Brontides

Hayek and Keynes were undeniably dudes.

I used to do far more of this, but inspired by K-Bax and the incomparable Jen, I felt like it was time to do a quick round-up of January’s reading.

Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Ryszard Kapuscinski was a gift from my aunt Gaynor. She gave me The Emperor, The Shah of Shahs and The Soccer War when I was a teenager, and I was blown away. Kapuscinski was a fascinating man and a personal hero of mine. It was said of him that he had personally witnessed or reported on no fewer than twenty-seven revolutions and coups, been jailed forty times or more, and had survived four different death sentences. The Emperor narrated the fall of Haile Selassie; Shah of Shahs told of the Islamic Revolution and the last days of the Pahlavi dynasty. Questions have been raised about his depictions of Africa and about the authenticity of some of his details, but one dirty secret of journalism is that the odd fabrication can be excused, especially in the interests of revealing a greater truth. He is not an academic; he was a poorly-educated boy from behind the iron curtain, plucked almost at random and hurled into the world with scarcely any preparation at all. And in the end, when it came to the collapse of empires, Kapuscinski was the twentieth century’s foremost authority, a primary witness of unimpeachable experience.

Travels is more of a memoir, and is thus somewhat unsatisfying. To give this slight tome a hook, Kapuscinski grounds it in the battles of ancient history, focusing his narrative on the copy of Herodotus’ Histories that he was given as upon departing for his first assignment. The subtext is clear;  one gets the uncomfortable feeling that, by overlaying the story of the ancient traveller, narrator and seeker of truths, Kapuscinski – old and dying – was using his last work to try to frame his own epitaph.

If so, this book is affected detrimentally for it. Gone is the piss and vinegar, and the lonely sense of alienation and abandonment, and the sheer uncompromising fear that formed the combustive fuel for his earlier work; this is a mellow, peaceful, reflective book, still beautifully written and gently humorous, and lacking the insight and power of his documentary works. The real star of the show is Herodotus, whose stories of the clashing armies of Persia, Greece, Scythia and Egypt caught the imagination in a way that Kapuscinski’s slightly parochial descriptions of revolutionary China and post-war Khartoum did not.

It’s a good book, but not a great one. If you want to see a truly fitting testament to the talent and verve of one of the world’s greatest reporters, though, then you should read him at the height of his powers – in Iran in 1979, Angola 1975, and Ethiopia as Sellassie’s power erodes beneath him. When you are truly great, your epitaph looks after itself.

Sunnyside by Glen David Gold

Carter Beats the Devil was another firm favourite from my university days. A richly detailed prewar setting mixed with the exoticism of the life of the professional stage musician, infused by the inherently fascinating story of Charles Carter, the book was exciting and enjoyable – an adventure story for the more refined palate.

Sunnyside is exactly the same book, except that it has Charlie Chaplin instead of Charles Carter, and isn’t as good.

Let’s be fairer than that; it may well be that I am glamourising my memory of Carter, and that it’s actually just as accomplished. But if that’s the case then neither of them are very good, and this write-up becomes more complicated, so let’s stick with the facts at hand: Sunnyside is, simply, not all that good.

Its problems are several. Firstly, of the three interweaving storylines, only two actually interweave and only one is really worth your time. The first is the story of Hugo Black, a private in the section of the American army which – for no very justifiable reason – continues fighting World War One well after the Armistice, against the Russians, from their own city of Archangel on the north coast. It’s mostly divorced from the rest of the plot, being almost entirely tacked on, and doesn’t really resolve in anything like a satisfactory manner.

The second concerns Leland Duncan, whose story arbitrarily links in with the third story but which is much more thematically sound. Leland Duncan was a real person; in the first world war, he rescued two dogs in a bombed-out barn in Normandy, one of which would go on to become Rin Tin Tin, movie dog extrodinaire. As a slightly more likeable character, Leland carried his plotline in a way that Hugo simply fails to do.

The third plotline is by far the strongest, and on its own would have made a lighter, but much more compelling, book. It’s the story of Charlie Chaplin as he seeks to avoid the draft, find a mode of working that he can take pride in, and stave off the machinations of a Hollywood aligning itself against him. It includes several well-written passages, including a couple of fascinatingly ornate set pieces. These sections reveal Gold at his most comfortable, and somewhat work to the detriment of the weaker storylines that surround them.

Another problem that besets Gold’s work across all of the plotlines, however, is Gold’s lack of talent at writing for female characters. The females in Sunnyside are jarringly mannequin-esque – and are almost all reduced to romantic interests for the three male leads. It remains disappointing to me that male writers, as a class, seem to be incapable of overcoming this single, basic hurdle to narrative believablility.

Sunnyside is not a total failure. It has some charm, some adrenaline-inspiring passages, and some almost touching moments. But at its heart, it’s still not very good. It’s too long, and the quality is too diluted. Perhaps I’m just too old for this?

Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

African literature is a hard market to excel in. On the one hand, there is no shortage of stories to be told; from the cradle of life and the birth of civilisation, to the war-torn and fractious borders of today, Africa deserves voices who are prepared to represent it in its totality. On the other, it must be acknowledged that the main audience for African literature is, and remains, white Europeans and Americans (not to mention their publishers and editors), who will happily apply and enforce their own – often arbitrary – benchmarks of quality and authenticity. To be an African author who can successfully balance those competing demands is a nontrivial task.

Ngugi wa Thion’o is one such. This latest book gives some hints as to his approach; it is defiantly anti black universalism, proudly feminist, and as celebratory of the individual as it is of the crowd. This is a remarkably warm, human novel, despite being born out of an impossibly sad event – in 2004, Ngũgĩ ended his exile to return to Kenya as part of a month-long tour of East Africa, but during the trip, robbers broke into his apartment: they stole money and a computer, brutalised the professor, and raped his wife.

This is not a novel of recrimnination, however. The Africa of Wizard Of The Crow is an Africa on the cusp of a renaissance, held down only by the infinite venality of its ruling class. With one hand, Thiong’o paints a vivid picture of the benefits brought to African society of the possibilities generated by affordable Indian advanced education, the richness of the intellectual awakening of Africa’s own dissent, and the small ways that populations can, in their own fashions, make dictators accountable. On the other, though, he excoriates the political elites, with their absurd modes of deference to power, their “white-lust”, and their ever-more ornate and elaborate ways of deflecting attention from their true activities.

The story is that of a fictional African nation called Abruria, which exists under the heel of an otherwise-unnamed Ruler. Meanwhile, the heroes of the piece – Kamiti and Nyawira, each foreign-educated, each poor and shiftless – adopt the identity of the Wizard of the Crow. Tales of their magical healing exploits proliferate amid a fog of rumour, mythmaking and political spin.

In the New Yorker, John Updike called it “too aggrieved and grim to be called satire” – but I found it to be full of hope and remarkably free of bitterness. At more than 700 pages, its flaws, of obsessive reiteration and prolixity, arise partly from its bold experimentation with oral forms, and from giving rein to the pathologies of the corrupt at the expense of the more intimate dilemmas of those who challenge them. But the poisonousness of its targets never infects the author’s vision, nor his faith in people’s power to resist. Perhaps that in itself is a triumph.

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf

I will be up-front about this book and freely admit that this is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There’s a degree of inbuilt bias, there – it’s a book about the height of Persian culture and civilisation, and it’s a book about books; my interests rest perfectly in the venn overlap of these themes. But there’s also a lot of objective truth in it, too. This is an excellent book at any speed and deserves to be read.

The story splits into two parts. The first tells the story of Omar Khayyám, the 11th-and-12th Century Persian  mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, physician, poet, mechanic, geographer and musician. Khayyam is a fascinating subject to begin with; a disciple of the great Avicenna, he was a celebrity in the royal and imperial courts of the Islamic world at a time when most Europeans were living in dung huts. He lived his life in the intellectual, cultural and political capitals of the world – Nishapur, Samarkand, Merv – and, in a relationship that forms the centrepiece of this novel,  was part of a set that included two men who influenced their world possibly more than any others. On the one hand was Nizam al-Mulk, the vizir of the Seljuk Empire, author of the still-famous Siyasatnama (The Book of Government), and probably the most powerful single man in the world at that time. On the other, however, was Hassan i-Sabbah, master of Alamut and the founder of what would come to be known as the sect of Assassins.

Not that it matters overmuch, but while this section of the book deals somewhat with fact, it remains heavily fictionalised. There is no actual evidence that Khayyam, al-Mulk and Sabbah ever met, other than an apocryphal story often linked to Jorge Luis Borges; but in this book their relationships are close and personal. The bare bones of the historical narrative are true – the movements of Khayyam can be traced fairly closely, the foundation of Alamut is a matter of record, and the relationship between al-Mulk and his King have, at the very least, the ring of truth – but Maalouf’s skill is in putting flesh on those bones. This book is absurdly successful in this aim. The symbiosis of the fascinating characters and the alluring, evocatively described settings make for gripping reading.

The second part of the book moves to turn-of-the-Century Iran, and somewhat more towards the wholely fictional. We now follow a young American who is on the trail of Khayyam’s Rubaiyaat – the supposed original document in which Khayyam transcribed his quatrains, rather than the speculative and heavily editorialised FitzGerald anthology and translation. This quest lead him into the political imbroglio of 1900s Iran, an era of revolution in which democracy briefly flourished, only to be ruthlessly crushed, in one of Europe’s more shameful moments, by the colonial powers of Britain and Russia. The main characters in this section are somewhat less absorbing than in the first; they’re not bad, and a lesser book (like, say, Sunnyside) would be better for their inclusion, but they lack the draw of Khayyam and his coevals. But the themes remain compelling.

