Profile in Courage or not

Well the news has come through, Gordon Brown has postponed the election we were apparantly going to have. It seems that Mr Brown feels that he can't win- surveys and polls conducted in marginals over the weekend have convinced him of that. But lets be frank, there is in my opinion massive damage to Mr Brown's reputation. For a start, throughout his career Mr Brown has shown a talent for hesitating and not plunging the knife in- he could have stood for the Labour leadership in 1992, in 1994 and could have unseated Mr Blair as well at various points, but he never did. He backed off at every possible opportunity. Well he has backed off again.

The other problem is that Mr Brown now has to govern. That shouldn't be a problem. But at the moment the economic situation is benign, public services are ok etc. Were the economic situation to get worse then Mr Brown would lose in the polls. Furthermore public service expenditure is going to slow by all projections which means there won't be much improvement across the next couple of years, again for Mr Brown that won't be good in the polls. Mr Brown seems to me to be relying on something turning up- but I can't see that at the moment, the economy and the country are in places where what turns up will be good for him. Apart that is from the inevitable two issues- terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are quite unpredictable in their impact. Politics as Harold Macmillan said is about 'events, dear boy, events': there will be lots of events before an election in 2009 which may occur against the backdrop of a recession.

Mr Brown has advertised his own preference to have an election now, he has backed out because he thought he might lose. By taking his troops right to the brink of battle and then skulking away, the Prime Minister has displayed a very public loss of nerve. A public loss of nerve that isn't exactly going to endear him to the population at large or indeed to his own party, used to the adroit handling of Mr Blair who when it came to this kind of thing was viciously clinical.

Obviously Mr Brown can dig himself out of this, but this decision is unwise and caps a bad week for the new Prime Minister.

Gingerbread men doing the Haka

As its the Rugby world cup, and given my All Black genes, this was too good not to post it to this blog- for those illiterates from across the oceans its the traditional Maori dance the Haka which the All Blacks (New Zealand's rugby team) do before every Rugby game- but with a difference its performed by Gingerbread men!

Hat tip to Mr Cole for discovering it.

Control: A Biopic of Ian Curtis

Control is a film about the lead singer in one of the greatest bands that Britain has ever produced, Joy Division.They stand as one of the better bands between the Beatles and later bands like Nirvana. They also were crucial to the development of the music scene in Manchester, a scene which later produced bands like the Stone Roses and of course Oasis. Their reputation is founded on their two albums, Closer and Unknown Pleasures, on numerous live nights in the clubs of the North West and on singles released in the early eighties. And much of their reputation comes down to the haunting voice and disturbing lyrics of their singer song-writer, Ian Curtis. Their career as a band was so short, because Curtis committed suicide aged only 23 in 1980. The band reformed as New Order without him and went in different directions, but one wonders what would have happened had Curtis had more years to explore musically.

Control documents Curtis's life, from being a teenager in Macclesfield during the early seventies to the first successes with Joy Division, through his young marriage to Debbie Curtis and his affair with the Belgian embassy worker (and part time journalist) Annik Honore, and right up till his eventual suicide. Throughout the movie runs the music, it opens with love will tear us apart one of Joy Division's great songs. This is a film where every sentence is uttered to the backdrop of a guitar chord, where you see and smell the inside of the northern clubs in which Joy Division came to prominence- particularly of course the Factory, managed by Tony Wilson.

If Curtis's life is the subject, then the north west of England in the seventies is the backdrop against which we see that subject. It is the fourth most important character in the story: the other members of Joy Division, their manager Rob Gretton, Tony Wilson and the rest are all shown as the Mancunian context in which Curtis lived. He lived in a society filled with a kind of grim humour- sarcasm and insult abounds. The audience of film critics at the screening I went to found the first half of the film filled with jokes. There are some wonderful moments of humour. Corbijn has captured the peculiar inarticulateness of English life- where gesture becomes infused with all kinds of meaning. Like Atonement, the recent Joe Wright film of Ian McEwan's novel, this is a film about English privacy and the humour and distress which results from it.

For Curtis's life is still veiled in mystery. So quiet did he keep his concerns- he suffered from epilepsy without any of his bandmates knowing until he had a fit right in front of them. He seems in the film to be almost incapable of saying what he means. At times he stands still and silent, exasperating by never explaining what he means. Sam Riley plays Curtis incredibly well. He captures the reticence and the charisma which existed together. Curtis expressed himself through his music- and in notebooks crowded with jottings about songs and poems to be sung, even in one case a notebook with novel scrawled on the title page. Curtis died though not because of privacy. The society that he lived in was one where privacy was valued more than anything else and not all committed suicide. Quite why he died, remains in real life a mystery to most. In the film though an explanation of sorts is given. Curtis was trapped in a marriage conducted far too early in his life. Samantha Morton plays the part of Debbie Curtis brilliantly. The strongest character in the film, Debbie seems at the beginning to be the very definition of a wet blanket. She agrees to everything that Curtis says- whether its getting married or having a kid. But there is something truly resilient about Debbie, at the end of the film you know that she, unlike him, is a survivor, she can endure. Debbie grows far more than Ian in the film, far more than him she appreciates the ordinary things of life and far more than him is connected to them.

Curtis was, by the film's account, an appalling husband. He was unable to repay Debbie. Locked in his own world of creativity, he refused at times to even answer her when she knocked on the door of his room, refused even to climb the stairs to go to bed with her. He is so self focused, that at one point he even asks her whether she wants to sleep with other men. There are enough indications in the film to demonstrate that Curtis by the end found that he was dependent on Debbie but not attracted to her. Rather everything romantic in his nature went out to his Belgian girlfriend Annik. Annik is in this film played as a beautiful and intelligent fantasy for Curtis. Their relationship was never entirely real- but there is no question that Annik attracted him. She is presented at first as a vision off the centre of the camera and in many ways that is what she remains.

Alongside this there is Curtis's worsening epilepsy. Curtis the film implies suffered from degenerating epilepsy. He was frightened of holding his own baby in case he might have a fit and collapse. The drugs he took to help him destabilised his mind and contributed to his inability to cope, to his suicide. We see how towards the end Curtis was unable to appear on stage. He suffered fits whilst playing his music. The music became quite disturbing- listen to a song like 'She's losing control' about a girl who had an epileptic fit in front of him at the employment agency in which he worked and you can hear it. Curtis was also losing control of his own life: right up until very late he worked at the employment exchange in Manchester but was increasingly unable to work there, finding it difficult to stay awake on the job because of the cocktail of drugs that he was taking and the insomnia they induced.

Corbijn manages to capture that for you on screen. The black and white cinematography starts off being a picture of the grim streets of the north west, bereft at the time that Curtis grew up of excitement for him. But by the end the black and white screen mirrors in its unreality the pain of Curtis's existence. The way that his life itself was spinning out of reality. The way that he thought that there was no escape from his illness, from his marriage and his affair (where he wanted two women, one for dependence, one for love) and was tempted by the romantic possibility of killing himself. The film ends in a cacophony of song and story, as Curtis commits suicide offstage.

The camera pans away from Curtis at the end, we don't see the suicide, rather we see its consequences. The film ends on a wrenching scream, the screams of those left behind to work out the meaning of this tragic death.

Control comes out in the UK on 5th October, review crossposted from Bits of News.

Website Fun

Two mates of mine run an advertising agency called Nonsense- anyway they're just setting up a website and want people to vote on various different designs (bit of a gimmick). The designs are all cool- so it might be worth your while just to go and have a look and vote. The website is over here and well worth a look for all interested in internet design.

