Consider This

consider this reconsidered....

2010-06-12T11:40:00.004Z

Syria seems a good place from which to recommence my musings, particularly given I have just discovered that my blog is actually banned from the country's normal internet portals.

Banned! Perhaps the authorities here don't like some of my views on Calvinism or EU legislation, or fear, for that matter, that my hatred of the 9-5 working week will have an adverse affect on the morale of the locals (!). Who knows...At any rate, here I am with you having been rerouted via Angola, giving the whole act of writing anything at all a hint of Bond-esque exoticism which a childhood full of John Le Carre novels has taught me to relish.

I must admit I have not checked this site since I stopped writing two years ago. I have written almost nothing of any description since, bar a long thesis on Liberalism and Religious Conservatives which, if you are very unlucky I may post excerpts from, Dickens-style, on a weekly basis.

There is a point to this new start, however. My interest in plural societies and how we manage them (both from a philosophical and sociological/public policy perspective) are dominating my research right now, and I'm hoping to contrast what I learn in the Middle East with my analysis of Liberalism's fundamental failure to provide suitable solutions to the challenges of Multiculturalism in the West. As such, I'll use the blog from now on for related discussions and, given I'm a woman and thus a multi-tasker, anything else which catches my eye over the next four months of my stay here in Damascus. Enjoy!

Hiatus

2008-06-05T12:40:00.001Z

I won't be blogging for a while as I get my thoughts and life together. I may even learn how to operate wordpress to move on from Blogger. Now that would be exciting.

I'll be back.

Scots Wha Hae

2008-05-21T15:32:00.006Z

Stop me from generalising but, meet the average Scot, and you'll marvel at the sheer dourness that encircles them as they bewail their misery and misfortune.

Even when nothing that bad has actually happened, there's normally an arsenal of enemies awaiting character assassination, or an assortment of seemingly miserable anecdotes, to regail onlookers with over a pint or two on a Friday evening

People like to say this attitude is based on a Calvinist understanding of life that sees pleasure as sin - one that certainly resonated with my parents who approved of anything they deemed 'character-building' - but I think it's equally to do with the pleasure of watching others squirm from behind their rose tinted spectacles, as we methodically destroy their naive world views.

The funny thing is, dourness is something we Scots actively enjoy. Yankee style positivity and platitudes simply don't work in our neck of the woods. Black humour is considered the thinking man's opiate and - even when things are working out famously, with your job say, or your fiance - it just wouldn't be the done thing to applaud success or happiness, at least, not without puncturing it with the odd jibe.

I grew up with that approach to life, and it's one I both understand and appreciate. More than anything, curiously, I enjoy the looks of bewilderment passed at us by passing foreigners who simply don't get why, for the love of God, we are not more positive about life. For many Scots, moaning is a kind of humourous code, a bit of mindless banter.

But if we're not careful, it gets too wrapped up in the way we view the world, blinding us to the good things and making us focus exclusively on the bad.

As such, I've resolved to try and free myself from the desire to moan, mostly because it breeds apathy instead of action in the face of difficult situations that it would be a good deal better just to move on from and forget instead of dwelling, Bannockburn style, on the injuries of the past.

After spending far too much time resenting an array of people in my address book I am going to take the advice of Selim, the prisoner condemned to life in a light-less dungeon in Tahar Ben Jelloun's magnificently dark, yet inspriing, novel 'This Blinding Absence of Light', in which he says:

'I had no enemies. I was not giving into my worst instincts any more. I understood how draining it was to spend my time chopping into pieces all those who had done me harm. I had decided not to bother and that is how I got rid of them, which amounted to killing them without dirtying my hands or stewing forever in the desire to repay them with the same misery they had inflicted on me.

I had to move beyond the idea of revenge once and for all , become impervious to (it)...because revenge smelled strongly of death and did not solve any problems. Search as I might, I found noone to detest. This meant I had returned to a state of mind I loved above all others: I was a free man'

Moving On...

2008-05-21T10:01:00.006Z

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. Anais Nin

Before I left York for Brussels my flatmate offered me a piece of advice: never go back.

She was right. In the year since I moved back to Brussels I've been totally unable to recreate the sense of exploration and excitement that kept me motivated here first time round.

Despite the champagne and the shopping I've been unhappy, resentful, and running to stand still, forcing myself to go through the motions of appearing interested in Commission communications on budgetary policy, asking myself the unanswerable question: should I stay or should I go?

Well, now I have my answer. And whether I jumped, or was pushed, or it was a combination of both, doesn't reduce the relief I feel that - for better or for worse - it is time to move forwards and get the hell outta here!

Sure, everyone is scared of change. But I had a revelation of sorts last week: two years off thirty, I'm damned if all those dreams I put in one corner of my mind and shut off for some uncertain 'later' will never come to fruition.

If there are things I feel need to be seen and done, aspects of me, my life, my attitudes, that need changed, then now is the time to see them, do them, change them.

Definitively.

What I liked about Herman Hesse's Siddharta is the idea that life is a series of cycles.

You can either live one sole cycle, doing what you were essentially 'born to do' because of your family background of situation or, having explored all the possibilities, and fallen into all the pitfalls, of one way of living, learn from those and move on.

Well I'm fed up of making the same old mistakes over and over and over again. I know I was wrong about a lot of things but, seriously, basta.

It's time I started learning from my mistakes, not just to save myself the pain of repeating them ad nauseum but because I think it's our moral duty to others in general to be the best people we can be.

So I am going to take a break, finish that thesis - well, if possible - and get my head in the right place so that when I next make a decision about the future its based on far, far more than simple fear of moving forwards.

Say No To Britain's Long Hours Culture

2008-05-07T08:40:00.004Z

I have vaguely been thinking about returning to Britain from Brussels. The thought normally comes to me when I am running late for my daily, and utterly pointless, 8am meeting.

Each morning, as I attempt to negotiate the traffic and my own grogginess just to get to the office in time, I ask myself - what's the point? This is making me unhappy. I have always hated early mornings. I even told them so in the interview. It doesn't help me do my job better and I'm still stuck here til 7 or 8 o' clock at night. Maybe I should just leave and do something else?

And then I remember. Britain = home of long hours culture. I mean, we invented unpaid overtime didn't we? And one of the main reasons my working life is made so unpleasant is because I have a workaholic British boss. How in the world would returning to that accursed island possibly help matters?

The answer is, returning to the UK is probably the worst decision I could make just now. In an ideal world I would like to work part time, perhaps as a freelance writer. If I have to work full-time I would prefer contracted hours only, more or less, not 'sell your soul to the boss, and be prepared to do his bidding day and night', as so many employers currently expect.

But it seems I am in the minority. Increasingly, British people have accepted that long hours are here to stay. They no longer say 'think of the impact on my family, on my health, on my stress levels'. They suck it up because that's just the way things are, everyone does it.

As a result, kids are stuck at school from 8am to 6pm, to be picked up by nannies. Parents spend an average of 19 minutes so-called 'quality time' a day with their children. No-one has time for themselves anymore, for the little things, whether that be time to cook a healthy meal from scratch, time to relax, see friends, and do nothing.

We have become, as the Moroccans I met in Marrakech last week told me, not men but machines. Well I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to be a machine. After all, we only get one life. Why don't we focus on living it well, instead of in the constant cycle of work, earn, and consume, predicated by modern capitalist society?

I want to have a cat, kids, a life. I want to be able to sign up for the odd yoga class in the evening and enjoy the sun on my face during the day, not be stuck staring out the window of a featureless office at all hours of the day. And I want to live in a society that values those things.

Modern Britain doesn't. And that's why I feel I don't want to live there. But I also can't keep doing this job for much longer either. Or nothing will ever change. As the saying goes, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Time to move on, methinks

The End of the World As We Know It

2008-04-22T14:43:00.006Z

I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment. Can't seem to bring myself to write about anything much. Perhaps that's because I keep being given assignments about the onset of armaggedon at work which make everything seem a bit pointless.

Last time I checked terrorists were about to cause a clash of civilisations with the muslim world that would result in a Revelations-style fight to the death.

However, unlike the (apparent) majority of my fellow citizens I have never been particularly afraid of this scenario, partly because I think those threatening to destroy Western civilisation are more than usually incompetent and partly because we have most of the money and weapons on our side.

From what I can tell there's a large number of disgruntled 16 year olds from Luton with about 2 GCSE's to rub together looking for their moment in the limelight and a short-cut to credibility with their peers.

The shoe-bomber just made me laugh, as did the jeep 'attack' on Glasgow airport where the only person that got injured was the mujahideen doctor type who set himself on fire. From shame, probably.

True the whole 7/7 London Tube incident was scary but we definitely had more to fear from the IRA than these guys.

Climate change catastrophe and rising food prices is a different story.

The past year has seen startling hikes in the cost of basic foods: Corn has jumped 31%, rice 74%, soya 87% and wheat by an astonishing 130% since March 2007. As a result 100 million people could be pushed into poverty and hundreds of thousands put at risk of starvation according to the IMF and World Bank.

As opposed to the very localised threat of a possible terrorist attack (which can spread fear, but rarely, if ever, total destruction) the current situation is so grave that Ban Ki-Moon has warned it will cancel out all progress toward the Millennium Development goals of halving world poverty by 2015. Now billions of starving and desperate people is not only a humanitarian disaster but the recipe for a real third world war.

We are faced with the threat of a world which is deforested and denuded of its natural resources. Common goods like fish stocks and fresh water are getting rarer and will likely be the trigger for major conflict in years to come. If sea levels rise we'll sea a massive increase in refugee numbers, while natural disasters, salinisation and desertification linked to climate change will ensure harvests go from poor to non-existent in many of the world's poorest areas.

People like to blame biofuels for the current rash of food price hikes and shortages, and to a certain extent they are right since biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests, which releases even more CO2, which brings armageddon another step closer.

However, using biofuels as a scapegoat is a little too simplistic. Even if we turned over agrofuel fields to food production , that won't do much to counter world population growth and industrialisation which means people are consuming far more than the world can actually produce.

Take eating habits. The average Chinaman already eats 30 kilos more beef per capita now than he did in 1980. And the average kilo of beef requires 2000 square feet of land and 13000 litres of water. Since the same nutritional content can be gained from soya at 1% of the land and water, the logic of global capitalism, the logic of demand and supply to those who can afford goods, is pretty much responsible for the fact that farmers are growing food for the rich, and leaving the poor to starve.

Not that they have much choice. Agricultural markets are amongst the most restrictive and subsidised in the world, and their distortions trap poor farmers in a cycle of poverty and give them little incentive to increase food production. Likewise, the real culprit in the biofuels saga is the United States government which props up its industry to the tune of $7 billion a year, not including basic farm subsidies, which has a knock-on effect on world food production and prices.

It is the CAP and other subsidies, not biofuels, that are the root cause of this problem. If we really want to feed the world's poor, Europe and America should stop bleating about biofuels and move to end agricultural protectionism and export restrictions; enhance agricultural development in the poorest countries; and ensure the success of the Doha Development Round to encourage free, fair, and sustainable agricultural trade at global level.

Likewise, Europe must use its collective weight at international level to ensure that climate change and sustainability criteria are effectively integrated with trade policy to stop the latter undermining the former, as is currently the case. And that means stopping the Americans, in particular, screwing everyone over with their peculiar definition of 'free market economics' which is all about protecting their farmers, and damning the rest of the world.

It also means everyone becoming a vegetarian, as called for by Paul MacCartney.

It's a long shot. I dont see it happening myself. Armageddon is - sadly - a far safer bet.

Britain's Democratic Deficit

2008-04-10T14:30:00.005Z

And while I'm on the subject of democracy and human rights I would like to draw attention to our own government's rather sinister double-speak on the issue.

According to Gordon Brown and others, the anti-Olympic Torch protests were a symbol of Britain's vibrant democratic values.

Or something.

The fact of the matter is that the police are using new anti-terrorism legislation to arrest people for demonstrating democratically.

That's right, following the Labour Party's example (when an elderly delegate was expelled from its annual conference for heckling Jack Straw over the Iraq war, under the 'Prevention of Terorrorism' Act) the guardians of law and order are using their powers to suppress dissent.

Much, it must be said, like the Chinese everyone was protesting about.

According to journalist Paul Lewis: "from the outset, police identified anti-Chinese protesters and subjected them to different rules to red-flag waving spectators.

Before the relay had even properly begun, my colleague witnessed police removing T-shirts and flags from demonstrators. At Ladbroke Grove, spectators carrying Tibetan flags were relegated to a pavement across the road, kept apart from a carnival-style reception.

Several protesters were dragged away.

Demonstrators who did not obey police requests to stand in designated areas were repeatedly threatened with anti-terrorist legislationl".

A victory for democracy if ever I saw one...

As Dan Kieran points out in his magnificent call to arms I Fought the Law, Britain is swiftly becoming an authoritarian state. As such, it is definitely a suitable successor to Beijing for the next Olympic Games. And from there, onwards to Sochi, in Russia, bastion of democracy and Human Rights.

And this is what they call progress.

Backdown or Boycott?

2008-04-10T08:58:00.007Z

I've heard more crap about the Olympics than I can bear in the last week.

I've watched IOC President Jacques Rogge tell the world he was "saddened' by violent protests in Europe and that the Games would bounce back from this 'crisis'.

I've watched BBC reporters deliberate on how Britain can stand up for Human Rights and yet not 'offend' China.

I've watched athletes, from Tim Henman to Steve Redgrave, tell us how we should keep politics and sport separate.

I have seen noone, at least noone in the mainstream press, talk about China's broken promises to the world. Why we should be offended by China.

Tibet is actually a side issue. Even if the protests in Lhasa had never happened the West should still be demanding a boycott.

Not for emotional reasons

Not for political reasons

But because China has never, not once, tried to live up to the legally binding promises it made the International Olympic Committee when it won the bid for the 2008 Games all those years ago.

It signed a contract promising to improve democracy, human rights and media freedom in time for the Games.

No ifs, no buts.

Instead, all three have gone backwards.

Oppression is intensifying. Dissenters are held under lock and key, sometimes even in mental asylums. The international press is barred from entering Tibet and given minders while in China proper.

And just yesterday the governor of Lhasa said that if anyone tried to disrupt the progress of the Olympic Torch on its journey to Mount Everest through non-violent democratic protest they would be severely punished.

China has backed out of every promise it made the international community in return for its month in the limelight. Indeed, in failing to publish the Host City agreement, it is happy to pretend it never made any in the first place.

So I want the world to stop worrying about offending China.

While demanding a boycott now may not encourage change the IOC and the international community must demand that China lives up to its Olympic pledges by the time the Games commence in August.

If the authorities do not live up to this contract, we should boycott the whole event.

Some nebulous form of dialogue with the Dalai Lama will not suffice: that is just diplomatic smoke and mirrors.

We need concrete change. Or they can take their billion pound stadiums and use them as detention camps for all those dissidents. That would show the world what they are really made of.

Better Living Is A Science

2008-04-09T10:28:00.002Z

To update from my last post, I can now state that - in some matters at least - better living certainly is a science.

After drinking far more than is remotely advisable at a staff party last night (yes, that was a Tuesday night and yes, that is as bad as it sounds, and yes I will have to live with the teasing for weeks to come) I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that moderation in, or indeed total abstention from, the consumption of alcohol is a preferable state of being.

It also helped me lose 7 kilos over the last two months.

Game set and match to sobriety.

I am pleased that I have resolved this moral dilemma. On to the other 99.9%.....

In God We Doubt

2008-04-01T15:03:00.002Z

As someone who spends longer than can ever be considered healthy obsessing about theological issues, I have come to remarkably few conclusions. So few, that I have been forced to subscribe to Olin Miller's assertion that "to be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it". I guess that's my cynical pragmatism at work.

However that doesn't stop me wishing I could believe in something - really believe in a way that gives my life a purpose I can dedicate myself to, rather than forcing myself to swallow a grain of truth surrounded by a load of claptrap for the sake of a little solace, which seems to be the failure of most religious texts I've explored. Many people say that historical context and exegisis brings more clarity. But, no matter how much I read, I'm simply not there yet.

I also consider it rather unfair that so many so called Holy Books have rocked up on the earth's shores. It's hard enough working out, after many years of painstaking research, whether one of them stacks up let alone comparing them to the beliefs of Incas, Hare Krishna's or even just the other major world religions.

So imagine how pleased I was to discover this excerpt from a new book by John Humphrys entitled In God We Doubt. I remember the marxist vicar Giles Fraser well from my time at Wadham when he was our college chaplain.

One particular sermon of his on The Matrix and the meaning of modern life was instrumental in changing my understanding of British society at the tender age of 19, an understanding only reinforced by works like Affluenza and I Fought the Law which, despite their slightly hysterical tone, have helped prevent me ever becoming a fully functional member of a society obsessed by consumption, pleasure, and distraction.

As Humphrys himself acknowledges "For those of us who are neither believers nor atheists it can be very difficult. Doubters are left in the deeply unsatisfactory position of finding the existence of God unprovable and implausible, and the comfort of faith unachievable. But at the same time we find the reality of belief undeniable".

I agree with him that while most attempts to justify belief in God seem hopelessly naive, the hopelessness of postmodernist thought, in which we are supposed to be satisfied with a life of pleasure with nothing at the end of it, doesn't make a great deal of sense either. In fact, if human beings, like other creatures, were supposed to exist happily without a sense of an external creator why did they all go to such great lengths to create one?

After all is said and done, "There remains what the atheist philosopher AC Grayling calls “the lingering splinter in the mind . . . a sense of yearning for the absolute”. There is a profound longing for something that will stimulate and satisfy emotionally and spiritually.

In the end our choice, as Humprhys points out, is to accept the conclusion reached by Jean-Paul Sartre that “There is no purpose to existence, only nothingness” or see the purpose in religion either as revealed truth, and therefore meaning, or as a social tool that is somehow in tune with the needs of human nature, and without which we function less well.

I suspect this will be top of my wish list for my birthday.

Casanova Clegg

2008-04-01T14:44:00.002Z

I couldn't decide if this was an April Fool or if Nick Clegg is simply putting the 'L' back into Liberal.

According to today's Guardian "Nick Clegg cannot be accused of forgetting his promise to make British political life as "open and accessible" as possible".

"In an unusually candid interview [with the men's mag GQ], the Liberal Democrat leader reveals that he has slept with as many as 30 women and considers himself a competent lover, but admits he has received the odd complaint."

I'll be asking for Freedom of Information disclosures on Brown and Cameron next....

Are some things not best left unsaid?

Proud to Be British?

2008-04-01T09:47:00.004Z

I had to laugh during my visit to the British Embassy today.

A big poster advertises its mission to provide the 'highest standard of service', even though they summarily closed the passport office last week and relocated it to Paris to cut costs. Of the 'service' that remains in the consular section, this is what the highest standard looks like:

As I had predicted, security was tight outside the embassy with lots of menacing looking anti-tank bollards blocking the pavement. I had to hurdle over one of them to get to the consular section.

Once there, the punters are left outside in the cold until they are called, one by one, into a room where they are x-rayed, frisked, and have their phones confiscated. Woe betide those who visit the place on a rainy day.

Once negotiating the security staff you go up the stairs and wait in what seems like an interminable queue while the two staff members on duty bumble about. You reach the cash desk where there is a big poster explaining which impossibly high fee goes with which basic administrative task.

Three attested copies of my passport were to set me back 36 euros which I thought was rather steep. We're talking about some good old fashioned ink and stamps here.

However that was nothing compared to the cost of registering your marriage, at nearly 100 euros, or giving up your citizenship (which I might otherwise have been tempted to do today, given that being British can sometimes seem a lot more trouble than it's worth).

I brought the question of these 'fees' up with the woman at the desk who told me, rather apologetically, that they were set by the government to cover the costs of the embassy staff.

I said I thought that was what taxes were for. But apparently the government is too busy spending our hard-earned on illegal wars to spend any on a foreign service British nationals might actually need.

Having swallowed the fees news, I took out my card to pay. Things were looking good until the machine broke down. Apparently it had been doing that all morning. A problem connected to the telephone line. Well, fair enough, but perhaps they would accept payment in cash. Pounds to be precise?

Of course not. I would have to go to the bank, get euros (of which I had five on my person), and wait in the stupid queue again, all in order to come back the next day to get the attested copies because this apparently simple procedure was to take them a full day to complete...

This contrasts markedly with my experience at the Irish Embassy, where I went for the same purpose with my Irish passport. I walked straight in - no queues, no checks - rang the bell, took a seat, and seconds later some pleasant old soul took my passport and attested the copies I'd brought on the spot - FOR FREE!

Rule Britannia, eh?

Update: Kazemi Case Reconsidered

2008-03-14T14:50:00.003Z

Good news for Mehdi Kazemi, the gay Iranian teenager first refused asylum by the UK authorities and then by the Netherlands - countries whose rhetoric on fundamental rights is belied by politically motivated anti-immigrant policies.

Mercifully, widespread public condemnation of Mr Kazemi's possible deportation, where he could face death by hanging, has forced the British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to reconsider his case.

According to the BBC she said: "Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr Kazemi's case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands."

New circumstances? What new circumstances?

The only new circumstances I can see are that no one knew or cared about Mehdi Kazemi's case when it was originally heard, but, following media coverage, they do now.

But then we all know that the only truth the Labour spin machine cares about is opinion polling. So well done to all those who put pressure on this cowardly government to half-way adhere to its Human Rights obligations.

Now what are they going to do about the 1400 rejected asylum seekers who will be made destitute if they don't 'voluntarily' agree to move back to oh-so-safe-Iraq in three weeks time?

Most of these, incidentally, are Iraqi Christians who are currently undergoing a wave of repression so severe that it has been dubbed in some quarters as attempted genocide.

Unlike in Mehdi Kazemi's case, the UK government has CAUSED these people to become asylum seekers in the first place, by invading and occupying their homeland, and creating a civil conflict of mammoth proportions.

Surely we owe them, and the translators we are also failing to protect from crazy jihadists who treat them as traitors, better?

Save Mehdi Kazemi

2008-03-11T17:09:00.004Z

Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, has just been refused asylum in the Netherlands. He will be sent back to the UK within 72 hours.

The UK authorities had already turned down his request for asylum on the basis of sexual orientation, despite the fact that his partner was executed for the same said 'crime'.

The Home Office claims a gay person can return to Iran and avoid persecution by being "discreet". As Simon Hughes has noted, what that means in practice is denying your identity: an infringement, in and of itself, of a basic human right.

In any case, it's a bit late for a man whose sexual orientation has made him a cause celebre. I can't imagine he would outfox Iranian intelligence for that long. If he ever made it past passport control his dad would probably kill him, if the Vice Squad didn't get him first. After all, he has already threatened to do so.

A lot of rot, frankly, is talked about European Values like Human Rights in Europe and our governments are guilty of the most flagrant disregards for the ECHR.

Article 3 of the European Convention on Human rights, as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and international human rights law, prohibits the removal, expulsion or extradition of persons to countries where there is a serious risk they would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Furthermore, EU law recognises sexual orientation as a ground for Member States to grant asylum.

As such, given the Iranian regime has a well-known penchant for executing homosexuals, it beggars belief that we can stand aside and watch this happen.

If you want to pressurise the powers that be to take their Human Rights obligations seriously please write to Gordon Brown and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini demanding they ensure Medhi Kazemi be granted asylum or international protection on EU soil, instead of being sent back to Iran, thus ensuring that article 3 of the ECHR is fully respected.

The UK migration policy is such a mess that convicted criminals are 'lost in the system' and left to run free, but legitimate claimants, like this man, are essentially thrown to the wolves. Time for a change...

You can reach them, by email or snail mail:

Gordon Brown

10 Downing Street

London

SW1 2AA

Vice President Franco Frattini

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

B-1049 BRUSSELS

BELGIUM

+ 32 (0)2 298 75 00

email or franco.frattini@ec.europa.eu

Neologisms of Note

2008-03-11T12:15:00.002Z

It was over two hundred years ago that the Brits gave up on the idea of policing the English language, as the French continue to do with their Academie Francaise, and let usage reign supreme as the arbiter of whether something is, or isn't, acceptable.

So let's start using some of the new words below, many of which seem DESIGNED with the EU institutions in mind, and see if they make it into next year's updated edition of the OED!
I got this as a foward and have posted all the non-crass suggestions it contains...Further suggestions very welcome in comments!

Now excuse me while I stop testiculating and go and perform some percussive maintenance on my computing device, so I can return to my vital 'work' in the adminisphere.

Later...

SALAD DODGER. An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

TESTICULATING.Waving your arms around and talking bollocks (accurate description of parliament's plenary sessions).

BLAMESTORMING.Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER. A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS. The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY.The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

CUBE FARM.An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING.When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

SITCOMs. Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a 'home business'.

SINBAD. Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate (applies to most girls I know in Brussels...no matter how gorgeous or talented)

AEROPLANE BLONDE. One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a 'black box'.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE. The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get itto work again.

ADMINISPHERE.The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the 'adminisphere' are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded 'administrivia' - needless paperwork and processes (believe me, this strikes a chord)

404. Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message '404 Not Found' meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OH - NO SECOND. That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've justmade a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').

JOHNNY-NO-STARS. A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badgesdisplaying stars that staff at fast-food rest au rants often wear to showtheir level of training.

No Cojones

2008-03-06T10:20:00.003Z

Britain won't have a referendum on the EU Constitution, sorry, Lisbon Treaty after all.

Last night the government and its supporters defeated a loose coalition of Tories and Lib Dem and Labour rebels by 311 votes to 248 to ratify the European Union treaty. The debate will now go to the Lords but is expected pass into law this summer without a hitch.

All parties found themselves in a pretty pickle over this issue, though for different reasons. As Simon Hoggart said in the Guardian

"Labour knows that it should have held a referendum, but won't because it would lose.

The Tories know a referendum would be catastrophic; it would set us back in Europe for years.

And the Lib Dems want a referendum on whether we should stay in at all because they can't think of anything else."

However, although I agree with his overall judgement I dont agree with this analysis.

Lib Dems supported the - in my opinion, rather ludicrous - suggestion that the UK hold a referendum on being in or out of the EU because they had already committed to a referendum in previous manifestos, much like Labour.

They were faced with the choice of letting the issue quietly drop and voting with the government - on the basis that we are the most europhilic party in the UK - or headlining the 'in and out' issue in an effort to move the debate onto different ground.

In the end, Clegg opted for an abstention, after the Lib Dem amendment on a referendum on EU membership was dismissed last week. Yet after ordering a three line whip to ensure party unity he was immediately undermined by 15 pro-referendum Lib Dem MPs who voted with the Tories.

This included three front bench spokesmen including the environment spokesman, Tim Farron, the Scotland and Northern Ireland spokesman, Alistair Carmichael, and the justice spokesman, David Heath. All later resigned. What a cock-up.

This is the angle the press has chosen to focus on. Yet the real reason this vote was such an unmitigated disaster is because, having imposed the whip, the Lib Dems found themselves in a position of undermining the one thing they have long fought for, namely European reform and progress.

Knowing that Labour rebels could swell the Tory ranks and defeat the government line we should have thrown ourselves behind Brown to ensure we carried the day.

Instead, after the much-dramatised 'walk out' from the Commons last week, we sat on our hands during the vote, drawing predictable criticism that the party has 'no cojones' and is simply a standing joke.

Clegg did all this despite overwhelming advice from Lib Dems in Brussels that the party should vote for its principles, namely an effective and reformed EU, instead of micro-managing its members.

Liberal Democrats know that without the Lisbon Treaty in place an enlarged EU will lack the necessary institutional tools to make effective decisions on matters of great importance from counter-terrorism, to energy security, and completing hte single market.

We know that we need to end unanimity in Council, which has blocked essential dossiers and reduced EU influence on the world stage.

We know that extending democratic scrutiny of legislation to all policy areas, including the CAP and the EU budget, is vital to ensuring decisions are made in the European, not just national, interest. And that those decisions are accountable to the public.

Yet we were prepared to play with fire for the sake of engineering a unity which
never transpired.

However Clegg should not take all of the blame for this unholy mess. It was extremely irresponsible for the party to put referendum promises in our previous manifestos, particularly in the current eurosceptic climate, where media misinformation makes having a rational debate on Europe all but impossible.

