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 27^th 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. 

We must forget that this time on Friday museums and churches across the country will be staging memorials and services to remember those who perished in the Nazi death camps, but how many people know where their nearest service is? Who will turn up to, say, London’s Imperial War Museum? Will it only be members of the Jewish community or those with an interest in WWII standing around a slate memorial in the cold?

But what about those millions of men, woman and children who, through no fault of their own found themselves huddled around each other dressed in rags on that cold winter morning in January 1945 when eventually soldiers appeared at the gate?  What about those who were technically free at that point but never survived the end of that day, who never lived to see the freedom they had been given?  Can you even spare them a thought on Friday morning?

Those who don’t give it a second though on Friday won’t be alone.  In Britain, people weren’t directly affected by the holocaust at the time it happened so why now after 67 years should we be suddenly be bothered?  I mean let’s face it, people knew what was going on in 1942, many did nothing to stop it, so surely we would be hypocrites to now pretend that we actually care and that it makes a difference to us and our lives?

The problem lies with that fact that in the UK we don’t have any constant reminders of the horrors of the holocaust. The camps are tucked away in remote parts of Europe, where in a lot of cases their own country doesn’t want to acknowledge their existence.  Apart from Auschwitz, most camps are little more than empty patches of ground, so what are we supposed to do?  It is also very difficult to bring the holocaust into relevance when countries such as Latvia and Hungary have a strong culture of holocaust denial and even less willing to teach their school children the horrors of their countries past.  How is a child supposed to understand and accept the relevance of the holocaust when their governments refuse to admit it happened?

This is major problem for the UK.  There is no education program for the holocaust in British schools.  They teach about WWII, but to go into detail you have to wait until you reach MA level at university and that’s only if you choose to study at that level.  How is a child supposed to understand what happened when it’s not taught in schools?  Then there is the issue of when to start teaching kids about the holocaust and how much detail you go into. At what age should a child know the horrors that took place in the camps?  It wouldn’t be wrong for any parent to want to shelter their child from that.

While there are some great organisations such as the Anne Frank Organisation and Yad Vashem that operate within the school system that try and teach tolerance and understanding but these organisations can only go into schools when invited.  Having worked with the Anne Frank organisation during some volunteering with the Imperial War Museum I have seen firsthand how difficult their job is.  How are you supposed to explain the holocaust to a teenager who can’t understand the concept of a life without an iPod?  It is an uphill struggle and the more distant it seems then the more difficult it is to grasp the enormity of the tragedy.

I wish I could say we have learnt our lesson from the holocaust but sadly we haven’t, when massacres such as Srebrenica continue to this day, and the horrors of the Hussein regime are still not taught or discussed in schools it is impossible for anyone to understand the gravity and make it relevant to themselves and to the current climate that unless this current generation has to live and suffer through such a crime against humanity then it will never gain the relevance and remembrance it deserves.

As much as it pains me to write this, we all need to realise that to the majority of the non-Jewish world the holocaust has little or no relevance to the individual and that is why there are still such horrendous crimes against humanity being committed in the name of religion or politics.  But I will be joining those others at the Imperial War Museum on Friday morning to hang my head in shame that the British government didn’t try and do more to stop these terrible events.

This is a co-publication with The Groucho Tendency to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

]]> http://leftcentral.org.uk/2012/01/27/is-the-holocaust-still-relevant-in-todays-climate/feed/ 0 LeftCentral Imperial War Museum http://leftcentral.org.uk/2012/01/26/the-issues-that-shall-really-determine-scottish-independence/ http://leftcentral.org.uk/2012/01/26/the-issues-that-shall-really-determine-scottish-independence/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:21:35 +0000 LeftCentral http://leftcentral.org.uk/?p=1629 ]]> 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.

