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.
Replying to Ba’al. Confirmation here of their efforts on Wikipedia entries.
EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group’s plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia
The Electronic Intifada 21 April 2008
A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.
A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a “war” on Wikipedia.
A 13 March action alert signed by Gilead Ini, a “Senior Research Analyst” at CAMERA, calls for “volunteers who can work as ‘editors’ to ensure” that Israel-related articles on Wikipedia are “free of bias and error, and include necessary facts and context.” However, subsequent communications indicate that the group not only wanted to keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and Wikipedia administrators, but that the material they intended to introduce included discredited claims that could smear Palestinians and Muslims and conceal Israel’s true history.
/..
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ei-exclusive-pro-israel-groups-plan-rewrite-history-wikipedia/7472
7 years on I would say they are doing a great job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Israel-related_articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Israel
and so on.
How is Jimmy doing? 😉
Wikipedia founder supports Israel, but keeps site neutral
Visiting Tel Aviv to get prize for role in ‘information revolution,’ Jimmy Wales says he aims for facts about Israeli-Palestinian conflict to overwhelm bias
May 19, 2015
http://www.timesofisrael.com/wikipedia-founder-supports-israel-but-keeps-site-neutral/
Hewett School, snippet for you, Nevermind:
http://schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/HewettReport.jpg
“The more the Tories try to revert the UK to the 19th century”
A mere staging-post en route to full-blown feudalism.
Remember the cruel mocking of Michael Foot’s attire at the Cenotaph yet actual war criminals in their smooth suits and coats stand there and the media lets the hypocrisy go by without so much as a peep.
‘Personally, I can’t help but agree with Craig Murray, writing on his blog in May 2009
Michael Foot: RIP
Some of his much-mocked policies remain relevant even in the 21st century.
Medhi Hasan
3 May 2010
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/03/michael-foot-labour-party-bank
“The irony is that it was Foot’s innocence of the dark arts we now deplore in politicians, that led to his extreme unpopularity”
That’s not irony, that’s reality.
MK
Using a Jurassic Park electric fence and Richard III DNA mixed with baby George’s. Corbyn and Cameron can continue the battle of Bosworth Field where it left off. Crusades are already in place.
Massive boost to UK’s neo-con tourist industry.
MJ
I believe the euphoria centred on the ‘massive traction’ between Jeremy Corbyn in England and the SNP in Scotland will be short lived simply because the ‘Establishment’ cannot allow an English commander-in-chief that does not support the next generation of the Trident missile system.
That is the depravity and lameness of a British establishment in union with an equally perverse and abstruse American predominance. A force prepared to contravene international law any which way for instance by illegally invaded sovereign countries, torturing, murdering the innocent and, at the other end of a dark spectrum of imperious behavior, squeeze the balls of European countries to ‘imperial skyjack’ a presidential plane and humiliate the people of South America and the Caribbean.
Corbyn faces the combined might of weak-minded, faceless, corrupt and depraved zombies.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/07/if-tories-keep-voting-for-jeremy-corbyn-theyll-put-labour-out-of-business/
@Jon
(in reply to Anon1)
“Thus, if you can mount an interesting challenge to what has actually been said – as I did – that would be much more productive. Can you “play the ball and not the man”?”
I reckon Anon1’s hasbara unit doesn’t do sealioning.
Or he’s a young’un who thinks hasbara is only about throwing verbal anti-personnel bombs packed with nails.
hasbara
sealioning
I messed up those links.
Link for hasbara.
Link for sealioning.
Brilliant N_ – Thank-you for the links – sealioning.. I love the expression.
The sealioning link doesn’t work on my browser.
Don’t feed the sealions…
Being sealioned is a lose/lose situation, unfortunately. Much like Global Thermonuclear War, the only winning move is not to play. In this case, block or dismiss sealioners and go about your normal business, letting them vent their frustrations out where you can’t see them. It’s much healthier for your psyche.
http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
TY, N_ .
arf, arf.
The link above it works, MJ.
Buggalugs….
http://i.imgur.com/29YMD4Q.jpg
Not on my browser. The hasbara link does but not sealioning. It’s highlighted like a link but the little hand doesn’t appear and nothing happens. How odd.
Thanks N_ 🙂
~~~
Back to the need for railway nationalization.
Network Rail fined £2m for delays
14 minutes ago
From the section Business
Network Rail workers
Network Rail has been fined £2m by the rail regulator over train delays and cancellations in 2014-15.
The delays were mainly at London Bridge station, but also in Scotland.
Network Rail’s performance on Southern, on Govia Thameslink (GTR) and in Scotland was “below expectations and missed punctuality targets”, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said.
Network Rail has apologised to passengers for “disruption and frustration”.
