Category: Uncategorized

29^th July 2018

The war of words between US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, earlier this week is a stark illustration of the dangers of unstable government in both countries and the speed with which a flashpoint with international consequences could emerge.

In a twitter message early on the morning of Monday, 23rd July, President Trump reacted angrily to a statement by Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian President.

According to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), at a gathering of diplomats, President Rouhani had stated,

“Mr. Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret. America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

Rouhani was clearly not taking his own advice as, based upon previous experience, he may have expected a robust response from the US President via his favourite form of communiqué, Twitter.

Not one to fail in this respect Trump duly obliged with a response stating,

“Never ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demeaned words of violence & death, Be cautious!”

The message from Donald Trump follows the threats made by Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, who in May threatened Iran with “the strongest sanctions in history” and vowed to use all economic and military pressure to “crush” Tehran’s operatives and proxies around the world.

Pompeo, the former CIA chief, staged a meeting with mainly right-wing Iranian-Americans in Washington on Sunday, 22nd July in which he, in effect, argued for total submission of the Iranian government to the demands and conditions set by the US. The language used by Pompeo is clearly influenced by the advocates of “regime change in Iran” within the US administration, primarily National Security Adviser, John Bolton, and amongst Iranian right-wing exiled opposition groups.

Bolton, a well-known hawk on Iran, told reporters in Washington,

“I spoke to the president over the last several days, and President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price few countries have ever paid.”

Trump’s position was criticised in Europe where the EU is in disagreement with the US president over his decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal.

European leaders do not regard Iran as being in breach of the deal.  However, they are struggling to find ways to protect businesses still trading in Iran from the threatened effect of US secondary sanctions. The first banking sanctions are due to come into force in three weeks.

Considering the volatile situation in the Middle East and current hostilities between the Iranian regime and US administration, the war of words between the two countries could easily escalate.

While President Rouhani is the public face of the Iranian regime and government, so-called democratic elections in Iran have always been little more than a façade.  Rouhani himself has been dipped in a veneer of reformist gloss which quickly peels away under the heat of international scrutiny on human and democratic rights in Iran.

The real power base in Iran remains with the hardline clergy and, in particular, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.  There is little doubt, based upon past evidence, that both Khamenei and Trump are deceitful leaders who would, without hesitation, lie to their people to stay in power and pursue their own narrow interests. They would resort to any option to overcome the various crises they face.

The US continues to forge an alliance with the unscrupulous dictatorship in Saudi Arabia and build upon its long standing relationship with the regime in Israel.  Both the Saudis and Israel, for different reasons, regard the regime in Iran as an existential threat and their opposition to the spread of Shia Islam, as advocated by Iran, is the overt reason for their unity in opposition.

The realities are, as ever, much more complex.  Both Saudi Arabia and Israel have aspirations to be the major power in the Middle East.  The oil rich Saudis are also the figureheads for a particularly reactionary form of Sunni Islam and have aspirations to be the spiritual, as well as economic, leaders of the Muslim world.

The Israeli position is based upon a view of themselves as the regional economic and military superpower, backed by their nuclear capability sanctioned by the United States.  It is not especially nuanced.  While a de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia may suit the Israelis in the short term in opposition to Iran, there is no sense that this is regarded as an equal partnership.  Should Iran in any way be subjugated, Israeli domination of the Saudis would swiftly follow.

It is for these reasons that the progressive and patriotic forces in Iran are determined not to let the interventionist policies and practices of the United States and its reactionary allies in Saudi Arabia, along with the ultra-right-wing anti-people government of Netanyahu in Israel, determine the future of the country.

The forces supporting peace, human and democratic rights, and social justice in Iran have called for all efforts to be focused on finding diplomatic solutions through negotiations within the framework of the UN Charter and in accordance with international law.

