Places I will (probably) never visit

This weekend we should have been in Rome. It was to be part of Kathleen’s 60th birthday celebrations. However due to the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland all flights have been cancelled. Missing out on Rome got me thinking about other places that I would like to visit, but will almost certainly not manage to do so, (though I do hope to get to Rome sometime).

When younger I imagined I would visit most of the world and just loved the idea of travel and seeing and experiencing different countries and lifestyles. Alas, life is never quite so simple. Advancing years limits the time available for all this travelling. Not to mention the distances that need to be covered and the increasing costs involved in getting half way round the world. Add in my fear of injections and I am forced to conclude that my youthful dreams of visiting exotic places are most likely to remain just dreams.

South America was always one of my favourite destinations. This probably dates back to the World Cup Finals in 1958 in Sweden which were won by the fabulous Pelé inspired Brazil. Something about the place just caught my imagination. Brazil seemed and still seems so different - hot, steamy, exotic, lively - just about everything Scotland is not. And Rio de Janeiro still looks like a fabulous place for a holiday, with beaches and mountains in addition to all the usual attractions of a great city.

The rest of South America is pretty interesting too and I would really like to go to Buenos Aires in Argentina. In part this is out of my love and fascination for the tango. What better place to learn to tango? Buenos Aires also seems to be quite a beautiful and interesting city in its own right. One of the more European cities in South America, it would probably be relatively easy to feel at home there. This is one place that I still have hopes of actually visiting.

The one other South American destination I would love to visit is Ecuador. Just the thought of being on the Equator is in itself enticing enough. However Ecuador is also rich in Indian culture and the scenery must be just out of this world. And there is the prospect of a breathtaking railway journey from tropical Guayaquil on the Pacific coast all the way up to Quito, 2 800m up in the Andes and the second highest capital city in the world.

The part of the world I would most like to visit would have to be India. No doubt this has much to do with Britain’s imperial past. My paternal grandfather was a regular soldier in the British Army and my father was born in Kanpur in northern India while the family was stationed there. The secondary school I attended in St. Andrews was Madras College, and was named after the city of Madras in southern India. This was where the school’s benefactor had made his money. So I have always felt I had a personal connection with India. And of course India is such a wonderfully rich country - rich in not just wealth, but in culture and landscapes. Classical art forms - music and dance, colourful festivals and a mouth watering range of unique cuisines are the main attractions for me.

There is so much to see in India, that even if I were able to get there I could only ever hope to visit but a part of the country. It would be lovely to visit where my father was born. I’m not sure that Kanpur is that great a place on its own, but the Ganges valley is the heart and soul of Hindu culture and Hindi speaking India. A visit to Kanpur would be but one stop in a tour of northern India. Highlights would include the capital Delhi, Varanasi, Kolkata and a railway journey up to Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalaya. The latter two places are in West Bengal so I would get to experience another one of India’s great cultures - Bengali.

The other part of India I would love to visit is the south. Very different from the rest of the country the peoples of southern India are of Dravidian stock and usually much darker in skin colour than other Indians. A tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu would be just fine. Kerala is on the west coast of India and is very beautiful with serene beaches, tranquil stretches of backwaters, lush hill stations and the home of magical places from my childhood such as Calicut and Cochin. Tamil Nadu is the land of the Tamil people. Tamil is another one of India’s great classical languages and cultures. Tamil Nadu is home to one of the largest centres of the film industry in India and its capital is Chennai, the former Madras of my school. Tamil Nadu is also very rich in Hindu temples as it is the cradle of south Indian temple architecture, and this would be the main attraction in a holiday there.

The rest of Asia is also of course full of culturally rich and fascinating countries which would be great to visit. Thailand, Vietnam and Japan in particular appeal to me. Not to mention China which is just so big that it is almost a continent on its own. And of course way down south there is Australia and New Zealand. For a long time we planned to visit Australia. In particular Sydney which seems a wonderful city, as we had friends who lived there. Alas they moved away before we could go. Carpe diem! Unfortunately all these places are very far away from deal old Scotland, and very expensive to visit. However if we were ever to go anywhere that far away I am sure Kathleen would choose Australia for the climate and language. Though I would definitely choose India.

The other part of the world I would really like to visit is Africa - and sub-saharan Africa at that. Never used to be much interested in that part of the world, but I have become in recent years more and more fascinated by the rich cultures of Africa. Most people who visit Africa tend to go to South Africa and it is easy to see why - spectacular scenery and wildlife, pleasant climate and European lifestyle. A trip to South Africa would be a great experience, but if I ever get the opportunity I would prefer to go to other parts of the continent. East Africa, especially along the great rift valley and the huge lakes - Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyasa - would be spectacular, but most of all I would like to visit West Africa. The most populous part of the continent it is home to some wonderfully rich and gifted cultures. Nigeria alone has three of the most famous groups - Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. Very different from the rest of Africa, without the spectacular scenery the attraction of West Africa would be the vibrant lives of the peoples there and their creations in art, music, dance, storytelling and cuisine. Alas this is one of the parts of the world that is most difficult to visit. The hot and humid climate means that you need an array of injections before setting out. And I feel I am too old to be starting on courses of injections. So I very much feat that West Africa is one place I will almost certainly not visit.

