Mick Hartley

Rethinking Afghanistan

As we in the UK are forced to acknowledge, we can't blame the disgrace of the withdrawal from Afghanistan solely on the Americans. Of course once Biden announced that the US was pulling out, we had no choice but to do the same. As we learned yesterday, though, the response of the Foreign Office was a sorry tale of incompetence and complete lack of concern for those Afghanis we were leaving behind to face the revenge of the Taliban.

[W]ritten evidence presented to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee shows up the extent of the institutional decay of the British state. The effort involved few officials with any knowledge of Afghanistan and exposed a workshy culture within the civil service where the work-life balance of staff was allowed to rule over the interests of people caught up in a looming emergency. As the 31 August deadline approached staff were discouraged from working more than eight hours a shift – apparently on the basis that it could ‘pressure’ other employees to do overtime, too. Many staff were still refusing to come into the office, long after all had had the chance to be vaccinated and Covid restrictions had been lifted.

On top of that, the Foreign Office Permanent Secretary Sir Philip Barton couldn't even be bothered to return from his holiday for 11 days after the fall of Kabul. 

But, as Tzvi Fleischer points out in Fathom, what's remarkable about the twenty years we were in Afghanistan is how an almost universal acknowledgement across the political spectrum that the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 was necessary in the wake of 9/11 and in the light of the threat of further Islamist-inspired atrocities, by 2021 had turned into an almost universal acknowledgement that it had all been a ghastly mistake, and we should pull out as soon as possible. Have we forgotten why we went there in the first place? Yes, the actual incidents of Islamist terror have never reached the scale that many feared, but the threat is still there - and the botched Afghan withdrawal makes it worse.

So what explains today’s reversal of opinion about the war? War weariness, certainly. The rise of populist political movements – both from the left and right – accompanied by calls to keep and spend money in the US, are also part of the story, as is the spillover from the intense controversy over the war in Iraq – the justification for which was less clearly linked to the strategic implications of 11 September.

But much of the reversal is the result of a systematic misremembering on our part: we misremember why we went in, and what we did when we were there, and we forget there was no viable alternative. In recent years a key part of our misremembering – particularly in broadsheet newspapers and think tanks – has been the claim that the intervention in Afghanistan was prompted by a hubristic belief in ‘nation building’ that was always doomed to fail. To give just a couple of typical examples, the Washington Post quoted the opinion of retired US officer Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey that the core problem of the Afghanistan war was that ‘we believed that we could shape the world in our image using our guns and our money.’ Columnist Paul Waldman claimed, ‘In a jingoistic frenzy we invaded Afghanistan almost gleefully, ostensibly to find Osama Bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. But bin Laden disappeared and we quickly settled in, thinking that in short order we’d create a thriving liberal democracy.’ Waldman claimed the whole episode is rooted in the US ideology that ‘we can accomplish anything, including remolding other countries in our image.’

Yet, as distinguished American foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan noted in a 26 August Washington Post essay, it is simply untrue that the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan out of a hubristic belief they could ‘nation-build’ it into a liberal democracy. Moreover, a belief in ‘nation-building’ has almost nothing to do with why the US, together with numerous allies, ending up remaining militarily involved in the country for the next 20 years. The reality is that the invasion of Afghanistan was a product of a reasonable fear – in Kagan’s words, ‘fear of another attack by al-Qaeda, which was then firmly ensconced in the Taliban-controlled country; fear of possible attacks by other groups using chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.’ [...]

It is worth recalling that a premature US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 allowed the rise of Islamic State – which caused huge carnage both in the Middle East and internationally even without significant state sponsorship. The Trump administration’s decision to effectively withdraw unilaterally from Afghanistan, carried out in a chaotic and poorly managed way by the Biden administration, may well lead to far worse consequences. Not only is the image of steadfast, courageous and patient Jihadists, with God on their side, able to defeat a superpower already a huge recruitment tool and an inspiration for Islamist terrorists everywhere, but the Taliban, still intimately working with al-Qaeda, captured unprecedented amounts of US military equipment. Unlike IS, they are backed by both the state of Afghanistan and major elements of Pakistan’s security forces, with some support from Iran. Moreover the West has lost essential intelligence assets inside Afghanistan crucial to monitoring the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the rival Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), also based in Afghanistan. Without these assets, the Biden administration’s promise to manage this threat primarily through ‘over the horizon’ military capabilities appears hollow.

Worth reading in full.

Even if their families starve to death

Richard Lloyd Parry in the Times:

North Korea is cracking down on street traders and food sellers as “enemies” of the people, provoking physical brawls between officials and a population increasingly desperate amid growing food shortages.

