In de discussie over ritueel slachten zijn vaak zorg voor dieren en godsdienstvrijheid tegenover elkaar gezet. Dat die twee elkaar niet uitsluiten, blijkt uit de woorden van de liberaal-joodse rabbijn Menno ten Brink:

“What do we need as Progressive, living and thriving Jewish community in our own European countries in the decades to come? We are facing an Europe that has opened its borders, where the distance between peoples and communities is made shorter. We face an increasing secular and individualized society, a tendency to move away from religion, rituals and being different. In the Netherlands at least, we have the discussions about shechita [...]. But Tzaar baalee chajim, is a basic principle in Judaism, caring for the animals, Freedom of Religion, is also a basic right, and we should stand firm in this. Progressive Jews should actively find new methods, to slaughter kosher, but with enough guarantee for the rights of animals; but also, we should stimulate eco-kashrut, where meat is only kosher if the animals are treated well before they die to be our food. Fair trade, kosher wood and products that came from sources where there is no child labor and slavery, and no oppression, because, we know the slavery and oppression ourselves. Moshe took us out there. That is what Jews should do, care about the world where we live.”

Religieuze tradities hebben een lange geschiedenis van aandachtig leven en verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor medemens en natuur. Vandaag de dag staan ze vaak per definitie te boek als conservatief en ongevoelig voor het lijden van mens en dier. Juist de progressief-religieuze stemmen laten echter zien dat spirituele inspiratie en religieuze tradities kunnen – nee, moeten – leiden tot een mens- en diervriendelijke levenshouding.

In de discussie over ritueel slachten zijn vaak zorg voor dieren en godsdienstvrijheid tegenover elkaar gezet. Dat die twee elkaar niet uitsluiten, blijkt uit de woorden van de liberaal-joodse rabbijn Menno ten Brink:

“What do we need as Progressive, living and thriving Jewish community in our own European countries in the decades to come? We are facing an Europe that has opened its borders, where the distance between peoples and communities is made shorter. We face an increasing secular and individualized society, a tendency to move away from religion, rituals and being different. In the Netherlands at least, we have the discussions about shechita [...]. But Tzaar baalee chajim, is a basic principle in Judaism, caring for the animals, Freedom of Religion, is also a basic right, and we should stand firm in this. Progressive Jews should actively find new methods, to slaughter kosher, but with enough guarantee for the rights of animals; but also, we should stimulate eco-kashrut, where meat is only kosher if the animals are treated well before they die to be our food. Fair trade, kosher wood and products that came from sources where there is no child labor and slavery, and no oppression, because, we know the slavery and oppression ourselves. Moshe took us out there. That is what Jews should do, care about the world where we live.”

Religieuze tradities hebben een lange geschiedenis van aandachtig leven en verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor medemens en natuur. Vandaag de dag staan ze vaak per definitie te boek als conservatief en ongevoelig voor het lijden van mens en dier. Juist de progressief-religieuze stemmen laten echter zien dat spirituele inspiratie en religieuze tradities kunnen – nee, moeten – leiden tot een mens- en diervriendelijke levenshouding.

Maybe due to my argumentative nature, surely inherited from my italian -dramatic- genes but surely justified by my dialectic education, the truth is that I love an argument. Or a contradiction. And that's why, actually, most of these columns on being a male feminist are designed to shed some light in the conflicts and dilemmas that such double allegiance brings along. Now, I say most of them. Because today I do not want to write about a conflict, a dilemma or a contradiction. I simply want to share some of the pleasures of my position.

Take any day, around 1440. My working period is about to end, and I am about to jump in my bicycle. In a short while I'll be arriving to the doors of the school of my son, and with other parents I'll be counting the minutes to 1500, when Ayden will show himself up, one of the many drops in the flow of kids running out of the school. Actually, it is like a wave, breaking into the broad and wide world. This single moment justifies whatever pain, conflict or contradiction has been brought along by being the father-at-home. This moment, repeated pretty much every day in the last 8 years, with pretty much the same kids, brings pretty much the same wow feeling every time.

Would it be the empathy across the years? Would it be the vague remembering of the pleasure of coming out of school, like a bat fi-na-lly flying away from its cave and into the twilight? The sense of stretching wings that have been flexed, folded and forgotten... under the eyes of teachers and others, under the pressure of a building definitively not designed for flying? It might be. It might very well be that I like so much to see those kids because I remember that moment of freedom at last.

