11 February 1990.
A bit early but I might forget if I don’t post now, 11 February 1990 was the date of Nelson Mandela’s release after nearly three decades in prison.
Enjoy.
Racism in Italy.
I was just pointed towards this post, well worth a read, Roma is not just a city in Italy, it is an ethnicity:
“As for the persecution of the Roma people, the situation of Italy is emblematic: out of about 6,500 Romanian Roma present on Italian soil, over 3,000 of them are detained in prison. It is an astonishing figure and points to deep-rooted and ruthless discrimination. Over recent years EveryOne Group has prevented the unjust imprisonment of dozens of Roma citizens by simply contacting the lawyers and magistrates and supplying elements for their defence, something the Roma (used to a different kind of justice) fail to supply.”
Keeping Up With Gita Sahgal And Amnesty International.
When an event like this occurs it is often difficult to keep track of whose covering it and what are they saying.
Gita Sahgal has been incredibly brave, putting her own job on the line, how many people, in reality, would do that? Too few. Amnesty International’s despicable treatment of her and the wider implications need highlighting.
Thankfully there is a web site which is keeping track of these events, the media coverage and comments.
Please do visit Human Rights For All.
Update 1: The Women Against Fundamentalism site is here.
Update 2: Variant magazine’s interview with Gita Sahgal in 2002 can be found here.
Update 3: Rahila Gupta has a good piece in the Guardian:
“Within hours of the article appearing she was suspended from her job by Amnesty for, as Gita says in her statement, “trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty’s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially”. And for some hours yesterday, negative posts on Amnesty’s website were being filtered out.
We welcome whistleblowers when they expose wrongdoing in government or the corporate sector. This is not, technically, a case of whistleblowing because none of these activities were hidden – it was a failure to join the dots on the part of Amnesty about which a senior member of staff went public on principle.
Why should the third sector be immune from internal critics? It is a significant player in Britain: more people work in this sector than in banking, it influences the direction of government policy and public opinion, and consequently it should be held accountable like any other organisation. These debates need to be had in public rather than behind closed doors. Amnesty’s attempt to shut down the debate by using the same tactics as their opponents is shameful.”
Update 4: I forget if I gave this out before, but a reminder doesn’t hurt, the Facebook group Amnesty International You Bloody Hypocrites Reinstate Gita Sahgal has, of 3 minutes ago, some 716 members.
Update 5: BBC World Service Radio : Newshour speaks to Gita Sahgal.
Ben White And Dr. Tamimi.
A quick guest post from Anon:
“Ben White, having sought to ban Benny Morris is speaking alongside Azzam Tamimi giving A Brief History of Israel, on Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 19:00 – 21:00, Khalili Lecture Theatre, 10 Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1H 0XG at a SOAS Islamic Society event
Row over Cambridge University ‘hate speaker’
I take it Ben White is more happy with Tamimi’s plan to terrorise most Israeli Jews into leaving:
“First, there’s the demographics. The Israelis murder a father. But he has six to ten sons who replace him. Palestinians have large families, the Jews do not. And Israel is running out of Jews. They wanted to bring all the Jews of the world to Palestine. But no more Jews want to go to Palestine. Even the Russian Jews who came to Israel are still hoping to get to America. Now a large portion of Israelis have dual nationalities. Maybe a million Jews have dual Israeli-American citizenship. And a huge number of South African Jews hold two passports. They are ready to flee the Jewish state at any moment. They did not go there to live in constant conflict. For them, the Jewish state has become the most dangerous place in the world for a Jew. This will become increasingly apparent.
Essentialising negatively Zionism and Zionists, Israel and Israeli Jews (and this is one of his milder forays):
“is a constant reminder to the Palestinian people that the Zionist project is doomed. It’s a large—but cowardly—endeavor. The entire theft of a nation was a cowardly undertaking. What Jew can be proud of it? Already,” he adds, “we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the Zionist project.”
