tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46834621228859651812023-11-15T06:44:19.747-08:00Den of the HyenaJennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-75559356065284466422014-09-19T00:35:00.001-07:002014-09-22T05:15:23.661-07:00The Morning AfterYesterday, my country held a referendum on its future. I have made no secret of the fact that I voted Yes to its independence, that I felt it would be better for all involved if it were to disentangle itself from the UK. In the cold light of dawn, after a result that was disappointing but not altogether surprising, I still feel much the same way.<br />
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I'd like to make clear, first and foremost, that I respect the choice of my fellow Scots. 1.6M of them agreed with me. I don't think that the other 1.9M are stupid (though I continue to lament the poor standard of finance education in schools that makes it easy to be misdirected). I certainly don't see them as my enemies. I just don't buy the notion of a deep divide that many people (mostly outside Scotland) have been pushing. Almost all of us did what we did because we wanted the best for our country and for the wider world. Compared to that, disagreements over the means of getting it are trivial. I am awed by the fact that some 87% of the Scots electorate came out to support that cause.<br />
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The struggle to reach this point has been long and hard. Parts of it have been quite distressing, particularly the hatred for Scottish people, especially Yes voters, expressed in parts of the UK national press, where we have been repeatedly accused of being members of some fascist cult, with little meaningful opportunity to dispute this notion. It's one of those things that sums up the discomfort one can feel as a Scottish person in England, despite all the assurances of love we have received from that country recently. The togetherness everyone now vaunts (one does wonder how many have only just thought of it) must involve action being taken to resolve these problems, which have their roots in the othering and exoticisation of Scots. In other words, it cannot just be about what we do here. Despite what you may have heard, nobody is going out today to hunt down No voters in the streets. It has been a long campaign; most of us would far rather have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.<br />
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That campaign now being over, people are talking about three things: a No victory; where things go from here; and what happens to the major figures involved.<br />
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On the first of those topics, yes, the No campaign has achieved its aims, but it's hard to ascertain what that 'victory' means. What has been gained? What is there to cheer about? The land has been defended: we have our feet planted on the same slippery ground. Soon, some tell us, we will have a much better life. Soon, after what? That part is unclear, probably because there is no consensus on it within Better Together itself. In fact, do a little digging and you'll find that quite a number of Better Together supporters actually want independence; they just didn't feel that the were being offered the right model, or that now was the time. If this movement is to have any real political meaning it must first identify its own point of focus. All it can be said to have achieved otherwise is a muddled delay. Perhaps that's better than the alternative would have been, perhaps not. If it starts to look more like the latter, uncomfortable questions will be asked.<br />
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On the second, Scotland has been offered a bizarre assortment of assurances, most of which are next to meaningless in real terms but some of which have the potential to cause great complication. There is a strong suspicion that what will ensue is an attempt to cripple the Scottish parliament by giving it many new responsibilities and few, if any, real powers. Taking away powers would be politically unwise but remains a possibility, and not all of us have forgotten how Scotland was punished last time it flirted with independence. What's intriguing, however, is the political corner that the Conservatives and Labour may have painted themselves into in relation to this, given the fragile balance of power at Westminster (and the very real possibility that whoever is in government after next May's election may need the support of SNP MPs in order to actualise its manifesto commitments). Given their close rivalry, neither of these parties will want to incur the wrath of Scots just yet, so there will be pressure to act on some of those promses, and that will put certain politicians in very difficult positions indeed.<br />
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So we come to the third point. David Cameron has had a difficult month. If he had 'lost' Scotland, his political career would not have survived, so he took desperate gamble and made his wild promises. In doing so, he created fury among powerful elements within his party, and any move to make good on those promises will make that worse. Furthermore, because of the impending general election, his party has only a brief window in which to dispose of him before it becomes too difficult to get away with. The only thing really going in his favour is the lack of an alternative likely to gain popular support within the party, which illustrates its deeper problems. Its best candidate may well actually be Theresa May, yet she has proven herself to be incompetent at a basic level (such as quoting laws inaccurately whilst serving as Home Secretary) again and again. Gove is electoral poison, Bois has limited appal outside London and, well, it doesn't look good for them.<br />
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If Cameron goes, things get more complicated elsewhere. Labour may well seize the opportunity to get rid of the increasingly flaccid Ed Miliband, with Yvette Cooper a likely replacement. In Scotland, Johann Lamont, who was almost invisible to voters during the latter stages of the referendum campaign (with those in strong No voting areas more likely to enthuse about Ruth Davidson - if you're less popular than a Tory in Scotland, you're in trouble). No's campaign was shambolic in general and has little to do with its victory (which hinged on the concept of risk, introduced early on and gradually growing less effective as time passed); it is difficult to see what Lamont contributed. Despite the official victory, she too may disappear before long.<br />
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Of all the major players, the one who seems to have come through this best is Alex Salmond, despite him officially having lost. It's broadly agreed that the Yes campaign could not really have done more. If he resigns, it's likely to happen after the negotiations of the coming months, and will probably involve a decision to step down at the next Holyrood election (in 2016). Should that happen, Nicola Sturgeon will slip easily into his shoes, and the degree of precision with which Yes crafted its campaigning will become fully apparent. Take Salmond's statements about the unlikeliness of a future independence referendum, for instance. They may have sounded definite (they had to, or people might not have bothered to vote in th one), but not a one of them was presented as anything other than personal opinion. In other words, if the Conservatives and Labour (and, for what it's worth, the LibDems) fail to live up to the promises which they strongly disagree on (and some of which would be extremely difficult to implement at a technical level anyway), there will be nothing hypocritical about the SP calling for another referendum. For that matter, the Greens could call for one any time they liked. It would probably take at least five years to engineer, but it's a credible threat. And sure, Westminster could refuse permission for it, but if a clear majority of Scots wanted to go, that would place them in a very difficult position in terms of their international reputation.<br />
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Why do I suggest there might be a clear majority in favour when there isn't this time? For several reasons. Firstly, broken promises don't go down well, especially if they inspired people to change their votes this time around. Secondly, if you look at the demographics examined in polling, you'll see a clear trend for No voting to correlate with age, and one that doesn't seem to relate to people's preferences changing as they get older; in time, much of the unionist vote will simply die off. Thirdly, looking at the pattern of No votes in this referendum shows a correlation with areas of poor internet penetration. As people get online, they become less dependent on mainstream media, they are better able to educate themselves, and they are more likely to encounter a diversity of political opinions. Internet access is expanding geographically in Scotland at a considerable pace. Over time, this will have a political impact.<br />
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That relationship with the internet has been one of the most interesting aspects of this campaign because it illustrates the increasing breakdown of traditional networks of power, of traditional frameworks through which ideas can become dominant. This isn't easy territory for Britain's traditional institutions to lay claim to. Despite the threat posed by increasing censorship, the internet is a real force for political change, enabling ordinary people to participate in public life as never before. It's a game changer.<br />
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Given the old choices familiar in Westminster elections, barely half the electorate turns out to vote in most places. Yesterday, when presented with the prospect of influencing something that actually mattered, with real choice available, voters achieved turnouts as high as 91%. That's what democracy ought to be about. We have a choice now. We can sit back and 'go back to normal' (which mans, essentially, accepting imposed changes we normally do), or we can stand up - not just in Scotland but all across the UK - and demand real choice in other elections. We can tell our politicians that we want leadership and vision, not just frantic clustering around whatever the <i>Daily Mail</i> says is the issue of the day. We don't need to sit around passively and let those who are supposed to be our servants take us for granted.<br />
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If Westminster hoped that a No vote in a referendum would pacify the Scots, they were wrong. Not only are we still here, still engaged, still capable of hoping for and fighting for something better, but we all stand together now in pressing for change. Westminster, stand and deliver!Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-9665422946746454722014-09-17T16:58:00.001-07:002014-09-17T16:59:30.719-07:00Why I'm saying Yes to Scottish independenceDespite looking in depth at a number of key issues in the Scottish referendum, and writing on it from a number of angles for several different publications, I have hesitated to say anything personal about my vote. This is't simply about trying to keep people happy, having friends on both sides. I trust my friends to respect my decision as I respect theirs. Rather, it has been an ethical choice - it has been very important to me to keep my writing neutral and focused on the facts, because I think that's what the people of Scotland have been crying out for. I have also wanted to keep things straightforward as far as my business and charity work is concerned, though I can assre you that my coming out today does not mean either Trans Media Watch or Eye For Film will lose their neutrality. I haven't asked my colleagues what they think and I wouldn't presume to speak for them. The former is there to serve, the latter to entertain and inform; there is no place for this kind of politics in that.<br />
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Why, then, am I coming out now? It's because I think that, at this point, most minds are made up; because I want to be honest with m friends and my readers; and because I don't want to be smugly positioning myself after the fact. I want to be clear that this is what I believe in, in or lose.<br />
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As someone with fourteen years of experience in business and eight years of experience writing about it, as well as about the world of high finance, I feel confident in assessing the economic arguments at stake in this debate and I am not about to pretend that I think independence would be risk free. The thing is, I see some serious risks with staying in the union as well. It's important to remember that voting No is not a neutral option, not a vote for no change. There is always change, and there are many other major political and economic factors creating instability just now. I do find it vaguely amusing to hear avowed neo-liberals suddenly preaching against risk when it comes to this vote. All in all, I'm not too worried, because I've been following the policies of big business on this for a long time, I respect their ability to manage contingencies (they wouldn't <i>be</i> big otherwise) and I have, unfashionable though it may be, a degree of faith in the basic principles of capitalism. Market niches do not stay empty. High prices make retailers vulnerable to competition. Etc. Where currency is concerned, a see use of the pound (approved or not) as a viable short term option, and I would expect an independent Scotland to develop its own currency within five to fifteen years.<br />
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If these seems a little brusque, forgive me. I could write pages on any one of these issues, but I don't want to bore you.<br />
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Setting aside the fear of financial catastrophe, then, and laying to rest some other fears through the simple process of looking at what has happened to other countries that have made this kind of change, I shall move on to look at some of the other headline issues. Firstly, England. You're so vain, I bet you think this vote is about you. Well, to be honest, that's not what most English people think, and I've heard a wonderful diversity of opinions from those I've discussed the matter with; I know many of them are frustrated at being purportedly represented by the likes of David Cameron saying "I think I speak for all English people when I say that I want Scotland to stay." In fact, many English people themselves want something loosely described as "independence from Westminster," and I wish them well with that - I hope that Scotland's actions can encourage a flowering of political engagement in England. That's why I don't accept the "Stay and help them fight" line. I think the best way to help is to illustrate what's possible. What politics has been most painfully short of in recent years has been ideas and real faith in the potential of ordinary voters. That, and I've helped England fight for decades, and nothing has changed. I refuse to keep on nobly banging my head off the same brick wall..<br />
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Still, it's not about England, and it's not altogether about Westminster either. It is, strangely enough, about Scotland, about what we are, what we can be, what we can do. It's about a different kind of politics already manifested in a fairer voting system, a much more diverse set of political parties (I alone have voted for four different ones at Holyrood elections), and a much more engaged public. Woken now that it might act tomorrow, the dragon of Red Clydeside, so long bound in despair and apathy, is not going to go back to sleep again. This is a country where the voices of working class people have political weight, and that, rather than any sentimental factor, is why I think it can become a fairer country. I don't think Scots are better than other people, but I think we are in a position to take advantage of a range of cultural and political factors that give us the potential to make active use of the virtues and talents we have.<br />
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I don't comprehend the argument that independence is tragic because it will make people into foreigners. I already am a foreigner to most people in the world. There are borders between me and my friends in Pakistan, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand, yet I don't care about them any less than my friends in England or my friends who live just down the street. I see borders as practical things, enabling society to be split into democratically manageable sections. I'd like to see more evenness between those sections, more freedom of movement, and respect for human rights across all of them, but those are bigger causes I shall be no less engaged with for supporting an independent Scotland.<br />
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It probably goes without saying, but I am no more afraid of being invaded by aliens in an independent Scotland than anywhere else on Earth. Nor am I worried about being invaded by the armies of Vladimir Putin, in part because I understand his empire's economic and naval limitations. I think Scotland could continue to play a useful role in the world militarily, playing to its strengths in engineering, tech and medicine; I favour maintaining a ground army but I honestly don't see us as high on anyone's target list provided that England doesn't get any silly ideas. I trust we can all be more grown up than that.<br />
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I don't see everything as dependent on oil. As has been pointed out, if we're still dependent on oil in fifteen years, we're really screwed regardless of our governance (and our low-lying neighbours are even more so). We have a number of strong industries here in Scotland and they compare pretty well to those on which many larger national economies are dependent. We're pretty flexible and we've maintained our strong tradition of innovation, which reinforces that advantage.<br />
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For the sake of friends elsewhere in the UK who have been dependent on UK national newspaper coverage to make sense of what's going on in Scotland, I would simply like to say, don't panic, there is no terrifying fascist cult here, thee is no danger of No voters being hunted down in the streets if their side wins; we're really not that exciting. There's no terrifying censorship going on (I think I personally have a pretty strong record on fighting censorship, so I hope you will trust me on this, at least enough to do some real research before buying those lines), and there is at present no convincing evidence that the debate here has led to elevated levels of violence (there have always been a few people who enjoy that, and it's not surprising to see them attaching themselves to each side of the debate, but they'd probably have been behaving much the same way without it). Perhaps most importantly, no-one here is going into the voting booths without having thought things through. It may be that parts of the UK have only just discovered the issue, but we've been talking about it for over two years. W've thought about this, you know?<br />
