Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • At the Photo Portrait Prize exhibition

    The time has come round for the National Portrait Gallery's annual Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize exhibition. And this year's 1st prize winner…Sonam by Steph Wilson:

    Tw1
    [Photo © Steph Wilson]

    Not, as you might think, a trans man, but a woman wearing a false moustache. From the series Ideal Mother:

    Wilson was compelled to broaden the existing aesthetics and visual language of pregnancy by focusing on what can sometimes dismissively be referred to as ‘socially atypical mothers’. In a bid to subvert this cycle of representation and to embrace all types of beauty, she has spent nearly three years in pursuit of this vulnerable and revealing project. Sonam's profession is a wig maker, and the prop, a replication of her father's moustache, represents a third generation in this unconventional family portrait.

    Was compelled, no less. 

    There are plenty of fine portraits in the show. In my opinion this isn't one of the best, but there you go. Of course it had to win.

    There were, this aside, a few trans-themed contributions. Portrait of Ade "gives a glimpse into the journeys made and memories accumulated within a black trans body" and "asks us to consider the long established presence of queerness in nature", while Izzy, a portrait of  young lad with long hair, "is part of a project that [photographer] Charlotte Hadden has been working on for the past seven years, portraying young transgender people in the United Kingdom".

    You get to understand how impossible it must be to be "gender-critical" in today's art world. There's simply no room for doubt that trans is the next stage along in the great liberation, after gays. Transgender people are to be celebrated, and admired for their bravery.

    You can see a few more of the entries here at the Guardian.

  • A clear and present danger to Jews and the West

    We've heard this before – how extraordinary, how vile, has been the response by many on the Western Left to the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7th last year – but it's always worth reminding ourselves of the sheer scarcely believable outpouring of antisemitism – disguised, very thinly, as anti-Zionism – that we've experienced, on the streets and from universities in particular: both students and academics. This, from Joanna Tokarska Bakir in Fathom (translated from the original Polish) is a powerful summary – Part of the Western Left is now a clear and present danger to Jews and the West.

    Worth reading in full. Her conclusion:

    For left-wing politics today, support for the Palestinian cause has become as important as anti-capitalism, vegetarianism, opposition to coal mining and support for the right to abortion. The left craves a simple way of looking at the world, and it needs some groups which it can hate with impunity, and others which it can bombard with love.

    Jews do not need the left, for in spite of what antisemites say about them, they are a collective of anti-victims: following the greatest catastrophe in history, they took advantage of a historical opportunity to build a collective life. That is why we will never forgive them for what we did to them.

  • Zero names so far

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  • A crime committed under their watch

    m Osman to guarantee vote results that suited his personal political views.

    -The president of the Union stepped down from his chair and took the floor on behalf of the proposition in favor of the motion condemning Israel as an apartheid state committing genocide in Gaza.

    -Ebrahim's carefully selected chorus would have not reported information to authorities to prevent Oct 7 massacre, preventing the bloodshed on both sides.

    -Participants overwhelmingly cheered the hateful speech of proposition calling for the destruction and the dismantling of a democratic state, an ancient nation, and a religious minority as the only solution to the Middle East problem.

    -The proposition denied the obvious, that Oct 7 was a religiously motivated attack against an ethnic minority, and went on expressing their broken record of victim narrative.

    -Later that evening, the same audience condemned Israel as an apartheid state committing genocide in Gaza against facts provided by the opposition.

    -Finally, the Oxford Union published all speeches of the proposition and opposition except two;

    1-Miko Peled's speech in an attempt to destroy evidence against one of the proposition speakers.

    2-My speech in an attempt to hide the moral rot among Ebrahim's audience.

    The Oxford Union MUST release both speeches without delay; they should be held accountable to the public and authorities. This is not about the debate anymore; this is an attempt to destroy evidence of a crime committed under their watch.

  • The Turkish flag raised over the citadel of Aleppo

    flew from the Aleppo citadel once more."

    Here's Turkish MP Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party which is currently in coalition with Erdoğan’s AKP party:

    "You cannot encounter a son of the homeland whose heart does not tremble at the mention of Aleppo, because Aleppo is Turkish and Muslim to its core. We are not the only ones who say this.

    "History says this. Geography says this. The reality says this. The ancestors say this. The Turkish flag that is raised over the Citadel of Aleppo says this.

    "Whatever Istanbul's Grand Bazaar is Aleppo's market is that also. The 'Amens' that rise up from the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara are the same 'Amens' that echo from the Great Mosque of Aleppo. If Aleppo is there, then the Turkish nationalists and the Turkish nation, who heed the call of history, are here."

    Does Turkey now have territorial aims in Syria? Is that Turkish flag on the Aleppo citadel there to stay?

