Do as I say, not as I do: Religion in the Middle Eastern Uprisings

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A wave of revolutions have taken place across the Middle East, and in their wake, a lot of people are asking what sort of government do they want to see. Unfortunately, a lot of the people asking these questions are neither from nor based in the Middle East. Westerners feel the need to meddle with these newly emerging regimes and shape them according to their own personal bias.

Recently in Egypt the democratically elected Islamist president was ousted by the military and a new government is being formed. In Syria the process of overthrowing the old regime is still going on and the opposition groups are becoming increasingly fractious. They are divided along religious and ideological lines mainly in their views of what the new Syria should look like. Iraq and Libya are facing the same problems of spreading sectarian violence.

In the UK bloggers are pontificating over what people far removed from them should do. Mainly they talk about which factions the UK should support. Religion is frequently a factor in this as it is divisive across the Middle East. The growing conflict between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims for control of certain countries is well documented, however, other groups such as Alawite Muslims in Syria stand to gain to lose depending on what form of future government rules there. The Middle East is also home to a lot of Christians, especially in Egypt where Christians make up ten percent of the population and are worried about the implications of an Islamist government. Syria also has a sizeable Christian population (again around ten percent of the population) who have similar concerns as Sharia law spreads amongst the rebel groups.

Recently the Catholic Herald wrote an article in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and criticising the UK's support of the Syrian opposition. Conservative Christian bloggers were quick to point out that Christians were better protected under Assad's brutal Ba'athist dictatorship, which is secular, than they would be under an Islamist government. This was accompanied by a chorus of support for the Middle East's secular regimes. It seems that Conservative Christian bloggers support secularism in the Middle East but have a different attitude to the UK where they are deplore the “aggressive secularism” of the British government in its plans to legalised gay marriage. The hypocrisy of this is beyond belief. I do not see how you can justify supporting a dictator who uses chemical weapons against his own population whilst criticising a government's attempts to extend equal rights to all its citizens. I assume the fact that chemical weapons are not mentioned in the Bible as sinful makes the Syrian government more righteous than the British one. According to certain Conservative Christian bloggers, secularism in the Middle East is the best form of government - even if it comes couched in brutal military oppression - but in the UK secularism threatens to undermines the basic values of the family.

Another claim of Conservative Christian bloggers is that the UK is a Christian country and that government policies should encourage Christian values. In reality only 13% of people identified as being members of the Church of England in the last census. Congregation numbers are falling across the UK and many Churches are left without a folk. They can hardly be representative of a silent majority of British citizens who want the British government to enforce Christian values. Still, Conservative Christian bloggers assert that the UK is a Christian nation and the government should reflect this. In the Middle East, the majority of the population not only identify as Muslims but actively practise the religion, and want their governments to match the demographic make up of their nations. Especially in some countries where years of military rule has enforced secularism to prevent an Islamic uprising. Mohamed Morsi was democratically elected as an Islamist leader by the population of Egypt. The West preaches democracy and then complains about the outcome when the Middle East takes up the mantra. Conservative Christian bloggers would prefer secular regimes in the Middle East (secular Middle Eastern regimes only come in the aggressive kind) despite the wishes of the population for a government that reflects their values. Again this hypocrisy is staggering. The UK can barely be described as a Christian nation beyond that the fact that we have an established church that is heavily in decline due to overwhelming Christian apathy. However, according to Conservative Christian bloggers the UK government should adopt Christian values (despite widespread support for gay rights and a woman's right to choose) while the Middle East must have aggressive secular regimes despite what the people of these countries want.

Hypocrisy among Conservative Christians bloggers is nothing new, but this latest wave of hypocrisy is surprising and I advise Conservative Christian bloggers to look at the difference between what they desire in the Middle East and desire here at home. It's hard to claim to be the voice of morality when you clearly endorse whatever is best for your own group above the needs and wishes of the general population. If Conservative Christian bloggers do not like the aggressive secularism of the British government then I invite them to live under the Assad regime and see what really aggressive secularism is like before telling Middle East countries what they should do.

No One Likes Tax Avoidance

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You would be hard pressed to find someone who supports tax avoidance. We all agree that at least some tax must be collected for the police, fire service, the military, etc. Only an extremely libertarian inclined individual would suggest that it is acceptable for multi-billion pound companies to only pay tax on a tiny percentage of their income. However, I believe that it is not enough to oppose tax avoidance and that only radical change to our economy can prevent large companies from dodging their responsibility to society.

There is little political will to tackle the problem of tax avoidance – the government would much rather spend its time exaggerating the problem caused by poor people. Whenever anyone suggest that a stronger line be taken with large companies, their apologists argue that if we are not nice to the wealthy people and let them get away with whatever they want, then they will take their money elsewhere. As recent tax probes have shown, if rich companies do not pay tax when we are very nice and accommodating to them, then I am not certain what we have to lose by compelling them to pay more tax.

A political and popular desire to tackle the entrenched privileges of wealth is needed to stop tax avoidance. Whenever a particular gross piece of excesses is uncovered, we as a nation simply tut disapprovingly but nothing ever changes. We are currently going through a phase of rumbling and groaning when people have to grudging admit that the perhaps the wealthy do treat their social obligation as a wall to urinate against. Still even if new laws are passed and loopholes closed, tax avoidance will still continue on a grand scale, as you cannot prune neo-liberalism into something fair or compassionate. This is what most people (including a lot of lefties) would like to believe, partly because it conveniently avoids questioning the wider implications of tax avoidance. If companies treat their social obligation to pay tax something to be wriggled out of, how do they view health and safety or even employees’ wages? If you think the idea that a company would try to avoid paying its staff is ridiculous, then look at McDonald’s attempts to do just that in America.

An economic system which concentrates wealth among the few, as opposed to distributing it more evenly, will always have the problem of these few wealthy individuals taking advantage. They hold the greater amount of power and thus cannot be compelled to pay their fair share of taxes. What we have seen recently with Starbucks, Google and others is an indication that taxes which are supposed to be inescapable (remember the old adage) can be avoided by the wealthy as our wealth based system will always create an incentive for the rich to avoid paying their fair share of tax.

The solution to wanton tax avoidance is to change the way we think about wealth completely. We need to stop thinking about wealth as a goal in itself, but more a by-product of success in another field such as science or art. Wealth (much like fame) is a life goal in and of itself, one which we acquire through cynical self-interest, the proof for this is that no small child ever said they wanted to grow up to be a hedge fund manager when asked what they wanted to be in primary school. We also need to stop respecting people purely because they are richer than us. Being wealthy does not necessary mean you are a more creative or intelligent human being, it more likely means that you had a bigger leg up in life than others. Mainly we need to think about the global plutarchy of the ultra-rich as a different sort of person who transcends national identities and inhabits a world so different to ours it might as well be alien. The idea that people whose existence is so far removed from the pressures of normal life know what is best for the average person is laughable. We need to stop bowing down to the extremely wealthy and living in fear that they will take their money else where - that fire sale has already happened. We need to remember that social obligations are for everyone, and it is grossly unfair that wealthy companies pay a smaller percentage of tax on their income than the average private citizen who earns a lot less.

Only with radical change will the excesses of greed and wealth be stopped. Small, incremental changes will not stop tax avoidance, sweeping reform of our entire political and economic system is needed. If we are all so disapproving of tax avoidance then it is time we face up to what the underlying causes are and accept what the solution is.



Iain M. Banks: An obituary

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“I’ve seen the Chebalths of Eyske in their Skydark migration, watched field liners sculpt solar flares in the High Nundrun, I’ve held my own newborn in my hands, flown the caverns of Sart and dived the tube arches of Lirouthale. I’ve seen so much, done so much, that even with my neural lace trying to tie my elsewhere memories as seamlessly as it can into what’s in my head, I can tell I’ve lost a lot from in here.’ He tapped one temple. ‘Not from my memory, but from my personality. And so it’s time to change or move on or just stop.”

These words are said by Ilom Dolince – a four hundred year old citizen on the Culture in Iain M. Bank’s novel Look To Windward – on his death bed. When the Scottish author gave a talk on utopias in fiction at the British Library in 2010, he choose to read this section from his writing and discussed his views on death in detail. He remarked that he had no problem with the concept of dying and not existing, having not existed quite pleasantly for around thirteen billion years before being born.

Two months ago he announced that he was dying of gall bladder cancer and that The Hydrogen Sonata would be his last science fiction novel. Appropriately, The Hydrogen Sonata is itself a novel about moving on from one existence to another. In this book, the Gzilt, the Culture’s sister civilization, are in the process of Subliming and moving on to another dimension where they will be changed forever. Today it has been announced that Iain Banks has died from his illness and fans across the world are in mourning.

It’s easy to see death as a recurring theme in his more recent work from virtual hells in Surface Detail to Guy, dying of cancer, in The Quarry. Whether this is intentional or not is unclear, but as ever Banks approached the subject sometimes with humour, sometimes with astonishing imagination and sometimes with stirring human emotion. He was always a writer who could approach a subject in many different ways and find the best way of expressing an idea. I hope that his end was like the role he imaged for Chay in Surface Detail, ending suffering and providing a final rest for those weary of living.

The hardest thing about being a fan whose hero dies is coming to terms with the fact that there will be no more books, no more works of genius to look forward to. What we have is all we’re going to get and if we have read it all, then we can never again capture the feeling of reading new writing from our heroes for the first time. However being a fan is a lot like having a large family. We don’t have to be alone in our grief as there are people who grieve with us.

