Andy Roberts

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  Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton – review

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/29/why-marx-was-right-by-terry-eagleton-%E2%80%93-review

  Is Marx more diminished than enhanced by Terry Eagleton’s defence of him?This article titled “Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton – review” was written by Tristram Hunt, for The Observer on Sunday 29th May 2011 01.30 UTCAs the IMF dishes out its medicine in Lisbon, Dublin and Athens, and the limitations of neo-liberalism become more apparent, the moment is surely right for a compelling account of Karl Marx’s relevance to the modern world. And in campus conferences, continuing sales of Das Kapital, and even the words of Pope Benedict XVI (moved to praise Marx’s “great analytical skill”), there is a growing appreciation for Marx’s predictions of globalisation, rampant capitalism, and the instability of international finance. As the Times put in the middle of the 2008 crash: “He’s back!”But Marx also remains the target of any number of lazy slurs. The easiest way to kill off debate about Marxism is to jump straight to the Stalin show-trials, Soviet gulags, and Khmer Rouge Year Zero. The philosophical beliefs of a mid-19th-century denizen of the British Museum are all too quickly elided with the most terrible atrocities of the 20th century as an all-purpose intellectual get-out card.So Terry Eagleton – literary critic, liberal-baiter, Marxist man of letters – has set himself the task of explaining why Marx was right. “What if all the most familiar objections to Marx’s works are mistaken?” he begins. His plan is to take on “10 of the most standard criticisms of Marx and try to refute them one by one”. He does so, he believes, at a time when capitalism is uniquely in crisis: “the system has ceased to be as natural as the air we breathe, and can be seen instead as the historically rather recent phenomenon it is”. Or as Friedrich Engels used to put it: “This time there’ll be a dies irae such as has never been seen before… all the propertied classes in the soup, complete bankruptcy of the bourgeoisie, war and profligacy to the nth degree.”But for any admirer of Eagleton or Marx, the book is a disappointment. There is none of the logical precision, winning prose or intellectual ambition displayed most recently in Eagleton’s Yale lectures on faith. Part of the problem is the structure. This is a work of intellectual rebuttal, as chapter by chapter Eagleton takes on a century of misreading Marx. All of which means he is fighting on an enemy territory of dreary objections. For example, there’s a long attempt to justify the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the Leninist aftermath, as well as the East German system of childcare – not something, I imagine, Marx and Engels themselves would have bothered with.The consequence of such deviations is that there is little sense of the anger, brio and bravado of Marx and Engels; none of the humour, irony and creativity so central to the Marxian heritage. Instead, this book reads like a rapidly crammed set of notes for an American midwest college course. There’s an array of lecture-hall style jokes and fairly worthless hyperbole. In no credible sense do one in three children in Britain today “live below the breadline”.Thankfully, amid the banalities, there lurk some wonderful passages. Eagleton is right to stress the centrality of democracy to Marxian communism, as well as explain so successfully the nature of free will within Marx and Engels’s account of history. This is all very much the humanist, Paris Marx of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.Eagleton also stresses the modernity of Marx’s thinking and how, for example, he saw the nature of social class shifting with the progress of capitalism. “As long ago as the mid-19th century, he is to be found writing of the ‘constantly growing number of the middle-classes’ … men and women ‘situated midway between the workers on the one side and the capitalists on the other.’” This is a long way from the hackneyed dichotomy of proletarian and bourgeois.There is also a touch of the old Eagleton when he deploys Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure to explore the interaction of culture and materialism. When it comes to Jude Fawley, we need to appreciate that “Oxford University is the ‘superstructure’ to Jericho’s ‘base’.”However, Eagleton’s touch is less sure when it comes to the human condition under communism. In trying to rebut claims of utopianism, he goes too far in suggesting that “Marxism holds out no promise of human perfection” and “envy, aggression, domination, possessiveness and competition would still exist”. Engels, though, was clear that the ascent from socialism to communism entailed a metaphysical change. Under the leadership of the proletariat, humanity achieves true freedom liberated from its animal instincts: “It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.”Here was the quasi-theological endpoint of Marxism and it would have been more rewarding if Eagleton, such an intriguing catholic thinker, had expanded upon the Judaeo-Christian assumptions underpinning much of Marx’s heaven on earth. But perhaps that was too close to the bone.In the end, this is another worthy volume in the rarely scintillating Marx-Engels interpretative canon. Useful for undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame, but not for anyone else interested in the drama, insights, and majesty of Marxism. Marx might well have been right about an awful lot, but sadly Eagleton fails to make you care very much. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogWhy Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton – reviewRelated posts:Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of powerThe Wizard of Oz – reviewThe latest word on globalisation

  

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  May 29 2011, 11:40am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Bristol 1831 Mural Artist compares Arab Spring 2011 and Bristol Stokes Croft Riots

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/22/bristol-1831-mural-artist-compares-arab-spring-2011-and-bristol-stokes-croft-riots

  Bristol Riot by Scott Buchanan Barden A blank wall on Bath Road in Bristol has become host to a massive mural depicting one of the most horrific events in the city’s history. Now in a nearly complete state, the almost cartoon-like mural underlines what a precious gift democracy is and how difficult it is to attain. The artist, Scott Buchanan Barden, says his motivation to undertake this massive work was not simply to highlight a very important but largely forgotten milestone in the history of British democracy. In fact, he sees a clear parallel between the Bristol riots in 1831 and the current situation in North Africa and the Middle East where extreme brutality to suppress legitimate protest always seems to be the first instinct of the ruling classes. “At a time when attention is focussed on North Africa and the Middle East where ordinary people have been asserting their rights to greater democracy and an end to corruption, I feel it’s important to remind ourselves that the brutal treatment being meted out to them is not much different to what many citizens of Bristol were subjected to in similar circumstances just 180 years ago,” he explained. “We look on at current events in the Middle East with a degree of unwarranted arrogance and feeling of moral superiority, often forgetting that our own path to democracy was just as bloody. “What brought people onto the streets of Bristol was the fact that reactionary elements in the House of Lords had thwarted a parliamentary bill that would have enfranchised many more people in Britain. Public demand for this had been growing ever since the French Revolution 40 years earlier. “Out of a population in Bristol of some 104,000 at that time, only about 6,000 were eligible to vote and most of these were part of the establishment of property and business owners. Political corruption was endemic throughout Britain, with many MPs representing ‘rotten boroughs’ that had little or no electorate to speak of.” The artist went on to explain that it is interesting to note that military commanders are not always willing to carry out the kind of draconian measures against their own people often demanded by their political masters at such times. “The Egyptian army’s refusal to be Mubarak’s pawn a month or so ago was crucial in saving thousands of lives. Unfortunately the same doesn’t seem to have happened in Libya. In 1831, a local military commander – an Irish guy called Brereton – was initially reluctant to use force against the Bristol protesters and it was only after extreme political pressure that he did so. As a result, hundreds of people were butchered by his dragoons in and around Queen’s Square. “He was subsequently court-martialled, amazingly not for the massacre he had committed but for his initial leniency. He shot himself before the court-martial ended. “The Bristol event is a sad reflection of the fact that, no matter where it may be in the world, we seldom seem able to overcome oppression without innocent blood being spilled on a massive scale.” Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogBristol 1831 Mural Artist compares Arab Spring 2011 and Bristol Stokes Croft Riots

  Related posts:Bristol Stokes Croft Riot Arab youth: the tipping point Artist Anish Kapoor warns arts cuts are ‘rolling us back to the Thatcher years’

  

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  April 22 2011, 5:43pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Bristol Stokes Croft Riot

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/22/bristol-stokes-croft-riot

  What’s happening in Bristol’s Stokes Croft area this weekend as young people seemed to want to take over part of the high street late on Thursday night early Good Friday morning. The long hot summer comes early in April this year, and with the provocation of a Royal Wedding coming up, the looters get their retaliation in first. In 2011. the year of the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, nothing will be the same anywhere again.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogBristol Stokes Croft Riot

  Related posts:Arab youth: the tipping point Egypt Celebrates Libya – Gaddafi’s time is running out

  

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  April 22 2011, 9:52am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Libya and Middle East uprising – live updates

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/11/libya-and-middle-east-uprising-live-updates

  Muammar Gaddafi has reportedly accepted an African Union roadmap for peace in Libya, which includes an immediate ceasefire.

