Tag: Britain

A Covid Ramble

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Well it appears with winter on the horizon the world is settling for a miserable one. If we thought enduring lockdown while Britain basked in what was likely the warmest April and May on record was hard just wait until we hit January and the recently lifted Christmas restrictions are firmly smashed back into place. Thankfully I’m not in the UK now, in Greece you wouldn’t even imagine there was a virus, not where I am anyway. They’re handling it the most Greek way possible and just getting on with things. Saying that despite my ridiculously ignorant attempt at national stereotypes when they did have a lockdown it was a hard one apparently. It allowed them to open up for the summer and despite a few flair ups wherever the Brits like to holiday, the country has remained reasonably virus free. Last weekend in Thessaloniki the guy working in the hostel told me Thessaloniki had about five cases a day and Athens had two hundred. I think I may have mentioned that at the time but looking at the rest of the rates around Europe, well into the thousands, that is quite remarkable.

In that knowledge leaving this country, which I’m likely to do, seems a little silly. It’s like seeing prison and deciding you would like to go spend some time there. I never fully experienced lockdown the last time because I was working delivering bread and being clapped every Thursday like a hero. This time I would be going full power and disappearing for a couple of months. At least I may find the time to read those books I had for so long complained I was too busy for. Sounds quite exciting. I might study something too. There is so much to study. Look at me getting all excited about something everyone else is dreading. In truth I am too I’m just not sure what I’ll be experiencing enough to dread it.

I can’t wait to read the literature that people put out in a few years about this time. There will likely by films or television series in 2021. Perhaps the aftermath will be more of an interesting topic. Stories set during lockdown would likely focus on the psychological elements of the experience, but events after would likely be either on human versions of flowers opening up in Spring or will be about system change as Brexit flounders, the economy crashes and people overthrow the government and create peoples assemblies.

Either that or I’ll just be gloating about how I finally put in that application for Irish citizenship. Twelve to eighteen months and then probably another one or two for me to get off my arse and apply for the passport. That’ll be it. I give up on the Scots for being the only country in history suffering from Stockholm Syndrome bad enough to reject independence and the Brits for being a typical version of a people incapable of accepting their glorious history of domination and empire is now nothing but an illusion. If it were ever anything else. Fuck it the Irish seem like they’re having fun, I’ll go see what they have to say for themselves. Apparently too Covid rates below the border in the Republic are a fraction of those in the British controlled North. Well that’s telling. Handling it well are you Boris. I hope history is harsh on you.

Split Peas & Split People

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This might end up being one of those pieces which becomes a few random thoughts that aren’t related but I feel are worth mentioning. To begin with I’m having a nightmare trying to cook split peas. I was hoping to make a nice soup with sweet potato and carrot but these bloody peas just won’t cook. I soaked them for over twenty-four hours and have now had them boiling away for at least an hour to no avail. I enjoy cooking. I also enjoy eating and this enjoyment of eating and of having no money over the years means I’m not a bad cook. I don’t make enough soups though. A split pea soup sounds just lovely.

I’m a total romantic. I’m listening to Spanish Civil War music and dreaming of what could have been. It was such a glorious and horrific time. We like to imagine antifa and the antifascist as some new phenomenon but it’s been going as long as the fascist gave themselves such a name. I have mentioned this particular war a few times but it really is another example of the people being screwed over by power. Not just power in Spain but through the neutrality of countries like the UK. Franco had Hitler’s Germans and Mussolini’s Italians, the Republic ended up having no choice but relying on the Soviets who took over as best they could and did more damage than help. France may have been a Republic but it was never built on the ideals of decentralisation and the anarcho-collectives. The European powers as ever showed their true colours, for old powers like the British, Fascism was infinitely more palatable than people having true power. These things are contagious, they must be quashed.

The Twentieth Century was just a long list of outside interference with vested interests. Allende, Chile and Pinochet is always an easy one to bring up but let’s not forget Cambodia and Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to recognise the new communist government that replaced the genocidal maniac Pol Pot. She was also a bit of a fan of apartheid South Africa. Let’s not forget the British influence upon the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran that wanted to nationalise oil production, the dictatorship of the new Shah, a western puppet, more agreeable. General Suharto in Indonesia who killed a quarter of the population but who provided the Australians, as well as the US and Brits, with cheap access to natural minerals. Yugoslavia, the last Socialist country in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union was never allowed to exist. It is always easier to control smaller broken up and angry states than one larger one.

