In defence of the British tabloid

Who would have thought that I would write one day a post with such a title ?

I have been living two years in Washington and during several cumulative hours spent queuing at supermarkets cashiers, I have had time to form an opinion about the local tabloids. Despite my deep hatred for their British counterparts, I have to admit that comparing them to the American ones is a bit like comparing P. G. Wodehouse to Danielle Steel or, and this will lead me to the next point, Bach to Stockhausen. The very strict libel laws in Britain mean that a tabloid needs to exercise great care in balancing a sensationalist message that might hint at outrageous things, with the need of not saying things which are actually untrue. In America, where one can say more or less whatever one wishes, we learned that Prince William forbade his father from inviting the latter's gay lover to the royal wedding. Neither publication appeals to me but at least I admire the skill required to publish a tabloid in Britain. (And I am not talking about phone hacking.)

I cannot recall one in particular at the moment but one has also to admit that some of the puns in tabloid headlines are quite clever.

As the Economist keeps reminding readers, in Britain journalism is a trade not a profession which means that there is a less status/snobbery associated with it. Contrary to what an outsider might think I believe that in a journalist's resume an early stint at a tabloid not only is not a handicap but it is probably a strength.

Having said that I am glad they are getting a little rap on the knuckles right now.

Gender free baby and giving liberals a bad name

Those who follow this blog would agree that Joe the Plumber would confidently classify me as belonging to the liberal elite. And yet when I read things like these I feel a warm fuzzy feeling towards Sarah Palin and the evangelical right. The idea of raising three kids that way, including the third supposedly gender free, is for me no better than not believing in evolution. When the left wonders what happened to the right they should look at the idiots in their own backyard.

The silver lightning

Lexington is pessimistic. I want to believe that in what looks like a very dark moment of the peace process there is an element of hope. One could say that it's darkest before dawn or something about the end of the beginning, in any case I cannot believe that things will continue like this.

Netanyahu felt confident of the backing of two elements in American society (leaving the traditional Jewish lobby aside), the evangelical/conservative masses who consider being not-pro-Israel tantamount to being un-American and the Republican establishment who believe, with a thinking worthy of a 1930s Bolshevik, that beating Obama is worth seeing one's own president humiliated at home.

The fate of the first group is linked to the fate of the Republican party in general and it is hard to predict: ten years from now we'll have more or less of the Joe the Plummer/Palin phenomenon? As far as the second is concerned I want to believe that once the political establishment snaps away from the pre-electoral frenzy they will all agree that one does not treat the President (and the US by extension) that way and get away with it.

Why Atlas Shrugged won't be the Tea Party's Passion

Atlas shrugged is not a masterpiece and yet is a great and unique book. It is a weird book. It has many flaws (too long, repeated messages, at times wooden dialogues, etc.). It has some amazing moments. I like to think of it as I think of Brahms's first piano concerto: weird, gangly, awkward, many times out of place and yet at moment you stop and say "wow, this guy is going to go far!". The good thing for Brahms is that he went on to write the second, Ayn Rand did not.

The greatness of the book is that it is beautifully written propaganda and I am not being sarcastic. Kipling managed to write masterpieces praising the British Empires, Ayn Rand managed to write a great book praising without reserve the liberal (in the true, non-American sense of the word) spirit. It is true that the book loses itself here and there, but when it's on focus it has an immense power. What is even more amazing is that Atlas shrugged managed to be considered a masterpiece in a literary world that (although here I am speaking from a European experience) usually is dominated by the left.

I have not seen the movie, I have heard mixed reviews. Instinctively I would say that this is the typical book that would lend itself to a great cinematic version: it has a strong simple message and the book itself could do with a trimming. What I am commenting on is something I have seen mentioned a while ago: hordes of Tea Party activists booking cinemas in block the same way as church goers did with Mel Gibson's Passion.

I have my doubts. Christian faith is one of the most complex subjects the human mind can tackle, far more than economics. Yet faith has a very simple and clear distinction between what is abstract and what is practical, between what is on earth and what is elsewhere. Moreover christian fundamentalists all agree with Mel Gibson's movie's message. When it comes to the Tea Party and Atlas Shrugged I am not so sure things would be so clear. First of all the Tea Party movements (thankfully and it is a praise to its dynamism) lacks the homogeneity of the christian evangelist movement, second I am not sure they would agree with Ayn Rand's message (despite the fact that many think they do). Tea Party activists asking to "Stay away from my Social Security!"? Do you even think there is room in Rand's world for social security (of the entitlement type we are used to)? Tea Party activists raging against "death panels" (implying "when I am on Medicare I want to be able so spend as much as I want")? Have you read Rand's contempt for this sort of whining? Have you forgotten what she thinks of the statements " ... to each according to his need ..."?

Why the Economist is the greatest publication in the world

It is no secret what the Economist thinks of private and public sector unions. The fact that despite that the Economist would publish an article in memory of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire praising, in a way, the birth of unionized labour and labour laws is another example of a great, fair and balanced publication.

