Teenage thoughts on freedom

Rummaging around some old keepsakes today, I found a letter that I had written in my teens on a visit to Berlin. It was interesting not just because I had forgotten it, but because I commented on the Wall. The visit was in 1971 when the Cold War was very much in force. I reprint the relevant comment here:

"The Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the Wall are very frightening. It is only when you get near them that you feel the real evil of autocracy -- communist or otherwise. You can see people perhaps a hundred yards away who cannot so much as walk over to you and ask for a light. It is very depressing, yet strangely enthralling -- I could look at it for hours."

It is good to know some 38 years later that that particular evil is no longer there. But Cyprus remains divided, Iran is cracking down on dissent, Aung San Suu Ky is locked up, women cannot go out alone in some Arab countries, gays can't marry in most places, and poverty and starvation are worse rather than better.

We all have a long way to go. But at least that East German can now walk over to the West and ask for a light.

Clutching at straws on a bad night for Britain

As I feared, Britain's anger with its politicians and its lack of engagement with Europe has led to a disastrous European Parliament election as far as anyone is concerned who is  pro-European and left of centre. Tories coming top and UKIP getting another seat was bad enough. But the vile British National Party getting seats is more than a national embarrassment, it is a disgrace. 

So having thought about it all for a day, I scrape up the following to make myself and other pro-European, left of centre types feel a bit better:

-- The party that saw the biggest percentage increase in vote was the Greens.

-- The Conservatives gained just 1 percent more than last time in the vote. Hardly enough to suggest a huge endorsement.

-- The BNP actually polled fewer votes in the two areas where it won seats  than last time. It owes its success to Labour's collapse rather than a sudden right-wing frenzy among the English.

-- Ditto to a certain extent for UKIP. It gained only 0.3 percent more of the vote. Its seats came from the Labour meltdown.

-- The Liberal Democrats did get an extra seat (although their share was down and nowhere near what it needs to be for them to be a viable opposition).

But all this is grasping at straws, I admit. It was a night when ignorance about Europe, fear of immigration and anger at the government combined to boost the right and feed the country's eurosceptic neurosis.

A bad night for Britain.

Two pictures to remember Tiananmen

Hard to believe but it is 20 years on Thursday since China's military cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen  Square. We now know China as a burgeoning capitalist kind of place that owns vast swathes of the United States economy through U.S. debt and which many hope will actually lead the world out of this nasty recession we are in.

We should not forget, though, that China is brutal to many of its own people. It stamps on human rights, executes those it does not like and shuts down freedom of speech and expression. 

To remind us, I offer two photographs. The one on the left is the inspiring one we know and love. Something poetic about it. The other picture, on the right, which was re-published today in The Guardian, tells the real story.                                                                                            

There is only one problem

Leave it to Desmond Tutu to get it right. He who would be the greatest man in Africa but for Nelson Mandela has this to say to The Guardian about Middle East peace:

"You can give up on all other problems. You can give up on nuclear disarmament, you can give up on ever winning a war against terror, you can give it up. You can give up any hope of our faiths ever working really amicably and in a friendly way together. This is the problem, and it is in our hands"

Pretty much says it all, but if you want more from the good archbish, try this interview from Hay-on-Wye literary festival. 

Capturing the end of an era

In the past few weeks I have learnt of the deaths of two men whose passing marks the ongoing end of an era. I won't mention their names because there are many like them and, in that sense, neither of these two were special.

The first I did not know very well. He was just a very old and sick man. But it turns out that when he was in his 20s in the 1940s he was captaining a U.S. submarine in the Pacific. "Where the action was," he told me when I asked.  He was part of that group brought to light in the book and film "Run Silent, Run Deep".  He told me of his war -- the sinking of two enemy warships in terribly dangerous conditions -- as if he was describing a trip to the grocery shop.

The second was a dear relative and one of the nicest people I have ever met. He was a young kid from rural Pennsylvania who found himself fighting on the beaches of Normandy, a place he probably had never heard of. He could talk you through "Band of Brothers", telling you what was coming next all the way across the Rhine and into Austria. He jovially mocked the ex-soldiers in it who said they did not need rescuing from Bastogne. "That's not what they said then," he said. 

With twinkling eyes, he once told younger relatives who were planning to backpack through Europe that he had done that too when he was their age. They did not immediately get it.

Men (and women) like this are leaving us daily. I am so very glad that I spoke to these men and got at least some of their stories. We should all be asking as many as we come across about their time and keeping it alive, even if it is only in a small way like this post. They will all be gone very soon.

One thing I did get to do was thank my relative for helping me to have freedom in my life. His reply, if  I recall correctly, was simply, "Your welcome".

The sorry state of EU Britain

I can't speak for what is happening in the rest of the European Union, but Britons are about to make some terrible mistakes. They will go into next month's European Parliament elections focused on just about everything other than what it is all about -- Europe. 

Some of this is not new. We British are among the most ignorant members of the EU when it comes to understanding what it is about, what it really does and what are the benefits of being in it.  At one level there is a steady drumbeat of made up or misinterpreted nonsense from the newspapers -- EU want your bananas to be straight, EU says you can't say Miss or Mrs anymore, Lollipop Ladies to be banned etc. On the other there are the politicians, either having a Victorian hallucination about what Britain is in the modern world or using the EU as a nice excuse for anything they want to do but know will upset their voters.

The result is the European Parliament elections are never about the EU unless is it someone demanding that we get out. Take a look at Labour's TV commercials (which don't even mention Europe) or even the misleading handouts of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats as brought to light here by blogger Adrian Short. 

It is even worse this time because of the unbelievable scandal over MP's expenses. Labour, already unpopular because of the recession and whatever number of years it is of fairly appalling management, is going to get thumped. But the Tories are by no means shining in this scandal and have just reminded voters who they are by claiming expenses for things like moat cleaning. The LibDems have unfortunately gone back to being ineffectual.

This means that very few British voters will even consider Europe when they vote and may turn to the likes of the secessionist UKIP and -- horribly -- the far right BNP to punish the bounders who run this place.

In the old days, this might not have mattered beyond being embarrassing. That was when the European Parliament was a powerless talking shop. But it isn't any more. It has real clout and shares many legislative powers with other EU institutions. More importantly, it oversees these institutions and it the only directly democratic body the EU has. 

It is no place to send people because you want to punish someone else or because you don't think it is important. Please don't.

On letting the unspeakable be spoken

There is something initially joyous in hearing that the British government has banned some of America's right-wing culture warriors from entering the country because they may encourage hate. A full list is available from The Washington Post but it includes Michael Savage, a conservative radio host who has made controversial remarks about immigrants and Muslims, and the vociferously anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper.

But after a quick burst of "and a jolly good thing too" a true liberal should have pause for thought. As horrid and asinine as some of the beliefs these people hold might seem, is that a good enough reason to ban them? It is not as easy for some of us as we might wish it to be. Who decides what is appropriate speech in a democracy? How can garbage be shown up for what it is if it is not allowed an airing? And when does garbage change to something altogether more reasonable that a given government might not like?

A similar dilemma arose in the 1970s when the very nasty, quasi-fascist National Front held marches and rallies in Britain. A lot of people on the left wanted them banned. But the government let the NF go ahead. The solution was found in a series of strong counter demonstrations that sought to show up the NF for what it was.

Perhaps the reasonable course of action in Britain would be to let the likes of Savage et al in to talk (although there is no reason to believe they want to) but to make sure that every unpalatable utterance from them is met with the protest and derision it deserves.