21st Century Vision

Taking the bomb out of politics

What is the most significant issue facing this Parliament? Of course crime, NHS funding and road charging have their claims, but they seem relatively minor compared with the realisation that something fundamental has undermined the quality of our society - what some have called a "social recession". From this point of view - one backed by recent alarming data from UNICEF - we and our children find ourselves in a society coarsened by egotism, hedonism and greed. Soaring debt, casual violence and the flight from social commitment are all symptoms of a breakdown which just can't be ignored, not even by the House of Commons.

But the brute fact is that we don't get to address these issues at all without a democratic society able to set itself rational goals. That is something we won't have unless we deal with the yet more threatening challenge of climate change. Act too late, and the prospects for handling its consequences in something resembling a democratic framework start to dwindle. As sea levels rise, so do the chances of an authoritarian response; along with coastal erosion there is a likelihood of the erosion of parliamentary institutions and civil liberties.

Still, there is something just as - perhaps more - momentous facing this Parliament. As far as we know our planet is the sole base for intelligent life. OK, "astrobiology" calculates the odds on life having emerged elsewhere, and evolved to the point of consciousness, but it's all rather speculative. As far as we know, we are the only case, and that makes our survival a matter of truly universal significance. And as a species we do face threats, including a gamma ray burst in our region of the universe (about which we can do nothing) or an asteroid strike (about which we might be able to do something). There is however one threat about which it is possible for Parliament to do a great deal, and to do it within a short period of time, and that is the threat of self-inflicted nuclear extinction.

What Parliament could do is to reject the government's policy of committing the UK to a renewed Trident submarine-based ballistic missile system. Instead we could put our existing system on the table and live up to our commitments under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective methods relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control".

A White Paper was published in December and a decision is expected perhaps early next month. There is no doubt where the government's preferences lie, and the absence of any meaningful public debate is - to repeat a phrase from another blog - not so much a policy failure as a policy outcome. In the last few days Enfield Civil Society Forum (of which Enfield and the Barnets UNA is a part) has lobbied all the Enfield MPs on this most vital of issues. Did we change any minds? We don't know, but what we do know is that MPs respond to representations from constituents. Time is short. Email your MP today. Tell her or him what you think about extending our nuclear identity into an indefinite future.

And by the way, isn't there an irony in the fact that as we try to take guns out of urban youth culture in South London and other cities, our government is reaching for the biggest gun of all?

Read the government's White Paper
Read CND's Alternative White Paper

Cultural genocide

Continuing our occasional series on conflicts the world has forgotten we turn to Tibet. Maybe this is stretching things a little, as the gentle and statesmanlike Dalai Lama and the Free Tibet Campaign manage to keep the public at least minimally informed, but still it does not exactly rate highly on the political agenda. 'Conflict' is also a bit of a misnomer since, as with our earlier pieces on Western Sahara and West Papua, the conflict is entirely one-sided. The deeply-religious Buddhist Tibetans don't even try to fight back, except for a desperate uprising in 1959 and since then with civil disobedience, which they practice with exemplary courage.

The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, without the shadow of an excuse beyond the need (?) to bring communism to as much of the world as they could. Populated largely with monks and herdsmen Tibet was a pushover. Mao promised the Tibetans that the Chinese would leave once 'liberation' was completed ('Liberation' from what was never explained - there were no capitalists in Tibet). The promise of course was not kept, leading to that abortive uprising in 1959, in which an estimated 430,000 Tibetans were killed (the Chinese said 87,000). 100,000 more, including the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and (until 1950) temporal leader of Tibet, fled into exile in India. A further 340,000 died in the next few years as the economy, destabilised by the Chinese, collapsed and famines (previously unknown) hit the country.

The cultural revolution, also known euphemistically as the 'Great Leap Forward', did not spare Tibet. Thousands of monasteries were destroyed and tens of thousands of Tibetans ended up in Labour camps. The assault on Tibetan culture had begun, and continues unabated to this day, even though the political climate in China now is very different to what it was under Mao. Although destruction of monasteries has ceased - there are not very many left - persecution of monks and a general suppression of the Buddhist religion continues, particularly as monks and nuns tend to be the ones who most often perform acts of defiance. Their reward is usually a long prison sentence and brutal 're-education' amounting to endemic torture.

