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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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Anonymous asked: I noticed you did post to acknowledge the death of Uderzo, the co-creator of the Asterix comics. I have to ask Tintin or Asterix? Which one do you prefer?

It’s like asking Stones or Beatles? I love both but for different reasons. I would hate to choose between the two.

Both Tintin and Asterix were the two halves of a comic dyad of my childhood. Whether it was India, China, Hong Kong, Japan, or the Middle East the one thing that threads my childhood experience of living in these countries was finding a quiet place in the home to get lost reading Asterix and Tintin.

Even when I was eventually carted off to boarding school back in England I took as many of my Tintin and Asterix comics books with me as I could. They became like underground black market currency to exchange with other girls for other things like food or chocolates sent by parents and other illicit things like alcohol. Having them and reading them was like having familiar friends close by to make you feel less lonely in new surroundings and survive the bear pit of other girls living together.

If you asked my parents - especially my father - he would say Tintin hands down. He has - and continues to have in his library at home - a huge collection of Tintin comic books in as many different language translations as possible. He’s still collecting translations of each of the Tintin books in the most obscure languages he can find. I have both all the Tintin comic books - but only in English and French translations, and the odd Norwegian one - as well as all the Asterix comic books (only in English and French).

Speaking for myself I would be torn to decide between the two. Each have their virtues and I appreciate them for different reasons.

Tintin was truly about adventure that spoke deeply to me. Tintin was always a good detective story that soon turned to a travel adventure. It has it all: technology, politics, science and history. Of course the art is more simpler, but it is also cleaner and translates the wondrous far-off locations beautifully and with a sense of awe that you don’t see in the Asterix books. Indeed Hergé was into film-noir and thriller movies, and the panels are almost like storyboards for The Maltese Falcon or African Queen.

The plot lines of Tintin are intriguing rather than overly clever but the gallery of characters are much deeper, more flawed and morally ambiguous. Take Captain Haddock I loved his pullover, his strangely large feet, his endless swearing and his inability to pass a bottle without emptying it. He combined bravery and helplessness in a manner I found irresistible.

I’ve read that there is a deeply Freudian reading to the Tintin books. I think there is a good case for it. The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure are both about Captain Haddock's family. Haddock's ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, is the illegitimate son of the French Sun King – and this mirrors what happened in Hergé's family, who liked to believe that his father was the illegitimate son of the Belgian king. This theme played out in so many of the books. In The Castafiore Emerald, the opera singer sings the jewel song from Faust, which is about a lowly woman banged up by a nobleman – and she sings it right in front of Sir Francis Haddock, with the captain blocking his ears. It's like the Finnegans Wake of the cartoon. Nothing happens - but everything happens.

Another great part is that the storylines continue on for several albums, allowing them to be more complex, instead of the more simplistic Asterix plot lines which are always wrapped up nicely at the end of each book.

Overall I felt a great affinity with Tintin - his youthful innocence, wanting to solve problems, always resourceful, optimistic, and brave. Above all Tintin gave me wanderlust. Was there a place he and Milou (Snowy) didn’t go to? When they had covered the four corners of the world Tintin and Milou went to the moon for heaven’s sake!

What I loved about Asterix was the style, specifically Uderzo’s visual style. I liked Hergé’s clean style, the ligne claire of his pen, but Asterix was drawn as caricature: the big noses, the huge bellies, often being prodded by sausage-like fingers. This was more appealing to little children because they were more fun to marvel at.

In particular I liked was the way Uderzo’s style progressed with each comic book. The panels of Asterix the Gaul felt rudimentary compared to the later works and by the time Asterix and Cleopatra, the sixth book to be published, came out, you finally felt that this was what they ought to look like. It was an important lesson for a child to learn: that you could get better at what you did over time. Each book seemed to have its own palette and perhaps Uderzo’s best work is in Asterix in Spain.

I also feel Asterix doesn’t get enough credit for being more complex. Once you peel back the initial layers, Asterix has some great literal depth going on - puns and word play, the English translation names are all extremely clever, there are many hidden details in the superb art to explore that you will quite often miss when you initially read it and in a lot of the truly classic albums they are satirising a real life country/group/person/political system, usually in an incredibly clever and humorous way.

What I found especially appealing was that it was also a brilliant microcosm of many classical studies subjects - ancient Egypt, the Romans and Greek art - and is a good first step for young children wanting to explore that stuff before studying it at school.

What I discovered recently was that Uderzo was colour blind which explains why he much preferred the clear line to any hint of shade, and it was that that enabled his drawings to redefine antiquity so distinctively in his own terms. For decades after the death of René Goscinny in 1977, Uderzo provided a living link to the golden age of the greatest series of comic books ever written: Paul McCartney to Goscinny’s John Lennon. Uderzo, as the Asterix illustrator, was better able to continue the series after Goscinny’s death than Goscinny would have been had Uderzo had died first, and yet the later books were, so almost every fan agrees, not a patch on the originals: very much Wings to the Beatles. What elevated the cartoons, brilliant though they were, to the level of genius was the quality of the scripts that inspired them. Again and again, in illustration after illustration, the visual humour depends for its full force on the accompaniment provided by Goscinny’s jokes.

Here below is a great example:

There’s a lot of genius in this. Uderzo copied Theodore Géricault’s iconic ‘Raft of the Medusa’ 1818 painting in ‘Asterix The Legionary’. The painting is generally regarded as an icon of Romanticism. It depicts an event whose human and political aspects greatly interested Géricault: the wreck of a French frigate, Medusa, off the coast of Senegal in 1816, with over 150 soldiers on board. But Anthea Bell’s translation of Goscinny’s text (including the pictorial and verbal pun ‘we’ve been framed, by Jericho’) is really extraordinary and captures the spirit of the Asterix cartoons perfectly.

This captures perfectly my sense of humour as it acknowledges the seriousness of life but finds humour in them through a sly cleverness and always with a open hearted joy. There is no question that if humour was the measuring yard stick then Asterix and not Tintin would win hands down.

It’s also a mistake to think that the world of Asterix was insular in comparison to the amazing countries Tintin had adventures. Asterix’s world is very much Europe.

Every nationality that Asterix encounters is gently satirised. No other post-war artistic duo offered Europeans a more universally popular portrait of themselves, perhaps, than did Goscinny and Uderzo. The stereotypes with which he made such affectionate play in his cartoons – the haughty Spaniard, the chocolate-loving Belgian, the stiff-upper-lipped Briton – seemed to be just what a continent left prostrate by war and nationalism were secretly craving. Many shrewd commentators believe that during the golden age when Goscinny was still alive to pen the scripts, that it was a fantasy on French resistance during occupation by Nazi Germany. Uderzo lived through the occupation and so there is truth in that. Perhaps this is why the Germans are the exceptions as they are treated unsympathetically in Asterix and the Goths, and why quite a few of the books turn on questions of loyalty and treachery.

Even the British are satirised with an affection that borders on love: the worst of the digs are about our appalling cuisine (everything is boiled, and served with mint sauce, and the beer is warm), but everything points to the Gauls’ and the Britons’ closeness. They have the same social structure, even down to having one village still holding out against the Romans; the crucial and extremely generous difference being that the Britons do not have a magic potion to help them fight. Instead they have tea, introduced to them by Getafix, via Asterix, which gives them so much of a psychological boost that it may as well have been the magic potion.

I re-read ‘Asterix in Britain’ (Astérix chez les Bretons) in the light of the 2016 Brexit referendum result and felt despaired that such a playful and respectful portrayal of this country was not reciprocated. Don’t get me wrong I voted for Brexit but I remain a staunch Europhile. It made me violently irritated to see many historically illiterate pro-Brexit oiks who mistakenly believed the EU and Europe were the same thing. They are not. One was originally a sincere band aid to heal and bring together two of the greatest warring powers in continental Europe that grotesquely grew into an unaccountable bureaucratic manager’s utopian wet dream, and the other is a cradle of Western achievement in culture, sciences and the arts that we are all heirs to.

What I loved about Asterix was that it cut across generations. As a young girl I often retreated into my imaginary world of Asterix where our family home had an imaginary timber fence and a dry moat to keep the world (or the Romans) out. I think this was partly because my parents were so busy as many friends and outsiders made demands on their time and they couldn’t say no or they were throwing lavish parties for their guests. Family time was sacred to us all but I felt especially miffed if our time got eaten away. Then, as I grew up, different levels of reading opened up to me apart from the humour in the names, the plays on words, and the illustrations. There is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world.

The thing about both Asterix and Tintin books is that they are at heart adventure comics with many layers of detail and themes built into them. For children, Asterix books are the clear winner, as they have much better art and are more fantastical. Most of the bad characters in the books are not truly evil either and no-one ever dies, which appeals hugely to children. For older readers, Tintin has danger, deeper characters with deep political themes, bad guys with truly evil motives, and even deaths. It’s more rooted in the real world, so a young reader can visualise themselves as Tintin, travelling to these real life places and being a hero.

As I get older and re-read Asterix and Tintin from time to time I discover new things.

From Asterix, there is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world. In my adult world it now makes me appreciate the value of family, friends, and community and even national identity. Even as globalisation and the rise of homogenous consumerism threatens to envelope the unique diversity of our cultures, like Asterix, we can defend to the death the cultural values that define us but not through isolation or by diminishing the respect due to other cultures and their cultural achievements.

From Tintin I got wanderlust. This fierce even urgent need to travel and explore the world was in part due to reading the adventures of Tintin. It was by living in such diverse cultures overseas and trying to get under the skin of those cultures by learning their languages and respecting their customs that I realised how much I valued my own heritage and traditions without diminishing anyone else.

So I’m sorry but I can’t choose one over the other, I need both Asterix and Tintin as a dyad to remind me that the importance of home and heritage is best done through travel and adventure elsewhere.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #comics #tintin #asterix #personal #arts #culture

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unknownpoliticalobject · 6 years ago

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There is no Brexit deal to be made with the UK and here is why.

There are now 6 weeks remaining for the UK and EU to come to some kind of Brexit arrangement, but so far the UK has not put forward a single workable concept. So lets take a moment and have an objective look at what the UK has proposed, because facts matter!

The Chequers Deal is violating international law and trade agreements

Still discussed at length in UK media, where it is unloved by Brexiteers and Remainers a like, it really was dead before arrival as the EU has turned the proposal categorically down. And unless you read exclusively British newspapers, nobody outside the UK has ever given it a chance to working. A position that never changed, despite May still beating this dead horse.

But this is not because the EU wants to punish the UK, it is because the EU’s hands are tied by international law. So lets have a look at the facts why the Chequers deal will never happen:

Giving the EU’s financial market a special status is illegal under WTO MFN rule. See: https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.htm

1. Most-favoured-nation (MFN): treating other people equally Under the WTO agreements, countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. Grant someone a special favour (such as a lower customs duty rate for one of their products) and you have to do the same for all other WTO members.

