nickleberry

Nob-ends in Bentleys

2012-01-24T20:54:00.003Z

Dear Blog,

Thank goodness you are here, always ready to absorb my deepest thoughts, profoundest emotions, VILEST RANTS. Indeed it is for the latter that I come to you today.

This evening I was riding my bicycle rather fast down Park Street - a busy and very steep street in the middle of Bristol - when a man in a Bentley overtook me. Already this was somewhat foolish as it was very busy, there is only one lane in each direction, and I was right in the middle of my lane and travelling in excess of the speed limit.

This man's foolishness was compounded by the fact that, after overtaking, he immediately slammed on his brakes for no apparent reason, resulting in me slamming on my brakes, skidding, and nearly kissing his rear bumper with my cherub lips. I'll admit that after my heart had stopped beating at 1000rpm, those same cherub lips did let loose some profanity. To quote the big bad bloke in Nil By Mouth: Cunt! Cunt! I'll stab you in the head!

(In actual fact I didn't quite reach such a level of profane invention, but the sentiments were similar.)

I do not know whether this man was deliberately being a fuckwit or if, rather, he was just oblivious to the needs of cyclists to keep their head a goodly distance from the road surface. On some level the distinction matters not a jot: he nearly killed me and it PISSED ME OFF.

Two hours later I am starting to simmer down. I am hoping that releasing my irritation into this blog will allow me a final cathartic release. Indeed, I feel better already: I am love and light, the man in the Bentley is an integral and vital part of the universe, and I breath goodness and peace in his general direction.

Shanti Shanti Shanti Oooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

No poppy for me

2011-11-11T21:19:00.004Z

Half the population are going around wearing poppies just now, and the other half seem to have them on their car. It's a fine thing that people want to show respect for the thousands and thousands of young men and women that have gone to their death in war... And it's also fine that we all collectively shut our mouths for a couple of minutes once a year and ponder the goddamn hellish misery that is war.

But I'm afraid I can't join in. I can do the silence alright, but the poppy thing just doesn't feel right. I don't doubt the genuine feeling of those around me wearing one, but it isn't for me.

I was listening to the radio a couple of evenings ago. Item 1: David Cameron and Prince William have appealed to FIFA to let England players wear a poppy on a black armband for tomorrow's friendly against Spain. FIFA have agreed. Item 2: A soldier has been killed in Afghanistan.

Does no one else see the connection? Am I the only person who listens to the radio feeling sick? I'd be feeling sick anyway at the thought of another poor (wo)man dying for no reason, but for this news to follow the previous nonsense.... (And, yes, it FOLLOWED it - the poppy thing was a BIGGER DEAL as far as the BBC were concerned.)

David Cameron wears a poppy, and lectures FIFA on the importance of it. But he's the **** who's sending these young people to their death. He has the power to bring them home and yet he carries on regardless. The whole poppy thing has become, to my mind, a grand charade. Establishment figures witter on at great length, in solemn sobre tones, about the ``great sacrifice" made, and ``ultimate price" paid, by these ``fine men and women". They died ``serving their country", and we are ``proud", and so on and so on.... Ordinary folk stand and listen and take it in, and are taken in.

These people, David Cameron, Prince William, whoever the hell else, are telling lies. There is no glory, no great sacrifice, no noble cause. Young people are dying in dirty ditches in far off places because the great and mighty of this country can't keep their stinking fingers off other people's treasures. These soldiers are not serving their country, they are serving mammon. They have been trained, and are paid, to use extreme violence so that the people who run this country can extend their power.

It was ever thus, and so, sickeningly, I guess it will ever be.

Wilfred Owen said all this much more beautifully and horribly 95 years ago: they lie to us, they whisper sweet nothings in our ears, but it is not sweet and meet to die for one's country...

Dulce et decorum est
Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

A propos de rien

2011-10-27T19:35:00.003Z

Yesterday evening I asked my three year old boy whether he wanted broccoli for his dinner. He replied with this pearl:

Before dinosaurs there were leopards in cars.

So now you know. And now, because I want to make your day, please listen to Sister Rosetta Tharpe:

Ernst & Young student brand representatives

2011-10-19T12:49:00.002Z

I work at a university. Today I got the following forwarded email in my inbox:

Dear ***,

Lovely to meet you before. As I said, I am the student brand
representative for Ernst and Young this year. I was wondering if there's
any chance you could forward this email to as many students as possible?
All years are invited and the event is Thursday. Your welcome to come
along yourself too!

Thanks very much, If you have any more questions please let me know.

Best wishes,

The student brand representative for Ernst and Young!!!! What is the world coming to?

London Catholic Worker action against Afghan war

2011-10-07T15:15:00.004Z

I joined the LCWs this morning for a blockade of Downing Street, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the start of war in Afghanistan.

A video and some photos are below; more from the London Catholic Workers can be found here..

Ten years of war

2011-10-05T19:56:00.006Z

There was a lot happening ten years ago. First came the hideous nightmare that was 9/11 then, a mere 26 days later, a second started... and it's still going on. This Friday we'll have been waging war in Afghanistan for an entire decade. The tragedy of it all beggars belief.

2996 people died as a result of the 911 attacks. This last month has seen plenty of reruns of that day, and the horror of it still confounds me.

There have been a deal less reruns in the lead-up to this Friday's anniversary. I guess the footage is a whole lot less spectacular, although the tragedy is worse, at least by the numbers. But people aren't getting excited about it: there's a numbness which has descended on the British population with regards to Afghanistan. We don't talk about it, we don't curse it, very few of us organise against it. Unlike the war on Iraq which was routinely pilloried and condemned, Afghanistan just keeps going and going and going, while we look away.

And yet it's a tragedy on the scale of Iraq, and with as little point. As I write there have been 2676 Coalition deaths through the duration of the American-led war (first called Operation Infinite Justice and now Operation Enduring Freedom), also including the NATO operation known as the International Security Assistance Force. What is more the trend is ever upwards - pretty much every year is worse than those that came before it, with 2010 the worst so far. Who knows how 2011 will end?

Calculating casualties on the Afghan side (civilian and military) is a whole lot harder of course. People who do counts on these things generally preface all their numbers with the caveat that they are probably underestimating. The main source of the figures that follow, Prof. Marc Herold, has described the figures he came up with as an absolute minimum and probably a vast underestimate.

And yet the numbers are still appalling: 6000-9000 civilians killed directly (violently) by the Coalition, roughly the same number killed directly by the other side. A further 3000 - 20000 (that's quite a range) dead as an indirect result of the conflict. By any measure this is a momentous tragedy. Now imagine scaling it up to account for all the dead that no one counted. And then add in the untold numbers of Afghans and others who died fighting the coalition invasion; we call them the bad guys but they still bleed red.

We should also note that the same upward trend applies to these figures too: every year is worse than the last. In 2010, for instance, some 2777 Afghan civilians were killed, a jump of 15% over the previous year.

And I haven't even mentioned the wounded.

The numbers are appalling, but they're still only numbers. Do they measure how bad a war has to get before we think we should end it? What's the maximum number of casualties that we can collectively stomach? How many mothers and fathers need to wake up screaming each morning before it's no longer OK to keep killing their children?

What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? What hell are we making there?

Troy Davis RIP

2011-09-22T10:07:00.001Z

In the earlier hours of this morning an innocent man was put to death in Georgia, USA. I feel sick.

Harsh Yogi II + Break dancing

2011-09-07T16:07:00.004Z

This post is just an excuse to embed a fooking brilliant break-dancing video: feel free to skip straight to the bottom to press play...

* * *

I've described my rather harsh yoga teacher before. It's gotten worse.

The last three yoga classes I've been half-way through my first sun salutation when he's come over, told me to stop what I'm doing and stand up, and then delivered his pearls of wisdom:

Class 1: "I don't know what you're doing, but it's not ashtanga."

Class 2: "You appear to have forgotten everything I taught you last time."

Class 3 (this was the best, we had a full conversation):
"That's not an upward dog."
"Oh, is it not?"
"We went through this last time."
"Sorry, I'm a bad student."
"Well, you don't come often enough and you keep falling back into bad habits. We'll just have to go back over what you learnt last time. It's frustrating for me, but there we go."
Silence. Slight snigger from myself.

* * *

OK, now for the main event. I watched the following video slack-jawed. These guys do moves in mid-air that I can only dream about doing on solid ground. I've no idea what the German commentary is all about but you hardly need it to get the point...

JB Lenoir

2011-08-28T18:42:00.005Z

I have recently discovered the utterly brilliant music of J. B. Lenoir. Let me make your day...

First up, here's Alabama Blues. A goddamn perfect song:

This next is a cover of Mississippi by Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid and some others (note, halfway through it segues into the original).

This last aint by J.B. It's what John Mayall did when he found out that J.B. had died after being injured in a car crash.

A riot of opinion

2011-08-14T10:55:00.005Z

There's nothing like a riot for getting folk all hot and bothered. Me included. Although it wasn't so much the riots that got to me, as the rash of opinion that followed. Here's David Cameron for instance:

...it is clear there are things that are badly wrong in our society. For me the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing I have spoken about for years: it is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society.
People are allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities...

I could feel my hackles rise with every polished syllable that fell from his cherub lips.

More absurd again was a piece I came across by Max Hastings, doyen of the Daily Mail, who called the looters "wild beasts" and likened them to the polar bear that killed the young man, Horatio, in Norway last week.

There have also been, of course, a host of other pieces that more closely reflect my own point of view. I liked those.

And then it struck me that this is exactly the point: the thing everyone agrees on is that the riots show that there is something wrong with society. And everyone has an opinion on what that is, and everyone feels that the riots entirely vindicate their opinion.

The key phrase for me is in the David Cameron quote above: the same thing I have spoken about for years. The riots present people with an opportunity to entrench themselves in long-held opinions and direct righteous outrage at those with whom they disagree. I include myself.

So, let me make a supreme effort, and boy does it pain me to do so... [Pause, wince, OK here we go]: although David Cameron fills me with revulsion, let me suggest that he does in fact have a point. That there are families in this country where the notion of responsibility is misunderstood, has gone missing even. And that we, collectively, need to think about how to respond to that.

These are not profound insights, in my opinion, and it does not become an incredibly privileged ex- public schoolboy to lecture the country on these matters. But let us set these issues aside for a moment and admit that there is a modicum of truth in there somewhere.

There are, of course, far deeper truths to be garnered by listening to other more perceptive social commentators; one might hope that Cameron and company will listen to those before they let their outrage carry them away (but, alas, I fear it is too late for that.) Still, even if Cameron won't do it, at least others can: let's try and listen to other people's opinions before we promote our own as the root of all truth...

(Maybe I'll draw the line at Max Hastings :-)

* * *

At the risk of undermining everything that I just said, let me make one comment about the connection between riots and the cuts.

There have been a lot of services cut in the name of balancing the budget. Perhaps the most regrettable was the ending of Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). The EMA scheme provided up to £30 a week to help low-income students stay on at sixth forms and colleges; it cost the govenment around £560 million pounds, and had been "proven to work by ever measure available".

Two points on this: First, imagine the difference that £30 a week makes to a 17 year old on some impoverished estate. Now imagine how you might feel if that £30 was taken away from you...

Second, consider the £500 million saving that has been made by scrapping the EMA. Now compare it to any of the big ticket items in the government budget: war in Afghanistan, war in Libya, trident nuclear weapons, bailing out banks, the olympics... In comparison to all of these, the EMA was an insignificant expense. (The olympics, for instance, is costing £9.5 billion, despite an original budget - when they sold it to the public - of £2.4 billion.) And then there's the fact that all of the big ticket items I mention above are at best (the olympics) window-dressing and at worst (all the others) entirely obscene. Whereas the EMA was a manifest force for good.

* * *

Finally, a laugh-or-cry moment. Bernie Ecclestone, owner of Formula 1 and QPR football club, was interviewed on 5 Live last week on the possibility of Premier League fixtures being delayed because of the riots. The interviewer asked him how the riots affected "the image of the country overseas". Bernie said they were "a disaster"!!!!

Bernie, you crack me up!! The jet setting play boy billionaire worries that a couple of days of rioting might adversely affect this country's image! What a patriot.

Modern parenting

2011-08-08T20:17:00.004Z

I read an interesting article by Alain de Botton recently (read it in full here). I found it intriguing because it contained the nub of some very important ideas but there was one crucial error (in my opinion).

de Botton considers the central question of parenting: how best to prepare your child for the world. His central insight was summed up beautifully by the final paragraph:

It seems we cannot spontaneously feel important enough to ourselves, sufficiently worthy of carrying our absurd figure through the tangles of life, unless at some point - at around the time when we were still interested in reading Enid Blyton - we were privileged enough to derive a sense of mattering limitlessly and inordinately to another person.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. My children do matter limitlessly to me, more than any one else ever has or, I dare say, ever shall; it seems vitally important that I manage to communicate this fact to them: to let them believe in the core of their being that their father's love is unconditional and will continue all my life.

How best, then, to communicate this to them? Here is where I believe de Botton was in error. He seems to equate mollycoddling with mattering. i.e. I must mollycoddle my children to show them that they matter to me.

Some of the examples he gave were patently reasonable: I should listen to my children, and take account of what they want in my decision-making. I should also listen to my children's questions and try and answer them with care and consideration. This is sound advice I think. It is also, I suspect, a relatively modern notion in Western parenting; one can't imagine the typical Victorian father (however loving) wasting a deal of time on his five year old's whimsy.

On the other hand, though, some of de Botton's examples seem to me absurd:

[One feels obliged] not to go to a bookshop for fear of boring one's charges or to drive them another few miles just in order to get them a special kind of strawberry milk their palates prefer.

Patent bollox! My children matter limitlessly to me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading. And I don't think the world should be arranged to suit their every caprice. This is one of the central dilemmas of parenting: I undoubtedly need to take care of myself and the world around me, even when that sometimes (apparently) conflicts with the immediate welfare of my children. I need to make choices, and those choices cannot always be to favour my child, for this will in the long run backfire. An entirely banal example: if I'm bored and irritable because I have no book to read, then my children aren't going to benefit. It's banal, but somehow that's the point...

Responsible parenting means doing the best for one's children in the context of everything else that is going on in the world. I hope that my children will understand that it is in part because they matter so much to me that I will not be driving another few miles for their strawberry milk: because I want them to understand the importance of restraint, and because the world in which they will live is slowly choking on car exhausts.

de Botton's motivations are splendid, and some of what he says is insightful. But we cannot get around the fact that there is no formula for parenting. Difficult decisions just have to be made...

Speaking the truth on Bhopal

2011-07-22T20:06:00.003Z

I'm currently reading Indra Sinha's Animal's People. It's tremendous.

The book is set in Bhopal, India after the disaster; a fact which I knew before I opened it and which had put me off starting: I'd imagined it would be a sanctimonious over-worthy book full of moral principles that I agree with, and devoid of artistic merit.

How wrong I was: Sinha manages to directly tackle the truly dreadful tragedy that is Bhopal post-disaster without loading his flatbed full of pious and moral indignation. Of course there's plenty of scope for moral indignation at how Bhopalis have been treated but moral indignation rarely makes for good literature, and it won't win too many new backers to the cause.

Instead Sinha mines a trove of truly spectacular vulgarity and crudity to produce a novel that is artistically stunning, morally accurate and, at times, hilarious. My favourite quote so far:

Zafar's lot never write what they really feel which is FUCK YOU WICKED CUNTS I HOPE YOU DIE PAINFULLY FOR THE HORRIBLE THINGS YOU DID TO US AND THE ARROGANT FUCKING CRUELTY YOU'VE DISPLAYED EVER SINCE. They write high-sounding shit like JUSTICE FOR [BHOPAL] and KAMPANI MEEET YOUR LIABILITIES but in a few places freer spirits have been at work: HANG [ANDERSON] and DEATH TO AMRIKA.

That's how to do it! Warran Anderson, you horrible man, read and weep.

* * *

I want to add a little word of approval for another recent read: Aldous Huxley's Island. As a novel it's not the finest - Huxley himself said it was too ideas-heavy - but the philosophising which weighs it down is also intriguing and inspiring.

Perhaps what is best about the book is the unashamed idealism with which it is filled. Who's idealistic these days? We're all so damned cool, the ultimate accessory a sigh of world-weary amused detachment.

The man Aldous is having none of it. He's dreaming of a world where Mahayana Buddhism informs the spiritual practices of a meditating, contemplative populace; where magic mushrooms expand the mind in rituals of spiritual exploration; where children are shared between multiple parents; where manual labour is a part of everybody's daily life; and so on and so on. It's a great vision and kudos to him for sharing it. I'm inspired.

My friend S

2011-07-06T20:30:00.003Z

A couple of weeks ago I got some bad news: a friend in Australia, S, has just died. Grieving from afar is a difficult process: on the one hand, nothing changes, day-to-day life is utterly as before; on the other hand, I have an ache, a little tender spot that flares up whenever a memory of her comes to my mind.

Writing about her is a way of processing this for me... and it allows me to pay tribute to a terrific, hilarious, and greatly loved friend.

I met her about 12 years ago when I went to live in the Western desert, near Wiluna, Western Australia. She lived in Wiluna and was a regular resident at the station where I lived on-and-off for two years. She was a Mardu woman - that's the tribe round there - and that's why I can't mention her name (or post a photo) as this would be a disrespect.

I got to know her through the medium of Emu Export. God, what a horrible beer. But it's the poison of choice in Wiluna and on the weekly trip to town we would wait patiently for the 2pm cut-off to arrive so we could buy a block of the stuff (30 cans) and head down to the creek for the afternoon.

I was, still am, a dreadful drinking lightweight so I would join these sessions only intermittently and would never last the full distance. But while I was there I was usually with S. Those afternoons were a weird mix of the companionable, the hilarious, the tragic, the unsettling, and (gradually overwhelming all the others) the incoherent.

I remember those times fondly. S was a great person to go drinking with. She was charismatic and, when in the mood, loquacious. She could also be fantastically cantankerous, and cheerfully devious too - handing out cans with a wry twinkle in her eye.

When I think of her I invariably smile for I think she was perhaps the most hilarious person I ever knew. She didn't crack jokes, she just spoke her mind. I see her now chewing on a blade of grass, her jaw jutted out and her shoulders hunched while she gazes into the distance. Then she spits, shakes her head and sighs "fuck dat".... But the twinkle is still there.

It's the lack of pretension that made her so funny I think. Like many people out there she saw the world very clearly - without the scales that fog the white man's eyes - and when you look at modern life square on you can't help but shake your head and curse. Our world is absurd - she saw it, and with a shrug of her shoulders she let me see it too somehow.

Writing about her now I miss her dreadfully. I've hardly seen her in recent years, but, still, for me, a light has gone out. Rest in peace, dear friend, rest in peace.

TV Chef at Royate Hill allotments

2011-07-04T12:13:00.006Z

It seems like TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall must be watching my youtube vids (apologies for the irritatingly enthusiastic commentary):

Inspired by the magnificent piece of film-making above, HFW has decided to bring his circus to our community allotment at Royate Hill, Bristol. He'll be doing some picking, some cooking, some eating, and some filming. That's right, HFW will be cooking beans and peas THAT MY WOMAN, MY BOYS AND I PLANTED (along with many others). I shall spend the rest of the day basking in the reflected glow of celebrity-chef-glory.

If you want to see some more pics of our beautiful bit of paradise click here. (In particular there are some pics of a rather cool caterpillar that has been munching its way through our mullein plants.)

For the record I have more or less no clue who Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is. However my good friend the Harringtoinette has informed that he is cool because he kisses other men when he greets them.

Brian Haw RIP

2011-06-22T07:21:00.006Z

Brian Haw, peace campaigner extraordinaire, died on Saturday. His contribution to the peace movement was inspiring and very important - he will be sadly missed.

Brian spent more than 10 years camped out the front of the Houses of Parliament seeking to remind our political masters of the blood on their hands. His opposition to the appalling crimes being visited on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan was vigorous, impassioned and sustained.

I had the opportunity to camp with Brian for one of the 3600 odd nights that he spent in Parliament Square. It was a privilege to participate in his protest and made me appreciate his sacrifice even more: lying on icy ground listening to Big Ben bonging away every 15 minutes aint much fun... But it wasn't about fun, it was about standing up for what mattered, and Brian did that in his own irascible way when far too many voices had fallen quiet.

* * *

A measure of the importance of Brian's protest: an impossibly pompous Tory politician, David Tredinnick, appeared on the Today programme yesterday morning to witter on about the importance of removing the camp now that Brian has died and opening the space for the people. He pontificated about the importance of access to parliament and to Westminster abbey, claiming that Brian's camp was an obstruction.

David Tredinnick is a liar and a cad, and he should have more respect for a dead man's grieving family. Brian's camp obstructed no one who wanted to enter parliament or the abbey; the entrances to both could be accessed by anyone who wanted without going anywhere near the camp. What is more, there are many of us who believe that reclaiming Parliament Square for the people is precisely what Brian Haw was doing. The people never wanted the war in Iraq and they don't war the war in Afghanistan, but our political masters simply ignore the people and carry on. The people need folk like Brian Haw to be a thorn in the side of parliament, that house of fools.

* * *

The resistance continues. I got this in my inbox today:

Three English Catholic Workers were today convicted at Newbury Magistrates Court of Criminal Trespass under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA), and Criminal Damage.

The convictions follows a protest at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in September 2010 organised by the Catholic Worker. The three, Susan Clarkson (64), Chris Cole (47) both from Oxford, and Fr Martin Newell (42) from London were Conditionally Discharged for 18 months and ordered to pay £553 each costs and compensation. The three had created a gateway in the outer fence of AWE Aldermaston and attached a sign say ‘Open for Disarmament: All Welcome.”

In their evidence the protestors described the massive development currently being undertaken at AWE Aldermaston and argued that the developments were in contravention of both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Brian would be proud.

Useless Knowledge

2011-05-25T20:39:00.004Z

A couple of years ago, my partner and I both read a series of essays by Bertrand Russell called In Praise of Idleness. One of those essays was entitled Useless Knowledge and it included this:

Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less pleasant, but also makes pleasant things more pleasant. I have enjoyed peaches and apricots more since I have known that they were first cultivated in China in the early days of the Han dynasty; that Chinese hostages held by the great King Kanisaka introduced them into India, whence they spread to Persia, reaching the Roman Empire in the first century of our era; that the word "apricot" is derived from the same Latin source as the word "precocious" because the apricot ripens early; and that the A as the beginning was added by mistake , owing to a false etymology. All this makes the fruit taste much sweeter.

A splendid attitude, me thinks. In the spirit of Bertrand R. let me offer a couple of little facts that strike me as rather cool and basically useless (to me):

A quarter of all mammal species are bats. (There are about a thousand bat species and... wait for it... about four thousand mammal species.) There are eighteen bat species in the UK; seventeen are known to be breeding here.
More than 10% of languages spoken today are spoken only in Papua New Guinea. Around 800 languages are spoken in PNG today out of a world-wide total of just under 7000; that's all happening in an area about twice the size of the UK.

UK out of Libya!

2011-03-21T13:55:00.003Z

It seems that all of the major newspapers are endorsing military involvement in Libya. Even in leftist, typically dissenting circles there is a marked lack of comment opposing the current military action.

Well, for what it's worth.... I'm against UK military involvement in Libya. When I have time I'll try and write a considered piece explaining why. For now let me say that I don't trust Cameron et al as far as I can vomit. I don't for a single second think that they are instigating this action because they give a shit about the people of Libya.

Why has this military action started? Because the UK government and its allies want rid of Gaddafi, and they want a say in who controls resources in North Africa. They've involved themselves nefariously already, and now they're involving themselves in open warfare. Even as I write they're receiving criticism because enforcing a no-fly zone isn't quite as unambiguous as it sounds. And that's just the way this government likes it. As long as they can argue that they've got a legal framework to drop bombs, then drop bombs they will. And when the bombing is all done they'll be making sure that the right people come to power in Libya, whether the Libyan people want them or not.

The UK government has a hideous and tragic history of involvement in the politics of the Middle East. They should get out and stay out.

ASCM and anarchist spirituality

2011-02-20T21:44:00.003Z

Much of this post appeared as a comment to this article on Bristol IndyMedia which referenced (somewhat disparagingly) the Student Christian Movement.

Firstly some background: I was a member of the Australian Student Christian Movement as a university student in Perth in the 90s. I credit ASCM with much of what is positive in my current life. I was brought up in a very conservative Christian household and was saddled with much of the baggage that goes with that sort of upbringing. Time with free-thinking caring people in ASCM gave me the time and space to shed (much of) that baggage, and to redefine myself free of some of the worst aspects of Christianity. You know the stuff I'm talking about: bigotry, homophobia, a permanent fear of hell etc

Now although my divorce from the institution of the Church couldn't come soon enough, my time with ASCM did not cause me to jettison every aspect of Christianity. I met some tremendously inspiring people who follow a Christian tradition of spirituality and combine that with a deep and profound commitment to peace, social justice, and the like. This is what Christianity could be.

Still, these days I'm as much agnostic as anything else. Or, put another way, I aspire to say with Gandhi ``I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you..." (I would particularly want to add humanist to that list .

So that's my background, now here's the rub: I'm getting all hot and bothered over the division between my anarchist comrades at the barricades, and the Christians bowed in prayer. In anarchist circles, it seems like the word ``Christian" is only a peg above ``Capitalist" or ``Tory" or ``person who watches X-factor" :-)

I understand that the label ``Christian" is associated with much of what is appalling in the modern West. I don't dispute that for an instant - the role of the Church in modern life is frequently (usually?) poisonous. It would be a mistake to equate all Christians with the Church however. More importantly - and this is my main point - it would be a mistake to equate spirituality with religion. The first is a ubiquitous and inescapable part of the human condition, the latter a frequently horrendous human construct.

Let me put it another way: it seems to me like anarchists need to do spirituality, and we need to do it well. This aint something to be left until after the revolution. If the example of Gandhi is not enough for you, then consider this quote from that doyen of revolutionaries, El Che:``At the risk of sounding ridiculous, a true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." This is a statement of spirit; it concerns what goes on in the heart of the revolutionary, her essence.

I contrast this with the slogan ``No Gods! No Masters! which is a staple of the anarchist placard. To me this seems a statement of anarchist religion, and it is selling spirituality short. I find myself recoiling from it; at its absolutism, its blank stare. I know, of course, what it is aiming at: the priest and capitalist lying in bed with each other, a subservient society their ghastly love-child. It aims in the same direction as Billy Bragg when he sings

They make the laws to chain us well;
The clergy dazzle us with heaven, or they damn us into hell;
We will not worship the God they serve;
a God of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve.

A fine sentiment, but the slogan feels wrong because it leaves no room for dissent. What place for those who have a God? (And, don't forget, there are a lot of these.) It feels wrong too because it gives an impression of a cut-out anarchist, one with no soul. All angry fist-waving, no tears, no heart.

This does anarchism a disservice. I am an anarchist precisely I believe it to be a path-of-heart. The anarchists I know care; indeed they care so much that they'll wave their fist at the system, they'll cut themselves loose from the man, and they'll take the consequences. On top of that they are people who do spirituality, however it is named. Who are motivated by feelings of love, and light.

Given this it seems a damn shame that there is an inclination in anarchist circles to dismiss matters spiritual, confusing the matter with religion. This is a mistake. We are not cut-outs. We are humans who must deal with our condition, a condition that is at least in part spiritual. These are the terms: We have been born and we will die; we need each other, yet in some sense will be always alone; we are free, but chained; we see beauty, ugliness, laughter, tears...

We should not cut ourselves loose from spirituality, or cut ourselves apart from those who do their spirituality under another label. I am not advocating that we all take ourselves off post-haste to Church, or the mosque. No, I am asking that we reclaim spirituality from the religionists; we need to do spirituality and we need to do it our way, not the Pope's way.

Society needs an anarchist spirituality as much as it needs an anarchist politics. Because an anarchist spirituality will, by its very nature, allow space and freedom for all: the anarchists can do spirituality our way so that others can do spirituality their way. If people want to call themselves Christian, or Muslim, or Jew, and to do so in peace with each other, then let it be so.

* * *

Surprise, surprise, George Orwell said much that I want to say and he only needed a paragraph. Consider his characterisation of some of his Socialist comrades:

"Sometimes I look at a socialist... and wonder what the devil his motive really is. It is often difficult to believe that it is a love of anybody... [but rather] a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery... but because it is untidy." (p156, The Road to Wigan Pier)

This is the loveless-revolutionary, the anarchist without heart, this is revolt minus spirit. This is a warning.

And, finally, a historical note. Anarchist spirituality aint new; check out the Catholic Workers at a demo near you...

First Great Satan

2011-02-18T20:54:00.004Z

Let me present a compositum of recent days spent wrestling with the First Great Satan. (These are the fellows who run our public transport system.)

I wake and feed myself some lovely home-made muesli. Mmhmm. Now I must book me a train, for I need to go to Milton Keynes in three months. An hour later I have discovered that, although a single ticket will cost me £60, if I break the ticket into three and book Bristol-Cheltenham then Cheltenham-Birmingham then Birmingham-Milton Keynes, then I can make the journey on the same trains for half the price. Though the price still needles, forty minutes later I have achieved the triple booking. I will need to take a trip to Temple Meads to book my bike on, but that can wait for another day when I have a couple of hours spare.

It's a bad start to the day but I stay positive: today I am having a day off on my own. Hurrah! I have organised a bus ride out to Wells so I can walk through the Mendips to Cheddar. What could go wrong?

I arrive at the bus stop with five minutes to spare. Forty minutes later my bus arrives. The driver is apologetic - he'd broken down. I ask for a return to Cheddar; the driver says "That'll be seven pounds." I lose the ability to speak for a couple of seconds. Then: "But, surely sir, you are mistaken? For Wells is not far, and it is a popular town."

The driver is not mistaken but he is also rather nice. So he issues me a special ticket (for I have only £6.85 in my wallet) and tells me I should be able to get back on that. Thank you, sir, for your humanity. (But a pox on your employer.)

Between Wells and Cheddar there is nary a commercial outlet. I am alone with sheep and grass and hedgerows. I see a cloud of unidentified sparrow-like birds feeding in a farmer's field. And a rook, and a nuthatch, and some cows with big scary horns. I eat sandwiches sitting on a rock. A short paragraph of happiness in an essay of modern anguish.

I arrive at my destination and go to the bus stop. It takes me two hours to get from Cheddar to Bristol Temple Meads, though it be but a short distance. The first bus is full of old people on a trip out and the atmosphere is rather jolly. After that the journey gets a little wearing. I pass my time contemplating a map of the area - there are a great number of disused railways running in all directions. Thank you Mr Beeching for your good work.

