Michelle Boag is clueless and wrong SHOCK!

She's on my radio right now (National Radio's The Panel with Jim Mora), bemoaning our habit of getting involved in foreign problems because (I paraphrase) these people do not want democracy.  This is apropos of Libya.

What she clearly doesn't get is that most Libyans voted for the current Libyan government and the militants are the anti-democratic faction are trying - as happened in Egypt - the will of the people:

The victory, which secures Islamist control over Tripoli, was a culmination of weeks of fighting triggered by elections in July, lost by Islamist parties.  

 Rather than accept the elections result Islamist leaders in Libya accused the new parliament of being dominated by supporters of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and have sought to restore the old national congress.

Here

Clear?  The majority voted for sanity.  The losers resisted and went for the gun.  A little bit more bloodily and nastily than the Egyptian coupists, but essentially the same process.

So we aren't talking about countries wich are not ready for democracy but countries where democracy is dearly wanted, and - because it is craved by so many - ferociously resisted by those who see their power and privilege threatened by it.

Boag should keep her witless thoughts inside her head where they can do no harm to others.  But given her links to the anti-democratic National Party - where gross violations of democratic norms are blandly ignored by the smirking public face of rampant capitalism - we shouldn't be too surprised by her disparaging attitude to democracy.  As far as her ilk are concerned, the people of New Zealand aren't ready for it either.  The should be lied to, bullied and harangued into making the 'correct' decision, and whatever happens in pursuit of that end is okay.

Justice is swift in Egypt

Good to see that backing the overthrow of a democratically elected government by a clique of militarists hasn't lead to the curtailment of freedom or the corruption of justice in Egypt.  The courts are functioning with a smooth efficiency and justice is being meted out to those deserving in a fearless, but fair, manner.

Fears for the integrity of Egypt's legal system deepened on Monday after 529 supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi were sentenced to death for the murder of a single policeman, in a mass trial that lasted less than two days.

How reassuring! Compare the gross inefficiency of the Muslim Brotherhood, where it apparently takes 529 people to kill one person! Here we see the improvements wrought by the coup against Morsi. Now one man can arrange the deaths of 529! One can only marvel at the speed with which Justice - so blind and impartial! - is meted out! There are no hold ups or backlogs or painful delays in this chap's court! 

And clearly, the fact that 529 people can be proven guilty so very quickly proves beyond a doubt that we were right to endorse and embrace the coup!  So many venal and wicked people, so swiftly brought to justice.

 P.S. Irony. It saddens me that I probably have to say that.

Nelson Mandela RIP

I'm surprised at being slightly more moved than I expected, given he's been busily dying for almost a year; and surprised that Barry Obama managed to sound dignified and genuinely sad. I thought everyone, but everyone, would simply explode in grief.  I'm far more worried about the future of the BBC than I am about South Africa.  The nation will survive this; I'm not so sure about the Beeb.

I think his most impressive feats were a) doing very little with the power he was given, and b) standing down after just one term. Both of which set a pretty stern precedent for South African leaders.

 He could have used the near absolute power and international impunity he was given to eradicate white South Africa.  It would have been very hard to question his moral right to do so, given the vast wealth and power that was and is still vested in largely white hands, to the detriment of the denizens of Soweto.  But he didn't.  Perhaps he could have done more; but doing exactly the right thing is far, far harder than doing too much.  And doing too little is - in this case - preferable to doing too much.

And giving up the presidency after just one term was a truly impressive move, which will make it much harder for any tinpot wannabe Mugabe to abuse the nation's democracy.  Are you listening carefully, Mr Zuma?  As long as people can point to Mandela's example of renouncing power, then anyone trying to cling on to it will look pretty damn shifty in comparison.





I suppose there is absolutely no point in looking at any news source for the next 72 hours. Or will the Guardian offer a 'No Mandela' option like it did for Royal Baby?

Egypt

So, Egypt's short lived experiment with democracy appears to be over. Oh, I know, the army are saying they will be handling power back soon. Just like in Fiji.

I don't particularly like the Muslim Brotherhood being in power but they were democratically elected; collapsing democracy is a bigger problem than allowing some moderate Islamists the opportunity to disillusion their support base.

Revolution was necessary to get rid of Mubarak, but not so with the Muslim Brotherhood. A second revolution will probably condemn Egypt to either civil war or dictatorship - following the pattern of Russia in 1917. If you don't like the results of a democratic election, the solution is not to start a rampage to collapse the elected government.

It would have been be nice if the Egyptians had chucked out Mubarak and immediately started debates about the relative merits of Single transferable Vote as opposed to Mixed Member Proportional representation; but that was not exactly a realistic prospect. It was always going to be a bumpy road; the important thing is that the Egyptians stayed on it.

Morsi was always going to be divisive as almost as many people voted against him as voted for him. He lost the enthusiasm of some of those who supported him, but I don't think this could really be described as a 'popular' uprising.  Yeah, a lot of people are running about in the streets setting things on fire and scrapping - that's what you do when you are young and have no job and no hope of getting one.

Because the fundamental problem isn't Morsi's mildly silly Islamism.  People don't over throw their governments because they want to close all shops at 10pm.  They tell them to stop being silly.  Morsi's government fell for the same reason Mubarak fell - not enough jobs and high food prices.  And this will be the reason the next democratically elected government - if there is one in the near future - will be welcomed, become loathed and finally fall.  The example of China suggests a lot of people will put up with a lot in exchange for work, food, and a degree of security in exchange for following the rules.  Democracy is trumped by hunger.