Official documents set out the regime’s policies for tackling so-called “grasshopper merchants”, as street traders are called, with the coronavirus pandemic being cited as a pretext. However, the campaign is the latest manifestation of a long-term dilemma faced by the regime: whether to tolerate private enterprise as a means of feeding its hungry population or to quash it as unacceptable capitalism.

These “grasshopper merchants” may have proved their importance in feeding the hungry - which includes pretty much the whole North Korean population outside the regime elites - but they're dangerously independent-minded, as all traders are. That cannot be tolerated.

The new policies are contained in a document called “Let’s Completely Eliminate the Phenomenon of Commerce near Markets and in the Streets” obtained by Daily NK, a website run by defectors to South Korea which has sources in the North.

Here's that Daily NK article:

North Korean authorities recently designated streetside commerce as a “crime against the people” and have begun ideological education efforts to tamper down discontent surrounding government crackdowns on street merchants. 

Daily NK recently obtained “political activity materials” written by the Central Committee’s Propaganda and Agitation Department entitled “Let’s Completely Eliminate the Phenomenon of Commerce near Markets and in the Streets.” The materials were used during lectures at factories, enterprises and inminban (people’s units) throughout the country from early to mid-November.

The materials start by saying, “COVID-19 is causing great anxiety and concern in the international community as it spreads throughout the entire world, while the appearance of variants is causing a major global disaster.”

The materials then say that with the authorities declaring a national quarantine emergency and closing the border to stop infections, some “unawake” people were in a flap over “temporary difficulties” and obstructing quarantine efforts by carrying out “chaotic” commerce near markets and on the streets. Essentially, the authorities are stressing the justification for the controls on streetside commerce.

Daily NK previously reported that North Korean authorities — led by the Ministry of Social Security — have strengthened their controls on streetside commerce since March, forcefully confiscating the wares of so-called “grasshopper merchants,” as streetside merchants are called in North Korea. They have gradually strengthened their crackdown since then, dragging off people involved in the trade to forced labor camps....

The materials accused the merchants of placing “individual interests over those of society and the collective.”

In particular, the documents declared that conducting commerce near markets and in the streets – using those spaces to earn money during the emergency quarantine period – is a “conscious crime against the people” that sparks discontent and causes commotion. They called it an “enemy act” that threatens the North Korean system.

And here's another report from the Daily NK yesterday - from a different reporter:

North Korean authorities have launched a sweeping crackdown on streetside commerce in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il. 

A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Monday that Chongjin’s party committee issued an order calling on the Ministry of Social Security to conduct an aggressive crackdown on locals engaged in private commerce near markets or in alleyways from Dec. 1 to mark the 10th anniversary of Kim’s death. The authorities have responded with a sweeping clampdown on private commerce near markets and in alleyways throughout Chongjin.

Ahead of this, Chongjin’s party branch called on locals to mark the anniversary of Kim’s passing in a solemn, quiet atmosphere, reportedly informing inminban (people’s units), government bodies and organizations that they would strongly curb “capitalistic disorder.”

In response, the Ministry of Social Security and enforcement teams sent by the ministry descended on the neighborhoods surrounding Chongjin’s downtown markets, including the Sunam Market, Pohang Market, and Ranam Market. They overturned and confiscated items belonging to locals who were selling fruit, greenhouse vegetables, tofu, and other food. 

Locals caught in the sudden crackdown bewail how enforcers overturned and took their things and they themselves were dragged off to the Ministry of Social Security’s waiting rooms.

The source said streetside commerce is commonplace not only in alleyways near markets, but in all neighborhoods where people live. He said in the face of extremely difficult living conditions, people are doing business to survive, not make money. Despite this, the government order is preventing them from doing so, he claimed. 

Daily NK understands that the Ministry of Social Security is engaged in a merciless crackdown, calling violators “criminals” for failing to obey government policy telling merchants to restrict their activity to markets and accusing them of “anti-party, reactionary activity” for doing what the party forbids them to do....

In particular, squads are reportedly browbeating locals, telling them that people who think only of themselves during the month of Kim’s death “can go starve to death”; that it is ideologically problematic to express discontent with the crackdown on “grasshopper merchants,” who are a “product of capitalism”; and that ideologically seditious people have no right to live in North Korea, “even if their families starve to death.”

As ever, nothing comes before the ideology of Kim-worship: certainly not the lives of ordinary people.

Time to think again about hate crimes

Joan Smith at UnHerd argues against making misogyny a hate crime:

Here is a little-known fact: in the last year, there were 10,679 prosecutions for hate crime in England and Wales, leading to 9,263 convictions. It is a strikingly high success rate, especially when compared to the figures for rape. According to the most recent statistics, 61,158 rapes were reported to the police in 2020-21, but there were only 1,557 prosecutions — and a mere 1,109 convictions.

