Dr Jonathan Gilmore2013-05-22T16:18:41-04:00Dr Jonathan Gilmorehttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=dr-jonathan-gilmoreCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dr Jonathan GilmoreGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Olympics and Britain's Role in the Worldtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17332122012-08-02T11:38:44-04:002012-10-02T05:12:06-04:00Dr Jonathan Gilmorehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonathan-gilmore/Daily Telegraph article, I've been 'suckered' into overlooking the association of the Olympics with human rights abuse and the £9.3 billion that might have been better spent on projects that benefit the whole country or on mitigating some of the social harm caused by unprecedented public spending cuts.
However, this aside, what really interested me about the opening ceremony was the question of how Britain should present itself to world and just what it is we'd like to be known for? This must have been a tricky one for Danny Boyle. The choice of the Industrial Revolution, British music, the World Wide Web, multiculturalism, the military and the NHS seemed to reflect a compromise of sorts between the differing visions of just what makes Britain great.
Although these qualities are all worth celebrating, what seemed to be missing, at what is an inescapably global event, was a clearer projection of how Britain sees its international role. The legacy of British imperialism, combined with more recent ill-advised foreign policy adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan makes this a rather difficult one and the UK's international role perhaps not something the organisers would want to brag about.
Celebrating a Britain that works to support human rights, helps those in need, whether refugees or developing countries, and acts as a good international citizen would be my personal choice for this type of vision. Equally, others might prefer to celebrate Britain's historic expertise as an imperial power, dominating populations across Africa and South Asia, or its more recent aptitude for military interventionism...each to their own, I suppose. Nevertheless, each represents an understanding of what the UK's international role was, is and might be in the future. If we can celebrate a selective account of British culture, social policy or (historic) industrial growth, why can't we also celebrate a vision of the UK's wider role in the world?
New Labour had a crack at defining a global vision for the UK in the 1990s with the idea that Britain should be a 'force for good' in the world. Although their 'foreign policy with an ethical dimension' came rather unstuck over the War on Terror and the Iraq War, there was nevertheless an attempt to craft a vision of the UK's global role around support for human rights, development and poverty reduction. More recent foreign policy pronouncements have continued with some elements of this vision but have also harked back to the pursuit of British national interests above other concerns.
It might well be the case that the general public simply isn't all that interested in international affairs or at least has a fairly insular view. Looking at the current e-petitions directed to the Government this does seem apparent, with opposition to immigration, EU membership, alongside the perennial concern about fuel duty are amongst the best supported. A vision of the UK's global role might also have been seen as 'too political' for the Olympics, although the Games themselves have often been the most politicised of international sporting events - Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 are all notable here.
It isn't the job of Olympic opening ceremonies to define either national identity or the foreign policy vision of a country. However, as a mass viewed artistic performance, it does present an opportunity to consider how we see ourselves as a society and the way in which we should engage with the rest of the world. In an increasingly interconnected world, a clearer vision of Britain's international role and the kind of international citizen it wishes to be should be an important topic for public debate and one in which we should all take an interest.
We don't all have to agree on this vision, just as we rarely agree on everything that happens domestically. However, the process of thinking and talking about the UK's direction in the world might help us to better understand the ways in which global politics affects our daily lives, to ensure that we hold those in power accountable for what the UK does internationally, and to work out how we feature as citizens both of the UK and of a wider human community.]]>Militarising Education - Sir, No, Sir!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12366152012-01-29T19:00:00-05:002012-03-30T05:12:01-04:00Dr Jonathan Gilmorehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonathan-gilmore/
The claim made by the proposed Phoenix School in Oldham, along with Tom Burkard, author of the Centre for Policy Studies report Troops to Teachers, is that military discipline is the answer to the apparent woes of UK state education. For the Phoenix School, a "child friendly but not child centered approach" with a no nonsense attitude to discipline, is the answer to a failing system based on what they caricature as "the touch-feely, cuddly-bunny ideals of our 'progressive' educators."
The Troops to Teachers initiative reflects a wider engagement between military values and the Conservative Party's idea of a morally, as well as financially bankrupt 'broken Britain'. In the 2011 Theos Annual Lecture, former Chief of the General Staff, General Lord Richard Dannatt argued that new recruits to the army often lack "an understanding of the core values and standards of behaviour required by the military from their family or from within their wider community and the UK armed forces". For Dannatt, it seems that the military can act as a moral guide to help address decaying values in broken Britain.
Employing ex-soldiers as teachers is seen as the key to ensuring that, presumably through fear of punishment, children from deprived backgrounds fall in line at school. Burkard suggests that:
"Even though the individual soldier may not actually be proficient in combat, unarmed or otherwise (soldiers from the logistic and support corps are often devoid of any of the martial virtues), it is the image that counts. Whether we like it or not, children from more deprived neighbourhoods often respond to raw physical power".