One of two things will probably happen now, neither of them good. Either the military will keep power, while mouthing an intention to return to democracy when the 'national emergency' is over, which will always be '12-18 months from now'; or they will cede control back to an interim government, which will also rapidly become hated and unpopular, and the cycle will repeat.

And even if a stable government is established, the precedent has been set for military intervention at the whim of the generals. Not a good omen.

Yes, I know, that was one of three things. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and all that.

So we've had a coup followed by mass arrests of the leaders of the democratically elected (until ver recently) governing party. Not looking too good, is it? Even if the army does cede power back to civilians, they appear to be setting things up so that the Muslim Brotherhood is too weak or intimidated to contest power again.

In Britain, the Tories are consistently behind in the polls. Will the British army heed The Will Of The People and oust these power crazed scum?

Jonathan Freedland makes a (for him surprisingly) good point in the Guardian. The impact of this coup may be more than just the stunting of Egyptian democracy, but a wider disillusionment with democracy among Muslims in the region. They tried, they won, they were run out of town:

To remove an elected president, to arrest a movement's leaders and silence its radio and TV stations, is to send a loud message to them and to Islamists everywhere. It says: you have no place in the political system. It says: there is no point trying to forge a version of political Islam compatible with democracy, because democracy will not be available to you.

Why bother trying if you are going to be overthrown when you try to actually use the power that was fairly won? I think this is important because democracy requires compromise. The Islamists just booted out in Egypt would - if they had been allowed to continue to participate - have discovered the necessity of diluting their plans, building consensus and accepting there are just some things that they can not do because the people will not wear it. Instead, they've been taught a blunt lesson on How To Do It - get the mob out, get the Men With Guns out, then you can do whatever you like. The next incarnation of Islamism in Egypt will be far harsher, and far less concerned with gaining power from the ballot box.

Megrahi dead

Megrahi, and the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, are probably all victims of a massive miscarriage of justice. He - probably - wasn't involved in the destruction of Flight 103, and the relatives of the victims have - probably - been misled as to the real murderers.

Still, now that Iran and Syria are officially in the bad books again, the original leads pursued after the bombing may get revisited. Handy, having an atrocity that can be pinned on whomsoever you feel the need to make evil.

Super injuctions

It's sad that misuse of super injunctions by multi-national corporation Trafigura, implicated in poisoning fishing grounds and people in Ivory Coast(1), passes almost unnoticed, but a footballer shagging around brings the whole concept crashing down(2). It's a victory for worthless freedom of speech.

The likes of Trafigura won't need to worry too much, people obviously won't be interested in their wrong doing even when it can be reported.

1 - "How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster," by David Leigh. Published in The Guardian, 16th of September, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/16/trafigura-african-pollution-disaster)
2 - "Ryan Giggs named by MP over injunction," by Patrick Wintour and Dan Sabbagh. Published in The guardian, 23rd of May, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/23/ryan-giggs-mp-injunction)

Megrahi

According to the Independent (1), a foreign offic minister in the previous Labour government 'advised Libya how to free Lockerbie bomber.'

That's not me putting it in double quotes for fun, by the way - those words are placed in quotation marks by the Independent, which suggests it is a quotation from one source or another, but it that wording isn't used anywhere in the Indie story, the Telegraph original (2), or the wikileaks source memo (3), that I can see. Similar wording appears in the Telegraph headline: "Britain secretly advised Libya how to secure release of Lockerbie bomber," but the story attached to that headline doesn't bear it out - the Foreign office did not advise the Libyans how to secure Megrahi's release. They simply explained how his diagnosis altered the situation.

Slaps alround, to the Telegraph for running a misleading headline, and to the Indie for echoing it.

The only interesting points are the suggestion of Foreign Office involvement when the official stance was it was Scotland's call; but that's tenuous, as the foreign office would probably have the duty of notifying the Libyans - devolved Scotland does not have a minister of foreign affairs, after all. They would have contacted the Libyans on behalf of the Scottish executive, merely noting their own neutrality, as is indicated in the leaked memo:

The Libyan government is therefore pursuing Megrahi's early release through two other channels, the FCO reports: compassionate release under Scottish law, and the as-yet unsigned UK-Libya Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA). HMG has made clear to the Libyans, to Embassy London and to the media that it will take no official position on Megrahi's early release, but will leave the decision - whether through compassionate release or the PTA - to the devolved Scottish government.

It is much more interesting to be reminded - and kudos to the Telegraph for highlighting this - that Honest Dave Cameron is still sitting on the documents relating to the release, which is a bit odd as last year he was promising to release them to clear up any suspicion of a cover up:

It will also lead to renewed pressure from senior American politicians on David Cameron to release all internal documents detailing Britain’s role in the scandal. Last summer, the Prime Minister pledged to release the relevant information – but the publication has yet to occur sparking fears that a cover-up may have been ordered.

Er, nice going there, Dave. That doesn't look at all suspicious.

So any skullduggery probably originates with the companies trying to court Libya, who may have influenced the last government and - if so - would appear to be doing the same to the current administration.

1 - "UK 'advised Libya how to free Lockerbie bomber'," by Oliver Wright. Published in The Independent, 1st of February, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-advised-libya-how-to-free-lockerbie-bomber-2200349.html)
2 - "WikiLeaks: Britain secretly advised Libya how to secure release of Lockerbie bomber," by Christopher Hope and Robert Winnett. Published in The Telegraph, 31st of January, 2011. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8294120/WikiLeaks-Britain-secretly-advised-Libya-how-to-secure-release-of-Lockerbie-bomber.html)
3 - "PAN AM 103 BOMBER HAS INCURABLE CANCER; LIBYANS SEEK HIS RELEASE," anonymous memo originating in the US embassy in London, dated 24th of October, 2008. Reproduced in The Telegraph, 31st of January, 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/libya-wikileaks/8294871/PAN-AM-103-BOMBER-HAS-INCURABLE-CANCER-LIBYANS-SEEK-HIS-RELEASE.html)

Tactical advice for Hosni

I'd have thought Mubarak would have rolled the tanks over the pesky demonstrators by now. Hopefully, his reluctance to resort to type means he might not be able to rely on the army to obey.

