Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: November 2015

Rule of Law

The other day a colleague who is familiar with my slightly subversive views maliciously presented me with a philosophical challenge:

– How come you who so fervently believe in the rule of law defend people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange?
It is true that I passionately believe in the rule of law, defined by the UN as follows:

“… a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards.”

(You will find other definitions of the “rule of law”, definitions from which the last clause – “and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards” is absent.)

Back to my malicious colleague: I took the moral highground: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange did not have the right to violate certain legal provisions; they had a duty to do so.

– Ah, said my colleague with a sly smile, so when you face the enemy, the rule of law no longer applies?

I must admit that my mumbled reply was not very impressive. I saw where he was going, and I am a terrible chess player. He would make sure I’d soon be writhing in a corner (figuratively that is) admitting that to defend my values, we must do whatever it takes, whereas to defend your values – if they differ from mine – we must play by the rules.

Now I am an extremely law-abiding citizen. I don’t even cheat on my taxes, and wouldn’t do so even if I had the chance, for the simple reason that I’m proud of paying my share of the upkeep of this country. Nevertheless, my sympathy for rule breakers does not stop at Snowden and Assange. I also have full sympathy with hackers “Anonymous” when they claim to be taking down the “enemy’s” Twitter accounts (again, on the assumption that their enemy is my enemy, and ISIS certainly is a shared enemy.) Taking down a Twitter account is, however, a far, far cry from “Guantanamo Bay” and universal telecom surveillance.

The self-styled “Islamic State” and Boko Haram are not the only monsters lurking in the shadows. There are other agents of rape and mutilation out there. And some of them are friends of our friends. Take the Uzbek government, for instance – just about as bad as they come, yet several European governments including my own, have invested heavily in Uzbekistan. A recent scandal rocked the press in my country for a couple of days, but all is surprisingly silent now. Was it too close to home for the powers that be?

I quote the Norwegian Helsinki Committee:

It is widely known that authoritarian regimes put as a condition for providing licenses to mobile telephone and internet providers that they get full access to content and meta ‐ data of communications on the systems. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee has inter alia criticized the Swedish company Telia Sonera and the Russian company Vimpelcom (partly owned by the Norwegian company Telenor) for providing authorities in Uzbekistan and Belarus full access to their systems.

Meanwhile, in Sweden (source: the Guardian), the prosecuting authority is taking an Uzbek hit-man to court. He is suspected of having been acting at the orders of the Uzbek government when he shot an Uzbek opposition politician in the head. He did it in Malmö. That’s in Sweden. The impudence!! Yet, Sweden has also been investing heavily in Uzbekistan.

If our own governments don’t play by the rules, how can they expect us, to whom they are accountable, to do so? If our governments practise realpolitik  why should not we also do so, at least in self-defence. The question is: Should hackers in one country, mine for instance, defend violently suppressed people in another, eg, the “ganster state” Uzbekistan?

That, I think, is the real philosophical challenge. Would the consequences be all-bad, as have those of the military intervientions in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya?

Finally, should it occur to you to you to ask me, let me be clear: Any hacker who, for personal gain, abuses his/her skills (e.g. online bank fraud, industrial espionage, etc.) will find no more sympathy at my door than a medical doctor who kills his/her patients. There are certain things one just doesn’t do!

1029… and still counting

Even I was taken aback by the Counted!

Why the Guardian feels called upon to kindly help the US keep a record that most civilised and indeed, even uncivilised, nations would blush to admit they did not themselves scrupulously record, is explained here.

There is really nothing I can add.

Except, yes, for one thing: Developing nations of the world: Here is your chance to demonstrate that you can do better than the United States of America.

Bedtime story

Once upon a time, dear Reader, when your grandparents were still in diapers, there was a gigantic monster with three heads. He lived far, far away in a land where the sun never rises and the sky is always pink. When he was at home, he would mostly lie on his back, scratching his stomach, but when he was hungry, he would go off and find a pretty maiden to eat.

He lived so far away that your grandparents would never have heard of him at all, if it were not for the fact that every once in a while, when he ran out of pretty maidens to eat, he would cross the oceans, mountains and valleys and stride into one of the villages where the blue people lived. (He particularly liked blue maidens.) And he would start picking off pretty maidens there.

Naturally, the villagers were not pleased and the maidens would even threaten to run away. Something had to be done. So eventually, valiant farmer’s sons and bricklayers and cooks and blacksmiths rallied forth with all their axes and trowels and filleting knives and hammers and what-have-you-s and somehow they were able to topple the monster and cut his heads off. Yes, every single head.

