 |
|
Powered by |
« September 2004 | Main | November 2004 » 28 October Perhaps this is just what ageing activists do when the fire starts to die, but I've been getting more and more troubled by some of the disturbing tendencies amongst parts of the radical movement in this country. Some of this I wrote about in relation to the recent European Social Forum. The real, and potentially scary, problem for me is the tendency amongst many of the more unthinking lefites to adopt a stupid 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' pose. It usually translates as: "anyone who opposes America/capitalism/war etc etc, or even just claims to, has my support - or at least I will overlook their excesses." It's already led to very dodgy upsurges of opinion: support for Muslim organisations who see homosexuality as sinful, for instance. Anti-Jewish remarks. Refusal to condemn suicide bombers who kill civilians and even, in the latest instance, an apparent refusal by the asinine Stop the War Coalition to condemn the sort of Islamofascists who kidnap people like Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan, and then behead them. These are extremes, but I know a number of intelligent, thoughtful radicals who are still reluctant to publicly condemn extreme Islam in particular, for fear of 'offending' ethnic minorities or 'splitting' radical politics. To which I reply: anyone offended by a defence of womens' rights, homosexual equality and peaceful resistance rather than violence shouldn't be on our side anyway. Should they? This path leads to dark places where the left has been before, and should have learned by now not to approach again. Here are two articles I have read today which touch on this, and which I recommend highly. One, by a friend of mine, Lucy Michaels, is a personal account of the dangers of rising anti-semitism amongst people who call themselves 'progressive.' It's very well-written and argued. The other, by Nick Cohen, tackles the Stop the War Coalition in particular, but also the left in general, on this issue and is largely, I think, spot on. You can read it here (though if the New Statesman tries to charge you to read it on their site it's probably cheaper just to buy the mag instead!) See if you agree. Even if you don't, I hope you agree that it is worth discussing. Posted by paul at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) 27 October Depressed about John Peel dying. Funny how these things can get to you. I always find it depressing when people with integrity die too young. I remember being equally down when Douglas Adams and Kirsty MacColl popped their clogs. The world, as Morrissey so memorably put it, is full of crashing bores, and the last thing we need is any of the few interesting, genuine, creative souls dying before their time. Especially when people like Dick Cheney are still alive. He has a history of heart disease, for God's sake. Why couldn't it have been him? Which would you prefer to lose - one of the last interesting and independent voices on radio, or a warmongering old fascist who can't even smile without looking like something out of a Hammer Horror film? Which reminds me - did you see the complaint that the US Embassy issued about a column by Charlie Brooker in the Guardian last Saturday? Charlie Brooker is easily the best columnist in the paper. Not for him 800 words of dullness about fox-hunting, constitutional reform or Bloody Blair versus Bloody Brown. Instead, he writes every week about all the people on TV that he'd like to kill. A man after my own heart. Anyway, this week he recommended the assassination of President Bush and, following a complaint from the US Ambassador, who clearly has nothing better to do with his time (aren't there any Ferrero Rocher that need piling up into a pyramid or something?) the Guardian apologised. Apologised! Because their funniest columnist simply suggested a course of action that 99% of the world wants to see happen! It's shocking. These liberals have no balls at all. Well, maybe some of them do. On yesterday's Newsnight, hat-wearing, self-appointed 'gumshoe journalist' Greg Palast produced a shocking report about what the Republicans are up to in Florida this time - yes, you guessed it, they're trying to prevent black people voting again. If you didn't see it I suggest you go to this site and watch it now. It's the kind of thing you know is probably happening, but that still doesn't prepare you for the shock of actually seeing how deeply vile and cynical these people are. Great. Now I'm even more depressed. I'm going to have a cup of tea. Posted by paul at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) 25 October I've been getting a lively response to the pieces I wrote last week criticising the European Social Forum, and in particular the attempted stitching-up of the event by the hard left. One of my pieces has been featured here on Indymedia and has quite a good debate going on after it. And I've had a few emails from SWP members - all of them reasonably polite, incidentally; no spleen-venting as yet - which have led to me discussing this with them. Not that any of us have changed each others' minds, I suspect. But it's good that this debate can be had, and that people on different sides of this fence can thrash out these issues like this. Maybe if enough people do it we can prevent it happening again. Posted by paul at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) 22 October Exhausted after a week writing articles about the European Social Forum. I'm not doing any more of this now. No more tiresome political squabbling. From now on I'm only writing about nice things like trees, cute dogs, smiley ducks etc. But anyway. Before I head off to Yorkshire for the weekend I want to tell you about an important new campaign I've just been introduced to. It's a coalition of people and organisations