I'm more proud of this rant than of any other.
Something rather surprising happened a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine announced that she had found God. After the obligatory comments of '...lost him down the back of the sofa did you?' my friend began to gush about her newfound sense of serenity and happiness that Jesus had afforded her. Approximately 20 minutes later she was absolutely horrified at the seemingly never-ending stream of bile that I had spewed concerning the sheer evil that is organised religion. Anybody who has ever heard me talk about the subject will not exact be taken aback by that, but I rather think that my friend was wrong footed by the amount of venom that I hold for the Church. We agreed to disagree on the subject, though she made the observation "Have you had a bad experience or something...not trying to pry & its really none of my business but you seem so angry...” This got me to thinking about just why I hold the Church (and I used 'Church' as a catch-all term for absolutely every organised religion or religious cult, from Anglicans to Zarostranists (sic)) in such contempt.
I've never personally had a bad experience with the Church. I even managed to be in a church choir for a few months when I was 10 and I remained resolutely unbuggered by a single priest (although in fairness I still hold the diocese record for "Longest Maintaining of Anal Virginity in a Church Choir (under 11's section)" for this feat...). Nor have I been denounced as a heretic by any particular religious group (though under the strict definition of a heretic as 'One who questions' I hold up my hand and admit to falling into this category). I've corresponded with the Bishop of Newcastle and he has never been anything less than polite. So what is it that gets my back up? After all I'm not the only vehemently anti-church person that I know. Amongst my friends those who are religious fall into a distinct minority. So why is this?
Firstly I should make clear that I do not bear any grudges against a single individual that I have met who has any involvement in the Church, or at least if I do dislike them it has nothing to do with their religion. I realise that I'm just about to launch into a lengthy tirade about why the Church is an awful thing, but I am a believer in personal freedom within the boundaries of having consideration for how your actions can affect others. If somebody wishes to believe in a 2000 year old fairy tale (well...about 16-1700 years old as the bible was compiled centuries after the death of Christ), or the slickly packaged musings of a former Coventry City goalkeeper who used to wear turquoise shellsuits, or whatever, then that is their prerogative and it's not for me to tell them to stop. I'm going to tell them exactly what I think of it, but I'm not going to ask them to stop.
No, my grudge isn't against individuals but against the organisational aspect of the Church. Simply put, I think that Religion is Totalitarianism for beginners. Both are methods of imposing the will of the few onto the many. Both give absolute control of almost every aspect of a person's life as their stated aim. Both say that they do this for your own good. Both are rife with hypocrisy. Both ensure that those in the upper echelons of the organisation have the opportunity (not always taken) to grow fat, rich, and corrupt.
For example, the Catholic Church states that their priesthood must remain celibate and that it's followers must not use contraception and have sex only to reproduce. Communist rule in Romania dictated that the birth rate must increase and so sex became a patriotic duty. The Party in Orwell's 1984 sought to completely control reproduction via the encouragement of artificial insemination. One's sex life is a pretty damn personal thing yet all of these three bodies want to control it. The only difference that I can see between the 3 is the figurehead that is used. The Church relies on a mythical father figure who is kind and benevolent. The Church is merely an extension of his will. To question the will of the Church is to question the will of God. To question the will of God is to be disobedient, and so the miscreant needs to be gently disciplined as a father would discipline his son when he goes astray. As God is not a tangible being, this discipline is done by the Church on His behalf. Of course, I personally have gone astray from my Father's values on many occasions and he has yet to order me burnt at the stake, pressed by rocks until dead, excommunicated and thus condemned to hell, or even just shunned by himself and his friends.
The Nazi's had Adolf Hitler as their figurehead, which immediately gives them one advantage over the Church; they have a physical, tangible human being as their father figure. Of course, he was elevated to semi mythical status and imbued with all sorts of characteristics that gave would make him superhuman were they all true (this is a trick repeated by cults everywhere; indeed it's possibly the only thing that distinguishes the likes of Icke and L Ron Hubbard's cash-cow sects from mainstream religion). All things done in Nazi Germany were done in the name of Hitler whether he had ordered them (or even heard of them) or not. Whilst I do not doubt that he was a paragon of evil in himself or that he would have approved of 99% of what was done, all sorts of vile acts were done without his consent and in his name. To question any of this was to question the will of Hitler who in turn spoke for the Volk of Germany. As Hitler was unquestionably doing what was right for Germany, to question his will was anti-German and so these people had to be 'corrected' in protective custody. Nazi Germany was a long way advanced of the medieval church and so they could draw on the modern equivalents of burning at the stake etc.
The Party of 1984 had a fusion of the two; Big Brother was a Hitler like figure who was represented as a real person to the masses though the book is ambiguous at best as to whether he really does exist. Senior party members used Big Brother as a mixture of father figure and avenging angel to justify their use and abuse of power. The common thread that runs through all of these is that power is exercised by a few men and women. They justify themselves using a distant figure to whom no right of appeal can be reasonably expected. Therefore all of the decisions that affect the running of the Church/Party are made by those same few. In other words, one of the reasons I hold such hatred for the Church is that it places immense power in the hands of a few people, and as history has shown time and time again, power corrupts. There are few or no checks or balances in place to ensure that power is exercised in a fair way because they are exercising the will of an infallible being so why would they need them?
Which leads us into the heart of just why I have such a problem with the Church; they allow people to believe that by becoming a member of the church they are receiving guidance from God/Alpha Waves/Good Aligned Martian Lizards. They are doing absolutely no such thing whatsoever. They are receiving guidance from men. From human beings. There is nothing divine about the people whom they are handing over control of their lives to. They are just flesh and blood like everybody else. And like everybody else they have their own reasons for doing what they do. I'm not doubting that some do genuinely belief in the unfathomable mystery of the divine, in the rapture, or in whatever piece of mumbo jumbo of variable age and questionable origin that their particular Church espouses. However, as they are all people like any other then they will have the same sense of ambition, the same vulnerabilities, the same irrational likes and dislikes, the same flaws as any one of us. And their all-too-human traits will affect their actions toward their followers. So no one ever receives the undiluted wisdom of the spiritual world. They receive somebody else's interpretation of it. This is the reason for my less than charitable prejudice against the more devout followers of the Church; they don't have the courage to try and come to their own conclusions so they let somebody else do it for them.
Naturally the Church would dispute this. They would point to the Bible, or the Koran, or to a series of Sumerian and Aztec/Inca pictograms, or whatever book contains the teachings and dogma of that Church. They would say that it is the truth and the leaders of the Church simply teach the followers about it and encourage them to live their lives according to it's precepts. If that is so, how on earth is there still war and murder (because after all, Thou Shalt Not Kill) that receives the support of the Church? Why isn't the Church encouraging us to shun menstruating women (as we are told to do in Deuteronomy)? Why are we told to love our fellow man whilst simultaneously encouraged to denounce them if they don't follow the same religious teachings as you?
It's because those books of timeless wisdom are all mired in a particular place both historically and geographically. The Bible is a good textbook on how to live your life in 3rd-6th century Europe. The Koran does the same job for the Middle East of the 6th-7th century. They did not foresee a world that would change quite as radically as it has since then. So these books (that were written by men) are now interpreted by men and women as to how they relate to today's world. Fallible man and women. They may like to kid themselves that they are being entirely objective in their interpretations but this is a self-delusion. No one is completely free of bias, and so the teachings of the Church have been influenced by Byzantine politics, personal grievances, jealousies and petty hatreds.
As a humanist it does seem a little strange to me that the reason I criticise the Church is because it is mortal and not divine. But I hate it because it pretends to be something it is not. It claims higher motivations for seeking base power and it is absolutely no different to any method of controlling or subjugating a populace that has ever been created. People should by all means seek answers for to the divine and to the spiritual (I know I do) but I wish that they would do so without abdicating responsibility for doing so to someone else. Your own personal beliefs are just as valid and far more important than anything that you are encouraged to accept or have imposed on you as the truth. I truly believe that the world would be a better place if more people remembered that.
Wednesday, 23 January 2002
Thursday, 17 January 2002
Dark Side
Why are people fascinated with evil, but find good to be bland?
So the War Against Terror rumbles on into the New Year and, just as in WWI, promises of it being all over by Christmas have proved empty. Though the Taliban is a spent force and Al Quaida are broken and running only a hopeless optimist would say that it is all over. Yet it has been worth it; in the last few weeks a thoroughly corrupt regime has been exposed for what it was. The words and promises of its leaders are being shown to have been hollow and empty. And so a regime that preaches war to those who oppose it's will and by it's own admission cares not a bit for the basic rights of the men that fought against it is facing extremely tough times. No, I don't mean the Taliban but the US Government which is facing it's own problems involving the Enron Energy Scandal.
To briefly summarise; Enron's accountants lied about the profits the company could expect to make, thus the share prices went up. When the stench of cooked books began to give the game away Enron's share price plummeted (they have lost 99% of their share value since the revelations; that amounts to about $60 billion). The company executives have also been busy little beavers; salting away debts in offshore funds to conceal them from prying eyes and destroying thousands of documents that may or may not have been incriminating. This was all found out during an independent audit. An audit, which Enron, with the help and connivance of its friends in government, had done, it's utmost to avoid. Indeed, it had avoided it for a long time so who knows how long 20 or 30 people have been making money out of these lies (lies which have now cost Enron Employees their pensions; the pension fund invested heavily in now worthless Enron stock).
Of course, I'm overstating my case somewhat here. Although one of the biggest corporate bodies in the world is being shown to have been run in a corrupt and inept manner, and although many members of the US government have been party to that corruption (up to and including George W. Bush who received numerous campaign contributions from Enron when he was the Governor of Texas) it is doubtful that that any of the main political players will suffer much. And as there is a still a war going on, who is really going to notice that their Government is in the pocket of big business? By the time the next election rolls around, will anyone remember the revelations that the men and women elected to represent the interests of the people are in fact lining their own pockets at the expense of those they serve? Or will they remember September 11th and the subsequent war that saw the evil upstarts of Al Quaida humbled by the might of the USA?
Doesn't it strike you as odd that one President almost loses his job for getting sucked off by a porker in the White House whilst another changes laws and amends taxes so that his rich friends can become mega rich whilst the taxpayers bear the burden, and yet will almost certainly remain unchallenged in his current office? After all, the things that Clinton made the press for were trivial on the grand scale of things whilst Bush is demonstratably behaving in a corrupt manner. But he won't make the mainstream press in quite the same way. Is this because Clinton made the mistake of telling little white lies whilst Bush delivers whoppers that would make Baron Munchausen blush?
