The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?
Occupation? Occupiers? Surely now these people enjoy the majesty of liberal democracy they could thank the US military as ‘liberators’, no? Seems odd they don’t see things that way…Guess that’s what happens after 6 years of death, terror and aggression.
This is probably only the end of the beginning for the people of Iraq, but life can only improve now the British forces are completely removed from the country and the US are mostly on their way (even though they’ll maintain strategic bases there for decades to come). This whole vile war will probably remain some footnote in the history of the west’s effort of ‘democracy promotion’, with the blame put squarely on the shoulders of a few fruitcake neoncons rather than our own citizenry, media and civil society (or lack thereof). Rather than learn the lessons of this brutal occupation, I’m afraid they’ll be repeated elsewhere.
Dear all,
I’m going to be a little lame in terms of posts this week. I’ve had a bit of a hectic time at the moment. I started working for the Green Party last week and have been given a 2 week project to get on with, while tomorrow (Thurs) is my birthday and day of university graduation rolled into one. So yeah, it’s a nice 6am start for me tomorrow so I make it up to Oxford in time for 9.30 (at the latest)! If you know what the M25 is, you’ll know that it’ll either be a straightforward 1 and a half hour journey, or a nightmare rush hour trip from hell!
Regular visitors will know I tend to pick out something I find interesting in news most days and take it apart (to what level of success is for you to decide). Recently, there have been a number of domestic and international news stories that wont budge from the headlines which I’ve either commented on before, or that I don’t feel wholly qualified to comment on. The most obvious example of the latter is the current ‘unrest’ (for want of a better term) in Iran. There are two things that come to mind whenever I watch/read about what’s going on over there. Firstly, I have seen no evidence regarding the veracity of the election result. The whole thing does indeed smell increasingly fishy though, and the fact that a recount isn’t being considered by the Ayatollah is probably a sign that there have been wholesale discrepancies in the vote. But again, I wouldn’t pretend to know the hard facts.
Secondly, it seems people have got so over excited about the entire affair, they’ve lost their critical faculties. I’ve had people ask me to change my Twitter time zone to Iranian time to help block the authorities from cracking down on protesters over there, as well as making my profile ‘green’ as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Firstly, I live in the UK, my Twitter time zone is remaining on UK time. Secondly, do these sudden experts in Iranian politics actually know anything about Mousavi? Of course not. If they did, they wouldn’t be throwing their hat in with him. He’s merely another section of the countries ruling class and was Prime Minister back in the 80s, overseeing the creation of Hizbollah and maintaining the general status quo. Not that I’m to judge that, but the bandwagon jumpers seem to think this his eventual coming to power will be the liberation of the Iranian people. It will not be so in my humble opinion. The general line amongst most people watching in the ‘west’ seems to be that what is taking place is a simple struggle between good and evil. Such a simple narrative makes for good tv ratings, but reality is obviously never that black and white.
What is true to say though is there are widespread protests seemingly due to people’s dissatisfaction (especially amongst the young) of the current system. Urban dwellers are the biggest supporters of Mousavi, and probably the ones with most to gain from his election. Ahmadinijad paints himself as a champion of the poor and anti-imperialist, which on first viewing I kind of accepted (inequality has come down slightly during his presidency), but he has overseen quite large scale privatisation and wages have stagnated over his term in office. He also oversaw a crackdown on socialist groups, trade unions, homosexuals and other ‘unmentionables’ of Iranian society.
I think the long and short of my argument here is that we shouldn’t support either candidate. Instead of getting behind another eastern European style ‘coloured revolution’ which would likely see an opening up of the country to neoliberal economic forces/trade liberalisation/privatisation et al while throwing a bone towards ‘democracy’ and limited social ‘reform’, we should probably be glad to see masses of people take to the streets against a hugely discriminatory and prejudice theocracy. Of course, if the rest of the Iranian people wish to see the continuation of such a system, then they should make their voice heard too (and seemingly have in a few instances). To me this all seems to be an Iranian version of Obama mania, but Mousavi is no Barack Obama, and the latter is not exactly the kind of leader to be feted anyway.
Hopefully something more progressive can come from all this, but it would be a shame if all the Iranian people are left with is a Mousavi led regime (of one kind or the other) which espouses democratic rhetoric, but maintains the most extreme neo-fascistic social values and allows neoliberal economic ‘reforms’ through the back door, merely allowing the richest sections of Iranian society (the business community mainly) to prosper. In my mind, no average Iranian has anything to gain from such a conclusion. That’s only the opinion of an outsider who doesn’t know the ins and outs of the entire affair, I don’t profess any greater understanding.
I also metaphorically salute the true bravery of young Iranians to face armed police in the streets. In general, such scenes are only witnessed in flourishing democracies such as the US and UK after major sporting events as people are generally too fat, lazy, ill-informed or distracted to make their disatisfaction (satisfaction with US gov institutions at 26% last September) known. Of course for Iranian protesters the stakes are higher than say, British protesters (who only rarely face death while protesting), which is why it’s all the more encouraging and astounding to watch.
I’ll be back in a couple of days.
“The economy and financial markets have stabilized in recent weeks, but Fed officials want more evidence a recovery is for real. The economy is on track to contract at about a 1% annual rate in the second quarter, according to forecasters Macroeconomic Advisers. That would be the fourth straight quarterly contraction, a stretch of decline that hasn’t occurred since the Great Depression.”
Wall Street Journal Europe 22/6/09
Hester: wants £10m bonus to be bothered to do his job
I’m sure the bankers and finance industry responsible for the economic collapse have learnt their lesson and are ready to accept a more responsible and well regulated market. Well, not in the case of the new RBS Chief Exec Stephen Hester, who, by vying for a £10 million incentive deal, is flipping UK taxpayers the metaphorical bird;
The size of the deal has also angered the RBS Shareholders Action Group.
I don’t know who is worse in this instance…the bankers who are happy to accept vast sums of money, while their workers and the general population suffer, or the government, which has barely leaned on the banks they own huge stakes in whatsoever. Think of what could be done with a national reconstruction bank, which could be a new arm of RBS. Instead of investing in fossil fuels and the usual corporate favourites, pump money into infrastructure, job creation and renewable energy sources.
This isn’t pie in the sky stuff. If people protested these things enough, or voted out the mainstream parties, rather than moan about the whole affair at home, or to pollsters, the country wouldn’t be in such shambolic state.
All values and cultures welcome in Europe, as long as they're ours
So apparently Muslim women in Europe are being forced to wear veils and are therefore so subjugated by their male counterparts, they require mainly old, white men to force them stop wearing the veil in public. In the latest case of this, the clearly feminist members of the French parliament have taken it upon themselves to fight for poor Muslim women throughout the country who, we are led to believe, are completely enslaved.
There are so many hypocrisies in this discussion, it’s barely worth pointing out. These people completely overlook the fact that many (especially younger) Muslim women choose to wear a headscarf or veil to reinforce the commitment to their faith and cultural backgrounds, don’t want to be sexually objectified (and the mental disorders that that has caused many young women) and related to by others on an intellectual level rather than sexually. It also seems that rather than asking these women their opinion on the matter, many French members of parliament are looking to implement an outright ban, as soon as possible, apparently for Muslim women’s own good.
Obviously Muslim women and their families are regarded as so backward, they cannot see the follies of their own action, and therefore need to be saved by the great and the good white (often catholic) males. I’m sure they also weep a tear and shout in indignation at the injustice of it all when they come across a Catholic nun wearing a headdress & clothing that covers their bodies as they walk down L’Avenue des Champs Elysees.
Salma Yaqoob, a Birmingham City councillor for the Respect Party makes some good points on the matter in a speech from 2004;
“Muslim women find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. We are caught between those who claim to protect us – the many Muslim men who act to restrict our movement and freedoms, and those who claim to liberate us – killing us with their bombs and allowing us no voice unless it mirrors exactly their own. The women of Afghanistan are an example of this…
We have to get past the simple caricatures of the passive victim or aggressive fundamentalist. We have to recognise that while the road to female emancipation in the West has taken the route of the right to not be covered in response to the rigid expectations placed on women historically in terms of dress and societal roles, many women may choose to liberate themselves in different ways, and just because the trajectory of their resistance to oppression is different, it does not make it any less legitimate or significant…
For many Muslim women wearing the Hijab marks a rejection of a world where women have to endure objectification as sex objects. It helps them to enjoy a sense of their own (special) privacy and personhood. For me, the wearing of the hijab denotes that as a woman I expect to be treated as an equal in terms of my intellect and personality and my appearance is relevant only to the degree that I want it to be, when I want it to be.
The French philosopher Alain Badiou, responding to the banning of hijab in French schools makes the point that the headscarf law is a pure capitalist law in that it orders femininity to be exposed. He suggests that by banning all reserve women are brought into the market paradigm and are forced to display their bodies as merchandise. He further asks the question: ‘Is it not even more mean and petty for a woman at school to act as a sandwich board for a corporation than as a follower of God?’
