Sam PF's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Sam PF" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:12 pm
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Skål, Svenska Kyrkan!
Yay for the Church of Sweden! The Svenska Kyrkan's Synod voted yesterday to conduct same-sex marriages. This follows a law passed by the Swedish Parliament in May permitting them. 70% of the Synod voted for the proposal, and marriages can start from November.
Tags: religion
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11:07 pm
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Gaza Freedom March
As I have already discussed in f-locked posts, I will be joining the Gaza Freedom March organized by a coalition of peace, human rights, faith and other groups that together form the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza, which seeks to do what it says on the label.
Attendees meet in Cairo for a briefing on the 27th December. We will then travel to Gaza on the 29th through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt[1]. We will stay in Gaza, meeting with various people and groups, witnessing the situation from 1st hand, and delivering humanitarian aid. On the 1st January there will be a mile-long march to the border with Israel, co-ordinated with a parallel march by Israeli peace activists from the Israeli side. We return to Cairo on the 2nd, and I will return home on the 5th (possibly via a pyramid if I can arrange it).
( The bloackade and its effects )
Israel's allies in the US, Europe and elsewhere have, while occasionally making critical noises, remained effectively silent in the face of this inhuman siege, taking no concrete measures to bring about an end to it.
Ending the siege of Gaza is not something that is going to happen quickly or easily, and one event is unlikely to have any dramatic immediate effect. But I consider that events such as the Gaza Freedom March are essential in seeking to keep Gaza in the international eye, challenging the shameful policies of Israel and the west, and showing the isolated people of Gaza that they are not alone.
I aim to do some fundraising to support the work of the Coalition in Gaza and elsewhere. One of my concerns about going was the question of whether, given that I have the money for the air fare, I might not do more good simply donating it to them directly. I don't know the answer to that. But my goal will therefore be, if possible, to raise the equivalent of my air fare to donate. I think I will split money raised between the coalition (which will spend it on things to do with the march itself in Gaza and overseas, lobbying activities in Washington and humanitarian aid to Gaza) and a Palestinian NGO, perhaps the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights.
I shall post further about this later, and will probably set up some sort of Paypal thing and maybe a Facebook Cause thing or something like that. In the meantime, if you want to donate to the work of the Coalition (through Code Pink), you can do that here. If you do so in response to this, please let me know (email in my user profile).
( [1] )
Tags: israel, palestine, peace, politics, travel, war
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11:55 pm
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The space for peaceful protest in Palestine
Jewish Voice for Peace sent me an email a few days ago with the question "How wide is the space for Palestinian nonviolent activism?"
The answer they give is two meters by two - the space of the windowless cell in which Mohammad Othman has been held in solitary confinement, without charge, by the Israeli authorities, for 25 days now.
The basic facts of the case: Mohammad Othman is a Palestinian activist from the village of Jayyous, that has been the site of ongoing nonviolent protests against the Israeli wall that has taken a large portion of the village's land. (It was one of the villages I passed through in my 2004 trip). He has been engaged in human rights activism, and campaigning locally and internationally against the wall.
He was arrested on 22 September as he was returning to Palestine across the Allenby Bridge (from Jordan), after visiting a conference in Norway where he was promoting the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BDS against Israel.
He has come before a number of military hearings that have extended his detention, the most recent I think until the 26th October, and has been repeatedly interrogated about his activities and contacts, but has not been charged. His activities have always involved non-violent political activism and protest. It would appear that he is being held purely on the grounds of these peaceful political activities - in particular his support for BDS, something which Israel is unsurprisingly keen to put a stop to.
His treatment is just one example of the violence and intimidation to which non-violent Palestinian activists are subjected. The village of Bil'in, the site of over 5 years of non-violent protest against the wall that has taken most of their land, has been subjected for several months to repeated night raids where Israeli soldiers arrive in full riot gear in the middle of the night, ransack houses and beat and detain residents, especially leaders of the protest movement. Measures with no conceivable 'security' justification, but designed solely to terrorise and intimidate.
Jewish Voice for Peace in the US and War on Want in the UK are among the organizations promoting campaigns for his release, and there is an online petition.
Tags: israel, palestine
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01:41 pm
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Gags aren't what they used to be.
