For a society that is so oriented to growth and progress, we seem remarkably immune to good news. We have a deep philosophical cynicism about such simple things as love and sympathy, even though there is evidence that these are forces with significant impact in our world. We are suspicious of ideas like happiness, even if they are central to our highest ethics, both freedom and progress. How can you be free if you are so unhappy you cannot enjoy your good fortune? How can there be progress where this becomes a general condition? Progress or Prozac?
Take the decline of violence in the world: There are fewer and smaller wars now than ever before. The depressing spectacle of embedded journalism, during the last attempt to make war work, had lying beneath it a very good piece of news. People so dislike seeing others blown to pieces, that wars must now be structured around the public not seeing this happen. The media has extended people’s senses, and with it their consciences, and this has shaped the geopolitical ‘realism’ of the most powerful players in the world.
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Tagged with Anthropology, Commons, Development, Economics, Environment, Media, Philosophy, Polity, Uncategorized
Mark Lynas writes passionately and accurately at the current corruption of leadership on climate change.
New Statesman - Our leaders are steering us into the abyss
My response is that this is to do with us aiming our messages at the wrong people. The question that bears most strongly on all of this is who is facing the abyss the most. That is where the strongest political pressure-base can come from:
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Tagged with Commons, Environment, Justice, Media
I went to see Tariq Ali speak at Hornsey Library yesterday, promoting his new book “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He spoke about the situation in the Middle East, and then warmed to his main topic, the changing political landscape in South America. He spoke about Chavez, Castro and Moralez. It was an interesting talk, where he mainly pointed out the history of Chavez, and his achievements in terms of poverty reduction, health and education. He also talked about what the US and the UK and Spain got up to, in terms of supporting a coup against him, and the campaign against Chavez in the Media.
One of the most interesting things he said was that a reporter at Al-Jazeera had said to him that Chavez had carried out an hour long interview on their channel, with simultaneous translation into Arabic. The reporter said that AL-Jazeera had never got so many emails: and the bulk of them said one thing. Why is there no-one like Chavez in the Middle East? Why no leaders with a social vision.
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Tagged with Al jazeera, Chavez, Development, Media, Middle East, Polity, Saddam, Socialism, South America, Tariq Ali, Tele sur, Venezuela
It seems that Cheap Flights are Proliferating around the world:
Branson has plans to open up routes to Asia
Whilst low fare airlines enjoy huge growth in across Asia
In the UK Sian Berry Bemoans the way ministers are incoherant over flying
Blair effectively says keep on flying to everyone
Whilst Plane Stupid point out that all this is, well, ridiculous, and not really helping things very much.
It seems that everyone is pointing at each other. Blair says that the Chinese will make up for any British cuts in emmissions in a couple of years, whilst India and China point out that their per-capita emmissions are much lower than for OECD countries, and that their people surely want a taste of the pie.
There is a big debate about environmental justice underlying this (how much of the world’s resources does each person get to use?)
So when are we going to see a global convention that limits aviation? Aviation is not a part of Kyoto. The EU emmissions trading scheme does not seem to limit flying very strongly (the Plane Stupid people make that pretty clear.)
So the question is, where is the binding global agreement to limit aviation going to come from?
Tagged with Aviation, Climate Change, Development, Environment, Environmental Justice, International Relations, Justice, Media, Polity
New Statesman - A new idea: find out what works
Yes the AID industry has had big problems with evaluating effectiveness, and has been agonising about this more than almost any other sector since around the mid 1980s. The main reason for this was that up till then AID was treated as a means to buy off rich world guilt, rather than to really improve conditions for the poor. Oh, and it was also a way of forcing countries into disadvantageous trade contracts, so called “tied AID.”
Now as a sharp critic, I have to admit things have got a bit better in the AID industry. So much energy was spent on project management and evaluation frameworks, by people like USAID (not my favourite organisation, but credit where its due) that some other small organisations have taken these methods on board, er like the HM treasury for instance.
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Tagged with Aid, Development, Evaluation, Media
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Ahdaf Soueif: A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
This is the kind of thinking on the Israel-Palestine question I would support, alongside people like Said, who never rolled over to the Isrealis, but also never lost sight of the need for a solution.
