Caucasian Impasse

Armour rumbles in Georgia and European Union foreign policy coordination senses a chance to prove itself

The EU has expanded towards Russia's recently conceived 'ex-soviet space', both need to learn to appreciate each other's value, and values

It's safe to say that Europeans harbour a genuine uncertainty regarding Russia, in sum, the usual evaluation is one of hazardous opportunity. The potential of Russia's markets and resources are obvious to all, and to those who are weary of US foreign policy, Europe's vast neighbour holds the allure of a counterweight in international relations. On the other hand, Russia's swiftness to relish in and delpoy its military assets and speak bluntly in tense times showing no aversion to contributing to escalation jarrs with the more diplomatic and peace-loving European sensibilities.

These issues were reflected perfectly at the top level of EU Russia relations conducted in Sochi over the weekend 20-21 of september. Top of the agenda was the resumption of partnership negotiations between Brussels and Moscow in October which were halted by the conflict over Abkhazia and South Oessetia provided that Russian troops do indeed withdraw as Putin has assured they will. The good news didn't end there, there were also agreements on cooperation on environmental matters, energy efficiency and even on 2010 being respectively year of Russia anf France in each country. Such accord is worlds apart from the stance adopted by British PM Gordon Brown, who in his wisdom decided to warn Medvedev over the phone to expect a determined European response, Brown also supports excluding Russia from the G8 and reconsidering its relations with NATO. It is striking that the division between, for example, France and the UK over how to approach Russia in this follows two other divisions. Firstly, that while France has close and relatively good energy sector ties with Russian companies, the UK does not, and secondly, France has traditionally set itself apart from policies favoured by Washington, while the UK...does not. These are qualities that make the current French occupation of the Presidency of the EU favourable for its involvement in the peace initiative since the 5 Day War. Indeed, Sarkozy has played a very personal role in the negotiations with Georgia and Russia and trod a careful line between condemming the scale of Russian military response, projected deep into undistputed Georgian territory, while refusing to "get full of emotion and slam all the doors shut" as the German Foreign Minister put it. It is right to offer aid to the people of Georgia to repair the damage done to their country by the Russian armour which rolled through it, but it is also vital that relations with Moscow not become yet another of the conflict's casualties. Russia holds the keys to vast mineral wealth and energy resources, as well as representing a treasure trove of commercial opportunity to the nations of Europe, assets which the Russian state is very protective of and does not share readily and freely. Russia has the scope to choose its allies according to its potential as a trading partner and Europe would do very poorly out of jeapordising its access to this potential.

Trying to get some wind under foreign and security policy cooperation is a major challenge for the EU

In more fundamental terms, there is really very little for the EU to achieve in involving itself in this conflict. Georgia is not a Member State, nor is it a member of NATO, yet the EU has racked its nerves to find a common response to the events as a matter of policy. The Common Foreign and Security Policy initiative is something that leaders have been trying to get off the ground for a long time now. If Europe could cooperate in this discipline and field resolute and united responses and stances to global events, then it would undoubtedly raise the prestige and political clout of the bloc. While Europe has no sense of having any kind of messianic mission to save humanity of the sort for which Russia and the USA are each famous for, Europeans do hate wars, regardless of the reasons behind them, and they love the leaders who can resolve them or avoid its spectre in the first place. Consequently, the persual of a Common Foreign and Security Policy mechanism is an attractive occupation not only for the real benefits of a Union wide collaboration in protecting EU citizens from the dangers of the day, but also for its potential in domestic popularity.

The EU needs to keep the lights on at home, and its doors as open as its options regarding Russia, energy and security

As discussed in 'sounds like sabre rattling', behind the flag-waving of this conflict lies a rivalry between the United States and Russia over access to and control over the oil and gas supply in the region. Materially, Europe has nothing to gain in entering that tussle, either Russia or the USA will win out before the EU is likely to, as the USA has the funds and political will to openly warp domestic politics in foreign countries to its advantage, and Russia is comfortable with standing its ground with the help of the gun barrel. In either outcome, the EU will be buying any energy resources that flow from the region from either Russian or American companies. As such, no amount of consternation in Europe over a common foreign policy stance is likely to make any difference to the final state of affairs on the ground.