The last cry of the middle class

A bit homesick and longing for some London footage I have been avidly following the student protests over the news.

Am I the only one noticing how everyone interviewed on camera seems to have a suspiciously plummy accent? Even allowing for the fact that the most articulated and educated protesters are the one most likely to get interviewed and that maybe some journalists are worried of approaching less polished ones still they seemed the only one they could get their hands on. I don't know if I should make allowance for this because on the other hand it would be a good scoop for a journalist to get on camera a barely comprehensible student from East Ham.

My point is the same that I have been making for a while, the ones that are going to lose from all this are the middle classes (in the English sense, i.e. the relatively well off) not the poor they claim to speak for. That class of people (perfectly described in Millenium People by Ballard) that is squeezed between the poor and the people (nowadays made mainly of bankers and Russians) who can send their kids to a good public school without thinking twice about the cost. The people who send their kids to University because it is the thing to do, but who take for granted that it should be free because otherwise it would be a considerable expense.

The poor's situation is different. No one seems to realize (or state openly) that the real cost of a University education to someone who does not consider it as the natural thing to do is not only the tuition fees (and the living expenses) but the missed income one would get from being employed. Someone taking the conscious decision (in this situation) to get a degree will not be put off by a further tuition fee. I can hear "but it is an enormous amount!". I hope that you know what I mean. If you are someone who considers University as a natural part of your life completely severed from any financial calculations, obviously 9000 pounds seem a lot, if you are someone who made a cool headed decision to treat a degree as an investment with a clear business plan, then 9000 it will be just a different cost.

I always like to compare the rage of the middle classes over tuition fees to my own rage over air travel. 25 years ago one could travel economy and arrive 40 mins before departure with only one or two people at the check in; one could find Boeing 747 with barely 20 people in coach cabin (when is the last time you had even only one empty seat next to you?). One could travel in economy (leaving aside the guilt about pollution and waste) with some of the comfort one can only find in business now. Not being able to afford business class when I travel on my own, I feel angry at the world, at low cost airlines that have pushed everyone to cut costs, at the yobs that now scoot around Europe when in the past they would have at most traveled by bus to Ibiza and in general at how things have changed. Basically I expect something without having to pay for it. Just like the middle classes expect to get a university education without having to pay for it.

Another image from The road past Mandalay by John Masters. He was in the 30s a British officer coming from a long line of Indian British officers. Not wealthy but considering a certain position in the world as a given (like the present day protesters): on his way back from American, he is short of cash and on the boat he cannot buy first class tickets, settling for second class. On the first evening without thinking twice he is entering the first class bar when the doorman stops him. John Masters looks at him shocked, I am a British officer, of course I should be allowed to enter, my ticket type should not matter. Unfortunately it was an American ship, where things work differently ...

As The Economist said a while ago, these elections will signal the end of the era of the free stuff and contrary to popular belief it will not be the poorest to suffer the most.

The exceptionally incredible

I followed a link from Lexington's notebook which brought me to the Daily Dish. Very interesting, if sad.

As far as the incident itself I thought when I heard it the first time that Obama was being not only very tactful, but extremely mature. Finally someone who speaks like a grown up. Andrew Sullivan's post is as usual very well written, what I find a bit upsetting is that he focuses too much on proving Obama's detractors wrong rather than showing what, by putting America's exceptional nature in perspective, a mature answer he gave.

My main point is however the shock at this paragraph from Jonah Goldberg

This reminded me of the wonderful scene in Pixar's "The Incredibles," in which the mom says "everyone's special" and her son replies, "Which is another way of saying no one is."

I am amazed. If we think carefully, as an example we are seeing brought to the table a (pseudo-)similar situation involving superheroes (animated ones to top it off). I cannot help feeling this is only the most explicit manifestation of a nation of little boys saying, superheroes exist, superheroes exist and there is one supernation and it's us. No wonder Obama's maturity is a bit lost on them.

"Don't ask don't tell" is a problem only because Americans chose to turn it into one

Americans don't do subtle. The expression wearing your heart on your sleeve for Americans applies to everything, everything has to be worn on the outside, including your religion, your private life and people think your are weird if you don't. When Tony Blair was asked why he would not talk more about his faith he replied "I don't want people to think I am a nutter." This very British approach would be lost on Americans. If you are religious you have to tell everyone, if you breastfeed you have to do it in the middle of a crowded restaurant so that everyone knows, if you don't drink or smoke you have to lecture everyone about it. This brings us to gays in the army.

I always thought "Don't ask don't tell" was an intelligent and pragmatic solution to a thorny issue. You don't judge my private life, I don't rub it in your face. Let us be realistic, soldiers are not among the most enlightened people around, there is a very strong chance that quite a few of them are homophobic. Is our goal really to reeducate a whole class of people which are already doing a difficult job, on the benefits of progress and a liberal mind?

