Christmas with Ahmadinejad
December 26, 2008 at 12:15 am | Posted in International, Media | Leave a comment
We hide it well with all the carols, fairy lights and attempts at bonhomie, but Christmas isn’t really more or less sincere than any other time of the year. We still send Christmas cards to people we barely know, still make merry with co-workers we can’t stand, and still wince in the presence of relatives we usualy make no effort to see.
Even so, none of our humdrum hypocrisies or staged acts of sincerity are anywhere near the dappy doublespeak that Iran’s smirking propagandist has ‘treated‘ us to. Offering warm congratulations to ‘followers of Abrahamic faiths’ and ‘the people of Britain’, Ahmadinejad reminds us that Jesus is “the standard-bearer of justice, of love for our fellow human beings, of the fight against tyranny, discrimination and injustice.”
All this coming from the President of a country which has stoned women, hung children, executed gays and arrested women’s rights activists. To paraphrase the late, great Adrian Mitchell, from his mouth the words sounded like a fart.
On the question of whether or not his message should’ve been shown, I think it’s possible for good people to disagree. Peter Tatchell has always been a laudably consistent ‘No Platform’ campaigner, whilst Channel 4 are right to point out that their network has done more than any other to increase our country’s understanding of the Middle East’s most recent bête noire.
The response of our elected officials, on the other hand, has been less than impressive. Conservative MP Mark Pritchard couldn’t stop himself from using it as an opportunity to tout the Tories’ longstanding desire to privatise C4, and as for the Foreign Office’s port-fuelled fuming, well, I’d feel a lot more sympathetic to their human rights stance if we weren’t about to deport a Zimbabwean refugee who was raped and tortured at the hands of Mugabe’s henchmen.
I lean towards the position that it shouldn’t have been shown, but we should at least remember that his message was hardly given a prominent or prestigious slot. His predecessors are so illustrious as to include Ali G, Marge Simpson, Jamie Oliver and Sharon Osbourne. I mean, it’s hardly the Dimbleby Lecture, is it? Frankly, it’s hard to see Ahmadinejad’s 15 minutes of pompous pieties as anything more than some cheaply-made, space-filling ephemera from the premier purveyors of car crash TV, and which puts the President of Iran in the same company as a few nondescript, C-list celebrities. That’s still far more than he deserves, of course, but is also far less of a propaganda coup than this obsessive self-publicist thinks he’s won.
Pondering Pinter
December 26, 2008 at 12:14 am | Posted in Music, Art, Etcetera | Leave a commentI’ll leave dicussions of his theatrical legacy to people better qualified to talk about such matters, but my thoughts on Harold Pinter’s political legacy are pretty much summed up by this hastily-written obit by Johann Hari:
The tragedy of Pinter’s politics is that he took a desirable political value – hatred of war, or distrust for his own government – and absolutizes it. It is good to hate war, but to take this so far that you will not resist Hitler and Stalin is absurd. It is good to oppose the crimes of your own government – but to take this so far that you end up serving on the Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic is bizarre.
When Serbian nationalism – stoked and stroked by Milosevic – began to ravage the Balkans in the 1990s, Pinter’s response was simple and visceral: whatever the US and UK governments are for, I’m against. Blair and Clinton are condemning Milosevic? Right, sign me up for the defence. The Committee he sat on right up to Miolsevic’s death – headed by Jared Israel, a friend of Milosevic – was not simply calling for the Serb to be given a fair trial, a demand all reasonable people supported. It called for Milosevic to be released on the grounds that he was not guilty. In fact, the website bragging Pinter’s signature describes him as a “the strongest pillar of peace and stability in this region.”
So when there was ethnic cleansing two days’ drive from Auschwitz, Pinter’s response was to defend the aggressor and attack the victims. While much of the left – good people like Peter Tatchell, Michael Foot and Susan Sontag – were calling for democratic countries to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to defend the ethnic Albanians from racist murder, Pinter described the KLA as “a bandit organisation” that was “actually” responsible for the ethnic cleansing in the region. Watching the trial, Pinter said admiringly, “Milosevic is giving them a run for their money.”