Boris

James has just reminded me that Boris Johnson is running for Mayor of London with this post of effusive praise. Having read what James said, I think its time for something else to have an airing, because James didn't comment on how good Johnson was as a footballer. Whether you like football or not, just take a look at Boris's approach to tackling...

Its a wonder he isn't playing for England!

My Influences

Dave Cole has asked me to write about the five people who have most influenced my politics during my lifetime. That's not as easy a question as it seems. I have decided to leave out personal influences- partly because it would be hard to decide between individuals, partly because I don't want people to be associated without their permission with my views and partly just because it might get too pious. I have been influenced by tons of people through my life- my father and mother, uncle, brother, several of my friends (who know who they are), teachers both at school, at Oxford and Cambridge and even bloggers have influenced the way I think. But for this exercise I want to concentrate particularly on people I have never met. This is not a list of the most intelligent people I have ever read, but of the people who influenced my intellectual growth most and many of the insights I drew from them may well be inaccurate understandings of their work.

Anyway here is the list for interest's sake:

1. Edward Gibbon

I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall for the first time when I was 15, I return to it all the time. He nourished my development as a historian. Gibbon had this stunning perception of the world as a whole- his history is vast. It is 3,000 pages long in my edition, it covers over a thousand years of history (from c. 180AD to 1453AD) and it describes the fall of the West Roman Empire, the fall of the East Roman Empire, the emergeance of the Western European state system, the rise of Islam, the Hunnic invasions and their roots on the borders of China, Roman Philosophy, Theological disputes in early Christianity (its still the main thing I have read on the Arians and Athanasians) and the decline of a republic into a despotism. Gibbon awoke in me a respect for the ancient world, I have never quite lost, a respect for republicanism not just as a political philosophy but as a way of living soberly and sensibly and rationally.

2. Isaiah Berlin

Berlin was someone I discovered when I was 17. Listening to a radio program, I heard him interviewed by Michael Ignatieff. Having heard him, I went out the next day and bought every single one of his books that I could find. Berlin stood and stands for me in part as a representative of a culture which I aspire to. As a fellow of All Souls in the 1930s he was involved in political, philosophical and literary conversation. He read and knew Boris Pasternak, John Austin and Felix Frankfurter. As important as that diverse intellectual social life was to me, it was Berlin's celebration in his work of pluralism that I learnt most from. For Berlin didn't believe at all in planning or utopia- Berlin's arguments were concerned with defending the individuality of human beings and the fact that moral choices were never easily reduced to a right or wrong answer. Rather Berlin argued that morality boils down to tragedy more often than not- for example the tragedy of government reducing freedom or allowing the poor to starve. Berlin's pluralism which acknowledged that tragedy is a political philosophy which deeply appeals to me.

3. Friederich Hayek

Hayek like Berlin was thoroughly aware of the evils that totalitarianism stimulated. He was the thinker that dominated my thoughts as a teenager and some of the habits I acquired then have continued till now. Hayek was the apostle of free market Capitalism, he argued for it both economically and philosophically. Hayek's intellectual legacy to me is twofold. Firstly he established for me that knowledge and the incapacity to know certain facts is at the centre of economics. The market is ultimately a device for ensuring the distribution of knowledge about demand through the system. It works better in Hayek's view than a planned economy because no planner can know the preferences of those he plans for in the way that the market can indicate. The second thing that Hayek was centrally interested in was liberty. Hayek had a very simple theory of liberty- but it is a defensible one. He was very worried about the extra-legal powers that governments might create- particularly for themselves. Hayek saw the rule of law as a concept which bound the state to treat itself as it treated those under it. I am not a Hayekian but I am sceptical of state power for reasons that he taught me.

4. Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes is a thinker I discovered at University. During my first year at Oxford I studied the Theories of State paper- and was told to read Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx. I had already read Aristotle on politics and some Rousseau. But what I read of Hobbes blew me away and during the rest of my degree at Oxford, I spent my time digesting what I had read in that week of the first year. Hobbes's model of politics which sees it as an arena of conflict between people pursuing their selfish desires and that the ultimate aim is a negative one- the provision of peace- has influenced my thinking in all kinds of ways. More than anyone I had come across previously Hobbes provided me with a model of how the state works, why things happen the way that they do and so on. His geometrical approach- where political theory is seen as the addition and subtraction of names from each other- is one that holds attractions for me as well. From Hobbes I learnt the importance of order and the importance of the state.

5. George Orwell

Before I went to Oxford I was told to read Orwell's essays. Whilst there I was frequently instructed by tutors to read and reread them- particularly his wonderful essay on politics and language. I admire most of Orwell's books- Burmese Days for example is amongst the best anti-colonialist writing- some of the novels lack a little inspiration. I suppose from Orwell though I take the idea of a non-communist left. In Down and Out in Paris and London (written whilst Orwell himself decided to spend a couple of years living as a beggar on the streets) Orwell documented in terrifying detail the experience of living in absolute poverty. This book more than any other shocked me out of my complacency and made me want to do something for the poor and dispossessed of the world- its a book I read regularly in order that I remember what kind of fate can await those who fall to the bottom end of society. In 1984 (which I think is his finest acheivement) he demonstrates to me the futility of the idea of the general will (Rousseau and Marx's way out of the misery of capitalism) by suggesting that it destroys human individuality. It demands that Winston Smith believe that 2 and 2 equal five because that is what the state says it equals. In those two books, Orwell lays out both why I think that it is essential to be in favour of moderating the market and why it is essential to be against Communist ideas.

Obviously this list is incomplete. Looking back at it, there are people who have influenced the way I think about politics as well as my political ideas. I would add some to this list that I have left off (Umberto Eco springs to mind for his wonderful destruction of conspiracy theories in the novel Foucault's Pendulum, Spinoza the great atheist philosopher of the seventeenth century, some of the people my PhD is about particularly Henry Ireton and their conception of liberty as a defence of the right of conscience to express itself and Peter Kropotkin the Russian anarchist all spring to mind as well). This is not a complete list- nor is it a list I would necessarily agree with tommorrow- but it is definitely a list of people worth reading. I don't agree with everything they say but the five men (unfortunately no women) here have been formative influences on my political thinking- they are all worth reading- why don't you, instead of reading my blog tommorrow- pick up one of them and see what you think!

I suppose I had better pass this on- but I'm not too disposed to overtly do it. So anyone who comes along consider yourself tagged. There are plenty of people who I would love to hear from and whose blogs I respect- you know who you are- so go out and write about your five political influences.

Sex or Violence

Mona Charen thinks Hollywood is wrong to worry about sex more than violence in films. Thinking about my own emotional reaction, and I can't speak either for kids or for others, its violence in films that really provokes an emotional response in me. I can't speak for others- but I have this tendency to empathise with the victim, especially if its a character that I've grown across the film to know. That's why the most shocking scene of a film I have ever seen is the end of Casino where Joe Pesci is bludgeoned to death and then buried alive. I'm not sure how I would have reacted as a child to seeing that scene, but I'm pretty sure it would have deeply upset me. I'm not sure about Charen's overall point either, I think we are exposed as kids to a lot more violence than sex, through the news if nothing else. A child today who saw the news- on a 24 hour news channel- could expect to hear and see images of Burmese monks being beaten today. Violent video games as well are marketed to a teenage audience. I'm not sure if you see as much sex as you see violence. But I'd accept contradiction. It would be really interesting to look at the way that a generation reared on images of extremity are psychologically different to generations before as well and how the images effect the consciousness.

