Author: Mick Hartley

at the time, laughed at this point. When I asked him why, he said, “because it looks so fake.” “That’s my impression as well,” I responded. Enderlin responded, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”

When I walked out of the office, I was in shock. They do this all the time!?! It’s their cultural style? Enderlin’s condescending “orientalism” really disguised an information catastrophe. The joke was on us all – the responsible media, the trusting public, the “scoop”-hungry journalists who rummaged through these cheap scenes, looking for something they could use in the evening’s broadcast. That’s when the term Pallywood first occurred to me.

Blog of a Bookslut link to a campaign launched by International PEN on behalf of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, for daring to mention the Armenian Genocide.

Please send appeals:

– Expressing concern that Orhan Pamuk is to tried for a statement made in an interview for an overseas publication;
– Pointing out that this is in direct contravention of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the Turkish government is a signatory;
– Therefore protesting the decision to bring Orhan Pamuk to trial.

Prime Minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan
TC Easbaskanlik
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: +90 312 417 0476

Cemil Cicek
Minister of Justice
TC Adalet Bakanligi
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: + 90 312 417 3954

Similar appeals should be sent to the Turkish Embassy in your own country.

Turkey should be particularly sensitive to criticism now, with their EU membership under scrutiny.

From the Sunday Times:

Orhan Pamuk, 53, who has written several award-winning books, was charged last week with “denigrating national identity” with comments in a Swiss newspaper. If found guilty at his trial, set for December 16, he could be jailed for up to three years.

Publicity surrounding the case has thrown the spotlight on Turkey’s human rights record as it prepares to begin negotiations next month on joining the European Union.

Ishiguro, who won the Booker prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day and is on this year’s shortlist for Never Let Me Go, said: “I’m astonished and horrified to discover such a situation can arise in Turkey today — and to a writer who has done so much to enhance his country’s reputation. I hope the Turkish government does all in its power to bring this misguided prosecution to an end.”

John Banville, nominated this year for The Sea, said Pamuk was right to remind compatriots of past crimes committed in their name. “It will be a disgrace if Pamuk is jailed, and Turkey should realise the damage that will be done to its reputation if it goes ahead with this injustice,” he said.

Sebastian Barry, shortlisted for A Long Long Way, agreed. “A grown-up country like Turkey can afford to open the book fully on every aspect of its interesting and challenging history,” he said.

John Sutherland, chairman of the Man Booker judges, said: “It seems wholly inappropriate that statements of political opinion should be regarded like that. You can deny it (Pamuk’s comment) but you should not deny their freedom.”

The charges against Pamuk followed remarks made in February to a Zurich newspaper. “Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and no one dares to speak out on this but me,” he said. […]

Pamuk’s case has been an embarrassment for the Turkish government, which is fighting opposition, especially in France and Germany, to its attempts to join the EU.

Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, said of the charges: “There is no decision yet. I would like to announce to the world that there is freedom of expression in Turkey. People voice their opinions comfortably as long as they do not promote violence.”

From the BBC: Reaction to England Ashes win:

Jake Holloway, UK, via email
I went to the game yesterday on spec and got in thanks to a nice man with a spare ticket. But I got so “Freddied” that I forgot to meet my girlfriend and now she is going to dump me! How do I explain the Ashes to a Colombian?

(See here)

rong side of history. The political unification of our continent was presented, not simply as one among many competing ideas, but as Europe’s destiny. It followed that those who opposed it were old-fashioned, narrow-minded, unwilling to embrace the future. Since people don’t like to think of themselves in these terms, they tended to swallow their doubts and go along with the idea.

Not any more.

It’s an important point. There was never much enthusiasm for the EU here in Britain, but European integration was always represented as inevitable, as the way History was moving. Better climb on board, albeit sullenly, rather than get left behind. But that’s all changed. For baby-boomers the important thing was not to repeat the mistakes that led to two world wars, which were assumed to involve excessive nationalism, but for later generations that’s no longer an issue. Plus we can now admit that this was always a project that was going to appeal to politicians more than the people they govern. When your career goes belly-up in your home country, follow Kinnock or Mandelson and get a cosy job over in Brussels where you don’t need to bother with all that tiresome business of getting elected.