I suspect that he's going to get away with it because of one of those little quirks of humanity that makes us such a thoroughly unpredictable bunch. We tend to like bastards. And the bigger the bastard, the worse the crime, and the more likely it is that the person will have a group of people (large of small) who admire what they did. Even the rest of us will almost certain feel a guilty stab of awe at what was done whilst we heartily condemn their actions. As a group we seem to be fascinated with evil, with the darker side of human nature. Although we do our best to distance ourselves from the evil that men do (we use such phrases as "Inhuman" or "He was like an animal" or "Depraved and bestial") our continuing interest in the crimes committed by some people (not to mention the fact the crimes keep on being committed) shows that evil is a most human quality indeed.
Let us take, for example, Adolf Hitler. Here is a man who still to this day is venerated by many hundreds of people. He has had more books written about his life than Mother Theresa. He has been the subject of films, TV programs, comedy, drama, and horror. He is the object of repeated and vigorous academic study. Yet this man is one of the most evil and hateful men ever to have walked the earth. And people admire him. Even those who don't will know more about the life of this profoundly malignant man than they will of, say, William Morton (the man who first used anaesthetic in a medical procedure in order to alleviate pain; without him medical science would have not been able to advance at the same rate and so many hundreds of thousands of people indirectly owe their lives to him).
It's not as if those apologists and revisionists of Hitler's Reich are trying to repaint the man as an innocent duped by those who served him, or a colossus of compassion whom history has misunderstood. If someone says that they admire what Hitler achieved, do you think that they admire the early years of his Winter Aid scheme which sought to ensure that Germans did not go hungry in Winter months by use of scheme's such as asking every comfortably off family to contribute the ingredients of one meal a week to give to the Nazi Party soup kitchens? Are they professing their desire to implement Hitler's vision of a meritocracy where everyone, regardless of background or social status (though not race and religion; Jew's and Christians were automatically excluded from this promised land), will get the same opportunities to better himself or herself throughout life? Of course not. They are invariably referring to the murder of 6 million Jews, the slaughter of the mentally and physically handicapped, the abandonment of the older generation to die, and of course the war-mongering and general hatred and contempt shown by Hitler to anyone who was not "Aryan". This is what has these shaven headed cheerleaders dancing for joy.
Now I accept that those worshippers of Hitler are a marginal group in this country. But they aren't so marginal in France (where the National Front is a powerful force in politics) or Austria (where Jorge Haider leads a semi fascistic party in government). So despite the fact that Hitler was a crank and madmen who engineered the most horrific atrocity in world history, large numbers of people still model themselves on his ideals.
Just look at recent history; there seem to be any number of young Moslem men who are willing to die for Bin Laden. What was it that attracted them to his cause? Was it the spiritual peace promised by Islam? Or was it the promise of inflicting humiliation on the US and of course Israel together with the opportunity for violence and bloodshed? They admire Bin Laden because he dares to commit horrific acts on a grand scale. And lest we sneer at them for being uneducated fanatics bear in mind that Time Magazine gave serious thought to naming Bin Laden their Man of the Year.
In closing I want to make it clear that I don't condemn or criticise our fascination with darkness (lord knows I would be the worst kind of hypocrite if I did; I've read about the deeds of countless serial killers, tyrants, and dictators) but I wish that we'd at least try to understand why it is that we are like that. There is something peculiar about a race of people that remember all of the horrors of WW2 but who forget almost entirely forget about the generosity of the US immediately afterwards (they loaned money to Germany, Japan, Britain, and Italy thus ensuring that all of those countries could afford to rebuild themselves. To the best of my knowledge we haven't repaid it all and America are not pressing us for it). I'll bet you've heard of Ted Bundy, Harold Shipman, and Jeffrey Dahmer, but who has heard of Kimberly Leach, Kathleen Grundy, or Raymond Smith? The former killed all of the latter, but who's memory will live on. If we are a sick society for venerating these people, wouldn't it be best to find out why so that we can perhaps cure the social disease?
So the War Against Terror rumbles on into the New Year and, just as in WWI, promises of it being all over by Christmas have proved empty. Though the Taliban is a spent force and Al Quaida are broken and running only a hopeless optimist would say that it is all over. Yet it has been worth it; in the last few weeks a thoroughly corrupt regime has been exposed for what it was. The words and promises of its leaders are being shown to have been hollow and empty. And so a regime that preaches war to those who oppose it's will and by it's own admission cares not a bit for the basic rights of the men that fought against it is facing extremely tough times. No, I don't mean the Taliban but the US Government which is facing it's own problems involving the Enron Energy Scandal.
To briefly summarise; Enron's accountants lied about the profits the company could expect to make, thus the share prices went up. When the stench of cooked books began to give the game away Enron's share price plummeted (they have lost 99% of their share value since the revelations; that amounts to about $60 billion). The company executives have also been busy little beavers; salting away debts in offshore funds to conceal them from prying eyes and destroying thousands of documents that may or may not have been incriminating. This was all found out during an independent audit. An audit, which Enron, with the help and connivance of its friends in government, had done, it's utmost to avoid. Indeed, it had avoided it for a long time so who knows how long 20 or 30 people have been making money out of these lies (lies which have now cost Enron Employees their pensions; the pension fund invested heavily in now worthless Enron stock).
Of course, I'm overstating my case somewhat here. Although one of the biggest corporate bodies in the world is being shown to have been run in a corrupt and inept manner, and although many members of the US government have been party to that corruption (up to and including George W. Bush who received numerous campaign contributions from Enron when he was the Governor of Texas) it is doubtful that that any of the main political players will suffer much. And as there is a still a war going on, who is really going to notice that their Government is in the pocket of big business? By the time the next election rolls around, will anyone remember the revelations that the men and women elected to represent the interests of the people are in fact lining their own pockets at the expense of those they serve? Or will they remember September 11th and the subsequent war that saw the evil upstarts of Al Quaida humbled by the might of the USA?
Doesn't it strike you as odd that one President almost loses his job for getting sucked off by a porker in the White House whilst another changes laws and amends taxes so that his rich friends can become mega rich whilst the taxpayers bear the burden, and yet will almost certainly remain unchallenged in his current office? After all, the things that Clinton made the press for were trivial on the grand scale of things whilst Bush is demonstratably behaving in a corrupt manner. But he won't make the mainstream press in quite the same way. Is this because Clinton made the mistake of telling little white lies whilst Bush delivers whoppers that would make Baron Munchausen blush?
I suspect that he's going to get away with it because of one of those little quirks of humanity that makes us such a thoroughly unpredictable bunch. We tend to like bastards. And the bigger the bastard, the worse the crime, and the more likely it is that the person will have a group of people (large of small) who admire what they did. Even the rest of us will almost certain feel a guilty stab of awe at what was done whilst we heartily condemn their actions. As a group we seem to be fascinated with evil, with the darker side of human nature. Although we do our best to distance ourselves from the evil that men do (we use such phrases as "Inhuman" or "He was like an animal" or "Depraved and bestial") our continuing interest in the crimes committed by some people (not to mention the fact the crimes keep on being committed) shows that evil is a most human quality indeed.
Let us take, for example, Adolf Hitler. Here is a man who still to this day is venerated by many hundreds of people. He has had more books written about his life than Mother Theresa. He has been the subject of films, TV programs, comedy, drama, and horror. He is the object of repeated and vigorous academic study. Yet this man is one of the most evil and hateful men ever to have walked the earth. And people admire him. Even those who don't will know more about the life of this profoundly malignant man than they will of, say, William Morton (the man who first used anaesthetic in a medical procedure in order to alleviate pain; without him medical science would have not been able to advance at the same rate and so many hundreds of thousands of people indirectly owe their lives to him).
It's not as if those apologists and revisionists of Hitler's Reich are trying to repaint the man as an innocent duped by those who served him, or a colossus of compassion whom history has misunderstood. If someone says that they admire what Hitler achieved, do you think that they admire the early years of his Winter Aid scheme which sought to ensure that Germans did not go hungry in Winter months by use of scheme's such as asking every comfortably off family to contribute the ingredients of one meal a week to give to the Nazi Party soup kitchens? Are they professing their desire to implement Hitler's vision of a meritocracy where everyone, regardless of background or social status (though not race and religion; Jew's and Christians were automatically excluded from this promised land), will get the same opportunities to better himself or herself throughout life? Of course not. They are invariably referring to the murder of 6 million Jews, the slaughter of the mentally and physically handicapped, the abandonment of the older generation to die, and of course the war-mongering and general hatred and contempt shown by Hitler to anyone who was not "Aryan". This is what has these shaven headed cheerleaders dancing for joy.
Now I accept that those worshippers of Hitler are a marginal group in this country. But they aren't so marginal in France (where the National Front is a powerful force in politics) or Austria (where Jorge Haider leads a semi fascistic party in government). So despite the fact that Hitler was a crank and madmen who engineered the most horrific atrocity in world history, large numbers of people still model themselves on his ideals.
Just look at recent history; there seem to be any number of young Moslem men who are willing to die for Bin Laden. What was it that attracted them to his cause? Was it the spiritual peace promised by Islam? Or was it the promise of inflicting humiliation on the US and of course Israel together with the opportunity for violence and bloodshed? They admire Bin Laden because he dares to commit horrific acts on a grand scale. And lest we sneer at them for being uneducated fanatics bear in mind that Time Magazine gave serious thought to naming Bin Laden their Man of the Year.
In closing I want to make it clear that I don't condemn or criticise our fascination with darkness (lord knows I would be the worst kind of hypocrite if I did; I've read about the deeds of countless serial killers, tyrants, and dictators) but I wish that we'd at least try to understand why it is that we are like that. There is something peculiar about a race of people that remember all of the horrors of WW2 but who forget almost entirely forget about the generosity of the US immediately afterwards (they loaned money to Germany, Japan, Britain, and Italy thus ensuring that all of those countries could afford to rebuild themselves. To the best of my knowledge we haven't repaid it all and America are not pressing us for it). I'll bet you've heard of Ted Bundy, Harold Shipman, and Jeffrey Dahmer, but who has heard of Kimberly Leach, Kathleen Grundy, or Raymond Smith? The former killed all of the latter, but who's memory will live on. If we are a sick society for venerating these people, wouldn't it be best to find out why so that we can perhaps cure the social disease?
Monday, 14 January 2002
Not what it seems
It is of course extremely tempting to talk about Dubya's timely pretzel related reminder that he is not a superhuman immortal leader of a mighty warrior nation but, in fact, a recovering alcoholic with questionable intellect, poor grammar, and a level of stupidity so high that even harmless bar snacks can be a lethal to him ("Ok Mr. President, we don't want any more scares like that now, do we? Now, if you'll observe the demonstration and make notes then hopefully you'll be a lot safer. Now then; place the pretzel in your mouth...that's good...now chew...good...ok, and now swallow...Mr. President? MR PRESIDENT? Ahh shit, some salted peanuts must have got lodged in his throat. Can somebody call 911?").
It's also testing my willpower not to mention young Prince Harry's weekend of revealed depravity. Once again though, despite providing frankly the strangest set of Sunday Newspaper headlines that I've ever seen (did anyone else think it was a joke I wonder?) I would contest that his personal popularity will increase. After all, if a possible future British King has been spending his teenage years not only getting drunk and stoned but also finding the time to throw insults at a Frenchman...well, that just shows how the younger Royals are firmly in tune with the general populace.
