(Copiapo, Chile)
It is one of our worst nightmares as human beings, a fear noted by many horror writers and film directors, and yet for many miners being buried alive is a very real occupational hazard. Right now thirty-three Chilean miners are trapped seven kilometres underground. They have been there for weeks; they will be there for months before being rescued.
Inevitably the mining company and the Chilean government are being accused of negligence in the affair, but once more we should look inwards to find the people responsible for tragedies of this magnitude. Our desire for gold and diamonds leads people in poor countries to play with their lives just to scrape a living. Once again, we are guilty.
Monday, August 30, 2010
La purification ethnique
(Paris, France)
Over recent weeks President Sarkozy of France has ordered that the Roma people living in his country be sent home. It is unclear where a nomadic people should be sent to, but M Sarkozy has opted for Romania and Bulgaria. It is also unclear why they should have been forced out of their homes in France, although a French government statement declared their homes to be "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime", leaving no doubt that they believe poverty to be the fault of the people.
France has a history of sending people away to wherever they were supposed to have come from. The Jews were expelled in 1182, and in 1306 and again in 1394. The Protestants known as the Huguenots were evicted in the seventeenth century.
Of course the French response to Jews was part of a Europe-wide Semitic pogrom, and their response to the Protestants was another facet of the Catholic persecution of “heresy” from the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century. The Inquisition in its various forms killed hundreds of thousands of people; the crusade against the Jews killed millions.
The Romani people also suffered in the Holocaust, and it is clear that this latest episode in anti-ziganism is simply another chapter in a long book of persecution and murder dating back to the earliest appearance of this people in Europe. It is ethnic cleansing – there are no gas chambers this time, but Sarkozy is making sure that hatred of the Roma is fuelled and that they are expelled from rich countries and sent to poor countries where they cannot bother “decent” people.
Nothing will happen to Sarkozy – white male leaders of rich Western countries are never brought to book for their crimes against the people. Perhaps worse than that is that nothing will happen to prevent the French government from doing what it wants to the Roma – rich Western countries hate immigrants, nomads, gypsies, poor people and anyone else who does not conform to our own racial and social type. We are all guilty.
Over recent weeks President Sarkozy of France has ordered that the Roma people living in his country be sent home. It is unclear where a nomadic people should be sent to, but M Sarkozy has opted for Romania and Bulgaria. It is also unclear why they should have been forced out of their homes in France, although a French government statement declared their homes to be "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime", leaving no doubt that they believe poverty to be the fault of the people.
France has a history of sending people away to wherever they were supposed to have come from. The Jews were expelled in 1182, and in 1306 and again in 1394. The Protestants known as the Huguenots were evicted in the seventeenth century.
Of course the French response to Jews was part of a Europe-wide Semitic pogrom, and their response to the Protestants was another facet of the Catholic persecution of “heresy” from the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century. The Inquisition in its various forms killed hundreds of thousands of people; the crusade against the Jews killed millions.
The Romani people also suffered in the Holocaust, and it is clear that this latest episode in anti-ziganism is simply another chapter in a long book of persecution and murder dating back to the earliest appearance of this people in Europe. It is ethnic cleansing – there are no gas chambers this time, but Sarkozy is making sure that hatred of the Roma is fuelled and that they are expelled from rich countries and sent to poor countries where they cannot bother “decent” people.
Nothing will happen to Sarkozy – white male leaders of rich Western countries are never brought to book for their crimes against the people. Perhaps worse than that is that nothing will happen to prevent the French government from doing what it wants to the Roma – rich Western countries hate immigrants, nomads, gypsies, poor people and anyone else who does not conform to our own racial and social type. We are all guilty.
Friday, July 16, 2010
It will never take off
(Payerne, Switzerland)
On the morning of the 8th July a solar plane piloted by André Borschberg and financed by billionaire Doctor Bertrand Piccard landed after a 26-hour flight. Through its 12,000 solar cells it had collected enough solar energy to fly all night, becoming the first plane to do so.
To quote directly from the website:
But we succeed! Not only in staying airborne right through the night, but in making our discourse credible.
At the sun came up, there were still several hours of energy reserves in the batteries. Yes, renewable energies and cleantechs can do the impossible! We were right to bet on our conviction.
It is no surprise that this plane has been designed, built and tested entirely with private money. Governments do not have that sort of money; nor can they justify such supposed extravagance at a time when people are losing their jobs and banks are putting people out of their homes. Not only that: billionaires can be entrepreneurs who develop systems like this and then make phenomenal amounts of money selling the idea to governments, but from the other angle it can be said that governments wait around for people with enough money to do what they can’t afford to do and then take the expertise off them. It is yet another form of taxation.
Neither will it be a surprise that this idea will never become commercial. Solar power, tidal power and wind power can all be harnessed in many more places than fossil fuels, simply to different degrees of efficiency depending on the geographical location, and even though coastal areas do belong to governments wind and sun belong to no-one. They do not exist in limited quantities under the land of states with smaller armies than the USA or the UK and will therefore not be coveted by greedy Western governments.
In short, without the incentive of making profitable wars Western governments will never allow this scheme to take off.
On the morning of the 8th July a solar plane piloted by André Borschberg and financed by billionaire Doctor Bertrand Piccard landed after a 26-hour flight. Through its 12,000 solar cells it had collected enough solar energy to fly all night, becoming the first plane to do so.
To quote directly from the website:
But we succeed! Not only in staying airborne right through the night, but in making our discourse credible.
At the sun came up, there were still several hours of energy reserves in the batteries. Yes, renewable energies and cleantechs can do the impossible! We were right to bet on our conviction.
