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.
The US Navy isn’t admitting it and the link thoughtfully by our Transatlantic Friend does not refer to the carrier Ronald Reagan.
So we really just have his word for it, don’t we. The word of someone who writes that “they” (identity undisclosed, like his Oxford college) “successfully disposed of Robert Kennedy”.
Mary
“Needless to say, the BBC 10 pm News via Ms Raworth and Ms Walker, reported on the BLiar piece. They sounded really shaken at the huge number of Labour party memberships taken out for the purpose of voting for Jeremy.”
___________________
I can’t help wondering what you would be saying if all those new memberships were being taken out for the benefit of, say, Yvette Cooper.
Can you ssure us you would not be shouting blue murder?
“Members of the Lords are not MPs Fred.”
tell Baal he’s the one said they had entered Parliament.
Tell Fred not to quote me out of context.
And I’m not quite sure that helps his case anyway. None of those I listed, or hundreds more lords, were elected to represent us. Their sole qualification to determine our fate is that they had money or influence to sell one or other of the parties. That is apparently fine, while someone failing to anticipate that she would be an elected MP while picking up an OBE, or someone collecting a knighthood on the back of his support for the *wrong* party (even if that’s acknowledged, and it isn’t) – these are beyond the pale and neonazis.
Question for ya, Fred: Is Craig a neonazi?
“Saint Fred:”
If you want me to respond then just use my name.
I don’t answer to that.
Ah. that’s how it’s done, Saint Fred…
Someone needs to learn to read more carefully, if he can claim that that link does not refer to the USS Ronald Reagan.
“Tell Fred not to quote me out of context. ”
None of this alters the fact that Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh is an SNP MP and she accepted an OBE.
How many posts now? The inconvenient truth is still an inconvenient truth.
True, the link doesn’t say the Ronald Reagan is incapacitated because of nuclear contamination off Fukushima, but it does say the carrier is being sent to Yokosuka. Yokosuka Naval Base, where the carrier can be berthed tied up the way it has been at San Diego Naval Base. In both cases to hide the fact that it has been rendered unusable by the contamination.
I pity the poor sailors who have to serve on that ship. And the Japanese who will have to service it.
I imagine after Blair’s latest intervention, dictated no doubt to a tame Guardian hack by a flunkey on instructions from a chalet in Sri Lanka (some SL Muslims are really annoyed about that), the flood of grassroots support for Corbyn will swell to a cataclysm. BBC Radio 4 10 pm News led on the story, predictably enough as it had to push some very discouraging employment and economic migration figures down the running list. As I type, there is an additional commentary piece on the Labour election from the Dear Leader’s POV, with multiple repeats of the Blair PR team’s bons mots.
NuLabour is still in denial, and refuses to admit that if it turned left, it could pick up enough from the demographics it currently ignores ( Scots, the young, the terminally disillusioned, anyone wanting a manufacturing base, etc) to win a comfortable majority. It could do exactly what the SNP did in Scotland, as well as recovering some seats there. But no. Saint Tony’s is the shrine to worship at. Idiots.
None of this alters the fact that Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh is an SNP MP and she accepted an OBE.
None of anything alters the fact that she wasn't an MP when she accepted it, rendering any conclusion you are trying to draw from your synthesis (I've forgotten what if anything you were trying to prove, and so have you) utterly null and void.
Oh, Saint Fred. Is Craig a neonazi?
“Correct me if I have misunderstood you but I got the impression that your support for, and sourcing from, Lebedev’s Novaya Gazeta,has been close to fawning.”
Yes let me correct you for the third time as you clearly didn’t understand or remember the first or second time
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/please-communicate-this-challenge-to-the-journalist-of-your-choice/#comment-532716
either that or you did remember and just wished to repeat the lie. Perhaps you should understand that in my world I don’t just brand a person and anything they may have had contact with (e.g. Novaya Gazeta or the entire contents of the Independent) as worth totally ignoring just because they don’t fit with my own overall view of the person – I daresay even your viewpoints on some matters may be of merit.
I find it very endearing how Macky missed me so much while he was away on his holidays – pity I cannot reciprocate.
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh used to in the Conservative Party. Then, some years ago, she switched to the SNP.
I do recall an event when the left-wing Indian actress and former Indian MP, Shabana Azmi had been invited to be on a panel and Ms Ahmed-Sheikh was also on the panel. Shabana Azmi turned to Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and asked her, “Why are you in that [Conservative] Party – they are not friends of our people!”
I have no idea whether this played any part whatsoever in her later switch to the SNP – at the time, quite a few local South Asian political players and activists were switching from Labour to the SNP – but I remembered it.
I do not know Ms Ahmed-Sheikh. I do know Shabana (a little) and I know that she is forthright, a hard worker on the right (left) side and a good campaigner (as well as being a superb actress). Some people are in politics primarily for their own self-advancement. Shabana is not one of those.
