Zenpolitics

M74 interlink: the madness approaches

2009-07-07T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's coming. Soon. Like some all-consuming demon devouring every physical and rational obstacle before it.

The M74 link extension, a five-mile piece of motorway due for completion in 2011, will cut a merciless swath through Glasgow. The road will slice the city's populous south-side, bringing urban disconnection, chronic pollution and human displacement. Those hoping for extended urban regeneration promised by the nearby New Gorbals will now have to contend with a motorway in the middle of their neighbourhood. It's Glasgow's very own Age of Stupid.

From a new M8 exit at the Kingston Bridge to the Eglinton Street crossing - or Port Eglinton Viaduct as they've grandly designated it - multiple sets of looming columns, black-clad for temporary protection, stand like occupying giants ready to take the mass weight of road sections. Soaring above the main rail line and local businesses, the planners are hailing it as a triumphant structure. None, I'm sure, will have to live under its grim shadow.

Unlike the 'architectural' salariat who revel in such vandalism, residents of the small red-brick terraced houses on adjoining Devon Street can only gaze out in dreaded anticipation of the mass lines of traffic about to sweep across their window view. This was never pretty landscape. But it's about to become an even uglier dystopian nightmare.

The word "viaduct" is suggestive of heroic Roman edifice; progressive engineering bringing forth water, linking canals, spanning impossible gorges. This is a corruption of those noble feats and ideals.

Travel in places like Holland and you'll see motorway embankments and risings that have, at least, been made to look 'neutral,' even, dare one say it, artistically pleasing. There's nothing of that wasteful aesthetic here. This is big muscle concrete. Get used to it.

What might lie in the time capsule deep beneath this latest monument to car culture? Pictures of a pre-disturbed landscape? Sundry items depicting Glasgow circa 2011?

Maybe someone will think to include the Hickman Report (July 2004), commissioned by the Scottish Government and ignored, when published, due to its damning recommendations against the project. It probably won't get a place in the nostalgic casket, but it's been well and truly buried by a political-planner-business coterie determined to assure us 'unenlightened' citizens of the project's commercial, economic and environmental 'benefits'.

Uncomfortably for the high approvers, Hickman couldn't have been more specific in his considered disapproval. This road, he concluded, will have severe environmental consequences, including "community severance" problems, increased noise pollution and visual intrusions at multiple "sensitive locations". It won't reduce surface traffic significantly on Glasgow's streets, merely displacing it elsewhere, including approaches to new motorway junctions, while adding significantly to CO2 emissions. It will result in a higher volume of pollutants and potential health problems, as noted in witness evidence, for local people. The "regeneration" effect, notes Hickman, should also be treated as "cautionary", with the jobs created not necessarily all linked to the project involved.

In short, the detrimental warnings were all dutifully issued by Hickman:

"Drawing these numerous elements together, the evidence has shown that the proposal would be likely to:

* seriously hinder the achievement of important Scottish Executive commitments and objectives for traffic reduction, public transport improvements, and CO2 emissions;
* have very serious adverse impacts on the environment of communities along the route, both during construction and in operation;
* be at variance with policies to promote social inclusion and environmental justice;
* temporarily ease traffic congestion, to the benefit of car commuters and road freight transport, but that these benefits would be progressively lost due to continuing traffic increases, in the absence of measures to restrain and reduce traffic; and
* make a positive contribution to the local economy in Glasgow, South and North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, and East Renfrewshire, at the expense of the Forth valley, the Stirling area, Ayrshire, Inverclyde, and West Dunbartonshire.

"11.97 Drawing these various strands together, and looking at all the policy, transport, environmental, business, and community disadvantages of the proposal as a whole, it must be concluded that the proposal would be very likely to have very serious undesirable results; and that (in the context of the advice in the SACTRA report, the transfer of jobs from other parts of Scotland, and the potential harm to existing businesses along the route) the economic and traffic benefits of the project would be much more limited, more uncertain, and (in the case of the congestion benefits) probably ephemeral."

The six lane highway through the city will now cost in excess of £692 million, making it Britain's most expensive stretch of road, to date. Alongside the latest price hike, the contract award is also wrapped in controversy over a sole consortium tender. It's a colossal sum of public money that would have been better spent on sustainable transport infrastructure.

Part of the cost includes sealing contaminated land along the route to the connecting east-end Fullarton Junction, much of it polluted by chromium and other heavy metals. A construction worker at the Farmeloan Bridge section told me how those on site had been warned to "report any green substances" coming up through the ground. That must be a comforting thought for the people of Toryglen, Rutherglen and Farme Cross living alongside, also waking-up to the increased prospect of congestion-fuelled respiratory diseases. The violation of natural landscape at Auchenshuggle Woods seems, likewise, of little concern to the zealots of 'development'. As ever, human health and aesthetic rights come a long way behind corporate-defined 'progress'.

It's a staggering project to match the staggering indifference, incompetence and stupidity of its sponsors. Transport Scotland, Glasgow City Council and the corporate cabal they jointly serve have little regard for the eco implications here: private sector imperatives simply come first.

The concern of green campaigners is particularly felt, given the Scottish government's otherwise laudable commitment to wind power, renewables and refusal to countenance new Westminster-policy nuclear power plants.

In recognition of widespread calls, and in anticipation of the crucial Copenhagen climate change summit in December, the Scottish Parliament has just approved a 42 percent cut in carbon emissions for 2020 - ahead of the UK's 34 percent target for 2020.

While still allowing for technical opt-outs, the vote has been cautiously welcomed by Stop Climate Chaos Scotland chairman, Mike Robinson:

"It means Scotland's climate change bill has the toughest target of any industrialised nation in the world and will be held up as an example, ahead of the climate talks in Copenhagen in December, of what can and should be done". This is a moral commitment and we hope other developed nations will hear this call for action and follow Scotland's lead."

That 'model lead', alas, remains severely compromised by the Holyrood government's business-driven positions on aviation and road expansion. And this latest carbon-spewing roadway is a shameful testimony to their contradictory environmental claims.

Meanwhile, some worthy chroniclers at the urbanglasgow website are helping to record the ongoing construction/destruction for posterity, with pictures, articles and comment.

We can but wonder how this grotesque structure, and the case for it, will be judged in, hopefully, more eco-enlightened years to come.

John

Spirit of Humanity: Israel's high sea aggression

2009-07-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Israel has just carried out another act of state piracy in kidnapping twenty one peace activists aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship Spirit of Humanity.

I urge people to register their protests to the Israeli government.

An e-mail to chief Israeli spokesperson, Mark Regev:

Mr Regev,

I'm writing to request a serious explanation for the abduction of twenty one lawful peace activists from the mercy ship Spirit of Humanity. The boat, as you well know, was delivering nothing but humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

As you also know, it was attacked and boarded in international waters, twenty three nautical miles off the Gazan coast. This is indisputably illegal under international law.

You are also, I'm sure, aware that the International Red Cross has just released a key report stating, unequivocally, that 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are "trapped in despair".

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine-report-260609/$File/gaza-report-ICRC-eng.pdf

Have you the slightest regard for their pain and suffering? Do you understand why Israel is being condemned around the world for these gross violations? Have you any conception of your own part in this outrage and other war crimes?

I look forward to your reply.

John Hilley
Scotland

Please also contact your MPs. Even if your elected member doesn't respond in positive support of the Palestinians and those abducted from the boat, it helps expose their endorsement of Israeli actions and part in British government inaction.

On which (non)expectant note, a letter to my MP, Tom Harris (Glasgow Central):

1 July 2009

Dear Mr Harris,

I'm writing to express my deep concern over the abduction of twenty one peace activists by Israeli naval forces from the mercy ship Spirit of Humanity. Among the crew was Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairéad Maguire and Theresa McDermott from Scotland.

The boat, delivering desperately-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, was attacked and boarded yesterday in international waters, twenty three nautical miles off the Gazan coast. The actions of the Israeli military are clearly illegal under international law.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has just released a key report stating that 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are "trapped in despair".

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine-report-260609/$File/gaza-report-ICRC-eng.pdf

Their desperate situation has also been highlighted by other charitable organisations.

http://www.cafonline.org/Default.aspx?page=17733

The people of Gaza are, as you know, also still suffering critical hardship after the recent mass Israeli attacks. Thus, there is no valid excuse for the blocking of this aid convoy or those intent on raising awareness of Israel's illegal siege.

As one of your constituents, I'd like you to record your outright condemnation of this unwarranted aggression. I also request that you ask the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to make a strong statement of protest to the Israeli government.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley

-------------------------

A further letter to Tom Harris (2 July 2009).

Dear Mr Harris,

I'm sending you this link citing the latest Amnesty International report, Operation 'Cast Lead': 22 days of death and destruction. It documents Israeli war crimes in Gaza and concludes that the failure to account for those crimes is likely to mean further civilian death and suffering.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702

As head Amnesty field researcher Donatella Rovera notes:

"Israel's failure to properly investigate its forces' conduct in Gaza, including war crimes, and its continuing refusal to cooperate with the UN international independent fact-finding mission headed by Richard Goldstone, is evidence of its intention to avoid public scrutiny and accountability."

I'd like you to read it with reference to my previous communication on the illegal seizing of the mercy ship Spirit of Humanity.

I'd specifically like to know whether you accept these and other Amnesty findings which confirm other evidence of Israeli war crimes and corroborate the latest International Red Cross report stating that the people of Gaza are "trapped in despair".

I look forward to your considered reply.

Yours sincerely,

John Hilley

---------------------

Full Amnesty report here.

Witchell's ranking

2009-06-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Is this the most shameless piece of BBC propaganda ever to come out of Iraq?

Apparently switched from embedded royalist to embedded militarist, the ever-fawning Nicholas Witchell reports from Baghdad on the coming end of US troop deployments in the major cities. It's the kind of brazenly loaded reportage that should embarrass any credible news organisation. But this is the BBC.

Consider this gross inversion of the truth from Witchell:

"After six violent years, the soldiers who came to liberate, but whom many regard as invaders, will be taken off city streets."

Yes, six years of invasion, occupation and murderous destruction perpetrated by those same US forces.

The open presumption in Witchell's baldly-stated assertion about "the soldiers who came to liberate" tells us all we ever need to know about the BBC's war apologetics and default defence of Western aggression in Iraq. The "whom many regard as invaders" caveat is offered as a play to even-handedness, thus retaining the standard lie that 'liberation' was always the primary task.

Token local residents are interviewed here by Witchell, some noting their approval of the 'withdrawal'. It should be "Iraq for the Iraqis", one man says. This is about the extent of Witchell's acknowledgement that there's a problematic Western presence in Iraq, a little inconvenience, it seems, to be set against the 'improvements' brought about by the surge and their possible undoing:

"But removing patrols like this runs the risk of undoing the gains of the past two years when the Americans surged their forces into local communities.

We're not, of course, invited to ask how, by any human calculus, one might measure these "gains" against the loss of over a million Iraqi lives.

On which momentous note, it seems somewhat churlish to point out Witchell's obvious violation of BBC 'impartiality' codes, accepting and repeating, as he does, the face value claims of US commanders.

The dutiful embed continues:

"Quite a bit of the credit for the security improvements is because US forces got out on foot, like this, into local communities, making friends and identifying enemies."