From Temple Meads to home is a forty minute walk. I could catch the bus but it would take nearly as long and cost me £3. Most of my walk is on the cycle path; I praise Allah, Yahweh, and the Green Goddess that the good folk of people stopped the council and FGSatan from running a bus lane down the length of it.

I arrive home happy. I won't let the fuckers get me down.

Yoga, sex, Bill Hicks

2011-01-09T19:30:00.003Z

A follow-up to my earlier post on matters yogic...

Harsh yogi? I took some leave over Christmas so was able to attend a yoga class for a change (I usually do my yoga at a home, using a manual). I went to a Mysore-style ashtanga session where everyone does their own thing and the yogi wanders round correcting things. Since I was new to the class the yogi introduced himself and told me to start with the very basics - so I duly started with a sun salutation A while he wandered round the class watching from afar. When I'd completed this most basic of manoeuvres, he came over and told me to pause. He then said,

I don't know what you're doing, but it's not ashtanga

Whoah tiger! Bit of a confidence-knocker that! Fortunately I had an idea that he was pretty harsh so I was kind of expecting it. Over the next two hours he completely took my basic postures apart, and started me off from scratch again. Although it was a pretty severe process it was exactly what I wanted: I've now got a hell of a lot of things to work on at home on my own...

Libidinous yoga. Or, as Derek and Clive might put it, yoga and the effing horn. Pootling about on the internet I came across this article about tantric yoga. It describes how yoga can be used to ease sexual dysfunction. I noted it because [cough] I'd noticed something similar myself. To put it bluntly, yoga turns you on.

How it does this is a good question. In the article above it says:

My opinion on the subject is that you’re getting more oxygen to your brain and increasing blood flow to all areas of the body.

... And so your libido increases. More subtly, it also places you more firmly in your own body, so that you become aware of the many different aspects of your body, including the sexual. Finally, I'd add that when I practice yoga my self-esteem is strengthened. Although I'm not very good (see earlier section!), at the end of a session I have a noticeable alpha-male type feeling. And we know what's on the mind of your average alpha-male...

Bill Hicks. My man the Stevenage responded to my earlier yoga posting with a link to a video of the late, great Bill Hicks. You can view it below; I'll leave you to decide how relevant it is to the subject at hand.

Magnificent murmurations

2010-12-28T21:09:00.003Z

Yesterday I saw a massive flock of starlings - you can maybe just make them out in the photo above. It was absolutely incredible. I appreciate that one could not deduce this fact from the photo, so you'll have to trust me.

Every winter starlings form gigantic flocks which are known as murmurations. One of the biggest flocks in the country happens to be quite close to Bristol: up to one million starlings come together every evening throughout winter at a bird reserve called Ham Wall near Glastonbury.

I was at Ham Wall yesterday between 3pm and 4pm. During that time I saw three extraordinary ornithological sites: first, the starlings. Second, I saw a great white egret - there are thirteen of these in the whole of the UK; four of them live at Ham Wall. And thirdly, I saw a bittern. These were once extinct in the UK but they have recolonised and now breed in two or three places in the country. They're usually very shy and hard to see but this fellow flew right over my head!

Thank god for bitterns, egrets, and starlings. It's nice to know that, amidst all the scenes of environmental catastrophe, there are still places where nature can thrive. Just to reinforce this, I've made a list of some memorable birding moments that I've experienced recently around Bristol. It's worth reminding ourselves that we can still enjoy wonderful nature almost on our doorstep...

(Depressing aside though: as we headed out to Glastonbury to see the birds, we encountered a mighty snarl-up on the M5. We were a bit worried that we might spend the day in a traffic jam but, no, we soon realised that all the traffic was leaving the M5 and heading for Cribbs Causeway for the Boxing Day sales. Is the human race mad, or what?!)

American History Y and Z

2010-12-09T19:36:00.008Z

I am currently a little bit obsessed with the history of the United States. I've used this blog before to quote from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. If you want a good overview of American history then there is no better source.

This time, though, I want to refer to a couple of more specific histories. The first is Randy Shilt's And the band played on, a history of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. It's a thick tome but it reads like a thriller; I heartily recommend it. The tale starts in the late 1970s when a handful of Europeans and Americans started to fall ill and die in mysterious ways. (Some of) the medical fraternity really started to pay attention in the early 1980s when it became clear that gay American men were dying in greater numbers (and in the most bizarre and hideous ways - one guy died of a disease previously only found in sheep, many men went blind or suffered very distressing brain damage as the disease killed them).

However the AIDS epidemic is a tale of two tragedies. First is the horror of the disease. Second, and just as deadly, is the horror of prejudice and bigotry. For a long time it was just gay men that were dying. Then they were joined by Haitians and intravenous drug users. None of these groups count for diddley in the grand American system. So no one paid any attention - no media, no government officials, no one with any power to do anything...

Reagan assumed office as AIDS reared its ugly head, and his administration refused even the most basic funding to combat the disease. (He was spending all his money funding death squads in El Salvador, but that's a story to be told in a different history, thanks Noam Chomsky.) Indeed it was May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term) before he even spoke the word "AIDS" in public". When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.

The media were just as bad. With a few very heroic exemptions (Shilts himself, for instance) the media virtually ignored the epidemic. The impression one receives on reading this account is that this silence not only killed people in the 1980s but it is klling people now. If scientists had received funding, and the people had received education, then AIDS could have been stopped in its tracks. As it is, HIV has infected millions of people around the globe and it is killing them. The first world finally woke up to the tragedy (after respectable heterosexuals started dying, initially through blood transfusions) and AIDS is now somewhat manageable with modern drugs... but not in Africa.

And now for another tragedy. I'm two thirds of the way through Dee Brown's Bury my heart at wounded knee; I'm reading it in stages as it is one of the most harrowing books I've ever read. It tells the story of the "conquering" of the American West by the white man; and it tells the story from the perspective of the original inhabitants. As Brown himself puts it:

Americans who have always looked westward when reading about this period should read this book facing eastward.

This book is not a tale of two tragedies, it is a tale of many. Or, perhaps, it's the tale of one tragedy repeated over and over and over. Native Americans living their traditional lives encounter the white man, first as an oddity, then as an irritation, then as a threat, and finally as an inexorable and appallingly destructive force. There are many tales of great heroism, as tribes people give their lives to protect their family, their country, and their way of life. But you read this book with ashes in your mouth - for the story always ends the same.

Sitting Bull

The book contains photos of many of the main protagonists and I find myself repeatedly drawn to look at their faces. These are heroes, heroes the like of which we may never see again. Their experience as humans could not be more different from my own yet, although I cannot imagine what it would have been like to live my whole life on the prairie, I am immediately drawn to the nobility and purity of their fight. They knew things about life, and love, and land, that white people may never know. That they were defeated in battle is all the more tragic, for the winners are now inevitably and completely defeating themselves...

Yoga!

2010-09-20T03:27:00.003Z

Let me tell you about yoga. Forgive me if I sound like an insufferable hippy. (I'm really not. I wear socks with sandals really rather infrequently. And I dislike reggae intensely.)

Four years ago I thought yoga was for girls. I play football, end of story. Despite this, for various reasons not worth sharing now, I started to go along to yoga classes to support my partner. Six months later I was still going, and really enjoying it. Nonetheless my practice at this stage was a little sporadic, and yoga was languishing a long way behind football in my set of priorities.

Then a year ago I attended an ashtanga yoga class. It was 1 1/2 hours of serious work-out and I left shattered and very very intrigued. Over the last six months I've started to do ashtanga yoga regularly and now, it's fair to say, I LOVE IT. There are times (and I don't say this lightly) when I'd rather do yoga than play football.

My God.

Let me explain the attraction. Firstly the physical side of things. Football is great because it clears my mind, gives me an outlet for my physical energies, and leaves me mellow yet somewhat elated. Yoga also has that effect on me. Particularly ashtanga yoga which is more strenuous than other forms of yoga, and so appeals to my desire to be physically stretched. It gives me the high.

I also have a sense of progress. I am no natural yogi; I am bony and angular and not naturally flexible. When I started I had trouble sitting cross-legged. Yet now I can sit with cross legs, I can touch my toes with ease (even put my palms on the ground), I can stay in a head stand for a couple of minutes... in short, there are a multitude of postures that were once beyond me and now are quite achievable.

It has benefited my health. I used to suffer from chronic lower back pain but yoga has now got that under control. (As it happens I have had back troubles again recently, of a different sort, but this seems unrelated.) I have noticed a dramatic increase in lung capacity (all the positions in yoga are coordinated with the breath, so one learns to regulate one's breathing and to breath more deeply). The other day I swam a kilometre for the first time in my life (I'm shit at swimming); this was with almost no swimming practice, but lots of yoga.

I have much more control over different parts of my body. Whereas playing football benefits only a subset of the muscles in the body, yoga does the lot. Before I did yoga there were whole areas of my body that were weak and unutilised - that I didn't know were there. Now I have awareness of these areas, and can use them (for instance when lifting heavy things, instead of busting my back like I used to).

Yoga isn't just physical though. It also challenges and benefits my mental/ spiritual side. Firstly this takes place through regulating the breath. I have learned to breath deeply and slowly, thereby lowering the heart rate, and naturally calming the mind. This aids concentration and eases stress: when we're stressed our breathing tends towards shallowness and hyperventilation; by dealing with the physical symptoms of stress, some of the mental symptoms are also relieved.

Yoga also builds awareness of the present moment - what the Buddhists would call "mindfulness". Yoga requires awareness of one's whole body and full involvement in the here and now. Just as when I play football I am entirely focussed on the game without thought or worry of the past or future, so too in yoga I am freed of these distractions. Yoga seems somehow more beneficial though, because my mental state remains calm. (I'm not calm when I play football!)

I used to meditate regularly, but since having a child have found this very difficult. My yoga practice is a pretty good substitute. I find that the physicality of it allows me to maintain concentration in circumstances when I find sitting meditation impossible (e.g. with the child charging about the place). Many of the benefits of meditation - a calming and clearing of the mind, an awareness of the present, etc - can also be achieved through yoga.

Let me end by saying that I'm still shit at yoga. Or, to be more precise, I still can't do the vast majority of the poses in the ashtanga "full flow". Of course, that doesn't really mean I'm shit. Yoga is refreshingly non-competitive. While I admire very talented yoga practitioners (see video for an extreme example), a good session of yoga for me can be much more modest yet still push my physical and mental boundaries, and bring just as much benefit. With this in mind I'd recommend yoga to anyone, no matter what their state of physical health, for they will surely benefit.

The worst night of my life

2010-09-16T12:55:00.001Z

Let me share the worst night of my life. It was, I think, in February 2009. It played out very similarly to other nights of that month, and the previous, but this particular night I cracked.

My son, you see, was born the previous August. My first child, fruit of my loins, apple of my eye, love of my life. So, indeed, he continues to be. Those first months were hard, but wonderful - adrenalin is a wonderful thing! By December we were struggling. The adrenalin was used up and his sleeping - patchy at best - was deterioriating dramatically.

Around New Year a pattern was established where we put him to bed around 8pm, with us hitting the sack as soon as possible after that - 8:05, 8:10... Sometimes he'd start crying before we got to sleep, other times it would be a couple of hours. In any event we lay down in a state of tension, knowing that the best we could hope for was sleeping until 11pm. For the rest of the night we were woken at about two hourly intervals.

Our initial approach was to work together to get through the night - trying to give each other support. We took it in turns to get up and soothe him. Some nights I'd take him out for walks in the buggy to try and rock him to sleep. But we were in a cold snap and this wasn't so effective (I walked one night from 2am to 3am in below freezing temperatures and returned home with a bright eyed little boy with no thought of sleep).

We realised that we couldn't sustain this so we decided to split the nights in two. I slept with the little fellow on a mattress downstairs in the lounge. We'd stopped feeding him at night, so I didn't have to wake Mum up if he started crying, I could deal with it myself and let her sleep through. Then, the first time he cried after 4am, I'd take him upstairs and she'd take over for the rest of the night.

Some nights were better than others, but none of them were good. One night he refused to sleep in any position other than strapped to me in a sling so I gave up and watched movies perched on the edge of the settee (he wouldn't let me lean back!) until it was time to hand him over.

On the awful night, though, I was too tired to face that and I was determined to get him to sleep. He'd woken me around midnight I think, I guess for the second time that night. I'd soothed him and he'd quitened on my shoulder and started to drift off. Then I gently put him down on the bed.... and he'd started to scream. I repeated this, I think, about seven times over the course of the next hour. Waiting longer and longer before I lay him down, until I was CERTAIN that he would stay asleep... except, of course, that he didn't.

I was starting to feel desperate; I was exhausted and I was acutely aware of a strong feeling of hatred towards this screaming baby. The last time I lay him down, and he started to cry, I had a sudden very clear and distinct vision of picking him up and flinging him with all my might at the wall of the lounge room. Sitting here, writing this, I can still see that image in my eyes. It was a tipping point and it could have gone either way. That vision scared me so much that it jolted me out of my exhaustion and I picked the child up and took him up to his mother. It was two hours early, and I knew that these months had taken a much worse toll on her than on me, but I was scared of what I might do.

I woke her, and told her that I couldn't go on, and she understood immediately. It was OK and I went downstairs and fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning though I woke with a new knowledge of myself. I knew that I was capable of terrible things if pushed far enough. True I'd stopped before I did anything awful, but only just, and perhaps only because I had someone to turn to.

* * *

I share this because, after talking to others, I've realised that such an experience is not uncommon for new parents. People don't want to talk about it because it's scary and horrible, but I think it's important to know that others have been through it.

Such an experience also demonstrates how vital is is for us to have support, and to try and arrange our lives so that others can take the strain for us before we reach that point of no return.

Such an experience renews my admiration and respect for single mothers.

Such an experience gives me a great feeling of sympathy, empathy even, for the parents who in their desperation have tipped the other way and done something awful. I think of news footage of mothers being led into a court. Such horror.

Teenage sex

2010-09-15T02:33:00.004Z

It's a great title, isn't it? Whets the appetite! God knows we see it used that way often enough. Under-age sex is one of those standard topics that newspaper editors recycle whenever public moral outrage seems in danger of dying down and threatening sales (there are a bunch of others: drugs destroying young lives, youths destroying old lives, immigrants destroying British lives,...)

I saw a particularly great example of this a couple of months ago in the Australian newspaper. Their front cover advertised a full-length feature article inside entitled "The Yes Generation". OMIGOD, boys and girls saying "yes" to sex?! Let me buy that paper! Tell me more!

Except that when I turned to the article in question and waded through the preliminary sensationalist gumph, it turned out that the article was covering recent scientific research into the sexual behaviour of teenagers today and - wait for it - it turns out that there was no evidence whatsoever that teenagers were having more sex now than in the past. Headline news! Teenagers are having sex at about the same rate as they've always been!

An interesting subtheme in the issue of teenage sex is its relationship to class. There is a strong emphasis in some newspaper coverage of the issue of the wayward morals of the working classes; or, more precisely, of the unemployed classes. One has images of an army of sixteen year olds pushing prams across council estates and rubbing their hands together gleefully at the prospect of a life on benefits; their lives subsidised by that most feted of tabloid archetypes, the hard-working British taxpayer.

I came across an illuminating take on this subject in the classic novel "Germinal" by Zola. "Germinal" was written in 1885, with the events described therein being set about twenty years previously. Zola's concern is with a group of miners in northern France, and he chronicles their daily struggles in a way that reminded me of Dickens. Like Dickens he has a lot of sympathy for his subjects, although Zola makes less use of caricature than Dickens - his sympathies are held in check by his desire to describe his subjects accurately and without prejudice. (The other similarity is that, like Dickens at his best, "Germinal" is a belting good read.)

With regard to sex, then, Zola writes bluntly. The youth in "Germinal" take their pleasure when they can. They creep out of their over-crowded homes in the evening and copulate in back alleys, and in the waste ground round the mine. They are promiscuous and irresponsible, and entirely free of a good example - their parents' primary concern in all this is the worry that they will end up with pregnant daughters unable to work, and then nine months later another mouth to feed. The people in these villages are viewed by the middle classes as little better than animals for their lack of morals, and their utter surrender to their carnal desires. Yep, the same sneering attitude, just 150 years earlier.

What makes Zola's treatment of the subject interesting, however, is that he understands that this is more than a moral issue. The people in these villages work the mines from the age of six or earlier. They work long long hours in terrible conditions for a pitiful wage that barely covers their food bill. (Zola describes how some of the women are forced to pay their grocery bill by prostituting themselves to the grocer.) When the villagers organise to try and force an improvement to their situation, they are opposed by the mine owners, the police, and the state. In other words they are locked into a life of unrelenting wage slavery, with no prospect of any escape.

The only recourse one has in this situation is to take one's pleasure where you can find it. So the men spend too much of their money in getting drunk and buying favours of prostitutes, the teenagers take their pleasure with each other (and the women and children have very little pleasure of any kind). It makes a lot of sense; Bernard Shaw was another who saw the logic in this outlook - consider this speech from "Pygmalion":

What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: 'You're undeserving; so you can't have it.' But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving...

It is interesting to observe that the insight of Zola and Shaw still holds true today. Despite what the tabloids might say, there is clearly NOT an epidemic of teenage sex in modern society; as the research I mentioned above suggests, teenagers are having sex about as often as their parents did when they were young. On the other hand, if society is worried about teenagers having sex, then it would be as well to recognise that the primary motivation is, more often than not, a lack of alternatives. People living on estates in Britain might be materially better off than miners in 19th century France but still, if you've got no money in today's society, then you are nobody. You have nothing to do, and nowhere to go. Better get your fun for free (e.g. via sex) or cheaply (via booze) or you'll have no fun at all.

The media's obsession with an absence of morals in the young and the poor is a big old red herring. The real issue is the lack of opportunity for whole sections of British society, and the complete lack of interest that recent governments have had in changing this state of affairs. Far easier to point the finger of judgement at today's teenagers, than to put energy into providing them with real opportunities for self-improvement.

Heathrow immigration horror

2010-09-13T04:15:00.002Z

Today I saw an awful thing. I was making my way through the passport control at Heathrow airport in the mental haze which normally engulfs me in this sort of setting: my brain goes into "hibernate mode", and I enter a sort of protective fog that muffles the relentless sensual stimulation that seems to be mandatory in the modern airport.

So I did not immediately clock the little scene that was playing out next to my queue. Indeed I was almost under the nose of the barrel-chested customs man, before I realised what he was up to. He was perched on the side of a table, arms crossed high up that expansive chest, belt shining, big bunch of keys hanging off the side (probably a squawking radio in there somewhere); in short, successfully giving that impression of being slightly oversized that comes so naturally to officers of the law, and their ilk.

He was gazing down at an unfortunate couple who'd obviously been dragged out of my queue for some irregularity. The first words I heard him say were "all I'm asking is for you to be honest with me..." The sort of on-the-face-of-it decent, reasonable request that is another speciality of officers of the law. Reasonable, that is, until you think what their request implies. What will happen if you're honest with this man? What will he do with your truth? If you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to fear, right? So the (faulty) logic goes.

"I just want to know if you've been earning any money.... So you've been earning £25 a day, for the last nine years.... In a kitchen..." His volume as oversized as his chest, his voice rang out as my queue passed him by; I couldn't hear the responses of the couple - they were just ordinary-sized.

I didn't want to make them feel objects on display but, still, I turned as I passed to properly look at the couple. And as I saw them clearly for the first time - focussing on them not on the immigration officer - I suddenly felt sick. They were of South-East-Asian appearance, a man and a woman, in their forties I would guess. But it was the look on their faces that caught me; they were caught, and I could see the fear in the tight muscles of their face and the aliveness in their eyes, as they sought desperately for some escape.

I didn't hear them make a sound; I barely saw them make a movement. They weren't causing a fuss; I don't know what their story is. I imagine that they've spent nine years in this country making a very marginal living and now, finally, for whatever reason, they want to go home. But in trying to board that plane, they've crept out of the shadows and into the full glare of our immigration system, and now what they want and what they were planning is a matter of no consequence. Because someone noticed that they have an out-of-date stamp on their passport, now other people will decide what will happen to them. Other people who, god damn it, should not have the right.

I wanted to shake my head at what was happening, but I didn't want the couple to see and think I disapproved of THEM. I didn't want them to feel like the inhabitants of this island are as heartless and inhuman as the laws that govern them. So I did nothing and went on my way, sick and unseeing. I write this just a few hours later, and God knows where that man and woman are now. I hope with all my heart that they are on their way to their desired destination; I fear though that they are in a cell somewhere or in an interview room with a barrel-chested immigration man who just wants them to be honest...

* * *

I got to the front of the queue, was processed, and found acceptable. My reward: entry into the duty-free/ restaurant area that precedes the boarding gates. Everywhere there were people pulling their little suitcases on floors of shiny white tiles, browsing aisles full of single malt whiskey, or celebrity magazines, or high-quality leatherware. There was an oyster bar, and a steak house, one wall was covered with the picture of a naked lady (some actor; she looked familiar) sitting on a couch with her legs crossed and wearing huge green jewels.

I ate a sad dinner in a sushi bar where plates come round on little tracks, and the walls are covered with different ways of writing the characters "YO!". I walked past a Bulgari shop where I could buy a £7000 watch, or a £10 000 necklace with BULGARI written in big letters across the front of it. Shiny, shiny, shiny, people, people, people.

I remembered a documentary I watched a couple of nights ago about the swingers club Plato's Retreat. People who'd visited Plato's in its heyday were interviewed, and they told stories of wild nights eating, drinking, dancing and fucking at Plato's. A couple of people talked about "the mat room" - a big room with no furniture but an almighty great mat on which an orgy took place every night: dozens of bodies writhing around taking their pleasure any way they could get it. One woman, a regular at Plato's, said she found the mat room "a bit full on"; she preferred to take her men one at a time....

If Plato's Retreat is a metaphor for our big shiny consumer society, then that shopping area in Heathrow felt like the mat room. Take your pleasure any way you can get it. But God help you if you don't pass the entry test...

Catholic Workers and AWE

2010-09-08T10:06:00.007Z

Last week-end I pootled up to Oxford for a Faith and Resistance Retreat organised by the good folk from the Catholic Worker.

Perhaps an unusual way to pass the week-end given that I aint Catholic, and I dislike working :-) Moreover, although I was brought up a believer, I have lapsed spectacularly and have no intention of unlapsing...

The good thing about the Catholic Workers is that they don't give a monkeys about any of this. They'll work with anyone, whether they have a God or not. In fact they're possibly better understood as a rather unusual kind of anarchist group - the kind that goes in for spirituality as well... George Woodcock in his classic book "Anarchism" discusses the Catholic Worker in terms of Tolstoy's anarchist principles:

Perhaps the most impressive example of Tolstoyan influence in the contemporary Western world has been ... the Roman Catholic group associated in the United States with the Catholic Worker...

In recent times, in the UK and elsewhere, the Catholic Workers have been among the most committed and consistent of anti-war and anti-military groups. Members of the Catholic Worker have done hard time in the UK for opposing the Iraq war, and the war machine associated with it.

So this was a retreat with a difference. We spent the Sunday enjoying the sunshine and discussing the impact of the first Plowshares trial 30 years ago. Three of those present at the retreat had participated in Plowshares actions, all of them serving many months in jail in the US, Ireland, and the UK.

On Monday we adjourned to Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). Three of those present broke into the base to express their opposition. Members from the Trident Ploughshares group were also present blockading the base. While this went on the rest of us (having arrived late after a nightmare traffic jam) vigilled at the gates of AWE.

AWE is a huge establishment, and it is currently receiving extensive investment. Capital works at AWE are currently in the region of £1 billion per year - a new laser system is being built, as well as a hydro-testing plant; the figure of £1 billion p.a. does not take into account investment associated with the renewal of the Trident weapons system which will cost tens of billions; no belt-tightening here.

By vigilling at the gate of AWE we sought to remind ourselves, and those passing by, of the real purpose of AWE. It exists to build weapons of unimaginable destruction; weapons that, if used, must inevitably result in death and misery for tens of thousands of human beings. I held my son in my arms and felt sick at this monster that we have built, and which he and others will have to face in years to come.

The Decommissioners are free

2010-09-07T15:07:00.002Z

This is a long-overdue update on my last posting regarding the Decommissioners. They were found not-guilty, and all are now free!

Full details can be found at their website, linked above. I'll shortly be putting up another post detailing more recent actions, in which I played a part. Resistance to the war-machine continues...

The Decommissioners

2010-06-27T13:34:00.000Z

Some good friends of mine are currently on trial in Brighton. One night in January last year they entered the premises of EDO-MBM, an arms manufacturer, and smashed the place to smithereens. There were no employees around at the time - there was no intimidation or violence, just the destruction of property.

The backdrop to that night's events was Israel's murderous assault on the residents of Gaza. That assault had been underway for some days when my friends entered the factory; they, along with millions of decent human beings around the world, were appalled at what was going on. They knew that the company EDO-MBM - who owned the factory - supplied Israel with components for their weaponry. With world leaders squirming away from taking material action against Israel's barbarism, my friends stepped into the breech. They acted as best they could to prevent further blood shed.

My friends are heroes, and my earnest hope is that they will be acquitted. You can follow how the trial is going here.

(As an aside: it is nearly eighteen months since my friends took action to save lives. All of them have suffered serious disruption to their lives through court-ordered curfews, court appearances, police raids etc. One, however, has suffered more than all the others: Elijah James Smith has been in jail on remand since the night of the action. His treatment is a disgrace, and a shocking indictment of the British justice system. Although I fervently hope for a "not guilty" finding, it's terrible to think of the privations that Elijah has endured. No verdict can give him back the last year and a half.)

Fostering with Bristol City Council

2010-04-09T19:36:00.003Z

My partner and I recently applied to be foster carers through Bristol City Council. In January we were told that our application would not be accepted, and we should wait for a couple of years before reapplying. The reason given for this decision was that my partner had suffered from (at times severe) post-natal depression between January and April last year.

I feel strongly that our experience of applying to be foster carers was deficient on a number of fronts, as I will explain below. This article should not be construed as an attack on individuals working within Bristol Social Services; rather I wish to give some constructive criticism of the systems that are in place for fostering children in Bristol (and possibly elsewhere).

[1] Forms versus interviews

In April 2009 we contacted Bristol Social Services about fostering, and a few weeks later we lodged our application; this was done via a one hour interview, conducted by a social worker in our home. Over subsequent months we filled out a number of different forms, as did several referees, and our doctors. In December 2009 a second interview was conducted by the same social worker (duration roughly thirty minutes) who took some more notes. Then in January we received a phone call telling us that our application had been rejected.

Over the nine months of the application process we were in contact with one social worker for a total of ninety minutes. This period of time was deemed sufficient to assess our ability to foster children. Clearly the application system relies far more heavily on information gathered via forms than it does via the interview process.

This fact was brought into relief when our social worker explained that she would need to write a memo with regard to one aspect of our application (I forget exactly which one) which would then be passed to her boss who would discuss the memo with HER boss, and the pair of them would then decide whether or not the application could proceed. So two people who have never met us discussed a memo written by someone who'd been in our company for an hour, on the basis of which discussion a conclusion about our fostering ability was drawn. Am I alone in thinking this absurd?

Fostering children is a human activity; forms can help but they can't tell the full story. In order to make a proper assessment of our suitability to be foster carers two things are required: the first is time. The managers at Social Services will no doubt protest that their workers don't have the time to conduct lengthy interviews with every John Doe who walks through their door. I don't doubt that; but they'd have a lot more time if they filled in less forms.

The second vital requirement is the good judgment of the social worker conducting the interview; the only person to actually meet us! This worker should be trusted and empowered to use that judgment. In fact it would be better if there were more than one worker involved. This must be an improvement on managers with memos.

[2] Motivation in the system

Perhaps this is a good place for me to reiterate that I am NOT seeking to attack social workers. They have an impossible job; they are no doubt over worked. I have no complaints about the individual worker who oversaw our application.

A social worker's job is impossible because the consequences of anything going wrong are momentous. The damage that may be done to a child placed in a bad home doesn't bear thinking about. The papers are regularly filled with stories of social work gone wrong, and the opinion-makers are ever ready to condemn any hapless social worker who errs in the line of duty; working in Family and Childrens Services must feel like negotiating a mine field.

And this metaphor clearly informs the way the system works: every fostering placement is a potential mine ready to blow a social work team to smithereens. So what then is the motivation for that team to place children in the community? If a child is already in a care home, then a social worker risks a hell of a lot in approving their move to a foster home... and what do they gain?

Far better to pore through those forms in the hope of finding some reason to reject a fostering application. You've been depressed? We can't have that! And the social worker breathes a sigh of relief...

But now here's a question: does this system really operate so as to maximise the well-being of the children involved? In light of the impossible situation that social workers find themselves in, one must recognise that social worker teams are compelled to look after their own well-being too - and this is quite a different thing.

All those forms are the paper trail that will get them out of jail (maybe literally) should anything go wrong. A social worker wants to point to a form and say "look, she was depressed, that's why we rejected them." Compare this to the alternative: "although she'd been depressed, we talked for several hours, and I was convinced that this would not be a significant impediment to them fostering." In the current climate that won't save their skin if the shit hits the fan.

But now think of the child sat mouldering away in a care home wishing for the chance to have a normal family life for a little bit of time. We're told that foster carers are really needed; that there are kids in exactly this situation. How is this system helping them?

[3] Trial by process

Nine months to make an application to be a foster carer (or more precisely to START such an application) is too long. The one positive that came out of our application being rejected is that we were both relieved to put an end to dealing with such a ridiculous bureaucracy.

Those nine months consisted of filling in forms, of ringing up offices and leaving messages asking for updates on what was happening, of generally being mystified and perplexed. One might argue that there needs to be a fairly high threshold for foster carers - they need to show that they're in it for the long haul. I don't disagree with this, but that threshold should not be a bureaucratic one.

The application process as it stands does not test one's ability to parent children, it tests one's ability to interact with a lumbering bureaucracy. To cope with rules and regulations imposed from on high. To cope with not knowing who is responsible for what, and what decisions are being made by whom, and when. And, of course, to cope with forms.

It is worth noting that over the nine months we spent applying to be foster carers we received absolutely no encouragement from Family & Children's Services to persevere through the process. Outside of the two interviews, there was virtually no human communication beyond a couple of answering machine messages and a single email.

What is more all interaction (via message and in the interview) was based on what official information was missing, and on those aspects of our domestic situation that were perceived to be potential problems. The idea that we might have had something positive to offer was never explicitly recognised.

