"It is beneath you; it is next to me!" [Bespectacled hilarity]

I'm finishing some work and some blog entries to be posted later, but in the meantime, watch this Daily Show clip. Keith Olbermann is usually right, if melodramatic and more and more, giggle-inducing. After Olbermann's remarks that the new Mass. Senator-elect Scott Brown is “an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women”, Jon Stewart has had enough:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
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Blasphemy is still a thing

Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came into force today by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The new law, which was passed in July, means that blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 (£22,000).

It defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted".

Well. This is...medieval.

The law was passed back in July, so I'm late, but it's attracting attention again because Atheist Ireland has just responded to the new law by publishing 25 anti-religious quotations made by or attributed to famous figures, including Jesus Christ himself.

The justice minister, Dermot Ahern, said that the law was necessary because while immigration had brought a growing diversity of religious faiths, the 1936 constitution extended the protection of belief only to Christians.

Except this law doesn't protect religious belief as much as it simultaneously protects the right of some to be outraged and restricts the freedom of others to express thoughts and ideas. My saying, as Christoper Hitchens does, that god is not Great, does not prevent those who believe their god is great from continuing to do so. It does not prevent them from worshipping in their churches or confine their employment opportunities based on their religion. And how completely turned around is it to correct the fact that blasphemy considerations once extended only to the Christian faith by now extending it to all faiths, rather than - perhaps - completely removing from the constitution the outdated notion of blasphemy that obtained when the Church was still head of the State?

I'm sorry but "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion" is a bit too vague for me. I'm going to need more guidance than that. And therein lies the problem with the legislation. It is wholly subjective and difficult to define and prove. Who determines whether the outrage was caused intentionally? How substantial is a 'substantial number of adherents'? Why is your protection from feeling outraged more important than my freedom to engage in reasoned (or not so reasoned, perhaps) discussion of religion and spirituality? Why must I, as a private citizen, be subject to the laws of a religion of which I am not a part? That is to say, what if it is outrageous among the Rastafari to say that Haile Selassie was not divine, he was just a man? Lots of Christians would be having boot sales in the church car park to raise that £22,000. What if scientologists got outraged by a claim that Xenu smelled funny and had bad hair? And this isn't even the old 'slippery slope' argument: the fact is, it is a dangerous thing to subject a population to scores of religious observations to which they are not privy. It is not like hate speech legislation, which aims to protect real, live people and their freedoms, rather than nebulous ideas of deity and religious tenets.

There is a way to protect religious practice and belief, and as Ahern notes, with the growing diversity of these, they should be protected. But these blasphemy laws are not it. There is a difference between feeling threatened in the practice of your faith, and taking offence because another's ideas are not aligned with yours. Hell, I offend my sisters all the time. Not on purpose, because I respect their right to exercise their religious freedom, but as a non-Christian who takes serious umbrage with some of the tenets of their religion, I'm bound to make that known in regular conversation. And that kind of exchange is healthy and necessary, among family but especially in public discourse.

You know, right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the US are probably all packing their bags to move to Ireland as we speak. Because this is the kind of thinking behind their claims that legalizing marriage among gays and lesbians threatens their religion, although no one has been able to articulate to me the process by which this happens. This is the kind of thinking that prioritizes religion over rights and freedoms, and it's a fairly ugly step backwards.

Your guffaw of the day

The Guardian reports that the British National Party (BNP) will now deign to let non-White people join its racist hate-fest. Somewhere, Clayton Bigsby is joyfully shaking his stick.

The far-right British National party has agreed to change its constitution to allow non-white people to join, it emerged today.

The BNP confirmed it would consider changes to its rules and membership criteria after the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched county court proceedings against the party's leader, Nick Griffin, and two other party officials: Simon Darby and Tanya Jane Lumby.

So it's not that they actually want to allow non-White people in their party, it's that they'll get in trouble if they don't. So I don't know why the EHRC is releasing bogus statements of approval:

John Wadham, group director legal at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: "We are pleased that the party has conceded this case and agreed to all of the commission's requirements. Political parties, like any other organisation are obliged to respect the law and not discriminate against people."

Not discriminate against people. John, do you even know what the BNP is? Have you read their manifesto? Are we really going to pretend that preventing a racist party from upholding discrimination in its membership is as important or valuable as addressing the discrimination and incitement to racial hatred in its stated policies and ideologies?

Still, as ridiculous as this all seems, and though it is alarmingly insufficient, it had to be done. The BNP does exist, and while they can't be forcibly dissolved, they can and should be pressured in every way possible. And perhaps some good will come from it. I imagine it's a lot more difficult to denounce entire non-White groups of people when handfuls of them are sitting among your membership in the front row. That might be an interesting experiment.

A new look at our Chinese connection

On Thursday, China marked six decades of Communist rule with an enormous, highly-choreographed parade displaying its military might and seeming to celebrate - with its strict formations and careful selection of local spectators - rigid conformity among its people. At least that's how it struck me when I turned my TV on to our one local channel and saw the parade, which was being televised here. In Barbados. On the one local channel.

Granted I was a bit woozy with sleep when I turned on the television. Still languishing in my cable-free existence, I don't watch much TV these days. But every now and then, Channel 8 will broadcast some show offering information that I probably wouldn't otherwise have accessed. A few weeks ago, there was one explaining and seeking solutions for our problems with coastal erosion and the coral reefs that we've managed to destroy, and more recently, a great series of interviews with experts and activists working to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in Barbados. So I tuned in on Thursday night in the hopes that I might see something illuminating, and I suppose that's what I got, in so far as the broadcast of the celebrations caused me to realize just how much our 'diplomatic involvement' with China seems to be growing, and to simultaneously ponder what in sky-blue tarnation Prime Minister Thompson and his Cabinet are brewing over there in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Now, Barbados has engaged in diplomatic relations with China since the 1970s, and the two countries have a well established history of bilateral economic cooperation as well as cultural exchanges. Chinese economic funding of capital projects here has been accompanied by the country's provision of its own workforce on such projects, and over time, the appearance of Chinese temporary migrant workers has increased. The population of more permanent migrants has also seemed to grow steadily, but still represents a miniscule proportion of our population. In recent months, the Thompson administration has placed huge emphasis on its efforts to increase the proportion of economic assistance that comes from China. In fact, it appears to be government's key economic strategy for containing the deficit while continuing to grow the economy through the funding of capital projects. Less transparent, however, has been the other part of the equation: what are the conditionalities, if any, upon which this economic assistance is contingent? Is this aid tied to any development indicators? To the reciprocity of economic goodwill via, for example, absorption of an increased Chinese labour force? In short, what does China stand to gain from giving us all this money?

