Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 26 of 42)

Valgpoteter

03.05.2017 /

I førvalgstider er det ikke måte på hva de ulike partiene lover for å få flest mulig velgere på kroken. Kontantstøtten er et eksempel, et resultat av tidligere valgløfter, og med den har våre myndigheter vært, og er enda, mer enn alminnelig spandable – vel og merke på vår, skattebetalernes, bekostning – og det jeg lurer på, er hvorfor nettopp kontantstøtte?

Er det på grunn av smårollingene? Ikke tale om! Ikke på noe tidspunkt i livet vil smårollinger ha det bedre i offentlighetens varetekt enn i alderen 1-3 år. Om jeg var Kristelig folkeparti og ønsket å forsvare barn som individer og “familien” som institusjon, ville jeg ha ivret for noe ganske annet.

Hva Kristelig folkeparti mener om saken, er forresten nokså underordnet, siden et så lite parti aldri kunne ha fått innvilget et såpass ekstravagant tilbud til velgerne uten mer eller mindre implisitt støtte fra de store partiene. Noe skjuler seg bak den retoriske ulla, og jeg lurer på hva det er.

Ikke en gang Høyres mantra om valgfrihet – i dette tilfellet kvinners rett til å velge om de vil eller vil ikke ut i arbeidslivet – kan forklare en så dyr post. Selv Høyre er jo tross alt ikke tilhenger av at unge menn skal få et slikt valg. Kan de da forsvare at unge kvinner skal få det? Javel, det er jobbigt å oppdra et barn, men det er også jobbigt å være parasitt. Det er ikke bare bare å ha råd til beholde mobilnett-, spotify- og netflixabonnement; en parasitt må være både kreativ og flittig.

Alle barn av arbeidende foreldre har rett til barnehageplass. Rett nok betaler foreldrene for hver plass – og den er ikke billig – men er den likevel dyr for skattebetalerne? Kan det hende at kontantstøtten er billigere enn det ville vært om alle arbeidet? Jeg er ikke særlig begeistret for den forklaringen fordi de som arbeider betaler ikke bare for barnehageplassen: de betaler også skatt.

Kronargumentet mot kontantstøtten har vært at den har holdt utenlandske mødre hjemme. Men det siste pelshvalen hørte da den svømte langs Norges lange kyst var at kontantstøtten var et tiltak mot fattigdom. Det het: “Mange utenlandske kvinner får jo ikke jobb!” Er  kontantstøtten til syvende og sist bare et forsøk på å kamuflere uvilje mot å lære opp og ansette utenlandske kvinner?

Så må en heller ikke glemme at uten kontantstøtten ville Kristelig folkeparti vært enda mindre enn det er. Jeg vil hevde at det er i de store partienes interesse å holde småpartiene i live, slik at de har noen å drive hestehandel med og kan holde seg i salen fram til målstreken.

Lureri er alltid irriterende. I dette tilfelle er det spesielt irriterende fordi det faktisk finnes faglige grunner til å påkoste lønn til hjemmeværende foreldre for en periode når barna er i alderen 8 til 16 år. En mors eller fars dedikerte støtte i denne perioden kan gjøre underverker. Det er grunn til tro at det vil kunne forhindre en del unge fra å falle av lasset (d.v.s fra å bli arbeidsudyktige). Hvor mye dette ville bety samfunnsøkonomisk har jeg riktignok ingen forutsetning for å mene noe om.

Hvorfor i alle verden er det ingen av partiene som ivrer for kontantstøtte i opptil 3 av de årene! Det mangler da vitterligen ikke på bekymrede velgere som ville takke for et sabbatsår når poden begynner å oppføre seg underlig.

Arbeidende foreldre mangler ofte tid og overskudd til å lytte til og forstå sine poder, som i mange tilfeller har det direkte vondt. For de fleste av oss er det periodisk smertefullt å være menneske, men i et normalt livsløp, er det langt mest smertefullt å være ungdom. Uansett hvor godt sementert familien er, uansett hvor trygge og gode relasjonene er, er ungdomstiden vanskelig. Flertallet av oss kommer oss gjennom den noenlunde helskinnet, men mange utvikler uheldige strategier.

