I am in Tbilisi at the moment, where I spent this early morning drinking tea with some of the 2,000 strong Yazidi community. They see their religion as much more closely descended from Zoroastrianism than appears in most accounts I have read.
I very much enjoyed a visit to Tsinandali which was most useful for gaining a Russian perspective of the Great Game. I don’t have my books with me and am suffering a mental block as to whether it was Connoly, Abbott or Malcolm who visited Tsinandali. I had not realised that Griboyedov was married to a daughter of the house, Nina Chavchavadze. The murder of Griboyedov, Russian Ambassador in Tehran, by a mob rates little more than a footnote in British accounts of the Great Game, even though the British had bribed the religious authority to stir up the riots. What revisionist history there has been, has come from the Iranian side and falsely tried to obscure the fact that the refugees Griboyedov was sheltering were runaway slaves from harems.
This is a neglected recurring theme. When Shuja agreed the treaty already negotiated between Macnaghten and Ranjit Singh, the main stipulation he sought to add was that the British would return to him any runaway slave girls. The immediate motive for the ringleader of the attack on Alexander Burnes was that Burnes had refused to intervene to return a runaway slave girl who had sought the protection of another British officer. My fellow anti-imperialist historians have in general been guilty of emphasising rapaciousness by the British in these incidents and overlooking or excusing the slave status of the girls. Both aspects need to be faced squarely to write honestly the full facts of history. Tellingly, it is generally impossible to recover names of the girls involved.
Griboyedov deserves to be remembered for much more than his murder. An accomplished playwright and poet, he was a friend of Pushkin and had links to the dissident groups who attempted revolution in 1825. His murder left Nina a widow at either 17 or 19 by different accounts, and pregnant. She lost the child on hearing of her husband’s death, and never remarried. It is a tragic story which came alive to me in visiting the family home.
Griboyedov had fought Napoleon in the 1812 campaign, but had helped those Napoleonic adventurers Allard and Ventura evade a British blockade and go into service with Ranjit Singh. Griboyedov’s successor as Russian Ambassador to Tehran, Simonicz, had actually fought on the Napoleonic side against Russia, presumably in the Polish Legion. Nina’s sister was to marry a Murad nephew of Napoleon. The political elites of Europe melded quickly after the convulsion.
With which clumsy segue I shall note that the battle against the entrenched political elites of the UK appears to be going extremely well without me. I cannot express without a welling up of real emotion how happy I am that all I have been saying about the stultifying neo-liberal consensus and exclusion of dissent, and appalling burgeoning wealth gap between rich and poor, has found such massive traction between Jeremy Corbyn in England and the SNP in Scotland. I may have gone AWOL for a few days, but the cause of social justice appears in extremely safe hands.
“BDS, JVP and others are controlled opposition groups.”
_______________
Careful Daniel, your above comment could be construed into tbe form of a conspiracy theory, and we all know what you think of them don’t we.
Daniel, I think you ascribed this statement to me:
That was Aidworker1 at 9:59 pm yesterday. I am not of that view and I would be surprised if there was any solid evidence to back it up.
Craig, at 7:42pm, yesterday. Ah, right, great-nephew ( re. Alexander Burnes and Robert Burns), thanks very much for the correction.
That wasn’t me who commented on Mr Dalrymple’s researchers. I am not ‘Anon 1’. I don’t know who Anon 1 is. In fact, I never comment on this blog under anything other than ‘Suhayl Saadi’. They made an interesting point, though. I am aware that he has lots of researchers. I did not know about the linguistic matter. I’d always assumed he was fluent in at least Hindi-Urdu (which I am not; my Urdu is very basic) but maybe I’ve been wrong in that assumption.
Ahh, the Guardian Rattles up another Blairite War Criminal to attack Corby… bbC buddy – The Vile A.Campbell –
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/10/anyone-but-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-alastair-campbell
I seem to remember that in spite of the formation of the SDP and so on, Thatcher won the 1983 general election largely because of the Falklands War of 1982. Until then, she and her government had been trailing very badly in the opinion polls.