Now some commentators are up in arms because the Law Commission, an independent body that recommends changes to the law, has rejected a proposal to make misogyny a hate crime. Many women, however, are relieved that the commission hasn’t given in to lobbying. While superficially appealing, the change would not tackle the central problem, which is the staggering failure of police and prosecutors to enforce existing laws.

Another problem with making misogyny a hate crime is that some people who argue for the change are explicit in saying that protection should apply to trans women — male-bodied individuals who identify as women. They are already covered by existing hate crime legislation, where transgender identity is a protected characteristic, so this seems more like an attempt to change the legal definition of the word ‘woman’ than anything else. What a change in the law would do is open up a new front in the war on gender critical women, who would be the target of vexatious complaints from trans activists.

That would be the ultimate irony: trans activists - men dressed as women and fueled by their own misogyny - accusing gender critical women of hate crimes for, um, misogyny.

The Law Commission is aware of the risk and has proposed giving legal protection to gender critical views, such as the belief (biological reality, to be more accurate) that humans cannot change sex. It says something about the state we’re in that such views even need to be protected, but would it extend to someone who refuses to use female pronouns in court for the trans-identified male accused of raping her? Or a woman doing the same on social media?

The answer is far from clear, not least because the Law Commission has made an additional proposal that laws against ‘stirring up hatred’ should be extended to cover ‘sex or gender’ as well as race, religion and sexual orientation. Such offences are entirely subjective and very likely to have a chilling effect on free speech. Only last month, police investigated Crystal Palace fans who unfurled a banner criticising human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia during a match with Newcastle United, which had just been bought by Saudi investors.

The case was quickly dropped when even the police could see how ridiculous it was.

It is surely time to think again about the entire concept of hate crime. Thousands of actual crimes are going unpunished, including rape and domestic violence, while the police use valuable resources to investigate subjective ‘offences’. They may find it easier to get results — the figures certainly suggest as much — but some very dangerous offenders are going free to commit further attacks. If the state is serious about tacking misogyny, investigating violence against women — not hurt feelings — should be the priority.

Ultimately the less the police are involved in investigating hate crimes, the better.

Building planes

Howard Hollem - February 1943. "Looking up an assembly line at Ford's big Willow Run plant in Michigan, where B-24E (Liberator) bombers are being made in great numbers. The Liberator is capable of operation at high altitudes and over great ranges on precision bombing missions. It has proved itself an excellent performer in the Pacific, Northern Africa, Europe and the Aleutians."

[Photo: Shorpy/Howard Hollem for the Office of War Information]

Could be construed as “discrimination” against Muslims

More of the same, this time from Canada:

The Toronto District School Board is calling for the censure of a Jewish trustee who pointed out that one of their official manuals appeared to be endorsing Palestinian terrorism . According to a lengthy internal investigation conducted by the board, the manual (circulated to teachers in May ) did indeed contain links which, among other things, referenced suicide bombing as “a legitimate means of resistance” against Israel. Investigators ultimately concluded that the materials called out by trustee Alexandra Lulka “could be reasonably considered to contain antisemitic materials and seen to be contributing to antisemitism.” Nevertheless, they recommended that Lulka be censured anyway because her opposition to the materials could be construed as “discrimination” against Muslims.

Yep, that makes sense.

Downplaying antisemitism

The latest on that Oxford Street antisemitic abuse, and the BBC's efforts to downplay the antisemitism and to claim that "a slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus". It seems that the BBC reporter, Harry Farley, has form. From the JC:

A leading anti-racism group has challenged BBC bosses to provide evidence supporting the corporation’s claim that one of the Charedi teenagers abused in Oxford Street last week voiced an anti-Muslim slur. 

In a letter to BBC Chairman Richard Sharp and Director General Tim Davie, Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also asked for an explanation why the BBC article on the incident reported the alleged anti-Muslim statement as fact “while the evident antisemitism is caveated as mere allegation”.

The letter also asked the BBC to investigate why it tasked a journalist who has “sought to downplay antisemitism” with “writing an article on antisemitism that appeared to do the same”.

On November 26, 2019, following the Chief Rabbi’s dramatic and courageous intervention expressing his dismay at the treatment of the Jews by the Labour Party, the author of the article, Harry Farley, tweeted: “The Chief Rabbi certainly does not speak for all British Jews. Many I have spoken to, particularly from the Chasidic community, support Jeremy Corbyn.”

