Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
A Split Sudan? It’s Spelled “Darfur”
Mohammad Ali Salih’s analysis of what has brought about the USA and the rest of the world to do nothing at all to prevent the splitting of Sudan in two halves, is singularly unimpressive (“My country divided“, IHT, Feb 17, 2011).
What is impressive is Mr Salih’s inability to spell “DARFUR”. Genocide or not, hundreds of thousands have been killed or forced into fleeing from their villages in Darfur, and even those that don’t want to believe in a direct support for those shameful actions against civilians by the Sudanese government, will have to admit it’s hard to win friends when you cannot guarantee the safety of your own citizens.
Compound with that the fact that the Darfur crisis was started just as the Sudanese civil war North vs South was drawing to an end at last.
Note also how the US government had no qualms in trying to help the displaced Darfurians, Muslims driven away from their normal lives by other Muslims. It is therefore apparent that it wasn’t Islamophobia the driver of outside intervention supporting the separation of South Sudan. It was Khartoum’s obviously pernicious policies in “dealing with” internal affairs.
And since even Northern Sudanese people with an international outlook like Mr Salih cannot even mention Darfur, the separation of South Sudan sounds like a very good idea indeed.
Political Views As Of Nov 22, 2010
Well, it looks like I am a mildly-conservative radical libertarian. How does that translate in the world of now?
- In the UK: I am mildly sympathetic to the positions expressed by the former trotskyites of Spiked, even if I find them excessively meldrewsque at times. BNP aside, I can’t stand the UKIP, the only political party whose leaflet I have given back to its startled distributors at my local station, as I find its very existence offensive to a tax-paying foreigner such as myself. As for Lab, Lib/Dem and Tories, well, the jury is still out in the quest of understanding what exactly they different one another from, once they are in power.
- In Italy: I have voted for both centre-left (Prodi) and centre-right (Berlusconi) coalitions. I have been politically active in both coalitions. Funny thing is, I didn’t have to change my political convictions in order to do that. Right now I am politically active in Berlusconi’s “Popolo della Liberta'” political rassemblement, and can’t see any alternative in the sea of interrupted Italian politicians calling themselves “leaders”.
- As if things weren’t complex enough, I am also a Roman Catholic and I strongly disagree with the Church’s involvement in politics, or its teachings about public attitudes to sex. That’s hardly the opinion of a potential candidate for the Presidency of the European’s People’s Party.
If anybody finds anybody of similar political beliefs as myself please do send me name and address, as it will be the second member of the Party!
Genocide As The Losers’ Choice
I have recently argued that “those who felt there was not enough time to save the world, went on to commit genocide“. Of course that’s not part of an effort to justify anybody or anything, rather a step forward towards recognizing genocidal conditions before the killings happen.
Is genocide a crime for idealistic losers then? Yes it is. Read for example from “Genocide – A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed.” by by Adam Jones, Ph.D., Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers, August 2010 (p. 37):
in his 2006 book The Order of Genocide, political scientist Scott Straus [wrote that] “a dynamic of escalation was critical to the hardliners’ choice of genocide. The more the hardliners felt that they were losing power and the more they felt that their armed enemy was not playing by the rules, the more the hardliners radicalized. [In Rwanda they] chose genocide as an extreme, vengeful, and desperate strategy to win a war that they were losing.”
Straus’ book is on Amazon. Interestingly, at page 155 it reports that among the main reasons why they committed genocide, 47.9% of interviewed Hutus mentioned: Insecurity, war, “kill the Tutsis before they kill the Hutus”.
Actually, there is a clear link between the Shoah, the beginning of Nazi Germany’s defeat and a general initial state of panic from Hitler to all, about lack of time and resources. From Wikipedia:
the German defeat in front of Moscow in November–December led to a sharp change of emphasis. Euphoria was replaced by the prospect of a long war, and also by a realisation that food stocks were not sufficient to feed the entire population of German-occupied Europe.[8] It was at this time the decision to proceed from “evacuation” to extermination was made. Speaking with Himmler and Heydrich on 25 October, Hitler said: “Let no one say to me: we cannot send them into the swamp. Who then cares about our own people? It is good when terror precedes us that we are exterminating the Jews. We are writing history anew, from the racial standpoint.”
