Tom Paulin Quotes
I do think culture is an argument, and that was part of the way I was brought up. People at a social occasion in Ireland will start shouting and arguing. When the Yeats family lived in Bedford Park, they had to go round to the neighbours to say, 'You might think we are fighting, but this is the way we talk to each other.'
Paulin, Tom. Interview by Nicholas Wroe. "The Awkward Squad." The Guardian, Guardian News & Media, 24 Aug. 2002.
At the time, headwear identified the wearer’s caste and class. Fezes, Turbans, etc. were eliminated in favor of hats. This was Ataurk’s solution to two problems: He wanted to have Turkey modernize and develop along the lines of Western democracy and the traditional Islamic headgear being replaced by Western hats were daily symbols of the national modernization. The second advantage was that Turks could no longer identify caste and class by the traditional headgear and the society became much more egalitarian which it has been ever since.
He was referring to the House of Commons which had been bombed on May 10, 1941. He advocated making the new house larger so each member could have a seat.
Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.
