Ten Years Later (Lessons from History 9)

Everyone knows where they were ten years ago yesterday. Everyone has their own story of that day. I remember coming home from school and turning the TV on to watch the usual mixture of rubbish CBBC cartoons and Blue Peter. What I ended up watching for the next hour or so was the news. There was nothing else on, and, even if there had been, neither me nor my brother would have changed the channel.

I was only nine at the time. I had no idea what the World Trade Centre was. I had no idea of the political and social magnitude of the events unfolding on my TV screen. I did understand the enormous human tragedy that was happening. And I think I was vaguely aware, even then, that the world was going to be a very different place from now on.

It would be fair to say that I did most of my ‘growing-up’ in the post-9/11 era. Prior to 9/11 I knew basically nothing about the world outside my own little bubble, as is to be expected for a nine year old, but since then I have become more and more aware of the world in which I live. 9/11 is something of a reference point for that awareness. I’m not aware of much that happened before 9/11, but I have a pretty good idea of what has happened since.

This is not merely a coincidence of my age. Everyone who is anywhere near my age, from about mid twenties down to 17 or 18, probably has roughly the same experience – 9/11 is the first major international incident they remember. Historians do not always define when a century begins and end by the actual turning of a calendar century. Instead they look at critical turning-point which had world-changing consequences. For example, the 19^th century is not really said to begin until 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, likewise the 20^th century begins in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War. I think posterity will define the 21^st century as beginning on 11^th September 2001.

So, what has changed? 10 years on, how is the world different? For better or for worse? Apart from making a lot more hassle to take a plane journey and radically altering the New York skyline, that is.

The 20^th Century is often seen as America’s century. The century in which America rose in economic, political and military might, to replace the old empires, most notably the British, that dominated the 19^th. American fought, first on the battlefield, then through political means, Fascist Germany and Communist Russia to become the one and only World Superpower, built on and supported by Free Market Capitalism.

As the first time since Perl Harbour that a foreign power has attacked American territory, and the first time in a long time that attack has been on the American mainland, or against civilians, 9/11 marked a very stark contrast to anything that had happened for most of the previous century. Subsequent political, economic and military failures, along with a lot of social introspection from many parts of America, are perhaps indicative of the American decline from world ascendency. It could, of course, be argued that Vietnam was a far worse military disaster than Afghanistan or Iraq, and that the Great Depression had far worse economical impact than the current recession, but neither of those resulted in quite the same loss of confidence as the last ten years have.

I wrote, a few months ago, about the impact 9/11 is still having on the American consciousness; the hurt that the American people still feel in the aftermath of 9/11. I won’t go over the same old ground today, but I will discuss the wider political impact of 9/11 and the events after it.

9/11 was understood very much in terms of an attack on America, which is probably fair, although perhaps seeing it in terms of an attack on western, capitalist, Christian democracy might be more accurate from the point of view of the terrorists. From the point of view of American politicians, the only way to respond to such an attack would be with an attack in kind, a war. When Al-Qaeda came forward and claimed responsibility for the attack, they became a clear target. However, Al-Qaeda is not as easy a target as Nazi Germany, or the targets of all the proxy wars that made up the Cold War. Al-Qaeda is one of several international terrorist organisations, with a lose affiliation of different semi-autonomous groups working under them. You can’t simply send army into the middle-east and conquer which ever countries harbour such groups.

Unfortunately this is exactly what the USA did and managed to find itself embroiled in two major and bloody conflicts, against groups that tend to just melt away, rather than face them in open combat. They now have to concentrate forces in peace keeping and rebuilding the countries that they invaded, rather than actually trying to defeat the enemy upon which they declared war.

The problem is that they did not really declare war on an enemy at all. America declared a War on Terror, which is a rather mind-boggling and confusing concept – how can one have a war on an emotion? Presumably what they really meant was a War on Terrorists or, more specifically, a war on the terrorists who target the USA specifically and The West in general – I don’t see them going against the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists.

Even so, a war against a rather disparate group of people was never going to be terribly successful, because they don’t tend to present a unified front. Invading Afghanistan and, more bafflingly, Iraq was never going to solve anything in terms of international terrorism. Indeed it was only likely to make matters worse. The threat of terrorism has not really gone down all that much and the only reason there have not been more such attacks is the amount of security at airports and other such entry points. War in the Middle East has done far less than the work of Anti-terrorism laws and officers working to prevent such attacks.

The American response to 9/11 was disastrous. It committed thousands of American troops into wars that are still not won; it, in particular the invasion of Iraq, brought into question the exact motivations behind the wars, given Iraq’s complete lack of connection with Al-Qaeda; it made it clear that America no long has the economic and military power to dictate terms to anyone (if it ever did). America’s methods, the methods that worked at least fairly well in the Cold War, the method of aggressive rhetoric followed up by aggressive action if the need arose, worked when the opponent had very much the same attitude (and almost resulted in nuclear war…), but against an enemy that is largely faceless and disorganised, it failed miserably.

Add to this failure, the collapse of the economic system in recent years and you have a perfect storm. The failure of the economy showed, from the point of view of America, that is, that Capitalism is not a perfect system and that prosperity is not ever-lasting. Combine that with the realisation that their political and military power is waning, and you get something of a collapse in confidence, the kind of collapse that sees political upheaval such as the row over the healthcare bill and the rise of extreme movements like the Tea Party movement.

Trying to predict the future is one of those things that usually lead you to looking like an idiot. It’s pretty much inevitable that you will be wrong, so it’s usually a fool’s errant. However, as a fool, I might offer some prediction. I think it is already pretty clear that America is not the superpower it once was. Much like the British Empire at the turn of the last century, its power is fading and I can only see it fading further. I don’t think anyone is in a position at the moment to offer a suggestion as to who might place America at the top, if indeed any single nation will. If the 19^th century was Britain’s and the 20^th was America’s, time will tell to whom the 21^st belongs. 

Time to do something in Libya

Over the last few weeks, Libya has descended into a state of civil war. Supporters of Colonel Gaddafi are clashing with rebels in a number of different cities around the country. Roughly, the rebels hold the east of the country, whereas Gaddafi and his followers control the west. The revolt was sparked by similar revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia (between which Libya is sandwiched). Similar uprising have also occurred elsewhere in the Arab world following the coup in Tunisia in January. However, while the Egyptian and Tunisian situations resolved themselves relatively peacefully, the situation in Libya as escalated into a very serious and real conflict.

This escalation was due, largely, to the abject refusal of Colonel Gaddafi to step down, despite huge pressure from protestors. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Gaddafi called on his own supporters to fight back against the rebels, essentially sparking the current civil war. The rebellion began in the country’s second city, Benghazi, and has spread across much of the east of the country. Gaddafi’s forces still hold Tripoli, the capital. At the moment, the main conflict is over the oil-centres of Begra and Jazour.

While in Egypt and Tunisia, the army stepped in to protect protesters and help complete the revolution without too much bloodshed, the Libyan army is too weak and disjointed to provide coherent support to either side. Some army officers have defected to the rebels and are helping to train and arm them. It seems likely that much of the army will refuse to carry out Gaddafi’s orders if they involve turning on Libyan citizens, indeed some of the already have, however Gaddafi will be able to rely on a powerful paramilitary force, personally loyal to him and his family. Generally Gaddafi’s forces are better armed, but the rebellion is growing in strength.

The current situation, then, is frightening. We have the prospect of thousands dying in a lengthy and drawn out civil war. Gaddafi has already shown that he has no qualms over killing his own people and no intention of stepping down either. Even when the fighting does stop and the dust clears over Tripoli, the country, whoever is in charge, will be faced with a massive economic and political fallout that will cripple it for a generation.

And yet, The West has done nothing. There has been a lot of talk, condemning Gaddafi’s actions and voicing concern for those stuck in the middle of the conflict, but no real action. The situation in Libya is really very simple. Gaddafi is a despot, a tyrant, he has a history of human rights abuses (Lockerby bombings anyone?) and has led his country without election since the 1960s. His regime consistently abuses freedom of speech and keeps political control firmly in the hands of those in Tripoli. With its secret police and ‘people’s committees’, Libya resembles something like an ex-soviet state. Libyans have looked at the rebellions of the Egyptians and Tunisians, and decided that they deserve better than tyranny and oppression. They have risen up in the name of freedom and democracy.