There are a couple of places, outwith Europe, which I do intend to visit in the next year or two. The first is Palestine, assuming the Israelis haven’t started another war there. I am now a member of the Dundee-Nablus town twinning Association and most years they send out a delegation. I hope to join them next year. We would obviously visit Nablus, but with luck we will get to see other parts of Palestine. You usually fly into Tel-Aviv, so we will see a bit of Israel, including Jerusalem. This would be a really exciting trip as I would get to see for myself what is happening on the ground as it were and may even be able to help out a bit with some planting of olive trees. It would also be a richly enjoyable experience to see some of the most holy sites for three of the world’s great religions.

The other part of the world I definitely intend to visit is North America. Both Kathleen and I are very keen to visit the big apple itself. We keep postponing our trip to New York, for one reason or another, but time does not last for ever. Must do this sooner rather than later. I quite like the idea of combining New York with a trip to Newport, Rhode Island and on to Cape Cod. Perhaps ending with a few days in Boston. Another place I would like to visit is Montreal. I have always been fascinated by this little enclave of French culture deep within North America. And of course my grandfather, the one who was in India, is buried in Montreal, where he died sometime in the 1920s. Not sure if that could be combined with a trip to New York or not.

The trouble with all this is that once you start on the places you really want to visit the list gets longer and longer. Just in North America alone, I would love to visit the Carolinas, Virginia, New England, Chicago, Montreal, the Rockies and Vancouver. Anyway we will start with New York and think about the rest another year.

Whatever holidays you have planned for the rest of this year, let’s hope there are no more unforeseen delays and that you enjoy them all.

NATO atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq

More and more evidence is becoming available about the extent of the atrocities committed by NATO troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost as disturbing as the atrocities themselves are the lengths that NATO will go to in order to try and cover up the atrocities. Most of this post is about an incident which occurred in Paktia province in Afghanistan on February 12th.

On that day the Sharabuddin family had more than 25 guests, as well as three musicians in their home in Khataba village to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. There was however very little celebration as five of the guests - two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother - were gunned down by US Special Forces during a botched raid.

This was of course bad enough, but the US forces then tried to cover up their action. According to an investigation by the Times of London this involved the implicated soldiers carving the bullets they used to kill the women out of their bodies and washing their wounds with alcohol to eliminate traces of their involvement. The first US-endorsed story claimed that US forces had killed two Afghan men because the men were insurgents armed with rifles. The initial story went on to state that 3 women were subsequently found dead (their hands tied and their mouths gagged) inside a room in the house (implying that the murder had been carried out by the home’s inhabitants).

This totally false version of what happened was of course the version that was presented to the public. Virtually all of the mainstream media dutifully recounted the NATO lies without making any attempt to question its veracity. If anything some of the US media go overboard and jazz up the official version. This is akin to propaganda. And it is not as if there was no counter evidence available. Right from the beginning of this story some reporters and agencies questioned the NATO account and even had the audacity to go and interview the family and their neighbours in the village where the atrocity happened. These included Associated Press and the Pajhwok Afghan News, an independent news agency created in Afghanistan to enable war reporting by Afghans.

Special mention should go to Jerome Starkey, reporter for the Times of London. He has a most interesting article on the whole event on the Nieman Watchdog Foundation website. As he states in his piece: “The only way I found out NATO had lied -- deliberately or otherwise -- was because I went to the scene of the raid, in Paktia province, and spent three days interviewing the survivors. In Afghanistan that is quite unusual. NATO is rarely called to account. Their version of events, usually originating from the soldiers involved, is rarely seriously challenged.” (my emphasis) Starkey’s full article can be read here.

This should be the key story about our invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. How easily we, the public, are lied to by our military and our politicians. And, to make matters even worse, how willingly our mainstream media, with one or two honourable exceptions, colludes in all this lying.

A further example of this collusion can be found in a typically forceful post entitled More cause and effect in the War against Terrorists, by the great Glenn Greenwald. ABC News reported on the attempt by the U.S. Special Forces to apologize to Haji Sharabuddin, the 80-year-old patriarch of the family, by offering him two sheep (a gesture of begging forgiveness in Pashtun custom). ABC News in an online article included this:

“Presenting sheep is such a powerful form of requesting forgiveness that the father is now obligated not to take revenge, even though he has told reporters he wanted to become a suicide bomber. . . . “

The ABC News article celebrates the fact that the sheep offering "will help defuse" lingering anger over the massacre and may help quell the demand for an investigation, limiting the fallout of the incident.

Greenwald in his post, which you can read here, goes on to reveal how we come to know all about the above attempt at an apology. He writes, “The reason we know about the U.S. Special Forces' sheep sacrifice is because The Times of London's Jerome Starkey, who broke the story about what really happened in the Eastern Afghanistan civilian killing, was present at the scene and described it in detail, including the fact that the U.S. Vice-Admiral who offered the sheep, along with Afghan soldiers, wanted to bar the media from witnessing the event and refrained only when the family members insisted that they stay. In contrast to ABC 's sunny report that all is now forgiven, Starkey writes:

"When people come to your gate and ask forgiveness, according to Afghan law, it’s difficult to reject them," Haji Sharabuddin said later. "I am happy they came." But the family insists that it still wants justice. "I don’t care about the money," Haji Sharabuddin said. He believes the troops attacked after faulty intelligence from one of his enemies — a spy. He wants the Americans to face international justice and the spy handed to Afghan authorities and punished. "When they surrender the spy, then I will make a decision. Maybe I will forgive them," he said.”