I have saved one of Iain M. Banks’ novels, Use of Weapons, to read after his death - there’s no reason why it should be that one, but I want once more to open one of my favourite author’s books and for the last time read something by him for the first time.

Woolwich: Is 'The Left' Responsible?

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The recent barbaric murder of a British soldier on the streets of Woolwich by Islamic extremists has been met with universal condemnation. And rightly so: yes, a great deal many more British soldiers have been killed oversees and yes, fatal knife attacks on the streets of the capital are sadly not rare either. However, the medieval nature of the attack on Lee Rigby, combined with the killers’ ‘political’ ranting and complete disinterest in being observed by the public set this particular crime apart.
The three main party leaders, along with Boris Johnston, all reacted admirably (and it’s not often you will see Boris referred to in a positive light on this blog). Cameron, in particular, has been careful to avoid stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment, describing the attack as a ‘betrayal of Islam’. With depressing predictability, the usual suspects of the EDL and the remnants of the BNP tried to exploit the events to further their own anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism agenda. But overall, the world of politics has remained impressively calm at the news. Awful as the attack was, the reaction to it was refreshingly measured and uncontroversial. In fact, the only reason I’m writing about it on here is to respond to one troubling point mentioned in passing on the BBC’s live news feed by one commentator about the implication for ‘the left’.
Usama Hasan, a researcher at anti-extremism think-tank the Quillim Foundation, was reported as saying: "The real problem here is the decisive hatred preached by a very small minority of clerics in this country in a small number of our mosques and universities. They know who they are and there are Muslim groups and other groups - left wing groups may I say - who defend that kind of grievance and victimhood mentality. That's what must change and has to stop.”
Ah yes, that old chestnut, ‘the left’. I’m not exactly sure which left-wing groups Hasan is referring to here, nor why a ‘victimhood mentality’ should automatically lead to violent killings, but I find any idea that the left is somehow partially responsible for this murder or Islamic extremism in general completely abhorrent. For a start, the notion that the left does, or even can, have one unified opinion about Islam makes little sense.
Admittedly, the relationship between the broad left and Islam is of course a complicated and confusing one. After 9/11, Islam drew excessive negative attention in the press, and the Left were the strongest critics of this. On the other hand, the Left has always criticised the socially conservative aspects of any religion. Trying to defend Muslims from prejudice can lead the left, some would argue, into justification of extremist violence, especially when combined with a dislike of Western cultural hegenomy and militarism. Hasan’s implication is that the left finds it difficult to condemn outright Islamic extremism because of Islam’s association in the UK with racist prejudice against Muslims.
Some, such as author Nick Cohen, have tried to coin the term ‘Islamic fascism’ to make it more comfortable for left wingers to criticise Islamic extremism whilst maintaining a distance from right-wing anti-Muslim rhetoric. In his (mostly awful) book, What’s Left, Cohen argues against the left’s opposition to the Iraq War, claiming it had been hoodwinked into supporting repressive regimes as a result of cultural relativism. The left, he argues, should look past its distrust of US military might, and see Muslim fundamentalism for what it really is: a form of fascism.
I disagree with both Hasan and Cohen. The Left has condemned the Woolwich attack as vociferously as anyone else: Billy Bragg, as close to an emissary of the Left as I could imagine, took to Facebook to describe it as “...shocking. What he did for a living cannot be used to justify what happened to him.” Not exactly the words of someone who is afraid of stepping on anyone’s sensitive toes. And anyway, the left does not see Islam as immune from criticism any more than it sees Christianity as immune from criticism. It’s a thorny issue, certainly, because left wingers also want to be seen to respect other peoples’ cultures and values. But, on issues including ranging from the position of women in strict Islamic communities, to the lack of willingness to integrate into a healthy multicultural society in some areas, the left have a strong track record of raising concerns.
As for Cohen’s ‘Islamic Fascism’ idea, I reject this as a way of framing the debate, purely because the right-wing, political fascism of the EDL variety is an ideology based on hatred and prejudice, regardless of whether this leads to actual violence or not.  Islam is not. There is no inevitable link between ‘Islam’, ‘Fascism’, and the events of Woolwich. To suggest otherwise would be to say that there is something inherent in the Islamic faith which can lead to these sorts of attacks, which theologians and others insist there isn’t.
Perhaps the reason certain people are blaming ‘the Left’ is because some lefties seek to link events like the Woolwich murder with US and UK foreign policy. To be clear, in my opinion, the idea that illegal, unjustified military invasions such as the Iraq war would throw petrol onto the fire of extremism was self evident: in fact, the Blair government was warned of this at the time, and ignored it. But I must emphasize: seeking to explain the motivation behind Islamic extremist violence is NOT the same as justifying the violence. The Left seek macro explanations, in contrast to the reaction of the far right who prefer to just demonise all Muslims. Perhaps it is this nuance that the knee-jerk- reaction loving, easy-answer-seeking elements of the right-wing media fail to grasp about the relationship between the Left and Islam.
So blame the individual attackers, obviously. Nothing can absolve them from that responsibility. Or blame the radical clerics if you like. Or blame the idiotic wars that have made Britain a target for terrorism. Or blame the EDL nutters and extremist Islamic groups, who both provide each other the fuel they need. But the Left? Honestly, I don’t think so.

How fair is fair-trade?

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Ethical consumption is at an all time high. Never before in the history of the world have people been so unaware of how their goods reached them, but also curious to know, hence ethical consumption. In the past, we would know who had made our clothes and where the wool had come from. In the more recent past, we would not have known, but also we would not have cared. Now we want to know and we want to care.

Fair trade and other forms of ethical consumption are ever present in today's markets. Once the preserve of specialist shops, they are stocked by supermarkets alongside goods made in sweatshops without a hint of irony. The fact that even Nestle, that old boycotter’s favourite, now sticks the fair-trade label on some of its confectionary hints that fair-trade is part of the mainstream. It scratches an itch some people have about their spending habits. However, there are people who knowingly consume unethical goods or are aware of a dubious moral track record of certain brands but continue to purchase them anyway.

Why does this happen? There is a degree to which unethical consumption is a reaction to pressure to consume ethically. Some feel a knee jerk reaction to what is perceived as left-wing pressure, political correctness or interference in their daily lives. These individuals continue to consume unethically in order to resist social pressure to consume ethically. This attitude is selfish and a result of culture which emphasises individual gratification above collective good. There is a degree to which advocates of ethical consumption are their own enemies as applying pressure to change consumer habits can drive people in the opposite direction. We can see a similar phenomenon with advertising; many people avoid the Go Compare website simply because their adverts are so annoying.

Worse than callous disregard for the suffering that unethical consumption causes are those who believe that unethical consumption is good for the world’s poor. There are those who generally believe that sweatshops and exploitative labour improve the circumstances of people in poorer countries. For some this is simply a desire to justify their spending habits and a way of intellectualising rigid brand loyalty. For others it is somewhere between blind faith that capitalism will solve the world’s problems or genuine belief in the libertarian free market, a point of view which can only come from a position of privilege. Just as capitalism’s greatest defenders are those who have lucked out and currently sit on top of the heap, unethical consumption is defended by those who value cheap produce above all else and cannot see beyond the end of their garden. Only someone who has never stitched T-shirts continuously for twelve hours for only a few cents could ever suggest it was a route out of poverty.

Just because someone consumes ethically does not necessarily remove the impact of their consumption on others. It’s not that buying a Fairtrade T-shirt or jar of coffee isn’t preferable to a non-Fairtrade version. It’s just to say that these consumers aren’t just paying for a product alone. Ethical consumption is just another level of service. People who have more than their fair share feel guilty and want to know what effect their excess income has on the world. Purchasing Fairtrade products is a way of assuaging this guilt, whilst essentially maintaining the present system by those it benefits, albeit whilst also acknowledging its obvious flaws. If you are rich, you are hardly likely to seriously challenge the economic model that made you rich. It is however difficult to deny the problems caused by inequality on a global scale so a certain section of the wealthy have come up with ethical consumption as a means to relieve their guilt without having to threaten their position within the established economic system.

There are those who question the rights of ethical consumers to have a larger income than average and believe that this inequality is part and parcel of the system which lead to ethical consumption differentiating itself from unethical consumption. In short there will always be unethical products until we radically reconsider how the market place is constructed. Only substantial change to every aspect of our economy will remove unethical products.

Leaving this complex issue up to anything as simple as consumer choice will never resolve the problems caused by unethical consumption. Offering ethical alternatives from the same companies which created the problem in the first place alongside their unethical counterparts is not a solution and will never be. If you worried about unethical produce then ethnical consumption will not resolve the problem. Only radical change to the economy will suffice. However, in the absence of a strong movement for radical change, ethical consumption is preferable to ignoring the problems consumption creates, or choosing to believe that exploitation will rid capitalism of its contradictions.

Bankers! Bankers! Bankers! Out! Out! Out!

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The death of Thatcher has opened up a lot of old wounds and a lot of old debates. The news narrative was dominated by North Korea and IDS claiming he could live on £53 a week, then all of a sudden we were dragged back to the 1980s to debate the miners’ strike and the poll tax riots. Again and again, I have heard the same justification for Thatcher's actions: that the unions controlled the country in the 1970s, and that they used collective bargaining to bring the country to a standstill.