This naive gesture goes against our party's, not to mention the citizen's, best interests and is simply pandering to eurosceptic populism.

Don't give me the response about giving power to the people and acting democratically. We need to get it out of our heads that referenda are an answer to difficult questions. We were right to oppose a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it is far too complex a question for a plebicite.

Complex questions require thoughtful answers, not someone's (however cherished) gut reaction at the ballot box. Resolving complex questions is, indeed, why we bother electing our representatives in the first place, since few of us have the time or inclination to dedicate ourselves to reading the reams of paper required.

For Britain to have a real debate about Europe, it needs to open its eyes and eschew the kind of puerile propaganda that has passed for argumentation over the last decade or so. It is the responsibility of all political parties, regardless of their stance, to ensure this debate is carried out openly, honestly, and fairly.

Taiwan in Dire Straits?

2008-03-05T15:10:00.005Z

On March 22nd Taiwan is braced for a Presidential election whose outcome could have significant repercussions for cross-strait relations and international security.

After eight years in opposition, the pro-Beijing Kuomintang (KMT) is mounting a strong challenge to President Chen Shui-Bian's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese authorities are quietly confident that KMT candidate Ma Ying-Jeou can carry the day.

Early signs show that the Blue Alliance, led by the Kuomintang, will replicate its landslide victory in January's legislative elections where it won 86 of 113 seats halving the DPP's representation in the Legislative Yuan and leaving it with less than a quarter of the seats.

However, a Kuomintang victory would not necessarily mean the Taiwanese people's desire for independence has in any way diminished.

According to recent data provided by the Election Study Center more than 62% of Taiwanese voters support independence, while many others remain in favour of retaining the status quo instead of closer political ties with China.

The answer to this conundrum lies in the fact the election is being fought predominantly on economic rather than cross-strait issues, with the KMT campaigning on an "open door economic policy" towards Beijing to win voters round, particularly the one million who currently reside on the mainland.

By contrast, the ruling DPP has made itself increasingly unpopular with investors due to Chen Shui-Bian's restrictive policies on trade with China, designed to protect Taiwanese industry, which have been roundly criticised for contributing to the recent recession.

Nevertheless, the independence issue is still live and has been stoked by threats of military retribution if a planned referendum on Taiwan's application to join the UN under its own name goes ahead on the same day as the Presidential election.

China regards the decision to hold a referendum on U.N. membership as a move toward formal independence and has said that the vote "could threaten peace in the Asia-Pacific region".

Not coincidentally, the Beijing authorities chose this month to unveil plans to increase military spending by an unprecedented 18% this year, in contravention of international norms, to a total of 417.8bn yuan or 59 billion dollars.

Despite claims that "China's limited military capability is solely for the purpose of safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity" the government has already confirmed Taiwan will pay a 'dear price' for supporting independence, since it considers the island an integral part of its territory.

The outcome of the election could thus depend markedly on how the Taiwanese people respond to China's strong arm tactics.

Defiance would work in favour of the DPP candidate Frank Hsieh and could mean that the Kuomintang's dominance in the legislative elections is not replicated in the Presidential poll.

In contrast to the KMT line which advises retaining the name 'Republic of China' for an eventual UN seat, he continues to advocate Taiwan's full and unambiguous inclusion in the organisation as well as a robust Human Rights policy that goes against the grain of closer ties with China.

However, given the international community's opposition to the referendum which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has branded as 'provocative', citizens may think twice before invoking the wrath of their powerful neighbour, particularly since Japan has also expressed strong reservations.

In the end, pragmatism, and Ma Ying-Jeou's clear support in the Taiwanese media could hold the day. However, Taipei's ambitions to play a greater role in global governance should not stop there.

One of the major problems with the UN's current set-up is, as is the case with the World Health Organisation, it provides no forum for non-state actors, or states which are not recognised by the whole international community.

Such a forum is vital for ensuring peace and stability in volatile regions and encouraging diplomatic solutions for conflicts that threaten our collective security.

Establishing criteria for Taiwan to participate in the essential work of the UN without creating a political crisis with the People's Republic is essential to ending Taiwan's international isolation and allowing it to work in partnership with other nations on matters of mutual concern.

This should be the international community's current priority with regards Taiwan, regardless of the outcome of the referendum and Presidential election on March 22nd.

Revealed: Contents of MEPs Expenses Report

2008-03-05T12:45:00.004Z

Dutch MEP Paul van Buitenen has defied the Parliamentary Authorities and published an executive summary of the controversial report highlighting abuses of MEP expenses on his personal website.

This clearly states that the current system of staff payments, which can take numerous different contractual forms which alter depending on the MEP's nationality, is far too complicated for the Directorate General for Finance "to monitor effectively the legality, regularlity, and sound financial management of the Members' contractual arrangements".

It goes on to cite a variety of abuses, including payments of the 186000 euro staff allowance to dubious service providers who carry out irrelevant activities like child caring or trading in wood, or, in one case, no activity at all. In some cases, these providers have registered only one or indeed NO assistants to manage the MEPs office, well below the average staff ratio, and include payments to wives and family or the MEPs themselves.

In one exceptional case, an MEP was found to be the sole owner of the service provider to which he paid his allowances. This service provider was registered in a different country and did not figure in his declaration of interests (go figure!). He is now under investigation by OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud bureau.

In other forty two cases, Members who did not get re-elected paid generous 'lay-off payments' to their assistants to exhaust their budgets, one of whom received a total payout of 8890 euros from five separate MEPs over a three month period, in breach of the PEAM rules.

Other abuses related to non-payment or registration of VAT for which they are liable and inflated travel expenses for assistants (in one case, amounting to three times their annual salary).

Small wonder few wanted this to be published.

However it must be said that, if the sample of 167 MEPs is representative of the whole, the number of extreme abuses are relatively few. The really worrying thing is the fact that the vast majority of MEPs fail to register or protect their staff, fuelling fears that working for a parliamentarian often amounts to outright exploitation, particularly for stagiaires.

The audit shows that in 80% of cases, MEPs failure to register assistants with a social security scheme to protect them against unemployment or illness - a slap in the face for the majority of staff who are not recipients of their chief's largesse.

It is time the Parliament stopped trying to hide the evidence of abuses and faced up to its responsibilities, both to the staff it employs and the citizens it represents - whose tax dollar, lest we forget, is paying for these scams.

The new Members' statute, which comes into force next year, will represent a major step forwards in terms of fairness and transparency. It should be accompanied by a beefed-up assistants' statute which ensures all staff are paid a reasonable wage, through a less complex and more accountable system.

Then, and only then, can we iron out the discrepancies that make working in politics such a lottery.

Losing our Religion

2008-03-04T13:00:00.004Z

I came across a comment in today's Times by Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks which struck me as true.

I respect the Rabbi greatly because he is one of the few religious leaders whose writings provide a cogent critique of modern Western ethics and can appeal to readers beyond narrow sectarian confines.

This is what he has to say on the relationship between belief in God and what it means to be a human being which, in turn, has major implications for each individual's sense of purpose and of moral responsibility.

Religion claims human beings were granted dominion over all the earth. And while many would take issue with this interpretation in today's secular climate, the fact of the matter is that our dominion has never been so noticeable, so widespread, nor so destructive as it is today.

Fish stocks are almost exhausted.

Rising sea levels and global warming bring flooding and desertification in equal measure, reducing the amount of available farmland and forcing record numbers to migrate from their stricken homelands.

Species and languages are dying at unprecedented rates as globalisation's ugly cousin, homogeneity, attacks the world's natural diversity in the search for a quick profit or a sous to feed a growing family.

This is dominion all right. But it is thoughtless tyranny, dominion of the worst kind. Human beings, many argue, have a moral responsibility to themselves, to future generations, to the planet itself, to preserve the fruits of nature and cease their destructive behaviour.

But on what basis?

Rabbi Sacks points out that in the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,
dominion is and must be interpreted as stewardship: the recognition that living things are to serve humanity but human beings, as part of their dominion, are required to look after all living creatures.

On this reading, failure to care for the thing we exert power over is equivalent to acting inhumanly, to being inhumane in our treatment of other living things. For Rabbi Sacks, a God-centred view of human existence is one in which man (through his intelligence, his judgement, and his love for creation) can elevate himself to the viewpoint of the divine.

Failure to harness this spiritual side, however, results in an abasement that puts us on a par with non-sentient creatures.

An abasement born, if you will, of wilful ignorance because mankind's capacity for intelligent thought and forward planning is far far greater than that of other mammals. They exist. We order existence. Failure to exercise what clerics call God-given reason is thus the equivalent of acting against our (better) nature.

By contrast, modern scientific thought - as it is used by humanists and other secular groups - defines humanity as something far more limited and, fundamentally, pre-programmed: as Rabbi Sacks points out, "we are part of nature; nothing more".

A statement published in 1997 by members of the International Academy of Humanism, and distinguished scientists, philosophers and novelists, defines homo sapiens as a member of the animal kingdom stating:

"Human capabilities appear to differ in degree, not in kind, from those found among the higher animals.

Humankind's rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover.”

This in turn gives rise to questions about the nature of our responsibility towards the planet and its creatures.

If we are programmed to be selfish, greedy, and destructive what possible reason could we have for stopping such tendencies for moral reasons rather than reasons of self interest?

I am not suggesting for one moment that the non-religious don't have a sense of ethics. I am simply saying that different definitions of humanity lead us to employ different forms of rationale.

Note that much of the current discussion on climate change is not about the rights and wrongs of exterminating animal and fish species, it's about ensuring their sustainable use for economic growth.

Under this way of seeing it does not matter much if the salmon comes from a salmon farm or lives wild. The essential point is that it is there for human consumption.

The modern view of human beings stresses our biology. In turn, we objectify animals, seeing them only as the source of meat or leather, as opposed to beings which have an equal right to inhabit the earth and are deserving of reasonable treatment.

If you have ever looked in a cow's eyes, let alone stroked your neighbour's cat as it sits on your knee, you will have had the feeling that a being, any being, is a good deal more than that.

Rabbi Sacks writes that "When human beings lose faith in God they lose faith in human beings" and indeed, the sacredness of creation.

Why?

Because without an extra-biological purpose informing our actions, he claims, "We will have knowledge without wisdom, technology without reticence, choice without conscience, power without restraint".

Only when we rediscover life as a miracle of creation, instead of trying to maximise its returns, will we rediscover our full potential as human beings.

Barefaced Hypocrisy

2008-02-27T14:55:00.006Z

Self-serving politicians have an amazing capacity to endure, yet they occasionally cross the line and shoot themselves in the foot.

Such, I suspect, is the case with the current MEPs expenses scandal where the European Parliament's already shoddy reputation in national capitals has been further tarnished by its refusal to publish the report.

Following emergency discussions in the Conference of Presidents and the Parliamentary Bureau, the Budget Control committee voted yesterday not to make their findings public - a move supported by President Hans-Gert Pottering.

Everyone is hoping the story can be brushed under the carpet if they simply keep stum. Either because a) they are exploiting the system and fear the electoral consequences or because b) they fear a low turnout at next year's European elections, and thus, the electoral consequences.

Everyone, that is, except for a small band of feisty, media savvy MEPs who have openly aired their views to the press and are calling for those who defraud the public exchequer to be 'named and shamed'. Small wonder so many of their fellow parliamentarians are out to get them.

Sources tell me our esteemed representatives consider the threat to their livelihoods so great that they have requested large chunks of next week's Group Week to be put aside to discuss 'disciplining' these traitors.

This is the worst case of outright hypocrisy and shamelessness I have seen for some years from the peoples' representative. May they reap what they have sown when this becomes more widely known.

Thrilled to Bits :)

2008-02-25T18:12:00.003Z

OMG was thrilled to discover my article on the Olympics was published in Le Monde today...just after we got a letter in the Independent on the same issue. Not, of course, in my own name, but still...Guess my journalistic talents are improving...

Here is a copy of the text: in translation, natch

"En confiant à la Chine l'organisation des Jeux olympiques de 2008 (8-24 août), l'espoir était grand, renforcé par les promesses des officiels du Parti communiste, que cet événement conduirait le pays vers plus d'ouverture, de liberté et de respect des droits de l'homme. Du reste, il s'agissait quasiment d'une obligation morale, puisque la Charte olympique indique explicitement que les villes hôtes, en l'occurrence Pékin, doivent être des exemples vivants des "principes éthiques fondamentaux" des Jeux. Force est de constater que, six mois avant le début des Jeux, ces principes sont bafoués. Les prisons s'ouvrent devant les dissidents, la liberté se ferme pour les médias.

Un peu tard, secoué par le refus de Steven Spielberg de rester le consultant artistique pour la cérémonie d'ouverture - dénonçant ainsi le soutien chinois au régime soudanais massacreur du Darfour -, le Comité international olympique (CIO) prend la mesure de son erreur. Erreur répétée d'ailleurs, car l'échec de la confiance mal placée en Chine va se réitérer en 2014 avec les Jeux d'hiver que l'on a cru bon de confier à la Russie. Qui peut croire que Sotchi, la station balnéaire de luxe des serviteurs zélés du Kremlin, pourra mieux répondre que Pékin aux exigences de la Charte olympique ? Les mêmes causes dictatoriales produiront les mêmes effets répressifs.

Car tout montre que la Russie devient un régime autoritaire, non seulement en ridiculisant la démocratie à travers des élections truquées, mais aussi en renouant avec des pratiques politiques de censure des médias, d'intimidation des contestataires, d'emprisonnement, et même parfois de meurtre, des opposants. L'arrogance russe devient telle que même une enceinte aussi diplomatique que l'Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE) est obligée d'en tirer les conséquences et de boycotter la présidentielle du 2 mars.

Lorsque le CIO et son président, Jacques Rogge, ont accepté la candidature russe en 2007, c'était, disaient-ils, pour des raisons pratiques et logistiques : Sotchi était l'endroit idéal en termes d'infrastructures d'entraînement et de compétition, et les bénéfices de cet événement rejailliraient sur la région entière de la mer Noire. Cet argument du pragmatisme est fallacieux. Les JO constituent en effet le plus grand symbole de reconnaissance internationale dont un pays puisse se targuer, et son Comité d'organisation ne peut ignorer cette dimension politique. En récompensant Moscou, le CIO, il est vrai avec la bénédiction de la communauté internationale, a de fait légitimé les dérives autocratiques de Vladimir Poutine.

MÊME LONDRES 2012...

Après Pékin et avant Sotchi, c'est Londres qui sera l'hôte des JO de 2012. Comme Britannique, je devrais m'en réjouir, et comme libéral-démocrate davantage encore qu'une démocratie libérale soit ainsi distinguée. Mais il n'en est rien. La démocratie libérale britannique n'est plus ce qu'elle était. Suivant docilement la doctrine sécuritaire des néoconservateurs américains, les gouvernements travaillistes de Blair et de Brown, avec la bénédiction hypocrite des Tories, ont multiplié les lois liberticides, menaçant notre habeas corpus sur l'autel de la prétendue lutte antiterroriste. Ce n'est pas par hasard que Londres a refusé de s'associer à la Charte des droits fondamentaux...

Pékin n'est donc pas simplement un mauvais moment à passer. C'est une première étape vers un relâchement général des moeurs olympiques. Si les Jeux veulent conserver une certaine crédibilité, basée sur ses valeurs et ses principes fondateurs, il est temps pour leurs promoteurs de se poser les vraies questions. A l'avenir, toute ville hôte ne devra être retenue que sur la base de normes élevées en matière de respect des droits fondamentaux et des libertés. L'idéal olympique, avant toute autre considération, devra être le critère ultime. Les JO doivent redevenir un modèle pour le monde et non plus servir à masquer ses bas-fonds.

European Parliament Must Clean Up Its Act

2008-02-21T09:18:00.008Z

The Daily Telegraph has just blown the whistle on the widespread and criminal abuse of expenses by MEPs in the European Parliament.

So endemic is the extent of the fraud, it is claimed, that the Report which documents it can only be seen by Members of the Budget Control Committee in a secret Bond-style room accessable by having your thumb prints and eyeballs scanned, or some such.

I asked around. It's on PHS Second Floor, if office gossip is to be believed. Maybe someone will leave the door open. It wouldn't be the first time security here were lax.

But I digress. Keeping something secret is one thing. All governments do that. But what is disgraceful is Parliament's subsequent behaviour when it came to light in the press.

The Torygraph reports that "Harald Rømer, the secretary-general of the European Parliament, was asked late on Monday night by Hans-Gert Pöttering, its president, and a group of senior Euro-MPs, to take measures to ensure that there was no "collateral damage" from the report".

"We want reform but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year," said a source close to the decision.

Well I would have to take issue with that. Only a few months ago MEPs - the only parliamentarians in the Western world not to be held accountable for their spending - voted against plans for an annual audit of their expenses.

That they could make such a cynical move and then protest that highlighting the "criminal abuse" being perpetrated by - I'm willing to bet - a massive majority of the people's representatives would damage the image of European democracy before the 2009 elections is hypocritical in the extreme.

What they really mean of course is that, were the names to be published, the public would be so pissed at their behaviour that they might *gasp* be deselected and lose all their privileges. What a disaster for democracy.

While making this report public might be painful for Parliament in the short term it would ultimately earn it respect from even the most eurosceptic quarters, particularly if it were accompanied by a raft of radical proposals for Parliamentary Reform.

As it is, by covering up - badly - for colleagues who are essentially criminals, the good name of all, not to mention the European Project as a whole, could be damaged beyond repair.

And that would be a disaster for Europe's future influence and place in the world, whatever Torygraph propaganda might say to the contrary.

So if you want to take action, I suggest you WRITE TO YOUR MEP DEMANDING TO KNOW IF THEY HAVE MADE THEIR ACCOUNTS PUBLIC. AND IF NOT, WHY NOT.

The Happy Teetotaler

2008-02-20T10:52:00.006Z

Well I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but I'm becoming a happy teetotaler :)

I first tried the no alcohol experiment during Lent last year and it was, quite frankly, one of the most psychologically horrendous experiences of my entire life.

Counting the days and hours to go before I could next indulge in my preferred tipple, I wound myself up to the extent that I was conscious 24/7 of what I was missing out on.

Then I'd fall off the wagon, have a couple, feel guilty, and fantasise some more about the day there'd be no arbitrary limit to my G and T consumption...

Of course, come the end of Lent there was a counter-reaction of major proportions.

All the pent up desires for champagne cocktails, Belgian beer, single malts, or a simple pint of ale, resolved themselves in a six-month long fiesta that probably inflicted more damage on my poor liver than if the month and a half of abstention had never happened.

Notwithstanding last year's false start I decided to do the same again, if only to attempt to break the cycle of receptions and dinners that was adding metres, not centimetres, to my waistline.

And I'm pleasantly surprised to find it's a lot easier this time around.

Perhaps I'm just more self-aware, more mature, or just tired of over-indulgence. Perhaps it's because the calorie count of a glass of Chardonnay has finally been rammed home. Perhaps it's just because I hate hangovers even more than I love alcohol.

Whatever the reason, I feel like I don't want to go back to those old ways. I had a beer the other day - cheating I know! - but I didn't feel guilty unlike last year, when I mentally chalked up all my black marks and flagellated myself with them. I want to be in a position where a drink is just a drink, not two, three or four.

And as I was sitting in a Sushi place last night sipping green tea with a friend who's the life and soul of the party but a confirmed teetotaler for well over a year now (black outs and bad boys put an end to that apparently) I realised I was actually a lot happier like that than rolling into bed after my traditional 'few'.

If only I could transfer that attitude to my smoking habit. But noone's perfect, right?

Vindicated

2008-02-19T10:13:00.003Z

I am pleased to note that leading think tank the International Obesity Task Force, has backed my calls for a revolution in urban planning to halt the growing obesity epidemic (!!).

In previous posts I argued there was a fundamental contradiction between the pressures put on individuals to take responsibility for their health and weight issues while the social structures which surround them act simultaneously to discourage exercise and encourage over-consumption.

Decrying the "“obesogenic environment” promoted by most modern cities, the task force says simply encouraging more leisure activities is not enough to compensate for the sedentary hours we spend in our cars, at our desks, or in front of the tv.

It believes advocating more leisure activities and healthy eating is insufficient to combat the problem, and that governments must take far greater responsibility for "sustained additional changes to town planning and transport”.

Oslo and Amsterdam were both cited as examples of 'slim cities' where the built environment discourages car use and promotes walking and cycling, which in turn lowers obesity rates.

I'd like to make further recommendations in this regard. I've never liked suburbs, seeing them as sterile ghettos for social climbers, enclaves of the priveliged, and dull dull dull. Now I have a more objective reason to hate them, since living far from the office, school, or whatever means people rely on the car for just about everything.

It's clearly better for us to reinvent suburbs as out of town villages, with proper local shops (not just giant shopping malls off the motorway), decent rail access to the city centre, and schools within safe walking distance for kids. After all, we don't just need better public transport so people can cover fifty miles a day. It would be much better if everything were just that bit more local.

But how can that be engineered? Simple, I reckon. Petrol is getting dearer by the minute, and oil levels have already peaked. The resulting downturn in production should make cars a lot more expensive to own and run (think 1973 oil crisis). Which will make it unprofitable for businesses to locate themselves in the middle of nowhere, to transport goods long distance, and for people to live far from the office.

There's also an environmental factor which should be taken into account. At the moment it's houses that are unaffordable (though thankfully not houses in city centre slums, which is the end of the market I'm currently aiming at with my baseline salary). But why should cars cost nothing when they are ruining our physical health and the environment? The polluter should certainly pay in this case.

If people werent so fixated with car ownership - if they couldnt afford it - the revolution would take place almost instantly. We could relocated offices from those horrible retail parks to places employees might actually want to spend time after hours, next to parks, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, other people they know.

I can vouch for the extra productivity this will produce. My best ever job was at the Scottish Parliament, in the centre of Edinburgh, where me and my pals would spend lunchtime hiking around Holyrood Park, feeding the swans, or sitting in a ruined chapel at the top of hill having a picnic.

Sometimes the whole team would go sit under a tree brainstorming and planning. Or we'd go for a quick hours shopping on Princes Street, returning at a fast trot so as not to be out the office all afternoon. It made all the crap of the working day fade benignly into the distance, and us healthier and happier in the process. And then we got to walk home, past the magnificent Old Town architecture, to our central apartments.

It could be the norm, not the exception, if government made the incentives right.

Protecting Debate: a Right not a Privilege

2008-02-14T16:47:00.008Z

Think what you will about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the outspoken critic of fundamentalist Islam. Agree or disagree with what she has to say. Refuse to acknowledge her opinions, if you like. Fly into a 'murderous' rage, if you must. But do not dispute her right to live out her life in freedom and security and leave her opinions as a matter for debate, not violence.

Those were my conclusions after listening to the notorious Ms Hirsi Ali speak before the European Parliament today, pleading with MEPs to extend her the EU's protection now that her own country, the Netherlands, is refusing to pay for the round-the-clock security necessary to shield her from would-be assassins.

Europe should not defend her because it agrees with her opinions. It should not defend her to make a statement against Islamic violence. It should not even agree to defend her because of her high profile. It should agree to defend any and all European citizens who, because of their views - however distasteful - are menaced with death.

As Benoit Hamon, the French Socialist MEP in charge of the initiative to extend EU funding to protect her, said, this is not a debate about Islam but a debate about Europe's values, and how it puts them into practice.

By forcing the former MP to choose between a living death in the Netherlands and a fuller, yet less secure, existence in the US the Dutch government has abdicated its responsibility for implementing the European Charter of Fundamental Rights which expressly states that 'everyone has the right to liberty and security of person'.

While demands for an EU protection fund might seem unrealistic at present, it clearly makes sense for EU citizenship to be linked much more closely to citizenship rights, as laid down in the Charter and Lisbon Treaty, amongst others.

With the increase in extremism on both the left and the right of the political spectrum (not to mention amongst those who have no allegiance to Europe's democratic values) it is important to assure citizens that the values Europe likes to voice in theory, are actually available in practice.

In truth, an EU right to protection (whether imposed on Member States or presented as an EU competence) is clearly in the best interests of all citizens. For, as Tom Paine famously pointed out, 'He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself".

Even Ms Hirsi Ali's most virulent detractors might like to reflect on what could happen to them were she to be murdered by a Muslim fanatic. The likelihood is that a shock wave far stronger than that which rocked Holland after the killing of Theo Van Gogh, would reverberate across Europe, making Muslim communities (innocent men, women and children) a thousand times more vulnerable to racial abuse and violence.

Failure to establish the principle of protection in law could lead to two possible outcomes. One, that Europe's prized attachment to freedom of expression would cease to be meaningful, since people would auto-censure through fear of reprisal. And two, that future governments, God forbid, future right wing xenophobic governments of the type promised by the Vlaams Belang or the Front Nationale, could put ethnic minorities at risk of reprisal - without needing to provide protection to those that stand up for minority interests.

Instead of focussing on whether Hirsi Ali is right or wrong in her depiction of Islam - as most people on either side of the secularist/islamist agenda have tended to do - Europeans must be prepared to extend freedom of speech to everyone, however tasteless their views may be.

The debate Ayaan Hirsi Ali triggered will rage on. But it should stay at the level of debate, and not descend into violence. Although her views may not always be 'sensitively' expressed, Muslims would do better to respond to her suggestions through better arguments and clearer questioning, instead of accusations and cries of offence.

For this is simply the first taste of what is to come. Religion - whether Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, or any other ism - is taking an ever more prominent place in political debate across Europe, so it is vital we create conditions where its implications be discussed openly, honestly, and frankly, under the banner of freedom of speech. And if religions can't accept occasional offence, they may have to accept the far greater prohibition of fundamentalist secularism, which would curtail all religious advances into the public realm.

Through their actions shall we know them.

Welcome to Greater Scotland?

2008-02-12T16:33:00.000Z

Scottish imperialism is thriving, apparently. Not satisfied with getting their paws on the reigns of power within our current borders the Scottish National Party is busy formenting rebellion in what were Scots lands in days of yore...Bring on the battle for Berwick upon Tweed. According to the newswires,

"Christine Grahame, MSP for southern Scotland, has "invited" the people of Berwick to "come back into the fold" and swap their allegiance from England to Scotland.

Historically, the town has been a battleground between England and Scotland for centuries.
It has changed hands between the two nations no less than 13 times and was last won by the English in 1482.

But in a poll, organised by local newspaper the Berwick Advertiser, 77% of all those who voted said they would like to be governed by Scotland once more.

Keith Hamblin, deputy editor, said: "I was surprised by the result. I am a Berwick man born and bred and I regard myself very much as English.

"I think, though, that people feel the quality of life is better in Scotland since devolution.

"Also, we are losing our borough council next year. It's being replaced by a new unitary authority, so all our administration wil be run 60 miles away further south. So people feel they're going to be left out even further on the frozen north."

The town already has Scottish loyalties when it comes to football. Its team, Berwick Rangers FC, has played in the Scottish league for years.

Ms Grahame hopes the rest of the town will also become fans of the idea of being Scottish."

Watch out England. It'll be Newcastle next!!

Opening Pandora's Box

2008-02-12T08:43:00.002Z

Congratulations go to the Archbishop of Canterbury for opening the Pandora's Box of our time: what it means to be a multicultural society.

A lot of fluffy nonsense has been spoken about multiculturalism in recent years, partly through ignorance. For many of those who employ the term prefer to use it as a catch-all for feelgood liberal inclusiveness while overlooking what the logic of applied multiculturalism means in practice.

Wikipedia defines multiculturalism as a "de facto state of both cultural and ethnic diversity within the demographics of a particular social space" - merging it with the concept of pluralism tout court.

Yet rather than simply referring to the existence of diverse cultural groups, official multiculturalism policies "aim at preserving the cultures or cultural identities - usually those of immigrant groups - within a unified society. In this context, multiculturalism advocates a society that extends equitable status to distinct cultural and religious groups, no one culture predominating".

Although this seems a straightforward desire for mutual respect at face value, in reality it is anything but. If no one culture predominates then it makes it very difficult to argue for 'one law for all' as the Home Secretary has repeatedly done.

For Britain's Laws (many of them ancient), as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has rightly said, derive from Judeo-Christian principles for all the 'secular' spin that is put on them. Thus, in a truly 'multicultural society' they must be considered culturally biased rather than neutral, and thus open to opposition from other communities.