We're not sure, but in the meantime, the current administration has embarked upon some kind of "Embrace China" campaign, in which Thursday's parade was prefaced by the exhortations of the PM to watch the proceedings, proceedings which were clearly meant to convince anyone watching of China's greatness as a socialist nation that has avoided the economic ruin plaguing other countries, and also of the fact that they have large guns, and know how to use them. The spectacle was, frankly, disturbing. And as we saw the odd proximity of flag-bearing children to tanks and rocket launchers and the giant portrait of Chairman Mao floating imperiously across Tiananmen Square, one wondered why the Barbados government was so invested in having us observe, invested enough to send us a special message to watch on television, just as China's President Hu Jintao had sent a message to its citizens. Why China would want its own citizens to watch is not difficult to fathom: as China's economic power and prospecting grow abroad, so too does the backlash against its presence and policies, and with it, the relative insecurity of its people living in the countries on whom it has set its mercantilist sights. Over 3000 Chinese tourists were hurriedly evacuated from Thailand during civil unrest in November last year. And from the coast of Somalia to Papua New Guinea and even nearer home in Xinjiang and Tibet, China has been actively engaged in using military force to suppress uprisings in order, ostensibly, to protect its assets and people. So Thursday's parade was meant to convince not so much its Western competitors as its own people both at home abroad of the government's capacity to protect and its general wonderfulness concerning the country's development. I'd imagine that if a government is really successful, it wouldn't take hours of marching and weapons displays for its citizens to be convinced, but we know that China has never been one for the soft touch when it comes to influencing what its people 'believe'.

But I'm still not sure why even they would care about how 270 000 people on a little rock in the Caribbean Sea perceive them. As it stands, the handful of Chinese living here are not under threat from much of anything, except perhaps idiotic calypso songs, (which when you consider how idiotic might actually be something of an incentive to increase cultural awareness). But apart from that, why insist on broadcasting such an intimidating show of Chinese strength in li'l ole Barbados? Especially without any context or introduction? I have to confess that even as a non-alarmist who has some understanding of Chinese economic and foreign policy, even I was starting to get nervous about possible appropriation of our entire country by the Chinese government. I found myself thinking for a brief, silly moment, "Holy crap...David Thompson done gone and sold the whole of Barbados to the Chinese in exchange for a couple schools and some gymnastics lessons." One imagines (and dearly hopes) that nothing quite so sinister is afoot here, and that this broadcast was nothing more than a type of popularity campaign on which the Barbados government has promised to embark in exchange for oodles of Chinese cash. But this doesn't make the whole thing any less irritating. In fact, it probably makes it more so. And here's why:

The following night, as I looked at the little Channel 8 programming list they air before the 7:00 news, I noticed that slotted in at around 8:30 was some show vaguely called "Chinese Culture". So I tuned in to find a programme featuring a very small-voiced, female narrator describing the virtues of Chinese farming practices, healing techniques, gastronomy and who knows what else. It was a naive little crash course in the tourist's China, looked like it was recorded in the 80s, and didn't say much of anything. By the next night, when an identical show appeared in the lineup, I was starting to get simultaneously confused and annoyed. The series struck me as a silly little propaganda campaign (ack! there's that word) meant to convince us that there's nothing wrong with having China foot our capital projects bill (someone doth protest too much) because they're really cool people who know how to shoot guns and do acupuncture. And once I had again convinced myself that the Prime Minister had not in fact sold us off as a new Chinese colony, I began to feel insulted by this ridiculously superficial and misleading 'education campaign'.

First of all: don't try to handle me. (I've always wanted to say that, preferably while sitting across a boardroom table from Bill Gates or Condoleeza Rice, but this will do.) Don't handpick little soundbytes about horticulture and food preparation and sell them to me as a representation of modern-day China. Not only does it obscure far more important aspects of the historical making of the People's Republic of China as a nation and the way its society functions today, but honestly, it's just a weak, lazy attempt at cultural integration. If I were China, I would ask for my money back.

Second, if people truly have concerns about our dependence on development aid from China, they are more likely to do with the country's human rights record: the Chinese government's restrictions on free speech and the media, independent organizing and religious freedom continue apace. Lack of due judicial process operates alongside the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, and the country's one-child, family planning policy represents more violations of human dignity and reproductive rights than can be discussed here. After Iran and Saudi Arabia, China executes the most people per capita in the word, including for crimes like tax evasion. (Although if you kill your girlfriend, you're straight; especially if you promise to pay for her. You break it, you buy it, dude.)

This is not to say that diplomatic relations have to be severed in order to take an ideological stand against the undesirable parts of a country's system of governance. In fact, it's often more effective to engage than to dissociate. That is, when you're the U.S or UK or any country larger than an area rug. When you're Barbados, you don't roll up into China and say "you know what, we'd love to take your millions but we're concerned about the status of the Uighurs in Tibet, so let's start that dialogue." No. You say "Ooh millions! Thankees!" Because no one cares. You have nothing to offer and no one cares what you have to say. Your two possible courses of action are: take the money/don't take the money. And while there might be room for negotiation on less important points, China is not taking advice from David Thompson on its human rights record.

So the PM takes the money: there are arguments for and against that. This we acknowledge. But don't insult us by launching a media campaign pretending that China is all economic success and beautiful (-ly controlled) weather, and engaging in your own brand of revisionist/selective education. It's maddening. And stupid. Clearly the PM is not going to grab China's money and then run home to engage in long, televised debates about the death penalty or the war in Tibet. But neither should he gloss it all over with mindless little 'culture shows' as if we can't read, or have no international social conscience. It only makes me angry, and want to further question not only the content of any new bilateral agreements with China, but the general foreign policy skill of Barbados's current administration. Which suggests to me that whatever the PM's goal may have been, the whole thing backfired a little.

'President' with a lower-cas(t)e 'p'

The now famous Joe Wilson outburst of "You lie!" during President Obama's defense of his health care plan in Congress was not at all shocking to me. The tremendous backlash against Obama by White American conservatives still stunned to have a Black man in the White House - the completely uninformed buffoonery and right-wing panic that has characterized opposition to health care reform, to the economic stimulus package, and to the very existence of President Obama - has led directly to this point. Disrespect for the President during the Bush administration, and even after we uncovered all the lies and pretenses surrounding the war in Iraq, was considered unAmerican. But blatant disrespect for the office of President is perfectly acceptable when the one occupying the role is a lot less White than people would prefer.

