Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 21 of 42)

Backsides

16.08.2019 /

I went to a demonstration today. Yes. I haven’t done that since I was a kid, but today I went. Why? Because I felt shame. Here’s the story:

The other day, a young man shot his way into a mosque. Yes, here! In this supremely peaceful country! Fortunately, nobody was killed, because two old and unarmed men who had been praying in the mosque were able to overpower the would-be killer more or less as soon as he got in.

The news spawned shock waves in the media; pictures of the two white-haired heroes, looking dazed by all the attention, and incessant interviews with senior police officers: Who? Why? How?

Now we know. He is a 21-year-old white supremacist from one of the wealthier outskirts of the capital. He is so far being charged with terrorism and murder. Oh yes, on that same day, he had apparently killed his half sister, who is of East Asian extraction.

The following day was the religious holiday Eid-al-Adha, and many Muslims worried that going to their Mosque might, from now on, be dangerous. So a number of people, from all religious denominations – including, I understand, Jews – and of all political colours, went down town, to the country’s largest mosque, to form a circle, a human shield, around it.

I saw it on the news. People forming the human shield just stood close to the walls of the mosque, surrounding it, silently holding small signs bearing messages of encouragement to those who wanted to go in and pray. I also saw the expressions on some of those who came to pray, and they were moved. So was I, watching them on TV. And I was ashamed, because it had not even occurred to me to go down town to symbolically protect the Mosque.

That was why I attended a demonstration today, an expression of warmth to all those who have travelled far physically and emotionally, who have crossed tremendous barriers to become my compatriots.

During the speeches, I fantasised. What if the white supremacists had also demonstrated, had marched down the town’s long, straight main avenue bearing their slogans, what would have happened? I knew, at least, what I would have wanted to happen.

***

Spectators would have been lining the avenue long before the slogan-bearing gang approached. The spectators would be waiting, chatting amiably, eating ice creams or playing with their phones. Oldies like me would have brought collapsible stools on which to sit and wait.

I see the slogan-bearing gang approach. Every once in a while, they chant something or other, raise a fist in the air and walk more or less in step. People around me fall silent, put away their phones and stare at the approaching army. Closer and closer it comes. Suddenly, I notice that there are so many of us that we cannot help touching one another. We stand literally shoulder by shoulder. Some of us exchange glances, others don’t, but we all look mostly in the same direction, and the marchers approach.

Now we can hear what they are chanting. I have of course risen from my collapsible stool, which I have folded and slung across my shoulder. I stand tall and straight, white-haired among the golden, black, light brown, dark brown and grey heads. We are all staring sternly at the heavy-booted men – mostly men, yes – and we notice that the expressions in their faces are almost all the same. We notice, in fact, that very much about them is all the same, and I, for one, feel that my mouth has contracted into a thin streak.

Finally, they are there, just ready to pass us.

Nobody attacks them. Nobody even says anything. Our lips all seem to be glued together. But as I feel the shoulder on my right side move, I look at the person beside me and see she has turned her back to the horde. The person in front of me is turning his back to the horde and is looking at me. I turn my back to the horde and now face the woman behind me, who turns her back to the horde, and the person on my left has already got the point and those behind and in front of her as well.

I cannot see it, since my back is turned, but what meets the army of white supremacist brats is a silent wall of human backsides.

Caution

05.08.2019 /

I have written elsewhere on this site that we all should do our utmost to form a protective ring around the “Reporters sans frontiers” (RSF) and other journalists who risk their necks to tell us what is going on.

At the same time, I abhor those who kill, maim or otherwise persecute people on the grounds of religion or ethnicity, or to steal land. Those people are indeed terrorists, as the two US mass killers last weekend, and should be captured, indicted on charges of terrorrism and sentenced.

Unfortunately, many nations and states treat non-violent political opposition as terrorism. Though my country does not do that, its servility to USA is awkward (an example of which is here, again from the Intercept, bless them). The US enjoys a warm relationship with a number of repressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, and has played a sinister role in Central and Latin America for decades. The country’s president takes action against people of Latin American or Middle Eastern extraction, although mass shootings in USA are mostly committed by right-wing extremists.

So what to do? On the one hand, we want to support law enforcement efforts to monitor electronic devices used by the real terrorists and other criminals who ruin people’s lives. On the other hand, we want to protect those who expose, for instance, serious profit-motivated deception, (cf. the health service in USA). We also want to protect those who are brave enough to voice protests against repressive authorities (cf. demonstrators in Moscow these days).