And yet, The West has done nothing. While the USA and Western Europe claim to be champions of democracy, supporters of freedom of speech, they do little but talk, while Libyans fight and die for those very ideals. We sit by and tut disapprovingly of the actions of Gaddafi, yet do nothing to stop the atrocities committed in his name. The West has tremendous economic, political and military clout, but it repeatedly refuses to use it to support the ideals for which it stands and upon which it is built.

I’m not saying we should send in the troops. Iraq and Afghanistan proves that rarely ends well. However there is a lot more that could be done. Economic sanctions; denying Gaddafi access to the resources he needs to conduct his war, support to the rebels; providing resources to help them overthrow Gaddafi, arrests warrant on Gaddafi and his sons for human rights violations. There is plenty of real substance that can actually be done to help the cause of democracy.

The international community is still recoiling from the public backlash to the last major international intervention: Iraq. The problem is that, the reason for the backlash was not that Iraq was handled badly (although it was), or that the wrong action was taken (although that was also the case), but that intervening in Iraq was quite clearly unwarranted, unnecessary, self-serving and immoral. The backlash came, not from the actions, but the intentions behind the actions. There was no good reason why the invasion of Iraq went ahead. Had there been a good reason – as there was in Afghanistan – the reaction would have been disappointment that the situation was not handled better – again, as was the case with Afghanistan – rather than outrage at the needless loss of life on both sides.

The Iraqi backlash has led to crippling indecision and conservatism on the part of the international community. As is so often the case, the pendulum has gone too far – from charging in, guns blazing, to awkward feet shuffling and embarrassed looks to someone else to do something. The appropriate response is somewhere in-between these extremes. Currently the international community is floundering and wallowing in self-doubt, while Libyans fight for their freedom, wondering what Gaddafi has to do to cause the international community to take notice. This inaction is as bad as the wrong type of action.

There is also a slightly more sinister factor a play here. Libya is a rather important international exporter of oil. The invasion of Iraq disrupted oil production from The Gulf for years, similar action in Libya could very well cause a similar disruption. With the world economy teetering uncertainly, and with oil prices relatively high, any disruption to the world oil economy could be disastrous. But try telling that to the Libyans.

The situation in Libya is a golden opportunity for world leaders to demonstrate to their people that they are not unprincipled, self-serving cowards who will not lift a finger unless it directly benefits them. It is a chance to demonstrate that principles such as liberty, self-determination and freedom of speech are not simply buzz-words; they are ideals that deserve protecting, that require nurturing, and that should be placed in a pedestal for all to aspire to.

Institutions such as the UN and the International Court of Human Rights were established in the aftermath of the Second World War to prevent such a calamitous world catastrophe from happening again, and to begin building towards a world where nations are not divided, but united, where ideals do not clash, but coexist, where people everywhere can expect the same rights and the same opportunities.

Over 60 years on from the establishment of these institutions, the world still faces an incredibly tough challenge in realising these ideals. The effects of communism are still being felt in the Far East and in eastern Europe and extreme Islamism seem to be the next threat looming rather close on the horizon. There is still a long way to go, but if we are ever to start moving towards a solution in any meaningful way, a statement needs to be made.

The current rebellions signal the beginning of the end of the string of dictators that arose out of the dismantlement of The Empires, most notably the British Empire. Africa, in particular, was ravaged by this fallout. The dust is still clearing over large parts of Central Africa, but it would seem that the dictators who emerged from that dust are starting to lose their power. Democracy is beginning to take root and the people of these nations are beginning to demand the freedom they have lacked for so long.

It is time the international community began to recognise these demands and stand by the people. It’s been desirable, but not needed up until now, but with the flames of Civil War eating away at Libya, it is most certainly needed. Libya is a test of international nerve, and so far, we’re failing. It’s time that actions took over from words and something concrete was done to stop Gaddafi and support the Libyan people in their fight for freedom. 

'Muscular Liberalism' and other nonsense

Earlier this week David Cameron made a speech declaring that multiculturalism has failed in the UK and argued that the UK needs a stronger national identity. He criticised groups that promoted extremism and declared that the government would stop supporting groups that did little to combat such extremism, especially in the Muslim community. Most worryingly he called for more active, muscular liberalism. Not only does this display a frightening lack of understanding of the very concept of liberalism and all the trappings thereof, it is indicative of a distressingly illiberal attitude.

Mr Cameron’s comments assume that multiculturalism is some sort of policy that the state should either support or not. It is not. Indeed it is not something that can fail or not, nor is it in any way related to the concept of a national identity, which is, in itself, a worrying one. Multiculturalism is exactly what it says; it’s the mixing of different cultures. When multiple different cultures interact with each other, then we have multiculturalism. Multiculturalism cannot fail simply by virtue of the fact that there exist a multiplicity of different cultures in the world; a world in which it would be impossible for them not to communicate.

Of course one gets the feeling that the PM does not mean that. He does not mean that cultures are failing to communicate. To say so would be absurd; simply walk through any main street in England and you will see that it is not true. Even white people eating at Indian restaurants counts as multiculturalism. Mr Cameron is actually saying that he thinks the fact that Britain is a multicultural place is promoting extremism. Multiculturalism is not working to unite people and exclude the extremist; it is working to legitimise them.

Unfortunately Mr Cameron is, yet again, wrong. Mixing cultures is inevitably going to cause conflict. People disagree, and sometimes people fail to realise that there is nothing wrong with that. However this is not to say that we should not encourage different people to communicate and learn from each other. The more we encourage such communication, the more likely it is that people will realise that disagreement does not imply conflict.

Extremism arises from a sense of exclusion. People do not turn to violence because they feel their culture is being allowed too much freedom to interact with others. People become terrorists because they feel that their way of life is being ignored and oppressed by another’s. Mr Cameron’s call for a greater ‘national identity’ implies exactly that.

I said about seven months ago that I might write a blog about why nationalism is wrong some time; well this might serve as part of that. Mr Cameron’s call for a greater sense national identity is, in essence, a call for a greater sense of nationalism. It is the concept that people who live in Britain ought to feel that they most assuredly are British and should feel a certain pride at that fact. I’d question what exactly distinguishes someone as British. It seems simply to encompass where you live. A Brit is someone who lives in Britain, and what exactly is that? Britain is simply an area of land defined by a whole collection of events from history, encompassing wars, revolutions, and political evolution, reinforced by an awful lot of art. None of this is objective. This is simply the actions of humans, usually to no greater purpose that personal gain. A nation is nothing more than a collective history, confined by lines on a map. There is no difference between Brits, Germans, Indians or Chinese people except that they were born into different histories and in different places. They belong to different cultures, but they should not be defined by that culture. Nationalism seeks to define people not as individuals, but by where they live and which arbitrary, meaningless pieces of history their ancestors belonged to. The most insidious part about nationalism is that it divides people along those lines. We end up seeing Germans in the context of Germany, or Indians in the context of India. Nationalism stops us from looking at people as individuals and forces us to look at them through glasses tinted with their national stigma.

To promote nationalism in the UK would do exactly the opposite of what Mr Cameron desires. He wants to curb extremism by promoting a greater sense of national identity, but to create such a national identity would be to isolate and marginalise minorities, increasing the potential for extremism. A sense of national identity will not make people feel more involved and more welcome; you cannot force someone to love something, especially when it is so steeped in a history to which they do not belong. A sense of national identity will make Britain into an introspective, self-obsessed exclusion area where new people are not welcome and where not being British is a bad thing. That is exactly the kind of attitude that creates extremism; just look at America.

All of the above is caused by a misunderstanding of why Mr Cameron is there at all. His, and his government’s, role is not to promote multiculturalism or create a sense of national identity. Multiculturalism arises from the fact that there are many different cultures in the world and that borders are not walls. People move, people interact, cultures mix. It is a fact of life and that mixture is not something that can and should be controlled. Borders should never be walls and people should never be stopped from moving between them. The government is there to ensure that everybody’s rights are being protected, yet they persist in telling people what they can and cannot do.

