The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles – there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics.
The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet of all the CCTV footage and numerous photographs, there is no evidence at all of this attack and all the images show the car windows to be closed – as they would be. One gets cracked but not holed.
There is in fact no evidence at all of any intent to harm the persons of the expensive royal layabouts, as opposed to discomfiting them and damaging their vehicle. It is fascinating that the media continually repeats the “Camilla attacked with a stick” line when it is so blatantly untrue. There appears to be a closing of ranks by the whole Establishment to perpetuate the myth – both the Home Office and St James Palace have deliberately fostered the myth by refusing to confirm or deny.
Personally I would not touch Camilla with a bargepole. I dislike violence at demonstrations. Demonstrations, good, riots, bad is my basic mantra. Attacks on people in a civil demonstration are always wrong, including attacks on the police unless in self defence. I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.
But a policy as appalling as the withdrawal of state funding from university teaching, carried out by Nick Clegg by one of the most blatant political breaches of fatih with the public in history, , is bound to provoke huge anger. The government reaps what it sows. Demonstrators should not set out to hurt people. But all the evidence shows they had no intention of hurting Charles and Camilla.
I have personally worked closely with the royal family’s close protection officers in organising two state visits abroad, and plainly they too could see there was no intent to injure – that is why weapons were not drawn. They deserve commendation rather than the crap spouted out by Sky News, who seem to think they should have gunned down the odd student.
All of which serves to take the focus off vicious police attacks on students and the use of kettling to detain people who were seeking peacefully to express their views. Kettling people in extreme cold and with no access to toilet facilities raises questions on illegal detention which genuine liberals in government would wish to address. What is it? Is it a form of arrest? What is the status of the fenced pens into which people are herded? Should they not be formalised as places of police detention, and individuals booked in and given access to lawyers? If that is not possible, this detention – which can be for many hours – is not lawful.
Fascinating, thanks, Vronsky at 1:03pm. Yes, it is precisely for this reason – the “given their head”, irrational ‘slippery slope’ reason – that in an ideal situation that both education and the state ought to be kept entirely and formally separate from religion.
http://www.channel4.com/news/pakistan-governors-killing-hidden-hands-at-work
It’s not been in any of the news reports and is of little relevance in relation to the assassination, etc., but that murdered Punjab Governor, Salmaan Taseer was half-English. His mother was the sister of Alys Faiz, wife of Leftist poet/journalist/activist, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Her’s is a fascinating story – someone should make a film of it.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1126779.ece
A belated happy new year to everyone. My part of the world is pretty busy at this time, so I am only just finding time to drop by and say hello.
Vronsky said: “Religions are fundamentalist by definition and will always behave so given their head.”
I disagree, I think there are ample of example of religion not being inherently fundamentalist. South American Liberation Theology, the stridently anti-war Quakers and the entirety of India (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain etc etc), I think are all good examples of religions not being inherently fundamentalist. I would probably argue that the eastern religions (generally inward looking) are less likely to be fundamentalist than the monotheistic religions popular in the west or middle east, but no one religion can be said to be inherently fundamentalist.
I do agree however about the need to separate religion from state institutions, the more concentrated power is, the more likely it is that the power will be abused.
CheebaCow, hi. Welcome. Hope the floods haven’t got near you and yours.
I would hesitate to posit “the entirety of India” as good examples of tolerance and the benificence of religion in human affairs. Quite the opposite. Sadly, Hinduism has proved as much prey to fundamentalism and supremacism as any of the monotheistic religions. It has a profound impact in South Asia. The state which Mumbai is in is run by an extremist religious fanatic. Let’s not start on about the Partition of 1947.
Thankfully, India’s constitution is secular but secularism in India has been embattled for some time.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/Hindufund.html
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20108-08/The%20Impact%20of%20Hindu%20fundamentalism%20in%20Britain.htm
http://www.sacw.net/article262.html
I agree about the Quakers/Lib Theologians, etc. This is why I differed slightly from Vronsky (possibly) and from Dawkins on this matter.
