Well, well, well, well, well! Who knew old Call-Me-Dave had it in him? Before Cameron headed off to Euroland last week he was being castigated by his backbenchers and the right-wing press as the love-child of Ted Heath and Neville Chamberlain. Now he's been adorned with Winnie's cigar and Maggie's handbag, along with other congratulatory baubles of Little England. (Full credit to Ana the Imp for her 'David and Goliath' allusion. The best comparison I can come up with is with a fictional British Prime Minister - also called David - who also stands up for his country, as portrayed in a light-hearted rom-com from several years ago).
Do I join those Brits whose sense of national self-regard was swelled at the sight of the PM, coolly and calmly explaining his decision on Friday morning? You bet.
The idea of entering a giant fiscal union (or FU as its been brilliantly labelled by Daniel Hannan) in which control over our economy would be restricted is an abhortion. I have not yet looked into a cost/benefit analysis of a financial transaction/Robin Hood/Tobin tax just yet (though I'd be inclined to be sceptical of such measures), but if we were to have one, let it come from Westminster, not from Brussels, Paris or Berlin.
This view is rooted in an aversion to seeing the world's longest continually-running representative Parliament - that is, the first to establish the principle of its own supremacy over monarchical power - told what to do by bodies that don't seem very democratic at all. A formative issue for me personally was the row back in January/February over votes for prisoners. Whatever the merits of extending the franchise to frauds, murderers, thieves, rapists etc. may be (and again, I'd be... sceptical), the decision should be down to those that have a democratic mandate i.e. the politicians at Westminster, so they can take into account the views of their constituents before taking it. The decision should not rest in the hands of an unelected overseas court.
So as I was proud of our Parliament when MPs across the board - led by a cross-party alliance between Jack Straw and David Davis - voted down that arrogant demand from the European Court of Justice, I am now proud of our Prime Minister for having the courage to use a certain two-letter word.
The other point it is important to consider about the EU Treaty's proposed financial transaction tax is that it would have had a disproportionate effect on Britain. The City of London may be a son of a bitch, to coin a phrase, but it's our son of a bitch. Of course, it caused us *ahem* certain difficulties back in 2008, but - whether the figures stick in your throat or not - Britain's financial services industry makes up around 10 per cent of our GDP, and around 17.5 per cent of national tax revenue. Why should we risk turning off the vast numbers of investors who come to London for the sake of the 'Save the Euro' campaign? Yes, the bloody, bloody Euro: surely the world's first currency to be founded solely on stupid utopian "hope 'n change" idealism, and most certainly a strong contender for the Ozymandias of our era (and that's up against some pretty stiff competition in these soulless times...Dubai's a good one, and that comes with its own sand.)
France and Germany have their economic sacred cows - agriculture and the car industry respectively - so why should it be the British, who wisely stayed away from the Euro, that have to cough up the most? The suggestions that it was all part of Nicolas Sarkozy's neo-Gaullist plot to deflect attention onto the evils of Anglo-Saxon capitalism thereby a) convincing everybody that the Eurozone crisis has nothing to do with the Euro and b) winning an upcoming general election are all very interesting. In the absence of any less conspiratorial explanations, and having as I do a little knowledge of historic French resentment of the English-speaking world (do read up! Often hilarious; sometimes not, especially for Rwandan Tutsis), I'm inclined to go with them.
Should you think my position slightly skewed to the Right (you'd be right by the way), let me also point out that there is nothing for the left in this Treaty deal. The following article on the Communist Party of Britain's website http://communist-party.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1528:an-eu-veto-made-of-thin-air&catid=78:eu-a-popular-sovereignty&Itemid=91 notes that the 'fiscal rules' proposed "effectively outlaw any reflationary, Keynesian policies and certainly ban any socialist solutions to the growing crisis". This is because the new rules are supposed to forbid any annual structural deficit in any signatory economy that exceeds 0.5% of its GDP.
As it should be needless to say by now, I don't want any socialist solutions to the growing crisis. But the democrat in me will always support the right of national governments to pursue that course, provided they have an electoral mandate for it (and they usually don't. See Spain, November 2011).
Now is it not telling about the state of the modern British Left that its left to barely- reconstructed Stalinists to point this out? Where is the relevant Left on the matter? Most left-wingers I know personally are following the Euro-integrationist austerity line, apparently unaware of the discrepancy between that position and their ever more inventive 'ConDemnations' of our own government. If you read the CPB/Morning Star article above, you'll see that the comrades picked up on the disgracefully inflammatory remarks made by Belgian 'Liberal' MEP Guy Verhofstadt about Britain being "on the menu". If you type in the name 'Guy Verhofstadt' into the Guardian Comment is Free search box you get just 13 results all dating from before remarks in question.
Eh, maybe they'll see the light one day. Their silence for now means David Cameron is the man who stood up for - in the words of Orwell - My Country, Right or Left.
Monday 12 December 2011
Wednesday 26 October 2011
Rebellion in the ranks!
After such a long absence, I've been thinking for a while it's time I got back into blogging again. You may have thought the most significant political changes in the Arab world's history might've stirred me from my unproductive sloth. So would I have. I suppose, because the Arab Spring is a long, ongoing process - and as Xhou Enlai said wittily of the French Revolution it is rather too early to tell of its full significance - there will be plenty of opportunities for posts on that momentous issue. And, inshallah, there will be many.
The event that has succeeded in providing the necessary firework-up-arse is an uprising of a different kind, the parliamentary kind! (Yummy!) On Monday, as those of you that relish this sort of thing will know, David Cameron endured not only the biggest rebellion from his party in his time as leader, but the biggest in his party's history, at least on the issue in question. The issue in question? Why, that Tory favourite of course: Europe. Until Monday, the biggest rebellion over Europe had been that over the Maastricht Treaty when 41 Conservative MPs defied John Major's party whips. This time around the numbers have as good as doubled to 81!