The letter also called on the BBC to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism.

It added: “We once again offer to provide the Corporation with training in how to identify and deal with antisemitism, which will go some way to restoring what little remains of the confidence of the Jewish community in our nation’s public service broadcaster.”

The letter said that the BBC appears to have fed its “unsubstantiated claim” about the anti-Muslim slur to the Metropolitan Police, which assured the corporation that the incident will be looked at “in its entirety.”

CAA added: “This case should be viewed in light of polling that we conducted last year, which revealed that two thirds of British Jews are deeply concerned by the BBC's coverage of matters of Jewish concern, and 55% by its handling of antisemitism complaints. In view of these figures, we trust that you will take these concerns seriously.

That line about "a slur about Muslims" is still there in the BBC report. despite the analysis by Gnasherjew that this was very likely a comment in Hebrew - "call someone it's urgent".

The BBC originally claimed that several "racial slurs” were expressed by the Jewish children. On being contacted by the JC, the corporation rowed back, saying that one person inside the vehicle had said “dirty Muslims”, and the article was amended to reflect that.

That's their story, and it looks like they're sticking with it.

Update: a good piece from Ian Austin in the Telegraph.

If far-Right thugs attacked a bus of Muslim children in central London, I would hope and expect universal condemnation and wall-to-wall coverage, with mug shots of those responsible broadcast until they had been identified and prosecuted. That is not what happened when a group of Asian men on Oxford Street attacked a bus of Jewish children celebrating Chanukah. The men hit the bus, spat at and threatened the children, and made Nazi salutes.

The BBC called the anti-Semitism “alleged”, and claimed racial slurs from inside the bus could be heard on a recording of the incident. This was subsequently amended in its report to say that only one insult had been made, as if that made much difference. I have listened repeatedly and can’t hear any such thing – nor can fluent Hebrew speakers who have watched the footage. Instead, I’m told the terrified children, speaking in Hebrew, are calling for help. Did the BBC consult Hebrew speakers before arriving at its conclusions?

The BBC has questions to answer. Was it attempting to draw an equivalence between a group of men intimidating children and their victims? And why did it report the abuse from thugs on the street as “alleged” but present the disputed allegation of a slur inside the bus by children as a fact?

I have always defended the BBC, but can’t imagine an incident involving any other group being reported in this way. It needs to listen to people from the Jewish community and look at this very carefully. We can’t have people thinking that incidents of racism are handled differently depending on who the perpetrators and victims might be.

It is not as if the threat posed by anti-Semitism has lessened. According to the Community Security Trust, a charity that protects Jewish people, anti-Semitic incidents soared during the conflict caused by Hamas terrorism against Israel earlier this year. Synagogues were defaced and Jewish people attacked. Students reported racist abuse, including death threats.

A convoy of bigots drove hundreds of miles from Bradford to intimidate people in neighbourhoods with large numbers of Jewish residents. Some merely shouted “free Palestine”, as if people living in north London are responsible for a conflict thousands of miles away. Others screamed disgusting abuse and threats to rape Jewish women.

What is the difference between these bigots and the National Front targeting areas of London with large black communities in the 1980s? And what is going on in some of our communities that leads to this racist obsession?

Anti-Semitism has festered on campuses, and in the far-Right and hard-Left, but it became mainstream during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. Israel became an obsession on the Left, held to standards never applied to other countries, and Jewish people in Britain were expected to account for a government of another country.

The demonisation of Israel leads to racist attacks against Britain’s Jewish community. Our national broadcaster should be shining a spotlight on that, exposing the racists and standing up for the victims, not bending over backwards seemingly to find an equivalence where none exists.

Photos from a movie man

Roger Deakins is best known as a cinematographer, having worked with directors like the Coen brothers and Sam Mendes, but he's taken a few photographs along the way. Some of them are now published in a monograph, Byways, with the black-and-white images covering rural North Devon, the English coasts, and some more distant locales,  from 1971 onward - all attesting to his "keenly ironic English sensibility".

[Images © Roger A. Deakins]

Affiliation with the charity risks harming the reputation of the profession

Another positive development in the struggle to be rid of Stonewall's pernicious influence:

Hundreds of nurses have called on their regulatory body to withdraw from a diversity scheme run by Stonewall, warning that affiliation with the charity risks harming the reputation of the profession.

Some 460 nurses have written to the Nursing and Midwifery Council demanding that it pulls out of the paid-for scheme, which aims to make workplaces more inclusive for LGBT people.

The charity has been mired in controversy over its gender identity views. It has said people should be able to access single-sex hospital wards based on the gender they identify as.

