HanleyExpress

Pierre Etaix

2012-01-29T21:36:00.000Z

The star of the current Bristol Slapstick Festival indulged us all by appearing in person at nearly all of the performances of his films. For some of us, merely to be on the same planet at the same time as the neglected clown-genius of film-making was the stuff of fantasy. But here he was, before the great, the good and the fans, receiving his Aardman Award from Peter Law: a lifesize statue of Morph. Etaix' body of work is small, but every one, be it feature or short, is a gem, and his influence has spread through the work of disciples who include such luminaries as J L Goddard. This afternoon we were treated to one of the more famous shorts, inevitably La Rupture . I first saw it and Le Grand Amour; the one about automotive beds becoming transports of guilty delight, back in the 'Sixties thanks to the indulgent kindness of Glasgow's Cosmo Cinema, despite the tortuous copyright contract that kept them from the screen for so long.

The rest of the Festival has been as good as it gets: a gala performance of Keaton's timeless The General and - did I say the great and the good? faces to see this time include Terry Jones, Ian Lavender, Gryff Rhys Jones, Bill Oddie and Kevin Brownlow, who if not up on-stage introducing films were thronging with the masses.

New novel set in Memphis

2012-01-15T16:14:00.001Z

My second novel published on Kindle, Springheeled Kate, is now available here

It's a story of passion between a youthful guitarist and a star of country music with the background of early rock 'n' roll, hallucinogens and the Memphis riots.

Visions and schemes at RWA

2012-01-11T20:37:00.005Z

A document published by Simon Baker (creator of the Royal West of England Academy of Art Board; see below), lays out his ‘vision’ for the future of the RWA. It begins: “The RWA Board has resolved that the RWA has to obtain control of the Friends’ cash, subscriptions and database. The purpose of this note is to set out the legal means of achieving this transfer, the options and the position if FRWA agreement to meeting the RWA Board’s requirements is not forthcoming.”
Not surprisingly, the FRWA membership was not unanimously tickled pink by this proposal. Following the outcry from members of FRWA over the news that the Friends would be swallowed by the RWA, a meeting was fixed between the dissidents and two board (of Trustees) members, Norman Biddle and Trystan Hawkins. Mr Hawkins, recently added to the Board by Simon Baker, had been given the task of putting into action the Board’s moves to take over the artistic decisions at the RWA from the Academicians.

Not all the complainants were there though; I’m told that Mr Baker prevented some of the invitations from being sent out.
There seems to be no doubt that he popped into the envelope-stuffing room as copies of an update for the FRWA were being redied for posting and said, “Do not send this out.” - His physical presence in that confined space apparently being enough to enforce his will on the volunteers, none of whom had taken a course with Charles Atlas. The update revealed how far the RWA had gone in abrogation. I quote: “ The RWA Board is empowered by the RWA constitution to establish new groups and to withdraw recognition from existing groups.”
It questioned why the decision was made to incorporate the Friends within the RWA, and takes a stand against FRWA subscriptions going straight into the RWA’s bank account as this could leave the Friends having to wind up. This ‘Direct Subscription Scheme’ has been given a name: It’s Called ‘Friends’…
Norman Biddle denied that there was any such thing as a doppleganger FRWA. a cuckoo in the nest, but while the Board-dominated RWA holds the FRWA like a puppet on its knee, and there is a likely drain on potential FRWA income from the ’Scheme’; it, whatever it is, clucks like a cuckoo.

Great fleas have little fleas...

2012-01-03T21:28:00.025Z

The Royal West of England Academy of Arts is, as far as the general public can see, on an inexorably upwards curve, going from success to success. Gaining museum status, becoming more accessible all day every day, putting on the occasional blockbuster and publishing the hefty Art magazine to replace the Friends’ Newsletter.
There can be no doubt that this all good for business; and the RWA is a business - at least as far as having to make a profit rather than a loss. But behind this rise out of the red there is a strange tale of internal politics that would be more in place in the Papal Rome of the Medicis and Borgias than this quiet unprovoking little world of ageing artists and volunteers in the twenty-first century.
Just for the sake of chronology, I date the period of change back to the day the Friends of the RWA (FRWA) voted in a new chairman, Simon Baker. In the following year, on 15 March 2009, I found myself being gently persuaded to stand down from the committee to make room for a new member; shortly later, Roland Harmer, editor of the Friends Newsletter, known to be close to me, began losing editorial and executive control of the Newsletter to the Chair, who as Chair would automatically be on the newsletter subcommittee.
The new Chairman did not stay for long, though: he left the FRWA Committee to form the new Board of Trustees, which, it was trumpeted, would be better placed to manage the quotidian business side of keeping the Academy running and out of the red, while leaving all the creative work, the exhibitions, in the hands of the Academicians - but it wasn’t long before the Trustees took over the exhibitions too. A new chair, Roger Manthorp, told me he had been ‘fingered’ by the outgoing Chair as his replacement. He was quite pleased at the time, although he had one word of caution - the academicians had been persuaded to hand most of their executive powers to the Trustees and agree that this would be irrevocable.
Six months later Manthrope angrily told me he had resigned, as the outgoing Chair had insisted on keeping his seat.
Next on the calendar: Derek Balmer, President of the RWA, abruptly left his post. Two witnesses told me that there had been a vote of no confidence; one of them had been asked to leave the room during the vote and returned in time to see the President leave, “an angry look on his face.”
The President was replaced in the same manner as had the position of Friends’ Chair. When I asked the new man if the President had jumped or was pushed, he protested that there had been no vote of no-confidence.He appeared to believe this himself. But within the year he, too, had resigned after finding he was not being allowed to make his own decisions without pressure or interference.
As I write, I understand that the FRWA, although it has not, as a charity separate from the RWA, been wound up, has been incorporated into the RWA (which would put the Friends under the control of the Trustees) - slightly dodgy in book-keeping terms as the RWA is the FRWA’s customer; and word is that the Trustees are making moves to wrest whatever powers the Academicians still hold, from them.
In the end, the RWA remains in business despite the recession, and despite the power games you may find echoed in many offices and companies. At the same time one of our protagonists has made a good few enemies and may well make more. Such is life. No explanation!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T03:13:00.004Z

Art direct from Gaza. where else?

new year, new mind

2011-12-27T10:31:00.010Z

The funkadelic George Clinton put this a little more playfully a few years back when he declared,

'Free your ass and your mind will follow.'

Majed Badra, Gazan artist, says it again, and just in time for New Year- تفكيرنا مقيد بسلاسل الجهل وثقل العقلية العاطفي Our thinking is restricted by the chains of ignorance and the mass of emotion.

Gilad Atzmon on an open sleigh

2011-12-19T19:13:00.004Z

Here's a quick blast from the orient Ensemble to warm you up, starting with high-speed latin ,squeezing in a bebop Wonderful World and as it's December, Jingle Bells.

Higgs Boson

2011-12-13T20:09:00.005Z

Cern scientists claim that they have caught a glimpse of the Higgs boson. Do you think that the Higgs Boson looks like this? Have you any evidence to the contrary?

al-jazeera: Now we are five

2011-11-27T01:22:00.008Z

So al-jazeera's english-language service is five years old. The CIA attempt to steal its thunder by setting up a US Arab-oriented news service hardly took off - more fishy (strictly small-scale) than phish. And the station's remit has expanded to give voice to the voiceless everywhere.

As Hilary Clinton said this week, America is still being left behind in getting its message heard. Even the Ruskies have an english-language broadcasting service. English, or "english" is the language of the computer age and is the long-established default option for any gathering of three or more differing linguists. Ironically, its dominance is due in great part to America's ubiquitous cultural presence (thank you, Mr Disney), so in a way, the US provided the rest of the world with the tool to cut it the cold shoulder.

insert music here

2011-11-26T01:06:00.005Z

As history is rewritten, most of the music of the 'seventies towards the century's end tends to get marginalised. For many, the sign that the Melody Maker had lost the place was that it had not made the death of the King of Kool, MilesDavis, front-page. Elsewhere, music from the heart continued to flourish in all its colours. Jim Mullen's Blues Bag is mainstream jazz, but very much of its time. Technology, hard bop and the rock cross-over have extended the range of possibilities.

Another new gallery for Bristol

2011-11-25T09:14:00.016Z

In the last few years three new art galleries have opened their doors to the Bristolian public and in a departure from the traditional experience of local entrepreneurs, have remained in business. Now one of those galleries, View, has extended its reach from home-base in Hotwells to the Centre.

View @ Harveys is up Denmark Street, that lane curving round behind the Hippodrome and resembling an exotic little piece of Soho.

The current show, by Mark Youd, of oversize monochrome portraits painted with an effortless panache, leaving the surrounding areas white and given an "antique" treatment, will be up until 22 January.

Palestine Film Festival - Bristol

2011-11-09T22:32:00.016Z

Another first for Bristol! This winter between 1st – 10th December, the Bristol Palestine Film Festival will be celebrating Palestinian film, arts and culture at multiple venues throughout the city. With screenings at Watershed, Arnolfini, the Cube, and Hamilton House, we will be inviting audiences to explore the multiple realities and identities of Palestinian people. On wednesday 9th November the full programme was published online at http://www.bristolpff.org.uk/. On 3rd December,after a tasting, facilitated by Zaytoun, we screen Jaffa – The Clockwork’s Orange presented by Dr Ghada Karmi – a leading Palestinian activist, writer and academic. She is co-director of the European Centre of Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, and a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a member of the Executive Committee of the Council for Arab-British Understanding. Her memoir, ‘In Search of Fatima’, was widely acclaimed, and her most recent book. ‘Married to another man: Israel’s dilemma in Palestine’, is an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Palestinian point of view.Guests wishing to attend the film and talk following the reception are kindly invited to purchase tickets (which will shortly be available) from the Arnolfini box office.

Picture: Arnolfini Bristol

Israeli pirates strike again

2011-11-09T10:10:00.009Z

As reported by Democracy Now! - the Israeli government continues to hold a number of passengers seized in international waters 0n Friday 4th November, including my fellow-Glaswegian Hassan Ghani. while trying to challenge the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza. The passengers were on two boats — one from Canada and the other from Ireland — as part of the "Freedom Waves" flotilla. Some 20 activists are believed to remain in custody after refusing to sign statements asserting they had entered Israel illegally. Flotilla organizers have accused the Israeli military of physically assaulting some of the activists and tasering at least one of them. Democracy Now! correspondent Jihan Hafiz was among those detained despite her press credentials. Hafiz had been filing daily reports for Democracy Now from the Canadian ship named "Tahrir." She spent three nights behind bars, where she was strip-searched and denied phone calls to relatives for 48 hours. Israel has not returned her equipment or footage.commandos on all of these boats were heavily armed... It looked like they were taking on an army of a foreign country," says Hafiz, noting the masked soldiers pointed their guns at the heads of those on board. The report includes a rush transcript.

Update 12 November:

Hassan has been in touch from Istanbul where he is fine although he has no mobile phone or any other belongings. He is due back in the UK from Monday. He said the FCO told him his friends were working on his behalf while he was locked up and it made a massive difference to him.

For video, click here

Spike Jones lives!

2011-10-27T23:24:00.009+01:00

When we think about American humour, we really mean urban, New York humour; and on Manhattan, although Polish, Irish and other noisy cultures took root, the attitude we have to associate with the Island has always been Jewish.

While we're on Manhattan, look up the music. Before and after the birth of rock 'n' roll, the best in pop was coming out of the east-coast collision between trad Jewish and the Blues, from the Gershwins to the prolific sweatshop writers of the Brill Building to - well - Bob Dylan.

And right there in the middle was Spike Jones, dedicated to taking the mickey out of everything round him and while he was at it, mixing it in such a way that predated the 'invention' of Postmodernism. But no matter what the City Slickers got on to, they always sounded like a bunch of clever old friends having a good time at a Jewish wedding. I'll bet Gilad Atzmon, a bit of a joker himself, could fit in there easily enough if the time barrier could be lifted.

I've selected one recording by the Mad Maestro, which, although it's relatively laid-back, has a fair cross-section of the kind of noise you should expect in his platters. Another favourite, one of the first pop records I paid any attention to, was I went to your wedding, which ends triumphantly on the wrong note, really grinding it in. This, I am sure, had a profound effect on the formation of my own creative sensibility.

It helps, being born a Glaswegian: with the big cinema and dance culture there, "American" culture has always had a stronger hold than it has in the rest of Scotland or indeed the UK; and Glasgow gave birth to Dr Crock and His Crackpots as well as the 5th Goon, George Chisholm. Glaswegians naturally got the joke right away.

Spike Jones is a little like the Marx Brothers in that it's the whole idea we like, and no single tune or film quite sums it all up with the whole schtick. You may get an inkling, though. And your neighbours will, too!

Palestine: the last muse?

2011-10-26T18:09:00.009+01:00

Is Palestine the "last muse"? If you follow the careers of several high-profile artists and musicians since they got hit by the middle east meatball you may well see it that way.Here are two for a start:

Joe Fallisi, popular Italian tenor, is more well-known in some international circles as the hyper-active Palestine blogger and activist; Gilad Atzmon, hard-working saxophonist, composer and author, dances across the crossover points between music, cultural history and entertainment, with his proseletysing always buried deep in the sound, although he always has plenty to say on the subject, given half a chance.

It happens. Anyone who goes to see Palestine for themselves is almost bound to return knowing they must act. Artists are in the business of making noise, and making their work into life. So you will hear about it.

Picture: Trio Joubran return the compliment, live in Bristol

Mavi Marmara survivor questions UK complicity

2011-10-16T00:42:00.006+01:00

“Some of the things that I find disturbing now, more than the scenes of blood, and the massacre itself are, I happen to live in the Finchley area. And sometimes, when I was looking at the soldiers on the boat, pointing their guns at me, I was thinking, do any of you have dual passports? Do any of you live just down the road from me?”

Laura Stuart, veteran of almost all the road convoys to Gaza and of course a fellow-voyager and survivor of mine on the Mavi Marmara, has this to say about the reality of walking in a free society, off the field of conflict. By omission at least, the UK Government may be complicit in covering over the implications of the attack

There's someone up there...

2011-09-23T10:33:00.012+01:00

In countries that are predominantly muslim, skies full of death-dealing drones are now the status quo. These machines are, as we all know, manipulated by young people nurtured on Space Invaders, from the safety of monitors in computer rooms halfway away round the planet.

This report in the Washington Post has some details of the latest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-building-secret-drone-bases-in-africa-arabian-peninsula-officials-say/2011/09/20/gIQAJ8rOjK_story.html

Through the Grass Darkly

2011-09-21T17:03:00.013+01:00

Bob Sabiston, the man who oversaw that quiet mindblower of an animation, A Scanner Darkly, has a lot of other stuff under his belt, including this talking head session with park-bench philosopher A J Vadehra . Unless you live in a city big enough to support a cinema like, say, the GFT or the Watershed, the chances are you will not see this one on the big screen. Best not to wait for the message. Download, and let your mind relax...

http://www.flatblackfilms.com/Flat_Black_Films/Films/Pages/Grasshopper.html

Inside the blog

2011-09-05T16:42:00.004+01:00

Geek news: this blog experimentally became EarlyExpress for several days. The original is back: All the grumpy attitudes and prejudices contained are as they were.

Israel Phil shouted down

2011-09-02T11:44:00.008+01:00

Zubin Mehta was unable to conduct the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at theRoyal Albert Hall after several pro-Palestine demonstrators interrupted right at the start. The BBC immediately pulled out of their broadcast, doing a quick fade to a chorus of booing and footstamping. Musicians born as Israelis often find themselves in an awkward position when travelling and performing abroad, but when they are billed as the legitimate cultural representatives of such an alleged legitimate state as the apartheid regime of Israel, their position is indisputedly not on the side of rock 'n' roll. It's a great pity that these musicians - my fellow artists - should be used in such a way.

From rehab to the RWA in one day

2011-08-08T14:31:00.016+01:00

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The mid-year batch of shows at the RWA contains enough to amuse and puzzle most people in roughly equal amounts. I visited with a small group of cultured professionals from Frenchay Brain Injury Rehab Unit; although we could have been non-artists from anywhere. I can confirm that my friends enjoyed themselves.
The Elisabeth Frink ‘Wild’ collection concentrates on the relationship animals have with humans, and with each other. It is genuinely wild in parts. As she said herself, this exploration is “better than just doing horses”. Or self portraits, which most of her (human) heads tend to be.

The Lisa Milroy geisha paintings were a surprise: she had a reputation for making medium-sized pictures containing rows of domestic objects. And it’s taking quite a risk making figurative work on such a scale. Despite the size and the painterly attack, they have a slightly comic-book, ‘pop’ look.

The Mary Fedden walls contain a potted history of part of English art: the earlier paintings are recogniseably of the same vintage as early Graham Sutherland and the other romantics of the late 'Forties.
But most of what is on view is recogniseably Fedden style: abstracted still lifes in harmonic colours, looking towards St Ives and beyond.

The show that has got the big bangs though is Jack Vettriano in the main gallery; the opening night featured actual tango dancers threading among the crowd - of course. It’s a surprise to see the paintings for real at first. Although they are quite small and not a lot bigger than the big-selling repros, they are surprisingly flat; in places almost like pop art (again) in their treatment. Well, fair enough: they are genuine pop art, of a sort. Vettriano shares the limelight with photographer Jeanette Jones; their double act is titled ‘Ballroom Spy’. Some of her work, which resembles movie stills from the 'Fifties as much as anything, was the raw material for some of his.

Also trumpeted loud was Damien Hirst’s contribution to the collection. He has hired some craftsmen to make a ten-up copy of the well-known disabled-girl-shaped collecting box. He gave the result a name: ‘Charity’, which somehow gives it the air of making a statement of a sort. Anyway, It stands in front of the RWA shouting, “Look at me!” which is all to the good, after years of Joe Public only being dimly aware of the edifice as an ancient office building hidden behind a car park.

One technical point last: I and my entourage visited on a mercilessly sunny day. Although the sun was beating down on the gallery roofs, we did not wilt, and remained cool and comfortable throughout. This is progress.

Photography: Che Ming Leung

The BBC bias over Palestine: Documentary

2011-08-05T11:13:00.012+01:00

The above is an excellent and brief documentary about the BBC's bias when it comes to reporting on Palestine - including the indisputably shameful decision to refuse to broadcast an appeal after the devastation caused by 'Operation Cast Lead' in Gaza.

One day, and we hope it will be soon, it may emerge what pressures inside and outside the Corporation are behind its slant.

Peace activist to hit streets again?

2011-08-02T09:16:00.006+01:00

The Scottish-born anti-war activist injured by a Bristolian Sun reader in April 2011 is well along the road to partial recovery in Rehab, and hopes to be upstanding at crucial events before 2012.

Home secretary trips over her own traps

2011-07-19T13:34:00.003+01:00

http://youtu.be/4HfDmTTJijYhttp://youtu.be/4HfDmTTJijY

Yes! Watch as Theresa wings it entirely without a safety net, while wrestling with her own convolutions!

Passport art

2011-07-16T11:52:00.005+01:00

As this blog looks towards art as much as anything, and just to emphasise the international nature of it, here is a new, and ambiguously meaningful piece from my good friend, political cartoonist Majed Badra, in Gaza.

Endless Sleep - a production classic

2011-07-10T09:53:00.010+01:00

The night was black, rain fallin' down 

Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around

 Traced her footsteps down to the shore ‘fraid she's gone forever more

 I looked at the sea and it seemed to say “I took your baby from you away.

