Towers are also a reminder of the city’s Zoroastrian past. There’s also the new carpet museum, inaugurated in 2014, tracing the history and celebrating the art of carpet-weaving in Azerbaijan. The building has the form of an unrolling carpet, complete with motifs.

The crowning jewel is the Heyder Aliyev Center, a museum, conference center and concert hall, designed by British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadad, who died an untimely death in 2016, the year of her creation’s inauguration.

Baku underwent its first growth spurt at the end of the 19th century, when oil was discovered. Today, once again, it feels like a boom town, clean, modern, prosperous and safe. Like in China, prosperity comes with a price. The same family has been ruling the country since 1993, and it’s best, as many journalists know, not to criticize the regime.

Politics, however, has in no way dampened the hospitality of the people of Baku. They give freely of themselves and help above and beyond the call of duty, as I learned when I arrived in the city on a night train from Tbilisi, Georgia. Mila, the Azeri woman who shared a sleeping compartment with me, took me in hand, joined me in a taxi and dropped me at my hotel.

Then Julie’s friends Nellie, Rassima and Karina took over, showing me the town and above all, offering me the experience of the best in Azeri cuisine. First I sampled “dushbara,” a delicate broth with tiny dumplings, then melt-in-the-mouth stuffed grape leaves, eggplant salad, grilled vegetables, “qutab”—light and delicious crepes filled with herbs, ground meat or pumpkin; rice pilafs, and grilled meats, accompanied by the local red wine. For dessert, baklava and watermelon-rind jam that we washed down with black tea, the national drink.

I walked the seaside, visited museums, took in the local sights, relaxing after 10 days on my own in Tbilisi, Georgia, where I taught at the national university. No one took care of me there and the Georgian language and alphabet were often a challenge, but in that country, more democratic but less prosperous than Azerbaijan, I encountered the same hospitality and kindness from students and strangers. In a country actively developing its tourist infrastructure, its culture and natural beauty call out to be explored.

While there, I was also able to satisfy my curiosity about another local connection, one I noticed during a visit to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Near the Visitors’ Center, there’s a signpost with arrows pointing to important raptor-watching spots throughout the world. One is in the mountains of Georgia, above the city of Batumi on the Black Sea coast.

Though I did not go to Batumi, I was not far away from the “largest and most diverse raptor bottleneck in Eurasia,” as it is described by two leadership interns from Hawk Mountain, Johannes Jansen and Wouter Vandsteelant of Belgium. They have played a central role in establishing a raptor-observation site near Batumi and I encourage readers to learn more at https://www.hawkmountain.org/science/batumi-bottleneck-georgia/

In the past month, my world has become wider and richer. It has also become a friendlier and more familiar place, thanks to connections between home and abroad.

Striking yesterday, striking today

At the beginning of the 20th century, John Mitchell, “the boy president” of the United Mine Workers, stormed into the anthracite region and convinced miners, underpaid and exploited, that the coal they mined wasn’t “Slavish, Polish or Irish coal, it’s coal.”

When on September 17, 1901, the UMW issued a call to strike, over 125,000 miners walked off the job. At the vanguard were miners in the Lehigh and Schuylkill fields. It was a long, bitter strike that hurt everyone. Miners lost their wages, stores closed, entire families had to go to work, earning barely enough to survive. Many left the region to seek jobs elsewhere and never returned.

When the strike was finally settled in March 1903, miners received a 10% wage increase, a sliding wage scale, and an 8-hour workday for several categories of miners. Pleading the miners’ cause before the Anthracite Coal Commission, the national board assembled by President T. Roosevelt to arbitrate, Clarence Darrow, “attorney for the damned,” proclaimed that, above all, miners had won a moral and spiritual victory:

“They (financial interests, such as those of J. P. Morgan, controlling the mines) are fighting for slavery, while we are fighting for freedom. They are fighting for the rule of man over man, for despotism, for darkness, for the past. We are striving to build up man. We are working for democracy, for humanity, for the future...”

