Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 27 of 44)

Did the US ever apologise?

18.11.2017 /

In my previous post I spoke about sanctimonious know-alls. Well, after yesterday’s admissions, watch me now: I intend to be as sanctimonious today as I darn-well please.

Remember the war on Korea? No, you wouldn’t, because it’s rarely talked about and certainly nothing to be proud of. All we ever see of it are replays of the comedy Mash. Those who were naive enough – and most of us, then, were very naive, indeed – to take note of Foxy News probably swallowed the bait and believed the war was being waged in defence of democracy. But US defence of democracy can most kindly be compared to a series of raids of army ants. The purpose of the war was to limit the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, which may be fine and dandy – depending on how you look at it – except that Korea belonged by rights to the Koreans.

At least we can be grateful that Truman explicitly forbade MacArthur to use the atomic bomb, and effectively sacked (or “recalled”) him in the end. Korea had to be permanently divided.

Source: Britannica

You will, however, remember Vietnam. Not because Foxy News finally owned up to the facts, but because so many US soldiers came back in coffins, if at all. Students protested against the draft, parents protested against loss of their sons, and footage and snapshots of US war crimes found their way to international news channels.

Did Foxy News admit that in South Vietnam, the US was supporting a nest of Frankensteins, a vicious dictator and his ghoulish wife and collaborators? Still, the dictator’s acts were not as embarrassing as the Buddhist monks setting fire to themselves in protest. (See the famous Malcolm Browne photo here.) Even McNamara was appalled, and the US eventually decided to allow a military coup against him – so much for “democracy”.

Now the war on Korea was probably no better. As in Vietnam, the US started by playing its cards through a puppet. In fact, they were the ones who installed the extremely brutal dictator Syngman Rhee in the first place.

The press is currently hounding the North Korean dictator. I can’t say I like him either. But had I been born in a country that had been destroyed almost down to the last blade of grass due to the hubris of a bully from the other side of the Pacific, I would have dreamt of revenge too.

Yes, I know I sound horrible. But think of how little North Korea must feel with a Trump riding his gilded horse into battle against the entire world, against the planet, no less. Mind you, it’s not just Trump, nor even Bush or Reagan or even Foxy News; it’s a narrative, a particularly dangerous narrative: Always the biggest, the best, the greatest, almost at any cost. Ordinary US Americans gain no benefit from that venomous narrative, which is fed to them from the day they learn to say “ma-ma”. No benefit at all.

There are those who do, though.

Annoying the general public

17.11.2017 /

I’m writing today in response to this: http://www.musicradar.com/news/5-reasons-why-your-protest-song-is-making-things-worse

Mind you, it’s well worth reading as the guy evidently has a point – five, actually – as well as a sense of humour.

And he’s not the only one who’s sick and tired of bedraggled lefties who go on and on about “the scourge of neoliberalism”, and by sanctimonious organic know-alls who insist that the apocalypse is nigh and that we must all repent, otherwise all, except those who can afford to move to Mars, will suffer a hideous, worse-than-death demise.

Most people are pissed by self-righteous, better-than- you, priggish, self-disciplined and more often than not neurotic, self-denying would-be saints who refuse to go window-shopping, refuse to splurge, refuse to eat T-bone steaks, and whose faces are perpetually warped by disapproval.

In short, by people like me.

“Look out the window,” people like me say, as though we were the only ones who ever notice what goes on in the world. “Now Saudi Arabia has even kidnapped Lebanon’s PM, with the blessing, of course, of Emperor Trump”. And since most people haven’t noticed that Lebanon’s PM has been missing for 13 days, and since they really don’t see that this concerns them, our making such a fuss about the matter annoys them. Understandably.

In short, most of the general public, if not the general public as a whole, is annoyed. The “green” people disapprove of how we live. The lefties disapprove of just about everything. And the rest of the population disapproves of both the green people and the lefties and the immigrants. What a lark!

So, what to do? Should people like me just pack up and go tend our gardens?