But the fact that this 80-year-old man was vowing to perpetrate a suicide attack on U.S. forces speaks volumes about the effects of our actions in that country. And lest anyone thinks that this atrocity in Paktia was an isolated incident, there is a whole litany of such atrocities. All initially denied, then covered up and only late in the day finally admitted to. Another Glenn Greenwald post, here - How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan - gives some more details about the pervasive nature of the atrocities committed in our name. In the post he also reports on the, largely overlooked statement from Gen. McChrystal, where he admitted, regarding U.S. killings of Afghans at check points: "to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. . . . We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." And as I documented before, the U.S. media constantly repeats false Pentagon claims about American air attacks around the world in order to create the false impression that Key Terrorists were killed while no civilians were.

Further confirmation of the willingness of our “boys” to commit acts of wanton violence comes in this video, published by Wikileaks, of another “incident”, this time from July 2007 in Baghdad. The footage shows an attack from a US helicopter, in which a group of around 7-8 people are shot down. The group included two TV cameramen for Reuters who has been trying since 2007 to get the military to release the video. Wikileaks does not say how it got it.

On the video, the U.S. troops later fire at a van that comes to pick up a wounded survivor from the assault. Then, as U.S. ground troops arrive, one of their voices on the intercom is laughing about having driven over a body. It is also very disturbing to hear the troops doing the shooting talk about “engaging with the individuals”, when what they are doing is killing apparently innocent civilians.

All this shows how damaging our continuing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is to us, in addition to the damage we are doing to Iraqis and Afghanis. This aspect of the occupation is well brought out in this post by Helena Cobban on her blog - Just World News. She writes" "All these revelations that keep coming out about the strong propensity of U.S. (and Israeli) troops to engage in excessive violence, and the propensity of their respective high commands to cover up that fact, underline a couple of important lessons:

• 1. Armed conflict is always violent, and extremely damaging to anyone who is in the war zone. No matter how often they tell us about "pinpoint accuracy", "smart weapons", and so on, the vast majority of the violence involved in armed conflict is brutal and anything but "pinpoint".
  2. Armed conflict always also brutalizes those sent out to engage in it. And it brutalizes people more and more over time, as acts that earlier are seen as taboo or "exceptional" progressively become more and more routine. Time was, in Israel, the military would rigorously investigate the cause of every death-in-conflict of a Palestinian. Then it stopped doing that. Then it started acting as if extrajudicial executions could be considered as "just routine"...
  

Using violence to try to resolve differences is outrageous, and barbaric. All of us who live in countries that claim to respect human life and human liberties should renounce it. Guess what, we do now have international institutions that, if further strengthened, could help us resolve all the world's big conflicts without recourse to war."

Recent Reads

This post is a sort of general overview of my reading since the turn of the year. I have managed to cram in quite a few books and nearly all of them have been thoroughly enjoyable. Some I listened to rather than read, as I am becoming a big fan of audiobooks. I can get on with my stitching and still enjoy a good read. I haven't written about each book, only some.

I now find that more of my reading consists of crime or detective novels. However I still manage to fit in a good selection of what might be termed non crime novels. These latter were:

The Business - Ian Banks

Transitions - Ian Banks

Ordinary Thunderstorms - William Boyd

No longer at Ease - Chinua Achebe

The Sea - John Banville

The Plot Against America - Philip Roth

Scottsboro - Ellen Feldman

The Good Mayor - Andrew Nicoll

Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh

Regeneration - Pat Barker

The Painted Kiss - Elizabeth Hickey

The two Ian Banks novels are quite similar in some ways, as both are about an imaginary organisation - The Business or The Concern - that secretly controls lots of the world’s business activities. The Business is quite a gentle book and nothing really bad happens and ends on a positive and happy note. On the other hand Transitions, which is his latest book and the one I am currently listening to, is altogether a darker and more violent tale. It is also unusual in that it has certain science fiction traits. An interesting and exciting tale. Still awaiting the end.

The Plot Against America is a most intriguing novel. It is based on a “what if” premise. In this case Lindberg wins the US Presidential election in 1940 and ushers in pro-nazi policies. The novel which is written from the perspective of the youngest child in a Newark Jewish family, recounts how drastically their lives change. A very impressive and quite chilling tale. Scottisboro is at the opposite end of the literary spectrum as it is a fictional account of the real life events surrounding the Scottsboro case from the 1930s, when seven young black boys were accused of raping two white women. Well written it is nevertheless a very sad tale.

The Painted Kiss is another fictional account of a true life relationship, that between the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge. However this is more fiction than fact as not too much is really known about their relationship. A good novel nevertheless which gives an insight into artistic life in early twentieth century Vienna.