Clearly there was public outrage following the Winter of Discontent, which Thatcher effectively harnessed to pursue her own political agenda. Even many of those who disagreed with her cure for the problem agreed that ‘something had to be done’. Most politicians are opportunists and this was a once in a generation chance to change the agenda. Thatcher's success leads me to ask: why are we so bad at this on the left? Could we not use the banking crisis in the same way to achieve our aims?

Anti-banker sentiment is at an all high. Bankers are derided across nation, from cartoons in broadsheet newspapers to Carling commercials. Their popularity is located on the scale somewhere below politicians and above benefit claimants - firmly near the bottom. However no-one is making a strong attempt use this anger to effect any change, unlike the Thatcher government was able to in the early ‘eighties when it capitalised on anti-strike sentiments.

Essentially, the main reason for this is the entire political establishment is broadly in favour of letting the banks off the hook. Neither side wishes to be publicly viewed as in the banker's pockets, but the general consensus in Westminster is that we need the elitist, tax dodging money swallowing black hole that is the City of London more than it need us. This is of course not true, and will remain untrue until the Square Mile takes off and flies above us in a disgusting parody of a Douglas Adams novel. Britain isn’t the Isle of Man. We have an economy that exists outside the Square Mile and anyone who works in chemical engineering, software development, games & high tech arts, aerospace or any of the other industries in which Britain is a world leader should be greatly offended by the idea that we dependent on the bankers.

It doesn’t have to be this way. ‘Bashing the bankers’ is just tabloid stuff – in and of itself, rhetoric doesn’t achieve much. What it could do, however, is provide the ground work for creating a broad consensus for more intelligent regulation, and above all an end to the morally redundant idea that rampant inequality is somehow good for everyone. Anti-banker sentiment could be a starting point for a debate challenging the assumptions of our pro-greed, anti-collectivist consensus, just like Thatcher challenged the political consensus of the post war era. It’s a debate we badly need to have, but neither the Labour Party nor anyone else in mainstream politics seems willing to have it.

Thatcher, for all her innumerate faults, stood for a clearly defined ideology. She had a vision for what society should be liked and set about making it so, manipulating anti-union sentiment and patriotic feelings over the Falklands war whenever public confidence in her plan faltered. Thatcher genuinely believed that the whole country would be better off if labour markets were less regulated and the unions were less powerful. At the time most of the country did not believe this as strongly as she did (although now it is now an almost universally held political opinion) but popular anti-union sentiment allowed her to pursue her ideological objectives. The reason the same thing is not happening to the bankers today is that it is no longer consider appropriate for politicians to have strong ideological view points. Instead both sides tend towards varying degrees of acceptance of the neo-liberal hegemony.

The Conservative Party under Thatcher’s leadership were not united in their support for her policies and she had to fight off a few leadership challenges before eventually be ousted in 1990. Still to most people she stood as a strong unifying figure bringing together a diverse movement around a single set of goals. This is something the left sorely lacks. After the banking crisis the left is more divided than ever. This is especially true when discussing how we respond to the problems presented by this new era of capitalism. The left has always been fractious and divided but there is no consensus on how to best use the popular dislike of bankers to achieve any political goals.

Thatcher was an astute politician who used the public’s anti-union sentiment to great advantage in order to accomplish her political goals. The Left could learn a lot from her in how to respond to the banking crisis and in finding a way to snap out of this ideological paralysis we find ourselves trapped in. The public hates the banks almost as much as they hate benefit claimants. This is because most people who work hard resent people who they feel have got something for nothing. The Right is expertly using this feeling to roll back the welfare state. The left should be thinking the same if they want to make a dent in the power of international banking conglomerates.

Five assumptions of the Left

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People make assumptions all the time, not least about what lefties believe. How many times, for example, have you felt like an argument boils down to “so, you’re left-wing, so you must think X”?

But what assumptions about left-wing people are appropriate? As well as being critical of the wider problems in society, we need to turn our examination inwards and look at ourselves. This is how we build a robust movement. To that end, I have drawn up a list of five basic assumptions I feel it is necessary to make to be on the left. It is not exhaustive, but I do think that if you feel any of these points are invalid, then you are probably not leftwing. In my opinion, they represent core underpinning beliefs.

1. Privilege exists

Or - that the world is unfair. It is important to acknowledge that everyone is given different advantages or disadvantages in life purely based on the circumstances of their birth.

This isn’t to say hard work shouldn’t be valued – it is an unfair accusation that the left favour dependency or handouts. It is to say, though, that if you are born into a well off family you are more likely end up wealthy yourself. Being successful in life (i.e. having lots of money) is not automatically a function of how hard you work, but is determined by how fortunate you are in your birth.

Accepting privilege is an essential leftwing belief. It runs under everything else and is connected to all the other points on this list. It also connected to the idea of questioning authority and what privileges brought someone into a position of authority. Being a woman, from an ethnic minority, gay disabled, or a whole host of other things means you must work harder to be successful, as well as being more likely to face obvious discrimination and harassment compared to a group society has favored with more power.

The Right claim everyone is given an even footing and that success is a result of hard work. But privilege is the crux of what makes society unequal. Biology should not be destiny. The circumstances of your birth should not determine your lot in life.

2. Rational people can be irrational

Not every decision everyone makes is always clearly thought out and considered. This may be obvious, but it’s also very important. Consider the reverse of this point. To lean to the Right you must believe that everyone is rational all the time: criminals make rational choices to commit crimes; addicts choose to continue their addiction; the poor are responsible for their own poverty. This underpins a lot of right-wing policy: criminals should be harshly punished because they chose a life of crime. That the poor deserve to have their benefits cut because they chose not to get a job.

To lean the left is to say that some things are beyond your control and that society should step in and help out in these circumstances. Not just to correct privilege, but because people make irrational decisions and need help to get them out of the situation they have found themselves in. To be left wing is argue against the sentiment ‘you made your decision and now you must pay for it’.

3. Inequality is a bad thing

Having an uneven distribution of wealth and power does not create incentives for those at the bottom of the pile to better themselves but instead creates social strife which in the long run makes us all worse off. This is linked to questioning the fact that those at the top of pile did not get there through their own hard work but through unfair advantages. Why else, for example, are there so many people from rich, privately educated backgrounds in the Cabinet – pure coincidence? Inequality in wealth and power is a symptom of the sickness of privilege.

One of the things I find very strange about the right is when they claim that those who have less should work harder to have more, but society clearly throws obstacles in the way of some and not others. This right wing argument boils down to saying that women should work really really hard to be successful and that men just need to work hard to be successful. Claiming that inequality is a good motivator is just silly.

To be on the left is believe that inequality is caused by privilege and not laziness, and that to defend inequality is to defend a society that privileges some over others.

4. Collaboration is preferable to competition

More can be accomplished by working together than in fighting each other. The free market does not lead to the most socially beneficial allocation of resources. Competition favors privilege – this is why the wealth gap has widened so much in the past three decades.

The right argues that free market competition creates incentives for innovation and that, if left to its own natural devices, it will allocate society’s resources to where they are most needed. Those who are left-wing dispute this and claim that the free market allocates more of society’s scarce resources to the most privileged, rather than to where they will do the most good.

To be on the left is to argue that by working together, through government, collectives or other means, we can achieve a more socially beneficial resources allocation that overcomes privilege. That together we are stronger and that competition divides us.

5. One size does not fit all

Also know as diversity, a phrase much mocked by the right. We are all different, as are our needs. Yet in general society doesn't take this into account, and benefits some over others. This is essence of privilege.

The right argues for a universalist approach. But measuring everyone by the same standard in a clearly unequal society does not work. In contrast, diversity also means accepting that there are valid lifestyles different to yours. It can be hard to accept that others value things differently, some value family more than others, for example. Some value their peers more than their family. It can be hard to understand people with different lifestyles, but everyone deserves dignity, compassion and respect. It should be accepted that one size doesn’t fit all.

Accepting diversity, and that other people live lives completely differently to your own, is essential to being left wing. It is also important to accept that there is not always a single standard of behavior or proper way to do things.

I wanted to show how these problems are interlinked through the idea of privilege, in other words that the circumstances of your birth determine a lot about your life and that society is deeply unfair. Ideas that are essential to how we see the world – and the problems we want to fix.

It is important to always question our own ideas, our own assumptions, and our own privilege. This contributes to both a stronger ideology and a broader movement.

The politics of Iain Banks novels

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On Wednesday the 3rd of April, best-selling Scottish author Iain Banks announced that he was dying of cancer and that his next novel, The Quarry, will be his last. In light of the news, many fans must be looking back over his oeuvre, considering what conclusions can be drawn while he is still alive.

Iain Banks was famously described as “two of Scotland's best authors” because he writes both science fiction and literary fiction (the former as Iain M. Banks). Despite the different genres, the same broad political and social themes come up in all his novels and a lot of common ground can be found.

Iain Banks is amongst the most popular writers of today who is clearly left wing. He is outspoken on subjects as varied as Scottish independence and Israel’s military intervention in Gaza. Politics infiltrate his novels to varying degrees, but it is ever-present in the themes, characters and settings he explores. One recurring theme is the idea that political opinions are a manifestation of peoples’ deepest values, such as in The Steep Approach to Garbadale. The difference between left and right wing people, according to main character Alban Wopuld, all comes “down to imagination. Conservative people don’t have very much so they find it hard to imagine what life is like for people who aren’t just like them... empathy and imagination are almost the same thing, and it’s why artists, creative people, are almost all liberals, left leaning.”