Never recognising any kind of Israel ever:
TIM SEBASTIAN: What – sit down with Hamas and Islamic Jihad?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: Yes, why not?
TIM SEBASTIAN: An organisation dedicated to their extinction – the Israelis should do that?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: They have to. They have no other option. When the British Government sat with the IRA and negotiated a peace agreement that’s the way forward.
This slogan ‘we don’t talk to terrorists’ is nonsense. They have to. They have to talk to … and the Palestinians are not terrorists. The Palestinians are the victims and if the Israelis want the way out they have no choice but to come and sit and talk without preconditions.
TIM SEBASTIAN: And you have no preconditions? Hamas has no preconditions? When I asked one of your spokesmen, Mahmoud al-Zahar a couple of years ago in Gaza and I asked him what it would take to stop the fighting he couldn’t give me a straight answer and in the end when I asked him a couple of times he said: I’m telling you frankly the attitude of Islam is not to accept a foreign state in this area. So he was ruling out the State of Israel in that area. You’re telling me he was wrong?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: No – if we want to stop the bloodshed …
TIM SEBASTIAN: Well you can you answer that question. No – this is important; this is an important issue here Dr al-Tamimi. What would it take to stop the fighting – the end of an Israeli State? Can Israel live side by side? Has Israel the right to exist?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: The current violence can be stopped without having to talk about the end of Israel.
TIM SEBASTIAN: Does Israel have the right to exist?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: No, as far as the Palestinian is concerned …
TIM SEBASTIAN: No?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: No – of course not. Of course not.
TIM SEBASTIAN: So what’s there to talk about then? Isn’t that a precondition?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: No, no, no ..
TIM SEBASTIAN: You said sit down with no preconditions. That’s a precondition …
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: You see, that’s blackmail. That’s blackmail.
TIM SEBASTIAN: What’s blackmail?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: This is what the Israelis and the American[s] are doing …
TIM SEBASTIAN: What’s blackmail?
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: They say to us: Unless you recognise Israel’s right to be in your house on your land we will not talk to you. We say to them …
TIM SEBASTIAN: I didn’t say that. I said ‘right to exist’:
DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: Israel has no right to exist in my home, on my father’s land – has no right to exist. It may exist despite me. It may exist because it is powerful, because it is supported by the Unites States of America but I will never as a Palestinian, I will never give legitimacy to a state that is created on land robbed from my father, from my grandfather and from my mother.
As for Morris’ ‘Muslim penetration into Europe’, Tamimi does want to Islamisize Europe, albeit peacefully, and spread the lie that ‘Zionists’ want to ‘destroy their (Muslims’) existence in Europe’, and that they with their ‘machinery’ persuaded the majority of Swiss to ban minarets. Not to mention his (racist?) generalisations about Europeans.
When Tamimi calls Freysinger the new Hitler, and adduces Zionist collaboration with Hitler, Freysinger politely reminds him that the first Palestinian national leader (and of Tamimi’s father the resistance fighter) was Hitler’s ally in the final solution:
I’d observe that, for all his calling Palestinian society ’sick’ (and I don’t see that White does anything substantially different with regard to Zionism and Israeli Jewish society), Morris does at least accept the principle of two states, unlike Tamini:
“Two states is the only solution with an element of justice,” Morris says. “But there are two other realistic solutions — one is that the Jews will kick out all the Arabs across the river, and the other is that the Arabs will throw the Jews into the sea. I’m not sure one of them won’t happen.”
That is also assumed in the other part to the quotation used by White but conspicuously omitted:
“True. But when one has to deal with a serial killer, it’s not so important to discover why he became a serial killer. What’s important is to imprison the murderer or to execute him.”
Explain the image: Who is the serial killer in the analogy?
What does that mean? What should we do tomorrow morning?
“We have to try to heal the Palestinians. Maybe over the years the establishment of a Palestinian state will help in the healing process. But in the meantime, until the medicine is found, they have to be contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us.”
To fence them in? To place them under closure?
“Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another.”
