John Wight2013-05-19T03:31:14-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=john-wightCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for John WightGood old fashioned elbow grease.Stephen Hawking Joins the Growing International Boycott Campaign Against Israeltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32434562013-05-09T11:18:05-04:002013-05-10T05:47:40-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
What many people don't know is that Hawking's support for BDS against Israel is merely the latest stage in a campaign that has been under way since the call was originally made for a 'comprehensive economic, academic, and cultural boycott' of Israel in 2002 by various Palestinian intellectuals and academics living in the Occupied Territories. Out of this original call came the formation of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in Ramallah two years later in 2004.
The statement of principles issued to the international academic and cultural community urges a boycott of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions until
Israel withdraws from all Palestinian land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
Israel removes all its colonies (settlements) from Palestinian land.
Israel agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinians refugee rights (UN Resolution 194).
Israel dismantles its system of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
It is a statement of principles supported and endorsed by over sixty Palestinian academic, cultural and civil society federations, unions and NGOs.
The inspiration behind the BDS campaign is the international boycott campaign against apartheid in South Africa, credited with playing a key role in bringing it to an end in 1990. It was a campaign which grew from small beginnings when it began in London in 1959 - involving just a few campaigners - to become a global phenomenon over the next three decades, challenging the structural racism and apartheid of the then white controlled South African state.
As with its predecessor, the BDS campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian people has attracted the support of individual trade unions in Brazil, France, Sweden, South Africa and the UK, while in recent years both the Scottish and Irish Trades Union Congress have also endorsed the campaign. It is all evidence of a groundswell of international awareness when it comes to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Earlier this year the campaign was subject to a legal challenge in the UK, when a group of pro-Israel UK-based academics brought proceedings against the University and College Union (UCU) to an employment tribunal on grounds of 'institutional anti-semitism' over the union's support for BDS.
After considering all of the evidence and the case brought against the UCU, the three-person tribunal dismissed the case in a 49-page ruling that called into question the credibility of those who'd brought the case, their witnesses, and the veracity of their testimony.
As the tribunal made clear in its conclusion:
"Lessons should be learned from this sorry saga. We greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means. It would be very unfortunate if an exercise of this sort were ever repeated."
On the level of the cultural boycott, artists that to date have either refused to perform in Israel, attend events sponsored wholly or in part by the Israeli government, or signed up the cultural boycott of Israel, include Elvis Costello, Ken Loach, Carlos Santana, Gil Scott Heron, Roger Waters, Alice Walker, and Iain Banks. Furthermore some Israeli artists now refuse to perform at venues located in illegal Jewish settlements and have signed up to the aims and objectives of the international boycott in general.
Other high profile figures who consider Israel to be an apartheid state are former US president Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his part in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
In a letter to students at the University of California in 2012, congratulating them on voting to support divestment from Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians, Tutu wrote:
"I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.
"In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime."
Israeli academics are understandably aggrieved and even outraged at the decision of such a renowned figure as Stephen Hawking to join the BDS campaign in solidarity with the Palestinians. However their anger should be directed at their own government.
There can be no opt out or exceptionalism when it comes to upholding universal human rights. As a result, justice for the Palestinians is fast becoming the cause of humanity in our time.]]>Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables' - An Appreciationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32349882013-05-09T11:17:23-04:002013-05-10T05:51:23-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/Underworld (1997) is the closet there has been to claiming that mantle over the past thirty years or so, but since then there has been little to get excited about among the plethora of vacuous tripe proffered by the mainstream - which in the main consists of novels written by middle class people for other middle class people wherein the most common issues being grappled with are unsatisfying sex lives and deciding on the colour of the wallpaper in the sitting room of the second house in the country.
Where is the serious work of western literature that deals with seismic events such as 9/11, the war on Iraq, the war on terror, Palestine; on issues such as the plight of asylum seekers, immigrants, the struggles of the poor and dispossessed in the 21st century?
Having just read Victor Hugo's magnificent Les Miserables, this lack of serious literature in and of our time is even more evident.
Les Miserables - the story and its characters - has been a permanent cultural fixture for the best part of a generation, most commonly associated with the musical adaptation, which has now been performed in 21 languages in 42 countries around the world and is estimated to have been seen by 60 million people since first opened to poor reviews in Paris in 1980. The movie version of the musical, starring Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, was released earlier this year to excellent reviews, but previous to this there had already been three movie adaptations of the book. The first of those was made in 1935 and starred Charles Laughton and Frederic March. The second, produced in 1958, was shot in East Germany and is considered the most overtly political of the movie adaptations made. Meanwhile, the third and last dramatised movie adaptation to date was made in 1998 and starred Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush.
In addition there has been a radio production, a TV movie version, and a TV mini series, further evidence of the enduring resonance and impact of the characters created by Hugo in a novel that was originally published in 1862.
The themes encapsulated in Les Miserables - redemption, love, justice, crime and punishment, morality, and human solidarity - unfold in the course of a story which begins at the end of Napoleon's 'hundred days' after his return from exile on Elba, and ends in 1832 just after the short-lived June Rebellion of Republicans in Paris against the monarchy of Louis Phillipe.
The central thrust of the story revolves around the ongoing efforts of escaped convict Jean Valjean to escape the clutches of his nemesis the fanatical police inspector Javert, obsessed with putting him back in prison.
Valjean is a heroic figure whose courage and compassion - revealed in the face of dramatic and extreme episodes of cruelty, tragedy, and injustice - points to the disjunction between the law and morality in a society in which extreme wealth and status exists on a foundation of extreme poverty and human despair. Jean Valjean's personal journey takes him from the depths of despair as a convict to the heights of social status and comfort as a wealthy businessman turned mayor of a small provincial town, before being plunged back down to the depths when he is sent back to prison after revealing his true identity in order to prevent another man being imprisoned in his place due to mistaken identity.
Thereafter he once again escapes to ultimately find happiness as guardian of the infant Cosette, whom he rescues from the cruelty of the Thernardiers - in whose care she'd been placed for a price by her suffering mother Fantine.
There is not enough space to unpick the novel in its entirety, but it contains some of the most dramatic, heartrending, and inspiring scenes ever written in a work of historical fiction. Unlike many historical novels, where the story unfolds in and around actual historical events, the characters created by Hugo are equal to the backdrop rather than dwarfed by them, as they are for example in Gustave Flaubert's Salambo, set in Carthage during the epoch of the Barcas.
Victor Hugo's description of the Battle of Waterloo, which takes up nineteen chapters in the book, is worth the price alone. I found myself inspired to source more factual material about this famous historical event after reading his treatment of it, especially the charge of the French Cuirassiers over the sunken road against the massed squares of the British infantry at the battle's climax. It is a section of the novel that invites comparison with other great historical works in which major battles have been depicted.
Tolstoy's War and Peace is perhaps the most obvious in this regard. His depiction of the Battle of Borodino similarly humanises one of the most important military encounters of the Napoleonic wars. Ernest Hemingway cited Tolstoy's treatment of the battle as his inspiration when writing the battle scenes in his A Farewell to Arms, which deals with the First World War, inspired by the young Hemingway's experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver on the Italian Front, where he was wounded. Another historical novel regularly praised for its battle scenes is Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, which follows the exploits of the story's protagonist, Private Henry Fleming, as a soldier with the fictional 304th New York Regiment during the US Civil War. The interesting thing about Crane is that he wrote the novel never having tasted combat or life in the military.
The only contemporary novel I can think of which sits on a par with the aforementioned works when it comes to graphically and effectively describing the fear, tension, courage, and brutality of war is Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks - especially the tunnel scenes under the trenches with Jack Firebrace, which are unforgettable.