 I heard a voice cryin' in the deep “Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Why did we quarrel, why did we fight? Why did I leave her alone tonight? That's why her footsteps ran into the sea That's why my baby has gone from me.

 I looked at the sea and it seemed to say “I took your baby from you away. I heard a voice cryin' in the deep “Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Ran in the water, heart full of fear 

There in the breakers I saw her near

 Reached for my darlin', held her to me 

Stole her away from the angry sea

 I looked at the sea and it seemed to say

 “You took your baby from me away. My heart cried out “she's mine to keep

 I saved my baby from an endless sleep.
[Fade] Endless sleep, endless sleep
......................................................

The original version of Endless Sleep was recorded - and co-written - by America’s Jody Reynolds, but this echo-draped production is the one to go for. The combination of lyrics, music, performance and production is impeccable. It’s one of pop’s cut diamonds.
It’s the high point of Marty Wilde’s short career as one of England's ersatz rock ‘n’ roll singers before he settled (like Tommy Steele) into family entertainment. The production is ideally suited to the content: right down to the backing chorus of monks behind that twanging guitar and Marty’s stylised moans and yelps. Despite the heavy atmosphere it may well have been recorded in a tiny room over a shop in London’s Denmark Street, also known as Tin Pan Alley. Another possible venue could have been Decca’s studio in Kilburn. Yes - I’m guessing! It’s another death song; always guaranteed to appeal to young teenagers who feel immortal, and it helps that the whole thing feels more like a very dark dream than anything, perhaps spun out of an opium pipe. Death never sounded more sexy. And it’s barely two-and-a-half minutes long - the perfect pop single.

.................

In jazz there is an equivalent recording: ‘Cry Me A River’ by Julie London, also an irreducable gem (including one of the most audacious rhymes ever).

Political activist arrested on hearsay

2011-07-01T20:50:00.006+01:00

salmaumerji middle east monitor
Sheikh Raed Salah, defender of Jerusalem in general and in particular al-aqsa, arrived in London on Saturday 25th using his Israeli passport to enter Britain legally as he has done many times before. He was not questioned by anyone and there was no indication of the existence of an exclusion order. Over the past few days, Sheikh Salah has addressed MPs in the British parliament and has spoken in large public gatherings. His subsequent arrest last night will be challenged in the courts as unjustified. This seems to be the beginning of a worrying trend of persecution of Muslims and pro-Palestinian activists.

Immediately after the Middle East Monitor [MEMO] announced that it was hosting Sheikh Raed Salah at a public lecture at Queen Mary University, a well-known pro-Israeli website circulated a catalogue of lies and fabrications about him which he has rebuffed for years.

On Thursday, 16th June, he issued an unequivocal statement in which, it has been reported, he refuted the claims. He ordered lawyers in London to challenge these fabrications in the British High Court.
On 24th June, lawyers acting on Sheikh Raed's behalf served notice on Andrew Gilligan of the Daily Telegraph and Robyn Rosen of the Jewish Chronicle. These procedures began before Sheikh Raed entered the country and were publicly announced.
None of the organisers of his lengthy schedule were contacted by the government or the police, either directly or indirectly, regarding the facts about him.
He began his programme of engagements on Sunday, which was followed with a roundtable in Parliament on Monday 27th June where he was speaking to a number of MPs, Lords and researchers in Committee Room 2A, in which he spoke for an hour. There was still no indication that he had been banned.
On the evening of Monday 27th he attended a crowded event in Conway Hall, Holborn, for almost three hours which was reported by the Jewish Chronicle. The Evening Standard claims he failed to appear. MEMO has a record of the event, with photos.
No policemen were present at the public event to arrest or question him before, during or after the event, despite any claims to the contrary.
Yesterday he made a speech in Leicester in front of an audience of more than one thousand for more than two hours. It was a successful event. And again, there were no police present.
However, during the day, the Daily Mail and Evening Standard circulated news that a ban was issued last week but for one reason or another, the exclusion order had failed to be enacted and that he had sneaked in, implying that he is on the run.
Lawyers contacted the Home Office in the afternoon asking for a clarification, although no one had contacted them. It is important to note that none of his legal representatives, who were widely known, were contacted. The Home Office refused to comment. Similarly, contact was made by the MPs and MEMO, and the Home Office again did not confirm or deny anything.
Around 11pm on Tuesday evening, Sheikh Raed was arrested in his hotel and taken to Paddington Green Police Station by the UK Border Police.
It is imperative to reiterate that he entered the country legally, with a legal Israeli passport and that the British government knew long in advance of his visit. They never contacted MEMO to find out the truth. The Sheikh himself was willing to challenge all the allegations in court. There were lies and fabrications made in the public domain, which he has rejected and he has never been charged with or convicted these alleged offences. He has expressed a willingness to challenge these in court.
One example of the baseless lies circulated was published in the Evening standard alleging that he failed to turn up to the Conway Hall event. In fact he was there for three hours and spoke to a large audience there.

Analysis
Raed Salah is first and foremost the pre-eminent political leader of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israel. He is one of the main leaders of the biggest political party among the 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel. His appeal goes well beyond Arab Israelis and he appeals to all Arabs and Muslims who see him as championing the issue of Occupied Jerusalem and the right of Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere. His name is synonymous with Jerusalem and he is well known.
His treatment by the British government will not be taken lightly either here or abroad. By banning him after he began legal proceedings, it appears that the British government is seeking to obstruct the course of justice. He has already started legal action against those who circulated these rumours.
This appears to be initiating a trend by which we can expect that all Muslim, Arabs and human rights activists will be judged by rumours and denied the right to challenge in court those who spread libellous rumours about them.
The fact that we were not contacted shows recklessness and disdain for British citizens. If the authorities had wanted to ban him they had the opportunity to do it respectfully, but their recklessness is beyond imagination and it reflects the government's draconian nature.
Finally, MEMO understands that Sheikh Raed will challenge the deportation order in court. It is not he who is losing his reputation; he has been arrested in Israel on countless occasions for defending Palestinian rights, and now the British government is acting in the same way.
It will curtail freedom of speech in this country. At a time when the universal laws to prevent war criminals to enter this country unchallenge are being threatened, the double standards are clear. They judge Muslims on rumours and fabrications and allow Israeli war criminals to enter.
The Home Office have said that the deportation order was served as his deportation is deemed conducive to the public good under Section 3 of the Immigration Act
of 1971.
http://middleeastmonitor.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?

Update: 15 July 2011

Shaykh Raed Salah’s application for bail was accepted today by a High Court judge. Despite being denied bail last week, Shaykh Raed’s appeal was successful and he is no longer being incarcerated in a British prison.

Freedom For Palestine!

2011-06-14T20:27:00.004+01:00

It has come to our attention that this potential Chart Topper is even now surfing the etheric waves. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V28HnPTYz-I&feature=player_embedded

...and tell all your friends!

Panorama "Death" - the final stretch

2011-04-19T15:30:00.004+01:00

The saga grinds to an end at last:
The Editorial Standards Committee (the “Committee”) has ratified (i.e. approved) its finding for the nineteen appeals on Death in the Med, and publishes it today, Tuesday 19th April. Perhaps not a great surprise after the convoluted business of the complaints procedure: only 3 points were conceded. Below is a summary of the report, with one of the rejections, of probably the most justified complaint, about that fake recording, which I myself had pointed out had been in one breath accepted by the programme both as a fake and as a warning.

CONFIDENTIAL (EMBARGOED UNTIL PUBLICATION)

Summary
The Programme
At its meeting on 17 March 2011 the Editorial Standards Committee (the “Committee”)
considered together appeals from 19 complainants in relation to Death in the Med, a programme in the weekly current affairs series Panorama. Death in the Med was broadcast on 16 August 2010 on BBC One. It relates to the boarding at sea by Israeli commandos of the Mavi Marmara, which was part of a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Nine activists on board the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in the flotilla, were killed and more than 50 passengers and nine Israeli soldiers were injured.

The Committee’s Finding
The consolidated appeal raised 51 points of issue; the Committee upheld three of those points (two in relation to accuracy and one in relation to impartiality) but decided not to uphold the remaining 48 points. Despite finding three instances where the Editorial Guidelines had been breached the Committee nonetheless concluded that, in tackling this highly divisive subject, Death in the Med had achieved due impartiality and due accuracy overall.
The Committee regrets any breaches of the Editorial Guidelines and apologises for them on behalf of the BBC. Whilst it expects the BBC to consider seriously any lessons to be learnt in respect of its findings, the Committee wishes to make it clear that it commends the BBC for having tackled this most controversial of issues. In the Committee’s view, the programme was an original, illuminating and well-researched piece of journalism. The Committee remarked it is unlikely that a current affairs programme such as this, covering such a contentious issue, would be found to be entirely flawless if it were subjected to the level of deconstruction and analysis that Death in the Med has undergone. However, the BBC is committed to the highest journalistic standards, and programme-makers must be prepared to face the most rigorous scrutiny when covering such contentious issues.
To summarise, with regard to the three upheld matters, the Committee concluded:
• In the absence of clear video footage of anyone being shot, material from the preliminary autopsy reports would have given a broader picture and added to the programme’s description of how the activists died. The Committee decided the information about the volume and nature of the gunshot wounds detailed in the preliminary autopsy reports gave a fuller picture of the manner in which the Israelis killed nine people and the level of force deployed by the Israeli commandos. The inclusion of some reference to the preliminary autopsy findings would have enabled the programme to achieve due accuracy as required by the Editorial Guidelines.
Accordingly, the Committee concluded that in this respect the programme had breached the Editorial Guidelines on accuracy (Point S).
• As regards the treatment of casualties by the Israelis, the imagery and the accompanying script line (“The Israelis evacuated the badly wounded to hospital”) would have left viewers with the impression that the badly wounded were all promptly and appropriately cared for. The Committee noted that, although not proven, there are detailed allegations of mistreatment of at least some of the casualties. The Committee decided that to achieve impartiality on the issue the programme was required to verify that the Israelis took proper care of the badly wounded. In the absence of such confirmation the programme was obliged to reflect the views of those who allege that the Israelis mistreated some of them. The Editorial Guidelines on impartiality provide that we must ensure we avoid “an imbalance of views on controversial subjects”. Accordingly, the Committee decided that in this respect the programme had breached the Editorial Guidelines on impartiality (Point AI).
• The programme accurately described some of the aid on board the flotilla (mobility scooters, hospital beds and medicines, two thirds of which the reporter said she had found to be out of date). However, the facts show that this was just a tiny proportion of a consignment which had consistedof thousands of tons of aid, including large quantities of much-needed building materials. As a result, the Committee concluded that the programme was not clear and precise in its presentation of the full extent of the aid on board the flotilla. Accordingly, the Committee decided there had been a breach of the Editorial Guidelines on accuracy (Point AR).

Point AB – regarding the allegation that the programme used an audio recording which the Israelis admit had been doctored; the impression left by the script was that the programme accepted the Israeli version of events

122. Relevant Script
The Committee noted that the relevant script for point AB was as follows:
Commentary: The Israelis released what they said was the radio response from the flotilla. Part of it was defiant and abusive.
Israel Military Recording: Shut up – go back to Auschwitz... We’re helping Arabs going against the US. Don’t forget 9/11 guys...
Commentary: The recording’s authenticity has provoked controversy. The flotilla’s organisers insist they did not hear these comments being made.
For the Israelis it was a warning sign things wouldn’t go that smoothly.

123. Context
The Committee noted that on 31 May 2010, (less than 24 hours after the Mavi Marmara was boarded by Israeli commandos) the IDF released 1’05” of video footage in which an Israeli naval officer is heard and seen issuing a warning to the Mavi Marmara not to enter the area under Israeli blockade; the abusive comments above do not feature in the footage.
The Committee noted that on 4 June 2010 the IDF released a 27” audio recording of what it said was a radio transmission between the Israeli Navy and the flotilla in which unidentified voices are heard making the anti-Semitic comments featured above. The picture accompanying the audio was a freeze frame image from the 31 May video. The subtitled audio was new material of the same officer speaking to another ship in the flotilla, the Defney.

The Committee noted that on 5 June 2010, after questions were raised as to the authenticity of the 4 June recording, the IDF released what it said was a clarification/correction:
“The audio was edited down to cut out periods of silence over the radio as well as incomprehensible comments so as to make it easier for people to listen to the exchange. We have now uploaded the entire segment of 5 minutes and 58 seconds in which the exchange took place and the comments were made.
“This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified.”

124. Allegation
The Committee noted the complainants said:
“(The reporter) stated that the comments were controversial. She did not accurately state that the flotilla organisers deny that they were ever made, merely that they had not heard them.”
“The voice in the recording was of someone apparently from around mid-America, cowboy country... despite admitting that the Israelis had given up trying to pass this off as genuine, (the reporter) goes on to say, ‘For the Israelis it was a warning sign things wouldn’t go that smoothly’. If we accept that the recording was a fake, we cannot in the same breath allege that it would have been perceived as a warning.”
“This (the commentary) is tacit acceptance of the Israeli story ... since this could only be a warning to the Israelis if the transmission had been made. This in turn reflects a bias in ... reporting.”

125. BBC Response
The Committee noted that the programme responded:
“The IDF stand by the actual verbal content of the tape.
“The script accurately reflected what the Israeli’s had released in the statement:
‘The Israelis released what they said was the radio response from the flotilla. Part of it was defiant and abusive.’
“We accept that there is controversy surrounding these tapes and therefore we clearly pointed this out:
‘The recording’s authenticity has provoked controversy. The flotilla’s organisers insist they did not hear these comments being made.’
“The press release issued by the Free Gaza Movement at the time – June 6 2010, said:
‘According to our Captain of Challenger 1, Denis Healey, a man with 25 years of experience on the sea, there would be no way that anyone could communicate with each other without the entire fleet hearing the exchange…
“there was no exchange like this by anyone on any boat during the entire time I was piloting the boat” said Denis.’
“The programme script accurately reflected the FGM’s (Free Gaza Movement) denial.
“We were told by the Israelis that the range of the radio/audio meant that it came from the flotilla. They could not confirm from which ship but were clear it came from somewhere in the flotilla.”
The Committee noted the ECU’s response:
“(the reporter) assured me that she was conscious of the general tenor of what the Free Gaza Movement and other activists were saying about the VHF recording and as a result of her research and interviews (both on and off the record) concluded that the debate centred around the question of whether activists would have heard the comments. This seems to me reasonable since it is possible that the comments could have been made from a VHF transmitter and not been picked up by some of the other craft in the area.
“I don’t accept that the wording used by (the reporter) gave the impression she tacitly agreed with the IDF version that the comments were genuine. Her comment could, I suggest, equally be seen as a straightforward summary of what the Israelis said to her to support their view that the activists intended to provoke a confrontation with Israel.”

126. Consideration
The Committee considered three separate issues:
• Did the programme use material that the IDF had admitted was doctored without telling the audience?
• Should the script have stated that the organisers deny the statements were made?
• Did the wording in the script suggest the programme’s “tacit acceptance” of the recording’s authenticity?
The Committee noted that the first issue relates to some confusion as to which audio recording the clarification on 5 June related. The IDF website states the 5 June clarification was to the release of the 4 June recording, and was unrelated to the 31 May release. As the quote from the IDF website demonstrates, the IDF did not “admit” the 4 June release had been doctored; the clarification explained it had been edited for clarity.
The Committee noted that the discussion about this tape has focussed on the activists’ denial that the comments were ever made. The activists base their certainty that it is a fraud on the claim that the voices did not match those of any of the Captains (and it was only they and Huwaid Arraf, Chair of the Free Gaza Movement) who had access to the radios), and that no-one heard the comments.
The Committee noted that (if it is accepted the comments were made) it is not known from which ship the comments originated, and the ECU argues that it is possible that comments made from one transmitter would not necessarily be picked up by all the craft in the flotilla. The ECU concluded therefore that the programme accurately reported that the organisers insist they did not hear the comments because it was not possible for the organisers to state with certainty that the comments were not made.

127. The Committee’s Decision
The Committee considered whether the BBC had complied with the Editorial Guidelines on accuracy. The Editorial Guidelines note that accuracy “is often more than a question of getting the facts right”. The Guidelines include the statement that “All the relevant facts and information should be weighed to get at the truth”. In addition, if an issue is controversial, the Guidelines say relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered.
The Committee decided the programme accurately reflected the content of the audio recording. The Committee did not accept the complainants’ argument that the audio recording had been proven to be fake, neither did the Committee find any evidence that Israel had said it was. The Committee considered that the programme had taken care to reflect fairly that which it could corroborate, i.e. that the flotilla organisers claim they did not hear the statements being made. The Committee decided the evidential base for the claim that the recording was a fake was not so strong that it obliged the programme to report that allegation too. The Committee considered the programme achieved due impartiality and due accuracy in stating the “recording’s authenticity has provoked controversy”.
Next the Committee considered whether, despite reporting the organisers’ denial that the comments were made and also reflecting that the authenticity had provoked controversy, the sentence below nevertheless implied the programme accepted the recording was genuine:
“For the Israelis it was a warning sign things wouldn’t go that smoothly.”
The Committee noted that the programme had made it clear that there was more than one view as to whether the radio transmission had been made. The programme makers
explained the Israeli point of view (i.e. that the audio recording was a radio response from the flotilla) and also the view of the flotilla’s organisers (i.e. that they did not hear the comments in the audio recording being made). As mentioned above, the programme specifically stated that the recording’s authenticity provoked controversy.
The Committee acknowledged a complainant’s argument that the statement “For the Israelis it was a warning sign things wouldn’t go that smoothly” was a tacit acceptance of the Israeli story. However, the Committee decided that this statement could also be interpreted as a summary of the Israeli position as described to the reporter rather than a tacit acceptance of the Israeli story. The Committee noted that the issue of whether or not the audio recording was a radio response from the flotilla was a controversial issue. The Committee concluded that Panorama had weighed the information and opinions available to them and had scripted accordingly. As a result, the Committee concluded that this was duly accurate based on the available information and opinions.
The Committee then tested the same sentence for impartiality. The Committee decided that the programme presented both the views of the Israelis and the views of the flotilla’s organisers regarding the authenticity of the audio recording. The Committee decided that the viewer would have understood from the section overall: that the Israelis claimed that the audio recording came from the flotilla; that the flotilla organisers denied hearing the comments in the audio recording being made; and that whether or not the audio recording was actually a radio response from the flotilla is disputed. The Committee concluded that the overall treatment of this issue was duly accurate and duly impartial. Nevertheless, the Committee agreed that programme makers should be reminded that when an issue is in dispute, it is extremely important in scripting to minimise the possibility of some viewers concluding that the programme has accepted a particular point of view.
Finding: Not Upheld

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/esc_bulletins/2011/death_in_med.pdf

Ishbel MacAskill

2011-04-15T23:35:00.007+01:00

Some days after the event, I've just heard that a light of life for many and one close to me personally, has gone out.

Angus MacNeil, MP for the Western Isles and the SNP's spokesman on Gaelic for the UK Parliament, came close to summing Ishbel MacAskill up when he said: "Not only was she a lovely lady but she had a unique voice with a wonderful warm quality, which matched her own personality. She will be a huge loss to Gaelic culture. Ishbel was a tremendous ambassador for the language." Tom Morton once wrote in The Scotsman that she was "arguably the world's greatest Gaelic singer".

Her interest in music went beyond the Gaelic, however: she turned me on to the early recordings of Ray Charles, for instance. I still have that record.