It is no surprise that this plane has been designed, built and tested entirely with private money. Governments do not have that sort of money; nor can they justify such supposed extravagance at a time when people are losing their jobs and banks are putting people out of their homes. Not only that: billionaires can be entrepreneurs who develop systems like this and then make phenomenal amounts of money selling the idea to governments, but from the other angle it can be said that governments wait around for people with enough money to do what they can’t afford to do and then take the expertise off them. It is yet another form of taxation.
Neither will it be a surprise that this idea will never become commercial. Solar power, tidal power and wind power can all be harnessed in many more places than fossil fuels, simply to different degrees of efficiency depending on the geographical location, and even though coastal areas do belong to governments wind and sun belong to no-one. They do not exist in limited quantities under the land of states with smaller armies than the USA or the UK and will therefore not be coveted by greedy Western governments.
In short, without the incentive of making profitable wars Western governments will never allow this scheme to take off.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Supremely guilty
(Al Amarrah, Iraq)
This week the British Supreme Court ruled that British troops are not protected by human rights laws on the battlefield, concluding a case in which the family of a private who died of heatstroke argued that the government was responsible for protecting their troops in foreign wars.
An army is an organisation which is sponsored by a government to kill civilians in other countries. If you join an army you are declaring that you are prepared to go to another country and kill somebody you have never met before on the whim of a politician you have never met before either.
Armies are on a par with governments and organised religions as organisations that show the utmost disdain for human rights, but they are perhaps the most effective at actually suppressing those rights. The British army has trampled over the rights of millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan during the last decade, killing hundreds of thousands of them.
However, while it is difficult to summon any sympathy for a man who takes a gun to another country and kills a family in an unprovoked attack – whether the private who died of heatstroke did this or not is moot because individuals are complicit in the murders of a homogenous group – it is true that the ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the employees of the state lies with the state.
The faceless – and shameless – bureaucrats who send young men to a pointless and unjustifiable war should not be allowed to throw off the responsibility for the deaths of either their own soldiers or of the civilians murdered by their soldiers. They should be brought to justice for any deaths, be they from a bullet or from the heat of the desert.
The judges who fail to recognise this are as complicit in these deaths as the politicians and are guilty of perverting the idea of justice, and here the Supreme Court is supremely guilty.
This week the British Supreme Court ruled that British troops are not protected by human rights laws on the battlefield, concluding a case in which the family of a private who died of heatstroke argued that the government was responsible for protecting their troops in foreign wars.
An army is an organisation which is sponsored by a government to kill civilians in other countries. If you join an army you are declaring that you are prepared to go to another country and kill somebody you have never met before on the whim of a politician you have never met before either.
Armies are on a par with governments and organised religions as organisations that show the utmost disdain for human rights, but they are perhaps the most effective at actually suppressing those rights. The British army has trampled over the rights of millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan during the last decade, killing hundreds of thousands of them.
However, while it is difficult to summon any sympathy for a man who takes a gun to another country and kills a family in an unprovoked attack – whether the private who died of heatstroke did this or not is moot because individuals are complicit in the murders of a homogenous group – it is true that the ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the employees of the state lies with the state.
The faceless – and shameless – bureaucrats who send young men to a pointless and unjustifiable war should not be allowed to throw off the responsibility for the deaths of either their own soldiers or of the civilians murdered by their soldiers. They should be brought to justice for any deaths, be they from a bullet or from the heat of the desert.
The judges who fail to recognise this are as complicit in these deaths as the politicians and are guilty of perverting the idea of justice, and here the Supreme Court is supremely guilty.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Figures go boom in government's face
(Dublin, Ireland)
The Irish government has published figures through the Quarterly National Accounts which it claims demonstrate that the country is out of the recession.
This claim is based on the fact that a “recession” is defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. One quarter with a positive percentage is deemed not to be a recession – would that make it a boom?
The two previous quarters returned a fall in GDP of 7.4% and 7.9%; the last quarter apparently yielded a rise of 0.3%. Bang goes the boom.
According to the government’s own “seasonally adjusted” figures unemployment stands at close to 14%. This figure is appalling enough were it not for the fact that their figures show that around 450,000 people out of a population of 4.5 million are jobless, making a mockery of their figure of 14% unemployment.
The reality in Ireland is that the people are still in a recession and will continue to be for some time to come. There are no jobs; there is no money. The government will continue to fiddle the figures of course – right up until the next election, when the only figures that matter to them will blow up in their faces.
The Irish government has published figures through the Quarterly National Accounts which it claims demonstrate that the country is out of the recession.
This claim is based on the fact that a “recession” is defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. One quarter with a positive percentage is deemed not to be a recession – would that make it a boom?
The two previous quarters returned a fall in GDP of 7.4% and 7.9%; the last quarter apparently yielded a rise of 0.3%. Bang goes the boom.
According to the government’s own “seasonally adjusted” figures unemployment stands at close to 14%. This figure is appalling enough were it not for the fact that their figures show that around 450,000 people out of a population of 4.5 million are jobless, making a mockery of their figure of 14% unemployment.
The reality in Ireland is that the people are still in a recession and will continue to be for some time to come. There are no jobs; there is no money. The government will continue to fiddle the figures of course – right up until the next election, when the only figures that matter to them will blow up in their faces.
Abusing our intelligence
(Brussels, Belgium)
Last week Belgian police raided the central offices of the Catholic Church in Brussels, church commission offices in Leuven and the home of former archbishop Godfried Danneels in an attempt to collate information about child abuse within the church in Belgium. According to newspaper reports the archbishop’s computer was taken away to be examined, with the suggestion that it was not to find images of children but rather documents relating to cases of abuse reported to church authorities over the past few decades.
