The Peace Pipe

Stop the deportation of Hich

2008-05-25T08:51:00.003+01:00

Although he posts here as rarely as everybody else Hicham Yezza, or Hich to his many friends, is ostensibly one of the contributors to this blog. Unfortunately, he now faces imminent deportation to Algeria.

If you know Hich and/or can help in any way, get int touch with the campaign.

Website: http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com
Email: staffandstudents@googlemail.com
Phone: 07948590262

The press release does a pretty good job of summing up what's going on...

From a group of Nottingham residents, concerned student and academics at the University of Nottingham.
For immediate use, 24/05/08 SATURDAY

Notts Uni detainee innocent but still facing deportation

Hicham Yezza, a popular, respected and valued former PhD student and current employee of the University of Nottingham faces deportation to Algeria on Sunday 1st June. This follows his unjust arrest under the Terrorism Act 2000 on Wednesday 14th May alongside Rizwaan Sabir and their release without charge six days later.

It has subsequently become clear that these arrests, which the police had claimed related to so-called “radical materials” involved an Al Qaeda manual downloaded by Sabir as part of his research into political Islam and emailed to Yezza for printing because Sabir couldn’t afford to get it printed himself.

There has been a vocal response from lecturers and students. A petition is being circulated, letters have been sent by academics across the world and a demo is being planned for Wednesday. 28th May. This has clearly been deeply embarrassing to a government currently advocating an expansion of anti-terror powers.

On his release Hicham was re-arrested under immigration legislation and, due to confusion over his visa documentation, charged with offences relating to his immigration status. He sought legal advice and representation over these matters whilst in custody. On Friday 23rd May, he was suddenly served with a deportation notice and moved to an immigration detention centre. The deportation is being urgently appealed.

Hicham has been resident in the U.K. for 13 years, during which time he has studied for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Nottingham. He is an active member of debating societies, a prominent member of an arts and theatre group, and has written for, and edited, Ceasefire, the Nottingham Student Peace Movement magazine for the last five years.

He is well known and popular on campus amongst the university community and has established himself as a voracious reader and an authority on literature and music. An application for British citizenship was underway, and he had been planning to make his yearly trip to Wales for the Hay Festival when he was suddenly arrested.

The authorities are clearly trying to circumvent the criminal justice system and force Hicham out of the country. Normally they would have to wait for criminal proceedings to finish, but here they have managed to convince the prosecution to drop the charges in an attempt to remove him a quick, covert manner. The desire for justice is clearly not the driving force behind this, as Hicham was happy to stand trial and prove his innocence.

Hicham had a large social network and many of his friends are mobilising to prevent his deportation. Matthew Butcher, 20, a student at the University of Nottingham and member of the 2008-9 Students Union Executive, said, “This is an abhorrent abuse of due process, pursued by a government currently seeking to expand anti-terror powers. Following the debacle of the initial ‘terror’ arrests they now want to brush the whole affair under the carpet by deporting Hicham.”

Supporters have been able to talk with Hicham and he said, “The Home Office operates with a Gestapo mentality. They have no respect for human dignity and human life. They treat foreign nationals as disposable goods - the recklessness and the cavalier approach they have belongs to a totalitarian state. I thank everyone for their support - it’s been extremely heartening and humbling. I’m grateful to everyone who has come to my aid and stood with me in solidarity, from students to Members of Parliament. I think this really reflects the spirit of the generous, inclusive Britain we know - and not the faceless, brutal, draconian tactics of the Home Office.”

[ENDS]

It's a crazy, crazy world...

2007-07-24T13:30:00.001+01:00

So.... in the news today... historic elections in Turkey, unprecedented floods in England, mayhem in Iraq, dramatic tensions between the UK and Russia....
Yet, as of 12pm today... the most read AND most emailed "news" article is .... *drum roll*
voila! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6913310.stm
It's a crazy world, I tell ya!!!

Forthcoming events

2007-02-09T21:53:00.000Z

In case this reaches a different audience than the other places these announcements have been posted...

Next weekend is rather a bonanza for peaceniks and progressives in Nottingham! To wit:

KnowledgeLab 4: "an attempt to provide a collective space for anti-capitalist reflection. It is located at the margin of the university, an institution essentially geared towards the production of knowledge as a resource for corporate interest and as justification for particular constellations of power relations.

The Knowledge Lab is hence also an attempt to claim back some of the university's space, resources and know-how from the military-industrial complex and make them available for people concerned about and working against the status quo of unceasing commodification, exploitation, war, and biospherical destruction."

KnowledgeLab is held on Feb 16-18 at the Portland Building, Nottingham University

And of course, that long-term favourite, the NSPM Peace Conference, on Sunday Feb 18 in the Portland Building. Some details here and anyone with a printer and some energy can download a poster here

For a Free Education!

2006-05-08T15:30:00.000+01:00

This is a time of radical change in education. With the introduction of fees and now top-up fees, access to higher education has become stratified, dividing potential students into those who can afford it and those whose financial insecurity excludes them. This is accompanied by a general trend in universities towards a business-oriented model of education, where students are reduced to passive consumers of training for their future roles as battery workers. There is an increasing involvement of private companies in the funding of research, in return for prime opportunities to recruit students. Meanwhile, markets in student services are being opened up so that we can be exploited wherever we go, by food vendors, increased advertising, privatisation of student accommodation, etc. With this approach to education any source of funding is fair game, regardless of the ethical and ecological consequences, hence Nottingham’s acceptance of millions of pounds from British American Tobacco to fund an MBA in corporate social responsibility, sponsorship of research by human rights abusers Rolls-Royce and Shell, and the ubiquity of Coca-Cola vending machines and Nestlé water in the water coolers.

“Top-up” fees and the AUT dispute
What is unknown to many students is that “top-up” fees go directly to the universities themselves. They are not a form of indirect taxation, but direct funding to the institutions who lobbied for them, under the auspices of increasing pay for staff. Since then the universities have reneged on this offer, despite the increasing workload and relative pay cuts endured by academic staff. As a result, staff members are understandably aggrieved and want to take action against their exploitation, hence the strikes seen earlier this year. However, many AUT members, whilst wishing to take action against their employers, are not in favour of the tactics of boycotting student assessment, because they damage students rather than the university. Rather than judging the legitimacy of staff claims for better pay and conditions based upon the AUT’s questionable choice of tactics, students would do well to consider the past behaviour of university management, especially considering Nottingham’s scandalous behaviour leading to the University’s greylisting by the AUT in 2004. Then, the University imposed performance-related pay and refused to negotiate with the union. All of this continues whilst Nottingham’s Vice-Chancellor, Sir Colin Campbell, was revealed to have received a 23% pay rise in 2004-5, bringing his salary to a total of £221,000. The parallels with corporate fat cats are hard to avoid. The University’s staff, as well as its students, are being damaged by the business model being ruthlessly imposed, and linking our two campaigns could strengthen them both.

What can you do?
Education could be a chance for students to learn to think critically and to question the inevitability of a career path. With government funding (perhaps diverted from the massive budgets for maintaining the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, subsidising the arms trade, and developing tactical nuclear weapons) this education could be made free, thus avoiding the reliance on big business for extra cash, and ending their stranglehold on our education.
However, appeals to the government or the University are unlikely to be listened to. The lack of progress of campaigns requesting the transfer of the University’s investments to ethically-managed portfolios, and to banish Coca-Cola from campus, have failed to make an impact on University management. Likewise, we are unlikely to be supported by our NUS executive, which has failed to show collective solidarity with student and staff struggles. Indeed, many NUS exec members embody the unthinking careerism that we are struggling to avoid.
It seems that the most effective action will come from us, the students, directly. We need to challenge those who would support corporate involvement in our education, within our departments and at the level of University management. By increasing our fellow students’ awareness about the companies that exploit people and environment, we can build movements against their presence on campus. We could form unions of rent-payers, to ensure that landlords are requesting reasonable amounts, boycott corporate vending machines in favour of home-grown lunches, provide information on the few remaining free spaces in the city. Who knows, we could even occupy the Vice-Chancellor’s office, a library building, or our classrooms, and start providing our own education. The struggle for free education is about to begin…

Resources for further action
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Corporate Watch
Education Not For Sale

What race does a racist have to be?

2006-04-08T11:22:00.000+01:00

The British National Party is apparently in uproar over the selection of a supposedly 'ethnic' candidate. Leader Nick Griffin would like the party to become more racially inclusive, providing equal opportunities to become a fascist scumbag. (provided you're not too 'ethnic', of course - members are reassured that the candidate in question is 'not a Pakistani Muslim.) Sharif Gawad, a 'totally assimilated Armenian Christian' whose mum is a fan of Omar Sharif, has jumped at the chance to seize such an opportunity. The BNP rank and file, meanwhile, are less than enthusiastic, questioning the point of joining a racist organisation if one then has to be racially tolerant .
I'm stuck deciding which element of the above story is the most mind-boggling.

Anti-Semites are fuckwits

2006-03-03T19:38:00.000Z

[Cross-posted from the Disillusioned kid for your delectation.]

Ilam Halimi was a 23-year old mobile phone salesman who lived in Paris. His apparently normal life was shattered when he was kidnapped by a gang apparently calling themselves "The Barbarians," who held him for 24 days, tortured him before dumping him near a train station in the parisian suburb of Bagneux, leaving him to die. In and of itself this is nasty enough and not to be encouraged. What has given the brutal abduction added potency, however, is the perception that it was motivated by anti-Semitism.

Nicholas Sarkozy told the National Assembly, "The truth is that these crooks acted primarily for sordid and vile motives, to get money, but they were convinced that 'the Jews have money', and if those they kidnapped didn't have money, their family and their community would come up with it. That's called anti-Semitism by amalgam." While not exactly renowned for his contribution to race relations Sarko appears to be on the right lines here, particularly if claims that the woman accused of seducing him for the gang was told to focus her efforts on Jewish men, turn out to be correct.

Encouragingly the whole affair has been greeted by widespread revulsion in France which has been expressed in the time-honoured French fashion of holding a large-scale demonstration. Rather less encouraging is attempts to capitalise on popular concerns on the part of the far-right Mouvement pour la France (MPF) whose leader Philippe de Villiers tried to attend but was greeted by cries of "racist" and had to be removed by what Ha'aretz describes as "guards". Worryingly it also appears that organisers had hoped to invite Jean-Marie Le Pen of the neo-Fascist Front National (FN), only relenting after "sharp opposition" from unnamed lefties.

It might seem strange that a right-wing fucktard like Le Pen who is not averse to dabbling in Judeophobia's murky waters himself and famously dismissed the gas chambers as "a point of detail," should want to have anything to do with a march against anti-Semitism, but if you think about it, it serves his short-term interests. The kidnappers appear to have been immigrants from the suburbs, one suspect even fled to the Ivory Coast. And there have been suggestions that some of them were linked to Muslim and/or Palestinian organisations. These are exactly the group whom the FN have been directing their ire against in recent years, tapping into apparently widespread anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia.

This sort of things isn't without precedent. Recall that during the General Election in the UK the BNP fielded a Jewish candidate. Patricia Richardson who campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket and claimed, "The Jews and the British now share the same enemy — the al-Qaeda terrorists who we know are often hidden in Britain illegally plotting against the West. Both have an interest in the much tougher stand on law and order that we in the BNP are promoting." While the decision caused considerable controversy within the ranks it doesn't appear to have hurt the party terminally (unfortunately).

At the risk of unduly generalising from the specific I wish to suggest that these moves on the part of the French and British branches of the Adolf Hitler fan club serve to illustrate the extent to which anti-Semitism and Islamophobia feed off each other. Over the last few years there have been a series of reports pointing to a rise in one or the other. Recall also that while France is today dealing with concerns about anti-Semitism, only a few months back racism targetted against the immigrant populations - most of them black and Arab - led to rioting accross the country. All too rarely have people drawn the connections.

Clearly the Israel-Palestine conflict plays a part here, but that's an essay in itself (one I may get around to writing someday). While I don't want to get bogged down in the issues surrounding the Israeli occupation here, I will note in passing that accusations of anti-Semitism levelled against anybody with the temerity to criticise Israeli policy has created a situation whereby the Left (such as it is) seems has developed a blindspot around the issue. This is - to put it lightly - unfortunate. Anti-Semitism remains as contemptible, unjustifiable and as dangerous as ever. It is the enemy of the Palestinian solidarity movement and it is the enemy of anybody interested in building a better world.

File Under: Anti-Semitism, France, Islamophobia, Racism

Relief blogging service

2006-03-02T13:40:00.000Z

Bonjour from EloH/Nella, the new member of the Peace Pipe team. How much of a 'relief' i'm going to be remains to be seen, since i don't have much more time than D or DK, but i will try. Since those two have a tendency to quote me on everything from Holocaust denial to the correct preperation of a tofu baby (not connected!) i guess i'd better defer to their judgement on this one.
As with the other PP bloggers, my posts will stem from my opinions rather than some kind of party line - so don't blame the others for anything i say, or vice versa.
Having said that, there will be some effort on my part to be one of the team. If you want to see me being, well, me, then visit me at the world of the Dynamite Lady. Otherwise, just watch this space for my first attempt at a proper post.

your revolution needs you!

2006-01-06T13:40:00.000Z

at the behest of nella i've reposted something i wrote on the naked lunch here, for your delectation and delight. here goes:-

i've been reading quite a bit about the 1968 paris uprising recently (see poster on the left, "free press"), and pondering the total unexpectedness and swiftness of events. workers, students and radicals were suddenly swept up in a massive struggle that seemed to be too big, too fast. whilst there is no doubt that temporary autonomy was a goal worth fighting for, the total revolution of society hoped for was not obtained.

whilst there is no doubt that french society in 68 was very different to modern society, i imagine any revolutionary attempt in the britain of today would would look more like paris 68 than some of the more famous struggles in this vein (e.g. russia 1917), because we live in a technologically advanced european capitalist state. no doubt there'd have to be a general rebellion of workers in order to halt the machinery of the economy, the seizure of media outlets, and immediate steps to defend the revolutionary forces. no doubt all of this has been theorised and pored over and over by the likes of academic marxists (that seems to be all they do), and no doubt one of the biggest obstacles to change would be the "professional revolutionaries" who'd like to lead the movement, but what about us?

here i'm talking about the small handful of people who i know to read this blog and (as far as i'm aware) are fairly unaffiliated individuals. the problems of leaders and parties are well known to us, but in the event of a sudden uprising in our town/country/planet how would we respond? presumably we'd want to be involved in order to help the changes that we wanted to see. we'd probably need to spread the word about our struggles and counter propaganda, take part in the defence of our comrades against the police, and do our bit in installing alternative social and economic systems.

i'm thinking about this on a purely 'what if i got the chance to be part of something like that' sense. what would you do?

Whose Insecurity?

2005-10-31T15:53:00.000Z

The news media seem to be increasingly full of lurid stories about terrorism and crime, and a common reaction is a general feeling of anxiety throughout society. Is this anxiety misplaced or are we really more insecure than ever before? It may really depend on who “we” are.

Since the 7/7 bombs, terror, and the threat of terror, have filled many with dread. This has certainly been fuelled by media speculation, but the facts tell a different story. You are still more likely to be killed by lightning than in a terrorist attack (1). Likewise, whilst muggings and burglaries are a common occurrence in student areas, most crime is committed against the poorest and most vulnerable in society (2). This is an interesting statistic because poverty is a huge factor in determining not just whether an individual will become a victim of crime, but their quality of life, health, and life opportunities. Low wage jobs are becoming more and more precarious, with short-term contracts taking the place of lifetime careers, and a continual push by employers for lower wages and poorer conditions. The working classes suffer from a much more rational insecurity about their day to day existence, than the fear of terrorism.

One group of desperately poor people in the UK are those seeking political asylum. Not only are they reduced to existing on a pittance (destitute asylum seekers are entitled to £38.96 per week in benefits) but they face being deported to countries in which they could be persecuted if their claims are rejected (3, 4). Despite the growing number of refugees in the world, the UK is making it harder for asylum seekers to enter the country, spurred on by tabloid-fuelled hatred of their kind. These are forms of insecurity that are severe and very real, but media and political discourse is rarely concerned with them. Whose insecurity should be dealt with first? Do we really think our laptops getting nicked should be a priority?