Tagged with Guardian, International Relations, Justice, Media, Middle East, Polity
One of the key issues of defining democracy at a global level is trying to understand what we mean by ‘public’ on what is effectively a new and emerging scale for debate. For democracy to operate we need to have ways for the ‘public’ to define themselves as a body at this level, and for ‘public’ opinion to be expressed and debated. There is no polity without a population or community that is to be defined in relation it. This leads us to ask not only what sort of polity are we hoping to constitute, and around which kinds of principles and institutions, but also how are the relationships with populations to be built up within this?
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Tagged with Al jazeera, BBC, Commons, Global Governance, Global Publlic Sphere, Guardian, International Relations, Media
I went to see Tom Stoppard’s play ‘Rock and Roll’ last night. It was interesting precisely because it was so predictable. I was suprised by how well it fitted with ideas I had been rolling around in my head for a while.
What was predictable in Tom Stoppard’s script was the celebration of ‘not caring’ and ‘doing your own thing.’ In many ways it was an honest social document of idealism caving in to the relativistic individualism of the 80’s, with the fall of communism and the rise of ‘liberated’ consumption.
However the calculated irresponsibility of Stoppard’s play is not just a piece of social history, but also something very contemporary. It is part of a huge denial of reponsibility by the rich and powerful, a denial that has eaten its way in to almost every area of contemporary thought.
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Tagged with Anthropology, Happiness, Media, Participation, Philosophy, Polity, Socialism
Motion to the Students’ Union clearly defining the limits to freedom of speech at SOAS.This Union notes:1.The motion “opposing all racist manifestations” passed on the 14th of November 2003, has been used to ban speakers invited by minority groups at SOAS, on the basis that these speakers are representatives of racist social groupings. However this motion does not define racism carefully:
Tagged with freedom of speech, Justice, Media, Middle East, Polity
There has been a big debate on Freedom of Speech at SOAS, which I participated in. It revolved partly around an article by Nasser Amin. You can find more detail on Wikipedia:
I actually disagreed very strongly with Amin’s article in the SOAS magazine New Spirit. I got an article accepted as a refutation of what he said, but that issue of the Spirit never got published. I reproduced the article above.
However, I do think Amin had the right to air his opinons and have them debated, and the subsequant censure of him shows how people don’t really think about consequences properly.
I actually drafted a motion with some colleagues at SOAS, one also in the Media Department, another in the Law Department, about the limits of free speech. we put a lot of work into it, but never managed to get it to a union meeting to get it debated. I published that above also.
In the motion I held the position that one limit to free speech is when advocating violence against others. I had the issue of collective violence advocated or condoned by states in mind here. I think it is objectionable to let what Israel is doing in the occupied territories go unchallenged in public, and that representatives of Israel should at the very least be required to explain themsleves, and to be called to account for violence: Ignoring the situation is akin to condoning the violence, my Palestinian fellow students managed to convince me of this.
Amin’s original article in the spirit did call violence against Israeli citizens legitimate, since he sees them as complicit in the violence against the Palestinians. I disagree with this totally, and that is why I wrote the article objecting.However I think it is more important to allow an individual like Amin a voice in such matters, because their opinions are less likely to lead to violence. A representative of a state, when they speak, is more likely to influence events, and so should have greater moral responibility, scrutiny and limits placed on them.
Currently the framing of freedom of speech lets representatives of states condone or ignore violent policies. At the same time it comes down hard on individuals who express their anger at such violence. I do not think calling for violence is a good idea, but I think the balance should be the other way around: Indivuduals should be freer to speak, becuase they tend to have less voice in public anyway, their voice is crucial for democracy and because their words are less likely to lead to violent outcomes.
Anyway, I support Amin’s freedom to speak his views, even if I think he is foolish. I also think that representatives, even from student societies, but especially from states, should be forced to explain the violence in the policies that they advocate, and should be restricted in public life where it becomes clear that their position constitutes a consistent advocacy of collective violence and thus oppression.
Tagged with freedom of speech, Media, Philosophy, Polity, SOAS