This principle is known as most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment (see box). It is so important that it is the first article of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which governs trade in goods. MFN is also a priority in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (Article 2) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (Article 4)

The four freedoms are inseparable. As defined in the Lisbon Treaty “Protocol (No 27) on the internal market and competition”. They are contributed to be largely responsible for the success of the Single Market, much more important to almost all remaining EU member states than UK market access, and nothing anybody would want to sacrifice. However, even if there was political will to change this, and I can not stress enough that there isn’t, it would require a change to the Lisbon Treaty. Thanks to the Irish population, who refused to ratify it if any future change would not also require a peoples vote. This means that the EU would need to hold a referendum, and the UK government would need to convince the population of all remaining member states to vote in a law that would give the UK more rights than themselves. The chances of that to happen are zero.

The Irish border. While there are no requirements under WTO membership to control a border, there are ones that require members to keep an accurate record about imports and exports and their quantities. (See TRQs.) This is effectively impossible without a hard border. The UK seems to have been made aware of this earlier in 2018 and has seeked legal advice: Published by the Times on the 28th of August https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wto-can-t-force-britain-to-create-an-irish-border-z6v8p5629

“The World Trade Organisation has no immediate formal sanctions at its disposal if the British decide not to impose customs checks on the Irish border in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a leading trade expert has said.”

Just ignoring unconformable rules is an interesting take on international trade with almost immediate repercussions. But for this to work it would also require the Republic of Ireland and the EU to also break these treaties. And they will not.

All comprehensive Free Trade Agreements contain clauses that if one of the signatures is giving another nation a deal that is better, the other signature must also get that deal or can veto it. This makes perfect sense if you think about it for moment. Most FTAs are really about regulatory alignments as much as anything else. So if nation A is doing a deal with nation B, and nation B than makes a deal with nation C, that has for example much lower wages then A or B, nation C could use nation B to import its goods into A, circumventing any measures put in place by A to protect its workforce. Keeping this in mind, given what the UK is asking from the EU, countries like Japan, Canada or New Zealand could veto the Chequers deal. And who do you think the EU will priorities? Japans market alone is twice the size of the UK.

Don’t believe me, read yourself, see CETA chapter 30: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/ceta-chapter-by-chapter/

What about the WTO option, a.k.a. No Deal?

That is also impossible, this time due to the sovereign British Parliament. Who has recently passed the following act:

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 - Section 10/(2)/(b)

create or facilitate border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day and are not in accordance with an agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/10/enacted

The bill received Royal Assent on 26 June 2018.

So the same problem as above applies to the inner Irish border. And even if the UK is willing to break international law, the EU certainly isn’t. This is why the EU is now insisting on getting the backstop implemented above everything else.

Also keep in mind that just like Canada, Japan, New Zealand, etc ... can veto any EU-UK trade deal, so can the EU veto a potential Japan-UK trade deal. And given the Brexiteers rhetoric about slashing health, wage an environmental standards post Brexit, the EU will almost certainly be forced to do so, in order to protect its consumers.

Interesting side note, this option is referred within the EU as the North Korean Model. Take a guess why.

“CETA+++” and the land of the unicorns

As the deadline draws closer, this pipe dream seem to have resurfaced from the land of the dead. It is so absurd that I, or anybody else outside the UK, finds it hard to even take it serious. - Let me explain why.

A comprehensive FTA, like CETA or the Japan style deal, has always been seen as the only solution that doesn't violate the UK red lines. But a "+++" option was ruled out from the start and given that these types of agreements usually take 10 year to negotiate, a "CETA-" was the only option on the table.

The reasons for that are very similar to the ones highlighted under the "Chequers proposal" above. Not only can countries and trade blocks like the African Union, Canada, Japan ... etc review and veto any such deals, but all existing free trade agreements contain a clause like the WTO MFN. This means the moment you give one country, or block, a better deal, you also need to renegotiate all existing FTAs to give them the same conditions. (Read for yourself.) Given that the EU has currently trade deals with 2/3 of the planet, we would be talking about completely renegotiation world trade within the next 6 weeks!

I can not stress out how unrealistic this is.

On top of that, UK's number one red line - no more foreigners - or Freedom of Movement as the EU calls it, is one of the corner stones of any comprehensive FTA that includes services. And services currently account for 80% of the UK economy. (Again, read for yourself.)

And this isn't a new trend. When the EU and India started to negotiate about an FTA in 2010, take a guess which member state vetoed it because they were afraid of brown people.

So who do you think is now restarted negotiations, and guess who is still demanding visa free travel as central demand on even a scaled down trade deal?

Visa leniency central to post-Brexit trade with India: UK business body

“The Confederation of British Industry said the Theresa May government needs to recognise the strong links between people and trade as the UK forges new economic relationships on the world stage after Brexit.” https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/visa-leniency-central-to-post-brexit-trade-with-india-uk-business-body/story-v0CYWSwVzkYR8qhsFiUfsK.html

So in conclusion, the chances of a "CETA+++" deal can be best summed up with "there are no unicorns". Sorry, if that news comes as a shock to you.

The EU does not actually negotiate a trade deal with the UK.

On the 29th of March 2017, the UK has triggered Article 50. The EU is seeing this as a legal exercise. They are removing its institutions from the UK (EMA moved to Amsterdam, EBA to Paris, GMSC to Madrid). On top of that they have to find a way to divide up shared assets and deal with personal, libalities and the Irish border issue on behave of the Republic of Ireland.

But renegotiating the 759 treaties is not part of that process. Most arrangements could have been made before triggering Article 50, some will have to wait till after.

Under Section 3 of Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisabon it says; See: http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-European-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

The EU is under no obligation to give the UK any deal.

So what realistic options does the UK have at this point?

The EU was always very clear that the UK has all feasible options available. And that has never changed.

Only the UK’s own red lines and Westminster Parliament have rule out all of them.

If the UK is willing to compromise on their arbitrary red lines, the following options are still possible based on what has been ratified so far:

The UK can remain a full member of the EU.

Stay in both the customs union and the single market or at least aligned to them. The main external objection to this is from other EEA members who believe the UK would destroy it just as a stepping stone. If sufficient guarantees could be made to ensure this is the end station for the UK, it should be possible to come to some EEA arrangement.

Extend the Article 50 deadline and negotiate a “CETA” like deal plus custom union membership. We are not talking about “+++”, but a standard FTA comparable to the existing ones. This would be the death of London as a financial hub and probably destroy most of the UK’s service industry.

Breaking up the United Kingdom. That way England, Wales and Scotland, if they so wish to, can form rest Britain and can do a clean break from the EU and effectively world trade. Northern Ireland and overseas territories plus Gibraltar would be free to set up their own arrangements, freed of English rules and red lines.

This is it. I honestly can’t think of any more solutions than these. If you can, please let me know and I will update this post.

#Brexit #WTO #UK #Hard Brexit #StandUp4Brexit #Leave Now #EU27 #Scotland #england #Northern Ireland

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malcolmacheson · 3 years ago

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pwpoetry · 4 years ago

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Q&A with Pascale Petit

M: There is a family narrative that runs through the collection, as well as the underlying theme of environmental catastrophe and extinction. Can you speak to how these two concerns parallel or amplify each other? P: I write intuitively, guided by images, the song of the line, its dynamic, and by my excitement towards the subject. The draft has to feel true. When I write well, I am playing with all these elements, it’s a serious play, but I am in a childlike tranced state. The themes that emerge in the book appear almost as a by-product – they don’t lead it.

Tiger Girl reveals the cruelty of human beings in their treatment of non-human life, and each other. If I look back on my books, I suspect that most of them are asking this question: are humans essentially good or bad? Perhaps that’s why I’m driven to examine the way that people in power treat the powerless. I’ve tended to do this by holding a magnifying glass to my dysfunctional family, in particular on my parents and difficult childhood. In Tiger Girl I focus on the benevolence of my Indian grandmother, who took me in as a baby, then later, from the age of seven until fourteen. She didn’t have to do that, so in Tiger Girl she is a force for good, and the book is in a way a series of grandmother love poems. She is this saviour, who herself was saved. Her origins are a mystery, but I’ve been told that in Rajasthan where she was born, she was taken in by her father’s white family, while her real mother was the maid. I wanted to explore her heritage, her country, but most of all – I wanted to see a wild tiger as she had done as an infant, when one walked into her tent. So, I went to India to experience the wildlife, and fell in love with it; the national parks are brimming with animals and birds!

Going into the tiger forests in open jeeps is addictive! I’d wake at four, and be at the forest gate by five, waiting for it to open. Then the rush to find tracks, to catch a tigress patrolling her realm, the theatre of alarm calls that we’d be in the centre of, a sensurround of barks started by langurs at their treetop lookouts, and taken up by the deer. The tiger hidden, but there! But I soon realised what an immense struggle it is to keep the tigers alive, as well as all the other fauna – elephants, sloth bears, mongooses, owls and Indian rollers. Poaching is a constant threat. The parallel with my family story – how my grandmother was saved by her father, how I was saved by her from more years in an orphanage, and from the “poaching” of my parents on my body and soul, is a testimony to kindness and love. It’s kindness, love and empathy for wild animals that can save them from cruelty and abuse. We only have to empathise with them to know they suffer, and to stop the suffering. The situation in India is complicated, as in many wild parts of the world, by poverty. I’ve heard and read accounts by poachers who became forest guards, who went on to protect the tigers they once poached. Their guard-work is informed by their poaching experience; they know when and where incursions into the forest will occur. But what struck me was the indifference one guard divulged in his former life as a poacher. My account of his poaching methods is recorded in my long poem ‘In the Forest’. He needed the money for food. His need killed his empathy, his victim was just a means to make money, not a companion suffering being. The animal/human predicament echoes the dynamic between a person with power (such as a parent or president) and the powerless. M: That makes a good deal of sense given how I read the book, one image layering over the next in an intuitive, almost subconscious way. What was your revision process like, and how did you determine the arc of the book? P: I started writing Tiger Girl just after the Brexit referendum. My anxieties about citizenship and possible expulsion – I eventually applied and got British citizenship – reminded me of my grandmother’s situation, and how she’d had to conceal the fact that she was Indian. I hadn’t been aware of it when I lived with her as a child. All I could really remember were certain mysteries, her tiger stories, her speaking Hindi in her sleep. I started researching where tigers were in India, and read every tiger book I could find. I planned my first trip to Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, followed by Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks in Madhya Pradesh, the tiger heartland. I went over twice, and would have gone more, but Covid-19 happened. I had no idea there’d be so many animals and birds – imagine discovering your heaven then realising it is under threat of vanishing. This is the situation we find ourselves in on this planet: the wild is a place of awe and wonder, but it’s vanishing even as we discover new species. So, what set out to be a personal quest for identity and heritage, became a story about the forests and their fauna. Of course, now, because of Covid-19, there are new threats to wildlife, not least because it’s a zoonotic virus that it is thought originated in bats, passed through a mammal such as the much-poached and probably soon-extinct pangolin, to humans. My personal experience of cruelty at the hands of parents gave me empathy with the animals that are tortured and killed. Are they the childhood of the planet? I’m terrified that we will end up as the only large mammals on Earth, our companions gone, their homes destroyed. It’s unbearable to imagine a world without forests or animals, so, throughout Tiger Girl, there are flashes of hope, clearings with sunlit birds or rare deer. There is also fire threaded through, simmering in the first poem ‘Her Gypsy Clothes’, becoming a roar in the final poem ‘Walking Fire’. None of this was planned, but as I was finishing the manuscript one year ago, our world seemed to be on fire, from California to the Amazon, to New South Wales.