I’ve read enough decent and compelling arguments against NATO’s action in the Balkans to understand that it’s difficult to bracket our involvement there under either ‘absolute right’ or ‘absolute wrong’. Even so, sticking up for Milosevic even after it became clear the extent of the crimes committed and his culpability for them, suggests at best a flawed morality and at worst an egregious application of that old, self-defeating falseism that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
But it was in his opposition to the war on Iraq – an issue Pinter and I agreed on – that I felt he did both himself and his cause the greater damage. Rather than showing an engagement with the issues, an understanding of policy or history, all he gave us was simplistic tubthumping, some violently anti-American rhetoric and some godawful poetry. That he was identified by both sides as one of the highest-profile voices against the war did the anti-war crowd no favours at all.
Suddenly it’s Christmas
December 24, 2008 at 11:11 pm | Posted in Misc. | Leave a comment“When they say ‘season’s greetings’, they mean just what they say…”
Hope you all have a good one. All being well, I’ll resume ‘proper blogging’ on Boxing Day.
Selected reading
December 23, 2008 at 11:58 pm | Posted in Misc. | Leave a comment- Compared to the last eight years, Hillary Clinton’s ambition of expanding the State Department and keeping it stocked with greater numbers of diplomats sounds almost groundbreaking.
- At the New Atlanticist, Peter Cassata explains the new military strategy for Afghanistan and ponders whether it stands a chance of success. As does Judah Grunstein.
- At change.org, Jen Nedeau wonders whether Digg is sexist.
- Mike McNabb ponders what effect the public’s newfound distaste for government spending will have on politics & policy.
- Gay Christians are dismayed (but not surprised) to hear that the Pope’s cheerful, loving Christmas message is… you’re all going to hell. Meanwhile, Rowan Hooper points out that ‘his holiness’ seriously misused science in his lecture. Not that anyone should be surprised.
- David Cox disapproves of Hunter S. Thompson and his whole ‘Gonzo’ journalism shtick.
- Jason Rosenhouse discusses the Good Book’s ‘terrible texts’.
- Want to look at some pictures of plankton? Yeah, of course you do.
- The Guardian/Independent run a few worthy obituaries and related discussions about the great Adrian Mitchell
Reducing domestic violence
December 22, 2008 at 11:46 pm | Posted in British Politics, Feminisms | 3 Comments
All we know are the facts. We know that domestic violence accounts for 16% of all violent crime and that a quarter of women & 15% of men will suffer abuse in their lifetimes. We know that women are overwhelmingly more likely to suffer repeated abuse, that two women a week are killed by a current or former partner and that one incident of abuse is reported to the police every minute of the day. Sadly, we also know that these reports only account for a fraction of the true number of attacks, many of which go unreported.
We know, too, that no government, no matter how active or intrusive, could stop partners from being violent to each other, and as the goal of eradicating domestic violence will always be unreachable, the question we must ask is whether we – as a state, as a society, and as individuals – are doing the most we can to condemn, prosecute and punish its perpatrators, and protect, counsel and care for its victims.
That question has been raised again this week as Labour and the Conservatives lock horns over who has the better policies to reduce domestic violence and improve care for those who’ve suffered from it. On Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, David Cameron promised an integrated, cross-departmental strategy which would include 15 new rape crisis centres and better training for police officers to spot and prosecute all kinds of abuse, whether it be sexual assault, spousal beatings, genital mutilation or forced marriages. Meanwhile, Jacqui Smith has promised to begin another consultation exercise to see how the domestic violence aspects of the recent violent crime action plan (PDF) could be improved.
For all its faults, this government has certainly been proactive in trying to get a handle on the problem. They haven’t always had the right priorities, and their fondness for legislative action has occasionally been self-defeating, but with the introduction of specialised domestic violence courts, the increase in prosecutions, the introduction of multi-agency task forces to identify at-risk individuals and the increased vigilance against forced marriage, they have certainly made some positive, if incremental, progress. But, as an overwhelming majority of experts will attest, there is still much that needs to be done.