This in turn throws into relief what it means for something to have a universal value. Human Rights, for example, are often claimed to be fundamental and indivisible - acting as the framework around which all legal systems should be constructed.

Yet the concept of Human Rights derives from certain channels of thought which, while not necessarily 100% Western in origin (and here I doff my hat to Amartya Sen's critiques), certainly does not have a universal provenance. Hence one reason that the OIC drew up its own 'Islamic Bil of Human Rights' back in the day.

If we are prepared to admit that multiculturalism entails "equitable status to distinct cultural and religious groups" then our cultural relativism must extend as far as this framework of first principles, if policy making is to be coherent. Which leaves little to nothing that can be deemed suitable for legislation for society at large, based even on the principle of reasonable pluralism.

Of course, there is one further problem with a policy which requires every cultural community to make its own rules - schism and minority viewpoints. Every culture, every organisation, no matter how small, has its renegades, its leaders, and its followers. Thus the question of who makes the rules and who is bound by them is crucial.

Too often, experience across all religions shows that elderly bearded men have the monopoly on this position, giving others little say in writing the rule book. If a completely homogenous group cannot be defined it will be difficult to make legitimate law on all of their behalfs.

Not only is Sharia neither static nor homogenous (as the Archbishop acknowledges) but different schools of fiqh have differing interpretations of what it requires, to which individual Muslims adhere.

Indeed some scholars like Tariq Ramadan believe that even the shariat provisions on which these schools agree cannot be implemented because today's conditions are unlike those of the umma in the time of the prophet - poverty, for example, could be an excuse for stealing while at that time social organisation meant no one was without sufficient food - so the debate is entirely hypothetical.

And then there is the question of dissenters. The Archbishop says that those who decide to pursue justice through Sharia Councils (as in Jewish courts or Somali customary courts) must agree with the punishment meted out or their case will be referred to the Supreme Court.

Yet this is simply one more example of multicultural window dressing which is logically incoherent. If the whole point is respecting the equality of different cultural traditions it is clearly absurd to put British Law on a pedestal.

If the point is giving people choice it could well turn to the advantage of the strong, as it gives plaintiffs the opportunity to pick the version of justice which suits their interests - and pressurise the weak into accepting decisions for cultural reasons, as Earthquake Cove correctly points out in this post.

So we have a choice: either package people as community members and leave it up to their communities to dispense justice - or acknowledge we are all members of one society so we must live under one set of rules which (while open to discussion and debate) must be applied to all, with few exceptions, as is currently the case.

The truth of the matter is that the Archbishop's comments on the place of Sharia in Britain simply reflect what is already happening, since Sharia Councils, like other advisory bodies, seek solutions on non-criminal matters pertaining to their faith which, if disputed, go straight to the high court. That's what he means when he says it is an already accepted part of Britain's legal-political landscape.

What is problematic is not this kind of culturally-sensitive problem solving but the concept of parallel legal systems which is what multiculturalism entails.

No Room To Breathe

2008-02-11T15:04:00.000Z

I've lived outside the UK for three out of the last five years and every time I return I notice the change.

Everything is monitored. Everyone is checked. Everything and everyone is part of a growing system of government control which has moved beyond traditional parameters of law, order, and welfare provision into the private sphere where it hopes to create and enforce the concept of the 'model citizen'.

Increasingly, there is no more room to breathe in British society. No room to live according to different norms, to espouse different beliefs, or simply exist outside the ever-extending scrutiny of the state.

We live in a country where the fingerprints of thousands of innocent schoolchildren are kept on file by the police, where an electronic snapshot of our lives can be obtained by everyone from the local authority to the Egg Marketing Board - without our permission ever being asked.

A country where the phonecalls of MPs are tapped, where people can be fired from their jobs (or never employed) for 'misconduct' in their private life, ranging from drunken pranks with their pals to an unfortunate facebook photo.

Where ID cards containing all our personal information will so be required to access any public service, at any time. Where nothing we say do or think can be kept private.

It's just a step away from the situation depicted in 'The Lives of Others', which was so well received at last night's BAFTAs. The director claims enough time has passed to critically depict East-Germany's past under the Stasi.

Yet the surveillance state is not in the past. It is alive and well in modern Britain and the film contains a warning of what could lie ahead if Britain doesn't wake up to what liberties we allow our government to take away in the name of the 'common good'. For while the current political climate may still be reasonably open there may come a time when that is no longer the case - and it will be too late to change anything.

Successive Home Secretaries have accused critics of state surveillance for being paranoid, stating that if citizens have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.

Yet as Dan Kieran points out in his book 'I Fought the Law', even respectable middle class citizens canfind themselves blacklisted, or even arrested, for engaging in the right to protest, whether over the war in Iraq or building a ring road in an environmentally sensitive area.

Isaiah Berlin famously defined liberty as 'an answer to the question: 'What is the area within which the subject — a person or group of persons — is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons'.

Totalitarian regimes corrode the space of negative liberties (where our freedom of action is uninterupted as long as it does not interfere with the freedoms of others) to the extent that all actions (no matter how private) become politicised and fall under the jurisdiction of the state.

That is what seems to be happening in the UK, with the active collusion of many unwitting and 'upright' British citizens. And before you accuse me of being paranoid, let me refer you the following article by Simon Carr in the Independent.

As he says: 'What we have emerging in Britain is a general cultural movement in favour of surveillance. There is a growing sense that society generally and the state in particular should take an active interest in all individual activity. And that this is right, proper and inevitable.

...We're witnessing something like Rousseau's "general will" in a preliminary stage of development. Polls, politics, television, public opinion, the insurance industry, the state sector, they are all combining to exert public "general will" rights over the private sphere.

Laying down an approved way of doing things is one expression of this. "Best practice" it is sometime called. Or "directives" or "targets" or "operational guidance".

The State has a powerful incentive and logic driving it: it is spending so much of our money to help us that it has the right to demand appropriate behaviour in return."

Efficient public spending requires model citizens. So be prepared to conform - or be convicted.

Questionable Facts

2008-02-07T16:53:00.000Z

At last!! Proof that a taste for expensive restaurants, drinks receptions, and sedentary office life does not lie at the heart of my weight control issues. It's not my lifestyle that's to blame for being a few pounds overweight - it's my genes. Thanks Mum. That should keep her quiet the next time she gets on at me for not being a size 10...

Except that it doesn't add up. After all, almost noone was obese fifty years ago - and the gene pool hasn't changed much in that time. Even if some people find it harder to control weight than others genes can hardly explain the obesity epidemic that's hit the country.

Facts are facts. Sixty percent of British people will be obese by the year 2010 because modern life is bad for our health. The majority of people exist off diets permeated by rich, fatty, nutrition-free convenience food - because they are too busy to sit down and cook. We live lives of sloth, trapped in offices like those mice scientists use for experiments, and then express surprise at the expanse of flab around our middles.

Fad diets won't change that. Only a lifestyle revolution can. And that has got to start with challenging the efficiency epidemic that encourages these characteristics in the first place

Why Do We Bother?

2008-02-06T11:11:00.000Z

I just don't understand it. While we expend vast amounts of energy frustrating Turkish attempts to join the European Union - despite Erdogan's best efforts to reform it in line with our rigorous standards - we approach Serbia, that hotbed of xenophobic nationalism and protector of war criminals, with open arms.

Indeed, if all goes 'well' the Slovenian Presidency will sign a Stablisation and Association Agreement with the Serbs this Thursday, offering them closer trade relations and relaxed visa requirements.

My question is, in exchange for what? Why exactly are we handing all of this to Serbia on a platter when there is precisely 'no evidence', according to Serge Brammaerts, the new Chief Prosecutor for the International Tribunal tasked with bringing war criminals to justice, that Serbia is cooperating in the search for Mladic?

This is the first and only main requirement the EU imposed on Belgrade for the SAA to be signed - and now we are all but ignoring it. So much for the EU commitment to upholding Human Rights.

The Presidency defends its decision on the basis that pro-Western President Boris Tadic has just been re-elected, as opposed to the pro-Moscow nationalist Tomislav Nikolic. But I'm afraid that doesn't really cut the mustard.

Firstly, the contest was exceptionally close, with almost half the population voting for closer ties with the Ruskies and in favour of ultra-nationalist sentiments. That's hardly evidence of a revolutionary change in mindset.

Secondly, both candidates came out against independence for Kosovo - one of the EU's main objectives.

And thirdly, ties with Russia have been effectively institutionalised after the same said Tadic allowed Gazprom and others to buy up almost all of Serbia's industry and major enterprises.

What we are looking at is a new Russian Satellite whose infrastructure, economy, and legal institutions are in need of nothing less than a major shakeup. Of what possible advantage could a country like this be to the EU?

However, thanks to Kostunica, we may not have to worry about that, at least for a while. He has come out against the planned agreement, accusing the EU of "directly undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and its constitutional order" through a planned peace mission to Kosovo.

As the government coalition relies heavily on support from his faction, his move could topple the government by the end of the week. And that would mean forming a new coalition with none other than uber nationalist Tomislav Nikolic. Good to see that times have changed so definitively.
Instead of pretending that Serbia is yet in a fit state to join the Union we should focus on countries that can offer us something in return.

Turkey, with its access to and influence over Central Asia and its gas reserves, its highly educated labour force, growing economy, and potential for overcoming regional security issues, is far and away a better prospect than countries like Serbia who would simply take and not give.

Choosing the Right Way Forward

2008-02-05T11:38:00.000Z

One of the main purposes of my work is convincing people that democracy and human rights are universally applicable, anywhere in the world. What I write is very black and white - because that is what my job demands. Propaganda isn't propaganda otherwise. However in private I have always -been slightly suspicious of the 'democratisation agenda': partly because it has been hijacked by American neo-cons in their quest for world dominance and partly because of an instinctive dislike of 'universalisms' which I have come to associate with thinly veiled cultural imperialism.

I don't think that makes me a cultural relativist on the other hand. I do not, for example, believe that all cultural practices are equally good. I do believe that better and worse decisions can be made and that in order to know which is which we have to make comparisons.

Yet I am also quite convinced that all cultural practices have a certain validity (that is they 'make sense') within the internal logic that governs every civilisation. Whether we are aware of it or not most of us operate on auto-pilot within our own societies, either conforming to or reacting against the unwritten rules which govern our understanding of right and wrong action.

Living within the parameters of these rules provides us with our sense of normality. We do not question why we behave a certain way, most of the time, nor do we try to justify it in our own terms. And if we are dissatisfied with the rules of the game, we react against them instead of putting in place alternative systems to govern our lives.

A good example would bethe sexual revolution which swept the West in the sixties and seventies where people swept away the suffocating social norms that governed relationships only to replace them with their diametric opposite - with little or no attempt to make sense of this seismic shift from one extreme to the other.

So we all operate within closed cultural systems mitigated only if and when we are exposed to alternative ways of living. In the past this happened rarely - through trade, or cultural exchange amongst the educated elite - but today alternatives to our own cultural norms are increasingly evident and accessible.

Migration, instant communication, the internet, even the availability of cheap foreign travel have all enlarged our horizons. Very few people alive today can claim to live culturally hermetic, homogenous lives. However it is equally true that our understanding of other ways of life remains superficial, even disneyfied.

Eating Chinese food, watching a foreign film, speaking another language, even hanging out with foreign friends, is rarely sufficient to give us more than a window onto another world. It's a bit like showing a photo of a tropical island to someone who has never been there.

They can exclaim at the beauty of the scene, perhaps remark on what people are wearing, eating, or doing, but they will not understand why those things are taking place - why they 'make sense' within the logic of that society . In fact, even if we went to that tropical island, most of us wouldn't understand a lot more about the scene in question - we would see, but we would not see clearly.

For most of us, 'our way' of doing things remains the best way. We view those who dissent from our norms - especially in our own society - on a spectrum ranging from the bizarre, to the suspect, or at worst, downright frightening.

This reaction differs from the reaction conventional people (and I speak as a British person here) have when confronted with an alternative cultural practice which is indigenous in origin, such aspeople acting like Punks, Goths, or whatever.

We are aware of where these practices come from and what they represent. And even if we dont like them we do understand them. What makes unknown cultural norms so frightening is that they don't make the remotest bit of sense to us.

So if a woman is veiled, if a Hindu refuses to eat meat, if an East Asian refuses to loosen up in our company, we don't understand why. We don't understand why these things are normal for the person in question and why any attempt to do otherwise would constitute a painful act of rebellion against their inner instincts.

It's a bit like telling your average British person to stop drinking alcohol, stop watching the football, or start going to church again, when they're an avowed atheist. These are simply things the average person does in today's Britain. They are normal. They are everyday. But are they right?

If we want to understand how best to live our lives we must put our own assumptions in question. While it may be normal for British people to drink to get drunk it certainly isn't in France. So who is right? Surely, when we make the comparison, we have to conclude that the French way of moderate drinking is preferable.

Yet other countries do not have a drinking culture. So which is better - the French way or their way? When we truly compare the effects of living with alcohol to the effects of living without we might well conclude that not drinking at all is essentially better for us even if it is, to our way of thinking, alot less fun.

So when deciding if you want to drink or not you can make a choice. You can say 'do I want to have fun and relax - and take the consequences if I cannot be moderate' or you can say 'to prevent overindulgence and its unpleasant effects on myself and others, I would do best to avoid alcohol'.

One argument derives from personal preference 'I want to have fun', the other from a qualitative, objective fact, which is personal health. As such, the best choice is probably not to drink - even though that goes against what most of us are culturally tuned to believe.

It's hard to make the 'right' choice from within British culture where not drinking is mocked as the preserve of the uptight and self-righteous. But it's much easier to make when looked at from the perspectives and norms of other cultures where the idea that you cannot 'have fun' without alcohol is an alien concept.

So we can see that enhanced cultural awareness can help us make choices and decisions about our own lives - by deconstructing our own norms and exposing much of our behaviour as the result of cultural conditioning instead of personal decision making or logic.

Once we realise this we can start to look for better ways forward. And it is here that I would like to return to democracy and human rights. Many people say that they're Western imports, a form of cultural hegemony that doesn't work for certain civilisations. That we should, de facto, respect every and all decisions made within the logic of other societies.

But that is not the case. As Amartya Sen has pointed out in 'La Democratie des autres' the idea of public debate and decision making is by no means confined to the West. Indeed, even that tradition which derived from the Athenian demos was more thoroughly reflected on in Asia Minor, the Middle East, and India many centuries ago, than it ever was in Western Europe until the current age.

Every society has had its open and closed periods, every society has times of freedom and times of dictatorship. Every society has its successes and failures. The Arab world today is a good sight less developed - both materially and culturally - than it was five hundred years ago when it was by far the most developed, open, and tolerant civilisation in the world. That is why it flourished. And why it has now ceased to flourish.

Realising this, we must be aware that certain practices are - when considered relatively - qualitatively better than others. And of all the worst qualities a society can exhibit, closedmindedness and intolerance must be amongst the worst.

That is why not only concerned foreigners but all Muslims and Afghans should be so affronted by what is happening to Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student of journalism who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy for downloading material on women's rights and distributing it for the purpose of stimulating debate on the Qu'ran's meaning and interpretation.

This is not only wrong because Afghanistan is now a democracy, and democracies allow pluralism, but because - from the perspective of openness and critical debate which allows all societies to move forward - it is illogical to execute someone for questioning norms: even if these are religious norms, and the society in question is a religious society.

For if we question something its truth, or logic, will either be revealed or denied. Truth (maybe not absolute truth, but internal consistency, lets say) can only be established through debate and discussion. And inconsistency - or falsehood - can only be exposed that way. So please, everyone, sign the petition to free this poor man - not because you believe a bunch of secular Westerners are right but because it is the right, and the only, thing to do.

Stop The Traffik

2008-02-01T13:16:00.000Z

Trafficking in Human Beings is a very clinical term for what is essentially modern slavery: the buying and selling of human beings for profit.

Every year up to 120 000 women and children are brought into the European Union by people traffickers. Most are tricked into leaving their homes with promises of a better life. Some are simply abducted. All are destined for exploitation.

Once here, they are forced into prostitution or used as a source of cheap labour by unscrupulous employers, in sectors ranging from domestic work to farming, manufacturing and construction.

Many of these vulnerable people never see a cent for their labours. Too often, their passports are confiscated and they are deprived of their basic rights, held against their will in poor conditions, beaten, sexually abused, or subjected to other degrading treatment.

Worldwide, the figure is even higher. Although it is difficult to gather accurate statistics, because the victims cannot, or do not want, to reveal themselves to the authorities it is believed that millions of people are trafficked every single year, making human trafficking the fastest growing form of international organised crime.

Yet despite the terrible human cost to its victims, trafficked people are frequently treated as criminals or unlawful aliens when they come to the attention of the authorities.

Too often their ordeal is confused with ‘people smuggling’, where migrants pay middlemen to bypass border controls and enter the European Union illegally.

As such, non-nationals without rights to residence in the country in which they are found are given little or no access the justice system and are simply deported back to their home countries with little or no assessment of the risks they may face.

Where assistance is given, it is often made conditional on victims cooperating with the police to locate their traffickers, which can put both them and their families in grave danger.

For all our talk of fundamental rights, it is rare that victims of trafficking are given access to the support they need to overcome their ordeal.

As a result of these short-sighed strategies, the psychological, medical and social consequences of trafficking, not to mention the underlying root causes, are never addressed.

And for every trafficker put behind bars, there are many more willing to take the risk. Indeed, reports suggest that some criminal gangs are making the switch from drugs to human beings, in search of higher profits at lower risk.

This makes it more important than ever to tackle this problem in a holistic and humane manner taking into account the needs of the victims and the factors which encourage trafficking in the first place - a major departure from current practice.

The entry into force of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings on 1 February 2008 will mark a major step forwards by committing participating states to criminalise trafficking, not the victims of trafficking.

However to date only fourteen Council of Europe Member States are party to this Convention, of which six - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Moldova and Norway - are non EU members, while thirty three are yet to ratify.

If the European Union is serious about its desire to promote and protect fundamental rights throughout the world it is imperative that all countries ratify and implement this convention without delay.

You can pressure our leaders to do so. Sign the petition to stop the traffik - with any luck millions of signatures will be presented to the UN in less than two weeks time - and raise awareness of this terrible crime against humanity.

Sarko Sows Intercultural Confusion

2008-01-18T14:59:00.001Z

I was amused to learn from the BBC that the Indian establishment has been thrown into protocol confusion by President Sarkozy's upcoming visit with girlfriend Carla Bruni since unmarried couples are controversial rarities in this conservative country . As she is not technically the First Lady - unless rumours of a secret whirlwind marriage are to be believed - they can't decide whether to treat her as his partner, with all the usual fanfare, or try and cover her up (a seat in the corner perhaps).

Intercultural dialogue in action...

East Meets West

2008-01-16T16:32:00.000Z

Two monologues do not a dialogue make. And I am afraid that Europe's Year of Intercultural Dialogue is going to founder on this rather crucial distinction. I just sat through a protocol meeting with the Grand Mufti of Syria and his entourage in which the 'conversation' went something like this.

Us: "We are delighted to welcome you here to the European Parliament. Intercultural Dialogue is very important"

Them: "We are delighted to come to the European Parliament. Intercultural Dialogue is very important"

Us: "We hope we can promote unity and discourage extremism through this dialogue"

Them: "We also hope we can promote unity and discourage extremism through this dialogue"

Us: "Religion and politics must be separated"

Them: "Indeed they should. Diversity is God's will. That's why the Jews should never have moved to the holy land from Sanaa or Aleppo or anywhere else in the Middle East. By applying a policy of ethnic exclusivity to an area sacred to all three monotheistic religions and desecrating human dignity they have shown that their state is an historical aberration. Wasn't life better when for thousands of years they lived in peaceful coexistence with their Muslim rulers?" (OK, I'm paraphrasing here, the Mufti actually employed rather conciliatory language which, when analysed afterwards, actually contains this message).

Us: "Time is running short, we are glad you are committed to discussing diversity and secularism. We'll talk about this another time".

Constructive, no?

Having said that, the Grand Mufti (who I assumed to be a fully paid up doyen of the religious establishment but is also a fully paid up member of the political establishment since he is appointed by the government) also said a number of things that merit a mention. He is clearly quite an eloquent chap.

A blinkered focus on Sacred Texts stops Jews and Arabs finding a peaceful solution to the problem, whether it be insistence on a Jewish Homeland or the Muslim's exclusive 'right' to rule all territory previously belonged to the Ottoman Caliph.

Any solution must be negotiated politically. Blood begets blood. Syria will negotiate a peaceful return of the Golan Heights and is ready to extend the hand of friendship to Israel

Europe must not close the door to any side which desires dialogue, including Hamas. Respect for diversity can only come from respecting each other which in turn means respecting the importance of free expression.

All states should be secular. Religion is not a matter for politics. It is based on the personal relationship between men and God. As such, the state should not, inter alia, enforce things like prayer - signifying that the all-encompassing Shari'a practiced in some Muslim states oversteps the boundaries of good governance.

It may not be dialogue. But it's always good to see someone else's point of view. Too often in Europe we speak amongst ourselves and then claim to have mastered the problem. More exposure to other perspectives is definitely welcome.

EU Should Stop Being A Schoolyard Bully

2008-01-16T09:01:00.000Z

Subsidiarity - the principle that government power ought to reside at the lowest possible level - is a concept beloved of Liberal Democrats. However, too many of our elected members are a little vague on what that means in practice.

You see subsidiarity should mean it's the council which handles your bin collection; regional and national government which organises matters like education policy and road building; and the EU which does things countries can't handle alone like combat climate change.

So far, so good. But the problem with power - and the backbone of traditional liberal thinking - is that, if their remit is unchecked, law-makers will attempt to intrude ever further into the realm of the personal. Sunsidiarity should be accompanied by a healthy respect for the limits of the law and the need for smaller government.

Now the EU is a byword for big government and I am more than a trifle bemused by its endless efforts to overstep the mark. When not making laws for the sake of making laws, or making policy on a lowest common denominator basis, it is busy issuing resolutions on areas over which it has no competence, from Foreign Policy to - bizarrely - school uniforms.

The issue? Banning hijab for Muslim school girls across the EU. You see, in a report on Children's Rights to be voted tomorrow at the European Parliament's plenary session paragraph 127 "Urges Member States to ban headscarves and hijab at least at primary school, in order to anchor more firmly the right to be a child and to ensure genuine and unenforced freedom of choice at a later age" which passed in committee with a considerable majority.

Now think what you like about the issue of hijab, especially for under 16's. I personally agree with the logic behind this paragraph, which, according to Committee members, is to ensure young girls get to participate fully in things like swimming and gymnastics without having their parents' preferences thrust upon them - especially important in primary schools where none but the most fundamentalist of zealots could consider a girl to have attained puberty. I'm not sure I like the 'at least' qualification, as it smacks a little of cultural hegemony, but at least it's only a suggestion.

However that is beside the point.

This is a clear cut case of Europe overstepping its mandate and interfering, in a nanny state sort of way, with decisions that can be dealt with perfectly adequately at the level of the school board, let alone local or national government. Surely these are issues which communitites should deal with on their own, in full consultation with local parents, if we are serious about 'integrating diversity', as the jargon goes.

The top down approach of a bunch of privileged, mostly middle aged, white people - however well intentioned - runs entirely against the grain of what is feted as Europe's Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Of all people, Europe's Liberals and Democrats should agree with this. But we're supporting the report anyway, despite murmurings of opposition from the likes of Sarah Ludford MEP. It is definitely time for a policy rethink.

Letting the Surveillance State in by the Backdoor?

2008-01-14T16:54:00.000Z

One of my best friends has long refused to join Facebook. I found his hardline stance rather peculiar in the past because, well, everyone's on there, aren't they, and it's such a quick and easy way of seeing what old friends are up to - not to mention people you've barely met, or haven't seen for decades - without actually having to contact them personally. Not to mention checking out other people's holiday snaps and advertising your own 'fabulous' existence - or airbrushed internet approximation thereof - and organising your social life. Opting out of facebook, it seemed to me, was like voluntarily opting out of your own social circle. It's the modern equivalent of living without a mobile phone - the preserve of the elderly, the eccentric, and the socially crippled.

Well it turns out he may have had a point. The reason we should think twice before joining Facebook, let alone posting our most intimate details there, is precisely because it makes it so easy for anyone to see them. "Not so!" you might protest. "It's for friends only".

Now I know that Facebook technically has a privacy policy but I wonder how many of you have actually read the smallprint? Well me neither, as it turned out, because the smallprint is always long, boring, and, well, small, and we office hamsters are always so busy chasing deadlines or hiding our skiving tendencies from our bosses that we tend not to bother with yet more bureaucracy and simply click 'accept'. Wrong decision.

I first got concerned about a lack of privacy when a variety of freak strangers - 'networkers' I guess you' call them - started asking me to be their friend. Now this is in a completely different league from pesky peeps from the past who don't get that you weren't in contact for a reason and won't take no for an answer. These were people I had never met and never heard about. So how had they found me?

I figured that we must share some friends in common or I was some kind of deranged amnesiac. In some cases this was true. Yet in others I could see no real connection between me and the names I thought I ought to know. Until it twigged- it's due to the networks you join where, as I was to learn, everyone can see who else is on it. That's also the reason adverts for EU Studies Masters and Brussels Job Fairs are perpetually popping up on my screen.

Not so bad, you might think. That's what a virtual community is all about. But it doesn't stop there.

More and more bosses are monitoring employees pages and taking action against behaviour outside the workplace that doesn't correspond to their professional standards. Witness the case of Stacy Snyder who was sacked from her teaching placement and denied her degree because a photo captioned 'drunken pirate' appeared on her My Space page. The university claimed it promoted underage and irresponsible drinking amongst her students. And now her career is in ruins before it even began.

Nor is such psycho surveillance consigned to the risk-averse side of the Atlantic. Here in Europe everyone, from potential employers to university tutors, is checking up on our personal preferences before we even step through the door for an interview. One too many photos of drunken nights out, one too many revelations on your wall, and you can kiss goodbye to your future prospects.

What's worse, though, is that the corporations and civil servants who track down information to use against us are not abusing the system at all. Quite the contrary. They are using it exactly as its founders intended. There's a reason Facebook is now worth $15 billion and that's because it's the most detailed and up-to-date database that exists on earth.

Who wouldn't want to buy into a programme which provides particularised profiles of 60 million human beings from Afghanistan to America - a figure set to rise to 200 million by this time next year? It's an advertisers wet-dream for heaven's sake. It's the government's holy grail.

So what do Facebook's founders do? Thanks to Tom Hodgkinson from the Guardian for this analysis. "The creators of the site need do very little bar fiddle with the programme. In the main, they simply sit back and watch as millions of Facebook addicts voluntarily upload their ID details, photographs and lists of their favourite consumer objects. Once in receipt of this vast database of human beings, Facebook then simply has to sell the information back to advertisers, or, as Zuckerberg puts it in a recent blog post, "to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web". And indeed, this is precisely what's happening. On November 6 last year, Facebook announced that 12 global brands had climbed on board. They included Coca-Cola, Blockbuster, Verizon, Sony Pictures and Condé Nast. All trained in marketing bullshit of the highest order".

So there we are. The people most interested in the unique, individual, 'I am' of liberal discourse is not old school friends jealous of your desperately attractive boyfriend or wonderful career, not loved ones who live far away and rarely see your life except through shared photographs and messages - no, it's precisely the people we spend most of our time protecting our information from. Our government and our boss.

So what makes Facebookplc so profitable and beloved of the enemies of our privacy? Well...

1 - It will advertise at you: "When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalised features."
2 - You can't delete anything: "When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information."
3 - Anyone can glance at your intimate confessions: "we cannot and do not guarantee that user content you post on the site will not be viewed by unauthorised persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of user content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored your user content."
4 - Our marketing profile of you will be unbeatable: "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (eg, photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience."
5 - Opting out doesn't mean opting out: "Facebook reserves the right to send you notices about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications."
Finally, and most worryingly,
6 - The CIA may look at the stuff when they feel like it: "By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States ... We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."

So delete it all now! But wait, there's no point leaving Facebook once you're in the system. Because even if you delete it the information's stored in an archive 'just in case'. And to think I even signed the 'NO2ID" petition.