The measures that have been implemented in order to deal with the “headline story” insecurities are manifold. A whole swathe of new anti-terror laws are being debated and look set to be implemented, and the police are being given a license to shoot-to-kill. In attempts to tackle (or at least appear to be tackling) crime, the government has introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), and councils and property owners increasingly rely on CCTV. These measures appear designed to reduce the insecurity of the “average law-abiding person”, but who is that person? Not those belonging to Afro-Caribbean, Arabic or Asian ethnicities, who are being disproportionately targeted by police anti-terror laws (and by laws in general). Not youths, mental health service users or prostitutes, who are under the threat of criminalisation for breaking ASBOs. Not those whose homes and streets are not under the watchful eyes of CCTV, where crime is displaced (5). Not political protestors, against whom anti-terror laws, ASBOs, and anti-harassment laws are being used. These measures allow those whose concerns are considered important to evade their fears, whilst their insecurities are displaced onto the less privileged in society.

Ultimately this is bound to fail, as insecurity in one segment of society will sooner or later increase the insecurity of others. The insecuritiy of Muslims who feel that their people are under attack fuels the insecurity of those who suspect them of being terrorists. The insecurity of those desperate for money feed the insecurity of those who fear theft. Whilst those with power and a voice in society can call for draconian measures against those who don’t have such power, they still have to lock their doors at night, glance anxiously around on the tube, and keep their wallets out of sight. Terror and crime are desperate attempts by those who have little power to make an impact on the world. To reduce the chance of these things happening, we have to empower everyone in society to take back control of their lives. That means that everyone gets a say in how their life is run, how political decisions are made, and how resources are allocated. To know that you genuinely do have the same opportunities and status as your neighbours is to eradicate insecurity about your privilege or resentment of your neighbour’s. Creating a society in which direct democracy is implemented means that no one’s voice should go unheard, and everyone has the confidence to take back control of their lives.

For most students, insecurity is a fleeting and temporary problem – until the poorest and most vulnerable are made secure we shouldn’t see ourselves as the priority. Perhaps our deepest insecurity is that we know we don’t really have a right to the privileges we have, and that the dispossessed are at the door.

1) Lifetime mortality rates : Lightning = 1:56,000, Terrorist-related activity = 1:88,000 (National Safety Council, US, 2002).

2) “The type of area in which people live can affect their likelihood of being a victim of violent crime. In general, those households located in council estates and low-income areas were the most likely to have been victims of violent crimes - around twice the rate of those living in affluent suburban and rural areas.” (Proportion of adult victims of violent crime: by household characteristics, 1999: Social Trends 32, Office for National Statistics).

In the US (2004)
• Persons in households with an annual income under $7,500 were robbed at a significantly higher rate than persons in households earning more.
• Persons in households with an annual income of less than $7,500 have higher rates of assault than persons in households with higher income levels.
• Households with an annual income below $7,500 were burglarized at rates higher than those of households with larger incomes.
• Households earning below $7,500 and above $75,000 experience motor vehicle theft at similar rates.
(US Bureau of Justice statistics).

3) Asylum seekers cannot claim mainstream welfare benefits. If destitute, they can apply to the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), the Government department responsible for destitute asylum applicants, for basic food and shelter. A single adult is eligible for £38.96 a week, equivalent to 70% of basic income support.
(Refugee Council).

4) 90% refugees rejected on initial claim, with many having to go through the appeals process to have their claim successfully recognised.
(Arun Kundnani, Asylum figures - behind the headlines, 8 March 2003).

5) "The justification for CCTV is seductive, but the evidence is not convincing. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology described the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner...
Many CCTV system operators routinely exercise their prejudices to discriminate against race, age, class or sexual preference."
(Privacy International).

the truth about british foreign policy

2005-10-19T12:50:00.000+01:00

yesterday nspm had the pleasure of hosting mark curtis, the radical historian and author, for a talk on 'government propaganda and the reality of uk foreign policy'. in an attempt to repeat the success of last year's talk by milan rai we had booked a high profile speaker for the start of term, to raise our profile and attract support. it certainly seemed to have worked judging by the size and diversity of the audience. i estimate about 100 people had gathered to hear mark speak, wit plenty of new faces amongst the stalwart activists. i've seen mark speak before at the esf, and from reading his books and articles had a good idea of what to expect. it was good to find that mark was softly-spoken and seemed to be a genuinely nice guy in person, as well as in his writings.

mark's talk seemed to be largely drawn from the material that he's worked on over the course of his last few books (unpeople, web of deceit), condensed into half an hour. starting with recent foreign office strategy (e.g. delivering security in a changing world) and the imperial ambitions of the "ministry of offence", mark then recounted the history of british foreign policy from the 50s onwards. after admonishing blair's support of bloodshed and torture by the russians in chechnya, colombian paramilitaries and the idf in palestine, he gave the figure (his own estimate) of britain's complicity in the deaths of 10m people since the 50s. mark talked about british suppression of the mau mau in kenya, concentration camps in malaya, support for indonesian slaughter of communists, support for iraqi bombing of the kurds, military advice to the americans in vietnam, support for idi amin, and british obstacles to intervention in rwanda. british foreign policy, he said, was driven by 2 major goals: maintenance of its "great power" status, and economic control.

the most interesting part of the talk for me, as it's something he doesn't go into in much detail in his books, was the final part where mark sketched out his ideas of what we should do. change would have to come from outside the existing system which perpetuates these vile atrocities with only cosmetic changes over the years. mark saw a glimmer of hope in the global justice system emerging and gaining victories over companies privatising water from bolivia to south africa. self-education is particularly important, he said, to defend ourselves against the ocean of propaganda. mark saw the democratisation of society as the most important goal in acheiving our aims, with the removal of hierarchical decision-making and the remodelling of our political lives on the principle of participatory democracy.

these ideas were obviously a little too radical for some, including a guy who walked out at the start of questions, waiting til the last minute before shouting "10m iraqis voted last week mate", and a terribly posh sounding persistent questioner who wasn't too sure that the "uneducated masses" were going to do a better job than whatever benign patriarchal dictator he seemed to be imagining. many were enthusiastic though, drawing parallels between mark's vision of society and anarchist thought. it was good to see challenged many of the dangerous myths prevalent in mainstream thought, and to hear discussed media propaganda, the tyranny of centralised power and global movements resisting the takeover of people's lives. mark was optimistic, suggesting that in the many talks he had been giving to people of all backgrounds across the country, he was seeing an increasingly dissatisfied populace ready to wrest power from the hands of politicians. i certainly felt that many people in that room felt that way, and together we can act to make those changes.

arms dealers not welcome

2005-10-19T10:48:00.000+01:00

the university of nottingham holds an annual careers fair in the student's union building, hosted by old friends (!) of the peace movement, aiesec. this is usually packed full of some of the worst corporate criminals the world of business has to offer, all getting their pick of graduate talent. to see this year's selection go here. of particular interest to us were bae systems, rolls-royce and caterpillar, all arms dealing companies. we decided we couldn't let them on campus without organising a robust response to their unwanted presence, and various student societies and networks including nspm, people & planet, amnesty, and the environment & social justice umbrella group got together to protest.

bags stacked with leaflets and carrying stickers to attach to the careers fair posters, some of us met early in the morning to get going. attaching stickers reading "resist the corporate invasion of your university" and giving a meeting time and place to all of the aiesec material was a good move, and we also put up plenty of anti-caterpillar posters. the porter was looking nervous, telling us not to stick anything on any walls, and asking whether we were the people he was meant to look out for! it was a good opportunity for a certain "luther blissett" to sign up for the fair and enquire about the military and engineering options on offer. "bae & shell, they're really good!" i was told. hmmmm... by the time i'd tracked back to meet co-conspirators a shifty looking guy from security had come over and was hassling m about our posters. he took one off her, and asked both of us for our student id. i said i didn't have it but he took hers and wrote down her details. we were both too surprised to protest even though he blatantly shouldn't have been allowed to do it. those in favour of id cards take note. i went off to photocopy a few more flyers before the meet-up at 12.

by the time i got back quite a crowd had already developed. t was being interviewed by university radio about why we were protesting and a couple of friends from nottinghamshire indymedia were there to film and photograph the event. their report can be found here. l from the student union gave a briefing about what we could probably get away with and blagged us all flyering passes for the two days. the security guy so keen to be confrontational earlier, jumped in to say that we weren't allowed to do anything that could be seen as intimidating, whatever that meant, but suddenly got a bit shy when the cameras were pointed his way, ducking behind people. nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide eh?

so in we went in small clusters finding where our poor defenceless intimidated arms dealers were lurking. cat and rolls-royce were in the same room so a few of us took over the entrance to leaflet whilst those with the decency to suit up for the occasion took their places slap bang in front of the stalls. rolls-royce are a particularly interesting target in nottingham because they put a lot of funding into the engineering department, the university has shares in them, and there's a factory just down the road in derby making components for trident nuclear submarines (see trident ploughshares' site for details of a blockade of the factory next weekend). student responses were mixed, as you'd expect. few were openly hostile although many looked at us like we were lunatics and i remember one group of girls standing around in front of me talking about how sad it was that we didn't have anything better to do. i don't know - fighting for global justice has its rewards! on the other hand there were positive experiences too. many students were shocked as they didn't know the full stories behind some of the companies, and one woman stayed around to chat to us about how glad she was that there were so many people out to protest against the companies.

one particularly useful tactic was to take over the space around the companies' stalls in order to chat to people about the companies' before the smooth pr exercise could begin. to do this in a purely informative and non-confrontational way seemed very effective in giving people something to think about. it also pissed off the reps quite a lot. the reactions of non-targeted companies were interesting. one guy wearing a deutsche bank badge wandered over to me and said, quite earnestly, "i really respect what you guys are doing". i don't know whether he was being sarcastic or just naive. people were also coming over and acting suspiciously matey before asking "so when's it all going to kick off then?". i think they were expecting the black bloc to walk in and trash the place. slimy security man asked me "how long are you going on for?" as if there should be an allotted time as well as place for protest. "As long as it takes".

overall i think the numbers of protestors and the access we got to the recruiting space of the companies meant that our actions were as successful as they could have been. hopefully the companies will be discouraged from attending future events although i think the more likely scenario is that they will demand much stricter security. thanks to the media coverage (nottinghamshire indymedia are also making a film about the fair, containing interviews with protestors including yours truly, and the organisers) i hope that students at other universities will take note - that we can overcome repressive restrictions, like those imposed on the george fox 6, and throw spanners in the works of the well-oiled corporate machines.

george fox 6

2005-10-06T13:47:00.000+01:00

a group of 6 students from the university of lancaster have been sentenced to conditional discharge for 2 years and costs of 3oo pounds each, for "momentarily disrupting a conference". they were not found guilty of "harrassment, alarm or distress" or "intimidating behaviour". the george fox 6's actions involved interrupting a meeting on venture capitalism at the university, in protest against the commercialisation of research, and the presence of highly unethical companies including bae systems and shell.

the george fox 6 supporter's group website has all the details of the case, and includes copies of their statement, indicating their intention to appeal, to ensure that the right to protest is not eroded. speculation was rife during the run-up to the trial that lancaster was attempting to set a new trend of criminalising activities that ran against the business interests of the university. certainly, if the allegations of this letter from the research students' representative to the vice-chancellor are true, then the university has played a very underhand role in proceedings.

those interested in finding out about defending the right to protest against new laws and new uses of laws might be interested in attending the freedom to protest conference in a few weeks time.

critical massive

2005-10-03T14:59:00.000+01:00

it was good to see a record (in my limited experience) turnout for nottingham's critical mass on friday. an army of colourful, flag-bearing, slogan-brandishing road-reclaimers assembled near the texaco garage from 5 onwards, and by 5:45 there were over 40 of us (the notts indymedia report claimed 60 or so, which i think is a slight exaggeration, but not on a stop the war level). numbers were boosted by the visit from the makers of still we ride, a film about new york's critical mass and the unwanted police attention it receives. the film was screened at the broadway on wednesday and its filmers generously stuck around to swell the numbers at our own more humble affair. i was also buoyed from having read about budapest's colossal critical mass that took place earlier in the week, attracting over 30,000 cyclists!!!

would you trust this officer?

after much milling about, bantering, and obstruction of pavements we set off up derby road in the direction of canning circus. there was definitely a carnival feel and we emphasised the celebration aspects of the event. tash was ready and waiting at the top of the hill and then seemed to teleport himself around various locations after that taking the fine photos that i've used in this report. down to maid marian way where we toured a few roundabouts and received audible support for cycling (see top pic). some taxi and 4x4 drivers seemed less enthusiastic but their aggressive revving was drowned out in the cheers, bell-ringing and horns. round the ring road to the broadmarsh then we turned up into the lace market to release some of the angry motorists who were threatening to mow people at the back down.

in case you're wondering that's an asda jacket detourned to read 'asbo'

unfortunately, after coming off the main roads we got a little lost in the narrow lanes of the lace market and ended up coming down hockley. a guy had parked his car in the cycle lane at the bottom of the hill and attracted sarky comments. unfortunately he lost it and aggressively remonstrated with the entire mass, later grabbing the camera woman and shoving her against the wall. it took a big group of us trying to defuse the situation to make the guy give up and the incident ended with the rather embarassing situation of having to grass the guy up to a passing posse of neighbourhood wardens. whilst the majority waited across a side street a police car pulled up, lights flashing. we were asked to get out the road and then they headed off again. critical mass obviously isn't considered such a threat by nottingham police as it is by their new yorker counterparts...

in a change from previous critical masses we ended up by heading down mansfield road to the sumac centre. as we came down the hill past the forest rec, we picked up some zealous supporters in the form of a group of local kids in hoodies and masks. evidently seeing the revolutionary potential they lay down on pedestrian crossings and were quite disappointed to find out that we were just finishing up as they ran home to get their bikes. hopefully they'll remember to join us at the start of next month's. found myself using the stock activist phrase "we should have had flyers" rather a lot ;)

it was fun, it was (mostly) friendly, and who knows, it may even have made one or two motorists rethink their mode of transport. see you next month!

the people vs. the arms fair

2005-09-19T13:31:00.000+01:00

on wednesday last week i had the opportunity to make my feelings known about the arms trade to delegates to europe's largest arms fair. DSEi (or 'dicey') takes place at the excel centre in london's docklands every other year, and has been an obvious target for those who campaign against war and torture. campaign against the arms trade and disarm dsei facilitated a week of actions against the arms fair which were conspicuously left out of the corporate press, who seemed content to merely question whether 'banned' weapons were being sold, and skirted round the central issue of the legitimacy of the arms trade. it seemed to me to be in particularly bad taste that a fair selling bombs and guns should be taking place in east london, an area massively bombed during the second world war, and subject to the terrors of gun crime in the present, especially as the fair would represent a potential terrorist target that would be policed at the taxpayer's cost.

wednesday was 'no rules' day for the protestors, in which anyone using any tactics was invited to make their protest. the day saw people locked onto concrete weights blocking roads, people climbing onto the roofs of trains, a critical mass further disrupting traffic, and lorries full of bricks mysteriously being left on main roads. these were met with some fairly thuggish policing, including an incident i personally witnessed where a man was told he was going to be arrested for obstruction of the highway even though he was on the pavement. when the policeman in question was made aware of this he promptly forced the guy into the road before proceeding. for full details of the protests see the uk indymedia site, and for my personal account go here. disillusioned kid was at the street party the weekend before dsei, and his account is here.

the comedian and activist mark thomas somehow managed to get into the fair posing as a buyer, and got dealers to reveal all kinds of juicy details about the 'under the table' items on offer. apparently some companies were offering cluster bombs too. some suited activists managed to get into the dorchester hotel during the dsei dinner on the thursday night. so much for the 4m pound policing operation then... it was an interesting experience being able to come face to face with the buyers and sellers of arms. due to the massive disruption of rail and road links to the centre delegates were often forced to walk to entrances past large crowds of protestors. the sight of delegates coming home on the docklands light railway, arms loaded down with goody bags from such dealers of death as raytheon, picturing the latest weapons technology was bizarre indeed, and a rare opportunity to confront those whose participation maintains the industry. it was also an opportunity to remind yourself about the realities of our society - whilst hideously rich arms dealers glided through heavily policed gates in their mercedes, a few hundred yards away poor londoners looked on without such optimism. whilst the government sent in 4000 police to protect the parasites, the protesters were being criminalised.

don't doubt that we'll be back in 2007!

There's A Blogging Going On...

2005-09-01T20:37:00.000+01:00

Today is September 1, Uzbekistan's independence day. It is being marked in the blogosphere by an assortment of bloggers writing about the situation in the country and possible responses (primarily a cotton embargo). I've already said my bit over on my main blog as has Dan. There's a fairly comprehensive list of participating blogs here. Take the time to read some or all of them. I guarantee you'll learn something. If you're inspired to action as well, all the better.