@John Spencer-Davis
Yes, by convention the abbreviation “MP” is applied only to members of the Commons. But members of the Lords are still members of parliament.
Glenn – I think we are dealing with the blog equivalent of someone leaving a ‘Gers bar at closing time and shouting tunelessly to a street from which his mates have fled in embarrassment that he has the sash his father wore. Thanks for the PE rebuttal. I remember wondering if the letter which inspired it was by Fred. There’s definitely a common agenda at work.
Reverting to an earlier condemnation of Souter’s knighthood, it’s worth pointing out perhaps that Souter is no more and no less homophobic than, say, the Orange Order, though probably more sincerely religious:
http://www.kaleidoscot.com/unionists-homophobic-attack-glasgow-gay-councillor-1330
Or indeed the Pope:
http://thedailybanter.com/2015/02/homophobic-pope-francis-urges-bans-gay-marriage-gay-adoption/
(who, similarly, has many followers in Scotland. Would legalising gay marriage there be a brilliant political move?)
@John Spencer-Davis
Yes, by convention the abbreviation “MP” is applied only to members of the House of Commons. But members of the House of Lords are still members of parliament.
Baal
I do at some time want to respond and provide evidence on the profit making history of the Post Office while in public hand – the problems with the figures you gave is that the accounting with regard to the profits mentioned is far from consistent and does not include the impact of pension costs, which until recently were excluded. If you look at the balance sheet of the PO before privatisation it is all pretty clear that the PO accumulated losses over its life in state ownership. MJ has of course not given any evidence to support the his viewpoint.
One of the reasons I am less than excited about Jeremy Corbyn’s sudden appearance is that I never voted for Blair nor his predecessors nor his successors because they never seemed to me to represent the left.
How is it possible for a socialist to have crawled out between the legs of neo-con bastards like Hain, Byrne, Hoon, etc like a new-born baby out of the rubble of an earthquake?
Why was he not there to represent me 20 years ago? How dare he claim to represent socialism after Gordon Brown refused to reform the Banking industry and Blair carpet-bombed Afghanistan and Iraq?
I am your real dad. I abandoned you when you were a child and now I have come to claim you back.
Fuck off. I was weaned on the dirty jokes of my mother’s many boyfriends and I am right now playing the Tory game by running a small limited company. You can Fuck right off with your socialist dreams!
Why are you in that [Conservative] Party – they are not friends of our people!”
I have no idea whether this played any part whatsoever in her later switch to the SNP
According to her. it did.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/792019.stm
Though if I am honest, I’d say Tasmina was something of an opportunist. Takes all sorts.
@Retard Ba’al
It don’t make a blind bit of difference if she was a SNP MP when she accepted it. She was an SNP member who had already been nominated by Nichola Sturgeon as SNP candidate for the European elections and she is an SNP MP now.
The inconvenient truth is still an inconvenient truth.
RD, wasn’t the pension scheme (into which the PO ws permitted to pay nothing for 13 years) until not too long ago part of the wider Civil Service setup? And wouldn’t accounting for this be entirely separate? Looking forward to your doubtless informative resposne, anyway.
@Retard Ba’al
I win.
“I win.”
Only in your dreams retard.
@ Fred
yes indeed i think it’s a Good idea..i shall be there, all our rallies have been Fun filled peaceful, Family Events. …I don’t forget the video of a Fucking coward ripping a Scotland flag off a 17 year old girl as she sat on the ground.
her 20 year old sister Got it Back 😉
Sisters Sarah and Sophie –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjKdWQRDmrk
Nevermind
Yes warm gear.. Wellies. Hot water bottles. Whisky. Vodka, wine beer.. Thingmy (thingmyjig’s Fires..Atz it Gannet, knew it was sumthin to do with sea gulls, anyhoo, Gannet rules the camp fire ..but there is muchly Music, n BABES
i have Crunch time tomorrow with the Doctors.. i better keep secret my intentions of Slavery to Doune from her.. but also i have all these wumin breathing doon my neck. Over almost year long chest issues… i shall text asap on this.
I aborted my therapy session in Glasgow today…re-arranged till saturday.
Macky… Good to see ya Back..Enjoyed the tale of the Fisherman Helped, then refused Syrian Victims Family Jewels… Heartbreaking. Thanks for insights n such on that.
Peace n Light
“Which is 58420 signatures short of the 100000 needed for the issue underlying the petition to become eligible for a short debate in the HoC.”
Yes, but how many short is it now a few hours later? You Netanyahu supporters must be really feeling his pain. He will of course find some excuse to cancel his visit to the UK in September.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Is-Israel-a-true-democracy-352445
@Lo Zuccone 6.11pm
” This of course not surprising since the State of Israel is a democracy and not some Middle Eastern version of apartheid South Africa ”
Ah such certainties in the face of such national doubt , but the allegiances of ex senior Shin Bet Officers such as this is a worrying trend I’m sure you’ll agree ?