In France, in 2018, April has become a month of strikes: railway and airline workers, civil servants, and students have walked off the job or out of the classroom to protest government policy and make their demands heard. Airline workers are demanding higher wages. Railway workers and students are fighting for the preservation of what they call “le modèle républicain,” a model of public service and equal opportunity representing the ideals of the French Republic.

In this French model, general interest takes precedence over the individual, and civil servants—who may be teachers, secretaries, doctors, nurses, economists or high-ranking government officials—work for the good of the nation. Railway workers, though not civil servants, work for the national rail company that still belongs in large part, at least for the moment, to the state. They too have a mission of service, and the development and maintenance of the rail system continues to be financed by the taxpayer.

I’ve lived in France for 30 years and I have benefited from “le modèle républicain.” To begin, there is the national health system. When I compare my benefits to those of friends or family in the States, I would say I receive better care for a more affordable price. I also depend on reliable, reasonably priced public transportation. When I retire, I’ll receive a public pension. For the moment, as a university professor, I am one of those civil servants serving the nation by educating its young people. I am “in the system,” and I believe the system is good.

President Macron does not share my belief, and this may be the crux of current strikes, though it all started with the SNCF, the French national rail company. The president and his majority in Parliament have voted to put an end to the “special status” of rail workers, first put in place in 1909 but considerably modified since. This means railway workers can retire earlier than the national retirement age of 62; they have 28 days of paid vacation per year (the average in France is 33), and once they’ve completed a long training and probationary period, they are guaranteed employment for life.

Claiming to be carrying out directives issued by the European Union, the government has voted to privatize passenger service in France in 2020 and put an end to the “special status” for new recruits in the same year. The law also contains many technical components concerning the legal status of the SNCF and the payment of the company’s extensive debt, due in large part to the development of the TGV, high-speed trains.

Except for specialists, few can truly grasp, as the French like to say, “the complexities of the dossier.” Yet, concerning the strike of the “cheminots,” railway workers, everybody has an opinion, and this may be because something else is at stake. Many feel Macron’s government has declared war on “le service public” and “le modèle républicain.”

For the entire month of April, my university has been closed by striking students. For me, this has meant being glued to my computer, doing most of my work on-line. My eyes, neck and wrists are aching, but this may be a blessing in disguise: the trains that carry me back and forth to work have been cancelled because of the rail strike.

Striking students are protesting what they fear will become a system of selective admissions to enter university. Currently, public universities are open to anyone with the French high school diploma called “le baccalauréat.” At the end of high school, students all over France take a series of national exams. If they pass, they are guaranteed a place in a university where their education is basically free.

From my experience, first-year university studies in France often turn into a free-for-all, leading to the survival of the fittest, natural selection that roots out about two-thirds of new students. Beginning this year, students will apply, much like in the USA, and places will be limited from the start. For many students, this puts an end to their equal opportunity to study what they choose, where they choose, as is the past.

In 1902, miners went on strike for dignity and decency. Today, life is easier, but the issues worth fighting for are less clear-cut. Macron wants to reform France. He is pushing through new laws, for the university, the national rail system and much more, leaving the French stunned by the speed of change. Seeking to place services in the hands of the private sector, he is counting on enterprising individuals to “make France great again.”

If he succeeds, he’ll seriously shake up le modèle républicain. He is certainly “working for the future,” but only time will tell if he is also “working for democracy and humanity,” to echo Clarence Darrow’s words.

Life, Death and Immortality, the 21st Century Way

Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. It is a week of great drama, but not of tragedy. A few days after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ will be crucified. On Easter, the first day of a new week, he will rise from the dead to live eternally. Belief in this resurrection is the core of Christian faith, and on Easter day Christians proclaim, “Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

These words of hope and faith were written by Saint Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians. Strangely, in 2018, they could also be a rallying cry for transhumanists and life-extenders, atheists in their vast majority. For them, death is the great enemy because “Death is wrong.” This is the title of a 2014 transhumanist children’s book by Gennady Stolyarov II, whose young character angrily tells his mother that “people should not die.”

