Martin Wisse – Page 547

Israel/Palestine: when did the NYT get a clue?

Published on June 2, 2008

Because this article by Jeffrey Goldberg is surprisingly insightful:

“We now have the Palestinians running an Algeria-style campaign against Israel, but what I fear is that they will try to run a South Africa-type campaign against us,” he said. If this happens, and worldwide sanctions are imposed as they were against the white-minority government, “the state of Israel is finished,” Mr. Olmert said in an earlier interview. This is why he, and his mentor, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, turned so fiercely against the Jewish settlement movement, which has entangled Israel unnecessarily in the lives of West Bank Palestinians. Once, men like Mr. Sharon and Mr. Olmert saw the settlers as the vanguards of Zionism; today, the settlements are seen, properly, as the forerunner of a binational state. In other words, as the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy.

Other Israeli leaders have spoken with similar directness. The former prime minister, and current defense minister, Ehud Barak, told The Jerusalem Post in 1999: “Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state that might then become another Belfast or Bosnia.”

[…]

And the best way to bring about the birth of a Palestinian state is to reverse — not merely halt, but reverse — the West Bank settlement project. The dismantling of settlements is the one step that would buttress the dwindling band of Palestinian moderates in their struggle against the fundamentalists of Hamas.

No, these ideas aren’t particularly shocking, radical or even progressive, but the fact that they can now be expressed in the New York Times, perhaps the cheerleader for zionism must be a good thing. For too long American zionism in particular has held to the idea that Israel could have its caek and eat it: have a greater Israel incorporating the Occupied Territories without having to deal with the Palestinians, the idea that the Palestinians could be bought off by a sham state. If it is no longer beyond the pale to demand a Palestinian state controlling the whole of the Occupied Territories, progress has been made. That said, I still believe even this maximalist two-state solution is least acceptable valid solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. My preference is still a new state, neither Jewish nor Palestinian but open to both.

I also think that the idea that in Israel there’s a greater range of debate possible on this subject, while true, should not be taken too optimistically. there are still incredibly strong political pressures against any Israeli politician being too accomedating to the Palestinians, or being too realistic in which Palestinian organisations are credible discussion partners. Some of these pressures are from imported superzionists from America or Europe, but there are plenty of domestic wingnuts as well. the main difference between Israel and the US is that the day to day reality of Zionist Israel is harder to ignore.

Books read in May

Published on June 1, 2008

Yup, you guessed it: time for another list of books read.

Dark Side of Democracy — Michael Mann
S. says this made me depressive and angry, but it was worth it. Mann attempts to find out how genocide happens, what pushes a country from largely ordinary racial/ethnical tension into aggressive ethnical cleansing and mass murder. As the title says, the danger zone is when a country becomes democratic and confuses demos with ethnos.

Evolution’s Workshop — Edward J. Larson
A history of the Galapalos islands in the context of the development of the theory of evolution, from Darwin’s visit to the present day. Worthy but dull in places.

The Case of the Late Pig — Margery Allingham
A cozy mystery starring Albert Champion. There’s no better word for this than amusing.

The Best of Fredric Brown — Fredric Brown
A great collection of short stories by a writer these days unfairly forgotten. Brown specialised in short, sharp satirical stories, and most of the stories here are still fresh, even though written over half a century ago.

Pale Gray for Guilt — John D. MacDonald
A Travis McGee adventure in which McGee avenges the murder of an old friend by swindling those responsible out of the money his widow will need to make sure their kids are taken care off. Yes, this is roughly the plot of every McGee novel, or at least half of them.

Doorways in the Sand — Roger Zelazny
I try to ration my Zelazny, as for obvious reasons he isn’t writing anymore so once I’ve read all his books I’ll never again have the thrill of a new Zelazny novel. Had been wanting to read this one, one of his classics for a long time but had never come across it yet. Read it on the way back from a birthday party, finished the last part next to my bike before cycling home from the station. That’s my Zelazny fix for this year.

Template — Matt Hughes
Matt Hughes offered the possibility to any blogger who asked to read the manuscript of his latest novel. Not something I would’ve read of my own accord, but it was worth the (admittingly small) investment.

Kaleidoscope Century — John Barnes
Nicely dark science fiction story of a 21st century much much worse than our own.

