European Social Forum 2004 - Accommodation

Various people have expressed an interest in going to the European Social Forum (ESF). There were however some concerns about accommodation. For anyone interested, the ESF website has a section devoted to accommodation. Apparently they "have secured a range of discounts and special offers on hotels and hostels in London and are organising free home stay and communal accommodation", but these will be assigned is on a first come, first basis and so they encourage people to "register NOW!" Apparently, according to a flyer I picked up at some point, the first 20,000 people to register will receive a free Londonwide Travelcard valid on the 15-17 October, which is nice.

Pathological Response

One of the great things about a 'group' blog is that it facilitates debate which hopefully leads to a more developed understanding of the world at the end. In this spirit I'd like to post a few comments in response to Dan's piece yesterday. In this he posted a link to an article which suggested that politicians, or at least those prominent in the drive to war, are psychopathic. To be fair, Dan doesn't go so far in his post. Instead he cites a definition of what constitutes a psychopath and proceeds from there:

"Psychopaths get what they want by violating social norms and expectations without guilt or regret while their intelligence and social skills enable them to construct a facade of normalcy"

The parallels with not just the Bushes and Blairs of our world, but the job description of the modern politician, are legion.

While I think the idea is an interesting one, I remain unconvinced.

I should probably begin by conceding that my knowledge of "psychopathy" and psychology in general is pretty superficial. This is Dan's area of expertise, not mine. Nonetheless we are not here discussing in depth psychological analysis so much as political motivations, something I'd like to think I know a bit about.

The idea that Bush and (particularly) Blair are psychopathic is hardly a new one. Matthew Parris made similar suggestions about the Prime Minister sometime ago and others have echoed his conclusions. While some of those making the allegations have been psychiatrists or mental health professionals the vast majority have been laymen seeking to use the argument (such as it is) as a reason to oppose the war. An interesting choice as there is hardly a shortage of very good reasons to oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

To suggest that our leaders are mad is, it seems to me, something of a cop-out. If they are insane then it follows that there is no point in engaging with them and that any arguments they advance can be dismissed out of hand. In truth the arguments put in defence of the war do have some merit, although I believe none of them is truly convincing. It is entirely possible for two people to assess the same situation rationally and come to diametrically opposed conclusions. One of the key determinants of the positions people adopt it the values they attribute to different factors (freedom from oppression, peace, self determinations, stability etc.).

It is something of a lefty cliche to quote Noam Chomsky in defence of your argument, but I'm happy with being a cliche and in truth quite lazy, so I direct you to his comments in Hegemony Or Survival (Hamish Hamilton, New York, 2003, p. 4). Discussing the recent National Security Strategy in which American planners declared openly their adoption of preventive wars (often improperly described as "pre-emptive") Chomsky notes,

..their decisions may not be irrational within the framework of prevailing ideology and the institutions that embody it. There is ample historical precedent for the willingness of leaders to threaten or resort to violence in the face of significant risk of catastrophe.

The problems, in short, are institutional.

It is true, of course, that institutions are ultimately made up of individuals. Such individuals will seek to justify their position within institutions and are usually quite good at it. This does not demonstrate that they are mad or in some way disconnected from reality, but simply reflects a perfectly normal human response. We have all done things we know are wrong, even if they are quite trivial and most of us are very good at developing frameworks to justify what we did ("I had to", "it was a good thing in the long run" etc). In this respect our leaders are little different to the rest of us. Their misdemeanors simply have much more serious consequences.

The realisation that our leaders are fundamentally rational, but motivated by very different values to our own is in many ways much scarier than a belief that they are mad. To deal with mad people in power requires only that you remove those people from positions of power, a relatively simple task. Dealing with the question of motivations requires major institutional changes and those will not be easy to bring about.

I'd be interested to hear if Dan - or anyone else - has any opinions or disagrees. Like I said above, debate will hopefully lead to a more developed analysis of the problems we are concerned with.

A Shot Of Anti-BIOT-ics

A lot of NSPM's activism has been focused around the obvious issues: Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and, of course, Iraq. Nonetheless, there are many, many more causes around the world. The ever-present threat of conflict in South Asia is something we have touched upon only briefly, but is a major issue, probably constituting the greatest threat of nuclear war in the modern world. Elsewhere, the ongoing situation in Darfur, western Sudan may have claimed the lives of as many as 200,000 people and has been described by some as "genocide". One could continue like this for some time, citing the likes of Uganda, Chechnya, Tibet, Cyprus and Sri Lanka. Adequately dealing with all, or even most, of these issues would be a gargantuan task and so we are forced to chose and prioritise.

How we go about prioritising is a difficult question. To some extent this is determined by external factors over which we have little or no control. No-one ever decided that we should put so much emphasis on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. That said there is some filtering which goes on. I have always felt that we should focus most heavily on issues which we have some ability to influence. It wouldn't be difficult to pontificate on how evil Ghengis Khan was, but such criticisms are pretty much morally irrelevant. Criticising the actions of the British Government, however, are morally significant as they could, and hopefully will, impact upon those actions.

It is for this reason that I feel the little known exile of the Chagossians is an issue which British activists should be more aware. Detailing the full extent of this, in my opinion morally abhorrent, action would stretch this post to extensive length, so I'll instead direct you to an article I wrote for the August edition of the Nottingham Alternative News, a city-wide publication run by activists. Long story short: the indigenous population of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean were removed from their homes and prevented from returning, by machinations on the part of the British Government, in order to make way for a US military base.

The issue has attracted increasing attention in recent months, warranting a debate in Parliament, being the subject of an Early Day Motion, leading to diplomatic wranglings between the Mauritian and British Governments (Chagos should have become part of Mauritius when that country achieved independence in 1968, but was separated off into the artificial entity known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, BIOT) and seeing threats of protests from refugees and others. In light of these developments a discussion group for students concerned about the issue has recently been set up. I have no idea if anyone actually reads this thing apart from me and Dan and I have no idea if you're actually students or simply assorted randoms, but if you are and you're interested, please join up. Don't make me beg.

Polluting The Blogosphere

Hello world! This is my first posting on this blog and so some introductory comments... Some of you may be familiar with my writing on my own blog, the Disillusioned kid, which I've maintained for a while. Probably most of you aren't, but you can expect a combination of incisive analysis (shamelessly stolen from elsewhere) and confused ravings. You'll love it. Perhaps.

To kick things of I'd like to recommend that you check out a post on yet another blog, this time by Juan Cole. Cole is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan, specialising in the Middle East and Iraq. His postings on the aptly-titled Informed Comment are a must read for anyone interested in understanding what's going on in Iraq. While I've not been keeping up well with my blogging recently, I discovered a recent, particularly brilliant post - via the Justice Not Vengeance mailing list - to which I would like to draw your attention. In a post entitled, "If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?" Cole demonstrates just how dire things in Iraq have become after a year and a half of occupation. I considered extracting from it here, but you really need to read it in its entirety. Right now.