How can we do both? The answer, as I see it is: We can’t.

Compare another dichotomy: How can western countries maintain current living standards while at the same time taking the steps that are required to avert or deal with climate collapse.

The answer as I see it is: We can’t.

In this latter case, to avoid future implosion of whole states, there will have to be wealth redistribution, as there was in WWI and WWII. Draconian measures will be required. Those with greater wealth (i.e. with more to spare) will have to provide more than those with less, like it or not.

Those with more to spare don’t know that yet, and there will be much time wasted, many political battles, and probably more fascism before the tide turns.

Meanwhile, I put to you that the greatest of the dangers that faces our children and grandchildren is NOT terrorism and NOT crime, but climate collapse; oh, and yes, fascism. Fascism throttles knowledge and prohibits political activism. Fascism is state terrorism compounded by terrorism from armed militias trying to overthrow fascist governments. People fall silent and mind their own businesses, hoping that they and their children will survive the next week. We don’t need that.

What we need is the opposite: We need a boisterous majority that reads up on climate change, holds caucuses to discuss what to do and stridently demands that appropriate preventive measures be taken by our governments NOW. And by the way, we also need a vociferous minority that will have no part in such activism. In short, what we need is knowledge and solidarity, not repression and not electoral circuses.

Angry

01.08.2019 /

I’m angry. Very angry. Not as angry as a terrorist (at least I assume terrorists must be angry) since I’m not angry enough to kill or even condone killing. But I’m angry enough to fall silent and remain silent for days on end.

Watching the elephantine spectacle of US politics makes me so angry that I have to turn off the news, would you believe it! How can a country that considers itself the greatest, the best, and the strongest etc., etc., etc., be so full of fools that a tottering business-as-usual conservative is deemed the only candidate likely to topple you-know-who?

Come on, people, wake up, for Petes’ sakes!! We are really and truly balancing on the brink of global climate disaster (not least thanks to you-know-who) and we are really and truly on the verge of yet another unforgivable war in the Middle East (exclusively thanks to you-know-who). But you almost all seem to be blissfully asleep, dazed or drunk – what do I know?

Until less than a week ago, I would never have had the temerity to express myself so offensively against a whole nation. But I swear (this is getting worse by the second – so I’m swearing now?) that the US educational system is what Spaniards would call “un desastre”. An absolute shambles! Allowing the majority of your kids, generation after generation, to leave school without knowing how to stay reasonably informed about the rest of the world, let alone their own part of it, is a crime against an entire population, and the Democratic party is evidently not going to do anything about it.

I say nothing of the others, the non-Democratic Party, but believe me, in a just world they would be indicted and convicted by a global tribunal for crimes not only against their own nation but against humanity.

Even your home turf is seedy. I’ve been looking at US crime statistics, life expectancy, child mortality, food insecurity, etc. etc. Mind you, most US official sites put on their Sunday best, so you won’t learn much there, but take a look at your nothing less than spectacular ranking here and an extremely interesting glimpse into a related issue here. This one from the CNN is somewhat embarrassing in view of the fact that the US spends more per capita on health than any other country. And as for child mortality...

So I zoom out again, from hurricane-ridden USA to a world facing yet another unforgivable – yes, I am repeating the word “unforgivable” war in the Middle East. Have you guys any idea of what it must be like to be an ordinary citizen in Afghanistan or Iraq not to mention Jemen? Of course you don’t. Do you guys at all care? Stop ranting about Iran and take a look at the blood-stained Saudi-led coalition.

There is one man who knows more about the modern-day Middle East than almost anybody else in the entire world. His name is Robert Fisk – just google him, and you will see his medals.

Until less than a week ago, I would not have written all that I have just written. But less than a week ago, I read another one of Robert Fisk’s pieces. Pieces? It was more like an outburst, a verbal explosion. None of his normally cool analysis, just fury. His patience had obviously been strained to the limit. I fear Robert Fisk may be charged with defamation, but for me, his “piece” felt exhilarating. Mind you Robert Fisk would probably disagree with me on many issues, but his insight is crucial and invaluable and it is being ignored by the nincompoops that are playing games at the top of the world.

In the mean time, I state my humble opinion about the world’s most hated country (last paragraph, and that was 15 years ago): You-know-who is merely the product, not the cause. Something is rotten at the very core of the United States of America, which could have been such a wonderful nation.