Les Miserables eclipses each of the aforementioned when the story moves beyond the battle scenes however. The characters of War and Peace, for example, members of the Russian nobility, leave you cold with their bourgeois conceits, while in The Red Badge of Courage Crane only skims the surface when it comes to the Civil War, focusing instead on the personal exploits of one particular soldier and in the process missing the opportunity to unpick the political and social issue of slavery which lay at the Civil War's heart. As for Hemingway, mawkish sentimentality runs in parallel with some of the most poetic prose every written in the English language in A Farewell to Arms. As a result I am willing to assert Hemingway's other great war novel - For Whom the Bell Tolls - as the better of the two and more deserving of being considered to have stood the test of time as a classic.
But getting back to Les Miserables, some of the many truly wonderful scenes depicted, apart from Waterloo, involve Jean Valjean rescuing Cosette from the cruel treatment of her guardians, the Thernadiers, already mentioned; the suspense of Valjean's escape with Cosette from Javert through the streets of Paris, culminating in them taking refuge in a convent; the courageous defence of the barricade in Paris against Royalist troops during the June Rebellion, where the idealistic and defiant young Republicans hold out until every one of them, apart from Marius, is killed.
Then, immediately after the barricade falls, we have Jean Valjean's heroic escape from the troops through the sewers of Paris, carrying the wounded Marius on his back. This section of the novel in particular includes some sublime writing that succeeds in reminding you why great works of fiction often eclipse works of philosophy in helping us understand the human condition.
In comparison to other classic works of literature that explore the human condition in a time of great social and political upheaval, Les Miserables is up there with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Turgenev's A Sportsman's Notebook; Emile Zola's Germinal; and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. As for Dickens, he couldn't lace Victor Hugo's boots as a novelist - not with his penchant for substituting caricatures for living breathing characters in his novels and his irritating paternalism when it comes to his treatment of the poor.
The recently deceased President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, credited Les Miserables with turning him into a socialist. Reading the novel it is clear to see why. Even Homer's Iliad pales in comparison when it comes to the epic sweep of the story and its characters. Indeed, it would be impossible to come up with a more courageous, noble and heroic character in all of world literature than the novel's central character Jean Valjean.
In explaining his motivation for writing the novel, Victor Hugo wrote that
I don't know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind's wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: "open up, I am here for you".
Surely there has been no nobler or more profound justification for a work of literature ever articulated in the history of western culture.]]>George Galloway Doesn't Need the Labour Party - The Labour Party Needs Himtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31312252013-04-22T09:09:32-04:002013-04-22T10:54:09-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
The original story appeared in the Daily Mail in the form of a criticism of 'Red Ed' for daring to meet with Galloway, the bête noire of the political establishment and cosy Westminster consensus. The thrust of the Mail story is that the purpose of the meeting was to pave the way the MP for Bradford West's readmission into the party he was forced out of back in 2003 over his opposition to the war on Iraq. George Galloway, it should be recalled, was a member of the Labour Party for over 30 years prior to his expulsion.
There followed, predictably, a backlash from certain quarters of the Labour Party, with adjectives such as 'unacceptable', 'traitor', 'untouchable', and so on deployed to discredit the Respect MP. Someone by the name of Mark Hughes from the Labour supporting blog, Labour List, wrote a piece for the Guardian in which he opines
'Ed Miliband knew exactly what he was inviting into his office that day. And while a small part of me admires his hard-headed pragmatism and determination to win a crucial Commons vote, a larger part of me thinks - it's Galloway, what were you thinking, Ed? That man - after everything he has said and done - doesn't even deserve your courtesy.'
Let's be clear about something. One of the very few of the nation's MPs who can walk through the Commons with his head held high is George Galloway. Consistently, and unwaveringly, this is a man who speaks truth to power, and has done regardless of any personal cost to himself. Whether it is his stance on illegal and immoral wars in the Middle East, the suffering of the Palestinian people, the anathematization of the Muslim community here at home, or his refusal to abandon real Labour values of social and economic justice for the poor and working people, he continues to stand head and shoulders above his peers, deservedly gaining an international reputation that ensures he speaks to packed out audiences wherever he appears in this country and overseas.
This, in truth, is the reason for the disdain in which he his held by the assorted careerists, sell outs, and Tory-lite opportunists that have defenestrated the Labour Party of everything it was formed to represent since Tony Blair assumed the leadership back in 1994.
Who could argue that Galloway's recent intervention in one of the most shameful acts of political cowardice ever witnessed in this country - namely the manner in which the current Labour leadership acquiesced in the unprecedented recall of Parliament to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher after her death and the £10 million of taxpayers' money that was spent on a state funeral - was exemplary and an inspiration to the millions of people in this country who despise everything Thatcher stood for and whose voices would not have been heard otherwise?
Furthermore the repeated ad hominem attacks directed at him over his meetings and dealings with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and current Syrian president Bashir al-Assad see obfuscation raised to the level of art.
In his attempt to ease the suffering of millions of Iraqis being punished by a sanctions regime that was medieval in scope and barbaric in effect - responsible for the premature deaths of 2 million human beings, half a million of those children - George Galloway met with Saddam Hussein in the context of the Mariam Appeal, which he spearheaded to highlight what US senator David Bonior described at the time as 'infanticide masquerading as policy.' Further meetings with the Iraqi leader were held in an attempt to persuade him to allow US inspectors into the country to forestall a war which, as it turned out, took place to devastating effect, leaving a broken society and a mountain of bodies in its wake. Which right thinking person in the country now disagrees that Tony Blair took the nation to war on the false premise that Iraq possessed WMD? And who could now disagree that the net result of the war unleashed on Iraq has been disastrous, both for the Iraqi people slaughtered, maimed, and left traumatised and impoverished, and the families of those British troops who paid with their lives, limbs, and/or mental health and well being?
This is the disaster which George Galloway, well nigh alone in the Commons at the time, extended himself in opposing, and which the current Labour leadership and its supporters believe can be swept under the carpet as a 'mistake' - on the same metaphorical level perhaps as misplacing a few pencils from the stationary cupboard, or spilling a cup of coffee on the carpet of Ed Miliband's office.
When it comes to Assad, this is the man who once occupied a spare room at Buckingham Palace on an official visit to Britain in 2002, when he was greeted by the then Labour leadership, prompting the Syrian leader to speak of his 'warm personal relations' with Tony Blair.
Galloway's relations with Assad were conducted with the objective of aiding the plight of the Palestinians, who were then and continue to suffer the depredations of a decades-long Israeli occupation in violation of international law and multiple United Nations resolutions. As with the Mariam Appeal, Galloway was not satisfied with merely marching, petitioning, and making speeches. Instead he decided to intervene directly by organising not one, not two, but five humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza in defiance of a siege that had reduced 1.5 million men, women, and children to the de facto status of inmates of an open prison.
Does anyone with an ounce of decency think that delivering humanitarian aid to a half starved people can be described as anything other than a principled act of human solidarity? And given that this aid had to be transported through a variety of countries en route, including Syria, and given that you have to deal with the regimes and governments that exist in this world, and not those we might prefer to exist, how else was George Galloway to effect the passage of this aid through those countries without first establishing positive relations with their respective governments?
The Labour Party of Attlee, Bevan, Morrison and Cripps is no more. In its place is a party that has betrayed its values and traditions, along with the millions it was formed to represent in the process.
Being scorned by such a party can only be a badge of honour.]]>A State Funeral for Thatcher Is an Insult to Justicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30833562013-04-15T05:57:19-04:002013-04-15T09:00:36-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
In the week of Margaret Thatcher's death we have seen the forces of the right in this country rolled out in an attempt to rewrite, airbrush, and revise the historical record of the former prime minister's years in Downing Street, with the wider objective of burnishing everything she represents as reflective of the nation's cultural values and national identity. The politicisation of her death by the right wing pro market, pro enterprise, and pro business establishment, and the campaign of dissent that has been waged in response, has revealed the extent to which class remains the key dividing line in British society. In this struggle, at the level of consciousness, it is clear that the ideas and philosophy which Margaret Thatcher espoused throughout her life have achieved hegemonic status.
