Ed Vulliamy's account of the tragedy of the massacres of Srebrenica, the "ethnic cleansing" of theBosnian Muslims, his memories, obviously unextinguishable, of the stories of tortures and suffering inflicted by the Serbs on the Muslim and Croation populations in the Guardian's G2 moved me like nothing since the findings of the Nazi death camps.
This was not only because of the almost unbearable accounts of the ,,
sufferings he described, in a detail possible only because of the great attention to detail and interviewing he carried out as a reporter, but also because of the feelings of guilt they inspired in me. How could I - and come to that, so many others - have responded so inadequately at the time to these reports in the early 1990's? What was so distracting at the time? What minor day-to-day concerns were blotting out these reports?
One explanation may be that a postwar generation thought that it was "those Balkan people, at it again" as they had been at the end of the war. The tales of murder, of people strung up and hanged in fields, of Serbs fighting their neighbours, had been brought back by colleagues working or reporting from there at that time. Tito had brought Yugoslavia under totalitarian control and stopped it. Once he and the system had gone, it started again.
But it was no excuse to say that this was just the end of the last World War finally fighting to its end. The people Vulliamy lists as having had serious diplomatic talks with Karadzic - Peter Carrington, David Owen, Douglas Hurd among others - the "siege of Sarajevo played out on television almost nightly, Karadzic's hand eagerly clasped by the world's diplomatic leaders beneath the chandeliers of London, Paris, Geneva and elsewhere" contributes to his bitter sorrow at the way this disaster and suffering were allowed to continue.
His mind clearly will never be free of it, even when Karadzic is before the Hague international tribunal. If it is of any comfort to him (and I don't see why it should be) mine now won't be either, because of his piece.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Questions from the edge.
My neighbour had mislaid his carving knife. He had six people coming for a roast dinner and he was panicking. I offered to lend him mine, took it out of the kitchen drawer and went down the path to his house.
On the way I happened to meet a policeman (a rare event, true). "What's that you're holding?" he demanded. "Well, it's a knife," I said.
"Then I have to arrest you," he said, taking me by the arm. "Don't you know you could get two years in prison for this?"
I protested slightly as I was dragged off to the station. "But if it isn't illegal to buy a knife, how can it be illegal to carry one? You can't carry guns without a licence. But buying knives is legal; shouldn't we start to have licences for them?
So, you might need 10 licences to run a normal kitchen drawer.
A partly invented incident of course. But it could happen.
......................................................................................................................................
So, the government is producing money so that we can choose where we die. Not many people are going to choose hospital, because hospitals are only too eager to get their patients to quit their beds, so it might not be a safe choice.ds Most people would prefer home, but would newly-promised State helpers turn up on time? My favourite place to die would be Capri in summer: must remember to tell the government.
.............................................................................................................................................
We hear very often about the problems of obesity in this country. So mightn't it be a good thing if the price of food is going up? And if the price of meat is too high to buy, then let's stop eating it and help to rescue the climate as well as the unfortunate animals exported live or dragged up and down the country in a search for cheap abbatoirs. And stop drinking milk altogether, we don't need it. Then the cows would be spared a hideous life inside sheds with stone flooring forced into endless calving to produce huge amounts of milk for sale. The calves are taken away soon after birth, and put into trucks to travel for many hours. The UK exports around 100,000 calves each year and regulations allow them to be transported for 19 hours. It is time this trade was stopped - it's vile, not tasty veal.
.......................................................................................................................................
Have we stopped caring about the real workers in this country? The most regularly important people for me are the guys who are out collecting my throwaway black plastic bags before I'm even out of bed in a morning, the ones making sure the lights work, the water stays flowing and clean, the streets cleaned. Yesterday I met two guys toiling away, clearing the overgrown ditches and hedges in the heat of the day. One of them was at least 60. I wondered whether they were among those whom Gordon Brown includes in his list of people realising their "full potential." New Labour has never stopped sermonising about people needing to rise up the ladder, and work hard to better themselves. We never seemed to hear about the workers, the ones doing the hard and unseen jobs which keep the country going. Whatever happened to praise for the proletariat? Instead, among politicians and journalists as well as almost everyone else, a firm line is drawn between "middle-class" and "working-class" with an obvious implication of which one is superior. For example, the emergence of a "middle-class" in China is taken as indicative of a rise in China's prestige, even in spite of its executions, imprisonments of writers for unideological thoughts, and totalitarian government.
Could someone please explain to me what defines a middle-class person and separates that person from a working-class one, particularly now most of our factories and mines have closed down? I'd really like to know.
Now workers have come out on strike, quarter of a million of them making only £6 an hour while they see public service bosses get huge salaries.
And it's just possible that some of this united mass are middle-class. They include librarians. Are they middle-class? And, if so, why?
.......................................................................................................................................
On the way I happened to meet a policeman (a rare event, true). "What's that you're holding?" he demanded. "Well, it's a knife," I said.
"Then I have to arrest you," he said, taking me by the arm. "Don't you know you could get two years in prison for this?"
I protested slightly as I was dragged off to the station. "But if it isn't illegal to buy a knife, how can it be illegal to carry one? You can't carry guns without a licence. But buying knives is legal; shouldn't we start to have licences for them?
So, you might need 10 licences to run a normal kitchen drawer.
A partly invented incident of course. But it could happen.
......................................................................................................................................
So, the government is producing money so that we can choose where we die. Not many people are going to choose hospital, because hospitals are only too eager to get their patients to quit their beds, so it might not be a safe choice.ds Most people would prefer home, but would newly-promised State helpers turn up on time? My favourite place to die would be Capri in summer: must remember to tell the government.
.............................................................................................................................................