However, this should not be regarded as a purely Tory affair, a point stubbornly missed by the likes of New Statesman blog's Steven Baxter for whom serious debates about the state of our nation's sovereignty and democracy are simply "a bit of a spectator sport for everyone who isn't in the Conservative Party". http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/steven-baxter/2011/10/conservative-party-europeYet somehow a further 19 rebels were found to belong to the Labour Party. We even have a solitary Lib Dem (Adrian Sanders, never heard of him but kudos) who felt the need to honour his leader's previous pledge to a referendum. How soppily liberal and democratic of him... Plus several Unionists and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, altogether making up the wonderfully symmetrical figure of 111 (against 483).
Why is that left-wing commentators like Baxter seem to want us to forget the Left's own Euroscepticism which looms from a not so distant past? It was Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell who condemned Britain's the idea of Britain's entry to the Common Market as promising "the end of Britain as an independent nation ... the end of a thousand years of history". As recently as 1983 it was part of Michael Foot's manifesto to withdraw from the EEC. Talk about parties tearing themselves apart, as the anti-anti-EU crowd often describe the squabbles of today's Tories. That manifesto was not called "the longest suicide note in history" for nothing. It seems to be that only after 1988 did Labour become pro-Europe overall. Yet now some of that old Eurospecticism has bubbled back up again, even on the Labour front benches with Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander being particular exemplars of this. Peter Oborne charts that story pretty well here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100084808/its-taken-decades-but-labour-has-seen-the-light-on-europe/
There is no logical reason why the Left should be more pro-EU than the Right. At least not the Left that isn't prepared to pursue vaguely defined internationalist utopias at the expense of demcratic rights and sound economics, that is...Perhaps in the sphere of debate on Europe we are seeing the return of that Left. Not a moment too soon.
My own conscience on the prospect of an EU referendum - not that, in seriousness, one is on the cards for the foreseeable future - is, like the Conservative Party itself, wracked by internal division. I think that, deep down, I have always been a Eurospectic of a sort; even in the 2009 European elections, aged 19, I seriously considered voting for the front organisation cobbled together by Bob Crow, the Communist Party of Britain and assorted other far leftists 'No 2 EU, Yes 2 Democracy' (I voted Green in the end).
That was not down to any lingering sympathy for radical left-wing politics; by then that was dead in me. It was down to a) finding an organisation that had to ask the Irish people a second time in a Treaty referendum after receiving the answer it didn't want the first time strange at best, contemptible at worst; and b) well...I was hardly at a point in my life where I was going to vote UKIP was I? I do think there is something strange - contemptible - about much in the way the EU behaves. There is a very strong yearning in me to see some kind of democratic slap in the face of the EU's unelected 'President' Herman van Rompuy and 'Foreign Minister' Baroness Ashton. Or should that be 'Presidents'; let's not forget Jose Manuel Barroso. That slap may just come from a popular mandate from Britain saying "we've had enough". Poll after poll suggests such a result would not be beyond the realms of imagination.
And yet, and yet, I can't help but fear the consequences of that course of action. It is true - as the 'lets get out' Eurosceptics continually point out - that countries have done perfectly well outside the EU, (Switzerland and Norway seem to be the favourites) but the only country to have left the EU having previously been a part of it is Greenland, and that only by default when it left Denmark. Admittedly they too seem to be doing alright (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexsingleton/100065718/why-is-greenland-so-rich-these-days-it-said-goodbye-to-the-eu/) but, for me, a nation with a population of around 56,000 is hardly a reassuring model for a nation of 60 million.
So while I salute the principle of the 'glorious 111', especially Adam Holloway and Stewart Jackson who have laid down their careers over the issue, I have yet to be convinced that the logical ends of their case - in what after all is a very Eurosceptic country - should be similarly applauded.
The event that has succeeded in providing the necessary firework-up-arse is an uprising of a different kind, the parliamentary kind! (Yummy!) On Monday, as those of you that relish this sort of thing will know, David Cameron endured not only the biggest rebellion from his party in his time as leader, but the biggest in his party's history, at least on the issue in question. The issue in question? Why, that Tory favourite of course: Europe. Until Monday, the biggest rebellion over Europe had been that over the Maastricht Treaty when 41 Conservative MPs defied John Major's party whips. This time around the numbers have as good as doubled to 81!
However, this should not be regarded as a purely Tory affair, a point stubbornly missed by the likes of New Statesman blog's Steven Baxter for whom serious debates about the state of our nation's sovereignty and democracy are simply "a bit of a spectator sport for everyone who isn't in the Conservative Party". http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/steven-baxter/2011/10/conservative-party-europeYet somehow a further 19 rebels were found to belong to the Labour Party. We even have a solitary Lib Dem (Adrian Sanders, never heard of him but kudos) who felt the need to honour his leader's previous pledge to a referendum. How soppily liberal and democratic of him... Plus several Unionists and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, altogether making up the wonderfully symmetrical figure of 111 (against 483).
Why is that left-wing commentators like Baxter seem to want us to forget the Left's own Euroscepticism which looms from a not so distant past? It was Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell who condemned Britain's the idea of Britain's entry to the Common Market as promising "the end of Britain as an independent nation ... the end of a thousand years of history". As recently as 1983 it was part of Michael Foot's manifesto to withdraw from the EEC. Talk about parties tearing themselves apart, as the anti-anti-EU crowd often describe the squabbles of today's Tories. That manifesto was not called "the longest suicide note in history" for nothing. It seems to be that only after 1988 did Labour become pro-Europe overall. Yet now some of that old Eurospecticism has bubbled back up again, even on the Labour front benches with Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander being particular exemplars of this. Peter Oborne charts that story pretty well here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100084808/its-taken-decades-but-labour-has-seen-the-light-on-europe/
There is no logical reason why the Left should be more pro-EU than the Right. At least not the Left that isn't prepared to pursue vaguely defined internationalist utopias at the expense of demcratic rights and sound economics, that is...Perhaps in the sphere of debate on Europe we are seeing the return of that Left. Not a moment too soon.
