Syria and the tyranny of the Saudi Oil Barons

Life in a Dictatorship

On a visit to the World Social Forum in Mumbai I sat, on the plane, next to a man from Syria. I can't remember all that he said but he spent many hours with me unpacking what was happening in his homeland.

What stays with me the most is something he described as "a great joke in Syria" when I asked him about freedom of the press.  He said, "There are two channels on Syrian TV: on is state sponsored and just shows speeches from Bashar Al-Assad. The other channel is independent; if you turn to that channel it shows a sniper holding up a sign, 'Please change channel'."

At one point the BBC was reporting over a hundred civilian deaths daily in Syria as the government there pounds and punishes the people of Homs. Following his father's three decades of tyranny, Bashar Al-Assad has only notched up 12 years. But why is the uprising happening now?

Saudi Arabia and the Christians of Syria

The reasons are always complex but here's one fundamental reason why Syria is under attack: The Al-Sauds want him out. 

In the Church Times this week we hear reports of Christians who support Al-Assad's government because under his dictatorship their traditions and identities are 'safe' from a Saudi-style of Islam. All dictatorships work this way: they justify tyrrany through providing peace and security to the many at the expense of some.

But the bigger picture is not one we hear about often in our own 'free press': "Throughout the Middle East, there is a growing fear that heavy-handed Arab diplomacy, led by Qatar and other Gulf states, looking out for their own particular interests, is pushing Syria expeditiously into civil war."

Al-Saud: A Global Mafia

It is amazing that, despite the involvement of the Al-Sauds in so many of the violent contexts in modern history they rarely appear in our news agencies stories. Perhaps it's because they own most of one of the biggest (News International)? Perhaps it's because they have such huge influence of powerful families like that of George W. Bush?

Perhaps it's because they may have enough oil to hold the entire planet hostage? I suspect that is exactly what they do.

Powerdown as we Fast for Peace

I can't think of any conflict that isn't about mineral resources and/or food in some way. We can look at the complicated mechanics of global violence, and we should, but ultimately people want food, shelter, and autonomy. Most of Jesus' parables were about these things and yet much of Christian public talk ignores them.

The move to 'powerdown' our addiction to fossil fuels should be at the core of any anti-war movement. I have stood outside military bases and trespassed at a nuclear weapons factory, and supported others in the same.

But I am increasingly aware that the violence I see on my TV screen leads directly back to me: a minority world person of privilege.

The prophet Isaiah wrote,

"Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isa. 58: 6 - 7)

But Isaiah knew that we need both kinds of fasting if we are too see the connection between an emerging civil war in Syria and oil-dependent lives of rich and poor alike.

This Lent many Christians are finding ways to reduce their carbon footprints as well as focussing on issues of injustice. To me that's a sign of hope. We fast from our lifestyles because we see the 'bonds of injustice' fastened up to the lives we choose to live.

Turbulent Priest

I visited an interesting bloke last week. An Anglican Priest, nearly 90, living in a middle-sized English village.

So far so good.

Of course he's not allowed to preach or preside at his local church and has been warned off by both Bishop and congregation for his unseemly outburst. Or as John Papworth himself puts it "I'm a an annoying old bastard, you see."

So what's so annoying about John? It could be his engagement in local politics. He organises a bread-making guild, maintains some common areas, and edits a village magazine among other things. It could be his engagement in global politics. John has written and campaigned extensively against the menace of 'Giantism' in all things and argues for a renewed localism in public life.

"Anything that can be done locally the national government should stop interfering with." John believes that the future is small and that small is powerful. And power needs wresting back from the powers.

Welcome to the village of Purton. Oh, and welcome to Purton University.

Moved to action

Sunday 25th September

Moved to action

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

We know we are supposed to take care of the environment (reduce, reuse, recycle) and we do our bit, but in our hearts all but the most ardent environmentalist knows that how we presently live is doing is more harm than good: too little, and a bit too late. Talk of the earth being God's creation, our responsibility to care for the environment, or how we are only looking after it for the next generation are more likely to produce guilt than motivation to change our habits.

So we carry on with a nod to environmental responsibilities when necessary, but with the same corporate inertia. If we're all so scared about what will happen to the planet – and what is already happening – then why don't we act? Why do we just talk about action? Our politicians are no better: international conferences like Kyoto and Copenhagen have sometimes done more harm than good and the recent promise that 'vote blue and go green' seems to have been unrealised as business continues as usual in the corridors and washrooms of power.