As some of you might have seen (I saw it first from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) oedipamaas), the Guardian newspaper has been banned from reporting a Parliamentary question asked in the House of Commons yesterday. They are forbidden from reporting what the question was, who asked it, what it was about, and which minister might answer it. As the above article reports, they are seeking to have this overturned on the grounds that it violates, as for example, the 1688 Bill of Rights. The ban was sought by specialist London libel-lawyers (i.e. specialist free-speech supressers) Carter-Ruck.
Fortunately, as these schmucks seem not to have realized, there is an internet these days. Numerous bloggers have suggested this question as reported by Parliament.UK as the likely candidate:
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
It relates to the attempt by UK oil company Tranfigura's attempt to cover up a massive pollution disaster off the Ivory Coast.
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06:24 pm
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Nobel prize
I think Obama is right when he says he feels he does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. (He deserves it more than some winners mind, yes I'm looking at you Henry Kissinger).
I think his response to it was dead right, seeing it as a 'call to action', and a way of creating momentum. He's made some promising steps - on nuclear weapons in particular, and his policy of engagement with Iran is looking like it may bring results. But there is nothing concrete as yet. He does seem clearly committed to following the path of ending the Iraq war laid out in the SOFA between Bush and the Iraqi government. As for Israel/Palestine however, so far his efforts have been pathetic.
I think what the Nobel Committee may be saying is "We like what you say. We like the new approach you're taking, especially compared to the other guy. We like the hopes that you raise in people. So we are going to give you the Nobel Prize. Now go and earn it."
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11:49 pm
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Empty words
"The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians."
President Barack Obama, in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.
An admirable sentiment. It would be even more admirable if matched by deeds. If the actual policies of the Obama Administration weren't the excact opposite of Obama's words. For example:
The US is apparently determined to ensure that the report of Justice Richard Goldstone into the Gaza war last December-January, ensuring that it does not go to the Security Council, still less the International Criminal Court - as Goldstone recommends it should, failing meaningful investigations by Israel. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice also denounced the report within days of its publication.
( Background on the report )
An "insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians"? How about the right not to be subject to a crippling siege, bombed in hospitals, schools and UN buildings, shot when carrying white flags, subjected to horrific white phosphorous burns, used as 'human shields'? Are those 'legitimate claims and rights'? I guess not.
And now, Obama has essentially abandoned his insistence that Israel halt settlement expansions - settlements built on land stolen from the Palestinians that directly violate international law and that carve the West Bank into isolated enclaves - and instead called for negotiations without preconditions. Negotiations without preconditions are a good thing IMO. Except, what is there to negotiate about, when Obama adds an implicit "If that's all right with you" to every 'demand' placed on Israel?
The long and the short of it is that, as with every previous Administration, the US regards Israel as having a general exemption from international law.
And yes Mr. President, you're dead right, in the long run you do Israel no favours (and the Palestinians of course even less).
Obama certainly talks a good game. Best in town. Enough, sometimes, to make even cynical old me wonder if maybe, just maybe he means it. Maybe, to be charitable, he actually wants to mean it. But it is by now abundantly clear that in all practical terms he doesn't, and that his speech in Cairo will end up as just so much empty hypocricy, words drifting in the wind.
Tags: israel, obama, palestine
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01:12 am
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Cleansing ritual
Well, I have finally finished the grand flat-cleaning prior to my move tomorrow. Phew. Quite the job. Sweat and blood I tell you, sweat and blood. Some would say that, had I but put in a half hour a week more that I did into cleaning regularly, today would have been a lot easier. To such people I say, indeed, but then I would have spent 52 hours over the last two years cleaning, as opposed to the... oh, 12-15 hours today and yesterday. And today would still have been mostly given over to moving-related faff. So I say I come out a winner.
Things not to say to me right now: "I think you missed a bit right there..."
I am moving from Ekerö to Sollentuna. By my reckoning, this will be my 27th address.
Just a few last bits of packing to do, some of which will have to be left to the morning. I have 21 boxes (14 small, 4 medium, 3 large) plus sundry cases, rucksacks and bags.
The best thing about the move is that I will be able to comfortably cycle to work. Except in winter, when I am told, given my location, that it will be pretty much possible to ice-skate to work. I might pass on that option though. A lot easier to get into town, too. (By non-ice-bound routes).