My own conscience on the prospect of an EU referendum - not that, in seriousness, one is on the cards for the foreseeable future - is, like the Conservative Party itself, wracked by internal division. I think that, deep down, I have always been a Eurospectic of a sort; even in the 2009 European elections, aged 19, I seriously considered voting for the front organisation cobbled together by Bob Crow, the Communist Party of Britain and assorted other far leftists 'No 2 EU, Yes 2 Democracy' (I voted Green in the end).
That was not down to any lingering sympathy for radical left-wing politics; by then that was dead in me. It was down to a) finding an organisation that had to ask the Irish people a second time in a Treaty referendum after receiving the answer it didn't want the first time strange at best, contemptible at worst; and b) well...I was hardly at a point in my life where I was going to vote UKIP was I? I do think there is something strange - contemptible - about much in the way the EU behaves. There is a very strong yearning in me to see some kind of democratic slap in the face of the EU's unelected 'President' Herman van Rompuy and 'Foreign Minister' Baroness Ashton. Or should that be 'Presidents'; let's not forget Jose Manuel Barroso. That slap may just come from a popular mandate from Britain saying "we've had enough". Poll after poll suggests such a result would not be beyond the realms of imagination.
And yet, and yet, I can't help but fear the consequences of that course of action. It is true - as the 'lets get out' Eurosceptics continually point out - that countries have done perfectly well outside the EU, (Switzerland and Norway seem to be the favourites) but the only country to have left the EU having previously been a part of it is Greenland, and that only by default when it left Denmark. Admittedly they too seem to be doing alright (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexsingleton/100065718/why-is-greenland-so-rich-these-days-it-said-goodbye-to-the-eu/) but, for me, a nation with a population of around 56,000 is hardly a reassuring model for a nation of 60 million.
So while I salute the principle of the 'glorious 111', especially Adam Holloway and Stewart Jackson who have laid down their careers over the issue, I have yet to be convinced that the logical ends of their case - in what after all is a very Eurosceptic country - should be similarly applauded.
Monday 26 July 2010
My thoughts on the Labour leadership contest...
Ed Balls: apart from the ridiculous name? Well, for me he has always been far too close to Brown, thus too associated by Labourites with the (let's be honest) failure of Labour's Brownite years, which now seem like a short, strange and half-forgotten nightmare, to have a chance. Not only that, from what I've seen Balls also shares a measure of his political mentor's presentational style - or lack thereof; renowned for 'ballsing up' interviews, for a rather stubborn speech impediment and his arguably callous response to David Cameron's critique of the 2008 Budget ("So what?" the shrewd young Wildean declared. Prick.), I for one have no faith in him to be an effective Leader of the Opposition and still less to beat the silver-tongued chameleon at the next general election. The polls clearly reflect his failure to articulate his message to his own party, and signs suggest he will soon withdraw from the contest.
Ed Miliband: to me he seems to have spent the better part of the contest struggling to put some distance between himself and his more famous brother (who I'll come to shortly); an example of this is his over-eagerness to kick the orphaned child that is the Iraq war (pointing out that he wasn't an MP in 2003. Fair enough, but if you really believe he'd have been against the parliamentary tide had he had the option then you may as well vote Monster Raving Looney...) He has since, more shrewdly it must be said, found a far better way of doing this: his strategy seems to have been, cognisant of Balls' droop and that this has left fertile recruiting ground among Party members to the left of the New Labour project but understandably don't wish to vote for Diane Abbott, to appeal to the Party's left by making pro-union noises and calling for an end to the New Labour era. This has rewarded him with the backing of Britain's biggest union, the GMB, despite its general secretary being Charlie Whelan, a close friend of Balls'.
David Miliband: by far the most impressive of the candidates and his support reflects this. He has cleverly given the appearance of holding the initiative of the contest, being the first to declare his candidacy (apart from an ever hopeful John McDonnell) and the first to endorse the idea of TV debates.
His most interesting move of all was his endorsement of Abbott's candidacy, which allowed her onto the ballot and thus gave credence to his approach of 'keeping things out in the open' by having as broad a contest as possible. It's completely cosmetic of course as Dave only endorsed Diane knowing she is no threat, but it is, in my view, a) a good way of highlighting Labour's past problems resulting from a lack of such glasnost (Brown's 'coronation' in 2007 for instance) and b) still not as disingenuous as his brother's pseudo-leftist posturing.
Anyone who has any qualms about how genuine a leader David Miliband truly promises to be, should think back to when he was offered that cushy and prestigious EU job by the European socialists. As Nick Cohen pointed out in the Observer on Sunday: "Paddy Ashdown and many others said he would be mad not to take it. Admirably in my view, Miliband replied that he would rather lead Labour through the dreariness of opposition than be at the centre of world affairs." In my view, he deserves to win and he probably will.
Andy Burnham: I know little of due to his profound uninterestingness. He's considered to be, like Ed Miliband now is, a competitor of Balls' for the left ground of the Party vote, but unlike Ed Miliband, with little hope of success. No so uninterestingly, he has undergone an unexpected surge of support, but it's not enough. Also interesting, is that he has, in common with David Miliband, not rushed to renounce all support for the invasion of Iraq.
Diane Abbott: Ah now for some fun at last! This intellectual lightweight is possibly suffering from some form of delusions of grandeur due to her achievement of consistent re-election as MP for Hackney North, one of the safest Labour seats in the country. I can't think of any other possible reason she considers herself a serious contender for Party leader.