Nevertheless, now that the consultation document has been published, the two sides can get on with their next moves. Let the games commence! Talk thus far has surrounded economic issues such as currency and national debt. In many respects, the anti-independence brigade has dictated the debate to this point. The main complication – or spanner in the works, so to speak – was ignited when George Osborne decided to intervene[3], suggesting that an independent Scotland would have no choice but to join the doomed euro. A few years ago this may not have seemed such a conundrum, but, since the crisis in the eurozone erupted, who knows how Europe shall look in 4 or 5 years time. Osborne is counting on average Scots becoming so concerned by the issue of currency that they will stick to the status quo for the sake of their finances.

Equally of importance is the question over national debt. The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has predicted that Scotland would be burdened with a “terrifying” £110bn national debt[4] once Britain had divided up its £1tr debt. Naturally, the SNP fought back, stating that the figures are “flawed” and pointing to the fact that North Sea oil and gas is a £1tr asset; ten times the value of Scotland’s share of British debt. Both arguments are undoubtedly compelling and only time will tell whether the Scots are buying Mr Salmond’s North-Sea-reserves-will-save-the-day rhetoric. What has been of great interest is the way in which the pro-independence/anti-independence roles have reversed somewhat.

It used to be, as Gerry Hassan[5] puts it, that Scottish nationalism was seen as a “romantic, irrational, sentimental throwback and ultimately, anti-progression and unmodern”. Instead, he argues, they “have become thoughtful, pragmatic nationalists as far as you could imagine from ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Trainspotting’ sentiment”. Conversely, those defending Britain – namely, every other party – are allowing their personal and emotional attachment to the concept of the UK drive their thought process. One of their key arguments is that Britain has achieved so much together; ignoring the fact that an independent Scotland with a strong social union with England could potentially achieve just as much.

But all of this is irrelevant. Historical tribal tussling that will inevitably settle nothing. The Scottish people shall look beyond petty currency feuds and complex debt issues. Head to any beer joint in Scotland and ask the locals what matters most to them. Do they appreciate Labour’s Douglas Alexander referring to Scottish independence as “the border issue?” Are they excited about the 2012 London Olympics (an event their taxes have helped fund, yet an event that shall not benefit them in any way)? Do they welcome the fact that Westminster politicians can send Scottish troops to go and die in illegal wars fighting for causes they deplore? For these are the real talking points that shall decide this referendum; ironically, the ones being ignored.

Scottish independence used to be considered a maverick, eccentric subject; one not to be brought up in polite society. Well, no more. People from all walks of life are participating in the conversation; yet, to our detriment, some of the best opinion is hidden from public gaze. Rather than hear the voices of ordinary, everyday Scots we are treated to the uninformed, ignorant noises bellowing out of London press offices and studios. Take Melanie Phillips’ recent comments[6] in the Daily Mail: “England is fed up to the back teeth with the Scots pocketing a whacking subsidy from Westminster while constantly – and offensively – whingeing about England.” Her argument then worsens as she asserts that “if Scotland has a referendum on its independence, then, in any just universe, the rest of the UK must vote on the proposal.”

It is this kind of anti-Scottish London commentary that will lead to the break-up of the UK; not solely Alex Salmond and his merciless posse of nationalists. Firstly, the Scots resent the accusation of being subsidy junkies on account of the fact that they represent 8.4% of the UK’s total population, yet generate 9.4% of its annual revenues in tax[7]. This short, sharp fact immediately destroys Phillips’ first argument. Her second, that the populations of England, Wales and Northern Ireland must vote on Scottish independence, is as absurd as saying that France, Germany and Italy have the right to vote whether or not England be allowed to remain in the European Union. I may be wrong, but would suggest that this hypothetical would be considered highly objectionable by Ms Phillips.

The small print is what counts most in this ongoing dispute; not the big over-arching contentions. David Cameron and George Osborne would do well not to interfere in the unionist strategy and keep input to an absolute minimum. Any involvement from them, or any significant Conservative big-hitters for that matter, would play right into Mr Salmond’s hands. He is banking on unpopular Westminster politicians weighing in with their clumsy contributions. Furthermore, the London commentariat need to either bolster their seemingly marginal knowledge of Scottish affairs or quit tackling the issue altogether. Ignorance on the part of unionists is making up the minds of undecided Scots. Nationalists will always be nationalists; unionists will always be unionists; but it is the floating, undecided mass that shall have the biggest impact on the UK and it may well be distinct attitudes that sway them as opposed to distinct policies.

