Daniel Zylbersztajn's Counter Blog

Cycling at Kings Cross: or £30 Pounds hanging off my backside!

2011-12-06T12:06:00.001Z

To start I couldhave pushed my bike on White Lion Street's one-way bit, going up thewrong way on the pedestrian path. Yes alternatively I couldhave legally used the morning traffic over-loaded four-lane UpperStreet (which has no cycle lane in the bid between Liverpool Rd andPentonville Rd.) and then turning into Pentonville Road (which hasfast traffic with no proper cycle lane either) or using the much furtherdistanced Chadwell Street or deviate via Chapel Market on a marketday.

Instead, I used my bikeon the pedestrian walk! Little did I expect a London MetropolitanPolice Traffic Assistant to come my way on his (note!) white bicycle. The encounter resulted in the inevitable £30 Pounds fine on the very same morning on which I also observed pushy motorists exceeding 20 miles inIslington's speed reduced zone, andpedestrians being forgotten as they attempted to cross zebracrossings.

But the fact is that I liveat Kings Cross. From where I was that morning at 8.40 am (atPret-a-Manger on Upper Street), using the one-way street bit ofWhite Lion Street the wrong way up (in a considerate way) on thepedestrian walk, was the safest and quickest option (at least for me). Please accept my apologies for any offence caused, though! The area police for rightful and orderly behaviour made sure I would be put in order. Be assured as you read this now the fine has already been paid!

White Lion Streetcontinues after Baron Street as a two-way street (because that end isnot part of the A1 motorway), and feeds into Donegal Street and thenRodney Street and then Penton Rise, which is near to where I live. But its other end is a one-way system to speedup traffic. Some years ago TFL decided to transform this littlestreet into a urban motorway for the A1 and abolished the left turnat Pentonville Road / Upper Street (presumably because it slowedtraffic down - it's all about speed you see). Amongst many omissions due to this design, pedestriansstill miss a traffic light-crossing at Baron Street if they wish tocontinue along Pentonville Road, at a spot where cars and buses turninto Baron Street at speed and unexpectedly. So this traffic is allowed to enter BaronStreet and then White Lion Street one-way, all in the name of fastroutes for cars and buses. Too bad if you are a pedestrian or cyclist.

Being on thepedestrian path cycling I was of course breaking the traffic rules. First I went the wrong way up, secondly I used the pedestrian's space! But Iam not a cyclists who is habitually on the pedestrian paths, except atKings Cross. Kings Cross happens to be my villageinside of London. I live here. Kings Cross finds itself at a time of immense anger about TFL'sarrogant style towards cyclists and towards the local community withregard to the way it manages traffic flow.

As he issued the finethe traffic warden asked me why I didn't walk and push my bike? The truth is, that if I would, I would have to walk a hell of a lotaround Kings Cross: Swinton, Street, Acton Street, Gray's Inn Road, Penton Rise,Kings Cross Road, (part of the A201 / A501), Caledonian Rd(A5203) the mentioned Baron Street / White Lion Street axis (an A1-A501connector), plus Weston Rise, Wicklow Street, Lorenzo Street,Caledonia Street. Balfe Street, Seaford Street, Western Great Percy Street, Percy Circus, Cruickshank Street, Great Chapel Street, Lloyd Baker Street, and Argyle Square are one-way streets(Killick Street, Margery Street and Calshot Street are too but Islington Council and for Argyle Street Camden Council have permitted two-way cycling in them).

Did you count that's 20 plus one-way streets located at or in the proximity of Kings Cross. Living right in the middle ofthis one-way jungle, I and many others could just as well junk ourbicycles and always walk instead, if we were to push ourbikes along the one-ways needing to go up the wrong way. Iappreciate 100 percent that cyclists do not belong on the pedestrianpathway, and if they go fast or encounter insecure pedestrians theycan endanger these.

Residents of Kings Cross who wish to usebicycles whenever possible instead of a motor-vehicle, findthemselves highly tempted to break the law due to a design thatdeliberately favours motorists alone. The street lay-out to and from Kings Cross has changed little since the 1960s, the hey-days of themotor-vehicle (during which there were still less than half of of today'svehicles on the roads). Over and over, residentscomplained about this system that simply doesn't fit a modern innerurban area any more, or never has.The presence of cyclists has increasedtremendously over the years, with only little amendments made by TFLat Kings Cross (some of the little roads also bear responsibility bythe councils Islington and Camden in their one way design).

At their best TFLattempted to rectify a dangerous junction at Penton Rise /Pentonville Street (sadly the results after much money spent were noteliminating the problem there completely), and they built a trafficlight crossing at Swinton Street, but the overall lay-out remains aone-way gyratory system. It has injured and killed over its 40years existence, not the least it is still attracting traffic intothe area causing congestion, noise and air-pollution that exceeds anyEuropean, and World Health Organisation standard (check London noise map and air pollution maps for verification). It encourages fastspeeds, and has, as already said, little to offer to cyclists,except to endanger them and fine them.

In the midst of theprotests following the death of cyclists and student Deep Lee, I feel that the £30 fine I received was yet another penalty for living or working within theKings Cross gyratory / Red Route one-way system, ironically writtenout by a cycling police assistant. The only way I can makemyself feel better about paying the Met this money is, if it would gotowards change in the street layout. I am just another statistic but there must be many like me here. Why don't you look at those stats, TFL, and change the roads accordingly?

Kings Cross / St Pancras is a placefor people to live, it is admittedly also a train hub. But today. asalways there are many alternatives to get here. Multiple undergroundtrains go here, just as many bus routes, there are taxis and hire schema bikes, and many cycle bays. But cyclists, (alongsidepedestrians at dangerous crossings) are the user of roads atKings Cross that still get kicked in their backside by the system, and today with a fine hanging off my rear end.

Tags: Kings Cross This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

Latest piece in e-zine Open Democracy

2011-11-06T06:47:00.000Z

Just a brief update that my latest piece features in e-zine Open Democracy

Kings Cross Cycling Accident Update - TFL may face Manslaughter Charges

2011-10-20T06:14:00.001+01:00

Update on Cycle Accident at Kings Cross. Please see Kings Cross Local Environment.

Dangerous Tracks - Woman Cyclist died at marked junction at Kings Cross Station

2011-10-03T15:21:00.022+01:00

LATEST 10 Oct 11: I can now confirm that the cyclist in question has in deed died.

original article
---

Kings Cross - St Pancras may be the centre and pride of British railway traffic, but the motor street-management at the busy junction is still beyond acceptable standards it seems.

Today, according to witness statements I took, a woman cyclist has died at the junction between Grays Inn Road / York Way.

According to the local Mc Donalds Manager, whose business is just next to where the accident happened, the woman cyclist may have jumped a red light and was then hit by an oncoming lorry. Other witnesses confirmed that the woman did not move following the accident. Police were unwilling to give out any further information at the time.

All the main streets leading up to Kings Cross lack dedicated cyclist lanes, although there are some cycle tracks in the rear streets. The crossings themselves have been labelled insufficient in a
walk-ability study three years ago.

Given the ongoing multi-million investment into both stations, the Kings Cross Railway development and an increase in pavement size about 10 years ago in the area it seems odd that traffic is not being made more cycling friendly as well.

One would expect dedicated separate lines and possibly even cyclists' traffic lights at this junction. According to Jean Dollimore of Camden Cycling Campaign the junction in question has been consulted upon many times before, with recommendations including the aforementioned lanes, cycling boxes, and a demand for a lowering of the speed limit in this busy crowded area. "At Kings Cross cyclists are forced upon the main road, they have no alternative!" She added that Transport for London (TFL) "would also be extremely slow in responding to their own recommendations," citing a cyclist who died this April at Camden Rd / St Pancras Way six years after it was agreed with TFL that this junction needed safety modifications. Asked as to why TFL, who also carries the responsibility for the Kings Cross junction, had not implemented the recommended changes, she felt that TFL would be principally 'interested in getting motor traffic moving. '

Traffic at Kings Cross certainly did not move on in the aftermath of the fatal accident today. The accident caused a noticeable traffic chaos across the area with all major roads around Kings Cross being closed by police as investigations went on.

A response from TFL has been requested, but so far not been received (post ed not by 11 Oct 11).

This is a not for profit contribution!

Tags: Insert This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

Coram Fields Petition to Ban Smoking Update

2011-08-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

Latest Update 20th August 2011

See a smoking area on the multimillion pounds children adventure park (open air) Legoland UK. These pictures were taken in August 2011. This is easy to implement (you need but some wooden walls 2.5 m. ) with added hedges on the side and very effective. The system here with the 2m gap in between the layered walls allows parents or carers the choice to hide or to see their children and provides a seated area for the smoking parents. Smoking is not allowed anywhere else.

Latest - July 2011 - new petition added that also allows people to sign who only support restrictions (such as a smoker's area), rather than a full ban http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restrict_smoking_coram_fields/

April 2011
Today the campaign to convince Coram Fields Playground Management to implement a ban on smoking on the grounds reached new heights with the help of a feature article by Camden's Local Paper CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL and in West End Extra

read here (http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2011/apr/class-bias-claim-corams-fields-smoking-row)

The management gave no further convincing arguments on the issue. I think I said it all in the news article where I am quoted that Coram Fields are basically saying you are not allowed to smoke unless you are poor, because then you are too stupid to know any better...

I don't think this is a class issue. Amongst those parents who smoke one will find parents of all social backgrounds. Further a recent literature review for Glasgow City Council, who examined banning smoking on all playgrounds (yes there are others who want to ban it), found little evidence to the suggestion that parents would stay away, although there is one small study from Australia that claimed that some parents did stay away. Even if the Australian study would be taken as the one piece of evidence for not banning smoking, it is surely not fair to expose all other children and parents to the smoke of a few people whom the executive wishes to not exclude. What about their rights, that is the rights of everyone else not smoking and especially those of children?

As to their assertion about parents whose children are in the nearby Gt. Ormond St Children Hospital and who (the parents) may wish to smoke because they are stressed: How many parents do really smoke whose children undergo treatment there? They would certainly be in line with the national averages so we are talking but a few individuals and then I also wonder what they are arguing here in detail:

Suppose these parents whose kids are in the hospital are in deed smoking: Either their children are ill and hospitalised and the parents could therefore not enter the ground on their own (entry is only permitted with a child), or the parents would give their kids momentary reprieve from the hospital environment, on permission of the medical team treating the children (at times these children come to the fields with with clinical equipment attached, most frequently with a tube through the nose, sometimes with drips and in wheel chairs) and the last thing anyone would wish to do, the least the parents and carers of these kids, is to smoke in front of them.

The arguments by Coram Field's executive are ill thought out and lack greater convincing scientific evidence. It is beyond reasonable comprehension why they would refuse such a petition.

1.) Smoking outdoors has been proven to show elevated levels of tobacco and nicotine by-products in saliva in non smoking adults exposed to it (see Glasgow city Council Review). Another study showed that inadvertent exposure to children will occur (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3476743.stm)
2.) Child Psychologist and Child Behaviourists have said for a long time that smoking in front of children normalises the activity of smoking in the minds of children. This means that they are more likely to see this as normal adult behaviour and are more likely to become smokers as adults (see the Glasgow Study for a literature summary).

3.) Smoking filters exist to shield the smoker from the most poisonous bits of a cigarette. If a toddler swallows or even just licks these, because they have been discarded near the playgrounds, the children would absorb very concentrated toxins.

What is truly surprising, is that the request to ban smoking has met the highly levelled degree of resistance shown by this children's' charity executive. This is not a call for a ban in an ordinary park, nor even a pub with consenting adults etc... - in my mind there is far less problem here - but in a park and playground dedicated for and populated exclusively by children.

Many benches on which adults rest and at times smoke are very near the play areas for the smallest, such as the large sand pit areas, the climbing or swing areas, or the pool. Smoke does reach children there, especially on more crowded summer days.

The voice of children in this can only be a united and undoubted request to have a smoke free play ground, especially because it is managed by a children charity. I think that Coram Field's really can do better than they have done so far.

Please support us on any of the two petition sites:

New Petition Site (since April 2011)
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/smokingincoram/

Older Petition Site (since June 2010)
http://www.petition.co.uk/ban-smoking-throughout-coram-fields-playground

Tags:This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

Re-examining the 1970s Munich Olympic Village as "one of the best Urban Spaces in the World?"

2011-05-09T18:40:00.016+01:00

(slightly modified ed. 11/05/11)
The 1972 Olympic Village in Munich, or short Olympiadorf, is one of the most peaceful and green and resident friendly areas I have ever known, far from the concrete jungle many would suspect it to be, or the sad locum of blood-staining terror it was during the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Contrary to these images in nearly 40 years of its existence the village has flowered up to become a residence in park for the people who live here. It features amongst others:

15 min travel by underground from its now two local stations to the Munich city centre.
Own small shopping arcade, housing amongst others 2 supermarkets, 5 bakers, 2 banks, an organic store and various eating venues, several GPs, dentists, school and kindergarten, a village own culture and art centre with cinema, etc.
15 min. walk to and from a huge shopping mall (Olympiaeinkaufszentrum), discount stores as well as DIY discount stores
Huge park with Olympic sized sport amenities, many of which are public. The park has activities and events all year round that suit each and every taste.
Well managed green spaces that amount to almost a small forest, with planted terrace balconies and a massive bird population,
All motor cars are on underground level, leaving pedestrians and cyclists a car free area.
Huge population of people with disabilities of all kinds, due to fault free accessibility
Secure and relatively low crime citizen friendly neighbourhood
All housing blocks have big windows that allow much sun light to flow in, most with spacey balconies or gardens.
Community spirit with some urban privacy retained
Stunning integrated public design like sand-pits for kids and water features and multi colour patterned streets
All flats are modern and well fitted compared even to contemporary standards
There are facilities for skating (ice skating, sliding, Nordic skiing and hockey in the winter), basketball play, croquette, adventure play, lawn based games, chess, table tennis, Yoga, the list is without end.
The Olympic Village is now also a historic and protected site, which means that the streets and buildings are maintained and repaired to highest standards

It is astonishing that there are but a few neighbourhoods around the world that compare to this. In London The Barbican may be slightly within its spirit, but lacking in size and amenities, as well as it providing housing to relatively high to very high income residents. In Munich the Olympic Village houses many families with children, elderly, the named population of persons with disabilities of all kinds, as well as a huge student population. What is missing compared to more modern designs is a greater amount of integrated alternative energy sourcing. However the 1970s designed village has its own centrally heated system, and all flats were double glassed since construction, already allowing for savings in the heating costs (Overall the city of Munich is further sourcing a high percentage of electricity alternatively including through wind energy from Wales).

Also, whilst the church area of the village has an ecumenical centre housing both Protestants and Catholics in the same building - radical for some), there are no comparable facilities for other faith groups in the original design, nor today.

But overall most striking are the car free passages in the Olympic Village, which make the village so very child friendly. The entire village is in fact a pedestrian zone. Children can go to and leave school and kindergarten without ever being exposed to car traffic. In the evening all streets are well lid and have a very safe feel. The lightening extends also to all major streets inside the Olympic Park, allowing for cycling and jogging, or walking the dog (there are poo bins and plastic bag dispenser everywhere dogs could be) even at night. Plants are well looked after by the village's own gardeners and all this gives one a welcoming comfortable feel. Not to be forgotten are many benches providing the possibility to sit and rest throughout the entire village and park.

In 2010 Munich won the award of most liveable city in the world by Monocle Magazine, so one wonders if the Olympic Village could be one of Munich's best features with regard to liveability.

Since housing in the village is very difficult to obtain now, from 1972 onwards and especially since the late 1980s, many developments have been erected surrounding the Munich Olympic park in an attempt to extend the Olympic Village feel to more people. However since they are located on the marginal sides of the park and disconnected from the village itself, they lack some of the many positive features that the integrated Olympiadorf can pride itself with, whilst still allowing for some of the great benefits like accessibility and proximity to sports facilities, greenery and access to a fast and convenient nearby underground network.

If you ever come down to Munich, it is well worth to check out the Olympic Village, not just for historic purposes, but also as an example of excellence in urban space design, seconded by but few (please do post me suggestions you may have of similar outstanding places). Not to be missed is the artificial lake between Nadi-Street and Conolly Street, the nature pond between Strassberger-Street and Nadi Street (with nearby graffiti village for teenagers), the student village, and the memorial plaque in Conolly Street in front of the site of the terror acts against the Israeli Olympic Team of 1972.

Links: see picture gallery (German) in Sueddeutsche Zeitung
Olympiadorf.de (a website by residents)
A photographer's page about the Olympic Village in 2008 during a festival

Author of this article Daniel Zylbersztajn grew up in the Olympic Village, spending much of his childhood there.

View Larger Map

This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

The West has nothing left to offer and only itself to blame.

2011-02-02T23:37:00.008Z

A twitter message that got out of proportions. Rather than cutting it to the bone, I have replicated it here:

On Monday I heard a BBC Worldservice feat on how Chinese high speed trains that started on a Japanese contract have now outrun the Western competition through their own R&D, producing a faster better train even (they argue) and gained a contract in Saudi Arabia that was previously assured to Siemens- Nixdorf, who now play only a minor role. Chinese companies are now developing fast on their own. If the West thought it could remain the head of the snake, the sting is certainly lacking its poison, if not the head altogether. This and hearing how the UK government proudly cuts research and social budgets (not the only one) prompted below text - note it was meant to go on Twitter first hence the abbreviations, but soon outweighed its permitted length.

"In my opinion the UK & much of the EU are heading for a new low status amongst worlds nations in 30 yrs. Here is why: Most manufacturing is outsourced 2 PRC (now also in gd quality & their own R&D), Indian based customer service, research and art funds being cut by 2/3 (UK), university fees @ all time high, welfare state hacked 2 pieces, the banking system broken, a democratic system of political apathy... what else then has West 2 offer? They will stand there & ask themselves how did this all happen? Don't blame the Chinese and other developing nations. The blame lies with profit seeking folks right at home who shot the next man and profited from the exploitation of another faraway, assumed too stupid to ever take charge of their own destiny. Assumed to be only able to copy but not think (we know that one from as long as 400 years ago). Well they are doing very well in deed. Maybe it will be our children's children in English sweat-shops in 40 years, whilst culture, research, and health will lie at the shores of other places. The only hope we have is the same hope poverty struck people in any one underdeveloped country have today, and that is that humans will begin to think globally and as one."