My revision process varied wildly, some poems wrote themselves whole, especially ‘In the Forest’ and ‘Green Bee-eater’. Others needed many recasts. With ‘The Anthropocene’, I had the moving image of the planet as a bride wearing a peacock dress as soon as I saw the news items of the Chinese bride in hers. The image wouldn’t let me be, so those lines hovered on my desktop. But the song of the poem came later, after I’d read The Night Life of Trees from Tara Books, featuring art of the tribal forest artists, the Gond from Madhya Pradesh. I kept looking at the trees they’d printed, and reading the captions from their beliefs. One tree is called ‘The Peacock’, and the caption said “when the peacock dances in the forest, everything watches, and the trees change their form to turn into flaming feathers”. And that gave me my song. The stepped form on the page felt right and might suggest a bride’s train or poised waves. There was a particularly violent hurricane season last year as I was drafting it, so that became the theme, of climate change.

M: As someone who writes about animals--and who is enamored with them--I share your pain and terror at the thought of a future without them. How do you see the poems in Tiger Girl speaking to the poems in Mama Amazonica?

P: Tiger Girl features my grandmother and her tiger childhood, and Mama Amazonica is a portrait of my mentally ill mother as the Amazon rainforest. These two women hardly spoke to each other in the last years of their lives; they are in many ways opposites.

Both books juxtapose a family in crisis with the natural world in crisis, and link abuse of women and children with abuse of animals and forests. But I don’t set out to do this, it’s what the poems reveal. If I take the central poem of Tiger Girl, which is for me ‘In the Forest’, and compare it to the central poem of Mama Amazonica, which for me is ‘My Amazonian Birth’, Mama Amazonica is more hopeful of a human’s rebirth in the pristine rainforest, even if that rainforest is sick and broken. What happened between the writing of the two books was Trump’s increasingly anti-eco politics and the rise to power of Bolsonaro in Brazil, followed by the election of Boris Johnson in the UK and a general global rise of fascism and contempt for the natural world. Yet, the personal story in Tiger Girl, of my Indian grandmother saving me from my abusive parents, is hopeful. And there are splashes of hope throughout the book. There has to be hope. The human psychodrama is hopeful, because what my grandmother did, taking me in for two years as a baby, then for seven years as a child, passed her strong spirit on to me and supported me all my life. Yet, even there, there is betrayal, the story of her returning me to my mother, twice, while Mama Amazonica is both my abused and mentally ill mother, and the abused mother-forest. The human drama mirrors the drama that’s unfolding on our planet – a struggle for the oppressed wild to survive. In India, that struggle is an old one, where the plenitude of charismatic megafauna is in conflict with the dense human population and poverty. The only relatively safe forests are in national parks, yet even there, there is poaching. As for my writing journey – the ‘tiger girl’ of my Indian grandmother is a character I’ve rarely written about before, though it is she who opens my very first collection Heart of a Deer, published in 1998, with the poem ‘Mirador’, that also tells the story of her death on fireworks night. In Tiger Girl I wanted to explore her spirit, how nourishing the older woman figure was, who appeared “like a goddess to me”.

M: Are there any particular texts or works of art with which you feel the book is in conversation?

P: Tiger Girl is mainly in conversation with two artists. As I began writing the book, I discovered installations by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, and felt very excited by them. I was first attracted to his work because of his installation Inopportune: Stage Two, of nine life-size replicas of tigers leaping through the air, shot and transfixed mid-leap by bamboo arrows. I almost felt at this stage that his work would dominate the book. I wanted to write my equivalents of his firework events. In the end, only two poems remained in my final cut: Ethereal Flowers, which I turned into ‘Her Flowers’, and Sky Ladder, which became my ‘Sky Ladder’. That he worked with gunpowder and fireworks and a ladder made of fireworks that explodes into the sky, felt a direct link to my grandmother’s death on Guy Fawkes night. I watched his film Sky Ladder, and my poem came out of the way he dedicated the event to his 100-year-old granny. The second main artist Tiger Girl is in conversation with is the late Pardhan Gond painter Jangarh Singh Shyam, founder of Gond art, whose tribe know the Central Indian forest secrets. Like him, I’m obsessed with deer and their antlers and how antlers mirror a forest. He died tragically early, but I wanted to honour him, so I wrote a poem for him, ‘Barasingha’, about the endangered twelve-tined swamp deer and how his life was changed after coming face to face with one. My cover art The friendship of the tiger and the boar is by him and I love how my publisher Bloodaxe has wrapped the Gond tree around the back cover. As well as these two artists, a poem early in the book, ‘Surprised!’ is a response to Henri Rousseau’s painting, Surprised! (Tiger in a Tropical Storm) – I love his work! Other poems, such as ‘The Umbrella Stand’, were influenced by Jim Corbett’s tiger hunting books. William Blake hovers in the background of ‘In the Forest’ and ‘Wild Dogs’. ‘For a Coming Extinction’ is a response to the same titled poem by W. S. Merwin. In the poem ‘Her Staircase’, I managed to write about my grandmother’s fatal staircase through a re-imagining of the installation Staircase III, by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh, which I’d spent hours sitting beneath while tutoring poetry courses at Tate Modern. Two poems are even dedicated to my first love John Keats and his forested worlds.

#interview #poetry #Q&A #pascale petit #literature #Poems

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foursproutwealth-blog · 7 years ago

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Europe's Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization Of Money & Labor

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/europes-runaway-train-towards-full-digitization-of-money-labor/

Europe's Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization Of Money & Labor

Authored by Peter Koenig via The Saker blog,

The other day I was in a shopping mall looking for an ATM to get some cash. There was no ATM. A week ago, there was still a branch office of a local bank – no more, gone. A Starbucks will replace the space left empty by the bank. I asked around – there will be no more cash automats in this mall – and this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Switzerland and throughout western Europe. Cash machines gradually but ever so faster disappear, not only from shopping malls, also from street corners. Will Switzerland become the first country fully running on digital money?

This new cashless money model is progressively but brutally introduced to the Swiss and Europeans at large – as they are not told what’s really happening behind the scene. If anything, the populace is being told that paying will become much easier. You just swipe your card – and bingo. No more signatures, no more looking for cash machines – your bank account is directly charged for whatever small or large amount you are spending. And naturally and gradually a ‘small fee’ will be introduced by the banks. And you are powerless, as a cash alternative will have been wiped out.

The upwards limit of how much you may charge onto your bank account is mainly set by yourself, as long as it doesn’t exceed the banks tolerance. But the banks’ tolerance is generous. If you exceed your credit, the balance on your account quietly slides into the red and at the end of the month you pay a hefty interest; or interest on unpaid interest – and so on. And that even though interbank interest rates are at a historic low. The Swiss Central Bank’s interest to banks, for example, is even negative; one of the few central banks in the world with negative interest, others include Japan and Denmark.

When I talked recently to the manager of a Geneva bank, he said, it’s getting much worse. ‘We are already closing all bank tellers, and so are most of the other banks’. Which means staff layoffs – which of course makes it only selectively to the news. Bank employees and managers must pass an exam with the Swiss banking commission, for which they have study hundreds of extra hours within a few months to pass a test – usually planned for weekends, so as not to infringe on the banks’ business hours. You got to chances to pass. If you fail you are out, joining the ranks of the unemployed. The trend is similar throughout Europe. The manager didn’t reveal the topic and reason behind the ‘retraining’ – but it became obvious from the ensuing conversation that it had to do with the ‘cashless overtake’ of people by the banks. These are my words, but he, an insider, was as concerned as I, if not more.

Surveillance is everywhere. Now, not only our phone calls and e-mails are spied on, but our bank accounts are too. And what’s worse, with a cashless economy, our accounts are vulnerable to be invaded by the state, by thieves, by the police, by the tax authority, by any kind of authority – and, of course, by the very banks that have had your trust for all your life. Remember the ‘bail-ins’ first tested in early 2013 in Cyprus? – Bail-ins will become common practice for any bank that has abused its greed for profit and would go belly-up, if there wouldn’t be all those deposits from customers. Even shareholders are not safe. This has been quietly decided on some two years ago, both in the US and also by the non-elected white-collar mafia, the European Commission – EC.

The point is, ‘banks über alles’. And which country would be better suited to introduce ‘cashless living’ than Switzerland, the epicenter – along with Wall Street – of international banking. Bank’s will call the shots in the future, on your personal economy and that of the state. They are globalized, following the same principles of deregulation worldwide. They are in collusion with globalized corporations. They will decide whether you eat or become enslaved. They are one of the tree major weapons of the 0.1 % to beat the 99.9% into submission. The other two at the service of the master hegemon’s Full Spectrum Dominance drive, are the war- and security industry and the ever more brazen propaganda lie-machine. Banking deregulation has become another little-propagated rule of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries who want to join WTO, must deregulate their banking sector, prying it open for the globalized money-sharks, the Zion-controlled banking conglomerates.

Retrenchment of personnel in the banking employment market is increasing. The news only selectively reports on it, when there are large amounts of jobs being eliminated. Statistics lie everywhere, in the EU as well as in Washington. – Why scare people? They will be scared enough, when they are offered jobs at salaries on which they can barely survive. That’s happening already. It used to be a tactic applied for developing countries: Keep them enslaved by debt and low pay, so they don’t have time and energy to take to the streets to protest – they have to look for food and work, whatever menial jobs they can get, to feed their families. It’s now hitting Europe, the West in general. Some countries way more than Switzerland.

Cashless trials are going on elsewhere, especially in Nordic countries, where selected department stores and supermarkets do no longer take cash. Another monstrous trial has been carried out in India a year ago, in the last quarter of 2016, where from one day to another 80% of the most popular money notes were eliminated, and could only be exchanged for new notes by banks and through bank accounts. And this in an almost pure cash country, where half the population has no bank account, and where remote rural areas have no banks. People were lied to so that the sudden introduction had maximum effect.

It caused massive famine and thousands of people died, as they had suddenly no acceptable cash to buy food – all instigated by the USAID Project ‘Catalyst’, in connivance with the Indian rulers and central bank. It was a trial. It was a disaster. If it works in India with 1.3 billion people, two thirds of whom live in rural areas and most of them have no bank account, the scam could be applied in any developing country – see also India – Crime of the Century – Financial Genocide

What is going on in Switzerland is a trial with the high end of populations. How is the upper crust taking to such radical changes in our daily monetary routine? – So far not many protests have been noticed. There is a weak referendum being launched by a group of people who want the Swiss Central Bank be the only institution that can make money, like in the ‘olden days’. Though a very respectable idea, the referendum has no chance in today’s banking and debt-finance environment, where youth is being indoctrinated with the idea that swiping your card in front of an electronic eye is cool. Today, most money is made by private banks, like elsewhere in Europe and the US. Worldwide banking deregulation, initiated by the Clinton Administration in the 1990s – today a rule for any member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – has made this all possible.

