Remarks and culture (en)

Q: What do you do when your Party's popularity ratings are the lowest since records began?

The Law — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:51:00 +0200

A: Apparently, you write a book. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7553713.stm

Not content with decimating Labour support all over the country and losing 3 consecutive by-elections, Gordon Brown thinks it is a good time to pen another book. The book on 'Britishness', Brown's ongoing obsession with dictating culture from above, will include contributions from likely guardians of culture such as J.K. Rowling; author of such great works of fiction as The Prisoner of Azkhaban. George Martin, the only surviving Beatle who isn't a drummer or a cheesy shadow of his former self, is also set to contribute and I hear rumours that Jade Goody and David Beckham are set to add chapters to ensure a good balance of all that is British.

Considering I have found it difficult to find time to put down random comments on my blog lately, I wonder how Brown manages to fit in writing books into his day-to-day life as Prime Minister. I don't even have kids. Even if he can fit this into his 20 hours of awake time per day, I don't really think it is the best use of his time. If he wants to do something about Britishness, then how about stopping the closure of most of Britain's post offices? How about doing something to reduce 11 years of growing income inequality under a Labour government? How about trying to avoid the words "difficult economic times" in a public statement?

What is perhaps more worrying is the thought of what Brown will write on Britishness. His existing speeches on the subject are peppered with big bucket adjectives and non-sequiturs. When pushed to define the abstract term, Brown largely journeys into incomprehensible babble, for example this from the British Council Annual Lecture in 2004:

"But when we ask what are the core values of Britishness, can we find in them a muscularity and robustness that neither dilutes Britishness and British values to the point they become amorphous nor leaves them so narrowly focused that many patriotic British men and women will feel excluded? Of course, a strong sense of national identity derives from the particular, the special things we cherish. But I think we would all agree that we do not love our country simply because we occupy a plot of land or hold a UK passport but also because that place is home and because that represents values and qualities - and bonds of sentiment and familiarity - we hold dear."

Or try this from the Fabian Conference in 2006:

"But I would argue that if we are clear about what underlies our Britishness and if we are clear that shared values – not colour, nor unchanging and unchangeable institutions – define what it means to be British in the modern world, we can be far more ambitious in defining for our time the responsibilities of citizenship; far more ambitious in forging a new and contemporary settlement of the relationship between state, community and individual; and it is also easier too to address difficult issues that sometimes come under the heading 'multiculturalism' – essentially how diverse cultures, which inevitably contain differences, can find the essential common purpose without which no society can flourish."

Once he has lost his audience with this preamble he then names British values as: "Creative, adaptable and outward looking, our belief in liberty, duty and fair play" British Council Annual Lecture, July 2004

"Creativity, inventiveness, enterprise and our internationalism, our central beliefs are a commitment to – liberty for all, responsibility by all and fairness to all." Fabian Conference 2006 (Note that inventiveness, enterprise and internationalism all became British values sometime between 2004 and 2006?)

By 2007, Britishness was no longer defined by the tolerance, liberty and fair play but: "British tolerance, the British belief in liberty and the British sense of fair play." (February 2007) It is always good to use the word being defined in the definition...

Maybe I am being harsh. Perhaps Brown finds the process of writing and reflecting a form of relaxation from the pressures of a thankless job, or perhaps Brown has recognised that he needs to sure up his life after politics before Tony Blair and The Mili-Band try to knock him from Number 10.

Standing up to the State

The Law — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:15:00 +0200

June 1 marked the beginning of a ban on drinking alcohol on public transport in London, a high profile initiative by London's new Mayor Boris Johnson to restore order to the streets and tunnels of the capital. While the ban was implemented without much debate, nor seemingly much consultation with the underground operators and staff, there was plenty of activity and organised 'reveling' in the capital on Saturday night; if only other policies and laws attracted quite so much enthusiasm to spontaneously organise.

The Circle Line celebration was not a protest for most, but it is amazing that a ban on alcohol moved thousands of people to spend their evening on the capsule that they probably spend their life trying to avoid at all costs. It is also amazing that proposed legislation such as the motion to increase detention without charge to 42 days (yes, subject to some judicial control) does not similarly motivate people to get off their asses and do something. On second thoughts, it is not really that amazing that people in the 21st century are more interested in their right to drink or smoke than they are about habeas corpus. Going by the number of 'comments' on newspaper blogs, young people are more likely to have an opinion on whether Jay-Z is 'suited' to Glastonbury than they are to care whether 'thought crime' is increasingly becoming a reality. As Marcus Bridgestock noted "Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint."