As I mentioned above I now find that I am reading more and more crime novels. An interesting perspective on the popularity of crime novels comes from Maxine Clarke, who wrote the following explanation of why she reads crime fiction, on her own blog. “Now I read mainly crime fiction – which is ghettoised by many opinion-formers as “crime fiction” but I always experience, and see, it as “traditional story telling” which has its roots in Greek drama, other classical drama to and including Shakespeare and beyond, and the great Victorian and other period novels. The books I loved as a child and young woman were by Dickens, George Elliot, Arnold Bennett, the Brontes, Wilkie Collins, Emile Zola and so on, and before that Conan Doyle, Lancelyn Green, Stevenson, Rosemary Sutcliffe, C. S. Lewis et al. - to me, crime fiction is a natural extension of those.

Crime fiction is plot-driven, true, but the better examples of it have much additional depth in terms of character, craft, setting, conviction (political or ethical beliefs, for example) and insight. Crime fiction, like children's fiction (think J. K. Rowling), is not afraid to tackle the big issues. Literary fiction, in attempting the same, is too often self-regarding, tentative (one can almost feel the author's awareness of the "literary" review, along the lines of "the goalkeeper's fear of the penalty" to quote Wim Wenders), and hence over-personalised or over-intricate. I would even go so far as to suggest that the better literary fiction has its roots in crime fiction, thinking of Ian McEwan's evolution as a novelist, for example.”

If you like crime fiction, Maxine’s blog is an invaluable resource, and you can access it here.

My recent crime fiction reads:

The Terracotta Dog - Andrea Camilleri

Doctored Evidence - Donna Leon

Raven Black - Ann Cleeves

White Nights - Ann Cleeves

If the Dead Rise Not - Philip Kerr

Glasgow Kiss - Alex Gray

Truth - Peter Temple

Heart of the Hunter - Deon Meyer

The Ice Princess - Camilla Läckberg

The Draining of the Lake - Arnaldur Indridason

Silence of the Grave - Arnaldur Indridason

The Redbreast - Jo Nesbø

Andrea Camilleri, whose work is set in Sicily and Donna Leon, whose tales are set in Venice, are old favourites of mine. The other authors are all new to me. Ann Cleeves is English and lives is Yorkshire. However, she has succeeded in writing a quartet of books set in the Shetland Isles. Which is even more remarkable as she has never lived there. However she has spent some time on Fair Isle, and has visited Shetland. This is all by way of saying what a wonderful job she has done in creating what seems to me to be a vivid and realistic account of life in Shetland. She has also created some very enthralling and attractive characters. I have now read the first two in the series and hope to complete the set fairly soon.

Philip Kerr and Alex Gray are both Scottish writers, though their work is very different. Special mention to Philip Kerr who last year won the Barcelona prize, the richest prize for crime fiction. If the Dead Not Rise is one of a series set in Berlin in the 1930s, and a very good tale too. Will definitely read more of this series.

The other novels are all by non UK writers. Peter Temple is an Australian and Truth is set in Melbourne and is a terrific read. You do have to make a few adjustments to the inclusion of some local Australian patois and the book is centred on political infighting within Victoria State - so you need to be on your toes while reading this. Deon Meyer is a South African and The Heart of the Hunter is set in post apartheid society. Though suspicion and corruption are still alive and kicking. The story is fast paced and takes you all over the country.

The other books are all by Scandinavian authors. Part of the post Wallander and post Stieg Larsson discovery of hidden treasures from that part of the world. Camilla Läckberg is Swedish and The Ice Princess is the first in the Erica Falck series set in the real-life small Swedish coastal town of Fjallback. Arnarldur Indridason is an Icelandic writer. Never imagined I’ld be reading and enjoying Icelandic novels. Both are good. The Draining of the Lake in particular as it features Icelandic students who studied in East Germany during the early 1950s. This alone was a revelation to me. Jo Nesbø is from Norway and The Redbreast is the third in the Harry Hole series. Mainly set in Oslo The Redbreast is about neo-Nazi activities in present day Norway, but also goes back in time to the second world war and the story of Norwegians who fought on the Russian front for the Germans. The twin stories come together in the exciting finale.

My next crime book will also be from Scandinavia. I await with great pleasure The Man from Beijing, by Henning Mankell, he of Wallander fame. This is not though a Wallander novel. It has had good reviews so I am quite looking forward to reading it. If you haven’t read any Scandinavian crime fiction, I would thoroughly recommend giving it a try. If you want further convincing try this article on The Strange Case of the Nordic Detectives by Laura Miller.

Israeli Justice? - The strange case of Anat Kam and the dog that didn’t bark

Anat Kam? Most people will probably never have heard of her. She is an Israeli journalist who has for the past four months or so been under house arrest in Tel-Aviv for allegedly leaking secret Israeli defense ministry documents. The journalist who probably received the leaked papers has now fled Israel and is currently living in London, fearful for his safety if he returned to Israel.

So far there is nothing too special about this story. After all if you leak secret papers you might well be liable for arrest. What however makes this story not just interesting but scandalous is the reaction of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the Israeli government. For they have secured a gag order on the media which forbids journalists and bloggers in Israel not only from reporting on the details of Kam’s prosecution, but from even acknowledging that she had been detained.