The grand sweep of history has Iran, once again, chafing under the yoke of enforced tutelage. The book speaks with an empassioned voice about the limits of nationalism, religion and fanaticism to drive change, but also stands as a paean to human spirit under oppression. It’s a book about art and culture, and the enjoyment of life’s pleasures. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Here’s the thing with the BBC, right. They can post an article like this entirely uncritically. This is the problem with attempting to maintain an unbiased reportage – it makes you scared of making the obvious responses, such as: “If you want an uncomplicated intelligence-sharing relationship, stop fucking torturing people. We don’t let Libya do it so why should you?”

Also, wtf White House. I thought that the Republicans were the torture-apologist party in the US?

Intelligence derived through torture is illegal under international law. Not Iraq-war illegal; actually illegal, in that most civilised countries have extremely tight laws in place to prevent its admission. I, for one, am pleased that our courts have overturned the decision of that gutless, venal slime of a Foreign Secretary and have staked their colours to the wall on this.

Edit to add: Liberal Conspiracy identifies Britain’s worst journalist on the basis of this. Come back BBC, all is forgiven. Ish.

Nick Robinson’s analysis of why the Snow Plot failed misses, I think, one key reason why none of Mr. Brown’s antagonists have succeeded.

That being: there there are actually no, or at least very few, actual policy or ideology wedge issues that split the Labour Party. Even at Cabinet level, the tension is not related to any specific direction of travel or intellectual underpinning that Gordon Brown has embraced. The rift is purely stylistic, which makes it something of a curiosity, as both Thatcher and Major faced intra-party opposition who disagreed with them profoundly on the way in which the country should be run. But more than that, it’s this quality that severely reduces the dissent’s chances of success: without the white heat of an ideological rift, getting enough people to take on a sufficient amount of risk to oust a sitting Prime Minister would be an impossible task.

An argument could be constructed that the lack of a coherent alternative ideology within Labour is a symptom of Labour’s political turpitude, and to be sure, the cabinet does seem to lack the ideological creativity that one would expect of a government at war with itself. With the exception of Harriet Harman and Ed Balls in their respective remits, they seem to be a bunch singularly averse to asserting firm positions on anything.

One very simple thing about the Snow Plot that has become very clear, but yet which is not getting any traction in any of the analysis I’ve seen about it, is this:

The reason why this story has so much potency is because if a secret ballot were to be held, Gordon Brown would almost certainly lose.

If you think about that, it’s quite remarkable.

It’s the open secret that hangs over British politics like a thundercloud; one of the major parties is going into an election led by a person that the majority of its members don’t want to be Prime Minister. And what’s even more remarkable is that this has been clear for a long time, and that, despite numerous attempts, no-one has succeeded in prising him out.

Yemen has leapt into the media spotlight since Christmas Day, and probably for good reason – like Somalia, it’s a perennially misunderstood and under-observed place, whose sudden elevation in the eye of the global media has led to some wild and hysterical mis-reportage. Waq Waq, which has been fighting the good fight on Yemeni news for nearly a year, shares my despondence. The misunderstanding of the nature of qat is a particular pet peeve; yes, it’s mildly narcotic, and yes it informs myriad attending problems, such as water consumption, reduced productivity in the workforce and the criminality inspired by the mafia-esque organisations that distribute it. But it has next to nothing to do with terrorism, alienation or extremism in the region, so why every news report feels the need to hold it up as a cultural constant is beyond me.

An inside look on one at the least-understood of geopolitic’s actors is always worth a look. Understanding the structure of power in Tehran is crucial as it provides context for everything that is happening today, and this is a clear, lucid and accessible starting point.

The plot threw off the actual post I was going to make today, which was along the lines of: aren’t things going well for Nick Clegg all of a sudden?

I’m not the only one who thinks so, although the attention Clegg gets from the Left and the Super-Left may not be entirely indicative. But Clegg has been experiencing a bit of a resurgence, one which probably began with the news that he would be sharing an equal stage with the other leaders in the televised debate. It was a great coup for him, and it now seems clear that it was waved through by the other leaders as part of their collective woo’ing of the third party. It’s unusual for a third party leader to be so courted, but the real takeaway from this is the left-wing media reaction. If Labour can’t provide a meaningful alternative to the Tories, could we see media outlets switching to the Lib Dems?

Of course, all of this got subsumed by the plot, a bit. For a while it looked like it might have traction but at this stage it seems to have fizzled. This probably isn’t very good for the Lib Dems, who need Labour to retain some kind of competitive margin in order to have any hung-parliament value, and it certainly isn’t very good for Labour either. So we’ll just have to see what the next few days bring. It may well be, of course, that for all the high drama voters have already factored Labour’s fractiousness into their voting intentions, and all of this will have next to no effect whatsoever…

More detail on the Jordanian who killed seven CIA operatives here. It’s a pretty remarkable story, really – in some ways one is inclined to believe that technology has moved us past the point at which physical, flesh-and-blood cloak ‘n’ dagger intrigue is efficient or cost-effective. But then, one would not be alone:-

In the past, Jordanian officials have privately criticized American intelligence services, saying they relied too heavily on technology and not enough on agents capable of infiltrating operations.