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.

Another example is that of Colombia, a country which has suffered from invasive American policy for years. Since the 1960′s, a civil war has raged between forces loyal to the government, loyal to left-wing paramilitaries, and loyal to right-wing paramilitaries; the United States has consistently supported the government, giving millions of dollars in aid. But human rights groups and journalists have implicated the United States Government in involvement with, say, the AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group responsible for high levels of drug trafficking and gross abuses of human rights.

The United States supported the Contras in Nicaragua, a gang of cocaine dealing murderers of women, children and priests. When the monstrous activities of the Contras and the abject hypocrisy of the United States waging a “War on Drugs” (while simultaneously supporting with monetary aid a group directly involved in the supply of cocaine to the United States) was revealed by the press, Reagan and Bush circumvented congress and sold arms to Iran so they could continue funding the Contras.

The hypocrisy is astounding, and all too often political and strategic motives render moot the “good” intentions. During the Cold War the United States could support the most murderous and evil criminals, as long as they declared themselves “anti-communist.” Now the focus has switched, and those declaring themselves opponents of Islamic fundamentalism, such as Mr Karzai in Afghanistan, can be forgiven for their potential involvement with drug trafficking.

The solution? Maturity. The centenary of the 1912 International Opium Convention is a chance to really begin to re-examine the attitudes that governments should have to drug use. Legalisation of personal drug use is a good place to start, as it makes the fundamental assumption about the nature of human liberty – that the state has no right to infringe on your personal choices if there is no detriment to the liberty of others. This is Mill’s harm principle. Why shouldn’t an individual be permitted to partake in recreational drug use in the comfort of their own home? They’re harming no one but themselves, and while the role of society should be to educate about the dangers of drug use, it is the individual’s responsibility to approach drug use in a mature manner.

Last year, a panel of the Global Commission on Drug Policy called for an immediate overhaul of the War on Drugs. The panel, whose members included Richard Branson and Kofi Annan, urged governments to legalise drugs like marijuana and accept that “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”

The prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the 1920′s is often used as the historic example of why governments prohibiting personal use and the sale of an intoxicating substance fails: supply comes from criminal syndicates who enhance their own power and wealth, money is wasted in law enforcement and detention, and little significant change is seen. But to say this is to overlook the fact that the “War on Drugs” has already failed, as Richard Branson and Kofi Annan have already said, and its failure is

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.”

As Karl Marx said in a stirring piece on press freedom, the true defender of liberty in publishing will fight for the right of rags to publish tittle-tattle as much as the right of serious papers to publish serious news.

“You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences,” he said. He went on: “You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns!” – meaning that even when you pick a beautiful flower you’ll frequently end up with a little prick. It’s the same with the press – there’s some good stuff out there, well worth reading, and there are a lot of pricks, too. That is in the nature of having a free, open press.

The boob-blockers of the anti-Page 3 brigade are driven by the same impulse as every other censor in history – not so much by disgust with images themselves, but by a belief that some images might warp fragile people’s minds and make them go mental.

Censors are always motivated by the fantastically paternalistic fear that if a certain section of the population claps eyes on a saucy or tempting image or overhears controversial words, then it will be driven mad with lust or hate.

And so it is with the Mary Whitehouses cleverly disguised as radical feminists who would like to see Page 3 erased from history. They fret that Page 3 is harmful to both men and women.

The campaigners behind Turn Your Back On Page 3, which presented evidence at Leveson yesterday, say Page 3 is guilty of twisting men’s minds, “encouraging negative attitudes towards [women]… and at worst, acts of violence against [women]”. In short, blokes – especially the tea-swilling sort who read The Sun every day – are easily made violent; they’re such seething pits of anti-women sentiment that just one image of a topless girl called Cherri from Essex could be enough to make them go out and attack some unsuspecting women.

