30th January 2015

Tendring Topics……on line

‘Jaw, jaw is always better than War, war!’

            Sir Winston Churchill, the fiftieth anniversary of whose death was remembered last week, was best known as a great war leader.  Perhaps it was his own personal experience of two world wars, and the South African war before them, that inspired him to declare that ‘Jaw, jaw’ (negotiating with the perceived enemy), was always better than ‘War, war’ (confronting that perceived enemy with the weapons of death and destruction).

            It is advice that the world’s leaders really need to heed today.  The news that the Russian Ambassador had been summoned to explain why Russian bombing aircraft had flown round the United Kingdom some 25 miles from our shores, had been shadowed by our fighters and had disrupted air traffic over the English Channel wasn’t one of the first items in the BBC’s news bulletin today (29^th January).  It could well have been the most significant news story though, because it is just such provocative acts that could, unless those concerned are prepared to ‘jaw, jaw’,  trigger the outbreak of World War III.  

            One doesn’t have to be either a psychic or a James Bond to guess the answer of the Russian Ambassador. The flight of the Russian bombers was a direct response to NATOs provocative military manoeuvres in Poland and the Baltic States during the course of which I have little doubt that NATO military aircraft had on many occasions flown up to – and perhaps beyond – the Russian and/or the Belorussian frontiers.

            The NATO manoeuvres were a response to Russia’s recovery of the Crimean peninsula (which had been welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants), and Russian support for the Russian-speaking rebels of Eastern Crimea demanding freedom from the rule of the Ukrainian Government in Kiev.  Tit for tat – just as in a primary school playground, but possibly with rather more dire results!

            The NATO response had not been to discuss the possibility of a joint demand for a cease-fire from both Russia and the NATO countries, and a discussion of possible remedies of the grievances of the people of Eastern Ukraine. Nor have they suggested a referendum, under United Nations auspices, of the people of Crimea to enable them have the same right of self-determination as – for instance – the people of the Falklands, Gibraltar and Kosovo.  Instead ‘the west’ immediately gave wholehearted backing to the Government in Kiev, decided that Russia was entirely responsible for the rebellion in the east, and imposed economic sanctions on Russia.   They gave no credit to the Russians when they managed to achieve a cease-fire and peace talks between the two sides, but now that the ceasefire seems to have been broken (by which side I wonder?) they are proposing further sanctions.

            As a lifetime supporter of the BBC I have been bitterly disappointed that they have reported nothing of the Kiev government’s relentless shelling and bombing of towns and villages under rebel control nor, as I discovered from quite another neutral source, of the thousands of civilian refugees from the shelling who have fled into Russia to seek asylum.

         
 I remember our foreign secretary (it was William Hague at the time) declaring darkly that Russia must realize that its actions would have consequences.  Indeed, and so they did.   But, of course, in the Kremlin other politicians were saying exactly the same thing – in Russian.  

            There’s no doubt that EU and American sanctions have damaged the Russian economy – but Russia has, as might have been foreseen, imposed counter-sanctions against us.   A few days ago we heard how British dairy farmers, struggling to keep their heads above water, had been hit a devastating blow by the Russian ban on the import of British dairy products.  A regular blog reader has suggested that the whole country, not just the dairy farmers, should bear the financial burden of this ban, perhaps by an increase in income tax, not likely to be a very attractive idea a few months before a General Election!

            Now the EU and NATO are meeting to discuss further sanctions on Russia.  How the terrorists of IS (Islamic State) Islamic State – in Syria and Iraq, Africa and  Afghanistan – must be laughing to see their enemies, in Russia and ‘the West’, impoverishing themselves, and treading the very dangerous path that could end in war.  How delighted they’d be if World War III did break out!  And all because the leaders of ‘the west’ were not prepared to ‘jaw, jaw’ with Russia the possibility that a substantial minority of Ukrainians should be granted the right to determine their own future; a right that ‘the west’ has supported in other parts of the world.

Eton and Oxbridge?   Try North Essex!

          I wasn’t particularly surprised when I read in the local Daily Gazette that exam results had revealed Colchester Royal Grammar School and Colchester’s High School for Girls to be the best schools in England.  They have both had an unrivalled reputation for years.

            I was totally astonished though to learn from the same Gazette that Yanis Varoufakis, a Ph.D graduate at Essex University (just on the Colchester side of the Colchester/Tendring District boundary) is the Finance Minister of the new Greek Government; that Rena Dourou, another Essex University Graduate who had been the elected governor of Attica (the part of Greece surrounding Athens) is also a member of that government, while a third Essex Uni. Graduate, Fotini Vaki, has been elected to represent the island of Corfu in the new Greek parliament!

            Nor, records the Gazette, is it only in Greece that graduates of Essex University have achieved distinction.  John Bercow, Speaker of our House of Commons, graduated there in 1985. Daniel  Libeskind, world-renowned architect and master-plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre site in New York after the destruction of 9/11, graduated in 1972,  Lord Triesman who graduated in 1969 is Labour’s shadow minister for foreign affairs.  David Yates,  BAFTA winning tv and film director, who directed the final four episodes of the Harry Potter film series, graduated in 1987,  Oscar Arias Sanchez who graduated in 1975, was twice President of Costa Rica and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987; Baroness Virginia Bottomley, who graduated in 1970 was a Conservative MP for twenty-four years and held two Secretary of State roles in the ‘90s, and Sir Christopher Oissarides who graduated in 1971, was awarded the Nobel prize for his contribution to the theory of search frictions and macroeconomics!  (No – I’ve no idea what that means!)

            It is clear that Eton and Oxbridge isn’t the only route to the top.  Essex University may have arrived rather late on the scene but it has certainly made its mark. I have no doubt that, less than twenty miles from my front door, there are more future cabinet ministers and Nobel prize winners in the pipeline!