Tags: Insert This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

Newly Awakend Hopes - not just in al-Qāhira

2011-02-02T00:22:00.016Z

A democratic Egypt has implications beyond what is expected. Egyptians initially wish for democratic elections, freedom of speech, and transparency in how resources are spent, more equality and welfare.

One issue not mentioned, for sure it is in deed secondary, is that the Egyptian State Archives of contemporary political eras since the 1950e have been securely locked away with very selective or no access, as I understand it from the lectures I took at University College of London in Middle Easter political history.

The immensity of the human sacrifice of ordinary Egyptians Nasser and Sadat caused through wars with Israel meaning the numbers of dead (estimated 23.000-40.000 between 1948-1973), and why the attacks were planned, is still not being completely solved, even if much is known these days from Soviet files and opened Israeli files (1). Other questions awaiting archive research regard actions of the Egyptian political elite in the Bush and Blair era.

I am looking forward to the world in which Israel no longer can continue to claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East (which is already no longer true) and the human rights being put on the agendas across the region.

That democracy alone is not the end of the game can be easily observed in Lebanon and Israel. In Israel democratic reform is well overdue, but impossible to implement,
unless the country would be allowed to vote on it and even then it remains questionable.

Palestinian independence alongside a guaranteed Israel, Jordan being put into the equation of Palestinian state formation, rights and protection of African migrants and Christians in the Middle East, as well as the rights and protection of Jewish communities in the Middle East outside of Israel, and the rights of Palestinians inside of Israel are part of what ought to be on the agenda now in the region.

Most of all religious freedom (including for Islamic fundamentalist circles), alongside guarantees of the rights of the individual that these may clash with are very thorny obstacles even for a new democratically elected order.

In addition one hopes that poorer nations on the African continent of which Egypt is of course also part of, just as much as Tunisia, will also begin to demand more change in peaceful demonstrations. Neocolonialism including by means of new official players like China, as well as of powerful criminal underworld cartels, corruption, and the trembling of individual human rights are still the way things are here.

Once in my political classes at SOAS I remember to have read the theory that social change like in Egypt or Tunisia do not begin just from grass routes. The dispossessed on this earth have usually no means nor energy to rise up. It is were a more technologically equipped class becomes discontent alongside, where revolution is ripe. This is worth reminding oneself of when assessing the situation. Poverty even in Egypt is relative to countries where people are even poorer, but where popular uprisings do not usually happen.

If the lives of millions of impoverished Egyptians will change rather than get frustrated once again in their newly awakened hopes it could be the ultimate yardstick of success.

(1) 1956 2.5.-3k, 1967 10-15k, Hartman), 1973 aprox 15k (AP) online source

Tags: Insert This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

New name, old blog?

2010-12-15T11:58:00.008Z

This blog is undergoing re-editing and corrections on a retrospective basis whenever I have time to do so. The blog was previously totally anonymous, which allowed for fast hastily written pieces, sometimes unedited and in not best style (such for example during the 2005 Israeli war against Hezbollah, which required fast updates.) It is my intention to improve these, to bring postings in line with the quality I expect people to find in relation with my name. The blog shows a commentary and an evolution of opinions on many subjects. Some of my views may have altered.

If you see any errors you wish to highlight do not hesitate contacting me.

Luton city of human friction

2010-12-14T14:41:00.010Z

It is almost certain that the Sweden suicide bomber was resident of the city of Luton in the UK. I have written about Luton in this context during the London Bombings and have slightly modified it for today:

The news reports that one bomber comes from the Luton area... Between 1998 and 1999, I took a postgraduate science course at University of Luton (now renamed University of Bedfordshire).

I remember exactly what my impression of that place was, to friends I described it as "full of Hyper-Ethnics!"

People went beyond their identities. They dressed over-exaggeratedly up for their ID tag, mingled exclusively with their own and projected themselves against all who were not like them. It was a sort of "Identity Phantasia-Land," also fed through reciprocal hatred from Others. The hyper-ethnics were equally BNP and EDF "Europe for the Blondes," supporters, "Islamic Mullahs", as well as "Nubian Kings and Queens." Skin-heads in full uniform, with British bulldogs and England tattoos, Muslim men that looked like they came out of the deepest Afghanistan mountains, fully veiled women, African Caribbean men dressed in Sahelian Desert dresses ready to face a desert storm, it was all there.

Alongside were a lot extremely poor economically disadvantaged people of any sort of background, who 'got on' beyond the ID tag. They were simply poor.

Personally, I also remember a grounded intellectual disagreement with a science tutor, who promoted racial reading of science in the classical pseudo-scientific classifications, Blacks are more likely to suffer x, Caucasians more Y. When I questioned the categories she named on their "racial" validity, she got very agitated and marked me down considerably in my forthcoming essay.

My conclusion was that much of Luton looked upon the world without intellectual spectrum. Here the common versions of history, science and religion were based on narrow monotone outlooks, sometimes lacking the foundations it claimed it stood upon. I am hardly surprised, it became the home of extremists who would go the extra mile.

A version of this article appeared first in 2005 on Daniels Counter Blog

Tags:
Sweden suicide bomb Luton community friction This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.

First public benches in a non closed off area in Southern Camden since a long time!

2010-10-17T21:41:00.006+01:00

A lengthy redevelopment of a Camden Square, Byng Place, which is situated in between UCL, ULU, SOAS and Birkbeck College has not only created a much more pedestrian and cycle friendly square. To my enthusiastic surprise, I spotted a whole range of brand new sitting opportunities for residents and bypassers. Above all these, unlike in most other squares, which can be locked in the evening, this square is open access 24h a day.

I waited for this for 20 years and finally somebody in town-planning knew how urban spaces ought to look like!

This should serve very much as a template and sample to any other regeneration, repair or redevelopment in Camden. Nothing makes an area more liveable but the opportunity for residents to sit down, and relax in it!

Just one point of caution. So far no litter boxes have been put up.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kings Cross iconic restaurant closes as the Queen raises her head.

2010-09-03T22:12:00.002+01:00

Konstam the pearl of fine cousine on Acton St. Kings Cross has vacated its locality. No reasons other than "we are moving on" has been left. Konstam was increasingly empty during week days so my personal best guess is that they run dry. Those stranded in the area are highly recommended the refurbished Queens Head also on Acton St. The new owners made it a decent modern pub that deserves to be recognised. They are open Monday to Saturday with a list of fine beers and snacks including German and Scottish beers alongside French cheeses and Italian Parma. Table games, a piano and coffee are also available.

Westfields Shopping Centre Possibly Most Vibrant Shopping Experience in Europe

2010-08-29T22:27:00.001+01:00

A while ago I have written about Westfield's Shopping Centre on this blog. My impressions were sceptical, as I thought it to be a gift to the Chelsea and Kensington clique. Certainly the management had targeted the high as well as the upper middle income classes, car owning and spending happy, as its most desired clientèle. After two and a half years of break I revisited the centre yesterday and I was astonished that I found a centre that certainly not owned by that clique. The main users of the centre appeared to be the entire population of the Shepherd Bush surrounding areas. London's diverse populus at its best. Brands and names after all do matter also to people less affluent. When I went to Deichman, a German shoe chain specialising in affordable shoes, there was a queue of 20 people at least, so people do buy also sensibly. Other busy shops included the Apple shop, Topshop and many other familiar global names. Of course one can make an argument of the destruction of local markets, and most certainly against the global chains, but actually we combined Shepherds Bush African market with Westfield's, and without Westfield's we would not have gone to Shepherd Bush market. I can not help but saying that shopping at Westfield's was pleasant due to its ingenious design, but mostly because I saw everyday people there and not just the target elite. There was something of the German and American shopping centre within. On the other hand it is quite obvious that most smaller independent shops would find the rent levels of Westfield's insurmountable. But if it's one of the chain stores you are after, Westfield's beats Oxford Street and Regents Street 100 percent in comfort plus being fully accessible to people with disabilities. The centre's ground staff, part security, part info guides are great. They know the entire building and the location of its shops by heart. There are kids areas, well kept toilets and plenty opportunities to sit down and rest. If there is a blueprint for a shopping centre, this must be a good example, but of course people like me ought to hate shopping centres, the enemy of all that is local and neighbourhood like. But isn't the little shop owner, and especially in London often over-charging. also at times elitist? I will be back at Westfield's I am afraid, because I like convenience and organised shopping and encounter the astonishing diversity of Londoners whilst doing so, and in safety - the later you can not get from ordering online, so in that sense it still brings people together in a public sphere. Oh dear! Where is this going!? I promise I will stop by at Portobello Market to pick up my Organic Vegetarian Take Away on my way to or from Westfield's.

Please support the ban on smoking at Children Playground "Coram Fields"

2010-07-27T10:21:00.005+01:00

Please support the smoking ban petition against smokers on Coram Fields, an area open for the exclusive use of children. Coram Fields attracts also children from the nearby Great Ormonds Street Hospital on short relief visits from medical care there. Would it be right to smoke in a hospital? It is totally unacceptable that adults take liberty to smoke in the presence of a majority of children! Give children a say and rights, and sign this petition! The comments on the petition's web-page speak for themselves!

Link: Ban Smoking throughout Coram Fields Playground

Tags:children rights
smoking and children
Coram Fields
children rights
Camden
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Sag mir wo die Blumen sind? Islington to loose its bloom!

2010-07-26T22:28:00.006+01:00

The London borough of Islington is apparently stopping its blooming project or parts of it, having been runner up winner of several years of urban blooming competitions. Over the last years I have personally witnessed the transformation of Islington and its flowering project, which in its last phase was supported by University of North London in a collaborative task:
Slowly pots were set up on pedestrian path ways, bicycle securing devices with added flower pots, grasses and flowers were planted in places that usually had only trees with dog poo next to them, cases with flowers were hung up on the dividing lines of busy roads like Upper Street, parks were better maintained with insect attracting, and hence bird attracting greenery. New River and other strips of park-land were renovated and beautified. All over sudden you had the feel you were in a well cared for neighbourhood in South of France or Bavaria, but were in central London. To even the surpassing visitor it gave and still gives a feel of comfort, beauty and relaxation. I understand that such planting seems crazy in a day and age when the mad run coalition boys wish to cut budgets left right and centre, squeezing council budgets in real terms. But there is much to be said to council investment beyond the bare essentials of social care. Greening and flowering is social care the indirect way. The better and more relaxed atmosphere contributes to residents' sanity. I have no evidence, though I am sure one can make an argument that it increases residents to engage with each other and the environment outside, lowers depression, and possibly even crime rates. I have even written to Camden my borough, a neighbour of Islington, to copy Islington's example, and yes they too did quite a bit in that sense, for example at Bloomsbury Square and St Georges Gardens, but overall not as much as Islington. Presumably here to flowers are to become overgrown by weeds soon.

I would hate to see the schema scrapped, but it is exactly what the local Islington paper said last week it understood to be happening.(3) It can not be true that with Cameron and Clegg every single progress that was made in urban regeneration is now in retraction. I have seen London and Britain after the onslaught of Thatcher when I moved to the UK at the beginning of the 1990s. There was the supposed glory of the dock-lands versus run down shabby areas everywhere outside of Kensington and Westminster.

To me the threat to the flowering and greening budget of an urban administration like Islington is symbolic of what is to come. Depressed and criminalised neighbourhoods under a cynical CONDEM government, which will do as it pleases.

"Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, wo sind sie geblieben?,"

once sang Marlene Dietrich, in a different context .(1) But whilst we are not talking about men who never returned from the battle fields, here we are talking about the maintenance of standards of decency and urban environmental welfare. It is high tide time to protest the unnecessary strict measures they want to put over us, especially after last week British banks and the city of London emerged as some of the strongest and safest institutions in the European banking forest. Quote Today Radio 4 commentator, had these stats been released prior to the elections, they would have supported Gordon Brown's reading of the economic situation.

In defiance perhaps all of us should plant one flower in our gardens and on our window-boards. How about a red rose, and maybe optionally a prickly cactus. The later to throw on a bypassing Tory or LibDem politician, in the line of another classic German 1930s classic:

"Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus steht draussen am Balkon, ...
Und wenn ein Bösewicht was Ungezognes spricht,
dann hol ich meinen Kaktus und der sticht, sticht, sticht." (2)

Relevant Link: Islington in Bloom

(1) Tell me where the flowers are, where have they all gone?

(2) My little cactus that stands on my blacony... and when a mean person says something naughty, I will get my cactus and it stings, stings stings...."

(3) Islington Gazette: Hanging Baskets srcapped

links correct at time of publishing

Tags:Islington
CONDEM
urban regeneration
flowering
bloom
Islington

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Social Cohesion, Understanding and Community: Islamic Mella Kings Cross vs. Kentish Town Street Festival

2010-07-25T21:14:00.008+01:00

I attended two community street festivals today. One was in Cromer Street London, the other at Busby Place in Kentish Town. Both were supported by Camden Council. However the festivals could not have been more different.

Islamic Mella Cromer Street

.The intentions of the festival are honourable. The Muslim community of Kings Cross created the Mella to demonstrate Islam in the open and in a non-threatening and celebratory and peaceful way. It came to be after tensions in the past, including after the infamous events of a small radicalised minority. For a few years now a Mella, that is an Islamic festival runs in Cromer Street, a council housing surrounded street, that hosts also a community mosque. The Muslim population, mainly of Bangladeshi origin, but also of some Somali community members, accounts for probably between 25-40 percent of all occupants in the area and therefore represents a dominant group at Kings Cross.

About 30 or so stalls were there. They included book-shops, theatre workshops, a Discover Islam Exhibition and food and clothing shops. Present also were missionary groups like Islamic Aid and "charity" groups helping "brothers and sisters in Palestine and Gaza (sic)" (presumably not the Christian Palestinians). Present were however a few radical sections of the Islamic community including Hizb-ut Tahrir distributing leaflets for a caliphate in Europe. The others I don't know enough about such as a group called Dhawa.
The festival, which disallowed music not dedicated to prayers, but amplifying chanting and prayers over the speakers, attracted a large number of Muslims from the surrounding area. There were also a good number of non-Muslims passing through. The atmosphere was generally friendly, but there were visibly a number of younger men dressed in clothing that suggested adherence to very conservative Islam. I have no evidence if they subscribed to militant Islam, although in the case of Hizb-ut Tahrir the point has been made frequently by others (see wiki).
My main charge at the festival is that it disallowed organisation and participation by the many non Muslims in the area. Or at least I can say they were not present amongst the stalls exhibitors.

I would think it more beneficial to either run an all included street party for all citizens including the strong Muslim presence and representation. Or if the way to go is Islamic Mella only, reserve a public space that is not a community street, say Bloomsbury or Russell Square, or like the Camden with Mella, Regents Park. Running it in Cromer street in my honest opinion, creates dissonance, possibly against the organisers good intentions. Non Muslims may feel over-powered and alienated in a street that is just as much their own. Also the organisers must ensure that patronising and segregationist elements like militant Hizb-ut-Tahrir are not invited. Further input from other religious groups could be useful. A or several sessions attended by Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Atheist and Muslim spokespersons in brotherly discussion may be of great interest to many. Camden has an Interfaith Forum and other interfaith groups.
The insular representation of Islam in a road that is everybody's and in the absence of a general street party for all is exactly that: inward looking and overlooking others. The road to understanding and tolerance is a two way street. Non Muslims should take steps to understand Islamic practice in an open and welcoming way but at the same time Muslims ought to take the same steps in meeting the other with the other.

Living in Kings Cross I have some relations with Bangladeshi neighbours (when I say Bangladeshi I include second and third generation members, and I do not exclude their Britishness) . I wished for closer relations in non Mella periods - I mean everyday. The reality is that overall the Muslim / Bangladeshi community lives insular without much or only casual contact to the others living there. One is alluded that somehow the general meeting grounds do not suit the Islamic way. As a father I don't see Bangladeshi community members in the Bloomsbury and Kings Cross play grounds for example, although there are nursery workers who are. However I also witnessed a lot of racist intolerable comments by non Muslim neighbours who spoke to me thinking I was a safe person to express these, being Jewish and "white," and to which I took personal offence.

In conclusion I do not think that the Mella is the way forward to understanding of Muslims unless it is tied in with a general street festival in which non Muslims have an organisational and participatory stake. This will also allow a wider crowd of Non Muslims to experience stalls like Discover Islam, who may not choose to go to an all Islam event.

Still as remarked if the Mella in its current form is to continue, I would advise it to move to a public space that is associated by no specific group of people.

What bothers me also is that the onus seems to be on the Muslim community to be open and inviting. It having been as mentioned often the receivers of racism and likewise white exclusionary racist views and actions, those who hold such views should also be subject to having to do something also to come closer to their objects of despotism. It is not good enough to talk about "them" without serious engagement with the other and self-reflection. Jewish British history teaches that many of the segregated life forms of Jewish life are the result of exclusionary projections by non Jews. An example are the beginnings of Jewish hospitals and schools in the 17th and 18th century which came to exist because Jews were not allowed in the Christian hospitals and schools.

Oh some praise, last but not least about the Islamic Mella. I liked some theatre play that emphasized Islamic scientific and philosophic scholars. Sadly the theatre acts were slightly imprecise (this was however made up by anyone visiting the tent Discover Islam). I understand that this is an important part of the rediscovery of Islam as it was, at the forefront of philosophical and scientific debates and in discourse with the non Islamic world. To those in the known it showed a clear distance to those amongst whom are both ignorant non-Muslims and some groups of fundamentalist Muslims, who believe that Islam is a closed fundamentalist religion. I really liked that, and signified this as superb acknowledgement. As said the playground for such theatre should be in more general arenas, where it can challenge and reach out much further.