Still, he has one card (1) left to play ...



Play that at the revolting plebs, Hosni. It'll disperse any non-German crowd within minutes.

There are - presumably unironic - comments on youtube dedicating this tosh to the Egyptian demonstrators. The thought that some high pitched, poodle haired, Germanic, soft-rock guitar wankers might compose some ditty with sparklers and whistling would be enough to stock me in my revolutionary tracks. I'd sooner the Berlin Wall stayed up, than allow Scorpions to unleash that horror on the world. Freedom of speech can be taken too far.

More seriously, the persistance of the demonstrators is impressive, and my earlier forecast that it would all be over in a couple of days may well have been ... absolutely wrong (2). Mubarak may well be on the way out, and no bad thing if he is - though I think people are a bit too quick in writing the merciless old bastard off. He knows that he's got the backing of the USA - because they regard him as essential to the security of Israel.

The US probably can't see past his regime (with or without him) and dread the prospect of a genuinely democratic Egypt - because that would probably deliver a moderately Islamic government and that - to the myopic apparthiks of US foreign policy - can't be countenanced. Hell, they didn't engage in this whole War on Terror thing to encourage more Islamist regimes to establish themselves. hence Hillary Clinton's cowardly refusal to tell Mubarak to get his arse out of the presidential palace (3).

(The likelihood of Muhammed El Baradi taking over may also be a factor. He's hardly a face the USA like seeing; US petulance and spite knows no bounds.)

So, good luck to the demonstrators. Whatever happens, I hope not many of you are killed, though I think there is still a lot of blood to be shed. But, tragic though that will be, the greater tragedy will be if it comes to naught - if the west refuses to support any new government and tries to bring it down, or force it to 'open up' Egypt to foreigners. That's never succeeded, and if it fails again in Egypt, the consequences will likely be dire for the Egyptians, and possibly Israelis and Palestinians as well.

1 - "Wind of Change," by Scorpions. Video clip posted on youtube by ScorpionsVEVO, 1st of November, 2009. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ)
2 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2011/01/egypt.html
3 - "Hillary Clinton says U.S. not pushing for ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak," by Paul Ritcher. Published by the Los Angeles Times, 30th of January, 2011. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clinton-egypt-20110131,0,6713553.story)

Nelson Mandela

Look, I'm as glad as the rest of you that Nelson Mandela isn't dead yet. There are only a very few people whom I actively wish dead, and Mandela, for all his failings, isn't one of them. He's a nice old chap, but he basically sold out the black underclass - deliberately or through naivety - allowing the white minority to retain all the land and wealth they'd accrued.

I'm sure there are more black people with money in South Africa than there were twenty years ago - but the overall situation of the black population hasn't improved significantly. If anything, they may well have become poorer, with their household incomes falling as those of the rest of the country rise (1).

So what's happening is the creation of a small black economic and political elite, with wealth and privilege comparable to the upper echelons of white South Africans; but no overall improvements in the lives of the vast majority.

I suppose you could argue he deserves recognition not for his positive contribution but for the fact he didn't contribute more negaitvely - South Africa, for all its faults, could have become a far worse place than it is. But that reveals more about the miserable plight of that continent than it does about Mandela's worthiness.

It can't be long, however - he's in his 90s and looking very frail. Expect a full Diannafication when he goes, though.

1 - "Voice of the unpeople" by Mark Curtiss. Published in The Guardian, 3rd of June 2006. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jun/03/highereducation.news)

Musings on violence, terrorism and hatred

It's been a bad few days for reason and decency. A suicide bombing in Moscow (1) is followed by the savage murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda (2). It looks like the strength of the forces of bigotry, unreason and savagery is waxing, not waning.

And if we look around just a little buit further, we don't lack for examples of unreasoned visceral wrath directed at The Other. You want to build a mosque where???

Of course, it's partly prespective. The ferocious and hatefilled invective printed in Ugandan newspapers, calling for the murder of David Kato - duly carried out by vigilantes convinced they are about 'God's work' - is a consequence of the courage of gays in Uganda in actually standing up for themselves. Human affairs aren't governed by the laws of physics, of course. For every action, there isn't always and equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes the forces of sanity and reason make a bit of progress, push back the barking batshit hordes of barbarians of all sorts and shades. And sometimes they do it to us. As happened in Uganda.

It's a strange perversion of the idea of community; as a western raised on the idea of individualism and individual responsibility, the idea that allowing gay people to live as they see fit might somehow taint the wider community is hard to comprehend. But it's a very simple, atavistic notion, and not at all alien to our own supposedly civilised western world. hell, som of us still have trouble coming to term with inter racial couples, let alone gays. There have been plenty of vicious acts carried out against gays in places closer to hand than Uganda.

Hatred, homophobia, racism, religion, may once have their roots in economic or material factors. It's important to regard your black slave as something less than a human, since otherwise it raises all sorts of awkward questions. A man who does not produce children is a long term liabilty to the community. And any excuse for hating the people in the next valley, will do, as it legitimises stealing their crops and cattle. But the persistance of these ideas is interesting. I think Marx said, somewhere, that an idea can actually be as crucial an imperative as material factors in shaping and determining character and action. This, of course, is generally overlooked by his critics in their efforts to paint him as a dull reductive materialist - an irony that might be amusing if it wasn't so tiresome.