27th December 2014

Tendring Topics…….on line

The Challenge of Islamic Extremism

            The problem of Islamic Extremism (Jihadism) is surely among the most serious facing what we think of as ‘civilisation’ today.  In this blog I have returned to the subject again and again and I can think of no easy – or even difficult – solutions to it.  I am sitting comfortably and securely at home in the safety of the UK.  Elsewhere in the world innocent men, women and little children are facing torture, slavery and death at the hands of jihadists.    A regular, and very articulate, reader of the blog has written to me over Christmas to tell me of his concerns and of a possible solution.

I see in your blog you include a comment about the dreadful killing in Pakistan. Almost as bad as the gunning down of children was the special treatment of incineration meted out to the head teacher and a class teacher who tried to protect the children. The gunmen arrived with a can of petrol for that specific purpose.  The next day the Nigerian Islamists (Boku Harran) took 100 people hostage - almost a whole village, but that didn't even make it to the headlines. The BBC calculated that over 5000 people were killed by Islamic extremists during the month of November alone, from 10 counties around the world - and that was before the Pakistan incident!

However, there seems to me to be a few issues to consider in formulating a response. The first is that both the Sydney incident and the Pakistan incident were a direct response to the action taken by those governments in seeking to crush these extremists.  That has been the pattern of so many of the atrocities- like the Spanish train bomb, the attacks on Kenya and the London Tube bombs.  There is also the very obvious threat of radicalisation within the Muslim community at home. This risk is massively increased by a foreign policy which could be seen as hostile to Islam. There may well be valid reasons for our involvement overseas and for forcefully opposing these people. Making the home nation safer (the Tony Blair argument) certainly isn't one of them.

‘Western’ governments have to recognise that jihadism is a world-wide movement, not a bit like Nazi Germany, which was the vision of a deranged man with power in his hands. The U.S. / Israeli policy of assassinating extremist leaders using Drones, just doesn't work.  Innocent people are killed, there are always other leaders to replace those killed, and illegal action of this kind in another country only perpetuates the cycle of grievance and retaliation.

I think maybe it is time to acknowledge - even if we totally disagree with it - that there is popular support in some parts of the world for an extreme Islamic nation with everything which goes with that - lack of human rights, complete rejection of Western views and democracy etc. I am thinking the thing which might eventually end the bloodshed would be the allocation of land and the establishment of Islamic Governments in prescribed areas where there is already a strong belief in that sort of regime. A peace settlement should be based on a few fundamental principles - non aggression into the "less Islamic zone", free movement of disaffected citizens out of the Islamic Zone and free movement of radical Islamists from other counties into the Zone.  Frankly the Pakistan / Afghanistan border area may as well be declared as such, because neither government  has control and the act of trying to control is a cause of endless attacks on Kabul and Islamabad. Perhaps the same should be true of Northern Nigeria where it seems to me the Government is very half hearted about dealing with the situation and has allowed that area to deteriorate economically and thereby fuelled antiwestern resentment. I suspect that a part of Somalia is the same.

It’s certainly an idea and, if jihadists were guided by reason and prepared to negotiate a peace settlement, it might work.  I don’t think they are. They are, I believe, convinced that they have been chosen by God to convert the whole world to their particularly noxious brand of Islam and to enslave and/or kill any who oppose them.  The idea that they could live at peace with people who don’t share that viewpoint would be anathema to them.  I do agree with my correspondent though, that violent attacks, air-strikes and drone assassinations only produce more enthusiastic recruits for the jihadist cause. You can’t destroy an idea, even a thoroughly bad one, by violence.

I believe that the only permanent answer to Islamic extremism must come from Muslims themselves.  I think that most Muslims instinctively prefer to live in a mainly Christian, multifaith or secular society rather than in a strictly Islamic one.  Why else did Muslim refugees from Kosovo seek refuge in western Europe rather than in Albania – the Muslim country ‘next door’?     Why do Muslim refugees seek to gain access to multifaith Australia rather than Muslim Indonesia?  When the former Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that some aspects of Sharia law might be introduced in the UK, he overlooked the fact that a considerable number of people who consider themselves to be devout Muslims had come to this country for no other reason than to escape the strictures of Sharia law.

 Islam doesn’t have an equivalent of the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury who can with authority, denounce this, that or the other practice as being contrary to the will of God.  Surely though there must be devout, respected and charismatic Muslim leaders who can publicly and convincingly declare that forced conversions, murder of non-believers, abduction and sale of young girls into sex slavery is not just un-Islamic  but is in blasphemous denial of the will of Allah, who is  compassionate, merciful and just. Those who carry out such practices can expect to answer for their actions in a higher than worldly court.   

            I eagerly await the emergence of such Muslim leaders.  Without them, I fear that the world will be condemned to an endless cycle of murder and vengeance.

A British Middle East Presence

            I didn’t think that I would ever agree with any pronouncement made by Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip.   However I do wholeheartedly agree with his opposition to the government’s massive reinforcement of the   forces already training Iraqi troops to fight the forces of Islamic State.  It’s ‘mission creep’ and it’s beginning to speed up.  How long will it be, I wonder, before one of those ‘training units’ is attacked by IS and compelled to defend itself – and we’ll be well on our way to involvement in ‘the third gulf war’?

            I don’t know what Mr Farage thinks of the government’s establishing a naval base in Bahrain but I think that, like the reinforcement of our ‘training mission’ in Iraq, it is expensive idiocy.  Britain, largely as a result of the present government’s and its New Labour predecessors’ activities, is regarded with deep suspicion throughout the Middle East – and with good reason.  Wherever we have interfered – in Iraq, in Libya and in Syria, we have managed to make a bad situation even worse.