Ishbel MacIver was born and raised on Lewis, moving with her family to the island's capital, Stornoway, at the age of 12. Growing up, she moved south to the Big City, Glasgow, where she married Bill - from Lochinver - and worked for some time at British Rail. Her husband introduced her to fellow whisky lovers, Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, who tried to get her to join them professionally after hearing her sing at a party. But she didn't take up singing full time until 1979, when she was 38, and she appeared at a Mod fringe event. It wasn't long before her career took flight, and she swopped her 'lowland' name Isobel for the Gaelic original.

After years of globetrotting in pursuit of her muse, she died after hitting her head in a fall at her home in Inverness.

I'll remember her as always being full of love for everyone, vibrant with life; regardless of her size, a little larger than life itself.

A force for change and hope - too much for some in Palestine

2011-04-11T09:03:00.005+01:00

Just a few days after I posted this film on my website, the director of the Freedom Theatre, Juliano Mer-Khamis, was shot in his car, his (uninjured) son on his lap. Born of a Jewish mother and Palestinian father, he saw himself as 100% both - at least logically enough. The Freedom Theatre was a resurrection of his mother's theatre group; he had made a film about her shortly before her death, 'Arna's Children'. Her original theatre was destroyed during the first Intifada.

He had had to deal with threats since reopening: a production of Animal Farm got under the skin of the PA for instance, who took it personally as a suggestion that Fatah was collaborating. That incurred a petrol bomb. But friends and colleagues are determined that his work in the theatre, children's education and liberation and as a force for reconciliation will continue. An international theatre festival is already at the planning stage.

He leaves his partner, Jenny Nyman, pregnant with twins. She said, " He was aware of the danger and, though he joked about it, he was sometimes afraid. But he always said that he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees."

Behind the Arab revolt - a word we dare not speak

2011-04-05T23:54:00.004+01:00

24 February 2011

by John Pilger

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President’s daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the “national security” monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to President George W. Bush that the “drumbeat for war” was based not on intelligence, but lies. “It was 95 per cent charade,” McGovern told me. “How did they get away with it?” “The press allowed the crazies to get away with it.” “Who are the crazies?” “The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in Mein Kampf... these are the same people who were referred to in the circles in which I moved, at the top, as ‘the crazies’.” I said, “Norman Mailer has written that that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What’s your view of that?” “Well... I hope he’s right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode.” On 22 January, Ray McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration’s barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. “Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq,” he wrote, “I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly.” On 16 February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University in which she condemned governments that arrested protestors and crushed free expression. She lauded the liberating power of the internet while failing to mention that her government was planning to close down those parts of the internet that encouraged dissent and truth-telling. It was a speech of spectacular hypocrisy, and Ray McGovern was in the audience. Outraged, he rose from his chair and silently turned his back on Clinton. He was immediately seized by police and a security goon and beaten to the floor, dragged out and thrown into jail, bleeding. He has sent me photographs of his injuries. He is 71. During the assault, which was clearly visible to Clinton, she did not pause in her remarks. Fascism is a difficult word, because it comes with an iconography that touches the Nazi nerve and is abused as propaganda against America’s official enemies and to promote the West’s foreign adventures with a moral vocabulary written in the struggle against Hitler. And yet fascism and imperialism are twins. In the aftermath of world war two, those in the imperial states who had made respectable the racial and cultural superiority of “western civilisation”, found that Hitler and fascism had claimed the same, employing strikingly similar methods. Thereafter, the very notion of American imperialism was swept from the textbooks and popular culture of an imperial nation forged on the genocidal conquest of its native people. And a war on social justice and democracy became “US foreign policy”. As the Washington historian William Blum has documented, since 1945, the US has destroyed or subverted more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and used mass murderers like Suharto, Mobutu and Pinochet to dominate by proxy. In the Middle East, every dictatorship and pseudo-monarchy has been sustained by America. In “Operation Cyclone”, the CIA and MI6 secretly fostered and bank-rolled Islamic extremism. The object was to smash or deter nationalism and democracy. The victims of this western state terrorism have been mostly Muslims. The courageous people gunned down last week in Bahrain and Libya, the latter a “priority UK market”, according to Britain’s official arms “procurers”, join those children blown to bits in Gaza by the latest American F-16 aircraft. The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people’s triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism. How did such extremism take hold in the liberal West? “It is necessary to destroy hope, idealism, solidarity, and concern for the poor and oppressed,” observed Noam Chomsky a generation ago, “[and] to replace these dangerous feelings with self-centred egoism, a pervasive cynicism that holds that [an order of] inequities and oppression is the best that can be achieved. In fact, a great international propaganda campaign is under way to convince people – particularly young people – that this not only is what they should feel but that it’s what they do feel.” Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun. In the United States, where 45 per cent of young African-Americans have no jobs and the top hedge fund managers are paid, on average, a billion dollars a year, mass protests against cuts in services and jobs have spread to heartland states like Wisconsin. In Britain, the fastest-growing modern protest movement, UK Uncut, is about to take direct action against tax avoiders and rapacious banks. Something has changed that cannot be unchanged. The enemy has a name. http://www.johnpilger.com/articles/behind-the-arab-revolt-is-a-word-we-dare-not-speak

The Word as a Weapon

2011-04-03T12:36:00.003+01:00

And for more on that US/South relationship, remember the PR "hands across" exercise blanketing the interventions south of the border: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4108714265/

Afghanistan: militarism, mutilation and minerals

2011-04-02T09:43:00.004+01:00

by LaraLee

When I was in Afghanistan, I had the honor of interviewing renowned activist, former parliamentarian, and feminist Malalai Joya. Her work and courage to denounce Afghan government's corruption and US occupation of her country have been an inspiration to many throughout the world. Knowing this, I was greatly dismayed but not surprised when the U.S. State Department denied Joya a visa to enter the United States for a speaking tour. Fortunately, after a campaign of public pressure, the U.S. government has relented, and Joya is now in the U.S. to share her story. Thanks to all who campaigned on her behalf! In conjunction with Joya's travels in the U.S., I am pleased to announce our short film "MILITARISM, MUTILATION, AND MINERALS: UNDERSTANDING THE OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN". I urge you to watch, share the video, and stay involved with these important issues:http://www.culturesofresistance.org/malalai-joya

IARA LEE * CulturesOfResistance.org
http://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist
http://www.facebook.com/CulturesOfResistance
www.huffingtonpost.com/iara-lee

Yemen uprising - overview

2011-03-23T16:51:00.002Z

by Judith Brown

In order for you to understand the Yemen uprising, and the uprisings in many parts of the Arab world, I would like to tell you about Amr. He is the sort of young man most parents would be very proud of. He has graduated from university with a degree in engineering. He is polite and well mannered, he always looks clean and smart. His parents are very ordinary people, his father a policeman, his mother recently made redundant from her job teaching hairdressing to refugees. Seeing that Amr needs new skills, they took on debt in order for him to take extra courses in IT and English, and he has worked hard at these courses. A year and a half after graduating, he is without work. His mother told me that he leaves home every day with his file of certificates, to visit prospective employers. He told me that he would be willing to do anything, and then he emphasised it, repeating, ANYTHING. He cannot leave home, or consider marriage, until he has an income, and he cannot see any possibility of an income at any point in the future..

In Yemen, 70% of the population is under 30, and 50% under 15. There is extremely high unemployment, especially amongst the young. Those who get jobs tend to have family or tribal connections - if you belong to a poor, unconnected family, your chances of finding employment is very low indeed.

But one way that people can get employment of a sort is by becoming a member of the balataga. These are thugs paid for by the President. They get 2,000 riyals a day (about £6), plus food and qat, the narcotic leaves that Yemenis chew. It is alleged that they are paid for out of money that US provided for anti-terrorist activity.

There can be no country in the world where the terrorist activity is over-egged as it is in Yemen. It helps the Yemeni government get aid from US, UK and the rest of the world. Despite claims that Al Qaeda in the Arab Penisular is now based in Yemen, there has been very little evidence of that except for a scatty plot over a year ago to put a bomb in a printer on a plane, and that failed. For example, there has been no large scale terrorist acts such as occurred in regularly Saudi Arabia before Al Qaeda was driven out.

Whereas the Yemeni military can be relied on to fight in places like Aden, with its separatist aims, and north of Sanaa where there is a Shia population, it cannot be relied on to fight in Sanaa, where the army is more sympathetic to the population. So the balataga has been used by the President to challenge protesters in Sanaa from the beginning of the uprising, occupying the central square, Tahreer, causing the protesters to set up camp outside the university, renamed as Al-ghreer Square, or Change Square. It is about two miles from the centre, on the ring road, and the main inconvenience was that traffic had to be diverted around their camps. Two weeks ago, the protests were virtually ignored by all, and everyone was just getting on with life. When talking to Sanaa residents, although they wanted a change, many said that Saleh was not as bad as many leaders in the Arab world. There were very few considering joining in with the protest.

There have been some military attacks on the students at Al-ghreer in the past weeks, and allegations of the use of a nerve gas that caused convulsions on student protesters. But the main attack that came last Thursday was almost certainly the actions of the balataga, although there is no emerging evidence either way of Presidential orders. Friends who live in the area tell me they heard machine guns firing for twenty minutes. I heard that the protesters were hemmed in by the army, whilst the balataga stood on roof tops, machine-gunning those below. So far, 52 have died according to the Yemen Observer, and 200 more were injured. The massacre stopped when student protestors went to the roof-tops and caught the protagonists and handed them over to the police. Despite Yemeni people having wide access to weapons, the protesters have not been drawn into using weapons as part of their protests, to their credit.

This dreadful event has resulted in many protest resignations. The head of the army and other top military officials, some of whom are now in tanks protecting the protesters. Members of the government, including the Minister for Human Rights. Ambassadors, including those to the UN and Lebanon. The President has declared a State of Emergency, sacked the government but asked them to keep on working until he appoints a replacement. Saudi is acting as a mediator between the President and opposition groups.

So where from here?
With the military divided, could it be a civil war? Without this massacre, it was very likely that Ali Abdullah Saleh would hang on to power, particularly since the unclear outcome in the Libya uprising, but now, everything has changed.

But it stands to reason that something has to give in Yemen. Apart from horrendous youth unemployment, the country is fast running out of water, with Taiz already out of water, and the capital, Sanaa, likely to be the first capital city in the world without water by 2015. At 8000 feet above sea level, this will present a huge challenge. The country's oil reserves are dwindling, Yemen is hoping to find gas but it won't be in significant quantities, and oil is currently its only significant export. And what is more, the known oil is in South Yemen, that demands separation from the North, making the issue more complex.

Whatever happens, ordinary Yemenis are in for a tough time, especially the young. I hope that young men like Amr find a future and are able to reach their potential, or I dread to imagine what will happen to the Arab world.

Drones winning 'War on Fright'?

2011-03-21T09:43:00.014Z

Just a few weeks after the MoD declared its interest in stocking up on mini-drones, as have already been used by Merseyside police for a one year trial, tribal leaders in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan vowed revenge against the US after armed drones killed more than 40 people near the Afghan border. It’s an echo of the criminal mistake America made in the Sixties when it bled the war on Vietnam into Cambodia.

The drone phenomenon is bound to increase the number of civilian dead in any empirical adventures by the technologically-advanced but tribal “west” on several fronts: shooting or bombing people from the air will never be accurate, it is not a face-to-face encounter as on the battlefield and so is in fact a casual judge, jury and execution in one; and as the perpetrator is seated at a console on the other side of the planet, he or she feels no remorse nor danger.

The attack on the 17th March caused fury - as with all previous airborne attacks, the victims were random: most of the dead were tribal elders and police attending an open-air meeting.
“We are a people who wait 100 years to exact revenge. We never forgive our enemy,” the surviving Pakistani elders stated.

General Hayden denied the attacks were state-authorised assassinations. He said the US was at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was simply acting in self-defence.
When Peter Taylor (BBC Two's The Secret War on Terror) pointed out that legally the war was in Afghanistan not Pakistan, he said that was not how the American administration looked at it.
“No they're not assassinations. This is a war, this is action against opposing armed enemy force. This is an inherent right of America to self-defence.”
If you think you have heard this line before, of course: it’s a macrocosmic version of the Israeli justification for bombing Palestinian villages.

Another link to Palestine is the Israeli arms industry, knocking out and exporting, among other things, drones. The European Union has given Israel direct funding for research in a programme called FP7; this has been getting channelled into military projects. In the end, the EU has been subsidising the manufacture of arms including drones, some of which it or its allies will then have bought.

The RAF is already using Predator drones, described as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) carrying Hellfire missiles or Paveway bombs, in Afghanistan.

What fun, boys!

The ECCP Briefing Paper - March 2011

The Israeli military and security industry

The Israeli military and security industry plays a pivotal role in the violent oppression of the Palestinians. The domestic industry provides a large proportion/majority of the weapons and equipment used by the Israeli military against Palestinians and the materials and systems for the construction and operation of Israel's illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements. Further still, the manufacture and export of weapons and other military equipment is crucial to the Israeli economy and its ability to continue its violations of international law. Israeli defence and security companies promote their products on the basis that they are "tested" in real world situations: the Palestinians are the guinea pigs in this testing laboratory. The violence experienced by Palestinians has become a source of profit; profit which itself surely motivates further violence. As former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens explained, "Israel's largest comparative advantage is in military products, because these demand advanced technology on one hand and military experience on the other…no country in the world is as dependent on arms sales as Israel. The Jaffa orange is fast being edged out of the public consciousness by the Uzi submachine gun as Israel's major export. Israel is the largest per capita arms exporter in the world".
Those who trade arms with Israel or cooperate with its military and security industry support Israel's continued violence against Palestinians and give a green light to continued Israeli violations of international law.

Israel and the Seventh Framework Program for Research

With a budget of €50.5bn, the Seventh Framework Program for Research (FP7) is the European Union's main research funding and collaboration vehicle and is due to run until 2013. As part of the benefits ascribed to Israel as part of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, Israeli research entities are equally eligible for research funding as those based in EU member states. The EU is Israel's second biggest source of public research funding after the Israel Science Foundation. All full participants in FP7, including Israel, make a contribution to FP7 based on their gross domestic product.

Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru MEP for Welsh Region, told us lobbyists in Brussels that Israeli UAVs (drones) are tested from an airfield at Aberporth on the Welsh coast near Cardigan, one of which crashed on the airfield a few days ago. She said that the Israeli company making the drones receives financial support from the Welsh government. The Welsh firm at the site is very small with about six employees, so it is not a significant local employer, but size in this case hardly matters: the connection is there.

Music history: The Maryland Club

2011-03-12T13:05:00.007Z

Brilliant Corners Jazzwise staggers down memory lane
The Maryland Club, Glasgow (April 2007)

"It's like Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night in here!" was the cry of many a Scottish parent as the neighbourhood kids came tumbling unscheduled through the house. Sauchiehall Street is at the hub of Glasgow's nightlife. From the banks of the River Clyde, you can walk uptown past the main railway stations and the fancy shops, increasingly uphill until Sauchiehall Street crosses your path. Head west along that famous thoroughfare towards Charing Cross - gateway to the more bohemian West End - and on your right look out for Scott Street. Scott Street hauls itself steeply up Garnethill, and to reach the Maryland, you had to do the same. Back in the 1960s music fans in Scotland looking for something outside the mainstream would find their way, sooner or later, to the Maryland.

The Maryland site today

Owned by Bob Gardiner and fronted by Willie Cuthbertson, both now sadly deceased, the club caught the tail end of the Trad jazz boom with visitors such as Acker Bilk and his band. The Cool era followed with, for instance, tenorist Jimmy Skidmore who also appeared with his son Alan, as 'Skid, and Skid's Kid'. The gradual inroads made by soul music into jazz in the mid-60s resulted in the clientele becoming seriously Mod and one local soul band appearing at this time was The Dream Police, featuring the young Hamish Stuart, later of The Average White Band.

Local band Sky Cabin in the Maryland cafe

When the Blues came to town around 1967/68, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Champion Jack Dupree were regulars. Moothie* player extraordinaire Frazer Speirs - a suitably big lad - was on the door. Occasional precious nights included blues legends such as Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, while Muddy Waters made a rare UK appearance here, coming onstage on crutches - this gig went on so late that Willie Cuthbertson let the folks who had travelled specially from the other side of Scotland kip on the floor of the club for the night! And there were two jam-packed nights with Tony Williams' Lifetime, a booking Bob Gardiner remembered with particular fondness while Jon Hiseman's Coliseum, Kevin Ayres and The Whole World, and the Edgar Broughton Band also played here. Cream were booked to play early in their career but a week or two before the date, their appearance on Top of the Pops moved the goalposts and they did the gig at the nearby Locarno Ballroom; support for that gig was Long John Baldry and his band featuring Elton Dean on sax and Reg Dwight on piano. Pink Floyd made their first Glasgow appearance at the Maryland having been banned by the City Corporation from playing elsewhere.
Although the club expanded beyond blues and rock to heavy metal with bands like Uriah Heap, it never lost contact with its jazz roots, always the place for rival musicians to check each other out, and good for making contacts. Pete Brown spotted Jim Mullen here and took him off south to join Piblokto (or more accurately Piblokto!).
The ambience of the club changed with the times, and only messrs Gardiner and Cuthbertson could have revealed how this miniature Amsterdam flourished in the centre of uptight, Presbyterian Glasgow - although their budget didn’t extend to arranging a drinks licence. Then one April night in 1971 a smouldering fag-end in the dressing room opened the roof and let out all the memories.

-Thanks to Craig Lockhart for lots of extra input here............... *Glaswegian for harmonica

Living Souls

2011-03-09T23:28:00.014Z

Dmitry Bykov

translation: Elaine Feinstein

pp 439

ISBN: 978-1-84688-126-8

AlmaBooks 24/02/11

There is a tradition in Russia, as there is in America, of the brick-shaped novel. Although life is short and most of us have a limited amount of time to spare wandering through the pages of another world, writers such as Dmitry Bykov believe that we should abdicate weeks of our own reality in favour of his fantasy of the near future. An impoverished Russia, permanently at civil war between the northern Varangians, who claim descent from the Aryan founders of Russia, and the southern Kaganate, made up of Khazars and Jews driven out of Moscow. These base their right to Russia on the skills that they believe once brought prosperity to a land now derelict. In the middle, the peasantry takes comfort in superstition and folklore. As it is set in the near-future, the history of modern Russia, Soviet crimes and the massacres of the Second World War hang over it throughout. Russia’s economy is destroyed. The world has turned to a new fuel, Phlogiston, and is no longer buying oil. The country is marginalised, and has turned to war, the only productive activity apart from oil sales its rulers can organise. War brings no tangible results, partly because Russian officers exterminate more of their own men than the enemies can.
As the story opens, Gromov, a Varangian officer, battles to recapture the village of Degunino before nightfall, chiefly to prevent his leave being shortened. Meanwhile, a nervous Private Voronov has fallen into the hands of an old KGB sadist, amusing himself before arranging his execution the next morning. An army priest, Ploskorylov, struggles to align his work with the enormously detailed army rulebook:
“ What’s wrong? You think I tricked you into a test? I love you, you idiot!” Gurov said with a short staccato laugh, flapping an arm at him and noisily kissing his cheek.
“In a church...” Ploskorylov gasped, barely able to breathe.
“Forgive me Father, I’ve sinned, Gurov grinned. ‘Right, fuck off, Priest, I’m going to inspect our troops.’
It certainly does read as a satire, and one about bureaucracy and procedural red tape as much as anything. We are not expected to love the Varangians, whether they are poltroons, sadists or book-punchers, although there is an air of melancholy drifting through the story which carries us with it. And grim though it may be, it is funny, too.
The soldiers find some light relief in the arms of the peasant women, who have to be equally welcoming to all warring factions as they pass through. In fact, only the peasantry in general have a sympathetic light cast on them. Although this has been described as the Catch-22 for modern Russia there is no central character as likeable as Yossarian; it is so well-populated that there is hardly enough room for one man to be central to the whole epic. The strangest thing about this tale is its overall tone of being set in the late nineteenth century, and it sticks there despite the soldiers’ occasional use of mobile phones and casual references to 20th century phenomena like TV serials and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.
Does the original Russian title, the abbreviaton Zhd, mean Yidzhivye dushi (living souls), in acknowledgment of Gogol's epic Dead Souls (1841), which inspired Bykov's book, or yid? Apparently the English translation removed a lot of the original references to yids but ‘yd’ pops up a few times: Major Volokhov, once a historian, wishes to marry his lover, Zhenka, who lives in the Kaganate , but she refuses because she is a “Yd”. Volokhov’s friend Everstein is also a Yd. We have to judge for ourselves. Certainly, his characters have it in for the Jews (Zhydy), but plenty of them also hate the Russians; and he has pointed out that he does in fact have it in for everyone. Bykov is a big name on the Russian literary scene. His novels (five, plus a biography of Pasternak) have won the two most prestigious prizes and he is a well-known poet and TV face. Half-Jewish, he answers accusations of anti-semitism by pointing out that he attacks Russian nationalism too. His enormously inclusive book - the translation is long, but the original is even longer - caused a furore in Russia when published in 2006. Blending a ‘novel of ideas’ with a dark urban fairy-tale and lyric satire not unlike Raymond Queneau (‘The Sunday of Life’), he leads his characters to an inevitable collision maybe like the one they came from before the book opened. The survivors say, “Let’s go,” holding hands as they move on. Not necessarily going to a rosy future.

