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.
@John: “ What a load of shits the Brits are in turning them away. “
Do you think we should just throw the doors wide open, and take in the whole lot of them John? Would they all be welcome in your neighbourhood, and put up, housed, fed, clothed, educated and medically treated at your council’s expense, or would another part of the country be preferable?
I’d hazzard that the Greeks – while being quite kind to them as individuals – have absolutely no interest in seeing these migrants settle there.
Did you read on Glenn?
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/08/kos-bodrum-desperate-refugees-and-a-dying-child/
I heard the Mayor of Chios on WATO today. A kind and gentle man. The island cannot cope. The UN refugee representative is sounding desperate. No help is forthcoming.
“The Greek state just closes (its) eyes”
Manveen Rana reports on how 100-500 migrants are arriving on the island of Chios each day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02zff56 12 mins
“the two populations look the same”
Of course it’s even more confusing than that:
Shlomo Sand points out that present-day Palestinians are far more likely to be the descendants of the ancient Jewish people in Judea/Canaan.
“Following the Arab conquest of Palestine in the 7th century, many Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the Arab conquerors. Sand concludes that these converts are the ancestors of the contemporary Palestinians.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People
So, the Israelis are actually murdering the ancient Jewish people, and have exiled them from their land and homes, to be replaced by those of very questionable Jewish origin.
The state of Israel, as a matter of policy, is itself anti-semitic.
http://forward.com/news/israel/195883/israeli-jews-who-arent-jewish-in-eyes-of-rabbis-fa/
Looks more and more like a tawdry political project than the ethnic protection project it was claimed to be.
Desperate conditions in Kos too.
‘State Abuse’ As Migrants Are Held In Stadium
A day after clashes with police, refugees on the Greek island of Kos are being kept in a stadium without shade or water, MSF says.
‘Hundreds of migrants on the Greek island of Kos have been locked inside an open-air stadium without water, food or toilets – prompting a charity to accuse overwhelmed authorities of “state abuse”.
More than 7,000 refugees, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, arrived on the island in July – a two-fold increase on June – and officials have been accused of using “heavy-handed force against these vulnerable people”.
According to Medecins sans Frontieres, police have been evicting migrants from public areas in Kos, even stopping them from sitting on park benches.’
/..
http://news.sky.com/story/1534579/state-abuse-as-migrants-are-held-in-stadium
All countries are passing the buck.
“Is Craig a neonazi?”
Some of his followers seem to have remarkably similar attributes.
Glenn, I have no problem with immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. I live in Birmingham. I know many of all nationalities, have worked with them, cycled with them. If you lived in Birmingham you would probably feel the same as me. I love this multi-cultural city. One of the things I noticed when I lived on the Isle of Man was a mistrust of foreigners from some of the locals. I realised that that was because they have never integrated, probably never even had a curry.
I have travelled and been greeted and treated well wherever I have been. It is my duty as a world citizen to treat visitors and settlers in my native land with the same courtesy. We are all natives of planet earth. I would hate to be put in the same category as xenophobics and it is not going to happen. People who have foreign wives or husbands, Craig for example, will probably tell you how difficult the authorities make life for them.
I think the only reason Greece is having problems coping is because other countries are not taking their share of refugees from war-torn lands, refugees displaced by NATO bombings and shellings.
“Other people who were not MP’s when accepting honours and subsequently entered parliament:
Lord Fink, Lord Goldsmith, Lord Levy, Anthony Bamford, you name it.”
Therefore they are MPs who have accepted honours.
@Ba’al: Lankan affairs: a parliamentary election this week, US State-department & UK Gov Travel Advisory notices expecting violence, several killed, many wounded in rifle attacks already, why would Tony meddle/vacation?
The recently ex-president (MR), who didn’t organise a coup-d’état in January, certainly wants to become the next pres, therefore T$B to the rescue, but people imply he’s not on MR’s side but helping RW? (who is currently PM, and is a fellow of MIT)
The DailyMirror.lk said “Mr. Blair arrived in the country following a request by Foreign Minister MS (Mangala Samaraweera)” (MS was educated at St. Martins College) The current Pres. another MS (Maithripala Sirisena) was educated in Russia.
Did I mention that I made a Tamil lunar-festival film once, with Khushboo & Ramraja?
Glenn; “It sounded as if these tourists were nothing but callous bounders!”
Although that is a generalization, it is unfortunately partially correct, as a lot of holiday makers did do things like ask restaurant/taverna owners to pull down side blinds to both avoid seeing refugees camping out on the streets, or to avoid being made to feel guilty when being stared at by hungry refugees. However there where some tourists who went out of their way to offer some help, the most striking example were a fairly young Dutch couple, who actually paid the ferry fare for a family of four to be taken to the main port of the nearest Island from the adjoining Islet I was visiting that day.