Allegory is often used to convey these ideas. 1986’s The Bridge presents a strange coma-world which symbolises the crumbling of Britain’s post-war consensus and the onset of Thatcherism. The part of the Iron Lady herself is filled uncompromisingly by a sadistic Field Marshall, who indulges his pigs with luxury accommodation on his captured train whilst enjoying such activities as forcing tethered prisoners to run to exhaustion in front of the slowly driven locomotive. But it is, perhaps, the puzzling allegory of his Culture series which pose the most interesting political questions.

These novels mainly explore the question of “how perfect is the Culture?” Is this anarchistic, socialist, post-scarcity collective really a utopia? It caters for every possible human need and removes the need for sickness, death, money, want and intolerance. No one works as society is administer but hyper intelligent computers known as Minds for the benefit of humanity. Who would not want to live in the Culture where literally anything is possible? The subtle question asked by most of the Culture novels is: “is the Culture so perfect that they feel the need to meddle in the affairs of the less perfect?” Banks’s reaction to real-world military interventions perhaps suggests an answer: on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he returned his torn-up passport to 10 Downing Street in protest (after abandoning his original idea of “crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns”).

Many of the early books provide simple comparisons between the Culture and other civilisations. In Consider Phlebas, the Culture is at war with the Idirans who seek to aggressively conquer other species because they believe themselves to be superior. In The Player of Games, the Culture encounters the Azad who have a suppressive hierarchical society, repressive gender politics and the material problems of scarcity. Compared to these societies, the Culture appears utopian and the reader feels that they are justified in intervening to improve the lot of their citizens. Similarly, in Excession the Culture face the Affront, who are so disgustingly violent towards every other living creature that the reader has sympathy for the Culture in declaring all-out war against such an insult to sentience.

However in later books, perhaps as a reaction to the cultural imperialism of neo-con foreign policy such as the Iraq war, the Culture's well-meaning interference has disastrous consequences. In Look To Windward, the Culture unbalances the fiercely cast-based Chelgrian society in an attempt to make it more egalitarian. This results in a bloody civil war for which many Chelgrians feel the Culture is responsible. The Culture's belief in their own perfection and how to better others ultimately leads to more death than the Idirans or the Affront could create deliberately.

Whereas the Culture novels show us how great the future could be, Banks’s non-Culture novels show us how awful the future could be. In Against A Dark Background, the Huhsz cult is allowed to hunt and kill people in order for their messiah to be born. In The Algebraist the future is divided between the overbearing Mercatoria and the sadistic Starveling Cult. In these nightmarish vision of the future, technology is turned against humanity to repress and cause suffering. Banks has scorn reserved for our own world too, from the cruelty of Thatcher’s Britain in The Bridge to money-grubbing US businesses in The Steep Approach to Garbadale.

In his Culture set novella The State of the Art, Banks turns his lenses directly to Earth as we know it. Set in the 1970s, it deals with the Culture's first contact with humans. The Culture citizens, with their perfect existence, are horrified by how cruel life on Earth is. However, one Culture citizen decides to stay on Earth, smitten by the concept of Christianity (reaching the opposite conclusion, co-incidentally, to The Crow Road’s Prentice McHoan, who eventually finds happiness by rejecting religion). Banks explores the idea of whether happiness is truly possible without experiencing suffering, and thus can anyone in Culture be happy? He poses the idea that the Culture's meddling in the affairs of others may just be a means to justify its own existence.

At its best, sci-fi tells us something about our own world – as Banks once said, “no-body who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history.” The Culture is more than just an aspiration of what lefties believe that a future society could be like, free from binding social roles, repressive leadership hierarchies and scarcity of resources. It is also an allegory for how westerners feel enlightened compared to poorer nations, and our need to meddle in their affairs – much as the West has done over the course of Banks’s career. We want to live in the Culture as much as we realise that we would rather live under western liberal democracy than under most other governments on Earth. The Culture reminds of the need to be critical of ourselves to see what effect we have on other societies.

Margret Thatcher: An obituary

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An octogenarian head of state has passed away, a former leader of a major economy who has divided opinion the world over, loved and hated, who instigated sweeping reforms and polarised a nation. Judging from recent headlines most people would expect the above to have been written about Nelson Mandela but in fact it was announced today that Margaret Thatcher has died of a stroke aged 87.

Divisive is the polite word the left leaning press and bloggers will use to describe Thatcher in an attempt to not speak ill of the dead. She was a leader who divided public opinion every step of the way. In recent years her request to have a state funeral became another contentious issue as the nation was once again divided over their opinion of Margaret Thatcher*. Throughout her life she sought conflict over consensus and drove deep permanent divides into the national psyche.

Right that’s the polite divisive bit out of the way…

Margaret Thatcher eviscerated this country’s manufacturing industry out of ideological zeal and a religious devotion to the free market. The resulting economy fallout devastated small towns that depended on manufacturing industry or coal mining. Some of these areas took years to recover (Liverpool’s dock yards is a good example) and some will never recover from their slide into urban decay after being forgotten about by successive generations of political leaders.

She passed laws deliberately designed to curtail the political power of her opponents, namely the trade union movement. Today’s trade unions are a shadow of their former selves and lack the influence not only to improve conditions but even to protect the rights workers already have which are bring eroded. In the 1980s she was content with making three million people who were unlikely to vote for her unemployed, something which would have been considered an economic disaster by previous Tory or Labour governments.

Thatcher expounded the idea that we would be better off if we all looked ourselves and the degree to which this idea has been taken on by the population is one of the reason we remain such a deeply divided and unequal society. Her government behaved appallingly to Ireland, attempted to levy taxes which fell disproportionately on the poor and passed laws forbidden teachers from telling students that homosexuality is natural. The swing away from manufacturing and towards financial industries lead and the aggressively corporate culture her policies encouraged lead to the financial crash and the banking crisis.

Thatcher’s greatest accomplishment (apart from becoming a one word political exclamation, an hour she shares with Tony Blair) is how she fundamentally changed British politics. Her emphasis of the free market over the state is now a universally accepted political truth. Thatcher successfully dragged the entire political spectrum to right, at least on economic issues, and her influence has been felt as profoundly on the Labour party as the Tories.

Labour leaders from the 1980s to today have accepted Thatcherite principals to a degree. In his statement following her death, Tony Blair commented that “some of the changes she made in Britain were, in certain respects at least, retained by the 1997 Labour Government” (full statement can be found here). The current Labour leader Ed Miliband summed her legacy up most effectively by writing “she will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation” (same source as above). I find it hard to imagine Tory party leaders speaking so highly of recently departed icons of the left. In fact when I think of the death of Labour party leaders from the 1980s and how the right responded I think of this disgusting Daily Mail piece.

Thatcher won three electoral victories and led the country for 12 years. In that time she permanently redefined the political and economic landscape the Great Britain. By the time she was ousted by her own party in November 1990, the trade unions had been diminished, manufacturing industry was one the way out, financial services and tertiary industries were on the rise, nationalised industries were privatised and Nash’s enlightened self-interest was the prevailing view in both the private and public sector. In short the Britain of the early 1990s was entirely changed from that of 1979 and no one person has had such a singular impact on the country as Margaret Thatcher has.

Describing Thatcher as divisive is more than just a polite way to say that she is very unpopular in certain circles (or parts of the country) and that a lot people strongly disagree with her values and policies. Someone’s opinion on Thatcher cuts to the heart of where you stand in British politics. We have seen leftist leaders saying that they disagreed with her but respect who she was, which some would argue reflects how centrist the leftwing establishment has become in the post-Thatcher years. Her biggest champions are the leaders of the economic right; her biggest critics are the darlings of the old left (Ken Livingston described her as clinically insane in an interview with the New Statesmen magazine before 2012 London Mayoral elections).

Personally I feel her views on the merits of self-interest, especially the infamous ‘no such thing as society’ comment, are the most despicable of political opinions. I cannot disagree enough with this view and feel that society has been made a colder, darker and less compassionate place by the ruthless pursuit of money which her polices endorsed. It is because of the values she inspired that it is always acceptable to disregard human well-being when doing business. The worst excesses of private business from the banking crisis to third world sweat shops are legitimised by governments who refuse to involve themselves in market and by individuals who argue for enlightened self-interest. All of which Thatcher was an icon for.

I began by saying Thatcher was divisive, as is anything written about her. Most people’s response to this article will have already been determined before they started reading as their opinion on Thatcher is fixed deep within their political ideology. At the time of her death, we remain a deeply divided nation. Divided by class, region, wealth and how we response to the death of someone who will continue to cast a very long shadow over British politics.

*Contrary to her request she is receiving a ceremonial funeral with military honours, the level below a state funeral)

Hugo Chavez: An obituary

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In 2008, I was standing between a garage and a storage bin in the DUBO area of New York, talking to a Venezuelan woman about her animation business. As I was on another continent and unlikely to ever see this woman again, I decided to ask her what could have been an awkward question: What did she think of Hugo Chavez as president? The woman, whose company was based in New York and Caracas, thought about this for a while before commenting that given the choice most Venezuelans would opt for Western liberal democracy, but given South American's history with dictators, they knew they were better off than a lot of other people.