This has been made stark by the weak, bordering on impotent, response of Ed Miliband and the rest of the Labour Party's front bench over this past week. In acquiescing to both the emergency and unprecedented recall of Parliament by the current Tory-led coalition government to facilitate a sickening display of political eulogy on the part of members of both benches, Glenda Jackson excepted, and to a state funeral, the Labour leadership confirmed that Thatcher's claim of the emergence of New Labour and Tony Blair as her greatest political achievement was no idle boast. If Labour is to return to anything resembling a party guided by social and economic justice, it must expunge from its history the idea that Thatcherism was and is anything other than an offence to the very concept of both.
Thatcher was the most effective class warrior of modern times. She completely and utterly transformed the nation's cultural, social, and political fabric during her 11 years in office. In the process, she waged war on the collectivist ideas that underpinned the welfare state and the trade union movement. In 2013 her success in winning this war is evident in the current government's attacks on the poor under the pretext of an economic crisis caused by the greed of the rich. Giving those same rich a tax cut while lumping the poor with a bedroom tax are twin policies straight from the Thatcher playbook. Moreover, David Cameron has extended himself in trying to claim Thatcher's legacy, with the objective of leveraging public support for his government's package of welfare reforms and tax cuts that, taken together, make a mockery of the fatuous claim that 'We are all in this together'.
The decision by the BBC to censor 'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead', after it was sent to the top of the download charts on the back of an anti-Thatcher social media campaign, has been revelatory. What the BBC hierarchy and rest of the political establishment have failed to grasp is the level of public anger over the attempt to canonize her as some great leader loved by the people. Here the historical record doesn't lie. It records that Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and loathed prime minister this country has ever had, her record a litany of destruction and despair wrought in the name of progress, as she set about the structural adjustment of the nation's economy.
People instinctively know what justice looks like, and a state funeral for a woman who hated the poor and working class people with every bone in her body is not it. Respect for the dead is not applicable when it comes to a public figure whose death has been politicised and her life and legacy so utterly distorted as to plumb the depths of immorality. Either we live in a democracy or we do not. The BBC is either an impartial state owned broadcaster or it is not. Events this past week have given us reason to question both.
The disconnect that exists between leaders and led in this country has never been more apparent. For all we are burying Thatcher, we remain prisoners of Thatcher's Britain. It is a cruel and callous place - exemplified by food banks, benefit cuts, and government led campaign of demonisation of the poor on the one hand, and tax cuts for the rich on the other.
Yes, indeed, Thatcher did her job well.]]>Margaret Thatcher Is Dead and I Will Shed no Tearstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30373312013-04-08T10:33:22-04:002013-04-08T14:26:57-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
I refuse to accept that her death should be mourned or that her impact on British society and the world was anything other than a baneful one. The countless lives ruined, shortened, and blighted by this woman in the war she unleashed on the working class in this country is unquantifiable. She decimated communities, deindustrialised the nation's economy, and set out to destroy the bonds of solidarity that had been the lynchpin of society since the Second World War. Individualism, untrammelled greed, and rapacious acquisition were the pillars of her political creed, responsible for turning Britain from a nation of citizens into a nation of consumers, along the way legitimising barbarism and cruelty as virtues to be lauded rather than evils to be vilified.
Back in 1979 the Iron Lady arrived in Downing Street determined to transform Britain. What followed was the structural adjustment of the British economy following the paradigm devised by Milton Friedman and his famed, now infamous, Chicago School. Simply put the market was accorded the status of a deity, omnipotent and omniscient, reducing human beings to economic units valuable only for their ability to produce or consume, with the emphasis in Western economies on consumption. Globally, the market was now arbiter of who ate and who starved, who lived and who died, and the record shows that millions did starve and have died.
The previous Labour government found itself presiding over an economy which global events - a hike in energy prices as a result of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in the Middle East, runaway inflation and a sterling crisis - led to the ignominy of the first advanced industrialised economy since the end of the Second World War approaching the IMF for a bailout loan in 1976. A rise in industrial disputes, commonly attributed to the trade union movement wielding too much power and influence, was the natural response of workers being asked to pay for a crisis not of their making with wage freezes, cuts, and redundancies. When push came to shove, the Labour government sided with the banks and international financial institutions in bearing down on British workers by agreeing to the onerous conditions attached to the IMF loan, most notably cuts in public spending and cuts in real wages to control inflation. These combined factors created the conditions of economic slump responsible for a Conservative victory in the 1979 general election, called as a direct result of the parliament's vote of No Confidence in the Callaghan government in the aftermath of the 1978 Winter of Discontent.
Thatcher immediately set about destroying Britain's trade union movement on the way to exporting the nation's manufacturing base to lands where people were forced to work for near starvation wages. They did so without any vestige of the rights or dignity which British workers enjoyed as the fruits of epic industrial struggles, waged throughout the 20th century by previous generations of men and women, struggles that gave new meaning to the word heroic.
But within ten years the dignity attached to work and the ethos of cooperation and community in Britain had been destroyed. Working class communities were reduced to largely drug infested wastelands of unemployment, rising crime, and broken families. The Keynesian model of managed capitalism was a thing of the past. The future was the City of London, stock market speculation, inflated property prices, a service economy employing a casualised workforce, and the privatisation of public utilities and key public services. Tory propaganda spread the lie that they were turning Britain into a property owning society of entrepreneurs in which everybody wins. Those left behind were deemed surplus to requirements as the barbarity of Social Darwinism replaced social justice in Thatcher's Britain.
Her abiding and lasting accomplishment was in pitching the centre of gravity of politics in Britain to the right. The most profound manifestation of this was the transformation that took place in the political philosophy and principles of the Labour Party, a process which culminated in the birth of New Labour in 1994, when Tony Blair assumed the leadership of the party upon the death of John Smith. It should never be forgotten that Thatcher credited the creation of New Labour as her greatest political achievement. In 1997, the year New Labour came to power, the thousand richest people in Britain were worth £98 billion. Ten years later their wealth had climbed to just over £300 billion - a 204% increase. In 2007 3,200 bankers in the City of London shared £8.8 billion in bonuses, while 2.5 million children and 2.9 million pensioners were living in poverty. These were the fruits of Thatcher's legacy.
When it comes to her infamous statement that there is 'no such thing as society', this was never intended as a statement of fact. It was, on the contrary, a statement of intent. Standing in her way were hundreds of thousands of miners, steelworkers, shipyard workers - the nation's working class. The struggle they waged to prevent the eradication of their jobs, communities, and rights was epic in scale and grievous in consequences. Yet there is no plaque or memorial in the centre of London to the heroism of the people who resisted the juggernaut unleashed by Thatcher. There are no glowing tributes being carried in the mainstream media to their stand against a legacy of rampant inequality and social and economic injustice, thus illustrating the axiom that history is written by the victors.
For millions up and down the country, Margaret Thatcher's death will not be mourned. Instead many will remember the devastation, suffering, and despair which she wrought, packaged as progress.
Others outside mainland Britain have reason not to mourn her death. The ten men who gave their lives on hunger strike in the North of Ireland in 1981 in a struggle for political status were casualties of her time in office. Thatcher was a supporter of apartheid in South Africa, she was an early supporter of the murderous Khmer Rouge, and she was a close political ally of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, who tortured and murdered thousands during his reign.
No, I will shed no tears for Margaret Thatcher. My tears are reserved for her victims and my tribute to the men and women who waged a valiant struggle in resistance to the barbarity that she and everything she believed represents.]]>Osborne and Cameron Should Have Been in the Dock Alongside the Philpottstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30187292013-04-05T04:07:06-04:002013-04-05T12:31:56-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
However, George Osborne's attempt to exploit the horrific deaths of these six poor children, joined in the attempt by the ever disgusting Daily Mail and other sections of the right wing press, in order to whip up support for policies that will harm the welfare of hundreds of thousands of poor children up and down the country, is an obscenity.