Instead I'd rather like to have a look at a couple of stories from a slightly skewed perspective. The main things I want to look at are the problem with Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan ( I'm afraid that, unlike Dubya I shan't be referring to them as Paki's at any point so if you have any National Front tendencies then you'll be disappointed...) and the efforts of President Mugabe in Zimbabwe to ensure that he continues his tenure as President.
Pakistan is a country that has been much maligned in the British consciousness. Anybody over the age of 20 will remember the variations on the cry of "Paki bashing" with a shudder. They are also a country whose recent history has been a confused and turbulent time. They have gone from the Military Dictatorship of General Zia Ul Haq to the most corrupt democracy in the world before returning to military dictatorship in the guise of General Pervez Musharraf. Since September 11th the latter has become "one of the boys" again due to his support for the US War on Terror. However, in recent weeks he has been acting in the kind of autocratic manner that Idi Amin would recognise and be proud of.
You may have seen the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament a few weeks ago. I say "may have" because despite being one of the most appalling terrorist atrocities in memory it happened "over there" and so it garnered little interest among the public (of course, if a bunch of crazed fools attacked Parliament in a suicide mission then, aside from our fervent thanks, they would have received press coverage that would have lasted until 2007). India was rightly incensed and demanded that Pakistan do something. As both sides in that simmering little tiff have nuclear weapons most people have welcomed Musharraf's arrest of numerous "terror" groups.
However if we look a little further at this then it ceases to be something so clear cut and simple. Pakistan has a great history of allowing freedom of religion for the numerous Moslem schools (talibs) there. These talibs provide an education for hundreds of thousands of people who quite simply would not have access to school otherwise. And yet Musharraf seeks to deny these people the benefit of an education simply so that he can consolidate his hold on power and crush one of the most powerful dissenting voices in his illegal reign. He is seeking to close down hundreds of these talibs on the unsupported claim that they are behind the attack on the Indian Parliament. Whilst there is no doubt that some of these schools do in fact produce people who's version of Islam would probably have horrified the Prophet had he heard them, there is absolutely no evidence that they are "training grounds for terrorists" as claimed by Musharraf. Indeed, one would have thought that if this were the case then he would be parading the numerous caches of weapons and terror training material that had been found at the schools. And has there been any such event? No. Do you know why? Because the assertion of the Pakistani military is what is known in the common parlance as "a lie". What in fact has been found is...well, more copies of the Koran than even the most devout Muslim could need.... and that's about it really. Not exactly a major threat to world peace (unless you're one of those tiresome little people who thinks that Islam is the biggest threat to world peace since Communism. In which case stop reading this, go away, and shoot yourself. In the head. Make sure you don't miss).
President Musharraf's goal is fairly straightforward; under the cloak of a War against Terrorism he is ensuring that perhaps millions of ordinary Pakistani's will have only the most basic and rudimentary education. He is crushing dissent against his reign and is doing so with the blessing of the west. Once the eyes of the world are turned away from Pakistan (which they will as soon as we are shown something else to distract us) he will have a compliant country that will not raise too many questions or arguments. International criticism will be muted to silence because of their support for the US in their hour of need. If we're really lucky he may even go completely power mad and attempt something along the lines of Pol Pot's Year 0.
Now then; Zimbabwe. There are Presidential elections due there in March of this year and they promise to be a close run thing. The election is between the current President, Robert Mugabe and his challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai. There has been much talk about how Mugabe is behaving in a dictatorial and thuggish manner due to his recent media gagging of certain dissenting voices. However, the more I look at the situation the more I am convinced that it is just not that simple.
For example, the taking of land from white farmers and redistributing it among the black population. This is repeatedly held up as an example of Mugabe's tyranny. Yet all he is doing is delivering on a promise that should have been kept many years before. Zimbabwe of course used to be Rhodesia before Ian Smith's autocratic and racist government fell and was replaced by a more representative rule. At that point Zimbabwe closely resembled Apartheid era South Africa in that the white people held 95% of the land and wealth whilst making up a tiny minority of the population. It was in 1979 that the first free and fair elections took place in Zimbabwe. The black population must have thought that there would be a new era of equality being ushered in. Yet they were wrong. It is over 20 years later and still a few white men own the majority of farmland. Are we really condemning a man for wishing to see justice that has been too long delayed finally being done?
And so we must look at the numerous accusations that have been levelled against Mugabe in a new light. For example, his socialism immediately counts against him on the international stage. We live in a world ruled by self-serving pragmatists and to have any sort of ideals or principles is regarded as faintly embarrassing at best by the worlds elite. Yet Mugabe is unflinchingly and unselfishly committed to a fairer society in Zimbabwe and is unconcerned as to whether or not he offends "right-on" sensibilities in the western world. Liberals the world over have criticised Zimbabwe this weekend; the army has been pilloried for it's declaration that it will only accept a Mugabe victory in the election. Mugabe himself is painted in tyrannical colours for closing down newspapers and banning gatherings by the opposition. Yet it just takes a few pen strokes to change the unfair accusations that have been thrown his way. The army's declaration, far from evidence of despotism, is in fact the most ringing endorsement that I could imagine. The army are clearly so concerned at the possibilities for corruption, disorder, and pandering to foreign whims that an opposition victory would bring that they have taken the unprecedented step of publicly supporting their current leader.
As to the controls imposed on the opposition and media...well, one criticism I will make of Mugabe is that he is not particularly media savvy. His opponents however are, and know how best to use the "free" press (as fine a collection of rabble rousing amoral hacks as would grace any nation's hallowed halls of journalism) to their own advantage. The current instability in the region is due entirely to this motley collection of agitators doing their very best to magnify the complaints of a few into a worldwide movement against the man who seeks to give Zimbabwe a taste of the equality and justice that socialism can provide if put into practice effectively. And could we really trust international observers to be evenhanded in their reports of the upcoming election? Not when someone who has the potential to be a first class toady for the west is one of the candidates.
In both of these countries, hopefully the truth will win out.
Incidentally, if you found yourself agreeing with a single thing I said then I have to say that I am most disappointed. I no more believe the above stream of drivel than I believe Elvis is alive and well and living in Woking. It's certainly challenging trying to either praise something you despise or criticise something that is a bloody good thing. Still, I enjoyed it....
It's also testing my willpower not to mention young Prince Harry's weekend of revealed depravity. Once again though, despite providing frankly the strangest set of Sunday Newspaper headlines that I've ever seen (did anyone else think it was a joke I wonder?) I would contest that his personal popularity will increase. After all, if a possible future British King has been spending his teenage years not only getting drunk and stoned but also finding the time to throw insults at a Frenchman...well, that just shows how the younger Royals are firmly in tune with the general populace.
Instead I'd rather like to have a look at a couple of stories from a slightly skewed perspective. The main things I want to look at are the problem with Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan ( I'm afraid that, unlike Dubya I shan't be referring to them as Paki's at any point so if you have any National Front tendencies then you'll be disappointed...) and the efforts of President Mugabe in Zimbabwe to ensure that he continues his tenure as President.
Pakistan is a country that has been much maligned in the British consciousness. Anybody over the age of 20 will remember the variations on the cry of "Paki bashing" with a shudder. They are also a country whose recent history has been a confused and turbulent time. They have gone from the Military Dictatorship of General Zia Ul Haq to the most corrupt democracy in the world before returning to military dictatorship in the guise of General Pervez Musharraf. Since September 11th the latter has become "one of the boys" again due to his support for the US War on Terror. However, in recent weeks he has been acting in the kind of autocratic manner that Idi Amin would recognise and be proud of.
You may have seen the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament a few weeks ago. I say "may have" because despite being one of the most appalling terrorist atrocities in memory it happened "over there" and so it garnered little interest among the public (of course, if a bunch of crazed fools attacked Parliament in a suicide mission then, aside from our fervent thanks, they would have received press coverage that would have lasted until 2007). India was rightly incensed and demanded that Pakistan do something. As both sides in that simmering little tiff have nuclear weapons most people have welcomed Musharraf's arrest of numerous "terror" groups.
However if we look a little further at this then it ceases to be something so clear cut and simple. Pakistan has a great history of allowing freedom of religion for the numerous Moslem schools (talibs) there. These talibs provide an education for hundreds of thousands of people who quite simply would not have access to school otherwise. And yet Musharraf seeks to deny these people the benefit of an education simply so that he can consolidate his hold on power and crush one of the most powerful dissenting voices in his illegal reign. He is seeking to close down hundreds of these talibs on the unsupported claim that they are behind the attack on the Indian Parliament. Whilst there is no doubt that some of these schools do in fact produce people who's version of Islam would probably have horrified the Prophet had he heard them, there is absolutely no evidence that they are "training grounds for terrorists" as claimed by Musharraf. Indeed, one would have thought that if this were the case then he would be parading the numerous caches of weapons and terror training material that had been found at the schools. And has there been any such event? No. Do you know why? Because the assertion of the Pakistani military is what is known in the common parlance as "a lie". What in fact has been found is...well, more copies of the Koran than even the most devout Muslim could need.... and that's about it really. Not exactly a major threat to world peace (unless you're one of those tiresome little people who thinks that Islam is the biggest threat to world peace since Communism. In which case stop reading this, go away, and shoot yourself. In the head. Make sure you don't miss).
President Musharraf's goal is fairly straightforward; under the cloak of a War against Terrorism he is ensuring that perhaps millions of ordinary Pakistani's will have only the most basic and rudimentary education. He is crushing dissent against his reign and is doing so with the blessing of the west. Once the eyes of the world are turned away from Pakistan (which they will as soon as we are shown something else to distract us) he will have a compliant country that will not raise too many questions or arguments. International criticism will be muted to silence because of their support for the US in their hour of need. If we're really lucky he may even go completely power mad and attempt something along the lines of Pol Pot's Year 0.
Now then; Zimbabwe. There are Presidential elections due there in March of this year and they promise to be a close run thing. The election is between the current President, Robert Mugabe and his challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai. There has been much talk about how Mugabe is behaving in a dictatorial and thuggish manner due to his recent media gagging of certain dissenting voices. However, the more I look at the situation the more I am convinced that it is just not that simple.
For example, the taking of land from white farmers and redistributing it among the black population. This is repeatedly held up as an example of Mugabe's tyranny. Yet all he is doing is delivering on a promise that should have been kept many years before. Zimbabwe of course used to be Rhodesia before Ian Smith's autocratic and racist government fell and was replaced by a more representative rule. At that point Zimbabwe closely resembled Apartheid era South Africa in that the white people held 95% of the land and wealth whilst making up a tiny minority of the population. It was in 1979 that the first free and fair elections took place in Zimbabwe. The black population must have thought that there would be a new era of equality being ushered in. Yet they were wrong. It is over 20 years later and still a few white men own the majority of farmland. Are we really condemning a man for wishing to see justice that has been too long delayed finally being done?