This response is typical of the way the left view Chavez. To some, he was a hero of the people, nationalising oil reserves, standing up to America and reforming society for the benefit of the poorest and most disenfranchised. To others, he was the embodiment of overbearing authority, intolerant of criticism, restricting civil liberties and harbouring foreign criminals. Regardless of where you stand on the history of Venezuela under Chavez, most people have to admit (at least grudgingly) that Venezuelan was probably better off with him than without him.

Hugo Chavez was President of Venezuela for nearly 14 years and, in that time, survived international pressure to remove him, attempted coups and won four successive elections. He also changed the constitution to allow himself to keep running for successive terms of office. Chavez nationalised Venezuela’s oil industry and played a difficult game, balancing American and Chinese oil interests against each other so that he never become too indebted to either side. He invested money in education and improving the lives of the poorest members of society, amongst whom he was hugely popular. He founded workers co-operatives and implemented a program of land reform. He also once sent a judge to prison for being lenient in sentencing a political dissident.

Chavez was born in Sabaneta in 1954, and grew up to join the army. In 1992, he attempted to lead a military coup, which was unsuccessful and landed him in prison. Two years later, he founded the social democratic political party and was first elected president in 1998. During his time in office, he had to contend with numerous democratic and undemocratic attempts to remove him from power. Chavez also cultivated friendships with Fidel Castro and Ken Livingstone, with the latter he arranged a competitive petroleum export contract which allowed the then Mayor of London to prevent transport costs from rising.

Amongst those on the left, where Chavez really divides opinions is whether he is among the last of an old breed of authoritarian socialist dictators, who have faded away in the first part of the 21st Century, or the blueprint for a new type of popular socialism, rooted in alleviating poverty and traditional leftist polices. It is a testament to Chavez’s massive popularity that he was able to be as authoritarian as he was - in most other countries in the world he would have required a stronger grasp to hold onto power, or would have been voted out of office. But Chavez’s appeal was always to the poorest members of Venezuelan society, who saw real improvements in living conditions.

Chavez’s thinking was sound: nationalisation, workers’ co-operatives, wealth redistribution, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, public education, and all the other things we on the left want to see in our governments. Where he fell down was in his implementation. Venezuelan’s infrastructure suffers from chronic lack of investment, industry is underdeveloped and the country still heavily relies on its finite oil reserves. Chavez implemented a lot of important reforms but failed to build a modern prosperous socialist society. The real testament to his legacy will be whether the next election brings in someone of similar values or the complete opposite.

The eyes of the world will be watching very closely to see what happens next. Unlike North Korea where succession was guaranteed, the possible outcomes in Venezuela are much more varied. Doubtless opinions of Chavez’s legacy will be divided - what will be important is whether future generations of Venezuelans look back on the Chavez years and decide that they probably were better off with him than without him.

 

Reaching to the Converted: Creating safe spaces and activism

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Everyone knows I am a lefty and a bit of an old-Labour type, and as such I enjoy a bit of Billy Bragg every now and then. A lot of my student days were passed to the sounds of the Bard of Barking, especially Brewing Up With Billy Bragg. It was the time in my life where I discovered the most about my musical and political opinions and Billy Bragg spanned them both. Other artists were important, from Phill Ochs to Anti-Flagg, but among my friends Billy Bragg way always the favourite. Not just the political songs, although To Have And To Have Not is a stirring tune, my favourite songs were Levi Stubb’s Tears and From A Vauxhall Velox.

Like any good fan, I saw him in concert. The first time was on the night when Boris Johnson was originally elected mayor of London and the tide started to turn in favour of the Conservatives. Throughout the evening Billy Bragg had kind words of encouragement and hope. He reassured us that all was not lost and that a better world could be won through action locally and nationally. It was exactly what we needed to hear. At times he was emotional and at times logical about the state of the left today. As well as a concert and a political talk, the man gave us hope and solidarity. I would urge any lefty to go and see Billy Bragg in concert as what he has to say today is as relevant as it was in 1984 when Brewing Up was first released.

But therein lies a problem. I said I would urge any lefty to go and see Billy Bragg in concert. I doubt there was anyone in the audience who was not already sympathetic to the values Billy Bragg stands for. There might have been a few music journalists or fans of the singer-songwriter genre there who were not lefties, but by and large I think everyone there broadly identified as left wing either then or at that time or at some point in their lives. No one’s opinion was changed that night. No one started to support left wing principles who did not believe in those principles already. Some people who were armchair lefties might have been galvanised into action, but no sweeping changes in views were made.

This is a problem with the left in general. A lot of events organised with the best intentions end up preaching to the choir. Arguments beautifully laid out and thoughtfully composed fall on the ears of those who already agree with what is being passionately argued for. The support base is not expanding through readings at a Marxist book group. The masses are not being converted through a night of protest music attended only by fans of protest music.

Billy Bragg’s message did reach a wider audience when he was more popular in the 1980s. It is slightly unfair to focus solely on Billy Bragg as it is difficult to stay consistently popular for such a long time as well as staying relevant and keeping to the ideals one originally set out with. Billy Bragg has balanced all this very well but the underlying point remains that there is a strong tendency on the left to preach to the converted.

Events such as the aforementioned night of protest music do not convert the undecided to the cause. They create a safe space for likeminded individuals to express themselves in the knowledge that they are among their peers. Bold expressions of left wing values can be met with ridicule in the public sphere and it is important to create spaces where people can be themselves. The same is true of gay or trans-gender events which also create a safe refuge for those in a minority against the harshness of the outside world. This work is very important but it should not be confused with activism.

Activism is something different. It involves talking to people who may not necessary agree with everything you have to say. It involves going out and finding these people to engage with. Not in an aggressive way but it does involve stepping outside of your comfort zone. Activism is a painful and at times boring process which takes up a lot of time, produces little visible results and receives little praise. At times it is even met with brutal repression and the costs can be dear. All this is less than appealing to a lot people and so there is a tendency not to want to leave the safe space or worse, to rebrand the safe space as activism. Gathering a lot of likeminded people together in one location who all generally agree with each other can look a lot like activism but that can be misleading. Unless there is an engagement with the opposite opinion or the establishment then an event or piece of art is not activism.

Organising safe spaces for likeminded people to express themselves is important. It is the necessary flip side to activism. Where activism breaks down resolve due to the slow pace of progress, the safe space steps in to remind people what we are fighting for and why our work is important - however creating a safe space must not be confused with activism.

Different causes require different mixes of safe spaces to activism. LFBT causes require more safe spaces to be established because the harsher responses society has to identifying as gay compared to identifying as broadly left wing. Similarly traditional left wing causes would benefit from more activism and less of an emphasis on safe spaces because of the privilege most white, middle class, straight lefties have. From a traditional left wing point of view more direction action would be better for two reasons, firstly to counter the general culture of self-congratulation around organising events which only create safe spaces. Secondly to break down the bubble that some lefties live in where they believe everyone agrees with their values.

I left the Billy Bragg concert with a renewed sense of purpose which the best safe spaces bring to activists. It encouraged me to keep fighting the good fight and not to lose faith through lack of success or the election of Boris Johnson. This is something I clung to even when Boris was elected a second time.

Reaching to the Converted is an album Billy Bragg released in 1999 and it is my preferred expression to describe the left wing tendency to create safe spaces which at its worse can be preaching to the choir masquerading as genuine activism. Safe spaces have an important part to play in being a modern lefty but let us not forget the need for direct action to defend left wing values and to grow the movement.

The left and the EU

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“Vote for us and we’ll give you an in/out EU referendum.” This was the message David Cameron was sending to the euro-skeptic wing of the Tory party during his recent speech on Britain’s role in the EU. Many have characterised this move as a desperate attempt to win back support from the right wing of his party, currently being seduced by UKIP. The fact of the matter is that the wheels have started turning in a process which may eventually bring Britain out of the EU, something the euro-skeptics have wanted for years.

How should those of us on the left respond to this - beyond a knee-jerk dismissal of any idea put forward by a Tory government? The country as a whole remains deeply divided on the issue of Europe. Many people want out. Still more want a change in the relationship between Westminster and Brussels. The right seem to have made up their minds on Europe but the left remain deeply divided on this crucial issue.

Of course there are plenty of pro-EU lefties. A lot of us see the European Parliament as to the left of our own and see EU laws as important protections against aggressive neo-liberalism. Restrictions on working hours prevent British firms from forcing employees to work twelve-hour days at minimum wage, which they would certainly do if possible. All of this was recently underlined by TUC leader Frances O'Grady when she claimed that the Tories’ EU policy would erode workers’ rights. There are also a lot us on the left who value our relationship with our European neighbours and believe that British culture has become enriched by the flow of migration across Europe that the EU allows.

However some lefties are certainly very much against the EU. Some are suspicious of its origins as a free trade agreement. It has been labeled as a “capitalist club”, an organisation that seeks to make life easier for multinational corporations. The EU has also been blamed for the decline in the British manufacturing industry as more firms relocate to Eastern Europe where wage costs are much lower.

Economics aside, there is also a tendency amongst some members of the left (usually from the working class left, but by no means always) to want to protect British culture. These are the lefties who want restrictions on immigration, a viewpoint that is extremely divisive on the left, as illustrated by the reaction to Maurice Glasman and Blue Labour. It also worth noting that the right-leaning Blue Labour also want to withdraw from the EU.