Sounds like sabre-rattling

Through the noise of firey UN Security Council exchanges, dispatches from Capitol Hill and the tutting in Europe's capitals, iDissent strains to hear a clear voice or two tell a fuller story

Russian military activity in Georgia, which broke out ostensibly over the break-away Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, has over the past couple of weeks received sharp condemnation from the transatlantic political community and sparked a crisis summit of the EU. Russia has been portrayed in light of the four-day conflict as a wanton aggressor and a bully, violating the sovereignty of a pro-western country with aspirations to EU and NATO membership. The rhetoric has escalated even after the cessation of military actions, with Russian foreign minister telling the world to 'forget about' Georgian territorial integrity and threats from European leaders of frosty diplomatic times for Russia despite fears of reciprocation with an equally frosty winter for those dependent on her energy resources.

The regions under dispute, the window-dressing of the conflict

Background chatter
There are famously, however, two sides to every story, and often even more, especially to those about international relations and conflicts. Over the last couple of days I have been asking some Russian friends in Kiev and Moscow their opinions of the conflict and how the progress of Russian tanks up to the capital of another sovereign country can be defended and not considered shameless aggression. Each of whom I asked passionately defended Russia's position on the matter (and they are of different ages and backgrounds) and implored me not to take for granted the version of events and blame consumed in the west but to hear a little of the history of the region to understand the situation today. (When I say a little history, one of my contacts began his answer in the time of Alexander the Great, this is normal for Russian debates so I should have been expecting it, but at 2am on a Monday morning I wasn't sure whether to be flattered by the effort to educate me, or pass out in despair). You probably only have to have been paying average attention to BBC coverage of happenings in the Caucuses in recent years to appreciate that it is a compact region of great cultural and ethnic diversity. Its history is bloody and wild and riddled with intrigues, mutual distrust and demographic and religious tensions. These tensions, in a fashion comparable to that familiar to the people of the former Yugoslavia, were more incubated than abated in soviet times when territories were symbolically, though in practical terms meaninglessly, delineated along ethnic lines. Whether in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic or the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, it was all the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There was one real state, and one army. Internal borders served only administrative purposes. All of this held the potential for a total nightmare when the time came to divide up the assets at the break-up of the Union. In the event, when Georgia established its full independence it found on its northern border Abkhazia and Ossetia (the north of which came within the borders of the Russian Federation, the south of which lies in Georgia), where many people recognised as Russians were resident. Ossetins have long standing ties to Russia as opposed to Georgia, as do Abkhazis and there is a genuine popularity amongst them for union with the Russian Federation.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili came in from America on a popularist nationalist platform

Initially, Georgia sought to secure its independence by asserting its authority here, but the armed forces in the region were deemed Russian, and life for Georgians became difficult. The President, Gamsakhrudia, was blamed and replaced by Edward Sheverdnadze who agreed to a mix of forces for the region to keep peace. Abkhazia began to attract investment from Russia, but improvements for Georgia proper failed to satisfy the Georgian population, and Mikhail Saakashvili became the new President in January 2004. Saakashvili brought with him an American education, American support and a nationalist popularist platform, promising to restore the soviet-era borders of his country. Why the American support? Both Russia and the United States, according to my civilian Russian contact, have a vested interest in the gas and oil resources and infrastructure of the region. Georgia also represents a non-muslim threshold to the Middle East, a potentially useful foreign policy launch-pad for the United States, and to Russia it presents a threat to their territorial integrity as well as a potential expansion of their share in global energy resources. Mikhail Saakashvili launched attacks on the territory of and civilian targets in South Ossetia, provoking retaliation from Russia. Such circumstances have naturally engendered the Ossetins and Abkhazis further toward Moscow and Moscow is happy to extend to them its support.

Sergey Lavrov. One man, one qoute, but how many edits and interpretations?