  • Jews in Syria

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  • North Korea and Yoon’s martial law incident

    s were shocked to learn the order was immediately canceled because of opposition from the National Assembly,” the source said. 

    “If the South Korean government’s unilateral martial law declaration had gone into effect, the North Korean regime would have immediately used that in propaganda about the chaotic political situation in South Korea. But since the martial law declaration was canceled through the democracy process, the regime is uncomfortable with sharing those facts with the public,” Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told Daily NK.

  • Non-socialist hairstyles

    fected many young people, particularly university students, the source said.

    The Chongjin youth league responded by convening a closed-door ideological struggle session with committee chairs from all city organizations and universities. The meeting focused on strengthening rule compliance, collective control, and ideological guidance, while harshly criticizing liberal tendencies among youth.

    Offenders faced public criticism during the meeting and were accused of having loose morals. Two students who showed defiance when caught were notified of their expulsion from university.

    The expulsions sparked frustration among young people. “Do they really deserve such harsh punishment for a hairstyle when they didn’t say anything politically questionable? It’s suffocating how the government tries to control every detail of our lives,” one person reportedly said.

    Many youth argued that expelling students for minor hairstyle variations—not even involving hair dye—would only increase resentment toward the regime.

    “Many young people and their parents are saying these crackdowns are driving their disillusionment with society and desire to defect. They believe they could have a better life if they could only escape without being caught,” the source said.

    I do believe they could.

  • Turkey and the Kurds

    he celebrations, especially now their bête noire Turkey is emerging as the dominant foreign power in a new Syria.

    With Russian forces withdrawing in disarray, Washington wrong-footed, and Tehran neutered by Israel, Erdoğan appears the main winner from the extraordinary developments in Syria. Turkey’s own objectives in Syria are clear enough: liquidating the Kurdish presence on its border by establishing a 20-mile deep corridor of Turkish influence. In fact, it was reportedly Assad’s refusal to capitulate to this proposed violation of Syrian sovereignty which led Ankara to give an implicit green light to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s military operation. Aleppo, the first city to fall to HTS’s blitzkrieg advance, was a former jewel in the Ottoman Empire’s crown. After its capture, the Turkish flag flew from the Aleppo citadel once more….

    Beyond the Baath Party’s Arabist sentiments encouraging a dismissive view of Kurds, Assad likely felt able to ignore his country’s Kurds for other reasons. When compared with the Kurdish homelands in Iran, Iraq and Turkey, the arid badlands of Syrian Kurdistan were long dismissed as poor and undynamic. Yet the Kurds, bolstered by returning militants, battle-hardened during a dogged guerrilla war against Turkey, proved the only local force capable of defeating Islamic State. Along the way, they saved the Yazidis from genocide, and forged unexpected tactical partnerships with both Americans and local Arabs. As they drove Isis out of its former strongholds, including its erstwhile capital Raqqa, the Kurds helped forge a fragile multi-ethnic alliance alongside Arab Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities. Known as the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), this alliance has since faced existential threats. That includes a deadly Islamic State insurgency; sporadic battles against Assad; and successive military occupations launched by Turkey — with Ankara bitterly opposed to the project in Kurdish-led autonomy on its southern border.

    The situation now looks grim, with the Turks clearly determined to capitalise on their new-found leverage over the border in Syria.

    At the time of writing, Turkey’s proxy militias are advancing on Kobanî, the Syrian Kurdish city where the Kurds first turned the tide against Isis in 2014, launching their partnership with the US and UK. But 10 years on, with bands of Turkish-armed Islamists once again appearing over the horizon and swearing vengeance on the Kurds, their nominal Western allies are nowhere to be seen.

    Surprisingly, Broomfield doesn't mention Israel, the Kurds long-time – and only – ally in the region. The Israeli foreign minister has said that attacks on Kurds “must stop”. Where the US and UK seem unlikely to offer much of anything, the Israelis have shown they're made of sterner stuff. They have to be made of sterner stuff. Their determination to finish off Hamas and severely weaken Hezbollah – despite the bleatings of their Western allies that they should just stop, lie back, and take it – seems for the moment to be paying off spectactularly. But….are they prepared to take on Erdogan?

  • Captagon stash

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    Full text:

    Approximately 80% of this drug is manufactured in Syria and exported across the Middle East, serving as a major revenue source for the Assad regime, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

    Captagon is widely used by ISIS terrorists, and many Hamas fighters were found in possession of it and reportedly used it during the October 7th attacks.

    The Nazis relied on a similar drug during the Holocaust to fuel their atrocities.

    Often called the “cocaine for the poor,” this stimulant enables terrorists to commit horrific acts with a disturbing sense of calm and indifference while remaining highly alert for long periods.

    The Jerusalem Post, soon after Oct 7th, reported that many of the Hamas attackers were found to be under the influence of Captagon, with pills recovered from the pockets of those killed.

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