One might argue this is unacceptable, society has to move forward, one should not condone intolerance and bigotry. The argument would continue saying that otherwise one would say that desegregation should not have happened since the feelings of Southern whites might have been hurt. It is different, segregation applied to a person's entire life, we are not advocating "Don't ask don't tell" as a blanket policy everywhere, only in very specific circumstances of a very specific and unique job, a job that affects a tiny percentage of the population.

I see a similarity in saying, I have the right to walk in the most dangerous part of town in the middle of the night, dressed in bright yellow with 100 dollar bills pinned on my jacket and come out safely. Considering this statement ridiculous does it mean that we condone crime? Certainly not, we just say that one has to be realistic. The state does its bit by trying to protect normal citizens going around their business, the citizen does his bit by not being stupid with the above request. "Don't ask don't tell" was a way of being pragmatic and a reminder of how Clinton could be a great politician.

Leaving all reasoning aside, I have another feeling. Advocates of the ban talk about "The right of men and women to serve their country .... ". My feeling is that gay men and women who really want to serve their country they do it keeping their private life private, advocates of the ban are just troublemakers who want to make a statement. I am always doubtful of decisions made with an argument that at the end boils down to "Why not?".

The bitter after taste of the Kerviel affair

Behind the ferocity with which the French population treated the women who had slept with Germans after the war, one could see the frustration of men who wished had done something but instead cowardly stayed on the side.

I cannot but see something similar in the sad affair of Jerome Kerviel. First of all the punishment. What does it mean to make him pay the entire sum he lost, reducing him to a life of bankruptcy? It really looks like the shortsighted thinking of the housewife "he lost (stole) all this money and he has to pay it back". It does not work like that. If one accepts a certain system (and the French broadly speaking they do) one accepts that Jerome Kerviel was not playing with his own money and yes, even if he lost it, he has not to pay it back from his own pocket. A reckless container ship captain will be punished but will never be made to pay for the replacement of the container ship he lost.

I hate what the Italians call "dietrologia" (more or a less a penchant for conspiracy theories) but I wholly agree that someone else must have know and kept quiet when things were going well. It is unbelievable that he was made to bear the brunt of the punishment all by himself. Where is the officer spirit? A superior should always be punished and it is this responsibility that should justify a superior's role, authority and rewards. Nowhere this is better expressed than in the support the troops offer to their major in the Bridge over the River Kwai. There was only finger pointing where there should have been hand wringing. The pointing was done in only one direction.

And finally something else which is only a feeling, but I feel it strongly. BNP and SocGen are outstanding institutions and world class players. Having said that they are no Goldman or Morgan Stanley, when the going was good they played second fiddle to the American giants which means that rewards and compensation were dished out accordingly. Was everyone balancing this with the supposedly warmer working environment (of which I am not even sure) of a European bank? I doubt, there must have been some resentment. It seems to me that the punishment of Jerome Kerviel is a way of venting this frustration. Shaving a woman's head is easier than shooting a German.

Immigration, the bully and the nerd

I strongly suggest viewing this lecture from Bryan Caplan and I suggest, although it is a bit long, to view it in full.

After watching it I had the same reaction I had when I finished Caplan's book "The myth of the rational voter": excitement and sadness. Excitement that someone had finally written in a clear and brilliant way things I had thought and felt, sadness that the outcome will be absolutely useless. In a way it is the direction America is moving towards: we tend to gravitate towards people and publications (even areas, isn't there a neighborhood of Ron Paul supporters?) we have almost everything in common and we become mutually incomprehensible with the rest.

I found the lecture very witty and I enjoyed it enormously, but being an arrogant and condescending person myself, it took me a while to realize that the tone sometimes was a bit too much. We all (all of us?) agree that NY and North Dakota are not really on the same cultural plane, but is there a need to sneer saying this? I wished that the lecture had been given in a tone to convince the "others" not to rally people who more or less already share your views.

There is something more I got out of it and I will have a go at a bit of pop psychology. More than once Caplan attacks high school drop outs and more than once (or maybe just once) he mentions the high school bully. One cannot help thinking hearing this that the whole lecture, the whole being smart, Caplan's whole position in life is one big revenge against the high school bully. What I said about the arrogant/condescending bit I say it here as well, I fully understand and share. I used to love that scene in Broadcast News when during the flashback into William Hurt's character's past, he tells the school bully, I'll show you one day, of something along the lines. I understand, but are the people that need to be convinced of Caplan's ideas about immigration going to be so understanding? I doubt. Caplan says, jokingly, that his role is to stand outside society and judge, he might be right, he is not a politician after all, but it is sad that such great ideas cannot be put to more constructive use.

The problem is that the Big Three are building exactly what the customer wants

I am still not sure whether I think it is a good idea to bail out the Big Three, probably at the end the choice will be a political one and it will be a yes. However I thought about some points raised during the hearing and I think that the whole issue is at the heart of the changing landscape of the american and world economy.

