Areopagitica

"and yet you say this is a righteous government"

2010-11-03T08:14:00.008Z

posted by k

Back in April and early May, voters took their responsibility seriously. Viewing figures were high when the party leaders debated plans and policies. The young people I knew, voting in a General Election for the first time, were particularly conscientious, reading on-line manifestos, attending meetings – even turning out applaud or argue with party leaders.

Some council officials hadn't expected the rush of voters. Polling stations ran out of ballot papers, made voters queue for hours and even turned them away at the end of their long wait. There were complaints, enquiries. Some polling stations faced a near riot. People wanted to be part of a democracy and were affronted when they lost their opportunity to affect the future of their country.

It didn't turn out like that. The politicians who found themselves in power quickly changed their views. The election result suggested divided opinions and fierce, unresolved debates. People really believed that a democracy gave them responsibility to think through political questions. On most days of the election campaign I found myself discussing political questions, sometimes with mere acquaintances or strangers encountered on a train. Most expressed frustration that no politician fully represented their views but they listened, read and chose the agenda that seemed nearest to what they wanted.

All we had to go on were the stated words and policies of the candidates. When politicians said they and their parties were opposed to torture, against arms sales, in favour of civil liberties or opposed to a surveillance society, we had to believe them. When candidates and their party leader signed guarantees to vote against any rise in students' tuition fees – and campaigned among students on the basis of that policy – they demanded our trust. They didn't give vague hints but firm undertakings.

In the early days of the Coalition, there were hints that promises would be ditched and that the views of the electorate counted for little. If the electorate as a whole had voted for uncertainty, which implies further debate, the result could be ignored. We were to be given stability and firm government. “Politicians know best,” was the underlying message.

Some buzz-words from the campaign persisted. There were frequent references to fairness, freedom and the big society. Perhaps there were grounds to wait and hope for the best. Quite a few tories attacked state repression under the last government. It seemed reasonable to hope they would take their own statements seriously. While the cabinet seemed to include too many public-school and Oxbridge-educated millionaires, surely they would notice the limits of their own narrow experience of life, at least to the extent of seeking advice from other party members?

Gradually hope faded. Ending detention of child asylum-seekers wasn't immediate and didn't mean exactly what it said. Guidelines were changed so that quite young teenagers, who arrived in Britain alone, could be deported to war zones. Deportations - by private companies working for profit - continued to be brutal. One man died - the investigation continues. Passengers who objected to what they saw as brutality were bundled off their flight and held under anti-terror legislation.

There's worse. Craig Murray joined the Liberal Democrats and campaigned for them because they opposed evidence from torture. His analysis of the recent speech by MI6 head John Sawers suggests that Liberal Democrat ministers now accept "evidence" gained from torture overseas, implicitly encouraging the continuation of torture.

ID cards were scrapped but a new form of surveillance was encouraged. Every e-mail, web-search or telephone call made by a British resident is to be logged for government scrutiny. The excuse is the familiar one: the everlasting War on Terror. The census will probably be ended but instead private companies will be paid to gather data. The companies used already carry out investigations on our credit-worthiness. I'm not happy that the government should keep a file on me whose details combine my family circumstances and religious practices with details of my bank accounts and recent purchases.

Then there are the cuts. Party leaders knew - or should have known - they were coming. All three candidates for chancellor agreed the cuts would be severe - worse than anything we had ever known in the post-war period. Yet the candidates continued to make promises. Education Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year-olds would be preserved. All Liberal Democrat MPs would vote against any increase in tuition fees. Whenever a pre-election promise was questioned, the party representatives assured us they had all been costed out.

Now they insist it's all different. Apparently what you say to win an election is different from the actions you take when the election is - more or less - won. We weren't supposed to vote for the manifestos or the promises. We were simply supposed to select the most personable liar.

You can still read the manifestos of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. Traces of the parties' campaign promises survive on-line. They ring hollow now.

So do Coalition protests that they didn't know how dire the economic situation was. Four days before the election I wrote about the ways in which politicians from all parties were ducking the question of the economy in favour of offering minor bribes to voters.

There could have been a real debate. The voters were interested, eager to be involved. But the election was based on false premises and a series of policies and promises that were junked with little hesitation. What was the election worth? What was it about?

I suppose the election was about power - the government's power over us.

If our system of "democracy" is based on guesswork and false promises, how can we call it "democracy"? The people are supposed to have power - that's what the word "democracy" means. Without knowledge and honesty, we can't make the serious judgements required of us. But if we don't live in a democracy, what system are we in? I wonder how far I'm bound by the country's laws when they're passed by MPs elected on a platform of pretence.

Most of all I feel conned. I thought that words like "pledge" or "guarantee" stood for something. They didn't. Silly, silly me.

"who does the wolf love?"

2010-05-03T09:23:00.004Z

posted by k

In my brief and ineffectual period of political involvement – back in the 1970s - I learnt some of the rules about elections. I saw how counts were conducted and scrutinised, I discovered that there were limits on party spending in any constituency – and that they started the moment a candidate stopped being called the “prospective party candidate” after his official adoption for the seat, and I learnt the rules on treating.

“Treating” is regarded in electoral law as a form of bribing the electorate. I learnt that the rules were so strict that if I was working in a committee room on election day, I'd have to pay for any coffee and biscuits I consumed, even though the committee room was in the house of a personal friend. If I didn't pay for my mid-morning snack, that could either be regarded as a bribe to vote for the candidate I supported or as payment for my services, in which case it could topple the allowed expenses for the constituency over the permitted maximum.

Things seem to have changed, according to Craig Murray's account of Jack Straw's campaign in Blackburn. Jack Straw, the Secretary of State for Justice, seems happy to invite 700 people for free, sit-down dinners. It sounds like the sort of practice that led to laws against treating. He's been getting away with it for years so, unless the rules have changed, I suppose he's found some way round the law. I wonder what it is.

All politicians offer bribes to voters. The party manifestos are full of them. There are promises to help you if you're poor, rich, old, young, married, officially partnered. There are even bribes for the dead – the Conservative Party's rhetoric talks of a “death tax,” as though people would rather pay more in taxes when still alive. (Nobody seems to have noticed the way the conservatives' proposed marriage allowance deprives the widows and abandoned, whose taxes will rise by £150 a year, as if to punish them for the loss of a partner.)

There's something disturbing about this focus on bribing the electorate. Media stories repeatedly tell voters that it's fine – even praiseworthy – to vote entirely out of self-interest. Self-interest is bound to play a part. I know the world most vividly from my own experience and that is bound to influence my decisions. But there's more to it than that. As citizens in a democracy, we should also be asked to consider the good of the whole. I want to vote for more than “bread and circuses.”

There's nothing indecent in caring for the well-being of others – even people I haven't met. Most people are more generous and unselfish than they realise. If I look around, I see daily acts of kindness and courtesy – cruelty and selfishness are still unusual enough to be shocking. People who can barely afford it give money to charitable appeals. Marathon runners ask for sponsorship – often to help people they don't know – and their friends are happy to sponsor them. People who express hatred or mistrust for a minority group (Muslims, asylum seekers, gay people) rarely live out that hatred in their daily lives but make ever more exceptions for the likeable individuals they encounter.

Away from elections, citizens also care about big political questions and international responsibility. At the lowest estimate, 1 in 50 members of the entire British population made their way to one of the big anti-war demonstrations on 15th February, 2003. They were supported by millions more. This wasn't a selfish impulse but a real political concern which the government chose to attack, misrepresent and finally ignore. Huge numbers of people are concerned about poverty overseas and pollution of the environment. Beside the concerns of the people, the scope of the leaders' debates and media reporting seems rather narrow, as though voters are being encouraged to vote only from self-interest.

Even if we were all to vote from self-interest, we don't have the information we need. The three candidates for chancellor agreed in their debate that cuts would be brutal – harsher than under Thatcher – but none of the leaders is prepared to turn to the voters and explain precisely what they plan for us. The Financial Times on 26th April laid out the kind of cuts we might expect; according to their simulator, using government figures, cuts of £30 – 40 billion, which all parties agree we need, would require the following cuts or their equivalent:

" a 5 per cent cut in public sector pay; freezing benefits for a year; means-testing child benefit; abolishing winter fuel payments and free television licences; reducing prison numbers by a quarter; axing the two planned aircraft carriers; withdrawing free bus passes for pensioners; delaying Crossrail for three years; halving roads maintenance; stopping school building; halving the spending on teaching assistants and NHS dentistry; and cutting funding to Scotland and Wales by 10 per cent."

None of the parties is talking about cuts on this scale – and no-one seems to be addressing the knock-on effect such cuts would have. If large groups of people have less money to spend, a large number of businesses will collapse – and that will lead to more unemployment and, presumably, higher spending on benefits. It's a nasty cycle and no-one is talking about how we shall ever get out of it – or whether we need to adjust our way of life.

This election should have been an opportunity to discuss questions of equality and the distribution of wealth. These are vital questions in a democracy. Wealth buys influence – and that may be the strongest political argument for its more equal distribution. There are also important ways in which the poor are not free.

During this election, the media have encouraged us to see the political parties as purveyors of treats and promises. What they offer sounds more alluring than a cup of instant coffee and a biscuit – or even a plate of curry. But the rewards we're offered may prove insubstantial – and they're a pretty poor substitute for a grown-up and thoughtful political debate.

"He loved Big Brother now."

2010-05-01T08:06:00.004Z

posted by k

I'm waiting for the knock on the door.

My largely law-abiding life won't save me. They've invented new laws and then, just in case they've missed something, there are ways of personalising the law – devising special laws to get just one person. And I'm not talking about Brian Haw, who got the honour of a special clause in an act of parliament (which turned out not to work in his case after all). I'm talking about laws which might get me – or you. It wasn't always quite so bad.

Of course, there have been plenty of laws to trap the unwitting or foolish or honest. Don't tell a soldier you think he or she should have a change of career. That breaks the Incitement to Disaffection Act (1934). (I've broken that one a couple of times. I'd rather they arrested me for that because I did it deliberately - I think it's wrong to deprive anyone of freedom of thought and conscience.) And there are bad laws which have been repealed. Section 28, which scared teachers out of saying that Oscar Wilde was gay or that most of Shakespeare's sonnets were written to a fair young man, is no longer on the statute books. I'm pleased about that. But there are all those new, apparently well-meaning laws which seem to be used in unpredicted ways.

Take the law on stalking. One individual stalking another is a nasty, threatening matter. I've known young women in particular – though it's not only young women who are affected – really frightened by phone-calls in the middle of the night, threatening letters, displays of covertly-taken photographs. When victims complain and nothing is done, I'm angry. When victims, who may have been stalked for years, are beaten up and even killed, I start asking, “Why didn't they listen to her? Why don't they do something?” So the government responded. A minister could have pointed out that there were already laws against harassment or proposed a slight adjustment to existing laws. Instead we were offered a brand-new, shiny law which would protect the vulnerable from harm – and even from mild distress.

But it wasn't just used against stalkers. It was one of those all-purpose, catch-all laws which could be used against anybody who talked to or wrote to someone more than once. If I encounter an arms manufacturer on the train – it could happen; making weapons is big business in Britain – and find out about his profession, I might express myself strongly, even enter into an argument with him. And if I see him the next day, I might continue that argument – and he might be annoyed. Under the law, that would count as stalking and I might find myself in jail. If I were handing out leaflets and offered one to the same person twice, that might be considered a crime. It seems to me that if a friend and I had a row in a pub and one of us phoned the other to continue the row, that might be considered stalking.

The law is being framed to prevent awkward behaviour and mild distress – and the government seems quite pleased that it sweeps up political protesters and non-violent dissidents as well. Bu you don't have to break the law to get an ASBO. Anti-social behaviour legislation has been so widely framed that it's possible to construct a special law to limit the freedom of speech, action and movement of one individual who hasn't broken any law. That idea was controversial when it came in but now everyone's used to the idea that if your neighbour annoys you enough, you might be able to stop the annoyance with an ASBO. Sometimes ASBOs are used instead of charging someone with a more conventional crime. ASBOs allow magistrates to impose sentences that they make up: people can be banned from places and forbidden to act in a way that is perfectly legal for anybody else.

ASBOs lack the legal safeguards of conventional criminal laws and injunctions which protect individuals. If you break an ASBO – a law constructed just for you – you can land in jail. It's another convenient tool for dealing with protesters and dissidents.

Freedom of speech is being eroded too. I'm not an absolutist about freedom of speech. I'm not in favour of inciting hatred against anyone. Incitement to violence is dangerous. (I sometimes wonder why politicians are never charged with either offence.) There are many individuals and groups who suffer because of what is said about them – that's important for everyone to remember. Politicians and the people have a responsibility to counter a climate of hate. Silence won't achieve that. Nor will the competitive xenophobia of politicians.

Of course I'm sometimes hurt and offended by people's attitudes and what they say. I'm human. But my first action isn't to ring the police. I can see why an airport chaplain was offended by anti-religious cartoons, clipped from Private Eye, left in the airport chaplaincy – they were probably left there to offend. Leaving them there might have been a silly action but it surely doesn't deserve a criminal record. The church wasn't damaged. God wasn't damaged. It seems particularly ludicrous in a nominally Christian country where – archaically – bishops vote as unelected members of the second chamber of parliament and the Archbishop of Canterbury plays a key role in the coronation of the monarch. And – oh -dear! - I've made tactless and ill-judged jokes at times. Will the police come round to get me?

With any luck, the police won't kill me, though since the death of Juan Charles Menenez and the case of David Mery I've felt a little less confident on the tube. I usually find the police polite, even though I was caught in a kettle once and found my experience rather different from the police's official account.

But what would happen if the police came round and arrested me? According to the the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the police keep 25% of the goods and money they confiscate and the Crown Prosecution Service keeps a further 25%. The law was meant – so were told – to deal with major criminals and drug traffickers using threats and violence – and the standard of proof of how the money was obtained was changed, so that the “criminal” had to prove a legal right to the money. It sounds great when dealing with international criminals. It's more troubling when the police seize the jewellery – and even the life savings – of prostitutes working together for their own protection. Prostitutes are not .likely to go to court to recover their money, as the law requires. So cash-strapped police forces find that pursuing a particular crime is a nice little earner for the force, so long as the police forget that they are now living on immoral earnings – the usual definition of a pimp.

I could go one. I could go on. There are so many liberties trickling away. I've committed so many offences that might be arrestable. I even took a photo of the House of Commons – with a policeman outside. Governments don't usual restore the liberties they have taken – unless the people insist. And all around me are people who have forgotten the liberties they lost and adjusted oppressive, intrusive laws. I'm adjusting too. This time next year, I may have forgotten what liberty is. What liberties have I forgotten already?

"Think you there was, or might be, such a man?"

2010-04-24T10:29:00.008Z

posted by k

When I began this blog, I was inspired by two men.

Gerard Mulholland lived in a Paris suburb. For many years heart problems and, more recently diabetes, affected his capacity to work and travel. This didn't end his concern with the state of the world and with human beings. From his computer he engaged in political debate – on public message boards and through email correspondence with his friends. He was always concerned with questions of liberty and the related question of equality. In his discussions on public forums his unusual sense of democracy shone – he was as happy at a lively debate on the Sun message boards as in forums run by the BBC, the Guardian or Republic. His concern was dialogue and, while he would put his own view as forcefully as he could, he would listen to what other people said and question his own assumptions. Despite his occasional assertions of pessimism at the state of the world and human beings – he never stopped being shocked by the cruelty people could inflict on one another – he also wanted to do his best for the world and his fellow humans.

David Rose was a poet who worked in Colne in Lancashire. He had practical skills, an understanding of engineering and was also a successful barman. Only those who have never worked behind a bar think that's an easy job – the best bar staff care not only about the quality of beer they serve but also about their customers and colleagues. David cared about serving good beer but he cared for people even more. This brought him into all kinds of local projects, including work on the Millennium Green, an open space in Colne. Like Gerard, he saw people – including those who were disregarded - as equals and was good at finding the skills they could bring to share in local projects. I imagine that some of these qualities had been honed when he was involved in the free festivals movement. He was used to seeing past the damage that people had suffered to find their real value. His concerns for liberty and humanity led him to a critical analysis of the way in which the voluntary – or third – sector was being hijacked by the state. Most recently, his worries about state surveillance and intrusion led him to advance detailed arguments about the ways in which government policy was finding people guilty not just of thought-crime but of pre-crime – he noted the ways in which government agencies were asked to identify potential criminals at nurseries and earlier – even among babies before birth. While Gerard's contribution to Areopagitica was through the comments he made, David posted thoughtfully to the blog.

Both Gerard and David had rejected careers that would have aligned them with the establishment. Gerard turned down the offer of pupillage as a barrister in a well-known set of chambers to become a tour guide. In the 1970s this enabled him to take part in Liberal politics, always on the radical wing of the party. David, whose degree was in engineering, worked initially in big industrial companies - what today are called multi-nationals - but he left this career to live outside a system with which he felt little sympathy. Neither was rich – they lived with the everyday worries about family and bills that most people experience. Neither lived a perfect life – nor claimed to do so. Both acted at times in ways they later regretted, would be angry on occasion – and then would apologise. They were critical of themselves and their actions but offered sympathy and understanding to the mistakes and flaws of friends.

If Gerard and David were standing in the current general election, the media would probably spend a lot of time raking through their lives and assuring the electorate that they were too flawed to represent us in parliament. We're encouraged to support candidates with perfect pasts, photogenic family lives, who never lose their temper or question the received platitudes of political life (although these change from day to day). In the past thirty years, photogenic men and women with perfect pasts have dismantled a caring society, created and encouraged chasms of mistrust and intolerance between groups and individuals, built a surveillance state, permitted and encouraged torture, condoned illegality, led the country into wars and bombed cities into such pain and chaos that only hatred remains - but our clean-living, respectable leaders have wrapped up their actions in neat, media-friendly soundbites.

Gerard and David were prepared to ask difficult questions and reach uncomfortable conclusions. They cared that human beings had the opportunity to live free and fulfilling lives and take part in genuinely thoughtful political debates. I wish I had the chance to vote for them.

Gerard died in July last year. His health had been deteriorating for a long time but he seemed immortal. The last text message I received from him, which must have been sent about an hour before he died, rejoiced that the right had “done their duty” and voted against Marine Le Pen in the Pas de Calais mayoral election.

David died at the end of December. He was on his way back from a holiday on Skye with his wife and a friend. I've seen some of his photos from that holiday. Again, my last communications from him were text messages. Before his holiday he delighted in the unlikely sight of of seventeen mountain-biking santas arriving at the pub where he worked. On Skye he observed the sea frozen at the loch-heads.

I feel uneasy writing an obituary for Gerard and David even now. They are mourned by family and friends who knew them better than I did. Much of my friendship with them was maintained and developed through emails and telephone calls. It wasn't just a correspondence about politics. There were poems, music, ideas, history and lots of jokes. I miss them a lot.