And so we must look at the numerous accusations that have been levelled against Mugabe in a new light. For example, his socialism immediately counts against him on the international stage. We live in a world ruled by self-serving pragmatists and to have any sort of ideals or principles is regarded as faintly embarrassing at best by the worlds elite. Yet Mugabe is unflinchingly and unselfishly committed to a fairer society in Zimbabwe and is unconcerned as to whether or not he offends "right-on" sensibilities in the western world. Liberals the world over have criticised Zimbabwe this weekend; the army has been pilloried for it's declaration that it will only accept a Mugabe victory in the election. Mugabe himself is painted in tyrannical colours for closing down newspapers and banning gatherings by the opposition. Yet it just takes a few pen strokes to change the unfair accusations that have been thrown his way. The army's declaration, far from evidence of despotism, is in fact the most ringing endorsement that I could imagine. The army are clearly so concerned at the possibilities for corruption, disorder, and pandering to foreign whims that an opposition victory would bring that they have taken the unprecedented step of publicly supporting their current leader.
As to the controls imposed on the opposition and media...well, one criticism I will make of Mugabe is that he is not particularly media savvy. His opponents however are, and know how best to use the "free" press (as fine a collection of rabble rousing amoral hacks as would grace any nation's hallowed halls of journalism) to their own advantage. The current instability in the region is due entirely to this motley collection of agitators doing their very best to magnify the complaints of a few into a worldwide movement against the man who seeks to give Zimbabwe a taste of the equality and justice that socialism can provide if put into practice effectively. And could we really trust international observers to be evenhanded in their reports of the upcoming election? Not when someone who has the potential to be a first class toady for the west is one of the candidates.
In both of these countries, hopefully the truth will win out.
Incidentally, if you found yourself agreeing with a single thing I said then I have to say that I am most disappointed. I no more believe the above stream of drivel than I believe Elvis is alive and well and living in Woking. It's certainly challenging trying to either praise something you despise or criticise something that is a bloody good thing. Still, I enjoyed it....
Monday, 7 January 2002
Self Pity
Note to self: Do NOT write rants when one has just ended a long term relationship. On an altogether happier note, I'm now married to a lady utterly unlike the one who caused this rant, in that she's both beautiful and sane.
You would have thought that if a person were responsible for causing you more mental anguish and distress than any other human being on the face of the planet that you would take steps to avoid that person, or to cut them out of your life. You would think that perhaps when that person says something for the umpteenth time before going on to behave in a manner that would suggest that they actually feel the exact opposite of what they have said that you would stop believing that person. What you would not expect of intelligent and (sometimes pathologically) rational people is to allow themselves to go back for more time and time again. Nor would you expect someone who is a good person who genuinely cares for me to keep doing this over and over. If it's any help, I promise that this will be my last rant about love and relationships as I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the whole deal smells rather worse than a Leeds footballer's alibi.
Anyway, this is going to be rather more personal than most of my rants. If the sight of a grown man trying to understand why his relationship has turned out the way it has makes you feel sick then I really would advise you to stop reading now. It's not all about me though; I'm not the only person in History to have an emotional blind spot when it comes to one's partner/ex-partner. After all, anyone who has seen the string of spouses of the great and good who grimly and glumly vow to stand by their partner despite how much it clearly pains them will recognise at least some parts of this. Certainly I find that I have more sympathy now for the like of Alan Clarke's wife, or Ted Hughes. Hell even Sylvia Plath's short life is no longer the impenetrable "but what drove her to that?" mess that it once was.
Hm, I'm rambling aren't I? Right, I suppose that I had better start putting my thoughts in order and write something that perhaps you may want to read without getting faintly embarrassed on my behalf. I should make it clear that I'm not writing this in the hope of some sympathy. Frankly I find the awkward expressions of emotion that accompany any English person's attempt to show understanding somewhat uncomfortable. What I do want is at least some small grain of understanding about why 2 people who are sensible and intelligent and who admit to having some feeling for each other are able to effortlessly make each other feel like lukewarm shit.
So then; my fiancée and I broke up over a year ago. Nothing particularly unusual there. Relationships implode every day and as things go, ours was fairly civilised. There was no marriage to muddy the waters or children to complicate things. Just 2 people who reluctantly agreed that they really weren't good for each other as a couple and would try to stay friends with each other. All well and good. Lord, if only Kurt and Courtney had come to this solution then perhaps he would still be writing his music (better still, perhaps she wouldn't). Okay, so that was 14 months ago. What *should* have happened since then is that, after some time apart to adjust to not being a couple, we continue through life as the very good friends that we were and still to this day are. However as life is rarely simple this is of course not the case. Remaining friends is remarkably easy, it's the fact that we both still feel very strongly for each other that's the problem. We are both stuck in the most appalling catch 22; I want to move on and find someone else but I can't because of how I feel about my former fiancée. Nobody in their right mind will take the risk of a relationship with me for the very same reason.
The main problem is that whenever we spend any substantial period of time together, we fall for each other again. Simple as that. However, although our breakup was amicable, the circumstances that led to it were (for want of a better phrase) pretty fucking horrendous. So when we're together the bad memories come flooding back with the good and, rather than perhaps acknowledge the awful problems that we both encountered and either A: Call it a day forever or B: learn from them and try and move on together, instead one or both of us freak out and do something reasonably dreadful to the other. In the last year we've dealt with one screaming row that saw the house being smashed up, flings with people who have exploited our admittedly fragile mental state for the purposes of their own ego, the glorious sight of an illicit kiss shared with a best friend, and not to forget a sustained bout of accepting that we were meant to be together...until next week when we meet someone else. Interesting times indeed.
Now maybe you're reading this (assuming that you're still with me) and thinking that I'm like some sort of raw nerve. Perhaps you think I'm an immature and whining little shit. Yet the fact is that it is not just us who do this to ourselves. I have seen friends make a conscientious and sustained effort to flog a dead horse of a relationship beyond the limits of emotional endurance. I have seen others acting genuinely hurt and confused when something goes wrong in a relationship despite the fact that pretty much everybody else knew what was coming. Christ, I've ran a sweepstake at a wedding on how long a friends marriage will last! Not out of cruelty or callousness (although it was quite funny) but because a lot of people were less than enthusiastic about this couple's future together. It occurs to me that Shakespeare was guilty of the worst kind of ambiguity when he said that the path of true love never runs smoothly. I agree that it doesn't, but how does one tell what is true love and what is plainly a doomed affair from the beginning?
For example, let's go back to the aforementioned Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. These two poets, a British man and American woman, were a couple back in the 1950's and 60's. Although their relationship was fiery and tempestuous, no one doubted the depth of their feeling for each other. A miscarriage led to the two splitting up as they couldn't cope with this event. Less than a year later she was dead by her own hand and Hughes turned in on himself, living a life of solitude broken by the occasional joyless fling. For all that there is tragedy dripping from this sorry tale, I would say that these two were truly in love with each other.
Now contrast that with the never-ending stream of Hollywood tittle-tattle and gossip; who is with whom, who has broken up, who has got back together again. None of it runs very smoothly at all, but I would imagine that love has very little to do with the emotional ups and downs of these pampered people. Publicity, hormones, and the need for attention are probably the true driving force there.
In any event, I'm not going to presume to state my case for whether what my ex and I are going through is true love or something altogether more trivial. What I am saying is that to love someone is probably the most difficult thing for anyone to do. We are all brought up on fairy stories and slushy tales where the princess and prince live happily ever after, or where 2 people are struck by a thunderbolt at the sight of one another and the rest is mere details. I'm not stating anything that anyone doesn't already know by saying what absolute unforgivable bullshit this is. We had to work bloody hard at our relationship. Not because of a lack of love but because the rest of the universe intrudes on your life whether you like it or not. And should you feel the urge to scream out "This isn't fair!" you may just hear the universe answering "Oh. Isn't it? And what do you want *me* to do about it?". Nowadays the amount of effort that we would both need to put in to try again is currently far too frightening for us to be able to say that we could honestly try. So yes, we tried hard to make things work out so where the fuck is our fairytale ending?
You would have thought that if a person were responsible for causing you more mental anguish and distress than any other human being on the face of the planet that you would take steps to avoid that person, or to cut them out of your life. You would think that perhaps when that person says something for the umpteenth time before going on to behave in a manner that would suggest that they actually feel the exact opposite of what they have said that you would stop believing that person. What you would not expect of intelligent and (sometimes pathologically) rational people is to allow themselves to go back for more time and time again. Nor would you expect someone who is a good person who genuinely cares for me to keep doing this over and over. If it's any help, I promise that this will be my last rant about love and relationships as I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the whole deal smells rather worse than a Leeds footballer's alibi.
Anyway, this is going to be rather more personal than most of my rants. If the sight of a grown man trying to understand why his relationship has turned out the way it has makes you feel sick then I really would advise you to stop reading now. It's not all about me though; I'm not the only person in History to have an emotional blind spot when it comes to one's partner/ex-partner. After all, anyone who has seen the string of spouses of the great and good who grimly and glumly vow to stand by their partner despite how much it clearly pains them will recognise at least some parts of this. Certainly I find that I have more sympathy now for the like of Alan Clarke's wife, or Ted Hughes. Hell even Sylvia Plath's short life is no longer the impenetrable "but what drove her to that?" mess that it once was.
Hm, I'm rambling aren't I? Right, I suppose that I had better start putting my thoughts in order and write something that perhaps you may want to read without getting faintly embarrassed on my behalf. I should make it clear that I'm not writing this in the hope of some sympathy. Frankly I find the awkward expressions of emotion that accompany any English person's attempt to show understanding somewhat uncomfortable. What I do want is at least some small grain of understanding about why 2 people who are sensible and intelligent and who admit to having some feeling for each other are able to effortlessly make each other feel like lukewarm shit.
So then; my fiancée and I broke up over a year ago. Nothing particularly unusual there. Relationships implode every day and as things go, ours was fairly civilised. There was no marriage to muddy the waters or children to complicate things. Just 2 people who reluctantly agreed that they really weren't good for each other as a couple and would try to stay friends with each other. All well and good. Lord, if only Kurt and Courtney had come to this solution then perhaps he would still be writing his music (better still, perhaps she wouldn't). Okay, so that was 14 months ago. What *should* have happened since then is that, after some time apart to adjust to not being a couple, we continue through life as the very good friends that we were and still to this day are. However as life is rarely simple this is of course not the case. Remaining friends is remarkably easy, it's the fact that we both still feel very strongly for each other that's the problem. We are both stuck in the most appalling catch 22; I want to move on and find someone else but I can't because of how I feel about my former fiancée. Nobody in their right mind will take the risk of a relationship with me for the very same reason.