There are strong nationalist movements in the North Caucuses, and religion is often tangled up in it. Dagestan is predominantly Muslim, but resisted an invasion by Chechen extremists in 1999, because they didn't want outsiders imposing their version of Islam. It may have been carried out by a Muslim but with nationalism / anti-Russian sentiment as its prime motive. It may well be Chechen militants are behind it, or some other religious organisation from the region, or it may be a solo nutjob, or it may be something else again. Whatever it is, it will probably provide the Russian authorities with an excuse to launch some military campaign against someone.

Religion can be a motivating factor in people's actions. It is not, however, the only or even the major factor for most people. The whole history of human hypocrisy is hereby submitted in evidence in support of this. All Muslims do not act in the same way. Some blow themselves up in order to kill infidels. Others live quite crap lives like the rest of us. Some write thoughtful articles that get published in The Independent (3). Point is, while they share - loosely - a religion (they'd probably dispute that, heatedly), the degree to which it motivates them, and what it motivates them to do, is dependent on other factors. But so many of the 'noises off' crowd of bloggers and commentators and rightwing ideologues are locked in this pitiful reductive world where everything boils down to the fact that they are Muslims and thus must act accordingly.

Some claim "Islam means XYZ and that you shouldn't be surprised if a muslim behaves in a way that corresponds to that" is simplistic, because 'meaning' isn't a given. Witness the different responses to the sixth commandment (fifth if you're a Catholic), about killing and/or murder. And even if we ever managed to agree what was covered by it, the fact that Christians have merrily killed and/or murdered for two about thousand years suggests that what is in a religious text is only important when it is convenient. Ditto the commandment around adultery - what is meant by that has varied a lot over time, from any sexual activity outside marriage, to the more limited definition of seducing another man's wife.

What the immutable word of God means varies in time and place, I mean.

It might be argued an attempt to examine the edicts of the Koran is just an effort to the deny the inherent militancy and creulty it contains. I disagree, in that I don't think that is a valid description of the book. It is, I would say, trying to put limits on human behaviours - as the road safety adverts say, it's a limit, not a target. It isn't a collection of reductive slogans, but a very complicated set of exemplars. The infamous surah 9:5, for example, does license killing of pagans - but only those who have broken treaties and attacked Muslims, who have ignored a period of grace to mend their ways or clear out. You can't muggle that into a general exhortation to slaughter non-Muslims, as some try to do.

Ah, respond the anti-Islam zealots, but what about abrogation - the doctrine by which the later revelations supercede older ones where there is a conflict. So exhortations to slay and force convertions cancel out the earlier protections given to Jews and Christians. Not so, I suggest. Abrogation but a mthod for resolving the contradictions within the Koran. But I don't think abrogating verses compeltely cancel out the older instruction; they simply outline an exception to the over-arching rule - special circumstances where the previous instruction is waived.

It's not at all uncommon for people attacking Islam and Muslims to draw a distinction between the old and new testaments in Christianity, claiming that the latter represented a new coventant, and a rescinding of all the nasty bits of the old testamnet that people would rather forget. But, again, the gamut of history shows that this is a specious distinction, as Christians have always sought justification in the bellicose parts of the old testament when it suits them, and have been happy to ignore all the fluffy stuff about loving and forgiving. "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live" and "An Eye for an Eye" have proved to have enduring popularity down the centuries. As recent tragic events in Uganda suggest, the urge to commit violence against those pervceived as trespassing some arcane moral code isn't limited to Muslims. Jesus Christ was an admirable person; his followers aren't always. Mohammed, from my perspective, was a rather more ambivalent figure. His followers, on the whole, seem no better or worse than the followers of other skygods, or the worshippers of trees and strangely shaped rocks.

What I'm saying is, we've happily abrogated and de-abrogated parts of the Christian bible when it suits. Who is closer to Christ's teaching? The Caliph Umar, extending protection to the Jews and Christians of Jerusalem, or Simon de Montfort, ordering the mass slaughter of Cathars, men, women and children?

People have always been angry, hateful and violent. They'll find almost any cause for it, but it is usually rooted in some religious notion that some act is sinful and wicked, and it's occurance is so very wrong that allowing it to happen is tainting to others beyond those who indulge in it. We see that all over the world and it's dishonest to hyperbolise examples of Muslims behaving like this, claim it is because of their religion, and ignore massively relevant factors that also influence peoples actions because they weaken the thesis that there is something unique in essence about violence carried out by Muslims.

1 - "Russians name Muslim convert as prime suspect for airport bombing," by Shaun Walker. Published in The Independent, 28th of January, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russians-name-muslim-convert-as-prime-suspect-for-airport-bombing-2196704.html)
2 - "Fights at funeral of murdered gay activist in Uganda," unattributed Reuters article. Reproduced in The Independent, 29th of January, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/fights-at-funeral-of-murdered-gay-activist-in-uganda-2197798.html)
3 - "Arabs, Christians, and the lessons of history," by Dr Mohammed Abdel Haq. Published in The Independent Blogs, 25th of January 2011. (http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/01/25/arabs-christians-and-the-lessons-of-history/)

Egypt

It will be interesting to see what happens if the current popular unrest continues. While I don't think Hosni Mubarak is in imminent danger of being ousted, that could change quickly. I'm occasionally wrong about stuff and Mr Mubarak certainly shouldn't take too much comfort in my opinion. I don't think quoting lefthandpalm at the demonstrators will discourage them, shall we say. And, anyway, I wish them all the best in their efforts. If enough of them get out on the street, and stay out, things might change. Or - perhaps more likely - a lot of decent young idealistic Egyptians will end up dead, hurt or imprisoned. So I certainly won't be blaming them if they do stay at home and the tide of unrest ebbs.