Cinema: Myths and Illusions

2011-03-06T12:30:00.007Z

As we enter the annual blockbuster high-season, here is my look back at the world of smoke, mirrors and sprockets:

MYTHS and ILLUSIONS

If you watch just about any TV programme about the First World War, you are going to see the shot of British soldiers going 'over the top' and one hit by a bullet, falling back into the trench. It's ancient and scratchy as you would expect, but it was filmed in the 'twenties.
It's all illusion, of course. Our perception of cinema has come a long way since the Lumiere Brothers had music-hall audiences rushing for the door as they were faced by a speeding locomotive. We accept that light particles bouncing off a white screen are no more than that, but willingly leave this flesh, blood and brick world to suspend our disbelief and allow our emotions to be assaulted or pampered. More than that: cinema now demands that we accept several layers of reality. It began with jumps in space as the scene cut, for instance, from one lonely Romeo to his far-away Juliet. Charlie Chaplin and the delectable Edna Purviance.
Early masters like Abel Gance topped this by sticking two or more related events together in a multiscreen, as in the 1927 'Napoleon'. It was time-travel that really took off, though, with the flashback quickly growing from an insert to being the whole film, like 'The Lavender Hill Mob' (1951), where we start in the present and only return to it for Alec Guiness' punch line, which completely trashes all the assumptions we would have made about the story's outcome.

Concurrent with the growth of mainstream fictional cinema has been the documentary, which, although for most of its history has been predominantly in the service of hard fact, also enabled us to learn about alternative worlds, e.g. 'Nanook of the North', while giving directors a freedom to experiment they would not have had with bigger budgets hanging round their necks. 'The Night Mail', mixing film, poetry and music being just one example. Rap cinema. Often through budget limitation, films have included bits of what is later recognised as valuable documentary, like the original Titanic film, 'A Night to Remember', where The Queen Elizabeth played the lead role for the launching scene. But story-telling and information have usually tended to keep well apart, although now there are plenty of straightforward dramas which function as documentaries too, like 'In the Name of the Father' (the story of the Guildford Four) although it bent the facts by combining the characters of solicitor and barrister for the American market, casting some doubt on the rest of it. (Incidentally, complaints have also been made against the 2006 film, 'Provoked', based on the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who killed her violent husband, in that it lost by having the legal process 'Americanised'.) 'Fellow Travellers', too, the 'eighties film about how blacklisted Hollywood writers came to work on British TV, putting words in the mouths of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe. An ideal double bill with 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.

Inbetween we have the honestly 'based on real events' film; starting with historical fact but jumping off to create a slightly, or completely, new story. A special mention here must go to the Italian 'Private', the Golden Leopard award-winning tale of a Palestinian family playing unwilling host to some frightened Israeli boy-soldiers. Based on a true story, or perhaps a couple of true stories, it works a little like a 'reality TV' show, the camera sharing confined airspace with improvising actors. The Coen Brothers' 'Fargo' is another one of the legions of examples, and one of the best. It isn't so new, though: Two directors separately made differing films both based on a murder committed by two bored youths just to see if they could carry out the perfect crime; one being 'Rope', by Alfred Hitchcock. If you want to really stretch the point, you could include half of all films ever made, taking in gangsters, men in tights, westerns and war movies.

Meanwhile, books (and not just Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and James Joyce's Ulysses) have been taking increasing liberties with genres; but the landmark event in demolishing the wall was surely on the wireless with Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds'. He managed to top even that, in a sense, with 'F for Fake' (1974) . 'Art itself is a forgery, of nature or the imagination' - (is an interpreter a forger?) An investigation linking two art forgers including Elmer Hory, with Howard Hughes the recluse who employed stand-ins for his rare public appearances (cf A. Warhol), a hoax biographer and Orson the amateur magician himself, 'Fake' jams together visual puns, stills, other films, reconstructions and actual documentary footage in an exhilarating but disorientating experience. It was not a great success at the box-office as it was born ahead of its category.

Two strands of new cinema can be traced back to that film: most of Charlie Kaufman's scripts especially 'Adaptation' and plenty of Michael Winterbottom's output stand out as a recognisable genre, combining a film, with a film about the film and chopping together the script with its source and the business of writing it. Jean Luc Godard has also had a considerable effect in this area, although since he came over all analytical, only the most determined film scholars would sit through his films more than once. In 'One Plus One' (comparatively a symbolist drama) , combining a fictional group of black kids planning bloody revolution on the banks of the Thames, with the Rolling Stones interminably trying to record 'Sympathy for the Devil', Jagger spoke for us all when he burst into an exasperated 'Jeeziz Christ!'. Winterbottom has made several films which combined genuine documentary with fiction, particularly 'Welcome to Sarajevo'. Documentary has now become a 'style' to take its place with other movie forms including musical, noir and comedy. In the end it's a matter of degree: 'Apocalypse Now' looked, in its time, quite like the 'real thing', but 'The Road to Guantanamo' and now 'Shooting Dogs' leave it looking relatively stylised. Films like this which look like documentaries actually contain quite a lot of acting and inter-acting. Such leading cinema has a chicken/ egg relationship with technology. As it was with oil paint and easel pictures, offset litho and Private Eye, Marshall Amplifiers and Jimi Hendrix, photocopiers and samizdat or punk fanzines, so it goes with video/ digital and (usually) small-budget postmodern cinema.

There certainly is an entirely new genre: depicting real events and using non-actors to play themselves or people like them. Or 'real' actors to impersonate them. That's the other strand. There has been a wave of no-budget films from Iran, notably 'Kandahar' ( an Afghani-born woman receives a letter from her suicidal sister, taking a dangerously unaccompanied journey through Afghanistan to try to find her), by Mosen Makhmalbaf, 'The Apple' by his daughter Samira (two daughters are released from their prison home by their jealous and paranoid father), and 'The Day I Became a Woman' (the three ages of woman) by Marzieh Meshkini AKA Mrs Makhmalbaf. All are shot in the middle of their real-life scenario with combined actors and non-actors, often apparently playing themselves. The ubiquitous Winterbottom has also done this, perhaps with a little more money, as in 'In This World', the harrowing study of people-smuggling. The perfidious logic of our film distributors shows up in the way that, although Makhmalbaf has been established as a film maker since at least 1981, it was that charmer, The Apple, by his 21 year-old daughter, that was the break-through for Iran in the UK.

Just as in Iran, Africa has been growing as a film-making country. Widely regarded as the father of African film and called by his colleagues, 'Uncle' or 'The Old Man', Ousmane Sembene has been working in films for a quarter century. His latest, 'Moolaade', seen at the 2005 bath Film festival, appeared, deceptively, to feature 'real' people playing themselves, but they were in fact actors from all over the continent. His stories are placed in convincingly real surroundings, and as well as setting out to show their intended audiences their world and themselves, are heavily polemical; none more so than Moolaade, which deals with female genital mutilation. Combining the illusion of reality with strong ideas, and ideals, these films will inevitably become as important part of history as the attitudes, cultural and political, they portray.

At the same time, there has been the rise of 'Dogme': director Lars von Trier and his confederates issued a manifesto and followed its puritanical rules - to get rid of trickery in cinema. No more overdubbing, sound effects, back-projection, artificial light. A return to the absolute basics, 'Festen', 'The Idiots' and other productions rolled out before it became apparent that these revolutionaries were only using their new 'style' for what they could squeeze out of it. They have, perhaps inevitably, got more sophisticated and now have their choice of established movie technique. Von Trier's recent 'Manderlay' was mostly post-synched (overdubbed). In any case, their pared-down approach didn't necessarily always lead to a heightened sense of realism, although by sticking to one kind of film-making throughout a production, they made it a lot easier for audiences to maintain one level of disbelief-suspension. The unobtrusive camera, the fly-on-the-wall observation felt a little like documentary but there was never any doubt that we were watching actors acting.

'Documentary' has elided with 'fiction' for the sake of style as much as for the sake of budget. '24 Hour Party People' and 'A Cock and Bull Story' played jokes with the idea of doing such a thing, and the first was a mock-documentary with Steve Coogan playing 'pop svengali' Tony Wilson, who also plays the part of 'Tony Wilson' in the latter, parts of which were indistinguishable from hard-fact documentary. But there are also plenty of films which regardless of their believability levels, look like documentaries: 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' for instance. A film made by Remy Belvaux in 1992, on the other hand, set out from the start to look like a documentary, made by a team who by their presence are implicated in the crimes being carried out by the protagonist. 'Man Bites Dog' beguiles us all into assuming the relaxed attitude of the disinterested observer, to the extent of finding our man amusing and sympatico. I am tempted to give more details, but it's too good to spoil, and I'm sure there are some amongst you who have not yet seen it. Enough to say that when we eventually become aware of how far we, the audience, have strayed, it's as amusing as a kick in the solar plexus.

Yoko Ono in one of her darker moments made a short film called 'Rape', in which the camera stalked an increasingly frightened girl through streets and round corners. That's it. It's an Art Film, which means taking one idea and hammering it to death. The fad for 'snuff movies' in the States went a little further, by hammering the protagonist to death. They seemed to have lost popularity when it became clear that they were, despite their hand-held immediacy, fiction. Perhaps. Anyway, as far as their hardcore audience goes, it probably wouldn't make that much difference.

'The Blair Witch Project' probably fooled some of the people, some of the time. As it begins with the bald statement: 'In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was discovered.' - it's obvious what we are expected to believe, or credit. The students' film begins professionally enough for beginners, but deteriorates into thoughtless pointing and shooting as they get lost and descend into danger. The really clever thing is getting us to accept that three people who are only in the end concerned with struggling to survive, would take the trouble to film themselves struggling. There are plenty of setups which are palpably not unplanned; simply not what real people without a film crew would really do - but it doesn't matter. We believe. The three students' personality clashes, frustration, anger and distress are 'true to life' and they at least must be 'real kids' even if the film requires us to make that credibility jump. It's necessary to watch the DVD complete with the extras, to see the light. They are believable because they are actors. As they plan to make their documentary one of them makes a passing reference to 'Deliverance', a drama which followed a similar plot, and also convinced as a portrayal of a bizarre and dangerous other world. John Boorman is a great director, and so we believed the scenario, but we may have had reservations about such horrible people really existing. One of them was in the Whitehouse, you might say; so life imitates art, as it always has done.

Yemen update 2nd March

2011-03-02T09:27:00.004Z

With the spread of political unrest throughout the Arab states, there has been a dearth of news about Yemen, a part of the world which if anything only conjures up embarrassing memories of Britain's empirical adventurism in the nineteen-fifties. We in Bristol are privileged in having a colleague, Dr Judith Brown, right there in the middle of it all. Here is her latest report:

I'm back in Sana'a which is much quieter than Aden protest-wise, although the areas around the new university and Tahreer Square are blocked to traffic. I am living way north of those areas so I don't see any action except when driving nearby.
The mood in Sana'a I think is apprehension. I think it might be difficult for us to understand their fear, but when the whole Middle East is set for a possible big change, everyone becomes aware of the financial, security, stability risks and they are scared at the prospect. They would like change but...
Just as I left Aden, I received an email from the British Ambassador suggesting that all British citizens leave Aden immediately. There are tanks on the streets apparently and it is considered that the risk of civil war has been raised. However, the demonstrations yesterday, whilst very large in Taiz and Aden, were I gather peaceful. Taiz is an interesting situation because it was in North Yemen - which is actually to the West of Yemen, but actually located in the South. So it gravitates towards the South, it is far nearer to Aden than it is to Sana'a. It also has a reputation for having respect for women's rights and is noted as a place where education is valued - even during the Imam era, it was the only town in North Yemen with educational facilities for women, and the schools were considered to be excellent. It is in Taiz where there are the biggest uprisings in the whole of Yemen. I think the people of Aden (not the youth who are protesting) see the issues of separation and change in government as too closely related, and fear the consequences. They know the president has close links with the American military because they are fighting Al Qaeda in Arabia, which is now based in Hadramaut, which is in the political South but is actually in the East. So you can perhaps see why Taiz, with no secessionist issues and no close links with Sana'a is the lead city in the protests.
But I can see that the fear and apprehension of change, once the initial excitement has passed, is a big block to movements for change. And this of course applies all over the Middle East - nothing is settled politically in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya yet and that adds to uncertainty elsewhere.

Libya: what next?

2011-03-01T10:44:00.010Z

So what next in Libya? The USA will be keen to re-establish ‘stability’ first and foremost. We all know what stability means: setting up a regime that will be in every way a puppet of the ‘benign’ godlike Superstate, and which looks pretty much like the last one. That is why Eisenhower invaded Guatemala. And that is why Kennedy also invaded Guatemala. The wrong kind of democracy. As in Vietnam, Chile, Gaza.

And we can look at Iraq for an example of perfidious US/UK politics. Saddam was our man until he went into business for himself; then suddenly he became Evil Personified - and the fact that his chemical weaponry was sold to him by the US and UK was brushed aside repeatedly. Similarly, Gaddafi morphed from terrorist supporter to Friend of the West, which then ignored his internal repressions. Libya is regarded as a favoured customer, with the UK boasting the largest pavilion at the last Libyan arms fair. Thus it was with the Thatcher Government and Indonesia.

In January 2009, Nick Clegg wrote in The Guardian that Britain should stop selling arms to Israel following its bombardment of Gaza. He made a broader point: the UK should not supply weapons to countries involved in external aggression or internal repression.
He has been conspicuously silent on this subject since he became deputy prime minister.

Interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme, Tuesday 1st March, John Major exposed the Establishment position on this for once and for all. He claimed, with some bitterness, that the people who were complaining about arms sales would be the same ones who would be out on the street demonstrating against job cuts when the arms industry suffers.

Now Iraq has ‘stability’: a new, stand-in dictatorship, hotwired to Washington as before. And all those deaths? Just numbers, as Harry Lime would say. But our government and supine news media - the Mail, Sun, Telegraph etc will have it that we ‘won’ the war and liberated the Iraqis while saving ourselves from the threat of WMD.

It does look now as if the UN could be readying itself for intervention. Our very own David Owen has been calling for a degree of UN-sanctioned interference. Or America could just stick to tradition and start pouring bombs all over the parts of Libya that it suspects contains the people who least represent its interests.

In a recent blog, Susil Gupta said,
Should the crisis continue, the Guardian argues, “intervention on the ground would have to be considered. The Egyptian army has the means, other Arab countries could contribute, and western forces could help.” Yes, and it would all be over by Christmas.

It is obvious that these war-enthusiasts have not thought this through – but then they would not be doing any of the fighting. The plain fact is that there are no feasible military interventions even if the major powers could agree on an intervention plan, which is very far from being the case. Consider the options.

Imposing a no fly zone. This would require extensive air patrols by foreign air forces. They would have little effect since air power is not key to Gadhafi’s strategy. It would, however, create an atmosphere of major war and give Gadhafi a propaganda boost.

Creating a military barrier or cordon sanitaire around eastern Libya to protect rebel positions. Likewise this would crystallise the situation into a two-sided war, which could only play into Gadhafi’s hands. It is to the advantage of those that want to topple Gadhafi to avoid a war of entrenchment fixed positions, preventing them from permeating every level of society and undermine further his crumbing power base. In any case such Western intervention would be impossible to implement. No Western commander is going to deploy troops at short notice into a theatre unknown to his troops but well-known to an enemy who, in any case, cannot be easily distinguished from friendly forces. It is a recipe for disaster.

Sending in a ‘peace keeping’ African Union force to separate the parties. One way to unite every Libyan behind Gadhafi, given the reputation of such forces in the past.

Sending in a ‘peace keeping’ force made up of troops from Arab countries as The Guardian recommends. One way to unite every Libyan behind Gadhafi and infect and inflame the whole of the Middle East with the vicissitudes of a Libyan civil war.

...
I would say that any kind of outside involvement would most likely unite the Libyans against the invaders if it did not break up the country into a protracted civil war. The good news is that America is seriously in hock after a century of overspending and colonial overstretching, so that it is unlikely to be as gung-ho as it used to be over this kind of scenario. And sanctions? Remember the sanctions in Iraq: how effective they were in hastening the deaths of the very young, the very old and the seriously ill. But in any case Libya is a different kind of country entirely - its edges are very ‘porous’ and it is probably as far removed from a self-contained walled-in state as you could get.

But whatever form any interference might take, it would certainly not be aimed at consolidating the democratic revolution by the People. It will be for re-establishing the pipelines of oil and money. Stability.

The Guardian has published some excellent letters on this subject including ones from friends Tony Greenstein and Peter Downey:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/01/liberal-intervention-in-arab-world?INTCMP=SRCH

Ian McEwan stirs it up in Jerusalem

2011-02-21T08:15:00.012Z

British novelist Ian McEwan has accepted an Israeli literary prize in Jerusalem while criticising Jewish 'settlements' in the West Bank, despite widespread grumblings about the importance of observing the Boycott, and not only from British and Palestinian writers.

In his lecture on Sunday, McEwan defended his visit to Israel, saying it encourages dialogue. Having inserted himself into Israeli academe, he revealed himself as a bit of a Trojan horse.
At an acceptance ceremony with Israeli president Shimon Peres and the mayor of Jerusalem, for the Jerusalem Prize, McEwan praised Israel's technological and artistic advances but asked: "Where is Israel's political creativity?"
He criticized Israel's 1967 annexation of east Jerusalem, legally outside "Israel" and the part Palestinians claim as the capitol of a future state in the fiction that would be the Two-state Solution.
McEwan is the author of the best-selling Atonement and Comfort of Strangers, and has won numerous literary prizes for his books.
While in the country, on Friday the 18th he joined Israeli author David Grossman at an anti-demolition demonstration in the Sheikh Jarrah district.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022001600.html

Where were you in the census, Daddy?