Jeg mener at en ungdom krever langt mer oppmerksomhet fra foreldrene enn han eller hun gjerne får. Ofte er den unge ikke interessert i oppmerksomhet – avviser den regelrett. Når det skjer, har tilbudet om oppmerksomhet kommet sent, kanskje for sent. De aller fleste barn er takknemlige for støtte hvis de får den i tide, og de vil ty til den når de møter tunge dilemmaer eller opplever konflikter.

Dette forutsetter selvfølgelig at støtten gis på en adekvat måte.

Noe som bringer meg til punkt 2, som jeg riktignok aldri bebudet, men som altså er: Det bør tilbys kurs (ev. over internett) til alle foreldre, med tittel “Hva sier barnet ditt?”

 

Palm Sunday

10.04.2017 /

I have three countries. Yes, that’s right, three, and don’t ask me where I was born. In two of them, Easter means that kids are home from school and that shops are mostly closed, so that parents will have to have planned food schedules and child care for an entire week.

In my third country, Easter is a reminder of the battle between Good and Evil, which of course involves no end of diverging not to mention conflicting views.

In my village, a dense and expectant crowd has gathered outside the Southern entrance of the Basilica Mayor de Santa Maria, at 7 PM on Palm Sunday, when one of the great church bells starts booming, the doors open heavily and a rather sinister procession solemnly starts descending the stairs to the accompaniment of a funereal drum beat. Every time without fail, although I am anything but a believer, I am moved to tears by the spectacle.

Indeed, you could almost be forgiven for imagining that evil could be purged from the land, when the emaciated figure of Christ on a great big float weighing nearly two tonnes, is laboriously carried through the town in a procession that will last for many hours.

For a week, the narrow streets will resound on and off with that slow imperious beat of drums, as float after float carrying gorgeously attired Marias, and various versions of her crucified son ceremoniously emerge from one church after the other, to be perilously marched along steep and narrow streets until they re-enter their respective churches as solemnly as they left them.

For lack of hope of better times — ten years, now, after the financial crisis hurled most people here into desolate poverty — and for lack of work, income and proper schooling, the inhabitants of this village must make do with the ray of hope that faith can give them, faith in the final victory of good over evil. Even if they must die waiting, if even their children must die, good will overcome evil in the end, and they will all be reunited in the afterlife.

Oh, how I wish it were so! There are, however, ever more of us, even in this village, who believe that neither good nor evil emanates from forces beyond human control.

To put it differently: If you have a puppy that you treat firmly but kindly, you will probably end up having a well-behaved and kind dog. Likewise, if you have a child that you treat firmly but kindly, your child will probably grow into a well-functioning adult. I can’t imagine there are many who would disagree with me on that score. Discord only arises when we get down to deciding what “kind but firm” treatment means. For dogs, for example, it includes exercise and excludes being tied up for hours outside the house. For children it includes proper nourishment, stimulating education, reliable medical treatment, plenty of parental companionship and an understanding of ethics.

Those are my views, yours may be different. And we haven’t even started to discuss what is “proper nourishment”! Mind you, I insist that we can and must sort out our differences civilly, without prisons or corporal punishment!

But we can probably agree that there is much evil. I maintain it is almost exclusively human. Evil is regularly generated in non-evil humans in many ways. Apart from the obvious (hunger, humiliation, fear, etc.) there are many insidious triggers of evil that we never think about: Not everybody is able to remain impervious to the venom of the Market’s non-stop stream of advertisements through almost all channels. Meanwhile the most entertaining and hence the most popular (and most lucrative!) media outlets are owned and run by the Market, i.e. by forces that adamantly resent any restrictions on entrepreneurial activities, even if the purpose of such restrictions is to protect the planet and its peoples.