You can imagine how they danced for joy, how they revelled! There was only one small problem: While they were dancing and laughing and singing, the monster got up and went to join them. You see, for every head they had cut off, he had grown three. Moreover, as you can imagine, he was very angry.

At the time, a skinny wisp of a computer nerd was living in the village. Yes, they had computers back then, and nerds, too. Anyway, this nerd suggested to the terrified revellers that they should serve the monster lots of their cakes and ice-cream, and banana-splits and coconut shake and all the other delicious things people used to enjoy until they decided they would rather look young till they died.

The terrified revellers were so terrified they forgot, for a moment, to be valiant, so they did exactly what the nerd suggested. And the nerd let the monster play World of Warcraft on his shale tablet.

Let me tell you: The monster particularly liked the coconut shake. And he absolutely loved World of Warcraft. So he sat there, eating and eating, never for a moment thinking about pretty maidens, playing World of Warcraft till all the revellers had fallen asleep.

I wish I could tell you that he burst in the end, like the astronomer Tycho Brahe. But he didn’t. As far as I know, he is still there, with his nine oversized heads all eating coconut shake and angel cake. But at least the pretty maidens need not fear him any more, and eventually, I expect, arteriosclerosis will get the better of him.

With that, I ask you to please remember to brush your teeth.

 

Atttacks against humanity

We have just heard that the killings in Paris last night “are an attack against all humanity”. Indeed they are! They are loathsome, ghastly, cowardly acts of random cruelty. There is no obscenity that can fully convey my contempt for the intoxicated sadism that characterises such acts.

However, Mr Obama, did you or any of your predecessors ever state that the ghastly, cowardly, randomly cruel war on Iraq was an attack against all humanity?

Did the US ever pay war damages to the country they dismantled “in error” as it turned out?

Has it ever occurred to you, Mr Obama, or your allies, that the Palestine situation has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that talks, negotiations, etc. won’t get you anywhere if you are not formally a “nation state”, and if your counterpart is a US ally, no matter how unequivocal your rights. So fundamentalist Islamists don’t even consider negotiating, and frankly, who can blame them for that.

Western policies versus Islam are utterly and devastatingly failed! After the Sovjet débâcle in Afghanistan, the West should have learnt that no matter how much we dislike our medieval counterpart, we have to find some other way of solving differences than by trying to exterminate him.

After all, we are not perfect either. 

As for France: Frankly, Ms Le Pen has much to answer for, I believe, and should never have been allowed to spawn rabid racial hatred. I believe that in my country, she would have been behind bars a long time ago.

You will say this is not the time to criticise France. On the contrary, it is just the right time! The thing is, that what we do has consequences. What happened to the victims was not just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Please please remember that.

As far as watchdogs go …

So, am I being watched? I mean, am I subject to more scrutiny on the part of western intelligence agencies than the average man and woman? Are you, who are reading me, being watched?

Because we are all being watched, remember? Not only by the NSA, which appears to have assumed extra-judicial powers and which, incidentally, collaborates with any number of states.

In case you don’t remember, allow me to remind you of the EU Data Retention Directive, the formal purpose of which is to make it harder for criminals to escape. No matter who that criminal is, no matter how anonymous, the Data Retention Directive will make it very hard for him or her to hide in Europe for any length of time.

If the sole purpose of the Directive were to bring heinous criminals to justice, I would be all for it! I very much want the big bad guys brought to justice. In fact I am all for the directive in principle, but I am worried about certain nefarious side-effects. One of them being that we do not all always agree about who the really, really big, bad guys are. Not so very long ago, for instance, homosexuals were considered very bad. I mean really “bad”!

I for my part am of the opinion that one really bad guy is Benjamin Netanyahu and that another is George Bush. Were it not for them, I doubt there would have been a 9/11 (Netanyahu was not the PM at the time, but he had been).

Bush and Netanyahu do not bear all the blame for Israel’s expansionism, to be sure, but a big chunk of it, and thus for much of the ghastly global consequences of Israel’s crimes against humanity. (IS terrorism is just the first pixel of the rather dim picture.) Will Bush and Netanyahu ever be brought to justice?