The rights that have been fought for by thousands before us, whose shoulders we blithely stand upon, are being legislated away from before our eyes while the we sit half asleep, disinterested in anything that doesn't affect our right to consume or because these things won't affect 'us'. While they are partially right, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said that the bill contravenes the Race Relations (Amendment) Act since it unfairly targets one section of the community (Muslims), the use of existing terror related legislation is being widely used outside of its intended scope.

While there are indeed protests and movements against these ideological shifts, I suppose it difficult to successfully create a Facebook group to try to close down 7 tube stations in protest. There is hope though; economic downturns often act as a Socratic Gadfly pricking us back to life, back to our senses, out of a state of heedlessness and back into action. Perhaps then we can all meet at Liverpool station in the name of freedom rather than feigning a revolutionary posture drinking a can of Fosters in front of a camera.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

The Law — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:29:00 +0200

Gordon Brown awkwardly admitted some of the numerous mistakes he has made during his time as British Prime Minister on yesterday's Andrew Marr Show. Brown's advisers have no doubt come up with some 'can't fail' strategy to admit mistakes and move forward; probably the only strategy left since his leadership is in a position in which he can do little else. Brown confessed on the show that he has made mistakes on a tax policy that impacted negatively on those earning less than 18k, dithering and delaying a decision on an early election, and spending 'perhaps' too little time trying to get his arguments across.

Brown's problem though is that he has failed to heed Dale Carnegie's advice on 'winning people to your way of thinking': "If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically."

The election dithering happened last year and Brown was painfully slow to admit fault on the tax changes; and even then it happened in a number of protracted stages until the apology reached its final conclusion yesterday. Brown failed to admit these mistakes until 95 per cent of the damage has been done. As for failing to spend time on getting arguments across - this is all Brown seems to do; albiet in his stuttering, monotone, inaccessible and inarticulate way.

Instead of taking cues from outgoing London Mayor and admitting responsibility for failure, Brown always adds the caveat to his apologies that the recent election mauling is apparently due to 'subprime' mortgages in New Orleans and economic uncertainty. He is seemingly happy to take responsibility for the economic boom since 1997, during particularly favourable global economic conditions, but when things go bad economic downturn is suddenly due to external drivers.

Brown has failed to implement any progressive change since taking over the reigns from Blair. He tried to outline his achievements in the Andrew Marr show but most of these were about 'conversations' he has had with groups such as GPs rather than any substantive change. Most of his major policy decisions and proposed changes are either anathema to his so-called 'moral compass' or absolute disasters - for example the proposed 42 day detention without charge, the abolition of the 10p rate and permission for airport extention (despite rhetoric about climate change concern).

Brown spent 10 years waiting thinking that it should have been him at Number 10 instead of Blair, unfortunately after moving next door he has found out that he is just not up to scratch. Brown says that in these times of uncertainty we need strong leadership. He is right and he is not the man for the job.

Forget democracy, how about running water?

The Law — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:57:00 +0100

The UK's foreign secretary, David Milliband, set out his vision for foreign policy in a speech in Oxford today. He warns that the world can longer take "the forward march of democracy for granted" given the rise of China. He notes that while there is considerable controversy around dropping bombs and killing people (I think he called it 'Military Intervention') in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has 'clouded the debate about promoting democracy around the world'.

While the words and delivery of his speech will no doubt make for great coverage and good soundbites ('civilian surge' is apparently in this year), Milliband must have suffered severe memory-loss if he thinks that the reason for action in Iraq and Afghanistan was to promote democracy. He is also entering dangerous ground by placing the potential failures of democracy at the hands of the Chinese.

He is right about one thing, the Chinese have managed to engage in trade with, and invest in, developing nations and so-called failed states without attaching conditions. Milliband still peddles this line of policy by recommending that the UN and Nato should consider offering 'security guarantees' to new but fragile governments, conditional on them abiding by democratic rules. There is a normative assumption that giving money to countries that are suffering tumolt will only exacerbate the problems, whereas sanctions will provoke change. That has obviously worked in Zimbabwe, Iraq (pre-2003), Cuba, Burma and North Korea...