Tags: accommodation, life, sweden
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12:13 am
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Wild roses
Just got back from a fun few days at the Vildrosfestivalen (Wild Rose Festival), a folk/world festival in Southern Dalarna, a couple of hourse train journey north-west of Stockholm. One of my first ventures, sad to say, outside of the Stockholm area in Sweden.
I'd decided to get myself to a folk festival in Sweden this summer, and this one seemed to work in terms of timing, being a worthwhile length but not requiring too much time off, and not being too far away. I'd say it surpassed my expectations. Turned out to be a wholly new festival, quite small - perhaps 300 people there in all - and with an explicitly lefty/green agenda. (Which I hadn't got from the website, but which I had no objections to, and it wasn't pushed too much - a few talks amongst the various concerts.) It was held in some old farm buildings in the middle of the woods by a lake. Mind you "In the middle of the woods by a lake" describes most of inland Sweden. Not being a fan of camping if I can avoid it, I stayed in the Vandrarhem ('wander home' i.e. youth hostel - though as an ex-youth I rather appreciate the non-ageist name!) in the nearest village of Horndal, from which there was a festival bus.
The music was a mix of trad Swedish folk music, of which most were small sessiony dance bands, various 'World' genres (Blues, Klezmer, Balkans, Brazilian, African), some prog folk, and some that's quite hard to categorize, generally folky but clearly with multiple influences. Generally seemed to strike a pretty good mix. There were two venues, a main concert hall and a smaller venue where they had the sessiony bands (though some song stuff too) with people dancing. I didn't dare join in the latter, as most of the dancers clearly seriously knew what they were doing, with all manner of elegant footwork and twirls and back-kicks against the palm and stuff. (Though I did venture a couple of waltzes at the larger venue).
Some stand-out bands:
Östblocket - a Swedish Balkans/Klezmer/Generally Eastern band, or rather orchestra, all excellent players, with five brass, traditional percussion, drum-kit, accordion, a fiddler who'd clearly sold his soul to the Devil, and a lead singer with an incredibly expressive and varied voice and marvellous stage presence, and OK very gorgeous too. Sofia Berg-Böhm, apparently also an actress, and apparently singing in Stockholm in September for the Jewish Cultural Day.
The Original Swedish Arvika Blues Breakers - fairly straight Swedish folk style, or maybe with some bluesy or maybe music-hally influences. They had a washboard amongst the instruments. Anyway, generally a lot of fun and very danceable to.
Emma och Gänget (Emma and the Gang). On the zany side. Perhaps one could describe them as something like Luna Lovegood if Luna Lovegood were the lead singer of a Swedish folk band. In their first number, the first line went "[something something something] when along came a policeman...." - and then the double bass player ran onto the stage from the middle of the audience going "GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH". Their numbers were generally punctuated with all manner of interesting sound effects, and at the end as the band were all introduced they each came and stood in front of the stage, then flopped over forwards and did a Silly Monster Dance.
Afenginn - the very last band on Saturday night. I'd probably describe them as Prog Folk. Very lively and intricate stuff. Sadly I had to leave before the end of the concert, as everything was running late except the last bus back to Horndal. One of the downsides of not camping. In fact I had to leave in the middle of a number... which had been going on for about half an hour with no sign of finishing. Which was itself an extract from an album-long number.
Aside from the music, I think the whole experience was rather good for my Swedish. I went with absolutely zero expectations of social interaction with anyone, but ended up talking a fair bit to some of my fellow Vandrarhemers. Although obviously they all spoke English I managed to stick to Swedish most of the time and probably spoke more Swedish in those three days than in the rest of my time here put together (if you don't count the actual Swedish classes). Also went to some of the political talks whcih were of course in Swedish, and understood a fairly good proportion - they were speaking very clearly which is the key thing. One of the speakers was Gudrun Schyman, of the Feministiskt Initiativ, a new party that ran in the Euro elections here.
Tags: folk music, sweden
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11:25 am
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Health care experiences
In an attempt to counteract some of the fantasies being spread around in the ocurse of the US healthcare reform debate, liz_marcs is collecting actual experiences and facts about different healthcare systems worldwide. First of all there is a post for Americans only: uninsured and underinsured to tell their stories; secondly, a post for people from countries with government health-care schemes to describe their countries' systems and their experiences thereof.