“Yes but nobody’s been pretending that their shit doesn’t smell.”
_________________________
Well Fred all I can say to that is, at least it’s the SNP’s own shit, Labour Libdems and the Tories in Scotland take their shit from London.
@Suhayl – Sure, the Tories benefited from the Falklands war but the Tories’ vote share was lower in 1983 than in 1979. Had it not been for the SDP they would have done much worse. Con + Lab combined vote share: 1979, 82%; 1983, 70%. Labour only narrowly beat the SDP-Lib alliance in 1983.
So you see there is no chance whatever that Netanyahu will be detained for war crimes by the UK…
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/uk-court-drops-extradition-case-rwandan-spy-chief
God knows what murky subversion of international law went on here, but letterbox-features was central to it. Gah.
Note also that in our efforts to placate Rwanda (mineral resources, Blair ‘advises’ Kagame) we have seriously pissed Spain off.
5.27pm Sucking on a lemon as per usual. Sooooo repetitive and sooooo boring.
N_, yes, you’re right about the impact of the SDP too.
Smiling Evil,
This is Horrendous… 6 months for Burning, the Palestinian baby, and his dad, the evil bastard was Grinning when arrested too, even one of the arresting police had the hint of a smile –
http://www.hangthebankers.com/israeli-jailed-6-months-for-burning-baby-and-father-to-death/
“Yes but nobody’s been pretending that their shit doesn’t smell.”
How do you rate Cameron’s decision not only to do nothing about the cesspit but to pump 40 (some say 50) more turds in?
Labour’s principled support of the present system?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/11/house-of-lords-reform-was-within-reach-labour-blew-it
Libcons?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/plan-to-ennoble-wealthy-lib-dem-donor-prompts-more-claims-of-cronyism-in-the-honours-system-10446231.html
I mean, sure, everyone knows it smells of shit. But there’s a lot of pretending, and it’s cross-party.
Pot. Kettle.
“How do you rate Cameron’s decision not only to do nothing about the cesspit but to pump 40 (some say 50) more turds in?”
Nobody claimed Cameron didn’t submit candidates for the House of Lords.
Brian,
They haven’t found the perpetrators of that arson attack yet. What they’ve done is put several ‘extremists’ in administrative detention. The only thing newsworthy in the story is that administrative detention is usually used only against Palestinians.
Just a little bit of information for Mary at https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/08/in-safe-hands/comment-page-2/#comment-543228
Network Rail is already nationalised – perhaps Mary will have to admit that nationalisation isn’t the whole answer?
Perhaps those wishing to renationalise the Post Office might just spare a thought as to how the £5bn that would cost might otherwise be invested – isn’t socialism meant to be the language of priorities?
I’m glad that Craig is so sure about what happened in 1983 – but perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that he was working for the other side at the time! Other commenters clearly have no clue. They clearly were not doing much canvassing at the time – most people at the time knew all too well what was in Labour’s manifesto at the time, those who think that Labour was denied by a mass press conspiracy/lies put about by our rivals/Michael Foot being ridiculed were out of touch then just as much as they are out of touch today.
A little education for RD who appears to be ignorant of the facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail
http://weownit.org.uk/evidence/railways
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/the-story-of-a-bad-idea-privatisation-of-br-could-soon-bring-higher-fares-and-higher-state-subsidies-and-reduced-services-so-whose-idea-was-it-who-still-supports-it-and-how-on-earth-did-it-get-this-far-1464062.html
1993 and how very prescient.
I will not go on.
@ResidentDissident – A cost of £5bn to renationalise the Post Office, my arse! Remember Lloyds Bank? The government could issue itself a hundred times as many shares as already exist and then take over the board.
They wouldn’t even have to pay Cazenove’s or Rothschild’s £100m to do the oh-so-difficult work of issuing – I’ll print the certificate on my printer for a fiver if they’re hard up.
And remember, @ResidentDissident, government “subsidies” to the railway system have been far higher since privatisation than before. So don’t tell us any public money has been saved.
