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Winnie Mandela startled whites (again). As well she should.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

In an interview with the Evening Standard, the basics of which were reproduced by The Times of South Africa, Winnie Mandela rattled the white community of the country with some home truths. The main point Ms Mandela made was that her former husband, President Nelson Mandela, negotiated a bad deal for black people and that indigenous Africans continued to suffer what may best be described as the deep impact of historical structural violence. There is, however, more to the issue…. Much more. The main point is that Ms Mandela is basically correct, and two points (for now) may suffice to demonstrate this “bad deal”.

First, the negotiations process that lead to the end of National Party-rule was based on compromise. This is, of course, true of almost all negotiations processes. During personal conversations with FW de Klerk at the time, he specifically told me that “a compromise is never a good thing for a politician” and that he was not happy with the compromises he had made. Later, during conversations with President Mandela, while I was a journalist and much later when I worked on one of his speeches for the Opening of Parliament, he discussed, with apparent discomfort, “some of the compromises” he had to make during the negotiations process. The compromise was plain to see, of course, in the so-called “sunset clauses” that were built into the initial settlement agreement.

Second, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is generally held out to have helped “heal” the country … In an exchange (during a press conference) with Justice Minister Dullah Omar in the process before the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, Number 34 (1995) went through Parliament, I pointed to the terms of reference and in particular to the fact that it essentially covered the gross violations of human rights committed between the ANC and the apartheid government – and not the structural violence of the racism, sexism and bigotry that was part of European/white dominance and abuse of dominance in South Africa over an extended period. At the time I referred to the terms of reference as being “misty-eyed”; Dullah Omar repeated the phrase and insisted: Yes, he said, it was misty-eyed in the sense that it was about moving forward.

What is closer to the truth is that the TRC, indeed, failed to address the structural and systemic violence that 400 years of white domination and half-a-century of apartheid rule against indigenous Africans. By structural violence I refer to what the social scientist, Johan Gultung, explained as a form of violence which is congruent with systematic ways in which a given social structure, in the case of South Africa this was European imperialism and then apartheid, killed people slowly by preventing them from meeting their basic needs and/or reaching their full will and potential on their own terms. This type of violence is meted out to those people whose externally ascribed social status (apartheid’s racial categories) denied them full access to the fruits of whatever scientific and social progress may be had. On this basis, I concluded at the time that the TRC was about moving forward in the process of “nation-building” and not about justice. After I moved from journalism to the government in July 1995, this latter point was emphasised by very senior government ministers – time and again. In short, to the extent that the negotiations process and the TRC represented a victory or any kind of justice for indigenous Africans, the victory was pyrrhic.

Finally, there is sufficient evidence to show that, in general, inequality between a small elite and the majority indigenous Africans has grown significantly since the mid-1990s. We have seen, therefore, evidence of what Patrick Bond described as an “elite transition” in South Africa, and no amount of positions on boards of directors or equity-sharing and distribution to black people will take away the basic fact that through the imposition of neo-liberal economic policies, the ruling class of the apartheid era, to which has been added a few black faces, continues to rule, and the government has become nothing more than a committee for managing the common affairs of the new middle class – which happens to be dominated, still, by whites.

Three personal notes:

1. Someone (a white male) whom I had befriended over the past several months reacted in apparent horror to a statement I made on a social-networking site in which I suggested that Winnie Mandela had made a good point. The person proceeded to insult me, personally, and refused to address the matter in an intellectually honest manner. The exchange was unfortunate, but it may well be a reflection of how delicate the issue (of race relations in South Africa) really is. To me, at least, it confirmed that among whites who have positioned themselves as part of “the new South Africa”, there remains much anger, which they expected us to believe was justified, but that anger from black people and indigenous Africans, in particular, was “counter productive” or racist etc.

2. The reference to whites in South Africa is, of course, a generalisation. I have always insisted, as have many others, that there were/always have been/always will be white people in South Africa who align/ed themselves with with liberation and associated their own views with emancipatory politics in Africa. From the top of my head, consider, for instance, the Kasrils family, names like Slovo, Albie Sachs, Edwin Cameron – the list is long and highly significant – and (white) people who are very, very dear to me (again, off the top of my head and in no particular order or reason) people like Patrick Bond, Irwin Manoim and Anton Harber, Gavin Evans; bums like Robbie Thorpe, James Phillips, James Sey, Andrew Beattie and Paul Drosdzol or Jeremy Crawford (people I can honestly say that I love and respect) and any of the other  journalists and activists (and the dronkies) with whom I have had the honour and privilege to work and play – and from whom I have learned.

3. The views I expressed in this short post are consistent with the ones I stated on Thought Leader after the death of Helen Suzman more than a year ago, in which I said that Ms Suzman had it good. They are, also, consistent with one of the points in a review of the film Invictus I wrote for the French magazine, Africa Report last month.