No Stars for Eurostar

2008-01-08T15:16:00.001Z

Eurostar promises you all kinds of good things about its futuristic new terminal at St Pancras - the only railway station in Britain to boast a champagne bar instead of the obligatory stale sandwiches and cardboard coffee. But while the 'extras' delight, one aspect of the service is noticeably missing.

One of the worst things about the old terminal at Waterloo was the crazoid xray machines you had to lift your bag one metre off the ground to reach. These were normally manned by strapping security-guard types who would refuse, on grounds of 'health and safety', to help you lift your suitcase.

Their unequivocal stance created quite a few problems for me on one occasion when, due to a mystery illness contracted on holiday, I was too weak to manage feats of weight-lifting. The guy in question, I recall, told me rudely to get a move on and put my bag through and, when I asked for assistance, started shouting I wasn't his personal slave.

On insisting, as best I could, that lifting the thing was IMPOSSIBLE for me at that time one of his colleagues took pity on me (by now in the midst of a crying fit) and did the necessary. I was then forced to pay £18 for the privilege of a porter to take my things the rest of the way to the train. Not the way to treat a customer who had just paid for a first class ticket, you might think.

I wasn't the only one suffering the same problem either. Having travelled more often on Eurostar in the last year than is sensible, enough to have earned the right to a season ticket with my own dedicated chair, I witnessed a long line of little old ladies, over-burdened mothers and sick and suffering travellers fall foul of this bizarre system.

Surely, I reasoned, this glittery new terminal would resolve the problem? But no. Just the other day my friend (perfectly young and healthy by the way) was travelling through St Pancras with no more than a heavy suitcase. Quite sensibly she had decided to avoid Ryanscare's 15k baggage limit when coming home from the holidays with her Christmas pressies and take the train instead.

Yet when she arrived at security, the same evil machines were in place and she had to ask for assitance with her bag since she couldn't lift it. Staff refused at first then some kind hearted soul helped her. He was reprimanded by the supervisor in front of her and she was then called aside to be treated to a lengthy lecture on why she shouldn't travel with heavy bags.

DOES ANYONE SPOT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS?

If operators want to embrace the kind of capitalist ethic that means they make a fortune in profits while service deteriorates and ticket prices rise they should not enjoy the right to treat passengers - as happened routinely in the days of state-sponsored British rail - as criminals.

If the sick, the elderly, or the plain over-burdened wish to travel, at vast personal expense, they should not be hampered or harrassed by rules that diverge so far from the ethic of consumer protection as to beggar belief. Eurostar, we expect more from you. Please try putting customers first.

I'm semi-tempted to put up some kind of petition or standard letter, at the risk of acting like a stand-in for WHICH, to try and get them to reconsider the kind of scanning machines they use. If enough of us complained we might get the kind of service which we pay so dearly for.

Putting the Pieces Together

2007-12-18T15:29:00.000Z

''Lebanon is more than a country - it is a message.'' So said the Pope when he visited Beirut in 1997, as the country was picking up the pieces of civil war and its way towards peaceful coexistence. ''A country of many religious faiths, Lebanon has shown that these different faiths can live together in peace, brotherhood and cooperation.''

Since then, Hariri's assassination, the 2006 war with Israel, and the recent murder of General Francois Hajj - tipped to become head of the army as part of the effort to resolve Lebanon's presidential impasse - have strained that metaphor to breaking point. But its relevance remains.

If Christians, Sunnis, Shia, Druse, and Jewish people cannot live in peace in Lebanon - where they have coexisted for millennia - what hope is there for the modern multicultural state, where doctrines of ethno-natural unity are increasingly challenged (the far right would say 'undermined') by migration and labour mobility?

Prior to this, my first trip to Lebanon, I would have been equally sceptical . Constant reference to sectarian tension across the media over the past few months seemed to point to the fact that these people simply couldn't live together, despite the best efforts of an elite political class to find consensus. Yet on arrival I found that the opposite is true.

Most people I met, from all sides of the religious spectrum, agreed they couldn't trust their politicians and that it is foreign interference, not personal grievance, which is responsible for much of the tension. Many also point to the quota system, whereby posts are parcelled out by politicians on strict sectarian lines, as a major factor in discouraging national unity. Change, they believe, can only come from the bottom up when citizens - tired of war, enmity and insecurity - take on their leaders and demand a fresh start.

It has worked before. Mass demonstrations following the murder of former PM Rafik Hariri, where sixty percent of the country, largely peacefully, picketed the parliament - leaving only young children, the elderly, and infirm at home - forced the Syrians out. And although Damascus' influence still hangs over the country, popular protest has largely delegitimised it.

I wouldn't want to speak too soon on the Lebanese situation. As my travelling companion pointed out, you only start to understand Lebanon once you realise how complicated the whole country is. However I do believe, from my brief exposure to its form of multiculturalism, that this country can give Europe some pointers when it comes to countering the recent upsurge in support for extreme right ideologies.

From what I was told, Lebanon's problems stem from politicisation of difference in the aftermath of Ottoman occupation, both during the French protectorat where Christians were given the upper hand, and post-independence, as part of the struggle over who had the right to claim the country for its respective tradition.

Conversely, the rise of racism and xenophobia in Europe is linked to the perceived threat to our dominant cultural norms by recent immigrants, be these norms secular - as is the case in France - or religious. Whether it's bans on Christmas nativity plays or bans on headscarves, there's a war being fought on our continent on whose sensitivities win the day. Yet one thing we have not realised -that the Lebanese have, after decades of fruitless civil war - is that there can be no winner in these stand offs.

We can - and they did - argue long and hard about who has the 'right' to dominant cultural expression but if we cannot recognise the diversity that exists on the ground (much of which, in Europe's case, was simply airbrushed out of the history books for the fiction of national unity in the face of minority cultures ) then we will never reach a resolution to current problems.

With time, Britain absorbed the Angles, the Saxons, the Picts, the Vikings, the Normans and the Danes. It welcomed Jews, Irish and Italians who now fit seemlessly into our understanding of who we, the British people, are. Why should we not expect the same from the cultures of recent migrants, while acknowledging that it will take a while for the rough edges to be smoothed through cultural acclimatisation?

The Lebanese example does not show sects mixing to the point of homogeneity - as Europe's integrationists, and many policy makers, increasingly demand. It does not demand an iron secularism, that precludes religious debate, for nowhere is religion a stronger force than in this tiny territory. Equally, experience of war exposes the pretence of the extreme right that the majority can simply exercise an iron fist over the minority and 'send them all back home' without a measure of violent payback.

With 12% of Europe's population of migrant descent, and growing, we are well past the point where people should seriously be entertaining old ethno-national ideas of cultural supremacy. But we are. A 2004 poll revealed that 33% of Europeans consider themselves racist, yet Europe needs migrants like never before to support its growth and social services in the face of population decline. Why? One reason must be the propensity for our leaders, like the Lebanese, to use these problems to their own advantage and create electoral dividends.

When people like you and me stop simply listening to media scaremongering, and go out and meet our neighbours, learn to understand their differences, and start to treat them as human beings, then - and only then - will we find the kind of solutions we can all learn to live with.

Work Worries

2007-12-12T13:47:00.000Z

Here's a query....what do you do when you have too much work and too little time?

a) cancel your weekend to do it - in this case an all expenses paid trip to a conference in Beirut?

b) do as much as you can, take the plane, turn the phone off - and deal with the fall out upon your return?

c) admit as much to the boss - then when he tells you it's gotta be done before Monday, offer to resign in the hope that not doing it in time isn't worth the hassle of replacing you??!

Phone lines open now! Amusing anecdotes welcomed

To Greet or Not to Greet?

2007-12-10T17:12:00.000Z

Christmas Cards. A time honoured way of keeping in touch. An opportunity to send out some festive cheer at an otherwise gloomy time of year. A chance to donate to charity without buying fair trade products you never really wanted.

An ecological disaster??

Think about it. All that paper produced, then discarded. All those postal miles involved with their atendent emissions (unless you're using a pigeon or the services of a friendly group of Boy Scouts who run around your neighbourhood with a satchel). All that money wasted on disposable goods.

Is this the kind of social institution the ecologically-minded should partake in at Christmas? After all, religious festivals are times when we should be thinking more about our values, and how to exercise them in daily life, not simply abandoning them to conventions.

There are many who resolve this dilemma by way of 'e-greetings'. These can be all singing, all dancing affairs, that let you deal with all your pesky friends and relatives in one batch mailing. And at little, or no, expense. But somehow, it's not quite the same.

Now, I don't think I am being overly sentimental or nostalgic here. It's just that the effect is in direct proportion to the effort involved. Just ask any lobbyist. That's human nature.

If someone remembers you, puts in the effort to find your current address, and scribbles a personal greeting on paper (especially given how little we hand-write anything these days!), it makes the world seem a better, friendlier, more considerate place. It'll sit on the mantlepiece for weeks, be read and re-read, maybe even stored away as a mark of human warmth.

If someone sends the same mass greeting to everyone they've ever met it will be opened and deleted without the same magic ingredient - remembrance. It's intangible, ephemeral, lacking in personal thought. So, in a curious way, not only does it not convey its purported 'best wishes' but it acts as a reminderof all that is lacking in many human relationships. Others seem remote, distant, cold. And that is most certainly not the message of Christmas, let alone the intention of the average sender.

Christmas is one of the few times we really take the trouble to remember friends and family. That's why we need to continue to take the trouble to show them we care. And the less virtual communication involved, the better. After all, it's only once a year folks. And if you really don't want to send a card? Make a phone call or pay them a visit instead ;)

Join the Fight Against 'Inactive Women'

2007-12-07T13:16:00.000Z

I've long maintained that, despite its ostensible focus on individualism, our society is becoming increasingly one-dimensional and conformist.

One casualty of the capitalist-materialist world in which we live is that the family, indeed, human relations in general, is paid little more than lip service by policy makers who view life exclusively in economic terms.

People are no longer treated as citizens but workers, taxpayers and consumers who matter, if at all, only in terms of their productivity and spending power. Little attention is paid to what other factors are necessary for a pleasant, fulfilling, and ultimately ethical, stay on this planet of ours.

Thus people are educated not so they can gain knowledge, insight, or creativity but so they do not place a burden on the state. Innovation is important not to improve lives but so we can produce more, faster, than ever before. Witness so-called labour saving devices, which, far from giving us more time for leisure and family, simply allow us to spend more hours in the office.

People must keep healthy not so they can profit more from life but so they can work harder. Of course, if they are so foolish as to smoke, or to get old, then they must accept being treated as human trash for which our economy (read society) no longer has any use.

It is clear that the 'government machine' is more interested in perfecting its various systems - the prison system, the education system, the health system - sorry, 'service' - than responding to the real and varied needs of human beings.

This is disturbing because it means that citizens have gone from being the ideological end, to the means, of democratic government. Ministers are more interested in managing the systems in place than rethinking them in terms of what citizens actually want.

That wouldn't be so bad European States claimed to be feudal oligarchies instead of liberal democracies - then we would all understand the deal. But we are simultaneously proferred the illusion of political choice by parties whose policies are little different and no real means of changing anything.

What if I don't want to live in an atomistic, selfish, and material society where consumer goods are prioritised - for example - above social relations and solidarity. What if I don't want to live in a society where I only really exist if I am young, pretty and dynamic? What happens if I don't want to live in a society where the old, infirm, disabled or simply dumb, are sidelined? Where everyone must conform - or be discarded.

No-one is spared this relentless economisation (if that's indeed a word). Witness a recent European Commission press release which pointed the finger at all the inactive women out there who are sacrificing their economic prime to - gasp - raise their children, look after their parents, and get an education.

Not surprisingly, the UK won the war against 'inactive women' before anyone else. That is the predictable legacy of Thatcherite policies that cut welfare for (single) mothers and force children into full-time schooling at the age of three. Compared to our near neighbour Ireland, where 30% of women are 'inactive' due to family responsiblities, the figure in Britain is only 1.9%.

However I fail to see why this should be a blueprint for the rest of Europe to follow. A few more statistics are necessary to see why. Britain has the lowest productivity and job security on the continent - surely no coincidence. British kids are the most depressed in Europe according to recent OECD figures, have the lowest educational attainment in the EU, and are most likely to take drugs and be involved in knife crime.

Perhaps it's time we stopped taking such a reductive attitude towards work-life balance. It is not good enough just to shove as many people as possible into professions. It is also necessary to raise non-dysfunctional children into a society where people can once again learn to take responsibility for their local community, environment, and yes, occasionally, their own family.

Not that this should be too prescriptive. I am a firm believer in the fact that what works for one, will not necessarily work for all. But people should be given a real choice, and a real voice, when it comes to determining the priorities that drive our society, and indeed, their own lives. Forcing all women into the workplace is as violent a violation of our rights as the Victorian practice of forcing us to stay at home with our children.

Customer Service, Belgian Style

2007-12-05T11:18:00.001Z

I have done a number of posts in the past about Belgium's peculiar attitude towards the customer. And the stories just keep on coming.

Not only does customer service, as the Western World knows it, simply not exist here but I'd be surprised if Belgians were even aware of the concept.

What we have instead is some kind of proto-Soviet attitude that means the service provider is doing YOU a favour, rather than the other way round. This is partly because monopolies are still such a part of life here. Every commune is linked to a specific gas, electricity, or cable company so you either go through them, or go without.

As such, I find myself having to visit friends in a different commune to watch BBC 2 which is unavailable in Ixelles, but available over the road in Etterbeek. No one has yet taken me up on my offer to let them watch Rai 2, Italy's answer to the BBC, featuring semi-naked girls in cages and endless chat-shows.

Rather less surprisingly, this attitude is firmly engrained in the so-called public services. Now I cannot really argue with transport in this country. Trains run on time, there are eco-trams galore, and nothing is too expensive. However they are rather less than flexible.

Witness a recent train trip I took to Ypres with a friend to visit the World War One Battlefields. I arrived, somewhat late, at the platform and she had bought the ticket in advance. I say ticket because, despite asking for 'deux aller-retour' both our names were on the one piece of paper. No problem, I thought to myself, we'll sort this out later.

That evening, after our tour, we returned to the station. I would just like to point out that Ypres 's main income derives from the countless Brits, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, who come to see the trenches and cemeteries for themselves.

So when I approached the station attendant I was a little surprised to note that his English was rather patchy. I intimated the problem, accompanied by lots of ticket waving and pointing. Two people, one ticket, I mimed. I want to leave now (the train was about to pull up), she wants to leave three hours later, after the last post is played at the Menin gate.

"No problem", he said, "that will be 7 euros 90". I was taken aback. "But I've already paid for my ticket", I said. Thinking he hadn't understood the first time, I pointed out that we didn't want to travel together. "OK, then, he said, that'll be 7 euros 90". Frustrated, I raised my voice, at which point his English, rather conveniently, disappeared altogether.

I tried again in French. After all, the Flemish are always praised for their linguistic aptitude and it is an official language of Belgium, after all. He replied in Dutch. Language Politics - what a nightmare.

The train drew out of the station. I paid my seven euros and went to the bar.

It's Another Case of Blair versus Brown

2007-12-05T10:13:00.000Z

People say politics these days is all style over substance. After a decade of Smiler's spin, followed by Blair-lite Cameron, it seemed that what we all craved, what we all longed for, was a little more content. Apparently we overestimated ourselves. But is that such a bad thing?

First Ming the Merciless, the Liberal Democrats elder statesman, went the way of the Dodo because he was deemed too old and uncharismatic to revive the Party's flagging fortunes. Now Brown the Steady, torchbearer of reason and responsible policy making back in the dark days of Tony's wars of religion, has become something of a national liability.

The media cites incompetence. But I'm hard pressed to see how the mistakes of an Inland Revenue underling in Newcastle, or under-funded political rivals, can really be blamed on the Prime Minister, even if he had known about them at some level. And they certainly needn't have spiralled so far out of control.

Gordon Brown's problem is not so much what happened but how he handled it. Tony Blair managed to cause civil war in Iraq, sell honours for cash, and make parents pay thousands for their child's education and he still survived.

Politicians make a hash of things all the time. That comes as no surprise. All the public expects from them, I suppose, is a modicum of sleek professionalism when it comes to handling difficulties. Some convincing spin to lend style, polish, and coherence to even the most preposterous of situations.

Why? Because no one likes to watch leaders losing control of a situation, however much they might enjoy backbiting. Indeed we almost admire it, a politician who can rise to the challenge, shrug off his opponents with a pointed quip, and stare down adversity - even when he is in the wrong.

"Making chaos out of order" as Vince Cable MP described it the other day, is the worst of politics' cardinal sins precisely because it reinforces the public's worst fear that life, the world, and everything, is infinitely more chaotic and unmanageable than we dare admit.

We expect politicians to reassure us with at least the semblance of order, in the same way that we expect political ideologies and manifestos to give us the semblance of choice and control. When either becomes unstuck we are faced with the fact that politics is largely a matter of amateur guesswork rather than the science of government.

So when it comes to the contest between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne I know who I' m going to vote for. Up until yesterday, when I attended the hustings in the European Parliament, I was convinced Huhne was my man. He has ideas, writes well, comes to the point. An original thinker, a new departure, a man capable of reconciling social liberals and economic liberals? So it looked on paper.

In the flesh however, I was struck by the feeling there was no real contest. While Huhne is clearly capable of providing the Party with the intellectual thrust it needs he doesn't seem to have the empathy, engagement, or conviction to sell his ideas - and make others believe in them. It was like he had simply memorised his briefing and trotted it out, with a couple of compulsory 'human interest' stories thrown in, when he was in fact the leading force behind much new Party policy.

Nick Clegg, by contrast, whose Leadership campaign stole most of its ideas from other Members, and who doesn't seem to be at the cutting edge of Lib Dem policy making (if such a thing exists) came across as ideologically involved and believable. He had heart, charisma, humour in abundance. And by combining these with some intelligent, well-balanced responses, managed to win over an audience which had previously seemed quite evenly split.

That is not to say either would be a bad choice. They are both very capable people who, in my opinion, stand head and shoulders above the Iron Chancellor and Chameleon Cameron. But seeing them together in a room reminded me of nothing less than Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. And for all his faults, Blair's decade-long premiership gives me hope that Clegg, rather than Huhne, has the capacity to lift my party from the doldrums and restore its credibility amongst the wider public, just as Blair did Labour's. That's why he'll now get my vote for Leader.

Quo Vadis Scotland?

2007-11-29T16:52:00.000Z

Following on from the previous post I thought I'd illustrate our bleak national character with Alistair Reid's much-vaunted poem 'Scotland'.

The interesting thing about this poem is not just its merciless critique of the Scots but the author's merciless attitude towards it now.

The 100 Poets Gathering in 2007 was brought to an extraordinary close when he stood, read it one final time, and burnt it.

Why? Not only because he felt he was being overly-defined by this one piece of poetry, but because Scotland in 2007, he felt, was very different from Scotland in 1971 when it was composed.

'Scotland', he said, was obsolete because Scotland has changed, moved on, abandoned its Reformation misery for a more cosmopolitan, international, less guilt-ridden existence.

I'm inclined to disagree and say rather that it has only just started to change.

Compared with the rest of Europe it is really rather isolated and inward looking, with fewer immigrants and cultural influences from outside (not counting the Poles who have come in such large numbers that we now have roadsigns and newspapers in Polish).

Furthermore, after devolution and the advent of the Scottish Parliament, it has actually become more parochial in recent years, with a press corps firmly fixated on affairs in Holyrood at the expense of the rest of the world.

This tendency may or may not be exacerbated by an SNP administration which, to give it credit, is at least Euro-friendly (cod wars aside) and has a strong record on strengthening relations with small EU member states on which it often models itself.

But back to our national charaacter. Does a nationalist election victory point towards the need to distinguish a Scottish spirit different from that of our confreres in the south? And if so does that mean turning back the clock and embracing Knoxian puritanical ways as the soul of Scotland? Only time will tell. I wonder what the rest of you think?

SCOTLAND - Alastair Reid

It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet,

when larks rose on long thin strings of singing

and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

Greenness entered the body.

The grassesshivered with presences, and sunlight

stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.

Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,

the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'

cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

And what did she have to say for it?

Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves

as she spoke with their ancient misery:

'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'

A Marriage Made in Hell?

2007-11-29T12:54:00.000Z

Scots are ascetic, Calvinist people. You can tell by our dress, our food, our temperament. Plain, unadorned, drab even, at first glance, this grim picture is leavened with an irony and self-deprecation that brings colour to our culture and saves us from ourselves.

Perhaps things are changing now: the glitz of a Glasgow night out, all fishnet tights and sequined tops, bespeaks a society unafraid of enjoyment though still too repressed to be capable of it while sober. Yet Scotland is still very much a product of, and prisoner of, mentalities ushered in during the Reformation. Mentalities which have affected Scottish cultural life in myriad different ways.

George Mackay Brown called us the "Knox-ruined nation". Works of religious art, rivalled only by those existent in Flanders, were destroyed by the iconoclasts in the mid 1500s. Along with them, he says, went a tradition of song, theatre, and story-telling going back to pagan times. After Knox, many argue, Scotland lost its medieval Catholic colour and staggered out of the Reformation in mournful black.

Like a modern-day Iraq or Afghanistan our nation turned its back on the 'heretic' past to embrace the austerity and uniformity of fundamentalist Protestantanism - an ideology that eschewed the power of images or words to bring our fallen humanity closer to God and scorned its ability to comfort in times of need. And it is only in recent times, when the Kirk lost its moral and social authority, that Scotland has opened up to change.

This is one, perhaps even the prevailing, reading of the legacy of the Scottish Reformation on Scottish culture. But is Scotland really as artistically stunted as some critics have suggested? Richard Holloway, former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh and patron of the Scottish arts set out to explore this question when he gave the St Andrew's Day lecture on "religion and art: a marriage made in hell" at Scotland House last night.

I was aware of Bishop Holloway's rather unconventional approach to religion. After all, he famously said that the Bible was an anachronism that needed to be updated to reflect liberal humanist ethics. He has led campaigns to ordain gay priests and ensure equality for all in the church, regardless of sexual orientation. He is a member of the BMA steering group on ethics and genetics and come out in favour of embryo research. He likes High Anglican traditions and incense, for heaven's sake. So I rather expected he would second Mackay Brown's point.

He started as if he were going to do so, by claiming that Scotland had never understood the basic distinction between the artist, and their often dubious morals, and the majestic sublimity of their work which, despite its lowly origins, could speak the language of beauty and truth. 'Love the sinner, hate the sin' wasn't in vogue in Knox's fire and brimstone sermons. Scots were taught humanity was weak, fallen, and above all, never to be pitied by an angry God demanding vengeance. Art could not mediate the divine, or even reflect its atributes. And therefore it too, must be corrupted and ultimately without value.

Yet, Holloway postulates that it is precisely the overwhelming rejection of human comfort, beauty, and weakness by Scotland's established church which led to the development of a strong, counter-cultural literary movement - one which had many adherents in a population with few other outlets for imagining. It led to the Scottish enlightenment, to David Hume and Walter Scott, to a 'literate, argumentative nation that exalted words, and still does'.

What Scotland's great writers did, he feels, was make room for weakness, for comfort, for hope while still retaining the Reformation sense that life was destined to be miserable, difficult, and short. That is why so much of our literature, labeled 'miserabilist' by some, is in fact infused by the empathy which comes from those who are used to suffering, who know they have fallen, who have sympathy for the failings of others - of artists whose lives were often broken and difficult.

In this respect, he argues, the Reformation had misunderstood its own sacred texts. Jesus preached compassion and mercy, not fear and terror. Scottish literature was simply reclaiming the moral ground that the official religious authorities had squandered - and it was its compassion that made it morally valid.

To that extent, Holloway believes, art and the Bible share a common purpose: to explore the tension between good and evil, between despair and hope, that is an integral part of human existence and needs to be explained somehow, whether through poetry, myth, or sacred writing.
Although he believes personally that the Bible is a human creation which reflects the values and (often misogynist) expectations of its time, putting him at odds with more mainstream literalist Christians), he also argues that the overarching themes it addresses - the themes, after all of all great literature - are universal and relevant to all human beings.

As such, he says, it makes no difference whether ethics are explored in the Bible or any other artistic work. The important thing is not the origin, divine or otherwise, but its usefulness to making our lives, and the lives of others, as beautiful, just, and fair as they possibly can be.

To which all I can say is 'Amen to that".

Desert Dreams

2007-11-28T14:36:00.000Z

It doesn't happen often that the words 'parliamentary hearing' and 'inspirational' go together. Indeed I was moved to laugh as I listened to the range of activities sponsored by our members this morning, which ranged from beer tasting to the place of Jesus in modern policy making and someone presenting a 'real' Austrian Christmas Tree to the President. Not exactly earthshattering stuff.

Something, however, did catch my eye and that something was 'Clean Power from Deserts', a conference co-hosted by the Greens, the Club of Rome and big business (another unusual combination). As I was feeling quite hungover after the two spectacular bottles of montepulciano consumed last night over dinner, I decided to go along for the duration and 'take notes' so I could retain the appearance of working without having to use my mind overly much.

On arrival, however, I was refreshed and surprised by the presentations- so surprised I even woke up and paid attention. The speakers were a range of scientists and politicians, notably the former head of the Club of Rome Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. They were petitioning parliament to give its support to the DESERTEC concept for generating clean electricity and water, as outlined in a white paper published today.

The concept is remarkably simple and, I must say, stood up to some rigorous scrutiny from energy experts and sceptics in the audience at question time. Basically it relies on generating electricity from solar panels placed in the desert - large mirrors that face each other, reflecting sunlight that is then turned into energy.

It acts just like a usual coal powerstation, providing electricity on demand, security of supply, and storage capacity, but with an enhanced fuel, and thus, CO2, saving to reduce carbon emissions. It is tried, tested, and cheap to maintain. Most importantly it has the potential to provide more than double the projected energy demand for the EUMENA region (Europe, North Africa and the Middle East) by 2050, at lower relative prices than we currently pay.

So much for its environmental credentials. What about its political ones? Wouldn't locating the source of Europe's future energy reserves in an unstable Middle East at the time of a so-called 'clash of civilisations' be dowright stupid? Well, there are two answers to that according to the organisers.

The first is that we are already horribly dependent on dangerous oil rich nations, from Russia to Saudi Arabia. So no change there - although sceptics would say that one aspect of the drive towards renewables is Europe's energy autonomy.

The second is that interdependence on the energy front would improve peace and cooperation between the north and south Mediterranean. Mare Nostrum, or 'our sea', as the Romans called it, shouldn't be a cultural dividing line but a meeting place, and shared energy investment and infrastructure would concretise this.

Would it work? Look no further than the European Coal and Steel Community, which harmonised relations between France and Germany five years after the worst war in Europe's history. In 1945 citizens from those respective countries couldn't have a civil conversation, let alone get along. 50 years later, as politicians never fail to remind us, the EU has built peace and prosperity for 450 million Europeans. Why couldn't enhanced EUROMED cooperation do the same for the EUMENA region?

Good questions indeed. So why has DESERTEC been so slow to catch on? Why, amidst the general handwringing about climate changed and Middle East peace has this apparent miracle-cure attracted so little political support? It was first mooted back in the 1970s, for heaven's sake, and has been tried and tested in California for the last twenty years. Plants are being built in Morocco and Spain. It has been earmarked for EU pilot funding for the last decade. But it has never really taken off.

MEPs blamed lack of support from industry; lack of interest from the powers that be - as was, of course, the case for environmental policy in general until a few years ago; a powerful, and growing, nuclear lobby; and cynicism about investing in an unstable Maghreb and Middle East.

That's why they called for politicians across Europe to give their vocal and consistent support to this project. For the true costs to be put forward and - if acceptable - part funded by the EU budget and part from government backed tariff systems, such as those used so successfully in Germany to stimulate new markets, that guarantee long term investment and reassure private investors.

A symbolic gesture might also be called for. For me, the most poignant and pragmatic idea put forward was to fund a pilot solar plant in Gaza, currently experiencing dreadfully electricity and water shortages, to show both what this technology is capable of and how it could help heal the rifts between people. I hope you agree.

Boycott Beijing?