Thus this is not just an everyday story of leaking damaging secrets, but the attempts of an almighty state to control what its own citizens can know. In other words this whole incident raises serious questions about the nature of Israeli society. An Israel which likes to boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. An Israel which is a bastion of “Western” values. And an army which is “the most moral army in the world”. Luckily for us, every so often we get to see behind the carefully constructed smoke screens and the truth about Israel emerges. And it is not a pretty picture.

First of all the quasi omnipotence of the IDF and its security apparatus - Shin Bet - is laid bare. Not only can they easily obtain a gagging order on the whole of Israel’s media, they can even keep this secret from top politicians. Apparently the Speaker of the Knesset was kept in the dark about this. Is this the kind of “Western” values that Israel upholds?

Secondly we can see the essential subservience of the Israeli media. Willingly or unwillingly, virtually all of Israel’s media has complied with this gagging order with the exception of a few Hebrew language bloggers. So much for a free press. And so much for standing up to unjust actions by the overweening authorities. If all or at least the majority of Israeli newspapers and media had defied the order, what would have happened? Would the IDF storm every newspaper office? The complicity of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli media is more akin to life in a military dictatorship than to life in a ‘Western’ democracy.

Linked to the inaction of the Israeli media is the even more scandalous reaction of the mainstream media in the West itself. Or rather the lack of reaction. For this is a classic example of the Dog that Didn’t Bark. It is not as if they don’t know. Newspapers and TV channels with offices in Israel will have been aware of this story every since it began, but chose to remain silent. The rest of the world, or at least the English speaking world became aware of the story in early March. That was when US blogger Richard Silverstein first revealed the story in his blog Tikun Olam. He has kept up with the developing story on a regular basis ever since. Other English language bloggers have also picked up on the story. Yet with the odd exception - the Guardian and Independent in the UK, the Huffington Post and to-day, the New York Times, in the US - our mainstream media has chosen to remain silent. Why? Whatever terrible things Shin Bet and the IDF may be able to do to journalists in Israel, our brave reporters in London, New York and elsewhere are pretty safe. Or are they? Perhaps the reach of the IDF does extend as far as threatening the lives of journalists in the UK and the USA. Most unlikely all the same. So what dose explain the continuing silence here in the West - the home of the free press and investigative journalism?

Let us imagine for a moment that Anat Kam was an Iranian whistle blower and that she is under house arrest in Teheran and subject to a gagging order which only a few brave Iranian bloggers had managed to expose. And that another Iranian journalist was in hiding in London fearful for his life. Can you imagine the mainstream media remaining silent about this. All hell would break loose about the depravity of the Iranian regime. In fact if this story had happened in any other country in the world it would have made headlines. So perhaps another lesson from all this is the willing complicity of our own media in covering up the true nature of Israeli society. Not only the media but our politicians too. Given the extent to which the USA in particular underwrites Israel, you would have thought some US politician would dare to speak out about this scandalous treatment of the media. Just how far does the reach of the pro-Israel Lobby go?

The other key aspect of this story is the substance of the secret papers that Anat Kam has allegedly leaked. For these papers reveal the fact that senior officers in the Israeli Army, including Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, knowingly violated Israel Supreme Court orders as well as international laws by ordering the assassination of Palestinians even when it was possible to capture the suspects alive. This is what the IDF are so desperate to cover up. Just to be sure about all this. Senior officers in the IDF have ordered the unlawful killing of Palestinians. This is of course a war crime or indeed a crime against humanity. Now the IDF might not care too much about international law, but their actions were also in contravention of Israel’s own Supreme Court. The IDF and its cronies in the government obviously believe they are above the law. So much for the ‘most moral army in the world’.

As Israeli blogger Noam Sheizaf puts it in his Promised Land blog: “If this was indeed the liberal democracy some people believe Israel to be, these officers would have been forced to resign and prosecuted. There is no chance of this happening.” Israel has however long ceased to be a Liberal Democracy and the sooner our media and politicians wake up to this fact the better. What Israel has become is a 21st century version of Prussia - a deeply militarised society with a light gloss of democracy - for Jews only - to cover the blemishes. You can read a previous post on this topic here.

The gagging orders on the media show the extent to which the IDF and the Israeli state are terrified of the truth. At all costs not just us in the West, but Israeli citizens themselves must be shielded from the truth. This particular story is only unusual in the severity of the gagging order. However attempts by Israeli authorities to hide the truth are commonplace. Some recent examples.

Jared Malsin, a Jewish American graduate of Yale University, was until recently English language editor of the Palestinian news service Ma’an News. That is until he was deported by the orders of the Israeli security services on the grounds that he had published damaging reports about Israeli military conduct in the Occupied Territories. Clearly the Israelis will go to almost any length to avoid the truth.

