21st Century Vision

Whose country is it anyway?

The previous blog drew attention (amongst many other things) to David Cameron's retreat from Human Rights as rights one has simply as a result of being human, to the standard politician's position that rights are things people have as long as it is convenient for the government

One of the rights which, to my mind, should accrue to a person simply for being human is the right to freedom of movement. In this case it is a right which there is general agreement may be forfeited by anyone engaging in what is seen by society at the time as criminal activity, but with that caveat I think I would get a fair degree of agreement with the concept. Until I suggested that it should apply without regard to international borders, that is. Then I lose everyone who has ever participated in government in the last hundred years, or had serious ambitions to do so, and the majority of the general population. I certainly lose Mr Cameron, who suggested yesterday that too many immigrants had been allowed in by the Labour government, and that they were putting pressure on public services.

Glossing over for the moment that it is only the immigrants who keep the NHS afloat (albeit taking water and listing badly) it is certainly true that immigration puts pressure on services. They need somewhere to live, they want schools for their children and they sometimes get ill and need treatment. The Cameron viewpoint - and of course it's not just his - overlooks that the same was true in the countries they came from, and the services there were usually far less robust even than the poor old NHS; in some extreme cases they are virtually non-existent.

Also overlooked or downplayed (deliberately by some, one suspects, though I do not include Mr Cameron in that band) is the contribution they make to our economy. They earn the services they use, just the same as native Britons do (yes of course there are a few scroungers - on both sides). They help to provide the services in many cases - and not just the NHS. They generally do the dirty jobs that we no longer care for, now that our families haven't been immigrants for somewhere between a generation and several hundred years - virtually all of us are descended from immigrants, remember: Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans....up to the more recent arrivals from Africa, Asia or the Caribbean.

So what is the difference between a family born here, of which the adults work to earn their place in society, and a family born abroad who do the same? I can't see one. Critics sometimes say, laughably, that the country is 'full' and we cannot accommodate any more, but what it really boils down to (I know I am repeating myself from earlier blogs, but it's a statement that bears repetition, as it falls into a space of no agreement) is that we have a better life than they do and we aren't prepared to share.

Unfortunately for us on the liberal left, most of the world thinks that way and we have an uphill fight to change their minds. David Cameron knows that, and so do or did all those other politicians of the last hundred years.

Human rights at risk

Last February 19th we carried the bleak assessment of the global state of human rights contained in the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2007. How do things look six months later?

Amnesty International has just produced its own report on the state of human rights in China, a particularly sensitive issue in the run up to next year's Beijing Olympics. Of course it is true that the modern games with their emphasis on the purely physical side of human development sometimes seem to celebrate aims closer to those of stockbreeding than to the classical ideals of the healthy mind in the healthy body. Still, it is relevant to ask how the host country values the human individual. Amnesty finds -

• continued use of death sentences and executions for nonviolent crimes and ongoing failure to disclose national death penalty statistics
• Increased use of detention without trial to "clean up" Beijing ahead of the games, including "enforced drug rehabilitation" and the extension of categories of petty crime for which "re-education through labor" is applied
• Intensification of abuse against human rights activists in other parts of China, including the death of award-winning housing rights activist Chen Xiaoming in Shanghai on July 1st, shortly after his release from prison on medical parole with reports indicating that he was tortured in detention

There is much else. And since Amnesty's findings were published it has been reported that the wife of imprisoned blind campaigner against forced abortion Chen Guangcheng has been prevented from travelling to the Philippines to collect the 2007 Magsaysay Award - "Asia's Nobel Prize".

Meanwhile at the end of the recent meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization, grouping together China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the joint declaration, though strong on the rights of states to pursue their national interests within a UN framework, contained not a word on human rights. Indeed there was a veiled threat to freedom of communication through the internet where it was used for "purposes incompatible with the objectives of ensuring international stability and security", i.e when it doesn't suit us.