2011-02-20T09:26:00.011Z

Census time is almost here again. What once felt to most of us as a friendly, community activity, even a chance to leave a tiny mark on the page of history. But in the context of the inexorable growth of surveillance systems and methodologies, it increasingly looks a little sinister.

The revelation that the upcoming binge will be handled by a branch of Lockheed Martin can only add to the disquiet. Lockheed Martin builds cluster bombs, mostly known for killing children, and the F16 warplanes that played a central role in the recent destruction of Gaza. They also provide interrogators to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantånamo in Cuba.

More relevant to their projected role in the census, they are involved in surveillance and data management for the CIA and FBI.

We can take it that any government assurances about our data being completely safe, although it will be handled by this company whose major source of income from all sides is the War On Fright, are so much hot air.

Expect a boycott campaign to take flight in the next few days. If you miss out on filling in the 32-page questionnaire by accident or omission as many do, it’s overlooked by Big Brother.

But this time may be the time to go public. It may cost each of us a grand in court, but it’s a rare chance to make democracy come alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkq9hdGSsXQ&feature=player_embedded

More info about this at http://stopwar.org.uk - soon

Omar Offendum: the Revolution WAS televised

2011-02-08T21:56:00.004Z

This blog needs some leavening! It's time for some music; but of course at HanleyExpress that will be Meaningful:

Another death at Guantanamo

2011-02-04T23:11:00.003Z

by Andy Worthington, commondreams.org

The Second World War lasted for six years, and at the end of it prisoners of war were released to resume their lives. At Guantánamo, on the other hand, the prison has just marked the ninth anniversary of its opening, and on Thursday the Pentagon announced that Awal Gul, a 48-year old Afghan prisoner, who had been held for nine years without charge or trial and was scheduled to be held forever, died in a shower after suffering a heart attack. Gul had never been held as a prisoner of war, and despite the US government’s assertions that he could be held forever, no one in a position of authority — neither President Bush nor President Obama — had never adequately demonstrated that he constituted a threat to the United States.

More at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/04-6

More toys for the police

2011-02-02T20:33:00.013Z

Already regularly carrying, and using, guns and tasers, UK police have added yet another weapon to their armoury. Police chiefs are facing growing criticism after footage obtained by the Guardian showed an officer using CS spray on three ‘tax avoidance protesters’, leaving them needing hospital treatment. CS gas is widely used in Israel against peaceful protesters, and has caused many deaths there; most infamously the recent killing of Jawaher Abu Rahmah.

Politicians and trade union leaders described the use of the spray as "extreme" and "aggressive" after seeing the video of the officer using the spray at close range during Sunday's protest organised by UK Uncut.
Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, co-chair of the party's home affairs and justice committee, said - perhaps a little more kindly than was necessary: "The use of CS gas in a public demonstration, unless officers' safety was at risk, is an extreme tactic and would break a long-standing British tradition of policing public protest with minimal [sic] force. This is a road we do not want to go down."
The footage prompted Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union, and Neal Lawson, chair of the leftwing pressure group Compass, to call for a public inquiry.
"When tax injustice enjoyed by the rich is combined so starkly with vital public service cuts for the poor and the government refuses to listen or act then people have the moral and legal right to protest. We deplore the use of such aggressive policing techniques and call for a public inquiry to investigate and report on the use of CS spray against protestors on Sunday."
The Metropolitan police has said it is “reviewing” the circumstances of the incident, by which we may assume that it is waiting for it to blow over. And should the inquiry ever take place, we may rest assured that it will find that the officers who are subsidised by our taxes behaved in a responsible and professional manner.
Before Sunday's protest, which involved sit-ins at high-street shops around the country, Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), criticised the lack of willingness of new protest groups that have sprung up around the internet, such as UK Uncut, to “engage” with police before protests. He said if they continued to refuse to co-operate, then police tactics would have to become more “extreme”.

US blocks Al Jazeera

2011-02-02T12:01:00.006Z

Anyone seeking the most thorough, in-depth coverage of the uprising in Egypt can tune into Al Jazeera English.
But American TV addicts, unlike their friends in Canada, will have to wait until one of the U.S. cable-company-approved networks broadcasts footage from Al Jazeera English, which the company makes regularly available. What they can't do yet is watch the network directly.
Other than in a few places across the US - including Ohio, Vermont and Washington - cable carriers do not give viewers the choice of watching Al Jazeera.

So, ironically enough, US big business sides with Mubarak as American diplomats criticize the Egyptian government for blocking internet communication inside the country and as Egypt tries to stop Al Jazeera from broadcasting.
The result of the Al Jazeera English blackout in the United States has been a surge in traffic to the media outlet's website, where footage can be seen streaming live. The last 24 hours have seen a two-and-a-half thousand percent increase in web traffic, Tony Burman, head of North American strategies for Al Jazeera English, told HuffPost. Sixty percent of that traffic, he said, has come from the United States.

The Pink Hotel

2011-01-26T22:15:00.007Z

Anna Stothard
288pp
ISBN: 978-1-84688-131-2
almabooks Ltd. London 18th March 2011

Anna Stothard's second novel is palpably visual: each line cluttered with voluptuous images like brightly coloured cakes jostling off an assembly line. It takes a lot from cinema in the way we are 'dropped right in it' from the start, and then the girl's persona and back history are gradually revealed as she stumbles onwards into the unknown.

She has flown from the sepia-toned West Hampstead to sun-blasted Los Angeles for the funeral of her mother, last seen when she was in her childhood. She stays in the sun, living on the edge of society while she tries to find out who and what her mother was. Living on the run is natural for her: she sees pain as the status quo, while hoping for love. The story is populated by exotic characters (the serious drinkers, the Armenian ladies, the fake gangsters) who might hardly have been able to exist in the relative monochrome of London; although I am sure that Anna Stothard could paint Brits just as crumblingly bright.
The girl's inner dialogue is facinating, too - including the intensely observed momentary lapses of perception linking actions which we all get to a greater or lesser extent, and which many readers will think about for the first time.

Having read this book in three sittings, I will probably dip into it again from time to time - there are so many 'favourite' bits - quite like the movie I hope to see it become.

Anna Stothard (who is the daughter of Peter Stothard, TLS editor, and of novelist Sally Emerson) came to write this novel because one day she found a bunch of love letters from 'Hitch-hiker' author Douglas Adams to her mother, with whom Adams had a long affair before his premature death in 2001.

Return of the Mavi Marmara

2011-01-06T10:04:00.021Z

Huge crowds welcomed the bullet-holed Mavi Marmara and Turkey repeated its demands for Israeli 'apologies', as the world's news media including, of course, the BBC, looked elsewhere:

http://youtu.be/yE2r54_965Q

The return of the Mavi Marmara

Faiz Ahmed witnessed the Mavi Marmara's return to a hero's welcome at Istanbul's Sarayburnu port late last month.

The Mavi Marmara returned to a hero's welcome at Istanbul's Sarayburnu port late last month. Docking at its port of departure for the first time since its fateful voyage began seven months ago, it is perhaps the most celebrated of humanitarian relief vessels that set sail to carry foodstuffs, medicine, school materials and other household supplies to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's siege in May 2010.

To be sure, the craft itself was a sight to see. Palestinian and Turkish flags adorned the ship's decks in fraternal tandem, the Bosphorus' coastal breeze causing them to flutter spiritedly in a splendid sea of red, white and green. Brave slogans of solidarity with the oppressed in Palestine -- painted in Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew across its sides -- boldly identified the former ferry liner's peaceful but defiant international relief mission. Meanwhile on shore, cheering crowds of thousands amassed in excitement, gathering from an arm's length of the ship to several blocks down the harbor. Children sat on shoulders of parents and siblings, scrunching tightly to secure a better view.
Yet for anyone familiar with what transpired on the Mavi Marmara's decks hardly one week after departing from Istanbul last May -- when Israeli commandoes stormed the ship, killing nine humanitarian volunteers -- it goes without saying that the hero's welcome was not only for the ship. When news reporters referred to the vessel in Turkish and Arabic as "heroic," even "holy," they were in fact referring to the specific humanitarian mission it represented.

Furkan Doğan, Necdet Yıldırım, Cevdet Kılıçlar, Ali Haydar Bengi, Cengiz Akyür, Fahri Yaldız, Cengiz Songür, Çetin Topçuloğlu and İbrahim Bilgen -- these are the names of the nine aid workers killed in cold blood by Israeli soldiers. And here are the facts: as stated in the UN's international fact-finding mission report published on 27 September 2010, at least five of the victims were shot in the head, two at close range as they lay injured. The 56-page report states unequivocally that "the killing of at least six of the passengers" was "consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution" ("Report of the International Fact-Finding Mission," UN Human Rights Council, 27 September 2010). A forensic examination led by Turkish Attorney-General Mustafa Ercan identified some 250 bullet holes in the ship, with many painted or plastered over by Israeli authorities ("Mavi Marmara'da 250 mermi izi çikti," Turkish Radikal, 11 August 2010). This was not self-defense by any stretch of the imagination.

Beyond their numbers and nationalities, large placards with photos and biographies of those laid to rest were posted near the ship, providing viewers with a bit more of their humanity to reflect upon: "married with seven children," "in April he answered 75 out of 80 questions correctly on his university entrance exam," "his dream was to become a doctor," "a soccer champion," "ever-cheerful," "always coming to the aid of others."

For some, scenes from Sunday's reception also evoked unmistakable imagery and symbolism. Towering minarets from the city's mosques ornamented Istanbul's hilly panorama. Topkapi Palace, the home and administrative quarters of former Ottoman sultans, rests atop a nearby hill, overlooking the entire Sarayburnu port. A gigantic Turkish standard streamed from a prominent flagstaff nearby. Speeches in Arabic and English, but mostly Turkish, blasted Israeli policies intrepidly. Some news pundits may well have described the symbolism of a rising Turkey, rebuffed by the European Union, and reasserting its longstanding historical influence in the region.

But let no one be deceived -- this was not a Turkish political rally. As evident in the diverse cast of speakers and supporters in attendance, this was an international coalition of humanitarians, standing up for Palestine, and against injustice, wherever it may be. In addition to Istanbul-dwellers and Turks from across the country, including family members of those killed, among the thousands in attendance were guests from around the world, including Israelis and Americans against Israel's occupation, representing a plurality of backgrounds, nationalities and faiths. "Muslims, Jews, Christians and non-believers," as one Israeli speaker put it, proudly stood to salute and honor the ship's return. And its continuing mission.

Less inspiring has been the foreign news coverage outside the region. US news coverage on the reception was minimal, or nonexistent. CNN failed to post even a single report of the reception on its webpage. Incredibly, the BBC's lone relevant headline the day of the reception read: "Turkey wants to repair ties with Israel," thereby marginalizing Ankara's staunch demands for an apology and compensation, and its unwavering call to lift the inhumane siege of Gaza. The few European news agencies that did cover the reception seem to be obsessed with one question: will Israel apologize for its "mishandling" of the raid in international waters? Cynics would say not a chance. After all, has any Israeli government apologized for massacres it has previously perpetuated on innocent men, women and children? In Deir Yassin and numerous villages throughout Palestine in 1948, in Lebanon in 1982, in Jenin in 2002 and Gaza in 2009, just to begin a long list? More recently, is Israel really interested in easing the unspeakable siege of Gaza that has refused entry of household items such as crayons, pasta, fruit juice, and children's shoes? Or is it a useful way to "punish" Palestinians when they vote the wrong way?

Others opt to view the issue in a broader light. Apology or no apology from the Government of Israel, the return of the Mavi Marmara was a historic moment here in Turkey, the region and the world. The journey of the Mavi Marmara marked one of the most well-documented and well-publicized demonstrations of civil disobedience by an international coalition of civilians since the anti-apartheid movement. It may well represent a turning point in global indignation at Israeli policies against the Palestinians -- a process that has already accelerated in Europe, though less rapidly in the United States -- again not dissimilar from the nascent solidarity movements against the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1980s, the Vietnam War in the 1970s, and Jim Crow in the United States during the 1950s and '60s. Each began as a trickle of "activists" and intellectuals of conscience, eventually growing to an immense and unstoppable wave of global public opinion.

Certainly, the Israeli government should apologize for its woeful and brutal raid of the Mavi Marmara, offering compensation to the families of victims killed and the humanitarian organizations and individuals whose vessels and equipment were damaged. And the confiscated personal belongings of the passengers should be returned, to say the least. But more significantly, what happened on the Mavi Marmara has inspired countless numbers to continue, or join anew, the emerging tide of global public opinion speaking out for justice in Palestine. This includes a growing number of Jews in Israel, the United States and worldwide who refuse to sanction the crimes of a state that defiles their noble religious traditions and claims to act in their name. It is this undeniable authority of global public opinion, the world's only true superpower in the long-run, that can overcome any arsenal of high-tech weapons that the Israeli army may hurl in its way.

True, Israel will continue to impose incalculable suffering on Palestinians struggling to cope before any genuine change comes to light. Yet one thing is sure: business as usual in occupied Palestine can be no more. In a powerful invitation to all to see for themselves the nature of Israeli "self-defense," Turkish authorities again opened the Mavi Marmara for visitors to board its decks and examine the blood stains, bullet holes and, most poignantly, the exact locations where the nine civilians were slain. Through such educational measures and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, the Israeli government will be forced to abandon its inhumane siege of Gaza, and brutal occupation of Palestine in general. This growing tide, more than anything else, is the lasting symbol of the Mavi Marmara's return to a hero's welcome in Istanbul last Sunday.

Faiz Ahmed is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently in Turkey conducting dissertation research.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11713.shtml

Captain Beefheart

2011-01-03T09:24:00.022Z

When the Captain first toured the British Isles, it was barely credible that He had come among us. It was a supre-special night at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow; most of the audience deserved stage-space themselves- Superman was there, and a gorilla too. A little boy of, say, four years, in a giant bowler hat danced down right in front of the stage through two or three songs. The concert began with guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo striding back and forth in his flowery satin suit like a caged tiger, repeatedly gesturing as if he was about to start playing, and at last blasting off into a slide attack, the band galumphing along with him. When Beefheart had joined the band to deafening cheers and they had got through the first number, he pointed at Rollo and said, "This is the Mascara snake. And (holding up his clarinet) this is the for Chrissake!"

Torture now acceptable as punishment in US for untried prisoners

2010-12-20T22:52:00.005Z

Once safely tidied away in the pages of history or romance/horror stories, torture is a reality in modern America - (and to an extent in the UK; ask the Guildford Four). For revealing just one instance of the invasion's mindless killer brutalities in Iraq to the world and Wikileaks, quiet, unassuming soldier Bradley Manning has been forced into the most petty and malevolent solitary confinement, denied all comforts.

This has all happened on Barack Obama's watch. The "black" president who claimed that he was the harbinger of change. Who really deserves that prematurely awarded Nobel Peace Prize?

Stop the War Coalition suggests that it is awarded jointly to Julian

Assange, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the

leaks which so comprehensively lifted the veil on the secrecy and

lies that Obama, Bush, Cameron etc. use to wage unjustified and

illegal wars.

* THE TORTURE OF TRUTH-TELLER BRADLEY MANNING:

http://bit.ly/epv714

BBC Bias: Let's twist again, like we did last summer

2010-12-13T10:19:00.005Z

For those of us determined enough to keep up our attack on the BBC for its hair-raisingly Zionistic look at the attack on the Freedom Flotilla there will be in our files a 'stage three' letter referring to the entire body of complaints being treated as one and being looked at by an 'independent' editorial 'advisor', whose paper will be distributed to the complainants and the BBC Executive to give all a further opportunity for comment before it is distributed to the "Committee", whose finding will be 'ratified' by the BBC Trust in April 2011 and then published.

I'd say baroque is a good enough metaphor. I've listened to one or two sessions of the United Nations, and in fact, their deliberations sound very like this. If they lead to anything at all it tends to be an agreement to set up a sub-committee. In such lumbering scenarios, the so-called Palestine 'peace process' grinds ever onwards while the destruction of the country leaps ahead.

One of my fellow-complainants has written an excellent response to the BBC's latest:

Sir,

I would refer to the 'consolidated appeal' procedure which Michael Fadda, Editorial Assistant to the BBC Trust, has described in his email of 3rd December. This was in response to Richard Lightbown’s complaint of 24th August that the Panorama programme, Death on the Med', was biased and lacking in impartiality. The procedure described by Mr Fadda is Byzantine and the process so drawn out as to make any final BBC decision, apparently due in April, meaningless.

It has become increasingly clear that the programme was a whitewash of the truth and represents a nadir of the consistent bias displayed by the BBC in its reporting of the Palestine/Israel situation.

This lack of impartiality was confirmed by John Pilger who told us on the Today programme (on 10/12/10) that the BBC had failed to report the UNHRC report on the Mavi Marmara affair on its main news channels – censorship by omission.

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was released on 27/9/10. It is revealing and damning and should have been the subject of much publicity; it shows conclusively that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered ‘execution-style by Israeli commandos’.

The report states that both activists and journalists on board the flotilla were treated in a cruel and inhuman way and confirms that cameras, laptops, mobiles, passports, credit cards and cash were stolen by the IDF. As John Pilger stated, war crimes were found to have been committed and the report recommends that there is a clear case for prosecution for wilful killing etc – *see extracts from the report shown below.

This Mission report gives unquestionable evidence that ‘Death on the Med’ was a travesty of truth. The BBC should now make an unreserved apology and offer the resignation of the Director General. Under the watch of the current DG the BBC has increasingly shown bias and lack of impartiality in their reporting of the Palestinian/Israeli situation. The BBC appears to be in thrall to Israel – as is much of the American media – it is understood that the UN Mission report did not appear in any US media whatsoever.

The Israeli military and its government have again behaved in flagrant contravention of the Geneva Conventions and should be regarded as a rogue state. For the UK to seek to protect members of the Israeli government from international law procedures – as they are attempting to do on 13th December by tampering with Universal Jurisdiction – makes them complicit in Israel’s serial wrongdoing, as does also the moral support they give in avowing that they are ‘Friends of Israel’

The UK government would be well advised to read the attached UN Mission report, and then to rethink that friendship and their whole policy towards the Middle East.

Ted from Liverpool

Brian Sewell calls for public galleries to sell the family silver

2010-11-29T14:22:00.008Z

Brian Sewell, the bullshit detector whose condemnation of any artist's work has long been looked upon as the art world's equivalent of the ASBO for 'cool' status, has attacked local public galleries for hanging on to collections which could be partly sold off to fund services, now under threat by spending cuts. He singled out Bath and North Somerset for a particular kicking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11837414

and said of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery: "I've seen it described as a lucky dip.

'You might argue that you could take anything from it and no-one would notice."

Jon Benington, manager of the gallery, defended its collection, saying: "The art collections are there to inform, to educate, to inspire.

'Once they're gone, they're gone forever. You can't bring them back."

The question must be though: Who will buy these works? Many of the individual paintings in question are hack anecdotal works or demotic 'classical' fantasies, strictly of interest only to art historians with a special interest in upwardly mobile Victorians. But their value and use increases when they are part of collections; even if some of those collections are arbritrary, held together only by their shared provenance.

Will Miral be this generation's Exodus?

2010-11-18T08:06:00.012Z

by Adam Horowitz, on Mondoweiss

Today, I saw Julian Schnabel's new film Miral. It won't be arriving in theatres in the US until next March, so it will be a while until we see what effect it has, but my initial impression was amazement at what I was watching. Here was a film following many of the conventions of a traditional Hollywood film, but this time it was telling the Palestinian liberation story (which might explain why it was not produced in Hollywood and instead was a French/Israeli/Italian/Indian co-production).