In 1995 the Panchen Lama, the second most holy man in the Tibetan Buddhist establishment, died. The child named by monks as his re-incarnation, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, disappeared together with his whole family and has never been seen again. The Chinese authorities declared another boy to be the Panchen Lama, and have kept him isolated ever since so he could be suitably brainwashed.

There has been a steady, officially encouraged influx of Han Chinese into the country, to the point where native Tibetans are now outnumbered in their own land. Chinese has replaced Tibetan as the official language.

Through all this the Tibetan people cling stubbornly to their traditions and beliefs. They refuse to let their culture die, although it gets harder all the time. The repression does not let up. The total death toll since 1950 is now estimated at 1.2 million. Just last November, a group of 40 or so Tibetans attempting to flee through the Nangpa La Pass to Nepal were fired on in full sight of climbers at the Everest Base Camp. At least two were killed, and the rest rounded up and (according to the testimony of one who subsequently made a successful escape) beaten and tortured over several days. Video footage of the shooting has circled the world to the embarrassment of the Chinese, so at least the deaths were not completely in vain.

There will be a march organised by the Free Tibet Campaign on Saturday March 10th, commemorating the 1959 uprising - see their website for details.

Just.Fair

How do you make the invisible glaringly obvious? Last night one method was put into highly effective practice by the Refugee Council in a "sleepout" in Parliament Square. "Asylum destitution? Can't see it, doesn't exist." False logic supports poor policy.

The government doesn't count the number of refused asylum seekers in the UK, but the Refugee Council thinks the best estimate is "tens of thousands". These are people whose applications have been refused and yet who cannot return to their country of origin because of fear of reprisals or because the original threat which led them to leave still exists. Almost everything about the popular media-fed image of people in this position is false. What proves it is the fact that to remain in this country they must endure social conditions not seen in Britain since before the Victorian poor law.

Destitution among refused asylum seekers is widespread and is having a devastating impact on already vulnerable individuals. The evidence for this is so strong that it must be regarded as beyond dispute. Quite apart from homelessness and lack of access to some NHS services, there is also strong evidence that desitution among asylum seekers is forcing people into dangerous and exploitative situations in order to survive.

The Refugee Council points out that "asylum seeker destitution is not a policy failure of the Home Office, it is a policy outcome".

In this situation refused asylum seekers are being supported around the country by friends, their communities, local groups, churches and charities. Last night - under the slogan Just.Fair - many from all these groups made the point by sleeping rough in Parliament Square, just across the road from a House of Commons which has moral responsibility for using destitution as a weapon to drive desperate people back into the threatening situations from which they have fled.

The photographs show students, campaigners and asylum seekers themselves from London, the North and the West united in resistance to the inhumanity of government policy. Some MPs and peers lent at least some support - the MP for Enfield Southgate emailed one sleeper that he felt "there should at least be scope for allowing asylum seekers to work in types of employment or be paid for community work when the application for asylum is delayed through no fault of the asylum seeker" - and many cars and lorries hooted encouragement as they swirled around the square.

As for the sleepers, they learnt if they did not already know what it is to spend the night on a pavement. Of course most would be going home to a comfortable bed and maybe a hot bath, not to an indeterminate prospect of rough sleeping or a shake down on a friend's floor. Last night there was only a light drizzle in Parliament Square but, even with the mildly soporific tones of Big Ben to keep them company, not many slept for more than a few fitful hours. Add life on the margins to the trauma of exile: an uncomfortable equation.

Contact the Refugee Council

Human Rights 2007

The following is an extract from the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2007, a bleak survey of the state of human rights worldwide today, and the prospects for enhancing respect for them

What government is today’s champion of human rights? Washington’s potentially powerful voice no longer resonates after the US government’s use of detention without trial and interrogation by torture. The administration of President George W. Bush can still promote “democracy”—the word it uses to avoid raising the thorny subject of human rights—but it cannot credibly advocate rights that it flouts.