But what's causing this mismatch between what we know to be right and what we do? One of the problems is we receive mixed messages: even if we read newspapers with articles that urge us to act, the same paper will have far bigger more attractive adverts urging us to buy a big car and go skiing. Over £15bn pounds was spent in the UK last year telling us to buy more stuff – when was the last time your favourite TV programme was interrupted to remind you to knit your own hemp sweater? We can't rely on education to save the environment because the loudest voices have a vested interest in its degradation. And we can't rely on politicians to save the environment because every time they try vested interests trip them up.

What we can do is create virtuous circles of action and reflection instead of the inertia of feeling guilty because we said we would act but knew deep down that we wouldn't.

Jesus said, “A man had two sons.” It's a really simple parable that speaks to the heart of so many issues. Both children wanted to please the parent but only one actually did something. Only one of them put boots on, picked up a sickle, slapped on the factor twenty five, and went out into the vineyard to work. The only way to beat our complacency is to get outside and begin: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And like any pilgrimage it's easier with company. We are stronger and more resilient if we walk this road together.

God's Commonwealth: each according to need

Sunday 18th September

God's Commonwealth: each according to need
Matthew 20:1-16 


No doubt the householder was a wealthy landowner: vineyards don't run at a profit until thy have been tended for many years and so represent a considerable investment for a luxury cash-crop probably for an international market. The presence of a steward – probably one of many – is another clue to the economic status of the householder or more literally “house-despot”.
We tend to assume that powerful figures in parables represent God even if, as in this case, they profit from the poorly-paid, sun-beaten and exploited day-labourers.

So let's throw aside the complicated allegorical readings of the parable, so loved by theologians-past and do two important things that may turn this story from a bit of Christian whimsy into something that actually matters. First let's take it at face value; this is a story about a God's values in relation to land and labour, second let's begin not with the most powerful figure but with the powerless.
The day labourers aren't quite the poorest of the poor but they aren't far off. Perhaps they once owned a little land; handed down from generations, but a few bad harvests and a couple of weddings later and they found themselves in debt and having to sell their livestock, land, and finally even their home to the big farming companies who turned the whole area over to cash crops and started hiring by-the-day.

Such labourers are still around today so it doesn't take too much imagination: we have our eastern European seasonal workers on illegally poor wages in English mega-farms, we have our Chinese cockle-pickers risking their lives in our unforgiving seas, we have our agency workers in warehouse offices able to be dismissed at a moment’s notice. And we have pension funds, supermarkets, the Queen, insurance companies, and the Church of England – owning or buying up greater amounts of land from family farmers and squeezing every penny of profit from the soil to devastating effect on wildlife and on communities.

So let's picture the scene that Jesus paints for us. A group of landless men and women gather at dawn at the town gate. All of them are desperate to work, all of them are a few meals away from starvation. Naturally the youngest and fittest will be chosen first because they will be the best value for money. The least able and the elderly will be left standing through the heat of the day waiting for landowners to get desperate enough to give them work. It's these folk who are at the very bottom of the spiral of poverty: the weaker they get the less they earn, the less they earn the weaker they get. This is a meritocracy: each is given according to his or her ability. It's fair and just in a secular logic: if you work you earn if you don't work you don't earn.

But Jesus' story has a twist in the telling. Because in Jesus' economy things are different: there are no undeserving poor. There are only needs and the loving desire to meet them. It is the rich who are undeserving in Jesus' economy because they take more than they need and merit is no excuse for greed while others starve in the kingdom of God.

What Jesus was suggesting in this parable: that God wants to give us all we need rather than just what we deserve was nothing short of scandalous, even blasphemy. But is it so different today?

There are at least two challenges in this parable. First, the challenge to see needs and meet them regardless of merit or reward. The second, to begin to ask the questions about how these people came to be in such a vulnerable position in the first place and who benefits from keeping working people vulnerable to poverty and exploitation.

The seventeenth century visionary and theologian Gerard Winstanley called the earth a “common treasury” belonging to God and gifted to us all. He recognised the profound link between economy, ecology, and theology. Drawing on that other visionary who described for us in the Old Testament 'the jubilee' he reminds us that we give it all back to God or we imperil first our worth and then our very lives.
The Kingdom of God is like.... What is it like? What sort of world does Jesus describe and how can we proclaim it for our land and our county. 

