A Chance for Peace in the Middle East

In what was to some extent seen as the political testament of an outgoing Prime Minister with only limited powers, Ehud Olmert said yesterday that Israel will have to give up the entire West Bank including East Jerusalem as the price of peace with the Palestinians.1 However, one is left wondering why he bothered to say anything. His statement is neither in line with his actions when he was in office, nor is it likely to be listened to by the majority of the military and political establishment in the country. It is also a statement that might suggest hat Ehud Olmert is suffering from schizophrenia; it is hardly in line with his curriculum vitae to date. Nevertheless, it is, of course, what Israel needs to do. In doing so they will only be accepting the UN Resolution 242 and it represents the least Israel has to do if there is to be any real peace in the area.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, when working in the Lebanon one of my older Palestinian students asked me, what the Palestinian people should do? I replied that they should try to get a worthwhile agreement based on the pre 1967 borders. Nevertheless, what I said does in fact ignore a very stark reality and that is that the person who asked me the question hadn't been a victim of the ethnic cleansing and land grabbing that has been going on since 1967, and is still going on today, but rather he had been forced out of his homeland as a child during the 'Palestinian Catastrophe', "Al Nakba", almost twenty years previously. Therefore, what I was effectively telling him was to be pragmatic, forget the place that you actually left as a child and if you do, you might get the Israelis to at least agree to your people having a state, not quite where it should be but pretty close anyway and not quite as big as it might be but bigger than it is now and not quite as "independent" as you might like it to be but more independent than it is now. Having said that, however, two and a half years later, I still believe that what I said to him is the best that the Palestinians can hope for.
It was originally the United States that blocked the placement of the word "the" before "territories" when Resolution 242 was drawn up.2 Therefore, we have this machiavellian interpretation of the Resolution where Israel thinks that it has the right to pick and choose which territories it has to withdraw from. They don't and, if Resolution 242 isn't clear enough, then Resolution 476 passed in 1980 by the Security Council3 is unequivicol in its call for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and for those "gobbly-gookers" who are about to shout, "but God gave us this land", well, as I don't believe in God, this argument just doesn't hold and it really is nice to be living in a part of the world where God doesn't get to interfere in the law too much. The Palestinians might want to ask, which God? However, they too would be well advised to seek their salvation in the law and there is no ambiguity as far as international law is concerned; Mr Olmert, Israel should not be in Gaza and the West Bank.
Finally, it might be pointed out that Resolutions 242 and 476 sought to address the land grab from 1967. There are many, especially in Israel, who appear to believe that this meant there was an implied recognition of Israel's sovereignty within the 1949 armistice lines.4 This, however, was not the case. It is, therefore, as a pragmatist, as someone outside looking in, as a sort of realist, that I am saying to the Palestinians, , accept the State of Israel within the 1949 armistice lines, accept the existence of a state that has been established illegally on your homeland. On January 23, 1904, when Theodor Herzl put forward his request for a Jewish state at a conference in Tripoli, the Italian King, Victor Emmanuel III said, "Ma e ancora casa di altri" (But it is still the home of other people).5 In 2008 it is time to move on even if that moving on means me offering my Palestinian friends advice and telling them to accept what amounts to one of the biggest stings in the history of mankind. It is, however, also time for Israel to stop its bullying and to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For once I find myself agreeing with Mr.Olmert.
1 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96422
2 John Quigley, 'The Case for Palestine' Revised and Expanded Edition 2005, p170
3 http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/3822b5e39951876a85256b6e0058a478/6de6da8a650b4c3b852560df00663826!OpenDocument
4 See John Qigley above, p171
5 Ibid p46

The Nobel Peace Prize

The 'Independent' today reports that there is a possibility that the Chinese dissident, Hu Jia, will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and that this is something that Beijing is not at all happy about.1 Doing a little research into Hu Jia, I have discovered that what we have here is a very principled and brave individual who has fought for an improvement on the environmental front and has spoken out on AIDS related issues, Tibetan autonomy and free speech. It is, therefore, quite understandable that the Chinese government don't want him to get too much publicity. Nevertheless, Beijing trying to discredit him in the eyes of the of the world is, in fact, self-defeating and they might do better than try to tell the Nobel Prize Committee what it can do and cannot do, while realising that it is not by hosting the Olympics or sending a man into space that China will earn the world's respect but rather by not jailing dissidents and not sulking and threatening like a silly little child when those dissidents gain recognition abroad.
However, I do have a little bit of advice for the Chinese; should they want to discredit Hu Jia they might do well to point out some of the previous winners of the Peace Prize and for preventing the war in Iraq, the prize goes to Kofi Annan (2001), and for their efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East the Prize goes to Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (1994) and these are some of the nicer people to have picked up the prize, a prize whose winners include; the Zionist, Elie Wiesel, the Clerical Fascist, Lech Walensa, the egocentric Mother Teresa and, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, what about this; Mohamad Anwar "all my opponents are in prison" Al Sadat and his "mate", Menachem "Irgun" Begin* and, ooops, I almost forgot Henry "responsible for a lot of nasty, nasty things" Kissinger and wouldn't it have been nice to have listened in on his advice to Sara Pallin?
Hu Jia is under house arrest but I am sure he can do some research on the past winners and my advice to him, would be to do just that. Having done his research, he might want to tell the Committee to give the prize to someone more "deserving". Oh, on that note, Bob "the one hit wonder" Geldorf and Vladimir "the hitman" Putin have also been nominated; Bob, for his song, "I don't like Mondays" and Vladimir for his silencing the opposition in Mother Russia and wiping out the resistance in Chechnya. The history of the Nobel Prize would seem to suggest that not a lot has been done to promote peace on the planet. Still, there is money in the peace business and I notice that Hu Jia has also been nominated for the Sakharov Prize, which is awarded by the European Union.2 Got to beat the Dalai Lama and Morgan Tsvangirai for that one though and it is only worth 50,000 euros, while the Nobel Peace Prize is worth 1.1 million euros. All right Hu, take the money and run!
1 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/beijing-issues-warning-over-peace-prize-choice-942826.html
2 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/23/europe/EU-EU-Human-Rights-Award.php
3 * the Jewish terrorist gang "Irgun" was headed by Menachem Begin. This group was responsible for the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 2, 1946. 91 people were killed. The group was also responsible for the massacre Deir Yassin on April 10, 1948, when 260 Arabs, mostly women and children were massacred.
The picture shows Henry "responsible for a lot of nasty, nasty things" Kissinger meeting Mao and Zhou Enlai in 1971, a couple of years before he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