The campaigners think Page 3 is bad for women, too. It causes negative feelings “within us,” they claim, which help to “stall our progress.” In short, women are such sensitive wallflowers, so lacking in moral robustness and sass, that an image of a possibly younger, more attractive, certainly less-clothed female could tip them over the edge into self-pity and inaction.

For a bunch of people who claim to have women’s interests at heart, the anti-Page 3 set is pretty sniffy about women’s ability to cope with the modern world’s daily tumult of words and images.

In their belief that both men and women should be prevented from seeing Page 3 – men because it drives them wild with desire, women because it makes them feel sad and inadequate – the warriors against Page 3 echo that super-snobbish line from the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960: “Would you let your wife or servant read this book?” Only they’ve updated it, effectively saying: “Would you let an uncouth bloke or a fragile woman look at these tits? After all, there’s no telling what damage such an image might do to these volatile/fragile constituencies…”

We should defend Page 3 from these radical censors, not because that page in The Sun is interesting or valuable (it isn’t), but because the censorious sentiment behind the desire to squish it is underpinned by a pernicious paternalism that has no place in the twenty-first century. Keeley, Cherri, Sam, Suzanne and the rest – keep doing your thing.

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.

What followed was, to so many, a shock. Gingrich won. And boy, he won comfortably. There were no grand allusions towards King David this time, no humble rhetoric with regard to the redemptive path he might of walked, no talk of regret and certainly no plea for forgiveness. Gingrich deployed his only strength: his ability to rally conservatives into a frenzied siege mentality by blaming the media – why? Because it works. The extent to which this tactic was effective was admittedly impressive, but the way in which it was achieved however, was not. He rallied the CNN debate crowd on the eve on the South Carolina primary against a “destructive, vicious, negative” media run by “liberal elites” – no doubt in cahoots with the “socialist”, “secular” trend of which he speaks of so regularly.

The essential question that emerged from the chaos of the South Carolina primary which must be asked is simply this: how legitimate is the moral currency of the leading candidates in the GOP field? Exit polls demonstrate that married Women were amongst the strongest supporters of Gingrich’s victory, alongside evangelicals. South Carolinians have consistently proven to be issue voters, and yet they have put a morally bankrupt candidate on a pedestal in what is increasingly being dubbed the most important election of a lifetime. Evangelical Christians should not be characterized as simply righteous in their electoral patterns, nor should they be characterized are politically ill informed. They are confused, they are angry and they are easily exploitable for a man like Gingrich. It is a curious state of affairs when we have arrived at a situation in which perhaps those slightly more cerebral evangelical voters might opt for Santorum, a much more extreme social conservative – a realization that is testament to the extent of which we can characterize Gingrich as a skilful, rabble-rousing faux-conservative.

Gingrich will, before and after the upcoming Florida primary, continue to spout his contradictory rhetoric about being an “anti-establishment” candidate. He will continue to rabble-rouse, claiming to anyone who will listen that he is a victim of a “liberal” and “elite” media hell bent on sullying his reputation. But the truth is that South Carolina wasn’t a moral victory against a “liberal” media for Newt Gingrich; it was a heist. The likelihood is that he will fail in his attempt to continue beguiling value voters towards his cause like he did in South Carolina, however it is hard to say anything about the outcome of this race with much conviction. After all this is Twin Peaks, and nothing is as it seems.

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.

When detainees rose up against their merciless oppressors, the ’payback’ was unthinkable brutality. One such man, who protested against the humiliation of having to routinely march without trousers, is Omar Deghayes. Almost three years ago Omar came to speak in an event organised by Cardiff’s ‘Stop The War Coalition.’ His account of the cruelty he suffered at the hands of American imperialism is almost too horrific for me to put in writing. He was left permanently blind in his right eye, after a guard tried to gouge it out. A deep scar runs across his forefinger after being slammed in a steel door. His nose, crooked from being punched repeatedly in the face by guards. What I saw was a man tortured, not just by physical beatings, but by the psychological legacy of six years of unspeakable misery. Omar was never brought to trial and never saw the charges against him. Omar Deghayes was innocent and, like 600 of the 779 detainees of Guantanamo Bay since January 11th 2002, was never charged and finally released only after serving indefinite detention in hell. In ten years of Guantanamo only 6 military trials have ever been instigated to its pariah population. If you want to see the garbs of fascism, you need look no further than the infamous orange jumpsuit worn by every detainee.