The point about insecurity has indeed become a historical trait of modern genocide. Writes Malcolm Bull in the London Review of Books (“Ultimate Choice“, Vol. 28 No. 3 · 9 February 2006, pages 3-6 – it’s the original source that inspired my quote above):
Reasoned defences of most genocides can be constructed on the basis of a conjunction of the just war and social exclusion arguments, for if there is an identifiable social group engaged in total war against you, then it has to be neutralised. The Armenian genocide in 1915 was justified on these grounds, for the Armenians were expected to fight with the Russians in the event of an invasion of Anatolia. Stalin’s classicide was an attempt to deal with counter-revolutionary elements who might have sided with the Whites in the event of a renewed civil war or foreign invasion. A defence of the Holocaust might be constructed along the same lines: the attack on Bolshevism was a just war against an outlaw state ‘driven by slavery and the threat of human sacrifice’; it became a total war in which Jews would probably have taken the Soviet side; their pre-emptive internment was therefore a natural precaution, and their execution an unfortunate necessity at a time of ‘supreme emergency’ when the Red Army threatened the Fatherland. If you accept the just war and social exclusion arguments, then these genocides can only be criticised on the basis that they relied on shaky political analysis. They were, in effect, misjudgments, failures of statesmanship, perhaps.
And
Genocides do not occur in stable, peaceful environments, but at moments of crisis when the state is in danger. So societies only go over the brink when the perpetrators of the genocide are radicalised by war.
Analogously, when the Center on Law & Globalization extracted from the work of historial Mark Levene “Nine Common Features” of genocides. here’s what they chose as feature #3:
3. The government or regime believed it was in extreme danger and that crisis was looming,
Finally, in “State Power and Genocidal Intent: On the Uses of Genocide in the Twentieth Century” (part of “Studies in comparative genocide“, edited by Levon Chorbajian, George Shirinian, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), Roger W Smith
makes an explicit link between trying to make the world a better place, and genocide (p. 8):
contemporary ideology [of genocide]…aims at transforming society. With us the attempt has been to eradicate whole races, classes and ethnic groups…in order to produce a brave new world free of offensive human material…what Camus called a ‘metaphysical revolt’ against the very conditions of human existence: plurality, mortality, finitude and spontaneity. It is , as it were, an attempt to re-establish the Creation, providing for an order, justice and humanity that are thought to be lacking…often motivated by a profound desire to eliminate all that it perceives as being impure. […] How else explain the constant references in Nazism to purification and the Cambodian references to the cleansing of the people?
And so to go back to the original point…is genocide analysis at all applicable to people so desperate about human-induced climate change / global warming, they might get tempted into exploding a little more than fictional children and football players? Yes, in more than one respect. Unfortunately so.
Media And Democracy In Italy – What Freedom? And Whose Freedom?
PANEL DISCUSSION IN OXFORD, 21 OCTOBER 5PM
MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY IN ITALY – WHAT FREEDOM? and WHOSE FREEDOM?
Berlusconi and the case of La Repubblica’s ten questions
Taylorian Institute, Room 2
Wednesday 21st October – 5 pm
A panel discussion organised by
Italian Studies at Oxford and the Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy
In collaboration with the Oxford Italian Society
Chair: John Lloyd
Director of the Axess Programme, Contributing Editor of the Financial
Times and Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Enrico Franceschini
London Correspondent and London Bureau Chief, La Repubblica
Dr. Daniele Albertazzi
Senior Lecturer in European Media, University of Birmingham
Maurizio Morabito
Press Secretary, Freedom Party (PdL), London Circle
Prof. Andrea Biondi
Secretary, Democratic Party (PD) London Circle
for more information, please contact: italianstudies@area.ox.ac.uk
Newsweek Explains Berlusconi
Eye-opening article by William Ward in Newsweek (of all places!) explaining the “miracle” called Silvio Berlusconi:
[…] As strange as this preference seems to outsiders, there are several very Italian reasons for Berlusconi’s ongoing hold on politics at home […]
Italian voters have, in three general elections, chosen the devil they know over his dull and plodding opponents on the left. It’s not just for his showmanship; Italians also appreciate his hard work as a retail politician and electoral strategist […]
he attempts to muzzle his opponents and highlight his achievements through the media […] But in this he is merely following a well-trodden Italian tradition […]
his frequent complaints that Italy’s magistrates (a highly politicized and overwhelmingly leftist bunch) have it in for him are not entirely unreasonable […]
Michael Moore’s Love Story…With Capitalism
Who could have thought…
from Forbes:
The bars were sponsored by liquor companies, the kitchen by Lufthansa. One room had marble walls, another, cashmere. Hundreds of guests plucked hors d’oeuvres from Plexiglas trays, but when I reached for a passing tray of pigs in blankets, the waitress tried to stop me. “These are for Michael,” she said.
