Wis[s]e Words

The strictly impartial BBC, operating on behalf of the Israeli government

Published on January 26, 2009

To update an old Young Ones joke. As seen on Prog Gold, the current BBC’s director general is quite cozy with the Israeli government, which of course did not influence the decision to remain impartial by not broadcasting an appeal for the IDF’s victims. Now Ellis Sharp reminds us that he has been impartial towards Israel from the start of his tenure when in 2004 the then Middle East correspondent was transferred to Africa:

Orla Guerin’s offence was to run stories not just about the grief of Israeli families who had lost family members to suicide bombers but also stories about the grief and suffering of ordinary Palestinian families. As one blogger put it at the time:

Guerin’s real sin, of course, is to show some sympathy for the victims of the Israeli bombing (that’s enough to brand her a “terrorist”).

Within days of Thompson meeting Sharon, Guerin was sacked as BBC TV Middle East correspondent and transferred to Africa.

As you’ll remember, Thompson became director general because his predecessor had to resign after the BBC got caught on a technicality and was keelhauled for it in the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry. Thompson was brought in as very much a pair of safe hands who wouldn’t rock the boat, follow the establishment line ever more so than his predecessors and not embarass the government. Despite this, there have been several scandals during his tenure, from running unwinnable contests to sexing up a documentary about the royal family to of course the Ross/Brands clusterfuck. This seemed to have made the BBC gunshy, prone to overreact and moreover, seemed to have lost the corporation its political nous.

So while the BBC has always been careful to not upset Israel or its zionist cheerleaders in the UK, always had an internal bias towards Israel, it used to be much more subtle about this. Even five years ago, I don’t think it would’ve been so blatant as to refuse air time to a genuinely humanitarian appeal for the inhabitants of Gaza. But because the corporation has been so battered by the same politicians and tabloids that are such great friends of Israel as well, because it has been caught with its pants down so often lately, it has overreacted. And now even those people who are normally the first to accuse it of a pro-Palestinian bias are disgusted.

Poor Auntie Beeb. It just cannot win.

A Savage War of Peace — Alistair Horne

Published on January 25, 2009

Cover of A Savage War of Peace

A Savage War of Peace
Alistair Horne
604 pages including index
published in 1977

Remember how the White House a few years ago, in one of their periodic attempts at convincing the rest of the world George Bush is not a complete moron, released a list of books supposedly read by him in the past year? One of the books on the list was this, A Savage War of Peace, Alistair Horne’s history of the Algerian struggle for independence from France. What’s more, the same book was also reported to be widely read in the US army occupying Iraq and Afghanistan as part of an attempt to understand the enterprise they were engaging in. This isn’t necessarily a recommendation of course; another much read book in the US army is that piece of pseudoscientific racism, The Arab Mind. A sort of mixed bag of recommendations then: this is clearly an important book in that it seems to have shaped the American strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but does this make this a good book?

Fortunately, it does. Had Bush read this book in 2002 before the War on Iraq, and had he been able to actually understand what he read, he may have actually decided against the invasion. Everything that happened in Iraq is described here, every mistake and failed strategy the Americans would use, written down twentyfive years before the war even started. No wonder various army generals studied it so avidly. Colonial wars follow certain patterns it seems and what happened in Algeria in 1954-62 can be used as a guide to Iraq forty years later.

Fewer Brits in Amsterdam

Published on January 21, 2009

With some two to three million unemployed already in the UK there were always going to be fewer people taking their stagnight to Amsterdam, but the ongoing war on fun cannot help. For years now the Amsterdam city council has tried to attract a higher class of tourists, wanting to present the city as one of culture and musea rather than of hookers and coffeeshops. So far this has met with little succes, but the city has managed to alienate many of the traditional visitors. What Amsterdam has been aiming at is the high value tourist, who wants to stay in a nice hotel and eat in expensive restaurants after a day of visiting the Rijksmuseum or van Gogh museum and browsing through quaint little antique or fashion shops. To make room for those tourists the city council has been on a crusade against the traditional attractions of Amsterdam: the Red Light district, the coffeeshops and the whole infrastructure of backpacker hotels and kebab shops.