Obama has been caricatured as Hitler and the Joker; 'birthers', in an almost textbook manifestation of how Black bodies have historically been and continue to be considered the property of a White public, have demanded evidence of his circumcised genitalia; rabid dissenters are taking guns to health care rallies; people are emailing watermelon-strewn White House lawns all up and through; the Republican death panel hide-your-grannies misinformation campaign is still going strong; and we're only now dropping jaws that a highly-paid Congressman would dare to interrupt the President's address to call him a liar? Did we really think that the racist disrespect we've seen to date was originated with and owned by disgruntled voters? And that the ones who lead them would know better?



When Sen. Saxby Chambliss called for the President to 'show some humility' regarding the health care debate, what he really meant was that the uppity Negro should know his place. When 'concerned parents' started wetting their pantaloons over the President's back-to-school address to their children, trying to drown the nation in panic that Obama would work his African voodoo on young minds and indoctrinate them with his Socialist agenda, what they were really responding to was their natural inclination against letting any Black people near their children. Surely you understand their consternation: they've toiled their entire lives to make sure their children are shielded from the Black bogeymen, and what the H - E double hockey sticks do you know...they done gone and let one walk straight into the White House with a direct line to their precious White angels.

So you'll pardon me if I didn't get all gaspy when Wilson yelled at the President of the United States that he is a liar in an open session of Congress - an utterance that was as disrespectful as it was disingenuous, since we know from the text of the Bill itself that Obama's statement regarding lack of public health care coverage for illegal immigrants was correct. And if he had added a 'boy' at the end of his outburst, I probably would have been only slightly more surprised. Because the ilk of Republicans among which Wilson counts himself does not disagree with Obama's policy, but with his Blackness, and with what they think is worse, his confidence and capability in spite of it.

And not only is Wilson's weak, mumbled 'apology' evidence of his lack of remorse, but even considering the admonition from both sides, the support he has received from like-thinking Americans who think he's just 'representing the people' suggests that there is not nearly enough outrage as we'd like to think there should be. Obama himself seemed thoroughly unfazed in the moment, as many of us who have experienced this type of racism tend to become. And the increase in donations to Wilson's Democratic opponent may be seen as a kind of quiet resistance to Wilson's brand of hate. But even as I consider my own response, as well as the President's, I wonder if 'quiet' and 'unfazed' are exactly the characteristics that feed this new, accepted racism that is being packaged as due democratic process, even while it clearly is not. The advantage of the post-racial myth is that it fools us into thinking Wilson part of an outdated minority, even as it gives birth to a revival in racism at the highest level, which - left ignored - will continue to thrive and grow right under our noses.

Ah, the crisp smell of fascism in the Italian air

You know what's a completely ingenious, not at all inflammatory, irresponsible idea?

[G]overnment officials said they would go ahead with legislation allowing unarmed citizen patrols to help beef up security in Italian cities and towns. The plan is part of a crackdown by the conservative administration on illegal immigration, which Italians increasingly link to crime.

And we all know what the defence of this lunacy will be, and indeed has been: citizens must qualify according to clear standards; there will be strict guidelines and protocols; this isn't a call to arms for nationalists and racists. Oh. Hang on.

A new vigilante group has been banned from walking the streets because of the similarity between its uniforms and those worn by Mussolini's Fascists in the 1930s.

The Italian National Guard was launched at a news conference over the weekend, sparking outcry from the centre-left opposition, Jewish groups, police unions and others that it evoked Italy's fascist-era paramilitary Black Shirts.

Benito Mussolini's Black Shirts violently attacked communists, socialists and other progressive groups, breaking up strikes and attacking trade union headquarters. Their 1922 march on Rome brought the fascist dictator to power.

[...]

The guard was introduced by the right-wing fringe Italian Social Movement at a Milan party conference during which at least two speakers gave the straight-armed Fascist salute.

[...]

Leaders of the Italian Social Movement said the guard's creation was made possible by the bill [yes, that bill], which must still to be approved by the Senate, leading the center-left opposition to say the case highlighted the danger posed by the plan.

See? It's a perfectly reasonable bill. Nothing at all happening here.

"I don't like this evidence. It doesn't support my hate and disgust."

If you're wondering about the kind of thinking that could have led voters to elect the White supremacist, hatemongering BNP to two seats on the European Parliament, new research by the British Red Cross may have some insights, (although, as Sunny Hundal points out in the Guardian, "The BNP is not increasing its votes. In both Yorkshire and the north-west, its total number of votes fell from 2004. This absolutely does not mean that more people are being seduced by the BNP's propaganda. It means that Labour's share of the vote collapsed and went to other parties, thereby helping the BNP under a proportional system.") Still, in news that is not at all surprising to us here at the Chronicles - and by 'us' I mean 'me' - The Independent reports that:

Attitudes to asylum-seekers in Britain are being skewed by gross over-estimation of the numbers of refugees reaching the United Kingdom and prejudice towards immigrants among young people, the British Red Cross says today.

Nearly a quarter of people believe there are more than 100,000 asylum applications every year – about four times the annual figure of 25,670, and just 5 per cent of Britons know to within 10,000 how many refugees come to the UK every year.

The entire article is worth a read. It outlines how we are all essentially completely wrong about the numbers, education levels, magnitude of the role of the UK and pretty much everything else concerning immigrants seeking asylum here that has informed widely-held prejudices against them. But the real gems are to be found in the Comments section, if you can stomach it, in which several of the commenters poo poo the data and carry on with their "Up with the BNP!" message. The rest of Sunny Hundal's article, linked above, tries to highlight a silver lining in the BNP's rise to MEP status, but with people's eagerness to prioritize their own fear and prejudice over actual evidence, coupled with the fact that Labour could barely string together a decent response to the immigration hysteria when the party was fairly intact, let alone now that it is in shambles, I may need a healthy dose of whatever Hundal's having to keep my optimism alive.

Some notes on the BNP or Look what you made me do!

The sky, moon, stars, a couple pianos and some anvils are falling over at Downing Street. A day before local and European elections, and amidst the colossal and ridiculous MPs' expenses scandal that has taken Hazel Blears as its latest casualty, rogue Labour MPs are seeking to unseat Gordon Brown, and I am about to do something I never expected to do here in this blog: expend even a few words on the BNP.

This article in yesterday's Guardian describes how voter discontent arising from the wanton abuse by MPs of taxpayer-funded expense claims has breathed new life into the nationalist, fascist, racist, xenophobic, misogynist and all-around hateful British National Party - enough life, at least, that it might gain ground in council elections, and even achieve its first European parliamentary representation.