  This article titled “Libya and Middle East uprising – live updates” was written by Haroon Siddique, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 11th April 2011 08.57 UTC

  10.04am – Libya: In an editorial, the Guardian says the prospect of stalemate and even partition is making the prospect of a ceasefire in Libya more attractive to both sides. Air strikes may have degraded Gaddafi’s forces to the point that they no longer threaten Benghazi, but that is a long way from him surrendering control of Tripoli. Libya is the only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle, and for this very reason it may be one of the places where the regime stays put … All we know is that the military option is looking less appealing and the regime, despite the defections, is not crumbling. The air war may have secured parts of Libya, but Gaddafi has shown for the second time in his life that he is still standing on home turf. This could change, but how many in Nato are that confident that it will? All this points to an outcome with Gaddafi and his sons in place. It is messy. It lacks a redemptive conclusion. But it is the way this conflict is going.

  9.57am: Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in Libya and the protests throughout the Middle East. • The African Union says Muammar Gaddafi has accepted a peace plan for ending the conflict in Libya, which includes an immediate ceasefire. It has called on Nato to halt air raids. • The AU representatives are travelling to Benghazi today to present the Libyan peace plan to the opposition leadership. Opposition spokesman Mustafa Gheriani told Reuters the rebels would respond to the plan but it could only work if Gaddafi stands down. • The Syrian army has entered the port city of Banias, witnesses have told AP. At least four anti-government protesters were killed in the city yesterday and dozens injured.

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLibya and Middle East uprising – live updates

  Related posts:Libya uprising continues – live updates Libya military action: live updates Libya no-fly zone – live updates

  

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  April 11 2011, 4:13am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Egyptian soldiers attack Tahrir Square protesters

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/09/egyptian-soldiers-attack-tahrir-square-protesters

  This is tragic. Those altruistic spontaneous revolutionaries in Tahrir Square were so convinced the Egyptian army was on the people’s side.  Now at least two people have been killed in a pre-dawn raid on protesters calling for the trial of Mubarak and the removal of the army chief.

  This article titled “Egyptian soldiers attack Tahrir Square protesters” was written by Peter Beaumont, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 9th April 2011 14.48 UTC Egypt’s deepening political crisis following the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak has taken a dangerous new turn after soldiers armed with clubs and rifles stormed protesters occupying Cairo’s Tahrir Square in a pre-dawn raid, killing at least two. The demonstrators, angry at the slow progress of reform since the country’s 18-day revolution earlier this year, had been demanding the trial of Mubarak, his son Gamal and close associates, and an immediate transition from military to civilian rule. The rally revealed the increasing impatience and mistrust that many Egyptians feel towards the military, which took over when Mubarak was forced out of office on 11 February. Some protesters accuse the top brass of protecting the former leader. Eyewitnesses who spoke to the Observer – accounts confirmed by graphic video footage – described hundreds of troops charging into the square firing rubber bullets at 3am on Saturday to clear it. The assault appears to have been triggered by the decision of several dozen Egyptian soldiers on Friday to defy orders and join a protest in the square to call for the removal of Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who is titular head of the country. “The people want the fall of the field marshal,” said protesters, in a variation on the chant that has become famous across the Middle East. In the aftermath of the assault, as security forces retreated, witnesses described an army officer leading slogans against Tantawi, while anti-army graffiti appeared on barricades. Tamer el-Said, an Egyptian film-maker who was in the square, described what happened. “There was a huge demonstration that started at about 11 o’clock [on Friday]. There were some military officers who joined it who were dissatisfied with what the supreme military council was doing. There were between 15 and 20 of them. Obviously it was really dangerous for them so the other protesters decided that they would protect them from being arrested by the military police. “At about 11 o’clock last night the security forces, who had surrounded the square, tried to enter it to try and catch these soldiers but the protesters would not allow them to come in. There were army and police and special forces. At 3 o’clock they attacked the square. They were firing bullets in the air: at first rubber bullets and then live rounds. They pushed all the demonstrators out of the square. Then they started to chase the protesters into the surrounding streets and the downtown area using tear gas and bullets. I have a friend who was there who said there was continuous shooting.” The huge turnout in the square has followed growing fears in some sections of Egyptian society that the army has hijacked the revolution. According to eyewitnesses, the raid was led by a mixture of army, police and internal security forces in 20-30 military trucks. They said the firing continued in the square until about 5.30am. Although an army spokesman insisted the army had fired only “blanks” and not live rounds to warn protesters, images posted on social media sites appeared to show both blank and live shell casings. The force of around 300 soldiers honed in on a tent camp where protesters had formed a human cordon to protect army officers who had joined them. The troops dragged protesters away, throwing them into trucks, which video footage showed driving into the square amid the sound of gunfire. At least seven of the soldiers were reported to have been snatched. “I saw women being slapped in the face, women being kicked,” cried one female protester, who took refuge in a nearby mosque. Troops surrounded the mosque and heavy gunfire was heard for hours. The military issued a statement afterward blaming “outlaws” for rioting and violating the country’s 2am to 5am curfew, and asserted that no one was harmed or arrested. “The armed forces stress that they will not tolerate any acts of rioting or any act that harms the interest of the country and the people,” it said. “We are staging a sit-in until the field marshal is prosecuted,” said Anas Esmat, a 22-year-old university student in the square, as protesters dragged debris and barbed wire to seal off the streets leading into it. Protesters chanted: “Tantawi is Mubarak and Mubarak is Tantawi”, explicitly equating the field marshal with the president who appointed him.

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogEgyptian soldiers attack Tahrir Square protesters

  Related posts:Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square Army and protesters disagree over Egypt’s path to democracy Egypt’s generals unveil reform package

  

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  April 9 2011, 11:08am | Comments »

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  ‘Black bloc’ anarchists behind anti-cuts rampage reject thuggery claims

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/01/black-bloc-anarchists-behind-anti-cuts-rampage-reject-thuggery-claims

  Masked protesters called ‘Black Bloc’ from the Anarchist section of London protestors say their ranks have swollen to 1,500 and include social workers and nurses.

  This article titled “‘Black bloc’ anarchists behind anti-cuts rampage reject thuggery claims” was written by Robert Booth and Marc Vallée, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 17.36 UTC They dressed in black, masked their faces and flew red and black flags as if they were a revolutionary army, but anarchists who smashed up shops, banks and hotels during last Saturday’s anti-cuts protests in London have dismissed government allegations they are “mindless thugs”. Amid growing public anxiety about the actions of the so-called black bloc, the home secretary, Theresa May, this week threatened pre-emptive police action while Kit Malthouse, London’s deputy mayor, branded them “fascist agitators”. But unmasked and talking to the Guardian, anarchists involved in last weekend’s violence claimed their direct action tactics were going viral. They said they were legitimate representatives of the public’s concern about public sector cuts and their ranks had swollen to an estimated 1,500, boosted by student first-timers. The black bloc tactic involves masked militants moving in tight units cordoned by flags, vandalising symbolic property and sometimes attacking police. The group created chaos in central London’s busiest shopping area last weekend, seizing attention from about half a million peaceful anti-cuts protesters on a Trades Union Congress-organised march and terrifying onlookers. Anarchists attacked the Ritz hotel, smashed the windows of banks, fought with police officers and vandalised police vans. There were 201 arrests (mostly non-violent protesters at Fortnum & Mason) and at least 84 people were injured including 31 police officers, 12 of whom required hospital treatment for minor injuries. One activist admitted criminal gangs and small numbers of football hooligans were among those who adopted the approach. But the anarchists stressed that those in the black bloc last weekend included graduates, social workers, students, the unemployed, militant feminists and mental health nurses. The anarchists who agreed to talk also revealed their own deeper motivations: anger at family poverty as they grew up, the exhilarating sense of belonging they found in the black bloc, and longstanding grudges against the police. All of them said the failure of the peaceful anti-Iraq war march to overturn government policy was formative in their decision to turn to aggression and violence over the cuts. “We realised that political change in this country isn’t predicated on being right and winning a debate,” said Peter Wright, a twentysomething teacher who was in the black bloc with the South London Solidarity Federation, “which seeks to destroy capitalism and the state”. “You have to force your agenda. The slogan on Saturday was to make the country ungovernable,” he said. On Saturday, some anti-cuts activists plan to occupy Trafalgar Square and have asked anarchists to attend even though the opprobrium they drew after the march has sparked a debate inside the movement about whether their tactics are self-defeating. Nevertheless, with the royal wedding and May Day around the corner police are braced for more unrest. “We are not in any way setting out to terrorise the public. We are the public,” said Robert James, a smartly turned-out unemployed anarchist in his mid-20s. “We should do our utmost to ensure no one is harmed, but we can’t guarantee that people will not be shaken up by scenes of disorder … We are not calling for political reform or changes to the tax system. We are sending a clear message to capitalism that we can’t be bargained with. There is no reform. We only seek your abolition.” Jason Sands, 32, a graduate and local authority IT worker in south London and black bloc veteran, said the ranks of anarchists appeared to be “growing in confidence, skill and numbers”. He said there had been an influx of students galvanised by last year’s violence at the Conservative party headquarters in Millbank Tower during anti-tuition fees protests and by police tactics used against conventional demonstrators such as kettling. “It feels good to be part of it,” Sands said. “You are in a group of people who have a shared outlook which you don’t always feel in normal life. It can feel exhilarating running down a street and moving as a group. It is an atmosphere of resistance, not of chaos. You could get hurt or arrested so you have a combination of fear and adrenaline and a sense that this is the moment to act because it could all end shortly. There’s an intensity to the moment. It is not just about breaking things. It is manifesting your politics and personal feeling in the street.” He said some anarchist protesters only turned up if there was going to be a black bloc, finding it “boring” otherwise. Both Sands and James traced their anarchism to their experience of growing up relatively poor in the 1990s. “I have been going on protests since my parents took me on CND marches and anti-poll tax protests,” said Sands. “I realised kids from other families had more stuff and bigger houses but the most acute thing was the poll tax.” After university he found marches in London too “institutionalised” and became involved in violent action abroad, taking part in anti-G8 action in Rostock, Germany, in 2007, during which the offices of Caterpillar, the bulldozer company, were firebombed. James said he was radicalised when he saw his working-class family fall behind during the consumer and debt boom. “People growing up in the 1990s experienced capitalism moving away from the production of goods towards finance capitalism and the movement of debt,” he said. “Social mobility was everything but was quite difficult to attain. We achieved that through consumption and financed it through debt. Those who weren’t able to do that, especially as children, found themselves becoming the collateral damage of the consumer war.” He later went on anti-war marches and found himself feeling “utter contempt” for the state. “You would be incredibly surprised by the demographic that uses black bloc tactics, in terms of age, gender, occupation,” James said. “The media like to paint a picture of hooligans and thugs, mindless men on the rampage. It is simply not true. There are women and probably transgender people too. Some of the scariest-looking anarchists work in jobs like social care and mental health. It doesn’t come from a thuggish place.” The anarchists named in this article insisted on using pseudonyms.