Ironic. But also interesting given my post yesterday. The man had been plucked from a Jordanian jail and recruited by the Americans and the Jordanians to spy on Al Qaida. He had a history of supporting violent islamist causes, and was a well-known contributor to al-Hesbah, a online forum run by Islamist extremists. He also ran his own Islamist blog. That the US military allowed him to walk straight from an Al Qaida stronghold into a US military intelligence facility without even frisking him shows a severe and naive lack of understanding of basic human nature.

I read this on the way back home this evening, and it was interesting – a paper by a pair of Zurich-based economists who set out to demonstrate how the decision to become a suicide bomber can be rational, and doesn’t necessarily run counter to economic principles of utility.

The whole thing is worth a read, but its chief interest for me was that it came as a reminder that insanity is to psychoanalysis as dark matter is to physics – something hazy and indistinct used to fill the chasm that exists between what we can measure, define and understand, and what we can observe as extant but not explain. While it may briefly satisfy a theoretical gap, it doesn’t absolve the inquiring mind of the duty to push deeper for more worthy explanations. The most common reasons suggested for suicide terror are madness and hate, but the paper successfully argues that these are minor influences in the decision-making process that leads to an attempted suicide bombing. The paper sets out some of the (many and varied) alternatives, splitting them out into three distinct categories:

• posthumous effects: rise in the social and monetary status of the attackers family; immortality of the attacker; accomplishment of political, religious and social goals.
• announcement effects: admiration and rise in status of the attacker before the attack.
• defection effects: negative consequences arising in case the attacker does not carry out the attack.

Aside from that, the paper also carries the stories of Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber, and Dareen Abu Aysheh, who detonated a bomb at an Israeli roadblock a month later. Since Idris, the Palestinian territories have become the area second most targeted by female suicide bombers, but at the time, cases such as Idris’ were a rarity. In her book, Army of Roses, Barbara Victor describes Idris as “talented… married and divorced because she was sterile”; of Abu Aysheh it was said by her brother that “[s]he was sure that [she] would be killed for nothing, maybe at a roadblock or when our houses are bombed, and she used to say that it is better to die for a reason”. In the absence of the suicide-bombing industry that would come to utilise the effects outlined above, these two women – and many others besides – used suicide bombing as a way to validate their own lives and their positions within society. Even by strictly utilitarian standards the logic makes pernicious sense.

This is the outrage that underpins the claim – briefly fashionable in the media, now thankfully on the wane, although still prevalent, at least on the British street – that Islam is a violent religion. The simple truth is that any population – even the most stoic, resolutely middle-class British or American WASPs – will, when placed in conditions similar to those under which the Palestinian population has laboured, eventually turn to violent resistance and extremism. The solution to this isn’t bombs, roadblocks and walls, it’s to remove the depredations (which, unerringly, tend to be found in the form of bombs, roadblocks and walls) that drove that population to its extreme in the first place.

Finally, this footnote – of all things – perked my interest. The writers say:

…the terrorist activity level is not modelled as a continuous variable with the maximum level being suicide attack (see eg. [J.P.] Azam [Suicide bombing as inter-generational investment] 2005).

Two thoughts emerge from this – first, why should suicide bombing be modelled on a continuous scale with other acts of terrorism? There’s no evidence to suggest progression – that a sufficiently hardened terrorist will, eventually, commit a suicide attack. And secondly, this leads to the idea that suicide bombing and other forms of terror are strictly non-analogous. To be a terrorist is to be a killer, a murderer, a methodical, calculating – and unsacrificing – designer of plots to cause havoc and death. A suicide bomb, however, is an act of desperation, a statement of self-sacrifice, and ultimately inward-facing. As this paper proves, suicide bombing is, more often than not, a strictly utilitarian decision, which is a somewhat sanitised way of saying that, for the bombers, the benefits of dying outweigh the negatives. Idris and Abu Aysheh would never have considered “conventional” terror, because any act of terror that did not result in their deaths would have missed the point. What horrors must a community suffer to make that course of action a rational one?

Anyway, the paper’s a good read, so I recommend at least glance.

What does a good week look like when talking about Iran?

Sadly, the last few weeks have skirted about as close to positive as we are likely to see, at least in the short term.

First, a bad story miraculously managed not to get worse. On the back of the collapse of a near-miss deal, which would have allowed for Iranian fuel to be enriched in French and Russian reactors, and the revelations of a second reactor in Qom, the US House of Representatives passed a crummy bill (when AIPAC crow about it, you know it’s bad), giving the President the power to ban any company who traded in Iranian petroleum from operating in the US – effectively, a sanction. This would be – and still may, in actuality, end up being – an awful idea; Prof. Gary Sick referred to it as “perhaps the worst idea to come out of Congress since they opposed the purchase of Alaska”, although Sarah Palin reminds us of the charms of that earlier act of obstructionism. Indeed, the sanctions would be entirely self-defeating; they would, by forcing legitimate companies to avoid trading in Iranian fuel, channel funds and effective power into the hands of the Revolutionary Guards, while further agitating the possibility another neocon pet war in the Middle East and exacerbating the perception that the US is hostile to the average Iranian. But midterms loom, it looks great on a campaign leaflet, and opposing it is politically risky, especially with the Democratic brand so heavily tarnished by the dirty fight over healthcare.