Time for disengagement

25.06.2019 /

I don’t think I’d like to live in Iran. In fact I’m sure I wouldn’t. I can’t stand religious single-mindedness, which in my eyes is tantamount to intellectual self-mutilation. However, maybe I am underestimating the country. Though scripture is one of the subjects taught in Iranian schools, a description on the British Council’s website gives a sympathetic impression of education in Iran.

Iran was brutally converted to Shia Islam by a powerful Shah in the 16th century. He had compelling political reasons for doing so – mainly the need to give his fractured country a single and distinctive national identity; indeed, Persia under his rule did become very great. The last Shah, hated though he was, was a Shia Muslim, too, as was almost everybody else even before the revolution in 1979. Shia Islam is appears to be ingrained in Iranian national identity.

You might argue that in 1979, most people in my own country, for instance, had been practising protestant Christians for 400 years. Scripture was taught in schools here too, yet we have become more broad-minded since then. But I have not had my country manhandled by a superpower, so I don’t know what sort of mind-set such abuse would have instilled in me. When you strike at a country, its population tends to rally around it – defending its identity. (The US orchestrated the coup d’état against Mossadeq in 1953 and supported the vain and profligate last Shah, whose autocratic government was probably no less repressive than the current one. And of course, the sanctions have been hitting all Iranians hard.) A Bloomberg headline dated 11/5/2018 reads: “It’s No Wonder Iranians Hate America”. And the subtitle goes: “When will the U.S. stop reminding them how legitimate their grievances are?”

Much as I dislike religious bigotry, I can sleep at night even if my neighbour is a devout Iranian. As a matter of fact, many of my neighbours are devout Muslims, and they are generally very good neighbours. Fortunately, none of them wear niqabs, which give me the jitters. But then again, niqabs are a Salafi thing – nothing to do with Iran. All the more to do with Saudi Arabia, actually, one of Emperor Trump’s favourite countries.

Speaking of which, I am finding it ever harder to sleep at night with the US stampeding all over the place, hurling its weight around, breaking every rule in the rule-book, giving just about everybody the jitters.

Frankly, I think it’s high time we all sat down and faced one momentous fact: The US is a major security threat in every way, perhaps the greatest security threat in the world today. We have to figure out how to disentangle ourselves from an extremely dangerous and ethically questionable “friendship”. In much of the world, almost all internet and mobile phone traffic can be intercepted (i.e. “spied on”) by US intelligence services. The US can probably paralyse our infra-structure. Our chipsets are made by the US. Our commerce is oriented towards the US, and last but not least, the US dollar is almost universally used for commerce outside the EU (SEPA area). Hence the US can and does dictate much of our foreign policies. It is currently bullying us into turning our backs on Iran and to rejecting Huawei as our 5G supplier. Look up the word suzerainty, and you get the picture.

Mind you, the source I just linked to about “suzerainty” refrains from mentioning US unofficial suzerainty over NATO members and other nations over which it has the financial and/or commercial upper hand. We all know about it, but do not call it by its right name.

Even in the US, US foreign policy is taking its toll: Just imagine how Google feels about being ordered to deny Android access to Huawei! (I have just ordered a Huawei computer out of pure spite, even though I don’t need a new computer now.)

Characteristically, the only direct answers I was able to find for my question “why can the US force us to impose sanctions on other countries” were on the US site Quora. The US has everything, and we all look to the US.

Future generations will – if they survive the consequences of irresponsible US policies and the aftermath of all the impending climatic disasters humanity is generating at full speed – look back upon our current governments and know what to think about them.

On the brighter side, I suggest we start watching a few Iranian films. There are some very good ones! There are also some very good Latin American films, Lebanese films, even Icelandic films … In short, some very good films are made almost all over the world, but we don’t hear about them. Why, do you think?

Homage to The Intercept

16.06.2019 /

Let me admit at once that my news source is not normally The Intercept. I prefer a rather more chatty paper, one that is not too angry, one that helps me feel that I am a member of society, not a besieged and defenceless island.

The problem is that most such papers need sponsors and sponsors tend to have money, and those who have money are usually not all that keen on promoting equitable distribution of wealth (with, say, progressive taxes, and free health care and university education), not to put too fine a point on it.

We hear about “the wealthy” in all sorts of contexts, not least in statements about “the top ten percent” versus the remaining 90 percent. We know statistically who they vote for, how much they spend on lobbying activities and what media outlets they own. We also know that many rich people are “very nice”, love their children and spend vast sums on charity. But there is no doubt about it: disparities in almost all our countries are growing. They are growing sharply.