I wondered for a long while if I could continue this blog without them – it was born out of debate and shouldn't be a monologue. I think I shall continue but Areopagitica is bound to change without their contribution.

When I consider how to vote in the general election - and I'm still thinking about it - I recall the discussions I had with Gerard and David. I think about the principles of freedom and equality – and how these need to be rooted in a care for all human beings. I'll try to blog more about this later.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

2009-09-20T10:37:00.008Z

posted by k

The Liberal Democrats are conferring this weekend. A long time ago I used to attend Liberal Assemblies - they weren't conferences then but altogether unwieldier bodies where debates were taken seriously as the means of changing party policy and, through that, the country and the world.

I left the Liberals on a point of policy in the early 1980s. Since then, the Liberals have merged with the Social Democrats although there are still liberals within the new party. There seem to be other changes too. There's concern with security. When I joined, in my late teens, Assemblies were a place where I might find myself sitting next to a Member of Parliament, a peer or - even in those days - a celebrity supporter. It was remarkably easy to take part in eager discussions of policy though hard to get called to speak - there were so many keen to debate.

If I couldn't get called to speak at the main debates, I had a chance to express my views at a range of smaller fringe meetings. And I'd wander round the stalls run by a range of organisations and have conversations with the stall-holders. I remember some of the organisations who ran stalls and fringe meetings. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality was there. So were the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Child Poverty Action Group. I remember these in particular because they challenged some of my assumptions and told me facts I hadn't previously known. The Liberal Assembly was a place where people actually changed their minds.

These days there are still stalls and fringe meetings. But it's all much glossier. As the Conference Directory says, "The Liberal Democrat Conferences have become increasingly professional as the party has become increasingly professional." I'm suspicious of the term "professional." It can be used to mean simply that someone has particular qualifications or behaves in a responsible manner. But it can also be used to urge that loyalty to an employer is more important than telling the truth or questioning the principles of a business or institution.

In the case of the Liberal Democrat Conference, one of the things professional seems to mean is sponsorship. The conference is marketed at potential sponsors as "a fantastic opportunity for companies, societies and organisations to meet thousands of conference attendees face-to-face and increase their brand awareness." I don't know what they pay for these opportunities but I am anxious at some of the organisations paying for access to delegates during debates about national policy.

All fringe meetings to do with health are in an area sponsored by Humana, a profit-making company which works on "NHS commissioning" in the United Kingdom and in the lucrative field of health insurance in the United States. A meeting on "Culture: Today and Tomorrow" is sponsored by Camelot, who are also represented on the panel. Similarly, a fringe panel on "The Future for Home Ownership" is sponsored by Lloyds who have a place on the panel. The National Landlords Association, which includes "promoting ... members' interests to national and local government" among its aims is also represented.

Obviously organisations should be able to stimulate debates and talk to people who are politically active. I may feel doubts about The British Association for Shooting and Conservation who, with The Angling Trust, are sponsoring "The Rural Reception" at which senior MPs are speaking (and for which drinks and canapés are provided). However, campaigning organisations have engaged in dialogue with party politicians for a long time. It seems reasonable that unions and even newspapers should sponsor events or advertise in the conference programme. Politically active people are likely to join unions and read newspapers. I'm surprised that publicly-funded organisations and charities find money for sponsorship or think it a worthwhile cost - what do they get in return?

But as I look through the list of sponsors, I find some names that puzzle me: Dr Foster Intelligence, Ernst & Young, Bloomberg, Tesco, The Nuclear Industry Association. And why is Asda, wholly owned by the U.S. company Wal-Mart, sponsoring a fringe meeting on "Imagining New Britain: Forging a New National Identity"?

The current Liberal Democrats - just like Labour and the Conservatives - are taking money from big business. They are even advertising privileged access to Members of the British and European Parliament. Monday at the Conference is "Corporate Day" when "senior business leaders" can "meet and engage with "senior parliamentarians". Party leader Nick Clegg and Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable will be there - and there will be a reception at the end of the day. I don't suppose places are free. It sounds like cash for access to me.

Parties may need to sell advertising and access in order to be taken seriously. And it's important to be taken seriously in politics - small parties and independents don't get the same publicity or access to public debates, as ex-Ambassador Craig Murray discovered in the recent Norwich North by-election. But all this sponsorship seems a long way from what I remember of Liberal Assemblies.

Liberalism has been defined in many ways recently. Some commentators in the United States equate it with Marxism. In Europe it's often seen as a right-wing force in politics. For me it is neither.

Back in 1978, I heard Gerard Mulholland define the principles of Liberalism. He spoke as follows:

“The first principle of Liberalism … is freedom to live one’s life free from legal restraints, except those which stop your freedom from interfering with somebody else’s.

“The next principle is equality before the law and social and economic opportunity to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without discrimination against caste, creed, politics, race or sex.

“The third principle is the brotherhood of all people everywhere, with tolerance for the things we dislike, forbearance for the things we don’t understand and joyful celebration of the things we share.

“It all adds up to progress towards a fair and just society for the only race that matters – the human race.”

The principles he stated were rooted in 17th and 18th century debates on individual liberty. They were passed on like the copy of Milton's Areopagitica which was handed to every new president of the Liberal Party. The interpretation has developed over time but they still seem like good principles to me.

Parties which are dependent on the sponsorship and goodwill of wealthy organisations and big business are a long way from the ideals of liberalism. It doesn't sound much like democracy either.

"the ballot in our hand"

2009-05-24T07:32:00.003Z

posted by k

How do we make our votes count?

The question has been raised in a letter in today's Observer which calls for a referendum on proportional representation. Suddenly a new voting system, which has been resisted by parties in power, seems likely.

There are many kinds of proportional representation. In some voters choose a party and leave it to that party to decide which candidates enter parliament. It seems to me to put too much power in the hands of the party.

The system I prefer, which has the unwieldy name of "single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies" has a key advantage: voters put candidates in order of preference. The voter chooses individuals rather than parties and can choose a selection of candidates on their individual merits. It gives the voter a chance to vote against trends in a party and encourages MPs to advance individual manifestos and engage with voters. MPs elected under this system have the authority to be more than lobby-fodder. While parties are likely to continue, they will be weaker and there's more space for independents. Debates in the House of Commons would be genuine debates and an attempt to change people's minds rather than an opportunity to provide soundbites for the next news broadcast. MPs might even turn up to listen as well as to speak. The disadvantage is that constituencies would be larger: perhaps five times the size of current constituencies but with five MPs. However, constituents are much more likely to find at least one MP that represents their views.

Single transferable vote also requires voters to think more - surely a good idea.

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us"

2009-05-23T13:21:00.006Z

posted by k

People don't like MPs. They may like individual Members of Parliament but MPs en masse are unpopular. This isn't new. It's quite healthy for individuals to feel cynical about the people they elect to rule them, so long as that cynicism leads into a proper questioning of representatives and involvement in political debate.

The last weeks have transformed the everyday cynicism into a blend of emotions as members of the public have begun to realise that the dislike they feel for MPs is mild compared with the attitudes many MPs demonstrate for their constituents. A heckler on BBC TV's Question Time got it right when he shouted at Margaret Beckett, "So you are better than us."

There are so many outrageous claims: the plasma TVs, the duck house, tax-funded advice on how to avoid tax, London MPs. It's hard to know how to react when discovering that two MPs so far (the Daily Telegraph has more than 400 MPs yet to investigate) have spent some of their parliamentary allowance on large quantities of horse shit. I've begun to wonder who got the better bargain: Sir David Heathcote-Amory who paid £380.80 for manure at 70p a sack or Sir Peter Viggers who spent nearly £500 for 28 tons of the stuff. It sounds like a question for a maths exam: If the MPs buy their horse shit from the same supplier at the same rate, how much does a sack hold?

There's the flipping of houses, the absurd travel allowances, the purchases ranging from imported rugs and champagne flutes to dogfood and chocolate hobnobs. Our taxes have paid for the maintenance of priavtely-owned trees, moats and swimming pools. Of course we're cross.

I'm wondering how it happened. Some MPs are sorry. Cynicism says, "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" Others insist it was a mistake (so many mistakes), that they acted within the rules (which they made), that the public are just jealous (of that ugly house!), that we don't understand, that officials were at fault, that they deserve our sympathy. There are occasional instances of courage when bemused MPs face the wrath of the voters. And then there are the minority: MPs who didn't fiddle expenses or see how much they could get but thought it their duty to do their job without seeing how much they could get from the Fees Office. I expect some of the MPs who've been blamed for their expenses really did make mistakes or were doing their best to behave ethically in a bad system. Institutions where bad practices are common drag good people down.

But when I feel sorry for MPs (and I do; their position must be horrid), I remember the way the government urges us to "name and shame" all kinds of people, urging us in advertisements to denounce benefit frauds for stealing our taxes. I think of good teachers who've had nervous breakdowns or left their jobs because they couldn't cope with the constant surveillance and the tick-box inspection regime. I think of hard workers who have been condemned for not meeting standards set by artbitrary league tables - government-set standards that change every year. I think of the way the public has been encourage not just to accept government surveillance but to be involved in watching and judging others. Public humiliation has been a government tactic for years.

That's enough on what the MPs have done. The important question is what we - who are not MPs - do about it. However right we are to lose trust in our MPs, this is a political crisis. In the middle of an economic mess and all kinds of international turmoil, we find we can't trust the people who make the laws and all sorts of decisions on our behalf. So what happens next?

One advantage of late middle age is that I know things can be different. I know this because things were different when I was growing up. There wasn't always a common assumption that value could be measured by income and the display of luxury. When I was preparing to leave university, there were articles in the press urging good graduates to go into industry, assuring them that industry, just as much as public service, could bring benefit to the country as a whole. As students we talked about doing good and helping others without irony and didn't expect to be mocked for such ambitions.

If we once believed in public service, we can believe in it again - but it may mean rethinking many current ideas.
We all need to debate - urgently - what we want from parliament and what a democracy is. I assume we all agree that MPs should be paid, because we don't want a wealth qualification for parliament. But how much should they be paid? In retrospect I'm impressed by Dave Nellist's decision to take only 40% of his parliamentary salary, giving the rest to charities and his local Labour constituency association so that he could live on a "worker's wage." MPs need to be in touch with the living standards of their constituents.

Less than a hundred years ago, MPs weren't paid. Working-class MPs (and there were a few) were dependent on funds raised by supporters and constituency parties. In 1911, an MP's salary of £400 per year was introduced and MPs had the further advantage of free travel on the railways. It was a fairly good salary for the times; it was more than twice the average annual salary for a teacher but less than a third of what a barrister or solicitor would expect to earn. However there was no second home allowance; MPs had to make their own arrangements, pay their own staff and meet all other expenses. Many MPs had other jobs while others - particularly Labour MPs - saw their parliamentary duties as their job.

What is an MP's job? Should an MP be independent, take instructions from constituents, follow the manifesto regardless of changing circumstances or act as lobby fodder for a party? Is an MP's main work helping constituents or is this intervention just a means of garnering votes and keeping a job? What say should MPs have on creating and approving laws - and how much attention should they pay to the details of drafting? And who should keep an eye on what MPs are doing?

These used to be theoretical questions - the sort of thing raised by students and in debating societies. The role of MPs was determined by MPs themselves. Parliament judged the conduct of its members. Now public debate may affect what happens next - and there will be a general election in less than a year.

I don't know who passed the information about MPs expenses to John Wick or why it was brought into the public domain just over a fortnight ago. It may have been released by someone concerned for the public good, for money or to advance a particular agenda. Now we know some of what's been going on and there will be more relevations which could easily continue till the end of June or beyond.

MPs look shocked and battered. The voters are shocked and battered too. I think people are suddenly realising that a vote isn't enough; citizens have to consider what kind of government they want and try to make their voices heard.

Craig Murray gives evidence today

2009-04-28T08:23:00.001Z

posted by k

Craig Murray, sacked as British ambassador to Uzbekistan and smeared by New Labour for the offence of publicly opposing British collusion in torture, gives evidence to the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee today (Tuesday 28th April) at 1.45 p.m.

Read more HERE.

Watch Craig Murray's evidence live at the parliamentary website HERE.

This is the first time Craig Murray has been able to give his evidence officially although he first spoke out in 2004.

I hope the press will cover his evidence - it's still important.

The Lost Principles of Policing

2009-04-20T08:59:00.005Z

The Nine Principles of Policing were written in 1829, expanding on Sir Robert Peel's original Nine Points of Policing. Copies were issued to all members of the Metropolitan Police. There is some uncertainty about authorship. What is certain is that over the last 180 years, the themes which lie behind these philosophical guidelines have been forgotten.

The Nine Principles of Policing:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Dodo

"the lie of Authority"

2009-04-19T08:14:00.005Z

posted by k

I hesitated to post about the policing of the G20 protests in London. I wasn't there. But for once it was possible to follow the confusion and complexity of what happened through press reports. The Guardian's live blog, using Twitter, was particularly helpful as it gave brief reports with times as the events happened.

Watching from my laptop, it seemed to me that the policing was sprodaically more violent than it needed to be from the very beginning of the protest. The attack on RBS, initially by a single protestor (against protests from at least one fellow-demonstrator) and then by a small group, was puzzling.

RBS is currently the most unpopular bank in the country because of the arguments about the pension of its previous boss Sir Fred Goodwin (Fred the Shred). There had been an attack on his home and some of his cars and newspapers and journals all over the world were suggesting that banks and bankers were in danger. So why wasn't the RBS building in the city of London boarded up, like all the neighbouring shops and offices, during the G20 demonstrations? It's as though someone wanted a nice, photogenic attack on a bank.

Looking at photos of the event, I'm struck by how few people were involved in the attack on the bank. There's a crowd of demonstrators, press and photographers simply watching and recording what is going on. The attack on the bank was plainly not the action of the majority of demonstrators. It could probably have been stopped by the police at the very beginning - but it wasn't.

Publicity before the event may have suggested there would be violent protests and that bankers would be in danger. The call to "hang the bankers" was plainly understood as a joke and there were similar jokes from city employees. As in previous years, city workers waved bank notes at the protestors.

But everything began to turn nasty. There was a report of a man dying of a heart attack, rescued by heroic police as anti-capitalist demonstrators pelted them with bottles. That report came from the police and it turned out to be a lie. A series of videos showed the man, Ian Tomlinson, being pushed by the police and hit with a baton. He was attacked by a one of a group of police who were masked and had removed their identification numbers. It was a group of demonstrators, including a medical student, who went to his rescue and they were initially told by police to go away. The latest post mortem suggests that the cause of death was the police attack on Ian Tomlinson. As for the thrown bottles, one account suggested that a single plastic bottle might have been thrown before all the demonstrators realised that someone needed urgent help. The Guardian's collection of witness statements gives a better idea of what happened than any single source can provide.

Usually demonstrators aren't taken seriously when they talk about police conduct. When I was held in a pen by the police some years ago (there were 75 of us on an anti-war demo and 200 police), the police initially denied both the numbers involved and the length of time we'd been held. It was a shame for them that they also penned in the editor of a small local paper.

This time, the demonstrators had cameras which recorded events. And, although press photographers were sometimes told to move away and stop filming, they had pictures and video footage too. Again, the Guardian has led the way in assembling video evidence and posting it on the newspaper's website. Other newspapers have also commented on the way the protests were policed and on the death of Ian Tomlinson. This was just as well as the initial reports said that there was no police film and no CCTV footage. The Police Complaints Commission has now admitted that this was untrue.

Although between 1 in 25 and 1 in 50 of the British population took part in demonstrations against the Iraq war, the advance publicity about the G20 demonstrations has led to mistrust of the demonstrators. It's worth reading what they have to say. It's also helpful to look at the film of the Climate Camp to understand what most of the demonstration was like and how the police caused most of the violence. I found the video in the Daily Mail which is emphatically not a left-wing paper nor a supporter of the protests.

The conclusion of the video, in which the police attack the protestors, suggests that the police aren't "out of control," as is often suggested. When I see the police at demonstration or at railways stations on football match days, they are wearing earpieces so that they can receive orders and act in a co-ordinated way. It seems to me that the police are very much "under control" - and that is much more frightening.

"I am a camera"

2009-02-14T12:43:00.006Z

posted by k

It took the News Quiz to alert me to the latest change in the law. The police are to have new powers to stop us taking their photos. They're using a provision of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008.

It's rapidly becoming impossible to obey the law. Taking a snapshot of a tourist site may turn out to be illegal. More seriously, what would happen if a member of the public witnessed a police officer commiting a crime or abusing police powers and tried to document this by taking a picture? A ban on photographing the police adds to police powers and makes it easier for rogue officers - or rogue forces - to break the law, suppress the evidence and punish the witnesses. This should not be possible in a free, democratic society.

Soon pictures like this will be illegal. Although the police are concealing neither their faces nor their weapons, we're told that taking their pictures may put them at risk.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. I grew up with a police force that rarely carried weapons, in the days before tasers had been invented. Nowadays even police without guns carry an arsenal of alternative weapons strung about their waists. We've come a long way from Dixon of Dock Green and the respect given to a friendly neighbourhood bobby.

I know Dixon was a fiction but the myth gave good policemen a kind of gentle authority. Dixon's salute at the end of each episode as he bade goodbye to the audience with the phrase, "Evening, all," suggested a police force that worked with and respected the public. Big guns, tasers and laws that threaten our freedom don't make me feel that the police respect me. They don't make me feel safer. They make me feel afraid.

There hasn't been much publicity for this latest change in the law but there is a demonstration on Monday 16th February. Press photographers, whose freedom is also threatened, will be taking part and the comedian Mark Thomas will be taking part.

Meanwhile, there's interesting potential for a conflict of laws. A publican in Islington has been told he must install CCTV as a condition of his licence. But what happens if a policeman enters his pub?

But we shouldn't worry. The provisions of the Act won't be abused. We can be sure of thus. The government keeps telling us so.

A fellow contributor to this blog directed me to gizmonaut who, as often, follows this issue far more comprehensively. Evidently a busy week at work prevented me from paying sufficient attention to the blogosphere.

"Nothing ever happened."

2008-12-25T20:13:00.009Z

posted by k

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. When the news was released on Christmas Day, poters on the BBC's Have Your Say site rushed to condemn him, as though there were a peculiar merit in being first to condemn a man after he has died.

I don't understand that attitude. When icons of the right - even dictators - die, I try not to rejoice. I may sometimes feel relieved that people are free from fear as a result but there's something disgusting in publicly rejoicing at a fellow-human's death. Those who have suffered abuse or worse may be allowed their celebrations but these come from so twisted a world and so bad an experience that we should offer sympathy and understanding rather than trying to outdo them in shrieking hurrahs.