But it might also be that I have been seeing this group several years already, and I can see, if I care to look, how the years have been forming the faces, the rhythms and the movements of this particular flock of small birds, almost ready to fly on their own by now. I can remember how each of them looked like few years ago, and see how fast they change, and how fast they don't. It is possible to see the man that will be in the face of the kid that is. The twinkle in the eye of that girl looking at her smaller brother is actually the same one that she will give to her own kids in ten or twenty years from now. The irregular running of the other I'll recognize today as in decades from now, as I did past year in one or another park.

So every other day, around 1500 I pity my fellow -non feminist- males. As a matter of fact, I pity my beloved wife, who only once a week get the chance of being here, and whom probably can not recognize every dolphin in this pod, every sardine from this school... swimming away. Away from school and into life.

The mise en scene is so cliche that it's a joke in itself. Minimally, the players are me and any other north-european woman, even if more players can be added to the plot. The scenario is ubiquitous, it might be the entrance of a public building, the exit door of a train, a table for two in a restaurant. We players are middle aged, trained to behave properly in such contexts. Properly meaning fluidly, among other things. My partner knows what she is supposed to do, and so do I. So there we go: I move towards the handle of the door or the back of the chair. Confident. With the side of my eye I see her doing the same. I dare not hesitate, so I move on. And on she goes! Time to stop? My movement, suddenly, becomes less fluid. I am stopping. And so does she! Then I go on, but she as well! What's going on here? Isn't it me the one to open the door for her? To displace the chair? The two of us are like badly managed puppets. Our movements are not fluid anymore, we stumble. Any pretense of elegance is gone in seconds of doubt. I look into her eyes, and I see half part of embarrassment, half of doubt, and two parts of annoyance. I can read her mind, so loud she is thinking now: "what is he doing? I am not handicapped!" On her anger, I recoil. Mostly I mumble some apologies. Or not.

It is definitively awkward. And funny, if you are looking (and aren't one of the players).

Back in 2000 I was in Caracas for a visit. My sister had just got Laura Esquivel's "between two fires". My skepticism for all Garcia Marquez' copycats was gone pretty fast, after the first pages. I remember Esquivel making a point that we have read many times after. The generation of her grandmother opened the emancipation road, her mother's walked most of it, her own generation was pretty much ready with it. Women earned positions undreamed off. As it should be. And still, valuable knowledge went missing. Esquivel, being in real life a successful Mexican politician, wrote about the cooking. Her grandmother was probably the last in a long line of guardians of a whole culture, condensed in ingredients, recipes, histories. Her mother, rightly rejecting the roles that men expected women to fulfill, did not learn to cook. Esquivel herself had nobody to teach her, when she wanted to know. Women were, and are, better off. But cooking traditions went endangered, and the quality of our life is not what it could have been. Would McDonald have so many clients if we all would know how to cook a few traditional dishes? Something like it happened in England after the war. The prolonged scarcity made people forget their rich culinary history. Almost up to the nineties, to talk about english gastronomy was a bad joke. Only recently a new generation of chefs has re-discovered the old recipes.

I believe that we need somebody to rediscover gallantry.

Perhaps the key lies in discover, maybe even re-discover, that emancipation can not make us independent. An emancipated person is a free person. Free from the bondages of old, from the roles that trapped women (and men) in non communicating boxes, free from all the submission that was expected from us. But somehow, down the line, we have translated that freedom as independency. And there we go -faster and faster- in a lonely road. So fast that we are not able anymore to accept the wish of somebody else to help us. A road that claims that we must be independent, that we can't rely in others. That would be submissive.

I wish somebody would remind us that gallantry is no submission, but interdependency.

           

Een aantal grote partijen in het huidige Nederlandse politieke landschap zitten in een identiteitscrisis. Deze partijen – CDA, PvdA, GroenLinks en in mindere mate ook de VVD – komen niet met een duidelijk verhaal, en het verhaal wat ze hebben wordt niet op de juiste manier verkocht. Bovendien laait binnen deze partijen de discussie tussen de beide vleugels over de koers van de partij regelmatig op. Dit stuk zal zich vooral richten op GroenLinks, omdat de discussie binnen deze partij het meest schrijnend is, maar ook de PvdA zal even kort ter sprake komen.