2007-11-27T08:43:00.000Z

When China was making its bid for the 2008 Olympics there was a general expectation , reinforced by Communist Party officials, that these would produce a climate of greater openness, freedom and respect for human rights. Instead, figures from Human Rights Watch suggest that violations have increased markedly in the last seven years.

In Beijing the beefed-up security bureau, run - not uncoincidentally - by the same man in charge of the Olympics, is clamping down on dissenters, with many placed under house arrest or even in mental institutions. Workers on Olympic sites have been labouring in conditions of modern slavery while Beijing residents have been evicted, and their homes demolished, to make way for sporting venues. And media freedom - a key commitment from the Chinese hosts to the International Olympic Committee - is nonexistent despite a new 'temporary regulation' that supposedly guarantees this to the international press corps, if not Chinese journalists.

Not only are these developments entirely against the spirit of the Olympic Charter which demands hosts uphold "fundamental ethical principles" like human dignity and freedom of expression - for undermining which, apartheid South Africa was banned from competing - but they are in direct contravention of Chinese government commitments.

China is a signatory to the International Declaration on Human Rights and revised its constitution recently to include a Human Rights clause. Most damning of all, its Host City Contract, signed with the IOC, commits it to improving its record on democracy, human rights and free speech prior to the 2008 Olympic Games.

It is telling that this contract - made public by all other Olympic Hosts - has remained outside the public domain . And equally telling that the international community - which never loses an opportunity to eulogise Human Rights - has steadfastly avoided demanding that the Chinese authorities publish it and respect the commitments it contains. For such demands could lead to only one conclusion: a boycott. Failing to live up to their promises in the contract would make it difficult for the IOC to give the go-ahead, so both sides, it seems to me, have agreed to keep it quiet.

As such, the Chinese have pulled off an amazing coup. Not only do the Olympics legitimise the ruling Communist Party in the eyes of the world and Chinese citizens but they have gone some way towards convincing dissenters that the international community is on the side of their oppressors instead of standing up for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Even the IOC, jointly responsible for the conduct of the games, has stated that there is 'no proof' of deteriorating human rights conditions in China and that it is too soon to measure the effects the Olympics will have on the political situation there.

This is clearly nonsense. The Chinese have had seven years to clean up their act, seven years in which the IOC and the international community should have been pressurising them to uphold their commitments. They failed to do this and now we are told that the threat of a boycott would fatally undermine Western relations with the People's Republic.

As such, EU leaders are now keeping well and truly stum. Keeping quiet while a blacklist is prepared that will keep media and NGO representatives, as well as vaguely defined 'dangerous elements' (for which read any and all critics of the Communist Party) out of the country during the Games. Keeping quiet as the clampdown on dissenters intensifies, condemning AIDS patients, starving villagers and jailed Tiananment victims to a future without hope. Keeping quiet while state-sponsored slavery, murder, genocide and torture carry on unabated.

The only issue on which the West has been prepared to lift this veil of silence is over CO2 pollution levels in the Beijing air which, they claim, will negatively affect their athletes. Thanks to last minute pressure from governments Sarkozy now claims he has clinched a deal on environmental standards that will resolve this problem. It is a shame similar pressure could not be brought to bear by the self-proclaimed champion of human rights to ensure China respects its international obligations and protects its citizens.

Should we boycott the Olympics? Morally speaking yes. But then, morally speaking, we should have agitated much longer ago for the fulfillment of China's empty promises. At this late stage in teh game, the West is implicated as much as the Chinese are. With less than a year to go, the lease they can do is say, "A Deal is A Deal" and demand that Beijing publish, and accept responsibility for, its Host City Contract and the commitments made therein.

Liberals: Doomed to Defections?

2007-11-26T14:13:00.000Z

Has Liberalism lost its way? Certainly defections from the Lib Dem to Conservative Camp this week suggest something is amiss´at the heart of liberal democracy. But is the change of heart by Jean Pierre Cavada, chairman of the European Parliament's influential Civil Liberties Committe and Lib Dem Sajjad Karim, indicative of an ideological loss of confidence or simply the fear of electoral failure?

In the case of both men, the temptation to join forces with a revived conservatism just before the elections may simply have been too great. Certainly Saj Karim's distant second place on the Lib Dem list behind Chris Davies MEP was a sting that was hard to ignore. Harder still may be the brute electoral facts. At Lib Dem conference in Brighton his aides talked openly about the unlikelihood of having both men re-elected in 2009 when the party's share of the vote is expected to fall sharply. Cavada, fighting for a municipal seat in the 2nd arrondissement in Paris, clearly feels that Bayrou has lost his way and is putting his faith in the winning side.

But is this the same as idelogical disintegration, as Karim alleges? I think not. It is true that both the MODEM and Lib Dems have found it difficult to steer their parties' priorities of late, but that is due in large part to the opposing currents - and therefore factions - inherent in Liberalism rather than an ideological loss of nerve. Indeed, just as the Labour and Tory parties have undergone periods of introspection in recent years to resolve internal disputes over the place of market liberalisation or attitudes towards Europe, Liberals, who perhaps over-emphasised their unity over the last decade, now need to do the same with regards to the economic/social liberal divide.

Even then, I don't believe the gulf is as big as the media suggests. Huhne and Clegg's appearance on Question Time was memorable, if at all, for the remarkable similarity of their positions which led one viewer to ask 'How can we tell you apart'? The Calamity Clegg incident days later may have been bad publicity but it wasn't really based on policy divergence either, although you could argue that Huhne is the ideological leader and Clegg the follower. If this leadership contest is the sign of a party in ideological crisis, then what standards do we set for unity?

It may not be the best time for Liberals in Europe, with convergence to the centre by both socialists and conservatives squeezing our vote. But that does not mean we are an irrelevance. Our battles will be fought on the issues, the ideological issues, that the other parties neglect or tacitly consent on in their quest for electoral dominance. Whether it is the security state , abdication of human rights , euroscepticism, warmongering, scaremongering over immigrants, or nuclear rearmament beloved of left and right we will be there offering voters choice, where otherwise none would exist.

The Liberal Democrats, whatever their faults, have at their heart an ethos of internationalism, openness, environmental sustainability and respect for fundamental rights that the other parties, whatever their propaganda, simply do not share.

Denmark Down the Drain

2007-11-14T11:29:00.000Z

Well it seems the Danish people didn't take notice of my last minute plea for tolerance (ha ha). They voted in overwhelming numbers for extreme right and left wing parties, essentially collapsing the moderate centre and creating a politics of antagonism which could have worrying consequences for Denmark's domestic stability.

Fogh Rasmussen's centre-right 'liberal' party will struggle to form a government after losing six seats yesterday. With the Danish People's Party on board, as well as a rogue Faroese, and the possibility of five seats from the recently created 'New Alliance' he will just reach the 90 seats needed to form a minority government. However there is an enormous political distance between the New Alliance and the revitalised DPP, especially on key issues like immigration, which could spell troubled times ahead for the government. Since both parties essentially hold a veto over any Prime Ministerial proposals it could mean that nothing of substance gets the go-ahead.

As far as some social liberals in Denmark are concerned, giving both sides ministerial positions and watch them descend into civil war might be the best way out of the current mess. To a certain extend I think they are right. Early new elections would at least resolve the current impasse. However if they happen too soon they might also give extra strength the extremist currents already visible in Danish society. To regroup and revitalise the centre needs a little time to lick its wounds and wait for this unholy alliance to trip itself up.

Save Denmark!!

2007-11-13T19:06:00.001Z

Denmark. Used to make me think of happy blonde people, fairy tales, pig farms, mermaids, and yeah, I'll be honest, nude sunbathing. All in all the picture of a stable, tolerant European country. These days, it must be said, the reality is somewhat different. The first thing that might spring to mind is the Mohammed Cartoons, followed by the (rather inexplicable) ban on Danish exports, which - it must be said - made me a Defender of Denmark back in 2006.

However, the aftermath of the cartoons crisis suggested that the 'freedom of speech' mantle I had picked up wasn't entirely the true story. After all, Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper which ran the infamous cartoons had also commissioned them. It had done so as part of its self-chosen role at the forefront of right wing anti-immigrant media propaganda. It had been accused - prior to the cartoon furore´- of inciting racial hatred. It had promoted a toughening of Denmark's - already quite insane - immigration laws so that they would be in breach of European Human Rights legislation. Danes - perhaps not such innocent symbols of the tolerant European ideal after all.

However I hadn't quite lost all hope in this nation until last night. One of my best pals is Danish and had been contemplating loping back from Brussels to the wilds of Copenhagen of late. Until, that is, the Danish election campaign which she 'experienced' on her recent trip home. I should point out that this is about the blondest blue eyed Dane you could possibly imagine. But so strict is the measure of national conformism in Denmark these days that she was pretty much branded a foreigner: accent didn't sound quite right, lived in foreign parts, had failed to start a family early enough with another Dane...umm....its all a bit too kinder, kuche, kirche for my liking, with more than an inkling of national socialism about it. Imagine, therefore, how difficult life would be if you were called Aicha and weren't blonde... These campaign posters are very telling. The one on the left reads something like 'Immigrants should give, not just take, from Denmark" - a reference to the idea that they are all scroungers really.

Things get worse. The country is in the grip of extreme Euroscepticism and the radicalisation of politics, with a large and growing extreme right which - due to its support for Rasmussen's government over the last seven years - has been increasingly mainstreamed. Non-whites are essentially second class citizens, denied equal access to housing, welfare and job opportunities. The state has put in place rigid policies controlling who you marry, where you are allowed to reside, even your child's citizenship status.

In Denmark, if you are Danish and you marry a foreigner you aren't even allowed to live with your spouse in Denmark if it's possible for you to live in their country. Now I am sure it would be possible for me - in theory - to live all kinds of places from Kabul to Kazakstan. The question is, would i want to? would they be safe places to bring up my kids and raise a happy, secure family in - and this is important - the European culture to which I belong??? (Of course I am not Danish but you know what I mean - for my friend, for anyone, this is a fundamental consideration).

Technically this is against European law but the Danes don't give a monkeys. In fact, they are proud of their motto "We don't want to be a multicultural society".That's why there are villages of Danish exiles and their pariah foreign partners living across the water in Sweden and commuting to work in Copenhagen. It's true, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark and make no mistake

The Danish elections are tomorrow. It's a chance for the Danes to choose in favour of the moderate centre ground, and their representatives in the recently formed 'New Alliance Party'- Let's hope it is they, and not the Right Wing crazies who get to prop up 'liberal' Rasmussen's government next time around. And that the extreme right doesn't gain at the expense of openness, moderation, and fundamental rights.

It is extremely worrying when traditionally liberal countries like Denmark and the Netherlands become bastions of the right. For as we have seen in Belgium with the Vlaams Belang, once the extreme right gains a foothold they are extremely hard to dislodge and encourage the spread of such ideas right across the political spectrum in all EU nations. It is no surprise that Sarkozy toughened his policies to gain the trust of growing numbers of Le Pen supporters in France at the last elections. Let's just hope this tactic does not spread, or it could spread very bad news for all of us who love liberty and diversity.

In the meantime, if the Danes do vote in favour of the extreme right I suggest an extreme solution. Short of suspending EU membership, as we threatened to do with Jorg Hyder in Austria, individuals should act - perhaps, mirroring muslim outrage, a boycott is in order (er....here we go again...dont buy danish bacon!)

Airport Etiquette

2007-11-06T15:17:00.000Z

Customs, as we know, vary from country to country. One very British custom is queuing. People like to joke that we will join a queue even if we don't know what we are actually queuing for, so strong is the emphasis on waiting your turn.

I'm no different. I'm an inveterate queuer and a stickler for politeness, generally speaking. But this isn't always true of Belgians. Here, you must always be on the look-out in case you lose your turn. Nothing can be taken for granted.

I made the mistake of letting my guard down while waiting at Zaventem airport last week. On arrival, tired and dazed after a week of hell in Strasbourg, I joined the back of the line while my friend went to get us a much-needed coffee. On returning ten or fifteen minutes later she commented that I hadn't moved very far in that time. Indeed, on turning round, I discovered I was still very much at the back of the line.

The only thing was, though, that some Indian guys who had walked past five minutes or so before were spearheading a new tributary to the queue which had started from the other direction. I was in a hurry. I hesitated - should I, shouldn't I? Then thought what the hell and went to reclaim my 'rightful' place just behind them.

It caused uproar. I was shouted down by a Flemish gentleman about my lack of manners, and a couple of angry ladies who claimed my action was thoroughly unscrupulous. I tried to explain, in French, that the people I was standing behind had clearly arrived later and that, in the freeforall, the main queue - mine - had effectively been sidelined. Useless. Or perhaps that was my language skills. After a few minutes I decided just to keep silent and stand my ground.

On nearing the partitions for the checkout desk I was surprised by a sharp jab in the ribs. A Belgian couple behind me were clearly squaring up for a fight and before I knew it the man had lifted my suitcase clear over his trolley while his wife took great delight in placing it firmly in the middle of the concourse, at the end of the line. He didnt mince his words either, demanding i 'bouge mon cul' and other equally unflattering remarks.

To reinforce the point his wife then took hold of the trolley and proceeded to run over my foot in an effort to evict me bodily. Realising it was just creating more of a scene her husband took over the reins and shoved me a good four or five metres with it as I protested loudly.

Finally an airport worker came over and threatened to throw them both out the queue. In some ways I had won the argument. But I was very confused and upset.

My question, I suppose, is who was in the right? I wouldn't have asserted myself if I didnt feel I had a point. But then, what seems right and wrong and what are right and wrong are very different. If everyone else felt I had committed a fault, should I have accepted that was just and backed down? Or was I right to stand up to this situation?

Terrified of running into my fellow passengers, I spent some time hovering around the security gate before ducking into the plane at the last possible second. On emerging with my bags in Delhi - without further run-ins - I presumed myself safe.

But bizarrely, I did run into that ferocious couple again, this time 50k or so from the Tibetan border on Shimla's main street. This time, my partner had skipped the queue and - not recognising them - I pointed out they had been waiting before us. I couldn't work out the cold reception at first nor their certainty that I must be 'Belgian' (my accent being a dead giveaway). Maybe that was karma completed for this trip...

The Future: A Workerless World?

2007-10-24T16:37:00.000Z

Apparently Jeremy Rifkin, the professor famous for predicting a Third Industrial Revolution on the back of Green Technology, has made one other prediction that kept rather more under wraps by our leaders. In the technological heaven that is the 21st century, he suggests, there won't be much work for human beings left to do since many of us will be replaced by robots.

Indeed, although"The global economy has never been more productive worldwide, unemployment is at its highest since the Great Depression. Out of 124 million American jobs, 90 million are potentially vulnerable to replacement by machines."

Now, as someone who values my leisure time that seems pretty good news at first sight, as it does to Professor Rifkin. Yet like labour-saving devices, feted in the 50s for giving us more free time away from chores but which simply give us more time to work, it seems this change could seriously back-fire on the human race.

Why? Well let me copy and paste Bob Black's critique of this theory:

Problem Number One: No Work; No Money; Huge Underclass

"As Rifkin reveals, the tech-driven downsizing of the workforce spares no sector of the economy. In the United States, originally a country of farmers, only 2.7% of the population works in agriculture, and here -- and everywhere -- "the end of outdoor agriculture" is foreseeable. The industrial sector was next. And now the tertiary sector, which had grown relative to the others, which is now by far the largest sector, is getting pared down. Automatic teller machines replace bank tellers. Middle management is dramatically diminished: the bosses relay their orders to the production workers directly, by computer, and monitor their compliance by computer too.
We approach what Bill Gates calls "frictionless capitalism": direct transactions between producers and consumers. Capitalism will eliminate the mercantile middlemen who created it.

In Proletarian Heaven, the handloom weavers must be snickering. What's wrong with this picture? Fundamentally this: the commodities so abundantly produced in an almost workerless economy have to be sold, but in order to be sold, they must be bought, and in order for them to be bought, consumers require the money to pay for them. They get most of that money as wages for working. Even Rifkin, who goes to great lengths not to sound radical, grudgingly admits that a certain Karl Marx came up with this notion of a crisis of capitalist overproduction relative to purchasing power"

Problem Number 2: The Fewer Workers, the More Stress - Both For Those With Jobs and Those Without

"Today we work longer hours than we did in 1948, although productivity has since then more than doubled. Instead of reducing hours, employers are reducing their fulltime workforces, intensifying exploitation and insecurity, while simultaneously maximizing the use of throwaway temp workers, momentarily mobilized reservists with little job security and lots of stress.

The work of the remaining workers, the knowledge-workers, is immensely stressful. Like text on a computer screen, it scrolls around inexorably, but for every worker who can't take it, there's another in "the new reserve army" of the unemployed (another borrowing from you-know-who) desperate to take her place. And the redundant majority is not just an insufficient market, it's a reservoir of despair.

Not only are people going to be poor, they're going to know that they're useless. What happened to the first victims of automation -- southern blacks displaced by agricultural technology ending up as a permanent underclass -- will happen to many millions of whites too. We know the consequences: crime, drugs, family breakdown, social decay. Controlling or, more realistically, containing them will be costly and difficult"

The Way Forward:

Jeremy Rifkin thinks that the only way out of this nightmare is getting the semi and unemployed to be paid in return for voluntary service. Community work. Cleaning Streets. Clearing woodland. Whatever you want to call it it is far from sitting on a beach with a pina colada, enjoying the benefits of not working. In fact his solution bears more than a passing ressemblance to slavery. Bizarrely Jeremy Rifkin thinks this is a great solution because - what would people do if they didnt work??

It is clear that, in this case, the Protestant Spirit and Work Ethic are coalescing seemlessly. Ask people in other countries - Italy, for example, where everything always seems to be closed, or our Mexican fisherman from the previous post - how they would live without work and they would tell you straight away: focus on their personal priorities. Work is created so we can pursue these - not so we can ignore them and plough on in 15 hours a day. Some poor souls have the misfortune to have badly paying jobs. In the past, it was they who worked hard to survive. These days, city bankers are as likely to slave away all the hours God sends - just to have their two weeks of leisure per years, sitting by the beach with their blackberries on standby.

Bob Black has a better idea. Get rid of the control element which underlines such ideas. Let people work fewer hours, let them job share, to give more people a chance to earn. Then we might all be happier.

Vive la France, Vive la semaines des 35 heures!

http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/critique.html

Why Work?

2007-10-24T12:54:00.000Z

I get to the office pretty early in general, as I have to be there in time for an 8am morning meeting. This is not as early as the majority of my 'team' who, for reasons best known to themselves, like to get there around 7.30. Given the majority is still there at 7.30 at night I wonder how they manage their lives, relationships, shopping - even little things like ironing or going to the bank.

I'm not very good at living like this. For a start, I hate mornings. Always have. I can just about cope with starting up my brain around 10am but before that body and mind simply don't coalesce. Of course, I can't argue with the boss about coming in at this horrendous hour. But I don't have to be happy about it either. As far as I am concerned I work hard, and have to deal with a lot of stress as it is. Surely he should understand that I do this only under duress?

But no. Today I met him in the lift on the way to the meeting. He asked how I was and I said, 'fine thanks, but tired'. He stopped, turned around, and looked at me amazed saying 'how can you be tired. It's already 8am! You should start work earlier, you'll get more done". I didn't really know what to say (and was stifling irritation that I now appear lazy simply because I don't live in the office 24/7) but my real objection was this. Why do we always have to do more, more, more? What are we working for, exactly, that we have to dedicate ourselves body and soul to the cause?

It's not like we are at war, or in a national emergency or something. It's not even about short-term necessity. It's a chronic condition based on the assumption that nothing in life could be more important than work. And equally, that there is nothing worse in life than not working. That is why stay-at-home mums these days find themselves so isolated and lacking in self-worth and why the unemployed, or worse, beggars, are so stigmatised - even though full employment is no more than a pipe-dream for most countries.

I simply don't accept that this is the best way to live. However, I am clearly in the minority. Living to work is one of the great givens of the modern age. What we do, how much we earn, who we know - these are the keys to our identity and status. The private self, the domestic self has been essentially devalued. For me, this is the malaise of modern Europe - but one for which other world cultures still have the antidote. I'm always amazed how friends from other countries - particularly those in South Asia or the Middle East - think Europeans are oppressed. No time for leisure, for family, for contemplation, even to cook a proper meal or say hello to your neighbours they say. What kind of life is that?

I'm bound to agree. While I can't simply ignore my own culture and do things differently I would love to work part-time, do a bit of studying or volunteering, look after my kids and cook proper food. I would love to have a garden and grow my own veg. I would love to have the time and the energy to see family and friends without having to fit them into an already bulging Saturday full of household chores.

To illustrate the stupidity of our current situation I chanced on this amusing anecdote. Remember it next time you are tempted to take a high flying position with a 16 hour working day and no holidays.

The story, of unknown origin, goes something like this: An American investment banker, visiting a small village in Mexico, encounters a Mexican fisherman. The fisherman describes his life: "I sleep late, fish a little, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffs at the fisherman’s lack of ambition and goes into great detail about how he could expand his small business and make millions. "Then what?" asks the fisherman."Then you would retire," replies the American. "Move to a small village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos."

For more arguments along the same lines go to the website: http://www.whywork.org/

Just Ask Barbie...

2007-09-26T13:19:00.001Z

I'm aware my last couple of posts have been a bit depressing. So I thought I would lighten the mood with some journalistic ineptitutude.

Now I know that MEPs aren't generally well known in their respective countries but I am surprised that those employed by the parliament don't seem to know who they are either.

(I definitely suffer from this problem: two women had plonked themselves at the table we'd reserved in a Thai place - one of my favourites - after a very long day at work. I asked my colleague, in a rather loud voice, what 'those girls' were doing there and shouldn't we ask them to leave: sadly for my career one of them turned out to be an MEP from my delegation...I guess it always pays to pay attention).

This months prize mix-ups are truly hilarious, stemming I think, from a combined ignorance of politicians AND the English language which is endemic in Brussels. I was reading the 'what's on' guide to the last session to see the Members' activities. And I discovered that Mary Lou 'Macdonalds' was giving a press conference on food safety. That made me laugh pretty hard. But it was nothing compared to "Barbie de Brun" leading toy safety campaigns.

I wonder what Sinn Fein's feisty Bairbre de Brun and Mary Lou McDonald would think of that.

But Shariasly

2007-09-12T14:56:00.000Z

Two phrases that don't normally go together attracted my attention today: 'EPP Working Group' and 'Sharia in Europe'. But there it was, advertised on a poster in the main lobby as I dashed to a meeting of the - wait for it - Working Group on the Separation of Religion and Politics to discuss apostasy. What the bejeezus is going on?

Gone are the days when European Parliament debates ranged from the proper curve of cucumbers to distribution of structual funding in outlying regions of Greece. Religious issues are enjoying the kind of political currency in our corridors of power unheard of for most of the twentieth century. A fact which is used to further various political ends, bóth electoral and ideological.

Fearmongers from the left of the political spectrum warn of the retreat of secularism in Europe and the abandonment of our humanist heritage. Cultural relativism and weak defence of enlightenment values by government and the media, they claim, has resulted in the birth of new forms of totalitarianism whether in the guise of Islamic extremism or papish plots to ban abortion and demonise homosexuals.

For many MEPs, their aim - thinly veiled, if you'll excuse the pun - is to sideline the 'backward' forces of religion and promote their own aggressive brand of secular humanism. Abolition of religious education in schools, bans on religious symbols in public spaces, and an emphasis on civic ethics is their endgame, and one which exhibits as much exclusivity as your average religious fundamentalist.

On the other side of the bench, conservatives and ultra-nationalists point to the revival of 'Judeo-Christian ethics' - exemplified by the heated debate over the place of God in Europe's tentative Constitution and Polish attempts to put 'values' firmly back on the political agenda - as an example of the EU reclaiming its heritage from the mistakes of multiculturalism and liberal neutrality. In their version of reality immigration is responsible for the widely cited 'breakdown' in European society, providing a pretext to forcibly assimilate or deport non white citizens.

Both are allied against liberal apologists whose 'flabby' thinking is supposedly handing the field to Islamists prepared to misuse the discourse of human rights and religious freedoms to undermine the very values liberals seek to protect. In reality, of course, many critics of liberalism dislike the freedom from social conformity which is its corollary and are more than happy to seize on reasons for curtailing individual rights which they deem in opposition to necessary state control and surveillance.

In all versions, the demonised Muslim minority is used as a lever to force political change. So pervasive has the motif of mad mullahs on the streets of Europe become that the stereotype has been normalised - a fact which constitutes simply one more example of the mainstreaming of far-right policies in the political life of our continent which has taken on an increasingly xenophobic and nationalist streak.

Liberals, of course, are wrong not to condemn political islamists of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir persuasion and deserve all the pummelling they currently receive for lying down in the face of would be theocratic despots. Equally, their opponents are wrong to tar all Muslims with the same brush, By synthesising the programme of Political Islam with religion in the public mind, anyone who declares themselves to be a Muslim (whether Salafi, Reformist, or downright secular) is deemed a suspect, a traitor, and the antithesis of all things European.

Just yesterday two far-right politicians - Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter of the Belgian Vlaams Belang - were arrested outside the European Commission for protesting against the Islamisation of Europe. Shouting 'No to Sharia Law' and 'Democracy Not Theocracy' supporters clashed with the police and bemused immigrants in the EU quarter of Brussels.

Their numbers may have been small - in the hundreds rather than thousands due to a ban on the grounds of maintaining public order issued by the mayor - but they hit the headlines big time. Not allowing them to demonstrate may prove a major mistake by the authorities as it rallied the supporters of free speech to the side of people who are fundamentally racist, misguided, or both.

What I saw in the parliament today did nothing to dissuade my fears for the future. It is time politicians and the media (who don't generally have strong theological backgrounds) started to put much greater distance between the jihadi rhetoric of extremist political groups and ordinary followers of the Islamic religion. Likewise, governments must have the guts to institute formal bans on all Islamist groups and their cover organisations which promote violence and undermine democracy. It is frankly outrageous that leading lights from organisations like the Hizb, having been expelled from Muslim countries, continue to enjoy the right to speak out against a Western way of life that they do not respect and in many cases wish to destroy. That way alone lies compromise and a return to a middle ground that too often seems to have been abandoned.

Of Pride and Prejudice

2007-09-06T11:21:00.000Z

How can you spot a friendship is dying? Most of the time friends who exit our lives do so slowly, and in stages. You start seeing them less and less (rarely intentionally, and with the best intentions of rectifying the situation) until the fact that they have moved, or married, or got a new job, sinks in and they recede to the back of your facebook page. Such changes in our personal priorities are rarely painful. Indeed, they are rarely anyone's fault. Most likely, they come about naturally, and with assent on both sides.

Every so often, however, someone carves you out of their life with a decisiveness which is as startling as it is unexpected. The last time it really happened to me was at high school - with all the psychological brutality teenage girls normally reserve for one other. I remember the pain of it still: my best friend turning against me from one day to the next, and of spending about two years trying to work out why apologies and explanations hadn't ironed things out. I've also done the same to some others in my life - people who thought I was angry with them, and thus refused to communicate, when in reality I was just indifferent and wanted them to go away.

The fact of the matter is that sometimes we need to move on from certain people in our lives. Perhaps we have little in common; perhaps we have grown out of them; perhaps we simply don't like them; perhaps we need to prioritise; or perhaps our relationship is somehow inappropriate. That happens. We develop. However the real question - and the ethics, if you like - is how to go about making the separation. I still feel rather guilty after leaving an ex-boyfriend (who was always calling me 'as a friend') high and dry. Every so often I would agree to meet him for coffee and invariably, when the moment arrived, I would find a reason to cancel. I'm not surprised he hated me afterwards. I simply wasn't honest enough.

Nobody likes being rejected by someone they care for. Especially not by being given a chronic cold shoulder until they get the hint. Sometimes it is fairer to be cruel than to be kind, even if that is more difficult for the perpetrator. So many people take the attitude that if you ignore something it will go away. Very often, all that happens is that this breeds resentment and self-hatred in the injured party. Fundamentally, if you are indifferent to someone who cares for you, that does not mean to say you wish them ill. Just that you no longer wish to see them. As such, damaging someone's self-confidence for the sake of an easy way out is egotistical in the extreme. The 'its not you, its me' line might be cliched - but it saves a lot of worthless soulsearching in the long-run.

