21st Century Vision

The hawk of peace

The conflict in the Middle East is about as deeply entrenched and intractable as conflict gets. It is going to take a peacemaker of unparallelled skill, whose integrity and impartiality cannot be called into question by either side, to have any hope of sorting it out. So who are the Quartet sending? The man who started a war there, who lied to his own people and to Parliament in order to do so, and who has backed one side against the other consistently throughout his premiership. The ideal candidate!

We found out on July 7th 2005 what Muslim opinion thought of Tony Blair's Middle Eastern policy - they oppose it so vehemently that some of them are prepared to blow themselves up just to kill a few of his countrymen. How can anybody expect them to take this appointment as anything but (another) slap in the face?

Conflicts arise in many cases - and are prolonged in many more - because neither side listens to the complaints, legitimate or otherwise, of the other. The Palestinians are the very epitome of a people whose plight gets neither attention nor sympathy from the rest of the world. Their reaction is totally predictable. One cannot condone rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, but the anger and frustration which those attacks express is entirely understandable.

When South Africa practiced apartheid, the black population, angry, frustrated and oppressed, at least had the consolation of the moral support of most of the rest of the world. When Israel - of all nations - practices apartheid on the Palestinians, nobody seems to care; indeed, the Western governments have joined in, putting pressure on the Palestinians to negate the results of their own election (in the name of democracy!).

Blair's appointment will not only do no good; by reinforcing the sense of injustice of the Palestinians and increasing their sense that the world is against them it will make peace even more difficult to reach. The Israelis too will take it -correctly - as an endorsement of their policy of making Gaza and the West Bank into giant concentration camps.

The irony is that Blair is so delusional that he probably thinks he can bring peace as he did in Northern Ireland. Can we hope that his inevitable failure will cut through the fog to the extent that he will admit it, unlike Iraq? Who knows? If it were not for the tragedy his failure will represent I would add: Who cares?

Peacekeeping? Who cares?

Everyone will remember the UN peacekeepers killed in Lebanon last summer by Israeli fire after repeated and specific warnings to the Israeli military. Four weeks ago (28th May) we reported here on the international peacekeepers day ceremonies in New York, commemorating those who - including in the Lebanon case - lost their lives in 2006. And we noted that this was no small international commitment, with more than 100,000 peacekeepers operating in 115 countries.

You might think this vital contribution to world peace, often to the benefit of people whose lives have been torn apart by conflicts which threaten at any moment to re-ignite, would command universal respect and the material support of great nations. You might think that a major goal of diplomacy would be to create an environment in which peacekeepers and aid workers can go about their business with authority and respect. Think again.

Today in one more painful incident the deaths in a car bomb explosion of six Spanish army UNIFIL peacekeepers are reported from Northern Lebanon. Accusations are being levelled at Palestinian splinter groups, perhaps with an outlook similar to the militants who unforgivably destroyed the UN's Baghdad headquarters in 2003. If so, in the background is the perception that UN forces were last year sent in to achieve the neutralization of Hezbollah in South Lebanon which the Israelis had failed to achieve. And behind that is a deeper resentment at the unwillingness of UN member states to enforce their own security council resolutions and require Israel's withdrawal to its 1967 boundaries.

In a speech reported today in the Independent, Sir Mark Malloch-Brown, until recently UN deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan, puts the problem in a broader perspective. Triggered by 9/11, the Iraq invasion has undermined the legitimacy of UN personnel and humanitarian workers from Darfur and Colombia to Gaza. This comes "at the end of a process that has knocked humanitarian work off the straight and narrow of non-political impartial help". And he points out that "with Western support to Fatahland and a political-economic blockade of Hamastan, as one journalist put it, sides are being taken. The humanitarian effort is not neutral."

And it isn't just the politics. In our earlier blog we mentioned that the leading providers of UN peacekeepers were Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. One place they might be expected to serve is Darfur, where the Sudanese have agreed (Guardian, 19th June) to allow the deployment of a 20,000-strong UN and African Union hybrid force by next year. But at the same time the US Congress was warned that mounting US debts to the UN for peacekeeping operations were threatening the proposed Darfur and other deployments. As at June 2007 US arrears were $569m and anticipated to exceed $1bn by the end of the year. Bangladesh alone was said to be holding "a $77m unpaid invoice because donor nations, the US in particular, are not paying their bills in full".

Click here to read the Independent's report of Mark Malloch-Brown's speech

Halfway to nowhere

Last week we castigated the G8 leaders for not sticking to their promises. How about the rest of the world? Do they come out any better?