Griffin himself [Nick Griffin, the party's chairman] may be a former National Front member with a conviction for inciting racial hatred, and the veneer of respectability on the party's candidates may be transparently thin, but however noxious or downright laughable the views they and their party associates hold, the truth is that the BNP is the fastest growing political party in modern Britain. Its support has risen sharply in successive elections since 1987, and it already has more than 50 local councillors, as well as Barnbrook's London assembly seat. A study co-authored by Matthew Goodwin, a research fellow at Manchester University who has focused on extreme right political parties, found that BNP's vote at the last European elections, in 2004, was an eightfold increase on 1999 and the largest vote for an ultra-right party in a British election.

Now this is a party one of whose London Assembly candidates Nick Eriksen was withdrawn last year after having been discovered to have written the following on a blog:

"Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible ordeal.

"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence.

"A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."

This is a party represented in the European Elections by Eddy O'Sullivan, a Salford-based BNP candidate who set his Facebook status to read "Wogs go home", and also wrote:

"They are nice people - oh yeah - but can they not be nice people in the fucking Congo or... bongo land or whatever?" O'Sullivan, who also joined an internet group called "Fuck Islam", denied that the comments were racist and insisted they were made in private conversations between individuals. "I also may have had a drink at the time," he added.

This Guardian article lists several other examples of the party's unapologetic racism. Yet, it seems to be gaining in popularity, and while this may be fuelled by the expenses scandal in the midst of people's recession anxiety, I wonder whether the alleged growing numbers of BNP sympathizers do not share their ideology anyway, but now have more of an excuse to openly show this support, hiding behind the fact of MPs misconduct in order to align themselves where they would really prefer.

Following BNP member Richard Barnbrook on his canvassing rounds in Hornchurch, the Guardian writer notes (emphasis mine):

Three workmen have stopped for a cigarette outside a house in Stanley Road, and are happy to be coaxed into a conversation about immigration by Barnbrook, who is sporting a red, white and blue BNP rosette, a gold party pin and a frankly alarming sand-coloured suit. "All the boys where I am are voting BNP," one of them says. "My mate lives in Chafford," offers his colleague, "and there's 10 Nigerians in the house next to him. Ten! And they are taking all the work. I have had enough."

Ten! They don't even have the decency to spread themselves out or come at the rate of one a year! Now this is blatant anti-immigrant sentiment, and while it might be exacerbated by tough economic times, this kind of intolerance doesn't simply materialize in the minds of otherwise tolerant individuals. Still, even though people who want to persist in their racist hate and ignorance will find a way to do this, Gordon Brown himself and his Labour government, and in fact politicians from all parties, also have themselves to blame if they are losing ground to the BNP. It is Brown's own incendiary "British jobs for British workers" slogan that has been appropriated by the BNP in order to advance its agenda of ridding the country of all 'non-indigenous people', i.e. of creating a White British nation through its 'immigration policy'. And when people see Brown's own slogan being used - to be fair in the right context - by an absurd far right party trying its best to appear mainstream, well, that certainly helps it appear mainstream. After all, it's Brown's slogan and he's currently in power.

The BNP has not become extinct, as it should have by now, because rather than have an open, transparent dialogue on immigration and racism, the mainstream parties have all carried on skipping nervously around the issue, being confronted more and more with blatant and growing intolerance in British communities, but preferring instead to behave as if it doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the media continues to paint immigration as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, to sensationalize it by having gulping, wide-eyed anchors fling about uncontextualized statistics and interview politicians who have no clue, no plan and worst of all, no message, and we wonder why this kind of hate is allowed to thrive.

And I feel compelled to remind people not to be fooled by the notion that the BNP represents British interests. The BNP represents the interests of what they call indigenous British people - yes, that means White. From their website:

On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years.

To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.

Now since 'British' is not an ethnicity, clearly what they're trying to say is that White people can stay, and everyone else should just go home. I find this important to point out to people like my friend of mixed race who, in conversation the other day, mentioned that 'some of the immigration policies of the BNP are useful'. This was in response to some frustration felt by her and some of her friends that policies meant to offer support to British people were being utilized disproportionately by non-nationals. And I understand that frustration; it indicates a system that might be improved upon, surely. But supporting the BNP, a party that if they had their way would see her shipped off with the rest of the half-breeds, is certainly not the way to go. It's important not to be fooled by these people's weak, transparent attempts to appropriate the votes of the very minorities they stand in active warfare against. This kind of hate does not pack up and go away on its own. It only becomes irrelevant when we, as a nation wholly affected and with unafraid leaders, take a stand to show that we have no use for it.

Harry Reid is confused: Gitmo closure fear and trembling

Reading the news around the Obama administration's failure to secure a Senate vote that would approve the necessary funding for the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison, I have to wonder what everyone is so afraid of. I do believe that the President has to take responsibility for two things that may have contributed to this setback: (i) not having outlined a clear plan for removal and relocation of the 240 detainees; and (ii) sending conflicting messages by his decision to restart the military tribunals. Either you believe that this institution cannot function as it stands and needs to be shut down and replaced with a fairer system of justice, or you don't. Carrying on with the controversial military tribunals even as you solicit government for funds to close the site hosting them, frankly, confuses people.

But the fact that both Republicans and Democrats are running scared from the removal of these prisoners to the US strikes me as a bit odd. What do they think is going to happen? It's almost as if they're ascribing to them some kind of magical power that makes them stronger and unstoppable once they set foot on US soil. And I'd argue that it is this kind of attitude that sends the wrong message to current and potential enemies of the US: that even when government and security forces are in control, the terrorists still freak them out.

And the argument that these people may stand trial, be acquitted and then be released to shop at Whole Foods and visit Disneyland is also a little overwrought. First, we're dealing with different potential outcomes here. A majority of detainees, were they to be acquitted, would be transferred to their own countries, or may be able to be removed for trial on their own soil. Those who are granted domicile in some third country - because of risk of torture in their own countries (there are an estimated 60 or so who have been cleared for release and fit this description; and they're the US's problem now because they snatched them up for questioning in the first place, and have a responsibility not to return them to knowingly dangerous human rights conditions) - have the right to be tried and released, and then monitored under heightened surveillance if warranted. Because if they had been tried and acquitted in the current tribunals, where would they have gone anyway? Would they simply have said "You're free!", let them drift out to sea and hope they just hang out in the open water indefinitely? So there are some people who will be set free (well, who technically are already free but still being detained) and whom the US will have to contend with, most probably by having third countries (rather than the U.S itself) domicile them - since for their own good as well as that of the security of the US, having any of them there is not the best idea. Of course there's also the possibility that the US magically discover that said risk of torture for these prisoners should they be returned home does not exist, and cart them off to places like China and Tunisia anyway, which I think is a damn sight more likely than sending them off to live in Yonkers. But we haven't even gotten there yet. They're right now considering whether the prisoners can be transferred to the US, to be held there. In prisons. With guards. With guns. Harry Reid, judging from his press conference, doesn't seem to get that.