The raid appeared to be a direct result of the resignation of the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, and his admission that he abused children before and after becoming a bishop. The church in Belgium issued a statement after the raid in which it declared a policy of “zero tolerance” towards child abuse; the Belgian police force are already way ahead of the church in this issue since the Dutroux case exposed so many unsavoury facts about Belgian society and justice in the mid-nineties.
It was to be hoped that the Vatican would respond with the same firmness; after all, in less than a year the Pope had gone from blaming the whole affair on errant homosexuals to admitting the church should do penance for its sins against children, which is quite a large leap for this pope to make.
Unfortunately the Pope took advantage of the situation to retreat once more into the shadows of Papal secrecy while declaring his solidarity for abusive Belgian bishops. The independent commission set up by the Belgian church to investigate abuse cases took the slight rocking of the boat as a signal to jump overboard as one, declaring that it was the fault of the Belgian police that there was now no future hope of any trust or cooperation between the police and the church.
The Church believes it deserves some diplomatic respect, as if it was a sovereign state and as if those who harbour and promote abusers deserved any respect. It has also demonstrated that it never had the slightest intention of cooperating with civil authorities in any country and was simply waiting for the first police force to stop treating them with kid gloves in order to claim victimisation.
There is no doubt that the Belgian police have acted within their rules of engagement and exactly as society expects them to act. It is unfortunate that the Catholic Church has responded exactly as we expected them to respond – however, it is obvious that the Church is in the wrong, and their refusal to cooperate now will only serve as another black mark against them. They may try to protect themselves behind the Vatican walls, but it is only a matter of time before their walls are breached, not by the police but by the weight of public opinion.
Last week Belgian police raided the central offices of the Catholic Church in Brussels, church commission offices in Leuven and the home of former archbishop Godfried Danneels in an attempt to collate information about child abuse within the church in Belgium. According to newspaper reports the archbishop’s computer was taken away to be examined, with the suggestion that it was not to find images of children but rather documents relating to cases of abuse reported to church authorities over the past few decades.
The raid appeared to be a direct result of the resignation of the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, and his admission that he abused children before and after becoming a bishop. The church in Belgium issued a statement after the raid in which it declared a policy of “zero tolerance” towards child abuse; the Belgian police force are already way ahead of the church in this issue since the Dutroux case exposed so many unsavoury facts about Belgian society and justice in the mid-nineties.
It was to be hoped that the Vatican would respond with the same firmness; after all, in less than a year the Pope had gone from blaming the whole affair on errant homosexuals to admitting the church should do penance for its sins against children, which is quite a large leap for this pope to make.
Unfortunately the Pope took advantage of the situation to retreat once more into the shadows of Papal secrecy while declaring his solidarity for abusive Belgian bishops. The independent commission set up by the Belgian church to investigate abuse cases took the slight rocking of the boat as a signal to jump overboard as one, declaring that it was the fault of the Belgian police that there was now no future hope of any trust or cooperation between the police and the church.
The Church believes it deserves some diplomatic respect, as if it was a sovereign state and as if those who harbour and promote abusers deserved any respect. It has also demonstrated that it never had the slightest intention of cooperating with civil authorities in any country and was simply waiting for the first police force to stop treating them with kid gloves in order to claim victimisation.
There is no doubt that the Belgian police have acted within their rules of engagement and exactly as society expects them to act. It is unfortunate that the Catholic Church has responded exactly as we expected them to respond – however, it is obvious that the Church is in the wrong, and their refusal to cooperate now will only serve as another black mark against them. They may try to protect themselves behind the Vatican walls, but it is only a matter of time before their walls are breached, not by the police but by the weight of public opinion.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Pulling back the veil on Western politics
(Lléida, Spain)
PART ONE: THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY – CORRAMOS UN ESTÚPIDO VELO
This week the council in Lléida, north-east Spain, has announced that it will refuse entry to any woman wearing a burqa or a niqab into any public administration building. The council attempted to extend the ban to cover any public thoroughfare until it was ruled that the council did not possess the power to legislate for that area. Catalonians insist we see them as a separate and homogeneous nation, so it would only be fair to them to mention the fact that towards the end of April PP (the ultra-conservative Partido Popular) councillors in Badalona distributed leaflets containing the slogan “We don’t want Rumanians” on the streets of the town.
However, Lléida is by no means alone in this new legislation. At the end of March Belgium became the first European country to ban women wearing either a burqa or a niqab from appearing in any public place. France has a partial ban in place on women wearing the veil in public places and the Italian authorities have been fining women in public for months. Quebec banned women wearing the veil from entering government offices from March onwards, completely forgetting that the government is the servant of the people and not the other way round, and last October even clerics in Egypt were planning to ban the veil in certain educational establishments.
The effect of banning women from public offices according to their dress will be to further undermine the standing of women in society. They are denying a certain proportion of the female population of the country the right to deal with their own administrative issues. They will be unable to deal with public officials and will be obliged to rely on the men in their family for such issues as passports, identity cards, child allowance and housing benefits. Apparently we are already worried about not speaking to women who have no voice – this measure renders women even more mute. This is not to even mention the ethics of effectively placing women under house arrest.
In the case of the government offices it appears that no-one considered it would be more appropriate to introduce an alternative such as having a room where women can bare their faces to a female employee, therefore allowing integration in the same way we have always integrated other people who for whatever reason are in danger of not enjoying the same status as the majority of the community.