Many people disliked Pinter. He wasn't afraid of controversy and, like all of us, was imperfect. But he was willing to speak for those in need of help and for those who were threatened by state power. I wouldn't always agree with him but I admired his willingness to be engaged and to speak out, when silence would have been easier. I wonder how much his sympathy with oppressed people grew out of his experience as a Jewish tailor's son at school in the East End of London. He must have been fourteen or fifteen when the newsreel film of Belsen was shown in cinemas. Yet he became a conscientious objector in the late 1940s and, more recently, associated himself with Jewish campaigners who called for justice for Palestinians as well as Jews in Israel. These weren't popular or easy positions to hold.

Many of the swift attacks on Pinter target his work as a playwright, calling him "talentless," "shallow" and, of course, "intellectual." There's a laziness in most of the criticism. As a playwright, Pinter continually experimented and took risks. He also, in his early plays, wrote about working-class people - not nice, cosy, working-class people but people who were complex, hopeful, dangerous, often at odds with their society and one another. I'm no expert on Pinter's plays but they make me think - and that's high praise.

As a writer, Pinter cared about language and its relation to truth. The lecture he gave after receiving the Nobel prize for literature has, as its title, "Art, Truth and Politics." it was deeply concerned with two subjects: the way in which language can be abused to conceal the truth and the way in which government and the media prevent us from knowing the acts of horror which are committed on our behalf. Pinter's speech, famously, attacked the United States' role in supporting military dictatorships, and the way in which the United States' conduct is widely ignored. With corruscating irony, Pinter said:

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

And that's true of so many horrors, from bombing civilians to starvation and the destruction of the planet. It's easier not to know. It's certainly easier not to think about the grief, the corpses, the injuries, the sheer mess of wars and bombings conducted on our behalf. Again in his Nobel lecture, Pinter quoted Neruda (writing of Republican Spain):

"Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!"

Harold Pinter insisted that we see the reality, sure that if enough people saw what was really happening elsewhere, their common humanity and decency would ensure a gentler and more generous outcome.

Pinter's death came only four days after the death of another campaigning writer, the poet Adrian Mitchell. He too was concerned that people see and acknowledge the truth. His most famous poem, "To whom it may concern," was written about Vietnam but many of its words can be applied to all sorts of uncomfortable truths that we would prefer not to know. The economy is built on debt and injustice. We have prospered because other people starve. Our government sends its servants to lie, torture, maim and kill. Children born in this country are locked away because their parents are asylum-seekers. Even in Britain - even in peaceful suburbs - our fellow humans sleep in doorways and on pavements and don't have enough to eat. Lies are more comfortable. We can live in our cosy world where "Nothing ever happened" and choose the newspaper that tells us our lies of choice.

"How can we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?"

2008-12-11T22:02:00.008Z

posted by k

The Barclay brothers, millionaire owners of The Daily Telegraph, claimed that they were bringing democracy to Sark. In a series of court cases, they overturned Sark's rule of primogenture, which laid down the rule that property should pass from the father to the eldest son, and then gained a judgement that replaced Sark's feudal system with a general election.

It all sounded fine. Sark is one of the tiniest inhabited Channel Islands with a population of about 600. Its laws and customs have seemed quaint rather than dangerous and, to the outsider, this tiny island where transport is by bicycle, tractor or horse-drawn vehicle seems picturesquely old-fashioned. Until the Barclay brothers bought the neighbouring island of Brecqou, no-one really worried that the island was run by the absolute power of the Seigneur, who held the island in fief from the Queen. I'm a republican and a democrat so not in favour of the system and I'd worry that it might favour the rich and established families over the poor workers. If I'd been asked, I'd have said Sark should have free elections, just like the rest of Europe.

Sark had its first general election yesterday. I don't know the details of the campaign but there were fifty-seven candidates for the 28 seats in Chief Pleas, at the parliament is known. The Barclay brothers involved themselves in campaigning, using the Sark newspaper they own as well as The Daily Telegraph, which they also own. They warned the voters not to vote against the candidates they supported, using personal attacks and threats. The voters were warned that a vote against the Barclay brothers' candidates - for instance, in favour of income tax or against the introduction of motor vehicles - would risk the withdrawal of the Barclays' investment in Sark. Perhaps as many as a quarter of the inhabitants of Sark work for the Barclay brothers. Their employers were threatening them: "Vote as we say, or you'll be out of a job." There is no social security on Sark.

It sounds like a lively election campaign - a difficult one, too, with major disagreements. Almost 90% of the electorate turned out and the result went to a recount. The voters didn't respond to the Barclays' attempt to win the election - they resisted methods which look like bribery or blackmail to me (but I suppose the Barclays had expensive legal advice to tell them how far they could go). The methods of the Barclay brothers don't sound democratic to me - they sound like an attempt to purchase power.

It turned out that the voters of Sark were brave enough to defy the two men who thought they had a right to say who sat in Sark's parliament. The Barclay brothers don't have control of Chief Pleas because Sark voters chose not to be intimidated. But now the Barclay brothers are carrying out their threat.

The businesses owned by the Barclay brothers - hotels, restaurants, building firms, estate agents, shops - are being closed down. People are thrown into unemployment and poverty just in time for Christmas. It's a more brutally feudal attitude than Sark is used to. The servants didn't do what the bosses wanted and now they're being punished.

The Barclay brothers are the owners of a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Telegraph. I don't think that people who use threats to try influence the outcome of an election are proper people to own a newspaper. I'm going to boycott The Daily Telegraph, which I've bought on occasion, for as long as the Barclay brothers own it. How about you?

Milton's Birthday

2008-12-09T13:37:00.004Z

John Milton was born 400 years ago today.
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties."
"No man who know aught can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free."

The world of words-on-the-page, the world of ideas, of the free expression and exchange of ideas is being perverted and stifled perhaps as never before. The increasingly less subtle domination of reports by an official line, by the apparatchiks of the new-establishments whether in the UK or the USA, is becoming more effective and extensive with access to tools beyond the dreams of the more primitively effective practices of a Third Reich or a Soviet system.

We live in a sound-bite culture in which shortened attention spans and a reduced capacity for recollection and linkage has its effect. Shifts in the priorities of a profit-led education sector have reinforced the roll-back of the development of a free mind. By way of one example, I suggest a brief reference from which I quote: "The nation’s elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent and often subversive." This from the USA rather than the UK , but there are UK commentaries on the perversion and erosion of our Education system from Gold Stars in the Nursery to the award of a Master's. And now, as a part of the “Every Child Matters” programme, the Common Assessment Framework begins with the unborn (Contact Point, the associated widely accessible database on our children, goes live in January). Supposed to be selectively applied , the practice of this Social Policing will become commonplace. Even Thatcher would be spinning in her grave (whaddya mean she's not dead yet?).

The dilution of a rooting of human understanding of the world we occupy, its histories, its context, is a part of the "empowerment" of Authority as the source of wisdom and a reduction of the capacity to challenge. We have for many years had a range of observations on what is going on. Suddenly, the integration of what is going on is accelerating. And it is beginning to be evident that these people are now so certain of their rectitude and power that they no longer much care that we know it - they have enough people who are sufficiently ignorant, self-obsessed and with the attention-span of a jellyfish for then to get away with it.

We yet retain the liberty to speak and write, although that is under threat. We no longer have the liberties of public demonstration. Parliament itself is at risk and might be seen by some as on the brink of becoming defunct; the nu-Labour Members are willing to sacrifice the authority of their House and Constitutional protections on Parliament to the Party and its Government. But it is not just through political action that ideas which change a world view can come to influence.

My view that the fifth world war progresses might come to a conclusion without hope - that the play upon the greater stage will dictate the shape of the future and that the performance precludes other than tinkering with the script. Yet I would retain hope while we have the power of expression. We must needs use that in what way we can be that direct politics, life example, creative expression or the (reducing) capacity for conversation in the local pub. We can write our own small scripts. The Fringe Performers. Else “The truth is replaced by silence, and the silence is a lie.” - Yevgeny Yevtushenko. But be aware of the utter ruthlessness of the censors, the critics, the audience. To resist the established, to challenge the zeitgeist requires that you cease to value your position, your job, your comforts, your preconceptions, your physical liberty, your reputation, your home, all that represents your material welfare. This is not that you necessarily relinquish them. It is that you cannot value them for it might be necessary that they are relinquished. To give value to them other than as any more than passing tools precludes the logic of resistance. I might prefer to echo Blake: “What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children. Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy ...”

To return to Milton, whose conception of freedom of expression was rooted in freedom for the exercise of God's Will and might be tainted by that for the modern reader. Many of his arguments in Areopagitica stand beyond that limitation."I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." And who, then, might we be to refuse to accept "God's Will" (alternatively faith in the power of reason and conscience) for ourselves and in our applications of wit? To refuse the courage to articulate our visions of the world? For there is always another way of looking at that world. If we seek to silence that, whether in others or in ourselves, we are diminished.

"What did 'Liberty' mean, grandad?"

dodo

"Bliss was it in that dawn"

2008-12-09T11:56:00.002Z

posted by k

John Milton was born 400 years ago today. In his pamphlet, Areopagitica, after which this blog is named, he argued for the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. There were limits to his ideas of freedom of the press but he sketched out, in ringing tones, his belief that liberty and progress were dependent on the search for knowledge, truth and understanding.

Milton's ideas came out of that anxious and hopeful period in English history when parliament was at war with the king. He wrote this pamphlet three years before the Putney Debates in which, for the first time, the idea of one man one vote was advanced, and five years before the execution of Charles I and the establishment of the English Commonwealth. It was a period of immense danger, of grief and the separation of families. It was also a time when individuals questioned authority and took responsibility for debating the future of the country.

Areopagitica shows the excitement of debate at the time, when so many people were willing to look outwards and think questioningly about the world, risking their own safety to enter in a debate about the government of their country. Key questions hinged on liberty and what we would now call "human rights":

"Behold now this vast City: a City of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompast and surrounded with his protection; the shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguer'd Truth, then there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge. What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soile, but wise and faithfull labourers, to make a knowing people, a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and of Worthies. We reck'n more then five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Milton lost and the cause he loved - the Commonwealth - faded. After eleven years, Charles II was invited back by parliament. The leaders of the Commonwealth were hanged, drawn and quartered for their part in the execution of the king. Milton was lucky to survive.

But the ideas of Milton and his contemporaries lived on. In the nineteenth century, working-class radicals were among the most enthusiastic readers of Milton. Thomas Cooper, the self-taught Leicester Chartist, set out to learn the whole of Paradise Lost by heart before he was twenty. He managed only the first three books but Milton's ideas - and other ideas of the 1640s - influenced his writings and popular public lectures.

Milton was in the mainstream too. When English literature became part of formal education in the 19th century, Milton was taught as one of England's great authors. He turned up in classrooms and on the curriculum for A-level English. I remember being shocked when, in 1988, Conservative Education Secretary Kenneth Baker pioneered a National Curriculum in English - and left John Milton out. The mid-17th century was represented instead by a smattering of minor poetry. The great English-language epic - not to mention the plays and essays - was omitted.

Tony Blair's government didn't reinstate Milton. They were more concerned with the appearance of improvement than offering teenagers challenge and excitement. I don't suppose Milton's willingness to question authority suited either Conservative or New Labour governments. I haven't noticed much teaching about the 17th century in school history lessons. It's certainly possible to leave school without knowing that England was ever a republic. I suspect it's possible to leave university with a degree in English without reading a word of Milton. It's certainly rare for students to read the pamphlets.

Reading Milton was my introduction to Britain's radical past. I read most of Milton for pleasure - I loved the exhilaration of his language as well as his engagement with the ideas of his time. It didn't matter that some was difficult. I took what I could from a first reading and returned later, for more. Milton may have slipped from the public consciousness but I don't think he'll be forgotten for ever.

Happy 400th birthday, John Milton - and thank you.

"First they came ..."

2008-12-06T12:12:00.004Z

posted by k

Thomas Cochrane would make a great hero for a historical novel. It's arguable that he already is the hero of several, since he may be the model for Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey.

Somehow I'd never heard of Thomas Cochrane until I read Craig Murray's blogpost about him yesterday. Evidently he's not just an important figure in the naval history of Britain but also part of Britain's frequently forgotten radical past. As Craig Murray points out, Cochrane was a radical MP who believed in one man one vote and the abolition of the "tax of knowledge" which priced newspapers so that they were beyond the budget of working people. In 1815 he was arrested in the Houses of Parliament and the precedent has been cited approvingly by New Labour as the government attempts to justify the treatment of Damien Green, shadow immigration secretary.

Craig Murray rightly points out the irony of New Labour, which has laid claim to radical roots, finding its only precedent in actions taken under Lord Liverpool's government, one of the most oppressive administrations of the 19th century.

I don't think there's much need to spell out what was wrong with the arrest of Damien Green or the search of his office, home, computers and emails. Governments who authorise - even at arm's length - the detention of members of the opposition endanger democracy.

But I wish, in all the fuss about the treatment of Damien Green, there had been more mention of the routine use of dawn raids, house searches and detention without trial in Britain - or of the way people legally in this country are required by law to supply detailed biometric data and to pay hundreds of pounds for this privilege.

Asylum seekers in particular are subject to dawn raids. And foreigners, such as students, who are in the country legally, are expected to pay hundreds of pounds for new, biometric ID cards. It's true they won't be taken to the police station to provide the necessary data. Instead they have to travel to one of six centres and wait in line until someone is free to see them. Failure to possess or update a card will be a criminal offence. This is the beginning of ID cards for all of us.

First they came for the asylum seekers. Then they came for the foreigners. Then they came for an Opposition MP. Where will it end?

"much arguing, much writing, many opinions"

2008-10-21T22:09:00.004Z

posted by k

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a public conversation between Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. Their talk took unpredictable directions and held a large audience's attention. It ended with enthusiastic applause. Unlike most literary events, this was free to anyone who could get there - and about 250 people packed a large lecture theatre at a Midlands university.

I like free culture. I grew up enjoying free libraries and free art galleries - even free Shakespeare plays in London parks. It seemed akin to free speech. I've always thought of libraries in particular as a place of liberty.

It was a shock to discover that libraries can be places where free speech is censored. I'm not talking about whether Sarah Palin tried to ban books in Wassilia. And I'm not talking about books that are judged obscene or in some way offensive. I'm talking about an event that was cancelled in Stoke Newington public library because Hackney council didn't like the opinions the speaker had expressed elsewhere.

The event was the book launch of Iain Sinclair's forthcoming book about Hackney (due in early 2009). According to Iain Sinclair's account on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the book launch had been arranged. But when the council found out, the library was told to cancel the event. The council doesn't like Iain Sinclair's views and won't have him speaking in their library.

If you didn't hear the programme, you may wonder what Iain Sinclair's views are and why they are so offensive. As a long-term Hackney resident, Iain Sinclair has spoken and written about the effect of the plans for the 2012 Olymmpics on local people - and the council dislikes this criticism. So his book launch has been banned.

I could fulminate about this about some length. But there doesn't seem much point.

I thought of libraries as places where people could enter free of charge, extend their knowledge and imagination, and experience a range of views. Libraries were like that once. And politicians - at whatever level - used to debate with critics. At least, I thought it was so.

"gradations of the dark"

2008-09-19T21:29:00.008Z

posted by k

Growing up in London, gypsies were a romantic idea culled from books. There were nasty stories, like the one in The Mill on the Floss, that showed gypsies in a bad light, but I didn't like The Mill on the Floss. I tried reading George Borrow but didn't get very far. If I thought of gypsies at all, I was thrilled by the idea of life on the open road, ideally in a painted, horse-drawn caravan, far away from the imprisonment of childhood.

Later I became aware of more complicated views of gypsies or, as they are correctly known, the Roma and Sinti people. Moving briefly to the country, I found people who feared and hated them but also a farmer who respected their knowledge of the land and cultural history - he always invited them to camp on his farm. I was an outsider and the conflict didn't seem quite real to me, even when I saw an encampment beside Honeybourne Station, where I used, occasionally, to catch a train. I don't see how the camp could have troubled anyone. The station was a long way from the two villages - Church Honeybourne and Cow Honeybourne - from which it took its name. And the camp didn't seem to be near farmland. From the outside it seemed a slightly depressed camp - but then, my imagination, schooled in childhood, probably expected brightly-coloured clothes and wild dances to the sound of guitars. Instead I saw a few people living quietly and troubling no-one.

One day I took the train and the camp was gone. There were a few broken things left and these included a couple of children's toys. It looked as though the people had been moved on, violently, though I couldn't know for sure. I worried about the children who had been torn from their toys. I was beginning to understand what prejudice and hatred could do and had little hope that anything could be done. The law doesn't usually support travelling people. I mentioned what I'd seen to a teacher I knew - an outstanding teacher who worked hard against routine racism in an inner-city comprehensive. He looked embarrassed. "I have to admit I don't like gypsies. I'll do anything I can to keep one out of my class - or out of the school."

I don't know how to counter such deeply-held prejudice. Roma and Sinti people - including children - face daily hatred. I saw this again when travellers moved, briefly, into the field round the corner a couple of years ago. My nice, kind, helpful neighbours were haranguing and abusing parents while small children - local children and travellers' children - watched and learnt what hatred looks like. Local children were warned to stay out of the field and keep away from the travellers because they were dirty thieves and dangerous. That is how prejudice is taught.

Totalitarian regimes have targeted Roma and Sinti people. There's been relatively little fuss about the gypsy concentration camps in World War II. Few people know the name of Lety u Pisku in which Czech Roma families were imprisoned and many died.

Those who lived long enough were deported to Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dr Josef Mengele found the children very useful for his experiments but in 1944 orders were given for the extermination of gypsies.

The groundwork was laid before the Nazis came to power. Bavarian gypsies were subject to compulsory registration from 1926 and could be jailed for two years for the "crime" of being unemployed.

It's not surprising that the Italian government's proposal to fingerprint all Romani - including the children - has caused widespread anxiety. The poet David Morley drew attention to this in his blog, which has assembled a number of important articles. He recalls the recent death of two Roma children in the sea off an Italian beach. Someone covered their bodies with a towel but the life of the beach continued around their corpses. Games of football took place and sunbathers continued to enjoy the day. Apparently to many people dead children - dead Roma children - are so insignificant as to be invisible.

The problem doesn't just exist in Italy. I was shocked again by the number of people who took the trouble to post comments supporting the sunbathers and the Italian government in response to a Daily Mail article on the deaths of the children. The sickness in Italy also rages here.

There's a petition against the persecution of the Roma people in Italy. Euro MPs Arlene McCarthy and Michael Cashman have drawn attention to it at the European parliament. More signatures and more support would help. If you haven't already done so, you can sign HERE.

It's easy to sign a petition, especially on line. But I don't know what can be done to unpick the centuries of hatred. How can we encourage our friends and neighbours to look at gypsies and see their fellow humans?