            We no longer have an Empire.  We’re an average sized country on the western fringes of Europe.  The only way we can effectively make our voice heard on the global stage is as a leading and active member of a more-closely-knit European Union.  We no longer need a ‘presence’ east of Suez and we never have needed those  wildly expensive Trident submarines that have signally failed to deter a single one of the international acts of aggression that have occurred during the past half century.

            Now there’s a couple of ways in which George Osborne could reduce that deficit – without reducing the poor to starvation.

Making a bad situation worse

            There’s been plenty of bad news in the newspapers and on the tv and radio recently; atrocities committed by Islamic State, a terrible road accident in Glasgow, continuing Ebola epidemic in West Africa, thousands rendered jobless in Britain by the failure of a privately owned delivery service.  However there was one undoubted piece of good news on a BBC bulletin on Boxing Day.   An exchange of prisoners of war between the forces of the Kiev government in Ukraine and the forces of the pro-Russian rebels in the eastern provinces of that divided country.  As a former PoW myself I know how much that means to the individuals freed under the agreement and to their families.

                        It’s all part of an uneasy cease-fire brokered by the Russian Government some months ago.   It is a cease-fire peace initiative that ‘the west’ should be whole-heartedly supporting, urging both sides to be prepared to make concessions in the interests of a just and lasting peace.  Instead, we are offering unqualified support to the Kiev government and encouraging them to join NATO, which the Russians inevitably see as a hostile alliance with which they are increasingly surrounded.  Have we really forgotten, in the centenary year of the outbreak of World War I, that it was just such a system of alliances that led to the carnage of 1914/1918?

            The European Union’s latest initiative in the conflict is to inflict economic sanctions directly onto the inhabitants of the Crimea and Sebastapol.  Are they being punished for having wanted to be annexed by (they would say re-united with)   Russia?  Their position is not unlike that of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands who wanted to remain British despite their geographical proximity to Argentina. Just as the UK has ensured that the will of the overwhelming majority of Falklanders has been fulfilled, so Russia has fulfilled the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Crimeans.  The only difference I can discern is that, unlike the British, the Russians achieved their objective without loss of blood.  The pro-Russian separatists are not like the zealots of the Islamic State.  They are prepared to negotiate.  We should encourage them, not make a bad situation worse.    

           Dear Blog readers.......

.I qu  ............I quite thought that the previous blog would be the last one for 2014, but here I am again.  I have had a wonderful Christmas break with my family and feel thoroughly refreshed. I have no idea when the next blog will appear but, in the meantime, I wish all blog readers (and all people of good will towards their fellow men, women and children, of whatever race, colour or creed) a very Happy New Year.  May 2015 be a year of peace and hope. 

  M

  

  

             

 

             

Week 42 2014

Tendring Topics…….on line

Some thoughts on the ‘world wide Jihad’

          A regular blog-reader and correspondent also always watches the Andy Marr programme on BBC tv on Sunday mornings, in which matters of general importance to us all are discussed.  A recent programme inspired him to give serious thought to what is an increasingly important and urgent world problem.  Below, unedited, is the greater part of an email that he sent me.  There’s certainly ‘naught for your comfort’ in it: 

There was a lot of debate also about ISIS and about a major piece of investigation in the Sunday Times about the huge sums of money that wealthy and influential people in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are giving to ISIS.   It really is terrifyingly clear that no one knows what to do about “the problem” which is not really an ”ISIS problem” but is a global problem of Islamic militancy which is definitely a movement, not a single state or a single organisation or a single person.  No amount of decapitating the leaders, blowing up their hardware from the air or rhetoric at the UN is going to make any difference.  Almost any military action only serves to help them recruit more followers, and make it more likely that people already living in western countries will conduct mindless acts of suicidal terrorism.  Their total contempt for the western way of life – and by association all westerners – makes them very dangerous. It means that nothing is out of bounds, no rules of warfare will be respected, all civilians are legitimate targets and as they don’t seek personal gain (not in this world at any rate), then any attack could be suicidal and would be contemplated, even if the chance of “success” were very low.

Somehow, I think we need to go back to first principles and ask how two cultures have become so far apart in their fundamental thinking about the way society should be organised.  I think that many of the views Muslims have today, would have been much closer to the views of our Victorian ancestors.  There is a big issue about the role of women in society. Perhaps we should be more concerned than we are about the overt sexualisation of women in just about every walk of western life, in your face on TV, in music, in advertising.  The reaction to all of this in the Muslim world seems to be to go in the opposite direction – “protecting their girls” – from what, I suspect, even moderate Muslims regard as evil.

Did you read about the girl who has been turned down by Camden High School for Girls for wanting to wear a full face veil in class?  The school (it is a 6^th form college) has no uniform policy, but felt that this was “inappropriate clothing”. Naturally, she felt her human rights had been abused (having been taught all about the virtues of freedom of expression and tolerance in a Western Society) and commented that many girls were wearing “inappropriate clothing” at that school such as “very short shorts” and no one minded that. It is – to me at least – ridiculous for any girl to wear a veil at school, but is it any more ridiculous than girls wearing erotic clothing – as I have seen at local schools in London for myself?  In our local school here, which is very mixed race, all the Muslim girls come wearing the hijab over their heads, and modest clothing – generally trousers. Indian girls also dress modestly while the others, particularly White and Afro Caribbean girls wear the shortest skirts they can get away with to complement their designer handbags, and during the holidays are generally seen wearing beach-ware in the local park.  Funnily enough the boys – of all races and religions – mainly take a delight in showing their contempt for authority, by wearing their Uniform in as dishevelled a manner as they can get away with.