Sounding suspiciously like "all they understand is force", it seems that raw physical power is obviously what liberal educators, myself certainly included, seem to be missing out on...
No doubt some ex-service personnel would make excellent teachers and it is the responsibility of the government to help them make the transition to a rewarding career on their return to civilian life. However, the suggestion that ex-soldiers, by nature, would make effective teachers is based overwhelmingly on their supposed aptitude for instilling discipline and 'respect'.
The deaths of four soldiers at the Deepcut Barracks between 1995 and 2002, alongside the 2006 death, from heatstroke, of Private Gavin Williams during a 'beasting' - an informal army punishment comprised of strenuous and exhausting physical activity - suggest that the army discipline and training regime is not something to which schools should aspire.
The proponents of Troops to Teachers argue that public perceptions of military training and discipline as brutal and inhumane are outdated. Burkard is quick to note that the Deepcut deaths "should not be considered as typical", glossing over the possibility that these events may be related to more serious systemic problems in the army training regime.
Even if we accept their claim that military education involves more carrot than stick, military discipline, whilst perhaps necessary to protect a democratic society, is still misplaced in its education system. Rigid discipline and obedience sits uneasily with of the goal of developing and encouraging reflective, free-thinking individuals. Military training and discipline cannot be disconnected from its role in preparing individuals for obedience to the chain of command, unquestioning acceptance of orders and, ultimately, conditioning them to overcome the moral prohibition on killing other human beings.
It's difficult to see exactly how challenging accepted wisdom and innovative, critical thinking, intellectual qualities essential in education, business and public service, can be fostered by educators who structure their teaching around militarised conceptions of discipline and obedience. Tolerance and respect for others are always essential, but education is much more than ingesting knowledge in a disciplined and obedient fashion.
Seeing military values as an antidote to a decadent and overly permissive liberal system is a worrying trend, and one that was characteristic of totalitarian movements during the 20th century. Military discipline, first designed to prepare individuals for participation in political violence, will not create tomorrow's free-thinking, morally responsible global citizens.
The idea that liberal education might learn from the practices of the military could in fact be turned on its head. The British Army is currently engaged in a counterinsurgency and stabilisation mission in Afghanistan, where reflection and cross-cultural engagement are key skills. Empathy, compassion, understanding and free enquiry, the hallmarks of a liberal education, may be much more important in these missions than selfless commitment and unquestioning obedience.
Perhaps we should be asking not what the military can do for liberal education, but what liberal education can do for the military?
]]>Ten Years of Violence: What is war good for?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9581792011-09-12T08:57:09-04:002011-11-12T05:12:02-05:00Dr Jonathan Gilmorehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonathan-gilmore/
Was the War on Terror a success or a failure?
Are we safer now or still vulnerable to terrorism?
Could 9/11 happen again?
Why do I still have to put all my toiletries into a little plastic bag whenever I go on a plane?
However, perhaps a more searching question should be asked about how the last ten years have affected the attitude of our society to violence and warfare. Although the violence unleashed in our name has produced uneven results and extracted a terrible price from local people, in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, militarism in the UK appears as popular as ever.
The response to 9/11 by the US and the UK reflected an uncritical resort to the conclusion that the use of violence by Al Qaeda was best met by more violence. Spectacular acts of military violence became the norm in the early War on Terror - whether at Tora Bora, through 'Shock and Awe' or in the destruction of Fallujah. Alongside this, enhanced interrogation, extraordinary rendition and extra-judicial killing came to be regularly used, if not wholly accepted, tools of counter-terrorism.
Programmes of counterinsurgency and state-building may paint a picture of a more humane form of war in the recent past, but violence, whether 'ours' or 'theirs', continues to affect Afghanistan and Iraq. Military violence seems to have undermined, rather than underwritten, a secure and stable environment in these countries. The question of for what war is actually good for, remains unanswered.
Despite this, the rather uncritical celebration of the military continues in the UK with government and the media averse to criticise or reflect on the conduct and role of the military. The continued faith in the use of aerial violence to "protect civilians" was evidenced recently by the 2011 intervention in Libya. Perhaps in the UK we have now reached what Andrew Bacevich, refers to as a "militarist consensus" - where broad societal agreement has been reached on the use of violence as a reasonable and appropriate tool of foreign policy.
On the one hand, defence cutbacks resulted in RAF and Army personnel receiving redundancy notices last week and military chiefs warn of the UK's inability to mount major operations in the future. On the other hand, the MOD continues to invest in warfighting technology, whether aircraft carriers or F35 fighters, equipment designed to project power and seemingly destined to contribute to the violence and destruction of future wars.