Kentish Town Community Festival.

This was a festival owned by all members of the Camden community or communities if you wish, including those of Islamic faith. It was attended by council service stalls (unlike the Mella), community groups of all sorts, a fantastic Punch and Judy show, a yoga group, Reiki, Christian healing, tai chi, hip hop, citizens with mental health issues - you name it. There was rice n' peas, paella, the police, fire-brigade, and St Johns Ambulance. It was the kind of festival familiar to many, but being one on a central London Camden street, it was typical for Camden in its inclusion. It made everyone feel welcome and part of it and visitors could attend different stalls and have many and one conversations. Some space of this festival would have been greatly occupied by a Discover Islam exhibition.

I hope that Kings Cross will be like that one day, inclusive for all, including Cromer Street - Islamic Mella integrated!

Picture: Kentish Town Busby Place Street festival.

Tags:Camden

Publish Post

Cromer Street
Kentish Town
Busby Place
Islamic Mella

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Question of causality, mental capacity, danger and human rights: Raoul Moat

2010-07-10T16:23:00.010+01:00

The causality questions on Raoul Moat are interesting, in terms of his victims and the Prison Authority (PA) concerns before his release. Or take the friend he visited twice and the failure of police to catch Moat on the second appearance. And now on Moat's life final minutes, because we know now that he had been shot at with a taser gun, but was killed by a shot gun, supposedly his own.

Reports say the police taser gun could have easily triggered Moat's own shot gun due to pain or involuntary muscular reactions which is why IPCA is dealing with the case, beside the fact that they always investigate police cases where people die.

This is one of the extreme incidents where questions on the application of human rights (HRs) come up, e.g. to a person at the margins of society, a danger to others and himself.

Would it have contravened Moat's HRs to keep him locked up in the first place, given the PA concerns? The answer here is only with a mental health assessment could they have kept him secure.

Just as difficult is the question of the stand still and the police negotiated surrender attempt. Was there enough danger to officers that justified the taser gun approach, rather than keep waiting and continue the stand off? What was the justification here for its use, had a risk assessment been made or was it an ad hoc decision?

And what was Moats mental capacity in general, given that we know he took steroids, and wrote manic pages in hiding, the dicta-phone recordings as well as his bizarre 999 phone-calls? Were they really dealing with a rational man, or somebody suffering mentally however dangerous (if so explain again his release).

What is the duty of care to an armed dangerous man on the run, or an armed dangerous man with diminished mental capacity, especially if he holds the gun against himself?

And what is the question on Gazza Paul Gascoigne not used for negotiations, here again points on mental health apply, because Gazza has been willing to help (radio statement by him). Surely Gascoigne's offer had been refused because of the mental health problems he suffers, but what if he could have helped given his VIP status?

So here you have it,mental capacity questions and protection of HRs in this arena are most difficult, perhaps the full protection of somebody's human rights in such extreme cases can never be satisfied fully. This is why it is important to have full transparency in the aftermath, in the interest of the innocent victims Raoul Moat shot and disabled and the one he killed, Moat's own basic rights, however limited, and the accountability of professionals now and study of their conduct (to inform others who may find themselves in similar circumstances later).

Tags:
moat

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

All Day Appointments

2010-06-28T10:20:00.001+01:00

Sometimes I wonder if some English firms should exist at all. The main gas contractor of my housing association Circle Anglia has given me an "All Day Gas appointment." I have to be available all day until it pleases them to come. What's wrong with two hour slots. You would expect such appointments in underdeveloped countries where bus and train connections are unreliable and a person can not predict when she or he arrives, but in London?

There is a reason why trains and buses in Germany are in time. People would not accept such inability to organise a day's work!

Prepare for Mass funeral!

2010-06-24T12:19:00.003+01:00

Mass Funeral to save costs -
Members of Lib Dems buried
on the same occasion!

Britain Doomed to Return to a Thatcherlike reality

2010-06-22T16:48:00.008+01:00

Updated corrected version:
So now the cat is out of the sack, a little moderation but overall a hard Tory budget signifying the decrease of the welfare state. Clegg / Cameron Axis has overall failed in favour of Osborn. An unnecessary VAT rise and spending cuts at a speed that most commentator said was unwise and unnecessary. We now have about the same draconian screws on us as the people in Greece. And yet Britain above all is still leading Western World charts in child poverty, lack of cancer survival rates, and discrepancy between poor and well off. The British people may have been upset with some of Labour's policies, but only a few things like the Iraq war are as bad as this. It is time politics in this country is measured on factual information on all levels. People based political votes on complaisance and decisions based on but a moment of thought. Some politicians are leading people and country into just as much ruin as the bankers and the Iraq war did. Liberal Democrats had good people once, now they are but the neo conservative led economic Liberals, that sleep very well with Tories, a point made before by many when the coalition was newly welded. The double dip recession is a real prospect now - and do not second guess who will suffer most - the most disadvantaged. Many will hit the curb in unemployment and we will all see worse services, not does it matter to the Kensington and Chelsea carpets across Britain, who enjoy everything privately from schools to health service.

And for the record, because it is such an overused tired phrase by the right. The current economic short fall was not instigated by Labour because of Labour and what they believe in. It was the result of a world wide crisis that started in the USA.

To a facebook friend I wrote recently:

What's more shocking is the complaisance of the British people when they get pulled into the ditch of political dung. There seems to be little written on this for example amongst my UK facebook friends, although I had two SMS from good friends within two hours of the budget being announced putting forward their disbelieve. This is serious - and it's all for nothing but ideology if one believes many economic commentators who argued that the speed and immensity of cuts are unnecessary. This is a sad country with un-political people who can be driven over like pigeons on the walk way by a few Chelsea tractors and a white lorry. No screams, no shouts no complaints. At best they'll get pissed at the England game tonight - after all the tax rate on cider is not being increased (Osborn).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kings Cross finally Gets Brown Waste Recycling

2010-06-21T20:07:00.002+01:00

This morning after about five years of wait Camden has finally delivered brown boxes for compostable waste to Kings Cross. The boxes have long been in place in the North of Camden, especially the more affluent wards like Hampstead which even witnessed a twice weekly recycling collection, where others in the same borough including Kings Cross had to do with just one. In spite of complaints Lib Dem - Conservative ruled Camden never delivered. The best we got was a loose promise of getting them finally early autumn 2010. Now six weeks into the new Labour ruled administration of Camden the boxes have arrived alongside other bags for paper and garden waste.. It is quite symbolic that it took Labour to be in power again to bring more equality to what Camden households get. For me personally the boxes arrive 20 years late though. When I still lived in Germany in 1991 we already had these boxes for about four years. Still this is a case of late but not too late.

Dangerous car speeding by local King Cross young men

2010-06-19T15:27:00.012+01:00

Corrected version Sunday 20/06:
The last few weeks, possibly by the arrival of the warmer months have seen an increase in car obsessed 20 something year old British Bengoli young men speeding about Harrison Street, Cromer Street and around the Argyle Council Estate and on Grays Inn Road with their tuned up cars.

On two incidences this week cars sped up dangerously near me and my young daughter. Cars went so fast I was unable to take down the number plate details in order to report them. Some of the cars are parked in the same neighbourhood, and streets so it is clear to conclude it is a home grown issue - plus it is a known problem here (I reported about this first in 2007 on this blog).

It is time that these young men understand that we are all one community and that their speeding puts everyone, including themselves at risk and that it is not cool to speed in local streets. But I fear it may take an incident like one of them severely injuring or killing their grand-father or grand mother or little sister or brother until it stops, though hope not.

Camden should make all side roads 20 mile zones including speed reducing measures on the road.
Local police should take a more active interest .

Examples of action could for example also include checking if tuned up cars have road legal upgrades (such as on the exhaust system). Alternatively some interested parties could run a local Institute of Advanced Motorists Initiative.

Police advise anyone who witnesses this speeding to go to their local police station and report this, ideally with car number plate details and in any case also to contact the community policing unit on 020 7974 5195

Finally I like to say that it is rather sad to see that even in the age of petrol spillages in the Atlantic and environmental pollution and our car-traffic over-loaded inner-city roads, young grown men in their 20s still find tuned up petrol driven cars to be the most aspiring of things.

20 point plan that would make Kings Cross better

2010-06-15T22:50:00.011+01:00

Speed Reduction to 20 miles an hour in entire region including TFL Roads
Benches to sit down across the area
Areas in all local parks where dogs can not poo or areas where they can as opposed to the remainder - sport facilities within to be open for longer even when main parks close.
Extreme intervention measures on all attempted drug dealing, with youth caught up in it to engage in constructive community work in the (their) local neighbourhood.
Increased measures to help and work with the people in the three hostels on Kings Cross Rd. including programmes where the residents engage in local area and community improvement programmes and tight monitoring of progress of hostels management (as opposed to only the people whom it houses).
Get the best consultants available in Britain to suggest programmes to overcome barriers between neighbours of Bengali and non-Bengali background so that an organic community can grow between all (note I do not say it is either ones fault, just a fact that communities live side by side without much meaningful interaction).
Take measures to encourage landlords to allow temporary and inventive occupation of empty unused stores rather than these to remain unused and empty.
Encourage landlords to fix all shabby looking fronts, especially in Swinton Street and Kings Cross Road.
Build real cycle paths on Kings Cross Road, Swinton Street, Acton Street and Grays Inn Road
Encourage more greening by adding flower / plant pots using neighbouring Islington as an example.
Educate further and encourage all residents to recycle (currently only about 25% do) and in all main languages of the area. implemented on 21/6/2010
Request that social landlords such as Camden, CHC and Circle Anglia have a walk in care taker office in Kings Cross occupied at least once per week at regular hours, and that these care takers regularly inspect all properties.
Get rid of the BT phone box on Gray's Inn Road (East Side) near Lloyds Bank that blocks the pedestrian path way.
Add external lifts to all social housing buildings with three floors or more via the rear communal garden areas and consider wheel chair accessibility of all areas.
Request that Royal Mail lorries and their trailers entering this inner city area, are the most quiet available on the market today and at any future point.
Continue improved coordination between Islington and Camden regarding Kings Cross Road especially on policing.
Encourage local cafes and restaurants to open for the local community on Saturdays and Sundays, even if it is causing a minor loss, it helps community growth.
Encourage the opening of a fair priced national chain supermarket like the Co-Op in Kings Cross South East Camden, to oppose the continued growth of over-priced convenience stores, or run a copy project of the people's supermarket as seen in Bloomsbury.
Negotiate special deals for residents in the radius of 1 mile or so from St. Pancras Station.
Increase the amount of litter bins.

Tags:Kings Cross Camden This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kings Cross both Camden and Islington side in dire need of resting benches for residents

2010-05-24T09:57:00.004+01:00

During a recent stroll trying to find a place to sit down to read my paper after the hours the parks had closed I was unable to find a single bench on which to sit. I am not clear why there is such clear deficiency in a natural feat of many other urban areas here. Possibly because benches attract sometimes the wrong people, like rough sleepers? The lack of such respite devises that allow for the local enjoyment of areas rather than just creating streets to pass through is inexcusable for a central London area, especially as installation is fairly low cost.

So more benches for residents in and around Kings Cross please Camden and Islington council, possibly of the type depicted as they are not suitable for rough sleeping, and since you install these can we have a few more rubbish bins too?

Tags:Kings Cross

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Election after-thoughts

2010-05-16T19:37:00.002+01:00

I was most disturbed by last weeks events seeing the Lib Dems embracing the Conservatives in Britain. There were times when in the last 10 years the Liberals appeared on my horizon. This in particular when Blair and Brown became too suffocating in their nationalist neo-con Labour moments. Lib Dem candidates had made contact with me on various occasions with me. Some campaigned with me locally on specific issues or contacted me in friendly tones regarding my prominent position with the UK chapter of a Left wing party of Israel. But it was never quite enough to put my back on to my social democratic roots. I am glad it was so. Had I done the act of joining Lib Dem I had thrown up by now like after a meal that turned out to have contained something displeasing. I have always been a man of relative principles, pragmatic yes, but not selling my soul to the devil. The newspapers contain Lib Dem statements about the national importance of this deal, Paddy Ashdown goes as far as blaming Labour for the affair with the Tories. The potential Labour bride was possibly going to run away under a Milliband. Well maybe let's hope the Tories are not giving Lib Dems a political virus that will be hard to cure. Most political commentators admit that next time around, it will be UKIP, Tories and Labour taking advantage of the Lib Dem "betrayal." For Labour of course only as long as it recognises its roots again as a party of social equality, will it be electable in my view. We do need recognition of middle class values too, I agree with the current Labour manifesto here, but not through the privatisation route. Rather this can be achieved through the Scandinavian route. Guaranteed best health care, education and elderly care for all. Children and elderly and disabled friendliness of society as columns of progressive civil society. Good bye to empirical and expensive war alliances unless they are part of NATO on equal shared participation and an emphasis in helping poor societies here and in the South to help themselves.

As to the Millibands, they have been given too much publicity. The media just as during the recent election campaign, should stop betting and give equal credo to all at the start. In that light Jon Cruddas appeared a formidable challenger to the Neo-Con Liberal alliance, more so than David Milliband for sure. Ed for his sake anyway is already limping behind his brother

Let's wait and see. In the interim there is bound to be early morning shouting at the radio when i listen to the Today BBC news programme. I hope that this is the worst, rather than true societal misery. I hear already some worrying observations about cuts that take us right into the middle of the traditional British diseases of not caring for its vulnerable sections...

Composed and sent from mobile device.

Why on earth you should vote for Labour - take it from a German!

2010-05-05T21:50:00.005+01:00

I have had my grievances with Labour, even Gordon, some of the laments are documented within this blog.

Tony Blair was certainly not my most loved politician, in fact it was him who caused me to leave the party in 1993 when the local Pimlico branch would not accept my critique of Blair...

But I have also seen the change and difference Labour made. I came here in 1991 from Germany and the country at the tail end of the Conservative era was rotten to the bone. I could not believe that this was Britain, the country I had struggled so much to study in.

Run down buildings, low level services, long waiting times for shabby GPs in run down practises and much worse in hospitals, bad dentists, disillusioned teenagers, a very clear class divided country, without vision and only a history long gone as anything to go by. Britishness was defined through Englishness, there were IRA bombs and bomb scares on a regular basis, broken outdated slow and unreliable trains and buses and underground systems, pavements were impossible for wheelchair users and the list goes on and on and on... The country in my eyes and those of many other Germans who came here with me was simply 20 year sbehind developments I had seen and lived in in Germany.

I can with great confidence say that the country has changed for the better after years of Labour investment and planning. I can see it when I am walking in streets across Britain. There are new houses, new community centres, Sure Start takes care of the youngest, school education has become a right not a thing people have to do. Poverty has been lowered, hospitals improved and rebuild. Gay and Lesbian couples had the right to civil partnership as well BEM members entering parliament as ministers. No longer are there IRA bomb scares, in fact there is a peace process that ended centuries of feuds. All this is Labour.

I can see and feel that. I don't think Britain is there yet. There is much more social justice to carry out. Social deprivation - decades old, sometimes centuries out has not completely been tackled. There are still pockets in Britain that remain persistent to change (so do some of Britain's aristocratic super rich). We need more disability services, more youth programmes, more access to education and more sharing of resources. We need even more hospital improvements and NHS reformations, even though what we have now is at least making Britain able to stand up as a civilised place.

As on a recent programme on BBC Radio Four a famous psychologist for children put it: To create the best conditions for children we need to adopt the Scandinavian model where everything in society is geared towards helping people to fulfil their best, and families to function best.

I strongly believe that only Labour guarantees not only the survival of what we have now, but an increase in what we ought to have, as much as it will be possible given difficult financial circumstances. So let's walk the extra miles towards that Scandinavian model today!

The Liberal Democrats are a party that has a half that is made up of Social Liberals near to Labour, but it is the other half of Economic Liberals one needs to fear. They believe in free running capitalism without trade barriers as the most desirable aim. Therefore the Lib Dems Will always have a problem in standing for radical social justice reform, even though some measures are worth considering, namely the abolition of council tax and the amnesty on illegal immigrants, stemming from the Social Liberals.

Labour have proven that they can achieve goals and aims, even in difficult times. Even Gordon's opponents concede that his work during the financial crisis was outstanding.

Don't be tempted to play with all our current welfare and fortune. Labour is it, there are no flying pigs, chicken or chocolate cakes about. It is as good as it gets under these circumstances and maybe, just maybe, if you vote for Labour, Britain may even look sweeter...

Take it from a German who is now in Britain for 19 years!

Gordon Brown at citizens UK

2010-05-04T21:19:00.003+01:00

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Chocolate Wonder Land in China is Chocolate Blood Land in Africa!

2010-01-29T11:13:00.005Z

Most reporters, including this one here on the BBC, missed something significant when they reported on Chocolate Wonderland in China, an exhibition opened to water the tastes for chocolate in China. The exhibition, most spoken about because of the recreation of the Great Wall of China in chocolate as well as other items, the exhibition of luxury, fails to address the fact that most chocolate consumed on earth comes from coco farms with exploitative practices - or to put in other words "day time modern slavery. The exhibition thus comes at a time when China's economic dominance of many African countries has taken on unparalleled dimensions. The practise of "chocolate slavery" in Ivory Coast for example, one of the main staple exporting areas in the world, has been repeatedly reported and confirmed by the ILO (see link here). And not a word about what lies behind the "luxury." The Fair Trade Foundation here in the UK (as well as in several European countries) and similar organisations elsewhere have sold for years now fairer chocolate. What we do not need are Chinese businesses side-lining years of moral campaigning. Yes the West started the practices of exploitation, but it is no excuse for China to ride on them unquestioned. A fair trade chocolate wall of china, now that would have been truly something one would be able to confirm as a practise that is in the interest of people and local farmers, an attitude sometimes part of the PRC's self-description.