To me this strategy never made sense other than as an expression of misplaced snobbery, as Amsterdam, nice town that is, really has little to offer this kind of tourist cannot find anywhere else and better. You want culture, high end shopping and fine dining? Why go to Amsterdam if you can go to Paris, or London, or Barcelona, or Vienna or Moscow even, or…

Sure, there are plenty of other party towns in Europe as well; Prague or Riga for example, which also attract a lot of British tourists out on a stag do or hen weekend. But Amsterdam is unique in that you could party safely here: do a bit of harmless experimenting with drugs or visit a live sexshow without fear of the police. Especially the coffeeshop gave Amsterdam its reputation as a city where everything goes. For all the foreign politicians who railed about it there were hundred of young people who wanted to come over. But no more. Tourism is flagging, the Brits are staying home or moving on to cities that do appreciate them. In hindsight, putting mayor Job Cohen on UK television warning boozing Brits to stay away might not have been the smartest idea…

Farewell to the thief…

Published on January 20, 2009

crowds of hope

And so it comes to an end, eight years too late, not with a bang but with a whimper. George Bush is no longer president, Dick Cheney is out of power and America finally has a president again we can be disappointed in, but also have hopes for. Things won’t get perfect, but there now is a chance they will get better. Goodbye Bush. You won’t be missed. So long Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi, Rove and the rest of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. If only that chopper could fly all the way to Den Haag and the International Court of Justice. It’s been a long eight years of anger and despair but they’re finally over.

“We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

Now we’re at the beginning of a new era, perhaps “the early days of a better nation”. With the election of Obama Americans rejected not just everything Bush stood for, they first rejected the old school centrist Democratic Party politics of his rival, Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama, though he himself may not be, is the president of the left and with his inauguration a space is created for those of us on the left to help built an America that adheres to the ideals and spirit of the broad left, as Bush created a space for all the worst in America. This is our chance and our responsibility to help create a better America, a better world and Obama is the symbol of that chance. One woman I heard interviewed earlier this week, when asked about all the hopes and dreams invested in Obama and how difficult it would be for him to fullfill all those dreams, said it best when she said that Obama’s election slogan was “yes, we can”: he doesn’t need to do it alone, we all have to work with him.

A stunning blow for democracy

Published on January 19, 2009

At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve a blow was struck for direct democracy in the Netherlands, as the law on citizen initiatives was changed to allow not just ordinary signatures, but also digital ones. In our 24/7 internet ready world this is probably a good thing, even if every IT professional reading this winces at the though of how easy it is to abuse such a system. The citizen initiative, a way to force parliament to put any subject enough people feel strongly about on its agenda, has never been easier to initiate, a powerful weapon for the common voter to put their stamp on our democracy.

The 64,000 dollar question now was which burning issue would be brought to the attention of our representatives. Would the first digital initiative be about the credit crunch perhaps, or about the dire state of the world climate, or would somebody use it to bring the plight of Gaza under the eyes of parliament?

Sadly, No. The first digital citizen initiative has been used for a proposal to ban fireworks…

So, with this great democratic leap forward, what do citizens elect to do with their new found power and responsibility? Why, declare their support for the War on Fun of course! The first digital Citizen’s Initiative is here, and it’s about fireworks. The citizens, led by Green Party city council member and sour puss David Rietveld, want it outlawed. To be precise, they demand that only professionals are allowed to light fireworks on New Year’s Eve, an activity often shared between dads and their sons.

As is typical for this time, something that is clearly wrong and illegal is taken and glued to something that is fun, yet irritating to some. In this case, the New Year’s celebrations are a signal to a very few troublemakers to start burning cars and houses. And so the David Rietvelds of this world figure that it is clearly the fireworks that are at fault, not the troublemakers — who in my opionion won’t be hindered by fireworks-banning legislation in the first place, and if they did would just find other ways to be dorks.

Welcome to the War on Fun. So much more important than anything else happening in the world.