Winter of Discontent: Moscow

February 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

John Shammas

Image © World Economic Forum

It’s the 10th of December 2011. In freezing temperatures of -5C, a projected 50,000 people turned out for a four hour protest on the streets of Moscow to rally against what they perceived to be the illegitimate election of Vladamir Putin.

It’s the 24th of December 2011, and a further 80,000 gathered, a resurgent wave of disdain and disillusion with their own democratic process. One protester was quoted saying “if these crooks and thieves continue to try and cheat us, to try and lie and steal from us, we will take back what’s rightfully ours”. This is hauntingly familiar rhetoric from within a nation that has lost all faith in its civic services. Such a statement reinforces that notion that complexity is defined and legitimised by an evolutionary metaphor: the present must be more complex than the past. Russia has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, been naturally compelled to see the present as complex, and yearn for what used to be. After all the cake and watermelon of a successful, hard fought and just revolution, disappointment inevitably follows – ask Egypt.

The all encompassing term so often used by academics and scholars used to describe Russia’s post-1991 state of affairs, “Post-Communism”, implies a world defined by what it used to be but no longer is – a notion that is definitive of Russia today, but that is changing. The academically urgent need for corroborating explorations on the consequences of abjection, alongside the trials and tribulations that emerge within the process a sociological, national, cultural and psychological metamorphosis, and the consequential symbiosis between religious faith and political absolutism must all be put on ice. There are people at the door Mr. Putin, and they want a genuine election.
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The Uniform-Dating Effect

February 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Nikhil Venkatesh

Image © Metropolitan Police

I recently saw an interesting advert on the television: it was for the internet dating service, ‘uniformdating.com‘. The advert asks for people to join the site ‘if you work in uniform’ (a bit strange to differentiate this group for romantic purposes, isn’t it?) or, even more sinister, ‘if you just fancy those who do’. I have no problem with the idea of internet dating, and if people in a uniformed occupation (or with a strange attraction to this diverse group) wish to use the service, then good luck to them. But, to most people, doesn’t this seem just a bit… well, weird?

My theory is that the main aim of the owners of this site, the NSI group, is not to encourage people to join this particular site. Through their ‘Really Fab Dating’ software, NSI have an interest in the fortunes of many different site within the internet dating industry. Through spending lots of money on TV adverts for uniformdating.com, the company probably hopes to help the industry as a whole. This is how: 1) There is still a stigma about internet dating; some people think it’s ‘a bit weird’. 2) These people will see uniformdating.com as ‘very weird’. 3) Suddenly, in comparison, mainstream dating sites such as match.com (from comparing the fonts, I assume NSI have something to do with that one too) seem far more normal. Thus, through creating an intentionally off-beat site, the internet dating industry will improve its image, and grow.
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Afghanistan and the false moralising of liberal intervention

February 3, 2012 by 7 Comments

Oliver Hotham

Image © isafmedia

A problem, at least it seems to me, is that as soon as you get yourself involved in other people’s business you have a responsibility towards them. Once you’ve intervened and influenced things, all of a sudden everything that happens in your responsibility and you have an obligation to see things through to the end, whatever that end might be.

This problem is highlighted by the Taliban’s declaration that they will retake the country when NATO leaves. They’re probably right, unfortunately. Once NATO leaves, the current government (if it can even be called that, it behaves like a nepotistic crime syndicate) will collapse, with most of its members defecting to the Taliban, and the psychopathic, sexually repressed lunatics in charge of the insurgency will roll into Kabul, triumphant in their victory. More than ten years of foreign occupation will have not made one bit of difference to what will ultimately happen in Afghanistan, except perhaps that our governments will be poorer and those in Afghanistan who did not take the side of the occupation will be angrier. Women will undoubtedly suffer at the hands of their rulers, and much of the relative progress that has been made in the country since the invasion will be undone.

We already have a model of how Afghanistan deals with a prolonged military occupation – the invasion in the 1980′s by the Soviet Union. They too were attempting to instil their preferred model of government in the country but could not sustain their military presence faced with a growing Islamist insurgency and impending bankruptcy and economic recession. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in rubble, with the Taliban strengthened by their apparent victory. Whatever good came of the Soviet presence, secularisation of society, education for women, and an improved infrastructure was vastly outweighed by the damage the occupation inflicted on Afghan society.