So, there ought to be no surprise. The only surprise, on my part, is how white people who seemed to be down – attacked me personally for making a statement such as which I made in this blog post….

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Israel is a Country not a Religion (1st Draft) All Comments Welcome.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

The UN must be shut down if it can not stop the occupation of Iraq

and the slaughter of people in Iraq, Afganistan and the sixty-year genocide against Palestinians !

Depending on which list one takes most seriously, there are 190 – 250 countries in the world. Notwithstanding natural endowments, historical cultural and political economic specificities, all countries in the world are part of a (single) “international” society or “system” of states that emanated from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In this context, perhaps more so since the end of the Second World War, every single country in the world is fundamentally accountable to prevailing international law – to the extent that international laws actually exist, and that such laws are, actually, enforceable.(1) The notable exception to this rule is the United States, which is probably the only major rogue state in the world – by rogue state I refer to a country that has basically placed itself beyond the reach and jurisdiction of international law, a country that will bomb, maim, murder, invade and occupy any country or sovereign society it wishes to bomb, maim, murder, invade and occupy without being held accountable. See, for instance, the book, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions by Clyde Prestowitz.

Nevertheless, one very informal source explains that there are approximately 170 separate currencies, 239 two-letter country codes recognized by the International Standards Organisation, and the Universal Postal Union has listings for 500,000 localities in 189 Countries. The same source explains: “By a recent count, France and the US officially recognize 192 states, (though unofficially acknowledging the existence of several others!), Switzerland recognizes 194, Russia 172, the UK has over 200 diplomatic posts, and Germany recognises more than 200.” For an “official list” of countries, go the United Nation’s Member States listings. Israel is one such country – it is not a religion.

Like every country in the world, Israeli foreign policy and human rights violations may be criticised in same way as the policies of, say, Burma, Saudi Arabia or the Sudan. In an international order within which all states are legally sovereign and equal -notwithstanding the willful intellectual obfuscation and obscurantism, cognitive dissonance, revisionism and justifications for war (or “regime change”) by scholars and policy-makers in the West – there can be no law for Israel and one for the rest of the world. In this sense, it is appropriate and even necessary that Israeli actions against neighbouring states, especially the wanton violence of the Israeli security forces against displaced people within (Gaza) and beyond its territories (Sabra and Shatila), the willful and violent territorial expansion of the Israeli state and the usurping of Arab land. (See the video below for a take on the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982) None of these issues have anything at all to do with Judaism. In fact, the period when religion and churches ruled the world and determined the policies of states was left behind with the Peace of Westphalia.


>

Indeed, the principles of international order that emerged after the Peace of Westphalia are generally acknowledged to be the basis of the international system or society of states. Fundamental to this “system” are the principles of state sovereignty and international law, which implies the existence of some form of sovereign authority – which in the contemporary period is bestowed on the United Nations – and the obligation of obedience by all countries to said authority. Most international laws are created by and for states and therefore regulate state conduct; enforcement of international law is deferred to the UN Charter’s the Statute of the International Court of Justice (the US is the only major Western country that refuses to be held accountable and at the time of writing the Court has mostly individual African despots and rogues on trial). Article 38 of the Statute defines the sources of international law as:

  1. International conventions (treaties), whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
  2. International custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
  3. The general principles of law recognized by civilised nations;
  4. Subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of the rules of law.

There are, also, customary laws; practices that have been accepted by states as binding. The jurist and legal scholar Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) is usually attributed with the earliest articulation of the principles of customary law in his treatise On the Law of War and Peace. Grotius noted the existence of common practices whose routine observance by governments led to their acceptance as required behaviour in the relations of states.

In Grotian terms, the basic principles of international relations (in the context of the Westphalian order) include:

  • Sovereignty of the state
  • Sovereign equality of states
  • The right of non-interference in domestic affairs of each sovereign state
  • Territorial integrity of the state
  • The obligation to abide by international agreements,
  • The principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes, and
  • The obligation to engage in international cooperation consistent with national interests.

There are no provisions in international law or customary law for religious justification for violation of the human rights of communities or groups of people. As such, the state of Israel is, quite correctly, a secular entity in a world of secular entities (perhaps the Vatican can claim some exemption) drawn together in an international society or system by a set of international laws – not religious laws. Criticism of the state of Israel may, rightfully, be accepted as criticism of a secular entity, in the same way as every other country is criticised.