Strangely enough the debate on the EU was not always framed the way it is now. In the 1980s, it was the left who opposed membership to the European Economic Community as it was then and the right who supported it. Granted, back then it was much more a business agreement aimed at growing the economies of Europe and less of social venture. A key strand of the Labour party’s 1983 election manifesto was Britain’s withdrawal from the EEC. This manifesto, dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”, has long since stood as an example of Labour at its most left wing. Many euro-skeptic Labour supporters see the policy of leaving the EU as a descendent from the old Labour policy of leaving the EEC.

The Labour party’s relationship with Europe has come to be seen by many as emblematic of how the party has changed for the worst since the early 1980s, especially under Blair. There are lefties who believe that the Labour Party has turned its back on its roots of protecting the indigenous working class from exploitation and fighting for socialism, in favour of supporting immigration, European integration and liberalism. These supporters seek a return to working class old-Labour values - although they are by no means all working class themselves.

Clearly the Labour party has turned its back on socialism in favour of liberalism but the rest of the point I do not concede. However, significant working class social conservative support has moved from Labour to the Tories (and in some cases the BNP) since the early 1980s, partly due to the left’s response to the issues of immigration and the EU. There are many who argue that a return to working class old-Labour values can bring back some of the support Labour lost under Blair and Brown.

This leaves the Labour party in a quandary. The country is divided on the EU, as is the party. There is no clear route to popularity and electoral success and neither is there a clear ideological line to follow. This partly explains why Labour’s response to Cameron’s pledge has been decidedly lackluster. The Labour Party does not want to be caught on the wrong side of the debate and choosing either side would alienate a large pool of potential votes.

There is no escaping the fact that the country and the left remain deeply divided on this key issue which is coming to define modern politics. There are good arguments either way from a left wing point of view but I must reject the argument that the EU is against the best interests of the working class and that the left has turned their back on the poor. EU labour laws mentioned above are a clear example of how the EU protects against the exploitation of the poor and the working class. This is especially true now that the power of the trade unions has been diminished so much. In the 21st Century, the definition of the poor and the working class needs to be expanded to include immigrants (from the EU and otherwise) who are typically the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. It is for the benefit of all poor people that the left should fight, and I feel that the EU is a key part of this fight as it allows us to rise above the opposition of our domestic Conservative government.

It is clear that the EU is changing in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis. Becoming more integrated socially and fiscally seems to be the desired course of action. Britain needs to know whether we support this process and how to shape and develop its implementation, or whether we want nothing to do with it. During the course of the debate to come on EU membership the left needs to find a clear point of view to support ideologically and politically. We need to do better than giving people simply what they want, as this might not be the best course of action. As lefties we need to stop being divided on the issue of the EU and clearly stand for something.

Leveson and the left: confusion and anger


What next for journalists after the Leveson report? This was the question being debated last Thursday evening by SohoSkeptics when they hosted a discussion on the Leveson report into media ethics. The panel featured distinguished left wing writers and journalists. It was hosted by Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman magazine, and also included the Observer’s Nick Cohen and the Guardian’s Suzanne Moore on the anti-Leveson side. The pro-Leveson side was made up of Dr Natalie Fenton, Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmith’s University and Dr Evan Harris, former Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford and prominent member of the Hacked Off campaign.

My own view on the Leveson report, one which is popular among the left leaning people I know, is that Leveson should be used as a stick to beat the right wing newspapers with - especially those owned by Murdoch. At the same time we must protect Private Eye’s freedom to expose the dirty secrets of prominent members of the government. What I found most interesting about Thursday night’s debate was the reaction of the audience to the arguments being made and what that told me about the left’s reaction to Leveson in general.

A left wing panel usually means a left wing audience, especially at a meeting of a skeptics group. At one point a member of the panel asked if there were any Conservatives in the audience and one solitary man raised his voice from the gallery.

As I listened to the debate and the audience’s reaction it became apparent that this group of lefties had different ideas to mine. The first indication of this came from the big cheer that Moore received despite making thoughtless comments about transgender people in a recent Guardian article. Complaints were made about this on Twitter and she refused to apologise. The situation exploded when Julie Burchill at the Observer wrote a defence of Moore which contained language widely dubbed as hate speech. With this controversy on my mind and this being a left wing audience I had expected booing and heckling when Moore appeared, so cheers and applause came as something of a surprise.

Clearly this audience’s supported what Moore later described as ‘complete freedom of expression’, which she painted as the enemy of Leveson. Personally I want to emphasise the responsibilities associated with the right to freedom of speech. Namely not writing hate speech.

Some have sought to frame the debate around the Leveson inquiry into one of free speech against totalitarian press restriction and that was definitely on the audience’s mind. At one point I overheard one member of a group sitting behind me say 'it is a debate between freedom and not freedom', and although ineloquent this summed up the concerns of many present.

During the intermission I listened to what people around me were saying and aside from the general support for press freedom I also detected a distinct anti-regulation, support for small business sentiment. There was a distinct feeling that Leveson would make life more difficult for smaller news organisations and start-ups, perhaps playing into the hands of the established news providers and Murdoch.

I had started very much in favour of press regulation, mainly as a means to diminish the power of the right-wing press. By the end I felt very differently after hearing the passionate arguments from the panel, especially from Cohen.

I did not find myself completely agreeing with the anti-Leveson side. I felt that Cohen was naive in suggesting that print media would vanish completely. It is likely that the large newspapers will become major brands in the online news market. Any flaws in the ethics or practices of print journalists will be carried over as the newspapers move increasingly online and online news start-ups will look to the large players to see what standard of ethics is acceptable.

I also felt that Moore was wrong to defend unrestricted freedom of expression, especially when she comes from a position of cisgendered privilege. I agree that press freedom is important but she has a responsibility as a figure with a national platform. She made good points about the lack of working class journalists but it is wrong to use her social class as an excuse to defend attacks on other disadvantaged groups. It was also wrong of her to imply that she was the victim of those opposed to free speech. This is the same defence used by Peter Hitchens and Frankie Boyle when they say something hateful. They use freedom of speech to attack the idea of political correctness but political correctness is part of the mechanism which protects the weak from the strong in society. Moore has responsibilities which comes from having a position of privilege and having a position of importance at a national newspaper. It is wrong for straight, white, able-bodied men to use free speech as an excuse for unexamined privilege and it is wrong for Moore to use it as well.

I left the Soho Skeptics meeting feeling that my knowledge had expanded but that I had more questions than answers. This reflected what I heard from the audience and what the left feels in general. There was outrage at what the right leaning tabloids had done, about the lives they had ruined, the laws they had broken and the shame they had brought on journalists. There was no consensus on how to progress. State regulation and statuary underpinning appeared to be an unpopular course of action but it was naïve to assume that if nothing was done the problems would resolve themselves. Clearly the culture of tabloid papers needs to be addressed, as self-regulation by newspapers has not worked. However, no method was clear to achieve this without threatening the essential freedoms on which good journalism relies.

I left unable to reach any important conclusions, I only had more questions. Where do we go from here? How do we change the tide in our favour? For now the main comforting fact about the Leveson debate and the audience’s reaction was that at least we are all asking the right questions.



They are winning

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This is a new year and we all need to work harder. The economy is faltering and, although employment is expected to grow this year, millions will still be left jobless. Inflation may have fallen back, but there has been little growth in wages and many are still trapped in poverty. Essential government services and health care are still being chipped away at by the Tory party and their coalition partners. Now is not the time to be complacent. Now is the time for action.

All of the above is true but another more painful truth dawned on me recently. This is that the right is winning. They sit in government, they dominate our press and business community, their views form the basis of our political dialogue. In short, they are winning.

Many people believe that benefits are too high and that the unemployed are undeserving of help. Many feel that the NHS is wasteful and needs the incentives of private business to become efficient. It is often said that the government is too large and needs to be reined in, and that public sector spending is bad for the economy and should be cut. The subtle language of this is that the debt should be brought down regardless of whose backs the government’s cheque books are balanced on.

A lot of people who do not consider themselves to be political, or who consider themselves to have centrist opinions, actually use right wing rhetoric. This can be seen plainly in the debate of Britain’s continual membership of the EU. The right has walked into the dominant position in this debate because the left have let them.

The prevalence of right wing opinions does not simply extend to the economy. Many people believe that immigration is bad and is destroying our way of life, that political correctness is oppressive to our culture, that women deserve to be raped because of how they dress or behave, that the disabled are nothing but scroungers, and that the legalization of gay marriage would somehow undermine the millions of straight marriages across the country.

A lot of the dominance of right wing opinions comes from spinelessness of our left wing leadership. In the words of journalist Laurie Penny, “the Labour party still cannot find its ideology with both hands”. The TUC seems unable to find a means by which to oppose the government’s austerity program beyond politely marching from A to B, which will be completely ignored. Other left wing leaders stay silent in the face of right wing rhetoric from fear of being labelled as either Socialists or unrealistic dreamers.

I am not afraid of either of these labels. In fact, I wear them with pride. I do not think it is unreasonable to dream that we can be better off and live in a more equal society – and if the word for this is Socialist, then pass me the red flag. Now is not the time to be silently left leaning. Now is the time to be loud, angry and visible. Now is the time to tell the right that they cannot write off whole sections of society and that they cannot spread brutish ignorance and prejudice because it suits their political agenda.

There is hope. People are still willing to march and take demonstrations to knew heights. UK Uncut have performed high profile demonstrations that have hit tax-dodging businesses where it really hurts, in their wallets. Ordinary people have turned out huge numbers to oppose EDL marches across the country and successfully drowned out the racist street movement. People still scream in the streets and on the internet about how unjust a society we are becoming – have a read of this passionate argument for protecting the dignity of the disabled. The Everyday Sexism project publicly catalogues the abuse women face on a daily basis so that it cannot be ignored.