Happily, the US media – probably heavily aided by the White House – have responded responsibly, acknowledging the substantial successes that the White House has enjoyed in its current policy and hopefully giving the Senate the cover it needs to quietly neuter the sanctions bill.

Secondly, contrary to the expectations of many – including myself – the Green rebellion continues to develop, almost in spite of the conventional wisdom surrounding how rebellions and revolutions behave. Once again, Gary Sick, who predicted that the dissent would have legs, provides some measure of clarity on this. In many respects, the Iranian regime has performed a by-the-book suppression of the unrest, but have met with little success.

One of the interesting factors surrounding the post-election Iranian unrest is the extent to which it has been beyond the influence of individuals. At the time of the election, I said the following:

I think that Ahmedinejad is, at best, a bystander in events at the moment. To an extent, though, so is Mousavi; he seems to be one step behind the protests, always calling them after they’ve already been arranged. And to a different extent, so too is Khamenei. The ultimate choice of whether to risk it all by using force is his and his alone, but that’s the limit of his ability to act; I don’t think he’ll take that choice, so it remains to be seen how far the protesters can go.

As time goes by, this seems truer and truer. Even following the assassination of his nephew, there is no indication to suggest that Mousavi is even particularly closely connected to the bulk of the revolutionary force, which seems to be quite adept at organising and directing itself. Ahmedinejad, after a brief attempt at a post-election power-grab, has disappeared completely as an actor on both the national and international stages. And Khamenei… I wonder to what extent the Revolutionary Guard are still loyal to him, given that his survival increasingly rests squarely on their shoulders. If this rebellion does develop into a full-blown revolt then it will be a unique and intriguing new form of civil unrest, albeit one that may be applicable only to the uniquely Byzantine circumstances that prevail in Iran.

I have long admired Prof. Sick’s analysis on Iran but have respectfully dissented against his optimism regarding the outcome of the current turmoil. It increasingly seems, however, that a positive outcome in Iran may be possible – not likely, perhaps, and certainly not imminent, but possible. The longer that the Green revolutionaries in Iran hold out, and the wise continue to thread the needle in Washington, the better the odds get.

On the tension between Israel-as-Democracy and Israel-as-Ethnocracy.

An interesting question addessed honestly.

From Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Travels With Herodotus:

Herodotus was therefor a Greek Carian, an ethnic half-breed. Such people who grow up amid different cultures, as a blend of different bloodlines, have their worldview determined by such concepts as border, distance, difference, diversity. We encounter the widest array of human types among them, from fanatical, fierce sectarians, to passive, apathetic provincials, to open, receptive wonderers – citizens of the world. It depends how the blood got mixed, and what spirits settled in it.

This, from the Economist’s Charlemagne, is a bracing bit of balanced analysis of the appointment of Michel Barnier to the position of EU Commissioner for the Internal Market. The apoplexy this has caused in British media and business circles, and especially in the Venn-diagram overlap between the two, has been both predictable and excessive; as Charlemagne notes, repeated allusions to Napoleon and the Hundred Years’ War rarely accompany balanced or nuanced reportage. But there’s one section that caught my eye in particular:

But here is the bit I think French commentators also miss. For one thing, they are so used to Mr Sarkozy’s boastful ways that they fail to understand just how provocative he sounds overseas. Last weekend, for example, he bragged to Le Monde that the British had tried to block Mr Barnier from getting financial regulation as part of his portfolio, but had failed. “The British are the big losers in this business,” he chortled. And then he, and the French press, are puzzled when the British worry that they may have been losers in this business. It is the same thing with the Obama administration, as far as I can tell from conversations with diplomats. It is an open secret in trans-Atlantic circles that Mr Sarkozy has spent more than a year mocking and belittling Barack Obama in private conversations with aides, political allies and friends. In his telling, Mr Obama is a callow neophyte who has had to be shown what is what on financial services, climate change and the like by the brilliant Mr Sarkozy. The odd thing is, when Mr Obama is then a bit chilly with his French counterpart, the French come over all hurt and surprised. What on earth do they expect? It is a mystery.

It’s certainly true that President Sarkozy is specifically cack-handed when it comes to the tricky balancing act of nuancing his domestic speech for foreign consumption – some would say that tact, in general, is not a quality that the otherwise admittedly brilliant politician has in abundance. But he is far from being the only politician to have struggled to reconcile the gap between the messages intended for domestic consumption and the demands that these messages place on the often delicate work of international relations. It boggles my mind slightly that this is so frequently an area that trips politicians up. It’s all well and good to criticise Sarkozy for this, but was Barack Obama surprised when he lost credibility in the Middle East after pledging to AIPAC, on the campaign trail, that an undivided Jerusalem would be the unquestionable capital of Israel? The UK Labour government’s reliance on carefully controlled messages post-1997 has averted it a few faux pas, although David Miliband is probably not welcome in Poland right now. And I haven’t even touched on Berlusconi, who might as well keep his slippers in his mouth given how often his foot finds itself in there. The mind does boggle, at times.

davenoon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notices that Sarah Palin (or Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter) has an epigraph problem:

I realize this is a pedantic complaint, but would it be possible for Sarah Palin to launch her chapters with epigraphs that aren’t of dubious origin?