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Labour can benefit from the rise of UKIP

February 2, 2012 by 2 Comments

 Tom Bailey

Image © The Freedom Association

Since the 2010 general election, there has been much doom written by left-wing commentators about the British electorate leaning further and further towards the right. Ed Miliband’s ever-scathing critic, Dan Hodges, stated that ‘the electorate is shifting to the Right, not to the Left’ and argued that Labour must consequently move there too. There is an element of truth in the assessment that on issues such as Europe, immigration and the economy, the political right is currently more popular. However, there has not been a clear shift of support from Labour to the Tories since the election. Labour has increased its support since 2010, both in terms of membership and according to polls surveying voting intentions. There has though been a different shift to the political right occurring: the transfer of support from the Conservatives to UKIP, a development that could be of vital importance come 2015. Labour can benefit from this fracture amongst England’s political right much in the same way that the SDP/Liberal/Labour divides in the 1980s aided three successive Thatcher governments. Defection of votes from the Tories to UKIP helped Labour squeeze past in marginal seats in 2010. This effect seems only likely to increase as right-wing dissatisfaction deepens with this government.

The problem for Cameron is that many right-wing voters and politicians see his coalition government as weak on issues of core importance. In his memoirs discussing his years in parliament, ‘A Walk-On Part’, former Labour MP Chris Mullin noted on the day of the 1997 election result that ‘victory is not when our side get the red dispatch boxes and the official cars, but when something changes for the better.’ This line of criticism, that there is no point being in power if you fail to get the right policies enacted, can be seen in every negative left-wing account of New Labour. Increasingly, it seems that Thatcherite backbenchers and voters are having this same thought about the present government. Their aims are not being met, dissatisfaction is rumbling ever louder and UKIP’s policies are looking more attractive.

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Master Storytellers

February 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Seamus Peter Johnstone Macleod

Image © Saul Gordillo

It is argued that Scottish nationalism under the stewardship of the SNP has come of age. Gone are invocations of the spirit of William Wallace or Robert the Bruce. Less frequent too are references to the barbarity of Margaret Thatcher’s rule without mandate. It is said that romanticism has been replaced with a clear-minded pragmatism. The dominant narrative north of the border is that Scotland’s prosperity would be ensured and increased if it were free to pursue its own economic and political goals, free of control from Westminster.

There is much that supports elements of this account.  The SNP succeeded in presenting a convincing case that a pro-Europe, foreign investment friendly, socially conscious, independent Scotland would constitute a cause for monetary celebration. And it’s not all bluster. Mr Salmond’s high profile publicity trips to the Middle East and China, ostensibly securing bilateral trade and investment ties, are backed up by solid figures that show that foreign money has been flowing into Scotland – at a relatively steady rate – since 2002. The SNP’s dream to follow Ireland’s example of prosperity through low corporation tax, a skilled workforce, and modern infrastructure attractive to multinational companies cannot be discounted merely due to the unfortunate end that met that arc of prosperity. SNP ministers are more likely to be found quoting economic statistics than Rabbie Burns these days.

Scott Hill has rightly pointed out that it is the unionist side that now appear to be the champions of sentimentality and myth. Claims that “we are stronger together” sound hollow and are mostly unsupported by the rationality that appears to colour the rhetoric of the SNP. Melanie Philips does her cause no favours by perpetuating the false notion that Scotland receives a sizeable windfall from taxpayers elsewhere in the UK. Though the truth of this matter depends on which year or years of data are considered and what proportion of North Sea oil is considered to be Scotland’s, it is not the case that Scottish citizens would lose significant funds through independence. Equally, the notion that Scotland would have been bankrupted by having to independently bail out RBS during the credit crunch are grounded more in fiction than in fact. Joint bailouts by groups of states did take place during 2008 and this would likely have happened in the case of RBS given its sizeable presence south of the border. Read more of this post

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The real villain of the GOP race

February 1, 2012 by 2 Comments

Scott Hill

Image © Greg Elin

In the somewhat irrelevant, mundane and over-long run-up to November’s presidential election much of the media spotlight has been on the talents – or rather, lack of – within the GOP ranks. Frontrunner Mitt Romney is suffering from what I shall refer to as the sinister and weird Mormon problem, up-and-coming Rick Santorum is, by any true believers’ standards, a complete and utter loon, which is also a tag all-too-easily synonymous with the recently humbled Rick Perry, who, following an on-going drought in Texas, declared official “Days for Prayer for Rain”[i] back in April last year.