We hear very often about the problems of obesity in this country. So mightn't it be a good thing if the price of food is going up? And if the price of meat is too high to buy, then let's stop eating it and help to rescue the climate as well as the unfortunate animals exported live or dragged up and down the country in a search for cheap abbatoirs. And stop drinking milk altogether, we don't need it. Then the cows would be spared a hideous life inside sheds with stone flooring forced into endless calving to produce huge amounts of milk for sale. The calves are taken away soon after birth, and put into trucks to travel for many hours. The UK exports around 100,000 calves each year and regulations allow them to be transported for 19 hours. It is time this trade was stopped - it's vile, not tasty veal.
.......................................................................................................................................
Have we stopped caring about the real workers in this country? The most regularly important people for me are the guys who are out collecting my throwaway black plastic bags before I'm even out of bed in a morning, the ones making sure the lights work, the water stays flowing and clean, the streets cleaned. Yesterday I met two guys toiling away, clearing the overgrown ditches and hedges in the heat of the day. One of them was at least 60. I wondered whether they were among those whom Gordon Brown includes in his list of people realising their "full potential." New Labour has never stopped sermonising about people needing to rise up the ladder, and work hard to better themselves. We never seemed to hear about the workers, the ones doing the hard and unseen jobs which keep the country going. Whatever happened to praise for the proletariat? Instead, among politicians and journalists as well as almost everyone else, a firm line is drawn between "middle-class" and "working-class" with an obvious implication of which one is superior. For example, the emergence of a "middle-class" in China is taken as indicative of a rise in China's prestige, even in spite of its executions, imprisonments of writers for unideological thoughts, and totalitarian government.
Could someone please explain to me what defines a middle-class person and separates that person from a working-class one, particularly now most of our factories and mines have closed down? I'd really like to know.
Now workers have come out on strike, quarter of a million of them making only £6 an hour while they see public service bosses get huge salaries.
And it's just possible that some of this united mass are middle-class. They include librarians. Are they middle-class? And, if so, why?
.......................................................................................................................................
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
women in politics
Women in politics.
Lesley Abdela has been making the case for having quotas of women M.P.'s to right the imbalance of the sexes in Parliament. It is a good case. Published on the Guardian Comment is Free service, it has attracted nearly 100 replies. A large number were against having quotas and Lesley Abdela has answered all of them. She has worked for years on bringing gender equality to many emerging governments in the world, including Afghanistan, and travelled to the most difficult and dangerous places for the United Nations. She points out that many of these countries, regarded as underdeveloped, actually now have a much better record than Britain for including women in their governments.
And of course she is right. At one time, she admits, she was herself doubtful about whether quotas were the right course to take, but now she knows it works.
When Petra Kelly was leader of the successful Green movement in West Germany, her emphasis on feminism was, she always maintained, her first priority. To attend a Green conference was a revelation. Every woman speaker was followed by a male speaker, every male by a woman, and this was regarded as an absolutely unchangeable rule. So was the one that said the top jobs in the Greens had to be shared equally between men and women. But when they finally won seats in the Bundestag, the German Parliament, it was difficult to maintain this. The Bundestag was not going to accept the idea of rotating male and female speakers.
But it has to come. Anyone who doubts this should just switch on their TV news after the latest round of world meetings - the G8, the Anglican Synod arguing about whether to allow women bishops, and the village elders in Afghanistan arguing about how to spend the Western subsidies for their villages ( surely women might have some different ideas about where that money should go.) In all those pictures of the gatherings of leaders, there is scarcely a female face to be seen. They may be half of the world's ;population, but they don't get a half share in the decision-making which affects everyone's lives. If that situation was reversed, might we see fewer wars, the abolition of nuclear weapons, the end of starvation and disease in Africa, and, at last, homes and water supplies for all? We shall never know until we try. It's time to brush aside male protests, forget about upsetting them and go for the justice the world has long been waiting for.
Lesley Abdela has been making the case for having quotas of women M.P.'s to right the imbalance of the sexes in Parliament. It is a good case. Published on the Guardian Comment is Free service, it has attracted nearly 100 replies. A large number were against having quotas and Lesley Abdela has answered all of them. She has worked for years on bringing gender equality to many emerging governments in the world, including Afghanistan, and travelled to the most difficult and dangerous places for the United Nations. She points out that many of these countries, regarded as underdeveloped, actually now have a much better record than Britain for including women in their governments.
And of course she is right. At one time, she admits, she was herself doubtful about whether quotas were the right course to take, but now she knows it works.
When Petra Kelly was leader of the successful Green movement in West Germany, her emphasis on feminism was, she always maintained, her first priority. To attend a Green conference was a revelation. Every woman speaker was followed by a male speaker, every male by a woman, and this was regarded as an absolutely unchangeable rule. So was the one that said the top jobs in the Greens had to be shared equally between men and women. But when they finally won seats in the Bundestag, the German Parliament, it was difficult to maintain this. The Bundestag was not going to accept the idea of rotating male and female speakers.
But it has to come. Anyone who doubts this should just switch on their TV news after the latest round of world meetings - the G8, the Anglican Synod arguing about whether to allow women bishops, and the village elders in Afghanistan arguing about how to spend the Western subsidies for their villages ( surely women might have some different ideas about where that money should go.) In all those pictures of the gatherings of leaders, there is scarcely a female face to be seen. They may be half of the world's ;population, but they don't get a half share in the decision-making which affects everyone's lives. If that situation was reversed, might we see fewer wars, the abolition of nuclear weapons, the end of starvation and disease in Africa, and, at last, homes and water supplies for all? We shall never know until we try. It's time to brush aside male protests, forget about upsetting them and go for the justice the world has long been waiting for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)