Windsor Hill Wood

I was pointed towards this example by Simon Cross, author of 'Totally Devoted' a book about New Monasticism in Britain.

Windsor Hill Wood seems Tolstoyan to me: they found a woodland in an abandoned quarry which they have bought and now live in. They are inspired by the Pilsdon Community and use permaculture and woodcraft. They have chosen the Sermon on the Mount as their inspiration and labour and rest as their means.

From here they live, partly sustained in mutuality with the ecosystem. From here they offer hospitality to those who come and a taste of stability to those still travelling. They offer a place of choices have been made instead of fawned over; or as they put it:

"Choice – that once seemed empowering – has made us powerless. It has made us sad and rootless, prone always to want to keep our options open."

The setting is stunning but behind the romanticism their must be a harsh reality in the isolation and precacity of living. They're a conventionally shaped family in an unconventional life: Tobias Jones, who writes on behalf of the community has written a series of articles for the Observer.

Digger's Agape

Digger's Agape a model of worship developing in Gloucestershire

Hidden Costs of modern life

Reading this article reminded me that the Marxist understanding of cost and value needs to be developed in away that Marx just wasn't aware of but is vital to our peak oil times.

Free Dissent writes:

"Mutualists (or non-vulgar market anarchists) accept that products have natural values. Each product on average commands a certain amount of time and energy to produce. The average amount of labor put into a product directly determines its cost. For example, technology and labor-saving devices have made farming much more efficient to produce. Due to this, food is more abundant and cheap. Producing 500 apples requires a lot less labor today compared to 300 years ago. This is exactly why the natural value of an apple is much lower today than in the past. The Labor Theory of Value helps explain this very clearly. It is the natural values of varying products that drive the economic engine."

Before going into the dynamics of cost and value it is important to flag up the problem of hidden cost. This makes no difference to the thrust of the article quoted above but it matters anyway. We think that by reducing labour and relying instead on machinery we are reducing cost but all that happens is we are hiding several costs that involve less labour and land: the production of fossil fuels.

Finding, processing, and delivering fossil fuels are not part of the hidden costs. The farmer pays money for these things and has to make them balance. But the millions of years forming gas, oil, and coal are real costs that are not included. Likewise the future costs to the farmer of changes in climate due to use of fossil fuels is not calculated - these are costs hidden in the future.

I sat in the pub sith someone the otehr day who said -as though it was a given - that we tend to ever greater efficiency therefore supermarkets must be more efficient that community agricultre. But that's because our inefficient, or costs, are hidden under the ground and in the air.

Thus the profit margin is increased efficiently. Ta da!

Okay, now we can think about surplus labour...

Sign for Chagos

The UK Government is considering declaring the Chagos Archipelago the World’s largest Marine Protected Area, in order to conserve its globally important coral reefs and related ecosystems.

This is a unique and vital opportunity for marine conservation, but the issue is not as simple as that.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has launched a consultation on Chagos. The consultation proposes three main options for a Marine Protected Area, all of which exclude any kind of fisheries or similar marine activities within the reef areas.

What these options do not take account of are the wishes of the Chagossian community. The islanders were removed from their homeland by the British Government in the late 1960s and have been campaigning ever since for their right to return.

The full no-take protection of reef areas (as proposed by the consultation) would provide no means for resettled islanders to utilise their marine resources for subsistence or income generation. Communities and Marine Protected Areas coexist across the world, and there is no reason why the islanders could not be successful stewards of their coral reef environment.

We endorse the efforts of the Foreign Secretary to protect the marine ecosystems of the Chagos archipelago but we call on him to work with the Chagos islanders and the Government of Mauritius to devise an MPA solution that makes provision for resettlement and protects Mauritius’ legitimate interests.

Further reading and site to sign on:
here.
Petition is now closed.

John Ball and the Climate Camp

The Climate Camp in London is at the site of the sermon of John Ball. An anarchic priest from way back (14th Century). He arrived at Blackheath having been freed from prison by insurgents and preached:

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."

Ball was a ball ache for the archbishop of Canterbury and thrown in prison three times. It was even illegal to listen to his sermons. It's a rare thing for a priest's sermon to be made illegal these days. A challenge to be taken up!

