http://www.londonprogressivejournal.com A non-partisan online magazine of the left. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/754/the-bbc's-defence-of-the-death-in-the-med-is-far-from-being-convincing-or-ethical The BBC has published a response (18th August 2010) to extensive criticism of Israeli bias in its recent Panorama programme ‘Death in the Med’ that discusses the killing of unarmed civilians by Israeli Navy Seals onboard the ship ‘Mavi Marmara’ on 31st May. I would like to make few comments on Panorama’s response, copying the BBC’s response in italics. ‘This programme intended to explore the considerable confusion about what actually happened on the Mavi Marmara.’ Clearly the programme failed to do so. It preferred to collude with the Israeli propaganda of lies and manipulation of facts. The programme did not inform the public about the background or the motives of the passengers of ‘Mavi Marmara’, who were from all faiths and from more then 40 countries, united by their human spirit to break the cruel, illegal Israeli siege on Gaza, hoping to end a collective punishment under International Law. The BBC failed to mention that the human rights activists on board ‘Mavi Marmara’ made pledges of nonviolence before leaving their countries, and were all searched along with the cargos before leaving the different ports. ‘Israel says they were terrorists. Turkey insists they were innocent victims.’ So, from the BBC’s perspective, it’s all about what Israel claims and what Turkey says but what about the witnesses on the Mavi Marmara or the coroners and the medical pathologists who examined the victims’ bodies (finding them shot a number of times from close range). Panorama’s response is trying to cover Israel’s shame and the BBC’s staff’s lack of professionalism and we are left to wonder why the praised the BBC journalist never tackled the most important question of how an army can attack a civilian ship sailing in international waters and get away with it. Sadly, the Panorama programme demonised the victims by trying to make them out as violent terrorists and aggressors. ‘With several inquiries underway Jane Corbin uncovered new evidence from both sides in a bid to uncover what really happened.‘ Unfortunately Corbin has not uncovered any new evidence and certainly not by both sides, unless the new evidence meant is the BBC’s new record of bias and unprofessional journalism. It was quite clear from the structure of the arguments of the Panorama journalist that she was there to patch the moral hole of Israel’s aggression. She could not rescue the reputation of the BBC, nor has the response of Panorama been able to do so. Quite the contrary, the audience now have more reason to believe that the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the Gaza Human Aid appeal during Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ operation attack on the innocent civilians was an intentional unethical decision. The programme failed to mention that Israeli commandos started shooting from the zodiac assault boats and the helicopters. Nor the fact that audio and video footage used had been provided by Israeli military intelligence and had been proven to be doctored, something the IDF have admitted to. Panorama claims: ‘Jane Corbin is a world renowned journalist with 20 years experience reporting for 'Panorama' on the on-going conflict in the Middle East. She is respected for her dedicated, impartial and balanced work from both sides of the conflict and approached this subject with the same level of fairness which she is known for.’ The BBC knits the stories, evaluates its own success, praises itself and inflates the ego of its staff even when they fail to adhere to codes of journalism. Jane Corbin's renown and experience does not immunise her from professional failure. If Corbin’s ‘Death in the Med’ report is an example of her ‘impartial and balanced work’ as Panorama’s response claims, it's about time that the BBC knows neither this production nor its team of defenders are up to a professional journalistic standard. The programme totally failed to cover the suffering of the Palestinian people or the kidnapping of 650 unarmed world citizens via the high-jacking of seven boats in International waters; and it failed to ask the important question of why the Port of Gaza has been a closed military zone for 42 years and why the people of Gaza can’t travel or trade with the world through their port? Panorama’s defence says: ‘we appreciate some viewers were unhappy about the nature of the video and audio footage we showed. We can assure you that a great level of detail was involved in selecting the footage we showed’ I wonder why all the selected footage has been chosen to support Israel’s side of the story? The BBC's Panorama programme said nothing about Israel’s kidnapping unarmed citizens, hijacking boats, confiscation of all passengers' possessions, forcing them all under military arms to go to Israel, detention and violent assault, imprisoning and repatriation – all considered an abuse of their human rights. Panorama’s response says: ‘All featured footage was meticulously double and cross checked to verify its accuracy’. The Panorama defence team seems to think that they are addressing an ignorant audience who do not know that missing information is as relevant and even more important than reported and highlighted ones, and the fact that ‘All featured footage was meticulously double and cross checked to verify its accuracy’ does not necessarily mean that such footage was not checked and double checked to support a bias perspective. The BBC was simply giving credibility to the Israeli military rhetoric and planting doubts in the minds of the public about the events on board the ‘Mavi Marmara’. It has done a grave injustice and further injury to the families of all those who were assassinated by the Israeli Navy seals on the 31st May. Panorama’s defence argues: ‘We also spoke to Hamas official Dr Ahmed Yousef in Gaza.’ What on earth has a Hamas official to do with the ship? Why was Jane Corbin trying to sprinkle some honey on the poison? Why she did not interview any of the British eye witnesses on board the Mavi Marmara? Why didn’t she interview or mention witnesses such as her colleagues, the journalists who were on board recording the events and witnessing the Israeli attack, and why she did not investigate Israel’s soldiers' confiscation of their cameras? The closing defence of Panorama says: ‘Overall we dismiss claims that this programme showed bias in favour of Israel. The programme's aim was to try to uncover what really happened on the Mavi Marmara. Panorama went to great lengths to give opposing sides the opportunity to air their views and we felt the programme accordingly carried out its analysis in a fair, impartial and balanced manner. We simply allowed viewers to make up their own minds in their own time based on what they saw and heard.’ I would say, as a journalist, and as a member of the public, that Panorama failed in its defence. Panorama did not give both sides the opportunity to air their views as it claims. Its analysis was neither fair nor balanced. The BBC claims that it ‘allowed the viewers to make up their own minds’ and I made up my mind that the standards of the BBC’s reporting are deteriorating in comparison with other national and international television channels. Its employees need refresher courses about balanced journalism and how to accept and admit its responsibility when failing to deliver unbiased news. For reference you can find the original BBC response here: BBC News - Panorama's Response. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/753/rebranding-iraq-playing-with-numbers-and-human-lives The soldiers of the US 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division hollered as they made their way into Kuwait. "We won," they claimed. "It’s over." But what exactly did they win? And is the war really over? It seems we are once again walking into the same trap, the same nonsensical assumptions of wars won, missions accomplished, troops withdrawn, and jolly soldiers carrying cardboard signs of heart-warming messages like "Lindsay & Austin ... Dad’s coming home." While much of the media is focused on the logistics of the misleading withdrawal of the "last combat brigade" from Iraq on August 19 - some accentuating the fact that the withdrawal is happening two weeks ahead of the August 31 deadline - most of us are guilty of forgetting Iraq and its people. When the economy began to take center stage, we completely dropped the war off our list of grievances. But this is not about memory, or a way of honoring the dead and feeling compassion for the living. Forgetting wars leads to a complete polarization of discourses, thus allowing the crafters of war to sell the public whatever suits their interests and stratagems. In an August 22 Washington Post article entitled "Five myths about the Iraq troop withdrawal", Kenneth M Pollack unravels the first "myth": "As of this month, the United States no longer has combat troops in Iran." Pollack claims this idea is "not even close" because "roughly 50,000 American military personnel remain in Iraq, and the majority are still combat troops - they're just named something else. The major units still in Iraq will no longer be called "brigade combat teams" and instead will be called "advisory and assistance brigades". But a rose by any other name is still a rose, and the differences in brigade structure and personnel are minimal. So what if the US army downgrades its military presence in Iraq and re-labels over 50,000 remaining soldiers? Will the US military now stop chasing after perceived terrorist threats? Will it concede an inch of its unchallenged control over Iraqi skies? Will it relinquish power over the country’s self-serving political elite? Will it give up its influence over every relevant aspect of life in the country, from the now autonomous Kurdish region in the north all the way to the border with Kuwait in the south, which the jubilant soldiers crossed while hollering the shrieks of victory? The Iraq war has been one of the most well-controlled wars the US has ever fought, in terms of its language and discourse. Even those opposed to the war tend to be misguided as to their reasons: "Iraqis need to take charge of their own country"; "Iraq is a sectarian society and America cannot rectify that"; "It is not possible to create a Western-style democracy in Iraq"; "It’s a good thing Saddam Hussein was taken down, but the US should have left straight after". These ideas might be described as "anti-war", but they are all based on fallacious assumptions that were fed to us by the same recycled official and media rhetoric. It’s no wonder that the so-called anti-war movement waned significantly after the election of President Barack Obama. The new president merely shifted military priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan. His government is now re-branding the Iraq war, although maintaining the interventionist spirit behind it. It makes perfect sense that the US State Department is now the one in charge of the future mission in Iraq. The occupation of Iraq, while it promises much violence and blood, is now a political scheme. It requires good public relations. The State Department will now supervise future violence in Iraq, which is likely to increase in coming months due to the ongoing political standoff and heightened sectarian divisions. An attack blamed on al-Qaeda in an Iraqi army recruitment center on August 17 claimed 61 lives and wounded many. "Iraqi officials say July saw the deaths of more than 500 people, including 396 civilians, making it the deadliest month for more than two years," reported Robert Tait in Radio Free Europe. Since the March elections, Iraq has had no government. The political rift in the country, even among the ruling Shi'ite groups, is large and widening. The disaffected Sunnis have been humiliated and collectively abused because of the misguided claim that they were favored by Saddam. Hate is brewing and the country’s internal affairs are being handled jointly by some of the most corrupt politicians the world has ever known. Washington understands that it needs to deliver on some of Obama’s many campaign promises before the November elections. Thus the re-branding campaign, which could hide the fact that the US has no real intention of removing itself from the Iraq’s military or political milieus. But since the current number of military personnel might not be enough to handle the deepening security chaos in the country, the new caretakers at the State Department are playing with numbers. "State Department spokesman P J Crowley said [a] plan would bring to some 7,000 the total security contractors employed by the government in Iraq, where since the 2003 US invasion private security firms have often been accused of acting above the law," according to Reuters. It’s important that we understand the number game is just a game. Many colonial powers in the past controlled their colonies through the use of local forces and minimal direct involvement. Those of us oppose the Iraq war should do so based on the guiding principle that foreign invasions, occupations and interventions in sovereign countries’ affairs are a direct violation of international law. It is precisely the interventionist mindset that must be confronted, challenged, and rejected. While it is a good thing that that thousands of American dads are now coming home, we must also remember that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi moms and dads never did. Millions of refugees from the US-led invasion are still circling the country and the Middle East. War is not about numbers and dates. It’s about people, their rights, their freedom and their future. Re-branding the army and the war will provide none of this for grief-stricken and vulnerable Iraqis. The fact is, no one has won this war. And the occupation is anything but over. Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/752/lansley-can-shove-his-white-paper Fifteen days on from the launch of the Con-Dem white paper ludicrously entitled Liberating The NHS, the reaction from most commentators and analysts has ranged from hostile to sceptical, while the TUC unions seem to be gearing up for a fight. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has more or less admitted to MPs that in throwing the white paper together he simply tore up the coalition deal, resulting in the unexpected decision to scrap the primary care trusts which the two parties had agreed to democratise. There had been "a presumption" that there would be elections to primary care trust boards, he told the health committee: "But when you examine that structure, it seemed better to dismantle it." Lansley might almost have been speaking of the NHS as a whole. If the white paper is carried through, the NHS in England is set to be broken up into a network of social enterprises and private providers "commissioned" by local consortia of GPs. Both sides of the medical profession stand to lose from this, along with the remainder of the one million NHS workforce - who face being forcibly transferred to social enterprises outside the NHS or to foundation trusts which seem certain to be redefined as "off balance sheet" and therefore no longer NHS employers. Hospital consultants and junior doctors have the most to lose in the immediate period ahead, being excluded from any of the decision-making, which will be exclusively in the hands and discretion of their primary care colleagues, but suffering from most of the cutbacks required to slash £20 billion from spending by 2014. The very title of "NHS consultant" hinges on the career structure launched with the NHS in 1948. Lansley's plan could dismantle it, reducing England's health-care system to another failed "market" of local free-standing hospitals and services like the system that collapsed at the end of World War II. But GPs too face massive problems from the white paper if they allow themselves to be saddled with the commissioning role. Perhaps the biggest problem is that they would be lumbered with driving through the quest for £20bn of "efficiency savings" - the biggest cutbacks ever imposed on the NHS. Once there are no faceless primary care trusts or fat NHS bureaucrats to blame for the closure of local services and popular hospitals, or for the sacking of hundreds of nurses, doctors and other staff, then GPs will become the focus of local public anger. The amount of extra cash they will be offered for the commissioning role will be enough to annoy campaigners - including GPs' own patients - who will see it as blood money for axing services. But it will probably not be that much in the context of the additional work and responsibility that GPs will face if they take on commissioning in addition to treating patients. The commissioning budget itself is also a trap for GPs - if they don't sign up, they can be compelled to join a consortium. Lansley told MPs ominously that "if we are to have the scope of commissioning there must be unanimity." How many GPs can really be confident of reaching unanimous agreement from now on with a group of colleagues they may well not have chosen to work with? We still don't now what the minimum, target, or maximum size of a consortium might be, how they are to be established or who will agree the final set-up. Current NHS figures suggest that if there are to be 500 or so consortiums this works out an average of around 80 GPs per consortium, and between two and five consortiums per primary care trust area (most of which are aligned with borough or county council boundaries). The new plan leaves plenty of room for conflicts of interest, disagreements over clinical issues and ways of working, personal antagonisms, historic rivalries, geographical anomalies and other problems to crop up. Consortia could quickly face divisive questions over which local services should be cut and which should stay - with some GPs on each side of the argument. What would happen if some, a minority, can't agree? There is also the issue of resources. Lansley is now talking about putting in place arrangements to deal with the so-called "insurance risk" that some consortiums will face a steep local increase in health needs and run out of money. But until now, the "risk pooling" was carried out throughout the NHS, which broke new ground in 1948 by establishing a system into which all taxpayers contribute according to their income, and from which all can access free treatment according to their health needs. Breaking up this system will widen England's already vast and widening health inequalities, while the localised control by GPs also opens up a near-certainty of an even more perverse "postcode lottery" with widely varying levels and availability of treatment from one area to the next. It now seems from the latest proposals that GPs could face financial penalties if their consortium overspends. The idea is to use peer pressure to hold down spending, but it would also mean a GP could stand to benefit or lose financially, depending on whether they (and their consortium colleagues) agree to or withhold some treatment - creating a conflict of interest between them and their patients. All this offers endless scope for tabloid exposés of GPs climbing into smart cars or pocketing big pay cheques while cutting local services or denying patients treatment. Add to this the fact that as commissioners GPs will have to carry the can for any and every failure in local systems, just as primary care trust and strategic health authority bosses do now. Every Mid Staffordshire-style failure in patient care will potentially be put down to the failure of the new system and the GPs running it. It doesn't have to be this way. The GPs could instead join with their hospital colleagues, the health unions, other public-sector unions, the pensioners and community campaigns across the country to tell Lansley (with precise anatomical details) where to shove his white paper. With all of the health professionals and most informed opinion ranged against him and no popular mandate for his policies, Lansley would struggle to get his Bill through Parliament. Even if he forced it through, any cock-ups or cash crises that result would be clearly his problem, and not the fault of the GPs. Lansley's white paper is a daft plan, with more holes than a pair of fishnets - what would be even dafter is to sign up to implement it. This article first appeared in the Morning Star newspaper. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/751/reformed-venezuelan-bank-law-separates-banks-and-media On Wednesday, in an extraordinary sitting, the National Assembly passed a reform to the Bank Law which affirms that media owners and stock holders cannot manage banks. The law also slightly changed what institutions the law applies to so that the Sovereign People’s Bank (BPS) can be more accessible to communities. In a related matter, the National Assembly approved the nationalisation of an insurance company. Previously, the BPS was regulated by its own internal rules; now it will come under Sudeban (the Superintendency of Banks and other Financial Institutions), will be incorporated into the National Financial System and will provide “socialised” banking where organised communities and individuals in communities can deposit, save, withdraw, and borrow from the bank, which will have “communal bank terminals” operated by locals. The Chavez government founded the BPS in October 1999 as a bank that provided non-financial services such as training and micro financing to communities, small family companies and cooperatives, as part of a strategy to fight poverty. Legislator Ricardo Sanguino said now the BPS would be able to cater to people who were previously excluded from the private banking system in what he called the “bankerisation” of the population. The first “communal bank terminal,” in this case run by the National Bank of Venezuela, opened recently in the large barrio of La Vega in Caracas, and the government hopes to have them across the country by next year. Members from the community can deposit up to BsF 1000 (US$ 232) at a time, and only other community members or organisations can withdraw, meaning that if members do not deposit or try to save, there will be little to withdraw. Sanguino said it was a way to develop the communal economy of the barrio. The bank will also provide very low interest loans (at below inflation rates) to communal councils, hopefully countering the bureaucracy that some communal councils have confronted when trying to get financial assistance from the government. Legislator Ricardo Capella, said the reformed law and new status of BPS means that Venezuelans will be able to more directly manage their loans, rather than having to resort to third person loans with high interest rates. Such loans could be used to help the individuals or organised communities solve economic problems or start up productive initiatives. Separation of Media and Financial Institutions The other key change was a modification of article 12 of the law so that directors, share holders, and administrators of communication, information, or telecommunication companies are henceforth prohibited from holding such positions in banks, and vice versa. The aim of the reform is to prevent bankers from using the media to hide or manipulate information for their own interests and against those of ordinary savers. “The Bank Law... has been reformed in order to prevent what happened with the Federal Bank, whose owner [Nelson Mezerhane] was also a shareholder in the Globovision channel, through which he offered perks for his bank and attacked the competition. We want to avoid the savers being the new victims,” Sanguino said. On 14 June the Superintendent of Banks took custody of the nation’s third largest bank, Banco Federal, after the bank failed to maintain minimum reserve levels and to meet legal quotas for productive sector investments. Shortly after the intervention in Banco Federal by the government, Globovision “began a media campaign that sought to victimise the [bank] owners,” said legislator Mario Isea. Isea explained that when information companies are controlled by bank owners, they can use deceptive offers to encourage citizens to deposit their savings in certain institutions. Mezerhane fled the country soon after the government announced the takeover of the bank. The National Assembly is also working on a new Law of Bank Activity and just recently passed the Stock Exchange Law, which decrees that stock brokers are not allowed to trade national public debt. Insurance Company Expropriated Yesterday the National Assembly also approved the forced expropriation of the insurance company Seguros la Previsora. “Those who were running this company, what they did was generate losses, fraud, and embezzle resources obtained from the... different premiums and... hospital, surgery, maternity, possessions, and vehicle insurance,” Sanguino said. He explained that for that reason, the state decided to intervene, and the National Assembly concluded that it could put the goods of the company and its affiliates to the service of the new National Socialist Network of Insurance and Mixed Social Assistance. The Network aims to guarantee “fair access” to such services and create strategic alliances between them and other state organisations. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/750/towering-lunacy No one is immune to it; in some respects it is the foundation of our lives. Magical thinking is a universal affliction. We see what we want to see, deny what we don’t. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, we burrow back into the darkness of our cherished beliefs. We will do almost anything – cheat, lie, stand for high office, go to war – to shut out challenges to the way we see the world. I spend much of my time confronting one aspect of denial: the virulent repudiation of environmental constraints by those who admit no challenge to their vision of the world. But it pains me to report that denial and wishful thinking are almost as common on the other side of the argument. I find myself at odds with other greens almost as often as I find myself fighting our common enemies. I’ve had bruising battles over a long series of miracle solutions supported by my friends: liquid biofuels, hydrogen cars and planes, biochar plantations, solar electricity in the UK, scrappage payments, feed-in tariffs. But no green delusion is as crazy as the one I am about to explain. The idea itself might not interest you. But the insight it gives into the filtering techniques human beings use is fascinating. So please bear with me while I spell out the latest madness. That there’s a problem is undeniable. As some of the papers published yesterday by the Royal Society show, farmland is in short supply, water shortages could impose ever tighter constraints on agriculture and there are grave questions about whether or not a growing population can continue to be fed. There are a number of plausible solutions. But none of them appeals to some environmentalists as much as the towering lunacy promoted by a parasitologist at Columbia University called Dickson Despommier. Despommier points out that while horizontal space for growing crops is limited, vertical space remains abundant. So he proposes that crops should be grown in skyscrapers, which he calls vertical farms(9). These, he claims, will feed the growing population so efficiently that ordinary farmland will be allowed to revert to forest. Vertical farms will feed the urban populations that surround them, eliminating the need for long-distance transport. You can, if you shield your eyes very carefully, see the attraction. But even a brief reading of Despommier’s essays reveals a few trifling problems. He proposes that 30-storey towers should be built to feed local people in places like Manhattan. You wouldn’t see any change from $100m, possibly $200m. The only crop which could cover such costs is high-grade cannabis. But a 30-storey hydroponic skunk tower would be quite hard to conceal. Without offering any explanation for this amazing claim, Despommier asserts that his system will require “no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers”. Perhaps he has never seen a fungal infestation in a greenhouse. And what does he expect the plants to grow on: water and air alone? He also insists that there will be “no need for fossil-fueled machinery”, which suggests that he intends to farm a 30-storey building without pumps, heating or cooling systems. His idea, he says, is an antidote to “intensive industrial farming, carried out by an ever decreasing number of highly mechanized farming consortia” but then he calls on Cargill, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and IBM to fund it. He suggests that “locally grown would become the norm”, but fails to explain why such businesses wouldn’t seek the most lucrative markets for their produce, regardless of locality. He expects, in other words, all the usual rules of business, economics, physics, chemistry and biology to be suspended to make way for his idea. But the real issue is scarcely mentioned in his essays on the subject: light. Last week one of my readers, the film maker John Russell, sent me his calculations for the artificial lighting Despommier’s towers would require. You can read them in full below the references on this article. They show that the light required to grow the 500 grammes of wheat that a loaf of bread contains would cost, at current prices, £9.82. (The current farm gate price for half a kilo of wheat is 6p.) That’s just lighting: no inputs, interest, rents, rates, or labour. Somehow this minor consideration - that plants need light to grow and that they aren’t going to get it except on the top storey – has been overlooked by the scheme’s supporters. I won’t bother to explain the environmental impacts. None of this has dented the popularity of Despommier’s dumb idea. It has featured in the New York Times, Time magazine, Scientific American, and on the BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel and NBC. Three weeks ago the Guardian published a supportive piece, whose author appeared to be unaware that nutrients don’t magically regenerate themselves in an agricultural system. Environmentalists love it. Treehugger.com claimed that vertical farming would “help us stop the use of pesticides, herbicides, oil-based fertilizers” and suggested, again unhindered by evidence, that it could produce a net output of energy. The Huffington Post said the idea is “so simple, so elegant that you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.” In my grouchier moments I feel that only those who grow some of their own food should write about food production. Horticulture, with its endlessly varied constraints and disappointments, is an excellent corrective to wishful thinking. But this is about much more than ignorance and inexperience. It’s about seeing something you like – local food for example – and allowing that idea to crowd out everything else. This is how we all live. In a recent essay in New Scientist the psychologist Dorothy Rowe explained that none of us can see reality. We have to construct it from our interpretation of what we perceive, tempered by experience. As a result, each of us exists in our own world of meaning. It is constantly at risk of being shattered by inconvenient facts. If we acknowledge them, they can destroy our sense of self. So, to ensure that we won’t be “overwhelmed by the uncertainty inherent in living in a world we can never truly know”, we shut them out by lying to ourselves. Though it challenges my sense of self, I am forced to accept that my allies can lie to themselves as fluently as my opponents can. This article first appeared in the Guardian newspaper on 17th August 2010. The article with full footnotes also appears on [Monbiot.com] http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/749/a-pint-of-blood-for-a-glass-of-milk-the-other-side-of-china's-economic-ascendancy China has been making news due to its powerful economic growth. The other side of this story, however, is to be found in the terrible conditions and low pay that many of its workers have to suffer. Here is one example of a milkman. On Saturday (31/7), it was officially announced that China is now the new No.2 economy in the world in terms of absolute GDP figures. The announcement comes as no surprise. In 2009 China was already close to surpassing Japan. If it were to continue at the present pace – a big if ‑ it could even take over the US sometime around 2025 according to the projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, and others. However, on the same of day of this earth-shattering announcement that has caught the attention of people around the world, some marvel and others worry. A Shanghai milkman, Jin Yousheng, has no time to follow this news as he has 300-plus bottles to deliver everyday. Earning 0.2 yuan every bottle, he takes home 2000 yuan a month to support his unemployed wife and two daughters. So when he cut his right foot on a piece of glass during his daily milk trip, bleeding profusely, he refused to go to the hospital and insisted on completing his route. This “sense of sacrifice” was not because of any “sense of duty” to make sure that all the workers get their daily milk before going out to work and “build socialism”, or that every child doesn’t miss out on their daily nourishment. No. This simple man merely said “I can’t go to the hospital, the customers will report it to my boss.” Milk has to be delivered because a milkman stands to lose 10 yuan ($1.5) for every complaint sent to his boss. Like a battle-weary soldier, he ripped off his underwear and used it to wrap his bleeding foot, and continued marching on to complete his mission, a bottle of milk at a time, leaving a trail of blood from one apartment to the other. He kept on until he could hardly breathe anymore due to blood loss. He was finally admitted to the hospital. The benevolent milk company, Shanghai-based Bright Dairy, expressed their heart-felt concern, asking the residents to be nicer to the milkmen and not threaten to report them for trivial matters. “The milkmen are serving thousands of households, they may be low paid, but they are not doing an insignificant job,” said Zhang, the company’s spokesperson. Jin, a native from Jiangsu province, might feel better knowing that he is doing an important job, a not “insignificant job”. But he is not. Mere words and phrases do not change the fact that he, with thousands of others milkmen, is low paid. Words of how important one’s job is don’t put a bowl of rice on the table. Suddenly, the significance of China’s ascendancy to the position of second largest economy in the world, and projected to be the first by 2025, is dwarfed by this tabloid-style story of a simple worker, who will most likely be forgotten the next day. Marx said that capitalism was born “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” Jin too has spilled his share of blood in helping the advance of Chinese capitalism. This article first appeared on Socialist Appeal. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/748/the-cordoba-house-house-of-terrorism-or-peace There has been recent controversy over the proposed construction of a 13 story Islamic Community Centre and Mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero, the site where the former twin towers once stood. The site is an old abandoned building that was damaged during the 9/11 incident when one of the plane’s landing gear went through the building’s roof. The plan is being led by what is called the ‘Cordoba Initiative’ and the future centre and mosque - if the plan goes through - will be called Cordoba House, named after the Cordoba period and region in Spain once ruled by an Islamic Caliphate where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and prospered in peace together. If one looks closer one can see that the story of the controversy over Cordoba House is the story of America’s relationship with Islam and its followers but the main focus of this issue is: should this plan go ahead and does the construction of an Islamic Centre and Mosque insult the people of New York and family members of the victims. The Cordoba plan is causing a great rift of tension in the US and New York especially among the family members of 9/11 victims and the Political Elite. Some of the victims of the family members see the plan as a ‘victory terrorist shrine’ for Muslim terrorists and extremists. The 19 hijackers of the four planes were Muslim and were linked and influenced by Al Qaeda which has their own disturbing vision for the future of Islam. Although the vast majority of people know there is a difference between moderate and ordinary peace loving Muslims and Muslim extremists both groups are still seen as part of the Islamic World. The name of Islam has been soiled by Al Qaeda’s actions and ever since 9/11 Muslims have had defend Islam and to remind the world that these were the actions of an evil group who are ignorant of the true teachings of Islam and Islam does not condone such acts. But you can understand why some would feel this sense of anger and disagree with the plan. Family members of the victims have been among some of the groups opposed to the plan and in an article in the Huffington Post by Rabbi Justus N. Baurd, Director for the Center for Multifaith Education Auburn Theological Seminary, are comments made by family members of victims in 9/11. Patrick Bahnken, head of a paramedics' union said: "By no means am I saying the folks trying to build this place are responsible for 9/11, but you still have to take a hard look at it and say, how will it look to have this in your face? It's like salt in the wound - a constant reminder of what they did to us on 9/11." Mike Burke, whose brother was a fireman killed in the attacks said: "I think the first concern for the families is that the religious beliefs of the terrorists who struck is going to have such a prominent place right around the corner from Ground Zero." Rosemary Cain, whose son was a fire-fighter killed in the attacks said: "I think it's despicable, and I think it's atrocious that anyone would even consider allowing them to build a mosque near the World Trade Centre ... That's sacred ground. It's a slap in the face." And from an angry participant in the May 25 Community Board meeting: "This is an insult, this is demeaning, this is humiliating that you would build a shrine to the very ideology that inspired the attacks of 9/11." One can understand why these individual opposed to the plan feel this sense of anger and there are many similar examples of actions causing insult to people; former Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi caused major outrage in China and the Korean peninsula when he visited Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine dedicated to soldiers who fought before and during World War II. Some of these soldiers were responsible for kidnappings of thousands of women used as sex slaves refereed to as ‘comfort women’. They were also responsible for the murder and rape of 300,000 men and women in Nanking, known In China as ‘the forgotten holocaust’. Recently Israel decided it would increase greater control over Islamic holy sites in Israel and this angered Muslims. Equally, one can imagine how some Orthodox Jews feel there is a Dome of Rock on top of the most sacred site in Judaism, the Temple Mount, where the previous 1st and 2nd Temples once stood that existed long before Islam. However the difference between Cordoba House and the other examples given is that it is a simple Islamic Centre and Mosque in a site two blocks away, about a three minute walk away from the World Trade Centre area. This phrase ‘sacred ground’ is being used a lot by the opposition and while most people would consider Ground Zero itself to be sacred, where is this imaginary boundary of the ‘sacred ground’? I personally feel that for those opposed to the plan their opposition is being mixed with their hatred or misunderstanding of Islam, like those among Arabs and Muslims who hate Jews because of the actions of Israel. It is very obvious Muslims are not well liked in the USA: according to polls 44 percent of Americans favour at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans and according to CNN polls 46% of Americans have negative views of Muslims, and 45% agree Islam encourages violence. Those opposed think the mosque is a memorial to the 19 hijackers but this is falsehood: it is simply to be a general centre and mosque for not only Muslims but the general public. Carl Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo businessman and running in a campaign for New York’s 2nd District in the House of Representatives said: “It’s no different than Japan asking to build a memorial to kamikaze pilots next to the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.” There is a big difference between a memorial dedicated to Kamikaze bombers and a place of worship for a religion that a handful of murders also happened to follow, combined with an Islamic centre for the purposes of community gatherings, prayer, eating, socialising and swimming. The five storey former Burlington Coat Factory building remained damaged and abandoned after 11th September 2001 until it was purchased in July 2009 by a Muslim real estate company by the name of Soho Properties for $4.85 million. The Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim advancement proposed the plan for a $100 million centre and mosque. Since the purchase the building has been used as a temporary prayer area, led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The purpose of the construction of Cordoba house is, as Imam Feisal says, to’bridge the great divide between Muslims and Americans’. It is also to symbolise peace, cooperation and to represent New York’s diversity and respect for all religious faiths. The plan has been supported by the majority of people in New York even by Republican Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg: “If somebody wants to build a religious house of worship, they should do it and we shouldn’t be in the business of picking which religions can and which religions can’t. I think it’s fair to say if somebody was going to try to on that piece of property build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming. And the fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it too. On the night of May 25th there was a public debate with members of Community Board 1 and they voted 29 to 1 for the construction, with 10 abstentions. Committee Chairman Ro Sheffe said: "It will be a wonderful asset to the community." Catholic priest Kevin Madigan of St. Peter's Church (located a block away) agreed with the plan stating: "I think they need to establish a place such as this for people of goodwill from mainline Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths so we can come together to talk,". Notable politicians against the plan include Sarah Palin and former House Majority leader and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Sarah Palin posted the following Tweet: "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate’’ Sarah Palin’s Tweet caused a slight media and blog storm over her misspelling of repudiate, but I don’t think any of us should be listening to a women who thought Africa was a country and apparently knows virtually nothing on foreign policy. There’s also her use of the phrase ‘Peaceful Muslims’, as if there are 1.5 billion Muslims out there in the world who are choosing between being a Doctor or an Engineer, or being a suicide bomber. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stated on his website that the plan should be banned, "…so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," and he actually has a good point. The Wahabi Royal Family of Saudi Arabia sees itself as the Vatican of the Islamic World and thinks it is justified in not allowing churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia simply because the two holiest cities in Islam (Mecca & Medina) are within its borders. There are some 1 million Catholics and many other religious groups in Saudi Arabia who don’t have the right to practise their faith. Not only is this against human rights but is even against Islam which allows non-Muslims the right to worship in Muslim lands. But that’s Saudi Arabia not America and Saudi Arabia, with a population of 22 million, does not represent the Islamic World. Also why only look at Saudi Arabia when there are churches in almost every other Arab or Muslim nation; recently a Coptic and an Evangelical church were completed in Abu Dhabi. Newt Gingrich gives a small history lesson about Cordoba House saying: "Cordoba House [is a] deliberately insulting term: It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world's third-largest mosque complex.’’ Maybe Mr. Gingrich should check the other part of the Cordoba during the Al-Andulus period, the one about it being a cultured period where Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars prospered together (although not always as equals). The Jews referred to it as a Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain where notable Jewish Scholars such as Judah Halevi and Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat contributed great works to Jewish historical and religious knowledge. Despite the groups for and against it, this plan is supported by the constitution of the United States in the form of the 2nd Amendment of Constitution guaranteeing ‘freedom of religion’. Former President John Tyler made a reference to Muslims in a letter: ‘’No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement ... The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran…’’ The aim of this Cordoba House is not to anger or insult the family members of the victims of 9/11 or to desecrate the sacred ground of World Trade Centre. September 11th was a tragic act and was one of the most terrible things to have happened in the history of the US. The aim is to build a bridge of understanding, peace and community between Muslims and Americans, a bridge which was once there but lost as a result of the actions of a group of misguided extremist thugs thinking they were true Muslims when they were not, thinking what they were doing was what Allah wills when it was not. I and the majority of Muslims are against such groups but we need to understand there are of course extremists and terrible people in every faith and society and we can’t forget that hate, racism, greed, poverty, disease and war have always occurred in human history and always will unless we band together. If this mosque and centre don’t go as planned what does this show about America’s views of Islam and its followers? The US is trying to win the hearts and minds of Afghans in the Afghanistan war but how can it achieve that if it won’t allow the construction of this Cordoba House in New York? We must not allow hatred and close-mindedness to judge the daily affairs in our communities wherever in the world. Ignorance by far is our greatest enemy in this world. You can read more about the Cordoba initative for yourself: Cordoba Initiative Website http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/747/a-clash-of-fundamentalisms In our previous articles we emphasized the ideological nature of today’s problematic Islamic ‘threat’. (See ‘Islam in the Western Imagination’ and ‘Urgent Threats of Yesteryear’.) Historically this ‘threat’ fits into an established tradition of hysterical propaganda campaigns – whether against ‘Indians’, ‘Negroes’ or ‘Reds’ -- which distort and exaggerate real and potential challenges to U.S. capitalism / imperialism so as to justify violence, state terror and wars of plunder. If the truth is ‘the first casualty’ in war then democracy is the second. Although framed by the U.S. in terms of defending (or spreading) ‘democracy’, today’s East-West conflict turns out to be not so much a Clash of Civilizations as an ideological Clash of Fundamentalisms. While hyping the threat of ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’, U.S. media and politicians conveniently fail to point out that their own outlook is based on the same kind of reactionary hard-shell fundamentalism as ‘Political Islamism’. Let’s call it ‘Political Christianism’. The Christian right in the U.S. aspires to the same kind of theocratic domination over government and peoples’ private lives as the Ayatollahs. Its members speak with the same hysterical absolutist certainty, believe the ends justify the means, and are willing resort to violent means – like murdering abortion-providers and bombing women's health centers. Both fundamentalisms offer identity and community to the disaffected masses while silencing opposition and bullying the hesitant through fear. The Zionists and the Jewish Religious Right are equally ruthless, and recently the U.S. Christian right has overcome its traditional anti-Semitism to form a reactionary pro-Israel, pro-U.S. alliance with right-wing, pro-Zionist Jewish organizations and leaders like the notoriously Jewish Senator Lieberman – much to the dismay of the vast majority of liberal, secular U.S. Jews. In this upside-down ideological world, the U.S. the domestic War on Terror seems to be aimed exclusively at hunting largely imaginary conspiracies among American Moslems and peace activists -- to the exclusion of actually-existing white racist militias and violent rightwing Christian networks which operate with impunity. Thus, when the domestic terrorist Tim McVeigh, an avowed member of a network of right-wing Christian militias, bombed the Oklahoma City Federal building killing 168 people and seriously injuring 800 more, there was no broad conspiracy investigation or round up of suspects. Today, Christian anti-Choice organizations openly incite violence by posting “Wanted” posters of ‘Murderers’ (abortion providers) on the Internet including the names and addresses of their families. The same groups regularly terrorize women's health clinics harassing personnel and prospective clients, all with impunity. And no one spoke of ‘terrorist conspiracies’ when the saintly Dr. Tiller was gunned down in his church on a Sunday by a member of one of these fanatical anti-abortion organizations. Under George Bush, the ‘threat of Islamism’ myth was evoked to justify the U.S.’s routine, brazen use of 'secret' torture on captured Moslems. Of course, this torture was ‘secret’ only to the U.S. media and public, not to the victims, their families and the rest of the world. Arabic broadcasters like Al Jazeerah gave U.S. torture-camps a big play all over the Moslem world. Machiavelli writes that cruelty is only useful as a deterrent to enemies if it is well-publicized. If letting potential 'enemy combatants' know the fate awaiting them if captured by the Americans was the goal of the U.S. torture program, the 'intelligence' community achieved it at the price of alienating a billion Moslems and eradicating any residual pro-American feelings dating from 11th September 2001. The irony is that such ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods have proven notoriously useless for actual intelligence gathering, since people will say anything under torture. Yet the torturers and their superiors in the Bush Administration who sullied America's reputation and who violated U.S. and international law remain unpunished. The new President was made to understand that the U.S. may need these guys in the future and so his Administration decided not to ‘look backward’ only forward! Forward to what? More useless ‘intelligence’? Further degradation of the image of progressive, liberal, Western democratic values exemplified by kidnappings, torture chambers and brutal concentration camps like Abu Graib? As we shall argue in our next piece, such extreme methods are evidence of desperation. With the oil-wars escalating and with U.S. and British voters less and less enthusiastic about paying for them, there is a need to ratchet up the pitch of anti-Moslem hysteria so as to ‘stay the course’ in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan and Yemen. Given this ideological drive, it goes without saying that knowledge of the history, politics, sociology and even the languages of these threatening 'others' would only get in the way. In fact, the CIA and State Department actually dismissed their staff of Arabic-language translators years ago, when 'human intelligence' was replaced by spy satellites which capture megabytes of important information in Arabic which the Americans can't read. Who said: 'Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make blind'? Are not ideological constructions like the 'terrorism' the blinders rulers put over their own eyes and the eyes of their subjects when they embark on a fatal course of hubris? Next article in series: Obama’s Dangerous Escalations http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/746/iranian-judges-defy-their-supreme-court-to-hang-teen URGENT ACTION: At the end of this article, see the action you can take to help save Ebrahim Eighteen year old Ebrahim Hamidi has been sentenced to death by a court in the Iranian city of Tabriz, on charges that he sexually assaulted another man. His accuser has since withdrawn the assault claim in a sworn affidavit, admitting that he lied under parental pressure. But Ebrahim is still scheduled to hang. Two years ago, the alleged sex attack victim was caught by Ebrahim damaging his father's crops. There had been a history of feuding between their families. A fist fight ensued, involving Ebrahim and some friends. During the fracas, the accuser's trousers slipped down 20cm, which he claimed was evidence of a sexual assault. Two hours later, Ebrahim and three friends were arrested on sodomy charges and tortured in a detention centre for three days. Ebrahim was hanged upside down by his legs and badly beaten. To stop this abuse, he signed a confession. There is no evidence that Ebrahim is gay or that a sexual assault took place; just the word of one person against another and a confession under torture, which was later retracted. At his first trial in 2008, Ebrahim was sentenced to hang on the the basis of the "knowledge of the judge" - a bizarre legal protocol whereby, in the absence of sufficient evidence to convict in sodomy and adultery cases, a judge is free to assess that a person is guilty. Ebrahim's death sentence is in defiance of the Supreme Court of Iran, which has twice rejected the local court's guilty verdict and ordered a re-examination of the case, citing errors in the legal investigation and an "issue of doubt." These two Supreme Court rulings against conviction and execution have been ignored by the judiciary in Tabriz. At the third and most recent trial in June, Ebrahim's three co-defendants were acquitted. He was not. Two of the five Tabriz judges cleared him of all charges but the other three upheld his execution order. Soon afterwards, a third appeal was submitted to the Supreme Court. Alas, at this crucial stage in his appeal, Ebrahim suddenly has no legal representation, which puts him in great peril. His lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, was forced into hiding after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He has since fled Iran, fearing that the government was planning to jail him over his highly publicised efforts to stop the stoning to death of a 43 year old woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, on charges of adultery. She, too, was sentenced by a Tabriz court. Without a lawyer, Ebrahim cannot further challenge the death sentence. If the Supreme Court this time confirms his execution, he could be hanged in a matter of days. Hanging in Iran is not by the trapdoor drop method, which breaks a person's neck swiftly. It is by sadistic strangulation. The noosed victim is hoisted by a crane, which causes them to writhe and convulse. They die a slow, painful death from asphyxiation. Ebrahim's case highlights the flaws and injustices of the Iranian legal system. It is further evidence that innocent people are sentenced on false charges of homosexuality, often after torture. To avoid the hangman's noose, Ebrahim's best hope is to persuade the Chief Justice of Iran, Sadeq Larijani, to veto his hanging. I have written to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, urging him to press the Chief Justice to halt Ebrahim's execution, annul the death sentence and order a re-trial. I hope MPs, and the public, will lobby the Iranian Ambassador, to save both Ebrahim and Sakineh. What you can do to help save Ebrahim Write