As I hope the tone of this post demonstrates I'm not dogmatic or even convinced about this- so any discussion would add to my stock of knowledge.

Shock Doctrine

In 2005, the ex-German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder surprised his countrymen by taking a job with the Russian giant, Gazprom. The Washington Post at the time noted that "It's the sort of behavior we have -- sadly -- come to expect from some in Congress" whilst condemning the way that Schroeder's last few days in office had enabled deals for the company he was now a director of. For Naomi Klein the news would not have come as a surprise at all.

Klein's Thesis

In her latest book, Klein argues that there is a fundamental contradiction between service to the state and service to a corporation and furthermore that the Wild West capitalism of Milton Freidman and others is incompatible with democracy. She charts a story which in her view runs from the torture chambers of the Latin American dictatorships, particularly Chile, but also Argentina and Bolivia in the seventies, through the reconstruction of Eastern Europe and Russia in the nineties and into the war in Iraq and the aftermath of the tsunami in the early part of this century. She suggests that all the events of the last forty years have something in common. A massive shock, whether by natural disaster, war or even internal coup becomes the prelude to massive economic reforms, which in the normal course of events noone in that society would ever endorse.

Klein's thesis is historical and charts the evolution of the way that these shocks form a starting point for massive structural reform. From Pinochet's torture in the 1970s, which she argues psychologically damaged the Chilean population and made them unwilling to revolt, right up until Tianamen Square, she suggests that dictatorships have used the pressure of torture to prepare the way for in-egalitarian economic reform. That isn't the only part of her story though. For she attempts to demonstrate that the same dynamic works in democracies. In the aftermath of the Falklands War, she suggests that the UK came together and that Margaret Thatcher was able to introduce reforms she never would have attempted before. The same thing happened in 1990 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Eastern European states faced for the first time the explosion of democracy and they too resorted to economic reform, against the wishes of their electorates, at great speed. Economists like Jeffrey Sacks advised them to go very fast in reforming their countries- such dislocations meant that the reform in Sacks's thinking would become embedded and also that the population would be too cowered to object.

Shocks whether external or internal create for Klein a moment outside of the normal process of every day politics. A moment of dictatorship for a democratic regime- you might say that the Bush administration faced just such a moment on September 11th. She suggests that corporate capitalism now runs on the basis of such shocks. That the major companies of the world now invest in disaster prevention, they have in her words hollowed out the state, and present solutions to the problems of war or disaster which enable them to profit out of it. She argues that this establishes a disaster complex that in economies like Israel, make the economic logic of the situation lead to further wars. Furthermore these companies then agitate against policies that would lead to fewer disasters- the classic example in her mind being the corporate case against global warming. The rich who run the companies ultimately don't suffer from disaster- but the poor do- as Hurricane Katrina in her view demonstrated the rich are able to buy protection, medical care and other things whereas the poor are neglected and treated as criminals.

Klein's Blindnesses

Klein offers us a historical narrative, the problem is that she is trying to make a point in political philosophy via her historical narrative. She doesn't devote that much time to making philosophical points, they arise by inference from the narrative. And that exposes her to writing something which for all its historical coherence, may not be philosophically coherent. I'm not qualified to write about the history that Klein scans- some of it, in particular the mismanagement of the Iraqi utilities by American contractors I can endorse but there are large swathes of Klein's book, the internal politics of Bolivia, that I would turn over to others to critique. But I do think that Klein misses some major points, and its worth just pausing to reflect on these misses before you accept her underlying thesis.

The first of these misses is that capitalism and corruption are uniquely bound together. She establishes that there is a conveyor belt which takes politicians to corporate jobs, and directors to political jobs, that is particularly true in the United States. She asks some legitimate questions- when Henry Kissinger met Bush and Cheney, did he meet them as an ex Secretary of State (his job thirty years before) or as the Chairman of Kissinger Associates. Donald Rumsfeld never divested himself of his major stock options, particularly in health companies, despite presiding over the privatisation of the health care system for American soldiers returning home. George Bush's father is a member of the Carlyle Group which has profited directly from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We could go further- but it isn't necessary. Klein's point is that capitalism as practised in the US is corrupting, there isn't really much argument on that point. But there could be an argument that its uniquely corrupting- it might beafter-all human nature that produces corruption and not capitalism alone. For example, plenty of the leading Nazis were personally very corrupt, inside a system that definitely wasn't capitalist. So were many of the leading communists in the USSR and so was famously the ancien regime in Europe. Corruption is a worry that goes back to Rome if not before.

She also, rightly again, points out the ways that ideologues from the Heritage foundation and Chicago University have used moments of crisis to impose a purist view of their ideology. Again that isn't unique to capitalism. Intellectuals of the left have often flooded into dictatorships to offer their advice at moments of shock. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were used as Klein admits to introduce massive changes which never would have been democratically acceptable. Perhaps to use John Gray's formulation it is market fundamentalism which is anti-democratic but in the same way that socialist or any other fundamentalism is, it fails to deal with the crooked timber of humanity, forcing it into straight lines and straight purposes. Like Mr Wickfield in David Copperfield, the economist measures by only one indicy and hence measures nothing of use to anyone not using that indicator. In that sense Klein's radical case, becomes another repetition of the conservative case- distrust ideologues, distrust quick decisions.

Lastly there is another problem inside Klein's thinking and that is the complete lack of a positive alternative. Klein points at several moments in the book to administrations or policies she approves of. She points to South American economic policy in the fifties and sixties, to Scandinavian economies and to the self help efforts of Thai peasants to rebuild their own villages after the tsunami. That's all very well. But of course, there are problems in all the systems that she offers to us. Keynesian big governmental management can end in as much corruption as capitalism. Klein detects where the big areas for the left are- the Economist magazine recently admitted that the Scandinavian model represented a way forwards- and libertarian socialism is an idea whose time may be coming back. She doesn't reflect on any of these ideas, she offers no thoughts of her own but endorses them all. This is a problem in a book that wants to be an inspirational philosophical tool for the left. Klein takes Chomskyite ideas a little further, but she hasn't really devoted herself to an alternative. Perhaps that is something she should consider. Interestingly she believes that globalisation increases inequality and poverty but never mentions the Marxist view that such inequality leads to revolution and the establishment of a new society.

There are also deep problems in her history. Occasionally Klein links things in such a way as to imply a causal connection where none can actually be found. Perhaps most important is the way that she implies in chapters one and two of the book a connection between the thinking of Dr. Ewen Cameron and Milton Friedman. Cameron advocated in the early fifties a method of psychiatric treatment which included the deliberate annihilation of the personality of the patient concerned. His techniques were taken up by torturers in the CIA. Friedman, Klein tells us, was the other doctor shock. What she never does is establish anything more than an analogy between the two people- at times she implies a connection but she never establishes that connection. Tocounter-pose them so often, and draw so many parallels and allege a connection, one has to show that there is one. Klein doesn't.

Furthermore there isn't enough accident in this history. In real life accident, luch and chance provide much of the incident, but for Klein accident seems separate. There are particular examples when it seemed to this author, Klein played fast and loose with the truth. She uses Tianamen to explore the experience of Shock Doctrine, and is right that the events in the square were objections to reform as much as to communism. But she is wrong to suggest that China was able to reform more because of Tianamen. The power of the communist party meant that it could decide what it wished in China- it still can. The party decided in the late seventies that reform was the way to go, Tianamen was a mere episode in that process but it was not crucial. One gets the sense that she needed to write something about China and forced the example into her theme rather than treating it through its own merits.