The main problem is that whenever we spend any substantial period of time together, we fall for each other again. Simple as that. However, although our breakup was amicable, the circumstances that led to it were (for want of a better phrase) pretty fucking horrendous. So when we're together the bad memories come flooding back with the good and, rather than perhaps acknowledge the awful problems that we both encountered and either A: Call it a day forever or B: learn from them and try and move on together, instead one or both of us freak out and do something reasonably dreadful to the other. In the last year we've dealt with one screaming row that saw the house being smashed up, flings with people who have exploited our admittedly fragile mental state for the purposes of their own ego, the glorious sight of an illicit kiss shared with a best friend, and not to forget a sustained bout of accepting that we were meant to be together...until next week when we meet someone else. Interesting times indeed.
Now maybe you're reading this (assuming that you're still with me) and thinking that I'm like some sort of raw nerve. Perhaps you think I'm an immature and whining little shit. Yet the fact is that it is not just us who do this to ourselves. I have seen friends make a conscientious and sustained effort to flog a dead horse of a relationship beyond the limits of emotional endurance. I have seen others acting genuinely hurt and confused when something goes wrong in a relationship despite the fact that pretty much everybody else knew what was coming. Christ, I've ran a sweepstake at a wedding on how long a friends marriage will last! Not out of cruelty or callousness (although it was quite funny) but because a lot of people were less than enthusiastic about this couple's future together. It occurs to me that Shakespeare was guilty of the worst kind of ambiguity when he said that the path of true love never runs smoothly. I agree that it doesn't, but how does one tell what is true love and what is plainly a doomed affair from the beginning?
For example, let's go back to the aforementioned Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. These two poets, a British man and American woman, were a couple back in the 1950's and 60's. Although their relationship was fiery and tempestuous, no one doubted the depth of their feeling for each other. A miscarriage led to the two splitting up as they couldn't cope with this event. Less than a year later she was dead by her own hand and Hughes turned in on himself, living a life of solitude broken by the occasional joyless fling. For all that there is tragedy dripping from this sorry tale, I would say that these two were truly in love with each other.
Now contrast that with the never-ending stream of Hollywood tittle-tattle and gossip; who is with whom, who has broken up, who has got back together again. None of it runs very smoothly at all, but I would imagine that love has very little to do with the emotional ups and downs of these pampered people. Publicity, hormones, and the need for attention are probably the true driving force there.
In any event, I'm not going to presume to state my case for whether what my ex and I are going through is true love or something altogether more trivial. What I am saying is that to love someone is probably the most difficult thing for anyone to do. We are all brought up on fairy stories and slushy tales where the princess and prince live happily ever after, or where 2 people are struck by a thunderbolt at the sight of one another and the rest is mere details. I'm not stating anything that anyone doesn't already know by saying what absolute unforgivable bullshit this is. We had to work bloody hard at our relationship. Not because of a lack of love but because the rest of the universe intrudes on your life whether you like it or not. And should you feel the urge to scream out "This isn't fair!" you may just hear the universe answering "Oh. Isn't it? And what do you want *me* to do about it?". Nowadays the amount of effort that we would both need to put in to try again is currently far too frightening for us to be able to say that we could honestly try. So yes, we tried hard to make things work out so where the fuck is our fairytale ending?
Thursday, 3 January 2002
That was the Year that was
New year is always a time for looking back, and I'm no exception...
So what has been going on in the last year? Has anything I've said borne even the slightest resemblance to the affairs of the real world? Well, predictions about the Tory party aside I rather think that I've been fairly prescient about quite a few things. Other rants have been perhaps less relevant to life, the universe, and everything but at the end of the day, fuck 'em! I enjoyed writing them and that's sufficient for me!
I may as well start with the Tories actually. The one thing that I did get right was the demise of the Lord High Foetus himself, Mr. William Hague. However, seeing as the election was rather one sided I can't really claim any credit for predicting the results. That would be rather like sending Boy George to a Taliban meeting and 'predicting' that they might not get on. What I utterly failed to predict was the outcome of the subsequent leadership battle. My money would have been on Portillo or Clarke coming out on top rather than Ian Duncan Smith aka Darth Tory. Yet it appears that I failed to take a few key factors into account. The fact that Darth is a carbon copy of Hague (with a few key differences; he is taller and has less charisma...) seems to indicate that the Tories simply do not pay any attention to the electorate at all. Darth is continuing along much the same route as Hague did and if anything is even more right wing than his predecessor. So apparently the Tories don't think that their loss was the fault of their unelectable people and policies. No, they believe that we, the electorate, simply got it wrong. By elevating Darth to their head they see it as giving us another chance to make amends for our mistake in not electing them last time. And you thought *I* was arrogant...
I should also briefly touch on more unpleasant matters before moving on. Before summer I wrote a fairly meandering piece about the murder of children, lamenting how we all seemed to accept this less attractive element of the summer. And, as always, a murderous paedophile once again marked the long, hot summer days with a kidnap and murder leading to a broken little body being found a few days later. Now maybe it's just because I'm paying even more interest in the news these days, but the case of Roy Whiting and Sarah Payne seems to be different to all that have gone before. Mr. and Mrs. Payne are pressing for a change in the law to try and avoid a repeat of the anguish they suffered, and the mood of the country seems somehow different to how it was after previous kidnap/murders. People seem less willing to "...just fucking accept it" than they were before. Being the optimist that I am (!) one can only hope that these seeds of determination bear some fruit. Of course, if I were cynical I would point to the fact that not only did I have to check the internet for Sarah's name as I'd forgotten it after a few short weeks but that the law proposed by the Payne's, a copy of the USA's Megan's Law, doesn't actually work very well in America.
Internationally I suppose that there is only one event that preys on my mind. September 11th changed everything, but isn't curious how everything seems to be the same? Before Sept 11th I wrote about Israel's persecution of the Palestinians, Dubya's Son of Star Wars project being absolutely toss all use against a terrorist attack, abuses of power in the UK and US which lead to important negotiations and other events which we have a right to know about being kept secret, about how there was one rule for the rich nations and one for the poor, and all the other sort of things that get on my liberal bloody nerves. I now look forward to a year of writing about the advent of full scale civil war in Israel, Dubya explaining how the terrorist attack couldn't have been prevented by the Son of Star Wars which proves how much we need it, the US and UK wanting to conduct the trials of senior Al Quaida and Taliban officials in private, and how it's simply not on for India to use the suicide attack on their parliament as an excuse to go to war with Pakistan but it's perfectly okay for the US to bomb Afghanistan for much the same thing. As a side issue, perhaps Dubya himself read my rant in the middle of August comparing the US administration to that of the Taliban (I sent it to the White House email address but alas I didn't receive a reply). I can only assume that his admiration for the Taliban was such that he felt the need to annex Afghanistan altogether...
Of course good things did rise from the ashes of the World Trade Centre (aside from the smug satisfaction I got from correctly naming him as the probable culprit a few hours after the event). Back in June I bitched in an epic manner about the lack of justice meted out to the various tyrants and dictators that litter the planet. At least now a couple of them are being made to sweat (Milosovic and Omar Mohammed; I wouldn't really like to be them right now!) although honesty compels me to acknowledge that the only reason for this is because they pissed off the big boys. Had they been sensible and limited themselves to the annihilation of their own people then they'd have been left alone to continue their deranged and genocidal policies freely. The people of America also went a long way to dispelling the myth that they are all a bunch of emotionally immature drama queens with their dignified response to the September 11th atrocity. Whilst the world held it's breath in expectation of the fury that we all felt sure would emerge we were instead greeted with the sights and sounds of a wounded nation genuinely puzzled at what it had done to make people hate it so much and, for the most part, seeking to understand what it was that motivated the hijackers so that any repetition could be avoided. Okay, admittedly it is a case of "This will make the world better for America, therefore it's a good idea" on the part of the US government, but frankly I'm more than willing to overlook the motivation if it generates the results. In any case it would be churlish to criticise a government solely on the grounds that they want to do more to protect their own citizens. Even if it does think of it's citizens as beer guzzling, TV addicted profit generators...
An interesting point has also been the role of religion in the recent conflict. I stated that I couldn't understand why people chose to put their faith in a particular dogma or tenet of religious faith. I concentrated on the different offshoots of Christianity, but Bin Laden et al are an equally good if not better example. Their particular brand of Islam is anti Semitic and anti progress. Both Sunni and Shi'a Islam urge respect toward Jews and Christians. The Moslem world was also the inheritor of the Greco-Roman cultural tradition of discovery during the Middle ages (a time when we were busy nailing people to bits of wood and setting fire to them for declaring that the earth went round the sun). It now occurs to me that these numerous quasi-religious sects and cults say more about the prejudices, beliefs, and mental state of their founders than about the nature of God.
Drugs have of course been interesting this year. Not in *that* respect (well...no more so than normal) but by the fact that the government faced calls in Parliament to decriminalise cannabis. Calls from (of all people) Peter Lilley, a Tory M.P. no less! And to an extent they responded. Dope is now a category C drug in the UK so you can still be arrested for possession with intent to supply and you can still lose your liberty, but if you're a casual user and are caught then confiscation and a warning should be the norm. Although this is still rather irritating as it means one will have to then go and buy some more, at least one will not have to do one's buying in prison. That said, I still don't think that the change in the law goes far enough as it has failed to remove the criminal element from the equation; if I want to get stoned I'm still lining the pocket of crime in order to do so.
Law and Order has also been a talking point; Thompson and Venables have thus far failed to produce the butchery of our nations youth that was predicted by the Sun and so discussions have began to focus on people who actually do present a credible risk to the public, although as I said earlier it remains to be seen whether anything really will change with regard to protecting the vulnerable from predatory criminals. There are no such concerns about protecting us from predatory Tories of course; dear old Jeff Archer is (to my delighted surprise) having rather a rough time of it in prison. The poor psychotic gent failed to be rated as trustworthy enough to warrant being 'imprisoned' in an open jail. So now he languishes in a category C world living a category C life. It's gratifying to see that the spirit of justice is not completely dead just yet.
As to my various statements of confusion about the world of love, dating, sex, and marriage...well to be honest I remain equally as perplexed and haven't yet seen (or done) anything to change my views there. Having seen my friends going through an odyssey of failures and bitterness I confess to finding the whole thing confusing. That said, my own love life has grown less complex and more fun and a very close friend whom I based the rant about the dating rule of Not Seeming Too Keen is now in fact very keen indeed on a particular chap and she is in the early stages of being blissfully happy. So perhaps the new year will see me less inclined to wax vitriolic about affairs of the heart. Or even just affairs.
I've enjoyed writing the 90 thousand odd words that have made up these rants and I'm hoping that you've enjoyed reading them, or at least got some kind of catharsis out of them. Here's to a year of interesting times. Cheers.
So what has been going on in the last year? Has anything I've said borne even the slightest resemblance to the affairs of the real world? Well, predictions about the Tory party aside I rather think that I've been fairly prescient about quite a few things. Other rants have been perhaps less relevant to life, the universe, and everything but at the end of the day, fuck 'em! I enjoyed writing them and that's sufficient for me!