Rick Wagoner said that because of the credit crisis customers were not able to keep up with the financing rates to purchase a new car. For a non-american this statement seems a bit strange: Wagoner did not say they have not enough cash, he said they cannot keep up with the payments. This means that debt is taken for granted, it is a fact of life. Of course under a financial point of view debt in not necessarily evil, it can make sense if your investment returns more than servicing the debt.

A quote often thrown around is the one by Adam Smith saying that we should often compare the common sense in which we conduct family finances to the one we should apply to managing the finances of a country. All this however should be taken carefully since a family's credit rating can change more dramatically than a country's and it is harder to restore. Of course Europeans do not understand up to which point a car for an American is a necessity almost as much as a house is to us: we would not raise objections to being in debt to purchase a home. However this does not really matter.

The Big Three have been accused during the hearing of building cars that are not suited to the customer. This is not true. The problem is that they have been doing the opposite. They have been building large, comfortable cars that cost a lot less compared to the competition: who does not like to drive a gorgeous SUV, sitting like a king while the Monument Valley rolls in front of one's eyes and petrol is at 2 dollars a gallon? American enjoy what car buyers in Europe only see in commercials. This could not last forever: the problem is with the customer. One cannot have everything, something has to give in this picture, be it the size of the car, the price, the price of petrol ... (fortunately not the landscape). Finance has been deleveraging for a while, the american consumer needs to deleverage his/her expectations and the American manufacturing industry has to follow accordingly.

For a long time America has been the land of plenty and probably few things have represented this (and the contrast to the rest of the rich world) as much as its cars. Things unfortunately have to change. I wish for America's sake, and for all those who look at the United States as an almost magical place to move to one day, that the abundance was not only fruit of the large leverage at which personal finances were in debt. Debt is not evil and a healthy relation to it is a positive thing: it is a matter of size, just like the cars.

Upfront payment for the TARP

These days bankers are wearing cone hats and it is almost impossible to say anything in their defence. Even if you think that something might be said, it is extremely political incorrect to do so. It is far from my intention to defend the excesses and mistakes of the financial industry, but a little calculation could be interesting. Let us assume that the financial industry as a whole paid for the past ten years $ 100bn each year in bonuses. This is a conservative figure considering the Goldman Sachs alone paid $ 16bn last year: since it is conservative we can assume that everyone paid an average 40% income tax on that amount. Compounded at an average interest rate the total amount exceeds $ 500bn. It is not difficult to argue that financial professionals are a very small burden for the state since for many things such as education, health, transportation, welfare, etc. they go private. Even if this number is too large and the actual one is somewhat smaller, it still covers a considerable share of the TARP fund amount. All this is to mitigate the public outrage at the industry making a mess and then asking the taxpayer to bear the burden: a lot of it was paid upfront by the industry members themselves.

The dream: McCain running mate of a Democrat.

I am going to write it now to see whether in three months time I’ll be able to say “I said so”. Wouldn’t it be great if John McCain were Hilary Clinton’s running mate? Four years ago when the papers basically asked McCain to be Kerry’s running mate I thought it was a shame that he did not accept: I now realize that he was extremely wise in refusing. My wanting someone else than Bush clouded my judgment towards a politician that one could not define other than mediocre; to tie himself to someone like that would have ended his political career with a whimper. McCain knows that running on a bipartisan ticket can only be attempted once.

Now things are different. To start with, McCain is getting a little old and if one aims at an eight year stint at the White House, realistically this is his last chance. Moreover McCain is too clever for the electorate (so much so that sometime he tries desperately to appear a little more idiotic by doing things like singing “Bomb, bomb Iran”) and he needs to team with someone that has a bit more political clout. Teaming with Hilary Clinton would be a chance of doing so and at the same time pair up with an extremely clever person.

To be honest if McCain were vice president one could even afford a president less experienced than Hilary Clinton, what about an Obama-McCain ticket? Certainly more human. In all cases, if McCain accepted to run as vice president of a Democrat it would show that not all is lost for those two precious creatures, liberalism and intelligence, so rare on the political scene.

"Les Bienveillantes" and the clash between absolute and particular

Les Bienveillantes by Jonathan Little is a book that touches upon one of the most important problems in the interaction between people, the problem of the link between the absolute and the particular. How can we reconcile our idea of a nation with the specific elements we might encounter? Do we need to have “an idea of a nation”?

The book is a first person account of the life of an SS officer, Dr. Max Aue, from the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union to the day Berlin fell. The officer writes this many years later as a French citizens (we later learn that he is bilingual and spent many years in his youth in France) and it is only in the last few lines that we learn how he managed to survive the Reich’s fall.