Capitalism, Liberalism and Democracy

Klein doesn't offer any positive picture, what she does though is suggest some negatives about the Freidmanite view of Capitalism. Simply put, the simple equation between capitalism, liberalism and democracy is one that she undermines. Her view is that capitalism creates centres of power which are far from the democratic arena. These centres of power influence and can control democratically elected politicians through the use of money and offices.Essentially in a a capitalist society profit is the only motivating force and therefore there is no moral imperative holding politicians back from corruption, holding Schroeder back from the Russians.

There is a further point here that she makes but doesn't really develop. Civic virtue is different to the virtue created in the market place. Frequently Klein argues that the big contractors employed by the Americans in Iraq have placed their bottom line ahead of the public good- the hollowing out of the state is a problem she argues for the precisely the same reasons that tax farming was a problem in 18th Century Europe. No contractor is interested really in the outcome that the state wants, they are interested in making profit- and if it costs less to subvert the process or install layers of contractors to insulate against legal risk then that is what they will do. In part Klein argues this is the reason why despite so many millions spent on aid to Iraq or to the tsunami affected areas, nothing happened. The same thing goes for liberalism- if companies evolve promising security and in order to achieve that security they have to torture, they will torture. Again the legal and political systems as in Iraq with reference to the contractors can be and have been corrupted at a cheaper rate than it costs to offer the service.

What Klein is arguing for is some kind of mixed economy. There is plenty to agree with in her rebuttal of the wilder claims its advocates make for capitalism. But there are still some worrying issues in this account.After-all most regimes suffer acutely from corruption, most ideologues take opportunities to ignore due process (I know many personally on the left who have this point of view). It isn't enough to merely say capitalism is bad- you have to as well suggest an alternative. Otherwise you go down a route that at times Klein- and definitely Noam Chomsky- are in danger of going down- praising regimes such as Serbia simply because they are not Capitalist.

This book is deeply flawed. It is also impressive. Klein has done a lot of research, been helped by a lot of people. There are things that might be improved but still there are many things that can be learnt. Reading about torture procedures in Iraq is chilling, reading about the way that private contractors have been employed since September 11th is frightening (at times Klein's book is similar to a long extract from the British anti-establishment magazine Private Eye!) and reading about the callous ways that economists have dismissed at conferences and on television programs the deaths of thousands and unemployment of millions is shaming. That opens up another problem with Klein's argument: she never takes on her opponents where they are strongest but only when they are at their weakest. As a polemical strategy that might work, as an intellectual one it is deeply corrupting. But there are still things missing from this book that would have made it better.

Shock Doctrine is an interesting but deeply flawed book. There are many problems within it, but there are also good things. It is a very long book, coming in at over 400 pages and it is a dense read. Klein can do style but perhaps she could learn brevity as well. It is a book that this reviewer is deeply ambivalent about: I accept that there are problems about capitalism in the modern world, I'm not so sure that Klein will convince many or offers interesting answers to what we do about those problems. She makes many mistakes in this book: if I knew the history better I am sure I could find more- but she has also done some good investigative reporting. Like a Michael Moore film, Shock Doctrine is good reportage, bad history and bad philosophy.

Ultimately Klein's argument is really a conservative one. Utopias and universal solutions don't work! How ironic to have it coming from a professed radical.

Crossposted at Bits of News.

Left List

Worth noting that to compliment Iain Dale's recent blogging lists, Andy at Socialist Unity has put up his own list of the best left wing blogs around.

Interview

'There is no equality, there is always a winner and a loser'
'Exactly'

Interview, the film might be summed up in that exchange between Sienna Miller's character Katya and Steve Buscemi's character Pierre. Katya is a star, a sex kitten who lives in a high rise appartment. Buscemi is a Washington reporter, sent against his will, to interview this starlet, to find out what motivates her.

They both resent the fact that they have to spend any time with the other. Katya has been there, done it and got the picture, she can't face another interview and thinks the press are scum. Pierre thinks that the starlet is vacuous and irritating, he turns up for the interview without doing any preparation and unsurprisingly its a disaster. He doesn't know or care about her, she has nothing but contempt for him. Then because of a car accident, she takes him up to her appartment and an evening of talking and drinking begins.

Discussion is a way to communicate between human beings. In this film, discussion is used communicate indeed. But it communicates all sorts of things that normally are viewed as unconstructive. Both characters make clear their contempt for the other. He views her as an idiotic pretty head, she views him as an ugly old man, who looks like her father. Both of them though want to control the situation, both of them see social interaction as a competition, an occasion to anialate the other person. What that produces of course for both of them is an agreeable frisson. The old reporter gets to kiss the young starlet, she gets to know that her sexuality charms and delights him.

There is more to it than that though, they genuinely do manage to charm each other because their impressions are actually wrong. Miller is not a braindead fool, but is impressively cunning and witty. Buscemi, she discovers is a guy she can feel attracted to. Their flirting works ultimately because they are in some sense both attracted to each other. When Buscemi says to her that he feels like a father to her, its true. When Miller responds affectionately to him, it has a certain truth to it too.

But neither can retain that for long. Every comment comes with a barb. Every overture or opening is seen as a vulnerability and neither of them actually care about how or whether they lose. The night is rounded off with Buscemi leaving Miller's apartment and a twist in a tale- which you'll have to see the movie to find out. But the essential truth is that this film is a contest where there needed not be a contest, an exchange of fire where there needed not be such an exchange. Whether they sleep together or not comes second to the fact that for a moment they both taste the flavour of intimacy, but both draw back before they can sip.

That drawing back is at times a conscious lie. By telling an untruth, even in a moment of intimacy, the two characters end up betraying that intimacy. By telling an untruth, they reserve the right to opt out of intimacy. Both Buscemi and Miller are lying throughout their conversation- she provocatively kisses him and invents scenarios which aren't true, he tells her stories which are blatantly false. Both are in the utmost degree whores- she is constantly referred to by both of them as a whore, a crack whore, a whore, and he also is a whore, selling his stories to the best bidder. Both of them are for sale- and yet neither of them really have anything they want to buy. Miller's character seems to have no joy in life, no empathy with Buscemi's character. He seems to cynical to find any friendship or emotion which pleases him.

This film is a tragedy for both characters. Part of the reason it is a tragedy is that neither of them could diagnose their own condition. Miller doesn't at the end believe that she has lost anything- she is still the sexy young woman about town. Buscemi may believe he has lost, he might not have got the sexual fulfillment he might have wanted. The real loss though is the opportunity to meet another person's subjectivity and try and understand, neither character can break through the walls to do that, they both have to lie to maintain the illusion that they exist invulnerable within a world they presume cheats them at every stage. Both of them hate humanity and hate themselves. That is the tragedy.

Right at the beggining of the film, Buscemi's character talks to his mute brother. He shows real concern but the brother isn't a human being, it's not fair because the brother can't respond and its not fair because Buscemi can't really engage. Miller acts the same words, for her too its not fair because though everyone loves her, she can't love. This film includes amusing, sexy dialogue, and communication. But despite words upon words upon words, neither of the characters are ready to converse.

Every piece of communication in this film is subject to doubt, every time someone says something you can rely on the fact that they are lying, that their words don't mean what they mean. Every exchange is a feint, a tactic, unreal because of that. You can only really relate to the injured or the mute. These two people present for all their undoubted wit and sexiness, a dystopian nightmare for the human soul, where all conversation is like wrestling.