Well, I said there was naught for your comfort.   I have to say that if I were a teacher I wouldn’t want to teach anyone whose face I couldn’t see – and I probably wouldn’t even notice the short shorts. (well, perhaps I would if I were half a century younger!)  Come to that, if I were to be attended by a checkout lady at a supermarket or a receptionist at any office, whose face was veiled, it would be the last time I would go there.  That’s not Islamophobia.   I have no objection whatsoever to the headscarf, but I do like to see the expression on the face of whoever is addressing me or to whom I am talking. 

My correspondent’s comments about opposing values and outlooks explain how it is that the jihadists gain recruits from ‘western countries’ but doesn’t suggest any easy – or even difficult - remedies.

It did occur to me how very important it is that the jihadists should never get their hands on any of the nuclear weapons that we know Pakistan possesses.  Those ‘ultimate deterrents’ on our Trident submarines aren’t going to deter those who regard their own death while killing infidels as providing them with a first-class ticket to a Muslim Paradise!

Sunny Clacton-on-Sea makes the headlines!

It is an unfortunate fact that if ever Clacton-on-Sea features in the headlines of the popular press and is referred to in a television news programme, it won’t be about our town’s holiday attractions – our usually dry and sunny weather, our safe and sandy beaches, our colourful public gardens and our lively pier.  It’ll be about something that the Council, and all who wish our town well, would prefer remained unpublicised.  

From 1973 to 1980 I was Tendring District Council’s first Public Relations Office (Spin Doctor) and on several occasions since then I have been thankful that I have now been retired from that post for over thirty years; never more so than a week or so ago when the illustration,and comment below appeared on the front page of the local daily Gazette.

It seems that ‘Banksy’, undoubtedly the world’s best known graffiti artist had visited Clacton, no doubt listened to Clactonian chatter in shops and pubs, and had left a souvenir of his visit on the wall of a public building.   It is a powerful satire depicting five indignant pigeons bearing anti-immigrant and racist posters (the sort associated with the BNP and English Defence League) directed at a solitary African swallow.

Now ‘Banksy’ originals are extremely valuable possessions.  It might have been expected that the Council would have been delighted to have found it and would have explored ways of making the most of it.  I would have suggested finding some way of protecting it from vandals and then advertising it as one of Clacton’s tourist attractions:   Come to Clacton-on-Sea for sand, sea and sun – and an original ‘Banksy’ art work!   And under that satirical cartoon have the Council’s own comments.  How about: but that’s for bird-brains. Clacton-on-Sea welcomes holiday visitors from all over the world!

But the Council didn’t do anything like that.  Someone reported that a picture with ‘racist’ words had been painted on Council property and with what, under practically any other circumstances would have been commendable alacrity, the order was given that it should be erased – and erased it was.  I defy any spin-doctor to put a ‘positive spin’ on that particular news story!  Perhaps the Council should be pleased that the by-election, with its Ukip victory, drove the story out of the news bulletins – though the uncharitable thought did enter my head that the bird-brains had won – and now had their own representative at Westminster.

An Uncertain Future

            I had thought it likely that Douglas Carswell would win the Clacton-on-Sea by-election – if only because the Ukip election campaign made those of the other candidates look like the products of well-meaning but bungling amateurs.  I had at least twelve printed communications from Ukip, each full of confidence and enthusiasm, plus a door-step canvasser and an eager phone call.  From the others I received one or two lack-lustre leaflets, and that was all.  I dislike Ukips attitudes and policies so much that I cannot bring myself to say that they deserved to win – but all the others certainly deserved to lose.

            A few weeks ago I considered in this blog the then remote possibility of a Ukip/Conservative coalition government after the General Election – with Ukip gradually controlling the coalition.    What then was a fanciful idea now seems a distinct possibility.  I am reminded, once again, of the progress of the Nazi Party in Germany in the thirties. The NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) began by being a smallish party of ‘fruitcakes’ but with a charismatic leader, then they were a growing force that could be controlled and manipulated – and who finally, almost overnight so it must have seemed, took over and ruled with a rod of iron.    Don’t let it happen here.

           

Week 41 2014

Tendring Topics….on Line

Coping with Islamic State

            So now we are officially ‘at war’ with IS (Islamic State) with our aircraft already striking IS targets but with the promise that there will be no ‘boots on the ground’.  This may slow down Islamic State’s progress but I don’t think it will stop it; much less reverse it.  Its principal effect will probably be to recruit more enthusiastic young people from the UK and no doubt, from other ‘western’ countries, into the IS ranks.  Now, so it seems, British teenage girls are making for Turkey as the first step towards becoming brides of their IS heroes in Syria!  It’s strange (well perhaps it isn’t) that we never hear of young people travelling to Syria to help those ‘moderate forces’ opposing President Assad that the UK and the USA are so eager to support.

            I heard on the tv a few days ago an ‘authority’ on Middle Eastern matters declare that the IS uprising is a result of Britain’s failure a year ago to take decisive action against President Assad.  This, so he said, had enabled President Assad’s army to defeat the ‘moderate opposition’ and leave the extreme jihadists in control. What rubbish!  Does he really imagine that if Assad had been overthrown, those moderates would have prevailed over IS?   On the contrary, without Assad, his army and the substantial number of Syrians who remain loyal to him, IS would probably now be ruling the whole of Syria. 

            The Iraqi army has proved woefully unable to halt the IS advance.  The Kurds have been more successful but they are not a national army and the Turks are unwilling to let them have the heavy weapons they need, because of their fear that they might be used to create an independent Kurdistan – part of which would be part of what is now Turkey!  The only effective national army in the Middle East, experienced and hardened in battle with Islamic State, is that of President Assad.  It is time we made our peace with him and accepted him as an ally.