Monbiot: Direct Action is the conscience of the nation

There is a brilliant short piece in the Guardian today where George Monbiot, scourge of left and right, argues that direct action trains media attention on real issues at great personal cost to activists.

Of course activists come in many different flavours but 'Yey!' for the kind Monbiot cheers today.

Car Scrapping: With Capitalism you just can't waste enough!

The Government is following in Germany's footsteps by offering UK subjects the chance to trade in their old car - must be at least 10 years old - and get £2,000 off their new one courtesy of UK Plc.

There is some bullshit going on here. Surprise, surprise.

This is not good for the environment, since cars tend to have a higher carbon footprint in their making than in their life-time of use and the scheme does not insist on consumers buying less damaging cars anyway.

Also, like all good capitalism schemes this one will benefit the richer at the expense of the poorer. Aspiring middle-class folk will get to buy a nicer car than they can otherwise afford and the poor will no longer be able to buy a car because there will be no cheap old cars to buy.

Up yours poor people! Hello Middle-England Vote-bank!

Obama: 5 Challenges that he and his friends face together

Friendship, ties, tributes, deep respect. These are the things that bring Turkey and the USA to fight their common enemies.

This is how stately speeches work: there is a cordial introduction and then a rounding on the "Other". If states exist only by perpetuating violence then alliances between states exist to bring violent thoughts and actions together across the world.

So what and who are Obama's enemies? Well, according to his speech in Ankara, Turkey today they are the following:

An economic crisis that recognizes no borders.

1. Extremism that leads to the killing of innocent men, women and children.
2. Strains on our energy supply.
3. A changing climate (Change we can believe in).
4. The proliferation of the world’s deadliest weapons.
5. The persistence of tragic conflict.

It is encouraging to hear a world ruler speak frankly of the "strains on our energy supply". When do politicians ever even hint at Peak Oil let alone to do so as a key theme for his or her future agenda? Yet his solutions, none are given, instead he focuses on bailing out the banks and hunting down the terrorists. So no CHANGE there then. And HOPE has an even bigger carbon footprint than the WAR ON TERROR.

Obama quotes a Turkish proverb, how cute of him: “You cannot put out fire with flames.” I don't know why. It has nothing to do with the content of his speech perhpas he just wants us to look the other way a moment while he gets on with the important work of government.

Aaargh - my aching finger...

Alright, I have much better things to do today.
Writing about the late dean of Dutch Christian anarchism for example, the hydrographer Felix Ortt, who opened up the secrets of the tide on the Dutch coast. I still owe him his biography, and he may have started fingertapping in the World Beyond by now...
His knowledge did not prevent the flood of 1953, of which England got its share too. You cannot force nature. That's what the whole story of the effects of global warming, formerly known as the greenhouse effect, formerly known as air pollution, and actually now generally called climate change, is all about. You can change nature, but it will never be obedient.

I have been told about the rising seas all my life, so I am a bit surprised to hear this phenomenon mentioned as part of the dangers of global warming. No, I by no means am a sceptic. I have noticed daffodils flowering a full two months earlier than they used to do - and that happened only in my lifetime. Something is Upon Us. And the daffodils only tell their story. The peat bogs in Siberia are less spectacular - hardly any human living there anyway - but much more threatening perhaps than even the melting ice in the Arctic Ocean.

I live in a part of NL which will not stay dry if sea levels start rising impressively. There is reason to worry, as Auntie told us, a few days ago.

But I do not even have to study the life and times of a wrongfully forgotten hydrographer to know that there are no holes in dykes in which you can put your finger, unless it be a nest of mousies or wasps - and in the latter case you have got quite another problem at hand (no pun intended) than the danger of drowning.

I have to apologise for my compatriotes in Frisian Harns (Harlingen), Spaarndam and even Madurodam in The Hague. There they have put up statues for the hero who does not exist. Hans Brinker is not even a credible Dutch name, and even less a Frisian one. But the BBC thought it were real folklore instead of a stupid story by a US author.
And now I have to take another look at the dyke. Winds are rising unexpectedly.

Plane Crazy

Plane stupid show what can be done with just a few committed people that can be done far better than with a mass of protestors. Or as The Cunningham Ammendment puts it, "One act of imagination equals 1,240 marchers." (Or something like that).