First, victims need to know that they have been victims of a crime rather than the inevitable by-product of some lovers’ tiff. The British Crime Survey found that the reporting rate, whilst eye-wateringly low, was significantly higher amongst men and women who knew their partners’ abuse was against the law. Here, advertising and awareness campaigns should play an important role, but recent research has found them not to be having much of an effect. We need to figure out of a way of encouraging greater numbers of victims to come forward.
Secondly, more attention needs to be paid to rehabilitating the aggressors. Whilst I realise that rehabilitating a spouse-beater is about as popular as hugging a hoodie, it remains true that prosecution alone won’t make a serial abuser mend his (or her) ways. As figures from America have apparently shown that people who take domestic violence programmes are less likely to reoffend, we should make this a priority of any anti-violence crusade.
Third, we urgently need a national rape hotline and, as the Tories propose, an increase in the number of rape crisis centres. There are far fewer rape crisis centres than there were 20 years ago, and since the women who use them frequently find their comfort, sanctuary and support invaluable, we should ensure there are enough to cater for the whole country.
This far from an exhaustive list, and it’s possible that I’ve missed some ideas that others might see as imperative. But if the two parties are going to start using domestic abuse as one of many political footballs to kick around between now and the election, there is an opportunity for charities, feminist organisations and lobbying groups to enter the debate and plainly state what needs to be done. Maybe that way we’ll start to see some better policy, and with it a few less frightened, blighted lives.
Six years
December 22, 2008 at 11:45 pm | Posted in Music, Art, Etcetera | Leave a comment
There’s a Hold Steady song called ‘Constructive Summer’. Towards the end Craig Finn reminds us to “raise a glass to Saint Joe Strummer” because “he might have been our only decent teacher.”
He may have a point
Heart on the Left
December 21, 2008 at 2:07 pm | Posted in Music, Art, Etcetera | 1 Comment
Yesterday, the poet, playwright and children’s author Adrian Mitchell passed away from a suspected heart attack.
Mitchell was probably the first poet to make me understand and enjoy poetry as an art form. His work is renowned for his tireless, volcanic compassion, his bottomless humanity, and his rare ability mix the idealism of a cynical hippy with the cheek of a schoolboy and the wide-eyed wonder of a child.
A guardian of the left’s best instincts, Mitchell abhorred the cruelty he had seen humans inflict upon each other, was appalled by the poverty of capitalism, yet still held firm to an unwavering belief that we’re all capable of great good.
At his very best, his poems were splashed with imagination, vivid in their imagery, and throbbing with rhythm and relevance. His work was is a delight to read.
I couldn’t even begin to point you in the direction of his best poem or poems, but they’re likely to be found in his first anthology, the aptly-titled Heart on the Left.
***
Naming the Dead
~ From Heart on the Left
And now the super-powers, who have been cheerfully doubling their money
by flogging arms wherever the price is right, put on their Sunday cassocks
and preach peace to the Middle East. From their lips the word sounds like a
fart. On Twenty-Four Hours the other night, Kenneth Allsop interviewed a
British arms merchant who has been selling to both Egypt and Israel. Admit-
ting that he was having some doubts about his trade (he is now on the verge
of an ill-earned retirement) he said that nevertheless the real question was:
Am I my brother’s keeper? and that the answer was No. The question was of
course first put by Cain, whose flag flies high over most of the major cities of
the world.
The more abstract war is made to seem, the more attractive it becomes. The
advance of an army as represented by dynamic arrows swooping across the
map can raise the same thrill as a child gets from playing draughts. Dubious
score-sheets which say how many planes the government would have liked to
have shot down only add to the game-like quality of news – you tot up the
columns and kid yourself that someone is winning.
Wartime governments sometimes allow this process to be taken a step nearer
reality by issuing photographs of one atrociously wounded soldier (our side)
being lovingly nursed by his comrades, and another picture of dozens of prisoners
(their side) being handed cups of water (see under Sir Philip Sidney, gallantry
of). Such poses represent a caricature of war’s effect on human beings.
What have Arabs been doing? Killing Jews.
What have the Jews been doing? Killing Arabs.
Even that doesn’t get us far in the direction of reality. To add statistics saying how
many were killed takes us only an inch nearer.