These measures are typical of highly unintelligent patriarchal authorities. For a start, they only affect women, making a mockery of the suggestion that they exist in order to make women more equal. (Note that in the West we have to make women equal – there is no suggestion that perhaps they already are and we simply have to recognise it more, no, women are incapable of being equal enough and therefore need our help.) Secondly, the authorities claim they are banning a piece of cloth but they choose to ignore that there is human being behind each one. They are not banning cloth but people.
Were any women consulted on this matter? Have any Western women tried walking around in a niqab? Have any of these politicians ever lived in a country which totally rejects your culture and beliefs? Have they ever considered the question of personal choice or do they just assume that all women outside our perfect Western world are oppressed? All the niqab-clad women I have spoken to say it is their choice – and believe me, none of them was afraid to express their opinion on this or any other subject – and anyone who believes women have no voice underestimates the complicated dynamics of relationships in any country. Women are not weak.
PART TWO: ORGANISED RELIGION – THE CRUTCH THAT TRIPS US UP
Having said that, imposing minority religious ideas based on personal choice on a majority is somewhat akin to running a country according to the wishes of the supporters of one football club. If you see the comparison as far-fetched look around – religious people often show as much passion as a football supporter and their chosen crutch is as pointless as the playing of the same league year in, year out.
France has been widely criticised for banning these garments for not being in tune with French cultural and societal values. However, not every person has a religion but everyone (except for a few hundred stateless people) has a nationality, which is why the world is not run on religious grounds but is organised according to nationality and by extension cultural and societal values. Religion is no more than a lifestyle choice and belonging to an organised religion is by no means necessary in order to survive; on the other hand legally you cannot be without a nationality and any individual obliged to live unprotected by the umbrella of nationality would be leading a precarious existence. Nationality has its cons but it is the best system there is for now.
The alternative, allowing organised religion to run a country, leads to travesties of justice and atrocious crimes against anybody who gets in the way. If you doubt this, read the Murphy Report. Then read the Ryan Report. Then talk to the survivors of Catholic abuse.
As an example of nationality over religion take Kurt Westergaard, the Danish journalist now famous for “that” cartoon, who said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, "I have fulfilled my job requirements, a job which is in tune with the Danish tradition of defending free speech”. His was not religious pig-headedness, but rather a rational continuation of his existence as a Dane.
PART THREE: WHEN IN ROME, FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T BEHAVE LIKE THE ROMANS
So if nationality is the key, and national territories should be allowed to impose the rules it wishes to, should we always follow the moral code existing in whatever country we visit? Should women be obliged to remove their niqabs in public in Western countries and dress in jeans and trainers like Western women? Should gay men accept being imprisoned and tortured in almost every sub-Saharan African country? Should they accept the risk of being put to death? Should we become cannibals in a community in which cannibalism is acceptable?
Would it be better to insist that there is a certain ethical code – the European one, obviously (!) – which should be accepted as the norm the world over?
And should we continue to condemn as fascists the people who insist that “you do what we say; if you don’t like it, go back to your own country” or should we condemn as fascists the people who try to import new social impositions from other cultures?
PART FOUR: CONCLUSION
The answer is obvious. We should get over ourselves and stop telling people how to live their lives. Politicians should stop moralising and get some work done which actually benefits the people. Priests should stop abusing people and oppressing society and get a real job. We should talk to each other and ask each other’s opinions instead of just assuming that our way is better. In short, it’s time to live and let live.
PART ONE: THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY – CORRAMOS UN ESTÚPIDO VELO
This week the council in Lléida, north-east Spain, has announced that it will refuse entry to any woman wearing a burqa or a niqab into any public administration building. The council attempted to extend the ban to cover any public thoroughfare until it was ruled that the council did not possess the power to legislate for that area. Catalonians insist we see them as a separate and homogeneous nation, so it would only be fair to them to mention the fact that towards the end of April PP (the ultra-conservative Partido Popular) councillors in Badalona distributed leaflets containing the slogan “We don’t want Rumanians” on the streets of the town.
However, Lléida is by no means alone in this new legislation. At the end of March Belgium became the first European country to ban women wearing either a burqa or a niqab from appearing in any public place. France has a partial ban in place on women wearing the veil in public places and the Italian authorities have been fining women in public for months. Quebec banned women wearing the veil from entering government offices from March onwards, completely forgetting that the government is the servant of the people and not the other way round, and last October even clerics in Egypt were planning to ban the veil in certain educational establishments.
The effect of banning women from public offices according to their dress will be to further undermine the standing of women in society. They are denying a certain proportion of the female population of the country the right to deal with their own administrative issues. They will be unable to deal with public officials and will be obliged to rely on the men in their family for such issues as passports, identity cards, child allowance and housing benefits. Apparently we are already worried about not speaking to women who have no voice – this measure renders women even more mute. This is not to even mention the ethics of effectively placing women under house arrest.
In the case of the government offices it appears that no-one considered it would be more appropriate to introduce an alternative such as having a room where women can bare their faces to a female employee, therefore allowing integration in the same way we have always integrated other people who for whatever reason are in danger of not enjoying the same status as the majority of the community.
These measures are typical of highly unintelligent patriarchal authorities. For a start, they only affect women, making a mockery of the suggestion that they exist in order to make women more equal. (Note that in the West we have to make women equal – there is no suggestion that perhaps they already are and we simply have to recognise it more, no, women are incapable of being equal enough and therefore need our help.) Secondly, the authorities claim they are banning a piece of cloth but they choose to ignore that there is human being behind each one. They are not banning cloth but people.