So much for bad guys. As for the good ones, Edward Snowden tops my list. Without research and its shared results, humanity would never have got this far, obstructed as it has been from time immemorial by power mongers. Snowden has uncovered a weapon that was and still is being used to throttle investigative journalism, on which we so desperately depend for the defence and development of the common good. The US authorities, on the other hand, would do practically anything to get hold of him and put him away for ever, as they have with Brian Manley, who has more or less given his life to help us understand the gravity of the crimes against humanity committed by Bush in his war on Iraq.

I believe, and I hotly maintain, that in most normal circumstances you have to be a crook in order to reach the highest echelons of power, not only in the USA. I used to think Obama was an exception, but now I merely think that even crooks can have a few decent items on their agenda. Certainly, even crooks can love their children or their dogs. To get to the top, you have to be able to cross lines that no decent person can even imagine crossing. In other words, if you get to the top, look at yourself in the mirror and ask: “Where did I go wrong?” If you get to the top, make arrangements at once to bribe a biographer into painting a flattering portrait of you. If you are lucky, investigative journalists won’t discover the bribe, and the flattering portrait will confuse posterity for ever.

With such views I very much doubt I would be granted a visa to the USA, if I applied. Obviously the authorities to which I applied would have had to examine more than my passport and my empty criminal record (to which they officially have no access, by the way) to know that I abhor US foreign (or for that matter domestic) policy. And they would be sure to know.

I actually don’t think that I am the target of particular attention on the part of my own country’s anti-terrorist intelligence efforts. It’s not as though I were the Huffington Post. But I put to you that anybody in any country, in the EU or elsewhere, who is considered a potential political threat by the powers that be (political and corporate) could risk being subjected to extraordinary scrutiny simply because advanced tools of mass surveillance are in place. And where they are in place, they can be abused, as Snowden has so forcefully demonstrated.

Now if you believe that in your country they would never abuse those tools for political purposes, I congratulate you: State your views without fear, and with a little luck, you will not be made to suffer. But if you distrust your national authorities, you might consider shutting up.

That is what many critical journalists do. They have learnt to shut up. Journalists need to consider their future, their careers, their families, etc. They need to earn incomes like the rest of us.

No need to refer to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. In fact, no need to look further than to Spain, where an authoritarian and mendacious PM has been holding forth for some years now. He has nothing to offer the voters except strident references to Spanish glory. And since I actually read Spanish papers – at least I did – I have found that even El Pais has lost its spark. Its journalists now devote their literary verve on accounts about bickering and intrigues within opposition parties.

There is nothing glorious about Spain, these days. The country is as riddled by corruption as a Swiss cheese. We know about this, because the press revealed it. One by one, many of the ruling party’s crown princes have been dragged before the courts – not sentenced, it is true, because the courts are partial – but exposed to the public. (Nor have they been acquitted. The cases are merely protracted for years and years, frozen.) Even the King’s sister faces very serious charges (yes, of putting public money in her darling husband’s pocket).

The New York Times (and apparently also Amnesty International) have been rather heavy-handed in their  criticism of Spain recently. Apparently, the Spanish press is being straight-jacketed not only because of the structural challenges facing newspapers everywhere, but also because the PM now has the power to rein in freedom of the press. Whether due to restructuring or for political reasons, 11,000 journalists have lost their jobs in Spain in recent years. Those who are still hanging on are not likely to stick our their necks.

NYT about curtailment of freedom of the press in Spain

or

NYT about so-called “gag-law” in Spain

When mainstream newspapers have lost their bite, when they no longer do their job – i.e. to tell the public what the public needs to know in order to make informed decisions, for instance that Mr Rajoy, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Bush are crooks – others will have to pick up the banner and continue the race. Those others could be bands of laid-off journalists who form small subscriber-based internet “newspapers”. Or they could be well-informed citizens who maintain their own open websites.

Whoever they are, we need them. And because we need them, we must protect them. We must adamantly oppose surveillance of our private correspondence (including who we correspond with) orally or in writing. The contents of our correspondence must not be stored anywhere, except by court order and when there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that we have committed a crime punishable by a long custodial sentence. Obviously, we must also be on the alert against “gag laws” (cf. NYT in the second link) that turn expression of certain views in certain places into punishable offences.

Equally important is the protection of you, the reader.  Make no mistake. The websites you visit, the books you read, even the pornography you secretly enjoy – it is all your private business and should remain so. Google and Apple do not agree, but you might consider leaving Google and Apple.