I may as well start with the Tories actually. The one thing that I did get right was the demise of the Lord High Foetus himself, Mr. William Hague. However, seeing as the election was rather one sided I can't really claim any credit for predicting the results. That would be rather like sending Boy George to a Taliban meeting and 'predicting' that they might not get on. What I utterly failed to predict was the outcome of the subsequent leadership battle. My money would have been on Portillo or Clarke coming out on top rather than Ian Duncan Smith aka Darth Tory. Yet it appears that I failed to take a few key factors into account. The fact that Darth is a carbon copy of Hague (with a few key differences; he is taller and has less charisma...) seems to indicate that the Tories simply do not pay any attention to the electorate at all. Darth is continuing along much the same route as Hague did and if anything is even more right wing than his predecessor. So apparently the Tories don't think that their loss was the fault of their unelectable people and policies. No, they believe that we, the electorate, simply got it wrong. By elevating Darth to their head they see it as giving us another chance to make amends for our mistake in not electing them last time. And you thought *I* was arrogant...
I should also briefly touch on more unpleasant matters before moving on. Before summer I wrote a fairly meandering piece about the murder of children, lamenting how we all seemed to accept this less attractive element of the summer. And, as always, a murderous paedophile once again marked the long, hot summer days with a kidnap and murder leading to a broken little body being found a few days later. Now maybe it's just because I'm paying even more interest in the news these days, but the case of Roy Whiting and Sarah Payne seems to be different to all that have gone before. Mr. and Mrs. Payne are pressing for a change in the law to try and avoid a repeat of the anguish they suffered, and the mood of the country seems somehow different to how it was after previous kidnap/murders. People seem less willing to "...just fucking accept it" than they were before. Being the optimist that I am (!) one can only hope that these seeds of determination bear some fruit. Of course, if I were cynical I would point to the fact that not only did I have to check the internet for Sarah's name as I'd forgotten it after a few short weeks but that the law proposed by the Payne's, a copy of the USA's Megan's Law, doesn't actually work very well in America.
Internationally I suppose that there is only one event that preys on my mind. September 11th changed everything, but isn't curious how everything seems to be the same? Before Sept 11th I wrote about Israel's persecution of the Palestinians, Dubya's Son of Star Wars project being absolutely toss all use against a terrorist attack, abuses of power in the UK and US which lead to important negotiations and other events which we have a right to know about being kept secret, about how there was one rule for the rich nations and one for the poor, and all the other sort of things that get on my liberal bloody nerves. I now look forward to a year of writing about the advent of full scale civil war in Israel, Dubya explaining how the terrorist attack couldn't have been prevented by the Son of Star Wars which proves how much we need it, the US and UK wanting to conduct the trials of senior Al Quaida and Taliban officials in private, and how it's simply not on for India to use the suicide attack on their parliament as an excuse to go to war with Pakistan but it's perfectly okay for the US to bomb Afghanistan for much the same thing. As a side issue, perhaps Dubya himself read my rant in the middle of August comparing the US administration to that of the Taliban (I sent it to the White House email address but alas I didn't receive a reply). I can only assume that his admiration for the Taliban was such that he felt the need to annex Afghanistan altogether...
Of course good things did rise from the ashes of the World Trade Centre (aside from the smug satisfaction I got from correctly naming him as the probable culprit a few hours after the event). Back in June I bitched in an epic manner about the lack of justice meted out to the various tyrants and dictators that litter the planet. At least now a couple of them are being made to sweat (Milosovic and Omar Mohammed; I wouldn't really like to be them right now!) although honesty compels me to acknowledge that the only reason for this is because they pissed off the big boys. Had they been sensible and limited themselves to the annihilation of their own people then they'd have been left alone to continue their deranged and genocidal policies freely. The people of America also went a long way to dispelling the myth that they are all a bunch of emotionally immature drama queens with their dignified response to the September 11th atrocity. Whilst the world held it's breath in expectation of the fury that we all felt sure would emerge we were instead greeted with the sights and sounds of a wounded nation genuinely puzzled at what it had done to make people hate it so much and, for the most part, seeking to understand what it was that motivated the hijackers so that any repetition could be avoided. Okay, admittedly it is a case of "This will make the world better for America, therefore it's a good idea" on the part of the US government, but frankly I'm more than willing to overlook the motivation if it generates the results. In any case it would be churlish to criticise a government solely on the grounds that they want to do more to protect their own citizens. Even if it does think of it's citizens as beer guzzling, TV addicted profit generators...
An interesting point has also been the role of religion in the recent conflict. I stated that I couldn't understand why people chose to put their faith in a particular dogma or tenet of religious faith. I concentrated on the different offshoots of Christianity, but Bin Laden et al are an equally good if not better example. Their particular brand of Islam is anti Semitic and anti progress. Both Sunni and Shi'a Islam urge respect toward Jews and Christians. The Moslem world was also the inheritor of the Greco-Roman cultural tradition of discovery during the Middle ages (a time when we were busy nailing people to bits of wood and setting fire to them for declaring that the earth went round the sun). It now occurs to me that these numerous quasi-religious sects and cults say more about the prejudices, beliefs, and mental state of their founders than about the nature of God.
Drugs have of course been interesting this year. Not in *that* respect (well...no more so than normal) but by the fact that the government faced calls in Parliament to decriminalise cannabis. Calls from (of all people) Peter Lilley, a Tory M.P. no less! And to an extent they responded. Dope is now a category C drug in the UK so you can still be arrested for possession with intent to supply and you can still lose your liberty, but if you're a casual user and are caught then confiscation and a warning should be the norm. Although this is still rather irritating as it means one will have to then go and buy some more, at least one will not have to do one's buying in prison. That said, I still don't think that the change in the law goes far enough as it has failed to remove the criminal element from the equation; if I want to get stoned I'm still lining the pocket of crime in order to do so.
Law and Order has also been a talking point; Thompson and Venables have thus far failed to produce the butchery of our nations youth that was predicted by the Sun and so discussions have began to focus on people who actually do present a credible risk to the public, although as I said earlier it remains to be seen whether anything really will change with regard to protecting the vulnerable from predatory criminals. There are no such concerns about protecting us from predatory Tories of course; dear old Jeff Archer is (to my delighted surprise) having rather a rough time of it in prison. The poor psychotic gent failed to be rated as trustworthy enough to warrant being 'imprisoned' in an open jail. So now he languishes in a category C world living a category C life. It's gratifying to see that the spirit of justice is not completely dead just yet.
As to my various statements of confusion about the world of love, dating, sex, and marriage...well to be honest I remain equally as perplexed and haven't yet seen (or done) anything to change my views there. Having seen my friends going through an odyssey of failures and bitterness I confess to finding the whole thing confusing. That said, my own love life has grown less complex and more fun and a very close friend whom I based the rant about the dating rule of Not Seeming Too Keen is now in fact very keen indeed on a particular chap and she is in the early stages of being blissfully happy. So perhaps the new year will see me less inclined to wax vitriolic about affairs of the heart. Or even just affairs.
I've enjoyed writing the 90 thousand odd words that have made up these rants and I'm hoping that you've enjoyed reading them, or at least got some kind of catharsis out of them. Here's to a year of interesting times. Cheers.
Friday, 14 December 2001
Sarahs Law
Now then; at this most festive of times the news has been pretty well dominated by war and murder. I don't really want to touch too much on the video of Bin Laden laughing and joking about the WTC atrocity except to say that A: The man is pig excrement given human form, and B: how long do you think it will be before some of the more extreme conspiracy kooks start saying that they know for a fact that the video was digitally created by the US Government in order to frame Bin Laden. Hey, if Hitler burned the Reichstag then Dubya must have been behind the WTC, right? Mm...
However the story that has set my mind racing has to be the shabby, sordid, and tragic death of Sarah Payne at the hands of Roy Whiting. It has emerged that Mr. Whiting had a previous conviction for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a young girl. He served 2 and half years for that and was released despite the grave misgivings of his parole officer. None of this was brought up at the trial. There is now a groundswell of public opinion behind a change in the law that would allow details of the accused's previous convictions to be given during a trial. There is also a strong body of support for Sarah's Law. Sarah's Law would be the British equivalent of Megan's Law in the US. In both cases, a young girl was abducted, raped, and murdered by a man with previous convictions for paedophilia that lived in the vicinity. No one in the area knew that the men were paedophiles. Megan's Law made the sex offender's register available for public inspection so that parents would know if a paedophile was moving into their area.
I've written before about the grotesque drama that is repeated year in year out whenever a child is abducted, and this is yet another breathtaking performance of that Danse Macabre. Yet it seems that perhaps we are not going to sit and accept it any more. There does seems to be a very real desire to do something concrete in order to put a stop to this. By the same token, there is an equal amount of opposition to some of the measures being called for. Why would anyone want to oppose something that could save lives and protect children from predatory throwbacks like Whiting? Well, they would oppose it for some very good reasons. Although they may not be enough to convince you that the 2 proposed changes to the law are a bad idea they are certainly enough to make one stop and think.
So firstly we must look at the proposed change to the laws of evidence; to allow details of previous convictions to be brought up at trial. Supporters of this measure say that there are numerous cases where someone has been acquitted by the jury who are then aghast to learn that the accused has a string of convictions for some remarkably similar offenses. "If the previous crimes are sufficiently similar to the ones they currently stand accused of" say supporters of this idea "then surely this is evidence that the person would commit the same crime again? A judge should have the discretion to allow these previous convictions and any relevant evidence from those cases to be presented to the jury in this case". This is a lucid and quite correct argument that falls down on only one small detail; we already have a law that allows this. The statute in question dates from 1898 and allows the use of "Similar Fact Evidence". The law states that if a previous crime or event bears a close similarity to the crime that the accused is currently charged with, then details of that previous crime or event can be put before the jury. Crucially, it is down to the judge's discretion whether or not to allow similar fact evidence (usually there is a pre-trial hearing to determine whether or not something is Similar Fact Evidence or just hearsay).
So if we already have the law, why has it never been used? Well, it has been used on a few fairly famous occasions. The Brides in the Bath case of the early 1900's saw George Smith accused of drowning his new bride in the bath of their honeymoon suite. Mr. Smith contended that his wife must have fallen asleep in the bath or suffered some other tragic mishap. 2 pieces of evidence secured his conviction; firstly there was a demonstration in the courtroom of just how Mr. Smith could have drowned his wife in the bath (the demonstration itself almost led to the death of the WPC sitting in the bath for the demonstration; the method Smith used, to hook one arm under her legs and another round her back and then whip her legs away from her so that she was flat on her back in the bath with her head underwater, was quite stunningly effective the rather embarrassed prosecution barrister explained as the semi conscious and spluttering WPC was carried from the court). The second was the admission of Similar Fact Evidence. The similar facts being that he had married twice before in the previous 2 years and both of his wives had drowned in the bath not long after their wedding.