Back in 2000 the UN met in special session to decide what they were going to do about the perennial problem of global poverty. They came up with 8 Millennium Development Goals, to which virtually the whole world then signed up, to be achieved by 2015. We are now halfway to 2015, so it is a good time to examine how we are getting on. Since it is principally the G8 countries who need to be funding the global effort, it will come as no surprise in the light of last week's blogs that the answer is "not very well".

The UN has just brought out a new report on how Africa specifically is faring. It makes fairly depressing reading. On goal 1, for instance (halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day; halve the number who are hungry) the African poverty figure has declined only from 45.9% to 41.1%, while the absolute numbers have actually gone up marginally. Goal 2 (universal primary education) is a bit better: up from 57% to 70%, but whilst this is more encouraging than goal 1, it is still way off track for achieving 100% by 2015.

Progress towards the other 6 goals is similarly patchy and inadequate - I will leave you to read the reports if you want to know the gory details. If you want more information, there is another UN report, from last year, showing the progress the whole world is making towards the MDGs.

Which leaves us again, as with the G8, with the question: why do international leaders repeatedly promise high-sounding goals which they have no intention of trying to deliver? Is it because they think we won't notice? Is it because they think we don't care? (though if we really don't care, we won't be impressed by the promise) Is it just a special case of New Year's Resolution Syndrome, that they mean it at the time but it gets to be too much like hard work in the cold light of Jan 1st when the hangover kicks in? It's probably a mixture of all of those, but it is certainly profoundly depressing and frustrating for those of us who do care. Happy New Year.

Whose coup?

What happened in Gaza? Was this the final collapse of a society already fatally weakened by the politics of extremism, putting back the possibility of negotiations with Israel and with them the prospect of a Palestinian state for at least a generation, perhaps for ever? Or was it something altogether different, indeed a stiffening of the Palestinians' resolve, a mark of refusal to accept the meaningless terms offered them by Israel and the international community?

If we put this battle in a larger context we can see it as part of a well-established Middle Eastern pattern. It goes like this -

• First, popular forces in the Arab or Muslim world make a relatively democratic advance. It may be flawed, there may be excesses, some leaders may be vain demagogues, but they represent a reaction to the colonial domination of the past
• Then comes national humiliation as the West seeks to impose its will on the upstarts. The attack - wrapped in the flag of "democracy" -  may be military, political or economic, but the aims are the same: no one is allowed to close their door to the freedom of Western corporations to do business anywhere in the world, or to threaten the West's strategic interests. This stage in the process ends with the establishment of a proxy pro-Western regime
• Finally - and this always takes the West by surprise, believing as it does that all the world is secretly enraptured by its social model - there is a rebellion against the puppets and the establishment of a new order instantly dubbed "undemocratic" or "fundamentalist" by the West

Though it can take many years to play out, we have repeatedly seen this sequence. In Iran the democratically-elected Mossadegh government dared to nationalise the oil industry and in 1953 was overthrown by the West, leading eventually to the counter-overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic. In Afghanistan the relatively progressive governments bequeathed by the Soviet era were quickly and cynically destroyed by a manipulated insurgency. In this case the pro-Western successor regime never got off the ground, and the Taliban took over. Who would be bold enough to claim that after five years of warfare they are defeated today? In Iraq we see the same pattern. However brutal Iraqi Ba'athism had become under Saddam, it was still a relatively modernising regime. Despite embracing Saddam when he was a useful ally against Iran, the West finally decided to crush his tiresome independence by military means. The subsequent puppet regime has never really existed outside the Green Zone and the only question is whether it will be succeeded by Islamism or anarchy.

Against the trend a divided West failed to bring down Nasser in 1956 after his nationalisation of the Suez Canal, but later succeeded in establishing a client regime which - despite opposition routinely labelled "terrorist" - still persists.

In Palestine the progressive role fell to Fatah and the PLO. Though recognising the right of Israel to exist they were still repeatedly humiliated by the West. Inevitably their prestige eventually crumbled, and in January last year the people turned to Hamas. Islamist and sometimes obscurantist they may be, but they were seen to be honest and serious about the liberation struggle. In conflict with its democratic rhetoric the West refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the election and tried to set up what might be described as an instant puppet government under President Abbas. As always, they wanted to negotiate with partners of their own choosing. The violence of the last few days appears to be the working out of a predictable logic.

Click here to read Robert Fisk's analysis of the battle for Gaza

The G8 - an indictment

The blog of June 5th pointed out the many failings of the G8 as a decision-making body, with particular reference to keeping the peace. We have just come into possession of a speech by Stephen Lewis, until recently the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Africa on Aids and now a co-director of AIDS-free World, which analyses the performance of the G8 leaders at Heiligendamm vis-a-vis development in general and the Aids pandemic in Africa in particular.