So, all culpabilities erased, then, as the troops try a little fraternising, making friends with 'good' Iraqis in order to weed out the 'bad' ones. Aside from the blatant bias, is it possible to find a more striking line in juvenile journalism? It's as though Witchell is still outside Buckingham Palace gushing about the royals' ongoing efforts to be more people-friendly.

Witchell has another Iraqi man stating his fears of a vacuum when the US leave, thus allowing the militias to return. It's a troubling thought for him. However, like some lofty departing colonialist, he concludes that the ball is now in the Iraqis' court:

"That's the big concern, that without American boots on Iraqi streets, the insurgents will see their chance. But the Americans are pulling back. It's up to Iraq now, and everyone from private soldier to President hopes it will work."

Quite how Witchell knows what this vast military-political chain "hopes" and thinks, is left unexplained. But the truth of 'benevolent retreat' to match 'benevolent invasion' must be readily assumed by the BBC.

We might more reasonably call it BBC supportage - rather than critical reportage. As with Mark Urban's cosy militarist pieces endorsing the surge, Witchell's coy reassurances are being used to excuse the invasion, rationalise the occupation and soften the 'withdrawal'.

Nicholas Witchell.
BBC News.
Duty done.
Baghdad.

John

Iran: still no credible evidence of Mousavi poll win

2009-06-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

As elsewhere, a week's a long time in Iranian politics. Declared polling irregularities aside, we've still to see any conclusive proof that the Iranian authorities rigged the entire 11 million votes separating Ahmadinejad from Mousavi and the other competing candidates.

What we've been assailed by, instead, is endless speculative assumptions about another make-believe 'colour revolution', with the liberal media, as ever, leading the charge.

Consistently absent in most of these 'pro-democracy' accounts is the fact that much of Iranian society both supports internal political reforms while rejecting external interference.

Thus, in a debate over the NAF pre-election poll, we hear reiteration from one of its authors, Ken Ballen, that the desire for fundamental reform of the electoral system was also highly evident (86%) among Ahmadinejad supporters. Which helps illuminate some of the more nuanced truths about Iranian disaffection for the state and affection for Ahmadinejad. All too typically, those intent on undermining Iran have been content to blur these differing issues.

There's also more sober comments from Flynt Leverett here on the "wishful thinking" of the West. In short, he notes, the Iranian Islamic Republic is not, contrary to Western liberal hopes, a system on the brink of collapse.

Neither, one week on, do we have any credible challenge to the analysis offered by James Petras on the great electoral hoax.

Still, what of those election results?

Robert Fisk's asute commentary - alas, still-laden with non-Western demons - has little time for Ahmadinejad or the Iranian elite. He sees fraudulent activity. But also the reality of Amhadinejad's majority support:

"So let's take a look at those Iranian elections. A fraud, we believe. And I have the darkest doubts about those election figures which gave Mousavi a paltry 33.75 per cent of the vote. Indeed, I and a few Iranian friends calculated that if the government's polling-night statistics were correct, the Iranian election committee would have had to have counted five million votes in just two hours. But our coverage of this poll has been deeply flawed. Most visiting Western journalists stay in hotels in the wealthy, north Tehran suburbs, where tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters live, where it's easy to find educated translators who love Mousavi, where interviewees speak fluent English and readily denounce the spiritual and cultural and social stagnation of Iran's – let us speak frankly – semi-dictatorship.
But few news organisations have the facilities or the time or the money to travel around this 659,278 square-mile country – seven times the size of Britain – and interview even the tiniest fraction of its 71 million people. When I visited the slums of south Tehran on Friday, for example, I found that the number of Ahmadinejad supporters grew as Mousavi's support dribbled away. And I wondered whether, across the huge cities and vast deserts of Iran, a similar phenomenon might be discovered. A Channel 4 television crew, to its great credit, went down to Isfahan and the villages around that beautiful city and came back with a suspicion – unprovable, of course, anecdotal, but real – that Ahmadinejad just might have won the election.
This is also my suspicion: that Ahmadinejad might have scraped in, but not with the huge majority he was awarded."

Which pretty much accords with other useful speculations on what a fully fair poll would have shown and understandings, even from conservative analysts, of an electorate long used to such manipulations.

Unfortunately, much of the left seems to have joined the sabre-rattling liberals and outright neocons in hyping up this set of irregularities. Even the usually reliable ZNet appears to have fallen obligingly into line, with David Petersen decrying much of it's current output on Iran as "pathetic fare".

It's a touch ironic that rebuttals of the mass cheating claims, and confirmation of US skulduggery, are coming more readily from conservative corners, as in this summation from Paul Craig Roberts, Reagan's Assistant Treasury Secretary:

"Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government."

While maintaining an intuitive solidarity for ordinary Iranians struggling to build a more accountable and equitable society, it's disturbing to witness so many liberal-left observers embrace, implicity or explicitly, the agenda-setting message of Ahmadinejad as a 'hardliner'.

Hardliner? Should it need repeating that the US has invaded and murdered over a million people in Iraq and Afghanistan? To my understanding, Ahmadinejad and Iran have engaged in no such hardline activities. The Iranian president is also denounced as "hardline" for calling Israel a racist state, while Obama's 'softline' approach, lacking in meaningful action, permits the deepening of that oppression.

The point is not about supporting Ahmadinejad. It's about seeing the reasons behind the depiction of him as a crazed zealot.

The 'hardline' tag is employed in similar assumed ways here by left-liberal analyst Juan Cole:

"By 2005, the hard liners had rolled back all the reforms and the reform camp was sullen and defeated. They did not come out in large numbers for the reformist candidate, Karoubi, who only got 17 percent of the vote. They nevertheless were able to force a run-off between hard line populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative billionaire. Ahmadinejad won."

It's worth noting here that Rafsanjani is actually a corrupt businessman, while Mousavi is a neoliberal advocate with a not-so-moderate past record on political freedoms - facts that Ahmadinejad used to positive advantage during the TV poll debates.

Again, while there's an obvious rift and struggle within the Iranian hierarchy, this doesn't necessarily translate into an overall collapse of faith in the system. This was evidenced by the diminishing number of protesters on the streets after Supreme Leader Khamenei's speech calling for people to stay at home and for the poll result to be respected. The reading here seems to be that, public concerns and reformist desires aside, most Iranians don't share the kind of benevolent destabilisation the liberal West is wishing upon their country.

Which, again, begs the question: why are so many on the more 'critical' left, so taken-in by these liberal/right demonisations? Part of the reason is their antithesis towards the Iranian theocratic system. Which is largely understandable given the brutal repression of leftist forces during and after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Yet, that legitimate wish for a progressive secular democracy seems to have blinded many here, firstly to the more nuanced social and political dimensions of Iranian society, and, secondly, to the darker liberal-right demonisation taking place.

Meanwhile, a monetary prize is now on offer to anyone who can provide "a coherent story for how the Iranian election was stolen."

John

Occupation - the drama

2009-06-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

The BBC drama series Occupation promised us a deep, searching journey into the tortured consequences of Britain's involvement in Iraq. What it delivered, as predicted, was a preoccupation with the personal angst, confusions and suffering of 'our troops'.

The problem, as ever, with this kind of output is the absent voice of the other. And not just an individual voice, but the qualitative, collective voice of an invaded, murdered and brutalised people.

The producers of Occupation think they've got around this by having the 'Iraqi voice' of female doctor (played by Lubna Azabal) engage in a melodramatic love affair with a British soldier (James Nesbitt). Conveniently, she speaks in implicitly neutral terms about the occupation, even, during the first instalment, appearing back in England at a Daily Express-sponsored PR event announcing Nesbitt's character as the heroic saviour of a little Iraqi girl.

Of all the plot devices, why choose this one? Why, with this generous three hour slot to chart the essentials of a contentious and illegal occupation, give so much central time to a love story? It's a particularly audacious insult to those victims and survivors of the mass carnage back in Iraq who not only want their occupiers out, but desire truthful acknowledgement of their multiple sufferings.

The drama's supposed theme is one of pained human engagement between occupier and occupied. But the actual act of occupation itself is never truly considered, the critical, existential questions about the occupier's motives and mindset left safely ignored.

None of the big, difficult issues are faced: why are these soldiers in Iraq?; how did the invading powers lie to get them there?; are these soldiers party to war crimes?

All of which begs related thoughts about why there isn't a more ambitious artistic commentary on these very questions.

The romance between Iraqi doctor and British soldier may be a metaphor for difficult engagement and healing between two distant cultures. Or, more likely, it may just be a shallow plot contrivance substituting for the key issues.

While humanitarian doubts about the occupation grow in the mind of Nesbitt's character, the accompanying plot around mercenary business ventures for the employment-scarce ex-squaddies keeps us safely detached from the fuller nature of the West's privatised war agenda.

Instead, a rookie American administrator tells the new mercenaries that the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) mass million dollar piles are all humanitarian-targeted funds. While we see the evident falseness of that claim, there's no illumination of the big corporate players like Halliburton and the privatised grand theft that followed. Incredibly, oil is barely mentioned. Perhaps they couldn't fit it into the love story.

The small-scale implications of this financial abuse are played out in part 2 as the new, raw military frontiersmen pitch for contracts and favours, revealing their fatal inexperiences in a land now saturated with hidden militias. But, again, there's no serious reference to the main corporate bonanza and the private-political patronage keeping it all going.

Nor are the Iraqi fighters accorded any coherent status as an actual resistance. They're simply dismissed, in the doctor's words, as young boys on the loose with guns.

As the love story continues in its improbably tangled way - her husband, another Iraqi doctor, coming into contact with Nesbitt and the mercenaries - we're still asked to reflect on the soldiers' pains, shames and misfortunes, but not to consider or debate Britain's own illegal presence and war criminality.

It's not a political film, some might say. Yet how can the political issue be avoided if we're to think truthfully about a drama called "Occupation"?

The script endeavours to relate some of the stark problems within the civilian hospitals as Iraqi surgeons demonstrate the pitiful conditions and lack of basic equipment. We also get a sense here of the cold disregard and amateur profit-driven priorities of the new parasitical military contractors.

The racist language is largely authenticated by asides to "raghead" Iraqis. We even have a young Western-educated Iraqi joining forces with the mercenaries, giving imminent sense to the fatal attractions of collaboration.

Yet there's never any more involving picture of the humanitarian chaos unfolding across this blood-soaked land; of the million or so lives that are being taken; of the biblical-scale upheaval and mass of desperate refugees on the move.

The particular issue of the British occupying role in Basra is never once addressed. Instead, they're assumed as 'just there', making the best of a bad situation, trying to cope and encourage normalisation of Iraqi life.

It's a 'problem war', a 'mistaken war', but never a criminal war.

Back home, the '7/7' attacks on London prompt a token family dispute about the anti-war movement. It's yet another facile take, from the soldier/mercenary viewpoint, on the 'realities' out there in Iraq.

Still on the family strain theme, the soldier's liaison with the doctor is finally revealed to his wife, leading to their tearful break-up. It may be well acted and observed. But it's still a lengthy, clichéd distraction from the actual occupation.

As tensions between the three soldiers grow over the war motives, one, the main mercenary, is now in a smart suit tying up a lucrative deal in Dubai with big money backers. Again, there's no added context about the political-corporate factors underlying all this.