A Crack in the Edge of the World — Simon Winchester
The story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with digressions.

Bad Monkeys — Matt Ruff
Effortlessly cool grand old American paranoia.

The Best of C. L. Moore — C. L. Moore
Back when women didn’t write science fiction, C. L. Moore was one of the best, like Leigh Brackett writing lurid but literate pulp tales. This is a late seventies collection of her best work, including the two stories that introduced her best known characters, Northwest Smith (“Shambleau”) and Jirel of Joiry (“Black God’s Kiss”). Apart from that, there’s no overlap with the C. L. Moore collection in the Fantasy Masterworks series.

The Mediterranean — Ernle Bradford
An oldfashioned history of the Mediterranean by the author of The Great Siege of Malta, a bit longwinded at the end and of course somewhat on the conservative side.

There Will Be Time — Poul Anderson
A fairly upbeat story about time travel, upbeat by Anderson’s standards that is. Twentieth century society will still disappear in an orgy of environmental destruction and war, but afterwards there may be something better, if Jack Havig wins his battles against the other timetravellers.

Cowboy Angels — Paul McAuley
McAuley is one of my favourite science fiction writers, but lately he’s been mostly writing technothrillers with nary a hint of science fiction in them. Cowboy Angels is still a technothriller, but it’s also firmly science fiction. With the invention of Turing gates back in the late sixties, the Company gets a new mission: to infiltrate alternate Americas and liberate them from communist or nazi oppression if necessary, to bring them together as one country under many skies.

Little Brother

Published on May 6, 2008

Remember the scene in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where Manny sketches a structure for an underground organization? Now imagine that, done properly. With X-boxes.
— Ken MacLeod

You may already have seen the hype for Cory “Boing Boing” Doctorow’s latest novel, Little Brother all over the internet; certainly I’ve seen it mentioned on a fair few of the blogs I frequent. There’s a reason for this, as it’s not just another science fiction novel, or even another young adult science fiction novel, but an attempt to inoculate a new generation against the phony security mindset that swept America in the wake of the September 11 attacks and arguably the UK some years earlier. We’ve all have had to deal with the results, in everything from having to carry an ID with us at all times to stupid rules about how much fluid you can take along on your airplane trip. But for anybody under twentyone it’s worse and it has been worse for much longer. Every inch of their lives is controlled and regulated these days because it has become so much more easier to do so. As Cory puts it in the preface to Little Brother:

The 17 year olds I know understand to a nicety just how dangerous a computer can be. The authoritarian nightmare of the 1960s has come home for them. The seductive little boxes on their desks and in their pockets watch their every move, corral them in, systematically depriving them of those new freedoms I had enjoyed and made such good use of in my young adulthood.

So what Cory does is to give them the tools to take their lives back. Little Brother is basically one long infodump on, well, hacking, in the good old-fashioned sense of the word, packaged in a neat near-future thriller. It’s a novel in the best tradition of didactic science fiction –Ken MacLeod makes the comparison with Heinlein, while the title itself is of course a reference to 1984. But didactic doesn’t mean dull, as the synopsis makes clear:

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works –and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high schools intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where theyre mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

Best thing about Little Brother? It’s not just a book, it’s a movement. And Cory is putting his money where his mouth is and made the book available as a free, Creative Commons licensed e-book. In all, this is a noble attempt at not just making people aware of the encrouching security society, but help them find the tools to fight against it, circumvent it, pervert it.

Books read in April

Published on May 1, 2008

Another month gone by means another list of books read.

Madame de Pompadour — Nancy Mitford
Following on from her biography of Frederick the Great. This was written much earlier, in 1954 as opposed to 1971 and I found it slightly harder going. It’s also longer, which doesn’t help. After a while Mitford’s light, teasing style began to annoy a bit.

The Clan Corporate — Charlie Stross
The third novel in the Merchant Wars series, charlie’s attempt at writing a proper epic fantasy series, though it owns more to H. Beam Piper than to J. R. R. Tolkien.

London: A Social History — Roy Porter
This was published in 1994, so it misses the developments of the past fourteen years, but this is still an excellent one volume history of London and its peoples. It’s not as comprehensive as Peter Acroyd’s later London the Biography, but it’s not as up itself either.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar — Michael Parenti
Takes the murder of Julius Caesar and puts it in a class war context.