Links: Chocolate Slavery
A Taste of Slavery
Fairtrade Foundation
Tags:
world chocolate exhibition
chocolate

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Netanyahu a man without shame

2010-01-28T13:21:00.003Z

I found Netanyahu's speech yesterday at Ausschwitz most distasteful, using the place of death of millions to forward his own political ends. From a a Jewish Israeli prime minister this shows lack of any sort of moral or standards. For Peres to stand in the Bundestag and ask for the persecution of the remaining war criminals is also hypo-critical if one takes a long view on history. It was Israel itself that normalised relations and accepted the status quo as well as at the same time many moral standing people believe that Israel subject itself to an independent inquiry over Gaza to answer possible war crimes as alleged by Goldstone. The trial of Dimaniyuk in Munich is so laughable. Not because the man is not guilty, but as an Ukrainian amidst many Germans who remained without penalty their entire lives. It is easy for Germans to go for him, he is a foreigner, not a German...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Dog Walkers & Nannies

2010-01-27T12:25:00.004Z

You may have thought that with the recession dog walkers would disappear. Some have, but many are still walking rich folks' dogs who should never have had a dog in the first place. Here in Central London for some time now I noticed a new trend on a parallel line. Childminders and nannies "walking rich people's children," are filling up services that their bourgeoisie employers would possibly not enter. The free public children drop ins (formerly known as Sure Start) are becoming partially occupied by child minders looking for a cheap way of sitting back whilst the children under their care play under the supervision of the drop ins child workers. In some groups, for example a recent music class, child minders are busily chatting amongst each other, whilst not participating at all, as the parents do in the activity.

There is no lack of private services in Camden & Islington, anything from music classes to baby gyms are available, not to say that there are also private kindergartens and nurseries.

How exactly privately hired child minders going to the local free services and groups fits into the picture I haven't quite figured out yet. Who do you blame, the parents, the child minders, the service providers? It's all a bit strange, especially if you consider that Sure start drop ins were set up to encourage parents from less well off backgrounds some classes each week they could attend. Whilst these days it is used by all parents, whatever social background, one wonders about child minders and nannies using these.

Is this happening in your local area too? What effect does it have?

Tags:
dog walkers
sure start
child minder
Camden
sIslington

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

London Refugee Conference in January run by Jewish left wing movement Meretz UK

2009-12-08T20:32:00.008Z

An interesting event. Seen on the Meretz UK website (www.meretz.org.uk):

"Untermenschen" and "Asylum Seekers:"

Refugees and Economic Migrants. Past and contemporary themes on refugees and migrants, reviewed by experts, time witnesses and campaigners from Britain, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. A one day information conference organised by Meretz UK.

24th January 2010 - Meretz UK - 37a Broadhurst Gardens, NW6 ( 3 min from Finchley Rd Underground Station, and 10 min from Swiss Cottage Station)

Costs: Advance £25 / concessions £15. Donation ticket £65 (£40 will go directly to charities present on the day). On door £30/£20. Donations welcome. Any surplus income will be donated to charities related to the presentations, including Aylum Aid, ARDC, SOS Children Villages, Save Behnam.. For advance bookings please use our website (Read below)!

If any people are experts on being refugees by their experiences throughout human history, the Jewish people would surely make a good candidate. Jewish people with direct refugee experience live still amongst us and can recount their still vivid memories. What the German Nazis labelled to be racial sub-humans "Untermenschen" were to be expelled from the German Reich by force. Today many Jewish people are well settled in relatively safe countries. Our refugee experience obligates us to look around us. What are the realities of refugees today? The last few decades saw a tightening of the EU borders to outsiders, with an increase of desperate people willing to risk all to reach Western shores. Many just want a better chance in life, others are refugees from the war torn battlegrounds that humanity fails to prevent or end. Asylum Laws have tightened in spite of the introduction of the European Human Rights Charter in the U.K. 1000s of people drown every year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, others perish in deserts. Many live phantom existences in European towns, exploited, without medical aid, always on the run. People smuggling has grown into a sophisticated business involving criminal gangs from many corners on earth. In Israel Darfurian Sudanese refugees and other migrants who hoped the Jewish people will understand have made headlines, mostly because of appalling treatment by the state and related authorities. The birth of Israel supposed to end unsafe refugee existence of Jews caused other Jews from Arabic speaking countries to become refugees and the stories of Palestinian refugees goes hand in hand with the establishment of Israel, and remains still unresolved. This is the reason why Meretz UK has decided to dedicate a special day on the issue of refugees and migrants to inform, discuss and encourage to help and take action. We have succeeded to get an excellent line of speakers and what's more money raised through this event will reach refugees in Europe and in the Middle East.

Be there listen, participate, get encouraged, take action!

Start 09.45 0(9.15 Doors Open) end 1900 (aprox.)

Featuring:

David Rosenberg: The 1905 Aliens Act . How it came to be, its impact and why it is important to know about it 110 years on:
Leslie Baruch Brent: Sunday's Child? My life story and how it shaped me.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind 25min documentary, (Harris / Ben Tovim) Narrated by Juliet Stevenson,
Refugee Existence in Gaza. Jayyab Abusafia, a young Palestinian journalism student recounts his years growing up as a Palestinian refugee in Gaza under Israeli occupation.
Nitzan Horowitz current Meretz Israel Member of Knesset (MK), Israeli House of Parliament.
Ben Du Preez (formerly Amnesty International (Refugee Rights) and Sadaka-Reut): Refugees cared for by African Refugee Development Centre (ARDC), Tel Aviv.
Maurice Wren, Director, Asylum Aid. London: Asylum Aid 2010. Contemporary challenges and Successes
Pauline Levis: One person can make a difference. How and why I got involved in running a campaign to safe Behnam
Mimitah Abofando. Professional singer originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More details below

Buy Tickets either via Meretz's online facility at www.meretz.org.uk (follow events and click this event), with a cheque issued to to Meretz UK, 37a Broadhurst Gardens, London NW6 3BN or pay on door. Limited Availability!

- Note Advance Tickets must be purchased by 20th January 2010.

- Limited Availability!

- Email notification!

- We retain the right to cancel your order with a full refund (for example if we are oversubscribed on the event)

- Coffee and tea provided, lunch is not included.

David Rosenberg: is a teacher and writer who also leads guided walks on London's radical history (http://www.eastendwalks.com/). He is on the National Committee of the Jewish Socialists' Group and on the editorial committee of the Jewish Socialist Magazine. During the 1980s he was co-ordinator of the Jewish Cultural and Anti-Racist Project and then worked for the Runnymede Trust - a research and information body dealing with issues of racism and discrimination.

Leslie Baruch Brent's autobiography is called "Sunday's Child? A Memoir." He is University of London Emeritus Professor, and a Kinder-transport refugee, and has been outspoken on a number of civil rights and human rights subjects in the past.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind is a 25 min documentary following three mothers as they struggle to provide a normal life for their children against the shocking reality of being an asylum seeker in the UK. Emily Harris and Yoni Bentovim are an award winning filmmaking duo. They began collaborating whilst studying at the London Film School and have continued to produce successful projects ranging from drama shorts and feature to television documentaries. The film was recently screened at the Human Rights Film Festival.

Jayyab Abusafia is from Jablia Refuge Camp in the north of Gaza Strip, the biggest Refugee Camp in the Occupied Territories. He is studying for a Journalism career here in London.

Nitzan Horowitz current Member of Knesset (MK), Israeli House of Parliament. Nitzan Horowitz was a foreign affairs journalist with Haaretz and Israeli News Channel 10 before becoming a parliamentarian. Since his election in 2009 Nitzan Horowitz has campaigned tirelessly for the human and civil rights f non Jewish immigrants in Israel and of Palestinians inside Israel and those in the Occupied Territories. He shares on of only three Meretz seats and has recently been called Israel's least corrupt politician.

Ben Du Preez (formerly Amnesty International (Refugee Rights) and Sadaka-Reut): Refugees cared for by African Refugee Development Centre (ARDC), Tel Aviv. ARDC was one of the first is today one of the leading organisations to reach out to non Jewish African refugees in Israel. Ben Du-Preez worked alongside ARDC as part of his mission in Israel to check on refugees in prisons. Du-Preez currently took a break from work to study at SOAS.

Maurice Wren, Director, Asylum Aid. London: Asylum Aid 2010. Contemporary challenges and Successes:Asylum Aid is a leading national charity working to secure protection for people seeking refuge in the United Kingdom from persecution and human rights abuses abroad. They provide legal aid, and act as a lobby and support group

Pauline Levis is a single-handed grass-root campaigner for an Iranian Refugee and Asylum Seeker. She is a former chair of Meretz UK by coincidence.

Mimitah Abofando is a professional singer originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She grew up in a refugee family in the UK and has recently won the award of best new talent at the 2nd African Music Award. http://www.mimitah.com/

Tags:
refugees
Meretz UK

Ecoli and Animal Farms for Children

2009-09-22T22:35:00.004+01:00

Yesterday they fenced off the animal area at Coram Fields Children City Farm. It is not affected by the recent outbreak and the measures are a simple precaution. I am not in unison with the national hysteria I am afraid.

The mental benefits to children of all ages through the contact with animals by far exceed the dangers of what I call a hysterical reaction. There is always a possibility for some infections to occur. I realise that parents are not always acting responsibly or sometimes simply don't know basic hygiene measures. This makes this a task of education rather than keeping animals and children away from each other.

I hope that at most the measures are temporary and access will soon be given again, maybe with some improved had washing facilities at hand. How this happened at this point in time is still a mystery to me as the swine flu threat was supposed to educate most of us on how to keep hands clean and carry disenfectants with us, especially if we have kids.

Tags:
Ecoli

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

20 Miles an hour for Kings Cross - Petition!

2009-09-13T00:36:00.003+01:00

New Campaign to reduce speed at Kings Cross to 20 Miles an hour

Read here: 20 Miles for KX

Please sign the petition!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Glorious Britain!?

2009-09-10T19:55:00.012+01:00

Towards the political big talk we may be about to experience before the elections, it is worth considering the state Britain is and what it would mean if services would be cut further: Here some (un)believable facts about the United Kingdom!
2009: UK has smallest new build rooms in new properties in the EU
The Telegraph April 2009: Britain-one-of-the-worst-places-in-Europe-to-grow-up.html
Aug 2009: Britain has worst schools in Europe
June 2009: Britain: Cancer death amongst over 75s worst in Europe
Britain the most violent country in Europe
May 2009: Britain's Teenagers 2nd worst alcoholics in Europe.
Britain has the worst rate of obesity and teenage pregnancy in Europe
Sept. 2009: Britain in European top quartet for for death of heart disease
May 2009: Britain's Teenagers 2nd worst alcoholics in Europe
Britain has the worst rate of obesity and teenage pregnancy in Europe
Sept. 2009: Britain in European top quartet for for death of heart disease
May 2009 Britain worst electronics recycler in Europe
British citizens make for biggest illegal drug user in Europe
2008: UK Diesel most expensive in Europe, altough one of the cheapest before tax
2008: Britons amongst worst in EU in drink driving
2007: Britain worst place in protecting privacy
2007: Britain has worst state pension system in Europe
2007: UK survival rate for cancer lowest in Europe
2007: Britain has the worst stroke care in Europe
2007: Britain's motorways worst in Europe
July 2008: Britain amongst worst in Europe for Quality of Life
2006: Gender pay Gap worst in Europe
2006: Britain's teenagers amongst the worst behaved in Europe
2006: Britain's teenagers amongst the worst behaved in Europe
2005: Britain worst in EU in treating Hepatitis C
2002: Britain's railways worst in Europe
2001: Britain one of the lowest literacy rates in the industrialized world
2000: Britain worst place to bring up ch ildren

Links Compiled by Daniels Counter Blog

Note after posting this message I lost two subscriber readers - I take it the readers went to teh pub to wash down this news with some pints.

Aberysthwyth A Temporary Welsh Mea Shearim

2009-08-17T15:59:00.011+01:00

The remote Mid Wales town of Aberystwyth, more usually a destination of hard core motorbike enthusiasts has since about 5 years grown into a main destination for Jewish Ultra Orthodox families. This summer as several before the city is flocked by several Orthodox groups, although what sparked Aberystwyth's suitability in the eyes of the frume is not known to me, to date.

Related to this I found this entry on abuse of the students in Aberysthwyth
http://thecst.org.uk/blog/?p=397
posted on 13 Aug 2009 and also in Cambrian News http://www.dolgellau-today.co.uk/tn/News.cfm?id=31491&headline=Jew subjected to 'Heil Hitler' chants

My comment regarding this disturbing news:

The story of Orthodox Jews in this small town has benefited from a kind tolerant nature of the people there. My Sierra Leonean West African family members were accepted there, with only isolated trouble. When problems did arise such as a physical attack on my brother in law, it came through weekend Nazi hooligans and BNP trash who came down from England (Shrewsbury) especially to cause havoc to visible others. In the case of my brother in law local towns people came to his aid and retaliated almost instantly and one of the Nazimen was for weeks in hospital for what he had started and had the state prosecution against him. As to the Orthodox Jews who knows? However a programme of encounter between locals and the before never seen large groups of strict religious Jewish men and women and their children may be beneficial for both sides. Not many in Aberysthwyth know much about Jewish people and rituals, and for the Jewish groups encounters could allow the town to remain a long lasting welcoming destination. I would envisage encounter groups between faith communities as well as with ordinary school classes. My vision is that Aberysthwyth will become proud of its selection as a destination for Orthodox (some say Hassidic) Jewish religious faith groups. Maybe we will even see the foundation and errection of a small Jewish synagogue or prayer room in Aberysthwyth.

Flicker Image on Beach: http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkingdoguk/2781656786/
Photo Library Wales Image: http://www.photolibrarywales.com/search/detail.asp?ID=74624

Tags:
British Orthodox Jews
Aberysthwyth

Midlife Crisis the wrong way? Why I cut my dread locks and changed from veganism to vegetarianism

2009-06-30T22:53:00.005+01:00

Saturday a week ago I went to a West End Hairdresser and cut my long dread locks. It was sad but also uplifting. The thinking process around that took months. I was quite happy with my dreads really except the middle front part which seemed to never lock. My dreadlocks to me stood as a symbol to a variety of affinities and life paths. In 1995 I had written my SOAS BA dissertation about Rastafarianism as Political Youth Culture in Freetown, Sierra Leone, for which I carried out on location research by meeting young people in question in Sierra Leone. Further most of my adult life I had spent with African people, thinking about Jews and African people in the diaspora and have a West African life partner. My green believes and veganism likewise were motives, because dread locks were associated with eco warriors, and anarchists.

I loved going to Sylvia (name changed) my hairdresser, specialised in locks until I discovered not so long ago that they did a bad job, after my wife did a great job of twisting and I went for some reorganization after a month and the hair ended up being worse in a day. Like all it became clear that they did not work too well in order to keep their business going. On enquiry I found a skilled hairdresser who would do it properly for 80 quit or once again my wife in a 5 hour retwisting frenzy.

Then the problem of sleeping (locks have to be tied and covered to stay orderly) and hair washing, always a longer more complicated procedure in the light of my young daughter needing to learn how to swim, as well as myself wishing to cycle more which meant in London weather more rain exposure.

So the hair high in maintenance (not the opposite to anyone's mistaken belief) maybe had to go, as we are short of cash and time at the moment, neither do I live in a social commune where others gladly would twist everyone's hair...

Once off I lost perhaps some bona fide on sight credit from young people, some people of African backgrounds and some anarchists, but I gained the other freedoms, and perhaps also a more accepted way within business (in first sight scenarios).

What about the veganism? Let me be clear I resolutely continue to believe that animals are not treated well, do not need to be killed and that all people ought to reduce their intake of animal sourced nutrition or clothing. I remain a vegan to 85% - 90%. But I believe these days that the 100% vegan closes his eyes to 1000s of years of human evolution, from the use of honey and milk to cheese traditions and egg consumption. I do not agree that animals should be killed for their or meat after they have given us some of theirs, neither that they should be mass farmed, caged etc... I will always try to get the best possible option if I have a choice . Most of the time there is no choice 99.9 percent of milk and eggs comes from animals that will be slaughtered. But I believe I also am a human being and social in that sense. It is not right to trash people who have baked a cake for you or to refuse this special cheese (I promised myself not to eat any cheap mass market cheeses as much as I can). I believe that a different way of getting some animal produce and enjoying human traditions is possible. Under no circumstances however do I wish to consume or eat meat. Killing and consumption of killed conscious beings is not something I wish to directly partake in, even though my former vegan friends tell me rightly that by eating cheese or eggs I am supporting the chain. They are correct of course, but I believe neither the vegan society nor the vegetarian society in Britain have considered seriously a third way, the cruelty free farm for life! All animals on it can live, and are treated in a way that is not harmful to them and that respects their full life capacity. Feathers may be taken, eggs, even milk as long as it is not too invasive. I know that vegans believe that even that would go beyond the rule that we should not rule the lives of other freely born creatures. In that respect I agree with one abstention, namely that evolutionarily we are resourceful all eaters (omnivores). A case can be made even for meat as being part of who we are as a creature, though there are strong moral reasons to not to.

With eggs and milk I believe a compromise can be made here that comes true with human nature as well as morality, ideally with animals living out their life span after their productive years and male animals having a likewise right to life. Leather could still be produced but from fallen animals that have died naturally.

My main diet is now still vegan, but the slightly open option gives me the possibility to also eat Quorn products (a main procuder of modern protein rich replacement to meat) the occasional cheese or egg containing product. I can now taste again the traditions of 1000s of cultures, without going as far as meat, but likewise without rejecting them out right. Also the B12 problem is lessened. That was another factor, whilst vegan diets are OK long term, they are difficult to balance out right, and I am more confident now that I can do so. I have repeatedly asked the vegan society to offer us health based cooking courses with practical suggestions, but the best I got was a variety of sometimes rather difficult books. For someone who learns from doing there was little help unless one was willing to pay a very high rate for this help from a Croydon based nutrition specialist.

I still consume lots of soy produce and often eat meals without any animal ingredient. I will ask on airplanes for a vegan meal etc..

I though that it would be important to put these deliberations down, as this is actually a significant change in my life.