This film, like Closer before it, is an examination of the worst in human nature, its worth seeing and its worth avoiding the fate of its characters.

Crossposted from Bits of News

James Purnell's nonstory

James Purnell was all over the news today for a scandal or an embarrassment, term it what you care. A mix up at an NHS hospital resulted in the minister being included in a promotion photo that he was too late in reality to attend. His image was photoshopped in with a couple of other MPs. The Tories are demanding an apology or even resignation, the press are on the hunt and have been all day and the BBC are making it the story of the hour. But nothing has actually happened beyond a minor mix up. Even if Purnell had deliberately wanted to fake the photograph, who cares. He was late, he missed something for a reason we don't know, and the photo was faked, end of story.

You might wonder why I'm writing about this. Because amidst all the rubbish about BBC bias and leftwing and rightwing newspaper bias, this is what is irritating about the media today. It is this bias towards triviality. This led the BBC Radio 4 News at 6 o'clock this evening (after Burma), this not efforts to come to a treaty about oil in the Caspian, not human rights abuses in Africa, not the climate change summit in America. This was the second most important thing according to the BBC going on in the world today- it makes one wonder. This is a non-story, it is a nothing, a scandal that doesn't exist. It is so far from a story that I don't even care whether Purnell photoshopped the image personally having arrived late because he slept in.

This is precisely the kind of media bias that hurts us all- not a bias leftwards or rightwards but a bias towards stupidity and triviality. If this is the kind of thing that gets broadcast on the news, I'd rather they didn't broadcast the news. Tell us about Turkmenistan, tell us about China (on which we get almost no information) or about our own government's economic policies- explain concepts like inflation- educate us- don't get wrapped up in stupid crises. Purnell, I know from friends involved with his previous job at pensions is actually a rather good minister. Lets start getting rid of ministers for stupidity and not making tiny mistakes. This goes for politicians as well of all parties.

To all involved, just stop, this is hurting us, hurting democracy.

Hillary's Robotic Laugh

Zodiac and the art of Comprehension

Film is a medium for communicating- a medium for communicating a message. Viewers of a film assemble pieces of the film, finding a story amidst the shots and scenes that they see, finding a meaning often in the portraits on the screen. Critics often, including your correspondent, do that too, putting together the various shots, the various ways of seeing things that the film embodies. For a moment, we become involved in a story which is not our own, which seems to us a signifier of much larger and more powerful currents. We interpret our lives, as Slavoj Zizek has argued, through the media of film. Consequently in some sense, we become film, through investigating and contemplating the film our object, we ourselves assimilate its conclusions, turning slowly into that which we investigate.

David Fincher's film, Zodiac, definitely explores such ideas. Zodiac concerns an investigation into the identity of the notorious serial killer who terrorised southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In real life the killer was never caught and there remain several plausible theories as to who it might have been. But Fincher's film isn't really so concerned with the Zodiac himself or why he committed these murders- he can't be, we just don't know, as with the effects that those murders had on those investigating them. The film is about the investigators- both a pair of journalists and a pair of police officers- who for a variety of reasons become deeply involved within the case.

Three of these characters become deeply involved because of their roles, as the officers assigned to the case and the San Francisco Chronicle's crime reporter, but one of them doesn't have any such direct connection. For him and increasingly for the other three the Zodiac is an intellectual phenomenon. He tells his wife at one point in the film that all he wants is to be able to see the Zodiac and know that that is the man who terrified all those people for so long. There is no sense of justice in this. Afterall the Zodiac committed according to the police officer at one point, only 5 murders, whereas there are hundreds of murders in California during the time he was active and almost certainly unsolved murders as well by the legion. But this man presented a conumdrum, he sent codes in ciphers which still defy the US police, he left very few clues and those that he did leave were contradictory. In addition, as he became more famous the chances of fake letters and phone calls rose, so there was also the question of which calls and letters to decipher.

One is tempted to say but this is the generation of Vietnam and Chile and countless other disasters. All the minds involved in searching for the Zodiac were tempted by the intellectual complexity but also by the simplicity. For taking on the question of Vietnam exposes one to all sorts of moral dilemmas- there are difficult choices to make every time you put down a foot. The Zodiac case though was complicated but also simple. Simple for it was clear- there was a murderer, there were victims, there was a problem. In so many intellectual problems there isn't such an easily graspable issue- the deaths of American soldiers have to be weighed against the deaths of Iraqi civilians for example.

Fincher shows us how these intelligent men became dominated by the cause. Behaving at times like a madman, the cartoonist Robert Graysmith loses his marriage, almost loses his children. The Crime Correspondent loses his job and perhaps his mind. The Policemen both end up transferring out of the department, one with issues hanging over him. All of them are upset by the clue that fails to yield. Graysmith in particular is shown as living in a twilight world, where every stranger could be the Zodiac, where every basement could be used to store murdered bodies, where suspision hangs over everyone. The investigation becomes his life. He turns himself into the hunter, and thus becomes hunted by his imaginary Zodiac in every window. The serial killer dominates his conscious life and he becomes taken over by that life- his escape at the end is through solving in his own mind the murder.

There is a sense in which intellectual pursuits can lead this way. In which seeing the world in a flower means that one's world becomes that flower. You can be taken over by seeing the essense of everything as part of a great pattern whose ultimate resolution is to be found in this particular instance. Films provoke this as well- they too are a pattern that we break down and solve and that as Zizek argues can become part of us, can dominate us. The Zodiac as a film suggests that there is peril as well as achievement in obsession. Fincher shows us what happens when a man or men in general are so dominated by one idea that their whole lives become dedicated to it. In a sense during an investigation, they become the investigator and that is all.

Definitely that is the place which Graysmith, superbly played by Jake Gyllenhaal ends up at. Indeed as he is the character whose inner life is really portrayed here, more than any other, it is within him that we can see this at its strongest. But other characters too end up as investigators rather than characters, they lose their humour, take to drink, lose their sense of self and hope for the future, all because of a killer, who has killed a fraction of those killed in the city over the years that he functioned in. They don't learn from this instance but the patterns they derive are false.

Fincher's film calls into question the nature of intellectual obsession, what if your obsession drives you into dark corners and believing that the nature of the world is darkness, you recede ever further into the black whole of a disturbed and suspicious mind. In this film it is neither the Zodiac nor his victims who are the focus, its the slowly disintegrating investigators, who swirl around the murderer, pulled in by the gravitational fascination that they feel to him, to seek light in the heart of darkness.

Crossposted at Bits of News.

What should the US Presidential Candidates be discussing?

Ashok has asked a number of bloggers to think about and address this issue- amongst them me. As a non-American I don't know enough about US domestic policy to really presume to highlight an issue there and thought I'd stick to foreign policy in trying to work out a neglected area. I have two neglected areas that the American Presidential candidates in my opinion ought to at least be thinking about it not discussing. I'll briefly lay out what they are and why they are interesting, without advancing policy ideas because as I hope you'll appreciate both areas are incredibly complicated.

The first issue which I think US politicians ought to think about more is Central Asia, excluding Afghanistan and Pakistan. Part of the reason, many believe, that we face a war on terror is because of the conjunction of dictatorships and oil. Terrorism is seen by many as the reaction of Middle Eastern peoples to their own governments as much as to the West or Israel. Let's take that as a presumption for a moment. If so then conditions in Central Asia are just as worrying. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are all ruled with varying degrees of corrupt autocracy. Many of those nations have huge oil reserves underneath them or are potential conduits to the outside world for pipelines. They sit on the edge of Southern Russia which has its own problems with radical Islam, and throughout these countries there is an upswell of support for radicals, especially Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The conditions are not good. This region should be a priority for any forward thinking US President who wants to anticipate the problems of the future.