I know, yes, I really recognise, that by labelling anti-immigrationists “racist”, we are making things worse. I must confess that when I read that “Police estimated 60,000 people took part in Saturday’s event, in what experts say was one of the biggest gathering of far-right activists in Europe in recent years” (source: the Guardian)  my first thought was to demand that Poland be kicked out of the EU. But what good would that do? The EU is disintegrating in any event, and the best we can hope for is that it will survive a few more years. In the mean time, calling people “racist” is not a wise move.

Twenty years ago, and even five years ago, I would never have thought I should hear myself wish the EU well. Now I have come to understand that war is not something Europe has grown out of. People are, it seems, still mere primates in spite of their highly developed brains. War may come to Europe again sooner rather than later.

No, I shall not pack up and go tend my garden! I intend to continue weaving my own way through media outlets, trying to understand what is happening and why. I shall continue to try to understand why most of us act as we do, and why we allow “Democracy” to be so terribly abused. From time to time, I shall continue to express, on this site, my understanding, the understanding of a cetacea paellicius, no more, no less. In short I admit the writer of the article referenced above has a point, or five, but I also insist that defeatism is not a solution, just an option.

It is not my option.

Lost causes

22.10.2017 /

There are at least two interesting aspects of Naomi Alderman’s what-if novel The Power. One is that if women, somehow or other, miraculously gain the upper hand and get used to calling the shots, they will be no better, though possibly not much worse, than men are now.

The other is that this novel is generally referred to as a “speculative fiction dystopia”. But, as the author writes in a Guardian article  “Nothing happens to men in the novel – I explain carefully to interviewers – that is not happening to a woman in our world today. So is it dystopian? Well. Only if you’re a man.”

In other words: since it is currently happening to women, we are living in a dystopia.

True, it does not happen to all women, and obviously it does not happen to Stephen Pinker. But it does happen to many more women than we care to think of. Moreover, it happens to children. In fact, it happens to just about everyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I want a certain tract of land, and you just happen to have been living there since you were born, but I am rich and/or powerful, whereas you are just somebody’s lost cause, you’d better scuttle away as fast as you can.

Lost causes are scattered over the landscape like the innumerable heaps of dead bodies we see on the news. Even if Stephen Pinker appears undeterred in his faith in humanity and progress, the number of displaced persons is the highest ever recorded and rising, according to the UN. Being displaced means, more often than not, living in a squalid desert refugee camp, courtesy of some recalcitrant donor. Mind you: Living there for years. No hope.

Personally, I suspect that Mr Pinker must have been suffering from attacks of temporary insanity when he wrote his feel-good nonsense. His line of thinking has annoyed me immensely over the years and has caused no end of harm, I believe. As a psychologist, he is of course entitled to try to help his clients feel better, but that is no excuse for telling the general public that there is no need to worry. Just sit back, relax, be happy.

Yes, I am very familiar with the statistics of the UNDP, according to which “absolute poverty” has declined dramatically, as has infant mortality. Please note, however, that the UNDP term “absolute poverty” is defined as roughly < 1 USD. I ask you: try to live on 10 USD a day or even 20 USD a day, and see what you think of it.

Back to the bag of lost causes, which Mr Pinker seems to have forgotten: In it, we find most of the population of Yemen, most of the population of Afghanistan, most of the population of Syria, the entire population of Palestine, both Sudans, most of the people still trying to eke out a living in Chad and Mali which are becoming increasingly uninhabitable, … I could go on, of course, interminably. But out of respect for the author of The Power, I wish to specifically mention the countless women in India and elsewhere who are subjected to acid attacks or gang rape.

The thought of such senseless cruelty to defenseless women lights up my very worst visceral instincts and reminds me that if I had power, the kind of power possessed by the women in Naomi Alderman’s novel, I would indeed use and abuse it.

That is what happens when you hand out weapons to a flock of tattered, dejected rebels. They will use and abuse them. Here, there or anywhere, inflamed and outraged by the injustice they and their people have been subjected to, they will suddenly feel, like a rush of adrenalin, like divine intervention, a surge of power in their veins. And they will kill without remorse. As would I, if I were where they are.

