Meet the Lebanese Press: All the prime minister’s menElectronic Intifada - 19 Jun 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rEfforts to form a Lebanese government come against the backdrop of a surprise visit by US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and intermittent armed clashes between loyal and opposition groups in various parts of the country, mainly the central Bekaa region. Rice’s visit, stalling the implementation of the Doha Accords, as well as regional developments including announcement of a truce between Israel and Hamas and Turkish-mediated Syrian-Israeli “peace” talks could be seen as efforts to sideline Iran’s allies in the Arab world in preparation for a possible showdown between Washington and Tehran.
Palestinian prisoners in Israel isolated from outside worldElectronic Intifada - 19 Jun 2008rr r r rr r rr r rr r rr r rr rrr rOn 17 June 2008, Adalah filed a petition to the Israeli high court on behalf of eight family members of Palestinian political prisoners from the Gaza Strip, the Al Mezan and the Association for the Palestinian Prisoners demanding that residents of Gaza be permitted to visit their relatives being held in Israeli prisons on a regular basis. The case was filed by Adalah attorney Abeer Baker against the defense minister, the commander of the Israeli army for the southern district and the interior minister.
Smoking the Celestial DreamUKWatch.net - 19 Jun 2008As the western world winds its way through the 40th anniversaries of 1968 and the ?summer of love?, Steve Platt looks back at the role of cannabis in the ?counter culture? and how people on both sides of the political and cultural divide believed that a hardy psychoactive plant could change the world. He wonders how it could ever have aroused such passions ? both for and against its use ? and asks why it?s still illegal ?The dope dealer is selling you the celestial dream. He is very different from any other merchant because the commodity he is peddling is freedom and joy. In the years to come the television dramas and movies will make a big thing of the dope dealer of the sixties. He is going to be the Robin Hood, spiritual guerrilla, mysterious agent ? who will take the place of the cowboy hero or the cops and robbers hero.? (Timothy Leary, ?Dope Dealers ? New Robin Hood?, 1967) ?School for junkies scandal: Boys and girls of just 12 are smoking ?pot?. Hardly a senior school in the south east has not been troubled by ruthless drugs exploiters. Addiction, at an all time high, is likely to explode into an epidemic of juvenile junkies within five years. Tomorrow could see a massive new national health social problem with youngsters at present in schoolcap or gymslip having a 25p dare ?joint? and joining the queue for killer ?trips? to living nightmares. Shocking facts. But this, say the experts, is London, drugs capital of Europe 1972.? (London Evening News, 5 October 1972) There have always been two myths about marijuana, one of the Reefer Madness genre, which has otherwise normal people turning to crime, promiscuity, dissolution and ultimately death through addiction; the other talking of change, visions, insight and the curative qualities of this magical, mystical weed. On the one hand we have Richard Nixon holding it to blame for ?the decline in civilised standards of behaviour throughout the western world?; on the other we have Allen Ginsberg declaring that ?if Kruschev and Kennedy turned on together it would end world conflict?. Yeah right, man. Dope mythologies
There is nothing new about these dope mythologies. As long ago as the 1270s Marco Polo was relating a tale that has since passed into popular legend, about Hassan-i-Sabbah, who led an offshoot of the Ismaili sect of Shia Muslims and allegedly used hashish to encourage his followers in the assassination of his enemies. Polo?s account, based on secondhand information about events that occurred almost two centuries previously, gave the hashishin (hashish users) a murderous reputation which, even if it was deserved, had little to do with a penchant for cannabis. The hashish stories were in large part a product of the Christian and Sunni Muslim propaganda machines of the time. (Hassan?s assassins claimed various prominent Sunni, as well as Christian, victims; and they even made a number of attempts on the life of the great Muslim leader Saladin himself.) It is significant, too, that the etymology of the word ?assassin? appears first ? and almost certainly wrongly ? to have been identified with hashishin by French linguists and historians in the 19th century, when Jean-Jacques Moreau?s Hashish Club of Paris was earning itself a reputation as a centre of immorality and subversion. In the 1960s, when a different social grouping had rather different propaganda needs, William Burroughs was on hand to rehabilitate Hassan-i-Sabbah and his followers. They were, according to Burroughs, a much-misrepresented community of libertarian