Dr. Aue is not just any SS officer but one that is directly involved at higher and higher levels of responsibility in the solution of the Jewish question, first in the East where Jews were viewed as potential troublemakers behind enemy lines and then in Poland in the camps. He does not enjoy it but the portrayal of Dr. Aue’s character is not as clichéd as the typical Schubert-lover-among-the-barbarians: he is sexually and emotionally cold, engaging only in casual sexual encounters with men hoping that one day he will sleep again with his twin sister, he hates his mother in a ferocious way and longs for a long lost father that later turns out to have been a Freikorp monster. When faced with the horrors he has to witness or take part he is annoyed (for lack of better word) but he does not rebel against. He is just normal which of course for the reader means only a little monster instead of a large one, but for him it is just being normal. In many ways (the love for his sister could be a clue) he reminds me a little of Ulrich in “The man without qualities”, although I am not sure if it is intentional.

The first violence we see is the one perpetrated by the German SS in Ukraine but even more by the local population in Lublin against the Jews and the suspected NKDV officers. It is a general orgy in which no one seems to question what happens; Max watches from the sides. However the more the war continues and the more many Jews are found the more a practical problem is symptoms of something deeper. Why were the gas chamber introduced? It was not only because one could kill people on an industrial scale, but also because it eliminates the intermediate steps between the absolute idea “exterminating the Jews” and the actual action carried out by the guards. The soldiers executing the early orders either reacted with horror or took too much pleasure in it, a sadistic tone that no professional army would want among its troops. It is a telling paradox the one where the people at the top wanted the orders to be carried out but without displaying any emotions in either way. Why were the decisions kept in secret, why were the Wansee conference minutes cleaned of any statements too explicit? One reason is the fear, particularly towards the end of the Allies revenge, but another was that all this, even in case of victory, had to be kept secret from the German people, because one thing is to approve of the absolute idea, another is to approve of the particular.

A critic often made of this book is that it is too long and at times pedantic, a particular section being taken as example is the one about the Tats. I believe that it is the opposite and that section is crucial (besides being extremely interesting). When the Germans arrive in the Caucasus they cannot decide whether to consider a local Jewish population, the Tats, which as far as customs, language and relationship with their neighbours are concerned are indistinguishable from their Muslim fellow men as being truly Jewish. The alternative is to consider them Bergjuden, a people descending from the Khazars, an ancient tribe that converted to Judaism: if they are related to people that have converted, they are not racially Jewish and therefore should be spared. The SS wants to consider them as truly Jewish, the Army, in order to avoid having to fight off potential retaliations from other mountain tribes, disagrees. The absurdity of the situation is a typical example of the need, in the eyes of the leaders of the Reich, to consider the matter in the absolute way: if one does not, there is a risk of getting lost in the particular.

The book is too long however in other aspects, particularly the family angle. It is needed to give a backdrop to the character, but it should be kept to a minimum. The long reverie in the frozen waters in Stalingrad reminds me of another reverie (the skiing-cum-Port scene) in another good but too long book, The Magic Mountain: we would not have suffered its absence.

It is hard today to gauge which direction the world is taking in this respect. The unlikelihood of a large conventional war and a media that brings us closer and closer to the events would suggest that we are moving away from a conflict of absolutes but there is always someone behind that pushes for it (the Christmas Truces in WWI were stopped to keep the clash between absolutes neat and tidy) and in our age this can only mean something even worse that what the world has witnessed, maybe a spectacular terrorist attack, a nuclear deployment ….

Let's stop caring and things will improve

I believe that two things are the scourge of western society: an irresponsible (the word is chosen so as not to create offence) electorate and an overly abundant press. The second of these problems is closely related to something I find particularly annoying: the "civilian deaths" obsession.
Every time that something happens (particularly at the hand of the West) headlines scream about the civilian body count. Leaving aside that many so called civilians are not civilians at all, this reaction does not help anyone. First it motivates fighters to position themselves among civilians so as to use them as shield and second it causes civilians themselves to act foolishly. During the actual Iraq war (as opposed to the subsequent fighting) you could see civilians running around in the streets. Any Milanese or Londoner of the age of my grandparents would know that when you hear bombs flying you stay put, in those days because you knew they were aimed at you, today because, well, you never know. Cameras and headlines are no shield to the dying.
It might seem brutal but if we stop caring (by caring of course I mean the squeamish superficial care given by the average morning commuter) civilians death will significantly decrease.
There is a second point to be made, one concerning civilian responsibility. I will take as an example the civilians victims (victims to be intended as dead, injured or homeless) of the recent Israel incursion in Lebanon (which I do not necessarily consider to have been wise). A civilian is injured during an attack against Hizbullah: several options present themselves. The civilian is either an active supporter or a sympathizer of Hizbullah: in this case he is as responsible as an actual fighter. The civilian does not support Hizbullah: in this situation either he should chase the fighters away from his neighbourhood or, should this (very likely) fail, he should move because after that to blame Israel for his misfortune is like blaming a lightening if we casually lean over a lamppost during a thunderstorm. Let me stress the he can blame Israel, but as himself an active participant, not as a casual victim just as if I get strike by lightening I would say “Of course it is the storm’s fault, but I played no small part in leaning over a lamppost”. By excusing civilians in this situation again we are not doing them any favour: if we were to put blame (or, more neutrally, responsibility) where it truly stands, civilians who are actually innocent will certainly make an effort to distance themselves from the others.