Still she's provided us with some laughs: imagine your average Labourite's horror on reading this headline... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281363/Diane-Abbott-tipped-win-Labour-leadership-race.html ...and mirthful relief on reading the article and finding that Abbott polled most highly among Conservative and Lib Dem supporters, who would understandably be quite happy to see Labour shrivel into 1983-style leftist self-delusion by electing someone like Abbott. She polled far lower among Labour supporters, though on a par with Balls and Burnham admittedly (and embarrassingly for them, IMO).
Also amusing was Abbott's evident unreadiness for her grilling from longtime colleague Andrew Neill on This Week: Douglas Murray licks his eloquent lips over the demolition here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglasmurray/100044933/has-yasmin-alibhai-brown-been-unseated-by-diane-abbott-as-the-stupidest-woman-in-britain/ (and you can watch it too!) In a succeeding post, Murray offers a controversial but not implausible alternative to my explanation of Abbott's ridiculous candidacy; well worth a read.
One more thing: before you feel too sorry for befuddled Diane and Labour's far left in general, note that in another appalling performance on the This Week sofa she defended not only the Castro regime in Cuba (not unusual for socialists) but also that democidal slob of a dictator, Chairman Mao, saying he may have "done more good than bad". This is the calibre of what remains of 'Old' Labour; in other words, we're better off without it.
Ed Miliband: to me he seems to have spent the better part of the contest struggling to put some distance between himself and his more famous brother (who I'll come to shortly); an example of this is his over-eagerness to kick the orphaned child that is the Iraq war (pointing out that he wasn't an MP in 2003. Fair enough, but if you really believe he'd have been against the parliamentary tide had he had the option then you may as well vote Monster Raving Looney...) He has since, more shrewdly it must be said, found a far better way of doing this: his strategy seems to have been, cognisant of Balls' droop and that this has left fertile recruiting ground among Party members to the left of the New Labour project but understandably don't wish to vote for Diane Abbott, to appeal to the Party's left by making pro-union noises and calling for an end to the New Labour era. This has rewarded him with the backing of Britain's biggest union, the GMB, despite its general secretary being Charlie Whelan, a close friend of Balls'.
David Miliband: by far the most impressive of the candidates and his support reflects this. He has cleverly given the appearance of holding the initiative of the contest, being the first to declare his candidacy (apart from an ever hopeful John McDonnell) and the first to endorse the idea of TV debates.
His most interesting move of all was his endorsement of Abbott's candidacy, which allowed her onto the ballot and thus gave credence to his approach of 'keeping things out in the open' by having as broad a contest as possible. It's completely cosmetic of course as Dave only endorsed Diane knowing she is no threat, but it is, in my view, a) a good way of highlighting Labour's past problems resulting from a lack of such glasnost (Brown's 'coronation' in 2007 for instance) and b) still not as disingenuous as his brother's pseudo-leftist posturing.
Anyone who has any qualms about how genuine a leader David Miliband truly promises to be, should think back to when he was offered that cushy and prestigious EU job by the European socialists. As Nick Cohen pointed out in the Observer on Sunday: "Paddy Ashdown and many others said he would be mad not to take it. Admirably in my view, Miliband replied that he would rather lead Labour through the dreariness of opposition than be at the centre of world affairs." In my view, he deserves to win and he probably will.
Andy Burnham: I know little of due to his profound uninterestingness. He's considered to be, like Ed Miliband now is, a competitor of Balls' for the left ground of the Party vote, but unlike Ed Miliband, with little hope of success. No so uninterestingly, he has undergone an unexpected surge of support, but it's not enough. Also interesting, is that he has, in common with David Miliband, not rushed to renounce all support for the invasion of Iraq.
Diane Abbott: Ah now for some fun at last! This intellectual lightweight is possibly suffering from some form of delusions of grandeur due to her achievement of consistent re-election as MP for Hackney North, one of the safest Labour seats in the country. I can't think of any other possible reason she considers herself a serious contender for Party leader.
Still she's provided us with some laughs: imagine your average Labourite's horror on reading this headline... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281363/Diane-Abbott-tipped-win-Labour-leadership-race.html ...and mirthful relief on reading the article and finding that Abbott polled most highly among Conservative and Lib Dem supporters, who would understandably be quite happy to see Labour shrivel into 1983-style leftist self-delusion by electing someone like Abbott. She polled far lower among Labour supporters, though on a par with Balls and Burnham admittedly (and embarrassingly for them, IMO).
Also amusing was Abbott's evident unreadiness for her grilling from longtime colleague Andrew Neill on This Week: Douglas Murray licks his eloquent lips over the demolition here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglasmurray/100044933/has-yasmin-alibhai-brown-been-unseated-by-diane-abbott-as-the-stupidest-woman-in-britain/ (and you can watch it too!) In a succeeding post, Murray offers a controversial but not implausible alternative to my explanation of Abbott's ridiculous candidacy; well worth a read.
One more thing: before you feel too sorry for befuddled Diane and Labour's far left in general, note that in another appalling performance on the This Week sofa she defended not only the Castro regime in Cuba (not unusual for socialists) but also that democidal slob of a dictator, Chairman Mao, saying he may have "done more good than bad". This is the calibre of what remains of 'Old' Labour; in other words, we're better off without it.
Monday 22 February 2010
Hypocrisy International
What the fuck has happened to Amnesty International? As a long-time admirer of the organisation's work (and someone who has on occasion contributed his own two cents to their efforts), I could perhaps just about swallow the bitter pill of the decision to include the former Guantanamo inmate and armchair jihadist Moazzam Begg on an AI platform. I say bitter, because I consider it an uncomfortable paradox for an event supposedly geared towards the global defense of human rights to give legitimacy to a stalwart supporter of a regime with among the most dismal records in that area to so recently scar the face of the earth: Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. So great was Begg's zeal for the regime of Mullah Omar that he moved against the traffic of those lucky enough to escape the hell-hole and planted himself and his family in Kabul in July, 2001.
