Scots Wha Hae

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'

Britain's Democratic Deficit

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?

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.

Proud to Be British?

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

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

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

Revealed: Contents of MEPs Expenses Report

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.

Barefaced Hypocrisy

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.

Vindicated

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

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.

No Room To Breathe

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.

Choosing the Right Way Forward

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

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.