The "no alternative" situation: what Jews have to teach nationalists all over the world

A naive and yet logical observer might be surprised reading Turkey's warning to Iraqi Kurds in the matter of independence. His reasoning would roughly follow these lines: in Turkey's eyes Turkey's own Kurds are a problem; the birth of a neighbouring Kurdistan would act as a magnet by spiriting Kurds across the border solving a lot of internal problems. Why oppose it then?

This is indeed a naive view because of course Turkey fears that a neighbouring Kurdistan would prompt Turkey's own Kurds either to strive towards an independent state or towards an annexation of their part of Turkey with the newborn state.

At the birth of Israel Jews were given an oddly shaped state, small, hard to defend and rather barren but this was the chance given to them and they would not waste it by asking for more. They did not try to extend it (ouch! I can hear the anti-Zionists cringe) and they made one of their goals to attract all the world's Jews. (The fact that many Sephardi complained about the way the were treated does not change the fact that they were welcome in Israel.)

In this Kurds are at fault in not making clear, by word or deed, that, first, they would not want to carve anything out of Turkey and second, that they would welcome any Turkish Kurd into Iraqi Kurdistan turning it into some sort of Kurdish Israel. About this second point I am not sure they would. We are talking about Kurdistan but there are other fairly similar situations.

The "no alternative" situation is the one where Jews took what they were offered and toiled for it, knowing that this was all they could get. If you will it, it's not a dream: I guess that many nations across the world prefer to keep dreaming.

The Iraq war and the London bombings, what's there to discuss?

I saw it mentioned again recently. As soon as the smoke cleared in the London underground, from all sides (actually one) came the accusation that the attack was a direct response to the support given by Blair to the war. This through several passages put the blame on Blair and the people behind him. Irrespective as to whether I am in favour or against the war, my intelligence feels insulted both by the prosecutors and the defendant.
Of course there is direct link between the two, not only it creates a great reason in a terrorist's mind, but the perpetrators said as much. The next reply would be though, so what? If A asks for B's seat on the train and after B's refusal he shoots C, is B responsible for C's death? Of course we need to enquire into B's action, but let us not forget that there is a reason why governments do not deal with kidnappers. It is important to decide up to which point we let ourselves be manipulated and held hostage. This is so simple that I am upset that someone as intelligent as Tony Blair would yield to the general stupidity and deny the charge. Moreover it is not even a choice dictated by politics because by doing that he is not pleasing anyone. I would even forgive someone usually so articulate if he replied, so what?

Did anyone say partition?

As one can see from the date on the last posting a long time has passed. I decided that I will change my approach to the composition of this page and rather than spend a lot of time in composing long winded pages, I will write smaller postings in the hope that they will be more frequent.

I will ask two open questions: how about partitioning Iraq? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it? As everyone knows a lot of the problems of an ethnic nature within modern states are caused by the fact that these states are the products of colonial creations. (To the accusation that Britain is at greater fault than other countries one can simply reply that this is because Britain had more colonies and not because of other more nefarious reasons.) Subsequent events led sometimes to partition (e.g. Pakistan) and sometimes not (e.g. Nigeria): sometimes even to reunification as in Vietnam. One could be justified in wondering why it is so hard to break up something that in the first place was put together is such an artificial way. One reason could be that the people put in charge by the departing power were not necessarily of the most honest nature and therefore a larger country has a large scope for greed. Another is that some people honestly believed in artificial ideals, the same type of people (together with the ones that enjoy the kleptocratic element of it) that put and keep together the artificial creation that Italy is.

The situation in Iraq (one of Britain’s creations) is dire. That the problem lies with the relation between three ethnic groups is evident to anyone and yet no one seems to propose the simplest solution: partition. Technically speaking, and this makes the implementation of it far easier than, say, Bosnia, apart from few spots the three groups are geographically well separated. Moreover, under a more selfish point of view, the people that should be in favour of it (Shiites and Kurds) are in power and have the oil fields in their portion of territory. Why the coalition does not propose it is more understandable. They do not want to be accused of breaking up a country. For some naïve reasons in an age of internationalism and globalisation people favour more unions than partitions. Also, they would be doing to the Sunnis something not very pleasant: not only they took the power away from them, but they would be taking the oil as well: it is hard to judge what the consequences would be, the Arab/Islamic propaganda machine is very powerful.
I am still asking the question. How bad do things need to become before anyone else joins me?

Islam and belonging

Politicians, particularly in the aftermath of the recent events in London, have made a point of repeating the mantra that Islamic suicide bombers are only a very small minority of Muslims and Islam itself is a religion which in its essence is a religion of peace.