            Vrijwel alle politicologen zijn het wel op één punt met elkaar eens: een politieke partij is eigenlijk een levend wezen. Ga maar na, een partij wordt geboren (het ontstaan), beleeft een jeugd (de opstartperiode), beleeft het ‘hoogtepunt,’ begint te verouderen (versplintering?) en sterft (de ondergang). Ik zou het nog iets scherper willen stellen: een politieke partij is als een vogel. Een vogel is niet alleen een organisme, maar heeft twee vleugels – net zoals vrijwel iedere politieke partij.

            Laten we eens doorgaan met de vergelijking tussen de vogel en een partij. Een vogel heeft twee vleugels, net zoals een partij. Alleen er is nog één andere treffende overeenkomst; allebei hebben ze ook een middenstuk; de vogel heeft het lijf, waar alle organen in zitten, bij de politieke partij heeft ‘het midden’ deze functie. Het bestuur zou dan eventueel als het ‘brein’ van de partij gezien kunnen worden. Het middenstuk is nodig om de vogel überhaupt te laten vliegen, want alleen twee vleugels is niet voldoende.

            In het geval van GroenLinks duidt dit op een ondertussen klassieke discussie die gaat tussen de op de SP georiënteerde kant en de op D66 georiënteerde kant. Voor de D66-kant is groen het sleutelwoord, terwijl links het toverwoord is voor de aanhangers van de SP-kant. Een discussie is nooit verkeerd – sterker nog, het is de motor van een politieke partij – alleen gaat deze discussie de verkeerde kant op. Laten we de vergelijking van de vogel er weer bij halen: de linkervleugel (SP) en de rechtervleugel (D66): Een vogel vliegt nooit helemaal recht, altijd wel een beetje geconcentreerd op de linker- of de rechtervleugel. Het probleem met de hiervoor genoemde discussie is echter dat beide vleugels denken dat ze gelijk hebben en dus wordt de andere kant automatisch uitgesloten. De discussie wordt ondertussen dus met oogkleppen op gevoerd; het gaat bij die discussies niet meer om het gelijk te maken, maar om het gelijk te halen. Dit terwijl GroenLinks als partij altijd open heeft gestaan voor verschillende invloeden van buitenaf.

            Ook binnen de PvdA is er sinds kort een flinke discussie. Frans Timmermans heeft 16 februari jl. een boze mail naar de rest van de partijfractie gestuurd met daarin argumenten waarom de PvdA geen ‘SP-light’ zou moeten worden. Ook werd het socialisme van de SP het “‘gisteren-was-alles-beter’ socialisme” genoemd. Niet zo gek dat deze ‘gisteren-was-alles-beter’ stroming veel steun krijgt; met alle bezuinigingen is niemand meer echt zeker van zijn/haar (financiële) toekomst. Persoonlijk vind ik het goede van de PvdA dat blijkt dat de fractie intern stevige debatten voert over dit soort onderwerpen. Dat siert hen.

            Een prachtig voorbeeld van de oogkleppendiscussie binnen GroenLinks is een motie die werd ingediend op het congres van 11 februari jongstleden. Deze motie moedigde de fractie aan om vooral meer samenwerking te zoeken met de PvdA en SP. In andere woorden: de fractie van GroenLinks zou zich alleen maar moeten richten op een linkse samenwerking. De motie werd met een ruime meerderheid afgewezen. De laatste tijd wordt er zelfs hardop gefantaseerd over een fusie tussen de PvdA en GroenLinks met de SP (en D66). Deze fusie is vanwege een paar redenen ongewenst: allereerst zijn de ideologische verschillen te groot om overbrugd te worden. De drie/vier partijen in kwestie hebben een totaal andere blik op Europa, maar ook de immigratie en integratie. Deze verschillen zijn te groot en zullen dus niet een stabiele partij opleveren. Ten tweede leverden de fusies in de Nederlandse politiek (CDA, GroenLinks en de ChristenUnie) maar één relatief succesvolle partij op: het CDA. Ten derde hebben de vier genoemde partijen nog nooit samen een meerderheid gehaald in het Nederlandse parlement; een significant aantal extra kiezers zal ook niet met de fusie getrokken worden, omdat vrijwel alle linkse kiezers al op een van deze vier partijen stemmen. Met een rechts kabinet in Nederland wat fors bezuinigd en niet alleen maar burgers, maar ook linkse politieke partijen in een wurggreep houdt, wordt vluchten in extremen heel verleidelijk. De SP doet het goed in de peilingen, dus komt een deel van de andere linkse partijen in de verleiding om ook de kant van de SP op te willen. In periodes zoals deze is het juist verstandig om dit níét te doen, omdat vluchten naar een andere partij ook vluchten van de eigen idealen is. Het duurde jaren voordat deze idealen zijn opgebouwd en het zou dan ook buitengewoon naïef zijn om ze binnen een zeer korte tijd zomaar overboord te gooien. Bovendien helpt de verschuiving toch niets, want partijen zijn dan al helemaal niet meer uniek. In het lichaam van de vogel is het brein nog altijd het bepalende orgaan, niet de vleugels. Het meest invloedrijke lichaamsdeel zit nog altijd in het midden en gaat voor de meest rationele keuze, daarbij komt dat de vleugels niet zonder het brein kunnen. Het verstand boven de vleugels; dat zou bij politieke partijen ook zo moeten zijn.