Digitalization and robotization is just beginning. Staffed check-out counters in supermarkets are dwindling; most of them are automatic – and that happened within the last year. – Where are the employees gone? – I asked an attendant who helped the customers through the self-checkout. ‘They joined the ranks of unemployed’, she said with a sad face, having lost several of her colleagues. ‘It will hit me too, as soon as they don’t need me anymore to show the customers on how to auto-pay.’

Bitcoins

Digitalization also includes the cryptocurrencies, the blockchain moneys floating around – of which the most famous one is Bitcoin. It brings digitalization of money to an apex. The system is complex and seems to lend itself only to ‘experts’. Cryptocurrencies are fiat money, based on nothing, not even on gold. Cryptos are electronic, invisible and highly, but highly speculative, an invitation for gangsters and fraudsters. With extreme speculative values, it looks as if cryptocurrencies were designed for crooks and speculators.

Bitcoin was allegedly invented by Satoshi Nakamoto which could be a pseudonym of a man or a group of people, suspected to live in the US. “Nakamoto’s” identity is believed to be commonwealth origin, due to the vocabulary used in his writings. One of his close associates is purportedly a Swiss coder, who is also an active member of the cryptocurrency community. He is said to have graphed the time stamp of each of Nakamoto’s more than 500 bitcoin forum posts. Such ‘forum posts’ exist in the thousands, worldwide. They form an elaborate network based on algorithms.

Bitcoin was formally created in January 2009 with a fix amount of 21 million ‘coins’, of which more than half are already in circulation, and 1 million, or about 4.75% (of the total) can be traced to Nakamoto – which according to the current market value corresponds to close to US$15 billion. Today’s overall Bitcoin market cap is more than US$ 315 billion. The market is highly volatile. Drastic daily fluctuations are common, especially within the last 12 months. If one of the major Bitcoin holders, like Nakamoto, would capitalize his profit by selling a big portion of his holdings, the Bitcoin price would be in free fall, functioning pretty similar to the regular stock exchange.

On 24 August 2010, when Bitcoin was first traded, its value was US$ 0.06. On 24 December 2017, the coin was worth US$ 13,800, an increase of 230,000%. In the last twelve months, its value increased from about US$ 800 in December 2016 to a peak of close to US$ 20,000 in December 2017, an increase of nearly 2,500 %. However, in the last 7 days, the price has dropped by US$ 5,160, i.e. by more than 27%, and the trend seems to be downward; perhaps a sign of quick profit-taking? However, this shows how instable this cryptocurrency is, apparently much more so than trading corporate shares on the stock market.

The number of cryptocurrencies available over the internet as of 27 November 2017 is above 1300 and growing. A new cryptocurrency can be created at any time and by anyone. By market capitalization, Bitcoin is presently the largest blockchain network (database network, storing data in different publicly verifiable places), followed by Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.

Bitcoin may be the next bubble, bringing down a parallel economy which has already its fingers clawing into our regular western economy. Cryptocurrencies are officially forbidden in Russia and China, though stopping cryptocurrency dealings by individuals is hardly possible. They do not touch the traditional banking system. That’s why major banks hate them. They circumvent the banking suckers, prevent them from making ever higher profits from horrendous commissions, against which the people at large are powerless.

Here is Bitcoin’s positive value. It escapes bank and state controls. If countries’ economies were run on Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency, they would escape US sanctions which function only because western currencies are foster-children of the US-dollar, hence, subject to the dollar hegemony; meaning all international transactions have to pass through a US bank. A typical case is ‘banking blockades’, when Washington decides to stop all international transactions of a country until it submits to the wishes of the empire. It is blackmail; totally illegal, but unless there is a monetary alternative, the (western) world is subject to this system.

A typical case was Argentina, when she was forced by a New York judge in June 2014 to pay a New York based Vulture Fund US$1.6 billion, an illegal ruling according to a UN resolution. Argentina refuse to pay, so the judge, interfering in a sovereign nation, blocked more than US$ 500 million in Argentina’s debt payment to creditors, bringing Argentina to the brink of a second bankruptcy in 13 years. Eventually, neoliberal Macri negotiated a deal with the Vultures of a payment in excess of US$ 400 million.

This US blackmail would not have been possible had Argentina been able to make its foreign transactions in Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency. Venezuela is currently using a national cryptocurrency for some of its foreign transactions, thereby escaping the sanctions stranglehold of Washington. Had Greek and Cyprus citizens had a cryptocurrency alternative to the euro, they would not have been subject to the cash control imposed by the European Central Bank.

On the other hand, funding of terror organizations, like ISIS, cannot be disrupted, if the terror group deals in cryptocurrencies. – This shows, for good or for bad, Bitcoins, or cryptocurrencies are for now unique in resisiting censure and blackmail, or any kind of authoritarian outside interference in electronic money transactions.

Cashless Living

If Switzerland accepts the change to digital money, a country where until relatively recently most people went to pay their monthly bills in cash to the nearest post office – then we, in the western world, are on a fast track to total enslavement by the financial institutions. It goes, of course, hand-in-hand with the rest of systematic and ever faster advancing oppression and robotization of the 99.9% by the 0.1%.

We are currently at cross-roads, where we still can either decide to follow the discourse of a new electronic monetary era, with ever less to say about the product of our work, our money; or whether, We the People, will resist a banking / finance system that has full control over our financial resources, and which can literally starve us into submission or death, if we don’t behave. In order to resist we need an alternative monetary system or monetary network, away from the dollar-euro hegemony.

All the more important is the ascent of another economy, another payment and transfer scheme which already exists in the East, the Chinese International Paymen, totally System (CIPS), effectively a replacement of SWIFT, totally privately run and linked to the US-dollar and US banks. The world needs a multipolar economy, based on the real output of a country or society, as is the case in China and Russia, not one based on fiat money as is the current western economy.

Will Switzerland, the stronghold of world finance, along with New York, London and Hongkong, resist the temptation of increased profit, power and control, offered by digital money? – We, the People, have still the chance to decide either for continuing rotting in a fraud economy, based on wars and greed – for which digital money, exacerbated by cryptocurrencies, is a new tool for a new maximizing profit bonanza on the back of the common people; or do we opt for an honest future and for a life that leaves us free to take sovereign political and monetary decisions in a full cash society. For the latter we must wake up to see the propaganda fraud going on before our eyes, and to resist the robot and electronic money onslaught being unleashed on us.

#Wealth

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foursprout-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Europe's Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization Of Money & Labor

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/europes-runaway-train-towards-full-digitization-of-money-labor/

Europe's Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization Of Money & Labor

Authored by Peter Koenig via The Saker blog,

Bitcoins

Cashless Living

#Wealth

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teachanarchy · 7 years ago

Link

The principle of enantiadromia says that culminating processes revert into their opposite like a yin-yang. This is a force that's certainly at work in Venezuela today as the Bolivarian Revolution, which promised deepening democracy becomes a dictatorship.

At the Turning Point: An Open Letter to my Chavista Friends by Clifton Ross

Dear Chavista friends,

In 2005 when I was invited to participate in the World Poetry Festival of Venezuela I offered my solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and I asked for yours to help us fight the murderous policies of the illegitimate President George W. Bush who had illegally declared war on the people of Iraq just two years before. I stayed on in Venezuela, reporting on the process at my own expense; and out of my own resources and my love for Venezuela and its people, I made a movie in favor of the Bolivarian Revolution to build greater solidarity between Venezuela and the world.

Given the changes that have occurred in Venezuela in the intervening years, I have come to reevaluate my loyalties and gradually I have come to make a decision to stand in solidarity with the majority of Venezuelans who now oppose the Bolivarian government. That is to say, I join my energies, my hopes and my aspirations with those who are out in the streets, day after day, fighting what has now become a parody, a caricature of that project I once supported.

There are several reasons for my change of heart, and they all concern the very negative turns the Bolivarian government has taken over the past decade, abandoning its own project and betraying its own ideals. They warrant some explanation because, as I see it, I only turned my back on the Bolivarian Revolution when the Bolivarian government turned its back on the Venezuelan people.

1. Participatory and Protagonistic Democracy

Do you remember that phrase? It was on everyone’s lips when I lived in Venezuela in 2005-2006, and it was viewed as the core principle of the Bolivarian Revolution. As Venezuelan sociologist Dr. Margarita López Maya later explained to me, “liberal democracy, left to itself, becomes elitist” and the brilliance of Chávez was to try to complement this form of democracy with direct and participatory democracies. What happened to that promise to “deepen democracy”? In 2007, Chávez proposed a referendum that would turn the country towards socialism. The referendum failed, but he refused to obey the will of the Venezuelan people and instead pushed it through with a series of laws , including one that replaced “participatory and protagonistic democracy” with “people’s democracy” or “popular power.” Things have only gotten worse for any form of democracy in Venezuela since, but especially recently under Maduro with the blocking of the referendum and the “postponement” of gubernatorial elections in 2016, and now a rush constitutional convention being pushed through without a consultation of the people. This latter, approved by the Chavista-controlled Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Sentence 378, has divided Chavistas who support democracy and those who are now favoring dictatorship since the ruling “eliminates participatory and protagonistic democracy,” according to Chavista Fiscal General (Attorney General) Luisa Ortega. The lesson should be clear: in large scale democracies, without the framework of a representative democracy, none of the other democracies can be democratic.

This should have been the clear lesson of the Socialist-Communist projects of the 20th century. Socialist “people’s democracy” or “popular power” neither represents the people in terms of their individual votes, carried out in secret, much less involves those people “directly” as “protagonists,” nor does it engage them to “participate” in any meaningful sense in the running of their nation. We’ll return to this point later.

2. Endogenous Development

This was one of the most hopeful ideas that Chávez proposed: building up the internal economy of the country and making it, among other things, more food secure and independent. This would have been the first step toward industrial and then technological development, since this was the progression (agriculture, industry, technology) of development of, not only the United Kingdom and the USA, but also China, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil and other countries. When Chávez came to power, 65% of what Venezuelans consumed was imported. Today that number is more like 90%. In a twelve-year period until 2012 (the government has virtually quit releasing economic data over the past 5 years or so) imports increased over 300%. And this wasn’t simply a “failure” (although it was that), but the result of policies of Chávez and Maduro with currency and price controls that destroyed national production; the expropriation of productive farms and turning them over to non-productive forces; the irresponsibility, ineptitude, corruption and impunity around the importation of agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc); and putting control of agricultural production under the government which has proven itself incapable of carrying out its duties with any kind of efficiency whatever. Rather than moving forward with “endogenous development,” Venezuela has destroyed its national industries, both state- and privately owned and this has also forced the government to “double down on imports.” But why? Could it be that currency and price controls offered more opportunities to the Boliburgos and Bolichicos for corruption, embezzlement, “bachaqueo,” currency arbitrage, etc. etc.? From the perspective of this corrupt elite that fattens itself at the top of the national pyramid, “good” policies are those they profit from; what does it matter to them what those policies do to the country and the people lower down the food chain? And this leads us to the next point:

3. Corruption

Perhaps you’ve read that statement Chávez made in 1992 just a day before his coup attempt when he said that military in the tradition of the Liberating Army of Simon Bolívar “can’t remain indifferent to…the immense level of corruption that plagues all spheres of our country, the great number of privileges that some have, the absence of punishment for those we all know are culpable of having improperly enriched themselves with public money…”1 and so on. You need to ask yourself if you’ve ever seen such corruption as what exists today in Venezuela. I remember, all those years when Chávez was president all my Chavista friends repeated the same verity: “Chávez is pure: it’s just that all those around him are corrupt.” Now all those who were around him are in control. Have they magically stopped being corrupt? I leave that question with you, but Transparency International ranks the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under the Bolivarian Revolution among the ten most corrupt countries of the world.