While this statement makes perfect political sense, it would be foolish, and wrong, to alienate a large portion of the population, the situation is a lot more complicated. A crucial point of it is that Islam is, like Christianity or Judaism, a revealed monotheistic religion. One thing that can be said objectively is that such religions cannot conceive competition: to attract, or to keep, followers it has to be the best and its adherents must be the only ones to whom it is offered a chance for a good afterlife.

Nowadays it is considered narrow-minded and medieval, but at the deepest level we do believe, if we believe, that the others will burn in hell simply for belonging to another religion. The (mainly Judeo-Christian) West is now in a position of social and economic predominance and therefore tolerance and openness is quite an easy mantle to wear. The Islamic world on the contrary is in a position of clear political and economic inferiority and the question is clear in front of many Muslim eyes, “Why is that that we, the superior people, are not on top?” If we lived in an Islam dominated world, probably we would have Christian suicide bombers. This statement is of course absurd and dictated purely by symmetry and the situation is far from symmetric, but its absurdity should at least constitute ground for thought.

A solution to this problem will not be found written on this page but at least we should admit that the problem is much bigger than a simple exercise in social engineering: it is the symptom of a dynamical process far beyond our reach, just like the extinction of certain animal species or long term weather changes.

The hatred that so much of the Muslim world feels for us is a perfect natural feeling, not the mad outburst of a few exalted people, natural as the fact that some animals will disappear forever from the face of the earth. We should not roll our eyes and pretend we are facing a small singularity: we have to steer our ship through a continuous process. This process is a stormy one and, as it pitches different people against each another, it is interesting to ponder about what belonging can mean.

It has been argued at great length that since the end of the cold war the world has been more and more divided along lines that discard ideologies in order to embrace affinities based on culture and even more religion. Jews have often been accused of feeling Jewish first and only after to feel any allegiance to their country of birth or residence: this could now become the norm with many other people and in particular with Muslims. The interesting thing is that to admit this is considered taboo in our society, it is admitting to be a bad citizen. Why?

The problem takes a slightly different aspect in Europe and in the United States. In America one should not feel any allegiance to a foreign power, but the actual set of things one should cherish do not matter as long as they are now American, be they the flag or peanut butter. In Europe it is more complicated as one should not only not feel any allegiance to a foreign power, but one should cherish a specific set of tradition and cultural phenomena. It is true that curry is now as English as the proverbial cup of tea, but one could almost view it as the exception that confirms the rule and this in the most open country in Europe.

Maybe it is time to reconsider what belonging means. Communism represented a sort of alternative: the concept of international brotherhood of workers meant that one would show an allegiance to something else that one’s own country, but that something was not an actual country (the arrival of the Soviet Union did not really change things in the sense that not all communists around the world were necessarily Russian fifth columnist.)

It is important to notice how communism was born at the same time as the problem of establishing what belonging to a country meant. In a way it offered people that did not belong a chance to belong to something else: a small ethnic minority living within a larger, ethnically different country could always turn to communism (or at least its leaders would) to find an inner source of strength and support from the outside. Had the Basque separatists played only on their cultural and linguistic difference from the rest of Spain, they would have missed the enormous symbolic (and at times practical) strength resulting from embracing a Marxist ideology: by doing so they could claim to have something in common with people as different as the ANC or the Vietcong.

With the death of militant communism this is no longer the case and religion has taken its place with several important differences. First and foremost anyone could become a communist. The Basques, the Zulus, the Viet Minh could turn to Marxism; they could not as easily turn to Islam. Second, and probably as important, anyone can unbecome a communist. Among immigrants it is harder to resist a mother’s call to marry a “good” Jewish, Indian or Italian girl than to abandon a youthful father-inspired infatuation with planned economy.

Now we are witnessing the crumbling of the concept of state that started in the XIV century with the tentative consolidation of some central states and then continued in the XIX century with the move towards the equation of state and nation, language and land. Globalization and the increasing mouvement of people are questioning all this and it almost feels that the struggle is one in which we are waiting for the first one to blink. We all naively agree that in the absence of profound cultural differences interactions would be easier and yet who between Us, the welcoming society, and Them, the guests, is going to take the first step? Who is going to embrace a positive cultural “anonymity” with the risk of now loosing flavour and one day be recognized and potentially attacked anyway? Sartre once said that Jews are those that other people consider Jews: in this situation in particular to take the first step is no guarantee that the other will follow.

The three challenges of Europe

The troubles the European Union is facing at the moment are crucial in that they represent three of the great dilemmas in the path of western democracy and, increasingly, the world at large: the intrinsic paradox of representative democracy, the role of social values in leftist ideologies and competition in society.