            No doubt the pre-civil war Assad regime had its faults (what Middle Eastern regime hasn’t?) but it was an oasis of freedom and tolerance compared with some of those whom we now claim to be our friends.  Saudi Arabia in particular is the source of the poisonous doctrines that IS puts into practice.  The overwhelming majority of those known to be responsible for the 9/11 outrage were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia regularly abuses human rights in much the same way as IS, but only on its own people.  Half its population (the women) are regarded as the property of members of the other half!   I have little doubt that IS’ initial funding came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  Now, of course, IS doesn’t need outside funding.  They have enriched themselves from their conquests in Syria and Iraq.

 A regular blog reader points out in an email that IS, unlike Hitler and his Nazis, is part of a militant movement that is sweeping the globe.  The Archbishop of Canterbury accurately described it as a ‘many headed Hydra’. Islamic State in Syria and Iraq has the same motivation and the same objectives as the Islamic jihadists who abducted, and still hold, those Christian teenage girls in Nigeria; those who constantly threaten the government of Pakistan, who are fighting for control of Libya, and who are likely to take over Afghanistan as soon as the last GI leaves.

I am reluctant to criticise Obama and Cameron for authorising air strikes on IS targets.  I am sure that they have done so reluctantly and that they are both well aware of the risk of their countries being dragged into a third ‘Gulf War’.  I really have no idea of what their course of action should be.  My blog-reading email correspondent clearly feels the same.  ‘I don’t think we can stand idly by and let these people take ever more and more land, forcing completely peaceful populations out of their towns and villages and murdering anyone who opposes them.  I feel that the priority should have been the defence of the innocent and humanitarian relief – and that does need boots on the ground.  Surely we have the hardware to put a ring of steel around these villages and keep the enemy at bay without getting deeply involved.  It can’t be right for all the Kurds to have to move into refugee camps in Turkey’.

No, of course it isn’t.  My knowledge of military tactics is (to say the least) extremely limited – but I am sure that it wouldn’t be possible to defend all those vulnerable towns and villages as my correspondent suggest. I don’t think we should underestimate the fanaticism and determination of these jihadists. National boundaries mean nothing to them.  If they successfully drove all the Kurds out of Iraq and into Turkey they’d drive on into Turkey!

I am just a little disappointed at the reaction to Islamic State of the majority of peaceful and moderate Muslims in the UK and Western Europe. Imams have condemned the actions of IS as unislamic but -  where are the angry street demonstrations and demands for a fatwa that were provoked by Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ and the cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper?  As well as increasing Islamophobia in the ‘western world’ and providing encouragement to members of such Neofascist organisations as BNP, English Defence League and some Ukippers, it is surely the ultimate blasphemy to suggest that the torture and slaughter of any of his human children is in accordance with the will of God.

I had been persuaded that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that jihad doesn’t really mean a ‘Holy War’ but the inner struggle within us all against the forces of evil.  The members of Islamic State and other similar organisations worldwide are doing their best to persuade me (and thousands of others) otherwise.

‘Ring of Steel’

My email correspondent’s  use of the phrase Rings of Steel to protect non-Islamic communities in Iraq and Syria from the fury of the Islamic State, reminded me that Ring of Steel was the headline on the front page of the weekly Clacton Gazette on Thursday 25^th September.  A sub-heading announced that Special Branch, undercover police and sniffer dogs are to be drafted into Clacton in a huge security operation for the town’s high-profile by-election on 9^th October – a fortnight away as that particular Gazette was published.  If I publish this blog on the internet on Monday 6^th October as I intend, it will be just three days away. 

A news article within the Gazette points out that this by-election will have the highest profile in English political history and its announcement has come just as the country is put on a heightened state of alert against possible terrorist threats.  Police say that there is no known terrorist threat in Clacton but electoral organisers are taking no chances.  Ian Davidson, Tendring Council’s Chief Executive and Returning Officer for the Clacton By-election, told a Gazette reporter that, ‘This election is massive in terms of attention and national politics – the spotlight is on Clacton politically.  We have been in touch with Special Branch and the Police because there are potential security issues and we are taking every precaution to make sure it is a safe and secure count.  We have never had Special Branch at an election before. There is no information of a specific security threat, but we are taking every precaution because of the national and international profile of the by-election’.

Tendring’s district police commander, Chief Inspector Russ Cole said that local police officers would be visiting polling stations throughout the day and there would be a police presence at the count.  ‘We are very much driven by intelligence, and the intelligence we are looking at says there are no major public disorder or counter-terrorist issues but we want to make sure we have enough policing assets’.

I don’t know whether or not my experience has been shared by others but it saddens me that have to say that Ukip and Douglas Carswell have dominated the election campaign.  I have lost count of the number of items of  election literature I have received telling me what a wonderful chap Carswell is, how fortunate we are to have had him as our MP and how important it is that he should be re-elected (but this time as a Ukipper) at the by-election.   These have included leaflets, posters to stick in my window and two apparently personal letters one that addresses me as ‘Dear Ernest’ and the other as ‘Dear Neighbour’.  Douglas Carswell and I have never even met and are certainly not on ‘first name terms’. I have no idea where ‘Dear Douglas’ lives but I’m quite sure it isn’t in my neighbourhood.  I have also had a Ukip doorstep canvasser call on me and among the junk phone calls I had yesterday (1^st October) was a lady urging me to put a cross against Carswell’s name on the 9^th.

Of the other contestants, I have received election leaflets from the Labour, Conservative and Lib’Dem candidates plus a phone call on behalf of the Labour candidate.  And that’s it.  Ukip, it seems, has unlimited funds and lots of eager volunteer supporters.  The others haven’t.

 Ukip’s policies embody everything that I most dislike in politics.  I don’t like their attitude towards Europe, towards global climate change, towards ‘green’ issues generally and towards taxation.  The situation in the UK today, with a great many people (including myself) having lost faith in any of the traditional political parties, is uncomfortably like that in Germany in the late 1920s early ‘30s.  They sought a politician who distrusted politics and offered an alternative path.  They found such a politician in Adolf Hitler.  We’re in danger of finding one in Nigel Farage.