Mr Cameron called for what he described as ‘muscular liberalism’. Again he shows a painful misunderstanding of what the concept of liberalism actually means. Liberalism is the idea that everyone should be free do say, do and think exactly what they like so long as those actions do not curb the freedom of another. Liberalism is the triumph of freedom over coercion, of choice over compulsion, of reason over force. To use the world ‘Liberalism’ in the same breath as ‘muscular’ implies that people ought to be forced to be free, compelled to choose and coerced to freedom. Such things are paradoxical and nonsensical. Muscular Liberalism is a meaningless phrase that implies something much more sinister that it sounds. It implies that we ought to force people to live our way; to substitute their values for ours and their way of life for ours. It implies that liberalism is the only right way to live and that we should force people to live it, despite the fact that a true liberal philosophy implies no such thing.

Of course we should not take Mr Cameron’s words to their logical extremes. Politicians rarely take anything to their logical ends and, while his speech sounded hard hitting, in reality very little will change. Rhetoric will alter slightly and some policies may change, but his words are mostly just that, words. They will not be followed up by actions. They never are, and that’s jut the nature of politics. I wish it weren’t, but that’s a whole different blog post.

Walk like an Egyptian

Last week and over the weekend (yes, I know this is late, and no, I don’t have an excuse) Egypt imploded into internal turmoil, culminating in riots and angry crowds calling for President Mubarak to stand down. The unrest was triggered by the downfall of the Tunisian government earlier this month. Mubarak has a 30 year history of abuse, negligence and oppression in Egypt which looks set to end in the coming weeks.

The most interesting thing about this story as far as I am concerned is that in most people’s list of countries with oppressive and undemocratic regimes neither Egypt nor Tunisia tend to feature very highly. We all know about Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, indeed most of the Middle East would be black listed by most people with a working knowledge of international politics. Mubarak’s 30 year dictatorship, along with President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia’s 23 years in office have largely slipped under the radar.

This begs an obvious question. Why are some world dictatorships given a far worse press than others? An obvious answer would be to look at the severity of the offences; here we can clearly see why Zimbabwe and North Korea remain in the public eye. However given the revelations that have come out in the last few days about lack of basic freedoms in a grossly undereducated population in Egypt indicate that there might be something more sinister involved.

If one looks at the regime in Iran for example, there is little to suggest that the situation is any worse than in Egypt. While internationally aggressive, internally Iran has far better standard of education and, in many cases, more freedom. Yet the media focuses far more on the evils of the Iranian government (of which there are many) that they do on those of Mubarak.

Perhaps the most obvious case of double standards amid the international community is the example of Iraq. The Iraqi people did not even have to rise up in revolt for the American government to send in the troops. Saddam’s regime was terrible and there is no avoiding that, but then so is Mubarak’s. The international response has generally been to talk a lot of nonsense about moving towards a democracy and supporting the Egyptian people’s right to freedom of expression. There has not even been a hint of condemnation directed towards Mubarak from international leaders. I suggest that, were this to happen elsewhere in the Middle East, the international community would be up in arms condemning the government for crimes against its people.

A simple explanation for this seemingly unbalanced response from the international community is that Egypt has generally internalised its troubles. Egypt does not strut around on the world stage like Iran and North Korea. Mubarak is not outspoken like Mugabe. Egypt rarely finds itself in the international limelight these days and if it does it is usually in relation to Israel. Egypt simply isn’t interesting. The dictatorships people have heard of generally pose a threat to world peace.

This is, of course, not an excuse. An offence against human rights is an offence against human rights whether is threatens to spark an international conflict of not. The Egyptian people will not take solace in the fact that, despite 30 years of an oppressive regime, their government is not a threat to anyone else. While of course it is the job of journalists to report on international affairs and focus on the ones which are most dangerous to the world at whole, the fact that Mubarak can pass under the radar in such a way for 30 years is unacceptable.

The interesting thing is that, for many years now, Egypt has been an ally of the United States. The Suez Canal is a vitally important international trade route that, according to the American government, needs protecting more than the freedom of the Egyptian people. Mubarak has no ambition to hurt America, so is considered far safer that other Islamic leaders, so, despite the lack of democracy or liberty, Egypt is a good ally to have.

This blatant, shameless and unprincipled manipulation of international affairs with the sole intention of strengthening America’s position on the world stage should surprise no-one in light of the Wikileaks scandal. For a country built in principles of life, liberty and happiness for everyone (not just Americans) it is depressing that the US government openly supports despotic regimes for their own benefit.

The dreadful situation in Egypt is an exemplar of what is wrong with international politics. Democratic countries in which political and social freedom is widespread did not leap to the support of the Egyptian people as they burst out in protest against 30 years of oppression. People, you see, are volatile. The Islamic Brotherhood, an extreme Islamic group, may well aim to fill the power vacuum left by Mubarak. This would lead to The West losing a valuable ally in the Middle East and control of the Suez Canal. Better for Mubarak to remain in power so as to maintain America’s favourable status quo. Of course there is another option. The protests are not explicitly religious. There are, of course, religious elements to the protests, but protests calling for greater freedom are hardly likely to end up supporting extreme Islamist groups who would doubtless curb freedom just as much as Mubarak. A democratic process could be established which allowed the Egyptian people to chose who rules them.

Fortunately this is most likely to happen. However it will happen in entirely the wrong way. The Egyptian people will and have been left out to dry by the international community aiming to maintain their political advantage. The right thing will be done because that’s what works best for America, not because democracy and freedom are political rights that all should have and that all should strive towards. 

Leaky Pipes

As I’m sure you’re all aware, international politics has recently suffered a crisis of honesty with the leak of numerous documents, most of which detail American diplomats bitching about world leaders to their superiors. The more interesting and sinister ones detail the private dealings of America with various other world powers to manipulate international politics. Obviously the leaks have caused America and her allies to go rushing around smothering any dissent and trying to put the man who leaked the documents into the deepest jail cell they can find, while trying desperately to retain some kind of moral high-ground – and looking like petulant children in the process.

Now I could spend all day detailing all the amusing personal comments about various world leaders; calling Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, ‘paranoid and weak’, or accusing Prince Andrew of being ‘cocky’, or calling Silvio Berlusconi ‘feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader’ for example – most of which are probably true and not really news to anyone – but that’s not really the issue at hand here. Indeed these comments are largely irrelevant and unhelpful – they are private comments made in confidentiality. They should not have been published in the first place because they do little beside provide dirt for journalists and thus muddy the water, making it harder to actually focus on the important things being leaked.

Like documents detailing how America has been launching anti-terrorist attacks in countries like Yemen without even telling the international community, while the Yemeni president covers it up by lying to his government. Or orders for US diplomats to steal sensitive information like passwords, credit card details and DNA samples from supposed allies in the UN. Or the UK continuing to store US cluster bombs, despite their illegality. Or the US offering monetary and political incentives for countries to take prisoners in Guantanamo Bay off their hands.

All of the above revelations are either illegal, immoral or both. They are indicative of America’s arrogance and disregard for international law. It is also telling that America’s obsession with their own international dominance at the expense peace, justice and morality has not begun to fade since the Cold War days. More than anything I think this whole episode has highlighted the problem with politics, both internationally and domestically.

Politics is all about gaining power. The job of an American diplomat is to try to further America’s power and influence over the rest of the world, so that the USA might continue to be a political and economic superpower. It is not to try to find the solution which promotes the most peace, justice or democracy. They are not there to find the right solution that is best for both parties and will promote international peace and good will for years to come. They are simply there to look after America’s short term interests.

Now I’m not saying that America is the only culprit here; every country enters any international diplomatic situation with its own interests firmly in the driving seat. These interests; political and economic, are to be ruthlessly pursued at all costs, even if the end result actually lands the rest of the world in a lot of trouble that will eventually cause a lot more suffering and hardship further down the line.