I must say I much prefer the Christian legend about the battle between Good and Evil to the poison injected into in all our minds (making us blind to the anarchic self-aggrandizement of the  Market). After all, even a believer of a religious faith can earnestly support efforts to make the world a better place for those who do not currently enjoy proper nourishment, stimulating education, reliable medical treatment, plenty of parental companionship and an understanding of ethics, and he/she can do so civilly, without prisons or corporal punishment!

Palatables and non-palatables

18.03.2017 /

Several European countries are facing national elections, these days. Lately, I have taken to watching the evening news on television, rather than just reading RSS feeds or listening to podcasts, because so many of my lunchtime companions talk about Trump’s and Gert Wilders’ hairdos that I feel a need to be visually informed.

But alas, information comes at a price. Watching the evening news means you can’t skip paragraphs or fast-forward. You have to listen to a lot of – excuse my French – crap, and crap makes me feel slightly ill. Now, I realise I seem to be echoing Mr Trump as far as distrust of the media is concerned, and for that I prostrate myself in abject apology, but there is no denying that the media has no choice but to record what dominant actors say and do, not least what Mr Trump says and twitters, which is quite a mouthful.

Tonight an opposition party in my country trumpeted: “We intend to redistribute wealth!” Why are they saying that? Because they hope to attract low-income voters. Will they succeed? I doubt it. Why? Because people know that what is meant is really “we will raise taxes”, and although they only want to raise taxes on the filthy rich, we all know that when taxes go up, the bottom two thirds of the population pay more, but when taxes go down, the top third of the population pays less. Why this is so? Beats me!

But taxes do have to be be raised. Why? Because the wealth gap between the top 10 percent and the rest of the country is growing exponentially, here as elsewhere in the western world. As you will know if you have read your Piketty, this is not only because the right-wing parties currently in power here have lowered taxes on wealth and capital, though tax reductions in recent years have been considerable and have gone almost unnoticed. (Everybody got a tiny tax reduction, whereas the top of the pyramid got an enormous tax reduction. Since we don’t want to loose our “tiny” tax reduction, we don’t talk about it.)

While making serious adjustments to cater to the companies and billionaires that regularly contribute outrageously large sums of money to its two main parties, the right-wing government has to attract low-income voters to stay in power. It therefore spends an awful lot of money on trifles that will win votes, oblivious to the unpalatable fact that what goes out has to come in.

Meanwhile, the number of poor people in this country has grown considerably in recent years – and the poor are growing poorer – and a growing number of frustrated and angry young poor are lured by whispered rumours of “great leaders” – charismatic right-wing and/or religious misfits with personality disorders.

The poor are the elephant in the room. Here, there and everywhere.

Elections should be regarded as entertainment, no more, no less, the verbal equivalent of a football match. Contenders hand out chocolates on street corners, appear on talk shows, dress to the nines and repeat their carefully chosen mantras until we all turn into sleep walkers.

If you want to win an election, you have to tell people what they want to hear. You certainly don’t tell them that we have to raise taxes. You don’t tell them that unless we do something about it, the wealth gap will continue to widen. You don’t tell them that unless we do something about it, there will be more terrorism. You don’t tell them that unless we do something about it, most of the planet will sooner or later be uninhabitable.

You don’t serve them the unpalatable truths. You serve canapés and a glass of something or other, smile your red-lipped, full-bodied smile and tell them assuaging non-truths. You tell them that we shall lower taxes, thus increasing employment and wealth for all. (Teresa May is one the real pros!) You tell them that terrorists, far from being poor are just simple killers, and will be dealt with accordingly, swiftly and effectively. You tell them that poverty, climate change and other nasty things have nothing to do with us, that the poor must look after themselves and that the climate must look after itself. In short: Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles. That is what you tell them.

Enjoy the elections!

Terrorism and poverty

12.03.2017 /

Never mind the definition of terrorism (let alone the definition of poverty). As the Guardian wrote in 2001:

While most people agree that terrorism exists, few can agree on what it is. A recent book discussing attempts by the UN and other international bodies to define terrorism runs to three volumes and 1,866 pages without reaching any firm conclusion.