[4] Depression

Some background: my partner suffered post-natal depression from January until April 2009. The depression was mainly triggered by severe and prolonged sleep deprivation (our baby was waking us sometimes six or seven times a night). The depression ended when our baby started to sleep through until 5am, and as a result of medication and therapy that my partner sought out when she realised she was becoming depressed.

It was a horrible depression. It was also a very reasonable response to a fairly hellish situation. My partner identified that she was depressed for herself, and she sought help quickly. But it's interesting to see where that label got us. If she'd stayed at home, cried a lot, neglected the baby, and shouted at me, then Family and Children's Services would probably never have heard of what had happened.

But, although she cried plenty, she didn't neglect the baby or shout at me, instead she did her best to face up what was happening to her. Calling her experience "depression" helped her to deal with it. It helped her to get the attention that she needed from doctors. It gave her (us) a framework within which she could process her emotions, and her distress, and find some healing.

The problem is of course that, in the eyes of many, depression is a pathology. It's a box that can be ticked on a form; a reason that can be given for a rejected application. Never mind that it's just a word that describes - very inadequately - a vast range of human experience.

To be fair to the social services, they did delve into what my partner experienced. The motivation for the second interview was for the worker to explore past episodes of depression that my partner had experienced (and that had surfaced in a doctor's report). In the interview our worker asked questions about what happened, and asked us how we thought we would cope with the stress that fostering might inflict on us... And then a memo was written, and "no" was the deafening reply. One can't help but think that the writing was on the wall as soon as the box was ticked.

[5] The ideal carer

The depression issue was just one area where somehow our family situation didn't conform to the model that the system has in mind. (For instance, the social worker expressed some bemusement when we explained that we lived with a friend.)

If you live in Bristol you may well have seen posters and adverts across town (on the side of buses and bus shelters especially) encouraging people to adopt. They make a point of saying that ANYONE can adopt - you might be a single black Jewish lesbian pensioner... it's all the same.

But if you've been depressed any time recently, then don't apply. And who hasn't? If, as I suggest above, the system is geared towards finding a reason to reject somebody's application, then who will pass? Clearly the system very much has a certain type of person in mind when they envisage a foster carer.

For instance I would contest that the experience of being depressed may well be an advantage when it comes to being a foster carer. It is part of the range of human experience; it may well be the experience of a child in care. Being able to understand what is happening to you when you are depressed, and figuring out how to respond is a skill of immense value.

But how do you quantify such a thing? Certainly not through a form. The system as it stands wants matchstick men for carers; human experience is an aberration, a pathology...

[6] Some suggestions

It seems to me that the system of fostering children needs improvement. Here are some specific suggestions:

people who want to be foster carers should be interviewed properly, and fully, and by more than one person.
the application process should not require nine months of bureaucracy.
social workers at the coal face should be given full and proper training so that they feel confident and empowered to make decisions. Using memos to pass decisions to management should be eliminated.
social workers should be supported and encouraged to give children the opportunities they need. They should not be stretched so thinly that they spend all their time covering their own back.
the box-ticking approach that results in a pathologizing of life experience should be eliminated.

Undoubtedly these suggestions require funding. I take it to be a self-evident truth that providing children with good, safe homes is an absolute priority for any civilized society. If the government needs to sack some bankers, or cancel some wars in order to make enough money available, then they should get on with it.

These suggestions also suggest a change of attitude from the wider public (and, in particular, the media) to the job of social work. We should not be so eager to stick in the knife (via media witch hunts, or lawsuits) in the event of something going wrong; rather serious consideration should be given as to how the system can be materially improved. That, at least, is the aim of this essay.

Death in the family

2010-02-22T23:08:00.002Z

Two of my best friends lost their baby daughter very recently. Sophia, the woman in question, is writing a blog to help her cope with life after Salome. Read it. Read it especially if you need reminding what are the important things in this world. Read it if you are given to complain about stupid bullshit little things, those stupid things that sometimes make us forget how fortunate we really are...

Letter to Sustrans

2009-11-15T21:42:00.004Z

I wrote the following letter last week. More details, plus a response from Sustrans can be found in this IndyMedia article.

Hi Sustrans,

I'm one of your supporters (can't remember my number just now). I ride past College Green, Bristol, every day - I believe that's where your offices are. Today as I rode past traffic was banked up because a cyclist was lying in the road injured. I don't know what happened - she was surrounded by people so I didn't involve myself...

I'm writing because this incident focussed my mind on something that has been concerning me for a long time. Bristol is supposed to be a cycling city. There is - apparently - a huge pot of money available to improve cycling in Bristol. But, it seems to me, nothing has happened! I ride my bike to work every day, plus on week-ends. It is my primary mode of transport. NOTHING has improved for me since this money came through. I know that there have been improvements around St Werburgh's - a footpath was widened into a cycle path. This is the only development I'm aware of.

So why am I writing to you?? Because, as I understand it, you are involved in deciding how this money is spent. And because you are the good guys! I'm sure if you had your way the centre of Bristol would be closed to traffic, and we'd have cycle heaven. How I long for the day! I don't doubt that the problem in all this is the council who, so far as I can tell, hate bikes with a passion. Or, at least, they love cars a hell of a lot more than they love bikes.

I wish you the very best of luck in advocating for cyclists in the negotiations that go on with the council as to how this money is spent. But I need you to know that right now, things are just getting worse. And I'm afraid that the council are using this "Bike City" nonsense as a way of green washing the issue away. They're letting the Bike City label excuse them from making any material changes on behalf of cyclists.

At some point some one is going to have to decide that life is made more difficult for motorists. If this decision is not taken then there is no avoiding the fact that cycling in Bristol is on an inevitable downward spiral. Cars are far and away a cyclist's biggest problem, as I'm sure you're aware. I would NOT encourage commuting to work by bike in Bristol to anyone new to cycling. It is very dangerous. (Two of my friends are disabled because of bike accidents in Bristol.)

I would like you to seriously consider your role in the Bristol Bike City program. I am very much afraid that, by trying to work from the inside, you are inadvertently letting the council get away with murder. You need to consider the possibility of withdrawing from this program so that you can publicly state that "this council is not helping cyclists". Because it's true, isn't it?

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.

Refugee voucher exchange in Bristol

2008-11-23T15:43:00.004Z

Yesterday the Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR) and Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign (BDASC) held a stall outside Tesco Metro in Broadmead. I went down to see them, as I'd heard about a voucher exchange that they were running.

A member of BRR explained to me that people who arrive in this country and apply for asylum are split (by the authorities) into two categories. Those whose cases are pending receive a small amount of money, on which they have to try and live; they're the (relatively) lucky ones. The other group are those whose cases are rejected, but who remain in this country (there are a number of recognised reasons as to why people do this, e.g. there is a war and no rule of law, or perhaps their cases are under appeal). This group of people are given no money; instead each week they receive £35 worth of supermarket vouchers. They must live entirely from Tesco or Asda or Sainsbury.

What makes this system completely intolerable is that both groups of people, although they have legitimate reasons to stay in the country, are not allowed to work. This system is wrong on every level:

it denies people the right to work; a right which is fundamental and vital for dignity and self-esteem.
support is minimal in any case, but asking people to live entirely from corporate supermarkets is outrageous.

To counter this shite situation, BRR have started a voucher exchange: so, today I went down to their stall and gave them £20 which they will pass on to an asylum seeker. In return I got £20 worth of the asylum seeker's supermarket vouchers. Shopping at Tesco's is not my idea of a good time, but at least I have the option of going elsewhere, so I was glad to help.

This exchange needs to expand - there are a lot of asylum seekers who'd love to swap their vouchers for some real money. If you'd like to help contact Bristol Refugee Rights: dropin@hotmail.co.uk or 0117 9080844. Alternatively drop in to their centre, on Newton Road near Easton Leisure Centre. They're there on Wednesday mornings or all-day Thursday.

The nice lady from BRR said they really need people to send them cheques. They can then send back vouchers, and start expanding the exchange operation.

Two postscripts:

The BRR woman also mentioned the case of Abraham Ghebre Michael. He fled Eritrea after being mistreated and hospitalized for refusing to go into military service due to his religious beliefes. In 2003 he sought aslyum in Britain. The Home Office have turned down his claim and now Abraham is homeless, destitute and without a solicitor. Amnesty have tried to tell the Home Office how dangerous it is to go back to Eritrea but no one listens. How can we call ourselves a civilised country, when this is how we treat people who ask for our help?
As I've said already, this voucher scheme stinks on a number of levels. The fact that the government won't give money out to people whose applications are rejected put me in mind of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. What's wrong with people being given money, and the freedom to choose what they spend it on? Why have we become so keen on voucher systems, and the like? People will answer that it's in the name of accountability: "we don't know what they'll spend it on". It's the same reason people won't give money to beggars.

Bollox to that, I say. And George Bernard Shaw agrees: how dare we swan around imposing our middle-class morality on those that we think are in need of it? Mr Doolittle sums it up:

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth.

Angela Davis and Barack Obama

2008-11-07T21:36:00.003Z

Last night I had the privilege of listening to Angela Davis, a woman I have admired since I first heard of her, and her activism. She was speaking to a philosophy conference so this was not the occasion to spit fire; nonetheless, though her delivery was restrained, the content of her words was as uncompromising as I expected.

What was most interesting to me was that she spent some time reflecting on the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency. This has been an event to which I have felt a strange, and unsettling ambivalence. On the one hand I am supremely glad that the Republican beast is dead (as Bill Hicks put it); and that the beast has been killed by a black man is so much more magnificent. On the other hand I am not a believer in substantial change from above; I do not look towards US Presidents for hope, for in my lifetime all I have ever seen from that quarter is war and malignant oppression.

Angela Davis articulated this dual response very well. On the one hand she was prepared to honour the moment in which the US, a country so riven by the colour line (c.f. W.E.B. Dubois), has elected a black man to the presidency. She felt the joy of the moment, and marvelled at the joy which was being expressed by millions of people across the US, and across the globe. She called this an aesthetic response which I think describes the moment splendidly. My understanding of this phrase is this: that the President is a black man is important primarily (exclusively?) because it is a post of such symbolism; finally America has a black face, if you like. Black America has been given a part to play in the aesthetics of the nation, in the way that the nation describes itself, and is described by others. For black Americans this is hugely significant, and hugely affirming: aesthetics are important.

But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.

Thus, for Angela Davis, the aesthetics, and the substance of this week's vote are somewhat at odds with each other. It is this tension which I have also felt, and which explains my ambivalence very well. There is an imperative, then, to "continue to be radical", as she put it. While editorials may opine that this week's vote draws a line under America's racism, and marks the final victory for the civil rights movement, we should bear in mind that life for an American black man or woman remains fraught. They remain over-represented in the prisons, as victims of crime, as the poor. Their health is poorer than the average American, but they are under-represented in hospitals because of a lack of universal health care. The list goes on.

I will end this piece with some quotes from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States". It seems appropriate that, in a week which many are calling historic, we remind ourselves of some of the harsh realities of America's history. It is a history that has been transformed for the better by the struggle of ordinary people; that struggle goes on.

Quoting Sojourner Truth, legendary ex-slave, black activist and fighter for women's rights in the 1800s:

That man over there says that woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches.... Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-upddles or gives me any best place. And a'nt I a woman?
Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'nt I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man, when i could get it, and bear the lash as well. And a'nt I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children and seen em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'nt I a woman?(p.122 More on this speech)

Quoting Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and celebrated writer:

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that revelas to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. (p.178)

Frederick Douglass again:

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle.... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedds nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will... (p.179)

Quoting Chief Black Hawk in 1832:

I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me... The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk... He is now a prisoner to the white men... He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian, and took at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal.

An Indian who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaen up by the wolves. The white men are bad school-masters; they carry false looks, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to let us alone; but they followed on and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterers, lazy drones, all talkers, and no workers...

The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse-they poison the heart... Farewell, my nation!... Farewell to Black Hawk. (p.130, full text)

On the American war of independence and still true today:

Here was the traditional device by which those in charge of any social order mobilize and discipline a recalcitrant population - offering the adventure and rewards of military service to get poor people to fight for a cause that they may not see clearly as their own. (p.77)

On farmers in the 1700s crippled by debt in an unjust economic system:

The crowd went back to the square, broke open the county jail, and set free the debtors. The chief justice, a country doctor, said: "I have never heard anybody point out a better way to have their grievances redressed than the people have taken." (p.92)

Quoting Edmund Wilson on World War II:

We have seen, in our most recent wars, how a divided and arguing public opinion may be converted overnight into a national near-unanimity, an obedient flood of energy which will carry the young to destruction and overpower any effort to stem it. The unanimity of men at was is like that of a school of fish, which will swere, simultaneously and apparently without leadership, when the shadow of an enemy appears, or like a sky-darkening flight of grasshoppers, which, also all compelled by one impulse, will descend to consume the crops. (p.233)

Aldermaston Big Blockade

2008-10-27T10:07:00.010Z

I'm helping out with press work for the Aldermaston Big Blockade, which is happening today. The first press release can be viewed here.

Police manhandling protesters at one of the entrances to the Atomic Weapons Establishment

And while I'm discussing inspiring protests against weapons manufacturers, a group of Bristolians recently took the fight to Raytheon, manufacturer of parts for bunker busters and cluster bombs. Two of the protesters camped on Raytheon's roof for 38 hours. Read about it!

We go by night

2008-08-12T19:17:00.003Z

Leaving the city, I travel quickly
To move slowly
And see the sunset spreading rubies across yellow gorse.
I say to myself, "this is living deeply."
But the blind man!

Leaving the office bustle, I dash between traffic
To tread softly
On lawn clippings, to hear birds clawing through twig piles for their nest's next layer.
I say to myself, "these are simple pleasures."
But the deaf girl!

Leaving week-day madness, I drive through suburbs
To step head-bowed
Under consecrated arches, through filtered light and careful stillness.
I say to myself, "here is holiness."
But the outcast!

Staying put, I live dangerously,
Moving painfully
Through hungry cities, bloody villages, lonely crossroads.
My companions are the blind man, the deaf girl, the outcast.
It is the darkness that speaks to me. It is the agony night which whispers truth.

I wrote this back in 2001. I think of it as a poetic restatement of an earlier post about retreat versus engagement.

Maternity services review

2008-08-04T13:25:00.001Z

Since 2006 there has been an ongoing review of services for birth and the newborn across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. The review is currently asking for feed-back from the general public. We have until 17th October to express our opinion on this issue.

In the next week or so I expect to become a Dad for the first time. Pretty bloody exciting. The process of preparing for parenthood has been a really interesting and satisfying one; my partner and I have received a lot of support from different people, including professionals. Generally speaking, I would say that professionals in this area do an excellent job.

There are of course exceptions to this though. And, for me, these exceptions generally revolve around the system's desire to manage all the people (mother, partner, child) involved in the birth. There are a lot of rules and guidelines in place that prescribe what happens to the people involved at various stages of pregnancy and birth. A lot of the time these are really helpful but not always.

For instance there is a strict rule at Southmead Hospital that there will be no partners on maternity wards after 8pm. The maternity ward is where the mother and baby go after they have given birth (the birthing wards are open to partners for the entire birth process). So, if my child is born in the afternoon, then I will be able to spend very little time with him or her, before being forcibly ejected from the premises. My partner will then have to cope on her own with our newborn child until I am allowed on the ward again at 10am the next morning.

Rules like this can be incredibly damaging I believe. If a mother wants to avail herself of the professional support available on the maternity ward, then her partner is disqualified from enjoying those precious early hours with his/her child. It is a real shame.

I intend to contribute to the on-going review of maternity services, to suggest that this rule be changed. I encourage others to also participate - especially those who have had experience of maternity services in this area. It is a great chance for changes to be made, especially as the people conducting the review seem to be recognising this tendency for the birth experience to be "over-managed". The review has highlighted the increasing occurence of Caesarean sections as a cause for concern; more generally, births tend to involve more intervention and to be "more medical" than they used to be. This review may be a chance to curb these trends.

Changes suggested by the review

More promotion of the importance of care before becoming pregnant.
Direct access to a midwife without having to see a GP first.
Targeting some resources to those with the highest need, for example by improving translation and interpretation services and access to English classes.
Employing specialist midwives to work with vulnerable women such as teenagers, drug users, etc.
A wider choice of antenatal classes.
More choice of where to give birth.
More women to have a home birth or a birth in a more home-like environment.
Women to have one-to-one care from a midwife during labour.
Women will be able to choose to have postnatal care, individually or in groups at their local health centre rather than at home.
Improvements to services for women with mental health problems.
More training for midwives, e.g. to help parents following the death or illness of their baby.

The review has also suggested that women see the same midwife throughout their pregnancy, and during the birth. In the current system women have often never met the midwife who attends to them during their labour; this can be just one more stress in an already stressful time.

How to participate in the review

Website: more information about the review is available here.
Email: bhsp[at]bristolpct[dot]nhs[dot]uk
Postal address: Bristol Health Services Plan, Freepost BS1 O78, King Square House, King Square, Bristol, BS2 8EE.
Telephone, free phone number: 0800 015 5127
Minicom: 0117 9002675
Finally, there are a series of public meetings that people can attend
Bristol

Monday 6 October, 6.30-8pm
The Hall
Broadmead Baptist Church
Broadmead
Bristol
BS1 3HY

South Gloucestershire

Monday 22 September, 10-11.30am
Oak Hall
Jubilee Centre
Savages Wood Road
Bradley Stoke
BS32 8HL

North Somerset

Thursday 2 September, 6.30 -8pm
Main Hall
Folk Hall
High Street
Portishead
BS20 6PR

Thursday 18 September, 6.30-8pm
St James Church Hall
Woodborough Road
Winscombe
BS25 1AQ

Tuesday 7 October, 10.30am-12pm
The Campus
Highlands Lane
Worle
Weston-super-mare
BS24 7DX

Speaking with children

2008-07-07T16:01:00.001Z

The genesis of this piece was the discussion on Bristol IndyMedia newswire about attacks on the cycle path in Easton. What particularly struck me about these attacks was that people referred to the attackers as `groups of kids'. Why would children do this? Well I've got no answers but this piece outlines the trail that my thoughts have taken in the weeks since reading the discussion...

In just over a month's time I expect to become a dad for the first time. That admission should tell you all you need to know about my interest in the question of parenting... and about my current ignorance of the subject.

Not long since I was talking to a young relative of mine (let's call him Ben) who had got himself in a lot of trouble with his family, due to misbehaviour at school. He'd been excluded for a couple of days over an incident - the first time that (to his family's knowledge) he'd been in any serious trouble at school.

What struck me, when I spoke to him about it, was how little his voice had been heard by the rest of his family. A version of events had come forth from teachers at the school and this had been immediately received as the whole story, with Ben cast as the villain of the piece. Undoubtedly Ben had been pretty naughty, but when I talked to him it was also clear that some of the teachers had probably got the wrong end of the stick.

In the family's eyes though, the most important thing was for Ben to understand the importance of submitting to authority. They were concerned that he learned to `behave' for his teachers, and to do as he was told, for fear that his behaviour would spiral out of control and he'd ruin his chance for a decent education. Their concerns were well-intentioned and, to some degree, well-founded. My reservation is that we can become so focussed on getting a particular message across that we lost sight of the `truth' within a situation.

It was an issue I came across when I worked in homeless hostels in Bristol. Residents would often come to staff members griping about any number of issues; a lot of the time it was simply a way of venting their frustration at the daily difficulties of their existence and all I needed to do was be sympathetic, and help them to calm down a little. Sometimes though their complaints were related to serious issues relating to how the hostel was run, or the behaviour of other residents, and the `calm down' response was not appropriate; just diffusing the complaint was missing the point. The problem was that I (and my fellow workers) were just seeing the person doing the complaining as the problem and, again, not sighting the `truth' within the situation.

Another example: the government's message about drugs. This is another example of how just focusing on a `message' that we want to communicate can fall down if it doesn't tally with the truth. The government and their clients, the mainstream media, are so obsessed with demonising drugs and drug-takers, supposedly with a view to putting kids off taking drugs (although a discussion of the real motivation could take a while), that their portrayal of the issue is entirely skewed. It is impossible to have a serious debate about drugs because everyone involved is so focussed on `getting the message across'.

The problem with all this, well-intentioned as it may be, is that people - children, in particular - can see through it. They know when people's response to a situation is skewed or, in their words, `unfair'. Such a perception results in a number of negative phenomena.

Firstly the message that people are trying to communicate, legitimate as it might be, gets lost. In the case of Ben, his family wanted him to understand the value of getting a good education, and the foolishness of ruining his opportunity with bad behaviour. It's a good message and it's a real shame if it gets lost amidst his frustration that everyone is taking sides against him. A similar principal applies in the case of drugs: god forbid that anyone should find out that you can have brilliant times on drugs. And why should this (obvious) admission detract from a serious underlying message: that drugs can fuck you up?

The second consequence of this sort of propogandising is that it diminishes respect for the `truth'. I won't go into a long and involved philosophical debate about the absoluteness or otherwise, of `truth'; what I'm referring to is not a philosophical concept but the idea that people should speak with integrity. That we should speak with children (or homeless people, or anyone) with candour and with respect for them and their capacity to understand the world around them. This also admits the legitimacy of the other party taking a different view on things. Being open to this possibility can be draining, and takes a lot of patience, but I believe it is worth it.

I want to give one more example of the conflict between `the message' and `the truth'. Too often families take the opposite approach to Ben's family, and the the effects are just as damaging. Namely they defend their child's actions to the hilt and refuse to admit (outside the family sphere at least) that criticism of their child is legitimate. This can build an unhealthy sense of invincibility, a sense in the child that they have carte blanche to be as obnoxious as they like. Once more the message has become warped because it did not tally with the truth.

Needless to say I have no idea whether any of these reflections are directly relevant to the kids who were beating people up on the cycle track. Relevant or not though, they have crystallized a determination in my mind, a determination to speak the truth, as best I can, with my own child. Let's see now if I can live up to my good intentions...

Clarion call for resistance to the arms trade

2008-07-02T14:28:00.003Z

This blog has been following developments around the arms fair DSEi very closely. We reported on Reed Elsevier's divestment of DSEi last year. Reed took their decision due to pressure from academics, health professionals, authors and others.

In the last couple of months, Clarion events have taken over the organisation of DSEi. Clarion are organisers of many different events, but the one that caught my eye is The Baby Show.

Of course all this means that the campaign must begin all over again. Below is correspondence on the matter which I've initiated in the last couple of weeks.

Please feel free to write to Clarion yourself! You can get email addresses from the Clarion website, or use the form on the CAAT website (both of which are linked above).

Sent on 20 June 2008 to Lee Masters, organiser of The Baby Shows:

Dear Mr Masters,

My partner is expecting a baby so I am very aware of preparing for the
birth. I have seen advertisements for The Baby Shows in a number of
places.

Unfortunately I have also seen recent headlines to the effect that the
organiser of the Baby Shows is now also organising arms fairs. Can you
confirm that this is the case? I understand that Clarion have recently
bought the rights to organise the DSEi arms fair, the biggest arms fair in
the world.

I am horrified to think that Clarion thinks that organising these two
events would be considered acceptable. One event purports to help parents
prepare to bring children into the world, the other markets machines that
usher human beings out of this world. And in the most violent (and
premature) way.

In past months I have read a series of excoriating articles about DSEi
that outlined what a mockery the system of safe guards on arms trading has
been. Representatives of the most oppressive regimes in the world have
been invited to talk with producers of some of the most hideous hardware
in the world (including parts for cluster bombs and torture equipment).

The fact of the matter is that the arms trade is the most reprehensible
possible trade for Clarion to be involved in. Let me state categorically
that under no circumstances will I attend or support Clarion-run events in
any way, so long as Clarion maintains this connection with the arms trade.

I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter. I am
writing to you as the organiser of the Baby Shows but please let me know
of others within Clarion to whom I should also address my concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Received on 28 June from Julian Graves, of Clarion Events.

Dear ***

Lee Masters has passed me your email regarding Clarion Events’ recent
acquisition of DSEi. Clarion Events is the largest independent event
organiser in the UK and a highly successful, professional, award winning
company. We have been creating leading brands and world-class business and
networking environments globally across a wide variety of sectors for more
than 30 years and I can confirm we have added defence and security to our
portfolio.

Defence and security is a legitimate business and we will apply the same
very high standards, rigour, experience and skill to organising events in
this sector as we do in all of our others.

The events we have acquired serve only the legitimate defence and security
industry and both exhibitors and visitors must adhere to the highest
regulatory scrutiny. We insist that exhibitors must comply with and exceed
the requirements of UK and international law.

Your letter refers to ‘parts for cluster munitions and torture equipment’
being on display at DSEi. I would like to reassure you that cluster
munitions and torture equipment, and parts or services relating to such
equipment, are banned from DSEi.

All our exhibitors are contractually required to ensure that all equipment,
services, documentation and any other forms of promotion comply with UK, EU
and international law. Appropriate action has been and will continue to be
taken against any exhibitors who fail to meet these requirements.

Thank you again for your letter.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Graves

c.c Lee Masters,

Sent on 1 July 2008 to Lee Masters and Julian Graves, of Clarion Events

Dear Julian and Lee,

Thank you for your reply. As employees of Clarion Events it is of course
incumbent upon you to advocate for the policies and activities of Clarion;
nonetheless you have not put my mind at rest.

Let me briefly address a couple of things that you mentioned in your email:

> Defence and security is a legitimate business and we will apply the same
> very high standards, rigour, experience and skill to organising events in
> this sector as we do in all of our others.

Whilst you refer to DSEi within the remit of "defence and security", I
prefer the (more accurate) term of the "arms trade". And, yes, it is true
that the arms trade is legal. This does not however make it moral.

According to the law of this country, Clarion Events is free to organise
DSEi and other arms fairs. You should be aware though that I, and many
other citizens of this country, view this as a reprehensible activity,
whether it is legal or not.

> The events we have acquired serve only the legitimate defence and
> security industry and both exhibitors and visitors must adhere to the
highest
> regulatory scrutiny. We insist that exhibitors must comply with and
> exceed the requirements of UK and international law.

These are the same phrases that employees of Reed-Elsevier used to
reassure me when I wrote to them regarding their organisation of DSEi.
Subsequent to their reassurances scandals broke in the press involving the
sale of parts for cluster munitions, torture equipment, and invitations
extended to people like the Sudanese defence minister!

You assure me that such things won't happen again. I can only take you at
your word but, frankly, I am not convinced. I very much doubt that you as
an individual will be responsible for foul play at DSEi but inevitably,
when the arms trade is involved, the rules will be bent.

But over and above nit-picking about individual rules being broken or not,
there is a deeper issue: I truly believe that DSEi and the other arms
fairs which Clarion has added to its portfolio, will increase human
anguish and suffering on a massive scale. People will die because Clarion
sees fit to bring together arms dealers with people who would use those
arms on fellow human beings. Is this really a transaction that Clarion
should be involved in? As an individual, do you not have any qualms about
the horror these arms fairs will cause?

Yours sincerely,
***

Fast for justice in India

2008-06-17T09:48:00.003Z

I want to alert people to a couple of campaigns that are happening right now. Both relate to India and both are of particular interest in that they are using the technique of fasting as a way of drawing attention to the struggle. I have pledged to support the first campaign by participating in the fast; others may be interested in how they can offer their support.

Binayak Sen

The case of Binayak Sen should provide Bristol readers with a chilling reminder of how important it is to defend our civil liberties. In recent days we have seen the House of Commons approve a Bill to allow the detention of people for 42 days without charge. In the words of David Davis, "in truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms."

In India, the tide of civil liberties is already at a much lower ebb. The Central and State Governments have legislated to give themselves virtual impunity when it comes to the human rights of the individual. Binayak Sen is one of many Indian individuals who have been made to suffer by their own governments.

Binayak Sen is a paediatrician and public health specialist. He has devoted his life to providing health care for the poorest people in Chattisgarh state. His efforts have been recognised internationally but, more importantly, he has also earned the respect and affection of poor local people.

But Dr Sen has another role: he is the national vice-president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties. In this role he has helped to organize numerous fact finding missions into human rights violations. These have included, in particular, inquiries into extra-judicial killings, and prisoners likely to be at risk of torture. His investigations have drawn attention to police murders of unarmed civilians.

In May 2007, Dr Sen was detained for allegedly violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. This draconian law has been criticised by a host of different people and organisations who see it as an unashamed attempt by the government to deprive citizens of their rights. But perhaps it is best to hear what Dr Sen himself said of the law, just before he was arrested:

For the past several years, we are seeing all over India - and as part of that in the state of Chhattisgarh as well - a concerted programme to expropriate from the poorest people in the Indian nation, their access to essentials, common property resources and to natural resources including land and water... hundreds of villages have been denuded of the people living in them and hundreds of people - men and women - have been killed. Government-armed vigilantes have been deployed and the people who have been protesting against such moves and trying to bring before the world the reality of these campaigns - human rights workers like myself - have also been targeted through state action against them. At the present moment the workers of the Chhattisgarh PUCL (People's Union for Civil Liberties) the Chhattisgarh branch, of which I am General Secretary, have particularly become the target of such state action; and I, along with several of my colleagues, are being targeted by the Chhattisgarh state in the form of punitive action, illegal imprisonment. And all these measures are being taken especially under the aegis of the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act."

For more information click here.
To read about the fast in support of Binayak Sen click here.

Bhopal

The plight of the people of Bhopal will probably be familiar to most of you. But if not, here's a good place to start.

Since the date of the accident the people of Bhopal have been struggling for justice. They ask for the site of the accident to be cleaned, for compensation to be paid, and for those responsible to be brought to justice. Their requests have been largely ignored (some compensation was paid but it was very small, even by Indian standards). A list of their demands can be read here.

Some four months ago, a group of people walked from Bhopal to Delhi to ask, yet again, to speak to the prime minister about their complaints. The prime minister has not met with them, despite their patient requests and their evidently just complaint. Indeed after months of waiting on the pavements of Delhi, last week a number of the Bhopalis were arrested and taken to a police station. There they were savagely beaten to the point that one of them needed to be hospitalised.

In the aftermath of the police activities, nine of the Bhopalis commenced an indefinite fast. They have been joined by people around the world who wish to draw attention to the Indian prime minister's disgraceful (lack of) response to the Bhopalis' cry for help.

To join the fast click here.
To read of US congressmen and UK ministerial action click here.
Here in the UK we might not be able to influence Indian politicians, but perhaps some of us should pay a visit to Dow chemical:
2 Heathrow Boulevard, 284 Bath Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 0DQ, UK
Tel: (020) 8917 5000 Fax: (020) 8917 5400 web.