Two international activists, Ariadna Jove Marti (Spain) and Bridgette Chappell (Australia), who were living in Bir Zeit in the West Bank were arrested by the IDF last month and threatened with deportation. Their case is currently with the Israel Supreme Court. What makes this case particularly indicative of current trends in Israel is that the main charge against the activists had nothing to do with national security, but with the ideas they expressed. The “crime” involved words, not actions. The arrest by the army, not the police, took place within part of the West Bank that is supposed to be under Palestinian control. Yet Israel clearly ignores this and its so called security forces act with impunity all over the occupied West Bank. This is akin to a US military force crossing the Canadian border to arrest a UK citizen living in Vancouver, taking them to the US and threatening them with deportation. What kind of state does this? You can read more about this case here.

An even stranger case is the fate of the delegation of young Swedish citizens with Jewish and Palestinian roots who had come to Israel to participate in educational sessions with Israelis and Palestinians. The trip was funded by the Olof Palme Foundation in Stockholm. The three Swedish citizens of Palestinian origin were denied entry into Israel and deported back to Sweden. The four with Jewish roots were allowed to stay. One of them though was asked to sign a declaration that he would not enter Palestinian territory. What was this all about? Are the Israeli authorities so terrified of the prospect of Jews and Palestinians living in harmony? You can read more about this here.

I end this post with the final two paragraphs from Max Blumenthal’s account of the Anat Kam case. The full post can be found on his blog here. “While the media blackout casts the darkest shadow over Israel’s already withered democratic institutions, the fact that Kam is being charged with treason is nearly as disturbing. While she may be guilty of leaking confidential documents, she is only accused of malfeasance for exposing a much greater crime, an illegal assassination that appeared to have been authorized at the highest levels of the IDF general command. She is a whisteblower in the tradition of Mark Felt and Daniel Ellsberg. In Netanyahu’s Israel, however, she is being treated as an enemy of the state.

If reporters can be prosecuted or intimidated by the state for exposing acts that the Israeli Supreme Court has declared illegal, then the court holds nothing more than symbolic authority. By voiding the rulings of the court without a second thought, Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus has demonstrated the preeminence of its power. At the same time, its reliance on gag orders has revealed a growing sense of desperation. What else is the IDF hiding?”

April

“April is the cruelest month”. This line from TS Elliot’s poem the Wasteland has always stuck in my memory. Not that I have anything against April. Au contraire, I’ve always had a soft spot for the month of April. For a start I came into the world in April. Even the word itself has always looked and sounded sweet to me. And it is forever associated with spring and romance - April in Paris and all that jazz. And yet, and yet, the cold and icy blasts of winter are never far away in April. Even April in Paris can be pretty dam cold, as Kathleen and I discovered on our one and only holiday there in April1995. No romantic sipping of wine sitting at a streetside cafe in the Left Bank. More like fur coats and fur knickers. I can also recall too many spring holidays wrapped up in long coat, hat and scarf fighting off the elements instead of enjoying a fine game of golf. April is cruel because it so often lets us down - we have such high expectations of a bit of warmth and sunshine and too often get cold and windy spring showers.

Still April can be a great month for celebrations. This year for example Easter falls in April. In the presbyterian christian tradition, Easter is the religious festival above all others. However presbyterians, especially in Scotland were not too keen on outward displays of any kind and certainly not of the emotional or exuberant type - far to Popish that kind of thing. To really enjoy and appreciate Easter you probably have to go to somewhere in southern Europe. Sevilla is of course one of the places for a colourful, loud, emotional and popular celebration. Not that we have managed to experience this yet. Easter in Sitges was pretty good though with the usual procession through the town.

In Scotland we did have the tradition of painting eggs for Easter. This was often done as a class activity in school, but was also done at home. I can’t remember what kind of paint we used, but I do remember enjoying it all greatly. The painted eggs would then be taken some hillside and rolled down to the bottom. For the life of me I had no idea why this particular tradition developed. It was and to some extent still is popular in Scotland, the North of England and some central European countries.

April is also the month in which we celebrate Tartan Day. April 6th 1320 was the day when Scots signed the Declaration of Arbroath, asserting their right to independence and freedom from occupation. In 1998, the US Congress designated this day as national "Tartan Day,” to celebrate the contributions to America by Scottish-Americans. It has grown steadily in stature and is now Tartan Week with a range of activities celebrating all things Scottish. In the USA the main event will be the annual Tartan Day Parade, which this year is on Saturday 10th. There will also be celebrations in various parts of Canada. The Rutherfords do not seem to have become a clan in their own right. In most accounts they are regarded as a sept of the Home clan. However, below is a picture of a Rutherford tartan based on the Home tartan and designed by Phil Smith for Keith Rutherford of Davison, Michigan, USA. May be worn by all of the name and its spelling variations. Woven by D C Dalgliesh of Selkirk.

April 23rd sees the celebration of St George, the patron saint of England, Georgia and many other countries and places. Much like St Andrew’s Day in Scotland, St George’s Day has never been a great popular festival in England. In the UK we were all supposed to suppress our own national traditions and become good Britons. However the arrival of Parliaments in Scotland and Wales and the rise of Scottish and Welsh nationalists has given a fresh impetus to St George’s Day in England. Good too, the more traditional festivals and celebrations there are the better.