Rail privatisation is a huge scam, pure and simple – the continuing theft of public resources.
No wonder the Brit elite get on so well with the Russian mafia bosses “oligarchs”.
testJust testing the tags.
Well, N, the wholesale re-nationalisation of the whole bloody lot could likely be done using the money needed to replace/upgrade Trident. That amount which was left over could go to the NHS. But the Red and Blue Tories won’t be on board with this, ever. The dead hands of the unseen won’t let them.
“Perhaps those wishing to renationalise the Post Office might just spare a thought as to how the £5bn that would cost might otherwise be invested”
How did you arrive at £5bn? Doesn’t that depend on the share price?
How did you arrive at £5bn? Doesn’t that depend on the share price?
Yes it does – its the current market capitalisation.
“The government could issue itself a hundred times as many shares as already exist and then take over the board.”
Do you really think confiscation like this would get past the courts – are you in the business of robbing peoples pension funds?
A little education for Mary – Network Rail of which she was complaining is already nationalised
” Network Rail is structured as a company limited by guarantee, meaning it has members rather than shareholders. Its sole member is the Secretary of State for Transport and it is classified as a central government body.[5] It is a ‘not for dividend’ company and applies its income to its own purposes.[6]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail
I supposed Mary would be happy to pay for it twice so that it could be properly nationalised. The point that Mary is not appreciating is that nationalising something can cost a lot of money and doesn’t by itself deliver a better service.
I envy Craig’s morning tea with the Yazidi community and travels in Georgia. The Zoroastrian element in Yazidi religion is recognised although it may be pre-zoroastian, pre-buddhist pre-mandean and pre-nestorian. In any event water and fire is hermetic as it is yin and yang. Looking forward to the book.
“its the current market capitalisation”
I don’t think anyone’s proposing to renationalise it today. We’re talking about five years hence at the very least. Share prices can fall and government action can encourage them to fall.
“And remember, @ResidentDissident, government “subsidies” to the railway system have been far higher since privatisation than before. So don’t tell us any public money has been saved.
Rail privatisation is a huge scam, pure and simple – the continuing theft of public resources.”
I don’t disagree with you, although a lot of the money wasted has gone into excessive wages extorted by Bob Crow and his friends as well as pay outs to the TOCs, while real ticket prices for customers have risen through the roof – but you still haven’t addressed a way forward other than just changing the ownership of the TOCs and leasing companies – the rest as Mary fails to appreciate is already nationalised. Personally I would prefer a users co-operative, to replace what is in effect a joint managers and workers co-operative, with all managers and employees been made to reapply for their contracts.
“Share prices can fall and government action can encourage them to fall”
Share prices can also rise, as can the demands for alternative ways in which the money might be spent. I think a government encouraging share prices to fall would soon be in trouble with the courts and pensioners who see their pension pots shrinking – to say nothing of the employees who find the value of their shareholdings shrinking.
Dreoilin @ 8;02
Cheers for that bit of info.
The Main War criminals are Quaking Big time –
Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Alistair Campbell are all calling for Labour to select anyone but Jeremy Corbyn as the party’s next leader.
” The blood on Straw’s hands is no less than that of Tony Blair, for a war in which over one million Iraqis died, four million were made homeless and the country so devastated that today there is acute rationing of electricity, many areas have no access to clean water and a health service that was once the most developed in the region is in tatters.
So next time we hear David Cameron talk about “criminality pure and simple” and he tells “the lawless minority… you will pay for what you have done” we need to know if his definition of “criminality” extends beyond the crime of stealing a £3.50 bottle of water or receiving a pair of stolen running shorts.
Does it include what the Nürnberg Tribunal, set up after World War II, following the trials of leading Nazis, called the supreme international crime:
To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/anyone-but-anti-war-jeremy-corbyn-for-labour-leader-say-war-criminals-blair-straw-and-campbell
You’re welcome Brian.
I just tweeted your link to
‘Anyone but anti-war Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader say war criminals Blair, Straw and Campbell’
“Daniel, I think you ascribed this statement to me:”
My apologies, Jon.