Yet, before I sink to the similarly low depths of much of the media, I shall refrain from dissecting the Republican nominees too much; they are not the most important, nor indeed, the most interesting segment of this excruciatingly predictable election campaign.

Instead, I would like to propose that we imagine for a moment, if you will, that a Republican was in the White House and a young, enigmatic idealist named Barack Obama was their greatest challenger. Rather than use those phony, over-polished slogans – “Change we can believe in”[ii] – we shall pretend, for the sake of clarity, that his campaign was made up of pledges mirroring the reality of what has transpired since the 20th January, 2009.

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The UK Government should thank the European Court of Human Rights

January 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Frederick Cowell

Image © ex_libris_gul

Following the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling about Abu Qatada’s extradition the anti-Human Rights Act (HRA) brigade have been out in force. In his recent speech about the ECHR David Cameron claimed that the ECHR was in danger of undermining public support for civil liberties. This claim was accurate in large part because the same right wing newspapers that support him have been busy whipping themselves up into a self-righteous rage about the EHRA.

The UK government has received good results from the ECHR recently (not that you would know it) as they ruled that the system of whole life tariffs was not a form of torture. Forty six prisoners in the UK are currently serving whole life sentences and following an application from Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter (who are between them guilty of murdering nearly a dozen murders) the ECHR ruled that it was not “inhuman and degrading” for them to die in jail. The ECHR also approved the UK’s policy of deportation with assurances (assuming reliable guarantees against torture are given) in spite of the policy being strongly criticised by Amnesty International.  Needless to say these cases are nowhere to be found in the anti-HRA pieces from Michael Burleigh in the Daily Mail, Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph and Douglas Murray in the Daily Express. Instead the ECHR is presented as a judicial factory producing ‘outrages’ to be inflicted on the UK, even though the government wins the vast majority of applications to the court. Additionally these critics do not mention that Abu Qatada has not been convicted, let alone faced a criminal trial, in the UK. Whilst he is definitely unpleasant and has been involved with terrorist organisations, the fact that neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the Director of Public Prosecution has been able to bring him to trial over a ten year period, despite numerous changes in the law, is illustrative of how the problem is much wider than ‘activist judges’ at the ECHR.

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The political discourse of America in recent history has been driven by a narrative – a durable myth

January 30, 2012 by 2 Comments

 John Shammas

Image © Michael Noirot

Reagan’s voice commanded a receptive audience during a period of economic stagnation with his talk of values, responsibilities and duty prevailing over a worn and laboured liberal rhetoric which lost itself in almost-exclusively discussing rights and entitlement schemes. Even today, Reagan’s critics fall so easily into playing the role of an apologist for the out-of-touch, tax-and-spend stereotype – a stereotype of which the conservative media sell to their demographic at a rate similar to that with which Apple shift iPhones. Meanwhile, the key contemporary GOP field today – the Bachmans, the Palins and the Gingrichs of this world do not have to function as stand-alone politicians: instead their key occupation is to merely serve as apparatus to the echo-chamber of the Reagan myth.

Reaganism constitutes a politics of post-modern structuralism which has such obvious and explicit endurance today. It is driven by a mythology that highlights the fact that the key battleground issues of the 1960’s have never been fully resolved. The disputes, shifts and changes of the era cannot be solely defined and dictated by political or partisan preference. Crucially, the durability of the Reagan myth feasts of the evanescence of a counterculture informed by individual choices, moral standing and personal identity which has dissipated into consumerism, materialism and ideological separation.

And the emphasis here must ultimately arrive at that last point: ideological separation. So often, in his election campaign in 2008 and even in last week’s State of the Union address, Obama idealistically speaks of bi-partisanship, cooperation and ideological synthesis. However, he has been wholesomely defeated in his campaign. The essential legacy that Reaganism has engrained upon our politics is displayed in how viscerally and unapologetically we define ourselves in ideological terms. Partisanship is not an issue. Partisanship is the issue.  Read more of this post

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The issues that shall really determine Scottish independence

January 26, 2012 by 4 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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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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