So much for responsibilities. What about rights? To what point can the injured party blame the other for their hurt feelings or sense of loss? And to what point are they entitled to an explanation? Personally, I think that if someone respects you enough to break ties with you, and tell you why - as is done in many breakups, if we're honest, which, however unpleasant at least have the relief of finality about them - you should respect them back and bother them no longer. However, if they refuse to confront the issue, or deny there is a problem, they do bear responsibility for that.

In that case, you can just tell them so, I suppose. And be done with it

Counter Terrorism and the Surveillance State

2007-09-05T11:04:00.000Z

As news breaks that the Germans have foiled a 'massive bomb plot' aimed at Frankfurt Airport and Ramstein Army Base, as well as the usual infidel haunts like pubs and clubs - in probable commemoration of the September 11 attacks in a few days time - we have been discussing current anti-terror measures in the European Parliament.

The debate was scheduled in July, and, given that the summer was clearly some sort of down-time for Europe's Al-Qaeda affiliates (perhaps they were off in warmer climes, enjoying the sun n'surf or a bit of jihadi training after the cock-up that was the flaming Jeep 'attack' on Glasgow airport) we had prepared a lot of statements about EU laws not being proportionate to threats. Today's revelations throws that into relief somewhat. But I still stand by the Liberal line.

Let me expand. Compared to, say, the Cold War period or even the IRA's reign of terror in the 70s and 80s, Europe is actually a safer place today than it was for many years. That many believe it isn't is testament to the success of propaganda designed to manipulate our sense of insecurity for political ends, most especially those of state surveillance and control of ordinary citizens, like me.

Before you protest against my loony liberalism in the face of fundamentalism I should point out that there is a big difference between introducing a) measures that actually combat terrorism, b) those which are designed to reassure the public -the legislative equivalent of a press release - and c) those which are really designed to deal with domestic issues under cover of the foreign threat. 3 obvious examples would be a) improving cross border police cooperation and harmonising extradition procedures for suspects, b) not letting liquids - or indeed lipsticks - on board planes and c) retaining sensitive data on the population at large, for indefinite periods of time.

All three have been legislated at European Level as part of our response to the terrorist threat. Yet only one, as far as I can see, is actually of any use at all (that's a, not b or c, in case you didnt work it out). B is mostly designed to reassure the public we are doing something (or indeed anything) while we think of a useful response to the problem, and C is designed to bring in through the backdoor a law which will be used against citizens of that state and would never, in a million years, be passed by a democratic parliament back home. In fact, the only reason it can be passed at European level is because deals are done behind closed doors in Council. Once the Ministers shake hands, no parliamentary scrutiny is ever brought to bear on their decisions. We are supposed to take them on trust.

The deficiencies of such a system are quite obvious. First, we have no method of evaluating - in a transparent manner - the laws which are put through in private. As such, with no sunset clauses to speak of, legislation can remain on the statute book without proper scrutiny. For any rational person this is clearly damaging to civil liberties. Insisting that such and such a law is in fact imposed by Brussels is just another way of getting round the legal safeguards to our rights that Constitutions are supposed to establish.

I uncovered a little historical snippet in the New York Times to illustrate the dangers of such a situation. In the autumn of 68BC the world's only superpower suffered a terrorist attack by a loosely organised band of pirates. In panic, according to Plutarch, the Roman Senate granted Pompey "absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone" through the Lex Gabinia.
By the oldest trick in the book, the military high command subverted Liberty, Democracy and the Constitution with the assent of Rome's frightened citizens. Sound familiar?

It should do. News that DNA storgage in Britain is higher than any in the world (we do manage to do the surveillance state better than anyone else: we also have 50% of the world's CCTV cameras, or something) is frightening. Since 2004, the data of everyone arrested for a recordable offence in England and Wales - all but the most minor offences - has remained on file regardless of their age, the seriousness of their alleged offence, and whether or not they were prosecuted. Now thanks to the EU Data Retention law - pushed through during the UK Presidency after the government failed to get it through the Commons - the scope of such institutionalised surveillance has been vastly widened.

Tellingly, according to Home Office Figures, that amounts to 5.2% of the UK population including nearly 40% of black men, 13% of Asian men but only 9% of white men. What we are creating, in effect, is a system of racial profiling that will lead to many more being prosecuted for crimes they did not commit.How so, sceptics will gasp? Well, as with the Criminal Record Bureau database, its not as watertight as it sounds. Seemingly, over 2000 people have been refused work or arrested because their details ressembled those of known paedophiles and criminals. Yet, judges now want to extend DNA profiling to everyone in the UK, including foreign visitors. Reassuring, non?

Let's go after the terrorist types. But let's do it in a manner that doesn't undermine our own freedoms and culture at the same time. If we let our governments go down that line we may as well be living in a dictatorship like Saudi Arabia. The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: it fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that Europe's anti-terror laws do not do the same.

Problem Solved

2007-09-05T09:28:00.000Z

Success. Somehow my curmudgeonly computer decided - in its own good time - to act on instructions issued to it hours ago. I feel like an all-powerful computer programmer now...

Technologically Stumped

2007-09-05T09:24:00.000Z

No, my campaign to free journalist Alan Johnston long after he in fact left Gaza is not due to a hazy awareness of world news (though lord knows, with the situation there, its possible that he or another ill-fated sort will have been kidnapped again by the time I get around to removing it). Rather, I am unable to master the, apparently simple, technology required to get the icon off my sidebar. I did the obvious and went to 'templates' where I chose to erase said 'page element'- unfortunately, it has failed to budge since. If any helpful readers with a more developed understanding of HTML can advise me on what to do to edit the text I would be most grateful.

Happily Ever After...Until Death You Do Part

2007-09-04T14:03:00.000Z

Marriage. Few words inspire such profound - and often violently different - reactions amongst those of my generation. In previous eras it was more or less regarded as a fact of life - a bit like queuing for the bus, eating fish on Fridays, or looking after your parents in their senility. And, like aforesaid activities, you could either moan about them or extol them when you met your friends to gossip over a cup of tea. Question them you did not.

Like many things in the modern world, however, that has changed dramatically. Sure, people - by and large - still go out and reproduce but the concept of pledging yourself, til death you do part, is, if anything, regarded as a touch anachronistic. Instead, our lives are complex webs related to our own self-image - and this informs much of what we think about marriage. Are we independent careerists, carefree creatives, the mothering type or too picky? Are we ready? Have we met the right person? Will our priorities change? And what about our biological clocks? Can medical science work wonders once we're forty? Who's willing to bet on the advances of the future to save their career today?

Negotiating what was once an unthought transition into a new phase of life is now fraught with philosophical difficulty. Rather than simply choosing someone and living with the consequences - or indeed simply dumping them when it got too much- many of us are anchored in a semi-permanent state of self-inflicted pyschological warfare. Confused by conflicting desires, social pressures and - if we're honest - the experience of an irresponsible yet liberating individualism which permeates our twenties and thirties, the idea of bringing other human beings into your sphere on a PERMANENT BASIS can seem a trifle terrifying. It is the psychological equivalent of being born again, with the same turnaround in lifestyle that religious conversion brings. At least once the kids come along.

Despite our reluctance to get legally involved with the opposite sex until well into our maturer years, we seem to understand, au fond, that there is a 'good age' to do these things, somewhere between 25 and 35, and it's then you have to decide if you're going to do them. Once you reach said age the existential process of banging out your stance on the issue becomes both normal and necessary. In case you haven't followed this rather garbled explanation up to now let me give you a concrete example. Twice this week I ate with a hoard of girlfriends, all aged between 26 and 32. Somehow, regardless of cultural and career differences, all these women had only one thing they wanted to talk about over dinner: marriage.

A year or two ago they were focussed on jobs, travel, degrees, political causes or their latest bedtime reading. Now, it seems, they were either defending their desire to commit - or, conversely, their determination not to. Only one girl was actually married, a fact which provoked a certain degree of incredulity from the others as if she were 16 years old when she walked down the aisle and not 30 years old already! Either way, for what post-modernists have dubbed the great non-issue of the twentyfirst century, the 'm' word has taken over our lives. as successfully as it did previous generations: the only difference being that it is in theory rather than practice.

As for me, not wishing to waste too much more time thinking about men - that's years of my life down the drain already, lost on a succession of suitors I no longer even talk to - I have decided that being single is simply too demanding on one's time. I would rather just make up my mind to be with someone and then think about something else...preferably food, philosophy, or both at the same time.

All joking aside, I am quite unconvinced by so called feminist libertarian arguments against marriage. It seems to me that most women's problems are caused by scoundrels not stepping up to their obligations. Absolving them of their responsibilities towards us completely (as per the 'laissez faire, do what you want' school of relationships) instead of reforming said institution, seems to have handed the more misogynistic variety of male success on a plate.

Why don't we want men to protect us, to care for us and our kids, to earn their keep, and ours too, while they're at it? Why is it preferable to work all the hours Gods sends, AND look after your children, and the house, simply to say you're independent? Why is it better never to commit, all in the name of some formless notion of choice, even though that could mean you never have children or a happy home? Isn't it about time feminists started suggesting more ways to balance our commitments and our careers instead of keeping men out of the picture completely? Isn't making women's lives easier a definition of what feminism should be about?

I understand why the first wave of feminists had a problem with marriage as a social phenomenon at that time. After all, women had barely been let into the workplace by the time Germaine Greer came along. And I do agree that when men felt they could control women financially, have full legal rights over her, or simply take her for granted, there were real problems.

Yet their valid critique of failed marriages in what were, frankly, quite different social conditions has caused us to throw the baby out with the bathwater for, what seems to me, few very good universal reasons. Both men and women are now used to the (concept, at least) of gender equality, human rights and equal ops at work. Why couldn't a better form of marriage now work in our favour?

Perhaps the time has come - with more than 50% of kids born outside wedlock - to rethink the patterns of our behaviour. Whether that means shelving or accepting marriage remains to be seen. But we should at least step back and reflect on our reasons for dumping one of society's main building blocks, lest it should come back to haunt us all in our (potentially lonely) later lives. To be continued...

Thinspiration

2007-08-31T15:05:00.000Z

No, I don't want to talk about weight loss, size zeros, or encouraging anorexia, but the fact that inspiration has been pretty thin on the ground recently.

I didn't want to bore you with content-free reflections or the state of my daily life (which has, for reasons best known to my obsessive-compulsive side, centred around cooking recently: though perhaps this week's strawberry jam marathon, the outcome of an over-enthusiastic fruit purchase at 1 euro a kilo at the market, merits a mention).

However I am aware that I did start this blog for a reason and should at least attempt to keep it going regardless of my current mood. As such, I thought I'd include an essay I've just written for a journal on the Future of Europe to gauge reactions and convince myself to get into the blogging swing again after a long summer break. Hope it is of some interest to someone.

" Europe didn't heed the warnings. Three years after the Laeken summit underscored a pressing need to reconnect Europe with its citizens, the Union train went off the rails. By early 2005 survey after survey revealed a seething discontent with the process of European integration amongst ordinary people. The majority felt disconnected from European politics and ignored by Europe's policy-makers. Yet the Brussels establishment, assured of the pliability of the voting public, and united in their ambitions, proceeded blithely along the road to Constitutional ratification without thinking to consult citizens first.

Pride, as always, came before a fall. In this case, the karmic retribution inflicted on hubristic governments was as swift as it was savage. While many factors contributed to Dutch and French citizens voting 'No' in the constitutional referendums, chief amongst these was the fact that at no time in the recent history of the Union's development had anyone ever asked for their opinion. Seen in this light, rejection of the Constitution was symbolic of a deeper malaise at the heart of the European project: a democratic deficit and lack of conviction that threatened the very future of European integration.

The fall-out from the Constitutional debacle has been multifaceted. On the one hand, today's leaders are accused of uniting Europe without first uniting Europeans, who are increasingly dismissive of the purpose of the Union now that its original raison d'etre - keeping the peace and promoting economic co-operation across the continent - is no longer relevant. On the other, the difficulty of extracting national consensus on key issues has caused many to wonder whether Europe's capacity to absorb new members and pursue political integration has been exhausted. Instead of building a wider and deeper Union, they argue, an enlarged EU should whittle its role down to that of a trading bloc and abandon its political pretensions.

When Bulgaria and Romania acceded to the Union in January 2007 it had grown from an initial core of six members to encompass 27 states, each with its own culture, political colouring and strategic national interests. The requirement that all policies proceed from a basis of unanimity in the Council of Ministers has meant that, under the current Treaty arrangements, the Union is struggling to agree common priorities. Lack of consensus has meant that politics proceeds at the level of the lowest common denominator at a time when radical reforms are required to tackle challenges ranging from international terrorism to energy security and migration management. Surely, critics argue, this proves that public policy should be left to the preserve of individual Member States.

They could not be more wrong. Today's big challenges are supranational and require a level of political cooperation and consensus unprecedented in human history. Take climate change, energy insecurity, or health pandemics for instance, which know no borders and move quickly from one national jurisdiction to another. As Europe discovered in the aftermath of Chernobyl and the BSE crisis in the 1980's, the assortment of un-coordinated national measures, which were the only tools then available to Member States, were simply incapable of responding effectively or efficiently to the problem at hand. Only enhanced cooperation on environmental issues, they realised, would enable them to counter such threats in the future: as such, robust environmental legislation is now one of the cornerstones of European policy-making.

Until the events of 9/11, however, this logic was never adequately extended to other key areas of public policy. Prior to this the European Parliament had put forward a number of proposals to improve the level of police and judicial cooperation. These were largely sidelined until the spectre of international terrorism raised its ugly head, first in New York and then on home soil, through the bombing of the London Underground in July 2005. Suddenly, the demand for a robust, integrated security policy was the EU's number one priority. As a result, we have seen agreement - with high levels of public support - on legislation ranging from the European Arrest Warrant to information sharing.

However, we cannot afford to stop there. To tackle a sluggish economy and falling tax returns, national governments will have to rethink their desire to shut the gates of Fortress Europe on all-comers. Previous enlargements have provided the Union with a bigger internal market and a wider pool of skilled labour which is alleviating skills shortages and contributing to long-term growth. Indeed, Vladimir Spidla, the Employment Commissioner, recently released statistics showing that those countries which did not impose Transitional Measures for citizens of the New Member States are enjoying the maximum economic benefits of enlargement. We can expect similar results through managed migration from third countries - especially since the working population in the 27 EU Member States is set to fall from 303 million to 297 million by 2020, putting an intolerable strain on pensions and social services.

Likewise, with finite natural resources fast depleting, Europe will have to radically re-examine its patterns of energy supply and consumption. This year, for example, the UK will become a net importer of gas for the first time since its North Sea reserves opened over thirty years ago. A similar story is being repeated across the Union, from the Ruhr to the Rhone. Indeed the Commission estimates that the EU could be 90% dependent on Russian oil by 2020. Achieving greater autonomy in energy supply and developing a Common Energy Policy are therefore among Europe's most pressing concerns, especially since Russia's aggressive energy politics threatened to cut off supplies to the EU's Eastern Members last winter. However, lacking EU competency at present - which the Constitution would have afforded it - the CEP faces an uphill struggle against blocking forces in the Council, where the absence of qualified majority voting so often results in stalemate.

For how long, I wonder, will the impetus for further integration continue to be driven by developments in the outside world instead of idealism from within? If anything, the European Project arose from a distrust of the concept of borders. It exists because people understood that conflicts and confrontations born of nationalism brought Europe to its knees in the past. And because evidence continues to show that barriers - be it to trade, migrants or ideas - will only damage our interests in an era where the biggest threats, and the biggest opportunities, are global in nature. As Sarkozy noted recently, “Europe alone has accumulated, during the long process of building the community, the practical experience of a shared sovereignty that corresponds well to the demands of our times.” But we can only maintain that momentum if we win the battle of ideas, both at home and abroad.

President Barroso rightly said that "It is through practical achievements that we will reinforce our links with citizens and rally them to our cause." To that end, the Commission and Council have been keen to promote key initiatives to improve Europe's added value. One of the most damaging media allegations in the eyes of the public is that the EU is simply an expensive white elephant. Reversing that suspicion will be difficult, however, unless national governments give the EU Institutions the money and the legal capacity to push them through and a predominately eurosceptic national press is prepared to acknowledge that. That is why the time has come for politicians to seize the agenda and confront the Eurosceptics with brute facts. Citizens know that the benefits of globalisation like more choice, lower prices and greater mobility come alongside challenges like migration and organised crime as Europe opens its borders. It is time to respond to this new reality.

Which brings us to the question of future enlargements. The EU's borders now run from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and from North Cape to the Mediterranean. Europe, many argue, has now reached its 'natural boundaries'. Yet this ignores certain important political realities, not least that Europe's Neighbourhood Policy relies heavily on the promise of access to EU markets and institutions. Similarly, securing stability in Europe's immediate vicinity, in areas like the Balkans, is dependent on the prospect of EU Membership which has already transformed Romania and Bulgaria - previously a by-word for corruption and organised crime - into modern liberal states. In these areas the enormous soft power wielded by the EU is bringing peace and prosperity to its neighbours and guaranteeing stability and security within our Union. That is why leaving the door open is in Europe's best interests.

As Robert Schuman, one of the fathers of European Integration remarked, Europe should be open "to all those who share its values". Values have no borders. This is why Europe should not reject those who wish to draw closer to it, least of all Turkey whose economy is growing at more than five times the rate of France, and an expected 10% this financial year. Indeed, Turkey's desire to share Europe's values has been evident since it first applied for full Membership of the EEC in 1987. It abolished the death penalty in order to enter the Council of Europe and has modified its Constitution several times to meet the Copenhagen Criteria for Membership, including reform of the penal code, institutionalisation of women's rights, and improvement its human rights record - particularly with regard to minorities. Although the process is not yet complete Turkey is slowly transforming itself into a truly democratic society based on European rules, values and laws which the election of the pro-European Abdullah Gul as President should only accelerate.

We should recognise that Muslims, Jews and Christians have coexisted in this region for centuries, alongside those of many other beliefs and none. That diversity is what makes Europe unique. And it is that mixing of peoples which has inspired the history of our nations and forged those values which today we call 'European'. The contribution of the Umayyad Caliphate in Cordoba to developments in medicine, mathematics and astronomy, not to mention how their translations of ancient Greek texts were to influence European Enlightenment, is testament to this fact. Xenophobic attitudes that attempt to impose an anachronistic homogeneity on our continent have no place in today's discourse. The only thing we should demand of citizens in a liberal democratic society - regardless of where they are born - is that they abide by the laws of the land and respect values like tolerance, democracy and Human Rights which underpin our political system.

Unless Europe makes progress on political integration now and reasserts its belief in the humanistic values which have made us an inspiration to developing democracies across the world we risk losing our place as a global standard setter and putting ourselves at the mercy of rising economic giants like China and India. To that end, Europe's political class awaits with baited breath the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference on Treaty Reform which is expected to conclude before the end of the year. For to function efficiently, effectively and democratically the Union needs to put the institutional building blocks in place to drive its development for the next 50 years. Any attempt to abandon it could seriously weaken and divide the Union. Just as any attempt to create a break-away Core of European States would circumvent the constitutional process for the Union as a whole, to the detriment of all.

Who Needs Love?

2007-08-12T21:47:00.001Z

Who needs love? So asked Razorlight. As do millions of singletons as they opt for individualism over responsibility and the sheer interference of another life embroilled with their own.

Relationships in the post-modern west are a complex thing. On the one hand romantic love has been elevated to a sacred status. Having killed God and political ideology, the only aspect of life ruled by earnestness remains matters of the heart. Not for everyone of course. The cogniscenti see this too as a Derridean game to be endlessly deconstructed and played with.

However, for your average person love still counts for something. The more pertinent question, however, is what love actually means. On the one hand it is the repository of lost hopes for postmodern humanity. On the other a slightly sniffling Hallmark card of a sensation, to be scoffed and derided in all its sentimental glory. Love is no more than a lost love, a nostalgia for the land of fiction which died with God and fairies somewhere around the demise of Nietszche.

Yeah I know, religion is making a comeback. At dinner parties across our continent faith is standing up once again to be counted as a marker of identity. However, in my opinion, our new fixation with faith has rather more to do with our fear of faithlessness. In a world where everything is portrayed as relative, with relations more about power and desire than fidelity and honesty, people are reverting back to this time-honored response. I detect more than a little desperation in the action though. Confronted with the ultimate unpleasantness of rampant consumerism and individualism - and lacking coherent modern responses thereto - people are falling back into old moulds. But with the inevitable whiff of scepticism that accompanies tradition for traditions' sake.

People are lost. And they are lonely. Of this there is no doubt. But they are not firm believers either. The cult of romance, the cult of Christianity. Both are clutching at straws. Not because they are obviously false (I am personally inclined to believe in a merciful God, and in the improvement in humanity that selfless love brings out in us). The problem, if you like, lies in the packaging. Both have yet to be scripted for the twentifirst century. Both exist in paradigms that the world has now outlived. But for lack of alternatives still craves.

Which brings me back to my initial question. Who needs love? The answer, of course, is all of us. Bot not in the form in which we believe it exists. Love in the modern age is little more than an emotional high. For as long as we are floating on a chemical cloud-nine with our beloved the world is wonderful. Like a cheap ecstasy pill, once the feeling wears off we have to take another one (often a different brand) or suffer the realisation of its fictional happiness. That is not love to me.

Love is that thing that develops when people's lives are interminably intertwined. Love is learning to live together, to survive the moments you despair of each other, you are bored of each other, in short, the moments where emotions rule your heart. Only the day-by-day predictability of other human lives enmeshed with our own can bring true love. Which is why childhood friends so often endure. Not only because they are close. But because they were, and are, there with us all through our lives.

Loving another human being should not always be a choice. Rather an attitude, a survival mechanism if you will, that grows between people who would rather work with, rather than against, each other. And that requires qualities which today's definition of love abjures: the ability to survive boredom, antagonism, fall outs, inequalities. In short, that which binds us together despite difference.

For further evidence look no further than your own family.

Auto-Critique

2007-08-08T00:52:00.000Z

Re-reading the post on India's economic issues , I felt inclined to follow it up with a few thoughts. I referred in that piece to the 'superior standard of living' enjoyed by the West. I also mentioned how life in the villages, however poor materially, seemed superior to a life lived, poor, in city squalor. My point, I think, was that it was better to live a different sort of life than strive in vain in pursuit of Western economic standards.

Romanticising the poor? Maybe, but that's not what I had intended. Rather, that quality of life and economic gain are not necessarily commensurate. It is possible to have less and live better than a slum dweller on a dollar a day. Unfortunately that is not how statistics encourage us to view the world. Their definition of 'standard of living' is fairly rigid. It consists of biens materiels, of economic measures, of GDP, Of GNP, of percentage annual national growth. It's enshrined in laws and parliamentary resolutions around the world. In UN declarations, even.

But this definition - however widespread - is not without its flaws. Its economic take on human existence can only allow materialist conclusions. However it has nothing to say about the other great sustaining factors in our lives: family, love, beauty, society, belonging, fulfillment. Such definitions cannot promote these except by economic means. Therein lies the flaw.

We need something else. Or just as well. And that demands the economic system adapt and learn from other considerations. Particularly human ones. As the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko once said "The West has maybe contributed a great deal in giving the world a more industrial face. But the real task still has to come from Africa: to give the world a more human face.” Indeed, this is the face of most radical political and religious critiques of western 'values', boosting both anti-capitalism and Islamism, to name but a few.

I can't speak for Africa. But I did visit a village in Uttarranchal where the Van Gujjar people - recently evicted nomads from the national park, rehoused to let the animals roam in front of tourist lenses) - eked out an existence selling buffalo milk. They were happier in the forest, they said. There, their primary considerations were not to survive making (bad) money and live on the fringes of society but to be at the centre of their own priorities and pursue them at will. How could their new life compare to that freedom?

The West is blind at times. It sees everything through the economic microscope that our thought has become. As such, we often fail to see our own shortcomings. I am always interested to hear others' views on the West, as a result. So if you have any comments in this regard, please do put pen to paper.

Where is the work and family balance that characterises other cultures? Where is the emphasis on balancing the different aspects of our lives? We, who work 12 hour days at times, enclosed in our offices, stressed, with strained relationships and fatigue and cynicism. We who want more 'time to ourselves', with our families, or just relaxing rather than trapped behind a desk. But who won't do anything about it.

The truth is that these are futile dreams, dreams whose reality we have already renounced. We have become deaf to ways of rebalancing our situation. Worse, we have accepted negative aspects of our modern capitalist culture, passively, as natural without sufficiently interrogating their cause. This is an age where all thought, even that which is technically anti-establishment, takes place within the parameters late capitalist culture has set out. There is no real challenge to its hegemony. And that, more than anything else, is what should worry us.

Perhaps rapid globalisation and urbanisation will shake this anomie. Two major truths are emerging: that there will always be losers from the global market (however many people are pulled out of poverty, the gap between haves and have-nots is still increasing) and that we cannot all consume at the same rate. They say that if everyone in China owned a car the human race would expire from lack of oxygen immediately. Current patters of development are killing the environment. As such, all of us (starting from the developed world) will have to change our patterns of consumption and invest in greener alternatives. That may hurt. But it may also be the push we have been waiting for, to reprioritise and reorder our collective consciousness.

Single White Female

2007-08-05T22:58:00.000Z

What is it about single females that makes them so vulnerable? I always think it's interesting to compare reactions when you holiday with men and with women: the experience is invariably very different.

My last few foreign escapades have been in the company of a very close gay pal of mine. Needless to say he was normally taken as my husband (or at the very least, via a squiz at his biceps) a force to be reckoned with, so I was left pretty well alone. There was the inevitable confusion, I guess, of people discovering he wasn't my husband. Which could be kind of fun. At our hotel in Egypt the staff were having a hard time working out why this camp English playwright we met seemed to be chasing my 'man' - and why I didn't look terribly perturbed by his advances. Even being close friends with a man was considered a novel concept requiring lengthy explanation. But still, this made only for some multicultural spice. A few people tried to buy me off him for several thousand camels (their idea of a joke, I suppose) but that was as scary as it got.

Travelling in the company of women, however, is an altogether different story. I have never ventured forth on my own - and frankly, am amazed that any amazonian types do, considering the general menace of the male species. But experiencing India with a female friend really opened my eyes to how gendered people's perceptions are. You get stared at and followed. You get harassed. You get groped, even. And you feel a lot more vulnerable than with a man at your shoulder. I don't think that's country specific either. I think it is just a general trend. I had a similar experience on holiday with girl friends in Cornwall when I was 17. And Cornwall isn't exactly a threatening place.

It makes you wonder what signals women give off when they are together to attract such attention. To be honest, in this instance my friend and I dressed very conservatively. And, sans maquillage, and often, sans laver, were hardly pretty pictures most of the time. But still. I have never felt more resolutely sexually objectified. I think it is alot to do with vulnerability. It reminds me of vultures. Scavengers don't have the courage to strike when a more powerful beast is in the vicinity. But when those have left the scene, they circle and move in. It's like that with weak men, anywhere in the world. Seeing a woman 'unescorted' they take their chance and do and say things they would never dare if a stronger man were there.

One particularly insolent rickshaw-wallah I had in Jaipur asked me straight out to go to bed with him. When I refused to acknowledge him and got angry he seemed genuinely surprised and said he thought that was what 'freedom' was all about in my country. To scr*w whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Reductio ad absurdum. What could I say?

What's worse (and I plan to tell the Rough Guide this) these guys actually had a rooftop restaurant they took any single white females to in order to ply them with alcohol (and/or slip a date rape drug in their drink) and then rent a room by the hour to take their pleasure. Often, I heard, more than one at a time. The mere fact that this was reported as a semi-regular occurance shocked and sickened me.

But it got me thinking. Why don't others put a stop to it? If some place has a reputation for abusing tourists then why not shut it down? I wonder whether it is the image of Western woman that causes this behaviour? If the majority of people see us as fundamentally loose is it hardly suprising that they leave you in the clutches of your abusers - even if they would never dream of doing such a thing to a woman themselves.