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  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blog‘Black bloc’ anarchists behind anti-cuts rampage reject thuggery claims

  Related posts:Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square Protest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000 Thousands march in London against spending cuts

  

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  April 1 2011, 4:30pm | Comments »

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  Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/29/gaddafi-issues-defiant-challenge-to-libya-conference-in-london

  Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi condemns ‘crusader strategy’ at the London Conference amid speculation that his foreign minister has defected. Full text of Gaddafi’s letter to the European Parliament: Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya, leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.

  This article titled “Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London” was written by Ian Black in Tripoli, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 20.18 UTC Muammar Gaddafi told the London conference discussing Libya’s future without him that there was no room for compromise with the Benghazi-based rebels, whom he described bluntly as al-Qaida terrorists supported by Nato and representing no one. Far from showing any sign of bending to demands from Barack Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders that he step down, Gaddafi issued a characteristically defiant challenge to what he called a “new crusader strategy or imperialist plan”. But three powerful explosions that shook Tripoli in mid-afternoon – apparently the first daylight attack in 10 days of UN-mandated air strikes – seemed to presage a possible escalation of the conflict. Libyan officials made no comment. In another dramatic development, there was speculation that Gaddafi’s foreign minister, Mousa Kousa, might have defected during a visit to Tunisia. The Libyan leader warned that the UN-imposed no-fly zone would turn north Africa into “a second Afghanistan” in an extraordinary letter sent to the European Parliament, the US Congress and “the Europeans” meeting in London. “Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya,” he wrote. “Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.” The full text shows the Libyan leader to be baffled by the ingratitude of the world towards him after years of rapprochement and utterly dismissive of concerns about the use of violence against his own people. Gaddafi argued that there was no need for foreign intervention, that Libya’s “direct democracy” had no parallel and that its oil resources were the property of its people – a reference to the widespread perception among his supporters that the war is a conspiracy to divide the country and steal its natural resources. Libya has made every effort to help solve global problems, abandoned its weapons of mass destruction, helped the international effort to fight “extremist terrorism”, controlled illegal immigration to Europe and played a positive role in Africa. “There were no demonstrations in Libya or protests like in Tunisia and Egypt,” he claimed. “No one opened fire on demonstrators. No more than 150 people were killed and most of those were soldiers and policemen who were defending themselves.” He attacked a “deliberately fabricated image” of Libya to justify the “second crusader war”, accusing the coalition of committing “merciless massacres”. Kousa, intriguingly, chose the eve of the London conference to pay what was described as a private visit to neighbouring Tunisia, the country’s nearest outlet to the outside world as the no-fly zone has closed all Libyan airports. Tunisian sources said Kousa had left later for an unknown destination. Kousa’s status as veteran Gaddafi stalwart and former intelligence and security chief provoked immediate speculation that he may have followed diplomats who quit en masse in the first days of the uprising. If he has, it would be a grave blow to the regime – and vindication of claims in Washington and elsewhere that cracks are appearing in Gaddafi’s inner circle. Kousa’s deputy, Khaled Kaim, accused the allies of seeking to partition Libya. “The tactic of the coalition is to lead to a stalemate to cut the country in two, which means the civil war is a continuous war, the start of a new Somalia, a very dangerous situation,” he told Italy’s Rai Uno TV channel. “If we are led to a civil war, resolution 1973, which was meant to protect civilians, will on the contrary lead to the murder of civilians.” UN resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, authorised “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. State-run media are continuing to highlight the human toll of the allied attacks, including 12 the regime claims were killed in Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara, when Nato planes hit an ammunition dump. Airstrikes also hit what were described as “military and civilian targets” in the cities of Garyan and Mizda, 40 miles and 90 miles respectively from Tripoli. Foreign journalists who were taken to Mizda were forced to flee when residents fired over their heads. It was unclear whether the violent protest was against the international media or their official government minders.

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  March 29 2011, 3:42pm | Comments »

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  Libyan rebels advance on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/28/libyan-rebels-advance-on-muammar-gaddafis-home-town

  Revolutionaries move further west along Libya‘s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, and reach Sirte.

