Open Democracy

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd A range of military and political developments, from the very rare planned deployment of three huge United States armadas in the Persian Gulf to Israeli fears of Barack Obama’s re-election, is evidence of rising danger around Iran. /div /div /div pVolusia is a small town in Florida, about sixty kilometres west of the coastal resort of Daytona. This dot on the a href=http://www.floridacountiesmap.com/volusia_county.shtmlmap/a, straddling the St John River just off the state’s “black bear strategic byway”, seems a very long way from the rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In fact, the connection is surprisingly close./ppFor Volusia also sits at the eastern border of the extensive a href=http://www.fs.usda.gov/ocalaOcala/a national forest, which plays host to the United States navy's a href=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/pinecastle.htmonly/a firing-range - the “Pinecastle impact range” - capable of dropping live air-to-surface weapons. The town’s residents are used to living with noise, but since mid-January 2012 they have been “hearing booms loud enough to rattle their windows and scare their cats” (see Skyler Swisher, “a href=http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/west-volusia/2012/02/01/naval-bomb-practice-rattles-volusia-flagler.htmlNaval bomb practice rattles Volusia-Flagler/a”, emDaytona Beach News-Journal/em, 2 February 2012)./ppThis exceptional a href=http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-usa-iran-military-idUSTRE80A29L20120111level/a of activity reflects the range’s current intensive use as an aircrew-training site for pilots and weapons officers from the emUSS Enterprise/em now cruising offshore.nbsp; The plan is that this will be redeployed to the Persian Gulf some time in March 2012 as the leading vessel in a third US carrier battle-group in the region, alongside the groups already there led by the emUSS Abraham Lincoln/em and the emUSS Carl Vinson/em./ppThe emEnterprise/em battle-group is normally assigned to the United States navy's sixth fleet in the Mediterranean, though it has also transited the Suez canal into the Red Sea and beyond.nbsp;This a href=http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/02/03/the-5th-fleet-inside-the-u-s-armada-that-will-check-iran/time/a, the Pentagon is making it clear that the emEnterprise/em deployment is intended specifically to send a strong message to Iran./ppstrongThe carrier message/strong/ppTo get a sense of what is happening, some context is helpful.nbsp;The emEnterprise/em is as a 1960s-era vessel the a href=http://www.enterprise.navy.mil/oldest/a nuclear-powered carrier in the United States navy; its current deployment will be the twenty-second and last before it is decommissioned.nbsp;Until that happens it remains one of eleven potential carrier battle-groups in the US’s inventory, including much more modern a href=http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/emNimitz/em-class/a warships such as the emAbraham Lincoln/em and the emCarl Vinson/em./ppIt is routine for carrier battle-groups (CBG), once assembled and deployed in distant waters, to stay on station for up to six months - though with resupply this can be extended.nbsp;There is often a short period of overlap between CBGs coming and going, but rarely much more than this. What is most unusual about the two CBGs now in the Persian Gulf - which have been there barely a month - is precisely that there are two rather than one in the same area; which also means that to have three on station, potentially for several months, is very rare indeed./ppThis also poses a major task for the navy. There may be a href=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/batgru.htmeleven /aCBGs in the entire US fleet, but each carrier (accompanied by its cruiser, destroyers, supply-ship and submarine) can be deployed only for about 40% of the time.nbsp;The remaining period is spent on transiting to and from the deployment area, crew training (as with the emEnterprise/em in Florida just now), shore leave, minor repairs and major refits (which sometimes take a year or more)./ppAmid these constraints it is rare enough for the US to have five carriers at sea at the same time - and almost never in one part of the world.nbsp;Indeed, the last time this happened was in 1990-91 at the time of the first Gulf war a href=http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/dstorm/dsaug.htmfollowing/a Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (when the US navy had thirteen carriers). /ppA recent column in this a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/paul-rogersseries/a highlighted the presence of the emAbraham Lincoln/em and emCarl Vinson/em groups in the region, while cautioning that this does not itself translate into a US plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.nbsp;It means, instead, that the Pentagon wishes to be ready for any crisis, whether this takes the form of an Iranian provocation, an unintended escalation or (most likely) the dangerous consequences of an Israeli attack (see “a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/thirty-year-war-past-present-futureThe thirty-year: past, present, future/a”, 20 January 2012)./ppThat may continue to be the case, but it is worth pointing to subsequent developments thatnbsp; in a fast-moving situation offer fresh signals about what may lie ahead. On one side, a new report from the a href=http://www.sipri.orgStockholm International Peace Research Institute/a by Robert Kelley casts a sceptical eye on the claim that Iran is seeking an early nuclear capability (see a href=http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/robert-kelley-nuclear-arms-programme-charge-against-iran-is-no-sure-thing_4427Nuclear arms programme charge against Iran no sure thing/a, 28 January 2012). Some recent a href=http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5irzar8-2pxM_1U7wKXNCmpucAshA?docId=CNG.cd66f1a33458a82977ef221037640b32.61inspections/a by the International Atomic Energy Agency (a href=http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeairan/index.shtmlIAEA/a), moreover, have revealed little of concern. /ppChina is both an important and a cautioning factor in the whole equation. It is the biggest customer for Iran’s oil and thus a very reluctant supporter of international sanctions against Tehran (see Antoaneta Becker, “a href=http://www.ipsterraviva.net/UN/news.asp?idnews=106609China Looks Both Ways on Iranian Oil/a”, emTerraViva/IPS/em, 2 February 2012).nbsp;China is also well aware its strategic rival India is itself both a major market for Iran and maintaining its links with Tehran./ppBut if these developments would seem on the surface to work against confrontation, they are being outweighed by others that suggest almost that one or more of the major players is clearing a path to war (see Donald Macintyre, a href=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/drums-of-war-beat-louder-as-iran-and-israel-step-up-rhetoric-6358873.htmlDrums of war beat louder as Israel and Iran step up rhetoric/a, 3 February 2012). /ppstrongThe path to war/strong/ppIn particular there is a hardening of rhetoric against (as well as from a href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9060354/Irans-supreme-leader-vows-to-confront-cancerous-tumour-of-Israel.htmlwithin/a) Iran, from multiple sources.nbsp;Here are but six examples, four from American and two from Israeli representatives:/pp* the Washington-based a href=http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/aboutBipartisan Policy Center/a publishes a widely quoted report urging Barack Obama’s administration to make threats of force against Iran more credible, including arming Israel with more GBU-31 “bunker-buster” bombs (see a href=http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/news/press-releases/2012/02/bipartisan-policy-center-report-recommends-credible-threat-military-forcemMeeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock/em/a, 1 February 2012)/pp* the US’s director of national intelligence, James R Clapper Jr, says that Iran is more willing to strike within the continental United States (see Greg Miller, “a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-is-prepared-to-launch-terrorist-attacks-in-us-intelligence-report-finds/2012/01/30/gIQACwGweQ_story.htmlIran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on US soil, US intelligence report finds/a”, emWashington Post/em, 31 January 2012)/pp* the US defence secretary Leon Panetta refuses to backtrack on an a href=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72402.htmlattributed/a comment that an Israeli attack on Iran was likely by June 2012 (see a href=http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/panetta-lets-stand-report-that-israel-may-attack-iran-by-june-1.410680Panetta lets stand report that Israel may attack Iran by June/a, emHa'aretz/em, 3 February 2012)/pp* the experienced US negotiator and diplomat a href=http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC10.php?CID=8Dennis Ross/a cites the Israeli view of Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons as an existential threat to argue that Israel could unilaterally attack Iran within a definite timeframe from their end of nine to twelve months (see Alex Spillius, a href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9057636/Israel-could-launch-military-strike-on-Iran-within-nine-months.htmlIsrael ready to attack Iran 'within months'/a, emTelegraph/em, 2 February 2012)/pp* Israel’s deputy prime minister (and minister of strategic affairs), Moshe Ya'alon, says the Israeli military is capable of hitting all of Iran's nuclear sites (see a href=http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-vice-pm-military-strike-can-hit-all-of-iran-s-nuclear-facilities-1.410626Vice PM: Military strike can destroy all of Iran's nuclear facilities/a, emHa'aretz/em, 3 February 2012)/pp* Israel’s head of military intelligence, Major-General Aviv Kochavi, estimates that around 200,000 missiles are targeted emat/em Israel at any one timenbsp;(see Amos Harel, a href=http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/some-200-000-missiles-aimed-consistently-at-israel-top-idf-officer-says-1.410584Some 200, 000 missiles aimed consistently at Israel, top IDF officer says/a, emHa’aretz/em, 2 February 2012). The great majority may be short-range unguided rockets a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-hizbollah-project-last-war-next-warheld/a by Iran’s ally a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/hizbollah_3757.jspHizbollah/a in Lebanon and militias in Gaza, thus the comment links a range of threats (see Con Coughlin, a href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9057277/Israel-will-not-pull-out-of-the-next-Middle-East-war-until-Hizbollah-is-annihilated.htmlIsrael will not pull out of the next Middle East war until Hizbollah is annihiliated/a, Telegraph, 2 February 2012)./ppSeveral columns in this decade-long a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/paul-rogersseries/a, since 2005 especially, have identified the a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/america-israel-iran-dangerous-momentdanger/a of armed conflict being triggered by the Israel-United States-Iran nexus; all, however, have insisted that even escalating a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/america-israel-iran-war-in-focustensions/a do not make war inevitable or imminent.nbsp;Yet the mix of incidents and statements during the past week do suggest that a “ratchet effect” is a href=http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7627328/an-israeli-strike-on-iran.thtmlunderway/a, which at the very least prepares the way for a conflict and appears to render it the natural outcome - even if that is not the specific intention./ppAn additional and often missed aspect of this situation makes it even more worrying: namely, Israel’s calculation of the US’s political a href=http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/03/the_election_2012_weekly_report_on_to_the_caucusesprospects/a.nbsp;A notable shift is underway here, from the widespread expectation that President Obama would find it very difficult to be a href=http://www.gallup.com/poll/152372/Obama-Approval-Above-States-2011.aspxre-elected/a to a view - shared privately even among leading Republicans - that, especially if more positive economic a href=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/us-economy-likely-began-2012-with-solid-job-growth/articleshow/11743156.cmstrends/a persist, he is becoming more of a favourite./ppIsrael thus, more acutely than ever, must assess the “risk” a second Obama victory in November 2012 may a href=http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/03/obama-leads-behind-israel-iran/pose/a to its - and especially the more hawkish elements in its political and military establishment - perceived security interests. For example, that the president will in the precious first two years of his second term exert sustained pressure on Israel to settle the Palestinian issue, in ways that will make a href=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577159202556087074.htmlconfrontation/a with Iran increasingly problematic.nbsp;For those in Israel who see in Iran and its nuclear plans an existential threat, the logic of curbing its ambitions as far as possible is intimately bound up with the US’s electoral timetable - a a href=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/israel-defense-chief-barak-says-world-understands-need-to-act-against-iran.htmlcalculation/a that points in the direction of taking action by around September 2012 at the latest. /ppIf these current factors are considered together - including Israeli and US statements, and (again) the emvery/em unusual deployment of a href=http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/iran-aircraft-carriers/three/a carrier battle-groups within reach of Iran for the next several months - the risk of war with Iran does seem closer now than at any time since the early months of 2006. /pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-type-text field-field-read-on div class=field-label #039;Read On#039; Sidebox:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd pa href=http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/peace/ target=_blankspanspanDepartment of peace studies/span/span/a, Bradford University/p pa href=http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/ target=_blankspanspanOxford Research Group/span/span/a/p pPaul Rogers, a href=http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329376amp; target=_blankspanspanemLosing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century/em /span/span/a(Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)/p pa href=http://idr.janes.com/public/idr/index.shtml target=_blankemspanspanInternational Defence Review/span/span/em/a/p diva href=http://www.opendemocracy.org/www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/index.shtml target=_blankspanspanIran and IAEA/span/span/a/divpa href=http://www.sipri.org/Stockholm International Peace Research Institute/a/pdiv pa href=http://www.opendemocracy.org/www.sustainablesecurity.org target=_blankspanspanSustainable Security/span/span/a/p pa href=http://www.gcsp.ch/e/index.htm target=_blankspanspanGeneva Centre for Security Policy/span/span/a/p pa href=http://www.thebulletin.org/ target=_blankspanspanBulletin of the Atomic Scientists /span/span/abr /a href=http://www.acronym.org.uk/ target=_blankbr /spanspanAcronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy/span/span/a/p pAli M Ansari, a href=http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415454865/ target=_blankemspanspanIran under Ahmadinejad: The Politics of Confrontation/span/span/em/a (Routledge, 2007)/p/div /div /div /div div class=field field-type-text field-field-sidebox div class=field-label Sidebox:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd pPaul Rogers is professor in the a href=http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/peace/department of peace studies/a at Bradford University, northern England. He is strongopenDemocracy's/strong international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the a href=http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/Oxford Research Group/a. His books include a href=http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745641962,subjectCd-PO34,descCd-authorInfo.htmlemWhy We’re Losing the War on Terror/em /a(Polity, 2007), and a href=http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329376amp; target=_blankemLosing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century/em /a(Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: span class=screen-name screen-name-ProfPRogers pill@ProfPRogers/span/p /div /div /div div class=field field-type-nodereference field-field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/america-israel-iran-dangerous-momentAmerica, Israel, Iran: a dangerous moment/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/america-israel-iran-shifting-riskAmerica, Israel, Iran: a shifting risk /a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/america-israel-iran-war-in-focusAmerica, Israel, Iran: war in focus /a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/iran-complex-why-history-mattersThe Iran complex: why history matters/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/thirty-year-war-past-present-futureThe thirty-year war: past, present, future/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-regional-blowbackIsrael vs Iran: the regional blowback/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/world-in-crisis-echo-need-hopeA world in crisis: echo, need, hope/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/war-on-iran-delusive-logicA war on Iran: the delusive logic /a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/iran-and-america-components-of-crisisIran and America: components of crisis /a /div div class=field-item even a href=/volker-perthes/iran-2010-11-four-scenarios-and-nightmareIran 2010-11: four scenarios and a nightmare/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/iran-vs-israel-risk-of-warIsrael vs Iran: the risk of war/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-fallout-of-warIsrael vs Iran: fallout of a war/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-rumours-of-warIsrael vs Iran: rumours of war/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-regional-blowbackIsrael vs Iran: the regional blowback/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/paul-rogers/iran-vs-israel-risk-of-warIsrael vs Iran: the risk of war/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-washington-factorIsrael vs Iran: the Washington factor/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Iran /div div class=field-item even Israel /div div class=field-item odd United States /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Conflict /div div class=field-item even Democracy and government /div div class=field-item odd International politics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd As the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, undergoes an unprecedented internal power struggle, the time has come for western decision-makers to constructively engage moderate Islamists not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but also in the Palestinian territories /div /div /div pRecent weeks have witnessed an escalation in a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/21/hamas-chief-khaled-meshaal-step-downtensions/a from within Hamas, as separate centers of power vie to determine the future course of the movement. The contenders are the leadership in Gaza represented by Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, and the Damascus-based overall leadership represented by Khaled Meshaal who heads the group’s political bureau. While Haniyeh holds control of a breakaway branch of the Palestinian Authority in the isolated Gaza strip, Meshaal is supported by Hamas members from the West Bank and the Diaspora. Recently, the ongoing public revolt against Meshaal’s Syrian host, President Bashar Al-Assad, has put the head of the political bureau in an increasingly uncomfortable position./p pA first assessment assumes that the struggle centers around the implementation of a reconciliation document signed by Meshaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo in May 2011. The agreement was concluded against Gaza’s ill-concealed opposition to the proposal under Haniyeh’s leadership. The Gaza prime minister attempted to torpedo the agreement by praising the “martyr Osama bin Laden” on the eve of the concluding ceremony, a move which drew sharp global condemnation. Although the reconciliation was meant to bring about a government of technocrats and to allow for long-overdue Palestinian elections, Haniyeh’s refusal to accept West Bank Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as leader of the interim government has continued to foil implementation of the agreement./p pWhile the question of who will lead the government is far from concluded, there is more at stake than personal ambition. What lies at the core of the conflict is a fundamental struggle over the future of Hamas as a movement and the eventual transformation of Hamas from a terrorist organization into a legitimate political party. While the outcome remains unpredictable, signs of internal friction are obvious./p pIn December, Ismael Haniyeh embarked on a western-bound Mediterranean tour in an attempt to gather political support from post-revolutionary regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. Yesterday, the Gaza prime minister started a second diplomatic circuit that will bring him to Iran and several Gulf countries. To the dismay of Palestinian diplomats loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, Haniyeh has so far used these visits to stress Hamas’ commitment to “armed resistance“, underlining what he views as “the futility of peace negotiations” with Israel. Similar statements are expected in scheduled meetings in Tehran. In Gaza, Haniyeh has proven uncompromising with a recent call to merge Hamas with the die-hard Islamists of Gaza’s Islamic Jihad who have never ceased terror operations against Israeli civilians./p pHaniyeh’s rallying of support has not gone unnoticed by Khaled Meshaal. Contrary to the Gaza prime minister, Meshaal silently backed recent “exploratory talks” between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Amman. At the same time, Meshaal has attempted to bring Hamas closer to the secular institutions of Palestinian political life as he pushes for Hamas integration into the Palestine Liberation Organization, which at the moment does not include Hamas. Integrating Hamas into the PLO would close Palestinian ranks and effectively mean a cessation of violence from Hamas. At the same time, it would represent at the very least a tacit acceptance by Hamas of agreements previously signed between the PLO and Israel./p pReacting to turmoil in Syria, Meshaal has recently been forced to prepare the ground for a relocation of Hamas’ Diaspora headquarters. The head of the political bureau made a long-anticipated visit to Amman yesterday, in what marked the first official visit by a Hamas leader to the Hashemite Kingdom in over a decade. According to Jordanian sources, King Abdullah hosted Meshaal and received an official request to grant Hamas a presence in Amman. Relocating Hamas headquarters from Iran-backed Damascus to Washington’s closest remaining Arab ally in the region would be an important symbol for a comprehensive re-invention of Hamas./p pOnly days ago, Meshaal backed his approach by announcing to step down as leader of the political bureau in protest against Gaza’s refusal to fall in line. Elections for the Hamas Shura Council, the group’s highest decision-making authority which appoints the movement’s leader, are due in April. It is unclear whether Meshaal will ultimately follow through with this threat, as observers speculate that Meshaal could be re-elected despite his recent declaration. Alternatively, he might be elected to head a new and independent Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, he still enjoys wide support amongst Hamas rank-and-file in the West Bank, the Gulf-states, and Jordan, and is also backed by a large faction of anti-Haniyeh activists in Gaza./p pWhile the outcome of this power-struggle is far from pre-determined, current developments present western decision-makers with an opportunity to influence the outcome, and to support internal shifts from Hamas as a renegade terrorist militia to a necessary partner in the peace process. Hamas leaders such as Khaled Meshaal, who express readiness to cease violence and to accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, should be taken at their word. With Washington’s embracing of moderate Islamists in Cairo and Tunis, representatives of political Islam in the Palestinian territories should not be treated differently. Instead of resorting to the ineffective policies of un-differentiated boycotts, Washington and European governments should choose to engage the reformist groups from within Hamas. While it does carry political risks, such an approach might just tip the scales in the right direction./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Palestine /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Conflict /div div class=field-item even Democracy and government /div div class=field-item odd International politics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd After the failure of Durban, a promising plan B to reducing carbon emissions rests upon green development industrial strategies being pursued by individual countries. And here China is in the vanguard. /div /div /div pThe gloom spread by the failure of Durban and the Kyoto process generally to set any effective cap on carbon emissions is palpable. But what would have happened if Durban had actually delivered a binding cap on carbon emissions – one that, to be effective, would stop Chinese and Indian industrialization in its tracks?/p pTo pose the question in this way is to answer it. China would never agree to a global enforceable cap on carbon emissions that stopped it expanding its fossil-fuelled industries, which are growing at the rate of one new 1-GW coal-fired power station per week. These power stations are the engine that drives its industrial miracle./p pBut as Simon a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/simon-zadek/durban-failure-will-be-success-againZadek/a puts it, there is a ‘Plan B’ which is already working as an alternative to the top-down approaches of Copenhagen and Durban. This is an approach to reducing carbon emissions that stems from green development industrial strategies being pursued by individual countries. And here China is in the vanguard. Because as fast as it builds coal-fired power stations, it is also building solar and wind-powered industries, not just by expanding markets but by building the new industries themselves./p pChina’s 12th Five Year Plan sets out the goals in striking detail. Green energy vehicles, environmental conservation, solar and wind power – all are to be developed, through both technology leverage and leapfrogging. It has been reported that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in its ‘new energy industry development’ road map foresees a situation where China would be generating 1600 GW of electric power by 2020, of which no less than 500 GW would be coming from renewable energies – 300 GW from hydro, 150 GW from wind, 30 GW from biomass and 20 GW from solar photovoltaic./p pBy contrast the UK generates around 110 GW in total, of which coal and gas account for 75%, and renewables for less than 10%. Wind power had reached a href=http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wind/pdfs/51783.pdf5.9 GW in cumulative capacity in the UK by 2010/a, on a par with France./p pAs China’s green strategies build on themselves, in cumulative S-shaped industrial dynamics, where success builds on success, no less than 30% of electric power generated by 2020 is expected by the country’s leaders to be coming from renewablestrong /strongsources. If nuclear is added to that (reaching probably 70-100 GW by 2020) then non-fossil sources would be generating 600 GW out of 1600 GW – building up an unstoppable industrial momentum (in terms of capital invested in technology, firms, standards, supply chains and markets). This in turn would be expected to translate into export potential, first of renewable energy components, then systems, and finally of technology itself. China is the one country in the world that is promoting both renewables and nuclear – like it or not./p pSo China is envisaging a ‘black’ and ‘green’ industrial future for itself – with the green strategy overtaking the black as logistic industrial dynamics kick in and China’s green technology sector becomes the basis for global exports of products, then technologies – to be taken up around the world. China’s green development strategy is an industry promotion strategy, rather than a market expansion strategy as has been pursued in Europe through feed-in tariffs. Commentators like a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/andrew-bowman/threat-to-opportunity-new-logic-of-climate-policyAndrew Bowman/a who see only capitalist shenanigans in China’s rise as a green power, are missing the bigger picture./p pBut the biggest party to miss the significance of China’s rise as a green power is the United States itself. The Obama Administration sees China making extraordinary progress in building solar and wind power industries and it recognizes, apparently, only unfair trade practices. The simmering a href=http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/story/2012-01-08/china-trade-tensions/52455994/1trade dispute/a between the United States and China over solar panels is shaping up to become a major source of international economic tension./p pChina is now able to produce panels at lower costs than its competitors not just through lower wages and subsidies, but primarily through the benefits of expanded production and falling unit costs – i.e. through economies of scale and the learning curve. Wholesale prices of panels produced in China have been falling from $3.30 per watt installed capacity in 2008 to around $1.00 to 1.20 per watt now. These costs have fallen because of expanding markets. And ‘thin film’ solar cells are increasing market share, where costs are falling because of the learning curve in the semiconductor and flat panel displays industries, where thin film technology was pioneered./p pChina is using all the tools at its disposal to ramp up its solar panels industry. It is utilizing targeted investment, tax breaks, subsidies and low-cost loans. These have always been the tools of new industry creation, as fashioned in the west, when a fledgling industry is confronted by powerful incumbents in the form of the coal, oil and gas corporations and fossil fuel using electric power companies./p pOf course the global impact of China’s strategy will only be felt as consumers switch to buying green products – whether produced in China or in the West. Here again China has an advantage. For China’s policy