News, current affairs, comment, opinion, big ideas…..and yet more news.

It is, for many, nothing less than a life support system, a carefully engineered apparatus of drips, tubes and monitors responsive to the vital signs of national and world developments and able to deliver the next emerging story at the point of need. 

 

 

And the clinicians? Well it’s hard to see past the BBC, an institution of  professionals with such impeccable bedside manners that, to chronic sufferers like myself, it feels more like one large extended family. After all, the corporation doesn’t carry the epithet of ‘Auntie’ for nothing, surely.     

 

 

Every day, I wake up with John Humphreys standing at the end of my bed holding a clipboard and grinning mischievously, although James and Edward tend to do the rounds more often these days. Thankfully, they are quite cheeky and cheeful too. Then it’s morning coffee with Libby Purves, always so indulgent of my evident lack of urgency for getting discharged. Andrew Marr is a bit more challenging, but he only calls on a Monday, and then there are the appointments with Melvyn Bragg, who is is a bit mad himself and barely notices my occasional lapses of attention during his intensive cerebral therapy. Down in the day room, there are some sensible rehabilitation sessions with the presenters of You and Yours, and happily, in the event of being careless enough to miss any medications, it’s always possible to catch up by making use of the innumerable online listen again or podcast options stacked high in all the drugs cabinets. 

Could this attachment to the honey-voiced purveyors of the reality beyond my front door be a full-blown dependency. Is the virtual inability to carry out any task in my house, from loading the dishwasher to cleaning my ears, without the accompanying fix of an update to news I already know or various predictable discussion of its implications, actually an addiction of sorts?

The 24/7 all-pervading availability of news provides an informational blanket of such comfort and convenience that it barely registers as an imposition at all. And in such insidiousness lies its danger. The process of overload begins as mild interest, but even as you congratulate yourself on not being one of those over-eager punters who chooses to phone, text or email in response to the broadcaster’s incessant requests, the habit is actually bedding in ever deeper. Only sometime later do you begin to notice the undercurrent of agitation whenever the radio or TV is finally turned off and that in the absence of a direct hook up to the world, you start experiencing vague waves of disorientation and insecurity. In effect, you have become mentally enslaved, a one-dimensional bore with a compromised ability to enjoy normal acts of escapism, and unable ever to detach completely from the endlessly dribbling teat of politics.

Because politics is surely the culprit here. Politics in the broadest sense; of the organisation and regulation of human activity for the purpose of a happy co-existence. This is a wide remit certainly, although while its sphere of interest extends to sexual activity between consenting adults it conveniently excludes sport. Convenient, that is, to the diplomatic agenda of politicians. Which kind of makes it political I guess. But i digress.

To the many who profess no interest in politics at all or have chosen, through disillusionment, to disengage from their active role as citizens of a democracy, the more evangelising among the body politic like to point out that it is, after all, politics that determines the price of a loaf of bread, dictates what we can or cannot do when we walk down the street and informs most of the decisions we make as consumers. And yet such is the level of commodification of our modern world that politics itself is often seen as just another product, a form of entertainment with its own gallery of celebrities, wannabes spin doctors and rogues, to be picked up or dropped as the media whim dictates.

In that respect, what is the difference between a consumer of politics with an insatiable appetite for all its many accessories, gimmicks, associated comics and enthusiast’s forums, and any other passion or pasttime we commit our time and resources to?

I pose this question rhetorically because, at the base of it all, and despite my own attachment, as a self-confessed hobbyist, to debates about policy and principles, poll statistics, report findings, economic analysis, cultural trends, law, history and all the other raw materials of the art, I am also deeply sceptical about its limitations.

 

 

Not only because those corridors, chambers and sofas of power, where the everyday politics that governs our lives is ultimately brokered, are populated predominantly by egoists, control freaks and whip-loving careerists, but because the entire science of advancing the common good is just that. The systems we build for political, social and economic management are driven by collective issues and imperatives. But even if most of the people can be pleased most of the time, there will always be disagreement about how this is best achieved. The political machinery lends itself to endless points of dispute over design, and consequently, the logsheet for tinkering with it can only grow longer as human history progresses. 

In truth, a large part of my fascination with current affairs is rooted in their spectacular and wholesale demonstration of policy failure. For all those lofty notions of justice, solidarity and community, structures of identity built on ethnicity, historical cultural structures and religious belief continue not only to persist, but to proliferate. The most recent elevation of Kosovo, by selected powers, to a state of disputed independence is a classic example. Quite apart from the re-balkanisaton of the balkans that it represents, it sends out a signal that the secession of provinces from a sovereign country based on ethnic make up is an acceptable way to proceed. And if you want to see a further damning example of respected strategic political thinking about world problems then check out George Monbiot’s recent article about Sir Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report on climate change, a document commisioned by our government and still a core point of reference in the forming of environment policy:      

On the face of things, the report conclusions are agreeable enough, but if any mindset behind any set of figures as the basis for big decision-making were the epitome of why politics is ultimately so limited, or put less politely, savage and coldy calculating, then this is it.

If all the worthy ideals and hard work of activists, campaigners, conviction politicians and NGOs merely forces dodgy lobby dealings or cabinet decision-making further underground or encourages even greater privatisation of accountability, or in the case of the Sterne report just mentioned, proves powerless to soften the harshest application of utilitarian principles at the highest levels of power, then it is little wonder that the average person recoils with disgust or disinterest from the entire business.

Perhaps the dominant model of modern western politics works well in protecting society from the worst excesses of the darker human instincts. Perhaps it really is the best means we have of facilitating the mechanics of living, of moving about, of trading, of getting fed and keeping warm. Nevertheless, it is the places which politics, and all the associated discourse cannot reach which most interests me. Not because I hold to a politically defined alternative, nor because I seek to be subversive as a rebellious reflex to having to conform to the rules and dictates of authority. My inclination to point noisily at the gaping void of what the “system” lacks has nothing to do with a rallying cry for revolution, nor a condonement of civil disobedience, nor even an endorsement of collective social action. It is an appeal for an entirely different focus. One that sits alongside, not supplants the necessities of social and political action.

Radicalisation is a dirty word in today’s febrile climate of fear, but the personal shift in perspective required to pick up the slack of our political system’s ever diminishing reach is nothing short of that. And it is radical because it is so simple.

I cannot elaborate further on this  because embedded in the very attempt to do so are the quickly sprouting seeds of its own negation, such is the human capacity to pigeon-hole, conceptualise and judge all of our endeavours. But I can at least use an example to suggest my drift.    

 

 

In a recent episode of his current TV series “Imagine” , Alan Yentob, creative director of the BBC, pictured in his house surrounded sweetie-shop style by a thousand self-help books, sets out to navigate his way through the western world’s modern quest for happiness. By the end, and buffeted by every conceivable Freudian, Zen Buddhist, New Age and Catholic half glimpsed truth, and uttered with varying angles of motivation by psychotherapists, writers, monks and self-made millionaires, Yentob leans reflectively over the balcony of his penthouse pad and begins to understand something for himself.