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? …

REID: I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States. [...]

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it’s not that you’re not being clear when you say you don’t want them released. But could you say — would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

I think one thing this panic indicates is that perhaps the supporters of the Guantánamo prison expected an almost 100% conviction rate at the tribunals, but for some bizarre reason, believe that that rate would be considerably lower were the detainees to be tried in more transparent federal court proceedings that require things like evidence. Or they were relying on legal powers of indefinite detention of suspects without bringing charges. (Incidentally, that power was just granted by a judge.) But even then, aren't we meant to believe that most of the people being held, being made to endure some of the conditions we now know existed, are guilty anyway? We're all meant to think that US intelligence and operations were so efficient in identifying and rounding up the guilty parties and securing evidence (even though only 3 of the over 700 ever detained there have been convicted), that the overwhelming majority of the 240 at Guantánamo are in fact terrorists who will eventually be found to be such, and locked away. Here is the bottomline: you need evidence to convict people. Those are their own rules, no one else's. And it's their responsibility to gather that evidence humanely in order to mount their prosecution. If the evidence is sufficient for conviction, great. If not, then that's the system. But I think that the panic they're trying to create by implying that scores of terrorists will be running the streets if Guantánamo closes is alarmist and disingenuous, and needs to be soundly addressed by the President when he shares the details of his plan for closure.

But beyond what we're meant to assume is a very small minority that might be acquitted and released, even more ridiculous is the idea that those convicted pose some kind of inherent threat simply by their physical presence in the US.

"The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing, radicalising others," [Robert] Mueller [FBI Director] said, as well as "the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States".

We know that prisoners are able to maintain networks while in prison; any look at US gang activity will tell us that. But it's not as if these people will be sprinkled among the general population. Prisoners are isolated all the time for a variety of reasons. Assuming a fair judicial process in either location, there is nothing that would obtain at Guantánamo that need not obtain in any other prison facility in the US. Given that there are already 347 convicted terrorists already being successfully held in US prisons (the U.S. has already prosecuted 145 terrorism cases in federal court), and that none of the detainees now at Guantánamo can make things explode with the mere power of suggestion, I don't see what all the squawking is about. Do we really believe that they're going to escape into the night and end up driving the school bus?

I won't deny that there are some real facts here that the President needs to address:

• 14% of those already released have been re-engaged in terrorist activity. The President believes this was due to a poor system of decision-making on whom to release. We can only wait and see if his measures will prove more successful.
• Almost a quarter of those currently detained have been cleared of suspicion, not had any charges brought and approved for release. This release is hampered by potential human rights violations in their own countries. Most of these are considered to be at the lowest threat level: essentially, they were out milking the goats and the next thing they knew were being flown off to Cuba.
• There is some number of those still being held who are most likely guilty of some terrorist activity, but to date cannot be effectively prosecuted. The President is proposing a 'new legal framework' to address these prisoners.

Still, the question before the US government at this time is whether the 240 inmates at Gitmo can be safely removed to the United States pending trial and/or removal to other countries. And the opportunistic fearmongering among some on the Republican side, coupled with the plain confusion among some Democrats, is hampering what should be a no-brainer of a decision: the closure of the embarrassment that is Guantánamo.

Is the personal always (effectively) political?

Last Wednesday, women in Kenya, led by The Women's Development Organisation coalition, imposed a week-long sex boycott aimed at pressuring the country's two power-sharing leaders Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki into resolving their conflicts. Amid fears that current rows could see a renewal of the election violence of 2007, in which 1500 people were killed and 300 000 forced from their homes, the women's groups have solicited the support of sex workers as well as Ida Odinga (left, pictured next to Lucy Kibaki), wife of Prime Minister Raila Odinga (below left, pictured next to Pres. Kibaki).

Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

"Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'"

It is the kind of tactic that certainly draws attention to power-sharing tensions in the country, but how valuable is it as a feminist action, and how effective can it be as a political strategy? Writing in the Guardian, Lola Adesioye declines to comment on the latter, but offers that regarding the former:

..this boycott is significant as it says a great deal about women's progress, the way in which women are reconsidering their role in Kenyan society and how they are reclaiming power where they can.

[...]

Africans can be pretty conservative on topics such as sex. For the older generation in particular, discussing sex in public is something you just don't do. In addition, unlike in the west, you tend not to hear African women sitting around talking casually and openly about it. Within that framework, taking such a politically-motivated sexually-orientated stance – actively withholding sex for a week and announcing it to the world – is, actually, a very bold and radical move.

[...]

Will this strike achieve its aims? That's debatable. However, even if the government doesn't end its feuding, this modern-day version of Lysistrata has already had a useful effect. It has put the spotlight on women's roles, power and rights and is showing how national politics affects the individual.

For women, at least, a week without sex is worth that.

But even in the context of a society where polygamy is still practiced, where sex is seen as a woman's duty to her husband and family, and where open discussion about sex is considered taboo and un-African, this strike is still a double-edged sword, with perhaps one side sharper and therefore more destructive than the other. Yes, it does represent a big "suck it" to the patriarchy that Kenyan women can declare ownership of their bodies and their sexual agency in this way. But at the same time, it says that this is their only card to play, their only value and their only contribution. And I find that problematic.

Adesioye argues that the strike " has put the spotlight on women's role, power and rights", but has it really? It seems to cast this role, power and rights strictly in terms of their usefulness as providers of sex and nothing else. It does not advance a dialogue on all the cases where even this role, even this sexual agency which is the minimum a woman should be able to exercise, is removed from her in the country's many cases of marital and community rape. It does not associate the lack of political consensus with other realities of women's lives such as insufficient access to water, food, health, education and security. And while it is encouraging to see women declare that their sexual lives are theirs to control or reveal as they decide, if the discourse stops here, then it arguably has done very little to advance women's economic security, their true political engagement, and the overall stability of fair and inclusive governance in that country.