In this disturbing overlapping of messages, both Christians and transhumanists seek victory over a common enemy, death, and place their hope in immortality. Yet, while Christians have faith in eternal life after death, transhumanists want it here and now, on Earth.

Take, for instance, transhumanist journalist, writer and political activist Zoltan Istvan, who, as a Libertarian candidate, is planning a run for governor of California in 2018. His 2013 science fiction novel The Transhumanist Wager sums up his philosophy: “If a reasoning human being loves and values life, they will want to live as long as possible—the desire to be immortal. Nevertheless, it's impossible to know if they're going to be immortal once they die. To do nothing doesn't help the odds of attaining immortality—since it seems evident that everyone will die someday and possibly cease to exist. To try to do something scientifically constructive towards ensuring immortality beforehand is the most logical conclusion.” (http://www.zoltanistvan.com/TranshumanistWager.html)

In a few strokes of the pen, or rather, fingers to the keys, Istvan does away with faith. It is simply impossible to know what happens after death. And why believe, when, in a not-so-distant future, science may “constructively” place immortality within easy reach.

Today, in the Silicon Valley and elsewhere, transhumanist movers and shakers anticipate “curing death.” They also want to implant human life on Mars, where space travelers can aim for lifespans far beyond the record 122 years, thanks to life-extension technology and drugs.

In France, in a contrary yet related movement, the big issue is not fighting against death, but for it: the right to choose when to die and how, in conditions corresponding to a personal definition of “dignity.”

In 2018, euthanasia and assisted suicide have been much in the news. Last January, a bill was introduced to legalize both, going one step further than a bill of October 2017, calling for “active medical assistance” for those in the final phase of a terminal illness.

This is not part of the program of President Macron’s ambitious reforms, but newly elected deputies, members of his movement, “la République en marche,” (loosely translated, the Republic on the move), have taken hold of power and gone off on a tangent of their own.

Many of these new deputies are young, have little or no political experience and no strong party allegiance. Macron has been counting on them to help him reform French institutions: health care, justice, education, labor law, transportation. Instead, their cause has become a citizen’s right to die.

In an open letter published in the French national daily Le Monde last March 1st, Jean-Louis Touraine, a doctor, deputy and member of Macron’s party, calls for putting an end to the hypocrisy that deprives the terminally or very ill of the help they need to die. It is urgent, according to the deputy-doctor and the 155 members of Parliament who also signed the letter, to vote a new law replacing end-of-life legislation now in place.

France presently has two 21st century laws that regulate end-of-life care. The 2005 Leonetti Law comes out against euthanasia, according patients the right to decide when to put an end to aggressive treatment, replacing it with palliative care. The law was revised in 2016 as Claeys-Leonetti Law; it guarantees nationwide access to palliative care and legalizes stopping treatment whose sole purpose is to maintain life artificially.

As with the 2005 law, Claeys-Leonetti protects the patient’s right to refuse unreasonable treatment and avoid all undue suffering. The 2016 law also accords the terminally ill the right to request deep and continuous sedation until death, for those who are about to die, but not for those who wish to die.

For Deputy Jean-Louis Touraine and the 155 other signers of his open letter, these laws do not go far enough. For them, anyone suffering from a grave and incurable illness that causes unbearable physical or psychological suffering or places the person in a state of dependency incompatible with their sense of personal dignity should have the right to die. This means to decide the time of death and request the lethal act to end life.

On March 13, in another letter to Le Monde, 85 other members of Parliament replied to protest Touraine’s proposals. For these deputies from all political horizons, the legalization of euthanasia opens the door to something more than patients’ rights:

In a society where fear and rejection of death is on the rise and mercy and kindness in short supply, the legalization of euthanasia could lead to the encouragement of the act as a means to put an end to “useless” lives. With medical costs rising rapidly, legalized euthanasia might eventually turn into a form of eugenics, where lethal sedation of the terminally ill or the “useless” elderly could contribute to reducing health costs and maintaining a healthy, productive society.

Indefinite life extension is the transhumanist goal, and transhumanists believe in it, not as a possibility, but as a reality not too far down the road. In France, those supporting euthanasia hope to legislate the right to die, the ultimate frontier of human rights.