The Taliban are Back

It would appear that negotiations between the Taliban and the Karzai government in Kabul are well under way and that these talks are being sponsored by Riyadh.1 They might offer the West a way out of a war that it has been losing for some time and they might offer Karzai the opportunity to avoid sharing the fate of Dr Najibullah*. Hamid Karzai, the man with the colourful shawls, who likes having his picture taken with world leaders, has presided over an administration that has distinguished itself through cronyism, patronage and downright corruption; his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is one of the country's major drug barons but Ahmed is not alone when it comes to profiting from his connections and other government officials and sycophants build luxury villas in front of an impoverished population. Hate and resentment under such circumstances can only be normal and it is a hate that is also directed towards the foreign invader. "Oh, and 'Uncle Sam' and his motley collection of client states are only trying to help you." Well try telling that to a mother who has lost her children, a husband who has lost a wife or to a villager who has lost his village. Every day innocents are the victims of NATO bombings. Indeed, it is a situation that is so out of control that even Hamid Karzai finds himself complaining to his patron. Of course, one might suspect that here he is trying to take some insurance out for the day when the men in the white turbans arrive at his front door. No, what he wants is to take the war into Pakistan.2 Whatever, even that is hardly likely to save his neck. Therefore, in the report in today's 'Observer' it comes as no surprise and Hamid and his nephew, Hekmat Karzai, have admitted that talks are taking place.3
What do these talks mean and what will they lead to? Well, I would like to quote directly from the article; "Hekmat Karzai, director of a think tank in Kabul, said that although discussions with the Taliban 'might not be too difficult... getting the international community on board would be extremely hard'."4 The "international community" is, of course, the same "'Uncle Sam' and his motley collection of client states" that I have mentioned above; the people who are bombing the men, women and children. No, they will not be too happy about the Taliban returning to power. However, they might, once again, see it as the lesser evil. For some of the people of Afghanistan it might also be seen as such. Nevertheless,what it will mean for the region, remains to be seen. What about India and Iran? What about the so-called 'United National Front' in Afghanistan and the different groups that make it up? One would like to think that cool heads on all sides might get together and hammer out a compromise that Afghanistan and the region can live with. One would like to think that there can be a real diplomatic solution rather than American unilateralism; Pakistan, India, Iran and the other parties in Afghanistan itself all have to be brought into the equation. and, finally, one wants to hope that the people of Afghanistan and the region have a future. This, of course, is hope gone astray and there are too many factors mitigating against any optimism; the ethnic make up of Afghanistan, the Durand line,5 , which is officially the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan but which cuts through Pashtun tribal areas. It is a border that is largely ignored by the Pashtun, who make up the bulk of the Taliban as they move with ease in an area that is, more or less, out of bounds to the Pakistani army, an t army whose intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), helped by the CIA and Saudi money, facilitated the Talibans rise to power and is now reluctant to move against them. Moreover, there is the ethnic make up of Pakistan itself and, finally, there are, of course, the regional players; India, Pakistan and Iran. Once 'Uncle Sam' and his motley crew have gone the region will still be faced with a number of uncertainties. For us in the West it will disappear from the newspapers.
* Dr Najibullah, President of Afghanistan from 1986-1992, executed by the Taliban in September 1996 when they took Kabul
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/28/afghanistan.terrorism
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
3 see 1 ibid
4 ibid
5 An agreement, that drew up the border between Afghanistan and British India that was forced on the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahmen Khan in 1893 by the British

Who Done It

It can be convincingly argued that Robert Fisk invariably reports the world as it is and not as the United States and her allies would like us to see it. Therefore, the content of his article in today's 'Independent' was almost expected. All the nasty, indigestable, horrible issues are conveniently forgotten and now, everything centres on the financial crisis and yes, Iraq and Israel and Palestine and Pakistan, with its Warzistan, and Afghanistan and Georgia and, and, and ..... and they can all be relegated to the second page of the newspapers.1 However, it might have been nice if Mr.Fisk had established the connection between the financial crisis and "Uncle Sam's" shenanigens around the planet. The three pillars of American power are that very financial system that Fisk is refering to, the black black gold that people are dying because of every day in Iraq and elsewhere, and that military muscle that is the harbringer of evil; they are not unrelated, they are intertwined. Nevertheless, it was a good article and Robert Fisk and journalists like him remain a breath of fresh air. Moreover, the penultimate paragraph in the article has given me food for thought, I quote:
"Almost equally unreported in major US papers – save by the good old Washington Report – was a potential scandal in good old Los Angeles to which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently returned after a $225,000 junket to Israel with three council members and other city officials (along with families, kids, etc). The purpose? To launch new agreements for security at Los Angeles international airport. Council members waffled away on cellphones and walked out of the chamber when protesters claimed that the council was negotiating with a foreign power before seeking bids from American security services. One of the protesters asked if the idea of handing LAX's security to the Israelis was such a good idea when Israeli firms were operating security at Boston Logan and Newark on 9/11 when a rather sinister bunch of Arabs passed through en route to their international crimes against humanity."2
This is the stuff that gets the thinking man thinking. Tariq Ali in his book, 'The Duel; Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power' mentions a couple of theories regarding the death of General Zia* including one by a senior American diplomat, John Gunther Dean, who believes that the plot to kill Zia bore all the hallmarks of a Mossad operation.3 This is only one of thousands and thousands of incidents where the implications, the suggestions, the innuendos, are that things might just be a wee bit different from what we are being told and my own thoughts turn to the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, who was blown up along with 22 others in Beruit in February 2005. Now, just as Mr.Fisk only implies, only suggests, only gets us thinking, I too have to ask the question, who really profited from Hariri's death?
1http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/article944071.ece;jsessionid=F1D3C686DFE930AEF281CD173B4ABA85?postingType=posting&mode=thanks&postingId=944467
2 Ibid
3 Tariq Ali, 'The Duel; Paistan on the Flight Path of American Power' p133
4 General Zia, the Pakistani President, was blown up in his plane on August 1988

The Milk Scandal and the Fourth Estate

It was almost heart-rendering to observe the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiaboa, in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. The emotion he displayed when working with the rescue teams was, in my opinion, genuine and now it is Wen Jiaboa again who is apologising for a milk scandal that has left over 50,000 children sick and, at least, three dead. He has promised to reform China's dairy industry and, I believe, he is sincere. However, over a year ago, the Chinese government spent 1.1 billion dollars and sent 300,000 inspectors to examine foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals in response to other safety scandals and that, I am afraid, is the problem; nobody doubts that in a party that has about seventy five million members there are a lot of decent people, nevertheless, the question has to be asked, is transparency and regulation possible in a system where the government needs to maintain control of information? The government knew about the contaminated milk before the olympics but one is left suspecting that, because of those olympics, companies such as the main offender, the Sanlu Group, were exempted from inspection. Heads will now roll but they will not roll in Beijing, which is already blaming greedy companies and local officials for the health disaster. However, as I have just indicated, we have the evidence that Beijing Knew what was happening and, indeed, they knew more than two months before the scandal became public.1
In a post a couple of weeks ago I addressed the fact that there had at least been a tentative admission on Beijing's part that the school buildings in the earthquake area had been badly built, and followed that with another couple of points one of which was that the state news agency, 'Xinhau, was continuing to report on the topic, despite having been told by certain people in the government to stop doing so. It now appears that a certain Mr. Fu, the editor at 'Southern Weekend', published details of the milk scandal in his blog before the Olympics and that Sanlu tried to block the news using its 'guan xi'. However, it was the timing of the report that ensured that it wouldn't be published. With the Olympics looming no real investigation would be possible. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasise that Mr. Fu's newspaper also gets a mention in Philip Pan's book, 'Out of Mao's Shadow'2 The evidence would appear to suggest that there is already a fourth estate in China and this should give us a reason to be, if not optimistic, at least hopeful.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/world/asia/27milk.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
2 Philip Pan, 'Out of Mao's Shadow' Chapter 9, 'The Newspaperman'

Elections

The elections for the Bavarian parliament are this sunday and the 'Christliche Soziale Union' (CSU) are a trifle worried that they might not get their usual absolute majority. Nevertheless, although the party has been in power for over 50 years in Bavaria, that is more a reflection of the average Bavarian's inability to think critically, than any flaws in a system, which is essentially democratic or, at least, more democratic than the "winner takes all scenario" that you have in the United Kingdom and, while half of the 180 seats in the Munich parliament are distributed according a "first past the post voting system", ninety seats depend on a second choice that every voter has. Alright, it's getting complicated but believe me, despite the fact that one party has managed to hold onto power for more than fifty years, the system is more democratic than it is in the United Kingdom and it also ensures that small parties, providing they get more than 5% of the vote, get a seat in parliament. It is, then a system, where every vote can count.