The film, based on Rula Jebreal's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, takes us from the Nakba, and children orphaned during the Deir Yassin massacre, through the first Intifada to the signing of the Oslo Accords. I know there will be criticisms, and I have a few that I'll share later, but right now I am struck by the emotional impact of the film. You follow the lead character through checkpoints, refugee camps, home demolitions, interrogations, humiliations and protests. After that it is impossible to not understand, and feel, the Palestinian call for justice.

More, at http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/will-miral-be-this-generations-exodus.html

Although (no surprise) this was not an American-funded production, it will be given a full distribution in the USA, by Harvey Weinstein.

Military Industrial Complex

2010-11-10T10:48:00.003Z

Lara Lee, film maker and Freedom Flotilla survivor, introduces her new short film with this statement:
In 2009, the United States government spent some $650 billion on its military. This is more than the next 46 highest-spending countries combined. Much of this treasure ended up in the hands of profit-driven weapons manufacturers. In the following short film, I take a brief look at the current state of what President Eisenhower famously called the "military industrial complex." With the U.S. waging two wars overseas at the same time that millions of people are out of work at home, those pushing to reel in government spending and balance the budget would be wise to look carefully at bloated and unchecked military spending.

Cultures of Resistance: A Look at Global Militarization from Cultures of Resistance on Vimeo.

My Father Was a Freedom Fighter

2010-11-04T22:29:00.008Z

Gaza, Mohammed and my mother

By Elana Golden

My Father was a Freedom Fighter is a page-turner though I read it in small bites, the way you would eat a rich chocolate cake. It is a great read not only for those interested in the Israel/Palestine conflict but for anyone who loves books about family, courage, hope and resilience.

For while clearly illustrating the trajectory of the long and complex history of the conflict – My Father was a Freedom Fighter tells a story of survival that is beyond this particular conflict. It is a personal story told through the keen eye of Ramzy Baroud, it reads like a novel, and is universal in its tone, its humanity, its psychology.

Mohammed Baroud, the 1948 Palestinian refugee, the subject in the book’s title, who lives in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip “is” my Jewish mother who lived under the military fascist regime in Bucharest, Romania that collaborated with the Third Reich. Or anyone who’d been occupied and brutally treated! Mohammed “is” also my mother for they share an exaggerated concern for their children, choices they were forced to make to feed their families, a cynical view of the world, their humour, dignity and pride, and down to the long-Kent-cigarettes they each smoked, Mohammed in Gaza, my mother in Tel Aviv.

On the personal level, I appreciated the disclosure of family dynamics, the dark side, the wound: Brothers’ rivalry, domestic violence – patterns and attitudes that are part and parcel of many societies at all socio economic and educational strata. On the political level the book sheds light on the growing split between the factions in the PLO and how this split was created. And why Mohammed, an atheist and a Marxist, puts on his best suit and goes to vote for religious Hamas.

The book is filled with unforgettable scenes, many that bring tears, but what’s a Palestinian story without humor? In his desperate attempts to keep his dignity and his livelihood, Mohammed falls into all kinds of mishaps and disastrous traps that would make a great comedy of errors. You really don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. And he is so intelligent, so resourceful, that I wished I could get his advice on my own problems! But Mohammed is also a man who never got over the loss of his family’s house and field, and his people’s lands and freedom! His brokenness is inconsolable. It is one face to a dispossession and expulsion tragedy.

As someone who grew up in Israel, it hurt me so much while reading the book to think back at Palestinians like Mohammed who worked in Israel after the 1967 war, how they were humiliated, shamed and exploited. I also remembered Prime Minister Rabin’s policy “break their bones.” To experience this policy from the point of view of young boys in Gaza, as so movingly described in the book, broke my heart and made me understand the emotional mind set of a Palestinian boy who holds a stone in the face of a tank, the mixture of fear and revenge, and the moment the stone is hurled toward an Israeli soldier and the boy becomes a man...

My Father was a Freedom Fighter was written from a generous heart and will appeal to the hearts of many worldwide, not only to those interested in political science or the Palestine/Israel conflict.

Though get ready for a story that is very different from those told on FOX TV and all other corporate media outlets!

My Father Was A Freedom Fighter – Gaza's Untold Story. Ramzy Baroud. Pluto Press 2010

- Elana Golden, screenwriter, director, creative-writing teacher, Palestinian rights activist, Women in Black – Los Angeles. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Bristol Silents celebrates ten years

2010-10-30T00:31:00.021+01:00

It has been ten years since the Arnolfini hosted Bristol Silents’ first event - a Louise Brooks Double Bill. Back then, it seemed as if Bristol Silents might be a club for ageing, mostly male geeks with a small projector in a garage; but it has grown hugely. Supremo Chris Daniels looks as pleased as he is amazed; although of course, it didn’t just happen by magic. Once or twice a year Bristol’s enormous Colston Hall sells out for old-fashioned black-and-white silent film shows.

Friday 29th October 2010: To mark the anniversary, Bristol Festival of Ideas in collaboration with Arnolfini presented an evening celebrating the life and work of the incomparable Miss Brooks. Despite Hollywood's ill-use and her own best efforts to remain invisible after her first flowering, Brooks became a powerful face in cinema - indeed in our culture, her legacy shaped by her mesmerising work in a handful of European films, more than her appearances in a few 'girlie' comedies in Hollywood.
Diary of a Lost Girl confirmed Pabst as one of the great pre-talkie directors and established Brooks as an "actress of brilliance, a luminescent personality and a beauty unparalleled in screen history." (Kevin Brownlow). Brooks plays Thymian who, raped by her father's assistant, gives birth to an illegitimate child. When she refuses to marry the obnoxious assistant she is forced to leave the baby and is sent to a strict reform school for ‘wayward’ girls. It’s the second of two major films made by G.W. Pabst in Germany. The other, Pandora’s Box – with Brooks playing the part of Lulu – is usually considered one of the great films of the silent era. I would say that Diary, though not shown as often and not as highly regarded, doubtless because of its complexity and subtle sophistication as much as for its sordid story-line and full-frontal attack on society’s hypocrisies, deserves a higher ranking than Pandora.

The trouble with popularity ratings is that once a film, tune, picture, any work of art, becomes listed as being slightly popular, or even only well-known, its “popularity” can only increase, while others not listed remain off the ladder. Mentions engender yet more mentions, and so do listings.

The music for Diary was provided by pianist John Sweeney. It’s always difficult to write about - silent accompaniment - as it has to be dynamic, emphasising the sturm und drang and delicately floating over the flowery times, while being, ideally, completely unnoticeable. Of course, John Sweeney does it well. A one-man orchestra.

The night started with by a rare and slightly chopped about 1986 Arena documentary by Richard Leacock - a study broadcast shortly after Brooks' death, including one of her champions, Kenneth Tynan, while she talked of her days in Paris and Berlin and her experiences of Hollywood, with extracts from her films. This was one of these one-night only events, as the documentary is not out on DVD and we may well have seen the only copy; again, Diary of a Lost Girl, although it deserves all the praise it can attract, might only come your way once in a lifetime.

Gaza cartoonist meets fellow artists by video

2010-10-28T14:16:00.017+01:00

الفنان الفلسطيني ماجد بدرة يلتقي فناني كاريكاتير من فلسطين وأمريكا

Palestinian cartoonist Majed Badra meets American and Palestinian cartoonists: his report -

Through visiting of Cartoonist (Josh Neufeld) to Palestine with coordination with the American consulate, artist Neufeld meets Palestinian cartoonists in west bank ( Bahaa El bokhary, Khalil Abu Arafa, Mohammed sabaaneh, Abu noon and Ramzi el taweel ) and from Gaza strip by the video conference, cartoonist (Majed Badra).

Artist (Josh Neufeld) present his artistical experience and his last work the book of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge that tells the real stories of seven New Orleans residents and their experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Neufeld focus in his work on economic crisis,social issues,Hurricane Katrina, but he never draw political cartoons.

Palestinian cartoonists present their artistical experience and their accomplishments that they achieved through their artistical work, and show how they suffer from closing borders and siege that prevent artistical and cultural exchanges .

Cartoonist Majed Badra thank the American cartoonist (Neufeld) for his coming to land of Palestine , and he regret for his inability to meet the cartoonist (Neufeld) and his colleagues (Palestinian cartoonists) in west bank due to the closing borders by the Israeli occupation.

Badra assure that the Palestinian cartoonists seek to achieve values of freedom, equality, progress ,social justice, liberation, peace, democracy in order to preserve world peace, and to protect human rights and the environment.

Also they do their best to eliminate underdevelopment and subordination on a global perspective.

Beside working to raise the awareness of the concepts of social justice, democracy, freedom, and human rights.

Badra considers the Cartoonists are the conscience of the world.

الفنان الفلسطيني ماجد بدرة يلتقي فناني كاريكاتير من فلسطين وأمريكا

رسامو الكاريكاتير الفلسطينيين يلتقون رسام الكاريكاتير الأمريكي (جوش نيوفيلد)

خلال زيارة لرسام الكاريكاتير الأمريكي (جوش نيوفيلد), للأراضي الفلسطينية , بالتنسيق مع القنصلية الأمريكية

التقى الفنان (نيوفيلد) برسامي الكاريكاتير الفلسطينيين في الضفة الغربية ( بهاء البخاري , خليل ابو عرفة ,محمد سباعنة , أبو النون , رمزي الطويل) وعبر الفيديو كونفرنس في قطاع غزة الفنان (ماجد بدرة) .

وقد استعرض الفنان (نيوفيلد) تجربته الفنية وآخر أعماله كتاب الرسومات الكرتونية بطريقة قصصية حول الفيضان الذي خلفه إعصار كاترينا في ولاية نيوأورليانز في الولايات المتحدة الامريكية, بعد لقاءه مع سبع مواطنين عانوا أزمة الإعصار والفيضان وتجربتهم بعد وخلال هذه الكارثة.

ومن المعروف عن الفنان(نيوفيلد) أنه يركز في أعماله حول الأزمة الاقتصادية , وإعصار كاترينا والقضايا الاجتماعية... وغيرها , ويبتعد في أعماله عن القضايا السياسية.

وقد استعرض كل فنان فلسطيني تجربته الفنية والانجازات التي حققها في مشواره الفني والمعاناة التي يعيشونها والمشاكل التي تواجه الفنان الفلسطيني من إغلاق المعابر ما يؤدي الى عدم التواصل المستمر بين الفنانين وعدم وجود تبادل ثقافي وفني .

وقد رحب الفنان (بدرة) برسام الكاريكاتير الأمريكي (نيوفيلد) على ارض فلسطين , وأعرب عن أسفه لعدم قدرته مشاركة الفنانين في اللقاء وجها لوجه في الضفة الغربية لان الاحتلال الإسرائيلي دائما يحول دون لقاء الأصدقاء.

وأكد (بدرة) أن رسامي الكاريكاتير الفلسطينيين يتطلعون لتحقيق قيم الحرية والمساواة والتقدم والعدالة الاجتماعية والتحرر والسلام وحماية حقوق الإنسان والبيئة.

ويبذلون جهود حثيثة من اجل انهاء التخلف والتبعية ومواكبة التطور العالمي , وان رسامي الكاريكاتير يمثلون ضمير العالم.

Gaza: A treasure house under threat

2010-10-24T06:25:00.006+01:00

*ancient church and mosque in Gaza City [photo by Emad Badwan]

Oct 22, 2010 (IPS) – Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege.

Gaza, set along the historical silk road and on the bridge between Africa and Asia, was host to civilisations, including the Pharaohs, Canaanites, Philistines, Crusaders, Mamluks, Romans and many following. Alexander the Great invaded Gaza; Napoleon Bonaparte passed through.

*photo: Abeer Jamal

“Throughout Gaza, you find pottery and carved columns and capitals, and the remnants of civilisations past, including artifacts from early human presence like the iron and bronze ages,” says Asad Ashoor from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Gaza.

“There are visible relics in Gaza,” says Ashoor. These have survived civilisations and more recently, Israeli bombings.

In the Deir al Balah region, the vast excavated remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the first church in Palestine, include surprisingly intact floor mosaics and structural pillars.

*ruins of Hilarion monastery [photo: Abeer Jamal]

In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, one wall — with an entrance gate and tower — of a Mamluk era inn (“khan”) and fort which served trade caravans stands today in the centre of the city.

Gaza City hosts the Pasha Palace, now a museum, where Napoleon is said to have stayed. The Omari mosque, used today by worshippers, was built on the site of a pagan temple-turned-Byzantine church, and still has a bell tower after it was used as a church again during the Crusader period.

Hammam al-Sammara, the Ottoman bath house, still attracts customers today.

“Recently, workers digging to repair water lines in the Tuffah region of Gaza City discovered an old house from the Mamluk period,” says Abeer Jamal, secretary at the Gaza museum.

*photo: Abeer Jamal

“Above it was cemetery from a later period. But we were not able to excavate because it is an important road for traffic and there are many people living in that area.”

“Roughly eight months ago,” Jammal says, “excavations began on Tel Rafah, an archaeological site from Greek and Roman times, rich with artifacts but in a dangerous area near the Palestinian-Egyptian border. The Israelis dropped leaflets saying not to approach within 300 metres of this specific site,” she says.

But workers continue to excavate, and according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, have found various important artifacts, including Roman era pots and dishes, pottery and the lid of a coffin from the Byzantine period, and Greek era silver coins.

“The other main discovery was over 40 bronze coins from the Greek era, with the image of Athena, the Emperor, and Greek symbolism including owls, and Greek gods,” says Jammal.

Discoveries and extant antiquities aside, Gaza’s archaeology faces serious obstacles.

Jammal says many of Gaza’s treasures have ended up in museums outside Gaza. “Since my work also entails giving visitors Gaza tours, I’ve met many who say they have seen artifacts like ours in Israeli museums in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,” she says.

Gerald Butt, in his ‘Life at the crossroads: A History of Gaza’ notes, “The Israel Museum has among its collection a broad-based painted chalice taken from Tell al-Ajjul,” one of Gaza’s most important archeological sites. He later writes, “Pottery manufactured by the Philistines during this period can be seen in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem,” mentioning that Philistine artifacts were largely unearthed in the Wadi Gaza region.

“Most international visitors that enter Gaza enter via Erez and are given by the Israelis ‘a tourist guide to Israeli territory’,” says Abeer Jamal.

Aside from the former problems of looting, and the current Israeli disinformation campaign, archaeology in Gaza faces further obstacles of sporadic Israeli bombings and a lack of specialised equipment and preservation chemicals needed to excavate and maintain relics.

“We urgently need materials, particularly for cleaning and maintaining artifacts,” Jammal says.

Like most daily items Gazans need, the chemicals needed for the preservation of artifacts are banned entry to Gaza under the Israeli-led siege.

“The occupation and siege prevents not only Devcon and Ethanol, the chemicals we need for maintaining our relics, but also outside expertise to help in excavation and restoration,” says the Ministry’s Asad Ashoor.

“Given the circumstances, we do our best to conserve these pieces,” Ashoor says. “Some we can place inside glass tanks, but even these break or crack. And anyway, that doesn’t solve the problem of needing controlled ventilation and temperature.”

According to Ashoor, attempts at gaining United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approval for historical sites and items have not succeeded.

“We contacted UNESCO, but they have refused to address our archaeological goods,” he says.

“Israel’s goal is a blackout on Palestine’s history and culture,” says Ashoor. “Israel wants outsiders to think only that Gaza is a depressing, dangerous place devoid of culture, history and beauty, and that the main theme here is humanitarian aid.”

Jammal agrees. “This is not just an economical siege, it’s a cultural siege, a siege on everything that is Palestinian.”

*inside one of Gaza’s churches [photo by Emad Badwan]

*Omari mosque, formerly a church [photo: Eva Bartlett]

*Omari mosque detail [photo by Emad Badwan]

*old roofs in Gaza [photo by Emad Badwan]

*the old city, in Gaza City [photo by Emad Badwan]

*old city lanes [photo: Eva Bartlett]

*Khan Younis inn [photo: Abeer Jamal]

Originally published at:

http://ingaza.wordpress.com

A fish? Dada's hangover

2010-10-07T13:37:00.014+01:00

"All is going well at the meeting. The exquisite André Salmon recites his unobjectionable poems and the public is pleased, convinced that it is to be presented with the Art which it loves so very much. But its fatuous self-satisfaction, the smug congratulations to one another upon being seen at a cultural event, is soon destroyed. We enter wearing masks. Behind the masks we shout out a bad poem by Breton, the Big Balled Bastard. Now the audience is no longer happy. A certain anxiety can be felt as citizens look at one another, their expressions uncertain. Is this still art?May they congratulate themselves again?
... This time, I am happy to report, it concludes very decently in riot. Several pieces of furniture are broken and, in the noise, Picabia's last words are missed by many. I believe he is saying something he honestly believes it is important for them to know. He has mentioned this fact of artistic appreciation before. 'If you read literature aloud for ten minutes, you will develop bad breath,' But the audience will not listen to this extremely valuable advice. Most of them are here only because of our announcement that Charlie Chaplin will be the guest of honour. Many others have come merely to bombard the performers with small change from their pockets. They are beginning to realise that Dada must cost them money."

In his 'historical' work of 1990, Exquisite Cadaver, published just before he retired to Ireland to work on making collages, Wolf Mankowitz left us a brilliant picture of the origins in subversion for what is now State/Big Business Academia, as well as reminding us of what today's audiences have forgotten about: namely, informed scepticism. At this time, as the latest cherry-picked Turner Prize 'nominees' are lined up and cuts to the Arts are in the news, we should remember.

In a recent Guardian article, Laura Cumming, who has previously covered the Turner circus without blushing, stood up to declare she no longer believes in it; although with her own kind of reservations:
"Not any more. It has long since outlived its most useful function, which was to raise awareness of contemporary art in a society that often found it strange, forbidding, arcane or just plain laughable.
Consciousness-raising was the Turner's founding aim in 1984. The prize created hoopla, especially when broadcast on national TV with a panel of critics, commentators and artists in violent disagreement. But you cannot manufacture dissent like this without passionate opinions. And while there may be no consensus among the judges – or at least that's what they always insist when publishing their accounts of the experience – I strongly doubt that the issue of who wins the prize nowadays raises anybody's blood pressure.
The world has changed since 1984. Contemporary art is everywhere: bought, sold, debated, displayed, televised, mediated, thoroughly and ubiquitously exposed."

She is right on the ball when she speaks about manufacturing dissent. But the dissent she referred to was that purportedly among the ‘judges’ rather than between the competing artists and the public. And since the late nineteen-seventies, the kind of stuff that is most often referred to by art critics as contemporary art has been, when not pure “conceptualism”, Dadaist pranks recycled by successive generations of art students thinking that no one else knows about Duchamp. In much the same way that, every now and then, a new angry young rock guitarist will smash his axe onstage, doing the Sixties.

And contemporary art was doing pretty well, thank you, before the Turner Prize. I write as one whose first one-man show sold out (in Glasgow) in 1964. Laura Cumming praises with faint condemnation.

Iwona Blazwick spoke up unequivocally in favour of the Turner. She said, "From a public perspective the Turner prize is like the Booker, or the Orange, it guides you, narrows the field. For anyone wanting to know what's happening in contemporary art it's a great starting point.
From an industry point of view it presses a pause button, makes us stand back and take a more focused position. For me it raises questions like: why have these four been picked out of the huge panoply of activity?"

