Is the holocaust still relevant in today’s climate?

January 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Louisa Pawsey

Image © Matt Brown

Holocaust Memorial Day brings with it the knowledge that there are still people who remember suffering at the hands of the Nazis. It also brings pain to people whose families will never be complete because there is someone or multiple someones missing from the dinner table.  But for the rest of us exactly how important is the 27th of January? Just another day in the calendar?  Another day for you to live your life?  Have you even noticed that Holocaust Memorial Day is now printed in every diary and on every calendar? Is anyone interested?

As a military historian, I should be shouting from the rooftops about the importance and relevance of Holocaust Memorial Day – but I just can’t.  In fact, the more I study, the more I realise how little people care and how little relevance the holocaust has to anybody that wasn’t affected or involved.  Of course it’s not just the holocaust that has this effect, every year the amount of people wearing a poppy in November has seemed to dwindle and it is fashionable to protest against the armed forces.  As a historian, the first thing you learn is that the further back in history you go, the less interest people have and there will come a time when all the Holocaust survivors will have disappeared.  Read more of this post

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The issues that shall really determine Scottish independence

January 26, 2012 by 2 Comments

Scott Hill

Image © Saul Gordillo

So, we now know the all-important question: Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? Yesterday, the Scottish government published its consultation paper[1] on an independence referendum to be staged in the autumn of 2014. Within the document, which outlined a path similar to what many would have predicted, it was stated that 16 and 17 year-olds should gain the right to vote, those voting should be residents of Scotland and, crucially, the possibility of a multi-option ballot was left open, meaning that Scots may get the opportunity to vote for full-fiscal autonomy; an option they seem to prefer[2].

Whilst the document remained largely controversy-free, a few troubling queries could be forthcoming. It seems odd that the majority of sportsmen representing Scotland in rugby and football, for example, will not be permitted to vote on the future of their country. However, this is an awkward issue for which there appears to be no easy way round. Either way, somebody out there with a strong affiliation for Scotland shall miss out on the vote. Perhaps by making eligible all those who can prove that they were born in Scotland would be the best solution. Others will point to the fact, in relation to 16 and 17 year-olds voting, that individuals not permitted by law to enjoy an alcoholic beverage or puff on a cigarette have no plausible right to vote. I, however, am quite relaxed about the proposition put forward by the SNP. Read more of this post

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100 years of the War on Drugs

January 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 Oliver Hotham

Image © World Economic Forum


100 years ago today, as the opium trade reached new levels of notoriety for its criminal activity, the USA and 12 other countries signed the 1912 International Opium Convention, which stated that:

The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to control, or to cause to be controlled, all persons manufacturing, importing, selling, distributing, and exporting morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts, as well as the buildings in which these persons carry such an industry or trade.

This was the first international agreement to limit the trafficking of narcotics, and while the intentions of the “War on Drugs” seemed noble and right, it has implicated the United States and its allies in innumerable crimes against humanity.

The War on Drugs would be, to a certain degree, acceptable, at least morally consistent, if it were not mired in hypocrisy. We support, for example, the corrupt government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as part of the war against the Taliban, but the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been implicated in the Afghan heroin and opium trade, the products of which fuel heroin addiction around the world. Read more of this post

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A Marxist defence of Page 3 girls

January 25, 2012 by 5 Comments

Brendan O’Neill

Image © Kip Voytek

Proving that the Leveson Inquiry has become a magnet for every campaigner who wants to tame or censor the tabloids, yesterday’s line-up before his lordship included a bevy of feminists angrily railing against Page 3 in The Sun.

For some women’s rights activists, Page 3, with its scantily clad ladies making philosophical comments in speech bubbles, represents everything that is wrong with tabloid culture.

It is sexist and offensive, they say, and it contributes to a climate in which women are looked upon as fleshy objects to be ogled by goggle-eyed blokes. It must be banned, they demand.

Harriet Harman has joined this shrill chorus calling either for the outright banning of Page 3 or for The Sun at least to be put on the top shelf in newsagents, next to porno mags. And yet in her next breath, Harman has the gall to declare: “I am going to be a champion of press freedom.”

That she cannot see any contradiction between campaigning to crush Page 3 and claiming to be a defender of freedom of speech not only highlights the severe irony deficit in New Labour – it also says a lot about the weird politics of the anti-Page 3 lobby.

The fact is that shutting down Page 3 would be an assault on press freedom. If you are committed to true freedom of the press, to the age-old idea that newspapers should be free to publish what they believe to be true or interesting or fun, you can’t then add the caveat “Oh, except for Page 3 in The Sun – that page has got to go.” Read more of this post

Filed under Children and families, Culture, Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newt Gingrich and the Moral Heist of South Carolina

January 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

John Shammas

Image © Gage Skidmore

Predicting the future is a job for clairvoyants – not political commentators, and thank God. Summoning a reactionary whim as a legitimate claim is often tempting, especially when on the eve of such a crucial primary, in the buckle of the Bible belt that is South Carolina, Newt Gingrich’s ex-Wife came forward with a damaging (and particularly timely) revelation that must of had Romney’s 2012 campaign popping open some premature champagne. However, what commentators learnt from the South Carolina primary is that the archaic circus that is the race for the Republican nomination is more akin to a Machiavellian episode of Twin Peaks than a political race. It cannot be envisioned, calculated, analyzed or even discussed in the same way as other political races because time and time again we are reminded that whilst intellectuals like to belittle the Republican field of nominees and those who support them as callow, simplistic and reactionary, as a demographic they are curiously unpredictable.