Blog 4 Uzbekistan

2005-08-09T23:32:00.000+01:00

The pledge:

"I will blog about the situation in Uzbekistan, supporting call for sanctions on Uzbek cotton on September 1st but only if 20 other people will too."

[snip]

The idea behind this campaign is to use September Ist, Uzbekistan's independence day, to promote awareness of the situation there and of the call for sanctions.

If 20 or more bloggers were to do this, we could begin to make a difference. I hope you'll feel able to do this small thing...

Find out more here and express your support here.

vertical nightmares

2005-07-18T19:31:00.000+01:00

just been reading an article that will be of interest to those who attended the esf in london last year. written by emma dowling who was (reluctantly) part of the organising process it details some of the shameful tactics indulged in by the 'vertical' camp (swp, gla, unions) in order to control the organisation of the event, and ignore the demands of the 'horizontals'.

this is the kind of thing that makes me question whether any broad left coalition will ever be able to work, given the huge divides between the authoritarian and libertarian camps. it had been suggested at meetings of the lenton anarchist forum that we attempt to engage in dialogue with socialists, and hold some kind of conference where we could organise around issues that we held mutual positions on. however, i've always been suspicious of the tactics and party-sheep arrangement of hierarchical socialist groups, and this article reinforced these suspicions. of course, it could work out very differently on a local level, but it's certainly something to be cautious about.

a nottingham social forum has previously been attempted, without much success. its demise came about, in my opinion, due to the lack of clarity about the purpose of the forum. this was partly due to a divergence of approaches (wannabe maoist guerillas sitting down with trade justice campaigners and academic liberational pedagogists was never going to be conducive to agreement) and partly due to the fact that we were stuck with two different (and irreconcilable) structures: world social forum ("big bang" type event) and sheffield social forum (ongoing community talking space).

another world is possible, but perhaps ultimately we all want one that's slightly different...

Making the G8 History

2005-07-18T11:09:00.000+01:00

Various NSPMniks made their way up to Scotland to express their opposition to the G8 summit being held there. Unfortunately none of them have the time or inclination to write any of it up here, but should you be interested me and Dan have both written stuff on our respective blogs:

Dan:
love and rage i
love and rage ii - a tale of 2 shutdowns
love and rage iii - just below the horizon(e)
love and rage iv - winding down?
Photos
Disillusioned kid:
Make the G8 History, Part 1
Make the G8 History, Part Deux
Make the G8 History, Part Third
Make the G8 History, Part IV
Make Bad Stuff History
Make Photography History
Also worth checking out:
G8 Legal Support Statement
Indymedia UK Coverage
Red pepper Blog
SchNEWS Rundown

vote for peace, not just anti-war

2005-04-18T16:25:00.000+01:00

with the media whirling into a pre-election frenzy, and the rest of the populace stolidly resisting as far as i can tell, various anti-war peeps have been compiling lists and strategies about how best to punish MPs and parties for the iraq atrocity. perhaps most intelligent of the articles i've seen is milan rai's extensive piece for uk watch. rai's conclusion, it seems, is to strategically vote in line with the media perception of an anti-war vote. that is to vote lib-dem if you have to, even tho rai admits their anti-war credentials are not very real. rai is in favour of supporting anti-war labour mps on the basis that if labour do get back in, it's best that this small element remains in parliament. not voting is a mistake, rai argues, because the specifically anti-war message will be indistinguishable from a whole host of other complaints and protests against the government, electoral system, and ruling party.

whilst i do have reservations about playing the corporate media's game, i think mil is right to treat voting as a strategy and not getting on the "if you don't vote labour the tories will get in" bandwagon, favoured by such radicals ;) as robin cook and perennial blair-apologist polly toynbee. to make a specifically anti-war message this seems to be the best way to do it. however, along with most of the population, the iraq war is not the only issue of pertinence during the election campaign. whilst those of us who feel very strongly about the destruction that has been wreaked by the blair government we also feel very strongly about other social and envirnomental issues. i think it would be wrong to vote for, for example, a politician who voted against the war but has a very poor record in defending asylum seekers, demanding environmental sustainability, protesting draconian anti-terror laws, etc. voting to punish the government for iraq is tempting, but it must not obscure all the other objectives we have for building a peaceful society.

ultimately, electoral politics is a red herring in the business of getting peace on the agenda, as rai demonstrates through his admirable actions and campaigning with justice not vengeance. the political system is a corrupting force and although we can hope to curb its worst excesses the future will be shaped from outside rather than inside the walls of parliament. let's vote tactically on the broad issue of peace, in all spheres of international, domestic, and local politics, get it out of our systems, then get back to the work that really matters: making peace a reality without the middle men.

update (19/04/05)
george monbiot has written a similar piece in today's guardian, urging the electorate (or the very small minority of it that reads the guardian) to protest vote. monbiot comes to similar conclusions as rai about ignoring scaremongering about "letting the tories in" etc, but suggests voting lib dem only as a very last resort, for some of the same reasons i would discourage it, i.e. the lib dems' decidedly dodgy stance on the war, their support for pfi, their distinctly capitalist policies. like rai i'm sure that monbiot would agree that real politics in this country will have to be determined away from the ballot box through the work of activists and campaigners. just one catty note though: i saw monbiot speak at the esf in london at the end of last year, and in a surprising take for someone so apparently 'bookish', he urged campaigners for world development to take direct action to acheive their aims. whilst mil rai is frequently to be found spending time at her majesty's pleasure for his repeated anti-military activity, we're yet to see monbiot locked on to the entrance of the department for international development... ;)

On The Poverty of Student Life

2005-04-01T17:16:00.000+01:00

And I thought student politics in this country was complicated...

Lazy Blogging

2005-03-31T12:28:00.000+01:00

From the excellent Informed Comment by Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan:

Malnutrition amongst children has soared in Iraq under the Americans.

The number of Iraqis detained by the Americans has doubled since October.

Isn't "democracy" wonderful?

where are we going?

2005-03-21T15:24:00.000Z

it has been a criminally long time since i bothered to post anything on these pages, but saturday's march (19th march international day of action against the occupation of iraq) has given me cause for reflection on the anti-war movement.

initially, i'll admit, i wasn't going to go. having generally very low enthusiasm for yet another demonstration called by the stop the war coalition, yet wanting to contribute in some way to an international protest against the occupation of iraq, i decided to try to work up some enthusiasm for something different, something we could do here in nottingham. the traditional leftists were all already booked on the stop the war coaches, the students were generally apathetic, and the anarchists were too busy having their bikes impounded by the pigs. it didn't look like it was going to happen this time, but i think it's something worth considering as an alternative next time there's an occasion of similar merit. this fact, combined with the simple but empassioned message given by haifa zangana at the iraq occupation focus meeting at the university on monday, compelled me to do something, anything. i dutifully bought my ticket.

the demo, was of course, the usual affair, with better weather than usual which made it more bearable. the only point of deviation from tradition was the loop around the front of the us embassy, the barriers of which were covered with daffodils - a poignant symbol of lives lost. the faces were familiar, the slogans were familiar, i didn't even bother listening to check whether the speeches were familiar. it was great to be able to think about the international solidarity going on, but i couldn't help but think that i could be showing mine in a slightly more meaningful way.

my major problem with this form of protest is that, like global capitalism itself, it alienates and makes meaningless the act of resistance. by packaging the protest into mass-produced slogans, within a tidy time frame, mass marketed by paper sellers, the act of resistance becomes someone elses. this is certainly the feeling i get from many who have become disenchanted by stop the war's demonstrations - they don't feel a part of it enough to want to do it. people would rather do something they can organise themselves and that they really feel. the hierarchy of speaker and audience that seems to be an integral part to every stop the war event just doesn't appeal to us all. we want to be able to find our own voices, amongst our peers.

what's the way forward? i would suggest trying to build smaller, local events to involve more people from within our communities. i would take demo as a positive example of a regular, local event that, despite initial misgivings amongst many of us for its rather apolitical stance, has matured into an organic space for the introduction of students to political ideas. i just hope it doesn't submit to pressures to commercialise, and pressure is maintained for a radical political approach. within nspm i would suggest that we need to reach out to more of our members for input, and make more of an effort to attract them into the fold. next year we'll be left with very few of our existing planning group, and we'll need enthusiastic, creative people to get involved. i doubt they'll be persuaded by the prospect of large impersonal demos in london. it will be the actions that we take here in nottingham that will affect whether people get involved or not.

i think the most important thing to remember is that peace is a positive and, dare i say it, a fun thing. as long as the inspiring and creative aspects are present, alongside the serious political critique, large numbers of people will participate in our quest for a world free from the scourge of war.

Where Next?

2005-02-25T20:12:00.000Z

Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan, specialising in the Middle East. He also maintains a blog, which is a must read for anybody wanting to understand what's going on in Iraq. Today he has an ominous post, which does not bode well for the people of Iraq:

Well, now that Fallujah is liberated (i.e. wrecked and empty), residents of Ramadi are now beginning to flee in fear that they might get equally liberated. It is not clear how much liberation Iraqi cities (or ex-cities) can stand.

We still don't know how many people were killed during the assault on Fallujah, but reports for the Guardian, Channel 4 News and Socialist Worker suggest that it is likely to be high. Whatever the truth, I wouldn't want to be living in Ramadi right now.

Good News and Other Stuff

2005-02-09T13:44:00.000Z

Yesterday's Grauniad reported:

Young people are regaining an interest in politics, because of the controversy aroused by Iraq, global terrorism, crime and natural disasters which hurt the developing world, a survey by the Electoral Commission, published today, says.

The commission found that today's 16-to 20-year-olds appeared to be much more interested in politics that their recent predecessors. Eighty per cent said they felt strongly about political controversies that affected their daily lives and 73% discussed such matters with their friends and family.

Presumably then Nottingham Student Peace Movement and our comrades at other institutions can expect a succesful period of recruitment over the coming years. Which'll be nice.

It's not all good news though. While "ten per cent was actively engaged in political activity, 5% had joined a political party in their teens: twice the rate of the age group immediately above them." Because that's what we need. More party hacks!

The report notes that the survey "does not provide an explanation, only clues to why political interest may have grown." This allows the Michael White to speculate that the Indian Ocean Tsunami was a factor. This seems strange. Recall that the tsunami was barely six weeks ago, is it really plausible then that it was a major cause? I think not, leading me to conclude that the Iraq War is the decisive factor. This should hardly be a surprise to anyone who remembers the amazing protests against the war in schools up and down the country.

It's coming to something though when school kids are more radical than students...

Buff Hoon

2005-02-08T13:18:00.000Z

Friend and fellow Nottingham Uni based activist-type Dave Wills has a funky photo blog which I've just stumbled across. I draw your attention in particular to this gem from last November:

More on the Minister for War's visit to the uni here.

Sudan Anyone?

2005-02-01T21:47:00.000Z

Most people have heard about the ongoing conflict in Darfur, even if they don't know much about it. For those of you who don't, the roots of the conflict lie in resentment felt by many Darfurians at the way the Sudanese government in Khartoum is neglecting them. This led to a rebellion by the Darfur Liberation Army (which later changed its name to the Sudan Liberation Army, SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). In response the Sudanese government proceeded to arm and equip Janjaweed nomads, who come from a different ethnic group to most of the inhabitants in Darfur (the former are nominally Arabs, the latter Africans, although both are in fact black), who have carried out vicious attacks on Darfurian villages, forcing thousands to flee their homes, resulting in the deaths of anything between 100 and 200,000, perhaps even more. The conflict has been described by many, including the US Houses of Congress, as "genocide" and not without good reason.

The dynamics which led to the conflict, with the central government neglecting the populations of another part of the country is unfortunately mirrored elsewhere in Sudan. This lay at the root of the twenty-year war between Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) from the predominantly Christian south. It is also a problem in the east of the country. Not that you'd know it from the mainstream media who seem to have largely forgotten about the conflict in Darfur (despite reports that Sudanese jets have been bombing villages in the region) let alone problems elsewhere in the troubled state.

I mention all this in order to introduce this article which reports that Sudanese police killed between 20 and 40 people when they opened fire on demonstrators in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan in the northeast of the country.

As ever with issues in Sudan difficult questions arise as to how we respond. Activists have an instinctive opposition to western intervention, which is entirely understandable when one looks at the damage which such interventions have done over the years. That we should simply stand by while such violence is perpetrated by the Sudanese government, hardly seems a satisfactory response, however.

In many ways, that anti-imperialist movements must confront this conflict between our opposition to repression by governments and western imperialism is a sign of their weakness. If they were more powerful, the debate would be more important (because it would have real consequences), but other options might be available. It is possible to conceive of a response along the lines of the efforts of Peace Brigades International (PBI) or the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), albeit on a considerably larger scale. The participation of many socialists and anarchists in the Spanish Civil War as a demonstration of their opposition to Fascism, perhaps provides a further model.

In the meantime we must compromise within the realities of the world we live in if we wish to avoid condemning ourselves to irrelevance. In the context of Darfur, it is my opinion that an African Union peacekeeping force (perhaps funded by much richer western governments) should be empowered to intervene forcefully to protect Darfurians. This should be coupled with efforts to address the grievances which fuel the conflict and incorporate not just the armed actors (the government and the rebels), but also representatives of civil society.

Is this a realistic response in the northeast? Certainly the AU does not have enough resources to police all of Sudan (Darfur alone is the size of France). Perhaps as the conflict is at a much earlier stage there is much more potential for effective intervention on the part of western activists. The efforts of PBI in the likes of Colombia, Aceh and Mexico demonstrate that this sort of activity is possible and can have a positive effect.

To be sure, such a response is unlikely to be forthcoming, but the question then is why not? Why do we allow situations such as this to develop until our government decide that the time is ripe for "humanitarian intervention," only to find ourselves forced to chose between the devil and the deep blue sea? It is time we became more proactive and started building the kind of world we'd like to see rather than just responding to the excesses of our glorious leaders. There's a world to win. What are you waiting for?

Positivity

2005-02-01T21:05:00.000Z

(Article to appear in the next edition of Ceasefire.)

It is useful when thinking about activism to break it down into three components: (a) what’s wrong with what we have now; (b) what we want to replace it with; and (c) how we get from (a) to (b). This applies whether you are talking about reforms within the confines of the prevailing system or more extensive root and branch change (revolution).

When we look around the world today there is no shortage of evils which could fall within the realms of (a) and as such, there has been a tendency amongst activists to focus on this, sometimes at the expense of (b) and (c). You can go into any bookshop and find a wealth of books critiquing racism, patriarchy, imperialism, heterosexism, imperialism etc, but far fewer suggesting alternative systems or describing how we can get there.

An examination of the previous editions of this fine publication [i.e. Ceasefire - Dk] demonstrates that the Peace Movement is as guilty as anybody. Fortunately this focus is not total. Scanning through the last edition [available here as a pdf] one discovers an article by Andy Burrell on “direct local democracy” and a debate between Hich Yezza and Catherine Taylor on the merits of mass demonstrations. Nevertheless the fundamental point remains.

One possible consequence of this focus on the negative (what is wrong) rather than the positive (what we want) is a sense of powerlessness. If we have no idea of what we want or how to go about getting there it is easy to conclude that there is, indeed, no alternative. If there is no alternative, it follows that there is no point in seeking to alter the way things are and hence no point in getting involved in political movements.

It is clear, therefore, that those of us involved in activism, whether against imperialism, capitalism, racism or whatever, should seek to articulate a view of the kind of world we want to see and how we go about getting there. We don’t need to describe every single detail of this world, but we do need to set out comprehensive, convincing alternatives to the institutions we oppose with at least an outline of how we propose to get there. In the short to medium term this means that activists should vigorously debate possible alternatives, testing and critiquing them in order to establish which is best. Hopefully the final session of the Peace Conference, which will have speakers putting the case for Participatory Economics, revolutionary socialism and federalism, will play a role in igniting this vital debate.

We must also think long and hard about how we realise this new world (or even achieve small victories in the meantime). This is important, not only to demonstrate that the world we would like to see is genuinely achievable, but because it is far too easy to do things simply because that’s what we’ve always done, regardless of whether it is moving us towards our goal. This was one of my major criticisms of the Stop the War Coalition who manoeuvred themselves into a hegemonic position within the anti-war movement but seem to have no conception of strategy. Instead they call one national demonstration after another in the vain hope of repeating the undoubted success of February 15, 2003.

Attentive readers will note that this article ironically (perhaps even hypocritically) avoids offering any positive suggestions of its own. This is certainly true, but it is to be hoped that it will get people thinking and encourage others (perhaps even you!) to put pen to paper and start talking about what they want. Answers on the back of a postcard!