As to your “doors wide open” remark, I would remind you that Britain is one of the EU countries vetoing a fair quota system for dealing with the refugee crisis, and with the fact that the EU is also refusing to offer meaning help to Greece & Italy to cope with the huge numbers, if I was Tsipras I would have no hesitation in automatically granting all refugees six month EU visas, afterall the countries most complaining & doing nothing about this crisis, are the ones mostly responsible for it in the first place;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMHutH9WcAAI_GT.jpg
These desperate refugees should really be the responsibility of those who destroyed their countries.
That’d be the US, the UK, France, and any others who took part in the destruction.
They must not be allowed to evade that responsibility.
Come to think of it. Israel is always looking for immigrants.
Sorted!
@John: There is quite a difference between accepting people on an individual basis, and inviting half a continent to migrate to your country on an unlimited open-house basis.
Any country which had such an open-door policy would not actually be a nation in any proper sense of the word, which is why no country actually has such a policy. Calling the British “shits” on account of enforcing the law as it stands seems a bit unfair.
I’m not asking whether you like individuals from other countries, nor if they like you when traveling abroad. I was specifically asking if you think an unlimited influx of migrants should be allowed in, and if they’d be welcomed in your neighbourhood at your expense – regardless of why they’d migrated in the first place.
Do you think there should be any upper limit on the number of migrants, or should half the world be welcomed here, if they preferred the UK to wherever they might be right now?
Therefore they are MPs who have accepted honours.
None of them are or were MP’s (in the usual sense of the abbreviation).
They are in the Lords. They have all made major contributions to their parties, Lab and Con, and were ennobled for it. This is apparently entirely acceptable to you in any other party than the SNP….and Souter only got a knighthood.
Is Craig (himself) a neonazi?
“Do you think we should just throw the doors wide open, and take in the whole lot of them John? Would they all be welcome in your neighbourhood, and put up, housed, fed, clothed, educated and medically treated at your council’s expense,…”
That sounds like a plan
why would Tony meddle/vacation?
All clues delightedly received. His position is very unclear on the major players. At first I thought he was lending his support to Rajapaksa: there is a parallel with his espousal of Nigeria’s Buhari against Jonathan (whose presidential ambitions he had nevertheless supported in 2012), but I don’t have enough data.
There may be a lucrative lecturing opportunity for Tone.
And of course Shree has her own advisory group which assists countries with dodgy human rights records, amongst other things.
http://omniastrategy.com/15-2/
http://www.theindependent.lk/index.php/news/item/1247-blair-and-missus-to-visit-sri-lanka
“if I was Tsipras I would have no hesitation in automatically granting all refugees six month EU visas”
Excellent idea. He could throw in a free one-way rail ticket to London as well!
Yup
“Omnia Strategy acts as a trusted advisor to Governments, private individuals and multinationals to create, support and implement effective communication strategies. Omnia Strategy advises clients on narrative and message development, issues and crisis management and stakeholder and media engagement.
Omnia Strategy also advises private clients on international reputation matters and philanthropy.”
http://omniastrategy.com/fourpillars/#tab-1404844316513-4-9
Chios is a beautiful island. At least it was when I once spent a week there, taking wonderful walks from Chios town to such places as the Monastery of Nea Moni and the mastic villages in the south of the island.
@Lysias, Chios is right at the top of my lists to visit next, as although over the years I have visited many Greek Island, this one has eluded me so far, despite the fact that I love mastic everything, from mastic Ouzo to mastic sweets ! Also it’s historic, (& tragic) past also are strong reasons to visit.
I wasn’t too far away this time, as I was in beautiful Kalymnos, and the amazing but remote Islet where refugees are often directed to by the Smugglers is called Pserimos.
“Do you think there should be any upper limit on the number of migrants, or should half the world be welcomed here, if they preferred the UK to wherever they might be right now?”
Not from my point of view. Historically we went everywhere, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, India and not only entered without visas but colonized the natives. Brits still go to these countries and other countries. A friend of mine lives in Spain. Yanks and Brits have taken over many countries and exploited those living their to our own ends, like the Philippines and Vietnam, forced islanders off their islands, like the Chagos Islands and all kinds of other worldwide exploitation. I would like foreigners to think of us as a welcoming nation.