I would not be surprised if my vegan or Rastafarian readers would beg me now to change ways. Please do write your pieces I will read them with the respect they deserve. My other friends may congractulate me, you too may of course write in friendship!

Tags:
danielscounter
vegetarian

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

UK assesment 2009

2009-06-29T00:24:00.002+01:00

Before I came to Britain I thought that class was an antiquated gibberish used by socialists attempting to measure the presence with the yard stick of the past. However having lived in the UK for nearly 20 years now, I become to realise that Britain is truly a master of the theory in the presence, regardless of what Margaret Thatcher would have Britons think back in the late 70s, perhaps with well intended efforts. So here you have the social elite in terms of politicians taking liberties on the expenses of the people, and the bankers (yes I know not just a UK issue, but I remember vividly how Brown took exception to defend the city's privileges just a couple of years before the crisis that hit us) taking and taking with but only little reinvestment into the system in which all of us live. When I arrived in Britain some tube trains still had first class sections...

Compare the UK with a Scandinavian country and it becomes remarkably clear what difference it makes if everything in a society is geared towards an improvement of the collective rather than that of the few, and that still within a wider capitalist strada.

Just months ago tamiflu the medication for swine flu was purchasable in UK pharmacies by those who had the necessary cash, in spite of warning's that lay-person misuse of the drug could be just as dangerous (for making viruses drug resistant) and in spite of the NHS. And there are plenty of other stories about what is a partial two tier health system in spite some efforts to rescue it.

There is not a day of my life here where I can not see how developments that ought to be expected in a rich country such as Britain are simply missing. From cycle paths to elderly care it seems in Britain there is simply no vision, apart from an occasional short programme run by a politician or two. Blair did something in order to bring about changes that were implemented in other countries decades earlier, but he was unable to clear up a block of thought that seems ingrained very deeply in the psyche here, so deep that the very same man (Blair) rushed into various war-fares as the co-spearhead (alongside the US) of a number of nations, financed by the people's taxes. The same people that suffer lack of housing, education and health provision had to hear how their country helps building up countries far away, after their British army had bombed a significant amount to ground earlier. Well thank goodness the Gurkha's experienced charitability (not that the leadership felt it necessary from the outset).

Britain's lack of change frustrates me in the imperative. Things are so bad compared to other places around the globe I would love do nothing more than leave its shores, was it not for being tied to a family I married into here. Just have a look at Monocle's top 50 of the most live-able cities around the world, none of them are here in Britain - for good reason. You may get cultural life in London, but you pay with bad infrastructure, killing yourself on a bike or by exposure with London youth. Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol...you name them, there is always a few good things with a dozen of bad things (The statistics in Monocle relate to life quality, in that sense they count health system, safety, cultural life on offer, public transport infrastructure, tolerance and diversity, as well sustainability).

I have no idea how things could improve, but it seems to me that one of the important ingredients would be the humility that the elite here don't know best on most occasions, though there are exceptions. Perhaps these can allow one hope.

What's even stranger is that some things that were good about the UK, like outstanding customer service, it's engineering industry, politeness, are attributes of a distant past, the good old days, the very same days in which racism, colonialism were also ripe.

What is needed most is an in depth education of social thought alongside a real democratic systematic change of organisation. But I won't get my hopes high, not in a year where UKIP and the BNP excelled in elections here.

MP's Expense claims

2009-05-23T21:11:00.002+01:00

The revelations of MPs expense claims, especially of costs to their second homes is the most disgusting feat in Great Britain, and deserves rightly the most in depth persecution. First time buyers like my own family have been put out first through spiralling housing costs and now through near impossible mortgages that don't buy much. One is not surprised anymore, that no political answers for first time buyers came about. I never thought much about class, that is until I learnt more and more about Britain. I hope that this will be the equaliser of democracy that people are hoping for. Westminster, and the old and new political and economic aristocracies are overdue for a reform and revolution.

If you live abroad and missed the lot this BBC summary gives you all you need to know:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7840678.stm

Swine Flu is swine flu even if it is human flu. Abolish all factory Livestock Farming Wirldwide

2009-04-30T03:34:00.004+01:00

There is a political attempt, as witnessed by US President Obama yesterday to take out the swine out of the term swine flu. Even the BBC news program Today discussed it today. The main issue is that swine flu is now an inter human flu, not requiring pigs to be a carrier. It is hence a human flu now. However part of the issue and the BBC acknowledged this too, is that the pig industry is heavily affected (people not buying their produce) and politicians, including in the EU are trying to safe guard it. I find the debates at the moment ridiculous. Sure we need to talk about preventing a spread and saving those affected. But why we are moving into a scenario where we try to no longer talk about its origin and how to prevent other outbreaks is a shear eco-political spinning exercise. In the light of pandemic diseases this is a disgusting dictat. I hope people are not that stupid. Swine fli is swine flu because it came from human contact in industrialized pig farms, as most commentators agree upon.

Anyone who fancies cheap bacon, chicken, lamb, eggs, milk, leather etc... is consuming the system that may cause the death of her most loved child.

We reformed the banks, let's reform food production and our global tastes for high levels of meat, poultry and fish.

Abolish Livestock factory farming now globally. Let us raise the standards on animal keeping and produce to save our loved grand-parents and children, who are most vulnerable to pandemic flu, and ultimately ourselves.

swine flu
vegan
livestock
Meat
G20
vegetarian

Michelle Obama speech at London EGA Girls school: Some girls still wasting outside school?

2009-04-29T12:04:00.006+01:00

It is rather heartbreaking. Who wasn't touched by Michelle Obama's speech at EGA girl's secondary in Islington, London. One of the issues she raised in particular was school attendance. Today I have seen the same group of teenage young women, mainly of East African background, what appeared to be skipping classes in a nearby park. The same I saw in the park before Michelle held her speech. I do suspect they are not attending school unless they always go for a smoke in their break time for 30 minutes or longer... They are from EGA because of their school dress.

If it was skipping, I am deeply saddened by that. it would be proof that a short visit, even by someone as significant as Michelle Obama, can't change the ingrained attitudes of teenagers over night. What is so much more saddening is the background of the six girls in relation to the Obamas.

from Islington, Daniel

Where is the G20 or UN livestock reform?

2009-04-28T20:46:00.008+01:00

Question: What is worse the banks and mortgage lenders who caused the world economic crisis or the livestock producers who give you cheap meat and poultry?

David Kirby on Swine Flu and Industrialized process of pig farming in Mexico
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/swine-flu-outbreak----nat_b_191408.html

Swine-flu linked to Smithfield Factory Farms
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/

Swine flu linked to industrial pig unit
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/04/28/115342/swine-flu-outbreak-linked-to-industrial-pig-unit.html

Is industrial age to blame for swine flu?
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/04/28/115342/swine-flu-outbreak-linked-to-industrial-pig-unit.html

I would rephrase the last headlines above. Not the industrial age or factory farms are to blame, but each one of those amongst us who buy and demand cheap meat on a daily basis. It is a little bit like the banking industry. Bankers backed up irresponsible mortgages, taking fat incomes for themselves, and people took advantage of it, even if they knew they were not good for them. Industrialized size livestock farmers are also fat earners, and they make the world literally fat with them, but as we now know kill beyond the animals they produce, or the heart attacks and cancers caused by excessive meat consumption, they kill by spreading deadly diseases.

As for meat and poultry, as a vegan myself I was attacked countlessly for my choice of dietary lifestyle. Opponents claim, it would be unnatural, and a perversity and "look at the teeth in your mouth, they are designed for animal consumption too." I must say that I do agree that humans throughout evolution did eat other animals. But the perversion is not on my shoulders. I may choose not to consume any animal products at all, and live well to prove that it is possible, but nobody can tell me that it is natural to consume the amount of meat and animal produce of the present day.

At no stage in human history was it possible to breed so many animals so cheaply and at no stage of human evolution did societies expect to have meat in every single meal, and huge quantities of the produce of the animals milk or eggs and at the quantities it is eaten.

It is time for a tough muscle approach in the farming world and a reform of global food supply and habits. Something similar to the G20 talks on banks.

The banks robbed the world of its wealth, some people may die out of starvation because of the imbalances it caused on the global economic stage, but a pandemic of flu as we are now experiencing as a threat is actually worse than the global economic crisis. How many people may perish in that? The only difference is that majority of the world population, except in very poor communities has been supporting the system that caused first the bird flu and now the swine flu, plus BSE, foot and mouth and so many other diseases and other ones in recent history.

As a vegan some people may think I wish to see the demise of the meat and poultry industry. I would be lying if I wouldn't say I am sympathetic to that notion. But I am a realist and pragmatist. I understand that it is impossible to demand this from most people and I understand that part of human cultures in some countries is the way they prepare their meats and how they make cheeses, and work with leather etc, a change if at all here would have to be gradual.
What I am rather talking about is a ban on industrialised farming full stop and a reduction in livestock farming to numbers that are containable, manageable and sustainable on all levels.

Sure all meats are going to be more expensive as a result, we may resort to the days when a chicken was eaten on the weekend, and part of a cow or goat on special days, but it means that it will taste better, be special, and above all that we no longer suffer the degrees of fear of death we had to endure in the past. Only the industrialised livestock farmers may suffer, most farmers will be OK because the value of their animals and their produces will go up. Shoes and leather items will be produced to last longer than just a few months and the industries that repair them will get a lift.

Is this a proposal too radical to ask for in the light of fearing for the life of our children, just because ham and bacon, steak and chicken sandwich are supposedly a given right, perhaps a natural? Isn't it a price too high to pay, even if these produces appear so cheap and are apparently so yummy? How much more yummy if it is eaten on special days only? How much more care would go in its preparation?

The bankers were an easy target to poo upon. After all most of us are not bankers. But to reform the meat and poultry industries, requires everyone to act and agree. I believe that we are not seeing the end of pandemic killer diseases, because it is a step that would not be popular in the eyes of politicians and people alike. But the problems are around every corner. Even bee hives are severely affected by industrialised bee keeping, threatening farming due to insufficient pollination, meaning we may have a shortage of staple grains soon overfishing is already causing severe disruptions to the health of our oceans,...

If you read ecological documents you will be able to continue without end: The water needed for cattle farming, the manure poisoning water supplies, cattle taking away grains or fields where they grow that could feed 1000s of people but maybe 10 cows, cow farts contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer....

All this has been said before and perhaps light heartedly laughed at. But these are real facts, and the dead in Mexico are real people like us, and the pandemic flu outbreak is hanging above us like a sword of Damocles.

How much more does it take to change the supposed most intelligent species on earth to change its course?

Aren't we all eating so we can live? So what the hell is wrong with us, if what we eat is killing us, our children and people far and close?

Who is worse the bankers or the livestock farmers? Which sector ought to be reformed without delay?

P.S. I am aware that traditional methods of animal farming are also factors, for example in the avian flu case, where poultry in South East Asia and China is kept in close affinity to people who own them. I am not excluding such practises from my call for reform, and have written about it elsewhere on the blog.

Tags

swine flu
vegan
livestock
Meat
G20
vegetarian

Swine flu - produced in human industries as a mass product. Global Human Death at Budget prices!

2009-04-25T19:38:00.008+01:00

Pork is one of the main staple meats of Mexico, just as chickens and ducks in China (alongside pigs)...

My comment about this new outbreak is very brief.

East less or no meat and poultry or animal products=>

=> healthier humans + more food (less feed for animals means more for humans)

=> less infections and better life quality (and immunity) of animals still kept => decreased risk of flu spread via the route of domestic animals for slaughter.

Meat and Poultry on our daily dishes, and may I add fish since we are busy overfishing the seas... are not human progress, ...

...but a perversion of the industrialization process (References: see on avian flu 0, 1 ,2, 3, 4 and swine flu ).

I don't demand a world end to meat consumption, just because that's how I am, but I believe it is high tide people appreciate a simple chain.

0. So who is really to blame for Birdflu (The Guardian)
1. Bird Flu Breeding Grounds. Birdflubook.com
2. Fowl Play. The Poultry Industry Role in Bird Flu comminit.com
3. UPC online. Article by MD on the link
4. Report says poultry industry is at the root of flu outbreak (Serendipity)
5. Swine Flu, beyond factory farming: Says industrialized farming increases risks!
6. Swine Flu in China - industrialized process

Wikipedia on Swine Flu:

"People who work with poultry and swine, especially people with intense exposures, are at risk of infection with influenza from these animals if the animals carry a strain that is also able to infect humans. SIV can mutate into a form that allows it to pass from human to human. The strain responsible for the 2009 swine flu outbreak is believed to have undergone such a mutation.^[2]
In humans, the symptoms of swine flu are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general. In most cases, the strain responsible for the 2009 swine flu outbreak causes only mild symptoms."
wikipedia "swine flu"

Related: BBC: how to prevent flu infection on train and public transport
Everything about masks and flu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Ahmadinejad not helping Palestinians to gain peace

2009-04-21T00:33:00.003+01:00

Just a brief note on the Racism Conference, not to remain without an opinion. I do agree with Gideon Levy of Haaretz that Israel has certainly discriminatory practises and that a good number of Jewish Israelis carry racist ideologies. I am appalled by the fact that still there is no prospect for an independent and secure Palestinian state along side Israel, nor for full equality of Palestinians who are residents of Israel. But to have the case made by a holocaust denier and permanent advocate against Israel who is also developing nuclear technologies is more than counter-productive to advance that cause of Palestinians, because it buries Israelis deeper into their trauma psyche that they are in deed under threat from new hostile Jew hating forces. As such it deepens Israelis alienation from its "other", and lessens the chances for the discourse of a settlement. Ahmadinejad mutes Palestinians, by being their non-delegated, non elected and non-Palestinian mouth piece. It also undermines the Jewish progressive left, people like myself, who have not spared a second to speak out against sad spots of Jewish political integrity represented by the ills of new foreign minister of Israel Avigdor Lieberman (infamous for his offensive language on Palestinians)as well as diminishing the potency of those who have highlighted the Palestinian case, but who never like to be in the band of Ahmadinejad on issues like the shoa, or the recognition of hatred and racism against Jews and others. This by someone whose main aim is not to help Palestine, but to help his own popularity, given he has a reselection forthcoming later this year. Much can be said about many places on earth. One should talk about Israel alongside all of these but not in isolation.

Another Complaint on Language to BBC R4

2009-04-13T14:10:00.003+01:00

Here is a copy of my complaint to the BBC R4 today:

"In the quiz a question arose that asked which composer who wrote the following piece had an English mother and an African father, with the answer being Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Even though the BBC is to be congratulated to include this composer, the way this question was put has some colonial remainders in it, by equalling England with all of the continent Africa and not recognizing the huge diversity within and the fact that it has over 50 countries with possibly 1000s of nation internal states that would equalize Britain's internal state England. The correct question would have had to be one of the following 1 - European and an African parent, 2 - British mother and Sierra Leonean father or 3 - English mother and Krio - Sierra Leonean father."

Radio station: Radio 4

Programme name:

Counterpoint

Transmission date:

13 - 04 - 09

Related Link: Counterpoint Radio Four

Tags:
radio Four
BBC
colonial language
Sierra Leone

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

New Westfield Shopping Centre an insult to people affected by economic recession!

2009-03-02T16:03:00.001Z

I was speechless when I went for the first time into London's new Westfield Shopping Centre today This is the newly build gigantic shopping centre between lower economic strata Shepherds Bush and affluent Kensington. Clearly the centre has only one side in mind as its users. The glamour and prices are oppressive and shoppers were scared by seeing me in motorbike outfit and dreadlocks. Whilst the centre is open to all, there are security guards every 50 meters or so to lure London's wealthy customers into a sense of security. There is little to comfort people from the Western Shepherds bush side of the centre. Whilst they can admire the architecture and perhaps will be just about able to afford an over-priced coffee, nothing has been done to democratise the centre in terms of allowing enjoyment in its shopping sense also from customers of lower economic backgrounds. It is true that these will be able to continue to shop in the nearby markets (Shepherds Bush / Portotbello Vegetable market) but to my mind a licence to an Aldi, Lidl or Iceland store would have been quite well placed. Westfield in my opinion is nothing but the antithesis to the creation of democratic urban spaces. It says it is Europe's biggest shopping centre, but only serves some of Europe's citizens. Similar mistakes have been made recently at Brunswick centre, which used to house a local Italian cafe, an Iceland, a budget shoe shop, amongst others and other lower budget amenities that attracted 1000s of poorer residents from the local area. Securing shop space to those that served the community so long would have been only right, but Brunswick Centre almost exclusively houses now those whose world wide brands you can see duplicated elsewhere. Yo Sushi, Waitrose, Gap.... with some survivors like Hare and Trout, the local optician, and a photographer's centre. It is popular still and at least not as claustrophobic as Westfield.

daniel abroad

2009-02-22T10:06:00.001Z

dear readers I am abroad for a week. apologies

Magical Time Wasting Dream & Fairy Tale Adventure Game

2009-02-17T22:04:00.006Z

I only once ever recommended an online game before (The Hilary Clinton Chase) on Daniels Counter.

Anikas Odyssey is an easy to play adventure using Java frames that can be played and admired freely on the internet. The graphics are magical, for which alone the "game" needs attention.

If ever you come across a loose 20 minutes, consider this invitation into a little magical world.

Whilst the game is on line since 2007 and one already awards, it has just been uploaded on miniclip the web's main free game web-page.

http://www.miniclip.com/games/anikas-odyssey/en/

Music and images as well as cut out drawing animations are available on the original website http://www.anikasodyssey.com by the inventors Tricky Sheep
You can even download its soundtrack for Euro 4.99.

Enjoy!

Tags:
Anikas
free games

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Bank executives alleged million fraud in shady property deals

2009-02-16T22:21:00.002Z

Some bank bosses have done shady deals on houses. Properties bought as business properties, were handed down to executive staff who could then buy them on special deal mortgages provided by their own bank.

Some of these properties are now on the open market in a desperate attempt to get rid of such properties. This includes both UK banks and banks from elsewhere.

