Week 42 2013

Tendring Topics……on line

Syria – a Glimmer of Hope.

            Greek mythology has it that when Pandora opened the forbidden box (rather as, in Hebrew mythology, Eve ate the forbidden fruit) all the evils of the world escaped to plague mankind – greed, cruelty, hatred, death, famine and disease.   Right at the end, when the box had seemed to be empty, came hope – and, in the face of every disaster, hope has remained with humankind ever since.

            The Middle East and in particular Syria has had a surfeit of all those evils during the past two years.  Armed rebellion against the regime of President Assad, and the resistance to it of forces loyal to the President, have brought death and destruction on an unprecedented scale to that unhappy country.  Thousands have been killed or mutilated, thousands more – refugees from death and violence - have been rendered homeless and have sought shelter either in their own or neighbouring countries.  The situation has been made worse by foreign interference.  Britain, France and the USA have joined Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula states (unlikely champions of freedom, tolerance and democracy!) in supporting the rebels, while Russia and Iran support the Syrian government.  Surely non-one can possibly imagine that ‘victory’ for either side can justify the carnage and destruction of this Civil War made even worse by the use of chemical weapon attacks, for which both sides claim their opponents were responsible.

            The glimmer of hope appeared when, after a particularly appalling chemical weapons attack the USA, convinced that the Syrian Government had been responsible, threatened missile strikes on government targets.  The Syrian Government declared that they were not responsible for that outrage, but that they were prepared to surrender all their chemical weapons to the United Nations for destruction.  There was considerable scepticism in London and Washington about the genuineness of this offer – and anger from the rebels and their Arab (Sunni Muslim) allies who had hoped that missile strikes from the U.S. would give them a decisive advantage.

            But, confounding the sceptics, the Syrian government has given the United Nations’ inspectors all the access they demanded, and destruction of these dreadful weapons has begun.  The civil war with conventional weapons (and heaven knows they are terrible enough!) rages on, but the Russian Government is urging that both sides should be brought together at a Peace Conference to be held in November.

            There surely lies at least the hope of peace.  I have little doubt that the Russian Government will be able to coerce the Syrian Government into attending the Conference prepared to compromise, but will the rebels be ready to do the same?   They consist of a number of quite separate groups sometimes (so it is reported) fighting among themselves and with quite different objectives. Those enjoying the support of ‘the west’ believe they are fighting for a new democratic and tolerant secular state in which Sunni and Shia Muslims will live at peace with each other and with Christians.  It seems quite likely that they would be prepared to compromise to reach agreement with the Government in the interest of peace and reconciliation.

 How about the fervent jihadists, some of them members or supporters of Al Qaida? They are determined to turn Syria into their own kind of Muslim state enforcing their interpretation of Sharia law and tolerating neither ‘infidels’ nor Muslims of other traditions.  These are the people who massacred the Pakistani Christians in Peshawa; who shot sixteen year old Malala, the heroic Pakistani girl who campaigned for girls’ education; who punish ‘unchaste’ women by burying them to their waists and then throwing stones at them until a merciful death releases them. 

They may be in a minority among the rebels but I fear that because of their determination, their conviction that God is on their side, and their willingness to die (and to kill!) for their cause, their will is likely to prevail.  I wish I could imagine them reaching a compromise agreement with the Syrian government – and keeping it!

We can only hope – and pray.  The God revealed to us in Jesus Christ loves all his human children – Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists; even those who deny his existence.  I believe though that there may be just one human action, the ultimate blasphemy, that always provokes God’s wrath.  That is deliberately harming a fellow human being – and claiming that it is being done in his service!

             ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways’

                                                  John Greenleaf Whittier, 19^th Century American Poet and Quaker

A 21^st Century Heroine

          Mention of Pakistani teenager Malala above reminded me of the thought-provoking Panorama programme on BBC tv on Monday evening 7^th October, in which she and her family were interviewed about the attempted assassination that brought her to the front pages of the world’s press – and, thanks to British surgery, her almost miraculous recovery.

            I presume that English is not Malala’s first language yet this unassuming sixteen-year-old spoke fluently and eloquently in English of her campaign, in defiance of death threats, to be educated herself and to achieve education for girls world-wide.  To silence her, a Taliban assassin had boarded a school bus and shot her twice in the head.  Thanks to the fact that she had been immediately rushed to her local hospital and thence to Britain for extensive surgery she had lived to tell the tale.  Now, with the full support of her family, she  is determined to continue her campaign for girls to have the same right as boys to a proper education.

What a contrast between this Pakistani teenager who fought, and is fighting, against tremendous odds, for education for herself and others and the many British children who have to be bribed (sorry ‘offered incentives’) to get to school regularly, who do not value education for themselves and who, by disruptive behaviour, do their best to deny it to others!