Nevertheless, we continue reading papers owned by members of “the top ten percent” and we hope all the bad things will just sort of disappear, just as we avoid reminders of the fact that we, yes, you and I, will die some day, maybe even someday soon, that climate change will deprive our grandchildren, maybe even our children, of most of the good things in life. It hurts to think about it, so we don’t; we don’t think.

Thus, our pusillanimity helps us make unsound choices, choices that will harm us and our children.

Sometimes the unsound choices we make can be downright dangerous. One such choice was made by the majority of the voting electorate in Brazil, when they raised the fascist-minded Jair Bolsonaro to the presidential throne. Now Brazil is already sometimes referred to as a “fascistoid” state. That spells d-a-n-g-e-r for a lot of innocent people.

Before he was elected, Bolsonaro was not the favourite candidate of the “wealthy”, but he was the only candidate on the right who had sufficient charisma to attract voters. So the press supported him and denigrated the left, as usual.

Now Brazil is a country of extreme inequality – and the overwhelmingly numerous poor would probably have voted for Lula da Silva if Lula hadn’t happened to be in jail. Why was Lula in jail?

Well, that is really the magician’s trick, you see. This is where The Intercept comes in.

The Intercept — the Political Earthquake in Brazil

I’m not here to tell you The Intercept’s story. You should read it yourself.

What I do want to point out, however, is that somebody provided The Intercept with the evidence. I would not like to be that somebody. Whoever it is, is a hero, but if the Brazilian or US authorities ever get their hands on him or her, … I say no more.

And as for my country, your country, the UK, Equador, and Sweden and all the countries that are kowtowing to the US in the Julian Assange case and who refused to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, they are accessories before and after the fact to the crimes Assange and Snowden exposed.

Whatever the identity of the hero who provided The Intercept with the evidence, you and I had better be prepared to demand that not a hair be touched on his or her head, and that no legal or other steps be taken against The Intercept.

Ikke helsvart

23.05.2019 /

Jeg har i mange år vært opptatt av et fag jeg ikke har snøring på, samfunnsøkonomi. Jeg har faktisk lest et par-tre bøker for å bøte litt på min uvitenhet, og jeg piner meg av og til gjennom en og annen avisartikkel om emnet.

Her er min oppsummering av noe av det jeg mener å ha lært:

Friedrich Hayek (d. 1992) anses av mange som “neoliberalismens” far. Basert på blant annet hans arbeider har økonomer forholdt seg til et sett nærmest naturgitte “lover” som skal være matematisk beviselige og dermed ufeilbarlige. “Økonomisk vitenskap” har vært basert på disse lovene. Kritikk av dem og tvil har ikke vært stuerent, og mange økonomer har fått svi med arbeidsledighet hvis de våget stille spørsmålstegn ved dem.

Nå er det slik med vitenskap at vitenskapelig kritikk er en forutsetning for vitenskapelig utvikling. Slik jeg forstår det har ikke økonomisk vitenskap vært tilstrekkelig åpen for vitenskapelig kritikk.

Hayeks arbeider har ligget til grunn for legitimering av markedsliberalismens eksesser (som bl.a. Milton Friedman var en talsmann for). Vi har også sett sosiopolitisk bevisste økonomer (for eksempel Joseph Stiglitz) som har vært forferdet over disse eksessenes katastrofale følger, men som ikke har klart å frigjøre seg fra de neoliberalistiske “lovene”.

Med finanskrisen ble det litt uro i rekkene blant samfunnsøkonomer. Også psykologifaget slo noen sprekker i de neoliberalistiske modellene, ikke minst ved å påvise empirisk (altså målbart) at menneskets atferd på markedet ikke er rasjonell (jf. den snart klassiske boken Predictably Irrational av Dan Arieli, som jeg aldri kan få fullrost nok).

Det er lenge siden det ble klart for de av oss som har vært opptatt av klodens fremtid at Markedet definitivt ikke ville løse klimakrisen. (Dessverre er det enda de færreste regjeringer som har fått med seg denne innsikten.)

Ja, dette med kloden, dere vet, klimaet og artsmangfoldet …
Temmelig alvorlige greier, nesten så en har lyst til å låse seg inn på kammerset og vente på at det hele er over. Men nå finnes det altså økonomer der ute som faktisk ER begynt å arbeide med saken, og det at de ikke alle er arbeidsledige gir et visst lite håp.