The right have always been good at dividing us, but together, with our heads held high and hope in our hearts, we are stronger than they are. The belief that we are all deserving, that we should all be equal and entitled to a decent standard of living, will win out over the idea of coldly tipping of the scales of society in the favour of the rich and privileged.

This is why I am redoubling my efforts this year and retasking my blog to focus more specifically on the left as a movement and what we can do to become stronger, better organised and more visible. I shall celebrate our successes and lament in our failures, but always remain watchful of the needs of a movement as diverse as ours.

We have to be better. We have to start winning. I am become very frightened of what we are becoming as a society – less sympathetic, less tolerant, less equal. The right might intend to drag us into a dark world where your birth determines your lot in life. Where being a rich, white, straight man is glorious and those people look down on others who are unlucky enough to be anything else. A world where money is the only thing that matters and society is bent to serve those who have wealth.

They are winning and we are slowly falling into darkness. But together we can change all of this, and it starts today.

The plight of the people of Western Sahara

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Head over to a map of the world. Look for Egypt, that’s easy to find. Then look to your left. Assuming your map fits the usual specification, you will reach the western edge of North Africa. On the other side of the Mediterranean from Spain you will find Morocco. South of Morocco and north of Mauritania, there is an independent country of Western Sahara. This country is hardly known in global affairs, but it is not an independent country.

Western Sahara is the world's most sparsely populated country, being mostly dessert. It has a population of five hundred thousand people. Originally a colony of Spain, who withdrew from the country in 1975, the state of Western Sahara has been in dispute ever since. After Spain left, a war was fought between Western Sahara’s two neighbours, Mauritania and Morocco, which ended in 1979 when Morocco annexed most of Western Sahara. An independence movement, the Polisario Front, started a guerrilla war, seeking to establish an independent country known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or SADR. This ended with a UN monitored cease-fire in 1991. Since then Western Sahara has been divided between the Polisario Front controlled SADR, which occupies around a quarter of the territory, and Morocco.

Morocco controls the majority of the country, including the population centres and natural resources. Both Morocco and the SADR are seeking international recognition for their claim to Western Sahara. Both have lined up support from across the world, but the territory remains disputed. Western Sahara is the largest and most populated territory on the United Nation’s list of Non-Self-GoverningTerritories and it exists in a legal grey area between being a disputed territory and a non-decolonized country or an occupied nation.

The location of Western Sahara in North Africa. Map from Wikipedia

Attempts to organise a referendum to decide Western Sahara’s future have been indefinitely stalled. The legal (and military) disputes that surround Western Sahara are varied and complex, with a host of countries and meta-national organisations (the Arab League, the African Union, etc) endorsing the different claims to the country. I suggest anyone with an interest in disputed territories and military occupations should look into the case of Western Sahara, as it is frequently overshadowed by events in Palestine.

So why is there less public outcry against what has happened in Western Sahara? Why do Palestine and Tibet get all the attention? It is difficult to say. All of the above and other situations around the world are clearly important places were citizens live without an ability to determine their own future. A lot of attention is drawn to the Middle East and China, partly because we in the west are complicit in the violations which take place in these countries through the trade agreements we have with their oppressors. This is especially true with Israel, as the UK and the US selling arms to the Israeli Defence Forces which are used against the Palestinians.

Also these other conflict areas are relatively well-populated. There is an estimated nine million Palestinians in the world, where as there are less than half a million Western Saharans. In the case of Palestine, many millions of people were displaced by Israeli occupation and have become refugees. Some of these have moved to the west where they have set up pressure groups highlighting the problems of those left behind in the occupied territory. In the case of Tibet, there is the Dalai Lama, an internationally-recognised figure, campaigning for freedom from occupation. However, more recently even the Dalai Lama has campaigned more for recognition of Tibet within China rather than independence. There are relatively fewer Western Saharans and less of them in western countries drawing attention to events in North Africa. When Africa is in the news more recently it has been in relation to uprisings connected to the Arab Spring, which did not spill over into an uprising in Western Sahara against Morocco.

Other disputed territories around the world attract more attention than Western Sahara, but it is important to remember that we in the west are just as complicit in the repression there. Morocco is enjoying a tourist boom currently, and the money we spend there funds the military which keeps Western Sahara under Moroccan control. Western Sahara may not be the world’s most high profile trouble spot, but is the largest disputed territory in the world and has the largest disputed population. Next time you are looking at a map do not take it for granted that a border is a sign of an independent country.

Do you know who Xi Jinping is?

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I have been asking people this question and a lot of people do not know the answer. We will return to that shortly.

The world watched with rapped attention a fortnight ago as Barrack Obama won a historical second term in the White House. The global news schedules were drowning in coverage of the campaign and the Election Day itself. I personally stayed up until 5:30 in the morning to see the results. It was an event of global significance, a race the outcome of which would affect the lives of billions if not everyone on the planet. However while this was going on, the leadership of another country was also being decided, an event that could perhaps be equally as important.

The Chinese Communist party (the world’s largest political organisation, with more members than there are people in the United Kingdom) recently changed the membership of its politburo standing committee, the countries highest decision making body. Once every 10 years at the Chinese Communist party conference, China’s leadership steps down and new leaders are appointed. These leaders come from the 25 member politburo and its higher body, the seven person standing committee. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China as well as other leadership figures are chosen from the standing committee. All of this is conducted in secret, with the conference ending with the new leadership being shown to the party.

The makeup of the standing committee and China’s new leadership are decisions with the same global signification as the race for the White House. China is the world’s second largest economy and it is predicted that during the new leadership’s term of office China will become the world’s largest economy. China also holds the majority of the world's debt as well as being a key export market for the growth starved west and a major financial centre. They have the world’s largest army, an expanding space program and now aircraft carriers and stealth fighters. In less than a decade the members of standing committee may become the most powerful people in the world. My question concerning all this is, why has there been a lot less media coverage of the events leading up the anointment of the new Chinese leadership?

There has been coverage, with articles on BBC website and in other new sources but I have not seen one piece on the Chinese Communist party conference grace the front page of a British national newspaper or appear as the top story on a news broadcast, as the American election did. The change of power in China is just as important as the change of power in America, perhaps more important as the new leader has a much greater ability to effect change in his country than Barrack Obama does in America. This is where I answer the above question, Xi Jinping is the new General Sectary of the Chinese Communist Party and is very likely to be the next president of China. So why is there less coverage of the method by which he came to power? Why are we not globally weighing up the pros and cones of perspective Chinese leaders, examining Xi Jinping's qualities as a leader and considering what his vision of China might look like?

The main reason is that people in the west simply are not interested, which is not only a shame but a dangerous way of thinking. We prefer to focus on our own politics, believing them to be most important events in the world, whilst dismissing events elsewhere as less than important. It is foolish to ignore the changes that are happening in China. By all accounts Xi Jinping’s forthcoming appointment to the presidency is a victory for China’s more conservative factions. He has close ties to the military and is the son of a past powerful figure and party elder. He is certainly not a reformer, but he does have a more global prospective than previous leaders. We should be concerned about our future and the power that China will hold over it, and we should be more concerned about the people directing this power and the means by which they are appointed.

Another reason why western media is not as interested in the change in Chinese leadership is that the key events happen in secret. The standing committee and a shadowy group of party elders decide in secret on the next generation of leaders and who will be appointed to the most senior positions. This process does not lend itself to the extensive coverage, which news sources use to attract large amounts of views and readers. The results are also a forgone conclusion. It had been known for a while that Xi Jinping would be the next General Secretary and that Li Keqiang would be his deputy. It is almost certain they will be given the most senior positions in the Chinese government, the presidency and premiership. Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang and others had been elevated to positions of power by outgoing president Hu Jintao, a man who favored loyalty above all else.

Chinese leadership elections are not as exciting as their American counter part, they lack scandal, uncertain results and a dramatic conclusions. News vendors may not be that interested but that does not mean the events are not globally significant. We may not be that cornered about the changes in Chinese leadership but as a nation we should be.

Xi Jinping will lead China for ten years during which China and the whole world will face serious challenges in terms of the economy and the environment China also faces many internal challenges, in rooting out corruption  finding its place among the other global powers, maintaining its growth rate and balancing political freedoms with the Communist state. Xi Jinping is not a man much is known about in the west but his character may come to define the next decade of global events.

In the west we need to stop thinking of ourselves as the main stage or the only stage as we increasingly become a side show. We need to pay more attention to events in China and Chinese politics as our economic recovery will depend upon it. Xi Jinping and the other new members of standing committee step into the spot light as Obama secures himself a second term in power but Xi Jinping will be leading China long after Obama has left the White House. Us in the west should pay as much attention to events in China as we do to America as they profoundly effect our world. Xi Jinping should be a name that is on everyone's in the west's minds.

The American Election: A Victory for Perspective

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Having perspective about how people live in other countries is not something Americans are typically given credit for. In fact, they are known throughout the world for looking inwards, caring much more about domestic issues than international ones. This is true for most countries in the world, but American politics affects the entire world. The American economy drives the western world, their foreign policy defines who are our allies and who are our adversaries. It seems unfair that a decision of global importance, such who should lead America, can be decided by trivialities of domestic politics. In 2000 a few voters in Florida decided the trajectory of global politics. Had they voted a differently, the war in Iraq could have been averted.