Distortion and interference
Separating the interested parties and their motivations makes the picture clearer. Moscow has an interest in halting what it sees as increased US involvement in the Caucuses not only for the sake of enhancing its own influence there by default, but also to consolidate its portfolio of gas and oil assets. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or rather the unification thereof with the Russian Federation, and the protection of Russian nationals therein, provide Moscow's ticket to that end. For the US, Georgia is an attractive partner in the region, strategically located to become a useful partner in NATO and buttress its supply of oil and gas. Given that, the answer to questions as to why the dispute over two moderately sized regions' autonomy cannot be settled peaceably in the UN becomes clear, there is more than that at stake for two of the Security Council's permanent members. The argument over Georgian territorial integrity, or the right of the Abkhazis and Ossetins to live in safety under Russian protection, are the PR sleeve photos of projects for the betterment of Washington and Moscow respectively. Given the above history of who-hit-who first it would appear that Russia actually commands the moral high-ground, though its height above sea-level depends upon your location in relation to Moscow, however the scale of Russia's advance into Georgia was undoubtedly for foreign consumption. In the vein of sabre-rattling it was intended to demonstrate that not only America can conceive of daring invasions into sovereign countries with the aim of regime change (Russia would no doubt be able to work with a Georgia that had as its President anyone they didn't feel had only Washington's interests at heart nor had in election campaigns promised to recapture territory that is now part of the Russian Federation). Furthermore, western allegations levelled against Russia of 'aggression' would undoubtedly carry more weight and credence (sending tanks through a sovereign nation's territory when not faced with a proportional, clear and direct threat amounts to the crime of aggression in international law) were it not the case that the US, UK and others have committed that very crime in Iraq.
Sergey Lavrov's statement "то, думаю, можно забыть о разговорах о территориальной целостности Грузии," that we can 'forget about Georgian territorial integrity', in its fullness, was actually confined to a state of conflict, and not an open threat as it is often presented and read in newspaper or online headlines. The other half of the qoute reads "...потому что заставить осетин и абхазов согласиться с такой логикой, что их можно силой вернуть в грузинское государство, для них будет невозможно" '...because to compel the Ossetins and Abkhazis to agree with the logic that they can be returned by force to the Georgian state, is impossible for them'. If any country needed to resort to the use of force against the people it wished to retain, in order to maintain its territorial integrity, everybody would recognise there was a problem with the word 'integrity'. At this stage in events that is definitely the case so Mr Lavrov's words are much more understandable, and less threatening, when heard in full.

As far as this European observer is concerned, however, Russia's high-handedness is ultimately gravely damaging. To regurgitate the appropriate hackneyed cliché, two wrongs do not make a right. Today Russia appears, through fault or mistake, or misinterpretation, to be engaged in precisely the sort of unilateral belligerence for which it has repeatedly chastised the United States under Bush, replete with the projection of force beyond its borders. If the dispute is over the status, security and integrity of two border provinces, there exist international bodies which have the capacity to oversee transparent processes in order to determine where the inhabitants of those regions wish to pursue their aspirations. Russia could have turned to any number of forums from the CIS to the UN to the Council of Europe to legitimise its claims in protecting its own citizens. Its unilateralism has concerned many European capitals (though tellingly, those with close energy ties to Moscow, notably Berlin and Paris, have the calmest of European outlooks on the situation) which carries the risk of Europe [as a whole] continuing to distrust Russia and side with the United States yet further.

Aftershocks

iDissent loves these viral ads for The Shock Doctrine

The Morning After

When the party's over, you look around, you're still standing in the ...

The job Barack Obama has done of wooing the population of Europe is nothing short of spectacular, were it to be for Europeans to decide the next President of the United States of America, the result would already have been put beyond doubt. However, Obama is not running for election in Berlin, nor Paris, nor London. And even if he were, wooing the voters is all he has done, all points advanced by The Guardian editorial of Saturday 6th of July: The focus in Europe's relationship with Mr Obama needs to be on goals not gush and on doing rather than just feeling good. Obama may be Europe's choice, but he can only be Washington's President. Not all Europeans have grown rosy scales over their eyes just because somebody who isn't Bush has finally emerged to try to replace him. Mr Obama makes some entirely laudable noises about recognising shared history and destiny, and working together in an international spirit of cooperation in the interests common to all humanity. He also demonstrates a grasp of the english language and general social finesse which was sorely lacking in his predecessor, though improving on those qualities hardly demanded much of any newcomer.