“Sea-Lioning is an Internet slang term referring to intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling debate opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to back up their claims”
That was buggalugs in a nutshell. Scarily accurate performance by a dumb sealion.
Link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33846756
~~
Network Rail’s Board aka placepersons
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/about-us/board/
The salaries are astronomical.
‘Patrick Butcher, finance director, could get up to £80,000 beyond his £401,000 salary and Paul Plummer, group strategy director, could get up to £71,000 on top of his £355,000 wage.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11346384/Network-Rail-bosses-could-get-more-than-100000-in-bonuses-despite-Christmas-chaos.html
15 Jan 2015
And has anyone heard of a more ludicrous title than the ‘Office of Rail and Road’? The placepersons are:
http://orr.gov.uk/about-orr/who-we-are/the-board
feat: Tracey Barlow (Corrie) and Alan Price (The Animals).
No. Not really. 🙂
I ‘ve no objection to socialist nationalisation of public utilities but they way this is being discussed by Jeremy Corbyn is no good. Mrs Thatcher presented her old retrograde, reactionary policies as ‘radical’.
You have to at least try to wrap up solid old ideas in new clothes. China has become a superpower using old socialist ideas. Can’t we call nationalising the railways China-ising public services or something new please?
O/T
‘Swedish prosecutors have been accused of “victimising” Julian Assange after it was revealed they had interviewed 44 people in the UK but were refusing to question the WikiLeaks founder in the London embassy where he is living.’
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/swedish-prosecutors-slammed-victimising-julian-assange-wikileaks-100414957.html
A Freedom of Information request by the Hazel Press news organisation revealed that Sweden has been granted 44 requests to interview a witness or suspect in the UK since 2010.
——–
Lets see how the anti-Assange crowd defend that?
So that’s what happens to decent cyclists:
http://eveningharold.com/2015/08/10/cyclist-spotted-in-dignified-clothing/
*L*
You have to at least try to wrap up solid old ideas in new clothes. China has become a superpower using old socialist ideas. Can’t we call nationalising the railways China-ising public services or something new please?
Getting the means of production etc into the hands of the workers need not involve getting them into the hands of the government, and indeed should not as long as the government is as weakly connected with the electorate as ours. Another option might be to encourage co-operative-isation, with minimal government oversight*. Creating a system in which all participants get some recognition of their input, not just the corporate suits on the top floor.
* As minimal as the Serious Fraud Office provides for the City, eg.
“Sea-Lioning is an Internet slang term referring to intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling debate opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to back up their claims”
Thanks. Could be worse. Unwilling debate opponents can just ignore them. It’s only the internet.
“In Safe Hands” – such as the safe hands of the Oxford police – who have information about bugging from 9 years ago, but can’t quite make it free
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/thames-valley-police-again-refuses-provide-information-ripa-use-non-vexatious-oxford-mail
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/13580122.Police_still_refusing_to_tell_truth_on_whether_they_spied_on_journalists/
the best line is something like: “Police are unable to confirm or deny that they were buggers, despite agreeing that it would be in the public interest for them to disclose this”
at least it’s not a Turkish or Soviet (Oh look, it’s a journalist) Cement truck incident, just something again embarrassing for international UK reputation, which MSM will likely ignore?
TVP – the Dr Kelly death case of course.
The CC at the time Sara Thornton is now heading the ACPO successor, the
National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) not to be confused with the NSPCC, the National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children.
http://www.npcc.police.uk/About/Membership.aspx
ACPO was a limited company.
This company still exists.
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03816000/ACPO-CRIME-PREVENTION-INITIATIVES-LIMITED/directors-secretaries
Cash £1,405,607 Net Worth £1,142,899 Assets £2,038,885 Liabilities £923,317
The ACPO Crime Prevention Initiatives website. All very curious.
http://www.securedbydesign.com/about/index.aspx
Mary,
Train delays and cancelations is not the reason for nationalisation. Poor management can be sorted out (and even more effectively) within private sector. UK has one of the most expensive rail fares in the world and of the poorest quality in the developed world. This is an issue BUT nationalisation is NOT an answer.
In soviet union rail (as much as everything else) was nationalised and managed by corrupt politicians most of whom knew more about history of the Communist Party than about transport management and operation. You and everyone here would NOT want to ride soviet train which with the exception of Moscow-Leningrad (Red Star) was of such poor quality that you cannot even imagine. Delays of the near city trains (transported people from/to large cities to nearby towns and villages) were norm and some had windows missing which in -20C mild Russian winter would be quite extreme ride.
“This is typical Hasbara to confuse Israel with being Jewish. Don’t believe this – most Jews in London and increasingly the US are recognising Israel as a rogue state.”
Israel is now officially designated a Jewish State. Please support you assertions.