Go contribute!
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07:37 pm
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East Bank
Just got back yesterday from a three-day trip to Amman, Jordan, for a seminar sponsored by the EU and organised by UNIDIR promoting discussion on a possible Arms Trade Treaty.
( More on the seminar )
Although it was a very short trip, flew out on Monday and back on Thursday, I got to see a bit of Amman on Wednesday evening when one of the Jordanian delegation kindly showed a bunch of us round the city. She also assisted us in the haggling process at a gift shop! (I bought a Palestinian olive-wood shepherd with a rather curious expression).
( Amman )
had a red-eye flight at 3.30am on Thursday morning to Istanbul where I had an 8-hour stopover. Long enough, I decided, to get a visa and go into the city.
( Istanbul )
Today, possibly due to yesterday's 20-hour journey, I am ill with an upset stomach. Went into work but had to come home. No respitory symptoms though, so I don't think it can be swine flu. I am taking stuff and am considerably improved this evening.
As I say, photos of Amman will hopefully follow.
Tags: arms trade, sipri, travel, work
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11:01 pm
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Words
Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
My five words from midnightmelody:
Buffy: My number one fandom, favourite TV program of all time, source of stregngth and comforter in times of sorrow! I came into Buffy a little late, first watching it early in 2000 as I was sitting in my room in Dalston channel-hopping, and thought "Well, it sounds rather silly, but I'll give it a try!". The episode was Anne, the season 3 opener when it first showed on the BBC, and I was immediately grabbed by the cleverness of the dialogue, the reality of the characters and the understated nature of both the drama and the humour. I didn't immediately become a devotee, missing odd eps here and there, but I saw the entirety of the second half of season 3, and well before the end of that I was utterly hooked - to my mind that season, that arc, is the most perfect thing Joss has done. (There's been plenty of awesome stuff since then, stuff that in both form and themes goes beyond what was done in S3, more daring and hard-hitting, but in terms of such a long run holding together in such a coherent way and with barely a false note, that still stands out to my mind.)
I didn't join "fandom" until the end of S5, when I just had to know (or at least join in speculation about) what was going to happen and how they might bring Buffy back and so on. I think I went and bought seven tie-in novels the day after, and then started Googling Buffy, and finally encountered the BBC Buffy forum, where I met the wonderful mara_sho and subsequently many others, and in good time started doing what I'd sworn I never would and reading fanfic, and then writing fanfic, and finally attaining the level of insanity needed to organise Buffy readthroughs.
So yeah, 'tis quite a big thing in my life!
Folk: Music, that is. Well, that's another thing I'm quite a fan of. Probably taken over from classical as my most regular listening, though I'm still very fond of that. Always had it around to some extent, my dad was a busker and much of his repertoire was of a folky nature. Really got hooked though at Iona in 1993 when there were a pair of fair lasses who sang a gorgeous harmonised setting of The Blacksmith of their own devising, and a copy of one of the volumes of "50 songs popular in Ireland". Then on holiday with my dad in his van in Italy I spent much time poring through his copy of Colm O'Lochlainn's Irish Street Ballads and geekily learning as many as possible.
Teaching: I don't do much of it now, but I was an Economics lecturer for four years, and before that in my various postgraduate studies of maths and economics I did a lot of supervisions of undergraduates and problems classes and so forth. In my years as a volunteer with Campaign Against Arms Trade I also supported myself by being an itinerant maths tutor, travelling from house to house giving instruction to various undergraduates.
I seem to be reasonably good at it. The whole explaining complex concepts in comprehensible ways thing. My greatest triumph, I consider, was one of my freelance students whom I tutored throughout his Maths/Comp Sci degree, and who when I started lacked the most basic habits of mathematical thought, but who by the time I'd finished with him got not only a 1st but the mathematics prize for his year and who, even better, had actually started thinking like a mathematician. (He did have an awful lot of lessons, mind. In revision periods I'd sometimes be round his house every day for a week, for 4 or more hours of lessons a day.)
I like some aspects of teaching better than others: the lecturing side (for I like to hear myself talk), and the sort of problem-solving side, dealing with questions and helping students to come to the answers themselves. Not so good at the seminar-leading side, which tends to require more people skills. The other side of teaching I don't miss is, of course, marking, although it occasionally provides entertainment value.