This itself is sin enough. It is however not a significant deviation from the already murky moral waters direction AI have traversed of late. The presence of Noam Chomsky, a man who has never fully repudiated his mushy feelings for the devastating Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, at the AI Belfast conference last year is of a similar vein.
But the Begg case - or rather its ramifications - suggests something is truly rotten in this noble edifice. Something must be rotten when a secular human rights organization suspends a woman with a fine history of opposing religious fundamentalism for voicing her concerns at its association with a religious fundamentalist. Gita Saghal has recieved extraordinarily unjust treatment for her honesty.
I don't believe this exposes AI to be the 'enemy within' some paranoid right-wingers lambast it as. Au contraire, this is something to be regretted, not celebrated. As David Aaronovitch wrote in The Times, trouble at AI is welcome news to no-one, "except to tyrants". What would be welcome however, would be some evidence of AI challenging this encroaching politicization which seems to be rendering some cases more equal than others.
We need search no further than the island of Cuba for disappointment. A poster on Harry's Place compares the attention bestowed upon Begg and his Guantanamo Bay case on the AI website (59 results) with that for the Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, whose hunger strike in Castro's gaols since Dec 3 led to his death today (24th Feb), a search for whose name produces just 9 results. Such a differentiation, the differences between the cases themselves (the far greater openness of US and UK society over the Cuban, where AI cannot operate, for instance, as the HP poster acknowledges) notwithstanding, cannot be justified considering Begg has not seen the inside of a prison cell since January 2005 and, of course, has his own organisation to convey his message, the charming 'Cageprisoners' which has done some sterling campaigning for the twin causes of prisoners' rights and global jihad. Tamayo, by contrast, would never breathe free air again the day he was arrested during the 'black spring' protests in Havana in 2003.
It seems AI need a little soul-searching. I still applaud their positive work (and feel I should perhaps get back into writing those solidarity cards they encourage. Has been a while...) and am of course aware than in this strange age of ideological transvestism, they are far from the only ones in want of soul-searching.
MOAZZAM BEGG FUN FACTS: Did you know...when failed 'suicide pants bomber' Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was chair of the Islamic Society at UCL, speakers he invited to various events included Yvonne Ridley (who would be proud to have late al-Qaeda butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "her brother"), George Galloway (well...) and a Mr Moazzam Begg? If you didn't know, I hope you're not surprised...
This itself is sin enough. It is however not a significant deviation from the already murky moral waters direction AI have traversed of late. The presence of Noam Chomsky, a man who has never fully repudiated his mushy feelings for the devastating Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, at the AI Belfast conference last year is of a similar vein.
But the Begg case - or rather its ramifications - suggests something is truly rotten in this noble edifice. Something must be rotten when a secular human rights organization suspends a woman with a fine history of opposing religious fundamentalism for voicing her concerns at its association with a religious fundamentalist. Gita Saghal has recieved extraordinarily unjust treatment for her honesty.
I don't believe this exposes AI to be the 'enemy within' some paranoid right-wingers lambast it as. Au contraire, this is something to be regretted, not celebrated. As David Aaronovitch wrote in The Times, trouble at AI is welcome news to no-one, "except to tyrants". What would be welcome however, would be some evidence of AI challenging this encroaching politicization which seems to be rendering some cases more equal than others.
We need search no further than the island of Cuba for disappointment. A poster on Harry's Place compares the attention bestowed upon Begg and his Guantanamo Bay case on the AI website (59 results) with that for the Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, whose hunger strike in Castro's gaols since Dec 3 led to his death today (24th Feb), a search for whose name produces just 9 results. Such a differentiation, the differences between the cases themselves (the far greater openness of US and UK society over the Cuban, where AI cannot operate, for instance, as the HP poster acknowledges) notwithstanding, cannot be justified considering Begg has not seen the inside of a prison cell since January 2005 and, of course, has his own organisation to convey his message, the charming 'Cageprisoners' which has done some sterling campaigning for the twin causes of prisoners' rights and global jihad. Tamayo, by contrast, would never breathe free air again the day he was arrested during the 'black spring' protests in Havana in 2003.
It seems AI need a little soul-searching. I still applaud their positive work (and feel I should perhaps get back into writing those solidarity cards they encourage. Has been a while...) and am of course aware than in this strange age of ideological transvestism, they are far from the only ones in want of soul-searching.
MOAZZAM BEGG FUN FACTS: Did you know...when failed 'suicide pants bomber' Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was chair of the Islamic Society at UCL, speakers he invited to various events included Yvonne Ridley (who would be proud to have late al-Qaeda butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "her brother"), George Galloway (well...) and a Mr Moazzam Begg? If you didn't know, I hope you're not surprised...
Friday 12 February 2010
The best thing about 2009 continues to be the best thing about 2010
Everyone has at least a top two newsworthy events of each year. A good second for my 2009 would have to be the death of the fear in Iran; the way in which, via its own cack-handed paranoia, a theocratic regime parted with its credibility for good.
But for me the event of 2009 to be lauded most profusely concerns another Muslim country, Pakistan, and it too involves the global fight of ordinary - largely Muslim - people against the reactionary ideology of Islamism. Its precedence is for two reasons: a) while the protestors in Tehran and other Iranian cities (though having exceeded all expectations in bravery and persistence) have achieved few tangible results against their enemy, the Pakistani military, the US air force and ordinary Pakistani citizens have had extraordinary success against theirs. And b) simply because, as variants of Islamism go, the Pakistanis have the far nastier to deal with.
