Blog

Sheep at a Northumberland farm will have words sprayed on them, and will then compose poetry by, um, wandering around (via Blog of a Bookslut).

on, police prevented thousands of opposition activists from voting at all. Nevertheless, when the votes were counted, it was clear that the opposition had won by a large margin. As a result, the ruling party decided to falsify the result, and declared victory. Immediately, the Russians sent their fraternal congratulations.

No, that was not a description of the presidential election that took place last Sunday in Ukraine. It was a description of the referendum that took place in Soviet-occupied communist Poland in June 1946. Although blatantly falsified, that referendum provided the spurious legitimacy that allowed Poland’s Soviet-backed communist leadership to remain in power for the subsequent half-century.

But although that infamous Polish election took place nearly 60 years ago, there are good reasons why descriptions make it sound so much like last weekend in Ukraine. According to the Committee of Civic Voters, a volunteer group with branches all over Ukraine, the techniques haven’t changed much in 60 years. In the Sumy region, they record, a member of the electoral commission was beaten up by unidentified thugs. At one polling station, “criminals” disrupted the voting and destroyed the ballot boxes with clubs. In Cherkassy, a polling site inspector was found dead. More “criminals” broke polling station windows and destroyed ballot boxes. In the Zaporozhye region and in Kharkov, observers saw buses transporting voters from one polling station to the next.

Sure enough it wasn’t long before someone rushed the stage and attacked the band, leading to a general free-for-all – no doubt to the delight of the band members. Audience participation! Yep, a night to remember, but nothing much to do with music (and, to be fair, they’re quite honest about having no interest in music, though it’s an odd claim coming from a band). And here we are 25 years on and they’re still playing. Isn’t there something a bit sad about desperately trying to epater le bourgeoisie, when the audience are determinedly un-middle class and un-shockable? – a sort of vicious circle, with the artists determined to shock and outrage, and the hip audience equally determined to show that absolutely nothing is capable of shocking or outraging them.

Still, the Chapmans aren’t above being bitchy:

Accommodation at the festival, which takes place in a holiday camp in Camber Sands, is in chalets; will they be staying in one too? “No, we’re going to pitch a tent right in the middle,” says Dinos. “Dinos’s idea was to have a marquee with everyone’s name who doesn’t want to shag Tracey Emin,” says Jake. “It’d be about the size of the Millennium Dome.”

Update: I see from this Guardian article that TG did in fact split up back in ’81, but have reformed for this one-off reunion gig: “But this isn’t going to be a Rolling Stones-like nostalgia concert. We plan to destroy our own myth very efficiently.” An evening of Beatles cover versions, perhaps? Why the concert was re-scheduled from May I have no idea.

As Kiev prepares for massive civil disobedience in what looks like an election stolen by the pro-Russian Yanukovych, there’s a useful piece at TCS clarifying why this election is so significant:

Why the attention to Ukraine? Because it is the main domino of the former Soviet Union. Just as Ukraine’s referendum vote to leave Moscow’s side signaled the final breakup of the USSR in 1991, a falsified vote in favor of Moscow’s candidate on Sunday can now significantly reconstitute it.

The risk of a stolen election is real and grave — the ruling party engaged in a great deal of fraud and violent voter intimidation in the first round of voting Oct. 31. And if the ruling proto-communists succeed in rubbing out the will of voters to elect the opposition candidate on Sunday, then Russia will be free to reassert its authoritarian control in the ex-Soviet space. Ukraine, whose links to the West are still nascent, will fall back into Moscow’s grip just as tiny Belarus already has, as wobbly Kazakhstan almost has, and as violence-wracked Georgia risks doing.

whole procedure is for those poor wretches who were subjected to Milgram’s bullying. These innocents came along expecting to participate in some experiments to advance the cause of science, and were instead subjected to a contrived session of mental torture. The torment they went through was real, unlike the faked pain of Milgram’s accomplices. Yet how many of the experimenters refused to participate in this exercise? Did any of Milgram’s associates decline to be involved on the grounds that the idea of forcing people to inflict pain on others was deeply immoral? The question is surely more pertinent to the supposed aim of the experiment – to test the extent to which individuals will impose suffering on others simply by the expectations implicit in the social context – than the question actually asked. But of course it was never an issue that the scientists in the white coats would question their right to inflict suffering in the supposed cause of advancing scientific knowledge.

Any discussion of the experiment inevitably winds up with an us-and-them assumption about those sheep who mindlessly obey orders, and those heroes – that’s you and me of course! – who question authority. Diski points this out well enough, but then – this being the LRB and all – just can’t help herself and brings in Iraq.

Most people do what they are told. Apparently, a majority of people in this country did not want to join the US in making war on Iraq. This country joined the US in its catastrophic adventure nevertheless. The dissenters marched and argued and put posters up in their windows, but . . . Great passions were aroused, and yet . . . For the past eighteen months, the Independent newspaper has been producing astonishing front pages to make you weep, still . . . It all happened, and goes on. It could be inertia, or a sense of helplessness, or it could be that our fear of the consequences of disobedience holds sway over our judgment.

The only reason Diski can think of that anyone should have supported the overthrow of Saddam is fear of the consequences of disobeying our political masters. Those pathetic sheep! If only they’d been paying attention to the front pages of the Independent! Unaccountably the Independent omitted to show on its front pages – or on its inside pages – details of the state of Saddam’s torture chambers. Still, there you are….it just goes to show that despite the best intentions, people can still use Milgram to make cheap political points.

Dutch blogger Zacht Ei reports on a meeting that Rita Verdonk, the Dutch immigration secretary, had with some imams. One of them refused to shake her hand, citing a religious taboo. Here’s a picture. A triviality perhaps, but somehow an iconic moment.

Theodore Dalrymple – cited by Roger Simon – argues that the oppression of women is central to Islam’s appeal, at least for young Muslim men in the West. Can we just shrug and accept such attitudes as religious requirements, or as a matter of differing cultural perspectives, and leave it at that? Surely for someone living in a liberal society such as Holland to display such a lack of respect for women is to forfeit all respect themselves.

ists use the word “resistance” (in French, “la resistance”) to underscore the association with the struggle against the Nazi occupation of France during WWII.

The resurrection of the Ba’th Party on French soil was further strengthened by France’s proposal that representatives of “la resistance” should participate in any future conference that will be convened to discuss the future of Iraq. This position was clearly stated by Michel Barnier, the French Foreign Minister, in an interview with the French TV station ” France Inter.” In the interview, Mr. Barnier called for a political process in Iraq that would include “a number of groups and people who have today opted for the path of resistance through the use of weapons.”

Its aims include the defence of Saddam Hussein:

A group calling itself “Amitiés Francaises-Irakiennes” (French-Iraqi Friendship) issued an international appeal condemning “the unworthy treatment reserved to President Saddam Hussein [which] violates the principles of the international law.” A form was attached to the newsletter under the heading: “Signers recall solemnly that President Saddam Hussein is a prisoner of war [entitled] to fully benefit of the 1949 Conventions of Geneva.”

In a July 7, 2004 newsletter titled: ‘The Political Defense of the President Saddam Hussein is Also Organized!’, the group said, “The International Committee to defend the President Saddam Hussein” was launched. It further stated: “The Committee want[s] to answer to the campaign of hate and lies orchestrated by the media, which is controlled by the American-Zionists, and to re-establish the truth about Iraq of Saddam Hussein and the Ba’th Party.”

and the coordination of a campaign of resistance against the American-Zionist imperialists:

In a newsletter (dated simply 2003) lacking the State of Iraq’s Cote of Arms (state symbol), which appears on subsequent releases, the authors declared in an exhortative language:

“We are numerous everywhere in the world, and particularly in the French-speaking space, to wish not only the end of the Yankee’s occupation in Iraq, but more the victory of the Ba’thist resistance, which claims itself of Saddam Hussein and which is organized in the Movement Resistance and Liberation [poor translation from the original in French, meaning the Resistance and Liberation Movement] of Iraq.”

The newsletter extends the purpose of the “resistance” not only to defeat “the American-Zionist imperialism in Iraq,” but to other fronts, “particularly in occupied Palestine and Europe, where the Yankee domination is shaken today.” It goes on to affirm its agreement with Che Guevara that, “imperialism has a head, the United States, and that it should be cut off!”

Former Soviet dissident Natan Scharansky writes about the power of a fear society, from the Soviet Union to North Korea and Iran (via NKZone):

The attitude of those living in fear societies toward America is a reflection of their attitudes toward their own regime. If America is seen as supporting that regime, as in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the people hate America. If America is seen as opposing the regime, as in Iran, the people admire it. A few months ago, a leader of a former Soviet republic told me about his recent visit to Iran: “It reminded me of the Soviet Union. All the officials criticize and condemn America, and all the people love America.” […]

The deeper the level of control that a society tries to exercise over its subjects, the faster the change will occur. In 1989, a North Korean student who defected a short time after he began his medical studies in Czechoslovakia noted that “most North Koreans, raised almost from birth to regard the two Kims as all-providing deities, accept the propaganda, as I did until I saw the relative freedom of Czechoslovakia.” Once the systematic brainwashing stops, once the truth begins to come to light, once the double-thinkers are no longer afraid, in every society a majority who will not be willing to live in fear again quickly emerges. More than any other reason, this is why Germans, Japanese, Italians, Spaniards, Russians, and so many others made the transition from fear to freedom during the 20th century. They have very different cultures, beliefs, religions, ideals, values, and lifestyles, but in one respect they are all the same: None of those peoples wanted to live in fear again. […]

In my case, the convergence of my thoughts and words–which happened when I first became a Jewish activist–would bring an end to my own inner discomfort. As self-censorship and double-think gave way, I was overcome by a powerful sense of liberation. It was as if an enormous weight I had borne for years and whose burden I had become habituated to had finally been lifted. All of a sudden, I was free to think what I liked and say what I thought. Even when I was on a prolonged hunger strike in my punishment cell, the sense of freedom never left me.

For most of those who have lived their entire lives in fear, this feeling will be experienced only when their society is free, when they feel it is safe to go to the town square and express their views without fear. But it will be no less exhilarating. I am certain that this feeling of exhilaration transcends race, religion, creed, and culture and that the drug of freedom is universally potent. I am equally certain that once a people live in freedom, the vast majority of them will never want to live in fear again. To suggest, as the skeptics do, that the majority of a people would freely choose to live in a fear society is to suggest that most of those who have tasted freedom would freely choose to return to slavery.

Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western guy in the Ukrainian presidential run-off on Sunday, claims to have been the victim of a poisoning. Check him out here.

Mr Yushchenko, prime minister between 1999 and 2001, claims to have been the victim of dirty tricks, including what he alleged was an assassination attempt, when a lorry repeatedly swerved towards his car.

In September, he sought medical treatment in Austria, claiming that he had been poisoned.

His illness, whatever its causes, has caused startling changes to his boyish looks, which used to endear him to female voters.

city is in shambles and violence has spread to other locations.”

On the other hand, Ali at Iraq the Model is in fine form, chastising Chirac for his remarks about Britain not getting anything out of helping Bush:

In the past, I used to swallow my anger and frustration because I could get killed if I messed up with one of Saddam’s personal friends, but now Saddam is gone and I’m not afraid and I won’t stay silent anymore. This is a difference Mr. Chirac, and it’s a great one, probably just to me and the rest of Iraqis but not to you, and you just have to understand that it’s not all about you and your European dream which no one want to steal from you by the way.

The world is certainly not a better place after the war Mr. Chirac, but that’s your world, while our world, Iraqis as well as tens of millions of oppressed people everywhere who are dying for some help, is certainly MUCH better now, and I’m sure the Americans and the British world as well as most countries (including yours) is better and safer and will keep getting better. However I agree with you, as your world, your own personal world, the world of your fellow corrupt politicians in France, Russia, Germany, China and the stinking UN, your fortune and your influence is definitely suffering. I’m even surprised that you ‘saw’ that Saddam’s departure was positive “to a certain extent”, and I can’t wonder why is that! Is it because it left you with some bills you don’t have to pay?!

Is my language too offensive?! Not as half as offensive and irritating as yours and I will NEVER apologize, not even after you apologize and pay the Iraqis back all the money you have stolen from us in return for supporting your partner, Saddam and keeping him in charge for few more years.

You see, your problem and what separate you from men like Tony Blair is that you look only for what you might gain, and again “you” is not the French people, but rather you in person and the bunch of hypocrites that so sadly control the French people and manipulate them through lies and silly arguments. You never cared what would happen to Iraqis and the rest of the world had Saddam stayed in power, while Tony Blair did. Do you know why? Because he and the British government with all the brave British people live in our world, while you don’t.

The brave British people live in our world? Oh well, it’s a nice thought.