But I am not. I am safe and sound, far away from it all. But even people like me or like Stephen Pinker, sometimes cross the line: The leaders of ISIS (now defeated, or so they say) were once wealthy, educated and basically law-abiding men. What hit them was rage against the injustice of it all. With money and financial contacts, they could purchase arms and that, alone, gave them immense power.

In addition to those who abuse power because they have a just, lost cause to pursue, there are a lot of psychopaths, so, Mr Pinker, I see no reason to just relax and be happy.

Benekting

15.09.2017 /

Valget gikk som ventet, ikke sant? Man har det tross alt komfortabelt med den blå-brune regjeringen, ledet av den evinnelig avslappede, rolig smilende fruen.

Velgerne var engstelige: Hva er det som skjer med verden? Det er så mye som er skummelt, som Trump, IS, Russland… for ikke å snakke om den fremtidige flodbølgen av desperate klimaflyktninger…

Alle partier over sperregrensen forsikret at det går så bra så, men ingen var så overbevisende rolig og beroligende som den blå-brune fruen.

I dette valget stemte velgerne som Østens tre vise aper: Jeg ikke høre, jeg ikke forstå, og jeg ikke snakke. Dette er skolebokens oppskrift på benekting.

Jeg har en hund, og den er klok. Noen ganger lurer jeg på om hunder er klokere enn vi mennesker. Så vidt jeg kan se mangler de nemlig denne “evnen” til benekting som vi har.

Benekting er altså en av de såkalte forsvarsmekanismene, noe som ikke bare nevrotikere tyr til. Alle bruker vi forsvarsmekanismer (f.eks. rasjonalisering, fortrengning, sublimering…). Det er rett og slett ikke lett for et menneske å klare seg uten, om det overhode er mulig.

Man kan si at benekting er en overlevelsesstrategi for menneskeheten. Takket være den har befolkninger nektet å flykte, overgi eller underkaste seg, men har stått på mot alle odds, og mens flertallet kanskje ble drept, overlevde noen få, som fikk bære genene videre.

Benekting har flere forkledninger som f.eks.:

  • “Det går til helvete uansett! Jeg kjører dieselbil som før.”
  • “Hele klimakampanjen er drevet av folk som ønsker å kuppe markeder.”
  • “Jeg kildesorterer og bruker Zalo, da synes jeg at jeg har gjort mitt.”
  • “Jeg, derimot, kjører elbil og synes at jeg har gjort mitt.”
  • “Det er bra at vi produserer olje og gass slik at det globale kullforbruket går ned.”
  • “Jeg spiser nesten ikke sjokolade.” (Se forklaring nedenfor.)

Saken er jo at vi styrter av gårde i noenlunde samme tempo, og ikke vil se, ikke vil høre, ikke vil gjøre det vi må gjøre. For øyeblikket er det Spania som har overtatt trykket fra et stadig mer ulevelig Afrika – over 11 000 mennesker plukket opp av sjøen av spanske myndigheter i år – og så lenge Listhaug vokter våre grenser, er vi like trygge som Nord-Korea, og nesten like lite i overensstemmelse med våre internasjonale forpliktelser. Samtidig roter vi stadig i glørne i Afghanistan hvor situasjonen for vanlige folk bare blir mer og mer håpløs (nå mest på grunn av IS, som trekker inn i landet etterhvert som de fordrives fra Syria og Irak). Men afghanske flyktninger vil vi helst ikke ha, takk.

(Det er like før jeg søker om svensk statsborgerskap. Svenskene klarer seg utmerket uten olje og uten å være medlemmer i NATO.)

Men vi kan trøste oss med at vi ikke er verst i klassen (følgende opplysninger er hentet fra El País 14.09.2017, “El cacao que se come a África”):

Elfenbens urskoger har krympet med 80% siden 70-tallet. Grunnen til det er at landet står for 40 % av verdens kakaoproduksjon, og etterspørselen etter kakao øker med 2–5 % hvert år. Kun 4% av landet dekkes nå av skog som for det meste er beskyttet ved lov. Landet har 23 nasjonalparker, men det drives likevel ulovlig kakaodyrking i dem. I 13 av de 23 nasjonalparkene er primatene helt utryddet og elefanten, landets nasjonalsymbol, er utrydningstruet. Elfenbenkysten har altså virkelig svin på skogen, og svinene heter Olam, Cargill og Barry Callebaut, som i sin tur selger til blant annet MARS og HERSHEY, som i sin tur selger til oss.