It has been almost a year since the Swat Valley region in the country's North-West Frontier Province acted as a test tube for yet another doomed experiment of Pakistani compromise with the Tehreek-i-Taleban (Pakistani Taliban). I supported it at the time, like the spineless appeaser I was back then. I and Pakistan soon learnt that to compromise with unadulterated totalitarianism is not only (as I knew) morally questionable but as likely to succeed (as I had yet to appreciate) as a pact with cancer, or hasty negotiations with arsenic as it snakes its way down one's oesophagus. You either fight and overcome it, or die. So just as the Munich Conference of 1938 doesn't exactly ring through history as a proud example of British diplomatic fortitude (and as no-one has ever heard of the Treaty of the Transverse Colon), the Swat deal was an unmitigated failure.
But once the Taliban had conclusively broken that ceasefire (several times actually, including twice in one day on 2nd March), something interesting happened: Pakistan sort of seemed to...well... wake up. By the end of May, the Pakistani Army had taken Mingora, the capital of Swat. The region remains more or less completely within Pakistani sovereignty. Pakistan displayed admirable willingness to abate the hardships of the beleaguered population during this process. John Sweeney's (yes, the guy who flipped off at Scientology) Panorama programme certainly came to this conclusion on the military front, while the cassandraic predictions of a 'Rwanda-like' humanitarian refugee crisis quickly evaporated (according to the UN, 1.3m of 1.9m displaced were returned home by mid-August).
That victory over theocratic fanaticism was soon followed by that in South Waziristan, declared on 12th December 2009. Other significant triumphs have included the killing by US air strikes of two successive Tehreek-i-Taleban leaders, Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud, last August and last month respectively. It was good clean fun watching the Talibannies try to deny the former killing ever happened for a number of weeks, only to later admit it and descend into internal factionalism over a successor. A similar coy pattern has emerged in the wake of Hakimullah's glorious martyrdom. While it seems the Pakistanis, for necessity's sake, plan to take a 6 month break from liberating the rest of their country, there is this time no serious talk of grubby compromise deals.
Of course, serious problems remain in Pakistan. The indiscriminate nature of US tactics in the country have kept the fire of anti-Americanism blazing, where in much of the post-Bush world it has tempered somewhat. Civilian deaths are of course sadly inevitable in wars of this type; they can, however, be limited with the will and the technology. It does seem that either US-Pakistani coordination, US aerial precision or both have improved in recent months, a conclusion I draw from the sharp decline in attacks on wedding parties.
Another issue is the question of how much Pakistan - or rather, that grossly swollen military-intelligence complex responsible for the Taliban's very existence - has really changed in attitudes towards its diabolical love-child. There remain influential elements in 'the complex' which retain warm sympathies for these 'good Muslims'. Yet it appears here too there has been some progress; the notorious 'armchair jihadist' General Syed Mohammed Javed, the architect of the failed Swat deal, was removed from his post of Malakand commander last April, for instance.
The last word must concern the most inspiring aspect of this long war for sovereignty and liberty: the role of ordinary people of the NWFP in their struggle against their procrustean oppressors. Numerous tribes across the province have declared war on the Taliban. The most recent example is that covered by Declan Walsh in his Guardian article 'The village that stood up to the Taliban'. (Note that this particular village is outside of the areas so far liberated by the Army) Such actions give the lie to the lazy cultural relativist assumption that Muslim people are somehow 'happy' under Islamist systems.
That particular case is salient not only because it is the most recent one, but also because it concerns something quite unremarkable in itself: the right to play volleyball. For me, this hammers home once again how, in the face of an ideology which seeks to criminalize that which makes us human, the most unremarkable acts become acts of resistance.
But for me the event of 2009 to be lauded most profusely concerns another Muslim country, Pakistan, and it too involves the global fight of ordinary - largely Muslim - people against the reactionary ideology of Islamism. Its precedence is for two reasons: a) while the protestors in Tehran and other Iranian cities (though having exceeded all expectations in bravery and persistence) have achieved few tangible results against their enemy, the Pakistani military, the US air force and ordinary Pakistani citizens have had extraordinary success against theirs. And b) simply because, as variants of Islamism go, the Pakistanis have the far nastier to deal with.
It has been almost a year since the Swat Valley region in the country's North-West Frontier Province acted as a test tube for yet another doomed experiment of Pakistani compromise with the Tehreek-i-Taleban (Pakistani Taliban). I supported it at the time, like the spineless appeaser I was back then. I and Pakistan soon learnt that to compromise with unadulterated totalitarianism is not only (as I knew) morally questionable but as likely to succeed (as I had yet to appreciate) as a pact with cancer, or hasty negotiations with arsenic as it snakes its way down one's oesophagus. You either fight and overcome it, or die. So just as the Munich Conference of 1938 doesn't exactly ring through history as a proud example of British diplomatic fortitude (and as no-one has ever heard of the Treaty of the Transverse Colon), the Swat deal was an unmitigated failure.
But once the Taliban had conclusively broken that ceasefire (several times actually, including twice in one day on 2nd March), something interesting happened: Pakistan sort of seemed to...well... wake up. By the end of May, the Pakistani Army had taken Mingora, the capital of Swat. The region remains more or less completely within Pakistani sovereignty. Pakistan displayed admirable willingness to abate the hardships of the beleaguered population during this process. John Sweeney's (yes, the guy who flipped off at Scientology) Panorama programme certainly came to this conclusion on the military front, while the cassandraic predictions of a 'Rwanda-like' humanitarian refugee crisis quickly evaporated (according to the UN, 1.3m of 1.9m displaced were returned home by mid-August).
That victory over theocratic fanaticism was soon followed by that in South Waziristan, declared on 12th December 2009. Other significant triumphs have included the killing by US air strikes of two successive Tehreek-i-Taleban leaders, Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud, last August and last month respectively. It was good clean fun watching the Talibannies try to deny the former killing ever happened for a number of weeks, only to later admit it and descend into internal factionalism over a successor. A similar coy pattern has emerged in the wake of Hakimullah's glorious martyrdom. While it seems the Pakistanis, for necessity's sake, plan to take a 6 month break from liberating the rest of their country, there is this time no serious talk of grubby compromise deals.