Let us for this particular exercise say that terrorism is the deliberate taking of civilian (i.e non-combatant) lives for ideological purposes.

Some scholars have come to the conclusion that there is no link between poverty and terrorism. Indeed, there is absolutely no denying that the world’s have-nots far outnumber the haves, and that most have-nots are anything but terrorists. Nor can it be denied that ISIS, to take an example, is headed by a man with a university doctorate. I quote Wikipedia (12/03/2017):

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, contemporaries of al-Baghdadi describe him in his youth as being shy, unimpressive, a religious scholar, and a man who eschewed violence. For more than a decade, until 2004, he lived in a room attached to a small local mosque in Tobchi, a poor neighbourhood on the western fringes of Baghdad, inhabited by both Shia and Sunni Muslims.

With a doctorate, he would at least not have been destitute. Whether he lived in relative poverty because he had no choice, or out of solidarity with the poor, or for tactical reasons must be a matter of speculation, judging from the above cited Wikipedia article.

At any rate he did live in relative poverty and he was detained at Abu Ghraib for 10 months. I have never been to Abu Ghraib, but I have been given to understand that detention there was no tea party.

Have you, dear reader, ever felt that you or somebody you cared for had been subjected to gross injustice? Now if you, as I, enjoy a reasonably comfortable living standard, your anger will probably have abated somewhat after a few days. You would certainly not seriously contemplate terrorism. Those of us who have jobs to tend, and family and loved ones to inspire with hope and love of life, cannot allow our minds to be poisoned by bitterness and hate.

But if even the simplest chores of survival were a minute by minute uphill battle and if any of your loved ones had been killed or tortured, believe me: You would be a potential terrorist. You would perhaps not be willing to kill, but you might be willing to harbour a killers, feed him and refuse to give him away, etc. That would make you an accomplice in terrorism, which in many countries is as serious an offence as active terrorism.

I fear the methods that have been employed in the studies referred to above are seriously flawed.

Poverty alone may not be enough to drive a man or woman off the cliff, and successful terrorist groups (whether white-supremacist or religious) are contingent on having leaders who are moneyed and/or educated and who are probably, more often than not, psychopaths. But the foot soldiers who make up their armies are as much victims as their victims, cf. BBC outline of terrorist groups in Africa:

They are given the feeling that they are a very important person and that martyrdom is something to aspire to – the anger over their deprivation is lowered to a feeling of comfort, to a point where the only thing they aspire to is a collective action.

Whether that action leads to their survival or death doesn’t really matter any more.

 

 

Denialists on the rampage

28.02.2017 /

First, the definitions: A denialist is somebody who plays hymns full blast when the rain keeps pouring down and flood waters rise around his house, or somebody who goes looking for his favourite fishing rod when told his son has raped somebody’s daughter, or somebody who shoots asylum seeking immigrants huddling together at a reception centre because he, not they, flunked out of school.

A denialist calls those of us who have the gall to use – from time to time – the ugly word “sustainable”: conspiracy theorists. He calls us arrogant – and by golly, he may very well be right. Denialists and everything-will-be-just-fine-ists believe that as long as they are investing and being invested in, no questions need be asked. Just turn up the volume, bring in the cake, send up the balloons, and hallelujah, the day is made, who cares about the morrow.

Meanwhile, thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands – millions! – of people across the globe open their eyes every morning to look out upon a parched field with a few blades of yellow grass, or the corrugated iron or flapping canvas of a cramped refugee camp. And the stench! I have trouble forcing myself to imagine the stench of a refugee camp.

At the moment I am listening to a sonata by Schubert. A thing of beauty. I am never hungry, never cold, never lacking. Or rather, almost never lacking. One thing, only, is missing from my life: Confidence. Confidence in the sincere and concerted will of politicians – mine and yours, the business sector – mine and yours, the media – mine and yours, voters – here and there, to make the entire – I repeat entire – world a better place for all, starting with those who lack everything, including those who manage hanging by their teeth, including even those, who, like myself, lack nothing but confidence in people who have power.