[There are those who would see much to cringe at in a Senator from Illinois shaking the hands of No 10's duty policeman, but after all, he is an American]

However, this candidate's campaign, his popularity and his glowing reception in Europe at least, owe much to the legacy of that very same Mr Bush. It's impossible to divorce the enthusiasm for Obama from the relief that Bush must step down, there's a feeling that he can't possibly turn out to be worse than the last one. That's almost definitely justified, but the proof thereof will come through his actions and attitude as President if he gets to that all important Oval Office in November. Let's also not forget, that an election candidate's tour through Europe is, above anything else, directed at winning more votes at home. Consequently, Obama has naturally admitted to and lamented some of the mistakes of the previous administration, but cannot, and perhaps never will, chastise his home country over those things for which many Europeans reserve deep suspicions and harbour animosity towards the US.

Rebuilding a relationship

Conciliation between the old world and the new is a nice idea, but tends to be vital for the projection of US power only up to the point where Washington decides to go it alone. Obama spoke heavily of the need to return to good transatlantic relations between Europe and the USA. He also called on the people to recognise the need for this for the sake of our shared history, destiny, and humanitarian interests. Much of the damage done to the that cause in Europe was done by the United States itself. Relationships are built on mutual respect and trust, both of which took a decisive blow when the United States, backed as ever by the obedient little UK government (though it must be noted, not it's people) lied to and rode roughshod over the UN, an institution set up precisely for the cause of those values Obama championed in Berlin. There, a cooperative body charged with protecting international security and coordinating responses to pertinent and real mutual threats was insulted in the belittling of Hans Blix's lawful weapons inspection efforts, and finally emasculated by the unilateral invasion of a country subject to UN controls and sanctions at the time.

International cooperation in the interests of humanity has a home, and that's where Obama might want to concentrate his efforts on rebuilding it

This exclusion of international input and shared responsibility on the basis of documents and claims which have been overwhelmingly acknowledged to be doctored and overstated did more than any other single action to undermine the image of the US in the eyes of Europeans. If he wants to build a world system where the American contribution to international cooperation is welcome, Obama has much lost ground to make up with its counterparts for his house to be seen to be in order. America’s President can talk about the EU and shared histories, even destinies, if it please him, but the option to pick and choose with which of its members to collaborate is always open also. If missile and radar bases are successfully built in Poland and the Czech Republic, it will not mean that the entire EU supports them. Europeans can be comforted by admirable aspirations toward relationships based on consensus as opposed to the polarising high-handedness which hallmarked the Bush years, but words now will count for nothing when the politics of domestic approval or satisfying the big players in US economics come to the fore.

Trade and Barriers

The Berlin speech has been compared to those of Reagan and Kennedy, and it was exactly Reagan era Friedmanite free-market attitudes which oversaw the privatisation of East Germany’s economy, a process which far from succeeded in equalising the economic situation of the reunified states with those of the West of that country. In that example, ‘free’ outweighed ‘fair’ with consequences that continue to overshadow Central Europe's economic performance to this day. Obama has called for a culture of trade that is free and fair for all, yet 'free' and 'fair' trade have come to describe two opposing sides of economic debate in recent years. The expansion of the European Union to include new, poorer members in its East brings inevitable tensions to its internal single economy. In response to this, a number of states have imposed boundaries to the migration of people from those new states in an attempt to shelter their labour markets and cushion the effects of competition. Competition is a fact of the capitalist system, but for the economy to be fair, sometimes requires that the market be less free.

The free vs fair debate regarding the developing world has not been a quiet one. It remains to be seen what vision Mr Obama has for this arena, to what extent does he believe that developing economies have the right to shelter their growing markets prior to competing on the global stage. Should countries like Iraq, Russia, the states of Southern America and others have the right to manage their national resources (often the basis of their entire economies) as a national asset, or should they be excavated, and sold off at prices determined by, foreign multinationals?

The current generation's most divisive wall

Giving a speech about international cooperation and the interests common to all humanity by the site of the Berlin Wall undoubtedly contributed to the invocation Kennedy and Reagan in the media. However, in this European's estimation, that patch is well and truly taken, Obama could seek to claim his by the world's new most divisive Wall, the one that looms over and creeps across Palestinian land further every month. Writing for The Guardian, Jonathan Steele elaborates on some of the complexities there. For those of us who see nothing good coming from building another division wall, especially one that has the gift of movement to the decided detriment of the Palestinians, Obama missed a trick for what would have been the retro-soundbite of the century. How jaw-dropping and forward thinking the words 'Mr Peres, tear down this wall' would have been, and how they would have fit so beautifully with the location chosen for his European leg highlight speech. But of course nothing like that was ever on the cards. The US is far too heavily invested in Israel, especially since Tehran emphatically turned its rhetorical guns on it.

