BLOG SABBATICAL

This blog has been 'paused' for quite some time, mainly due to lack of time rather than inclination, I'm about to take off on my travels, so I imagine it will remain defunct for a while, but I do plan to revive it at some point in the future. In the meantime, please feel free to browse older posts to your heart's content.

Decide what to worship

A tweet from my friend Antonia reminded me of the brilliance of this David Foster Wallace essay, which I first read just after he died. I'm a big fan of DFW, although his writing can be fairly patchy, because when he gets it right he really blows your socks off, in a 'deconstructing-the-little-things-that-you've-only-ever-noticed-subconsciously-and-rendering-them-profound-and-funny-at-the-same-time' kind of way.

I had a tedious, frustrating day yesterday (including very nearly getting squashed by a truck on my cycle journey home) but it was alleviated somewhat by reminding myself constantly "This is water, this is water..."

Fistula Foundation

Have a listen to this feature from Radio 4, about the Fistula Foundation hospital in Ethiopa; an excellent, rather moving report.

And by the way, The Fistula Foundation is one of the most worthwhile causes you could donate to - the treatment they give really does rebuild broken lives, so please think about helping them out.

The crazy tree blooms in America

This article in the Washington Post is excellent in putting all this absurd hyperbolic nonsense about healthcare reform, the 'Stalinist' NHS and 'death panels', into context. (My favourite right-wing gold so far: the claim that "if" Stephen Hawking was British he would have been left to die.)

It reminds me a bit of this classic essay, 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics' by Richard Hofstadter, which I have come back to time and time again since my A Level history teacher told me to read it (thanks JDM!).

Votes are not enough

The Times leader on Afghanistan yesterday was pretty spot-on I think, in labelling the heinous law on conjugal rights (see post below) "a defiance of what a democratic culture must mean", and this:

Democracy is a living process, measured in the culture of daily life, not counted periodically in votes cast in elections and the appearance of a representative government.

Paul Collier talks about this in his book Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places: elections on their own are not enough without security, accountability and strong institutions.

Sometimes I despair

Nothing I can say will do justice to how deeply depressing this is...

Trousers in Sudan

Alright, I know I'm being very female-centric (Harriet Harman must have inspired me) but this woman is my new hero...

Maternal mortality

It's a sad and infuriating fact that pregnancy and childbirth remain hugely risky, life-threatening activities for many women in the developing world. These are largely preventable deaths, allowed to happen because of a chronic lack of resources, a result of systematic gender discrimination when it comes to reproductive healthcare. William Kristof's column highlights the issue; the White Ribbon Alliance do excellent work in terms of raising funds and awareness for this cause.

Penance and population

There's been a HUGE hiatus, I'm sorry. Exams then holiday got me out of the habit, and now I'm bogged down in dissertation writing (although I have been posting some article links on Twitter - see bottom left of this page). However, I'm going to try and start posting again occasionally, although most content will be related to my dissertation subject-matter - an analysis of the relationship between human rights and climate change. Speaking of which:

Population control is a very controversial issue in development and environmental circles, even though over-population is undoubtedly hugely exacerbating a number of undisputed social, economic and environmental evils. Of particular concern to me is the way human rights rhetoric is wheeled out to make any form of population control seem like a draconian infringement of liberty. This reveals a privileged Western bias - there are millions of women throughout the world who would dearly love to be given the option and the means to have less children. To see the way this issue is tiptoed round, one would think that population control inevitably means mass forced sterilisation. In reality, a good strategy is far more positive and has all sorts of desirable side effects. Outgoing chair of the SDC Jonathon Porritt is bravely iconoclastic in this piece, which Greepeace rejected as too controversial.

Every single one of the multiple socio-economic issues that preoccupy campaigns today would be eased by full-on, government-led interventions to help reduce average fertility – especially in the world’s poorest countries. And we know exactly how to generate that double dividend: massively increase funding for education for girls, for improved reproductive and other health interventions for women, and for ensuring access for women to a choice of reliable and cheap (preferably free) contraceptives. That's what successful family planning looks like.

I suppose this just confirms my view that educating girls is the foolproof way to solve all the world's ills...

Shameless Chavez

I'm full of righteous anger now thanks to the HRC (see below) and the revision I'm mired in on mass sexual violence (cheery). But this gave me some light relief* - Chavez has taken over the Venezualan airwaves for a whole 4 days. You've got to admire his bravado, if nothing else...

*(although obviously in Venezuala you might get locked up for openly laughing at the President)

A sick joke

The UN Human Rights Council has really disgraced itself now, in failing to call for an investigation into the clear and large-scale human rights abuses committed in Sri Lanka (by both sides). In doing so, it ignored an impassioned but very reasonable plea submitted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In contrast, the resulting resolution reads like a hearty slap on the back for the Sri Lankan government:

Acknowledging the continued engagement of the Government of Sri Lanka in regularly and transparently briefing and updating the Council on the human rights situation on the ground and the measures taken in that regard [This is the same government that has denied full access to aid agencies and journalists, and has accused The Times of faking photos taken above the combat zone].

