Archive for November, 2009
11 12th, 2009
David Aaaronovitch, writing in The Times, describes my comparison between Cuba and Haiti in my book Democracy Kills : What’s So Good About Having The Vote? as peverse. But he misses the point entirely. His piece focuses on oppression within the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and asks Would You Live On the Wrong Side Of the Wall? He is opposing a society that had cradle to grave welfare and extreme political control. Democracy Kills examines societies that have NO welfare at all, but whose citizens are subjected to the brutal control of corrupt governments, warlords and tribal chiefs.
It’s worrying that Aaaronovitch focuses his argument on the ideology of Cuba, which none of us like very much, rather than examing which systems of governance have had the greatest success in bringing people out of abject poverty. Why has dictatorial Cuba been able to provide the basic needs of its citizens while democratic Haiti has not?
Once that is answered, we can begin to move on from the Cold War ideological baggage that so many like David Aaaronovitch are trying to impose on the early 21st Century developing world. It is not about denying people freedom. It is about defining that freedom so it does not become a right to kill your neighbour and burn his village. Nor is it about my pessimism, David, as you wrote. it is about finding a way through to justify my optimism.
Click here: Democracy Kills Click here: Democracy Kills
11 7th, 2009
The glittering British Curry Awards in Battersea Park on Wednesday spoke a million words against any thought that the British National Party will make a major inroads into modern life here. Two thousand in black tie and national dress applauded the best curry restaurants from all over Britain — an attractive, sexy, fun-loving crowd — whose families had changed the face of high-street Britain in what we eat and what we buy and when. Compare that to the hate and smoke-filled pub corners from which the BNP plot the future of an all-white Britain and you can quickly see how they haven’t got a hope of getting anywhere. I asked one restaurant owner what he would do if the BNP arrived at the awards ceremony. “We would give them a glass of champagne and let them taste our succulent curries,” he said. And if he had turned up at a BNP meeting. “Oh my God,” he said, throwing his head back, half in shock and half in laughter. “Call the ambulance. They would blow us up.”
11 5th, 2009
The irreplaceable Front Line Club in London hosted a debate on Democracy Kills and from the front row, from a man who had worked much in West Africa, came an astute observation about how assertive Western prescriptions are viewed around the world. With apologies for the paraphrase, he said: “You come to Africa and don’t like the way we dress and tell us to put on more clothes. Then you go to the Middle East and don’t like the way they dress and tell them to uncover themselves and take off more clothes. Who knows what you people ever want?”
No-one actually disagreed with the premise that Democracy Kills — which was shame. The urbane Nick Fielding who runs the Circling the Lion’s Den blog chaired us through with insights from Sami Zubaida, emeritus professor of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, author of Law and Power in the Islamic World and specific guidance on Afghanistan from film-maker and journalist Najibullah Razaq and Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch Rachel Reid who told the story of an Afghan man worried about a prospective wife because she wore too many ‘democracy clothes.’
11 4th, 2009
The Sri Lankan writer, Dr Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda, has made an astute analysis of why the Tamil Tigers finally lost the war in Sri Lanka. The Tiger’s leader, Vellupillai Prabakharan, had a choice between taking the local population with him on his retreat and using them as human shields or leaving them in place where some could attack the encroaching army. Prabakharan chose the human shield option, thus ceding clear terriyory from which the troops could operate. I wonder if he is right?
11 2nd, 2009
Mohamed Aden, a Somali from Minnesota, has transformed a patch of central Somalia into an enclave of peace with a police force, new businesses, schools and rules. Jeffery Gettleman, reporting the story in the New York Times, says Aden’s formula has been to build local government from the bottom up — which is exactly what I heard in Liberia. Go to the villages and then into the clans and work it from there. It’s not about elections or a Western concept of democracy – its about creating good governance.
11 1st, 2009
The Battle of Ideas annual festival is on this weekend at the Royal College of Art in Kensington, London. I was privileged to have been asked onto a panel, and to have sat in on a few other sessions. I was stunned at the incisive level of debate, the packed venues, the calibre of the panelists and audience — and it revealed to me two things. One is that far from being being glued to Facebook and social networking sites, people are getting out for face to face intelligent exchanges of views. I found this at Edinburgh and Cheltenham. But the Battle of Ideas is more gritty with more gloves off. Second is that any one of the sessions I attended could have competed head on with Question Time and other political shows that tend to recycle the same basket of people with the same well-worn views. The topics ranged from Drawing the Line; Political Cartooning in an Inoffensive Age to Post-Recession Ideologies: What Ideas will Shape the World after the Credit Crunch. My own panel was on development chaired by the inexhaustable Kirk Leech and with Alan Shipman, author of The Globalisation Myth and Ruth Tanner from War on Want. Earlier, I heard abour reforming the British political system, with my former colleague and MP Martin Bell, Oxford academic James Panton (one to watch), from the Manifesto Club, Jessica Asato of Progress magazine, anti-monarchist, Graham Smith from Republic, and chaired with an iron clock by Suzy Dean from the Institute of Ideas. The whole weekend is highly recommended. I also sold a couple of books.