Most political science literature suggests that achieving economic stability is a pre-condition for establishing stable democratic rule in the majority of cases. When it happens the other way it gets messy. The US and UK have obliterated services and utilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, but think that the best way out of this is for people to vote for elected representatives.

Milliband thinks that a new round of provincial elections will be useful to progress the situation in Iraq, I'm sure they'd rather have running water.

Overkill

The Law — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:19:00 +0100

The director of national intelligence in the United States believes that al-Qaeda in Iraq is shifting its focus to other Middle Eastern countries. This is worrying but it is not surprising. While al-Qaeda's suicide missions in Iraq create a daily news ticker of death and destruction their impact as a tool of propaganda has worn thin outside of Iraq and has little ideological value. Unfortunately, a suicide bomb that kills 50 people in Basra is less newsworthy than a cute white kid who gets kidnapped in Spain. When these attacks do get mainstream coverage they are framed within an 'Iraqi chaos' narrative rather than supporting the al-Qaeda narrative. This has driven a great deal of web activity which tries to contextualise these bombings into a Crusader-Mujahideen war.

Whereas al-Qaeda's early attacks in Tanzania, Kenya and New York as well as the bombing of the U.S.S Cole drew considerable coverage and therefore advertising for the Jihadi cause, the proliferation of al-Qaeda style cells and the ubiquity of attacks in Iraq has diluted their news-worthiness and European security services have prevented a number of possible high-profile attacks, lowering the visibility of the al-Qaeda franchise. This frustration has no doubt prompted a strategic rethink. This is not surprising but it is worrying.

The year of 'interculturalism'

The Law — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:21:00 +0100

2008 is the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. The year will feature a small number of flagship projects on a European level, as well as EU support for a national project in each Member State, and a Partner programme aimed at mobilising civil society.

The European Union's theme years began in 1997 with the European Year against Racism and have provided focus around key issues in the equalities and diversity agenda that the EU has led on since the mid-nineties. The years have featured pan-European co-ordination on a range of events and conferences and have usually involved a large amount of participation from NGOs - the year against racism resulted in the creation of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).

While the initiative is funded and run by the European Union, 'intercultural' and 'interculturalism' are words that are moving up the policy practitioners jargon handbook and there are a number of projects that will try to define what these words mean and the approach and thinking that European cities should adopt to respond to its increasing cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity. These projects move the focus on national policies usually associated with existing and new migrant communities and ethnic minorities (immigration, integration) towards the micro-level of policy and service delivery which provide more flexibility and nuanced responses to different city contexts.

One of these projects is a joint project between the Council of Europe and the European Commission called 'Intercultural cities'. The Intercultural cities programme will study successful experiences in a range of cities in Europe and harness this experience to inform and shape structures, policies and practice in other cities through mentoring and good practice exchange. Following an open call the following cities have been shortlisted for selection: Berlin Neukölln (Germany), Craiova (Romania), Greenwhich (UK), Izhevsk (Russian Federation), Lyon (France), Lublin (Poland), Melitopol (Ukraine), Neuchâtel (Switzerland), Patras (Greece), Reggio Emilia (Italy), Stavropol (Russian Federation) and Subotica (Serbia).

Similar in name but research in focus, the UK based research outfit Comedia has recently completed a wide-ranging research project about 'The Intercultural City'. The project was launched in 2004 and one of its key outputs is a book by the same name. ''The Intercultural City - Planning for the diversity advantage'' features a number of in-depth case studies and helps define what we mean by 'Interculturalism' or 'Intercultural'.

I hope to follow and critically engage with these projects throughout the year on this blog.

The hijacking of academia...

The Law — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:42:00 +0100

UPDATE: BBC's Newsnight have made allegations that the evidence in the report that I referred to in this article was fabricated. Examination of receipts provided by the researchers to verify their purchases showed some had been written by the same person - even though they purported to come from different mosques. Several receipts also misspelled the names or addresses of the mosques where the books were supposedly sold.

The British conservative think-tank Polemic Exchange recently released an ‘academic’ study of literature found at mosques and Islamic centres around the UK called ‘The Hijacking of British Islam’.