a polite letter of protest to the head of the judiciary and to the supreme leader of Iran, urging Ebrahim's release: Head of the Judiciary Sadeqh Larijani Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh (Office of the Head of the Judiciary) Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri Tehran 1316814737, Iran Email: info@dadiran.ir or via the official website: http://www.dadiran.ir/tabid/75/Default.aspx First starred box: your first name; Second starred box: your family name; Third starred box: your email address Supreme Leader of Iran Sayed Ali Khamenei The Office of the Supreme Leader Islamic Republic Street - Shahid Keshvar Doust Street Tehran, Iran Email: via the official website: http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?p=letter (English) http://www.leader.ir/langs/fa/index.php?p=letter (Persian) Thank you, Peter Tatchell This article first appeared in the London Evening Standard, 6th August 2010 http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23864280-must-a-man-hang-because-he-is-accused-of-being-gay.do http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/745/smoke-on-a-bridge-lebanon-awaits-a-verdict Jamal is a Lebanese driver in his late 50’s. He appeared unshaven and terribly exhausted as he drove his old passenger van from the airport in Beirut to the Bekaa Valley. Although it was not a particularly arduous trip, it was made more grueling by the way Jamal drove, negotiating the elevation, the hectic traffic and the many army vehicles speeding by. In Lebanon, a sense of urgency always seems to prevail, even when there are no urgent matters to tend to. Jamal’s driving style has probably changed little through the successive Israeli wars and bombardments of Lebanon in past years (the last being the 2006 war, which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and killed hundreds of civilians). Although no bombs were falling now, Jamal could feel something in the air. “They are cooking something big,” he said, “but what it is, no one really knows for sure.” Jamal was referring to a joint historic visit to Lebanon by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on July 30. President al-Assad joined King Abdullah in his plane, where they stayed for a few hours and lunched with Lebanese leaders. The occasion marks the first visit by a Saudi King to Lebanon since 1957, and also al-Assad’s first trip to Beirut since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. While both these fact are important, what is most interesting is the fact that Syria and Saudi Arabia once stood at complete odds over the rivalry in Lebanon between two collations – the ruling March 14 Coalition and the one comprising the opposition under Hezbollah’s leadership, the March 8 Coalition. While Jamal was puzzled by the July 30 visit, he is hardly confused about where he stands. He remains unquestionably a fervent supporter of Hezbollah, the Shia group that led the Lebanese resistance that forced an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Many believe it also defeated the Israeli forces that attacked Lebanon in 2006, and see the group as a symbol of Arab resistance against Israeli threats. But Jamal, like many of Hezbollah’s supporters in Lebanon is not Shia. He is a Sunni. Jamal’s wife of many years died two months ago. He saw her as his life partner and his “only love in life.” As he spoke about her, he breathed in the smoke from his cheap cigarette - as if carbon dioxide might somehow help to rejuvenate memory. He held in the smoke as he began searching for something on his duck-taped cell phone. As if the frenzy on the road was not dangerous enough, Jamal then paused to locate a photo of his wife, a shy and kindly-looking woman in a white headscarf. She was 55 when she died of cancer. For a poor man like Jamal, medical treatment would normally be confined to whatever public hospitals had to offer. But private hospitals subsided by Hezbollah made it possible for Jamal to ensure that his wife received the best in medical technology. Although she eventually succumbed to her illness, she was shielded from pain under the care of competent and respectful doctors and nurses. No, there should be no ‘eureka’ moments here. Jamal’s passionate support of Hezbollah is not simply self-serving. He is very clear on his ideological affiliations and is not hesitant to point out their shortcomings. Also, if he was seeking personal benefit, he would surely be driving a better car, wearing a nicer shirt, and smoking fancier cigarettes. “Hezbollah made it possible for a man like me to be proud again,” he said. According to him, Hezbollah’s heroism in the battle field, and unconditional social services provided mostly to the poor in Beirut and elsewhere restored his pride and dignity. But Jamal himself is a self-declared Arab-Nationalist, a Nasserite even. Unlike other cities, Beirut doesn’t convey one overall impression and experience. The photos of the war martyrs - with most recent victims having newer and larger posters - are mixed with many signs of globalization. While Jamal’s car seemed commonplace in West Beirut, in East Beirut, the worn-out vehicle seemed to fight for an ever-shrinking space among newer models. But Jamal didn’t sound intimidated or disturbed by his comparative poverty. His language is revolutionary, laden with terminology affiliated with various ideological brands: Islamist, Socialist, Pan-Arabist. There are many like him in Lebanon, emboldened by the impressive victories of the resistance, and the failures of all who attempted to co-opt it. Still, cultural differences remain. There are many others, who, although Arab, prefer to speak in French. Indeed, the conflict in Lebanon cannot be reduced to mere groups and individuals, but is also a cultural clash. The party that will eventually prevail will ultimately define Lebanon: as an Arab country or some other imagined entity. There is much haste here, as the clash is expected, once more, to come to head. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which was set up in the wake of Hariri’s assassination is expected to reveal its findings soon. It is feared that the investigation will blame “rogue elements” of Hezbollah for the killing, as disclosed by the leader of Hezbollah himself, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. Many here believe that STL has been largely compromised and politicized, and is a Western-Israeli platform intended to destabilize Lebanon and extract concessions from Hezbollah. The outcome of its investigation is likely to also be political. Many are worried, although some are comforted by the fact that Hezbollah is just too strong to be undermined by STL’s findings. “This bridge is the highest in the Middle East,” Jamal said proudly, as we crossed the massive and very high concrete edifice. I nodded admiringly, thinking he was proud simply of an architectural achievement. He continued, “Israel destroyed it in the war, and two months ago it was re-opened. It is much more impressive than before.” “They destroy, we rebuild,” he reminisced, words that accentuate the wisdom of generations. “This is what resistance is all about.” He pulled in another deep breath of smoke, and held it in for a while. Then he slowly released it, as we finally crossed the bridge. Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/744/an-interview-with-yvonne-ridley TP: In September 2001, whilst working in Afghanistan as a journalist the Sunday Express, you were taken captive by the Taliban and held for 11 days. After your release you mentioned having struck a deal with your captors, promising to read the Qur’an and study Islam if released. You kept your promise and have said that doing so changed your life. Could you please explain how your study of Islam and the Qur’an changed you as a person? YR: What a lot of people don't realise is that I was a practising Christian, in as much as I went to church (St James' in Piccadilly) twice a month, so in terms of my Faith there wasn't a dramatic change. I am still praying to the same God and, with the main exception being the Holy Trinity concept, not a great deal has changed in my beliefs. I'm just much more disciplined and have a different methodology of worshipping God. However, my lifestyle has changed dramatically. On a superficial level, the alcohol, cigarettes and pork have gone as did casual relationships and a rather hedonistic lifestyle. Now I feel much more empowered as a woman and, I have a self respect for myself as a woman that I did not have before. My dress, for instance, is much more modest ... my little black dress has gone and now I wear a big black dress or clothes which do cover me. TP: Following your conversion to Islam in 2003, I believe you wrote an article in which you stated that prior to your conversion ‘[you] used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures and now [you] look at them as multi-skilled, multi-talented, resilient women whose brand of sisterhood makes Western feminism pale into insignificance’. Having experienced life from the perspectives of both a Muslim and a non- Muslim woman, what did you find to be the main differences and in which ways did you feel more empowered as a Muslim woman? YR: I could write acres on this. Essentially Muslim women are more supportive of each other and really encourage each other to do well, often stepping in to assist with child care and the running of a house to free up a sister's time to study and progress in her career. My experience of Western women - and it is dangerous to generalise, so please bear this in mind - is that once they crash through the glass ceiling they then seal it up again. I've also experienced Western women stealing their so-called friends' boyfriends and having no shame moving in on married men. I began to realise that while serious feminists would never betray their sisters, the concept of sisterhood would be brushed aside by many women. I've not seen this sort of betrayal in the Muslim community which prompted me to say that the brand of sisterhood I saw in Islam made Western feminism pale into insignificance. TP: I believe you visited Guantanamo in early 2009 with filmmaker David Miller. What was the reason for this visit and how did the experience affect you? YR: I wanted to make a documentary and hooked up with David to make the film: 'GUANTANAMO: Inside the Wire.' The whole experience was very disturbing even though this was not the first maximum security prison I'd visited. I still reflect on those four days in quieter moments and am haunted by the fact that US President Barak Obama did not close it down when he said he would. I think one of the most disturbing aspects was the absolute pride that virtually every military person felt over serving in the prison. They seemed oblivious to the fact that most of the civilised world is repelled by its existence and what it represents. TP: You are a patron of Cageprisoners- a London based NGO whose stated aim is to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror. Could you say a little about how the organisation works to achieve its aims and how do you respond to claims from certain individuals that the organisation champions the rights of some alleged Al-Qaeda members? YR: Cage began almost by accident rather than design and soon became the first port of call for journalists, lawyers and other human rights organisations who needed more information about Guantanamo. It's significance increased and it became an important NGO in terms of exposing the weaknesses and hypocrisy of the War on Terror. It does champion human rights of Muslim prisoners. When someone is drowning you go in to save them- you don't ask them about their faith, ideology or beliefs beforehand. Kidnapping, rendition, torture, water-boarding are wrong regardless of what an individual is alleged to have done. But what I would point out is a statistic which does haunt me - less than five per cent of the men in Guantanamo were picked up in battlefield conditions and more than 95 per cent of those who are in Guantanamo, or who have passed through Guantanamo, were not engaged in terrorism. I think they would all have welcomed their day in court to prove this. TP: In November 2008 you travelled to Afghanistan together with journalist and film producer Hassan al Banna Ghani in order to produce a documentary focussing on the plight of female prisoners held in US prisons on Afghan soil. What prompted the idea to make such a documentary and what did you discover? YR: This documentary focussed mainly on Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a mother of three children who was kidnapped, tortured and renditioned to Bagram where she was held for several years. My documentary includes several graphic eye witness accounts of people who saw her in Bagram and led to an admission by the US that they had held a woman in Bagram. They had denied this for some months even though I gave them her prison number. Sadly, the confession by the US stopped short of the fact that prisoner 650 was Dr Aafia Siddiqui. During my investigations Dr Aafia emerged in Afghanistan in a bizarre story that was simply not credible despite details by the US. I went with Hassan to Ghazni and interviewed Afghan eye witnesses who gave a completely different account. My investigation also exposed holes in the US account of the subsequent shooting of Dr Aafia Siddiqui in the police cell in Ghazni and as a direct result, the prosecution had to admit they had no scientific evidence to back up their story. TP: As co-founder of the organisation Viva Palestina, one of whose initiatives has been to organise convoys to deliver aid to Gaza following the Israeli attack on the area in December 2008, how do you feel about the Israeli government’s blockage of Gaza and what options are open to people in Britain wishing to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and break the blockade? YR: Viva Palestina was born out of the frustration of ordinary people who realised that the politicians had delivered nothing in 60 years of promises to the Palestinian people. The concept has grown and evolved into a global movement and will be a significant tool in the demise of the apartheid state of Israel, just in the same way that the Apartheid State of South Africa finally collapsed. When the people lead the leaders will have to follow or they will become irrelevant. Great moments in history are not delivered by politicians but by ordinary people who simply snap and take the initiative. TP: You recently spoke out, at a public meeting in Newcastle, about the recent rise in Islamophobia and the demonisation of Muslims. Last month there was a conference in London called ‘Stop Islamophobia', which was organised by the Stop the War Coalition and the British Muslim Initiative. What do you believe are the main causes behind the rise in Islamophobia and what do you consider to be the most effective way of tackling this problem by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike? YR: There are several strands to Islamaphobia and I would say the recession, poverty and increased unemployment has exacerbated the situation, just as the recession in the 1930s brought in a wave of anti-semitism. Unfortunately, poor and desperate people with little hope begin to listen to voices about who is to blame for their condition. In the 1930s, Jewish people became the targets and today it is the Muslims. The propaganda is the same- the vile and crude use of cartoons, tabloid stories out to shock, but which are very short on facts and, politicians playing to the racists. Added to this, are certain elements of the Left who I call the 'New Athiests'. These are secular fundamentalists who despise religion of any kind and will try to undermine and brief against practising Muslims, who they often refer to as Islamists. Then there is the rise of the Far Right, which is inter-linked to the two above. The rise of the English Defence League in less than 12 months is astonishing and frightening. One of the best ways the Muslim community can defend itself against these attacks is by joining forces with their supporters, and this is where UK Muslims fare better than their European counterparts. They have developed a mutual love and understanding with non Muslims in the British anti-war movement. Sadly some communities lack confidence and are afraid, making the mistake of hiding, avoiding confrontation and keeping a low profile. This fear and intimidation will continue until they learn to stand up and unite with their supporters. What a lot of people forget is that many Muslims are second and third generation- Britain is their home and they have no where else to go. TP: Having seen life from both a Muslim and a non-Muslim perspective, what do you believe is the best way to ensure that Muslims and non-Muslims coexist peacefully and to avoid the propaganda put forth by political/religious extremists and certain daily papers that fuel the flames of discontent? YR: It's so simple. We have to keep talking and finding strength in unity. I was at a meeting in Birmingham the other day where hundreds of angry residents came together and challenged West Midlands Police over the deliberate targetting of Muslim areas by the installation of CCTV cameras. This anger brought people of faith and no faith together and they were formidable. The Assistant Chief Constable stood there and apologised saying the use of the cameras had been suspended. She was then told this was not good enough and that no one in the community would open dialogue with the police until every single camera was removed, including 72 secret cameras used by anti-terror police. Here was a beautiful example of community cohesion, integration and unity and it was achieved by all these people coming together and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their Muslim neighbours. When the people lead, the leaders really do become irrelevant! TP: What comment can you make in light of members of the French national assembly voting overwhelmingly in favour of draft legislation to ban the face covering veil (Niqab), and the comments from conservative MP Phillip Hollobone’s amounting to a refusal to meet with any constituent who refuses to remove her veil. (Mr Hollobone has also recently put forward a private members bill before parliament proposing a ban on certain forms of the veil - the ‘Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill’). Is a dangerous precedent being set for the further criminalising of ethnic minorities? YR: In my capacity as President of the European branch of the International Muslim Women's Union, I wrote several letters following Phillip Hollobone's disgraceful comments. First I wrote to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, asking him to launch an investigation into why one of his MPs would discriminate against a woman on the grounds of what she wore. Muslims are often accused of not integrating or partaking in the democratic system in the UK - what is more democratic than going to see your democratically elected MP to raise an issue which concerns you? Mr Hollobone has, illegally in my view, withdrawn this right from a minority of the electorate in his constituency. Therefore I've reported him to both the Parliamentary Standards Committee and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I've also reported him to the Chief Constable of London Transport Police because Mr Hollobone works as a special constable and any police officer holding and publicly expressing such discriminatory views in the way he did would be suspended pending an investigation. The French national assembly in their drive for equality have scored an own goal by discriminating against a tiny minority of the female population. In the end, this legislation will fail and fall because it will eventually find its way to the European Court of Human Rights and will be exposed for what it is - a piece of legislation which is racist and Islamophobic in content. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/743/unveiling-the-errors-of-forced-conformism France's National Assembly struck a supposed blow for women's rights this week by presuming to lay down what form of female attire is lawfully acceptable. This contradictory exercise gained an overwhelming majority of 335 votes to one for a Bill, proposed by Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Curie and backed by the conservative governing parties, that would prohibit "la dissimulation du visage" - covering the face. If the Bill, which has still to be approved by the Senate, is carried into law, women who appear in public with their face covered would be fined 150 euros or be sent to citizenship classes. Their husbands or fathers could also face a year in jail and a 30,000 euro fine if found guilty of obliging them to wear the veil, and the fine could double in the case of an under-age girl. There is no mention of Islam or Muslims in the Bill, but no-one harbours any doubt that it is targeted at the full-face veil - niqab - and the all-enveloping burqa worn by a tiny minority of France's Muslim women. Nor should anyone fail to see that this measure, in common with many being pushed across Europe, is designed to enforce conformism by Muslims. Alliot-Curie asserted that veils "call into question the idea of integration, which is founded on acceptance of the values of our society." At the very least, this begs the question: "What are those values?" Do they include tolerance, open-mindedness and respect for other cultural traditions, or do they boil down to a declaration that minorities must curb their differentness to match the template of what the majority regards as acceptable? The latter proposition is fraught with difficulty since there is no single model acceptable to all French citizens. The French revolution that gave the world "liberty, equality, fraternity" also contributed the political divisions of left and right from who sat where in the national assembly. Since 1789 the left, whatever its differences, evokes "republican" values such as secularism, democracy and equal rights, while the right espouses clericalism, monarchy, authoritarianism and a tendency to collaborate with invaders to safeguard its privileges. Republican secularism arose from working people's battles against the reactionary Catholic church which worked hand in glove with the aristocracy to suppress social progress. This was expressed most vividly through the imposition of a swingeing tax on the surviving population of Paris, following the post-Commune slaughter of working people, as a penance for daring to rise up against God. The penance took the form of the construction of the Sacre Coeur church on the heights of Montmartre overlooking the city as an injunction to Parisians not to repeat their revolutionary blasphemy. These anti-clerical roots run deep, but secularists have to realise that the monster of Catholic church domination in the 18th-century has no threatening parallel in the presence of 5 million Muslims in present-day France. The official position of the left opposition in the National Assembly - the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Greens - was to abstain on Alliot-Curie's Bill, although some, including one Communist Andre Gerin, voted in favour. Gerin had previously headed a parliamentary commission to study the possibility of banning the public wearing of the burqa or niqab and his report provided the basis for the government Bill. French CP spokesman Roland Muzeau articulated his party's position as "firmly condemning" the burqa, while denouncing the government Bill as a "political move that threatens national unity." He also pointed out that regional elections will take place in a few weeks, accusing the right of "growing some weeds in its electoral garden by waving the red rag of the burqa, which is worn by fewer than 2,000 women in France." But the collective failure of the parliamentary left to take a firm principled stance on the right of women to decide for themselves what they wear will serve as an encouragement for the government and the racist far-right Front National. This is not an isolated instance of Islamophobia in French politics. There was an earlier instance of Muslim girls being ordered to abandon the hijab - a scarf covering their hair - on pain of being banned from studying in state schools. Again this was carried through on the basis of supposed "republican values" to defend the secular basis of state education. Ironically, this has driven many Muslim families to send their girls to private schools run by Catholic organisations, serving only to erect a further barrier between working class communities. France's decision to emulate Belgium in banning face veils, the hostility of the Dutch Freedom Party to Islam, likening the Quran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, the Swiss ban on building minarets and the ongoing campaigns in Belgium and Spain to criminalise the veil are creating an atmosphere of apprehension among Muslims. None of us has to admire any form of dress justified by religious belief, but we should be capable of seeing the reality when a minority is being singled out for special negative treatment. Above all, the labour movement must reject all attempts to hijack and misuse our republican principles of secularism and gender equality to fuel an anti-Muslim witch-hunt. This article first appeared in the Morning Star http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/742/canadian-and-us-unions-offer-solidarity-to-threatened-mexican-workers Independent trade unions in Mexico are facing a crisis. Their brothers and sisters from Canada and the US came together on June 20 in Toronto to strategize about how to support them. Leaders of Mexican electrical workers, miners and telecommunications unions gave dramatic accounts to the 200 participants at the meeting about the way the Mexican government, acting in complicity with business, block union democracy, in continuous violation of Mexican and international labour law. Physical force and bureaucratic obstacles are routinely used to intimidate workers. Worse, most Mexican workers are represented by shadowy unions that enforce employer protection contracts. Protection contracts severely limit workers’ ability to exercise their labour rights, although the workers involved rarely know who their union representatives are or get a look at the collective agreement. It is very difficult for workers to throw out a company union and organize a democratic one in its place. The independent unions say that current government proposals for labour law reform would turn a difficult challenge into a nearly impossible one. Martín Esparza, General Secretary of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME), described the attack on his union by the Mexican government last October, using armed forces to raid hundreds of workplaces of the publicly-owned electrical utility Central Light and Power Company (Luz y Fuerza del Centro). More than 44,000 workers were instantly fired, and the union dissolved by presidential decree, on the pretext that the workers had too many privileges and were not productive. The union believes that the government’s real objective was to sell off the public asset and let foreign providers use the electrical and fibre-optic infrastructure for TV and Internet services. Eight months into the conflict, tens of union leaders are on a hunger strike, desperate to get the government to change its position. Napoleón Gómez, the elected head of the Miners’ Union (SNTMMSSRM) has been living in Canada in exile for the past four years, since being thrown out of office by the Mexican government. He explained the need for international support for his union in the long strike at the Cananea mine, which the government has made repeated violent efforts to break. Cananea is owned by the powerful consortium Grupo Mexico, a company with close links to the ruling PAN political party. The obstacles facing groups of workers wishing to form a democratic, independent union were described by representatives of the Telephone Workers’ Union (STRM). The union is supporting young call centre employees at the Atento company. Workers allege that the company has used intimidation, sexual harassment, firings and transfers to break up their organizing efforts. Shortly before the local labour board announced a representation vote for July 2, five other unions have suddenly appeared on the ballot, disputing the right to represent the workers. Most of these unions have never been heard of before. The Authentic Labour Front (FAT), a democratic union that has struggled for 50 years to break down the barriers to free association, agrees with the STRM that labour authorities typically conspire with employers to thwart a victory for independent unions by confusing, intimidating and even physically attacking workers. Top leaders of Canadian and US unions present at the Toronto strategy session, along with their Global Union Federation counterparts and social movement organizations, were united in their commitment to their Mexican sisters and brothers under attack. In a joint statement, they called for non-intervention of the government in the internal affairs of unions, and the unconditional recognition of their democratically elected leadership. The Canadian unions have already moved forward to establish a mechanism to coordinate a program of action among the three countries of North America. Recognizing that workers in all three countries have many issues in common, the coordinating body will not only work to restore labour rights in Mexico, but also to mobilize support for the union issues in the US and Canada. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/740/australia-and-asylum-seekers-another-offshore-solution As immigration remains a politically contentious and emotive issue, particularly in industrialised nations, the numbers of people forcibly displaced around the world have been rising, especially in the face of protracted conflicts, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Australia is one of many nations that have ratified the Refugee Convention, but its record and policies over the past decade in fulfilling its humanitarian obligations to offer international protection to those facing insecurity and persecution has been the subject of international criticism. The latest government proposal begs closer scrutiny. In the wake of 75 boats and 3532 asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia’s shores since the beginning of the year, the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced on the 6 July that she had discussed the possibility of establishing a regional refugee processing centre with José Ramos-Horta, the President of East Timor. According to the Australian Department of Immigration, the Australian government “is in discussions with East Timor, New Zealand and UNHCR about establishing a regional processing centre for the purpose of receiving and processing irregular entrants to the region, including those who are intercepted trying to reach Australia by boat.” This Australian initiative was hastily announced with the aim of neutralising Australian public opinion about asylum seekers and restricting them from reaching the vast shores of Australia. In a renewed hardline approach to immigration, Gillard said, “Arriving by boat would just be a ticket back to the regional processing centre.” The Department of Immigration clarified: “Those arrivals sent to the centre and found to be refugees would be resettled in a third country, but not necessarily Australia. People deemed not to be refugees would be sent home.” Regional solidarity around Australia’s proposal has been markedly absent and on 12 July the parliament of East Timor passed a resolution unanimously rejecting Australia’s proposal for a refugee processing centre to be located in their country. Australia introduced a mandatory immigration detention policy in 1992, but it was the conservative Liberal government, under John Howard, which launched the notorious ‘Pacific Solution’ in 2001. Australia subsequently banished asylum seekers to Australian immigration centres on small Pacific Islands, such as Christmas Island, Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was elected with a Labor government in 2007, worked to repair Australia’s international humanitarian reputation, promising a more humane approach to asylum seekers and the closure of offshore detention centres. This policy reform received a setback in April this year when the Rudd government abruptly announced an immediate suspension on the processing of all new applications from asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, for three months and six months respectively. The Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network responded that the suspension was based on a serious misreading of the situations in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and “undermines the efforts of our organisations and other civil society organisations in the Asia Pacific region who strive to convince our governments of the importance of ratifying the Refugee Convention and protecting the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees in our countries as a matter of good international policy and as a matter of law.” The processing of Sri Lankan asylum applications has now resumed, but the suspension of Afghan asylum applications remains. Such draconian measures would lead one to believe that Australia is facing an influx of illegal immigrants on a massive and unmanageable scale. According to UNHCR, Australia received 6,170 asylum applications in 2009, while the United States received 49,020, France received 41,980 and the United Kingdom 29,840. In ‘2009 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons’, the UNHCR reported that “Developing countries were host to four fifths of the world’s refugees. Pakistan was host to the largest number of refugees worldwide (1.7 million), followed by the Islamic Republic of Iran (1.1 million) and the Syrian Arab Republic (1.05 million). Pakistan also hosted the largest number of refugees in relation to its economic capacity with 745 refugees per 1 USD GDP per capita, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (592) and Zimbabwe (245).” Putting to rest any delusions about Australia being swamped by asylum seekers, “the main destination for new asylum seekers worldwide with more than 222,000 asylum claims registered in 2009” was South Africa. Such disproportionate responsibility on developing countries is set to continue with Australia’s persistence in focussing on East Timor in its plans for a refugee processing centre in a third country. East Timor had a long and bitter struggle for its independence, achieved in 2002, during which more than 100,000 Timorese died. It is still grappling with the process of national healing and reconciliation and remains one of Asia’s poorest nations with still developing infrastructure and high level of dependence on international aid. John Sinnott, Secretary of the Australia-East Timor Association in Victoria, said he “was appalled” by the government’s announcement, which was informed by a discussion with the President of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta, rather than a relevant member of the country’s government. It was “not fair to the government or people of East Timor to not have the issue discussed properly”, he added, and would put the East Timor government in a difficult position as Australia is an important aid donor. But the crux of the Australian government’s argument for a regional refugee processing centre is that it will effectively deter people smuggling in the Asia Pacific region. The Australian Prime Minister reasoned: “Why risk a dangerous journey if you will simply be returned to the regional processing centre?” In response to the question of whether a regional refugee processing centre would be likely to diminish people smuggling, Eileen Pittaway, Director of the Centre for Refugee Research, University of New South Wales, Australia, replied: “Not at all. I have worked in refugee camps and what people are telling me is that they are so desperate, the camps are so appalling and the persecution is so bad that they will do anything to get out. Entire extended families will try and put together items of old jewellery, anything of value, in order to send one member of the family on a boat. There is an incredible sense of desperation. Put it this way; I would do it.” Tougher border control measures is also at odds with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which claims that global efforts to combat migrant smuggling are incorrectly focussed on detaining and deporting individual migrants. It advises that “Unless the organised crime groups who smuggle migrants are dismantled, migrant smugglers will continue to operate and quickly adapt their methods and routes to changing circumstances such as improved border controls or changes in visa regimes. Similarly, where efforts are focussed primarily on strengthening border controls, the effect is often to increase demand for smuggling services to enter countries illegally.” “The plan to establish a place for processing political asylum seekers is not the way to reduce human trafficking or refugees”, confirmed a spokesman for the Human Rights Working Group (Indonesia), “We see the establishment of the refugee processing centre as a way of transferring Australia’s international responsibilities in the handling of refugees, and we refuse the plan if it is only to divert Australian international responsibility.” As issues of human rights are more widely discussed across the Asia Pacific and national and regional human rights mechanisms are being developed, such as the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), Australia is failing to live up to the humanitarian standards expected of a nation which ratified the Refugee Convention in 1954. Clearly the forthcoming Australian Federal Election on the 21 August is an influential factor. However, rather than imposing its neo-colonial will on developing nations in the region and pursuing a proposal that will keep asylum seekers off its shores and do nothing to combat people smuggling, a more convincing national commitment to the human rights of refugees would pave the way for a more constructive regional dialogue. Australia could begin with taking full responsibility for accommodating and assessing asylum applicants on its own sovereign territory, as other Asia Pacific nations do, and cease its breach of the Refugee Convention in regard to non-discrimination and arbitrary detention by resuming the processing of applications from Afghan asylum seekers. Attention should also be directed to improving the conditions and human rights of those asylum seekers in detention in Australia. Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney claims: “Thousands of asylum seekers remain in detention in Christmas Island, Darwin and Curtin. They are already becoming ‘factories of mental illness’ as the suicide and self-harm incidents become weekly if not daily events.” In terms of a regional contribution on the issue, “Australia should promote its co-operation for capacity building to Indonesia’s officers or other countries regarding the international responsibilities of each country toward political asylum seekers or refugees”, Human Rights Working Group (Indonesia) suggests, “We think this is more important to do.” http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/739/italy-vendola-provides-hope-for-the-left Amid the political convulsions that are hitting Berlusconi’s government and producing the first real fall in legitimacy for the executive since 2008, the centre-left coalition finds it difficult to capture this outflow in consensus to consolidate its own position. Surprisingly enough, the internal difficulties within Berlusconi’s party, as well as the emergence of new judiciary scandals involving some of his closest collaborators, are by no means giving oxygen to a lacklustre Democratic Party (PD in the Italian acronym), the biggest of the opposing coalition. The opinion pools are quite clear in indicating a further erosion of trust in its leaders and the overall assessment of the organisation is dismal. The general perception confirms this: both in TV and private conversations alike, PD is treated as a synonym of joke. In this general state of apathy in which the left has lied for quite some years already, it would be difficult to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, and if yet only in the making, the challenge launched by Nichi Vendola constitutes the only promising laboratory within the Italian left. The enthusiasm generated around his figure and his proposals speaks for itself. Vendola, as mentioned previously on these pages (http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/669/italian-elections-more-of-the-same) has been recently re-elected as governor of the populous southern region Apulia, but this has not impeded him from engaging with national politics. His assets are well-known: a talented speaker, by mixing poetical and cultivated language in his speeches, he manages to connect with the bulk of left-wing voters more directly than any of the uninspiring leaders of the centre-left coalition. Nevertheless, Vendola has the capacity to project and extend the range of his politics beyond the boundaries of the small circle of radicals from which he originates: the jargon and the cultural references he employs are intended to reach out not only the classic constituencies of the left, but to get in touch with the people as such, without falling in the temptation to clumsily imitate the right. At the same time, he recognises the necessity to create a broad coalition, but on a solidly left-anchored political agenda. In this sense, despite an ally of the centre-left, he is a fierce criticiser of the grey politics of the PD and its elitist nomenclature. This strategy collocates him in a privileged position, as the state of political decadence of the Democratic Party is clear even to its own voters. Despite he intensified his political activism in the last few months by releasing several interviews to TV programmes and newspapers, and by participating to crucial national happenings, his bid for the leadership of the centre-left coalition has been made explicit only last week. The occasion has been the national meeting of the so-called ‘fabbriche di Nichi’ (factories of Nichi) held in Bari from July 16 to 18, where almost 2,000 people have gathered. The factories of Nichi were born a few months ago as a type of collectives spread on the territory with the precise purpose of promoting the second candidacy of Vendola, but external to the party apparatuses. After the regional elections, their role was upgraded to cultural and political laboratories for the construction of ‘good politics’, and have come to cover a vast part of the national territory. In other words, the ‘fabbriche’ are spaces for discussion and political education where people from different backgrounds, but disillusioned with the PD, come together. Vendola has made clear that the factories have to remain external to electoral politics as such, and has ascribed them the task to provide the intellectual wherewithal from which the left should draw. The move is terribly smart and derives from the realisation that a political project can hardly be successful if it does not rely on a network of movements and associations. However, in a conjuncture in which party politics is seen with suspicion both for an internalised diffidence of post-modern fashion among social movements and for the objective low reputation that politics enjoys in Italy, Vendola has preferred to provide himself a space where people can act politically without falling in the disenchantment that Italian politics brings with itself. Yet much road remains to be made. It is all but certain that the PD will allow a process of primary elections within the coalition to choose the next candidate to Prime Minister. And even in case Vendola will obtain the leadership, problems regarding alliances and political programmes are likely to surface very quickly. For the time being, he has provided only some basic tenets that would orientate his political action, when in power. Nevertheless, just like how Vendola baptised his closing speech in Bari last Sunday, it is a matter of ‘darkness and light’. Maybe the end of the tunnel is nearer than we think. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/738/the-palestinian-authority-redundant-but-dangerous-language Each time Israel fails to keep its ‘side of the bargain’, the Palestinian Authority responds with the same redundant language. The cycle has become so utterly predictable that one wonders why the Palestinian Authority officials even bothers protesting Israeli action. They must be well aware that their cries, genuine or otherwise, will only fall on deaf ears. They know that their complaints could not possible contribute to a paradigm shift in Israel’s behavior, or the US position on it. Let’s take a look at the context for the language of the Palestinian Authority’s complaints. In a speech made in early July, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas referred to any direct talks with Israel as ‘futile.’ Thousands of newspapers and news sites beamed this ‘headline’, highlighting the word ‘futile’ between inverted commas - as if it constituted some kind of earth-shattering revelation. But anyone following the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular already knows that such talks will be ‘futile’. More, Israel has hardly made secret its lack of desire for a peaceful and just settlement. Mr Abbas, however, has managed to insert his relevance as a ‘player’ in the conflict, using one cleverly coined word. This word has had as much of an impact in Arabic as has in English. Of course, none of this means that Abbas has actually adopted a serious shift in course. One need not dig up old archives to remember that the PA president felt the same way about the so-called ‘proximity talks’ with Israel last May. Before they began, he also expressed his opinion that the talks would be futile. He further insisted that no talks, direct or otherwise, would resume without a complete Israeli halt in settlement constructions in occupied East Jerusalem. After this grand declaration, Abbas went along with the proximity talks charade, while Palestinian families continued to be uprooted from their homes in their historic city. Only one barrier was removed before embarking on the proximity talks: Abbas and his men quit complaining. Nearly two months later, when it is evident to all that the proximity talks were indeed ‘futile’ – especially as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has triumphed over US President Barack Obama in his most recent visit to Washington – Mr Abbas finds himself in desperate need for another line of defence. Thus, the new campaign attacking predictably ‘futile’ direct talks with Israel. Mr Abbas is not the only actor in this drama. Others have also been doing their job, as efficiently and as true to form as ever. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who has worn several hats in the past and is now one of Mr Abbas’s aides, stated that the PA “will not enter new negotiations that could take more than 10 years.” This promise - that the Palestinian leadership will not be fooled into talks for the sake of talking and with no timeframe – is not the first of its kind to come from Abed Rabbo, and it’s unlikely to be the last. Abbas’ aide will most likely continue sharing the same tired insight over and over again, because it’s the scripted part that any ‘moderate’ – as in self-seeking – Palestinian official must reiterate to remain relevant. How else could they give the impression that the PA still serves the role of the bulwark against Israeli illegal territorial encroachment and military occupation? Ahmed Qurei, former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister and ex-Prime Minister, recently spoke at a Hebrew University Conference, entitled: “The Israeli-Palestinian Proximity Talks: Lessons from Past Negotiations.” The conference was organized by Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace. The place and occasion of this conference could not be more significant. First, much of the Hebrew University was built on ‘ethnically cleansed’ Palestinian land. Second, Qurei spoke at an Israeli University in an occupied city, at a time when activists and academics from all over the world, including several from Israel, are leading a cultural and academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the terrible role these institutions have played in Israeli violence against Palestinians. Worse, immediately before his speech, Qurei had met with former Israeli Foreign Minister and acting Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni. Livni had ordered and supervised the unprecedented killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009. The level of inhumanity she displayed during those days was met with outrage around the world, including from many in Israel itself. But all the blood was brushed under the carpet, as “Livni (and) Abu Ala exchange(d) ‘niceties’”, according to the Jerusalem Post. Just try to imagine the fury that all Palestinians - and especially those besieged in destroyed Gaza – must have felt as Qurei and Livni shook hands and smiled for cameras. As for Qurei’s academic and political contributions, the Post reported that, “at the conference, Qurei said Netanyahu had not really frozen West Bank settlement construction, and added that Israel’s actions were preventing direct talks.” Considering the numerous compromises that Qurei afforded in his very attendance of the conference, and his handshaking with Livni, one fails to understand the point of such statements. These empty declarations will have no bearing on the outcome of events, nor will they force Netanyahu and his right-wing government to think twice as they carry on demolishing homes and uprooting trees. But they are more important than ever for the PA, as voices are rising in Washington, in London and elsewhere, demanding that the US and its partners acknowledge, if not ‘engage’ Hamas. Such a prospect is bad news for the West Bank Palestinian leadership, which understands that its relevance to the ‘peace process’ hinges on the constant dismissal of Hamas. Therefore, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah will continue to adhere to its methodology: don’t criticize Israel too harshly, so as not to lose favour; follow the US dictates, so as to maintain a ‘moderate’ status and many privileges; and always give an impression to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that the PA is the one and only defender of Jerusalem. One wonders how much longer the Palestinian leadership can sustain this act, which is in fact the real exercise of futility. Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/737/venezuela-breaks-relations-with-colombia President Chavez ordered maximum alert on Venezuela’s border with Colombia after the Uribe administration made grave accusations against Venezuela claiming the Chavez government harbors terrorists and terrorist training camps. The outgoing government of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia gave a shameful presentation before member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Thursday, reminiscent of Colin Powell’s “weapons of mass destruction” power point evidence presented in 2003 before the United Nations Security Council to justify the war in Iraq. Colombia alleged that Venezuela is harboring “terrorists” from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) and hosting several “terrorist training camps” near the border region that divides the two nations. During an extraordinary session convened at OAS headquarters in Washington on Thursday, upon request of the Uribe government, Colombia’s ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, presented television and video images allegedly taken from computers confiscated during the illegal invasion of Ecuatorian territory on March 1, 2008, which resulted in the death of FARC leader Raul Reyes and a dozen other Colombian, Ecuatorian and Mexican citizens. Hoyos also presented several computer-generated maps and photographs of alleged members of the FARC, which he said were taken inside Venezuela. No Real Proof Yet none of the images were authenticated or verified as reliable by any source other than the Colombian government. Colombia also used satellite map images, some from Google Earth, to show alleged “coordinates” where FARC members are in Venezuela. Furthermore, the photographs presented by Hoyos had no source identification, dates or times, and merely showed alleged members of the FARC and ELN in different jungle and coastal areas. Venezuela and Colombia share a porous, jungle and mountainous border and both countries have Caribbean coasts. The countries have similar vegetations, climates and scenery. Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton said the photographs looked to him as though they had been taken in Colombia. “That looks like the beach in Santa Marta to me”, responded Chaderton, after Hoyos claimed a photo of a FARC member drinking a beer on the beach was taken at Chichirivichi, a Venezuelan beach town. “There is no evidence, not a single piece of proof, of where those photographs were taken”, said Chaderton, adding that the “evidence” presented by Colombia was “confusing, imprecise and non-convincing”. The Venezuelan army verified and thoroughly inspected the locations and coordinates provided by the Uribe administration on Thursday and found none of the alleged “terrorist sites”, “camps” or “guerrilla presence” claimed by Colombia. Upon arriving at the first coordinate indicated in Colombia’s report, identified as an alleged terrorist camp of alias Ruben Zamora, the Venezuelan army found a farm growing plantains, yucca and corn. The second coordinate, which was the alleged camp of FARC commander Ivan Marquez, was merely an extensive field with no structures or presence of anyone or anything. International Intervention During his two-hour long flamboyant presentation, Hoyos called for “international intervention” in Venezuela to verify the campsites and gave Venezuela a “30-day ultimatum”. “Colombia requests a commission of international members, including all those of the OAS, go to Venezuela and verify each of the terrorist camp sites and coordinates to see the truth”, said Hoyos, adding, “we give the Venezuelan government 30 days”, although he didn’t specify what could happen afterward. Hoyos also accused the Venezuelan government of facilitating drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms trade, attacks against Colombian armed forces and even went so far as to allege the Chavez government “squashes its opposition”, “represses freedom of expression”, “insults other governments” and “violates principles of democracy”. At the same time, Hoyos said his government would be unwilling to listen to or respond to any accusations, insults or offenses made by the Venezuelan government. Colombia’s position is an echo of Washington’s, which has accused Venezuela of harboring and providing refuge to members of the FARC during the past seven years. But, the US government has also failed to present any evidence to back such claims, and often makes contradictory statements, which appear to confirm the lack of solid proof. In March 2010, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) chief General Douglas Fraser said that he had seen no evidence of any links between Venezuela and the FARC. “We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify where there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection”, declared Fraser during a hearing before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee. However, the following day, General Fraser contradicted himself before the press, stating, “There is indeed clear and documented historical and ongoing evidence of the linkages between the Government of Venezuela and the FARC”. Possibly, Fraser was referring to previous governments in Venezuela, such as those of Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993) or Rafael Caldera (1994-1998), which actually housed an office of the FARC in the presidential palace. President Chavez shut down that office when he entered the presidency in early 1999. Or maybe General Fraser was referring to the specific requests made by two Colombian presidents, Andres Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe, for Chavez to mediate the release of hostages held by the FARC. With full disclosure and complete authority from President Alvaro Uribe, and based on his own personal request, in September 2007, President Chavez accepted the role as mediator in order to secure the release of several hostages held by the FARC inside Colombian territory. For that reason only, Chavez met with FARC commander Ivan Marquez and assured the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez in January 2008. But otherwise, the Venezuelan government has consistently and repeatedly denied any links or support given to the FARC or any other armed, irregular group from Colombia or elsewhere. Relations Broken After Colombia’s presentation before the OAS, President Chavez announced a complete rupture in relations. “It is with tears in my heart that I announce that we will break all relations with Colombia. We have no other choice, for our dignity and our sovereignty”. Chavez also ordered troops to secure all border areas. “I have ordered a maximum alert on our borders. Uribe is a mafioso and a liar, and is capable of anything”, he said, recalling how Uribe ordered the invasion of Ecuador’s territory in 2008 and then lied to President Rafael Correa about what had happened. Venezuela accused Colombia of failing to resolve its own internal conflicts, including a 60-year old civil war that has negatively impacted its neighbors with violence and drug trafficking spilling over the borders. More than 4 million Colombians, fleeing the violence in their country, live in Venezuela today. The Colombian “show” appears to be an effort to justify preemptive war against Venezuela. Last year Colombia opened its territory to seven US military bases in an agreement that the US Air Force claimed was necessary in order to conduct “full spectrum military operations” throughout South America to “combat the constant threat of anti-American governments in the region”. This article first appeared on the 'Postcards from the Revolution' blog - www.chavezcode.com. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/735/saudi-sheik's-obsession-with-sex-fatwas Women Saudi bloggers reflect the frustration of battling against an extremist male ideology that oppresses women by manipulating and twisting religious rhetoric to facilitate them in every possible way to serve men’s’ pleasures. They deplore men’s obsession with polygamy and other sex-focussed debates (Mahmood’s Den, 2010). On December 11, 2009, Saudi journalist Nadine Al-Budair, a presenter on the Arabic-language American TV channel Al-Hurra, published a satirical article titled "Me and My Four Husbands" in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm, where she wondered why a Muslim man can marry up to four wives, while a Muslim woman could not do the same. Al-Budair made her point in similar statements during an interview with the Saudi owned liberal website Elaph based in London a year earlier, in which she argued a woman needs four husbands more than a man needs four wives (Free Muslims, 2010) creating an uproar on the cybersphere, where she was condemned by both genders and especially by members of the religious establishment. Sheik 'Abdallah Al-Muni', a member of the Saudi Senior Clerics Council, called to put her on trial ‘for making statements in contradiction to the Quran and the Sunna. In an interview with the Saudi daily ‘Sabq’, Al-Muni' stated that Al-Budair was "a sinner who diverted [others] from the straight path," and that the Muslim nation completely opposed her views. This was the only time a Saudi woman had to resort to this kind of media provocation to attract attention to the misery of many Saudi women suffering the consequences of polygamy, but there are hundreds of articles by Saudi men and fatwas by Saudi Sheiks that cater for men’s’ pleasures that have not meet such a strong backlash. Saudi Sheiks produced a number of fatwas allowing men to enjoy different types of sexual relationships ‘marriages’ seen by the majority of women as allowing men to take advantage of women by denying them the rights of married women according to Islamic Sharea’h. Some of the fatwas condemned seem more kin to a form of legal prostitution, but what is highly alarming is the fact that when some ‘religious’ forums discuss such fatwas to inform people of how wrong they are, they leave a big warnings in bold red font stating that women should not access the forum for the educational content is obscene. However, they do not add a similar warning for children, thus treating children with more respect than adult women (sunniforum, 2010) which reflects a mentality of retarded guardianship that does not consider women as equals even in their right of knowledge. Different kinds of ‘marriages’ are discussed and promoted on Saudi cyber sphere, such as ‘Mut'a’ marriage which translates "pleasure", permitted by Shi'ites which is a contract between a man and a woman for a limited period of time, and divorce is not needed to end it (Al Sajed, 2003). The second kind ‘Urfa marriage translates as "custom marriage", is an arrangement that does not require an official contract and grants women no rights (Ayman, 2010). The third is ‘Misyaf’ or tourism marriage practiced among rich Saudi men who go on summer vacation to other countries, especially to Yemen where they take advantage of poor families by marrying local young girls for a short period of time – a fortnight to two months – without the brides being aware of the time limitation arrangements (Yamani, 2008) after the holiday is over, the groom disappears in thin air leaving behind a broken hearted young girl who does not know what has happened. The fourth kind is ‘Misyar’ marriage in which the woman relinquishes some of the rights that Islam grants her, such as the right to a home and to financial support from her husband, and, if the man has other wives, the woman loses her right to an equal share of his time and attention (Jabarti, 2005). The fifth kind of marriage is the ‘Friend’ marriage, where the girl remains at her family's home, and she and the man do not maintain a shared household but meet whenever and wherever he wants. The sixth type of marriage is a marriage described as ‘aimed primarily at meeting the needs of young Muslims in the West’, where men wish to have a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship as is customary in Western society, but with alleged religious legitimacy (MEMRI, 2006). Usually those men never tell their wives that they plan to leave them as soon as they finish their education or business trip, when in fact they are using them physically, emotionally and sometimes financially since they save them the trouble of finding accommodation or facing the financial burdens on their own. This fatwa has been approved by Saudi Sheiks and available online by religious figures’ websites like Bin Baz (binbaz, 41/5). These trends of ‘marriages’ are an unethical escape by men from their duties towards women, and since such relationships are not welcomed by Muslims at large, this meant that all the arrangements are made discretely where women will have no evidence to pursue men legally (al-Haidari, 2010). This reality of men’s ventures after pleasure led to creating hundreds of dating websites that came with revolutionary ways of interaction between total strangers in a totally segregated society where women have little experience and can be easily tricked, leading to hundreds of articles by individuals who experienced problems as a result of trusting strangers online including scammers (stop scammers.com). Sex related discussions in Saudi Arabia on the Internet is an obsession, which meant more filtering of websites and more finding ways of coding to interact with each others, and more blackmail incidents since a simple innocent passport photo can become an issue of honour. While Saudi male sphere is preoccupied by fatwas that give them more access to sex and facilitate temporary relationship under the banner of Islam, women’s online sphere is preoccupied with discussions about finding solutions for unfair relationships that abuse women’s rights, and discussions about finding ways to be able to file complaints without having to be accompanied by the guardians which is considered a law requirement in Saudi Arabia. In many incidents the abusers of women’ rights happen to be their own guardians. Women are demanding independent legal standing so that they can access the judicial system on their own to fight for their civil rights and to stop the cycle of exploitation, some women did not mind taking the law into their own hands (Doctorow, 2010). But most alarming of all is the latest fatwa published on July 16, 2010 on the Saudi owned Al-Arabiya.net website by Sheik Adil Al-Kalbani, the Imam of Haram Al-Sharif, where he proclaims a brand new fatwa after receiving an email from an overseas Saudi male student studying in the ‘West’ (Al-Arabiya Net, 2010). The Saudi student, who is married and living with his wife, claims that he is worried about controlling his desires when he sees ‘Western’ female women wearing seductive semi-naked clothes that arouse him. He goes on to ask the Sheik if it is OK to marry one of those women in a ‘Misfar’ marriage, which means marriage based on travel, because he claims that he can’t fight temptations and also accuses his wife of being frigid. The good old Sheik Al-Kalbani posted on his own website the answer. His answer is a fatwa that permits marrying Western women with the intention of divorcing them when the Saudi students are finished with them and without the pre-knowledge of the ‘Western’ women of such plan. This pathetic kind of fatwa is most degrading and most dishonest and unfair way to treat women and most certainly contradicts Islamic teachings that are based on honesty and justice by giving Saudi overseas students and travelling business men the green light to use women as a disposable container for their desires. The good old Sheik says nothing about the rights of neither the betrayed temporarily married wife nor her children if she happens to become pregnant. These fatwas are tailored to relieve men from feeling sexually stressed whenever they have an urge but says nothing about women’s’ rights. As expected such fatwas are exclusive to men, no fatwas have been issued to relieve Saudi or Muslim female students studying in the ‘West’ from their sexual stress. It seems that Sheiks assume that women have no natural physical desires. The same Saudi blogosphere that is swarming with insults to foreign Asian workers, including Muslim ones who happen to come to Saudi Arabia for work, and with tons of warnings that they might have a glimpse of a Saudi woman, is outraged by the mere idea that any foreigner dares to ask for the hand in marriage of a Saudi woman, not even with the good intention of marrying her for ever and not doing what the Sheiks are advising Saudi overseas students to do to women from other nationalities. This attitude of looking down on women from other countries or faiths is unacceptable in Islam and most dishonest and most damaging for the trust between men and women who are really planning to have long lasting stable marriages. Every Western woman now will start to doubt the intentions of any Muslim man who asks for her hand in marriage because she might think it is a temporary arrangement where the man can use her and as soon as he is finished his holy mission he pulls up his pants and go back to his country leaving her behind with pain, regret and maybe a child to raise on her own. Such issues have to be highlighted by the media to inform women who might be delusional about love and long lasting relationships, so that they can make the decision with full knowledge of the possibilities lurking ahead of them. Sheik Al-Kalbany's fatwa tells us a great deal, such as women’s rights are no more an internal or national concern, and it is no more a case of abusing the rights of Saudi women only, such fatwas are extending their damages overseas and about to create a chaos in other societal systems. It’s about time that human rights campaigns demand of the Saudi state to regulate such ‘buy one get one free’ fatwas because the damage can’t be afforded should the last fatwa became practicable by overseas Saudi students. In November 2007 a group representing 42 UK universities visited Saudi Arabia to promote UK higher education. This kind of activity happens every year. They should make clear to all the students who are dreaming of the freedoms of the west that ‘Western’ women have rights and dignity and they better shed the mentalities of the take-away fatwas before they stamp their passports, and keep their pants zipped until they return home and marry the way that pleases their societies. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/733/combat-stress-a-living-history After speaking to several Veterans on Armed Forces Day, a friend and I decided to visit the Imperial War Museum, where we were fascinated by one particular display, that related to soldiers and the physical disabilities which have occurred during Britain’s wars, where among the items on exhibit were a series of photographs which illustrated men with missing limbs and other physical disabilities, along with a metallic leg which was worn by a WWII veteran, until his death in 1989. Whilst looking over the items, it was striking that absent from this particular section of the permanent exhibition, was material relating to the psychological wounds of war upon British soldiers and the efforts that are still being made to support those Veterans who have been effected with conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In 2009, Combat Stress marked its 90th birthday and since its inception in 1919 has provided assistance to 100,000 British Veterans, whose mental health has been effected as a result of their services career. Founded in the wake of the WWI, to support those Veterans with “Shell Shock” as it was known then, Combat Stress is still playing a pivotal role in helping thousands of Veterans, whose emotional well being has been damaged as a result of the many conflicts, that Britain has been involved with since that time. At the end of the WWI thousands of men returning from the front line and from sea suffering from shell-shock. Many were confined in War Hospitals under Martial Law – with the risk of being sent on, without appeal, to asylums but the founding mothers of Combat Stress, who were mostly women, believed that these men could be helped to cope with their condition through rehabilitation. PTSD has now become a topic, thankfully spoken on many peoples lips, as a result of the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but previous to this recent growing awareness in Britain, “shell shock” was again being spoken about in the literary world, by multi-award winning authors such as Pat Barker , who brought back to life the experiences of soldiers such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Barker has also described how war has impacted upon the mental health of the elderly, like her book Another World so graphically describes, with Geordie the 101-year-old Veteran and his re-occurring flashbacks to the trenches of France. A conversation I had last year was reminiscent of this book, when speaking to a woman in Manchester, who described how her father in old age had developed dementia and the last year of his life, had reverted back to being a prisoner of war in a Japanese concentration camp. An unlikely “casualty of war“, one might argue but consider these facts; more Veterans from the Falklands have died from suicide than actually died in combat in the Falklands. Across the UK, up to a third of all homeless people are former soldiers, sailors and airmen and as many as 8,000 veterans are in jail, which is nearly 10 per cent of the prison population. On average, it takes a Veteran approximately fourteen years after leaving the services, to make contact with Combat Stress. Upon leaving the museum, I got speaking to a guide who was encouraging me to purchase an old style fighter pilots jacket and after accepting my refusal, I agreed to swap him a wristband for the charity Combat Stress. It was then he explained his service in the Merchant Navy, whilst informing me that another relative was having mental health problems as a result of military service during the 1970s and having told him to make contact with the organisation for assistance, the realisation struck, that the history of Combat Stress is not just a story that is exclusive to the military, neither can it be confined to any display cabinet in a museum but it’s a living, breathing, talking history, that will permanently represent every mother, father, son and daughter. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/732/defending-the-nhs-against-privatisation-john-lister-talks-to-london-progressive-journal-part-two TP: There seems to have been a big expansion in PFI contracts (Private Finance Initiative), in recent years. What is the reason behind this? JL: Well, PFI never happened under the Tories. The Tories devised the policy but they were never prepared to go as far as New Labour to placate the private sector and allow them to sign these deals with no risk to them whatsoever. The only piece of legislation New Labour passed in 1997 that pertained to the NHS, was a short Act: the National Health Service (Private Finance) Act 1997 which stipulated that in any PFI scheme that went broke, the debt would be picked up by the Secretary of State for Health. There has been an escalation in the number of PFI schemes set up. The only thing that seems to have stopped this is the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The sub-prime mortgage crisis undermined the key insurers that used to provide further risk avoidance for the private sector. The insurers in the US lost their credit ratings and so were unable to offer insurance for these schemes any longer. As you may be aware, presently PFI schemes account for £11 billion pounds worth of the NHS and these schemes are set to cost the NHS a massive £62 billion over the lifetime of their signed contracts. So these private contracts cost the NHS a lot more than their true value? Oh yes, massively more. PFI costs the NHS a lot more than if it were to just borrow a straight mortgage for the same amount of money. There are many additional downsides to PFI. There is the alienation of staff from their own building. For example they are not allowed to put an eyechart on the wall. There is also a demoralising effect on staff. They are told from day one, in no uncertain terms, that the hospital is not their building, it belongs to a private consortium. You will generally find that PFI hospitals have a reduced number of beds, compared with the hospitals they replace, and as such are relatively small compared to the local level of demand. PFI schemes seem to have come to a natural end at the moment. Even the Tories have begun to be critical of their cost. The problem is that, under the new government, this means there will be no new hospitals built as the government won’t be putting in any extra money. One of the difficulties in campaigning against PFI was that you appeared to be the awkward individual opposed to the building of a new hospital. This was not the case, of course. We simply argued that if a new hospital needed to be built there were plenty of cheaper ways to pay for it than signing a contract with a private company. For the benefit of our readers, could you please explain a little about how Social Enterprises work and the rationale behind them? The theory behind them is that they are non-profit businesses. In other words, they allow the workers (of frontline services) to work together in an autonomous unit, outside of the bureaucracy and red tape of NHS management and structures, and able therefore to ‘innovate’ and ‘improve services’ without having to wait for all kinds of bureaucratic processes. That is the theory. They will obviously have to bring in a surplus every year, as that is part of the way in which they function. The surplus would not be delivered to shareholders. In every other respect, the process would run like a business. A major criticism is that it is very hard to see anything working as a co-operative, in a progressive sense, if the very foundations of the process are being pushed through by ‘little Hitler’ managers with no regards for the actual views and wishes of the staff they allegedly represent. The people who are exercising what Lord Darzi called the ‘right to request’ for the formation of social enterprise are, in every case that I have come across so far, senior managers who detect a personal interest in having the freedom to, for example, set their own pay scales. The controls would still be in their hands and they would try to drag the whole organisation behind them. Wherever staff have been balloted, 80-90% have been against the concept of Social Enterprise. They are concerned that outside of the NHS, they would lose their NHS pensions and payscales, as well as their NHS status, career structures and training opportunities, etc. I understand that the idea behind ‘Foundation Hospitals’ is to give hospitals more autonomy over how they spend their money and to reward hospitals that do well whilst penalising those that perform poorly. That sounds very much like a free-market approach to healthcare. It seems unfair as a hospital situated in a deprived area will face greater pressures on its services. A hospital situated in a deprived area will be serving a population with different, and possibly greater health needs, than a hospital situated within an affluent area. Can you comment? We have an example from not long ago. The hospital and primary care trusts within four of the six boroughs of South-East London had very large deficits. At the same time, in the two remaining boroughs of south-east London, there were two Foundation trusts who between them were sitting on surpluses equal to the deficits of the remaining trusts within the area. Being Foundation Trusts, they were under no obligation to share their surpluses or to participate in any way in helping to resolve the problems found elsewhere in the NHS. It really is an ‘I’m alright Jack’ type of approach to running the NHS. Far from developing the collaboration and co-operation in these matters, it actually carves up the NHS into a competitive market. What can the public and NHS staff do to campaign against cuts and the encroachment of the private sector? In terms of the break up and privatisation of primary care services, or Transforming Community Services as it is known, people need to know it is happening. Much of this occurs in relative secrecy, without any proper consultation. The privatisations implemented thus far, were done without any public consultation. We need to be able to ‘smoke out’ where it is happening locally and reveal the scale of it, the significance of the services under threat and the role these threatened services play in the community. Once local people realise this and once NHS staff realise that people are willing to support them, there should be a lot of resistance. The public have more scope to fight against the privatisation of their community services than most of them realise, and at the same time, less knowledge of how to fight this than most campaigners realise. The key thing for campaigners, such as politicians and trade unions opposed to the privatisation of community services, is for them to make sure they disseminate the information they have into the public domain. For example, back in the 1980s, when we were fighting against the privatisation of hospital cleaning services, LHE discovered, to our horror, that the Trade Unions were only issuing material relating to the impact of privatisation on wages of health workers. At that stage, they had little to say about what the consequences of privatisation would be on the hospital services themselves and the patients using them. Conversely, most members of the public viewed the issue the other way around. Though they may have been sympathetic towards healthcare workers, for them the main question was whether or not they would have a cleaner hospital. We had to fill the gap, spelling out how privatisation undermined standards of patient care and put the whole of the public at risk, not just the health workers whose jobs, wages and working conditions were under attack. In the run up to the General Election, all three major parties preached the need to make cutbacks to public spending and hence public services. Can you propose an alternative solution to that advocated by the political mainstream? I would start by actually proposing three different cutbacks, which I believe would be a step in the right direction. First of all, I would sack all of the management consultants running rampant through the NHS. At the last estimate I recall, they cost the NHS about £500 million a year. Quite a significant contribution could be made just by cutting back on these people who seem to have contributed little or nothing of value for the huge investment that has been made in them. Furthermore, damage done to the NHS could be reversed. Not least in the fact that a lot of the relatively well paid managers in the NHS who employ the management consultants seem to have abdicated much of their decision making responsibility and avoided thinking for themselves, relying on management consultants to fulfil this role. It’s like hiring the organ-grinder, but getting fobbed off with his monkey. The second thing, I would do is to renegotiate PFI. The issue of PFI needs to be revisited in order to bring down some of the enormous costs of the scheme. These deals were all negotiated with interest rates of upwards of 5-7% in years past when they were much higher. Nowadays the government can borrow at a much lower rate, around 0.5%. It is ridiculous for the costs of PFI to still be so steep, especially so as a couple of the major banks involved in PFI are now owned by the taxpayer. We’ve gone and bought the banks and we are now paying out to those banks, and will be doing for as much as the next 30 years for some of these PFI schemes. UNISON for example, have called for the nationalising of PFI, which isn’t necessarily all that radical a policy. We’ve already nationalised the banks, so why not PFI? The third thing is that there is a whole layer of additional bureaucracy in the NHS, centred around what is known as ‘world class commissioning’. In many areas of the NHS, a whole raft of what are called ‘commercial directors’ were recruited. The NHS ran for nearly 60 years without the need for a single commercial director and now we have them all over the place. They don’t bring anything of any benefit to the NHS whatsoever. The whole ‘world class commissioning’ idea has been an entire waste of time and money. Anyone directly employed in this matter should either be sacked or given some sort of useful job somewhere in the NHS that could actually benefit patient care. Those are three cuts and between them well over a billion pounds could be saved each year. On a wider level, the PCS (Public and Commercial Services trade union) has been making the point that the government has been sacking tax collectors, sacking the very people who are supposed to be gathering the money that is to be spent on running public services. Each tax collector on average generates £600,000 a year for the Inland Revenue. By cutting back on the number of tax collectors, this has resulted in a large gap in taxes not being collected because key people are not being asked to pay and many who are evading payment are not being actively pursued. This process should be reversed. Rather than allegedly trying to streamline the civil services, as the previous government claimed to be doing- attacking the people who collect this money to pay for public services- we should do the opposite and recruit more of these people. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, made that point that if current levels of taxes were collected properly, you wouldn’t even need to increase taxes by a large amount to bridge the public spending gap that we now face. So at times bureaucracy could save money? Bureaucracy isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it means that there are officials who know what they are doing and systems that allow them to work well. If this means that we need people to go out and bang on some doors and collect taxes from some rich people who are not paying, then why don’t we do just that? Instead of the Daily Mail foaming at the mouth at a handful of social service ‘skivers’ or illegal immigrants, who they claim are the problem, why don’t we have a little bit more anger about the extremely wealthy who are evading paying their fair share of tax. In fact, what we have at the moment are government owned banks employing a whole handful of people who go out and advise industry on how they can avoid paying tax. Lloyds TB and other banks have divisions of advisors whose job it is to advise wealthy people on how to pay less tax. This is all paid for by us. We are paying the government to pay the banks to employ people to go out and advise the rich on ways of paying less tax and hence create a bigger gap in the money available for government spending. How mad is that! Indeed, not that’s not the kind of story you read in the pages of the mainstream media. I understand that a few years ago you published a book titled: ‘Health Policy reform. Driving the wrong way.’ That was five years ago. The book was looking at the spread of market style policies- the type of policies that I object to being carried out in the UK- and examining the extent to which they were being promoted around the world. I am talking particularly about the developing world and how organisations such as the World Bank and USAID are able to shape government policy by deciding whether or not countries are deemed to be credit worthy. They can decide whether or not to issue loans. The World Bank is committed to the idea of the contract culture rather than public service culture, preferring the expansion of the private sector rather than having government run public services. About 18 months ago, some research was conducted by Professor Chris Ham of Birmingham University, who once advised Tony Blair on matters of health. Professor Ham’s research investigated the extent to which the model of ‘commissioning’ healthcare could be shown to work on a global scale. He went around the world picking out examples, similar to those used in my book, and he came to the same conclusion which is that there is no evidence anywhere that Healthcare Commissioning actually works. Through examining different healthcare systems around the world, have you come across one that seems to have found an optimum way of doing things? At the point that I wrote this book, in 2005, I would probably have mentioned the Scandinavian model. The sad thing is that we have had a rash of right wing governments in Scandinavia who have begun to adopt similar policies to those of the New Labour government. What they did in Denmark was to create unattainable targets for an underfunded public sector to reduce waiting times. When these targets couldn’t be met, the argument was made that private sector providers needed to become involved, paid for from public budgets. This is just like the UK, where an artificial expansion of the private sector has been achieved not through its growth in a free market but through the use of government patronage and public funds (NHS budgets) to ensure guaranteed profits. So sadly, the countries I would have been pointing to in many ways as a model of satisfactory and relatively democratic healthcare are not necessarily still a good model. I believe you’ve written a book more recently. Yes, it’s called ‘The NHS after 60- For Patients or Profit.’ It came out in 2008 for the 60th anniversary of the NHS. The book charts the history of the NHS since 1948 with the heaviest focus being on the last 20-30 years. A few years ago, I started doing some teaching sessions on health policy at Coventry University. I used to be able to cover the whole history of the NHS in a 90 minute lecture. Now I cannot even cover the last 10 years within an hour and a half because there have been so many rapid changes which are of great significance. Between 1948-1978, the model was pretty much intact and when a Tory government in 1961 was persuaded by Enoch Powell, to build a new generation of hospitals across the country, nobody even thought about using private finance. Margaret Thatcher started to really change things in the 1980s and brought the notion of markets into the ideological debate. We fought against Thatcher’s market reforms, calling it a slippery road to privatisation: but Margaret Thatcher never privatised a fraction as much as Tony Blair. Now Blair’s market is likely to be a launchpad for more privatisation. Dr John Lister is the Information Director of London Health Emergency (LHE). Founded in the autumn of 1983, LHE is the country's biggest and longest-running pressure group in defence of the NHS. Dr Lister is also an Associate Senior Lecturer in Health Journalism at Coventry University and is the author of numerous publications on the topic of health policy. His latest book The NHS after 60: for patients or profits? was published in 2008. Dr Tomasz Pierscionek is a junior doctor working in the North East of England. He is co-editor of the London Progressive Journal and has recently become a board member of the global health charity Medact. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/731/beyond-violence-and-non-violence-resistance-as-a-culture Resistance is not a band of armed men hell-bent on wreaking havoc. It is not a cell of terrorists scheming ways to detonate buildings. True resistance is a culture. It is a collective retort to oppression. Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No newsbyte could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and non-violent resistance. The Afghanistan story must remain committed to the same language: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Lebanon must be represented in terms of a menacing Iran-backed Hizbullah. Palestine’s Hamas must be forever shown as a militant group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. Any attempt at offering an alternative reading is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists and justifying violence. The deliberate conflation and misuse of terminology has made it almost impossible to understand, and thus to actually resolve bloody conflicts. Even those who purport to sympathize with resisting nations often contribute to the confusion. Activists from Western countries tend to follow an academic comprehension of what is happening in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Thus certain ideas are perpetuated: suicide bombings bad, non-violent resistance good; Hamas rockets bad, slingshots good; armed resistance bad, vigils in front of Red Cross offices good. Many activists will quote Martin Luther King Jr., but not Malcolm X. They will infuse a selective understanding of Gandhi, but never of Guevara. This supposedly ‘strategic’ discourse has robbed many of what could be a precious understanding of resistance – as both concept and culture. Between the reductionst mainstream understanding of resistance as violent and terrorist and the ‘alternative’ defacing of an inspiring and compelling cultural experience, resistance as a culture is lost. The two overriding definitions offer no more than narrow depictions. Both render those attempting to relay the viewpoint of the resisting culture as almost always on the defensive. Thus we repeatedly hear the same statements: no, we are not terrorists; no, we are not violent, we actually have a rich culture of non-violent resistance; no, Hamas is not affiliated with al-Qaeda; no, Hizbullah is not an Iranian agent. Ironically, Israeli writers, intellectuals and academicians own up to much less than their Palestinian counterparts, although the former tend to defend aggression and the latter defend, or at least try to explain their resistance to aggression. Also ironic is the fact that instead of seeking to understand why people resist, many wish to debate about how to suppress their resistance. By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said’s elucidation of “culture (as) a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration.” When cultures resist, they don’t scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ non-violent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests is manipulative or plain ignorant. If resistance is “the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with”, then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element - often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture’s past experiences, but it is very much an internal process. It’s almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn’t always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza: “It’s not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed.” (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story) Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths – and thus defuse the culture’s ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world’ nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures – through globalization, for example - they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives. In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word ‘martyr’, and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word ‘victory’ is persistently used. When I was in Iraq, I witnessed a local version of these kids’ drawings. And while I have yet to see Afghani children’s scrapbooks, I can easily imagine their content too. Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.