It's all those imaginary Black people

Via Jose at ThickCulture, I noticed Byron York's piece in the Washington Examiner in which he claims to be analyzing "The black-white divide in Obama's popularity", which apparently means "Black people are only capable of voting by skin colour, rather than critically examining policy decisions like White people do, so Black people don't matter." The sentence that rose my ire, and the ire of many of his commenters, was this [emphasis mine]:

But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

Because, you know, only White people are actual. Black Americans are more imaginary: nominal if you will. We have to include them because they're here and all, but everyone knows they don't count. As Jose points out, African Americans tend to be Democrats, and last time I checked, Obama was a Democrat. And one of our readers here at the Chronicles, Markaman - who was first offering York the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that he might be describing a respondent sample skewed towards Black Americans - later read the article in its entirety, as well as York's weak defense to the subsequent allegations of racism. Below is the response that Markaman left in the comment section of York's second piece, which I'm sharing with you because I agree, because I'm too lazy to write my own, and because it's awesome in its simple clarity. Perhaps even an entitled, racist lunkhead like York will get it:

So far as I can see, the statement: "[S]ky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of [Obama's] positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are" can mean one of 2 things:

1. Black people, who tend to favour Obama, are disproportionately represented in the poll. Therefore they skew the results.
2. Black peoples' opinions should not be counted towards the "actual" opinions of the US population.

You have not presented any evidence, either in your original post or this one, for position #1. The comment about "5 guys and Bill Gates" in a bar is not even response-worthy, but here is a reply that could be given by a high-school math student: This analogy is false. A poll of average net worth in the US would be ridiculous if it were constructed out of 6 people. Properly weighted and sized, such a poll could (and would) include high net worth individuals and still yield an accurate result.

Position #2 is a racist one. It doesn't take someone "on the left" to see that.

Prelude to a failure and stretchy pants

My dears, I have a confession.

On some days, like today, when I have had very little sleep the night before and have been racing madly towards a deadline, and it's the end of a long week, I come here to the little box whereforeinto you are bidden to type things, and I ponder. And what I ponder is the following: you, mongoose, have read about several important things today, including Obama's extremely controversial release of the torture memos and his admonition not to pursue prosecution, with (measured) supporters and naysayers aplenty. You have things you might say about this, or about the Fifth Summit of the Americas, or about several other serious things. And you should do so.

What you should not do is fail to write a serious post and instead write something very silly. If you must write something light and inconsequential, at least balance it with a second, more substantial entry. (!)

Well my confession is that I will not be successful at this. I'll contribute more in the days to come, but for now, all my brain can manage is to relax and watch Nacho Libre, which is possibly the most delicious nonsense ever made. But the above issues are some of the ones occupying my thoughts as we move into the weekend, and I'll be back to talk about them (or something completely unrelated - whichever) on Monday.

So until then, Nacho and Esqueleto bid you a good weekend.

"It's Hard to Talk When You're Tea-Bagging"

Given the number of times I find myself mentally stuck on a task, I might be forced to concede that I am, in fact, not so bright. But of course, that's unpossible.

Still, here I am, flush against a deadline for a paper I'm writing, and with too many thoughts on all the hilarious and just plain stupid teabagging activity and other news to order them all into something that sounds marginally clever. I will say, though, that it's finally happening. The right-wing Republican side has just realized not only that it has well and truly lost and that the Obamas, their mother and literally their dog are in fact settling well into their roles; but that all the unreasoned fearmongering is not serving to convince more moderate Republicans that the sky is falling. I could go on about the facts that most of these people are in fact not paying higher taxes and that the federal spending they're so opposed to was never higher than under George W. who killed the surplus chasing WMDs, terrorist unicorns from Pluto and god knows what else. But instead, I'll just post various ridiculous photos that I've stolen encountered.

Title quote courtesy the intoxicating Anderson Cooper.


Via Megan at Jezebel as passed on by Zachary:



Via Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress:

AP image:

Your Friday mongoose wrap-up includes butt-touching and exposed thigh

So I didn't get my $50, and I haven't even begun to unravel all the G20 coverage, although I've already decided to steer clear of the 'softer' Michelle O love-in pieces because 1) if I were given to usage of the word 'awesome', Michelle would certainly inspire it, but I was never that big on hero worship so let's keep the conversation grounded; and 2) invariably, some turn of phrase in an article will piss me off, since some people who want to appear in their writing as if they're all down with the Black First Lady try too hard and end up making grave errors.

But I did notice all the hullabaloo over her having touched the Queen, which, along with the Obamas' gifts to the Browns (again with the gifts?), imaginary people that no one can seem to identify have been decrying as not in keeping with protocol. In any event, it seems like the Queen was feeling the Michelle warmth, reciprocated, and is over the drama. I mean, she's touching Michelle's butt. If anyone was getting inappropriately intimate it was the Queen.
Further, given the historical importance and sensitivity of this moment - the Black, American first couple meeting a Queen whose ancestor, George III, was the last British ruler of the American colonies and ruled a society based on slavery and racial discrimination - the Queen might have a lot to answer for if she missed this opportunity to embrace the couple on level ground. Or worse, engaged in anything that might be perceived as a snub. So to sum up: the First Lady is quite a sight taller than the Queen so a waist-hug from the latter became a butt hug; Michelle is a warm, huggy person who can express her warmth and still remain respectful; and the Queen is already over it and possibly initiated the 'uncharacteristic touching' herself.

In other news, please for the love of Shirley Bassey keep your laptops off your laps (somebody needs to find a new name for these things), lest you develop erythema ab igne, as I apparently have on an area of my left thigh. The condition can range from mild hyperpigmentation which eventually goes away, to squamous cell carcinoma and severe, lasting hyperpigmentation. No word yet where mine falls, although the fact that I saw two doctors months ago who told me I was seeing things, including an old, white man who looked me in the eye and said "that's just how black skin looks", makes me somewhat anxious that the condition is advanced. (That doctor, by the way, should never see another patient again. And he for sure won't be seeing anyone I know. I told him so, and registered my disgust, but he was oblivious, as so many like him are.) If I don't give any further reports, feel safe in assuming that all turned out fine, at least for the time being, since skin cancer can result from the condition up to 30 years from the date of diagnosis. What to take away from this: laptops on the desk.

Obama owes me $50

Dear silly mongoose,

You thought you were going to venture into the city on the eve of the G20 summit and have a smooth ride, but guess what? Your connecting station is closed, biznatch! So here, have an extra 45 minutes to add to your journey. April Fools!

xoxo,

The Universe

The actual diversion didn't really cost me more, directly, for the journey. So I just pro-rated my imaginary fee for the time taken, and when the president comes to my neighbourhood tomorrow, I'm going to fold my bill into a paper plane and fly it his way. Of course, it will probably be shot down by tiny secret service arrows before it even catches a wind, but that's to be expected. I didn't actually sense much of the hype around today's meetings, but that is not to say that there wasn't plenty hype to be sensed.