The first chapter, for example, opens with a quotation from Lou Holtz that the former football coach apparently wrote exclusively for this book. (Alas, as it turns out, Palin and her ghostwriter were simply mangling a nearly identical aphorism that — while always attributed to Holtz — never leads back to an actual source and only appears in “inspirational” books of quotations.)

Chapter Two is introduced by a fake quote from Aristotle, who never in fact wrote that “Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.” Instead, such banalities are more properly credited to a book called Seeds of Change by Denis Waitley, a hack motivational speaker and author who once served as an executive for a skin-care Ponzi scheme.

So far as bungled epigraphs go, the third chapter is arguably the winner so far, attributing this nugget of wisdom to the renowned former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden:

Our land is everything to us…. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember than our grandfathers paid for it — with their lives.

Now, if that’s not the sort of thing you’d expect a hall of fame basketball coach to say, that’s because, of course, he didn’t. Students of American Indian history might recognize that passage as belonging instead to John Wooden Legs, the post-WWII Northern Cheyenne tribal leader who — though a contemporary of John Wooden’s — was not the same guy.

I can’t help wondering if it was deliberate. I don’t know much about Lynn Vincent, but in her position, I’d be tempted to tip observant readers the wink as well.

This article on the difficulties involved in translating Beowulf from old to modern English is fascinating. It’s lengthy, but well worth reading to the end.

If you would like to post your responses to the challenges on pages two and four, please use the comments below.

H/t Megan McArdle

The nature of the activity that the term “political correctness” describes is difficult to neatly define. The term “political correctness” is, of course, deeply unhelpful; it is a process that is neither directed nor overseen by politics or political bodies, although laws and legal institutions may respond reactively to it. Furthermore, it seems to me that it describes a correctness, or an orthodoxy, only insofar as it casts a shape by opposition. It is a social process, and one that is concerned primarily with ruling out that which is unacceptable in its midst, not with carving commandments into graven slabs on the mount.

Broadly speaking, political correctness is the process by which society is currently re-evaluating the extent to which it finds certain acts and ideas tolerable and permissible. The term “Culture of Tolerance” has been suggested in its place, despite it not always being particularly tolerant; was the headscarf ban in France an act of toleration? Anne Applebaum dubbed it the “European Project”, which is only somewhat satisfying, as it is not a process that is necessarily bound to Europe. Its roots, however, most certainly do lie in that continent, and its impulse to both forget and atone for its past. In Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West,Christopher Cadwell writes:

Avoiding another European explosion meant, above all, purging Europe’s individual countries of nationalism, with “nationalism” understood to include all vestiges of racism, militarism and cultural chauvinism – but also patriotism, pride and unseemly competitiveness. The singing of national anthems and the waving of national flags became, in some countries, the province only of skinheads and soccer hooligans”.

Cadwell’s thesis is that it was this traumatised recoil from the close, bloody proximity to history that Europe had enjoyed in the early 20th Century that became the foundation upon which millions of Muslims came to build their lives in Europe, bringing with them, unchallenged, many of the exigencies that have come to define the inter-communal friction that has afflicted Europe over the last half-century. And he has a point. In no other location at any other time would the migration of so many people, from so many radically different cultures, have been permitted as it has here. The Europe that shunned the stark divisions of colonialism and cultural absolutism could not allow itself to deny migration on the basis of cultural difference, any more than it could bring itself to apply a standard upon those who it had enticed.

While it does Cadwell a disservice to reduce his nuanced, well-considered arguments in such a fashion, this does hint at the roots of what we today call “political correctness”. The problem is not, and has never been, one of illegal or illegitimate migration; the Home Office accounts for maybe 400,000 illegal migrants at large in the UK, but the number of legitimate refugees in the UK has recently crested 3 million, and the number of legal migrants is greater still. This rapid rebalancing of the cultural mix cause a friction to develop within Europe; not just between the newcomers and the hosts, but within the host cultures themselves – between those who clung to the European Project, and worked to embody its principles of inclusively and cultural relativism, and those who espoused a new (or a return of the old) nationalism, demanding that those who arrived, integrate. It was this duality of response that led to refugees becoming, as Georgio Agamben would have it, homo sacer*; in a society which could not agree upon a consistent response to the issues raised by migration and political asylum, these lives became politically untouchable.