Not only is it obscene it is further evidence, if any were needed, that driving the social and economic policy of this government is an abiding contempt for the poor and working class people which borders on hatred. How else to understand the vicious assault being waged on the public sector, public services, and welfare state on the one hand, and tax cuts for millionaires and a glaring lack of political will when it comes to dealing with tax avoidance and evasion on the other?
For make no mistake, we currently have in this country a government of rich, privileged, and privately educated sociopaths whose primary objective is the transference of wealth from the poor to the rich, using the economic crisis as a pretext. The cynical way it has set about pitting the able bodied against the disabled, employed against unemployed, young against old, non-immigrant against immigrant has been carefully calibrated to weaken any and all resistance to this process. Yes, the inescapable fact is that not only has the government's response to the economic crisis failed to steer the economy out of recession, it has helped to deepen the recession by further reducing demand while refusing to invest in order to meet a growing crisis of private investment. But it would be grievous mistake to misinterpret this as the product of mismanagement or incompetence. It is not. It is nothing less than a class war.
Poverty is a crime from which flow many other crimes. If anybody requires proof of this all they need do is take themselves along to their local Sheriff Court or prison on any given day. There they will see that the overwhelming number of people there are of the same demographic. Violence, alcohol and drug abuse, anger, despair, hopelessness, low self esteem - these are the symptoms of poverty in our society. It is not the other way round, as the likes of Osborne et al would have us believe.
This is why it is imperative that we understand Mick Philpott and his wife not as products of the welfare state but as products of a society in which levels of inequality and poverty have reached Dickensian proportions. According to Oxfam, in the UK 1 in 5 of the population is currently living below the poverty line - a figure which is likely to get worse given the policies and ideology driving those policies on the part of the present government.
The assertion that the Philpotts are somehow representative of people living on benefits is as ludicrous and outrageous as the assertion that Harold Shipman is somehow representative of members of the medical profession, with the chancellor's attempt to draw such an association nothing less than a hate crime. It is every bit as offensive as asserting that the July 7 bombers are representative of Muslims. The question society needs to ponder is how it has become acceptable - the new normal, if you will - to hold such bigoted views of the poor?
Drawing the wrong conclusions from the horrific deaths of six poor children will have grievous consequences for the plight of thousands of other poor children. In a civilised society their welfare would automatically focus the minds of our politicians and people in positions of influence and authority. But we don't live in a civilised society. We live in a nation in which barbarity and cruelty has gained mainstream acceptance and resides in the hearts of those charged with organising and running the nation's affairs.
Ultimately, given the power which the likes of Osborne, Cameron, and the rest of the government wields, their ability and willingness to harm thousands children with their relentless assault on the poor, they should have been standing in the dock alongside the Philpotts.
They are just as guilty.]]>The Bedroom Tax - Now More Than Ever It Is Them or Ustag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29695922013-03-28T06:07:19-04:002013-03-28T11:17:45-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
This is not because it has the universal reach of the poll tax, which it does not, nor because it exemplifies more than any of the other Tory cuts how the poor and ordinary working people are effectively being punished for the greed and venality of the rich, which it does. The reason why the bedroom tax has generated the rumblings of a nationwide and mass campaign is because it violates our most cherished understanding of what it is to be human.
A home, whether bought or rented, represents more than just shelter in our lives, and even more so in the case of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, people for whom moving every few years is not possible and, for many, undesirable even if it were. Mobility is a luxury the poor cannot afford. In its place is community, roots, a sense of belonging which the rich, with their multiple houses and ability to move and travel on a whim, could never hope to understand.
For the most vulnerable in society a home is quite literally a sanctuary, the one place they are entitled to feel completely secure and safe in a society in which they are blamed for their plight rather than regarded as victims of it, as justice demands. A home also represents a history, where children are brought up, parents pass away, in which good and bad times are shared. It is essential to a sense of being and self worth, not to mention dignity. These things, without which no decent existence is possible, are precisely the things that are under attack with this bedroom tax.
This is why the sheer and utter cruelty of it transcends words such an iniquitous or unfair. It is nothing short of a violation of the human rights of those impacted, compounded by the fact that it will have a disproportionate impact on the disabled and elderly and sick. The stress being suffered by its victims leading up to its implementation will already have been immeasurable, leaving them feeling even more vulnerable and isolated in the face of decisions being made affecting their lives in which they have no input whatever.
The notion promulgated by the Tories that securing alternative accommodation will be a relatively easy process reveals either extreme ignorance or the sort of callous disregard for the poor which Dickens described in the late 19th century. On the contrary securing rented accommodation in the private sector, which has already seen demand spike in recent years due to the near collapse of the mortgage market as a consequence of the financial crisis and ensuing recession, is a far from simple process. The demand for one bedroom flats in particular far outstrips supply in every major city.
Just last year I was in the position of seeking a one bedroom flat in the private sector and it proved a Herculean task. There were twenty or more applicants for every flat I went to see; and the requirements of letting agencies are almost impossible to meet for anyone who does not have an impeccable credit history and does not earn more than the average salary. Worse, the upfront fees and deposit letting agencies demand means that anyone without savings is toast at the very first hurdle.
For people forced into this position as a consequence of the bedroom tax there is also the ludicrous situation whereby local councils will end up putting even more taxpayers' money into the pockets of private landlords to meet rents on one bedroom accommodation that are on average higher than they are in the social housing sector for two bedroom.
The housing crisis in this country, the responsibility of past Tory and Labour governments alike, is a national disgrace. It has brought us to the point where, according to Shelter, two million households are currently waiting for social housing in England and Scotland, many of them languishing in temporary accommodation with young children. The solution to this crisis is not to force people already in social housing onto the mercy of the private sector, but an emergency national programme of house building in order to meet demand. Attempting to solve one human crisis by precipitating another describes a country governed by sociopaths.
This is a policy that has either been carefully calibrated to punish those impacted - part of the mass experiment in human despair fashioned by the Tories under the rubric of austerity - or has been so ill conceived as to give immediate cause for alarm over the competency of its authors.
In the short term, of course, it makes little difference to the people and families affected.
What it does and must do is instil a determination and commitment the length and breadth of the UK that this is a line that will not be crossed. Not satisfied with coming for our jobs, public services, schools, hospitals, and amenities, now they are coming for our homes. There is nowhere else to go, nowhere left to retreat. Rights taken are rarely returned and the cost of defeat in this struggle could be felt for generations to come. Whatever it takes to defeat this policy - up to and including breaking the law with acts of non-violent civil disobedience - must be on the table.
Now more than ever it is them or us.]]>Tommy Sheridan's Return to Active Politics in Scotland Is Long Overduetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29501612013-03-25T14:08:01-04:002013-03-26T08:12:26-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
Over 100 people turned up at this initial meeting, mostly comprising people who will be directly affected by the bedroom tax. Tommy Sheridan was invited to attend and was unanimously elected to be part of the interim organising committee. Everybody at the meeting was presumably aware of Sheridan's past. Indeed, there is likely not a sentient being in the land who remains unfamiliar with Sheridan's past.
But just in case there is, the former Scottish Socialist Party leader and MSP, who split from the party in 2006 to form Solidarity, fought a long, drawn out legal battle against the Murdoch Press over a story that appeared in the now-defunct News of the World in 2004. The story alleged that a married MSP had attended a swingers club in Manchester, an establishment where consensual sex took place between men and women. Later, it was revealed that Tommy Sheridan was the married MSP referred to in the original story.
Sheridan sued for defamation and the case came to court in 2006. After a prolonged hearing, during which leading members of the Scottish Socialist Party took the stand to give evidence on behalf of the NOTW, the jury found in favour of Sheridan. Thereafter a criminal investigation was launched by Lothian and Borders Police, acting on a complaint, which culminated in Sheridan being charged with perjury. In 2010, after a trial lasting over two months, he was convicted of perjury and sentenced to a year in prison - a sentence he has now served.