Thorough enquiries into properties banks owned, especially domestic ones, and who they were sold onto is something governments across the world should proceed to enquire.

It could result in the arrest of more people and yielding of millions over millions in lost revenues.

Genuine Anonymous Source

Tags:
bank
banken
economic crisis
bank bosses
fraud

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Teaching Gaza to Students - Conflict Education Teaching Pack

2009-02-15T23:32:00.000Z

Is the refusal to address political questions in school part of the radicalisation of young people by externals?
If students are not allowed to explore issues such as Palestine / Israel in class, is it a surprise they get the supposed answers from others, some of whom dubiously tainted.

I just read about a fantastic resource allowing teachers to work through the Israeli / Palestinian conflict constructively. It features in The Times (Educational Supplement) http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6007912

According to www.oasisofpeaceuk.og the next workshop runs in London on the 9th of March 2009, with bookings taken on 020-8952 4717

British Jobs, for British Workers? Stop being a silly bulldog!

2009-02-02T13:23:00.006Z

This is just a brief comment on those Nazi strikes here in the UK. As a German national who has made Britain his home for now over 17 years I am appalled by this behaviour and may take a future opportunity to write about this at depth. But is it possible that once again the foreigners and migrants are blamed, like in the 70s? Please with all due respect, sort yourselves out and storm the baksters bastions in Chelsea, Hampstead,the City of London, and North West England bankster ghettos, amongst whom are some mostly British folks. They are to blame for the current crisis alongside those who started the mess your by en large Anglo-Saxon relatives in the banking capitals of the USA.

What a country! You'd be glad to have a resupply of some hardy "Saxons,"like this German shepherd dog, who knows how to deal with snowy winter on your supposedly tropical island.

As for the other migrants, many of these are doing labour that were too dirty, or too low paid for your lifestyles, or they provided simply better quality of work, doing longer hours, getting less drunk, and educate their children better (a hint to the Child Society Report released today).

British Jobs for British workers?
That would mean that Britain would be doomed to remain a stone-age country. Not a bad thing though, doing everything by hand surely will create more jobs, and more environmentally friendly.

British Jobs for British workers?
No curries, no-one to clean the streets, or care for your elderly, forget about having cars (for even the British ones are all owned by foreigners, you would have to do with riding Triumph motorbikes (whose production will limited with only half the work force), no local Chinese take away, and no sex in your brothels cramped with illegal sex slaves, no one to disagree with or hate for them being from elsewhere.
You would just have to start arguing with yourself -

- oh and abandon the monarchy for they too have much foreign blood and in the end ship yourselves back to Germany, the Normandy and Brittany and Sweden, to leave Britain truly to its natural inhabitants - seals and sea-gulls?

Note: Pictures are sourced to their original websites!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Duo of Arab Jewish and Palestinian Israelis in Eurovision 2009

2009-01-31T23:58:00.015Z

The entry for eurovision 2009 of Israel is a double educational trip for those still ignorant about the complexity of Israel, Jews and Palestinians. Israel's chosen candidates are a peace true duo: Achinoam Nini (here Algerian Rai Star Cheb Khaled and here solo) , whose family background is Yemenite - Jewish and Mira Anwar Awad who is Palestinian with Israeli citizenship (in fact her background is one parent Palestinian, the other Bulgarian). Both are highly acclaimed musicians, each in their own right.

If one can call Mira Awad a Palestinian and Arab citizen of Israel, it will be a world premier to both represent the State of Israel, in fact it may be the first Palestinian ever singing at Eurovision.

Both have performed together many times before and are dedicated to use music as an art form for peace. Now some may argue that neither Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, nor Jewish Arabs would exist. In fact 18% of Israeli citizens are non Jews, and of Israel's Jewish populations probably about half descend from a diversity Arab Jewish backgrounds. Further the choice of the duo is remarkable indicating a clear contrast between this choice for Eurovision, and the recent actions of the Israeli government. If for anything their performance represents a hope that is hard to deny a vote.

The choice will be an uncomfortable one for anyone who his hardcore right-wing Jewish, or Palestinian, a stereotype busting education trip for radical lefties in Europe who claim to know facts on Israel and claim it to be solely Jewish and of exclusive European stock at that, and a hope sparkle for peace for the remainder, if they care - now so far for the politics - one actually wonders then what about the music? Let's wait and be surprised.

The 16th of May 2009 is certainly one where Eurovision ought to be watched, not the least for a stunning UK soul number coming up too, performed by Jade Ewen, albeit the number sounds somewhat like a London musical song (in deed it has been composed by Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber known for "Memory" Cats, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"...), and I am not too sure about this frequent Eurolingo-stupid repetition with short sentences of the key slogan My Time. However her vocal skills are exceptional and uncompromisingly one of the best.
Jade Ewen has a father who is blind and partially deaf, and a mother who is blind in one eye and was raised on a social housing council estate, but earned a scholarship to go to stage school.

JADE EWEN
Picture http://www.myspace.com/jadeewenofficial

Tags
eurovision
Israel
Jade Ewen
Israelis with Palestinian Citizenship
Palestinian
Achinoam Nini
Mira Awad

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

To Holocaust Memorial Day

2009-01-27T23:40:00.002Z

My past writings on the topic:

Shoa Survivors

Holocaust

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Henry Siegmans lies by Bob

2009-01-27T21:09:00.004Z

A fantastic rebuttal of a point made by Henry Siegman in the London Review of Books entitled Israel's Lies!

A must read for those who love logic.

http://brockley.blogspot.com/2009/01/henry-siegmans-lies.html

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

DEC not right / BBC correct!

2009-01-27T00:10:00.006Z

Some have asked me for my position on the DEC-BBC debacle.
My position is easy and clear.

I believe that the DEC could have easily avoided the problem, by either from the outset having a different aid reach out plan or to modify it once the problems with the BBC arose.

I believe the need in Gaza is desperate and urgent in deed, but I believe at least a gesture could have been made recognizing two sides of a conflict by offering for example trauma therapy and other needed help to those civilians affected in Israel by rocket fire. Most of these are Jewish, some are Bedouins with Israeli citizenship. Israelis perhaps because of the shoa uphold a national culture that the whole world is against them, and simply doesn't care for its concerns, not to say rockets against its towns. The way the DEC has steered its call for emergency aid has not helped in countering this. Now Israelis will be able to say that a consortium of British emergency organizations have turned away from even the possibility of damage, trauma, and need for medical care in Israel, and that truely once again Israel must act by itself, precisely part of the problem in the last Gaza onslaught.

The net result of such acknowledgement would still be 85% or more of the aid would reaching Gazans, and 15% or less those from the other side of the fence.

Non recognition of pain to ordinary civilians on both sides of a conflict by international agents, by not offering at least nominal or gestural help, is non-constructive, even though it has to be said the greatest burden of victims here is very clearly, I say this again, on the Gazan Palestinian civilian side, afflicted by the armed forces of the State of Israel (yet not the civilian residents of those in towns nearby).

I think the line is a fine line, but still a word or two ought to be spent on devastation on the other side, albeit it may look less severe in the light of the destruction caused in Gaza.

Not doing so may be interpreted as believing that affected Jewish people in Israel do not deserve international aid.

Disaster and Emergency help can not go beyond the point of assessing need. It should not have any business drawing lines between two sides of a conflict or who is more to blame, or who caused what.

As said, I re-state this for clarity, clearly the need is very much more in Gaza - a lot more. But a nominal acknowledgement of suffering in those towns in Israel that rockets were shot at for years and the welfare of the citizens there, actually contributes to a notion that both sides have an interest and right in peace and welfare, and I say that in the knowledge that Israel does in deed have better facilities and access to internal relief, again more than Gazans, but even so they are not so perfect and plentiful as to be able to satisfy crisis demand of services.

I am not saying this for partisan reasons. My position against the war, and my outrage about the effect of the actions of the Israeli armed forces on so many innocent civilians, in particular totally innocent children, has been published within the blog and was particularly directed against the political leadership of the State of Israel.

Independent of that, I also believe that the media must be free to act independently from any agent or interest groups in the way it makes its decisions, however it should state the positions of those and I believe this has been done.

The DEC Gaza Appeal can be viewed here for those who haven't seen it yet.

An account of what life in Sderot was like is given here, however it is part of very pro Israel / anti Hamas you tube streams.

Blogger Bob From Brockley has allocated news items of help and aid across the fence, by Israelis who are also very clear on where the greatest need lies. See links here.

APPEAL OPTIONS - PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN -

DEC GAZA APPEAL

Magen David Adom (Red Diamond - Israeli Red "Cross")

Parents Circle. Palestinian and Israeli Families unite in their grief for lost ones and hopes for a better future

Tags:
DEC
Disaster Emergency Committee
Gaza
BBC

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Wednesday - little update

2009-01-21T22:47:00.005Z

I haven't got much to say today, I am very glad about Obama, and concerned about the continued horrible stories that emerge out of Gaza. For those who have not read it yet, it is time to read my article We-won-war-now-read-the-health-warning_ Especially what I say about cancer. This cancer has been sickening Israelis since the late 1960s, some would argue before that.
Today I heard that during the Gaza incursion allegedly one soldier shot three children with an M16 albeit they came out with a white flag from their house ( Full story here BBC). Is it not strange how Israel pulled out of gaza just in time for Obama. I said [here] on the 27th of December that there could well be more political reasons than self-defence issues only for Israel.

Apart from that I wonder about Britain's recession, because the country would have needed another 10 years of investment to be up to scratch with Northern European standards. The idea that from now on things could be in a time freeze worry me.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Scotsman / Nidal al-Mughrab has good account of war from inside Israel

2009-01-19T20:35:00.001Z

In the article linked below, Nidal al-Mughrabi gives a good account of the war from within Israel.
Especially the supposed impact of the story of Dr Izzeddin Aboul Aish and his three killed daughters is telling. There was little on Israeli over the three weeks on the consequences of the IDF Gaza actions, and non proportional (here the word again) to teh coverage on the impact of rockets on Israelis.
Israeli journalists have to ask themselves serious questions in the aftemath of this war, for in my opinion they were complicit in their governments position.

Read: Article by Nidal al-Mughrab 19th Jan. 09Scotsman - United Kingdom
.

We won the war, now read the health warning!

2009-01-18T16:01:00.006Z

With all my left, peace loving positions, there is a deeper layer of being in me, nurtured on years of war between Israel and its Arab neighbours and the movement for the liberation of the Palestinian people, my fathers Zionism, and the fact that many of my Jewish close relatives live in Israel.

When I saw the images of the cost of war to civilians I think it was more than what they call in Israel "tmunot kashot," difficult pictures. At no moment would I have directed anyone to engage in military actions that take such toll on civilians.

I understand the impasse of the situation for Palestinians in, and to some extend as someone whose own family story entailed oppression (the shoa), feel even closely for Hamas supporters. Not ideologically, or thinking for any second their own violence is doing any good or is permissive. But was I Gazan, I am not too sure I would not have fallen into the trap of the promise of masculinisation and the feeling of uplifting momentary power and hero status, by sending rockets towards those who oppress me. I don't think however I would have ever been willing to commit my life to become a suicide bomber. I am speaking though as who I am, and the philosophies that shaped me and this I do not understand the blinding hatred, and blinding religious indoctrination that pushes somebody to believe those who send him and occasionally her on a suicide mission amongst ordinary people.

But I am not Gazan, as said my youth was shaped by an idea that Israel instead was the victim, and nothing Israel could do would ever be wrong, and always on the basis of self-defence and to establish its right to exist amongst monstrous neighbours that hated Jews so much, they would bomb even Jewish establishments near to where I lived in Europe. Even within this blog, readers can trace bits of that evolution (after all it has articles going back as much as 1996), with my political opinion slowly developing and shifting away from the former Israel is decoratively always defensible in what it does.

Some of those unquestioning pro-Israel heart beats are still alive in me. I caught myself thinking this morning that maybe after all something good could come out of the Gaza onslaught 09. It happened after I listened to an aid worker in Gaza on the news who worked for Islamic Relief on of the biggest charities in Gaza.

Asked whether people would still support Hamas for bringing the Israeli forces into his town, he answered quite diplomatically: "People just wish to get on with life, and don't care about political stances! They wonder about how to care for their children and families." I felt that this was the starting seed of peace. If people would make just getting on with life their principle, as opposed to fighting the Jew, propagating to hating the Jew and spending masses of funds on arming against the Jew, maybe the ideology of “military might Israel” was right? It is the ideology Israel stood upon for years. If you mess with us, you and your people will suffer apocalyptical damage. There is a shocking and suffocating realism in this, and there is a peace by default through it, by forcing the resistance into submission. My old self feels victorious, the spirits of unadulterated Zionism reawakening.

But Hamas and allied militants in Gaza were not the only victims.

Once again I am thinking of all the civilian victims, and also the consequences of trauma to the soldiers who shot the missiles and artillery and bullets that caused the death of civilians. Maybe even the post war conscience of a surviving formerly self assured Hamas leader who may have erected an arms depo next to a school or residential estate. I am trying to say to myself, you know better.

Dialogue is the real guarantee for long lasting peace alongside the need and aspiration of people, militants for war can change into warriors for peace, fields of division, as demonstrated on the lines of the iron curtain, can become peaceful nature reserves. My logical brain cells point at history and state: Daniel look violence always breeds more violence - the courageous who go beyond hate and barriers are the final winners, albeit not without casualties (see M.Ghandi, M.L. King Jr., A. al Sadat, I. Rabin). Demonstrative in the example of Ghandi and Rabin, violence breeds also violence from within, that can have long lasting echoes (for it was a militant Hindu and a militant Jew who were assassins here). The way politicised Palestinians in Gaza sorted out their differences in Gaza two years ago in the coup of Hamas are similarly shock waves of the militarization of their society (you may or may not add Israel into the tsunami chain here, perhaps the initial earthquake, or was that the shoa or the Roman expulsion - where do you start?). Usually intended for the enemy, such waves of militarization and hardening also destroy the capacity to accept differences from within, and hence the problem is solved by the short circuit of the means of violence.

Violence compares to nothing else better than cancer. It spreads beyond recognition, and affects not just the original battle field but an otherwise healthy body. Sometimes, but not always cancer too is the result of violence against the body, for example cigarette smoking in lung cancer or alcohol consumption in renal cancers, or the sun in skin cancers.

Thus for the sake of our own health, all in Israel and Palestine better begin to protect their bodies from the risk factors. This requires to rid oneself from the ideology of hate, and believe in the law of the gun, terror, shocking strategies and damage ultimately in masculinisation of the people and the state.

It is fear that stops people from seeing the beauty of accepting their neighbour, so that our children will make the old borders murky. For Israel and Palestine such days are still long time in coming, but ultimately they will have to reconcile with the fact that they are both here to stay, and that they must grow first into two states and then into a regional symbiosis.

The moment of recognition is not hard for Palestinians in Gaza right now, so deep went their infliction by the means of Israeli violence into their personal lives. For Israel it is much harder. It requires a reckoning with the fact that there is a price to ‘the believe in militaristic security’ To see the suffering on the other side, to trust in peace building, and to trust in trust itself are hard, when confidence in one’s blown up power and strength rules. Why bother looking? But Israelis are depriving themselves not only of peace, but also of the ability to create a society that is worth living for. A society with high ethical standards, excellent child, elderly and disability provisions, and peace and security through trust with the neighbour. These things can not come to be without a decrease in the military budget in favour of social and moral investment.

Israel in its wish to secure itself has lost some of the best Jewish humane values. Exemplified in the figures of Ahad Haam, Martin Buber and others it is a legacy that has been swept under the carpet in Israel, along with Yiddish and the Jewish Ladino language, and in favour of another Jewish version, that of the Maccabean uprising, the Massada sacrifices, and other prophetic divine victories re-told in the Tanah. That Jews in Israel as a society have lost touch with so much of the former is sign of its distancing from Jewish humane morals, and discourse of morals and questioning, established over so many generations. It is almost annihilating its own former existence, I am not the first who says so, in the way education is run, and debates are held.

This can not be right, for what is a Jewish state, if it has lost part of its Jewish soul, the soul that makes Jews worthy inspirational compatriots amongst all others?

My old Zionist feelings still rise up. I am glad the Israeli Defence Forces have shown over the years that Jews can defend themselves, even excel in that task, but I am worried about the state of mind that makes exactly that the mere and only definition or at least the basis of Israel and Jewish Israelis. My Jewish moral heart decries the victims of its actions, the refugees, the expelled, the innocent dead, even the 1000s of killed young men in the enemies armed forces and organizations.

And so goes the health warning applicable equally to Israelis as to Palestinians, as to anyone else: Armed actions, militarization, believe in violence as a legitimate method and the ideology of hate cause serious cancers and other health problems.

Like with a cigarette to a degree you can choose whether to smoke or not to smoke, but hate and militarization can be addictive. Watch out for the smoking gun in the aftermaths of the last declaration of victory. It might be pointing at yourself.

Tags:
gaza
Israel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Colin Schindler Jewish Left Wing Academic from SOAS in UCU Boycott struggle

2009-01-17T23:57:00.001Z

I know Colin Schindler personally, and can confirm that he is dedicated to the left in Israel and the peace movement in Israel. Any actions against him are unfair, unjust and sheer stupid, based solely on the fact that he heads the MA in Israeli Studies, which by the way is always attended by Arab students alongside Jewish students and others.

SOAS has a history of anti Jewish and anti Israeli sentiments beyond any justified limit, it was 13 years ago I was escorted out the back exist of SOAS alongside Hindu and Gay activists after a talk by Hezbollah front men, on invitation by SOAS student union.

Read here for full article by David Hirsch
with thanks to Bob from Brockley for doing
good blog reading.

The Appropriation of the Language of the Israeli Peace camp by the Right Wing Government

2009-01-17T21:17:00.005Z

You heard it again today, in the press release by Ehud Olmert. "We are not your enemy!" or you can hear it in the repeated accounts that state "we want peace." The issue is a funny one, when yo threaten the other side with the barrel of a gun. This language whilst in action being hard core militarized has caused some to believe that Israelis do not really want peace, they talk of it whilst more land is grabbed and military actions continue.

I wonder how many Palestinians tonight think of the current ceasefire announcement cynically, especially of Ehud Olmert's apology for killing innocents. His thanking of world leaders also seems rather pointing, for it seems obvious that the third mistaken shelling of a UN compound and threats of war crime instigations brought the actions to a hold. Further he seemed to suggest that he acted on behalf of Mubarak, hereby appropriating an Arab state to his cause. This is political spin done badly.

The point is that there could have been a third way, as there always is, and direct talks with Hamas were that option. Also as said in Haim Oron's interview below, who is to say that the same results would not have been possible after three days of military incursion - or maybe no incursion at all, and no civilians killed?

Certainly Israel stands not more secure in the world, for the actions have alienated many people anew from Israel and rekindled hatred of Israel that was negotiated down over many years during the Boycott Israel period in the last three years. Such action is not considering the position too of Jews in the diaspora who have become renewed targets.

The appropriation of the language of peace therefore is ingenuous on all accounts, and to say to Palestinians who have lost children sorry, this is Hamas fault is hardly an apology at all.

It is extremely important that all those of the Israeli left, The Israeli Peace movement, anyone Jewish who supports Palestinian independence in Gaza and the West Bank, show the difference between cheap talk and real actions.

Tags:
Israel
Ehud Olmert

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Meretz Haim Oron on Yoman on Thursday

2009-01-17T20:42:00.003Z

Israeli Member of Knesset Haim Oron , of the left wing civil rights and peace party Meretz, was quizzed by the main Israeli TV news programme Yoman. Meretz was the only non Arab party in the parliament that called for an immediate ceasefire in the current crisis. I did not have time to wrote about it then so here a brief recall. Following a hostile question if he was an unrealistic Tel Aviv Coffee House man, Oron stated not at all, but that he was more realistic than the rest of the government. He said that there were many opportunities at the beginning of the war to enforce a ceasefire with the help of France, Arab States, Germany, and the U.S. He said that the failure to do so was devastating. There were further questions as to what his fellow Kibbutzniks thought of his stance. He said that some in the Kibbutz movement were in favour of his views, others weren't. He stated that his and his supporters represented the Humane voice of Israel, and that there were many supporters of his both in Beersheba, Sderot and in Gaza, and that he was supporting such prolonged actions. He said that this was on the basis of Israel's history and that "we have been there before" so why repeat it? The interview finished with personal questions how Oron felt about his sons serving in the IDF. Oron responded that the IDF was a natural part of Israel, and that he spoke with his sons about all, and that their relationship was OK.

Tags:
meretz
Haim Oron
Israel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

My two hours on the peace rally against the Gaza war...

2009-01-17T20:36:00.008Z

After the debates I caused on Liberal Conspiracy, regarding my article about not attending the demonstrations two weeks ago (because it was a pro Hamas demo as opp. to pro peace), I felt convinced it was OK to go today, not the least because of the high toll of innocent bystander victims in the war, and the fact that it seems clear that the IDF is unable to secure precise assaults (as evident in three UN compound shellings). Dressed with a Black and White "Fatah Keffiya" and and Blue and White "Israel Keffiya," I marched down with my own placard. It said:

"Alimut Eino derech Le Shalom
Violence is not the way to Peace
Lahsor le Moral Yehudi Humani"
[meaning: Return to humane Jewish moral(s)]

On the back I also drew an Israeli and Palestinian flag
together and wrote in addition to the same from the front page, 1967 borders now!

Standing near the Jews for Justice and Socialist Jews campaigners, I listened to several speeches and observed the crowd. I was not very impressed to be honest.

By 3.30 pm shortly before I had to leave, I counted at least four yellow Hezbollah flags, several black Islamic Jihad flags, and I could not spot a single peace flag, although there may have been some. There were also two men of the Jewish Orthodox group Neturei Karta, hulled in a Palestinian flag.

Amongst the mas produced banners the best was by the Workers Party (I think these were the communists - not SWP), which stated something along the lines of "free Gaza and West Bank, two states, and workers from both sides unite," which I felt was the closest placard advocating peace, albeit be it from a communist perspective.

There was one other Hebrew banner apart from myself that I spotted, and it spoke about the brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.

Of the many, to my mind bad and inaccurate speeches one of the worst was held by Diane Abbott M.P. of Hackney. I felt that she did a bad job claiming Israel to be a colonial state. She said that anyone who understood British colonial history would know on which side to stand. I think honestly she is confusing the map of her parents' Caribbean with the one of the Middle East, and by that misrepresenting a huge chunk of her Jewish constituency (Stamford Hill has one of the largest concentrations of Orthodox Jews in Europe). Some Jewish settlers have taken on a sort of colonial attitude, but reading the history of the Arab / Jewish wars and Jewish history since the destruction of the 2nd temple, in my opinion the animosities are more comparable with ethnic wars, where several ethnic / religious groups lay the same claims to the same territory from within their own narratives. More like the FYR in that sense. Lindsey German also struck me as being particularly offensive, as she advocated the right of defence, but for Palestinians only. In my opinions the right of defence is one thing, the right to military armed defence another - applicable to both parties. Some speakers called for a boycott of everything Israeli, well that would have then included many of my demonstrating peers in Tel Aviv today. Neither did Baroness Jenny Tonge hit the right tone, as was to be expected. Jews for Justice had a platform, and their spokes person stated that they had 10.000 more supporters joining in the last two weeks and that they were now 100.000 people strong. One person had an interesting placard that read stop the genocide in Gaza and Sri Lanka... On the downside again there were some placards that alluded to Israelis equalling the German Nazis, and misapproriating the word holocaust to Gaza (also observed previously by this blogger). There were also flags of Iraq in between, and other placards condemning the complicity of some Arab leaders. There was one minute silence for dead and wounded in Gaza.

What was missing was a resolute stance against violence, and an acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist, together with a demand of a Palestinian state now, whilst totally rejecting the current IDF action in Gaza and condemning attacks and terror on innocent people in general.

Like I put it on my placard: "Violence is not the way to peace!" But most people as German put it so angrily saw that only one side had a right of self defence, and supposedly whilst armed action on one side was wrong, it was OK on the other. Perhaps I was right after all with some that I said two weeks ago.

See related:

Harry's Place: No Hamas Critique allowed at Sheffield Peace Demo
Flag of Israel burned again on London peace rally 18th Jan 08
Kate Belgrave on Liberal Conspiracy(read comments thread)

Tags:
Stop the war
Gaza
palestine
israel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Discomfort from some Jewish left writers on Gaza protest

2009-01-16T21:15:00.006Z

This was written by a friend of mine, who was particularly angered by a statement of British university staff in the Guardian today, because he is himself a university lecturer.

I was a little surprised by the strength of his response, especially because I know he is an adamant supporter of an independent Palestinian state, alongside Israel for years
http://brockley.blogspot.com/2009/01/pernicious-nonsense.html

However his readying is analytical and de constructive and some of it is quite right altough I wished he would have gone into some more depth.

My idea is that violence is just not the way, so I don't agree with Bob fully, albeit some of his readings are well made and accurate.

Another refusal of those who oppose the war can be read by A.B. Yehoshua a well known Israeli writer, usually associated with the Left. In it Yehoshua makes a compelling argument on comparisons of numbers of death in this and other wars, however I do believe one can state that the end does not justify the means in this case, especially considering reports of Israel having actually broken the ceasefire and rockets not having been shot by Hamas but by other militant groups, at best with silent consent from Hamas. Also questions must be asked regarding the use of phosphorus, and that clearly even the IDF is not 100 percent accurate in attacks. I actually wondered that if teh UN was twoce hit by mistake, how many people's private homes had been hit by accident.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055977.html

Deconstruction however is also happening in other camps, here is the BBC noting that things are far from rosy when it comes to Palestinians and alleged support for Hamas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7833273.stm

Tags:
Gaza
Jewish

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Israeli Soldiers refusing to serve in Gaza

2009-01-13T19:51:00.005Z

Yesh Gvul [www.yeshgvul.org]: The Israeli Movement to refuse obligatory army service in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan.

غزة
עזה
refusniks
deserter
israel
Gaza
IDF
יש גבול

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Israeli Anti -War movie wins Golden Globe

2009-01-12T22:36:00.004Z

Questions are rarely asked in Israel about the impact of war, or rather very delayed. We knew about the impact on soldiers from the 1973 war in the late 80s, so it is no surprise that almost 20 years after the 1982 war in Lebanon, the hosts of the past finally caught up with men now in their 50s.

This is the strength of Waltz with Bashir. It is a film that ought to be forbidden in contemporary right wing Israel, for it shows the full complexity of the impact of war fare, on innocent victims and on the psyche of those in it. The fact that it won the highest nominations in Israel alongside the Golden Globe made me hope before the current war that could transform Israelis, if ever a film could do such a thing. I am not convinced it has, or perhaps it did. Did you realize how Israel has adopted the language of the peace camp whilst still persevering with intense attacks on its neighbours?

One wonders what the impact upon Israeli soldiers will be from the current crisis. Nobody is immune from the ghosts of killing innocent victims, and the scares on Palestinians are going to outlive anyone who currently reads this, with so many traumatized children.

http://waltzwithbashir.com/

Israel
Lebanon
Waltz with Bashir

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Create Peace by becoming Israeli. A combat method for left wing Jews

2009-01-12T20:17:00.007Z

In a disgusting move of racist and dump blind idiotic behaviour, Israel's parliament has today decided to restrain Arab parties from participating in the forth coming Israeli elections. The decision is to be contested in the supreme high court of Israel however.

Israel's parliament has moved closer to become a bundle of racist pariah. It lacks any regard of self reflection and consideration of what it does. A country so self assured it runs with deaf ears into becoming an absolutist racial state.

There is a way to combat this. All of us in the West who so far were Jewish and too left to make the nationalist affirmation towards Israeli citizenship should go and apply for Israeli citizenship today and vote the Jewish racists out of Israel. We can easily tip the balance in the elections.

In the mean time the party Meretz remains the last bastion of civil rights in Israel. Whilst it was late in fully condemning IDF actions it was quick with calling for an instant ceasefire and spoke oyt against the blunder of the the banning of Arab parties.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Demo Assessment by Sunny Hundal

2009-01-06T20:18:00.005Z

On Saturday I wrote what I thought about the demonstrations here in London.
Sunny Hundal the Guardian journalist has given his very interesting account and perceptions of the demonstrations. He said that he may go on the next demo with clarifying posters that state that he is there for peace and not to support one side.

Sunny Hundal: Bringing God to the Protest Won't help the cause!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Sexual Assaults and Bullying in British Schools

2009-01-05T23:59:00.004Z

Panorama, BBC's main news investigative programme revealed shocking figures of sexual bullying in Britain. Is this the result of near free internet and TV access to what used to be over 18 sexual footage on the internet. I mean we had pornographic magazines in the 70s and 80s but getting hold of them was a rarity and for most a one off. Now with sexual awakening of teenagers mostly boys can if they wish freely access images and videos of adult pornography at an age that they are yet too young to understand fully sexual activity, and not to speak to the even more fully available suggestive music videos.

Panorama agrees that this is a problem through web-sites like Beebo, and also from unrestricted available commercial pop and Hip-Hop as well as some programmes on TV. Supposedly the formerly forbidden borders are also lessened even on soaps.

This Panorama programme follows just a month ago after a Hackney school boy gang got convicted of gang raping a girl (News Item), something that the victim reported to have happened to others before (listen to girls shocking statement here).

I believe it is time we all tighten up how information on sexual acts can be accessed and screened, and how sexuality is taught and discussed in school. We almost need to teach children as early as 8 how to censor or place these images, as it is perhaps unavoidable that they will be confronted with it so early on. Further hopefully schools and as Panorama suggests even kindergardens will be more alert, but this news is still heavily disturbing. Given what I hear about the state of children in the UK, I keep believing that I will send my own child to learn the skills of proper physical self-defence and also get proper advise on how to discuss sexuality right from the beginning.

The programme is a must see for all parents:

30 minute documentary on BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gkl8z/Panorama_Kids_Behaving_Badly

Website article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7795000/7795535.stm

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Civilian casualties and update.

2009-01-05T21:48:00.012Z

What ever the cause Israel's strikes or the action of Hamas from within heavy populated areas, the international community better enforce a ceasefire and demilitarized zone now. Below footage is certainly made from a Hamas friendly perspective. The doctors statement that there were only two male fighters amongst the injured is questionable, but I am certain that civilian casualties are high in any case.

Israel, Iran and Hamas ought to be forced to the negotiation table.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7812547.stm

Statistics given by the doctor state that of the killed 75% are not women and children. However 700 children were injured and 101 additional children according to the doctor have died. Further according to the doctor in total approximately 2500 people have been submitted with injuries. The doctor claims that 45% of these were women and children plus civilian men. Supposedly the rest minus an unspecified number of civilian men are fighters and not just two fighters as he initially claims. But if the rest of his figures are correct the large majority of the injured according are civilians.

Mabat Israeli News reports that soldiers are involved in heavy face to face and door to door battles. Israeli journalists on the programme also state they counted 80 lorry loads of food and medical aid to be allowed in at Keren Shalom crossing today (Source Mabat 5/01/09 - 1h:06' - 1h:09'20").

The Czech foreign minister and EU envoy sated apart from his elsewhere published demand for an immediate ceasefire on Israeli TV that whilst he accepted Israel's right of self defence, the EU thought that the aims of Israel to destroy Hamas or stop the rockets attacks could not be achieved through army actions (ibid).

In Israel there appears to be still hopeful enthusiasm to the result of these actions, although they understand that the international pressure is raising. They also mention the expected talks between Hamas and Egypt on the matter. Israeli news also speak of Hezbollah's stance, and Hamas' expectation to Hezbollah to open up a Northern front. Israeli news state that Hezbollah is however concerned about forthcoming elections, and that casual fire is expected by Israel from Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon, in order to possibly provoke a response of Israel into Lebanon. Israeli news mentioned that the world community sees the pictures of child victims, but does not extensively report on the victims in Gaza. Its reportage is unproportionally focused on the grad rocket attacks inflicted by Hamas and the terror they cause, so it is safe to say that at least during the big feature news programmes Israelis are not presented with part of the picture. This however is easily accessible via the internet and international news channels. What the lack of reportage in the Israeli media is possibly doing however is so far reducing the debate on civilian victims that is so high on the agenda elsewhere.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

BBC Account of Hamas

2009-01-04T15:52:00.001Z

Listen to correspondent Paul Martin on this edition of BBC From Our own Correspondents, edited by Alan Johnston. In my opinion it confirms Israel's word of a Hamastan having been nurtured in Gaza.

From Our Own Correspondents: 3rd Jan 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p001w203/From_Our_Own_Correspondent_03_01_2009/

Why I won't march in London against Israel's bombing, against which I am opposed.

2009-01-03T16:32:00.032Z

Sticker:
No invasion of Gaza!

" London: Police have dispersed crowds of demonstrators who gathered near the Israeli embassy in London, following a day of protests across the UK. Up to 5,000 protesters were involved in a stand-off with police in Kensington while some burned Israeli flags and threw missiles at officers.Scotland Yard said several people had been arrested.Earlier, thousands of people marched through central London and other cities in protest at Israeli attacks on Gaza. "
See picture by P.A. photographer of London demonstraters burning the flag of Israel here

BBC NEWS 3rd Jan 2009

I would like to march against Israel, really. I don't think that bombing campaigns like the one we currently see are the answer at all. I am appalled by its dead, especially the innocent victims within it.

I am a member of the Left Jewish bundle, and was a long standing supporter of parties such as left wing Israeli Peace party Meretz and organisations like the shared Arab / Jewish village Wahat al Salam ~ Neve Shalom. I have Palestinian and Israeli friends and they expect me to march.

However I will not march in London against the war today. The reason is that in spite of my opposition, I feel highly uncomfortable amongst the demonstrating crowd, for it appears somewhat suspect to me. The burning of the Israeli flag as quoted above at the end of the London demonstration and the atmosphere of unidirectional violence are just confirming this.

Was I in Tel Aviv, I would instantly join in, but here in Europe other factors are preventing me to go.

The problem is that I don't understand what mobilizes people to march especially and every time it involves the Israeli / Palestinian problem and how the damage and terror imposed onto my Jewish friends in Israel is belittled and marginalised.

There is of course a difference if somebody is terrorised and another is killed, if one side has a hand full of dead and the other 100s, but there seems to be something in the opinion out there that suggests that Hamas somehow was right sending rockets on an almost constant basis (except the fragile ceasefire of a few months before the recent war eruption) onto Israeli towns across the border. Supposedly it is OK because Israel was and still is an occupying or controlling force.

I agree the coup against Hamas, who were and factually still are the democratic elected representatives of the Palestinian people is wrong. But two wrongs don't make a right - an anti war demonstration necessitates speaking out against both parties at war, even be it more firmly against Israel as its armed forces power is more devastating.

Only yesterday I listened to the speech by a senior Hamas leader broadcasting from Gaza (I saw it on Yoman News Magazine 2nd. Jan 08 which showed it in its original Arabic recording) . According to this senior figure, the current war supposedly is and I quote "against the sons of apes and pigs" a much misused extract from the Quoran from an episode when Jewish people at the time of Muhammad refused to convert to Islam and ridiculed the prophet - angering him. What about the other sura that states that if one party offers peace you should not refuse, and in that way the prime minister of Israel did state he wanted to offer peace if the rocket shooting stopped? And the ones that speak at length about the Jews as people of the book?

I have to say that official Israel during this campaign has not made such generalized remarks about Arabs or Palestinians. A very clear address is given for its campaign, however it nevertheless hits civilians including defenceless children.

So if we demonstrate for peace, we must address the Hamas militant ideology and their deadly rockets, home made or not as well. Not just little home made rockets as Alexei Sayle remarked on BBC News 24 ( who described himself as a Jew who would not sanction the war). Home made they may be, but they can be deadly and their new generation are filled with grade rated explosives and spiked up with nails etc just to make sure they will injure or kill.