Indeed it is true that while the Western feminist movement campaigned over many years for the right of women to be uncovered in public this ‘right’ has quickly been appropriated by the forces of capitalism and consumerism. So much so that we are at a point in time where much unhappiness, depression, eating disorders etc are directly attributable to the pressures on women to be seen to be sexually attractive. Clearly such expectations and consequences are oppressive to women. Prevailing cultural norms mean that young girls are robbed of their childhood as their clothes reflect and emphasise female sexuality; and older women are made to feel irrelevant…”
Obviously France has its only republican values to uphold in terms of cultural identity and the separation of church and state, but this discussion takes place all over Europe where many people undoubtedly view themselves as holding a superior value system, than Muslims. It’s none of my business what Muslim women wear (or any other religious group), it doesn’t impact me personally, I don’t feel my female friends are enslaved by their choice of clothing when I speak to them and I’m not arrogant enough to claim to know what’s best for a entire section of the community. Let it go.
Tony Blair, not only complicit in torture, but guilty of torturing logic with his old arguments that we had to throw (what I’m guessing he would claim were old fashioned) values such as habeus corpus out the window in order to safeguard our ‘way of life’.
This article must be one of the most meaingless in the history of British journalism. 400+ words devoted to the deconstruction of Barack Obama swatting a fly [with video no less]. Adam Rutherford, step outside and take a deep breath…
“But observe the poise, the casual deployment of that famously immense brain to brush aside his irritating opponent. It’s almost metaphorical.”
Sorry to put it in such crude terms, but geez, what an asshole (Rutherford, not Obama).
P.S- I am aware that Rutherford is the one getting paid to write garbage like this, while I come off as a Larry David style misanthrope. I just felt I had to point out the latest inexplicable example of hero worship of the US pres to grace the British media. Perhaps one day Rutherford et al will scrutinise Obama’s actualy policies….I guess that’ll be a cold day in hell.
Geez, it feels like there’s some kind of nagging ‘fear’ cortex of my brain being aroused by this pronouncement…who else was it that did that so well?
My joint favourite blogger Dennis Perrin cuts through the usual ‘we’re surrounded by enemies in a dangerous world’ bullshit in this hilarious little video;
Banksy is back with an exhibition in Bristol (annoyingly). The exhibition feature the piece bellow, depicting members of parliament as a bunch of lazy Chimps. In light of the recent/current expenses scandal, surely this is being a bit harsh on monkeys?
And just as a bit of filler, some of my fav Bansky pieces;
Graffiti on the West Bank wall
In the wake of recent political events in the UK (most notably the political rise of far-right nationalism), I thought it would be interesting to look back at the events of Oct 4th 1936, which saw a battle against the rise of fascism in the heart of East London; The Battle of Cable Street.
“On Oct 4th 1936, over 250,000 ordinary east enders, took to the streets to fight their own war against fascism. The ensuing clashes became known as “The Battle of Cable Street”.
Europe was in the grip of Fascism. Both Germany and Italy were led by dictators and civil war had broken out in Spain, after a fascist uprising.
Britain had the British Union of Fascist (BUF) headed by the glamorous and charismatic Sir Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts.
The BUF had been terrorising Jews throughout the East End. On Oct 4th they planned to march through Stepney, an area with the largest Jewish population in England.
Despite petitions from local Jewish groups the Conservative government refused to ban the march.
The blackshirts assembled at Gardner’s Corner, a famous department store in Aldgate, known as the gateway to the east End.
Their way was blocked by thousands of demonstrators, made up of communists, Jews, dockers and labourers from the local community.
They flooded the narrow streets, making them impassable. They carried banners and chanted “They Shall Not Pass” a slogan adopted from the Spanish Republicans.”
A lone tram driver stopped his tram in the middle of a junction blocking the blackshirts way. The driver then got out and walked off.
Barricades had been erected in the side streets to stop the march getting past. Over 10,000 police officers had been drafted in and they mounted constant baton charges to try and clear the streets.
Four thousand officers on horseback joined the charges, as the anti-fascists fought back with chair legs, marbles and stones.
An East End blockade of the fascist march
In Cable Street a hasty barricade was erected, made of mattresses, furniture, planks of wood from a local builders yard and even a lorry.
Women in houses along the street contributed by hurling rotten vegetables, rubbish, bottles and the contents of chamber pots onto the police as they attempted to dismantle the barricade.
Finally, the police gave in and told Mosley to march back through the deserted City of London streets to The Embankment. There was jubilation and partying in the streets of the East End.
-From http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2006/10/03/cablestreet_battle_feature.shtml
If the BNP ever work up the guts to march through the streets and openly attack minorities (not simply assault and terrorise them away from the limelight, as many members have been convicted for over the years), ‘They shall not pass!’ must be our rallying cry, just as it was over 70 years ago.
For more info, check out;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/sep/30/thefarright.past
http://www.battleofcablestreet.co.uk/ (a panorama of a Cable Street mural commemorating the battle)