Coffee: There is a saying in the mathematical community that the definition of a mathematician is "a cunning device for turning coffee into theorems". I am with this notion and variations thereupon. Right now I am a device (cunning or not you may judge) for turning coffee into military expenditure data.
Warwick University: My home for eight years! This was in my previous life as a mathematician. I started my undergrad degree there in 1987, then Masters, then PhD, which I gave up after two years and left in 1993 to do voluntary work, but didn't quite work up escape velocity and returned a year later to complete the PhD, before finally leaving for good in 1996.
It was a tough decision between Warwick and Cambridge, which I also got accepted by - the advantage of Warwick was the far greater flexibility of the maths degree, the ability to mix and match with units of other subjects, more after the Scottish and American fashion.
But what can I say about a place that I spent so long at in such formative years, that so moulded who I have been since? They were good years, with their ups and downs of course, met all sorts of people some of whom I'm still in touch with, got involved in all sorts of political, religious and cultural activities, bounced around all manner of ideas, became a Catholic (after my 1st year, having been a Baptist), generally spent far too much time hanging around the Chaplaincy (though it did have a baby hrand piano. And cheap tea and coffee.), ran for President of the Student Union a couple of times, chaired the SU Elections Committee that ran the elections (not in the same years I was standing of course), laughed, cried, loved (most often though not always unrequitedly), stayed up all night playing boardgames and arguing politics and religion, lived for a year in a freezing cold fungus-infested student house, and all manner of other things. Well, not all manner.
Oh, and occasionally did some maths.
So, please do cry "Words" if you would like some.
Tags: academia, buffy, coffee, etc., folk music, life, maths, politics, religion, teaching
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11:19 pm
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Obscure questions of ecclesiastical history
Does anyone know of a good, reasonably neutral and balanced, work on the history and theology of the Great Schism, and more generally the events and disagreements leading up to this? Or, if as is likely such a fabled beast is by its nature an impossibility, does anyone know of separate works that make reasonable attempts at fairness written from a) a Roman and b) an Eastern perspective?
Tags: religion
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09:40 pm
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Folky history geekery
Excellent. Billy Bragg sings a protest song about constitutional reform to the tune of the old Northern Ireland Unionist song Lillibullero!
Tags: folk music, politics
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08:39 pm
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Peace at any price?
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Nitanyahu has finally uttered the words Obama was waiting to hear - "Palestinian State" - with a few strings attached. Such a state must be completely demilitarized. It must have no control over its airspace. And it must "recognise Israel as a Jewish state".
In other words, he's offering the Palestinians a vassal state, subject to Israel's every whim, that can be re-occupied at will or have its communications cut off if it so pleases its masters.
Oh, I think a demilitarized Palestinian state would be a good idea. What possible threat could a Palestinian army be to Israel anyway? I also think a demilitarized Israel, Egypt and Syria would be a good idea. But no state has a right to dictate to another what arrangements it makes for its own defence.
And what of "recognising Israel as a Jewish state"? What does that mean? Where does that leave Israel's Palestinian, Bedouin and other non-Jewish citizens? "All citizens are equal, but Jewish citizens are more equal than others?" Or does it just mean "A state with Saturday as its Sabbath and a few bureaucratic-institutional ties to Judaism"? Much like having the Church of England established in England (a bad idea, but causing little concrete harm.) If the latter, then why the heck does this state of affairs need to be "recognized" by any other state? It's up to the Israelis to decide, and no business of anyone else's, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said.
But of course it really means the former, a state in which Palestinan citizens are barely tolerated, notionally equal before the law, but in practice rigorously and systematically discriminated against. Ineligible for military service, debarred from owning the large swaths of land owned by the Jewish National Fund, receiving massively less funding per person for education than Israel's Jewish majority, effectively never given building permits (making "natural growth" of the Palestinian population rather tricky), their parties never included in any governing coalition. Fundamentally, Israel as a "Jewish state" means that the state is not for them. Demanding recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" means demanding recognition and legitimization of racism, pure and simple.
To say nothing of the fact that any state Netanyahu plans on offering would be a moth-eaten rag split into bits by Israeli settlements, which he shows no sign of agreeing to freeze, let alone ever dismantle.