It is worth pointing out that Sheridan is presently involved in a fight to have his conviction quashed on appeal. Thus far, two of the witnesses who testified at his perjury trial on behalf of the Crown have themselves been charged with perjury. It is also worth recalling that since Sheridan was convicted of perjury the News of the World has been forced to shut down as a result of widespread criminality and corruption.
Yet this is not enough in the eyes of some, who are clearly determined to resist Tommy Sheridan's return to active politics, even up to the point of undermining a campaign to resist the most callous and cruel policy of any government in this country since Thatcher's poll tax; and even though he has been inundated with invitations to speak at meetings across the West of Scotland, as more and more local campaigns against the bedroom tax spring up.
On various blogs and internet discussion forums various individuals have labelled Sheridan a 'misogynist', 'abuser', 'time bomb', 'opportunist', 'player', all with the intention of discrediting his participation in a political movement that is growing up and down the country day by day. In this these individuals are being aided and abetted by various friends in the media.
Two recent articles in the Huffington Post are a case in point. Written by Gregor Cubie, anyone unaware of who Tommy Sheridan is or his record in Scottish political life could be forgiven for thinking they had just read a description of Charles Manson and Dennis Nielsen combined. Consider this gem from his latest piece
Possibly the most gifted public speaker in British politics, Sheridan allies a Tarantino-esque knack for dramatic timing and wild gestures reminiscent of everyone's favourite Italian presidential candidate, Beppe Grillo, with the uncanny knack of being able to continuously crescendo for hours at a time.
So it's all 'performance' and 'uncanny knack' where Sheridan is concerned. Nothing to do with the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, he speaks from the heart and is a man of deep convictions, whose lifelong attachment to the cause of justice for the poor and the working class of Glasgow and beyond is why he remains popular among so many, even despite his very well publicised legal travails, a plethora of smear articles written by the likes of Mr Cubie, and two books which succeeded in casting the genre of biography into disrepute.
In truth Tommy Sheridan is only a divisive figure in Scotland among a small and thankfully marginal fraternity of his former colleagues and fellow travellers, people who long gave up on socialism in favour of moralism, the last refuge of hypocrisy. Moreover, in the last analysis, working class people aren't as stupid as some like to think. They instinctively know who stands with them and who does not.
Judging by the packed out audiences that have been turning out to hear him speak as the bedroom tax fast approaches, Sheridan's return to active politics in Scotland is not only welcome, it is long overdue.]]>An Open Letter to Mark Serwotka and the PCStag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29424842013-03-24T04:00:29-04:002013-03-25T14:37:41-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
The PCS union under your stewardship has earned a proud reputation for standing up for the rights of its members, many of whom are employed in providing the vital frontline services upon which millions of people in this country depend day in and day out. A strong and effective advocate of the public sector as a bulwark of a civilised society, the PCS has also emerged as a key component of the anti-cuts movement, which today is engaged in one of the most important struggles working people in this country have faced in generations.
I know that you, as a leading figure in this movement and in the struggle against the cuts and the government's attempts to diminish the public sector, are a strong proponent of joint action across union and sectional lines going forward, and have called for the trade union movement to link up with community groups and all sections of the left to form one united front capable of defeating the Tory led coalition and its cuts agenda.
I also know that you understand the necessity of including in this united front the millions of unemployed, disabled, and benefit claimants of every stripe who have come under attack in one of the most egregious examples of organised intimidation, coercion and bullying ever unleashed by a British government on the poor and vulnerable in society.
It is for these reasons that I am sure you will have been concerned at the story which recently appeared in the Guardian, confirming that jobcentres have been engaged in a policy of setting targets and league tables to sanction benefit claimants. It reveals an outrageous disregard for the welfare and dignity of the unemployed, and proves that a culture exists within the DWP whereby benefit claimants are being routinely abused by jobcentre staff, many of whom are members of your union.
I am sure you of all people do not need to be reminded that people claiming JSA or any other benefit to which they are entitled are not criminals, that jobcentre staff and benefits advisors are not their parole officers, and that the nation's benefits system was brought into being after a hard fought struggle by previous generations of trade unionists and working class men and women in this country to ensure a minimum of protection and justice for working people in periods of economic turbulence, ill health or any other crisis which might occur in their lives.
We are living through such a period of economic turbulence now, with unemployment set to rise still further in the months and years ahead as a direct result of this government's policies, thus ensuring that more people will be forced to rely on JSA and other associated benefits in order to survive. It seems then unconscionable that any human being, especially a trade unionist, could allow themselves to be party to a policy designed to cut the paltry sum paid to someone claiming JSA on the slightest pretext, doing so under direction from management as a way of cutting costs.
It is even more unconscionable when we consider that the real drain on the public purse in this country are the rich who avoid paying their fair share of tax to the tune of billions of pounds year on year, the bankers responsible for the economic mess the nation is in and who have been bailed out to the tune of billions of pounds in taxpayers money, while continuing to award themselves obscene levels of remuneration and bonuses.
As I am sure that you have already initiated an investigation within the PCS into the revelations carried in the Guardian story to make sure that none of your members are participating in this policy, and that the PCS will consult with its members on the best way to resist it being carried out by the DWP, I would like to commend you for taking up this matter with the seriousness and vigour it fully deserves.]]>Why Iraq Still Matters Ten Years Ontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29060212013-03-19T06:59:06-04:002013-03-19T10:51:31-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
When you think about it, one of the most remarkable and ennobling aspects of the human condition is our ability to experience empathy, compassion, and to express and demonstrate solidarity with complete strangers. History is littered with examples of this. In the case of Iraq, in the run up to the war in 2003, millions of people around the world exerted themselves in trying to stop what they knew would be, and turned out, a human catastrophe for the Iraqi people, whose only crime was that they live in a country that sits on a sea of oil.
I was living in the United States in the run-up to the war in the Iraq, living what was in many respects a double life. By day I was Ben Affleck's stand in/double on the movie he starred in, Surviving Christmas, by night I was attending antiwar meetings in an office in East Los Angeles, organising and planning events in opposition to the Bush administration's drive to war.
On the set of the movie tensions were running high as the real world intruded. I recall the producers stipulating that politics was off limits as a topic of discussion on the set, such was the atmosphere. Instead of openly discussing the upcoming war and politics behind it, people began scrawling their views on the walls of the bathroom. Within days it was covered with both pro and antiwar slogans and messages.
I recall conversations with Ben Affleck's bodyguard about the looming war. He was an ex-marine who claimed to have once been stationed at the US embassy in Baghdad. His attitude, as you might expect, was that 'we should go in there and kick Saddam's ass.' Sadly, there were more than a few on the crew who shared this view.
For the previous six months leading up to this point, I had given almost every waking moment to the anti-war movement. In this I was joined by men and women of all ages, background, ethnicity, nationality, religious persuasion and none. We were a mosaic, a microcosm it often struck me of the world we aspired to. Americans, Koreans, Mexicans, Palestinians, black, white, Asian, Latino - all of us were committed to mobilising and resisting the war. Hours and hours spent building demonstrations, meetings, film nights, street stalls, writing leaflets, press releases, trying to leverage as much support across different organisations, labour unions, churches, mosques, synagogues in what was undoubtedly the most meaningful and important experience of my life.
I will never forget the feelings of grief, anger, fear, and sadness that overwhelmed me when news came that the bombs and missiles had started falling on Baghdad. I was on the set of the movie, which by now I hated, when it came. As soon as the day's shooting wrapped, I jumped in my car and drove over to the office, headquarters of the LA branch of the ANSWER Coalition, where the core group of activists and organisers were sitting and standing in front of the TV watching the news. Hardly anybody spoke. Our collective attention was solely focused on the pictures being broadcast of missile bursts and explosions from Baghdad. I thought about the terror of those who at that moment were cowering under those missiles and bombs and felt sick to my stomach.
How could this be happening in the 21st century? How in a so-called democracy could we allow our leaders to unleash war on a defenceless people based on half truths and lies?