- On Syria, a brief history -

Syria joined the list of countries where citizens are claiming their rights. For Syria, however, it may not just be the case of the people against the regime. With a ruling Alawite minority (approximate 12% of the population) and a large Sunni Islam majority of 74% may it become an explosive mixture of sectarion infulences and a disproportional division of power. This is on how Syria came to be one of the leading police-states: a brief history on the Lion and the Sphinx.

The lion into power

We should start the history of this country in the Levant, surrounded by more or less democratically countries such as Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, at the end of the French mandate era in the late forties. The French colonial administration recruited from the minority groups – Alawite, Druze, Isma’ili, Christian and Kurdish communities to fill up their officer corps. This leaves a small representation of the majority population of Sunni Muslims. During the post-French period between 1949 and 1970 took fifteen successful coups place. In 1963 the nationalistic and equalitarian Ba’ath-party took control of Syria. The Ba’athist victory resulted in Druzes, Isma’ilists and Alawites leaving their rural countryside to join the military academy. A second Ba’ath-coup by two Alawite generals (Salah al-Jadid and Hafez al-Assad) backed by Druze and Isma’ili officers overthrow the civil wing of the Ba’ath party. The role of Druzes within the new elite ended with their failed attempt to commit a coup, this signalled the end of the Druze prominence in the officer corps. When, in 1969, a prominent Isma’ili officer committed suicide, also the role for the Isma’ili was played down. A third successful coup brought in 1970 the defence minister and head of the armed forces, Hafez Al-Assad, in power. The 1973 Constitution ensured the freedom of religion for all, although heavily monitored and as long as it stayed away from any political influences. Political freedoms where (and are) second to none.

Biographies on Hafez Al-Assad are describing him as ‘cautious, calculating and pragmatic’. Al-Assad had used the Ba’ath party and the military to get in power, now he transformed them into the foundation of the regime. He made himself head of the Ba’ath party and to ensure loyalty to the new regime he appointed relatives and other Alawite officers in prominent places of the security agencies and military. His brother, Rif’at Al-Assad, became the head of paramilitary elite forces. Al-Assad saw Syria together with Egypt as the counterpart of Israel, but the 1973 Egypt/Syria-Israel war turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Losing Egypt as co-force the Al-Assad regime started to build up a big military apparatus to ensure their position within the Arab world. With (military) intervening in Lebanon and Jordan and choosing side of Iran in the Iraq-Iran war, Syria became more and more internationally isolated.