I can answer that, easily. Only those lucky few who are contracted to or shown by that tiny group of specialist galleries like the White Cube, manage to blag a show at one of the state-sponsored galleries like the Glasgow CCA and the Birmingham Ikon, or are championed by the speculative collector Charles Saatchi are added to the short list. No one who has been nominated by ordinary members of the public will even get considered. And, of course, what is happening in contemporary art has absolutely nothing to do with this self-serving party.

Hayden Smith of Metro covered the opening of this year’s Turner collection - yet to be judged, which the Press "threatened" to boycott after they were told to sign contracts agreeing not to publish images resulting in ‘any adverse publicity’ for the Tate. He blotted his copy a little, though, by calling the Award "Britain’s most prestigious - and controversial". That prestige is surely recognised only by the earnest workers in the Arts Council, the leap-frog culture joining the Tates and the Cubes and the Serpentines; and the publishers of a few glossy but vapid art mags.

Brian Sewell summed it up pretty well, and I can thank Mr Smith for this quote: "Most of the art that gets into the Turner Prize is some kind of extremely contemporary rubbish - assemblies of rubbish masquerading under important names."

And Dada is costing us! Now, after all these years, the British taxpayers are funding its idiot children. I propose a government bill to wind down the Arts Council, as a subclause in the Bill to outlaw masturbation while wearing hats.

'Exquisite Cadaver' Wolf Mankowitz
248pp ISBN 0 233 98547 6
André Deutsch 1990

Trio Joubran play Bristol

2010-10-06T09:44:00.008+01:00

The Palestinian ‘Asylum’ Oud musicians Trio Joubran resurrected Nazareth at St George’s Hall

by Iqbal Tamimi

Director for Arab Women Media Watch Centre in UK

The fine Oud music did not need a crutch of words to explain its mission to the British music lovers. For the first time campaigning and praying for justice and peace in Palestine took the shape of music at St George’s Hall, where the senses kneeled in the presence of glorious art.

On Wednesday night 29th September the Palestinian musicians ‘Trio Joubran’ and the brilliant Palestinian Percussionist Yousef Hbeisch held a concert at the marvellous St Georges Concert Hall in the city of Bristol, that is dedicated to promoting high quality by hosting almost 200 events every year.

Le Trio Joubran, Samir, Wissam and Adnan are the fourth generation of a Palestinian family of « Oud » makers.

Samir told us that their last night’s Concert was the 11th in a series of performances within a tour. Even though the group is called Le Trio Joubran, the fourth member, the percussionist master, the son of Palestine’s’ Galilee, Youssef Hbeisch is not a member of the Joubran family but he is a main pillar in the Trio's compositions. His rhythms and notes were the magic that made the packed concert Hall of St George, echo with applauds while the Ouds of the Trio were creating a marvellous dialogue with his drums and tambourines.

Le Trio Joubran, Oud masters, are three brothers from the city of Nazareth, north Palestine. Samir, the leader of the band was introduced to Oud by his father at the age of five, and by the age of nine, Samir joined the Nazareth Institute of Music. In 1995 he graduated from the highly prestigious Muhammad Abdul Wahhab Conservatory of Cairo in Egypt.

Samir’s first album, Taqaseem, came out in 1996, followed by his second album Sou'fahm (Misunderstanding) in 2001. Until this date, Samir was the only Palestinian musician performing outside the borders of his country. He is also the first musician to be awarded, a two-year scholarship to Italy in 2003-2004 through the Writer's Asylum Program organized by the International Parliament of Writers.

Last night, Samir, who is now based in France, expressed his sorrow that a large number of talented musicians and creative Palestinian colleagues of his, are suffering the oppressive policies of Israel, denying them the right to travel to participate in international activities. The Trio themselves suffered all sorts of harassments including cancellations of their performances in their own home city of Nazereth by Israeli arbitrary orders. Samir said " we want to be known as musicians from Palestine not as Palestinian musicians".

On the stage, Samir gave tribute to the renowned great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who contributed to his musical poetic understanding, by saying ‘ I learned from Darwish what no collage can teach me’.Samir’s Music allied itself with the spoken word bringing back to life the traditional Palestinian tune of the well known song of ‘Hal Asmar Eloun’ that revived the audience at the back seats who found themselves humming along with him; the British enthusiasts just hummed the tunes, while the Arab expatriates sang along with his music for the homeland that has a moon made of silver, ‘Ya-boo Qamar Faddah’.

The Trio played some tunes that must have been tailored for a great documentary production back tracks. This was not surprising since Samir has good experience in this field. He composed the original sound track for Rashir Masharawi's Ticket to Jerusalem and three tracks from his albumTamaas were included in the sound track of Inguélézi. Three titles from Randana were also used in Parvez Sharmas' documentary ‘A jihad for love.’

Samir said ‘we will travel the world with our music for it is our weapon against oppression and no one can take our music or our Palestinian heritage away from us’. He also said: ‘We are fighting for peace, we are campaigning to end the occupation in Palestine and this is our message to the world’.

Samir Joubran, the eldest brother, started his music career in 1996, nearly a decade before the formation of the Joubran Trio. He released two albums,Taqaseem in 1996, and Sou'fahm in 2001 before inviting Wissam, to join him on the third album, Tamaas released in 2003. Adnan. Joined his brother’s band in August 2004, and at the Parisian' Luxembourg garden, the Joubran Trio came to life.

The second son of Hatem Jubran is Wissam whose father signed him up for violin lessons at the Nazareth conservatory and gave him a small Oud for his ninth birthday. Wissam performed in local Palestinian concerts and played on the theatre stage the role of a singing Oud player in a play about the life of the renowned Iraqi poet Moudaffar El Nawab. When Wissam was twelve, he seized the opportunity to take his dreams and talent all the way to Paris' Arab World Institute, where he shared the stage with his brother Samir. In 2005, Wissam was the first Arab graduate from the Antonio Stradivari Conservatory, in Cremona, and at the same time he followed his father’s footsteps by becoming a master luthier making the Joubran Trio's Ouds, carrying his four-generation’ family legacy into the future.

The third brother, Adnan, wanted to become a percussionist since he was young. Yet, he was captivated by the Oud. By the age of fifteen, he took part in Oud-playing contests, and he was one of five winners of a contest held in Palestine. Adnan provides musical accompaniment for the Fattoumi-Lamoureux dance company, in addition to his work with the Trio and performing for the Parisian audiences the combined music and circus show called EKO DU OUD (the Oud's echo). I have asked Adnan why their mother Ibtisam Hanna Joubran who is known for her mastery of singing the Mowashahat, (a form of singing that originated in Arab Spain) is not joining them. He said that it is not easy for her to leave Nazareth and travel abroad besides the difficult nature of their long tour which is not an easy option for her.

The Trio are haunted, like all Palestinians by exile and by the feeling of being forced to keep on the move searching for a home away from home like almost 6 million Palestinian refugees. This can be felt by the titles of their Albums. At the end of the successful concert, the four Palestinian musicians played a piece called Asfar which means ‘travels’, then signed a number of their albums for the audience. But what was interesting, is as Adnan said, we are Palestinians and we identify ourselves as such, no one even notices that we are Christian Palestinians, because for us Palestinians it does not matter what faith we are, we are campaigning for the freedom of our country through our heritage and music. The Trio got the biggest applause when Samir said " our instruments were the only weapons we picked up in our fight for Palestinian freedom and identity".

For me as a Palestinian in exile, the Joubran’s concert was a dream that brought my home country right to where I was. When the audience started stamping their feet, applauding the musicians and demanding more music, the sound of Palestinian Dabkeh sounds was brought back to life, I could swear that I can visualize the seasons of harvest in Palestine’s’ summers and smell the toasted wheat in its fields.

All Men are Liars

2010-09-21T21:27:00.006+01:00

Alberto Manguel, translated by Miranda France
240pp Alma Books, £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-84688-109-1

There is something about this book in itself that suggests the imposter. Its cover is fake worn, the corners dog-eared; and the interior carries on the pose with an antique typeface and design. I half expected the pages to have the musty brown vapour of a dry old book shop.
We are expected to believe that the author is a liar. In fact, it’s easy to suspect that the true author is Miranda France, as, after the opening “Apologia” by “Alberto Manguel”, another contributor begins by declaring, “Albert Manguel is an asshole. Whatever he told you about Alejandro, I’ll bet my right arm it’s wrong, Terradillos..”
The story involves a tiny group of Argentinian expatriates keeping loosely together in 1970s Madrid; one of them, Alejandro Bevilacqua, has just died in a fall from his balcony the night before his book, which his compatriots insist is a literary masterpiece, is published.
The several accounts of the tragedy (in the form of letters to the unseen Terradillos) and the events leading to it differ as each writer knew Bevilacqua in separate ways and separate times, and each writer has peculiar, and untrustworthy, slants on what followed. But piece by piece, the man takes shape. He grew up in Argentina, fell in love with a puppeteer’s daughter, reluctantly began to write pulpy scripts for photo-comics and was imprisoned and tortured for reasons unknown to himself. One of the lovers he finds on his escape digs up his hidden or lost manuscript and insists on getting it published. Its title: “In Praise of Lying”. And her tale may be the one true account.

A letter from Bevilacqua’s one-time cellmate, El Chancho (“the Pig”) appears to suggest that he and not Bevilacqua was the author. On the other hand, there is the possibility that Bevilacqua wrote El Chancho’s letter.
If this sounds like a pain in the head, in fact it’s quite fascinating, partly because of the stream of warm, long-shadowed melancholy running through it. It’s really all about the unreliability of memory and perception as much as about reading itself. There are no signposts, and you will be a few pages into each revelation before you guess who it’s from; but I will say no more about that. No spoiler here.

For brain-food, the kind of book to hang on to, as you know it contains at least a couple more good meals, and you will be tempted to return for another look- just to make sure.

There is a list, at the back, of the author’s other works, which include “A History of Reading”. This is almost too good to be true!

Open letter to the people of Israel

2010-09-13T08:58:00.008+01:00

Journalist Lauren Booth was on the first Free Gaza voyage and stayed to work in Gaza after the boats left. Her heartfelt letter to the people of Israel should be read and seen by everyone who hopes for peace in the Middle East, including those for whom "peace" means "greater Israel". This video realisation of her words was designed and produced by the Free Gaza movement.

The Independent - a suitable case for scepticism?

2010-09-12T10:12:00.009+01:00

How independent is the Independent? When this young upstart began publication in 1986, it was too easy to dismiss it with the response,”No such thing” - although it has had periods when it did, indeed, look independent. My kind of independent, of course, slightly leftwards. Five years after its birth it imploded and went off the radar for a while, but rallied.

Now, though, with the kind of issue that either polarises or unifies, as the Israeli attack on the Peace Flotilla, the Indie’s true colours have been exposed.

Efforts by Tony Greenstein and a multitude of friends to place an advert condemning the BBC for its highly partial Panorama programme about the attack have been met with, first, a Jack Straw-style fog of constructive inactivity; then a kaliedoscope of legalese cant. The Guardian is also fidgety about attacking Auntie Beeb, but at least they put it in writing. As of today, Sunday 12th, the plan is to place the advert in the leftwing weeklies. And be damned!

Sat 11 September 2010

Dear Friends,

I was rung up yesterday by the Independent's libel lawyer, who I believe is Janet Youngson, and we had a completely fruitless conversation in which she made every type of objection possible. As you can see from my letter there is no point in pursuing this any further.

I will therefore submit it to the New Statesman, Spectator and left press as the majority of signatories have agreed.

It has been interesting seeing how the free press operates and how it is able to hide behind legal mystification. Note the contrast between the Indie's legal opinion, which it was not prepared to put down in writing, and that of the Guardian.

Would people do their best to spread this far and wide, Media Lens and any other outlets. A number of suggestions have been made by people.

best wishes

Tony

Saturday, 11 September 2010

Imogen Haddon
Managing Editor
The Independent and The Independent on Sunday

Dear Ms Haddon,

I was rung up by your libel lawyer, Janet Youngson I believe her name is, yesterday regarding the advert we tried placing with the Independent on 19th August concerning the BBC’s coverage of the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. I assumed, after our recent correspondence, that she would be able to give me a list of specific points which you had problems with, in order that we could hopefully agree to any amendments or alterations deemed necessary to enable you to run the ad.

Ms Youngson immediately made it clear that she was unable to provide a list of objections because, in her own words, she had marked nearly every paragraph as requiring changes. I told her that I was happy, for example, to make it clear that it was in our opinion that the Israeli Military’s ‘Go Back to Auschwitz’ clip, that was uncritically broadcast by the BBC, was a fake rather than simply stating it as such. Ms Youngson’s response was that that changed nothing. It was equally defamatory, she said, to say that ‘in our opinion you are a murderer’.

There is however a difference, as there usually is, with such broad brush analogies. The Israeli navy commandos did murder 9 unarmed peace activists in international waters, most shot at close quarters to the head. Likewise the ‘Auschwitz’ clip contained no background sounds or noise, like the other clips the IOF broadcast, so it could have been recorded by anyone, anywhere and at any time. This was, of course, after the Israeli military had withdrawn their claim that it came from the Mavi Marmara. Ms Youngson’s response was that in a libel case the defendant has to prove their assertion, which is true, but this is on the balance of probability. Questions such as Israel’s confiscation of film and recording equipment would, in itself, have enabled powerful inferences to be drawn. I would have been prepared to make it clear that the BBC did not knowingly broadcast a faked tape, though it use of such was clearly grossly negligent, but this too wasn’t acceptable.

Ms Youngson also had problems with the statement that ‘Throughout its coverage the BBC broadcast uncritically Israel’s own film “evidence” of their commandos being attacked, when it was fully aware that this had edited out the initial lethal attack.’‘ Yet this is an established fact. Ms Youngson’s response was that the BBC often show people’s home video clips! Well yes, but this wasn’t a home or mobile movie but a carefully edited IDF clip which excluded the original attack on the ships.

Her next objection was that I couldn’t prove that the BBC had done this everywhere, including on its Arabic World Service broadcasts. This is true. I don’t have the resources monitor the BBC world-wide. Nor is it necessary since the advert is being placed in a British newspaper. However I offered to change this to BBC News 24, but this was also unacceptable.

What Ms Youngson was really seeking was nothing less than a wholesale rewriting of the advert, the effect of which would have been to make it so innocuous that it would no longer have been our views that were expressed. It also transpired that Ms Youngson had worked at the BBC as a lawyer, because she kept referring to how the BBC worked internally.

We also approached the Guardian to run the advert, but decided for other reasons against this. Their legal department also had objections and, as the e-mail below demonstrates, they had no difficulty outlining what they were. Their objections related solely to a minor rewording of the allegation that the tape which was broadcast was faked and that the IDF had admitted it was not from the MM.

What made the conversation with Ms Youngson even more surreal was that she admitted the BBC would not sue for libel. The idea that the Israeli military would sue, when they are keen to avoid subjecting any of their claims to an independent inquiry, is absurd. Ms Youngson also stated that if another newspaper printed the advert then she’d have no or fewer problems about running it, even though the fact that another publication prints something libellous is no defence to a libel action.

It became clear to me that despite her claims to be speaking as a libel lawyer, Ms Youngson’s and therefore the Independent’s objections to the advert, were political not legal. We could not criticise the BBC’s coverage unless we could prove everything according to the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ test and in any event we were ascribing a motive to their slanted coverage, namely that it was deliberate, whereas I was quite happy to accept that they have been biased for so long, on the Palestinian and other questions, that it is almost subconscious.

The reason that Ms Youngson and the Independent could not supply a list of specific objections was that it objected to the advert in toto but did not feel able to say this. It is clear that any legal concerns were a smokescreen for political objections. I pointed out repeatedly that what we were saying was covered by provisions relating to ‘fair comment’ in libel law, which she did not seem able to take on board. I then decided that there was no point in continuing the conversation and terminated the call.

The advert which we have unsuccessfully tried to place with you was no more than a paid for Op-Ed. There was nothing defamatory about it at all. The objections to it were political not legal. I would have expected the Independent of all papers to have resisted the temptation to engage in such absurd self-censorship. Clearly I was wrong.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein

From: Jennifer Melmore
To: tony greenstein
Sent: Thu, 9 September, 2010 12:33:27
Subject: Re: Proposed advert

Hi Tony

Legal have just got back to me and said that we'll only be able to run your ad if you can make a few changes to the copy, as detailed below:

'In the 2nd paragraph ("In return, the BBC broadcast what amounted...") the advertiser would need to change the sentance "The BBC even broadcast a clearly faked clip, purporting to come from the Flotilla" to something that doesn't go as far as saying it was faked. Also the sentance " Even the IDF admitted on June 5th that this had been ‘edited’ and was not from the MM. http://tinyurl.com/2dvq6ph " would have to be changed as the IDF has apprently not said that the broadcast in question didn't come from the MM, just that it wasn't possible to tell which ship in particular it had come from.'

Please let me know what you think,

All the best,

Jennifer

Jennifer Melmore
Client Account Manager

Also: see Tony Greenstein's blog. at http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/09/jane-corbin-bbcs-prostitute-of-airwaves.html

BBC Bias: Is Jane Corbin leaning too far?

2010-09-11T22:49:00.010+01:00

BBC bias: the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
By Anthony Lawson
Copyright © Redress Information & Analysis.

Documentary maker Anthony Lawson argues, in a remarkably dispassionate 15-minute video critique of BBC Panorama's 'Death on the Med', that the BBC's "biased and often untruthful treatment of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead should trigger a public enquiry about who is really in charge of one of the most influential broadcasters on the planet". Well, okay; calling the attack on the Freedom Flotilla the worst atrocity since Cast Lead is a little overstated. Jane Corbin may or may not an active supporter of Israel but she certainly looks a little less than unequivocal. Her reputation as an unbiased reporter is seriously compromised; and she, and indeed the BBC ("Nation shall speak peace unto nation"), are sidelined in a world where the truth flows everywhere and the lies of politicians, the press and the police are only as good as rusty old sieves.

Read more, at:
http://www.redress.cc/global/alawson20100911

A propos "Peace Talks"

2010-09-10T08:46:00.006+01:00

While the current round of so-called peace talks grinds onwards, with maximum publicity and to minimum effect, the Zionists continue to build their “settlements”, Palestinians continue to be bombed in Gaza and must beg for permits to use their own front doors in Hebron. The US President is weighed down by the Zionist lobby and the power of the arms industry, Netanyahu, representing Israel, will settle for nothing less than total ‘cleansing’ of Palestine and the priority for Mahmoud Abbas is that Fatah remains in power. Gilad Atzmon, the outsider with insider's insight, says it all in his blog:

Needless to mention, I don’t hold my breath for the outcome of the current ‘peace talks’. As I mentioned many times before, Israelis are not interested in peace as they fail to grasp what peace is all about or what it stands for. Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is interpreted by Israelis and most Jews as ‘security for the Jews’. Shalom therefore has nothing to do with reconciliation or living amongst others. Shalom is a judeo-centric concept, it conveys an image of hope to one people only. The Israeli Palestinian conflict can never be resolved by a ‘shalom initiative’. Shalom is there to split the land and separate the people. It is there to deny the Palestinians of their elementary rights such as the Right of Return.

But let us assume for a second that I am completely wrong in my reading of the Israelis and their cultural and political understandings. Let’s for that purpose look into an imaginary scenario in which an Israeli PM wakes up one sunny morning with the unusual determination to bring about true peace. In the wee small hours, wisdom embraces him or her. He or she realises that Israel is in fact Palestine: it is stretched over historic Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people, their livelihood and their history. He or she grasps that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land, and the rockets they shoot from time to time are nothing but love letters to their stolen villages, orchards, vineyards and fields.