individualists and mystics. You can distinguish the dope smokers from the non-smokers by their differing interpretations of history. From time to time the great dope myths collide, turning the consumption of a hardy little plant with an ability to flourish under just about any conditions into a burning political issue. Never was this more so than when the US crackdown on drug use, almost as much as the Vietnam war, drew a whole generation of middle class American kids into open conflict with the state in 1964-74 (the cultural, rather than chronological, ?sixties?). The biggest civil disobedience campaign of the era was not draft evasion, nor the civil rights movement, but recreational drug use; and the slogan that best expressed the yearnings of the ?youth revolt? was not ?Victory to the Vietcong? but Timothy Leary?s ?Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out?. The ?Declaration of a State of War? by the Weathermen underground group, which carried out a series of bombings, robberies and kidnappings from 1969 onwards, even stated: ?We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons … Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.? Property is theft ? smoke dope You didn?t need to be a Weatherman to know which way the smoke blows. In England, the hippy occupation of 144 Piccadilly in the summer of 1969 was advertised by graffiti declaring ?Property is Theft ? Smoke Dope ? Drop Out?,and by leaflets urging the reader to ?Get high? because ?You?ve got to feel good to do good?. One famous poster of the time, emblazoned with the slogan ?Build the Revolution?, showed a huge pair of hands crumbling a brown herbal substance into outsized cigarette papers. Another showed Gilbert Shelton?s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers before and after smoking weed. The ?before? sketch portrayed them as three clean- shaven, respectable boys ready to ?kill a commie for Christ? in their smartly-pressed army uniforms; after a few tokes they transformed into the long-haired, tripped-out hippies that readers came to know and love in Skelton?s best-selling comics. This Hyde to Jeckyll transformation was a prominent feature in dope literature. BIT, a hippy advice centre in London, was fond of producing novel-length newsletters packed with epistles from former ?straights? who had undergone Damascene conversions due to a good smoke. One such contribution described, in ten pages of meandering prose, a personal life history in the first year AD (?After Dope?). The author had been a happily married office worker living in a suburban semi somewhere near Southampton until he ?discovered? dope. Since then he?d seen half the world and at the time of writing was languishing in a foreign jail awaiting trial on a smuggling charge. ?Dope has changed my life,? he announced proudly, without any hint of irony. To read more of Smoking the celestial dream buy the June/July issue of Red Pepper here for just 4 including postage
Nothing is More ImportantUKWatch.net - 19 Jun 2008Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles argue that the rise of the far right presents a challenge that the left has so far proved unable to meet There is a tangible shift occurring in British politics. Gone are the days of traditional class politics, when the working class voted en masse for Labour and the more privileged for the Conservatives. A new force is emerging, which will, if left unchecked, prove disastrous for both Labour and the left in general. Magnus Marsdal?s article talks about the changing politics of Norway and finds comparisons with the rest of western Europe. It is a phenomenon that is also taking place in Britain, albeit a few years later than in some other countries. The British National Party (BNP) was formed in 1982 out of an earlier split within the National Front and for many years it languished on the fringes of politics. In 1999 Nick Griffin became its leader and his more political and media savvy approach enabled the party to exploit rising racial tensions in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001. Since then, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, a growing eastern-European migrant workforce and New Labour?s fixation with Middle England, the party has risen steadily. It now has 55 councillors and last month secured a seat on the London Assembly. And all this in a period of supposed economic success. The BNP has long been dismissed as a cranky fascist party, made up of thugs, criminals and Nazis. While it is true that the leadership has its ideological roots in fascism, it is time we had a better explanation for the party?s rise and appeal. Society in Britain, like much of the industrialised world, has become dislocated over the past few decades. Globalisation and the increasing dominance of international finance and corporations have shifted power far away from local communities. This, coupled with the loss of empire, Britain?s changing place in