Several organisations, including the BBC and the Department of Health, have recently withdrawn from the diversity programme over concerns about Stonewall’s position on gender.

The nurses said that they did not support Stonewall’s stance over the medication of children who present with gender dysphoria and its view that patients should be able to access single-sex wards based on their gender identity.

They also highlighted the charity’s behaviour towards those who speak out on gender ideology or challenge its influence, saying that it was vitally important for nurses to speak out for the rights and needs of women patients.

One of the signatories wrote: “I support the needs of trans people — but not to the eradication of women and women’s rights.” Another wrote that they felt unable to protect female patients over fear of being seen as discriminating: “I feel I am unable to protect my female/women patients, and advocate for them without fear of recrimination.”

Eighty-eight per cent of nurses and 99 per cent of midwives are female.

Organised by the campaign group Woman’s Place UK, the letter to the Nursing and Midwifery Council read: “The history of Stonewall to promote equality and safeguard the rights of the LGBT community is one to celebrate."

Hmm. That was many years ago, before they hitched their wagon to the T-for-trans cause, throwing the L and the G and the B - and women in general - under the bus.

“However, nursing affiliations must be based on evidence not ideology and judged on current record and strategy, not legacy achievements and reputation.

“We believe that as a profession, there is specific risk to the reputation of nurses and our ability to work within our code from the NMC’s affiliation with Stonewall.”

As long as the NMC doesn't follow the lead of some government departments, who ditched Stonewall only to take up with Global Butterflies and their ghastly Genderbread Person.

Sex and the Scottish census

Scottish guidance to the 2022 census is for trans people to follow their supposed gender identity: "If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate. You do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC)." Which is nice and trans-friendly - but also very probably illegal, as well as driving a coach and horses through any attempt to collate meaningful sex-based statistics. Fair Play for Women are launching a judicial review:

The Scottish Government must go to court to defend its decision to change the meaning of “sex” in the Scottish Census.

Women’s campaign group, Fair Play For Women, has served a petition for judicial review of the official guidance that will accompany the question “What is your sex” in the 2022 Census.

The same battle has already been fought and won by Fair Play for Women in England and Wales:

Earlier this year, the Administrative Division of the High Court of England & Wales issued a declaration in the matter of Fair Play For Women v UK Statistics Authority and the Minister for the Cabinet Office that the “what is your sex” definition “means sex as recorded on a birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate”.

National Records for Scotland has claimed that this interim conclusion only applies to the England and Wales Census and is not binding in Scotland.

However, as Dr Nicola Williams, Director of Fair Play For Women, highlights:

"There are huge differences between males and females in the UK, in critical areas such as crime statistics. That’s why accurate recording of sex matters. The High Court in England backed our position and we are confident that the Scottish court will see it the same way.

"The ONS wasted over a hundred thousand of pounds of tax payers money in a desperate attempt to defend their unlawful position in court. It is beyond belief that the Scottish Government is now repeating this reckless act and forcing ordinary members of the public to go to court once again."

Birmingham portraits

Photographer Chris Neophytou, from his Always Forward (book here) and Portraits projects:

[Photos © Chris Neophytou]

Jews Don't Count, pt 97

The Jewish Chronicle have been, quite rightly, making a fuss about this. Last week a bunch of Jewish kids were celebrating Chanukah in a bus on Oxford Street when they were abused and spat at by a bunch of - it has to be said - Asian youths. The BBC report shows the incident, as filmed by someone from inside the bus, but with the faces of the abusers blanked out.

A group was filmed approaching the privately hired bus on Oxford Street in central London on Monday.

Footage shows men spitting at the bus and apparently abusing passengers. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has described the video as "disturbing".

Det Insp Kevin Eade said police were treating the incident as a hate crime.

In the video, which was posted on social media, a man seems to make a Nazi salute and others wave their shoes - an insult in some countries.

And then:

A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus. The Met Police has said the incident will be looked at "in its entirety".

So there's guilt on both sides? The Met will be looking, we're led to believe, at the racism on display both inside and outside the bus.

But was there a "slur about Muslims" from inside the bus? At Gnasherjew they say that they asked the BBC journalist Harry Farley for proof, and he said the incident occurred 3 seconds in to the video: "We extracted the audio from the video & removed the background noise. What can be clearly heard (2.5 secs in) is "Tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf" (call someone it’s urgent). We are wondering why the BBC feels the need to demonize Jews at every turn?"

But of course, to the specially attuned ears of a BBC journalist, any Hebrew is going to sound like a slur against Muslims. 

As the Board of Deputies tweeted: "It appears that the BBC has a very serious case to answer here. Incorrectly accusing those experiencing antisemitism of being guilty of bigotry themselves is adding insult to injury."