Let's see whether Obama buys into this pile of shit.
Fuck you, Netanyahu, you vicious racist asshole.
Tags: israel, palestine
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12:58 pm
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Blowing own trumpet
Squee! The launch of the SIPRI Yearbook 2009 is currently the second item on the BBC News front page. And I'm quoted! They've also directly quoted large chunks of our press release sections on military expenditure and on arms production, the parts of the yearbook I was involved in.
Launch press conference was this morning. Some very good presentations by members of our staff and governing board - including new board member Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi; my talk also seemed to go down well. I will probably be appearing on Swedish TV channel 4 this evening, as I had an interview with them afterwards.
Tags: peace, sipri, war, work
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01:02 am
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Obama in Cairo
Well, I have to say I was rather impressed by President Obama's 'reaching out to Muslims' speech in Cairo today.
It is, of course, only a speech, and we already know he's good at those. There's also lots of things one could justifiably criticize about the speech from a progressive perspective, things he said, more particularly things he didn't say - for example:
( The less good )
( The mood music )
( Israel/Palestine )
There was also some nice practical stuff about education exchanges, economic co-operation, microfinance and so forth.
And the ending, well it was pretty magnificent, again all easy stuff to say, but rather good that the President of the US does say that sort of thing, rather than the lanaguage of Bush. And the way he says it does bring out the goose bumps.
Obama's speech did not present much by way of new policies, not on the big issues. It was just a speech. In the end it may yet turn out to be no more than warm words. It remains to be seen whether he actually means it. Or rather, whether there will be enough of a tide of opinion to make him follow through.
Critically on Israel/Palestine, the question is whether he will actually use the levers at his disposal (such as ending the automatic veto on Israel's behalf in the UN Security Council or cutting military aid) to pressure Israel to follow what he's advocating.
But one thing's for sure, if he doesn't follow through, if it does all just turn out to be warm words, he's going to look bloody stupid a few years down the line. That in itself - that he should put his credibility on the line to such an extent - is an encouraging sign.
Tags: obama, palestine, peace, politics, war
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11:37 pm
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Thought crime in Sri Lanka
Apparently now the Sri Lankan government intends to put the doctors on trial who continued working within the war zone where Tamil civilians were trapped with the remaining Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in the last phase of the government's assault, attempting to provide treatment under the most desperate conditions imagineable. The UN called these doctors "heroic", but according to the Sri Lankan government, their actions give rise to "reasonable suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE".
Why is there not more outrage about this?
Of course, the doctors' real crime is that in a situation where journalists, aid workers, UN officials and everyone else were denied access to the trapped Tamils, the doctors were the only people able to bear credible witness to the deaths of civilians at the hands of the government bombardment.
The best, though, is saved for last, when the Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary is quoted talking about the 250,000 Tamils held in internment camps. (In my last post I linked to a report saying they'd be held for two years - I've seen subsequent reports where the government says nost of them will be 'resettled' within 6 months - but who knows?)
So back to the Foreign Secretary:
He said everyone there had to be carefully screened, adding that it was "quite likely" that even many elderly people were "with the LTTE, at least mentally".
(Emphasis mine).
There are no words.
Tags: sri lanka, war
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04:24 pm
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Sri Lanka concentration camps
This is truly unspeakable.
There has been a great deal that is utterly horrific about the conclusion of the Sri Lankan government's war with the (LTTE) Tamil Tigers - at least 7,000 dead according to the UN, I've seen estimates of 15,000 from health officials inside the war zone.
But according to this latest story, the Sri Lankan government has declared its intention to hold a quarter of a million Tamil civilians in internment camps for 2 years to "weed out Tamil Tigers".
INTERNMENT CAMPS, FFS!
They say it may take that long to decide whether people are LTTE members who have put down their guns and taken off their uniforms. Well, that's OK then.
Meanwhile there are widespread reports of malnutrition and generally appalling conditions within the camps. The Red Cross has been forced to suspend aid deliveries because the authorities will not let them in.
Sri Lanka has obviously learned their lesson well from the "Global War on Terror" ideology - perhaps even taken it a little further than its progenitors intended: if you say that you are after "terrorists", then there is nothing that you cannot do, no measure that you cannot take against the civilian population from which they come that cannot be justified.