“The barbarians who want to take our lives. The people the Palestinian society sends to carry out the terrorist attacks, and in some way the Palestinian society itself as well. At the moment, that society is in the state of being a serial killer. It is a very sick society. It should be treated the way we treat individuals who are serial killers.”
What does that mean? What should we do tomorrow morning?
“We have to try to heal the Palestinians. Maybe over the years the establishment of a Palestinian state will help in the healing process. But in the meantime, until the medicine is found, they have to be contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us.”
To fence them in? To place them under closure?
“Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another.”
With regard to the second possibility adduced by Morris, Arabs’ driving Jews into the sea, Tamimi’s father was a fighter in the same national movement that sought the dispossession or elimination of Palestinian Jews. Just like the son does now.
Also, as a counterpoint to Morris’ ‘the Muslims are busy killing…in this part of the world’, Tamimi’s characterising Muslims as fighting imperialism, capitalism and America. That is also a form of essentialising Muslims and Islam as jihadis and jihad against America and the capitalist West (actually, of the 11 000 000 Muslims slain since 1948, most have been killed by other Muslims –you decide which is more accurate: Morris or Tamimi).
Update 1: A chunk of Morris’s statements were missing I have updated the post accordingly.
Update 2: Ops, it is Tuesday, not Monday. I have tidied up a few links, with the Hard Talk interview, you can see it for yourself.
Update 3: On JC’s blogs Richard Millett comments:
“As usual getting an appropriate answer was not so easy. But I asked Tamimi whether he wanted peace.
“I don’t want peace, I want justice,” he replied. Now isn’t that so telling. The whole world wants peace but Tamimi just wants justice.
Various parts of the political establishment suggest that we should talk to Hamas as it was democratically elected. But they make excuses for Hamas that even Hamas doesn’t ask for.
Tamimi is a self-declared representative of Hamas and if he says Hamas doesn’t want peace then who am I to argue with him? You heard it from the horses mouth.
Well, the whole world wants justice but it just isn’t going to happen.
Tamimi left the room to huge applause ringing in his ears while waving around the V sign to the room.”
Gita Sahgal’s Full Statement.
From the F Word:
“Amnesty International and Cageprisoners
Statement by Gita Sahgal
7 February 2010
This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.
Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the truth of others? For in defending the torture standard, one of the strongest and most embedded in international human rights law, Amnesty International has sanitized the history and politics of the ex-Guantanamo detainee, Moazzam Begg and completely failed to recognize the nature of his organisation Cageprisoners.
The tragedy here is that the necessary defence of the torture standard has been inexcusably allied to the political legitimization of individuals and organisations belonging to the Islamic Right.
I have always opposed the illegal detention and torture of Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay and during the so-called War on Terror. I have been horrified and appalled by the treatment of people like Moazzam Begg and I have personally told him so. I have vocally opposed attempts by governments to justify ‘torture lite’.
The issue is not about Moazzam Begg’s freedom of opinion, nor about his right to propound his views: he already exercises these rights fully as he should. The issue is a fundamental one about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination and fundamentally undermine the universality of human rights. I have raised this issue because of my firm belief in human rights for all.
I sent two memos to my management asking a series of questions about what considerations were given to the nature of the relationship with Moazzam Begg and his organisation, Cageprisoners. I have received no answer to my questions. There has been a history of warnings within Amnesty that it is inadvisable to partner with Begg. Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights. Many of my highly respected colleagues, each well-regarded in their area of expertise has said so. Each has been set aside.
As a result of my speaking to the Sunday Times, Amnesty International has announced that it has launched an internal inquiry. This is the moment to press for public answers, and to demonstrate that there is already a public demand including from Amnesty International members, to restore the integrity of the organisation and remind it of its fundamental principles.
I have been a human rights campaigner for over three decades, defending the rights of women and ethnic minorities, defending religious freedom and the rights of victims of torture, and campaigning against illegal detention and state repression. I have raised the issue of the association of Amnesty International with groups such as Begg’s consistently within the organisation. I have now been suspended for trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty’s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially.”
Amnesty International And Gita Sahgal.
Amnesty International do terrific work, but you get the impression sometimes that internally they’re playing games, games with people’s lives.
The appalling treatment of Gita Sahgal is one such example, Flesh is Grass highlights the issue:
“Amnesty International is one of the most serious and rigorous human rights agencies we have. I’m rooting for Amnesty.
I am deeply nervous about the way Amnesty is going.
They have suspended the head of their international secretariat’s gender union Gita Sahgal, ostensibly because of this interview with The Times. Sahgal objects to Amnesty’s involvement with the apologist for terror, Moazzam Begg, in the charity’s Counter Terror With Justice campaign.”
The Spittoon has more:
“Sahgal, a senior official at Amnesty International, has accused AI of legitimising the jihadist Moazzam Begg and his organisation Cage Prisoners. This is a hugely significant intervention which, we hope, will finally point much-needed spotlight on Amnesty’s continued patronisation of this known jihadist group and the activities of its directors.
Sahgal’s accusations are based on a fundamental point of principle, which is this: It is correct for Amnesty hold human rights positions on fair trial, torture, diplomatic assurances and work against renditions and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. However, these positions should also require us to hold salafi-jihadi groups and other religious absolutists accountable. Human rights abuses of torture, for example, should not be used to justify, legitimise and finally partner with proponents of violent jihad such as Moazzam Begg.”
Update 1: I’m still trying to make head or tails, of who said what and who believes what. This is not my subject area, so I am not terribly familiar with the various combatants, but David Aaronovitch adds some, How Amnesty chose the wrong poster-boy.
Update 2: I think this may have been the original contentious article at the Times.
Update 3: Paul Stott seems to know more than most on this topic, Amnesty International Begins To Wise Up To Moazzam Begg.
Update 4:Thanks to Stroppy for following events and highlighting how those people at Islamophobia Watch are now attacking women with the epithet of “nutty” and “cranks”.
You can’t get much lower politically than that, but I am sure the proprietors of Islamophobia Watch will try.
I think the comments by one of my readers, Leni, comes to the nub of the issue:
”The abysmal treatment of women is unquestionably of paramount importance – one that is too often subsumed into a more general political perspective – in simple terms one of ‘don’t rock the boat’. I am trying to separate the women’s issue from all others. Without the genuine liberation of women and until attitudes towards them are fully freed from outmoded and repressive thinking societies cannot themselves be free – children continue to suffer and girls are often denied education and individual autonomy from early childhood.
Challenging repressive ideologies which trap women in a subservient position is to challenge the whole society and the foundations on which it is built. External pressure will not succeed until the women within have the courage and the backing of enough men to guarantee that women will not suffer even more.
Western women , in the early days , were imprisoned and force fed when necessary – they were not in danger of being killed or whipped.
It is tragic that Ms, Saghal has been silenced – or that an attempt to silence her has been made – by an organisation which supports the liberation of women. We have a long way to go.” [My emphasis]
William A. White
As if more depressing news is required, just in from Canada:
“An American neo-Nazi who advocated killing an Ottawa activist and overthrowing the Canadian government by force has been acquitted of uttering threats.
William A. White was charged in 2008 after he wrote repeatedly on his website and in his magazine that Canadian human rights lawyer Richard Warman should be assassinated.
Apparently angry at Mr. Warman’s successful campaign against racist Internet sites, White called him an “enemy,” wrote that he “must be killed” and provided his home address.
A jury convicted White of threatening Mr. Warman but this week a U.S. District Court judge in Virginia overturned the verdict, ruling his actions did not amount to threats.
…
Mr. Warman has launched scores of human rights complaints and lawsuits over Internet postings, many of them by far-right extremists. His complaints have resulted in hefty fines but have made him a target.White, 69, who heads a Virginia neo-Nazi group, had also written that Canada was a “petty tyranny” and called for parliament to be stormed and the government executed. “Overthrown your government! Put your Jews to the sword,” he wrote. “
Unbelievable.