Meanwhile, the other, more conscientious, mercenary returns to Basra intent on settling a score, and his own conscience, over the killing of his Iraqi mate, his resulting kidnap taking us into another good-Brit-bad-Iraqi plot-line. It all feels more of a flip-scene soap than a serious examination of a brutalised society under occupation.

Part 3 opens with the menacing kidnap scene, the Iraqi captor asking his hostage: "How many Iraqi refugees are in Jordan and Syria?" This question - shamefully ignored by the West and its servile media - is conveyed as part of a potentially barbaric execution scene. But it could, more appropriately, have been uttered by an actual victim refugee - or the doctor herself. Again, it's part of the selective 'voice' accorded to Iraqis in a script ever intent on demonising the Iraqi resistance.

As the contracting cash-in continues into 2007, Nesbitt's character goes in search of the doctor's kidnapped husband - permitting their own affair to develop. The suggestion of Western responsibility for the kidnap takes us into the possible dark dealings of covert ops. But the plot line is quickly curtailed with his mercenary-secured release. It might have been a lead into the demonic happenings inside Abu Ghraib. But systematic, private-trained torture is never on the dramatic agenda here.

Another spurious plot device to get the female doctor out of Iraq to the safety of England fails as a young fanatic Iraqi shoots her dead in the hospital. It's the scriptwriters' crude way of dealing with the issue of female immodesty within Muslim culture.

We finish with the funeral service of Nesbitt's character's son, another soldier lost to the tragic war in Iraq. A final argument between the three main characters throws up angry exchanges and questions about the market motives, moral motivations and futile outcomes of the occupation.

But it's all contained within their realm of suffering, their losses, their mistakes, their experiences. There's no equivalent scene back in Iraq of bereaved fathers and mothers. There's no concluding reflection on the staggering scale of their pain and loss.

Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism shows how power and Empire were sustained by dominant popular narratives such as the Victorian novel. It's remarkable how little has changed.

Modern war dramas such as Occupation affect a, perhaps, more sensory awareness over the invasion of another's country. But there's no essential difference in the perceived subsidiarity of that land, people and culture.

Like past imperial conquests and pretexts, the narrative line here is one of benevolent intervention. We, the viewer, are invited to pick our way around the various tensions of that premise - look at the chaos and suffering that's been created; what about all the broken lives caused - but the good, unfailing, do-the-duty, finish-the-job message prevails: 'we' were in Basra to liberate, to rebuild the country, to make the peace.

It's sobering when one really stops to think about the terrifying scale of mass murder and calculated terror 'we' have helped unleash on Iraq. And it's a fair indication of the cultural propaganda value of such dramas that much of the public will never really come to acknowledge that dark set of truths.

Even anti-war perceptions are shaped around this sort of agenda-setting output. There's an encouragement to see the consequent fallout of war - namely, the stresses and breakdowns of serving soldiers. Which isn't in itself invalid, so long as it allows a real, authentic voice to those who have actually been invaded, occupied and victimised.

This kind of drama consciously doesn't. Which is why it can get commissioned and appear on a BBC channel in the first place. It has the 'BBC-safe' stamp of approval. This, the establishment can say, is our 'recognition' of the suffering. Which, in practice, means the suffering of 'ours'.

It's a useful lesson in thought control. Quite how a 'landmark' film entitled Occupation can manage to evade the actual issues of occupation should be a question occupying the public mind.

John

Arab Media Watch study: request for response from BBC

2009-06-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

A letter to the Director of BBC News.

------------------------------------

17 June 2009

Dear Helen Boaden,

Arab Media Watch has just published a damning study of BBC and Al-Jazeera reporting of the Palestine-Israel issue.

http://tinyurl.com/npbvx8

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Portals/0/documents/media/20090609BBCAlJazeeraCoverageOfIsrPalViolence.pdf

It stands in direct contradiction of BBC claims to impartiality, objectiviy and even-handedness.

The report's findings reveal systematic use of Israeli sources, comment and pictures, while excluding or minimising those of Palestinian origin.

The study offers consistent illustrations of the BBC violating its own stated charter.

As noted:

“The absence of Palestinian sources and viewpoints, and the predominance of those from the Israeli side, go against the editorial guidelines of both broadcasters.”

It also also provides clear evidence of distorted context in presenting Israeli aggression as “responsive” action:

“Both broadcasters used words that unequivocally portrayed Israeli violence as a direct response to Palestinian violence.”

This report, confirming in detail the alarming extent of BBC bias, merits close inspection by the Director of BBC News.

I await your considered response with interest.

Yours sincerely

John Hilley

--------------

I'll publish any subsequent responses/exchanges here:

http://medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2986

John

Iran and Simpson's world view

2009-06-16T17:07:00.001-07:00

While Western political elites and their stenographers at the BBC continue to infer electoral chicanery in Iran, the sober evidence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential election victory is all there in rather obvious pre-election poll data.

Quite simply, Ahmadinejad had a 2:1 base support lead across the country, with relative exceptions amongst parts of the educated and business classes. Even within Mousavi's own Azeri ethnic grouping, support for Ahmadinejad was still consistent with this recorded ratio.

Iranian officials have declared their intent to recount some disputed votes. This is welcome. But it doesn't invalidate the more fundamental truth of Ahmadinejad's consistent support base, a lead which foreign observers have conveniently ignored or mistakenly thought certain to go to Mousavi:

"They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent of the vote in this year’s election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election, when he trounced former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The shock of the “Iran experts” over Friday’s results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking."

It's been helpful to read this kind of calm analysis. Where, one wonders, is the production of such qualitative information from the BBC?

Instead, we've seen World Affairs editor John Simpson amble around Tehran in his white suit talking of "organised chaos" at the count - actually, there was the most civilised movement of people polling in the background - and imply serious manipulations as a section of Iranian citizens took to the street.

We can always rely on the BBC to feed us unreliable inference rather than informed analysis. A mature non-western electorate returns an 'unstomachable' candidate, and BBC reporters fall immediately into default mode suggesting strongly that the self-same 'official enemy' has done the dirty. Quite how Ahmadinejad has managed to do so on such a massive scale remains unexplained, unexplored.

Simpson conducts his to-camera pieces describing dissent on the street behind him. But what does this, in itself, tell us about the actual election? Where is the evidence that cheating took place? Many viewers are very keen to see the proof. Yet, we find no apparent obligation from the BBC to do that most basic of journalistic things: investigate.

Instead, we have Simpson's loaded conjecture:

This was not, of course, the result the West was hoping for. But political chaos and public disorder in Iran is not what any outside government wants either.

The election choice was basically between the openly anti-Western Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who made it clear he wanted to end Iran's isolation and talk to the Americans.

It would certainly not have been an easy relationship, even if Mr Mousavi had become president. Iran will always be a difficult country for the United States, Britain and other Western countries to deal with.

Even the Shah, who lost his throne because he tried to westernise Iran too quickly, was a difficult man to do business with.

Iran is an important regional power with an historical sense of having been held back by the West; its interests are bound to clash with those of the West from time to time.

It's not just the blatant pro-western bias in Simpson's output, but the acute poverty of information, as though the viewer can be palmed-off with this patronising view of a backward-looking Iran and a 'disappointed West'. Here's a viewer's letter to Simpson (noted at Media Lens) pursuing the point:

Hello John,

A regular reader of BBC online news, I've just read your article (dated yesterday, titled 'Difficult moment for Iran - and world').

The fourth paragraph runs thus...

Even the Shah, who lost his throne because he tried to westernise Iran too quickly, was a difficult man to do business with.

I nearly choked on my coffee reading this. Maybe I'm way off base here, but as I understand it, the Shah's downfall had more to do with the fact that (according to a 1976 Amnesty International report), Iran had the "highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.".

He was a totalitarian dictator installed during the 1953 Anglo-American overthrow of Iran's democratically elected president Mohamed Mossadeq.

Why do I, a software developer who was only a child during the Shah's reign, need to explain this salient fact to a senior BBC journalist whose field of expertise is supposed to be knowledge of world affairs and incisive analysis ?

Regards

Steve

Whatever the outcome of the electoral imbroglio, one thing we have learned from the BBC this week is that Simpson's and his peers' 'worldly-wise' dispatches are neither impartial or usefully revealing. Many of us already suspected that rather staid truth.

John

Parade of the parodies

2009-06-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

An acquaintance recently expressed surprise that, being motivated by (if not always practising) calm mindfulness, I could embrace political activity such as the Palestinian cause. I could see the logic, of sorts. Politics is often driven by negative, adversarial feeling. But, of course, you don't have to be party to hateful hostility to be politically engaged.

In opposing the warmongers who have visited mass suffering on Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it's useful to maintain the calmest possible demeanour in practical support of those at the receiving end of big power's own hate and aggression.

We can also work calmly and rationally towards the elimination of the BNP without resorting to their brand of hate, violence and incitement.

With the 'parliamentary crisis' still running - or the media's shrill, self-preening version of it - a similar kind of thought occurs about politics as a realm of hate and selfish gain.

Here's one to ponder: are most of the parliamentary class principally motivated by a basic concern for others? Here's another: are they remotely close to enacting comprehensive policies of compassionate advocacy? The two questions appear to coincide in the negative.

The truth is that, like many of the struggling citizens calling for their heads, they too are self-deluded victims of a political-market system predicated on gain, greed and survival at all costs. As we've seen, many don't survive. And the higher 'up' the political ladder, the more remote such people are from any notion of a true politics of compassion.

I have little hatred for Hazel Blears and her parliamentary associates for whom political life is a career, an exercise in stagecraft, a daily duck-and-dive in the art of evasion, denial, salespitch, backstabbing, aspiration, material reward, indulgent status, self-justification and even apparent public regret. The hating them bit is, if one is so inclined, easy. The desire, from this viewpoint, to see them locked up takes little further effort. But does any of that get to the serious heart of the matter?

The disconnect is neatly captured in Armando Iannucci's tour de force, In the Loop, with its sharp, vituperative study of ministerial dissembling and obsessive spin. As depicted, politicians are now, effectively, expected to lie and cover their backs. Unaccountable leaders wage privatised wars and bail out bankers without the slightest sense of shame or contrition. And the spinmasters are on permanent service to dress up all their venalities. All else - the actual idea of politics as a means of improving life, of securing justice, of stopping wars - is regarded as some abstract, fanciful notion.

We hear politicians say, many sincerely, that they entered politics to make a difference. But they probably know, deep down, that the 'logic' of the system, and their cossetted places within it, weigh towards the deliberate opposite.

The 'clean-up' response has only created another parade of the parodies with national celebs like Esther Rantzen putting themselves 'selflessly' forward. Rantzen, interestingly, described herself recently on the BBC as, "first and foremost, an investigative journalist." Perhaps she should undertake some critical investigation of her own political backer, the ex-high Tory businessman Sir Paul Judge and his Jury Team.

The Confucian ethics of selfless public office, it evidently isn't. But how more difficult to feel and discharge that kind of unselfish dedication when one's own economic wellbeing and survival is predicated on market rules.

Entering politics thus becomes a set of monetary and ego-fed calculations. I recall a number of the politics course intake at uni coveting a career in the Labour party as a sure, fast-track to economic and status advancement. Some were also fascinated by Machiavelli, and read The Prince as a kind of exciting manual on how best to effect those aims.