Tags: war
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01:14 am
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Sam P-F's schooldays.
On a post of midnightmelody's I happened to mention that I went for a couple of years to a vaguely Summerhill-like school before it all went wrong, and she asked me what I meant by 'went wrong'. But as it is a rather long story, and as I have not posted on this before (except briefly in passing), I thought I would make my answer to a wider audience. For it is indeed a truly remarkable story which, even were it inscribed with a needle on the corner of an eye, yet would it serve as a lesson for the circumspect.
The school was called Monkton Wyld, in the wilds of West Dorset, not far from Lyme Regis.
( read on... )
Tags: life, politics, religion
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08:36 pm
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Fail, fail and fail again
Another episode in RaceFail, which has got me thinking.
In this thread (hat-tip ![[info]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) keeva), SF/F writer Lois Bujold is responding to a discussion about PoC in genre fiction, and comes out with the breathtakingly obtuse line,
The other and more hopeful point is that never before have so many Readers of Color existed to *have* the conversation, or been able to communicate with each other to do so. When I went to my first midwestern convention in 1968, there was exactly one black fan, male...
She is then swiftly called out by numerous PoC fans pointing out that they were reading and talking about SF/F looong before the advent of the internet, and just because they weren't doing so in front of the overwhelmingly white SF/F establishment or at conventions doesn't mean they weren't there.
To give Ms. Bujold some credit, she did not try to argue with this, but posted a subsequent comment to the effect that she clearly needs to go away and have a serious think about all this.
As do I.
One of the responses talked about the unwritten "whites only" signs at SF/F conventions, and this made me start thinking about other circles I move or have moved in that have, or may very well have, similar unwritten "whites only" signs. I've o occasion come to ponder these before, indeed once I almost made an LJ post about one such (gimme a cookie!), but then forgotten about.
The fact is, most of the social, cultural and even political circles I've moved in have tended to be overwhelmingly white.
Folk festivals.
Choirs, like the Hackney Singers I was in for a while ('cos Hackney is such a monocultural area).
Go tournaments, when I went to them. (OK, that is blatantly false, in that there were large numbers of people of Chinese/Japanese origin there. But next to no black or Asian people.)
The Catholic Justice & Peace conference (of which I posted briefly before). That's the one where I almost made an LJ post on the race thing, because I couldn't but be struck by the contrast between the diversity of the RC Church across the country (and especially somewhere like London), and the almost unbroken sea of white faces (apart from a few invited guests from overseas) at the conference. The conference of fluffy liberals (and not-so-fluffy radicals) devoted to Making the World a Better Place.
Even, to a considerable extent, Campaign Against Arms Trade. We did a little better, as there were from time to time people from or with a connection to places affected by conflicts assisted with British arms. But again, whether in the office or at national gatherings or the like, non-white British faces were a rare sight.
So now I'm seeing all of these in a row, and wondering just how large and loud and daunting are the "whites only" signs in front of these places, unwritten, invisible and ignorable though they may be to the privileged white people like myself that attend them.
One can make excuses of course, some more failsome than others. "Well, you wouldn't expect to see many black people at an English/Celtic folk or classical music event, because that comes very much from white European culture. Black people have their own music." Well, there are indeed differing musical traditions, and English/Celtic folk is not everyone's cup of tea. But then there's not a few white people into "Music of Black Origin", be it Jazz, blues, reggae, hip-hop, etc... and the assumption (so easy to not even realise you're making it) that white people can be eclectic in their tastes while non-white people stick to music from their own culture is racist.
A valid point is the intersection between race and class, and the fact that most of the activities I've described are rather middle-class dominated. Which shifts some of the problem to a different category - but it is not a sufficient explanation.
So I wonder, how does one go about tearing down those "whites only" signs? Where do they come from? How much is inertia, the fact that if a grouping starts out all-white or almost all-white that in itself makes it hard for someone who is not white to break into, and how much is it consciously or unconsciously reinforced by the participants? What needs to be done differently?
One of the hardest things to realise is that good intentions are not enough. I might not have intended to, but (at the very least by omission) I helped write those signs, and they have the same effect as if I did.
Tags: go, life, music, politics, race, religion, sf/f
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