Bags Of Tardy Techie News, Tablets with Everything.
[I wrote this a few weeks ago, it really does need posting.]
I think 2010 could be the year of the Tablet/Ebook thingie.
Some history.
WebKit hacked for the better?
Lenovo Skylight and Snapdragon.
More on the Google Phone.
Someone likes SliTaz.
Philip K. Dick’s ghost haunts Google.
Sarkozy’s super phone.
Stronger Arm than Intel?
Mas vino?
The state of OLPC.
Who is really a Linux guru, not me for sure.
How toxic are those computing companies ? Greenpeace tells you.
The 2010 bug had Symantec stuck.
Ripping, which is best? I like grip.
Hackers and IE, reasons not to use it.
Sandwich attack on GSM.
Chrome beta, looking good.
19 inch paper.
Got Ubuntu? Want Firefox 3.6? There’s an answer, ubuntuzilla.
Apparently the British Government has unveiled a smart new system, under budget (not sure), but please do give it a whirl and let me know.
Microsoft show their natural speed, and fix a 17 year old bug.
Beer Rations – The Foundation Of Civilisation.
I have only managed to intermittently hear the History of the World in 100 objects, but when I do there is invariably something amusing and informative seeping out of apparently dry, uncooperative objects.
The recent episode on Radio Four, which covers a clay tablet from Mesopotamia, is marvellous for bringing out the history of these inanimate objects.
Do listen and find out how beer rations may be the foundation of civilisation as we know it.
The podcasts for the programme are here.
Update 1: There was a Culture Show Special on it too.
500 members?
I have no words for this:
“Police have launched an urgent investigation into a horrific Facebook group that gave graphic details of anti-Semitic incidents perpetrated by its members against Ilford’s Jewish community.
The group, created by a student at Loxford School of Science and Technology, attracted more than 500 members in two weeks following its launch last month and featured teenagers boasting about engaging in anti-Semitic behaviour.”
Record High.
The Press Association reports:
“More than 924 reports of bigoted violence and abuse were received last year by The Community Security Trust (CST).
The charity, which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, said the figures marked the worst year since records began in 1984. They included violent street attacks, arson, egg-throwing, racist graffiti, website hacking and hate mail.
…
The majority of incidents recorded by the CST, from violence to desecration of Jewish properties, took place in London (460), followed by Manchester (206), Hertfordshire (48) and Leeds (35).They included an incident in which a Jewish man driving an electric wheelchair was rammed by a car after leaving a synagogue. The driver shouted “Jew, Jew” at him but he escaped with minor injuries. In Yorkshire, strips of bacon were arranged in the shape of a star of David and stuck the fence of a home where a Jewish family lived with the word “Jewboy” written underneath. A 12-year-old girl, the only Jew at her school, was attacked by a mob of up to 20 fellow pupils who pulled her hair and chanted: “death to Jews, kill all Jews.” “
I can’t help thinking that the climate created by hostility to Israelis, everyday Israelis in terms of negative boycotts, pejorative language in the media and a decidedly unhealthy focus on one country in the Middle East, has contributed to racial attacks on Jews in Britain.
Those involved in campaigning against Israelis bear some responsibility for that climate of antagonism and the resultant racial violence.
Update 1: The CST blog reports on an extreme attack in Ilford, and figures for France, which have risen by 75%.
Update 2: Topically, students should read the CST guide, A Student’s Guide to Antisemitism on Campus [ A PDF download].
In fact, everyone should read it, as it is well written and easy to digest.
Update 3: Engage has good coverage, with Mark Gardner in the comments threads.
Update 4: If ever you wanted to see an indicator of social anti-Jewish racism on the web, then take a trip to the Comment is Free thread, which discusses the rise in physical attacks on Jews in Britain during 2009. It is on Britain’s leading liberal newspaper’s web site, the Guardian and yet its comments threads are littered with snide remarks about Jews and Israelis. Terrible. What an indictment.