Electioneering

2005-01-21T16:55:00.000Z

The forthcoming elections in Iraq pose a number of important questions for the anti-war movement. Should we support calls for boycotts? Are those participating in the election "collaborators" as some have suggested? Is the whole exercise, in truth, more or less irrelevant?

The issue has provoked a debate between Gilbert Achar and Alex Callinicos (Socialist Workers Party head honcho) which merits attention, thought and action from the wider movement. The debate was begun by Achar who points out that "the history of decolonization is full of instances of elections or consultations held under occupation as major steps toward independence and the evacuation of foreign troops. For many years, the Palestinians have been fighting for the right to hold elections under Israeli occupation." On this basis he contends that a dogmatic opposition to the elections as nothing more than legitimation for the ongoing US/UK occupation is a mistake. Indeed he goes further, noting that the elections have been forced on the occupying forces by mass action on the part of the Shia population lead by Grand Ayatollh Ali Sistani. On this basis he suggests that the elections, coupled with "the legitimate actions of resistance" (a point on which he elaborates along lines not disimilar to my own analysis of "the resistance" in Iraq) and action in the US and UK could help to bring about an expeditious withdrawal of the occupying powers.

Alex Callinicos responded to Achar's original article which he claims to have read "with a growing sense of dismay" a few days later. In it he makes a number of interesting points, particulalrly with regard to the resistance whom he seem to imply Achar is equating with Zarqawi. In response Achar wrote a further piece in which he deals with a number of Callinicos's disagreements, criticises the consistency of his analysis and clarifies a number of his original points.

The various contributions are all worth reading in full. For my part I don't agree with the entirety of either protagonist's arguments. For my part, I think that the elections have the potential to fuel sectarian conflict in Iraq. Sistani has called for Shia to participate in the elections and they are likely to do as they are told in potentially massive numbers. The many parties boycotting the election are overwhelmingly Sunni and the capacity of militants to prevent people voting by the use of violence is much greater in Sunni areas (indeed Seumas Milne has suggested that militias in Shia areas may "dragoon" voters to the polls). The cumulative effect of all these forces is that we are likely to see a stark difference between Shia and Sunni partipation in the elections which can only deligitmise the resulting assembly in the eyes of the Sunni community.

Quite how this should inform strategy I am not sure, but I think it is important to bear mind and should be recalled when in the aftermath of the elections supporters of the occupation hold up the turnout (which is likely to be high, albeit with the provisos discussed above) as proof that the invasion and occupation have been a success and that the anti-war movement were wrong all along.

Update: Callinicos has replied to Achar's reply to his original reply (if you see what I mean).

Pathological Politics revisited

2005-01-17T15:40:00.000Z

Further to my September post about psychopathy as a trait of political leaders (see also Disillusioned Kid's response and my counter-response), i'd like to share the findings of a recent psychological study by B. Board & Dr Katarina Fritzon, a forensic psychologist at Surrey. Entitled 'Disordered Personalities at Work' (Psychology, Crime and Law, 11, 17-32), the study of senior British managers and CEOs revealed:-

"...higher scores on self-reported measures of histrionic, narcissistic and compulsive personality than did two samples of former and current patients at Broadmoor hospital." - British Psychological Society Research Digest, issue 34

Apparently these reveal such traits as "superficial charm, lack of empathy and perfectionism" (Ibid.). The only differences were lower anti-social behaviour, and paranoia. This is consistent with the concept of 'successful psychopaths':-

"...people with personality disorder patterns, but without the
characteristic history of arrest and incarceration." - Board & Fritzon (2005)

So basically, they're psychopaths who have the social skills to be able to use this to their advantage in society. I wonder who else could fit into that category...

These kind of findings certainly shed some light on some of the nasty effects of the corporate agenda i very briefly and inadequately sketched previously ("Massive sell out"). In addition to the findings of 'The Corporation', that the corporation as an entity can be classified as psychopathic, so too can it's leader and gangmasters. Despite our supposed crawl out of the primordial soup of the realms of 'survival of the fittest', our society is still shaped along the same lines, with alpha males (and let's face it, they're still predominantly male) selected by their capacity to inflict cruelty without flinching, always ending up at the top.

Certainly, given the 'evolution' of our political system, it seems a fair enough assumption to equate politicians with business leaders. The government of today is little more than a device to effectively 'manage' UK PLC. No brownie points are awarded our elected representatives for their idealism, but they are castigated in the media for their inefficiencies and poor business sense. In this kind of environment the successful psychopath will thrive.

All this serves to prove that those who aspire to power are the least suitable to wield it. So let's just do away with power all together...

NSPM in 2004

2005-01-08T23:54:00.000Z

Below is an ongoing, and interactive, review of 2004, looking at events organised by the Peace Movement and major political events of the last year. More than one team member has logged-in and developed the text. Anybody else is free to contribute via the comments box. If we end up with anything half-decent, it can go in the next edition of Ceasefire. If we end up with something rubbish... nah, we never do anything rubbish in the peace movement do we ;)

Peace Fora (that's peace forums to you or i ):
Building on the success of the Ramzi Kysia talk towards the end of 2003 the Peace Movement sought to organise a series of fortnightly discussion meetings quaintly entitled "Peace Fora". The first took place during One World Week with Alan Simpson speaking and attracted around 40 people.

Alan Simpson - Iraq and the prospects for world peace

Alan gave a nice summary of his political views taking in not just Iraq, but Palestine and the rest of the world. The exhortations to join the Labour party did not find many sympathetic audience members tho...

Israel-Palestine Peace Forum

Hich led a packed room of supporters through his accessible arguments for peace. As the room was almost entirely peace movement or pro-Palestine, not a huge amount of debate occurred.

Surveillance Peace Forum

Dave Wills' expertise on surveillance and its insidious encroachment on our society was sparsely attended, but that allowed a complex and rich discussion. Interesting stuff (and he's coming back for the Peace Conference in Feb).

State and Militarism Peace Forum

Unfortunately only me, Rich & Andy (the speaker) turned up! A shame as a deeply interesting and well-researched thesis was offered.

Black History Month - Malcolm X Event

There were actually two events on Malcolm X this year.

Milan Rai - The war on/of terror

First of the new academic year. Mil gave a searingly honest talk to our biggest audience yet (80+), to a reaction of celebration by most and disgust by a few (urm, the tories).

November 26 - Race, Justice and Peace

Promised to be an interesting exploration of racism, but Simpy took ages to get to the point and then Tamimi turned out to be bleedin awful

Other Stuff We Did:
Kick Racism Out of Football tournament

Messing about in boots!

March 20

Demo on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Hardly our greatest success in terms of turn-out, but worth a mention.

Sounds on the Downs

Saved from an almost terminal lack of planning by the 11th hour intervention of Lenton & Wortley hall. The day actually turned out to be a lot of fun with many bands, acoustic acts, Turkish dancers, MCs, and a big crowd. Some dispute over the extent to which it really fitted in with our aims, but certainly good fun!

Glastonbury Festival

OK, so we can't claim credit for that, but a lot of us went. Which was nice. Dk

Geoff Hoon

Bit of a twat... (need we say more)

European Social Forum

Spawned a thousand (well, maybe about 10) blog articles back in the heady days when the blog got updated more than once a month (see October archives). About 20 of us went down and enjoyed the sights, sounds and controversy of the 2004 ESF at the Ally Pally in London.

Demo

'Our' first club night. Very succesful by all accounts. I certainly enjoyed myself. Over 300 people came during the night, to get covered in UV paint, hear the bands, pick up a copy of Ceasefire thinking 'what the f...', etc.

November 23-December 3 - One World Week

Major Events:
Stuff we weren't really involved in but which could hardly be left out of any serious review of 2004.

The year was not a good one for the inhabitants of Fallujah which was the target of two major US-led assaults the first in April in response to the lynching of four American "contractors" in the city and the second in November once the US Presidential Elections were out of the way. In the intervening period the city was under the control of the "Fallujah Brigades" made up of former Iraqi officers and insurgents and saw regular bombings carried out by the US against "safe houses" ostensibly un by the Tawhid Wal Jihad Group apparently led by Jordanian extremist Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.

June 28 - "Handover of sovereignty" in Iraq

Impeachment of Blair "proceedings" begin

Najaf

Death of Yasser Arafat

December 26 - Asian tsunami

A lot done and a long way to go. Coming in 2005: Look out for the Peace Conference (Feb 13th), Demo's official launch night (Jan 22nd), Counter Terror - Build Justice (Spring), March 19th protests, Iraqi elections (30th Jan), and many more unpredicted and unpredictable events.

Aceh: Beyond the human interest tagline...

2005-01-08T00:40:00.000Z

'Lenin' has some important thoughts on the situation in Aceh in the aftermath of the tsunami. Anyone looking for a good introduction to the conflict in the region should try this. Oh, and while you're at it, this blog has a host of good stuff on the politics underlying responses to the tsunami.

Tsunami

2004-12-28T19:25:00.000Z

Words fail me...

Anybody looking for "news and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts" in response to the tsunami which ravaged coastal areas across South and South-East Asia on Sunday should go here. Yet another powerful demonstration of the potential of blogging.

For perceptive political analysis, putting the disaster into context go here.

When "0 COMMENTS" is a way of life...

2004-12-23T18:58:00.000Z

Nobody's written in response to my post on the DRC yesterday and a look at the readers of the site over the last few days suggests that I may be the only person who's visited the site since yesterday. Someone please write something in the comments box to convince me I'm not wasting my time posting here... Please!

Confessions of the Ignorant

2004-12-22T19:28:00.000Z

Much has been said over the last year or so about ongoing atrocities in Darfur. Tragically, however, this is far from the only conflict currently occurring in Africa. Another is the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This has claimed the lives of 3.8 million people already and tragically appears to be resuming as George Monbiot noted in his column last week, although you may well have missed it. Despite being the deadliest conflict the world has seen since the Second World War, I must confess I know little about it. Perhaps one of my fellow team members can contribute something useful. Anyone else, please feel free to utilise the comments facility to correct my ignorance.

Blogger Me!

2004-12-16T22:57:00.000Z

This thing has not become the invaluable and exciting resource that we had hoped when we created it. Despite having 5 ostensible members none of us seem to be able to find the time, in between activisming (for want of a better term) in the real world and living our lives, to post here very often and as such it rarely gets updated. Those of you looking for something to read may be interested, however, in some of our member's other efforts:

I maintain a blog entitled the Disillusioned kid which takes in a huge spread of issues with particular focus on the issues of Diego Garcia and Uzbekistan.
Andy Robinson is involved in 2 other blogs. His own effort is matter-of-factly called Andrew Robinson - Theory Blog which consists of various academic articles he has written. Hardly easy going, but fascinating nonetheless. He is also a member of the similarly imaginatively titled Post Colonial Studies Blog which does more-or-less what it says on the tin.
The Hich also has his own blog, The Daily Hich although the name here is rather less appropriate as it has been rather more than a day since it was last updated. Mores the pity as his writing style is invigorating and his analysis unique.
DanR's own effort has unfortunately been consigned to the memory hole, although he has been relatively prolific here.
As for newcomer L, we await her entry into the blogosphere with bated breath.

Hopefully by the time you've read all that someone will have posted something interesting here. I wouldn't count on it though.

What's this then?

2004-12-15T21:35:00.000Z

Lookee here!

Massive sell out

2004-11-23T11:12:00.000Z

Some time at the end of last week, I was sitting in the Portland Cafe and noticed some flyers that had been left on most of the tables in the immediate vicinity. It was for The Times' "Top 100 Graduate Employers", a book distributed by careers services for free. The list, according to the flyer, is based on research conducted on more that 15,000 final year students leaving UK universities in 2004. I was intrigued to find out where exactly large numbers of my fellow students were going.

Predictably, the results were astoundingly awful. Some companies and sectors were listed on the rear of the flyer. Talk about an anti-capitalist's nightmare! The list included oil multinationals (ExxonMobil & Shell), banks (Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland), arms manufacturers & (ab)users (Army, BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence, Rolls Royce), and big pharma (AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline). There were many other activist "favourites" in there too: ASDA (Walmart), British Nuclear Group, Marks & Spencers, and McDonalds (tellingly). I'm sure if you're reading this website you don't really need any introduction to the multiple sins of these transnational villains. If, however, you do, I'd advise you to check out Corporate Watch, and the links i've (hurriedly) included above.

Of what remained, there were plenty of accounting and consultancy firms, financial services, marketing and media corporations. Mobile phone companies and supermarkets. The kind of really useful jobs that we couldn't live without. Ok, so the NHS did make it on there, and a teacher recruitment programme. And the truly fine body of men and women that make up the Metropolitan police (should have filed them under weapon abusers).

It would appear that students don't give a shit, except about the money of course. It could be that people genuinely don't know about the concerns that activists for social justice raise around some of these corporations. However, from a recent leafletting campaign around a careers fair at the university I took part in, I would say that it's mainly the "don't care" camp. Some people who read our leaflets about Shell and Rolls Royce were genuinely shocked, but most would just shrug their shoulders and continue their enquiries about pay and promotions. It's easy to brush out of sight concerns about the ultimate use (and possible great harm) of your future career, when listening to the seductive tones of a company rep. The companies wouldn't really be allowed to do these things, would they?

The necessary myth about the ultimately harmless nature of corporate activities, is a very worrying one. Whether we like it or not, students at universities like our own are going to be the captains of industry, the leading politicians, and influential thinkers of the imminent future. If there is no dissent about the choices that are acceptable to make in choosing a career, and if there is no questioning of the role of one's life except for personal profit, now whilst we are young and idealistic, god help us in 10 or 20 years time. Sure, we can have ethical careers fairs, and that's a good place to start in getting people thinking, but we have to be more radical than that. It's the idea of thinking about having a career, rather than having a full and complete life, that I object to. It's time we challenged the prostitution of our abilities, and the control that the corporate job market holds over people. We should be making people ask what they would prefer: someone to design the next generation of mobile phones that we all have to slavishly buy, or someone who's going to provide a useful role in a community. It's time we started thinking of what we 'should' be doing with our lives.

Ceasefire expansion

2004-11-15T15:40:00.000Z

Those of you who've been following NSPM's output over the last few years will know all about Ceasefire, our extremely irregular but always classic publication (!). A new version is to be released imminently, in the (slightly modified) style of the last few editions. We'll probably be distributing it some upcoming events, but if you can't make it then you can download the electronic version, as soon as it's available, from the Ceasefire web page.

I recently sent out a few posts on the planning list and had a very small meeting with a few interested people, about the potential expansion of Ceasefire. We were agreed on the aim of getting some more challenging and radical ideas out to a wider audience via the newsletter, but had different ideas on how to go about it. Whilst others were in favour of persuing Student Union grants and (selected) advertising to get a really big circulation going, I think I would favour a more gradual buildup of the project. For a start, I think we would be hard-pressed to approach the circulation of Impact, the glossier, more insipid student magazine. It would require a lot of money going into printing a newsletter that would create a lot of waste. Whilst I agree with the principle of exposing a wider audience to Ceasefire, I would be loathe to see it become as disposable as Impact, and also don't personally have the time to persue money for the project.

What I propose as an alternative first step in the process is to make members of other societies who are likely to be sympathetic aware of Ceasefire. Not just aware, in fact, but make their members realise that we would value their contributions of writing, editing, etc. To do this, it has to become less of a NSPM affair, and more of a cross-society project. We could send the new issue out to SEEN to promote it as a project in need of input. Once this has been acheived, I foresee a gradual increase in interest in Ceasefire, increasing the circles in which is read, and improving the quantity of material available to put in it. What would be good would be to devote space to regular columns, features, and contributors, as well as space to one-off comments and analysis. It could become a space for communication between societies and individuals, as well as for communication to the 'outer world' in general. Any thoughts, comments and contributions? Email NSPM.

Geoff Hoon: Bit of a Twat

2004-11-14T01:15:00.000Z

When we heard that Geoff Hoon, Secretary of Defence/Minister of War was coming to the University we thought it was too good a chance to miss. Although the turnout on our part wasn't great, about 10 of us turned up to have our say. The bulk of our efforts went into flyering the crowds outside. We also waved some placards around. Our efforts were surprisingly well received (at the very least, nobody threw anything) and we attracted the interest of the student magazine Impact who took photos and asked why we were there. Hopefully we'll get a mention in the next edition.