Mounting the road to Jerusalem, Jesus meets a woman who seeks his blessing for her sons. He asks them, “Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?”

So what shall it be? A cocktail of life-extension drugs, a lethal brew, or life as it has been given to us, with its joys and pain?

Smoke gets in my eyes, and I don’t mind!

My parents liked to go out to eat. Both worked hard outside the home, and my mom also held down the full-time job of housekeeper. On weekdays we went to Joyce’s, a few steps from the intersection of Centre and Norwegian Streets in Pottsville. For Sunday dinner, we drove out of town, though we didn’t go far. We went to Longo’s, once located on the grounds of what is today Schoeneman Beauty Supply on the Saint Clair Highway.

In some ways, I liked Longo’s. I liked the Italian food. I liked the frescoes on the wall, scenes of what may have been the Amalfi Coast or mountain villages in Sicily. As a child, I spent a lot of time contemplating the stucco homes, built so close together, much like houses in the coal region. I admired the vineyards, the olive groves, and the vine-covered terraces, where happy Italians drank and danced. I wondered if people in Italy really lived that way and thought I might like to go there some day.

After a while, I got tired of looking at the pictures. I’d finished my meal, even dessert, and I was ready to go. The adults had finished too and the waitress was clearing away their plates. This was not, however, the signal to say, “Check, please.” It was the moment to ask for another cup of coffee and light up a cigarette.

I can still remember how my heart sunk to my toes when my dad offered my mom a smoke and then lit one for himself. But don’t imagine I was worried about their health. No! For me, the cigarette, travelling from mouth to ashtray and back, was like the stroke of a metronome moving to an excruciatingly slow beat.

One cigarette, then another, often a third. I watched them. They were enjoying themselves, slowly drawing on their cigarettes. My sisters and I waited. We could not go out to play. The restaurant was on the edge of a busy highway. It was too dangerous. Instead, we sat, seen but not heard, and breathed in all that secondary smoke, without a care for our health.

Back in the early 1960’s, in my little world, nearly every adult smoked. My parents belonged to a generation encouraged to light up. Doctors and dentists claimed cigarettes would protect smokers’ throats and teeth. In an ad from the 1950’s, actor Ronald Reagan declared Chesterfields the “merriest” Christmas gift around. At the corner grocery store, we kids bought packages of candy cigarettes.

Then came the 1964 Surgeon General’s report, the first on the hazards of smoking. I can still recall some of the first anti-smoking campaigns, one built around the popular standard “Smoke gets in your eyes.”

I was a kid who worried. I started worrying about my parents and smoking. I wanted them to stop.

My mom did. She was never a real smoker. She had a cigarette after a meal, to keep my father company. My father, on the other hand, went through two packs a day. Our house smelled like smoke and when he was home, we walked through billows floating in the air.

In 1968, four years after the Surgeon General’s first report, my father died. From where I sit today, I know he was a young man, 48 years old. In that death, cigarettes played a big role.

I’ve never smoked. Oh sure, I tried a cigarette or two when I was young. I actually smoked in my father’s presence. A friend of his offered me a Kool. I liked the menthol taste, liked feeling grown-up, but that was before my father died.

Most of my adult life, I was a crusader, a cigarette-hater, intolerant of cigarette smoke. I cheered every piece of legislation that chased smokers to the peripheries of daily life: no more smoking in movie theaters, busses or airplanes. Then smokers could no longer light up in restaurants. Finally, cigarettes were banned in bars!

Reading up on the anti-smoking laws in Pennsylvania, I’ve discovered that in some counties, authorities have even instituted bans on smoking in public housing. A man’s home used to be his castle. Now, during a long, cold PA winter, if he is a smoker and happens to be renting from the state, he’ll have to go sit on a bench in the snow to enjoy a cigarette.

According to 2016 figures, nearly 35% of French men and women between the ages of 15 and 75 smoke. In the USA, the figure is about 15%.