I should stress, again, that there may well be some people – mainly in the West (Europe and its settler colonies in North America, Australia and New Zealand) who would have us believe that sovereignty is bunk. What should be noted, though, is that the suspension, dismissal or denial of sovereignty is usually directed at countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Finally, I started out by wanting to write a piece about the failure of the UN and liberal internationalism, in the vein of EH Carr’s critique of the collapse of the League of Nations and inter-war liberal internationalism, but was sidetracked by the matter of the Israeli state. The critique of the UN/Liberal Internationalism is for another time…

:-)

Footnotes

Realist scholars of international relations and world politics, and right-wing thinkers associated with so-called neo-conservative think tanks in the US and foreign policy wonks and pundits in Washington would, unilaterally, dismiss any talk of “international society” or of a “family of nations” and contest the concept of sovereignty – a convenient figleaf for post-war US invasions, interventions and the funding of despots and dictators from Iraq, to Angola, Nicaragua and Chile (among other).

References, Sources and Further Reading

Cox, Michael (2005) “E.H. Carr and the Troubled Origins of American Realism” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC Online <PDF>. 2009-05-25 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p42649_index.html. Retrieved on 7 February 2010.

Prestowitz, Clyde (2003) Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York, Perseus.

Sabra and Shatila: Dealing with facts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/1390979.stm Retrieved on 6 February 2010.

“Sabra and Shatila: The unforgettable, unforgivable, Israeli massacre against Palestinians – 1982.” http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/09/15/sabra/ Retrieved on 6 February 2010

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Howard Zinn’s Review of Obama’s First Year.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

I’ve been searching hard for a highlight. The only thing that comes close is some of Obama’s rhetoric; I don’t see any kind of a highlight in his actions and policies. As far as disappointments, I wasn’t terribly disappointed because I didn’t expect that much. I expected him to be a traditional Democratic president. On foreign policy, that’s hardly any different from a Republican – as nationalist, expansionist, imperial and warlike. (Read Further)

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Obama Losing Support: What did you expect from a country that voted for George W Bush – twice?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010



THIS JUST IN: On Saturday, 23 January another Republican, South Carolina’s Lt Governor Andre Bauer, gave us insight to the mind and heart of the Republicans, suggesting that poor people were “stray animals”:  “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better,” Bauer said.

:-)

The following is the original piece I wrote on 20 January 2010.

The upset in liberal Massachusetts, where the Right-winger Scott Brown this week won the United States Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy for almost 50 years, has drawn attention to the lead balloon that is President Barack Obama’s popularity…. While his most loyal followers would remain Panglossian, (notwithstanding the concern on their faces and their furrowed brows) those of us who never really expected any “change” are tempted to say, we told you so. This is not some type of post hoc reasoning, and I really am not going to say I warned you about this by pointing to what I wrote many months before Obama was elected. No. What I will say is this: What did you expect? He is president of the United States, for goodness sake.

This country we call home is fundamentally conservative and most of us – and especially the conservatives (Democrats) and rightists (Republicans) – love war. Whenever there’s a crisis somewhere, any type of crisis anywhere, our first response is almost invariably to reach for our guns followed, of course, by the customary religious fundamentalist tub-thumping and self-righteousness. For example, when a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, most people in the world opened their hearts and wallets. The official response from the US government was a veritable military invasion and occupation of the Haitian capital. The unofficial response was from knuckle-draggers like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robinson (both of whom can claim a substantial Republican following) and was, unsurprisingly, cloaked in racism and other, even more deeply offensive claims based on a perverse Christian reading of history. Robertson’s right-wing Christian response was as follows:

“They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact with the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French’.”

Limbaugh’s particular brand of lunacy was, of course, deeply racist – but not uncharacteristic of the Christian Right (most Republicans, that is). He suggested that Obama was happy for the quake in Haiti, because his administration would  “use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the … the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It’s made to order for them.”

Obama would, of course, call together former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. It is conceivable that the Right would imagine Bush as a saint and a saviour for stepping up to join Obama to support the people of Haiti. Indeed, it is quite laughable that there are still people who consider Bush anything more than a liar, a religious fundamentalist, a crypto-fascist and a spoilt rich white man who has the blood of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis on his hands. Then again, as long as they are able to drive their SUVs and have larders filled with food, there really is no reason to oppose any wars called in their name….

The irony is that if the Right-wing were, actually, consistent and true to their own principles, they would find Obama quite tolerable. If they thought that George W Bush’s war against the Afghanis and Iraqis were the “right thing” to do, they should love Obama – he has continued the bloodshed with much “better” results. Statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, show that the US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal during the first year of Obama’s presidency. The right will, to be sure, feel no compunction over the fact that the success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was a mere 11 %. On average, at least 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. As a society, we are numb to the fact that our penchant for war runs like a type of “national DNA” through our polity. As Glen Greewald most pithily observed:

“There was a time, not all that long ago, when the U.S. pretended that it viewed war only as a ‘last resort,’ something to be used only when absolutely necessary to defend the country against imminent threats.  In reality, at least since the creation of the National Security State in the wake of World War II, war for the US has been everything but a ‘last resort.’ Constant war has been the normal state of affairs.  In the 64 years since the end of WWII, we have started and fought far more wars and invaded and bombed more countries than any other nation in the world – not even counting the numerous wars fought by our clients and proxies.  Those are just facts.  History will have no choice but to view the US – particularly in its late imperial stages – as a war-fighting state.”[1]

Getting back to Obama’s faltering popularity; it may well be the result of the inherent conservatism of the US, but chances are that it’s just because he is black!