the world and even the possible break-up of the United Kingdom have all challenged the identity of many, particularly those towards the bottom of the economic ladder, who naturally are more concerned about change. Politically, there has also been the growing divorce between the political parties and their electorates. The preoccupation with a small number of voters in a few key marginals has resulted in New Labour echoing the whims and prejudices of a mythical Middle England. Class has been removed as an economic and political category in Westminster discourse. Labour?s traditional voters feel ignored, taken for granted and even abandoned. At the same time, the Tories have for decades ceased to offer a real opposition in many traditional Labour areas, leaving a dangerous vacuum. In 1968 US sociologist Don Warren described the emergence of the ?middle American radical? to explain the rise of right-wing presidential candidate George Wallace. He saw a radicalised group of voters, drawn largely from the skilled working class, who opposed the political and economic elites while simultaneously despising those who they regarded as undeserving poor. A white identity emerged that had no political articulation. A similar phenomenon is occurring in today?s Britain. The Labour Party too often fails to articulate the concerns of large swathes of its traditional working class supporters. Over the past 20 years turnout has slumped in Labour heartlands. Suddenly, as the BNP has emerged as a political force, many are now turning out to vote for them. Towns like Stoke-on-Trent reflect this change. Only a few years ago Labour held every seat on the council. Today, it holds just 16 out of 60, with the BNP close behind with nine. The local ethnic minority population is comparatively small, suggesting that voters are flocking to the BNP for some far more fundamental reasons. Nor is there much comfort for parties to the left of Labour. It is easy to blame New Labour for the rise of the BNP but few have questioned why the far-left parties fail to attract significant support from white working-class voters. If anything, the far-left vote has actually shrunk since 1997 and the occasional successes of Respect or the Greens have been based on specific ethnic minority communities or middle-class liberals. Race is a prism through which many voters view their world but it is not the underlying issue. That is why immigration minister Liam Byrne?s attempts to quicken the introduction of the Australian points system will ultimately fail to deal with the political problem. He might hope to appease voters? concerns over immigration but unfortunately he, like many others, is misunderstanding the rise of the BNP. Britain might have been slower to see the emergence of a major far-right party than elsewhere but this could change very quickly. Next year?s European elections, contested under proportional representation, will give the BNP its greatest chance to break into the mainstream. The rise of the BNP is not a passing phenomena. We must now debate new strategies for organisation and policy, counter- organise on the ground and deal with the material issues that lie behind its popular support. Nothing is more important for this movement. Footnote Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham. Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine
Headlines for June 19, 2008Democracy Now - 19 Jun 2008Gen. Taguba: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP to Get No-Bid Oil Contracts in Iraq, Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Begins, NATO Launches Large-Scale Anti-Taliban Offensive, GAO: US Has No Plan to Build Afghanistan’s Army, Officials: 30 Levees Along Mississippi River Could Overflow, Bush Urges Congress to Lift Oil Drilling Ban, Wall Street Banks Urge Against Regulation of Oil Speculators, McCain Calls for 45 New Nuclear Reactors, Ex-Clinton Cabinet Officials to Advise Obama on Foreign Policy, Muslim Women Kept from Camera at Obama Rally, Prosecution of Undocumented Immigrants Reaches New High, EU Approves New Rules on Detaining Immigrants, Blackwater Asks Federal Court to Decide Case with Sharia Law, Protesters to Rally Against Health Insurance Companies, NYPD Arrests Two Members of Hip-Hop Group Rebel Diaz, CBS Reporter: Watching US Media “Would Drive Me Nuts”
“We could not even bury our daughter”Electronic Intifada - 19 Jun 2008rr r r rr r rr r rr r rr r rr rrr rOn 11 June, eight-year-old Hadeel al-Sumairi was killed when her home in southeastern Gaza was shelled by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Less than a week earlier, eight-year-old Aya Hamdan al-Najjar was killed by a rocket fired from an IOF helicopter. These two young girls had been living just a few kilometers apart, both in villages in the southeastern Gaza Strip near the border with Israel. Their violent deaths highlight both the continual dangers facing families who live anywhere near the Israeli border.