The Tudeh Party of Iran (TPI), concerned about the possibility of a new war engulfing Iran, has clearly and repeatedly stated that Iranian progressives are strongly opposed to any external interference in the country’s domestic affairs.  The TPI believe that the future of Iran should only be determined by its peoples and through the struggle of its progressive forces to bring to an end the theocratic dictatorship in the country.

 

17^th June 2018

Racism – not just a football issue

Racism, equality and diversity have surfaced as hot topics in the worlds of sport and culture over the past week.  In part this is not unexpected, with the advent of the World Cup and the notorious reputation of a cohort of Russian fans dominating certain sections of the media.  The other strand of the debate has surfaced from a less predictable source, with novelist Lionel Shriver taking issue with the recently stated diversity policy of publishers Penguin Random House (PRH).

Consistent with much corporate expectation these days PRH released a statement suggesting that it aims to make the company as diverse as Britain, with respect to “ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability.”

The pledge from PRH as stated on its website is that,

“We want both our new hires and the authors we acquire to reflect UK society by 2015.”

The response of Shriver is, at best sardonic, at worst elitist and betrays a level of appreciation of issues of diversity usually associated with the Daily Mail. For Shriver PRH has abandoned its core mission.

“Drunk on virtue”, she says, “Literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual education and crap education boxes.”

She continues,

“a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter…will be published.”

All of which says more about Shriver than the stated of policy of PRH.   Like the ranting ‘political correctness gone mad’ brigade, who seem to think that dragging modern society out of the nineteenth century is somehow an infringement of their freedoms, Shriver appears to think that PRH are likely to publish anything produced by any so defined ‘minority’, whatever its quality or merit.

There may be many motivations behind the PRH position.  There can be little doubt that their objective to publish from a wider pool of voices than the white, middle class, Oxbridge educated elite within UK society is to be applauded.  However, PRH are a private company, they may have an altruistic exterior but their core motivation as a private sector company is to make money.    It will not matter how gay or ethnically diverse an author is, if they do not sell, they will be dropped.

It is very likely of course that there are many hidden talents in a wide range of communities in the UK, screaming out to be heard.  If PRH remain true to their policy, we may soon be in a position to find out.  As for Shriver she can rest assured that the bastions of white middle class privilege are unlikely to fall any time soon.  If they do start to tumble, she can always take comfort in having gender on her side.

Racism in sport has surfaced this week as the World Cup gets underway, with calls from some for black players to walk off the field if they are subject to racist abuse during any of the games.  Such a response could see entire teams heading for the sidelines, the whole tournament disrupted and a victory for the racists.

John Barnes, former England and Liverpool star, who suffered racist abuse in the 1980s and 90s, has a different take on the issue, believing that racism in football cannot be separated from society as a whole, stating,

“Since I’ve been involved in professional football, it’s as if the rest of society is okay but football has a long way to go.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  As I’ve been saying for decades, as long as racism exists in society, it will exist in all facets of society.  Until we eradicate it from society, football will be like any other industry.

Before we are footballers or fans we are ordinary members of society.  We are doctors, lawyers, milkmen, postmen, unemployed people, students…so why are they called racist football fans? Are they just racist for the 90 minutes, when the other six days a week they’re not?”

Barnes has a clear understanding of the roots of racial discrimination in a society which has been pushing a “narrative that has been spun to us for the last 500 years about the worthiness, morality, and intellect of a certain group of people in relation to other groups, particularly black people.”

Others disagree with Barnes and feel that the walking off tactic would be justified, in order to make an impact and give the issue of racism more prominence on an international stage.

However the issue is handled over the course of the tournament, racism will continue to be an issue in football, publishing and society long after the World Cup is over and long after the comments of Lionel Shriver are yesterday’s news.  The stand taken by Barnes and others in the sporting world helps address the issue, the stand taken by PRH may give a voice to many others not being heard.

It will require concerted effort in every workplace and every industry to get to the roots of the problem and eradicate racism as the divisive force it is.  A working class divided on grounds of race is less of a threat than one united in opposition to those who wish to hang on to their positions of privilege and power.  Tackling racism is integral to tackling the inequality endemic to capitalist society and the challenge of making change permanent.