Who is killed? What were they like? I would like to see every government in
the world held accountable to the United Nations for every human being it
kills, either in war or in peace. I don’t just mean a statistic published in a
secret report. I mean that all the newspapers of the country responsible should
carry the name of the person killed, his photograph, address, number of his
dependants and the reason why he was killed. (We often do as much for the
victims of plane crashes.)
This would mean that in some countries the press would be swamped with
death reports and even mammoth death supplements. (Well, what about the
advertisers?) But I want more.
I would like every death inflicted by any government to be the subject of a
book published at the state’s expense. Each book would give an exhaustive
biography of the corpse and would be illustrated by photographs from his
family album if any, pictures he painted as a child and film stills of his last
hours. In the back cover would be a long-playing disc of the victim talking to
his friends, singing, talking to his wife and children and interviewed by the
men who killed him.
The text would examine his life, his tastes and interests, faults and virtues,
without trying to make him any more, villainous or heroic than he was. It
would be prepared by a team of writers appointed by the United Nations.
The final chapter would record the explanations of the government which
killed him and a detailed account of the manner of his death, the amount of
bleeding, the extent of burns, the decibel count of screams, the amount of
time it took to die and the names of the men who killed him.
One book for every killing. I realise that this would take some planning. Each
soldier would have to be accompanied by an interviewing, camera and research
team in order to record the details of any necessary victim.
Most factories would turn out printing presses, most graduates would auto-
matically become bigraphers of the dead. Bombing could only take place
after individual examination of every person to be bombed. The cost of killing
would be raised to such a pitch that the smallest war would lead to bankruptcy
and only the most merciful revolution could be afforded. Hit squarely in the
exchequer – the only place where they feel emotion – chauvinist governments
might be able to imagine for the first time, the true magnitude of the obscenity
which they mass-produce.
This is no bloody whimsy. I want a real reason for every killing.
~ Adrian Mitchell (1932 – 2008)
Caroline, no?
December 21, 2008 at 10:32 am | Posted in U.S. Politics | Leave a comment
In news which may come as a shock to those who wrote melodramatic op-eds about the election of an unknown, untested and altogether unlikely-sounding black man to the office of President, it turns out that Barack Obama’s Historic! Change-making! Victory! hasn’t forever banished nepotism, elitism and the long-stay permanance of political dynasties from holding great influence over public life.
Lest he upset some very wealthy Manhattanites and disrupt what the media and her society cheerleaders have already hyped-up as her long-delayed coronation as queen of Camelot, New York Governor David Paterson will name Caroline Kennedy as his state’s next Senator, replacing the outgoing (and, for all her faults, studiously competent) Hillary Clinton.
If it does happen, it should be troubling on a number of levels. First, whilst Ms Kennedy might well become as impressive and dilligent a Senator as her predecessor, she has shown precious little evidence of it thus far. She has no experience in legislative politics, no substantive record of public service, has not given a press conference in support of her candidacy and all that is really known of her political views are the brief answers she (or her advisers) gave to questionnaires submitted by the Times and the Politico.
Of those answers, there are some telling gaps in either her knowledge or her openness. When asked about her views on the future of New York’s enormous financial sector, her team responds with “at this time, Caroline does not have a specific plan to fix New York’s financial services industry”, instead pledging to work with her peers. When querstioned on local issues, like the budget for New York State or education reform, her answers are similarly vague, and a question about Israel was batted away with the most banal political platitudes.
And then there’s the issue of restoring another political dynasty. DailyKos diarist Morus found that the US Senate is actually more heriditary than the UK’s House of Lords, with 15% of its members being directly related to previous or current holders of high office. For a country which fought a revolution to banish such privileges, I imagine this is enough to give anyone pause for thought.
Of course, you’ll find hereditary aspects to many other professions besides politics, from the modest, family-run business to the world’s largest media empire. But what makes political dynasties different is their access to the machinery of power, as well as their ability to sell the ‘brand’ of their surnames to the general public in a way which sometimes obscured their policies or competence. For Caroline, the Kennedy brand seems to be used as a substitute for demonstrable experience in public service, and whilst the people of New York will eventually have the chance to decide whether or not she’s done her ‘brand’ and her state justice, I think it’s unlikely that someone with the same CV but a less illustrious surname would be on the verge of taking a seat in the United States Senate.