I have a postal vote and have already used it.  For the first time in my life I voted for the Conservative candidate - not because I want him as an MP, but because he offers the best chance of keeping Ukip defector Douglas Carswell, out!

           

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Week 37a 2014

Tendring Topics…….on line

More Refugees

          2014 is becoming the Year of the Refugees.  We have seen harrowing pictures on the tv of thousands of Syrian refugees seeking shelter and asylum in make-shift camps in Turkey, Lebanon and other nearby countries, from the cruel war in their own homeland from which there seems to be no end in sight.  We have seen similar refugees from Gaza trying to escape relentless shelling and bombing from Israel.  They didn’t even have the option of fleeing to a safer country because the Israeli blockade prevented them from escaping from the strip of land that has been described as ‘the world’s biggest concentration camp’.  More recently we have seen thousands more refugees from northern Iraq, many of them members of Christian communities who have lived peaceably with their Muslim neighbours for centuries, fleeing from the bloodthirsty murderers and torturers of the so-called Islamic State. 

            A brief mention on a BBC news bulletin this (2^nd Sept) evening persuaded me to seek more information about at flood of refugees of which I had previously heard virtually nothing.  Did you know (I certainly didn’t before I consulted Google) that over a million refugees from eastern Ukraine had fled into Russia to escape from the relentless bombardment of their towns and villages by the forces of the Kiev government? No wonder the Russians sent a convoy of humanitarian aid vehicles to the south!  I also discovered that there have been over 2,000 fatal casualties from the civil war in the Ukraine  - most of them among the ‘rebel’ population and many, as in Gaza, civilians including women and little children. Isn’t bombing and shelling his own people one of the war crimes of which we constantly accuse President Assad of Syria?   But, as I have remarked before in this blog, It’s not what is done – it’s who it is does it, that matters as far as ‘the west’ is concerned.  The Kiev government has the support of the UK, the USA and NATO, and the refugees in this case are rebels said to be backed by Russia. They clearly ‘don’t deserve our sympathy and aren’t going to get any help from us!’

             The UK, the USA and NATO’s response to this civil war has been to blame it all onto Russia, to impose ever stronger economic sanctions on Russia and to carry out troop manoeuvres in Poland and naval exercises in the Baltic Sea. These highly provocative activities have produced a response from Russia.  They too are strengthening their armed forces and carrying out military exercises.

            A few weeks ago I wrote in this blog about the way in which, as a result of a series of military alliances, the great powers of Europe had ‘sleep walked’ into World War I.  I think that Vladimir Putin, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Barak Obama, have sufficient sense not to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors in 1914, but some of the more bullish US Senators and Congressmen may be eager for a confrontation: ‘Sure we should teach them Rooskies a lesson  – and our boys could he do it and be home again before Christmas’. I have little doubt that within the Russian parliament there are similar irresponsible idiots.  World-wide the number of those who remember the devastation of World War II is getting smaller and smaller. 

            Certainly the Kiev Ukrainian government has been doing all it can to lure their west European friends into the conflict.  Remember how its spokesman announced that the ‘black boxes’ on that ill-fated air liner had revealed that the ill-fated Malaysian air-liner had been shot down by pro-Russian rebels. (We haven’t yet received any official word about those black boxes or about the report of the team of international experts who inspected the crash site).  The latest claim is that two Russian armoured divisions have crossed the frontier and are fighting with the rebels.  Really? I reckon that if the Russian government really had sent two armoured divisions to support the rebels, the Russian flag would by now be flying over Kiev Town Hall!

            The bloody advance of Kiev government forces has been halted (possibly with Russian help).  Now, before a counter- offensive by the pro-Russian rebels begins, is surely the time for peace talks to begin.   It should be noted that the pro-Russian rebels have never sought to take over the whole of Ukraine.  All they ask is to be allowed to keep their own language and customs and to make their own international friendships, perhaps within a loosely Federal Ukraine.  Is that really too much to ask?

            It is, of course, a very ill wind that blows nobody any good. The blood-thirsty fanatics of IS (Islamic State) and their counterparts and supporters world wide, are delighted to see their infidel opponents – the enemies of jihadist Islam in the Russian Federation and those within NATO - at each-other’s throats.  They’d like to see a real ‘shooting war’ break out between the warring infidels, hoping that when half the world had been reduced to a radio-active wilderness, the jihadists would be able to move in and enforce their evil perversion of Islam on whoever was left alive.   

Later News

            I wrote the above four or five days ago.  I am writing this on Saturday 6^th September.  Yesterday afternoon we learned that a cease-fire has been agreed between the forces of the Kiev government and the pro-Russian rebels.  The ceasefire involves a cessation of hostilities, an exchange of prisoners and negotiations on a permanent peace based, almost exactly, on the suggestions made in the paragraph above that I have now italicised and emboldened.

            I am unreservedly thankful and very much hope that the cease-fire will hold* and that the negotiations will be successful.  The response from our government and NATO has been, to say the least, ungracious.  The increased sanctions against Russia will be put into effect and there’s to be a ‘rapid response force, stationed in Poland, ready to counter any ‘act of aggression’ on Russia’s part!   Do they really want a third world war?  I am beginning to wonder.

            What they should be doing is making sure that those Baltic countries ‘the west’ is so eager to protect – don’t deliberately provoke Russian action.  Estonia, where Barak Obama made a bellicose speech, has an ethnic Russian minority of 25 percent of the population.  That means that one quarter of the population use the Russian language and have a Russian culture.  Do we, before we make unreserved promises of protection, make sure that these Russian speakers are not treated as second class citizens?  Is Russian an official language?  There’s certainly nothing unprecedented about a country having more than one official language – Belgium, Switzerland, Wales and Canada for instance are just a few examples.