The media are already wagging their tails over what Michelle O is wearing, which admittedly is becoming more and more of a thing to behold (although she had something of a miss today what with the granny cardigan and gingham skirt, but after the yellow, cinched-waist dress she arrived in, we can forgive her that transgression.) I always love to hear Michelle speak and see her very expressive, always smiling face as she greets colleagues. You just know there's a load of smartness and sincerity about to spill forth.

But outfits and celebrity chef-procured dinners notwithstanding, most of the attention, believe it or not, was on the president today, with quite a bit also on the protesters of whom we were all meant to be so fearful.

Police made at least 24 arrests as anti-capitalist protesters tried to upstage the G20. They included 11 demonstrators trying to drive an armoured personnel carrier towards the Bank of England.

Thousands gathered outside the Bank and scuffles soon broke out. The most violent action came when a group of hardline protesters stormed a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which received billions of pounds of taxpayer funds last year but has been widely criticised for rewarding its former chief executive with a huge pension.

I'm right now blinking slowly at all this, because while I firmly believe that citizen participation - whether by protest, letter drafting or other methods - is necessary to such processes, I don't understand how destroying a bunch of crap and breaking and entering sends any message other than "we really like to break things." Of course, we also have to bear in mind that we're talking about the Metropolitan Police here, who, if last year's Notting Hill Carnival experience is anything to go by, have no clue how to contain small skirmishes without bludgeoning scores of unsuspecting bystanders. So we might want to await a more balanced account.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has also been attracting plenty attention, what with all his threats to pick up his toys and flounce off tomorrow if the G20 doesn't deliver on his desire for tighter regulation of international finance. The spirit of his threat can be understood - he does not want to waste time with a bunch of fancy, touchy-feely language that yields only promises and no plans - but I'm not sure what such an upset would achieve. A better tactic might be to continue yelling from the inside, until the final communique at least resembles a plan for scheduled, direct action.

So the summit comes to the Excel Center tomorrow. Between the nervous bankers trying to look all down and incognito in their pressed jeans, and the security officers instructing you that you must take a roundabout walking route so as to pass within sniffing distance of their dogs, it may take me a while to report. But report I shall. Because of course everyone will want to know if I in fact managed to get my fifty dollars.

It's them islands over there! Them's the ones!

It was only a matter of time before the long finger pointing from the global North in the midst of the financial crisis extended outward towards the Caribbean. Much is now being made of the role tax havens have played in this economic depression, and the Obama administration is being joined by its European counterparts in stamping out "harmful tax competition", with the Cayman Islands featuring high on the US's hit list. While Obama's laudable come-in-and-clean-up attitude has undone many of the foolish and frankly unconscionable practices of his predecessor's 8-year term in office, he has to take some responsibility for the facts not only that George W Bush halted the OECD plan to ferret out secrecy jurisdictions at the beginning of his term, so sending these economies a very clear message of non-pursuance, but that small island states have increasingly been pressured to implement "more competitive tax policies" in order to grow their financial services' sectors. So while it may be desirable to uncover the tax practices and offshore destinations that have removed a large part of the tax burden from the wealthiest citizens of the US and Europe, and to have a small, convenient scapegoat in the South at whom to point the finger, we need to consider the repercussions of such an immediate blow to some of our smaller island economies.

Now one might argue that each territory has its own responsibility for how they structure their outward-facing industries, and that the onus is on developing nations to diversify their economies away from products that are so wholly subject to the whims of larger countries. But we all know the politics of the international financial architecture, and a big voice from a small territory is still just a squeak in the grand scheme of things.

For years, Caribbean countries have been doing the rating agency dance - nipping and tucking their financial practices in order to avoid the damning "inhospitable business environment" label of the S&Ps and the Moodys. And for as many years, the haves of the North has been benefiting from the very practices they now seek to condemn. To be fair, Obama has always been ideologically in favour of a Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which in itself is not undesirable, but whose implementation and economic fallout for the developing world have to be fairly weighed before ploughing full steam ahead.

And let us not be fooled that "more compliant" territories like Barbados are exempt from scrutiny simply because we employ a silly little thing called a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA). TIEAs are quite close to useless, since the requesting body has to know what information it's looking for in order to request that information. Wrongdoing can only be uncovered if specific wrongdoing is suspected. So TIEAs aren't fooling anyone, least of all the big sticks that are going to be coming poking around in the affairs of small, Caribbean offshore financial centres. Negotiation (and by this I mean real negotiation rather than economic threats) of new terms for TIEAs would be one possible, measured advance towards the elimination of tax haven abuse.

I have always been uneasy about the irony of the offshore financial centre: we provide the means by which richer nations can increase the global inequality that maintains us as essentially colonies to their empires. So I am not at all opposed to increased regulation that is introduced in a way that does not leave developing nations disadvantaged and stripped of fundamental sources of income. What I am not in favour of is the demonization of these nations at a time when it is convenient to pass the buck - for governments to say "No it wasn't us, it was the bankers," and for financial institutions to say "No it wasn't us, it was the evil island economies." Seriously? Of these players, with whom does the majority of power disproportionately lie? You can argue over whether it's the government or the finance industry, but you for damn sure can't say it's Caribbean economies. It's not that tax havens have not contributed in some measure to the poor regulation that led to economic collapse, but who were their beneficiaries and originators? Let's keep things in perspective, and acknowledge that when you ask the right questions, the fingers are going to point right back in the opposite direction.

Our "let's see what they hand us" approach to doing business with the world's economic superpowers is not going to cut it this time around. (Did anyone notice how the region's grand policy idea for a response to the crisis was to beg for more money? That's some inspired economics right there!) We're going to have to do our homework, get it together and strongly represent our interests.

British rule for Caribbean people

There are quite a few issues flying about my head today, and they feel related in more ways than I may be able to articulate at the moment. The first involves the state of government in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the suspension of their Constitution by the British government. The second issue has to do with the ever more alarmist ways in which the British media reports on immigration figures, and some recent immigration policy decisions being discussed here.

Amidst this recession, there is not only growing public anger directed towards those we feel should either have performed better to head off the crisis, should have warned us once an oncoming crisis was evident, or should be considerably more penitent now in the aftermath of a declared depression; but there is also a growing willingness to express that anger, to find someone to blame. Heads are rolling, but not enough, and not as steadily as some of us would like. And when that happens, we tend to point the fingers closer to home. As much as people may argue that recessions do not lead to measurable acts of intolerance, there's at least a strong wind blowing, and it smells like anti-immigrant spirit. Last week, home secretary Jacqui Smith announced new measures to not only prevent tens of thousands of non-EU foreign workers from moving to Britain to work, but also to potentially prevent the families of skilled migrants already working in Britain from joining them. So it seems the British government is not as interested in fostering complete lives among new residents as it is in simply sapping their labour to grow the economy. British work-life balance for British workers.