4. Anti-imperialist project?

According to Chavistas, Chávez undertook an anti-imperialist project—but did he really? Certainly the rhetoric of this government has been anti-imperialist, but the “Empire” remains Venezuela’s number one trading partner as it receives 43% of Venezuela’s exports and supplies 29% of its imports (including refined petroleum which, due to the dire state to which PDVSA has fallen under this government. According to Venezuelan National Assembly member Tamara Adrian, Venezuela no longer is able to produce its high octane gas, and it also imports 60% of its lower octane gas—both from refineries in Louisiana.). But the surrender of its other minerals to Chinese, Russian and Canadian corporations, the relinquishing of a huge swath of ecologically sensitive territory, inhabited by indigenous people, known as the Arco Minero; the turning over control of intelligence and other sensitive military, educational, health and other sectors to Cubans; housing built by Iran and China and so forth, rather than by Venezuelans, all this raises the urgent question: What sort of “anti-imperialism” is this? Certainly there seems to be a stronger argument that Venezuela has never been as indebted to, and dependent on, empires as it has become under the Bolivarian Revolution.

5. Illiteracy

I recall when I lived in Mérida, Venezuela in late 2005 watching Chávez on television declaring Venezuela “territory free from illiteracy.” But what do the facts show? Well, probably a lot, but since 2013 the Bolivarian government has not been releasing them, or at least statistical information on economic and social performance. And what it put out before that, as in the case of the 2005 claim Chávez made on illiteracy, was not always reliable. According to a September 14, 2013 article, “Olga Ramos, coordinator of the Venezuelan Education Watch, upon comparing the 2001 and 2011 census outcomes, significantly noted ‘using data of both census, we found that the illiteracy rate remains the same…” Olga isn’t alone in arguing that “the government party, has misrepresented statistics,” in this case, on the literacy rate. Even as early as 2007 the “late researcher Jose Luis Salomon did the math” and came to very interesting conclusions. He said that “"Mission Robinson was launched on July 7, 2003, and by October 28 of that same year, according to [then Minister of Education Aristóbulo] Istúriz, it had already made 1,202,025 Venezuelans literate. In just 15 weeks? 80,135 persons became literate each week? 11,448 per day? 20.2% more than the program's target?” So what has been the real impact of the educational “Missions” in Venezuela? We won’t know until a democratic government that is accountable to the people it represents, one that produces and releases reliable information on its activities, comes to power in Venezuela.

6. Poverty

What happened to the billions and billions of dollars that came into Chávez’s hands that he claimed to be using to eliminate poverty? We know at least $475 billion dollars—and that’s according to former Chávistas like Hector Navarro, Jorge Giordani, Nicmer Evans and others—was stolen and funneled into private accounts in foreign banks. That’s a very peculiar sort of 21st Century Socialism, don’t you think? One that privatizes the national wealth—and that not even by sales, but by pure robbery. The Missions came and went and were never audited. We don’t know, except from what the government propaganda said, what they actually accomplished, but did they eliminate poverty? Did they eliminate hunger, disease and misery? Before 1998, when oil was under $20 per barrel, did you see Venezuelans eating out of the garbage? Waiting in long lines to buy food? Spending their month’s wages to eat for less than one week—if, that is, they were careful? And this is happening when oil prices are more than double, nearly triple what they were when Chávez came to power. While the government releases no figures on poverty, the ENCOVI (National Poll on the Living Conditions in Venezuela) report, put together by Venezuela’s top three universities, put the poverty rate at 82%. For English readers, an excellent review of the report is found here by economist Frank Muci.

7. Etcetera

It would take more pages and tax your patience to enumerate the other failures such as in healthcare, which even by 2011 was a disaster and today is in collapse; Food supply scandals involving the military and the CLAPS and the use of food as weapon against the opposition; the out-of-control violence that shot up under Chávez and made Caracas the most violent city in the world, and so on and on.

The yawning gap between objectives and results, rhetoric and reality, aspirations and the filthy, grimy inhumane outcomes, represent the supreme irony, the most extreme turn of events, so great that it qualifies as an “enantiadromia” (literally, “backwards running course”)—a term dating back to Heraclitus and used by Carl Jung to describe a psychological condition in which a person reaching a culminating point turns into his or her own opposite. The Chinese yin-yang served as a symbol of this process which often occurs in politics where a liberator, on coming to power, attempts to impose himself on a people as a dictator—does that sound familiar?

When I was in Venezuela in 2005 the country had just experienced two very undemocratic attempts to overthrow Hugo Chávez: the coup of April 11, 2002 and the oil strike or lockout later that year. That opposition was pulverized in the Referendum of 2004 and even though they renounced those tactics thereafter, they have been qualified as “golpistas” ever since. Strangely enough, Chavistas, who denounce them with that term, celebrate Chávez’s own coup attempt (1992) every February 4th. But the worst coup against democracy has taken place under Maduro, who utterly ignores the will of the people: in December 2015 when Venezuelans chose the Opposition to fill the seats of the National Assembly his government refused to allow the National Assembly to carry out its constitutionally mandated functions; it blocked a referendum on his presidency for all of 2016; it illegally called off the gubernatorial elections of December 2016; it has politically “disabled” (deshabilitó) opposition politicians, or refused to recognize their elections; it has prevented peaceful protests and attacked protestors with tear gas, water cannons, clubs, guns and legal proceedings under military tribunals; and now it has illegally constituted a National Constitutional Assembly to rewrite the constitution without consulting the people in referendum. And these are just the most outrageous violations of the people’s will and their democracy. Meanwhile, who is out in the streets leading these demonstrations for the restoration of democracy? None other than the “golpista” opposition.

Clearly, by every measure, indeed, by Chávez’s own stated objectives, the Bolivarian Revolution has failed. Not only has it failed, but it has destroyed everything fifty years of the “Democratic Revolution” of 1958 had built up. The country is in ruins, and yet some still—and this strains credulity—believe that “neoliberalism” could possibly be worse. Yes, that’s the refrain of the Chavistas, that Maduro must be supported or else “neoliberalism” will return. This claim in the context of the most devastated country of Latin America today, approaching a situation comparable only with post-earthquake Haiti, shouldn’t require a response, but it’s so pervasive that I feel required to reply to it. This refrain of “either Maduro or Neoliberalism” fits into the polarized world Chávez made of Venezuela; you know, “you’re either with me or you’re with the opposition, the ‘apátridas,’ the ‘pitiyanquis,’’ etc. What a poor world he created with that discourse. Among all the possible alternatives it came down to nothing more than the “revolution” of a bombastic caudillo whose underlings were robbing the country blind versus the “enemy.” Did he not have any greater imagination than that? Weren’t his followers more capable of greater creativity, to be able to imagine a world that was neither the kleptocracy of the Bolivarians nor the austerity of the neoliberals? Evidently not. But the people fighting in the streets certainly have more imagination and they’re definitely not fighting for “neoliberalism” as they battle the repressive forces of the state.

This is one of the many great lies, or I should say, another little lie that is part of the Great Lie of the Bolivarian government. This great lie has been regurgitated recently by none other than Atilio Boron who called on Maduro to “crush” the opposition. Boron, like Maduro and some of his comrades, represents an old, decrepit dinosaur left, like those calling for the “Emergency Days of Action” on Venezuela. But just because they are dinosaurs doesn’t mean their views have become extinct. To the contrary, in Latin America, and in much of the world, they still have extraordinary power to mold opinion and shape views on the left. In their narrative, which cleaves closely to Marxist-Leninist ideology, the CIA is the cause of the current disturbances in Venezuela and the people in the street are “right-wing lackeys of the Empire” who are responsible for the violence as they attempt to overthrow the “revolution.”

But this narrative is a cookie-cut story from the Cold War years that reflects nothing of Venezuelan reality, nor any reality, more than a quarter of a century after the collapse of communism. The reality of the present is much simpler and more obvious. The current protests are directed against a corrupt, brutal and repressive kleptocracy that has been starving and indebting its people to maintain itself in power and enrich a “revolutionary” elite—and Wall Street—in the process. The people in the streets are the people, not that collective abstraction of Marxist doctrine, but the students, workers of every stripe and ordinary Venezuelans who simply want decent lives under a decent government. They represent the nearly 80% of Venezuelans who want to see Nicolás Maduro step down from the presidency this year. Those who have been demonstrating now for more than two months are the vast majority and they deserve not only a hearing and our respect, but also they deserve our solidarity. They certainly have mine.

* The full quote, in Spanish, is “Nosotros, como militares herederos del Ejército Libertador, no podemos permanecer indiferentes a lo que hoy sucede. El inmenso grado de corrupción que plaga todas las esferas de nuestro país, la gran cantidad de privilegios con que cuentan algunos, la falta de castigo a las personas que todos sabemos culpables de haber tomado indebidamente dineros públicos, las políticas económicas que colocan en posición deplorable a los venezolanos más sencillos, la venta a consorcios extranjeros de nuestras empresas fundamentales, la imposibilidad que tiene la gran mayoría de los venezolanos para satisfacer sus necesidades básicas, la ineficiencia del sistema y de todos los servicios públicos y en fin el desconocimiento de nuestra soberanía en todos los terrenos, nos fuerzan a tomar una acción destinada a reivindicar la democracia.”

1. The full quote, in Spanish, is “Nosotros, como militares herederos del Ejército Libertador, no podemos permanecer indiferentes a lo que hoy sucede. El inmenso grado de corrupción que plaga todas las esferas de nuestro país, la gran cantidad de privilegios con que cuentan algunos, la falta de castigo a las personas que todos sabemos culpables de haber tomado indebidamente dineros públicos, las políticas económicas que colocan en posición deplorable a los venezolanos más sencillos, la venta a consorcios extranjeros de nuestras empresas fundamentales, la imposibilidad que tiene la gran mayoría de los venezolanos para satisfacer sus necesidades básicas, la ineficiencia del sistema y de todos los servicios públicos y en fin el desconocimiento de nuestra soberanía en todos los terrenos, nos fuerzan a tomar una acción destinada a reivindicar la democracia.”

#world history #venezuela #chavez

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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With stones—and phones—Kashmiri youth show deepening resolve against India

Fahad Shah, CS Monitor, June 1, 2017

SRINAGAR, INDIAN-CONTROLLED KASHMIR--Talk to the young protesters in Indian-administered Kashmir today, and you will find more than the familiar slogans against India.