We gave out perhaps a hundred copies of the flyer, maybe more (we'd printed around 200). Considering I'd knocked them together in a hurry the previous day, I was quite proud of them and think they strike an appropriate, intelligent tone, but then what do I know?:

QUESTIONING HOON

Geoff Hoon has come to the University, ostensibly to 'answer your questions'. While we have no intention of preventing him speaking, we feel that with 'coalition' forces currently involved in a major assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, that his visit should not pass unchallenged. This being the case, a number of possible questions spring to mind:
' How does he respond to the charge that 'sending 850 British troops to reinforce 130,000 Americans can only be a political gesture, designed to ease President George Bush's re-election'? (Scotland on Sunday, 24/10/04) And further, does he believe that this justifies the five deaths the unit has sustained since the redeployment?

' Why has he refused to apologise for the invasion of Iraq, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it was predicated on lies, half-truths and omissions?

' In light of the recent report in the Lancet which estimated that 1000,000 Iraqis had died since the invasion of Iraq, does he not accept that the rhetoric about 'liberating' Iraqis is beginning to sound more than a little hollow?
If you think these are important questions we encourage you to push the Minister on them. You may also want to join our picket and/or get involved in the event below.

Below I appended details of the demonstration against a visit by Hone Office Minister David Blunkett to Nottingham which was supposed to be happening later that evening (the less said about which the better, as this turned out to be a false alarm) and contact details for the Peace Movement.

Surprisingly enough, we got into the hall where Hoon was to speak without difficulty, which was something we hadn't planned for. Unfortunately this meant that we then had to wait around for forty-five minutes until he arrived, because he was running late. He explained, on arrival, that his tardiness had something to do with British soldiers being dispatched to the Ivory Coast. He explained that they had been sent "I hope not to fight" but to evacuate British citizens in the country.

He began his talk with a brief account of his professional life in which he explained that he had been in his current job for 5 years and a Foreign Office Minister prior to that. He also recounted how as an MEP he had been in Berlin when the wall fell. Unfortunately this anecdote was tarnished slightly by his assertion that young people like us couldn't conceive of a situation where a country was divided by a wall as Germany had been during the Cold War. In fact, as one questioner pointed out later and most of the audience realised as soon as he had said it, we hardly need to imagine this and need only look to the construction of the "security fence"/"Apartheid Wall" by the Israeli Government which is continuing apace.

He then opened up to allow people to ask questions. These came from a variety of perspectives, although none of us managed to get asked. They also generated a number of interesting responses on the part of the Minister. One was his acknowledgement that the limited attention focused on Afghanistan prior to September 11th was "a mistake", an unusual example of honesty (perhaps the only one of the day?). Later he asserted, in response to allegations by a member of the audience, that there had been no murders at Deep-cut Barracks and no cover up. Instead the various deaths at the barracks were suicides. Perhaps my favourite remark was his claim that "three and a half more people" voted for Bush than Kerry, obviously a mistake, but an amusing one nonetheless.

A number of questions were posed about Iraq, Afghanistan and the "War on Terror" more generally, many of them highly critical. These provided the most interesting insight into the real Hoon. I was struck by the fact that he seemed to be taking much of the criticism very personally. He seemed to see attacks on the policies he had pursued as personal attacks on himself. He based his arguments on assertions that "young people like you" would be the victims if he failed to act forcefully against terrorism. (A similar argument arose in the context of "Son of Star Wars", or support for Israel.) His dismissive, defensive attitude simply reinforced my view that he is in fact - as the title to this post suggests - a bit of a twat. Somehow he still seemed to get raptuous applause at the end, although there was a sizeable minority of people in the room who refused to clap, myself included.

On reflection, it would probably have been better if we had prepared some kind of action which Hoon was actually likely to see. Our activities did a good job of reaching out to those in the audience, but probably had no impact on the Minister himself, despite the fact that he, and the policies he has pursued, were ostensibly the target of our protest. This is something to think about for the future. Cabinet Ministers don't come often, but with an election coming up sometime next year it is inevitable that this will not be the last time one of the fuckers decides to show their face at the university. Next time we'll be ready. And we'll give 'em hell.

What shall we do about Fallujah?

2004-11-08T14:30:00.000Z

As Richard has recently written on this blog, the assault against the city of Fallujah has begun. The Nottingham Stop the War coalition has opted for its usual strategy on such occasions, that is, to call for a demonstration in Market Square. This is to coincide with other actions up and down the country (or so we are to believe, Indymedia had only three such actions listed when I checked this morning). Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that the assault of Fallujah will be bloody, and doubtless come at the costs of many many civilian lives, I think there is growing dissent in the anti-war movement about the types of tactics we use, and there usefulness.

Within the movement itself there has been, for some time, a division between those wanting to call for more and more national demonstrations in London (despite the dwindling numbers), and those wanting to opt for direct action approaches, such as Mil Rai's little adventure, blogged about by Richard at the weekend. The demonstration option was enshrined from the moment that 1-2million people took to the streets of London in protest against the invasion of Iraq on 15th Feb 2003, but many seem to ignore the fact that recent demonstrations have acheived nothing like such numbers (even with the aid of Europeans coming to London for the ESF). The popular support for such actions is no longer there. Even those turning up complain of knowing exactly who is going to speak and what they're going to say before they get there. The media give such demonstrations scant coverage and politicans find it easy to ignore them. They have become impotent and drain our resources.

The direct action alternatives proposed by such organisations as Justice Not Vengeance, and Trident Ploughshares, are to train small groups of committed activists to non-violently obstruct the physical structures associated with the military and government, in an attempt to make it more and more costly to ignore their protests, effectively forcing the end of military actions. This type of action has the advantage of requiring significantly fewer people to undertake, it doesn't need to be publicised (although this can give it a dual role), and actually forces some kind of response on the side of those targetted. But there are serious issues raised with this kind of action. In speaking to fellow activists about such approaches in recent days, about the Mil Rai incident and others, I hear a lot of voices of caution. People are wary about any actions that could potentially alienate the public and allow activists to be easily cast as the villains. People are wary about being arrested and facing the possibility of prison sentences and fines for actions that they perceive as having a minimal effect on the system they are attempting to change. People are wary about the motives of those who carry out such actions, that they are too willing to cast themselves as heros in some kind of epic struggle. I think that many of these are valid and need to be addressed.

In my experience, an act of extreme violence and oppression, like the US-British assault on Fallujah, inspire in us who have thought about the consequences of such acts, a deep urge to end them. We look to the people in the anti-war movement for solidarity and inevitably end up protesting using the methods that they are used to using. In the case of the Stop the War coalition this usually means having a demo. The general public are very used to such actions now, and have generally decided whether they agree and are sympathetic or not. In either case a further demonstration is likely to have little effect on how they act. Indeed, the way these demos are organised and carried out, in true paper-selling style, may alienate not just the public but many people who would otherwise be willing to stand with us. If we are frustrated with the lack of StW's progress, and are willing to be more 'radical', we may mean some form of direct action. This may provoke more of a response from the authorities but it is likely to be more repressive as well. I do not suggest that this in itself is any reason not to engage in such action, however, if we are asking people to put themselves at risk of punitive measures by the police we should be able to show that their actions have meaning and are having an effect. I don't really see this as being the case at present.

The decision that I have arrived at about the forms of protest that I have described above are that they are effective only where there is mass public support for them, or where they strike at the heart of the oppressive machinery that we are trying to stop. In all other times our role in the peace movement has to be in mobilising that support. In providing the information that is needed to change the public perception of world events. To attempt to persuade people to think about world issues in a different light. To keep promoting that althenative perception. To expose the deep flaws in the current mass media. Not only these, but also to attempt to build peace, through supporting our local communities and building strong co-operative partnerships among groups. If we seek to end tyranny on a global level we have to show that peaceful alternatives exist at a local level. And of course, we have to end tyranny within ourselves first. But that's another blog, for another time...

And so it begins..

2004-11-08T13:06:00.000Z

The assault on Fallujah has begun. The attack opened with US forces taking the city's hospital (and, incidentally, according to the ITN lunchtime news arresting all "military-aged males", i.e everyone over the age of 14). The New York Times helpfully explains the motivation behind the move:

It was the second time in six months that a battle had raged in Falluja. In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw.

American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

Rahul Mahajan provides a rough translation of what this means, "The hospital was shut down because doctors told people how many innocents were killed by the American assault, thus making it a military target. Any pretence of civilization is now gone."

There's a demonstration against the assault on the city this evening in Market Square from 5pm and probably in cities across the country.

Missed Me?

2004-11-08T01:05:00.000Z

Dan sent me this by email, but hasn't posted it here. As he suggest, it may be of interest to anyone who was wondering what Milan Rai's been up to since he spoke at Nottingham Uni:

An anti-war protester has been arrested outside the Foreign Office in Whitehall in a dramatic visual protest against the imminent attacks on Fallujah.

After climbing onto the side of the Foreign Office building next to the gates of Downing Street, the protestor stencilled “Don’t Attack Fallujah, Black Watch Out” onto the wall and splashed it with fake blood.

He was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.

Shortly before being detained, the protester, Milan Rai, said:

“Today is a day of fear for the people of Fallujah. They need our active solidarity.”

The protest comes as the anti-war movement mobilises against the massive assault planned on Iraq’s cities.

On Sunday, a protestor scaled the gates of Downing Street and remained for 45 minutes, while others blocked traffic in Oxford Circus.

Around 500 people including Professor Stephen Hawking gathered in Trafalgar Square last night in a Naming the Dead ceremony to remember those who have died in the Iraq war.

Similar ceremonies took place in other town centres around the country.

An emergency demonstration against the looming attacks in Iraq will take place in Parliament Square at 2pm on Sunday 7th November. A funeral procession will proceed to the Cenotaph to lay white flowers for those at risk.

For those of you who don't know there will be demonstrations across the country when troops begin the assault on Fallujah. In Nottingham there will be a demo at 5pm in Market Square.

Vote and/or Die

2004-11-01T23:49:00.000Z

By the time I finish writing this, it may well be accurate to say that the day of the US Presidential Elections, which have so dominated politics this year, have finally arrived. To my mind, this is a good thing, if only because it means the whole affair will soon be over. Many of my friends and fellow activists have got very worked up about the election insisting that a Kerry victory is vital for the survival of the human race or that a vote for Nader is the only way to express opposition to the occupation of Iraq and the duopoly of power. I happen to think it's all pretty irrelevant.

Regardless of who ultimately emerges victorious little will change and I certainly wouldn't want to be living in Fallujah over the coming days and weeks. This has done little to stop the shrill cries of those positioning themselves in the Kerry or Nader camps (insofar as people living thousands of miles from the States with no ability to influence the elections can be considered within candidates' camps). Zeynep Toufe's poston the election is a breath of fresh air and I endorse everything she says, with the caveat that as a non-US citizen I acknowledge that it's a bit rich for me to start telling people who are how they should vote. You really should take the time to read it in full, but for the lazy among you, the following passage is particularly important:

To everyone who is voting for Kerry because they are against Bush and the war, I say: what's more important than your vote is that you get out there and fight tooth and nail against the Kerry administration which is certain to be belligerent, perhaps in finer, more refined ways than Bush.

To everyone who's voting for Nader thinking that's the correct way to stand up to the two-party duopoly I say: the duopoly is quite happy if all you do is show up on election day, vote for Nader and become relatively dormant until the next election. In fact, the real work is between elections.

Now go and read the rest.

Democracy in Action?

2004-11-01T01:46:00.000Z

A few weeks back, Canadian activist and blogger Justin Podur suggested a "people's referendum" on the occupation of Iraq in which people would be asked if they believed that troops should leave. As a model he pointed to a referendum on the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) in Brazil, organised by the Landless Peasants Movement (MST). Apparently 10 million people voted in this, with 98% expressing opposition the FTAA. Podur concedes that there is nothing comparable to MST in the west and that the idea has potential pitfalls, but argues that it is a potentially powerful campaigning tool. I refer to this now, not just because it is an interesting idea which merits greater comment than it seems to have received, but because I took part in something along these lines over the weekend.

Nottingham Stop the War Coalition organised a "ballot" on the withdrawal of the troops which they held in Marker Square. The exercise involved in encouraging people to express their support, opposition, or lack of opinion on the question of whether the occupying forces should be withdrawn from Iraq by marking a box next to their preference on a ballot paper. These ballots were then collected in a "ballot box" (in fact a cardboard box wrapped in black bags with a hole in the top). When counted afterwards, there were something like 230 votes in total (I forget the exact number) of which 90% were in support of withdrawal. The general consensus among those running the stall was that the event would be continued for at least a further week (if only to try and recover the cost of printing).

The idea seemed to interest people and considerable support for withdrawal was expressed, much of it apparently fuelled by anger over the redeployment of the "Black Watch". There were issues with people who oppose withdrawal refusing to participate, apparently because they misunderstood the idea, perhaps not unreasonably as it was obviously a "Stop the War" stall, the large banner behind us leaving nobody in doubt on that point. This will inevitably have skewed the results, but the 10% who didn't vote for withdrawal suggests that not all supporters of the war were put off and giving the whole exercise a degree of legitimacy. That said, there were questions about whether people were reading the questions and some people may have ticked the "No" box, thinking they were expressing their opposition to the occupation, when in fact they were supporting its continuation. The question could hardly be described as complicated and the only way I can see of surmounting this problem is improved communication between those manning the stall and those voting.

The real test of the whole exercise as a tactic will be what we are able to do with it to raise awareness. South Nottingham Labour MP and committed anti-war activist Alan Simpson (one of very few politicians I have any respect for) was supposed to make an appearance at the stall, but failed to do so. The media who had been contacted, were similarly absent. Nonetheless, there is talk of trying to make the final count into an event and using that to attract media interest. Even if we are successful in that regard, it still leaves the question of how we use the results we get at the end. Clearly, problems remain, but I thought Podur's idea had real potential when I first encountered it. I'm now more sure of that then ever.

Fallujah, November 3rd

2004-10-26T17:27:00.000+01:00

The US presidential elections are now only a week away. Many within the anti-war movement have got very excited about the whole charade and are convinced that Kerry is somehow going to be a massive improvement Dubya. Unfortunately the differences between the two are slight to nonexistent in most areas, particularly as regards Iraq. Whoever wins, we can expect to see massive US assaults on cities which they do not currently control, in the aftermath. Fallujah, being but the most prominent among these. Voices UK note,

On 11 Oct the Los Angeles Times reported that, according to US officials, the 'Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November ... mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.' "When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," a senior official involved in strategic planning told the paper. "Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications [of a large-scale offensive]. We're not on hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."

Given that we know that the assault is coming, we have some hope of stopping it. If we fail, the consequences for the populations of Fallujah, Ramadi and perhaps elsewhere, are grim.

A US official told washingtonpost.com on October 16 that, "If we have to fight in Fallujah it’s going to be very bloody and nasty." You only need to look to the last major assault on the city in April for evidence of just how accurate this statement is likely to be. The April assault was nothing short of a massacre, as Voices make clear:

- Hundreds of Iraqis were killed, many of them civilians. On 11 April the director of Fallujah’s general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, estimated – on the basis of figures gathered from four clinics around the city as well as the hospital itself - that more than 600 people had been killed and that ‘the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly’ (Guardian, 12 April).

- Warplanes, fighter bombers, military helicopters, gunships and remotely piloted Predator reconnaissance aircraft were all used in the attack on the city (New York Times, 30 April 2004). Houses - and at least one mosque - were attacked from the air, reportedly killing scores of civilians:

* ‘An airborne assault on a mosque killed at least 40 worshippers attending prayers’ on 7 April and ’16 children and eight women were reported to have been killed when US aircraft hit four houses’ the previous day (Independent, 8 April).

* Menem Latif Hussain told the Guardian how a house at the end of his street suffered from a direct hit from a powerful bomb. “We ran to the house because they were my friends. In the garden I saw three men had been sitting on a bench. They were all dead, they had been cut in half by the bomb’ (Guardian, 24 April).

- There were numerous press reports of US snipers firing on – and killing – unarmed civilians:

* Mohammed Hadi, told the Telegraph that US marines snipers had taken up position in the minarets of a local mosque and shot dead his neighbour (12 April). “He was just on his way to buy tomatoes,” he told the paper. And 17-year-old Hassan Monem, who claimed that two of his friends ‘were shot as they stood in my yard.’

* Likewise, Ali, 28, who had managed to escape with part of his family, related how “one man in an Opel drove his wife and children to the bridge so they would walk over. As he drove back to town, an American sniper killed him” (Guardian, 12 April).