Coincidentally, it almost three years to the day since Barack Obama promised to close Guantanamo within the year. Even George W. Bush expressed hope in closing Guantanamo and in fact released nearly 9 times the amount of prisoners that Obama has. Obama has, in characteristic fashion, broken his promise. Worse still, despite ‘severe reservations,‘ he has signed the National Defence Authorization Act into law which will codify the indefinite detention of US citizens at the authorisation of the President. What the USA has exported abroad is coming to a state near them.

It does not matter if the war is not real, or if it is.
Victory is not possible.
The war is not meant to be won.
It is meant to be continuous.

George Orwell 1984.

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.

Foremost among the list problems will be the UK’s nuclear submarine naval base at Faslane on the Clyde. In the past home to Polaris (and now Trident), this controversial installation has long been opposed by many of Scottish MP’s and would likely need to be moved south of the border should Scotland become independent, in line with the SNP’s anti-nuclear stance.

Yet the important debate over an independent military descended considerably this week as Defence Secretary Philip Hammond proclaimed the defence force proposals to be ‘laughable,’ insisting that it would be impossible to simply ‘break off a little bit’ and that Scotland would have to share in the cost of deinstalling the Faslane facility. Salmond hit back accusing Westminster of ‘arrogance’ for wishing to send Scotland the clean-up bill for an English military decision forced on Scotland in 1963.

The saddest thing is that a very serious subject, national defence and its employees, has been so debased by the usual babble of criticisms and cheap-shots that with the independence debate, now seem to flow between Westminster and Holyrood on a weekly basis as each side engages in the one-upmanship of claiming the other should pay financially if Scotland votes ‘yes.’

Just to be clear, the argument is over the placement of an arsenal containing nuclear weaponry and 10,000 local jobs around Faslane. A ‘laughable’ topic for Westminster? Angus Robertson, Westminster SNP leader, declared ‘If London really cared so much about nuclear weapons systems perhaps they should have considered public opinion.’ This quip will hopefully be given the disdain it deserves; the idea that any government is not concerned about its nuclear weaponry is absurd.

So why has defence suddenly become another political weapon of the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ vote campaigns? Along with last week’s claim by Salmond that England ‘could not stop Scotland using Sterling,’ (another issue that earned a petty branding of ‘ludicrous’ from Westminster, this time from Alistair Darling) it is perhaps all part of a plan to draw attention to how separation would work logistically. By making voters imagine how Scotland would look without England, the SNP is doubtlessly hoping to make an independent Scotland appear more plausible.

This is not the first instance that the SNP has arguably used defence to ‘play politics:’ having argued aggressively against the Coalition’s closure of two Scottish air force bases (RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Kinloss) in July, Salmond now appears willing to accept a only single Scottish air force base under the new ‘plan,’ a distinction that was not lost on Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy, who labelled the SNP’s defence agenda as ‘bizarre.’

The correct time for the defence discussion should have been the transition period after a successful independence referendum. Should Scotland vote to be independent, then it has every right to dictate its own defence policy, and the price of complex logistical rearrangement can be negotiated accordingly. However to propose a ‘Scottish Defence Force’ to enhance the ‘yes’ vote’s credibility is in poor taste to those people whose jobs depend on a defence policy that looks beyond merely  wining an Autumn 2014 referendum.

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.

The Model

a) To start off with we have our set of beliefs. Our beliefs about reality are constructed from our experiences and the environment in which we grew up. Our parents might have instilled in us a belief in God or the belief that it is the right thing to help others. We might have grown up in a Western society where we are taught the primacy of the individual. Some may have grown up in societies that teach the primacy of the community.

b) This model also recognises that our brains filter information. It has to do this to stay functional. If we were to process every bit of information that our senses detect then it would be overloaded. This happens to people with autism – their brains don’t filter out information and so their social systems can be said to be impaired. They perceive the world in a radically different way to non-autistic people and so act in a very different way too.