Just the day after that Panorama programme we learned that a world-wide survey of standards of literacy and numeracy among young people between the ages of 16 and 24 had revealed that British young people within that age-group had come near the bottom!  How sad it is that oldies like me are not greatly surprised.

A Glad Farewell to Party Conferences

          I am glad that the political party conferences are over.  I find listening to top politicians, whichever party they support, is a depressing experience. One regular blog reader who emailed me after the Conservative Conference seemed even more angry than I was – perhaps he had paid more attention than me!

            ‘I really don’t think even Mrs Thatcher so skilfully turned public opinion against one minority after another, blaming each for our economic woes.  It has been the migrants, the not-so-disabled, the subsidised tenants, the ones with subsidised bedrooms, and now the 200,000 ‘life style choice’ claimants who have been unemployed for more than 2 years.  And each pronouncement has been lapped up by a willing public and press eager to find someone else to blame.  No attempt to explain how any of these issues could possibly have caused the economic crisis.  It is really easy to see how easily Hitler was able to use the same tactics to turn a nation against the Jews!  And there were the pre-conference announcements that “we don’t need to be at the forefront of green energy, and it is adding too much to fuel bills and – we are minded to block all future land wind farms” (which are actually the cheapest form of green energy), on the very day that the worlds scientific community warned of the consequences of climate change.

I felt that the Conferences of all three main parties reinforced my conviction that they really all have the same policy –  to get elected at all costs and to remain in office as long as they can persuade a gullible electorate to let them. Gone are the days of conviction politics – when political parties had fairly clearly defined final objectives and devoted their efforts to persuading the public that those objectives were desirable and attainable, and that they were the ones who could achieve them.  Nowadays not even the Mail and the Express ever refer to the Labour Party as Socialists.  Nor can the Conservatives claim to be ‘conservative’. Mrs Thatcher’s governments made more revolutionary changes to the British way of life than any of her predecessors or successors.  It was under her governments that we lost our manufacturing base and became reliant on ‘service industries’ (money lending, share juggling and the like), and the policy of wholesale privatisation began. Our efforts were to become directed towards satisfying the shareholders rather than serving the public.

An exception is sadly the one Party whose policies I believe to be totally mischievous and, if they were implemented, disastrous. UKIP has one principal aim; to get the UK out of the European Union.  It is obvious to me that the United Kingdom, on its own, cannot hope to compete or to co-operate effectively with other world political or economic blocs.  As an active part of a more closely integrated European Union we could do either or both.  Europe is the biggest recipient of our exports.  We are Europeans – geographically, historically and culturally.  Of course the EU is imperfect – but its imperfections are largely due to the determination of individual states to pursue their own short-term interests rather than those of Europe as a whole.  The EU is not some alien and hostile state.  We are an important part of it. We have helped to create it and make it what it is. We, if we summon the will to do so, can perfect it.  For all our sakes I pray that we will not fall for the Neo-Fascist nationalist charms of Nigel Farage and his disciples.  Their policies, including that of a rapid exit from Europe, are simply those of the ‘raving right’ of the Conservative Party.  If that is really what we want, I am glad that at 92 I am unlikely to have to live under the UKIP/Conservative coalition government that I can see on the not-so-distant horizon..

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Week 25 2013

Tendring Topics…….on line

‘Now thrive the armourers…….’

          This line, spoken in the prologue to Shakespeare’s Henry V suggests that as long as 400 years ago it was realized that the real winners in any international or civil conflict are those who manufacture and sell the means with which the combatants kill each other.  Henry V is Shakespeare’s account of the campaign in France in 1415 that began with the siege and eventual capture of Harfleur, and ended at Agincourt.  There a much larger French army was defeated in its attempt to prevent Henry’s   depleted and disease-ridden force from reaching Calais, then an English possession, and returning safely to England. 

The campaign was part of a war that dragged on for a century. It cost thousands of French and English lives and thousands of pounds wrung from the ordinary people of France and England.   Agincourt was indeed a famous victory in which English bowmen and foot soldiers defeated a much larger French Army and slaughtered large swathes of the French nobility and chivalry.  Whatever else may have been its result there’s no doubt at all that, on both sides of the Channel, those ‘armourers’ did very nicely out of it, and out of the century-long war.

Let us hope that the war ‘the west’ has been waging ‘against terrorism’ since ‘9/11’ doesn’t go on for so long.  In Iraq the flames of conflict have been dampened down but not extinguished. The future of Afghanistan seems likely to be similar, if not even bleaker.  Libya could hardly be described as a country at peace.