Arguably, some of the policies developed to respond to a downturn might and should include immigration policy, but one gets the sense that the home secretary might be taking advantage of a general "bloody foreigners taking all the jobs" recession discontent to announce changes to immigration policy, changes we had heard mutterings of before but that had so far not been formalized. After all, British people who are facing unemployment are hardly going to object to what they perceive as less competition. And when mutterings arise from those affected, they are more likely to be shot down in the current climate. One also gets the message that in a downturn, it is perfectly acceptable to cut migrants off from their families - to invest less in the well-being of the non-British living and working here in favour of nationals.

In the meantime, the media continues its poorly contextualized updates on immigration numbers and predictions, with the figures flashing menacingly across the television (cleverly interspersed with stories on how the economy is about to fall off the edge of the earth), as if to warn Brits that the enemy is adding to its numbers. You start to imagine there's a club out there, and that with every news update people run to change the figure in their notebooks. "They've got 12 more, Harriett! Change your number and add another board to the shutters!" And Harriett carefully marks off 270 52335 and fetches a board.

Now, I have a lot to say about these things. Harriett isn't the only one squirreling news away. I've been seeing so many "Immigration! Halp!" stories since news of the recession hit, that I've started filing them away, assuming that at some point, they will randomly combine to form some special message. I'm looking at the file and no message is yet apparent, except the one that says quite a few fingers are pointing straight from the difficult economy to the immigrant population. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try and make sense of some of these stories from my perspective as a perpetual immigrant (although I've tended not to self-identify as such, for reasons I want to explore in another post).

But I also wanted to touch on my discomfort with the fact that in the midst of all the above, Britain also plans to partially suspend the constitution of the Turks and Caicos islands within the next month, and hand power over to the British Governor, Gordon Wetherell. Following this announcement, Premier Michael Misick made the following statement:

“I call on the international community, including CARICOM, the Commonwealth, the United Nations and other such bodies, to intercede on our behalf as we are vulnerable to the strong arm of modern day colonialism,”

Since that announcement, Misick has resigned, and seems to have in fact been involved in a fair deal of shadiness that if true, is embarrassing to contemplate. But he is right that the strong arm of modern day colonialism is still being felt, even as we chat away in our progressive-sounding, anti-imperialist rhetoric. I know that the elected Turks and Caicos government back in the 1980s was seen as largely pro-dependency. But it is extremely unsettling, as a citizen of a former British colony, to watch the same colonialism responsible for slavery still alive and well, and personified by Wetherell's proud, smiling, white face accompanying the related stories. The idea that we would want to suspend rather than facilitate democracy is disturbing to me, and this combination of events - from immigration to colonization - is today really making me feel my ancestry.

BBC Radio 4 discusses the 'F' word

I've only just gotten around to listening to the first in a 3-part series by BBC Radio 4, entitled Call Yourself A Feminist and hosted by historian Bettany Hughes, which aired last Tuesday. The second one aired this morning, and I managed to catch that one as well.

My very first post* on this blog, ending with the exact words as the title of this series, encouraged women to not be ashamed to claim feminism according to their own definition of the word.

I tend to feel strongly that many people who oppose the idea of feminism like to hide behind age-old, over-simplified connotations that they know are wrong in order to suit their purposes. So while you can't deny all the historical incarnations of the definition of the word, it is disingenuous to persist in representing some caricature of feminists as all man-eating, separatist lesbians advocating female domination, when we know that in 2009, this is far from the case (and arguably never was, although some earlier waves needed to be more revolutionary in their time). It is not enough to sit back on our haunches and allow ourselves to be consumed by irrelevant definitions. In this internet age, We interrogate everything else; we search for the definitions that are important to us. So I refuse to accept responsibility for some false image of feminism people have managed to conjure simply because they are too intellectually lazy and ideologically insular to hit Enter on their keyboards.

And it is people like the ones above by whom I encourage would-be feminists - men and women who believe in equal rights for both sexes - to not be cowed. If you want to call yourself a feminist, if this word suits you as it does me, then go ahead. Other activists for women's equality choose to call themselves other things, as is their prerogative. But 'feminist' is still a viable word.

In the first part of the BBC series, journalist Ann Leslie, American academic Elaine Showalter, activist and historian Sally Alexander and co-founder of the US National Organisation of Women, Sonia Fuentes talk to Hughes about first-wave feminism in the US and UK from the 1960s. The only thing I took issue with in this first part is when Leslie declares that the real feminists are in places like Africa and the Middle East where they mount their campaigns in very dangerous situations, nothing like the cozy activism in which we engage in the West. Well, I hardly think such a hierarchy of struggle is necessary. It is important to engage, support and try and understand the work of feminists from the global South and do away with the notion that feminism is owned and pioneered by the global North. But I'm not sure that this requires the pooh-poohing of US and UK activism. And I say this as a feminist from the global South who operates within and draws on both contexts and both bodies of knowledge.

In the second part of the series this morning, former local government leader Linda Bellos, businesswoman Roz Morris, academic Lynne Segal and author Beatrix Campbell spoke about feminism in the 1980s, touching on the still current issue of making visible other identities within the women's movement, and discussing them simultaneously; and on the points at which it is necessary to create a safe, separate, women's space, or to include men in order to better integrate popular constructions of masculinity and relationships with men. They also looked at feminism in the Thatcher era, and the extent to which Thatcher politics damaged women's rights, and made difficult the progress of any movement concerned with egalitarianism and social justice, even up to this day.

This will be part of the historical context for next week's final episode, when journalist and critic Miranda Sawyer, Feministing founder Jessica Valenti and Rachel Bowlby, writer and professor of Modern English Literature, will join Hughes to discuss what she calls the post-post-feminist era, painted as taking place largely online and with a whole new agenda.

The first episode is no longer available for listening, but you can hear the second one here. It will be available until next Tuesday March 24, when the final episode airs.


*The title is of course a play on the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and the photo pictured is an advertisement for the film. It is meant to reflect the notion of women as broken in some way if they possess feminist ideals, and the final sentence 'they're not allowed to shoot you for it' invokes a democratic society in which we are entitled to represent those ideals. However, in the current climate of increasing violence/harassment against women activists overseas, especially over the last few weeks, I might not choose that title now, at least not with that content. But I've left it there for the moment to reflect the original meaning of the post while it is being linked here.