To follow and to seek

The world seems to be going through a bad time with Iran developing nuclear capability, North Korea testing it and violence erupting in Africa, although the latter somehow escapes the British media. They don’t seem interested in what goes on in Africa, perhaps they see it as a backward continent plagued by poverty, AIDS and ‘ethnic conflict’. They should look more closely and, among other things, would also find their 'pet love': radical religion.
The problem with violence is its internalisation. It is always the ‘first’ response, a very instinctive one, yet one that is justified as being realistic when not wholly rational. People are so attached to violence (often referred to as force or intervention, to make it sound better and camouflage its nature) that I’m not sure we’ll ever allow peace to flourish. I’m not a pacifist because there is still tiranny, oppression and repression in our world and the possibility of aggression cannot be discounted in any case. However, I suppose I am a ‘pacificistic’, one who thinks that much more can be done and must be done in order to avoid violence and educate ourselves to gradual change, dialogue, co-operation and peace. There will be circumstances where a small amount of aggression could be justify to remove a dictator (for example through supporting a coup d’état not a war like some cretins think).
However, according to a recent poll, 82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people.
The problem with religion, or better, with religious authorities is that they have sacralised violence and thus heavily contributed to justify it (as in ‘making it just’, although Agustine’s just war theory aimed to limit the use of aggression). Pretty much all religions have done so in one form or another when they aligned themselves with political power. Religious authorities and ‘ideologues’ justified war by referring to the sacred texts thus betraying them. The struggle is with oneself to overcome one’s faults, weaknesses, evil impulses (such as aggressiveness!) not with an external other. The Other is within us. To interpret is as a physical struggle is to diminish the text, the potential of human beings and reduce life to predatory survival (be it of life itself or of ideology). So the problem is interpretation. Who has the authority to interpret the texts? Whose interpretation should one consider ‘valid’?
We are back to power again in the form of established authority. Today, in a democratic and consumeristic society, religious authority cannot rely solely on structures, but also on followers. Although most religious authorities are not elected and therefore cannot be removed, what is true for politicians is also true for them: they should not abuse their position (e.g. by promoting what is harmful to their followers and the rest of society) and use demagoguery. Needless to say, some politicians and religious figures, happily engage in both!
However, I believe the world of democratic politics has a lot to teach to some form of religion (and viceversa).
1. Politics is reasonable compromise. Intransigence and radicalisation lead to division and conflict and are not sustainable in the democratic process.
2. A constitutio (in the latin sense). Authorities require checks and balances by other institutions, to say it with Montesquieu, "Pour qu'on ne puisse abuser du pouvoir, il faut que, par la disposition des choses, le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir", but they also need to be limited in their exercise of power by individuals’ liberty, liberty to choose one’s religion, what to follow, what theology and what interpretation.

Pluralism presents us with the opportunity to remedy the shortcomings of democracy, namely the ‘dictatorship’ of the majority as if it was a homogeneous whole resulting in constraints on dissent. Religion necessitates pluralism just as much. So far, authorities have been all too keen in telling us what to think, what is right and what is wrong, but very reluctant to furnish us with the means to interpret texts and tradition, thus exercising our conscience and seeking the truth. The truth can only be sought through the consideration of multiple and various aspects and meanings. The truth can only be found and lived not be imposed upon. The difference here is between those who follow and thus need dogmas or ‘ready-made’ doctrines, and those who seek.
Thus the tower of Babel was destroyed and their speech confused so that each one of them would struggle with oneself and seek the truth.

What powers for the Welsh Assembly?

It'd be nice to know exactly what powers the Assembly, or better the Welsh Executive, will have from next May.
There are the Orders in Council that, once gone through Westminster, will enable the Assembly and the Welsh Executive to make measures in the fields prescribed in the Government of Wales Act.
However, Bills keep on coming through giving powers to the Assembly in such as way that it seems London understands devolution better than the Assembly does. For example, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill gives power to the Assembly to reorganise the whole of local government in Wales if they so wish. I'm all in favour of more powers, but I'm not sure the Assembly asked for it. It seems more the result perhaps of a chat between Ministers in Cardiff Bay and Ministers in London. It doesn't sound very accountable to me because the Assembly had no input in what kind of powers they wanted.
Another 'funny' thing happened, it appears that Defra issued their paper on some recent marine legislation for England only, which means there will not be any parallel legislation in Wales for years.
The most interesting example, though, comes from the Education and Inspections Act 2006. The Minister acknowledges that they need to hurry if they want to make sure that the Assembly gets the powers to make measures not the Executive.
Framework powers contained in Westminster Bills shortcut the Assembly completely, however the Secretary of State might have woken up to the fact that this means the Welsh Executive could have more powers that the Secretary of State and, in theory, the Scottish Executive. So here he rushes to propose an Order in Council to amend the Government of Wales Act. How about this? The Secretary of State for Wales amending the constitutional Act he himself presented to the Assembly in 2005?
I suppose that's what comes with not having a written constitution. It'll be great fun for the lawyers and they'll need many given that we still don't know what standing orders the Assembly will have for measures coming from Assembly Members, for those coming from committees, for those coming from the Executive, from petitions and so on.
I should have gone back to law! :)

Scoop...

Scoop! Israel has nuclear weapons!
Olmert might not have meant it but his gaffe showed how ridiculous Israel's policy of 'nuclear ambiguity' is. They do themselves no favour by asking him to resign.
On the positive side, the peace process might be back on track.

Off to the playground, boys!