In France, there are frequent anti-smoking campaigns. Packs of cigarettes and pouches of tobacco are stamped with messages such as “Smoking kills,” or “Smoking can damage sperm and reduce fertility.” There are also photos worthy of horror films, the kind of image that makes a non-smoker cry, “Get behind me, Satan!” They are truly evil-looking things.

The latest move by the government of President Macron is to push the price of cigarettes up to ten euros. It will increase by increments, and by 2020, the goal will be reached: $12.50 for 20 cigarettes. Today the price is about $8.50, equivalent to what Pennsylvania smokers are paying in 2018.

An anti-smoking fanatic like me should be cheering. But I am not. Since I’ve moved to the country, my attitude towards smoking has changed. In Paris, I didn’t have a single friend who smoked. In le Perche, I know several people who do. Some are retired, living on very limited incomes. Others work long hard hours. Few of them go on the kind of vacations my Parisian friends so often take. In fact, few of them go on vacation at all.

Smoking is their pleasure, their little luxury. It is also their means for controlling stress; for many, it is an addiction they’d like to overcome, but they do not know how.

They fit in with the statistics: they are of what’s called a “low socio-economic background,” less educated, unqualified for high-paying jobs. Many have worked since they were teenagers, some from as young as 12 years old.

They are the people whom President Macron seems to be leaving behind as he sets out on an ambitious program of reforms to “make France great again” (sound familiar?).

I say, help my new friends and acquaintances move up the socio-economic ladder, provide them with the counselling they need to break addiction, or please, let them enjoy a smoke.

Pioneer Living, Old-World style

Readers about my age must surely remember the TV series “Wagon Train.” It was one of the formative viewing experiences of my youth, and though I didn’t like shoot’em-up westerns, I loved watching the Conestoga wagons trek across the plains and mountains of the American West.

On “Wagon Train” there were families, which meant children, and the show allowed me to experience the journey through their eyes. Another detail sticks in my mind: girls were just as courageous as boys, and big or small, everyone did their part to survive. Go West, young woman. That seemed to be the motto of the show.

At night, I pulled the sheets over my head, turning my bed into a prairie schooner. Peeping out into the darkness, I imagined Chimney Rock, the Colorado River, the snow-capped Rockies. I also sensed the dangers of the trail: “Indians,” as we called them then, but also wild animals, rattlers or scorpions, and shortages of water and food. Participating in the journey through imagination, experiencing beauty, danger and adventure, I simply couldn’t understand why my parents, or their forebears, had never heeded the call.

I did. I went to California, albeit by jet plane, to study, not to homestead. I landed in Los Angeles, a quick trip into the future for a girl from Pottsville, PA. The Old West was buried beneath concrete and asphalt.

But that did not stop me from trying to dig it up. In 1976, to commemorate the bicentennial, I dragged my mother and two sisters onto an Amtrak train we boarded in Union Station in LA (they’d flown there for a visit). In 48 hours it was going to deposit us in Harrisburg, after having unfurled at ground level the beauties and wonders of the continental United States.

That was the program. Things did not go as planned. The train broke down in the Arizona desert and we sat there for hours. No air conditioning, intense heat, crying babies, passengers in panic. No one in my family would speak to me.

When we finally made it to Saint Louis, we changed to a local making every stop on this side of the Mississippi before it finally reached Harrisburg, nearly 90 hours after the trip had begun.

That was my transcontinental trek, inspired by “Wagon Train.” My family hated me for it, but I enjoyed the adventure. That may be why I ended up in France, a truly long trek that has finally provided me with a taste of “pioneer life.” Who would have ever imagined (certainly, not me!) that I had to return to the Old World to discover what conquering the New was like.

At this point in my adventure in “la France profonde,” heartland France, I call myself “pioneer woman” and wonder for how long I can keep this up.

To give you an idea of “a day in the life,” it all starts very early. I get up in darkness and pull on several layers of warm clothing, first my “woolies,” a pair of wool panty hose and a thermal undershirt, then a heavy sweater and a wool scarf around the neck, topped by a sweat suit ordered especially from Iceland, where they know something about cold. A pair of socks, fur-lined slippers, and I’m ready to go.