"A law indifferent to blame or praise"

2008-09-13T17:47:00.006Z

posted by k

The year was 1670. Twelve jurors swore an oath to try William Penn and William Mead on the charges of addressing an unlawful assembly. On the bench, conducting the case and preparing the sentence, was Sam Starling, Lord Mayor of London, sitting with aldermen, Sherifs and a Recorder.

The case got off to a bad start when Penn and Mead, in accordance with Quaker practice, refused to take off their hats in court. The question of "hat honour" was thought important by Quakers as the time. They saw it as a way in which undue honour was given to certain individuals because of their wealth, birth or position. There were arguments over evidence and the law - the magistrates were particularly annoyed that William Penn cited statute law in his defence while William Mead demonstrated a knowledge of legal Latin. The case proceeded in a bad-tempered way until the jury, who had heard all the evidence, came back to deliver their verdict. And that's when the trouble began.

Initially there was disagreement between the jurors: eight agreed with one another and four dissented. The magistrates blamed this on a particular juror, Mr Bushel, who they threatened with violence. They sent the jurors out again and eventually they returned to deliver their verdict.

The jurors agreed that William Penn was guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street but refused to add that the meeting was an unlawful assembly. They found William Mead not guilty.

The mayor and his fellow magistrates were furious. The mayor turned on the foreman of the jury. "I thought you had understood your place better," he said. Then the Recorder turned to the jurymen: "Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the court will accept; and you shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse to court; we will have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it."

The jury returned the following morning and repeated their verdict. The magistrates refused to accept it.

And so it went on, with the magistrates threatening all kinds of punishment and the jurors refusing to give in. The Recorder even threatened the jurors with that a new law would be made to deprive them of legal protection.

Finally the jurors changed their verdict; they found both William Penn and William Mead not guilty. The magistrates immediately imposed fines on Penn, Mead and all the jurors for contempt of court. On appeal, the jurors were freed under Habeas Corpus, setting a precedent which still protects those who sit on juries.

Today juries and jury trials are under further threat. The British government has already moved many cases from jury trials to magistrates courts. Now it is moving away from trials alogether and preferring detention without trial and summary "justice". On-the-spot fines are cheaper and less time-consuming than law and justice. The right to administer summary "justice" has even been sold to private companies, whose staff can be accredited on payment of a fee. At least the child and adult informers, bribed with rewards of up to £500 to spy and give evidence against their neighbours, aren't yet allowed to act as judge and jury in the cases.

Some cases still reach juries. However in the past week newspaper reporters and bloggers have fulminated against jurors for reaching an unexpected verdict in two cases. In the case of the would-be terrorists and alleged terrorists tried at the old Bailey, "sources close to the case" informed the press that the jury had behaved badly and the judge had conducted the case wrongly. The verdicts, which the jury returned after hearing five months' worth of evidence, were rubbished in a couple of paragraphs by people who hadn't heard the case or considered its strength.

Perhaps most worrying were the attacks on the jurors for taking time off for illness and medical appointments - and on the judge for allowing this. There is bound to be illness in any group of twelve people during a five month period and of course the case was held up when this happened - all the jurors must hear all the evidence. Had the jurors found the defendants guilty on all counts, I don't believe anyone would have made a fuss.

I was depressed too by blogs attacking the verdict in the case of the environmental activists at Kingsnorth, who were acquitted of causing crimninal justice. The defendants used the defence of "lawful excuse", arguing that climate change presented an urgent threat to people elsewhere in the world. One of their witnesses was an Inuit. The jurors were directed by the judge about the circumstances in which "lawful excuse" applied as a defence. They accepted the activists' argument that their action responded to an immediate need to protect the property of others.

I don't know all the scientific arguments about climate change but the defence of "lawful excuse" has a long history. I can see circumstances in which I too might break the law to protect other people and be glad of that defence. And I believe that the jurors who heard the case had a right to come to that verdict.

What would we do without trial by juries? "Trust the judges," some say. But judges are government appointees, dependent on the state for pay and promotion. While I'm sure that most judges act ethically, giving judges the power to reach a verdict lays them more open to threats and manipulation. The jurors force the lawyers to explain cases fully and clearly, so that each stage of the case and the law is explained publicly. They make the law and the evidence clear. The jury stand for the citizens of their country and have an obligation to justice.

When a jury stands out against public opinion or government, after hearing the evidence and the law, we should respect them and be grateful for their work.

At least one columnist has seen this and defended jurors against the rest of the press. When I read attacks on jurors in the press and the blogosphere, I can do no better than return to William Penn's words in 1670:

"It is intolerable that my jury should be thus menaced: Is this according to the fundamental laws? Are not they my proper judges by the great Charter of England? What hope is there of ever having justice done, when juries are threatened, and their verdicts rejected?"

Back in 1670 many people thought that a public Quaker Meeting was a source of danger. Today a marble plaque in the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) commemorates the twelve jurymen who acquitted William Penn and William Mead.

"Know that we are still here; that we live."

2008-08-15T10:57:00.004Z

posted by k

In 1660, the restored monarchy of England faced the problem of what to do with John Milton. Milton wasn't just an uncompromising republican, who had recently published the pamphlet The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth. He had also responded to the monarchist pamphlet, Eikon Basilike, with his own Eikonoklastes, defending the right of the Commonwealth government to execute Charles I. This made him, in the eyes of Charles II's government, a regicide and the penalty was death by hanging, drawing and quartering. The corpses of dead regicides were disinterred, executed and the decomposing quarters put on public display.

Milton was discreet enough to retreat from London to Chalfont St Giles. It's said his friends and admirers intervened on his behalf, suggesting that his blindness was a divine punishment and that it would be wrong for the king to punish the poet further. The poet was allowed to live and completed his great works of the Restoration: Samson Agonistes, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

States often have to cope with poets who oppose their regime. This isn't because poets are naturally in opposition - there's also a history of poets supporting the government with fawning praise. Virgil's praise of the Emperor Augustus is excellently done but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Shakespeare included neat compliments to the monarchs he served in his plays. He knew who paid the bills.

But the way states treat poets and creative artists who oppose them often goes down in history. Regimes that mistreat their poets seem particularly barbaric - afraid of words and their power. The voices of poets survive.

The Jerusalem Post knows it cannot ignore the death of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Darwish's voice can still be heard - full of power even when I cannot understand the words. The words of his poems - in their original Arabic and in English translation - can be found in libraries throughout the world and on the web.

Mahmoud Darwish's funeral was also reported throughout the world.

There is, currently, less publicity for the imprisonment and torture of Uzbek poet Yusuf Juma. Perhaps everyone is distracted by the Olympic Games or the news from Georgia. Or perhaps we're all so used to the atrocities of Karimov's regime that a tortured poet barely disturbs any more. But he will not be forgotten. Osip Mandelstam's poem against Stalin resonates more strongly because of Mandelstam's arrest, mistreatment and death.

I don't know what we can do about Yusuf Juma who is being held and tortured in Jaslyk prison. His son Mashrab seems to have disappeared in the Uzbek prison system. His wife is appealing for help.

At least, by posting this, I can show that Yusuf Juma is not forgotten. And I hope the Uzbek government will realise that, by imprisoning and torturing Yusuf Juma and his son, they add weight to the words Yusuf Juma has written against them.

I implore the Uzbek government to free the poet Yusuf Juma and his son.

The Government Will Protect

2008-06-27T00:16:00.006Z

“It is part of the role of government not to wait till crime has been committed but, for the good of the wider community and the families themselves, to step in earlier when it is obvious to all agencies that this is the type of situation that can end in tragedy.” - Jacqui Smith: Home Secretary. The Times. 27th June 2008.

Is this not the same logic as has been used to propel the US and British peoples into support for an illegal war and occupation?
Is it not the same logic which underpins the ever more intrusive (and inadequately regulated) surveillance culture?
Is it not the same logic which is presumed to justify the dismantling of protections against injustice, against detention without trial, against abusive police interpretations of already abusive law?
Be reassured. The government will protect you. It will protect you from the witness and experience of the human condition, it will protect you from children and it will intervene to protect you from yourself.
Impossible, you say?

Dodo

We Have Been Advised of The Price of Liberty

2008-06-12T10:20:00.005Z

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)

At 6.35pm on Wednesday 11^th June 2008, the UK House of Commons passed the Counter Terrorism Bill. With the the £1.2bn bung to Ulster to gain the support of the nine Democratic Unionist Party MP's, the price of liberty has been established as £85.7 million pounds a day.

A brief history. It was the Terrorism Act 2000 which introduced a provision for terror suspects to be held for 48 hours This could be extended to seven days with the permission of a judge. In 2003,that was extended to14 days and in 2006 to 28 days. We might expect certain Senior Police officers wll continue to press for the need for further extensions to that limit in order to psychologically destroy a segregated and degraded suspect. Blair argued for a 90 day detention limit, on advice from senior Police and Security staff.

“Six days felt like six years. I dread to think what 42 days would feel like.” Ratzwin Sabir, a postgraduate student at the University of Nottingham, was detained under the Terrorism Act for the offence of downloading (and arranging printing of) an edited al-Qaida training manual from a US Government website. For his dissertation. It has been reported that it was a junior clerical staff-member at the University who advised the Police of the matter.

As a nation, the people of the United Kingdom have yet another reminder that, in the eyes of both the Government and those who act as its security agents, the principles of liberty, of justice, of rights, have no longer any place in the scheme of things. And will use scurrilous political means to get their way. Even if the authority for the matter has been eroded by the unusual strength of the rebellion by Labour MP's' who have, in large part, been historically supine.

"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all -- security, comfort, and freedom. When ... the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." Sir Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794.

Dodo

"proper study" - an update

2008-05-25T17:10:00.003Z

posted by k

Many blogs have taken up the case of the students arrested under terrorism laws at Nottingham University. I have no time to post a full update but there are some useful points and links at a small blog run by Beeston Quakers.

I'd like to draw particular attention to the case of Hicham Yezza. After his undeserved arrest, he has suddenly been charged with immigration offences, even though he has been resident in Britain for thirteen years and is currently employed by Nottingham University. (Universities are usually very careful about visas, etc.) Hicham may be deported as early as Tuesday. You may wish to email your MP urging that his case is considered fully and scrupulously before any action is taken.

"The proper study of mankind"

2008-05-22T20:04:00.005Z

posted by k

It was big news. The first ever terrorist arrest in Nottingham - on the campus of Nottingham University. The local paper said the police had been tipped off by "senior university figures." There were plenty of students willing to tell journalists how shocked and outraged they were. The 7/7 bombings were mentioned and the press were briefed that the two men arrested of Pakistani descent.

Police were given extra time to question the men, so that they could search "premises connected" with them. (This probably meant their homes, but "premises" is a more alarming word.)

Then, nearly a week later, news was released that the men had been released without charge. It wasn't such a big news story. One had been re-arrested for possible immigration offences. It's strange how often that happens. It makes me think that, with all the forms immigrant have to fill in, it's probably quite easy to make a mistake.

But this time one of the men arrested is speaking to the press. The Nottingham Evening Post offers a fuller story tomorrow.

The Times Higher Education Supplement is also reporting the story. E-mails are giving the background. It seems there weren't any terrorists. There was a registered postgraduate student working towards a Ph.D. on Islamic terrorism. As part of his research, he downloaded an Al-Qaeda training manual. He didn't join a terrorist cell to find it - he went to a United States government website which had made an edited version publicly available. Then he sent it to a friend - a member of university staff in another department - asking him to print out. The extension to the warrant was given because the two men owned computers and mobile phones. And the university is now saying that the police were tipped off by a junior clerical employee and not a senior member of staff.

The student's tutor, who knew all about his research, is shocked that police could cause problems for a student pursuing such relevant research. But a university spokesman says that the edited version of the Al-Qaeda handbook is "not legitimate research material."

That seems strange to me. If I were researching Islamic terrorism in a politics department, I'd want to read what Al-Qaeda says. Research involves acquiring knowledge and researchers may have to look at material they don't much like.

I don't know all the details of the case. But if knowledge and learning are valued, academic freedom is vital.

Two men were arrested for looking at material which was made publicly available by the United States government. I don't think that should be grounds for arrest.

Press stories of the arrests raised fears of a terrorist threat in Nottingham. How many people are arrested like this, with great publicity? How many are then released without charge and without apology? And what happens next?

Labour plays the race card

2008-05-14T08:37:00.006Z

copied from Kathz's Blog

I'm too young to remember the 1964 election in which local Conservatives are said to have used a notoriously nasty slogan to win Smethwick. Patrick Gordon-Walker, the defeated Labour man, may also have pandered to racism on occasion.

At least the Tory slogan in Smethwick was unofficial. In the Crewe by-election, called in indecent haste before the previous MP's funeral, the Labour Party is putting out an official leaflet which carries a picture of the Conservative candidate and the question, "Do you oppose making foreign nationals carry an ID card?"

Maybe the Conservative party policy isn't clear on the issue. But Labour (government) policy isn't just about foreign (non-EEC, by the way) nationals. Soon we shall all have to carry ID cards. The government is preparing to collect our biometric details so that it can store them on a database. The ID scheme targeting foreign nationals is simply starting with a soft target - people who don't have votes.

The Labour leaflet in Crewe hasn't been published to open up a debate on ID cards. The government has made it very clear that the introduction of ID cards is not open to debate. This leaflet is about race. It's about fuelling fear and race hatred to hold a vulnerable seat in a parliamentary by-election. The implication of the leaflet is that foreigners are dangerous and only the Labour Party will keep them under surveillance.

Spreading suspicion is dangerous. Mistrust is often a two-way process. And for many the word "foreigners" doesn't just mean citizens of other countries. It means immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. It includes people whose families have been British citizens for generations but who happen to be a different colour or follow a different religion.

The Tory slogan at Smethwick wasn't on leaflets. It was part of an unofficial whispering campaign. I don't know whether it was approved by the local Conservative Party or their winning candidate. But in Crewe the slogan is on official leaflets, produced by the Labour Party and endorsed by the Labour Party candidate. (Of course, she says it's just about policy.)

In fact, no-one, not even foreigners, will be required to "carry" an ID card. The national database will make this unnecessary - and it won't be secret or secure.

"no false patriotic wreath"

2008-05-10T06:30:00.004Z

posted by k

Loyalty oaths are back in fashion. In California, Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses and others have been barred from public employment for refusing to sign the oath the state requires. Quaker Agitator has been commenting on the case of lecturer Wendy Gonaver, prevented from taking up her job at California State University because she is not allowed to amend the oath to clarify her pacifist convictions.

The United States has a history of imposing loyalty oaths and hounding dissenters. Luckily there have always been brave people prepared to protest in public. In Britain, the imposition of loyalty oaths causes barely a ripple of objection.

Fortunately, recent suggestions that all school-leavers be asked to swear a loyalty oath as part of a celebration of "Britishness" seem to have died away in the face of general objections and mockery. But the attempt to summarise and enforce "Britishness" continues. We may yet be asked to sign up to a national motto chosen by a citizens' summit - though no-one seems to know how the citizens will be chosen. And oaths of allegiance remain an almost unquestioned aspect of British life.

A new campaign, "Challenge the Oath" has been set up by Republic, the campaign for an elected Head of State. This includes a useful list of people required to pledge allegiance to the crown. Many offices and jobs are forbidden to honest republicans while naturalisation procedures mean that only monarchists and liars can become citizens. Challenge the Oath has launched a petition against oaths of allegiance to the crown. Another petition on the Downing Street website calls for an end to oaths of allegiance for MPs and Lords. (There are more details of this elsewhere on Areopagitica.)

These petitions don't go far enough, although they deserve support and signatures. The Challenge the Oath petition assumes one oath can be substituted for another - it suggests individuals should pledge allegiance to their country instead of the crown. But oaths themselves cause problems, as Wendy Gonaver's case demonstrates.

It's time to look behind the demads for patriotism, national identity and oaths of allegiance in Britain and the United States. They restrict our sense of humanity. I don't know where it will end.

Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid

2008-05-08T08:24:00.010Z

posted by k

Is she mad or am I?

The Home Secretary is supporting a new policy: the police are encouraged to harass and hound persistent offenders and give them "a taste of their own medicine." The police have been practising already. Persistent offenders are repeatedly stopped and searched and the police visit their homes again and again.

I expect the police find this very satisfying. I can see that it may amuse members of the public. But surely the Home Secretary is supposed to address questions of "crime and the causes of crime". That needs more than a joke and a headline.

I suppose there's no point in suggesting that the Home Secretary should protect human rights and civil liberties. She's not very keen on those.

But surely the Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith can see that encouraging police to harass individuals, even if they have ASBOs or criminal records, opens the way to all kinds of abuse. Police officers are human beings. They, like all of us, have prejudices and, in selecting victims for harassment, may act on those prejudices. This may happen unintentionally. Even if victims are chosen at random, by drawing names from a policeman's helmet, there's a good chance that the police will be suspected of prejudice.

I suspect that the people selected for police harassment will be young, male and working-class. This is what the press releases suggest. Middle-class offenders who fiddle expenses, tax or insurance claims, thus raising the cost of living for the rest of us, are unlikely to be harrassed. I don't suppose the Bullingdon Club, which includes David Cameron and Boris Johnson among its former members, will be expected to endure such treatment.

But the idea of "giving them a taste of their own medicine" is surely crazy. The police will annoy people who annoy others - presumably in addition to any sentence passed by the courts. (Bypassing legal processes is another dangerous habit of this government.) So where will it end?

Will we see police burgling the homes or burglars or taking to the roads on a mission to knock down careless drivers? Will they defraud fraudsters, rape rapists and kill killers, on the Home Secretary's advice?

The police force should behave better than the rest of the population. Officers should not take part in this silly, offensive game of tit-for-tat.

Meanwhile, Bullingdon Old Boy Boris Johnson is attempting to demonstrate how authoritarian he can be. He's banning the consumption of alcohol on tubes and buses. I travel a lot on tubes and buses and it's never seemed much of a problem. Mind you, I once drank alcohol on the tube. I was given a free sample of Beaujolais Nouveau at Waterloo Station and carried it with me onto my underground train. I don't think it made me behave badly. Boris is also suggesting Saturday schools where young people would be compelled to drill and learn manners. I wonder how many Bullingdon members were in the Officers Training Corps of their public schools.

"The sword, the mace, the crown imperial"

2008-05-05T09:05:00.008Z

posted by k

When I was quite young, I was fascinated by the cast gallery in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This was partly because of the stern notice on the door, forbidding children under 15 from unaccompanied entry. I assumed - and still think - this was because of the fragility of the exhibits though it may have been because of the cast of Michaelangelo's David. I was too young to find his nudity particularly interesting or surprising. There were plenty of nudes in the National Gallery and British Museum and, for that matter, on public statues. But although I gazed in fascination at other works - Donnatello's little David and the massive cartoon-stories on Trajan's Column, it was Michaelangelo's David I liked to see. I visited the museums with my younger brother and would lurk outside the cast gallery, looking for a friendly-seeming grown-up who would act as my escort. Nowadays the whole idea would fill parents and social workers with anxiety, but my younger brother and I came to no harm. After all, at eight or nine I was old enough to be sensible and independent on a day out.