Now, in the United Kingdom, where who is going to be elected for a particular seat is invariably decided before you make your way to the polls, there is no need to focus too much on the candidate. In Glasgow most people vote Labour and they will vote Labour no matter who turns up for the party on election day, while in Bavaria and, indeed, in the rest of Germany, the candidate can play more of a role in getting his or herself elected and maybe that is why they do what they do ..... and what do they do? Well, in the run up to the elections you have pictures of all of the candidates plastered all over the place and, while a Sarah Palin in stockings and suspenders might influence me, the photos of those who are running in the Bavarian elections would invariably do anything but encourage me to vote for them. Indeed, I am also in the process of contradicting myself to some extent and contending that these photos would, at least sometimes, be significant in determining my decision not to exercise my right to vote and in doing so, I am pointing to a fundamental flaw in the democratic system in the Federal Republic of Germany. A long time ago, I lived in a constituency in London with a massive Tory majority and when it came to the election there was no way I was going to walk up to the local school in the rain to cast my vote and would I get out of my bed on sunday to vote for any of the faces above? Click on the picture and answer the question.

Crash Course

Isn't it great? There is Sarah Palin getting a crash course in world politics from Henry "I won a Nobel Peace Prize although I should have been pursued as a war criminal" Kissinger and getting to meet Karzai, officially the President of Afghanistan but "de facto", at best, the President of Kabul. After the meeting Karzai was to say, "I found her a capable woman. She had the right questions on Afghanistan. She was concerned and she said how she can help?"1 Well, if she becomes Vice President she might have to help you get political asylum because that is very possibly the only way you are not going to die a premature death in the not too distant future. There was then a little tête-à-tête with Alavaro Uribe, the Columbian President and when asked, by Columbian reporters, what she thought of Columbia, she responded by saying, "beautiful, beautiful".2

Other meetings followed including one with Mikheil Saaskashvili, president of Georgia. This is fucking absurd, the lady in all probability thought that Saaskashvilli is from Atlanta and when he was talking about being attacked by the Russian bear she probably started to rabbit on about how they deal with bears in Alaska and how she didn't know that there were bears in Georgia, and there is Saaskashvili, with his IELTS 6.5 English, understanding all of this as a green light to attack South Ossetien again should McCain and Palin win the November election.

Ford, Reagan, the Bushes, and somewhere in there a Dan Quayle and a Dick Cheney and now Palin and McCain. These are all stupid, stupid people but then maybe, just maybe, you need stupid, stupid people to implement stupid, stupid policies. By the way, Palin and her press people misspelt Henry's name in their statement after the meeting.3

1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/palin_leaders

2 http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1192953

3 http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/24/sarah-palin-meets-henry-kissenger-sic/

The picture shows Palin meeting Henry "Kissenger" or was it Henry Kissinger and is it Georgia or is it Georgia? "Into the valley of death rode the brave six hundred", and at least there some idiot only pointed to the wrong valley ..... stop the planet, I want to get off!

The Bailout

There are some questions that I would like to ask and try to answer regarding the present financial crisis and the proposed bailout by the Bush administration. Firstly, how did Henry Paulson the Treasury Secretary arrive at the figure of $700 billion and why is the figure not, a wee bit over $600 billion or just under $800 billion or $523 and a bit billion? Secondly, will CEOs, like Richard Fuld from Lehman Brothers, who spent most of the last few months in his job avoiding queries on his firm's exposure to toxic subprime debt and who received a $22 million pay off, be asked to return some of the money they were given? Finally, what will Wall Street do with the money and who is going to give them it?
The two questions contained in the last sentence, are easy to answer. The taxpayer will pay for the bailout and the banks will then loan the taxpayer back his or her money at a slightly higher interest rate than has been the case up until now but it will be a bit more difficult to get that loan because the banks will want to make sure that they are going to get "their" money back. Yes, that's right, "Joe Soap" gives the bank money and the bank gives it back to "Joe" as a loan providing it agrees that "Joe" is creditworthy and some of us don't think Capitalism is absurd! Now, will the CEOs who have received their fat cheques return some of the money? Another easy to answer question; of course, they won't that is not how Capitalism works. Finally, how did Paulson's arrive at the figure of $700 billion? Well, if you are going to provide a welfare programme for your greedy mates, you don't want to be chasing peanuts, do you?
It gets even better though; not only are the plebs at home expected to help everyone, who speculated and lost, back onto their feet, but foreign governments have also been asked to buy up bad US debt. Germany's response has been a definite "no"1 and the realisation from this corner of the planet is that what Paulson has arrived at is a strategy that will ensure that in the longer term, the very idiots who caused this disaster, the same bunch who have walked away with bonuses and fat pay cheques for years, will be let off the hook. Nevertheless, the suspicion has to be that we are witnessing not a resuscitation of a global financial system that is dominated by the United States, but rather the ushering in of a global financial order that is no longer dependent on the United States. George W Bush has done a fucking marvelous job, hasn't he?
1 http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3662664,00.html

Breaking the Law

In 2004 I had a telephone interview for a job with the Arab American University in Jenin and rather naively I asked the lady on the other end of the phone if I were to get the job, could I get into a car and drive freely from Jenin to Ramallah or to East Jerusalem or to wherever I wanted to go? The interview was then more or less interrupted for about five minutes with her telling me all about the IDF checkpoints and the obstacles I would have to overcome during my little drive. These obstacles are likely to remain during the "Übergangslösung" a la 'Bantustan' before a final solution can be reached and every day there are new roads being constructed that connect the illegal settlements to the the State of Israel, not to mention the construction of the Wall in the West Bank, which, like the occupation itself, is illegal under international law. Both the Wall and the roads will, of course, really make sure there can be no viable Palestinian State on the West Bank.
It is the situation in East Jerusalem, however, that I would like to look at and in doing so I won't be paying too much attention to that other wall, the Wailing Wall, and to the Al-Aqsa mosque. It is "gobbly gook" like this that gives the State of Israel its legitimacy with their, "we have waited more than 2,000 years to come home". The reality is that East Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and Security Council Resolution 242 applies here just as it does to the West Bank, to Gaza and to the Golan Heights. Despite Israel putting its own absurd interpretation on the fact that the definite article is missing from the English version of the resolution and arguing that they do not have to withdraw from all of the occupied territories but only from "occupied territories", this is poppycock but when it comes from politicians who call little boys who throw stones, "terrorists" we have another wonderful example of how language can be manipulated in the Middle East. There are no "Jewish neighbourhoods" in the West Bank, there are settlements, most of those who oppose the occupation are not "terrorists", they are exercising their right to resist that occupation and article 242 is quite clear in its wording. Israel, the UN Security Council has told you to get out of all of the land that you occupied in 1967.1 Still, if that doesn't sink in we can turn to the Security Council Resolution 478 from 1980, which was passed shortly after the Israeli government illegally annexed East Jerusalem. It states unequivocally, "that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and, in particular, the recent "basic law" on Jerusalem are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith."2 That means no more building houses on Arab land, no more changing the demographic nature of area, no more withdrawing Arabs right of residence in East Jerusalem etc. etc.
Finally, I would like to turn my attention to Benjamin Netanyahu who says in today's 'Haaretz', "Israeli blood wasn't spilt so Hamas could move into Jerusalem".3Now, you might imagine that I am not exactly Benjamin's number one fan, and you would be right, but we won't be getting into that. Nevertheless, I would like to say to Mr Netanyahu, who has had a number of run ins with the law and has already been the subject of various enquiries relating to fraud and breach of trust,4 "forget Hamas, they have got fuck all to do with it, the law, Mr Netanyahu, is quite clear. There is no legal case for the occupation of East Jerusalem, just as there is no legal case for Israel's presence in the other occupied territories."
1 http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/240/94/IMG/NR024094.pdf?OpenElement
2 http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/2411.htm
3 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024098.html
4 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E1DF143EF932A15757C0A961958260

"Changes"