And oh dear, even the Buddhists have their fundos (as has been acknowledged by the Dalia Lama):
http://www.sangam.org/BOOKS/BuddhistFundamentalism.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Buddhism
Evolutionary Theory suggests that their are common reasons for such processes.
Suhayl:
If you are referring to the floods in Australia, I currently don’t live there, and besides my family are from the civilised part of Australia, not QLD =P
Yeah I get what you’re saying about India, I was lazy and couldn’t really bother being more specific. It probably varies greatly from region to region within India, travelling from one town to another is like travelling to a different country. There is that nasty fundamentalist Hindu streak you refer to, but during my time there I didn’t see that at all. Instead I saw a billion people, with a million religions all doing their thing and getting along. I think every Hindu and Muslim I spoke to suggested I become a Sikh when I told them I didn’t follow a religion (I think it’s because I’m so tall). While there are those fanatics you talk of, overall I was amazed by the tolerance of India. So many people, so many customs, so little space and so little money and for the most part everyone does get along. In many ways India is the most multicultural place I have been to.
Every group (religious and non-religions) has fundos… I can’t think of any exceptions.
“Shooting throws spotlight on state of U.S. political rhetoric”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/09/arizona.shooting.rhetoric/
“It’s no good being in denial, Confused of Tunbridge Wells at 11:19am.”
I’M not in denial
@somebody, @CoTW – duplicates deleted. Dodgy blogging software! 🙂
@CoTW – I’ve not read enough about the Tucson shooter to determine whether he had specific religious beliefs. The Guardian has it that he had some videos of himself on the internet where he talked about people being controlled through the use of grammar – perhaps more details will emerge later on that.
But I think it would be naive to discount the bridges between the reactionary right in the US, support for gun culture, and fundamentalist Christian beliefs. The congresswoman’s office was reportedly shot at, apparently due to her support for Obama’s healthcare bill (one wonders what the right-wing response would have been if he’d proposed a “socialised” universal healthcare system instead!).
The same has been the case for abortion doctors in the States, too. In each case, one could blame fundamentalist politics, rather than fundamentalist religion. But, in each case, the reactionary right that fosters the requisite culture of violence – Palin’s gun-sight map et al – also proudly proclaims a deep Christian faith as well. All of these belief systems are connected, I think – they are all authoritarian and hierarchical.
CheebacCow at 2:17pm. Yes, that’s the good thing about India. Living with good communal relations was, and is, the norm for most people there, I think.
There is a very powerful and active institutional and Leftist contingent in India (Communist), a vigorous and free Press, a de facto federalist set-up b/w states, a military which has been kept out of politics and also, crucially, a secular constitution.
These factors have helped to buttress India against a complete take-over by religious extremists, though things were definitely extremely fraught and violent with the rapid rise of the BJP (which remains the main opposition party) and associated Aryan supremacist organisations, as well as with the activities of the various Islamist groups. It does also vary from region to region. Kerala is completely different from Maharashtra/ Gujarat in such respects, for example. North and South India are hugely different in any case.
Kashmir is a separate and complex matter. The impact of neoliberal economics and corruption are other issues – see under ‘Arundhati Roy et al’.
So it is precisely the secular, democratic and Leftist liberatory aspects of India which since 1947 have allowed most people to go about their daily business, to worship according to their wishes and which have protected India (by and large and in spite of everything) from systemic religious extremist hegemony.
“But I think it would be naive to discount the bridges between the reactionary right in the US, support for gun culture, and fundamentalist Christian beliefs.”
I’m not discounting them. I’m saying that such bridges don’t seem to connect to the shootings. A very different point.
“one wonders what the right-wing response would have been if he’d proposed a “socialised” universal healthcare system instead!”
Well, this is the main point isn’t it. If he had been a left-winger then the Right would have had a field day paintinf him as some kind of radical, you seem to say.
Instead, he didn’t seem to have any coherent political ideas and yet many people have been having a field day blaming Sarah Palin and Christian fundamentalists.
Don’t you think it is ironic to tut-tut at a hypothetical response from Sarah Palin and the Right and yet for others to not think they are above indulging in exactly the same behaviour that they otherwise would have denounced?