  This article titled “Libyan rebels advance on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town” was written by Chris McGreal in Bin Jawad and Ian Black in Sirte, for The Guardian on Monday 28th March 2011 06.52 UTC Libyan rebels are advancing on Muammar Gaddafi’s home city, Sirte, after retaking all the ground lost in earlier fighting as government forces broke up and fled under western air strikes. Revolutionary forces rapidly moved more than 150 miles west along Libya’s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as the first witness accounts emerged of the devastating effect on Gaddafi’s army and militia of the aerial bombardment that broke their resistance at Ajdabiya on Saturday. A Libyan rebel spokesman said Sirte had been captured by the rebels on Monday morning, but there is no sign the city has fallen. Sirte marks the boundary between the east and west of Libya and has great symbolic importance as Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown. The area was quiet after heavy bombardment from the pre-dawn hours and there was no sign it had been taken by the Benghazi-based rebels advancing from the east. It is rumoured that the outskirts have been planted with landmines. Rebels retook the important oil towns of Brega, Ras Lanuf and Ben Jawad, and continued on the open desert road towards Sirte, about 95 miles away. A doctor treating wounded government soldiers described hundreds of deaths, terrible injuries and collapsing morale. Two loud explosions were heard on Sunday night near Sirte. It was not immediately clear what had been hit but local people said a military installation in the city was bombed on Saturday night – one of many targeted across the country in a week of coalition strikes. Soldiers manning a mobile radar station on the outskirts of the city looked nervous as night fell and aircraft were heard overhead. Large numbers of armed men, militiamen as well as regular soldiers, were on the streets and there was less of the exuberant defiance and loyal pro-Gaddafi slogans of the sort heard constantly in Tripoli. Travelling eastwards from the capital, the war feels closer. In Bani Walid, south of Tripoli, tank transporters carrying dirty armoured fighting vehicles drew a small crowd, and an appreciative volley of machine gun fire. Other Libyan army vehicles moved west along the main road, including some heavy tanks – Soviet-made T-72s – but there were no signs of large-scale movement. Everywhere, there are long queues at petrol stations, sometimes with hundreds of vehicles stretching down the road as they wait. At one queue, drivers were relieved when a tanker finally delivered a load of fuel, but then reacted with frustration when there was no electricity to operate the pumps. As well as its political significance as Gaddafi’s birthplace, Sirte is seen as important to his defence of Tripoli, the capital, which is now less than 300 miles from the rebels’ frontline. Control of the oil terminals at Brega and Ras Lanuf is in itself a major gain because it could bring the rebel administration significant revenue from exports if production resumes. Rebels moved unchallenged along a road littered with evidence of the air campaign and the speed of their enemies’ retreat. The blackened carcasses of tanks, armoured vehicles and military trucks were pushed to the side of the road. In their hurried retreat from Ras Lanuf, government forces abandoned piles of ammunition. They included grey wooden boxes containing rockets but stamped as holding “parts of bulldozer”, manufactured in North Korea. In Bin Jawad, residents said a destroyed municipal building had been hit by an air strike. The rebels forced captured Gaddafi fighters on to buses and drove them to Benghazi. Witnesses described the bombing’s devastating effects on his forces. A doctor at the hospital in Ras Lanuf, which treated most of the government soldiers wounded in the coalition air raids on Ajdabiya and the road from Benghazi, described hundreds of casualties, breaking morale and many soldiers faking injuries to escape the assault. The doctor – who wished to be identified only by his first name, Abdullah – had responded to a call from Gaddafi’s government for medical personnel to go to the front two weeks ago. Today, he accidentally found himself on the rebel side of the line. “The first days, Gaddafi’s forces had very high morale and they came in large numbers, thousands. There were the army soldiers and then the volunteers in the militia,” he said. “They were fighting the rebels, no problem, and winning. But then came the bombing [by coalition air strikes]. The first day we had 56 seriously wounded. To the head, the brain, lost arms and legs. Soldiers with a lot of shrapnel in them. It was like that every day after.” Abdullah said all the wounded were on the Gaddafi side, with about two-thirds being those injured in the bombing of Ajdabiya where there were days of fighting as government forces blocked the rebel advance. The doctor said he did not know how many soldiers were killed in the air strikes, because the bodies were taken from the battlefield for burial. “The soldiers who came to the hospital told me there were 150 dead just on the first day of the bombing. After that, there were fewer because they hid,” he said. “It started to have a big effect on their morale. They said they could fight the rebels but not the planes. In recent days, many of the soldiers were trying to find excuses to leave the front. Ten to 20 a day came to the hospital pretending they were injured, asking for a medical certificate. They didn’t have any physical injuries, but I gave it [a certificate] to them.” Abdullah was sceptical about rebel accusations that many were foreign mercenaries. He said he had not see anyadded it was possible that some of the soldiers were not Libyan. But he did say that Gaddafi’s forces had systematically maltreated the civilian population, particularly those suspected of coming from the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi and other towns in the east under the revolutionaries’ control. “There was bad treatment of the civilians. One patient came here who had been trying to escape Ajdabiya with his family. The government army shot him in the leg,” he added. “The idea I got from civilians who came to the hospital is that things were very bad for them. They were beaten. Some said their family members had disappeared. They didn’t know if they were killed.” Some of Gaddafi’s forces were billeted in the el-Adeel hotel, in Ras Lanuf, which they looted as they fled, taking mattresses and televisions and levering open cash machines in the lobby. On walls across the town they sprayed in green paint three words: “God, Gaddafi, Libya.” Beyond Sirte lies the large town of Misrata, most of which is in rebel hands after an attempt by Gaddafi to retake it was driven off by air strikes. Government forces kept up their shelling at the weekend, although residents said it was considerably less intense than a week ago, after 12 hours of aerial bombardment by western planes destroyed more than 20 tanks and drove Gaddafi’s forces to the edge of the town.One rebel, Sami, told Reuters by telephone that pro-Gaddafi forces had fought with rebels in Misrata. “All day long we heard clashes between rebels and Gaddafi forces in the area of Tripoli Street, in the city centre,” he said. “We heard tanks, mortars and light weapons being used.” Misrata is the only big rebel stronghold left in the west of Libya and is cut off from the main rebel force fighting Gaddafi’s troops in the east.

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  March 28 2011, 5:09pm | Comments »

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  How the iPad revolution has transformed working lives

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/27/how-the-ipad-revolution-has-transformed-working-lives

  Fifteen million iPads were sold last year. As iPad 2 launched, Charles Arthur looked at the impact of tablet computers on the way we relate to technology, and five users tell us about how the iPad is feeding into the way they work.