The Sphinx

Not only internationally had Al-Assad some trouble, also orthodox fractions of the Sunni Muslim society inside Syria where causing some headaches. From 1976 the militant Islamic opposition was raging guerrilla warfare in some of the (former) commercial cities such as Aleppo (Haleb), Homs and Hama. The Muslim Brotherhood claimed in February 1982 the victory in the last city. This resulted in Rif’at Al-Assad launching a big military attack on Hama resulting in over 10.000 deaths and the entire inner city destroyed. A chill of fear spread through Syrian society; Al-Assad had issued a warning to all potential dissidents that the regime would use all necessary power to stay in control. According to some did Hafez Al-Assed reply to the question why he killed 15.000 people, with ‘That’s not true, I did not kill 15.000 but 25.000.’ After the death of Hafez Al-Assad in 2000, his 34-years old son Bashar Al-Assad took office (his older brother died in 1994 and Bashar was called back from London where he attended medical school). At firstly Bashar Al-Assad seemed to allow some freedoms such as Internet and independent newspapers. The Damascus spring didn’t last long, even though political prisoners where freed in autumn 2000, eventually the regime felt back on its tried methods of repression and in 2001 the spring was over again. Afterwards did Bashar grant some freedoms, but those where merely economical freedoms instead of political.

Bashar Al-Assad kept the same power and loyalty distribution as his father. The Syrian military consists of 304.000 men (on a population of roughly 22 million) and Alawite (12% of the population) makes 70% of the career military. Besides the regular armed forces there are two Alawite only paramilitary divisions with the best equipment, the Republican Guard (led by the brother of Bashar, Maher Al-Assad) and the Special Forces. Both divisions are ought to be capable to counter any military coup attempt. The same idea is seen in the Syrian intelligence: nine separate services with overlapping functions so the regime is not overtly depending on any of them. All nine services are working in almost entire secrecy. None of the services are permitted to have full access to the counterparts intelligence and information on their agents. Even within each service are different commanders reporting directly to the president, instead of their normal superiors. To ensure accountability and loyalty, personal within the intelligence services are often moved around and sometimes also ‘undercover’ from another service. Just to make sure that every possible treat will be discovered.

All together makes this Syria a complex country where the president has implemented a strong system of rule and divide, making sure that the stakes for the higher echelon within the state are to high to be disloyal. With a sectarian division of power is the risk for a Iraq like confrontation between the different – religious - groups and a full-scale civil war not negligible.

Today, by coincidence, I was written to as Karen twice. This was remarkable. Karen is my middle name.

Karen is going to Oslo for seven months in January, and there she will work on a research project, in freedom, under her own management of finances, and under her own management of free time. Karen is living and not being lived. She has paid the deposit of the room that has been offered to her entirely by herself, after she has independently applied for a housing unit. In a little while she will book her one-way ticket.

Karen is proud and does not lose her pride. She is proud to continue her plans in Oslo. It is nice to be able to put something on her Curriculum about the fact that she has done scientific research abroad during her study. It will be a nice and interesting experience that she will not allow to be spoiled by adversity.

Karen has left behind and buried all sadness and adversity with Alice in the Netherlands when she goes to Oslo. She does not want to be overcharged with grief, a ballast that could bring her boat to sink. She has pumped away all the water into the ocean, a cold, northern ocean of which she will study its organisms. Karen is often cheerful and her state of mind is at rest.

Karen sometimes stumbles, but always, always, gets back up. She is proud of that. By going to Oslo she confirms that she is able to independently determine her future, a future that lies closest to her true wishes. She wants to enrich her scientific background, but also views the departure as a retreat, to step back and put things to draw.

Stronger than ever, Karen will return from Norway to the Netherlands and unite herself with Alice. She will give her a warm embrace and ensure her of a good, glorious and loving future.

Karen cannot be stopped or broken. She chooses for herself. Karen loves the people who allow her this and cares about them. During her stay in Oslo she will stay in touch with those people, because she will miss them. She will detach from the others.

But Karen remains Alice, and Alice remains Karen. Alice Karen.

Gearchiveerd onder:Schrijfsels

A fascinating vision on the development of the Western, Liberal Democracy as we now know it. It happened before and it will happen again this author says. This theory reminds me of the theory of hegemonies, I learned while studying Political Geography. The hegemony theory states a hegemon will rule for approximately 50 years, excluding the years of building it's way to power and the years of decline. The USA in that theory started as a hegemon in 1945 untill 1995 and is now in it's spare-years of gradual decline.

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough,
had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty;From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy;From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2012 It doesn't hurt to read this several times.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 millionMurder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won wasmostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.
If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom..
This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic . Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 2012.