We often ignore information that we don’t want to hear or don’t believe in, although this is mainly an unconscious process. Information that rejects our beliefs is, on the whole, rejected. Information that supports them is absorbed. I was taught to value empirical science when growing up and thus perceive the world as spherical because the information I have acquired, I saw on TV scientists explaining why the earth is a sphere, supports or does not contradict my beliefs. Another child, perhaps an unfortunate that had medieval re-enactment enthusiasts for parents, might perceive the world as flat. The information that he gets, from his eyes, tells him that it is so. He might sometimes see on TV the earth referred to as a sphere but rejects this knowledge. Scientists are just phony wizards, or so his parents keep telling him. We both ‘see’ the same information but our belief systems interact with this in different ways to produce different perceptions of the world from us.

c) Information is never absorbed independently though. We combine it with our judgement. Our judgement is also strongly influenced by our early experiences. Being raised in a family where cleanliness is very important then shapes your judgement – and you will judge cleanliness as a good thing. For example, when you go to a foreign country your impression of it may be formed by its cleanliness. For someone else it might be the quality of food that determines their judgement of the country.  Therefore it is our judgement, “I judge cleanliness as important” plus the information we receive, “I read in the newspaper that French people wash the least often” that constructs our knowledge, “France is a bad country.”

d) It is thus our beliefs, judgement, and the information we filter that form our perceptions of the world. The lines flowing from the belief circle out towards the world represent this ‘relevance system’ that determines how we perceive reality: never in its completeness and never without some truth.

Link to Climate Change

This was a highly simplified explanation partly so I could explain it but also so that the model is understood. It’s not a perfect model. Perhaps some people see more of reality than others because they are more intelligent or have access to more information. The beliefs we grow up with can all too often be rebelled against. But I hope the framework is there and makes sense, so let’s apply it to the climate change example.

I often read a report or blog decrying climate change as a left-wing conspiracy. As someone who believes in climate change my initial reaction is always, “did no one ever tell these people that the Left couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery?” I then look to see if there any flaws in the report, or I look up the authors on the internet to see if they have any connection to the oil industry – which they often do. Failing this I then consult ‘climate friendly’ websites to check the arguments of the sceptical report/blog. Most of the time I end up convinced that climate change is happening and that the sceptical blog is just another paranoid old man that needs to get out more. Even writing about it you can see that I’m quite unwilling to even realistically treat the subject impartially here – although that’s also to make it slightly more readable.

It’s easy to see how this can happen the other way around – with a sceptic and climate change. They read the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, find some errors in it or find information that some of the authors are also members of Greenpeace and their beliefs remain unaltered. They absorb the information, this clashes with their beliefs and they judge the information faulty, perhaps by finding additional information to support this. End result: beliefs unchanged, exactly as in my example.

It’s quite easy to see this, fancy diagram or no. What’s now harder is how to change this situation. How can the ‘believers’ and ‘sceptics’ come to some sort of understanding? Does one of us have to give up our beliefs in order to do this? That won’t happen easily – it would take a massive event or crisis to do that. Perhaps tomorrow morning I see in The Daily Telegraph photos of Rajendra Pachauri[i] playfully wiggling his rump from under the duvet of his bed whilst Jim Hansen[ii] rubs money into his back, both cackling at the world’s stupidity for buying that rubbish about the earth warming. Perhaps that would be sufficient.

In our class we were also taught that engaging in dialogue is important to understand how our systems of relevance overlap and thus where our disagreements stem from. This may sound like wishy-washy-hippy crap at first glance but I feel it’s something very important to consider – especially with regards to climate change. For so long ‘believers’ and ‘sceptics’ have been debating, for decades, and it’s getting no one anywhere as the debate gets uglier. Death threats against climate scientists, the hacking and distortion of personal emails, very vicious name calling by Greens abound. We’re at a dead end and perhaps dialogue is the first step towards a solution. We were introduced to a number of dialogue tools to resolve conflicts, which I hope to share with you in the future.