Her er et veldig kort, lett og nesten søtt intervju med én av dem i Dagsavisen: Ebba Boye fra Rethinking Economics

Så er det en smellvakker italiensk-amerikansk økonomiprofessor som har introdusert en ny dimensjon til økonomifaget, blant annet i boka The Value of Everything. Hun er ute etter å omkalfatre mye, og hun går løs på et av selve fundamentene i faget, begrepet verdi. Mariana Mazzucato ser på begrepet verdiskaping og dekonstruerer det, kan man si. Hun lager et nytt begrep: verdiuthenting (i praksis nærmest parasittisme, hvis jeg forstår henne rett; rentenisme).

Uavhengig av den vakre økonomen vet jeg at på 2000-tallet har de 400 største selskapene i USA brukt 54 % av overskuddet til å kjøpe tilbake egne aksjer; 34 % av overskuddet har gått som avkastning til aksjonærene og kun 9 % er blitt reinvestert i driften. Dette er et eksempel på verdiuthenting.

Samtidig, skriver Mazzucato, bidrar offentlige utdanningsinstitusjoner og forskning til næringslivets innovasjon, men neoliberalismen definerer visstnok ikke offentlig utdanning som verdiskaping.

Jeg er virkelig ikke den rette til å dosere om samfunnsøkonomi. Jeg gjør et fattig forsøk kun fordi jeg tror det er viktig at vi stiller oss bak økonomer som tør risikere arbeidsledighet ved å utfordre vedtatte “sannheter”. Det er like så viktig som å stille seg bak utforskende journalister, menneskerettsaktivister og andre som risikerer represalier for å forsvare menneskeheten og kloden.

Jeg tror dessuten det er viktig at økonomene faktisk snakker til oss på et språk vi kan forstå og vi stiller dem til veggs hvis de ikke taler vår sak.

Jeg tror fremfor alt at det er utrolig kult at noen økonomer nå er med på laget.

Alt er altså ikke helsvart.

Og i mellomtiden går det an å sette av dagen

30. AUGUST 2019

TIL

KLIMABRØLET


Where do we get our facts?

19.05.2019 /

You might be wondering how come a person who pretends to care passionately about human rights (in every which interpretation) hardly ever refers to the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar.

Very simple: I have no first-hand knowledge of the past and ongoing crimes apparently committed not only by the army and government but even by the majority population in Myanmar. I only know about it through the media.

Now the US emperor appears to hold a grudge against “the media”. However there are others, too, who distrust the media, and with good reason, if I may say so. Many of us also distrust the pharmaceutical industry, politicians, doctors, wolves, etc., again with good reason. The media and the pharmaceutical industry will engage in pretty shady practices to boost profits and satisfy share holders, and more often than not, their ruses will not be exposed. Of course, if a pharmaceutical company fails to alleviate or cure medical ills, as evidenced by statistical breakdowns, it will loose its share holders anyway. Doctors are not always as conscientious or skilled as they should be and, finally, wolves occasionally manage to kill a dog or four or even a human every few hundred years. I’ll get back to the politicians later.

But first, I would like to make a few points:

  • Without the media, we would not only have been confused, but blind kittens awash in a sea of conflicting events.
  • The pharmaceutical industry and doctors have contributed to a dramatic lengthening of our life expectancy.
  • Wolves keep the deer population within reasonable limits (just as foxes limit the rabbit population) and deer, whereas pretty to look at, nourish the ticks that infect thousands and thousands of people every year with Lyme and other serious diseases.

Yes, we are often misinformed. Yes, some media are so self-serving that they can destabilise nations, not least if their audiences lack certain necessary tools – the kind of tools delivered by decent educational systems – to assess information. There are, moreover, tens of thousands of hard-working journalists dedicated to learning and presenting what is truthful and exact. Many of them are up against serious obstacles, even oppression. Some even risk or even lose their lives. We need them! We need to defend them!

Normally, what little I write here, is about matters of which I have first-hand knowledge. First-hand knowledge may stem from various sources. Once in my youth, when I was to go on in-house duty for three consecutive weeks, I first went to the library and borrowed a large stack of books about Armenian history. I read them all, taking meticulous notes. The other day, I found the old notes and was touched by my devotion to the topic. This I did, not for school nor for work, but because I was truly interested. I cannot remember why. What I remember is only my keen interest in the topic. There are countless other people out there who want to understand and who desperately want to learn.

I do have first-hand knowledge about Palestine, for reasons I will not go into. Likewise I have first-hand knowledge about dictatorships in Latin America and in Spain. I have lived in several countries and have seen more than has been good for me. But I have not lived in Asia or Oceaniea, and I need the media. I desperately need the media. I often check what I read against other outlets, and of course, like others, I distrust some more than others, depending, of course on the issue.