For examples of this we only need to look at almost any international law created since World War 2. We could look at the laws on international trade for example, that allow Europe and the USA to monopolise world agriculture, despite having much higher wages than the third world, because they can afford to play subsidies and don’t let third world countries protect their own industries with import tariffs. This means that cheap produce can flood third world countries from the developed world, undercutting local products and meaning that farmers cannot make a living out of the land, causing untold poverty and drastically slowing the development of the countries in question. No change in this situation seems likely in the future, given that the international bodies which regulate these laws, such as the World Trade Organisation are dominated by developed countries which benefit most from these unjust laws.

Politics, then, has become, or always was, nothing to do with creating a better world, trying to arrive at solutions which benefit the entire world in a non-violent, well thought-out and virtuous way. Politics is all about looking after number one. It is entirely selfish and self serving. Now those of you who know me and my political views will no doubt be wondering why I, usually so adamant that self-interest can be a force for good, am criticising selfishness. I must explain by saying that there are two kinds of selfishness; rational self-interest, which promotes one’s own interests without threatening the interests of others – indeed, it usually promotes the interests of others as well as one’s own – then there’s the kind of irrational, unthinking selfishness which is the kind that everyone criticises and it, unfortunately, predominant in politics. It’s the kind of short-sighted, ill-considered selfishness that leads to greater problems down the line, which are in turn only solved by temporary fixes which bring short term gains at the expense of long term interests.

This leads to international politics becoming based not on reason and the long term interests of the world, but based on who has the most power and from whom smaller nations can whore themselves out to; usually the USA. These leaks are mostly indicative of the countries either sucking up to the USA in order to gain political favour – like the Cluster bombs, Guantanamo Bay and Yemen cases – or attempts by the USA to manipulate world politics in their favour, like the spying case. Either way they’re all a rather chilling and deeply disturbing insight into the world of politics – a world that quite desperately needs to be cleaned up if the world is ever to become a place of widespread peace and prosperity.

Inevitably the USA and her allies have tried to cover up these leaks, shut down the website, fix the pipes and generally try to make themselves out to be the victim. In a completely flagrant disregard for anything they might have done wrong, US politicians are accusing the man who leaked the documents – Julian Assange – of causing irreparable damage to international relations and causing untold setbacks in the cause of world peace. While of course this is true, all Assage is doing is being the messenger; he is simply telling the world about all the dishonest, self-serving and largely illegal behaviour of the US and her allies. It is rather rich for the US to be accusing him of causing all this damage when it is simply the truth about their behaviour that has caused the damage.

Immediate self evaluation would be far too much to expect of a political system which has shown itself again and again to be incapable of changing without enormous pressure from voters – and even then there’s never any real change. One would hope that these leaks will at least enlighten the voters about just how shockingly corrupt and self-serving their politicians are. Whether this will cause any change, given that the only way to change the system if from within and the only way to get into the system is to be a part of the corruption and culture of selfishness in the first place, is highly doubtful. Nevertheless these revelations are incredibly important, even if they only serve to prove, once and for all, that a politician will never change his stripes and politics will always be an exercise in self-aggrandisement at the expense of virtue.

The United... Republic?

A couple of weeks ago the UK and indeed most of the rest of the Commonwealth was hurled into a torrent of joy, patriotism and nostalgia with the news that Prince William was to marry Kate Middleton; his long term girlfriend. I know this is old news, but one blog a week isn’t enough to keep up sometimes. I’m also sorry that this is so late; I’ve had a busy weekend.

Anyway, I think I was about the only one in the Commonwealth who wasn’t either very excited at the prospect of a royal wedding or at least apathetic to the whole thing. Ok that isn’t strictly true, but doubters were pretty hard to come by. The fact that so few people seem to think that the continued existence of the royal family is an affront to justice and democracy is almost as worry as the continued existence of the royal family.

‘An affront to justice and democracy’ is a pretty bold statement to make, so it deserves some form of explanation. Let’s define terms first; justice is the concept of getting what you deserve. If you work hard, you’ll be more successful that if you bum around; if you commit a crime, you will be punished; if you treat other with dignity and respect, they will treat you likewise. It’s a basic concept which forms the basis of any society. When if fails, you are left with either tyranny or anarchy. In short justice forms the basis for society.

One born, or indeed married, into the royal family is born, or married, into undeserved and unearned privilege. Palaces and luxury are yours by birthright. From the moment you first draw breath you are destined for wealth and high office. Royalty are destined for privilege that no other citizen can even dream of attaining, no matter how hard they work, and yet they have to do nothing to earn such honour.

Unearned wealth and privilege goes against any rational definition of justice and the royal family embody unearned wealth and privilege. Of course the same can be said of any kind of inheritance, and I would agree with you, however this inheritance is such a gross and overwhelming one that all others pale in comparison. There is no way that any of the royal family could possibly attain what they inherit by their own efforts.

We must not forget also that royalty does not only embody wealth, but also high office. Here is where the democracy comes in. The ideal of democracy is that those deemed most able by the populace is appointed to lead them for a select period of time. It is, in many ways, an extension of justice – a collective choice of leader is made of he who is most deserving and, depending on how good the decision was, the people are either served well or badly. If things go badly, they only have to blame themselves.

The royal family are destined for high office. Prince William, so long as he doesn’t die before hand, will eventually inherit the throne. That means he becomes the official diplomatic, military and political leader of the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth. The people over whom he rules have no say in the matter and have no constitutional capacity to depose him. He will have done nothing to deserve it beyond simply being born for it. His wife will have done nothing beyond being lucky enough to be the object of his affection.

Unelected, indefinite power is not democracy. Sure the King/Queen has no real power – that lies with Parliament, but they still have a significant diplomatic and official role in the country. They often act as our spokesperson and act on the world stage in a very significant way. We cannot possibly call this democracy.

So the royal family is clearly and demonstrably undemocratic and unjust, so why do so many people celebrate their ongoing existence? Most of it is a rather fond nostalgia, harking back to the days when Britain was the world’s only super-power, rather than an increasingly isolated and insignificant island, neither in Europe, nor outside it. This is complemented with a rather large dollop of conservatism.

These arguments are impossible to refute, because they are, at heart, an emotional response that can only be refuted with introspection. There are some arguments, largely straw-men, which can be tackled head on.

The most significant of these is the appeal to tourism. It is argued that the royal family and all the pomp they represent are good for the tourist industry. They are a veritable magnet for visitors to the UK and Buckingham palace is on every tourist trail worth following. The problem is that if you go to France, the Palace of Versailles is just as popular, and yet no living monument to bygone days squats there. No tourist would shun the palace if it were to become an empty shell of our history, rather that a living piece of it.

I don’t think we should shun and forget the rich and long history that the UK has, of which the royal family has played an integral part, but there is a different between celebrating history and living in the past. Just like the monarchies of ever other European country, the gross injustice of monarchy belongs in the past. It should be remembered and the deeds of the great men and women who occupied the position should be celebrated – just as the deeds of the rather worse men and women (of whom there are just as many) should be bemoaned.

The rulers who occupy the pages of history should be studied so that we might understand how the UK came to be the way it is today, but they should not continue to be written into the history books. They have no place in a modern society in which justice and democracy rule, because they contradict both. No amount of nostalgia can fix that.

Speaking of nostalgia and how it is no excuse for progress, you might notice the rebranding. I have a new name for this blog because I didn’t like the old one. The content will not change, but now I won’t be quite so embarrassed by the title. 

where do we go from here? (Lessons from History 5)

So if you were following the election results flood (or should I say trickle) in on Friday morning, you’ll know that the Tories won the most seats, but not enough to have a majority, the Labour party lost out big time, coming a comfortable second and the Liberal Democrats had a poor night as well, winning fewer seats than last time, despite getting more votes. This means that we have a Hung Parliament for the first time in 36 years.