Of course, serious problems remain in Pakistan. The indiscriminate nature of US tactics in the country have kept the fire of anti-Americanism blazing, where in much of the post-Bush world it has tempered somewhat. Civilian deaths are of course sadly inevitable in wars of this type; they can, however, be limited with the will and the technology. It does seem that either US-Pakistani coordination, US aerial precision or both have improved in recent months, a conclusion I draw from the sharp decline in attacks on wedding parties.
Another issue is the question of how much Pakistan - or rather, that grossly swollen military-intelligence complex responsible for the Taliban's very existence - has really changed in attitudes towards its diabolical love-child. There remain influential elements in 'the complex' which retain warm sympathies for these 'good Muslims'. Yet it appears here too there has been some progress; the notorious 'armchair jihadist' General Syed Mohammed Javed, the architect of the failed Swat deal, was removed from his post of Malakand commander last April, for instance.
The last word must concern the most inspiring aspect of this long war for sovereignty and liberty: the role of ordinary people of the NWFP in their struggle against their procrustean oppressors. Numerous tribes across the province have declared war on the Taliban. The most recent example is that covered by Declan Walsh in his Guardian article 'The village that stood up to the Taliban'. (Note that this particular village is outside of the areas so far liberated by the Army) Such actions give the lie to the lazy cultural relativist assumption that Muslim people are somehow 'happy' under Islamist systems.
That particular case is salient not only because it is the most recent one, but also because it concerns something quite unremarkable in itself: the right to play volleyball. For me, this hammers home once again how, in the face of an ideology which seeks to criminalize that which makes us human, the most unremarkable acts become acts of resistance.
Monday 1 February 2010
Should we mourn Howard Zinn?
J.D. Salinger died four days ago. Judging from the stark polarization of receptions his magnum opus (or magnificent octopus as S. Baldrick would put it) 'Catcher in the Rye' produces, I'd venture to say the public reaction to his death ranges from the genuinely remorseful to the indifferent.
That can most certainly be said of another American writer who died on the same day. I'm talking about Howard Zinn, the civil rights activist, anti-war activist and - ostensibly - historian. The contrast is exemplified most acutely by that between the gushing encomiums that made up the second half of Friday's episode of 'Democracy Now', including contributions from Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, and the two-word entry left by a contributor to the 'liberal hawk' blog Harry's Place: "Oh well."
That in itself is not surprising. One cannot, after all, expect bloggers who still uphold the decision to invade Iraq as necessary and just to regret the loss of a man who couldn't even bring himself to fully justify the US role in WWII - a war he himself saw combat in.
But with Zinn there is something starker about the differentiation, than it will be, I predict, on the passing of, for instance, a historian like Eric Hobsbawm. For all the blemishes- truly disfiguring, in some cases - on Hobsbawm's ideological record, such as the vulgar little pamphlet devised by he and Raymond Williams in 1940 to justify the Hitler-Stalin Pact on the ludicrous basis of a British plot to invade the USSR, at least he is a decent historian. People from across the political spectrum have admitted to respecting his work, from the pro-war left like Nick Cohen and the anti-war right like Peter Hitchens.
Conversely, while Zinn has not been so useful to the enemies of democracy (Hobsbawm was useful to the Nazis during the Pact years as is demonstrated by the praise delivered to the Communist front 'the People's Convention', set up purely to divert attention from Nazi/Soviet aggression in favour of the British imperialist variety, in Nazi propaganda) it seems he has also offered little to those who appreciate balanced and honest history.
While Hobsbawm, as mentioned, attracts some, perhaps grudging, admiration from those politically opposed to him, as far as I can deduce there are no similar figures with regard to Zinn's legacy. Likewise, even some on the socialist left have distanced themselves, as this article from Dissent magazine (admittedly a publication which prides itself on its unbiased reviews of all shades of work) does: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=385. The article criticises Zinn's notoriously simplistic and ideologically-charged book A People's History of the United States for, among other things, having a similar conception of American elites as "the medieval church's image of the Devil".
Of course, Zinn remains hugely popular among those who would rather believe than think: A People's History has sold 2m copies. In some respects, it is easy to understand: we still live in a largely rotten world and people like Zinn seem to provide vindication, a scholarly stamp of approval for the moral outrage of many. Aspects of his character assist this also; Zinn displayed considerable bravery on civil rights and anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, for example, particularly his condemnation - or provocation - of secret police inflitrating a demo in 1971 which resulted in his arrest. Such passion can be bewitching, especially to the young. One might even call it 'an opium'.
But one has to be wary of the downsides of intellectual drug-abuse. Just as an opium addict withers away physically, academic integrity gradually crumbles when lured by the will-o'-the-wispish anti-Americanism of Zinn and his fellow-travellers.
That can most certainly be said of another American writer who died on the same day. I'm talking about Howard Zinn, the civil rights activist, anti-war activist and - ostensibly - historian. The contrast is exemplified most acutely by that between the gushing encomiums that made up the second half of Friday's episode of 'Democracy Now', including contributions from Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, and the two-word entry left by a contributor to the 'liberal hawk' blog Harry's Place: "Oh well."
That in itself is not surprising. One cannot, after all, expect bloggers who still uphold the decision to invade Iraq as necessary and just to regret the loss of a man who couldn't even bring himself to fully justify the US role in WWII - a war he himself saw combat in.
But with Zinn there is something starker about the differentiation, than it will be, I predict, on the passing of, for instance, a historian like Eric Hobsbawm. For all the blemishes- truly disfiguring, in some cases - on Hobsbawm's ideological record, such as the vulgar little pamphlet devised by he and Raymond Williams in 1940 to justify the Hitler-Stalin Pact on the ludicrous basis of a British plot to invade the USSR, at least he is a decent historian. People from across the political spectrum have admitted to respecting his work, from the pro-war left like Nick Cohen and the anti-war right like Peter Hitchens.