The first little story about "change" begins in Glasgow about .... oh about sixteen years ago; it must have been about 1992 although it might have been about 1993 but it doesn't really matter but it was my first time back in Glasgow since about 1984 or 1985. Anyway, I came up the east coast on the train although I don't know why I came up the east coast but I did and there was me on the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, having changed at Edinburgh for Glasgow because there is no direct train to Glasgow from Newcastle upon Tyne Whatever, there was me on the train and I said to this, "getting on in years", lady, I said, "this is my first time back in Glasgow in about ten years", and do you know what she said? She said, "ye'll no recognise it, son", and I thought, "daft auld bugger, am no gonnae think its Edinburgh, am I?" Apart from anything else, Edinburgh has a great big fucking medieval castle stuck in the middle of the town. There is nothing really medieval in Glasgow apart from the behaviour of the locals, the cathedral and John "Killjoy" Knox's house .... and the train pulled into Queen Street Station and the station had not changed one iota and I walked into Buchanan Street and .... well, they did have a new Shopping Centre at the top of the street and the Bus Station looked kind of different but changed, really changed? No, I was definitely in Glasgow and I did recognise it. This time around I haven't seen Glasgow for about five years. However, I am sure if i were to go back, I wouldn't get lost.
Now the second story about change takes me to Shanghai. At the beginning of 2007 I went on a staff development weekend with the company I was working for in China and we all got put up in this hotel called the 'Ming Zhu' Pearl Hotel, not really too far from Shanxi Nan Lu but a bit closer to Zhao Jia Bang Road. Whatever, as far as my person is concerned, there wasn't much development going on during that staff development weekend but there was a lot of drinking. Indeed, when we were travelling back on the Monday morning, I was only vaguely aware that I had been in Shanghai. Therefore, I might be forgiven for forgetting the exact location of where I had stayed. However, the hotel left a good impression on me so the next time I was in Shanghai I decided to stay in the Pearl again so I typed "Pearl Hotel" into google and .... shit, there were three hotels called "Pearl" but, after a little bit of research, I was as sure as sure can be that I had located the right one. However, on phoning I wanted to be a little more sure than as sure as sure can be so I asked the girl on the reception if there was a Starbucks across the road and the girl had a look and she said, "no" and I was a trifle surprised because I did sort of remember a Starbucks being there. Still, I had been sort of hallucinating that weekend, a wee bout of the heebie jeebies, so maybe the Starbucks was a figment of my imagination. Anyway, to cut a much too long story short, I jumped into a taxi and went to the hotel and it was the one I had stayed in before. However, the Starbucks had metamorphosed into a Costa Coffee, the building, where the Costa now was, had been renovated out of recognition and half of Zhao Jia Bang Road appeared to have disappeared, or was it, in fact, beginning to appear? There were buildings sprouting up all over the place. If I go back to Shanghai in the not too distant future, I am not sure if I will recognise it. Of course, I am not going to mistake it for Beijing.

"Terrorist" Attacks Soldier

A report in today's 'Haaretz' titled, "IDF soldier loses eye after Palestinian woman throws acid in his face"1, is interesting not so much because of what actually happened but because of how the paper went on to cover the attack, I quote, "The terrorist was arrested by security forces, and the soldier was rushed into surgery because doctors fear he may have lost vision in one eye as a result of the attack."2 There are two things worth noting in this one sentence; firstly, the soldier was attacked by a "terrorist" and secondly, he was rushed to hospital because doctors fear he may have lost vision in one eye. Now my views on "terrorists" and "terrorism" were expounded in some detail in yesterday's post. Moreover, I find myself asking the question, did he lose the eye or didn't he? Well, he might have because as the following report on another recent incident at Hawara shows there is going to be a lot of animosity towards Israeli soldiers at Hawara checkpoint and it is quite fair to assume that only their overwhelming firepower prevents a few more of them losing an eye, a limb or even their lives:
"Nothing helped. Not the pleas, not the cries of the woman in labor, not the father's explanations in excellent Hebrew, nor the blood that flowed in the car. The commander of the checkpoint, a fine Israeli who had completed an officers' course, heard the cries, saw the women writhing in pain in the back seat of the car, listened to the father's heartrending pleas and was unmoved. The heart of the Israeli officer was indifferent and cruel. For over an hour, he would not let the car with the young woman in labor pass through the Hawara checkpoint on the way to the hospital in Nablus. Not to Tel Aviv; but to Nablus; not for shopping, not for work; but to get to the hospital in an emergency. Nothing helped."2
Incidents like the above, of course, happen every day at Hawara. Is it really surprising when a "terrorist" attacks a soldier? If it weren't so tragic, I would laugh my head off. However, it is not funny and a Dr. Anan Abd el-Haq of Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus said soldiers wounded three bystanders with gunfire and shrapnel immediately after the incident. The military said, however, that soldiers fired only shots in the air to keep the crowd at bay."3 Well, I know who I am going to believe!
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1023379.html
2 http://keld.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/21/1893936-dead-on-arrival
3 http://www.infolive.tv/en/infolive.tv-29687-israelnews-idf-soldier-wounded-after-palestinian-women-throws-acid-him

"Terrorists"

Today the word "terrorist" is invariably used by states who seek to dehumanise and delegitimise all of their opponents. Once the term is applied the adversary has lost not only a legal right to resist but has also become an immoral, inhuman and inherently evil entity and as such is to be be wiped off the face of the earth. However, not only are those who are offering active resistence to be exterminated but also any group, community or, indeed, nation with, which they are associated is also to be punished and, when the punishment is sometimes sold uses phrases such as, "we are freeing them" or "we are helping them", one is, in fact, reminded of how the Nazis dehumanised and exterminated not only their opponents but also millions of innocents and in doing so talked about putting them in "Schutzhaft" (protective custody) until an "Endlösung" (Final Solution) could be reached. The connotations of "Schutzhaft" and many other words changed and today in the Federal Republic of Germany they use the term "Poliziegewahrsam" (in police custody). Since 9/11, it would not suprise me if you were to say the word "terrorist" in a psychological word association test and hear as a reply, "Muslim". Moreover, this response wouldn't be confined to the West; for the Russian the "terrorist" would be in Chechnya or in some other predominantly Muslim part of the country and for the Chinese the "terrorist" is to be found in the province of Xinjiang, where the Muslim Uyghurs are in the process of becoming a minority in their own homeland. Nevertheless, my confrontation with the word invariably comes through the newspeak of the mainstream western media and, post 9/11, it is a word that I am increasingly exposed to.
It was, therefore, with a special interest that I read Robert Fisk's article in John Pilger's edited book, 'Tell Me No Lies', where he writes about the massacre of innocents at Sabra and Chatila in September 1982 when the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) allowed Phalangist militiamen to enter the camps there and slaughter thousands of unarmed men, women and children. He then goes on to tell how, after the slaughter, the IDF was to move into the camps looking for "terrorists".1 There were, of course, no "terrorists" left in the camps and the only thing the Israelis would be confronted with would be the odd stray dog, or the stench of the dead. However, at least it made me remember that the "terrorists" were around long before 9/11.
It is, however, in the seven years after September the 11th, 2001that the term "terrorist" has become a high frequency word for all of us. Every day when we open a newspaper we are confronted with it and our "terrorists" are to be found in the Middle East, Aghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. They are Muslim and it is permitted to bomb all of them as the dead men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan testify to. Now, if you were to play that little word association game mentioned above somewhere in Israel and you were to say the word "terrorist", the response would in all probability be "Palestinian". At Sabra and Chatila the IDF stood by and let the Phalangist militias enter the camps because the women and children in the camps were Palestinian and. Of course, a similar scenario might be possible in Grozny in Chechnya or Kashgar in China, with Russian troops or PLA toops standing by and watching as some local psychopaths kill the locals and it is quite alright to bomb wedding parties and villages in Afghanstan because we are bombing "terrorists". It is time, perhaps, to redefine the term "terrorist" and who it really applies to otherwise we should not be too surprised when the "terrorists" kill innocent men, women and children closer to home.
1 Robert Fisk, 'Terrorists' pp253-283 in John Pilger's edited, 'Tell Me No Lies'.