That would be Michael Moore, filmmaker, who was enthroned nearby on a crowded sofa nibbling from a skewer, which did seem less in harmony with his everyman sneakers and populist persona than a sausage wrapped in fried bread. The Monday night party in Manhattan, which spread over two luxurious penthouse suites, was sponsored by Esquire and tricked out with the magazine’s advertisers’ products. The guests were there to celebrate Moore’s latest movie [Capitalism, A Love Story], which had just had its New York premier uptown.
Five Recommendations For American Presidents
From Robert B Reich’s review of “The Heart of Power – Health and Politics in the Oval Office“ By David Blumenthal and James A. Morone:
- a new president must move quickly, before opponents have time to stoke public fears
- a president must set broad health reform goals and allow legislators to fill in the details, but be ready to knock heads together to forge a consensus
- “The only way to deal with Congress is continuously, incessantly and without interruption” (L. Johnson)
- disregard or overrule [the] economic advisers
- there is an art to losing, too — in a way that can tee up the issue for future presidents
The Secret Of Berlusconi’s Success
“The Secret Of Berlusconi’s Success”
Silvio Berlusconi’s opponents cannot admit that his success may be due not to sinister trickery, but to his greater popularity – an article by Filippo Facci available on The Guardian’s website.
Ban Ki-Moon Has Lost The Plot
What the &^%$ did UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon think he would be doing, by going to Burma only to come back absolutely empty-handed?
The risks were fully known, but Ban Ki-Moon vowed the “right things” and then dedicated a speech in Yangon with the “right words” inside but…is it really the business of the UN Secretary-General to fly around the world begging to visit local dissidents, and then to lament his “disappointment” when not allowed to?
There’s plenty of low-ranking UN diplomats that perfectly able to do just that.
The bloody Burmese junta has made the usual electoral promise (this time for 2010…yeah, right!).
It could all have been so simple:
- Ban Ki-Moon lands in Yangon
- Ban Ki-Moon asks to see Aung San Suu-Kyi
- Ban Ki-Moon is refused to see Aung San Suu-Kyi
- Ban Ki-Moon flies away (immediately that is)
One would think even the current UN Secretary-General could devise such a complex plan, couldn’t he?
Perhaps in the post-Cold War world there is something fundamentally wrong in the way UN Secretary-General are chosen.
On The Rise Of Far-Right Parties In Europe
Recently I have been a panelist on TV talk-show “Forum”, presented by Andrew Gilligan on PressTV. I have been invited as London Media Officer for Silvio Berlusconi’s party, “The People of Freedom”.
One of the other panelists was Mary Honeyball MEP (Lab). The below is my reply to her blog “The Lure of the Bright Lights“:
One of the points made during the programme is that the far-rightists take advantage of the divisions among mainstream political parties. I am afraid you are perpetuating those divisions. I can assure you that Silvio Berlusconi’s party, “The People of Freedom” (”Popolo della Liberta’”) is on your “same side regarding the far right”.
In fact, there is no Party in the Italian governing coalition that could be described as belonging to the “far right” by any stretch of the imagination.
We, just like the European People’s Party as a whole, have the fight against all forms of fascism of old and new as one of our foundation stones. And let me be proud of the fact that throughout all recent elections all Italian far-rightists have been losing voters to the point of effectively disappearing from the political spectrum.