The Guardian Censors Jews
Those concerned with freedom of speech and even the plain exchange of views in society should be alarmed at the Guardian’s treatment of Geoffrey Alderman:
“I can now reveal that, within days of the publication of my critique, I received an email from the Guardian telling me that, if I dared to continue writing for CiF Watch, I would no longer be able to contribute to CiF. It was, I was summarily warned, “an either/or choice”.
I can further reveal that I have now been placed on a special list of persons whose CiF comments will be reviewed in advance of their online publication.“
Ben White, David Irving, An Israeli And Oxbridge Types.
If you ever watch the Chariots of Fire film you will see an example of upper class English antisemitism, as John Gielgud’s character (the Master of Trinity) sneers at Harold Abraham’s use of a professional coach, and makes a few snide comments about “Hebrews”.
It’s not a big part of the film, but it does set the tone of how Jews have been seen by Oxbridge types over the years. Something to sneer at, something not quite “English” and it’s all done with impeccable accents and characteristic English understatement.
I can not say if that attitude is still prevalent amongst Oxbridge types, but the recent treatment of an Israeli historian suggests to me that might be the case.
Readers will remember how Oxford and Cambridge are famous for their debates, for inviting controversial figures and debating the issues of the day.
In 2007 the Hitler loving, David Irving, mainstay of the Holocaust denying circuit was down at Oxford. A year after that the dictator loving, George Galloway, was invited to speak at Trinity College, Cambridge.
There was no question of ever stopping Galloway from speaking, despite his fondness for Saddam Hussein, questionable performance on Big Brother and defence of the Iranians theocracy on his weekly PressTV show. No question whatsoever.
I am sure if we could look through the invitations sent out by the Oxbridge colleges then we might find any number of other unsavoury individuals, including Irving and Galloway, none of whom were stopped from giving their speeches.
None, that is, except an Israeli historian, Benny Morris.
There was a Facebook campaign to coercethe Cambridge University’s Israel Society and it seems to have worked, the event was cancelled. Whether or not there were any threats or intimidation I do not know, but I would not preclude it.
What I found rather interesting was the instigator of this open attack on freedom of speech, was not a firebrand graduate or a died-in-the-wool militant, rather it was our old friend, Ben White.
Readers will remember Ben White. He’s not very keen on Jews or Israelis having an opportunity to put their point of view, if it runs counter to his own.
Some may suggest that Ben White was being spiteful, inconsistent, non-Voltairian or just a small minded bigot.
I could not possibly comment, but when I see his name and remember his activities, I always think of Chariots of Fire.
Update 1:
From Facebook.
Sorry, if it wasn’t obvious but the creator of the Cambridge protests Islamophobia on campus was Ben White.
Update 2: Over at The Heathlander an interesting argument is posed:
“Firstly – and I apologise for spelling this out, but evidently some people have genuinely failed to grasp it – the right to “free speech” does not entail the right to a platform at the University of Cambridge to spout racist garbage. It certainly does not entail the right to invite an unabashed racist to speak at the University of Cambridge without provoking serious opposition from students who have to live with the consequences of an atmosphere poisoned by racism.“
Strong points, except that’s already happened a few times and it is Jewish students that have to live with the outcome of anti-Jewish racism, which is a consequence of the continued obsession with Jewish nationalism, otherwise known as Zionism.
We shouldn’t forget that in 2006, the Cambridge Union debated the motion “This House believes that Zionism is a danger to the Jewish people”.
I somehow feel that the welfare of Jews was not the uppermost sentiment here.
Over at the Electronic Intifada Ben White gloated in a rather predictable fashion. [Warning, linked to cache copy]
Cambridge has one rule when it comes to Jews and another for everyone else.
There is not the slightest concern that these motions, attitudes and the constant drip drip of Anti-Zionism do stir up anti-Jewish racism and put Jewish students and staff in a very difficult situation. No, there is no concern for their well-being.