One source I have been particularly fond of is “The Listening Post” on Al Jazeera . It discusses various news outlets’ take on hot topics. Take Narendra Modi’s BJP in the recent Indian elections:

Now that is a text-book example of a successful marriage between self-serving media and dishonest politicians. I know very little about India, but listening to the podcast from the Listening Post, I get the impression that in the so-called Western countries, we would do well to study the nuts and bolts of what is often referred to as the world’s largest democracy. We might learn something about ourselves.

By the way, Merriam Webster’s definition of “democracy” does not mention the role of the market, of media outlets owned by oligarchs, of powerful investor interests, of phenomena such as Breitbart and Fox News. What is Democracy, I ask you?

Cockroach rhetoric

10.05.2019 /

I assume we have all heard exclamations such as “He treats her like an animal!”. I have even read somewhere that Amazon treats its workers “like animals”. However, more and more often, I find that this sort of juxtaposition of animals and humans is not quite to the point. I suggest substituting the word “animal” with “cockroach”. After all, we live in the age of “animal rights” and treating a person like an animal may not be such a bad thing.

Personally, I am all for “animal rights”. I believe that the expression usually refers to merciful treatment and humane living conditions, as it were, for – well yes, for animals. The expression “human rights”, however, basically means the right to vote, for those of us who believe that voting makes a difference, and the right to publicly state one’s opinions (admittedly a right I am making use of at this very moment).

True, in many countries, beating people is a crime, except when the police or soldiers are the ones doing the beating. Besides, in some countries, you are allowed to beat children or women, while in others this is, strictly speaking, not allowed, though the authorities turn a blind eye on such practices.

Animal rights movements, however, unequivically condemn the beating of animals. I doubt that animal rights also extend to cockroaches, which is why I made the suggestion in the first paragraph. They do not extend to humans either.

Spain is a country where not one of the executioners or torturers of the Franco administration has ever been brought to justice, and the Franco administration’s post-war heinous crimes are ignored by members of the population that have not had a parent or other relative tortured and/or killed by Franco’s henchmen. In Spain an average of 4 women a month were killed by their partners or X-partners in 2018. Yet, in Spain, the beating of dogs is no longer tolerated. If you strike your dog in a public place, you will surely be rebuked or at least frowned at by whoever sees you doing so.

Spanish cockroaches, however, are furiously stamped upon. I therefore draw the conclusion that in Spain, women enjoy a lower standing than men and dogs, while their situation compares favourably to that of cockroaches. I shall not for the present dwell upon the status of separatist Catalonians who, I fear, might ere long find themselves in the gutter, figuratively speaking, of course.

And take Israel. Animal rights enjoy a higher status there than just about anywhere else in the world. According to a monthly, conservative, Zionist magazine devoted to Middle-East issues, “a nation-wide ban on possession of fur is even moving through the Knesset—such a law would be the first of its kind in the world.” Yes, that was possession, not farming. The same article explains in detail and with references to ancient texts, that animal welfare is rooted in Jewish law.

This might to some extent explain the ultra-post-modern attitude of the best-selling Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, who questions the moral supremacy of man over animals. Moreover, he questions the value of ranking animals as good or bad (e.g. we like elephants but not cockroaches).

A brief look at Times of Israel reveals that animal rights is a popular and beloved topic. Animal rights activists obviously enjoy a different status in Israel than do human rights activists.

According to the British site VEGANLife, “Israel has one of the biggest vegan populations in the world with an estimated five percent of the population (about 400,000) following a plant-based diet and/or advocating veganism. The Israeli Tourism Ministry has started to promote Israel as a Vegan Nation,”

However, for inmates of Israel’s concentration camp in Gaza, life does not compare favourably even to that of cockoaches:

To be brief let me quote the UN OCHA fact sheet

The Gaza blockade (through the land, air and sea) is a denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law and amounts to collective punishment. It severely restricts imports and exports, as well as the movement of people in and out of Gaza, and access to agricultural land and fishing waters. Gazans are unable to provide for their families and the quality of infrastructure and vital services has deteriorated.

  • The average wage declined by over 20% in the past six years.
  • 54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients.
  • 35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures.
  • 50-80 million litres of partially treated sewage are dumped in the sea each day.
  • Over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable.
  • 85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts.
  • About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock.

How would you feel if you lived in a place like that?