Men vi, nordmenn, ligger forhåpentlig ikke i verdenstoppen blant sjokoladespisere, så vi behøver slett ikke bekymre oss.

Football from the sidelines

10.09.2017 /

Almost blinded by the sun and my own perspiration as I drag myself up the steep hill, I find that the cobbled roads are near empty while the normally empty bars are packed. Packed with men, shouting men. Football, I assume, and snarl.

Mind you, I don’t at all mind football. What bothers me is all that seems to be so evident if we objectively look at a football stadium or study the comportment of men around TV screens when certain games are being played. “We’re in this together,” they seem to be saying, “our team!” “fight till death”, “kill the infidel”, or as General Halil of Janjaweed says, “eliminate anything in my way!”

General Halil is fighting for no cause other than himself. And he has earnest supporters, including loyal and good men who think they are fighting for a worthy cause, men who believe in Halil by virtue of his “strength”. A strong general is a good general, they think. Alas, ruthlessness and callousness is often mistaken for strength, as the US is kind enough to remind us at regular intervals.

The US is a deeply religious country, as are Israel and Saudi Arabia, its close allies. The crimes against humanity committed by those three countries are such that more and more people in my country are saying that religion is the root of all evil.

No, I say, religion is not the root cause of war. The root cause is what we see when we watch those who watch professional football. After a match, people sometimes get bashed to death. The spectators’ arousal, almost sexual in nature – indeed, fired by male hormones surging as the battle is played out before their eyes – makes them dangerous. They are one with the players, identifying with them (“our” team, “us”) , admiring them, enjoying a moment in the sun of borrowed fame and glory, and ready to defend them with their lives, if need be.

Now, some people will retort that war is not necessarily bad. Some wars, they will say, are just, wars for freedom, for instance, wars for liberation from oppression. Of course this argument is neither here nor there, since we will never all agree as to what wars are just, will we? Forget WWII, there have been infinitely many wars since, and in all of them there will have been at least one big bad bully against whom resistance is at least justifiable. Sadly, even the oppressed are usually also lead by big bad bullies, since – again – what is mistaken for strength tends to inspire confidence.

Football makes it all so clear: What spectators by the billions see and admire is: brute force, naked muscle, precision and cunning. They will rise to their feet as one, almost levitating, and they will all feel, for a few magic moments, omnipotent. In short, they will loose, not only their voices from screaming, but also their heads. Who needs drugs or religion to go to war prepared to die? Give me a general who can generate the electric current of a football match, and he will be in business, regardless of the cause.

I, too, long to – more than that – I need to admire. I particularly enjoy feeling kinship with those that I admire. I, too, feel elevated when any of my heroes “wins” a battle.  But my heroes are neither callous nor ruthless, and their strength is not muscular.Today, I finished a novel in which one of my favourite protagonists, George Smiley, definitely sealed his long-time opponent’s casket. Characteristically, Smiley did not enjoy his moment of glory, due to ruminations that I shared with him.

I wonder what Smiley would have made of the global mess we’re in now. For one thing, this little Spanish town on the top of its cliff is becoming near uninhabitable due to summer heat and winter cold. What would Smiley have suggested? I imagine him turning off the light to go to sleep. Outside his wide open window, the neighbours have finally come out of their houses, seeking relief in the evening breeze. Fathers, children, grandmothers, gossiping women… the street is full of their laughter, their pleasant chatting. Yet for all their easy pleasure, he cannot help hearing, still, the continued low wailing of a woman he knows is 97. She wails day and night, but as he knows, she has been out of this world for years. She cannot talk, cannot tell her surroundings why she is so unhappy. Her children take turns looking after her, and they all visit her almost daily. Every day she is dressed and cherished.