Anger at a Black Man in Office

There is no harm in repeating the fact that the US is a fundamentally conservative country. Indeed, of the Western liberal democracies, the US is probably the only country that does not have an even mildly social democratic or socialist tendency anywhere near the mainstream. Unlike, say, France, Gemany or Italy the US has not produced a Left-Wing/Marxist thinker in the mould of, say, Jean Paul Starte, Antonio Gramsci or Rosa Luxembourg. The electorate in the US have, also, never elected a leftist like, say, Willie Brandt, one of Germany’s great post-war leaders, nor have their been any presidential candidates that are in any way close to the social democrats of Skandinavia.

More critically, perhaps, the election of a black male to the highest office in the country has had an effect on the way that white males, especially those who have complacently paddled in the pool of white hegemony for almost 200 years, have reacted to the Presidency. The so-called Tea-Party thugs and other right-wingers who have begun a revision of history to the extent that they now promote the idea that there was no slaughter of indigenous Americans by white settlers, are emblematic of this rise in white angst. This panic among the white middle class is, of course, a long time coming.

Sometime in the early nineties, the journalist Caryl Rivers, pointed to “a sense of threat experienced by white men” and a veritable hostility to the rise to prominence of divergent cultures in the US. It is worth restating, in full, the point she made at the time:

“For many years American politics was the exclusive province of upper-class white men (as were banking, law academia, manufacturing, marketing and so on), and media hardly complained about this state of affairs. It was assumed to be quite normal. Growing up in the fifties I did not hear one charge that the United States was an oligarcy, a tyranny, or any of the nasty words we hear about societies that are controlled by one caste…. Why then the shriek of alarm now that people other than white males are gaining power in politics, the arts and elsewhere … Why, if white male monopoly stirred no outcry, is there suddenly the outcry that the country is falling apart… Perhaps it is not the country [original emphasis] that is falling apart, but white male privilege, and for some it is not easy to tell the difference.”[2]

This apparent decline of white male privilege may be detected in the asininities of Glen Beck, and of the more suave, but no less toxic misrepresentations by the Fox News team, led by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Rielly. Beck, in particular, has spun a most horrendous litany of lies and asininities, made the most egregious false accusations and misleading statements, and submitted the most sophomoric descriptions as analysis that it is hard to understand why he is so revered by the right-wing. Such has been his rise to fame (behold the white man who would save the white right from the black presidency) that the Washington Post described him as “devoid of compunction” and more admired by people in the US “than they admire the Pope”.

Republicans Lack Compunction

His lies, falsehoods and conspiracies about Obama’s policies include “death panels” government sanctioned health insurance for dogs, “concentration camps” a “civilian national security force” which he likened to Hitler’s SS… “Beck trafficked in them all in 2009,” wrote Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.[3] And yet, Beck continues to gain viewers and supporters. The problem is, of course, that the right-wing in the US simply lack compunction, as Milbank said of Beck. (Much can be said about Beck’s idiotic rants on Fox. For now, though, I will leave it to Milbank and the “liberal media”).

They seem to care less about the slaughter of innocents anywhere in the world – as long as they are not “American”. They care less about the veritable military empire that the US has built and kept in place by various means of coercion and consent around the world – because “American interests” need to be protected. They do not care to listen to any views, other than the views that reproduce their own preferences and prejudices.

As for Obama, well, they really are just not that into him – despite the fact that he is their president, and doing little to undo the horrors of war that Bush started, or close the prison at Guantanamo… Hell, like a good right-winger, Obama even bailed out the banks while unemployment, inequality and poverty increased. Republicans should rejoice.

What then about “hope” and “change” and all the bumper-sticker philosophies Obama bandied about during the elections? Well, I want to leave you with something that one of the right’s great thinkers wrote several years ago. Samuel Huntington, the man who would help shape the “clash of civilisations” discourse (along with Bernard Lewis, of course), once wrote:

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”

As a “non-Westerner” I have come to expect little to naught for the comfort of the poor and the weak in a world dominated by the United States. We, non-Westerners, can not (conceivably) imagine a better world under the military empire of the US. The only confusion that remains is this: How can the right-wing not like Obama; he is building on Bush’s fine work in Afghanistan, Iraq and with rescuing the rich. Well, Obama is black and that is enough to make the most god-fearing Republican see red – or black!