None of which necessarily means she’ll be bad at her job, of course. But for as long as glitzy political brands are favoured over unfashionable, hard-working public servants, the practice of egalitarianism and social mobility will always be somewhat stifled.
A reminder
December 20, 2008 at 11:59 pm | Posted in Asylum | Leave a commentWhilst out Googling this evening, I found this high school newsletter:
National Portrait Gallery Project
A group of Year 13 students, studying English Language and Art, were invited last term to work with the National Portrait Gallery and the Graves Gallery in Sheffield to create a full exhibition.
For 12 weeks students gave up their free time to read about the fascinating life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an extraordinary 18th century traveller and writer, to develop ideas for an exhibition, which would appeal to a younger audience.
The students wrote the text panels and designed several methods of exhibiting the portraits, working with the curator, graphic designers and marketing department.
The finished exhibition runs until June at the Graves Gallery and is definitely worth a visit.
Among the students praised for their hard work and commitment is Valerie Thulambo.
Valerie, her sister and her mother will all be spending Christmas in a detention centre. They’ll be deported before the year’s out.
Monbiot’s wrecking ball environmentalism
December 20, 2008 at 11:37 pm | Posted in Climate Change, U.S. Politics | 4 Comments
You’d struggle to place a cigarette paper between George Monbiot and myself on the broad principles of climate change. We both recognise that it exists, that it has the potential to wreak unimaginable havoc on our environment & our way of life, that only a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions will stop its most extreme effects, and that there is a fierce urgency to act now.
But whilst his passion, his breadth of knowledge and his tireless persistence are all very valuable to the cause, there is a tendency towards dogmatism, even extremism, in Monbiot’s work which – deliberately or not – reduces all other political issues to this one, non-negotiable crusade.
I doubt there’s a better example of this than in his latest column condemning the Bush Administration’s $17.4bn bailout of America’s car manufacturing industry. Monbiot’s argument is simple: given the inefficiency of their products and their failure to produce the kinds of cars needed in the 21st century, there is no justification for a ‘new round of corporate socialism’ which will only throw more money at a failed business model.
And so he praises Senate Republicans at the same time as calling them “neocon nutcases”, blames the industry for being the author of its own woes whilst admitting the need to bailout a similarly self-harming banking system, and dismisses President Bush’s argument that he must safeguard jobs before denouncing the wage & benefit cuts to the jobs he has saved. To say this is all a bit inconsistent is putting it mildly.
But it’s the lack of concern for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would lose their jobs which is most troubling. Monbiot spends no time pondering what impact the industry’s collapse would have on a city which relies on its existence, nor does he spare a thought for more than one third of its residents who live below the poverty line. His column reads like classic wrecking ball environmentalism: cars pollute the atmosphere, so we must destroy the industry, and to hell with the consequences!
The uneasy implication within the piece is that it is not possible for the priorities of environmentalists & labour activists to coexist peacefully, and that politicians and policy-makers should always prioritise the former even if it comes at the expense of the latter. If this view was to be adopted at the level of political campaigning, it would create an incredibly damaging split within the progressive coalition which would make progress towards either group’s goals so much harder to achieve.
As the New York Times reports, this is not a good bailout; there’s little corporate accountability, workers’ wages will be cut at a time when they can least afford it, and the industry is only safe until March, when the then-President Obama will have to make a decision about its long-term viability.
But for now, at least, hundreds of thousands of working/middle class Americans in one of the most economically blighted cities in the Union will still be able to live above the breadline. Monbiot would be a far more sympathetic figure if he could stop sounding so upset about it.