 

11^th June 2018

US Embassy in Havana, Cuba

Science works best when qualified people can evaluate evidence without political pressure to draw poorly founded conclusions, say 15 neuroscientists and physicists in a letter published in The Guardian on Friday 1 June 2018.

As neuroscientists and physicists we have no reason to dispute that US diplomats living in Cuba heard loud noises, or that they reported feeling ill afterwards. Some US politicians have seized on these reports to construct conspiracy theories in which they imagine a mysterious disease-causing “sound ray gun” – something that isn’t possible with today’s technology. These same politicians have used their positions of authority to present their speculations to a credulous public as though they are fact. The pronouncements, in turn, have led to international confrontation and hysteria, resulting in the removal and expulsion of diplomats, and travel advisories. Now, an apparently analogous incident has been reported in China.

A “preliminary communication” from the University of Pennsylvania, with US government support, published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has been used to buttress this putative “acoustic attack” idea with science. In fact, that work is deeply flawed, and does nothing to support the attack theory. We thus applaud the recent paper by Sergio Della Sala and Robert McIntosh, for its thoughtful criticisms of the JAMA report, and praise the effort described in the Guardian (Cuba calls on US and Canada to investigate ‘sonic attack’ claims, 29 May) to engage in an international scientific collaboration to study any connection between the illnesses and sound. Science works best this way, when qualified people can evaluate evidence without political pressure to draw poorly founded conclusions.

We hope that sober and calmer heads will prevail in de-escalating this frenzy, avoiding a chill in both diplomatic relations and scientific collaboration between the US and Cuba.
Mark M Rasenick University of Illinois College of Medicine
György Buzsáki New York University
Mark S Cohen University of California, Los Angeles
Alan C Evans Montreal Neurological Institute
Karl J Friston University College London
Janina R Galler Harvard University
Rainer Goebel Maastricht University
Steven A Hillyard University of California, San Diego
May-Britt Moser Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Gregory V Simpson Think-Now
Robert Turner Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig
Mitchell Valdés-Sosa Cuban Center for Neuroscience
Pedro Valdés-Sosa Cuban Center for Neuroscience
John Darrell Van Horn University of Southern California
Arno Villringer Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig

 

2^nd June 2018

Women applaud the outcome of the Irish referendum vote

The vote in the Republic of Ireland last week, to repeal the clause in the constitution which denies women abortion rights, may mark the loosening of a thread which has tied Northern Ireland to the so called United Kingdom for too long.  The Irish vote has thrown into stark relief a number of contradictions in the position of the partition statelet and its disproportionate influence on the wider politics of the UK.

That is perhaps unfair to the huge numbers of the population in the North who have no truck with the protestant gangsterism of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and would, quite rightly, object to being tarred with that brush.

While the DUP are, on the one hand, in the position of not being able to participate in the governance of Northern Ireland, largely due to their own corrupt political practices, they remain the tail that wags the Tory dog in Westminster, due to the reliance of Theresa May upon their votes to ensure a majority in the House of Commons.

Once the government of the Republic of Ireland enacts the appropriate legislation, women in that country will be able to legally access abortion.  Their sisters in Northern Ireland will not, in spite of it being part of the UK and, in the opinion of the DUP, wishing to remain so.  In Northern Ireland women are granted access to a termination if the mother’s life is at risk or there is serious risk to her mental and physical health.  Conception as a result of rape or incest is not however grounds for a termination.

Deference to local sensitivities has always been a part of the devolution package.  However, when those local sensitivities represent a direct breach of human rights, imposed by one section of the community upon another, they should be over ruled.

It is probable that many Protestants will abhor the anti-abortion stance of the DUP just as many Catholics will no doubt take the papal dollar and fail to acknowledge a woman’s right to choose.  That should at the very least be tested in a referendum as it was in the Republic where, in spite of all of the predictions of a close outcome, a 2:1 majority came out in favour of a clear pro human rights position.