Last word to the JC:

As the reaction to this clip gathered pace and politicians (largely but not exclusively from the right) rightly queued up to condemn it, there seemed to be a fairly conspicuous absence. Those from the leftwing of the Labour Party and beyond seemed to have absolutely nothing to say about a pretty clear cut incident of racism on the streets of the UK. Nothing to say about a group of children having a holiday party ruined for the simple crime of being Jewish in London.

Now, to state the obvious, no-one has a moral imperative to comment on every abhorrent news clip that may or may not include all the necessary context. No-one should be forced at cancel-point to condemn anti-semitism or be labelled a Jew-hater, but it just seems a little bit strange that a group that is usually (and rightly) vocal about incidents of public racism, has very little to say.

But it’s not even just the progressive "anti-racists" who seem to have somewhat of a blindspot on this. Major media companies also seem to not know how to deal with racism stories when the victims are Jews. Whether it’s writing “anti-semitic’ when mentioning a nazi salute or even putting “spat at” in quotes when there’s clear video evidence of it, it seems like Jews are never quite the perfect victims.

And as the outrage subsides and the clip becomes just another piece of viral content for the usual players to react to, we’re just left once again with the feeling that Jews Don’t Count.

Update: from the JC today:

Parents of the Jewish victims of last week’s antisemitic incident on Oxford Street have accused the BBC of "demonising" their children, as outrage continues to mount in the community over the corporation’s reporting of the story.

A line in the BBC’s coverage read: “A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus. The Met Police has said the incident will be looked at ‘in its entirety’.”

“BBC News has demonised my son, who was on that bus, to serve their anti-Jewish agenda,” said Yechiel Wilhelm in a tweet. It also came to light that a packing crate was thrown at the children as they fled.

Rabbi Schneur Glitzenshtein, who organised the original bus trip, confirmed that none of the victims had used Islamophobic language. “Not one word,” he said....

The Genderbread Person

It's never-ending, the official deference to gender nonsense. From the Telegraph:

Civil servants are being given "Genderbread Person” presentations, The Telegraph has learnt, prompting fears that “unscientific nonsense” is being allowed to infiltrate the heart of Government.

The gingerbread-man-style diagram is in use across government departments to illustrate gender identity, sexual attraction and biological sex as sitting on a spectrum of zero to 100.

New trans-inclusion workshops are being run by a:gender, a trans and intersex group that has expanded from the Home Office to become a cross-government membership network.

It says it wants officials to go beyond current equality legislation and use “appropriate language/names/pronouns” and “challenge inappropriate language or behaviours”.

The Genderbread Person was shown in a video call session for around 180 civil servants in February, seen by The Telegraph and organised between a:gender and the Civil Service Race Forum. The graphic has also been displayed in other major government departments in diversity meetings.

Here we are. Meet the Genderbread Person:

The revelation comes as public bodies have partnered with Global Butterflies, a little-known trans lobby group, which has also used the genderbread graphic in its guidance and urges employers to remove all gendered language from their policies.

This is despite Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, calling on Whitehall to cut ties with the controversial charity Stonewall. Feminists had criticised how taxpayers paid millions of pounds on training that was eroding sex-based rights, such as by opening women-only facilities to males and scrapping gendered words like "mother". This opened a rift between advisors in Downing Street over how to navigate the trans debate.

Now women’s rights campaigners fear that Whitehall is partnering with similarly controversial lobby groups in Stonewall’s place.

Bev Jackson, director of the Stonewall breakaway charity LGB Alliance, said: “It’s extraordinary that the civil service continues to forge relationships with lobby groups masquerading as training providers to promote aggressively ideological and unscientific nonsense.

“These lobby groups claim to be diversity and equality experts, but often misrepresent equalities law to undermine women’s rights and those of LGB people. What’s particularly galling is they often claim to represent LGB people, when they are actually undermining our rights.

“Our sexual orientation is protected in law yet these groups render sexual orientation meaningless by denying sex matters. The Government needs to stop funnelling taxpayers' money into these organisations. LGB Alliance calls for an urgent moratorium on all government spending on inclusivity training by outside organisations."

Global Butterflies was founded in 2015 by Rachel Reese, a trans woman. Its website lists as among its clients the Strategic Command, which manages joint responsibilities across the three armed services, as well as UK Parliament, British Transport Police and NHS Health Education England. It is not known how much, if anything, they have [been] paid.