Young people are at the forefront of every protest, gathering in the hundreds and thousands to shout against Indian rule and throw stones at the soldiers. Streets are dotted with anti-Indian graffiti, much of it then defaced by soldiers. When news of a gunfight between soldiers and rebels breaks out, the young protesters race to the scene, hoping diversions will let the militants slip away--and that the videos they’ll later post online can garner wider attention for Kashmir. Many assert they have no fear of death, if that’s what it comes to.

It’s a gloomy illustration of many civilians’ increasing support for insurgents--a challenge for India, whose harsh attempts to quell unrest seem to only feed more anger and protests. But for soldiers, protesters, and bystanders alike, the cycles of unrest and repression can erase any semblance of normalcy, amid school closures, internet blackouts, and curfews.

Between January and April alone, at least 14 civilians at protests were fatally shot by soldiers, according to the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a human rights group based in Srinagar. But many protesters, like 20-year-old Amir Zahoor, say deaths only reinforce their community’s decades-old demand for “azadi” (freedom). In their eyes, India is an occupier.

“Our voice doesn’t reach the outside world; it only reaches because of stone-throwing or mujahideens [militants],” says Mr. Zahoor, who says he would join the rebels if needed.

There was a time when people would run away at the sound of gunshots, Zahoor argues. But now, more people come out of their homes, ready to protect the rebels, he says.

Few polls have been conducted in Kashmir, and one of the most comprehensive, from the UK-based Chatham House, dates back to May 2010, before a summer uprising that helped harden many Kashmiris’ views against India. At that time, however, 43 percent of respondents in Indian-controlled Kashmir said they would vote for the whole of Kashmir to become independent, while 28 percent said they would vote to join India. Responses varied dramatically by division: in the Kashmir Valley, between 75 and 95 percent supported independence; in the Jammu Division, with a higher Hindu population, zero to 1 percent did.

Conflict over Kashmir has existed since the Indian subcontinent won independence from Britain in 1947, and divided along into majority-Hindu India and majority-Muslim Pakistan. The Hindu prince of the Himalayan border region, which has a Muslim-majority population, wished to remain independent; eventually, he ceded his territory to India on the condition that Kashmiris would be given self-determination.

But India continues to claim the region, and no referendum has been held. A 350-mile line of control separates areas under Pakistan and Indian control: one of the most dangerous borders in the world, with rebels fighting for independence from India since the late 1980s.

After a summer of violence in 2010, tensions calmed. But the July 2016 killing of Burhan Wani, an iconic rebel commander, has again kicked popular sentiment against India into high gear. India’s crackdowns--criticized by human rights groups for killing about 150 civilians last year, injuring more than 10,000, and imposing internet blackouts--have only served to strengthen the new generation’s resolve to broadcast their message, whether they hope to see the region join Pakistan or become independent. Anger surged again in late May, as hundreds of Kashmiris broke curfews to watch the funeral procession of Sabzar Ahmad Bhat, a rebel commander and successor of Mr. Wani, who was killed on May 27.

“If we had guns we would fight, but right now we have only got stones,” says Zahoor. “Almost every Kashmiri now knows that they are not just victims, but warriors.”

Although Zahoor mostly stays in his village, fearing arrest for throwing stones, he leaves to protest upon hearing about any fresh gunfight in adjoining areas. One of his cousins may pick up a gun and join the rebels, he says, which would make him the first in the family. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of local youth joining the rebels more than doubled; many of them were well-educated.

Picking up guns to join the rebels or throwing stones on streets are not the only means of protest: the teens have smartphones, too, letting them bypass traditional media to tell their stories.

During a gunfight in March in Central Kashmir’s Chadoora area, three young men were killed. The first was Zahid Rashid Ganie--the only brother of five sisters. He had left home that morning after hearing gunshots, and started live-streaming the stone-throwing on Facebook. By 10 a.m., Rashid had posted several live videos in the paddy fields, before he was fatally shot.

Such stories are strengthening the resistance narrative in Kashmir, as pressure for a political solution grows. But progress is slow: the Indian government is holding out for two-party talks with Pakistan, while the tense atmosphere in the valley shrinks space for India-backed political parties, too, whose representatives find it difficult to return home.

On April 9, during parliamentary by-elections in central Kashmir, separatist leaders called for a boycott, and only 7 percent of registered voters went to the polls--the lowest in the past three decades. The next phase of elections in four districts was canceled, and eight civilians were killed by soldiers during anti-election protests, in which dozens of polling stations were attacked and voting machines burnt.

In the following days, many videos went viral. The clips included a teenage boy being shot from three yards away, several teenagers being beaten up, and a civilian tied to an Army jeep and driven through villages for hours as a human shield against stone-throwers. The Indian major accused of using the man as a shield was soon-after praised by several Indian politicians, despite an ongoing investigation, and awarded with a commendation card.

As the videos’ views soared, the government’s response was to impose an internet blackout, banning almost two dozen 22 social networking sites, including Facebook and WhatsApp.

Even with internet restrictions, however, the government has found it difficult to stop people from coming out to support rebels. In one major gunfight last February in south Kashmir’s Frisal area, for example, four rebels, two soldiers, and two civilians were killed, while 25 others received bullet and pellet injuries.

Among those shot was Basit Ahmad Dar, who is 15. On hearing there was a gunfight, he had walked a few miles to reach on the spot and found boys, some younger than him, protesting.

“We were throwing stones for an hour or two, trying to save the militants,” before he was shot and taken to a hospital, Dar says, adding that it took two months to heal and walk properly. With a smile, he says that he’s felt Kashmir was occupied since he was born. He took part in protests for the first time at age 13, during a gunfight in South Kashmir’s Redwani village, and remembers the 2010 mass uprising only vaguely.

“We have forgotten fear of death long ago,” says Dar, a ninth-grade student. “The war is on. My father didn’t say anything on seeing me that day, but parents in this village usually ask why didn’t you get martyred, rather than injured.”

#Kashmir #Kashmiri youth #Kashmiri protesters #India

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cheapshop247 · 8 years ago

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mattkennard · 8 years ago

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Inside Bedford: a fragile success story of multiculturalism, home of Yarl's Wood

Published: Open Democracy (5 April 2017)

A couple of miles north of the outskirts of Bedford lies the most controversial of Britain’s many immigration removal centres, Yarl’s Wood. At the back of a business park stranded in the middle of the Bedfordshire countryside, it is one of Europe’s largest immigration facilities, holding 410 people, mostly women and families, awaiting deportation from the UK. Getting in as a journalist is next to impossible, but during visiting hours I go through the metal detector tests with a pen and pad to meet Mabel Gawanas who has been detained in Yarl’s Wood for nearly three years, the longest serving detainee. An orphan, she fled Namibia after a childhood of awful abuse and violence. But Yarl’s Wood is not a happy place. “I long for peace,” she tells me. The mother of two continues: “I want to be a mother, I want to be normal, to live a normal life like everyone else. I want to be a human rights lawyer to help other people in my position. I want to study more.”

Yarl’s Wood has attracted streams of protesters to the Twinwoods Business Park over the years. A recent protest drew up to 2,000 campaigners. Mabel says her only interaction with the city nearby, however, is when she is taken to Bedford hospital for a medical emergency. “But in Bedford hospital they don’t treat detainees properly, they want to get them out quickly. I was taken there in handcuffs."

Bedford, which is home to 170,000 people, is a strange location for Yarl’s Wood to be placed because it is actually one of the most diverse cities in England: the different colours and cultures you see walking around it remind of London.

Bedford borough is one of the most diverse authorities in the east of England, with up to 100 different ethnic groups living within its boundaries. The most recent census found that 28.5% of the population was Black and Minority Ethnic (BME), with significantly higher proportion of Other White and Asian people than the rest of England. At the Bedford Swan hotel which sits on the river cutting the city in half, Joanna Kazmierczak works as a waitress in the morning buffet. Originally from the Polish seaport of Szczecin, she has lived in the UK since 2012, first in Peterborough and then Bedford for work. “It’s a very quiet city but it’s not too bad,” she tells me. “The people are friendly and nice. If someone likes a quiet place then it’s a good place to live.”

Race relations in diverse Bedford might not be as good as pitched, she says. “Myself, I didn’t get any racism, nothing, but I heard too many stories in Bedford about attacks on Polish people or Asian people.” But do the immigrant communities get on well together? Do the immigrants get on well together? "No. There is, like, Polish together, Asian together, they don’t want to be all immigrants together, this thing doesn’t happen ever.”

Bedford itself, despite its diversity and progressive history on immigration, voted Leave in the EU referendum by a margin of 51.8% to 48.1%. But the Brexit vote doesn’t scare her. “Actually, I don’t think it will be too much change for people who are already here. People who are here 5 years already, working, studying, they don’t need to be scared about anything, maybe it will change who come here now. There is a big Polish community here.” At the market in downtown Bedford, Ali Asadi, a 21-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, sits selling carpets and household essentials. “I like Bedford a lot, it’s nice and clean with good people and it’s a quiet place as well,” he tells me. “Lots of nice people here, I’m quite happy living here. These are good people here, they gave us respect, and they respect other cultures as well.” He says he didn’t vote in the EU referendum because he wasn’t registered, but if he was he would have voted remain. For him Bedford is the ideal place to live. “I feel like I will stay here forever now, it feels like home now,” he tells me. “I am used to Bedford now, I have been to other places but I prefer Bedford to the rest. I went to London as well but I like Bedford more.” Asadi came from Afghanistan in 2009 at the height of the occupation by US and UK troops. His parents were already in Bedford but he managed to join them.

“There is a big Afghani community here, there are quite a lot of people here in Bedford from Afghanistan.” Why? I ask. Bedford seems like an odd place to coalesce around. “I don’t know, maybe because we like to stay together and live together, and have a good community. There’s people in London as well but not as much as Bedford, we have a lot of people in Bedford."

Bedford’s most famous immigrant community is from Italy. The city is dotted with Italian restaurants with locals still speaking Italian at the tables. There are Italian delis, social clubs and flags fluttering. The city even has its own Italian Consulate. About 14,000 Italian descendant people live in the city, mainly because after the Second World War the local Marston Valley Brick Company needed workers as it produced for the post-war reconstruction. The company recruited in the work-starved villages of southern Italy between 1951 and the early 1960s. More than 7,500 men were brought over to Bedford.

A significant amount of men were also recruited by the Brick Company from the Punjab region of India. Descendants of that wave of immigration now constitute about 8% of the population. Since the early 2000s there has been a high number of immigrants from eastern Europe. I find Wajeeha Rana, 34, is reading a book in Urdu in Bedford Central Library. “It’s a novel from a very famous author, her name is Umera Ahmed, it’s a book from here, they have a good world literature selection,” she tells me. Rana moved to Bedford in September after visiting the city for a number of years because her husband is from Bedford. Previously in Malaysia, she was born in Pakistan. “Bedford is a well integrated community,” she says. “There is a big a Pakistani community here. They give a lot of opportunity to everybody, they do a lot of programs for different groups.”