If every person who was affected by the outcome of the American Presidential election was able to vote in it, the outcome could be very different. This is true of a number of countries. In China, even the country’s own citizens cannot decide their leadership and the decision is made in secret by a few people. Both leaderships have an enormous effect on the entire human race; the American decision is much more democratic, but both are made without considering the effect the outcome has on those outside the country.

As with most general elections, the recent US Presidential contest has been mainly fought over the incumbent’s economic record. Other issues were prevalent – foreign policy, social issues – but, as with most general elections, it comes down to the matter of which side the voters trust to handle the economy. After the credit crunch and the global recession, which began under George W. Bush, the American economy has stalled. Recovery has been slow and growth is lacklustre. Even after Obama was elected President in 2008, prosperity has not returned to America.

In the years since the credit crunch, America has not fared the best or the worst among OECD countries. When Obama took office in 2009, GDP was shrinking at 3.5% per annum. By the time of the election, growth had risen to 1.7% (all statistics are from Google’s public data). During the same period, unemployment has remained roughly constant at 7.8% (despite peaking at 10% in October 2009). Compare this to the UK, where growth is currently at 0.65% and unemployment at 7.9%. The same story of barely positive growth is true across most western economies. America is actually faring better than most but the prosperity of the late 1990s and early 2000s has not returned.

The question posed to American voters was whether they would be better off with Mitt Romney and the Republicans in charge. A growth rate of 1.7% leaves room for improvement, but it is certainly better than we are experiencing in the UK and better than a recession.

On Tuesday, American voters opted to stay with Obama and voted in favour of current economic policy. It was felt that the stimulus introduced by Obama in February 2009 had been effective, and that the bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors had prevented mass unemployment, which could have driven the country back into a recession. This vote in favour of the current administration’s economic policy is a reflection that Americans are aware that they are financially better off with Obama and better off than comparable countries.

Left learning social-democratic parties are generally out of power across Europe. Centre-right governments dominate and the fiscal agenda is austerity. In the UK, severe cuts to government spending have been enforced since the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition came to power in 2010. These cuts have killed off the green shoots of recovery and briefly pushed the UK economy back into recession. Looking at the British economy’s recent performance it is hardly a ringing endorsement of austerity and privatization. Americans recognise they are better off with Obama’s stimulus and steps to prevent mass unemployment than they would be with European-style austerity.

Usually Americans do not have a good deal of perspective, especially about how fortunate they are compared to other countries. However, in the case of the recent elections, it is clear that although Obama’s record on the economy is not stunning, Americans consider that they are better off with him than with the alternative. If anything, this week’s election result is a victory for perspective.

Page 3 reveals the ingrained sexism in our society

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"It's a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell," or so said Wilbur F. Storey of the goals of the Chicago Times in 1861. Most British newspapers do not fit this romantic fantasy of plucky reporters digging up facts, uncovering corruption and exposing the wrong doings of those in power. Newspapers are a product as much as anything else and one that exists in a very competitive market place. Beyond this they are part of our public psyche and form a key part of how we view the world. Most of us still get our news from newspapers, it may be in the form of articles published online, or downloaded onto smart phones but still newspapers are powerful players in the news market. They decide what is news or not news but deeper than that they decide what is normal or not normal.

When headlines denouncing 'Booze Britain' and the dangers of binge drinking were splashed across front pages, they reinforced the idea that most people drink excessively on a regular basis. Through the foggy lens of journalism we look at ourselves as a nation and we find out how we behave and what our hopes and fears are - mainly our fears. When newspapers are outraged at politician’s expenses or light penalties for sex offenders, so are we as a nation. As such it follows that when newspapers are casually sexist, we become a bit more casually sexist as a nation.

Sexism is rife in newspapers - especially tabloids. Women are constantly assaulted for being ugly, fat, having too much power, crying wolf in rape accusations, not breast feeding their children enough, having bad taste in clothes, for speaking out of line, for breast feeding their children too much, causing cancer and making house prices fall.

However, one aspect of all the misogynistic rubbish printed in tabloid papers stands out above the rest: The Sun's Page 3. Since 1969 The Sun (Britain's most popular and least trusted newspapers) has printed a picture of a glamour model on its third page. Initially clothed and later topless, these photographs show a misogynistic image of women as young, good looking, sexually available and silent.

Recently an online petition on the website change.org, No More Page 3, has sought the removal of Page 3 from the Sun. At the time of posting this campaign has picked up 46 thousand signatures, as well as press coverage in The Guardian, The New Statesman and on News Night. Social media is buzzing with the very real possibility that this No More Page 3 could be a success. The campaign is well managed, has picked up support from several public figures, including MPs and is targeting The Sun's advertisers such as Lego, Tesco and Sainsbury’s in an attempt to put added pressure on the tabloid. This campaign has attracted criticism from those who go out of their way to defend casual sexism. Unsurprising as this is, I wanted to take a moment to address a few of the misconceptions shaping the arguments in favour of Page 3.

The first strand of criticism mainly comes from a position of middle-class broadsheet superiority. Some argue that Page 3 does not really matter, as the Sun is not a newspaper but a news comic. It is difficult to argue that the Sun is not taken seriously as a newspaper. Certainly it's the main source of news for the 13.6 million people who pay to read it every week. Its power to affect the opinions and actions of the general public was evidenced in the infamous 1992 election day front page, which allowed John Major to narrowly secure a majority. The Sun is clearly a newspaper and what it prints – both news and otherwise – clearly has an effect on its readership.

The problems caused by Page 3 go beyond those who read the Sun, as any newspaper so widely read sets a standard. Page 3 is often the largest picture of a woman in the newspaper. Those other images of women in The Sun are used to shame women for their failings in either being ugly, overweight or having an opinion differ from The Sun's right wing agenda. Page 3 sets a standard of how women are treated, i.e. either ogled or mocked.

The campaign simply seeks the abolition of Page 3 and invites people to support for it for their own personal reasons. People of many different ideological backgrounds have signed the petition. My own objection to Page 3 does not come from any perceived negative psychological damage caused by looking at naked women. Nor does it stem from a puritan desire to cover up women’s flesh. It comes from a desire to liberate women from the casual sexism in our society that Page 3 epitomises. I feel my goals are very much in line with petition’s creator who has demonstrated a desire to bring society to a place where casual sexism of the Page 3 variety is no longer acceptable.

Reading a daily paper is a very normal, very British thing to do and putting casual sexism in a daily paper clocks the misogyny in normality. It reinforces the idea that a sexist attitude to women is the normal way of behaving. It also fixes in the general psyche the view that women exist only to appear sexually desirable to men and when they do not fit into this neat bracket they are worthless. This the normality of of female objectification and the views it support hold back women across the world from gender equality. The campaign wishes to end the normality of female objectification in part through abolishing Page 3 and the way it normalises sexist attitudes.

Another argument used in favour of Page 3 is that it is a harmless hangover from a bygone area, much like Benny Hill or Naughty Nuns postcards. In some ways this is true. Page 3 is from the past, it would not be started today; it would be considered crass and sexist - which it is. The fact that Page 3 would not be started today indicates that it does not reflect the values of our modern society. It is worthy of note that the Daily Mirror used to have Page 3 photographs but stopped the practice in the 1980s because it was seen as demeaning to women.

Some wish to protect Page 3 because they naively yearn for a mostly fictional past age that was free from political correctness. An age where sexism was rife, traditional gender roles were strongly enforced, and any deviation was met with social exclusion. Although most people who look back to the past with fondness will acknowledge that it was sexist, they argue that sexism has been abolished from our modern society. To them, Page 3 is a harmless relic of the past to be preserved so that we do not lose all contact with tradition.

This argument holds little weight as sexism has clearly not been abolished from our society. In place of Benny Hill, Family Guy is making weekly rape jokes. Women have made social and economic progress since the 1970s but the playing field is still not level. Women are poorly represented among heads of state or chief executives of large companies. Where women have risen they have had to endure the ridicule and low esteem in which they are held. This is mainly a result of the institutionalised sexism that Page 3 normalises.

Page 3 reveals how deeply ingrained sexism is in our society. The fact that some wish to defend it is sexist in itself. It shows there is still work to be done in rooting it out misogyny. So long as Page 3 continues the objectification of women will be normal and natural. This in turn maintains the uneven playing field on which women compete for jobs and political power. In the past individual's racist behaviour went unchallenged because broader racist attitudes in society appeared normal. As the idea of racism being the normal state was challenged it allowed individual's be challenged for their racist behaviour. The same is true for sexist. The standard bearers for sexism need to be brought down before sexism can be challenged on an individual level. In the battle for gender equality Page 3 is Tank, ploughing its way across the field, shielding sexism from oncoming fire with the armour of normality.

Page 3 is complexly unacceptable in today's modern news market place and I cannot imagine the writing of Woodward and Bernstein next to the image of a topless woman. Tabloid newspapers use their power to create a culture that publicly shames women. The above example of the public outcry against binge drinking is a perfect example of this as the criticism falls more heavily on women who drink excessively than men. This sexist tabloid culture cannot be stopped until Page 3 and other examples of ingrained sexism are abolished. When the Chicago Times were doing their duty in printing the news and raising hell, I doubt they thought the quality of their work would be increased by daily images of topless women.