Wannabee politicos and a slave-copy media mark the daily, dark dealings around the Westminster village. Ministers rise and fall. MPs get ousted and interrogated by coy Newsnight presenters. But where amid all this manoeuvre and 'intrigue' are the more fundamental questions about political life as a place utterly bereft of humanitarian energy?

Hypocritical concern is the particular imprimatur of the liberal media. Thus, we've had that lofty defender of public virtues, the Guardian, calling for Brown "to be cut loose". All in the best interests of politics, parliament, the people, you understand. Brown is no longer 'up to the job', they worry; he doesn't command respect in the House, around the Cabinet table, in the constituencies. He's a liability. Not, of course, "he's the paymaster for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan"; or, "he's got a whole lot of war crime blood on his hands."

Not to worry. With Brown beckoning Sir Alan Sugar into the government, we can all now feel inspired to become aggression-fuelled entrepreneurs. Apprenticeships in market ruthlessness and political survival.

You're hired, you're fired, you're morally acquired.

Compassionate politics? Don't be a wimp.

John

Obama's Cairo evasions

2009-06-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's Cairo speech has been hailed as a landmark event by much of the Western media, and well received in substantial parts of the Middle East and Muslim world. It promised a new engagement of Islam, Islamic countries, notably Iran, and made specific references to the "intolerable" situation of the Palestinian people, the "occupation", their "humiliation" and the need for an end to settlement construction.

Many a progressive pundit will have taken more than a grain of hope from the address, and understandably so when one reads back the specificity of Obama's words in recognising Palestinian suffering and in support of Palestinian statehood. The giddy thought of Obama's predecessor making such a speech adds to the proclaimed sense of "new beginning".

But what may be new in presidential words, perhaps even conviction, remains deeply compromised by presidential inaction. It's early days, many will remind; this is an opening salvo against Israel, others might believe. Perhaps. But none of this quite excuses an incoming administration already well-versed on the realities and immediacy of the task in hand. One sure thing we can say about Obama is that he does understand what has to be done to reach a nominal peace deal. The problem lies not just in the rhetorical stating of that agenda, but in the administration's unwillingness to effect a deal utterly antithetical to America's Israeli lobby and wider conservative network.

That requires much stiffer words and statements of intent. And Obama offered here no indication of such.

Let's deal, firstly, with some of the more obvious things that Obama didn't say.

He didn't say:
Israel (as well as Hamas) must also renounce violence.

He didn't say:
All settlements must be dismantled, including those in East Jerusalem.

He didn't say:
The Palestinian people have an inviolable right of return.

He didn't say:
Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and those responsible must be brought to international justice.

Obama's conspicuous omissions on dividing Jerusalem and dismantling the East Jerusalem settlements is a particular example of calculated evasion.

Jonathan Cook has just written a timely piece on how Western politicians and an Israel-based Western media serve to blur the lines between the illegal settlements of West Bank and East Jerusalem. The former has around 300,000 settlers, the latter 200,000. Yet, East Jerusalem settlement is presented - where it's covered at all - as somehow different, 'relatively legitimate', part of the 'more complex' on-the-ground 'reality' of Israeli 'habitation'. As Cook notes:

"Most of the Israeli media can be depended on to toe the government line on East Jerusalem. But why are many foreign journalists doing the same? Some doubtless are ignorant, others lazy. But agency reporters and their editors, who are well versed in the intricacies of the conflict, are neither. Invariably, however, those making the final editorial decisions — as opposed to their Palestinian stringers who supply raw copy — are too close to Israel to remain entirely dispassionate.
Some are Israeli citizens, or married to one. But, even among those who are not, the overwhelming majority of senior editorial staff live inside Israel, and soak up the Israeli coverage, either in Hebrew or English. They also eat in Israeli restaurants and go to Israeli parties, making them susceptible to adopting the consensual Israeli perspective.

All too easily, agency journalists end up mirroring — and adding a veneer of legitimacy to — Israel’s opinion about East Jerusalem. Senior agency staff have admitted to this blind spot in their coverage. “We think of the East Jerusalem settlers as a separate category,” said one, who requested anonymity. Why? “Because that’s Israel’s view of them.” Questioned further, he agreed that they should probably be included in the figures for settlers. “It’s something we’re discussing,” he added."

This kind of "separate category", or "fact on the ground" as Zionists prefer, helps reinforce the notion that while settlement dismantling may be necessary, it's probably not really expected to happen unless Israel decides that it can happen. Coupled with the 'it's still early days' line from Obama's aides, Washington's 'peace' narrative remains one of 'suggested encouragement' to Netanyahu rather than forceful insistence.

Indeed, for Chomsky, it's a grim picture, with Obama offering nothing that hasn't already been said, even by Bush 1. He also makes the most obvious point on the settlement issue, ignored by Obama and the media alike:

"Overlooked in the debate over settlements is that even if Israel were to accept Phase I of the Road Map, that would leave in place the entire settlement project that has already been developed...

In post-speech exchanges with reporters from Muslim countries and Israel, Obama reiterated the problem of settlements, but failed again to make the crucial demands:

In response to a question on the steps the U.S. will take regarding the settlements, Obama said: "It's only been five months for me, Netanyahu has only been in office for two months, we've been waiting 60 years. So maybe we should try out a few more months before everybody starts looking at doomsday scenarios. This is difficult and it is going to take time."

"The Israelis have difficult decisions to make," he continued. "As I said in my speech, these settlements are an impediment to peace. That's not to deny the fact that there are people who are living in these settlements, there is a momentum to some of these settlements, and turning the back on those settlements involves very tough choices. That's why I said that America cannot do this for the parties."

This last statement bears close examination - much closer than the actual speech. In effect, it's an exercise in off-setting Obama's stated 'obligation' to the Palestinians. It's saying Israel has "difficult decisions to make", which is palpably true. But the US also has equally, if not more, difficult decisions to make. It has to decide whether it is prepared to take the necessary steps to enact a just peace agreement, which, when all the artifice is stripped away, means withdrawing support for Israel until it agrees to a meaningful solution. Instead, Obama's exit card is that "America cannot do this for the parties." Which, again, translated from diplomatic idiom, means a secondary 'facilitating' role rather than a primary enforcing one.

Words are important. But they mean nothing when not accompanied by decisive action. In this case, it involves withdrawing, in substantive part, financial, political and 'emotional' support from Israel until it adheres to a just peace. The likelihood of any such denial and sanction remains some considerable way off.

And, of course, settlements are only one part of any peace agenda. If Obama is serious about ending the Palestinians' "intolerable" situation, he should, even at this 'early' stage, be laying out a much more specific and demanding stall on all the substantive issues.

The Palestinian support movement can take a certain encouragement from this speech. Not in the belief of immediate or promised action from the US. But in the fact that these key words - "intolerable", "occupation" and the Palestinians' "legitimate aspration...for a state of their own" are all now on this administration's verbal record. Which gives the campaign that further bit of international weight to push for intensified collective action - namely, boycott, divestment and sanctions - against Israel.

Beyond that, Ali Abunimah rightly sees little room for optimism in Obama's words:

"He may have more determination than his predecessor but he remains committed to an unworkable two-state "vision" aimed not at restoring Palestinian rights, but preserving Israel as an enclave of Israeli Jewish privilege. It is a dead end."

John

Israel on the slide

2009-05-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Israel's new zealot government might appear to be in a state of confident ascendancy. Yet, its repressive fear of cultural opposition reveals a truer clue to the regime's political and moral insecurity.

This week has seen a deepening set of reactionary curbs on Palestinian civil freedoms, all in a brazen attempt to affirm Israel's ideological sovereignty, particularly as it attempts to entrench control over Jerusalem.

Avigdor Lieberman's parliamentary bill to ban commemoration of the Nakba has now cleared its initial reading and, given Netanyahu's Knesset majority, stands a strong chance of becoming law:

"At Sunday's cabinet meeting, ministers also approved a draft law banning commemoration of the Naqba, or "catastrophe" as it is referred to by Arabs, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948. The draft law is scheduled to be submitted for parliamentary approval next week and will propose punishment of up to three years in prison."

Soft and hardline Zionists alike may come to the practical realisation that such an openly illiberal piece of legislation can only further diminish Israel's already collapsing 'place' in the civilised world. Yet, the very consideration and potential passage of such a bill is enough to show the state's fascist trajectory.

Lieberman is also advocating that all Arabs inside Israel swear an obligatory oath of allegiance to the Zionist state, part of the ethnic cleansing agenda passing as Israel's fictional 'democracy for all citizens'.

With similar intent, the notorious Israeli Border Police closed down a Palestinian literary event in East Jerusalem, attended by international writers such as Ahdaf Soueif and Michael Palin. In impressively resistant mood, the group improvised their gathering at the nearby French Cultural Centre. As Soueif aptly put it:

"Our motto, which is taken from the late Edward Said, is to pit the power of culture against the culture of power."

How, one wonders, can the mass of Israeli people remain silent in the face of such fascistic clampdowns? It's a measure of the pervasive indoctrination across Israeli society that the government can even propose such overtly racist laws.

The propagation of this hate-fuelled discrimination is the task of ideological functionaries at Hasbara HQ. It's all so redolent of the Nazi purge on Jewish identity and the encouragement to turn a blind eye. How tragically ironic.

Bombing hospitals, starve-and-surround terror, demolishing homes, humiliating mothers at checkpoints - these are all instruments in the ruthless, relentless effort to break the Palestinians emotionally as well as physically. And the waging of cultural warfare is being conducted in similar brutal style. Netanyahu fronts the aggression, Lieberman directs the bills, Rosenfeld signs the police orders, Regev spins the lies. It's a model of racist, apartheid organisation.

This latest assault on artistic and cultural expression comes alongside the Edinburgh International Film Festival's decision to return money given by the Israeli state towards the travel expenses of Israeli director Shalom Ezer. The IEFF action is another encouraging sign of international awareness and rejection of Israel's military, political and cultural crimes.

Ezer, who has campaigned for Palestinian rights, insists that boycotting Israel will only fuel its sense of persecution, isolation and inward belligerence. Yet, this rearguard argument holds little validity any more in the face of such brutal killing, expansion and indifference to Palestinian suffering. We are now well beyond the point of appeasing the aggressors and appealing to Israeli 'liberal sensibilities'. It's time to take an unequivocal side, to face down the oppressor with whatever peaceful, practical means available. And that should include artists like Shalom Ezer refusing to accept aid from the Israeli state. As director Ken Loach made explicit in relation to the Ezer expenses issue:

"To be crystal clear: as a film maker you will receive a warm welcome in Edinburgh. You are not censored or rejected. The opposition was to the Festival’s taking money from the Israeli state. The call for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions comes from many Palestinians: writers, artists, journalists, lawyers, academics, trades unionists, teachers. They see it as “a contribution to the struggle to end Israel ’s occupation, colonisation and system of apartheid.” Who are we, that we should not heed their call? Your counter arguments were used against the South African boycott yet that proved eventually to be successful."

Disgracefully, a Times piece by Stuart Macdonald also reproached Ken Loach for "reignit[ing] the funding row", while taking his words out of context and failing to publish the letter exchange in full.

Israel has the power to bomb, maim, terrorise and impose its brutal will on the Palestinian people. It can defy international criticism and ignore war crimes investigations. It can feign regional insecurity and threaten its neighbours with nuclear annihilation. It can refuse to countenance the basics of a two state solution. It can even snub Obama and openly declare its intention to expand the settlements.