I can understand patriarchy to the extent that its intended effect is to make good men the defenders of women. Sadly, what often happens in patriarchal cultures is that the woman gets the blame for other men's lack of control. It is possibly to do with the idea that you are 'asking for it' simply by travelling alone that permits others - psychologically - to turn a blind eye to sexual harassment.

Apparently the world has a long way to go before it learns to be civilised. That applies to both sexes however.

The Ethics of Tourism

2007-08-02T09:46:00.000Z

Holidaying outside the comfort-zone that is Western Europe and the Med brings its own share of ethical dilemmas. Chief among these, it seems, is the question of culpability. India confronts you with poverty and illness of sometimes staggering proportions, side by side with the glossy malls and BMW's of the recent economic boom. It's all rather Dickensian really. The question is, how should we respond?

My travelling companion was unable to bear the weight of these dilemmas at first. She felt responsible somehow, she said. She couldn't countenance going to spend £40 (or rupees equivalent) on lavish wedding clothes when seconds outside the air-conditioned shopping complex families with small children were sleeping on the pavement and men with no legs were begging for her loose change.

I argued that simply by being there, by spending our money locally, and giving occasionally to those in need, we were doing as much as could be required. How could I, a citizen of a foreign country, be expected to take direct responsibility for what I saw around me? If this had been my own country, Scotland, I would feel it was my problem. I would vote, act, and pay more taxes to alleviate this sort of poverty. That, indeed, is what the political spectrum in any democratic nation is all about. In my opinion India's progress was India's responsibilty - specifically that of its government and political and business classes.

My friend responded that all our advantages are simply the result of good fortune, and the indirect effect of a global market which privileges the west at the expense of the rest. A highly Rawlsian argument. If we were no more entitled that these other people to our superior standard of living, why feel that what we have is necessarily ours to keep? Wouldn't it be ethically fairer to empty our purses in a poor district and get straight back on the plane to our comfortable lives rather than living it up surrounded by the failure of the market system eating directly into our consciences?

Even if that were true, I felt, simply giving right left and centre won't solve the central problem, namely why a country with expected 10% economic growth this year can't provide better basic services to its people. Corruption? Incompetence? Or simply the result of a system where class difference is institutionalised and poverty normalised? In any case, we were seeing everything through Western eyes. How could first impressions tell us whether globalisation, urbanisation and market liberalisation had improved or decreased standards for the average Indian citizen?

Since 1980 China, for example, has sustained the highest rates of growth in per capita incomes in the world. Not coincidentally, it has also been the most successful in reducing poverty. From 1981 to 2001, the numbers of poor people living on less than $1/day reduced from 634 to 211 million. Over the past decade it has become increasingly evident that trade policies are instrumental to reaching global development goals. Indeed, a study by the University of Michigan has proved that as a result of the Uruguay Round of WTO talks, worldwide welfare increased by 75 billion Dollars.

Before we presume to say what is in the best interests of developing countries, we should let them judge for themselves. As the eminent economist Jagdish Bhagwati explains, if workers in the Developing World accept what we - in the West - regard as extremely low wages, they must regard these wages as improvements. [1]. Several empirical studies find that - contrary to what Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' suggests - multinationals pay what economists now call a ‘wage premium' - that is they pay an average wage that exceeds the going rate, mostly up to 10 percent and exceeding it in some cases. [2] . That's why we have to be careful of taking the anti-globalisation lobby's fears at face value.

I guess the bigger problem for India is over-population combined with rapid urbanisation, as in many developing countries. Though I was surprised to learn that 75% of Indians living below the poverty line dwell in the countryside. Clearly poverty and quality of life are not directly correlatable. The villages I saw were mostly neat, clean and peaceful. They may have been poor but they did not suffer the overflowing sewers, rubbish and spread of disease that occurs in cities. People need space, they need greenery, they need fresh food and fresh air. Those cannot be measured by money alone.

[1] In his 2004 Treatise, In Defence of Globalization[2] (In Defence of Globalization, p. 172).

Back and Bleary Eyed

2007-07-31T18:18:00.000Z

Finally, back from my travels. One of the more eventful trips I've taken recently, the script read like a Western except without cowboys. Succumbed to Delhi Belly on the final leg back to London so spent my first days in Europe holed up in bed instead of enjoying the profusion of cheese and wine I had promised myself when contemplating stuffed parantha and palak paneer for the umpteenth time. My waistline has a lot to thank India for. Anyway, I am in no condition to comment further at this stage, being barely able to open both eyes at once. Photos have, however, been downloaded and can be seen in the links section on the right. Happy viewing if you are interested.

Hiatus

2007-07-02T13:18:00.000Z

I'm off to India tomorrow, all things permitting. With 24 hours to go I have

1) One refused credit card to deal with
2) One Eurostar ticket left to buy
3) No clothes washed
4) Nothing packed
5) Only the vaguest idea of the wedding location in Delhi
6) 4 speeches and an article to write
But lots of mindless optimism!

A likely hiatus in blogging is in the offing, but I expect that to be more than compensated for by the travellers tales that follow. In the meantime, have a wonderful summer!

Inverting the Impossible

2007-06-28T13:09:00.000Z

Call it synchronicity or coincidence but I have a theory about books. They come to you at the right time. Sometimes a volume can lie on my shelf, forgotten or neglected, for years on end. Then, when I finally get round to reading it, I realise that if I had opened it even a month beforehand I could not have understood its message with the same profundity.

You might argue that people just leave things until they are interested in reading them. Then, lo and behold, they find their views magically reflected in the pages. But in many cases I simply have no idea - or even the wrong idea - about what a book is really going to be about before I've read it. How often do we buy something because of the back-page blurb only to discover that it bears little or no ressemblence to the content?

Anyway, to preface the remarks that follow I'd like to say I'm not religious in any orthodox way. I don't even have 'a' religion, per se. But I am fascinated by the search for truths, however unpleasant they may happen to be (I'm not afraid of the idea that God doesn't exist, like some agnostics, for example: I would just like to know one way or the other so I can live accordingly).

On a related note, I'm appalled by the relativist idea that all choice, in the end, is arbitrary. It is this idea, I think, that makes atheism so difficult to live with conceptually. Because it implies that nothing we do, say, think, or feel in this life has any intrinsic value. And when life loses its value then human beings find it very difficult to get out of bed. Just ask manic depressives.

Some people think that is nonsense. Indeed, they argue that arbitrary choice is actually liberating since it frees them from guilt, responsibility, and the burden of choosing well. For me, by contrast, free choice of this kind is no choice at all, since it merges into preference which is often no more than a physical response to one's environment. Which is fine, except that it makes me wonder what human beings have such heightened intelligence and emotions for, if they cannot be used for anything greater than improving our personal comfort.

Anyway, in the course of my reflections, I stumbled across a book called Shantaram: the real-life tale of an Australian convict and heroin addict who escapes from his high security prison to Bombay, where he acts in Bollywood, joins the mafia and ends up fighting for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. (I know, it doesn't sound like a real story but just check out this guy's bio). I only decided to read it because I am going to India in a few weeks and someone I know recommended it.

I was expecting something like a memoir-version of The Beach. What I got was very different.

Some passages, in particular, I found highly persuasive and reminded me of conversations and experiences I had in the past with a vaguely sufistic friend at university. Here they are for your edification and critical commentary:

"The truth is found more often in music than it is in books of philosophy...the truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, moving toward God...There is no believing in God. We either know God, or we do not". .

Sound like inane spiritual gak of the type Westerners typically go to India to absorb? Read on.

Abdel Khader Khan, the mafia lord and slum baron, notes that certain things are knowable and real without being tangible. And that the opposite holds true for the facts and objects we consider concrete and verifiable.

He says, "the energy that actually animates the matter and the life that we think we see around us cannot be measured or weighed or even put into time, as we know it. In one form, that energy is photons of light. The smallest object is a universe of open space to them, and the entire universe is but a speck of dust . What we call the world is just an idea . and not a very good one, yet . From the point of view of the light, the photon of light that animates it, the universe that we know (ie the things that human beings perceive) is not real. Nothing is."

By contrast, "We can know God, for example, and we can know sadness. We can know dreams, and we can know love. But none of these are real, in our usual sense of things that exist in the world and seem real. W cannot weigh them, or measure their length, or find their basic parts in an atom smasher....there is another reality, beyond what we see with our eyues. You have to feel your way into that reality with your heart. There is no other way":

I share this sentiment. Sometimes, a feeling takes you - I guess love for a person is one example - and transforms your heart, your actions, and your state of mind. It differs qualitively from your everyday understanding of the world, and is so intangible it is easy to believe that - when it drifts far away from you, or fades into your memory - that it did not, could not, exist. And yet when you experience it, it is overwhelmingly and completely real. More real, even, than the world that habitually surrounds us.

Views?

Censorship Saudi Style

2007-06-26T15:25:00.000Z

I read quite a few amusing Saudi blogs recounting attempts by the authorities to stamp out 'vice'. Censorship is one of their biggest weapons in the pursuit of this goal. This goes so far as opening your mail and confiscating/defacing any inappropriate contents. One woman repeatedly got the adverts in her monthly edition of Vanity Fair blacked out with marker pen when they contained less than fully-covered women while even food shipped into the country is tasted (sorry, tested) to see whether its halal or not.

Yet it's funny what slips through the net. A good friend of mine, living in a rather conservative part of the country, decided she'd like to read Rushdie's The Satanic Verses to see what the fuss was all about (she later decided it was one of the worst books she'd ever read, but at least she got the chance to see for herself: personally, I think it's rather interesting, if on the long side). So she ordered a copy off Amazon. Much to her amazement it turned up, opened but UNTOUCHED, at her front door not long afterwards. Needless to say Rushdie, along with Danish bacon, is uber-haram in Saudi. So how had that happened?

Easy, said her father. Cute cover, no pictures, English title, illiterate vice-squad.

On a more serious note I firmly believe that there are few good philosophical reasons for allowing censorship on the grounds of blasphemy, or disrespect to religions. That is particularly true with respect to fiction, and art of all kinds. I will publish my views on this (and the Rushdie case) in greater depth soon.

All this was just an excuse to ask you to help protect the right to free speech by clicking on the icon of Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist being held hostage in Gaza. You can sign a petition calling for his release.

First Class Service

2007-06-25T13:53:00.000Z

This should come as a warning to all those who believe that first class is always classier. Even though a first class booking on the Eurostar was barely more expensive than the bog-standard, perhaps because of the last-come first-screwed theory that operates in the internal market. Given that eurostar themselves don't deal too kindly with complaints (the eurotunnel went up in flames, causing six hour delays and the ambiance of a refugee camp in the departures hall, and I still didn't get reimbursed) I have decided to share my experience with the commuting public online.

In the twentyfirst century luxury is within reach of the multitude. Smoked salmon, champagne, and truffles are widely available in every branch of Sainsbury's. A 'trip of a lifetime' to Mauritius is now embarked on yearly by increasing hordes of Yuppie families, regardless of dire climate change predictions. And even students I know now upgrade to first class on the train. Deciding to get on this bandwagon at long last, I paid my 95 euros (one way) and waited expectantly for my first taste of cross-channel luxury. Certainly, I did not expect things to go less smoothly than in cattle class.

And yet.

I turned up 35minutes prior to departure, quite unhurried. This is a TRAIN after all, and in Belgium 10 minutes is normally enough to get you through security and passport control and into your carriage with a cup of coffee. On the English side of the Manche, however, things happen rather differently.

I arrived to find a chain of Chinese tourists sneaking across the concourse and up the stairs and tried to circumnavigate them by presenting my first class ticket at the 'business premier' check-in where noone was waiting. I was rudely rebuffed. I think it was the sandals...Back in the crush, I tried to follow some Chinese through to security but was told I had to stand back and wait. Finally, i was instructed to use a different machine which promptly ate my ticket and refused to give it back. Four other ticket machines joined in the general strike and pandemonium ensued on the platform. There were now 10 minutes to go until departure.

Gesturing to one of the flustered staff members, who was physically holding back a wave of agitated customers from entering the inner sanctum, I explained the situation. With a look of undisguised malevolence she said that someone would deal with me in due course - even though count-down was fast progressing. When she eventually released the ticket it turned out to be the portion from Brussels to London which, in the crush, I had mistakenly put in.

I was in the process of producing the right ticket when I saw another security guard making off with my suitcase. This had clearly been labelled a terrorist threat, situated, as it was, 2 metres from my person. After fending off the controled explosion of my possessions I breathed a sigh of relief and made my way to the xray. Never having had ANY problems with security on previous countless trips I was not prepared for the next stage of my first class treatment.

With time ticking by the man pulls over my suitcase for inspection and gruffly commands me to open it. I do so and he picks his way through the contents of my toilet bag VERY VERY S-L-O-W-L-Y. After five excruciating minutes I hear the final call for my train. By this time he has put the suitcase through the xray a second time and is talking jovially to the security woman at the screen. I indicate my watch with growing alarm and he drags himself over."Is there a problem?" I said. "My train is leaving NOW". You should have got here earlier, he snapped. "But what's the problem?" I continued, "My ticket is non flexible and non refundable". "That's your problem"' he replies, and proceeds to run some gadget over the WHEELS of all things, before putting the suitcase through the machine AGAIN, just for good measure.

Finally, he gives me the all clear. Cursing under my breath, I take over the operation myself and shove my possessions in left, right and centre, and ask whether I can be spirited to the front of the passport queue. A request he pretends to ignore until I kick up such a fuss that another guard volunteers to bring me through.

I make it onto the train with twenty seconds to spare but only get as far as coach one out of eleven. Dragging my suitcase across children's toys, elderly body parts and fat midriffs endears me to no-one in the carriage so I abandon it in Voiture 2 and make my way up the train. Passing the buffet car I am arrested in my tracks by two burly employees who ask me where the h*ll I think I'm going. When I mention coach eleven they look suspicious and demand to see my ticket and ID. Having already gone through security about a million times I can't quite see the point of this interrogation and am really feeling like a wanted criminal. Happily, their suspicions about my vagabond status remain unfounded and they let me through. I resolve to wear a business suit the next time to avoid a repeat scenario.

Eventually I find my seat. It was nice enough. I had a glass of champers, and read my book. But I couldn't help thinking that treatment was more fifth than first class.

Comment is Free

2007-06-19T07:54:00.000Z

Stat Counter is a fascinating thing. Quite apart from showing how many (or, more realistically, how few) people access your blog it has some neat features, including a 'recent visitor map' that marks their location on the globe with a little red banner. That turns up some surprising results. I had always been under the illusion that the only people that ever read my meanderings were supportive friends in Scotland and the occasional bored Eurocrat.

In fact, it turns out that while my assumed readership is busier filing amendments than previously thought, many people find this blog randomly from all corners of the world. One reader, I was surprised to note, appeared to be sailing along the equator as the flag turned up several times mid-ocean. Likewise, there seems to be a bigger appetite for EU Gossip and Scottish Politics in Qatar and Pakistan than I was expecting....

Still, I can't help but notice that people refrain from commenting on this site, Peter excepted of course ;) - that's blogger solidarity for you!

Constructive feedback, as my boss never hesitates to tell me, is invaluable, so I'd like to know what you think (within the realms of civil discussion of course, as befits a lady...I wouldn't want to invite comment only to have to enable comment moderation) even if it's just that you find the whole thing tedious, pretentious or a waste of valuable ether....I started this because I wanted to write and because you can't work all the hours God sends, ya know? So ideas about topics, style, etc, would be most welcome

GM vs. Bill Gates

2007-06-15T08:44:00.001Z

Normally forwards belong resolutely in the 'deleted items' folder but I liked this one so much I had to share it with you. Thanks Lisa... It's dedicated to all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics" (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation"warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Pure Dead...Nonsense

2007-06-11T09:46:00.000Z

I always suspected that the Scottish Executive was just one big propaganda machine. This has now been confirmed by revelations that Scotland is officially the worst small country in the (developed) world in terms of health, education, employment rate and economic performance. Scotland also fell by one place, to 17th, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's table of the world's 24 most developed countries.

Given that we are constantly being told how 'pure dead brilliant' we are - not to mention the 'best small country in the world' - this is highly ironic. I'm pleased though. I have sat through far too many self-satisfied debates in Holyrood where MSPs, Ministers and Civil Servants are happier to believe their own rhetoric than look at our country's problems objectively. It's time we stopped covering up our flaws and actively sought solutions from abroad.

According to a report published by FSB Scotland today,

"Scotland is the worst small country in western Europe, and requires urgent action to improve both our life chances and life expectancy...We are already far down the table of comparator countries, and on every count we are travelling in the wrong direction"

Needless to say, Glasvegas retained its status as Scotland's black hole, emerging as the worst performing local authority area in the country, with the poorest record in three of the four indicators: mortality, education and employment.

I'm pretty sure that the only solution to this problem is expel Glasgow from the Union - perhaps it could become some kind of principality like Monaco. It certainly has enough casinos...

Caffeine Shock

2007-06-11T09:19:00.000Z

I was standing at the coffee bar today waiting for the waiter to turn his gaze in my direction. My Italian colleague seemed more nervous than usual but I put it down to lack of sleep (she'd taken a 5am flight that morning). She said hello to some snowy haired compatriot of hers, and his - numerous - assistants and then seemed to push me to one side. He noticed and said - no problem, les femmes et les enfants d'abord....a real gent.

Not knowing what was going on, and being exhausted, I moved to give him some space, despite his protestations, but didn't think much more of it. Then I ordered, got my coffee, looked around, and espied the milk jug on the other side of the Italians. So of course I asked if he could pass the milk. He seemed like a nice old guy after all. I noticed the look on my colleague's face when he gave it to me. T-O-T-A-L shock. I was puzzled. After all, this is a fairly standard mode of interaction.

I later discovered he is former Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Convention on the Constitution, Lamberto Dini - here for an interparliamentary meeting in advance of next month's summit. Also, it would seem, a very good bloke...

Who Said Belgian Bureaucracy Was Bad??

2007-06-08T14:06:00.000Z

OK, I take back everything I ever said about Belgian inefficiency. When it comes to gold medals for inaction, the Indian Embassy in Brussels wins hands down. Which I admit is the worst aspects of Belgium and India combined.

I turned up - admittedly a little on the late side - to submit my visa application today. The office is open for two hours in the mornings and little sheltered old me, who's used to moving between European Countries without even presenting a passport, was not ready for the sheer LENGTH of the visa process. I have great sympathy with the Palestinian girl who was waiting with me this morning - and will probably still be camped out there now.

I arrived thinking I'll just give the forms to someone and take off. In fact, this IS the procedure - nothing more complicated - it's just that it requires standing in some very long queues until your number is called. 3 hours into my fast (I hadn't had breakfast, let alone a cup of coffee, but was unable to leave on pain of non re-admission when the door was firmly shut on applicants at 11.30) I entered the inner sanctum.
Here 9 embassy workers are engaged in drinking tea and nattering. One lady, in a fetching pink sari, is dealing with all the applicants in no particular order. One Indian national bangs on the window to complain about his long wait to the guy behind the 'Indian Passports Only' desk. The guy doesn't respond, only lowers the blind and continues to eat his sandwich and consult a newspaper. The plaintiff sits down again resignedly. This is clearly a cultural norm.

When I get to the desk I pre-empt disaster by telling the lady that I called the embassy in advance and brought all the documents they demanded. She looks through the (very large) bundle I provided her with and says 'You'll have to come back with your Belgian resident permit". At which point I had to tell her that it hadn't yet been processed (apparently it takes Belgian bureaucracy several months to make you legal) and these documents were attestations of my employment and residence here, as requested by the Indian embassy officials themselves.

This didn't go down well and the dossier was sent to the boss of bosses for approval. What I didn't know was that the boss of bosses was off for a long lunch in some undisclosed location. Several eons later I was called back to the desk. Permission, it seems, had been granted, but due to my unorthodox documentation there was a 'referral fee' for him casting his eye over it of an extra 32 euros. However I finally exited with the promise of a visa by next week. The whole episode was quite magnificently surreal.

Pimp Your 'Lifestyle'

2007-06-07T09:29:00.000Z

Call me old fashioned but the following makes me quietly despair. It comes from a flyer for a 'new, exciting after work concept' I received when leaving work recently, aimed at yuppie bureaucrats and social climbers of all sorts.
"The 629 Club is:

The ultimate choice for those wanting to socialise and network

A fantastic place to have fun, discover lifestyle trends, and dance to international music

A place where great deals are made and great deals are offered.

You will have the opportunity to relax in our chill-out area

order food and drinks from the 629 special menu

have 'fun and games' in the social playground"

This is just wrong on so many levels. Fun and games in the social playground??? Is that some kind of sick euphemism? Or, rather, a tacit acknowledgement that networking just isn't, sorry, fun? Or that all socialising is networking on the eurocrat scene? That, therefore, the only way to deal with the banalities of repeating the same conversation 70 times over (Hi, darling, great to meet you. Where do you work? Ah, fascinating. Do you know so-and-so? And how is the report proceeding? Listen, I have a client who can give you a heads up on that if you want. Here's my card. Great, let's meet for coffee". Next victim) is to head straight for the special menu, which, if I read the small print correctly, is code for pasta and stale sandwiches. And. I guess, several crates of blanc de blanc.

But, ok, I can live with that part of the 'concept'. After all, networking is a fact of Brussels life and is how people can proceed to get a good job and stay ahead of the competition. BUT - and this is the big but - it is deeply worrying when networking supercedes real, mutually dependent, human relationships as our pattern for interaction.

By that I guess I mean Kant's dictum that people should be respected as ends in themselves and not as means to ends. Clearly, a culture based on networking, which blurs the boundaries between work and private life, is one in which people aren't treated as individuals. Rather, they are reduced to acting as the nodes, the cogs, in a self-referential and continuously expanding network.

I haven't read any myself, but I was discussing the work of Jean Baudrillard with a friend recently. His thesis is seemingly that the nature of social relations is determined by the forms of communication that a society employs. In the West, these relations are characterised by the simulacra of meaning, For example, you call someone you barely know darling, and feign interest in their work, for your own ends. This is what he has called 'hyper-reality', masking economic considerations with a veneer of human concern. Hence, Club 629 is primarily a place where 'great deals are made and great deals are offered' and 'lifestyle trends' are sold to cultural consumers.

That is what I object to so much about this way of living. Nothing we say or do can have its own essence, or authenticity, when we are constantly encouraged to buy into new marketing strategies that manage how we live and understand our own lives. It voids the world of humanity, of meaning, and of real choices.

However, as Baudrillard portentously noted, the expansion of liberal, parliamentary capitalism and its financial commodification unwittingly sows the seeds of reaction against it by its failure to understand the symbolic side of social existence. Indeed, he (controversially) argued that this is the best framework to understand the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the economy of the United States and its military establishment.

Yet that reaction occurs primarily amongst those who are somehow marginalised - or have absented themselves from - these economic and social networks. Theirs is a reaction grounded in exclusion and rejection. But for those whose lives are generated by, and lived within, this set of symbolic references - even when they are critically aware of its nature, as many in Brussels are - finding an adequate response is difficult. Without destroying a system can we regain authentic human relations (if such a thing ever existed)? Or do we simply put up, shut up, and have another drink?

Gay Pride

2007-06-04T08:14:00.000Z

Who says gay couples don't make good parents? While debate may be raging about homosexual adoption in human societies, the animal kingdom has shown some sterling successes. Take Carlos and Fernando, a gay flamingo couple at at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.

WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said: "Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other Flamingos' eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves. "They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents.

Jane Waghorn added "They have really bonded with the chick and are very good at being protective parents - finally to one of their own." Thanks for that Edel!

I'm a Believer!

2007-05-24T08:59:00.000Z

Something has happened to shake my sense of postmodern relativism and replace the void at the heart of my existence. A revelation of sorts. Nothing earth shattering in the schemes opf things - no angelic appearances, speaking in tongues, or transportation to the heavens, but we have to start somewhere. I believe in Garry Kasparov, the Chess Grand Master and longtime Russian pro-democracy campaigner.

Now that sounds ridiculous. But I had just finished another one of those conversations yesterday in which it was generally agreed that working in politics is bad for morale because all politicians seem interested only in a) sex b) power c) sex d) expenses claims e) sex f) column inches g) policies, etc.

In the absence of real, inspirational leadership, we were saying, our lives lacked ideological stature. Where were the real men, the real battles, a belief worth getting out of bed for in the morning? At least those who work outside the political process can still believe in human governance. To those of us subjected to its mechanisms it seems all too flawed and pragmatic.

Well, Mr Kasparov answered at least some of those questions for me when he came to address our Group Meeting last night. Here was real intelligence, real authority, wit, sincerity, playfulness, gravitas, all in one person. Here was someone who spoke passionately about what he believed in - while all the while remaining absolutely rational and in control of the facts. It was beautiful watching him talk - his argument, like his chess-playing, clearly highly strategic. I'll give you a brief run down of it now because I thought it was highly interesting.

There is only one rule in Putin's Russia he said - there are no rules. Putin's regime is totalitiarian and oligarchical. Its motto? "Expenses nationalised, profits privatised", to the extent that the 100 richest Russians have wealth amounting to 30% more than the entire country's budget revenue. This gang of thieves, in Kasparov's opinion, is a threat only to the Russian people since cold wars can only be fought on an ideological basis and Putin's regime is ideologically empty.

Despite being a nominal democracy, there are laws in place which ban criticism of the opposition during electoral contests - which are rigged in any case because candidates must first be approved by the Kremlin. Democracy, liberalism, etc, in Kasparov's mind, are like convex mirrors in a Russian context because all such labels are more marketing ploys than descriptions of reality.

As such, political survival is the primary objective of the various opposition groups, who are forced to trade secrets about each other (thus preventing, at least in any official sense, a united front from forming against the regime). Nevertheless, these groups coalesce around a couple of key issues in a programme, and attempt never to stand against each other, thus maximising their chances of election.

They are continually undermined in their quest for a more democratic Russia by a regime which respects neither its own international obligations nor its own Constitution, which contains a clause on upholding Human Rights. During the EU Russia summit the police cracked down on peaceful protest in Samara at precisely the same time Putin promised Merkel to uphold freedom of association and expression.

This brazen duplicity - and the West's refusal to confront it - is, according to Kasparov, one of the chief problems for the democratic opposition. Every time Putin is seen on a podium with respected European leaders, the regime is legitimated. And Putin can pretend to the world that those who oppose his regime back home are an illegitimate and trouble-making minority. Thus Western recognition = political repression in Russia. The solution is thus to treat Putin's regime like that of Ahmedinejad, Lukashenko or Mugabe's. Or demand that it lives up to its democratic credentials.

Kasparov also advised that EU nations pay much more attention to the amount of Russian money being laundered through financial capitals, particularly London. The danger that countries could freeze these (stolen) assets is one area of weakness for an otherwise untouchable regime and makes it vulnerable to outside pressure. The same goes for Putin himself who has spirited billions of dollars out of the country and is rumoured to be around as rich as Bill Gates.

The key to effecting change will be when Putin stands down next year. Regime infighting means there is unlikely to be consensus on a successor - since a weak one would provide Putin with protection and a strong one could secure the survival of the oligarchical system. This may provide the opposition a chance to make real inroads. But only if the international community stops legitimating the current government.

Face to Face

2007-05-22T14:42:00.000Z

Facebook. It scares me. I joined somewhat absent-mindedly today cos someone sent me a message. Next thing I know I am in contact with everyone I have ever met. OK, I accidentally emailed everyone on the global address list, including ex-Ministers of the Crown, a woman I did work experience with 8 years ago in the flower of my youth, and several ex-boyfriends who are very welcome NEVER to get in touch again. So it's not surprising that they were a wide and diverse bunch.

But the truly amazing thing about this Facebook is its reach. Just for the hell of it I typed in random people's names, people from all over the world. The next thing I knew, there we were, face to face...A guy I worked with in China, a girl I last saw on the Paris metro 5 years ago. Have now wasted much of my working afternoon - following a long lunch by the river - communicating with what were, til today, the ghosts of Christmas past.

I can't decide whether I am excited or terrified by this technology. In a way, the world will never be the same again. The mystery of sending letters, to have them returned to sender, googling someone - and finding all kind of possibilities to guess at. Did the shy schoolboy you're trying to find end up an artist? A conman? The guy who got in the news for setting fire to his own hair? It's a matter of psychology, and finding the right language domain as much as anything else.