'via Blog this'

The leader sleeples night
A congresswoman, member of a heterogenous and dynamic dutch party, struggles in the last stretch of her tenure as leader. Deep in the night a deadly question assaults her. She has been the undisputed leader of the youngest and most promising political movement seen in The Netherlands for decades, the greens. And she wonders if she has done enough. She has renewed the socio-economical agenda of her party, but as a matter of fact, electors has not punish or rewarded her. The voting share of the dutch greens has stagnated under her leadership. What more can be done? How to get her solidly minor party in a government coalition? What can be said to her more powerful colleagues for them to take her party in trust?

The other leader
For many centuries Europe has been the cradle and the center of whatever can be called a world civilization. But in the last hundred years the center of the stage belong to other actors. Global governance, surely after the last world war, has moved on further to the west. And still, european political leaders of small and big countries struggle to play their diminishing roles in the international theater. Every country, even the tiny Netherlands, push her resources to the limit... in order to change, influence, or at least help USA's foreign policy. As many of his predecessors, late in the night the recently elected premier of The Netherlands wonders then what signal could he send to the powers that be.

and the militant
After the barricades of the sixties, after the long march through the institutions, ever redefining his ideology, a member of the dutch greens wonder in his bed. He knows damn well that the good old plain pacifism is no answer in the face of international terrorism, failed states and widespread poverty. Devoted to the principle of human security, he is willing today to support armed interventions in foreign soil, if to prevent human massacres. He is not (anymore) the person willing to chain himself to the doors of the national congress, working today instead for having green or progressive legislation passed in his city council. But for a change, today he broods on an international question. Today he has been asked to support his political leaders after they did choose for what he, and many others, vocally opposed. His leaders asked his opinion on sending dutch police trainers to Afghanistan. In the consultation rounds he and many others opposed the envoy. And still, after all the voices were heard, the political leaders of his party decided in favor of the envoy. What will he do next? Can he trust a leadership that hears, but still decides to act against a majority? Does he have an option? Actually he admires the élan of his new elected leader, and believes that she will break through the long standing electoral stagnation of his party. But he is also deeply unset by her decision regarding Afghanistan.

The storm there...
Afghanistan, ha, Afghanistan. A big deal of the worldview of this writer has been shaped by Afghanistan and her ever complicated history. Early on I attended with my high school friends to that despicable Rambo movie, where the well-muscled-and-poorly-brained Stallone fights against cartoonish evil russians in Afghanistan soil, side by side with oriental youngsters. I did read the rolling final titles, dedicating this pastiche of North American hubris to the "gallant freedom fighters of Afghanistan". Whom, cynically enough, a couple of decades later would wreak havoc in North American soil the same way they did to the Soviets. I also had to relativize my childhood love crush with the Soviet Union when faced with their invasive policy in Afghanistan. I devoured Said's "Orientalism", reading how our own views of the exotic afghani predates and deform our attempts to understand the east and its inhabitants. I got to learn that the craving for a strong and harsh leadership is not only a sad South American phenomenon, but also a afghani one, when the Taliban did rise and dominate large swaths of Afghani land. And, last but not least, just like in the South America of my birth, I have been seeing all these years how whichever international power struggling for world relevance, makes its move on Afghani soil.

...and here
For the dutch greens this moment is a perfect and most undesired storm. The actors sketched above join together to produce a nasty situation. And not only before one of the most important elections in the country (where the senate will be elected... and will stop or enable the racist politics of the PVV) but also just before a congress, the moment in which members of the party get together to vent their issues and grievances. What we will do in this congress has the potentiality to shape our party -and our country- for a long while after. Once again, a good mix of hot blood and cold head are demanded from us. Will we raise to the challenge?

a humble opinion
It is my opinion that the politicians of GroenLinks committed a mistake supporting a mission of police trainers now. When the idea was breached and supported in parliament, it did make lots of sense. Then the noises from the powers to be, the USA, where pointing to an end of the armed conflict, with conversations with the taliban, the local and neighboring governments. Obama even fired the hawkish McChrystal, and brought back the dovish Petraeus back. If those noises would have been proven right, a training mission would have been coherent with our ideals and productive with the future of Afghanistan. But alas, the noises proved wrong. The strategy accorded by Petraeus, in apparent contradiction with his previous work in Iraq, is the maintaining of the surge, actually aiming at eliminate as many Taliban as possible before opening negotiations, in a not yet seen future. There is no chance that in this moment of ending-a-civil-war-by-means-of-annihilation police trainers make sense.