It is a completely damning indictment of the hypocrisy of the world's "leaders" and their total lack of any moral sense whatsoever. Read it and weep. When you have dried your eyes, write to your MP/congressman/.... and demand some action. Millions are dying who don't have to, for want of a fraction of the money wasted on the ludicrous "war on terror". If we let them get away with this, we are complicit too.

This blog has commented before (March 22nd) on the Baha Mousa case. You may recall that he was tortured and beaten to death by British soldiers in Basra - I refer you to that earlier blog for a more detailed description - but the courts were unable to convict any individual soldiers of the crime.

The House of Lords ruled yesterday that the British Army has a duty of care towards anyone they detain anywhere in the world equal to that they must accord to any British citizen - the Human Rights Act applies. Once again the courts stand up for the individual against the overweening power of the government, which has the (currently rapidly increasing) tendency to assume that whatever it wants to do must be legal because it is the government. It is true that governments make the rules, but until they unmake them they must obey them, the same as anybody else.

The earlier court case established that abuse had gone on, but the army essentially said that they needed to be able to do that sort of thing in order to protect themselves in the reality of Iraq. The High Court ruling makes it clear that that attitude has no basis in law, while the steadily deteriorating situation in Basra demonstrates very clearly that it has no basis in practicality either. British troops used to get a fair degree of co-operation from the Iraqi population; now they are threatened on every side by insurgents and general hostility. Not all of the deterioration is down to the Baha Mousa case or to the treatment of Iraqi detainees generally, but it certainly hasn't helped. The British are now almost as hated as the Americans, and I can't blame the Iraqis for that. "If you want to win hearts and minds don't torture people" seems a simple enough lesson to learn.

It is all just another example of the Bush doctrine: we are the good guys, so anything we do to make sure we win is OK - the ends justify the means. Not when the means are an outright contradiction of the ends, they don't, let alone when the ends themselves are so dubious.

Fear is the key

According to the Enfield Advertiser, Hazel Blears, Labour Party chair and a contender for its deputy leadership, believes that Enfield Southgate can be won back for Labour at the next general election. It is on her "hit list" of ten seats which should never have been lost in 2005, and would contribute to the "increased majority" on the basis of which she believes her party can continue to rule Britain for the next few years.

Just a reminder as to why Labour can't forget Enfield Southgate: for many years it was a safe Tory seat, held by Anthony Berry until 1984 when he and others were murdered by an IRA bomb at the Brighton party conference. The by-election was won by a rising young Tory politician by the name of Michael Portillo. Famous for his ultra-Thatcherite loyalism - culminating in his leading the introduction of the poll tax - and then defence secretary in John Major's government, he was the victim of an emblematic defeat when in 1997 a rising young  New Labour politician by the name of Stephen Twigg ousted him to rapturous applause across the country.

Nothing stung the Blairite leadership more than to see the Portillo defeat reversed in 2005, when in his turn Twigg went down to rising young Tory politician David Burrowes.

And how does Ms Blears intend to win back this constituency in which I have lived for thirty-something years? It's simple:  all New Labour has to do is remain "in touch with the voters' concerns, such as housing, crime, anti-social behaviour and immigration".

Let's be charitable. Let's suppose the Enfield Advertiser missed some of the subtlety of Ms Blears' message. Even so - apart from housing, where in common with much of New Labour Britain the borough's homelessness record is appalling - this list reeks of the politics of fear: fear of the shadowy criminal, fear of young people, fear of foreigners.  And yet she appears to think this enough to bring us back to the party which protects lawless and corrupt corporations like BAE, which tolerates and facilitates the use of torture by its American ally and which treated the electorate with such insolence over the debates on Trident and nuclear power. Oh yes, and made systematically falsified claims to justify an Iraq war which has now wrecked our international reputation for decades to come.

And where are the references to constructive roles in Europe and at the UN and the citizenship ideals that go with them, or to our treaty obligations on asylum and nuclear non-proliferation? Where, indeed, is the reference to climate change and the difficult choices it will impose in the coming years? Does Ms Blears understand that Enfield well exemplifies the deep inequality of our society and its crises in health care and education? None of this counts, and she appears to think Enfield Southgate voters the playthings of phobic populism.

And oh, as for Ms Blears herself, as party chair she occupies the post that perhaps more than any other epitomises how far Labour has become a travesty of the democratic organization it once was. Up to 2001 party chair meant the elected chair of the National Executive, itself composed of representatives of all wings of the party. Then one fine day the prime minister claimed the right to appoint the party chair. Intoxicated by the electoral victory of 1997, and prepared to sacrifice any democratic principle to retain power, the party accepted that it was in effect the creation of the leadership, there to provide the appearance of a democratic movement. Labour died that day, and Hazel Blears - who wants my vote so this situation can continue - was one of those who stole its identity.