Smiley plays with ideas of what may be occupying her mind. After all, she is nearly a century old; think of what she has seen and endured!

Finally, Smiley falls asleep, covered only by a sheet. When he wakes up, he knows he was woken by a sound, and he soon hears it again, a thrill sound that ends in a tremulous sigh. He sits up in bed, because there is no mistaking an owl. An owl? This is definitely not owl country! But hark, there is another one. And another. Standing by now, stark naked in the middle of the room, he hears them all – four owls on different roof tops, one of them just above him on his own roof.

After a few moments, he sadly goes back to bed. Even the owls have lost their marbles, he muses.

And that was the best my hero could do, alas. Can you do better?

Den første sten

08.08.2017 /

Du må lese Den første sten av Carsten Jensen. Du bare MÅ lese den boka!

Det er en roman om krigen i Afghanistan. Det kan hende at du, som jeg, tenker, “orker ikke flere romaner om stakkars Afghanistan, avskyr krigsberetninger,” det kan sogar hende du tar avstand fra genre som “aksjon” eller thriller”. Det får ikke hjelpe, denne boka bør være obligatorisk pensum for alle.

Det dreier seg nemlig ikke bare om et land – og tro du meg, forfatteren kan sitt Afghanistan. Jeg må ty til et hjelpeløst sitat fra en bergtatt filmanmelder som på radio nølte et øyeblikk før han fortsatte,”den handler egentlig om… ja, om alt.” Den forteller deg det du ikke ante du ikke visste. Hva verre er, den får deg til å føle deg som et barn som smuglytter når foreldrene snakker om fæle ting som skilsmisse eller har sex, fordi du vet at det angår deg. Du blir truffet, om ikke på side 10 eller 50, så kanskje på side 61. Før eller siden er det deg det gjelder.

Det er en slags dokumentarisk roman. Noe av det jeg synes er mest besnærende, er at forfatteren ikke beskriver psykopater. Hans personer er ikke samvittighetsløse eller kalde, men gjør så godt de kan ut fra sine forutsetninger. Det er et kunststykke å fremstille de fleste avgjørelser slik at leseren tenker, “hm, slik kunne også jeg ha reagert”. Dermed blir krigen ikke absurd — om den er aldri så grufull — ikke noe man bare kan avvise som rene galskapen eller som inkompetanse. Samtidig blir den så komplisert at en enkel menneskehjerne ikke kan favne den, og man famler hjelpeløst etter datamaskinen.

Ja, i dag tyr opplyste folk til datamaskiner når de er usikre, og også det får sin omtale i dette mektige eposet. Og tenk, også i Afghanistan har “alle” mobiltelefoner, unge og gamle. Det hadde jeg aldri trodd.

Selv lenge før starten på Del II, som begynner rundt side 340, og som plutselig får en jeg-forteller, har romanen – for det er jo tross alt en roman, ikke bare dokumentasjon – løftet seg fra bakken i en spiral av hendelser som med nødvendighet fører til en situasjon man ikke aner noen utgang fra. Aktørene har tatt grep de mente var lure, men så viste det seg at det var for mye de har oversett, rett og slett fordi de ikke hadde forutsetning til å vite alt. Og slik er det vel alltid i en krig, uansett hvor gode intensjonene i utgangpunktet er. Det meste er til syvende og sist galt.

Underveis i et stadig mer apokalyptisk landskap på veg inn i en thriller, lurer leseren på om ikke selve plottet bare er en røverhistorie. Kunne noe av dette teoretisk vært mulig? Kan det faktisk ha skjedd? Tja, si det. Et av premissene i denne boka er at om virkeligheten rundt vår deltakelse i fjerne kriger blir for stygg for de folkevalgte hjemme, så kan pressen pålegges munnbind med henvisning til rikets sikkerhet. Jeg regner med at det premisset stemmer med virkeligheten. Så hvem vet hva som skjer egentlig?

Det største spørsmålet er – tenker jeg, når jeg bestemmer meg for å skrive denne hyllesten – vil vi vite hva som skjer egentlig?