is an industrial and economic strategy – not a ‘climate strategy’. But it delivers real climate benefits – for China and for the world. China’s model will prove to be extremely attractive for other countries looking to industrialize and join the wealthy nations – without costing the earth./p pSo China’s development policy could end up greening the world – without the help (or hindrance) of international agreements. Instead of threatening to take Chinese producers to the WTO, the United States could be engaging in intense competition with China to produce photovoltaic cells at lower and lower unit costs, to see which country can make the greatest contribution to reducing the global threat of climate change. Now there’s a Plan B worth voting for./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd China /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Economics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd img src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/vladimir-milov.jpg width=160 align=right /Young, liberal figures such as Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Milov are building bridges between democratic and nationalist wings of the protest movement. Will this marriage prove a mix that mobilises a nation against the Putin regime, or will it taint the legitimacy of both sides in years to come, asks Nicu Popescu? /div /div /div pThe existence of divisions among Russia’s democratic forces is proverbial. But the same can be said of Russian nationalism. Nationalism is a movement that is not only increasingly split between an imperial, expansionist and cosmopolitan version, on the one hand, and an introvert, defensive and anti-immigrant one the other, but also in the throes of mutation as it attracts moderates and democrats who would previously have given it a wide berth.nbsp; /ppThis presents different challenges for everyone. The Russian government fears that a nationalist-democratic consolidation on an anti-Putinist platform would make a much more formidable adversary than the 'official' opposition allowed in parliament. Russian democrats also have their own dilemmas as their flirtation with nationalism is on the verge of evolving into a marriage of convenience, a combination that could produce either their elixir of life or a toxic poison./p h3From imperialist to defensive nationalism/h3 pNationalism is like software that can run on different platforms - from Windows to Android. As nationalism normally has little to say about economic or social policies, it can easily merge easier with other left- or right-wing ideologies, increasing exponentially the number of mutations to which it can be subject./p pIn post-Soviet Russia virtually a href=http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1802527all political forces/a – from Putin to the Communists - have flirted with nationalism. Despite various ideological platforms, the unifying feature of Russian nationalists for most of the 20thspannbsp;/spancentury, in its right-wing imperial and left-wing communist forms, was a drive for expansion and a ‘bigger Russia’. As Russia grew bigger, other ethnic groups were welcome, but they were also expected to acquiesce to the ‘elder brother’ in the short term, and assimilate in the long-term. /p pOne of Vladimir Putin’s recent a href=http://www.ng.ru/politics/2012-01-23/1_national.htmlpre-election articles/a dedicated to the ‘national question’ largely subscribes to this view, even though he laments the ‘inadequate, aggressive, defiant and disrespectful’ behaviour of some migrants. But such imperialist nationalism was based on a strong confidence in Russia’s state capacity, power of territorial expansion and cultural attraction. However, the growing realisation of a href=http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR44_RUSSIA_REPORT_AW.pdfRussia’s structural problems/a – from demographic crisis to bad governance under Putin, topped by the economic crisis – has led to some structural shifts in Russian nationalism.nbsp; nbsp;/p p class=image-rightimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/Russia-2size-map.jpg alt= width=300 /span class=image-captionThe nationalist movement is divided between 'Great Russia' br /supporters, who want the state to expand its borders and br /influence, and 'defensive' nationalists who are againstbr /immigration and in favour of a 'Russia for Russians'./span/p pAn increasingly obvious trend in the last few years is for the ‘old’ expansionist nationalism to rapidly lose ground to a new breed of isolationist, introvert and defensive nationalism that is primarily anti-immigrant and often anti-imperial. Such nationalism is more concerned with maintaining Russia’s ‘Russianness’ than with territorial expansion. The key source of this defensive nationalism is the toxic mix of high immigration into Russia coupled with a demographic crisis. With over 12 million migrants, Russia is the a href=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934-1199807908806/Top10.pdfsecond biggest recipient/a of inward migration in the world after the US, though as a share of migrants per total population Russia only ranks a href=http://www.nationmaster.com/country/rs-russia/imm-immigration55th/a in the world./p blockquoteRecently ‘old’ expansionist nationalism has rapidly lost ground to a new breed of isolationist, defensive nationalism that is primarily anti-immigrant and often anti-imperial, more concerned with maintaining Russia’s ‘Russianness’ than with territorial expansion./blockquote pFrom the nationalists' perspective Russia’s demographic crisis is two-fold. One aspect is the decline of Russia's population, with the treat of further decline due to the higher numbers of old than young. But from the nationalists’ perspective, graver still is the fact that the fall in numbers of ethnic Russians due to emigration, high mortality and low birth rates is faster than the overall demographic decline, the pace of which has indeed slowed, partly due to immigration (primarily fromnbsp; Central Asia and the south Caucasus) and higher population growth among some Russian minorities, particularly in the north Caucasus. So the fear is not only about Russia’s decreasing population, but even more so about the fact that Russia is becoming less ethnically Russian.nbsp;nbsp;/p pThe instinctive response to fears of relative demographic decline of ethnic Russians is a growing ‘fortress Russia’ syndrome. At its core, Russia’s defensive nationalism rests on a much-diminished belief in Russia’s power to expand and assimilate its periphery, particularly the culturally distant Muslim populations of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The nationalist schism is clearly visible at nationalist marches parts of the a href=http://rutube.ru/tracks/4984280.htmlcrowd shout/a ‘there is no Russia without Caucasus’spannbsp;/spanwhereas a href=http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Russian-Nationalists-March-Under-Heavy-Police-Presence-133259713.htmlother parts shout/a ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’ and ‘Migrants today, Occupiers tomorrow’./p h3The Democratic-Nationalist Mix/h3 pNow Russian nationalism seems to give birth to a new permutation – a merger of the defensive type of nationalism with elements of democratic and liberal thought. /ppSome in Russia hope that this kind of mix will appeal to many young, urban, middle-class Russians who often see themselves as liberals, hold democratic views, despise Putin's regime, and are western-leaning (though not uncritically so) while on the other hand being increasingly anti-immigration./p p class=image-leftimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/vladimir-milov.jpg alt=Vladimir Milov width=264 /span class=image-captionVladimir Milov is one of the first liberals to have br /attempted a formal liberal-nationalist union. br /(Photo: vatasi.livejournal.com)/span/p pThe new liberal-nationalist fusion gradually trickles down into the political process, as some democrats start to move towards the adoption of nationalist views, while at the same time some nationalists seem to have moved towards the centre ground. Vladimir Milov, a prominent Russian liberal, decided to a href=http://www.rferl.org/content/profile_milov_russian_opposition/2325721.htmltake the bull by the horns/a by initiating a liberal-nationalist fusion that aims to reclaim nationalism from Russia's extremist groups./p pThe liberal-nationalist mix has not yet crystallised in a series of coherent views and leaders, let alone organisations. But it is starting to take some shape. A good example is Alexei Navalny, the emerging star of the Russian opposition. He is a hugely popular anti-corruption campaigner, the most popular blogger in Russia and widely seen as the anti-Putinists’ best hope. His success is built on three pillars: anti-corruption campaigning, pro-democracy activism, and a pinch of moderate nationalism. He goes about these activities by a very savvy mix of internet activism (blogging, crowd-sourcing, etc.) and offline actions (minority shareholders activism, court actions, monitoring of public tenders, writing formal complaints to public institutions forcing them to respond, etc.). Now Moscow is buzzing with talk of Navalny as Russia’s future president./p pNavalny himself is a democrat. He also has a strong record of taking part in democratic groups and movements in the last decade. He is also in favour of the separation of powers, transparency and other worthy causes. a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/alexei-navalny-boris-akunin/akunin-navalny-interviews-part-iHis declared belief/a is that ‘the purpose of the state is to ensure comfortable and dignified conditions for its citizens, and defend their individual and collective rights. A nation-state means that Russia should follow the European path, ie build our own nice, cosy, but strong and solid, little European house.’ Yet a href=http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/multimedia/2011/11/111104_v_rus_march_navalniy_edited.shtmlhe also attends/a the 'Russian March', a notorious annual gathering of nationalists. Asked whether he supports the nationalist slogan ‘Russia for Russians’, he responded that he supports the slogan ‘a href=http://echo.msk.ru/programs/albac/842708-echo/Russia for Russian citizens/a’ – a slightly more inclusive slogan, demonstrating a tolerance of Russia's ethnic minorities who are citizens, yet one which is still distinctly nationalist. /p pIt is still unclear whether Navalny is a strong believer in a nationalist agenda or whether his professed nationalism is primarily a calculated strategy. Either way, the combination of democratic rhetoric with an anti-corruption agenda and nationalist undertones gives him a strong base from which to bridge a range of societal groups in Russia beyond most other potential leaders in Russia today.nbsp; /p p class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/Navalny-Denis-Grishkin-530.jpg alt=Alexei Navalny width=530 /The new liberal-nationalist union has yet to take full form, but Alexei Navalny is emerging as the star of the Russian opposition, with a mix of anti-corruption campaigning, pro-democracy activism and a pinch of nationalism. (Photo: Denis Grishkin, all rights reserved)/p h3Refreshing or toxic?/h3 pIt is too early to tell whether the nationalist-democratic cocktail will prove a toxic liquid or the ticket to the future for the so far marginalised Russian democrats. Either way, the nationalist-liberal rapprochement sparks tensions within both camps. Some expansionist nationalistsa href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNXqFMNgLbM are fuming/a that the liberals are trying to turn the nationalists into ‘cannon fodder for a liberal revanche’. Whereas the liberals, as Andreas Umland a href=http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/could-russia%E2%80%99s-ultranationalists-subvert-pro-democracy-protestspoints out/a, fear that nationalists could subvert pro-democracy movements./p blockquoteThe combination of democratic rhetoric with an anti-corruption agenda and nationalist undertones offers Alexei Navalny a stronger base to bridge different societal groups in Russia than most other potential leaders./blockquote pPutin apologists seize on this. Some of thema href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKR9hKDkThEamp;feature=player_embedded attack/a the popular Navalny by drawing parallels between him and Kerensky, the Russian burgeois revolutionary leader who came to power after overthrowing the Tsar in February 1917, only to be forced out by a ruthless communist coup led by Vladimir Lenin eight months later. The parallel is supposed to suggest that nastier forces will steal whatever democratic advances Russia might make once Putin is out./p pBut it is also possible that Russian democrats could expand their influence and ultimately help co-opt the potentially strong force of Russian nationalism, channeling it into a more democratic and pluralist direction. Either way, Russian liberals are now engaged not only in a contest with Putin’s system, but also in a tense, but irresistible tango with Russian nationalism./pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-type-nodereference field-field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/mikhail-loginov/navalny-effectThe Navalny effect/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/article/email/racist-crime-in-russiaRacist Crime in Russia/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/article/email/russia-s-creeping-fascismRussia#039;s creeping fascism/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/od-russia/grigorii-golosov/anyone-but-putin-how-russians-should-vote-in-marchAnyone but Putin: how Russians should vote in March/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/mikhail-loginov/karachay-cherkessiya-how-caucasus-is-feeding-itselfKarachay-Cherkessiya: how the Caucasus is feeding itself/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/od-russia/alexei-navalny-boris-akunin/akunin-navalny-interviews-part-iThe Akunin-Navalny interviews (part I)/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/boris-akunin-alexei-navalny/akunin-navalny-interviews-part-iiThe Akunin-Navalny Interviews: part II/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/od-russia/alexei-navalny-boris-akunin/akunin-navalny-interviews-part-iiiThe Akunin-Navalny interviews: part III/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Russia /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd The pressure group Compass is taking action to place the public interest back at the heart of Britain. Joe Cox of the group's campaigns team reports on their latest event, a citizen's assembly. /div /div /div pemThe pressure groupnbsp;a href=http://compassonline.org.uk/Compass/anbsp;is taking action to place the public interest back at the heart of Britain. Joe Cox of the group's campaigns team reports on their latest event: a citizen's assembly organised with the economics think-tank a href=http://www.neweconomics.org/nef/a./em/ppWhen complex events occur the framing of the issue often determines which lessons we learn. When the News of the World phone hacking scandal erupted we at Compassnbsp;wanted to help ensure that the UK learnt the right lessons in the right way. We, amongst others, argued that the scandal was not an isolated event. It was the third crisis in quick succession. First, the bankers and their bonuses; then some politicians and their expenses; and then the press, profiting from peoples’ pain, grief and private lives. We a href=http://action.compassonline.org.uk/page/s/public-interestlaunched a petition/a calling for the Government to hold a new Public Jury that would explore possible reforms to banking, politics, media and the police, to enable us to put the public interest back into the heart of the system. (The idea is a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/neal-lawson-and-dan-leighton/next-steps-for-britains-jury-of-people-response-to-anthony-bdiscussed here/a on OurKingdom.)/pp/ppThe backdrop to the campaign was a concern that despite the cataclysmic implosion of global capitalism and the morbid symptoms that flow from this crisis there does not seem to be any genuine, radical and sustained citizen-led discussions about the necessary and feasible alternatives to what can be crudely called ‘neoliberalism’. Don’t get me wrong, there are brave and inspiring signs of life. First, we had UK Uncut; secondly, the student uprisings; thirdly, and perhaps most radically, has been the Occupy movement. Primarily a response to an out of control class of financiers and their political representatives, Occupy aims to be a prefigurative ‘good society’. Based on consensus and democratic allocation of labour, Occupy is creating spaces where alternatives can be re-imagined. Yet despite all these innovative movements, the dominant mood in the UK seems still to be one of cynicism and helplessness.strong /strong/p pThat is why Compass has continued to try to have this conversation and earlier this week organised a citizens’ assembly with a href=http://www.neweconomics.org/nef/a at the South Bank Centre (London) called a href=http://www.neweconomics.org/events/2012/01/23/in-the-public-interestemIn The Public Interest/em/a. Set in the Clore Ballroom, a fantastic open space where hundreds assembled, we debated some of the ideas that could restore the notion of the public interest to the UK./ppThere were scores of inputs from the floor as well as short interventions from the panel of speakers: Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian, Jude Kelly of the Southbank Centre, Danni Paffard ofnbsp;a href=http://moveyourmoney.org.uk/spanmoveyourmoney.org.uk/span/anbsp;and sociologist Richard Sennett. Despite the very fluid nature of the discussion there were a few themes that emerged./ppFirstly, space. Unsurprisingly with the rise of the Occupy movement the notion that appropriation of physical space was important to restore civic life was reaffirmed time and again. Debating arenas that were free from media or political party filters as well as commercial pressures were deemed as important. Jude Kelly called on public spaces to become open arenas for conversation./ppRichard Sennett argued that it was important not merely to use designated existing civic spaces but to appropriate new private spaces and turn them into open spaces. He noted that that was why Zuccotti Park was chosen as a target for the original New York occupation.br /One of the most impassioned interventions came from a man who announced that ‘my pet hate is big city atriums’ to the laughter of many. I think it took a few seconds for most of us to realise he might have had a point. nbsp;/ppSecondly, public services. There were passionate defences of the public services with one woman imploring us all to do what we can to stop the Health and Social Care Bill. The creeping privatisation and marketisation of public services was a particular concern as this was seen as the appropriation of public resources by groups of individuals for private gain (the example cited most was education)./ppWhilst there was overwhelming support for public services there was an acknowledgement that existing public spaces could be used more imaginatively to foster civic debate. One obvious suggestion being that public libraries should be used for more evening social and educational activities./ppThirdly, the media. Alan Rusbridger made the observation that certain sections of the media have used the public interest defence for their intrusive reporting yet they have been defining the public interest on our behalf. Absurdly, he added, the public hasn't yet been allowed to contribute to the Leveson enquiry as it attempts to define what is in the public interest./ppRusbridger also raised the dilemma of the financial pressures that are currently faced by media outlets. One can only see this pressure growing as the number of those that seek out ‘unfiltered news’ through social media grows. It is for that reason that one of the timeliest interventions from the floor was a plea for a more deliberative citizen led decisions on how the BBC spends its money./ppAs with all articles based on event write-ups I’m sure people will have different interpretations of what was most important or prescient about the debate and I would urge as many comments as possible from those that were present (and of course from those that were not present). There were numerous useful suggestions such as from Danni Paffard’s new campaign encouraging people to move their bank accounts to ‘better banks’, for a bolder defence of trade unions, a role for randomocracy but the overwhelming feeling I got from this discussion was that this was about defending the public and celebrating the intrinsic good that came from civic debate./ppIf there was one thing that almost everyone agreed on it was that this conversation needs to be repeated up and down the country and even perhaps in spaces where we don’t have permission to./ppemJoe Cox is Campaigns Organiser fornbsp;/ema href=http://compassonline.org.uk/ target=_blankemCompass/em/aem./em/pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Civil society /div div class=field-item even Democracy and government /div div class=field-item odd Economics /div div class=field-item even Ideas /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd The ascendant 'Tory feminism' is not about equality for all British women. So what is it about? /div /div /div pemThe ascendant 'Tory feminism' is not about equality for all British women. So what is it about?/em/p pTory feminism takes a similar “strength in womanhood” posture as Sarah Palin's brand of “mama grizzly” feminism.nbsp;It is loudly and proudly conservative. A major theme of Tory feminism is a rejection of the notion of “box-ticking”: Tory feminists rail hard against impact equalities assessments, with poster child for Tory feminism a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/24/tory-women-bring-feminism-out-ghettoLouise Mensch going so far as to suggest that this is “ghetto feminism”./anbsp;Mensch dismisses the significance of equality assessments in favour of producing some cherry-picked statistics to back up her laughable argument that the Tories are “relentlessly focused on social justice”. It is not hard to see why this idea is so decried by Tory feminism: the government austerity programme is a href=http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/genderimpactofthecuts.pdfaffecting women disproportionately/a, and will continue to do so./ppimg class=image-right src=http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/9/29/1317310578117/Louise-Mensch-007.jpg alt= width=300 /What is Tory feminism about, then, if not equality for women? Ultimately, it equates to career success, a personal quest for power. The “glass ceiling” is a focal point of Tory feminism, with the goal of getting as many women into high-earning positions as possible. This, according to Mensch, can only be achieved a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/08/tory-women-mps-new-feminismthrough playing the capitalist system/a: nbsp;A feminism that stigmatises the profit motive stigmatises women's ability to get on and break the glass ceiling./ppThis notion plays into the same neoliberal individualism as Thatcherism: while Tory feminists will accept some measures to facilitate more women achieving career success—such as a shift towards more flexible parental leave—this brand of feminism still leaves the vast majority of women out in the cold. Breaking the glass ceiling is only possible if one stood a chance of gaining an executive position in the first place./p pOn other issues, Tory feminism provides a less coherent agenda. Some Tories who declare themselves feminist pursue an anti-abortion agenda, most notably Nadine Dorries, who recently attempted to add an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill which would have blocked the ability of experts in a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/dorries-abortion-amendment-defeatedabortion to provide advice to women/a.nbsp;Although this amendment failed to pass, and was voted against by fellow Tory feminist Louise Mensch, it suggests a socially conservative view of women's rights lurking within Tory feminism./p pThis social conservatism manifests more obviously in Tory feminists' attitude towards the sexualisation of children. Dorries's latest project involves a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/20/nadine-dorries-sexual-abstinence-bill-withdrawn?newsfeed=trueattempting to incorporate abstinence-based sex education for girls into the curriculum/a, and is evidenced well in this Cristina Odone piece which crows about the superiority of Tory feminism a href=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100128268/notebook-a-blue-feminist-trumps-a-red-one-every-time/followed by a call to ban Boots from displaying sex aids/a.nbsp;The conservative thread of argument translates into proposed legislation for internet blocks, a href=http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00199094/prime-minister-welcomes-progress-on-tackling-commercialisation-and-sexualisation-of-childhood-but-says-more-must-be-donewith a hefty dollop of corporate sponsorship on the side/a./p pTory feminism makes bold claims toa href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9044792/Please-spare-us-the-womens-politics.html represent the interests of all women/a in a way that other stripes of feminism cannot.nbsp;It argues that women are not a homogeneous group and that therefore women should be provided with the choice to act in a way that suits them. The first part of this assertion is spot-on: women are not a homogeneous group. The thing is, many flavours of modern feminism acknowledge this, and look at the intersections within a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionalityan uneven power system of various forms of oppression/a.nbsp;/p pThe crux of the problem with Tory feminism is the second part of this assertion, that everything is a choice. The intersectional approach allows us to understand that choices are a product of opportunity, and not every woman is presented with the same opportunities in life: a woman from a poorer background will have fewer opportunities than a woman of a richer background; a disabled woman will have fewer opportunities than an able-bodied woman; and so forth. The Tory feminist line that everything can be a choice works only on a level playing field, which is not an accurate reflection of the world we inhabit./p pWhile a cynic may suggest that Tory feminism is a bid to win greater support for the government from a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/23/david-cameron-soars-in-pollwomen voters/a, the blindness to issues affecting most women can perhaps be explained by the fact that the most prominent Tory feminists are white, well-educated, able-bodied women working in well-paid jobs. Their view of liberation—the freedom to earn ever-increasing paycheques—is therefore unsurprising: this is their concern. Just as the neoliberal ideology benefits only the privileged few, so, too, does Tory feminism./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even Equality /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd In response to a growing realisation that neo-liberal capitalism is morally and literally bankrupt, Britain’s political leadership have provided three visions of ethical capitalism for us to aspire to. So, is there such a thing as ethical capitalism? And why is this question being asked now? /div /div /div pimg class=image-left src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/ok-friday-essay.png alt= width=80 //ppemIn response to a growing realisation that neo-liberal capitalism is morally and literally bankrupt, Britain’s political leadership have provided three visions of ethical capitalism for us to aspire to.nbsp; So, is there such a thing as ethical capitalism? And why is this question being asked now?/em/ppstrongWhat is Ethical?/strong/ppFirst, we must decide how we approach this question: from a binary or a spectrum view of ethics. In binary views of ethics, to use a metaphor, you are either pregnant or not.nbsp; You can’t be half pregnant. nbsp;Therefore, the question has a yes or no answer.nbsp; However, using a spectrum view, there is a sliding scale ranging from the most heinous unethical extreme at one end, to the apex of moral good standing at the other.nbsp; In short, binary ethics asks ‘if’ something is ethical, spectrum ethics ‘how’ ethical it is.nbsp;/ppIt is interesting that this question – 'is there such a thing as ethical capitalism?' – is asked in binary terms, yet often answered in spectrum.nbsp; Notice the question is not ‘what is the most ethical economic system?’ or ‘which economic model promotes the most ethical economy?’!--break--/ppFurthermore, the very question itself acts as a ring fence around the resulting debate, concentrating the imagination within the boundaries of just this one system – capitalism. The reason it is answered in spectrum might well be that the unethical behaviour associated with capitalism is so overwhelming and unignorable, that even the most ardent defence relies on relativity arguments – ‘given human nature’, ‘compared with communism’, ‘would you rather live here or North Korea?’./ppTherefore I consider the question itself to be unethical.nbsp; It is either insincere or ignorant.nbsp; Insincere, in that it has been posed in response to plans for ‘ethical’ capitalism bynbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg target=_blankNick Clegg/a,nbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron target=_blankDavid Cameron/anbsp;andnbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband target=_blankEd Miliband/a, with knotted brows and solemn voices, as if it were consistent with the conversation happening outside of the rarefied air ofnbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall target=_blankWhitehall/a.nbsp; It is not.nbsp; The conversation outside is around what an ethical society would look like, and what structures, economic included, would need to exist to support that./ppIf, however, the question is not insincere then it must be asked in ignorance of the myriad alternative economic models available and the broader social, economic, ecological and political questions being asked by individuals and movements, such asnbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement target=_blankOccupy/a,nbsp;a href=http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/ target=_blankUK Uncutnbsp;/aandnbsp;a href=http://climatecamp.org.uk/ target=_blankClimate Camp/a./ppHowever, if people have themselves in knots over ethics, this is small beer compared to the state of our understanding of capitalism./ppstrongWhat is Capitalism?