While there are some useful findings found within the report, the contextualisation and presentation of the research and the policy recommendations leaves much to be desired. (The author Dennis MacEoin has taken offense to my description of him see below so I have taken the courtesy to remove these comments - but I stand by my points below, which the author didn't address in his comment).

The problems with his publication are diverse and at times extremely worrying:

The report doesn't take into any account whether the proliferation of this material has any bearing on the practice of Islam in this country but implies as much.
There is no coverage or mention of the distribution of far right and far left literature, both of which can contain the promotion of violence and/or separation.
The report does not adequately discuss a link between conservative/'radical' positions and exhortations to violence. The report implies that Wahhabism/Salafism naturally lends itself towards terrorism. Statements such as "Yet more troubling is the possibility that such materials can act as a de facto ‘bridge’ to radicalisation." and "Too often it acts as an ideological bridge to violent jihadism." are not explored in any detail or in reference to existing evidence and research.
The evidence that is mentioned isn’t particularly robust. The report mentions that 5 of the booklets have been found by Metropolitan Police in terrorism investigations since 9/11 - We don't get the figure of how many books the police service has looked at. The 'radical' material was found in only 26/100 places and out of those 26 they obtained 80 pamphlets. We don’t know the total sum of pamphlets on display to get an idea of what percentage this is.
There is no coverage of publications which they claim to be 'non-radical' or moderate despite the fact that these are in the majority. How are radical voices countered in other publications? This would have been an interesting analysis, but outside the bounds of fear creation.
Interestingly on pages 28-30 they name all the mosques in which they found hate literature – the far right British National Party will love this - this is like Megan's law in the US where they name and shame paedophiles who then become victims of vigilantism. This naming and shaming will also have serious implications on access to these institutions future research, not to mention breaking trust and increasing scepticism. What happened to research ethics?

The report also makes a number of recommendations which are comical at times:

"By being driven fully underground the material would at least lose such respectability that it currently enjoys"...like Marijiuana?
If the UK government couldn't even undertake an investigation into the corruption that takes place between BAE/UK govt and SA then how do they expect to have any power to make the Saudi's "clean up their act" ideologically?
Also potentially dangerous is the proposed review of charitable status of institutions - as the report claims earlier much of the literature that was obtained was not known to the management of the mosques therefore many moderate institutions could face closure, funding difficulties or legal pressures.
The majority of their recommendations are all negative - the only positive recommendation is about 'interfaith dialogue (no mention of intrafaith dialogue) but even this is framed in a negative light.

Finally, the report 'implicates' the Islamic Foundation in Markfield - "The government needs to revise its view of the institutions connected to the Islamic foundation" – This is a complete slap in the face to an institution and its members/employees who have and are doing so much to educate and promote forward thinking and moderate forms of Islam as well as promoting and engaging in interfaith dialogue and demonstrates the inadequacies of the analysis and framing of the report. http://www.islamic-foundation.org.uk/

We are in a bad place when research institutes like the Policy Exchange produce such headline making, but ultimately flawed pieces of research that are widely disseminated into the public domain, particularly to influential politicians and policy makers.

Lewis Hamilton, security threat to Switzerland?

The Law — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:43:00 +0100

Lewis Hamilton, the British F1 Racing Driver, has decided to leave the UK for the tranquillity, and no doubt the tax benefits, of Switzerland. Of the UK he notes:

"I can't go to the cinema. I go to the bathroom in a petrol station and people come in there for autographs. It's tough but I knew that was going to be the case."

While many of us can no doubt emphasise with these problems, Mr Hamilton has obviously not been reading the papers recently. If he had, he would have learned that, due to the colour of his skin, he is a threat to Swiss security. Last Sunday, the Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher’s SVP party won 29% of the vote on the back of an election campaign dominated by an overtly racist anti-immigration campaign. The SVP’s election propaganda included a poster with three white sheep kicking a black sheep out of the country with the slogan ‘More Security!’.

Fortunately this was the tame version of the campaign poster that they wanted to use but had to pull, which featured a caricatured black face and the slogan “The Swiss are increasingly the negroes”.

For Hamilton, it would seem that pesky autograph hunters are going to be the least of his problems. Lewis come back!