            We should also ask ourselves how we British would react if the Republic of Ireland or possibly an independent Scotland, entered into a hostile military alliance against us and had a ‘rapid response’ unit stationed within its borders as a defence against British aggression.  We do know how the USA would react.  In order to prevent a successful repetition of the ‘Bay of Pigs’ failed attempt at invasion from the USA, the Cuban Government invited the USSR to position missiles and their launchers on its territory.  The USA was so concerned about this that they were prepared to risk  a nuclear war to prevent it.  Fortunately Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet President, was not prepared to risk such a conflict and withdrew the missiles.  This was hailed as a great American victory – but it’s worth noting that there was no further attempt to invade Cuba from the USA!

            Blessed are the peace-makers………………for it is upon them (not on those who constantly prepare for war) that the survival of the human race depends

Monday - 8th September (7.55 a.m.)

            Yesterday there were reports of the cease-fire being broken - probably by both sides.  As I pointed out earlier in this blog, neither side has a monopoly of irresponsible idiots.  I switched on the TV for BBC's 7.00 am news bulletin with some trepidation.  Ukraine wasn't mentioned.  No doubt it will have been later on, but a major breach of the truce would surely have been given headline status.

                I'm still hoping, and praying, for peace.

Meanwhile – back in sunny Clacton-on-Sea…………………

,

          ………………..the political parties are getting ready for the unexpected by-election caused by Douglas Carswell's defection to UKIP, which we now know is to be held on 9^th October.   UKIP has the advantage of knowing for certain who is to be their candidate and beginning their cempaign early.   There’s no honour among thieves and, so it seems, precious little among Ukippers.  Douglas Carswell has deserted the political party that helped him win his seat in two general elections at just about the worst possible moment, publishing and distributing two self-advertising leaflets before announcing his defection. Local Ukippers have cast aside the local candidate they had democratically elected only a few weeks earlier, in favour of this defector from the Conservatives.  Mr Ling has not taken his sacking quietly.  He has resigned from UKIP, intends to resign his UKIP seat on Essex County Council and to take no further interest in politics.  Who can blame him?

            I have just received another circular and what appears to be a personal letter from Mr Carswell (but I bet dozens of people have received them!) in which he addresses me as ‘Dear Ernest’ – and I had no idea we were on first-name terms!

            I do think that the local Conservative Party has hit on a very good idea in having an unofficial ‘primary election’, even though it means that their election campaign will begin later than those of UKIP or the Lib.Dems.  .Local residents of any or no political persuasion are invited to a public meeting to help select the Party’s candidate from a short list of hopefuls who will briefly address the meeting and answer questions.  There’s also a questionnaire especially for those who won’t be attending this meeting.

            I won’t be going to the meeting and I won’t be filling in the questionnaire. To do either would give a false impression.  If I vote for the Conservative Candidate in the forthcoming by-election (which seems quite likely) it won’t be because I want him or her to be my representative in parliament.  It’ll be simply because I want to keep Douglas Carswell – or any other Ukipper - out!   The election of someone of another party (any other party) as an MP is likely to be the only way of ensuring that. So I shall vote for whoever has the best chance of defeating Douglas Carswell and that at the moment seems to be the Conservative, whoever he or she may be..

            

Week 35 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

Family Friendly?

          I am sick of hearing top (and lower rank) politicians going on and on about supporting ‘the family’ and hoping thereby to get a few more votes at forthcoming elections. Politicians (of both main parties) carry the primary responsibility for the creation of a society that is thoroughly Family Unfriendly and unlikely to be anything else unless there is a revolutionary change in society’s outlook.

            I have probably written in this blog before (one of the characteristics of old age is a tendency to repeat oneself!) that I quite often feel like a time traveller, a ‘poor man’s Dr Who' perhaps.  I  am an early twentieth century man, born in 1921, who finds himself in the twenty-first century and (although I fully appreciate, and take every advantage of, the many benefits the present century offers)  still isn’t quite comfortable with some of the twenty-first century’s practices and attitudes.  This is never more so than when I contrast pre and post World War II attitudes towards marriage and bringing up children.

            The 1920s and ‘30s were not a poor-people-friendly time. My mum and dad were poor though that isn’t how they would have described themselves.  There were plenty poorer.  My dad was never unemployed and I was always adequately fed and clothed.  In fact, I was one of the privileged minority, who went to a secondary school and, unlike most of my contemporaries who were thrown onto the labour market at 14, I didn’t leave school till I was sixteen. Then, armed with my ‘matric’, I went straight to a ‘white collar job’.  It was a struggle though and my parents had to watch every penny.  They were proud of the fact that they never had to ‘ask for charity’ and never owed anyone anything.

            It was a family-friendly time though.  My dad went to work and earned enough, with his army pension just enough, to keep us in what I think the Prayer Book Catechism describes as, ‘that state of life into which it has pleased God to call us’.  My Mum stayed at home, kept the home clean and welcoming, cooked the meals and ‘made do and mended’ as all housewives were exhorted to do during World War II.  Before marriage she had been a cook in an Edwardian household and knew how to cook and how to pickle and preserve!    She was always at home with a welcoming smile and something on the table when my dad and I arrived home from work and school.  We were a small and a united family.