Mitt Romney, the “former” front runner as we now must call him (check back next week), came under such scrutiny with regard to his involvement in Bain Capital that he was labelled by his fellow free-market-loving Republicans as a “vulture capitalist”, signalling a civil war within the GOP field. It seemed that such a civil war would be coming to an abrupt end on Friday night when the ex-Mrs. Gingrich said Newt sought an “open marriage” arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife, an allegation that would surely tear the umbilical cord between Newt and his passionate, evangelical Christian base for good. You could almost envision what would consequentially transpire in the coming days. Santorum would surge from recruiting the disenfranchised Gingirch voters to his cause, Gingirch would drop out, begrudgingly endorsing Santorum but ultimately Romney would prevail and secure his candidacy. It was all so clear-cut. So inevitable. Signed, sealed, and all we had to do was wait for it to be delivered. Read more of this post

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The Object of Torture is Torture:10 years of Guantanamo Bay

January 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Dominic Turner

Image © U.S. Army

In the South-Eastern periphery of Cuba lies the province of Bahía de Guantánamo. Unlike the rest of the Caribbean island, its vegetation does not grow green and abundant. If only the signs of American imperialism were limited to the Cuban mainland’s only McDonalds and Starbucks. If only the crimes perpetrated in this naval base concerned the validity of the United States’ occupying lease, obtained under the threat of force.

Ten years ago, Guantanamo Bay received its first detainees and began an unending tale of human suffering and degradation for children as young as 13 and men as old as 98. Eye witness accounts detail a nightmarish existence of systematic beatings, torture, and humiliating treatment. But its not just the physical abuse that destroys the victims of Guantanamo. Its in every spiteful action, in every callous deed, the breaking up of families by denying prisoners even the right to exchange letters. By desecrating copies of the Quran and imposing unimaginable periods of solitary confinement.
Read more of this post

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Hold Fire on the ‘Scottish Defence Force’

January 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Jevon Whitby

Image © Andrew Higgins

This week saw Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond announce his ideal plan for a ‘Scottish Defence Force,’ should Scotland vote to become independent. Under the currently very vague plans, Scotland would retain one base of each type for a total strength of 20,000 Scottish troops. In acquiring control of a segment of the UK’s current military, Scotland would have control over its engagement, but would become a NATO ‘ally,’ rather than member.

For the SNP, Westminster control is an issue of pride, but more realistically: employment. The Scottish defence ‘community’ is set to rise by as much as 20,000 over the next eight years as British personnel are brought back from bases in Germany, many to Scottish bases.

Coalition attempts to cut the defence budget by an alleged 74% in Scotland with ‘massive and disproportionate’ effects in July promoted an angry resistance campaign, with Salmond arguing that Scotland’s geographic position and economic problems should give it extra protection when it comes to cutting the defence budget. Read more of this post

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Guest Blog: Why we disagree: but where to go from here?

January 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Cameron Dron

Our class had a very interesting set of lectures the week before last. Given by Heiko Roehl from the German Development Agency (the GIZ), we were introduced to a number of knowledge and organizational learning concepts. It touched upon a lot of the things that I have been thinking about recently, like the nature of truth, why it is that people – even intelligent ones – can disagree so vehemently about such a wide range of issues and how it is that we as individuals can come to make more of an effort towards understanding each other.

Something that really crystallized all of this rather well was a wee diagram explaining a concept called ‘Relevance Systems’. This theory or way of thinking about individual beliefs and knowledge can help us to understand why and how it is that we can come to have such radically different views of the world. This struck me powerfully because I have been trying for a while to get a better idea of why it is that people disagree about climate change. This helped me to understand the why a bit better, but I’m still not sure if it helps to form any solutions. Time will tell. Read more of this post

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Abstinence and abortion

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

Georgia Lewis

Image © Juliette Culver

Nadine Dorries’ bizarre abstinence-education for girls bill gets its second reading today. Prochoice people across the UK will be holding their breath and hoping that commonsense prevails and it is howled down as soundly as her proposal to prevent the likes of Marie Stopes and BPAS providing pre-abortion counselling was last year.

The timing is superbly tragic – in the same week, the Lancet published a study demonstrating that the number of unsafe abortions is rising around the world and the steady decline on abortion rates of the 1990s has stalled. It doesn’t take a genius analyst of statistics or sociology to figure out that abstinence-only education doesn’t work when it comes to preventing unplanned pregnancy – and to only subject girls to this absurd, outdated, discredited form of sex education is only going to cause an increase in the abortions Ms Dorries hates so much. Read more of this post

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Another Misadventure in Somalia

January 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Andrew Noakes

Image © United Nations

After a spate of kidnappings carried out by Somali militants on Kenyan soil, Kenya has decided to try and fix the problem of Somalia the only way it knows how – by mounting an invasion. Of course, it is not the first country to attempt such a bold move. Kenya follows in the footsteps of Ethiopia, whose troops were forced to conduct an ignominious retreat from the country after they alienated almost the entire population of Mogadishu, and the United States, which has been too terrified to carry out any major military operations in sub-Saharan Africa ever since.

The Kenyan intervention is likely to end in failure. As the Ethiopians and Americans both eventually learned, there is no viable stand-alone military solution to the breakdown of governance, peace, and order in Somalia. The underlying political, economic, and social problems, such as the lack of food security, disunity and distrust among rival clans, corruption, and fear of central government (after the brutal and factional rule of the Somali dictator, Siad Barre), have to be solved if there is to be any serious improvement in the security situation. Read more of this post

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