There have been other cases where Similar fact evidence has been introduced (Rosemary West's trial for example), so if we have this law then why don't we make more use of it? I think partly because the judge has to rule on whether or not to allow the evidence to be admitted. Whilst it is extremely tempting to call them a bunch of bewigged and senile old farts who have a stuffy insistence on sticking to the letter of the law rather than to it's spirit, I don't think it's entirely their fault. Their hands are tied to a large extent by the law itself, which is very restrictive in what it will and will not allow as Similar Fact Evidence. And in all honesty, I really don't think that this is the best case to use as a justification for a change in the law. In the case of Roy Whiting I honestly don't think that I would have allowed his previous conviction to be raised had I been in the same position as the trial judge. Whilst it pointed to the undeniable fact that he is a vile and unpleasant pervert, it did not therefore prove that he was a murderer. The facts of the case did that.
Then of course we have the issue of Sarah's Law. I think everyone's gut feeling about this is pretty much the same; we have a right to know if there is a person in the area who could be a danger to our loved ones. You'll not get much of an argument out of me about the principle involved here. What you will get me arguing about is just how this law would be enacted. The worst case scenario is that we end up with the same level of frontier justice that reared it's ugly head when the News of the World ran their Paedophile naming and shaming campaign. A man who had the same name as one of the named paedophiles was hounded and threatened by his neighbours, a Welsh Paediatrician was driven from her home, and a man named Peter Phile was assaulted and set on fire by a group of residents (scarily enough, only one of those three examples was made up for the Brass Eye program satirising public and media reaction to paedophiles). The best case is that the public will not be whipped up into a frenzy by papers looking to boost their circulation and so access to the list will not lead to lynch mobs being formed.
Opponents of the law say that it will drive paedophiles underground and make it more difficult to track them. Why not just electronically tag them for the same length of time as they're on the sex offender’s register then? That way the authorities will know where they are at all times and a register can be lodged at police stations for inspection upon request. I suppose that Civil Libertarians will object to the principle, but I can't see them being able to sustain any call for the rights of a group of people than evoke such a strong reaction as paedophiles and sex offenders. Also, how come Roy Whiting was allowed to refuse any help or treatment to confront and perhaps help exorcise whatever demons drove him to kidnap and sexually assault that first young girl? Why wasn't it compulsory for him? And why do we release people who step forth into freedom still clinging to the notion that the child they abused was a willing partner? Surely it would be better for all concerned if sentencing for such crimes took the form of being sentenced to be detained at her majesty's pleasure (i.e. until a panel of psychiatrists, police officers, and members of the public are satisfied that he is no longer a danger)? I don't pretend that it will stop these crimes altogether but I think it would cut them down to a certain extent.
It seems to me that the media are portraying people who have any misgivings about the suggested changes in the law as loony lefties who put the rights of sex beasts above the rights of our children (if you have seen the episode of the Simpsons where the Reverend's wife repeatedly interjects with "But what about our children?!" in suitably distraught tones then you'll know what I'm driving at). This is toss. I would suggest that they are worried at the potential for people being convicted for a crime that they are innocent of purely on the basis that they had done something similar once before. They are also worried about people having their lives placed in danger because they are wrongly believed to be a paedophile. If those worries can be assuaged however then you'll find me cheering loudly as new laws to stop the never-ending stream of needless, meaningless deaths are introduced.
However the story that has set my mind racing has to be the shabby, sordid, and tragic death of Sarah Payne at the hands of Roy Whiting. It has emerged that Mr. Whiting had a previous conviction for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a young girl. He served 2 and half years for that and was released despite the grave misgivings of his parole officer. None of this was brought up at the trial. There is now a groundswell of public opinion behind a change in the law that would allow details of the accused's previous convictions to be given during a trial. There is also a strong body of support for Sarah's Law. Sarah's Law would be the British equivalent of Megan's Law in the US. In both cases, a young girl was abducted, raped, and murdered by a man with previous convictions for paedophilia that lived in the vicinity. No one in the area knew that the men were paedophiles. Megan's Law made the sex offender's register available for public inspection so that parents would know if a paedophile was moving into their area.
I've written before about the grotesque drama that is repeated year in year out whenever a child is abducted, and this is yet another breathtaking performance of that Danse Macabre. Yet it seems that perhaps we are not going to sit and accept it any more. There does seems to be a very real desire to do something concrete in order to put a stop to this. By the same token, there is an equal amount of opposition to some of the measures being called for. Why would anyone want to oppose something that could save lives and protect children from predatory throwbacks like Whiting? Well, they would oppose it for some very good reasons. Although they may not be enough to convince you that the 2 proposed changes to the law are a bad idea they are certainly enough to make one stop and think.
So firstly we must look at the proposed change to the laws of evidence; to allow details of previous convictions to be brought up at trial. Supporters of this measure say that there are numerous cases where someone has been acquitted by the jury who are then aghast to learn that the accused has a string of convictions for some remarkably similar offenses. "If the previous crimes are sufficiently similar to the ones they currently stand accused of" say supporters of this idea "then surely this is evidence that the person would commit the same crime again? A judge should have the discretion to allow these previous convictions and any relevant evidence from those cases to be presented to the jury in this case". This is a lucid and quite correct argument that falls down on only one small detail; we already have a law that allows this. The statute in question dates from 1898 and allows the use of "Similar Fact Evidence". The law states that if a previous crime or event bears a close similarity to the crime that the accused is currently charged with, then details of that previous crime or event can be put before the jury. Crucially, it is down to the judge's discretion whether or not to allow similar fact evidence (usually there is a pre-trial hearing to determine whether or not something is Similar Fact Evidence or just hearsay).
So if we already have the law, why has it never been used? Well, it has been used on a few fairly famous occasions. The Brides in the Bath case of the early 1900's saw George Smith accused of drowning his new bride in the bath of their honeymoon suite. Mr. Smith contended that his wife must have fallen asleep in the bath or suffered some other tragic mishap. 2 pieces of evidence secured his conviction; firstly there was a demonstration in the courtroom of just how Mr. Smith could have drowned his wife in the bath (the demonstration itself almost led to the death of the WPC sitting in the bath for the demonstration; the method Smith used, to hook one arm under her legs and another round her back and then whip her legs away from her so that she was flat on her back in the bath with her head underwater, was quite stunningly effective the rather embarrassed prosecution barrister explained as the semi conscious and spluttering WPC was carried from the court). The second was the admission of Similar Fact Evidence. The similar facts being that he had married twice before in the previous 2 years and both of his wives had drowned in the bath not long after their wedding.
There have been other cases where Similar fact evidence has been introduced (Rosemary West's trial for example), so if we have this law then why don't we make more use of it? I think partly because the judge has to rule on whether or not to allow the evidence to be admitted. Whilst it is extremely tempting to call them a bunch of bewigged and senile old farts who have a stuffy insistence on sticking to the letter of the law rather than to it's spirit, I don't think it's entirely their fault. Their hands are tied to a large extent by the law itself, which is very restrictive in what it will and will not allow as Similar Fact Evidence. And in all honesty, I really don't think that this is the best case to use as a justification for a change in the law. In the case of Roy Whiting I honestly don't think that I would have allowed his previous conviction to be raised had I been in the same position as the trial judge. Whilst it pointed to the undeniable fact that he is a vile and unpleasant pervert, it did not therefore prove that he was a murderer. The facts of the case did that.
Then of course we have the issue of Sarah's Law. I think everyone's gut feeling about this is pretty much the same; we have a right to know if there is a person in the area who could be a danger to our loved ones. You'll not get much of an argument out of me about the principle involved here. What you will get me arguing about is just how this law would be enacted. The worst case scenario is that we end up with the same level of frontier justice that reared it's ugly head when the News of the World ran their Paedophile naming and shaming campaign. A man who had the same name as one of the named paedophiles was hounded and threatened by his neighbours, a Welsh Paediatrician was driven from her home, and a man named Peter Phile was assaulted and set on fire by a group of residents (scarily enough, only one of those three examples was made up for the Brass Eye program satirising public and media reaction to paedophiles). The best case is that the public will not be whipped up into a frenzy by papers looking to boost their circulation and so access to the list will not lead to lynch mobs being formed.
Opponents of the law say that it will drive paedophiles underground and make it more difficult to track them. Why not just electronically tag them for the same length of time as they're on the sex offender’s register then? That way the authorities will know where they are at all times and a register can be lodged at police stations for inspection upon request. I suppose that Civil Libertarians will object to the principle, but I can't see them being able to sustain any call for the rights of a group of people than evoke such a strong reaction as paedophiles and sex offenders. Also, how come Roy Whiting was allowed to refuse any help or treatment to confront and perhaps help exorcise whatever demons drove him to kidnap and sexually assault that first young girl? Why wasn't it compulsory for him? And why do we release people who step forth into freedom still clinging to the notion that the child they abused was a willing partner? Surely it would be better for all concerned if sentencing for such crimes took the form of being sentenced to be detained at her majesty's pleasure (i.e. until a panel of psychiatrists, police officers, and members of the public are satisfied that he is no longer a danger)? I don't pretend that it will stop these crimes altogether but I think it would cut them down to a certain extent.
It seems to me that the media are portraying people who have any misgivings about the suggested changes in the law as loony lefties who put the rights of sex beasts above the rights of our children (if you have seen the episode of the Simpsons where the Reverend's wife repeatedly interjects with "But what about our children?!" in suitably distraught tones then you'll know what I'm driving at). This is toss. I would suggest that they are worried at the potential for people being convicted for a crime that they are innocent of purely on the basis that they had done something similar once before. They are also worried about people having their lives placed in danger because they are wrongly believed to be a paedophile. If those worries can be assuaged however then you'll find me cheering loudly as new laws to stop the never-ending stream of needless, meaningless deaths are introduced.
Tuesday, 11 December 2001
How goes the battle?
Even when the Afghanistan war was going well (remember those days?), there was a strong undercurrent of unease about what the US and UK were doing, and where they would stop.
Now then, the War Against Terror (trademark of the US Government); what's going on with that particular package of fun at the moment? The news when last I checked was rather good from a western point of view; the Taliban have effectively ceased to exist, every city (such as they are) in Afghanistan is under Non-Taliban control, an interim government had been agreed, food aid is starting to arrive in the capital, and the search for that nice Mr. Bin Laden has begun in earnest. So it would appear that everything is going swimmingly, correct? Well...
One can usually rely on the American government to take a silk purse and from it construct a pig's scrotum and the war in Afghanistan is no different. Before going on, I will give credit where credit is due; despite all that was said about the tactics used, from a battlefield perspective they worked. The enemy government is not in control any more and is scattered to the four winds. Coalition troops have freedom of movement on the ground. And it was all achieved before the onset of the worst of the Afghan winter. So here's a huzzah to the coalition for the good news.