...Welcomes the continued commitment of Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of all human rights and encourages it to continue to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law...

As Amnesty International has said, it genuinely makes a mockery of the HRC.

Good article on this from former UK ambassador to the UN David Hannay. [The UK voted against the resolution, thankfully.]

On cultural relativism

I'm up to my ears in theories of cultural relativism, thanks to revision for my upcoming 'Human Rights of Women' and 'International Political Theory' exams.

Anyway, here are a couple of interesting (albeit not necessarily ground-breaking) recent contributions to the debate:

• Oliver Kamm in The Times
• Clive James' Point of View on Radio 4. You can read or listen.
• The Pamela Bone article he refers to is here. I love the cartoon that accompanies it:

A damn shame

Vaclav Havel op-ed on the supposedly 'reformed' Human Rights Council...

Bilderberg

Excellent gonzo dispatches from Charlie Skelton in Bilderberg (allegedly the site of secret annual meeting of the world's puppetmasters...and George Osborne).

Apologies

I have exams and essay deadlines looming + a part-time job to show my face at a couple of times a week, all of which = very little free time. I'm trying to increase my productivity by weening myself off Google Reader and the like, so there won't be much action on here for the next couple of months. And if there is a sudden flurry, then please send me an email saying DO SOME WORK AND STOP FAFFING. Thanks.

Enough of the game

Matthew Taylor (who used to be Chief Advisor on Political Strategy for Tony Blair) has some wise words about 'email-gate' (dear god) on his blog, including these:

There is a documented tendency in political journalism over the last two decades to focus ever more on the political game at the expense of exploring the issues behind the contest for power. Away from the froth there are important debates emerging between the centre left and right, not just on economic policy but on the role of the state, family policy and Britain’s relationship with Europe. Many other issues – most obviously climate change - are being suppressed as neither of the main parties wants to confront us with the full implications of an adequate response.

Somehow, all of us who want the next election to be a chance to open up rather than close down the issues, who want the choice we focus on to be about policy options not brand propositions, need to find ways of making this happen. Maybe we had to get to the absolute nadir before we could demand a different frame for our political choices.

Peter Singer would be proud

From PostSecret:

A national disgrace

It sure is:
"This is Britain in the spring of 2009. An estimated 47,000 women are raped in this country every year. Between 75% and 95% of them will never report their attack. Of those who do, only a quarter make it to court, and there face an abject conviction rate of 6.5%. By my most conservative calculations, this results in 191 of those 47,000 ever seeing justice done."
Read the full article here.

Rwanda genocide anniversary

Forwarded by my IR professor: "On the 15th anniversary of the start of the genocide, US UN Ambassador Susan Rice delivers a speech that, for once, does justice to its subject." I agree.

Spot on

David Mitchell column in The Observer. "The BBC is an institution of genius, one of the great achievements of the 20th century." YES. BBC-haters make me really angry. As do these continuous spasms of hypocritical faux-moral outrage. Latest: political-hacks-exchanging-scurrilous-gossip shocker! See the News of the World, tut-tutting about the 'vicious and vile' 'sick stories' while reprinting them to sell more papers. Ugh.

Will Hutton on why we should ditch the green movement...

...in order to save the environment. I don't agree with everything in this article, but I definitely agree with this: "The best arguments to kill the "so-what" factor over climate change are not scary tales from a far-distant future. It is to argue for investment in energy efficiency because it saves cash and makes strategic sense."

Newswipe with Charlie Brooker

I was unconvinced by the first episode, but Episode 2 has got me fully on board...

Update: Episode 2 is not on IPlayer any longer, but you can find it on Youtube here (cut up into 3 bits). Episode 3 is worth a watch too, although I don't think Charlie manages to convey exactly how loopy the world of US news broadcasting really is - Glenn Beck is just the tip of the iceberg. Good film by Adam Curtis.

Best April Fool so far

I was wondering if, amongst all the G20 hullaballo, the broadsheets would give time/space to the traditional April Fool. They have, and thankfully the Guardian has come up with a cracker.

The Life You Can Save

I went to see philosopher and public intellectual extraordinaire Peter Singer talk at the RSA on Monday, and then had the luck/privilege to attend a small private seminar led by him at LSE's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. Quite intimidating - only one other student and me, surrounded by prominent professors of philosophy/law/sociology/politics etc. The topic of the seminar was 'When should we speak of rights and when should we not?' - the various responses to which I can't begin to even summarise now; suffice to say that most attendees accepted that rights-talk was problematic, sometimes counter-productive, and there were lots of examples given featuring animals (Singer being well-known for his animal-welfare activism) and embryos.

But Singer is in the UK mainly to promote his new book on aid and world poverty, 'The Life You can Save.' I haven't read it all yet, but this was the basis for his speech at the RSA. In a nutshell: we should all be doing more to help the world's poor. Not exactly revolutionary, but argued in his characteristically rigorous, logical, highly persuasive style. Here is an extract from the book, here is a review by AC Grayling, and here is a website where you can pledge to meet Singer's standard of giving (for most of us, 1-5% of our income). Incidentally, Singer himself gives 1/3 of his income to charity, mainly to Oxfam I understand.

A police state?

Interesting article by Conor Gearty in the New Statesman. I think I agree with him, and it helps to explain the old David Davis, champion of liberty, paradox.
(Conor is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE, where my Masters course is based.)

Sorry for the hiatus - I've been away breathing clean air in the mountains.

It happens

Check out this brilliant campaign from Amnesty International in Switzerland (scroll across for more images). The text translates as 'It happens. Not here. But now.'

Today viral

This has been flagged up in a load of places, but my love for the Today programme (and Radio 4 generally) is such that I had to post it too.

RSA Vision

The RSA holds great free lectures by a huge variety of distinguished thinkers, and you can watch videos of a number of their speakers here. Highly recommended for some intellectual stimulation on a slow day at work. I just watched James Boyle and Jonah Lehrer - interesting stuff.

The Girl Effect

www.thegirleffect.org
It's true, the education of girls really can save the world. They miss out the fact that it's also a hugely important tool in the battle against climate change - educated girls have fewer kids, which means slower population growth, which means less pressure on the earth's natural resources...
(There's a Nike Foundation affiliation here, which makes me somewhat dubious that there might be sublimal sportswear advertising included, but there's no need to think that corporate behemoths are ALWAYS evil...right?)

Bashir and the ICC

The International Criminal Court have issued an arrest warrant against President Bashir of Sudan, the first ever against a sitting head of state. I have very ambiguous feelings about this: while it sends out an important message about the real intent of the ICC and the long arm of justice, I have grave doubts about pursuing a legal settlement over and above (or before) a political one. Bashir's response, telling the ICC that they can 'eat their warrant' and kicking out aid agencies, just compounds my worry. However, as Gerard Prunier points out in an article from a few months ago (post-indictment but pre-warrant), "when the 'Darfur peace process' is used as an argument against Bashir's indictment, what exactly is being referred to? For such a process, active or even latent, does not exist."

For 2 perspectives, see a Guardian leader arguing that the ICC is right, and a blog by Alex de Waal stating that the day the warrant was issued was "a sad day for Darfur."

Also interesting to note that the warrant did not include charges of genocide. (See my earlier post.)

Dalrymple on Pakistan

For any of you (like me) thinking 'What the hell is going on in Pakistan?' this article is illuminating.

The Express - excelling themselves

This has already been well covered over at professorpnin's blog, but I had to post it too. Great spin on the Binyam Mohamed story. Extraordinary rendition, (probable) torture, Gitmo...yup, we've really treated him well.

On Mass Violence and Darfur

I went to a lecture by Jacques Semelin last night, on genocide and mass violence. He argued (among other things) that our preoccupation with the term genocide and eagerness to label current and past episodes of mass killing as such is perhaps counterproductive.

I definitely agree with him. The 'Save Darfur' campaigns are a good example of this. The intentions are good, the idea being that if what is happening is accepted as genocide then the international community will have to do something. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case. The US Congress declared Darfur a genocide back in 2004 - and to what effect? Interestingly, a UN Commission the next year found that genocide was not taking place, and for good reasons, that I won't go into in depth but include a) the fact that the ethnic/tribal/religious distinctions are unclear; and b) the crucial factor of genocidal intent is unproven. Rather, this was (albeit extremely brutal) counter-insurgency warfare. This, of course, should not mean that we cheerfully wash our hands of the problem. This is my main worry about the preoccupation with proving genocide - it sets the bar too high. If it doesn't look like Auschwitz, we can look away. Is mass killing and rape not enough to move us to action?

Semelin echoed the views of the foremost scholar on Sudan, Gerard Prunier, in concluding, regarding the genocide semantics: from the point of view of the Darfuris, WHO CARES? People are suffering and dying on a huge scale; let's try and work out how to do something about it.

He's also director of the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence which looks like an important project and useful resource. Probably not one for a lazy weekend browse (unless you like to confront the dark side of human history on a Saturday morning!), but anyway...

*There's also the question of whether the genocide approach obscures the complex historical/political context - e.g. the fact that Darfur is the site of a civil war - and focuses effort on miltary intervention rather than political solutions. For those of you particularly interested in the Darfur debate, there's an excellent blog here.

Target Women

These clips skewering female-targeted ads (a pet peeve of mine) are mostly spot-on.
Yoghurt - 'the official food of women' - is my favourite so far.

Liberal hawks

Interesting article from World Affairs on the future of interventionism - although I don't buy Wolfe's argument that "a successful intervention is more problematic than a failed one." Surely, a successful intervention and post-intervention reconstruction means a population that is (more) secure, well-fed and politically represented, and therefore the vast majority would have no truck with any radicals/insurgents trying to destroy the relatively happy status quo?

However, he makes an important point about state sovereignty being preferable to anarchy, and the utilitarian compromises that state-building requires. I would argue this also applies to our more day-to-day foreign policy dealings - see Hillary Clinton's comments today regarding China.* If international cooperation is to happen at all, we can't go around criticising everything another state does that we find unpleasant - perhaps we need to focus on the greater good. See also Paul Kagame's government in Rwanda (as discussed with ST and RA, thanks!) - essentially an authoritarian regime, and one that is guilty of significant human rights abuses, but also probably the most efficient government in Africa in terms of the population being largely safe, nourished, etc etc. Is the pay-off worth it? Personally, I think that IN THE SHORT-TERM, it probably is. That doesn't mean that we should all, as observers or campaigners, turn a blind eye - we need the Alison des Forges of this world - but in terms of official state foreign policy I think it is probably pragmatic to recognise the necessity of such murky moral compromises and unpleasant choices. As Wolfe says: "Sometimes that will mean leaving dictators in place and recognizing that the same sovereign structures that make it possible for tyrants to oppress their own people also make it possible for them to begin to make incremental improvement in the lives of their countrymen." Ugh. Of course one has to keep a close eye on the oppression/improvement balance...

* Currently grappling as to whether I agree with Hill - very interesting question as to whether tackling climate change is more important than securing the human rights of Chinese/Tibetan/Taiwanese citizens in the here and now...

A sunnier outlook

...for women in Iran? I'm particularly interested and encouraged that "more than 60 percent of university students are women, compared with just over 30 percent in 1982, even though classes are no longer segregated."

Hitchens on Zimbabwe

"The situation in Zimbabwe has now reached the point where the international community would be entirely justified in using force to put Robert Mugabe under arrest and place him on trial."

Hitchens' treatment of the threshold conditions for interventions is too simplisitic, but he introduces a useful 'germ warfare' justification and there is an interesting discussion of the relationship between failed and rogue states. I like his assertion that "human rights and epidemiology may be natural partners"; one to reflect on...

An oldie but a goodie

I'm aware that the frivolity count is rather low so far. So - if anyone ever wants to know why I feel so strongly that spiders are EVIL, see here.
And I'll warn you right now that Mr. Brooker might feature quite regularly here...

Africa and aid

A new book claims that "Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world." Not a new thesis, but certainly still a controversial one. An interview with the author here.

Howard Jacobson on anti-semitism

An interesting and persuasive comment piece from Howard Jacobson on the fine line between anti-semitism and 'anti-Israel' opinion. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, thanks of course to the war in Gaza, and I have to say I am increasingly coming round to his POV. I don't believe that ALL criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, of course (nor does Howard) but I do think such vitriolic hatred of a state and its policies is unprecedented and therefore has to be examined more closely. As always, context and balance is key.
Read the article here.

A heroine for human rights

Tragically, Alison Des Forges died last week, in the Buffalo plane crash. She was a brilliant and inexhaustible campaigner for human rights, and probably did more than anyone else to raise awareness of the Rwandan genocide and the need for true justice in its aftermath. Des Forges was particularly controversial for acting as a professional thorn-in-the-side of Rwandan leader Paul Kagame, adamantly insisting that the atrocities committed by the RPF, while smaller in scale than those of the Hutu Interhamwe et al, should not go unpunished.
Read Kenneth Roth (director of Human Rights Watch) 's tribute to her here.

The First Post

Welcome to my blog. Essentially I'll just be posting links to articles I have found particularly interesting, with a short (-ish!) comment. The articles will vary in content and range from the highbrow to the frivolous, although there will probably be a strong current affairs/foreign policy/human rights bias. Basically, I spend a disproportionate amount of my time reading stuff on the internet, so I thought I'd find a way to make this seem productive. This is it. Lucky you.

At the highbrow end of the spectrum, I'll be trying to post stuff that challenges lazy intellectual or political certainties, whether wielded by the left, right or middle-of-road. There will be an emphasis on all the things we don't get enough of in our usual media diet: open-minded enquiry, context and thorny moral/political choices, and an acceptance that there is rarely an easy right-or-wrong answer.

Unless, of course, the question is "Cake?" - to which there is only ever one appropriate response.

Enjoy, and do contact me with any suggestions or questions.