The last one was in 1974, when Harold Wilson’s Labour won most seats, despite polling fewer votes than Edward Heath’s Conservative party, who had been in power since 1970, when Heath won power from Wilson. As is constitutional, Heath tried to form a coalition with Jeremy Thorp, the leader of the Liberal Party, who has polled a lot of votes, but typically not many seats. Thorp demanded electoral reform, which Heath was unwilling to grant, so resigned. Wilson became Prime Minister, but at the head of a minority government. The Liberals did not even have enough seats to form a coalition with either party and guarantee a majority, so any government was inevitably unstable. On this occasion Harold Wilson battled on in a minority government until October, when he called another election and won an outright majority.

This is one of the only occasions in British history in which we’ve had a hung parliament because of the nature of our electoral system, the others are even less like the current situation. In 1929 the Labour Party again won most seats with fewer votes than the Conservatives. Wikipedia is sadly silent on what happened as a result of this election however.

Nevertheless the current situation is unique in British electoral history. With the LibDems doing relatively poorly however it is not as complex as it could have been. If we leave aside the 20 or so seats which belong to small parties and look at the three main parties, we have a situation whereby any coalition would have to contain the Conservatives because a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition would not have enough seats to form a majority. They would then have to scrounge around for votes from the other parties and maybe even a few errant Tories. This would inevitably be very unstable and deeply unpopular with a public who resoundingly voted against Labour. For Brown to go on a Prime Minister have lost an election would be an affront to democracy. Just as in 1974 the incumbent Prime Minister cannot realistically form a coalition. Had the LibDems done slightly better and won enough seats for a Lib/Lab coalition to work, Clegg would be faced with a very difficult decision. As it stands he has only to decide whether to leave the Tories high and dry, or to form a coalition with them.

A Conservative/Liberal Democrat alliance looks most likely at this point; however there is the option that Cameron could try to go it alone as a minority Government, as Wilson did in 1974. They would be left with trying to scramble around for enough votes from Labour, LibDem and smaller parties to get legislation through. Most likely this would be a temporary solution with another General Election very soon. Indeed if the two previous examples of a Hung Parliament teach us anything, it’s that another election is sure to follow soon enough; it is almost a certainty if Cameron tries to go alone it will. The problem he faces is that, with the recession and the massive budget deficit, he will have to make major cuts in spending without corresponding cuts in taxes. This is likely to be unpopular with people, so he may not get the support he wants to be able to call and election. It would be better for him to form a coalition and so spread the blame for the cuts, rather than taking it all on himself and making his party unelectable for a generation.

This leaves us with a Con/Lib coalition, unless the Labour Party wants to form an alliance with the Tories, but I find that unlikely. The trouble is that there is a lot of differences of opinion between them; the LibDems will insist on electoral reform, which the Tories don’t want, their views on the economy are very different, as are their views on immigration. They will have trouble reconciling their differences, but if they do it will mean that the government will not only have a majority of the seats, but also the majority of the votes if you add together the Tories and the LibDems. That’s not something that has happened in a very long time.

One of the major reasons for Clegg agreeing to a coalition with the Tories is that (if it works) it will show that a coalition can be made to work. One of the major arguments against PR is that coalitions do not work and will lead to indecision and political horse-trading. A Con/Lib coalition could create a socially liberal, economically conservative party in line with the old fashioned Liberal party, which actually forms a good and decisive government. This would show the country that a coalition can work. It would take some of the best politicians in Westminster to make such an alliance work, indeed I don’t even think the best politicians in Westminster could make it work, but it would be lovely if it could happen.

Most likely we will see a loose, sketchy Con/Lib coalition which would struggle with indecision and political horse-trading for 18 months or so until the Tories feel comfortable enough calling another election, by which time the Labour Party will have imploded and the Tories will gain a decent majority. It will be back to more of the same old politics with no hope of electoral reform and no real change. Despite all the excitement the status quo will be restored within 18 months and Politics will become dull again. Then again we can but hope that our politicians aren’t lying to us and we’ll end up with some real change this time, we could also hope that the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow morning.

How about the others?

So the election is next Thursday, and we all know about the three main parties and what they want to do (or at least we do if we’ve watched the televised debates, which we should have done), but what about the other parties? Politics is dominated by the big three, but at the last election 8% of people voted for other parties, which accounted for 29 seats. Granted most of these were in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where specifically Irish, Scottish and Welsh parties have a large degree of support, but I don’t really care about them because they’re just not silly enough. So here’s a rundown of some of the more extreme and just bonkers parties that you might have the opportunity of voting for on 6th may.

The Greens
Ok, not that extreme or bonkers, just very left wing and environmentally conscious. They are trying to stress however that they are not just about tree hugging; they are trying to be serious politicians who deal with all the issues. From looking at their policies however, I can only conclude that they live in some strange dream world where there hasn’t just been a global financial crisis and we don’t have a huge budget deficit. It’s spend, spend, spend and I can’t help but wonder where the hell they plan on getting all that money from. It’s not like it grows on trees of anything.

The BNP
Because every civilised country needs its fair share of racist bigots who want to throw out all the immigrants and ban minarets. At least we’ve not elected them like Switzerland has. Basically they’re nutters who are trying to make themselves look respectable by having some almost reasonable policies mixed in with all the racist bigotry and ignorance. As you can see here, they almost sound reasonable when they’re not mentioning foreigners. Don’t be fooled though, as I’ve said before, the BNP are built upon a false premise of Britishness.

The Communist Party
As well as having a party of bigoted fascists, we also have a party of mad commies. I don’t think I really need to spell out what they want to do, if you’re unsure I’ll give you a hint – “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. Their manifest can be found here if you really want to know, but it’s not all that interesting, better to read the Communist Manifesto, as in the original, and assume that they essentially want to do that.

The Libertarian Party
A party that is actually quite close to my heart. They’re all for freedom, as in absolute freedom, both economically and socially. That is to say they want to all but dissolve government and leave it as little more than a police force, a military and a jury. Their end goal is to create a society in which there is no government as such, which they are trying to achieve by getting elected into government.

The Pirate Party
I really wanted this party to be all about Britain regaining control of the high seas by challenging the Somali monopoly on piracy, but no, it’s all about bootlegging (so that’s a misnomer right there). Essentially they want to make it legal to do things we all do already, like put music from CDs onto MP3 players, or recoding a program. They also have some great ideas about frees speech and privacy, but it’s still not a lot to run an election in.

The Christian Party
These guys actually have some interesting policies. However they seem to think that this is a Christian nation, not a secular one, a bit like the BNP. Ok that’s unfair, they’re not like the BNP, but they do want to impose Christian education on schools and impose Christian values on society. They’re not all bad, but the fact is church and State should be separate.

The Monster Raving Loony Party
Sorry, the Monster Raving William Hill Party, because they’re being sponsored by William Hill, the online betting site, William Hill. These guys are exactly what they say on the tin, absolutely bad-shit loco. See? Entertaining. They hold the UK monopoly on weird for the election, which is a shame because it would be great to have more parties to laugh with rather than at.

This is far from an exhaustive list of all the slightly bad parties running in this election. A full list can be found here. Even if you do vote for one of these weird and wonderful parties, do at least vote. No matter how bad our electoral system, or how pointless it would be voting for anyone but the main three parties, at least exercise your democratic right. You could even go into the ballot box and spoil your ballot of you wish, people have died for less.

A very undemocratic democracy

Last week I outlined briefly the political system in this country. I alluded to some weaknesses but said I’d talk about them this week, so that’s what I am going to do.

As I said, we each vote in our constituency for a Member of Parliament who then represents the whole of the constituency. This MP is decided simply by who gets the most votes; he (or she) doesn’t need a majority, just the largest minority. Indeed in most of the country MPs do not have the vote of the majority of their constituency. This means that over half of the people who voted in most constituencies voted for someone other than the person who is sent to Parliament on behalf of them. Even when an MP gets a majority, he only represents 51% (or whatever his majority is) of the constituency. The other 49% (or however many) are not actually represented in Parliament. Indeed if you add it up over the country, on average over 50% of the voters are not actually represented by anyone in Parliament. Unless you vote for the same person as enough other people in your constituency, your view will not be represented in Parliament at all. It’s worth stopping for a moment and letting that fact detonate in your brain.

The views of over half of the people who vote are not represented in Parliament.