There is little hope in sight. The world’s most powerful man has understood, at least, one thing: Unless conditions improve in the poor part of the world there will be hell to pay. I doubt Mr Trump would care unless he feared for himself and maybe his family. Since it is unlikely that fleeing to Mars will be feasible within his lifetime, he is taking his typically decisive steps: Multiplying the arms budget. He seems to be saying “We will beat the shit out of them!” I’m sure he means it.

Mr Trump has reason to fear, without doubt.

It is true that UNDP figures indicate that the total number of destitute people has decreased globally. Vaccination programmes have made headway against fatal disease, and education is somewhat more available than previously, even in poor countries.

However, growing parts of the world are becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, a tendency that will grow exponentially over the next years. And with globalisation – television, internet, etc. –resentment among the have-nots is growing. Yes, it is true that Mr Trump has reason to fear. So do we all.

Mr Trump’s solution, on the other hand, is no more a solution than it was in Vietnam. There is little you can do to beat people whose lives are so miserable that death is preferable.

Cyber…

14.02.2017 /

Some time last week my two most recent posts were highjacked by a hactivist. In other words, this site was subjected to a cyberattack. Let me add, for the record: The message was clear and it was not Russian.

I am reinserting, herewith, the two posts that were destroyed.

Sharks and hyenas

14.02.2017 /

What do you tell your children when they ask you about the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” or the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”?

Maybe your children are still only toddlers. One day, however, you may have to explain to them not only the meaning of NATO and TTIP, but how you used your democratic rights to support or to not support your country’s adherence to one or the other. One day, the “democratic” world’s parents will have to explain to their children how a “redneck” who refers to international agreements as “dumb” became the world’s most powerful man. I am not sure future generations will be impressed by the replies:

  • (about NATO) “Well you see, first the communists and then the terrorists … “
  • (about TTIP) “We were all sort of one big family, so trading mainly with each other seemed natural.”
  • (about the world’s most powerful man) “We respected democracy.”

Are we, the parents – we who were once children and who now have children who will someday be parents – are we responsible for the acts of NATO, the consequences of TTIP, the stunningly irresponsible acts of the current US president? If we are not, who is?

Yesterday, there were at least 300 thousand demonstrators on the streets of Romania’s towns furiously protesting against corruption. Their votes had not been worth much, but their anger on the streets may just possibly have some effect. After all, in 1258, the English king’s angry subjects managed to restrict his power, forcing him to accept the Provisions of Oxford. True enough, rebellions have most commonly been brutally repressed, but some of them have yielded improvements for posterity.

Can we consider the election of Trump a rebellion of sorts, the result of the disenchantment of impoverished segments of the US population? Not all his voters were traditional “rednecks”, after all. Did not many of them have reason to feel betrayed, forgotten and neglected? Was their vote not a demonstration of resentment? As far as rebellions go, however, I’d say the consequences for posterity of this one seem bleak.

In my country, and probably in most others, people applying for senior executive posts are put through rigorous personality tests. They have to prove their mettle, demonstrating advanced skills and eminent suitability for the job. Not so for the president of the United States, where the voters have no say about NATO and TTIP, but they do get to decide who gets the top job.

I cannot tell you whether I would prefer to be torn to pieces by a shark or by a pack of hyenas. I have no experience of being torn apart and I’m sure I shall do all in my power to keep things that way. But I know for a fact that the US has invaded very many countries, and that the CIA has engaged in innumerable invasive, clandestine and anti-democratic operations all over the world over the past 50 years, operations the country’s own citizens don’t seem to want to know about. In many countries all over the world, there is therefore much seething hatred against the USA.

Hence, for any country, a military and / or trade alliance with the USA is a very serious liability. To put it more succinctly: Iran is far less of a threat to world peace than the USA which, under its current leadership, is even a threat unto itself.

Each country needs to consider its defences, to be sure. Self defence is indeed vital and includes avoiding entering into or sustaining alliances with bellicose expansionist states (even if they are lucrative to powerful segments of the population).