Yet none of this military prowess and arrogant defiance can subvert the higher, persistent case for Palestinian human and legal rights. In time, humanity and legality will prevail.

The crude efforts to supplant cultural dissent and legislate 'Zionist citizenship' are the surest signs to date that Israel is sliding towards a crisis of international legitimacy. And sooner or later this unavoidable truth will present itself to a cowed, deceived and self-denying Israeli public. The prospects seem distant, but, politically isolated and morally shunned, they may yet conclude that the 'protection' of an exclusivist Zionist state predicated on militarism and apartheid is no substitute for a purposeful democracy guaranteeing free expression of civil, political and cultural rights for all.

Therein lies the enduring case for a one state solution.

John

Ban the BNP

2009-05-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

The ongoing expenses scandal and approaching European elections has seen the mainstream parties in a state of apparent panic over the 'dividend' it might gift the British National Party. Much debate and proclamation has ensued as to how we collectively resist their racist advances. MPs are ever-ready with condemnations and warnings. Yet, few of the parliamentary class are willing to countenance the most appropriate measure available: electoral exclusion. Unpalatable as it might seem, the response of any civilised, humanitarian and reasonably-functioning democracy would be to ban the BNP from standing for public office.

On what grounds? Specifically, their core racist beliefs. In what way might this be done? Through the existing legislation on incitement to racial hatred.

A small illustration of how this should be pursued as a legal imperative. The BNP have been trying to build and sustain their presence this past year on Glasgow's city centre streets and have been met by a collective blocking strategy involving a variety of leftist and humanitarian groups. In effect, we surround them, explaining to passers-by that people or groups peddling hatred of others have no legitimate place on the streets.

On one occasion, a man stopped to ask them about their policy on jobs (this was during the recent power station strikes over foreign labour). The BNP person stated that it was about "British jobs for British people", proceeding to explain that he meant 'indigenous' - namely, white - people. The police were standing alongside monitoring and listening. After the man left, I courteously addressed the officers, ensuring the BNP could hear, posing this question: the BNP are saying they want a white-only, 'indigenous' workforce. That clearly means they don't want Asians or any other non-white people in the police force. They are, in effect, arguing openly for a discriminatory and illegal set of working practices. Isn't that incitement to racial hatred?

At this point, one of the officers came over and told me to be quiet and "not draw us into this." Later, another officer confided that he thought their message abhorrent, but could only do his job.

It made me reflect on the point and purpose of anti-incitement laws which still allows political parties and their members to vocalise hatred of other citizens.

BNP members are already proscribed from joining the police force, and are effectively blocked by unions from teaching in schools and other public sector areas. Why, then, should they be permitted to amplify that same message of hatred as a political party?

It's not rhetorical to say that we're on the fast-track towards an authoritarian, fascist state. Yet, the government and its parliamentary partners continue to give legal and political cover to the BNP, allowing it a mantle of respectability it shouldn't have as a party openly promoting hatred and discrimination.

Of course, we must persist in the fiction that we live in an 'open liberal democracy'. However, this is not, in essence, an issue of democracy and free speech. It's an issue of law, the interpretation of which should aim to prohibit those who advocate social apartheid, racial repatriation and selective hatred of minorities. The failure to enact the law in this way allows a public acceptance of hate-speak based not just on personalised prejudice but on an open manifesto of racial exclusivism.

Banning the BNP from public office would show that there's no acceptable place for that kind of fascistic politics in this country. It might also, in the process, help concentrate minds on the kind of totalitarian methods the state itself is using to monitor minorities and purge groups working to halt the erosion of civil liberties and protect citizens from racist hatemongering.

Which begs the darker question: what does this surveillance-obsessed government fear most, the growth of far-right politics or the threat of real freedom of speech and open democracy?

John

Israeli apartheid - legally defined

2009-05-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Zionist voices are ever eager to dismiss the term "apartheid" as just another rhetorical buzzword used to describe the Israeli state. So, aside from the moral arguments in defence of the Palestinians, it's important that the case against Israel be understood against internationally-recognised legal definitions of the term.

Here's an impressive study from the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa assessing Israel's use of apartheid-based laws and practices. As detailed, it bears close comparison with the range of judicial and state instruments deployed during the apartheid years in South Africa. The study also provides a legal definition and examination of Israel's "colonial" domination over Palestinian territory and people.

Israeli control in occupied territories 'is a breach of the prohibition of apartheid'

John

Politics, journalism and the trough

2009-05-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

The ongoing revelations and disgust over allowance abuse is part of the valid indictment of MPs, ministers and their cossetted lifestyles. But is it remotely proportional to the serious crimes and human abuse committed by our political leaders?

Stephen Fry talks of the"tedious bourgeois obsession" behind journalists exposing politicians' financial irregularities rather than the much more alarming issue of their roles in prosecuting wars in which people actually die. It's a moot point amid this legitimate shaming of the parliamentary class.

Many might fairly argue that, alongside Fred Goodwin and his fellow heisters, it's all symptomatic of the greed and grab culture. Which would be true. But, paradoxically, the public clamour to see Blears et al named and punished only further elevates monetary/expense abuse above war criminality.

Of course, we can deal with both - it's right to shine a harsh light on the elite claiming funds to have their moats cleared and their chandeliers hung while poor families in Shettleston struggle on meagre benefits. But isn't it disturbing that so much media attention and public outrage can be summoned over petty pilfering while people suffer and die through Western inflicted war without the merest media mention or public interest?

Fry also reminds his interviewer that there's no more "venal and disgusting" group than journalists when it comes to expense and allowance abuses. Again, this may be true. But, it's a pair of adjectives that he might have better reserved for their collective unwillingness to highlight politicians' war dissembling and the media's own complicit part in those crimes.

Parliament is in 'crisis disrepute' over expense abuse while that same parliament and its echo media endorse wars, occupations and mass murder all over the world. The Torygraph prints daily abuse lists and rails at losses to the public purse but has nothing to say on the staggering war economy and its corporate/political beneficiaries. Brown may fall over this 'scandal' rather than the fact that he bankrolled the slaughter in Iraq.

It's a depressing, yet convenient, irony that outrage over, rightly revealed, allowance abuse should serve to protect the system. It's all part of the reinforcing mechanisms of liberal capitalist democracy wherein 'penitent' politicians, sanctimonious media and an indignant public engage in these 'concerns about the system' and how to 'improve' it. A rather British form of thought control.

It's not just parliament and the trough that should concern us, it's the actual capitalist/warmongering pigshed and its 'remedial' message helping to keep us fed and fixated on parochial abuse while the true human corruption of war, occupation and genocide goes on quietly elsewhere.

John

Ban Ki-moon's excusing of Israel

2009-05-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has expressed his serious disappointment over UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's decision not to pursue a full scale investigation into Israel's criminal attacks on Gaza. His decision comes after the release of a UN Board of Inquiry report documenting Israel's multiple human rights violations.

However, commending the "serious and scrupulously argued report", Falk notes that, despite Ban Ki-moon's prevarications, a parallel UN Human Rights Council team led by Justice Richard Goldstone is already authorised to conduct this kind of full scale investigation. Indeed, it's fitting that Goldstone, a Jew with considerable judicial experience in assisting the transfer from apartheid in South Africa, is now tasked with considering the effects of such oppression in Palestine.

Falk also notes that the attacks carried out by Israel on UN facilities were a "relatively minor part of the onslaught on Gaza as a whole and the real centre of inquiry should be the violations of international humanitarian law in relation to the civilian population and the civilian infrastructure of Gaza". Falk believes that any such investigation will conclude that "very serious crimes of war have been committed".

This latest hand-wringing by the Secretary General come in the wake of Ban's diplomatic pandering to Israel over the recent attack on Gaza, and his condemnation of Iranian president Ahmadinejad in daring to call Israel a "racist state" - a valid citation made at a conference, one must remember, on racism. Jordan's former representative at the UN has also criticised the lack of empathy shown by Ban on his visist to Gaza and his decision to embargo 'sensitive' information in the UN report allegedly damaging to Israel.

In more tenacious mood, a Spanish judge has ruled that a group of Palestinian plaintiffs can proceed with their case against top Israeli officials over a 2002 attack in Gaza which killed 15 and injured 150.

It's an admirable position by key elements of the Spanish judiciary which has also seen favourable rulings in bringing top US figures to book for crimes of torture.

The growing catalogue of war crimes inquiries and lawsuits comes on top of gathering international calls for legally-backed sanctions to break Israel's apartheid system.

In citing the legal definitions of apartheid, Omar Barghouti delineates the specific case for internationally-effected boycott, divestment and sanctions:

The Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid of 1976 defines apartheid [37] as “similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa” which have “the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them, in particular by means such as segregation, expropriation of land, and denial of the right to leave and return to their country, the right to a nationality and the right to freedom of movement and residence” (Article II). The similarity to South Africa is cited not as a condition but in recognition of its status as a historic precedent.
As a recent in-depth strategic position paper [38] published by the Palestinian BDS National Committee states, Israel’s origins, laws and policies against the Palestinian people fit to a large extent the definition of apartheid. The conceptual origins of Israel's unique form of apartheid are found in Zionism, a racist European ideology that was adopted by the dominant stream of the Zionist movement (World Zionist Organization, Jewish Agency, Jewish National Fund, among others) in order to justify and recruit political support for its colonial project of establishing an exclusive Jewish state in historic Palestine. Political Zionists dismissed the indigenous population of Palestine as non-existent in the famous Zionist slogan of “a land without a people;” making this a self-fulfilling prophecy, Zionist forces forcibly displaced 750,000-900,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed hundreds of the depopulated Palestinian villages in an operation termed “cleaning the landscape” that lasted until 1960. [39]
Israel's regime over the Palestinian people amounts to apartheid precisely because it displays many of the main features of the crime as defined by international law:
1. Racial discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian people who became citizens of the State of Israel was formalized and institutionalized through the creation by law of a “Jewish nationality", which is distinct from Israeli citizenship. No “Israeli” nationality exists in Israel, and the Supreme Court has persistently refused to recognize one as it would end the system of Jewish supremacy in Israel. The 1950 Law of Return entitles all Jews -- and only Jews -- to the rights of nationals, namely the right to enter “Eretz Yisrael” (Israel and the OPT) and immediately enjoy full legal and political rights. “Jewish nationality” under the Law of Return is extraterritorial in contravention of international public law norms pertaining to nationality. It includes Jewish citizens of other countries, irrespective of whether they wish to be part of the collective of “Jewish nationals,” and excludes “non-Jews” (i.e., Palestinians) from nationality rights in Israel.
2. The 1952 Citizenship Law [40] has created a discriminatory two-tier legal system whereby Jews hold nationality and citizenship, while the remaining indigenous Palestinian citizens hold only citizenship. [41] Under Israeli law the status of Jewish nationality is accompanied with first-class rights and benefits which are not granted to Palestinian citizens.
3. The Israeli Status Law of 1952 authorizes the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency and its subsidiaries, including the Jewish National Fund, to control most of the land in Israel, for the exclusive benefit of Jews. In 1998, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CESCR, expressed [42] grave concern about this law and stated that large-scale and systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and property by the State and the transfer of that property to these agencies constitute an institutionalized form of discrimination, because these agencies by definition would deny the use of these properties to non-Jewish citizens of the State.
4. Return of Palestinian refugees and Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs), as required by international law, has been prevented by means of force and legislation on racist grounds. Simply because they are not Jews, Palestinian refugees were excluded from entitlement to citizenship in the State of Israel under the 1952 Citizenship Law. They were “denationalized” and turned into stateless refugees in violation of the law of state succession. Their land and other property were confiscated by the State. The approximately 150,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948 Nakba were placed under a military regime (1948 – 1966) similar to the regime currently in place in the OPT.
For decades, racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel in every vital aspect of life has been the norm. From land ownership to education to health to jobs to housing, the indigenous Palestinians have been denied equality by the State’s laws and policies. For instance, they are not allowed, to buy or rent land in about 93% of the state lands of Israel. [43] To this date, polls consistently show overwhelming majorities of Israeli Jews standing in opposition to full equality with the indigenous Palestinians in the state. [44] So the fact those Palestinians can vote, unlike their black African counterpart under South African apartheid, becomes almost a formality, a tokenism of sorts, clearly designed to project a deceptive image of democracy and fend off well-justified accusations of apartheid. [45]

Israel's rejection of the apartheid label is all too predictable, just as its death-denier in chief Mark Regev has dismissed the latest UN report as "biased". Regev, lest we forget, will go down in the darkest pages of war crimes history for asserting that it was Hamas, not Israel, which was responsible for the bombing of hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

On which note, Stephen Shalom's latest piece, The United States and Gaza, provides a highly useful set of reminders about the lies and distortions levelled at Hamas. He also updates us on the sober truth of Obama's failure, so far, to engage seriously with the long-offered Arab Peace Initiative.