But - playing lets pretend - what if the demonstrations do continue, inspite of police or military repression, what if the army and police decide the tide is running too strongly and Mr Mubarak is told to pack his bags and scurry off to some other place? What fate awaits Egypt then?

Unfortunately, I don't have see much reason to be optimistic. What will probably happen is the bourgeoisie will try to institute a fairly sane, moderately Islamic government, which will seek to pursue a relatively rational policy of state control of major assets, only for them to be bullied into 'embracing' radical Freidmanite freemarket voodoo economics by the IMF, resulting in mass impoverishment and declining standards of living for the majority, the rise of really scarily mad radical Islamists.

Thought for the day

I don't have much to say on the topic of religion - except when it is used as a means to divide and foment hatred - because, as Karl Marx wrote, rational adults taking time to point out that they don't believe in God is like a child loudly declaring they aren't afraid of the ghosts and goblins any more (1). And what, moreover, would be the point in adding to the words wasted by the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens, with their pompous attempts to persuade people to rationally reject irrational beliefs?

But today, while reading If This Is A Man by Primo Levi at the moment, his account of his time in Auschwitz, a particular quotation struck me emphatically, following recent tragic events (2) in the all too frequently pain-wracked Democratic Republic of Congo:

Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no-one in our age should speak of Providence.

One doesn't need a horror on the scale of Auschwitz to make one repudiate belief in any sort of benevolent God. A couple of hundred innocent African villagers being immolated while they watch football should be quite enough for most people.

Wouldn't even the most despicable God have thought these people have suffered sufficiently without visiting more horrors on them and their loved ones?

1 - the quotation referred to is "... if there is to be talk about philosophy, there should be less trifling with the label “atheism” (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people" and occurs in one of Marx's letters to Arnold Ruge, from 1842. It is reproduced on marxists.org. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1842/letters/42_11_30.htm)
2 - "DR Congo fuel truck victims buried in mass graves," unattributed BBC report. Published by the BBC, 3rd of July, 2010. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/10500068.stm)

Eugène Terre'Blanche murdered

The South African rabble rouser and poet, Eugène Terre'Blanche was the founder and leader of the racist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), which didn't think that apartheid went far enough, and demanded a separate Afrikaner state.

Yesterday, apparently, he was hacked to death by machete weilding thugs on his farm. Terre'Blanche was a bigoted piece of human detritus, but no-one deserves to go like that.

1 - 'Eugène Terre'Blanche: Death,' anonymous Wikipedia article. Viewed 4th of April, 2010. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Terre%27Blanche#Death)

Guardian gagged

The Guardian reports that it is unable to report on questions asked in the House of Commons. According to their story about the stroy they cant tell, they are "prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found" (1). Mysteriously, they are permitted to reveal that "the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations" (2).

This is odd, as this allows the information to be pin-pointed fairly easily, by checking freely avaialble sources. From the Commons Order Book for Tuesday, the 13th of October, 2009, part 2 (3):

60 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the Court of Appeal judgment in May 2009 in the case of Michael Napier and Irwin Mitchell v Pressdram Limited in respect of press freedom to report proceedings in court.
(292409)

61 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
(293006)

62 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years.
(293012)

63 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms HM Court Service uses to draw up rosters of duty judges for the purpose of considering time of the essence applications for the issuing of injunctions by the High Court.
(293013)

Obviously, some very powerful vested interests want to squash this issue. The Guardian has followed the Trafigura-Cote D'Ivorie toxic waste scandal for some time (4).

1 - "Guardian gagged from reporting parliament," by David Leigh, published in The Gaurdian, 12th of October, 2009.
2 - ibid.
3 - "Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009, Part Two," published on the British Parliament website, 12th of October, 2009. (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm)
4 - "Papers prove Trafigura ship dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast," by David Leigh and Afua Hirsch. Published in The Guardian, 14th of May, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/13/trafigura-ivory-coast-documents-toxic-waste)

Piracy is not Jihad, explaining it is not excusing it

Johan Hari puts his finger on the real story behind the hijackings and subsequent spectacular rescue of American sailors off the Horn of Africa (1).

And like all truth tellers, he gets excoriated for it. After all, we can’t allow that there might be reasons why people act in ways that we don’t like, because that suggests our behaviour might be, in someways, unreasonable. That there might be a link between what we do, and what happens to us.

Let’s be clear about one thing first of all – explanation is not exculpation. Somali pirates are criminals trying to extort ransom through theft and violence. The hijackers who destroyed the twin towers on the 11th of Spetember, 2001, were evil, murderous terrorists.

But the point is that these people didn’t do it just for the Hell of it. The Somali pirates, at least initially, didn’t even do it for the money. And they certainly didn’t do it because they are part of some global jihad. They did it for the same reason that anyone in their position would have done it – to stay alive.

They live in a failed state, where career options are limited to being a victim or a victimizer. By, on the one hand, stealing their fish stocks, and on the other, poisoning what was left by dumping toxic waste into the water off the Horn, the first world robbed the dirt poor coastal Somalis of the former choice- they couldn’t subsist on what they could catch, because we stole it, or poisoned it. So they had to become victimizers. Which, in Somalia, means either joining a warlord’s retinue, or preying on the spectacularly rich pickings of the world’s key shipping routes.