Det som ganske sikkert stemmer med virkeligheten er nettopp det apokalyptiske landskapet som er Afghanistan, et sønderskutt land. Skudd for skudd hamrer forfatteren inn informasjonsbrokker om landet. Skudd for skudd, drap for drap skjer mot baktepper – snart det ene snart det andre – som danner en forvirrende men antakelig korrekt gjengitt mosaikk.

I del II tyr forfatteren til et par forfattertekniske knep for at handlingen ikke skal trekke like mye i langdrag som selve krigen: Han gjør blant annet bruk av en sannsigerske og av en usannsynlig begavet guttehvalp. Disse grepene betraktes av noen kritikere som billige og urealistiske triks. Jeg deler ikke deres syn. Mitt syn er at boka er en pedagogisk fremragende lærebok om det meste.

Mitt syn er videre at boka bør oversettes til alle verdens språk og gjøres tilgjengelig for alle som kan lese. Kanskje det da kan bli håp om litt fred i en tid som i stadig flere land må sies å være apokalyptisk.

Til slutt vil jeg nevne at det er første gang på sikkert 30 år at jeg har lest en bok på mer enn 600 sider fra perm til perm på en dag – fra jeg våknet og grep etter den på sengen, til jeg la meg mer enn 16 timer senere. Det gjorde jeg ikke bare fordi jeg ville vite hvordan det gikk, men fordi jeg ville vite om forfatteren kunne gi oss noen “løsning” til slutt på krigen i Afghanistan og lignende kriger.

Beware of GDP and GNI

01.07.2017 /

I’d like to tell you about an article I read in El País this morning, about Luanda. I hadn’t really intended to read it – I mean, who cares about Luanda? But there was an intriguing dislocation in the heading that I could not resist: The most expensive city in the world is in an underdeveloped country. Now why would that be? I wondered, so I read on.

Yes, rich countries are the ones with expensive capitals, so how come Luanda has surpassed them all with regard not only to the price of water? In 2017, I read, the most expensive cities are, in descending order: Luanda, Hong Kong, Tokio, Zurich, Singapore, Seoul, Geneva, Shanghai, New York and Bern. Madrid follows way down the line as no. 111, and Barcelona is only no. 121. Now how about that!

Well you see, the article tells me, Angola is actually a super-rich country, for the rich that is, who enjoy its oil and diamonds. (Just think of it, diamonds!) The country is so rich that its government has been kind enough to pass a minimum salary law, giving employees the right to the equivalent of EUR 88/month (assuming the employment in question is declared, of course). This amount is just enough to pay for 30 litres of water, 10 kg of rice and 10 litres of milk. Now that might not sound all that bad to you, but try surviving on this amount of water, milk and rice for a whole month.

And what about this figure: about 50% of all families living in Luanda have no running water.

I leave El País and look up the CIA “World Factbook” – to make quite sure that I have not misunderstood Angola’s situation: No, Angola is not considered a communist state or even a dictatorship. In 2012, I read in the CIA World Factbook, “the UN assessed that conditions in Angola had been stable for several years and invoked a cessation of refugee status for Angolans.”

To conclude – and I am no longer leaning on either the CIA World Factbook or El País – I note that the famous GDP (whether nominal or forecasted (PPP)) (see Wikipedia as at 1/7/2017) tells us very little about whether or not a country stinks – excuse my French. Personally, I have learned today that Angola, for instance, is a particularly bad country to live in for almost everybody.

I would like to add on a more positive note, however, as there there are other ways of measuring countries. There is something called the HDI – Human Development Index, which is better able to describe a country than the GDP and GDI. You are of course welcome to disagree with me, but since I do not allow comments, I shall never know.

Pressefrihet i Norge

01.07.2017 /

I disse dager har en rekke land, anført av Saudi-Arabia, iverksatt økonomiske, militære og diplomatiske tiltak (les blokade, boikott) mot Qatar. Utgangspunktet er et ultimatum bestående av 13 krav. Ett av kravene er at Al Jazeera må stenges ned.

