On the Today programme this morning, Diane Abbott explained her surprise candidacy for the leadership of the Labour party thus:
“If not now, when? And if not me, who?”
This was a very Abbottian remark. She is better read and has a better ear for language than most MPs. Politics is all about ideas and communication, so it is bizarre that so few British MPs read books or respect words. Abbott does both, which is as much to her credit as it is to the rest of their shame.
No surprise, in which case, that her Soundbite for the Day was a literary reference. Slightly more dissonant, though, were the sources.
The paraphrastic allusion is to a poem written by a fictional character – a Jew captured and killed by a German – in Primo Levi’s great novel of Jewish partisan resistance to the Holocaust, If not now, when? (Se non ora, quando)?
Do you recognize us? We are the flock of the ghetto,
Fleeced for a thousand years, resigned to the offence.
We are the tailors, the scribes, and the cantors
Withered in the shadow of the Cross.
Now we have learned the paths of the forests,
We have learned to shoot, and we hit straight on.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If not thus, how? And if not now, when?
Our brothers have risen to heaven
Through the ovens of Sobibor and of Treblinka,
They have dug themselves a grave in the air.
Only we few have survived
For the honor of our submerged people,
For vengeance, and for witness.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If not thus, how? And if not now, when?
We are the sons of David and the stubborn ones of Massada.
Each of us bears in his pocket the stone
Which smashed the forehead of Goliath.
Brothers, away from the Europe of tombs:
Let us climb together toward the land
Where we will be men among other men.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if not thus, how? And if not now, when?
The relevant lines of the ‘fictional’ poem themselves paraphrase Hillel the Elder’s famous saying in Avoth:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”
Either way round, the flavour of all this allusion struck us as not terribly Diane Abbott.
Metropolitan media darling as holocaust resistance martyr? Not quite. Harrow County Grammar girl as Talmudic authority? It jars.
Most interesting, though, are those lines of Hillel that she left out:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’”?
Tags: Avot, Diane Abbott, Hillel the Elder, Primo Levi
All terribly learned, and I don’t doubt Ms Abbott’s intellect, but might not the reference be to Tracy Chapman’s song “If not now”. I accept that Tracy Chapman may have borrowed too, but it seems a more likely cultural touchpoint!
If not now, then when?
If not today,
Then, why make your promises?
A love declared for days to come,
Is as good as none.
You can wait ’til morning comes.
You can wait for the new day.
You can wait and lose this heart.
You can wait and soon be sorry.
If not now, then when?
If not today,
Then, why make your promises?
A love declared for days to come,
Is as good as none.
Now love’s the only thing that’s free.
We must take it where it’s found.
Pretty soon it may be costly.
‘Cause if not now, then when?
If not today,
Then, why make your promises?
A love declared for days to come,
Is as good as none.
If not now, what then?
We all must live our lives.
Always feeling.
Always thinking.
The moment has arrived.
If not now, then when?
Mike Marqusee, the anti- Iraq War activists (amongst many other campaigns) , published a book entitled “If I am not for Myself” early last year and which recently came out in paperback. It was subtitled: “Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew”.
Discourse about such topics very active in North London and no one should be surprised that Diane could be influenced by Primo Levi. Only she can (should) elucidate.
There’s also a rowing reference from the 1992 Olympics when Gary Herbert called to the Searle brothers ‘if not you, who? If not now, when?’, propelling them to gold, and people who know about it have been using it as a catchphrase ever since. I doubt this is where she got it from but it makes me suspect that the phrase is in common circulation among well-educated, well-read people, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d got at it through there.
I’m going to see Diane speak in Birmingham on 17 July so I googled for more current info on her and came across this page. I love the quote so I thank you for sharing it. I’m not worried where the quote originated and enjoyed reading the book extract too – one I didn’t know.
The debate on where quotes originate from reminds me of the great piece by Marianne Williamson from “A Return To Love” including the lines, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
More often than not it’s attributed to Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech. In fact that’s what I was told when I first came across it. I then learned it was written by Marianne and assumed Nelson Mandela had quoted her. However I attended her Resurrection workshop on Easter Saturday and while waiting for her to sign my book, heard her reply to another fan about the quote that in fact it appeared to be an urban myth that Mandela had used it. Sure enough, when I checked it out, Mandela hadn’t used it at all.
I wonder how these urban myths arise. Are they deliberate or do they stem from one person’s error being multiplied? Who knows – not me, for sure.