Just like their 17th century European forebears, the current crop of Somali pirates are responding to economic necessity. They resorted to piracy because they weren't able to make their living - even by Somali standards - by traditional fishing, because all the fish were being taken by foreign fleets, or poisoned by dumping, again by foreigners. Then they dscovered there was a Hell of a lot of money to be made through piracy - a lot of attendant risk, of course, but given the choice was between starvation, joining some warlord's army or turning pirate, no worse than that involved in any of the alternatives. Given the profitability of preying on first world shipping, it might be rather difficult to persuade them that it isn't a good idea, now that the practice is established.

Again, this is not excusing their action.

It is an attempt to explain why it happened, because a gaggle of Somali fishermen wake up one morning and decide they’d had enough harvesting the ocean’s bounty, and would rather risk their lives storming ships and invoking the wrath of the world’s navies. Fundamentally, it's about economics. The pirate kings get to live like monarchs, the actual foot soldiers get a living, and the security of being part of an armed force in a Hellish sort of place where there aren't many alternatives.

This pattern is repeated all across the Muslim world from Somalia, to Palestine, Kasmir, Afghanistan, the Uighir territories contained within the PRC. In all these places, people are responding to circumstances. Because, generally, they are desperate, or facing violence, their responses shock us in the west. We refuse to admit our own culpability, or the indifference that has lead to these situations. We don’t care. We’ve let the chickens flap about, and now they are coming home to roost.

And we can’t accept that, so we accept the suggestion that this is all part of some fantastical global Jihad – the Uighir separatists in China, the Cechyens, the Palestinains, the Somalis, the Jangaweed in Darfur. Because admitting that these disparate struggles might not be part of some global war against anything non-Islamic forces us to face up to something pretty intolerable – that the worlds a hideous mess, and our greed and indifference and venality and cruelty are what has allowed it to become this way. We could have created a world which was, if not perfect, at least a lot more tolerable for a much greater number of people, and where people weren’t reduced to piracy and terrorism because no one really give a fuck about them until they do.

While we ignore these conflicts, Al Queada do not. They colonise them and exploit them. Hence the murderers who blew themselves to pieces on the London underground mouthed some banalities about doing it for Palestine, Kasmir and the like. Future terrorists who target the west will be Chechyen, Uighir - because we're blithely ignoring their sufferring and oppression, and Al Queada are far more capable and willing to exploit it than we are at dealing with it.

1 - 'You Are Being Lied to About Pirates,' by Johann Hari, posted on The Huffington Post, 13th of Apri, 2009. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html)

Mathius Rath - supremely evil

The 'missing chapter' from Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science, is now available online (1). Goldacre was not able to include it when the book was published last year, as the main subject of the chapter, German pill peddler Mathius Rath, was busy suing him to prevent his fraudulent and murderous lies about HIV and AIDS being exposed.

Rath isn't alone, of course. He wouldn't have been able to kill anywhere near the number of people he did without the willing help of people willing to make his crackpot theories practice.

He found a ready audience in the denierist fools that control South Africa, where his berserk advocacy of multi-vitamin pills as an alternative to anti-retroviral drugs and condoms suited the lunatic delusions of the Mbeki administration and the crazy beliefs of the heath minister, Manto Tshabalala Msimang, ho though fruit a sound means of avoiding HIV infection:

The remedies she advocates for AIDS are beetroot, garlic, lemons and African potatoes. A fairly typical quote, from the Health Minister in a country where eight hundred people die every day from AIDS, is this: ‘Raw garlic and a skin of the lemon – not only do they give you a beautiful face and skin but they also protect you from disease.’ South Africa’s stand at the 2006 World AIDS Conference in Toronto was described by delegates as the ‘salad stall’. It consisted of some garlic, some beetroot, the African potato, and assorted other vegetables. (2)

These people are responsibel for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including neo-natal infants who were infected fromt heir mothers, even though a simple course of antiretroviral drugs is proven to cut mother to child transmission rates by half.

This was evil on a scale that requires comparison to the Nazis, the Khamer Rouge or the murderous thugs of Rwanda. Ray, Mbeki, Tshabalala Msimang, deliberately ignored obvious truth for their own inscrutable purposes.

(Ray at least can be exonerated on the charge of inscrutability - he just wanted to make money - who cares if people died. They were only Africans. African children.)

What makes this in some ways worse than ther Pfizer trials described previously is the wilful denial of fact (3). Pfizer, at least, could argue that they were trying to do some good - thought it would have been a false and hypocritical argument, based on a racist view of Africans as less important than Europeans or Americans - whereas Rath and his fellow conspirators could only operate by consciously refusing to acknowledge truth, by lying, exaggerating and misleading.

And this isn't about over-privilkeged westerners getting conned by dippy practioneers of pseudoscience, but the deliberate and ruthless exploitation of the poorest, most helpless and vulnerable people on the planet - those facing a lingering death from a pitiless disease, without the means to check the claims made about the trweatments being offerred to them.

This is what HIV and AIDS has wrought in Africa:

Twenty-five million people have died from it already, three million in the last year alone, and 500,000 of those deaths were children. In South Africa it kills 300,000 people every year: that’s eight hundred people every day, or one every two minutes. This one country has 6.3 million people who are HIV positive, including 30 per cent of all pregnant women. There are 1.2 million AIDS orphans under the age of seventeen. (4)

Rath, Mbeki, Tshabalala Msimang, Anthony Brink, Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick are contributed to these deaths through the lies they told, the myths they did not challenge and the wilful ignorance they pepetuated. I hope these bastards all burn in Hell.