However, Shalom also believes that the Obama incumbency now offers an expanded opportunity for realising justice for the Palestinians through the kind of emerging civil pressure noted.

Part of that process will have to include further exposure of Ban Ki-moon and his 'anguished' inaction over Palestine. Nominal 'investigations' into Israeli violations amount to little if not accompanied by the determined pursuit of Israel and its war criminal leaders.

John

BBC trumpets the last post from Iraq

2009-04-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

A buglar plays the last post as British forces leave Iraq. It's the "winding down", the "end of operations", the "hand[ing] over" according to the BBC. Memorials are offered for the lost British service men and women. But no note is made of the catastrophic loss of Iraqi lives. Nor, of course, in passing mention of the "invasion" is there the slightest reference to the war's illegality and the awkward, persistent truth that those same UK forces have been involved in mass crimes against humanity.

Welcome to the new phase of media war distortion: the 'duty done' reportage, the post-conflict 'reflection', the 'laments' and 'soul-searching' - or BBC version of it.

Alongside shamefully distorted casualty figures, the BBC have been running news specials on the 'honourable departure', with obsequious coverage of the ceremonial and 'our boys' sentiment. A flavour:

"Army chaplain Father Pascal Hanrahan, who opened the ceremony, said: "Today is about remembrance and thanksgiving.

Sergent Steve Denny and Rifelman Sameer Hassan talk about their time on duty, and getting ready to leave Basra."

The BBC narrative of 'noble retreat' continues in fawning depictions and quotes:

"The last post was sounded by a buglar and prayers were said. There was also a roar overhead as a lone Tornado aircraft conducted a fly-past in tribute.

Lt Col Edward Chamberlain, commanding officer of Iraq-based battalion 5 Rifles, said: "We've been slowly working, as part of a coalition together over the six years, to achieve an end-state which is an Iraq which is secure, happy, at peace with itself and its neighbours.

"We're slowly but surely transitioning towards that."

Mr Hutton said the UK should be proud of what its troops had achieved.

"It's been a long and hard campaign. There's been no question about that, and we've paid a very high price," he said.

"And the families of those who've lost loved ones here today will be thinking very hard about that - and we should all as well.

"But I think when the history is written of this campaign, they will say of the British military 'we did a superb job', as we would expect them to, and we should be very proud of what they have done here." "

The furthest extent of the BBC's 'critical' citation is the war-supporting David Cameron calling for a public inquiry. Nothing from Stop the War, or the Lancet and ORB studies, the latter of which estimates in excess of a million dead in Iraq. Nothing on the mass population of Iraqi refugees and staggering human displacement that's taken place these six murderous years. All inconvenient, extinguished issues for the BBC as they celebrate the 'sterling job' carried out in Basra.

But, as Mr Cameron says, "vital lessons" have been learned - and, as dutifully intoned by the BBC, we must all, as a nation, learn from those vital lessons.

Quite what lesson the student of history will take from this kind of service propaganda is another matter. Perhaps they will reflect on how earnest-sounding BBC reporters gushed in selective tones about the singular difficulties faced by 'our' armed forces, or, in true lessons learned, despair at the kind of journalistic malfeasance which talked of British military "strengths and weaknesses" rather than complicity and guilt.

A last post selection of embedded BBC deference:

"BBC News defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt says there is a sense of relief for many British servicemen and women that their final tour of Iraq is winding down.

Some are now serving on their fourth tour, taking them away from home for two years out of the last six.

Our correspondent says many of them will look back with mixed emotions.

Southern Iraq is more peaceful than it was a year ago but when British forces invaded Iraq as part of the US-led coalition in 2003 few people imagined troops would still be in the country six years later.

As British forces prepare to leave Iraq, senior commanders admit they have learned lessons from the campaign.

It was a conflict that showed the strengths and weaknesses of the British armed forces.

There were acts of great heroism but also a force that came under great strain, fighting on two fronts - in Iraq and Afghanistan."

UK military and BBC duty done. Salute the troops and the correspondents. Another lesson learned in establishment whitewash and media complicity.

John

STUC adopt BDS against Israel

2009-04-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Excellent news from the Scottish Trade Union Congress in Perth where the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel has been formally adopted.

This is a tremendous boost for the BDS movement, paving the way for a UK-wide declaration of trade union solidarity with Palestine.

Following an STUC visist and report on the case for BDS, alongside consultation with other interested parties, the General Council recommended to Congress a position of:

supporting boycotts and disinvestment against lsrael,

calling for sanctions against lsrael,

encouraging positive investments in the occupied territories.

The General Council is recommending this action because of lsrael's attacks on the human rights of Palestinian people, and its failure to comply with agreed international law. The STUC strongly supports a peaceful two state solution in Palestine and lsrael. lt is deeply disappointed at the failure of negotiation and diplomacy to achieve the two state solution to date. By taking the position of supporting boycott and disinvestments and by calling for sanctions, the STUC hopes to bring economic, political and social pressure on the government of lsrael and the world's powers, to reach a peaceful solution through dialogue. The STUC also intends to draw greater attention to the fact that international human rights laws are being violated by lsrael.

The STUC now join fellow trade union bodies in South Africa and Ireland in endorsing BDS. The almost unanimous support for the motion came despite significant fearmongering from Zionist lobbyists to Congress.

Scottish trade unionists will now concentrate on ways of effecting a boycott campaign in workplaces, promoting divestment in companies engaged in the Occupation and encouraging governmental-based sanctions against Israel. The decision also gives considerable impetus to the extension of cultural and sporting isolation of Israel.

This key development shows quite clearly how change is realised through persistent on-the-ground campaigning. It also illustrates the multi-fronted ways in which we can challenge power. As with the momentum against apartheid South Africa, the STUC's pledge in support of the Palestinian people signifies the gathering international pressure now being brought to bear on Israel.

And this feeling is being directed not just at Israel's political elite. To employ the Gramscian term, the Israeli 'historical bloc' - that is, not just its government, but its entire founding system and Zionist ideology - is now in a phase of hegemonic crisis. It has, in effect, no moral legitimacy, surviving instead through coercion, belligerence and the military fist.

The contradictory notion of a 'Jewish democratic state' built on the apartheid persecution of an occupied people has become critically apparent to reasonable people all around the world - even, in subdued tones, to many of Israel's nominal Western supporters.

The diplomatic cartel can walk out of the UN at the mention of Israel's racist and oppressive practices. But this standard defence of 'plucky little Israel' is looking increasingly thin against the violent murder of Gaza and international calls for war crimes investigations.

The decision by Scotland's trade unions and workers comes as part of that reactive wave of global humanity. While Brown, Miliband and other Labour Friends of Israel continue to defend the indefensible, workers and civil organisations are mobilising to defend the undefended.

John

STUC statement (24 April 2009):

Scottish Trade Unions Call for Boycott of Israel

24th April 2009
The Scottish Trades Union Congress this week backed boycotts and disinvestment, and called for sanctions against the state of Israel because of the state’s failure to comply with international laws and agreed principles of human rights.

Following extensive debate and deliberation, the Scottish trade unions have endorsed a report recommending the STUC support a boycott and disinvest from Israeli companies, call for sanctions against Israel, and encourage positive investments in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Speaking after the debate at the Congress, STUC General Secretary, Grahame Smith, said: “The STUC is deeply concerned at the daily violations of human rights experienced by Palestinian people. The decision taken by our Congress is not a knee jerk reaction, but arrived at after careful consideration over a two year period. During this time the STUC engaged in discussions with interested groups in Scotland and the UK, and undertook a fact finding delegation to Israel and Palestine”.

Mr Smith added “by taking this decision, the STUC intends to campaign for economic, political and social pressure to be brought upon the Israeli Government, and world powers, to reach a peaceful and just two state solution for Palestine and Israel”.

STUC report calls for BDS

2009-04-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Following their recent visit to Palestine, an STUC delegates' report has recommended the case for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

The report will now go before the STUC's upcoming conference in Perth (20 - 22 April 2009). If carried, it will be a landmark moment for the BDS movement.

The visit came on the instruction of a previous General Council decision to investigate the case for BDS:

"At STUC Congress 2007 a resolution was carried which called on the General Council to explore the merits of the calls for boycott, disinvestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel until it complies with international law and agreed human rights principles. In September 2007 the General Council agreed a process for considering the BDS calls. A crucial part of this process was to visit the region and discuss BDS directly with trade unions from Israel and Palestine. A delegation of eleven trade unionists from the STUC visited Israel and Palestine in Spring 2009."

During their visits to Nablus and Ramallah to meet Palestinian trade unionists, the delegates heard clear and unequivocal support for an international BDS campaign to help break Israel's oppressive occupation. A meeting with Palestinian women trade unionists reiterated the call, alongside the plea for a boycott of Israeli universities.

As stated in the report's conclusions, the situation is so bad for Palestinians that BDS could not substantially add to the sufferng they already endure.

Also included in the conference order of business is a call to terminate official relations with the Israeli trade union body Histadrut.

Lamentably, during the delegates visit, Histadrut officials failed to condemn Israel's recent assault on Gaza or denounce the Occupation. Beyond basic claims of support for a two state solution, Histadrut's statements to the delegates amounted to clear support for Israel.

Reading the report, it's abundantly clear that Histadrut's stated 'concerns' over BDS were motivated by the adverse impact it would have on the Israeli economy rather than any solidarity with Palestinian workers or adverse relations with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions.

Despite Histadrut's claims to the delegates that it wishes to work closer with the PGFTU , it continues to operate as an exclusivist union and supportive organisation to Israel's apartheid policies. One damning example of such complicity, as noted in the STUC report, is the location of two Histadrut offices in the West Bank settlements.