Why are things looking different in the UK? This is not something one can answer in a blog’s comment area. Because it takes time to analyse, then to understand what is peculiar about British politics and society. Such a strong and long-standing Parliamentary Democracy as yours, truly the envy of the world, still manages to inspire the rise of absolutely nasty and repugnant parties like the BNP. Why?
Likewise, Europe is a big place, and there is no chance to fight back at the ugly racist and neo-nazi ideas being banded around without having a good look at the peculiarities of each country’s political system and society.
I therefore urge you and everybody else interested in European politics to make the effort to understand the particular circumstances that regard each country. I know it is a huge effort, there’s now 27 of them.
But the last thing we should be doing is mindlessly sticking labels around. By making sweeping statements, sometimes based on what is summarily reported in the media by distracted journalists perhaps with a particular précis to follow, the risk is to create artificial divisions among what is an overwhelmingly anti-fascist electorate, effectively presenting tens of millions with the choice between feeling disenfranchised, and voting for the racists.
ps personally, I do not think there is anything to discuss with the BNP’s representatives. I am sure you will agree that it is impossible to change the mind of a Holocaust denialist on any subject. If I were a British politician, what I would be more interested into would be to share a platform with BNP voters. It is them, the ones we should all be working to welcome back to our world.
Italy Explained: Berlusconi, The Northern League And A Working Class That Votes Centre-right
The extraordinarily lucid analysis below is my translation of an article published by “Notizie Radicali”, the online newletter of the Italian Radicals, a political party currently associated to the centre-left Democratic Party.
The original publication date was 4 May 2009. Little has changed since then, despite all the Berlusconi sex scandals. The results of local and European elections in June 2009 have seen a further erosion on the centre-left of the Italian political spectrum.
Probably, the best thing the Democratic Party could do at the moment would be to dissolve itself and give somebody, anybody the chance to start anew.
(the text between square brackets is all mine)
When the Working Class Votes Centre-Right
by Valter VecellioThe People of Freedom (PDL) at more than 50 percent. The Democratic Party (PD) at around 26 percent. The data from the Ipsos-“Sole 24 Ore” opinion poll is not news in itself, rather a further confirmation of what was already common knowledge.
Among professionals and the self-employed the coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi reaches a “People’s Republic”‘s majority, around the 70 per cent. But the actual “bleeding wound” for the PD concerns that section of the electorate traditionally linked to left, the workers. Among them, consensus for the governing coalition of Northern League (Lega Nord) and PDL exceeds 43 per cent. The PD appears stuck at much more modest 22.4 percent.
The Democratic Party certainly is paying for the competition with Antonio di Pietro’s Italy of Values (IdV). The IdV has been widening its base by leveraging on demagoguery and low-level “qualunquismo” [the mindset of being unable to tell one established party from another].
PD is also paying for competition from its left, from parties such as Communist Refoundation, the Italian Communists [several of them], the Greens, the Socialists. Although those will be unable to cross the 4 percent threshold for being represented at the European Parliament, they will all be eroding valuable points of consensus and percentage from the PD.
Nevertheless, the fact that Berlusconi has managed to wrestle consensus from the centre-left is beyond dispute. A trend in this direction was already clear after the general elections of April 2008. In fact, surprising and inconvenient truths can be found in a very useful report, “Winners and losers in the elections of 2008” published by “Itanes” (Italian Election Studies), a research group started in the early 90s by the Cattaneo Institute in Bologna and guided by a “student” of Giovanni Sartori, Professor Giacomo Sani.
Those are surprising and inconvenient truths, of course, for the losers, not for the winners. According to the report, the PD has paid a combined effect: on the one hand the phenomenon scholars call “selective abstention”, affecting PD voters much more than PDL ones. On the other hand, there has been a real-and-present migration of support.
To put it simply: for every three PD voters of the past, one decided not to vote in the general elections of 2008, and one voted for the opposing coalition.
“The centre-left as a whole“, we read, “suffers from the flows of mobilization and demobilization a loss of around 4 per cent of the electorate .. . whilst the PD sees the disappearance of the votes of around 10 percent of those who had chosen the Olive Tree coalition in 2006, in favour of parties of the centre-right.”