Were any women consulted on this matter? Have any Western women tried walking around in a niqab? Have any of these politicians ever lived in a country which totally rejects your culture and beliefs? Have they ever considered the question of personal choice or do they just assume that all women outside our perfect Western world are oppressed? All the niqab-clad women I have spoken to say it is their choice – and believe me, none of them was afraid to express their opinion on this or any other subject – and anyone who believes women have no voice underestimates the complicated dynamics of relationships in any country. Women are not weak.
PART TWO: ORGANISED RELIGION – THE CRUTCH THAT TRIPS US UP
Having said that, imposing minority religious ideas based on personal choice on a majority is somewhat akin to running a country according to the wishes of the supporters of one football club. If you see the comparison as far-fetched look around – religious people often show as much passion as a football supporter and their chosen crutch is as pointless as the playing of the same league year in, year out.
France has been widely criticised for banning these garments for not being in tune with French cultural and societal values. However, not every person has a religion but everyone (except for a few hundred stateless people) has a nationality, which is why the world is not run on religious grounds but is organised according to nationality and by extension cultural and societal values. Religion is no more than a lifestyle choice and belonging to an organised religion is by no means necessary in order to survive; on the other hand legally you cannot be without a nationality and any individual obliged to live unprotected by the umbrella of nationality would be leading a precarious existence. Nationality has its cons but it is the best system there is for now.
The alternative, allowing organised religion to run a country, leads to travesties of justice and atrocious crimes against anybody who gets in the way. If you doubt this, read the Murphy Report. Then read the Ryan Report. Then talk to the survivors of Catholic abuse.
As an example of nationality over religion take Kurt Westergaard, the Danish journalist now famous for “that” cartoon, who said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, "I have fulfilled my job requirements, a job which is in tune with the Danish tradition of defending free speech”. His was not religious pig-headedness, but rather a rational continuation of his existence as a Dane.
PART THREE: WHEN IN ROME, FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T BEHAVE LIKE THE ROMANS
So if nationality is the key, and national territories should be allowed to impose the rules it wishes to, should we always follow the moral code existing in whatever country we visit? Should women be obliged to remove their niqabs in public in Western countries and dress in jeans and trainers like Western women? Should gay men accept being imprisoned and tortured in almost every sub-Saharan African country? Should they accept the risk of being put to death? Should we become cannibals in a community in which cannibalism is acceptable?
Would it be better to insist that there is a certain ethical code – the European one, obviously (!) – which should be accepted as the norm the world over?
And should we continue to condemn as fascists the people who insist that “you do what we say; if you don’t like it, go back to your own country” or should we condemn as fascists the people who try to import new social impositions from other cultures?
PART FOUR: CONCLUSION
The answer is obvious. We should get over ourselves and stop telling people how to live their lives. Politicians should stop moralising and get some work done which actually benefits the people. Priests should stop abusing people and oppressing society and get a real job. We should talk to each other and ask each other’s opinions instead of just assuming that our way is better. In short, it’s time to live and let live.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Shadows over Europe
(Düsseldorf, Germany)
Last week in the North Rhine-Westphalia elections German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party lost 22 seats, with the Green Party and The Left Party picking up eleven new seats each and leaving the Chancellor’s party with the same number of seats as the SPD. Most commentators agreed that the result was a punishment for the decision of the German government two days previously to agree to spend €22.4 billion on bailing out Greece.
This is another blow to the concept – and indeed to the reality – of a united Europe and comes barely seven months after the Irish government was obliged to beg (blackmail) the Irish people into reversing their earlier decision to reject the terms of the Lisbon Treaty. The people of France and Holland had already voted against the first version of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Constitution, in 2005 and were also obliged by their respective governments to think again.
No such problems have beset the British government, because it already shares its people’s inherent mistrust of Europe and its meddling.
Meanwhile, at the other end of Europe, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia took the plunge in 2004 and were joined by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, although the latter will still have to endure work restrictions set by the richer EU nations until well into the next decade.
The popularity of Europe is moving across Europe like the shadow of a cloud over ripe cornfields – as more and more Eastern countries want in, it seems the richer Western European countries want out. How long will it be before the shadow reflects the geographical boundaries and the reality of Europe moves east too?
Last week in the North Rhine-Westphalia elections German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party lost 22 seats, with the Green Party and The Left Party picking up eleven new seats each and leaving the Chancellor’s party with the same number of seats as the SPD. Most commentators agreed that the result was a punishment for the decision of the German government two days previously to agree to spend €22.4 billion on bailing out Greece.
This is another blow to the concept – and indeed to the reality – of a united Europe and comes barely seven months after the Irish government was obliged to beg (blackmail) the Irish people into reversing their earlier decision to reject the terms of the Lisbon Treaty. The people of France and Holland had already voted against the first version of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Constitution, in 2005 and were also obliged by their respective governments to think again.
No such problems have beset the British government, because it already shares its people’s inherent mistrust of Europe and its meddling.
Meanwhile, at the other end of Europe, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia took the plunge in 2004 and were joined by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, although the latter will still have to endure work restrictions set by the richer EU nations until well into the next decade.
The popularity of Europe is moving across Europe like the shadow of a cloud over ripe cornfields – as more and more Eastern countries want in, it seems the richer Western European countries want out. How long will it be before the shadow reflects the geographical boundaries and the reality of Europe moves east too?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Delicious irony
(Reyjavik, Iceland)
One thing has nothing to do with the other, but there is an appealing sense of irony that the biggest victim of the Icelandic volcano’s ash should be the United Kingdom.
One thing has nothing to do with the other, but there is an appealing sense of irony that the biggest victim of the Icelandic volcano’s ash should be the United Kingdom.