 

 

The scope for cynicism over the intangibles of such things as personal epiphany is obvious (see earlier point about pigeon-holing and judging), especially so when enacted on TV by a successful media figure, and Rachel Cooke’s article on the program in question is a choice example of such jibing:

 

 

But I am inclined to give Mr Yentob the benefit of the doubt. He speaks sincerely of grasping something very personal and very profound about the here and now, and my own encounters with the self same thing, although it can be surprisingly elusive, suggest that it is indeed a ludicrously underrated resource. In fact, just how many here and nows can you chuck into that void which the hand-wringing world of politics and big ideas is incapable of filling, I wonder.

Which brings me back to the news and current affairs compulsion disorder of which I earlier complained and into the pernicious grip of which I so often surrender myself.

At the start of “Exterminate all the Brutes” Sven Lindqvist’s stunningly powerful exploration of Europe’s colonisation of Africa, the author states the following:

“You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions”

The constant stream of news stories, big and small are essentially variations on a theme. Of dog chasing tail, of  attempts to square the circle, of robbing Peter to pay Paul, of the vicarious depictions of pain and loss and ill fortune and narrow escape and defiance of the odds. They are all manifestations of something I already know, and the hard part, as Lindqvist suggests, is making sense of it. A big part of this making sense is to accept the limitations of the world’s attempts to organise itself and seek instead to maximize the potential of that which the endlessly running networks, news blogs, and story grinding machines will never get close to.

 

In November last year, Lorna and I visited Thailand. It was my first time to Asia and a trip I had dreamed of for many years. 

Since world travel first became a viable activity, this jewel of South East Asia has been a favourite destination for those seeking something a bit more exotic than the pre-fab resorts of the mediterranean. It is safe, friendly and boasts an embarrassing abundance of so much of what us cold, dimly-lit, over-crowded, rule-bound, and time-poor northern europeans most hanker for. 

The combination of a tropical climate, intense, vibrant food, gorgeous siamese faces and stunning natural beauty, all suspended in the amnion of a sweet and passive Buddhist culture seems too good to be true.

Thailand has its regional divisions, ethnic minority skeletons, bureaucratic albatrosses, and political corruption scandals just like most anywhere else. There are inevitably those opportunists and rogues who will seek to exploit and manipulate the more hapless farang (the mildly derogatory term reserved by locals for their leisured western visitors), an oceanic earthquake, flash flood or tropical storm always remain a threat, and could easily ruin the most idyllic tropical day and, much to my dismay, the Thai people are far from universally good-looking.

 

But these are negligible gripes. When it comes to the holiday satisfaction form, Thailand ticks most of the boxes with enough flamboyance to tear the paper. This is due in large part to its political stability, the happy result of dynastic strength during a crucial phase of European expansionism. Many of the kingdom’s other Indo-Chinese neighbours were not so lucky and became absorbed into the colonial histories of Britain, resulting in the variously troubled regimes which we see today.

The middle part of the 20th Century was a defining period for the country we now recognise from glossy newspaper travel supplements and filtered through backpacking apocrypha and lurid urban myths. The aggressive nationalist agenda reflected a political flavour popular in other parts of the world at the time, though thankfully with less destructive results. The country’s name was changed from Siam to Thailand and a set of government edicts, covering every conceivable aspect of life and behaviour, enforced a new kind of uniformity on the country. It amounted, in effect, to a form of soft cultural revolution.

 

Later in the century, and with new opportunities being presented by the emergence of a long haul tourism industry on the back of a prospering west, this self-conscious projection of identity became even further refined. Among other things, it included the widespread introduction of a traditional Thai greeting (wai), a humble and elegant gesture with conjoined hands and now a distinguishing trademark of today’s self-proclaimed “Land of Smiles”.

The headlong surge of economic development from the 1960s onwards created a huge and ongoing rural migration, mainly to the enormous and still expanding urban sprawl that is Bangkok. But just as a new white collar middle class with increasingly western tastes has been growing, so a large rump of Thailand’s poor has been left behind, and for all the trappings and rituals of a Buddhist tradition, itself such a delightful, photogenic backdrop to town and country alike, it is the contemporary social realities which dictate most of the attitudes and behaviour.

It struck me as an unfortunate irony, and a powerful indicator of the west’s regrettably encroaching values, that in a culture whose spiritual wisdom is rooted in resisting attachment to the material world, consumer appetite in Thailand, and all that comes with it, is clearly burgeoning and shows no sign of abating.

 

 

But even in the cities, there’s a kind of dignity and patience in people’s behaviour, and this is nowhere better exemplified than on the roads. Despite the intimidating first impressions of both Bangkok and Chaing Mai, drivers are generally courteous and aware, with none of the ill temper and confrontation which blights the high streets and trunk roads of our own land. By the time we left the country, we had even taken to adopting the local pedestrian convention of walking confidently into the path of oncoming vehicles. It was sometimes the only way to get across a relentlessly flowing carriageway. But no scowls, no horns, and no revved engines. Just a change of direction to drive around you. 

Although we had a rough plan for our time in Thailand, there was still enough room for spontaneity to land us in an unexpected adventure or two. Apart from the compelling absorption of Bangkok, we spent a few days cycling in the remote hills of Chaing Mai province, Thailand’s north western corner, and visited both coastlines in the South, using clapped out trains, public buses, scooters, catamarans and kayaks as appropriate.  

 

 

The Youtube video embedded below is an overview of our trip, and contains my own personal thoughts and observations about Thailand as i saw it during the last three weeks of November 2007. Most of it is drawn from Bangkok.

 

I have additional footage of the more intrepid episodes, on bikes, buses, and boats, and it is my intention to use some of this for separate story-telling in due course.

 

 

On location in  Thailand.

November 2007. 

 

 

 

A “spring” cycle from Lothian to the Borders and back again.

 

February 16-17, 2008.

 

In these days of apparent global warming, when stories abound of ever later harvests, earlier flowerings and a general merging of seasons, it is inevitable that the wishful thinking of northern europeans, starved of light and warmth for several months of each year will sometimes lead to precipitate behaviour. 

 

From behind the double-glazed windows of my flat in Leith, the blue skies and clear settled air of a mid-February Saturday morning looked for all the world like another meteorological triumph for those much maligned greenhouse gases. Optimism about the more favourable aspects of climate change (from a North Atlantic weather victim’s point of view) and the cabin fever resulting from a predominantly housebound January combined to galvanise resolve for the year’s first proper cycle outing. We donned our lycra, loaded our bikes and dashed out to meet the whistling figure of approaching spring only to find instead the tight-lipped grimace of late winter.