One Reason Why America is Hated

There is a good piece in Pilger's book on the genoicide in Cambodia and how the Americans, British and Chinese protected and supported the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese invasion of the country in 1979.1 There was no real change of policy in Washington and London here and it is common knowledge that American, British and Chinese support were, in fact, responsible for the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and correspondingly for the killing fields that left a third of that country's population dead. What Pilger's report did make me aware of though was that that support did in fact continue after the Vietnamese put an end to the insanity. Pilger delves into the consequences of the West's failure to recognise the government of Heng Samrin, which the Vietnamese helped put into power and how this effectively prevented much needed aid reaching the country. It also meant that the Khmer Rouge, supplied by the West and trained by British and American advisors, could carry on fighting effectively until 1996 and thereby effectively prolong the suffering of the Cambodian people.
Of course, none of this comes as a surprise and likewise the information in another contribution to Pilger's book that the Americans and Australians gave Suharto the green light for the invasion of East Timor and for the genoicide that happened there is hardly a revelation.2 Moreover, Steve Coll's book, "Ghost Wars", which I have previously mentioned, provides a wonderful account of how the CIA, Pakistani ISI and the Saudis facilitated the Taleban's rise to power.3 Support for Saadam Hussein and Iraq during the war with Iran at the beginning of the 80s, help in toppling Allende's democratically elected government in Chile in 1973, unilateral support for the illegal activities of its proxy state in the Middle East, Israel, and unfettered support around the world for a pot pourri of invariably corrupt and sometimes nasty regimes ..... the list is endless, the hypocrisy is blatant and with men, women and children dying every day in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere it all becomes just a little bit offensive as well as being an insult to any thinking person's intelligence.
1 John Pilger edited, 'Tell Me No Lies' pp120-137
2 Ibid pp 174-190
3 Steve Coll, 'Ghost Wars'

The Credit Crisis and "Quo Vadis" Mankind

In today's 'Financial Times Deutschland', it is reported that the Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC), which is the PRC's foreign wealth fund and effectively a division of the Chinese Government might be increasing its stake in the American investment bank, Morgan Stanley, to 49.9%.1 With something like three trillion dollars at their disposal China certainly has the money and, indeed, has the money to move markets. Moreover, while it is interesting to note that Beijing has limited foreign ownership of Chinese banks to 25%, one might, nevertheless, hope that the more the world can involve China in the global market place the better. On the one hand, it might lead to a world that is no longer dominated financially, and a priori, politically by the Anglo-Saxons and on the other hand it might see the Chinese understanding that they have to adapt their own financial and political institutions to live in the world as it is. It might just be that, in the "Global Village" cooperation and consensus is the only way forward. Of course, it might also mean that the type of "democracy" the world is heading for will be just as exclusive as the one England experienced after the signing of the 'Magna Carta' in 1215 rather than inclusive democracy of the type envisaged by Takis Fotopoulus.2
1 'Financial Times Deutschland' 19/20/21 September 2008. p1
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takis_Fotopoulos

The Last of the Summer

As usual there is a nip in the air in late September, Munich, but enough of the summer left to have them outside, supping their coffees, nattering and "La Dolce Vita" creeps above the Alps. One begins to understand Gustav von Aschenbach* and his "youthfully ardent thirst for distant scenes" for this is a city that prompts you to quell that thirst even if it encourages you to take the hop, skip and a jump over the Alps or a simple drive into the nearby countryside to do so but there is no need to and it is good to be back and I might not be drinking alcohol these days but I know that if I decide to start again, it will be good beer. The cafes are idyllic, independent places and while Starbucks is out there somewhere it is just not necessary and I am sitting in the 'Black Bean' in Amalienstraße There is an inclusive normality in just hanging around and chilling out here and with that the type of ambience that facilitates the "moechtegerne" artist cum daydreamer is almost tangible.
The nice little story doing the rounds here is the one about the Bavarian Minister President, Günther Beckstein, saying that you are still able to drive after drinking two litres of beer and while he was later to qualify his statement somewhat ..... well, this is a man who believes that computer games are the work of the devil and who would like to see dope smokers flogged in public. Fortunately, the "live and let live" attitude of Munich and the politics of the Bavarian state remain a trifle incongruous to say the least. Moreover, we are in a state where the law sets limits on the politicians and "La Dolce Vita" appears to be the order of the day on the Isar.
The picture was taken in Munich's, Türkenstraße today and shows the locals enjoying their "Altweibersommer".
* The hero in Thomas Mann's, 'Death in Venice'

Downright Rude if Nothing Else

On the flight from London to Munich today, I read a contribution by the Journalist, James Cameron (17 June 1911 – 26 January 1985) in John Pilger's edited book 'Tell Me No Lies'. The article 'Through the Looking Glass 1966' is based on Cameron's experiences when he was one of the very few western reporters, who were actually allowed to report from North Vietnam during the war and there was a passage in his piece that left me empathising with him completely. On writing of the United States bombing raids he describes his overriding emotions in the following manner, "There was somehow a sense of outrage against civility; what an offence against manners, if nothing else; by what right do these airmen intrude over a country they do not recognise, with which they are not formally at war; who gave these people sanction to drop their bombs and rockets on other people's roads and houses, to blow up the harvest, to destroy people of whom they know absolutely nothing?"1 His indignation is palpable and I share it completely. Some years ago I remember watching a documentary film of the German occupation of Warsaw and, while we know that for many in the film the end of the road was the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sachsenhausen and the other death camps, the first question I asked myself, was "Who gives these fucking idiots the right to go into other peoples homes, to tell them to get out of their beds and get up and get dressed, to herd them onto the streets, who gives them the right to go into someone elses country, and bully, dictate, torture and kill?" When I ask myself this question the "terrorist" becomes easier to understand but in understanding the "terrorist" I am also becoming aware of who the real terrorist is.
1 James Cameron in 'Tell Me No Lies' (Edited John Pilger) p83

Wishful Thinking

It is a fact that the member countries in the European Union have given away bits of their sovereignty. Indeed, while most of them remain in denial of the extent to which they have done so, they have handed over a lot more decision making powers to Brussels than they would like to believe. This is no bad thing and I for one would not be unhappy if we were to ultimately go a step further and establish some sort of regulated global government that was elected through some sort of democratic process. The reasons for this are very simple.
Firstly, the Hu Jintaos and Vladimiar Putins of this world are not really accountable to their own people and, increasingly, make decisions that effect the planet as a whole. Moreover, and more importantly, in the United States, a so-called "democratic" country, the influence that the Vice President can actually exert can be limited but, as we have seen with Cheny, this is not always the case. Sarah Pallin could very well be the next American Vice President and the 44 year old, to put it mildly, does not know her ass from her elbow when it comes to foreign policy. Furthermore, her idiotic, "the jury's still out on that one"1, when asked if she beieved that climate change might be attributed to the actions of human beings, is indicative of her being, like Dick Cheny, a staunch supporter of the oil industry. This is a lady who is the Governor of Alaska, a state with just 600,000 people, most of whom want to get as much money out of the place as possibe before the oil, fish and wildlife disappear.
China is on the horizon and Russia is flexing its muscles again but there is some way to go before the Chinese or the Russians dictate to the rest of the planet and there is time to put global institutions into place that might limit the chances of that happening. We have already had a stolen election in the States followed by eight years of Bush and Cheny along with wars that ignored international law and international institutions before using and abusing those institutions to further purely machiavellian aims. It is time now to stop the rot and put global institutions into place that stop this happening again.
1 'The Guardian' September 17, 2008 'Society Guardian Environment' p9