But facebook - it's all there just in front of you.

A word of warning though. My officemate tried to add his fiancee - next thing you know 600 Yolanda's pop-up asking him to add them! Shows that it's worth having a good photo to boot...

False Consciousness?

2007-05-19T11:03:00.000Z

Sometimes I'm unsure how sure we can ever be of anything. I mean, when you think about how difficult it is to have absolute knowledge of anything then you have to conclude that our understanding of reality - indeed our entire lives - is somehow haphazard. I don't know that Jupiter or DNA exist. That's simply received wisdom. I've no way of proving it one way or the other.

The same goes for all (opposing) ideological discourses. They assert their truth - and posit certain proofs - but for the lowly bystander, assailed by all this information, it is hard to discern the true from the false proof. In the end we err with those that we like the sound of. Or have a 'good intuition' about. But in the end doesn't that just mean that reality is just a hall of mirrors?

Still, sitting in ethical paralysis never helped the world go round. So we choose. Or are chosen - by our family, culture, background, experiences - to act in particular ways. These cultured actions then take on the appearance of truth for those who live by them. The problem, it seems to me, then comes when you put into question the cultural attributes you grow up with. In many ways it is a normal and necessary process, particularly since, with travel and migration making the world smaller, we always have bases from which to criticise our own foundations. Indeed we are encouraged to do so. Seeking knowledge, after all, is one of the great injunctions of history.

Yet how dangerous to break something down without putting anything else in its place. From my - albeit scant - reading of postmodern thinkers so far that seems to be the greatest problem. Smash the false gods, unravel the building blocks of sense and meaning and what you create is a void of incalculable dimensions. What postmodernism gives us is a life without sense, without points of reference. It leaves us with the chronic, and incalculable stress, of a nihilism brutal in its rejection of the ties that bind. It leaves us washed up alone on the shores of a desert island knowing neither where we are nor where we came from.

We live this nightmare, most of us in Western Europe, at various levels of consciousness. And we survive our nostalgia for meaning by means of escapism - drugs, alcohol, and distractions of all sorts. But stop for one minute, just one minute, and the house of cards can come crashing down. We must have the courage to build something that can withstand this corrosive cynicism. All my exhaustive reading has taught me so far, however, is that this has to be built with the heart as well as the head.

A Modern Aesop

2007-05-14T15:51:00.000Z

Discovered this rather charming fable on Mando's Transformation. Have nicked it - the blogosphere is not yet copyright, mercifully - for your edification. Though with credits going to the man himself, natch.

"Before man ever walked the earth virtues and vices lived in harmony, traveling the world together, feeling very bored, with nothing to do but wander around.One day creativity came up with an idea.They should all play a game to pass the time.He decided to call it "Hide and Seek"Everyone else loved the idea, and so they started to play. Insanity screamed "I wanna start, I wanna start, I wanna start"

And so it started, she closed her eyes and started counting."You should all go hide now" said Insanity, as she leaned with her elbows on a tree."One, two, three..."And so one by one, they started finding places to hide in.Kindness hid herself behind the moon.Betrayal jumped in the middle of a pile of rubbish.Passion went deep into the caves of the earth.Deceit yelled out loud "I'm gonna hide behind this rock" then jumped into a lake.And all that time, Insanity was still counting, "Seventy nine, eighty, eighty one…"

By that time almost all of them had found a spot to hide, all except love.He wasn't much of a decision maker, and so he couldn't really figure out where to hide. It wasn't very surprising, as we all know how hard it is to hide love.Insanity kept going on "Ninety five, ninety six...""One hundred !"As soon as he heard it, he jumped into the nearest rosebush hoping not to be found. Insanity opened her eyes, "Ready or not, here I come".

Laziness was the first to be found, because she didn’t put any effort in hiding herself.Next was kindness, peeking from behind the moon.Deceit came out from the bottom of the lake, all blue and out of breath after a while.Being pissed off about getting caught like that, he pointed out passion's hiding spot.Insanity found them all, one after the other, one by one…All except love… She almost lost hope, when envy whispered in her ear "He's hiding in that rosebush over there"

So she went there and picked a wooden branch from the bush.And started stabbing the bush wildly and frantically, hoping to finally find love. She didn’t stop until she suddenly heard a very sad crying voice coming from inside.Love came out, his hands over his eyes all drenched and dripping blood. Insanity cried " Oh, what have I done, what can I do to fix this horrible mistake, after I made you lose your sight"

Love said "There is nothing you can do to help me regain my sight, but there is something else that you can do" "What is it, whatever it is I'll do it" said insanity."Be my guide, show me the way for I am now blind" Said love. And so it was, ever since that day … Blind love wandering around, guided by insanity.

Blogging for Democracy

2007-05-09T11:53:00.000Z

In much of the Arab World the media is state-controlled and has its hands tied by despotic government. Bloggers, by contrast, have stepped into the fray as the indymedia of the Middle East and it is they who are opening up debate and proposing reforms. However, internet freedom is now being severely curtailed and - as Sandmonkey said in his final post (due to police harassment he has now had to quit because of fears for his personal safety) :

"Bloggers have been intimidated by the authorities in Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Bahrain, just to name a few. It seems like the period of hope and reform that the bloggers of those countries have pushed for and represented in the past 2 years is now coming to an end, with the authorities more and more focused and intent on shutting us up, using everything from intimidation to imprisonment. And we have no defenders, no one to protect us, or champion our causes or lobby for our rights and safety. There used to be the Committee to Protect Bloggers, but that went defunct due to lack of funding, its media-pressure- only strategy and wide scope".

He proposes a coalition of bloggers, mainstream media, human rights organisations, thinktanks, and, of course, politicians and their staff, to campaign for freedom of speech in the Arab World - and for bloggers wherever they may be - and pressurise repressive governments into halting their unjustified arrest and imprisonment.

If you think you could contribute, contact him at sandmonkey@gmail.com. I know that many of my political friends should have at least some decent contacts to make this initiative work.

Pass the Remote

2007-05-08T13:14:00.000Z

Sometimes we Europeans are given the impression that misogyny is the rest of the world's problem (Italians and Greeks excepted of course). As my post on Mernissi (To Starve or Not to Starve) was meant to show, Western women are often oblivious to the subconscious training in submission to male values they receive. How refreshing, therefore, to have encountered a dose of good-old-fashioned in your face sexism on the bbc website today.

Sir Patrick Moore believes women are responsible for dumbing down television. When asked what the problem was he replied:

"The trouble is the BBC now is run by women and it shows soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays. You wouldn't have had that in the golden days...I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching...I would like to see two independent wavelengths - one controlled by women, and one for us, controlled by men"

Sorry, I didn't think today was April 1st - more fool me I guess.

Start of The Braveheart Era?

2007-05-07T15:11:00.000Z

"It's time". This was the slogan the Scottish Nationalists' campaigned on to turn what should have been a policy-driven Holyrood election into a referendum on independence and Blair's political legacy. The net result, as you will have seen, is a nationalist victory by the slimmist of margins (47 seats to 46) over Labour, which has been Scotland's biggest party for the best part of 50 years.

The decisive seat of Cunninghame North separates the two parties, and is hanging in the balance because it was won for the SNP by a mere 48 votes over the Labour incumbent Allan Wilson - significantly fewer than the number of spoilt ballots in that that constituency. The result also spells the end of the rainbow of parties which have hitherto figured in Scottish politics. The Socialists lost all six seats, while the Greens dropped from 7 to 2, with 17 Tories and 16 Lib Dems, who did disappointingly in comparison with predictions.

That the SNP is only one seat ahead means attention has shifted to the other big electoral issue: disenfranchisement. Widespread incompetence in the voting booths (who said Scottish education was the best in the world? My proud people cannot even follow basic instructions like 'mark your preference with a cross. Do not vote more than once') combined with flawed counting machines which broke down right left and centre and a cock-up regarding the distribution of postal ballots means 100 000 people were disenfranchised. Not to mention the bizarre incident of the disgruntled punter who took his golf club to the ballot boxes of Edinburgh West and destroyed significant numbers of votes.

This enormous number of spoiled ballots could have made a serious difference to the distribution of seats. Yet, in a situation reminiscent of the hanging chads incident, while the Electoral Commission is busy wringing its hands over what went wrong and, sensibly, advising a return to the traditional method of manual counts and metal boxes, the horse trading surrounding the formation of the new Executive is well underway and it is hard to see how we can now go back on those election results.

Coalition-forming, too, has thrown up some surprises. The media anticipated an alliance of SNP, Lib Dems and Greens which would form a very small overall majority. Lib Dem Leader, Nicol Stephen, however, has ruled that out now, on the basis that the Nats won't drop their demands for a referendum on independence. However, having read Iain MacWhirter's piece in today's Herald I am inclinded to disagree with this decision, however much I may dislike the idea of Scottish Independence.

The Lib Dems have already advocated more powers for the Scottish Parliament, particularly fiscal federalism and control over energy, through reopening the Constitutional Convention which led to the devolution settlement in the first place. The Nats must know that there is no majority in favour of independence in the House so any Bill would be voted down. The only way they can save political face is to advocate an Independent Commission to examine the relative merits of the status quo, greater autonomy, or independence itself - with non-binding results.

It is hard to see how such a commission could have recommended independence on any kind of non-ideological basis at the current time. As such, the Libs had little to lose - so long as they phrased the compromise properly. Now they have been cast in to opposition, and with them a long line of policies they would have done well to implement in the absence of a labour majority - particularly their commitment to PR and Local Income Tax, which the SNP also supports. Of course , there is no reason this cannot be accomplished on a consensual basis - but now the Lib Dems will be unable to make the running. And a minority government which could be taken down at any time might actually increase public support for embattled Nats when they see that noone is prepared to work with the largest party.

But I wait to be proved wrong. And the negotiations are not over yet. Not by a long shot.

Laicité vs Pluralism: Turkey's dilemma

2007-05-02T07:27:00.000Z

Abdullah Gul's Presidential candidature has been declared nul and void by Turkey's Constitutional Court, triggering early parliamentary elections. Millions marched in defence of secularism on the streets of Istanbul and May Day riots saw 600 leftists arrested over fears that a Gull/Erdogan premiership would undermine the separation between religion and state which the army has traditionally defended.

Yet curiously it is the the unholy alliance between the military and political left, rather than the AK Party's Islamic agenda, which poses the greater threat to Turkey's democratic institutions. The cause of the Constitutional Court's decision to invalidate the first round of voting, in which Gul was nominated for President, was that there were insufficient MPs present to constitute a quorum.

That only 361 were actually in the Chamber at the time was no surprise - because the opposition parties had decided to boycott the vote. Indeed, of those who did cast their ballot, only 4 voted against Gul. Having thus rendered the procedure nul and void the AKP's opponents called upon the Court to overturn the decision, stirred up dissent on the street, and sent the stockmarket spiralling downwards in the process.

True, if a 'Christian Solidarity' Party were marching to power in Scotland I might think twice before letting it take office - and even take to the street. However it is difficult to view the AKP as militant. They bear rather more comparison to our 'family values' Conservatives (more specifically the Christian Democratic centre-right in Europe) than an Al-Qaeda cell.

Indeed, what are the 'radical Islamist' misdemeanours for which the europhile reformist Gul is reproached? Allowing university students to wear hijab on campus and promoting Koran-reading competitions for schoolkids on Turkey's national day. Replace Koran with Bible, and you'll find that in school assembles in Britain every day of the week.

I am a secularist myself. However, my beef with its defenders in Turkey is that democracy should be one of the fundamental principles of secularlism. If they are prepared to overturn their own democratic processes for the sake of laicité they will simply have done what they accuse the Islamists of and turned secularism into an ultimate value - or religion in its own right.
For more views on the matter, see the following article published in Zaman.

Urban Living

2007-05-02T07:07:00.000Z

Neighbours. Europeans love to hate them. Not me, I was always one of those who believed in tripping round there with some cookies to introduce yourself and offer to water their plants when they are on holiday. However after being in my new apartment for two days I must say that some of my new voisins are singularly inconsiderate.

Now, it may be that the walls are much too thin in this concrete bird-cage of a building. But then, I would have expected the neighbours to have caughtebned on to that fact some time ago. So between upstairs 'faisant la fete' until about 2am last night and some other sod getting his hammer out at 8.30 am (and on a public holiday, so it can't be any workers they've hired) only to FINISH what he was doing at 9.30, my zen state went out the window and I found myself screaming "SHUT UP" at the walls in general. I'll purchase some ear plugs and see how that goes.

However it got me thinking. Either I was much too spoiled by the sound of silence (and occasional birdsong) at my parent's place when I was growing up. Or urban life just isn't good for you. All boxed together in these concrete shacks, surrounded by constant noise, from the wailing of sirens to screams in the night - not to mention the fact that everytime someone flushes the toilet it reverberates around the building. Is this the kind of progressive society we wanted to build? What happened to dreams of space, privacy, calm? Of home as a retreat? Or even of home in general. So many people I know treat their apartments as somewhere to sleep (though even that is kinda difficult) and spend all their time out the house. I guess it's cos we all live on our own these days.

I think it's sad. If I had the choice I would live in a big house with a courtyard, lush gardens and fountains. With my family round about me, somewhere on the outskirts of town. I'd have friends round regularly for dinners, games, and simple pottering. Their kids could run around the grounds safely, rather than being boxed in in front of the TV. I'd grow vegetables and cook. Learn to draw. Maybe even play some more tunes on the guitar. What is funny is that, despite the simplicity of all I've just outlined it seems unattainable. My current life gives me (some) money, status, excitement. But it also traps you in a vicious circle. Maybe I should think about trying something completely different in a year or so?

1 in 4 mammals to go the way of the dodo

2007-04-30T10:23:00.000Z

As we sit around commissioning yet more studies on climate change, mass extinction is evidence of how quickly it is really happening (though one look at the 30 degree temperatures in Brussels, and I don't need any further information)... From today's Independent I have learned:

"Of the 40,168 species that the 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have assessed, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, one in three conifers and other gymnosperms are at risk of extinction. The peril faced by other classes of organisms is less thoroughly analysed, but fully 40 per cent of the examined species of planet earth are in danger, including perhaps 51 per cent of reptiles, 52 per cent of insects, and 73 per cent of flowering plants.

By the most conservative measure - based on the last century's recorded extinctions - the current rate of extinction is 100 times the background rate. But the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, and other scientists, estimate that the true rate is more like 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate. The actual annual sum is only an educated guess, because no scientist believes that the tally of life ends at the 1.5 million species already discovered; estimates range as high as 100 million species on earth, with 10 million as the median guess. Bracketed between best- and worst-case scenarios, then, somewhere between 2.7 and 270 species are erased from existence every day. Including today."

I see figures like that and even the most ambitious political programmes seem like a drop in the ocean...

Unlikely Pin-Ups

2007-04-29T21:00:00.000Z

I was amused to receive a link to the 'sexy MSP' website. However, Scotland being Scotland, political pin-ups are pretty thin on the ground and I can only assume that the whole thing is some post-modern exercise in irony. All the same, if I were my friend Shabnum, I would be pretty upset to have been pipped to the post by veteran Nationalist terror Christine Grahame ...I'm afraid I don't fair much better, coming in behind everyone's sexiest grandma, Margaret Mitchell. Pete kindly pointed out that I might move up the rankings with a picture but, given I've always maintained that I look better 'in action' (ie uncapturable by photographic devices) then perhaps it's a blessing in disguise.

In any case, I'm glad that the elections have given all those normally dour souls something to chuckle about - even if it's not the Nationalists' pie in the sky policies, whose sheer lunacy appears to have gone unnoticed by a public whom, if opinion polls are correct, is ready to vote for them in droves. The Lib Dems should be careful not to be forced into coalition with nationalistas. After 8 years in government we're in danger of looking power-hungry rather than principled if we simply take up with them after proclaiming we wouldn't - even if they drop their independence referendum idea.

Not only do their spendthrift policies play to the populist gallery but they are happy to overlook the fact that Scots are extremely generously subsidised by the Westminster exchequer, whose continued generosity is likely to be the only way their promises can be paid for. The irony... Furthermore, the myth of an independent Scotland in Europe, modelled after the success of Irish integration, fails to recognise we would benefit from almost no cohesion or structural funds, which are currently going to the Poles, Bulgars, and Romanians to help them climb out of a Communist era economic blackhole. I think it's a good idea in the long-term, but it's no cure-all and smacks of auld-alliance thinking rather than europhilia per se.

My personal aim is to secure more than 7 votes in my constituency on Thursday - since that's the number of party members we have - to help shore up our national vote. Any fewer and I'll assume I've even managed to make some enemies in my absence from the campaign trail..Fingers crossed!

Unstable Selves: Life in the Global Village

2007-04-27T14:18:00.000Z

I had lunch in the park with a friend of mine. He's an unusual character - or at least made up of lots of different, and some might say not-entirely-compatible, influences.

His Turkish background makes it difficult for him to be gay. And yet it also makes it difficult for him to feel fully European. As a result of these identity conflicts, we concluded, the idea of belonging anywhere is illusory. Maybe that recognition is why he feels so free to go wherever in the world a job might take him. 8 years in Belgium, he says, is long enough for one lifetime.

As this experience illustrates, anyone who has ever stepped outside their national or cultural boundaries to a meaningful degree will discover that home, which was once so physically real, suddenly exists as no more than tempting nostalgia. Once you start bringing new influences, priorities, and understanding into your life from diverse sources, it is almost impossible to go back - simply because you are not the same person that you were before. And home itself will not recognise you.

So our selves shift over time. Indeed, that is what the transition from childhood to adulthood has always implied. But if that shift occurs in a framework of competing influences, it can create a sense of profound dislocation. Either we stop resisting change, and become creatures of circumstance who exchange costumes and personae with each curtain call. Or we live exclusively within our own little communities. Brussels may be marginally warmer, less efficient, and have better food, say, than the UK, but that doesnt stop many English Exiles from being as determinedly English as ever, since they've never allowed the place they refuse to call home from impinging on their consciousness. Other approaches are never really called into question because they are relegated to the margins.

Both choices, it seems to me, have significant implications for our sense of self. Clannishness suggests that our identity is fixed ad infinitum by the influences - however arbitary - of our childhood culture (in my case this seems even more ridiculous given the fact my parents only moved to the country of my birth by accident) . Chameleonic tendencies, on the other hand, suggest that there is no self beneath the surface, just a system of learned responses to deal with, and render comprehensible, the environment around us - and thus no real value.

The only alternative to this - admittedly nihilistic - vision is synthesis. That is to say, the process of interrogating, weighing and ordering competing influences which are then incorporated into our changing selves in new and unexpected ways. This, in turn, leads to an understanding of the self as a fluid entity which is constantly calling itself into question and renewing itself. But that creates its own challenges. And the most major of those is to be prepared for the isolating effects of an individualism which can divide you from your origins but, as my friend maintains, is also the price of freedom.

We're all Greens Now

2007-04-26T08:57:00.000Z

The European Parliament is in the news for once. Not because of what it's done, ironically, but of what it has failed to do. The world's most progressive environmental legislature suffers from the embarrassing position of being the most polluting assembly in the world, emitting 20,000 tonnes of CO2 at the cost of 200 Million Euros annually to the taxpayer.

While some Liberal Democrat MEPs had taken action against the latter disgrace with the One Seat EU campaign (see http://www.oneseat.eu/ to add your support - they've already got their million signatures, but it's proved so popular with out-of-pocket citizens they're extending it) the former had not been seriously addressed until this year.

However, now that the world and his wife has jumped on the Climate Change bandwagon - including the EPs new President, despite a reputed preference for high-emittence Vorsprung durch Technik - things are starting to change and an overwhelming majority of MEPs recently voted in favour of a ‘carbon-free’ European Parliament (the Morgan report). This week's publication of a York University study on the environmental costs of the monthly Travelling Circus (see Earthquake Cove: The world's most polluting parliament) will cause the Strasbourg fiasco to rise even further up the agenda.

The French, as ever, are the main blocking forces to progress because they have threatened to veto any attempt to move the Parliament to Brussels on a permanent basis. EU rules state that no changes to the Treaties can be made without unanimity. And of course, the first thing the French got round to putting in the Treaty, when they were still an influential nation back in the 1950s , was that the Parliament should be located in Strasbourg. Changing the current set up, would require the French to vote against their own parliament (and considering they keep selling big buildings and bits of land to expand the complex for 1 euro a piece, it doesnt look like they've changed their mind on that front).

Voila le probleme, as they say in these parts. If we really want to change this situation we - as citizens - must start to make a real fuss and force our representatives to do something about it. Most importantly, if given the chance, we must be prepared to vote for an EU constitution which would move us towards a system of qualified majority voting that could break the French monopoly on the question.

However I have an alternative solution which wouldn't upset the French (and staring out my office window in Strasbourg, looking out on to the river, the Orangerie, and the beautiful city beyond) doesn't seem so bad to me either). We should, in fact, move the whole operation from Brussels to France! See http://www.taurillon.org/Strasbourg-natural-home-of-the)

Now that's good thinking.

One in the eye for the French, Harold

2007-04-22T19:50:00.000Z

Boris Johnson must be one of the only europhile Tories we've got. Though he'd have us cementing our connection to the continent in a rather unorthodox fashion. I love the descriptions of John Redwood's proposed polderland to solve the house-market crisis but the English invasion of France as a response to the problem simply can't be topped!

http://www.boris-johnson.com/archives/2007/04/ukfrance_euro_route.php

It's A Race to the Finish

2007-04-22T19:22:00.000Z

My friend has entered me for the Brussels 20k road race. Following a very foolish and not -entirely-serious conversation about wanting to get fit over coffee about a month ago, she went off, and without mentioning her intentions again, secured a number for me - for which I have the privilege of paying 7 euros 45 cents. So it seems that I have approximately 30 days in which to go from wheezing around the park at a leisurely pace to accomplishing a half marathon.

Well, I know we are all supposed to relish challenges and I suppose I do have a stubborn streak...BUT....this seems like a major commitment. Moreover, I'd always harboured ambitions to make it to the age of 28 instead of keeling over on the kerb from dehydration, since this was the age my tarot-reading aunt (whose psychic abilities have been confirmed by a number of friends and relatives) assured me I would meet the love of my life. Having said that, the world being a cynical place, it might be better to die before you give up hope of that ever happening.

However I have discovered of late that I am indeed capable of enduring long periods of unpleasantness. The fiasco over my latest batch of essays (incomprehensible philosophical polysyllables dictated by a German pedant combined with the longest working hours in the history of mankind) which led me to shut myself in my room for the best part of three days reveals this, I think. Therefore, I am quietly confident that if I can cope with Habermas without having jumped out of the window to end it all, then I should be able to muster up the self-discipline to go running around the city. Even if I don't finish the course til the next morning!... Anyone else survived such an experience?

All Roads Lead to Brussels

2007-04-21T00:39:00.000Z

Brussels is interesting because it's so mixed up. That is reflected in the people, who come from around the world and are entangled in ways their characters may never suggest. In their relationships, friendships, work environments they are surrounded by different languages and cultures. Or they themselves are the product of these influences - bilingual, binational, or simply strangers in a foreign land.

What you learn from these competing influences, I believe, is the capacity to reflect. It is not possible to be surrounded by difference without calling yourself into question, however hesitantly. You therefore learn to isolate and intrepret your 'normality', and see the influences which went into its construction. It also teaches you the partiality of individual knowledge and behaviour which are determined as much by our cultural environment as autonomous choice or inclination.

Once you accept that certain paths and identities occlude others and that we lack the capacity to reason from a metacultural standpoint it follows that no one person can have absolute knowledge which - if it exists in a form we are capable of interpreting - is dispersed, as were the citizens of Babel. To know one culture, region, village, or even one individual - let alone yourself - is a task we will never fully accomplish. The framework for reflection is only as big as that linguistically defined universe of experiences we have already had.

It is for this reason the collective experience of humanity is so important. Knowledge, in its manifold forms, from the scientific to the spiritual, cannot necessarily be synthesised, though each discipline may reflect the partial truths (but not the full potentiality) of one universal whole.

Rumi, the Mevlana, believed that all religions were dedicated to the same end via different paths - each revealing a different aspect of the deity. Jonathan Sacks, Britain's Chief Rabbi, said something very similar in his book 'The Dignity of Difference' which was intended as an antidote to the clash of civilisations thesis. Because it embodies these contradictions, I found the following passage by white, French, Muslim author Abdennour Bidar, rather poignant:

"Terrible impuisance de l’esprit occidental modern à franchir la Méditerranée ou le Bosphore! L’islam, la spiritualité, la sagesse? Dieu, l’unité de l’existence en une seule Vie universelle? Tout cela faisait sourire ces jeunes esprits élevés dans la conviction d’une supériorité de la science et de la philosophie athée sur la religion, et d’une surprématie de la rationalité occidentale sur la vision du monde “pré-logique” des cultures religieuses! Claude Lévi-Strauss écrit que “le barbare, c’est d’abord l’homme qui croit à la barbarie”. Comme l’Occident m’a semblé barbare, alors, lui qui croit tant être ‘la civilisation’ et rejette les autres dans cette fameuse barbarie imaginaire, née de l’ignorance, de l’incapacité à reconnaître l’intelligence et la culture sous les dehors de la difference".

Long Live Transparency

2007-04-18T15:24:00.000Z

The following is a must-share for those of you naive enough to believe that we live in a meritocracy. Which is, incidentally, what is implied when one lays down the conditions for concours or recruitment competitions as an 'equal opportunity employer'. And yet, and yet. All is not as it seems on paper.

I'm not going to go so far as to say these things are totally fixed - sometimes someone, somewhere, with no backing apart from their own CV slips through the net. But most of the time, the preferred candidate is lined up before the first outside applications have been sifted through and the selected few flown to Brussels at their own expense for what, essentially, constitutes a sham interview. Which is ironic considering that 'transparency' and 'accountability' are the watchwords of the day.

Now this is partially the fault of an inflexible recruitment system which mirrors that of the civil service - and thus fails to meet the needs of a political institution which wishes to employ people loyal to certain party principles or members. So I can see how a number of potential recruits could fall by the wayside simply by having no obvious connection to political life.

However sometimes it gets ridiculous. Like when you want to promote someone. Of course, this being European bureaucracy, you can't just reward someone with more money or a higher grade for doing a good job. That's why permanent staff can spend the best part of their working day out to lunch with no negative consequences. You have to find them a better position as and when one becomes available.

Which explains why an advert to recruit someone on 'equal opportunities grounds' appeared one day on a website, more or less specifying the height, weight and culinary preferences of the guy the unit in question wanted to promote.

I feel sorry for those who waste their time and energy applying for these things from outside.

Do Not Compute

2007-04-17T09:56:00.000Z

The hiatus in blogging is a result of reading too much Jurgen Habermas, whose reflections on discourse ethics have caused my brain to overload. Since the only things to occupy my thoughts recently are a) the constraints on pluralism implied by the concept of deliberative democracy and b) finishing the essay on time, I decided not to clog up the ether with any further reflections on the subject.

However, I would like to link to my photos, which I am putting up on Flickr. Thanks to Nora for the idea...You can see them here or in the links section of the blog

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7748495@N04/

Thank You For (Not) Smoking

2007-04-13T14:40:00.000Z

Another example of bureaucratic fatuity was brought to my attention yesterday. Returning from lunch with some colleagues we decided to have coffee. Now since coffee and cigarettes go so well together - and my vices are well-known - I was asked if I wanted to make my way into the gas-chamber the Parliament neatly constructed for such purposes last year. We also used to have a smoking section in the first floor cafe, and I naively asked what had become of it, being a much more salubrious spot.

Well, it turns out that the Parliament had banned smoking anywhere in the building, spelling doom for my favoured location. And theoretically, it seems, for the smoking room as well. Technically, smoking is forbidden in any part of the complex - and punishable with some astronomical fine. Yet, 100s of stressed-out smokers can regularly be seen puffing away on the premises. How so?

Well it seems that - faced with a 'Mutiny on the Bounty' situation from the fonctionnaires - the authorities, in their wisdom, decided that if they didn't provide ashtrays in the smoking room and placed large no-smoking signs on the walls, then it does not, technically, constitute a smoking room. Therefore smoking does not occur there so they can turn a blind eye. Impeccable logic, non?