Image by Flickr user freeparking (Creative Commons)
The ‘inspiring’ David Blunkett
December 19, 2008 at 2:20 pm | Posted in British Politics, New Labour | 3 Comments
When Martin Kettle tells his friends & colleagues that he still ‘rates’ David Blunkett, they apparently react with shock, even surprise. Sure, he can understand why people didn’t like the ‘lapses of judgement’ which forced him to resign from the cabinet (twice), he can sympathise with people turned-off by his sneering arrogance and he even concedes that he might’ve been a little ‘populist’ when he was Home Secretary. But shouldn’t we forgive all this and welcome back a ‘genuine thinker’ who is ‘one of the most inspirational leaders that Labour has got’?
*Cue the sound of crickets*
This is Kettle at his most cloyingly euphemistic. When he admits to Blunkett’s ‘lapses of judgement’, he means that on one occasion he abused his power by giving his ex-lover a taxpayer-funded train ticket & speeding up her nanny’s visa application, and on another failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest and ignored three seperate requests to make himself accountable.
When he laments Blunkett’s “tendency to arrogance”, he means that he had a habit of slagging off his colleagues behind their backs & was found by ex-Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens to be a ‘bully and a liar‘.
And when he regrets Blunkett’s “instinct to play the populist game” he means that he joked about toasting the suicide of a prisoner in his care, opposed lowering the age of consent for homosexuals, imitated the right’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, introduced proposals for ID cards, detention centres for asylum seekers, removed the automatic right to trial by jury, created the world’s largest DNA database and gave authorities the most widespread, complex and unworkable surveillance powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Oh, and if you opposed any of this, then he’d dismiss you as little more than an ‘airy fairy libertarian‘.
So yes, Martin, Mr Blunkett may well be ‘one of the most inspirational leaders that Labour has got’, but with his tarnished integrity, his thuggish authoritarianism and his smug insolence towards all who disagree, the most he inspires is contempt.
Policy vs personality
December 19, 2008 at 11:12 am | Posted in Barack Obama, U.S. Politics | Leave a comment
Over at Gristmill, there’s a slighly folorn post by Sharon Astyk on Barack Obama’s selection of Tom Vilsack – the former Governor of Iowa and a man politically indebted to the entrenched interests of agribusiness – as his Secretary of Agriculture. For Astyk, this appointment follows the same dispiritingly changeless trajectory as the appointments of Hillary Clinton, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Robert Gates:
In order to be the president many of us hoped Obama would be, he would have to be willing to betray many of the people who brought him and dismiss their hopes and investments in his future. This is no easy feat for anyone, and it is probably less so for someone who came so far, so fast, with the hand of so many.
But presidents are known by the company they keep — the reality is that no man can supervise all the elements of the nation alone — they depend enormously on appointees. He will rely on reports and summaries from those he appoints, and those summaries will be given by men whose viewpoints are already formed. Vilsack cannot but describe our food system through the lens of his prior investments, and this will be disastrous.
[…]
Obama has overwhelmingly chosen one, very narrow set of viewpoints — the viewpoints of people who have power now and to whom he is already indebted for his power. I don’t claim that there is no hope for Obama, but before he chose these people to surround him, there was hope that an ordinary man of integrity, hearing a range of viewpoints, might choose something different. Now, we have to imagine that Obama is an extraordinary man, one with the power to find unconventional paths to knowledge and the willingness to override the viewpoints in which he has invested himself.
I wrote in an earlier post that it’s mistaken to interpret Obama’s cabinet as marking a break from the policy content of his campaign, and I still think that’s the case. None of the appointments he’s made necessarily conflict with his campaign promises to reinvest in the country’s infrastructure, create ‘green jobs’, start taking firmer action on regulating & reducing carbon emissions and expanding health coverage to all Americans. Nor do they conflict with his pledge to raise the minimum wage, pass the Employee Free Choice Act, close Guantanamo, stop waterboarding, become more diplomatically engaged and begin a cautious withdrawal from Iraq. What’s more, I didn’t read online progressives campaign for anything beyond these core issues, which perhaps indicates they were too narrow in their focus and too indiscriminate in their support.
Policy will be the real litmus test of the Obama administration, and if he’s too timorous in chasing EFCA, if his environmental plans are too tepid or his economic rescue plans prioritise capital at the expense of labour, then those policies will reflect badly on both the people Obama appointed, and the President himself.