/strong/ppOur understanding of a href=http://www.partnershipway.org/Economics-Politics/building-a-new-economics/partnerism-not-capitalism-or-socialism target=_blankcapitalism/anbsp;is incredibly limited.nbsp; Despite this being the prevailing world economic system, it is not taught until University in the United Kingdom.nbsp; This means the vast majority of the population have never even had a structured, informed conversation around the mechanics and iterations of capitalism, let alone whether it is ethical or not.nbsp; People, on the whole, don’t know what it is, what it does, what it means, where it came from or what it replaced./ppAs a snapshot, capitalism is a socio-economic ideology, a theory and the current global economic paradigm.nbsp; It originated in the West, gained a foothold in the 1700s and 1800s and ultimately replacednbsp;a href=http://www.historyonthenet.com/Medieval_Life/feudalism.htm target=_blankfeudalism/a. It has gone through various incarnations, or developments, from Mercantilism, Industrialism, Keynesianism, and the latest, Neo-Liberalism.nbsp; It exists in established democracies and totalitarian dictatorships.nbsp;/ppYet I have had conversations on the topic of a world without capitalism with intelligent people who, without irony, have stated that capitalism has always existed and will always exist because people will always want to exchange things with each other.nbsp;To be clear, you can have an economy without it being capitalist.nbsp; You can have trade of ideas, labour, skills and products without capitalism. Capitalism is not synonymous with any of these things.nbsp;/ppI mention this not to belittle, but to demonstrate how successfully and misleadingly capitalism has been branded as natural, inevitable, permanent and, arguably the most intriguing, ‘post-ideological’.nbsp; It is none of these things. But consider for a moment: if most people believe it is, then does it matter whether it is ethical at all?nbsp; If something is natural, inevitable, permanent and not based in ideology, isn’t even entering a conversation about the ethics of it somewhat irrelevant outside of the curiosities of academia?nbsp;/ppThis is precisely how this conversation becomes pointless, for most, fast.nbsp; This is where the conversation slides into a rational black hole, we hang our heads and bemoan the cursed world and go back to watching the telly. This is how quickly and easily a question seemingly challenging of capitalism, leads inexorably to a conclusion in favour of the defence of the status quo.nbsp; The question itself acts as a kind of cerebral sat-nav guiding anyone who answers it without first analysing it, straight to the pre-set destination: turn right at the false dilemma, left at the pop psychology and come to a stop at the dead end./ppThis is why I have taken the time to set the question in some context before even attempting to address the material content of it./ppstrongA Matter of Context and Perspective/strong/ppThese matters of context and perspective are sadly missed in the current and painstakingly narrow debate conducted at sound bite level across the rolling news channels today. A large part of the thinking taking place at venues such asnbsp;a href=http://www.bankofideas.org.uk/welcome/ target=_blankThe Bank of Ideas/a, a building repossessed bynbsp;a href=http://occupylsx.org/ target=_blankOccupy London/anbsp;for the purpose of a Free University Campaign, is around placing questions of ethical economics in context and shifting perspectives from ‘western’ based to a more holistic view./ppBe it economic stability, education, health, famine, poverty, security, the global commons, climate change, civil liberties, human rights, technological and scientific progress – any mode of economy needs to be consistent with social goals related to these elements.nbsp; Why?nbsp; Because if it is inconsistent, then you place individuals and organisations in a position of conflicting social and economic priorities.nbsp; Either they honour the social goals, the economic goals, or they search for some compromise – and there is often not a compromise to be found as the goals are diametrically opposed.nbsp;/ppFor example, technological and scientific progress rely on the broadest population of educated, innovative, critical thinkers with access to means of contributing ideas, skills and capabilities to achieve breakthrough results.nbsp; Yet in order to safeguard the profit from any venture, it makes economic sense to have the smallest group of people involved as possible, operate secretively, and use patents and licenses to prevent others from ‘stealing your idea’ and making the profit from it that you yourself seek.nbsp; In order to progress more quickly, one would need to over-ride or compromise this economic imperative.nbsp; There has been fascinating work recently covered innbsp;a href=http://www.ted.com/talks target=_blankTED talks/anbsp;on this matter and I’ll use one example: cancer research./ppa href=http://bradner.dfci.harvard.edu/ target=_blankJay Bradner/a, a researcher at Harvard University, and his lab discovered a molecule JQ1 which they thought might explain how cancer cells know they are cancer cells – and wanted to explore if this finding could be used to outfox cancer.nbsp;nbsp; He expounds on the success of the decision of his microbiology lab to refuse to patent JQ1, and instead to publish their findings, post them out to 40 other labs, and open source the development of their work.nbsp; Please watch the short video below./piframe width=550 height=300 src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/QxGgpPJNFE8 frameborder=0 allowfullscreen/iframepThe work is truly inspiring.nbsp; This case demonstrates two things.nbsp; Firstly, that scientific progress does not rely on competition, but collaboration. Secondly, people are driven as much by purpose and passion, as they are by financial gain, or put another way – actual success and economic success not synonymous./ppEven in this case, participation is still limited by the need to make money from it at all, and no doubt Jay Bradner and his team made less money than they ultimately could have if they had chosen to stay in the secretive, closed, patent model.nbsp; This is important as it is exactly what has the majority of people remain in the model which Bradner and his team have demonstrated is a de facto slow lane for research and development./ppSupporters of capitalism might ask ‘why should people not benefit financially from their skills and capabilities?’, yet it could equally be asked of capitalism, ‘why would you penalise people for collaboration?’, or ‘why would you incentivise behaviour which holds us back?’/ppDo we want, as a society, to make people choose between personal wealth and making the best decisions on critical matters like curing cancer?/ppFar from progress being caused by capitalism, in many areas progress has been made in spite of capitalism.nbsp; Considering the incredible pace of scientific and technological advancements with these limits in place, the mind boggles at what would happen to human progress if the collective mental and physical power of the three billion people currently starving in the world, were available.nbsp;/ppThis is why context is so important when addressing the matter of ethical economy, and one way in which capitalism places ethical dilemmas into just one area of our lives./ppMoving on to perspective, this is vital in addressing questions of ethics, particularly in the case of capitalism.nbsp; One of the hardest argued cases for capitalism is the aforementioned progress.nbsp; Capitalism, it is said, propels people to work hard, in order to succeed financially, and therefore wider society benefits from the increased productivity of the population.nbsp; It is also leads inexorably to individual liberty, freedom and democracy./ppNow, superficially, taking a ‘Western’ view of this, the post industrial revolution period of history has seen extraordinary leaps of progress in science, technology, human rights and democratic participation.nbsp; So for many people, compared to feudalism, capitalism is an improvement.nbsp; People cite democracy, universal healthcare, education and the welfare state as representative of this progress.nbsp; Let us assume for the moment that they are./ppIf you were born into another family, country or region of the world – you would have seen quite the opposite.nbsp; Fromnbsp;a href=http://www.going-global.com/articles/understanding_foreign_direct_investment.htm target=_blankForeign Direct Investment/a, toa href=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=suLo-H31uhkCamp;pg=PA302amp;lpg=PA302amp;dq=the+debt+trap+international+relationsamp;source=blamp;ots=vlORtMaiUeamp;sig=9k1xOM2u26Rj_SW8jIkPRMbShuEamp;hl=enamp;sa=Xamp;ei=s1gcT6KhMI3U8QO9v4iTCwamp;ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepageamp;q=the%20debt%20trapamp;f=false target=_blanknbsp;The Debt Trap/a, tonbsp;a href=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KzubeOpYhqYCamp;pg=PA70amp;lpg=PA70amp;dq=ITT+coup+allendeamp;source=blamp;ots=NnmWxoVxTxamp;sig=Xs9LUFz_q7Ag5SBNFKXRcJtSpqsamp;hl=enamp;sa=Xamp;ei=B1kcT8SYIYKb8gPg4rGcCwamp;ved=0CGsQ6AEwCA#v=onepageamp;q=ITT%20coup%20allendeamp;f=false target=_blankcoups of democratic leaders in order to install dictators/anbsp;who would ultimately generate a profit for western corporations, tonbsp;a href=http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty target=_blankStructural Adjustment Programmes/anbsp;used by thenbsp;a href=http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/i/imf-criticism.html target=_blankIMFnbsp;/aon African and Latin American countries shifting production to foreign trade rather than domestic need, to the morally defunct trade in weapons, to a toothlessnbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_United_Nations target=_blankUN general assembly and a pointless US dominated UN Security council/a.nbsp; All of these policies, decisions and institutions, created in order to perpetuate and stimulate ‘progress’ on one side of the world, at the direct and indirect expense of survival, let alone progress, on the other.nbsp; This argument is not refuted bynbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_in_international_relations target=_blankrealists/anbsp;of politics, economics or international relations – it is defended and justified.nbsp; It is onlynbsp;a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism target=_blankneo-liberals/anbsp;and neo-liberalist ‘idealism’, that seeks to wash its hands of any responsibility for generating this mass dispossession, suffering and death – whilst claiming to be the only show in town in terms of dealing with it. It could be argued that rather than replacing feudalism, capitalism merely globalised it.nbsp;/ppIt is unconscionable, to thenbsp;a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/submission/kerry-anne-mendoza/occupy-movement-revolution-in-our-sense-of-self target=_blankCitizens of the World/anbsp;perspective exemplified by the global Occupy movement, that this progress continue to be made at the cost of, and with little or no benefit to, the majority of people on the planet.nbsp; On the whole, set in context, they find it difficult to see how on earth, given the competitive nature of it, a capitalist economic model is the choice model for the globalised civil society emerging in the 21st Century./ppstrongThe Least Unethical Thing?/strong/ppFor those people who see the ethos of capitalism itself as unethical, when people ask ‘is there an ethical or more ethical form of capitalism’ the initial response is a palm to the forehead.nbsp;/ppNick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister of the UK government and leader of the Liberal Democrat party, is currently trumpeting the idea of what he calls anbsp;a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/16/john-lewis-model-lessons target=_blankJohn Lewis economy/a.nbsp; It is not clear that it means anything at all.nbsp; John Lewis is a department store; it operates within a capitalist economy.nbsp; Aspiring to a John Lewis economy is like aspiring to Scout Club Christianity, or Air Cadets Security.nbsp; John Lewis is a company, the world isn’t.nbsp; A wistful, ‘oh wouldn’t it be nice if all our companies acted like John Lewis?’ does not translate into a just and ethical economic model – what of currency control, trade agreements, migrationnbsp;–nbsp;what would John Lewis do?/ppFurthermore, even if we take the statement at face value, assuming it to mean a more equitable, responsible, fair capitalism, the concept is still problematic if capitalism itself is considered unethical.nbsp; In this light, talking about John Lewis Capitalism, is comparable to talking aboutnbsp;a href=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005424 target=_blankTheresienstadt/anbsp;Nazism or expounding the virtues ofnbsp;a href=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/sepbutequal.htm target=_blank‘separate but equal’/anbsp;over slavery.nbsp; They may well be moving in the direction of ethical on a spectrum scale, but what is the point of making such an unethical thing, slightly less unethical? Surely, one could conclude, our collective time and energy would be far better spent in the act of creating an ethical scenario, than seeking – cynically or otherwise – to dampen the worst impacts of an unethical one./ppstrongFor Whom the Bell Tolls/strong/ppAs before, in the dying days of feudalism, human society is once more at the point where its economic model no longer fits the ethical or social ambitions of the majority of its constituents.nbsp; There is friction, fracture and frustration.nbsp; Discontent hangs in the air, as does the unspoken terror that is (in stage whisper) ‘change’.nbsp;/ppSo, is there such a thing as ethical capitalism?nbsp; I believe not. nbsp;More importantly, despite the failure of political and other institutions to do so, broader social movements are resetting the horse before the cart by asking first – what kind of society do we want?nbsp; We can then move into ‘what kind of economy will best deliver on those ambitions?’, ‘what economic model serves that society best?’/ppThe people today refusing to entertain even the conversation, or imagining of a post-capitalist economy, are no different to the feudal barons and peasants who could not foresee or were hostile to the dynamic newcomer capitalism in centuries past.nbsp; For them, humanity has reached the apex of its ability to generate economic and political ideas./ppTo hold a view of humankind as static, or finite in our ability to innovate and create is, in my opinion, to fundamentally close one’s mind to the facts, as demonstrated by human history.nbsp; It has been said before, that the economy is a great servant but a terrible master.nbsp; This is demonstrated perfectly by a glance at the current state of our world.nbsp; It seems we have forgotten that we, human beings, invented this economy. If it has ceased to serve us then our best efforts should - and in the tent cities, repossessed public buildings and occupied homes across the worldnbsp;emare -/embeing made to design another./ppA day will come when whatever new model replaces capitalism also ages, withers and no longer fits our future society’s ambitions, and the process of socio-economic evolution will continue.nbsp; This is the reality of human existence, and in my view, the wonder of it.nbsp; Let us take this opportunity to be not the desperate hangers-on to a dying, unjust regime, but the instigators of evolution and the architects of our social and economic destiny./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even Economics /div div class=field-item odd Equality /div div class=field-item even Ideas /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd This question has provoked extensive debate not only among the Iranian left and democratic forces, but between these forces and the extremist neo-liberal forces in Iran. Disoriented progressives world-wide have failed to understand the nature of the Iranian regime. /div /div /div pI don’t really know how I should begin.nbsp; Maybe the best way to begin is to directly address the Cuban students from the University of Havana who made up the audience for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his trip to Latin America on January 11, 2012. The President of the Islamic Republic denounced capitalism during a speech on the third leg of his a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-cuba_n_1200050.htmltrip to forge friendships/a with his Latin American allies, most of them thorns in Washington's side. Thankfully we are already witnessing that the capitalist system is in decay, Ahmadinejad said. On various stages it has come to a dead end—politically, economically and culturally./p pYou see that when it lacks logic, they turn to weapons to kill and destroy, he added. /p pCommentators on the far left on one hand, and the reactionary right on the other, are both prone to argue that the policies of President Ahmadinejad have an ‘anti-imperialist’ or even a ‘socialist’ motivation. They adduce as proof the seemingly close relations between the Iranian government and Latin American states, most notably with the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. /p pAs a young writer and I’d like to think, a progressive, I have been giving this a lot of thought. Is Ahmadinejad really ‘anti-imperialist’?nbsp; This question has provoked extensive debate not only among the Iranian left and democratic forces, but between these forces and the extremist neo-liberal forces in Iran. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and competition among the great powers of the world over global markets, there has been some ambiguity, to say the least, about the global scene for many progressive forces. What I want to argue is that both these forces have their own reasons for describing Iran in this way, but in taking advantage of the situation like this, they are also misrepresenting the facts of the case. Progressives in particular are letting the Iranian people down./p pDuring the period that I have been living in Germany as an independent journalist in exile, media across the political spectrum have interviewed me, with the sole exception of the leftist press. Unfortunately, at the peak of the struggle of the Iranian people, the voice of progress and left forces of the world did not resonate as it should have done in support of the popular movement in Iran. In some cases, Iranian activists were deeply saddened to witness the same kind of clichéd rhetoric and superficial characterization of the existing situation that mobilized support for the so-called ‘Velvet Revolutions’, stirred up by western powers, and particularly the US.nbsp;nbsp; /p pEven worse, others on the left concluded that Ahmadinejad’s government represents the majority of the masses. Yes, the Islamic Republic has been in a quarrel with the US from the day it was established. But this hostility stems from the deeply reactionary and anti-modern nature of the regime. It was this, in fact, that was behind the slogan of, Down with the USA with which they crushed thousands of anti-imperialist and left forces in a calculatedly vicious and systematic manner. The suppression of the left and liberal forces continues to this day. What Ahmadinejad and his cronies represent is not ‘progressive’ but deeply regressive. They want to take the Iranian nation back 1,400 years. /p pMeanwhile, in the past thirty years, under the pretext of the threat coming from the Islamic Republic, Americans have deployed military forces to many parts of the Middle East. This game, referred to as a war on ‘political Islam’ was specifically invented by western powers to address a very particular conjuncture. To date, this game has been a costly one for the people in the Middle East in general and for Iranians in particular.nbsp; Today, the Iranian regime claims to be opposed to the United States, but it just happens to be the case that the terms imperialism and syndicalism or trade unionism are also banned from its vocabulary.nbsp; /p pLiberals and leftists in Iran have in vain tried to raise their voices so that they can be heard by those who claim to strive for ‘another and better world’. Thus far, this effort has been futile. The intimacy, for example, between the head of the Iranian government and some Latin American governments such as that of Hugo Chavez shocks and deeply saddens Iranian progressives. Their unconditional support for Iran’s Ahmadinejad and his regime, which is under the control of the Supreme Leader and other Mullahs, is unfathomable. How can it be in any way consistent with the basic belief in democratic and socialist values that they claim to uphold?nbsp; Though they talk about opening up new fronts to fight corporate greed and imperialist interests, regrettably all they do is to slavishly follow the obsolete approach of, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ /p pA review of the events of recent months in Iran and the economic plans of the current government, shows clearly that Iran is pursuing the prescriptions of the World Bank and IMF, prescriptions which in reality are against the interests of ordinary people, especially the working class. Several trade unionists and human rights defenders have recently been sentenced to unjust terms of prison and others remain in arbitrary detention in Iran, often in horrendous conditions, with the only aim to sanction the legitimate exercise of their human right activities, amid the continuing repression of Iranian civil society. Iran’s workers are fighting to protect their rights and their livelihoods. Prohibited by law from unionizing freely and independently, they are battling for decent wages, better working conditions and job security. They want their voices to be heard and their labour rights to be respected. The response of the government to workers’ demands has been brutal with some trade unionists serving long prison sentences.nbsp;/p pThe passing of the current ‘economic plan bill’ with such indecent haste hands over capital, lock stock and barrel, to a bunch of military people, i.e. the Revolutionary Guards and the a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasijBasij/a.nbsp; The elimination of subsidies for the labour force is part of this monopolization plan. nbsp;This reveals the true underlying orientation and nature of the Islamic regime. President Khatami, between 1997 and 2005, also had a strong inclination toward a neo-liberal economy. But his government, unlike the current one, was unable to implement this approach, when they realized just what it would take to control all the negative aspects of the policy of so-called structural adjustment./ppspanSo, dear friends in Cuba, I would say, it is astonishing for progressive forces in Iran to behold a country like yours, which was placed under a US economic embargo for more than forty years, turning the face of camaraderie and friendship towards such a reactionary and backward regime as the current one in Tehran. If you have the chance, you surely have a right to ask the Cuban leadership how they can justify their defence of a regime that has imprisoned and/or executed hundreds of progressive and leftist forces. Have they never heard of a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khavaran_cemeteryKhavaran Cemetery/a?nbsp; In 1988, after thousands of political prisoners, most of whom were leftists and liberals, were executed en masse, they were buried in Khavaran. These were the potential leaders of change in their society. br //spanspan/span/ppspanThere is a particular moment in my experience which I would like you to think about. It came at the end of my lengthy struggle to be an independent journalist in Iran. There are no independent publications in today's Iran. For some time there was the possibility of writing for some of the ‘religious reformist’ papers and I could sense the thirst for information and knowledge. Numerous articles of mine were published in the history, politics and culture pages of the high-circulation daily emShargh/em, and were well received. But gradually, the routine censorship and ever-increasing pressure, including warnings from the office of the head of the country to these reformist publishers severely diminished the space for my collaboration with the printed media in Iran until it became impossible; such was the hysteria inducednbsp; among the ‘religious reformists’ against independent or radical and left groups./span/ppspanSo I began a weblog under my own name, when net publishing was very young indeed in Iran, and found to my delight that articles including quite a number of links to the news sites in various Farsi and global media were visited daily by hundreds of Farsi-speaking visitors from all over the world, including the remote rural areas of Iran. Working for the electronic daily Rooz (RoozOnline), on many articles, reports and interviews with various authorities and members of the Islamic parliament about current issues, was the next step. A step too far. The security forces raided my house and confiscated my computer, my rough drafts and archives. They even took my poems and my university work; the screenplays I had written as a student of cinema. Four days later I was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Then there were many days of solitary confinement and interrogation while a large archive of 10-years of professional journalistic work was on the interrogator's table in the infamous detention centre 209 of the Intelligence Ministry within the notorious Evin prison./span/ppspanInterrogators in the Islamic Republic call themselves ‘experts’. They questioned me about every single one of my writings, wanting to know my ‘motivation’ in doing ‘this’! I of course had to explain the reasons for my opposition to the executive order [of the Supreme Leader] on the Article 44 of the Constitution, which deals with the privatisation policies of the regime. But they wanted me to answer for every word especially on two fronts, i.e. the left and the media. They were unhappy that I did not cooperate with them.nbsp; They suggested that at least I might become a ‘reformist’. I told them many times that I was not their ‘co-worker’. I spent the entire period of my detention, which involved torture and mostly psychological torture, in solitary confinement. After 60 days in solitary confinement I had lost 11 kilos./span/ppspanIn the end, they packed me off to the general ward of the prison to keep company with the fraudsters and drug addicts while they originally assigned bail for me at 500 million toomans (~$500,000) which was unprecedented for a journalist. Later on, with the efforts of my family my mother who herself is a journalist and political activist and under pressure from the media, my bail was reduced to 100 million toomans (~$100,000) and the collateral was the house that belonged to my father, a young engineer from the ambitious revolutionary generation and one he worked hard for./span/ppspanBut I digress. What I wanted to say is this. The words of one of my interrogators will always be stamped on my memory. I remember him telling me repeatedly that ‘justice’ may be good, nevertheless I must understand that today and the foreseeable future belongs to capitalism. How ‘rogue’ is that?/span/ppspannbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;br //spanspannbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; ********/span/p pspanWhat we expect from the progressive forces and our friends across the world is a href=http://forusa.org/blogs/judy-bello/statement-group-activists-within-iran/9936a twofold response./a Firstly, we expect solidarity with the popular movement in Iran in the form of pressure upon your own governments to consider the disastrous situation of human rights in Iran whenever they have dealings with the Islamic Republic.nbsp;/span/p pAnd then those who are the true supporters of the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy should say, “No to economic sanctions, no to war and no to what is called ‘humanitarian intervention’.” For as Jean Bricmont, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Louvain, a href=http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb1471/once wrote/a, “‘humanitarian imperialism’ uses human rights to sell war.” nbsp;/pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Iran /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Civil society /div div class=field-item even Conflict /div div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even International politics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd A call is going out to every British citizen who wants the financial sector to clean up their act. Move your money from the big banks to local, ethical or mutual alternatives and send them a message in a language they'll understand. /div /div /div pemA call is going out to every British citizen who wants the financial sector to clean up their act. Move your money from the big banks to local, ethical or mutual alternatives and send them a message in a language they'll understand./em/piframe width=550 height=300 src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q2tyLQPzzzs?feature=player_embedded frameborder=0 allowfullscreen/iframepSo, Stephen Hester decided not to accept his bonus after all.nbsp; You can bet that the Government will be grateful…nbsp;/ppBut should we be?nbsp; Should the public submit themselves to the benevolence of individual bankers in the hope that, as bonus season continues, there are more Phillip Hammonds than there are Fred Goodwin’s in the City?nbsp;/pp!--break--It was always going to be politically unacceptable for Hester to accept his bonus. nbsp;A public sector worker can't walk away with a £1million bonus and a ‘long-term incentivisation plan’ worth up to four times that whilst the public face austerity cuts, a squeeze on real incomes and growing unemployment./ppBut politicians won’t be able lean onnbsp;Barclay’s Chief Executive, Bob Diamond, when his bonus is announced. nbsp;Barclays never received direct support from the state; neither did Santander or HSBC for that matter...nbsp;/ppThe outpouring of public anger over Hester’s bonus went beyond the fact that the state has an 82% stake in RBS. People are genuinely shocked that the bonus culture in the City still hasn’t changed./ppIf we want to see real change in the culture of British banks, not just a media frenzy and political scrum about one man at RBS, it’s up to us, as citizens, consumers and investors, to take action./ppThe banking system plays a systemically central role in our economy and society - it provides essential services for households, business and governments.nbsp; And just like with the utilities, the public have a clear interest in ensuring it functions properly. The continued practice of awarding big bonuses on the basis of relatively short-term performance hardly inspires confidence./ppClearly regulatory and structural reform is needed.nbsp;The implementation of the Vickers report may shield the taxpayer from the worst effects of future financial crises, and the overhaul of the FSA and Bank of England are likely to improve oversight and consumer protection./ppBut if there is one thing that the financial crisis should have taught us, it is not to underestimate our own myopia.nbsp; When the sums involved are large enough, there is always a risk that self-interest will win out over stability and fairness./ppThe only way of securing a fair and sustainable financial system in the long term is through a paradigm shift in cultural attitudes both inside and outside of the sector./ppWe need to create a dialogue between the public and the financial system that helps ensure it responds better to the needs of wider society. That’s whynbsp;a href=http://www.moveyourmoney.org.uk/ target=_blankMove Your Money/a, a new grassroots campaign encouraging people to move their money from the big banks to ethical, local and mutual alternatives, launched yesterday.nbsp;nbsp;/ppThe campaign is not about bringing down the big banks. nbsp;The UK has one of the most consolidated banking sectors in the developed world; there is no danger of sparking the collapse of the likes of RBS, Barclays and Lloyds.nbsp;/ppBut Moving Your Money to an ethical, local or mutual alternative will send a clear message to the big banks that their behavior must change./ppWe hope that the big banks will see the campaign as an opportunity to engage with the pubic on constructive terms.nbsp; By being transparent, developing ethically responsible lending policies and adopting business models and governance structures that internalize the needs of customers and wider society – they can regain credibility and trust./ppTo find out more or get involved visitnbsp;a href=http://www.moveyourmoney.org.uk/ target=_blankwww.moveyourmoney.org.uk/a. The next action isnbsp;a href=http://www.facebook.com/events/167026086740725/?ref=ts target=_blankA Better Bail-Out: Break Up with Barclays/a. February 10th will see Barclay's bonus announcements so at 8.30am we will be lining up outside thenbsp;Barclays branch, 56 Southampton Road, London, WC1B 4NB to close accounts, sign letters of complaint, speak to the manager and discuss the issues with other Barclays customers.nbsp;If you can’t make it to London why not organise your own Better Bail-out from Big Bad Barclays outside your local branch?/pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even Economics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd The Anonymous 'V for Vendetta' mask is an icon of the Occupy movement. But how does this band of deviant web pirates fit with the Occupiers ethics of responsibility, transparency and democracy? Cole Stryker's new book goes some way to deconstruct the generalisations. /div /div /div pemThe Anonymous 'V for Vendetta' mask is an icon of the Occupy movement. But how does this band of deviant web pirates fit with the Occupiers' apparent ethics of responsibility, transparency and democracy? Cole Stryker's new book goes some way towards deconstructing this tension./em/ppimg class=image-left src=http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/epicwinforanonymous.jpg alt= width=100 /The end of OurKingdom’s year-long debate on the a href=//www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/collections/networked-societyNetworked Society/a, making way for a new focus on the a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/collections/occupy-movementsOccupy movement,/a comes at a formative moment in the future of online activism. Aaron Peters' excellent a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/aaron-peters/goodbye-year-of-new-movements-bring-on-2012-and-occupy-everythingsumming up/a of last year’s events demonstrated, amongst other things, the increasingly important role that networks have had in the mobilization of political resistance against states held to ransom by non-democratic financial bodies. His concluding question, 'What would it mean to 'occupy' everything?', is an urgent one, and in the context of the imminent a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/18/occupy-london-protesters-appeal-evictionOccupy LSX eviction/a and the low-key release of the networking site a href=http://occupii.org/occupii.org/a, appropriately anxious./ppOne factor in danger of getting lost in this shift of emphasis onto Occupy, is the still germane issue of anonymous ‘hacktivism’, reference to which is notably absent from Aaron's walk back through 2011. Given the recent surge in a href=http://www.scmagazineuk.com/could-a-distributed-denial-of-service-attack-be-made-on-your-inbox/article/224426/DDoS attacks/a attributed to (capital a) Anonymous, including unprecedented assaults on government bodies supporting a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gallery/2012/jan/18/sopa-internet-blackout-websites#/?picture=384639228amp;index=0SOPA/a and a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/27/acta-protests-eu-states-sign-treatyACTA/a, it is important that the online community do not make the same mistake as the mainstream media. We must keep this issue in discussion while the strategy of ‘occupy everything’ is being formulated./ppimg src=http://i.huffpost.com/gen/377914/thumbs/r-OCCUPY-LONDON-large570.jpg alt= width=500 //ppThis is by no means incompatible with OurKingdom’s new focus. Anonymous have, of course, been present in the iconography of the Occupy movement from the very beginning. News coverage has pushed the Guy Fawkes masksnbsp;into the foreground, making them one of the movement’s most recognisable symbols. Inspired by the film adaptation of emV for Vendetta/em, the masks were originally conceived by Anonymous as a way of concealing identity during a href=http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/project-chanologyprotests against the Scientology movement in 2007/a. In light of the Occupy movement the mask has been appropriated as an image of the 99%. It is now the top-selling mask on amazon.com./ppThis adoption has been controversial, offending many Occupiers who do not identify with its expression of comedic, carnivalesque menace. The reputation of Anonymous as a band of deviant criminals, a generalisation propagated by the mainstream media, means Occupy’s close visual association with Anonymous can certainly be seen as ‘bad-press’. But there is a deeper tension based on the seeming disconnect between Occupy’s purported values of ‘responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ and the status of Anonymous as an amorphous and thus unaccountable meme.nbsp;/p pTo accept such an assertion though is to misunderstand both the specific political basis of Occupy’s commitment to transparency – inseparable from its target of the financial sectornbsp;–nbsp;and the way in which the Anonymous meme has emerged and developed in the context of a growing challenge to internet freedom. Cole Stryker’s timely book ema href=http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Win-4chan-Army-Conquered/dp/1590207106Epic Win For Anonymous: How 4Chan’s Army Conquered the Web/a,/emnbsp;released last September, goes some way towards dismantling these misunderstandings./p pThe book traces the history of Anonymous from its inception on various imageboards to its growth into a leaderless, yet project-orientated collective. While steering clear from an explicitly political interpretation, its very explication of the ontology of the meme demonstrates the shortsightedness of accepted understanding. So, too, the usual retort that ‘Anonymous are not a group’ is problematised as Stryker attempts to discover the outline of such an identity through a focus on a href=http://www.4chan.org/4chan/a and similar sites where Anonymous gather (or perhaps used to gather before books such as this were being published)./p pThis perhaps explains the vehement criticism which the book has received. I quote from Amazon reviewer ‘Brandon’ - “You are part of what is considered an inoperable tumor within this ever-evolving Internet phenomenon. Unfortunately since [A]nonymous is made up of all and none you are a necessary evil”. Indeed, the uncanny correspondence between the range of the book’s factual material and that available on Wikipedia is unimpressive. Undoubtedly large numbers of these critical reviews are from 4chan users themselves who feel misrepresented by the book's superficial research. Furthermore, Stryker’s frequent and abrupt generalisations - “4chan’s relationship with women is weird and sad” (81) - seem to contradict his own stated aim of impartiality. Too often, he treats 4chan as if it were a single mindset, playing down the extent to which it is a space for emdebate/em./p pDespite these considerable flaws, the book’s third chapter, which takes the form of a transcription of eight hours spent on 4chan, is lively and informative and aside from visiting the website itself is certainly a more valuable way of understanding Anonymous than the various attempts to speak emfor/em them. Stryker’s notes are frantic and multifarious, conveying precisely the diversity that he sometimes threatens to nullify. Engaging in a discussion ranging from techno babble to the sharing of hentai, he describes the extent to which - “4chan behaves like the Internet, but harder, better, faster, stronger – a whirling microcosm of creativity. A fetid, bubbling meme pool” (33). The implication here, that people spread memes not for reputation or monetary benefit but just to be part of the phenomenon, is suggestive and one cannot consider the potential of such a system without thinking the Occupy movement has something to learn.nbsp;/p pThe book’s presentation of 4chan as an ‘anti-Facebook’ is also useful in destabilizing the immediate association of anonymity with the undemocratic. While Mark Zuckerberg describes Facebook as offering ‘radical transparency’, his users' information is being sold on to marketers whose profiling techniques have lead to more aggressive and invasive forms of advertising. Worse still, the fact that the site’s interface is accessible and designed specifically to be a href=http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7351-julian-assange-facebook-providing-information-to-american-intelligencecompatible with US intelligence networks/a remains unknown to the majority of the site’s users. Facebook’s ‘radical transparency’ may initially sound noble enough, but in reality this equates to radical control and the radical exercise of power. Those who criticise Anonymous should at least consider the possibility that in a world in which the dominant institutions are themselves so guileful, accountability and transparency soon give way to exploitation and dominance. It may only be through anonymity that this cycle can be broken./p pThe identity of Anonymous starts to look quite different from this perspective - not as an ‘army’ of deviant criminality arising from a single ‘dark’ centre, but a collective reaction to the impending twilight of internet freedom. Stryker’s book is important for providing this alternative, more positive narrative in a published and therefore ‘official’ space. In particular, there are aspects of his argument that are refreshingly lucid in contrast to other sympathetic articles./p pFirst is his acknowledgement of the fact that 4chan is not about being able to emdo/em anything but about being able to emsay/em anything, a sentiment expressed particularly eloquently in 4Chan founder a href=http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online.htmlChristopher Poole’s TED talk/a. Secondly, Stryker argues that anonymity allows people to fail at things without being afraid, and in doing so draws attention to 4chan’s liberating and empowering capacity for those who for whatever reason feel alienated from society. Finally he emphasises the fact that 4chan, and by extension Anonymous, draw attention to what is being said rather than who is saying it. This final point is perhaps the most important. That while anonymity is ‘un-accountability’ it is also equality. From my own experiences of Occupy LSX, and the disproportionate authority of its ‘facilitators’, it is clear that precisely though rejecting conventional ideas of (top-down) ‘responsibility’, Anonymous are able to come closer to true egalitarianism than the Occupy movement. nbsp;nbsp;/p pThe questions remain then - what can Occupy learn from Anonymous and vice versa? Should OurKingdom’s move away from a debate on the wider implications of a networked society to an emphasis on Occupy mean a correlative de-emphasizing of the issue of ‘hacktivism’? Certainly, the conception that Anonymous can be associated with the 99% is an untenable one; in purely numerical terms they represent a small percentile of technically skilled individuals who communicate in a deliberately abstruse way. But then again – is the same not true of academic involvement in Occupy? Or some of its more obscure religious supporters? At its best, Occupy should be able to accommodate all discourses that wish to participate while promoting and celebrating their agreements, differences, and contradictions./p pSpecifically though, in so far as they can be equated with 4chan (which of course is no clear cut move), Anonymous’s channels of communication and organization could be adopted to spread support for Occupy. While the Occupy movement has been creative in its use of physical space its online presence remains weak and the potential for greater global connectivity and involvement of those beyond the tents is far from fully exploited. To suggest that Anonymous could be an important factor in rectifying this is not to suggest the phenomenon should be emreduced/em to a function of Occupy. Just as their identity is heterogeneous so are their battlegrounds and the current battle against SOPA and ACTA will only be won through the combined efforts of ‘hacktivist’ groups worldwide. /ppFor all its problems of accountability and all the perverse activities that have been done in its name, online anonymity has an important role to play in ensuring the 1% who have been allowed to exploit the financial and political sphere are not given the same command over the virtual./ppemJames Mackay is a freelance writer based in London./em/pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Civil society /div div class=field-item even Democracy and government /div div class=field-item odd Economics /div div class=field-item even Equality /div div class=field-item odd Internet /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd img src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/557489.jpg width=160 align=right /Russia’s growing nationalist movement has alarmed many liberal commentators, who wonder how the country that defeated Adolf Hitler could have given birth to so many young men overtly sympathetic to his ideas. Journalist Olesya Gerasimenko, who has covered several neo-Nazi trials, wondered where the defendants came from: how Russian boys could go out and kill foreigners in cold blood. She persuaded three of the convicted murderers’ parents to talk to her. /div /div /div pI often observe them in court. They sigh and observe how their son – accused of 15 murders – has lost weight. They wink at him furtively. They beg the guard to loosen his handcuffs, oblivious to the voice of the prosecutor: ‘…demonstrating their own superiority over people of non-Slavic origin, they attacked the victim K., whose external appearance indicated Asian ethnicity, and struck him with a knife no less than 26 times in the head and other parts of the body, causing wounds to the chest, which penetrated the right and left pleural and abdominal cavities with damage to the right and left lungs, the left part of the diaphragm, the spleen, the third and ninth ribs on the left, and the chest, as a result of which the victim died from severe loss of blood’. /p p class=FreeFormAI want to ask: did you know, did you guess, did you support this? What were you thinking when they were arrested? Do you believe the judges? Have you come to terms with this? Are you proud, or are you ashamed?/p p class=image-leftimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/557489.jpg alt= width=264 /span class=image-captionNeo-nationalism in Russia is growing and becoming br /more overt. Photonbsp;a href=http://www.demotix.com/users/yurig/profileYury Goldenshteyn/a/Demotix. br /All rights reserved./span/ppBut the parents of those nationalists convicted of violent crimes are rarely asked about these things, and they themselves are not keen to talk. Only a few agreed to meet me, and even they didn’t agree immediately. ‘And what views do you yourself hold?’ ‘You’re not interested in the documents.’ ‘You’re not going to actually print any of this!’ But after 15 minutes of face-to-face conversation it becomes clear that they do have something to say. /ppOne has adopted the views of their only child and says that violence is necessary. One blames the politicians that have incited adolescents to street fighting. One cries, convinced of the innocence of his son. They are all different, but they have all asked themselves one and the same question: ‘am I to blame for what happened?’/p h3 class=FreeFormAElena Krivets, academic, mother of Vasily Krivets/h3 p class=FreeFormAemVasily Krivets is a 23-year-old nationalist. He was sentenced in 2010 to life imprisonment for 15 murders. The victims were citizens of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Russia. He was arrested, but escaped police custody when taken to one of the crime scenes for a reconstruction and hid for almost a year. He did not confess to a single one of the crimes and refused to give evidence./em/p p class=FreeFormA‘Vasya is a warrior. And everything follows from this. When he was a child all his little fingers were pistols, all of them shooting. Then he formed his toy soldiers into armies. Then we played together, conquering Constantinople./p p class=FreeFormAGradually he gained an education. He’s not the kind of warrior who just lashes out with his fists and feet, but a warrior who understands history and tradition. I myself have a degree in philosophy, and my husband was a political scientist./p p class=FreeFormAOur family line is an old one, we’re Cossacks. So his love of history appeared by itself. He started with the American Indians and the Civil War. Straight away he wanted to go and save the American Indians. He investigated the Civil War himself, and the White Army immediately interested him. He’s now completely debunked the myth of some great victory by the Red Army. He came to venerate the Tsar, Nicholas II. /p p class=FreeFormAI had an aunt, a noblewoman, an aristocrat, she gave me a different understanding of history, which differed from what the communists taught about the Tsar, the Tsarina. She laid in me the foundations of religion. Vasily read children’s books about the Tsar. Somehow or other we were in St. Petersburg; we were called into the University and he, 12 years old, asked us to buy him Tikhomirov’s academic volume on Russian history. We, laughing, bought it. At home he leafed through it a bit and said – when I grow up, I’ll read it. He was already studying it in his first year of higher education./p p class=FreeFormAThere was a period when my husband and I were travelling in Egypt on business, and the whole time there Vasya kept saying it was ‘lost time’. I didn’t understand at all. I thought it would be interesting for a teenager to see another country, to travel. I understood only later that he felt a deep sense of his motherland, and he was homesick. Even in his young heart he felt that he had been cut off from the life of the country./p p class=FreeFormAWhen he was studying in years nine and ten he went to a Cossack Sunday school. This was a club at his school. There were field expeditions, reconnaissance. I myself taught Orthodox catechism there, Cossack history. I went there specially. You should never let a child out of your sight, without knowing what and how he will be taught. Never. A mother must always know exactly what a teacher is telling her child. It is the parents, you see, not the teachers, who will answer before God for that child./p blockquotep class=FreeFormA‘And it was then that I understood that there have always been individuals who went to battle like this; rather than cautiously, correctly, with their eye on the final outcome. Sometimes the outcome isn’t important. In order to raise the masses, you need a loud cry and a summons.’/p/blockquote p class=FreeFormAWhen he finished school he said: ‘I’m a soldier, I need to enter a military institute of higher education’. But his intellectual inclination was more towards the humanities. And in a military college you need to pass algebra. I said to him: ‘well, into what sort of military institute?’ And he answered ‘for officers’. Well, he got in, and studied for about seven months. Then he ran away because, as he said himself, the uniform was 1944-style, and he got into the political science faculty instead. Our local church had a club for free style wrestling, hand-to-hand fighting and such like. Vasya carried on going on expeditions with them. They completed reconnaissance tasks there, you know, like we used to play ‘Summer Lightening’ (a ‘military-patriotic’ game played in the Soviet Union’s pioneer camps – editor). /p p class=FreeFormAWith time he began to notice what was going on. In particular that Moscow was filling up with foreigners. And when he was around 16 years old he started to fight them. He of course didn’t say anything about it, but it was clear from the jeans he wore, and from his requests that we buy a certain type of boots. Once he mentioned that he had fought with black people over the drugs they were distributing in the metro. I didn’t see any fighting, but at home there was always discussion over whether violence was necessary or not. I was always against it. But he argued that it is right: that the Lord helps those who help themselves; that we need action as well as prayers. And action for him, as for a soldier, was to use his hands. It is only now that I agree with him. The court case has been and gone, the sentence too, so you see how long it took me to reach this position. And lots of people asked me why our lads went so openly, nakedly, unarmed, to battle. And it was then that I understood that there have always been individuals who went to battle like this; rather than cautiously, correctly, with their eye on the final outcome. Sometimes the outcome isn’t important. In order to raise the masses, you need a loud cry and a challenge./pp class=image-rightimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/fight.jpg alt= width=264 /span class=image-captionRussian nationalism often has an extremely violent br /side. In Moscow alone, there are hundreds of br /racially-motivated murders each year. Photo CC: br /Iliya Varlamov/span/ppThe arrest wasn’t unexpected: we’d already had a similar experience with him. We have Cossack ancestry, and Don Cossacks always fought with Turks – and the first case we had was precisely with a Turk. That struck me. Then he had to be bought out of trouble – well, not exactly bought out, but this case had to be covered up by any means possible. It was a murder: there were three of them, two survived, one died. From that moment on Vasily’s views became clear. I understood that I wouldn’t change him. We didn’t row, no, that would have driven my son away from me. You must always protect your relationship with your child. I needed not to lose him. After the incident with the Turk I said: ‘Vas, first pay off the debt – we are in debt – I can’t do this myself, you help me. Study and work for now’. I thought I’d found a brilliant solution. For some time at least I could hold on to him. /p p class=FreeFormALater he came to me himself and said: ‘Mum, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to take action’. I looked sadly at him and remained silent. And what could I say?/p p class=FreeFormAConfrontation has increased: the town is full of foreigners from other races with completely different mentalities, with whom we do not want to live. As a result white parents will now go anywhere, even to the outskirts of Moscow, just so to make sure there are only children like theirs in the classroom. Well, this is now happening all over the world. And genetic research has shown that when a person encounters someone of a different race, you see, he expends a huge amount of inner energy in order to suppress his inner opposition to them. Even these gay parades have started here. He also went to them, bashed the queers – well, these people’s mentalities are so alien… He asked: ‘where will be the place for my children?’ And it’s true, it’s already impossible to raise children in purity.nbsp; /pp class=FreeFormAThe government has a system in place to destroy our nation. Some people are imprisoned for drugs, others for drunkenness, others again for screwing around. Some people are stuffed full of money; this younger generation earns a good wage. And only a few remain who can understand what is happening. And how does the government find them? They need to provoke them, for example, to attack foreigners. There were an awful lot of provocateurs in the movement. Parents wrote to Putin saying that their children were being zombified, were being got at through the Internet. If someone is by nature a nationalist, simply loves his motherland, and he sees everything that is going on, then they stir him up./pblockquotep class=FreeFormA‘The political system is built like that: they blame lads for not liking non-Russians.’ /p/blockquote p class=FreeFormAHe understands now that he went against these blacks for nothing, that this process is being controlled by the government and bureaucrats. And what’s the point of fighting these ordinary people? There’s another million on their way here. Confronting them has helped a little bit though. Everything counts./p p class=FreeFormAWe held out hope until the very last moment during the court case. We prayed to St. Nicholas in the corridors, because they wouldn’t let us into the courtroom. But Judge Olikhver (chief justice in the case of Vasilii Krivets Natalia Olikhver - editor) is possessed by demons, she felt the spirit. In the recesses she would run out into the corridor and throw us out the door. /p p class=FreeFormADespite the fact that they jail our children, we parents are united and think about what is wrong in our lives, and where the truth lies. The government has done us a favour by introducing us to each other. There are parents who take the side of their children. And there are also parents who refuse to accept their children’s views, who won’t accept the struggle. Some manage to deflect their children. Some don’t manage to.nbsp; To begin with I didn’t agree with Vasily, but I could hardly do nothing: freedom must take priority./p p class=FreeFormAI work in the Academy of Sciences, researching a doctorate in history; I write academic articles and teach. Vasily has been good for me, he’s given me a lot. He’s cleverer than me. He digs something up and shares it with me. And I with him./p p class=FreeFormAWhat would I say to him, if he were to come out now and say that he was going to carry on killing, fighting the system? Well, what can one say to a person whose soul aches for the motherland and who is ready to give up his life for it? A mother can only bless. And know, that she blesses unto death.’/p h3 class=FreeFormAAndrei Appolonov, engineer, father of Victor Appolonov /h3 p class=FreeFormAemVictor Appolonov is a 22-year-old member of the National-Socialist Society North (NSO-Sever) and was sentenced to life imprisonment for five murders. On the day the sentence was announced he entered the courtroom shouting ‘Yids, prepare to die!’ and ‘Baburova croaked, and you’ll croak too!’ (for further detail see ‘a href=http://www.kommersant.ru/Doc/1681380The case of the thirteen/a’ in issue no. 29, 25 July)./em/p p class=FreeFormA‘We immediately refused a lawyer, because they are useless. I think that’s it’s useless to go to the Supreme Court too. This is a case that’s been politically ordered, so it’s difficult to contest. The investigator told me himself that he sits there like the Tsarist secret police: whoever needs to be sent down, he sends down./p p class=FreeFormAI’ve worked all my life as an engineer in a factory, politics never interested me and I never subscribed to any party. But now, if you don’t get interested in politics, then sooner or later, politics will take an interest in you. I started to look at what was happening only when they took my son, arrested him. And I understood that power is simply being divided up between the clans on high, and up there our children are expendable material. So there is politics here, which came about because Putin is in office. Because of him, hundreds of lads are sitting in prison. If it were only my son accused of murder or something else. But it’s impacting on so many people! In our group almost everyone is unacquainted; they even lived in different towns – Sergiev Posad, Mytishchi, Novgorod. And who’s guilty here? Did their parents give them knives and say: ‘go out and kill’?/pp class=image-leftimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/weeks_russian_march_480_04nov2011.jpg alt= width=264 /span class=image-captionLet's give Russia back to the Russians - a troublingnbsp;br /slogan given the large number of ethinicities and br /nationalities that form the Russian state.br /br /br //span/ppThe political system is built like that: they blame lads for not liking non-Russians – because of the colour of their skin or the slant of their eyes, and there are articles in the newspapers that Russia’s economy will rot without immigrant labour. So it happens that someone is using their political power in order to bring a cheap labour force over here. It’s profitable for someone. That same Tel’man, who built Cherkizon (a huge market in Moscow - editor), he needed cheap labour. All this is robbing Russia of money./p p class=FreeFormABasically the territory of Russia is like a welcome mat. A representative of another nationality can get Russian citizenship, but when he goes to Armenia then he’s an Armenian. All these people have their own countries, and Russians don’t. Putin, when he met with the youth after the protest on Manezh Square, said that in the Caucasus – which is a part of the Russian Federation – they have their own traditions, and he doesn’t care who infringes them there. So the former guarantor of the Constitution doesn’t care about someone who is on the territory of the Russian Federation. This is double standards./p p class=FreeFormAWe need to resolve the nationality question in Russia; to declare that Russia is a Russian country; to write people’s ethnicity in their passports again. You cannot tell a Tajik or an Uzbek to serve Russia. But a Russian will understand if you tell him he has to serve his country. In our country, Jews are holding top positions, but I would never claim high office in someone else’s country./p blockquotep class=FreeFormA‘We need to resolve the nationality question in Russia; to declare that Russia is a Russian country; to write people’s ethnicity in their passports again. You cannot tell a Tajik or an Uzbek to serve Russia.’/p/blockquote p class=FreeFormAVictor’s views weren’t unexpected, but what he was accused of was. He wasn’t a difficult child: he worked as a consultant in a bookshop, was at home in the evenings, was interested in history. He wanted to go to an institute to study history. He wasn’t particularly sociable. He lived a fairly solitary life, read loads of books, that’s why he liked the bookshop too. The following year he was due to be conscripted into the army. I didn’t take any interest in whether or not he wanted to go. Everyone goes usually./p p class=FreeFormAFriends of the family were amazed when they found out about his arrest. They all asked what on earth was going on. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. Of course he was withdrawn sometimes, thinking about something or other. Not long before his arrest he mentioned a sports club, but I thought, sport – that’s a good thing./p p class=FreeFormAI don’t know where he got interested in all that, I don’t know whether he came to these opinions himself or not, because at 18 years old – as far as I remember – interests change quickly. He is not an experienced person, naturally, and politicians exploit the young./p p class=FreeFormAI didn’t read the case notes. Could he kill? I wanted to investigate this independently, but the judges and investigators took this mission upon themselves. This didn’t suit me at all. And if only this was an isolated example! But as I attended the court sittings I understood that this is a whole system: one little group passing through after another, you see. And what, am I supposed to say to my own son that he’s guilty, when there’s a whole system? /p p class=FreeFormAI honestly didn’t expect a life sentence. I think this is revenge for the fact that he openly says what he thinks. He sat in a pre-trial detention centre for three years, then went to court, and I could see immediately that he’d become more vicious. Moreover he was in a cell with all different ethnicities, people arrested for drugs, robbery, theft. He got some experience there, began to answer back to the judges and prosecutors in court. So because he began to answer them like that, they used their authority and gave him a life sentence./p p class=FreeFormADuring a visit I asked him what he did with his time in the cell. He said he played chess. ‘With whom?’ I asked. ‘With an Uzbek’.’/p h3 class=FreeFormAPavel Golubev, Retired Colonel, father of Sergei Golubev /h3 p class=FreeFormAemSergei Golubev was the youngest convicted murderer in the case of NSO-Sever. He was 16 when he was arrested in 2007. He pleaded guilty to the murder of one person and attempted murder motivated by racial hatred. He was sentenced to ten years in a penal colony./em/p p class=FreeFormA‘Basically Sergei had nothing to do with this. Well, he went to a demonstration against illegal immigration. And is there anyone who does support breaking the law? On 1 May 2008 he was at that demonstration at VDNKh. ‘Peace, Labour, May! Guest-workers away!’ And after the demonstration participants beat up some Tajik or other – right in front of the local police station. Sergei was also there. He said that he wanted to stop them, that they were starting a fight five metres from the window of the police. He got detained, and they checked whether he belonged to a youth organisation. And in the report they wrote that: ‘he is not a member of a gang, but shares the view that the Russian people and the Russian Orthodox faith must flourish on the territory of the Russian Federation’. And this was recorded as a nationalist viewpoint. No one told President Medvedev it was a nationalist viewpoint when he said the same thing at a meeting of the State Council in February 2011. And Sergei, of course, wasn’t a member of the NSO. He had some knowledge about that organisation, but even I’ve heard of it./pp class=FreeFormAimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/964125.jpg alt= width=530 //p p class=FreeFormAspan class=image-captionNationalists at the oppostion protest on Bolotnaya Square on 11 December 2011, which took place one year after the infamous a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/andrei-loshak-svetlana-reiter/decency-hope-friendship-real-story-from-moscows-race-riotsManezhnaya Square race riots/a. a href=http://www.demotix.com/users/pleshkova/profileMaria Pleshkova/a/Demotix. All rights reserved./span/pp class=FreeFormAHe is a very capable boy generally. He got into an economics grammar school sponsored by the Academy of Finance. But he didn’t have the self-regard to become a top pupil. It is an elite school with elite children, who are driven there by their chauffeurs. Basically they try to force out any children who don’t give the teachers money. He had a high temperature one day, and for some reason the class teacher kept him at school and wouldn’t let him go home. He ran away, jumped over the fence, ran across Prospect Mira in winter with no coat on. Something snapped in him then. He lost interest in school completely. He sat in lessons, looking out of the window, thinking his own thoughts. We took him out of that school after that, and sent him to be examined at the psychiatric hospital. The doctor said to me’ ‘you know, I see so many like him, the most important thing is that he doesn’t get sent to prison before he reaches 18. After that everything will pass, he’ll get distracted by work and love. But many don’t make it that far’. /p p class=FreeFormASergei rarely went out. He sat at his computer. I used to tell him to go out and have a wander. He would take me to the window and ask if I really wanted him to go out there. ‘Do you see them sitting there, already pouring out drinks on the bench? What’s more, when evening comes, the darkies will bring weed. Do you want me to join them?’ I said that of course I didn’t./p p class=FreeFormAIt scared me that he was going off into a virtual world. That’s why I was even glad when he decided to go out to a girl’s birthday celebrations. (On 6 May 2008 at the Butyrka café on Dmitrovsky highway Vasilisa Kovaleva celebrated her 21st with her then-boyfriend Mikhailov, with Appolionov and with Golubev. That same evening the group killed two Uzbeks - editor.) He got to know Kovaleva via the Iyupnternet. He liked older girls. She was a student in the faculty of journalism, and he could talk to her about all sorts of things. I couldn’t have imagined how it would all end. He went out to her birthday. /p p class=FreeFormAHe was a witness at that murder incident, the one they prosecuted him for. He saw the struggle, the cries. He said that he felt sick. When they hit the woman in the neck and she started bleeding, he didn’t even see what happened to her, he was pulled away. The investigators asked whether he tried to help the victim. No? Well then, that means you’re an accomplice./p p class=FreeFormASergei said: ‘as far as I’m concerned, be they blacks, Chinese, Tatars – it makes no difference to me. I respect them all. They’re all human beings’. When he went to prison he was a Christian. He’s now lost his faith. He said that if God existed, He would not have allowed this to happen to him. /p blockquotep class=FreeFormA‘I used to tell him to go out and have a wander. He would take me to the window and ask if I really wanted him to go out there. ‘Do you see them sitting there, already pouring out drinks on the bench? What’s more, when evening comes, the darkies will bring weed. Do you want me to join them?’/p/blockquote p class=FreeFormAThey didn’t let us meet for a year and a half. They tortured him twice. They told him to write what they wanted him to write about the other lads, but he refused. ‘I don’t know them, or what sort of people they are. If you know that they are murderers, then you write that.’ They promised to make life difficult in the cells for him for that. They put some sort of lads in with him. They burnt him with matches, beat him up, his shoulders, stomach, the small of his back were all covered in bruises. I saw all of this at the court hearing about the extension of his arrest. Sergei looked at me from behind the bars and asked’ ‘what should I do? I can’t last much longer’. Do you understand – he looked me in the eye and asked: ‘what should I do? You’re stronger than me, but they string you up by the hands to see how long you last. Should I cut my own throat? Either way, the judge has guaranteed that I won’t get more than ten years. Maybe I should stab one of them at night? Tell me what would be better?’ And he looked me in the eye. I said: ‘better to cut them than yourself’. It ended with him taking a sharpened implement and preparing to drive it into the eye or neck of this lad, who noticed and left. The lawyer and I complained to whoever we could, and they held an investigation in the pre-trial detention centre, and they stopped bothering him./p p class=FreeFormAAnd after a year his cellmates were ordered to beat him up again so badly that they wouldn’t even let us go to court. I asked him later whether he had managed to get them back a bit, so it didn’t feel quite so bad./p p class=FreeFormAEven the detectives passed on their approval to me. Everyone thought that since he was the youngest, he’d sign everything, but he wouldn’t budge and said that no one would persuade him to. His steadfastness amazed them. ‘What a good lad we have here’. Well, thanks, I thought, I’m glad./p p class=FreeFormAHow did he end up there? As the investigators said to me after his first year in pre-trial detention centre: ‘if we’d known from the start what evidence there would be, we wouldn’t even have arrested him. But now, you understand, how can we let him out? He’s underage, and responsibility would have to be taken for this. So, you see, we’ll treat him like the others, and he might get around five years’. And then they explained further that I’d angered them by complaining to the Moscow City Court that they hadn’t allowed us to meet. Why, they asked, did you behave like that? In a fit of anger they included five unnecessary years in the indictment. /p p class=FreeFormAThen I gave further evidence in court. I told them about the torture, about the false documents in the criminal case, about how no one had interrogated him for a year. And that made the prosecutor angry with me. But of course I didn’t expect them to give him ten years. I thought that even a military court, a troika, is not allowed to settle personal scores; all the more so that this was based on the admission that they should have basically let him go. I was a professional soldier myself, a colonel. I worked for a long time at a research institute. Of course, when I became Sergei’s legal representative I couldn’t work anywhere./p p class=FreeFormAIt has, of course, made him angrier. He’s continually in the punishment block. He says they have sworn an oath. ‘Don’t they know what to do with me? Haven’t they read the case notes?’ After the sentence he said that he would never go and fight for this country, like his grandfather who held a machine gun in his hands and shouted that he was fighting for this motherland. He was patriotic before. ‘If I get a call up for the army I’m not going to evade it. If they send me to Chechnya – I’ll go, I won’t hide behind anyone’s back’. And now he says that it was the Russian Federation that passed this sentence on him. It found me guilty, he says, of being a fascist, a murderer. That makes Russia my stepmother, not my real motherland, and I’m not going to fight for her. ‘Let the prosecutor’s children go and serve her.’ That’s what he says.’/p p class=FreeFormAemA version of this article was first published in Russian on Kommersant. Vlast’ a href=http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1807563here/a/em/pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-type-nodereference field-field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/andrei-loshak-svetlana-reiter/decency-hope-friendship-real-story-from-moscows-race-riotsDecency, hope, friendship: the real story from Moscow#039;s race riots/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/andrei-loshak/parallel-worlds-how-connected-russians-now-live-without-stateParallel worlds: how connected Russians now live without the state/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/article/email/natalia-estemirova-champion-of-ordinary-chechensNatalia Estemirova, champion of ordinary Chechens/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/article/email/i-ve-turned-25-uh-huh-wish-me-luckI#039;ve turned 25, uh-huh. Wish me luck…/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/oleg-kashin/russian-protest-movement-why-my-optimism-was-misplacedThe Russian protest movement: why my optimism was misplaced /a /div div class=field-item even a href=/od-russia/mumin-shakirov/sticks-and-stones-blogs-of-oleg-kashinSticks and stones: the blogs of Oleg Kashin/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Russia /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Equality /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd While activists push for reform of drug laws, various legislative entities continue to tighten restrictions on the use of psychoactive substances, from marijuana to bath salts. One state in the US moves closer to drug-testing not only its welfare recipients, but its lawmakers as well. Mexico's cartels set new records in 2011 for the number of people murdered, close to 50,000 - which does not factor in those who have disappeared, and the emotional and often physical suffering their absence exacts on the loved ones left behind, who by and large are women and children. ~ jw /div /div /div p style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6297strongThe Drug War's Invisible Victims/strong/a/p pThere are also war tolls beyond the body counts. The homicide number a href=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/0921/Mexican-families-struggle-to-find-drug-war-s-disappeared target=_blankmisses the disappeared/a, the thousands whose bodies – dead or alive – are never found, never counted. And it hides the mutilation of lives caused by “collateral damage”: the loss of loved ones, families forced from their homes, permanent injury, orphans and widows, sexual abuse, lives lived in fear./p pThese costs fall primarily on the shoulders of women–the mothers, daughters, and sisters who are left with the nearly impossible task of seeking answers and redress in a justice system outpaced by violence and overrun by corruption. They are often re-victimized by government agencies that ignore, reject, or stifle their pleas for justice./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6297CIP Americas/a /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;strongNorth America/strong/ppstrong /strong/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017309174_pharmapot23.htmlstrongPot-based Prescription Drugs Are On Their Way/strong/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;A British company, GW Pharma, is in advanced clinical trials for the world's first pharmaceutical developed from raw marijuana instead of synthetic equivalents — a mouth spray it hopes to market in the U.S. as a treatment for cancer pain. It hopes to see FDA approval by the end of 2013./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Sativex contains marijuana's two best known components — delta 9-THC and cannabidiol — and already has been approved in Canada, New Zealand and eight European countries for relieving muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017309174_pharmapot23.htmlSeattle Times/a /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/welfare-drug-testing-indiana_n_1244311.htmlstrongWelfare Drug-testing Bill Passes Indiana House/strong/a/p pRep. McMillin a href=http://huff.to/xB7bxy target=_hplinkwithdrew his bill/a on Friday, saying a href=http://1.usa.gov/zNzvYY target=_hplinkDvorak's amendment/a likely violated the Constitution. On Monday, he came back with a new version of the legislation that softened the lawmaker drug testing provision. Instead of blanket testing for every member of the General Assembly, the new version of the bill lets lawmakers opt in to a system of random screening similar to the one for families seeking cash assistance. (If they don't consent, they lose their parking spaces and other perks.) /ppRead the full article at: a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/welfare-drug-testing-indiana_n_1244311.htmlHuffington Post/a /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.sanjose.com/news/2012/01/25/ecstasy_mdma_drugs_santa_clara_county_epidemicstrongCritics Counter County's Claim of Ecstasy Epidemic/strong/a/p pIf anything, Sibley says, it’s the drugs that aren’t MDMA or ecstasy that can do the most damage. MDMA, colloquially referred to as Molly, often comes in through black-market shipments of pills or capsules containing powder, Sibley says, which can lead to the drugs being cut with methamphetamine, ketamine, benzopiprozene (BZP), or dextromethorphan (DXM). /p pAccording to county figures, five people have died from taking drugs they thought were ecstasy since 2009./p p“The frightening thing, when you look at it, is that so few of them actually contain [MDMA],” Sibley says. Of the tablets seized by law enforcement, Sibley estimates that as few as one in four may actually contain MDMA./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://www.sanjose.com/news/2012/01/25/ecstasy_mdma_drugs_santa_clara_county_epidemicSanJose.com/anbsp; /p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;strongEurope/UK/strong/ppstrong /strong/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://eudrugpolicy.org/legalhighhustrongIs Banning Legal Highs Effective? Learning From the Hungarian Experience/strong/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;This current epidemic of legal highs was partly caused by the collapse of the European Ecstasy (MDMA) market in 2008. That is, the (at least temporarily) successful efforts of our politicians to prevent the large scale production of MDMA led to the rise of new legal substitutes to fill the gap in the recreational stimulant market. So now, instead of one relatively less harmful substance (MDMA) dominating the night life we have many new substances with unknown risks and harms. Governments try to respond the crisis of prohibition with more prohibition: restrict drug legislation and prohibit new substances as fast as they can./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full editorial at: a href=http://eudrugpolicy.org/legalhighhuEuropean Drug Policy Initiative/anbsp; /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;stronga href=http://idpc.net/alerts/fixerum-mobile-injection-room-in-copenhagenFixerum: The Mobile Injection Room in Copenhagen/a/strong/pp iframe width=500 height=315 src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/mwYPgn2lVUI frameborder=0 allowfullscreen/iframe /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;Most injecting drug users has been using drugs in dark alleys where there is no access to sterile injection equipment and nobody helps if they overdose - but this situation is changing now. Harm reduction activists were tired of many years of debate so they went ahead and set up a new mobile injection room, Fixerum. This van aims to reach out people who use drugs on the streets and let them use drugs under medial supervision./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article accompanying the video at: a href=http://idpc.net/alerts/fixerum-mobile-injection-room-in-copenhagenInternational Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;stronga href=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16692092Drugs Mule Terms Cut in New Sentencing Guidelines/a/strong/p pa name=story_continues_1/aUnder the new guideline, which comes into force on 27 February, the starting point for sentencing drug mules guilty of carrying crack, heroin and cocaine will be six years, before judges take into account aggravating and mitigating factors. /p pThose found guilty of a much higher level of involvement in the drugs trade will face longer sentences. /p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16692092BBC News/a/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;strongLatin America/strong/p pstrong /strong/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=53859amp;pageid=13amp;pagename=AnalysisstrongThe State of Mexico's Major Cartels/strong/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;emGlobal intelligence organization STRATFOR released its annual analysis of the state of the Mexican drug cartels, and forecasts their activities in 2012. It's a comprehensive primer for anyone interested in the narco-war and its social and political implications for the violence-plagued country./em/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full report at: a href=http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=53859amp;pageid=13amp;pagename=AnalysisThe Cutting Edge News/a /p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/2132-organized-crime-sets-its-sights-on-peaceful-uruguaystrongOrganized Crime Sets Its Sights on Peaceful Uruguay/strong/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;While the scale of drug trafficking in Uruguay is nowhere near that which exists in Mexico, its remote borders with Argentina and Brazil and its 600 kilometer-long coast make the country a significant transshipment point for foreign drug smugglers. A comparison could be drawn with a href=http://www.insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/1204-ecuador-the-un-of-crime-and-venezuela-the-refuge-of-terrorismspan style=text-decoration: none;Ecuador, which is used by criminal groups of various nationalities/span/a, drawn by its convenient location bordering Colombia and Peru./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://www.insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/2132-organized-crime-sets-its-sights-on-peaceful-uruguayInSight/a/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;strongOther News/strong/ppstrong /strong/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;a href=http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/01/11/the-neuroscience-of-pot-researchers-explain-why-marijuana-may-bring-serenity-or-psychosis/strongThe Neuroscience of Pot: Why Marijuana May Bring Serenity or Psychosis/strong/a/p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;In the a href=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22213786span style=text-decoration: none;new study/span/a, the researchers had 15 men who were relatively unseasoned pot users take capsules containing THC, CBD, and flour (placebo) on each of three occasions. The participants then took simple computer tests in which arrows, pointing either left or right, flashed on the screen; the men had to respond based on their direction. Occasionally, an “oddball” arrow was thrown in to the sequence, which was at a 23-degree angle. This setup allowed the researchers to compare the men’s reactions to usual vs. oddball stimuli, and to see how the various chemicals affected it. /p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;Read the full article at: a href=http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/01/11/the-neuroscience-of-pot-researchers-explain-why-marijuana-may-bring-serenity-or-psychosis/Forbes/a /pp style=margin-bottom: 0in; stronga href=http://vimeo.com/35996590New Exile Nation Video/a/strong/p pJean Marlowe is known as the Godmother of Medical Cannabis in the State of North Carolina. In this wildly entertaining interview, the feisty Marlowe gives her irreverent take on the hypocrisy of cannabis prohibition, and gives moving testimony about the damage done to medical patients caught up in the criminal justice system. /p iframe src=http://player.vimeo.com/video/35996590?title=0amp;byline=0amp;portrait=0 width=400 height=225 frameborder=0 webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen/iframepa href=http://vimeo.com/35996590The Exile Nation Project - Interview with Jean Marlowe/a from a href=http://vimeo.com/user5845032Charles B Shaw/a on a href=http://vimeo.comVimeo/a./p p style=margin-bottom: 0in;nbsp;/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;strongNewsletters and Weekly Features/strong/p ullia href=http://www.idpc.net/alerts/month/2012-01IDPC – January 2012 News Alerts/a/lilia href=http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/718Drug War Chronicle #718: Jan 26, 2012/a/lilia href=http://www.tokeofthetown.com/Toke of the Town/a/li/ulp style=margin-bottom: 0in;nbsp;/pp style=margin-bottom: 0in;nbsp;/p

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Military action against Iran, and even the continuing threat of attack, is likely to give the Islamic Republic a new lease on life. /div /div /div pThe presumed aim of an attack by the United States and/or Israel on Iranian nuclear and military facilities would be to weaken the Islamic Republic, particularly by hindering its ability to build a nuclear weapon. However, the history of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980 calls into question the contention that an attack will weaken the regime in Tehran. Iran’s security policies, and its policy outlook more generally, have been shaped enormously by the country’s experience in the Iran-Iraq War. As the Iranians themselves continuously point to the lessons of the war and their bearing on the present day, it behooves policymakers to follow suit./p pThe Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 was a movement of several different groups that were united most strongly in their opposition to the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah. Following the ouster of the Shah in February 1979, the union of those groups began to break down. In invading Iran, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein assumed that the divided Iranians and their dilapidated armed forces would be unable to put up much of a fight. He was wrong. Iranians responded to the invasion by uniting against him and under their current leadership, even though many opposed the direction the revolution had taken. Iran’s leaders quickly resurrected the armed forces by halting military trials and purges and enforcing conscription./p pThe Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), which was established following the revolution to serve primarily as an internal security force, transformed into a second military and rushed to confront the invading forces. Thousands of volunteers were incorporated into both the IRGC and the regular military. They were driven to defend the country, the revolution, and the Islamic Republic by a potent combination of nationalism, revolutionary mission, and religious zeal that was stoked by the foreign threat. Their dedicated and determined defense, combined with the Iraqi forces’ poor performance, caused the invaders to stall and then retreat. The IRGC and the Basij remain today as the Islamic Republic’s most devoted defenders. They have a substantial interest in the survival of the regime, and can therefore be expected to vigorously confront attacking forces, just as they did when the Iraqis invaded./p pAn attack on Iran by the United States or Israel will likely add to the ranks of the regime’s supporters. Just as a divided population came together to confront the Iraqi invasion, Iranians of all stripes will unite in opposition to an attack. The upshot will be a stronger, more cohesive, and more militant Islamic Republic. In the a href=http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iran-opposition-will-unite-with-government-should-israel-attack-1.395529words/a of Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s reformist former president and a harsh critic of some of Iran’s current leaders and policies, “If there should one day be any military interference in Iran, then all factions, regardless of reformists or non-reformists, would [unite] and confront the attack.” Iranians interviewed by Reuters, Radio Farda, and the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran made the same a href=http://www.rferl.org/content/talk_of_military_strikes_on_iran_from_above_raises_fears_below/24385690.htmlargument/a. “A war will unite the regime, and it will also force many to unite behind a regime they don’t even support” said a 56-year-old woman living in Tehran. “What else should we do, [cheer] for Israel, which would kill our countrymen working in the nuclear sites?” Similarly, a Tehran-based journalist who said he sympathized with the opposition Green Movement wrote that, “[Iranian] society will not welcome any country that attacks its soil.”/p pAn attack on Iran will not only bring Iranians together under the current regime; it will also unite them in support for a decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Even if it targeted Iranian nuclear facilities and was limited in scope, an attack will most likely be interpreted by Iranians as a declaration of war, an attempt at regime change, and a determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear technology or enrichment capability of any nature. It will also a href=http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1154.htmlconvince/a them that a href=http://www.usip.org/files/resources/Engagement_Coercion_and_Irans_Nuclear_Challenge.pdfaccelerating/a that drive and ultimately a href=http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/military_action_against_iran_impact_and_effectspossessing/a nuclear weapons is the only a href=http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/israels-war-drums-over-iran-drown-out-common-sense?pageCount=0way/a to a href=http://merln.ndu.edu/archive/MilitaryReview/hart.pdfsafeguard/a their regime and their country from future attack. Hans Blix, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently put forward this a href=http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/11/12/176748.htmlview/a. “I don't think you can convince anyone to give up an atomic programme through the threat of violence,” he stated. “Rather, it will cause them to move even faster on it, in order to defend themselves. ... If the decision to build a bomb has not yet been taken, a military strike would ensure more than ever that it is.”/p pWhile the regime may increase its strength in the wake of an attack by winning new supporters, it may also be able to capitalize on an attack to eliminate its internal enemies. That is precisely what happened following the 1980 Iraqi invasion. Ayatollah Khomeini and his allies used the war to strengthen their control over the state along the war-making state-making nexus, a href=http://books.google.com/books/about/Coercion_capital_and_European_states_AD.html?id=b1FzvFLSBBUCfollowing/a the a href=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=1F120EE191502BCFF37763084FDA14F6.journals?fromPage=onlineamp;aid=7655544pattern/a of revolutionary elites in other countries. Throughout the war Khomeini used the conflict to discredit and eliminate his internal rivals. By keeping the people mobilized for the war and focused on Iran’s external enemies, he was able to consolidate his power with fewer constraints and less debate./p pIran’s current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the powerful IRGC would be able to achieve similar results in the case of a strike on Iran. The Revolutionary Guards have long warned of the dangers posed by Iran’s external enemies and have characterized internal opposition as the work of external forces. An attack on Iran will seemingly vindicate the IRGC’s position and enable them to increase repression and their own power. Iranians favoring any sort of softer line will be undermined and suppressed. Hossein Ghazian, an Iranian sociologist who was jailed in Iran and is now a visiting scholar at Syracuse University, a href=http://www.rferl.org/content/talk_of_military_strikes_on_iran_from_above_raises_fears_below/24385690.htmlsaid/a that, in the case of an attack, the regime would have “enough legitimacy, excuses, and reasons to repress those opposed to it.”/p pSimilarly, in a 2005 a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08Ebadi.htmlop-ed/a in emThe New York Times/em, Iranian human rights activists Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi put forward “The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran.” They argued that, “for human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their cause.” The authors also drew a parallel with the Islamic Republic’s behavior following the 1980 Iraqi invasion. The “threat of foreign military intervention will provide a powerful excuse for authoritarian elements to uproot [independent human rights organizations] and put an end to their growth,” they argued. “Human rights violators will use this opportunity to silence their critics by labeling them as the enemy’s fifth column. In 1980, after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and inflamed nationalist passions, Iranian authorities used such arguments to suppress dissidents.”/p pIn a a href=http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2011/07/raising-their-voices/report/a released by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran in November 2011, Ghaemi, writing as the president of that organization, emphasized that the parallel is still valid. In summarizing the views of Iranians interviewed by the Campaign, Ghaemi wrote that, “an attack would further militarize the state, exacerbate the human rights crisis in Iran, and undermine Iranian civil society and the pro-democracy movement. ... A military strike would likely lead to an upsurge of political violence, threatening all those considered enemies of the government. Given the mass executions of numerous political prisoners during the Iran-Iraq War, strong fears were expressed about the fate of hundreds of current political prisoners in the event of a conflict with the United States.”/p pMilitary action against Iran, and even the continuing threat of attack, is likely to give the Islamic Republic a new lease on life. Its devoted supporters will be strengthened and mobilized, and it will enjoy the additional support of those who will join in condemning and retaliating for an attack. Threats of a possible strike, and certainly a strike itself, substantiate and animate the security narrative Iranian leaders have been propagating for years: that the West is determined to raze the Islamic Republic. They have mastered the art of using the threat of attack, signs of Western hostility towards Iran, and even invasion to consolidate their power. Further, the more likely an attack appears, the more determined Iranians will be to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. The policy of attacking and threatening Iran has served as the lifeblood sustaining the Islamic Republic. We have yet to see how the regime might sustain itself without it./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Iran /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Conflict /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd img src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/maulud-table1-160px.jpg width=160 align=right /The nationalist-populist leader of Russia's protest movement Aleksey Navalny has made much of a claim that the Kremlin has been 'feeding' unruly citizens in the North Caucasus at the expense of 'ordinary' Russians. Mikhail Loginov visited a small Karachay village to see whether such a view has any reflection in reality. /div /div /div p‘a href=http://www.agoodtreaty.com/2011/10/25/the-nationalists-are-coming/Stop feeding the Caucasus/a’ is a cry frequently heard from Russian nationalists, of both the radical and moderate-democratic persuasions. a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/mikhail-loginov/navalny-effectAleksey Navalny/a is the most typical example. The suggestion is that Chechnya and the other republics of the northern Caucasus receive too much in the way of subsidies, both direct and indirect, and that there is no check on how the money is spent. As a result, people in other parts of Russia are convinced that the Caucasus is drowning in cash. But is this true? How rich are the inhabitants of the northern Caucasus, and what do they eat on a day to day basis? Let’s take as an example a village in the Karachay-Cherkessiya Republic, in the west of the region./p h3A pension for a ghost/h3 pIf five hundred people gather on the street in a Russian town or village, it won’t be long before a police patrol car or an anti-riot squad appears. In a Caucasus mountain village a crowd like this arouses not the slightest interest, let alone alarm, in the local guardians of law and order. They realise that this is no demo, but a routine wedding or funeral./p p class=image-righta href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/North%20caucasus%20mapjpg.jpg target=_blankimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/North%20caucasus%20mapjpg.jpg alt= width=285 //aspan class=image-captionClick map to enlarge (opens in new window)./span/p pToday it is the latter that has drawn a crowd to the village of Sary-Tyuz. Family and neighbours have gathered to say their goodbyes to Mariam Khubieva, an elderly widow. Her life has mirrored all the major events the people of the Karachayevo region have lived through in the twentieth century./ppIn 1943 Mariam was a teenage girl working on a collective farm. She survived the five-month German occupation of the area, and was deported to Kazakhstan along with the entire Karachai population, officially accused of collaboration with the Nazis. The true reason for this exile is still unknown: Karachais tend to blame the Georgians, who, they claim, denounced them in order to annexe the mountain regions adjoining their republic./ppMariam lived in exile until the ‘50s, when she returned home together with most surviving Karachais. Their old wooden houses had been burned down, and they hastily built new ones out of home-made mud bricks. They dug holes in the middle of the unpaved street, threw in some straw, added water and produced their own building material./p pMariam married and worked in a small clothing factory in the village. In the ‘90s the factory closed down after Karachayevo Cherkessiya, like the whole northern Caucasus, was flooded with cheap Turkish knitwear. Mariam’s husband, a tractor driver at the collective farm, died at around this time./ppEven after Putin’s pre-election pension increases in 2011, Mariam’s basic state pension was no more than 5,000 roubles a month – about $150. However, in the Caucasus pension levels have always been higher than average. In the first place, half the peoples of the Caucasus – Karachais, Balkars, Chechens and Ingushes – receive compensation for their deportation./ppIn the second, by the 1950s almost all the inhabitants of Karachayevo Cherkessiya were registered as disabled. This was a result not only of their working conditions, which were indeed hard, but of the loyalty of local health service officials, something unknown in any other part of Russia. The loyalty, it must be said, comes at a price of about six month’s pension in the form of a bribe. So, taking into account her compensation and invalidity benefits, the deceased was in receipt of a total of about $260 from the federal exchequer each month.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; /ppMariam was buried according to Muslim rites, without an autopsy and before sunset on the day of her death. In other regions of Russia official notification of a death reaches the social security agencies pretty quickly, but in the Caucasus Mariam Khubieva will go on receiving her pension and other benefits for quite some time. It is accepted practice that her relatives will get the payments for another two to three years. During that time the deceased will also continue to ‘vote’ in elections.strongbr //strong/ph3strongDrinking the Karachayevo Way/strong/h3pThe average wage in Karachayevo Cherkessiya is not much higher than a pension. None of Mariam Khubieva’s adult children, her closest relatives, are well off, but if you were to tell an average wage-earner in central Russia about the amount spent on funerals here, they would think the wake was sponsored by an oligarch./ppAlthough emMaulud/em – readings of sacred texts about the life of the Prophet – is first and foremost a religious ceremony, it is dominated by food. ‘Doing Maulud’ means not just inviting the mullahs for the readings, but feeding about 500 relatives and neighbours. /p p class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/maulud-table2-530px.jpg alt= width=530 /In the North Caucasus a large amount of money relative to people's incomes is spent on important social events such as the 'Maulud', but that doesn't mean that the region is swimming in federal handouts as many nationalists claim. (Photo: Mikhail Loginov, all rights reserved)/p pThe memorial rites involve the ritual slaughter of three bulls. The first should be slaughtered on the third day after the funeral. Then the mullahs calculate the date of the 52nd day after death, and a second bull is killed on that day. The third bull is slaughtered on the first anniversary of the death. The bulls have to be large and well-fed; otherwise they will not provide enough meat for everyone. /p pAlmost all the dishes prepared for Maulud are meat based. They include khychiny (fried pasties), pelmeny (large ravioli) and simple boiled meat. The guests don’t just eat together, but take food home afterwards in large plastic bags. These ‘goodie bags’ always include bread, a pack of pasta, a bottle of cooking oil, a packet of sugar and a hunk of bull meat. The remaining contents depend on the imagination and financial situation of the organisers. There might be dried fruit, imported cheese, chocolate, tea or coffee. The guests take these bags home with them, and if someone didn’t make it to the celebration, someone will bring them a bag./p pThe tables at the ceremony would remind you of a wedding reception, were it not for the lack of alcohol. I was told that there is a saying in work teams where there are people of different ethnic backgrounds: ‘to drink like a Karachai’, in other words, only on happy occasions. /p h3strongSmall salaries and large herds/strong/h3 pSary-Tyuz is not the most typical of Karachayevo-Cherkessiyan villages. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century, to a regular ground plan. It has a population of around 4,000. It still has small mud brick and wooden houses, both pre- and post-war, but there are many more modern brick houses, some of them worth more than four neighbouring houses put together; these palaces belong to those known locally as ‘the mafia’. Even the poorest of houses are painted on the outside, and their yards swept clean. /p pAt the same time, cattle wander the filthy, potholed streets – chased out of their cowsheds to keep those clear of muck. Sometimes cows calve right on the street; when this happens villagers contact the owner on their mobile phone, and they drive in, stick the calf in the boot and take it home. Local custom dictates that people don’t just go for a walk in the village. If there is a crowd on the street in front of someone’s house it is always a sign of some event happening, such as today’s Maulud./p pThe Maulud has been organised by the dead woman’s brother, Aslanbek. He is the manager of the local office of the company that supplies the region with gas fittings. Most of the villages in Karachayevo-Cherkessiya have a gas supply. In fact the houses in Sary-Tyuz also have running water, a level of comfort unknown in most Russian villages. /p pAlthough Aslanbek is a manager, with two people working under him and a company car, his salary is less than $300 a month. Like most rural households, his family are also smallholders, with a 1,200 sq.m (0.3 acre) potato field and various breeds of cattle. In his byre he has four milking cows, two calves and two young bullocks. They are reared for sale, or in case they are needed for a wedding or funeral. Aslanbek is also the owner of twenty sheep./p p class=image-rightimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/men-cauldrons.jpg alt= width=300 /span class=image-captionMany men in the rural north Caucasus have large herds of br /cattle and can therefore sustain themselves. Yet they remain br /very poor in cash terms. (Photo: Mikhail Loginov, all rights reserved)/span/p pAslanbek’s herd is not particularly large in Karachayevo terms. Even someone with ten cows and fifty sheep is not considered a wealthy man. A wealthy man is someone who owns his own company (although they are few and far between) or who has a direct connection with public finance. Their smallholdings, however, mean that villagers are self-sufficient in food and may even have a surplus to sell. They go shopping to buy salt, sugar, tea, flour and cooking oil, but they produce all their own vegetables, dairy produce and meat. /p pAslanbek’s cousin Hussei is an example of a rich cattle farmer. Apart from owning a large herd, he has two tractors, bought from the collective farm when it folded, parked in his farmyard, and a thoroughbred trotter for cachet. Hussei is a real custodian of Karachaevo traditions. Back in Soviet times he abducted his wife and would not allow her relatives to free her until after the proper marriage ceremony. The bride did, however, consent to being abducted. /p pHussei’s son and right hand man has also been brought up to observe tradition. If there were no artificial obstacles to business in Russia, the organic meat from Hussei’s bullocks would be in great demand. In reality, there is no point in taking cattle north of Krasnodar; police extortion on the roads makes it not worth the bother.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /p h3strongThe ‘banker’ Murat and the real banker/strong/h3 pAslanbek and his son Murat have been less fortunate. Murat’s life story could already provide the material for a melodramatic TV serial. He got married straight after school, walked out on his wife and child, married again and then left his second wife for a third. He is still friendly with all three women. /p pLike all Karachai who have grown up in a village, Murat can turn his hand to any agricultural work, but he has no taste for spending his life tending cows and potatoes. At 22, he has had even more jobs than wives. At the moment, as his mother says, ‘my son is a banker’. He services two ATMs and is driver to a bank owner. His monthly salary is about $50 higher than that of his father, but the main thing is that every now and then he drives up to the house in a Lexus. /p pThe owner of the bank himself has had an untypical life for someone from Karachayevo Cherkessiya. His father left his family and succumbed to the bottle – alcoholism is rare but not unknown among Karachais. His son grew up without a father and made a lot of money, but in the 2000s he sold his business and became the regional representative of a major bank. He forgave his father and if the latter goes on a bender, he takes him to the republic’s central hospital, where he rents a ward specially for these occasions. He keeps this a secret from his mother, who has never forgiven her husband for abandoning her.nbsp; /p h3strongUnderwear and a wolf-sheep/strong/h3 pMariam Khubieva’s niece Fatima looks like a rich fairy godmother at the funeral. In 2003, after university, she went to live in St Petersburg. Many Karachai women live in the big cities, where they sell clothes or pasties in street markets. Fatima is the exception. She immediately got a job selling French lingerie to a chain of retail stores. She was quickly promoted to senior sales assistant, then head of department and then brand manager, and her career advancement looks likely to continue. Fatima’s monthly salary is $1,500./p blockquotePeople in the Caucasus feed themselves, and if Russia does spend money on the the region, it goes no further than the top bureaucrats’ pockets./blockquote pHer sister Gulnara, like her other relatives, sees Fatima only once or twice a year, at weddings and sad occasions such as today’s. She lives in the village of Teberda, and works at a market in Dombai, the republic’s most popular ski resort. Dombai’s pistes attract local ski junkies, Russians who don’t have passports for travelling abroad and people trying to save money. This third group is doomed to disappointment. In the first place, the republic’s embryonic service industry may be relatively cheap in most places, but in Dombai café and restaurant prices equal those of the elite ski resorts of France and Switzerland. A khychin meat pasty, for example, will set you back $15-17. Sometimes customers are openly swindled.nbsp; Gulnara defied the sadness of the occasion to laugh about a neighbour who sold a gullible Muscovite tourist a dyed sheepskin, claiming it belonged to a wolf. /p pGulnara suggests her sister Fatima move to Teberda and find herself a Karachai husband. But Fatima prefers to live in St Petersburg and sell lacy underwear rather than dyed sheepskins. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/pp Maulud reminds me of a party: older men sit around the fires, stirring the meat in the cauldrons and putting the world to rights. They sigh about old Soviet times, when there were collective farms, the police didn’t take bribes and young people didn’t leave to find work in the towns. They have never heard of the Moscow nationalists’ famous slogan. If they had, they would have replied that they feed themselves, and that if Russia does spend money on the Caucasus, it goes no further than the top bureaucrats’ pockets.nbsp; The rest of the population are at best fed a few crumbs in the form of invalidity benefits./pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-type-nodereference field-field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/andrei-piontkovsky/north-caucasus-one-war-lost-another-one-beginsNorth Caucasus: one war lost, another one begins/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/article/email/north-caucasus-united-we-stand-divided-we-fallNorth Caucasus: united we stand, divided we fall!/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/od-russia/mikhail-loginov/navalny-effectThe Navalny effect/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/od-russia/alexei-navalny-boris-akunin/akunin-navalny-interviews-part-iThe Akunin-Navalny interviews (part I)/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/article/email/russia-s-creeping-fascismRussia#039;s creeping fascism/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Russia /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Several new elements are added, almost daily, to worsen the complexity of the situation, and rumours of an imminent military coup in Islamabad do little to clarify matters. /div /div /div pIn December 2001, just over ten years ago, allegedly in the ‘wake of rapid victory’, nbsp;a nbsp;much heralded International Conference on Afghanistan took place in Bonn, the actual, original ‘Small Town in Germany’. Its task consisted mainly of setting up a future road-map for that unfortunate Central Asian country torn by years of foreign invasion and civil war. A “democratic” constitution was drawn up, and many extremely sagacious decisions were taken, including the creation of an, ‘International Security Assistance Force’, or ‘ISAF’ to oversee and guide Afghanistan towards peace, stability and development, through a rather novel type of ‘Civilian-Military cooperation’, which proved to be unwieldy and therefore only partially successful. Some viewed this as an audacious leap into the future. Realists, however, preferred to think of it rather as a brave, perhaps utopian attempt to reset the Afghan calendar to a situation at least as promising as it appeared before the Soviet invasion of 1979.nbsp;/p pAt the time, even old Afghan hands who had been sceptical and apprehensive of the west’s military involvement in that difficult mountain state, had greeted the Bonn Conference with relief and some optimism. After all – as president Bush himself solemnly assured us – the enemy was ‘on the run’, and the military problem in Afghanistan appeared to be practically solved, with only civilian reconstruction tasks remaining.nbsp;/p pIn the light of subsequent developments – after an initial period of moderately justified confidence – the Bonnnbsp; Conference of last December 5 can be viewed only with profound scepticism and more than a touch of melancholy. Indeed, in spite of the forced note of official optimism echoed by some of the more obedient International Media, there are reasons to believe that this will most probably be the final curtain call for the west’snbsp; involvement in the very gloomy and apparently hopeless Afghan picture.nbsp;/p pThe original, exclusive, war aim put forward to justify the invasion of Afghanistan was to “get” Osama Bin Laden. This was achieved ten years later, in another country, with Bin Laden by then perhaps more of a symbolic figure than a real threat. An impressive subsequent string of alternative ‘war aims’, none of which either convincing or even partially successful, were subsequently presented to explain the need of a continued and growing western presence in Afghanistan./p pIt is amazing, even appalling, to consider, today, that behind the theatrically arrogantnbsp; nbsp;sabre-rattling in the aftermath of 9/11, there apparently was only minimal political or strategic planning. nbsp;Important and profound historical realities were apparently not taken into consideration before embarking on a military venture in an environment which had proved fatal to many invaders, including the British Empire and the Soviet Union. Some of the most essential aspects, such as the inevitability and complexity of Pakistan’s involvement, were treated very superficially, perhaps even overlooked. When Richard Holbrooke, years later, tried to tackle the matter, events had already taken a definite turn for the worse and were probably beyond the control of either ISAF or the United States.nbsp;/p pA potentially sinister and dangerous consequence of this has been the threat of the destabilization of Pakistan, all the more perilous because of Pakistan’s modern and well-equipped nuclear arsenal, which must absolutely not fall into the ‘wrong’ hands.nbsp;/p pOne of the very first issues which ought to have been tackled, as soon as Pakistan’s involvement appeared inevitable, was the persistent border problem raised by the infamous 1894 “Durand Line”. No Afghan government has ever recognized this border, and also the local populations in Pakistan's North West Frontier area do not see it as a real barrier to their movements.nbsp; For an appreciable amount of time the present conflict has had this porous, traditionally perilous border area as one of its focal points, but there is no evidence of the problem having been taken into serious consideration either in 2001 or ever since, except, perhaps, from an exclusively military point of view.nbsp;/p pAt the present stage it is probably too late to emerge from Afghanistan having achieved even an acceptably honourable defeat, and only a belated, rigorous attempt at a totally new approach to the problem, beginning with an open minded assessment of past errors and miscalculations could perhaps avoid total disaster and humiliation.nbsp;/p pThe current tendency of hurling accusations of “duplicity” and “treachery” at Pakistan, along with the continued dissemination of rhetorical declarations and shibboleths, coupled with patently false and self-serving versions of past events (including the origins of the Taliban) will, instead, in no way contribute to clarify the situation, which now, more than ever before, demands a clear-headed assessment.nbsp;/p pThe accusation of ‘duplicitous’ behaviour levelled at Pakistan takes many forms. Most recently it has been stated that the Pakistani armed forces have taken military action against the Taliban in Pakistan, but are reluctant to do so on Afghan territory. This would nbsp;appear as the result of a reasonable Pakistani analysis of its own national interests, rather than the proof of double-dealing. The Pakistani Taliban are hostile to the Islamabad Government, which they accuse of being far too submissive to US demands, while the Taliban in Afghanistan could well be an influential component of a future Afghan government, and would certainly remember any aggressive military action taken against them: Pakistan can ill afford to have an antagonistic neighbour to its North-West, and Islamabad’s view of itself as surrounded by hostile forces - whether justified or notnbsp; - cannot be ignored and needs to be respected.nbsp;/p pSeveral new elements are added, almost daily, to worsen the complexity of the situation, and certainly the persevering rumours of an imminent military coup in Islamabad do little to clarify matters. The continued, insistent use of pilotless drones – the surgical precision of which can easily be questioned – has added a new dimension to the hostility with which the entire operation is viewed in Pakistan, while, in Afghanistan itself, the recent murder of four French ISAF military personnel on a training mission by one of their Afghan trainees serves to show that hopes of leaving the country in a sufficiently stable state are unrealistic.nbsp;/p pIt is perhaps too late, at this stage, tonbsp; reconsider the entire venture and to bring it to a relatively peaceful and dignified end. When the Soviet troops left, after a ten year occupation, marching across the bridge on the Oxus, they, at least, were going ‘home’, and, above all, to a nbsp;place from which they couldnbsp; indirectly protect the puppet government they left behind – this, naturally, only until the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is no comfortable, nearby place from which thenbsp; NATO allies can exercise this kind of immediate, close range surveillance and protection of whatever political structure they will be leaving behind in Afghanistan: the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia cannot be considered dependable and the nearest alternative, Turkey, is already quite a way off. It is difficult to imagine an Indian option which would not further and deeply irritate Pakistan, and, as a result, Afghanistan appears destined to be left to itself, in hopeless isolation, just as it was in 1989.nbsp;/p pThe damage done to Afghanistan and the Afghans will, in any case, take many years to repair, and continued military action against targets in Pakistan is certainly not the answer./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Afghanistan /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Conflict /div div class=field-item even International politics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd On January 27, in its 25th award ceremony, the 2011 Olaf Palme Prize for International Understanding and Common Security was given to Lydia Cacho Ribeiro and Roberto Saviano for their tireless and often lonely efforts to expose criminal networks despite great personal risk. Before the award, the Prize chairperson addressed the two honoured guests and an illustrious audience. /div /div /div pDear friends,/p pA very, very special welcome to our two guests of honour, a href=http://www.lydiacacho.net/english/Lydia Cacho/a and a href=http://www.robertosaviano.it/biografiaRoberto Saviano/a. We also welcome the family of Olof Palme. It may please you to hear that a few days ago, I received an email from an old friend in Greece who was exiled in Sweden during the military dictatorship there. We cooperated together with Andreas Papandreou and Mikis Theodorakis, and many more, in the Swedish Committee for Democracy in Greece, until the colonels were forced to leave power. The other day my friend sent me the following message: “I am working hard on writing a book on Olof Palme. He is an example of how politicians in Greece should and must act today. It is all about ethics and morality.” Thus the legacy of a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_PalmeOlof Palme/a lives on, also in today´s Greece.nbsp;nbsp; strong/strong/p pFriends, you have come here from all walks of life and society to honour our two outstanding recipients of the Olof Palme Prize. We accordingly welcome members of the UN family, the foreign and Swedish diplomatic corps, a former prime minister and three former foreign ministers, the mayor of the city of Malmö, government officials, members of the European and Swedish parliaments, representatives of the arts, theatre and other cultural spheres, the community of engaged advocacy and solidarity, the Red Cross, Save the Children and Amnesty, religious congregations, publishers and national and foreign media, members of think tanks and foundations, private enterprise and banks, academia and adult education, trade unions and political parties, peace, women and human rights organizations including the Swedish chapter of a href=http://ecpat.net/EI/Programmes.aspECPAT/a. We also welcome the newly elected party leader of the Social Democratic Party, Stefan Löfven. You and your wife, Ulla, are regular participants in our award ceremonies and we are happy that you too could make it here today./p pOur gratitude goes to the Social Democratic Party Group who provided us with this august meeting place, the old second chamber of the Swedish Parliament.nbsp; /p pSince 1987, we have awarded the a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme_PrizeOlof Palme Prize/a to men and women from all the continents of this globe, people who have stood up for human rights with exceptional courage and dedication. They cannot all be cited now but let me mention a few. /p pThe first recipient in 1987 was a href=http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/89/africa-billionaires-11_Cyril-Ramaphosa_6K7M.htmlCyril Ramaphosa/a thenstrongem /em/strongSecretary General of the National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa and a leader of the African National Congress that celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. /p pTwo years later the Olof Palme Prize was handed over to a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/mary-kaldor/%E2%80%98mr-former-havel-kind-of-politician-we-needVaclav Havel/astrongem /em/strongin Prague for his consistent and courageous contributions to truth and democracy. A few months later the Communist regime collapsed and Havel became president of Czechoslovakiaem./em/p pIn the new Millennium, in 2002, the Prize went to a href=http://bakerinstitute.org/personnel/inactive/hashrawiHanan Ashrawi/a from Palestinestrongem “/em/strongfor her consistent and fearless fight over the years for her people’s independence and dignity and as an inspiring symbol of a new, democratic, peaceful Middle East./p pIn 2004 three Russians shared the Prize:nbsp; a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/anna-politkovskayaAnna Politkovskaja/a, a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_AlexeyevaLjudmila Aleksejeva/a, a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_KovalevSergej Kovaljov/astrong /strong“for their great courage, often matched with considerable personal sacrifice, risk- free speech and a free press and human rights”. Anna, with whom you both had a strong relationship, was brutally killed two years later. /p pIn 2006 the Prize went to a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_AnnanKofi Annan/astrongem /em/strongandstrongem /em/strongthe human rights defenderstrongem /em/stronga href=http://www.cartercenter.org/peace/human_rights/defenders/defenders/sudan_mossaad_mohamed_ali.htmlMossaad Mohamed Ali/a from Darfur. Kofi is in town participating in another ceremony today in commemoration of the centennial of Raoul Wallenberg´s birth. We just had the pleasure of meeting with Kofi Annan and his wife Nane, and he sends his warm congratulations to all of you here. 
/p pAnd last year, the Palestinian psychiatrist a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/eyad-sarrajEyad El-Sarraj/a, peace and human rights activist in Gaza, got the Prize “for his self-sacrificing and indefatigable struggle for reconciliation, and peace in a region characterized by violence, occupation, repression and human misery”. /p pAllow me also to recognize the presence here some of our previous recipients. With us here today are Björn Fries and a href=http://expo.se/2010/about-expo_3514.htmlKurdo Baksi/astrong,/strong who together with the Parent Group in Klippanstrongem /em/strongwon the Prize in 1999, for “their long, persistent fight for tolerance and openness, and against racism and Nazism in their own country.” /p pA struggle that, sadly, is still very necessary in the twenty-first century. The horrors of the mass murder on the Norwegian island ofstrong /stronga href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/freeform-tags/debate-on-ut%C3%B8yaUtöya/a are still on our mind and in our hearts and will so be for a long, long time.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /p pAmong us is also a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_BlixHans Blix/a, the 2003 recipient, for his work against the spread of weapons of mass destruction on the basis of international law. He has under circumstances of strong external pressure demonstrated independence and a commitment to principle which have inspired respect and admiration throughout the world. He did so during the Bush war against Iraq and he does so today advocating diplomacy not war in the case of Iran. /p pAnd lastly on this issue, the Olof Palme Prize recipient in 2005, a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/rangoon_3805.jspDaw Aung San Suu Kyi/a is now free at last. We have recently been in contact with her, and she declared that she would very much like to come to Sweden to personally receive the Prize. She has never been to Scandinavia before and looks forward to it, “at the right moment”. In April she is, as we know, a candidate in the elections./p pAnd now, ladies and gentlemen,em /emto the 2011 Olof Palme Prize which is awarded to a href=http://en.rsf.org/mexico-state-justice-refuses-to-issue-03-06-2008,26457.htmlLydia Cacho/a from Mexico, and a href=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-who-took-on-the-mafia-the-truth-about-italys-gangsters-420427.htmlRoberto Saviano/a from Italy. /p pThey receive it:em/em/p blockquotepemfor their tireless, selfless and often lonely struggle for their ideals, and for the benefit of fellow human beings. They are individuals who with extraordinary courage are acting despite the risk to their lives. They remind us of the necessity to direct our attention toward countries that we would otherwise regard as democracies, countries in which particularly women and children are cruelly exploited, enslaved and destroyed by global criminal networks, which in turn also threaten democracy itself as a system”./em/p/blockquote pLet me first turn to you, Lydia Cacho. You are a a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVqj5lcEkBkfeminist/a, human rights activist, journalist and writer, noted for your campaign against corruption among Mexican politicians and businessmen. In 2005 you published the documentary book Los demonios del Edén, which reveals a paedophile network with ties to persons of high station in the community. You have also founded the organization Centro Integral de Atención a las Mujeres (a href=http://www.ciamcancun.org/eng/index.htmlCIAM/a) against the oppression of women and for their welfare. In emLas Memorias de la infamia, 2007nbsp; /em(Jag låter mig inte skrämmas, 2009) you describe how young girls who had denounced their torturers and rapists were exposed to another nightmare; the people who were supposed to help them, local and national authorities, judges and courts, did not protect them but instead often persecuted them. This cruel irony of justice was the effect of having challenged influential men and their criminal networks in collusion with economic and political power. In your exposure of these crimes and in your defense of these young, often children, you yourself became a target, a prisoner and a victim. You were as you said “kidnapped and harassed by the law”. /p pBut Lydia Cacho was not any victim, this one fought back and with a vengeance. In your latest book a href=http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2010/06/15/2927228.htmEsclavas del Poder/a” (a href=http://www.linktv.org/video/5857/lydia-cacho-sex-trafficking-industry-behind-pop-culture-of-pornSlaves of Power/a, 2010), also published in Swedish last year, you expose and denounce global trafficking and its cartels and mafias. You spent five years of research and travel on it, and you conclude that “the worst enemies of the exploited women and children on the global sex market are the consumers and their best friends could be the millions of men who say ´no´ to this modern form of slavery”. /p pYour country is going through hard times, with drug wars and massacres of innocent civilians. But you are in your work and by your personae showing the world the other side of Mexico, a people we like and a nation we respect. a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rezBenito Juárez/astrong /strongwho served five terms as president of Mexico,nbsp;nbsp; resisted the a title=French intervention in Mexico href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_intervention_in_MexicoFrench occupation/a, overthrew the foreign French-Austrian a title=Second Mexican Empire href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Mexican_EmpireEmpire/a, restored the Republic, and becamenbsp; a progressive reformernbsp; once said /p pEntre los individuos, como entre las naciones, strongel respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz/strong - Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; This is also what you, Lydia Cacho, have shown in your dedicated mission. /p pRoberto Saviano, in yourstrong /strongbook Gomorrah, which also became an award-winning film, you revealed the Camorra mafia organization to a wider public. In an essay included in your 2009 book, a href=http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/life-style/new-saviano-book-set-launchLa Bellezza el'Inferno/a (2009), you paid tribute to your murdered colleague Anna Politkovskaja. Your latest book a href=http://www.demotix.com/news/625569/roberto-saviano-presented-his-new-book-vieni-con-me-romeVieni Via Con ME/a, are stories based on your experiences and knowledge of the influence on Italian society by the Italian mafia. /p pFor this you are paying a heavy price, which never, never should have been allowed to happen. Your writings and personal example contributed to the fall of that disgraceful regime that was Berlusconi´s. You know that as fellow Europeans Italy is a country that we love, so we have followed with pain events under that regime. /p pYour country has now a well- respected prime minister but you are still insulted and under constant threat by powerful criminals. We see you as a true patriot and intellectual within the outstanding tradition of Italian culture and intellectual life. You have expanded the Cartesian thesis of emCogito, ergo sum/em to emEscribo, ergo sum/em. You say that “writing has given you the possibility to exist”, that it is a “way of waging resistance”. And that your dream is that “the written word still has the weight and power to change reality”./p pMeeting people, being seen and heard by people is your way of breaking an imposed isolation. /p pAbove all, you put your hope in being read, listened to and understood by your fellow citizens and readers world-wide. Only by collective action, by public concern and pressure, can change be achieved. The pen emcan/em be mightier than the sword./p pYou come under difficult circumstances to receive this prize and you come with a message. It is up to us all here, who, in the far and cold North, now have the privilege and pleasure to see, hear and read you, to embrace your message and turn it into action. Hopefully, your stay here will also bring some light into your camarae obscurae, your dark rooms.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /p pFinally, before passing on the word to Lisbet Palme I would like inform you, Lydia and Roberto, about three Swedish colleagues of yours, who like you have taken great risks as journalists for the cause of truth./p pSwedish-Eritrean journalist a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawit_IsaakDawit Isaak/a, accused of plotting against the state, with wife and three children in Swedenem,/em has spent more than ten years in jail in Eritrea without trial.nbsp; Last month a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_SchibbyeMartin Schibbye/astrong /strongand a href=http://martinandjohan.org/Johan Persson/a were sentenced to 11 years in prison in Ethiopia accused of terrorism and entering the country illegally. Their only mission was to investigate the doings of a Swedish-led international oil company in the Ogaden province. I feel confident that we all can agree in joining our voices to ask for their release not least on humanitarian grounds.nbsp;nbsp; /p pThank you./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Sweden /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Ideas /div div class=field-item even International politics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Ed Miliband’s sortie against Stephen Hester and City bonuses is a sign of life in Labour. But Labour’s position on the benefit cap reveals a deep-seated weakness. /div /div /div pemEd Miliband’s sortie against Stephen Hester and City bonuses is a sign of life in Labour. But Labour’s position on the benefit cap reveals a deep-seated weakness./em/p pBy taking the lead in rejecting the government’s “benefit cap” in the Lords, the bishops exposed a gaping vacuum in our politics.nbsp; The Church of England, long derided for the wishy-washy character of its religious faith, turns out to possess a creed of compassion that is of sterner stuff when it comes to the politics of poverty and social justice than either the Social Liberal tendency among the Liberal Democrats and whatever remnants of Social Democracy remain in the Labour party./ppBy the same token, their action also shows how perilously narrow the current political system is, with the parties jockeying around the findings of focus groups to found and modulate policy on issues that are significant for economic or social well-being, but are pursued and exploited in terms of political advantage over their party rivals. The Labour Party has been drawn so close in this process to the coalition parties that it has vacated much of the political and social territory that used to give it meaning./p pThe benefit cap debate is a very good example of this form of politics at work.nbsp; It is a largely symbolic issue for the coalition and it saves only a modest sum.nbsp; But it is stand-out political ploy. As press reports have made clear, Cameron was gloating over Labour’s difficulties in framing a response; the policy is a spit on which to roast a Labour party that nbsp;is torn between an anxious appreciation of public hostility towards welfarenbsp; benefits and its own sense of responsibility towards people in need.nbsp; The impression given is of a party that not only lost the last election spectacularly, but has also lost its core values and sense of direction./p pThe electoral defeat in 2010 was devastating - nbsp;Labour's loss of 91 seats was worse than their previous greatest loss of seats, when they lost 77 seats in 1970 – and the last years of office under Brown were a humiliating disaster which still give coalition ministers ample opportunities to embarrass the Labour opposition,nbsp; However, Cameron’s failure to gain an overall majority softened the blow; and thus Brownites and Blairites in Parliament, who broadly share the same ideas of how the party should campaign, have not felt the need to re-examine old truisms and political strategies, let alone to re-think the party’s relationship with the state, its public and society. It’s back to the “one more heave mentality”; playing it safe; and resorting to all manner of devices to achieve “credibility”.nbsp; The trouble for them is that it is neo-liberal ideas, Conservative and Lib Dem ministers, a hostile press and the likes of John Humphrys who define “credibility”./p pMiliband has signalled the end of Labour’s essential strategy since the 1950s, a very much diminished version of Anthony Crosland’s emThe Future of Socialism/em. For Crosland, who was arguing against the statist instincts of the Labour left, the defining goal of the left should be more social equality. He argued that,/pblockquotep'In Britain, equality of opportunity and social mobility... are not enough. They need to be combined with measures... to equalise the distribution of rewards and privileges so as to diminish the degree of class stratification, the injustices of large inequalities and the collective discontents.'/p/blockquotepBut the strategy which actually took root broadly adopted the position that a more equal society can be more or less painlessly achieved through spending some of the proceeds of growth on public services.nbsp; The troika who took control of Labour in the 1990s came to power in a period of growth that allowed them to take this easy way out of real change and avoid hard choices.nbsp; Spend on the NHS and schools, yes, these are services that the middle class value.nbsp; But accept the destructive force of Thatcher’s “right to buy” social housing and don’t even seek to make up for the lossesnbsp; by building houses to rent in the public or semi-public sector; leave housing to a get-rich-quick market.nbsp; There was even money for a degree of palliative social justice through Brown’s tax credits and other mechanisms, but that had to be concealed from the public gaze.nbsp; No need then to challenge the status-quo, to adopt Crosland’s positive measures to “equalise the distribution of rewards and privileges.”nbsp; Indeed, under New Labour it made sense to suck up to the City and reassure the banking and corporate class that the government was extremely relaxed about their wealth.nbsp; It made sense to keep the trade unions at a distance for fear of contagion./ppspan/spanspanThis strategy was too shallow to sustain a reforming party capable of responding to the demands of the time, let alone to the fearsome economic and social crisis that confronts the country – and which the incompetent and biased government is making worse.nbsp; The benefit cap issue illustrates the weakness of Labour’s response to the government’s policies. The party’s tradition of social justice demands a whole-hearted rejection of the policy and the falsity of the coalition’s arguments for it.nbsp; Instead, we get clever-arse Liam Byrne saying that the party agrees with the proposal “in principle”, but also finding a patently devious reason to oppose it that invites derision./span/p pThe government’s policy exploits a popular notion that benefits in the UK are too generous. But this is not the case.nbsp; Allowances for children in the benefits structure are not sufficient fully to pay for their upkeep. A large family may therefore accumulate a sizeable but inadequate sum in benefits.nbsp; High rental costs for private tenancies, especially in London and the south east, swells that sum to median income levels -nbsp; but that money goes not to the family, but to their landlord./p pLabour’s unwillingness to enter the debate leaves the government unchallenged where a more robust opposition could have exposed the falsity of its case.nbsp; Even the simple idea that the median wage is an appropriate measure for a cap on a family’s benefit entitlement is flawed.nbsp; As I understand the position, an equivalent family in work would be entitled to the very child benefit (and other work-related benefits) that the government intends to deny to a family receiving over £26,000 in benefits./p pBut there is a greater cheat here. Cameron and his allies have skilfully made this an issue between the working poor and the poor on benefits.nbsp; Of course, a shamefully large number of our people work for poverty wages. But the comparison that a social democratic opposition could have made – while condemning policies that are penalising the working poor - is not between median earnings of £26,000 a year and benefit levels, but between median earnings and the rewards that the government tolerates in the financial and corporate world.nbsp; In 2010, the pay of bosses of the UK’s top 100 companies jumped by an average of £1.3 million to almost £4.5 million. A report released during the debate on the benefits cap last week showed that the average pay for senior bankers in the City was £1.8 million. /p pMoreover, an effective social democratic party ought to be thinking structurally about such injustices as the high rents that private landlords are able to charge.nbsp; Given the damaging consequences of current high rent levels, the party ought surely to be advocating the re-introduction of rent controls.nbsp;nbsp; But the only Labour figure I know of who is advocating rent control is Ken Livingstone.nbsp; In the 1970s the then Labour government did introduce a fair rent regime that protected tenants from unduly high rents while allowing landlords a return on their investments.nbsp; Mrs Thatcher undid that protection in the late 1980s./p pEd Miliband has at last struck a blow over Stephen Hester’s bonus and the City bonus culture in general. But he must develop the argument against the high-pay culture at a systemic level. The government has very cleverly finessed the public debate on high earnings, at least at a rhetorical level, if not on City bonuses.nbsp; Their basic message is that massive wages and rewards are legitimate if those who earn them head profit-making companies. It is a plausible message in the current atmosphere, but (once again) an effective social democratic party ought to challenge it fiercely, and not parrot it, as Chuka Umunna has been doing on behalf of the party, saying “it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs are rewarded” and it is only “rewards for failure” that are wrong. Indeed, he disavows the argument from inequality, arguing instead that unearned high rewards ought to be opposed on the ground that they are “ bad for business”./p pThis is a long way from Crosland. nbsp;The high and increasing level of rewards for corporate and financial bosses is creating a degree of inequality in the UK that is de-stabilising our society and condemning millions of people to hardship and penury.nbsp; As the evidence of the Spirit Level has demonstrated, a more equal society is also a more harmonious and less divided society, you might even say, “a big society”./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd England /div div class=field-item even UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even Economics /div div class=field-item odd Equality /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Jean Marlowe is known as the Godmother of Medical Cannabis in the State of North Carolina.In this wildly entertaining interview, the feisty Marlowe gives her irreverent take on the hypocrisy of cannabis prohibition, and gives moving testimony about the damage done to medical patients caught up in the criminal justice system. /div /div /div pspan style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;The Land of the Free punishes or imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation. This collection of testimonials from criminal offenders, family members, and experts on America’s criminal justice system puts a human face on the millions of Americans subjugated by the US Government's 40 year, one trillion dollar social catastrophe: The War on Drugs; a failed policy underscored by fear, politics, racial prejudice and intolerance in a public atmosphere of out of sight, out of mind./spanbr style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /br style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /span style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;Jean Marlowe is known as the Godmother of Medical Cannabis in the State of North Carolina./spanbr style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /br style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /span style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;Afflicted her entire life with a rare auto-immune disorder, Jean has fought tirelessly since the early-1990s for the legalization of medical cannabis. Her efforts eventually won her an 18-month stint in Federal prison for importing cannabis from a lab in Switzerland to treat her illness./spanbr style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /br style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; /span style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;In this wildly entertaining interview, the feisty Marlowe gives her irreverent take on the hypocrisy of cannabis prohibition, and gives moving testimony about the damage done to medical patients caught up in the criminal justice system./span/ppspan style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;This complete interview is #19 of 100 in The Exile Nation Project's archive, which can be found on ExileNation.org./span/ppspan style=color: #a0a095; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;br //span/ppiframe src=http://player.vimeo.com/video/35996590?title=0amp;byline=0amp;portrait=0 width=500 height=315 frameborder=0 webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen/iframe/p

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Englishness is finally finding a voice, after more than a century. Why has it been muted this long, and is it time now for a strong civic nation, or will an England of blood and soil emerge? /div /div /div pemEnglishness is finally finding a voice, after more than a century. Why has it been muted this long, and is it time now for a strong civic nation, or will an England of blood and soil emerge?/em/pp‘Why aren’t we even allowed to be English?’ has become an increasingly vocal refrain in the identity debate across the nations of Britain, and debated in depth in a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/collections/for-englands-sakeOurKingdom’s ‘For England’s Sake’ page/a./p p'What’s stopping you?' is one fairly reasonable answer. The English have a self-image as a pretty anti-statist people. That should make it difficult to pin the widespread ignoral of St George’s Day, for example, purely on some great political conspiracy, from Whitehall to town halls, to suppress a bubbling up sense of English pride. Yes, there has been an official reluctance to articulate an English identity, but the relative lack of knowledge even of the St George’s day date, let alone the kind of self-organised voluntary activity common on national days elsewhere across these islands, must reflect a broader apathy across much of the English public. br / br / That is changing. How Englishness is finally finding a voice is set out in the new ippr report ‘a href=http://www.ippr.org/publications/55/8542/the-dog-that-finally-barked-england-as-an-emerging-political-communityThe Dog That Finally Barked/a’, published last week. A rebalancing of British and English identities sees the English (just about) joining the Scots and Welsh in giving primacy to their national identity over the multinational one recorded on their British passports. 'England Arise!' was also an implicit theme of Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s Hugo Young lecture last week. As we decide, across the UK, whether and how we want to reshape, or to end, the British political settlement over the next three years, we will certainly find ourselves talking and hearing more about England and Englishness./ppOne useful starting point could be to understand why the English voice has been muted for so long.nbsp; There have been three main reasons to not talk about England, or to fear the consequences of doing so. nbsp;The first, and longest, silence about England, was primarily the product of political confidence. Englishness was under-articulated across the twentieth century largely because it rarely felt challenged. The big existential threats that England did face were directed at Britain as a whole. br / br / The second period of a muted England arose from a desire to protect the Union. Devolution meant that the English question had to be asked, yet the reluctance to answer it was rooted in a traditional British Unionist instinct to see any rise in national allegiance as setting us on a slippery slope to the break-up of Britain. The ippr report offers persuasive evidence that this is a failed and mistaken strategy, which is doing more harm than good to its own cause. br / br / The English conversation is now happening.nbsp; Yet, still, there remains some tangible anxiety about engaging in it. The most commonly voiced fear is that the English voice will be angry and atavistic, primarily a form of “them and us” grievance politics. Recent surveys on identity have consistently found ethnic minority respondents expressing the strongest sense of British pride and belonging of anybody, but that they have a weaker attachment to English identity. Must the rise of Englishness, then, mark a retreat from a British identity that is civic, inclusive and plural towards a ‘blood and soil’ politics of belonging?nbsp; /ppstrong***/strongbr / br / “Few now sang ‘England Arise’. England had arisen all the same”. Those were the concluding words of AJP Taylor’s famous Penguin history of modern England, 1918-45. Well, it had and it hadn’t. Taylor was writing about Britain, and more specifically of how the people’s peace – the NHS and the Beveridge settlement – would shape post-war Britain’s sense of itself.nbsp; This offers a symbolic, though routine, example of the dominant, assimilationist approach to the English/British identity across the long era of unassertive English confidence.br / br / That habitual conflation of being English and British, in England anyway, was often said to have been a clever and effective strategy to make Empire, and shared ownership of it, possiblenbsp;–nbsp;especially once England made up 80% of the population of the United Kingdom after 1922. Scottish participation in the imperial adventure was often enthusiastic, while it lasted. But the conflation was less strategic, because it was often less conscious, in the post-imperial age. Attempts to rebrand Scots as 'North Britons' quickly proved futile, but the South Britons of England were happier to adopt 'British' as their primary identity. /pp Even George Orwell, who engaged with English identity more than any other major twentieth century writer, argued in The Lion and the Unicorn that challenges to the habit of using England and Britain interchangeably could be considered a “minor point” of local, and essentially regional, colour within the British family of nations./pblockquotep'… even Welsh and Scottish readers are likely to have been offended because I have used the word “England” oftener than “Britain”, as though the whole population dwelt in London and the Home Counties and neither north nor west possessed a culture of its own … It is quite true that the so-called races of Britain feel themselves to be very different from one another. A Scotsman, for instance, does not thank you if you call him an Englishman. You can see the hesitation we feel on this point by the fact that we call our islands by no less than six different names, England, Britain, Great Britain, the British Isles, the United Kingdom and, in very exalted moments, Albion. Even the differences between north and south England loom large in our own eyes. But somehow these differences fade away the moment that any two Britons are confronted by a European. It is very rare to meet a foreigner, other than an American, who can distinguish between English and Scots or even English and Irish. To a Frenchman, the Breton and the Auvergnat seem very different beings, and the accent of Marseilles is a stock joke in Paris. Yet we speak of “France” and “the French”, recognizing France as an entity, a single civilization, which in fact it is. So also with ourselves. Looked at from the outside, even the cockney and the Yorkshireman have a strong family resemblance.'/p/blockquotepstrongbr /***/strong/ppDevolution, in the 1990s, did finally help the English to see the difference between being English and being British. Yet Englishness remained muted still, out of a fear of the consequences for the Union of articulating it. So the English question remains unanswered, and only fleetingly addressed,nbsp; some thirteen years after the Queen opened the Holyrood Parliament, not just because the English have not settled on an answer to it, but also because the Westminster parties have often shared an instinctive preference to minimise the scale of change wrought by devolution.br / br / That helps to explain why the drive to finally address the English question emnow/em does not really come from the tangible but gradual rise in English identity. It has been triggered more specifically by new developments north of the border, and how they further mobilise the increasing English awareness of the current asymmetries. A Scottish vote for independence remains unlikely in the imminent referendum (with support having consistently been around one in three) but the debate will reshape the Union, with some form of devo-max likely to have broad political and public support in Scotland. (The intuitively attractive offer is essentially “in Britain, but not run by Britain” to adapt an old William Hague slogan about the EU, which was broadly popular if without any particular meaning as to its practical consequences).nbsp; br / br / Whatever the sources of evasion of Englishness, the question can no longer be avoided, a href=//www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/anthony-painter/debate-on-englishness-can-no-longer-be-avoided%E2%80%9C%3Eas Anthony Painter has argued/a. It is increasingly clear that it would be impossible to again reshape the devolution settlement without beginning to deal with the central asymmetry at its heart: the missing English dimension.nbsp; There is nothing wrong, in principle, with uneven devolution, as long as the differences reflect different views, and are considered to be fair. /ppThe late 1990s settlement reflected big differences in popular sentiment–Scotland confidently asserting its claim to a law-making parliament; Wales divided down the middle about whether to embark on devolution at all; and the English more indifferent, outside London. None of the competing answers and options for English governance have commanded any clear consensus. The last Labour government’s preferred answer – regional government – was decisively rejected in a north-east referendum. The range of reform options mooted – English votes for English laws; English grand committees; and how to link address the English question in tandem with reform of the upper chamber – are known only within the political classes. There has long been broad support for an English Parliament, but campaigners have never mobilised anything like the public salience or civic activism of the Scottish Constitutional Convention after 1992, which made pressure for devolution irresistible. br / br / The ippr research shows that, if there is no dominant view of how to address the English dimension, pressure to address it seriously is likely to become an important political force. What was true of Scotland after 1992 is now quietly true of England in 2012 too: the continued suppression of national aspiration would threaten the Union more quickly than accommodating it might. As ippr director Nick Pearce puts it “the longer this debate is ignored or, worse, denied, the more likely we will see a backlash within England against the UK”. nbsp;Devolution can be advocated as a provisional and transitional demand by those whose long-term goal is separation, but it is sincerely advocated as an alternative to it too. nbsp;br / br / Those who have wished to defend Britain and Britishness have too often embraced zero-sum or forced choice thinking about British identity. That is to express a lack of confidence in what are proclaimed to be its civic and plural virtues, betraying instead the fear that it might easily be supplanted by more ‘authentic’ national allegiances. Such forced choice thinking is as often now found on the other side of the argument too. /ppSo Norman Davies offers the eye-catching provocation in his “Vanished Kingdoms” that “the English in particular are blissfully unaware that the disintegration of the United Kingdom began in 1922 and will probably continue”. Up to a point, Professor. The events of 1940-45, the creation of the BBC from 1922, the NHS in 1948 and the Coronation of 1953 were all moments when British identity was surely being strengthened and reinforced during that century-long process of apparently inevitable decline. Tom Nairn’s The Break-Up of Britain offered a brilliant and influential obituary notice for the multinational state which Nairn labels “Ukania”. This might be proved right in the end – that now appears to be the zeitgeist view among much of the Westminster lobby and some Tory MPs, as well as the Scottish political elite – but it is worth noting that his book’s first publication, now 35 years ago in 1977, is now closer in time to the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 than it does to 2012. br / br / The Conservative Chair of the Welsh Home Affairs Select Committee, David Davies MP, now says that the UK is “holed below the waterline”, and that the Welsh are likely to follow the Scots in demanding independence. That is a strangely deterministic argument when support for independence in Wales has never risen above more than one out of four or five. We only stay British if we believe there are reasons to do so - which now includes a belief that it can accommodate national identities too - but if we choose to stay British we will. The demise of the UK cannot be said to be inevitable while there are sustained majorities to keep it across the British nations./pp The ippr find, for the first time, more people put English over British first, if forced to choose. But we do not wish to be forced to choose. Only 7% of the English say they are “British not English” while 17% say they are “English not British”. Both identities matter to most people. 40% prioritise their English over their British identity, while only 16% do the opposite but, as 34% feel equally British and English, a majority still feel at least as British as English. a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/anthony-barnett/time-to-take-britain-out-of-our-greatnessAnthony Barnett, accepting Alex Salmond’s challenge/a, makes the case for a post-British England eloquently, but that remains a minority view. /p pBritish Future’s a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/gareth-young/british-future-state-of-nations-2012State of the Nation polling/a earlier this month found a persistently strong sense of belonging to Britain of 67% in England, 64% in Wales and 60% in Scotland, alongside an even higher score for strong belonging to Englandnbsp; (72%), Scotland (82%) and Wales (83%) respectively. What was particularly striking in the British Future polling was that English respondents were considerably more likely to say that they felt a strong sense of belonging to both Britain and England, or to neither. So 92% of those who felt a strong sense of belonging to Britain also said that they felt strongly that they belonged to England too, but this strong sense of English identity fell to just 27% among those who did not have a strong sense of belonging to Britain, with more than twice as many saying they did not have a strong sense of belonging to England.nbsp; Suppressing the English voice would be both wrong and dangerous, but an articulation of Englishness which believes the key is to throw off British identity will also appeal only to a narrow minority. Understanding that could be an important key to the civic Englishness that we need.br / br /strong***/strongbr / br / The remaining anxiety about Englishness is a fear that it will be atavistic, and more ethnic than civic. Whether it is possible to be black and British was once the subject of agonised debate. That question has been decisively settled. But the pluralising of Englishness remains a work in progress. This is an important challenge – but it must not become a final reason not to talk about England./pp The ippr report shows that non-white Britons are a good deal less likely to identify themselves as “more English than British” than others. 19% feel more English than British, with 23% equally English and British, and 37% more British than English. This is, broadly, a mirror image of how the white English prioritise these two different identities. There is a note of caution about small sample sizes, but this confirms the findings of other polls, where non-white Brits have a marginally stronger sense of British identity than everybody else, but a weaker sense of English identity.br / br / So some express the fear that a return to the traditional “blood nations” will leave the ethnic minorities as the last Brits standing, rallying around a flag that indigenous Brits have deserted. The idea of being “black British” is well established, while phrases like “black English” or “Asian English” have an unfamiliar ring. Why were we slow to pluralise Englishness? One, rational explanation would be that Britishness contained more space – its Celtic fringe and multinational nature making it civic and plural from the start. But I suspect it might simply have been that new Commonwealth immigrants joined the British/English themselves in tending to forget that there was a difference during those post-war decades of increased immigration, when any distinctive English dimension to British public life was largely absent. br / br / That non-white Britons place most emphasis on British identity makes a lot of sense to me. It is British history which explains how we became the society we are today. I was born British, in Doncaster in 1974, in part because my father had also been born a British subject, 4000 miles away and three years before Indian independence, thirty years earlier. My mother is southern Irish, and both of my parents were among those encouraged and invited to come to Britain to help staff the National Health Service.nbsp; That is a distinctively British story of Empire, decolonisation and the NHS. I would go as far as to argue that is as British a background as anybody else who can trace their family roots here back to the Anglo-Saxons.nbsp; Is it just as English too? It doesn’t feel like it. That is a question where it sounds to me like roots and their longevity would count for more. nbsp;The ethnic lag on English identity can be easily overstated: the British Future poll found that 72% of the white British in England felt strong belonging to England, while 27% don’t, while this was 62% among non-white Britons, including 69% of Asians.br / br / So I am also confident that the English conversation in 2012 will be about an inclusive English identity. I am English, but would prefer to keep a British passport, but there is no politically viable English project, which would refuse me an English passport in the event that the UK did fragment into independent states.nbsp; This may disappoint some of those who assert an English identity as an alternative to the multi-ethnic muddle, which Britain has become, but any English conversation is bound to reflect the reality of modern England as soon as it begins. br / br / Our few English public symbols, express a civic and multi-ethnic Englishness already. It was an argument that took place on our football terraces. For my generation, the fact of multi-ethnic English team was a settled fact - since Viv Anderson had become the first black player to represent his country in 1978 - but that was an argument that we had to win too. I was only ten years old, watching the slightly fuzzy ITV pictures from Brazil, when John Barnes went on his brilliant, mazy run at the Maracana stadium to give England a two-nil victory. So it was only a few years later that I heard the story of the NF contingent of the England fans singing “one-nil” instead, because black goals didn’t count. It was an argument that they were always going to lose. “The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of 11 named people but an imaginary all white England has no team to cheer for.nbsp; br / br / I felt differently – and more confident - about England and Englishness after the 1996 European Championships, in which the Cross of St George decisively supplanted the Union Jack as the icon which the English understood to be their national flag. The English had both a decent team, for once, as well as a positive sense of who we were and why we were hosting the party too. The build-up to so many previous major tournaments had so often been dominated by fears of hooliganism from those whose idea of patriotism was to maraud around Europe singing “if it wasn’t for the English, you’d be Krauts”. That contest between different ideas of England involved a lot of grassroots effort, as fans’ embassies and supporters groups tried to make it possible for the non-idiot majority to go to a game without being herded around like animals. Several times, during my twenties, I was part of a team of about forty volunteers who regularly turned up at Wembley at 9am to lay out a pattern of red and white cards on the seats for fans to “raise the flag” as the teams came out. We stood for positive English patriotism; against racism, and against booing the other side’s anthem. (Part of this very English initiative involved putting out cards at the other end for opposing supporters to raise their own flag too, including a short explanation of this gesture in, say, Swedish too). /p pThe St George’s Flag is now an everyday symbol of participation and pride in a shared national experience – during our football summers at least, when it as likely to be flown from the people carrier of a British Asian family with 2.2 children as by anybody else. But the same flag might still have a more ambiguous meaning when fluttering from a South London pub on a rainy winter’s night./p pSo the idea of a mono-ethnic English identity will be stillborn in the England of 2012. A lot of Scottish energy has gone into establishing that the new Scottish patriotism is civic and inclusive, taking pride in how Pakistani Scots lay claim to the identity. If Scotland can have a confident civic patriotism, there is no reason to fear that this cannot happen in England too. After all, England has a good claim to have long been the most internally plural of the British nations, a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/roifield-brown/black-englishas Roifield Brown argues/a, containing not just 97% of Britain’s ethnic diversity but a broader plurality of English identities in terms of the mixture of many regional, class, urban and rural routes into England and Englishness. The many immigrant contributions to English literature take in George Bernard Shaw, TS Eliot, Tom Stoppard and Salman Rushdie, but they begin right back at the start, with Beowulf. Billy Bragg’s “English, Half-English” captures a globally engaged nation where hyphenated identity began with the Anglo-Saxons. /pp Many different voices will rightly now stake a claim to the English conversation that has begun. There will be some important contests over what we decide Englishness now stands for. That should be welcomed: we will all need to choose which English conversations we want to have./pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd England /div div class=field-item even UK /div /div /div div class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Civil society /div div class=field-item even Culture /div div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div div class=field-item even Economics /div /div /div

div class=field field-type-text field-field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd In a landmark effort to bring Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict XVI, to account for crimes against humanity - the widespread and systematic sexual violence perpetrated by the Catholic Church, a case has been filed with the International Criminal Court. Shareen Gokal reports /div /div /div pWhen Megan Peterson was 14, she was convinced her calling in life was to be a nun. Then, in 2004, she met Father Jeyapaul, a visiting priest from India, at her home parish in the Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota. Having seen him first at a youth retreat, she only hesitated a little when he asked about the book she was reading and offered to lend her one of his own. /p pAccording to Megan, Father Jeyapaul offered her a seat in his office, turned around to get the book and unzipped his pants instead. And that he then proceeded to rape her - and raped her repeatedly for almost a year, threatening to hurt her and her family if she did not cooperate. Megan’s experience is emblematic of so many cases of clergy abuse from around the world-marked by violence, betrayal, and long-lasting harm. /p pWith a perpetrator as powerful as the Catholic Church, victims and survivors of rape and sexual abuse have stood little chance of ensuring accountability and preventing further harm. As Megan notes, “People’s faith is represented directly by the clergy and by the Vatican, and so they do not speak out against their abusers for fear that to do so would be speaking out against their own faith.” /p pBut for Megan her experience was just the beginning of a remarkable journey. She not only survived the violence perpetrated against her, she chose to fight back. Along with the a href=http://www.snapnetwork.org/Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)/a and the US-based a href=http://ccrjustice.org/Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)/a on 13 September 2011 her a href=http://ccrjustice.org/ICCVaticanProsecutioncase/a became part of a a href=http://ccrjustice.org/ICCVaticanProsecutioncomplaint/a filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute the Pope emBenedict XVI /em, the Vatican Secretary of State and two Cardinals for rape, other forms of sexual violence, and torture as crimes against humanity. /p pAccording to Pam Spees, the CCR lawyer who filed the complaint with the ICC, no national system has been able or willing to prosecute high-level Vatican officials for their direct or “command” responsibility for these offences. The Catholic Church’s global presence, pseudo-sovereign status, a href=http://ccrjustice.org/ICCVaticanProsecutionuse/a of diplomatic channels, and insistence on secrecy enforced by threatening excommunication, has allowed it to sidestep accountability in national jurisdictions around the world. As Pam Spees states “The Catholic Church wants to be treated as a state when it works to its advantage, then hides behind the veil of religious authority when it doesn’t. It has to accept the consequences and repercussions which is something it just isn’t very good at.” /p pThe case seeks to establish that the sexual violence perpetrated in the Catholic Church is systematic and widespread. If this can be proved, then even individual cases of rape can be prosecuted as a crime against humanity. /p pBased on some a href=http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2010/09/vatican-rights-state-italyestimates/a it is thought that there around 100,000 cases of sexual abuse by clergy just between 1981 and 2005; if cases from Africa, Latin America and elsewhere are added, the worldwide total is likely to be many times higher. /p pThe case presents 22,000 pages of supporting testimony, case studies, declarations, letters, statements, photographs, and grand jury a href=http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2002_06_19_Westchester_NY_Grand_Jury/reports/a. It also includes the findings of multiple commissions, such as the a href=http://www.dacoi.ie/Cloyne Commission/a, the a href=http://www.mountcashelcoverup.com/hughesinquiry.phpHughes Inquiry/a. /p pIronically, the centralized and hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church, used so effectively in cover-ups, also provides the strongest evidence of violations. The case establishes that high-level Vatican officials either knew or should have known about the brutality being perpetuated by its members. During the period in question, current pope Joseph Ratzinger headed the “a href=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dxcdf.htmlCongregation of the Doctrine of the Faith/a” (CDF) the entity to which all sexual violations within the Church must be reported.nbsp;nbsp; /p pAs the CDF head, Ratzinger is accused of ordering, encouraging, facilitating, or otherwise abetting the cover-up of credible claims of sexual violence. The cover-up included obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, “priest-shifting”, refusing to cooperate with civil authorities, victim blaming, rewarding cover-ups and punishing whistleblowers. /p pThe complaint also names Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is on record as saying that bishops should not be obliged to report offending priests to civil authorities: “(Civil society) must… respect the ‘professional secrecy’ of priests… If a priest cannot confide in his bishop for fear of being denounced, then it would mean that there is no more liberty of conscience.”/p pThe evidence includes correspondence over many years in which it is alleged that Ratzinger and Bertone repeatedly refused to authorize bishops to remove or defrock offending priests This was despite compelling evidence which includes one priest whose ritual of abuse was described by one victim as having a “satanic quality.” /p pCardinal Angelo Sodano is also named in the case for preventing accountability for Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ religious order. Maciel had been denounced to Pope John Paul II for rape and sexual violence of members of the order as early as 1989. Yet the Vatican took no action until the a href=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1275849/Vatican-hit-fresh-sex-scandal-Cardinal-Angelo-Sodano-accused-covering-abuse-case.htmlscandal/a began to emerge more publicly in 2004. Even then, proceedings were stopped by Sodano with the approval of Pope John Paul II.strong br //strong/p pThe case argues that self-regulation through “zero tolerance” policies on sexual abuse has failed miserably. A US Grand Jury a href=http://www.bishop-accountability.org/pa_philadelphia/Philly_GJ_report.htminvestigating/a the Philadelphia Archdiocese found that, despite adopting such a policy in 2002, 37 priests credibly accused of sexual violence were found to be actively serving in the Archdiocese in 2011. /p pAn 18 month investigation of the Boston Archdiocese by the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office revealed accusations of sexual assault of minors so massive and prolonged that it borders on the unbelievable. The Boston a href=http://www.bishop-accountability.org/downloads/archdiocese.pdfreport/a concluded that perhaps most tragic of all much of the harm could have been prevented. But nothing was done despite top church officials being aware of the offences.nbsp; /p pIn 2001 French Bishop Pierre Pican was sentenced to three months imprisonment for failing to report the rapes and sexual assaults of ten boys by a priest in his diocese. Afterwards, Pican received a letter writen by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, with the approval of Pope John Paul 11, telling him that he had acted wisely, and that he was delighted to have a fellow member...who...would prefer to go to prison rather than denounce his priest-son. /p pAlong with Megan’s case, the individual cases submitted to the ICC include that of a href=http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/april/16/news3.isxamp;d=2010/april/16Rita Milla/a who says she was sexually molested by Father Santiago Tamayo at the St. Philomena Church in Carson, California when she was 16. The sexual aggression is reported to have escalated over the next five years, leading to her repeated rape by seven priests. Rita became pregnant and, despite the priest’s urging, refused an abortion. Tamayo arranged for her to be sent to his brother’s clinic in the Philippines where she was neglected and starved until she fell into a coma and delivered her child in that state.nbsp; /p pRita’s mother finally tracked her down, brought her home to recover and reported the abuse to the Archdiocese, but after a year she was told nothing could be done. In 1984, she filed a a href=http://bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbylastName-C.htmlsuit/a against the Los Angeles Archdiocese but the seven priests accused had all disappeared, and when the case finally reached the Court of Appeals, the statute of limitations had expired. /p pIn March 1991, Tamayo returned to California, confessed and apologized to Rita, producing letters showing that the Los Angeles Archdiocese had been paying him to stay in the Philippines to avoid scandal or legal action.nbsp; /p pA court-ordered paternity test confirmed that another priest in the diocese, Valentine Tugade, was the father of Rita’s child. When questioned by a journalist, the ICC case documents a href=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20137201,00.htmlshow/a that Tugade replied “I do remember her. …nbsp; we had intercourse with her, a lot of us.” But, he added, “she wanted it, and so I don’t have to apologize to her. I have repented a long time ago.” /p pIn Megan Peterson’s case, a prosecutor filed charges against Father Jeyapaul and obtained an extradition order and Interpol “a href=http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/243775-g-6-interpol-red-extradition-order.htmlred notice/a”, April 13, 2010. Yet Jeyapaul is still working in churches in India, although the Vatican is fully aware of the rape allegation. /p pMegan continues to raise awareness of her experience and profile the work of a href=http://www.snapnetwork.org/SNAP/a which now has chapters in 18 different countries and gives a powerful platform for survivors of clergy abuse to advocate for prevention and justice. /p p“It means the world to me, to know that my story is being heard and taken seriously, when so many people, including those close to me, often doubted me and my abilities. So many have suffered and share similar stories to mine. I am doing this for myself, and for all those who have been mistreated and discarded by the Catholic Church,” she says. /p pPam Spees adds, “This case is a labor of love for us at CCR. I’ve worked around sexual violence issues most of my adult life. I often think I reach a point where I’ve heard the worst of the worst. But the clergy rape cases still manage to shock me. Working on this case in partnership with survivors who have managed to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their lives …has been inspiring and empowering. This case carries with it so much truth, hope, love and compassion.” /p pMeanwhile, the prosecutor at the ICC mustnbsp; decide whether the case submitted meets its jurisdiction and scope and whether the ICC has the political will to take on “God’s representative on earth”. What is the time scale here? Nothing definite./p pnbsp;/pdiv class=field field-type-content-taxonomy field-field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Democracy and government /div /div /div