Our policy on immigration gives me a bad name. Immigrants very often do valuable work that is beneath local people. Your vision of them as scroungers is inaccurate and unacceptable. It is this kind of action that is unnecessary and the headline too because we have been indoctrinated to mistrust foreigners.
http://thisisengland.org.uk/polish-workers-strike-could-cripple-britain/
their = there
You have it, Herbie. This
Responding to foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera’s invitation the former prime minister of the United Kingdom Anthony Charles Linton Blair alias Tony Blair is expected to visit Sri Lanka according to the internal reports of the foreign ministry.
This visit is supposed to be held in August this year and according to reports the former prime minister is visiting Sri Lanka with his wife who was an infamous barrister Cherrie Blair.
The acting Sri Lankan high commissioner to the UK Dr. Chanaka Thalpahewa has met Cherrie Blair on her personal invitation and given the foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera’s invitation to the former Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Lanka News Web, June this year)
..suggests that Mr. Tony (a) has some negotiation on behalf of one or other of his loaded backers to conduct and (b) that the Blair accounts will not be inconvenienced by the cost of his luxurious stay. As you suggest, Cherie will be picking up the legal opportunities. Omnia has recently acted for a number of clients personally connected with Tony. With very mixed success. She has just been replaced in an action between Pakistan and a mining consortium. It might be relevant to have a look at Sri Lanka’s extractive industries with that in mind. Tony’s very into mineral-rich places.
Glenn i realise you did not call them scroungers but I got the impression it was implied in “I was specifically asking if you think an unlimited influx of migrants should be allowed in, and if they’d be welcomed in your neighbourhood at your expense . . .” but perhaps you did not mean that. However many others do believe immigrants en bloc are scroungers.
Jeez oh, we’ve not even begun to feel the wrath of the Tories under David Cameron in this term.
Yet he’s already making noises about standing as PM for a third term, he say “The lure of power will be too strong.”
Scotland must become independent or suffer at least another decade under this buffoon, god help the poor folk of England.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/stronger-than-ever-cameron-may-run-in-2020-election.6279
No harm to Jeremy Corbyn, I hope he does well in the rest of the UK.
Mr Corbyn arrives in Scotland tomorrow on a two day tour, and although, I think he’s the best candidates for Labour leader, I don’t really want people north of the border to get to enthused by him.
Remember independence is the only way Scotland can take control of it future, and the decisions we make require all the levers independence affords.
This will upset Fred.
Australian PM Tony Abbot’s Conservative coalition government yesterday blocked its members from voting in favour of gay marriage.
John: Thanks for your replies. I am a bit startled at your idea that an unlimited number of migrants should be allowed in, if that is their wish. What is the upper population capacity of the UK – 100 million? 500 million? A billion? The natural resources of this country are at breaking point as it is, never mind the social structures.
Think about who you’re proposing to take in – not scroungers at all, granted. Very likely these are the people (men, in the large majority) who are the most enterprising, fit and go-getting people in their respective countries of origin. The very people who ought to be building their own countries, shaping their own political landscapes, and making them places worth living in.
Apparently, you want to take the best and most mobile, leaving behind only those unable to make the move. That is greatly to the detriment of their place of origin, and social pressure to go and send back money is not good for families either.
You say “Your vision of them as scroungers is inaccurate and unacceptable.” – well it might be, if I’d said any such thing, which – incidentally – I most certainly did not.
You say “Immigrants very often do valuable work that is beneath local people.” That’s another problem right there. Why is this valuable work below local people? Are the conditions too grim, the wages diabolical, the hours too onerous? Then that needs fixing – not getting immigrants in to do it, because they’ll accept standards beneath everyone else.
Perhaps you’re saying locals are just too damned lazy to bother? Maybe that needs fixing too.
Are you not bothered by the fact that cheap, easily exploited labour doesn’t do these immigrants much good, and certainly softens our own jobs market? The investor class loves this sort of thing. Sorry, “just open the flood-gates” is a simplistic solution which creates at least as many problems as it solves – especially for the working class who end up paying for it in numerous ways.
“This will upset Fred.”
Shouldn’t it upset everyone who believes in equality and human rights?
There was much talk a few years ago about large offshore oil and gas potential. Problems now due to failing prices so Cairn India has pulled out, as recently as April.
They’ll be needing other partners now.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150426/business-times/sri-lanka-persuades-new-global-companies-to-tap-oil-and-gas-resources-145792.html
Don’t see anything too exciting on the minerals front.
Their exports are currently a bit Southall market:
https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/lka/
So, all sorts of fixer opportunities.
“No harm to Jeremy Corbyn, I hope he does well in the rest of the UK”
I think he’ll do pretty well in the whole of the UK.