This is one area the US and EU could sharpen their coordination and resolve to see a free fair and peaceful world. It is unfortunate that the EU has decided to upgrade its cultural and economic relations with Israel, forfeiting the little leverage it has. As for Iran itself, Obama has stated himself committed to, and expectant of European assistance in staring Tehran down over its nuclear program. In the event of serious developments one can only hope that unlike in Iraq, whatever documentation on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weaponry or other wrongdoing that exists is, or will be irrefutable.

these stars haven't yet yellowed

As with so much regarding the golden boy of the moment, it all remains in the future. All that is concrete for now is that he enjoys great approval ratings in the EU, and if America wants to start playing alongside the continent whose old countries it was founded to be better than, Obama is the best chance they have had in a long time. Europe should not count its chickens, altruism has not traditionally been the ticket permitting previous Presidents into office. Even if he does triumph later this year, his first duty will still be to the USA, whatever he determines that to be. The changes on offer through Mr Obama seem to be fixed in the right direction, but their magnitude will be tempered by domestic political reality.

This post also appears on the affiliated blog: http://suite2012.blogspot.com/

mucho

EurObama

The best thing to come out of America since... uhm...

Over the last week a certain American has been adding greatly to his air-miles account and stirring up a full-blown media frenzy telling the Middle East and the EU what he wants to achieve with them when, sorry if, he becomes the next US President in November. Even such a brief foreign sojourn constitutes a sizeable gamble during an election campaign. Some folks at home may deride him for courting the international community, acting prematurely and presumptuously before he has been officially approved back home, and failing to show his homeland credentials in the process. On the other hand, for those American voters who acknowledge the relevance of the outside world, the value of international cooperation to all states, and the harm done to those by the previous administration's sustained contemptuous unilateralism, it no doubt represents 'starting as you mean to go on'.

There can be no doubt that in the past week Obama has demonstrated a refreshing willingness to familiarise himself with the wider world he proclaims to want to get the US amicably involved in. Concorde is no longer a supersonic white metal bird bridging the old world and the new, yet the concept expressed by that word is as desirable in transatlantic relations as before, and as it ever will be in the future. Incidentally, concorde is a French word, and one that might have been applied to the atmosphere exuded at Obama’s meeting with Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, something of an achievement bolstered no doubt by the renaming of ‘freedom fries’ as ‘french fries’ once again (a crucial matter to us over-sensitive Europeans I'm sure, I know I haven't been able to eat them since the guardians of the english tongue over the pond excommunicated that French connection), of which the presidential contender assured the public at that meeting. However, one might have thought that more time would have been scheduled for Obama to introduce himself to France than was the case, given that the relationship with Paris, a key EU capital, has been one of the White House’s most strained over recent years. But then, election campaigns and all that is related to them are conducted in bubbles, and that’s why the man who is already a celebrity politician in Germany gave his longest and only public European address there. The tour must have been something of an anti-climax for Obama, going from 200,000 supporters in the Tiergarten, to a brief exchange between flights in Paris, to a chat with Brown at an aged London terraced house.

Just what did Obama actually say?
According to the BBC he began his speech by paying tribute to the Berliners who held out against Soviet pressure during the blockade in 1948. On security, the new kid seems to believe in the battles started by the old one. He said it was time to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it", arguing that Islamic extremism could be defeated just as communism had been in its time and sought to prepare European minds for an Iraqi form of Vietnamisation, so there were just a few heavyweight echoes of history resounding down the Tiergarten on Thursday. Europeans are very conscious of their history, and well educated in it, perhaps in employing these almost hackneyed stock references, Obama was seeking to win points by demonstrating a grasp of that history. He also tuned into a topic much maligned by the outgoing administration but lauded unendingly all over the world, especially in Europe, by urging that Germany’s exemplary ‘seriousness of purpose’ on carbon emissions be emulated by all. It remains to be seen what exactly is meant in his urge for a culture of global trade "that is free and fair for all". Recently there has been no small degree of polarisation over the weighting of ‘free’ and ‘fair’ models in this sphere.

Regarding relations between the US and Europe, Obama called for efforts to move away from the derision of the United States by Europeans, and on Washington’s part, to move toward an appreciation of the vital importance of Europe in American and global security.