1 - The link leads to a webpage from which you can download 'The Doctor Will Sue You Now,' by Ben Goldacre. It is avaialble in PDF and Word formats. Active asof 11th of April, 2009. (http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/)
2 - ibid.
3 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/04/pfizer-supremely-evil.html
4 - Goldacre, op. cit.

Pfizer - supremely evil

Drugs company Pfizer has just reached an out-of-court settlement, rumoured to be worth US$75 million, following the deaths of several Nigerian children used as human guineau pigs in an illegal drugs trial. Pfizer took advantage of people's fear and ignorance, during a meningitis epidemic, to persuade them to take part in their evil scheme.

From The Independent:

A team of Pfizer doctors reached the Nigerian camp just as the outbreak, which killed at least 11,000 people, was peaking. They set themselves up within metres of a medical station run by the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, which was dispensing proven treatments to ease the epidemic.

From the crowd that had gathered at the Kano Infectious Diseases Hospital, 200 sick children were picked. Half were given doses of the experimental Pfizer drug called Trovan and the others were treated with a proven antibiotic from a rival company.

Eleven of the children died and many more, it is alleged, later suffered serious side-effects ranging from organ failure to brain damage. But with meningitis, cholera and measles still raging and crowds still queueing at the fence of the camp, the Pfizer team packed up after two weeks and left.

That would probably have been an end to the story if it weren't for Pfizer employee, Juan Walterspiel. About 18 months after the medical trial he wrote a letter to the then chief executive of the company, William Steere, saying that the trial had "violated ethical rules". Mr Walterspiel was fired a day later for reasons "unrelated" to the letter, insists Pfizer.

The company claims only five children died after taking Trovan and six died after receiving injections of the certified drug Rocephin. The pharmaceutical giant says it was the meningitis that harmed the children and not their drug trial. But did the parents know that they were offering their children up for an experimental medical trial?

"No," Nigerian parent Malam Musa Zango said. He claims his son Sumaila, who was then 12 years old, was left deaf and mute after taking part in the trial. But Pfizer has denied this and says consent had been given by the Nigerian state and the families of those treated. It produced a letter of permission from a Kano ethics committee. The letter turned out to have been backdated and the committee set up a year after the original medical trial. (1)

What utter scum, using Nigerian children to test their poson on. While it is good that they were sued, US$75 million is nothing to a company the size of Pfizer and hardly likely to deter them from similarly vicious 'testing.'

The Nazis did the same sort of thing on Jews. I don't think the comparison is hysterical or inappropriate. Pfizer treated African children in a way they would never, ever have dared to treat American children - they decided that the Africans weren't as human or as important. Which is how the Nazis viewed Jews.

The usual justification for this sort of racist exploitation is that it is 'for their own good.' It benefits the people of Nigeria to have dubious pharmaceuticals offerred to them, just as it benefits the people of China to be inveigled into making footballs and DVD players for western consumers.

Of course, the real beneficiaries are, in all cases, us lucky bastards in the west, who get danger free drugs (who cares about a few dead Nigerian brats?) and cheap commodities (who cares about the rampant abuse of the workers who made them?), but the appearance of decency has been maintained and we get to feel benevolent, or - even better - don't have to think about it at all.

This logic has a fine pedigree. It was deployed in the 1800s to justify the slave trade. Robert E. Lee - often identified as an opponent of slavery (for all that he lead the Confederate armies) claimed that while it was "a moral and political evil," he went on to proclaim that "it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race ... The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things" (2).

Now, as then. Don't you understand we're doing all this for their own good? We plunder their country and poison their children for their own good? Really, we do. We're the victims here.

1 - ' Pfizer to pay £50m after deaths of Nigerian children in drug trial experiment,' by Daniel Howden, published in The Independent, 6th of April 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/pfizer-to-pay-16350m-after-deaths-of-nigerian-children-in-drug-trial-experiment-1663402.html)
2 - From a letter written by Robert E. Lee, dated December 27, 1856 (http://www.civilwarhome.com/leepierce.htm)

Business as usual in Zimbabwe

Morgan Tsvangirai has achieved nothing by agreeing to join RObert Mugabe's government, apart from discrediting himself, and the Movement for Democratic Change, as an alternative to Mugabe's and ZanuPF. From The Independent:

A defiant President Robert Mugabe used his 85th birthday celebrations yesterday to insist that land seizures would continue, and called for the country's last white farmers to leave. "Land distribution will continue. It will not stop," Mr Mugabe told a rally in his home area of Chinhoyi, north-west of the capital, Harare. "The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms as they have no place there."

...

Mr Mugabe's stance does further damage to the credibility of Mr Tsvangirai, who became Prime Minister a fortnight ago after yielding to overwhelming regional pressure to take his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into a coalition with Mr Mugabe. The MDC has demanded the release of political prisoners, including Roy Bennett, the MDC treasurer and deputy agriculture minister in the unity government, who has been charged with treason. But he and more than 30 others remain behind bars.

The opposition has also failed to dislodge Gideon Gono, the central bank governor whose reckless printing of money has rendered the Zimbabwe dollar worthless and fuelled the highest rates of inflation the world has ever seen. Further damage to the economy is likely to result from two other developments: more land seizures and attempts to gain control of the few foreign enterprises still operating in the country.