She says she doesn’t encounter racism. “There are actually a lot of halal food places you can go and eat. It’s a good place to be, in fact, I’ve heard a lot of people are moving from London to Bedford, it’s much more affordable. They say it’s because obviously London has become really expensive, and Bedford is more commutable. So they are moving over here and there’s a multicultural community here as well."

She continued: “We recently met someone (from Pakistan) who had moved from Ilford to Bedford because their husband got a job over here and they are doing very well over here actually. It’s a good option for a lot of people. And even a lot of white people too, their community moved over here from London just for that reason. And we spoke to a few estate agents as well, and they are saying that a lot of people are coming over here, moving over here.”

Peter Redman is selling vacuum cleaner bags at Bedford market. He voted out in the EU referendum. “Why not have a change?” he asks. “We’re called Great Britain why can’t we be great again instead of Europe basically telling us what to do, set our own laws, tell them to stuff it really.” “I didn’t like the Brexit campaign, I didn’t the mudslinging, or the shitslinging. No just Farage, it’s Conservative, Labour, Lid Dems, they are all a bunch of wankers, they are all a bunch of wankers.” But he states his vote had nothing to do with immigration. “Nothing at all. It was done on Dispatches, they did something about Europeans coming over here doing lettuce picking, and they had a British bloke doing, and the farmer said the European done, the English one picks about 10 lettuces an hour and the European a 100 so who do you employ? The English bloke kept on stopping to have a fag because he was knackered.”

Redman was born in a little Bedfordshire village called Turvey and now lives in another village called Harrold just outside Bedford. He comes into Bedford three days a week for work on the stall. I say that Bedford seems to be successfully integrated. “It’s working but you still get the odd arsehole,” he says; “There’s good and bad in everybody.”

Redman was a firefighter in Bedfordshire for 33 years before getting injured and taking retirement early. “I don’t make any money out of it. This has been on Bedford market for over 42 years and I had the chance because I have the money in my bank from my lump sum, the bloke got to 74 years old and he thought he had enough of it, so I bought it off him.” What does he think of Yarl’s Wood? “Technically, one, it shouldn’t have been built in the first place, two, it should have been built differently, so they couldn’t set fire to it, so it didn’t risk not only security lives, but firefighter lives, plus as well as police officers’ lives.” But, he adds, “If the people up there don’t like it, go back to your own country. You’re getting fed, watered, bedded, for nothing, and I’m paying for it, it’s coming out of my council tax. But if can prove that you’ve got the right to stay here and you’ve got no criminal record or any other crap luggage in your other country where you come from, then stay. But if you’re naughty boy or naughty girl, piss off back. Is that fair enough?” Bedford has quietly become one of the most positive stories of integration and immigration in England, but it is riven with contradictions. From the Brexit vote to Yarl's Wood looming presence on its outskirts, Bedford is a warning that multicultural England is still precarious.

#immigration #bedford #multiculturalism #brexit

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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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walaw17 asked: Any thoughts on Scottish independence?

I have tried avoiding answers about Scottish independence and by proxy Brexit because like everyone else I am just bored into numbness by the whole on-going soap opera saga. There’s no escaping it. Even within families the conversation around the dinner table is about the next referendum and by proxy, Brexit.

I have Scottish roots on my father’s side and so when I meet my Scottish cousins up in Scotland for weddings, funerals and the like the topic does come up. This summer I was up in the Angus glens for the annual ‘Glorious 12th’ - the start of the shooting season - to join a family shooting party to shoot grouse and share a feast afterwards.

Most of the clan and family friends gathered would be High Tory. Thus they are very much in favour of the Union as they are strong monarchists to boot - even if they have fought for and against the crown at different times in their gilded past. They remain fierce Scottish patriots to the extent that they (good naturedly!) admonish me for taking my Scottish ancestry for granted and being ‘Anglicised’ on my father’s side.

I believe the Scots are for the largely loyal to the Union and they proved that at the last referendum on Scottish independence. But Brexit is now added into the mix and its has clouded the picture somewhat for many Scots. It’s easy to see why.

If I take the Scottish part of my family and their clan. As loyal as they are to the Union there were grumblings about how Scotland seems to be pushed to the margins as Little Englanders run around and use the cover of nationalist fervour to concentrate wealth and power in the City of London to become a free market Singapore 2.0. Even worse leave the United Kingdom vulnerable to the whimsical mercies of Donald Trump if we ever did a trade deal.

Where the Scots differ from the English is that they are natural Euro-philes. Scotland has always been close to France - even shared past Queens. The Scots are naturally outward looking people who in their proud history have always been travelers to the world - to seek work, or settle in new lands, or to trade. Look at the the British Empire, the Scots virtualy ran the empire and even populated it as far as India and North America. So one can’t ignore the impulse of the Scots to not turn its back on Europe.

The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, now proposes a second Scottish referendum. While politically justifiable even if it’s opportunistic, this is not the best way forward.

Less than three years removed from the first referendum, in which Scotland voted to remain in the UK by 55%, the question of national sovereignty returns to the political forefront. While 52% of the UK opted to leave the EU, 62% of Scots voted to remain Citing the manifesto of her Scottish National Party (SNP), which holds the majority in the Scottish Parliament, Ms. Sturgeon stated that Brexit constitutes a significant and material change from the 2014 vote and a new referendum is necessary. In this, the first minister is right to call for a referendum, as circumstances have unquestionably changed. Forced to leave a union most Scots prefer, the nation should have the right to reevaluate the partnership with their southern neighbours.

Scotland is better off remaining part of the UK than leaving it. The SNP, a separatist group at heart, is misleading its countrymen by saying otherwise. The timetable set by Ms. Sturgeon places undue pressure to resolve Brexit during an already tight window of two years. With Greenland taking roughly seven years to finalise its departure from the European Economic Community, it is hard to believe the UK, a political and economic behemoth in the region, departing in a mere couple. The timetable also provides Scots with little ability to make an informed decision. Much uncertainty exists regarding Brexit and its future ramifications for the UK after Oct 31st. These are not empty words, as Scots increasingly believe that there should not be another referendum in the next few years.

Even for a leader with high approval ratings like Ms. Sturgeon, referendums are risky. The first minister need not look further than her European counterparts, where referendums in the UK and Italy led to the self-inflicted downfalls of David Cameron and Matteo Renzi. Ms. Sturgeon would be wise to learn from the past, as referendums can have dire and unpredictable consequences on a political career. She should act more like the citizens she was elected to represent, who currently have little appetite for another vote. Even if one were held, the most recent polls shows only 37% of Scots supporting Scottish independence.

Arguing for departure from the UK may play well politically, but it would have disastrous ramifications for the small northern nation.

How did we get here?

Through the inattention of the leaders of the British government of the two major political parties is one obvious answer. Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was eager to devolve power from London to representative assemblies in Scotland and Wales, despite the constitutional problems. Large majorities of Scottish and Welsh parliamentary constituencies elect Labour members of the House of Commons, and particularly in Scotland there was deep discontent with the policies of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. They associated them with the inevitable decline of Scotland’s heavy industries — steel, shipbuilding — and the high unemployment that resulted. Glasgow, once the proud “Second City of the Empire,” as you can readily imagine when you see its impressive century-old downtown office buildings, was particularly hard hit. Scotland, since the Act of Union of 1707, has provided a disproportionate share of Britain’s philosophers, statesmen (11 prime ministers including its most recent in Blair, Brown, and even Cameron), colonial administrators and military officers and men.

Now the Scottish economy is dominated by the public sector, and the Scots are suffused with self-pity over what they regard as the underfunding of the welfare state. Scotland’s second Parliament went into operation in 1999, with Labour party stalwart Donald Dewar as chief minister and with power over much of Scottish domestic policy, including the ability to raise taxes. Indeed under the 1707 Act of Union, Scotland retained Scottish law rather than the English common law, kept the Presbyterian established Church of Scotland rather than the episcopal established Church of England; and under later legislation ran its own education system.

But in 2007, as Labour’s popularity was declining in the UK generally, Labour lost its majority in the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish National Party’s Alex Salmond became chief minister. With a Scots Nats majority, Salmond pushed for the referendum and he got an apparently absent-minded Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to agree to terms favourable to the separatists: the 16-year-old vote, the exclusion of Scots in the military or otherwise living outside Scotland, the fact that a “yes” vote favours separation rather than continuation of a relationship that has produced one of the world’s greatest nations for 307 years.

Scottish independence advocates argue that an independent Scotland will be able to tax itself to its heart’s content and will be able to draw on endless North Sea oil revenues to pay for whatever level of social services and community provision Scots want. But that’s unlikely. North Sea oil production is declining, and a pro-independence vote would be followed by negotiations between England (or rUK, rest of United Kingdom, as some dub it) over the division of oil resources — and division of the national debt.

UK authorities have made it plain that Scotland is not welcome to retain the UK pound, and that if it does (as Panama and Ecuador have the U.S. dollar as their currency), Scottish financial institutions won’t get a bailout if they get into trouble. So it seems likely that the two major Scottish banks and other financial institutions will move their headquarters and legal residence to London if Scotland votes for independence.

The EU’s doctrine of ‘subsidiarity’ seems superficially pro-devolution and the Treaty of Maastricht created the ‘European Committee of the Regions’ to promote regional identities against national capitals. But what is the reality? Neither Spain nor France will permit the precedent of secessionists joining the EU. During the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, the European Commission said Scotland would not inherit the UK’s membership of the EU.

Brussels instinctively backed Madrid against Catalonia, prompting famous Breton musician Alan Stivell to lament “Catalonia’s political prisoners represents the suicide of the idea of Europe”. And the EU has a poor track record of looking after small states like Ireland. Brussels forced two ‘People’s Votes’ after Irish referendums went against the Nice and Lisbon treaties. The bail-out imposed on Irish taxpayers, politicisation of the Irish border and Corporation Tax harmonisation fuel rising Irish Euro-scepticism.

For all this politics are about passion and not reason, especially when you deal in mobilising (low information fed) populist sentiment.

This is why I fear that the economic arguments against Scottish independence, while strong on the merits, are less likely to be persuasive than an appeal to cosmopolitanism and history: the fact that Scotland, as part of the United Kingdom, has in many ways led the world over the last 307 years, intellectually in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century (which helped inspire America’s Founding Fathers), economically in the industrial revolution, politically in the British Empire and then the British Commonwealth of Nations. Scotland looms larger in the world as part of the UK than it would as a separate nation.

The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has the right and perhaps may even be right to hold a Scottish referendum in the near future, but she should not do so at the expense of her citizens’ prosperity. Once the ramifications of Brexit and voting to leave the UK are fully known, then Sturgeon could consider proposing another referendum.

But I hope the arguments against independence prove successful and that whenever Scotland has a second referendum the vast majority of Scots vote ’No’. And if or when that happens the Scots will cease to be transfixed by the idea of secession, as have voters in Canada’s Quebec. Casting aside a working relationship which has had such outstanding results for the (by no means assured) chance of a slightly higher-spending welfare state seems like a foolish idea.

I have argued with Scottish family and friends that Scottish independence would disturb our identities more profoundly, in ways that few yet grasp.