References

[1] See Glenn Greenwald, “The Looming War Over Afghanistan”. Published by Slate Magazine on 3 September 2009. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/03/afghanistan/index.html. Retreived on 20 January 2010.

[2][2] See Caryl Rivers, Slick Spins and Fractured Facts: How Cultural Myths Distort the News. Columbia University Press, New York. (1996) p 116.

[3] Dana Milbank, “We’ve met the enemy and he is us”. Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Opinion Page A 9. 5 January 2010.

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Operation Freedom Football: The Plot to Destroy Soccer (Updated)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

It was an atypically cool winter’s day in Tampa Bay, Florida. There were no details of the exact address. Eight or ten men, white men, most of whom were in their late sixties or seventies arrived at an undisclosed location (my sources tell me that it was the luxury home of one gent; he who must remain anonymous, for it was he who called the meeting). The older of the men entered a wood-panelled room with a long table in the centre; after them came their sons – tall fellows who looked a lot like their fathers, and wore the same rich cashmere coats and fine cotton shirts with bright coloured ties. Actually, the older men were not wearing ties, and my sources tell me that they would not wear such gregarious colours. )

“They’re old money,” you see.

The old men took their seats around the dark table. Two servants (black men) entered the room bearing trays with beer; cheap beer – some were lemon-flavoured. They left the room as quietly as they entered. The old men looked serious. They had the look of men who had very few concerns – well, none of those that money could not fix; like artificial joints, or knees…. The men were meeting to discuss a threat to God’s country.

A caricature of Iranian football players from a right-wing website which I will not link.

Soccer: It was taking over the schools and colleges, and youth clubs. In some places around the country blue-eyed boys and girls with pony tails stood side-by-side, with aliens among them.

“Little Mexicans,” remarked one of the old men, the one which had a glazed look on his face. “We can no longer tolerate this. We know that those Arabs in Iran [my sources tell me that the men from Florida and their counterparts from Texas did not know that Iranians were not Arab] want to destroy America, because they hate our freedom. We must stop them from coming to our country to play soccer. We need to give our children back their freedom. We must play the sports that made this nation great. Gentlemen. What is our progress on Operation Freedom Football?”

The younger men took their seats. One laid down a black leather folder on the table. He slowly unfolds a pair of reading glasses, and delivers his report to the group.

“Dad, Friends, Brothers, Proud Americans: Having successfully infiltrated Manchester United and Liverpool, we have succeeded in destabilising the two most successful soccer clubs in the world. If everything goes according to plan both clubs will collapse within the next two-to-five years. We have sleepers in place at Arsenal, Aston Villa and Derby County. We tried to infiltrate West Ham, but were beaten. That we lost the West Ham deal to soddomites shows just what we are up against. The Lord knows we are doing a good service to our nation. We will not be deterred by pornographers and fag enablers. This socialist disease, soccer, will be removed from our society.”

The rapporteur turned, raised his gaze and smiled.

“If all goes according to plan, we will have our children back playing baseball and football, again. By our estimation the decline in soccer internationally – as a direct result of our noble efforts to protect our freedoms – the school playgrounds and recreation centres around our nation will return to the activities that made this a great country.”

One of the older men raises his hand. “Thanks, Bubba…. Gentlemen! Let it be known that they brought this fight to us. They threatened our freedom when they brought soccer to our country. Thanks to you, Bubba, for correctly identifying the English socialist clubs as being behind the plot to rob future generations of freedom-loving Americans of playing baseball and football.

“Our sleepers at Aston Villa, Arsenal and Derby County will contact me in the coming days. I will report back to you. Operation Freedom Football must succeed. I spoke to our man in the White House today and he assured us of his full support.”

The men rose in unison. Hand on heart, they turned to the flag that hung from the rafters and sang their national anthem.

BREAKING NEWS! (22 January 2010)

(Cue dramatic music) Within days of reporting on this plot, the BBC’s football gossip column reported that the Sleepers at Derby Country have come alive. See picture below.

From the BBC's Gossip Column on 22 January 2010. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/gossip_and_transfers/8473792.stm Retrieved at 8:30 am on 22 January 2010.

NOTE: This meeting never happened. The character and events are fictitious.

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Arming Angola: Millions of dollars’ worth of oil revenue missing.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Rob Walker re-traces the story of “Angolagate” and goes on the trail of those who got rich because of it. It was an arms deal that changed the course of the Angolan civil war, in which illegal arms were exchanged for oil. A French court recently convicted several dozen members of the French establishment for their involvement. Meanwhile, Angola is gearing up to host the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament. For the Angolan government, the tournament is a sign of the progress made since the civil war ended seven years ago, but has Angola moved on from being described as one of the most corrupt countries in the world?