A decisive government would enact legislation to bring the statelet in line with the rest of the UK anyway but decisive is not an adjective readily associated with the May government.  To be fair, being decisive is difficult when being held hostage, especially when it is the DUP who have their fingers on the trigger.  To shoot first and ask questions later is a position they and their paramilitary cohorts will have been familiar with over the years.

While the reactionary clique around the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg continue to hold out against abortion under any circumstances, May is under considerable pressure from within her own party to address the anomalous position in Northern Ireland.  The current Cabinet minister responsible for women and equalities, Penny Mordaunt, backs reform as do former holders of the women and equalities role such as Amber Rudd, Justine Greening, Nicky Morgan and Maria Miller.  This is hardly a roll call of the most progressive women in Parliament, which underlines further how isolated May’s position has become.

There is growing pressure within the Labour Party to back the amendment, tabled by Stella Creasy, to the domestic violence bill, to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.

Dawn Butler, the shadow minister for women and equalities, has called on the government to support legislation to extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland.

She called it an “injustice” that women in Northern Ireland are “having to travel to mainland UK” to access an abortion.

“Labour’s manifesto commits to working with the Northern Ireland Assembly to bring about these changes and we want to see the Assembly reconvened to make such important decisions, but nearly eighteen months on, women in Northern Ireland should not have to suffer in its absence,” Ms Butler said.

The position of the DUP as a backward looking reactionary force in the politics of Northern Ireland has never been in doubt.  The events of the past week have simply confirmed that reality.  What is even clearer than it was before is the stranglehold which such an unrepresentative minority exercise over the UK government.

Northern Ireland should not be a part of the UK, it should be part of the Republic of Ireland.  There should be no DUP representatives in the House of Commons to exercise any influence over UK politics.  The case for a united Ireland has always been a strong one.  If it were possible, the events of the past week have only made it stronger.

 

 

 

 

27^th May 2018

Conte – not likely to rock the boat

The history of post war Italy has been suffused with corruption, coalition and anti-communism, even to the extent that the Communist Party itself fell victim to a particular anti-communist virus, in the form of so called Eurocommunism, in the 1970’s.

The recent elections have resulted in a compromise, bizarre even in the world of Italian politics, which has seen a politically inexperienced defence lawyer, Giuseppe Conte, being elected as Prime Minister.  Conte finds himself in this unlikely position as the leaders of the two main parties involved in the governing alliance could not reach agreement on the position.

Matteo Salvini, leader of La Liga and Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement, founded by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, have chosen Conte because they could not agree on anyone else.

The coalition has emerged following a hung parliament being the outcome of elections of 4^th March.  The cobbled together compromise is based upon raising spending, slashing taxes for the rich, opposing migration into Italy and a shared antipathy towards the European Union.

La Liga has form, having originally been constituted as the xenophobic, nationalist Northern League and having previously been in coalition with Silvio Berlusconi from 1994.   Five Star has no previous government experience but has built a following based upon its apparent anti-establishment positions and lambasting of Italian political institutions.

The election outcome was certainly a hammer blow for the usual suspects in Italian politics.  The Democratic Party (PD), the heir to the Eurocommunist poisoners of the Communist Party, lost 180 of its 292 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.  Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia was reduced to a mere 14% of the vote.  By contrast Five Star gained 32.7% of the vote and La Liga 17.4%, four times its previous best showing.

Italians have clearly voted to reject the austerity policies of the past decade but quite what they have voted for is less clear.  Change, certainly, but whether the compromise on offer, in the best Italian tradition, represents the change they want remains to be seen.

A push against being part of the Eurozone and a promise to make the European Central Bank cancel Italy’s €250 bn foreign debt, seem to have been seen off by EU technocrats.