Picture from the Calgary Herald

Media commentary all across the EU has reported extensively on the resounding support he enjoys over here. The name McCain is, by comparison, virtually unknown. Obama’s Berlin address has been compared to a rock concert, the birth of ’Obamamania’. The Guardian opened an editorial with his staggering approval ratings in various European states, from 3:1 over McCain in Britain, to 10:1 in Germany. It seems unquestionable that given the competition, he is Europe’s boy.

The next post from me will look into what Europe can be expected to demand of EurObama, the man some European media could be accused of depicting as a EuroMole poised to emancipate the United States from its dire external assessments.

This post also appears on the afflilated blog: http://suite2012.blogspot.com/

mucho

Pride is a sin

Iris Robinson's comments reaffirm the necessity of exercising your right to demonstrate your hard-won freedoms


The rain falling from the sky all over the UK reminds us that it's summer once again, and in many cities, Pride season. It's the time for improbably tanned and well-turned-out men and women to take to the streets and parks of places like Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester and Belfast and celebrate their sexual identity, and the possibility to do so. Despite the commercialisation of Pride festivals there are still many people who recognise such lofty purpose to them. There are also some who consider the practice of an albeit broad social group taking to the streets over a series of weekends to demonstrate their identity, in countries where their legal right to respect and tolerance for that identity is already enshrined, to be redundant. That appears to be the view expressed by the least offensive of Iris Robinson's utterances, regarding the Pride event held in Belfast this year.

Mrs Robinson [representative for Strangford] has repeatedly made bigoted remarks and statements regarding queer sexual orientation, a habit which has brought her to the attention of the Police, accused of hate crime. While the Northern Ireland First Minister's wife's ignorance provided a zest, and boost to attendance, for the Belfast march, it appears it may be sadly representative of a wider trend. According to research by Ulster University, "Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of bigoted people in the western world" with homosexuals bearing the brunt of their contempt.

Ongoing struggle
A friend of mine in Sydney, who I'm certain wouldn't mind being quoted here but whom we shall refer to just as S. once asked me why she had to witness the spectacle of naked lesbians cycling through her city every year. Don't they already have the acceptance they want? Isn't it just an excuse for a party? The answer I offered her might be of interest to dear old Iris also. The fact that the persistence of the LGBT community in staging Pride events draws ignorant and offensive comments from certain individuals [amongst whom I do not count my friend S.] validates the movement, because it shows there is still much ground to be won even in pluralist and educated societies. The rise in homophobic violence in Sydney over the past year, along with the level of bigotry and ignorance surrounding queer sexuality in the western world is proof of this [no, it is not a mental condition that can, nor should, be remedied by a psychiatrist Iris]. Unfortunately, it seems many people are determined to continue living by standards many of us had hoped were dead. Those of us who believe that what consenting adults do together in their own time is their own business and that all should be free to form relationships with whomever they have the appropriate feelings for are still talking to more than a few brick walls out there. It's especially sad and madenning that this is happening within the EU, supposedly the home of progressive societies oriented toward liberty and backed by rich domestic cultural heritage.

The strength of strident Catholic homophobia and the right wing popularism of the Kaczynsky administration sets a formidable challenge to gay rights movements there, and has lead to clashes with Brussels. That government considered it reasonable to oppose the draft EU Constitutional Treaty partly on the grounds that there was no mention of God in the preamble, and that it proposed the recognition and protection of the right to form relationships between two people, not stating that one must be a male and the other a female. Nothing in these points inhibited the freedom of religious expression nor compelled all EU citizens to pair-up male to male and female to female. The fact that they ignored the importance of christianity [in a modern, multiethnic continental political organisation home to christians, muslims, seikhs, atheists, druids and so forth] and allowed the freedom of everyone to choose their partner according to their emotions was contemptible for Jaroslaw Kaczynksy. Gay pride events in Poland have famously met with public and open hostility and obstacles despite Poland's membership in the EU. Not even to mention the spite and ignorance of the likes of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and uncriticised violence suffered by the queer population of Russia at the hands of right-wingers bigots and other breeds of idiot.