It was David's expression that fascinated me. Was he confident or was he afraid? I could never decide from the smooth, white, imitation marble. I still didn't know years later, when I saw the original sculpture and outdoor, in Florence.

I didn't know what David was meant to signify: the idea that he signified anything beyond his own story would have seemed strange to me. Now I learn that he stood for Florence itself and that the huge figure represented small, vulnerable Florence as an embattled city state. David seems to have retained that meaning through the centuries as various rulers and governments have co-opted him. Even the wealthy and powerful like to think of themselves as vulnerable defenders of peace and liberty.

I grew up with different myths of vulnerability. Like most myths, they were founded on a truth. What happened to Britain in the Blitz was terrifying (so was the bombing of Dresden and Nagasaki) and the courage of Londoners and others was rightly praised. I heard enough of air-raids and fires from my parents to know that it had been very bad indeed. Living through bombing, coping with daily news of death and injury and simply carrying on took immense courage - a courage that became a way of daily life.

From tales of the Blitz, from the story of Dunkirk, I learnt a myth of Britain: plucky little Britain, defender of liberty and democracy, standing alone against the fascist foe. This was merged with later knowledge to suggest that Britain fought Germany because of Nazi treatment of the Jews and other oppressed groups (gypsies, homosexuals, communists, dissidents, etc.). That wasn't so, although many individuals joined up because of the known evils of Nazism. Britain fought because Germany invaded Poland and because Britain itself was threatened. The treatment of minorities was seen as a domestic matter. There was considerable anti-semitism in Britain, even during wartime, and the opposition to Jewish immigration in particular prefigures current prejudice against asylum seekers who flee to Britain from torture and death.

Suffering did not make Britain a better, more tolerant place. It didn't prevent Britain from pursuing brutal imperialist policies elsewhere. The myth of small, suffering Britain enabled people - including me - to look away from the truth. I didn't notice what was happening in the Chagos Islands. I've only recently realised that the barbarous mistreatment of the islanders - which continues as our current Labour government refuses to obey court judgments and let the islanders return - was part of a well-established imperial agenda.

We in Britain are so used to the idea of our country as a guardian of freedom that this reads like mad extremism. But what else can I call it, when I read the words of the chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir John Harding, in 1955? He had been sent to ensure Cyprus continued as a useful British base; his mission was to prevent independence at all costs so that Cyprus could remain as a useful base for operations in the Middle East. Sir John Harding wrote to the British cabinet that, if Cypriot self-determination were to be prevented, "a regime of military government must be established and the country run indefinitely as a police state." The British cabinet accepted Sir John Harding's advice. Ministers were happy to run police states elsewhere if they contributed to Britain's safety or economic advantage. That is what imperialism means.

It's one of many passages that struck me in a long, informative article by Perry Anderson on the recent history of Cyprus in the London Review of Books. I hadn't known much about the history of Cyprus before. When I was at school, the British press treated Archbishop Makarios as a figure of fun but he emerges from the LRB article as a figure of far more integrity than the British cabinet ministers, civil servants and soldiers who opposed him. The British government encouraged and orchestrated brutality for its own interests, regardless of the rights, well-being or lives of its Cypriot subjects. And when things went wrong, Britain's Labour government, under Prime Minister James Callaghan, asked the United States for help - "an instinctive reflex in Labour," Perry Anderson comments.

The United States also presents itself as small and vulnerable. The myth of the frontier is still strong and U.S. citizens rightly recall the courage of people who trekked across the country and built communities in the wilderness. But the wilderness wasn't uninhabited. As the new settlers established themselves and finally fought back against the oppression of imperial Britain, they also sought to subdue the original inhabitants of their country. George Washington outlined his strategy in his commands to General John Sullivan in May 1779:

"The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more."

"I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed."

"But you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total ruinment of their settlements is effected. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them."

Terror was Washington's weapon in the American War of Independence - or the American Revolution as it is sometimes known. The settlers who were becoming a nation thought terror a fair tactic to achieve the just society they envisaged - and that America's original inhabitants were proper victims. Less than three years previously, Washington had signed the Declaration of Independence, which included the words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, ..."

Today, Britain and the United States continue to use terror to further a modern imperial agenda. But we are constantly told that terror is what other people employ, and we have complex organisations - not fully accountable to democratic government - to defend us from the "terrorist threat". Liberty is curtailed in the United States and in Britain, with popular support.

The myths we hold dear talk of ideals - liberty, democracy, equality - which are still valuable. But unless we unpick the myths and look at historical facts - and our current practices - we'll find it hard to safeguard the values we should hold dear.

"To count the life of battle good"

2008-04-06T08:02:00.004Z

posted by k

This is a hasty post. I simply want to draw attention to three stories in the Sunday papers.

From the Sunday Mirror: Brit troops go into Basra as Iraqi army collapses

From the Independent: Army faces new torture claims over arrest of Shia leader

From the Observer: Brown backs army cadet plan for schools

I don't want my children to be killed in a war, though I accept that everyone - even my children - will die. Even more than that, I do not want my children to become killers and torturers.

Fagin's children

2008-01-31T01:52:00.000Z

posted by k

This is a hasty copy of a post from Kathz's Blog. I think the topic important and the sequel to the original story is insufficiently known. Meanwhile, the version on the front pages of the tabloids is repeated all over the blogosphere.

There’s anxiety everywhere – fear stoked by politicians and the media. It’s hard to walk down the street and see three or four teenagers in hoodies talking without a tremor of alarm. I saw such sinister youths outside my local shop yesterday lunchtime, doing nothing but leaning on their bikes and conversing. Passers by were being very careful not to get too close. I looked at them again and there was a moment of mutual recognition. Two of them were friends of my son – polite, law-abiding young men, simply dressed warmly in fashionable black and talking to one another. We smiled and exchanged greetings.

Lately the papers have been concerned with “feral children” in criminal gangs. They have linked this with alarmist stories about migrants – mostly legal migrants from Eastern Europe who have done what British people are entitled to do and travelled within the European Community in search of work. Particular fear is expressed about the Roma (more commonly known as Romanies or gypsies). As a group, the Roma people have probably suffered more persecution and prejudice than any other. The history of the Third Reich’s extermination of gypsies is little known – perhaps because less fuss is made about it than the other groups who were exterminated. Few people make much fuss about the appalling treatment of the Roma today. Instead, scare-mongering is accepted and few voices speak in defence of the Roma.

But despite the prejudice, last week’s story must have shocked many people. It was front page news in the tabloids. According to the story, police had raided a number of houses in Slough where small children, sold into slavery by their Roma parents, were being trained to work as pickpockets and burglars. There had to be something in it, I thought, scanning the stories – though I hesitated when the Daily Mail declared that the youngest of these trainee burglars and pickpockets were less than one year old – and that they were being sent out into London to steal for their owners. I remember my teenagers at that age, just beginning to walk unaided. Half of every meal had to be cleaned out of face, hair and clothes. I doubt I could have instructed my toddlers in the agility and deftness required of burglars and pickpockets. At that age they couldn’t have reached many pockets and weren’t capable of the discretion required.

Unusually, there was a follow-up to the story on this morning’s Today programme. A journalist persuaded one of the Roma to conduct an interview. He didn’t find a Fagin’s gang of enslaved toddlers. He met a grandfather, a grandmother and a house full of distressed children. One young person was being held – something to do with immigration, it seemed. Everyone else – including the children – had been freed within 24 hours. There was talk of outstanding charges to do with immigration papers.

Fifteen people lived in the house. It was crowded by British standards but that level of occupation isn’t so unusual in Eastern Europe. The children were part of a family group although their parents had been absent when the dawn raid took place. According to the grandfather, the police entered the house at 5.00 a.m. wearing balaclavas. They ransacked the house, forbad the grandparents to feed the children and finally, at 11.00 a.m. – finding nothing else – took the children away and didn’t return them till the next day.

The follow-up interview on the Today programme made something else apparent – and I should have realised this earlier. The press and TV were invited to watch the police operation. It was broadcast on national television. A Metropolitan Police Commander talked about “intelligence” and denied that the policemen were wearing balaclavas. “But they were,” the broadcaster responded, who had been watching on TV. (The pictures in the Daily Mail show some police wearing crash helmets while preparing to storm a house.)

Since then, various justifications have been offered for the raids: that the Roma’s immigration papers weren’t in order or, later, that some were using stolen mobile phones. Allegations of “child trafficking” continue to be made although the children were returned to their relations.

I remember being appalled that some countries with totalitarian governments would conduct dawn raids on families to check that their papers were in order. I didn’t expect to live in a country which terrified young children and denied them food for hours before seizing them from their relatives. I find it hard to understand why the press were tipped off and encouraged to film and photograph the raids. I don't know - though I could guess - where the stories of trafficked and enslaved children came from.

There’s been far less publicity for the truth – that the children were living with family members and that social services returned them to their parents and grandparents. The idea of Fagin’s children made a better story.

And so fear of foreigners and hatred of Roma is encouraged.

Most people know the names of Auschwitz and Belsen. Most people know that Jewish prisoners wore yellow stars and homosexuals wore pink triangles. Romani wore brown cloth triangles. 23,000 Roma people died in Auschwitz. They were brought there from the concentration camps to which they had been sent in 1938. Some were gassed. Some were used for medical experiments. Some died of exhaustion and starvation. As Nazi power expanded, the persecution and extermination of Roma continued. Concentration camps like Lety u Pisku supplied extermination camps elsewhere. The aim was the eradication of the Roma people.

Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. It is observed on 27th January because that is the day when Auschwitz was liberated. Local ceremonies and observances are being held today. It’s right that we remember where fear and hatred lead. We should also remember how easy it is to tolerate evil.

David Morley has written a fine poem (a pantoum) about Lety u Pisku. The text is on his blog and it’s also in his latest book, Invisible Kings. It might be worth reading for Holocaust Memorial Day.

It might be even more important to counter the lies that fuel hatred.

There were no enslaved children or baby pickpockets.

Our police wore balaclavas. They battered down the doors of family homes. They ransacked houses and forbade grandparents from feeding their children. Then they took the children away. Lies were told. Twenty-four hours later, the children were returned.

This is Britain in January, 2008. I am ashamed.

Jahongir Sidikov - good news

2008-01-25T19:53:00.000Z

posted by k

Sometimes campaigning - even doing little things like e-mailing an MP or posting a blog entry - can make a difference.

I've just read on Craig Murray's blog that Jahongir Sidikov has been granted political asylum by the Home Office.

If you wrote a letter or e-mail on his behalf, or if you posted a blog entry or joined the Facebook group, I hope you too are celebrating tonight. And I hope that Jahongir is made to feel welcome in Britain.

"the old lie"

2008-01-07T05:54:00.000Z

posted by k

According to the Ministry of Defence, the army does not glamorise war nor target children under the age of 16.

This is a lie.

The army runs public, half-term recruitment activities aimed at children.

The army sends recruiters into school. When they were in their early teens, my children had to attend compulsory recruitment talks from the army in their state comprehensive school. Parents were not warned in advance. They encountered less obvious marketing ploys when at primary school. Again, there was an army presence in the schools.

The army uses our taxes to recruit our children.

The courage of Yusuf Juma

2007-12-27T08:16:00.000Z

posted by k

Poetry doesn't always translate easily. However, I am posting a complete poem by Yusuf Juma, about the Andijan massacre. The massacre took place on 13 May, 2005 when hundreds of unarmed protesters were killed by Uzbek security services for taking part in a demonstration against the government. Yusuf Juma wrote this poem about the event:

The best men of the people were shot in Andijan.
Elders like Dukchi-ishan, were shot in Andijan.

People were shot in Namangana, shot in Fergana,
the very best lions were shot in Andijan.

The blind are alive, the jackals are alive,
Sharifjan Shokurovs were shot in Andijan.

Future Babarakhin Mashrabs were killed,
tigers like Babur were shot in Andijan.

In their hearts they were wild activists, endurers of the right way,
let their graves be full of light, they were shot in Andijan.

They went off faithful to their faith, they went off with open eyes,
the earth was left without men, they were shot at Andijan.

Yusuf Juma has a history of speaking out and protesting about repression in Uzbekistan. As a result, he is banned from publication in his own country and he and his family have suffered harrasment and arrest. In 2001, he was sentenced the three years in prison for "insulting the president". The sentence was later suspended.

Earlier this month, Yusuf Juma and his sons began a series of small demonstrations in Bukhara, by holding posters which called for the resignation of President Karimov. There was an election campaign at the time. They were severely beaten for this. In the evening, the Uzbek security forces stormed Yusuf Juma's house. They killed two of the family's dogs, They destroyed the poet's archive and library as well as other personal possessions. They arrested his daughter. Yusuf Juma escaped. He wrote an account of what happened on that evening. This is part of his account:

"At approximately 18.00 we heard people outside shouting ‘Babur! Babur! Run away!” I was reading at this time. I looked out from the window, but didn’t see anyone. I then went outside and saw a lot of people getting out of their cars. Having seen this entire army all the people in the village were shouting to us, “Run away! Run away!” Then the men started shooting.

"Bullets were coming like rain from all directions. They were shooting from our cow-shed. I ran away, barefoot. My wife and nine-year-old son Javhar ran out of the second house. Three of us hid behind a water tank. A group of armed men stormed into my room. I heard one of my sons asking to see whoever was in charge.

"Another two of my children were left surrounded in our second house. They were still shooting. We heard the sounds of dogs, cows, geese, and chicken being shot.

"One of the armed men spoke. "He must be a leader of the terrorists. Here are his notebooks, his books. He might be hiding behind the curtain. Open fire!" Another said, "Smash the head of this man who has lifted his head against our Leader!"

"They were shooting ceaselessly from four sides. "We are dead . . . " whispered my wife. "Forget about us, but what will happen with the kids? They’ll also be killed."

"My son Javhar was trying to hide my foot. "They can see it, they will shoot!" he whispered.

"They were shooting in all the rooms, shooting everywhere. They were shooting at locked doors. They were using automatic machine guns, pistols and firearms.

""Mother f***er, this guy's house is surrounded by trees. If they aren't at home, they must be hiding in the trees. Target every tree, every bush," someone ordered.

"They started to shoot with more intensity.

""This is our fate, but my poor boys . . ." cried my spouse.

"Suddenly the electricity was cut off. The terrorists who were in my room shouted: "Why have the lights gone out?" Then they left.

"We went to the house of our neighbor who himself was an employee of the National Security Service. Then they started to shoot at us. The bullets were flying above our heads. But God saved us. However our two children were still left behind in the second house.

"After few minutes, my wife couldn't take it. "I won’t leave my children, I will go back. They can't survive after this shooting . . . I would prefer to die," my wife said.

"I tried to calm her down. "Don’t be silly! God will save them, you will see. He will protect us.""

Yusuf Juma escaped with most of his family that night. On 19th December, he and his son Bobur were arrested at the hosue of Mukhiddin Akramkhodjaev. Since then, they have been held in detention and denied access to lawyers.

A petition has been drawn up, asking members of the United Nations and the European Union to take up his case. It makes the following requests:

1. information about whereabouts of Yusuf Juma and members of his family;

2. humane treatment for Yusuf Juma and members of his family, who are under detention;

3. to allow his lawyer access to Yusuf Juma and other arrested members of his family in prison;

4. to demand their immediate release from detention;

5. to stop persecution of the family members and relatives of Yusuf Juma and provide protection to the family of Yusuf Juma and their relatives.

You can sign the petition by clicking here, scrolling down and adding your name.

If you wish to make your own representations on Yusuf Juma's behalf, you can write to the following:

President

Islam A. KARIMOV,

Rezidentsia prezidenta; ul. Uzbekistanskaia, 43; Tashkent 700163; UZBEKISTAN

Fax: + 998 71 139 53 25, email: presidents_office@press-service.uz

Salutation: Dear President Karimov

Minister of Internal Affairs

Bahodir MATLIUBOV

Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del RU, ul. Novruz, 1; Tashkent 700029; UZBEKISTAN

Fax: + 998 71 133 89 34

Salutation: Dear Minister Matliubov

Minister of Justice

Buritosh MUSTAFAEV

Ministerstvo yustitsii RU, ul. Sayilgokh, 5; Tashkent 700047; UZBEKISTAN

Fax: + 998 71 133 51 76; telex: 02 11 65 94 JUSTICE; e mail: info@minjust.gov.uz

Salutation: Dear Minister Mustafaev

Procurator General

Rashidjon KODIROV,

Prokuratura Respubliki Uzbekistan, ul. Gulyamova, 66; Tashkent; 700047; UZBEKISTAN

Fax: + 998 71 133 39 17/ 133 73 68, email: prokuratura@lawyer.com

Salutation: Dear Procurator General

COPIES TO:

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Elior GANIEV, Ministerstvo inostrannykh del RU; pl. Mustakillik, 5; Tashkent 700029; UZBEKISTAN

Fax: + 998 71 139 15 17

Head of the National Centre for Human Rights ,

Akmal Saidov, Natsionalny tsentr po pravam cheloveka, 5/3, Mustakillik Maidoni, Tashkent 700029, UZBEKISTAN

Fax: +998 71 139 13 56; email: ncpchonline.ru

Also, please include the Embassy of Uzbekistan in London:

41 Holland Park
London
W11 3RP
020 7229 7679
020 7227 7029
info@uzbekembassy.org

I realise this is a departure from the main topic of this blog, which is concerned with British politics and liberty. But, as Craig Murray has reported, the British government has given support and encouragement to President Karimov's regime. We cannot escape from an obligation to the people of Uzbekistan.

You are welcome to copy and use this information in your own blogs.

"poetry is respected"

2007-12-26T19:50:00.000Z

posted by k

The Uzbek poet Yusuf Juma has been arrested. So far as I can discover, his "crime" was exhibiting a poster opposing President Karimov in the recent elections.

A petition is currently circulating making the following requests:

1. information about whereabouts of Yusuf Juma and members of his family;

2. humane treatment for Yusuf Juma and members of his family, who are under detention;

3. to allow his lawyer access to Yusuf Juma and other arrested members of his family in prison;

4. to demand their immediate release from detention;

5. to stop persecution of the family members and relatives of Yusuf Juma and provide protection to the family of Yusuf Juma and their relatives.

I shall post more details later. Meanwhile, here is a list of addresses, e-addresses and fax numbers for anyone who wishes to urge the Uzbek government to free Yusuf Juma and his son.

NOTE: not all the e-addresses below work. Please use the addresses at my later post on this subject, which also gives further details of the case.