First broadcast on BBC World Service on 6 January, 2010.

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The US allowed Bin Ladin to “walk” – Some Contextual Issues

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Coming shortly after Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton, the US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed her puzzlement at Pakistan’s failure to capture and defeat Al Qaida, it has emerged that the US literally allowed the group’s purported leader, Usama Bin Ladin to walk away without any resistance. A report prepared by the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff noted that US forces had Bin Ladin “within their grasp” in Afghanistan at some point late in 2001. At the time, however, calls by US forces for reinforcements were rejected, allowing the al-Qaida leader to “walk unmolested” into Pakistan. ”The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines,” the report said.

Screenshot of Hillary Clinton Report by Associated Press

This “failure” appears to be a pattern with US military escapades abroad (more on this is forthcoming). With regards to Iraq, the highly accomplished right-wing historian (and knuckle-dragging flag-waiver), Victor Hanson, put this better than I possible can. Hanson, believes that the US has led “four wars” against the Iraqis; ostensibly to remove their leader, Saddam Hussein, and failed in three attempts.

  • WAR I (JANUARY 17 TO MARCH 3, 1991). Launched because of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Hussein survived.
  • WAR II (MARCH 1991 TO MARCH 2003). “War II was a response to the failure to remove Saddam in War I.” This war was a compendium of a United Nations trade embargo, and inspection persistent bombing and boycotts. “The second war, Hanson wrote, “ended with Saddam still in power”.
  • WAR III (MARCH 20 TO APRIL 9, 2003). Hanson provides three “names”: “The Third Iraqi War,” “Gulf War II, and “The Three-Week War”. This war began with the bombing of Baghdad and ended with the toppling of Hussein’s statue. (He makes no mention to the fact that the toppling of Hussein’s statue was staged for the cameras – see footnote*) Its purpose, unlike Wars I and II, was the removal of Saddam and his Baathist regime, with replacement by a consensual government.

Wrote Hanson: “Controversy surrounds this third war’s aims and causes, given the administration’s fixation with weapons of mass destruction. Yet the U.S. Senate in October 2002 wisely listed 23 writs for regime change, ranging from fears of WMD, past violations of armistice and U.N. agreements, genocide, attacks on neighboring countries, and attempts to assassinate a former president of the United States… War III was a response to the failure to remove Saddam in War II.”

  • WAR IV. (APRIL 2003 TO PRESENT): The Fourth Iraqi War (“The Insurrection,” “The Occupation”) began immediately after the end of the conventional fighting and continues today. It was framed by the fact that the United States would not simply leave after toppling Saddam…”

The US eventually captured Hussein on 13 December 2003. If we take Hanson’s view, which, given his standing in the right-wing, pro-war faction which, it appear, would have us believe that the US has the right to remove any political leader or invade any country anywhere at any time, then it took the greatest military power in the world at least 12 years to capture Hussein. The remark in the previous sentence, that the US has arrogated to itself the right to remove and possibly kill anyone in the world was alluded to by Hanson in his statment: “the US Senate in October 2002 wisely listed 23 writs for regime change” in Iraq. Here we have a clear admission that the legislature of one country, the US, can empower their political leaders and military to remove from office, and possibly kill anyone in the world anywhere and at any time.

Nonetheless, this failure to capture Bin Ladin (after eight years of trying) and the 12 years or so that it took to remove Hussein, would be funny, if it were not so sad for the tens of thousands of people who have died at the hands of US soldiers or who were killed by US bombs over the post-war period, given especially the self-image of the United States as “the experts on the application of violence” and the policy-making establishment in Washington boast that “the United States States is… unrivaled in its ability and willingness to project military power and influence around the globe”. Tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan have had to die, and an estimated 908, US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in October 2001. The US death toll has escalated each year – from 12 in 2001 to 99 in 2005, 117 in 2004, 155 in 2008 and 278 so far in 2009.[1]

Afghanistan Military Fatalities By Year

Afghanistan Military Fatalities By Year

The National Priorities Project explained that because the US Department of Defense does not do body counts, estimates of Afghan casualties are difficult to determine accurately. In 2002, The Guardian estimated that 20,000 Afghans died as an indirect result of the initial US invasion in 2001. Reports from UN agencies show that after eight years of war the number of civilian deaths, kidnappings, car bombings and raids is at the highest point since 2001. In 2008 the number of civilian deaths increased by 40% over 2007. Airstrikes are particularly lethal, causing two-thirds of casualties by pro-government forces. And by the first quarter of 2009, the war against the Afghan people has cost US taxpayers at least $170 billion.[2]