 

Which is not to say that the hedgerows and verges of East Lothian were without the delights of a cautiously unfolding season. In fact, there were snowdrops and budding leaves aplenty. Nor that the sun, slowly clambering up from its near horizon back in December towards the forthcoming equinox in March, was not now making greater inroads through the trunks and branches of the region’s scattered woodlands. Indeed, it poured all afternoon from a cloudless sky, burnishing the winter fields with yellow, creamy softness, and drenching roadside pine in copper and gold. 

 

It is always pleasing to track sunlight, however slivered or diffuse, as it falls on tree bark, stone and leaves, the textured surfaces of nature, and transforms them, subtly, like the wispiest brush of gleaming oil on canvas, gilding and animating all that it touches…..  

 

Great ploughed expanses of unadorned soil rippled across the supple folds of the land. Each field like racks of crumbling sponge cake, clodded and inert, but slowly absorbing energy under the stretching light of gradually lengthening days.  

 

Inside living skin and bone it was very cold and on those unforgiving tracts of southern upland, unwarmed by the proximity of habitation and unprotected by any natural shelter, the air flowing over a moving bicycle, drew a bitter draught through layers of clothing and sporty gloves, designed for the man-machine interface but not, alas, the blasts of Scotland in February.

 

The trip south from Edinburgh, along the gentle sweep of Portobello’s seafront promenade, inland through the charming villages of East Lothian, over the desolate sheep and heather hills of the Lammermuirs and down the other side to Duns is a familiar route of 42 miles. The best avenues of trees, the loveliest cottages, the finest backward views to Midlothian and the Forth, the harshest downhill bends, and the stiffest uphill climbs are all known and anticipated. 

 

Taking the left turn towards Pencaitland, just beyond the southern approach to Tranent, is the first real sense of rural calm. Vehicles still streak past with unsettling speed but there are far fewer of them. In Gifford, the nearest thing to civilisation before heading up and  over the main Lammermuir ridge, we propped the bikes up against the wall of the churchyard and gathered what heat and caffeine impetus we could from a small flask of sweet, steaming coffee. 

 

The light was already fading slightly as we pushed onwards, up a series of stepped ascents between barren fields and further into the bitter clasp of the rising hills ahead, looking deceptively benign in the soft clear air.

  

In a field adjacent to one of the few dwellings on this section of road, a windmill, sitting high on top of its metal pole churned gently through the thickly forming pastel glaze of late afternoon. On its shadow side, and where the blades moved circularly across the direct path of low gleaming sunlight, a  strobing pattern fluttered over the grass and stones. This visual effect was accompanied by the rhythmic whoosh of disturbed air, and together formed a small zone of agitation amid an otherwise tranquil landscape. 

 

One final shallow dip in the road and a clattering cattle grid later, and Redstone Rig was suddenly upon us, the punishingly steep final section of tarmac which heaves itself up through bleak heather moorland and onto the top of the range. No season or weather conditions ever make this part of the cycle any easier. Always the  screaming knee joints, always the burning lungs. Today however, even as it dipped away, the light spilt extravagantly from the west, grazing the top of heather and defining the intervening lines of hill and moorland with a surrounding glow of lemon and ochre. Even the sheep were etched by it, and flatteringly.  For a few moments at least, they looked like majestic creatures.

 

And here, balanced with my bike under the dome of the gathering evening, ribcage heaving with the effort of ascent, and gazing over the illuminated folds of the land spread far to the south and west, it was possible to understand the thread holding together every ritual, every aesthetic and every epiphany ever evoked by the response to spring’s emergence from winter. This moment of quiet appreciation was nothing other than a communion of the senses with that to which those senses always seem most attracted and attuned. It was a private homage to the approaching season, however premature the initial impulse appears to have been over a weekend when the entire UK was caught in the icy hold of winter!

 

From the top of Redstone Rig, there are two ways down and onwards to Duns. Both routes are equidistant, and until recently a traditional old signpost testified to the fact, sitting as it did at the very point where the road splits, but now, regrettably just a stump. The highway authorities have replaced it with two separate, standard-issue signs, no doubt with their EU-compliant reflective coatings, and each located, in stark silhouette against the skyline, several metres from the junction. These modern functional structures rather spoil the draamatic bleakness of this summit junction but must count as nothing compared to the supposed blight of wind turbines, whose presence across the landscape increases ever steadily here, and in opposition to which, another garish sign squats amid the heather nearby, further contributing to the general untidiness of the place.

 

Personally, I don’t mind the look of wind farms, those ranks of unearthly spindles harvesting power from the air on the upper flanks of our open spaces, but who am I to argue with the many local campaigners, whose grasp of the trade off between the carbon emissions saved by wind turbines and those triggered by the peatland damage sustained in building them may well be more informed than my own.

 

The right hand fork follows the high line of hills, through the village of Longformacus and eventually down into Duns, at a distance of 17 miles. The left hand tendency yields a long, mainly straight descent into Whiteadder valley, past the reservoir, and along a largely wooded snaking road, taking in the small settlement of Cranshaws, and on to Duns, also at a distance of 17 miles.   

 

We took the Cranshaws road; less exposed and less strenuous, though also, enfolded as it is by the looming contours of the hills, quicker to darken. One stretch was so shaded by the characteristically impenetrable barrier of forestry woodland that residual lines of slush from January snowfall still persisted at the roadside. Passing a grit lorry in the growing dusk was a further reminder that caution would be needed over the last few miles of dark road with flashing bike lights which while signalling our presence, were insufficient to assess the road conditions beneath our wheels. 

 

But for all the pressure of time, leaching daylight, and dropping temperatures, it was a glorious thing to be out on the open road under a purpling, moonlit sky.

 

As I skimmed on a tailwind along the fast, flat stretch of whiteadder valley, with dense conifer woods on the left and the broadening river to the right, local wildlife began to present itself. A smart-looking landrover approached. An elderly lady, white-haired but immaculately coiffured, was sat at the wheel and smiled as she passed. Observing a species so happy and secure in its own habitat is always a humbling reminder of the delicate ecosystem we are all charged with helping to safeguard as we rush headlong into an unknown future. But more exhilirating still, was the grouse that flew in parallel with me a few yards distant on my right for several long seconds, wings flapping, neck outstretched  and clucking dementedly like a barnyard hen on amphetamines. 

          

As darkness closed in through the freezing dampness of the trees, and I passed beneath the reverberating clamour of unseen crows in the cluster of boughs overhead with eyes straining to follow the blackish outline of forgotten road inmediately in front, the splendour of fatigue began to glower deep in the guts. A sensation I would describe as a familiar, perverse necessity on outings such as this. These final, winding miles, though cycled several times before in daylight, were now unmemorised, and they rose and fell with an irksome, lingering monotony. But the feeling of failing strength was familiar, and I call it necessary because without that sweet suffering of running on empty towards the end of a route, the deep, almost visceral satisfaction of arrival would undoubtedly be diminished. 