Det kan tenkes at du ikke leser nettsiden til Al Jazeera og ikke ser på Al Jazeeras nyhetssendinger eller dokumentarer på TV. I så fall tenker du kanskje at tapet av Al Jazeera ikke er stort, men tro du meg: uansett om du leser eller ikke leser og/eller ser eller ikke ser Al Jazeera, så er nettopp den nyhetsformidleren uerstattelig.

Jeg sjekker hver dag, morgen og kveld, nyhetsoversikten fra NRK. Jeg kan ikke se at 13-punkters-ultimatumet overhodet er blitt nevnt. Derimot nevnes Liu Xiaobo hver dag.

Kjære leser, jeg ber deg innstendig lese det jeg har skrevet i mine to siste Pelshval-innlegg, selv om de er skrevet på engelsk. Det er virkelig ganske påfallende at NRK har vært så taus om Saudi-Arabias kampanje mot Qatar. Jeg antyder ikke at det sitter en innful sensor oppe på NRK og stryker alt som ikke behager de rådende maktene. Men det er helt klart rart, veldig rart, at en av våre viktigste kilder om situasjonen i Midtøsten risikerer å bli nedlagt uten at det fra NRK-siden ytres et eneste pip!

Det er så desto meget mer “rart” når Saudi Arabia er det landet som mer enn noe annet mistenkes for å “skolere” terroristene som har herjet i Europa de siste par årene.

Saudi Arabia antas også å stå bak radikalisering av våre egne borgere.

The rat is out of the hole

28.06.2017 /

You may have heard – and then again, you may not have – that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have issued an ultimatum against Qatar, the 13 so-called “demands” the country must meet within ten days, “or else”.

If Qatar meets the demands, it will have ceased to be a state: It will merely be a vassal of Saudi Arabia, since what is demanded is in reality that the country surrenders its sovereignty.

It all started with an economic and diplomatic blockade launched in the wake of the US emperor’s visit to Saudi Arabia, and since the Saudis evidently feel confident about US support, goodness knows where it will end. For that very same reason – i.e. US support – nobody even mentions this issue around here. In Europe you don’t talk back to the US! Not in this country, not in any European country, least of all in the UK.

Now I was brought up with the BBC. I feel warmth and gratitude to the BBC. I know the names of many of their foreign correspondents. I download BBC podcasts and listen to them. But let us not delude ourselves: BBC is a British broadcasting company, and Britain is very cosy with the USA. As for the USA, well, need I remind you …? No, I won’t remind you, because that would require not a website but many tomes of modern history. However, take a look at Reporters without borders. If you click the map you will see that the USA ranks no higher than 43 out of 180 states as far as freedom of the press is concerned.

My country is also uncomfortably cosy with the USA, if not quite as cosy as the UK, but certainly cosy enough for its national broadcasting company to refrain from ever quoting Al Jazeera. Yet, I suspect that all good foreign correspondents – be they from my country or from the BBC – consult Al Jazeera more than almost any other outlet, at least about Middle East issues. Why? Because Al Jazeera is good, very good! And they are not bound by the US Patriot Act.

One of the 13 “demands” is that Qatar close down Al Jazeera. Now I don’t know whether you watch Al Jazeera, but what I do know is that whether you do or don’t, the news outlet will have considerable impact on what is revealed to you about world affairs. If it were not for Al Jazeera, the US and the UK could tell their side of the story, and nobody would know the difference.

I wish to quote another Guardian article of today (also quoted, by the way, by Al Jazeera):  Asked whether the closure of al-Jazeera was a reasonable demand, the UAE envoy said:

We do not claim to have press freedom. We do not promote the idea of press freedom. What we talk about is responsibility in speech.

I ask you, could any quote be clearer?

Whose dirty socks, mine or yours?

17.06.2017 /

My mission is not to tell you that you-know-who is fabulously ignorant, since I’m sure that whoever reads these pages will be more than aware of that. Nor is it a matter of honour for me to convince you that his ignorance is his most endearing quality.