            In those days young men ‘courted’ their girl-friends and didn’t ‘ask for their hand in marriage’ (now there’s a couple of old-fashioned phrases you don’t hear nowadays!) until they were earning enough to support both of them.  Once married their roles were clear.  The husband was ‘the breadwinner’ and went out to work every day to earn sufficient to keep them both.  The young wife stayed at home, cooked the meals and – in due course – had children.  They were a family, and a great many of them were quite content with their lot.  My dad, who had been a Regimental Sergeant-Major in the army – and the senior non-commissioned officer in the small garrison town in which I was born was – I  think – disappointed with his lowly job as clerk, dispenser, veterinary nurse and general dogsbody in a local veterinary practice.  My mum had married my dad ‘for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’ and was, I am pretty certain, content with her lot.  They were both very proud of me and hoped I would ‘better’ myself.  I suppose that I have, though I doubt very much if I’ve ever been any happier than they were.

            When I married in 1946, it never even occurred to either of us that my new wife – who had been secretary to the Managing Director of a large firm of printers – would continue to work.  I was the ‘bread winner’ and she was the ‘home maker.’  Throughout our sixty years of marriage I always managed, though it was sometimes a struggle, to ‘win enough bread’ to keep my wife and, in due course, our two sons in modest comfort though certainly never in luxury.  She was always at home, ready to listen to their stories of school and play, and prepared to give an experienced hand with their homework, when our sons came home from school. She was always ready, with a meal on the table, when I came home from work.  We lived and brought up our two sons in ‘family friendly’ times.

            I really think that ours was the last generation able to do so.  First of all came the idea that in order ‘to keep up with the Jones’s’ young wives should continue in work until the first baby arrived.  Then it became quite acceptable for a young wife to carry on working after children were born.  I think this dated from the time when – eager for custom – banks and building societies decided that they would loan money for home purchase on the basis of a multiple of the family’s total income, and not just the income of ‘the breadwinner’,. Proper arrangements were needed, of course, for child care.  This helped some working couples to ‘get their feet on the home ownership ladder’ but, since it increased the demand for home purchase without increasing the number of houses for sale, inevitably pushed up the price of houses. That was a trend which – with a pause during the period of recession – continues to this day.

The joy of motherhood.  My wife Heather, with our first-born son, in 1953.

         
 Imperceptibly  (I think it gathered momentum during the years of Thatcher rule  in the 1980s) it became not only acceptable – but expected – that young mothers should get back to work ‘to help create wealth’ as soon as possible after the birth of a baby.  It has become increasingly difficult for a family to survive on one income alone.  How can family life hope to flourish when parents both come home weary from a day’s work and see their children, if they’re at home when the parents return, only for a few hours in each evening?  This system, I believe, is responsible not only for the break-up of family life, but for gang culture, juvenile crime and anti-social behaviour, and teenage pregnancies.

            No, I’m not suggesting that we should return to the ways of the 1930s where women were regarded as inferior to men and virtually barred from some professions. I believe that women can excel in any job or profession that demands something more than brute force and blind obedience.  We will soon have women bishops.  One day I hope we’ll have a woman Archbishop of Canterbury! Women are uniquely child-bearers though and I believe that many, though by no means all, women do find home making and bringing up children a thoroughly satisfying and fulfilling career. They too are helping to make Britain a better country in which to live. This should be recognised and made financially possible.  Only policies that work toward this end can properly be described as ‘family friendly’.

The Shadow of a Doubt?

          A recent email from a blog reader says that the activities of IS (Islamic State terrorists) in Iraq must surely present problems to Quakers like myself who look for a non-violent solution to every difficult situation and believe that no-one is one hundred percent evil.

            I wouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t.  Central to my, admittedly sometimes shaky, Quaker faith is the conviction that we all, every man, woman and child in the world, rich and poor alike and whatever our race, colour or creed, have a divine spark (early Quakers called it the ‘inward light of Christ’) within us.  St. John refers to it in the first chapter of his gospel as ‘the true light’ that enlightens everyone who comes into the world.  It shines in the darkness of the world and the darkness cannot overwhelm it.  It is the instinct that urges us to compassion, friendship, generosity, and forgiveness, and away from hatred, violence, greed and vengeance.

            During my long life, in the army and as a civilian; as a prisoner of war and as a free man, I have become acquainted with folk of every religion and none, and of every nationality – Germans, Italians, Russians, Serbs, Arabs, Turks, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis, black and white Africans and North and South Americans.  Not all of them I would particularly like to meet again – but neither did any of them persuade me that the Quaker conviction that every one of them had ‘that of God’ within them was false.

            I have only met members of IS on a tv screen and that was quite near enough. War is defiling.  Every nation at war, at some time or another, performs acts that are clearly, I can’t think of a better word, ‘sinful’.  We could, no doubt, all list the ‘crimes against humanity’ of the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese and Japanese – but how about the blanket bombing of German cities, full of civilians, towards the end of World War II by the British and Americans?  What about the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima by the Americans with British approval and support – and, after seeing the devastation wrought by that atom bomb, dropping another such bomb on Nagasaki? Those who have committed these crimes against humanity know full well they have done so and either deny their guilt or try to justify it.  ‘Our blanket bombing of Germany and the two atom bombs on Japan hastened the war’s end and may have saved untold numbers of lives’.  They may have!

            Members of IS though are unique among war criminals.  They not only commit unspeakable atrocities but glory in having done so – posting pictures of themselves on the internet with the broken bodies and severed heads of their victims.  And they claim that their actions will earn them God's approval.. I can think of nothing more likely to provoke God's wrath! They are surely uniquely evil - and among them are believed to be some 500 young men born, brought up and educated in the UK!

            I like to think that the inward light of God does still smoulder deep within the hearts of these evil men – and can somehow be rekindled.  Meanwhile their activities must be halted, and their victims protected and helped back to normal life. I can't bring myself to criticise those who resort to  violent means to achieve this, but I have observed that such violent means rarely, if ever, achieve their objectives.  I applaud those who bring humanitarian aid to the victims and I give as generously as I can to those who do this work.  Otherwise, and at my age, all I can do is to pray.  And, who knows?  Perhaps that is the most effective thing I could do.