Suhayl:
This pic of the flood is for you: i.imgur.com/Tb0zi.jpg
Jon:
American Christianity is a strange beast. It is overwhelmingly Protestant so you may expect the church structures to promote a more liberal world view, but instead the mainstream US Protestant position makes the Catholic church appear positively “communist” by comparison (in regards to environmental protection, workers rights/pay and militarism). Even the black Christian church that fostered such great and strongly anti-imperialist civil rights leaders such as MLK are ridiculously homophobic.
I think the following video nails the whole situation perfectly: colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/368914/december-16-2010/jesus-is-a-liberal-democrat
“Jesus was always flapping his gums about the poor, but not once did he call for tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Romans”
Damn you Suhayl! I knew when I wrote my original post that you would be the one to call me out on my oversimplification. 😉
I guess my experience was also shaped by the fact I spent most of my time in holy cities along the Ganges and Dharamsala, so I probably saw the best examples of Indian tolerance.
CheebaCow, thanks, I like the pic! There’s another I’ve seen somewhere of guys out in a boat with crates of beer and so on. The thought of massed contingents of snakes and crocs swimming towards me fills me with dread.
I know, I’m that predictable, what can I say? (!)
On which note… OM and all that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF28Pghw13M
@CoTW, thanks for the reply.
“Well, this is the main point isn’t it. If he had been a left-winger then the Right would have had a field day paintinf him as some kind of radical, you seem to say.”
For clarification, the ‘he’ I was referring to was Obama, not the shooter, but I sense you’re referring to the shooter here. So your synopsis is not a reflection of what I was saying.
My point was that Obama’s healthcare bill was a centre-right solution that the insurance companies were much in favour of – they knew they’d been gifted billions of future public money, and that the alternative was universal healthcare that would have substantially slashed their income. Notwithstanding, the right wing painted the result as socialist, and Giffords’ office was shot at, allegedly because she supported the bill. My point was that, in this heated atmosphere, the violent reaction [prior to this recent atrocity] might have been a lot worse if a universal healthcare bill had been passed.
“Instead, he [the shooter] didn’t seem to have any coherent political ideas and yet many people have been having a field day blaming Sarah Palin and Christian fundamentalists.”
I’ve already acknowledged that we don’t know about the shooter’s religious leanings, if any. And it would certainly be unfair to focus on Palin on her own. But Palin and the gun-toting right do, perhaps subconsciously, promote a might-is-right perspective, all the way from the violence of the imperial invasion of Iraq, their support for the growing military-industrial complex, the privatisation of killing, right down to Jesse Kelly, who conflates the removal of an opponent from office with the shooting of a machine gun. Sadly, militarism is reaping what it has sowed.
Meanwhile, as I say, I spy a connection between that right-wing segment and its preferred religion; like patriotism, it is used as an opium of the people. It is diversionary, and encourages people to put their faith in powers who claim to know what is good for them. As my last post implied, fundamentalist right-wingers are usually fundamentalist Christians, because both authoritarian power structures are symbiotic in a politically useful way.
Now this is a very beautiful story:
“Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.
Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.
“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.” #
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/3365.aspx
that is a really beautiful story
Dreoilin thanks for the CNN lnk and we listen to a fraught Sheriff say that Arizona is the mecca of prejudice and bigotry. It is perhaps on a par with most States in America even today.
We all know the ‘Jim Crow’ law – don’t we? The civil Rights Act of America changed the law but not the hearts and minds.
The United States leads the industrialized world in firearms violence of all types?”homicides, suicides, and unintentional deaths(that does not include blue on blue!!)
L. A. Fingerhut, C. S. Cox et al., “Comparative Analysis of Injury Mortality,” Advance Data (Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics, 1998).
Qul yaa ayuhal kaafiroon
la ‘abudu ma t’abudoon
wa la antum ‘abidoona ma ‘abud
wa la ana ‘abidum ma ‘abadtum
wa la antum ‘abidoona ma ta’abudt
laka deenikum wa liy addeen.
Just because you lot talk a load of tripe doesn’t mean I’m going to interfere with your right to talk it.
I’ve said before that all -isms are caricatures of the original. Human life is sacred, except to the anything-ists who think that their particular anything overrules that sacred right. Meanwhile, the religion of Islam is right.
