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.