Another region which should be discussed more and isn't and hence represents the second of my points is the Taiwan strait. If there is to be a nuclear war anywhere in the world involving the United States, the probability is that it will arise over the Taiwan strait (the other most likely nuclear war, more likely and another issue that Americans should be thinking about is over Kashmir). Taiwan though is a democracy, its a democracy where many of the people want to vote for complete independence from China but China threatens continuously to invade Taiwan should they vote that way. China tells anyone who mediates that Taiwan is part of China. China also fires missiles over Taiwanese territory and always ramps up military pressure when Taiwan goes to the polls. There is no clearer place in the world where democracy confronts aggressive, nationalistic dictatorship than over the Taiwan strait. The military balance on the South China Sea and Chinese and Japanese recent build ups of power there should also be a major concern for the United States. China ultimately is not just an economic issue, but a political one.

There are two issues- the former especially- which I don't think are being discussed enough in the current Presidential campaign, I hope they get some attention.

This is an interesting meme- I know its an imposition but anyone who reads this can consider themselves asked what neglected issues you think the US Presidential candidates should consider and put it on your blog, with a link preferably back to Ashok, as he is going to compile the suggestions later.

Renewed assault on the Blogosphere

Richard Brunton is someone I know through Bits of News. I'd noticed that he hadn't posted for a bit on Bits, and I wondered about it- the reason seems though to have been much more serious than Richard's upcoming wedding (for which congratulations from me), Richard has been threatened by soliciters and by a large company, all of this because of comments left on his blog. His full story, which in my view is tantamount to harrassment by the company and their lawyers, who reached for their writs before doing anything else is here. Rightly terrified, Richard hasn't disclosed the names of the company or their soliciters. The case is fascinating because in the opinion of a lawyer that Richard consulted he had a defence, but it was not worth him taking the company to court because of the disparity of income between him and the company. I don't know anything about the case concerned but it sounds like Richard has been bullied directly by this company, bullied by the fact that they have the wealth and organisation to completely overrun him despite the fact he may well have been in the right.

It fits with the behaviour of Schillings, the firm involved with Tim Ireland in the past, I don't know if that is the firm involved. If Richard's account is true, then it demonstrates that there are plenty of trigger happy law firms out there and that the law on blogging especially commenting isn't yet clear.

Self Congratulation

I know its been a slow blogging day- and an article will go up this evening.

But I thought I ought to mention the fact that this blog somehow was voted in at no 10 of the non aligned Blogs in the UK. Iain Dale organised the list and his readers in the case of non-aligned blogs voted for it: can I say thank you to Iain for organising it. Thanks to anyone who voted for me. It made me feel pretty good about life this morning when I learned.

Congratulations as well to other bloggers who have featured-Matt Sinclair, Chris Dillow (of stumbling and mumbling) and Dave Cole all made it. However all of them should have been higher. Matt is definitely one of the top conservative bloggers around, Chris is one of the top bloggers full stop around, Dave Cole doesn't post often but when he does its well thought through and interesting. That is the ultimate problem I have with lists like this, and no matter what the methodology this problem would remain, the best, most thoughtful blogs are not always the most popular. Truth like a basterd comes into the world, said Milton- I'm not sure he was entirely right but analysis is harder to sell than gossip, you can't break stories in the same way and that has proved to be the oxygen of much of the British Blogosphere. Its what Dizzy owes his rise to this year according to Iain Dale. The prominence of the gossip blogger is not something to be celebrated in my view- half truths are so much better peddled by the press, afterall they are professionals at it. Intelligent criticism is not something that the dead trees are so good at.

Ultimately this is a nice accolade to wake up to, and thanks to everyone for voting for me, but I'm not entirely sure that the lists give a true reflection of the strength of the British blogosphere and where it is to be found.

Patrick Graham on Iraq

This is a really good article on Iraq by someone who has been there many times and obviously knows the country very well. Go and read it.

Truth, Politics and Gandhi: Towards an Anglican Political Theory

In the Doctrine of Divorce, John Milton the great English poet commented that truth comes like a bastard into the world with nothing but ignominy to he who gave her birth. Thomas Hardy quoted those words with approval in his poem entitled, Lausanne in Gibbon's Old Garden, when he put them into the mouth of the equally cynical historian. Not all throughout history have agreed with Gibbon and Milton, many have seen truth as a weapon whose potency is underestimated and in the light of the resistance to colonial rule conducted by men like Mahatma Gandhi that perception seemed to take on reality. Indeed the idea that truth itself is an ideological weapon of surpassing strength is what backs up the modern idea of protest as a political weapon. Every Trotskyite standing remotely by his banner for redistribution, every peace advocate marching in their millions through Trafalgar Square, all reject by their presence the idea that Milton so cynically expressed and that Hardy through Gibbon so enthusiastically affirmed.

The position of truth in politics is one of the key questions of our time. Its one that the current Archbishop of Canterbury in his lecture at Kings turned to. Attitudes to it provide a clue in my view to the theological battles in all three major religions about their direction and their implication in modern political struggle. Rowan Williams believes that there is truth within the world and that he as a theist has found it. He also believes that because of that he needs no protection from law or even political activism to vindicate his conduct. All he needs to do to achieve his aims is to explain them and people will come onside. Williams is interested in social change but through explanation and conversion not force.

As such what Williams's speech doesn't do is define the aims of Christian politics- he talks a little about them mentioning denying euthanasia and more support for the poor- but not much. The real interest is in the means and here he creates an opposition and as he would be aware its a very old opposition. On the one hand you have factions or interest groups, on the other the Church of Christ. The distinction between the two is found in their political behaviour. A faction behaves the way it is because it is not linked ultimately to the font of truth, God. It acts with selfishness and attempts to exclude by force others from the conversation. A true Christian Church is not a faction, but operates by the force of example. Because its actions are undoubtedly, in Williams's terms moral, and because any fair judge would admit their morality, any fair judge will follow their examples. The Christian in politics therefore is not so much a politician as he transcends politics, operating by example and proving by conduct and tolerant argument the equal of his more selfish factional counterparts.

Williams provides a brief account of what he thinks that the Christian can morally contribute to the world. He suggests that the Christian can offer both a vision of politics that rises not out of interest but out of a communion with God. He also suggests that the Christian offers a perspective which is universal- as universal as the love of God.

Dr Williams puts his argument in the context of Mahatma Gandhi's movement of satyagraha, soul force. He argues that Gandhi's movement in India offers us a real world example of the work that superior moral example can do. Gandhi, in Williams's argument, is the man who employed these tactics to succeed. By using Gandhi Williams hopes to rescue his argument from the accusation that such a mode of political education- for that is what he is talking about- is otherworldly, unrealistic and utopian. He suggests that we can see in the actions of Gandhi the example which the Church should follow. Williams does not assert that the Church has always followed the path of Gandhi, but asserts that that is the path that the Church ought to follow. The Church ought to assert both the fact that unlike a faction its prescriptions for society are based on truth, and secondly that its prescriptions are universal. They stand upon the foundation of a universal human relationship with God. This Williams finds is identical within all the monotheistic faiths, drawing from Islam the idea that there can be no compulsion in religion and from Christianity the idea of a Christian individual being, to quote John Winthrop quoting the Bible, a city on the hill.