I talked last week about the fact that some classes of society tend to vote for a certain party and that some individuals will almost always vote for a certain party no matter what happens. This means that each of the parties can essentially guarantee a particular proportion of the vote. This is the case in most countries, but it has horrible consequences given our political system. The way the constituencies are distributed (so that each one has roughly equal number of voters), most constituencies lie in an area where a large chunk of voters know for whom they will vote. These usually form a large minority, large enough for the MP representing that party to be fairly certain of winning the election in that constituency each time around. No matter how most people vote in the constituency there is literally no way in which an MP from a different party will win. If you live in one of these ‘safe’ seats, there is literally no point in voting because the result of a foregone conclusion.

Approximately 400 of the 650 constituencies are ‘safe’. Labour has the most of these, with the Tories close behind and the Lib Dems quite far behind. This means that Labour and to a slightly lesser extent Conservatives have a massive head start over everyone else in each election. They can assume ownership of the majority of the constituencies. Come 6th May, then, only 250 of the constituencies will be contested. That accounts for just over a third of the country. This means that your vote only matters in about 38% of the country. Again, pause for a second and let that sink in.

Not only are the views of over half of the people who vote not represented in Parliament, but for 62% of the country there is no point in voting, because it wont count for anything.

Now this may seem like enough evidence to say that our political system is undemocratic and unfair, but bad news comes in threes, so let’s look at what happens when we get in Parliament.

Most of the time one party has enough MPs to form a majority government. That means that, so long as they keep the support of their backbenchers, the government can force through any piece of legislation they want. They can do effectively anything they like. For five years we have essentially a one party state with a free hand to do what they will. Despite having a parliamentary majority, you have to go back to the Second World War to find an election in which any one party had over 50% of the popular vote. That means that a party without the support of the majority of the populace can rule with impunity. So let’s stop and take stock of what we’ve decided so far.

Not only are the views of over half of the people who vote are not represented in Parliament, but for 62% of the country there is no point in voting, because it wont count for anything and when they get to parliament, the winning party can run the country on their own, despite not having the support of the majority of the country. And we call this a democracy. We haven’t even mentioned the fact that we have a whole second chamber which is entirely unelected.

So we can conclude that our entire electoral system (called First Past the Post, often shortened to FPtP for obvious reasons) is entirely undemocratic, unfair and unreasonable. The solution? Proportional Representation (or PR for short), a system which simply counts up votes and assigns seats to each party in proportion to the number of votes. It means that everyone is represented, everyone’s view matters and only a party with over 50% of the vote can rule alone. In most cases this will require politicians to work together on a cross-party basis. This may be difficult for British politicians, but they manage it in most of the rest of Europe, so why I see no reason why it wont work here.

I don't do politics

Last Thursday was a first for British politics. The three main party leaders had a live, televised debate for the first time in British history. No wonder then that it was so regulated and controlled as to feel very unnatural. Nonetheless it was both enlightening and slightly disconcerting, hopefully setting a benchmark for future debates both in this and in future elections. Given that this will be the first in a number of election based blogs in the lead-up to 6th May, I might as well get some of the basics down first. If you’re wondering, I won’t be voting on 6th May because I don’t turn 18 until June, and no, I’m not bitter or pissed of at all, don’t be silly.

Anyway the election is essentially fought between the three major parties. One of which is the Labour Party, led by Gordon Brown, who is the current Prime Minister. Labour have been in power for the last 13 years, having won 3 elections in a row under Tony Blair. Despite the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Blair didn’t do too bad a job as Prime Minister, things started going down hill since Brown took over in 2007 because he’s an uncharismatic lump of lard who seemed to have made a good chancellor until the economic collapse showed that he had not done as good a job as everyone presumed. Despite being wildly unpopular, the Labour Party will still get quite a lot of seats in parliament because a large number of the working class vote Labour on principle.

Likewise much of the middle and upper class will vote Conservative on principle. Otherwise known as the Tories, they’re led by David Cameron who is quite a lot better than the plethora of morons they’ve had leading them over the last 13 years in opposition. After the walking disaster that was John Major, who lost the election in 1997, the Tories have steadily rebuilt and modernised, by which I mean they’ve become as close to Labour as possible without actually being Labour.

It’s worth noting at this point that, while ‘Labour’ as a name has strong left-wing, socialist implications, the Labour Party are actually pretty central politically. In order to avoid offending anyone, Blair made the party as boring and insubstantial as possible in 1997 and won the election because of it. In order to win this election David Cameron has done much the same to the Conservatives, so we now have two major political parties in Britain with very little to choose between them.

Which leads us to the Liberal Democrats. The third party. The one that hasn’t been in power for 65 years. Their leader is Nick Clegg, who is slightly different from Brown and Cameron, but not much. There’s not much to say about the Lib Dems really because they’ve been a political non-entity for so long. They’ve never really had the chance to compete with the Tories or Labour on the main stage so has never been able to muscle their way into any sort of political power. It didn’t help that they had mostly useless fools as leaders until Clegg came along and, in part, revitalised them.

It’s worth just explaining the British political briefly so everyone is on the same page. Essentially we don’t vote for leaders, we vote for Members of Parliament (MPs) representing different parties. The country is divided into constituencies, each represented by one MP. We vote for which person we want to be sent to represent our constituencies in Parliament. The party with the most MPs takes power. For any piece of legislation to be made into law is has to be voted for by Parliament. This means that the party in power needs to either have a majority or the agreement of enough MPs not in their party to get legislation through. Usually the former is the case, although it seems likely that this time around no party will get an absolute majority in Parliament, leading to a Hung Parliament and the party with the significant minority looking to form a coalition. There are obvious weaknesses to this system, which I hope to go into some other time. I also have not mentioned the House of Lords because it’s a bit confusing to start bringing in stuff about a second house as well. Again I’ll go into that next week.

In terms of the debate on Thursday, I think Nick Clegg did best, offering himself (and his party) as a viable alternative to the other two parties. He had a great opportunity to tell people about the Lib Dems and their policies and took it really well. Nonetheless the debate was far from satisfactory. None of the three leaders displayed any evidence of being driven by any principles, it was all pragmatic, for-the-moment policies, none of which showed much consistency. They’re just trying as hard as they can to appeal to as many people as possible without promising things which are obviously unworkable.

This is indicative of the problem with politics, especially in this country. It’s no longer about what is best for the country or what is right on principle; it’s about what will get the most votes. Come election time, and indeed the rest of the time for anyone not in power, all that matters is whose face can appear the shiniest and whose policies can bribe enough people into voting for them. Elections are no longer battle between liberals, socialists and conservatives where principles and ideals matter; they’re headlong races for the centre ground with each party throwing principles to the wind and trying desperately not to offend anyone. Essentially it makes it boring as hell because if someone is interesting it usually implies that they are in some way objectionable to a group of people. In trying to remove any possibility to offence they remove any interest and actually make quite a lot of politics boring.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to dedicate the next two or three blogs to it, because it’s still quite interesting. More interesting that anything else that is happening.

Legal highs?

Earlier this week the Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that he would make the drug Methadone a Class B drug, joining Cannabis and Amphetamine Sulphate among others, and thus carry a 5 year jail sentence for possession and a 14 year sentence for supply. This move followed a report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which made the recommendation. Not only has this decision led to one member of the Advisory Council resign because he thought it was rushed, it is also completely the wrong decision and indicative of the incorrect way in which we view drug laws in this country and by extension the way in which the law is used.

Drug laws are currently constructed loosely on the basis of danger to the public (with the notable exceptions of Alcohol and Tobacco). The most dangerous, like Heroin and LSD are Class A drugs and carry the most severe sentence, whereas less dangerous drugs like Tranquilisers and Ketamine are Class C drugs and carry a far less severe sentence. You get a more severe sentence for supplying drugs to other people than you do for simply possessing them for your own usage. These laws seem to make sense (apart from the ones about Alcohol and Tobacco), if you make the assumption that laws are there to protect the citizens of a country.