* Abu Mohammed (30) told the Guardian that as he “was about to leave [Fallujah] there were two ladies trying to get out. American snipers shot them dead. Their bodies are still lying out on the street in al-Jumhuriya” (30 April).
One US Marine Major told Time magazine that it was “hard to differentiate between people who are insurgents or civilians. You just have to go with your gut feeling.” (Time, 11 April). A marine corporal explained that “Sometimes a guy will go down and I’ll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies,” a marine corporal explained. “Then I’ll use a second shot” (Daily Oakland Press, 17 April).
A senior UK army officer, told the Sunday Telegraph that “when US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area … They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are’, ‘they view [Iraqis] as untermenschen [the Nazi expression for “sub-humans”]. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful’ (11 April).
- Several reports strongly suggested that US snipers targeted ambulances in Fallujah. The head of mission of a European humanitarian agency with staff in Fallujah told BBC News Online that two of their ambulances had been shot at ‘probably by US snipers’ (BBC, 23 April); and a UK national, Jo Wilding, was present in a clearly marked ambulance that she claims was shot at by US snipers (see www.wildfirejo.org.uk/feature/display/114/index.php).
- The New York Times reported that at least one battalion [in Fallujah] had ‘orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not (14 April). Recounting how he shot dead ‘an Iraqi man … walking down the street in no-man’s land … [who had] his hands suspiciously in his pockets’, Corporal Ryan Long from Alpha Company explained: “I got one of my juniors to fire a warning shot, but the guy kept on walking, so I said: ‘Let me do it’ … Last year I’d have never shot a guy without a weapon’’ (Times, 15 April).
- So many Iraqis were killed that the Fallujah Sports Club was turned into a makeshift cemetery. Times reporter Stephen Farrell counted 32 graves on the pitch and 180 more on the practice park, including the graves of Omar (9, killed 9 April), Wisam Salah (eight months) and Mohammed Khalaf (15 months) (Times, 3 May). ‘The gravediggers said the cemetery was full of women and children’ (New York Times, 27 April).
- ‘The city’s main hospital … was closed by the marines’ and, according to the Iraq emergency co-ordinator for Medicins sans Frontieres – who visited Fallujah during the fighting – “The Americans put a sniper on top of the hospital’s water tower” in violation of the Geneva Convention (Guardian, 24 April).

We cannot stand by and let this happen again.

Voices are encouraging people to write to their MPs expressing their opposition to the planned attacks, reminding them of the horrors of the April assault and calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The Stop the War Coalition are also calling for decentralised actions in the event that a ground assault goes ahead. Nottingham Student Peace Movement are planning to mobilise around the issue and we encourage you to get involved. The world is watching. Fallujah needs you, as does humanity.

Creativity and the ESF

2004-10-26T14:47:00.000+01:00

Proving to be a great alternative to jargon-laden, and often dry, political debate, I went along to a session called 'culture, a weapon of mass construction', organised by representatives of the European Creative Forum. The speakers represented the move to combine political struggle and resistance with art and creativity, and were quite resentful by the way they'd been confined to the fringes of the ESF.

We heard from Lisa Goldman of Artists Against the War, about her attempts to bring radical theatre to the stage via her Red Room project. She spoke about the issue of accessibility in theatre - how theatre is seen as a pursuit of the upper- and middle-classes, usually quite conservative audiences, and how she's tried to put on productions in local community venues to bring theatre to bigger, more mixed audiences. She's also attempted to tackle social problems in her plays, including a recent play on the Hoxton area of London. The area was once a poor, working class area until artists started moving in, followed by an entourage of the trendy, and resulting in gentrification of the area. The original inhabitants have been forced into council accommodation by the meteoric rise in house prices the gentrification has instigated. She promoted the use of 'artisitic interventions' to give people a measure of control back in their communities. Art, she said, challenges thought control and inspires rebellion. Good art is dangerous, it is not a commodity.

Next up was a guy from the Movement of the Imagination, who are attempting to set up an anti-capitalist cultural network (see their site for details). He railed against the privatisation of culture, where we see galleries sponsored by major corporations, and artists commissioned for making adverts. He also highlighted the recent arrest of a member of the Critical Art Ensemble under the Patriot act, as evidence of increasing attacks on culture. Behind the mask of liberalism, there lies a very authoritarian force. This is the reason why mainstream culture says so little about reality, because our consciousness is locked into a corporate mindstate. He highlighted how this is creating tensions in our society with the example of the internet, which was developed with the principles of sharing, but is now being fenced off to the highest bidders, with true sharing (e.g. Napster) being smashed. Art, he argued, can expose the flaws of the capitalist system, but this must be backed up by political action. This is why MoI are setting up an anti-capitalist cultural network, and want to lobby the ESF to bring cultural debates right to the centre of the forum, not just to have nice pictures to look at here and there.

There then followed a series of inspired rambling and intellectualising from questioners. Someone quoted Antonio Gramschi "the problem is not the level of dissent and critique, but organising it", in support of networking. There was further criticism of the format of art in the social forum as being very dull. People are being told what to do with their art, acting as consumers, not really being creative. There was also support for giving communities who were "being starved of the culture that they need" by a system of "cultural barbarity", who'd witnessed the death of community theatre that he'd been involved in. Many questioned the rather elitist suggestion that social forums were the places to bring art and culture, and discuss it. The people who need the most support in their artistic endeavours were seen as 'out there' rather than in the social forum.

This seminar made an interesting break from the rather concrete political arguments of the rest of the ESF, although this was the only time that I saw evidence of concrete plans being made (the network of artists). It seems clear to me that creativity and culture are central to the struggle against social and political bondage, and agreed with those who wanted to see the politics of the forum more firmly wedded to a creative aspect, in a more equal relationship. A large part of the struggle that we face against the system is breaking the mind control of the mass media and corporate culture, and genuine creativity is the obvious route to such a liberation.

Freedom, Security, Peace?

2004-10-25T13:02:00.000+01:00

There were literally hundreds of meetings, seminars, workshops and plenaries taking place at the ESF, many of them with titles which amounted to little more than slogans, while others read like the title to some dry academic thesis. Nonetheless a few stuck out when reading the programme - which stretched to 70-odd pages - and demanded that I attend. One such event was a seminar on Saturday entitled, "Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians: Fighting Racism, Fighting the Occupation," organised by European Jews for a Just Peace.

The seminar was addressed by various speakers who had all been involved in efforts to bring Jews and Arabs together in pursuit of peace. Two speakers from France discussed their efforts to bring together a Jewish organisation and one made up Moroccan immigrants with not inconsiderable success. Another was an Israeli who had lost their sister in a suicide bombing and who spoke on behalf of the Bereaved Parents Forum. A women from the Jerusalem Women's Centre and Al-Quds University recounted her experiences of working to bring together women from both sides of the divide. A further women, a "Palestinian-Israeli" (although an Arab and an Israeli citizen she strongly rejected the term Arab Israeli) spoke about her experiences working in Ta'ayush (the name comes from the Arabic for living together) a campaign group made up of Arabs and Israelis.

The speaker from the Bereaved Parents Forum was particularly interesting. The organisation was set up in 1994 and has made various efforts to end the conflict. They have provided phones to allow Israelis and Palestinians to talk for free, enabling 1 million conversations to take place. They have also carried out blood transfers, using blood collected from one side to help the other (I think this went both ways, but I'm not entirely sure). The speaker also revealed that he was a member of Courage to Refuse, one of the organisations supporting refuseniks within the Israeli Defence Force, and called for people to come from around the world and help end the conflict and the occupation.

The speaker from Ta'ayush offered another interesting perspective. The organisation has some 300 active members, from both communities, although 70% were Jewish. They did, however, have a large email list. Their demands were of particular interest, as they called for freedom for both peoples, security and peace and were clear that they must be achieved in that order. This seems to me much more realistic than the demands of Sharon that security come first and that everything will then follow at some indeterminate point in the future, an approach which leaves the whole process under the control of the extremists.

The question and answer section was actually quite constructive and avoided descending into sloganeering and shouting. One contribution came from a refusenik who called for support for a female refusenik about to face the Supreme Court. This is presumably Laura Milo, details on whom are available here. Another said that they were seeking to hold a meeting bringing together refuseniks from the French campaign in Algeria with Israeli refuseniks and suggested something similar might be possible with those refusing to serve in the occupation of Iraq, a very interesting idea which might merit looking into.

Heard it on the Grapevine

2004-10-24T21:14:00.000+01:00

From the latest edition of Grapevine (the University of Nottingham Students' Union newsletter, for those of you not in the know):

The Students’ Union Education Officer, Alex Hawkins, will be spending a week in Malaysia from 7th October as part of a team assessing the quality of students’ education at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His role will be to ensure that student views are heard in the process.

To highlight the manner in which University money is spent, Alex has downgraded his flight from business to economy class and will be staying in a youth hostel instead of a hotel. A quick search online finds a business class flight to Malaysia for £2470 while an economy class flight is only £489. A saving of one thousand nine hundred and eighty one pounds, for just a few less inches of legroom and a slightly rougher meal!

We are becoming an international university, with another campus recently opened in China. Senior staff at the University fly around the world business class, not only to these campuses but to many other international events. If the Vice Chancellor flew economy then there might be enough money to pay for an extra counsellor or member of academic staff.

The University’s international focus may be intended to make profits and increase the global reputation of the University in the long term, but what about its’ obligations in the short term? The University has to remember that now, more than ever, it is financially accountable to its’ students.

Alex is requesting that some of what he is saving the University should be spent on buying 100 energy saving light bulbs for students, so that the whole trip can be made carbon neutral.

I'm usually one of the first people to criticise the SU, so it makes a nice change to be able to applaud them for something.

Stuff You Should Know About Uzbekistan

2004-10-23T13:46:00.000+01:00

The de facto British alliance with Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan returned to the pages of the papers in the week preceding the ESF with British ambassador to the country Craig Murray having his security clearance withdrawn and then being dismissed from the role entirely. Murray had attracted the anger of his superiors by pointing out the brutal reality of the Karimov regime's human rights record. I have followed the situation in the country on and off for much of this year and so when I noticed an event in the ESF programme entitled, "Campaigning against the Death Penalty (China and Uzbekistan)," I made a point of attending.

The seminar was organised by Amnesty International and a France-based organisation called the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH, The International Federation of Human Rights). Despite the title attention was focused primarily on Uzbekistan and Belarus was also drawn into the discussion. This reflects a new Amnesty campaign (please take the time to sign the petition) to encourage both countries, the last executors in the region, "abolish the death penalty in law and practice, and by doing so make Europe and Central Asia a death penalty - free zone."

The seminar began with an informative background on the use of the death penalty in the region. After the collapse of the USSR all 15 new states has the penalty on their statute books, but 9 have subsequently abolished it and 4 have moratoria, however 2 of these apply only to the carrying out of the sentence, the other 2 extend to the sentence itself. Kyrgyzstan, for instance, has a moratorium, but 140 people remain on death row. The speaker argued that NGO pressure had played a crucial role in achieving those improvements which have emerged.

Uzbekistan is a particularly serious example. In September 2001, President (dictator might be a more accurate term) Islam Karimov claimed that around a 100 people were executed in the country every year. NGOs suggest that the real figure could be twice that. The treatment of suspects and those on death row is also a serious issue. In December 2002 the UN Special Rapponteur visited the country and reported that torture was "systemic". More encouragingly, 20 sentences have apparently been commuted thanks to international pressure.

The key speakers in the seminar were two women from Mothers Against the Death Penalty in Uzbekistan, an NGO based in the country. The first had lost her son to the country's "justice" system. He had been arrested and then tortured in order to obtain a confession. This had failed and he had only agreed to sign a confession when his tormentors had threatened his mother. After a kangaroo court trial he had been sentenced to death. He was executed on the day his mother was supposed to visit, without her being given any advance warning. To this day, she does not know where her son is buried as officials refuse to tell her.

The second speakers from the organisation had a brother who was currently on death row, where he had been for almost two years. He was accused of terrorism, which under laws passed by Karimov made her, as a family member, a criminal as well leaving her unable to find employment. He had been beaten on several occasions, once in front of his father. On one occasion he was beaten so badly that when his sister went to visit him, she didn't recognise him. She was unable to see him more than a maximum of once a month and described the knowledge that death could come at anytime as the worst torture.

Both speakers recounted stories of being approached for bribes to save their relatives' lives. Sentences in murder cases, for instance, can range from 15 years to life, with the former a possibility if you can afford to bribe the police. The second speaker was told that she could save her brother's life with $20,000, a figure she could not hope to raise given the means of the average citizen in the country.

The meeting then turned briefly to China. The People's Republic apparently has 65 crimes punishable by death, including corruption. In 2003 a minister claimed that 10,000 people had been executed. This had encouraged FIDH to begin plans for a campaign around the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing.

This was followed by a question and answer session, primarily focusing on the two representatives from Mothers Against the Death Penalty. They were asked at one point for their opinions on the dismissal of Craig Murray and responded by describing him as a man of honour who felt the pain of ordinary people in the country, who the British should be proud of. Considered alongside the comments of 9 opposition parties in a letter to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Parliament reported in the Independent on Wednesday, it is clear that Murray has turned the rhetoric about "hearts and minds" into a reality. That he has been removed from his post is a great shame, both for the victims of Karimov's regime and for the UK which will presumably now step up its report for that same regime.

New approaches to racism and fascism

2004-10-21T17:20:00.000+01:00

I attended a couple of interesting seminars on race issues at the ESF. On Friday evening there was a session entitled 'Cultural Diversity, Multiculturalism or Integration?' at the AP, and then on Saturday morning we were at NATFHE for 'The demagogic use of anti-globalisation phrases by the far right'. I must confess, I don't remember huge amounts about Friday's seminar - it was the 5th of the day and I wasn't really taking huge amounts in. The speakers, including Lee Jasper of the National Assembly Against Racism (who was involved in the scuffle with anarchists described in a previous post), were adamant that black and Asian people take back the debate about multiculturalism that has been subverted by the white mainstream. It certainly seems perverse that the white middle-classes can congratulate themselves on being part of a 'multicultural' society, whilst racism is still endemic, from anti-immigrant pronouncements by the home secretary to racial bias in education.

Much more specific information sunk in at the NATFHE seminar, as a combined result of a) it being the first session of the day, and b) me taking notes. We got there a little late, which was a shame as the chair, Bernard Schmid, was laying into Walden Bellow's article in Socialist Worker calling for "national liberation" in the Palestinian struggle. He continued in his criticism of the left for failing to hold the EU and European governments to account for their deeds, whilst concentrating on the evils of the Americans. This was a form of racism, an anti-Americanism. Whilst simplifying issues with slogans like 'Bush out' we're neglecting our responsibilities in calling our own governments to account.

Next up was a representative of Unite Against Fascism, the UK-based alliance. He had some interesting things to say about the BNP's attempt to move towards the mainstream, and pointed to their suprising dual involvement in the Countryside Alliance and animal liberation activism. The key reason why the anti-fascist movement has succeeded in avoiding major political gains in this country (compared to other European countries, such as France and Belgium), is because a diverse array of politicians and organisations have been pulled together under the banner of anti-fascism, something they can all agree on. By calling the BNP fascist we can put them in their proper context, alongside the movements of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. The 15th Feb anti-war march in Britain was also an anti-racist march, he said, because of the mixed racial composition of those marching in solidarity. The BNP is an enemy of globalisation because they are imperialists afraid of their domination by rival powers, such as Muslim nations.

Next up was a French observer of the Front Nationale, Le Pen's fascist party. Covering a lot of stuff that I'd already picked up about the FN whilst living in France, he spoke about how the FN had risen to prominence on the back of a radicalisation of the old middle classes of France, against taxes, immigration and in support of France's colonial past. These ideas were paraded under the banner of insecurite (insecurity), and were responded to by a shift to the right by mainstream conservatives (something that seems to be happening in Britain as well). Interestingly, Le Pen supported Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. This was due to his status as an old ally of France, so the stance was really a kneejerk reaction of the French colonialists. In France the fascists have created their own language of anti-globalisation. Where left wing analyses employ the term mondialisation (globalisation) to describe the pernicious effects of global neo-liberalism, the right use mondialism (globalism) to describe the conspiracy they claim is attacking them, and includes everything from outsourcing of jobs to international Marxism and universal human rights. As is the fascist's wont, it usually ends up blaming the Jews.

Rafel Pankowski of UNITED (Poland) had an interesting view from Eastern European experiences of the far right. Apparently, the Polish magazine 'The Citizen', (the magazine of the Polish branch of ATTAC, the international anti-globalisation organisation), became infiltrated by the far right, who used it as a platform to praise Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma bomber) and promote the idea of a conservative revolution. Apparently, across Eastern Europe, far right sympathisers are using organisations like ATTAC to gain popularity for their nationalist ideas. He called for international solidarity in fighting these attacks on the lefts anti-globalisation agenda, and suggested that we use alternative globalisation instead of anti-globalisation.