Let me be clear: Outside Israel, Israeli treatment of Palestinian human beings – I repeat: human beings, not cockroaches – is condoned and applauded not by non-Israeli Jews, but by crackpot evangelicals and alt-right fundamentalists all over the world including in my own country.

SHAME

Please, please, please turn the ship around

08.05.2019 /

Janet doesn’t want to have children because she cannot bear the thought of the future she imagines would await them. Her mother angrily tells her not to be “so silly!” though she cannot explain what’s so silly about her daughter’s well-founded fears.

The fifteen-year-old in the house next door is playing truant today, to go and join an enormous congregation of school children demonstrating to “save the climate”. His parents wring their hands, but what can they do other than threaten to cancel his next allowance. They don’t do that, though, because in their hearts, they are a little proud of him.

Many of us have started apologising on reflex, in a general sort of way and to nobody in particular, every time we book a plane ticket or eat meat. Are we genuinely contrite or are we just paying lip service (in a general sort of way and to nobody in particular)? I do think many of us eat a little less meat, but I very much doubt we fly less, on the whole. I certainly don’t. For 22 years, I could not afford to fly at all. Now that I finally can, I do. And yes, I wish I could go by train, but travelling by train for days across Europe with a dog is an almost superhuman, not to mention super-canine, affair.

Some progress is being made: Many uses of plastic will soon be banned, and it is true that annual CO2 emission from my country has not risen since 1990. As a matter of fact, it is almost exactly what it was then, 8.4 tonnes.

Meanwhile, half my country is up in arms because of the recent dramatic rise in the cost of driving a car (road tolls, tax on petrol, etc.). And yes, it IS UNFAIR that people who cannot afford to live in the metropolis have to spend their savings to get to work every day. In the end, they – and all of us – will be the ones to pay the cost of climate change and the socio-economic effects of it. Compared to that price, road tolls and costly fuel will be Sunday School.

Critics say we must stop raising spectres from the graves, stop being so apocalyptic. We have no right, they insist, to ruin people’s peace of mind. Children must be allowed to have faith in the future, they say; do not fill them with fear, they say.

Alas, many children, those whose parents are farmers, do not need to be told. Their parents wrung their hands last summer, helplessly monitoring scorched fields and slaughtering livestock for lack of water and fodder. The year before last, fields were inundated; houses and cattle were carried away by flash floods. Already this year, my country’s fruit harvest is lost due to climate anomalies. Am I being apocalyptic? Am I ruining anybody’s sleep but my own by observing and narrating what I actually see with my own eyes?

Meanwhile: Business as usual. We are going full blast. There are opportunities to be made the most of. Let the morrow take care of itself.

In some other countries, where social cohesion is scant due to poverty and oppression, they solve citizens’ malaise differently : fascistoid parties and even governments are cropping up everywhere, promising to bring back, by hook or by crook, the “good-old-days”, when youngsters and wives and employees did as they were told and kissed the hands that whipped them. In such countries, you will probably be too busy trying to avoid getting whipped (or put in jail) to worry about the climate.

Not so here, not yet. Here, we (excepting the very few who are taught in institutions run by religious fanatics – more often than not, Evangelical or Saudi-funded Whahabi) have a deep respect for science. After all, laboratories are on the verge of being able to create atoms and brain cells. But science has not been harnessed to save us from the effects of exponential climate change. (Please note the word “exponential”. This word is not a mere adjective; it is tantamount to a curse.) Science can only tell us that exponential climate change will be inevitable and catastrophic unless we turn the ship around in time, as it were.

Turning the ship around in time would mean obstructing “business as usual” so seriously that the powers-that-be refuse to even contemplate the idea. Who would allow them to stay in power if they did?

So, in my Democratic country, while we still mostly resist the lure of fascist rhetoric, we – voters – are definitely not resisting the lure of neoconservative rhetoric:

  • The market will adapt to the “green” shift.
  • Technology will solve the problem.
  • The problem is that Africans have too many babies.
  • We cannot entirely rule out that this is not caused only by mankind.
  • The effects will not be all that serious.

I add, for the record, what many members of the public say:

  • You can’t fight it, it’ll all go to hell anyway. Let’s just enjoy while we can.
  • That bloody “green” political correctness…!

Let me introduce a name here: Naomi Klein, a very smart lady who has been writing words of warning for years and whose critique is very sharp indeed, and very prophetic. In one of her recent articles (I cannot understand how she finds the patience to continue explaining, so nicely, what we refuse to understand) which I urge you to take a look at, you will see, at least indirectly, that Naomi Klein has little faith in the market as a problem solver.