...Told you it was propaganda! Not that there were any doubts, however Ahmadinejad forgot to “scientifically study the Holocaust and listen to both sides before reaching a conclusion" and went on to repeat his onslaught against Israel at his (?) conference. According to the Guardian, "the president, who has dismissed the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis as a myth told up to 70 visiting speakers that the Israeli state would soon be wiped out".
Sooner that you can say 'wiped out' and here come Bolton and Dershowitz trying to charge Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide.
Now, if this wasn't an armswrestling between the US and Iran it would actually be interesting. When is it legitimate to intervene?
The fact is that states (those that are signatories of the Geneva convention) are under obligation to intervene in case of genocide. But when do states decide that it's genocide? They waited an awful long time before intervening in Rwanda, in fact the US and France did their best to avoid calling it a genocide.
Under the Geneva convention, 'direct and public incitement to commit genocide' is punishable. Mhm, in reality I can't see the UN going ahead with something like this. The point is that Iran and the US are playing at radicalising positions. It reminds one of the Cold War, doesn't it?
We've seen what this competition has led to in Lebanon, time they leave diplomacy and international affairs to grown-ups. Now, off to the playground, boys!

Shocking, ridiculous and stupid?

Tony Blair condemned the conference on the holocaust organised by Iran as being “shocking, ridiculous and stupid". I reckon it is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad teasing the West once again about Israel so to raise his profile and establish popular support. According to HaAretz “many Iranians admitted to embarrassment about the event, which follows Iran's decision to hold a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust in October”. The conference is therefore some sort of way of ‘getting it back’ following the Danish cartoons’ incident. The claim made is that, if offensive Danish cartoons were allowed on the ground of freedom of speech, so should the conference. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that it fails to recognise that the Danish cartoons were an opinion, an offensive one maybe, but not a statement of fact.
That’s why I don’t think it helps when people complain that the conference is offensive. That’s not an argument. The point is that it’s bad history and it’s a propagandistic distortion of the facts. Propaganda has political ends, in this case is aimed at establishing Iran as a Middle East ‘superpower’ in competition with Israel and the United States, among other things. I believe it is these political ends one ought to grapple with, not on whether a biased conference is insulting. Ahmadinejad says the conference ‘Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision’ is to “scientifically study the Holocaust and listen to both sides before reaching a conclusion". Given his views, we can confidently say that’ll mostly be propaganda. However, to denigrate it doesn’t answer the allegation. Sadly, one doesn’t stop propaganda by ignoring it, but by showing historical evidence and unmasking the real aims of the conference. Historians should have attended to reiterate the overwhelming evidence. This would have also provided us with the opportunity to see how many would have been forbidden to attend. For example, Khaled Mahameed, an Arab-Israeli and Muslim lawyer, said on Monday to HaAretz “that Iran had refused him permission to attend the conference, where he had planned to confront those who deny the Nazi genocide took place.” Perhaps the organisers might want to explain that!
“Meanwhile, the Simon Wisenthal Center on Monday called for signatories to a petition to the United Nations condemning the conference. The center has also organized a convention "simultaneous to the Tehran hate-fest," it said, called Witness To The Truth.”
Things like this, however, make many within world Jewry uncomfortable. Some feel that the holocaust has been exploited to justify any action taken by the State of Israel against its enemies. British Rabbi Ahron Cohen, who went to the conference, said "we certainly say there was a Holocaust, we lived through the Holocaust. But in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians." The holocaust is still fresh in most Jewish memories and antisemitism is still around. However, there are people who, because of the holocaust, feel they need to defend any action Israel takes because it could happen again and Israel would be the only place where jews could find refuge. Yet, I believe survival means refusal to identify oneself as victim. We should not forget, we should always remember, but memory should lead us to act with justice so that it doesn’t happen again, to anyone.

Has the web resurrected the radio?

I was rather glad to learn that Channel 4 is launching an alternative to BBC Radio 4. Although I'm one of those who uses 'indeed' a lot, I find most of Radio 4 frustrating. There are some very good programmes, but when Radio 4 proposed to its listeners to make suggestions on what could replace the Shipping Forecast, the greatest majority wrote against the change, notwithstanding some good ideas. I doubt it was the majority of listeners, only the majority of those who have nothing to do but defend their attachment to something they enjoy simply because it's been there all along. Of course, not all change or innovation is good change, BUT!!! Our lives are shaped by the world around us, not a nostalgic past. We live in cities, we travel the world and share the place where we live with people who come from other cultures, born and brought up somewhere else where there's no Shipping Forecast, and that's me by the way!
And it would be nice if they could learn to pronounce foreign words or names instead of anglicising them out of sheer smugness.
But as I said, I don't dislike Radio 4, there are quite a few programmes I like such as Civilizations, Just a minute and Mastering the Universe or Analysis and so on, but Channel 4 gave us Father Ted and Jon Snow's news so I'm very hopeful.
I'd love to see a portal from which one could easily access news, newspapers, radios and other programmes from each country within the EU at least. The internet has allowed us to be able to choose what we read, listen to or watch from all sources. This, I think, it's still in its infancy and is fraught with problems. The internet is the perfect vehicle for dangerous propaganda because it has no borders, cannot be policed and is ruled by the logic of the market place. Contrary to what J.S. Mill, thought, the 'truth' does not triumph in the free market place of ideas. It's quite often the opposite if there is no competition, no alternative offers, there is no opportunity to deepen one's understanding of an issue. It is information and the ability to understand it (which should come from education) that makes one free. That is the basis of democracy. It is down to us to use it to seek the truth and be critical and open minded, and it's down to good journalists and researchers around the world to challenge our complacency.