If I were you, I wouldn't start from here

The previous blog drew attention to the shortcomings of the G8 leaders currently meeting in Heiligendamm. It seems germane to ask how come it is those particular eight people who get to carve up the world between them.

How many Russians think that, of all their 141 million people, Vladimir Putin is the best man for the job? How many Americans think that of George Bush? Or Brits of Tony Blair? Blair and Bush's approval ratings are way down. Shinzo Abe of Japan isn't doing much better. Putin and Angela Merkel of Germany are riding high, and Nicolas Sarkozy has only just been elected, so his ratings are presumably still OK (though those that don't like him tend to be strongly against). Stephen Harper of Canada is also doing OK, but he leads a minority government, and the ratings reflect this. Romano Prodi is struggling a bit. It is also relevant to consider the popularity of these seven men and one woman in countries other than their own. Six of them are generally of little interest beyond their own borders, but Bush is hugely unpopular across the Muslim world and in South America, and only a little less so in Europe, while Blair is popular in the USA but also enjoys the hatred of many Muslims.

How does it come about, then, that these eight, none universally liked or trusted and some widely disliked and distrusted, come to rule the world? All are of course elected by their respective countrymen (and women); though Vladimir Putin is showing worrying signs of contempt for the democratic process, there is no doubt that his election represented the choice of the Russian people. But their choice was between a small number of largely self-selected candidates - as was the case for each of Mr Putin's G8 colleagues.

Is there a better way than democracy to pick our leaders? Nobody has yet come up with one, but democracy is so deeply, systemically flawed that it is hard to believe that human ingenuity cannot improve on it. The people who stand for election are, in general, those hungry for power - precisely the people you don't want to give it to. Once they are in power, most of their attention is focussed on staying there. That leads to short-termism, the most glaring example of which is the lamentable slowness to even notice, let alone tackle, global warming. Then there is the problem of funding - how, realistically, can we divorce donations to political parties from the decisions the leaders of those parties subsequently take?

I don't have any answers to these questions, merely frustration that the political process worldwide - or at least in those parts of the world where politicians are elected - is so snarled by the weaknesses of the system. How much better it would be if countries could be run by the people best qualified to do so, rather than the ones who most want to do so and happen to be good at speechmaking and soundbites.

What's happening to the G8?

The attentive tourist can still read on one of the eighteenth century buildings at the elegant resort of Heiligendamm on the German Baltic coast the faded legend "Karl Liebknecht Haus", in honour of the grand old man of German communism and a relic of the days when the town served as holiday accommodation in the German Democratic Republic. This week, deep in the pine forest and more especially behind a great many rolls of barbed wire, the leaders of the G8 meet there to ..., well to what exactly? Representing about 15% of the earth's population, but 65% of its GDP, the gathering has all the hallmarks of a cabal of the richest and most powerful countries on earth bent on agreeing an approach to global issues which suits them best.

Still, all is not well with the world super-elite.  With four UN Security Council vetoes between them, the right to appoint the heads of the World Bank and IMF in their pockets, and a dominant position in the World Trade Organization, you would imagine them lords of all they survey. And to that you have to add their collective control of 73% of the earth's annual military expenditure. How can there be anything beyond the grasp of these titans of the new world order?

Well the first thing they can't achieve is agreement among themselves. We're not talking here just about mundane things like fisheries policies or copyright regulations or international law enforcement, but about rather more fundamental matters. All eight countries - the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy and Canada, with the European Union in attendance - are capitalist powers, and yet there are major conflicts emerging between them. The US wants to buck the UN climate change control process by setting up its own forum consisting exclusively of heavy polluters. The future of the planet is at stake, but the US thinks first and foremost of the interests of its business class. Absurdly it emphasises carbon-efficient technology rather than a limit to carbon emissions (two efficient cars can emit more carbon than one inefficient car).

More remarkable still is that G8 members are engaging in nuclear manoeuvres against each other, with the US locating elements of its anti-missile system in Eastern Europe and Russia announcing that in response it will target European cities. But this is not a cold war between competing social systems, rather old-fashioned rivalry between capitalist powers.

Karl Liebknecht knew about resisting war hysteria: he was the only member of the Reichstag to vote against war credits in December 1914. He believed that peace was not safe in the hands of the leaders of great nations, and that ordinary people - those who would fight and die in any conflict - needed to take a hand. Looking at the threats to life on our planet today, might we not be tempted to think his conclusion still stands?