Across the West Bank and Gaza, trade unionists, human rights groups and other civic organisations have all expressed their strong wish for BDS. Let's trust that those able to effect that wish do so in a spirit of moral intent and practical solidarity.

John

Bowen's censure

2009-04-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

The BBC Trust has charged BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen with violating the BBC's codes of impartiality.

"Bowen was censured for a piece which he wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline "Six days that changed the Middle East", attempting to give context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by analysing the events of the 1967 Six Day War. The Middle East editor referred to "Zionism's innate instinct to push out the frontier". He wrote that Israel showed a "defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own" and that its generals felt that they were dealing with "unfinished business", left over from the 1948 War of Independence."

It's another landmark example of the BBC's institutional bias and the Trust bowing to the usual Zionist forces.

The BBC's own reporting of the censure comes with all the standard denials of BBC bias, including this remarkable spin:

"The BBC also stated that an independent inquiry in 2006 had found little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias in BBC reporting of Israel and the Palestinians and that there was evidence of a commitment to be fair, accurate and impartial."

This, of course, belies the actual findings of the inquiry's quantitative report (by Loughborough University, 2006) which recorded multiple instances of BBC disparities in favour of Israel.

So far, we've seen little critical reaction from Bowen himself. The Israeli lobby regard him as an irritation - like Orla Guerin, whom they managed to remove - one of the more 'troublesome' BBC journalists. Yet, it's worth rewinding to the recent massacre of Gaza, during which Bowen made numerous comments defending the BBC's rigid 'impartiality' and 'objectivity'. As an insightful Media Lens piece on Bowen and the myth of BBC even-handedness shows, those comments reflect the kind of ultimate toe-the-line conformity of even the 'braver' BBC journalist.

This is the real test for 'serious journalists' like Bowen. Are they prepared to criticise the institutional hand that feeds? Does his proclaimed commitment to 'impartiality' preclude him from criticising the Trust's own obvious partiality?

The default line from some BBC staff in response to Bowen's censure is that the Trust 'has it in for us'. So comments a 'senior BBC journalist' for the Independent:

"There's no love lost between staff and the BBC Trust – we see them as a hostile body and they seem to be in competition with [broadcasting regulator] Ofcom to see who can kick us the hardest," said a senior BBC journalist.
"The trust is in a position where it has to be seen to be critical and tough because of the dual regulatory system we have been saddled with, which doesn't work. It doesn't waste any opportunities to kick us if it can do."

If only such senior journalists were as observant of the BBC's persistent biases, establishment contortions and their own delusions of journalistic grandeur.

If so, they might risk some critical investigation of the push and purge agenda of CAMERA and the Zionist lobby who brought this formal complaint to the BBC Trust.

Aside from the lobby's power and the BBC's/Trust's succumbing to it, this judgement explodes the respectable notion that any kind of reporting can be objective and impartial. In the power-serving world of corporate and establishment media, a journalist writes what his or her employers broadly expect of them. The journalist's own judgement of what is permissible is based on a conditioned understanding of, and unstated adherence to, the subjective codes and leanings of the employing organisation itself - in this case, the BBC.

In faithful defence of such, the Trust's judgement in upholding this complaint from CAMERA and its Zionist accomplice is a subjective conclusion influenced by its own conservative views, which includes open, partial support and deference towards Israel.

None of this, of course, will be up for discussion by the BBC - or Jeremy Bowen.

John

Love, artfully

2009-04-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

I've been greatly touched, once again, by a profound little Cogitation piece from one of the Media Lens editors. In The Art of Seduction and the Art of Loving, David Edwards invites us to think about the contrasting motivations behind self-interested love and love activated by a more wholesome concern for another person's happiness.

While one is an essentially contrived and often doomed love built around the psychology of domination and gain, the other grows as true individual care and mutual consideration between partners and friends.

Power, in its manipulative and controlling seductions, can be as much a part of personal relationships as political and economic ones. And, as Edwards shows, it's not hard to see how the acquisitive, competitive culture of market life conditions and encourages us to see private relationships in similar mercenary ways.

We may already consider ourselves giving, loving people. But it's worth just stopping to think about how much of that desire to love and be loved is premised on self-indulgent emotions rather than a spirit of true regard for our friend's or partner's happiness.

As Edwards caringly puts it:

"It is easy to understand how there can be no more stable foundation for friendship than the shared awareness that both individuals are strongly committed to the happiness of the other. What room is there for jealousy, anger and resentment when we know that our friend or partner is deeply committed to making us happy? When we know he or she values our welfare as much as, perhaps even more than, his or her own happiness? Who inspires greater confidence in us than the person who truly believes that they gain more from kindness than from greedy self-indulgence?

As with so much that matters in human life, the issue revolves around where we locate the true source of happiness. Our answer cannot be faked: if we believe that self-interest delivers, that everything else is naïve wishful thinking, then that will certainly be reflected in our behaviour.

If this is what we believe, then we should attend more closely to how we actually feel when we prioritise ourselves over others. How do we feel when we win and others pay the price? How do others feel and react to us? And how do we feel in the moments when, in giving, we make someone else happy? How does this warmth, tenderness and joy compare to the chilly, diminishing return of self-interested pleasure-seeking?"

It's also a paradigm thought for our times. Imagine, if you can, a society, polity and economy, local and global, which tried to cultivate relationships around the truly compassionate well-being of others rather than hoarded gratification.

Imagine, for example, the West thinking in this way about Africa and granting fair trade rather than dispensing Children in Need aid. Or Israel self-examining its desire to own and control 'its' beloved Holy Land to the suffering detriment of occupied Palestinians. Or the energy-guzzling consumer on the road to carbon oblivion undergoing a Damascene conversion about how to love, cherish and preserve the planet.

To be absorbed in 'fulfilling' our life desires is often to negate our true potential for loving generosity; our capacity to seek and practice a higher kind of love. It's a love that could enrich every aspect of our lives, from the intimate people we already love to the ways in which we redirect the global economy from its greed-driven crisis.

Higher love of partners, friends and the world: I think I need to practice a little harder and aim a little higher.

John

Najib handover can't stem BN crisis

2009-04-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

The expedient handover of power from Abdullah Badawi to Najib Razak does not appear to be holding the tide of electoral and civil dissent in Malaysia. Nor is their much faith in Najib's 'reformist' promises to review the hated Internal Security Act or release a few ISA detainees. Likewise, his removal of punitive suspensions on opposition party media outlets has been seen as a placatory gesture intended, once again, to demonstrate the Barisan Nasional's (BN's) 'new democratic engagement'.

As this excellent post-by election analysis from Anil Netto shows, the old lines of communal voting and racial-party affiliation are continuing to dissolve, with disastrous implications for the long-ruling BN. The BN's recently attempted 'power grab' in Perak has also badly backfired, with the by-election victory there sending yet another opposition candidate to the federal parliament.

As stated before, a large part of this new electoral awareness and mobilisation lies in Malaysians' growing access to, and engagement of, alternative media, notably sites like Anil's blog journalism, carrying up-to-the-minute reports and analysis, all - unlike the mainstream Malaysian media's accounts of Najib's appointments - unhindered by suffocating political and editorial constraints.

Anil and his activist peers are helping to build a new radical template for how an open, challenging and self-critical Malaysian media could look after the BN's coming fall from power.

John

GPHRC at the Scottish Parliament

2009-04-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign have just spent a very productive week at the Scottish Parliament holding an exhibition and lobbying for increased action on behalf of the Palestinian people.

We were most pleased to have a wide range of MSPs, parliamentary staff (of all levels) and members of the public (many on tours) stop to express their approval and support.

Part of those exchanges involved promoting a very impressive and critical motion initiated by Sandra White MSP (Scottish National Party), complete with a range of parliamentary backers.

S3M-3760 Sandra White: Israeli War Crimes Confirmed—That the Parliament condemns in the strongest possible terms what has come to light from the admission by Israeli troops in testimonies made to Danny Zamir, head of the Rabin pre-military academy, that civilians were deliberately targeted during Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza, including accounts of an unarmed old woman being shot, a woman and her two children being killed after Israeli soldiers ordered them from their house and into the line of fire of a sniper and soldiers clearing houses by shooting anyone whom they came across; expresses serious concern that many soldiers believed that they were fighting a religious war given the fact that booklets distributed by military rabbis had given the clear message that "we are the Jewish people, we have come to the land by miraculous means, and now we have to fight to remove the Gentiles who are getting in our way and preventing us from occupying the Holy Land"; believes that this amounts to the admission that the Israeli state is operating a programme of ethnic cleansing, and calls on the international community to initiate proceedings to bring those responsible for these atrocities to justice and for international sanctions to be placed on Israel.

Supported by: Rob Gibson, Bill Wilson, Bob Doris, Anne McLaughlin, Jamie Hepburn, Gil Paterson

It was also very heartening to have First Minister Alex Salmond come over and express his outright support for the Palestinian cause and be pictured holding a copy of the motion.

Our hope is for a development of proactive support for the Palestinian case. Much of this is already explicit in the work of the parliamentary Cross Party Group on Palestine - as illustrated by the recent visit of cross-party members to Gaza. We urged in our discussions with various members of all parties the need to keep a committed and united front in finding ways of pressurising Israel over its continued occupation, aggression and apartheid policies.

Although subject to reserved Westminster powers, we suggested that part of this strategy might include more critical examination of Israel's trading practices within Scotland, in the context of Israel's favoured EU trade arrangements. While the parliament has no (for the present) authoritative powers or inclination to back the boycott, divestment sanctions (BDS) agenda, we'd like to see the authenticity of that gathering international strategy promoted by individual members and their parties.

We also talked of ways in which Scotland could forge closer political and cultural ties with Palestine as a way of expressing our particular support as a country. The analogy of Scottish solidarity during the dark days of apartheid South Africa comes to mind.

Awareness over the six decades occupation, Israel's ethnic cleansing and the resilient suffering of the Palestinian people is gathering impressive momentum. As a campaign, GPHRC are very aware of the emerging sympathy on the streets for the Palestinian people. Raising the issue of their plight, and Britain's own dirty arms-producing and political role in it, can, and should, be something that's within the scope of a 'parliament of the people'.

John

BBC: six facets of bias - more distortion

2009-04-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a useful illustration of what passes for 'objective' BBC understanding of Hamas and the 2007 'coup against Fatah'.

"By overthrowing these forces, Mr Haniya and the Hamas militia effectively overthrew the democratically elected government".

It came from a senior BBC Complaints Advisor in response to my previous letter setting out six facets of bias in reporting Israel's recent mass assault on Gaza.

John

The Age of Stupid

2009-03-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

I saw The Age of Stupid last night, a crafted, nuanced and engaging 'reflective' on the insanity of mass carbon indulgence, corporate greed, geopolitical warmongering, resource plunder, consumer gratification and all the media-fed eco indifference that's ticking us towards imminent planetary abyss.

All the vital statistics, projections and fearful implications on climate change are here for the viewer. Yet, avoiding preaching tones or heavy scientific jargon, The Age of Stupid plays, more consciously, as a soft-spoken lament for the species: how could we have been so unthinking, so cravenly careless, having all the information before us?

As the excellent Pete Postlethwaite character calls-up pre-2055 computer-held footage from his towering earth repository in the melted Arctic (a neat narrative device), we're asked to think about why public awareness and concern was alarmingly out of step with the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming.