But it is also my opinion that the current leaders of GroenLinks has displayed an interesting level of respect for their members and has shown a desirable level of dealing with political opponents. The politicians of GroenLinks do not attend and organize meetings to hear their members too often. And they did this time. And it is neither frequent that a leader of GroenLinks changes a proposal from a VVD premier. Both realities must not be too easily forgotten.

So I do believe, and hope, that this coming congress will let know our politicians that we do not like what they did with our opinion. We really dislike to be heard and then to see them doing otherwise. I believe, and hope, that this congress also tells our leaders that they became committed to the wrong course. Not because old ideals, or bad choice of partners. They did choose wrongly because participating with the invader forces of Afghanistan today is not an act of solidarity, but an act of arrogance and hubris. But I also hope that our congress realize that with Jolande we have got a leader committed to the good fight. And well capable to fight it for us... and hopefully with us. I don't want to undermine her. I, and hopefully the congress, will keep on arguing with her, probably disagreeing now and then. But I, and I do hope we militants of GroenLinks, should go on supporting her.

Nederland staat onveranderlijk hoog genoteerd in de lijst van democratische landen van het het Amerikaanse Freedom House. Op grond van het jaarlijkse overzicht van politieke rechten en burgerlijke vrijheden mogen we ons gelukkig prijzen hier te wonen en en niet in Wit-Rusland of Noord-Korea. Maar democratie is behalve een bestuursvorm ook een ideaal om aan te werken. En dus valt er in Nederland

One of the marvels of the internet today is to have people from all colors, political and others, mingled in whatever conversation happens. A best example was triggered by the previous post in this blog -A Xmas tale-. Since a couple of years I have decided not to have reaction space in the blog itself, but let whatever social network is around to be the space for react to whatever I write here. The approach actually works. If you would happen to follow my twitter/facebook timeline, or to check the comments that appear in the note itself, you would see that indeed, a strange meet of minds and ideas have happened around my last post.

To give a bit of context, I will allow myself to introduce the characters of this tale. On one side we have my friend of old times Tito. I meet him many years ago in university, when we both where members of the board of directors from the Movimiento Formate y Lucha, a left wing student's organization. I loose track of Tito for almost a couple of decades, up to when he resurfaced in my life via facebook. Tito lives now in the USA, and being active in what we call in Europe the Tea Party Movement, we had (and probably will have) plenty of heated arguments already on democracy, current politics and the like. If we happen to agree on politics, that was couple of decades ago. Which makes it, at least from my perspective, very interesting. How comes that people go so apart from each other in politics? Did we change or are we the same, but our different environments forces us to disagree? Do we understand each other? Questions that remain interestingly unanswered.

On the other side, we have Ton. Very differently than Tito, I have yet to meet Ton in person. I believe he is member of GroenLinks, my dutch political party, and certainly we share plenty of ideas and interests. It hardly passes a comment in my (or in any other of our shared friends) facebook timeline without comment from Ton. Reading philosophy and cooking lore, and certainly being more than 40, Ton fits as yet another example of the positive aspects of Europe today: a life style that permits to balance high taxes and high individual liberty with a rather left wing political line.

Between these two poles, we also have Imke and Dirk, friends that I have meet in different moments and groups of GroenLinks Utrecht. Differently than Tito, Ton and myself, Imke and Dirk are youngsters, ending their studies or just in their first full time job. Even if I consider myself young, when I heard and read Imke and Dirk I recognize that they respond and react from a perspective a couple of decades younger than mine, which makes any dialogue between us even more interesting. And on the other side, we also have Maruja. Maruja taught international relations when I was in university, a course that among other consequences produced the first students-professors human rights action group in Caracas. When I read Maruja I read a keen mind honed by decades of following the drama (or comedy) of politics of all sorts.

Now, after all that have being said. If you read my last post before, or care to check it after, you would remember that nagged by northamerican descriptions of the european welfare, I put down my own, sort of not-american-not-european perspective. In short I do believe that europeans in general, and dutchies in particular, enjoy ample free time, more than their northamerican counterparts. And I believe that such attitude comes from a long tradition of conservative values, where living in a comfortable middle class is seen as a desirable goal. Nothing too original, nor too conflictive, I thought.