Banking Crisis

As someone who is not an Economist it is not always easy for me to comprehend completely what is happening at the moment in the world's financial markets and to understand what the implications of these events might be for the world at large. Nevertheless, an article in today's 'the Guardian' by Nils Pratley made extremely interesting reading. He began by saying that, "killed by complexity"1 will appear Wall Street's headstone should this be the end of that Wall Street that is familiar to all of us. He then goes on to describe how derivatives function or rather how they don't function in that they become extremely complex to value with expert auditors unable to agree even remotely as to their true value.2 Certainly, the idea sounds great; splittng up mortgages, cosmetically diversifying the product and pushing them onto someone else or, perhaps, taking out insurance if you are worried that your customers and trading partners might default. At the end of the day though it all becomes very very complicated and because the derivatives are hard to value traders are invariably encouraged to inflate earnings.
The above brings me to something that is directly linked to the above because it is not only the banks, insurances and building societies that have been unaware of their worth due to the above mentioned, it is also the great British public, with their remortgaging to pay debt and their buying with credit cards and even on direct debit cards that are funded by overdrafts and that is not to mention the ipods, LCD televisions, super-duper laptops etc bought on the "never, never". China is experiencing a slowdown in its economic growth because there is less money to spend on "Made in China" in the West. The Bank of China has reacted and decided to cut interest rates to encourage consumer spending. Now, we might want to criticise a lot of things about China but, as a rule, they do not live on the "never, never" and if they do borrow, they do so secure in the knowledge that they can pay it back. It might do the West no harm to start not only to simplify its financial systems but also to start teaching its people that you shouldn't really be spending money that you don't have.
1 'The Guardian', Tuesday 16, 2008 p2
2 Ibid p1

In Sheffield

In Sheffield, not my fault, mother and sister live here, only joking not such a bad place, mother lives in a posh part of town and has really done a sort of port out starboard home, all started in the Gorbals Glasgow and has ended up in the Eccleshall Road area in Sheffield, a British success story, facilitated and funded, by the fantastic, flourishing, welfare state, and I thought it had died a death, bloody daft me, as I continue to chase the pennies, back to 'Blighty', rest on your laurels, benefits and financial support, don't gloat or say, "smug little bastard, look at you now, that is your fate, supported by the state", it is not that bad, ask my dad, they buried him! Still couldn't come back, the weather would be difficult to hack and I wouldn't write that book because, well, look there is all this digital tv, I would lie in my bed all day and my two roomed flat would be a disgusting mess, no need to get dressed, throw the sweetie papers on the floor and just lock the door and does it really matter if I get fatter and fatter, alright the room and me would be disgustingy smelly but I would have my huge telly, so I could see past the belly, and there would always be a film or football or even something obscene on my great big screen. press the red button and then the blue, you can even split the screen in two and when you are bored you can record, go to sleep and wait for a beep, beep, beep, telly back on, no fuss, another 'Coronation Street' omnibus and from time to time, I would crawl out of bed, shake my head, now I might look like a hog but, now and again, I do need the bog and when I am up I would make some tea and sit down at my pc because when you chat, they don't know you are fat and you can live an obscene virtual dream, where people don't know that you hobble, indeed, sometimes wobble ....... Anyway, I hope you get the gist, I am going to give "Blighty" a miss, it is really not for me, maybe if I lose a leg and have to beg or if I cause such a din that they don't let me in to just about every country on the planet. Other than that I won't be coming back, at least not for a while anyway!

Why Americans should vote Obama

In my post on August 30, 2008, my suggestion was that should Obama become President there cannot and will not be any real change in American foreign policy. By this stage of the proceedings, with the United States entrenched in two unwinnable wars and up to its eyes in debt, he should be well on his way to becoming President and I should just be waiting to see if my prediction was indeed correct. Nevertheless, something has happened to make me rethink my assertion that in the area of foreign policy he cannot offer something different and my belief that he is most certainly going to win the election in November. That something is the populism of John McCain and Sarah Pallin and its obviously influencing the great discerning American public and it would appear that John "was captured and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton" McCain and Sarah "has got five kiddies, loves God and hunting and has nice tits and glasses" Pallin have a very real chance of winning the election. Moreover, in the area of foreign policy while the aims might overlap their methods of achieving those aims won't. Here I would like to draw a little comparison with Stresseman and Hitler; both ulitmately wanted to achieve German hegemony in Central Europe. However, while Stresseman favoured a softly, softly diplomatic approach, Adolf was more like the proverbial bull in the china shop. Furthermore, Stresseman's ambitions stopped at hoping to establish German hegemony in "Mitteleuropa", Adolf on the other hand went looking for "Lebensraum" in the East after establishing German dominance of Central Europe at Munich in 1938. The frightening flights of fancy that McCain and Pallin might take us on can only be imagined.

Politics Matter

There is an interesting little read on Sarah Palin in the comment in today's 'Observer', which begs us to focus on her beliefs rather than the plethora of irrelevancies that are flaunted by the media. However, it does look as if the "great" American public will vote for her looks, her being a mother of five and her pulling no punches when she speaks. Still, we should still look at those beliefs that the 'Observer' asks us to consider. What are they? Well, firstly, her knowledge of foreign policy would appear to be confined to a few bellicose, adolescent statements on Iran, Russia and international terrorism. Moreover, she would gladly have American school children believing that the earth was created by a deity and that that deity forbids abortion even where there has been rape or incest and, finally, the good half witted Ms Palin doesn't really believe that there is a global warming problem and is pro-drilling for oil everywhere and anywhere at a time when the world should be moving away from fossil fuels.1
The polls inform us that the chances of McCain "the war hero" and Sarah "good-looking, mother of five, pulls no punches" Palin winning the November election are increasing day by day. This has to be some sort of bad joke. Creationism in American schools is an American problem, at least, until the rest of the world becomes confronted with a new generation of Uncle Sam "Jihadists" and her views on abortion have no immediate effect on the rest of us. However, Ms Pallin's views on foreign policy, energy and the environment are a threat to everyone. They can only lead to conflict and ultimately disaster.
1 'The Observer' p34 Sunday 14th September 2008.

The Empire's Second City

The weather held today, which is one good thing I suppose, and you get down to the train station and the train arrives and you haven't enough time to get tickets because there is only one machine on the platform, so you just jump on the train, after asking the little lady who works on the train if you can buy a ticket when you get on and she says, "yes, no probem" and then asks you to pay six pounds per ticket rather than the usual two and in this country they are not really interested in providing the public with a proper service that is there for them and not for the people who are supposed to be providing the service, so we got off at the next station and managed to get into birmingham after we bought two tickets for about four pounds rather than two for twelve pounds.

Well, i suppose the one good thing about living in the suburbs of Birmingham as opposed to the suburbs of London is that it is much much cheaper to get into the city. However, once there it is all much of a muchness and in fact Birmingham is probably closer to Uxbridge than it is to London, but that is not entirely fair because there are at least a few bookshops in the Brum, whereas in Uxbridge they closed their only bookshop a couple of weeks ago because, no doubt, the locals cannot read and if they can, they content themselves with the content of the English gutter press.

Anyway, there was the wee walk around the Bull Ring today and it is all under cover or mostly so, so you keep yourself out of the rain that plagues this country. The bookshops that I refered to above do have a smattering of choice but never fail to amaze by their ability to sort of leave you feeling that the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel are just so extemely important. Indeed, the section on Israel combined with the section on the Holocaust is bigger than the section on East Asia. Now, of course, we should pay attention to the lessons of the Holocaust and never allow it to happen again but wouldn't it be nice to be confronted by a spate of books on the Cultural Revolution because, whether we like it or not, it is the events in China between 1966-1976 that have, at least partly, shaped the psyche of a country that is becoming increasingly important for all of us, whether we like it or know it or not. Moreover, it is estimated that up to 100 million Chinese died because of the Cultural Revolution and I could go on to add that I almost forgot to mention the idiocy of Mao's Great Leap Forward. Anyway, do, you get the point? It is difficult to get any sort of reasonable perspective, anything approaching a sort of sane subjectivity, in this little Britain.

Tomorrow, it is up to Sheffield but it is all a bit "Inshallah" with me booking an early bus and my mate will still be sleeping so ego needs a connection and remember it is sunday tomorrow; the day when you find yourself getting off of the train with the journey only half completed and getting onto a bus that will take you here, there and everywhere before getting you to your destination. Anyway, the bus is at 8.40 a.m. and at that time there will be no connection to New Street, therefore, I will have to get a bus to the bus station. One has been located by my friend after an hour's search on the internet, now let's just hope that it will turn up.