Finally, representatives of the Danish group DEMOS, had worrying news about the Danish People's Party, who sounded rather similar to UKIP in my mind. By campaigning on an anti-tax and anti-immigration platform with the use of emotional symbolism rather than rational debate, they've managed to become quite a force in Danish politics. Vehemently anti-Muslim, they are also pro-Israeli, and insinuate that their country has been invaded by Islam, just as it was invaded by the Nazis in WWII. By expelling the obvious extreme 'nutters' and taking advantage of a political vacuum their popularity is rising.

It's Getting Hot In Here...

2004-10-20T15:32:00.000+01:00

The sheer scale of the ESF and huge variety of events which you could chose to attend was at times overwhelming. As a consequence you couldn't possibly get to all the meetings you might like to and I for one ended up selecting many more or less at random. This highly complex selection procedure resulted in me attending two meetings looking at global warming, the first focused on the phenomenon consequences for development, while the latter was ostensibly about emissions trading, although the discussion seemed more focused on the Kyoto protocol and other international agreements concerned with the problem.

My notes from the two meetings stretch to several pages, but much of what I recorded would probably be of little interest were I to attempt to write it up given my own, admittedly limited, knowledge of the area. Instead I will attempt to tease out the elements which I thought were particularly interesting and eye opening.

One idea which ran through the first meeting was the relationship between global warming and the north-south relationship. It was pointed out that the problem is largely the historical responsibility of the West, but that it is the Global South, who are the least able to cope, who will be the worst hit. That said, speakers argued that we are already beginning to see the consequences of global warming even in the developed world. The deaths in last year's French heatwave were cited as an example, with the proviso that the consequences in the Third World are likely to be far worse.

Particularly worrying were statistics which were cited which showed that if nothing were done 1,053,000,000 people would be at an increased risk of water shortages. Even if Kyoto were implemented in full, 800,000,000 would still be at an increased risk. Nonetheless the speaker (her name escapes me, but I think she was a professor) argued that because the likely consequences are so serious and irreversible we cannot afford to do nothing on the basis of scientific uncertainty (although she made a convincing case for the reality of global warming).

By far the most impressive speaker was Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation. His speech consisted of a fascinating argument about western responsibility for climate change, which I could not hope to recount in detail here although a few of his points merit repeating, even out of context. He discussed the gold stolen from the people's of Latin America and used to fund the development of the west. He cited an activist who argued that this should be seen as a friendly loan - any other interpretation would see it as an act of war - on which compound interest should be repayable at the usual rate. Had this been done the weight of a pile of gold equal in value to the total amount of the interest would apparently be greater than the weight of the Earth. Simms also revealed that one company was presenting coal as an "alternative" fuel, arguing that it is an alternative to wood.

My favourite comment was his description of emissions trading as a "trade in stolen goods" (because the consequences of global warming flow from northern exploitation of southern resources). He added to this later by describing carbon sequestration (the planting of forests to "offset" carbon emissions) as "carbon laundering". He also had an amusing, if elaborate, analogy for the plight of those in the Third World in which he described someone returning to their home to find it full of uninvited guests from the north using up the air and who had also left the taps and gas running, causing serious damage to the premises. In this situation, he argued, the claims of the uninvited guests that they were helping the homeowners by virtue of small aid payments would hardly be credible.

The meeting on emissions trading was much drier and there is little I feel compelled to recount here, apart from noting the proliferation of firms and inter-governmental organisations swarming around the issue, seen as a major market opportunity.

Closing down the open space

2004-10-20T15:06:00.000+01:00

One of the major news events of the ESF, was the controversial and early ending of the End the Occupation of Iraq debate. The meeting was to feature Subhi Al Mashadani, general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), an appointee of Paul Bremer and supporter of the occupation. Intensely disliked by many Iraqis and anti-war protesters, his recent appearance at the Labour party conference as a 'representative of Iraqi workers' was seen as particularly offensive. After the decision to invite Al Mashadani being denounced from the stage by Sabah Jawad (Iraqi Democrats Against the Occupation) as "...like inviting a member of the British National Party to address a meeting against racism", Al Mashadani was heckled with chants of "Off off off!" from a small but vocal minority. They later attempted to invade the stage, and the meeting was aborted after 40min.

Whilst I have no difficulty in seeing why IFTU and its representatives represent ideas that are unrepresentative of Iraqi workers, and why this is so offensive to many of us. However, the way in which the meeting is not a victory in any way for those who are sincere in their support for social forums and open space, and speaks volumes about the divisions in the movement. Whilst I was not actually in the meeting I was in the next division of the hall at the time straining to hear John Pilger talk about propaganda in the media. The chanting from the next partition, was reminiscent about a different kind of mindlessness, of the 'whoever shouts loudest gets their way' variety. This form of protest has shades of fascism and should have no place in any social forum. We should ask ourselves whether we were there to listen to others and learn, or whether we were there to make ourselves cosy in our political ideologies. If we disagree we can make our feelings felt in other less violent protests - for example by staging mass walkouts, such as the one planned for that plenary session, that was wrecked by those who felt that their chanting and intimidation was more important.

In an even more brutal action, those accusing Ken Livingstone of hijacking the ESF, stormed his platform and allegedly assaulted one of the speakers, leading to charges of racism. Whilst there are plenty of reasons to be resentful of "Red" Ken, and the ESF organisers' courting of him to the exclusion of many important groups, this action is another disgrace that taints all of us, and plays into the hands of those who wish to see us rubbished. Once the open space has been conquered by a vocal minority, it is no longer open space. Once the ESF has been organised by hierarchical political parties it becomes seen as a bastion of their ideals. I think we should move forward by shaming our opponents with their acts, not shaming ourselves with our own.

The ESF and Ableism

2004-10-20T01:19:00.000+01:00

As I've mentioned previously I made a point while at the ESF of not attending meetings on issues I felt that I was intimately familiar with. I particularly avoided meetings on the Iraq War as I thought there was little chance of much being said that I didn't already know. Some people might appreciate the echo chamber effect of listening to people expound their own opinions for them with cheering and applause at the appropriate junctures. It isn't my thing, however. In this spirit one of the first meetings I attended was one on disability rights. This is an issue I'm not totally unaware of and I'd read a bit on the subject beforehand, but my knowledge was limited and I wouldn't have felt particularly qualified to write about it.

Much of interest was said. One speaker began his contribution by denouncing psychiatry. From what I recall the nicest thing he said in the course of this was that it was the least empirical of sciences. Another issue mentioned was the idea of disability as a social construct, encompassing a wide range of conditions and handicaps. This was set against the mainstream view of the disabled as somehow less than human. Such an interpretation was not entirely new to me, but I think it is one which deserves much wider consideration, if not acceptance.

Speakers also drew links with other issues, notably the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They pointed out that disabled people are less able to flee if attacked and recalled the disabling of many thousands by bombs and other weapons. Some mention was made of trade unionists, much of it critical of their lack of action on the issue.

One of the more troubling comments dealt with difficulties the organisers had encountered in trying to get disability rights onto the agenda of the ESF. These had apparently been considerable, although the presence of at least two seminars dealing with the issue in the programme was testament to these problems having been surmounted. They also noted the paucity of meetings with sign language translation and indeed this was the only meeting I saw with such a service, although a friend tells me that there was sign language at one of the other meetings they attended.

All too often ableism, discrimination against those with a disability, is an issue forgotten by those who strongly oppose other forms of oppression. The presence of disability rights activists at the ESF and a chance for them to disseminate their ideas is potentially an important step towards the correction of that problem. It is to be hoped that it is a step which will be built upon.

Putting on the Pressure

2004-10-19T15:24:00.000+01:00

It seems like a good idea, although I'm not sure why, to begin my reporting of last weekend at the end and work back. Although there were some events on the Sunday evening, for most people the ESF ended with the demonstration against the occupation of Iraq.

Called by the Stop the War Coalition, the march went from Russell Square to Trafalgar Square. Subsequent reports and various activists have bandied around all sorts of estimates about numbers in attendance, ranging all the way to 100,000 people. In my opinion (and I've been to a lot of these things now) there was a fraction of that number there, probably something much closer to police estimates of 15-20,000 people, although they were very spread out at some points. That said, the march was the most international I've ever been on with prominent contingents from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey and elsewhere.

There was also a wide range of ideological opinions represented. Various Marxist groups were in attendance, alongside trade unionists, hippies, greenies and a contingent of (apparently predominantly German) anarchists. The latter formed an anti-capitalist block declaring its opposition to "precarity", a concept I've never encountered before, which apparently refers to the precarious situations, without any kind of job security, most people live in under modern, post-industrial capitalist societies.

Even getting to the meeting point was something of a mission as the police (at least I assume it was them) had prevented trains from allowing passengers to disembark at Russell Square station, ostensibly because of "overcrowding", although it hardly looked much busier than it might get during a typical rush hour. Fortunately it was not a very long walk from the next station along to Russell Square and we soon met up with the quickly building demonstration and found our way to the new and quite impressive Nottingham Student Peace Movement banner, apparently knocked up in an hour with some material, orange vinyl and a roll of gaffer tape. This was so impressive in fact that it attracted the attention of several camera crews and would appear in a BBC TV report the next day about political pressure on Geoff Hoon.

Although the rains stayed away, the weather was far from great, but the demonstration was still quite upbeat. The route snaked its way through Bloomsbury, up to the Strand, over to the Southbank, back towards Westminster and then down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. There was a heavy police presence throughout, although in many cases they remained within the numerous vans parked along the route. One of the most amusing moments was a police line formed in front of Sainsburys as if we were going to storm the place and liberate the contents.

At Trafalgar Square the marchers were adressed by various speaker telling them why they had just marched and singing the praises of the ESF. I've heard all this before and had a fairly good idea what I was there for, so I didn't spend a great deal of time listening to the speakers. Instead I perused the stalls, adding to my trainspotter's list of left-wing papers. Unfortunately in the course of my travels I lost everyone I knew and after a while grew bored, although I did stuble across a samba band (possibly Rhythms of Resistance) that lifted my spirits for a while. Nonetheless after a while I decided to call it a day and headed for my train for the long journey home.

Rather worrying was the emerging fact that several activists had been arrested in the course of the march. Subsequent reports have suggested this included one ESF organiser. On reflection the statement I caught by one speaker (possibly Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition) that he "hoped" they would be released soon is hardly sufficient. Any movement which does not support its imprisoned comrades has no chance of effecting serious social change. We shouldn't be expressing our hope that those arrested are released, but instead demanding this be done immediately and doing all we can to ensure this happens.

It had been a long tiring weekend, but a fascinating and inspiring one. This small contribution to the Iraqi struggle for self-determination seemed a fitting end and it is to be hoped that it has contributed to the political pressures on Geoff Hoon and discouraged him from sacrificing British soliders on the altar of George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

Blogging the ESF

2004-10-18T23:42:00.000+01:00

The past weekend has been a blur of ideas, discussion, debate, thought, creativity and action which I'm still too tired to say much of any use about. The European Social Forum attracted activists from across Europe and beyond, a fact particularly visible on the closing demonstration which opposed the ongoing occupation of Iraq.

I attended a wealth of meetings covering a wide range of issues: global warming, Israel-Palestine, disability rights, the death penalty, democracy in the European Union and probably more. I made a point of not going to meetings about issues like the war in Iraq which I have been heavily involved in previously and consider myself fairly knowledgeable about, focusing instead on things I was interested in, but less informed about. Even the Israel-Palestine meeting I went to was concerned less with the occupation itself, but with ways which Israelis and Jews has supported Palestinian efforts to end it.

I intend to write more about my experiences over the coming days, although I am too tired at the moment. I'm likely to be quite busy as I try and catch up with work, so it'll probably take me a while to deal with even a fraction of what I saw, but try and bear with me (and hopefully Dan who also went and surely has much of interest to write). In the meantime you might want to check out this post from my other blog, which touches on one meeting I went to and its relationship with what's happening in the real world and also suggests action which you can take to actually try and improve things.

Moving Swiftly On

2004-10-14T13:39:00.000+01:00

Justin Podur has an important post on his recently resurrected blog 'The Killing Train' which I think should be read by anyone interested in understanding what's going on with the election in the US. Rather than focusing on what the candidates say they will do he considers where they draw support from:

I realize there's been a ton written about this but I realized then that the difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush is not so much what they say or what they promise to do or what they will do once in office. The difference is that John Kerry is a slimy politician flailing around looking for a winning formula and George Bush is at the head of a massive, incredibly well organized, incredibly well disciplined, incredibly well resourced, truly revolutionary movement. And movements, radicals ought to understand, are serious business.

Other have drawn similar conclusions, among them Noam Chomsky (whom Podur cites) and Rahul Mahajan, but it is an insight that I believe is all too little understood. It's importance lies not only in terms of our understanding of how the Right operate, but in informing how we respond to them. Simply voting for Kerry is not good enough. If Bush is tossed out in November, the movement from which he draws support will continue to exist, continue to mobilise and continue to influence American policy. If progressives are serious about confronting those whom they claim to oppose than they to are going to have to develop a comparable, sustainable, grassroots movement. Unfortunately at the moment this appears to be something they are not only incapable, but even unwilling to do.

London Calling

2004-10-14T13:05:00.000+01:00

This weekend will see London host the third European Social Forum (ESF). This is a huge forum for debate, celebration and protests which will bring together activists and interested parties from across the country, continent and beyond to discuss struggles from around the world against racism, capitalism, imperialism and other examples of injustice. If you can't go, don't worry. Your intrepid reporters will be traveling down tomorrow and will endeavour to bring you news of what goes on, although you might have to wait until we're back to read it.

On a related note, anyone who's interested in going to the anti-occupation demo which will close the forum on Sunday, but unable to go to the rest, should contact Nottingham Stop the War Coalition on 0777 932 8418 for info on coaches.

Dome Sweet Dome

2004-10-08T21:00:00.000+01:00

It looks like they might, finally, have found a practical use for the Millennium Dome: the gargantuan white elephant is to be used as accommodation for the European Social Forum. This was reported in today's Guardian and now appears to be official (I, for one, have been emailed about it by those involved in organising the event). The structure will apparently be home for three nights to some 5,000 people at a cost of £10 each. Anyone coming to the ESF who's interested in taking advantage of this once in a millennium (!) opportunity should get in soon. Details on the ESF website.

Dishonour Among Thieves

2004-10-07T21:27:00.000+01:00

The scandal of the Anglo-American treatment of the population of the Chagos Archipelago is little known, a testament, perhaps, to the servility of the dominant media in both countries. Fortunately there are some who are prepared to speak up about the story. Among them is veteran investigative journalist and perennial irritant of the powerful John Pilger who’s recent documentary “Stealing A Nation,” which was shown on ITV1, will hopefully help to bring the issue to people’s attention.

The largest island in the archipelago, Diego Garcia, is the site of an extensive US military base. Pilger reveals that the island is home to 2,000 troops, 30 warships, 2 nuclear cleared berths, 2 bomber runways and a satellite spy station. The US describes the base as an “indispensable platform for policing the world” and it played a central role in the assault on Afghanistan and the wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. He does not mention, however, worrying reports that the island is also the site of a secretive Guantanamo Bay-style detention facility.

Whatever one’s opinions on the base’s role within US foreign policy, few will fail to be horrified by the story which lies behind its existence. A “shocking, almost incredible story,” as Pilger notes, which involves the forced exile of the island’s indigenous population.

The Chagos Archipelago belongs to the UK and was retained when Mauritius became independent, by its incorporation into the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). This was done, because of an agreement between the US and UK that Diego Garcia would be made available to the US for a base. Additionally the US wanted the island and the archipelago “swept and sanitised”, which meant that the 2,000 people living there had to be forced from their homes. Some found themselves unable to return to the islands after making visits to Mauritius, others were told that they might be bombed, others were simply loaded onto ships and taken to a prison on the Seychelles, now demolished. Pilger focuses particular attention on the fate of the 1,000 pet dogs who were gassed using exhaust fumes from military vehicles in order to encourage the islanders to leave.

Alongside the removal of the population, there were also extensive machinations on the part of Foreign Office mandarins to ensure the whole affair was kept secret. Much of this effort was centred around promulgating the idea that the Chagossians were not a settled population, but rather transient labourers, which they knew to be untrue. Lawyer for the islanders Richard Gifford opines that all they were concerned about was that they might be caught, the effect on the people who they had exiled was essentially irrelevant. One former official, interviewed by Pilger, seeks to defend a (now deceased) colleague who described the islanders in a memo as “a few Tarzans and Man Fridays,” by explaining that he would not have written such a thing if he had known it would enter the public domain.