President of Uzbekistan, Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov, ul. Uzbekistanskaya 43, Rezidentsia prezidenta, 700163 Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: +998 71 133 1395325, E-mail: presidents_office@press-service.uz

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Norov, Ministerstvo inostrannykh del RU, pl. Mustakillik 5; 700029 Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: + 998 71 139 15 17, E-mail: rnews@mfa.uz

Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Sayora Rashidova, ul. Xalqlar Dostligi 1, 700035 Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: +998 71 139 85 55, E-mail: office@ombudsman.gov.uz

Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Ubaydulla Mingbaev, Verkhovny Sud Respubliki Uzbekistan, ul. Abdulla Kodiri 1, 700183 Tashkent; Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: + 998 71 144-62-93

Further information can be found at the website of Uzbekistan Initiative, where the petition will be posted shortly.

General Prosecutor of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Rashidjon Hamidovich Kodirov, ul. Gulyamova 66, 700047 Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: +998 71 133 39 17, E-mail: prokuratura@lawyer.com

National Centre for Human Rights, Senator Akmal Saidov Natsionalny, Tsentr po pravam cheloveka, Mustakillik Maidoni 5/3, 700029 Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Fax: + 998 71 139 13 56 / 45 16, E-mail: office@nchr.uz

Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United Nations in Geneva, PO Box 1853, 1215 Geneva 15, Switzerland, Fax: +4122 799 43 02, E-mail: uzbekistan@bluewin.ch

Jahongir Sidikov - good news

2007-12-26T16:38:00.000Z

posted by k

Jahongir Sidikov has been released from detention. His lawyer is putting in a fresh claim for asylum. He's not safe yet but for now he is free.

It remains important to make a case for the principle that no Uzbek dissidents should be deported to Uzbekistan.

Jahongir Sidikov - deportation delayed

2007-11-29T22:52:00.000Z

Craig Murray reports (from Accra!) that the planned deportation of Jahongir Sidikov has been delayed. His case is to be reviewed. The government pleads Jahongir's right to privacy as the reason they won't discuss his case. It's a shame they don't take his right to life as seriously.

Note that deporting political dissidents to Uzbekistan is now government policy. I didn't realise the British government was quite as bad as that.

It remains vital to raise Jahongir's case. We can't let the story go away. Invisibility may mean death. This isn't victory. It may be a chance to help save a man's life.

Jahongir Sidikov - and what happens to protestors in Uzbekistan

2007-11-28T12:24:00.000Z

If you can bear to see what happens to protesters in Uzbekistan, follow this link and watch the clip from Channel 4 News. Warning: some of the pictures are very disturbing.

The Home Office reckons Jahongir Sidikov doesn't need asylum because he's "not a major player". The "minor players" at Andijan and elsewhere ended up just as dead. Relatively unimportant people suffer just as much pain from torture as the rich and famous. Torture and murder are routine in Uzbekistan. Dissidents like Jahnogir are at serious risk.

It's time New Labour remembered old values. If government ministers don't believe in equality, simple humanity would do.

I'm glad to see that Channel 4 has taken an interest in this case. I wish the government would listen.

Deportation scheduled for 28th November - save Jahongir Sidikov now!

2007-11-26T20:53:00.000Z

posted by k

You need only type the name Jahongir Sidikov into a search engine to see how the campaign to save him has grown. European and North American blogs are picking up the story. Jahongir's picture has been widely seen.

If the campaign fails, and he is deported, this may make things even worse for him in Uzbekistan - and the Uzbek authorities know how to make things very bad indeed.

The date of Wednesday, 28th November has been given for Jahongir's deportation. Scroll through the information given on this blog if you want to know what to include in a fax or e-mail to your MP or a fax to the Home Office.

Remember to include Jahongir's case details:

Home Office ref. - S2185191

Port ref. - BGT/188094

DMS ref. - 67823
m

Campaign to save Jahongir Sidikov grows

2007-11-24T10:17:00.000Z

These are just some of the bloggers and others opposing Jahongir Sidikov's deportation.

Turbulent Cleric
Postman Patel
Beeston Quakers
kllrchrd
Obsolete
Kathz's Blog
Question That
Crimes and Corruption of the New World Order
My Whine in Silence
Signs of the Times
Politics in the Zeros
Bloggerheads
Chris Floyd telegrams
Indymedia UK
Rochdale online
Chris: Paul: Labour of Love

Jailhouse Lawyer
Geoff Coupe's Blog
Ten Percent
Travellerspoint
Surreptitious Evil
War in Iraq (Russian)
British Blogs
Essential News
John Angliss
Buy Tramadol
The Sideshow
quaker fencer
Ordovicius
neon bubble
Thorn Tree - lonely planet
Open Debate Political Forum IMHO
Muslim Uzbekistan
hJc
Crooks and Liars
Democrats @ 2008 Presidential Election
Art Blog
Liberal England
Areopagitica

Craig Murray's Blog

Jahongir Sidikov's case details are:

Home Office ref. - S2185191

Port ref. - BGT/188094

DMS ref. - 67823

Find out how to contact your British MP here.

Fax your objections to the Home Secretary, Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith at 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK).

The opening of the most recent U.S.A. Human Rights report on Uzbekistan is here. (There is also a link to the full report.)

Save Jahongir Sidikov - no deportations to Uzbekistan

2007-11-23T07:49:00.000Z

The report below is not the work of a left-leaning group or pressur group. It is the opening of the most recent official report by the United States government.

No-one should be deported to Uzbekistan. The British government should end its attempts to deport Jahongir Sidikov.

U.S.A: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Uzbekistan 2006

Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state: The government's human rights record, already poor, continued to worsen during the year. Citizens did not have the right in practice to change their government through peaceful and democratic means. Security forces routinely tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees under interrogation to obtain confessions or incriminating information. In several cases, authorities subjected human rights activists and other critics of the regime to forced psychiatric treatment. Human rights activists and journalists who criticized the government were subject to harassment, arbitrary arrest, politically motivated prosecution, and physical attack. The government generally did not take steps to investigate or punish the most egregious cases of abuse, although many officials were prosecuted for corruption. Prison conditions remained very poor and outside monitors did not have full access to places of detention. In many cases those arrested were held incommunicado for extended periods without access to family or attorneys. The government tightly controlled the mass media and treated criticism of the regime as a crime. The government did not observe citizens' right to free assembly or association; police regularly detained citizens to prevent public demonstrations and authorities sought to control all nongovernmental organization (NGO) activity, forcing many local and international NGOs to close. The government restricted religious activity, treating virtually all religious observance outside state sanctioned structures as a crime.

If you have access to a fax machine, please fax the Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, Secretary for State at the Home Office, asking her to intervene to stop the deportation of Jahongir Sidikov and including these references:

Home Office ref. - S2185191
Port ref. - BGT/188094

DMS ref. - 67823
Fax Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith at 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)
You can draw on the facts given in the post "Jahongir Sidikov's story" which also includes a sample letter to send to your MP or anyone else who might be able to help.

When writing to members of the government and/or Labour Party, it may be worth mentioning Gordon Brown's intervention to stop the deportation of a Burmese dissident. There are similar risks to Jahongir.

There's a list of some of the bloggers and others supporting Jahongir here.

Jahongir Sidikov's story

2007-11-22T18:05:00.000Z

This information comes from the campaign to stop the deportation of Jahongir Sidikov. Details of the Andijan massacre from an independent source can be found here.

Jahongir Sidikov’s story

Jahongir SIDIKOV was born on 10 June 1980 in the Zangiatin district of Tashkent province in Uzbekistan. He has a higher education in finance. He started his career in banking, getting his first job in the private bank “Pahtabank”. In September 1999 he arrived in London on a student visa and entered the City University, where he completed his B.Sc. in 2003. After completing his degree he got married in 2003. All his attempts to find a job failed.

The massacre of more then a thousand innocent people in the Uzbek city of Andijan on May 13, 2005 became a turning point for Jahongir. He started to be actively engaged in opposition activities and propaganda against the Uzbek regime. He became instrumental in organizing a demonstration to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre on May 13, 2006 in front of Downing Street. He joined the ERK Democratic Party, an opposition party in exile.

In the meantime, in 2006, his marriage fell apart. On top of this he lost his Uzbek passport. He had to contact the Embassy of Uzbekistan. He was strongly advised by the Uzbek Embassy staff to return to Uzbekistan in order to obtain a new passport. However, returning to Uzbekistan at that stage was not an option. Jahongir was already known to the authorities in Uzbekistan for his opposition views. The protest in London on May 13, 2006 was filmed by a representative of the Uzbek Embassy in London and everyone who was there is now known to the authorities back home.

Jahongir was also recorded on video. His relatives have reported that law enforcement authorities summoned the neighbours of Jahongir Sidikov for questioning in Uzbekistan. During the meeting, they were asked to identify Sidikov in the video. Consequently, in the event of his return to his country of origin, it is unlikely that the special services will neglect his activities at the time of his residence in Great Britain. Reports of human rights defenders regularly confirm the continuing torture and ill-treatment of representatives of the democratic opposition and those with religious convictions.

Jahongir’s asylum claim has failed because the court didn’t believe that there is a genuine threat to his life in Uzbekistan. The court also didn’t believe that Jahongir will be subjected to torture and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan . The court doubted that the letters submitted by the leader of the ERK Democratic Party of Uzbekistan , Muhammad Salih and the President of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Nadezhda Ataeva are genuine. The court refused to postpone the hearing so that former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who was on a visit to Africa, could give evidence.

The campaign

We are asking people to write to or e-mail their MP requesting them to intervene urgently by asking the Home Office to stop the deportation of Jahongir to Uzbekistan. Deportation to Uzbekistan would put Jahongir in great danger of torture or death. Uzbekistan is an oppressive regime where any display of dissent is harshly repressed. There are more than 10 thousand political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, one of the world's most violent regimes.

Sample Letter:

Dear ,

We wish to draw your attention to the case of Uzbek refugee, Jahongir Sidikov, who is at grave risk of torture and death. He is currently in the deportation centre at the following address:

IRC Colnbrook

Colnbrook By Pass

Harmondsworth

West Drayton

Middlesex

UB8 0HB

These are his case details and references provided by various authorities:

Home Office ref. - S2185191

Port ref. - BGT/188094

DMS ref. - 67823

Jahongir Siddikov is a member of the Uzbekistan opposition party, ERK Democratic party. He is a political activist in exile. Uzbekistan is the world’s most oppressive dictatorship. No opposition to the regime is permitted inside the country. There is no freedom of speech and no free media.
Any form of dissent is severely suppressed in this country, and according to the international human rights organizations, there are at least 10 thousand political and religious prisoners in jail. Torture is a standard procedure in Uzbekistan.
If deported to Uzbekistan, Jahongir Siddikov is facing prison, torture and very possibly death.

We ask you to support our campaign against his deportation.

You can find the e-mail address and contact details for your MP through the website WRITE TO THEM - click HERE.

Jahongir Sidikov - updates

2007-11-21T15:32:00.000Z

posted by k

22.11.07

Jahongir Sidikov is being detained at Heathrow. He refused to board the plane (using passive resistance). This means it is still worth e-mailing MPs, registering protests, etc. See below for the reference numbers. Check Craig Murray's blog for further updates.

No-one should be deported to Uzbekistan until Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say the country respects the rights of dissidents and citizens.

posted by k

Some Bloggers and others supporting Jahongir

Turbulent Cleric
Postman Patel
Beeston Quakers
kllrchrd
Obsolete
Kathz's Blog
Question That
Crimes and Corruption of the New World Order
My Whine in Silence
Signs of the Times
Politics in the Zeros
Bloggerheads
Chris Floyd telegrams
Indymedia UK
Rochdale online
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Craig Murray's Blog

21.11.07

The deportation is scheduled for tonight. Craig Murray gives the following updated information at his blog:

November 21, 2007

Save Jahongir Sidikov

I have just spoken to Jahongir who is expecting to be deported this evening, so we still have a few hours to try to stop this. An article 39 application to the European Court of Human Rights is being worked on, but not safe at this short notice. Meantime please contact your MP, any media contacts you have, anyone who might help. Both Tom Porteous of Human Rights Watch and myself worked the media yesterday, but to little apparent effect.

One of the many gross aspects of this case is that Jahongir's case has been "fast tracked" and gone through hearing and appeal to deportation in just a fortnight. His solicitor had less than a week to prepare his appeal - and unfortunately I was in Africa all that week and could not appear as a witness. The judge dismissed requests for a postponement on the grounds she could see no valid reason why witnesses could not get to court. She also dismissed a letter from Uzbek opposition leader Mohammed Salih as not genuine - even though I know for sure it was genuine. This case points up the farce of our asylum system and the cruelty of the "Fast Track" process.

These are Jahongir's Home Office references:
Home Office ref. – S2185191
Port ref. – BGT/188094
DMS ref. – 67823

Jahongir is currently in Harmondsworth Detention Centre.

Jahongir's deportation is, beyond any possible dispute, illegal under international law. The UK is a State Party to the UN Convention Against Torture, which states at Article 3:

Article 3 1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

it is quite impossible to argue, by the standard given, that it is admissible to return Jahongir to Uzbekistan. As a nation we appear to have abandoned all pretence at legality.
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm

If there is anything you can do to help - however little - please act.

"What are the bugles blowin' for?"

2007-11-20T21:34:00.000Z

posted by k

"The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, so everyone who breathes it becomes free."

These words are given the date 1772 and attributed to Judge William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield. They have been cited in other law-cases. This year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the trade in slaves.

Tomorrow an Uzbek asylum-seeker, Jahongir Sidikov, will be deported to Uzbekistan. According to Amnesty International, Uzbekistan has announced plans to abolish the death penalty next year, but there are no plans to commute existing sentences. There are no statistics on the number of people sentenced to death or executed. Human Rights Watch documents widespread torture in the "justice system". As Craig Murray has pointed out, opponents of the regime are frequently killed.

Jahongir Sidikov is a member of Erk, the banned opposition party in Uzbekistan. There's a strong chance he will be tortured or executed after his forcible return to Uzbekistan. I wonder if the people involved in his deportation - or members of the government that encourages such deportations - could be charged and taken to trial. The government suggests downgrading murders caused by "reckless indifference" to a kind of 2nd degree offence so they might not receive an automatic life sentence. But anyone complicit in this deportation may risk a long prison sentence - and will certainly deserve it.

"When constabulary duty's to be done"

2007-11-02T08:17:00.000Z

posted by k

There used to be jokes about police incompetence. Detective stories pitted the aristocratic seuth or thoughtful private investigator against the bumbling bobby. There was a lot of snobbery in this, including the old-fashioned snobbery that believed that income from fees - or, better still, income from inheritance or investment - was superior to income from regular wages.

Most of this snobbery is upper-class contempt for what the idle rich sometimes term "the lower orders". But it's true that payment of wages buys a certain measure of loyalty - and sometimes that loyalty can be misplaced. Before the snobs think this works in their favour, they have a similar loyalty to whoever pays their fees or the system that provides them with unearned income. Our need to eat and comfortable familiarity with a certain standard of living is likely to skew our view and interpretation of the world.

Nowadays we have more sympathy with the police, and considerable nostalgia for the "bobby on the beat". This has spilled over to the defence of the police in the wake of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. I've heard a range of spokesmen (they have all been men) defending the police in the wake of the recent verdict. "It was unjust," defenders of the police proclaim. "These were ordinary policemen doing their job. Policemen have to make split-second decisions. Sometimes they'll get it wrong."

But the verdict wasn't against any individual policemen. The verdict said that the Metropolitan Police as an organisation, failed to take sufficient note of Health and Safety procedures. The BBC lists 19 failures of organisation. These are to do with strategy and procedures - and are not a condemnation of the firearms officers who shot an unarmed Brazilian electrician seven times in the head.

For the sake of all travellers, these errors need to be addressed. They include a "noisy and chaotic control room", where officers couldn't hear or misheard the urgent information that was being passed to them by surveillance officers. They also include a four-hour delay in sending support to the surveillance team. These are procedural problems which cost a man's life.

Despite unfounded fears that Jean Charles de Menenez was a suicide bomber, no-one atttempted to stop him from boarding a bus or underground train. It's lucky the police officers weren't more trigger-happy. The train driver was chased down a tunnel by an armed officer and a policeman from the surveillance team (known only as "Ivor") had a gun pointed at his chest.

There are links to fuller coverage of the trial at the blog calm, almost too calm.

Meanwhile, I'm grateful to the judge and jury for their deliberations and careful judgment. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner denies "systematic failure". Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who I once admired, condemns the verdict as "disastrous." Cabinet Ministers are lining up in defence of the police and Commissioner. But the Met's refusal to accept the verdict or address its failings endangers us all.

've lived with awareness of terrorism since the I.R.A. attacks on the 1970s. I'm pretty tough about travelling around London - it's my home town. I can cope with the fear of terrorism. But just now I'm a little nervous of the police and their great big guns.

Creeping Corporatism

2007-10-11T14:46:00.001Z

The Verification of Information in Passport Applications uses powers granted by Section 38(3) and (5) of the Identity Cards Act 2006. This authorises the Home Secretary to appoint commercial Credit reference agencies to provide personal details (rarely known or checked by the individual): "for the supply of services relating to the provision of information concerning the identity of individuals." There is no suggestion that Credit Rating information is accessed. Although a stroke of a Minister's pen under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act would be all that is needed to access such information.

The Government is using a commercial agency (Equifax) to check the validity of information on Passport Applications. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency was reported as doing so in 2004. Yet at the same time, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has, since 2006, been implementing a commercial service of passport validation. The Personal Identification Project is a part of the shift in the role of the IPS to that of accumulating biographical data to help with identity verification. This also helps pave the way to a backdoor ID database without the need to implement ID Cards (but in practice alongside their introduction). There is the wider context of the Corporate and Business Plan of the IPS.

The UK's principal Credit reference agencies are allowed to use the full Electoral Registers to check name and address for credit enquiries.. But there has been an historic hole in the database held relating to the Rolling Electoral Register: “We do not have access to the full Electoral Registers after October 2002” - Equifax. This in 2003.

The Rolling Electoral Roll was introduced to the UK in 2001. This facilitates a monthly update of the Electoral Register so that people who move frequently (and who know about this resource) can maintain their Electoral franchise. Registration is not compulsory. Unlike the Electoral Register, the Rolling Electoral Roll is not published in print and will therefore not be available at your local library. In 2003, it was reported that Credit reference Agencies were not including names from the Rolling Electoral Register on their database. People were refused credit on those grounds. The fatuous reason given was that the Agencies lacked confidence in the cross-checks made by local authorities before entering someone on the Rolling Electoral Register. The 2003 report suggested that the missing information would be added later that year. There remains the possibility that the information held on file by Agencies used by the Government for Passport, DVLA and other cross-checks is incomplete or flawed.