It appears that all but one of the group pleaded guilty to charges and are planning to pay the fines handed out by the state.

Anyway here's the link to an article and a well briefed interview.

A home truth about the Crisis

As far as so-called poor countries ("Third World Countries") are concerned, there is no sudden crisis. There has been Reform or Structural Adjustment Programmes. Adjustment to what?
You are not supposed to ask such questions.

Here you can find in the hollow, meaningless language of the pseudo-science called "economics" a report on how structural adjustment works in Malawi. The alleged purpose of the adjustment is industrialisation. There is, however, no industry. Agriculture is geared for export. The functions of the state which might have made it a decent institution (education, public transport etc.) are being stripped as necessary retrenchment measures.

And then, after 27 years of structural adjustment, a problem is detected.
There is hunger in the land. The use of food aid in a country of agricultural exports is being discussed.

It is not a breach with normality that makes up the daily catastrophe. The catastrophe is that things are going on as usual.

The actual implosion of Capital has been going on since around 1975. But this implosion is only called a crisis when it reaches the so-called developed world.
Maybe this means that the way to get rid of this social relation called Capital is closer at hand.

A bitter statement seen from the perspective of those who have been living the crisis for so long. Where living may mean dying from starvation or despair.

(Written after having read this and this.)

There is probably no mod...

...you'll have to make do with these punks.

Hat tip: Faith in Society.
Make your own slogan here and let your bus ride.
Being an ardent advocate of public transport I thought of this one immediately. But possibilities are well-nigh endless.
Spread the word wherever you can....

Removing the Skull-crusher

In removing the mace from it's stand at the end of a House of Commons debate today, John McDonnel drew attention to an interesting bit of parliamentary kit.

A mace - and this one dates back to the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II - is an ancient symbol of military might. It is a violent skull-crushing weapon. And it represents British democracy.

It does a good job of representing British democracy: exported violently both now and in Britain's colonial past; defended by force of baton, gavel, and gun. The British parliamentary system whereby a few people get to vote for even few people who allow even fewer people be persuaded by a discrete and wealth minority is only able to persist by force. Why else would we put up with it.

Hence the mace is carried in to the house of commons every day that it is in session.

What though do Christians carry into the Kingdom of God? Not a mace, neither a gave or a gun. Christians take up a cross a symbol of torture and execution of the innocent poor a the hands of those who claim to defend the freedom, peace and security of good honest citizens.

Perhaps, in Britain, the Christian symbol of the cross should be replaced by the splintered skull. Why not, if the MPs insist on reminding us daily of their privileged use of the skull-smasher?

Nothing to lose but your business class seat

George Monbiot sums up effectively against the very unholy coalition that is selling Heathrow's third runway to the public. The selling point of those who pretend to be on the left is that the working classes are kept from flying to the costas on the cheapo cheapo by aristocratic so-called green maniacs. The figures show it is not the working class that's using cheap flights to go on their third holiday of the year - as if we should have expected otherwise.
But then there is the cultish former trotskyist crowd that is campaigning against green activism in general and against activism about new runways in particular. Monbiot does not notice them but I do: they are joined by the anarchist-classist group Class War that was crying out loud against the occupation at Stansted last year. The British (English?) working class, you see, has an inherent right to cheap flights to picturesque villages at the Mediterranean seaside - which unfortunately are no longer picturesque but who cares as long as there is lots of beer and a dance hall for your own tribe?

Just like the trotskyists of Spiked folks at Class War seem to think that being working class is particularly a matter of culture and hence a matter of choice. And stories about "Britain" losing out on the battle for aviation (you are not supposed to think about Wales or Scotland, or even the North of England) are being sold to be swallowed whole for the crowd wot reads The Sun - because they are soooo working class.

A type of reasoning that is not just plain stupid. It is willingly malignant. And of course very much on the extreme right.

Politicians spin Kingsnorth protest

Well done to the Lib' Dem's for forcing the issue when the home office claimed that heavy-handed police presence at the climate camp was justified by the 70 police officers injured by protestors.

It now turns out there were 12 reportable injuries none of which was caused by a protestor but one was caused by a bee and another by sitting in a car!

Greenpeace 6 cleared of unlawful dammage

From the Independet

"The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire."

While any criminal act should "count the cost" of possible penalty its great to know that a jury of our peers is often on our side and that the law can ofen highlight its own injustices.