Missing the plane, missing the point
(Reykjavik, Iceland)
On December 26th 2006 an undersea earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia triggered a tsunami which killed well over 175,000 people (and possibly as many as 250,000), injured around 125,000 more and displaced well over 1.5 million people.
On the 12th January 2010 an earthquake occurred in Haiti, killing a number of people estimated to be at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 150,000, injuring perhaps 250,000 and bringing destruction to an entire country.
Droughts, mudslides, hurricanes and floods have not only killed tens of millions of people the world over in the last century they have also devastated land to the extent that it has become uninhabitable for many years after the initial disaster.
On the 14th April 2010 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted for the second time in a month, sending a cloud of volcanic ash into the air over Europe. Nobody died; nobody lost their home. The greatest physical threat came in Holyhead in Wales where fighting broke out at the ferry terminal.
In the west we are largely cushioned from the effects of natural phenomena and we are prone to ignorance on the enormous part that geography plays in poverty. We are also prone to complaining vociferously whenever our tidy little lives are disrupted and to underestimating the power the Earth, which we are attempting to destroy, has over our lives.
It is time to stop whining and wise up.
On December 26th 2006 an undersea earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia triggered a tsunami which killed well over 175,000 people (and possibly as many as 250,000), injured around 125,000 more and displaced well over 1.5 million people.
On the 12th January 2010 an earthquake occurred in Haiti, killing a number of people estimated to be at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 150,000, injuring perhaps 250,000 and bringing destruction to an entire country.
Droughts, mudslides, hurricanes and floods have not only killed tens of millions of people the world over in the last century they have also devastated land to the extent that it has become uninhabitable for many years after the initial disaster.
On the 14th April 2010 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted for the second time in a month, sending a cloud of volcanic ash into the air over Europe. Nobody died; nobody lost their home. The greatest physical threat came in Holyhead in Wales where fighting broke out at the ferry terminal.
In the west we are largely cushioned from the effects of natural phenomena and we are prone to ignorance on the enormous part that geography plays in poverty. We are also prone to complaining vociferously whenever our tidy little lives are disrupted and to underestimating the power the Earth, which we are attempting to destroy, has over our lives.
It is time to stop whining and wise up.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Fempol
Edwina Curry and Margaret Thatcher, Condoleeza Rice and Sarah Palin, Esperanza Aguirre and Ana Pastor, Mary Harney, Imelda Marcos, Winnie Mandela, Laura Chinchilla and Michelle Bachelet. The list goes on.
The world suffers under middle-aged and simply aged men and the voters look for an alternative. But why is it that when a woman gets into a position of power she turns out to be just as bad as the men?
The world suffers under middle-aged and simply aged men and the voters look for an alternative. But why is it that when a woman gets into a position of power she turns out to be just as bad as the men?
Friday, March 5, 2010
Under the influence of stupidity
(La Paz, Bolivia)
Last week it was reported that political dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died in his Cuban prison cell after a hunger strike that had started nearly four months previously. The 42-year-old plumber and bricklayer was the first victim of this particularly personal form of protest in Cuba since 1972, and the near forty-year gap between the deaths only serves to emphasise the seriousness of his final decision.
Zapata was originally sentenced to three years in prison for what the Cuban government calls “disobedience” but was subsequently sentenced to another thirty-six years for various other “crimes”. The hunger strike was a protest against the constant torture at the hands of the prison guards – the torture must have been unbearable for Zapata to decide to starve himself to death.
In Bolivia this week another hunger strike took centre stage as Franklin Durán, the head of the transport drivers’ union, was reported to have gone on hunger strike in order to protest against the Bolivian government’s decision to punish drink-driving. In a country where nearly one hundred people died in alcohol-related traffic accidents in January alone, a new law was long overdue. President Evo Morales – himself no stranger to the hunger strike as a form of protest – proposed a law which would see drink-drivers punished with considerable fines and a lengthy driving ban. If the convicted driver worked for a public transport company then the company would also be fined.
It is staggering to think that within days of each other the news headlines could carry items about two similar protests based on such remarkably different reasons. The transport union chief has suffered no torture from Morales’ proposed law; nor has he been imprisoned on a whim or seen his life taken away from him and his family victimised. On the contrary, both he and his family should benefit from being able to drive, cycle or walk around their city with less to fear from drunken louts in charge of a ton of speeding metal.
It is to be hoped that Mister Durán, when he finishes his offensive and futile crusade and the sugar starts returning to his brain, sees sense and supports the government’s law. It is also to be hoped that he looks around himself and compares his own privileged position to that of a political prisoner in Cuba, or Guantánamo Bay, or Myanmar. Perhaps then he will understand that a hunger strike is not a decision to be taken so lightly.
Last week it was reported that political dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died in his Cuban prison cell after a hunger strike that had started nearly four months previously. The 42-year-old plumber and bricklayer was the first victim of this particularly personal form of protest in Cuba since 1972, and the near forty-year gap between the deaths only serves to emphasise the seriousness of his final decision.
Zapata was originally sentenced to three years in prison for what the Cuban government calls “disobedience” but was subsequently sentenced to another thirty-six years for various other “crimes”. The hunger strike was a protest against the constant torture at the hands of the prison guards – the torture must have been unbearable for Zapata to decide to starve himself to death.
In Bolivia this week another hunger strike took centre stage as Franklin Durán, the head of the transport drivers’ union, was reported to have gone on hunger strike in order to protest against the Bolivian government’s decision to punish drink-driving. In a country where nearly one hundred people died in alcohol-related traffic accidents in January alone, a new law was long overdue. President Evo Morales – himself no stranger to the hunger strike as a form of protest – proposed a law which would see drink-drivers punished with considerable fines and a lengthy driving ban. If the convicted driver worked for a public transport company then the company would also be fined.