In Syria a motley array of rebel fighters (many with a minimal knowledge of Syria but a wide experience of terrorism) are trying to overthrow the government of President Assad.   We are being dragged deeper and deeper into the conflict.  At first there was just aid for the victims, more recently there has been supply of ‘non-lethal’ military equipment to the rebels.  The government of the USA has repeatedly said that it would take more positive action if it were satisfied that the Syrian government’s forces were using chemical weapons.  Now it proclaims that that Rubicon has been crossed – Sarin gas has been used and it has claimed over 100 victims.  The USA will therefore support the rebels with military aid of all kinds. It is to the credit of our Prime Minister that for once he strikes a note of caution.  I hope that he will resist any plea to send more weaponry and perhaps troops from our depleted army, to ‘train and support’ rebel fighters, among whom, eagerly gaining more murderous experience, are the very terrorists who threaten us in the UK.

Reports suggest that the principal backer of the Syrian rebels is Saudi Arabia, which is supplying them with both weapons and funds.  Compared with Saudi Arabia, pre-civil-war Syria was an oasis of liberty and tolerance.  Does anyone seriously imagine that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, with its absolute ban on any religion other than its own version of Islam, its religious police (who make the ‘thought police’ of pre-war imperial Japan look like well-meaning boy scouts), its subjugation of women and its medieval legal and penal code, want to see a new liberal and tolerant Syria as preferred by Barak Obama and David Cameron?

It is probable that Sarin gas, or whatever, has claimed victims in the Syrian conflict.  But which side has used it?   Barak Obama has repeatedly said that the use of chemical weapons by the government side would result in more positive action by the USA in favour of the rebels. That’s just what the rebels need. Is it likely that the Syrian government would authorise the use of a small amount of Sarin gas; enough to provoke the USA into action but by no means enough to turn the conflict in the government’s favour?  Nor would it be likely to do so at a time when government forces are gaining the upper hand using conventional weapons. Surely it is much more likely that the rebels have used it as a sure, if desperate, means of gaining greater support from ‘the west’ in their cause?   We were deceived into taking part in the invasion of Iraq by a dodgy dossier of ‘irrefutable evidence’ that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at his disposal.   He hadn’t. Nor had he, as was falsely claimed at the time, played any part in the outrage of 9/11. We surely have more sense than to be again deceived into military action by false or flawed evidence.

Perhaps we should look on the bright side.  Arms manufacturers and salesmen (modern ‘armourers’ engaged in one of the UKs most successful industries) are doing do very nicely out of the conflict. If the UK and USA give more support to the rebels, they could do even better. They’d make more profits and might even be able to ‘create more jobs’ knocking a few hundred off the UK’s two and a half million unemployed   For some that would be ample compensation for the destruction of a country and for  tens of thousands of its inhabitants being slaughtered, mutilated and/or rendered homeless.

A little grand-paternal pride!

Nick and Romy in a Brussels restaurant 

            I am very proud of the fact that Nick, my younger grandson, has become an authority on international tourism.   Shortly after graduating he obtained a post with the European Travel Commission and was appointed as their on-line Sales Manager.  Later, despite the fact that he was not yet thirty and that the UK had opted out of membership of the ETC, he was appointed as the Commission’s Acting Executive Director. Nick though, had no intention of becoming a senior International Civil Servant or of limiting his tourism activities to Europe. With the experience he had gained and the world-wide contacts that he had made, he launched his own international tourism consultancy SE1Media Ltd. of which he is now Managing Director (www.se1media.com).  Since then he has organised international tourism conferences and seminars world-wide and has visited the tourism and holiday-travel ministries of over forty countries.

            Nick had, of course, visited my wife and I in Clacton on many occasions as a child and adolescent. I don’t recall his ever expressing any great enthusiasm for our town as a holiday destination.  I was a little anxious therefore when, after the guests at the celebratory  lunch for my 92^nd birthday (see Blog Week 21) began to disperse, my German friend Ingrid and her partner Ray announced that with the younger members of my guests, they would be going down to the sea front to see the cliff-top gardens and the pier.  How, I wondered, would  Nick, now an international expert, regard Clacton's holiday attractions?

                                                                        Clacton’s Memorial Gardens

            I am very pleased to be able to record that they all, including Nick, thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were deeply impressed.  They appreciated the pier and its present rides and facilities.  Nick was very impressed with the Pier Restaurant with its large glass windows looking out on to the great sweep of the sea and the new Maplin Sands wind farm.

 There was Ingrid from Germany (originally from Zittau but now living and working in Bayreuth), her Austrian god-daughter Jenny, grandson Nick, and Romy, from Brussels, grandson Chris from Taiwan, granddaughter Jo from Sheffield and Ingrid’s partner Ray from Ipswich.   It is good to think that they have all returned to their homes with positive memories of their visit to Clacton-on-Sea and the Essex Sunshine Coast on the occasion of my ninety-second birthday.

Oh dear!  Sixteen year old Austrian Jenny has been gobbled up by an alien ogre from outer space, on Clacton Pier.     

                                                         The Pier Restaurant