St George is also the patron saint of Catalunya, where he is known as Sant Jordi. There, La Diada de Sant Jordi is a lively and popular festival. It is also known as el dia de la rosa, as since medieval times it was a tradition on St George’s Day for men to give the woman in their life a rose, usually a red rose. Since the 1920’s, 23 April has a third name - el dia del llibre (The day of the Book). In return for a rose, women would give the man in her life a book - “a rose for love and a book forever”. This more recent tradition of exchanging books arose in order to honour Miguel Cervantes, who died on April 23, 1616. Roses can still be seen profusely decorating windows throughout Catalan towns. You can watch this fine video showing the customs associated with Sant Jordi here. As the narration is in castellano you can practice your Spanish at the same time.

This catalan tradition inspired UNESCO to declare in 1995, April 23 as the International Day of the Book as April 23, 1616 was also the date of the death of William Shakespeare. This has become quite an important event worldwide, though funnily enough it is not much promoted in England, nor any other part of the UK. The UK has its own World Book Day sometime in March. Apparently April 23 was ruled out due to clashes with Easter school holidays. Very odd, as Easter is only rarely as late as this, about once every ten years, and in Scotland at any rate Easter holidays are always over by the middle of April. Anyway I much prefer the catalan tradition of exchanging roses and books.

April is a particularly important month for our branch of the Rutherford family. So far I have only managed to discover one death in April, my paternal grandfather, David Rutherford who died in Montreal, Canada, on 2 April 1924. There was at least one marriage in April, that of my uncle and my Dad’s brother, James Rutherford who married Effie Birrell on 20 April 1935 in New York. My cousin Ian Rutherford was born on 5 April 1944. He was my uncle Sydney’s son and is two years older than me. Janet Mair was born in Monimail parish on 5 April 1789. She would go on to marry James Rutherford and become my great great great grandmother. My mother was born in St Andrews in her parent’s home, not far from the West Port, on 9 April in 1910. She almost manage to reach her century, but came close, dying in 1997. And last, but hopefully not least, I too have an April birthday, 18 April 1946. Below is yours truly as a little baby.

The birth flower for April is the common daisy, particularly the white variety. Though a common flower daisies are unique as all the interpretations of it are positive. The traditional meaning of a daisy is innocence and purity. In a romantic sense, daisies represent loyal love. Giving a daisy can be a sign of affection. A daisy can also mean a secret truth. The giving of a daisy in public came to represent a transfer of a secret from one person to another. It seems the leaves of the daisy are edible and can be used in salads. Not that I have ever tried this out yet. Here are some lovely daisies in a meadow.

There is nothing common about the birthstone for April which for most traditions is the Diamond. Diamonds symbolize balance, clarity and abundance. They are also associated with enhancing relationships and increasing inner strength. Sounds pretty good to me. If for some reason you don’t fancy a diamond, alternatives for April births are sapphire or opal. Me, I think I’ll stick with diamonds - if only I had some!

Here’s hoping April this year is a bit warmer and sunnier than usual. Get out your tartan, or design your own and exchange a rose or a book with someone. And if you have any diamonds to spare - a warm welcome awaits them over here.

Balancing the UK Budget?

The recent budget by Aistair Darling has once again thrust the economy into the forefront of the coming election battleground. And as usual the debate about the economy is fixated on the need to get the deficit down as quickly as possible. Furthermore there is an apparent iron rule that this means savage cuts in public services and the only debate is around when to start cutting and how deep the cuts are to be. We even have the spectacle of a Labour, albeit a New Labour Chancellor almost boasting that another Labour government would enforce cuts even more savage than those introduced by the Thatcher governments of the early 1980s. What is the world coming to?

For even the government’s own figures and projections give the lie to this unrelenting emphasis on cuts in public services. During his budget speech the Chancellor boasted about how the UK is the world's sixth biggest exporter of goods and the second largest exporter of services. He went on to quote IMF forecasts which show that the British economy will suffer less than Germany, less than Japan, less than Italy, and less than the euro area as a whole this year. The Chancellor was also quite upbeat about the economy as a whole, pointing out that, “because of our underlying strength, the measures we are taking, domestically and internationally, I expect to see growth resume towards the end of the year. The British economy is diverse, flexible and resilient – which is why we can be confident in recovery.”

In which case, why all the hurry to cut and slash? If the UK economy along with the rest of the world is going to resume reasonable levels of growth, then the deficit will tumble anyway. If in addition the government was to introduce a fairer system of taxation, one that forced the rich and the well-off to make an equitable contribution to the general well being of the country, there might be even less need for cuts in public services. After all as the Chancellor admitted the one-off City bonus tax had raised £2bn rather than the expected £550m. If this became a yearly tax and tax rates were raised for those who have benefitted most from the past 20 years or so, then quite a substantial sum of money would be raised year in year out.

If despite the recovery and a fairer taxation system, public spending still has to be reduced then there are other forms of public spending that should be first on the list for cutting. For example our bloated and expensive military, including our so-called independent nuclear weapons. This kind of public spending is not only very expensive but brings very little, if any, benefit to the majority of UK citizens. Unlike the bulk of public services, such as education, health, social services and public sector pensions, which provide real help to millions of people.