What sense there is in Williams's vision of Christianity in politics depends on your attitude to theology. Williams's argument is based on the fact as he sees it that Christianity is true. There is though a large percentage of the population who feel that they can derive a morality without necessarily believing in Christ or any God whatsoever. To go further there are many Christians for whom Williams's ideas will seem repugnant, many Christians believe that rationality is an untrustworthy guide to the world. From Cromwell's army to Joseph De Maistre the case against reason has been made again and again by learned and less learned Christians of all kinds of congregations. If truth is something only bequeathed by an act of divine grace, that may be predestined to be reserved from some human beings, then the idea of an example forcing a conversion is merely poppycock. It makes divinity an affair of human reason. Your attitude ultimately to Williams's view depends accepting both his moral outlook and his belief that the example of virtue will convince others to be virtuous. It will need no more positive action.

Williams's vision in this talk is of a Christian engagement with politics that is pluralist. Pluralism is the idea that various competing ideas can coexist. That conflicts obviously with the idea of a thesis that is uniquely true and just. If my idea is uniquely true and just, then why should I respect yours. Williams attempts to get through this dilemma by suggesting that a true faith would be unselfish and unworried by human conflict. He suggests that a true faith would reveal its truth by its meekness and its willingness to lead by example. Hence a true faith sits easily with pluralistic understandings of the world.

Making the claim that you have unique access to the truth may though represent a threat to pluralism still. Many of us doubt that Williams is able to make the claim he is making. Furthermore the claim to truth he is making is based not on argument or repeatable experiment, but upon an inner sense of faith. An inner sense which is fundamentally subjective and therefore individual: I can't argue about your religious experiences because I haven't had them. Public discussion becomes more difficult if your argument consists of ultimately saying, I believe x, I have had an experience that is unrepeatable that x, and I will not produce anything else but it because its the truth. Given that pluralistic societies are based around conversation, satyagraha is ultimately not conversation, it is quiet, pacific, quietist insistence.

That brings me to another issue. Williams wants Christians and religious people in general to ground their faith on the fact that they and they only have access to the truth. Again that isn't easy to marry with a pluralistic society, not only does pluralism involve conversation and its difficult to converse about faith, but it also involves compromise. To what extent can you compromise on the truth. Compromise takes two forms. Firstly of course there is the compromise of electoral politics, to what extent would a satyagraha movement be willing to compromise say on euthanasia with a pro-euthanasia party. But of course secondly it takes the form of realising that people will live in ways that you don't like. Would Williams welcome Christians sitting outside gay weddings and passing out leaflets that say that homosexuals are going to hell? I suspect he wouldn't, but that would be another form of his soul force.

Obviously it is harsh to take the Archbishop's lecture and do more than explain its outlook. A lecture of thirty minutes is not sufficient to answer all these questions, and there are plenty more that we could ask both from a theological standpoint and a political standpoint. It is interesting though to watch the Anglican primate making a real effort on these matters. It reflects the fact that during modern times we have become pluralist. Anglicanism and religion in general for most historical time has been monist, banning those that advocate atheism or other religions, persecuting them and persecuting those whose moral conduct the religious disapprove of.

There is a less theoretical concern about this as well. For the Archbishop's concerns don't seem to have reached others. The previous Pope was keen on a reference to God and the unique Christian heritage of Europe within the European constitution. He viewed and politicians in Poland, Spain and Sweden followed him in viewing God as a guarentor of any political system. Far from inspiring via soul force, the Pope wanted legislation to back the special place of the Church in the European community.

The Archbishop seems tentatively to be reaching beyond that, to some kind of compromise with post-enlightenment society. Reaching perhaps towards a compromise between the the insistance that he has a revelation from God and that society no longer automatically will bend its knee to that revelation. He finds that compromise in the idea that human beings will naturally yield to the truth, that Milton and Hardy were wrong.

Perhaps the Archbishop hasn't achieved that yet, but its interesting to see the attempt being made at all.

Crossposted at Bits of News.

Sensible Mr Steyn

Well done Mr Steyn. Disputes between Britain and America or any two countries about who has fought more for freedom are about as stupid as they come. Ultimately we can all throw historical insults at each other, and we can all boast of our own accomplishments. Lets deal with the future not the past.

British Blogosphere at its best

There are now around 190 British Blogs referring to the story about Mr Usmanov and Craig Murray- this is the full list at the moment, courtesy of Chicken Yoghurt. Lets keep this list growing in solidarity with the blogs taken down.

Curious Hamster, Pickled Politics, Harry’s Place, Tim Worstall, Dizzy, Iain Dale, Ten Percent, Blairwatch, Davide Simonetti, Earthquake Cove, Turbulent Cleric (who suggests dropping a line to the FA about Mr Usmanov), Mike Power, Jailhouse Lawyer, Suesam, Devil’s Kitchen, The Cartoonist, Falco, Casualty Monitor, Forever Expat, Arseblog, Drink-soaked Trots (and another), Pitch Invasion, Wonko’s World, Roll A Monkey, Caroline Hunt, Westminster Wisdom, Chris K, Anorak, Mediawatchwatch, Norfolk Blogger, Chris Paul, Indymedia (with a list of Craig Murray’s articles that are currently unavailable), Obsolete, Tom Watson, Cynical Chatter, Reactionary Snob, Mr Eugenides, Matthew Sinclair, The Select Society, Liberal England, Davblog, Peter Gasston Pitch Perfect, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe, Lunartalks, Tygerland, The Crossed Pond, Our Kingdom, Big Daddy Merk, Daily Mail Watch, Graeme’s, Random Thoughts, Nosemonkey, Matt Wardman, Politics in the Zeros, Love and Garbage, The Huntsman, Conservative Party Reptile, Ellee Seymour, Sabretache, Not A Sheep, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, The People’s Republic Of Newport, Life, the Universe & Everything, Arsenal Transfer Rumour Mill, The Green Ribbon, Blood & Treasure, The Last Ditch, Areopagitica, Football in Finland, An Englishman’s Castle, Freeborn John, Eursoc, The Back Four, Rebellion Suck!, Ministry of Truth, ModernityBlog, Beau Bo D’Or, Scots and Independent, The Splund, Bill Cameron, Podnosh, Dodgeblogium, Moving Target, Serious Golmal, Goonerholic, The Spine, Zero Point Nine, Lenin’s Tomb, The Durruti Column, The Bristol Blogger, ArseNews, David Lindsay, Quaequam Blog!, On A Quiet Day…, Kathz’s Blog, England Expects, Theo Spark, Duncan Borrowman, Senn’s Blog, Katykins, Jewcy, Kevin Maguire, Stumbling and Mumbling, Famous for 15 megapixels, Ordovicius, Tom Morris, AOL Fanhouse, Doctor Vee, The Curmudgeonly, The Poor Mouth, 1820, Hangbitch, Crooked Timber, ArseNole, Identity Unknown, Liberty Alone, Amused Cynicism, Clairwil, The Lone Voice, Tampon Teabag, Unoriginalname38, Special/Blown It, The Remittance Man, 18 Doughty Street, Laban Tall, Martin Bright, Spy Blog The Exile, poons, Jangliss, Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?, Imagined Community, A Pint of Unionist Lite, Poldraw, Disillusioned And Bored, Error Gorilla, Indigo Jo, Swiss Metablog, Kate Garnwen Truemors, Asn14, D-Notice, The Judge, Political Penguin, Miserable Old Fart, Jottings, fridgemagnet, Blah Blah Flowers, J. Arthur MacNumpty, Tony Hatfield, Grendel, Charlie Whitaker, Matt Buck, The Waendel Journal, Marginalized Action Dinosaur, SoccerLens, Toblog, John Brissenden East Lower, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Peter Black AM, Boing Boing, BLTP, Gunnerblog, LFB UK, Liberal Revolution, Wombles, Focus on Sodbury…, Follow The Money, Freedom and Whisky, Melting Man, PoliticalHackUK, Simon Says…, Daily EM, From The Barrel of a Gun, The Fourth Place, The Armchair News Blog, Journalist und Optimist, Bristol Indymedia, Dave Weeden, Up North John, Gizmonaut, Spin and Spinners, Marginalia, Arnique, Heather Yaxley, The Whiskey Priest, On The Beat, Paul Canning, Martin Stabe, Mat Bowles, Pigdogfucker, Rachel North (193).