That said, I don’t think it’s unfair to conclude – as Astyck does here – that these appointments place greater pressure on Obama to be the driver of change. His Defense Secretary has been on the opposite side to Obama on nuclear disarmament. His Secretary of State has been on the opposite side to Obama on Iraq, relations with Cuba and the use of cluster munitions. His economic team is full of ghosts from an era where easy credit, low wages and the abandonment of effective regulation was thought to fuel long-term prosperity. With people like this, creating an administration which is markedly different from its predecessors will require a greater resolve from the President than if he were surrounded by outsiders with new, untested ideas.
Let’s not forget that Obama hasn’t renounced one of his general election pledges yet. If he does, then his choice of advisers will take some of the blame, and that will reflect badly on the President. But until then, and as awful as ‘wait and see’ is in an opinion-thirsty blogosphere, it’s still the most sensible advice I can give.
Prison wisdom
December 16, 2008 at 10:19 am | Posted in Prison Reform | Leave a commentSince many of my posts on this topic tend to focus on all that’s wrong with our penal system, I thought I’d share a more positive, humerous story about what happens when you give inmates the chance to read, think and talk about poetry, philosophy and politics:
Is it a good idea to talk about revolution in prison? Where better? Although we do have CCTV in the classrooms now. I thought that Blake and the French revolution might be a good way in. Blake never fails to grip: Tyger, London, The Sick Rose.
“Everything,” says Ian, “contains the seeds of its own destruction.”
“He wrote Jerusalem,” says Richard and we get into the legend of Christ visiting England.”It’s stupid,” says Richard.
“It’s not. Why shouldn’t he visit England.”
“Oh, yeah,” says Richard. “Imagine him at immigration. Nationality? Palestinian. Reason for visit? Building Jerusalem. Profession? Son of God. Think they’d let him in? They’d jog him on straight away.”
He’s got a point. More here.
Compare/Contrast
December 16, 2008 at 9:04 am | Posted in Asylum, British Politics | Leave a commentTags: Priviledge Thulambo, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
Sorry to keep banging this drum, but just for the record:
One of Robert Mugabe’s closest political allies is living in luxury in London while being allowed to fly to and from Zimbabwe, despite her close links to the dictator’s feared Zanu-PF party.
[…]
Florence Chitauro, one of Mugabe’s loudest cheerleaders, who during her time as a Zanu-PF minister was responsible for suppressing strikes against his regime, lives in a plush town house in west London with her husband, James, a former senior civil servant in Zimbabwe who played a key role in advising the Mugabe administration. Their son and daughter also live in the UK.
When confronted by The Observer, Chitauro said she was a ‘private citizen at the moment’ and declined to comment further. Asked whether she now denounced the Mugabe regime, she replied: ‘No, I’m not going to say that.’
A Zimbabwean woman and her two daughters who fled the Mugabe regime are to be deported from Britain despite promises by the Government to protect the country’s citizens.
Priviledge Thulambo, 39, whose husband was murdered by Robert Mugabe’s men, and her children are being detained in a controversial immigration centre after being seized by immigration officers on Friday.
[…]
Mrs Thulambo and her daughters Valerie, 20, and Lorraine, 18, have spent eight years in the UK. Mrs Thulambo’s Cambridge-educated husband, Macca, was killed for his links to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. His widow tried to leave Zimbabwe but was arrested at the airport, and later tortured and raped.
She and her daughters fled to neighbouring Malawi, where they obtained passports because of her late husband’s dual nationality. Immigration officials seized Mrs Thulambo’s Zimbabwean passport during their arrest at dawn on Friday
So some unapologetic Zanu-PF apparatchik can live a life of luxury and float from London to Zimbabwe unimpeded, despite our government’s promises to restrict the movements of Mugabe’s team of thugs…
But a woman whose husband was executed, and who herself was raped and tortured, will be spending Christmas in a detention centre before being tossed back to that hopeless, starving, cholera-plagued country, despite our government’s promises to take care of Zimbabwean refugees.
Nice to have a system which works, isn’t it?
Update: From the comments on a previous post, there’s a Facebook group about the case, if you’re interested.
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