The Year of Our War — Steph Swainston
Interesting fantasy novel by a new and unknown to me writer.

The People of the Talisman — Leigh Brackett
Another short Eric John Stark novel, in the vein of the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels, but much better written.

Tanks in Detail — Panzer III — Terry J. Gander
What should be an indepth look at one of the more important German World War 2 tanks is let down by its shortness and doesn’t contain much not already known to the tank enthusiast.

Tanks in Detail — Sherman & Firefly — Terry J. Gander
Another entry in the same series as above, suffering from the same flaws and with a less interesting selection of pictures and drawings to liven it up.

Stations of the Tide — Michael Swanwick
Okay but not spectacular science fiction novel by a writer who has done better. It never quite gelled into a coherent story.

Postwar — Tony Judt
Flawed history of postwar Europe, too focused on the big countries (Germany, France, Italy and the UK) in my opinion.

The Voyage of the Sable Keech — Neal Asher
The first Asher novel I’ve read, not the best starting point as it needs a lot of backstory knowledge to make sense out of.

The Great History of Comic Books — Ron Goulart
A nicely chatty history of the American comic book, which largely confines itself to the socalled Golden Age (1920s-1950s). Dated, sketchy but a reasonable overview still.

Worlds of the Imperium — Keith Laumer
Fun fast-paced adventure sf by the master. Not an unmissable classic by any means, but good enough to pick up secondhand.

A Plague of Demons — Keith Laumer
Another sf adventure novel by Laumer. It was interesting reading those two so short after each other and see the simularities. Both are set partially in North Africa – Algeria to be precise, both feature tough loners whose name starts with a B, etc.

The Prefect — Alastair Reynolds
This is a prequel to Revelation Space and its sequels, set at a time when the Glitter Band was not yet destroyed and as a consequence somewhat of a less sombre novel than Reynolds usually writes. It took a while for me to get in it, but once it did it was rather
good.

Chain of Command — Seymour Hersh
A good though dated (written in 2004) overview of the crimes of the Bush administration in their war on terror, going from what happened in Abu Ghraib all the way back up the chain of command to the crimes at the heart of the War on Iraq.

Rainbows End — Vernor Vinge
Once upon a time I would’ve said Vernor Vinge was the science fiction author with the most convincing view of the future. Now however it just seems old fashioned, even slightly dull. Nevertheless this is still an accomplished novel, though not half as convincing in its depiction of the near future as e.g. Halting State or Brasyl.

Dutch mumps epidemic: how religion threatens public health

Published on April 25, 2008

You wouldn’t think it possible anymore in a modern, rich country like the Netherlands, but we are in the midst of a mumps epidemic. Actually, that’s not quite right: only part of the country is influenced by this epidemic and not so coincidently, it’s the most Christian part, the socalled bible belt, which stretches from my homeland of Zeeland, up to the central part of the Netherlands. This is where the communities of strict protestant churches are the largest and unfortunately many of these churches belief vaccinations, like insurances, are incompatible with a proper Christian belief. If god wants you to be sick, you will be sick and you shouldn’t attempt to thwart the will of god. More sane christians argue that if god wants you to be sick you will get sick, vaccination or not, but these are hardcore.

Normally, this isn’t that much of a problem, apart for those unfortunates who get polio because their parents refuse to protect them against it. But get enough of those loons together and it’s not a question of a few children getting diseases they needed have had, but you get a proper epidemic threatening not just them, but everybody. Vaccination programmes only work if enough people participate; once you get enough unprotected people infected, the risk that you will get the disease as well despite your vaccination gets much bigger. Which seems indeed to have happened, as about a quarter of cases in this epidemic concern vaccinated children as well.

In other words, this is a case in which freedom of religion conflicts directly with public health. Because of their beliefs about vaccination, these Christian groups endager not just themselves and their children, which is bad enough already, but also the rest of us. that’s why vaccination programmes should be mandatory and religious beliefs not be allowed as a reason to opt out. Especially since so often it’s the parent‘s beliefs which are responsible for the refusal to protect the child.