Hannan concludes:

I don’t believe that the EU will unravel tomorrow. A political system can survive for a long time without public enthusiasm, sustained by apathy, bureaucratic inertia and the self-interest of those who run it. But Europe no longer has the feel of an idea whose time has come. Take that away, and it can only be a matter of time before the institutions themselves begin to fall apart.

Maybe I have an exaggerated idea of the uniformity of the German press, after reading David’s Medienkritik, but it seems significant that this sort of commentary is now being published in one of Germany’s leading papers.

on Leitenberg of the University of Maryland showed that both knew the allegations were untrue.. Conclusive proof came with the discovery of a secret May 2, 1953, resolution of the presidium of USSR Council of Ministers. With an armistice only a few months away, and Stalin dead, it said: “The Soviet Government and the Central Committe of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) were misled. The spread in the press of information about the use by the Americans of bacteriological weapons in Korea was based on false information. The accusations against the Americans were fictitious”

The government certainly knows how to pick its Muslim advisers. After yesterday’s news that a team appointed by Tony Blair propose that the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day be scrapped because it’s regarded as offensive to Muslims, comes this:

Tony Blair decided to wage war on Iraq after coming under the influence of a “sinister” group of Jews and Freemasons, a Muslim barrister who advises the Prime Minister has claimed.

Ahmad Thomson, from the Association of Muslim Lawyers, said Mr Blair was the latest in a long line of politicians to have been influenced by the group which saw the attack on Saddam Hussein as a way to control the Middle East.

A Government spokesman confirmed last night that ministers and officials consulted Mr Thomson on issues concerning Muslims but refused to be drawn on his views. “We talk to a lot of people, including many whose views we do not necessarily agree with,” she said.

Mr Thomson said: “Pressure was put on Tony Blair before the invasion. The way it works is that pressure is put on people to arrive at certain decisions. It is part of the Zionist plan and it is shaping events.”

Mr Thomson wrote a book in 1994 in which he said Freemasons and Jews controlled the governments of Europe and America and described the claim that six million Jews died in the Holocaust as a “big lie”.

we’ll all (me included) be heading down to the British Museum and the V&A to check out these wonderful exhibitions.

ica! […]

Down with American colonialism
Down with that ugly, biting English
All the Anglo-Saxon pretence, arrogance
Yes, a hot pick up their ass
And that is that […]

I am from the Belgian, the European panel
And I ask you: “Clear my channel! Clear my channel!”
Megalomaniac unicellular idiots
Kiss my ass, yes, kiss my balls

I’m off to Belgium next week for a family gathering, and am starting to get nervous.

She was speaking under Chatham House rules so no direct quotes are available, but there are a couple of interesting points from the speech that Cherie Blair made yesterday in India:

Mrs Blair told a group of Indian journalists in Delhi that attitudes towards women in some Muslim societies were out of date and needed to change. She urged Muslims to embrace more modern attitudes to sex equality.

But then:

Although she is fiercely protective of her family’s privacy with the British media she disclosed at the lunch that her daughter Kathryn had opposed her decision to take up the case of a Muslim schoolgirl banned from wearing a jilbab, or traditional Islamic dress, at school as it breached the uniform code. Kathryn believed that the case was a blow against women’s freedom but Mrs Blair thought deeper religious and human rights were at stake.

Well good for Kathryn.

Cherie’s avoided criticism for her role in the case, quite rightly. She was doing her job. But if she brings up the subject in public, and makes it clear that she took the case on as a point of principle, then she is surely opening herself up to a charge of poor judgement. Was she not aware at the time of the influence of Hizb ut-Tahrir on Shabina Begum?

Yes, it’s now been scientifically proven that Skibbereen is not luckier than anywhere else:

Professor Richard Wiseman from Hertfordshire University has tested the luck of Skibbereen, which is reputedly Ireland’s luckiest town, and found it to be no luckier than anywhere else.
The town has had ten jackpot-winning tickets in the state lottery bought there. But when Professor Wiseman bought 50 tickets there and 50 in Dublin none of the tickets bought in either place won even a small cash prize and the proprtion of right numbers was similar in each place.

“In some ways it’s a relief,” he said. “An incredible amount of luck in Skibbereen would have been a real challenge to science.”