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So this is what it comes down to, for me. I'm voting Yes because I think it's the right thing for democracy and gives Scotland (and perhaps other UK nations too) the best chance of achieving greater social justice. There is no conflict between my head and my heart; I am voting Yes because my experience of Scotland's business landscape, its creative sector, its political mechanisms and its community leaders convinces me that it has what it takes to make a success of this, and to exemplify a better way to live than we have recently known. I don't know if it will make me better or worse off. I don't believe I have any right to concern myself with that ahead of what is good for the electorate at large. I think the time has come to grasp the nettle and to make practical change. There's no future in England's dreaming, nor in the vague promises of those who lied to us last time. If we want a real future, we must make it.<br />
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I don't ask you to stand with me. I ask only that, if you are voting in this referendum, you consider your decision carefully and do what honestly seems right to you. But for better or worse, this is where I stand. Yes I said yes I will yes.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-4457586463252293712014-08-28T05:41:00.000-07:002014-08-28T11:00:28.401-07:00Kitchen Sink DramaBy now, people all around the world are familiar with Patronising BT Lady. M&C Saatchi have done it again - they have created a viral advert distributed even by those in opposition to the cause they are supporting. The theory behind advertising strategies like this is that they raise the profile of a movement and help it connect with new people, so that even if initial impressions are unfavourable, those connections can be productively exploited in future. It has, however, misfired for Saatchi clients in the past, and it looks like it's doing so again.<br />
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In the case of Better Together, which has just three weeks in which to try and persuade the Scottish populace not to vote for independence, the adage that all publicity is good publicity really doesn't apply. People who switch allegiance or make up their minds at this point are very unlikely to switch back. A number of women of my own acquaintance have told me that they have moved from an undecided position or even an outright unionist position to a pro-independence position because of this advert, and I have not met any who have moved in the other direction. I have also talked with women who were already intending to vote Yes but were not very assertive about their politics who have started speaking out and trying to change the minds of those around them specifically because this has made them so angry; and I have met firm No-voting women who feel deeply embarrassed that they have been represented in this way.<br />
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Why do they feel like this? The message is pretty consistent, regardless of political position. Women feel that they are being treated (a) as if they're idiots, (b) as if they don't respect other members of their families, (c) as if they're expected to exist in a domestic space that eschews politics, and (d) as if their sincere voting intentions must be based on gut feelings rather than reason. Many of those who are or recently were undecided are far from apolitical - if anything, it's their awareness of political nuance that has kept them from taking firm decisions earlier in the campaign, though most of them do intend to vote. No voting women who thought they were part of something are now wondering if, all along, they've been thought of as pawns.<br />
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It is of course worth noting that there are some very capable women involved in the No campaign, and one can only conclude that they lacked the marketing savvy - or confidence therein - to prevent this advert from going ahead. The Saatchis have long had a bad reputation when it comes to the representation of women, so arguably something has been imposed on Better Together that doesn't fairly reflect what's going on inside it (I'm happy to attest that I have friends within the campaign who have done solid work on women's rights in the past).<br />
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Desperate attempts to justify the advert haven't really helped, however. "The woman [in the advert] is of course not representative of all women – no one woman is – and I think it has been unfairly distorted into an illustration of what the campaign thinks of women. I can confidently say that is not the case. I wouldn't be involved in such a campaign," Talat Yaqoob <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/27/scottish-independence-better-together-campaign-new-advert" target="_blank">told the Guardian</a> - which, of course, is tantamount to an admission that she finds the character objectionable. It has also been argued that the representation is fair because "all the quotes are verbatim from women we've met on the doorsteps." Well, sure, I can see how that might <i>seem</i> like it makes it okay, but whilst any one woman feeling confused about one or two issues is understandable (and a sensible reason to seek advice), combining all that confusion in one woman creates an idiot, and to have her decide how to vote on the basis of her confusion is still more deeply problematic. it's the antithesis of political argument.<br />
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How could Better Together miss something so fundamental? Some have argued that they couldn't - that they contain a fifth column secretly working for Yes, or that this is pat of a more sophisticated Saatchi strategy yet to be revealed. Well, possibly - but then there's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor" target="_blank">Hanlon's razor</a> to consider.<br />
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There's also a worse possibility - and that's that the advert genuinely reflects what influential people in the No campaign think of women. One can only hope that such attitudes are not widespread. Whatever position one takes in the great debate, it ought to be apparent that hoping people don't exercise thought before they vote is loathsomely anti-democratic. The best thing about the past two years has been the political awakening taking place in Scotland, where people with diverse political perspectives have been engaging in debate like never before. it's opening up new possibilities for us as a nation - whichever way the big vote goes - by contributing fresh insight and energy into our political system and reviving our democracy. Women <i>must</i> be a part of that, and their contributions must be respected. It is way past time to get out of the kitchen. Scotland may choose to be independent or it may choose to stay in the union, but whatever it decides, there will be no place in it for those seeking to deny women a political voice.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-79766659004359306352014-08-05T07:25:00.003-07:002014-08-05T10:00:06.434-07:00Making the newsEarly in the morning of the 23rd of May this year, I contacted the BBC to raise my concern about its coverage of the local elections in England and Northern Ireland. Now, I'm not a party political person (I tried that at one point and it didn't work out), but I wouldn't have needed my research degree either to identify the bias in this coverage: the Green Party, despite making impressive gains throughout the night, was almost completely ignored. I counted just three mentions of the party before midnight, there were a couple of minutes devoted to their story later on, and there was an interview with leader Natalie Bennett (looking impressively chipper) after 3am, when most viewers would have already gone to their beds. In expressing unhappiness with this situation, I was joined by people from across the political spectrum, and a substantial petition was later presented to BBC headquarters.<br />
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Today I finally got a reply from the BBC. It reads as follows:-<br />
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<i>Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We understand
our correspondents appreciate a quick response and we are sorry you had
to wait on this occasion.</i><br />
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<i>
We are committed to impartial, balanced reporting but we appreciate that
not everyone will agree with how we choose to cover a particular story.</i><br />
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<i>
In the case you have highlighted we felt it most newsworthy to report on
the results of the three 'major' parties and UKIP, who finished second.
The Conservatives won the election whilst Labour came third.</i><br />
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<i>
As you've pointed out, the Liberal Democrats were sixth, behind the
Greens and an independent candidate. However, the fact remains that are </i>[sic]<i> a
party in government which came third in the popular vote in the last
General Election. Therefore we felt their performance to be both
editorially relevant and of interest to our audience. But as explained
above, such decisions are judgment calls which we recognise not everyone
will agree with.</i><br />
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Let's address the issues this raises one at a time.<br />
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Firstly, that apology. It's notable that no reason is given for the delay, though I had been contacted briefly earlier to advise me that investigation would take some time. How long does it take to find out about an existing policy? If the explanation is so obvious, why couldn't it have been provided immediately?<br />
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Secondly, that commitment to balance - what exactly does it mean? Running the numbers (votes, percentage growth, comparative positioning, poll comparisons) makes that lack of coverage look distinctly unbalanced. As the letter goes on to explain that newsworthiness, not balance, was the prime consideration, it sees rather disingenuous to mention balance here.<br />
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Thirdly, whilst I acknowledge that UKIP did come second, the increase in their share of the vote was lower than that of the Greens and, notably, they had significantly fewer elected representatives in senior positions. If being in government is enough to give the LibDems consideration although they came sixth, ought not being represented in parliament to be a consideration when it comes to balancing coverage of the Greens against that of UKIP?<br />
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The most glaring point here, however, is this: that coverage of the Greens was missing right from the start of the programme, when they were several time lumped in with 'others'. At that point, the BBC did not know what the results of the vote would be. They made the decision to run extensive coverage of UKIP's story (actually disproportionate in relation to the major parties, too) and to exclude the Greens <i>before the programme began</i>.<br />
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There's another major point at issue here which the BBC's letter does not even try to address. Newsworthiness can sometimes explain not having room to mention something or someone in a short article. <i>But this was a broadcast over six hours long</i>. In that context, there is no need to make hard choices between subjects. There would have been ample room to properly cover the Greens' story <i>and</i> that of UKIP and the major parties.<br />
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It's generous of the BBC to explain to me that I may take a different point of view. As a commissioning editor (at <a href="http://www.eyeforfilm.com/" target="_blank">Eye For Film</a> and <a href="http://www.kaleidoscot.com/" target="_blank">KaleidoScot</a>) I understand the issue of editorial lines. As a sociology graduate, I understand the importance of anticipating bias in one's own work and work one is reviewing. The problem is that the BBC does not, as an organisation, acknowledge any of that. Rather it passes itself off as a neutral arbiter, delivering straight, unbiased facts. That makes slanted coverage like this deeply problematic.<br />
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On the night of the elections Natalie Bennett pointed out an interesting fact (which, from what I can determine, seems to bear up): the Greens were getting more new members per minute of airtime than any other party. In other words, there are a lot of people out there who are drawn to their politics once they know it's out there and know what it's about. in a context where overall levels of voting are falling lower and lower, doesn't the BBC owe it to potential voters to let them know what their options are?Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-41556431539089918222014-07-26T09:41:00.000-07:002014-07-26T09:42:06.871-07:00Women against feminism: what's the story?There's "a large and growing number" of women who are against feminism, says the BBC, referring to "a wave of anti-feminist argument from young women". This evidenced by a group Tumblr blog with <span class="st">4,700 members and a Facebook group with 14,784 members (a good many of whom are there to argue with its founders, to troll, or simply as observers). Far be it from me to dismiss these women's voices, as they may have important points to make on an individual basis, but numbers like this are, when considered in proportion to the number of women using each medium, hardly evidence of a mass movement. The pop group One Direction has over 400 times as many Facebook fans and its cultural relevance is not accorded that kind of weight.</span><br />
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<span class="st">Several publications have now seen fit to publish lists of some of these women talking about their feelings on the subject. If we are to take these as representative at all, we must further question the premise behind these rather wild claims. Around half of those interviewed stress that they are for equality. They say they want the chance to achieve things on their own merits. In other words, they are not anti-feminist at all - they simply describe themselves that way because they don't know what feminism is. Given how little education is available on the subject, this is hardly surprising, and it doesn't mean they're stupid - most of them seem to have arrived at reasonable ethical positions by themselves, just without using the same labels. It does mean, however, that journalists should know better than to treat them as part of the same 'movement' as women who don't believe they are the equals of men.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">In between, there is the more obscure group of women who believe they "have all their rights already". Again, this belief doesn't mean they're stupid - they may simply never have been in situations where they were knowingly impacted by gender inequality. It's relatively easy to be sheltered from these things if young and from a relatively comfortable middle class background. If they have limited experience of employment, living independently, raising children, coping with ill health etc., they may not have noticed the worst inequalities, and if they are aware that the potential for male sexual violence has a limiting effect on their lives, they may not see that as part of the same phenomenon. But just as we can't assume they're stupid, we can't assume they wouldn't rage against inequality if they did encounter it, so construing them as anti-feminist, even if they label themselves that way, is rather misleading.</span><br />
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<span class="st">In other words, this notion that a great many women are rising up to say that they don't want to be equal and would rather spend their lives deferring to men just can't be substantiated by the evidence put forward it its support. So why is it circulating at all? There are a few possibilities. First up is sheer sensationalism: it's a simple case of man bites dog, where what is less likely, if presented as truth, gets more attention. Secondly, it's an example of fear porn - that is, people love to be shocked and horrified by reading about what is supposedly going wrong with the world, and the idea of a group turning on its own is easy clickbait. Thirdly, there's the possibility that it serves certain agendas - although most articles express horror at the "growing phenomenon", the idea nevertheless helps to trivialise feminist concerns, positioning them as outdated, elitist and out of touch with everyday reality. (It's also possible, of course, that all these factors are involved to some degree.)</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">Rather than getting angry at young women who are trying to do what's right with limited information, feminists need to be asking why this non-story has been inflated and passed off as something meaningful - and why it's happening now. At a time when worldwide movements to reduce violence against women are finally gaining ground but when things like access to contraception and the right to equal pay are coming under attack in parts of the Western world, feminist ideas that were once minority currency are gradually moving into mass circulation. We should all be on our guard against insidious attacks based on flimsy evidence. It is the story that is the problem, not the myth upon which it is based.</span>Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-21239126550333308602014-05-15T05:40:00.001-07:002014-05-15T05:43:08.228-07:00In the pit<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Like everyone else, I've been following the unfolding story of the disaster in Soma, where over 280 miners died this week. I've watched twin media narratives unfold. One of these is the conventional disaster story, the attempt to convince viewers that there might yet be some hope, that it's possible a <i>miracle</i> could happen and someone could be found alive, despite the fact that's vanishingly unlikely in a case like this and the relatives waiting out there could probably do without the added pressure of being urged to clutch at straws. The other involves exploring the political background to the event, the failure of the Turkish government to provide adequate protection to miners. But this is part of a bigger story that they still seem to be missing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">That story is one in which each of us plays a role, at least insofar as we might be benefiting from the global economic recovery. Because it is on the backs of people like the Soma miners that that recovery is built. We don't hear a lot about it but mining is one of the key industries driving the recovery and, when one considers how others depend on it, it might be considered that most important. It may be people in offices coordinating shipments, brokering deals and buying and selling stocks who are shaping economic growth, but it is miners who are putting their bodies on the line, and without them we could all find ourselves a great deal poorer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">I don't say this purely to celebrate the people who do his job (though it would be nice to see more of them get adequate wages); I say it as a warning. Because we've seen this before - in gold rushes, in South Africa's uranium rush, in the horror of what happened under the conquistadors at Potosí. Although we depend on miners, they often have very little control over their working conditions. When society is hungry for raw materials, miners end up being forced to take risks. There isn't time to manufacture and distribute proper safety equipment, and many pit owners don't care. Less care is taken with geological surveys. Pits are expanded into territory that those involve recognise as treacherous. Poorly trained newcomers are sent into working environments they are not ready for (and in some countries, too often, they are children).</span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">In this situation, we can expect to see more disasters like that at Soma. Most of them will be smaller, involving 'just' injuries or small number of deaths, and will not make the headlines. Many will take place in areas that the international media pays little attention to anyway, but they will happen. It is imperative, therefore, that pressure be put on governments and industry to ensure good safety standards in mines, with regular unannounced inspections. This is as much an issue for the First World as for the countries where most of the accidents will happen, because as consumers of internationally sourced products, we all have a responsibility to those who are working on our behalf.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mining is an inherently dangerous profession and we cannot prevent accidents, but we can work together to monitor them and we can stand up for the people on whom our global economy depends. The Soma accident isn't just a tragedy to watch on TV; it's a wake-up call.</span>Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-90879186695509877322014-01-29T21:19:00.001-08:002014-01-29T21:19:19.683-08:00Banking on the PoundYesterday's speech by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney received predictable responses on Twitter - passionately assurances, from both Yes and No campaigners, that their own cases were vindicated by it as he clearly agreed with them in full. Having watched this go on through the subsequent hours, I hope that I may be excused for sticking my oar in and asserting that, on the contrary, he agrees with <i>me</i> in full: I have long argued that this is a complex, nuanced issue with both positive and negative points.<br />
<br />
I'm not a newcomer to this area of discussion; I've run three different kinds of business and I've written on business and financial issues for around a decade. And like it or not, this is a business issue, not an ideological one - those who get further than just lapping up the soundbites or shrugging their shoulders because <i>maths is hard</i> will be thinking carefully about how the decision could impact them financially before they decide which way to vote. They will be thinking not just about their domestic lives but also about the businesses they run and the businesses they work for. Even if they've already made up their minds about voting, many will want to work out how they can prepare financially for what is to come, how much work they will need to do to make adjustments, and what they need to take into account when preparing individual business forecasts.<br />
<br />
In any situation of this type there are a lot of unknowns, but as Carney noted, something we can do is to look at other countries that have gone through the same process, and consider what happened to them. Doing so should reduce some of the panic that has attended the independence debate. The question is not - and, to serious minded people, never has been - about whether or not Scotland can survive on its own. What matters is whether or not it should, and whether or not it would be able to provide its citizens with a standard of living not simply adequate but satisfactory.<br />
<br />
In asking these questions, we really need to examine two points that have been sidelined or distorted during the bulk of the debate. Firstly, there's the issue of currency use. We need to say goodbye to the nonsense that has been spouted about Scotland perhaps not being able to use the pound. Of course it will be able to use the pound. There's a very simple reason for this: the pound is a freely tradeable currency. Should it cease to be such, the UK (or what then remains of it) can kiss goodbye to its high credit rating. Naturally that isn't going to happen - so what really matters is not the cash we use (after all, we could always choose the bitcoin), but who is our lender of last resort.<br />
<br />
This brings me to the second point - it would be unwise for any country already dealing with complexities of establishing itself as an independent force in the modern world to try and set up its own weighty central bank at the same time. <i>But independence does not have to be established overnight</i>. Again, if we look at other recent divorces between nations, we can see how this works in practice. If a currency is shared for a short period of time - five years is probably good base estimate, but it should be flexible in order to take account of changing circumstances - this gives a new country stability when it most needs it. It will face limitations for the duration, being obliged to follow a similar economic direction to its larger partner, but this can be temporary. Introducing its own currency <i>after that point</i> is much easier and means it then has the freedom to determine its own direction.<br />
<br />
So why is nobody discussing this option? In act, a few of the smaller political parties are, but it has been elided from the mainstream debate for two reasons. Firstly, the majority of those opposed to independence find it problematic because it makes the option of independence seem more viable. secondly, the majority of those in favour find it problematic because it requires the acknowledgement that independence would be complicated and some major elements would remain unpredictable for years after the fact. (The desire to make everything seem predictable and safe is a problem on both sides of the argument - it's politically expedient, of course, but hardly honest - there is no political arrangement without uncertainty - and the public are beginning to see through it). This is another illustration of the problems stemming from the media narrative of the referendum as a battle between polarised opponents, focused on sniping at each other rather than on elucidating the issues the public is anxious to understand. We badly need to open up public discussion of a wider range of possibilities where Scotland' political and economic future is concerned.<br />
<br />
At present, many Scots find themselves dependent on putting their trust in one financial assessment or another based on how credible its exponents seem, without ever unravelling the details. Carney is to be praised for he clear language he used in his address, and this should be taken not as an opportunity for political posturing but as an opportunity to explore the pros and cons together, constructively, and invite more people in to the economic debate. If nothing else it is an opportunity for education that - whichever way the referendum goes - will benefit Scotland in the long term.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-249153283080358022014-01-24T12:16:00.001-08:002014-01-24T12:38:31.314-08:00Best Exotic Politico HotelThis week, First Minister's Questions in the Scottish Parliament opened with a bizarre exchange in which Johann Lamont challenged Alex Salmond over the cost of a 2012 trip to Chicago. There's a reason why this kind of politics is generally discouraged, with people being advised to play the ball, not the man. It's not just about being polite. It's that the ball can't kick back.<br />
<br />
Lamont's criticism centered on Salmond's $2,000 a night stay at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. It just so happens that, like my many writers, I make part of my living from producing promotional copy, and I've written about the Peninsula Hotel. The reason it's so popular with celebrities, something Lamont ridiculed (she must wish Justin Bieber's latest bad-boy-honest publicity stunt had happened a day earlier), is that it has excellent security. Accommodating politicians in a place like this may cost more upfront but it cuts down on the cost of providing personal security, so it's not quite the waste of money it might look like. Sadly, senior politicians and celebrities do need security these days, and the cost of losing our first minister, even just in financial terms, would be considerable - not to mention that, with increased security, he's cheaper to insure.<br />
<br />
What really makes this unfortunate for Lamont, however, is nothing to do with Salmond - it's all about the Labour Party. Let's stick with Chicago. In 1999, Tony Blair stayed in the Conrad Suite in the city's Hilton hotel, another place known for the excellent security, which is partly why it has been used by the likes of Frank Sinatra, John Travolta and Cher. The Chicago Hilton charges upwards of $7,000 a night for this suite.<br />
<br />
Far be it from me to attack Blair for this, even if I can't see why he'd need 24 hour butler service. The point is, accommodating famous politicians is expensive. If Lamont herself becomes First Minister one day, she may find herself in the awkward position of having to find a cheaper hotel and security deal for herself. Thursday's conversation may come back to haunt her. She would be wise to do her backtracking now rather than letting this fester.<br />
<br />
<br />Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-36292038260534862892013-10-24T05:48:00.003-07:002013-10-24T05:48:41.523-07:00Burning ChromosomesAmid all the recent Skeptics related flap about sex and gender, one thing has stood out to me. It is the assertion that people's 'biological sex' is obvious because of chromosomes. This is a dubious statement for many reasons, but prominent among them is this: of the numerous people I have questioned after they made this statement, all of whom have described themselves with confidence as either male or female, not one has been able to tell me with certainty what their own chromosomes look like.<br />
<br />
Let's think about that for a minute.<br />
<br />
Considering this, one friend told me that he'd be prepared to make a bet. I respect that position - it's not hard to guess the likely outcome - but it misses the point. The argument that sex is obvious <i>because of</i> chromosomes implies that we are looking at chromosomes and then deciding what sex somebody is (generally referred to as 'gendering' them).<br />
<br />
This is patently not what we are doing. We are, as a rule looking at secondary sex characteristics or aspects of presentation (or, in the case of babies, genitals) and deciding, on that basis, what sex category to place people in; then, on that basis, we are making an assumption about what their chromosomes are likely to look like.<br />
<br />
Ergo, unless the first we see of someone is a cell under a microscope, chromosomes play no role in what is 'obvious'. They may play a role in confirming or contradicting that later on, but it's rare.<br />
<br />
Perhaps what is intended here is the advancement of the idea that sex can always be clarified by chromosomes. This relies on a very dogmatic view of sex in a context where scientists and doctors are far from reaching a consensus (sex can be defined by a number of characteristics that don't always neatly line up), it runs into problems when it comes to individuals with variant sex chromosomes (not super rare) and it plainly doesn't fit with our social reality.<br />
<br />
When we look at someone's chromosomes, we may well find that they're not what we expect. Some kinds of intersex people have bodies that look completely male or female whilst their chromosomes might lead you to expect the opposite; to claim that they are 'really' gendered by their chromosomes is to dismiss at a stroke their whole life history. Not only does this render the notion of sex pretty much meaningless (lots of us don't reproduce anyway* but sex has a huge effect on how we interact), but any competent biologist will tell you that genotype does not equal phenotype, for a host of reasons, and phenotype is no less biologically 'real'.<br />
<br />
Although many intersex people are identified at birth, many don't find out until much later in life (it's reasonable to suppose that a fair number never know at all). Every now and then a story hits the papers, usually with a lurid headline. <i>A fifty year old man has found out he's really a woman!</i> they tell us, except of course he has done no such thing. If he has always felt comfortable with his male identity, with a body that looks the way it does, he's not likely to change that because of a curious medical detail. His family, friends and workmates may raise eyebrows at the unexpected news but they won't suddenly see him differently. He'll still just be this guy, you know?<br />
<br />
If you are minded to dismiss somebody as not 'really' male or female because their chromosomes don't match their appearance, you had better (a) actually know what their chromosomes are instead of basing bullying on a guess, and (b) give serious thought to how you would feel and behave if you discovered your chromosomes were not what you expected. Would you really change your lifestyle completely? Would you start thinking of the life you had lived as false, of yourself as fake? Are chromosomes that important to you?<br />
<br />
There is a parallel here with many people's approach to sexual orientation. I have had many conversations with men who tell me they would never feel attracted to a man (by which they usually mean a male-bodied person; and so on, for other categories of sex and orientation). Not wouldn't want to sleep with, which is entirely their prerogative, but wouldn't <i>feel attracted to</i>. I find this odd because when I first notice somebody appealing I'm not usually looking at their genitals or peering at their chromosomes under a microscope. YMMV. I usually notice things like their curves, their (ahem) secondary sexual characteristics, and how they move. Despite my many years of living and working in trans and intersex circles, I have no magical power to perceive either the private anatomy or the gender identity of a fully clothed stranger. Simply considering the statistics, I'm sure I must have been attracted to some people where one of both of those things in fact defied my expectations.** Attraction is not a thing we control and, in most contexts, it's really not a thing we need to worry about that much. After all, we cope with other instances where otherwise cute people turn out to have characteristics that are deal breakers (for instance, I know a fair few people who refuse to sleep with folk who vote Tory, and they don't break down in tears if they discover they've accidentally lusted over one).<br />
<br />
Sex, gender and sexual orientation are complicated things. Unless we're monitoring discrimination or planning to get intimate with someone then they are also, as a rule, none of our business. We don't <i>need</i> to impose dubious scientific definitions on them or get our knickers in a twist trying to reconcile the inherent fuzziness of<br />
biology with a compulsion to neatly index everything. There is variety everywhere in nature - without it, evolution wouldn't work - and any truly scientific approach must acknowledge that. So in the end, it doesn't hurt science to respect people's lived experiences. In this situation at least, there need be no conflict between good science and good manners.<br />
<br />
<br />
* One definition of sex used in biology holds that females are those individuals in a species who produce larger gametes than other members (males). It would work fairly well except that a significant percentage of individuals in most species, including humans, don't produce any gametes.<br />
**This isn't to suggest that cross dressers set out to deceive people. I start from the assumption that, like me (when not in professional wear) they dress to please themselves, not because they're sleazily determined to seduce me. Others might want to give this approach a try.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-53770189873201888562013-08-27T12:54:00.004-07:002013-08-27T12:54:56.535-07:00Giant Size Television Thing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Following Jamie Oliver’s latest ill though out tirade, it
really is time to call time on the giant size television thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many ways to attack the poor (as
the current Westminster government has shown us) but getting in a flap about
the size of their TV sets has to be one of the stupidest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Let’s start with a simple question: when was the last
time you saw a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">small</i> television set?
These days, if you’re going to buy one at all, it’s going to be large. It is
also, most likely, going to be cheap. We are far from the days when televisions
were a luxury item. One can buy them in supermarkets now for less than some
people spend on their weekly food shop. They’re also cheap to run when compared
with the old cathode ray models, averaging about three pounds a week. That’s
pretty good for a box that keeps the kids entertained if you’re working the
long hours that most poor people do, or if you’re looking for a job.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Televisions are even cheaper second hand. They have a
very low resale value, so if you lose your job, selling your television won’t
help you much. The chances are you will have to part with your internet
connection, if you had one in the first place (many poor people still don’t) as
internet access constitutes a much larger ongoing expense. This means your
television will become your main form of access to news. There have been
rulings against bailiffs taking televisions in payment of debt, as they are
considered essential for keeping people informed about the world. If poor
people are forced to get rid of them, that’s a pretty effective way of barring
them from any engagement with public life. Losing access to information about
current affairs (bearing in mind that many avoid the expense of paying for a
daily newspaper) makes it difficult for them to exercise their democratic
rights.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To say that poor people should not have access to
television is also to say that they should not have access to entertainment. It
means their kids will experience social isolation and have difficulty fitting
in at school, with a potentially negative consequences for their education. It
means that older kids who probably also have few books or toys will have
nothing to do but hang around in the streets, and we all know the kind of
problems that can lead to. It means that those adults who cannot look for
work—who are poor due to illness or disability, or who are full time carers—are
deprived of something that can help fill their time. Bear in mind that these
are, by and large, not people with the means to buy books or musical
instruments or to make regular trips to the cinema or theatre. Television may
be all they have.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So why is the possession of a television whilst poor now
the subject of so much disapproval? It’s pretty simple: when we go inside the
poorest people’s homes, whether directly or via a camera (whose observations we
probably see on our own television sets), the TV is generally the only thing we
see that looks like it might be worth anything at all. Think about that.
There’s usually no computer, no sound system, no attractive furniture, no
sports equipment, no art. These are people with next to nothing. Picking on the
television is the only effective way to pretend that they are hanging on to
some kind of meaningful resource, thereby depriving others. It’s simple
propaganda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jamie Oliver, who would not be successful himself without
television, should know better than to go along with this kind of lie. How are
his crusades to change people’s eating habits going to reach their targets if
not through their TVs? Yes, it would be better if people engaged in more active
pursuits, but that’s not an option for all of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it’s tragic that many are reduced to
living life simply as spectators, but the real problem there is lack of
opportunity—depriving them even further will not help. We should not be looking
at people in desperate situations and asking what they still have that we might
take. We should be asking what we can give, how we can increase their
opportunities, how we can help them to connect with the world more effectively
and thereby improve their own situations. We should think about the roots of
the word ‘television’ and try to see a little further ourselves.</span></div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-36893214144832381272013-08-23T05:19:00.000-07:002013-08-23T05:19:00.966-07:00Rape jokes: still not big, still not cleverOver the past 24 hours I have been working with my charity, <a href="http://www.transmediawatch.org/">Trans Media Watch</a>, to try and ensure respectful coverage of Chelsea Manning's decision to come out as trans. The fact we've known about the matter for some time didn't really help; we always knew that when she went public the story would be huge, and it has been very hard for us to keep up. Although we're very pleased with how some media outlets have responded, we've also seen a lot of really nasty stuff, some of it in supposedly professional publications and, of course, a lot of it on social media. <br />
<br />
What has stood out about the social media stuff - and some of the comments in national newspapers, before editors got to them - is the number of jokes focused on prison rape, and the number of people who seem to find them hilarious. Rape jokes on the internet may be nothing new but the striking thing about these is how many have come from people (mostly men) who just a few weeks ago were up in arms about the abuse many women suffer online. The disconnect is remarkable. These are people who generally seem to think of themselves as the good guys, even as feminists. They would probably be horrified at the thought of making rape jokes about non-trans women. But because Chelsea Manning is trans, she's seen as fair game.<br />
<br />
The issue here isn't simply about how Manning's gender is understood, about when she is seen to 'count' s female; it's about why people think that should matter. To put it simply, rape jokes about a man wouldn't be funny either. Avoiding this kind of behaviour isn't simply a box-ticking exercise to make a good impression on influential women. It has been assumed to represent a genuine understanding of how horrific rape is, or at least an appreciation that the subject can be traumatic to others, and the ease with which Manning has been targeted reveals that, in some cases, that simply isn't there. When people make these jokes about Manning, it becomes obvious how hollow that pretence of sympathy was.<br />
<br />
There are no doubt people who have made such jokes, or laughed along with them, as a reflex action, without any examination of their import. It's time for those people to think about how they come across. There are others who have approached the subject as gallows humour, who have understood and have aimed to use humour to expose horror. This always has its place, but it needs to be done with great caution in a context where there's already so much carelessly brutal stuff going around.<br />
<br />
There's another aspect to this, and that's that rape jokes aimed at women, ugly as they are, tend to be intended to shock. By contrast, much of the joking about Manning has been giggling, conspiratorial stuff, as if it were no more than a little bit of naughtiness. There's a sense that it's socially condoned, or that people expect it to be. We all need to speak out against this. The developing dialogue about abuse hurled at women online must expand and account for the fact that sexual aggression is just as unacceptable no matter whom it refers to.<br />
<br />
I would hope that responsible internet users can unite on this. I don't like to think what it says about our society if we can't.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-38828275755124205552013-07-31T08:35:00.001-07:002013-07-31T08:35:33.698-07:00Counting the CostThere are several reasons why I don't think campaigning for a report button on Twitter is a good idea. Chief among them - yet barely addressed - is the fact that this is fig leaf politics. It's enabling business leaders and politicians to wriggle out of a much bigger problem, which is this: who is going to pay to fix our broken society and why should women and minorities pay for the cost of leaving it the way it is?<br />
<br />
First of all, let me clarify that I am not without sympathy for those who have been hurt by threats made against them online. Whilst I think we need to exercise caution in policing slurs, a threat that places somebody in a state of fear and alarm (or which a reasonable person would assume could do so) would, in other circumstances, be considered a crime, and I don't see why it being made online should be seen as making it less serious. I should note that I've received any number of rape and death threats in my time and I have generally laughed them off (most are, all else aside, terribly badly written), but that's me. I'm not easily intimidated in that way, but we don't say it's okay to go around shoving people in the street because the stronger ones won't fall over. I note that most people saying everyone should laugh this off are not members of those groups who can expect to be threatened in person on a frequent basis. Many women and members of minority groups experience that daily; they may find it hard to brush off online threats if they've been raped and assaulted in the past.<br />
<br />
That said, I also have some sympathy for certain kinds of trolling - not the sorts that terrify people but the sorts that aim to provoke people for socially or politically important reasons. We have always needed contrary voices in order to enhance public discussion. Often it is only through this kind of provocation that radical perspectives come to be heard at all, and even if some of it seems inept, our society is richer for it. Furthermore, there are groups out there whose very existence is seen as provocation. I worry for the future of my charity if a report button happens because I know there are people out there who would constantly report it as being offensive simply for advocating that trans people have a right to decent treatment. It wouldn't matter if each instance of complaint was dismissed; if it happened frequently enough, we would not be able to communicate using Twitter. The same could go for any number of socially and politically focused organisations, and indeed for feminist advocates who attract the ire of certain groups of men.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, though, what worries me most is that a report button - and similar approaches elsewhere - will allow a symbolic gesture to shut off debate in a really important area. Adding a button does not guarantee that Twitter, or any other organisation, will devote any more resources to following up complaints, or doing so promptly. Facebook has report buttons and yet remains notorious as a home for groups discussing rape and violence. Adding a button or clicking a button will not make the problem go away, it will just boost corporate PR.<br />
<br />
Worse than this is the political jumping on the bandwagon (and here I do not include politicians like Stella Creasy who have been campaigning on related issues for a long time). This is a boost for David Cameron's equally ill-thought-out internet porn filter scheme. It allows politicians to look as if they care about violence against women without ever putting their money where their mouths are. If Cameron gave a damn, he wouldn't have taken funding away from battered women's shelters.<br />
<br />
Here's the crux of the problem: misogyny wasn't invented by the internet. It may sometimes take more exaggerated forms there but the real reason it's becoming a political issue is not that there's more of it, it's that women are able to raise their voices, en masse, in protest. Projects like Everyday Sexism have helped to demonstrate the scale of the problem, online and off. Men who used to keep their hatred within all-male groups are now expressing it where women can observe it, and are having to contend with the fact that women don't like it. Hence all the nonsensical attempts to drown out women's voices in the name of free speech.<br />
<br />
Ever since our society started to recognise that women are human beings with a right to expect the same opportunities in life as men, our society has been heading towards this confrontation. We have reached a point where <i>it is no longer possible to ignore</i> the aggression that many women routinely face from many men. We need to have a social solution, a cultural solution, a political solution - and there will be no persuading women to return to the meek days of accepting their fate. But what really makes this frightening for politicians is that we need an economic solution.<br />
<br />
Every debate about dealing with misogyny stops short when it comes to finance. We are at a point where we don't need hand wringing and sympathetic speeches, we need serious investment. We need the police to be adequately funded to follow things up every time a credible threat or rape or violence is made, every time a woman is groped on a bus, every time she faces sexual harassment in a workplace that fails to take action. Restricting follow-up to high threshold cases isn't good enough. It isn't good enough because there is a cost to all this freewheeling abuse and right now women (along with other targeted groups like gay people) are bearing all of that cost themselves. Ultimately, the question must be why our society thinks it's okay for half its members to bear the whole of this cost rather than everyone paying their share, fairly, through the tax system, through government action to tackle the problem.<br />
<br />
The same applies when it comes to child protection. We get endless soundbites and new schemes to encourage reporting. We don't see the organisations things are reported <i>to</i> getting anything like adequate resources for follow-up. Once again, one group is left to pay the price, in suffering, of society's failure to put its money where its mouth is.<br />
<br />
The real reason very little is done to tackle misogynistic aggression is that it's so endemic the cost would be huge. That's a tough thing for politicians to take on, but what they need to understand is that the cost of doing nothing is also huge. Those who are paying it now will not put up with that forever. They are voters too, and politically, they are waking up to this. They will not be placated for long by being given buttons. It is time for real action.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-21813399600689527132013-07-22T09:17:00.000-07:002013-07-22T09:17:15.371-07:00Protection RacketThe latest wave of moral panic around protecting children has inspired David Cameron to announce that, from the latter part of this year, all ISPs will be required to use a opt-in system where users only get access to adult content if they register first. Aside from the general unworkability of this, his evident cluelessness about the technical issues involved and the massive concerns about state control of content that it raises, there's another important point that needs to be addressed, and that's that in some cases, it will do the very opposite of protecting children - it will leave them cut off from resources they desperately need.<br />
<br />
It was in the early 'nineties that I first became aware of what filtering out 'adult' content actually means. At that point I was helping to maintain a safer sex advice website and I was shocked when we were told it was being blacklisted by several search engines which deemed it pornographic. There were no images on the site apart from logos and everything was written in a very plain style, with nothing intended to titillate (rather than getting people excited we wanted them to stop and think). But there were those words, 'sex' and 'sexual', and there was some discussion of taboo body parts, and that was enough.<br />
<br />
When I got angry about this, a colleague suggested that I look into the status of another site I wrote for, which was aimed at young LGBT people and had no sexual content at all. Sure enough, I discovered this was blocked too. And it wasn't just because certain terms ended in '-sexual' - further research showed that some search engines blocked on the basis of words like 'gay' and 'lesbian', as a matter of course.<br />
<br />
Two decades on, much has improved. It's probable that most ISPs will have the sense to keep general LGB sites accessible, at least once the problem is pointed out to them. These sites can be a vital resource to young people facing daily hostility at home or at school. But what about trans people in the same situation? It is, sadly, still the case that the most heavily promoted sites using the terms 'transsexual' and 'transgender' are pornographic. Search engines have got savvy about this but a lazy ISP will find it much easier simply to deem everywhere with those terms 'adult', leaving vulnerable young people without anywhere they can find support, community or access to vital health information.<br />
<br />
If the proposed filters come into operation, it is probable that every site on safer sex will have to fight to remain accessible, and the evidence shows us that it is young people who are most in need of the information these sites carry. Furthermore, it will be harder for young people facing sexual abuse to access support online. I can remember how I felt when Childline started, how I wished it had been there for me. There are now lots of places that offer children help but lots are needed, as not every child will be comfortable with the same set of options and not every child will look for help using the same kind of search terms. How many would end up disappearing due to the language they used?<br />
<br />
Even when it comes to images, there are entirely appropriate reasons why, sometimes, children should have access to images of genitals. In some cases they're an appropriate part of conversations on safer sex; in others, they're important to helping young people feel comfortable about their bodies and recognise the diversity out there. They are particularly important for young intersex people trying to come to terms with bodily differences that doctors and family members may simply refuse to discuss. It is much better for young people to be able to access educational and support resources online than to rely on peer gossip or take a chance on trusting an adult to give advice when they are in a very vulnerable situation. School advisors and so on are not an adequate substitute because thy often lack training on trans and intersex issues.<br />
<br />
By restricting access to legitimate resources, internet filters put already marginalised young people at even greater risk. Yes, online predation is a danger, but so are in-person abuse, bullying, isolation, unplanned pregnancy and lack of access to appropriate medical support. Among the few things research tells us about child molesters in general is that they seek out children who are poorly informed about sexual and bodily issues, and who lack confidence. Internet filters could easily make children more vulnerable in this way, too.<br />
<br />
Of course it's possible that any successfully introduced filter will take account of these problems and invest the resources to make sure support and information sites are not affected. Given the history of this area, however, I'm not holding out much hope. Whilst I doubt Cameron's proposals will easily find solid form at all, it's important that we have this conversation, because current discussions are ignoring the complexity of child protection issues and ignoring the fact that the internet provides services that the state itself is failing to provide to certain groups. Any curtailment of access to information must be approached with extreme caution and this matters at least as much when it applies to children as when it applies to adults.Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-40589059432756165002013-02-25T11:02:00.003-08:002013-02-25T11:02:19.102-08:00Time After Time<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As both the Catholic
Church and the Liberal Democrats reel before fresh allegations about
abuse an institutional failures to investigate abuse allegations, I
have to ask, didn't we go through all this just a couple of months
ago with the Savile scandal? Whilst I never seriously expected the
revolution in attitudes that many people talked about then, even I
have been astounded by quite how quickly important lessons have been
forgotten.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There is – quite
rightly – hesitation about discussing some of these issues just
now. The accusations against Cardinal O'Brien and Lord Rennard have
thus far been untested in a court of law and we should always give
people the benefit of the doubt in such cases. But hiding behind this
is another issue with much wider-reaching potential consequences, and
that's something that isn't being discussed aggressively enough. Why
do we tolerate, again and again, the failure to investigate? Why is
so much airtime devoted to people saying “He was a very nice man
who wouldn't do that sort of thing,” and so little attention given
to the other side of the story?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Being generous, we
might say that there re some things so horrific people don't want to
talk about them, or don't know how to do so; or we might suggest that
these discussions are avoided in order to reduce the stress caused to
those who have been abused. The balance of reporting and comment by
some institutions, however, suggests something else. Several people
have already noted that Nick Clegg's vague statements about having
heard something but not having evidence is already reminiscent of
that hideous line from the Savile scandal “We had no evidence –
only the women.” Similarly Newsnight, so superficially contrite
after its failures in the Savile case, couldn't be apologist enough
when discussing the Pope's resignation, doing nothing to challenge
guests who dismissed allegations about the concealment of child abuse
as some sort of mild unpleasantness. Everybody loved the Pope, they
said, showing again that footage of people running after his car in
Edinburgh which had the sound cut out if it to suggest said people
were fans, when they were actually shouting in protest. Literally
silencing voices of dissent.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The BBC's initial line
on Cardinal O'Brien was similar. There was a huge emphasis on his
good work and a focus on how unfortunate it was that he should be
accused of unpleasantness (which it certainly is, if the allegations
are untrue, but hardly in proportion to the suffering of others if
they are not). But the worst came from the Cardinal himself,
dismissing historic child abuse with the line “It was a different
time,” as if there were, at some point in our recent past, a time
when somebody might have inadvertently assumed it was okay to rape a
child. In fact, the time when those alleged (and some proven)
incidents occurred was much like our own, right down to the
preference for covering it up, making it look as if it has all gone
away.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It doesn't go away.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Last month I was told
by a specialist doctor that I may very well be correct in identifying
the abuse I experienced as a child as a factor in triggering the
illness which keeps me housebound today. Autoimmune diseases are
significantly more common in child abuse victims. So are more obvious
things like PTSD which can, in some cases, be equally crippling. So
are anger issues that often lead to the breakdown of relationships in
adult life. So are difficulties in communicating that make it
difficult for survivors to find steady employment, make them
vulnerable to prejudice like that displayed in the Daily Mail's
hatchet job on poor Steve Mesham – and make it difficult for them
to pursue those responsible. For some, it gets better. For others,
the damage never goes away. The pain never stops. Why, then, did
Cardinal O'Brien think it was okay to talk about things happening
“long ago” as if that means we should forget about it?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Simon Wiesenthal said
that we should not dismiss historic crimes because that sends a
damaging message – not simply that if one evades justice for long
enough one can get away with them, but that we, as a society, are
prepared to tolerate all kinds of horrors once the pursuit of justice
become socially or politically inconvenient. This was true in the
1940s when he began his work and it's true today. It is a different
thing from saying that we should not forgive. Forgiveness has its
value, but we cannot forgive when there is no repentance – we
cannot simply sit back and pretend it never happened and look away as
it happens again.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Cardinal O'Brien,
whether inspired by contrition or convenience, has at least had the
wit to resign. Indeed, there are many who argue that the Pope's
surprise exit was similarly motivated. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, won't
let go of the shovel, digging himself a deeper hole with every
utterance. He doesn't seem to understand that this isn't about the
principle of habeas corpus – it's about whether or not those lower
down on the social ladder have access to justice at all. The proper
thing to do now is to stop trying to explain what happened and
support an independent investigation, which must be conducted in as
transparent a manner as possible.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I hesitate to single
out the LibDems for this kind of criticism because, though they are
the ones under the spotlight just now, they are hardly the only
political party to have had difficulties around such issues. I have
written here before of the problematic attitude of some Conservatives
towards rape and sexual harassment. I don't know what the Labour
Party is like these days but twenty years ago, when I was a member, I
encountered individuals there who were notorious for their wandering
hands, a problem routinely ignored by those higher up. It would
surprise me if any major party were exempt from such problems.
Abusive individuals will always be there. The issue is what
organisations – and society at large – do about them. When I talk
to other people who have experienced abuse, they frequently tell me
that they told someone at the time, or that people advised them later
that they'd had suspicions. By and large, abusers don't operate
completely unseen. They get away with it because other people choose
not to look. We need to start challenging that.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The media has a very
particular role to play here. Institutions like the BBC need to stop
cosying up to establishment figures, acting as if they couldn't
possibly do bad things. One of the ways abusers escape justice comes
down to people refusing to believe bad things about their friends.
Friendship means giving people the benefit of the doubt. It can mean
supporting them emotionally if they are distressed to find themselves
the target of allegations. It should not mean assuming that they are
beyond reproach. The simple fact of the matter is that anybody can
hurt others, and the ability to achieve a respectable position in
politics or to become a religious leader is meaningless.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Justice, if it is to
have any meaning, must apply universally. The assumption of innocence
must apply to everyone – not just the accused, but also their
accusers. It is not acceptable to write off confirmed institutional
abuse as a little late unpleasantness. Those who have done harm,
whether directly or through concealment, have a duty to put it right,
not least by approaching it with honesty – and until they do so,
they don't deserve anybody's respect. They certainly don't deserve to
be accorded moral authority.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Joseph Butler argued
that God created the conscience so that we can tell for ourselves
whether something is right or wrong. It is time certain people
stopped hiding behind rulebooks or fellow politicians and started
analysing theirs.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-84206266367694758842013-01-12T14:16:00.002-08:002013-01-12T18:31:43.855-08:00Intersectionality, Solidarity and Sense<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sometimes one knows
that an idea has finally made it into the public consciousness only
when newspaper articles appear and attack it. For me, after years of
slogging away in silence, the sudden fuss about intersectionality is
itself rewarding. But though it is now visible, it is still poorly
understood, and it's a shame to see so many smart people floundering
over it. It's also a shame to see it being treated as antithetical to
solidarity, when in fact they are mutually supportive concepts.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Perhaps the mos bizarre
part of the debate has been the argument that use of the term
intersectionality is inherently problematic because it excludes the
uneducated. The very fact that this debate is going on means it can
hardly continue to be considered obscure. Furthermore, much of said
debate is being conducted across a vast international network of
computers which would seem to offer the option of just going and
looking it up. It's pretty insulting for any of us to suggest our
readers aren't capable of doing so. And whilst I'm not about to
suggest we all start writing like Judith Butler, she has a point when
she notes that sometimes we need to be precise about concepts. Not
everything can be effectively explained in words of under three
syllables.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I also find it bizarre
that intersectionality is supposed to be such a difficult concept to
grasp. I've now seen several people argue that people are being asked
to waste time trying to understand it when they could be devoting
themselves directly to The Struggle. That's like advising an army to
go to war without wasting time on training. Anti-intellectualism is
never pretty but in this case t borders on the ridiculous. The public
is now largely familiar with the concept of people potentially being
members of stigmatised groups. The average person understands that
some people have a harder time in life because they're female or
because they have dark skin. Is it so tricky to grasp that a woman
might be black or that a gay man might be disabled? Is it so hard to
understand that we all have advantages and disadvantages, and that
these might sometimes compound each other? The angst about privilege
obscures the real point – that if you're not a dick to people, and
if you apologise when you upset someone unnecessarily, you'll get along
just fine. Want to avoid causing accidental upset in the first place?
Then, as journalists should know, there's this thing called research.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's particularly
ironic that the most recent fuss should have kicked off over trans
issues because this is actually one of the easier areas in which to
get it right. My charity, Trans Media Watch, is always ready to give
free advice and support in this area. We have lots of resources for
journalists on our website. We don't expect the people who come to us
to understand everything at the outset and we don't get offended if
people use clumsy language in their approaches to us. Whilst there
are naturally disagreements about things like language between
different trans individuals, we can let you know what the majority
think and where there are areas of sensitivity. We're not saying that
working with us is proof against getting shouted at – there's
always someone on the internet looking for a fight – but most
people will cut you some slack if they know you've made an effort.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Among other things, we
can advise on how trans issues intersect with other areas – for
instance, what it might mean to be trans and elderly or trans and a
Muslim. These are not trivial issues, not silly little details
getting in the way of some greater agenda. They can each bring up
specific problems that limit people's ability to participate in wider
society – and, if they are so inclined, to participate in political
activism.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a disabled person, I
find myself at the sharp end of this quite a lot. I've often been
excluded from political events simply because I haven't been able to
access the venues where they've been held. When there are a limited
number of venues for lgbt people in my home city of Glasgow, it
matters that I can't get into most of them. I can't be part of a
wider movement if it's shutting me out and this – often in subtler
ways – is what happens to a lot of people with intersectional
issues. Faced with this, it’s pretty frustrating for us to see
ourselves treated as the butt of jokes – examples of Political
Correctness Gone Mad – first by the right wing press and now by the
left. This crops up everywhere from hiring decisions to health
service access to safety discussions around 'non-lethal' weapons. We
are treated as if, because there are fewer of us, our rights don't
matter. The irony is, of course, that whilst there might be fewer of
us in any one group, together we constitute the majority of the
population.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If we are the majority,
we are asked, why do we need special treatment? The answer is that
rather than crafting rules with multiple exceptions we need to be
better at creating simple rules in the first place – a good rule
will take into account people's varied needs. Much of it simply comes
down to respect and good manners, and to asking people when we're not
sure about things – but there is an underlying responsibility and
that is the responsibility to be aware of the diversity of human
experience. To not simply assume that one's own experience can be
extrapolated to everybody else. To apply a little sensitivity – not
just for the sake of trying to look good, but for the sake of
becoming better at social interaction.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What works for the
individual works for the movement. When we talk about solidarity and
the importance of togetherness, we need to understand what that
togetherness means. Feminists have complained for a long time about
approaches to inclusion that expect women to behave just like men –
approaches that take no account of the differing issues they are
likely to have to deal with in life. Such approaches end up excluding
women and the movements that use them thereby end up missing out on
the talents individual women might contribute, as well as the
perspective their shared difference of experience might bring. This
weakens those movements. An inclusive movement – one that
acknowledges and makes room for diversity – is a stronger movement.
This is real togetherness.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is time for people
to realise that there need be no conflict between recognition of
social minority issues and of class issues, between fighting or
social change and upholding liberal values. The belief that such a
conflict is necessary has been a gift to the traditionalist right. It
is not giving due consideration to intersectionality that divides us
– it is getting into petty arguments over it. The way to avoid this
is not to shut down minority voices but to listen, learn, and move
on. To respect that those voices matter, that they are part of us. To
show solidarity.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-37509371912226110012012-12-04T04:19:00.003-08:002012-12-04T12:07:54.109-08:00#MTOS<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don't usually use
this space for film work so I hope regular readers will forgive me.
I'm hosting #mtos on Twitter this week (specifically, 20:00 GMT on
Sunday the 9<sup>th</sup>), so it's something of a special occasion,
and according to tradition I'm posing the questions here in advance.
Any of you should feel free to join in – just follow the hashtag
and let us know your thoughts.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'd like to extend a
warm welcome to those film fans finding their way here for the first
time. If you're interested in reading my critical work on a regular
basis you should check out <a href="http://www.eyeforfilm.com/">Eye For Film</a>. I'm also Chair of Trans
Media Watch, a charity that works to improve the representaion of
trans and intersex people in the media, and I've been involved in
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights related work for
twenty six years. Inevitably, there has sometimes been an overlap
between these interests and my work as a critic, and so for my #mtos
hosting session I've chosen to focus on queer cinema.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You can interpret the
term 'queer cinema' as broadly as you like. I don't intend this
discussion to be limited to academics or LGBT people. Queer cinema is
interesting in part because it has carved out its own space alongside
the mainstream before arriving, latterly, at a degree of integration.
This means there are lots of different angles from which to approach
it. I hope some of you will find in the course of this #mtos that you
know more about it than you thought.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">The
Questions</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Are there any
films that have been pivotal for you in developing your
understanding of sexuality and gender diversity?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Which pre-1980
films do you think were most powerful in their depiction of LGBT
characters?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Does queer cinema
have a responsibility to challenge stereotypes? Which films have
done this well?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Has queer cinema
helped to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in mainsteam
cinema?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Historically,
queer characters have often been hidden in coded roles. Which actors
have stood out in this context?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Which films do you
think have done the most to challenge mainstream narratives around
the AIDS crisis?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do you ever find
it hard to suspend disbelief when watching a gay actor play a
straight character, or vice versa?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Queer cinema has
often deliberately undermined the notion that minorities must be
represented by 'good' characters. Who are its best anti-heroes?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Does the new
realism in films like Weekend and Keep The Lights On indicate that
queer cinema is moving into mainstream spaces?</div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Are LGBT
characters in mainstream cinema starting to have more complex roles?
Any examples?</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thanks for reading. I
look forward to your responses on Sunday.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-89494604788711361212012-10-25T03:15:00.002-07:002012-10-25T03:15:36.568-07:00Who Ate all the Pies?
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In two years' time, Scotland will be
holding a referendum to determine its future as a nation. Watching
the news today, one could be forgiven for thinking that, instead, it
was holding a bake sale. "Would you buy a used pie from this
man?" asks Johann Lamont, pointing the finger at Alex Salmond
(one assumes that if Iain Gray were still Labour leader, the
offending item would be a sandwich). Whatever one's political
inclinations, it's hard to escape the feeling that <i>someone's</i>
telling porkies - but to focus on this is to miss the bigger
question. Why should anybody contemplating the referendum base their
decision on what they think of individuals?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The great man theory of history has
always been seductive, and this is certainly a historical moment.
It's often easier to contemplate such momentous changes (and there
will be changes regardless of which way Scotland votes) by filtering
them through the personalities involved. But whilst this may prove
useful for students trying to form an emotional connection to the
past, it is dangerous on several level when applied to the present.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
First of all, we need to take ego out
of the equation. The magnetism of particular individuals (whether it
attracts or repels) will have little meaningful effect on how events
play out after the referendum. Yes, in the short term, it may play a
significant role in alliance building (whether that's renegotiating
aspects of the union, strengthening our relationship with Westminster
or establishing new international relationships), but this decision
is much bigger than that. We are voting not just on how issues might
be managed in the immediate term but, potentially, about how our
country will function for <i>hundreds of years</i>. In that time,
everybody involved in today's squabbles will die.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Secondly - and this may seem less
obvious - we need to take <i>nationalism</i> out of the equation.
Scotland deserves better than to have its future decided by
flag-waving, whether that flag is the Saltire or the Union Jack.*
This isn't about dead warriors, empire, Team GB, Woolworths or
tartan-wrapped fudge. People can feel passionately Scottish and still
support the union or can vote for independence without jeopardising
their British identity - really, it's okay, that's allowed. I was
quite taken aback when I heard members of the No campaign arguing
that we shouldn't be independent because people care for each other
across the border. Personally, I care for people all over the world
(and have family around the world too) but it doesn't influence my
political relationship with them. It would be perfectly possible to
support an independent Scotland from an internationalist perspective,
preferring that option for economic or managerial reasons without
according it sentimental value. Similarly, it's possible to support
the union without the prerequisite of having best friends who are
English.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thirdly, we need to remember that this
isn't about political parties. If it were, why would Labour be
working with the Conservatives? The Green Party has allied itself to
the Yes campaign alongside the SNP, as has a faction of the Labour
Party. Despite their official line, there are LibDems wavering in
either direction. And alongside this, of course, there are a great
many ordinary people who feel passionately one way or the other but
don't worry much about political parties until it comes to marking a
cross on the ballot paper on election day (if, indeed, they even do
that). Don't like the SNP? Independence would likely lead to them
splitting and dwindling as members' other concerns rise to the fore.
Don't like Labour? If we stay in the Union you can bet they'll take
the blame for every subsequent Westminster-wrought ill. (The
Conservatives are probably not long for this world either way.) In
other words, it's all rather complicated; and, again, the issue of
our country's long term future is bigger.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If we, the Scottish public, allow this
issue to be reduced to a spat about personalities, we'll all be
poorer for it. So by all means bitch about Salmond (if you don't
blame him for the recent confusion over legal advice, you can always
remind yourself of his sometime cosy relationship with Donald Trump),
but don't base your approach to the referendum on that issue.
Despair, if you will, or one or more of the No campaign's strange
bedfellows, but remember that they won't be around as long as the
consequences of this decision. And let's remember that, when all is
said and done, we'll all be eating the same pie, so let's not poison
it with spite.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
* I realise that, strictly speaking,
it's only the Union Jack when it's flown at sea, but I'm trying to
keep this simple.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-48585280302008387892012-10-08T08:43:00.002-07:002012-10-08T10:53:16.560-07:00Wolves in Lions' Clothing<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There's a lot of concern just now
around extremely right wing policies being trotted out at the
Conservative Party conference. But how seriously should we take them?
How seriously are they intended? And is there a danger that, in
steeling ourselves for the worst, we put ourselves in a position
where we will too-willingly accede to things that don't seem quite as
bad?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With their pre-election promises to
protect the NHS and to generally be kind and caring, the
Conservatives have been accused of being wolves in sheep's clothing.
A savvy wolf, however, has more than one disguise. What's more, it
may dress as a lion for more than one reason - to subject the sheep
to a different kind of illusion or to make an impression on other
wolves. Right now, the Tory Party conference is a battleground in
which every wolf is trying to look tougher than the others, scenting
the blood of a weak leader and warring over the direction the party
might take. This has led to policy proposals that have more to do
with machismo than political or economic viability.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let's take a closer look at a few of
those proposals. Firstly, the idea that some people (variously "the
unemployed" and "those who are out of work") should
have their benefit entitlement gradually reduced if they fail to find
work within set periods of time. This may at first sound like a
reasonable way to treat the long term unemployed (rather less so if
it includes, say, people who are too severely disabled to work), but
it rests on the presumption that they are unemployed by choice. If
indeed some are (and research suggests this group is small), that
still leaves at least two other groups - those who live in areas
where there is no work, and those who are effectively unemployable
due to lack of skills. The former group can be expected to grow in
size with the removal of housing benefit from younger people forcing
them back into their parental homes and making it effectively
impossible for them to migrate to areas where their prospects might
be brighter (something which will also be damaging to employers). In
neither case will the prospects of these people gaining employment be
increased by reducing their financial means, as this will not only
restrict their mobility further but will make it harder for them to
dress and present themselves in a way likely to impress prospective
employers, as well as making it harder for them to engage in training
programmes. In short, whilst it may function as a political
distraction from the real problems facing the country, it is economic
nonsense. Its political advantage can exist only in the short term as
sooner or later high unemployment figures are going to reach a point
where they stop being seen as a consequence of inherited economic
crisis and start being seen as a consequence of a Conservative
government. No matter how desperate things may be, it's better not to
shoot that albatross.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Speaking of increasing the unemployment
figures (or at least changing people's perception of them), there's
the proposal that everybody should be obliged to work for thirty five
hours per week, with pert time workers obliged to take on extra hours
or find second jobs. The logic behind this one is encapsulated in
Ruth Davidson's speech, in which she made clear that she thinks of
economic contributions only in terms of income tax, with no
conception of the importance of the informal economy. To put it
simply, many people in long term part time work are in that position
because they have other commitments. If work obligations (under
threat of the withdrawal of benefits) mean that they can no longer
pick up their children from school or tend to the needs of their
elderly parents, etc., the state will have to step in, at
considerably increased cost. Then there are those who work part time
because they are too ill to work full time. I'm in that bracket. Just
now, if asked if I'm fit for work, I'll say yes (though actually even
Atos would most likely rule otherwise); I can write and I am able to
make some money that way. But if 'fit for work' came to mean being
fit, every week, to do at least thirty five hours, I would have to
say no (the physical stress of trying would probably kill me within a
month); so I and many people like me would be forced to drop out of
work altogether, costing the state more in benefits, reducing our
economic input, wasting our talents and making many of us miserable
into the bargain - for no gain. And then, of course, there is the
fact that there simply isn't enough work around to sustain everybody
like this. If the government wants people in this position to be more
economically active, the secret is not to demand an impossible
increase in hours but to push for an increase in wages.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How do we increase wages? At base, by
ensuring that employees are properly valued and that they understand
the value of their labour. In contrast to this, George Osborne has
proposed that employees agree to waive certain rights in return for
shares in the companies for which they work. This is an interesting
one. Many people have, understandably, rushed to criticise the
erosion of rights (which encourages a rush to the bottom), but even
some of them would probably agree that employee-owned companies are a
fantastic way of promoting responsible Capitalism (as per the
Japanese model). One wonders if Osborne has linked the two in order
to toxify the latter. Many Conservatives would traditionally have
supported it, but of late the party has increasingly moved away from
its focus on supporting aspirational working people. Osborne may
think he can sidestep EU red tape by persuading employees to give up
their rights voluntarily; the legal reality is likely to be rather
different. And there is one other key problem with this policy - the
fact that in a recession, when apparently stable companies are going
to the wall on a regular basis, employees signing such deals can have
no guarantee that the shares they settle for will retain any value at
all.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What's likely to come of all this? When
the lion sheds its skin, it's all too easy to relax and think, <i>well,
it wasn't a wolf after all - it won't maul me too badly</i>. So if we
see less drastic benefit reductions that target only those on
Jobseekers' Allowance; if we see only a subset of those in part time
work forced to take on extra hours; and if we see employees
effectively stripped of their rights by being legally disempowered
(ref. the ongoing cuts in legal aid) rather than seeing the laws
changed outright, a party which had a wolf's agenda from the outset
will seem positively ovine.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Meanwhile, David Cameron should be as
wary as the rest of us. As teeth are bared in Birmingham, he's in
danger of looking woolly to his erstwhile friends.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-69054777700692550102012-10-04T10:02:00.000-07:002012-10-26T08:58:59.295-07:00Ownership<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Last night, it seemed most people I
knew were watching the documentary about Jimmy Savile. I couldn't. I
had to wait until this afternoon, when it was daylight and I had
trusted company and wouldn't have to face sleep for a while. I hope
by the time you finish reading this, you'll understand why. For me,
one of the most disturbing things in he documentary was the
revelation that Savile had gifted one of his (alleged) victims a copy
of his autobiography signed 'your keeper'. It's that aspect of
perceived ownership of people and of experiences that I want to talk
about here, because despite the many recent pieces I've seen written
on this subject, it's something that I haven't see discussed in any
depth. I think it's important to breaching the gulf between those who
watched that programme wondering why nobody took action and those of
us who live in a parallel world where we'd have much much more
surprised if somebody had.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I haven't slept much over the past two
weeks. It wasn't the programme itself so much as all the talk
surrounding it, that triggered once again the flashbacks and the
mornings where I'd wake up with my body full of fury as if I were in
the middle of fighting someone off. That, and the build-up of recent
cases of publicly discussed sexual abuse, rape and exploitation (whether
alleged or confirmed, malicious or just plain stupid) from Julian
Assange to Ched Evans, from Jeremy Forrest to the disappearance of
little April Jones, never mind the perpetuation of rape myths by
people like Tod Akin and George Galloway. All these cases merited
media attention but it can be difficult when one is unable to go for
a day without such reminders. So, I'm going to touch on some of my
own experiences here, but I'm not after sympathy (which I struggle to
know what to do with) and I certainly don't wish to suggest that
everyone's experiences or reactions are the same. I simply wish to
explain my perspective and to ask for your patience if I'm a little
more emotional than is usual in my writing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One question I have seen arise
persistently in relation to that Savile case is "If they're
true, why didn't these women report these incidents sooner?" Of
course, some of them did, and were ignored, but let's focus on the
others. I can see how this might be hard to grasp for some people -
after all, would one hesitate to report a burglary or a traffic
violation? - yet to me and many people like me the answer is so
blindingly obvious that it's difficult to get across with the
patience and restraint necessary to promote understanding. First of
all, let me clarify that the person who abused me when I was a young
child was not famous, yet I, like a substantial portion of those who
experience child abuse, said nothing directly to anyone for almost
twenty years. The reason was twofold. Firstly, whilst I was still in
contact with that person, I wanted to avoid a confrontation.
Secondly, I didn't want to think about it. I didn't forget, but
whenever those thoughts arose I stomped them down. I'd have gone
crazy otherwise. I felt I had a right to get on with my life, and it
wasn't until I had psychologically adjusted to being in a safer
environment that it all bubbled back up to the surface.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When one does start talking, there are
consequences. For most of us that's centred on family relationships
and friendships, but in a case where the assailant is famous, there
must also be the understanding that it could easily end up all over
the papers. Yes, complainants have a legal right to anonymity (which
two in this case have bravely chosen to waive) but that can't make it
any easier to see the intimate details of sex acts in which one was
an unwilling participant splashed all over the news. This can make it
impossible to get any time off from those persistent thoughts and
memories, and it also makes a desperately personal part of one's life
into public property.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This is one of the reasons why I didn't
go to the police when, as an adult, I was sexually assaulted by a
celebrity. I was walking back from a shopping trip when it happened.
He was so drunk he probably doesn't even remember it. It was broad
daylight. He approached me in the street and subjected me to a tirade
of homophobic abuse, then grabbed at my genital. There wasn't much I
could do about it. I have a muscle wasting disease and fragile bones.
My priority had to be staying on my feet. Later I mentioned it to a
friend who said he knew someone who had been persistently harassed by
that particular guy. Just like with Savile, there are rumours. I know
there were witnesses in my case. They did nothing. That's usual.
People who could talk about it at no personal cost, but don't. I'm
not convinced it would do any good for me to say something now. I'd
have no material proof. And my experience has been that on the
occasions when I have reported assaults to the police, nothing has
come of it. I still suggest that option to others, so maybe I'm a
hypocrite, but it's more hat I want hem to consider the choices
available to them. I've also helped others to escape ad recover from
abusive situations without reporting.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Another reason why I kept quiet about
my experiences when I was younger is that I don't have a binary
gender identity (I realise this may not be obvious from my physical
appearance - although I am actually intersex, it's hard to look butch
with a muscle wasting disease) and I didn't want to be forced into an
ultra-feminine poor-helpless-little-thing role, there to be protected
- effectively objectified. It wasn't until later that I came to
understand many women loathe this too. It's illustrative of how
victims of sexual abuse and assault are written out of their own
narratives. It's easy to lose control, especially when there are so
many people eager to step in and 'save' us (always after the fact),
to be heroes, to win social acclaim without making a fraction of the
effort that we've had to make just to survive. Of course this doesn't
mean we never want or need help, but we can do without being told
what to think.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the things I've been told is
that I should forget about what happened to me. I should look to the
future. I'm sure everyone who says this means well, but there's that
gulf of understanding once again. Whilst I want very much for those
memories to lose their power - it's been thirty five years and I
still wake up screaming sometimes - they are <i>my</i> memories, part
of <i>my</i> life, and if I disavow them then I lose part of myself.
I want to be a fully integrated, whole person capable of coping with
all my diverse experiences, not a book with pages missing. I can't
help but feel that, some of the time, the request that people in my
position forget is more about sparing others from having to think
about our problems than it is about what we live with ourselves. Just
like the way that other people try to manage the social stress of
child abuse by placing undue focus on, or eliding, the sexuality of
the victims.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm sure that even those who are guilty
of it can understand why others get upset at the suggestion that
children seduce their abusers. More difficult to deal with is the
elision of young people's sexuality - and a type of focus on sex that
misses the point of some of the ways in which abuse causes harm.
Studies suggest that sex is indeed the prime motivating factor for
some abusers (as opposed to, say, a desire for power); unwanted acts
can be acutely distressing both to experience and to remember, as
well as (in some cases) causing physical harm, so I don't want to
minimise that. What I do want to do is expand the picture.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a tangent to these recent
discussions there has been a lot of focus on the age of consent. On
of the failings of the way this works in the UK, to my mind, is that
it doesn't take into account age gaps. In many countries it is legal,
for instance, for someone aged fourteen to have sex with someone aged
sixteen but not with someone older. This means that young people are
not criminalised for having sexual relationships with their peers but
that such relationships are understood to be different from those
they might have with significantly older people. And there's that
word - relationship. Because the age at which we start to desire and
can cope with (and enjoy) sexual experiences is rarely going to be
the same as the age at which we become capable of navigating complex
power dynamics in a relationship. Young people can be at significant
risk of exploitation and emotional abuse from older adults who
understand the dynamics of human behaviour much better than they do.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let's take the Forrest case - the maths
teacher who ran away to France with one of his pupils. He seems to
have believed he was doing it for love (or to have successfully
persuaded himself of that). Perhaps his pupil felt that way too.
Perhaps, had she been a few years older, no-one would have seen it as
a sexually exploitative relationship (and I hope for her sake, in her
experience, it wasn't - and that no-one obliges her to feel violated). But it was still abusive in other ways,
because Forrest was old enough to understand that this action, at the
point when she was studying for vital exams, could seriously screw up
the rest of her life. In that context, regardless of anything else,
his actions were self-centred and callous.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There's just one thing that makes me
hesitate when talking about cases like this - and I'm speaking in the
abstract now, because I certainly don't wish to imply anything about
specific individuals. It's this: could an individual who leaps at an
opportunity to run away from home be doing so in order to escape an
abusive situation there? And that's the thing - that's the shift of
perspective at the heart of these discussions. I don't want to feel
that way. I don't want to be paranoid or to look at the world and
perceive everything as potentially hostile (even if that paranoia may
have saved my life on a couple of occasions). I didn't want, as an
older child, to wince when I saw kids sitting on Savile's knee in
<i>Jim'll Fix It</i>. He could be a perfectly decent guy, I told
myself. But watching that, even then, triggered that instinct in me.
Jim gave out amazing opportunities. Sitting on his knee was the price
one had to pay or it. At that age, I saw pretty much all interactions
with adults that way. If one wanted or needed something, one had to
be prepared to put up with a little unpleasantness to keep the adult
happy.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sometimes my instincts will be right
and sometimes they'll be wrong. At a practical level, I'll always try
to assess people calmly and rationally, but, after so many years, I
doubt the way I feel will ever change. This is what child abuse does.
If Savile were alive, said a lawyer in that documentary, he couldn't
fairly be taken to trial over an incident thirty years ago which he'd
be unlikely to remember clearly. That may indeed be fair. Perhaps,
right up until his death, he lived in the same world as those of you
who have never been hurt in that way. I live in a different world and
every time I make contact with the wider one I have to cross a
cognitive gulf. I am asking those of you who read this to dare to try
and cross that gulf in the other direction. To take a look at my
world (which is full of people with similar histories) and to try and
rethink your assumptions. Some survivors will fit a more
conventional, more comfortable narrative sculpted by others, but
those of us on the other side are still human and have a right to be
recognised in the human story.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-27530239061733662812012-10-01T12:27:00.002-07:002012-10-01T12:27:08.699-07:00In Development
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This Wednesday the Scottish Government
will be announcing its new National Parenting Strategy at the
Parenting Across Scotland conference in Edinburgh. The policy is
aimed at providing better to services to families of all shapes and
sizes across the country, to ensure that young people get the best
possible start in life. But what can it realistically hope to
achieve, what does it need to tackle, and why should wider Scottish
society invest in it?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a queer person I probably know more
childless people that average. Whilst Pope Benedict may be taking it
a little far when he says that homosexuality threatens the future of
the species, the fact is that lgbt people raise significantly fewer
children than straight parents and many older gay men, who never had
the option of adopting, have adopted a way of looking at the world
that entirely elides parenthood. Of course, some straight people are
unable to have children, or decide they don't want to, and recent
academic work such as that by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has problematised
the assumption that every woman experiences maternal instincts. So I
have quite often been asked "Why should I pay taxes to raise
other people's kids? What's in it for me?" Like it or not, this
is a key question when it comes to policy making.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The answer is not a difficult one but
it can be difficult to sell. Children are an investment - not just
for their parents but for society as a whole. Most of us will be old
some day and age is a disabling process. If we want to retire or have
care available for us when we are unable to be self-sufficient, we
had better hope there's a new generation of capable people in the
workforce, driving a strong economy. "Oh, but I have savings!"
said one of my friends in response to this, misunderstanding the
flexible nature of the value of money. This kind of attitude,
together with the usual tendency to short termist thinking, present
barriers that need to be overcome in putting forward a policy of this
sort. They are particularly challenging for politicians on the left,
who are frequently assumed to be driven by sentimental ideology
rather than an understanding of economic issues.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And this is an economic issue.
Parenting strategies have been put forward by successive governments.
Some have been quite successful, but we have always struggled, as a
nation, to raise more than 90% of our children out of poverty. This
is because any policy that is going to be effective needs serious
money behind it. Not only will this, over time, help us to build a
stronger economy; it will also help us to reduce some specific
financial burdens. That lost 10% (and more) of children doesn't just
represent human suffering. It represents people who are more likely
to face long term unemployment and more likely to end up in prison.
If we don't invest now, we pay later.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That poverty is the most pressing
problem for child welfare in Scotland is pretty much universally
acknowledged. It's a problem that is getting worse as Westminster
spending cuts disproportionately impact low income families,
particularly where there are also disability issues (a key factor in
child poverty). Distressing though this is, it would be folly to
think that sufficient funds can be raised to tackle it at a stroke,
especially in a political climate where there is considerable
negativity around welfare; so what <i>can</i> be done right now to
tackle some of the most serious difficulties whilst longer-term,
larger-scale anti-poverty strategies develop?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Answering this question depends on
cross-departmental working, and it's pleasing to see that this is
something the Scottish government understands (though how well it
will work in practice remains to be seen). Poor coordination, rivalry
and duplication of work between departments is one of the biggest
avoidable wastes of money in modern governmental structures all
around the world, so it's good to see this kind of practice
encouraged in any context. It's particularly important here because
an effective parenting strategy must have the involvement of health,
education and social security specialists at the very least. It must
begin with high quality maternity care and helping prospective
parents plan before a baby is born, but it mustn't end when children
pass the point at which politicians want to kiss them and reach that
where they risk being hugged by David Cameron. Children and their
parents must be supported even when they're not cute, and we must
acknowledge that it's often the least appealing kids - the most
easily scapegoated ones - who need the most help.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is also, very often, the least
politically appealing families who are in need of help. This includes
single mothers, frequently stigmatised and blamed for their
predicament whilst little prejudice attaches itself to fathers who
walk out. It includes young parents who often face extra financial
difficulties and a steeper learning curve as well as social prejudice
(a friend of mine in this situation had stones thrown at her when she
was eight months pregnant). It includes alcoholics and drug addicts
who need specialised support if they are to overcome their problems
and successfully commit to parenthood. And it includes situations in
which what is best for the child may be at odds with what is socially
valued - supporting unconventional families or even helping troubled
couples to separate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I've heard many people say that they
didn't feel ready to have kids until they were with someone whom they
could never imagine wanting to leave. Personally, I'm inclined to
think that it is advisable for couples to imagine splitting up before
they have children. Research increasingly shows that children growing
up after amicable divorces do better than children in homes where
there is continual, miserable friction between their parents (even
where that doesn't spill over into violence). A successful parenting
strategy cannot afford to be based on social ideals - it must be
based on lived realities, taking account of what works for
individuals and, first and foremost, what can be done to make
individual children feel happy and secure.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Happiness, despite being the focus of
increasing scientific scrutiny, is still an undervalued aspect of
life. It is important, in developing a strategy of this kind, to
think not only of what children need but of what they want - to make
room for play. That means preserving safe outdoor spaces, be they
playgrounds or sports fields, in the face of financial pressure on
councils to sell off land for development. It means providing social
spaces for teenagers where they can spend time safely out of the
family home, easing pressure on everybody. It means giving city kids
access to the countryside and country kids access to the city. And it
means funding specialist youth organisations that work with young
people who find themselves marginalised.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The government has acknowledged that
there is a lot of good work going on in these areas already and that
the important thing is to draw it together, taking best practice
examples from different groups and applying them, whether through
government initiatives or the third sector, so that proper provision
exists for children throughout Scotland. Sadly, many parents in
marginalised groups are unaware of the help that's already out there,
and this needs to be remedied. Others are afraid of any contact with
helper organisations because they feel stigmatised to the point where
they fear their children may be taken away. The government needs to
send a clear signal that it is on the side of families and to develop
communications strategies that inspire confidence - to show that t is
there to help rather than to disapprove.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Unifying service provision must also
involve an investment in true accessibility. Services must adapt to
account for the needs of disabled parents and children, of those who
don't speak much English and of those resident in hard-to-reach
areas. This isn't just about intervening more specifically in
individual cases - it's about building faith, on the part of parents,
that services are truly focused on them, and thereby improving
outreach and uptake more generally. To truly make this strategy work,
the talking must continue once the initial consultation is over - the
strategy must reflect the ongoing, changing needs of parents and
children in a changing Scotland.</div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-90773847982626981932012-09-25T12:45:00.002-07:002012-09-25T13:10:00.671-07:00Labour Shame<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's no revelation that politicians try
to strike a balance between doing what they believe in and doing what
will win them votes, the old see-saw between gaining power and being
able to do something worthwhile with it. We've heard a lot lately
about the 'comforts of opposition' and the 'responsibility of
government', as if power were just about being considered important
and not about actually <i>doing</i> things that matter. But in all my
long years in and around politics, I have rarely seen so blatant or
misjudged a bit of vote chasing as Johann Lamont's speech today. It's
no wonder lifelong Labour supporters are shredding their membership
cards in response. If Lamont's words are what the Labour Party has
come to represent, there doesn't seem a lot of point, really.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So it is that, despite having spent all
day working on conference planning and consultations, I feel I must
return to the fray tonight, because certain things are being said
that have been let go for far too long. Excuse me if I don't pull my
punches. I'm quite miffed that Labour's policy people can't figure
this stuff out by themselves.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let's start with <i>something for
nothing</i>. This is a slogan we've heard a lot lately, a favourite
of certain red top newspapers and government ministers looking for
scapegoats. The idea is that those of us in work will feel righteous
fury at the notion that people who're not working should still be
able to get by. It's easy to feel, on first hearing this slogan, that
it makes a lot of sense. Why should those who do nothing deserve
something?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The answer is this: everybody deserves
something, because they are human. Everybody deserves to be safe from
starvation, to have shelter, to be warm enough in winter, to have at
least a basic level of health care. These truths should be
self-evident. What's more, the truth is that they don't cost very
much at all. Looked at over the long term, they can save us money, by
safeguarding the investment we make in every citizen whilst they are
growing up. Spending tens of thousands of pounds to educate somebody
and then just letting them die would be <i>stupid</i>, wouldn't it?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There are actually not very many long
term unemployed people in this country. There are a fair number of
disabled people who are unable to work or can only work part time.
There are other people who face unemployment in the short term during
economic slumps like the one we're going through at present (when you
hear Westminster Tories complain about a rising welfare bill, bear in
mind how much unemployment has risen on their watch). But the vast
majority of those in receipt of benefits are working. They are
contributing to society. They receive supplementary assistance
because what they earn is simply not enough to live on. That's not
something they should be ashamed of. That's something society should
be ashamed of. A legacy of bad policy-making and failure to regulate,
by successive governments, has allowed too much money to accumulate
in the hands of the rich at the expense of people like these. That's
what we need to fix. When you're being stabbed you get rid of the
knife rather than angrily discarding bandages because they fail to
soak up all the blood.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So let's come to another one. <i>Tough
decisions</i>. That's an interesting phrase, coming as it inevitably
does between people who've never had to choose between eating and
keeping warm enough to stop their toes turning blue. Let's get real,
shall we? Taking money from poor people isn't a tough decision. It's
easy - like taking candy from a baby (literally, in some cases). Poor
people are an easy target because they're generally too desperate and
exhausted to fight back. Mentally ill people having their disability
benefits taken away often struggle just to fill out the paperwork
they need to appeal - they're not exactly a political threat.
Politicians know this and, sadly, some of them are <i>not</i> ashamed
to exploit it. Perhaps they comfort themselves with the notion that
families or charities will step in to fill the gap (I'll be talking
about that one in an upcoming post - the short version is, we know it
often fails to work). It is perhaps difficult for some middle class
people to understand that poverty means having nothing to fall back
on. When there's no money for food, you go hungry. When there's no
money for rent, you're on the street. There's no-one you can call who
will make it all go away.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In times gone by, we used to talk about
the <i>haves </i>and the <i>have-nots</i>. Now we talk about the
<i>givers</i> and the <i>give-nots</i>. It's insipid. 47% of American
don't pay income tax, says Romney, so they can be written off as
scroungers, and people are quick to buy into that idea in the UK too.
It's bollocks, of course. That 47% includes pensioners who have
worked all their lives and are enjoying a well-earned retirement. It
includes children whom we almost universally decided, a few decades
back, we ought to refrain from sending to the mills. And it includes
an awful lot of people who are not paying income tax because they
don't earn enough yet without whose hard work society would collapse.
It's all very well to pretend that everybody who makes the effort can
be saved through the miracle of social mobility. That's no substitute
for social justice. It doesn't help the poor and it doesn't help
society at large. In this faux utopia, party whips belittle police
officers and presidential candidates pay so little heed to their
staff they don't notice when they're being filmed. We blame the
refuse collectors, the teachers, the nurses and the retail workers for
being poor, as if they could ever escape that in those jobs, and as
if those in the jobs we esteem could survive without the work they
do. Day in, day out, it is the working poor, including those in
receipt of benefits, who are the backbone of our society. They give
more than many of our politicians will in their whole lives. They
deserve our respect.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They do not deserve to be told <i>we
all have to give up something</i>. There's another slogan that sounds
fair on first hearing, but what does it mean? What has the recession
cost you? A tenner is a tenner, you might say, no matter who gives it
away. But the <i>value</i> of that tenner is very different depending
on your general economic circumstances. If you're on benefits, the
loss of a tenner a week means giving up at least two family meals or
five days' heating. If you're earning a comfortable wage, it might
mean you don't drink as much at the weekend. If you're earning a
parliamentary politician's wage, you're unlikely to notice it (unless
you can claim it on expenses). So let's stop pretending that we're
taking from the poor, the ordinary and the rich on an equal basis.
We're nowhere close to that. No politician who insinuates that we are
should be trusted with any aspect of the nation's finances, since it
is largely a failure to understand the relationship between money and
value that has go the world into this particular economic mess.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Labour, one would think, would get to
grips with these issues, stand up for the people who have long
depended on them. Don't whine that there's no money left. We are a
wealthy country. The problem we have is that the wealth is unevenly
distributed. Sorting that out requires <i>tough decisions</i>. Labour
do have to <i>give up something</i>, but it doesn't have to be their
raison d'<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">ê</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">tre.
If they want support, they're going to have to get their act
together, because the electorate won't give them </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>something
for nothing</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Get
your house in order, Labour. Don't make me come down there.</span></div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-36699033541336891512012-09-15T15:55:00.000-07:002012-09-15T15:58:12.246-07:00Rock Me Asmodeus<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Kate Middleton has breasts. Prince
Harry sometimes takes his clothes off in private. Oh, those royals!
How fortunate we are that we have a free press which, though it
(mostly) has the decency not to show us those intrusive pictures,
will tell us about them so we can be sure power is not abused. At
least not by naked people.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Today, accidental pornographer and
erstwhile drummer boy Richard Desmond, who has pounded the percussion
for free speech everywhere but the libel courts, has declared himself
so disgusted by The Irish Daily Star's publication of pictures of the
topless princess that he's considering closing it down. One might
suggest that it would be more proportionate for him to sack the
editor on duty - or even to reconsider his own policy of encouraging
staff to push boundaries in order to make sales - but perhaps in
these post-News of the World days he thinks it'll look positively
heroic to make a hundred people redundant. After all, whilst a lot of
people read tabloids, everybody hates, them, don't they? From phone
hacking to the Hillsborough revelations, they've hardly been making
friends this year.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In ancient times the story went that
there was a demon called Asmodeus, and this particular demon's hobby
was lifting up the roofs of people's houses to peer at what was going
on within. Whilst everybody agreed that it was important the public
sphere be monitored and politicians held to account, the idea of
intruding into the private lives of citizens was considered outright
evil. It's important to bear in mind, of course, that not everybody
was a citizen. That attitude still lingers in the present day. As
long as the more prurient sections of the press are careful to
restrict their focus to already stigmatised groups - criminals,
benefit claimants, Muslims, transgender people - they can get away
with a great deal. It's only when they trouble the powerful that they
find themselves at risk - which illustrates both the reason why we
need them to be troubling and the fact that they're passing off as
trouble what is merely smut.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As Chair of Trans Media Watch, I spend
a good part of my time standing up for ordinary people whose lives
are sensationalised in the press. By and large, those members of the
wider public who are educated about transgender issues are supportive
of this. I get rather less support when I raise my voice in defence
of the privacy of the royal family. They have no right to privacy,
people tell me, because they're public figures. But what does this
mean? That their very flesh is public? That, by virtue of their
special status, they should not be treated as human? Whilst I cannot
help but note that making royals afraid to undress in private might
at least decrease the chances of the situation continuing, I don't
think any amount of wealth could justify them being, in effect,
treated as mere objects. Besides, when we buy into attacks made
against them as private individuals we are doing the very opposite of
holding them to account. We are allowing ourselves to be distracted
from the real questions that need to be asked about the power they
wield. It is notable that the recent story about Prince Charles being
consulted on a wide range of government policies, and asked to
approve them before they became law, received substantially less
coverage. One pair of breasts is much like another but to fiddle with
soft porn whilst our democracy burns takes a special kind of tit.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It takes, in fact, the kind of person
who has no interest in journalism at all but sees owning newspapers
merely as a route to personal wealth and power; just the kind of
person to whom sacking a hundred journalists means nothing. When
people like this are making the big decisions at our major newspapers
we need to ask ourselves not why journalists are letting us down but,
rather, why journalists are not being heard at all. When we talk
about press ethics we need to remember that most journalists - as
reflected by the NUJ - have sincere concerns about ethical practice.
At certain papers, however, it is only the unethical few who can
climb to the top - or stay in a job at all. And when it comes to
public redress, the Press Complaints Commission often finds itself
hamstrung by a code of practice controlled by a small group of
editors whose influence on the industry should be every bit as
suspect as that of the politicians everyone fears may take control.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There are other options, of course. My
charity has made a series of recommendations to the Leveson Inquiry,
as have others, and it is shortly due to report. It's possible that
the recent right royal scandals represent a jockeying for position
before this happens. We already saw something of that cynicism when
transgender expos<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">é</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">s
briefly disappeared from the papers during the submission period for
the inquiry, only to reappear afterwards, as we were invited to
document in a second submission later on. Our position is certainly
not that control of the press should be given to the government, as
any sensible person can see the risks this entails - rather, we would
support the establishment of a truly independent body. The problem
that I perceive is that a body controlled by a handful of men isn't
so very far from a government-controlled organ anyway - it may be
that the power base is divided but it is still very much in the hands
of the establishment. It lacks the inherent vitality and diversity
that journalism needs in order to thrive - in order to do its job.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">What
is that job? Sometimes it does involve peering into the private
domain. There will inevitably be some cases where this is genuinely
in the public interest - a little poison, as they say, to cure the
greater ill. But we must not assume that because something is
prurient it is also, in any meaningful sense, revealing. I suspect
most of us - David Icke and friends aside - had a pretty good idea
what Prince Harry would look like naked before we were offered the
option of seeing it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">We've
seen a lot of weak apologies this week. Kelvin MacKenzie saying that
he regrets calling Liverpool football fans thieves responsible for
their own suffering, but doing nothing to explain why he was so ready
to believe it, even whilst he blames others for misinforming him.
Richard Desmond thinking that by getting rid of assorted staff
members, most of whom will have had nothing to do with the boobs
boob, he can enjoy the publicity those pictures have brought to his
papers whilst dodging the fallout. I'm not going to add to that -
I'll say, straight out, that I wouldn't cry for any of his papers if
they were closed tomorrow. That said, my feelings about their staff
are another matter. Likewise my feelings about the newspaper
industry, which depends on its plurality and is already suffering
because so much of that is meaningless. I'm dubious about the idea of
restricting ownership because there are practical issues there around
how broadsheets can be kept afloat, but there's plenty of room for
change in the nitty gritty of how papers are managed and run. Let's
stop pretending our press is free in its current form, and start
fighting for it.</span></div>
Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-30840316514900602182012-08-29T11:57:00.003-07:002012-08-29T11:57:40.577-07:00The Art of Tea<p>Few political battles rage more fiercely than those we fight to protect what is close and dear to us. Even so, the public outcry over developer Hugh Scott's plans for Glasgow's Otago Lane has been remarkable in its size and volume. The campaign to protect the lane, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, has raged for three years. Today, despite all that - and in defiance of its own planning regulations - Glasgow City Council's planning committee voted to let the development go ahead. Some have said that the machinations around this recall Sun Tzu's <em>The Art Of War</em>. Yet there is another tradition perhaps more pertinent - perhaps more worrying for those who have betrayed their voters - and that is the art of tea.</p>
<p>A philosophy expounded by numerous eastern cultures, known in China as cha yi, the art of tea is centred on an understanding that there is more to the human experience than the material. It has an aesthetic aspect and a political one. Understanding the art of tea - or seeking to understand it - is vital to understanding how human affairs change and develop, and how certain ideas come to dominate, once we step beyond the battlefield.</p>
<p>“In the small [tea] room, it is desirable for every utensil to be less than adequate. There are those who dislike a piece when it is even slightly damaged; such an attitude shows a complete lack of comprehension,” said the tea master Sen no Rikyū (according to the <em>Nampōroku</em>). He could be providing a literal description of Tchai Ovna, the tea house at the centre of the lane, as he sums up very neatly the historic appeal of the area. He could also be summing up the blunder that the planning committee has made - that failure to comprehend what, in his native Japan, is called wabi - the aesthetics of imperfection. A generous observer might say that the councillors have been dazzled by an image of gleaming modern development. They have failed to understand what the lane means to people and why, sometimes, our imperfect heritage is more valuable than the slick and slippery.</p>
<p>Slippery, in this case, is also a term that has literal implications. The proposed site on the end of this small, historic lane is on the banks of the Kelvin River. It is a notorious slip zone. One architect has already said privately that he does not expect any new building constructed there, in accordance with the specifications outlined in Scott's proposal, to last for more than twelve years before it begins to slide dangerously into the water. If we run the numbers, we see that this is unlikely to bother Scott, who will have made a tidy profit by then, but it should bother the council and the local people, who will be left with the job of cleaning up the mess.</p>
<p>Some argue that this shouldn't matter - Glasgow needs new homes, urgently. Well, yes, but that's like saying that the world needs fewer children and eliding the inability of some countries to cope with the economic pressure of shrinking their populations too fast. Glasgow needs affordable homes and it needs them in underdeveloped areas. Luxury flats in areas whose infrastructure is already struggling to cope with population pressure are not a solution. They will do nothing to help the poor and they will do nothing to help revitalise those parts of the city that are struggling.</p>
<p>There are so many practical problems with this development that it would be impossible to go into them all in depth here. Alongside the damage to the city's heritage and the pressure the development will put on the lane's small businesses are major public safety issues around traffic - drivers use the surrounding streets as a shortcut between major thoroughfares, and there is a school just across the road, so the last thing it needs is more cars. There are also issues for the natural environment - the riverbank is an important wildlife corridor connecting parks. Without routes like this, animal populations become isolated and are damaged by inbreeding, with serious implications for conservation. The city planning regulations clearly state that all these issues should be cause for concern, so when they are ignored we should quiet our battle cries, sip our tea, and ponder what is going on.</p>
<p>At this stage it would appear that all those who voted in favour of the development are Labour councillors. The problems caused by Labour's grip on the council - and its sense of entitlement in that regard - are legendary and, again, difficult to go into in depth here, but suffice to say that many members of said party regret that influence of certain individuals in that context. At its heart, this isn't about party politics - we see the same issues come up in any number of areas where one group has achieved lasting dominance. It is about a group of people who have lost any sense of relationship with ordinary voters, to the point where they might easily be swayed by other interests.</p>
<p>Many had hoped that the shock Labour got at the last council election, when it briefly seemed they might lose overall control, might precipitate a shift in attitudes. Instead, a last minute surge in support (surely nothing to do with the city having now given permission for twenty two annual Orange marches) not only secured them but seemingly increased their audacity. Although campaigners plan to mount a legal challenge to today's decision, the councillors involved will no doubt feel secure in having had the last word. They have, for the time being at least, secured the ground. People are beginning to discuss when they should go for their last cup of Tchai Ovna tea.*</p>
<p>What has been missed, as so often, is the significance of the immaterial, of the lingering feelings this has set within those who feel that they have been betrayed. Those feelings are likely to lead to more than just legal contestation. They will entrench in a significant portion of the population a suspicion about council decisions that will last, that will spread, that will inform the investigation of planning matters across the city. From now on, everything those councillors do will be watched. They may come to regret their easy dismissal of the humble tea-drinker.</p>
<br>
<p>*The planning proposals would allow Tchai Ovna to remain open, but a probable decrease in custom whilst it is surrounded by construction work means its survival is still in jeopardy.</p>Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-50845777697208320522012-08-16T09:53:00.002-07:002012-08-16T14:45:50.287-07:00Before the Law<p>Amid all the clamour around Julian Assange, it's proving dangerously easy for parties on both sides to forget why the law matters - and what it is for. We must not let political games or cults of personality distract us from its vital role in protecting the innocent - and even the guilty.</p>
<p>When all this first blew up I, as a journalist, was extremely worried about what looked like a plot to extradite an individual who had made enemies through his pursuit of the truth to the US, a country with a terrible record on the treatment of (unofficially) political prisoners. I was suspicious about the rape allegations as the nature of the crime, coming down to one person's word against another, makes it a common choice for framing individuals with powerful enemies. That changed for me when I read Assange himself describe, almost casually, how he had sexually penetrated a woman he was staying with without her consent. Now either Assange is a liar, in which case he cannot be trusted when he proclaims his innocence and anyone should be able to see that he must face trial; or he is an honest man, in which case he is a self-confessed rapist and must face trial. His victim (and possibly a second victim) is the only innocent here.</p>
<p>That doesn't change the fact that issuing an international arrest warrant for rape is an exceedingly unusual move. Several factors need to be taken into consideration here. Yes, Sweden could be trying to obtain custody of Assange so it can hand him over to the US in exchange for political or diplomatic favours. It could be taking the case more seriously because Assange's high profile means it can use him to set an example (something any good defence lawyer should challenge). It could even be that, in light of the popularity of the <i>Millennium</i> books and films, which challenged Sweden's record on the prosecution of crimes of violence against women (in specific relation to the protection of an individual perceived as a foreign policy asset, no less), it is anxious to redeem its reputation. And there is the possibility that it has simply decided it ought to take rape more seriously. There lies the rub. Why doesn't every country take rape more seriously? Why is it still so easy for people to get away with it by skipping across national borders?</p>
<p>Now Ecuador enters the fray. One wonders, what did those who raised bail money for Assange think they were supporting? Was it Wikileaks and the principle of freedom of speech? Now that they have lost it, as he has forfeited his bail conditions to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, it's painfully clear that Wikileaks was, for him, never the priority (imagine what it could have done with that money - or what a difference it might have made to Pte. Manning's defence fund, something Assange keeps claiming to support whilst actually doing very little). The superb work that Wikileaks has done in many areas no longer makes headlines; all the focus is on its sometime leader, with the self-styled martyr's image that probably helped him to get access to his victim(s) in the first place. Of course, a martyr can be a political asset like any other, and many people are assuming that's why Ecuador has taken him in (and now granted him asylum) - to make a grand statement and stick two fingers up at the United States. If I were them (and if I were Assange) I'd be more wary. The value of assets varies over time. Can he really guarantee that Ecuador won't choose to sell him on in the future? In 2006 the IVK PAX study found that Ecuador had the fourth highest kidnapping rate of any country in the world. In such a context it would be easy for a valuable asset to disappear and turn up in American hands without anybody being able to prove who was responsible. No law could protect Assange from this.</p>
<p>Then there's the matter of Assange's current self-imposed house arrest in that embassy. How could he get to Ecuador without first traversing UK territory and being arrested? He might be smuggled out, but where to? No Ecuadorian ship will be allowed into UK waters in this situation, so he'd need to undertake quite a journey under the eyes of multiple expert security teams and journalists. Giving him diplomatic status is not an option as that would require the permission of the nation in which the embassy is based, i.e. the UK. That country retains the option of announcing that it has found a new home for the embassy, reassigning its protected status to that building, and arresting Assange during he transfer, but it is unlikely to undertake this because the precedent it would set could endanger its own diplomatic staff in a number of other countries. So everybody waits.</p>
<p>In the midst of this, Assange's supporters claim he has offered (a) to be questioned by Swedish investigators within the embassy; and (b) to go to Sweden if they can guarantee he won't be extradited to the US. Both of these offers look reasonable on the surface, but let's look more closely. What kind of precedent would it set for Sweden to be bullied into shifting part of its judicial process overseas? What damage would that do to Sweden's international reputation? More than it could afford, as it would undermine any future international arrest warrants it might feel the need to issue. And could Sweden realistically rule out all possibility of a future extradition under the terms of a warrant it may as yet have no inkling of? Of course not - in fact, it may very well find that it lacks the legal power to resist such a warrant.</p>
<p>Swedish justice has been extensively demonised in the course of this case. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the UK has effective extradition treaties with the US - ones particularly amenable to the latte party, in fact, as they even allow the extradition of UK citizens with learning disorders that leave them ill-equipped to cope in the US judicial system. If I were seriously worried about being extradited to the US, I'd far rather be in Sweden than in the UK.</p>
<p>Temporarily, we have a stalemate. Unless it has got ulterior motives (which may include bargaining over Assange whilst he's still in London), Ecuador has bitten off more than it can chew. Sweden cannot be seen to back down and the UK cannot escape its duties to Sweden. Everybody seems hamstrung by legal restrictions and we come back to that question, what is the law for?</p>
<p>At the bottom of this are three sets of abuses. The first is the abuse of due process at Guantanamo Bay and in the trial of Pte. Manning - if the US had not chosen to go down that road, nobody (except possibly Assange himself) would have a problem with him being sent there. The second is the abuse of diplomatic process by Assange and by the staff at the Ecuadorian embassy who chose to shelter him, which places at risk the embassy's greater duty, to promote its national interests and thereby to support Ecuadorian citizens. Thirdly, there is what started all this - an allegation of rape. The ugliest thing about the case is that this is now rarely discussed in anything other than political terms. People are forgetting that, if it happened as Assange described, it was an act with real human consequences - and not just for its perpetrator. It is treated as an inconvenient detail in a much bigger political game.</p>
<p>What is the law for? It is for this: to give an individual who has been the victim of injustice some hope of mediated restitution. It is there to persuade a raped woman that she has options beyond picking up a knife and plugging her attacker full of holes.</p>
<p>We all benefit from the rule of law, whether innocent or guilty. And no matter how tempting different bargaining strategies may seem to the various governments involved in this case, it would behove them to remember that when faith in the rule of law disappears at that very basic level, so does the foundation on which the whole edifice of civic society is built. Regardless of the other issues here, none of us can afford to perpetuate a process whereby powerful men can get away with abusing others because there is always something more important to deal with. There is nothing more important than justice, and if we can't secure it for victims of rape, we can forget about trying to remedy injustices between nations.</p>Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683462122885965181.post-90875561736331260012012-08-08T07:00:00.001-07:002012-08-08T07:03:30.705-07:00No More Double Negatives<p>The double negative: in some languages it strengthens the negation; in English it contradicts itself, becoming positive; in Scotland it just embarrasses all concerned.</p>
<p>Last night's spectacularly misjudged Newsnight performance by Ian Davidson MP brought several months of histrionic debate over Scottish independence into sharp relief. It was particularly embarrassing for the unionist side, whose sincere concerns were reduced to mudslinging nonsense, but of course there are those who take a similar approach in the pro-independence community. So we get the pseudo-ironic comments about how those on the other side would react negatively to particular things, which isn't supposed to be negative in itself because it's humour (a lame defence in any context); and when called on, the perpetrators usually resort to claiming their opponents started it. This wouldn't be acceptable in primary school classroom and it's not acceptable in public life. One thing I am confident the majority of Scots can agree on is that it has to stop. If Scotland is to move forward as a nation, either independently or within the union, our politicians must act like grown-ups.</p>
<p>England has long taken a positive attitude to negative politics - just look at Westminster. Prime Minister's Questions at noon on Wednesdays routinely sees hundreds of people we are meant to respect reduced to troop of shrieking gibbons - often the principals can hardly be heard and, when they can, their pronouncements have more to do with performance than coherent argument. Those who challenge this are usually told that it's traditional, but is a traditional embarrassment any less of an embarrassment? This kind of behaviour is an insult to every member of the public who turned out to vote because they thought their candidates had an interest in seeing the country well run.</p>
<p>This is not to say that remaining in the union is detrimental to good conduct. Right from its inauguration, Holyrood has shown itself to be a more civilised place. There's backstabbing and dubious political manoeuvring, of course, but overt bullying and shouting is not tolerated. This is something we should celebrate and aim to extend into other venues where political discussion takes place. It is something we should build upon, dispensing with the ideologically-focused bickering that gets in the way of honest discussion. Like Westminster, Holyrood is a small place with a big job to do. There is too much real work MSPs could be getting on with for time wasting posturing to be considered acceptable - in any party.</p>
<p>It seems no coincidence that the Newsnight drama was initiated by a Westminster MP - somebody who spends too much time among the rabble to appreciate that we do things differently here. It's not the first time Ian Davidson has been accused of bullying, with Eilidh Whiteford withdrawing from the Scottish Affairs Select Committee last year amid allegations that he threatened to give her 'a doing', and others have accused him of bullying women in particular. Would he have treated Newsnight presenter Isabel Fraser differently if she had been male? That's difficult to say, but the dismissive way he began responding to her before letting her finish her argument speaks volumes. He was not only aggressive, he was unwilling to countenance that anything she said could be of value. Still, from a political perspective, the most problematic aspect of his actions was the lack of control they implied.</p>
<p>Like David Cameron red-faced at the despatch box on a particularly rough Wednesday, Davidson gave the impression of a man so emotionally swept up by the moment that he could not articulate the political message he was there to put across. Passion can be valuable in a politician - it provides the drive to get things done - but ultimately we pay our politicians to think, to reason, to negotiate. If a politician feels that a programme is biased, they should assert that politely and take it up with the proper authorities (indeed, BBC Scotland is currently being investigated for alleged bias against the SNP). Getting in a flap about it and taking out anger on a presenter is not only inconsiderate behaviour, it makes one look like a buffoon.</p>
<p>Alongside the likes of Davidson's performance, we have the so-called Cybernats who attack anybody on the internet whom they perceive to be dissing the SNP or independence, and an equally rabid group of unionists who attack those seen to be doing the opposite, accusing them of being Cybernats. On occasion I've been attacked by both sides over the same remarks, which at least persuades me I am getting something right. Like street gangs, these groups are really most interested in attacking each other, and each presumably feels its actions are justified by the existence of the other, though each seems to have a significantly magnified idea of the size of its rival. In reality there don't seem to be very many of them but their voices are disproportionately loud and have a distorting effect on Scottish politics. Sometimes journalists and commentators who ought to know better get caught up in this phony war. We need to accept that those who snipe at each other like this have removed themselves from meaningful debate. They need to stand back and understand that such aggression is not going to influence anyone; and nor should it. If one wishes to influence people, one has to actually talk to them, and make a real case. Simply discouraging others from speaking is not only obnoxious, it's ineffective.</p>
<p>When people behave like this, or like Davidson, it is tempting to simply ignore them and find a way of routing discussion around them. That's one thing online; it's a little harder when it happens in parliamentary select committees or on national television programmes. But there is a simple solution, and that is for the rest of us to refuse to engage in the first place. A man who cannot conduct himself respectably on Newsnight should not be invited back. A committee whose spokesperson conducts himself in such a manner should not be heeded. Real authority comes not from institutions but from the people. Those who do not respect that cannot expect to play any meaningful role in our political culture.</p>
<p>It's time for an end to negative politics. I don't want to hear any whining about who started it. Each of us should be concerned first and foremost with our own conduct. We should aim to set an example, not partake in a race to the bottom. Scotland deserves better. The Scottish people should be able to say to their politicians - whatever side they sit on - <i>yes, yes, yes!</i></p>Jennie Kermodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749433298618601756noreply@blogger.com0