The picture was taken from that well known eatery appropriately named EAT looking out to the Bull Ring, the rain has gone off for a few minutes and the sun has come out as it is apt to do in this country; you leave the house, walk two minutes and it starts to rain, you run home and get your umbrella and three minutes later the rain stops. Nevertheless, some things never change and there is something you can always look forward to in the United Kingdom on a saturday and that is, "Match of the Day" and that is where I am going now; probably a wee cup of tea and a wee McVities biscuit and probably Liverpool versus Manchester United and gradually I am beginning to realise how some people might even like living here, ..... sometimes!

My Big Mouth

One of the things I was looking forward to on leaving China was finding myself in an environment where I can understand everything or almost everything of what is being said. Anyway, there was me a couple of weeks ago walking down the road when I heard this guy say to his friend, "anything is possible" and, of course, it is not and have you ever stuck your bum out of the window, ran down the stairs and tried to hit it with a stone? Anyway, I was almost in the process of telling him that anything is not possible. However, on that occassion I managed to keep my big mouth shut but not so today; there was me and my mate walking down towards Trafalgar Square when a rather big male person holding a cup of Starbucks coffee more or less walked into me and I said quite loudly, "fucking idiot!" Now, the big male person heard me and immediately asked, "What did you say?" So there was me either shitting myself or wanting to be genteel and in order to avoid conflict I replied that I was talking to my mate and that was the end of the matter. Nevertheless, we should remember that this all happened near Trafalgar Square and my little trip at the end of my stint at Brunel has already taken me up to Birmingham and from here I will move onto Sheffield and, perhaps, Glasgow. What might happen in Birmingham or Sheffield were I to call someone a "fucking idiot" I can only imagine, what might happen if I do so in Glasgow doesn't require much imagination.

A China Lesson

Pots of Earl Grey tea at Costas, the little one beside Uxbridge Tube Station and not the bigger one about a hundred metres away outside the Pavillions Shopping Centre, and the sun was shining through the canopy, close your eyes, and this could be anywhere in Central or Southern Europe. It wasn't, it was Uxbridge but it was all pleasant enough and the conversation with two colleagues, one who had worked for some time in China and one who is still working there, was very interesting.
The discussion drifted to the topic of doing business in China and I was subjected to a little lesson on that score. An assortment of reasons were given why investing money in the PRC is a bad idea and all the little reasons really led to two slightly bigger reasons, namely, every Tom, Dick and Harry, or the Chinese equivalents thereof, will dip into your pocket for their cut and that along with their being no real recourse to the law has to bring us to the conclusion that the only way you are going to make money there is not to invest any in the first place except the amount that is necessary to buy something that you can sell back in Europe for a quick profit.
The picture is of the little Costa Coffee beside Uxbridge Tube Station

Lebanese Normality

There is a sort of strange, weird normality about the Lebanon even when nothing is really normal. When I was there in 2006 it all seemed so normal that I invited my girlfriend and another female friend to visit me, telling them how so very normal everything was and just as they were about to come the bombs started falling and that only reminded me that sitting down in the cafe in Hamra a week before the Israelis started to bomb Beruit, watching Germany versus Italy in the World Cup Semi Final, I had deluded myself into believing that things were normal although if I had only opened my eyes, the signs had always been there that things weren't normal and it was all a wee bit reminiscent of Belfast when I was there in the early 80s and not really very like the south of Spain, which was how it wanted to see itself.
Yesterday, a car bomb killed a certain Sheikh Saleh Aridi, a top aide to Talal Arslan, the leading Druze opposition figure. Now, I am not going to confuse you here with the internal politics of the Lebanon. However, there are those who see this as a move to split the loyalties of the Druze community and there we have it, not only are loyalties split along sectarian lines in the Lebanon they are also split inside the various communities themselves. We should never assume anything but as the history books tell us, "divide and rule" has invariably been the order of the day and in whose interests would a united Lebanon definitely not be?

Premillenial Dispensation

The stint at Brunel is coming to an end on a slightly positive note; did the second marking for a bubbly little lady today and then took myself down to the pub later this evening with three colleagues. The ambience is there, there is a sort of coming up for air and I am going tomorrow.
The pub was a hub of noise, packed, stacked and England, I never thought I would see the day, but they did, they did, they started to play. A football match, of course, used to make me hoarse and now, well this evening at least, I only surveyed all and sundry, watched the folk, drank a coke and had a joke. A jolly good evening my first and last out in Uxbridge.
Back in the wee room and browsing the 'Guardian' online it is interesting to see how Sarah Palin's "gobbly gook belief system is appealing to the religious nutters in America. This, of course, is important because that vote makes up 23% of the United State's electorate. Might be more appropriate if the electorate in that "wonderful democracy" were more interested in her views on the credit crunch and maybe on foreign policy. No, they are more interested in her "gobbly gook" beliefs. Sarah started her life as a Catholic but seems now to be a Pentacostalist of that ilk that would appear to incorporate a full blood-curdling theory of Premillenial Dispensationalism into their belief system. A belief system that is full of "chosen people" and "second comings" and that reserves a special place for the Jewish people. If Obama's speech some months ago to AIPAC might hardly have the Palestinians dancing in the streets of Gaza, this particular lady and the neo-conservative, religious loonies might even represent a threat to their very existences. No need to be over occupied with Sarah Palin's views on foreign policy just delve into the writings of the 19th Century English evangelist, John Nelson Darby, and her views will reveal themselves before she opens her mouth and I thought these nutters were on their way into the history books. Goodbye George W Bush and hello Sarah Palin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/10/uselections2008.sarahpalin1

Being Responsible

Back to the hard copies of the papers today and there were two articles in today's 'Times' that made interesting reading; one was under the headline "20 killed in latest airstrike as US hits school set up by friend of bin Laden" and the other followed the headline "Clan rivals 'led US forces to attack wrong target'"1 The headlines were refering to two different attacks by the Americans as a consequence of which civilians died. Now, it would appear that the twenty deaths in the first attack are not so tragic after all because they died in a school that was set up "by a friend of bin Laden" and in the other attack it would appear that the "clan rivals" are responsible for the Americans attacking the wrong target. In that particular attack some 92 civilians died. Now that the Americans don't want to take the responsibility for what is in effect mass murder, I can understand, what I cannot understand is a so-called, "free press" trying to admonish them of that responsibility.
1 'The Times' September 9, 2008 p39

Chewing the Cud

Conversations dictated my day today; there was a conversation with my Bulgarian mate, who I met at Ealing Broadway this afternoon, there was a conversation with a colleague who normally works at Ningbo Nottingham in China and there was a conversation with another colleague, who I am sharing the second marking for the exam projects with.
The common thread throughout the conversations was what a shit hole England is. Now, that might be because all three of us normally live elsewhere, the Bulgarian in Bulgaria, the one colleague in China and the other colleague in Argentina and me in Germany. It might also be because the two colleagues and I are living on campus in a little room with a shower and my Bulgarian mate is living with four other Bulgarians in a flat in Balham. However, isn't this "Blighty" so full of huff and puff?Yes, they have borrowed the blarney from the Irish and turned it into spin and borrowing is what they are good at, isn't it? Half of a country on the minimum wage and almost all of them living on the never, never! A wee bit like their football team; 1966 and all that and never, never again. Still, we all like a moan don't we and maybe, just maybe, I am a little bit too much like the allusion in Kipling's ditty who can only see the putty, brass and paint;
If England was as England seems
And not the England of my dreams
But only putty, brass and paint
I'd chuck her
But she ain't
Still, the sub-heading on Philip Pan's book springs to mind; "The Struggle for the Soul of a New China" and is there anyone out there struggling for the soul of this little island that has such an inflated view of its own place in the world? It might be that that struggle was already lost after Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. Indeed, in retrospect, one of her achievements was Tony Blair and New Labour and with their ascent to power in 1997 the working class along with real critical thinking might have had its final "hurrah".