But then I considered that the history of the West is littered with lies and distortions - the lie that we are a force for good in the world, spreading civilization and democracy and prosperity. The reality is that we are and have been the exact opposite. Every statue, monument, and grand building in every one of our towns and cities verily drips with the blood of the millions that have been exploited, abused, oppressed, and negated under the juggernaut of empire, imperialism, and colonialism wearing the mask of the progress. This for me is the main lesson of Iraq ten years on.
An emergency demonstration had been planned to take place the day after the war started. It was organized to take place outside the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard in LA, the sight of so many demonstrations in the city I had participated in over the past year or so.
I was presented with a dilemma. I was scheduled to work on the movie as normal the next day, which would mean missing the demonstration. In the end there was really no choice to make. The movie and my role as a movie star's stand-in paled in comparison to attending the demonstration. With this in mind, I picked up the phone first thing the next morning, called one of the production assistants and left a message informing her that I was quitting the movie to attend a demonstration against the war.
Of course, objectively, my actions would make no difference to the Iraqi people or to the war. Nonetheless my conscience would have tortured me if I had not and continued as normal.
Ten years on the chaos and carnage continues in Iraq. The lives of millions have been destroyed, whether killed, maimed, traumatised, forced to leave their homes, seeing friends and loved ones killed or maimed, and so on. Then there are the 179 British soldiers who died, leaving behind parents, siblings, wives, and loved ones dealing with the pain of their loss forever after. The cost to the taxpayer of £9billion is crime in itself, a monstrous sum of money to fund a monstrous and catastrophic war.
As expected, on this the tenth anniversary of the war, we have the usual apologists being rolled out to try and convince us that despite the 'problems and 'setbacks' it was worth it. After all, they tell us, there are democratic elections in Iraq now, which there were not before. Yes, but there also weren't untold tens of thousands of orphans, widows, and dead.
Ten years ago this week the richest nations in the world unleashed a war for oil on one of the poorest. Those responsible for this crime remain at large. This, by any measure, renders words such as democracy and civilization meaningless.
John's memoir of his years as an antiwar activist in Hollywood, Dreams That Die, is now available]]>Ken Loach Reminds Us What the Labour Party Used to Be and What It Isn't Todaytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28924652013-03-16T16:12:50-04:002013-05-16T05:12:02-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/The Spirit of 45, should be part of the school curriculum in every generation as a model of what a government committed to meeting the needs of the majority of its citizens can be. These achievements are all the more impressive considering the state of the British economy in 1945, after six years of war had decimated Europe, laid waste to most of its major towns and cities, destroyed its industrial capacity, and smashed its infrastructure.
The exigencies of the war had left Britain with a national debt of 225% of GDP, an unsustainable empire, and had exhausted its gold and dollar reserves. These facts alone serve to put the hysteria proffered by today's austerity hawks over a national debt of 75% of GDP in 2010 into its proper perspective.
Historical parallels and difference between then and now are impossible to ignore while watching the film. One of the most striking is the pale imitation of today's Labour Party to the one led and driven by political giants and visionaries such as Clement Attlee, Stafford Cripps, Ernest Bevin, Hugh Dalton, and Nye Bevan. These men, responding to the hopes and needs of a British working class that had shed its blood to defeat fascism, were determined that Britain would never return to the crippling inequality, poverty, and social and economic injustice of the 1930s. The extent of this poverty is movingly depicted with the use of rare archive footage and the moving testimony of those who experienced it.
With the end of the war a wave of euphoria at the defeat of fascism combined in Britain with the resolute determination that the victory would extend to the postwar settlement. Given the inspirational role played by Churchill leading the country during the war, he and the Tories were unsurprisingly sanguine when it came to the general election that immediately followed. The Tory election slogan was 'Vote National - Help Him Finish The Job', referring to Churchill with the objective of associating his role in leading the country during the war with the need for continuity when it came to the postwar reconstruction.
But leading figures within the Labour Party had also played a key, if less high profile, role in the war effort. If not for Labour the disastrous policy of appeasement followed by Neville Chamberlain's government, which led to its tepid and incompetence handling of the early stages of the war when it became unavoidable, would not have been ended as swiftly and conclusively as it was in 1940, when Chamberlain was replaced by Churchill and a coalition government was formed to fight the war.
By war's end thousands of soldiers, seamen, air force personnel, and workers at home were aware of the role of planning and organization in securing a victorious outcome, and the crucial role played by Labour ministers within that. Among the archive footage which runs throughout the film, one of the most uplifting is the scene of Churchill addressing and open air election rally in 1945 and being roundly booed by the crowd, which breaks into a chant of 'We want Labour! We want Labour!'
It is hard to escape the conclusion that today's Labour Party could only dream of being so popular and eagerly supported by the electorate.
The 1945 general election resulted in a Labour majority of 146 seats. It was a resounding endorsement of a manifesto based on the 'Five Giant Evils' in society of squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease that had been identified in the Beveridge Report of 1942, commissioned by Labour in 1941. Even so, after the victory came the monumental challenge of turning the manifesto into reality given the parlous state of the nation's economy and finances.
It would not have been possible without a huge loan from the United States.
The irony here should not be lost. Essentially the United States government funded the implementation of socialist reforms which transformed British society out of all recognition. For the first time in its social history the nation's wealth, resources, and surplus was focused on prioritising the needs of the people over those of the rich and privileged. But the US had selfish and strategic reasons for granting the Attlee government a substantial loan to fund the nation's postwar reconstruction. The spectre of the Soviet Union loomed large over postwar Europe, with communism enjoying an upsurge in popularity due to the role of the Red Army in smashing fascism. Communist partisans and resistance movements throughout occupied Europe had also played a significant part in the war, and the last thing the Truman administration could countenance was the possibility of an upsurge in pro-Soviet sentiment leading to a communist Europe. Consequently, massive economic aid with the aim of rebuilding Western Europe was a key plank of Washington's strategy to win the peace. It was also designed to rebuild European markets to receive US exports.
However, the most crucial point with regard to the US loan responsible for funding Britain's postwar reconstruction should not be missed in light of current events. Borrowing to invest in order to create demand is the way to drag any economy out of recession and return it to growth.
The terms attached to the loan by the US were not overly-kind. An amount of $3.75 billion, to be paid over fifty years at an annual interest rate of 2 percent, increased to $4.4 billion after factoring in the setting aside of $650 million owed to the US from the Lend-Lease Agreement which had allowed Britain to fight the war. The quid pro quo was Britain's participation and support for the Bretton Woods Agreement, which in 1944 redrew the global economic map in favour of the US economy with the implementation of free trade and the end of currency exchange controls.
Over the next few years Attlee's government completed the wholesale nationalisation of industry and public utilities, a national programme of house building, which saw a million new homes built between 1945 and 1951, and the creation of the welfare state. Archive footage of then Housing Minister, Nye Bevan, stating the case for homes for the working class emphasises the socialist principles which ran through his veins.
Bevan was also the Minister for Health in Attlee's government, and despite determined opposition from the British Medical Association, pushed through the imposition of the National Health Service in 1948. It was the crowning achievement of Labour's historical role as a party of the working class. Millions of men and women who'd known only lives blighted shortened by disease, illness, and medical conditions that went untreated or only partially treated, were now fully and comprehensively covered. Dental care, eye care, maternity care - every aspect of the nation's health was covered by right and treated free at the point of need. National Insurance, set up to fund the NHS, was a shining example of socialism in action.
Ken Loach provides us with a timely reminder of a period in history when the needs and hopes of the British working class were the guiding light of government policy, resulting in the radical transformation of society and an economic recovery the like of which is desperately needed today.]]>The Demonization of Hugo Chaveztag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28432092013-03-09T08:22:18-05:002013-05-09T05:12:01-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
As Bertolt Brecht once wrote, 'Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.'