As America’s influence wanes, China’s waxes. Yet China is hardly a leader on human rights. Its growing economic power has enhanced its global influence, but it remains at best indifferent to the human rights practices of others. Unwilling to permit political pluralism or the rule of law at home, Beijing pretends that human rights are an internal affair when dealing with others abroad.

Russia, with its internal crackdown on independent voices and its dirty war in Chechnya, is going down the same perverse path. Its goal seems to be rebuilding a sphere of influence, especially among the nations of the former Soviet Union, even if that means embracing tyrants and murderers. Attempting to deflect criticism, President Vladimir Putin went so far as to dismiss human rights as “artificial ‘standards.’”

In this bleak environment, the European Union and the world’s emerging democracies could provide potential sources of human rights leadership. Each has made important contributions, but none is performing with the consistency or effectiveness needed to fill the leadership void.

With Washington’s voice diminished, the European Union today should be the strongest and most effective defender of human rights. It is founded on human rights principles and aspires to greatness in global affairs. But as the EU grapples with its enlarged membership, it is punching well below its weight. Its effort to achieve consensus among its diverse members has become so laborious that it yields a faint shadow of its potential. Union was supposed to enhance Europe’s influence. Instead, when it comes to promoting human rights, the whole has been less than the sum of its parts.

The democracies of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, some long established but many new and insecure, have begun to stand up for human rights in certain international dealings. Despite moments of promise, however, these governments have yet to cooperate across regional boundaries to find an effective common voice. Too often, they show greater allegiance to their regional blocs than to their human rights ideals, greater solidarity with neighbouring dictators than with the people whose rights they have pledged to uphold. This tendency played a particularly pernicious role in the United Nations’ new Human Rights Council, which, far from improving on the discredited Commission on Human Rights, is threatening to repeat its disappointing ways, damaging the credibility of the entire UN system.

Click here to read the Human Rights Watch 2007 World Report in full

Ah! Now I understand!

The post below ("A new cold war?") has finally answered a question that has bedevilled me for some time: why on earth would our government be so keen to spend billions on replacing our nuclear submarines, when there are no conceivable enemies we might want to drop nuclear missiles on?

Now it's clear: Tony has discovered that George Bush is planning nuclear armaggedon and, knowing already the black-or-white nature of Bush's vision ("You're either for us or against us!"), is desperately scrambling to position himself on the winning side. It's the only way of securing his 'legacy', since history is always written by the winners.

Well, it's a theory, anyway. Can you do better? We have already surveyed the field for potential enemies who might be deterred by our possession of nuclear weapons (see post of Nov 30th, 2006) and found none. We concluded then that it was all down to a pathetic attempt to 'punch above our weight' on the world stage, and maybe that's it. Part of that would be that membership of the nuclear club was also one of the reasons the UK got one of the permanent seats on the UN Security Council, with veto powers. That's a position of genuine power that no politician will willingly give up - though the veto itself is a purely negative, spoiling power, which historically has been mainly used to defend the indefensible. Still, just being there on the Security Council gives the UK a lot more influence than it would otherwise have. Would we be thrown off if we gave up our nukes? I don't know, but the composition of the Council is under discussion (albeit only in the background) so I guess they're a useful bargaining chip.

There is a downside to all that posturing, though. While we're a 'major power', and particularly when we're the USA's major ally, we make ourselves a target for the fanatics, the disillusioned and the hopeless who see the world sliding into ever greater disparities of wealth and influence, with themselves on the wrong side of the divide. They want to hit back, and who can blame them? I get frustrated and upset by the disparities - and I'm on the right side of the divide.

If we were to spend all those billions (or even just some of them) on repairing the many wrongs in the world - providing education, clean water and sanitation for all, combatting Aids, TB and malaria, writing off unpayable debts - we wouldn't need to worry so much about who mught be making dark plots against us. The world becomes safer through becoming fairer, not through having bigger and better weapons than the other guy. Specially when the 'other guy' is a terrorist, and even more so if he's seeking martyrdom.