Talking of apartheid, Palestine is another obvious one. Obvious because it is still going on not because it is ever really talked about. You wouldn’t know it if you just watched western media but Israel have been bombing the shit out of the Gaza Strip for eight straight days now. Apparently Hamas fired two homemade rockets out and the Israeli’s felt the need to obliterate them in return. Eight days and not a peep.

Anyway my split peas have burnt. I got carried away and forgot to check on them. I give up.

Left, Right Or Corkscrew

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In sperm related news it turns out that the seventeenth century microscopes that first determined the movement of our little fellas were not entirely accurate. It was believed they wriggle their tales back and forth twenty times a second giving off the impression of a very fast and very small eel. Interestingly enough sperm are also lopsided and wriggle predominantly on their stronger side. Thankfully they don’t move in a circle as would be expected with lop sided force, think of a canoe if you paddle on only one side. Instead modern microscopes have managed to capture their movement in 3D and it turns out they seem to use a strangely corkscrew like movement instead. From above this looks like a wiggle hence the original confusion. There is a video below to clear up this confusion. Thank god for that.

I got that story from the news channel Russia Today (RT). I had hoped to fine some other stories worth going into but that was about as good as it got. RT is an insight into the world as seen through Russian eyes but more often as you delve deeper through the articles, it is clear that many of these stories are following the same line as those parroted by the right-wing media and the alt-right. They are generally pro-Trump which is clear without even having to read between the lines, they attack ‘left-wing Marxist cancel culture’ as well as Black Lives Matter, LGTBQ and Antifa. While I am not saying these different groups, movements or approaches are always in agreement they do arguably represent one particular side of the fight.

On a geopolitical scale these groupings as such can be seen coming together in the form of Trump, Brexit, Marie Le Pen of France, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Matteo Salvini of Italy. When you take a step back and observe everything from a distance it becomes very clear that what we believe to be a localised issue such as Brexit, is in fact a smaller part of a larger battle being played out on the international stage. Taken by it’s individual parts these are merely a series of unfortunate political incidents, mistakes or leaders but observed together we can really see the threats the world currently faces. The Covid-19 Front is the current battle ground as both sides put forward arguments of varying levels of credibility and persuasion. Although tempting, this may be a moment not to jump into one corner or another and observe this for what it is. It is hard to accept being played as all affects us but perhaps we need to see we are just being used as pawns, play our own game and do as the sperm and corkscrew.

The Lebanon

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This incident seems strange. It seems pretty horrific too. Ammonium nitrate left in a warehouse at the port for six years and it accidentally goes off. That is not an implausible story, let’s be honest. It is possible that fertiliser is imported into a country and it is also possible that it has been left for one reason or another and abandoned. It does happen. But ammonium nitrate is also used as an explosive. It is not implausible that it has intentionally gone off.

Usually in stories like this it’s very quickly pointed out as potentially an act of terror if not jumped on and accused of being so. Unlike other previous events it feels like it is not following the same pattern. The main focus is on the fertiliser and while it is suggested investigations are open into other possibilities, this is not seized on. I have only read the article on the BBC, this could end up being an analysis of the BBC’s reporting or a sign that I’m missing many other angles elsewhere. It just feels notably out of the ordinary in comparison to how these kind of things are usually reported on when covering the Middle East.

It is important to know context with the Lebanon in regards current social and economic issues. While I admit I don’t know in depth, the country is struggling with an arguably failed economy. I’m sure I remember reading that they were on the verge of defaulting as a country for the first time which would be a massive thing. The pandemic and subsequent global economic lockdown has only exacerbated the situation. There are currently protest although I am unsure on what scale. I don’t quite know the political structure of the country but I know Hezbollah, who were elected democratically it is often forgotten and ignored, are in power but I’m sure also the Prime Minister and his ministers are not Hezbollah, so perhaps there are two system within one. The regional political situation is that they are strong allies with Iran and that the Israelis seem to be fighting Hezbollah on and off, who are also deemed a terrorist organisation in the west, yet not fighting with Lebanon, or at least that is the narrative. With all that in mind the Israelis have had to distance themselves already, but have also offered food and humanitarian aid along with offers from Boris Johnson and Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State. It’s fair to say these are ominous gestures you would be cautious of accepting.

All of which make this feel eerily calm, almost like we’re waiting for something to happen. Maybe it also means that it genuinely was an accidental explosion of fertiliser and it has caught everyone, the Lebanese, the Western powers and the media off guard. All scrambling for an as yet unknown and too sudden line to follow. The next twenty-four hours will reveal the immediate direction it’ll take as events unfold, parts of the truth come out and the death toll becomes clear. No matter what does arise, one thing is clear, it is an horrific event either way.