But of course, my friends thought otherwise. And one of those facebook battle fields rise. Interesting in itself, because if you happen to follow the exchange, you will see right away the preconceptions that north-americans have of europeans, and otherwise. And not only. Also the views of a right winger on a left winger, and viceversa. Meanwhile Maruja cut though the middle of my too-extensive prose, and retweeted my own original title as "perfect social security or golden mediocrity", Tito and Ton engaged in a discussion on principles of right and left politics.

Not surprisingly, in the whole debate between Ton and Tito, I found myself agreeing with Ton and wondering in disbelief on what Tito has to write. But anyhow, what is interesting is how comes that persons that honestly share a desire for social improvement can come up with such a different views. I mean, I do not believe for a second when a right wing leader tells me that his agenda of tax cuts is actually in the benefit of the poor. But what when a serious, not stupid, honest person tells me the same? Probably my friend the right winger wonders in the same way (or at least I hope so): how comes that Inti (and Ton and many others), being not too stupid can believe all this nonsense from the left? Politics, of course, is not exact science, and there are no universal truths. But still. To me, anyhow, the many debates with Tito tells me that we should be much more open and tolerant than we actually are. In this world that we share, with problems that affect not only Tito and me, but the eskimo in alaska and the bushman in africa... This dialogue must go on, even if so frequently seems to be a dialogue between deaf people.

Besides this general issue of reaching out to our extreme opposers, and try to learn and to understand from them, still is the issue of ideal societies, or organizational modes. And here I must confess that even when sounding decadent, I am still in favor of the more soft societies that europe has created. Because today I am not willing to believe that freedom can only mean freedom of earning money, as much as I can. I do believe that money is only a middle, an instrument to help fulfill a meaningful life not only for me, but for the ones that by millions of different reasons earn less than me. Tito certainly has an important point when he tells that socialist dreams have become, far too often, in nightmares. True. But does that have to mean that any attempt to socialize and redistribute income is doomed to become a stalinist tyranny? I don't think so, I really don't. Even if only looking at the nightmares that the capitalist dream has produced in my countries, where myriads are born, grown and die in exploited hells that will never offer any chance of emancipation.

Which raises the last point of this post. It could be that because I am pushing the forties and I have the luxury of running my own company, which small (and frequently null) income only complement the steady income of my wife, I have actually forgotten my early years of toll. Surely Imke has not forgotten them, when reporting that most of her social circle does work harder than hard, with hardly any time left out of the rat race. So again, that is why this brave, free, mostly incoherent but still alive dialogue of internet is valuable. Because we can forget that our own limited view of reality is nothing else than that: a limited sight. If we are to move forward, we must go on contrasting the disparaging views across the Atlantic, and across the generations.

De persvrijheid gaat achteruit in de Europese Unie en de landen daaromheen. In de Press Freedom Index 2010 van Reporters Sans Frontières zien we slechts 13 van de 27 EU-landen bij de top-20. Bovenaan staan ex aequo Finland, IJsland, Nederland, Noorwegen, Zweden en Zwitserland, allemaal landen waarover geen schendingen van de persvrijheid zijn gemeld. In 2009 stond Nederland nog op de 7e plaats.

iDingen bashen is leuk. Vooral wanneer je een beetje technisch onderlegd of geïnformeerd bent, kun je makkelijk door dat gehype heenkijken. En zie je gewoon perfect gemarkte maar technisch zeer middelmatige, maar bovenal helemaal-niet-zo vernieuwende producten.
Van alle producten die Apple de laatste jaren lanceerde bleek eigenlijk al tijden een (beter) alternatief te zijn.

Het mooiste is echter als iemand goed weet te onderbouwen waarom een bepaald Apple product toch eigenlijk heel slecht is (op allerlei gebied). Want meestal is het een welles-nietes spelletje en helaas blijken mac-fans op inhoudelijke kritiek meestal geen antwoord te hebben dan "maar anderen doen het nog slechter" of "jamaar dat maakt mij niet uit, want ik heb dat niet (of juist wel, afhankelijk van het debat) nodig". Weinig tot geen inhoudelijke tegenargumenten, helaas.

Zo ook Jarvis' stuk "The iPad: Where Creativity Goes to Die".

Het verhaal als geheel maakt indruk, maar ene paar citaten geven goed aan wat er eigenlijk mis is met die iPad:

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