Conversely, while Zinn has not been so useful to the enemies of democracy (Hobsbawm was useful to the Nazis during the Pact years as is demonstrated by the praise delivered to the Communist front 'the People's Convention', set up purely to divert attention from Nazi/Soviet aggression in favour of the British imperialist variety, in Nazi propaganda) it seems he has also offered little to those who appreciate balanced and honest history.
While Hobsbawm, as mentioned, attracts some, perhaps grudging, admiration from those politically opposed to him, as far as I can deduce there are no similar figures with regard to Zinn's legacy. Likewise, even some on the socialist left have distanced themselves, as this article from Dissent magazine (admittedly a publication which prides itself on its unbiased reviews of all shades of work) does: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=385. The article criticises Zinn's notoriously simplistic and ideologically-charged book A People's History of the United States for, among other things, having a similar conception of American elites as "the medieval church's image of the Devil".
Of course, Zinn remains hugely popular among those who would rather believe than think: A People's History has sold 2m copies. In some respects, it is easy to understand: we still live in a largely rotten world and people like Zinn seem to provide vindication, a scholarly stamp of approval for the moral outrage of many. Aspects of his character assist this also; Zinn displayed considerable bravery on civil rights and anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, for example, particularly his condemnation - or provocation - of secret police inflitrating a demo in 1971 which resulted in his arrest. Such passion can be bewitching, especially to the young. One might even call it 'an opium'.
But one has to be wary of the downsides of intellectual drug-abuse. Just as an opium addict withers away physically, academic integrity gradually crumbles when lured by the will-o'-the-wispish anti-Americanism of Zinn and his fellow-travellers.
Thursday 28 January 2010
Reason to be cheerful
*shuffles awkwardly* So yeah, it's been a while...but I'm gonna give the whole blogging thing one final shot.
As a natural optimist I thought I'd start on a positive note with a little celebration of the genuinely fantastic news emanating from the super-intelligent sounding study 'Parametric estimations of the world distribution of income' from VOX, an economics analysis institute. http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/ The figures reveal what the incontestably prosaic title cannot: global poverty is falling.
I know, it's a lot to take in. Lemme say it again: global poverty is FALLING. It's a strange one for all of us, especially people of my age: the 'Make Poverty History' generation, the kids who cut their political teeth not on the Vietnam War or apartheid S. Africa but on Live Aid, wrist bands and Geldofian Messianism (well Iraq helped). With my mid-teen years of being brow-beaten by people who appeared more intelligent and more dedicated than myself into feeling guilty for everything bar surviving still a vivid memory (not to mention the considerable brow-beating I did myself. There's a sort of hierarchy, you see...), now I'm told by intelligent, dedicated people (who are NOT blinded by cognitive dissonance, which I understand is considered fairly crucial these days) that actually, socioeconomically, this world of ours is doing pretty well.
The research suggests that over the past 40 years - from 1970 to 2006 to be precise - the percentage of people living on less than $1 per day has steadily declined from 26.8% to... 5.4%! In S. Asia the decline was 86%, in Latin America 73%, in the Mid East 39% and in Africa 20%. It is - to be frank - fucking awesome.
Of course, any study has its methodological limitations. As a complete amateur in this area I read the discussion of it on Liberal Conspiracy, http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/23/shock-global-poverty-and-inequality-falling/ in which the only commenter who pooh-poohed the study in its entirety is clearly ideologically-driven, lacking in evidence and (as we all were once) probably quite young. He posted only once. Conversely, even among the sceptics there seems to be consensus that while not perfect the general trends the research points to is correct.
Meh. Correct enough for now and for me anyway! My exams ended today and I frankly lack the necessary arsing capacity to look further into this right now. Tonight I shall probably get pissed after raising a glass to the only truly revolutionary and liberating economic system: Viva Capitalismo!
As a natural optimist I thought I'd start on a positive note with a little celebration of the genuinely fantastic news emanating from the super-intelligent sounding study 'Parametric estimations of the world distribution of income' from VOX, an economics analysis institute. http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/ The figures reveal what the incontestably prosaic title cannot: global poverty is falling.
I know, it's a lot to take in. Lemme say it again: global poverty is FALLING. It's a strange one for all of us, especially people of my age: the 'Make Poverty History' generation, the kids who cut their political teeth not on the Vietnam War or apartheid S. Africa but on Live Aid, wrist bands and Geldofian Messianism (well Iraq helped). With my mid-teen years of being brow-beaten by people who appeared more intelligent and more dedicated than myself into feeling guilty for everything bar surviving still a vivid memory (not to mention the considerable brow-beating I did myself. There's a sort of hierarchy, you see...), now I'm told by intelligent, dedicated people (who are NOT blinded by cognitive dissonance, which I understand is considered fairly crucial these days) that actually, socioeconomically, this world of ours is doing pretty well.
The research suggests that over the past 40 years - from 1970 to 2006 to be precise - the percentage of people living on less than $1 per day has steadily declined from 26.8% to... 5.4%! In S. Asia the decline was 86%, in Latin America 73%, in the Mid East 39% and in Africa 20%. It is - to be frank - fucking awesome.
Of course, any study has its methodological limitations. As a complete amateur in this area I read the discussion of it on Liberal Conspiracy, http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/23/shock-global-poverty-and-inequality-falling/ in which the only commenter who pooh-poohed the study in its entirety is clearly ideologically-driven, lacking in evidence and (as we all were once) probably quite young. He posted only once. Conversely, even among the sceptics there seems to be consensus that while not perfect the general trends the research points to is correct.
Meh. Correct enough for now and for me anyway! My exams ended today and I frankly lack the necessary arsing capacity to look further into this right now. Tonight I shall probably get pissed after raising a glass to the only truly revolutionary and liberating economic system: Viva Capitalismo!
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