Update 3: The Cambridge tab hasn’t fully researched their article, otherwise they would see that the creator of the Facebook group was not Jamie Stern-Weiner, but Ben White, as the screen shot above clearly shows. I have no doubt that Jamie Stern-Weiner did a lot of the leg work, presumably under White’s direction.
Update 4: There’s an article on JC and the debacle at Cambridge. Apparently as a result of attacks on him Benny Morris has been invited to lecture at the Department of Political and International Studies, with an expected larger audience.
Update 5: I am grateful to Seismic Shock and James Mendelsohn for reminding me of how intolerant Ben White is, when he has the opportunity to control the freedom of speech/expression of others. This is a good summary of his attitudes.
Update 6: Cambridge was not particularly concerned with the sensitivities of Jews when they invited Jean Marie Le Pen in 2003, even though they were well aware of how abhorrent it was:
”The university’s Jewish Society said Mr Le Pen’s invite was “offensive to all minority students in Cambridge and a danger to student security”.”
It still went ahead so you might conclude that Cambridge is happy to invite and pander to a French neofascist, with a history of antisemitism, but not a world-renowned Israeli scholar and historian, who happens to be Jewish.
Update 7: One of my eagle eyed readers, zkharya, spotted, this in the Varsity Magazine:
“Renowned Israeli historian and Cambridge alumnus Professor Benny Morris has condemned the decision to cancel his talk after accusations of “Islamophobia” were made.
Speaking to Varsity yesterday, Morris said, “I believe that the attempt by several Cambridge students and a lecturer to prevent me lecturing in Cambridge is a violation of basic rights of free speech – just as preventing publication of cartoons depicting Jesus, Moses or Mohammad are violations of free speech.”
Morris also criticised the Israel Society for caving to pressure and cancelling the talk. He said, “I think the Israel Society’s bowing to Muslim-Arab pressures to cancel the lecture was a terrible mistake, evidence of weakness and a bad precedent.” “
Update 8: Jpost has an article too, it remarks on the double standards applied at Cambridge.
Labour Video Of The Year.
Fancy yourself as another François Truffaut, Guy Richie or even Steven Spielberg (without the big budget)?
Then this is your chance, LabourStart is sponsoring a Labour Video of the Year competition, according to the site:
“open to trade unionists and film-makers from around the world.
Videos submitted must be on the web, and less than 10 minutes long. They must focus primarily on work, workers or worker’s issues.
You do not have to be the owner or producer of a video to nominate it.
Please submit your nominations before midnight GMT on 15 February 2010.
Our international panel of judges will prepare a shortlist, with voting expected to take place in March 2010.
Winners will be announced after two weeks of online voting and winning films will screened at the LabourStart conference in July 2010.
There will be prizes for the winning videos, to be announced soon.”
Dalai Lama And China.
[I wrote this a day or so ago and forgot to post it]
The Chinese government’s reaction to a proposed meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama is almost one of spitting blood. They have threatened some unnamed consequences if the meeting goes ahead.
What I thought was most interesting wasn’t the meeting itself or China’s reaction, which clearly was overkill, rather how a comparatively moderate individual figure, the Dalai Lama, is almost portrayed as a Baader-Meinhof psychopath, hell-bent on China’s destruction irrespective of the consequences.
That doesn’t seem to me to be a reasonable or accurate representation of his views. I could be wrong, and I confess I don’t follow his views that closely.
AS far as I can tell he holds very, very moderate views on Tibet, that it should still remain linked to China, but with the Tibetans actually running the country, as opposed to Beijing appointed Party Secretary. Nothing too radical there.
In fact, the Dalai Lama’s continued peaceful attitude towards China’s brutal occupation of Tibet is opposed by many Tibetans as inadequate, inappropriate and obviously not working.
Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama hasn’t recommended suicide bombings, random shootings or even murder of Chinese officials in Tibet, quite the opposite.
So it is all the bizarre that China’s government tries to depict his views as extreme, when they are clearly peaceful.