 

 A warm, rustic comfort awaited us in Duns only a few furlongs hence, and that eviscerating sensation of glycogen depletion, known affectionately in cycling circles  as “the bonk” could be indulged with impunity, being so close to home. It is a form of hedonism perhaps as decadent as any, to arrive at one’s destination, eviscerated by hard miles and calorific debt, and at least partly wilfully, in order better to appreciate the restorative delights of beer and a welcoming hearthside.

On this occasion, the hospitality  was provided by my common-in-law mother-in-law, so to speak, and it lacked for nothing. Apart from my recent birthday, there was a new gas fire right here in the front room to celebrate. A perfectly chilled bottle of champagne was produced to mark this happy confluence of events, and we drank it from crystal flutes together  with meatloaf and mash in front of the new appliance, glowing orange in its coal-effect munificence.    

Trivial as it might seem, this was a remarkable state of affairs for us. We were sitting quite comfortably in a room that up until now I had associated only with the rattle of a dehumidifier, and reluctant meals taken in thermal underwear, due both to the defunct gas miser previously in situ and a long term problem with rising damp, the latter due in all likelihood to the house, charmingly rambling and thick stoned as it is, having been built partly into the bank beneath the inclining road which leads past the door and south east out of town.

The ingression of water into stone is probably inevitable with a building of such age and location, but the understanding of science has been harnessed, as with most things, to treat such a problem, and its called Electro-Osmosis. Tough on moisture, tough on the causes of moisture. With a system of titanium wires now laid into the walls, and a small electrical charge acting directly on the water molecules to persuade them that they never really wanted to go upwards in their time-honoured capillary action kind of fashion anyway, dampness was well on its way to becoming history in these parts . Secure in the knowledge of said molecules changing their migratory behaviour and heading south instead, we were all able to languish contentedly in a room that had now taken on a cosiness previously unimaginable.    

Sunday’s weather was as deceptive as the previous day’s. From the paned window of the lounge, the image of a loaded wheelbarrow and embedded pitchfork sitting in a gentle gleam of weak sunlight looked attractively springlike.

 

Outside, however, the cold ignored flesh and went straight to bone. Attiring myself in preparation for the four hour return cycle,  I thought of an aviation metaphor. When a jet lifts off, the survival of all on board depends on its not stopping. Once above the ground, those engines must run and run until the wheels touch down on the runway of whatever far shore it is bound for. This struck me as the sort of day for such a principle of motion, when the process of releasing heat from the stored energy of breakfast through the effort of pedalling was best sustained for the entire duration of the trip home.

I stopped a few times en route anyway, the victim of curiosity and a hunger to document, and each time my hands, wrested free from the protection of gloves to work the camera buttons, paid the painful price. 

 

Whiteadder reservoir, once a lonely round of water sitting at the base of the Lammermuir’s flat treeless ridges has now been tamed by waterside decking, a cheerful little jetty and a timber-framed clubhouse, the product of lottery and european funding, to turn the Borders Council sailing centre into something altogether more welcoming. Dinghys here are now hired to the public by the hour. When the sailing season arrives, this otherwise desolate little spot will reverberate to the sound of fluttering sailcloth, and shunting fibreglass. Less controverisal than wind turbines surely?

 

A further impediment to my progress was the sight of heather burning (”muirburn” as it is termed in Scotland) whose garish proximity to the road we were taking through the moor made it irresistable to stop and watch for a while. Even the small radiance of heat it threw out was appreciated  Once used to preserve the terrain’s homogenous openness as protection for sheep herds from the unseen approach of wolves and foxes, the practice now forms part of the land management strategy for supporting the local sport. The burning of old heather encourages the growth of new shoots and greater uniformity across the moor, and thus the maintainance of  optimal conditions for grouse shooting. Tramping through heather in Barbour jackets and blasting holes into the wildlife is a pastime which, by all accounts, represents a crucial part of the region’s income and therefore also, I assume, far less controversial an issue than those pesky wind turbines. 

 

The strong breeze which, being behind us, we barely noticed yesterday, now fanned vivid orange flames through the crackling mats of blackening heather, causing a heat shimmer through the air and sending curtains of smoke across the late blasting sun as it dipped ever closer to the ridge behind the fires.

 

Climbing up the long straight road to Redstone Rig, it was like chasing sunset, as its orange disc sank slowly, teeteringly, behind the rising line of the hill in front of us.

 

From the top, the view gave out and down to murky lowland, a basin of creeping cold extending over the passive lumpy fields of East Lothian, and onwards to the brittle shores of an unseen Firth of Forth, which was now lost in the darkening indigo-pink haze.

       

From here on in, the engines would need to run and run, on a swift straight flight through the cold highways of the plunging night until the wheels bumped gratefully onto the tarmac of home.

 

As a nation that claims to value freedom and justice for all, how best should we address the worst behaviour of those who manifestly ride roughshod over such ideals? What is the most effective way for us to encourage an improvement in the manners and morals of another country?

Should we refuse to let them join in with our game? Or should we maybe simply stop speaking to them? Perhaps we should deprive those dependent on International aid of their pocket money and sweets, or even more harshly, withhold some of the goods and services critical to their health and survival 

The ultimate sanction of course, and one reserved, it must be presumed, for only the very worst and irredeemable of offenders, is intervention itself. This involves agreeing as best you can with all the others in the gang that fundamental rules of the game have been broken and that, as a result, the sovereignty of the  country in question has been forfeited. Then you can walk right in and hand out a good hiding.

In recent history, the combined impact of wholesale boycotting and international isolation has had a crucial role to play and nowhere more so than in the ending of apartheid in South Africa, but sadly, it’s not an approach that always works as intended. A harsh embargo regime applied to Iraq during the 1990s cost hundreds of thousands of innocent young lives without any productive outcome at all. In fact the country still ended up getting a good hiding anyway.

 

At the other end of the spectrum of remedial action is absolute indulgence. Think of the parent who looks on smilingly at their offspring’s little acts of cruelty, declaring confidently that they will grow out of it, while also harbouring a quiet sense of pride in the sort of wilfulness which will stand them in good stead in a brutally competitive world.  

The state of Israel has bristled and scrapped its way through all the phases of childhood but even as a young adult it is still not required to be accountable for its actions by the world community. In this case, the endless indulgence it has been granted has done nothing to improve its manners nor its dysfunctional personality.   

But i only pose the question as part of a reflection upon the problem of China.

Steven Spielburg has now taken his place among the few celebrity heavyweights prepared to take a meaningful stand of principle against the very badly behaved. He is quite right to draw attention to China’s links to the Sudanese government, whose genocide it is effectively bankrolling, and his resignation from a role connected to that jamboree of Chinese self-promotion otherwise known as the Beijing Olympic Games is a major embarrassment to the hosts,  and now threatens to set in motion a campaign that will most likely escalate as the summer event approaches.

 

More interesting however, is the response of other governments. Those of the free world. Like our own, for instance. And the message implied by the stated policy of the UK on this issue is that countries with truly horrible personalities should be embraced, because that’s the best way to effect a change for the better. So when invited to play at their house, we should all turn up because by being in the warm company of really nice, kind folk some of that goodness might actually rub off. And even if they don’t really want to change, then due to all the attention, a degree of shame will force them to.

Tessa Jowell might well vaunt the right of activists to conspicuously not show up, or to show up and speak out, but there is little doubt as to the attitude of government and our associated sporting officialdom on the matter.

UK athletes have already been respectfully reminded of the small print governing their behaviour as sporting representatives. While they are permitted to answer any questions honestly, they should refrain from unsolicited or proactive political opinions. It will be interesting to see just how many Chinese journalists queue up to give our young bucks and fillys a chance to say just what they really think about the country’s political values.

 

And there’s nothing to say that such politeness around bullies, sadists and control freaks need extend merely to accepting invitations when offered.  

Take Saudi Arabia for instance. The ruling dynasty there represents one of the harshest regimes in the world, but rather than upbraid them with a wagging finger or simply avoid their company in disgust, we should get them over to ours. Then, if we extend every courtesy and honour that the pomp and circumstance of our constitutional monarchy can muster, the penny might drop. “These really are the most hospitable people” thinks King Abdullah as he steps from the Queen’s best gold coach onto the gleaming red carpet, noting also the fact that it seems possible to live in opulence and privilege without keeping a straitjacket on your people,   “Perhaps we are a bit too hard on the folks back home”.  

 

 

This inclusive, understanding approach is truly enlightened. Indeed it displays the very noblest human characteristics. It might even be a credible approach to the challenges of international politics if only it was implemented consistently. Take Iran for example. They even offered their help to the US, post 9/11. But after seeing their cautious offer of collaboration roundly snubbed, they simply recoiled into a wounded, then defensive, “axis-of-evil” paranoia.  And little wonder. The sanctions have started already. And they’ll be lucky to avoid a good hiding in due course.  

With all that said, I am finally, slowly starting to accept that the business of politics is amoral, and that no country’s behaviour is ever bad enough to justify a cessation of relations as long as another’s national interest is best served by maintaining them.

 

In all likelihood, China is,the emerging power of the 21st century, but its long, historical insularity means that a mentality suitable to such a role is taking time to evolve. Even now, it doesn’t fully grasp the burden of responsibility that comes with such influence. The impact of globalisation on this vast country’s culture and politics is nonetheless inevitable and profound change is certain, however strongly resisted and slow to emerge. Governments, and ours foremost among them, are now quite obviously jostling for position to ensure both economic advantage and the ear of its leaders. But none of this should mean that China’s current very bad behaviour is so indulged as to ensure that its big Beijing party goes off with a bang.

 

 

For that reason, I shall be one of those people mentally boycotting the Olympic Games this summer. I may even make a nuisance of myself outside the Chinese embassy up the road. And if i can think of a suitably pithy T-shirt logo (”The Genocide Olympics” is a bit too obvious for my taste) then i’ll be wearing that too.  

   

 

Judging by the US refusal to grant singer Amy Whitehouse a Visa for travel to LA to pick up a music award, any form of illegal behaviour nowadays carries with it the inherent threat of a ban on entry to America. 

In this case, despite being nominated for six separate awards and being held, from an artistic point of view at least, in the highest regard by her industry peers, the US embassy in London turned down her request for entry into the country on account of “the use and abuse of narcotics”. (Apparently a late reversal of that decision was made but it came too late).

Smacked out on Class As she may have been in recent times, and now in possession of  a criminal record reflecting this,  she is currently undergoing rehab, and it is hard to see what reason the US authorities might have had to thwart her wish for a personal appearance at the awards ceremony other than a policy decision based on moral censure. The fact that nowhere in the world are the excesses of decadence, dysfunctionality and sociopathic behaviour more prevalent than within its own borders is beside the point. 

As an aside, i wonder if all those American troops entering Iraq are subject to visa waiver conditions. Like being required to demonstrate soundness of mind, (as with US requirements) or a pledge to refrain from immoral behaviour of any sort. Just to cover the really bad stuff, such as bullying, maiming, or even ruthlessly killing any innocent civilians of the country they’re visiting? I must confess to not knowing what agreements are in place about this. In general, though, the sovereign government of Iraq are jolly indulgent of their visitors and appear quite free and easy about what Americans they allow in,  although a principled line may drawn at pot-smoking marines. 

For quite some time, entry paperwork to the US has included a polite enquiry as to whether or not you have ever engaged in acts of terrorism, and, to be fair, that is perfectly reasonable, even if it does seem to rely rather heavily on the applicant’s honesty in addressing such a serious matter. But it is surely only a question of time before the list of self-certifying requirements for stepping into the land of the free includes a declaration that you have not, do not, and have no intention to use illegal drugs.

Amy Winehouse is an acclaimed musician, and thereby a celebrity of sorts, so her negative Visa assessment is presumably due in part to the undesirability of such a chaotic and badly-behaved role model.

Perhaps this should not come as a surprise in the light of another one of those staggering statistics to come out of America. As a way of putting the current rumpus about elements of Sharia Law gaining formal recognition in the UK into some sort of context, it was quoted on BBC news that 9% of the American public actually believe that The Holy Bible should constitute the main or sole basis for the law in that country. 

 

 

Unfortunately,the Christian God dispenses justice that might seem a little robust by modern liberal standards, and a view of morality which extends to wiping out entire communities (as with poor Sodom and Gomorrah) on account of their deviant sexual practices is one that we must all hope doesn’t gain currency. Compared to the divine heavy-handedness just described, the simple refusal of hospitality to a troubled artist whose dependence on illegal substances is most likely an escape from the kind of deep and difficult personal issues that in other cultures might lead, for example, to a shooting spree, is a mild response to perceived sinfulness. America has a reputation for righteousness to uphold, and in this arena, as in others, wishes to lead from the front as ever, as an example to the rest of us. Drugs are bad, the right to bear arms is good. And such a framework for morality, I am quite sure, has the overwhelming support of evangelical christians throughout the nation. 

 

But apart from being seen to be tough on those hapless victims of low moral fibre, there is the issue of homeland security for the American government to worry about. And since 9/11 the organisational machinery for the surveillance and monitoring of its own citizens has burgeoned at an astonishing rate.

 

 

Infragard is a national program which provides a structure for collaboration between the FBI and the private sector. In November 2001, its membership amounted to 1,700. It is now 23,000. In essence, the corporations hand over information about their employees to the bureau in exchange for privileged security intelligence. It’s all supposed to be about protecting “critical national infrastructure”, although looking at the range of sectors represented (agriculture, banking, finance, chemicals, defence, energy, food, information, telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, transportation) it would appear to cover pretty much all the main occupations and professions within the legal economy. However, an increasing security grip such as this has the happy advantage of identifying not just a potential terrorist threat, but industrial sabotage, subversive activity or even plain employee disgruntlement, the latter of which, as precedent suggests, could easily turn ugly. Many employees in America are already subject to compulsory drug testing. The noose for those behaving badly can only tighten in such a cultural climate.  

 

But being realistic, Amy Winehouse is too consumed with fighting her own demons to present even the faintest degree of trouble to America. Beyond, that is, the irritation of trying to collect biometric data from somebody suffering the tics and twitches of a junkie currently in remission. In fact ,with the pernicious anti-american sentiment constantly swirling around in my own head (including the unswerving conviction that George W is a war criminal) I surely represent a greater threat in the eyes of the US establishment than would Ms Winehouse dropping by on Los Angeles just to collect a bauble. It was only recently that a traveller was barred from flying with a US airline because he was wearing a teeshirt declaring Bush to be the world’s No 1 terrorist. This was considered to breach security guidelines.

Amy might be wondering where the next chemical high is coming from or why the home of exquisite black soul music, of which she is such a virtuous exponent, is so unwelcoming, and yet I find myself frequently considering, for instance, the fact that America respects human rights but only where those rights have not been forfeited by an individual’s behaviour, and that America considers itself to be the arbiter of this. Or, that America sees fit to observe principles of global consensus and international law, but only to the extent that this corresponds with American interests.

 

These are real and important issues, with implications that are not unrelated to basic christian values, but I’m inclined to think that the US authorities would sooner admit somebody who is just going to stagger about under close supervision and sing some songs, than an irksome critic of the American political system with a mind to speak up about it.

However, until such time as the American military-industrial complex have come up with a way to read human thoughts, I can still look the immigration official squarely in the eye, salute the poster portrait of the President above the arrivals exit door, and walk on through with minimal fuss. Unless the Department of Homeland Security’s screening software picks up this blog of course. 

 

 

The recent revelation that Muslim human rights lawyer and labour MP, Sadiq Khan was bugged by the police authorities during a prison visit to a constituent who is being sought by the US for extradition on terror sponsorship charges, has again put the spotlight on the beleaguered political establishment. Jack Straw the Justice Minister was back at the dispatch box attempting to explain away, or more accurately exonerate, ministerial involvement in this latest contravention of the rules. Quite why, given his manifest deception regarding government knowledge of “extraordinary rendition”, any of us should believe him, is another matter. But on this occasion, his fallback in addressing the House was a reference to the guidelines on the issue given by Harold Wilson in the 60s.

BBC Commentator Nick Robinson’s paraphrase of the Wilson doctrine goes something like: ”We wont bug you unless we do, and if do, we’ll tell you about it when we can…”

 

This perfectly captures the vagueness of principle governing fundamental rights of professional confidentiality and allows ministerial fudging on some of those very issues of liberty which, after all, we’re supposed to be celebrating as a cornerstone of Brown’s Britain. 

 

In fact, the prime minister’s national project aside, this is a Britain already widely acknowledged as the world’s most developed surveillance society. Frederick Forsyth, the celebrated spy thriller writer would rather call it the “snooper state” although exactly at what point the snooper state becomes the surveillance society is surely a matter of personal taste. Apparently there are now around 800 different bodies and organisations in the UK which have both the means and the right to collect hold, and use personal data about us.

Some might consider this a virtue, but a squint at the body of related literature carries uncomfortable clues which indicate that monitoring on this scale is indicative of a state with totalitarian tendencies. And with that in mind, a degree of critical vigilance would not go amiss. As of now, much of the personal detail in question is held by companies whose motive is to further their business and improve customer service. But with such a large and growing infrastructure of information, and quite apart from the hazards of loss and theft already witnessed recently, the transition to something more sinister could be achieved without much difficulty were an escalation of state security to be considered desirable or necessary. And this is perfectly conceivable if the Home Office’s current logic on the extension of detention periods is accepted. According to Jacquie Clark’s thinking, it’s best to have counter terrorism legislation in place so that it’s there to be used if and when it is needed. This amounts to eroding civil liberties as a precautionary measure. And that really should make us feel insecure. 

  

In response to the Sadiq Khan fuore, the BBC website’s vox pop posed the question as to whether MPs should be exempt from police “bugging” . But this seems to me to miss the larger issue. Members of Parliament should certainly be subject to the same rules as the rest of us in matters relating to national security. However, and ignoring for the moment what the actual criteria might be for assessing a national security risk, the question should really be the entire validity of confidentiality.

Is the democratic relationship between MP and constituent, or the “legal privilege” that exists between solicitor and client sacrosanct or not? If the dangers of the times dictate that our traditional, and perhaps rather quaint, liberal principles be reined in, then lets do just that and be done with it. The situation, as currently seems to pertain, where we continue to vaunt our credentials of freedom, openness and democracy yet, at the same time burrow beneath them from within the system and with nobody owning up to it, is the worst of both worlds, and squalidly unsporting. Either the state comes clean with the country and concedes that all persons, and dialogues between persons, regardless of status and context are liable to surveillance, or not. We either have our cake, and proudly keep it in the robust old tin labelled democratic freedoms and civil liberties, or we present it for eating as a comfort food to quell our fears about the enemy within and simply accept this inevitable loss as the price of our safety. We cannot have both. 

Sadiq Khan was one of the joint signatories to a latter addressed to Tony Blair in 2006 expressing concern about British foreign policy and its negative impact on the safety of UK citizens, both home and abroad. Even members of the government have since been forced privately to accept that the warmongering of recent years has probably harmed our cause in this respect. But past activism on the subject of this was obviously enough for Khan to be deemed “subversive” by police personnel involved in the bugging scandal, and even if the decision to secretly record his conversation was entirely to do with the person to whom he was talking, the “subversive” the epithet is telling. It reminds me of a story related by a senior social worker friend of mine who once attended a workshop including police officers. It only took her to articulate a point of view somewhat at odds with establishment wisdom to be branded an “anarchist” by a member of the constabulary who was present. But despite the obvious pleasure she took in evoking such a radical retort from a servant of her majesty, the implication of such a response is clear. Any significant deviation from the prescribed view, especially by those in public service, or in positions of influence has a capacity to cause concern, and this trend is only likely to intensify in such a time of perceived threat to our security and way of life.

 

 

Curiously, Sadiq Khan is now a labour whip with special responsibility for the Ministry of Justice, the very department now under scrutiny for its apparent lack of knowledge in the bugging affair. As a politician apparently committed to the national ID Card scheme, and supportive of the ongoing formation of counter-terrorism legislation, there is a degree of comedy in the spectacle of somebody caught between personal indignation and rank-closing behaviour with regard to the very institution he works to serve and defend. But it’s also tempting to speculate on the strategic motivation of a decision to bring an individual previously conspicuous by his radicalism firmly into the body of the church. Maybes somebody is playing a smart game.

 

But talking of anarchism, I’ve long been aware that my mate’s wife’s sister was one half of the celebrated “McLibel” duo, who refused to be intimidated by the snapping jaws of corporate litigation and, after the longest running court case in English legal history emerged in 1997, at least morally victorious in their effort to highlight the shortcomings of the global burger chain’s labour practices, marketing strategy and nutritional values. So, when i saw Helen last weekend, up from London for a family birthday celebration, i was determined to make acquaintance, despite the obvious risk of exasperating her with all the lines of questioning that have surely bedevilled her life ever since. 

 

 

The legal case, it’s subsequent escalation to the European Court of Human rights and all the issue arising are very well documented, but what struck me most about the person in front of me was the rare level of adherence to a set of ideals of which the battle with McDonalds was only one, and that a partly accidental, manifestation.  

Most people, myself included, will happily talk the talk of conviction politics, but remain half-cocked in following it through. Helen, it would seem, theorizes and pontificates less, but thoroughly lives her principles. Apart from anything else, this exposes the shallowness and lazy cynicism all those inclined to criticise the McLibel protaganists, as some did following the Ken Loach documentary in 2005, for seeking to exploit their own hard won story. 

Helen declared herself to be an anarchist, a political persuasion way too easy a target for ridicule to be worthy of any brownie points for hitting. But it was only after some thought, and a little systematic unpicking of my own ideas and attitudes, that I realised I might be one as well!  A cursory look on Wikipedia presents a wide variety of flavours and subdivisions of this ideology, and as yet i could not possibly say what particular type of anarchist I am, but there is no doubt in my mind that government, in the modern sense, is largely harmful and at least partly unnecessary.

 

 

 

A recent radio program I tuned into discussed the notion of ‘the Social Contract’, taking in the various philosophical musings of messrs Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau et al. It was a reminder of the first principles of government, of the reason why government exists, and the relinquishment of freedoms we apparently agree to, implicitly or otherwise, in exchange for all those benefits, tangible or not, which accrue from the state .

I always find such reminders to be instructive, because so much of the heat and light generated by mainstream politics revolves around the manoeuvring for power, and the squabbling over those often marginal policy differences which determine electoral contests. Some proper analysis within the political sphere which involves questioning the very fundamentals would surely lead to a recognition that the ‘Social Contract’ is well overdue for refurbishment. But the political game has always been self-serving, and given that its players merely reflect the society and culture into which they were born, there is little prospect of the kind of progressive reform required to bring the levels of liberty and equality more into line with the concept’s originating spirit.  

 

 

Cue Anarchism. Not the violently confrontational variety of course. Nor the sort which simply disengages from the current social and political structure in despair, but one which seeks to build an effective alternative based on mutualism and reciprocity. The biggest challenge in a world dominated by Hobbes’ bleak view of human nature, reinforced as it is by the Christian notion of original sin,  is to encourage recognition that we are actually a lot nicer than we are told to think, and that a world built on shared purpose and collective interest in the very noblest sense, really is possible.       

   

     

   

 

Anybody who knows anything about existing international law in relation to warfare will understand that Tony Blair, his Attorney General, and other accomplices have, at the very least, a case to answer over the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, and the catastrophic loss of innocent civilian life that resulted.

In the current culture of almost McCarthyite levels of obsession with all those involved with, or sympathetic to, not only Al Qaeda activity which may threaten UK homeland security, but Jihadist causes across the world, it would seem a grossly inconsistent commitment to upholding the law by those who bend so much energy towards protecting us, and the world, from Islamic terrorists, if the allegations against Blair and co were not investigated.

The War Crimes division of the Counter Terrorism branch at Scotland Yard have now done the decent thing and summoned the courtesy to respond to perfectly legitimate reporting of crimes which come quite squarely within their sphere of interest.

It doesn’t take a great legal mind or an especially partisan political disposition to see the correspondence between certain acts and their consequences as covered by International Law and those perpetrated by our government.

That being so, there is still no guarantee of conviction, Indeed, given not only the opposition to this entire exercise by senior figures at the Met, but the vast collective weight of the establishment interests, there is surely no such chance.

However, even if correct application of the law must be stymied to forestall national disgrace, it must be hoped that this dramatic development, albeit as yet untrumpeted by mainstream media, will re-ignite debate and lead to further safeguards to ensure that no such legal contraventions can ever happen again.

The latest parliamentary indiscretion, this time the payment of his son by Tory MP Derek Conway for a bogus position, can only further heighten the volume of debate about the collective integrity of our elected representatives. If there is still any stomach for debate that is, as most people now seem to be reduced to relinquishing their democratic rights and muttering into their beer. 

Various apologists of the political class attempt to mealy-mouth their way through justifications and mitigations but the simple truth is that MPs, as a vocational grouping are as well represented by chancers, and sleazemeisters as any other middle class profession with inbuilt opportunities for securing that extra bit of income. Whether it’s tax avoidance, exploitation of labour markets, or creative expense accounting, the white-collared world  is full of people who will take any opportunity to increase income, or minimize expenditure for that extra bit of financial comfort. And why seek to portray career parliamentarians as any different. Of course, there are conviction politicians out there, for whom a sincerely felt and overriding desire to assist in improving the world or helping it to run better is the prime motivation in their lives, but with an ever lengthening list of MPs, across all parties, who employ their own family, whether spuriously or otherwise, to draw down from their generous expense account, there is little sense in trying to spin the reality any other way. Politicians, as a profession are as self-interested as any other. 

This being the case, and especially as it is tax payers’ money at stake, not corporate profit or private wealth, there should now be new regulations drawn up governing how MPs get to use their extra-salary allowances and in a way that is seen to be fair. Even if, as is no doubt the case, many of these wives and children are both competent and honest, and provide acceptable value for money, the current practice still represents a form of nepotism which would not be tolerated in other areas of the public sector. At the very least, the posts in question should be advertised and selected for, although to my mind, the temptation presented by holding the purse strings should be removed altogether and the matter of an MPs “staff” administered more formally. Even the Review Body on Senior Salaries recently conceded that there is scope for abuse in the current system, whereby expenses of up to £43k in any multiples below £250  can be claimed for without 

the need for receipts.

In truth, the reputation of MPs is already very low and it requires more than the virtually no brainer decision to waive the 2.5% pay rise offered and instead take the 1.9 that police and other public servants were forced to accept, to convince anybody that our politicians are any less venal than the plumber or the company chairman. 