A bastard relationship between Government and Commerce in such fields should perhaps be legitimised by marriage. Government Departments and Agencies (the DVLA, the Passport Office) are using private Credit Reference Agencies to source information which is held on record by – correct me if I am mistaken – that same Government which pays for those private agencies to regurgitate information collected and held on file by Local Government. That information is then used by the Passport Service as a part of its commercial service for passport validation.

The increasingly blurred boundaries between the Public, Private and Corporate sectors highlight a field where there are inadequate safeguards on practice which lie outside the ready scrutiny of MP's or Parliament. The use of Credit Reference Agencies is one further symptom if the explosion of Public Private Partnerships in the NHS, Local Government, Security, Communications or other fields of responsibility. There are inadequate safeguards on how that information is accessed.

The entire field of e-Passports, ID Cards and the National Identity Register (NIR) is vulnerable to the flaws here evident. The potential for access to the NIR by Banks and other commercial institutions is deeply worrying. The boundaries between Government and the Corporate are increasingly blurred. We are not quit yet in 1930's Italy. Or Germany, for that matter. But Mussolini's warning remains: “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

Quoting from Page 37 of the IPS Corporate Plan:
“The UKPS is critically dependent on the following private-sector partners to fulfil its mission.
•Siemens Business Services (SBS) provide services at the front end of the passport production process.It is responsible for providing mail room services, scanning application forms, cashiering fees and initial query handling with the applicant. SBS also provided the IT infrastructure to support all UKPS passport applications operations and is continuing to develop this.
•Security Printing and Systems Ltd (SP&SL) is responsible for printing over 94% of all passports.
•ATOS Origin is responsible for the separate UKPS Admin IT network and desktops.
•MM Teleperformance (MMT) is responsible for dealing with over 90% of all telephone enquiries. It also handles appointment bookings and e-mail and electronic application support on behalf of the UKPS.
•Our High Street partners, Worldchoice UK Limited and the Post Office Limited, are recognised as the first port of call for those seeking application forms. These partners also provide a ‘Check and Send’ service, and receive over 48% of all applications on behalf of UKPS.
•Special Mail Services Limited (SMS) is responsible for the secure delivery of all UK passports.
•Equifax provides the systems and private-sector data for the Personal Identification Project (PIP).”

By way of an end-note, let me remind you that the Identity and Passport Service takes over responsibility for the General Register Office from the Office of National Statistics in April 2008. All Birth, Marriage and Death records will from that time be held by the IPS. This will be the beginning of a lifetime biographical record of British Subjects.

(“>

Dodo

CRAIG MURRAY IS POSTING AGAIN

2007-10-09T12:28:00.000Z

Please take note of his current url:

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

There are some good posts to read.

k

"a bloodthirsty and unconstitutional force"

2007-10-08T10:10:00.000Z

posted by k
(with apologies for double-posting)

Accusations flew. Counter-accusations parodied the voice of authority. It was It was 1839.

Memories of the Peterloo Massacre and authorised brutality were strong. But the Chartists were determined on reform. The ideas came from working-class people and their demands were simple.

The Charter had six points:

1. annual general elections
2. universal manhood suffrage
3. secret ballot
4. abolition of property qualifications of MPs
5. payment of MPs
6. equal electoral districts and redistribution of seats

These demands don't seem very radical today. We don't have annual parliaments but the question of fixed-term parliaments is being discussion again. All other points are taken for granted. In 1839 the Chartists were treated as dangerous revolutionaries.

On 4th July police were brought from London to break up a demonstration in the Birmingham Bull Ring. Placards produced by the Chartist convention described the Metropolitan police as "a bloodthirsty and unconstitutional force." William Lovett, the peaceable secretary of the convention, was later tried with the man who took the placards to the printer. Lovett was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for seditious libel.

The first Chartist petition was three miles long with 11 million signatures (including some forgeries). On 12th July it was presented to parliament by Thomas Atwood MP. Benjamin Disraeli was among the MPs voting to debate the petition. But MPs decided, by a majority of 235 to 46, that they wouldn't consider it. So there was no debate on its provisions before the petition was rejected.

There were always some Chartists in favour of physical force, if moral arguments failed. After the rejection of debate on the petition, a series of risings took place. The Newport Rising on 4th November attempted to free political prisoners from the Newport's Westgate Hotel. About 20 Chartists were killed. Three leaders of the rising were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. The sentences were later commuted to transportation for life.

In this atmosphere of fear and repression the government passed the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act. It's a wide-ranging law, rather like the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005 - the act which bans everybody except Brian Haw from unlicensed demonstrations, placard-holding and badge-wearing in central London. The 1839 Metropolitan Police Act includes stop and search provisions, laws against "furious driving" (of carts), provisions against causing annoyance by kite-flying or ringing doorbells, a ban on blowing horns and lots of provisions against bad language. It also includes a sessional order to ensure that MPs can reach parliament without being obstructed.

This is the law which the government is using the ban the anti-war demonstration today. I wonder what the police will do about David Howarth MP, who plans to join the protest. Perhaps they'll arrest him for attempting to obstruct himself. This would be a shame because he's due to table a Bill which comes close to the one aim of the Chartists that has not yet been accomplished: fixed-term parliaments.

There are uncomfortable echoes of those repressive days in which Chartists were jailed and sentenced to death. However, it's good to see that I can now find Craig Murray's blog in its familiar form by typing the url www.craigmurray.org.uk . It still doesn't take comments and there are no new posts. But I look forward to reading Craig Murray again.

STOP PRESS: Permission was finally given for the march less than an hour before it was due to begin. The government changed its mind in February 2003 as well. In 2003 they gave a little more notice.

Returning Blogs

2007-10-02T16:29:00.000Z

On Tuesday 2nd October, the Server hosting several sites is partly back on stream after it had been wiped by a hacker attack. Somebody has been working very hard.
Atlantic Free Press is back and so is Chris Floyd who has made comment on the attack.
A test of Craig Murray's site is online. The internal links still don't work - they still refer to the .co.uk address. This is simply corrected by editing the link in the Address bar and replacing .co.uk with .org.uk

(">
Dodo

Craig Murray's New Webhost Hacked

2007-09-30T22:12:00.000Z

At 10.00pm UT on Sunday 30th September the following message
appears on the Atlantic Free Press Website:
"atlanticfreepress.com has been hacked. We are currently restoring from backup files and database on backup server.
Thank you for your patience.
Richard."

Richard and his team host, among others, Atlantic Free Press, Pacific Free Press, and Chris Floyd.com. Chris Floyd.com is also down.
This Server is run from Holland and was recently reported to have agreed to host Craig Murray.

It is not action by Usmanov's legal team at Schillers which has created this problem. It is action by others. Mind you, it is not only Usmanov (with his power in Russia and Uzbekistani) who has an interest in silencing such determined and courageous sources of report, analysis and comment.

(">

Dodo

"poor indeed"

2007-09-30T07:27:00.000Z

posted by k

" Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."

I've seen those words quoted with approval on a number of websites. They even appear in the Harvard Gazette as an example of the value poets like Shakespeare place on an individual's reputation. But the websites rarely mention which character in Othello speaks those words. It's Iago, the villain of the play, and he uses his praise of reputation to further the plot which will end in the deaths of Othello, Desdemona and his own wife.

The law of libel does protect reputation. But the case of Craig Murray, whose blog was silenced by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, raises questions about how this is done, who benefits and what truths are being silenced.

Of course, there is some value in libel laws. For instance, a candidate for a job or for public office shoud not be able to spread lies about another candidate. Nor should journalists be able to ruin the reputations, careers and personal happiness of footballers, pop singers or politicians by printing lies about them. I haven't been too worried about people in the public gaze moving to protect themselves from press intrusion. I don't see why I have the right to know about a sportsman's legal sexual preferences or behaviour on the spurious grounds that athletic brilliance turns its possessor into a role model.

But what about truths that need to be told? The Usmanov story - not mentioned in the press - concerns activities in other countries where Usmanov is protected by the regimes. If Usmanov really is, as alleged, a thug, criminal, racketeer and heroin trafficker, this is of direct concern as he attempts to take over Arsenal Football Club. The allegation of rape is trickier since the victim and witnesses seem to have disappeared before the case could come to court.

Usmanov isn't just accused of a particularly unpleasant criminal career. His role within Gazprom raises important questions about the role of big business in international political processes. It is of particular concern as European nations rush to privatise essential services. (The question has been raised by Tom Wise MEP - briefed by Craig Murray - in the European Parliament. Reporting has been lamentably scanty although the speech was given under parliamentary privilege and reporting is not covered by libel laws.) And that's before the question of human rights and international obligations is considered.

Craig Murray challenged Alisher Usmanov to sue him for libel and test the allegations in open court. This is a brave challenge. If Craig Murray were to lose, he would stand to lose everything, given the gravity of the allegations. He attacks both Usmanov's personal reputation and his international role. He urges people not to do business with him. A jury finding in Usmanov's favour would reasonably present him with huge damages.

But Usmanov doesn't want to go before a jury. His solicitors won't sue Craig Murray as the author of the allegations but instead attacked and threatened the people who published them - in this case, the company providing the web-host for his blog. Courageous individuals can be silenced by putting pressure on publishers, printers, bookshops and webhosts. It's the modern equivalent to the licensing of the press against which Milton wrote in his 1644 pamphlet Areopagitica. Milton argued that Truth should be allowed to "grapple" with falsehood in open debate through publication - and he feared that the licensing of books - the prevention of publication - would injure Truth.

At the moment, questions of libel seem to be decided with more attention to wealth than truth, though the McLibel case demonstrates some of the problems big corporations may face against poor, determined defendants.

But if the poor are libelled, they don't have the same chance to defend their reputations. The rich can defame the poor with little fear of prosecution. Usmanov is better protected than the refugee who flees his power in Uzbekistan or Russia. I doubt a cleaner at Arsenal Football Club could afford the fees charged by Usmanov's lawyers. It's unlikely the poor could even raise the court fees.

The current law doesn't seem to protect the truth. It doesn't act equally toward rich and poor. It has little to do with justice or the public good.

If you have a suggestion for how the British libel laws should be changed, please post a comment here or join the detailed debate at Ministry of Truth.

Listening to Craig Murray

2007-09-25T20:40:00.000Z

posted by k

While Craig Murray's blog is absent, it might be a good idea to listen to what he has to say. I'm adding a few videos. They don't all give the date when they were made.

Here is a rather smartly-dressed Craig Murray talking about evidence of torture used by the Uzbek regime. Craig Murray is referring to evidence he encountered when he was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Clicking the hotlink will take you to part 2 and part 3 of this interview.

This is a more recent talk by Craig Murray. Much of it covers the same ground but he has evidently had more time to reflect and is giving a talk rather than answering questions. The video lasts 55 minutes and the sound isn't brilliant, but I think that what he has to say remains important. That's one reason why I mind so much that his blog has been silenced.

I'm worried that there is so little coverage of the important matters addressed by Craig Murray in the national press. And there is no newspaper in Britain, so far as I can see, with the courage to repeat what Craig Murray has written about Alisher Usmanov. But the blogs continue to tell the story of Craig Murray's silencing.

Watch the videos and decide for yourself whether Craig Murray is a man you would trust.

Bloggers for Craig Murray

2007-09-23T18:46:00.000Z

posted by k

This is a list of the blogs which have posted in support of Craig Murray. The list is probably incomplete. It encourages me. (So does the news, posted by john commenting on my previous post, that Alisher Usmanov has not yet bought Arsenal.)

Curious Hamster, Pickled Politics, Harry’s Place, Tim Worstall, Dizzy, Iain Dale, Ten Percent, Blairwatch, Davide Simonetti, Earthquake Cove, Turbulent Cleric (who suggests dropping a line to the FA about Mr Usmanov), Mike Power, Jailhouse Lawyer, Suesam, Devil’s Kitchen, The Cartoonist, Falco, Casualty Monitor, Forever Expat, Arseblog, Drink-soaked Trots (and another), Pitch Invasion, Wonko’s World, Roll A Monkey, Caroline Hunt, Westminster Wisdom, Chris K, Anorak, Mediawatchwatch, Norfolk Blogger, Chris Paul, Indymedia (with a list of Craig Murray’s articles that are currently unavailable), Obsolete, Tom Watson, Cynical Chatter, Reactionary Snob, Mr Eugenides, Matthew Sinclair, The Select Society, Liberal England, Davblog, Peter Gasston Pitch Perfect, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe, Lunartalks, Tygerland, The Crossed Pond, Our Kingdom, Big Daddy Merk, Daily Mail Watch, Graeme’s, Random Thoughts, Nosemonkey, Matt Wardman, Politics in the Zeros, Love and Garbage, The Huntsman, Conservative Party Reptile, Ellee Seymour, Sabretache, Not A Sheep, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, The People’s Republic Of Newport, Life, the Universe & Everything, Arsenal Transfer Rumour Mill, The Green Ribbon, Blood & Treasure, The Last Ditch, Areopagitica, Football in Finland, An Englishman’s Castle, Freeborn John, Eursoc, The Back Four, Rebellion Suck!, Ministry of Truth, ModernityBlog, Beau Bo D’Or, Scots and Independent, The Splund, Bill Cameron, Podnosh, Dodgeblogium, Moving Target, Serious Golmal, Goonerholic, The Spine, Zero Point Nine, Lenin’s Tomb, The Durruti Column, The Bristol Blogger, ArseNews, David Lindsay, Quaequam Blog!, On A Quiet Day…, Kathz’s Blog, England Expects, Theo Spark, Duncan Borrowman, Senn’s Blog, Katykins, Jewcy, Kevin Maguire, Stumbling and Mumbling, Famous for 15 megapixels, Ordovicius, Tom Morris, AOL Fanhouse, Doctor Vee, The Curmudgeonly, The Poor Mouth, 1820, Hangbitch, Crooked Timber, ArseNole, Identity Unknown, Liberty Alone, Amused Cynicism, Clairwil, The Lone Voice, Tampon Teabag, Unoriginalname38, Special/Blown It, The Remittance Man, 18 Doughty Street, Laban Tall, Martin Bright, Spy Blog The Exile, poons, Jangliss, Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?, Imagined Community, A Pint of Unionist Lite, Poldraw, Disillusioned And Bored, Error Gorilla, Indigo Jo, Swiss Metablog, Kate Garnwen Truemors, Asn14, D-Notice, The Judge, Political Penguin, Miserable Old Fart, Jottings, fridgemagnet, Blah Blah Flowers, J. Arthur MacNumpty, Tony Hatfield, Grendel, Charlie Whitaker, Matt Buck, The Waendel Journal, Marginalized Action Dinosaur, SoccerLens, Toblog, John Brissenden East Lower, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Peter Black AM, Boing Boing, BLTP, Gunnerblog, LFB UK, Liberal Revolution, Wombles, Focus on Sodbury…, Follow The Money, Freedom and Whisky, Melting Man, PoliticalHackUK, Simon Says…, Daily EM, From The Barrel of a Gun, The Fourth Place, The Armchair News Blog, Journalist und Optimist, Bristol Indymedia, Dave Weeden, Up North John, Gizmonaut, Spin and Spinners, Marginalia, Arnique, Heather Yaxley, The Whiskey Priest, On The Beat, Paul Canning, Martin Stabe, Mat Bowles, Pigdogfucker, Rachel North (193).

If you are on Facebook, you may wish to join the group "Craig Murray's blog should return" and recommend it to your friends. You may also write comments on the wall or post recent news. The news I would like to read is the return of Craig Murray's blog.

It's curious, isn't it, that some people find it very hard to get visas to ths country. Why are visa authorities so slow to help bona fide students, tourists and asylum seekers when Alisher Usmanov is apparently welcome in Britain?

Disappearing blogs

2007-09-21T06:16:00.000Z

posted by k

It seems that Craig Murray's informative, thoughtful and combative blog has been taken down by his web-hosts after threats from the lawyers for the new owner of Arsenal Football Club. I don't know the truth of the allegations but I think the proper course for a billionaire, if the allegations aren't true, would be to sue for libel and clear his name rather than taking down a whole blog, especially since the relevant post was removed as soon as this was requested.

The blogosphere now lacks one of the best political blogs - a forum for dissidence and debate with a large number of readers.

The new owner of Arsenal Football Club has behaved like a man who sets fire to a library because he doesn't like one of the books in it.

I hope Craig Murray will find a new host for his blog soon. In the meantime, google searches can throw up cached material from some of his previous posts.

Note: This hotlink will take you to the post recommended in the comments. It's very useful and informative and has further helpful links.

The Juggernaut of Subjection

2007-09-13T09:59:00.000Z

A summary of the principal legislative sources of the erosion of
rights and freedoms in Britain becomes cumulatively chilling.
This entirely excludes all of the procedural shifts which facilitate
the huge expansion of (for example) CCTV. Or the
fingerprinting of children in schools without prior parental consent.

I have avoided entering commentary on the shift in the Zeitgeist and
the obfuscation which has permitted the general public acceptance
(and even support) of such cumulative repression.

Further commentary can be found with the intelligent use of Search engines.
Preferably other than Google if you want to keep your browsing habits
untracked. Do not forget that the information collection for
marketing purposes by Corporate Institutions, from Google to Tesco, is
a further reflection of the extent of the erosion of the liberty to lead your
life without unseen monitoring or intervention. In this, there is a meeting
of minds within the realms of both Civil and Corporate Governance.


CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC ORDER ACT 1994

Abolishes a suspect's right to silence (by permitting Courts and
Juries to draw inference from a suspect's refusal to disclose
matters to the Police at the time of arrest). 

POLICE ACT 1997

Allows the police to break into property and install
electronic surveillance.
A chief constable can make such authorisations if he
believes it will help fight serious crime.
The occupier of the property need not be under suspicion of a crime.
The decisions can be taken without  a warrant. (Sections 91 to 108)

CRIME AND DISORDER ACT 1998
 
First facilitation of ASBO's and the conception of causing Harassment,
Distress or Alarm. Introduction of Parenting Orders and Curfews on
Offenders released on Licence.

IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM ACT 1999 

Among other matters, facilitating the establishment of Detention Centres.

TERRORISM ACT 2000 

Definition of “terrorism” close to catch-all.. 
The government can  proscribe organisations without
having to prove that they have committed any offence.

REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS ACT 2000 

Authorises Surveillance and disclosure of Communications
largely without warrant.
Authorities able to do so range from any Police Force to include any
Local Authority and the FSA.

FOOTBALL (DISORDER) ACT 2000 

Enables courts to place banning orders on people, prohibiting
them from travelling when a football match is on, without proving
they committed an offence.
Allows the police to prevent a person without a banning order
from leaving the country if the police have “reasonable grounds”
for believing the person may cause trouble at a football match. 

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE ACT 2001 

Enables the Health Secretary to authorise disclosure of
confidential patient information to anyone he chooses if he
believes it is in the public interest or will improve patient
care.