A letter to Thich Nhat Hanh

2008-06-13T16:35:00.003Z

For some years I have read, and tried to practise, the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk from Vietnam. The following is an open letter to him, and to the Buddhist group with whom I practise, about some of his teachings. Specifically I talk about the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Other expressions that may need explanation are Dharma and Sangha.

Dear Thich Nhat Hanh & the White Clouds Sangha,

I am not quite sure who to address this letter to. But it concerns the Dharma - one of the three legs of practising Buddhism - so it seems appropriate that I address my concerns to the other two legs - my Sangha and the Buddha. (With apologies to Thich Nhat Hanh for conflating him with the Buddha!)

There are two main issues that I wish to address. They both constitute (constructive) criticisms of the way that we practise. Let me say first that I value the practice very much and I want my criticisms to be read with this in mind. My criticism comes from a place of love and respect for the Darnha, the Sangha and the Buddha.

(1) THE FIVE MINDFULNESS TRAININGS: At our Day of Mindfulness on Saturday we ended the day, as we often do, by reciting the five mindfulness trainings. Most of the group seem to find this a good way of ending the day, strengthening our resolve to practise mindfulness in the days ahead.

Unfortunately I do not find it so. There are three reasons why not:
(a) The trainings are "the basis for a happy life". My problem here is with the "the" and the exclusiveness, dogmatism even, that it implies. I broadly endorse (with some exceptions as given below) the five mindfulness trainings as a way of life; but I would certainly shrink from asserting that they are the definitive answer to the question of how to live.

But this is easily fixed: replace "the" with "a" and I am happy (and I have seen this in other translations of the five trainings so perhaps it should be this way anyway).

(b)On drugs and alcohol: Why the injunction to forgo these pleasures?

The majority of the training on consumption revolves around the cultivation of compassion for the earth and all beings on the earth. It is therefore very natural to be mindful in our consumption: to avoid meat, to avoid polluting TV programmes etc. It is not clear to me that a compassionate outlook implies a complete abstinence from drugs and alcohol.

In fact it seems to me that the use of drugs can be undertaken mindfully - with a view to enhancing our understanding of consciousness and our emotions, whilst aware of the risks which such an undertaking involves. It is true that most of society does not use drugs in this way, even if they intend to. But then this is also true of TV and we do not presume to ban TV altogether - only to moderate its use.

The point is this: the practice of Buddhism should allow us to live compassionately and wisely and mindfully. If we do this then the choices which we make will be good ones. It is not necessary nor, indeed, is it in any way advantageous for our spirituality, to be arbitrarily bounded by dogma. This limits us; if nothing else it removes from us the chance to say "no" for ourselves.

(c) On sex: And, really, the same applies here. We pledge many fine things in the third training but why this: "not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment."?

Why is love not sufficient? How can it not be sufficient? I mean REAL love, MINDFUL love, a Buddha-like love. Perhaps with this love we may decide to say "no" to any sexual relations which are not long term. But, then, why are we being instructed in this way, rather than being allowed to choose for ourselves?

Humanity's relation to sexuality has long been a vexed one. Religious leaders of every ilk have tried to give guidance on this issue - sometimes in good faith. But the end result has always, it seems to me, been one of two outcomes: the wise have instructed us to LOVE and to BE LOVING in all we do. The less wise have tied themselves (and, sadly, their disciples) in knots trying to prescribe monogamy, or heterosexuality, or abstinence, or free love, or... whatever it may be.

It seems that, when it comes to our sexuality, it is very hard to see the wood for the trees, to know the best way to proceed. How much more difficult then when we try to give recipes for OTHER PEOPLE's sexuality!Let us love one another. That is enough.

Before I leave this concern, let me anticipate one defence of the five mindfulness trainings: that they are guidelines for practice, not hard and fast rules. Of course I appreciate this point; I also appreciate the responsibility of the Buddha and the Sangha for giving guidance on how to live - I take this guidance very seriously.

The key point is that, in these two instances - on sex, and on drugs and alcohol, the guidance moves from the philosophical to the specific. When I "vow to speak truthfully" there is a world of reflection open to me (and my Sangha) about what this means, and how I am to put my vow into practice. This is not the case when I say "I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant..." which is an absolute statement and admits no freedom of interpretation. Yet, if I am to practice truly and mindfully, then I must have that freedom to think and to reflect and to decide for myself.

(2) And so to my second concern: retreat vs engagement.

Unlike my first concern which was specific and concrete, my second is one of perception and balance. Or rather a perceived imbalance. Where this balance arises I am not sure - undoubtedly it is partly within myself. But perhaps it also arises within the practice of the Sangha and so I feel I should share it.

My perception is simply this: that the idea of "retreat" has become too dominant in our practice, so that it now threatens our "engagement". As a Sangha we seem to share a love of natural beauty, of stillness, of reflective peace. This is right and proper. We seek out these experiences and share them as a group together. I have benefited greatly from them.

Even more, when we come together, we share guided meditations speaking to us of the "clear mountain air" and the "sunshine" and the "cool stream". It is good that we think of these things for they are, and so we are with them.

When I return to my daily life - at work, or on the road, or wherever - I retain in me the sense of connectedness to the clear mountain air and the cool stream, and it eases me.

But sometimes I wonder about this ease: is it the ease of a being immersed in the present moment, connected to the earth and all that dwell on her? Or is it the ease of a being who escapes the present moment through a porthole to other, more beautiful places. Am I seeing my world more clearly or, rather, am I focusing my eyes on a distant horizon and refusing to acknowledge that which lies in front of my nose?

There is no answer to this but perhaps there is a pointer for my practice. i can retreat TOO MUCH. I can seek peace and tranquillity to the point that I am not able to acknowledge chaos and drama. My practice must be immersed in every aspect of my life.

And it is not just me, the practitioner: the same may be said of the Sangha, surely. If we meet together only in places of beauty and peace, are we not in danger of unbalancing our practice? Should we not share together the trials of daily life so that we can be present together there too? How is our practice, in its current form, engaged?

It is not enough to have a Dharna pot for children in Vietnam; there must be something more. Perhaps our next day of mindfulness should be at a rubbish dump, or in a shopping centre, or outside an arms factory. Perhaps our Dharma talk should be the story of a refugee or drug addict. Perhaps we should eat rice without salt...

I am committed to reflecting and discussing and trying to resolve these concerns as best I can for myself and with my Sangha. I would appreciate any feedback.

Yours sincerely,

****

Knowledge for all

2008-06-11T09:47:00.002Z

The following article just appeared here.

Last month the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai (IMSc) launched its new open-access repository. The repository provides open access to research articles written by members of the Institute. Anyone who has an Internet connection can access the server and can read articles about physics, mathematics and theoretical computer science written by members of IMSc.

Of course these articles are also available to anyone who subscribes to the journals in which they are published. But herein is the key point: journal prices have, in recent years, gone through the roof and many journals are now so expensive that access is restricted to universities with extremely deep pockets. For obvious reasons, universities and scientific institutes in India, with the exception of a few, cannot afford access.

The IMSc repository is part of a growing backlash from academics around the world who are angry at this state of affairs. They are seeking new and different ways to wrest back knowledge from the corporations and to open up access for all.

The current situation

The established method for an academic to circulate her work is to publish in a peer-reviewed journal of good repute. When an academic sends in a paper for publication, an editor will send it out to one or more independent and anonymous referees, chosen for their expert knowledge in the field. The referees will write a confidential report to the editor, on the basis of which the editor will take the decision to publish or not to publish. In many areas of academia (including, for instance, mathematics), the author, editor and referee all work for free. They receive no remuneration from the publisher, a fact that will be important later.

When a reader comes across an interesting article in a good journal they know it has gone through this process and so they can have some degree of trust in the veracity and quality of the work being presented. It is here that the reputation of the journal is paramount -- if a journal has a tendency to publish work which is later found to be sub-standard then the peer-review process is undermined. Journals of good standing build up their reputation by consistently publishing high-quality work, sometimes over periods of more than a century.

In the early-’90s there were several such journals, independently owned and publishing work in a vast array of areas. It was around this time that several publishing houses started to grow significantly and to buy up journals in particular fields. Perhaps the most celebrated such publishing house is Reed-Elsevier. This giant of the field was created in 1993 by the merger of Reed and Elsevier, two publishing houses of more than a century's standing. Reed-Elsevier is now a FTSE 100 company with profit before tax of around Rs 8,000 crore in 2007.

Since the merger (and independently beforehand) Reed-Elsevier has bought up academic journals from many different fields. Their health division, for instance, now publishes some 800 journals, including the most prestigious of them all, The Lancet. Science Direct, their online science platform, claims to provide access to some 2,600 scientific journals. Once again, these include some of the most prestigious journals in the field - Physics Letters B, Nuclear Physics B, Advances in Mathematics, etc etc.

Unfortunately, Reed-Elsevier's new-found dominance of the market has proved costly for students and academics around the world. A 2007 survey of mathematics journals found that over the last decade the prices of many journals had increased by more than 10% per year. Prices have reached a level of absurdity whereby many mathematics journals cost more than Rs 50 per page (some have prices as high as Rs 300 per page). Reed-Elsevier is not alone in this practice Springer also deserves a special mention) but, as the biggest scientific publishing house, it has been instrumental in setting the trend.

And it is a trend with a hugely negative impact on academic research. Consider the situation at IMSc, Chennai. The total annual budget for IMSc is around Rs 13.3 crore, of which Rs 2.55 crore is spent subscribing to academic journals. Around 55% of this Rs 2.55 crore is paid to the two largest publishing companies - Reed-Elsevier and Springer - for the privilege of receiving a selection of the journals that they publish. In other words, more than 10% of the total budget for IMSc (more than the entire budget for faculty salaries) is paid directly to these two multi-national companies.

M Paul Pandian, the IMSc librarian, estimates that journal costs for IMSc are increasing at an average of 8% per annum, far in excess of inflation these past years. In the last year, this increase has been mitigated by a weaker dollar, but in general the effect of this increase is substantial. What is more, according to Pandian, price increases appear to have no correlation with increased costs for the publisher, or with better service.

Now IMSc is in the fortunate position of being one of the premier scientific institutes in the country and, as such, it has been given a budget to accommodate the commercial publishers. But, as Professor VS Sunder of IMSc says, "barring a miniscule number of institutions (such as IMSc and TIFR), the majority of universities in India (and even some good research institutes, which do not happen to be quite so fortunate in the funding they receive) simply cannot afford to access many journals as they are priced today. This situation represents a serious handicap for many Indian students and academics who wish to do significant research."

Hope for the future

A research academic has two fundamental duties: to perform research and to share that research with others. Sharing research has traditionally been achieved through publishing, but many academics now do not consider work to have been adequately shared if it has been merely published in an over-priced journal. With this in mind, and angry at the policies of Reed-Elsevier, Springer and their fellows (such as John Wiley and Taylor & Francis), many academics are using new, non-commercial methods to undermine the corporate publishing houses.

Firstly institutions have started to set up open-access repositories (like the one that has just been launched at IMSc, Chennai); this ensures that their work is available to the public even if it ends up being published in an expensive journal. At IMSc, the mathematics group has gone one step further. They decided at an open meeting of the group to make use of the repository mandatory; in other words all members of the mathematics group are required to place a copy of all of their papers on the repository. Such a requirement is, at this stage, not all that common, but it is becoming more so.

In 2007, five leading European research institutions launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish a new policy that would require all government-funded research to be made available to the public shortly after publication. Within weeks more than 20,000 signatories had endorsed the petition and in January 2008 the European Research Council (ERC) announced that all ERC-funded research was required to be put in an open-access repository within six months of publication. A month later, in a separate development, Harvard University announced a similar policy for all research published by academics at Harvard. More universities and institutes are expected to follow suit.

The proliferation of open-access journals is the second important development in the move away from commercial academic publishing. As I mentioned earlier, in mathematics at least, the peer-review part of academic publishing is done for free by professional academics. What is more, mathematics papers are submitted already type-set by the author. Which means there is precious little left for the publisher to do!

Recognising this fact groups of academics have started to set up new journals which are free (or, at least, low-cost). They still provide the same peer-review service and, indeed, a goodly number of the free journals already have significant renown in the academic world. For instance, the journal Geometry and Topology, a free mathematics journal set up under the auspices of the University of Warwick, has quickly become one of the premier journals in its field. The number of such journals is increasing rapidly: the online Directory of Open Access Journals now lists 3,315 journals.

More than just setting up free journals, academics are actively protesting corporate publishing policies. In 2006, in a move that sent ripples throughout the mathematical community, the entire editorial board of the prestigious journal Topology resigned in protest at Reed-Elsevier's management of the journal since they first gained control of it in 1994. In their resignation letter the board stated that "we believe that the price, in combination with Elsevier's policies for pricing mathematical journals more generally, has had a significant and damaging effect on Topology's reputation in the mathematical research community." They go on to say that Reed-Elsevier have undermined the legacy of a fine journal with their policies. In 2007 the editorial board announced the launch of a new low-cost journal, the Journal of Topology, which would not be published by Reed-Elsevier.

Corporate publishing houses, though, are not going to sit by watching their profits vanish in a mist of open-access.

In 2007 the scientific journal Nature reported that some of the big houses (including Reed-Elsevier) had hired a PR expert to help them counter the open-access revolution. The expert's advice: a smear campaign to undermine the new trend. He advised the big houses to focus on simple messages such as "public access equals government censorship"; he also suggested that they attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review. Both of these messages are, of course, factually incorrect, but this is hardly a hurdle for a PR campaign.

Other, less duplicitous, methods are also available to the big houses. On a visit to IMSc, an executive from Reed-Elsevier was challenged by academics on the issue of pricing. He freely admitted that it is not in Reed-Elsevier's interest to reduce prices (and therefore profits); rather he said that Reed-Elevier were investigating methods of "adding value" to their service. For instance, they were considering paying referees for their work, thereby establishing a commercial transaction in the heart of the peer-review process.

So the battle is on, and the consequences of who wins are important. As Professor R Balasubramanian, Director of IMSc points out, "aspiring scientists and academics in developing countries deserve a chance to fulfil their potential. For this to happen the shift to open-access publishing needs to be vigorously supported. It is vital that academics and institutes take all possible steps to open up learning and knowledge to all."

The Tree

2008-03-06T06:52:00.003Z

A long time ago, a great forest covered a distant land. One day a woodsman came walking along a path through the forest, whistling a tune and enjoying the summer sun. He carried an axe, resting it on his shoulder, and he walked easily, casting a professional eye over the trees as he walked past.

Suddenly he came across a very old, gnarled giant of a tree with an owl sitting on a nest in its branches. "Hello owl", he said. "Hello to yoooou toooo." said the owl and they smiled at each other.

"This tree doesn't look very well", said the woodsman.

"No, indeed. It's been ailing for quite a while" said the owl.

"Yes, I can see where disease has come into its limbs and has weakened them. This isn't good, owl."

"You're not wrong," said the owl.

There was an easy silence as the woodsman thought a little. Eventually he put his axe down on the ground and stretched his arms to waken the muscles. "You know, I think I could probably sort this tree out," said the woodsman.

"Hang on," said the owl quickly, "Sort it out how?"

"Well, it's simple see. This disease needs to be cut out of the tree if the tree's going to get better. And I reckon I'm just the man for the job - I can see where the disease is and I'll just lop off the bad bits."

"Whooooooaaa boy," said the owl. "Back up a little. The tree might be sick, sure. But that doesn't mean you're the man to cure it. I'm not sure that this tree needs the tender ministrations of a sharp blade at all. In fact, I reckon that's the last thing it needs."

"How so?"

"Well this tree was doing pretty well until woodsmen started messing with it a few years back. Giving it a little prune here and there - `for its own good' of course. One guy even tried the same trick you're talking about - cutting out this nasty disease with his axe. A fat lot of good that did - this tree hasn't ever properly recovered from that operation - the disease just got a whole lot worse. But at least we're surviving, and at least I've still got a nest for my babies."

"Well owl, that's as may be. You've clearly come across some bad woodsmen. But I'm different from that - I know what I'm doing. I know trees and I know this tree - I can fix it. I know I can."

"Thank you kindly for the offer," said the owl, "but we'll be just fine without your help. You go along now mister and good day to yoooouu."

The woodsman grimaced. "Owly, I've heard your comments but, with respect, I think you're wrong. And I'm going to prove it."

With that, he picked up his axe and walked purposefully to the tree. As the owl watched in consternation he examined a branch for sign of disease and then picked his mark and started chopping. In just a couple of minutes the branch was half cut through and soon, with a big creaking noise, it started splintering and dropping to the ground. A couple more hearty blows and the branch and tree were split asunder for ever.

"Now would you look at that!" said the woodsman. "This tree is going to be a whole lot healthier now. That branch was riddled with disease - if I'd just left it be the whole tree would have been brought down."

This time the owl didn't respond. She was flapping her wings in agitation and muttering soothing noises to her babies. The sound of chopping had aroused a chorus of frightened cries from the youngsters hiding unseen under their mother's soft belly.

The woodsman turned to the tree again and began examining the next branch. Finding evidence of more disease he started chopping away. He was confident that, with a few minutes work, this tree would be entirely freed of disease and the owl would be proven wrong.

Somehow though, it didn't work out that way. As he finished cutting off each branch he would look up and immediately spot more disease on the remaining branches. A few minutes quickly turned into a few hours of hard work.

He was so focussed on the task at hand that he barely noticed the owl getting more and more frantic. She alternated between whispering gently to her babies and trying desparately to quell her rising panic. Although it distressed her babies even more, she started to squawk wildly to try and attract the attention of any passing animals that might be able to help. But either they didn't hear her, or they were doing their best to stay out of harm's way, for no one came to her help.

Suddenly the owl launched herself from her nest and swooped down savagely on the head of the woodsman.

"Hey, what are you playing at?" he asked angrily. She'd taken him by surprise - he'd forgotten about her altogether, and she'd scratched his scalp.

"You're cutting my branch!" she screeched hysterically. "My babies are in a nest on that branch!"

She was right, he hadn't even realised. What's more it was the last branch left. As he looked around at his work, he realised that he'd chopped down all but a fraction of the once mighty tree. The main trunk still stood, and one long branch which supported the owl's nest.

"Why, you're right, owly. I see you're right." And he put down his axe and paused to wipe the sweat from his brow - cutting this tree had really taken it out of him. The owl flew back to her nest in relief. She'd stopped him just in time - she turned her attention to her crying babies - "It's all right now. Don't worry, Mummy's here..."

But suddenly she felt a shudder run through the nest. She looked up and saw the woodsman was cutting the branch. "Twaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrkkkkkkkk" she screeched in wild panic. "What are you doing? My babies!"

The woodsman didn't look up from his work. But between blows he gasped out a few sentences. "Owly, I don't expect you to understand.... But if I leave this branch all my work will be for nothing.... And this tree will still be here, diseased and uncured.... This branch is harbouring a disease that will kill this tree and it's my duty to cut it out..."

But the owl wasn' t listening. She was flapping frantically, trying vainly to protect her babies from the shudders running through the nest. Her mind whirred in panic but there was nothing she could do. She could feel the branch weakening with every brow. Oh God, oh God. Suddenly the branch collapsed a little. The whole nest dropped with it and she felt her stomach in her throat. Her babies were thrown around in the nest; their feeble cries were filled with terror. It would take just one more blow, she knew, and the branch would fall. As she watched the woodsman pull back his arm, she leaned down and gently picked up one of her babies in her mouth. As the axe hit the branch, she spread her wings and took flight.

As she beat her powerful wings she heard the branch hit the ground. Her heart jerked in her chest and a burning sadness spread through her whole body. But she flew on, her baby in her mouth - the only baby left - whom she had to save. The forest was wide and there were many trees but who would have her? She had only one nest and it was gone now. There were hard days and nights ahead, this much she knew.

The woodsman stood by the remaining tree trunk. The great tree which had stood for many years was now little more than a stump in the ground. Great branches lay strewn around on the ground - though diseased they were still great solid pieces of wood. This had been a great labour. He was tired now and it was time to go home and rest.

* * * * *

The next day the woodsman returned to the tree stump. This time he travelled on a cart that was pulled by two weary looking horses. He tethered the horses in the shade of a nearby tree and picked the axe out of the cart. He spent the rest of the day cutting the branches of the tree into logs and loading them onto the cart. It was hard graft and by the end of the day his hands were full of splinters.

Once the axe slipped and came mighty close to cutting off his foot. But it missed and the scare seemed to renew his focus. He chopped twice as hard after that and the tree was soon completely carved up and loaded onto the cart. As darkness fell he climbed on the cart and clicked the horses into a walk. It was beautifully cool now after the sweat of hard work in the heat of the day.

As he pulled out of the clearing a distant bird call sounded through the forest. It was an owl, he thought. The call sounded repeatedly as he left the clearing where the tree had once stood - it was a strange call. Oddly strident and clear, but full of a deep emotion that he could not quite name. What was that bird screeching for, he wondered? He'd forgotten all about the owl that had lived in the tree, so he had no inkling of the sadness that filled that call.

When he got back to his house, he greeted his wife with a kiss. "The man from the timber company came by earlier," she said. "He was keen to speak with you."
"Yes, I'll bet he was. Come and see this." He led her outside and showed her the cart full of logs. "Good solid logs these," he said. "And rare too. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this tree yesterday."

"Why, this is wonderful, " said his wife. " But there are strange markings on its bark. Has it got some kind of disease?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. This is good timber, that's all that matters. We're going to get a mighty good price - the timber company are going to love this. We're set, baby, we're set!"

He kissed her and they went inside. It had been a long couple of days.

A Circle of Good People

2008-03-05T08:52:00.003Z

The text of this post is taken from here. The post describes a movement here in Tamil Nadu which very much fits into Negri and Hardt's Project of the Multitude (see my earlier post). Alternative structures to that of government are being set up. These structures are not just protest structures, they are creative and productive. And in creating these structures, ordinary people are weakening the influence and relevance of the corporation-government nexus. Nice one!

Ennangalin Sangamam (Confluence of Thought) is the off-shoot of a highly localised earlier movement called Nalloor Vattam (meaning circle of good people). This movement was first formalised and legitimised by the right-wing RSS in the early-’80s in an attempt to build a movement of grassroots groups across Tamil Nadu. However, in the process, they ended up networking a large number of neighbourhood people and institutions who did not necessarily subscribe to the RSS political and social views.

So, out of the darkness, light may come: The Nalloor Vattam now functions in most parts of Tamil Nadu as an apolitical organisation more concentrated on volunteering for a need in the neighbourhood and less inclined towards any political activity. Moving still further from its RSS origins, the Ennangalin Sangamam is the embodiment of a simple idea: Create a space in which these neighbourhood volunteers can come together and share their stories.

This year's Ennangalin Sangamam took place on Sunday, January 6, 2008 at Pattabiram on the outskirts of Chennai. This was the third year the group gathered and it has grown each year. The first year had about 100 participants, the second 152 and this year there were more than 500, some of whom had travelled nearly 500 kilometres to be in attendance. A directory of contacts was published at this year's Sangamam and it contains more than 300 names.

The only qualification that is needed to attend the Ennangalin Sangamam is a willingness to talk and listen. There is no formal registration or payment of fees -- the whole event is designed to sit within the context of volunteerism. The organisers themselves are volunteers, who have taken it upon themselves to create this space and allow the stories to be told.

And everyone had a story to tell. Two of the participants had taken it upon themselves to promote eye donations in their local community. They had convinced more than 100 people to donate their eyes after death, thereby bringing sight to many who had been blind. Another man had taken it upon himself to tell the stories of disabled people. He had spent time talking with different people with different disabilities, written down their stories and published them. His aim was inspiration -- to let the reader hear what can be done against the odds.

Another man worked in an HR consultancy company which focussed on finding employment for the physically challenged. He himself suffered from muscular dystrophy as well as a number of other ailments. He had first encountered the company when he himself had gone there to get help to find work. While there he had used his English skills to translate a conversation for a parent of a deaf woman. The manager of the HR company was impressed and hired him as a consultant there and then.

One speaker particularly impressed the audience as he told of his work facilitating better education facilities for long-term serving prisoners in the Madurai central prison. As he described the social stigma which is suffered by a prisoner's family he broke down with emotion. The suffering of the prisoner's family is immense and the burden is particularly heavy for the prisoner's children who, though innocent of any wrongdoing, often lose out on a fair education.

Many other groups provided support to disabled people -- either through housing, or by the provision of crutches or tricycles for mobility, or through education and work opportunities. A significant number worked on education related issues -- enabling children to go to school and supporting them in their school work. Another group of people were involved in `annadaana'; they volunteer to source, cook and serve free food to abandoned invalids, small village schools and other marginal sections in semi-urban and urban environments. The common thread that united all these groups was a belief that people should be given every opportunity to live a fulfilled life. And, more than a belief, they have a will that converts to action -- concrete outcomes for the improvement of people in their community.

There were hundreds of other stories like this that were shared throughout the day. Some people got up on the podium and told the whole group, many stories were shared over a rice meal (provided free by another set of volunteers) or while drinking tea.

So many stories, so what? Storytelling creates connections. The people gathered in this room were acutely aware that the work they did was important but also that it wasn't enough; that they couldn't do it all on their own. There was a sense that too many people in India are let down by the society in which they live – opportunities are denied and potential is unfulfilled.

What is needed is a web of hope that can run through society and which will help to support people in time of need. The Sangamam helps to spin that web. By hearing other people's stories, people gain inspiration and energy to continue their good work. By telling their own story people receive affirmation for what they have undertaken – it is a morale-booster. People gain knowledge and ideas that they can apply to their own context. Practical support structures are forged through conversation, collaborations are initiated.

All of this interaction is driven from below, from people who are at the coal face, not from ministers and officials at the top of some dubious tree. It was a pleasant change for me to go to a function which didn't involve a mandatory two-hour wait for some (invariably very late) minister to turn up, to be lauded and garlanded, and then to spend too long singing his own praises and describing his commitment to good works. Instead of this hubris, there was an impressive humility on display – this was a gathering of peers, not of passive spectators.

One false note was struck however. For some reason the organisers of the Sangamam saw fit to give an ex-government employee an hour of the gathering's time to promote the white elephant cause of "river linking". And so the stories stopped and the virtues of this idea were outlined (a process often enjoyed by the politicians of Tamil Nadu). The irony of course is that river linking is inherently a grand, centralised and government-driven plan and, as such, is very much at odds with the typical modus operandi of the Sangamam participants. Fortunately this session occurred immediately after a good lunch and so was largely ignored by the participants as they interacted with each other or rested.

It would be a shame if the Ennangalin Sangamam were to be hijacked by political agendas. There is a sense in which the Sangamam is necessary precisely because the other structures of civil society are not performing as they should. Provision for the disadvantaged has dropped so far down the agenda of government that alternative structures need to arise that will meet the need of people in the margins. But these alternative structures will not work if they are simply mirror images of the dysfunctional mainstream political system. Instead our hope lies in a different way of doing things– not by decree from above, but by sharing with those below; not blinded by grand and glorious schemes but immersed in the small, daily struggles of local people.

Murray Brown

2008-03-04T04:23:00.002Z

My friend, Murray Brown, died in November 2007. When I heard the news I wrote his wife a letter. I am posting a copy of some of what I wrote here, as a tribute to a good man.

I have very warm memories of Murray. He is someone that I admired greatly and someone whose friendship was very important to me at some key moments in my life. Despite our difference in years I felt very close to Murray - he did not hide behind his seniority in years or his priestly status. He was very warm and big hearted and that is what enabled me to be his friend.

After I heard the news this morning I went and phoned Matt, to console and be consoled. I then spent some time pouring out some memories to Katie, my partner - memories of Murray. She did not have the privilege of meeting him - something that I now very much regret. But it was good to be able to share with her memories of someone whom I consider to be simply a good man.

In trying to describe Murray to Katie, I found myself using the word `naive'. I mean that in a completely positive way. He was naive because he eschewed the faux worldliness of the cynic; he lived with a genuine, heart-felt, unapologetic commitment to his ideals and he delighted in it! I remember SCM discussions when his hearty laughter filled the room, with his delight at new ideas and lively discussion, as well as his pleasure in the company of those around him. And, in turn, it was a pleasure for me to be in his company.

Murray also shared himself and his pain very willingly. I remember very vividly his descriptions of his struggles with mental health problems; in particular he described to me how one day he had reached such a low that he could do little else but crawl around the back lawn picking out weeds. That image showed a unique vulnerability which touched my heart; Murray's willingness to share that image also showed a deep and abiding strength of character.

In the weeks before I went out bush, after leaving SCM, I met with Murray as a kind of preparation. During our meeting, he introduced me to the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. He gave me a copy of "The Miracle of Mindfulness", a book that changed my life perhaps more than any other. In turn, it has changed the life of Katie, when I bought her a copy some years later. Katie's father has subsequently received much comfort from Thich Nhat Hanh. I've no doubt that Murray's loving actions will ripple out for many years to come, changing people's lives for the better.

I don't want to turn this letter into a hagiography of Murray - I'm sure he would detest that more than any one else, but my memories and loving feelings are strong and very real. I remember an SCM discussion about men, in which Murrary participated, when we concluded that the best we could ever hope to be was a "wise old fool". This was the path of largest heart, of greatest love. Murray walked that path, I think, and I hope that I too will follow in his footsteps as I grow older.

Pool reflections

2008-02-27T11:19:00.004Z

I spent the afternoon today by the side of a pool in a resort in Kerala, India. I was there by invitation of some family members and they were my companions. Various other tourists from the UK and Italy and elsewhere also spent the afternoon by the pool. It cost 200 Rupees for the privilege unless you were staying at the resort in which case it was free.

It was a very nice pool - cool and blue. There were murals on the high wall which enclosed the pool and sun beds and green lawn. The sky was a brilliant egg shell blue. Coconut palms leaned over the wall and shaded the sunbathers; the hot season is just under way in India and that cool shade was delicious.

THERE WERE NO INDIANS.

The entire experience was an exercise in keeping India at bay. The heat of the day, the chaos of the town, the dirt and grime of, well, everywhere; but above all the annoying presence of Indians. 90% of Indians don't have 200 Rupees spare for pool side lazing. The other 10% weren't around today. Perhaps they turn up now and then, but at least you can be sure that they won't be the annoying type who are forever asking for money.

Let us call a spade a spade. This is racist tourism. This place has been set up and deliberately priced to exclude poor people. Which means, since we are in India, excluding Indians. It could not be more obvious if they had a sign at the front saying LOCALS AREN'T WELCOME.