[i] Rajendra Pachauri is the chairperson of the IPCC

[ii] James Hansen is head of the NASA institute for Space Studies

Many thanks to Julia Koch, Jonathan Niessen and Aurange Kreamsicle for helping me to articulate these thoughts.

Originally posted here on realisticbeinggreen.

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.

Abortion statistics are routinely massaged by people from all sides of the debate, but sensible analysis of these latest findings by the six academics involved in the study concludes that investments in family planning services and safe abortion care are the answer. This will serve the dual purpose of reducing the number of women dying in unsafe abortions and reduce unwanted pregnancies which inevitably leads to a growing number of women seeking abortions, whether they are legal or not.

This is especially prevalent in developing countries. Countries such as Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan have virtually no access to safe, legal abortion, poor access to birth control, extremely limited or breathtakingly inaccurate sex education for young men and women, and, as a result, appalling rates of maternal death. These deaths include those suffered by women who have sought to terminate pregnancy by whatever means possible, no matter how unsanitary the conditions or untrained the abortionist.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a list of UN-endorsed goals aiming at alleviating poverty by 2015. Given the current global economic situation, meeting this deadline is looking more and more unlikely, but the Lancet study emphasised that improving access to family planning and safe abortion will help in reaching these goals. Healthy women are essential to a healthy economy and women who are in control of how many or how few children they have are empowered women.

In developed countries with access to safe, legal abortion, the rates of death at the hand of backyard abortionists are certainly lower. However, with a US presidential election being run with abortion as a major issue, women in America may find their reproductive rights radically compromised if the Republicans win the election. It’s ironic that the American conservatives are running on an anti-big government platform except, it seems, when it comes to the gynaecological privacy of women.

Even with David Cameron declaring Britain to be a “Christian country”, it doesn’t appear that the rising tide of conservatism on abortion that is dominating the American political scene has had a major impact here.

If Nadine Dorries’ attempt to limit where women could obtain abortion counselling had succeeded, the result could have been women delaying getting abortions until the pregnancy was further advanced and thus more dangerous. Now she wants an abstinence-only system of sex education for girls only, while ignoring study after study that shows this narrow, often faith-based form of sex education is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy. More teenage pregnancies mean more teenagers needing abortions.

But regardless of whether one woman or one million women a year need abortions, it is a procedure that must be kept safe and legal. Women’s lives depend on it. This is one of the great advantages of living in a developed country with a healthcare system that gives women choices in situations that can be extremely challenging. Women in many developing countries are not as lucky and in many cases, they pay with their lives. Add to this poor sex education, and the result is disempowered, unhealthy women who cannot reach their full potential. This is not good enough in any country. But all it takes is the eroding of a few rights and the taking away of sane sex education and it could happen anywhere.

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.

This is not to say that outside military intervention should not be part of the solution. But regional powers are hardly the appropriate actors to play this role. Ethiopians are, in particular, viewed with intense suspicion by Somalis, owing to the long history of conflict between the two countries. The Kenyans, branded as Christian invaders by Al-Shabaab, are also likely to unite Somalis behind the militants. Instead, the UN should work to partner with and expand the African Union peacekeeping force that is already there. Any new troops should be predominantly Muslim and from countries that do not have a history of conflict with Somalia. But any military approach must go hand in hand with a serious effort to tackle the underlying causes of state failure.

In the mean time, Kenya’s invasion is unlikely to either save the Kenyan tourism industry or make Kenyans any safer. The British Foreign Office has recently warned holidaymakers that a terrorist attack in the capital, Nairobi, is ‘imminent.’ Al-Shabaab can be expected to carry out as many terrorist attacks as it takes to force the Kenyan government to back down. For years, the international community has failed to solve the problem of Somalia. Now it is escalating into a regional conflict. The price of failure gets higher by the day