The end result is that nowadays, the traditional centre-left electoral base has more overall confidence in the governing by Berlusconi than in the opposition by the PD. But we can go beyond that, by reading a well-researched book “Padanian Breed” by Adalberto Signore and Alessandro Trocino.
It is a book that chronicles twenty-five years of Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord, and it is not lacking in surprises: despite some “folksy” and “noisy” [i.e. bordering on the loony] public statements by Lega Nord leaders, the authors tell of a a political party made up of activists running local public Offices to the voters’ appreciation, regardless of the social group to which the voters belong.
In Lombardy or Piedmont, it is nowadays no longer considered odd to find members of the communist-leaning workers’ trade union CGIL also belonging to Lega Nord and/or having no qualms to vote for centre-right candidates.
At present, what is new is that how the above phenomenon has become consolidated and disseminated. An entire section of the Italian society doesn’t vote to the left any longer, tired of in-fighting, demagoguery, and inconclusive statements of intent. It is a situation exposed to little or no avail by those in the PD nearer to the electorate, for example the Mayors of Turin Sergio Chiamparino, and of Venice Massimo Cacciari.
Like the mythical Cassandra, nobody listens to them speaking the truth: instead Veltroni, assisted by a strategist of no strategy called Goffredo Bettini, collected a string of ever bitterer defeats, before resigning. Now we have Dario Franceschini seeking to unite the pieces of a vase broken in a thousand pieces. The outcome of all those efforts is reflected in the results of the Ipsos-“Sole 24 Ore” survey: bitter results, for the PD, but also a confirmation of a situation whose cause is to be found in the PD itself.
As things stand, the PD can only wait for its final decay. Its leaders have done their utmost to reach that goal, and now they are reaping what they have sown.
The United States Of Larger-Than-Life Media Savviness
The Greatest
The Great Communicator
The Greatest Communicator
Oops!
Iran’s Elections: Looking Through The Fogs Of Propaganda
Has President Ahmadinejad truly and fairly been re-elected? Will the violence in Tehran continue in the next days?
Unfortunately, there is no way to know. In-between the average Western-based person and Truth there are the Iranian Electoral Commission, the Iranian Interior Ministry, the Iranian Government, Iranian newsmedia and Propaganda, Western newsmedia and Propaganda, and Western Governments.
Chances are, whatever we read and see, including live TV and apparently evident pictures, will be manipulated to the extreme.
Let’s try to list instead whatever we can be sure about. First of all: there is too much of Iranian democracy at stake for the election to end up been seen in Iran itself as a “charade”. After a TV debate and photographs of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei coming out of a mosque after having casted his vote like any other citizen, nobody can expect anything but a victory recognized by the vast majority of Iran to be enough for the Iranian society itself.
Cynically, one could say that either you have a democracy, or you do not. Any “hardliner” really in the business of blatantly manipulating the election, would have made a mockery of Ahmadinejad’s campaign and Khamenei’s voting effort.
If they have some kind of dictatorship in mind they better go for it, or face the consequences. For Khamenei, and even more for Ahmadinejad, it’s like facing the choice between getting rid of democracy as such, or look like buffoons
==========
In fact, if things stand as they appear at this very moment, with a contested re-election for President Ahmadinejad, clashes in the streets, and arrests of members of the opposition, the long-term loser will be Ahmadinejad himself, no longer able to interact with the outside world as a legitimate leader of Iran. A new attempt at a Columbia University debate would be met with derision if not much worse.
Another obvious point concerns foreign interference. So far the barrage of news from Iran have been answered with anodyne comments from the Obama Administration and that is the way it should be.
Like in the Ukraine, if a sizable number of Iranians truly believe the elections have been stolen, it can only be up to them to claim their Nation back. For example if Ahmadinejad’s rival Mir Hossein Mousavi finds himself unprepared in the fact of the current situation, well, it’s better if he stays away from any position of power.
It’s just impossible from anybody to understand all the details from the outside.
==========
Nobody has died so far. That can only be a good thing.
Berlusconi and the Financial Times – Clueless Influence of Context-challenged Reporters
(this letter has been censored by the Financial Times)
– in reply to “Baleful influence of Burlesque cronies”, FT, May 27
Sirs
As activists in the Italian “Freedom People” (“Popolo della Liberta’”) party’s supporters group in London, we would like to express our sincere thanks for having graced Your esteemed newspaper with a brand-new Editorial about our Party’s President and Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi (“Baleful influence of Burlesque cronies”, May 27).