Then it’s time to make the fire. Every night I let it die down and go out. Every morning I start all over again. First, I remove yesterday’s ashes and clean the ceramic glass door of my wood stove. I clean that glass every morning, wetting and balling newspaper, dipping it in ash, and then scrubbing away. This leaves my nails caked with soot, but it gives me a beautiful view of the flames, the best entertainment in town.

Once the stove is clean I can build the fire, using the top-down method and fire-starter squares—I don’t know what I’d do without them. Sometimes it takes two or three tries to get it going, and once the flames begin to rise, I’m never far away. At the onset, my fire requires care and pampering if it is going to last all day—as it should, as it must. Wood fire is my main source of heat.

Working hard, my stove is always hungry. For me, this means numerous trips each day to the woodshed in my garden. I fill a heavy-duty bag and lug the wood to the house.

When my morning chores are done, I can finally eat, and I’m hungry. Now I can understand those big cowboy breakfasts of hot biscuits, gravy and beans. I also need a couple of cups of strong black coffee if I am going to make it through the rest of the day.

Part of it I spend sitting at a computer, something pioneers never did. Yet I am also in my garden, still, in January, living off the fat of the land. I’m harvesting winter salads, broccoli, Brussel sprouts and sorrel; and down in my root cellar, my supply of potatoes and beets will hold me through to spring.

To top it off, I live in a house I’ve ‘built’ (with the aid of local craftsmen). I have become a homesteader and that home still requires work. During the Christmas holidays the plumbing backed up, and the French take holidays seriously. Tracking down a plumber was like searching for the Northwest Passage, except that I was not battling ice.

And no pioneer experience would be complete without skirmishes with the natives, animal and human. I’ve had chiggers and been attacked by fire ants. A small house next to mine is abandoned. My contractor suspects it is infested with rats. He tells me to be careful when I feed the birds, or I’ll have rodents in my courtyard.

As for the humans, it’s an uphill battle. A foreigner, an American no less, a member of that nation whose founders were not satisfied till they’d grabbed an entire continent, has come and laid claim to a piece of the local “patrimoine,” their heritage. Until she took it, nobody wanted it, but now that she’s fixed it up, things have changed.

We all know “how the West was won.” It took generations, and I’ve only been here two years. In the village of Condé sur Huisne, I’ve staked my claim, but will it hold?

Just like “Wagon Train,” this is one episode in a series and the show has just begun…

“Kids United” uniting kids and the world

This year I got into the Christmas spirit with the pre-adolescent set and their forty-something parents. I joined more than 20,000 of them in the biggest concert hall in Paris, AccorHotel Aréna. We were all there for “the Kids,” “Kids United,” the hottest group in France, at the top of the charts, having recently knocked Céline Dion out of first place.

Who are “the Kids”? In some ways, they are a fluke, a group of children and adolescents, between the ages of 10 and 17, who, at their beginnings a mere two years ago, were chosen to sing together to promote the cause of UNICEF. Contestants on shows such as "France Has Got Talent" and "Voice Kids," they were already used to performing when they were singled out to become representatives of French youth and ambassadors of UNICEF.

In May 2015 they gave their first concert at the Olympia, a Parisian theater where all the greats have sung: Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. At the close of the concert, “the Kids” presented their first check to UNICEF for over 400 thousand dollars.

And the rest is history, a success story that my friend Tiago, 9 years old, has been following every step of the way. Singing “feel-good” songs, most of them unknown in the English-speaking world, “The Kids” have captured the hearts of the French and got millions humming “On écrit sur les murs,” (“We write on the walls/the names of those we love”), a 1989 pop song that became their first big hit.

The day of the concert, one of two Paris appearances in the group’s nationwide 2017 tour, many of us arrived early. We were bubbling with excitement, ready to stand patiently in long lines and undergo a body search before we could enter the hall. Like most parents and chaperones, I’d thought about the dangers of such a gathering, but I was gladly, even gleefully, chaperoning Tiago to what was the biggest music event of my life.