Attempts to resolve the issues arising from this dichotomy have been incoherent. The aforementioned headscarf ban was notorious in Europe but elicited interest beyond not for its severity but for the haphazard way in which it was implemented. To ban a scrap of cloth is clearly illiberal, which is why the French authorities argued that it was being banned as the symbol of an aggressive international political movement. Instead of simply banning on that basis, however, the French government felt the need to make the law inclusive – and thus banned religious paraphernalia across the spectrum, including “large crosses” and yarmulkes. There was never any illusion or doubt that the law was directed at, or intended to target, anything other than the Islamic headscarf. But the European project mandated that any action against one group must be carried out against all others, in equal measure. The irony here is that the law worked; even though the law has been in effect for only a short while, integration is perceived to have improved significantly. But the cautiously inclusive way in which the law was framed was completely ineffective at muting Islamic resentment against it, which was still – naturally – regarded as a hostile move specifically targeting France’s substantial Muslim population (which is effectively what it was) – meaning that the rights of the Christian and Jewish populations were curtailed for no worthwhile reason.

But for all its frequent stupidity, incoherence and hypocrisy, the European Project remains a worthwhile pursuit. For all the cultural and social tension it may have caused, it has undoubtedly prevented far worse; a those chauvinists who have argued for a responsive rise in European Christianity unwittingly demonstrate. A religious revival may be good for the souls of Europe’s flocks, administered as they are by a faith that is both fragmented and bloated, and hamstrung by a society fixated on cultural passivity; but what virtues it may have in its own right do not even begin to account for its value as a “response” to the rise of Europe’s Muslim influx. Who would seriously argue for a renewal of religion conflict in Europe?

The European Project is not perfect, but it doesn’t need to be. It simply needs to hold the ring until the still-unhealed fractures in Europe’s post-war psyche finally knit together. Migrant societies cannot be held accountable for the divisions that have existed in this post-war continent; for every Abu Hamza there are multiples, many multiples of examples of Muslim migrants who have migrated seamlessly into secular European culture: the sophisticated Iranians of Paris, the Pakistani entrepreneurs of London, and individuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Europe’s ills are self-inflicted; they are the ailments of a culture that has lost its sense of self. Politicising migration in response to this is a straw man. To paraphrase The West Wing, the culture which gave us Shakespeare doesn’t need defending, any more than the cultures that gave us Balzac, Hesse or Calvino.

There are historical precedents for our migratory state; the habit of importing spouses from the old country was practiced by American immigrants (Jewish, Irish, Italian), many of whom remained in isolated, internally cohesive communities for three or more generations. The fingerprints of those communities remain still, but they nevertheless integrated, and the reasons for this should give Europe hope. The integration of America’s subcultures came about through a shared dream of prosperity – a dream that required a firm grasp of English to realise. Europe may lack the more deeply conformist aspects of American society, but it certainly has no lack of wealth or culture to entice the young and dissatisfied members of migrant communities – and history has shown that, once assimilated, it’s very hard for a community to un-assimilate. It is this structural strength, borne of working through the issues of migration the hard way, that have allowed America to bring its true demons to light. 8 years may seem like a long time, but the institutional paralysis that Europe would have encountered in similar circumstances hardly bears thinking about.

But if I appear to optimist in asserting that Europe’s migratory issues will resolve themselves, given enough time, then let me temper that with some pessimism. The abrasive rift within European culture caused by the implementation of the European Project is a real problem, and cries of “political correctness” from disaffected Daily Mail editorialists cannot be simply dismissed as the belated death-throes of a class dreaming of defunct colonial privilege. If they are to succeed in preserving the bedrock of European unity for future generations to build upon, then those who carry the flag of the European Project need to change some of the ways in which they operate.

First, there is a need for objectives to be debated, discussed, clarified and understood. Awkward kludges like the French burka ban help no-one; either ban the burka or do not, but do not allow the ideals of equality of temperance to resolve into incoherence or trivial platitude. It is from this farcical, maniacal adherence to principle in the face of situational reality that fuels dissatisfaction with political correctness, as much as the erosion of civil liberties or the shame of a national identity in perceived retreat.

Second, common ground needs to be established and understood. It is not impossible to be nationalist and still tolerant; it is not contradictory to support a national team and still oppose chauvinism and racial hatred. The rhetoric of national pride and competitiveness still needs to change; the Lord knows that I roll my eyes when French- or German-baiting is indulged in by those of my kin who follow English football or European politics. But sarcastically supporting the Scottish team is not an appropriate or helpful response to that. The middle ground is a field of dreams; if you build it, they will come.

And finally, it needs to be understood that the questions of race and migration are a battlefield that has been played out. The conflict over the future of the soul of Europe is not between the indigenous populations and their immigrant guests; it is an internecine dispute and not one that needs to be mortal. The migrants are here and their fate is their own, and, with luck, they will add to the richness of the future of Europe. What kind of future that is remains to be seen.

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As an aside; my good friend Charly has joined myself and Kate as bloggers of distinction. Charly makes cakes that are both edible and incredible, and Kate’s design blog is the kind of site that gives you the warm happies when you’re stuck at work on a miserable November afternoon. Go; read; enjoy.

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*In Ancient Rome there existed the legal concept of homo sacer, the sacred life – an entity legally defined as an exile under the law, someone to whom no law applied and who could claim the protection of no rights. The law applied to them only insofar as it was forbidden to use them as a ritual sacrifice; any other act against them – including killing them – was permitted.