So how about reconsidering our options?

Takk, Ketil Bjørnstad, takk!

14.02.2017 /

Verden som var min var faktisk også min, i hvert fall noe av den. De ytre hendelsene, flyene som datt ned eller ble kapret, Francos død, de fryktelige latinamerikanske diktaturene, Palestina, som jo var et stygt åpent sår den gang som nå, Maos død, fiskerigrensen, Alta-vassdraget, Jimmy Carter, oljen, … alt det delte vi alle.

Men musikken var også min. Den hadde jeg nå for det meste glemt, men jeg har ligget og lest de vel 1000 sidene med ikke minst Ketil Bjørnstads egen musikk på øret. AKPs kulturtyranni gjaldt også for meg, slik det rammet alle som ikke nøyde seg med svensketoppen, samtidig som AKP også bidro stort til en veldig kulturell frodighet.

Ketil Bjørnstad har brakt meg tilbake til noe jeg selv knapt kan huske, mitt liv. Jeg oppdager at jeg har vært så travelt opptatt av å leve at jeg ikke har giddet legge levd liv på minne. Ketil Bjørnstad bringer mye tilbake til meg, samtidig som han minner meg om tanker og observasjoner som også jeg har gjort.

Det er ikke lett å være både menneskekjær og annerledes, å være både innenfor og utenfor, eller rettere sagt hverken det ene eller det andre.

Med fare for å fornærme ham, ville jeg ha ønsket ham velkommen til pelshvalenes rekker, om det ikke var for at pelshvalsamfunnet eksisterte lenge før meg, uavhengig av meg, og vil fortsette å eksistere så lenge det finnes folk på jorda.

Ketil Bjørnstad understreker flere ganger at han ville for mye. Både musikk, poesi og prosa. Han ville tilhøre både sin egen og forgangen tid. Han ville ha trygghet og frihet, havn og det villet havet, urban kultur og isolasjon. Var det for mye forlangt? Innen bokas siste punktum, har det sneket seg inn en mørk undertone: en dyster forsmak på neste bind? Jeget, Ketil Bjørnstad, stikker fingeren i halsen og spyr på nyttårsaften til det neste tiåret.

Jeg tror han vil mye med denne boka, kanskje for mye. Mens jeg leste, kom jeg stadig på “Jag vil tacka livet” av Violeta Para, som jo begikk selvmord, slik Radka Toneff skulle gjøre i 1982. Hans bok er en takk til dem han husker med varme. Siden han ikke har til hensikt å utlevere dem, minner takksigelsene mest om takkekort til bryllupsgjester. Utallige figurer passerer revy som pappfigurer. Men som leser ser jeg dette nettopp som et uttrykk for hans autentisitet: Han skriver om tiden, om seg selv, og han kan ikke la være å si “Takk!”

Dette er derfor ikke – teknisk sett – hans beste bokkomposisjon. Man dras gjennom mer eller mindre interessante hendelser i kronologisk rekkefølge. Men man leser videre, ikke minst fordi – der man minst venter det – slår den store forfatteren her og der gjennom med en aldeles nydelig liten perle begravd i historien.

Jeg vil til slutt understreke at den som skriver Verden som var min på en så ukunstlet måte er intet mindre enn forfatteren av Jæger, noe av det beste som noen gang er skrevet på norsk, slik jeg ser det. Det var komposisjonsteknisk bombe, det!

New year next year?

31.12.2016 /

Looking back, the wonderful 2013 documentary Inequality for all, in which Professor Robert Reich humorously and with endless patience explained a few very basic economic facts about what is absolutely vital for a healthy capitalist society, seems prophetic indeed. Many of the US citizens he interviewed for the film spoke their mind back then, and have presumably cast their votes now.

Those that did not vote for Mr Trump, should have paid better attention when the film was released. Or maybe the US media, as opposed to The Guardian (review), did not inform the US electorate about it?

The non-Trump media scathingly refers to Trump voters as, at best, victims of “populism”. The word populism is generally used in a pejorative sense, but I shall quote a definition I found in Wikipedia today. Interestingly, it is not pejorative.