After expending the lives of thousands of people and billions of dollars to find and defeat the Taliban and Alqaida in Afghanistan, it does seem somewhat disingenuous and sanctimonious of Clinton to express her “puzzlement” that Pakistan is unable to find Al Qaida. (To be Updated)

[1] This data was produced from statistics kept by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count at http://www.icasualties.org/ (Accessed on 29 October 2009)

[2] This data was produced from a report by the National Priorities Project a US research organisation that analyses and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their taxes are spent. See report, Cost of War in Afghanistan, at:http://www.nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/costofwar/cost_of_war_afghanistan.pdf. (Accessed on 29 October 2009)

* In July 2004, an internal US Army study of the war in Iraq confirmed that the infamous toppling of the statue of Hussein in Firdos Square in central Baghdad on 9 April was stage-managed the US military and was not a spontaneous reaction by Iraqis. According to the study, a colonel in the US Marines decided to topple the statue, and an Army psychological operations unit turned the event into a propaganda moment. See the LA TIMES report by following this link.

:)

Filed in Afghanistan, Democracy Promotion, International Relations, Middle East, Militarisation, United States Foreign Policy, War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Economic Inequality: Effects Of Inequality on Social Cohesion

Friday, November 27, 2009
Real Family Income

Inequality in the USA: Change in Real Family Income 1979 - 2005

Research has shown a clear link between income inequality and social cohesion. In more equal societies, people are much more likely to trust each other, measures of social capital suggest greater community involvement, and homicide rates are consistently lower. One of the earliest writers to note the link between economic equality and social cohesion was Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America. Writing in 1831:

“Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of society. It gives a particular direction to the public mind, a particular turn to the laws, new maxims to those who govern, and particular habits to the governed… It creates opinions, gives rise to sentiments, inspires customs, and modifies everything it does not produce… I kept finding that fact before me again and again as a central point to which all of my observations were leading.”

In 1997 Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce Kennedy showed that there is a high correlation between the amount of trust in society and the amount of income equality. They did this by comparing results from the question “would others take advantage of you if they got the chance?” in U.S General Social Survey with statistics on income inequality. Eric Uslander, in The Moral Foundations of Trust (2002), showed that a similar pattern exists through out the world. (Read Further)

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Forgive me for being contradictory and sanctimonious, but your grammar and diction …

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I hold very few conservative ideas or views. Among them are: a dislike of colour photographs in newspapers; an almost Luddite-like resistance to complete transition to digital photography; a deep hatred of the waste, especially of food, and bad English grammar and the mangling of language! The conservatism related to photography can be cast in the context of aesthetical preferences, and I will return to the issue of food in a later post. Before I discuss the issue of language and grammar, I should make three points which, by the time the reader reaches the end of this post, may seem contradictory….

First, I believe language is and ought to be dynamic and that this is necessarily a good thing. Second, English is essentially an imperial product, in the sense that it was purposefully extended across the world on the back of British empire-building – as part of the means of oppression and the colonisation of the mind – as well as the body of indigenous people in far-flung places. In the post colonial period, the language was appropriated by indigenous people and then re-deployed. There is, as such, no universally accepted “correct” way of speaking English. Finally, English is my second language… and, sadly, I have been working quite obsessively at trying to improve my grammar over the years – after all, it has become the way that I have expressed myself as a writer over an extended period. So… any criticisms that I may make hereafter might, actually, mean very little and may even seem contradictory. (Slip in the Walt Whitman line about how cool it is to appear contradictory)

English in the United States: A Weapon of Discrimination and Patriotism (and Apparently Without History)

In terms of population, the US is the largest settler colonial country that emerged from the British Empire; Canada, Australia and New Zealand are among the others. It is no surprise, therefore, that English is the predominant language in the US – especially since the genocide and ethnic cleansing of indigenous people by whites effectively also destroyed whatever culture, including language, may have existed on the continent. I raise the political and historical issue because there is probably no other country in the world (in the contemporary period) where language, in this case English, is deployed as a weapon and a force for discrimination against immigrants. To be sure, language has always been a weapon of power. Nonetheless, in the US today it is not unlikely to be confronted with slogans like: “This is America. Speak English”.

Uncle Sam wants you to speak English, or Leave!

Uncle Sam wants you to speak English, or Leave!

In the US shopkeepers may refuse service to people who do not speak English. The most prominent example was, of course, the incident where the owner of a fast food shop in Philadelphia refused to serve a client because s/he did not place their order in English. The irony of this matter is that the fast food shop owner was, himself, of immigrant heritage. The shopkeeper received much support – most notably from the most odious of characters, some of whom make Sarah Palin look like the greatest living human being. (I shan’t give them publicity by linking to their websites). A the time of the incident, in 2006, the shopkeeper vowed to retain his policy – and the poster demanding that clients speak English

The Sign in Geno's Fast Food Place: This is America: When ordering speak English.