  This article titled “How the iPad revolution has transformed working lives” was written by Charles Arthur and Killian Fox, for The Observer on Sunday 27th March 2011 00.05 UTC A friend recently went to a business meeting. He prepared by pulling his laptop out of his bag. All of the clients responded by taking their iPads out of their briefcases. These were not gadget freaks or latte-quaffing Hoxton-based web designers, as some imagine iPad users to be. They were a large group of senior civil servants and bankers, in a country well beyond Europe and the US. To them, the iPad wasn’t a status symbol; it was a device they had chosen to use because it enhanced their ability to do their job. A year on from its arrival, and with the faster, thinner, second-generation model released in the UK on 25 March , Apple’s iPad tablet computer still divides opinion. A large group of people insist it is an “overpriced toy” with limited functionality – no keyboard, doesn’t run Microsoft Office, can’t play Flash video, can’t expand its storage. But a growing number believe that, on the contrary, the iPad represents a new frontier in computing. And they simply don’t care what the first group thinks. They’re getting on with using their machines. We have lived with the PC paradigm for around 30 years now, since IBM introduced its first personal computers and pushed them into businesses in the early 80s. Until the launch of the iPad last year the only comparable change in the market had been the laptop, which led to the emergence of an army of travelling salespeople whose most urgent need was always to find a power point where they could charge their machine’s fading battery. The iPad seems to be different – a third stage of computing. Horace Dediu, a former analyst with the mobile phone company Nokia who now runs his own consultancy, Asymco, argues that “the definition of a new generation of computing is that the new products rely on new input and output methods, and allow a new population of non-expert users to use the product more cheaply and simply”. That certainly sounds like the iPad. It shows that it is possible to have something that does all the computing functions you want with a big screen that also has long battery life and weighs almost nothing, certainly compared to a laptop. It is portable and durable, and the touch screen adds another dimension. Though it has the most prominent tablet in the market, Apple isn’t the only player (see its rivals assessed below). Dozens of companies are using Google’s free Android software to power tablets, and Google is helping them along with a custom version called “Honeycomb”, designed for iPad-sized Android tablets. An estimated 17 million tablets – from Apple and others – were sold in 2010, and that number is likely to keep growing. But is it really changing the way we work? We interviewed a range of people in different professions to see whether the iPad is all hype – or whether in future we will all keep taking the tablets. CA   Margaret Manning – businesswoman Margaret Manning first realised that her iPad was going to change how she worked when she was in hospital, recovering from a minor operation, about a month after buying it. “I realised I could comfortably do emails, download a book to read, watch a film, whatever,” she says. “There’s no other device that you can do that with. You certainly can’t read with a laptop in bed.” Manning, 50, is the founder and chief executive of Reading Room, a London-based web development agency employing 170 people. She takes the iPad with her to client meetings and presentations: “It’s got a wow factor,” she says. “I did a presentation that I ran off it, and all the people in the room went, ‘Ooh’,” she recalls, adding: “They were all bankers.” To Manning, the iPad’s chief virtue is its versatility. She can carry it in her bag to go to clients, check work emails in a coffee shop or train, and then take it to a bar later and kill some time playing a game. It’s become her laptop, TV screen, iPod and iPhone. “It’s adaptive to today’s digital age. You can create and consume content in a different way.” Key to that is the screen size. “The iPhone was a step towards this, but the format is vital. This allows businesses to start using it in a way they couldn’t with the iPhone.” She cites an app that Reading Room has developed for Grains Research Development Corporation in Australia which lets farmers examine crops for disease by comparing them, in the field, to pictures on the iPad. That could be done on a laptop – but it would be cumbersome compared to doing it on the handheld screen. She revels in the simplicity of the interface, and says battery life is key: “If it was shorter, that would change the relationship. If I had to travel with plugs and extra batteries that would change things. The iPhone’s battery life is too short – it hacks me off.” Are there any drawbacks? “There are two things that it doesn’t do well: the keyboard – if I travel with it, I have to take a lightweight keypad – and voice calls. You can use Skype [the free internet voice call service], but not everybody has Skype, and I can’t use it to call a client. ” CA Frasier Speirs – teacher “Nobody has lost a file for a year now,” says Fraser Speirs. “Which used to happen every week – someone coming along and saying they couldn’t find where they’d saved some work or other.” Speirs teaches computing studies at the private Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, and is also the IT co-ordinator there. Last year he went to his bosses with a radical plan: equip every one of the children in both the primary and secondary schools with an iPad. And not just for computing studies: for every lesson. Speirs wants them to replace textbooks, though he admits that is still some way off. But the iPads, with their simplified approach to filing (you can’t choose where to save a file), have made at least part of his life much simpler. The lack of a keyboard wasn’t an issue. “The problem with laptops in the classroom is the battery life, and the size and weight. When Apple said that it would last for 10 hours, and we realised it actually did, that was really important. And the size and weight matters too for younger children.” The primary pupils only use them in school; secondary pupils can take them home. And teachers have them too, which has changed their view of computing. Speirs thinks it is time to reconsider how and what we teach children in an internet-connected world. “Previously, we taught technology just for business needs – Excel, PowerPoint. But now technology is there to assist learning. What do we teach, when you can look up facts in two seconds flat? The answer I think is much more about challenge-based learning, where you give the pupils a high-level goal, and have the teacher support them in achieving it.” But what happens when those children leave school and encounter laptops and even desktops in businesses? Speirs isn’t worried for them. Children starting at Cedars now will graduate in 2024, he points out – and any company still using desktops by then will be hopelessly behind the curve. CA   Richard Bowman – physicist Will the iPad soon become a fixture in science labs alongside Bunsen burners, microscopes and graduated cylinders? Richard Bowman, a 24-year-old physicist doing his PhD at the University of Glasgow, reckons so. His field is optics, and in partnership with colleagues at the University of Bristol he recently developed an app that allows users to manipulate microscopic objects simply by touching the iPad’s screen. Before iTweezers, Bowman employed a desktop computer and a mouse to control optical tweezers, an instrument that traps and moves microscopic particles using laser beams. Now, he does it all on his iPad. “It’s quite a natural interface,” he says. “It’s like you’re touching the actual particle and pushing it around. We can also move particles up and down with the pinch gesture, which is hard to do with a mouse.” It may be some time before iTweezers appears on the market – “there are loads of intellectual property issues” – but Bowman has already had interest from scientists in various fields, including chemists at Glasgow University who are using it in experiments with crystals. In the meantime, he’s developing a more commercially viable iPad app called LabVIEW with his colleagues in Bristol: “It puts virtual dials and sliders on the screen to let you control your experiments in the lab”. One serious limitation of the iPad, according to Bowman, is that “Apple are quite restrictive in what they’ll allow to run on it. You have to register as an Apple developer and use their tools to do things.” But, he adds, “I think the iPad is definitely here to stay – its capabilities are increasing all the time – and multi-touch interfaces definitely are the future. If you can control several things at once, it means you can interact with your experiment better, it can happen faster, and you can do things that you couldn’t do before.” KF   David Kassan – painter When David Kassan bought an iPad last spring, his intention was to use it simply as a portfolio to show to prospective clients in the art world. Kassan, 34, is a Brooklyn-based artist who paints “really realistic lifesize figures” using oils on wood panel, and the iPad, he says, is “like a perfect art portfolio. You can adjust the colours, it’s a cool thing to hold, and it’s easier to update than a printout. That’s the reason I got it.” But on a trip to Europe last summer, Kassan started messing around with the ultra-basic Brushes app on his iPad. “I sketched people in subways and airports, and did studies of paintings in museums. I started using it as a completely portable, full-colour sketchbook. It meant I didn’t have to bring watercolours or an easel with me. I could just slide it out of my bag and start using it.” Now he finds himself painting much more when out and about. “I’m an observer of everything – that’s my job – and the iPad is a great tool to see things around me and be able to record them so that my eye gets keener. Also, if I’m in a museum I can do a study of the colour of a painting, not just the drawing and compositional aspects, which is all I’d really get to understand with pencil and paper.” Kassan believes that the device has improved his “real painting”, but does this mean that the paintings he does on the iPad will never qualify as “real”? Actually, he says, “I’m working on a piece right now, a lifesize head that I’m trying to do exactly like my real paintings.” Using a more advanced app called Artrage and a Nomad touch-screen paintbrush, he hopes “to make it as realistic as possible, print it up and sign it. I thought I might put it in my next solo show in October to see what it’ll sell for.” KF   Richie Hawtin – musician/ DJ Early last year, the DJ and producer Richie Hawtin was putting together a live show to mark 20 years of Plastikman, the most prominent of his many musical alter egos. Due to its scope, the show posed a considerable challenge to the British-born techno megastar. “When you do an electronic performance, traditionally you have a mixing board with all these knobs and faders to create the sound,” he explains. “For this show, each song called for a whole different set of knobs and faders.” What Hawtin needed, in order to control all those diverse environments at once, was a touch-screen device. The iPad came out in April. Within two months, Hawtin and his team had integrated it into the Plastikman performances. Six months later, they formed a company, Liine [www.liine.net], to turn the apps they’d developed into commercial products. One of these apps, Griid, “allows you to navigate a musical environment that would be hundreds of screens deep if you were trying to look at it on a normal laptop. With your hand movements you can zoom from left to right, find the instrument and the melody that you want, and start, stop or modify it with a quick touch.” Another app, Kapture, “allows you to take snapshots of different states of your performance. If something amazing comes together, you can capture that moment just by touching the screen, and return to it later. Then you can then morph all these moments of the show together.” Both apps interface with the popular Ableton Live sequencing software and can be used in the studio as well as onstage. Harnessing touch-screen technology, Hawtin says, is like “following a dark path with a torch and stumbling upon new techniques. The show has evolved into something that we didn’t even realise was possible.” Being able to use both hands on a screen, rather than being tethered to a mouse and keyboard, “transfers a bit more of your spirit into the technology you’re using”. Ever the restless techno-pioneer, Hawtin is now looking forward to future devices “that can sense not only left or right movements but how much pressure you’re applying to the screen. That, as far as musicians like me are concerned, will be the next huge development.” KF

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  March 27 2011, 4:51am | Comments »

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  Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/18/jets-prepare-to-deploy-despite-libya-ceasefire

  Warplanes head for Mediterranean in attempt to increase prussere on Gaddafi as Nato envoys meet to back no-fly zone

  This article titled “Jets prepare to deploy despite Libya ceasefire” was written by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nick Hopkins and Robert Booth, for The Guardian on Friday 18th March 2011 20.20 UTC British Tornado and Typhoon ground attack aircraft are expected to fly to bases in the Mediterranean as Britain, France and the US step up military pressure on Colonel Gaddafi despite his announcement of a ceasefire. The UK is also expected to set up a joint command centre with the US and France to co-ordinate operations that will be supported by a number of other countries, including Canada and Denmark. In further evidence of mounting determination to confront Gaddafi, ambassadors from Nato’s 28 member countries are due to meet to lend added support to the UN-backed plans for a no-fly zone. Nato also emphasised humanitarian operations, but suggestions that ground troops from Britain and other countries could be deployed in Libya were dismissed last night. “The absolute priority is to enforce the no-fly zone, and to secure maritime supply routes,” said a defence source. “Nothing else is in the mix at this stage.” Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen said the UN resolution sent “a strong and clear message from the entire international community” to the Gaddafi regime to stop his “systematic violence against the people of Libya immediately”. To this end, an array of other British military assets, including reconnaissance aircraft and air-refuelling tankers, will be deployed to bases in the Mediterranean. Military commanders in the UK have called the entire effort Operation Ellamy. Though the MoD never talks about special forces operations, it is understood that SAS and SBS soldiers are already on the ground in Libya, providing information on likely first targets for any bombing raids. They could include airfields, supply routes and Libya’s anti-aircraft defence batteries. “Any operations will be highly targeted to ensure that civilian casualties are avoided,” said the source. It became clear that the complexity of co-ordinating joint operations with so many countries would stymie any immediate plans for air strikes to help the rebels. One strategic priority was to find a way of binding in Arab help for any attacks, even though this is likely only to be at a logistical and support level. The prime minister told the Commons that British Tornado and Typhoon aircraft were within hours of being deployed. However, Whitehall sources later admitted that no planes had left the UK, and nor were they likely to until the weekend. The day began with no clarity over the command structure for any operations – and whether they would be led or supported by Nato. These details were being frantically developed in the hours after the UN resolution was passed. General Sir David Richards, chief of the defence staff, worked through Thursday night trying to secure agreement over who would do what and when, before attending the Cabinet meeting in Downing Street. He has been liaising closely with Air Marshall Sir Stuart Peach, chief of joint operations, who is based at the permanent joint headquarters of the three services in Northwood, to the north-west of London.The most likely scenario is that British fighters will be stationed at the British sovereign base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, where the RAF already has E3-D long-range air surveillance aircraft that are monitoring Libyan airspace. Nato is also operating 24-hour surveillance of Libya with Awacs reconnaissance aircraft based in Germany. British fighters may also be stationed at the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily – Canada is sending six fighters there. “Once the decision has been taken about where they go, it won’t take the aircraft long to get there,” said the source. The Royal Navy still has two ships in international waters off Libya – the frigates HMS Cumberland and HMS Westminster. There are no plans to increase the number at this stage. However, the navy is working up a response force task group, which will include up to six different support and warships. That may be deployed in the weeks to come, sources said. The US already has a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean: a battle group of five vessels led by the ageing aircraft carrier USS Enterprise includes the nuclear-powered submarine USS Providence and the destroyer USS Mason, which both entered via the Suez canal last Saturday from the Red Sea. The USS Kearsarge is also in the area with a contingent of US marines on board while the USS Mason, a guided missile destroyer, was in port in Haifa, northern Israel on Wednesday. “Surveillance will be 60% of the strategy if the plan is to dissuade Libyan aircraft from taking off,” said Professor Trevor Taylor, head of the centre for defence management and leadership at Cranfield University. “And ground surveillance will be much more important still if the Libyans start using armoured vehicles because that will multiply the number of targets.” Barak Seener, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, added: “Symbolically it’s very important to include an Arab element in any attacks. “Logistically they cannot provide very much, but it is important as a way of countering the accusation that this is an intervention which is colonialist and imperialist in nature.” Diplomats have said Arab countries that could participate in possible strikes might include Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Arab League Agency from another era Hillary Clinton claims it was the Arab League’s recent statement on Libya that persuaded her the time was right to back military action in the country – the implication being that, unlike the invasion of Iraq in 2003, western intervention against Gaddafi has been legitimised by regional support. But do the 22 delegates who make up the league – almost exclusively ageing, male and appointed by autocratic governments that enjoy mixed support at best from their people – really represent 360 million Arabs, at a time when power relations in the Middle East are being radically reshaped? When the League of Arab States was founded in 1945, King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, the then Saudi ruler, grandly declared that it would “enshrine the fondest hopes of the Arab people”. But today the high walls and carefully manicured gardens of the League’s Cairo headquarters feels like an anachronism, especially when contrasted with the grassroots energy that exploded around the corner in Tahrir Square as Egyptians toppled their president. Many are asking whether an institution originally designed to make the lives of British diplomats easier (they preferred dealing with a single Arab agency rather than multiple heads of state), and dominated through the decades by conservative political elites, has any role to play in articulating a unified voice of the Arab people on to to the world stage. At present all 22 Arab countries (alongside the four observer nations of Brazil, India, Venezuela and Eritrea) send one delegate each to the League. In the aftermath of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, their individual delegates from each nation stayed in place – shifting their allegiances overnight from a government of dictatorship to a government of the people, with no personnel change deemed necessary. The Libyan delegation has entered more murky waters; at the start of the crisis, Tripoli’s permanent ambassador to the League, Abdel Moneim al-Huny, tendered his resignation in protest at his leader’s “massacres”, and then promptly announced he had been reappointed by the people’s government in Benghazi to represent the Libyan population inside the League. Meanwhile, the Gaddafi regime appointed its own new representative, leaving the institution’s secretary general Amr Moussa with an HR headache. For now, neither of the rival delegates can attend Arab League meetings because Libya’s membership has been suspended, the first such action in the League’s history, although behind the scenes unofficial dialogue is being maintained with both men. The rest of the Arab world areis left with delegates appointed by their own undemocratic regimes, – who appear happy to deploy deploying the language of humanitarian concern in the case of Libya, but are noticeably quieter on brutal crackdowns against protesters in the Gulf and elsewhere. The League’s Chief of Staff, Hisham Youssef, believes that the winds of change blowing through this part of the world will strengthen his institution, not undermine it. “We’re moving in a direction that will hopefully lead to a more democratic region, and that in turn means a more democratic and representative Arab League,” he told the Guardian. Whether he’s right remains to be seen.