Bojo The Wildling

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It appears Bojo came north of the wall today. He mingled with those pesky wildlings he ordinarily has no time for. When I say north of the wall, I mean nearly as far north as possible. He went all the way to the Orkney Islands. One suspects this wasn’t because he loves Scotland so much he wants to see as much of it as possible of course, it’s a lot easier to avoid the baying crowds when they consist of Angus and his dog than what they would be were he to brave Edinburgh, Glasgow or just about any place with a population capable of creating an angry mob.

He finally visited Scotland on the one year anniversary of his still slightly inexplicable rise to power. If that was supposed to fill us with some sense of honour that he would bless us with his presence on such an important day, all it did was remind us it’s taken him so long to come north. It took him one whole year despite the fact there was an actual election midway through the year. Perhaps his no show in that time was down to his love of the Union and the damage his presence would do to it.

Undeniably there is truth in that. The latest polls, and there’s more than one of them, puts support for independence at 54%. Nicola Sturgeon may try and take credit for this but when a country votes in droves for anyone but the man elected as leader yet has this very man foisted upon them it’s quite easy to see why opinion polls are only moving in one direction. When you see a country being dragged out of the European Union despite voting to stay in it, then expecting to be forced to endure an inevitable ‘no deal’ Brexit as the zealots in government return us to Year Zero and the ashes they hope to grow a new and glorious society out of, it’s fair to say the Scottish people want nothing to do with it.

Even the coronavirus has played it’s part. Nicola Sturgeon herself is very divisive, usually down the Independence / Unionist line in all fairness, but compared to Boris’ fumbled mumbled approach in confusing an entire nation on what’s expected of them while not actually doing anything himself, she has looked decisive and strong. She didn’t even have to really do anything, just be clear about what she meant when she did make a statement. Clearly there is something dark going on in the corridors of Whitehall and Number Ten, it’s no surprise more and more Scots are wanting out.

As Sturgeon said;

“I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that“

It says a lot for a man that the opposition openly admit he does them more good than they do themselves. There is no way for sure to say one way or another whether Scotland becoming a free state would work in the short, medium or long term, and while it’s dangerous to suggest or believe that happiness is just waiting around the corner, let’s be honest anything has got to be better than this lot right now.

I remember the day after the independence referendum in 2014, I was in France picking grapes and I barely said a word all morning. I was infinitely disappointed that a people had rejected not the opportunity of independence because what is that really, but that they had rejected the chance to even attempt improving their lot. A people chose fear over hope. But who knows, there may just be light at the end of this tunnel of a horror show after all.

The Final Cries Of Empire

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Let’s be honest you’ll struggle to find many complaints from me about the toppling of a statue in honour of a slave trader in Bristol or the latest vandalism of a statue in honour of Winston Churchill, the aptly entitled ‘complex character’. I was chatting with someone today who seemed to agree with me on those points but who also mentioned that war memorials had been vandalised and that she disagreed with attacks on these as they honour people who fought for our freedom. This exhaustively well worn and manipulative word makes me cringe but I can understand why she felt it unnecessary. To understand why people may damage memorials then we must look beyond the obvious surface rational for these protests.

Clearly black lives do in fact matter and the police are responsible for excessive violence. This violence which comes in many forms only serves to exacerbate a systemic racist imbalance within society. This alone is worth rioting over. It’s abhorrent and urgent change has never not been required. The issue of how we are in this situation though relates to our imperial past as a nation. While the Americans may have been conquering the world for the last eighty years, Britain got there long before those upstarts from over the pond even existed. The statue in Bristol celebrated a slave trader who operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Britain used slavery in the same way modern corporations and their national protectors use Asian sweatshops and cheap African labour in mines. These modern corporate empires are built on the back of the economic descendants who died on the sugar plantations. They also mined the lithium for the battery in this laptop I’m writing on which mustn’t be overlooked even if I inevitably will with any tangible actions beyond sentiment. While war memorials honour those who fought Nazi tyranny or were massacred in the trenches of Verdun, they are also emblems of an imperial past, one which relied upon the extortion of other nations and played upon the notion of a supreme race of white Britons. While they may represent your Grandfathers, as they do for me in many ways, for others they’re nothing more than a constant reminder of the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors which is still being felt in communities across the country and the world today.