There are also countries where otherwise legally equal citizens, who pay the same taxes, carry the same passport and fulfil the same obligations as heterosexuals, cannot enter into relationships that enjoy the same recognition and legal protection as those of heteros, cannot adopt children, cannot offer their blood for transfusions [because if you're gay, it stands to reason you have HIV/AIDS, so what's the point...] and so forth. More importantly, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people or individuals who are of any category otherwise outside the mainstream in other countries where their acceptance in society is even poorer are aware of these highly visible events. They provide a platform to encourage local LGBT communities to strive for the same respect and equality as those of us lucky enough to be born in one of the world's more pluralist and open societies, even when that pluralism is marred by offensive or bigoted jibes and attacks. Indeed, the fact that the situation in the UK is still not perfect [though much better than elsewhere even within the EU, for example in Italy and Poland], serves to demonstrate that this is a process, which had a start, as it has to have elsewhere, which we can all pitch-in with together, and above all that we shouldn't let up the momentum that has gathered.

additional material

I couldn't resist adding this graphic as well as providing the following resources which will be of interest.

Maybe God should put his own house in order if its occupants want us to follow their rantings as gospel

jameswagner queer blog

gay news blog

gay rights watch

pink news

Signs of life | Cerebral Activity

Alarm tomes: literary bricks written specifically to crash through the windows of your comfort zone

Though this post will not be published for a few days, I am writing it on the sixth of August, the day they buried Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in the Donskoy Cemetary in Russia. Solzhenitsyn will of course be remembered as one of the greatest dissident writers of any age, receiving the 1970 Nobel Prize for First Circle and filling the pages of Cancer Ward and Gulag Archipelago with dissent against the corrupt tyranny rife in the totalitarian Stalinist police state. However, the burial of this body is, thankfully, just that - there is no space here for metaphors on the burial of written dissent. That, thanks to the labours of writers up to the current day, lives on.

[Noam Chomsky]

Noam Chomsky has enjoyed world-wide recognition for his cutting analysis and criticism of US policy across decades. He is also the author of many books on the subject which, while perhaps not penned with the same edge of disdain and anger we revel in on this blog, command respect and warrant mention.

noted titles

Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance

Chronicles of Dissent: Interviews With David Barsamian

The Shock Doctrine [Naomi Klein]

The name Naomi Klein will be known to many thanks to her arresting work No Logo on the ugly secrets of the global sweatshop industry, a world of exploited workers in developing countries sewing and manufacturing for pennies items that, with the magic touch of a brand logo, retail for many times the wage paid for them. Almost certainly her latest book of revelations, The Shock Doctrine, will broaden her exposure and expand her acclaim. It will also sicken any reader with a conscience as it charts the history of an evolving dogma of systematic piracy, terrorism and plunder. This Shock Doctrine honed at the Chicago School of Economics seeks to hijack the recovery process of those countries and communities unfortunate enough to suffer calamities deemed 'opportune' by its proponents. Their pursuit of a world whose people obey the 'signals' of unfettered markets facilitating pure capitalism has lead them to see the period of disorientation after some massive social shock [a coup, a flood, the collapse of an ideology, or the aftermath of a denounced invasion] as the best, even only, conduit to reengineering a national economy along such lines. Apparently, in a stable, operative democracy where people are aware of what is happening around them, and their ability to affect it, nobody ever agrees to switching the roles of people and market between 'master' and 'slave'.

Klein aptly marries the economic shock policies in each case, from the Southern Cone Juntas to ex-Soviet economies, to post-invasion Iraq, with the political shock programs, and electric shock torture administered to their opponents in cells designed along CIA manual guidelines. The economic piracy could never occur without the attendant intrigue and social terrorism that accompany it. The parallels drawn between the economic doctrine itself, and the electro shock therapy developed by Dr Ewen Cameron from which the torture techniques applied to dissidents in its victim territories were extrapolated, are stark and deserved - neither achieves the aims it is claimed to strive for. Electro shock 'patients' were not healed, but destroyed. Shocked economies suffer scars, and free markets everywhere, in direct correlation to the determination with which the policies are implemented, precipitate imprisoned peoples. Enduring Freedom is a grotesquely fitting name for Washington's Iraq adventurism, if this be freedom, Iraq can only hope to endure it.