After 2012

The book 'China Road', which I have just finished, brought no revelations, nothing new. In bits it rambled on and in bits it clarified, the kind of book, which could have been better edited, better structured, a little bit soppy at times. However, a decent enough read and enough to get the brain cells working and that leads me to already clarifying what I have just written; there was this little bit at the end where he sees hope for China in that generation of leaders that will come to power after the Party Congress in 2012 and that was a sort of new angle; the generation that grew up after 1979, that have been exposed to western ideas and, indeed, have invariably been educated in the West. Maybe, Maybe, perhaps, perhaps, could be, could be, might be, might be ...... and if ever academic caution were more appropriate!
Whatever, it is another synthesis that I find more interesting and that is his conclusion that environmental pollution represents the greatest threat to this being China's century. well, peasant revolt here, peasant revolt there, Tibet, oil, Xinjiang, corruption, people being turfed out of their houses, I would agree, it is, indeed, how China will cope with its continued development and its increasing environmental problems that will be decisive.
There are those in the government who realise the above such as China's Deputy Minister of the Environment, Pan Yue who gave an interview to this effect with the German magazine, "Der Speigel".1 Nevertheless, there will be those in the party who will be trying to push increased economic growth even if it is detrimental to the the environment. Whatever the outcome, China might be a one party system but that party is no longer the one monolithic, homogeneous, entity that it once was and, yes, it will be interesting to see what happens after 2012.
1 http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,345694,00.html

The Beijing Doctor

London is that place where you have to pay almost everywhere for a wireless internet connection, but you don't. Well what I mean is, you arrive in a Starbucks just off of Covent Garden and they have a t-mobile hotspot that you have to pay for but when you right click on view available wireless connection you discover that there are are lots and lots of unsecured connections available and you pick the best one and abracadabra .......
My thoughts today drifted to China's "hundred names", or China's long suffering peasantry, and how those hundred names have been squeezed dry throughout history. One problem is that when they get up on the barricades and appear to have any sort of success that success is always short lived as invariably are any improvements that come with it. A very real reason for this is that their criticism is always reserved for local officials and never extends to the central government in Beijing. Therefore, if Beijing does believe that things are getting out of hand it can quite easily dismiss the corrupt local officials and have them replaced. In such instances the government in far away Beijing is seen to be caring for and sympathetic to the opressed masses and we will have Mr Zhou and Mr Wang, Mr Zheng, Mr Zhao and Mr Tang and all the others singing the praises of the government. Of course, the whole procedure is like that of a doctor who removes a spot on a woman's breast without diagnosing what actually might be behind the spot. The patient then praises the doctor for removing the spot but dies of cancer six months later. It is interesting that in a culture that spawned holistic medicine there is not a more holistic view of society and its problems.

Rumbling and Tumbling, Huffing and Puffing

The train did its usual rumbling and tumbling, huffing and puffing, from Earls Court to Uxbridge this evening; and they were no more fickle than usual; getting us all off at Raynors Lane and we thought the train we got onto at Earls Court was going all the way to Uxbridge or so we were told anyway and there was even a sign on the train and an announcement at the station. These people, "old bean" are a law unto themselves!

Anyway, "the Blighty stint" is petering out; invigilating, marking and that is it next week and I will hang around because I get the full week's wages! There was the new Guy Ritchie film this evening, the good coffee and a meeting with a friend and tomorrow I will be on a train that will be rumbling and tumbling and huffing and puffing again and into Leicester Square and off to the 'Bar Italia' and ...A little bit of escapism can be and is being indulged in and, with a little bit of rumbling and tumbling, huffing and puffing, there is a world beyond the daily trot of the trotskyist teacher and the one room with shower ensuite in undulating Uxbridge.

The picture shows Baker Street station, which goes a way back to 1863. Now no wonder the trains huff and puff. If the 19th century was Britain's and the 20th century America's .... well 'que serra' but maybe the 21st will be China.'s

Progress?

The 'New York Times' reports that the Chinese government has admitted that poor construction may have been responsible for a lot of the deaths in the Sichaun earthquake. However, it is blaming, "the rush to build schools during the country's recent economic boom"1 rather than corrupt officials giving contracts to their "friends" and "families" and in the process also accepting bribes. Still, it is rare for the government in China to admit that cutting corners exists and one wonders at what even this limited confession might lead to. Interesting too is the fact that despite the government trying to order the news media to stop reporting on the schools collapsing even 'Xinhua', the state news agency, is continuing to do so.2 The article in the 'New York Times' goes on to write that "grieving parents or families of survivors will have a hard time suing construction companies or local governments, a well-known civil lawyer said in an interview on Thursday."3 Of course, they will, nevertheless, it might be interesting to follow their attempts to do so. What we do have, at least for the time being, is the government confessing shortcomings, lawyers taking the government, albeit local government, to court and the state news agency not following government orders.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/world/asia/05china.html?hp
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/world/asia/05china.html?pagewanted=2&hp
3 Ibid

Wise Investments

Nice to get back to the online stuff for the news and the 'New York Times' informs me that the United States has pleged Georgia $US 1 billion to "repair Georgia"1 and that is just about what Manchester City's new owners are going to spend on their new acquisition to achieve hegemony in English and European football. Well, I know what the biggest waste of money is and we all seem to have forgotten that a certain , Mikheil Saakashvili, at least facilitated the Russians invasion of his country with his own stupidity in the first place. The democratically elected President of Georgia, who just a few months was beating up peaceful demonstrators,2 has Dick Cheney down there supporting him. However, first off for Dick, is a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan with executives from BP and Chevron just a day after Mr Putin, the now PM of Russia, announced the building of a new natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to Russia. The way this charade is sold in the western media would make it a bigger joke than the goings on at the City of Manchester Stadium, if it were not for the fact that it is also a trifle more dangerous than the prospect of a waif like little Robinho running into John Terry in the not too distant future.

1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/world/europe/04cheney.html?hp

2 http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/11/08/georgi17284.htm

The picture shows the new Manchester City manager arriving at the City of Manchester Airport

The Death of the Newspaper

Here the emphasis has to be on the "paper"! When I was in China one of the things I longed for was a hard copy of a daily newspaper something that I had only after the occassional visit to the Bookworm, the even more occassional visit to Hongqiao Airport and the two or three flights a year into China from elsewhere. So there was me yearning for the day when I could sit down with my papers and my latte and skim and scan and indulge myself in an orgy of news. However, it doesn't work out like that. Well, I do buy the 'Guardian' most mornings and sometimes, like today, I find myself wandering around with a couple of papers. Nevertheless, today was indicative of what the "couple of papers" actually implies; the 'Guardian' from today, still unread at 8 p.m. and the 'Financial Times' unread from yesterday and with the cafes closing at seven p.m. it is actually difficult to find somewhere to sit down and read them. Therefore, what did I do this evening? For the first time in a long time I accessed the news online as soon as I got home and there was me looking at the "New York Times" and the 'Haaretz' and thinking, if only there were a little cafe somewhere, with a wireless connection.

A Conflict of Interests

Today's 'Financial Times' has some very interesting reporting on the Georgia conflict. There are three headlines on page 9, one of which reads, "EU stands united to denounce Russia's actions" and in the area of foreign policy we can only laugh when the EU says that it is united. Russia is the EU's third most important trading partner and it would be interesting to have a national breakdown of that "EU". Certainly, German reliance on Russian energy would hardly mean that Berlin is going to want any sort of economic war with Moscow. The other two headlines are, "US seeks global response and pledges aid" and "Regions of 'privileged interest'. Under the one heading we have Mr Cheney getting ready to visit, "three of the most endangered countries" in the region; Georgia, the Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Under the other heading we have Russia's President Dimitry Medvedev announcing Moscow's intention of preserving geographical spheres of "privileged interest" on or near its borders. Interesting times, interesting times, indeed!