In generic Global Butterflies training seen by The Telegraph, instructors urge employers to “remove gender from all your written communications...and policies” and warn that “we are in Gilead” if trans rights are not advocated. They suggest firms install gender-neutral lavatories, a stance shared by Stonewall but which some women reject, and "show your trans credentials" by supporting future trans legislation changes.

The Government Legal Department and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel worked with Global Butterflies last year to write a guide on “drafting gender-neutral legislation”. The document told legislators that the pronouns he/she should be swapped for “they”. It also advised “avoiding gender-specific nouns” such as chairman and waitress.

In a foreword to the guide, two directors from Global Butterflies wrote that “a significant percentage of the next generation of the workforce no longer sees gender as binary and expects to see a new and better approach to gender identity and expression in documentation.”

Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, said: "Government departments should be careful that the civil service isn't jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. When they leave Stonewall they are vulnerable to just carrying on with the same approach but with other organisations.

“What they should do is go back to basics - go back to following the law on discrimination and harassment, and not use this to imposing gender ideology on their staff.”

Nature prints

Photography prints on sale in aid of the environment:

One hundred of some of the world’s finest and well-known photographers and conservation heroes like Jane Goodall have come together to rally around the cause of saving the environment. Using their art, they are raising funds to support grassroots conservation organizations, focused through Vital Impacts. The initiative will support Big Life Foundation, Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots program, Great Plains Conservation’s Project Ranger, and SeaLegacy.

Greenland polar bear © Andy Mann

Nenana River wolf  in Denali National park, Alaska © Aaron Huey

Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana © Beth Moon

Walrus, Franz Josef Land © Cory Richards

Japanese macaque in the Joshin’etsukogen National Park © Jasper Doest

Sequoia, California’s Sierra Mountains © Keith Ladzinski

Monument Valley © Renan Ozturk

Harriet and People in Fog © Nick Brandt

Icy Flight © Paul Nicklen

For more of Beth Moon's trees, see here, here, and here.

More inclusive

Toilets in Chicago public schools - all Chicago public schools - are now gender-friendly, inclusive, and open to whoever feels comfortable using them:

ICYMI: We’re requiring all schools to adopt new signage to make our restrooms more inclusive. This is a big step forward for gender equity for our students and staff. pic.twitter.com/4JPBdd1jQy

— CPS - Chicago Public Schools (@ChiPubSchools) November 30, 2021

A big step forward for gender equity, but a big step backward for Chicago girls:

This week, Chicago Public schools announced on its Twitter account that all restrooms have been made mixed-sex to be “more inclusive” of students and staff who wish to use “facilities that align with their gender identity.”

The new policy required all public schools in Chicago to post updated signage on restroom doors by December 1.

Executive Director of Media Relations Mary Ann Fergus told the National Desk: “Our restrooms are open for use to anyone who feels comfortable in that space.”

New temporary signage issued to schools shows that some newly mixed-sex student restrooms have urinals as well as stalls, while others have only stalls.

Camie Pratt, the Title IX Officer said in a Twitter video announcing the policy: “Our district’s Office of Student Protections and Title IX is also working on a long-term plan to create more permanent signage for our bathrooms.” 

Not everyone welcomes this wonderful initiative, however.

Many Chicago parents are outraged, and slamming the mixed-sex restroom policy as “child abuse.” Some are suggesting parents file a class action lawsuit against the school board or home-school their children.

A tweeter said it is “a breach of common decency to expect young girls to share the experience of going through this [their periods] with immature boys in the [vicinity].” Other Twitter users discussed how young girls in their families are refusing to drink water during the school day in order to avoid using the mixed-sex restrooms.

It's a classic case of women -  or in this case girls - being thrown under the bus for the sake of a tiny minority of trans children, and in the name of a fatuous gender ideology. But look how pleased with themselves the administrators are!

Anyway, what could possibly go wrong?

In October, a 15-year-old male student in Loudon County, Virginia who identifies as gender fluid was found guilty of the violent anal and oral rape of a teen girl in a school’s girls’ restroom. The incident took place on May 28 while the male student was wearing a skirt, and he later molested another girl at a school he was transferred to. A similar incident was reported in 2017 in Decatur, Georgia by a mother who said a “gender non-conforming” male student penetrated her five-year-old daughter with his fingers in a girls’ restroom at school. 

The damaged bodies of more teenage girls

Janice Turner in the Times this morning on the unseemly rush by the government to ban conversion therapy:

Next Friday the government consultation on banning conversion therapy will end. It lasted just six weeks, where normal practice is a minimum of 12. Why the urgency? In June, London will host the first global LGBT conference entitled Safe To Be Me. Its agenda should be packed, given the Taliban’s resurgence and nations such as Hungary and Poland drafting vicious homophobic laws.