Thanks, ‘Confused of Tunbridge Wells’ (brilliant pseudonym, btw!), that is indeed a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing that with everyone.
Thanks ‘Confused’ – nice to hear some good news, especially after the whole depressing Salman Taseer assassination/ Asaia Noreen death sentence for unspecified ‘blasphemy'( her accusers won’t say what she’s meant to have said on the grounds that it would be “repeating a blasphemy’)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/08/salmaan-taseer-blasphemy-pakistan-bibi
There’s an online petition to ask Pakistan’s government to revoke Noreen’s death sentence here
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_pakistan_not_to_execute_asia_noreen_bibi
Dreoilin: “Conscience is apparently an elastic parameter that depends on the perceived likelihood of our actions being discovered and punished by our peers.” – true on average for a large population, I’d say. Some people will have high integrity even when unobservable, others simply fear discovery; most people are somewhere on this spectrum, at different points for different issues.
I suspect that elasticity of conscience has been demonstrated in psychological experiments.
I would argue that fearing discovery has nothing to do with conscience. It’s simply a fear of reprisal.
People’s consciences, on the other hand, can cause terrible feelings of guilt and shame, even when there is no chance of discovery or reprisal. Enough guilt and shame to corrode from the inside, destroy lives, bring people to the brink of suicide.
I haven’t heard of psychological experiments in this area, but I have seen guilt and shame drive people to despair in psychiatric hospitals. Guilt and shame over matters in which society had no interest and for which there would be no reprisal.
I’m not talking about crooked politicians or public servants. Such people will generally fear discovery since it can mean losing their jobs, or going to prison. I don’t call that having a “conscience”.
When it comes those who manipulate countries into war, or commit war crimes, it’s possible that such people don’t have working “consciences” at all, and may well be borderline psychopaths who feel neither guilt nor remorse, nor empathy for those whose suffering they have caused. Psychopaths walk among us all the time. They are not necessarily Hannibal Lecters. Sometimes they are the man or woman next door.
Thatcher cancelled conscience and replaced it with cost. Taste a sample of the real world. Derby County Council hire a virtual Building Management company to recruit staff that they previously kept in house to provide electrical and other maintenance. God knows how many layers of greed own that virtual company, but do they get value for the council tax payer?
Once they would have had a team of engineers with ongoing responsibility for the next generation of trainees. Now they sub-let the work at say, £30 p.h. per engineer. The virtual management company auction the work off through employment agencies to the lowest bidder. The price on Friday for a multi-skilled electrician, with van and tools reached £11.50 p.h.
I wish someone would have put a bullet through Mrs Thatcher’s brain instead of a US Democrat campaigning for health care.
Lakum deenukum wa liy addeen.
For you, your religions and for me, mine.
Dreoilin
There is only one source of stress, for those fortunate enough to experience it.
That is, the fear that, on the Day of Judgement one has not completed enough praise of one’s Creator, or good deeds to one’s fellow human beings, to fill the balance of the scale, and earn the mercy of Allah.
The rest of psychology in its entirety is quackery, superstition and Zionist Freudian satanism. Don’t tell the nutters round here.
New Labour are happy to support a non-working family at cost to the taxpayer of £50,000 p.a. because the money will circulate and percolate back through to them. Rabid ConDemn sado-monetarists are happy to force that family back to work so that they can cream off the same money it costs to employ them to their own virtual management companies.
I don’t know why Craig is blathering about demonstrations and Proince Charles. If you have a blog, why not use it to talk some sense about politics. How are we going to get rid of these three parties of total waste and greed, and replace them with policies that meet people’s needs. Craig should take a lesson from the Gifford Palin drama, that protest and rhetoric are a poor substitute for the application of sense and responsibility. But you will not find these two qualities outside Islam, so its not surprising Craig doesn’t offer them on this site.
On the elasticity of conscience, I think both views are true. We do have a conscience which is independent of calculations of consequences. It is evolutionarily conditioned – I think someone has already mentioned Matt Ridley’s ‘Origins of Virtue’.
But it can also be manipulated and even suppressed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment