5th February 2015

Tendring Topics……..on line

 Eye to Eye with ‘Private Eye’

           

On 24^th January I wrote critically  in this blog about the Westminster Abbey authorities flying our national flag at half-mast in mourning for the death of the King of Saudi Arabia, and of the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales, a future Defender of the Faith (our Faith!) flying to that benighted country to present their condolences.  I asked if we really needed oil – and arms sales – so desperately that we were prepared to take as an ally a country whose ethos is the exact opposite of the ‘British values’ that our Prime Minister claims to be so keen to promote.

            I have just read the copy of Private Eye published on 23^rd January, just the day before I published that blog, in which they gave their view of the United Kingdom’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.  Here it is:

            While David Cameron stands shoulder to shoulder with world leaders protesting at extremist assaults on freedom of expression on the streets of Paris, his government continues to ignore such intolerance when practised by a government with which the UK wants to do business.

            As ‘Charlie Hebdo’ was attacked, Saudi Arabia was meeting out the first of 1,000 lashes to blogger Raif Madawi.  Yet so keen is Cameron to cultivate the despots in Riyadh that, not only did he not denounce the flogging, but his government continues to cover up the corruption that sustains the barbaric regime there.

            ‘Private Eye’ is currently engaged in a freedom of information battle with the Ministry of Defence for details of its complicity in corruption on a £2 billion defence contract.  The government refuses to provide it on the grounds that exposing such dirty secrets would harm relations with Saudi Arabia.

            Given that the oppressive state spawned the group that claims responsibility for the Paris attacks (not to mention the 9/11 bombers) al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps the ‘relations’ so highly valued by the British government would be better served by exposing the Saudi regime rather than covering up for it.

          
                King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died on 23^rd January, the day that Private Eye went on sale. In that issue it commented on the jihadist murders in Paris and on the world-wide demonstrations – led by the western world’s political leaders - supporting ‘free speech’.  It was unable though to comment in that issue on the obsequious haste with which some of those same leaders flew to Saudi Arabia to offer their condolences on the loss of the leader of a country that prohibits free speech, bans the practice of any religious faith other than its own fundamentalist version  of Islam, inflicts cruel and  barbarous punishments on it own people, holds democracy and human rights in contempt, and generally makes Saddam Husseins's Iraq, Colonel Gadafi's Libya and President Assad's Syria, seem by comparison to have been earthly paradises of liberty and tolerance.

          In view of this, the cover of the Private Eye of 23^rd January shown above, was remarkably prophetic. The  'speech bubble' shown emanating from the world's leaders is surely more accurate than 'Je suis Charlie', the slogan of the 'free speech' protesters!

‘Man’s inhumanity to man!’

            I can’t imagine a crime more heinous than that of IS (Islamic State) in burning alive, in a cage, the unfortunate Jordanian airman who fell into their hands.  The wickedness of the action was made worse by IS’ pretence of negotiating his release in exchange for a captured failed suicide bomber.   These ‘negotiations’ ensured IS the publicity for which they had hoped, and gave false hope to the victim and his friends and relatives.  I have little doubt that his fate was sealed from the moment of capture.

            The airman’s dreadful death brought to my mind another shameful incident almost exactly seventy years ago.  I was a prisoner of war at a ‘working camp’ in Zittau in eastern Germany.  Throughout the bitterly cold winter of 1944/’45 we had watched civilian refugees from the inexorably approaching Eastern Front pass through the town; old men, women and little children. Many were trudging through the snow pulling little carts with all their belongings.  They were making for Dresden, 60 or 70 miles to the west where they’d be sorted out by the German Red Cross and sent to relatively safe areas for refuge.  It was obvious to all that Germany was defeated and World War II coming to an end.

            On the night of 13^th February 1945 Dresden was flattened by high explosive and incendiary bombs dropped by hundreds of RAF bombers.  The centre of the town – not the railways and factories on the outskirts – was the bombers’ target and it was crowded with hapless refugees. The RAF bombers departed before the dawn but bombers from the USA continued during the following day. The number of dead is estimated to have been between 22,000 and 25,000.  Many of them were killed by collapsing buildings, others were asphyxiated by smoke.  They were the lucky ones.  A substantial number, men, women and little children will have been burnt alive – just like that unfortunate Jordanian airman.

            The crews of the RAF and American bombers were ‘just obeying orders’.  They didn’t know on whom their bombs were falling and anyway, the Germans had done much more dreadful things.  The bombing of Dresden took place just a few days after the Soviet Army had liberated the Auschwitz death camp in Poland and had told the world of the horrors they had discovered there.   Those aircrews were quite different from the killers of IS who had allowed their victim to hope for release and had then murdered him in the cruellest way that they could devise – a way that was guaranteed to torture not only their victim but those who loved him.

            Those aircrews were quite different from the cold-blooded torturers and murderers of IS. But their victims, whose bodies were found among the still smouldering ruins of Dresden, suffered exactly the same agonies as that Jordanian airman. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the events of that February night almost exactly 70 years ago set my mind on a course that ended with my repudiating all acts of violence and, just three years later, joining the religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and embracing the Quaker testimony against all wars.

Late Note.  The action of the Jordanian Government in hanging two jihadist prisoners (including the woman whom the government had been prepared to exchange for that airman) was understandable but regrettable.  It is only by breaking the cycle of vengeance that we can hope to achieve peace.

           

13th January 2015

Tendring Topics…….on Line

The Jihad goes on!

          I don’t think that anyone who has read my previous blogs will accuse me of being indifferent to, or tolerant of, the murderous activities of Islamic extremists or jihadists, holy warriors as they think themselves. On the contrary, I think these activities are the biggest man-made peril facing civilisation today, and one of the most difficult to combat.  Our efforts so far, aimed at confronting the extremists in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, only encourage undecided Muslims to rally to the jihadist cause. I remain convinced that only a movement from within Islam itself, authoritatively denouncing terrorist outrages as blasphemous and wholly evil, will lead to its downfall.

            The latest outrages in France have really stirred up public anger.  Millions, so the newspapers say, have marched and demonstrated in protest at the killings and in defence of ‘free speech’. Scores of the world’s political leaders have linked arms to demonstrate their unity in the face of the jihadist assassins.

            I wonder how many among those demanding ‘free speech’ have during the past few months, demanded the immediate resignation of an MP, or a local councillor, or a tv presenter because, in a moment of thoughtlessness, he or she has used a word or an expression that was perfectly acceptable during my childhood and early adulthood, but is nowadays pounced upon by self-appointed verbal vigilantes and denounced as either racist, antisemitic or homophobic. Are all of us really all that keen on unrestricted ‘free speech’ at all times for everyone?

  I wonder too how many of the political leaders who have denounced the jihadist assassins, have used, or acquiesced with the use of unmanned drones operated from a place of safety, to assassinate anyone they consider to be a threat to their country (and, of course anyone who happens to be in the immediate vicinity at the time!)   Are all our leaders totally opposed to assassination, including that of those whom (without due process of law) they decide is dangerous.

It doesn’t in any way excuse or minimise the guilt and enormity of the actions of the jihadist terrorists, for us and our leaders to ask ourselves whether we too are  without blemish

Four Months of Name Calling

          We’ve only just moved into the New Year and the Parliamentary General Election isn’t until early May. Already though, the first salvos have been fired by the major contestants in the political battle that will decide which of them will form the next government.   It is surely significant that neither Labour nor the Conservatives are promising us a bright future if we’ll only vote for them.  So far they’ve done no more than tell us what a disaster it will be if that ‘other lot’ achieve a majority in the House of Commons.

            Labour says that if the Conservatives are returned to power they will completely wreck the NHS.  Well – the Conservatives have been the dominant force in a coalition government for the past five years and, as I write, many hospitals are in crisis and, at least in the Clacton area where I live, it has become increasingly difficult to get an urgent (or even a non-urgent) appointment with the doctor of your choice. I certainly have less confidence in the NHS than I had five years ago. 

The Conservatives, on the other hand, say that they’re the only party that can be trusted with the economy.  If Labour were to be elected Britain’s finances would soon be in utter chaos.   They might even forget to try to reduce ‘the deficit’. As they’ll gleefully point out, Labour Leader Ed Miliband had forgotten all about it in his final stirring speech at the 2014 Labour Party Conference!

            As for the Liberal Democrats – the best they can hope for is a ‘hung parliament’ in which they’ll be asked to help form a coalition government.  I think they’d be prepared to coalesce with either the Conservatives or Labour.  They’re happy to attack both and claim that, in another coalition government, they would curb the excesses of either party.  The results of European election and recent parliamentary by-elections suggest to me that they won’t get that opportunity.  I voted Lib.Dem in the last General Election but I’ll never do so again.  I am sure that I’m not alone in that.

            Both of the main parties (and the Lib Dems will string along with any policy that will bring in a few votes) have, in fact, the reduction and eventual elimination of the deficit – the gap between government expenditure and government income – as one of their main objectives.   Both seem to imagine though that the only way to do this is to cut government expenditure.  During the past five years the Conservative led coalition has done this relentlessly.  Hence, our pot holed roads, failing educational, health and social services and growing queues at the Food Banks.  They have cut expenditure on our armed services too – but instead of going for the obviously wasteful and totally ineffective Trident Submarine fleet (if it ever does go into action it’ll be ‘goodbye civilisation and goodbye us!) they have depleted the army that even in peacetime can help us out when some private enterprise fails to provide the public service that it promised. The government still hasn’t learned that we’re distrusted and disliked throughout the Middle East and that we should keep our, now depleted, armed forces out of that area.

            The other, and I think by far the best way to narrow that deficit is by means of taxation – not the indirect taxes like VAT and customs duties on, for instance, petrol, alcohol and tobacco.  These disproportionately penalise the less-well-off.  Income tax is the one tax levied in accordance with our ability to pay.  A penny on each band of income tax would have a tremendous effect on that deficit and would drive no-one into poverty.   The state retirement pension is subject to income tax and I can’t understand why other state benefits such as Winter Fuel Allowance for the elderly, children’s allowance, free tv licences for the elderly, attendance allowance (that I get because of my now very limited mobility) should be tax free.  Those whose income is so low that they pay no income tax would be unaffected. The rest of us would find ourselves paying a little, not more than we can afford, for those benefits.

            Instead of this, politicians take a perverse pride in raising the threshold at which income tax becomes payable thus, so they claim, taking thousands of people out of the tax system altogether.  It only takes them out of the income tax system.  They still have to pay those indirect taxes (VAT and Customs duties) that place a much bigger burden upon the poor than on the wealthy.  MPs never seem to grasp the fact that raising the threshold at which income becomes subject to tax helps all income tax payers but doesn’t give even a crumb of help to those with really low incomes who do not pay any income tax anyway.

            At the end of the financial year those Westminster financial geniuses announce that they’ll have to make more savage cuts in public services because income tax revenues are less than had been expected.   Of course they are – because all income tax payers have had their payments reduced!

            Income tax could – and should – be used to reduce and eventually eliminate that deficit.  It would also reduce that other, to my mind much more worrying, gap between the incomes of the wealthiest and those of the poorest of our fellow-citizens.  We have the widest such gap in Europe and it actually widened during the decade of New Labour rule.  Statistics demonstrate that when that gap is narrowed, it is not just the poorest people, but the whole of society, that benefits.