Further not choosing between Palestinians, regarding Hamas supporters alike all other Palestinians is a terrible insult to many Palestinians. It disregards efforts of 1000s of courageous violence rejecting Palestinians (MEND, Political arm of Fatah, Palestinian members of Combatants for Peace and Women in Black to name a few). Hamas as an Islamist movement by definition also is not the representative of the many Christian Palestinians, a point often forgotten, as many assume that Arab equals Muslim.

What is it about Israel's war deeds that gets people going, beyond the obvious that mobilizes me too?

Let me be clear, the current war aggression is caused through an impatient Israeli response to a renewed campaign of Hamas rockets. Certainly there were also attacks by the IDF before. Israel did not just watch for eight years as some Israeli spokes person reports claim, there were air bombardments, sanctions and victims before. Just remember that actions by the IDF in Gaza were used as causus bellum by Hezbollah, a few years ago. Whilst the Israeli response in Gaza was restrained in force (by which I mean by not being of the type we see at the moment), the economic sanctions hit all in Gaza, not just HAMAS, what some Palestinians called "collective punishment in the biggest prison on earth."

Last week the IDF began an intensive air-strike campaign against what they say are Hamas targets in Gaza. This bombardment, just as the Hamas rockets on Israel, is wrong and devastating in its effect. For the Israeli armed forces in spite of assurances of, I quote - that they would "surgically" remove Hamas, meaning Hamas functionaries and not the Palestinian people as a whole (Mark Regev - spokes person of Olmert on a BBC World Service phone in programme on Wednesday). That too is a wrong promise. Recent campaigns in other wars and in deed in this one have shown that there are always strayed missiles and innocent victims. Nobody can remove ideas or those who hold them surgically. Egypt has tried this for dozen of years, there the fundamentalist Islamic Brother Hood Movement, an ally of Hamas gets supressed, but it is very much alive under the surface and a constant threat to the current regime.

And so about a a quarter or a third of the victims in Gaza are innocent bystanders, and not Hamas people. Opinions can only be challenged in the forum of discussion and through the example of friendship, reconciliation and forgiveness.

People have the potential to change their minds, to even stop all hostilities and decided to the contrary, that living with the former enemy is possible. Pax Americana is not an end to conflict and dissent, even if Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia like it so.

All this said and more, should be enough reason to get me going to a demonstration here in London, but I still won't. The thought of uniting with those who are not only against the bombings, but also with those who hate the idea of Israel, in spite of legitimate and historical reasons for it to exist is not pleasant to me. True the way Israel came to exist lacked full justice and consideration of those who lived there at the time, and was also brutal. But likewise there was reactive sometimes annihilation intended aggression against Israel (1948, 67, 73).

Why do people in similar numbers not demonstrate also to safe lives in Darfour, or to stop Turkish aggression against the Kurds, or to speak out against the war of Russia in South Ostenia, or in Chechnya, Mugabe's constant killing of opposition party Zimbabweans, the war in Somalia, and the war aggressions of Ethiopia, and so many other places that our horrid human race created on earth. Yes demonstrate against Israeli aggression, by all means, but why make it the one issue known in their political outlook? Can they be more engaged and more geo-political? What sort of peace movement is it that only is activated when something regards the Middle East and especially Israel?

So here I pledge (once again) my stances:

I am opposing this war and believe the entire area must begin to reconcile (including Fatah and Hamas, Egypt and Syria). I believe that the U.S. is just as guilty as Iran in propping up conflict in the region.

I believe the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza ought to end, all Jewish settlement in these areas should either be dismantled, or "traded" to be kept in exchange for concessions to Palestinians (elements of Right of Palestinian Return for example). The time for this is yesterday!

I believe that neither a Jew-free-Palestine nor Arab-free-Israel is right, but that both should be diverse. A peace settlement must include consideration also of Arab peace with Jews in general, which must take account of the voids of former Jewish populated Arab speaking lands.

I believe that Islamism can inform politics but at the same time must come to terms with others in the region, be they Jews, Christians or people of other faiths. I believe the same is true for Jewish or Christian fundamentalism. That coming to terms with, means but one thing, accepting the others, and ceasing to fight them but using their supposedly God given brain and intellect to find compromises that achieve world peace.

I believe that it is right and proper for the Israeli state to exist, based on ethnic, religious, historical and cultural rights, and that likewise Palestinians have a legal claim to the same land, which means that it is important to promote compromise.

I believe that it is overdue time for the state of Palestine to come into existence - alongside Israel.

Because many demonstrators will not accept Israel's right to be (but perhaps just as much as Israel seems to not allow Palestine to be), I feel that I can today not join the demonstration in London today, even though I would attend one in Israel. As one of my Israeli friends put it who read an earlier drafty of this article put it, "I also wanted to go to the demo, but I sort of knew it would be a march for Israel bashing Hamas rather than for peace."

I am likewise appalled by the self centred view of Israelis that see the Qassam rockets only and not what they did to Palestinians over many years and also now. This is symbolized by the hysterical obsession with Gilad Shalit, that fails to compare with the 100s and 1000s of arrests, torture and illegal incarcerations that Israel committed. It saddens me that only about 20 percent in Israel were calling for an immediate ceasefire a couple of days ago (Haaretz Poll).

In this sense I would like to hear from other Jewish people who feel affiliated and loyal to the left and peace, but who likewise felt that they could not join the British general anti-war demo bandwagon, unwilling to be company to "We are all Hezbollah Galloway" and Ken Livingstone amongst others. Perhaps we should organise our own demonstration. We'd first go to the Israeli Embassy and then to the Iranian.

Related to this: Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz: Right and Left, Diaspora Jews more critical of Israel than ever:

Extract: "[As a Jew in working in a Jewish NGO...] I just couldn't understand how the other people in the office were just incapable of acknowledging there was any real suffering on the Palestinian side, and that Israel has a significant portion of the responsibility for that," said to me a friend working in one of those organizations in London. "I feel so alone because no one seems to understand how torn I feel about this. I understand Israel's position very well and to a degree identify with the reasons for launching the operation, but why are none of them saddened by children dying? They don't even seem to see these reports."

Also read: Maya Talk on the Gaza War Fighting Violence with more violence
Sunny Hundal: Bringing God to the Protest won't help the cause

Gush Shalom Sticker: Speak with Hamas. Peace is made between Enemies!

Tags:
עזה
British Peace Movement
Stop The War Coalition
غزة
Gaza

Some other points about the hamas war

2008-12-29T11:50:00.002Z

Two days ago I wrote an article not in my name, regarding the latest Gaza air raids. I am still opposed to it.

It is however worth considering a few points that stand out even if one is in general opposing the idf actions in Gaza.

1. The Israeli government did offer renewing the cease-fire that ended a short while ago.
2. Olmert did make a speech on Arab tv to stop rocket attacks or else.
3. Currently Israeli statements refer to a war against Hamas and terrorist infrastructure to end the rocket attacks on its civilian population, this means their language addresses specific people within Gaza. Many statements made by Hamas and those who support them at the moment (Hizbollah and Iran) refer to counter attacks against all Jews (supposedly as quoted yesterday once again the sons of pigs and monkeys) and all Zionists. I personally feel that the generality of claiming all Jews / Zionists as enemy is very unsettling and an attack on myself, Jewish, progressive Zionist and pro Palestinian and pro peace.4. Whether by design as guerrilla war strategy or by default as being based in a dense city, the fact is that Hamas is using residents and their homes as shields.

5,) Israel did withdraw its settlements from Gaza in 2005, but likewise it did control Gaza with economic sanctions, what Palestinians call the biggest prison on the world.

In the end there will have to be peace. The incursions are considered the largest since 1967, yet in 67 Israel was threatened by Jordan, Syria and Egypt with extra forces from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunesia, Morocco and Algeria. How much threat really is posed by rockets. Surely life became impossible for many residents is Sderot and other nearby towns, at times fatal, but it was never more than a serious threat on the state as a whole.

Hamas remains the winner of the last elections and this is worth remembering. The west remains stuck in hypocrisy when discussing democracy in the middle east and enforcing its will if the wrong party in its opinion is elected by the people.

I personally never liked the one sided negotiations of Fatah with Israel. Peace can only be possible with a government or representative that speaks for all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel brazing itself for possible Lebanon opening of war after Gaza weekend

2008-12-29T00:31:00.006Z

According to Mabat Israel's main news programme, the country is preparing for possible attacks from Hizbollah in Lebanon as well as possible attacks from within the West Bank. Palestinians in East Jerusalem have participated in a partial strike today. Some of the Israeli generals interviewed claim the war could be lengthy. Full footage was also shown of statements by Nasrallah the leader of Hizbollah and fiery speeches of his and Iran speaking out against Egypt.

Israel justifies as a finish for Hamas on the grounds of the rocket attacks carried out by Hamas. Mabat also showed a short featured of the media war. Arab speaking spokes person, including Minister Dichter issued repeated statements and interviews to the Arab press explaining their point of view.

Meanwhile the Israeli party Meretz issued a statement on their web site calling for an immediate halt of fire, and direct talks with Hamas.

Gaza

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Not in our Name! Assault on Gaza December 2008

2008-12-27T21:21:00.008Z

Attacks on Gaza December 27, 2008

Any talk by the Israeli leadership that they did what was necessary is simply suspect. This is an election year and the last three weeks of George Bush in power. Anyone who believes that the attack is not connected to the above is in my opinion misunderstanding the political games of the region. The right wing leaders of Kadima, Zippy Livini, and corrupt Ehud Olmert, and their so called Labour hand monger Ehud Barak, gorilla defence minister, know very well that an assault like that would not be accepted by the forthcoming democratic leadership of the USA.

It is true that Hamas was hesitant to reseal the ceasefire agreement with Israel, but the assault as seen is out of proportion. Of course the response will be more more bloodshed in Israel through suicide bombers and an increase of hatred of Jews in the Arab world. This is not worth a price paying.

I hope this action will backfire with a large win for Israel's only true progressive party, Meretz. Why not? A turn out of 20 percent for Meretz will change the political landscape for decades to come.

I am sorry for all innocent people who died today. May their deaths be a warning to especially those of us who are progressive liberal Jews, that we must try harder to speak out against the afflictions of the right wing Israeli leadership.

עזה
غزة
Gaza

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

A better toilet seat...

2008-12-16T22:21:00.005Z

I almost despaired. We honestly believed that we had some funky sitting style on our toilet. Our seats broke at various places over the last 8 years or so. And then I discovered that others, I knew had similar problems. Had going to the toilet gotten all over sudden more difficult for people? Something to do with the recession perhaps? Well almost, for it's got something to do with world economy and the import of toilet seats out of the peoples republic of China. They' re sold everywhere from Argos to BQ, Homebase, Leyland, and other hardware shops.

Only three months ago did I buy yet another seat after the previous one had faulted in the joint (where it broke). That one I bought from a builders shop and it promised to last long, and had no fancy pansy design attached, still three months later, it also broke at the joint.

I finally decided to do some proper research into toilet seats and discovered that for around £40 or just under 30 on Ebay one can buy a British made seat that has a life long warranty, in other words you probably stop going to the toilet before that seat brakes. The manufacturer is called Roper Rhodes www.roperrhodes.co.uk and what you want is their MDF range.

We have one now and it is as solid is it is supposed to be.

It is scandalous that products continue to be produced and promoted that simply don't last. If you also have been betrayed by the promise of beautiful toilet seats in the last years, take the step to do your research first. You can no longer trust that what they sell you is in deed what is good quality. Use the internet and check and make clever buying choices on this and other products. We should no longer support the throw away goods industry and neither be misled by it, not even when resting on the bathroom throne!

throw away goods
toilet seat

toilet seat

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

New links

2008-11-30T02:03:00.001Z

Just a quick note that new links have been added in all categories on the right, and the documentary section has been enriched. Just press reload to get the next set of videos on the "Volksfernsehen."

The sad truth about Nazis and lack of education

2008-11-21T21:56:00.009Z

Above: Somewhere in Europe

Meanwhile recently in Hebron.
Picture credit from Haaretz: Direct Link

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Publish Post

End to cheap plastic road barriers. EDF introduces proper metal - continental style. in Britain.

2008-11-15T21:20:00.000Z

Bad Design! Plastic type street barriers!

Years of badly designed plastic road barriers, put up by street mechanics and road builders are beginning to find an end. EDF (Électricité de France) has decided to replace the polythene plastic barriers it had inherrited from its predecessors. I personally hated these polythese plastic barriers, for they always fell over, especially in windy conditions, and lay ugly over the street, causing often enough more of an obstacle than any help. When they were fallen down it looked very untidy.

EDF's "new" barriers (for actually they are the old tested design) are more like a metal gate. Proper robust metal barriers that are screw fastened and solidly surround the area where works are carried out. Such barriers are part and parcel of street building in France (hence it was EDF who brought them here), Germany and other European countries. In fact they used to have them here many decades ago, but for some reason or other, probably to save a buck or two, Britain was plastered with annoying plastic barriers. The metal gates must be a great relief to those vulnerable on our roads, like those who are visually impaired or partially sighted. Metal is also far more recyclable than the previous plastic material.

Relief, proper barriers to prevent accidents are back
on the streets in Britain!

Tags:
Électricité de France , EDF ; street scape , London
street environment , street barriers , visually impaired people

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kings Cross Postings

2008-11-15T21:18:00.006Z

Those of you who missed my Kings Cross postings, they have not ceased:
I have posted some on a friendly local site called Kings Cross Local Environment:

[tagname]

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Baby P the state of Britain today?

2008-11-12T14:03:00.010Z

Worried about a child?
Call the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.

blood stained clothing of Baby P

Baby P is was a young baby that had died horribly in the care of his mum and second boy-friend in Haringey of sever injuries to her body and her spine sustained over at least 12 months of his 17 month old short life.

Baby P tells us much about some sub groups in the UK. It makes us remember another case only tried about three weeks ago where James Howson deliberately broke the back of his baby into two.

Baby P's mother grew up in Islington in a family of alcoholism in Islington. There are various estates in Islington that fit the bill for such households, be they the notorious Packington estate, Barnsbury Estate or areas nearer to Holloway. After she got into care she managed to achieve a GSCE but then moved in with Baby P's father at the age of 16. At the age of 24 she fell pregnant with Baby P at a time the relationship had already become severed. She lived in Haringey at the time. She associated herself with a new man who is said to be the main abuser. Baby P had broken rips, bruises and a broken spine when he was found half death by the ambulance services

His mother over a period of one year had played games with social services in an apparent charade to hide the truth about her new boy-friend, apparently because she feared her social welfare benefits would be cut. One of the facts kept away from the police and the social workers was that her new boy friend stayed with her, as well another lodger James Owen, towards the end of baby P's life who was hiding from the law due to an affair with an under aged 15 year old girl. Baby P's mother new boyfriend in question is said to have been a submissive and quiet sympathizer of Neonazism with a tendency to sadistic acts. It is reported that he tortured pets and frogs in child hood and he owned knives and swastika signed items. This in Haringey arguably Europe's most diverse borough.

Amongst the convicted yesterday was the aforementioned lodger James Owen because he had failed to alert the authorities to do something about Baby P, nor had he made attempts to rescue him from his assailant, in spite of the fact that Owen was the dominant person in the house.

But severe questions are directed against a number of professional services.
The case happened in Haringey the same borough where Victoria Climbie died in 2000 with 128 injuries inflicted on her body. Lord Lamming who let the enquiry into Climbie's death said Baby P's death was worse because it happened after the shake up of Haringey Social Services, and Baby P was in fact seen 60 times until she finally died.

Amongst others a paediatrician Dr. Sabah al-Zayett failed to spot Baby P's life threatening spinal injury and two broken ribs two days before his death. The suspended doctor is currently appealing against his suspension claiming Baby P looked like any other child with the flu.

Social services had been indecisive about whether it had enough evidence, with some reports recommending removal others allowing the baby's return, fooled amongst others by the baby's mum supposed cooperation in parenting training and medical examinations (for which she always had an excuse).

So once again a significant failure of available services to deal with the likes of Baby P's mum, and the case of Baby P in general.

I think that accountability is a big issue in Britain, with many officials not being accountable enough, or rushing examinations due to pressure from their work load. If one takes a longer view, the case reveals a systematic failure that starts with the birth of Baby P's mother, father and her boy-friend, and consistent non involvement or at least effective involvement by social care professions/als in their lives.

It fits into the knowledge schema we have of social deprivation in the UK, mismanagement of tax funds (including into fighting wars abroad rather than wars at home - against poverty and lack of education).

Haringey is a borough that is more concerned in putting up metered parking in residential areas than in providing good care for its citizens, supposedly. Many of its streets are run down, mismanaged, and seeminglu falling apart, with only Wood Green centre and the area next to Hampstead Heath worth the mentioning.

Britain as a whole is culturally deficient in its care for the other, resolutely on most levels, with exception of course. A land of young people with hoodies over their head, radicalised young Muslims, and abusive under classes, with a care system that is unfair, uncaring, over-worked, and under funded. It's not everywhere like that of course, go to South Kensington and Chelsea where state services like schools and hospitals are attended by the cities banking millionaires, and social welfare receivers pushed out of area.

Gordon Brown has claimed to act immediately today in parliament, but one wonders why such urgency has not been taken when the Victoria Climbie inquiry was released.

A close friend of mine who is a social worker and who was called upon after the tragedy of Climbie to work in Haringey to sort things out, gave up on the borough after its social service management lost her application form twice, and she did not hear from them after the third reminder (when they promised they would get back to her). According to her: "if they can't even keep track of willing and possible new staff's application forms after Climbie, I can only wonder how it would be like to work there."

I shall spend a minute silence for Baby P, and then continue my active citizenship practice I learned in post war Germany...

More info:
Full Story
Debate between Camron and Brown

NSPCC

Worried about a child?
Call the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.

Baby P
child abuse
Haringey

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Farwell Miriam Makeba

2008-11-10T19:28:00.002Z

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.