In Britain - one of the the first countries to sign the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights - David Cameron has reverted to a type he had been previously careful to avoid by calling for the repeal of the 1998 Human Rights Act and its replacement by a specifically British version - a route the Chinese and every other human rights abusing country would very much like to follow.

The general thesis of the Human Rights Watch report was that with the flagrant abuses committed by the Coalition in Iraq, the ongoing affront to legality and decency that is Guantanamo and the wider European complicity with "extraordinary rendition" and torture, there was now no powerful state capable of leading the demand for the observance of human rights. Cameron's attempt to pick and choose which rights he thinks Britain should accept adds to the downward spiral of credibility of the system as a whole.

It is now up to those who understand that human rights are universal principles to impose them again on governments and politicians who seem to have lost their way.

Click here for more details on Amnesty's report on human rights in China

Come back, global warming, all is forgiven!

As April, thinly disguised as August, draws to its damp conclusion, we have to wonder what happened to all this global warming we were promised?

We've got used to each year being the hottest since records began, so it's a bit of a shock to be wearing woolies in August and trying to remember the last time the thermometer struggled past 20 degrees. Even if the human race was headed for the end of the line, we thought that at least we were going to get some nice Mediterranean weather before the train hit the buffers! We've been robbed!

Of course there is the old saying, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get", and the British weather has never been predictable - February was lovely, I seem to recall. Throw in global warming (and remembering that it is also referred to, with good reason, as 'climate change') and everything's up for grabs...and just wait till the Gulf Stream gets turned off or rerouted.....

We are just getting a mild foretaste of what's in store for us when the change in global temperature is measured in whole degrees rather than just fractions. Floods? You ain't seen nothing yet - and that's without any appreciable sea-level rise. In fact we'll probably see worse as soon as this autumn, as the land is already soaked and the water tables high before the normal autumn rains set in (if they do!). It's going to take far less rain than usual to leave the ground soggy and to start the next round of flooding.

And in a few years time it might be droughts - who knows? Crops devastated? Normal for the time of year. Hurricanes on the news? What, again?

On second thoughts, there are worse things than having to dress up warm in August.

Flight to Freedom?

A couple of weeks ago (July 27th) we ridiculed BAA's attempt to injunct up to 5 million people from going anywhere near Heathrow with intent to protest. As we predicted, the judge declined to go along with such a ludicrously wide-ranging ban and cut it back to a few named individuals and the supporters of Plane Stupid, and to the area of the airport itself only. The Climate Camp went ahead and is in progress as I write.

It is therefore timely to consider the arguments about flying: is it a right which we should all be allowed to exercise if we can afford the fare, or do we need to put in place restrictions for the good of all?

Flying produces only a relatively small percentage of CO2 emissions, but at current predictions aircraft emissions will continue to increase steadily, even as other sources (hopefully) shrink. By 2050, aircraft emissions will take up every ounce of CO2 emissions which Britain should be permitting itself to produce if we are to do our share to stop global warming. Clearly either the airlines must be reined in in some fashion or we give up on curbing climate change. The latter is not an option - see our blog of April 19th if you have any doubts on that one.

The argument is often put forward by flying enthusiasts that the ability to travel quickly and cheaply to many different parts of the globe has broadened peoples' minds. This is surely right, and the general effect has undoubtedly been beneficial, but priorities alter cases. A conservationist, seeing a tiger about to spring at him, will shoot it even though he knows that tigers are in danger of extinction. So must we shoot down the cheap flights that threaten our existence as a species, even though they are, in educational terms, a Good Thing.

The other (similar) argument is that the working classes have only recently been able to afford holidays abroad, and now we are proposing to take them away from them while the rich will still be able to afford to fly. True, and unfortunate - but then, that's rather the point of being rich, isn't it? You can afford to do things that the poor can't. Why should flying be an exception? Only because of its mind-broadening properties, for which see above.

What it comes down to is that civilisation and perhaps even our survival as a species is at stake if we allow runaway global warming. Beside that everything else pales into insignificance. The only argument that could have any weight against that is this one: maybe the Earth would be better off without us. Poor old Gaia has been suffering a severe infestation and the only cure is a fever that will kill off the parasites. This argument has a lot going for it, but I am biased enough to dismiss it nevertheless.

So all power to the Climate Campers who are fighting a vital battle on behalf of all of us (even their opponents). More runways are the last things we need.

....and more good news

The announcement was unexpected, but nonetheless welcome: Britain has asked the USA to send us back five of the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay who were previously resident in Britain, though not UK nationals. They include Jamil el-Banna, who we had been steadfastly refusing to take back on the surreal grounds that his residence permit had run out while he sunned himself in Cuba. The immorality of this stance was worsened by the revelation that Mr El-Banna's arrest (for which read kidnap and illegal transportation) had been on account of his contacts with suspected terrorist Abu Qatada - contacts which he had made at the request of, and with the full knowledge of British Intelligence!

The other four, Shaker Aamer, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Abdennour Sameur were all from the Middle East or North Africa, and had been granted leave to stay in this country. All five have steadfastly maintained their innocence of any terrorist activity, and have reported being tortured - indeed, given all that we have heard about conditions in Guantánamo, it would be a surprise to discover that any of them had been treated correctly. That the US authorities are now apparently prepared to consider seriously their release lends credence to the pleas of innocence.

Indeed, there is some suspicion that the British request, welcome as it is, arises not so much from a rush of conscience to the head as from pressure from the Americans who want rid of their embarrassing prisoners but could find no country willing to take them. They have been heard to complain about a lack of co-operation from their European allies.

In rejoicing at the impending release of five probably innocent detainees let us not forget that they have suffered a monstrous injustice. Each of them was either kidnapped by US agents or arrested by the police of the country in which they happened to be and handed over without due process of extradition. Each was illegally transported across continents in one or more of the infamous 'extraordinary rendition' flights. Each has been held without charge or trial, in uncomfortable and degrading conditions. Each has suffered at the very least ill-treatment, if not outright torture by their captors. Each is now released (we hope - it hasn't actually happened yet) without apology or compensation. Jamil el-Banna has narrowly avoided being rejected by the country which had earlier given him refuge and where his family still live, and being sent back to Jordan where he could have expected further torture.

Rejoice at an end to a huge injustice, but let us not forget that it took place.

At last some good news

The picture shown here (taken from the front page of the Independent) is a drawing made by a traumatised Darfuri boy showing government forces attacking his village. It is one of 500 to be submitted to the International Criminal Court as proof of war crimes. There is an appropriateness about the agonised outpourings of war's chief victims being used to bring their assailants to justice.

Justice is still some way off, but it has finally begun to move closer with the decision to send a joint UN/African Union peacekeeping force of 26,000 to Darfur. Darfur is a big place, so even 26,000 will have their work cut out to cover everything that's going on, but at least it is a serious move in the right direction, and an unequivocal signal to Khartoum that their days of being able to ignore the strictures of the international community are over. A signal, too, to the dispossessed refugees huddled in their camps surrounded by Janjaweed that the world has finally taken notice of their plight and started to do something to help.

Not before time, of course. The genocide in Darfur has been going on since 2002, with a pattern of unprovoked attacks on villages - sometimes with air support - driving the surviving villagers into refugee camps which are essentially controlled by their enemies. Women have the choice of going out to gather firewood at the risk of rape and possibly murder, or seeing their families starve. The world has looked on, wrung its hands, even uttered the word 'genocide' (which governments are strangely reluctant to do normally) - but done nothing.

This blog is frequently critical of the British government's foreign policy, and no doubt we will have many future opportunities to criticise Gordon Brown's version, but he has certainly started off on the right foot here, with an impassioned speech to the UN helping to get action finally in train. Good on yer, Gordon - now see if you can keep it up.