It is sickening to hear members of the public exclaim, “why should I oppose the prohibition to film the activities of the police during demonstrations? I never take part in demonstrations, and I certainly have no interest in filming the police.” Maybe you have never taken part in a demonstration, Mister / Lady, but believe me: had you been a Spaniard living in Spain these past years, you might very well have done so. In Spain, I have seen grey-haired demonstrators wearing kid gloves, Italian shoes or mink.

What happened in Spain could happen in your country, too. In fact, as we speak, country after country in Europe is reeling under the burden of a tsunami of refugees. The ramifications of this mass movement of desperate people may be well-near devastating. I have known for years, and warned, that this would happen, so I am not surprised. What I don’t know is what happens now.

There will be trouble. There will be demonstrations and anti-demonstrations. But freedom of the press must not – NOT – be curtailed in any – I repeat – ANY – way.

In the Dark

When I turn off the main road, a narrow winding route takes me into the forest. Deep into the forest. Gaunt, tall pine trees, standing close together like freezing soldiers, sternly witness my slow progress ever deeper into their midst. I drive carefully, as it is more than likely that a deer will suddenly leap out in front of the car, and the road is gutted. Eventually it tapers to a dirt track and, with a sharp turn to the right away from the invisible river, starts making its way up the cliff.

I stop the car when I know I have reached the cabin, though I cannot see it. Nor can I see it when I get out, though it is a mere 30 metres away. I can just make out naked lace-like strands from the tops of birch trees around me. Muttering to the dog as I try to make my way to the door, I ask, as I have done as far back as I can remember: Was it really this dark last year?

After having lit the wood stove, brought in and unpacked clothes, food and water for the weekend, and having replenished the wood bin in front of the stove, I ask, as I have done as far back as I can remember: Was it really this cold last year?

Even sitting in front of the crackling, sweet-smelling wood stove with my computer on my lap, I am wearing a thick quilted jacket over my sweater, because when I arrived, the temperature was about one degree centigrade. Now it might be 10, but even the computer feels cold.

And this I have done, not out of penury, nor pressed by any obligation, but because, of all the alternatives I had to choose from for the weekend, this was the one I most longed for. I would have longed for it even if the number of alternatives had been squared or cubed.

In this country, there are many people who do likewise. Not every weekend, of course, but even in the winter season, people go off once in a while, leaving the comfort of their city dwellings to settle into freezing cabins. They do so because they want to.

Why, you may ask? Are we masochists? Hardly, I think. At the moment I am drinking a nice hot cup of coffee with whiskey and whipped cream – a concoction referred to in this country as Irish coffee. (I must really remember to ask my Irish neighbours whether this is how the Irish drink their coffee!)

Yes, I have electricity here, and it is true that I could well leave the electricity on while I am gone, keeping the place temperate, but that would be expensive and, from my point of view, “cheating”. For the same reason I have no TV and no Internet. The purpose of this game is precisely to make do with a minimum of modern comforts. Some of my countrymen don’t even have electricity in their cabins, preferring to keep it that way. And I for my part use only the wood stove for heating. The main ordeal is having to carry the water. Believe me, that is a sobering task.

The idea is to live the “simple life”.

I admit I shall be as grateful and eager to leave as I was to come. I shall enjoy returning to my flat, all the more, knowing that I am spared having to feed a wood stove 24 hours a day and carry all the water I consume. I shall leave the blessed, dark winter silence of these woods and the fear of my terror should I hear, all of a sudden, a human voice. Fear of humans can never be escaped, not even in the darkest of woods.

***

…realising that I have been asleep, that I have woken up, and knowing that I will look straight into a Pine tree, I open one eye, not expecting so see what I see, between the tree’s branches: an absolutely blue sky!

It’s a new day, and mine a refreshed body.

I jump out of bed and find the living room inundated by sunlight, amplified by illuminated patches of icy fog. The day is glorious! In my underwear, I stand on the threshold breathing in the complicated scents of an autumn forest before it freezes. A few birds – though most have left for the winter – tweet timidly. My dog jubilantly chases creatures who live underground – she makes sure that I never see them – be they foxes, hares, voles or something else. Down in the valley, the great river glitters on its course towards the sea.

That at least, is something that will not change. Even on foreign, lifeless planets, glittering rivers march towards the seas. Even on a lifeless planet, there will be skies of one kind or another and scents. Artists can find beauty almost anywhere, if the light is right; in deserts, in petrified forests even in battlefields and among lined-up corpses. What a pity that artists are not immortal, that they cannot live on lifeless planets.

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