Now let's start to have a look at the less welcome events of the last couple of weeks. I suppose we could start with that old favourite of the US air force; friendly fire. That's a lovely phrase isn't it? It sounds almost like an all-American cartoon character ("Casper the Friendly Ghost? Meet George the Friendly Fire.") Admittedly, cock ups in the field resulting in the deaths of one's own troops is nothing new in warfare but the American army seemed to have taken it to new heights of ineptitude. Consider, for example, the incident last week, which saw the American military give it's opinion of the interim Afghan P.M. Hamid Karzai as well as demonstrating some of the methods of effectively prosecuting a modern conflict. Or, to put it another way they dropped a bomb on their own troops (killing three of them; the Taliban have so far failed to kill a single soldier in the Coalition military and have had to limit themselves to a few journalists and a member of the CIA) and also managed to injure the most important Afghan in the world at the moment. Mm, nice work boys. Maybe next we'll see the US army help to quell the Marxist rebellion in Nepal by bombing the royal palace. Perhaps they'll even start gunning down more of their own troops to show the Taliban how it's done...
Of course, we are a cynical generation and one that was probably half expecting more wacky friendly fire mishaps and so this is not a subject on which one can dwell for long before it becomes boring. Something which is altogether more interesting (interesting = scary) is the US and it's determination to extend the War Against Terror. Over the last week there ever louder voices from the US in favour of some sort of punitive action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been promoted up the hierarchy of world evil by an American government that would seem to have had its appetite for warfare whetted quite nicely by the war thus far. He has gone from being the beaten but still irritating thorn in the side of the West to a super villain masterminding the manufacture of more and better weaponry regardless of the consequences to world peace. He is the despotic head of an unrepresentative government that came to power by dubious means who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own. He uses terrorism to further his own aims and is unapologetic about doing so. We have been warned that we leave him undisturbed at our peril, for he will surely pay no heed to the UN or any other organisation that may seek to limit his mischief.
I'm not going to try and become Hussein's cheerleader at this point. I have no doubts that the man is an evil and bloated old swine and I look forward to reading his obituary in the papers one day. I'm not even going to disagree with the fact that his removal would be a fundamentally good thing; Paul Wolfowitz (American Deputy Defence Secretary and renowned warmonger) wrote a paper in the late 70's calling for the removal of Hussein and stating that he was a menace to Western security. Whilst I'm not in any position to question Mr. Wolfowitz's academic credentials (which in any case are impeccable; Wolfowitz is respected throughout the political world for his foresight and acumen if not for his ideologies) I am rather concerned at the sight of a powerful man using his position to try and fulfil what is to all intents and purposes a prophecy from a school project. I mean, dear lord, I confidently predicted a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out mankind when I was 14 but I'm pretty damn sure that you wouldn't find me beavering away to bring that to fruition.
The main thing I take issue with however is the implication that the US government is going to simply do whatever the hell it wants and consequence be damned. There was some pretty intense negotiation to secure the, well not the support but the non-interference of the Islamic World in the Afghan war. Even then, there have been waves to rock the boat; Rudolph Giulianni refused a $6 million donation from the Saudi Crown Prince because he dared to hint obliquely that the US government was less than even handed in it's dealings with the Middle east and that may have contributed to the Sept 11th disaster. The fact that this is true doesn't seem to have troubled Rudi's conscience in refusing the money. And whilst the various Moslem governments have given their approval there remain several doubts as to whether they represent the views of the majority of their people. All this occurred to the backdrop of an horrific and unjustified attack which saw the sympathies of the world with America. So one can foresee trouble ahead if the US decides to trample all over the delicate and volatile political situation in the Middle East in order to rectify their mistake in failing to remove the tyrant at the first time of asking (if nothing else they'll be less well informed about the Iraqi military capacity seeing as America doesn't sell them weapons anymore...).
That said the Pakistan based opposition to this war was vociferous in its denunciation of American aggression yet it has failed thus far to destabilise and topple the military government of Pervez Musharraf (in fact the only real trouble he is currently facing stems from the dispute with India in Kashmir). Admittedly this is because he has access to all of the guns and has the support of the army, but then that is the story across a large portion of the Islamic world. Is the American government about to gamble the stability of the governments of the Middle East against removing a threat that, though it exists, is currently held in check?
As a parting shot, I'd like to go back to my earlier description of Hussein and see if it holds true elsewhere. The US government has at it's head a man who came to power by dubious means (thanks to his good old brother Jeb in Florida), who is developing more and better weaponry no matter what the consequences to world peace (the Son of Star Wars missile system continues to roll on despite the fact that it doesn't work and is annoying the hell out of China, Russia, Europe etc), and who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own (Kyoto is the tip of the iceberg as far as agreements that he has reneged on go). He supports right wing anti-government terrorists in Central America in order to promote his own agenda (because Uncle Sam doesn't want any nasty left wing governments on his own doorstep, no sir-ee!). He hasn't even deigned to make reference to the UN other than to berate other nations for not doing as he told them. If America wants another Boogeyman to frighten it's children with then it would do well to start looking a little closer to home.
Now then, the War Against Terror (trademark of the US Government); what's going on with that particular package of fun at the moment? The news when last I checked was rather good from a western point of view; the Taliban have effectively ceased to exist, every city (such as they are) in Afghanistan is under Non-Taliban control, an interim government had been agreed, food aid is starting to arrive in the capital, and the search for that nice Mr. Bin Laden has begun in earnest. So it would appear that everything is going swimmingly, correct? Well...
One can usually rely on the American government to take a silk purse and from it construct a pig's scrotum and the war in Afghanistan is no different. Before going on, I will give credit where credit is due; despite all that was said about the tactics used, from a battlefield perspective they worked. The enemy government is not in control any more and is scattered to the four winds. Coalition troops have freedom of movement on the ground. And it was all achieved before the onset of the worst of the Afghan winter. So here's a huzzah to the coalition for the good news.
Now let's start to have a look at the less welcome events of the last couple of weeks. I suppose we could start with that old favourite of the US air force; friendly fire. That's a lovely phrase isn't it? It sounds almost like an all-American cartoon character ("Casper the Friendly Ghost? Meet George the Friendly Fire.") Admittedly, cock ups in the field resulting in the deaths of one's own troops is nothing new in warfare but the American army seemed to have taken it to new heights of ineptitude. Consider, for example, the incident last week, which saw the American military give it's opinion of the interim Afghan P.M. Hamid Karzai as well as demonstrating some of the methods of effectively prosecuting a modern conflict. Or, to put it another way they dropped a bomb on their own troops (killing three of them; the Taliban have so far failed to kill a single soldier in the Coalition military and have had to limit themselves to a few journalists and a member of the CIA) and also managed to injure the most important Afghan in the world at the moment. Mm, nice work boys. Maybe next we'll see the US army help to quell the Marxist rebellion in Nepal by bombing the royal palace. Perhaps they'll even start gunning down more of their own troops to show the Taliban how it's done...
Of course, we are a cynical generation and one that was probably half expecting more wacky friendly fire mishaps and so this is not a subject on which one can dwell for long before it becomes boring. Something which is altogether more interesting (interesting = scary) is the US and it's determination to extend the War Against Terror. Over the last week there ever louder voices from the US in favour of some sort of punitive action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been promoted up the hierarchy of world evil by an American government that would seem to have had its appetite for warfare whetted quite nicely by the war thus far. He has gone from being the beaten but still irritating thorn in the side of the West to a super villain masterminding the manufacture of more and better weaponry regardless of the consequences to world peace. He is the despotic head of an unrepresentative government that came to power by dubious means who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own. He uses terrorism to further his own aims and is unapologetic about doing so. We have been warned that we leave him undisturbed at our peril, for he will surely pay no heed to the UN or any other organisation that may seek to limit his mischief.
I'm not going to try and become Hussein's cheerleader at this point. I have no doubts that the man is an evil and bloated old swine and I look forward to reading his obituary in the papers one day. I'm not even going to disagree with the fact that his removal would be a fundamentally good thing; Paul Wolfowitz (American Deputy Defence Secretary and renowned warmonger) wrote a paper in the late 70's calling for the removal of Hussein and stating that he was a menace to Western security. Whilst I'm not in any position to question Mr. Wolfowitz's academic credentials (which in any case are impeccable; Wolfowitz is respected throughout the political world for his foresight and acumen if not for his ideologies) I am rather concerned at the sight of a powerful man using his position to try and fulfil what is to all intents and purposes a prophecy from a school project. I mean, dear lord, I confidently predicted a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out mankind when I was 14 but I'm pretty damn sure that you wouldn't find me beavering away to bring that to fruition.
The main thing I take issue with however is the implication that the US government is going to simply do whatever the hell it wants and consequence be damned. There was some pretty intense negotiation to secure the, well not the support but the non-interference of the Islamic World in the Afghan war. Even then, there have been waves to rock the boat; Rudolph Giulianni refused a $6 million donation from the Saudi Crown Prince because he dared to hint obliquely that the US government was less than even handed in it's dealings with the Middle east and that may have contributed to the Sept 11th disaster. The fact that this is true doesn't seem to have troubled Rudi's conscience in refusing the money. And whilst the various Moslem governments have given their approval there remain several doubts as to whether they represent the views of the majority of their people. All this occurred to the backdrop of an horrific and unjustified attack which saw the sympathies of the world with America. So one can foresee trouble ahead if the US decides to trample all over the delicate and volatile political situation in the Middle East in order to rectify their mistake in failing to remove the tyrant at the first time of asking (if nothing else they'll be less well informed about the Iraqi military capacity seeing as America doesn't sell them weapons anymore...).
That said the Pakistan based opposition to this war was vociferous in its denunciation of American aggression yet it has failed thus far to destabilise and topple the military government of Pervez Musharraf (in fact the only real trouble he is currently facing stems from the dispute with India in Kashmir). Admittedly this is because he has access to all of the guns and has the support of the army, but then that is the story across a large portion of the Islamic world. Is the American government about to gamble the stability of the governments of the Middle East against removing a threat that, though it exists, is currently held in check?
As a parting shot, I'd like to go back to my earlier description of Hussein and see if it holds true elsewhere. The US government has at it's head a man who came to power by dubious means (thanks to his good old brother Jeb in Florida), who is developing more and better weaponry no matter what the consequences to world peace (the Son of Star Wars missile system continues to roll on despite the fact that it doesn't work and is annoying the hell out of China, Russia, Europe etc), and who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own (Kyoto is the tip of the iceberg as far as agreements that he has reneged on go). He supports right wing anti-government terrorists in Central America in order to promote his own agenda (because Uncle Sam doesn't want any nasty left wing governments on his own doorstep, no sir-ee!). He hasn't even deigned to make reference to the UN other than to berate other nations for not doing as he told them. If America wants another Boogeyman to frighten it's children with then it would do well to start looking a little closer to home.
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