Geno's Fast Food Place: "This is America: When ordering speak English." It is not unusual for this type of bigotry and chauvinism to be part of patriotism - as evidenced by the ubiquitous United States flag and Eagle .

Language is, thus, used as a weapon of discrimination and tied to anti-immigrant tendencies. It might be fair to expect new immigrants in any country to be able to communicate in the linqua franca – especially since a measure of epistemic capacity is generally required to defend oneself in courts of law.  It is, however, deeply offensive and chauvinistic to use language as a weapon of discrimination in an arsenal of “patiotic” measures to deny people certain rights – such as the right to be addressed in a language of choice – or quite simply as a measure of tolerance and understanding.

Anti-immigrant and anti-Latino Protesters Have Used the English Language as a Way of Discriminating Against Foreigners. See the reference to language on the banner in the protester's right hand.

Anti-immigrant and anti-Latino Protesters Have Used the English Language as a Way of Discriminating Against Foreigners. See the reference to language on the banner in the protester's right hand.

“Tons of Real Estate Off Of the Internets”

While language is used by some as a weapon of discrimination and exclusion, it is rather ironic that very many people in the US tend to mangle the English language to the point of confusion. Sometimes it’s just poor spelling (see the picture, below) but other times it is a lot more than that….

Patriotic Demands: "Get a Brain! Morans"

Patriotic Demands: "Get a Brain! Morans" The ubiquitous symbols of national pride and patriotism are in full display.

It is not unusual, for instance, to hear meteorologists (presumably educated people) say something like: “Temperatures have fallen a bunch“. (Follow this link to a public comment about temperatures having dropped a bunch, or this one to read how temperature has dropped a ton) Or a football commentator say: “He [a particular player] has the ball at his feet and tons of real estate in front of him”. At any time on television news reports, documentaries or in feature film, there are references to “thanks a bunch” or “there is tons of” something or another. The pedant in me finds it particularly irksome when collective nouns or terms of venery are replaced with “ton” or “tons”. A gaggle of geese, a troop of baboons or a pride of lions become a “ton of geese“, a “ton of baboons” or “a ton of lions“. You can also have “a ton of fun” or a “ton of twitter video services” – somewhat alarmingly, if you are a public broadcaster and want to serve your community’s educational efforts, you are free to refer to a “a ton of tall tales” as part of English language instruction. Even news can come in “tons“.  A friend once described the pleasure he derived from working with a certain computer programme that allowed him to work on two monitors simultaneously in the following way: “It’s awesome to have tons of real estate on the screen.”

Multiple Monitors Represent "A Ton of Real Estate"

Multiple Monitors Represent "A Ton of Real Estate"

My favourite (actually, it is fucking annoying) is the phrase “off of”…. Islands are described a being “off of” a particular coast and not off a coast. You may be directed to a pharmacy that is “off of” the main road. Or a person who is “off of” a particular university team’s bus, as opposed to her being off the team’s bus. You download something “off of” the internets, and not off the internets (the Bushism is intentional). Let me emphasise, again, I am not exactly the most eloquent English speaker… On any given day, it’s an effort to just open my mouth. What I found really annoying is the use of the terms “off of” and “off” interchangeably. As intimated above this arbitrary abuse of grammar and diction is not the preserve of only bloggers. One of the books I am currently reading (re-reading in this particular case), is  Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky. That I am re-reading the book is telling of how much I actually enjoyed the book the first time. I first read the book in Aberystwyth, during a break from my research, and thought his use of the term “off of” was an oddity – until I came back to the US, where I found it to be quite pervasive, to the extent that I though I might be the one who was wrong (that might still be the case).  Anyway, in his book, Kurlansky uses the term interchangeably, as the picture below shows, and I can’t for the life of me figure out which is the correct usage.

"Off of" and "Off" used interchangeably... I still don't know which is correct. Off of does sound rather clumsy and it is often terribly annoyng to listen to someone use it repeatedly.

"Off of" and "Off" used interchangeably... I still don't know which is correct. Off of does sound rather clumsy and it is often terribly annoyng to listen to someone use it repeatedly.

Let me conclude, then, where I started. Language is and ought necessarily be dynamic. Wherever it is used people adopt English, or any other language for that matter, then redeploy it for their own purposes – as they should. Having said all that, English is my second language and I am not very good at it. In fact, I am one of those writers who always need an editor. I may never stop obsessing about my poor grammar, but while I am trying some people just can’t seem to stop mangling English.

:)

Filed in Cultural Criticism, Democracy, Immigration, Media, Race, Satire, United States Media, literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Fox News: Misrepresentations

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Jon Stewart is correct. This is just not journalism; it’s propaganda….

See, also, Oufoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.

Filed in Capitalism, Democracy, United States Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)