However this is to forget that laws are also there to protect civil liberties, not curtail them. There is no obligation for the law to protect citizens from themselves; if they choose to take Acid then they live with the potential consequences of a bad trip. The government exists not to say what its citizens can and cannot do with their own bodies, but to protect their right to do what they want, no matter how harmful that might be to themselves. It is only when in individuals actions impinge on the freedom or safety of another citizen against his of her will that the government is morally obliged to intervene.

Drug laws assume that it is the role of government to tell people what they can and (more often) cannot do. This is to say that the role of government is to provide a moral compass for citizens. This of course makes one wonder how the government plans on deciding what is moral and what is not. Given that the only authority a government has is that given to it by the democratic process, that is the power of 51% of the populace, it has no authority to tell the other 49% what they should do. Indeed given that, after an election, those in power have 5 years to do what they will without reference to the populace, they have no right to tell anyone what they should do. Even if a law has the favour of the vast majority of the populace (as drugs laws tend to), they still have no right to make that law because it will inevitable go against the will of a few citizens. Government is for everyone, not just the majority.

The government’s role is to protect the right of the citizens; those rights are life, liberty and property. So the government’s sole role is protection, not prescription of morality. This is not to say that anything goes morally; there are still moral principles which everyone should abide by, but these take the form of virtues; way of acting and ways of being which cannot be prescribed by government. It is up to the individual to decide how they should act, not the government. This requires that people take responsibility for their actions and abstain from something not because it’s illegal but because it’s immoral.

I don’t think drugs should be legal because I think it’s moral to take drugs (I think any kind of drug taking to excess – yes that includes alcohol – is deeply immoral), I think drugs should be legal because I think it is deeply dangerous to allow the government to dictate ethics to us. Laws should not be based on what could potentially harm the individual; it should be up to the individual to decide he or she should be doing with his or her own body. Allowing the government to take the responsibility of deciding what is and is not moral will not mahe us better people. It also skews our vision of morality, so that it no longer focuses on in the individual, as it should, but focuses on the collective. I think it would be worth us bearing in mind that a society is simply a collection of individuals; we should not elect people on the basis of what would be best for the society as a whole, but based on what would be best for the individual within that society, and that is always more liberty and fewer laws trying to pamper and protect citizens from responsibility.

Like self-indulgent butter spead too thinly over a peice of bread that is far too big

HAPPY NEW DECADE!!!!!

Well technically the new decade doesn’t start until next year, but if you’re pedantic enough to care then I feel sorry for you.

As is inevitable when a decade turns and I have too much free time on my hands, I have spend some time reflecting on the past 10 years, not just in my life (because let’s face it no-one cares) but also on the world in general. Obviously the most memorable (and not in a good way) event of the decade was the terrorist attack in the twin towers in New York in 2001, killing thousands and drastically changing the face of world politics. It was the catalyst for two controversial and politically damaging wars by America (with Britain tagging along in) against smaller powers as part of the uninformatively named War on Terror. Who knows maybe in the decade someone will tell us what that actually means.

9/11 was in many ways a turning point, but by no means a one off. Various other attacks throughout the decade, such as the 7/7 bombings on London and the Madrid train bombing are indicative of the dangers of the decade. The main enemy seems to be Islamic extremism, based largely in the Middle East. So far we’ve had little success in combating it.

The second major political theme of the decade has been climate change. Fears over what all that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere for the last 150 years might do to the planet reached fever pitch this decade, culminating in the Copenhagen conference late last year, which certainly blogs completely failed to cover… Anyway I really don’t know what to think about climate change. I can see that the science has a point, but I’m not exactly sure to what extent the government can force businesses to change. Much has been done over the last 10 years to build up a strong case for climate change; I guess the actual action to stop us all drowning sometime this century will have to come from the bottom up, not the top down, in the next decade or so. Maybe if we stopped dropping so many bombs on innocent civilians that might help.

Politics aside, this decade has seen massive advances in technology; computers have become faster, smaller and more powerful. Technology such as music players, phones and camera have now become something that everyone carries around in their pockets, usually as part of the same piece of hardware. The internet has gown to become a huge part of everyone’s life, in a way that many would not have seemed imaginable in the year 2000. To many the fact that we don’t have AI and space exploration yet will be a disappointment, but to be honest we could do without Blade Runner style Cyborgs running around putting us all to shame and beating Han Solo up (if you don’t get it go watch Blade Runner).

With this massive improvement in the power of computers comes a massive improvement in CGI. This has expressed itself most in video games which have become bigger and more beautiful than ever. Even post-apocalypse Washington DC is looking pretty fine these days thanks to games like Fallout 3. The internet has also allowed people to play against each other across the globe and expose their wilful ignorance to more people than ever. Games like WoW and Modern Warfare have all but dropped the pretence (or dropped it entirely) of a story in favour of getting people to pay through the nose to play for hours online while getting nowhere.

To me this is a great shame. Video games provide a superb opportunity to tell a very unique story because it is much more immersive and involved than a film or a book. The story is no longer being told to you, an independent viewer entirely outside the action, you the player are actually part of the story; you interact with it and possibly even effect its direction. ‘Sandbox’ games like Fallout and, well the majority of games released recently, allow you to fully explore the setting and choose exactly what your character does and says, even what he looks like. The game leads you in a specific direction, but doesn’t dictate how the story flows or even how it ends. However often more linear games rely on cut scenes to tell the story, which is basically like playing a game for 30 minute to and hour, then turning it off to go watch TV for a couple of minutes. I’m sure with the complexity of games these days story telling could become even more immersive. Maybe in the next decade we will see games focusing on storytelling again, rather than simply dumping you in an environment and asking you to explore or even worse just dumping you online with hundreds of other idiots and telling you to go nuts. The technology is there, someone just needs to use a bit of imagination and not jump on the bandwagon of what makes money, which they have done recently (see previous post on motion sensing).

CGI and special effects in general have also served to make films much more visually complicated, allowing for frighteningly realistic animation and stunts. A recent example of just how far we’ve come is Avatar, which I really need to see. The decade has been dominated by high octane action thrillers, with impressive special effects and fun explosions. These have a tendency to get in the way however of what really matters to a film; the story and the characters. Sure a film may look nice now, but as CGI gets better and better, is starts to look a little dated and all you’re left with is outdated animation which fails to impress. Let’s take the Star Wars franchise as an example. The first three films (that’s the three that were made, not one ones that come first in the chronology) are amazing films, with a superb story and brilliant characters. The animation and stunts and all that were good when they were made, but pale in comparison to what is achieved these days. Even so the films still stand out as some of the best ever made because a good story is timeless, it doesn’t matter that it looks a bit shit compared to the more recent Star Wars films because what matters is the story, not the aesthetics. Compare this to the most recent Star Wars trilogy. Looked pretty impressive at the time, lovely choreography, lots of explosions capped with some truly cringworthy one liners. Looking back now however, especially in the light of a film like Avatar, it’s not actually all that impressive any more. It no longer looks that good and all we are left with are a crap story, spoon-deep characters and a bitter taste in the mouth. CGI and special effect cannot compensate for a lack of a decent story.

Of course the film industry is not all terrible films that rely in looking impressive with no depth, films like the Dark Knight, Brokeback Mountain, Gladiator, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Minority Report and I could go on and on are brilliant films that will continue to stand out even when all rest of the bilge has paled again the slightly better looking bilge of next decade. I’m sure the filming industry will continue to play on gimmicks like 3D and CGI and produce some truly god awful films, but I’m sure there will continue to be some gems as well.

What we can gleam from the last 4 paragraphs and 10 years of visual forms of story telling is that games and movies have not gotten any better in the last ten years, just a hell of a lot prettier. Hopefully the latter will continue to be the case and we continue to get some damn fine stuff mixed in with the inevitable dirge of complete crap.