A Short History of Nearly Everything White by Bill Bryson

The Law — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:15:00 +0200

Upon being given license to splatter my random thoughts across these “pages”, I began to think about what my first “post” would be about. Would I begin with an attempt at humour, should I seek to evidence my intellectual ability or should I just write what comes to mind? My now final decision on content, as laid out below, is none of these – not funny, not intelligent and did not just come to mind.

While undertaking my two-stage commute to work, a bus to Hackney Central and the Silverlink to Highbury and Islington, I decided to listen to one of the many audio books I had downloaded onto my iPod but never listened to as I have never really craved intellectual stimulation at 8am in the morning or 6pm at night. However, in my determination to listen to try out an audiobook I decided to not scroll past ‘artist’ Bill Bryson for the 1000th time and started what appeared to be a 4 hour audio journey on the history of ‘Nearly Everything’.

Halfway through listening to many interesting facts and discoveries by a slew of no doubt honourable men (and Marie Curie), it occurred to me that the narrator had yet to mention anyone except for Americans and the British and scattered with a couple of other Europeans for good measure. It amazes me that given the diverse range of inhabitants of this planet, only white males really deserve to be mentioned when telling its history. Now, Bill tries to avoid criticisms of omission through his book’s rather catchy title, but when you omit the vast population of the earth and indeed many of the discoveries by those people you start thinking either Bryson is right and all discoveries have been made by white men or Bryson is a short sighted idiot who seems to think that white people are responsible for everything we know.

At this stage you might be thinking two things. Firstly, it’s not Bryson’s fault that white people discovered everything and secondly, what does this have to do with the aims and objectives of this wonderful website. I will deal with these questions in order.

I am not a historian of scientific discovery, nor do I wish to compile a comprehensive list of omissions in Bryson’s book. Instead I will provide a few examples of Bryson’s omissions.

Bryson quips about the first law of motion as discovered by Newton. Actually, it was first discovered by the Chinese in 4th Century BC by the Mohists. Similarly, he neglects to mention that “Newton’s” third law was first stated in the 12th Century by Islamic scholar Ibn Bajjah, whose theory of motion was an important influence on Galileo Galilei. Bumbling Bill also neglects to mention that al-Khazini (12th Century) was the first to propose that the gravities of bodies vary depending on their distances from the earth – later 'discovered' by Newton 6 centuries later. In Bryson’s musings on astrology he fails to mention 4000 years of Chinese astrology, Islamic innovations, and the role of Indian astrologers such as Aryabhata, who made accurate approximations of the earth’s circumference and diameter in 500 and was the first to discover that the orbits of the planets around the sun are ellipses. Finally, Bryson names James Hutton as the founder of modern geology, while many historians are of the opinion that modern geology began in the Muslim world with Abu al-Rayan al Biruni (973-1048AD).

Of course I am not the first to note the bias toward Western discovery in Bryson’s tome. Mr M.A. Patel, reviewer rank 224,947 on amazon.co.uk said of the book, “This Book is so American and Euro-centric it’s unbelievable.” Unfortunately only 5 out of 42 people found this comment useful. Mr Patel will be pleased that this has now gone up to 6.

I am also not the only one to note that these biases go beyond the pages of Bryson’s best-selling book. John Hobson provides a further example, in his book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, “It is especially noteworthy that our common perception of the irrelevance of the East and the superiority of Europe is reinforced or ‘confirmed’ by the Mercator world map. Crucially, the actual landmass of the southern hemisphere is exactly twice that of the northern hemisphere. And yet on the Mercator, the landmass of the North occupies two-thirds of the map while the landmass of the South represents only a third. Thus while Scandinavia is about a third the size of India, they are accorded the same amount of space on the map. Moreover on the Mercator, Greenland appears almost twice the size of China, even though the latter is almost four times the size of the former. To correct for what he saw as the racist privileging of Europe, in 1974 Arno Peters produced the Peters projection (or the Peters–Gall projection), which sought to represent the countries of the world according to their actual surface area.” (This map became slightly more famous after appearing in a West Wing episode.)

The second question that I had assumed might pop into your mind – if I had indeed maintained interest long enough for you to still be reading and more importantly I had actually managed to provoke some thought on the content – was does this have anything to do with Cafe Babel? My answer is - nearly everything.