Chavez came to power at a time when Venezuela was indeed an unhappy land. Moreover, he lived in an unhappy world, one in which ostentation and obscene wealth for the relative few is measured in the crushing of hope for millions, particularly in the southern hemisphere. The poor of Venezuela, Latin America, and elsewhere knew that Chavez was with them - not dictating to them from above, but walking by their side in solidarity. This is why they loved him with such passion and why his enemies hated him just as passionately and have quick to denounce him in death.
Indeed, the attacks on Hugo Chavez and his record have been every bit as, if not more, revealing than the grief and tributes. In Washington members of the political establishment on both sides of the aisle have vented their disdain for both him and all that he stood for - which in a word was justice. Epithets such as 'dictator', 'despot', and 'tyrant' have been levelled at the former Venezuelan president in recent days in Washington.
Here, for example, is the reaction of Republican member of the House of Representatives, Ed Royce, to Chavez's death.
'Hugo Chavez was a tyrant who forced the people of Venezuela to live in fear. His death dents the alliance of anti-U.S. leftist leaders in South America. Good riddance to this dictator.'
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement:
'Hugo Chavez ruled Venezuela with an iron hand and his passing has left a political void that we hope will be filled peacefully and through a constitutional and democratic process, grounded in the Venezuelan constitution and adhering to the Inter-American Democratic Charter.'
This can only be the product of cognitive dissonance - unless, of course, Hugo Chavez was the only dictator and tyrant to have been elected to office four times in democratic elections adjudged by ex-US president Jimmy Carter and other international observers as the most democratic of any country on earth. As for ruling Venezuela with an 'iron hand', this is something that no one obviously thought to inform the large, privately controlled media in the country over the years it was consistently broadcasting and spouting the most vile insults and libellous smears against their president.
On a more prosaic level, surely having your commitment to democracy or democratic principles questioned by members of a US political class that is bought and paid for by vested interests equates to being told to stand up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
When it comes right down to it, the extent to which Hugo Chavez has been attacked and smeared in Washington, and by the rich in Venezuela and elsewhere since his death, is in direct proportion to his effectiveness in distributing Venezuela's considerable oil wealth to the poor and forgotten of his country, and his role as a strong voice against US hegemony not just in Latin America but all over the world. This is why they hate him and it also is why millions loved him.
Here in Britain, meanwhile, perhaps the most startling editorial out of all of the mainstream newspapers in the wake of the death of Chavez was the one that appeared in the 'progressive' Independent newspaper on March 6. The concluding paragraph reads
'Mr Chavez was no run-of-the-mill dictator. His offences were far from the excesses of a Colonel Gaddafi, say. What he was, more than anything, was an illusionist - a showman who used his prodigious powers of persuasion to present a corrupt autocracy fuelled by petrodollars as a socialist utopia in the making.'
So there you have it - the former Venezuelan president and inspirer behind the Bolivarian revolution is deserving of nothing more than being labelled a 'dictator' and 'illusionist' in the pages of a British broadsheet identified with centre left politics. This is nothing short of remarkable when you consider that Venezuela now boasts the fairest income distribution of any country in Latin America, as measured by the Gini coefficient index. It is also remarkable in light of the previously mentioned democratic mandate which Chavez won not once but four times. None of that matters to Chavez's well fed and well heeled detractors, however, whose abiding contempt for the poor is reflected in the contempt they hold for the one leader in the world who governed in their interests.
Not only is this kind of demonization of Hugo Chavez in the pages of the liberal and right wing press an insult to his record and to the truth, it is an insult to the millions of Venezuelans who supported and voted for him. It is also an insult to any notion of justice.
Perhaps, in the last analysis, it is exactly as the man says: 'Dogs can dance on a lion's grave but they can never become lions'.]]>Hugo Chavez May Have Died but the Ideas for Which He Struggled Live ontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28171812013-03-06T05:30:39-05:002013-05-06T05:12:01-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
Indeed, the measure of Chavez's effectiveness was the extent to which he was attacked as a demagogue, dictator, and tyrant - even though he was the most democratically elected leader of any in the entire world, winning four presidential elections, the last of which in October last year secured him 54.4% of the popular vote. In 2002 he survived a coup, orchestrated by the oligarchs who used to run the country in conjunction with a section of the military leadership, and which enjoyed the tacit support of the Bush administration. It failed when the poor of the the slums and barrios of Caracas descended on the presidential palace in their tens of thousands and demanded the return of their president. If this man was a dictator then one can only imagine what democracy looks like.
Of course the real reason Chavez came under such a sustained attack throughout his presidency had little to do with his style of government - which certainly was flamboyant and extrovert - but his orientation towards Venezuela's poor in a domestic program of radical reform which he and his millions of supporters named the Bolivarian Revolution. In concrete terms it has been responsible for the following achievements:
The lowest indices of inequality in Latin America over the past 12 years. The indices of extreme poverty have dramatically decreased, along with poverty in general, with the Gini Coefficient (the measure of inequality in the distribution of income) being the lowest in the history of Venezuela. At the same time the Index of Human Development (IDH) has risen.
A literacy program that has led to UNESCO declaring Venezuela a country free of illiteracy. Higher education enrollment has increased by 170 percent, up from 785,285 students in 1998 to over 2.12 million in 2009. Venezuela now occupies the second place in Latin America and fifth in the world when it comes to university graduation.
The investment of 7.8% of GNP into a free healthcare program, known as Mission Barrio Adentro, designed to provide free healthcare services to the poor. To date it has saved 301,000 lives. Additionally, the level of infant mortality has been reduced by 32%.
A reduction in the rate of unemployment from 16.1% in 1998 to 6.5% today. Venezuela's minimum wage is now among the highest in Latin America. Workers also receive a bonus of food and their pensions have been raised to the same level as the nation's minimum wage. With the PSUV's Mission Alimentation food is now offered at lower prices to the poor. The result has been a reduction in those suffering from a nutritional deficit from 5.3% of the population to 2.9% in the past decade.
A 4% rise in GDP in 2011, with significant gains registered in the non-petroleum sector of the Venezuelan economy for the first time in decades.
Not content with that, Chavez was the inspiration behind a leftward shift throughout Latin America, a part of the world long ruled by a clutch of right wing dictatorships responsible for widespread torture, imprisonment without trial, murder, and repression. Those right wing dictatorships enjoyed the supported of the United States while ensuring that the region's economic and social development was retarded.
In contradistinction to this dark period in Latin American history, Venezuela under Chavez embarked on a policy of trans-border cooperation and investment, designed to fight poverty and increase economic grow throughout the region. This was carried out under the rubric of various organisations such as the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), PETROCARIBE (providing cheap oil to Caribbean nations), and more recently the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR).
The closeness of the relationship forged between Venezuela and Cuba has also been significant, involving as it has an innovative exchange of oil from Venezuela in return for healthcare programs and medical missions from Cuba. This has gone a long way to lessening Cuba's economic isolation in the face of a decades-long economic blockade by the United States, while at the same time spreading the many achievements of the Cuban Revolution in healthcare, education, and a counter-hegemonic economic and social system to capitalism.
In truth it was Chavez's opposition to US domination of the region, the example he set in redistributing Venezuela's oil wealth to the poor at the expense of the rich, and his attempt to spread this example throughout Latin America, which earned him such vitriolic opposition and calumniation. Each of the aforementioned flew in the face of the neoliberal straitjacket responsible for devastating the lives of millions in Venezuela and throughout Latin America for decades prior to his emergence as a catalyst for progressive change.
Hugo Chavez and all of the aforementioned reforms he implemented in Venezuela and helped implement throughout Latin America was driven by a fierce sense of solidarity with the poor and marginalized. He was also anti imperialist to the core of his being, a strong voice against US hegemonic policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
It was Dom Helder Camara, the Catholic archbishop whose devotion to Brazil's urban poor earned him the sobriquet of 'Bishop of the slums', who once said: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."