In fact, one doesn’t have to evoke the ghosts of powerful Cardinals in Paris at the time of the Bourbons, to understand that there is no such a thing as bad publicity. Who knows what people would do to be the object of Your attention, and there we have Mr Berlusconi getting it for free…surprisingly (or not) at a time when the UK political class has been shown to be far from perfect as a result of the MP’s expenses scandal!
Your very choice of words (“very wealthy, very powerful and increasingly ruthless man”) sounds like a deep-seated admiration of Mr Berlusconi. Surely there is nobody left nowadays thinking that “ruthless” would be a derogatory term for a politician?
And we fully agree with You in saying the Mr Berlusconi is no harbinger of fascism (yes we are pleased to see that You feel the need to repeat that same concept again and again!).
But please let us dare a little criticism of Yours. What influence, malign or otherwise, has prevented You from explaining in a little less than 500 words what exactly Mr Berlusconi’s “malign example” would be? Or is your worry about the “media sapping the serious content of politics, and replacing it with entertainment” stemming from first-hand experience with Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia”, and with many years of journalistic manipulation in Britain by the now-forgotten Alistair Campbell?
And perchance next time You will find some time to mention some other facts that Your readers need to be told in order to be able to understand the Italian political zeitgeist. Mr Berlusconi has been under investigation almost uninterruptedly for 15 years. Such investigations curiously began exactly at the time he entered politics, yet the exact accusations against him have been constantly changing. And all along Mr Berlusconi’s opponents have been transfixed by his personality, to the point of making their hatred and personal attacks their very raison d’être…so much so that the Italian opposition is nowadays hitting evermore far below the political belt, with innuendos about Mr Berlusconi’s sex life, age, mental health, personal probity and even his ability as a father.
It seems like the only things Mr Berlusconi has not been accused of are the beating up of old ladies in the street and the torturing of house pets. Perhaps Your Rome correspondents would like to be the first ones going down that route?
Or perhaps they, and You, will decide that the time has come to begin reporting about Italian politics in a thoughtful, comprehensive, non-partisan manner that goes beyond caricatures and prejudices? We are confident you know what we mean – because it would be like going back to the be part of the best the news media has to offer, exactly as you suggest, dealing the “serious content of politics”, rather than engaging in entertainment.
Maurizio Morabito(*) and Ilaria Filippi(**)
“Freedom People” (“Popolo della Liberta’”) Party’s Supporters Group in London
(Almost) Little To Worry About North Korea
In a new twist of the “politics of the tantrum”, North Korea has shown the door, threatened to show the door or told the world it is thinking about showing the door to the UN Atomic Energy inspectors (profoundly sad, no doubt, for being sent back where possessing a shortwaver radio is not a criminal offence). Pyongyang’s reaction to the UN Security Council latest feeble condemnation is so sudden and over the top, there is little to read into it politically (apart perhaps as yet episode in the Kim-succession saga).
One has to remember that North Korea has built and detonated an atom bomb a few years ago, but alas the boom was not big enough to make it a serious weapon. Now they have launched a satellite towards orbit, but alas the rocket was not strong enough to make it a serious weapon either (“going to orbit” is not militarily important as much as being able to reach the necessary speed. And the North Korean missile did not go fast enough).
At best there will be more puffing, more huffing, and the negotiations will start again. If the current dictator dies, there will be plenty of turmoil and maybe even the chance for Reunification.
Trouble is, at worst the North Koreans will explode an atom bomb in the atmosphere. Even if only unwittingly. And that is plenty to worry about.
What To Do With Abusive Partners?
Target practice? Practical lessons for aspiring torturers? Food and fun for killer ants?
The video was produced by DoSomething.org.
Immigrants as Guests? Not Really…
Since when do people ask their guests to pay taxes, to pay for the accommodation, and to find and keep a job? And since when have guests stopped being almost sacred?
Evidently, immigrants the world over experience something completely different from being “guests”. And so they are not.
Maurizio - Omnologos 