I'm not alone in these thoughts. A coalition of 100 leading figures today launched a campaign in the Independent against the replacement of Trident. I wish them luck, but Mr Blair is not easily deflected once he's made his mind up.

A new cold war?

Is a pattern emerging? Are we heading for a new cold war, only one perhaps more dangerous than the standoff we thought had ended in 1990? Let's put together some pieces of what is a very incomplete jigsaw -

• First, the short term: the Baker-Hamilton report recommended the US to engage with all interests in the Iraq conflict, with a view to winding down its commitment to military victory and the imposition of a government reflecting purely its own aims. The White House responded instead with a troop "surge"
• The drumbeat to extension of the Iraq war to Iran goes on, with US sources accusing the "highest levels" in Iran's government of supplying increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents. Meanwhile Russia openly provides Iran with military equipment and some diplomatic support
• In the longer term, Russia responds to the US decision to site elements of its missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland by announcing a sharp increase in military expenditure, notably on silo-based and mobile Topol-M ballistic missiles
• Part of the background to this decision may perhaps be found in an article from the authoritative US journal Foreign Affairs (see our blog, "Usable strategic nukes", 5th June 2006) arguing that with the decay of Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals, and technological advances in US capacity and deployment, the US was on the verge of nuclear supremacy. Missile defence, far from being intended to destroy incoming North Korean missiles, was there to mop up any residual Russian or Chinese nuclear capacity not destroyed in a US first strike
• On Saturday 10th February at a security conference in Munich, President Putin said: "the US has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure any more because nobody can hide behind international law. This is nourishing an arms race with countries seeking to obtain nuclear weapons... We're witnessing the untrammelled use of the military in international affairs... Why is it necessary to bomb and shoot at every opportunity?" And he asked "What is a unipolar world? However you try to wrap it up, it means a world with one centre of power, one monopoly of force and one master. It has nothing to do with democracy, which requires the majority to take into account the view of the minority"
• Last week the Pentagon announced the creation of a new military command: Africom. This is presented as a response to Chinese commercial expansion in Africa (see our blog "China scrambles for Africa", 26th June 2006), to the fact that the US is becoming increasingly dependent on West African oil and to heightened instability in the Horn of Africa. Is this another example of the militarisation of international relations?

So if the cold war was a standoff between two nuclear armed global adversaries who - because they could not directly attack each other - often fought out their differences in third countries, how does that differ from the situation we see emerging today? Certainly Russia has neither the might nor the ideological prestige of the Soviet Union, and no one is going to die for the beliefs of President Putin. But neocon America is also an ideological pariah, and that is one reason the new cold war is more dangerous than the last. Both sides lack resonance and legitimacy outside their borders, and often within. Whatever you think of them as men, Khrushchev and Kennedy stood for great ideas, about which there could be debate. Putin and Bush stand for powerful interests between which there can only be rivalry.

A global focus on Burma

Enfield and the Barnets UNA offers the opportunity to its partners within the Enfield Civil Society Forum to post entries on this blog. The entry below is posted by Enfield, Barnet and Palmers Green branch of Amnesty International.

Anyone who has not accidentally stumbled upon this site will already know a little bit about the poverty-stricken, dictatorial hell-hole that is Burma (or the "Union of Myanmar" as its ruling generals would prefer it to be called). So I will not bang on about how terrible the place is. There are some links at the end of this blog that can get you up to speed. Suffice to say that it has amongst the worst public health indicators in the world, and if you decide to go there and sing a pro-democracy song in the street, you should be prepared for 14 years, or longer in prison.

What I want to talk about instead is what can we do to help the Burmese people. Our local Amnesty Group is proposing a global day of action on 08/08/08. Now, I realise it may seem a little odd to be planning so far ahead, but remember, this is a global thing and will take some organising. And a benefit of a long build-up is that it gives a chance for pressure to grow as the date approaches.