In Chavez Venezuela and the world had a leader who spent his life asking why. Not only that, he devoted his life to doing something about it. If this made him a communist then so be it. To the poor of Venezuela, Latin America, and around the world he was and will be always be remembered as a champion of justice and liberation - the kind that money cannot buy.
Yes, he may be dead, but his ideas live on.]]>Western Military Intervention in Syria Would Be a Disastertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27880472013-03-01T06:07:04-05:002013-05-01T05:12:01-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
The British government is also eager to step up support for the Syrian opposition, as attempts to topple the current regime by force shows no sign of succeeding without significant intervention.
At the beginning of January a figure of 60,000 was unveiled as the most up to date and accurate assessment of the number of people killed since hostilities erupted in Syria in early 2011.
The US NGO which came up with this figure, resulting from an investigation into the conflict commissioned by the UN, is called Benetech. Benetech's sponsors, listed on its website, include the National Endowment for Democracy, the Soros Open Society Institute, and the US Department of State.
Regardless, the western media carried the results of Benetech's investigation at the top of its reports and broadcasts without any analysis of their provenance or this particular NGO's sponsors. It speaks to the politically-loaded coverage that has been the norm when it comes to this conflict from the very beginning.
But whether the number killed in the Syrian conflict is 60,000 or not, the thousands who have been slaughtered, the tens of thousands more maimed, traumatised, and/or forced to flee their homes, constitutes a human catastrophe of monumental proportions, one that stands as an indictment of the West's role as an active participant in its support for a polyglot opposition that includes medievalist religious fanatics intent on fomenting a sectarian bloodbath, whose conception of a functioning society involves dragging the country back to the seventh century. In this they are being ably supported by the Saudis and Qataris, those shining examples of democratic values, who have been funnelling weapons and military equipment to them via Turkey.
What cannot be ignored when it comes to the Syrian conflict is its role in the wider geopolitical struggle that is being waged over the future of region between the US and its allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other. It is a conflict over US efforts to maintain a status quo of unipolarity when it comes to global power and influence, with Russia and China increasingly determined to create a multipolar alternative.
The so-called Arab Spring, begun in Tunisia in late 2010, has been hijacked and usurped by western powers which collectively have acted to control and manipulate its trajectory with the aim of maintaining western hegemony over a region first carved up by them after the First World War. Military intervention in Libya, continued pressure being exerted against Iran, continuing support for Israeli efforts to crush Palestinian resistance to its ongoing settler project, support for Saudi aggression in Bahrain, and now Syria - this is the balance sheet of the West's recent history of intervention in the region.
With the tenth anniversary of the war in Iraq upon us, and the litany of carnage and mayhem it has left behind, events in Syria take on an added importance, especially for the current regime in its struggle to prevent what will certainly be Iraq-style sectarian blood-letting should an opposition which includes assorted foreign and domestic jihadists succeed in toppling Assad.
Russia's determination to continue supporting the Syrian regime, which along with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon constitutes an axis of resistance to western domination, will now be tested further in light of the US decision to ramp up its support for the opposition. Interestingly, just prior to the US and British announcement of increased aid to the opposition, the Russians were engaged in another effort to initiate dialogue with the Syrian opposition and the Syrian regime, after Assad announced that he is ready to talk to all parties, including armed groups, who want dialogue to end the conflict.
The extent of the violence that is taking place in the country reflects the stakes involved. As already stated, Iraq's fate and the carnage let loose in Libya after the toppling of Gadaffi cannot but be a key motivating factor when it comes to the Syrian army's attempts to crush the insurgency, while the opposition knows that it can effectively leverage the West's support given the primacy of the region to its geopolitical interests.
By this point there should be few who still believe that the West is motivated by any noble motivation of spreading democracy to the Arab and Muslim world. On the contrary democracy, human rights, peace and stability - these are nothing more than age-old canards spouted as justification for the hegemonic policies that have bedevilled the southern hemisphere for generations.
Indeed it would be hard to come up with a better explanation and interpretation of the West's policy towards the Middle East, beginning with Iraq ten years ago and currently ongoing in Syria, than the words spoken by an American major after the destruction of a village during the Vietnam War.
"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."
]]>None of Us Who Marched On 15 February 2003 Will Ever Forget Ittag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26693512013-02-12T12:13:30-05:002013-04-14T05:12:01-04:00John Wighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wight/
I was in Los Angeles and still consider the weeks leading up to 15 February - weeks which comprised packed organizing meetings, the tireless leafleting of shopping malls, workplaces, and communities, street stalls and speeches, the making of placards, writing and sending out press releases, and various other activities associated with building the demonstration - as among the most important, meaningful, and vital I've ever experienced.
The thing that struck many of us most at the time, and still does ten years on, is how this historic global antiwar movement rubbished completely the lie that humanity is divided along national, ethnic, religious, gender, or any other line. Indeed perhaps the most important achievement of February 15 was the affirmation that humanity knows no borders, nation, ethnicity, race, or religion, and that what unites us is far more powerful than any of the aforementioned differences.
Looking back now, February 15 2003 still represents a beacon of hope for what we can become. Yes, the war was unleashed regardless, and no one who was involved in the antiwar movement takes comfort from being able to say in hindsight that everything we said was right and everything they said was wrong. We knew that the war would be a disaster, most of all for the Iraqi people, but also for us in the West. The polarization that has occurred in our own societies since - the rise and spread of Islamophobia and its inevitable response in the shape of the radicalisation of many young Muslims - has been mirrored in the attacks on civil liberties and the deepening of social and economic justice.
Imperialist wars abroad rest on a foundation of social and economic injustice at home, and surely it is no accident that just a few years following the war on Iraq and its continuing fallout and blowback, the West found itself plunged into a financial and economic crisis that some might conclude was history's revenge for the monumental crime against humanity that 'we' unleashed on a people whose only crime, despite the monument to lies that our leaders erected to justify the war unleashed on them, was that their country sits on a sea of oil in a region of the world whose importance to the outrageous greed and level of consumption in the West has long been self evident.
The injustice of a war unleashed on a tissue of lies has been compounded for many by the fact that its key architects, George Bush and Tony Blair, rather than being held accountable, have prospered in the years since. Bush now lives a life of comfort as an ex-President on his Crawford, Texas ranch, while Blair has enriched himself with a second career as an international speaker, adviser to various multinational corporations, and various other enterprises around the world.
Faith in conventional politics, manifesting in lower and lower voter turnouts, was shattered for many of those who marched on that historic day in 2003. In its place came cynicism - a cynicism that has never ceased. This casualty of the war that came after is made more profound by the fact that leading up to February 15, and on the day itself, idealism and optimism succeeded in raising our expectations to new heights of possibility for the world. You might say we were naive, blinded by an irrational belief in the willingness of our leaders to respond to the collective moral suasion of millions of people around the world.
But, then again, were we? Were we naive? Perhaps it is more the case that we were unable to comprehend that the determination of those in power to wage war had rendered them impervious to reason, their humanity blinded by the lust for conquest, which in the tradition of Orwellian language long mastered by imperialists and colonialists they claimed was liberation.
And what a liberation it has proved. Up to a million dead, millions more maimed, traumatised and made refugees in both the war and ensuing occupation, which unleashed a level of sectarian violence that will take generations to overcome - if ever at all. A country that once boasted the most advanced infrastructure in the Arab world was reduced to chaos and carnage. Ten years on it is still broken.
This is their notion of liberation.
No matter, every one of the millions who took to the streets on February 15 2003 can take pride in the fact they stood for a vision of peace and humanity over one of war and conquest. It was as Orwell said, 'In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'
We in the antiwar movement told the truth on that historic day. It is a truth that continues to resonate and will never die.
This article is written in tribute to the millions of Iraqi people who suffered as a result of the lies and half truths of those whose crimes will follow them to the grave. No matter how long it takes, we will work to ensure that those crimes also follow them into an international criminal court.]]>