Our imaginary Israeli PM realises that the so-called Israeli Palestinian conflict can be resolved in 25 minutes once both people decide to live together. Following the Israeli unilateral tradition, an immediate televised press conference is called on the same day at 2 PM. Captivated by true righteousness the PM announces to the world and his people “Israel realises its unique circumstances and its crucial responsibility for world peace. Israel calls the Palestinian people to return to their homes. The Jewish state is to become a state of its citizens where all people enjoy full equal rights”.

Though shocked by the sudden Israeli move, political analysts around the world are quick to realise that, considering Israel is the representative of world Jewry, such a simple peaceful initiative, won’t just resolve the conflict in the Middle East, it would also bring to an end two millenniums of mutual suspicions and resentfulness between Christians and Jews. Some Israeli right wing academics, ideologists and politicians join the revolutionary initiative and declare that such a heroic unilateral Israeli act could be the one and only total and comprehensive fulfilment of the Zionist dream for not only Jews have returned to their alleged historical home, they also have managed, at last, to love their neighbours and be loved in return.

As much as such an idea is thrilling and exciting, we shouldn’t expect it to happen any time soon, for Israel is the Jewish state and Jewishness is a tribal ideology driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation.

For Israel and Israelis to become people like other people, all traces of Jewish ideological superiority must be suppressed first. For the Jewish state to lead a peaceful initiative, Israel must be de-zionised, it should first stop being the Jewish State. Similarly, in order for an imaginary Israeli PM to bring peace about, he or she must be de-Zionised first.

As things stand, Israel, in its current ideological state, is categorically unable to lead the region into reconciliation. It lacks the necessary ingredients that are needed in order to think in terms of harmony and reconciliation.

The only people who can bring peace about are the Palestinians, for Palestine , against all odds and in spite of the endless suffering, humiliation and total oppression, is still an ethically driven ecumenical society.

www.gilad.co.uk

The kindest cut

2010-09-05T21:53:00.016+01:00

There has been much wailing and gnashing about public spending cuts recently. In all the Government's pronouncements, the most obvious savings to be made by getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the scrapping of our absurd, dangerous and otiose nuclear "deterrent", have been skilfully skipped round. Other state sacred cows remain safe from the chancellor's dogs; like the Arts Council - of which the most infamous arm is ACE, the English Arts Council. This body exists to support activities that would never survive in the real world, as they have audiences that vary from minimal to non-existent outside the clique of London critics, the tiny band of accountants and lawyers who fancy themselves as curators and the speculative collectors.

But who better than David Lee, founder and editor of The Jackdaw, for a good long time a great thorn in the side of the State Art establishment, to sum up the current state of affairs? The September/October issue is worth grabbing for its comprehensive expose of the whole business. I should say, the whole damn business:

The procrustean approach of the Government to reducing the deficit in our annual accounts will result in many hardworking people who perform worthwhile tasks being thrown out of work: some will lose their wits to anxiety. Necessary as some of these redundancies may be, it is still a sickening spectacle to watch ministers including the Prime Minister, all born into substantial inherited wealth and privilege, removing with a stroke of their pens the livelihoods of those who have nothing to fall back on. In the visual arts most of us will only suffer second hand. The overwhelming majority of artists will be unaffected by Government cuts to art budgets because they were never beneficiaries of its largesse in the first place, so selectively and prejudicially was it distributed. They are used to surviving without complaint. It is my view that visual arts budgets might be cut savagely as the effect for most will be invisible and the sufferers will be, in the main, those who can most afford it. Painters and sculptors will suffer not because the Arts Council's budget is cut but because those who buy their work have less or nothing left to spend.

...ACE has developed neurotic obsessions with things that have nothing to do with making great art. For example, we are informed, though God only knows for what reason, that "the number of organisations whose diversity action plans or equality plans are rated as a 'strength' have increased from 53.3% to 61.6%".

...The Serpentine, which employs two directors for four exhibitions a year, is surely now ripened for privatisation. It is the convenient outpost for the half-dozen most fashionable art dealers in the West End, whose artists are predominantly shown there. It costs the taxpayer a million pounds a year to further rubber-stamp the reputations of mainly foreign artists who are already well-known.

Read about more, including a list of Danien Hirst's ripoff sources and the ever popular Artbollocks page at www.thejackdaw.co.uk

Illustration by Andrew Gray

Israeli "Settlements" to determine peace talks

2010-09-01T07:26:00.004+01:00

Although the so-called "settlements" of the Palestine West Bank are said to be determining elements in the ineffective and obscurantist peace talks, their growth is by and large taken as a basic right of the Zionists, as is the simultaneous strangling of centuries-old village life in Palestine, by these establishments, the Wall, the Jews-only roads and the checkpoints. This video shows how it is on the ground:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyTXHbIF6WI&feature=player_embedded

Why Americans should oppose Zionism

2010-08-29T08:02:00.006+01:00

This article, which I reprint in total, contains a succinct but wide-ranging condemnation of Zionism; and sets out why all who care about democracy but especially Americans, should stand against it.

Eden Abergil's Facebook shots did not represent anomalous or excessive behaviour

Steven Salaita, The Electronic Intifada, 26 August 2010

Israel has been subject to some bad publicity recently. In 2008-09, it launched a brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 400 Palestinian children. In May 2010, bumbling Israeli commandos murdered nine nonviolence activists on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla's Mavi Marmara. It only got worse for Israel when it was revealed that soldiers stole and sold personal items such as laptops from the ship. Last week, former Israeli soldier Eden Abergil posted photos onto Facebook showing her preening in front of blindfolded and despondent Palestinian prisoners, in some instances mocking those prisoners with sexual undertones. The photos were part of an album entitled "IDF [Israeli army] -- the best time of my life."

While Abergil's pictures may not seem as abhorrent as the Gaza and Mavi Marmara brutality -- Abergil, for her part, described her behavior as nonviolent and free of contempt -- all three actions are intimately connected. First of all, we must dispel the notion that Abergil's photos are nonviolent. As with the Abu Ghraib debacle, a sexualized and coercive humiliation is being visited on the bodies of powerless, colonized and incarcerated subjects, which by any reasonable principle is a basal form of violence. There is also the obvious physical violence of Palestinians being bound and blindfolded, presumably in or on their way to prisons nobody will confuse with the Ritz Carlton.

More important, these recent episodes merely extend an age-old list of Israeli crimes and indignities that illuminate a depravity in the Zionist enterprise itself. What is noteworthy about Israel's three recent escapades is that more and more people are starting to pay attention to its crimes and indignities. In so doing, more and more people are questioning the origin and meaning of Zionism -- that is, the very idea of a legally ethnocentric Israel.

I would like to address this piece to those who have undertaken such questioning or to those who are prepared to initiate it. I would urge you not to limit your critique of Israel only to its errors of judgment or its perceived excesses; it is more productive to challenge the ideology and practice of Zionism itself. There is no noble origin or beautiful ideal to which the wayward Jewish state must return; such yearnings are often duplicitous mythmaking or romanticized nostalgia. Zionists always intended to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, a strategy they carried out and continue to pursue with horrifying efficiency.

Likewise, Zionism was always a colonialist movement, one that relied on the notions of divine entitlement and civilizational superiority that justified previous settlement projects in South Africa, Algeria and North America. Zionism, by virtue of its exclusionary outlook and ethnocentric model of citizenship, is on its own a purveyor of fundamental violence. The bad PR to which Israel sometimes is subject today is a reflection of changed media dynamics, not a worsening of Israel's behavior.

The 2008-09 Gaza invasion, the attack on the Mavi Marmara and Abergil's Facebook photos aren't anomalous or extraordinary. They are the invariable result of a Zionist ideology that cannot help but view Palestinian Muslims and Christians as subhuman, no matter how ardently its liberal champions assert that Zionism is a liberation movement. Zionism has the unfortunate effect of proclaiming that one group of people should have access to certain rights from which another group of people is excluded. There is nothing defensible in this proposition.

Here, then, are four reasons why Americans (and all other humans regardless of race or religion) should oppose Zionism:

1. Zionism is unethical and immoral: Because Zionists claim access to land and legal rights that directly obviate the same access to an indigenous community, it operates from within an idea of belonging that is cruel and archaic. Israel bases its primary criterion for citizenship on religious identity. Imagine having your religion on your driver's license. And imagine having limited access to freeways, farmland, family, education, employment and foreign travel because the religion by which the state has chosen to identify you is legally marginalized. Such is the daily reality of the Palestinian people.

2. Zionism is racist: This claim isn't the same as saying that all Zionists are racist. I would make a distinction between the categories of "Zionist" and "Zionism." However, inherent in the practice of Zionism is a reliance on racialist judgments about who can fully participate in the benefits and practices of a national community. Many Zionists view themselves merely as supporting freedom and safety for Jewish people. I would suggest that people who identify themselves as Zionist look more closely at the ideology they support. Such freedom and safety, both of which are in fact mythologies, come at the direct expense of people confined to Bantustans and refugee camps.

3. Zionism contravenes the geopolitical interests of the United States: Many Americans have heard former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boast that he once pulled George W. Bush off the dais while Bush was giving a speech, or more recently current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that "America is something that can be easily moved." Israel costs the United States billions of dollars in direct aid and in bribe money to Jordan and Egypt for their docility. Israel also is the main reason for disgruntlement about American foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds. I raise this point with some hesitation because I believe all citizens of the United States should challenge and not celebrate American geopolitical interests. I would also point out that Zionism's narrative of salvation and redemption resonates deeply among Americans because of the US' origin and continued presence as a nation of settler colonists. In the end, America itself needs to be decolonized and the vast sums of money that support the imperial projects Israel so brazenly exemplifies need to be directed toward the well-being of those who pay the government its taxes.

4. Zionism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy: Israel, as a result, is undemocratic and will be as long as it uses religious identity as the operating criterion of citizenship. We hear much in the US about Islam being incompatible with democracy, a belief that is historically untrue and that elides the massive military and monetary support the US provides to the assortment of dictators and plutocrats that rule much of the Arab World. Neoconservative and mainstream commentators both evoke Israel in opposition to Islam as a symbol of democratic achievement. In reality Israel performs one of the most barbaric forms of oppression today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip while simultaneously discriminating against the Palestinian citizens of Israel who constitute approximately twenty percent of the citizenry.

The alternative media engendered by new technology have allowed more people to witness the unremitting violence that has been Israel's stock in trade for decades. Many consumers of this information and these images believe that Israel is guilty of excess when a simpler explanation exists: Israel is acting out the requisites of an exclusionary and inherently violent ideology.

These days all it takes is a little braggadocio from an ex-soldier such as Eden Abergil to so perfectly symbolize the callousness of Zionist colonization. Ten years ago, the Israeli government's lies about the killings aboard the Mavi Marmara would have been unchallenged by gruesome footage distributed through alternative news networks and social media. Nobody these days could have stopped the images of white phosphorous exploding and spreading over the Gaza Strip from being aired; Israelis themselves were foolish enough to capture Jewish children writing messages on soon-to-be-launched missiles.

Americans now have all the evidence they need for a reasonable and morally-sound conclusion, that Zionism produces a cruelty and truculence that they bankroll with their taxes and legitimize with either silence or consent. As a result, I am not arguing that Americans should reassess their level of support for Israel. I am arguing that Americans should oppose Zionism altogether. Perhaps in this way we might begin the long and difficult process of redeeming our own nation of its imperial sins.

Steven Salaita is author, most recently, of The Uncultured Wars: Arabs, Muslims, and the Poverty of Liberal Thought. A version of this essay was originally published by Foreign Policy Journal and is republished with the author's permission

Also: watch this darkly humorous and disturbing video; an expose of the Jewish/American lobby by the wildly eccentric and self-aggrandising Nathanael Kapner, Baptist preacher - for hard-fact content, it may well hit the spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzfbSsqES34&feature=player_embedded

The People rise up against the BBC

2010-08-21T15:37:00.014+01:00

By the time the previous entry was posted, plans were under way for crowds to take to the streets of London and Bristol, attacking the craven BBC, on Sunday 22nd and Saturday 21st August respectively. Any googling of the BBC website on this very subject will only produce a link to archive footage of the Vietnam War demo, London 1968 - worth seeing, for what has changed (the police being replaced with armed riot troops) and what has not - the attacks on US imperialism. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7424415.stm

BBC covers for the Israeli Flotilla attack

2010-08-21T10:11:00.006+01:00

A beautiful gift from the BBC by Ken O'Keefe

If you haven't seen it, look for BBC Panorama’s"Death in the Med" program online, you will be treated to first class propaganda as only the BBC can deliver.

I am one of the passengers/witnesses interviewed for this program and I am very much aware of BBC's role in justifying war and covering up Israeli crimes.

I am in no way naive about this; to the contrary my motivation for the interview lay largely in the all too likely opportunity to expose the BBC. A relevant job considering the BBC's role in the slaughter of over one million Iraqi's, a direct role by virtue of the war they justified. BBC from start to present, justifying Iraq, a massive war crime and crime against humanity based entirely on lies (propagated intensely by the BBC).

The British Broadcasting Corporation, synonymous with millions of orphans and refugees and countless lives destroyed in Iraq, beating the drums of war without pause, the ultimate prostitutes of propaganda.

With this understanding I solicited an agreement with the BBC producers, in return for my interview the program would include the fact that we disarmed, captured and ultimately released three Israeli commandos (after giving them medical attention no less).

That was the deal, a deal I made with an audio recorder in service.ttp://www.facebook.com/1worldcitizen#!/video/video.php?v=1440199638883

And yes the poor Israeli commandos were beaten, just as any invader in any capable persons home would be beaten. I take no issue with that fact.

But truth be told, the commandos we captured should thank us for their lives. I ask the Israeli's, British and American people specifically, if your home was invaded, your family being murdered, would you be willing to disarm, completely control, and then set a murderer of your family free???

You can lie to yourself if you like, bury that head right down deep in the sand, but that ship was our home, and we were all brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles, united, a family, engaged in a most righteous cause, with the vast majority of the planet behind us. The primary beneficiary of our mission, over 800,000 innocent children.

For those lost in a pit of ignorance and indoctrination, those currently stripped of all reason, absent of conscience, duped and hoodwinked, I know you very well because I was once you, a US Marine robot volunteering to kill or be killed. I see my past self in the Zionist who has no capacity at this moment to think, for in that state it is all about regurgitation, independent thought is but a possibility. For you I maintain no hate, for nobody actually, rather it is pity, pity for you that you sacrifice the greatest gift of all, the gift of humanity.

And so it is that the BBC, absent of integrity, contemptuous of humanity, attempts in this program to turn disarmed, helpless Israeli commandos into heroic self-rescuing commandos who managed to Superman their way out of a circle of well over 100 very motivated men whose brothers lay murdered with multiple gunshot wounds. That is what we call a bald-faced lie. Big time lie, in your face lie, you in the audience are a bunch of drooling idiots lie.

Returning from the Zionist alternate universe, we held in our power the fate of three boy commandos who may well have been murderers on that night. Think about that, under these circumstances, we let them go. That is what we call preserving life.

It is not that BBC does not know the truth, there are literally hundreds of witnesses and overflowing facts to reveal it; it is simply BBC's slavish duty to produce a Zionist storyline of illusions and deceptions. And the story goes that we are the aggressors, “terrorists”, “extremists” and killers. Only in this context can the poor Israeli commandos be victims. How is it possible to dominate and control commandos simply to let them go if we are killers? Answer, it isn't. And that is precisely why Panorama blatantly lied.

Ah but the irony, the kind of irony that always provides me a smile from the inside out, the irony of these lies being big, beautiful gifts. In all sincerity, thank you BBC.

The BBC says there is doubt as to who fired first. There is no doubt at all who shot who and when to the hundreds of us on the Mavi Marmara and other ships. The Israelis have said we shot at them, well where are their gunshot wounds? And even if you have gunshot wounds, how do we know you did not shoot yourselves? Exactly like you did in "Operation Cast Lead"?

Returning once again from the Zionist alternate universe, the Israeli military attacked in international waters and murdered within the first five minutes of the attack. The attack resulting in scores of gunshot wounds and death in rapid succession. Blood spilling all over the ship. In that environment I took possession of a 9mm pistol that I removed from one of the commandos... and I emptied it of the (real) bullets. Other weapons were seized by other brothers and thrown into the sea, one of which was an assault rifle.

Yet when others and myself had the power to end life, and believe me it was as simple as release the safety, point, shoot, over. Instead we preserved life, by taking those weapons away from established killers, we prevented them from killing more. We literally saved our lives and their lives. That is what we call cold, hard facts.

We could have taken out at least three of them, but we did not. Nope, we let them go.

The BBC mentions that we were in international waters at the very end of the story, as if this were an insignificant fact. The fact that Israel stole all the footage that it could, footage that undoubtedly shows them firing 4 bullets to the head of the 19-year-old American passenger, Furkan Dogan. No problem. Executing people at close range, no worries. The fact that the blockade itself is illegal, nah, don't mention that. 800,000 plus children in Gaza, malnourished, anemic, traumatised... not important.

I would need to review this program many times over to identify every poisoned tactic that the BBC employed in order to do what they do so well, justify murder and war.

Nevertheless BBC's perversion of the truth will elevate the cause of justice immensely, delegitimizing itself in such grand fashion was indeed a great big gift.

Hats off to ya BBC!

Ken O'Keefe

Website: http://www.alohapalestine.com

Originally published at http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com

Innocents lost

2010-08-16T11:00:00.003+01:00

One soldier, who just couldn't take being ordered to murder for Uncle Sam any more, speaks up. Ethan McCord on Being There, after airborne soldiers raised on computer games ripped into a gathering of Iraqi citizens and the ambulance that attempted to rescue the survivors, on the 24th July, 2010:

Village flattened for third time

2010-08-12T10:47:00.008+01:00

This is the reality of living in Palestine under the Israeli occupation. There are no rights, other than the 'right' to leave or the 'right' to die. Israel's Destruction of the Bedouin Village Al-Araqib for the third time in two weeks, witnessed by international and Israeli activists:

UPDATE:
Bedouin village razed for fourth time
Published 17/08/2010 19:15

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities on Tuesday demolished an unrecognized Bedouin village for the fourth time, Israeli media reported.

The Al-Araqib village was razed two weeks ago for the third time, after residents rebuilt dwellings demolished to make way for a Jewish National Fund park.

The efforts to rebuild were prompted by decision by the Higher Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel after the village was first torn down. Locals said following the last demolitions that they intended to rebuild their homes.

A spokesman for Israel's national police said he would look into the report.

Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Taleb As-Sana denounced the demolitions during Ramadan, describing them as inhumane. He added that razing of Bedouin homes was "a declaration of war" against the Negev inhabitants and would only create violence.

As-Sana said the residents of Al-Araqib will rebuild their homes in spite of Israel's demolition, and cited the village as an example of Palestinian steadfastness.

Petra Hayden - voice of the sublime

2010-08-02T11:30:00.005+01:00

If you ever wonder why humanity counts for anything, give Petra a listen. Daughter of bassist/composer Charlie Hayden, she is rightly celebrated for recording an a capella "The Who Sell Out" right down to the clicks in the middle of the record.

http://petrahadenmusic.com/God_Only_Knows.mp3

Destroying Jerusalem

2010-08-02T10:01:00.006+01:00

The Zionists are determined to make Jerusalem an exclusively racist enclave, despite the best efforts of Palestinian home owners, Israeli and international activists. The heartless march of demolition goes on, but so does the resistance. Caterpillar / Cat is doing well out of this.