And he also missed Vino! So that makes 194 blogs concerned with Mr Usmanov!

First political memory

The Thunderdragon has tagged me for my first political memory.

My first memory is one of those Kennedy moments that everyone who was alive remembers which is the resignation of Margerat Thatcher. I remember coming home with my mother, from the supermarket I think, as a kid, and we drove in to our front drive way. I can still remember it really vividly and a neighbour came out and said to my Mum 'she's gone'. There wasn't any question of who 'she' was. I don't remember having any particular view on whether the fact that 'she' had gone was good or bad or discussing it with my parents, but I just remember the moment and getting out of the car. Its a very vivid memory but accompanied by almost nothing in the way of context.

Anyway I think this is quite an interesting meme and in service of that, I'm going to tag, Matt, Vino, Mike Rowley, Welshcakes, Ian Appleby, James Higham, Ashok, Lord Nazh and Yascha. So guys what was your first political memory- (Oh and by the way anyone else who wants to take this up- please do, its quite a cool meme and any of the regular commenters, Pappusrif and Edmund this means you for instance who want to leave a memory in the comments please do as well!)

Djuradj, Prince of Montenegro

The Early Modern period of European history is dominated by the rise and fall of Great Powers. Few powers were greater in that era than the mercentile empire of Venice or the power of the Porte, radiating through the Balkans from the fortress of Istanbul. The Venetians and the Turks enjoyed a relationship punctuated by tension and pride. Both heirs to the empire of Constantinople, the second Rome, both empires vied for control and supremacy in the Eastern Meditereanean. And between them there were a group of shifting client states, sometimes independent, sometimes not, whose fortunes rose and fell with factional conflicts in Venice and Istanbul and the boundary between the Republic of Saint Mark and the realm of the Sultan.

Amongst those powers which thrived for a small time was the princely state of Montenegro. Ruled by the house of Crnojevic during the latter 15th Century, Montenegro existed in the shadow of the two great powers and its rulers attempted to secure the backing of Venice to retain an independent base in the Balkans. Their allegiance to Venice was far from sure, several times they demonstrated their independence of their patrons by going to war with the Venetians. By the death of Ivan in 1490, the Crnojevic were facing dangerous times. A Turkish army was on the march through the Balkans, Ivan's son Djuradj went with his Venetian wife to Venice itself to get desperately needed help in 1496. Djuradj ended up though being arrested, he was released in 1498, and present at the seige of Milan in 1499 but then fearing for his freedom he fled to the Turks in 1500 and remained in Turkey till he died. The attempt to build a Crnojevic state had failed.

These events have become the stuff of national history. Montenegro once again is asserting its independence and sites like this one link that Montenegro to the present state. Indeed that site asserts in discussing the Crnojevic that they were nationalists before the term was invented, fighting for the freedom of Montenegro and left a legacy of patriotism in their people's hearts. They cared for the Montenegran state and ultimately were a Balkan version of William Tell, deserted ultimately by the perfidious Italians to the evil designs of the Turks. Nothing could be further from the truth. New research by Diana Wright has brought to light the true nature of the Montenegran principality, through exploring a document left in Venice by Djuradj, his last will and testament. Exploring its concerns allows us to see that Djuradj, far from being a Montenegran patriot, was typical both of his time and place.

Wright's research suggests that Djuradj was an innovater but not in the theatre of politics, in the theatre of love. She suggests, and she uses an Italian form of his name Zorzi that Djuradj was the first writer of love letters in Venice. Reading the testament its possible to see what she means. 17 times Djuradj uses the word consorte to refer to his wife, he leaves her as sole executor of his will. This kind of thing is typical of Venetians at the time: 88% of husbands by this point were leaving their wives as sole executors of their wills. The innovation here may lie less in Djuradj than in the limits of our evidence- its perfectly possible that this isn't the first love letter but it is the first love letter that has survived. In that Wright is justified in asserting Djuradj's importance as a historical figure.

But notice how far we have come from the nationalistic hero of myth- far from being Montenegran and motivated by patriotism, Djuradj was a typical Venetian of his day and married to another Venetian. Reading the testament something else emerges. Djuradj cared little if nothing about his own country, he doesn't mention it. He cared deeply about family honour. He reminded his wife that she had no equal on earth save for Kings and other princes. He plans for his sons, wishing that one be sent to live with the King of France, the other with the Sultan of Turkey, no matter who wins Djuradj wanted a Crnojevic to be on their side. He tells his wife that the rulers of Venice are obligated to them because of what his father did, he tells her that if he dies and she gets back to Montenegro he wants her to endow a monestory with money to whom he gave a vow. All of this revolves not about Montenegran nationalism but around the House of Crnojevic and its prosperity, in heaven and earth.

Wright's research demonstrates how far Djuradj was a typical Balkan nobleman of his time. He was desperate to survive in the brutal world of 15th Century politics. He could side with the Turks or Venetians, indeed he fled to the Turks from the Venetians. Djuradj sought to secure his family, he failed in that but to berate him for not protecting Montenegran independence or to laud him for his contribution is to miss the point. He was not interested in that at all. Rather than being Montenegran, the testament reveals that he was culturally Italian in many ways. We don't know about its influence, but his contact with Turkey was deep throughout his life and he must have absorbed Turkish ways of doing things too. In the swift changing world of Balkan politics, the divisions of 21st Century nationalism make no sense.

Looking at Djuradj, one might almost see him in a line stretching forward to Ali Pasha, the despot of Eastern Greece in the early 19th Century. A whole series of figures arise to my mind, men who attempted to survive under Ottoman rule or with Western support. Djuradj doesn't form part of the history of Montenegran nationalism, his part in history is as a sign of the double face of the Balkans. Looking westwards and northwards towards Italy and southwards and eastwards to Turkey, rulers in the Balkans were constantly caught in a dangerous dance, where they could very easily miscalculate. Djuradj did and his patrimony did not survive, and he is fairly typical of that.

That part of the world has seen vast changes in the twentieth century, probably the greatest since the era of Djuradj's grandfather and the final fall of Constantinople. The Turkish empire has vanished and a series of independent states have replaced it. Attempting to read the history of those states as though the political and ideological world of today is that of yesterday is folly. Djuradj is an interesting example of the way that 15th Century politics worked. His principality was consumed in conflicts over which he had no control and his attempts to control it relied on his ability to influence others, notably the Venetians and even at times the King of France. Attempts which ultimately failed.

Djuradj is an interesting figure- there is more that we don't know about him that could be found out- but Diana Wright's work leaves me in no doubt that the best way to think about him is as a 15th Century prince not a 21st Century patriot.

Cross posted at Bits of News. (The illustration is of his seal)