The latter can also be said for the music industry. This decade has been characterised by some truly dreadful, manufactured abominations, mostly popped out by the X factor poptart making factory run by Simon Cowell. This decade has probably seen more talentless clones singing other people’s songs than any other. Thankfully there have been some genuinely talented musicians trying and in some cases (like Muse and Coldplay if you like that sort of thing) succeeding, but in most cases (like most of the bands I like) failing to get a look in. To be honest this has and will continue to happen for the same reason that crap films and crap games will continue to be released; people are morons. Yes I lost my faith in most people’s opinions long ago and it’s hardly surprising given how popular Twilight and Lady Gaga are between them

Right, so to wrap up the decade, we have only really progressed in that we have found better and more interesting ways of blowing people up and entertaining ourselves. We are no cleverer and our stories are no better. We make the same old mistakes and will continue to for as long as it takes for the ice caps to melt and us all to drown in a flood of stupidity and water.

Before you sigh in relief that this frightening mass of self-indulgent drivel has finally finished, I have a couple of announcements to make.

Because I have decided that I still have too much free time and I got some weird flashes of inspiration, I have decided that in the New Year I will be starting 2 new different but slightly linked projects.

The first is called Project 365, the idea being that you take at least one photo per day all year so that you have a pictorial record of the year. With any luck I will manage to keep it going for longer than a month. The second and more interesting one is inspired by something called ‘postsecrets’, whereby people write shameful secrets on postcard sized images and send them in anonymously. However because I am not nearly as depressed as the people who send in these things (seriously read them, they really heart wrenching), I have decided to do a similar things, just with little sound bites that I enjoy, either from me in my day to day life, or important, intelligent people who have something interesting to say. My first comes courtesy of Wil Wheaton’s twitter (the guy who played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation)



I shall be putting them up on this photobucket account, the Postcards every Wednesday (roughly) and the daily photos whenever I can be bothered to make an update, probably every couple of days and at least every week with any luck.

white lies

Earlier this week former Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that he would have gone to war with Iraq even if he had known that there were no WMDs in the country. He said that he would have used different arguments to justify the war. Essentially Blair has admitted that he lied to the country in order to commit us to a war which he knew would be difficult to sell to a public who rightfully saw no direct link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, or indeed any actual threat from the regime.

In the build up to war, the main thrust of the arguments centred around the fear that Iraq was hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction which could be used against Britain at very short notice. In less than an hour, it was reported, Iraq could fire dangerous weapons at us. This claim was questioned at the time and now it has been shown to be little more than a convenient argument. It probably wasn’t true and even if it was, it was only a shallow justification, not the actual motivation for the war.

Blair said that the real reason for going to war was the removal of Sadam, who had, after all, used chemical weapons against his own people. I do not debate that Sadam’s regime was evil and deserved to be removed, but I was not aware that Britain still claimed to be a world police force. I thought our national ego had significantly deflated after we lost the empire. Apparently Blair still harboured delusions of grandeur about Britain’s place in the world. Delusions he clearly did not feel were shared given his refusal to be honest about his reasoning for the war.

If we were to follow Blair’s rather arrogant train of thought all the way to the end of the line, we would end up trying to justify war with just about half of the world. If Blair sees it as Britain’s job to remove oppressive dictatorships, we should probably think about attacking most of Africa. Robert Mugabe is just one of many dictators who are just as bad as Sadam was in 2003. How about the rest of the Middle East? Surely Iran and Saudi Arabia are just as bad as Iraq was. Perhaps the reason Blair didn’t go to war with either of those countries is that they might actually have WMDs.

Like a playground bully, Blair went to war with a country he knew he could defeat. He could make himself and his country (but mostly himself) look like a great, moral man who it willing to go to war in order to protect people and spread liberal western democracy. Whether the people wanted his protection or his democracy is up for debate.

We may of course be missing an elephant in the room here. Blair did not go to war with Iraq on his own; like a loyal dog, Blair followed Bush. I don’t know what Bush’s justification was, I’m not even sure Bush knows what his justification was. Either way Blair was not so much the playground bully as the sidekick who tries to look big and impressive by following the bully wherever he goes.

Whatever his motivation, what’s clear is this; Tony Blair lied to the public and the House of Commons in order to justify a war which would otherwise have been unjustifiable. It is highly doubtful that Blair would have been able to get the support of the Commons or the public without the scaremongering that accompanied the false assertions about WMDs. Blair’s lie has cost lives of hundreds of British soldiers, fighting for a cause which was unjust and unnecessary.

Blair’s confidence that the war was just and the removal of Sadam was for the good seems rather shallow. If he actually believed that his cause was just, why did he not use that to argue for the war, rather than hide behind the probably false assertion that Iraq had WMDs? One has to question whether or not this new claim is little more than another convenient argument to make Blair look like a moral man when actually he went to war for far more selfish reasons.

Question Time

This Thursday evening BNP leader Nick Griffin appeared on the BBC’s Question Time, a show where a panel of five politicians or public figures face questions from an audience made up of ostensibly ordinary people. If you haven’t already seen it then I suggest you watch it on iplayer. If you’re not from the UK then I expect it’s on youtube by now. Obviously to get such a controversial and disliked figure on Question Time was somewhat of a coup for the BBC and I’m sure the viewing figures will reflect this. I certainly tuned into the show for the first time in a while. While I’ll discuss what actually happened on the program later, I want first discuss about the issue of whether or not Griffin should have been on Question Time at all.

In the week or so leading up to his appearance, many politicians expressed their concerns that the BNP should not be given such a mainstream platform from which to express their views. Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary was the most outspoken critic of the decision by the BBC, saying that ‘you cannot treat the BNP like all the other parties.’ I would argue that we have to. Freedom of speech and democracy are values that are fundamental to our society, to deny the BNP a platform from which to speak would be to fly in the face of those values. We may rightly abhor Griffin and his party’s views, but we cannot stop them from expressing them. Similarly we cannot stop broadcasters like the BBC giving them a platform. Freedom of speech is not up for debate, it is not something we can choose to adhere to or not depending on who’s speaking; it is an absolute which is fundamental to civilised society. This not to say of course that we should give Griffin a free hand to say whatever he wants; it’s not like question time is a party political broadcast. The only way to show the BNP up for what they really are is to enter into open and frank debate with them, and this exactly what Question Time is for. To deny Griffin a place on the panel would be to try to sweep his vile policies under the carpet, rather than face them head on and challenge his sick assumptions. We cannot try to ignore Griffin because if we do that we allow his insidious ideas to fester, rather we must face him head on and show him that we reject absolutely all that he stands for.

I’m not going to claim that this was wholly achieved on Question Time on Thursday, but it did go some way to showing exactly how vile a man Nick Griffin is. The show was not without its problems; with a clearly hostile audience and even David Dimbleby, the host, at times unable to hide his bias, it occasionally descended into farce. I would not go as far as to say, as Griffin has said following the program, that it was a ‘lynch mob’, but the atmosphere was at times rather more hostile than I would have liked. Much as we might want to take our righteous indignation out on Griffin, we have to restrain ourselves or we lend credibility to the his cause. Dimbleby needed to be seen to be more impartial; he is the moderator of the discussion, it is not his part to take sides. Because he showed such clear bias it felt like the entirety of the show was out to get Griffin, rather than engage him in a proper debate.

That being said enough was done to make Griffin come out of the evening with a few very bloody scars. The absurdity of the BNP’s concept of an ‘indigenous Briton’ was shown up on several occasions and his statement that Winston Churchill would support the BNP where he still alive was made to look absurd time and time again. Griffin repeatedly contradicted himself and dodged awkward questions. He tried and failed to squirm and slime his way out of difficult situation, trying to apply empty phrases about ‘British, Christian values’ to everything. The other panellists were having nothing of if thankfully. Overall then Griffin was made to look like a fool. His racist policies were shown up for what they are; thoughtless bigotry. The embarrassment was not as total as many would have liked, but it did enough to mean that the BNP will have lost far more than they gained from this week.

Despite some problems, then, I think we can say that Peter Hain was wrong. We should allow extremist to have a voice, both because of the principle of free speech and because we need to publicly show extremist and hate based ideologies to be absurd. We cannot ignore them; we have to battle them head on in a civilised debate. While Dimbleby may have made the debate into a farce at times on Thursday, in principle what happened was exactly what should have happened. Griffin was made to look the fool and with any luck many more people country wide will be aware of just how absurd and hateful the BNP are.