Since the coalition government was formed, invasions of white-owned farms have surged, with about 40 having having been seized, according to a farmers' support group. As for foreign-owned businesses, Mr Mugabe signed a law last year to transfer control of mines and banks to local entrepreneurs in the name of black empowerment. Yesterday he said the government would press ahead with the policy. Such measures make it even less likely that foreign donors will help rebuild the Zimbabwean economy. Last week the MDC's secretary-general, Tendai Biti, given the thankless job of finance minister in the unity government, appealed vainly for US$2bn (£1.4bn) in emergency economic aid from SADC leaders meeting in Cape Town. (1)

Which poses the question - if Tsvangirai and the MDC are defunct, who and what will serve as the opposition in Zimbabwe? Simba Makone (2) seems to be the most likely contender, but he is- is ex-ZANU-PF, a member of the party's politburo until he announced his presidential candidacy in February last year. Maybe I'm cynical, but that does not endear him to me.

1 - 'Mugabe: Last white farmer should leave,' by Raymond Whitaker, published in THe Independent, 1st of March, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mugabe-last-white-farmer-should-leave-1634743.html)
2 - The wikipedia biographpy of Simba Makone, viewed 1st of March, 2009. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simba_Makoni)

Respect is due: Helen Suzman, 1917 - 2009

Astonishing woman, she was the sole voice of opposition in the South African parliament for years, and inspite of the opprobrium heaped on her - for opposing Apartheid, for being Jewish - she never let herself be intimidated. And she lived to be 91 years old. Who says only the good die young?

Still, the fact that they are dying raises a worrying prospect.

Just as we have seen those who support the Nazi and Facsist regimes in Europe grow in confidence as those who fought the regimes or sufferred from their evil dwindle in number, the thinning of the ranks of those who directly experienced or fought Apartheid may lead to a resurgence of supprot for that obscene idea. It is impossible for the white minority regaining the power it held democratically, but it is possible to envisage a terrorist underground of self-styled 'freedom fighters' being established as direct links to the bad old days - and direct contact with the people who brought them to an end - are lost.

Some detail on this remarkable woman:

Helen Suzman was renowned for her lone fight against apartheid in South Africa's parliament. An MP for nearly four decades, she waged her battle alone for 13 years, as the sole representative of the Progressive Party from 1961 to 1974, when the ruling Afrikaner Nationalist party was at the height of its power. She was insulted, mocked and condemned – for her views and because she was Jewish – but she never let up her fierce, informed criticisms of the policies of racism that the Nationalists imposed on the country and their authoritarian rule. She remained an MP until 1989, when the apartheid system was finally coming to an end.
...

The general election in 1961 marked a new low point in opposition to apartheid. The major black organisations, the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress, which were not allowed in parliament, had been banned the previous year. Now the Progressives collapsed: only Suzman was re-elected, scraping in with a margin of 564 votes.

During the years in which she was the single representative of the Progressive Party, Suzman grew into a formidable member of parliament. Backed by a small research team she tirelessly asked probing questions of the Nationalist government and spoke in one debate after another.

She was blind to colour and to political belief. Her concern was to fight against apartheid injustice. It did not matter who the victim was – whatever his or her skin colour, religion or politics. All that counted was that a person was suffering and needed help. This made her uniquely brave in those hard years, in which South Africans of colour were ignored except by only a few whites, and in which people of the left were feared and shunned. To be outside the confines of the white parliamentary system meant you were beyond the pale of acceptance.

But Suzman did not care. She fought for anyone and everyone who turned to her for help: Communists, African nationalists, left-wingers, liberals. There was an unending stream of people coming to ask for her help. The United Party's MPs were effete and useless and Suzman grew into a one-woman opposition in confronting and challenging the tide of Afrikaner Nationalist racist and discriminatory laws and practices and their enforcement through ever-harsher police and administrative action.

In 1963 she was the only MP who voted against the government's draconian legislation to institute 90-day detention without trial – which was later extended to 180 days and then indefinite detention. In 1965 she was the only MP who condemned the seizing of power by Rhodesia's whites. Her consistent voting against apartheid had virtually no success – but she was widely admired as a beacon of enlightenment in the South African murk. (1)

1 - "Helen Suzman: South African parliamentarian who waged a 36-year battle against the injustices of apartheid," by Benjamin Pogrund, published in The Independent, 2nd of January, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/helen-suzman-south-african-parliamentarian-who-waged-a-36year-battle-against-the-injustices-of-apartheid-1221039.html)

Respect is due: Mike Terry 1947 - 2008

From his obituary in the Independent:

In 1975 Terry joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement as Executive Secretary. The organisation had been formed in London in 1959, as a "boycott committee" to draw attention to the evils of apartheid. Julius Nyerere addressed the first meeting, along with Trevor Huddleston, later president of the AAM. As the years passed, the movement's main objective was to campaign for a democratic South Africa where every section of society had equal voting rights. It seemed at the time that the apartheid regime was impregnable since it had the support of Western governments, South Africa having played the card that it was a bastion of the free world in the fight against Soviet expansionism.

Maintaining close links with the African National Congress, the AAM evolved policies to isolate South Africa, advocating economic, diplomatic and sporting sanctions, and no military or nuclear collaboration with the country. It is difficult to imagine the initial and lingering hostility to these policies, especially in the present climate of international relations where the application of sanctions is the weapon of first resort in dealing with a "rogue" state. (1)

Doesn't that bit about the apartheid regime seeming impregnable because it was actively and passively supported by the west sound familiar? We don't learn from our mistakes and , at a national level, we yet to evolve any sort of meaningful conscience. Thankfully, people like Mike Terry have the courage, commitment and intelligence to act when we fail as a nation.

And having helped change the world, he went back to being a teacher. Good man.

1 "Mike Terry: Campaigner who led the Anti-Apartheid Movement for two decades," by Bob Jones, published in The Independent, 10th of December, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/mike-terry-campaigner-who-led-the-antiapartheid-movement-for-two-decades-1059367.html)