 

 

In all the recent media coverage of Kenya’s current internal problems, reference to the country’s evolution and a proper historical context for the inter tribal violence now disfiguring that East African country has been conspicuous mainly by it’s absence. 

Last night’s More 4 News included a short report covering Britain’s historical involvement in that story and for the first time on mainstream TV questioned the extent of our culpability for the present state of crisis. I know little of Kenya, nor it’s evolution, and decided to conduct some research of my own to address this. I really should have guessed at the grim colonialist truth of it all.

The entire east african coastal region of which Kenya forms a part, was once bossed by Omani Arabs. The Portugese also turned up early on to flex their own maritime trading muscles, and even Germany had some interest in territory which included what is now Tanzania, but the late 19th century was Britain’s undisputed era of imperial supremacy and once they had taken aim at the area, there was only going to be one outcome.

 

 

 

The initial establishment of British “influence”, as it is so euphemistically called (a brutally-won occupation strikes me as a far more honest description) was carried out in the late 1880s by the Imperial British East Africa  Company, founded by a scottish grocer, the Campbelltown born William Mackinnon. And where first a British trading company went, a crown colony was almost sure to follow sometime soon thereafter, allowing the commercial exploitation of both natural resources and manpower to be further consolidated by the full machinery of administrative control. The area became a protectorate in 1895 and finally the Kenya Colony in 1920. 

The process of land grabbing that unfolded followed a rationale typical of most such imperialist enterprises. Seeming mostly empty, the territory was considered freely available for acquisition and nomadic hunters, most notably the Maasai in this case were simply not considered legitimate occupants. 

Even if the benefit of doubt were given to the Commisioner of Lands about assumption of vacancy, there is no ambiguity about the exclusivity of distribution. The White Highlands of Kenya were a spectacular going concern in the early 20th century. Indeed the uplands around the rift valley were so temperate and so fertile, and the encouragement of immigration by the British East Africa colony so successful, that by 1920, there were already around 10,000 British settlers there. With land leases then being granted to other Europeans, and Americans, this wealthy community of tea and coffee farmers had mushroomed further to around 30,000 by the time the post war depression years were hitting the west.

 

 

 

But it wasn’t only native Africans who were denied rights to the best bits of land. Many Asians too, who had arrived en masse to assist with the building of the inevitable colonial railway scheme, now also wanted a piece of the pie. They were also duly denied. Furthermore, the land policy rules laid down by the British Crown were  refined to ensure that no such land could find its way into non-white hands through the back door:

“There shall by virtue of this Ordinance be implied in every lease granted under this part to a European covenant that he shall not without the consent of the Governor in Council appoint or allow a non-European to be a manager or otherwise to occupy or be in control of the land leased”

 

(section 36, Crown Land Ordinance, 1915)

As if colonising the land wasn’t bad enough, the carrier corps was formed by the British protectorate in World War I  which conscripted Africans into supporting the military struggle against  European rivals. During the course of the organisation’s existence, over  400,000 African men were drawn away from their tribes and subjected to considerable suffering as part of a campaign to contest what for them were irrelevant foreign causes.

Of course, rebellion against this imperial yoke was just a matter of time.

But the manner in which tribal differences were exploited as part of the British attempt to hold on to power is important in considering the economic disparities and ethnic divisions which now lie at the heart of the current strife. 

 

 

The kikuyu tribe were the main victims of land confiscation, and although some of these chose to collude in their own subjugation, gaining some tenancy rights of their own in due course, many more, impoverished by their white masters, began migrating to Nairobi in search of work. These urban Kikuyu formed an association and, together with a nascent trade union movement began fomenting resistance. 

After failed negotiations with the British for greater say in their own affairs the urban radicals hijacked the hitherto loyalist Kenyan African Union. They were able to use its apparatus to form a central committee which gained enough hold to force independence onto the official agenda for the first time. From this, evolved the guerilla group which came to be known as Mau Mau. 

 

 

Kenyan independence, when it finally came in 1963 was generally seen as a cause for celebration, but the years of turbulence that led to it were characterised by that particular orgy of murder and suppression more respectably described as an imperialist rearguard action. The British colonial government did everything in its power to stem insurgency. Even association with Mau Mau during the height of the terror was a capital offence, and although the rebels were certainly guilty of some brutal massacres themselves, the final casualty tally of Kenyans was hugely disproportionate. 

Operation Anvil had been launched in 1954 and featured huge scale internments, detentions and deportations, not just of active rebels, but anybody suspected as complicit or sympathetic. The overwhelming burden fell on Kikuyu, who were systematically herded into controlled villages or reservations. Such places were more like concentration camps and the occupants were subjected to treatment and conditions which would now blow UN Human Rights charters wide apart.

 

 

 

 

Caroline Elkins, a modern historian who wrote a book on the subject called “Britain’s Gulag” claims to have encountered robust obstructionism from the Colonial Office (now part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) in her attempts to research the records. If this is so, it is little wonder that the population at large is so unaware of the unpalatable facts of Kenya’s long and bloody birth.

  

If by Britain’s ruthless repression of the Mau Mau, the intention was to ensure a transfer of power to moderate forces, then the accession in 1963 of Jomo Kenyatta (at one stage of the struggle, like Mandela, a political prisoner) as first President  of an independent Kenya might be considered a success.

 

 

However, in the policy of reconciliation that followed, Britain and its array of white Kenyan settlers were largely indulged the accountability which their behaviour rightly deserved. A kind of collective, post-colonial amnesia about the “Emergency” years became settled over the country’s coffee plantations and mango orchards, and it is an amnesia which still pertains today. The current problems in Kenya may be an embarrassment for the apologists of British colonial policy, but the vast majority of newswatchers see only a clash of machete-wielding ethnic clans, and remain oblivious to the real cause of the land-ownership issues which lie at the heart  of the conflict.

Having been forced to bow to the unstoppable momentum for national independence, Britain could not leave without laying down its colonial values of governance, ensuring that the new rulers were hand-picked to best protect its own economic and geopolitical interests, and seeking to lock in ethnic differences for better manipulating the power balance to its own advantage. 

 

 

The “divide and rule” legacy of Britain’s colonial past may perhaps be over-exaggerated in the debate about Kenya’s current ructions, but what is indisputable is the ethnic favouritism inherent in the political structure bequeathed to a fledgling African government. This allowed corruption and elitism to flourish, together with all the social and economic inequities which inevitably followed.

The succeeding decades in Kenyan politics have been characterised by a pattern similar to that in other countries formerly under British control, like Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Iraq. Corrupt, and often dictatorial the leaders have failed to address the fundamental issues of its people as a single nation. It has allowed the gross inequities consequent upon past iniquities to continue unchecked, and it is the bitter harvest of this which, sadly, is now being reaped.