It is staggering to think that within days of each other the news headlines could carry items about two similar protests based on such remarkably different reasons. The transport union chief has suffered no torture from Morales’ proposed law; nor has he been imprisoned on a whim or seen his life taken away from him and his family victimised. On the contrary, both he and his family should benefit from being able to drive, cycle or walk around their city with less to fear from drunken louts in charge of a ton of speeding metal.
It is to be hoped that Mister Durán, when he finishes his offensive and futile crusade and the sugar starts returning to his brain, sees sense and supports the government’s law. It is also to be hoped that he looks around himself and compares his own privileged position to that of a political prisoner in Cuba, or Guantánamo Bay, or Myanmar. Perhaps then he will understand that a hunger strike is not a decision to be taken so lightly.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
We're out of this world
(Somewhere above the Earth)
The world is gazing in awe at Noguchi Soichi’s twitpics from space, beautiful portraits of our lives from a vertical perspective. The first one I clicked on was a close-up of the underbelly of Noguchi’s ship and it filled me with many feelings at once. Vertigo, fear. Excitement, desire. I continued to scroll through the images of Earth as fascinated as when reading National Geographic but with an extra thrill because these photographs come from space, a place I will never see.
How amazing that you can now take a photograph and transmit it instantly to the internet on Earth and straight onto a social networking site without any need for somebody on the ground to facilitate the process. How wonderful that we can all feel so close together as inhabitants of this tiny, vast domain.
Yes, but no. What is amazing is that with all our capabilities all we choose to do is gild the technological lily while people the world over still die through starvation, war and the effects of the environmental damage we have inflicted on our own habitat. We marvel at all these places because we are seeing them from the only view which excludes the scars of all the evil we have done.
It has been said many times that the only reason we concentrate on space is because we need another place to destroy. These pictures, although beautiful and well-intentioned, show the start of that process. We can no longer photograph the world without revealing the unquestionable evidence of our arrogance, so now we take them from space to spare ourselves the guilt.
The world is gazing in awe at Noguchi Soichi’s twitpics from space, beautiful portraits of our lives from a vertical perspective. The first one I clicked on was a close-up of the underbelly of Noguchi’s ship and it filled me with many feelings at once. Vertigo, fear. Excitement, desire. I continued to scroll through the images of Earth as fascinated as when reading National Geographic but with an extra thrill because these photographs come from space, a place I will never see.
How amazing that you can now take a photograph and transmit it instantly to the internet on Earth and straight onto a social networking site without any need for somebody on the ground to facilitate the process. How wonderful that we can all feel so close together as inhabitants of this tiny, vast domain.
Yes, but no. What is amazing is that with all our capabilities all we choose to do is gild the technological lily while people the world over still die through starvation, war and the effects of the environmental damage we have inflicted on our own habitat. We marvel at all these places because we are seeing them from the only view which excludes the scars of all the evil we have done.
It has been said many times that the only reason we concentrate on space is because we need another place to destroy. These pictures, although beautiful and well-intentioned, show the start of that process. We can no longer photograph the world without revealing the unquestionable evidence of our arrogance, so now we take them from space to spare ourselves the guilt.
Tongue in cheek
I often read Time magazine, more for the excellent writing and international range of stories than for the opinions of the journalists. In this week’s edition, dated February 22nd, there was an article on how the U.S. military and U.S. government respond to violent incidents involving American soldiers.
The first part of the sub-heading of the article was “Some soldiers become murderers.” Did the journalist really write that with a straight face? The second part was “The military needs to figure out how to stop them”. Did anybody read that with a straight face?
The first part of the sub-heading of the article was “Some soldiers become murderers.” Did the journalist really write that with a straight face? The second part was “The military needs to figure out how to stop them”. Did anybody read that with a straight face?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Generation dodo
(Madrid, Spain)
Last night the Spanish television channel laSexta 2.0 premiered its latest reality show, “Generación Ni-Ni”, with a huge fanfare. The title of the programme refers to the section of Spanish society that “ni trabaja ni estudia”, doesn’t work and doesn’t study; using the same technique of abbreviation in English it could be called “Generation dodo”.
The premise of the programme is that eight adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two (the press release specified the potential age range as “16-25”) live together in a spacious house surrounded by cameras. They are observed by their parents and two psychologists – and, one imagines, by a few million Spanish people – as they are obliged to go out and work for their keep. According to the specific information published on laSexta’s website:
“eight youths...are going to undergo a process of re-education. The Generation dodo psychologists will try to change the behaviour and values of these youths”
The first thing which stands out is the age group being targeted by the programme – middle-aged television producers seem determined to aim their disdain at “the youth of today”, even though there are plenty of middle-aged people who neither work for a living nor fill their time with useful study. Those people would tell you that the situation is bad in Spain at the moment – but it is no better for young people, in fact it tends to be much worse as they have yet to be given a chance at anything in life apart from following incomprehensible rules.
What many people seem unable to understand is that people leaving school look at their parents’ generation and see very little incentive to follow the only path which is laid in front of them by authorities with little imagination or empathy. Quite apart from the wholly natural desire to rebel against the previous generation, during a recession there is even less proof that conforming will provide school-leavers with any future security. The press release from laSexta describes the participants in the programme as “apathetic” – in the face of today’s reality, why should they be anything else?
In reality Generation dodo highlights the fact that the values of our parents become extinct as soon as their children form opinions and that the current system long ago lost the power of flight. What is also clear, however, is that when it comes to finding ways to brain-wash young people into conforming, middle-aged people and television form a dangerous cocktail indeed.