UK militarism has also reinforced a divide between ourselves and those we claim to help. Public acts of remembrance, like those held until recently in Wooton Bassett, may help us to remember UK citizens who have lost their lives in the past ten years of violence but they also help us to forget the others who were killed. The disparity in moral worth between 'us' and 'them' is reflected in the precision with which the deaths of UK soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are recorded (179 and 379 respectively) and remembered, in comparison to the very rough estimates of local civilian deaths.
Criticism of militarism is often dismissed with the claim that, "sometimes war is necessary as a last resort" a statement commonly supported by "well, what would have happened if we hadn't stopped Hitler in World War II?" Former Defence Secretary John Reid was well aware of the power of this analogy, arguing in 2006 that
"in the 20th Century, the Nazis used the most modern technology available to pursue their evil - the V2 bombs, Zyklon B and Lord Haw-haw on the radio. Nowadays, Al Qaeda use the latest, 21st Century technology available to them to pursue their evil".
Perhaps the war to end all wars has now become the war to justify all future wars...
Necessity and last resort have featured heavily in justifications for the War on Terror and the Libya intervention but the reality of our current situation bears little, if any, resemblance to that of 1939. Since there are no direct military threats to the continued existence of the UK, it is perhaps time to think differently about the role of the military and the use of violence in UK foreign policy.
As a modern European democracy, one now of more limited means, it's time to abandon the pretence of the UK as a global military power and adapt the armed forces toward a much more modest and more appropriate role...think peace operations instead of power projection. Why should Britain's prestige in the world be measured on its capacity to exercise violence and destroy human life?
As a society, the lessons learned from the past ten years of violence seem, if anything, a form of doublethink - that violence can be used to protect vulnerable foreign populations or that 'our' violence is in some way more just and humane than 'theirs'.
It's been ten years since an act of political violence wrought destruction and misery on the people of New York City. If we are to learn anything from the last decade, it should be that subjecting foreign populations to violence won't defeat terrorism, protect vulnerable populations or win the West any friends. Fighting always hurts...whether on the streets of Lower Manhattan, Baghdad or Kabul...the question is whether we let it define our next ten years.
]]>Libya in a Post Gaddafi eratag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9383492011-08-26T15:19:38-04:002011-10-26T05:12:01-04:00Dr Jonathan Gilmorehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonathan-gilmore/
What's perhaps more interesting is the future direction of Libya and much now depends on how coherent a movement the rebels actually are. It's very easy to interpret recent events as a battle between the forces of tyranny and the forces of freedom... a story reflected very much in the recent rhetoric of political leaders in the UK, France and the US, ostensibly committed to helping Libyans overthrow a leader who has "denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorised innocent people around the world" (Obama) and to "take control of their own destiny" (Cameron). If this sounds familiar it's because it was the kind of story told initially about Iraq. However, the situation in Libya, just like in Iraq and Afghanistan, is likely to be a much more complex picture than this romantic, but ultimately one-dimensional narrative suggests.
The extended period of time it took the rebels to reach Tripoli, even with a high level of air support from NATO, and the ongoing struggle to attain full control of the city perhaps raises questions as to whether the rebels actually enjoy overwhelming support in Libya and whether a significant section of the population still remains at least sympathetic to the Gaddafi regime. There will be a wide variety of different personal political and economic agendas at stake for those both inside and outside the old regime. These might range from large-scale interests related to Libya's substantial energy resources, to more localised concerns about power and control in specific neighbourhoods. Whether these interests can be reconciled with a democratic and stable Libya in the longer term is yet to be seen.
The National Transitional Council, aided by the high level of international support they are likely to receive from the West and regional actors, should be able to form a government. It's likely that, through state-building assistance programmes, the foreign powers that have supported the rebels will come to have a significant influence in how the post-Gaddafi Libyan state is shaped. The question is perhaps how sustainable, democratic and free from external interference this government will be.
The demise of the Gaddafi regime does have the potential to radically improve influence on the lives and human rights situation of the Libyan people. At the same time, let's not forget the extremely difficult human rights situation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The violence and instability after the invasion killed 100,000-110,000 people, with the situation at its worst in 2006, a full three years after toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Libya is, of course, a different context and one would hope that lessons have been learned since then. There is no foreign occupying force as there was in Iraq and, while the rebels have had external support, the regime change is home-grown. Insurgency and resistance to the new government may therefore be reduced.
However, the variety of different political and economic agendas which are likely to be at stake, combined with high levels of small arms ownership could create a fertile environment for future instability and insurgency. It will be very important for any new government to manage competing interests and expectations across Libya and not simply to serve their own interests or those of their immediate supporters.
In Iraq, the rather myopic belief, held by Coalition leaders, that it was enough simply to liberate the oppressed population from tyranny, led them to ignore crucial political, social and economic issues in the management of post-Saddam Iraq. Hopefully, the Libyan rebels and their international partners won't make the same mistakes.]]>