So why 08/08/08? In the 1980s, increasing poverty and repression led to a growing democracy movement in Burma. This came to a head in the huge student demonstrations, famously held on 8th August 1988 (8/8/88). Thousands of peaceful demonstrators were slaughtered by the armed forces. (Members of our group were recently privileged to attend a meeting of the Islington AI group, where we met and heard the powerful, moving testimony of Ko Aung - an eye-witness to the massacres.) After the killing, the ruling Junta called elections, convinced it would win. It lost heavily, despite its scare tactics. However, it ignored the election results and increased its repression. The elected leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house arrest for most of the intervening years, with little practical help from the outside world.

So, 08/08/08 will be the 20th anniversary of the famous pro-democracy demonstrations. It seems like this date is a possibly unique opportunity to bring the world-wide multitude of pro-democracy Burma groups together in joint action. And if it's clear a long time in advance that there are going to be large-scale protests and demonstrations, not just against the Burmese generals but against our own elected leaders' ineffectual policies and against corporate collusion in Burma's massive Human Rights abuses, then whatever the outcome, at very least the Burmese people may gain some hope and courage from our show of solidarity.

So, with this in mind, our Amnesty group (Enfield, Barnet and Palmers Green) are proposing that Amnesty take a lead in bringing together groups across the country and across the world in a joint protest in time for 08/08/08. Our motion suggesting this action goes to Amnesty UK AGM in March, and if passed, hopefully on to the global Amnesty movement. (If you're a UK Amnesty member or group member you can attend the AGM and vote for the motion.)

Burma campaign groups sometimes differ in their opinions about how best to help the Burmese people. To engage economically, or to impose sanctions? Tourism or boycott? Reform the regime or overthrow it? Whatever the differences in these positions, all such groups have essentially the same long-term aim: peaceful democracy in Burma. Natural attention-focusing opportunities such as 08/08/08 come around very rarely. At such a time it is essential that all groups concerned with democracy in Burma express the common ground they share.

We cannot rely on our leaders to do this for us. It took till December 2005 for the UN Security Council to even get around to discussing Burma. Last month China and Russia vetoed the long-awaited Security Council resolution recommending tougher action on Burma, with South Africa also voting against. Self-interest is often more important to the leaders of the international community than promoting democracy. It's up to the real  International Community, us, to bring about change.

Democracy may not dawn in Burma on 08/08/08, but we can all do our bit to bring that day a bit closer. We can do it by taking part in something much bigger than ourselves - a global coming-together of like-minded souls, who refuse simply to wallow in our own good fortune, but choose to use some of our liberty to promote others'.

Whether it's letters to MPs and leaders, supporting Burmese aid groups, street protests, sending our support to Aung San Suu Kyi, calling for tougher UN action, lobbying companies, writing to the press - we can do something to bring nearer the change that so many died for on 8/8/88.

Glenn Bassett
Chair, Enfield, Barnet and Palmers Green AI group

Some resources -

AI 2006 report: http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/mmr-summary-eng
Burma Campaign UK: www.burmacampaign.org.uk
Charitable organisations: www.freesuukyi.org
Information and short video: www.witness.org
Brief history of Burma: http://www.burmaissues.org/En/facts.html
New Internationalist special Burma issue: (1996) http://www.newint.org/issue280/
New Statesman special issue article on Burma (August 2006) http://www.newstatesman.com/nslibrary?qs=Burma

Snow, snow, thick, thick snow

Enfield awoke this morning, as did much of the UK, to a blanket of snow thicker than we have seen for some years. Enjoy it, or let your kids enjoy it, while you/they can. Snow in any worthwhile depth anywhere south of the arctic circle is going to be getting rarer and rarer.

The recent IPCC report on climate change spelled it out clearly: climate change is happening, we're to blame, and the temperature is going to rise by somewhere upwards of 3 degrees this century. Given that each new report that comes out is not only more and more certain of the fact of climate change, but puts the likely temperature rise higher than the previous report did, this is pretty worrying.