There will be narratives pushed on these issues, the Conservative MP’s making an embarrassing self serving show of scrubbing the graffiti from Churchill’s statue doing just that. This concept of freedom means nothing if it doesn’t apply to all, people need more than sentiments. Once you believe, even unconsciously, that there are a deserving free and an undeserving then you’ve already lost the argument. I’ll leave you then with the quote made by the previously mentioned ‘complex character’ in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission;

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may lain there for a long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Tell The Truth Partisan

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I was thinking about Donald Trump today. I don’t like talking too much about American politics because I’m not American, it’s not my country and the world focuses on it enough already. The problem is that American politics plays such a large role in influencing what happens in other countries that to not take an interest in it risks potentially not understanding politics on a global scale. In that case then it’s also important to understand the situation in China, Russia, Iran and Australia. I threw in Australia there because it’s good to focus on a country that isn’t in some kind of battle with the Americans and also because their politics is so unbelievably corrupt and owned by corporate interests that it’s a warning not to be missed. That doesn’t mean we’re not corrupt and owned in Britain but at least the politicians keep up some kind of pretence.

American politics is just so unbelievably entertaining at the moment that it’s hard to keep your eyes off it. I appreciate of course that my enjoyment of politics and power as entertainment completely ignores the suffering of those who it affects. But the truth is it affects us all. And we have Boris Johnson, he’s not known as “Britain Trump” for no reason. But it’s always more than one man even though they may be desperately trying to convince you otherwise.

The thing with Trump though is that he is used to working in the entertainment industry. He understands ratings but not from a politics perspective, hence why politics has devolved into reality television. I was thinking today though that I’m starting to get bored of the constant criticism of him. That seems like a strange statement to make but it’s more that I’m just tired of hearing such completely biased and partisan news stories. It’s not that I necessarily disagree with them but I want real news, I want to know what’s really going on, not some version of events that fits a narrative and a political position. People are not idiots, they are capable of making up their minds for themselves but the left wing and the right wing seem to write such blindly ideological stories that nobody gains anything. If what you believe is right and really the best way to approach life and power then you should have nothing to fear. If the other side are full of shit and wrong then surely their argument will unravel eventually. Maybe there is something naive in this thinking, to control the narrative is to control the story but why are we so scared of being scrutinised if what we believe is genuinely the best approach.

I broke habit and voted in the last elections, and despite being bitterly disappointed Jeremy Corbyn didn’t win I will not say everything is good about him, what he thinks and how he acts. It is the same for Trump or Boris, not every single thing they suggest is bad. I may disagree with large amounts but they will have some good ideas, maybe not many but they will. How are we supposed to evolve in a mature developed society if we are unable to see moments and ideas for what they really are. Nothing is perfect, but I just want to know the truth. I want to see the world for what it is not how people want me to see it. I know I’m not alone in this and that’s only going to continue.

When There Is No Choice

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It seems like everything is coming one after another at the moment. We’ve been obsessing about virus’ and pandemics for the last few months and now America is burning. I’m sure there was another crisis facing our health, happiness and prosperity before coronavirus came along too and not just another Tory election victory. Although that may just be a physical representation of the British peoples misdirected anger. I see the riots in America as quite a good thing although I am not entirely sure how I feel about the approach. I remember a few years ago getting involved in a little ‘comments’ argument with someone on a friends social media post about achieving things through violence. I took the stand that people always have the choice, they can choose to be peaceful and they can choose to be violent, violence just leads to further violence as well as giving the mainstream media the chance to take away any moral high ground you may have. I was told I was viewing this from a very privileged position and that if my own existence was constantly under attack and my life was in danger then it’s unlikely I would still have the same opinion or see it as a choice. I think that was the crux of the argument at least but it was a few years ago and memories change events.

I had no argument when I was challenged with that and really I still don’t. I still stand by people having a choice but I am painfully aware I come at it from an incredibly privileged position. I also imagine that constantly being attacked violently leads you to not really see non-violence as an option, it just becomes about defence. If we’re attacked we can defend ourselves. Ultimately I have no idea what is going on in black communities in Britain let alone in America, I don’t live with the daily institutional attacks upon my own self-determination and life. How can I possibly cast judgment on people for either being violent or not being violent. Like I said though I think it’s a good thing to see the state get a little back. It’s good to see them burn. Whether it’ll change anything is anyone guess but it’s interesting so many people around the world are uniting over this, even footballers are getting in on the act and they’re dangerously neutral to anything. I would be curious to see their responses had the police officer not been charged with murder though, had it been the same outcome but also the same old cover-up. I’m an ex-naive idealist who now sees the world through skeptical and slightly deflated eyes, but it’s always nice to get a little hope that something may come from all of this. I imagine at the very least a little less racism in the police force. What a sentence to still need to write in the twenty-first century.