PS / I tidied-up the above comment you made at 6.11pm , as you appeared to be regularly hitting the wrong key or your apparatus . Sunstroke perhaps from your recent beach excursion , or a form of liquid sunstroke even ?
War criminal Bliar says in his anti-Corbyn piece that “electorates around the world (…) do not think breaking up Nato unilaterally is sensible”.
Funny, because no referendum has ever been held in a NATO member state on whether to stay or leave that organisation. But let’s not answer propaganda point by point! (That’s a lesson that some of the good people on here should take more on board.)
Has Corbyn said anything about NATO? If so, can someone post a link? If he’s standing for the Labour leadership on a platform of Britain leaving NATO, I wish him the very best of luck.
Chavy Dave Cameron started the civil war in Syria using UK snipers who shot both police and peaceful demonstrators. Chavy Dave recruited Al Qaida rebels from Libya plus weapons to continue the fight against Assad. But Al Qaida are mercenaries and have long ago scarpered with their Saidi riyalls. Assad’s army are winning a steady victory over USUKIS mercenaries.
This is why Chavy Dave Cameron is now using your UK troops, your SAS veterans, to try to prevent the Syrian Muslim army defeat his nasty Islamist mercenaries.
Why does Chavy Dave want nasty Islamist mercenaries and Islamic State to take over Syria , as they did in Libya? Purely so that you, citizens of the USUK and the rest of the world , will never look at the religion of Islam with respect, or contemplate its truth. You will only see beheadings, war and atrocities against civilians.
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/syria-is-winning.htm
1) 62% of migrants to the UK are refugees from war
2) Migrants at Calais are only 1% of total arriving in Europe
3) Migrants are 0.027% of Europe’s total population
Hammond said that the migrants would speed the collapse of the European social order. In reality, the number of migrants to have arrived so far this year (200,000) is so minuscule that it constitutes just 0.027% of Europe’s total population of 740 million. The world’s wealthiest continent can easily handle such a comparatively small influx.
4) The UK does not have a refugee crisis
There are countries with social infrastructure at breaking point because of the refugee crisis – but they aren’t in Europe. The most obvious example is Lebanon, which houses 1.2 million Syrian refugees within a total population of roughly 4.5 million. To put that in context, a country that is more than 100 times smaller than the EU has already taken in more than 50 times as many refugees as the EU will even consider resettling in the future. Lebanon has a refugee crisis. Europe – and, in particular, Britain – does not.
5) The UK benefits system is not ‘generous’
Many claim that Britain is a coveted destination for migrants because of its generous benefits system. Aside from the reality that most migrants have little prior knowledge of the exact nature of each European country’s asylum system, it is not true that the UK is particularly beneficent. Each asylum seeker in Britain gets a meagre £36.95 to live on (and they are not usually allowed to work to supplement this sum). In France, whose policies are supposedly driving up the numbers at Calais, migrants actually receive substantially more. According to the Asylum Information Database, asylum seekers in France receive up to £56.62 a week. Germany and Sweden – the two most popular migrant destinations – pay out £35.21 and £36.84 a week respectively, only fractionally less than Britain.
6) 50% of migrants are from Syria and Afghanistan war zones
7) Stopping Mediterranean rescue operations doesn’t deter migrants
8) The UK is not a major magnet for refugees
Contrary to the perception of the UK as the high altar of immigration, it is not a particularly major magnet for refugees. In 2014, just 25,870 people sought asylum in the UK, and only 10,050 were accepted. Germany (97275), France (68500), Sweden (39,905) and Italy (35,180) were all far more affected. When the ratings are calculated as a proportion to population size, the UK slips even further down the table – behind Belgium, Holland and Austria. If the ratings were calculated on 2015 rates, then even impoverished Greece would rise above the UK in the table. Just as tellingly, the UK has welcomed just 187 Syrians through legal mechanisms at the last count. Turkey has around 1.6 million.
9) €11bn has been spent on deporting refugees
10) The number of refugees in the UK is falling
Brian, thinking about you. Good luck with everything.
Giyane – remember when you were young.. you shone like the sun? – shine on.
Good post, BrianFujisan
@Brian, thanks for the welcome back greeting, and thank you for your good Post @11.51 🙂
@Resident Dissident, sorry to disappoint, but you didn’t even flicker in my consciousness at all while I was in Greece, but don’t take it personal as apart from one post I think I made to this Blog on the second day of my arrival there, all memory of this blog was wiped completely from my mind by the Greek surroundings. It was only yesterday now, while I was reading that Medialens commentary on Nick Cohen, that your existence, like an apparition, manifested itself in my mind again, because it was like I was reading a character description of Resident Dissident, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if your identity is revealed one day, and it turns out that you are indeed Nick Cohen !! 😀