Such places are an attempt to distill all the tropical exoticness of the location - the sun, the sky, the palms - and remove the humans and all the inconvenience that comes with them.

Because, dammit, India - and Indians - can be pretty inconvenient. The roads are bad, the rubbish isn't collected so reliably, the food is spicy, the water's dodgy, the towns are noisy, and it's always so crowded. So many people!

Of course money has always been used in every country to avoid inconvenience. Rich people back in England can avoid many of the travails that bedevil your average Joe. The difference is that in this place the line dividing rich and poor follows pretty close to the line dividing foreigner from lcoal. So, to all intents and purposes, we have an apartheid set-up with white-only zones (except for the Indians who mix the drinks).

This kind of tourism stinks and this kind of resort stinks. Harsh words but I hold them to be true. The people around that pool were decent, ordinary people many of them were the same poor folk who, back in England, can't afford to avoid the everyday inconveniences that don't register with the rich. They were enjoying the novelty of feeling rich.

Unfortunately `feeling rich' is a novelty we have no right to enjoy - for it necessitates that others must feel poor.

This pool provided a reflection. A reflection of the state of the world - where millions are born, live and die in poverty. When we sun ourselves by the pool's blue waters we are openly enjoying the fruits of a world wracked by inequality, injustice and oppression. No wonder the glare of the sun this afternoon was so bright that most people had to shut their eyes.

* * * * * *

P.S. Arundhati Roy's An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire provides an alternative view of India to that experienced at the pool side:

47% of India's children below three suffer from malnutrition, 46% are stunted. Utsa Patsaik's study reveals that about 40% of the rural population in India has the same food grain absorption level as sub-Saharan Africa. Today, an average rural family eats about 100kg less food in a year than it did in the early 1990's. The last 5 years have seen the most violent increase in rural-urban income inequalities since independence. (p222, written in 2004)

What a load of rubbish

2008-02-09T03:46:00.000Z

Last week-end I took my beloved on a romantic trip to Chennai's main landfill site. As we approached the site the sweet smell of shit filled the air and a haze of smoke blocked out the sun. We coughed our way inside, through fumes erupting from piles of rotting refuse, waving away buzzing flies and mosquitoes. A mangy, pussy-eyed old dog sat at the side of a jet-black stream scratching its behind, while various people meandered around the site doing I don't know what. Sorting the rubbish? Scavenging? Contracting some kind of hideous skin rash? All of the above and more.

Outside the dump a group of local residents had gathered to express their protest at the state of affairs. The dump is huge (400 acres) and illegal and its right on the doorstep of a large number of poor families. These poor buggers have been housed courtesy of the Slum Clearance Board. This institution is supposed to move destitute people from squalid homes in slums and put them in decent housing elsewhere. But times change, and now the process seems to have reversed. The residents here used to live elsewhere in the city but had to move due to highways being built, or other developments. So now they live in squalid accommodation next to a massive pile of shit.

Actually shit is the least of their worries. It's the carcinogens in the air that really bother them (air samples from the yard taken on January 22, 2007 and analysed by Colombia Laboratory Services in California revealed the presence of 33 noxious gases, five of which are carcinogenic). And the prospect of contracting malaria from the monster clouds of mosqitoes that roam these parts.

This wasn't what the World Bank had in mind, I'm sure, when they funded these apartment blocks. No, Kodungaiyur dump yard won't appear on the front cover of their annual report. Just another unfortunate by-product of the long march to a globalised tomorrow.

More coverage:
www.hindu.com/2008/01/28/stories/2008012858830500.htm
www.hindu.com/2008/02/04/stories/2008020460040300.htm
www.hindu.com/2008/02/04/stories/2008020460150400.htm

The dump

Protesting Indian-style. Nice masks.

Thanks World Bank! Shame about the view!

It'll take more than a massive pile of human waste to keep this lot down. I hope.

Agent Orange

2008-01-06T15:28:00.000Z

Last night I attended a screening of the film "The Last Ghost of War", followed by a discussion with Dr Simone Nhu-Mai of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association (VAVA). The film and discussion highlighted the horrific legacy that continues to be felt in Vietnam (in addition to Laos and Cambodia, as well as among war veterans from the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea) due to the spraying of herbicides, including the defoliant Agent Orange.

Nineteen million gallons of herbicide were sprayed on Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in an operation code-named Ranch Hand, with the first spraying being personally authorised by President Kennedy. Agent Orange was the most commonly used of these herbicides which were sprayed by American forces in an attempt to destroy the jungle cover of their enemy, the Viet Cong.

And very effective it was too. Unfortunately the production process of one of the key ingredients of Agent Orange - 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid or 245T - was such that it was routinely contaminated with one of the most poisonous substances known to humanity - 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or dioxin.

Effects of Exposure

Estimates suggest that between 2.1 and 4.8 million Vietnamese people were directly exposed to herbicides in the course of the war. But that's only the start of it: Many areas in Vietnam remain heavily contaminated by dioxin; people are daily exposed to this dioxin residue through breast milk, cow milk, and the consumption of contaminated meat and fish.

It is this dioxin residue that gave the film its name: "The Last Ghost of War". And it is a ghost with a horrible appetite: The effects of dioxin are numerous. The National Toxicology Program in the US has classified TCDD to be a human carcinogen. Dioxin has been scientifically associated with an array of human diseases including soft-tissue sarcoma, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. There has also been a suggested association with a number of diseases in the children of those exposed to it, particularly spina bifida. A good summary of the current state of received medical wisdom in this area can be found at the Institute of Medicine's website.

The nature of medical literature is, though, inherently conservative – it might be hard to scientifically prove that dioxin causes certain illnesses, but that doesn’t mean to say doctors would recommend you hang about while spraying is going on. Indeed the film presented an array of images which suggested that the effect of herbicide spraying has been wide-spread and devastating. Studies of those exposed to herbicides in Vietnam - veterans and civilians - encountered, in addition to the cancers listed above, numerous examples of children born with severe birth defects. Severe mental and physical disability is a (relatively) common occurence in the descendants of those exposed to the spraying. Inevitably the suffering of these children, and of their families, is immense and little or no financial support is available to them.

Prior knowledge

A tragic consequence of war, then. But in fact it's more than that. There is significant evidence to suggest that the chemical companies who produced 245T were aware of the awful consequences of exposure to dioxin.

In 1949 there was an accident at a chemicals plant in Nitro, West Virginia. This plant was owned by Monsanto who produced 245T there. The accident resulted in a number of workers coming into contact with 245T (and, consequently, with dioxin); these workers suffered immediate severe health effects in the form of chloracne – a severe skin condition – as well as longer term conditions including multiple tumours and nervous conditions.

Several studies were conducted of workers involved in the accident. Two of these were conducted for Monsanto and discovered no evidence of long term health problems, aside from chloracne. However one study was conducted independently of Monsanto and, instead, found a number of serious ongoing symptoms. Monsanto has subsequently been the subject of criminal investigation for falsifying its studies of dioxin exposure.

This was not the only incident of exposure to dioxin however – a number of such incidents occurred (see pp27-34 of this VAVA briefing) – at the plants of a number of chemical companies. These companies shared their findings with each other. For instance a Monsanto memo refers to information gathered from Dow:
“According to them [Dow] it is the most toxic compound they have ever experienced. It is presumably toxic by skin contact, as well as by inhalation. According to Dow is it 100 times as toxic as parathion. It is, likewise, capable of causing incapacitating chloracne.”

Another Monsanto memo from 1965 suggests that “very conceivably, [dioxin] can be a potent carcinogen.” A1968.

The government was also aware of the potential risks (although they may not have had the specific knowledge of the chemical companies). Dr. James R. Clary, a former government scientist wrote the following in a letter to Senator Tom Daschle:

“When we (military scientists) initiated the herbicide program in the 1960's, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’ formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’ version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy’, none of us were overly concerned.”

Clary’s reference to a military formulation is important: The production process of 245T was known to result in contamination with dioxin; however the level of contamination varied considerably. During the period in which they were supplying the US military with 245T the chemical companies took the specific decision to produce 245T for the lowest possible cost – and hence, tragically, with a large level of dioxin contamination. (see pp35-37 of the VAVA briefing)

The Law

In 1979 a class action was launched on behalf of 2.4 million American Vietnam veterans. Veterans are not legally able to pursue the US government for redress, hence the target of their law suit was the chemical companies who produced the herbicides for use by the US military. These companies were Dow, Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock Corporation, Hercules Inc., Uniroyal inc., T-H Agricultural & Nutrition Company, and Thompson Chemical Corporation.

In 1985 these companies finally settled out of court. They created a $180 million fund to compensate veterans whose medical problems fit specific rigid conditions. In particular, anyone suffering an illness following 1994, which was very likely considering the illnesses associated to Agent Orange could take 20-30 years to develop in some instances, did not qualify to receive payment under the settlement terms. In addition, a lump sum payment was provided for the Agent Orange families of veterans that died from diseases that may or may not have been related to Agent Orange, and quickly the $180 million fund was depleted by 1994. Just 50,000 Agent Orange members received a small compensation. (source)

In 1991 the US government passed the Agent Orange Act which officially recognised that Agent Orange caused certain specific diseases including various types of cancers; veterans are therefore eligible for support from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. In 2006, US Congress passed legislation providing health care, monthly disability compensation, and vocational rehabilitation to the children of Vietnam veterans suffering from the serious birth defect spina bifida.

A number of different veterans groups have taken the manufacturers of Agent Orange to court. In 2006 South Korean veterans won compensation from Dow Chemical and Monsanto; their victory came on appeal, and the amount of compensation was a relatively small $62 million – they had initially sued for $5 billion in damages. US veterans who missed out on compensation from the 1985 settlement fund have also attempted to gain legal redress, but have largely unsuccessful - this door now seems permanently closed. A Canadian class action is currently underway.

Of course the largest group of affected people is the Vietnamese residents of the area sprayed in the war. In 2004 the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA), along with a number of individual Vietnamese victims of the spraying filed a law suit under American law. The law suit is against 37 companies who produced herbicides for use by the American military in Vietnam (the US government could not be sued as it claimed sovereign immunity). The claim was dismissed in 2005 by Judge Weinstein, although an appeal of this decision is pending (the briefing document for the appeal is here).

So what now?

Clearly the people of Vietnam are in great need - the last ghost of war continues to lay a heavy burden on the shoulders of some very poor people. Help is needed to diagnose and treat medical disorders resulting from herbicide spraying. Families with disabled children need help to care for their children properly. Funds are needed to clean "hot spots" - areas which are known to be heavily contaminated with dioxin. Finally more studies are required of the medical effects of dioxin exposure on the Vietnamese population.

To make these things happen, funding and other support is required. So far the Vietnamese people have been unsuccessful (so far) in their attempts to gain compensation through US law – neither the US government, nor the chemical companies involved, have paid a single cent of compensation to the people of Vietnam.

At a government level, a Fawlty Towers-style diplomacy seems to be in operation: “Don’t mention the war!” To be fair the Vietnamese government is in a very difficult position – Vietnam was the target of a US-led trade embargo which was only lifted in 1994. This embargo caused severe hardship to the people of Vietnam. Since 1994, the Vietnamese government has pursued a policy of friendship with the United States – so, although it is seen to be supportive of the law suits brought by Vietnamese victims, it is not in a position to demand redress for crimes committed during the war.

Thus the onus for action is left with the people. Dr Nhu-Mai asked that people show solidarity with the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, in whatever way they can. Grassroots groups in Vietnam have expressed their solidarity very practically, through a number of peace villages which care for children with disabilities thought to be caused by Agent Orange; one of these peace villages was started by a US Vietnam veteran.

In India, a natural avenue for solidarity is through the Bhopal Campaign, a group which helped to organise last night's event. This group is seeking redress for the death, injury and long-term illness caused by the 1984 explosion in Bhopal, India at a Union Carbide factory. Dow Chemicals, a former manufacturer of Agent Orange, took over Union Carbide in 1999. Dow is therefore held responsible for tragedy by victims in both India and Vietnam.

Further information can be found at a number of sites: The full briefing of VAVA's appeal to the US court contains a plethora of fact and argument. The Alvin L. Young Collection on Agent Orange has an enormous number of primary documents relating to this issue. In addition there are a number of different groups seeking to provide solidarity in different ways, in particular Collectif Vietnam Dioxine, VAVA and the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign.

Christmas cheer

2007-12-27T16:08:00.000Z

Every Wednesday I participate in a meditation group. We always start with a guided meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. We read pairs of sentences at intervals of five minutes or so, and reflect on them using our breathing to access the deeper meaning of the words.

Last Wednesday was Boxing Day and it so happened that some of the sentences very much resonated with me. In particular, these:

Experiencing the pain of fear in me, I breath in.
Smiling to the pain of fear in me, I breath out.

Experiencing the feeling of insecurity in me, I breath in.
Smiling to the feeling of insecurity in me, I breath out.

Experiencing the feeling of sadness in me, I breath in.
Smiling to the feeling of insecurity in me, I breath out.

Experiencing the feeling of joy in me, I breath in.
Smiling to the feeling of joy in me, I breath out.

The idea of these reflections (it seems to me) is to look deeply and truly at our selves and our experience, and to come to terms with every aspect of our current state. This process is a truthful process, for we see ourselves as we are. It is also a liberating process because, by smiling, we are freeing ourselves from the domination that our pain and other feelings can have over us. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes in his explanation of this exercise: “We must learn to recognize, acknowledge, and welcome each [feeling], and after that to look into its emotion… Mindfulness allows us to be calm throughout the appearance and disappearance of feelings.”

This could not be more out of sync with the usual Western experience of the Christmas period. Throughout this period we are bombarded with images of Christmas cheer: of people eating and drinking and making merry together; of families gathering together in warm homes and opening presents; of herald angels singing, merry gentlemen (let nothing them dismay!) and joy to the world.

And yet we all know that these images correspond very poorly to the average experience. For many people Christmas is a time of loneliness, of family arguments, of drunken foolishness and regrets. In short, Christmas is like every other time of year – inducing a mixture of every human feeling. And yet so strong are the media images that, despite knowing better, we too often fall for the propaganda and feel obliged to put on a happy face.

The result is that we flee in terror from feelings of fear, insecurity, sadness and anger, while we grasp desperately at any hint of joy, almost fearing its departure before it has properly arrived. Our family times can seem a pastiche of jolly scenarios, between which we lurch in desperate fear that the whole shebang might soon be exposed as a sham.

Oh to be free of the obligation to be happy – how much happier we would be! But Christmas is just the worst of it. Media propaganda is routinely couched in terms of happiness: We need to be cool, to be young, to be in a big happy beautiful gang, to go to parties and stay up late, to have a beautiful (wo)man on our arm.

You might be thinking, “oh but tell me something I don’t know.” And too true, the vacuity of media images is apparent to anybody who takes the time to stop and think about them. But even if we do this (and many don’t), we are not necessarily free of their power. I had a salutory lesson in this some years ago when I left the city of Perth and went to live in an aboriginal community in the desert in Australia. My lesson was in the question of beauty - when I first arrived out bush, it did not even occur to me that there was physical beauty to be found in the people around me. So deeply was the notion of what is beautiful implanted into me that I could not see what was before me. After six months of living free of a media obsessed with skinny, hairless teenagers in bikinis, the scales had started to fall from my eyes – and life became a whole lot more spicy.

Our (often inadvertent) consumption of images of the mass media prevents us from seeing the world around us clearly. We don’t just run in fear from our own emotions, we also cling to notions which are destroying us – and, in the process, we miss out on true joy and true beauty. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we meditate in this way:

Experiencing the feeling of attachment in me, I breathe in.
Smiling to the feeling of attachment in me, I breath out.

In a world saturated with misleading images, it is vital that we meditate regularly in this way. For, if we do not, we will inevitably find ourselves attached to a myriad of notions that stunt our growth and that severely limit the depth and meaning of our experience. We need to look deeply into ourselves to see where these notions are rooted and, as we smile at them, to watch them weaken.

Multitude

2007-11-15T06:26:00.000Z

The email below is included here as a recommendation for people to read Hardt and Negri's "Multitude"... One caveat: Note that a lot of the words used in the email - e.g. empire, imperialism, multitude, democracy - mirror the very specific usage of Hardt and Negri. This may be misleading if you haven't read the book...

Dear Professors Hardt and Negri,

I have just completed your book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire which I found deeply insightful and very inspiring. You are no doubt far too busy to be reading every passing critique of your work but, for what it's worth, I thought I'd provide some constructive feedback. It will help me clarify my thoughts on the current state of global war if nothing else.

In your book you characterise the enemy of empire as a network, a swarm. You posit that in order to fight this network the military of the empire must also become a network. Your argument to back this up is contingent on two unstated hypotheses which are, I believe, very important in understanding the current situation - for they are true, but only partially.

[1] The enemy really exists.
[2] The empire wants to win the war.

I would contend that the global state of war has at least two fronts. One of these is mythical and it is in empire's interest for that war to continue ad infinitum; the other is substantial and here the empire is intent on victory. The two fronts are often deliberately conflated by the mouth pieces of empire, and I feel that your analysis would have benefited from a more clear distinction between the two.

The first, mythical front is (currently) that of terror and its associated notions of civilisations. When I describe this front as mythical I do not mean that it is entirely without substance but its substance is secondary; the role it plays in global geopolitics can be discerned by the way empire speaks of it. This front is continually emphasised in imperial propaganda; battles are said to be won and lost (the empire periodically manufactures a victory for mass consumption) but the empire warns against hoping for an early victory. This is a war that empire wants - I don't need to explain why, it has everything to do with Orwellian notions of subjection and manipulation; Adam Curtis' The Power of Nightmares explains it well I think.

The second, substantial front is that of poverty and the associated cahiers de doleances which you list. This front has content and this battle strikes at the heart of what empire is about - in contrast to the mythical terrorist enemy which, while it purports to strike at empire, is really an entirely complementary structure. The substantial front is continually under attack by empire as it is a serious hindrance in empire's efforts to extract maximum production from its subjects (as you describe beautifully).

Now you might argue that the above distinction is really a return to the previous notions of imperialism, which no longer apply. The key point seems to be that the empire wishes to absorb everything within it and thus the existence of a terrorist enemy is not in the interests of empire. My argument is that empire has, in fact, already absorbed the terrorist enemy into its fabric and this enemy plays a vital role. In fact it plays several:

First it distracts from the substantial enemy. It allows the other front to become forgotten, or overwhelmed. I don't just mean by the media and such like - the poor don't need the media to tell them that they are poor! Rather I mean that the poor are misguided into thinking that their real enemy is someone else. And what's more that that enemy is being engaged by empire and, one day, maybe, things might change. In other words it provides an appearance of movement in the political and social fabric. People know that the status quo is wrong but, if they can be convinced that things are being done to change it, then they will put up with it.

In fact, of course, empire is intent on moving things in a direction of ever increasing injustice. As you describe, geopolitics today is one of crisis - conflict between multitude and imperial power. There are only two ways for this situation to resolve itself - either the project of the multitude takes shape and diffuses this crisis; or, empire manages to prolong this crisis indefinitely. The only way that this can be done is by distraction and disingenuation. If that's a word. This is the first role of the mythical enemy.

It is very important to clarify that empire contains no potential for a resolution of geopolitical crisis. The fundamental activity of empire is to extract production from the multitude and this action will always be antagonistic. In general empire deals with this antagonism by forcibly crushing dissent, however it is also useful to have some method for diffusing this antagonism - enter, stage right, the terrorist.

The mythical enemy also provides distraction in another way. By conflating the two wars, empire is enabled to more easily undertake the militarisation of society (a process which I won't define now, but which has many elements). So not only is the illusion of movement created, but an actuality of movement also - except that, as I said, the movement is in an opposite direction to the project of the multitude.

Yours sincerely, etc

A picture paints a thousand words...

2007-11-08T11:47:00.001Z

We passed this guy the other day, as we were headed to Chennai central train station for a week-end away.

If you're looking at this picture on the internet, chances are you don't earn your daily bread by sorting through other people's rubbish. Spare a thought for those who do.

Queue jumping

2007-10-07T05:14:00.000Z

Last week-end Katie, me and an Indian friend went off for a holiday in a small town called Koonoor in the Nilgiri hills. Away from the heat and dust of Chennai, we went walking through tea plantations and rejoiced in cool, fresh air.

At the end of our three days away the time came for us to catch the bus back down to the plains, from whence we would catch an overnight train to Chennai. We wandered through Koonoor to get to the bus stop and joined the hundred-odd people patiently waiting for the next rickety old hulk to arrive.

We sat down on a bench next to a couple of wizened old men who’d settled in for the long wait. On seeing Katie and my white faces, one old man gestured to us and pointed across the road. There was a vehicle there that was also heading down the hill he said. For 50 rupees (about 60p, and about five times the price of a standard bus fare) we could get there in double quick time.

Feeling slightly guilty we left the gathered mass and went searching. Sure enough the old man was right and ten minutes later we were pulling out of Koonoor in a garish silver mini-bus decorated inside with plush seating, and a carpeted ceiling impregnated with an array of twinkling multi-coloured LEDs. We whooshed past the bus stop and left the poor plebians in our wake.

And suddenly it hit me: Rich people are nothing more than queue jumpers. Perhaps this truth is so self-evident you wonder why I bother to record it. I guess I’d always known it, but it was only at that moment that I truly understood. I’d just finished reading Orwell’s Coming up for air, which perhaps reinforced the effect; but really the conclusion was inescapable. The little self-deceptions that I practice every day as a rich Westerner living in India simply weren’t up to the occasion…

So here’s the main fact: the people at that bus stop had less money than me. What’s more they’d no doubt worked harder, and suffered more, for the pittance they had. The realisation made me feel sick. Even sicker to think that that old man had seen our white faces and known exactly what the score was. We weren’t going to sit and wait with the Indians, when we had a ticket for the front of the queue in our pocket.

It’s a ticket that’s in our pocket every day of the week. In a thousand little ways money eases our way through India, indeed through life. It smoothes the hard edges, improves the food, softens the beds, and shortens the queues.

Corporate publishing houses: Building boundaries and breaking insights

2007-09-21T11:40:00.000Z

For all the bad press that they receive, a lot of people still believe that Western corporations are making some sort of contribution to improving the lot of people in the third world. Let me present a counter-example.

I'm currently working in a mathematical institute in India and the example that I want to focus on just now concerns academic journals. The institute where I work is one of the few in India (we're talking less than ten) which has access to the most up to date research in mathematics. A very big chunk of the Institute's budget is spent in buying access to these journals - both online access and subscribing to the paper copies. I don't know what the exact size of the chunk is but I'd guess that it's around 50%.

This money is mainly paid to the big mathematics publishers, namely Reed-Elsevier, Springer-Verlag-Birkhauser, Kluwer etc etc. All of these publishers are very proud of the work they do in providing high quality scientific publishing; they trumpet the benefit that their work brings to humanity. Elsevier's tagline is Building Insights. Breaking Boundaries. It's a tagline that, with a little reworking would aptly desribe the real situation for these publishers are in reality hell-bent on Building Boundaries and Breaking Insights. Here's why:

1. Their service is next to non-existent. I am the author of a small number of academic papers. Here's how the system works (at least in the field of mathematics). Let's suppose I submit to a Reed-Elsevier journal...

- I create some maths, write it up, submit it. I do this FOR FREE.
- An academic editor receives my submission and decides where to get it referee'd. The editor will be an academic working in the field and she works (usually) FOR FREE.
- The editor sends the article to a referee who reads it, makes comments and a recommendation for publishing (or not). I've been a referee on one occasion so I can confirm that the referee works FOR FREE.
- Let's assume the referee says the article is OK. The editor then writes back to the author and asks him to make whatever edits are required. Often this will also involve making sure that the typesetting is consistent with the format of the journal. Yes, that's right, in maths the author does the typesetting.
- The final version is sent in by the author and gets passed by the editor to the Reed-Elsevier employees who run the journal. They will check the type-setting of the article, and arrange it with the other articles to appear in the given volume. This will be printed in a paper version and appear on web. These employees will also have to chase up paper work like the transfer of copyright. Yes, it might seem absurd, but if I want to publish in their journals then I must resign myself to the fact that Reed-Elsevier becomes the owner of my work.

It's pretty clear that Reed-Elsevier are getting an awful lot for free and not contributing a great deal themselves. I don't want to denigrate the work of their employees who are, in my experience, very professional. But we need to give the work they perform a proper weighting - it is important, but it is by no means the whole game. And a lot of their work is involved with protecting the interests of Reed-Elsevier. They chase copyright transfers, they run secure web servers with credit card payments for subscribers etc etc.

2. Their prices are horrendous. And they're getting worse. In 2006 the American Maths Society (AMS) surveyed mathematics journal prices for the years 1994 - 2004. A useful summary of the results is also available. The summary compares commercial journal pricings with the price of the Annals of Maths, perhaps the most prestigious maths journal in the world, which is published by Princeton University Press. The comparison is illuminating. For instance, the Annals of Maths, at that time, cost around 10 US cents per page. Commerical journals ranged in price up to $5.30 per page, with fifty of the journals surveyed costing more than $1 per page. The annual price increase for many of the journals was in excess of 10%.

In absolute terms an annual subscription to a mathematics journal is likely to cost well in excess of $1000, often more than double that. The AMS survey includes a list of more than 270 journals although this is by no means exhaustive. It is pretty clear that if an institution wishes to have up-to-date access to cutting-edge mathematics research then they are going to have to spend a lot of money. That money is simply not available in developing countries like India. It's not even available to many institutions in rich countries.

Think about the implications of this! Whole sections of the globe (most of humanity, in fact) do not have access to the body of human knowledge. We proclaim our benevolent intentions to aid development and provide assistance to the third world and yet, at this most basic level, we are denying people the tools to help themselves. And to what purpose? Simply so that the share holders of two or three big corporations can grow wealthy on their ill gotten gains.

3. We can do it ourselves. There is no reason why journals need to cost the reader anything - online access to research articles should be free. And for most mathematicians online access is all that they need. Many journals ouside the clutch of the big corporations provide free online access already and there is, frankly, no reason why we should support journals that don't provide this service

So here are are some suggestions for action:

- Authors should not submit to journals owned by Reed-Elsevier, Springer, Kluwer etc. Indeed, they should only submit to journals which allow free on-line access. There are lots of these and, a lot of the time, they are the most prestigious! People who are asked to referee an article should refuse if the journal is not free.
- If you must submit a paper to a journal owned by one of this horrible lot then make sure you put your paper on the arXiv - so at least people may find it if they're on a search. And make sure the copyright of the journal allows you to keep it on the arXiv once it's published.
-If you're an editor, resign! Or, better, get the whole board to resign! It's been done already - the board of Topology recently resigned en masse. A little later a new low-cost journal appeared - the Journal of Topology - with a very similar editorial board. More power them!

In fact the arXiv has been showing us the way for a long time now. All that is lacking is a system of peer-review - and we don't need a big corporation to make that happen. A journal simply needs to run a web server where authors can upload their papers automatically like on the arXiv. Editors then take responsibility for the review process (as they do now) and when everything is approved the article can be made public and given a unique identifier. The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, for instance, already works in a similar way and there's no reason why all the rest shouldn't follow suit. Academics need to get their act together.

A final thought. Each day when I come to work in this institute I pass a whole army of auxiliary workers toiling away to keep the place going - cleaners, security men, catering staff, receptionists etc etc. Unfortunately, for all their good work, their wages are lousy - it'll be a long time before they can aspire to membership of the fabled Indian middle class. Indeed their annual salary would not compare well even to the hourly rate of Crispin Davis and his coterie of executives at the top of Reed-Elsevier, who take home millions of pounds every year.

Perhaps the comparison is too naive, too emotive to be valid. And yet on some very real level these two sets of people are connected - for starters, both their wages are paid by academic institutions. And, speaking from experience as an academic, I know which group has been of more benefit to me.

[P.S. I'm not the only person who thinks this way...]

The Petraeus Report

2007-09-11T06:09:00.000Z

To understand the Petraeus report to congress it is important to also understand the subsequent report to be given by President Bush. Bush will brief the US congress with regard to the eighteen benchmarks that the congress has set as a measure of the performance of the Iraqi government.

This military occupation is, you see, a very political project. It is aimed at specific political outcomes over and above merely military considerations. Too often the question of whether the troops should stay in Iraq is couched in terms of "making Iraq safer." This, it is thought, is the primary question; more precisely, it is thought that troops remain in Iraq in order to make Iraq safer for Iraqis. In fact this interpretation is not consistent with the facts.

Let me give one example. In July, President Bush presented an "initial benchmark assessment" to Congress, as he was obliged to do under the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 110-28).The third of these benchmarks starts as follows: "Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources to the people of Iraq..." So far, so noble. But the sting is in the tail. The final sentence of this section reads as follows: "Prime Minister Maliki intends to submit the Revenue Management Law to the Council of Ministers soon, for subsequent consideration by the Council of Representatives along with the framework Hydrocarbon law. "

This Hydrocarbon law has largely passed beneath the radar of the Western press, but its significance for the future of Iraq is immense. According to the NGO,War on Want, the law "would allow long-term contracts to be signed with foreign oil companies, with terms that may not be changed by future Iraqi governments for decades to come. The oil companies will be immune from accountability in Iraqi courts."

Now according to the US congress, the passing of this law is considered a measure of the performance of the government of Iraq. But what do the people of Iraq think? A recent survey, found that "Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields to foreign investment by a factor of two to one." And that view is shared across all ethnic and sectarian groups - "there are no ethnic, sectarian or geographical groups that prefer foreign companies." Or, as the Guardian put it, Iraq says No to Oil Theft.

So then, by the standards of democracy, a better benchmark of the Iraqi government's performance in this area would be their opposition to US efforts to get this law passed! Indeed one can go further. Subhi al-Badri, head of the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils, has said that "the law is a bomb that may kill everyone." In other words, US efforts to push this law through the Iraqi legislature have the potential to fuel, rather than reduce, the violence gripping the country.

And this demonstrates exactly the absurdity that lies at the heart of the reports being tabled by General Petraeus and President Bush. They purport to outline progress towards a stable democracy. In fact, they merely demonstrate the occupiers' continued commitment to their own political goals, which they pursue regardless of the wishes of the Iraqi people. The reports purport to outline progress towards making Iraq safer and more secure. Yet the political aims of the occupying forces are consistently at odds with the safety and security of ordinary Iraqi people. And so, inevitably, the occupation will continue to fuel violence and tragedy in Iraq until the troops finally leave.

India and the Tao Te Ching

2007-08-21T11:26:00.000Z

We've been living in India now for about three weeks; a mixed experience so far. Most days have started with breakfast and then a session of meditation on Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching - reading one chapter each session we've reached number ten. It turns out that this has been an excellent discipline to help us cope with a pretty serious cultural adjustment...

Therefore having and not having arise together (Tao Te Ching 2). Indeed they do and, in India, having and not having arise right next to each other. We live in an entirely adequate flat with the luxury of a lap top and an internet connection. Since we've been here we've spent some 20 000 rupees (about £250) on "essentials" like a couple of bikes, some Indian clothes, a pair of trainers, a guitar, a couple of days out... Now that we've got what we "need" we've started to tighten our belts a little but even so we are having some difficulty keeping to our daily income of 500 rupees (about £6).

And yet 80% of Indians live on 20 Rupees (25p) a day. How they do this I have no idea. I presume it must involve being hungry every day; it must involve having to work, scrounge, hustle every day; it must involve indignity and discomfort every day. And worse, of course, for many it involves illness, disability, a hugely diminished quality of life and, ultimately, an early death (the healthy life expectancy here is more than fifteen years less than in the UK).

I knew all this long before I got here of course - in my head. But in the West we rarely encounter poverty in such a spectacular way. There is severe poverty in the West but it is ghetto-ised; we have marginalised people not just socially, economically and politically, but geographically. Middle-class Westerners are rarely forced to encounter the poor. Indeed we've separated having and not having so successfully that a lot of good middle class folk feel distinctly irritated if some poor bugger has the temerity to break the illusion and ask them for 50p...

For of course our having and their not having are intimately connected - and that's eminently obvious here. Each time I want to go to the shops here I have to cross a stinking canal (a relic of British rule) on the banks of which live a number of utterly destitute families. The same little children smile at me each time I pass; I see the same old lady sitting under her hut (several pieces of corrugated iron) but she doesn't smile as much as the children.

How am I to respond to this?

If nothing is done, then all will be well (Tao Te Ching 3). Oh really?! I wonder what that old lady would say if I were to run this by her...

A little bit of reflection has opened my eyes a little though. Two things occur to me. Firstly I need to understand how to do nothing. By which I don't mean not doing anything. Doing nothing is an active process - it won't just happen by itself! Perhaps the nearest verb that I can use to describe it is "emptying". At the end of a process of emptying one has less than when one started, but that doesn't mean you've not been doing anything...

So perhaps the sage means that to act truly I must act from a place of nothingness. In particular I'm not acting from a place cluttered by myself and my needs - I'm not achieving, I'm doing only what is to be done.

Contrary to first impressions, this is intensely practical! I have to make sure that any response to my situation here is considered and appropriate. I cannot be in the business of assuaging my Western guilt - that is not the point. I must respond in a way which affirms life for its own sake.

However I'm still not sure what form that response will take...

The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies (Tao Te Ching 3). And this is the second thing that has occurred to me. One of the beautiful things about the Tao Te Ching is that a lot of it appears to be bullshit! What is this bloke on about?

And yet herein lies the nub of its wisdom. Lao Tsu knows the danger of truth - a danger so great that he often avoids truth altogether. Rather his language is one of suggestion, implication, even plain nonsense and contradiction. The responsibility is on the reader to sort through his hints and suggestions, to make sense of his absurdities... and to jettison the bollox!

This might appear odd at first but of course it is really the responsibility that every reader has every time they open a book or a newspaper, most especially a book which has the status of a religious text. The fact that too many readers don't do this is evidenced by the fundamentalist nutters who trot about the place spouting hate. But I get the feeling that it's kind of hard to be a fundamentalist Taoist and thank God, Allah and most especially, thank Lao Tsu for saving us from that.

And of course in the light of such demonstrable wisdom from Mr Tsu, the reader of the Tao Te Ching would be well-advised to think carefully before she really does decide he's talking bollox. So the wise rule by stuffing bellies, eh? Think on that...

Mathematics and mushrooms

2007-08-01T09:26:00.000Z

I wrote this a few years ago. I came across it again recently so thought I'd lob it on this blog...

Ever since I read Aldous Huxley's ``The Doors of Perception,'' I've been fascinated by the idea that the use of drugs could offer insight into every day life. Huxley's descriptions of the world as it appears under the influence of the hallucinogen Mescalin lead to thoughts on religion, meaning and art. Well I too am an artist - a pure mathematics student - and it struck me that the same process could be applied to that particular branch of learning, if someone were to only try...

My ambition was further strengthened after reading of Carlos Castaneda's experience with drugs, including mescalin, while under the careful guidance of a Yaqui Indian Man of Power, don Juan. In Castaneda's account of his apprenticeship to don Juan, ``The Teachings of don Juan,'' the final experience proves so terrifying that Castaneda decides to leave the apprenticeship for good and steer clear of the mind-bending drugs that are part of Yaqui culture. As it happens he changed his mind some years later and continued the process. However, this aside, it was not the terror of the experience that most impressed me (though it was genuinely fearsome,) but the truly awesome insight that Castaneda gains from his experiences - understanding which survives his return to the conscious plane and which, don Juan assures him, will eventually lead to him becoming a Man of Power.

There was only one thing to be done then. Apprenticeship to Men of Power is restricted to a chosen few and they don't live in England. Likewise, it might have been acceptable for a distinguished thinker like Huxley to indulge in a bit of Mescalin, but your average student Joe might not be looked on so kindly, even if it was possible to get hold of the stuff. What your average student Joe CAN do though, is go to Amsterdam. He won't find Mescalin but for a handful of Euros he can buy a packet of copelandia magic mushrooms, he can chew on them and he can see what happens. This, reader, is what I did and here are some of my thoughts...

Let's start with that archetypal hippy image of the happy day tripper staring fascinatedly at some ordinary object and exclaiming at how cool it is! For Huxley it was his trousers, for me it was the pavement - the same pavement I can look at any day which was now, not just more colourful, but much more highly patterned. Where usually I would see random chaos, now I could see symmetry and relations; an abstract structure underpinning the matrix of blue stone. One aspect is worth a particular mention - I became quite alarmed, at a certain point, about a strange covering that seemed to have been laid down on the ground and which caused my toes to curl! Looking more closely, though, I realised that this covering I was seeing was `the gaps' or the space between the objects strewn on the pavement. I was seeing what a mathematician may call a `complementary image' to my usual vision. The same information was being encoded by my eyes, but my rewired brain was decoding it in an altogether different, if equivalent, manner.

Both this search for symmetry, this perception of abstract structure beneath surface form and this reinterpereting of information to allow it to be analysed in a different way are valuable mathematical priniciples. In fact, in some sense, they completely describe the mathematician's task and method. The Game Theory, for instance which John Nash (subject of the film ``a Beautiful Mind'') dreamt up, and for which he won the Nobel Prize, is an analysis of the abstract structure underlying the interactions of a number of competing or co-operating interests pursuing dependent goals. The significance of his work was that he was able to see these situations in a new, `re-wired' way.

But it's not just in the philosophy of the working mathematician where the tripping hippy may bear a resemblance, the actual activity of doing mathematics can appear very similar: In his biography of the great Hungarian mathematician, Paul Erd\"os, ``The Man who Loved Only Numbers'', Paul Hoffman relates how one day, while trying to solve a particular problem, Erdos and a colleague were sat next to each other in a public place for an hour of cogitating silence. The silence was only brought to an end when one of them said, ``It is not naught. It is one.'' Much rejoicing followed! Who knows what strange mindscape of abstraction, Erd\"os and friend inhabited for that hour?

The case of Erd\"os brings with it, in addition, a somewhat more unusual link to the chemical world; For this most prolific of mathematicians spent his last twenty-five years working nineteen hours a day on the back of a heady cocktail of Benzedrine, Ritalin, strong espresso and caffeine tablets. This is a parallel that will not withstand generalization however!

It is at the point of paradox that the respective paths of mathematics and mushrooms most clearly diverge. Towards the end of my copelandia experience, sometime after I became aware that I was a single human entity who was neither mad nor dead (all facts of which I'd been very unsure), I found myself in a very warm, calm, beautiful state of mind in which the universe was understood and meaning accessed. This occurred through a series of `moments of clarity' in which statements of paradox were the fundamental unit. Time after time I saw truth yet knew that truth lay in its opposite also - in chaos, there was order; in mortal futility, enduring meaning. There is no place for such statements in mathematics.

In this regard, the mathematical process can be though of as the assumption of a collection of axiomatic first principles from which are deduced, using logic, a structure of `therefores': facts which must be true given our assumptions and our previous `therefores'. This process is unambiguous and is verifiable - I have heard a professor of mathematics say ``The great thing about mathematics is that you can convince people!'' Mathematicians give proofs for their arguments. This is in contrast to social scientists or even physical and life scientists who, though they use logic and argument to draw conclusions from data or suppositions, must accept that internally consistent arguments for conflicting positions may be put. No one will ever prove or disprove that drugs prohibition never works or that humans are descended from the apes, but it can and has been proved that there is no projective plane of order 6.

It may not be going too far to say that mathematics could be characterised in this way: as the study of truth that can be proven. But the implications of such truths tend to spill out beyond this boundary of proof. That the truth is beautiful, for instance, is a statement that few mathematicians would dispute but none can prove. The happy fact is that when conscious beings penetrate the abstract thought structures that underpin reality, they find crystalline structures of logic that can move the heart. In the same way that I can't explain why the colours that swirled in front of my eyes that crazy Dutch evening were so lovely yet terrifying, perhaps this much at least will always remain a mystery.

Auschwitz

2007-07-29T15:34:00.000Z

Ten days ago I visited the ex-concentration camp, now museum, at Auschwitz. The experience was a sobering one, as you might expect. My reason for visiting is perhaps best summed up by the beautiful poem which prefaces Primo Levi's memoir, "If this is a man":

You who live safe
In your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no

Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb
Like a frog in the winter:

Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you:
Inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out,

Going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
Or may your house fall down,
Illness bar your way,
Your loved ones turn away from you.

Levi's injunction for us to remember what happened at Auschwitz is reason enough to visit the camp if given the chance. It is also reason enough to read Levi's book which is a beautifully written and extremely moving account of Levi's experience as an inmate at Auschwitz. The companion book "The Truce" describes his tortuous journey back to Italy after he was rescued from Auschwitz. I will list at the bottom of this entry some other books that are worth reading on this subject, as part of the "remembering" which Levi demands of us.

With regard to the experience of visiting the camp I want to mention just two things. Firstly the thing which shocked me the most: It was not, as I'd expected, the hideous conditions of the camp or the tragic tales of those imprisoned there. These things were of course inconceivably tragic but for some reason the thing which most shocked me was the slogan over the main gate. In metal letters the Nazis had inscribed "Arbeit macht frei" - Work brings Freedom - a slogan which, since it was a manifest lie for all those condemned to live in Auschwitz, cruelly mocked the daily struggles of the prisoners there.

I won't describe anything else about the camps - see the end to find much better places to read about Auschwitz than on this blog. Rather I want to mention an incident that happened as we left the camp. A bus load of teenagers arrived (there were a lot of people visiting that day) to tour the camp; as they mustered in front of the main entrance I noticed that a good portion of them were wrapped in the Israeli flag. I'm not sure that they were from Israel but they were obviously Jewish.

The sight of them gathered there caused me some consternation. For me the lesson I take as primary from Auschwitz is that I must take the responsibility to think for myself. The tragedy of Auschwitz is also the tragedy of a (largely) complicit German population. My response to this must be that I constantly engage my critical faculties and independence of thought to ensure that I never allow myself to participate in injustice of any kind, that I never let the mob mentality overcome basic morality.

Now by this I do not mean to suggest that I should reject good advice or should disrespect sources of moral authority. Someone recently commented that in this blog I seem to reject all forms of authority - I want to correct this impression now. My aim is to be open minded and to listen and learn from many and varied voices - but part of doing this responsibly is understanding that I am obliged to question everything I hear, to test the integrity of those sources which inform my world view.

One of the voices which I most distrust is that of the nationalist. Too often nationalism seems to suppurate into some level of moral blindness - national (or religious) flags often seem to act as some sort of moral blindfold and the consequences are often horrendous. And yet, on the other hand, groups of people are rightly keen to celebrate cultural identity.

There is, therefore, a difficult, but vital, line to tread. Those Jewish teenagers have every right to be proud of the astounding contribution which Jewish culture has made to human history. In addition their personal connection to the tragedy of anti-semitism is also part of their very identity and it is especially important that they too follow Levi's injunction to remember. Is this what was happening the other day at Auschwitz? Or was it the sinister inculcation of blind nationalism?

I must have some faith of course in the ability of those young people to think for themselves. But I am also aware that teenagers have a tendency towards experiencing the world very intensely and with a sense of great import. Experiences such as a visit to Auschwitz can generate a strong loyalty towards particular ideas or principles or group identity, a loyalty that can leave people vulnerable to cynical manipulation. All the more reason that we value the notion of thinking for oneself as I describe above...

One final comment. It is exactly this kind of cynical manipulation that lies at the root of the notion that the Holocaust is over-remembered. Some readers may point out that the Holocaust has a very high profile in mainstream European culture, while other issues of gargantuan tragedy do not. (Examples might be tragedies such as Stalin's gulags; the international slave trade; the Indonesian genocide in East Timor; CIA backed atrocities in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala during the 80's, King Leopold II's genocide in the Congo etc etc).

I do not accept that the Holocaust is over-remembered - instead two phenomena are at work, both reflections of the principle that history is written by the victors: Firstly the other tragic events are under-remembered. Secondly the history of the Holocaust is consistently misused, in the cynical way I describe above, by governments, media and other groups. Typically it is misused either to generate support for the policies of the government of Israel, or to justify the use of force in the face of tyranny - I may write some more on this some other time...

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Some other books about the holocaust that I can recommend...

Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" is another survivor's account but with a difference; Frankl moves from his experience at Auschwitz to a formulation of the pschiatric theory of "logotherapy", a theory based on the idea that man's primary drive is to find/ create meaning in their lives. This theory contrasts with Freud's idea that sex is the primary drive or Adler's ideas that power is the primary drive. (These are gross simplifications - psychiatry aint my area of expertise...)

William Styron's "Sophie's Choice" deals directly with the issue of the Nazi concentration camps - the character Sophie is a non-Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. The book is a scintillating read and deals with a wide range of profound issues - in relation to the holocaust perhaps the main focus is on the tragic experience of the survivors of Auschwitz, all of whom were horrifically scarred by their experiences.

One step removed from the issue of Auschwitz is Anne Michaels' book "Fugitive Pieces" which is a beautiful account of the life of a Jewish survivor of the Nazis. Anne Frank's diary is also a fascinating read - and so well known I don't need to describe it here.

There are a few other books on the issue that I haven't read but would like to, most notably Tadeusz Borowski's "This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" - another survivor's account.

Peace camp in Parliament Square

2007-06-29T10:38:00.000Z

Last week-end I toddled up to London to participate in a peace camp in Parliament Square. The camp lasted from noon Saturday until noon Thursday, straddling the death throes of the Blair administration and the early wailings of the Brown era (“The King is dead! Long live the… errrm. No, actually, down with the next king too!”)

The camp was entitled “War is still the issue". The aim was to ensure that our focus remains very much on the tragedy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the change of administration. Blair/ Bliar has been the central bogeyman in UK protests against Iraq and we need to ensure that now he’s gone we don’t let his successor off the hook.

The camp was also designed to support Brian Haw who has camped outside Parliament Square for more than 2200 days. His protest is an ongoing inspiration to peace activists, a high profile reminder to thousands of passing tourists and a significant irritant for establishment politicians.

There has been substantial coverage of the camp on IMC UK (as well as some in the mainstream media). I want to highlight two significant things that came out of the camp for me.

Firstly the fact that there was very little police interference. The camp was illegal as it contravened SOCPA. In particular all protests within 1km of Parliament Square require permission from the police – this permission was never sought by the campers. (The one possible exception to this is Brian Haw’s support camp. The legal battles continue but, because his camp predates SOCPA, he has been able to successfully argue that he is exempt from its provisions).

I for one fully expected the police to come and clear the camp way very quickly – they have been very heavy handed about enforcing SOCPA to this point. This did not happen and it suggests a sea change in the thinking of the police and the government. Indeed a recent article from The Times suggests that SOCPA may soon be repealed – a significant victory for freedom of speech.

Incidentally at one stage the police released a statement in which they stated that, as far as they were aware, permission had been sought for the camp. Don’t believe a word of it!

The second significant thing for me came out of a discussion amongst participants in the peace camp around the notion of “loving your enemies”. As I mentioned above the anti-war movement has (rightly) targeted Tony Blair as being personally responsible for the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. My feeling is however that the structure of mainstream politics in this country is such that any prime minister would have made decisions within parameters that are utterly unacceptable. Perhaps a different prime minister would not have gone to war against Iraq but it is almost certain that any other prime minister would have continued the policy of sanctions and would have reserved the right to use military force to defend the elite’s economic interests.

So my gripe is with the system and culture of mainstream British politics and this is something on which I want to remain very focussed. I do not want to be distracted by personality politics (a constant preoccupation of the mainstream media) when there are much deeper issues to consider.

Thinking around this also caused me to reflect on my fundamental opposition to the two wars, in particular to the war on Iraq. There have been many arguments put against the war – people have pointed out that it is illegal due to the lack of a Security Council resolution, that Blair et al lied to the parliament and the people on a number of significant issues, that strategic planning for war was ill conceived etc etc. I suppose those opposing the war are well advised to put across all the arguments at their disposal. Nonetheless were none of the above true I would still oppose the war!

My objection to the war on Iraq (and the war on Afghanistan) is on moral and humanist grounds – I believe that we have no right to kill people for pretty much any reason whatsoever. I don’t believe in dropping exploding lumps of metal from the sky.

Perhaps it is conceivable that a people may be so dreadfully oppressed they feel compelled to take matters into their own hands (and in this case who am I to condemn?) but this is clearly not the situation of the UK government. For them the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have been, from the start, wars of aggression. And they are wars which continue to destroy lives with every passing day. We must oppose them in every way we can.

Victory: Reed-Elsevier gives in

2007-06-21T13:18:00.000Z

The Morning Star published a version of this article a couple of weeks ago. It describes the successful campaign against publishing house Reed-Elsevier's involvement in the arms trade.

In March this paper ran a story about the publishing house Reed Elsevier and its connection to the arms trade. Reed is one of the biggest publishing groups in the world, publishing over two thousand scientific, medical, and educational journals. They also have a history of organising some of the biggest arms fairs in the world, including the biennial DSEi arms fair in London, Shot Show in America and a number of others.

Reed has come under heavy attack from academics, authors, scientists and doctors who make use of the journals which Reed publishes, but who disapprove strongly of Reed’s involvement in the arms trade. It has taken some time but that disapproval has finally registered: On Friday Reed announced that they were withdrawing from the arms trade. Sir Crispin Davis, Reed CEO, said:

“[I]t has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in the defence exhibitions business. We have listened closely to these concerns and this has led us to conclude that the defence shows are no longer compatible with Reed Elsevier's position as a leading publisher of scientific, medical, legal and business content."

Reed’s announcement has been warmly received by the academic and medical community. In an email to The Scientist magazine, Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians said "This will safeguard the reputation of the Reed Elsevier publication The Lancet and no longer undermine its role in improving health and healthcare worldwide."

The group Campaign Against the Arms Trade which coordinated the campaign against Reed said that they “welcome the decision and applaud the board of Reed Elsevier for recognising the concerns of its stakeholders.”

The financial sector has been less delighted: Reed’s announcement halted a week-long surge in their share price. It is unlikely that this decline will last long however. Arms fairs represent just 0.5% of Reed’s turnover, as compared to medical and science publishing which is around 14%. It is precisely this arrangement which had given campaigners a sense that they could win the day.

From the start the strategy of the campaign was to use Reed’s primary dependency on the scientific and medical communities as a source of leverage on the issue of arms fairs. The aim was to convince Reed that they were in danger of alienating their primary market unless they withdrew from the arms industry.

In other words the campaign succeeded because it managed to effectively link ethics with economics. Reed stood unrepentant at repeated scandals regarding cluster bombs and torture equipment being promoted at their shows; they brushed off accusations that invitees to their shows included some of the most repressive regimes in the world (most recently it emerged that the defence minister of Sudan, the representative of a regime accuse of genocide in Darfur, was invited to the Reed organised Idex fair in February); but if Reed were unmoved by these revelations, their customers were not.

Indeed, with every scandal, the level of condemnation grew. A series of scathing editorials were written by major medical journals including “The Lancet” (which is Reed published). Letters were written by prominent authors, academics, scientists and physicians to journals and to national newspapers. An online petition attracted more than 1900 signatories from the scientific and medical communities; a smaller number also pledged to exercise a publication boycott of all Reed journals. A regular weekly vigil was maintained at Reed’s London offices to ensure the issue remained prominent in the minds of Reed employees.

All of these actions reinforced Reed’s fear that they were alienating their own market. The result is that, despite Crispin Davis stating that the Reed arms exhibitions are “a high quality business, with strong management and good growth”, Reed will withdraw from a business that last year turned over more than £20 million.

Unfortunately it is not all good news. Reed’s decision to withdraw is very unlikely to affect their organisation of this year’s DSEi arms fair in London in September. This will be one of the biggest arms fairs in the world and, if past DSEi’s are anything to go by, will play host to human rights abusers of the very worst kind. As in past years DSEi 2007 will be targeted by protestors seeking to disrupt this vital link in the industry of war.

Additionally there must be concern as to exactly how Reed are to effect their withdrawal from this industry. Were their decision an ethical one, Reed would be honour bound to close down their arms fair business for good. Presumably though their profit motive will ensure that they simply sell the business to the highest bidder.

Should this turn out to be the case, that bidder will have to contend with opposition which has tasted victory once, and which has great hope that it can win again.

Kebele, Compassion, Community, Revolution

2007-06-05T09:38:00.000Z

I just published this on the Bristol IndyMedia newswire.

Two recent discussions on this newswire have got me to thinking. The first was in response to an (overpriced) lecture on “happiness” which readers tended to think was expensive middle-class wankery; the second was in response to a promotion of Kebele’s chess club which readers tended to think was an indication of Kebele’s hard core going soft.

Clearly there is a lot of concern when people are seen to be “taking their eye off the ball” and indulging themselves. In the face of a relentlessly oppressive social system we must not lose any opportunity to work for revolution…

Fair enough, but clearly there are times when we should take a step back from non-stop action and campaigning in order to consider some of the implications of what we are trying to do. So, in no particular order, here are some of my recent thoughts:

1. One of the things I like about Kebele is that when I’m there I don’t feel guilty if I’m not doing anything. There is time and space there to enjoy myself with friends, without feeling obliged to join in every damn campaign. I don’t always have the head space for campaigning and it's good to meet activists who are happy just to hang out with no purpose but good company. The cultivation of good relationships is as vital to the revolution as any demonstration.

Criticism of people just hanging out in Kebele reminds me of George Orwell's characterisation of some of his Socialist comrades: "Sometimes I look at a Socialist... and wonder what the devil his motive really is. It is often difficult to believe that it is a love of anybody... [but rather] a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery... but because it is untidy." (p156, The Road to Wigan Pier)

If the world we're struggling for doesn't have time for a game of chess then I want no part of it. More power the chess club!

2. I recently read David Edwards’ “The Compassionate Revolution”. His preoccupation is with the generation of compassion. Edwards asserts that compassion is the phenomenon which drives a commitment to radical politics (when it's not a hypertrophied sense of order); more controversially though he suggests that compassion is a phenomenon which requires deliberate cultivation. People don’t just feel compassion out of the blue, instead it grows in them with nurturing. The absence of compassion often leaves people baffled and indifferent to the cries of the oppressed and to the arguments of those campaigners who would advocate for the oppressed.

I find this idea really interesting – and clearly it is an idea which activists should take some time to understand. As Bob Dylan said “How many ears must one man have, before he can hear people cry?” Well, perhaps the answer is more than two! We won’t convert people to our cause, we won’t persuade people to care about the poor and oppressed, if the seeds of compassion are not already inside them.

It is Edwards’ contention that Buddhism provides one key to unlocking this door of indifference. As a creed one of its defining characteristics is a commitment to the cultivation of compassion; the Buddhist canon contains a wealth of reflection, of discussion and of practical technique to enable this process to take place in the heart of the practitioner.

I suspect a fair number of people reading may instinctively recoil at the idea that religion can provide a source of insight into the revolutionary program. That recoil is a fine protective mechanism but don’t let it obscure the main issue! Clearly there is a question here which we need to answer, whether we turn to Buddhism or not. In seeking the source of compassion (as we must) it seems clear that we must examine concepts of community, spirituality, human relationships, beauty, art, happiness...

3. I’m half way though Paulo Freire’s “Cultural Action for Freedom” (borrowed from Kebele’s splendid library). Everything I’ve ever read by Freire has inspired me and this is no exception.

Freire is a Brazilian educator who worked for many years on the issue of adult literacy in the Bravilian favelas. Like Edwards, Freire is concerned with how the structure of a society is connected to the experience of the humans within it; in particular how the educational process affects that connection.

Freire’s “fundamental thesis is that there is no such thing as a neutral education. Education is either for domestication or for freedom.” His philosophy is that “man’s vocation [is] to be more – more, that is, that what he is at any given time or place.” (Both quotes are from Joao de Veiga Coutinho’s introduction; apologies for the patriarchal language.)

Freire denounces the existing social system (especially the educational system) as one of conditioning and domestication, designed to keep the masses in check. Anyone familiar with Chomsky’s propaganda model of the media will have no trouble in understanding exactly what he means. The counter to this domestication is an educational process which opens the participants’ eyes to the conditioning which they are experiencing. This process is a distinctively human one:

“… man, essentially a conditional being, is also essentially a being capable of knowing what conditions him… the key to “perception of perception” and hence to the recuperation of hidden or mystified reality, is problematization. Problematization… means both asking questions and calling into question and is therefore a challenging attitude.”(p9)

Clearly, in order for social change to take place, the humans within the society need to be awakened, to be challenged. Or, in Freire’s words, participants in change need to be “de-conditioned” before they can “be more”. This deconditioning is a process that happens in human gatherings that are open to a new way of being. Perhaps this new way is what we mean when we talk about community.

Just as Edwards connects compassion with revolution, so Freire connects education and community with revolution:

“the literacy process must relate speaking the word to transforming reality, and to man’s role in this transformation.” (p31)

4. Let’s problematize The Broadmead! Perhaps one practical way to engage with these notions is to consider the place of The Broadmead shopping centre in the average Bristolian’s experience. For me it looms large as a festering pustule draining the life out of our community. But this is clearly not how the average Saturday shopper sees it.

At the recent Kebele Info night on the oppression in Oaxaca I was struck by the call for communities to resist the invasion of power. The Broadmead is a clear manifestation of this invasion as corporate monoliths steal space from the heart of our community.

How can we challenge this theft? People are conditioned into thinking that mass consumption is the path to a happier life, how can we speak the word so that deconditioning can take place? How can we generate such compassion for the child labourer that people’s blind greed for cheap produce will be overpowered? I saw some graffiti on the side of the Broadmead a while ago, “Build community, not capitalism”; so then, let’s do it!

Arms trade developments

2007-06-01T15:04:00.000Z

There have been two recent developments in the arms trade that will be of interest. The first is a stunning piece of good news. The publishing giant Reed Elsevier has recently received a huge amount of scathing criticism in relation to its continued participation in the arms trade.

But the tide has turned: In a communication released today from Sir Crispin Davis, Reed-Elsevier CEO, has announced Reed Elsevier’s withdrawal from the defence industry (sic). Here is the relevant paragraph:

Over the last year or so it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors, particularly in the science and medical markets, have very real concerns with our involvement in this sector. They believe strongly that our presence here is incompatible with the aims of the science and medical communities. I am also very aware this is a view shared by a number of our employees. We have listened closely to these concerns and we have concluded that the long term interests of Reed Elsevier as a leading publisher of science, medical, legal and business content would be best served by withdrawing from defence exhibitions. We intend to complete the withdrawal during the second half of 2007.

Brilliant news! The final sentence suggests that Reed will continue with its organisation of this year’s DSEi arms fair in London, but nonetheless this is a significant and very welcome development.

The second development was the recent appearance of an article on the BBC website discussing Tony Blair’s current visit to South Africa. Apparently the last time Blair was in South Africa was in 1999, when he visited twice. The article suggests that the primary reason for those two visits was to help “a leading British arms supplier” (BAe Systems) to win a multi-million dollar arms contract; a contract that was signed that same year.

This contract has since become mired in controversy – with allegations of corruption at very high levels. Indeed the article states that “it has been reported that the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has asked its South African counterpart, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), to help it track down more than $139m in "commissions", allegedly paid by BAE to eight South African businesses and a political adviser.”

Now as you are probably aware the Serious Fraud Office has had quite a lot to do with BAe Systems recently – primarily focussing on a massive contract that the Saudi government signed with them.

Quite apart from the fact that it produces weapons designed to murder human beings, BAe Systems is once again exposed as being utterly corrupt. As for the prime minister the BBC has this to say: “While there is no suggestion that the prime minister knew of or participated in any wrongdoing, his role in supporting the BAE bid has never been fully explained.”

Let me be the first to make the suggestion! There is no possible way that the prime minister could have supported this bid and been ignorant of BAe’s standard mode of operation. Corruption at BAe is a matter of historical record. The payment of “commissions” has been standard practice for as long as BAe Systems has been in existence. Once again the mainstream press are letting Blair off far too lightly. Once again he has blood on his hands.

On terrorism

2007-05-14T11:26:00.000Z

This blog is fast becoming just a respository for rejected letters - and here's another one... I wrote to Howard Jacobson last week because I found his article in the Independent somewhat irritating. No response has been forthcoming. I've taken the liberty of making a couple of improvements to the version that I sent to Mr Jacobson...

I should note that, in my response, I use the word "terrorism" in the same way that the popular press uses it: To refer to small "extremist" groups who carry out violent attacks on civilian populations. In fact this use of the word is misleading: Firstly, it implies that governments are not capable of terrorism (war, apparently, is not terrorism) and, secondly, it reinforces the notion that to be in opposition to the prevailing political and economic elite is to be "extreme" (in which case, moderation be damned). For more details, read Chomsky!

Dear Mr Jacobson,

I enjoy reading your articles in the Saturday Independent - they are always entertaining and stimulating, even when running contrary to my own opinion. However your last article irritated me a little. I felt that you were making use of a standard, quite underhand, trick to make your point; namely, you misrepresented the position of those with whom you disagree (in this case those opposed to the War on Terror) in order to shown them to be absurd.

I count myself as one of those whom you misrepresented so I thought I would take the opportunity to state my position.

I do not deny the existence of terrorism. Clearly there are nutters walking the streets of Sussex who wish to inflict pain on random strangers. I maintain that there are not many nutters in Sussex - perhaps not nearly as many as the government would have us believe - but let us put that to one side for the moment. Instead let us ask what are we to do?

There are, it seems to me, two main approaches. The first is to deny a potential terrorist the MEANS to inflict terror - this is the stuff of the War on Terror. This approach involves focussed policing, greater surveillance, possibly a tighter border control, maybe racial profiling, maybe lengthened detention of suspects etc etc. Inevitably liberties must be sacrificed in order to implement this approach.

The second approach is to remove the MOTIVE from the potential terrorist. This of course depends a lot on what that motive is (not on what the terrorist perceives it to be, but on what really motivates him/her). Generally acts of terror are perpetuated for very clear reasons that have an element of (albeit very twisted) logic to them. If terror erupts because of a government policy then clearly a change to that policy may be one way to avoid further terror - this course of action being balanced against the virtue of the policy in the first place, as well as the obvious and reasonable unwillingness to "give in to terror".

Both of these approaches are inevitably limited. When the cause of a terrorist is to denounce drunk women in nightclubs we're not going to get far on the motive front. If we are to effectively remove the means for any prospective terrorist then we will potentially remove the means for any prospective dissent; we will also divert great quantities of political and social energies into the task of hunting the terrorists down - and that is a price too high.

A price too high because, although terrorism exists, the scale of it is not as terrifying as the government would have us believe. Don't get me wrong, acts of terrorism can be catastrophic - I have come mighty close to a panic attack on the tube just thinking about the events of 7th July 2005. And every death in London that day was a tragedy which brought distress, even despair, to many.

However, despite this, even were I to believe every government statement on the issue, terrorism simply isn't the major issue that it's made out to be. For what was the major cause of human suffering on 7th July 2005? It was the same cause as on 11th September 2001; indeed it was the same cause on every other day in the last one thousand years - poverty and hunger. By some estimates 50 000 people die every day from poverty-related causes, and that's not to mention the millions for whom poverty is a daily source of acute misery. It is inconceivable that terrorism will ever cause one tenth, even one thousandth of the deaths that poverty causes.

When we speak of the "threat" of terrorism we mean, I presume, that terrorism threatens our lives, our happiness, maybe even our social order. And yet it is clear that our lives and our happiness are under far greater threat from poverty. It is clear also that our social order must be rotten if it is perpetuating the tragedy of mass poverty. Terrorism is not a solution to that rotten social order; nonetheless it is worth reflecting whether we really want to put so much energy into maintaining that order when, perhaps, the real task is to dismantle it.

I would be interested to read any reply that you may have.

Well aimed words from The Lancet

2007-05-09T14:47:00.000Z

My mental image of “The Lancet” medical journal has the Lancet as a tiny candle shining out from within the immense inky blackness of its publisher, Reed-Elsevier. For, as much as I detest Reed and everything it stand for, the Lancet manages to deliver regular doses of enlightenment to its fortunate readers…

In the last month or so two articles have caught my attention. The first was not, strictly speaking, in the Lancet at all; but the author was the editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton. Writing in the Guardian, Horton discusses the government’s response to the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian mortality; this study was published in the Lancet last October and created headlines with its estimate that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the American and British led invasion in March 2003.

At the time the government rubbished the report. Horton writes:

…the prime minister's official spokesman said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report".

It now emerges that the government - and President Bush - were, as usual, lying through their teeth. For this is the advice that experts were giving the government at the time:

The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study"… The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "The survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".

I do not know why I continue to be astonished at government duplicity but, well, I just do. I must keep reminding myself that governments have far less loyalty to the truth than the average citizen – why should a government bother to try and just massage the truth when a servile media will allow it to ignore the truth altogethr?

The other Lancet article that caught my attention has already been highlighted in a recent IndyMedia article. Those interested should refer to that article however the key point is that the Lancet has called for the defeat of the current Australian government citing, inter alia, “Prime Minister John Howard’s indifference to the academic medical community and his profound intolerance to those less secure than himself and his administration”.

The Lancet editorial coincided with a recent report on the health of aboriginal Australians. The Sydney Morning Herald summed up the report this way:

The health of Aborigines lags almost 100 years behind other Australians and they are the sickest indigenous people of all the wealthy nations, a report by the World Health Organisation says.

A change of government may not help matters much in Australia, but it sure as hell wouldn’t make things worse.

Reed-Elsevier: Publishing Journals and Selling Bombs

2007-05-02T11:17:00.000Z

The following is an update on my earlier article about Reed-Elsevier. More damning revelations have emerged about Reed's activities as you will see...

Reed-Elsevier are one of the biggest publishers of mathematics journals in the world - they list 102 mathematics journals on their website including the likes of "Topology", "Journal of Number Theory" and "Journal of Algebra". What is less well known is that Reed also organises arms fairs.

Through their subsidiary companies, Reed Exhibitions and Spearhead Exhibitions, Reed-Elsevier are responsible for organising some of the biggest arms fairs in the world including the biennial DSEi arms fair in London, the Idex Fair in Abu Dhabi and Shot Show, a North American small arms exhibition.

Reed's defence of their involvement in the arms trade is that they are involved in a legitimate business operating under tight regulation. But consider some of the facts. The list of invitees to DSEi 2005 included seven of the twenty countries on the UK Foreign Office’s list of regimes which commit the most severe abuses of human rights - such notorious regimes as Indonesia and Colombia were amongst those present. And picture the delights that were promoted at DSEi: small arms (responsible for 500,000 deaths every year), torture equipment (including leg irons, stun guns and stun batons), cluster bombs and the list goes on...

The sale of cluster bombs in particular brought a storm of criticism from the public. Human Rights Watch estimates that cluster bombs were responsible for more civilian casualties during the invasion of Iraq than any other military tactic. The public outcry at their sale at DSEi resulted in Reed’s company secretary rushing out a statement that “there were no cluster bombs at DSEi. They were not displayed and not offered for sale…”

But they were. It was subsequently revealed that p.182 of DSEi’s official catalogue openly listed components for “aircraft deployed cluster bombs” amongst the products on offer. This page is missing, along with a bunch of others, in the copy of the catalogue on DSEi’s website: an embarrassing reprographical error for a publishing company like Reed Elsevier! And if you wanted more than just cluster bomb components you could always speak to representatives from the 14 cluster bomb manufacturers who attended DSEi and who would happily flog you the whole bomb.

Controversy has arisen again in relation to this year's Idex arms fair. It has just emerged that the Sudanese defence minister was one of those invited to Idex, despite being the representative of a regime that stands accused of genocide by the United States. Once again cluster bombs were promoted at the show - a Reed spokesman was forced to concede that although cluster munitions were supposedly not marketed at Reed's arms fairs there was an "incident" of this happening at Idex 2007.

Finally let me mention Shot Show 2006. As at DSEi, torture equipment was for sale at the Shot Show, this time including electroshock batons and stun guns made by the company Security Equipment Coroporation whose tagline is "Making Grown Men Cry Since 1975."

Unsurprisingly Reed’s arms fairs have attracted the wrath of a number of different groups. Because of Reed’s “other role” as a publishing house, their services are used by many people for whom the arms trade is anathema. The medical community has led the way - in September 2005 the editorial board of The Lancet, arguably the world’s most prestigious medical journal and one which is published by Reed, issued a scathing condemnation of Reed Elsevier’s role in the global arms trade. They called on the company “to divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being.”

In the last three months the British Journal of Medicine and the Royal Society of Medicine have also published excoriating editorials with regards to Reed's involvement in the arms trade; Richard Smith wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine that the people in the strongest position to take action against Reed-Elsevier are "the authors and readers of The Lancet and the 2000 other journals". The most recent issue of The Lancet included three pages of letters about Reed's connection to the arms trade; correspondents were unanimously appalled.

Other groups have joined the chorus of dismay: In 2006, on the eve of the London Book Fair, also organised by Reed, thirteen internationally renowned writers – including 2 Nobel Prize winners and 6 winners of the Man Booker prize – issued a public letter criticising the company’s arms fairs. The writers included AS Byatt, JM Coetzee and Ian McEwan.

And now the academics are getting in on the act. Close to 140 academics recently signed an open letter to Reed Elsevier in which they called on Reed to cease all involvement in arms fairs. The letter was printed in the Times Higher Education Supplement; amongst other things the correspondents wrote that that Reed’s involvement in the arms trade “is entirely at odds with the ethical and social obligations we have to promote the beneficial applications of our work and prevent its misuse, to anticipate and evaluate the possible unintended consequences of scientific and technological developments, and to consider at all times the moral responsibility we carry for our work.”

The letter was signed by some of the most respected minds in academia - including a number of very prominent mathematicians. Mathematicians have also joined other academics, including such luminaries as Noam Chomsky, in supporting an on-line petition against Reed's involvement in the arms trade:
http://www.idiolect.org.uk/elsevier/

Many have gone further and have joined an on-line boycott against publishing in Reed-Elsevier journals:
http://cage.ugent.be/~npg/elsevier/

One of the boycotters, Prof Sir Michael Atiyah, one of the greatest mathematicians of the last hundred years, recently commented that "science and technology offer enormous opportunities for the betterment of mankind. Unfortunately these potential benefits are overshadowed by the exploitation of science for military ends.”

Professor Atiyah’s words echo sentiments of Albert Einstein expressed some seventy years earlier: “Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technical endeavours... in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.”

Reed Elsevier is effectively exploiting the respectable and worthwhile work of mathematicians and other academics to mask its sinister and deadly role in the global arms trade. This exploitation is indeed a curse for millions of victims of the arms trade the world over. As the letter, petition and boycott show, mathematicians will not accept this and are prepared to speak out. It is to be hoped that, sooner or later, Reed Elsevier will get the message.

Trident Letters

2007-03-18T14:22:00.000Z

The following letters were written last Thursday after parliament voted to renew Trident. The newspapers in question didn't publish them.... so I am!

To The Guardian:

Sir,

Last December I joined the Faslane365 protest, blockading the Trident
nuclear submarine base in Scotland. I intend to do similarly this June - I
will participate in an academic conference discussing nuclear disarmament
while blockading the road into the Trident base.

Perhaps those MPs who voted for the renewal of our "nuclear deterrent"
should come and attend; for they will learn that the only thing Trident
will ever deter is peace. It will certainly not deter decent ordinary
people from struggling for a world free of the threat of a nuclear
cataclysm.

To The Independent:

Sir,

The decision to renew Trident is a moral, political and financial
disaster. There can be no justification for spending any amount of money,
let along £20 billion, in order that we have the option of killing vast
numbers of people.

To The Times:

Sir,

I've been arrested once for opposing the Trident nuclear system and I
fully expect to be arrested again. The one thing Trident will never deter
is resistance.

Corruption in the Defence Industry

2007-03-16T18:46:00.000Z

Last night a very interesting couple of talks took place in the Redlands Friends Meeting House, organised by the Bristol Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

A history of Corruption and the MOD

Nick Gilby, of the National CAAT group, gave a potted history of the "Ministry of Defence and the Bribe Culture" (his speech constitutes a very abbreviated version of his upcoming book...) Nick has spent many long hours in the national archives reading old memos and other documents of the MOD. He described a culture of massive bribery over very many years.

Up until 1975 the MOD had been an active and enthusiastic participant in the bribes culture. Harold Hubert was the MOD's main seller of weapons. His strategy was to inflate the prices of his weapons to cover the cost of a slush fund used for bribery. He would pay "agents" public money to fix deals with various countries around the world. These agents had access to the highest echelons in the countries in question and they would pass on these funds in order to guarantee that the sale went ahead.

Nick outlined how Saudi Arabia, in particular, had been a main target for this bribery activity with huge amounts of public money used to pay off members of the Saudi royal family. Nick quoted from a number of memos that openly discussed this process (many of which involved the British Aircraft Corporation, a company which has since morped into part of BAe Systems).

In 1975, the Church Commission uncovered massive corruption in the business dealings of the Lockheed corporation. This led to a rethink of the business of arms sales around the world. In the UK this rethink resulted in a deliberate ostrich policy: Public money was not to be used to pay bribes but, equally, if corporations paid bribes in order to gain contracts then the MOD would not investigate such goings on. In other words the MOD preferred to remain in an official state of ignorance, even though they were (and are) acutely aware of the extent to which the arms trade is riddled with bribery and corruption.

A case in point is Al Yamamah. This is the name of a series of massive arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, which have been paid for by the delivery of up to 600,000 barrels of oil per day to the UK government. The first deal was signed in 1985 and the prime contractor has been BAE Systems and its predecessor British Aerospace.

Nick outlined how the initial deal in 1985 had many very suspicious elements (including a 34% increase in price over a year, which could have been to pay bribes) but which was not investigated by the MOD (in accordance with their ostrich policy). Instead the MOD inquired of British Aerospace whether the deal had been legal and when they received an affirmative response, no further questions were asked!

More on the Al Yamamah deal later...

Corruption in general

The second speaker was Nick Hildyard of The Corner House. His starting point was a desire to incite public outrage at the corrupt practices which go on around the world. Only by ensuring that governments know that the public is watching what they get up to can we give the judiciary the necessary spine to call the government to account over matters of corruption (see the discussion below).

Nick outlined the massive damage done by corruption all around the world. Indeed our own Hilary Benn has admitted that "corruption kills day to day"! The mechanisms by which this happens are numerous. Firstly of course it simply diverts money from worthwhile projects into the bank accounts of unscrupulous individuals.

Secondly, and more subtly, a culture of corruption tends to channel money into developments with the greatest kick-backs. These tend to be macro projects - projects of grand vision and scope which therefore have numerous weak points were funds can "leak away". Thus aid and other money is diverted away from local, community projects (which tend to be more corruption-proof as their small scale enhances accountability) - the very projects which offer the most hope for local people.

Thirdly a culture of corruption results in money being shifted from the legal economy into the black economy. Thus money bypasses legitimate checks and balances as well as bypassing taxation.

There is a popular perception of other countries having an indigenous culture of corruption. Nick pointed out that this is not only inaccurate, it is also racist. Nick outlined the sterling efforts of Lesotho in combatting corrupt corporate practices and noted that Lesotho has received very little help from the West.

In fact in general the West has more often facilitated a culture of corruption in impoverished countries (often in Africa). Through IMF and WTO policies, education and health structures have been stripped back and have left poor people unable to access basic services without resorting to bribery.

Al Yamamah and the Judicial Review

The corrupt practices involved in the Al Yamamah deal have, of late, caught the attention of the Serious Fraud Office. They have been investigating corrupt practices in the period since 2002. However their investigation was discontinued on 14 December 2006 after the Government warned the investiation could "damage national security interests".

In fact the government was more specific: In announcing the decision Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said that both Tony Blair and Defence Secretary Des Browne had argued that carrying on the investigation would harm intelligence and diplomatic co-operation with Saudi Arabia, in turn damaging the UK's national security.

This decision brought a storm of criticism from many different quarters. The criticism was especially strong as the UK is a signatory to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. Article 5 of the convention states that

"Investigation and prosecution of the bribery of a foreign public official shall be subject to the applicable rules and principles of each Party. They shall not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest, the potential effect upon relations with another State or the identity of the natural or legal persons involved.”

In lay terms this means that an investigation into bribery can only be dropped as a result of the merits of the case - the likelihood, or not, that a prosecution will succeed.

It would seem clear that the government has explicitly violated this convention in its decision to halt the SFO investigation into Al Yamamah. In order to test this out, CAAT and The Cornerhouse (the organisations which the two Nicks were representing last night) have launched a judicial review into the decision. This review is already well underway and is likely to come to a conclusion some time in the next six months.

Action points

As Nick Hildyard described, it is imperative that there is a sustained and vigorous public response to the dropping of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry. The officials conducting the judicial review into the government's decision will need to feel the eyes of the public upon them if they are to take a stand against their political masters. The awareness of the general public needs to be raised in every way including discussions in the pub, letters to the press, public meetings and other events.

One practical measure is to write to your MP and ask that they sign the Early Day Motion on this matter.

To write to your MP go here.

You can also sign an e-petition on the matter.

There'll be those of you reading this who aint believers in this on-line lobbying malarkey. Well, fair enough too.... So maybe you'd just better give CAAT some money! Or come up with your own way to call the government to account on this matter...

To keep updated on what's going on (and to find out who CAAT and the Cornerhouse are):
http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/sfo/sfo-latest.php

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/

Friendship therapy

2007-03-13T11:52:00.000Z

My work in homeless hostels has brought me into contact with a very interesting guy whom I shall refer to as Eddie. My contact with Eddie has led me to reflect on the therapeutic role which institutions play in today's welfare state...

Eddie is suffering from some very deep emotional, psychological and social wounds. In order to attend to these wounds "the system" has devised a therapeutic process for Eddie which involves a myriad of professional-client relationships. He's got a couple of drugs workers, a hostel key worker, a probation officer, social worker, housing adviser, lawyer, GP plus other doctors, including specialists, and nurses. All of these are very likely good people doing their best to help Eddie deal with his various issues.

And very likely they will help. They will ease his way through the criminal justice system; they will help him with his housing needs and his benefits needs; his physical health will be attended to; even his drug problem will be addressed. Over a period of time Eddie will no doubt make some progress and will develop new skills to help him cope with what life has thrown, and will throw, at him.

It is important to note that, typically, these professionals (and I was one) are not naive. They have a good sense of what their limitations are and they will try and empower Eddie, in so far as they are able, to take responsibility for himself so that ultimately he can survive without professional help.

But they can only take him so far. The limitations of the professional-client relationship (or we could call it the "institutional relationship") constitute an impermeable boundary, beyond which Eddie can not be accompanied. Unfortunately it is outside this boundary that nearly all of "functioning" society find their most important coping mechanisms. For outside this boundary are relationships of friendship and community, relationships that are most people's primary resource in times of crisis.

Eddie, a man whose life is in almost perpetual crisis, has very few such resources. His primary friendships are with fellow drug users; friendships that, for obvious reasons, provide him only a very limited solace. He is also without close family.

More than any professional, Eddie needs a friend. He needs a community, by which I mean some kind of family-structure. He needs structures of human-ness to help him cope when he feels wobbly. Why do I say this? Simply because I know that these are the structures in my own life on which I lean most heavily.

And not only when I am feeling wobbly. Friends and communities also provide a purpose and a meaning which can get me through the day when nothing else seems worth doing. By their nature, friendships are permeable - there is a two way stream along which gifts of time, thought, care and love flow. It is their two way nature that distinguish them so entirely from professional relationships. Eddie needs the opportunity to give to someone else. For what other opportunity can provide such a feeling of self worth as the opportunity to help someone in need?

Institutions in which professional boundaries are inviolable will never provide this most vital human privilege. Eddie will need to look elsewhere and, if he is lucky, he will find friendship and community for himself. If he is unlucky - and Eddie has had a lot of bad luck - he will fail in this search. And this failure may well undermine all of the tender ministrations of those concerned professionals. For, when the shit hits the fan and with no friends to turn to, will Eddie phone his social worker or his dealer?

ADDENDUM: I’ve considered here the effect of the institutional relationship on the client. But what about the professional? The limitations and particular dynamics of the institutional relationship also greatly affect the professional. The primary factor seems to be that the professional is seen to have power over the client and, to quote a phrase, power corrupts!

In an institutional relationship it is too easy for the client to become object, while the professional is subject. While the aim is (or should be) always to empower the client to function autonomously, in reality this is frequently not the case. Rather, the professional has control over the client in a way that can be fundamentally destructive for both parties. Too often I hear stories of people working in the social sector who have come under investigation because the relationships that they have established with clients are abusive or manipulative. The professionals in question are not necessarily abusive by nature; rather, the dynamics of an unequal relationship seem to prove too much for them. The corrupting influence of power is often an irresistible force.

The irony in all this is that the professional boundary, which is the cause of the limitations discussed above, is also intended to be the structure which prevents abuse. With a dissolution of the professional boundaries real concerns over possible abuse immediately arise. While these concerns are of course valid, my contention is that friendships, by their (more) horizontal nature, are inherently more robust than institutional relationships when it comes to matters of abuse. And it is friendship which ultimately offers a far greater therapeutic reward for both of the people involved.

Reed-Elsevier: Printing books and selling bombs

2007-03-10T17:27:00.000Z

As a mathematician, I have long been aware of Reed Elsevier as a publisher of academic journals. It has come as a shock to learn that Reed also organises arms fairs.

Through their subsidiary companies, Reed Exhibitions and Spearhead Exhibitions, they are responsible for organising some of the biggest arms fairs in the world including the biennial DSEi arms fair in London.

In 2005 hundreds of protestors gathered in London’s docklands area to express their outrage at what goes on at DSEi. And their outrage is certainly warranted. The list of invitees to DSEi 2005 included seven of the twenty countries on the UK Foreign Office’s list of regimes which commit the most severe abuses of human rights. Such notorious regimes as Indonesia and Colombia were amongst those present. Picture the delights that they were being sold: small arms (responsible for 500,000 deaths every year), torture equipment (including leg irons, stun guns and stun batons), cluster bombs, the list goes on...

The sale of cluster bombs in particular brought a storm of criticism from the public. Human Rights Watch estimates that cluster bombs were responsible for more civilian casualties during the invasion of Iraq than any other military tactic. The public outcry at their sale at DSEi resulted in Reed’s company secretary rushing out a statement that “there were no cluster bombs at DSEi. They were not displayed and not offered for sale…”

But they were. It was subsequently revealed that p.182 of DSEi’s official catalogue openly listed components for “aircraft deployed cluster bombs” amongst the products on offer. This page is missing, along with a bunch of others, in the copy of the catalogue on DSEi’s website: an embarrassing reprographical error for a publishing company like Reed Elsevier! And if you wanted more than just cluster bomb components you could always speak to representatives from the 14 cluster bomb manufacturers who attended DSEi and who would happily flog you the whole bomb.

Reed’s appalling activities in this area have attracted the wrath of a number of different groups. Because of Reed’s “other role” as a publishing house, their services are used by many people for whom the arms trade is anathema. In September 2005 the editorial board of The Lancet, arguably the world’s most prestigious medical journal and one which is published by Reed, issued a scathing condemnation of Reed Elsevier’s role in the global arms trade. They called on the company “to divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being.”

Then on 2nd March, 2006, on the eve of the London Book Fair, also organised by Reed, thirteen internationally renowned writers – including 2 Nobel Prize winners and 6 winners of the Man Booker prize – issued a public letter criticising the company’s arms fairs. The writers included AS Byatt, JM Coetzee and Ian McEwan.

One year on and another group of professionals is preparing to make known their revulsion at Reed Elsevier’s activities. Reed is one of the largest publishers of academic journals in the world and in this capacity Reed’s services are used in universities around the world. Now 140 academics have signed an open letter to Reed Elsevier in which they call on Reed to cease all involvement in arms fairs. In particular they state that Reed’s involvement in the arms trade “is entirely at odds with the ethical and social obligations we have to promote the beneficial applications of our work and prevent its misuse, to anticipate and evaluate the possible unintended consequences of scientific and technological developments, and to consider at all times the moral responsibility we carry for our work.”

The letter is signed by some of the most respected minds in academia, united by their disgust at Reed’s participation in the arms trade. One of them, Prof Michael Atiyah, one of the greatest mathematicians of the last hundred years, recently commented that "science and technology offer enormous opportunities for the betterment of mankind. Unfortunately these potential benefits are overshadowed by the exploitation of science for military ends.”

Professor Atiyah’s words echo sentiments of Albert Einstein expressed some seventy years earlier: “Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technical endeavours... in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.”

Reed Elsevier is effectively exploiting the respectable and worthwhile work of academics to mask its sinister and deadly role in the global arms trade. This exploitation is indeed a curse for millions of victims of the arms trade the world over. As this week's letter shows, academics will not accept this and are prepared to speak out. It is to be hoped that, sooner or later, Reed Elsevier will get the message.

Faslane action

2007-03-10T17:24:00.000Z

I wrote this last December; I've no idea why I didn't post it then...

Wednesday morning, 7:30am. A dark road somewhere North of Glasgow. Scottish cold and rain beating in my face. I'm chained via a bike lock to Irene, veteran of the Faslane struggle. One arm disappears into a tube, at the other end of which is my mate Steve. There are seven of us, five women and two men, standing in a line stretched across the road.

Headlights approach through the darkness; our high-visibility minders rush forward arms waving: "Slow down, SLOW DOWN, This is a blockade don't you know!" There are flashing blue lights approaching now from further down the road; one of us makes the call "HO!" and we sink to the ground, laid flat out on the tarmac.

The next forty minutes are spent blinking beating rain out of our eyes, grimacing at police cameras and questions, being fed chocolate by our minders and eventually, sadly, being cut apart by a very efficient Scottish police force. We're taken away to a mobile processing unit for the usual rigmarole. As we're driven away we can see the traffic queues backing up in three directions; the Trident nuclear submarine base is the workplace for 7000 loyal subjects of Her Majesty.... and a fair proportion of them are now late for work.

It's the least we can do.... They'll be late for work plenty more times in the next twelve months - the Faslane 365 blockade is intent on disrupting activity at the nuclear base throughout that time and GOOD LUCK to them! The weapons that are based at Faslane are some of the most awful ever devised by humanity and if used would usher in oblivion for millions, and misery for millions more.

Our next 24 hours are spent in police lock-ups in Dumbarton and Clydebank. We are yet to hear if the "procurator fiscal" is intent on pressing charges but with 408 arrests so far and only 4 prosecutions it seems unlikely. But either way there are bigger issues at stake than the odd breach of the peace. As our political masters contemplate the renewal of Trident - against the wishes of the majority of the British people - it is incumbent upon the ordinary citizen to express our opposition in every way possible.

Apart from being grossly immoral the renewal of Trident would undermine all international attempts at nuclear non-proliferation, as well as being a financial disaster for Britain. It would signal 24 billion pounds NOT being spent on hospitals, schools, the environment, etc etc. In the face of such a prospect a few hours in a police cell seems a minor inconvenience.

The Faslane 365 website (Please, Join the blockade!):
http://www.faslane365.org/

So you think that, were Trident built, there's no chance it would ever be used? Maybe you should read some history:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/198173.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Greenpeace's view:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7611.pdf

My thoughts while in the cell:
http://nickleberry-huxtable.blogspot.com/2006/12/uncomfortable-truth.html

Remembering Slavery

2007-02-16T17:06:00.000Z

Two hundred years ago the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by British parliament. There has been much debate around Bristol, a city whose past is inextricably linked to the slave trade, about how to commemorate this event. I want to recommend several books that bring to light some of the horrors of that awful trade, the legacy of which still stains the society in which we live today...

First on the list is Roots by Alex Haley. I've been reading this book over the past few weeks and it is sensational. Alex Haley traced his only family tree back to an African man, Kunta Kinte, who lived in the Gambia in the 1700's. By means of the rich oral tradition of Haley's family, and of the Mandinka tribe from which his family descended, Haley has reconstructed many of the details of Kunta Kinte's life and of the circumstances which led to him being kidnapped and taken to America as a slave. The book is easy to read but no less compelling for that; "Roots" burns with Haley's anger at the injustices which have been inflicted on his family.

What's more, in providing a direct, documented human link from now back to the time of slavery, Haley has evidenced the ongoing effect of slavery today. Those whose hard hearts lead them to protest that apologies are irrelevent, because "it all happened so long ago", forget that there is a continuous human link through which cause and effect is seamlessly propagated. We breathe air polluted by the history of slavery.

It's worth noting that "Roots" is not the only famous book by Alex Haley. He is also responsible for "The Autobiography of Malcolm X". He published this shortly after Malcolm X died and it is based on many hours of conversation between Haley and Malcolm X. That book too burns with anger at the plight of African Americans; in its own way it is as much about slavery as is "Roots".

Like "Roots", The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron is a fictionalised account of the life of a real slave. Nat Turner was a slave in Virginia in the 1800s who lead a bloody slave revolt against his white masters. The revolt was quickly suppressed and Nat Turner was executed but, nonetheless, the revolt had a serious impact on Virginian society of the time, polarising public opinion and causing great alarm among the so-called respectable classes.

Styron's account of the revolt is skilfully written but controversial. He concentrates a lot on Nat Turner's religious motivations, as well as on some of his sexual ideations. For this reason it has been criticised by some black authors as perpetuating the "myth of the black rapist". The book has been defended however by such notable black authors as James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison; reason enough to read it!

In fact James Baldwin's work is itself worth mentioning in the context of slavery. I have read two of his books - "Go Tell it On the Mountain", a novel, and "The Fire Next Time" which consists of two essays - which are both notable in their own right. First of all Baldwin's writing is beautiful; understated and yet forceful. Secondly the content of what he has to say is extremely powerful - he does not speak of slavery directly but, like Alex Haley, his concern is for African Americans and so everything he writes has the shadow of slavery hanging over it.

On no one did that shadow fall more heavily than on George Jackson. Jackson was a member of the Black Panthers; he was imprisoned at age 18 for stealing $70 at a gas station and he remained in prison for the next 12 years. He was killed, aged 29, whilst trying to escape from San Quentin prison. George Jackson's "Soledad Brother" is possibly the most angry, most inflammatory book I have ever read. If one wants to consider the legacy which slavery has left humanity one need look no further than these words concerning the struggle of black people for justice in today's America:

"The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative.

The symbol of the male here in North America has always been the gun, the knife, the club. Violence is extolled at every exchange: the TV, the motion pictures, the best-seller lists. The newspapers that sell best are those that carry the boldest, bloodiest headlines and most sports coverage. To die for king and country is to die a hero.

The Kings, Wilkinses and Youngs exhort us in King's words to 'put away the knives, put away your arms and clothe yourselves in the breastplate of righteousness' and 'turn the other cheek to prove our capacity to endure, to love'. Well, that is good for them perhaps but I most certainly need both sides of my head."

Deportations Imminent

2007-02-09T21:20:00.000Z

This afternoon about thirty people participated in a demonstration of support for two asylum seekers. This demonstration was announced at very short notice after people heard of the plight of these two men. See the original IndyMedia article:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25854

Ahmed and Anan are both from the Kurdish part of Iraq. They fled Kurdistan some years ago and have been resident in Bristol for the last seven years. Their application for asylum was first rejected four years ago and appeals have been in process since. In recent times they have both been obliged to regularly sign on at the Trinity Road police station.

This was how things stood up until last week. As usual Ahmed and Anan turned up at the police station to sign on but, to their horror, were detained by the police. They spent the next five days in the cells at Trinity Road before being transferred to detention centres in different parts of the country. They have been told to expect deportation this Monday 12th February.

Ahmed and Anan were not allowed any time to say good bye to the friends that they have made over the last seven years, to collect their belongings, to prepare for departure in any way. They have been behind bars since the moment they arrived at Trinity Road police station last week. And yet their behaviour with regard to their asylum application has been exemplary throughout their time in Bristol. They have complied with all the demands that the law has made; they also have a reputation as excellent employees. All of this counts for nothing when it comes to matters of immigration.

As part of this afternoon's demonstration the thirty people in attendance met with the Liberal Democrat member for Bristol West, where the two men resided, Stephen Williams. A number of very grave concerns were raised by the demonstrators:

- First of all the serious physical danger that these two men face on their return. They fled Iraq in 2000 because of the danger which resulted from their political opposition to the PUK. Kurdish Iraq is now controlled by the PUK so the danger continues. In addition Amnesty International have released a statement saying that "'forcing people back to Iraq, even to the North, will put people's lives at risk".
http://amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17261

- Secondly, the inhuman way in which this deportation has been carried out. Seven years of life in Bristol represents a huge investment of their humanity in the city. They have many friends, they have jobs, they have LIVES. Government interference in these men's lives is grossly immoral, and, given article 8 of the Human Rights Act, very likely illegal.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80042--d.htm

In addition to concerns for the well-being of these two men there is grave concern about other asylum seekers in the UK. Monday has been earmarked "deportation day" for many Iraqi asylum seekers around the country who have been herded into detention centres awaiting departure for Iraq. It is not known exactly how many people are expecting to be deported; this operation has been largely secret.

Furthermore we must consider the plight of other asylum seekers in the UK who do not know if one day, out of the blue, their life here will be ended. Stephen Williams told us that he was unlikely to be able to affect the situation for these two men as the Home Office had already taken their decision. He counselled other asylum seekers in this country to ensure that they have good legal advice and to get in touch with their local member who may be able to make representations on their behalf.

But, with the possibility of sudden departure hanging over people's heads, how are asylum seekers to adjust positively to life in this country? And how dare this government so disregard the basic humanity of the people involved? The situation is an outrage; an outrage that looks set to cost Ahmed and Anan everything.

The Economics of Christmas

2007-01-21T14:57:00.000Z

I recently wrote to a couple of newspapers about their coverage of “The Economics of Christmas”. They didn’t publish what I had to say but, thanks to the democracy of the internet, I am not subject to that decision – I can publish them myself here!

In response to an article in the Independent on Sunday, 7 January 2007:

Sir/ Madam,

The Independent's historical willingness to devote its front page to the issue of climate change and other environmental problems is admirable. Admirable but also hypocritical: I am regularly irritated by the large spaces devoted to adverts for cheap flights. Running more deeply though is an attitude which pervades the paper's reporting of economic matters, and it is an attitude which is most evident at this time of year.

As retail groups release their figures for the Christmas period considerable space is devoted to discussion of how these groups fared in their bid for the British shoppers' Christmas pounds (M&S, Next and Majestic have all been the subject of recent articles). The end point of this process will be an announcement of the overall performance of the retail sector. Implicit in this discussion is the idea that the more we spend, the healthier the economy and therefore (by a mysterious and rarely examined process) the happier the residents of this fair isle.

The fact remains though that we are in danger of consuming our way to oblivion. A journalistic dogma has long been that "economic growth is good" and yet this idea is revealed every day as absurd. Every Easy Jet ticket we buy helps boost the economy and helps destroy the planet. Similarly the Christmas orgy of consumption, although it might make the shareholders of M&S happy, is a catastrophic waste of our planet's resources.

The Independent has a proud history of journalistic innovation. I ask that you therefore consider the following: In reporting the economics of Christmas a proper emphasis should be laid on the environmental and social consequences of our consumption.

Yours sincerely,

In response to an article in The Observer, 7 January 2007:

Sir/Madam,

Ruth Sunderland's decision to abstain from retail therapy is admirable but perhaps she should think again about her decision to reject the "anti-capitalist hairshirt". In light of warnings of impending climate chaos it seems to me that a substantial rethink is required with regard to the economics of Christmas, and I point the finger first of all at newspapers like the Guardian and the Observer.

Since Christmas a series of articles have appeared in these papers reporting how retail groups have fared over the festive season (M&S, Next and Gap have all been the subject of recent articles). This culminates in articles like Thursday's "Sale season holds no cheer for high street" in which a downturn in sales is reported as an unambiguously disastrous event.

There is however every reason to think that humanity is in dire need of a downturn in sales for we are in danger of consuming our way to oblivion. Whether it be cheap flights to Europe or cheap durables imported from every corner of the globe, our appetite knows no bounds. Unlike the resources of the planet.

It is not good enough for Guardian journalists to stick to the old dogma that "economic growth is good" and neglect to report the catastrophic social and environmental consequences of our Christmas consumption. I expect better.

Yours sincerely,

On the Veil

2006-12-29T12:58:00.000Z

In a footnote to an earlier blog entry, "In Praise of Shoplifting", reference was made to the practice of Muslim women wearing the veil. Since then that footnote has made me somewhat uneasy since the debate around the veil is so politically charged that a throw away remark can easily be misconstrued. So I thought I would clarify my position a little by reflecting on the current debate...

Firstly I want to express my reluctance to engage with this debate at the current time. For the debate itself has been an attack on heterogeneous Britain. The media affects to be carefully and responsibly discussing serious difficulties around the health of Britain as a multicultural society; yet, throughout the debate, all of these difficulties are firmly located in the domain of the "ethnic minorities". Why is veil-wearing more of a threat to multicultural society than binge-drinking? Simply because the latter is never seen as a "cultural issue" because it is a problem (primarily) occurring in the locus of the white majority...

A white majority which is endlessly reassured by a smug and pious newspaper press. The newspapers devote column inches to the subject of the veil, they pontificate and fulminate, but most of all they self-congratulate: "Look at us!" the headlines scream, "We are evidence of a healthy pluralism in action! We are the free press!" And yet the opinion which they promote is frequently in favour of homogeneity and small-minded little Britain. (And all this is not to mention that the originator of the debate was the foreign secretary as this nation bombed Muslims in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Hardly a voice with a moral authority...(1) )

Nonetheless, and despite this departure point, I have no intention of opposing the reactionary mores of the West to the extent that I am seen to support conservative Islam. Religious and cultural fundamentalism should be opposed wherever they are found. And it is undeniable that some of the voices defending the right of a woman to wear the veil are chauvinists who do not defend the right of a woman to choose either way.

Such voices have been rightly criticised. There have been words of wisdom in amongst the jingoism, the most legitimate criticism generally coming from the corner of Western feminists. (See, for instance, this interesting article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.)

However some in that Western feminist corner may not have bargained with the assertions of some Muslim women who assert their right to wear the veil as an act of resistance against a culture (the West) which is forever vilifying them as Muslims. They are taking ownership of a symbol which in Western feminist discourse typically characterises as a symbol of patriarchy. Islamic feminist discourse is redefining the symbol as one of resistance: The primary differentiation in the act of wearing the veil is changed and the consequent value of the action is transformed.

The transformation that is claimed is very significant. The process is described in post-structuralism, a system of thought which I don't pretend to understand at all. However a simple point of reference is that of one's primary enemy. In feminism that primary enemy is patriarchy and the battle lines are drawn in such a way that patriarchy is always on the other side; within the feminist discourse actions are interpreted in terms of the relationship with patriarchy. In today's world however many Muslim women define primarily as Muslims and, for them, the first enemy is the Islam-demonising West. Thus in wearing the veil they are defying that enemy and acting assertively. (2)

I'll be honest: I still feel uncomfortable with this; although I can well imagine that this is due to my exposure to a relentless Western media. Still I would much rather Muslim women used some other symbol to oppose the West - it would make me feel much more able to be in solidarity with them (not that this is a good enough reason for them to change their habits).

My primary concern relates to the comment from my earlier blog that stimulated this piece. It is simplistic to argue that if a Muslim woman says she has chosen to wear the veil then she should be allowed to make that choice. As stated in “In Praise of Shoplifting”, people suffering oppression or tyranny often make statements of support for the system which keeps them down. They have “internalised the oppressor” to the extent that they self-oppress; they follow the narrow, oppressive path which has been mapped out for them without any overt whips being cracked to keep them in line.

Thus when I hear Muslim women asserting that they have chosen the veil I do not know whether this is the assertion of an internal patriarch or a remodeled feminist. I won’t presume to draw a conclusion either way – this debate was started by a middle-class white man making pronouncements regarding Muslim women and the last thing we need is more of the same. What is clear is that this is for Muslim women to work out. And more power to them...

FOOTNOTES
(1) I heard a man on the radio describe Jack Straw’s initiation of this debate as “one of the most courageous acts of the year”! Words fail me.
(2) Look what the West has achieved with its War on Terror! We have usurped patriarchy as the primary oppressor in a Muslim woman’s life.

The Uncomfortable Truth

2006-12-18T10:00:00.000Z

Last Wednesday I participated in a blockade of Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland. After 40 minutes on the road chained to hippies, I then spent 24 hours in a police cell. While in the cell I had George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" and a pencil and paper. This blog entry was written in that 24 hours...

Humanity has, it seems, a biological inclination towards dogma. Adrift in a world of immense complexity our disoriented consciousness seeks anchorage on any doctrine definite enough to give an illusion of explanation.

This inclination makes a strange companion to the more celebrated instinct of curiosity. We have immense powers of inquiry but we are at times too scared to use them. We will settle for the first system of ideas which we encounter and, once settled, will vigorously overlook the contradictions which life will inevitably send our way.

Wisdom, it seems to me, is precisely and entirely the quality which allows us to resist our tendency to dogma. Specifically, wisdom undermines our own inclination towards adopting any particular dogmatic standpoint and it opens our eyes to the dogmatic approach of other people.

Such a definition occured to me while reading George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier". This is the work of a wise (and compassionate) man. What is more it is the work of a man who describes himself as a Socialist, a label which, like any -ist or -ian, would immediately suggest a dogmatic mind at work.

Nonetheless Orwell's powers of criticism are sufficiently developed that he consistently avoids the pitfall of dogma. Take for instance the following short passage which occurs in the context of an expose by Orwell of the appalling housing conditions of workers in the North of England:

"It goes against the grain to say this, but one can see why it should be so. Ideally, the worst type of slum landlord is a fat wicked man, preferably a bishop, who is drawing an immense income from extortionate rents. Actually, it is a poor old woman who has invested her life's savings in three slum houses, inhabits one of them, and tries to live on the rent of the other two - never, in consequence, having any money for repairs." (p50)

Orwell's primary point in this section of the book is that the workers' lives are consistently blighted by the houses in which they live. Clearly the admission given in the quote does not undermine this argument in any way however one can see how he may have been tempted to overlook reality in favour of a stronger (albeit false) footing on the moral high ground! But he resists this temptation.

What is more, it is important to mention that "The Road to Wigan Pier" is a work full of opinions! Orwell rails against the living and working conditions of the industrial poor, the indifference of government and institutions, the cant of the mealy-mouthed middle classes. To convey all of this passionate feeling while maintaining a firm grasp on reality is quite an achievement.

Another example is given by his discussion of the spending habits of the workers. In particular their consistently wasteful and misguided spending habits and the corresponding efforts of some groups to educate workers in this matter:

"I have heard a communist speaker on the platform grow very angry about it. In London, he said parties of Society dames now have the cheek to walk into East End houses and give shopping lessons to the wives of the unemployed... First you condemn a family to live on thirty shillings a week, and then you have the damned impertinence to tell them how they are to spend their money. He was quite right - I agree heartily. Yet all the same it is a pity that, merely for the lack of a proper tradition, people should pour muck like tinned milk down their throats and not even know that it is inferior to the product of the cow."

Observe Orwell's (rare) capacity to hold two opinions in his head at the same time! A primary strength of Orwell's writing in this regard is that he is so clearly motivated by love and compassion. He writes of the working classes with respect and for their own sake. Although he argues in favour of Socialist solutions it is the people who are his primary concern, not Socialism as such. He can accept anomalies in people's behaviour, inconsistencies like those exemplified above, and still hold Socialist convictions.

Too many Socialists however are stuck on the idea that poor people are good, rich people are bad and Socialism is the answer. They do all they can to fit the world into this formula and disregard any inconvenient truth. They are not at all interested in those poor people of whom they talk, their preoccupation is the formula. Orwell, to his immense credit, will have none of it.

The final example of Orwell's willingness to diverge from any kind of dogma is in his attitude to taste, tradition and aesthetics. He unhesitatingly admits to being of a different character, with very different interests, to many of the working class people that he describes. There are good reasons for this, and he deals with them in depth, but nonetheless a significant gulf remains. The honesty of his admission is striking.

In addition Orwell's sensibilities also diverge from those displayed by many of the Socialist orthodox; indeed, he writes, the presentation of Socialism can be such that it "revolts anyone with a feeling for tradition or the rudiments of an aesthetic sense." (p191) His quarrel here is with the style not the substance of Socialist thought, nonetheless his quarrel is a significant one. And it is a quarrel from which, typically, he does not shrink.

The independence of mind and integrity of thought displayed in "The Road to Wigan Pier" strongly prefigure Orwell's later works "1984" and "Animal Farm" in which he critiques the Soviet Socialist systems which have been so thoroughly corrupted by Stalinist totalitarianism. His preparedness to do this contrasts greatly with the (misplaced) loyality of many of his contemporary Socialist comrades.

As a working mathematician one of the most powerful tools at my disposal is Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is often the best. A powerful tool this but when badly used it can also be greatly misleading. For oftentimes it is in the "exceptions to a rule" that the truly deep mathematics lie. Take for instance the new physics of Einstein - a system whose genesis lies in the slight aberrations observed in the physics of Newton.

It is a typical quality of a good scientist that she will unhesitatingly admit the inadequacies of a current system of thought - for it is only in this admission that the possibility of development, progress and learning exists. This is the wisdom of the scientist, a wisdom made more accessible by the quantitative nature of the work.

This wisdom reaches its limits however at the bounds of logic. A scientist must adopt some formal logical system and this will necessarily constrain what concepts and ideas may be entertained....

Now consider paradox, a statement that is both true and false, a statement that by its very structure lies outside of any logical system. It is true that science occasionally approaches paradox with statements such as "light is both a wave and a particle" however in general paradox has little role to play in the scientific world.

Nor indeed in the world of dogma - for what truth can be more uncomfortable than one which is also false?! And yet in the realm of human experience it seems to me that it is paradox which most readily describes the world around us. Any system of thought, when imposed upon the universe, contains within it the seeds of its opposite. Interesting truth, absolute truth, always comes in pairs: I have free will, I am a product of my character and my surroundings; I am insignificant and powerless, nothing is more important or powerful than me; I am mortal and will one day be altogether forgotten, my actions now are forever, affecting every moment that will ever be...

Some years ago I spent a horrendous night under the effect of magic mushrooms. As dawn approached and the horror subsided I spent a glorious couple of hours lying on my back and smiling ecstatically at my new and total understanding of the universe. I saw truth and truth was paradox. I smiled at the arrival of a new insight, only to smile again when I realised that the next insight was its opposite.... Sadly, as the effects of the mushrooms wore off, so too did my memory. I could not remember the earth-shattering gems that came to me in the night, I knew only that they were paradox. And yet somehow I was comforted by this new understanding; comforted by this uncomfortable truth.

In praise of shoplifting

2006-11-24T09:33:00.000Z

I recently came across the following piece and liked it. It makes use of ideas from "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" which is never a bad thing. See what you think...

The first object I ever stole from a Tesco’s supermarket was a head of garlic. That garlic gave me more of a thrill than any vegetable I’ve enjoyed, in any way, before or since. Stealing it was a largely spontaneous act initiated, unsurprisingly, in the veg section. Before I’d even fully realised what I’d done I’d picked that garlic up and put it in my pocket. I then, somehow, held my nerve to finish my shopping, get to the check-out, smile at the nice lady and walk out the door. Tesco’s still made a profit on me that day but not quite as much as usual.

In the aftermath of this momentous event my first question was…. Why so momentous? How was it that this simple act had caused me so much nervousness in the execution and such a thrill in the accomplishment...?

My thoughts turned to that marvellous book of Paulo Freire, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. Freire’s preoccupation is “humanization”. His concern is to enable humanity to fulfil its vocation of humanization in the face of a social system which is firmly predicated on mass dehumanization. In the book he analyses the (dehumanizing) system as it stands while propounding theories of how we can undermine this system through a critical pedagogy; that is through a “teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate” (Wikipedia entry on “critical pedagogy”).

One of the key concepts of Freire’s analysis of the current system is the idea that the oppressed internalize the oppressor. Living in a system which continually oppresses and dehumanizes her, a woman will idealize her oppressors. For her, to be fully human is to oppress and to this she aspires. This phenomenon plays itself out in many different ways: In a South American village a man is picked out by the landowner to be his representative and enforce his demands; rather than resisting, the man carries out his orders with relish, zealous in his attempts to crush opposition to his master’s will. Or, again, a woman of the ‘50s complains bitterly that the new feminism is denying a woman her femininity – forcing her out of the home and into the work place.*

At the heart of this internalizing of the oppressor is a distrust of freedom. Freire explains it this way:

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion. (p. 23, 24)

I am reminded of the words of another great chronicler of oppression, James Baldwin. In his book “The Fire Next Time”, an account of Baldwin’s experience of racism as a black man in America, he writes:

Furthermore, I have met only a very few people… who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear… We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know,… Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them… (p. 77)

It seems somewhat disrespectful at this point to return to that head of garlic – Baldwin and Freire were concerned with oppression far worse than anything I have ever experienced – however my contention is that the nerves I felt as I approached that checkout were the result of the violent resistance of my internalized oppressor. Despite my self-conception as a person of liberated thinking and non-conformist ideas I realised after that day that I have a very real monkey on my back – a veritable King Kong.

The thesis runs like this: I have lived for twenty-nine years in a social system for which the concept of private property is sacred above all else. If someone is said to “own” something, in the legal-economic sense that our social system recognizes, then their rights over that thing are inalienable and incontrovertible. The concept of ownership trumps all other considerations, bar none.

Hence we live in an ever-warmer world in which the rights of the SUV-owner prevent any infringement on the structural integrity of their vehicle (i.e. we’re not supposed to slash their tyres). We live in a world where a mining company’s legal ownership of a mineral lode in Northern Australia allows them to lay waste land which may have traditional owners but which legally belongs to a very compliant state. We live in a world where a vast portion of the land in Africa is devoted to cash crops despite the fact that the locals are starving; this because the country is in debt and, effectively, the banks own the land. This is the system that I have internalized; above all other things the oppressor inside me wants me to honour and validate the concept of ownership.

And that explains my slightly unhinged response to the nabbing of a head of garlic. I was striking at the heart of a system on which my world is based. Who’d have thunk it?! But before I get too carried away – I am not suggesting for a moment that we can shoplift our way to a better world – let me clarify. It is important to understand that the momentousness of this event is entirely internal, entirely within me. Tesco’s don’t give a monkey’s about missing garlics and they never will. This is not about bringing down corporate behemoths.

However it is something that is worth pursuing. I learned a great deal about myself, and the system in which I live, that day and in the subsequent days when I have gone so far as the occasional gourmet packet of nuts. The liberation of one’s soul from the gorilla embrace of a dehumanizing social system is perhaps any person’s first vocation. I need to understand the extent to which I am affected and controlled by the system in which I have been raised, before I can set out about bringing down that system.

According to Freire, this system operates through a ‘banking’ model of indoctrination in which “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (p. 46). Thus I have been all my life a passive recipient of the notion of ownership; I have understood ownership to be the first and greatest principle of human organization. I did not arrive at this understanding through my own activity (as a subject) but I was told what to think (as an object).

On the other hand this process of “understanding through shoplifting” is an example of the liberating pedagogy of which Freire writes:

Authentic liberation – the process of humanization – is not another ‘deposit’ to be made in [wo]men. Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of [wo]men upon their world in order to transform it. (p.52)

In this process I am a subject. I have played an active part in understanding the world around me and, in the company of my fellows, I have reflected on the implications of that action. I now understand for myself that this system of ownership is not necessarily an inviolable tenet of any human society. Rather it is insidious and, at times, clearly oppressive and so I can choose not to participate in it.

Of course this is not the end of the story. As I said before we can’t shoplift our way to a just world. However in understanding a little better how our system operates I can hopefully take more decisive and consequential action in the name of liberation. And it is this possibility which is the truly momentous one; and the one of which the oppressor is truly afraid. Tesco’s doesn’t give a monkey’s about missing garlic but it does care a lot that it be allowed to continue to profit under the full protection of the law and with the compliance of society. Freire again:

In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; thence their strictly materialistic concept of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. For the opporessors, what is worthwhile is to have more – always more – even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have and to be of the ‘having’ class. (pp. 34, 35)

Shoplifting has become a discipline for me now. I have a friend who used to live in the Australian desert and who, in his various starlit travels, would encounter the odd highly venomous snake. As a young man he would happily grab them by the tail and watch their serpentine writhing before removing the offending reptile far from his evening campfire. But as time went by, he said, he lost his nerve. He could no longer quite bring himself to get that close to a curious snake and so he would have to move his camp or drive it away with fire rather than pick it up as he used to.

And that’s a little how it is with me. If I allow myself I can feel overwhelmed by the little trauma of defying the system in which we live. Even though I am quite aware of the system’s hideous consequences, aware of the logical extremes which ownership reaches in the weeping of a starving child, I find myself inevitably being sucked back into compliance with the system. The internal oppressor is so strong!

But, in defiance, just as I try and meditate regularly and free myself to be, I also try and shoplift regularly so that I can land an occasional blow to that fearsome internal oppressor. So that I can be free to think for myself and with my fellows, and pursue a vocation that humanizes.

FOOTNOTE:
* I am reminded also of those Muslim women who insist that to wear the veil is to be free. There are many of course who simply assert their right to choose; there are though, inevitably, some for whom a woman should not have the right to choose.

Another example is given by Franz Fanon in “The Wretched of the Earth”:

The colonized man will manifest this aggressiveness which has been deposited in his bones against his own people. This is the period when the niggers beat each other up, and the police and magistrates do not know which way to turn when faced with the astonishing waves of crime in North Africa…

Anarchism in outer space

2006-11-24T09:28:00.000Z

Ursula Le Guin's 1974 book "The Dispossessed" has been re-released as part of a series of "Science Fiction Masterworks." And thank goodness for that, or I might never have picked it up. Thank goodness too for my mate Manos whose recommendation was sufficient to over-rule my instinctive aversion to all things Sci-Fi.

For this is a GOOD book. Its narrative structure, characterisation and wonderfully evocative description all combine to make a well-balanced, engrossing whole. More than this though this is an ideas book and it is the ideas behind the book that turn it from being just a good novel to being a really necessary book for our time.

Le Guin takes up the challenge frequently directed towards those on the dissident margins: If you don't like this world what would you have instead? Using the freedom which the science fiction genre allows her, she imagines twin planets circling some distant sun. One, Urras, is reminiscent of our own world in its hierarchy, wealth disparities and rich environment; the other, Anarres, is a dustbowl world home to people who have fled Urras in search of something different: Odonianism. Or, as we would call it, anarchism.

The environmental poverty of the planet Annares is a crucial feature of this set-up. Its very poverty is the basis of the social system which it (only marginally) supports, for there is no incentive for the rich, militaristic world of Urras to come and take over. Le Guin avoids the taxing problem of how truly horizontal societies defend themselves effectively against hierarchical competitors; in her scenario Annares survives by having nothing worth competing for.

The poverty of Annares also helps to reinforce the social cohesion which a horizontal society might otherwise lack. Annares is a world without compulsion - children are not forced into school, adults are not forced to work. Yet all can eat at the common refectories and help themselves to goods from the workshops of various syndicates throughout the land. The little wealth which Annares generates is freely available to all, regardless of the part they played in generating this wealth.

How does such a system maintain itself? A number of mechanisms are at work. Firstly, as mentioned, the poverty of the place helps. On Annares survival is marginal and people understand that all hands are required on deck if existence is to be maintained. Secondly the simple good heartedness of the human species is evoked. Perhaps this is the most idealistic part of anarchism; it is certainly an element entirely missing from our current system. "Can human solidarity really motivate people to any meaningful level?" say the sceptical, wealth-driven profiteers of our current system. (Well if you're reading this article on IndyMedia, you have one small yes-answer staring you in the face....)

Le Guin says "Yes" too. Perhaps the wisest aspect of this whole book though is Le Guin's understanding of the need for a mechanism to back this up. Human solidarity does not necessarily happen spontaneously, it needs to be nurtured and reinforced. So Le Guin sets up a popular culture on Annares in which the heroes are the willing participants, those in solidarity while the villains are the profiteers, those who seek to gain power and use it for their individual ends. There are any number of practical social phenomena which further reinforce these ideas - the undermining of the nuclear family, sexual freedom, even the naming of children which is by computer etc etc.

Did you flinch though at the words "popular culture"? You were meant to! For the weakness of Annares lies in the very mechanisms which reinforce solidarity. The "tyranny of public opinion" is a danger in every society, perhaps especially an anarchist one. A standard criticism of the great anarchist thinker, Proudhon, is his failure to properly understand this fact: In an anarchist society "social pressures are better hidden, but this does not make them any the less coercive of either action or will." (Alan Ritter) So it is on Annares; people's distrust of change, of innovation is the same in this anarchist near-Utopia as in our own world. Although the popular culture on Annares embodies a great deal which is good and admirable, if people cling to it by reaction, without thought, then the potential for tyranny is great...

Into this imperfect anarchist society is born our hero, Shevek. In a very astute move, Le Guin chooses the career of theoretical physicist for Shevek. He is by nature an innovator, a thinker, a source of new ideas; ideas which will inevitably conflict with the conservative anarchist (!) culture of Annares. The story of this conflict is the story of this book and I will not spoil it. A few comments though about Shevek are in order...

The choice of theoretical physics as the field of Shevek's study is astute for a number of reasons. Firstly because it lies at the juncture of science, of philosophy and of art. In a sense these are the three arms of what we understand by the word 'civilisation'. For a society to call itself civilised it must have a place for these aspects of human life. As Anarres does; it is not a primitive troglodyte world but a culturally rich, sophisticated and complex civilisation. Le Guin does not wish to embody the anarchism of the great apes, or of Marx's primitive communism, but a civilised, humanising anarchism. Shevek's work is incredibly esoteric but it has a place on Anarres, despite the poverty of the place:

"Do you consider the work you've done here functional?"
"Yes. `The more that is organised, the more central the organism: centrality here implying the field of real function.' Tomar's DEFINITIONS. Since temporal physics attempts to organise everything comprehensible to the human mind, it is by definition a centrally functional activity."
"It doesn't get bread into people's mouths."
"I just spent six decads helping to do that. When I'm called again I'll go again. Meanwhile I stick by my trade. If there's physics to be done I claim the right to do it." (p219)

The final strength of Le Guin's career choice for Shevek is the content of the physics he studies. This is a completely made-up branch of physics called the Theory of Simultaneity and it conerns the nature of time. Shevek supposedly rejigs scientific thinking about the nature of time from that of a linear process with 'befores' and 'afters' to a phenomenon existing in entirety, simultaneously. We can think of the past, present and future as co-existent, rather than sequential.

Why is this interesting? Because it pertains to the idea of REVOLUTION. Shevek lives, supposedly, in a post-revolutionary society. Annares has had its revolution and achieved its Utopia. Except of course that this utopia, as we have seen, is flawed. Annares' anarchism, for all its strengths, has become conservative. But how does one revolt against the revolution? Especially if, like Shevek, you believe in that original revolution for all that you can see its flaws.

The answer is that the revolution never happened. And it never will. It can only BE HAPPENING. It is a continuous unfolding of events in which we can choose to play our part or not. In some ways the residents of Annares have ceased to play their part; it will be Shevek's role to remind them of their lines and get them back on the stage.

That lesson is for us also. Notionally we are in a pre-revolutionary society but perhaps this is flawed thinking. The revolution must be happening now if it is to happen at all. It is a process in which we can play our part in particular portions of time and space, if we so choose. We will not find the revolution elsewhere, we must make it here. Now.

POSTSCRIPTS

1. An alternative review of THE DISPOSSESSED (with much more detail about the plot):
http://www.sfsite.com/01b/dis73.htm
The website of Ursula Le Guin:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/

2. Ursula Le Guin has an anthropological background which clearly informs much of her work. As an Australian I couldn't help but draw parallels between her description of the twin worlds of Urras and Annares and the Western and aboriginal worlds which coexist so uneasily in my own country.

Whilst Australian aboriginal societies are very diverse in structure, certainly at least some of them could be characterised as basically anarchist. I am most familiar with the Mardu people of Western Australia whose lifestyle bears a great deal of comparison with that of the people of Annares.

3. In the review above you may have felt a little frustrated by the lack of attention given to how horizontal societies defend themselves against hierarchies. This stimulated me to think about such phenomena in real life. The idea of guerilla warfare is certainly relevant here but it doesn't just need to apply to military conflict.

Indeed the example that first sprang to my mind was the conflict that the Free Software community is currently waging with that ultimate hierarchy, Microsoft. How that war is being waged and how the horizontalness of Free Software is working to its advantage in some respects has been the subject of much discussion. More information is here:
http://www.gnu.org/
A couple of slightly random but interesting articles:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_3/klang/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/09/298437.html

The other obvious example pertains to my previous point - how aboriginal people have defended themselves against Western invasion. Certainly for the Mardu people this invasion has been a catastropic event. What is striking about their situation is that, like the people of Annares, the Mardu people survived for a long time because they had nothing that the Western people wanted (some Mardu people only met white people for the first time in the 1970's).

Since contact however this survival has been greatly compromised. Indeed the West has actively sought to undermine Mardu society through missions, through forcible removal of children, etc etc, despite the fact that the Mardu pose no material threat to Western society. Perhaps though the threat is a perceived one - and this is something which Le Guin manages to convey very effectively with respect to Annares. The governing class of Urras speak with some unease of Annares; they dread the Odonian (anarchist) creed gaining currency in their own world. For this reason they insist that the isolation of Annares be absolute, for fear that the example of a successful anarchist society will prove a seduction which the people of their own society cannot (do not want to) resist.

So, anarchists, get seducing! Power fears you!