But this is no simple Iraq Invasion-bashing jolly. The Shock Doctrine stays on the hunt to the end and elaborates on the accompanying development of the military-industrial complex into something more elegant and odious, the disaster-capitalism complex. Now the same companies [and politicians] who profit from the fighting of wars and bombing of homes, schools and hospitals, can reap the riches of government contracts for re-building them too, 'better' than they were before, accessible to a narrower, richer clientele than before. That wall casting its shadow on the land, and inclination toward a peaceful settlement for all, in Gaza, the West Bank and so forth; consider it a prototype for the high-tech fence to go up against Mexico and be guided by Israeli expertise. Those cameras that we don't even notice anymore because they're as abundant as TV sets in the home - a multi-million pound industry. Software for sharing information gleaned from the content of your emails and phone conversations, cross-checked against whether you buy baklava - already generating arrests in the War on Terror. Who's doing the terrorising?




Globalization and its Discontents [Joseph Stiglitz]

Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank from 1997 to 2000 and won the Nobel Prize for Economics a year later. In Globalisation and its Discontents, Stiglitz defends the basic concept of globalisation, [a process which is defended to the hilt by international financial institutions and trumpeted as the path to a gleaming global economic future, but which has drawn fire from streets in all corners of the globe] and seeks to identify where the problems have come in implementing it. Stiglitz concentrates on the actions of the World Bank and the IMF in projects for development in the economies of Africa, Asia and to a lesser extent Latin America, and the transition from command to market economies in former communist states. From the first chapter, he cites the points the finger to the IMF, to its departure from purely interesting itself with financial stability [the cause for which John Maynard Keynes pushed its creation in 1944] and its imposition of conditions on the liquidity it was set up to provide, originally to avert crises but recently, to assist in development and transition projects. Stiglitz accuses the IMF of overstepping its competencies and infringing national sovereignty in providing or suspending aid, and imposing a miss-judged and flawed 'one-size-fits-all' approach to economic development in countries all over the world with ideological rigidity. While the relatively mild tone of this dissection of the failings of globalisation sounds almost defensive against the vitriol that drips from the pages of The Shock Doctrine, and the language in general is unlikely to win him another Nobel Prize, the book is nonetheless a valuable admission of the discord between two of the chief institutions responsible for what of the world has been so angry about over the past decade. The main concerns of this book are the economic and political-bureaucratic betrayals and failures of globalisation, which are acknowledged to be responsible for impoverishing so many millions and incubating instability when the people they touch find their teeth, the only individual's story explored in depth being Stiglitz's own, it is not an accusation of outright criminality in any sense. However it nonetheless provides enlightening reading and insight into the discontent at the top of this food chain among economists and advisors. That offers hope to the rest of us outside those closed doors behind which notoriously devastating decisions have been made and demonstrably misguided plans have been drawn up [such as the shock therapy administered on Russia and other post-communist states]. There is a potentially receptive audience for street demonstrations behind those uber-reflective cold glassy exteriors on Washington DC's 19th street and elsewhere in the world. next time you're nearby maybe take along a hard-back edition, it stands a better chance of getting through that glass and doing some creative destruction.

The Strange Death of David Kelly [Norman Baker]

Any ordinary citizen of the UK dies an everyday death, there is an investigation, and inquest, an analysis of exactly how they died. The body of the country's top weapons inspector and expert in the field of science upon which the UK government bases its justification for war against Iraq is found slumped against a tree near his home in an extraordinary and macabre end to his life. The coroner's inquest is mishandled and never completed. The government is accused of complicity in the death or obfuscation of the facts surrounding it, it appoints a judge to preside over hearings purporting to uncover those facts. This book will unsettle any level headed member of the country governed by the usually PR-savvy Labour party whose image was forever indellibly tarnished by these events and the war they preceeded. Norman Baker apparently delves into more detail than Lord Hutton required of his witnesses when compiling that seemingly farsical report from august 2003 to january 2004 for an inquiry conducted outside the parameters of normal UK legal procedure. The holes in the procedures followed and the malice with which this respected scientist was regarded by that government are almost as unnerving as the details of the possible ways in which this man died as explored with the help of experts in the field of suicides and 'suicides'. So much of the official account of this saga does not add up, it decidedly appears to amount to an affront to democracy and the social contract between government and its people as much an insult to the memory of a dead man.

Also of interest

War on Terror, Inc. Corporate Profiteering From the Politics of Fear [Solomon Huges]

No Logo [Naomi Klein]