Of course the people who dominate our political debate - most politicians in the three main UK parties, the journalists and reporters in the mainstream media - newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, the representatives of special interest groups - the CBI and the Institute of Directors etc., none of them want a real debate about the future of our economy and least of all a debate on fair taxes. It is curious that nearly all of the people who vigorously call for cuts in public services are very rich or at least earn substantial salaries. Perhaps there is a bit of self interest going on here. When our leading pundits and politicians keep repeating the mantra that the country cannot afford to pay for good public services or public pensions, what they really mean is that they do not want to pay more in tax.

I have a little proposal to make. Namely that in future before anyone advocates the need for more cuts in public services, they have to declare how much they earn, what other wealth they have, whether their children go to state schools or private schools, whether they have private health insurance and what pension provisions they have. There is something distasteful about the rich advocating cuts in public services that they themselves almost certainly do not use or need.

Champions League - the Quarter-Finals

The Champions League has once again reached the quarter final stage. My predictions from last autumn as to the likely semi-finalists are not looking too good. Two, Real Madrid and Chelsea have fallen by the wayside, leaving Barcelona and Manchester United as the survivors. As the draw would have it they are on course to repeat last season’s final. However I for one would not bet on it. In fact I won’t be making any predictions at all. Though I will say that Manchester United look more likely to reach the final than Barcelona.

Barça are having a strange kind of season. They have amassed more points than last season in the league, yet are only level on points with Real Madrid. Which goes to show how well Real have done and makes their failure to beat Lyon all the more surprising. Barça are also nothing like as convincing as last season. They are still winning and sometimes well, but too often they struggle to win matches that last season they would have won comfortably. Overall in the past month they have given the ball away needlessly more times than in the whole of last season. This is most marked in the defence which has shown alarming signs of inconsistency. And up front they are very reliant on Lionel Messi. Just as well the wee man is having such a great season. But even he cannot win every match on his own. Henry hardly plays now and when he does is but a pale shadow of his former self. Young Pedro has done well, but does not score anything like as many goals as Henry in his prime. While Ibrahimović is having a good first season with Barça, he has recently gone through a long barren spell. However the bright spot is that he has now scored in each of his last three games and maybe he is about to embark on a prolific scoring run. If not it is very hard to see Barça winning anything this season.

Back to the Champions League. The big surprise this season, apart from the continuing failure of Real Madrid, is the halving of representation from England. Only two English clubs this year as opposed to the more recent four. There is a welcome return of French teams and this time we have two - Bordeaux and Lyon. As they meet each other in the quarters France is guaranteed one semi-final place. Well done France. However, once again there is only one team from outwith the Big Five countries - this year it is CSKA from Russia.

A brief overview of the quarter finalists from the last three seasons - including this one, shows up the extent to which the Champions League has become evermore the almost exclusive preserve of teams from the Big Five countries ie England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Latterly it has almost become a reverse of the Armada in which a solitary Barcelona repels the challenge of the big spending English giants. The figures are quite fascinating and show the extent of English dominance of the latter stages. Of the 24 places available at the quarter final stages in the last three years, English clubs have taken an astonishing 10, which amounts to almost 42%

The rest are pretty much nowhere. Spain is the next highest with Spanish clubs taking up just four places. Even this is a bit misleading as three of these places were taken by just one club - Barcelona, which means only two Spanish clubs have made the quarter finals in the last three seasons.

When it comes to clubs from the Big Five, no less than 21 of the available quarter final places have been taken by clubs from these five countries. In each of these seasons only one quarter finalist has come from a country outwith the Big Five. The successful outsiders were - CSKA, Porto and Fenerbahçe. Which also shows that none of the other countries has been able to mount a consistent challenge.

The dominance of the latter stages of the Champions League is even more pronounced if you look at the clubs involved. Fifteen teams have reached at least one quarter final in the last three years. However almost two thirds of these places have been taken by only six teams. Three clubs have reached this stage in each of the last three years - Barcelona, Arsenal and Manchester United. A further three - Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern Mũnchen - have reach the quarter finals on two occasions.

Another fascinating and perhaps surprising feature of recent quarter finals is the complete absence of former European giants such as Real Madrid, AC Milan and Juventus. Inter Milan, who made it this year, are the only one of the former kings of Italian and European football to have escaped the recent decline of Italian clubs.

Will this current trend continue? I thought Real Madrid were very unlucky to lose against Lyon. In both matches Real dominated, but just couldn’t get the goals their play deserved. With the squad at their disposal I find it hard to believe they will not be back among the elite pretty soon. As for Italy, football there still seems to be in crisis with no obvious way forward. While Inter’s defeat of Chelsea was a very good result and performance, the way AC Milan were taken apart by Manchester United shows that in general Italian clubs still have a long way to go to recover their former glory. A lot will depend on whether the English Premiership can continue to attract funny money from all over the globe. Only four clubs can qualify for the Champions League, so at some stage, some of the money men will realise that their team is never going to regularly reach this particular nirvana. At which point the money behind English football’s current dominance may begin to dry up. And sooner or later, the likes of AC Milan, Roma and Juventus will get their act together. Once again though, no predictions - as they say, football is a funny old game.