The answers are cleverly illustrated by Director Franny Armstrong through use of arrestingly simple animations indicting capitalist imperialism and rampant consumerism, alongside media clips of the ersatz debates and political pretensions around 'green awareness', circa 2007 - cue, for example, shots of David Cameron in the garden wearing recycled shoes.

Moreover, the real issues and immediate challenges to action are convincingly stated. There's the gross imbalance in carbon use between a voraciously selfish US and a struggling, starving Africa, the insatiable Western product and resource cycle feeding China's economic growth and the indisputable case for international and individual carbon rationing.

And yet, the intelligent heart of this film is the unthinking and often contradictory actions we all engage in day-to-day.

There's the Indian entrepreneur (with a business ruthlessness to match Ryanair's Michael O'Leary) about to launch the latest low-cost airline with the apparent belief that lifting the Indian masses out of trains and into the skies will generate wealth and also lift them out of poverty. From a wealthy mogul family, he decided upon this venture while flying his private jet to help out in stricken villages -apparently without considering the real reasons for their plight or the primary damage mass aviation is doing to the planet.

There's the "resource curse" of oil in the Niger Delta, which has seen people become even more immiserated as Shell continue to plunder and pollute with impunity. While Shell's promised clinics and other local welfare projects remain unbuilt or abandoned, the residual gas that could be harnessed for local use is, instead, blasted into the sky causing massive atmospheric damage. People have to wash the depleting fish they catch in Omo powder to remove the petrochemical pollutants. The exploitation and squalor has, optimistically, prompted the featured Nigerian girl living among this deprivation to become a medical student.

In Louisiana, there's the heroic paleontologist who rescued over one hundred of his New Orleans neighbours from the flooded ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Yet, in his 'other' life, he's been a lifelong worker for one of the big oil companies off the New Orleans coast scouring the sea beds to feed the unremitting demands of US consumers.

In the French Alps, there's the wise and knowing old mountain guide who has witnessed the steady melting of the Alpine glaciers, while the Mont Blanc tunnel was allowed to blast its way through a pristine idyll, permitting the increased trucking of goods back and forth for processing. As he sagely reflects: "We created this problem. Always progress, progress, progress. Always demanding more and more from the planet."

There's the English family, returned to Cornwall from his Alps tour, trying to live the sustainable life. The father, a renewables advocate is struggling to convince rural objectors to a proposed wind farm that they should act upon their proclaimed 'environmental views' rather than block a project that affects their own 'aesthetic views'.

And then there's the poignant story of the little Iraqi brother and sister, living as traumatised refugees in Jordan, selling second-hand shoes on the streets, after fleeing Baghdad, their father killed by the Americans, all in the 'cause' of 'liberating' the oil.

Just part of the human debris and broken lives that come about through the political-corporate theft of resources and indifferent destruction of the planet.

Facile liberal dismissals of the film include offence at people being called "stupid" - even though the title denotes an "Age" of stupid - while another slates it as "hecture". Nothing could be further from the truth.

It's a pity, though, that Armstrong didn't make a little room for the hypocrisies of the Guardian and other 'green vanguard' media. George Monbiot's caveat commentary on the need for mass street action could also have mentioned the amount of carbon advertising the Guardian and Independent carry and refuse to give up.

In that vein, the credits at the end provide an honest breakdown of the film's own carbon footprint. There's also the impressive achievement of having "crowd-funded" the production from green-aware individuals and groups, a kind of co-operative alternative to the big production process, leaving all the rights in their hands.

Will they be showing The Age of Stupid in 2055 as part of a celebratory retrospective of climate alerts, or will it be stored up, forgotten, in something like Postlethwaite's earth repository?

As the film reminds the audience, that's ultimately up to us.

Go watch.

John

Compassionate action: boycotting Israel

2009-03-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

What's the point of detached compassion? That is, the kind of compassion which feels sorry or bad about others' suffering, but doesn't act upon those concerns. Of course, we can't always intervene on every human injustice across the planet. But sometimes it's worth stopping just to think about the small practical things we can do, the little changes in habits that can make a cumulative difference.

Quite often, it's very easy. In the case of Israel, it involves looking at the origin of products like a pepper or a bunch of flowers and deciding not to put them in your shopping basket. It can be a quiet act of individual solidarity or a collective consumer response, as in the admirable action inside a French supermarket.

Recent research has shed further light on the close trading ties between major UK supermarkets/retailers and Israeli companies serving to sustain the illegal West Bank settlements:

"Business activities in the settlements and their associated industrial zones are very important for their economic viability. Agricultural companies producing fruit, vegetables and flowers dominate, but industries producing food products, plastic products, metal products, chemicals, cosmetics and many other products are also relevant for the economy of the settlements and thus are an important factor in their continued existence. Accordingly, these economic links sustain a continuing violation of international law, which has grave consequences for the enjoyment of human rights by the local non-settler population."

Moral arguments against rejecting Israeli goods don't stand up to any humanitarian scrutiny. Naomi Klein recently responded to one such claim that it's a "one-sided boycott" with the reminder that:

"there is already a fierce campaign of boycotts and sanctions under way, and it is completely one-sided. I am referring, of course, to Israel’s brutal eighteen-month siege of Gaza, launched to teach Gazans a lesson for voting for Hamas in US-backed elections. As a direct result of this siege, Gazans have been deprived of lifesaving medicines, cooking fuel and paper—not to mention food. This is far more than a mere boycott; it’s “collective punishment,” as described by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, the kind of legal boycott being called for by the BDS campaign would deprive Tel Aviv of some international concerts and, if it really got going, would cost Israel some foreign investment. It would not starve and sicken an entire people. In this context of actual one-sided punishment inflicted on Palestinians, sanctioned by the so-called civilized world, to complain of one-sided boycotts against Israel is, frankly, obscene."

Alongside this one-sided strangulation of Gaza, accompanied by an unremitting campaign of mass murder, it's also worth bearing in mind the illegal appropriation of Gaza's offshore gas fields, and how securing them was an important factor in the recent Operation Cast Lead against Gaza.

Ignoring the economic theft of Palestinian natural resources is just part of the special treatment reserved for 'plucky little Israel'. The US even has a special Antiboycott Compliance law which:

"prohibit[s] U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League, and certain Moslem countries".

It's the same preferential story with Israel's nuclear weapons, a menace ignored by the West, while Iran, a state without nuclear arms and, unlike Israel, a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty, is routinely demonised. The recent Media Lens Alert, Selective Vision: Iran, Israel and Nuclear Arms, makes the crucial point:

"One searches in vain for any corporate media analysis focusing on Israel's large stockpile of over 150 nuclear weapons. Where is the in-depth discussion that Israel might have a reason to divert attention from its own nuclear arms by cynically manipulating fears over Iran?"

From weapons of mass destruction to goods of settlement production, Israel's military and economic output is serving to maintain fear and misery for the Palestinians and the wider region. It may seem, in the face of this mass killing machine, somewhat futile to pass-up a pack of Israeli tomatoes or complain to a supermarket about their stocking of Israeli avocadoes. But that's just the kind of habit-forming action that, through time, was so decisive in helping to end South African Apartheid.

In this regard, the Boycott Israel Goods (BIG) campaign is urging a nationwide boycott of Tesco and Waitrose, 28th - 30th March. BIG note that:

"Waitrose and Tesco are the most intransigent British supermarkets on the issue of Israeli settlement goods and Israeli produce."

So, be a shopping dissident. It's an effectively simple way of showing solidarity with the suffering people of Palestine and intensifying the pressure on Israel and their Western protectors. It's also a useful way of showing a little defiance to the supermarket monolith that's taking over our lives.

To borrow one of their 'pithy' corporate sayings: "Every little helps".

John

Rosen's short-term victory over Freeman

2009-03-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Freeman affair continues to rumble on. But, as Robert Dreyfuss comments,* the seeming victory for Steve Rosen, AIPAC and the rest of the Israeli lobby in foreclosing his appointment may turn out to be pyrrhic.

Freeman's vocal backlash and the Washington press's front page coverage identifying an actual "Israel lobby" comes just as the governmental alliance between Netanyahu and Lieberman is formalised, bringing together a truly open racist coalition.

Dreyfuss sees this as a crucial joint moment for the Obama administration and the Lobby:

Perhaps most important of all, Israel is about to be run by an extremist, ultra right-wing government led by Likud Party leader Bibi Netanyahu, and including the even more extreme party of Avigdor Lieberman, as well as a host of radical-right religious parties. It’s an ugly coalition that is guaranteed to clash with the priorities of the Obama White House. As a result, the arrival of the Netanyahu-Lieberman government is also guaranteed to prove a crisis moment for the Israel lobby.

Rosen and his circle must, indeed, be running just a little scared these days. As previously noted, there's little indication of Obama rushing to Freeman's defence or facing-down people like Rosen. Yet, the adverse publicity generated by their squalid manoeuvrings, coupled with shifting public perceptions after the slaughter of Gaza, signifies a growing public relations crisis. The murderous actions of Israel and the extremism of the US Lobby have pushed both into the critical limelight.

Rosen's own statement of alarm over the proposed Freeman appointment illustrates the Lobby's determination to put naked Israeli interest before peace and justice for the region. It's worth quoting it and Freeman's cited words in full:

Readers of this blog know that I have been generally quite positive about the appointments the new Adminsitration is making for Middle East policy positions. Today's news is quite different. According to Laura Rozen at the Foreign Policy blog, Chas W. Freeman, Jr., the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will become chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and may at times participate in daily intelligence briefings to President Obama. This is a profoundly disturbing appointment, if the report is correct. Freeman is a strident critic of Israel, and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the state of Israel was born. His views of the region are what you would expect in the Saudi foreign ministry, with which he maintains an extremely close relationship, not the top CIA position for analytic products going to the President of the United States.

Here is a sample of his views on Israel, from his Remarks to the National Council on US-Arab Relations on September 12, 2005: "As long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected. Israeli occupation and settlement of Arab lands is inherently violent. ...And as long as such Israeli violence against Palestinians continues, it is utterly unrealistic to expect that Palestinians will stand down from violent resistance and retaliation against Israelis. Mr. Sharon is far from a stupid man; he understands this. So, when he sets the complete absence of Palestinian violence as a precondition for implementing the road map or any other negotiating process, he is deliberately setting a precondition he knows can never be met."
Here is another example from 2008: "We have reflexively supported the efforts of a series of right-wing Israeli governments to undo the Oslo accords and to pacify the Palestinians rather than make peace with them. ... The so-called "two-state solution" - is widely seen in the region as too late and too little. Too late, because so much land has been colonized by Israel that there is not enough left for a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel; too little, because what is on offer looks to Palestinians more like an Indian reservation than a country."

According to Foreign policy blog, Freeman has told associates that in the job, he will occasionally accompany Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair to give the president his daily intelligence briefing. His predecessor, Thomas Fingar, wore a second hat as deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

Rosen and his Zionist cohorts may be feeling pleased at preventing this "profoundly disturbing appointment". But Freeman's damning words can't be so easily dismissed. His description of what's actually on offer to the Palestinians - "more like an Indian reservation than a country" - also helps keep the spotlight on Obama's failure to tackle the central issue of Israeli aggression.

John

* Thanks to the excellent Pulse site for documenting this and multiple other facets of the Palestinian cause.