Once inside, we waited, with no sign of “The Kids.” When the group finally burst onto the stage, emerging from mist and beams of colored light, the 20,000 fans went wild. As for Tiago and me, a discrete usher invited us to rise from our last-row seats and follow him. He directed us to the fourth row of the giant hall, a stroke of luck, a miracle of sorts. Suddenly “The Kids” were real.

Now I could see the sweat on Nilusi’s forehead. This graceful 17-year-old whose roots are in Sri Lanka is the oldest member of the group and is about to go solo.

As the singers change positions on the stage, she is soon replaced by Gabriel, 15. He is what the French call “un black,” a French boy with roots in Africa, who spent a part of his childhood in England and is completely bilingual.

Esteban, 17, is proud of his Spanish origins. Erza, 12, has parents who fled their native Kosovo. Even Gloria, the youngest at age 10, has an Italian last name.

They are so close I could almost touch these talented, energetic representatives of UNICEF and France today, were it not for the security guards standing between me and the stage. All around me, children and adults are singing along, and I feel like the only person among the 20,000 who doesn’t know the words to every song.

Good, clean entertainment, I guess you could call it, provided by the very best of multicultural France, every one of “The Kids,” an example of the wealth of origins, backgrounds and races that are vital ingredients in what it means to be French today.

Everybody in the audience loves them, the parents as enthralled as their children—to the point that a little boy falls off the back of a seat into my arms while his mother blithely records the show on her phone. Every child in the hall dreams of someday becoming a “Kid” and, to children and adults alike, “Kids United” conveys the message that “le monde est beau,” the world is beautiful.

Then it’s over and we’re back in the cold, dark night. Outside the hall, there’s a hot trade in posters, selling for 2 euros, as opposed to the official price of ten. Tiago rushes up to a salesmen and whips out a 5-euro bill. No change, he is told. I search in my wallet, find a 2-euro coin, extend my palm and Tiago gets his poster—in the nick of time.

Just as the exchange is taking place, the police break in, confiscating all the posters, but ours. “Cadeau,” the policeman says, as he drags the poster-seller away. A gift, you don’t have to pay.

As for the salesman, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. He lost his posters and he’s going to lose his profits, and if he happens to be an illegal immigrant, he may lose his foothold in France.

Concerning illegal immigration, President Macron has recently increased police powers, sanctioning random identity checks in hotels and shelters. The goal of his government is to keep new immigrants out and get rid of those who shouldn’t be here. With temperatures hovering around freezing, police have been destroying makeshift tent cities, slashing tents and throwing blankets, mattresses and personal belongings into trash bins.

While running for office, Emmanuel Macron praised the generosity of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in 2015, offered asylum to over one million refugees. France committed to welcoming 30,000. In 2016, there were 85,244 requests for asylum status, of which 26,531 were accepted, according to figures provided by the Ministry of the Interior.

In 2018, President Macron hopes to reduce those numbers, in part by outsourcing the processing of asylum seekers to countries like Niger or Libya, where human trafficking and violence are rife.

A few days before Christmas, “Kids United” celebrated a different, more generous image of France. These vibrant singers proclaim that yes, we can all live together, at least for the duration of the show…

My wish for 2018, a year promising dangerous times, is that we all give it a try.

Circuses in the US and France: Will the show go on?

A week ago I had an experience that may make of me one of the last willing participants in a dying art, the oldest and greatest show on earth. I went to the circus and, thanks to the animals and their trainers, I had a fantastic time.

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting much. The circus had rolled into town a few days before, and I’d already had a chance to observe many of the animals (over 60, many exotic, according to posters all over town). I saw two black pigs, a lot of chickens and geese, some ponies, three Bactrian camels, two llamas, a wildebeest, emus, a yak, a cat and two dogs, freely roaming the grounds.

In the same field, there were two truck trailers, the wooden entrance to the big-top, not yet in place, and one mobile home. Either this was a small operation, or not all the members of the circus had arrived. I walked the grounds, petted the ponies, took photos and pretty much had the menagerie to myself. If I had walked away with a llama or invited one of the dogs to follow me, I’m not sure anyone would have noticed.