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  March 18 2011, 5:32pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  The fate of the Arabs will be settled in Egypt, not Libya

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/16/the-fate-of-the-arabs-will-be-settled-in-egypt-not-libya

  Looking to Egypt to build a genuinely revolutionary democratic system, so that all the dominoes in the region including Libya will eventually fall.

  This article titled “The fate of the Arabs will be settled in Egypt, not Libya” was written by Seumas Milne, for The Guardian on Wednesday 16th March 2011 22.00 UTC Barely two months since the triumphant overthrow of the Tunisian dictator that detonated the Arab revolution, a western view is taking hold that it’s already gone horribly wrong. In January and February, TV screens across the world were filled with exhilarating images of hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, women and men, braving Hosni Mubarak’s goons in Cairo’s Tahrir square while Muslims and Christians stood guard over each other as they prayed. A few weeks on and reports from the region are dominated by the relentless advance of Colonel Gaddafi’s forces across Libya, as one rebel stronghold after another is crushed. Meanwhile Arab dictators are falling over each other to beat and shoot protesters, while Saudi troops have occupied Bahrain to break the popular pressure for an elected government. In Egypt itself, 11 people were killed in sectarian clashes between Christians and Muslims last week and women protesters were assaulted by misogynist thugs in Tahrir Square. Increasingly, US and European politicians and media hawks are insisting it’s all because the west has shamefully failed to intervene militarily in support of the Libyan opposition. The Times on Wednesday blamed Barack Obama for snuffing out a “dawn of hope” by havering over whether to impose a no-fly zone in Libya. But Saudi Arabia’s dangerous quasi-invasion of Bahrain is a reminder that Libya is very far from being the only place where hopes are being stifled. The west’s closest Arab ally, which has declared protest un-Islamic, bans political parties and holds an estimated 8,000 political prisoners, has sent troops to bolster the Bahraini autocracy’s bloody resistance to democratic reform. Underlying the Saudi provocation is a combustible cocktail of sectarian and strategic calculations. Bahrain’s secular opposition to the Sunni ruling family is mainly supported by the island’s Shia majority. The Saudi regime fears both the influence of Iran in a Shia-dominated Bahrain and the infection of its own repressed Shia minority – concentrated in the eastern region, centre of the largest oil reserves in the world. Considering that both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, home to the United States fifth fleet, depend on American support, the crushing of the Bahraini democracy movement or the underground Saudi opposition should be a good deal easier for the west to fix than the Libyan maelstrom. But neither the US nor its intervention-hungry allies show the slightest sign of using their leverage to help the people of either country decide their own future. Instead, as Bahrain’s security forces tear-gassed and terrorised protesters, the White House merely repeated the mealy-mouthed call it made in the first weeks of the Egyptian revolution for “restraint on all sides”. It’s more than understandable that the Libyan opposition now being ground down by superior firepower should be desperate for outside help. Sympathy for their plight runs deep in the Arab world and beyond. But western military intervention – whether in the form of arms supplies or Britain and France’s favoured no-fly zone – would, as the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan argues, be “totally counter-productive” and “deepen the problem”. Experience in Iraq and elsewhere suggests it would prolong the war, increase the death toll, lead to demands for escalation and risk dividing the country. It would also be a knife at the heart of the Arab revolution, depriving Libyans and the people of the region of ownership of their own political renaissance. Arab League support for a no-fly zone has little credibility, dominated as it still is by despots anxious to draw the US yet more deeply into the region; while the three Arab countries lined up to join the military effort – Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE – are themselves among the main barriers to the process of democratisation that intervention would be supposed to strengthen. Genuinely independent regional backing from, say, Egypt would be another matter, as would Erdogan’s proposal of some sort of negotiated solution: whatever the outcome of the conflict there will be no return of the status quo ante for the Gaddafi regime. In any case, the upheaval now sweeping the Arab world is far bigger than the struggle in Libya – and that process has only just begun. Any idea that all the despots would throw in the towel as quickly as Zin al-Abidine Ben Ali and Mubarak was always a pipedream. They may well be strengthened in their determination to use force by events in Libya. And the divisions of ethnicity, sect and tribe in each society will be ruthlessly exploited by the regimes and their foreign sponsors to try to hold back the tide of change. But across the region people insist they have lost their fear. There is a widespread expectation that the Yemeni dictator, Ali Abdallah Saleh, will be the next to fall – where violently suppressed street protests have been led by a woman, the charismatic human rights campaigner Tawakul Karman, in what is a deeply conservative society.   And where regimes make cosmetic concessions, such as in Jordan, they find they are only fuelling further demands. As the Jordanian Islamist opposition leader, Rohile Gharaibeh, puts it: “Either we achieve democracy under a constitutional monarchy or there will be no monarchy at all”. The key to the future of the region, however, remains Egypt. It is scarcely surprising if elements of the old regime try to provoke social division, or attempts are made to co-opt and infiltrate the youth movements that played the central role in the uprising, or that the army leadership wants to put a lid on street protests and strikes. But the process of change continues. In the past fortnight demonstrators have occupied and closed secret police headquarters, and the Mubarak-appointed prime minister has been dumped – and Egyptians are now preparing to vote on constitutional amendments that would replace army rule with an elected parliament and president within six months. There is a fear among some activists that the revolution may only put a democratic face on the old system. But the political momentum remains powerful. A popular democratic regime in Cairo would have a profound impact on the entire region. Nothing is guaranteed, but all the signs are that sooner or later, the dominoes will fall.