Our modern politics are Whiggish. Even the name “Whig” comes from the term “whiggamor” meaning a Scots cattle-driver. As someone who was raised High Tory values from an early age, I find that hard to concede but it’s painfully true certainly from the 17th and 18th Centuries onwards with the rise of parliamentary democracy. I suspect it’s even harder for Marxist inspired leftists to stomach given the socialist driven Labour Party have traditionally worked within Whiggish principles despite their fiery rhetoric being matched only by their incompetence to actually govern.

Whiggism favouring the theories and practices that evolved in the formation of the British constitution. But a lot of Whiggish ideas evolved out of High Toryism and so as a committed British royalist I have a strong attachment to the Anglican Church, and of course the British constitution is modelled upon and arose directly from Anglican theories of governance. But it is British, not English. Perhaps because her name begins with E, Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is sometimes thought of as an English monarch. But she is Elizabeth I of Scotland, of a German family introduced to rule in Britain not just in England. We have little, if any, reason to imagine that, absent the joining of crowns in 1603 or the Union of 1707, the constitution of England (or England and Wales) would have evolved remotely to resemble the British constitution as we have had it.

British Whiggism has not only slowly seeped into and eroded the ideological underpinnings of High Toryism (think of Thatcherism rather than Lord Salisbury) but it has also ben entrenching a Whiggish inspired constitution over the past 400 years or so. But if Scotland leaves, that constitution and its history are over. There is little reason at base to imagine an English-only constitution any more (or less) likely to evolve in a future direction I would favour than, say, a European constitution. If Britain is literally finished – if the Union is broken and our constitution is no more – why would an England-alone future be any better than, say, membership of the Single European State? England survived perfectly happily as a component of a larger Union within Britain. Why should it be any less content as part of a larger union in the EU Federation?

The reality is that despite the marginalising of High Toryism, it is the Conservative party as the party of Britain, that has been the inheritor of the Whiggish tradition and appointed protector of the Whiggish constitution. If Scotland leaves the Union the Conservative Party would be finished in its present form, because it would dominate England so overwhelmingly that it would inevitably split. To be sure, it would perhaps last two or three more General Elections, in which with huge majorities it would govern in England (Wales doubtless becoming semi-autonomous and Northern Ireland departing to join Scotland forthwith). But no party that won 75 per cent and more of the seats in the House of Commons could last for long. Our adversarial politics needs an opposition as well as a governing party. So the Conservative Party would split, perhaps into Tories and the rest.

This is why ironically I believe in Brexit even if our current crop of incompetent politicians are making a real dog’s dinner out of it.

Passions aside, for me Brexit is an opportunity to reboot unionism between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It may twitch my High Tory nerves a little but I am coming around to the view that Brexit, the biggest ever vote of confidence in the political project of the United Kingdom, is an opportunity to fashion a new unionism. This new unionism might well have a sharper focus on citizenship and rights but it might also trash the canard that Brexiteers are little Englanders. A clean Brexit can rejuvenate marginalised and fraying institutions that were once the bedrock of a collective national identity. But only if we re-orienteer ourselves and go back to the original principle that allegiances of Unionism are to institutions and symbols of nationhood and shared national values. If we can do that as a union then one might be able to capture a greater diversity that narrow nationalisms rather than widening them - under of course a unifying national figure of a monarch.

Even the most ardent of the free market Brexiteers will have to accept that the best one can hope for is a Unionism as the quintessential one nation politics. Here such Unionism acknowledges the reality of an inegalitarian society made up of people with different talents but tempered by roles and responsibilities that has an ingrained sense of a duty of care to others. But equally Unionism stands for equality amongst citizens governed by the same rules and respecting the authority of enduring institutions. All votes are of equal value in one of the world’s oldest and most successful democracies where MPs serve constituents rather than outside sectional or multi-national corporate interests.

Ironically then the best chance Scotland for its future is Brexit. Brexit will protect the Union that puts the ‘Great’ into Britain. Unionists can be confident we will stay better together in the good Union of the United Kingdom as we leave the bad union of the EU.

Thanks for your question.

#question #scottish independence #britain #scotland #union #brexit

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kalachand97-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Globeinfrom

New Post has been published on https://globeinform.com/funding-capital-allocated-to-property-is-developing-every-yr/

Funding capital allocated to property is developing every yr

The instantaneous aftermath of the Brexit vote hasn’t been as grim because it becomes initially feared, says Alistair Elliott, 55, senior partner and group chairman of actual property consultancy Knight Frank. Elliott, a lifelong supporter of the Chelsea Football Membership, attributes this to the resilience of the British financial system which has posted sturdy employment and GDP increase numbers in the final sector. In an interview with Forbes India, he, however, offers a phrase of warning: actual property is an extended-time period Investment and those looking to make a brief greenback shouldn’t bother investing in it. Edited excerpts:

Q. What has been Brexit’s impact on actual property within the United kingdom? The impact hasn’t been as dramatic or volatile as humans had anticipated. There has been a lot of hesitation in the run-as much as the vote, so the marketplace paused. As a result, the volumes are down and pricing is a touch off, but ever since the referendum vote changed into the cast, the momentum has been constructing gradually. I trust human beings have got renewed confidence within the United kingdom management. Distant places investors and domestic owners also appear to be re-attractive their hobby in the United kingdom market. And the authorities has now were given the authority it wishes to invoke Article 50 [Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty sets out how a European Union member nation can voluntarily leave the union]. We hope that the communique that comes out from the European and United kingdom authorities, as we undergo the process to depart the ECU, is clear and concise. What markets hate is uncertainty. And the United Kingdom has got reasonably robust GDP increase. So, for an outside observer, it is a superb time to shop for.

Q. How a lot of the momentum has been because of the depreciation of the pound? We’ll by no means realize the solution to that. One could imagine that if an Overseas buyer abruptly sees the powerful fee of assets down with the aid of 20 percent, he might be interested in it. So that’s helpful. Do I think that if the pound receives returned to it’s in advance position, Remote places call for will evaporate? No. That’s because the pound’s recuperation will reconfirm confidence inside the United kingdom typically.

Q. Folks who had bought earlier than Brexit can be down on the financial cost of their investments. might that now not have dented their confidence? It is able to have, however, allow me to say this about investing in real estate—it’s miles long-term and cyclical. Don’t put money into real estate in case you are questioning you can exit in brief order. That doesn’t manifest everywhere in the world.

Q. How a good deal of the confidence is due to the truth that international markets for all asset lessons have achieved nicely inside the remaining six months? It is a superb statement. The Investment capital allocated to property is growing each year. Its actions in special locations and at one-of-a-kind speeds, but the extent of the hobby is developing each 12 months. How plenty is because of sentiment and what sort of is due to the increase in capital allocated, we will in no way understand, but for the ones within the real property market, it’s far the mixture that is beneficial.

Q. was the month after the Brexit vote frightening for firms like Knight Frank? It was. Our investors were asking at what fee they could sell in the event that they had to promote fast, and what had been our views at the medium to long term. Retail budget is a small percent of the market, however, they needed to make certain they’d the price range to conform with redemption requests. What we were telling them didn’t be counted lots. but via December 2016, even those retail price range were getting high-quality inflows.

Q. What are worldwide high internet well worth individuals (HNIs) considering their real estate investments? The worldwide population is urbanising and key cities are expanding. Most people of mature real estate capital goes into the arena’s key cities. We’ve got visible very robust markets for residential and industrial [property] in Australia; in mainland China it’s for residential. There’s much less activity in Taipei, Tokyo and India, however India appears to have became a greater advantageous corner now and there seems to be more activity. I suppose that the overarching view is about sectors. There are demanding situations in retail that investors need to address. The pass from conventional brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce is producing a want for owners of purchasing centres to observe matters in a different way. Interim distribution and warehousing and logistics are becoming popular asset classes and that fashion will maintain. Metropolis living way there may be greater development of residential [property]. The mix of what that offers among luxurious and low cost and between for sale and rent will exchange.

Q. What is the extent of interest in warehousing from real property budget? The warehousing segment of the actual property market is still user-led, but builders and investors are taking a eager hobby. Etailers have particular necessities in terms of vicinity and specifications. We’ve seen positive net stores partnering with developers to make certain they get the right supply of their applicable markets.

Q. Even HNIs are far extra yield-hungry these days. Have you noticed this many of the investors you advocate? What you need to do is look at property as an asset class and compare it with the whole lot else. Fairly speaking, in an Investment-wealthy global, property stands to account properly as an asset elegance. The yields may be below stress nowadays, as compared to what they was once, however the yield spread is right if you are prepared to entertain more chance. They examine favourably than what you get in equities or bonds.

How belongings Fund buyers Can Fare Better Than actual estate builders

Are real estate builders disadvantaged relative to belongings fund buyers?

Maximum actual property are acting Higher than the volatile stock marketplace. but for some, property price range maintain greater appeal overdeveloped real estate.

since the monetary crisis of 2008, traders have soured on traditional investments due to elements of negative performance. As a substitute, they are turning closer to alternatives that consist of land investments and property price range. The reasons for this are effortlessly understood: The growing housing shortage inside the United kingdom portends correct close to- and mid-time period cost growth for all components of residential real estate, specially in mild of robust (7 consistent with cent in view that 2001) population boom.

Of direction, now not all actual estate is the same for investors. Within actual estate are surprisingly specific varieties of investments, constructed houses and uncooked land. a few buyers pick constructed properties or to invest in the developer who is managing the development and sale of houses and industrial systems. An choice to this is uncooked land, ripe for plan rezoning from, say, agricultural to residential-distinctive land.

Each have their deserves, of direction. however land Funding would possibly hold the advantage for at least three reasons:

• Adaptability to market wishes – raw land can be converted (pending approval of Nearby Planning Authority approvals, of course) to the use this is Most crucial to the Neighborhood economic system. This flexibility permits the land Investment fund to prepare parcels for what’s going to be wanted in a Distinctly short period of time. On already-built belongings, buyers have handiest What’s there except circumstances allow for the tremendous rate of demolition and rebuilding – which handiest rarely makes sense from an asset boom angle.

• less Funding in improvement (and related risks) – The growth-bust cycles of the past several many years remind us of the way one billion Pounds may be squandered as an alternative quick while a big belongings comes on-line at the perfect moment when nobody wishes it. See “Canary Wharf, Olympia & York” for a surprising instance of ways badly assets investments can fail.

• more liquidity (but nonetheless now not volatile) – Possibly the Achilles Heel of real land belongings is the illiquidity of land, with or without belongings. however land investments that at Maximum contain the mild infrastructure required of residential neighbourhoods (roads, sewers and other utilities) are plenty extra easily bought than property concerning structures. At the same time as that pales in assessment to real property Investment trusts for liquidity, actual property isn’t always nearly as concern to marketplace fluctuations as are REITs.

To be sure, Each traders in property price range and land investments generally tend to acquire asset increase in well-managed situations. but from land to belongings improvement, the direction is quicker. With a pro team of land Investment experts, a joint task partnership can pick out and manage houses for optimum fee appreciation and resale between 18 months and five years after acquisition.

All investments convey danger and need to be considered with regards to one’s complete portfolio of monetary contraptions. be sure to contact a private financial consultant earlier than embarking on any Investment.

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