Modern societies are too large for everyone to actually have a personal say in its direction and thus we elect a representative to voice our concern and the one of like-minded people. In this simple picture parliament is the sum of everyone's concerns and no more than that. For this reason there are many unelected bodies (the British House of Lords was a great example before being fed to the mob) because it is understood that there are some issues that are bigger than the sum of everyone's concerns and also that a politician fearful for his reelection might not be brave enough to tackle them.

It is of course a matter of personal opinion what proportion of elected versus unelected bodies should constitute the political structure of a country. One thing that needs to be said immediately, however, is that whatever decision is taken in this matter it is probably not reversible. To turn unelected bodies into elected ones, like franchising new voters, is quite easy, the opposite, like disfranchising, which I do not think was ever attempted in a democracy, is much harder, practically impossible. The baby and dirty water analogy comes to mind at this point.

The European Union for a long time after its conception was very distant from the people. It was an ideal and a concept cherished by many, but the wonderful progress made in terms of trade and administration was carried out very much behind the scenes. Lately, for reasons that are besides our scope, the Union has entered more into the public eye and the policies are dangerously becoming the outcome of simply the sum of the individual voters' wishes. The term greater good has been used so often that it is almost meaningless but nowadays we are about to forfeit what little is left. As time goes by the problem increases as information is more readily available and politics is more and more conducted through opinion polls and tabloid headlines.

To hold the view that voters are fundamentally stupid and politicians should be left to their job is probably wrong or at least extremely patronizing, however to state that voters are fundamentally selfish is certainly less off the mark. Moreover, as Charlemagne noted in this week's issue, a crucial point about the European Union is that it has no force of deterrence (unlike the US federal government) and therefore when individual interests clash with greater goals, there is very little that can be done. The development of this particular issue, how to temper the voters' say with needed reforms should be watched carefully since it is a problem afflicting all type of representative democracies. Because of its nature the European Union has probably more room for experiment than a nation state. May the better direction be taken.

When the powerful bodies that are trade unions were created, the labor landscape was much more uniform. The distinction between capitalists and workforce was well defined; the working classes literally described as such were larger and less varied; heavy industry played a much larger role in industry as a whole. The ideal of a Communist International was probably heartfelt and the phrase “l'oisif ira loger ailleur” out of the anthem was well meant. Industrial actions were taken rarely and after careful consideration: when the steel workers in Italy's “Stalingrad” went on strike in 1943 they did so risking their lives. What happened? Why do we now associate trade unions simply with a group of people that wants to be paid more for working less? Of course the way this question is phrased is provoking, but a similar thought, with a varying degree of cheek, can be read in the mind of many representing a wide political spectrum.

When the French are afraid of being invaded by Polish plumbers, what happened to the international brotherhood of workers straddling national borders? One can argue that even in the golden days of unions, when the miners went on strike they forbade whoever wanted to work to do so. However the difference is that now unions of this sort represent less and less of the population and more crucially they are higher up the social ladder which tends to take some of the moral mantle away. The real have-nots are increasingly non unionized. Unions are becoming more like corporations or guilds, in that they move away from representing the workers in general towards representing special interests. An economic system centered around corporations is not in itself a bad one, but it is definitively something different. One has to wonder whether the left has really come to terms with this fundamental shift because the claim to a struggle towards a real social model and values rings more and more hollow.

Is competition good? Certainly it is very natural in the sense that it is the only way in which one can obtain the best out of a group of individual or any improvement out of a system: be it in the form of natural selection or dialectic process, competition has been acknowledged for long to be a powerful instrument of dynamism. But is it right? In a free market economy everyone is pushed to offer what makes him different, better than others, to offer what gives him the competitive hedge. Why protect Italian cheese makers? Ukrainians, say, might produce cheaper cheese, but Italians are going to produce such better quality one that they are simply going to occupy different parts of the cheese making spectrum. If we protect Italians producers they are going to cover the entire spectrum, good and bad producers alike.

Protectionism of course is illogical and expensive, but on the other side one can argue that there are people that do not necessarily want to compete, what if you want to produce mediocre cheese and, say, enjoy more free time, shouldn't your country protect you? To be able to answer this question honestly is crucial; instead there is a considerable amount of skirting the issue, bringing in arguments that are simply peripheral. The same way as on the matter of life or choice we acknowledge that there is an unbridgeable gap of opinion which nonetheless does not stop us from continuing to legislate about related issues, we should reach a firm point about competition.

The unions on this point are not as adamant as they could be. The same way as Catholics do not shy away from proclaiming the sanctity of life, as absurd as this might sound to many of us, so the unions should proudly say, we believe in mediocrity, we call it by that name and we deserve to be protected. Of course this is a very naïve wish, but if we stop to consider it, why should it be? Mediocrity is not necessarily negative, it is simply the undisputed wish to forfeit the leading position in the race. Again, what is wrong with that? The European Union in this as well is the perfect theater to reach some sort of conclusion once and for all: with a blend of protectionism, market economy and, with enlargement, a form of mini globalization, why shouldn't we be able to say what we really think and want?