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  March 16 2011, 6:57pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  The Cooperative movement was born out a mixture of radical socialism and paternalist philanthropy

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/09/the-co-operative-revolution

  The Cooperative movement was born out a mixture of radical socialism and paternalist philanthropy during a period of upheavals and change. It was a group called The Rochdale Pioneers who established the first successful co-operative in 1844, starting a revolution which is still going strong.In theory the cooperative movement provides an alternative to capitalism by changing the relationship between the workers and the owners of business. In a workers coop the business is owned by the workers collectively, although it still has to operate in a capitalist marketplace. Not all coops are workers coops though. The coop retail service was a form which claimed to share the ownership of the enterprise with the customers rather than just the workers. Customers were paid a dividend, terminology deliberately derived from shareholders dividends, which was paid out periodically according the amount spent in the coop supermarket. This system degenerated into a stamps scheme, which ended up almost like green shield stamps and is mirrored today by the loyalty card schemes operated by distinctly non cooperative retail giants Sainsbury and Tesco. There is much more to the Cooperative movement than the visible shops trying to compete on our high streets and retail parks though. Today in the UK, as well as The Co-operative Group with its six million members and 5,000 outlets across its family of businesses including food, financial services, travel, pharmacy and funerals, there are thousands of other co-operators who share the same heritage. The cooperative model is often the best way for rural communities to organise services such as broadband into areas where the big telecoms companies can’t be bothered to deliver. Alternative energy is another good example:

  The UK’s first community owned wind farm, Baywind Energy Co-operative was established in 1996. The project has always favoured local investors, that way the economic benefits of the wind farm are kept within the community it serves. In 1998 Baywind secured a loan from The Co-operative Bank to purchase two turbines for their Harlock Hill site. It has also received several grants from The Co-operative Enterprise Hub to develop new, co-operatively owned wind farms across the UK. Baywind now typically generates around 10,000MWh of electricity each year – enough to power around 30,000 homes. And along with educational visits throughout the year, it funds environmental books for local schools. There’s even a Coop Facebook page now,which you can ‘Like’ to get updates. The Co-operative Join the revolution Get involved Sponsored Post

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  March 9 2011, 7:06am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/04/libyan-opposition-leaders-to-get-advice-from-uk-military

  Noooooo, don’t accept it.Masses reject foreign intervention Western Intervention can only serve to try and derail the Region-wide revolution of the Arab people

  This article titled “Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military” was written by Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, for The Guardian on Friday 4th March 2011 19.57 UTC Britain is to send a team of experts capable of giving military advice into eastern Libya to make contact with opposition leaders as the struggle for control of the country escalates. The move is a clear intervention on the ground to bolster the anti-Gaddafi uprising, learn more about its leadership and see what logistical support it needs. Whitehall sources said the diplomatic task force would not be providing arms to the rebels, as there is an international arms embargo. It came as Interpol issued a global alert against Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans, including his daughter and seven sons, in an effort to enforce sanctions. David Cameron has been determined to back the resistance partly because, following advice this week by experts and Libyans in the UK, he believes that it is neither simply tribal nor Islamist, but is built round democratic demands that could in the medium term mark a decline in anti-western mood in the Middle East. The foreign secretary, William Hague, has been in telephone contact with General Abdul Fattah Younis Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister, now based in Benghazi, who is seen as a likely successor to Gaddafi. Obaidi was placed in charge of military defences in the city in a sign that he is at the helm of the opposition. British officials know the identity of all the members of the broad-based Benghazi committee currently focused on keeping essential services and defences going. As the situation regarding international involvement developed rapidly , Nato commanders were instructed to draw up plans for a wide range of military options, including a no-fly zone. Cameron had earlier faced criticism – including from the Pentagon – for raising the idea of a Nato no-fly zone. The UK government believes the national council in Benghazi is focused on keeping essential services running, but where it can is “now thinking about how they can take the struggle forward to other parts of the country. They are not yet calling themselves a government in waiting and we have not yet seen a coherent programme”, one source said. The UK diplomatic task force is to assess humanitarian need and keep the opposition leaders in the east of the country better informed about diplomatic activity. The national council is focused most on what it can do to help the isolated rebel towns close to Tripoli. British diplomats quit Libya last week as the fighting escalated. They remain unable to access the largely pro-Gaddafi west of Libya, from which all aid agencies, including the Red Cross, have been barred. Ambassadors representing the 28 Nato countries instructed military commanders to start planning for what an alliance spokesperson described as “all eventualities”. However, the spokesperson added that “operational steps” had not yet been taken and that the UN security council had not authorised the use of force. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary general, has made it clear that in his view a no-fly zone would require a specific UN resolution. The decision to draw up contingency plans was not officially announced, because of the sensitivity surrounding an issue on which the alliance is far from united.   The decision to task Nato commanders with contingency planning was taken despite serious reservations expressed by Robert Gates, shared by British military chiefs. “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down,” Gates said earlier this week. However, President Barak Obama subsequently said he was placing US military assets near Libya to ensure he had the “full capacity to act” if the situation deteriorated further. But the government has placed on alert air, sea, and ground forces that could quickly intervene in the conflict if ordered to do so. Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus, while 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland – the Black Watch – is on 24 hours’ notice to help in evacuation and humanitarian operations, defence officials said. An RAF airborne radar and early warning aircraft is based in Malta where the MoD has also set up a forward joint task force headquarters. Officials declined to say what intelligence they had gathered on the quality and number of pro-Gaddafi aircraft and armour. Meanwhile, a ship understood to contain £100m worth of Libyan dinars has been seized and escorted into Harwich docks in Essex by the UK Border Agency Vigilant, the Home Office said. The vessel had returned to the UK after failing to dock in Tripoli last weekend. She was tracked by British authorities and intercepted off the coast. The chancellor, George Osborne, froze Gaddafi’s £900m of UK-based assets last Sunday.

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  March 4 2011, 2:12pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  The YouView revolution will not be televised just yet

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/28/the-youview-revolution-will-not-be-televised-just-yet

  None of this really matters one jot if the quality of the programmes being made continues to deteriorate.

  This article titled “The YouView revolution will not be televised just yet” was written by Steve Hewlett on YouView, for The Guardian on Monday 28th February 2011 07.00 UTC There’s a lot riding on YouView. BBC director general Mark Thompson has described it as nothing less than the “battle for the living room” – pitching YouView as an “open” platform based around the legacy free-to-air public service broadcasters, against the barbarians of the pay-TV world and their “closed” platforms. You can see what he means. YouView – and the on-demand functionality it offers (such as an EPG that allows you to go back in time as well as forwards, to deliver iPlayer-style catchup on your TV) – will “change the way you view TV for ever”, it’s claimed. If that were to happen and consumers come to expect and then demand such services, the legacy PSBs would be seriously disadvantaged without their own platform. Or so the argument goes. Actually underlying those arguments is a pretty straightforward attempt to find an upgrade path for Freeview. Freeview is already falling behind cable and satellite services because limited bandwidth means it can’t deliver anything like as much HD TV. As Virgin and Sky pour investment into next generation internet-enhanced TV, the fear is that without YouView Freeview will fall even further behind. What does that matter to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5? Because they get substantially higher viewing shares in Freeview homes than in Sky or Virgin households. So you can see why, irrespective of whether it really does revolutionise viewing habits, they see YouView as quite so significant. For the other key shareholders – principally the internet service providers BT and TalkTalk – there is almost as much at stake. BT has spent a reported £800m on BT Vision, and it does now work and thanks to Ofcom does now have premium sport – but to say it has failed to meet expectations rather understates the case. BT desperately needs a good TV offering if it is to ward off the threat posed by Sky and Virgin, which can already offer customers so called “triple play” (TV, telephone and internet). For BT and TalkTalk, YouView – with all its high-quality BBC, Channel 4 and ITV content plus other on-demand options – is their fast track to a compelling “triple play” offer. Which makes the fact that as you read this there is not (and never has been) a working YouView box something of a worry. Originally set to launch early in 2010, then promised to be in the shops by Christmas, then first quarter 2011, then second half 2011 and as of two weeks ago “sometime” in 2012, YouView has become an embarrassment for the BBC – which has done most of the technical development work – and a real concern for all the shareholders who fear losing what could have been a Freeview-style market position in online TV. Commercial shareholders have been irked by what they perceive to be a lack of “commercial acumen” on the BBC’s part. The tendency to over-specify the potential capabilities of the system has led to huge technical problems – which ultimately explain why it doesn’t yet work. A picture emerges of a project run by BBC boffins (who, according to one insider, have no concept of the kind of consumer marketing focus that commercial operations depend on) spending huge amounts of money trying to create an all-singing, all-dancing box that would win its creators significant recognition in the digital media world outside. When all the shareholders really wanted was an enhanced TV catchup service with some extra on-demand and pay TV services thrown in.   All the talk now is of “de-specifying” the box in an effort to make it work and get it to market for the Olympics in 2012. In the meantime Richard Desmond has sent his friend Lord Sugar in to “kick the tyres” of the unfunctioning box; the “drop dead” clause in the shareholders’ agreement (allowing them to walk away from the project if it is not launched by then) is due to run out at the end of 2011 and is being hastily renegotiated; and YouView’s popular chief executive Richard Halton is surviving, but under pressure. In normal circumstances this might look like a project on the verge of collapse, but that is very unlikely to happen. Why? Because the UK’s internet infrastructure is not yet capable of delivering YouView-like services as widely as would be necessary to make real market impact – for YouView or anybody else. And because evidence so far suggests relatively limited consumer demand for internet-enabled TV. In other words, the delay to YouView’s launch probably won’t be as damaging as it might have been. More by luck than judgment.

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  February 28 2011, 4:08am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/27/tunisian-prime-minister-mohamed-ghannouchi-resigns-amid-unrest

  Down with the interim coalition Government. The Tunisian mass movement is being emulated in the whole region. In the revolutionary process, the mass of workers, young people and poor are learning very quickly. Past illusions in the ‘benevolent’ and protective role of the army have been replaced by a much more defiant attitude. Egypt take note.

  This article titled “Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest” was written by Kim Willsher, Paris, for The Guardian on Sunday 27th February 2011 19.58 UTC Tunisia was thrown into turmoil once more after Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned as prime minister of the post-revolution government amid further clashes between police and protestors. The interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, named the former government minister Beji Caid-Essebsi as Ghannouchi’s replacement. Ghannouchi said he felt forced to stand down “because I am not willing to be a person that takes decisions that would end up causing casualties”. He made the announcement after three people died on Saturday and nine others were injured during outbreaks of violence on the streets of the capital, Tunis. Tunisia’s interim coalition has struggled to assert its authority since a wave of protests that started in December sparked what was called the “jasmine revolution”, leading to the overthrow in January of president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled for 23 years. Protestors have targeted Ghannouchi, accusing him of being too close to the former government. They have also become frustrated over the slow pace of change since the revolution despite the interim government’s pledge to hold a general election by 15 July this year. Ghannouchi, 69, who since 1989 had held various ministerial posts under the old regime, told a news conference he had thought carefully about the decision. “I am not running away from responsibility,” he said. “This is to open the way for a new prime minister.” He added: “This resignation will serve Tunisia, and the revolution and the future of Tunisia.” On a third day of clashes, police fired tear gas and warning shots in an effort to disperse stone-throwing youths and protesters shouting anti-government slogans around Habib Bourguiba avenue in central Tunis. More than 100 people were arrested and accused of “acts of destruction and burning”, according to a statement by the Tunisian interior ministry put out by the state-run news agency Tunis Afrique Presse. Demonstrators want the interim government disbanded along with the current parliament. They also seek the suspension of the constitution and the formation of an elected assembly that can write another, organise elections and oversee the transition to democracy. Ghannouchi took power after Ben Ali fled on 14 January. He formed a new “national unity” government, including opposition party members and a blogger.   Tunisia’s revolution was sparked by the death of a young street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, in December. In an act of desperation which sparked unrest in several other Arab countries in the region, Bouazizi set fire to himself after officials stopped him selling vegetables without permission.

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  February 27 2011, 2:35pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Yusuf Islam on ‘My People’

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/25/yusuf-islam-on-my-people

  Yusuf Islam talks about the production and crowd sourcing of his new song ‘My People’ inspired by the revolution in Egypt and the Arab world.

  Yusuf used facebook to gather peoples voices and mixed them into the production. Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogYusuf Islam on ‘My People’

  Related posts:Islam – Roy Harper responds Arab youth: the tipping point Andrew Roberts – History of English Speaking Peoples

  

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  February 25 2011, 10:49am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Libya rebels isolate Gaddafi, seizing cities and oilfields

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/24/libya-rebels-isolate-gaddafi-seizing-cities-and-oilfields

  Well it looks like the worst case scenario, that in which Gaddafi sabotages the oil fields, may have been avoided. There’s still a strong danger of civil war within Tripoli as hard core loyalists and mercenaries defend a last ditch position. Meanwhile what’s the news from Tangiers and other places?

  This article titled “Libya rebels isolate Gaddafi, seizing cities and oilfields” was written by Martin Chulov in Benghazi, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 24th February 2011 17.29 UTC Opposition activists are increasing the pressure on Muammar Gaddafi’s ailing regime, shutting down oil exports and mobilising rebel groups in the west of the country as the revolution rapidly spreads. Gaddafi’s hold on power appears confined to parts of Tripoli and perhaps several regions in the centre of the country. Towns to the west of the capital have fallen and all of eastern Libya is firmly in opposition hands. In a rambling appeal for calm on state TV, Gaddafi blamed the revolt on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and said the protesters were fuelled by Nescafe spiked with hallucinogenic drugs. In Benghazi, the country’s second city, basic order is returning to the streets after days of fierce fighting that resulted in the military defecting en masse. Virtually all government buildings were looted and wrecked. There are long lines outside closed banks as people try to resume normal life. Cars have returned to city streets but almost all shops remain closed and the internet is blocked. • Watch dramatic Libya video with commentary by Martin Chulov • Follow live reaction to Gadaffi’s latest statement • David Cameron apologises for delay in evacuating Britons Benghazi is now being run by a makeshift organising committee of judges, lawyers and other professionals who have sent out young people to direct traffic and restore basic order. One high court lawyer, Amal Bagaigis, said: “We started just as lawyers looking for our rights and now we are revolutionaries, and we don’t know how to manage. We want to have our own face. For 42 years we lived with this kind of barbarianism. We now want to live by ourselves.” The town of Misrata, about halfway between Benghazi and Tripoli, is reported to have fallen after days of violence. A resident, Abdul Basit Imzivig, told the Guardian that regime forces had fled overnight and the city was in opposition hands. All southern oilfields are in rebel control. Moustafa Raba’a, a mechanical engineer with the Sirte oil company, said pressure had been put on field and refinery managers to stop work and protect all foreign nationals working with them. “The order was put out to send a message to Gaddafi to stop the slaying of our people in Benghazi. We made a decision to deny him the privilege of exporting oil and gas to Europe.” He said the blockade had prevented 80,000 barrels a day being exported from the Dregga field alone. In Gaddafi’s latest broadcast, he spoke to state television by telephone without appearing in person, and his tone seemed more conciliatory. But it was peppered with bizarre references – he compared his authority to the British Queen and said of the protesters: “Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe.” Opposition to Gaddafi appears to have reached a critical mass, with his influence confined to parts of the capital and steadily shrinking. Tripoli remains in lockdown and there are reports of snipers. Irish-trained surgeon Heitham Gheriani, who was one of the revolution’s organisers in Benghazi, said: “Now the people realise the power they have. They started this protest peacefully and then the youths joined them. And when Gaddafi started killing them they rose up. But we honestly didn’t think it would happen so quickly.” A Turkish ferry has docked in Benghazi to evacuate a small number of Turkish nationals, and a British warship remains off the coast waiting for permission to approach Libyan shores. A second ship, the HMS York, has been stationed in Malta to help with the rescue effort. Tens of thousands of Egyptians are continuing to pour towards their home border along with a convoy of other foreign workers. Elsewhere in Libya forces loyal to Gaddafi are reported to have launched a counter-attack on anti-government militias controlling Misrata, 125 miles (200km) east of Tripoli. Several people were killed in fighting near the city’s airport. Lawyers and judges have said they control the city in an internet statement. With help from “honest” military officers they had removed agents of the “oppressive regime” in Misrata, the statement said. Another western town, Zuara, is reported to have fallen to opposition forces as the tide of rebellion advanced closer to Tripoli. Violence reached the town of Az-Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli. Al-Arabiya television said Gaddafi would address residents of the town. In Oman, the British prime minister David Cameron delivered an unequivocal apology for the failings that left British citizens stranded in Libya. Two chartered planes have now left Tripoli, and a Hercules landed in the Libyan capital. British officials are confident that all UK citizens at the airport have been flown out, though they expect more to turn up. The prime minister said British officials would be “sweeping up” any remaining British citizens who arrive at the airport, while HMS Cumberland has docked in Benghazi to pick up passengers there. The Ministry of Defence is assessing how to rescue between 100 and 150 British citizens working for oil companies in the desert.

  guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLibya rebels isolate Gaddafi, seizing cities and oilfields

  Related posts:Libya protests: ‘Now we’ve seen the blood our fears have gone’ Blair and Gaddafi How will Libya’s protests play out?

  

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  February 24 2011, 12:06pm | Comments »

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