Referenda: Democracy vs ElitesUKWatch.net - 19 Jun 2008In his article in openDemocracy following the vote in the Republic of Ireland on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, George Schpflin makes a confusing case against the use of referendums (see “The referendum: populism vs democracy”, 16 January 2008).
He says that those who support referenda have fallen victim to the “seduction of direct democracy”. There is no such thing as “the people”; it’s not democracy but populism, which in turn leads to the tyranny of the majority. Worse, it’s power without responsibility and the focus on a single issue leads to unholy alliances. The basic problem is the failure to hold national elites to account because the connection with European Union institutions is weak. Let’s turn this on its head. Would George Schpflin have made the same case if there had been twenty-seven referenda and in each and every single country the vote had been an overwhelming “yes”? I doubt it. I think he would have been much more likely to have penned a glowing piece praising the virtues of participatory democracy. The people of Europe had spoken; some in defiance of their purportedly Eurosceptic governments. I hazard a guess that he even would have urged national governments to take head and listen to their people – who had so clearly expressed their collective will. We are writing articles about the EU and the use of referenda because when given the chance to have a say, three out of four broadly pro-European countries (France, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Ireland) came up with a largely unexpected “no”. This came as a shock and governments which had originally promised one didn’t dare to ask to their people. In the United Kingdom all three political parties entered the 2005 general election with a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum. They all in different forms got cold feet and reneged. So let’s look at George Schpflin’s argument again. He’s right to say that not all things lend themselves to being decided by a referendum. But it is not the complexity of the question which matters, but whether it is about conferring power; power which emanates from the people. General-election manifestos are complex documents. Few have read them, even fewer have understood them – but when it comes to the general election people decide which package they prefer. The voters don’t say “yes” or “no” but tick a box labelled Labour, Conservative or LibDem. I am puzzled by Schpflin’s denouncement of “ad hoc coalitions”. Some may call this “tactical voting”. In the 1997 general election there was many a constituency where LibDem supporters voted Labour or vice-versa because it was the best way of getting the Conservatives out. I can’t see much wrong with that. More worrying is the line that referenda are bad because they introduce new political actors. I’d say “hallelujah” to that. Anything that stops political elites from becoming complacent seems a good thing to me. After the demos So let’s try again. There is a case for direct democracy when the people decide who should govern. When the government passes power onto a third party, then the people have a right to express their consent or otherwise. As the great constitutionalist AV Dicey put it: “the referendum is the people’s veto; the nation is sovereign and may well decree that the constitution shall not be changed without the direct sanction of the nation.” George Schpflin is right when he says the European demos is weak. I would go further and say it does not exist. But the national demos – “we the British”, the Germans, the French or the Hungarians – is strong. To argue that “the people” is an antediluvian concept and we have progressed to some higher plane, may sound trendy and modern. But in my constituency in Birmingham they know who “we the people” are. Maybe it’s clearer to call them “the taxpayers”. Schpflin assumes that European Union integration operates within three different sectors – the EU and its institutions, the national elites and the supposed European demos. I’d argue that the appetite for European integration is waning; there is no discernible European demos and the real problem is that the European elites in particular and the national elites to a lesser extent seem to be unable to comprehend or understand this. So stop condemning referenda just because we don’t like the answers they produce and begin a proper debate about what kind of allocation of powers and responsibilities “the people” across Europe would be willing to support.
Book review: Philosophical essays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflictElectronic Intifada - 19 Jun 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rCumbersome though it already is, the subtitle of the new book The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Philosophical Essays on Self-Determination, Terrorism, and the One-State Solution could have been expanded to include “The Right of Return,” the title of the second of its four long chapters, thus doing fuller justice to its impressive sweep. Raymond Deane reviews Raja Halwani and Tomis Kapitan’s new book for The Electronic Intifada.