La Peste

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There are times when certain books need to be revisited. With current events, even though they seem to be drawing to a close, it might be worth pointing people in the direction of Albert Camus’ The Plague. It’s probably quite obvious why it’s a suitable book. Set in Oran in Camus’ native Algeria, he tells of the story of a city in quarantine trying to deal with the ravages of a plague working it’s way through the populace. The protagonist is a doctor trying to find answers in scientific explanations while the ruling classes prefer to prevaricate, cover up and live on false hope. Painfully relevant to contemporary events in our own Oran as an island cut off. Having been written in the years immediately after the Second World War, the plague was also supposed to represent the Nazi occupation, one Camus experienced first hand working as a publisher in the French Resistance. Apparently in Britain alone, sales of the ebook have risen by three thousand percent which is quite remarkable.

There was an article in The Sunday Times a few weeks ago that was a translation of a letter Camus wrote to doctors during the early years of the war. In it he offers advice to doctors in how best to deal with plagues. I assume there must have been a lot of plagues back then, unless this was also a reference to Nazi occupation. It is in many ways a precursor to his book. He gives some advice on how best to avoid exposure, the importance of wine “to lessen the dismay that will engulf you” and probably most importantly of all to “never get used to seeing people die”. Sometimes it’s easy to not notice the new normal slowly ebbing it’s way into taking over our existence and once death becomes normalised, life will lose some of the value it once held. In times of plagues, pandemics and political occupations it is always vital to remember what is not normal. If that does become the case, well wine will always help.

“The fact remains that none of this is easy. Despite your masks and sachets, the vinegar and the protective clothing, despite the calmness of your courage and tireless effort, the day will come when you can no longer bear this city of dying people…their cries, their terror that knows no future. The day will come when you will want to shout out your disgust in the face of everyone’s pain and fear. When that day comes, there will no longer be any solution I can offer, other than compassion, which is the sister of ignorance”

An Opportunity Lost?

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The more I think about it the British General Election back in December was an even bigger loss than I thought at the time. Don’t get me wrong I was pretty desponded, as the annuls of this blog can attest, but this is a deeper realisation. At the time it was clearly a missed opportunity. The Labour manifesto was in places a sensation, an attempt to strip back years of neoliberal skullduggery and corruption. It was relatively radical by an measure of what depths British politics has sunk to, we were going to have drastic and crazy levels of social welfare in line with Germany and France. Perish the thought. Apparently that was going to be Communism in the heart of Europe, well the departing heart of Europe. This realisation that we were instead about to be dragged out of Europe and forced onto our proverbial knees by an aggressively self-serving United States. To sit by as those supposedly negotiating and supposedly on our behalf pretended they were going to act tough even though they had already admitted they had put all our eggs in the Yankee basket. The neoliberal con was about to have it’s one last job before going into retirement. Of course I was despondent.

And now as the world has descended into whatever we can call this shit show, it is beyond doubt that there will be lasting effects and change coming out of all of this. Nobody who says they know really has any idea because it genuinely is all open. All open in the way that power still holds all the cards even though they’re blank. Depending how long this goes on for will depend on how your average persons view of the world changes in an open compassionate way, and that means a lot of suffering I suspect. Right now after a month of this it’s far from long enough to have any lasting change and I must point out I’m not a believer in ends justifying means or innocent people suffering. I don’t want the world necessarily to change for the better if it means innocents dying. Anyone who believes this misses the point. But had power not been this corrupt bunch of self-serving scumbags then at least this rebuild may have been done with someone other than their own and the tax dodgers interests at the top of the pile.

What an opportunity. We thought it was going to be bad having five years of a majority government of some of the worst Tories in my lifetime calling the shots. Now these people will rebuild what comes out of this and I am not looking forward. Boris is no hero despite what the media are attempting to convince you, and I doubt he had an intensive care bed epiphany about the value of the NHS and freedom of movement despite his foreign NHS nurse holding his precious little hand throughout. Imagine the vitriol had Jeremy Corbyn been in charge, there is simply no way his government would be getting let off as easily as this current mob. They would most likely blame him for the state of the NHS despite only being in power for a few months after ten years of Tory austerity and ideological cuts. We could be about to move into a period of rebuilding society and the economy with people being put first, the whole populace, not the depending on bank account version. So it is a missed opportunity, but is it a lost opportunity? This is only something time can tell. We’ve certainly not made it easy on ourselves though.