 
ANTI-TERRORISM, CRIME AND SECURITY ACT 2001

Allows government departments and public bodies to disclose
confidential information to police forces for the purposes
of investigations of any crime anywhere in the world.
Permits the Home Secretary to certify any foreigner as an
“international terrorist” if he/she decides that they are
a risk to national security.
Terrorism is defined as in the Terrorism Act 2000.
Section 29 prevents courts from challenging the detention of
foreigners under sections 21 – 26,.  

SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD ACT 2001 

Officials authorised by local councils and the Department of
Work and Pensions can demand that banks, credit card companies,
utility companies, any company providing financial services
and phone companies hand over any data they think is necessary
for the purposes of preventing or detecting benefit fraud,
without a warrant.
These officials can also demand that telecommunications companies
tell them who owns a particular account, when given only a number
or electronic address associated with the account,
again without a warrant.


THE PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT 2002

Under this Act, the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency is set up
and in Part 5, it is given the power to seize a person's assets
using civil procedures in court.
This law applies civil proceedings to a dispute between the state
and an individual, with the state as the adjudicator.

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ACT 2003

Extends the thinking behind ASBOS and includes premises closure,
obligations on landlords, parenting orders, dispersal of groups,
public assemblies (the 1986 Public Order definition of an assembly
reduced from 20 to 2).

EXTRADITION ACT 2003

Part 2 - unratified treaty with USA. No prima facie evidence
required for extraditions from the UK to the USA, but still
required for USA to UK extraditions. 
Part 1 of the Act implements European Arrest
Warrant extraditions.
There is no requirement for evidence to be heard before a UK Court.
Also refer to the Home Office website.

THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2003

Facilitates the elimination of Juries from complex fraud cases.
Removes protection against “double jeopardy”. Permits hearsay evidence.

THE CIVIL CONTINGENCIES ACT 2004

Authorises any cabinet minister to make "emergency regulations"
Emergency regulations may make any provision that can be made by
Royal Prerogative or Act of Parliament.....
the FIRST of the real shifts towards Enabling Act thinking.

THE PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT 2005 

Under this Act, the government can impose “control orders” on
anyone they suspect might be involved in “terrorism-related”
activity. 
The person subjected to a control order does not get a trial,
is not charged with anything, and may have the evidence or
accusations against them withheld from them or their lawyers.
Terrorism is defined as in Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000

THE SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME AND POLICE ACT 2005 

Sets up the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
All offences, no matter how trivial, are now arrestable,
granting powers to obtain DNA, intimate samples, fingerprints
and photographs of those arrested,
to be retained on file regardless of whether the suspect is
charged with or convicted of an offence.
Don't discard your cigarette butt.
Protestors, even a single protestor, must apply at least 24
hours (and more normally 6 days) in advance for a permit
to protest within 1km of Parliament.

LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY REFORM ACT 2006

Originally drafted in terms which would have made this an
Enabling Act, the diluted text with some safeguards introduced
remains the second part of Enabling thinking.
By this, Ministers can, with minimal Parliamentary
scrutiny, modify and enact regulations, interpretations,
resources targeting and law.

IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM AND NATIONALITY ACT 2006

Further powers tor restrict the rights of immigrants
and asylum seekers.
Sections 56 and 57 modify the British Nationality Act (1981)
to permit the Home Secretary to deprive a person of citizenship
or the right of abode.

TERRORISM ACT 2006

Further clarification of offences of glorification etc.
Extends detention period.

IDENTITY CARDS ACT 2006

Well publicised. Read and weep.
Also introduces the National Identity Register.
More detail of this and other intrusive measures at
the No2ID resource.

There are times when I feel utterly lost, demotivated, by this
juggernaut of intervention, the abuse of an authority with a
“reasonable” face. The perversion of minds continues through
misrepresentation, through propaganda, through
an arrogance of rectitude which denies freedom in the name
of some collective "security".
Measures such as these laws were not deemed necessary
during the IRA campaign from 1969 to 1997.
Nor, for that matter, during the Second World War of
the last century.

How much freedom will you give up for a Government's definition
of what it is which should make you feel secure?
For the Government's actions in the name of "security" do nothing
to ease any personal sense of vulnerability. They act in the
enhancement of fear.

Remember Pastor Niemoller.

Dodo

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"the unmentionable odor of death"

2007-09-09T13:21:00.000Z

posted by k

I watched the towers flame and tumble on live television. I had to work out how to tell the children. They were going to hear about this horror from their friends. In the end, I thought they had better see for themselves. Children's imaginations can conjure up something even worse than tiny human figures leaping from windows and tumbling through the air.

Even that afternoon I was hoping that when people saw the horror and the pain and the grief they would decide that this was something they could not inflict on anyone else. This smashing of ordinary lives is what vengeance looks like. But soon we were told we had to support more vengeance and applaud as more lives were smashed, usually out of sight because surgical strikes look more tasteful if shown as blobs of light on computer screens.

A week after 9/11, I stood in silence thinking of the dead. It was a time for sorrowful reflection and should have led to intelligent questioning and deeper thought. But anniversaries of 9/11 were used to confuse loving memories with new hatred. Silence was enforced as "respect for the dead". Memories and grief were dragooned into support for blanket-bombing. Fear was promoted. We were told we were conducting a "war on terror" but our leaders wanted us to be terrified. Our leaders got away with kidnapping and torture as well as killing. I stopped observing the anniversaries.

But on Tuesday there will be a new way of commemorating the anniversary of 9/11. It's the first day of DSEi 2007. DSEi stands for Defence Systems & Equipment International and on 11th September 2007 they will be opening one of the biggest arms fairs in the world, in London's docklands.

If you look at the DSEi website, you can see that it will be quite a jamboree. There will be opportunities for networking as suppliers and buyers meet one another.

United States companies are advised about the need to market in Europe:

"The European Union boasts a defense budget of US$190bn (source: Office of Defense Cooperation) and is focusing on promoting a highly open and competitive environment. The UK market in particular is one of the most open in the world. US companies often lead, or are members of, winning bid teams for UK defense programs.

European nations are also responding to new roles such as homeland security and peacekeeping, creating fresh areas of opportunity for US companies.

As well as conducting international business in English, the European militaries are renowned as prompt and reliable payers reducing the financial risks of dealing in international markets."

It's a cosy club. While United States companies are urged to find "a ready-made point of access to lucrative overseas defense markets", this marketing strategy sits snugly within policies outlined by Britain's Ministry of Defence and endorsed by cabinet ministers. And the DSEi exhibition is marketed as an enjoyable break for exhibitors and delegates. It's international (according to DSEi's website, there were 86 overseas delegations in 2005). There are networking opportunities over lunch, wine and gourmet coffee. There's an Electronic Warfare Pavilion and a Night Vision Technology Forum. There are conferences and workshops. There's a company recommending delegates to arrive in chauffeur-driven Mercedes and an opportunity to soak up London culture in the evening.

Of course, you have to be a genuine arms trader to get in. The admissions policy states firmly:

"Anyone attending DSEi must not take part in any canvassing, leafleting, demonstrations, objectionable behaviour or any activity which may disrupt DSEi."

Demonstrators have got into past exhibitions. The comedian Mark Thomas observed the sale of banned electro-shock equipment in 2005. There was even an electro-shock spray. These have been illegal since 1997 but Mark Thomas found they were still on sale in Birmingham this June. I expect they'll look out for him in London on 9/11.

Perhaps all of the items on sale this year will be legal. It still disgusts me that the British government subsidises an organisation that markets killing. 9/11 seems a particularly inappropriate day on which to open a major arms fair, but I suppose it will give the government a further excuse for a high level of surveillance and heavy-handed policing. Away from the comfortable networking, soldiers will use the weapons and equipment sold at the fair. Planes continue to attack buildings. Buildings still go up in flames. More tiny human figures tumble through the air. Grief and horror continue. This time there's no doubt that we're responsible.

There's just a chance things could change.

DSEi is up for sale. The British government has announced the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation. This doesn't mean arms fairs will stop. It doesn't even mean that the British tax-payers' subsidy of the arms merchants will end. But the government seems to have realised that promoting war and torture doesn't win votes or improve its image.

On Tuesday 11th September, Campaign Against Arms Trade is organising a peaceful protest against DSEi. Joining the protest, or supporting CAAT's campaigns, might be a good way of commemorating the dead of 9/11. Some may even wish to remember that earlier 9/11 - the day in 1973 when the legal government of Chile was overthrown by a military coup. It was replaced by a fascist dictatorship employing torture and murder as weapons of control. The 1973 coup was made easier because the army had Hawker Hunter jets which bombed the presidential palace. The planes were made in Britain.

"the war itself had causes"

2007-09-03T10:25:00.000Z

posted by k

In Tom Stoppard's play, Travesties, set in Zurich in 1917, the diplomat-protagonist Henry Carr reflects on the causes of the First World War: "I forget what they were, but it was all in the papers at the time. Something about brave little Belgium, wasn't it?" Later he wonders if the cause wasn't "saucy little Serbia." The key point is not the truth but effective headlines. As he puts it, "The newspapers would never have risked calling the British public to arms without a proper regard for succinct alliteration."

We forget the causes of war. So many countries, so many names - such difficult sets of belief and complicated histories. Even important politicians can't keep track of which is which. It's much easier to latch on to what the papers say - to news that is often fed to journalists by government sources.

When Tony Blair spoke about the war in Iraq, which he linked with the so-called "war on terror", he used to go back to 9/11 as the day on which everything changed. He described the war as "an eopchal struggle between the forces of progress and the forces of reaction" set in motion by a "poisonous ideology" which had "chosen Iraq as its battleground." (I thought Iraq was chosen by Bush and Blair - but that doesn't fit the myth.)

One odd thing about this war is the way in which the sides change. One week we have one enemy, then another. Sometimes we're fighting Shi-ite extremists, sometimes Sunni extremists, sometimes both together.

Our allies are a funny lot too. So many people are keen to be against Terror. Russia is a keen ally. Sarkozy seems to be bringing France into the "War on Terror" camp. President Karimov of Uzbekistan was free to torture and murder dissidents and their families, so long as he spouted the "War on Terror" line. Libya was against us. Now Libya is our ally. Today, North Korea announced that it is to be removed from the U.S. list of rogue states. How long our leaders describe Kim Jong-Il as a democrat and friend of freedom?

Rogue states are defined by the White House as states that:

brutalize their own people and squander their national resources for the personal gain of the rulers;

display no regard for international law, threaten their neighbors, and callously violate international treaties to which they are party;

are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction, along with other advanced military technology, to be used as threats or offensively to achieve the aggressive designs of these regimes;

sponsor terrorism around the globe; and

reject basic human values and hate the United States and everything for which it stands.

It's worth testing Britain, the United States and all their allies against these standards. I've noticed quite a few countries developing weapons of mass destruction, disregarding international law and using threats to achieve their designs. I've noticed quite a few people in public life getting rich from defence contracts. Does that squander national resources for personal gain - at the cost of human lives? Or aren't we supposed to consider ourselves? Perhaps ethics are just for other people. Or perhaps ethical standards change as fast as our history is rewritten.

At the end of 2001 the four main rogue states were listed as Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Now there's only one left - and the hawks are circling.

"honour's a name"

2007-08-31T23:37:00.001Z

posted by k

When I was growing up - even in the 1960s - the British Empire was treated as a source of pride. We were the good rulers, bringing decent values and proper order to a savage world. Atrocities were barbaric. They were what the other side did - never the British.

In comics and books, imperial rule was mapped onto a mythical class system in which grateful servants and peasants tugged forelocks and lived vicariously through master and mistress. At the end of their lives, they would be looked after.
There were almshouses for peasants, a tiny flat for nanny and ... something or other for colonial soldiers who fought abroad and imposed order on their fellow subjects in other lands coloured pink on the map.

Gradually the tales of atrocity emerge. The latest evidence tells of Indian soldiers used in experiments. They weren't killed - at least, not instantly - but they were sent into gas chambers to be burnt with mustard gas.

It wasn't just the Indian soldiers who were used. Between 1916 and 1989 20,000 soldiers of the Empire (most British-born) were subjected to trials of chemical weapons. In the 1930s there was an attempt to discover whether mustard gas caused more damage on Indian or British skin. The tests were continued through the Second World War. In 1942, a British scientist reported on the frequency of severe burns:

"Severely burned patients are often very miserable and depressed and in considerable discomfort, which must be experienced to be properly realised."

Had this happened in Germany, our soldiers and scientists would have been put on trial. But no-one prosecuted the victors.

We had our torture chambers too. After the Second World war, as the Nurmberg trials proceeded, British soldiers systematically tortured Germans suspected of Nazism or Communism. Some were starved to death. Our soldiers took photographs to chart what they had done.

During and after World War 2, in breach of international law, prisoners of war were kept in a dungeon in Kensington known as "the London cage". For most of this time, the cage was kept secret from the Red Cross. The Red Cross would have complained because the cage was used for torture. At first, torture was just for soldiers - members of the SS. Later civilians were captured and brought to join the soldiers. The Red Cross didn't have to be informed because civilians, it could be argued, fell outside the rules of war.

In today's tangled world, in which we're supposed to be bringing freedom and democracy to other nations, we routinely neglect those who work for us. The soldiers from the old empire who still fight for us, retire to neglect and disdain. Campaigns may help the interpreters who work with British troops and whose death receive little attention in the British press.

It's so tempting to speak of our responsibility to the people of Iraq - for we really are responsible. But with our history, what moral authority can we claim? Why should anyone trust Britain?

Did I miss something?

2007-07-26T21:28:00.000Z

posted by k
(with apologies for double posting)

Did I miss something?

I read the newspapers yesterday and found that Gordon Brown (our prime minister - it's hard to get used to the change) was threatening a state of emergency. No-one seemed shocked or surprised. No-one made it the lead story in the papers this morning.

I keep looking at accounts of what was said. I keep hoping I've got this all wrong.

Gordon Brown said that he planned to ask parliament to double the time suspects could be detained without trial. He said there were two main options: either parliament would vote as he said or, whenever he wanted to hold suspects for longer, he would declare a state of emergency which would allow him to detain suspects for a further thirty days.

Presumably Mr Brown is talking about the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. This allows the Prime Minister or other Ministers to make legislation without consulting parliament in certain situations. According to section 19 of the Act, these are:

(a) an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in the United Kingdom or in a Part or region

(b) an event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of the United Kingdom or of a Part or region, or

(c) war, or terrorism, which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom

Presumably Gordon Brown will claim that section (c) applies. That won't be accurate. Gordon Brown is threatening MPs and peers with a state of emergency should they dare to vote against him. The "emergency" he claims is the failure of parliament to do the bidding of the prime minister. That's not how parliament is supposed to work.

Parliament is supposed to be a democracy. Our elected representatives are supposed to vote on the law.

The Civil Contingencies Act is a very dangerous law. It allows the Prime Minister, acting alone, to amend any Act of Parliament except the Human Rights Act 1998 for the period of the emergency. When the Act was debated, Members of the House of Lords attempted to protect laws that they regarded as fundamental to the British constitution. They were unsuccessful. If the Prime Minister declares a state of emergency he can even suspend the following laws:

Bill of Rights 1689

Act of Settlement 1700

Habeas Corpus Act 1816

Parliament Act 1911 (limiting parliaments to five years)

House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975

After thirty days, he has to ask for parliament's approval.

We have a new prime minister who has warned our elected representatives that if they don't do as he says, he'll stamp his foot and rule without them for a month. If they won't let him lock people up for longer, he'll say it's an emergency and do it anyway.

What else might Mr Brown do in those thirty days of emergency?

What would be left when the emergency was over?

Where are the protests?

"the expense of others' freedom"

2007-07-15T18:35:00.000Z

posted by k

I'm not sure how Chavez will turn out. At this distance, I can't work my way securely through the arguments about him. In John Pilger's film, The War on Democracy, Chavez comes across as a man of immense charm and feeling, but in Latin American politics, this isn't necessarily enough. Whatever his good intentions, the forces ranged against him are strong and it is painfully easy for good intentions to mutate into repression.

Pilger's awkward, angry film makes one case irrefutably: that the United States is an empire which endangers the rest of the world.

That's not a comfortable case to make. United States mythology combines the idea of itself as saviour and defender of the world with the curious sense of America as a victim. But it's not me who makes the case, nor even John Pilger. The case is made most powerfully in Pilger's film by a series of CIA officers, notably Duane Clarridge. Confronted with the argument that officers of the United States have overthrown governments, torturing and killing the defenders of democracy, Clarridge is vigorous in opposing Pilger's accusations. He insists that the numbers Pilger cites are too high - that there weren't thousands killed in Chile but merely hundreds. The documentation of higher numbers is, he insists, part of a vast conspiracy with Amnesty International at its centre. But if it comes down to it he will, he agrees, sanction any amount of killing, rape and torture where United States interests are threatened.

Against Clarridge and the defenders of United States interests are pitted the poor and the torture victims. Sister Dianna Ortiz, a nun who worked in Guatemala, stands for all that is good in America. She recalls the horrors that provoked her disillusion with her government; in 1989 she was abducted, tortured and gang raped by American-trained torturers, who eventually stopped raping her on the orders of their American boss. As a United States citizen her life was more precious that the lives of Latin American politicians or the poor. From her experience, Dianna Ortiz insists that there is nothing exceptional about Abu Ghraib; she recognized it, from her experience, as the American way of empire.

For the British, there is no comfortable way out. Britain's empire has its own horrors in recent times and events in the 1920s are precursors of My Lai and Falluja. We are assumed to be, as Clarridge says, the beneficiaries of torture. We are responsible.

The film raises a further question. What is being defended is not just the interests of the United States but the interests of big companies and the rich. Early contrasts between luxurious mansions and the crumbling barrios set up an opposition between rich and poor which resonates through the film. An impicit question is asked: what happens when the natural resources and infrastructure of a nation are stolen from the nation as a whole and sold to rich people, many of whom live overseas. That is happening here too. Harold Macmillan, conservative peer and former Prime Minister was driven to accuse Margaret Thatcher of "selling off the family silver". That was in the early days of privatisation.

Here too the gap between rich and poor is widening, though it is nothing like as severe as in Latin America, with its dollar-billionaires and starving peasants. Most people will probably go on accepting the idea that things are as they must be, that power should lie with corporations rather than elected government, that democracy is somehow inextricable from the free market. But I don't accept it.

Suppose we protested against the sale of our resources and voted for a radical, nationalising government. Would we end up victims of U.S.-sponsored death squads? Would our singers suffer the fate of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, whose hands were smashed to silence his guitar? He went on singing. U.S.-sponsored fascists beat him some more. Machine guns turned his flesh into corpse.

His songs and courage survive.

John Pilger's film The War on Democracy is on release in the United Kingdom - only in a few independent cinemas. The film will be distributed in New Zealand and Australia. So far as I can see, it is not being distributed in the United States.