My mission is, rather, to point out that due to his ignorance, he repeatedly puts his foot in the mouth and exposes the rest of us, for which I am grateful, since we all have an awful lot dirty linen lying around.

Yes, ignorance can create the most embarrassing situations. When the US president went to visit Saudi Arabia, a country notoriously known for human rights abuses (e.g. the war on Yemen, the torturing of political dissidents and the suppression of women and alien workers) he virtually genuflected to his Saudi counterpart, according to Washington Post, without apparently realising that Wahhabi Saudi Arabia is suspected of being the principle financier of Islamic extremism in Europe. I quote Washington Post:

Almost every terrorist attack in the West has had some connection to Saudi Arabia. Virtually none has been linked to Iran.

Wahhabism is named after the eighteenth century activist Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, whose teachings inspire the official, state-sponsored form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia, and also – please note – the ideology of ISIL/ISIS.

With the help of funding from Saudi petroleum exports, the movement underwent explosive growth beginning in the 1970s and now has worldwide influence. The US State Department has estimated that over the past four decades the capital Riyadh has invested more than $10bn (£6bn) into charitable foundations in an attempt to replace mainstream Sunni Islam with the harsh intolerance of its Wahhabism. (Source: Wikipedia as at 17/6/17).

What puzzles me is why we all need to be such buddies with Saudi Arabia. For instance, according to the Guardian, the UK recently found, when the laundry was taken out of the washing machine, that every piece was grey. There the press is getting restless about UK-Saudi relations in the wake of the recent massacres of civilians on the streets and in concert halls, the genocidal war on Yemen, and by a strange and apparently irrational boycott of Qatar, a tiny country with an important, global news outlet, Al Jazeera.

Now, Qatar is also a Wahhabi state, just like its neighbour Saudi Arabia. But unlike the Saudis, Qatar is on civilised terms with Iran and the country’s stance on the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas is nuanced. What’s worse, from a Saudi perspective, is that Qatar is doing extremely well, whereas Saudi Arabia is amassing colossal debts and will soon run out of funds. Is there reason to suspect that Saudi Arabia hopes to annex Qatar?

The US president suffers from a visceral loathing of Iran and played right into the hands of the Saudis. Qatar, they told him, is supporting Iranian terrorism. The president was more than willing to believe them. He signed the largest arms deal in American history on 20/5/2017, claiming that this would create “jobs” for Americans. Amazingly, attempts to block the deal in the Senate failed on 13/6/2017. Just imagine what the Saudis can do, not only with tanks and weaponry but also with the radar, communications and cybersecurity technology they have been promised! Truly, the thought should make your hair stand on end.

While many analysts tend to focus exclusively on Saudi oil and the country’s leading position in OPEC when explaining the West’s shameful relationship with Saudi Arabia, I believe we need to take a closer look at Saudi Arabia’s fascinating consumption of arms. Why is the country so obsessed with weaponry? I find that Newsweek has an interesting take on the matter. Here are a few tidbits:

Additionally, … religious restrictions within Saudi Arabia make it nearly impossible for the kingdom to diversify or grow its non-oil economy. … Thus, as discussed in “Why the Saudis May Be Preparing for a Real War”, due to … a steady decline in the relative importance of oil in the world economy, …. hawks within Saudi Arabia’s political establishment may have decided to grow their economy not internally but externally, through conquest and violent expansion. Accordingly, Saudi Arabia has dedicated 13 percent of its gross domestic product to its military for six years and has become the largest per capita purchaser of weapons in the world.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Teresa May is embarrassed in more ways than one. Not only is Saudi Arabia probably grooming potential terrorists among marginalised British citizens (e.g. the victims of the recent ghastly fire and their friends and relatives), but the UK economy depends on that distant medieval country. I quote the Economist:

The war in Yemen has certainly been lucrative. Since the bombardment began in March 2015, Saudi Arabia has spent £2.8 billion on British arms, making it Britain’s largest arms market, according to government figures analysed by Campaign Against Arms Trade. America supplies even more.

Let’s face it, however, the US and the UK are not the only countries who depend on arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

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