Most of the population ended up living in Mauritius where many died as a result of the poverty which they found themselves in, or because of “sadness”. Rates of suicide, alcoholism and drug use were chronic and conditions have improved little in the years since their exile began. Pilger visited a family who had been filmed in 1982 living in abject poverty with 25 sleeping in shifts in one room. Twenty-two years later he finds them in the same house, in much the same conditions.

Despite their dire situation, the Chagossians have not given up and continue to fight for the right to return to their homes. In November 2000 they won a major victory in the High Court, which ruled that the expulsion of the islanders was illegal. The case also brought to light many files revealing the truth behind the expulsions. As a result of the ruling, the order expelling them from their homes had to be rewritten, allowing the islanders the right to resettle on the islands. The UK Government, however, insisted that treaty obligations with the US meant that Diego Garcia itself had to be excluded from resettlement

In June of this year, the government went even further, introducing two Orders in Council which prevented anyone from setting foot on the Chagos Islands. Orders in Council are a crown power which allow the government to enact law without any democratic oversight. Pilger comments that dictatorships operate in a similar fashion, albeit without the “quaint ritual”.

Overall the programme does a good job of dealing with the scandal and will hopefully go some way to countering the widespread ignorance about the plight of the Chagossians. It might be criticised, like much of Pilger’s work, for being a little didactic. The programme book-ended by shots of Pilger talking straight to camera in which he explains its significance, seemingly in case anyone might have missed the point. This, however, is a minor criticism of an important programme.

The Peace Movement will probably have a video showing of the documentary in the near-future for anyone that missed it. In the meantime, booklets looking at the issues dealt with in the programme are available for £2.50 from 08708303481. Further information can be gleaned for free from the website of the UK Chagos Support Association, which has links to various other good resources. Anyone interested in getting involved around the issue should start there as well, but might also be interested in the newly established Student Friends of Chagos email discussion group.

All Aboard For London!

2004-10-07T20:38:00.000+01:00

If there's anyone out there who can't get along to the European Social Forum, but who wants to go to the anti-occupation demo on the final Sunday (17th October), they may be interested in coach transport being organised from Nottingham by Nottingham Stop the War Coalition. Phone 0777 932 8418 for more info.

Amber light for Syria?

2004-10-06T15:13:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday, Dan posted on Mark Levey's article about possible US/Israeli action against Iran. At risk of presenting the image that I disagree with everything he says (I really don't) I feel a few comments are in order.

Firstly I am very dubious about assertions that the US is likely to launch another Iraq-style invasion in the short to medium-term. The US has bitten off more than it can chew in Iraq and as long as it remains bogged down there, cannot mobilise sufficient forces to carry out another invasion along similar lines. This doesn't preclude intervention in more subtle ways. Milan Rai argues that this may well mean a covert destabilisation attempt. Levey gives an idea of what can be expected in the article, noting that elements in the Bush Administration had sought to aid dissident groups, but been unable to find any credible groups to support.

I'm also not entirely convinced that Iran is at the top of the list of targets. Certainly Israeli hawks are gunning for it and US rhetoric suggests that conflict is a possibility, but there are other possibilities. Although it has attracted minimal attention, the US also seems to have its eyes set on Syria. Recall the noises made about the country shortly after the end of the first phase of the Iraq War. This, coupled with the passing of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 and UN Security Council Resolution 1559, suggests that action against the country is a very real possibility, although what form this could take remains unclear. In some ways belligerence against Syria is more worrying, as it seems to be a bipartisan issue - Kerry co-sponsored the Syria Accountability Act, for instance.

Reframing the debate

2004-10-06T13:18:00.000+01:00

Milan Rai's inspiring appearance at the Peace Forum last night in front of a packed West Concourse Lounge was cause for some celebration for the NSPM. We had the opportunity to introduce a speaker who was capable of challenging the mainstream debate in no uncertain terms, and bringing us "back to the real world", to confront the system of power which wages war and brings injustice. And not for an audience of a handful, but a sizeable and diverse group. Some of course were outraged; I think this was only a testament to the breaking of new ground for some in the audience. We can't expect to reframe the debate without leaving some clinging desperately to a worldview that suddenly looks a lot more precarious and isolated. Generally though, I felt the audience were receptive but cautious. Our role in the peace movement must be to reassure these waverers that we have the facts, analyses and conviction to support the case put forward by Milan - that we should not assume that US and UK foreign policy are benign, and that the 'War on Terror' is a distraction from bringing peace to the world.

Our duty is to provide our members with analyses and discussion from outside the mainstream - to recount the hidden histories of the western powers. We must also strive to show the deep flaws in the corporate media, and why we must supplement our knowledge and interpretations with the views and opinions of those working outside it. We have a reasonably extensive library of resources provided by members and we need to start referring to it. For example, those wishing to find out for themselves whether British foreign policy really is benign might be interested to read Mark Curtis' 'Web of Deceit' to find out about Britain's terrible history of warfare and intervention during the 20th Century. There's a nice history of US foreign policy in a recent issue of Adbusters which you can also borrow, or you may want to check out Howard Zinn's 'People's History of the USA'. In addition, there's a very extensive selection of web sites and archive of news and comment, on everything from Iraq to the environment, from propaganda to class struggle. It's there - you just have to look for it.

Getting the information out to people is one of the most important things that we can do. Without the persistence of alternative information and analyses the mainstream debate will continue securely and safely within the pages of the broadsheets and the hermetically-sealed House of Commons, and people will leave it to them. To seriously challenge the abuse of power we must first make people aware that it is going on. Then the real battle begins...

No green light for war with Iran

2004-10-05T14:26:00.000+01:00

More interesting reading - an analysis of the escalating confrontation between Iran and the US/Israel by Mark Levey: Sharon's green light. This is the kind of thing that we really should be having nightmares about. Unlike the war on Iraq which was relatively brief due to the significant weakening of Saddam's military by sanctions and weapon destruction, a conflict with Iran could unleash nuclear, chemical and conventional weapons of a much greater strength. The article mentions the potential for Iran to mobilise 12m men to fight, and the war would certainly spill over into neighbouring Iraq.

We could easily predict this kind of outcome given the differential US treatment of "axis of evil" and "rogue" states. The Americans have turned their attentions away from the nuclear power of North Korea and directed them towards militarily weaker nations such as Syria. An obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that if you want to avoid the prospect of US attack, you'd better build yourself an A-bomb quick. By using the threat of force against Iran US officials have accelerated the Iranians efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

It seems to me that we in the peace movement must direct our efforts towards blocking any further engagement of our government in illegal foreign wars that are certain to bring suffering on an immense scale, and will greatly increase the motivation for terrorist attacks on civilians, here and abroad. We must constantly challenge the erroneous assertions about Iran made by those such as those made by John Bolton (US Under-Secretary for Arms Control) on Newsnight earlier this year (see Medialens for more detail), and strive to bring about a de-escalation of the confrontation between the powers involved. Most importantly, we have to make the public aware of the horrors that could be unleashed were the UK to go to war against Iran, and mobilise their support against such action. Any ideas?

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

2004-10-05T01:36:00.000+01:00

Rahul Mahajan has written a highly recommended (and quite short) piece on the collapse of the anti-war movement. In light of the string of disasters which have befallen the occupiers he argues,

Across the political spectrum, people know that we were right and they were wrong. Yet there has hardly been a peep out of the antiwar movement. There RNC protest was great, but it was basically an anti-Bush protest there wasnt even any messaging about the just-concluded offensive against Najaf in which probably 2000 or more people were killed.

The problem is a real one and must be confronted by anyone who is interested in alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people and exerting influence on US foreign policy.

Mahajan cites two reasons for this collapse, although he acknowledges that there are more: the drive to get Kerry elected and "that, with regard to protest actions, we have dumbed down our message to the ultimate demand 'Bring the troops home now!'" It is his comments on the latter which I find particularly interesting:

I have no problem with calling to end the occupation now. But we have to realize that even people who dont support the war dont look to us as some kind of spiritual authority. Nobody cares about our demands. People will listen to our arguments, information, and plans, but no longer to our ultimate demand.

We must, he contends, offer "responses to immediate political developments and transitional positions and campaigns." He argues that the struggle against the occupation of Iraq will be a long one and so to must the campaign against it:

Everything that happens in Iraq should build our base. We must mobilize against bombing of civilian areas and build our base. We must mobilize against torture and build our base. Right now, we must mobilize against Bush administration plans to manipulate the January elections in Iraq (and the upcoming election in Afghanistan). Any election held under military occupation is illegitimate. But we cant stop the elections in Iraq. Thus, we have to mobilize to ensure that the elections, while remaining illegitimate, are as free and fair as possible. In the process, we bring into the movement people who believe in democracy but were unsure about the occupation; we may even derail plans to fix the elections.

The problems Mahajan presents are serious and how we respond to them could have important consequences.

Who The Hell is Zarqawi Anyway?!

2004-10-03T16:40:00.000+01:00

The kidnapping of Kenneth Bigley and the car bombing at Al-Amel, western Baghdad, which claimed the lives of dozens of children, have focused attention on the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Tawhid and Jihad group. While the names have become increasingly familiar, we still seem to now very little.

Some have translated the 'tawhid' in the group's name as 'unity', but Juan Cole explains that "in Islam what is meant by tawhid is to "affirm the oneness of God" -- ie monotheism." The group adopt an extremist conception of monotheism which excludes Shia Muslims and probably a great many Sunnis. They have expressed these beliefs in a series of high-profile attacks which demonstrate little or no concern for the well-being of innocent Iraqis.

Supporters of the occupation and military officials have made efforts to pin just about every act of violence in the country on the group, but, as Sami Ramadani pointed out in the Guardian last week,

The occupation forces have admitted that the attacks on them by the resistance rose last month to 2,700. And how many of these 2,700 attacks a month were claimed by Zarqawi? Six. Six headline-grabbing, TV-dominating, stomach-churning moments.

Even if we attribute acts to them above and beyond those for which they have themselves claimed responsibility (assuming they did indeed carry them out and are not simply seeking to take 'credit' for attacks by others in pursuit of their own agenda), it is clear they are not as representative of the armed resistance in Iraq as some would have us believe.

The provenance of the oft-repeated accusation that they have links with Al-Qaeda is also dubious. Certainly there are ideological and tactical parallels, but this alone does not demonstrate that they are working in concert. Indeed, Jim Lobe points out that the letter, published by the Project for The New American Century (PNAC) and others, ostensibly from Zarqawi to the Al-Qaeda leadership, undermines claims as to an already existing relationship between the two organisations.

As with anything in Iraq it is difficult to develop an objective picture of the opinions of the Iraqi people, but it appears that Zarqawi and his followers have little or no support among the general population. Sami Ramadani, again, commented,

The vast majority of Iraqis reject Zarqawi and his ilk - as do the resistance and its supporters in Falluja, Sadr City and across Iraq. Many even suspect that the occupation forces are somehow encouraging the likes of Zarqawi, or at least failing to prevent their crimes, as a way of obscuring the fact that most Iraqis now actively support a patriotic and widespread resistance movement.

Indeed, after the Al-Amel bombing, at least some Iraqis held the US responsible.

That said, Rahul Mahajan who has visited Iraq on several occasions, warns,

The United States is, however, creating by its presence another force that could wreak havoc in Iraq, even if, as I think is eminently possible, major political forces can agree to settle things by elections and power-sharing rather than violence. That force includes, but is probably not limited to, Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War), which is obviously willing to stop at nothing in carrying out acts of random terrorism but which is, it seems, gaining support in some areas of Iraq because it is seen as an effective anti-occupation force. If this kind of cancerous organization can gain a toehold in Iraq, then civil war or worse is a possibility. Of course, even so, the continued U.S. presence just increases the chance that will happen.

I have written elsewhere that, in my opinion, the ongoing occupation is only strengthening the hands of those groups supporters cite as the justification for its continuation. That is very clear in this context.

The occupying forces are going to have to leave eventually. If I'm right and their presence is strengthening the hands of the likes of Zarqawi (not to mention less extreme theocrats like Sadr, another oft-cited justification for the ongoing occupation) then it is surely better that they do so sooner, rather than later, by which time such groups have developed a substantial power base and are in a position to effect a considerable and, most likely negative, influence on Iraqi politics.

European Social Forum 2004 - Accommodation

2004-09-28T14:17:00.000+01:00

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 society?

2004-09-28T13:55:00.000+01:00

As rapidly as i had posted my arguments were in tatters... well not quite ;) My post was rapidly written in order to capture something that i took away from the intial article. D.K. is right, of course, to point out that calling all politicians mad is a cop out - it is, but that's not really what I'm saying. I don't think that Bush or Blair is actually suffering from sociopathy (aka psychopathy, a serious clinical disorder), but I do think that the institutional pressures of being in high level politics force one to take decisions that you know will cause harm to some people somewhere. The only way to survive this with your sense of morality and psychological health intact is to deny that you caused that harm, that you were just doing your job. Famous psychological experiments such as Stanley Milgram's 'learning' experiment have shown that ordinary people are willing to inflict extraordinary harm on other people when requested by 'authorities' to do so. The infamous Stanford Prison experiment, conducted by Zimbardo, demonstrates that, when given the role of prison guards, otherwise normal students were capable of extreme brutality upon their fellow student 'prisoners'. After all, they were just acting out their roles, just following orders. What is the role of the politician? Well it's a highly complex one, but it includes being responsible for the 'defence' of one's people, by aggressive means if necessary. Politicians and governments are expected to make the decision to go to war when it is necessary. They know that they're going to cause immense suffering to other people but that's part of their job and they can't be held responsible for that harm can they?

Couple this with a further role or stereotype. That of the 'strong' politician. You need look no further than the cringeworthy macho politics of the US election campaigns to see that, in order to appear a strong politician capable of defending your people, you have to appear to be capable of harming your country's enemies with little remorse, be it in the jungles of Vietnam or via B52 bombers sent to Iraq. You must never give in to terrorists allowing hostages to be murdered. You must repress your people via curtailment of civil liberties at home. The same goes for home affairs in this country: attacking civil liberties and scapegoating asylum seekers. Modern politics are full of such examples of violence in the name of duty. In the role of the politician. The politician not only has to be capable of taking tough measures but must also show little remorse for them and pursue them to their completion. Tony Blair has never apologised over Iraq and never will. He shows no remorse for the harm he has caused because he had to do it didn't he? He was in his role as strong man politician, overthrowing our enemies. The parallel with psychopathy is strongest in this respect. Modern politics is all about appearance regardless of true personality and feelings. It is about people donning the masks of their political roles and delegating responsibility to these roles to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions.

Let's look at it from a differnt angle. What makes a successful politician? Someone who can sell a policy wholeheartedly whether they believe in it or not, to gain public favour or favour in their party. Someone who can take ruthless measures without faltering. Someone with no feelings or morality would be ideally suited to this role provided they were a good actor. They could take repressive measures without it disturbing them psychologically. They could switch policies with changing public opinion with no qualms about their integrity.

Something makes me think it's time we redefined the role of the politician.

Pathological Response

2004-09-28T01:53:00.000+01:00

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.

Pathological politics

2004-09-27T14:59:00.000+01:00

Recently read an excellent article (http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=1640) by Stuart Herzog at globalecho.org, arguing that modern politicians share many features with psychopaths:

"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. Today's politics is obssessed with the image over the content, the soundbite over meaningful content, the noise over the signal. Politicians are allowed to survive in spite of their gross failings and immoralities, through their ability to convincingly rebrand bad news, or just to downright lie. They can lead us into murderous, enslaving adventures such as the Iraq war without a shadow of guilt, and instead of that evoking universal condemnation for their psychopathy, many cannot (or will not) see further than the rose-tinted facade. Our society's championing of strength over open-mindedness leaves us open to this takeover by the psychopaths. Our willingness to accept the simple propagandistic message over the more tedious process of understanding the motives behind the glittering masks makes us putty in their hands.

Gaining an understanding of what makes a politician, and how the pressures in our society and political system shape such individuals, is essential in establishing the usefulness of external analysis. By avoiding such pressures and conditioning ourselves we in the peace movement attempt to come up with analyses that are, hopefully, more valid. By exposing the corrupting nature of our political system we must aim to promote and work for more just and democratic alternatives to government by the few and self-selected. It is essential that we can explain why our political system produces the catasophic wars and conflicts that it invariably seems to.

A Shot Of Anti-BIOT-ics

2004-09-26T13:37:00.000+01:00

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

2004-09-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

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.

The First Ever NSPM Blog Entry!

2004-09-15T13:47:00.000+01:00

wow! i've made it to the first ever entry in a blog accredited to the Nottingham Student Peace Movement. hopefully there will be many more and with rather more to say!