Every afternoon a car drove back and forth through the village, announcing weekend show times. Sunday arrived and I set out for the 11 o’clock matinee. I bought my ticket, stood in line, waited. I thought the little clown who peeped from a crack in the tent was busy seating people inside. It took me a while to realize that the small crowd outside—36 in all, I counted—represented the entire audience.

Finally, the clown, dressed in a droopy harlequin costume, folded back a flap of the tent and invited us to file in to the sound of recorded music: Sousa marches, the music of Nino Rota, who composed the soundtrack for “La Strada,” Fellini’s 1954 movie about a small carnival starring Anthony Quinn. Most of us took our seats on bleachers, a few paid double for front-row seats. Everybody, with such a small crowd, had an excellent view of the one-ring show.

A drum roll, the curtains open, three beautiful lions from Kenya and their trainer burst into the cage occupying the entire ring. I’d seen lions represented on the posters around town, but thought they were just a come-on. Now I had them before my very eyes, three surly beasts, growling, showing their teeth, obeying reluctantly. They run, they jump, they mount metal stands, they form a triangle, with one of the lions placing his impressive paws on the backs of his two companions.

The man next to me says under his breath, “Mais il n’est pas gentil avec ses bêtes,” he’s not very nice to his animals. The tamer prods them, and we’re so close we can see the metal point on his prod. He cracks the whip, he withstands the lions’ growls, their outstretched paws trying to strike him. My heart is beating fast, I can see the lions wet with sweat, I can smell them, the smell of wild beasts, I feel fear and I can feel fear around me.

It is a great performance. The small audience applauds wildly. We too are members of a dying breed, an audience overwhelmed by the courage of the man in the cage.

Then it’s over and it’s time for a change of set. The cage must come down. A man I recognize as a local comes out to begin dismantling it. He is soon joined by the lion tamer, who, after his death-defying feat, must work, hands-on, if the show is to continue. Then the ticket seller and the little clown get into the act, all working together to prepare the stage.

The next act is juggling, and the juggler is none other than the lion tamer, brilliantly playing a new role. He is a handsome man, young, a one-man-show from the look of things.

Another change of set, the preparation of a new act, and while this is going on, the little clown and a little fairy entertain us. Shanny and Ethan, the announcer tells us, and this is when it begins to sink in. This circus, “The Shanny and Ethan Seneca Circus,” is a family affair. Mom takes care of tickets, the concession wagon, props, Shanny and Ethan, no more than 6 and 8 years old, seat the guests and entertain us. Teddy, the father, does just about everything else.

From beginning to end, the audience loves it. There are other animal acts, trained horses and llamas, the wildebeest and yaks. When the barnyard animals scurry into the ring, fanning out in two directions, their trainer is none other than Shanny, dressed in a Bo Peep costume, carrying a dressage whip disguised as a staff.

At the show’s end, Teddy Seneca, one-man-show, stands in the center of the ring and reads us a poem about his love of animals and his pride in performing in the greatest show on earth. I’m ready to claim it sent a shiver up everybody’s spine and made some of us misty-eyed.

The year 2017 has not been a good one for circuses with animal acts. It marks the closing of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus after 146 years. New York City and Los Angeles have banned the use of wild animals in all entertainment, private or public. The subject is under debate in Paris and 62 French municipalities have already taken the step.

Many studies show it is impossible to meet the needs of wild animals in captivity; there is also ample proof of their physical and psychological suffering. As recently as November 17th, in the French science magazine Science et Avenir, a panel of veterinarians, philosophers and ethnographers called for the ban of animal acts in France.

This is progress and the show may not go on for Teddy Seneca and family.

Since I was a child in Pottsville, attending performances at the 16th Street field or at Agricultural Park, I have loved the circus, including the animal acts. I suppose it’s the wild beast in me.

Freed from exploitation, wild animals will lead better lives. If we could just bring the same care and attention to our fellow humans, we’d truly make this world a better place.