Populism is a political style of action that mobilizes a large alienated element of population against a government seen as controlled by an out-of-touch closed elite that acts on behalf of its own interests. The underlying ideology of the Populists can be left, right, or middle. Its goal is to unite the uncorrupt and the unsophisticated (the ‘little man’) against the corrupt dominant elites (usually the orthodox politicians) and their camp followers (usually the rich and the intellectuals). It is guided by the belief that political and social goals are best achieved by the direct actions of the masses. Although it comes into being where mainstream political institutions fail to deliver, there is no identifiable economic or social set of conditions that give rise to it, and it is not confined to any particular social class.

On the basis of that definition, I’d say people would do well to vote populist.

However, assuming, as most of us do over here, that Mr Trump is even more corrupt (if possible) than the average US politician, and even less concerned (if possible) with the plight of “der kleine Mann”, I’d say the problem lies not with the voters, but with the fact that his voters actually believed that Mr Trump cared about them. And why did they do that, I ask? My question is rhetorical, of course, because I know the answer, as do you, I hope, so I won’t spell it out.

I too am worried about what havoc the dangerously reckless and ignorant Mr Trump will wreck after 20 January. But above all, it saddens me that far too few have understood the lesson to be learnt from his victory. It is not, repeat – NOT – that the majority of US voters are more fundamentally racist, misogynist and sexist than voters in other countries. Nor are they more stupid and easily duped.

The lesson to be learnt is not really very difficult. The problem is that neither on this side or on your side of the Atlantic do people want to learn it. It hurts. It’s like finding out that Father Christmas is just a fairytale.

I can only repeat: Start by watching Inequality for All, and pay close attention.

We must all hope that as many as possible of us will live to see next year’s New Year.

Encryption when sharing information

21.12.2016 /

This post is indented as a sequel to the previous one, which I believe should apply to everyone. I repeat: If we all look after our digital privacy, as we look after our health, say, we shall be protecting the social scientists and journalists who are sticking their neck out to tell us what we need to know.

This post, however, will be for those who are actually at risk, i.e. the social scientists, journalists and non-violent political activists who provoke the political powers that be.

***

To send a file to somebody else, when you want to be sure that only the intended recipient can read it, you could of course simply password protect it, but passwords can easily be cracked. Besides you would have to send the password, and the message in which you send it could be intercepted.

An alternative is to use 7zip  – which is available to  all major operating systems. With 7zip you can encrypt the file. You would do this if you want to transfer a large file, or several files, via your cloud service. You would still have to convey the password though.

The most commonly used way to protect the privacy of email is with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). The program PGP itself is not free, but there is a free alternative, based on the so-called OpenPGP standard.

Now if you use an email client that provides PGP support — and yours may very well do so, although you do not know it — you should study its documentation. If not, you should consider changing your email client. 

Wikipedia has an article comparing email clients. Search on the page for PGP and you will find a table that might be useful to you. If you normally only use Webmail, you might consider starting to use a dedicated email program (“email client”).

PGP’s alternative to the issue of passwords is a set of “keys”: One “private key” which only the sender possesses, and one “public key”, which can be published openly on the net yes, on the net! The sender AND the recipient must know each other’s public keys, and this is where your software comes in.

Your software should  be able to generate both keys and store them. It imports and stores also the public keys of people with whom you want to communicate, and keeps track of what messages are to be sent to or received by whom. Finally it should check incoming keys, and encrypt and decrypt as needed.

The hitch is obviously that the recipient must also be using PGP encryption. But PGP has grown pretty universal, cross-platform and is inherent in many application. However, as with all software, new versions tend to be incomprehensible to older ones. (Compatibility issues can often be solved by altering settings.)

Most of us are not yet used to using PGP for email, though, so though it can easily be handled by our email programs, it may take a while before we all catch on.

At any rate, do not be discouraged, because once you have your keys properly stored and have understood how to use them, encrypting your stuff (with the proper software) is not difficult at all!

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