Post election negotiations even involved Silvio Berlusconi, until Five Star insisted that they would not work with him.  Ironically, if there is a force in Italian politics more unpalatable than Berlusconi it is La Liga, whom Five Star are now settling down with as bedfellows.

Like Emmanuelle Macron in France, Conte shares the dubious honour of being a relative political novice.  Macron though did have some previous political credentials and did have a political agenda.  Conte appears to have no such thing and the government he looks set to lead lacks coherence.

The situation in Italy does parallel that in France however in that, far from the Italian election having resulted in anything radical, in spite of the defeat of the establishment parties, there is every sense that the current coalition will be business as usual.  How this will play with the Italian people remains to be seen.  It is unlikely to address their basic needs or tackle the EU imposed austerity agenda.  There is a far greater sense that the Italian establishment, like that in France, has simply been able to repackage itself once again.

20^th May 2018

Windsor Castle – book now for 2019….

If every board member of every company listed on the FTSE 100 was a woman, it would not be a step forward for the equality of the sexes.  If every board member were black or gay it would not represent a step of any significance for tackling racial equality or homophobia.  Why?  Because the issue is not gender, race or sexual inclination, it is about oppression.  No matter what race or gender you are from, if you rise to the top in a system based upon exploitation you are simply being incorporated by the exploiters.

The fact that Margaret Thatcher was a woman did not prevent her from being an active enemy of the people.  Theresa May’s gender is not lightening the load of those facing homelessness, universal credit or zero hours contracts.

The aristocracy in the UK, the monarchy in particular, is the ruling class soap opera which is designed to distract people from these considerations.  The incorporation this weekend of a US citizen of mixed race into the British monarchy is, we are told, a sign that the monarchy is changing, becoming more modern, reflecting more closely the society of which it is a part.   To suggest that this is arrant nonsense is regarded as treachery in some quarters but we should not expect anything different from the Neanderthals of Little England.

The same cry taken up by the liberal press in the UK however, cannot be excused.  The gushing coverage of this weekend’s royal wedding, which kicks off the front page by Tim Adams in The Observer (20^th May 2018), is a classic example.  Covering the build up and the service in fawning detail Adams concludes that, because Meghan Markle addressed a conference in Atlanta last year about racism in Hollywood, “you couldn’t help feeling that she had changed perceptions of princesses just a little bit, but perhaps forever.”

Similar twaddle is repeated by Alfua Hirsch, as The Observer continues its seven pages of royal wedding coverage, who suggests that Markle was “allowing her wedding to be not just a pageant of tradition, but also a celebration of blackness”, due to the ethnic diversity of the guests from TV, film and sports ‘royalty’.  Jess Cartner-Morley may have been the victim of some vicious sub editing but the piece on Markle’s wedding dress with her by-line was headlined, “cool and beautifully simple, a dress fit for a princess and a feminist icon.”  Feminist icon, really?

Buried further on in the comment and analysis section of The Observer it fell to Kenan Malik to restore a semblance of sanity to coverage, stating,

“As for the belief that Meghan will break down barriers for black people and make minorities more accepted as truly British, that’s as anachronistic as the monarchy.  Faced by an abusive skinhead or by a police officer about to stop and search me, my first thought has never been: “If only there was a black Windsor, then I might be accepted more.””

Meghan Markle may well be a perfectly decent, humanitarian and well intentioned person.  Swapping a relatively successful acting career for the job of selling royalty as celebrity to the British people however, may be her biggest performance to date.  As Kenan Malik concludes,

“Equality does not mean making inherited privilege more “diverse”.  It requires us to get rid of the whole shebang.  Adding a splash of colour to a feudal relic is not my idea of social progress.”

However it is dressed, the royal wedding was a knees up run by millionaires to celebrate their continued privilege, while the nation could only look on and count the cost.  At the end of the day, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, whatever the colour of those on the guest list, when it comes to the British ruling class the only colour that really matters is the colour of money.