A large government team working on the conference, led by Mike Freer, the LGBT equality minister, hopes to announce a legacy achievement. Cue applause for a progressive, modern Conservative Party that finally got a ban on the statute book. The consultation is “relatively quick”, Freer says, because it addresses not whether to ban, only how.

Freer is right: opposition to conversion therapy is universal. That young people were once tortured, raped, drugged and subjected to exorcism-like religious rites to make them heterosexual seems not just abhorrent but absurd. How could our hardwired desires be changed? Indeed, such practices in Britain are now, thankfully, vanishingly rare and, as the consultation states, “physical violence in the name of conversion therapy” is illegal already.

Yet the proposed ban applies to both sexuality and the more nebulous concept of gender identity. This has led to grave concerns, not from social conservatives but liberal, compassionate therapists, some LGBT themselves, who for a decade have noted a drastic rise in young female clients, typically same-sex attracted, mostly with profound mental problems such as depression, anxiety, undiagnosed autism or self harm. Many have suffered homophobic bullying, some sexual abuse. Now 75 per cent of referrals to the Tavistock GIDS clinic are female, a phenomenon reported worldwide.

Under the uncontroversial idea of banning old-style conversion therapy, the government is sneaking in a ban on gender conversion therapy - ie the very necessary questioning of young people, especially young girls, who've been persuaded by their peers and by social media (see Keith Jordan) that the only cure for their adolescent angst is to transition.

A growing body of research on these “rapid onset gender dysphoria” cases suggests girls are influenced by peer pressure and online forums to attribute unhappiness with their developing female bodies to being trans. A responsible therapist would first examine their mental health history, tease out why they feel male, create therapeutic space for discussion. Left unmedicated, about 80 per cent of dysphoric adolescents come to terms with their natal sex.

But therapists are already impeded by their own professional bodies, including the NHS, who have signed a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) prohibiting therapy that challenges a client’s avowed gender identity. Rather, they must only “affirm” their belief and help to facilitate transition, via referral for hormones and perhaps surgery. In four years writing about this subject, I have frequently been contacted by desperate relatives seeking a therapist for a troubled girl whose prior problems are dismissed by clinicians who care only about gender.

A group called Thoughtful Therapists fears the government conversion ban will enshrine this MOU in law. Proposals state law shouldn’t “override the independence of clinicians to support those who may be questioning their LGBT status”. Yet often, distressed 13-year-old girls are not “questioning”: rather they are categoric they are trans. Will the gentlest unpicking of their feelings be classed as conversion therapy and thus criminalised?...

The absence of rigorous gender therapy has been condemned by a growing number of detransitioners, mainly women, including Keira Bell, who brought a judicial review against the Tavistock. Why, they ask, were their mental health and family problems briskly brushed aside in favour of propelling them towards irreversible hormones and double mastectomies they now regret?

It is seldom acknowledged that transitioning is more physically dangerous for girls than boys. Not only does breast-binding damage growing tissue and cause breathing problems, but testosterone’s effect on the female body is far more damaging than oestrogen for males. A girl will have a permanently deepened voice, facial hair, vaginal atrophy, probable infertility and uterine problems that often end in hysterectomy. Transition will be necessary for some but any girl embarking on this path should be fully informed and utterly certain.

In government, those driving anti-conversion policy are all men. Besides Mike Freer there are Lord Herbert, who will chair Safe To Be Me, and Crispin Blunt MP, head of the LGBT all-party parliamentary group, forced by the parliamentary standards commissioner to apologise for trying to secretly influence government policy on gender self-ID and conversion therapy. Most influential is Henry Newman, a No 10 adviser, who as Nikki da Costa, herself a former adviser, recently told The Times, ensures Stonewall has the PM’s ear. Their reluctance, even refusal, to meet therapist and feminist groups questions their empathy for vulnerable women.

Rather they think of their key address, Stonewall gong, being on the “right side of history”. But that magical line is shifting in Europe, and even in the US, leading gender surgeons including Dr Marci Bowers, a trans woman, now say publicly young people suffer under an affirmation-only approach.

If a conversion therapy ban is rushed through, its legacy won’t be a conference ovation, but the damaged bodies of more teenage girls.

As I said the other day, the old-style conversion therapy - trying to turn gays and lesbians "straight" - is universally condemned outside of a few fringe religious groups, but the new-style conversion therapy as pushed by trans activists involves the medical transformation of young often potentially gay children via the use of puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones into some wretched parody of the other sex, without even the need to inform their parents. Better a trans man than a gay woman, it would seem.

The government aims to ban the old-style therapy while encouraging the new. They should think again.