3 degrees will polish off the Amazon rainforest, and the carbon released as that burns or decays will be worth another degree and a half. That starts to put us in the 'potential end of civilisation' range. Mark Lynas detailed what will happen with each degree rise in the Independent on Feb 3rd, and it makes terrifying reading. By the time he gets to +6.4 degrees the heading is 'most of life exterminated'. It is worth reiterating that the last time there was a fairly sudden rise of this magnitude, 250 million years ago, it triggered the 'Permian Extinction' in which 95% of species winked out of existence and the land was left as the sole preserve of just one (one!!) decent-sized animal.

It is clear, scanning the newspapers, that there are a lot of people who have not yet 'got' just how dangerous climate change is. Even if we exclude the retired colonels writing to the Daily Telegraph about how it's all just an excuse for the government to impose Green taxes (as if they needed an excuse!), much even of the thoughtful commentary is on the costs of tackling the problem, and whether it might be a better idea to just try to live with it. Mark Lynas' analysis makes it pretty clear that that is not a viable option!

I suppose it is early days yet. That may sound strange given that some dedicated environmentalists have been banging on about global warming for 30 years, but in terms of the attention of the masses being drawn to the issue, it is only a matter of months since serious discussion started. We've moved quite a long way in that period, so maybe there is still hope that we will get to "we've got to do something about this quick!" before it is too late. The scientific consensus seems to be that we have ten years - but that's what they were saying two years ago.

So while your kids are out enjoying the snow, time for you to be thinking about what you need to do to ensure there's still a habitable planet for them when they get old. Don't take too long.

History goes on

We have got used to criticising the neocon US, and calling for British disengagement from its aggressive unilateralism. But what do we actually want to put in its place? And how, realistically, do we propose to go about achieving it?

In a new book* Hubert Védrine, foreign minister in the French government of Lionel Jospin from 1997-2002, gives Europeans (and more so the French: but they will answer for themselves) a severe examination, starting from two painful observations. The first is that far from opposing the aims of the neocons, European liberalism supports most of them, rejecting only the means employed by the Americans. Briefly forgotten after decolonisation, the right and duty to intervene in the interests of "civilization" is once again de mise. Second, we should not be too hasty in dismissing Huntington's "clash of civilizations". The threat is real, and can't be wished away by talk of multiple identities.

Indeed we Western idealists delude ourselves if we think we can preach democracy and human rights to the rest of the world. We have too often contradicted our own principles for that. Nor should we imagine that international civil society provides an easy means of achieving harmony and development in the world. Civil society is ill-defined and internally fractured, and where are its democratic credentials?

Védrine sums up: "right-thinking, well intentioned, hegemonic, paternalistic, self-assured Western universalism, fuddled by its naive refusal to accept the inevitability of power, has collided with the realities."

He's talking about us!

At the core of these realities is the dominance of an increasingly unequal global market impatient of all regulation and dismissive of the state, which promises benefits to the consumer but never calculates the loss to the citizen in terms of democratic control.

But to think that international institutions - the UN, the European Union, a vaguely conceived "multilateralism" - can bridle the market is a further illusion. What has the UN actually delivered in ten years: multilateral co-operation between states hollowed out by market forces and which have lost power to unaccountable international agencies merely displays their shared impotence.

So what remains? For Védrine the bedrock of the international system is precisely the state, the hard power without which soft power is impossible. Against Fukuyama, history has not ended with the victory of global capitalism, and the state emerges with a crucial role to play. But of course he doesn't mean any sort of state: "it's a question of modern, reformed, effective states, concentrating on their real functions, and all engaged in a process of democratisation. It's essential to understand that we can't delegate to the 'international community', the UN or any other form of Providence".

Therein lies the problem of Védrine's analysis: how do you get these rather angelic states?

But that doesn't remove the sting from his critique of international idealism. If "another world is possible", perhaps strong but democratic states are an indispensable means towards it.

* Continuer l'Histoire (Fayard 2007)