NOT because you and I don’t care, but because you and I have to pay the rent, and we have to pay for petrol, child care, etc. Every year we have to pay. WE had no say in the decisions made back in 1988. WE had no idea then. And even now, in 2019, we hope that it will all turn out all right. At any rate, most of us can’t really afford more expensive petrol.

For my part, I am very confused, too. I don’t at all doubt the effects of climate change. I understand implicitly the effects of greenhouse gasses. I have understood that ever since I read Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos in 1980.

But I don’t see how our so-called “democratic” states can convince voters to elect “green” politicians who will make their lives very much worse than they are. I don’t see how this can be done unless the state is totalitarian and I definitely don’t want a totalitarian state.

Dear Naomi Klein, please figure it out.

Good and Evil

15.04.2019 /

Have you read “Bleak House”?

To my mind this was Charles Dickens’ very best novel. In fact, to my mind, this is one of the very best works of fiction ever written and possibly the best I have ever read.

Nevertheless, it is far from perfect. Dickens is reported to have treated his wife appallingly, yet his female protagonists are literally better than life. They are so good that they are downright daft, moreover totally implausible. More often than not, they are golden-haired, blue-eyed and have no will of their own. There are several “good” females, all equally unbelievable. True enough, there are also some “good” men, more flawed than their female counterparts, hence slightly more believable.

Bleak House is remarkable not for its portrayal of Good but for its portrayal of Evil, which has not changed much since the late nineteenth century, I see.

The concepts “Good and Evil” are not unique to Christianity, far from it. Even ancient Norse beliefs toyed with them. So did the Nazis. The Islamic religion is devoted to the pursuit of Good as are innumerable NGOs.

But just exactly what are Good and Evil? Well, I guess we all have a pretty fair idea of what is Evil: Greed, lust for power and vanity are the most common traits found in the people we generally consider bad – including many presidents, kings and prime ministers, the ones that enrich themselves – and their friends and families – and impoverish their constituents. In their wake: desolation, droughts, hurricanes and floods. Ahead of them even the flowers wilt, and stars vanish from the sky.

Worse, though, is the fact that such traits are ubiquitous. In many Scandinavian folk tales, if you chop off one of the troll’s heads, he’ll grow two new ones. There will always be somebody to replace the Ns – oops, no names! – of the world.

So what is Good? Why, now that I think of it, I have really no idea. Giving alms to the poor is generally regarded “good”, as is tending the sick (i.e. giving them water to drink, and soothing feverish foreheads). Telling the truth is generally considered a good thing, but not always. Not if you expose the “best country in the world” committing crimes against humanity. Obviously, “the best country in the world” is incapable of committing crimes against humanity since everything it does must necessarily be democratic and just and good. Telling the truth about the “best country in the world” and its equally democratic and just and good best mates in the Middle East may in fact be a very serious criminal offence subject to capital punishment.

Hounding people out of their homes and locking them up on a piece of land generally referred to as the world’s largest prison is considered good by some as it will hasten the return of the Messiah. To put it very plainly, Good is a very bewildering business. Maybe if the Messiah did return, some good would come of it, but I very much doubt it. In fact, he would probably be so disheartened and shocked, he would just sit down and weep,

Can Good only be defined as absence of Evil – absence of greed, vanity and lust for power? That would be a terribly disheartening sort of definition. For one thing: would Good, defined like that, dissipate smog and bring back the stars? Would it stave off floods and droughts and hurricanes? Would it bring back the butterflies? Would it light up the faces of the little children on the Gaza strip? Would it bring the murdered Hondurans, Guatemalans and Mexicans back to life?

Would it even prevent future murdering and future crimes against humanity? It certainly would do nothing of the kind unless the truth about such matters were told! And if the truth is not volunteered – and I ask you, how many callous villains admit having committed their crimes unless they are forced to? – it must be sought, wherever it can be found, and taken. The truth about crimes against humanity must be told!

Let us be very grateful that there are still a few souls who dare reveal the truth, even if they are made to pay a horrible and injust price for doing so.

We allow people from the past to speak the truth – after all, the currrent powers that be were not around then, and everything is different now. Dickens spoke the truth about greed, vanity and lust for powers. See if you don’t recognise a thing or two. The following is a quote from Bleak House about the slum the author calls Tom-All-Alone’s.

Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone’s…., and Tom is fast asleep.

Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody’s theory but nobody’s practice. And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit.

But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom’s corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night…. There is not an atom of Tom’s slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Pelshval

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