opposed to national identity cards. I'm not going to rehearse all the arguments against the cards here - you can read them on their site. But I'd urge you to go and sign your name up now, before it's too late to prevent the State knowing even more about you than Tesco's already do. Posted by paul at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) 20 October It's my birthday! And what a great day it's been so far. My camper van has broken down (again), it's pouring with rain, I'm 32 (aaaargh!) and I've got two deadlines to meet by the end of the day. To top it all, I woke up to the news that yet another report on climate change has concluded that the problem is so huge that it might wipe out any of our efforts to relieve global poverty over the next few decades. Oh joy! Oh rapture! Perhaps I should have stayed in bed. Birthdays always do this to me these days. I pine for the years of my childhood when a gaudily decorated cake, a visit to McDonalds with my schoolfriends and a new bike with stabilisers would bring me untold joy that would last for weeks. Oh, and who decided that Allan Hollinghurst should get the Booker Prize? OK, I haven't read his book, so I don't want to be unfair. But I have read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and it's unwaveringly brilliant. No doubt about it, it's an unfair world. Posted by paul at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) 17 October Back from the ESF, which I have distinctly mixed feelings about. On the one hand, great to see all those people meeting, talking, thinking and arguing about a new kind of future, as it always is at a social forum. On the other, the event was in many ways so tightly controlled, undemocratic and almost corporate that it left a nasty taste in the mouth. It seems that most of this is down to the organisers, who were dominated by Ken Livingstone's GLA, which put up the cash, and our old friends the Socialist Workers Party, which according to my sources has infuriated virtually every activist in Europe and shoved the radical movement in this country backwards when this event should have given it a kick in the pants. Lest you think I'm the only one to hold such opinions, have a look at this report from Indymedia of what happened on the Saturday, when a group of activists invaded a stage on which Ken Livingstone was supposed to be speaking, to protest about the exclusive nature of the forum. Even the official translators stopped working in protest. As usual, the hard left has gone and screwed it all up for everyone else. All ideas on how to extinguish the vile SWP forever to be sent to me on a postcard, please. First out of the hat wins a copy of the very first issue of Socialist Worker ever printed. You'll notice it has all the same headlines as last week's. On another subject entirely, I can't help gloating over the forthcoming fate of Fox TV's nasty little Republican chat-meister Bill O'Reilly, who it seems is being sued for masturbating down the telephone to one of his female assistants, despite being a 'family values' crusader. I just love it when things like this happen. Nothing gives me a warmer glow deep inside than seeing very rich, very right-wing, very smug people brought low. Stoke up your own glow by having a giggle at the transcripts of the alleged (lawyers for Fox please note) telephone perving that O'Reilly indulged in here. You won't regret it. It's great! Posted by paul at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) 14 October Well, I'm back. Back from a month in Australia, which has been great. I've been walking in the mountains, laying on beaches, spotting birds (feathered, mostly) attempting to surf (don't laugh) and generally relaxing. It's been pretty successful, I must say. I've even got a tan. Now I'm back, to work, rain and an empty bank balance. But what the hell. It would be churlish to complain. And anyway, I've got plenty on. First on my list is writing a piece for The Ecologist about the logging of Tasmania's old-growth forests. I spent a week in Tassie before I returned, some of it in the forests themselves. It's a remarkable place, and a great story, especially since I spent almost as much time with loggers as I did with environmentalists. Never have I seen such a polarised environmental debate. It should make a good piece. Watch this space. In fact, I was in Oz at a pretty interesting time. The general election was going on, and it looked like a close race. It's always fascinating to be in another country at election time. I'm always surprised at how attached I can get to the outcome, even though it's not my country and the result won't, ultimately, make a difference to me. This might be the difference between a political junky and a normal human being. The result in Oz, anyway, was a depressing one. The neoliberal government of John Howard was returned for a fourth time with an increased majority. This despite his involvement in the Iraq war (which most Australians opposed) and his Labor opponent's promises to provide free healthcare for pensioners, redistribute money from rich private schools to poor public ones and protect all of Tasmania's old-growth forests from logging. There may be some lessons here for us - or indeed the US, currently facing its own terrifyingly close election race. I'm not sure what they are though. Maybe time will tell. But if there is a global backlash against neoliberalism, it ain't apparent Down Under yet. I'd better go. I'm off to the European Social Forum in London tomorrow and have a lot of preparation to do. I'll be interested to see what direction it's going in: not everything I have heard about this event has been good. We'll see. There'll be an article or two about this appearing too, so keep your eyes open if you're interested. More anon. Posted by paul at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) |