To be rendered homo sacer was a punishment; the sacred nature of this mode of life was cast as a disparagement. Clearly, there are benefits to choosing to live outside of society, but for the Ancient Romans, they were outweighed by the determents of being stripped of all rights conferred by a system of law and a social compact.

Agamben argued, quite successfully, that refugees enjoyed a similar status in modern Western society.

Renard Sexton and FiveThirtyEight has made the most credible attempt I’ve seen thus far at justifying the bizarre inclusion of Barack Obama into the pantheon of Nobel peace laureates.

The justification for the prize, while certainly unexpected and a bit tenuous, is indeed rooted in fact. Obama has long been a booster for non-proliferation, and his speech and lobbying at the UN General Assembly and Security Council proved to be quite successful.

On climate change, the Obama administration has taken the toughest line against carbon emissions of any White House so far in terms of concrete regulations by Federal agencies [...] Though cap-and-trade or other large scale programmes are clearly the purvue of Congress, the executive branch’s efforts in the realm are likely to be a major portion of the US effort.

Regarding diplomacy, the committee was likely in part referring to the re-elevation of Susan Rice’s post, the US Ambassador to the UN, to a cabinet level post, as well as his public addresses and promised strategic changes toward diplomatic action over rapid military decisions – such as Iran. The G5 plus one meeting with Iran, where Undersecretary of State Burns officially met with the Iranian negotiator, and found a way forward on nuclear energy processing was the first concrete outcome of this strategy.

Sexton’s analysis is spot on – while the Committee’s claims are indeed justifiable, they are too stretched and too abstract to really be credible. When viewed through the prism of today, in which Obama has largely failed to steer effective climate policy through Congress, has largely failed to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons and has largely failed to improve the image of America outside of its traditional western-European and Arab-petrostate clientelle, this award seems to be designed to reward effort and intent rather than achievement. Viewed through the prism of January 2009 – which was when Obama was innaugurated and, two weeks later, nominated for the prize – it looks farcical. The above rationale evaporates when you consider that Obama’s nomination came before his agreement with Russia to cut nuclear arsenals, before any hint of engagement with Iran, before Susan Rice had been appointed to the UN and before any significant moved had been made on emissions.

More importantly, like the award given to Al Gore two years ago, it represents a direct attempt on behalf of the Nobel Committee to promote an agenda within the domestic affairs of a country – an idea that is both intuitively and strategically a bad idea. Those who disagree with the Nobel Committee’s decision will regard the brand as tarnished; those, like me, who have a degree of personal approval for Obama but would rather that prizes were given for achievements rather than intentions will regard the Nobel Peace Prize, sadly, as having irrevocably jumped the shark. The Peace Prize was was never designed to be a political tool; it was intended to reward peaceful policies, not further them. Its credibility to do either is now severely diminished.

Stephanie Flanders is not alone in treating these modern Tories with a degree of curiosity.

Let’s be clear: this is not the limit of the Conservatives’ ambition with respect to budget cuts. We may or may not get details of the rest of the squeeze this side of the general election – but you can bet there will be more to come.[...]

Labour says it’s too risky to cut while the economy is still weak – the Tories say that borrowing is too high to risk delay.

I’ve been surprised how willing the Conservatives have been to confront this argument head-on. [...]

The trouble, for the Tories, is that Labour have intuition on their side on this one. Most people assume, understandably, that lower public demand in the economy must mean slower growth overall.

The Tories are doing the sensible thing. Like most people in this country, they have realised that – scandal or catastrophe excepted – there is very little credible probability that they are going to lose the next election; they have been dominating the polls and the news cycles for too long for this to be anything other than a neatly-tied package. So they are making hay while the sun shines. They are in the enviable position of being able to run for election while not actually having to conceed anything to the electorate; and, when elected, they can claim a mandate for a cutting agenda.

They have a good lead; by resisting the urge to make it a landslide and instead fixating on preparing the ground for some of the unpopular changes they will need to make in government, they are showing a political maturity that is admirable. If only their policies were equally so…

Dominique Strauss-Khan has become the latest member of the prestigeous shoe club.

The Fund’s managing director was addressing students on the campus of Bilgi University when a student took aim with a white trainer, chanting “get out of the university, thief IMF.”

Television footage showed security guards shielding Mr Strauss-Kahn and hustling the bearded student, who wore a white t-shirt and sleeveless jacket, out of the room.

Mr Strauss-Kahn later shrugged off the protest. “It is important for us to have an open debate. I was glad to meet students and hear their views. This is what the IMF needs to do, even if not everyone agrees with us. One thing I learned, Turkish students are polite. They waited until the end to complain,” he told reporters.

Other illustrious members include George W. Bush, Wen Jiabao, Indian Home minister P. Chidambaram, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if the internet whisper factory is to be believed. Displaying, or striking someone with, the sole of the shoe is a serious insult in the Arab world (although in the west it evokes little more than an inane reference to a Mike Meyers movie) – I’m glad to see it catching on, however. America may lead the world in cultural exports but the Arabs have the market for creative political protest cornered.