Last night the Spanish television channel laSexta 2.0 premiered its latest reality show, “Generación Ni-Ni”, with a huge fanfare. The title of the programme refers to the section of Spanish society that “ni trabaja ni estudia”, doesn’t work and doesn’t study; using the same technique of abbreviation in English it could be called “Generation dodo”.
The premise of the programme is that eight adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two (the press release specified the potential age range as “16-25”) live together in a spacious house surrounded by cameras. They are observed by their parents and two psychologists – and, one imagines, by a few million Spanish people – as they are obliged to go out and work for their keep. According to the specific information published on laSexta’s website:
“eight youths...are going to undergo a process of re-education. The Generation dodo psychologists will try to change the behaviour and values of these youths”
The first thing which stands out is the age group being targeted by the programme – middle-aged television producers seem determined to aim their disdain at “the youth of today”, even though there are plenty of middle-aged people who neither work for a living nor fill their time with useful study. Those people would tell you that the situation is bad in Spain at the moment – but it is no better for young people, in fact it tends to be much worse as they have yet to be given a chance at anything in life apart from following incomprehensible rules.
What many people seem unable to understand is that people leaving school look at their parents’ generation and see very little incentive to follow the only path which is laid in front of them by authorities with little imagination or empathy. Quite apart from the wholly natural desire to rebel against the previous generation, during a recession there is even less proof that conforming will provide school-leavers with any future security. The press release from laSexta describes the participants in the programme as “apathetic” – in the face of today’s reality, why should they be anything else?
In reality Generation dodo highlights the fact that the values of our parents become extinct as soon as their children form opinions and that the current system long ago lost the power of flight. What is also clear, however, is that when it comes to finding ways to brain-wash young people into conforming, middle-aged people and television form a dangerous cocktail indeed.
Net curtain television
(London, England)
Two rather strange new programmes are currently gracing English television screens. First the BBC announced it would hold a competition which looked for the country’s best butcher and then Sky said it would air a programme in which celebrities went bird-watching with another celebrity.
The BBC programme is typical of the national station in that it is bland and lacking in direction. While a competition which promotes winning by merit is evidently better than being famous for nothing, and in spite of the fact that butchery is an honourable and traditional trade which should be preserved and not plastic-wrapped and relegated to the supermarket shelves, making television from people cutting meat is bizarre. Watching it is even more absurd. The Sky programme is also appropriate to the station – banal and lacking in intelligence – but no less ridiculous for its predictability.
Yet these programmes are almost logical in the recent timeline of English television which reveals an unhealthy and voyeuristic obsession in unspectacular activities realised by uninteresting individuals with an emphasis on moralising and crushing criticism. The reality of reality television is that we are not being entertained, we are being controlled more than ever – the television tells us how to clean our dirty houses, how to re-educate our hooligan children, how to dress our unattractive bodies, how to cook, how to drive, what books we should be reading and even how we should have lived had we been around over a hundred years ago. The celebrities that are so cheaply created are happy to take this phenomenon to the next level in order to perpetuate the control.
English people love it but this should not be a surprise. This is simply an extension of every middle-class English person’s petty, mean-spirited desire to spy on other people with the sole intention of catching them out in some way and gaining the all-elusive moral superiority. It is also the logical past-time for a country which contains one security camera for every handful of people, some accompanied by a loudspeaker which tells people how to behave in the street.
English society is its own Big Brother – that’s a character from a novel called 1984, written by a writer called George Orwell – and it is presiding over its own demise. It deserves the governments it votes in, it deserves the television it pays for and above all it deserves to be told home truths. Perhaps they should do it in the form of a reality TV show. They could call it “I have a personality, get me out of here”.
Two rather strange new programmes are currently gracing English television screens. First the BBC announced it would hold a competition which looked for the country’s best butcher and then Sky said it would air a programme in which celebrities went bird-watching with another celebrity.
The BBC programme is typical of the national station in that it is bland and lacking in direction. While a competition which promotes winning by merit is evidently better than being famous for nothing, and in spite of the fact that butchery is an honourable and traditional trade which should be preserved and not plastic-wrapped and relegated to the supermarket shelves, making television from people cutting meat is bizarre. Watching it is even more absurd. The Sky programme is also appropriate to the station – banal and lacking in intelligence – but no less ridiculous for its predictability.
Yet these programmes are almost logical in the recent timeline of English television which reveals an unhealthy and voyeuristic obsession in unspectacular activities realised by uninteresting individuals with an emphasis on moralising and crushing criticism. The reality of reality television is that we are not being entertained, we are being controlled more than ever – the television tells us how to clean our dirty houses, how to re-educate our hooligan children, how to dress our unattractive bodies, how to cook, how to drive, what books we should be reading and even how we should have lived had we been around over a hundred years ago. The celebrities that are so cheaply created are happy to take this phenomenon to the next level in order to perpetuate the control.
English people love it but this should not be a surprise. This is simply an extension of every middle-class English person’s petty, mean-spirited desire to spy on other people with the sole intention of catching them out in some way and gaining the all-elusive moral superiority. It is also the logical past-time for a country which contains one security camera for every handful of people, some accompanied by a loudspeaker which tells people how to behave in the street.
English society is its own Big Brother – that’s a character from a novel called 1984, written by a writer called George Orwell – and it is presiding over its own demise. It deserves the governments it votes in, it deserves the television it pays for and above all it deserves to be told home truths. Perhaps they should do it in the form of a reality TV show. They could call it “I have a personality, get me out of here”.
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