Mick Hartley

Domestic violence

Another day, another Guardian piece on how the Westminster attack had nothing to do with Islam. Hadley Freeman - What do many lone attackers have in common? Domestic violence:

The reactions to Khalid Masood’s attack last week played out with script-like predictability: rightwing commentators tried desperately to blame the actions of this Kent native on immigration, while the media pored over whatever anecdotes they could find from neighbours and schoolmates. All The Day Today cliches were ticked off: he was “always polite”, he came from “a normal family”, he once “got drunk” as a teenager.

This kind of desperate profiling plays to people’s desire to believe we should be able to spot terrorists. But while rent-a-gobs flail around naming and shaming Kent and drunk teenagers, it is telling how rarely one feature common to many “lone wolf” attackers is called out: a history of domestic abuse.

A relative of Masood’s former wife Farzana Isaq told the Daily Mirror that Isaq had fled her ex-husband in terror after just three months of marriage: “He was very violent towards her, controlling in every aspect of her life – what she wore, where she went, everything.”

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who killed more than 80 people after driving a truck into a crowd on Bastille Day in Nice last year, had a long history of domestic violence, as did Omar Mateen, who last summer killed 49 people in a Florida nightclub. “He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished, or something like that,” Mateen’s former wife Sitora Yusufiy told the Washington Post. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bomber brothers, had previously been arrested for domestic assault and battery of a woman.

Before Katie Hopkins gets excited, this isn’t evidence of a misogyny unique to the Muslim culture, or Muslim killers. The stepmother of Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people in Charleston in 2014, accused his father of abusing her, suggesting Roof was raised in a home where gendered control was normalised....

The problem isn’t Islam, or a perverted interpretation of Islam, but rather a perversion of frustrated masculinity. After all, 98% of mass killings are perpetrated by men, and many of the attackers discuss women in proprietorial terms. Roof, for instance, told his victims before killing them in the church: “You rape our women. You have to go.”

And yet this is almost never discussed, because there is no political capital to be gained by suggesting warped masculinity might be more to blame than Muslims.

Well yes - of course many of these "lone wolf" attackers are nasty violent men. It's not an original insight. The problem is that their violence and hatred of others - especially of women - can readily find official sanction within certain interpretations of Islam. Nor is it just lone wolves. There are whole organisations - ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram - which base themselves on a strict literal reading of the Koran, and which practice the most barbaric forms of abuse against women, including enslavement and rape. Yes, misogyny and domestic abuse can, sadly, be found in all cultures. In some, though, more than others. Despite Freeman's attempts to drag in the odd deranged Christian extremist, this type of terrorist violence is overwhelmingly Muslim territory.

Tellingly, as with David Shariatmadari, no comments allowed. And again, as with Shariatmadari, the clear implication is made that anyone critical of Islam must be on the far right, alongside the likes of Katie Hopkins or Marine Le Pen.

It's almost as though, within certain sections of the left, there's a competition to see just how much nonsense they're capable of believing, and of persuading others that they believe, in their great virtue-signalling race to the bottom.

New Guinea dogs

As I posted a couple of days back about the new search for Tasmanian tigers on the Australian mainland, I can't resist this story from nearby New Guinea:

After decades of fearing that the New Guinea highland wild dog had gone extinct in its native habitat, researchers have finally confirmed the existence of a healthy, viable population, hidden in one of the most remote and inhospitable regions on Earth.

According to DNA analysis, these are the most ancient and primitive canids in existence, and a recent expedition to New Guinea's remote central mountain spine has resulted in more than 100 photographs of at least 15 wild individuals, including males, females, and pups, thriving in isolation and far from human contact.

[Photo: NGHWDF]

"The discovery and confirmation of the highland wild dog for the first time in over half a century is not only exciting, but an incredible opportunity for science," says the group behind the discovery, the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation (NGHWDF).

"The 2016 Expedition was able to locate, observe, gather documentation and biological samples, and confirm through DNA testing that at least some specimens still exist and thrive in the highlands of New Guinea."...

Due to the lack of evidence of the species, it's been unclear exactly how dingoes, singing dogs, and highland wild dogs actually relate to one another, but that's a question that will hopefully soon be answered, because these animals truly are our best bet for getting a better understanding of canid evolution.

As the NGHWD explains:

"The fossil record indicates the species established itself on the island at least 6,000 years ago, believed to have arrived with human migrants. However, new evidence suggests they may have migrated independently of humans.

While the taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships with related breeds and Australian dingoes is currently controversial and under review for both New Guinea singing dogs and highland wild dogs, the scientific and historical importance of the highland wild dog remains critical to understanding canid evolution, canid and human co-evolution and migrations, and human ecology and settlement derived from the study of canids and canid evolution."

They do indeed look very much like dingoes, which are believed to have arrived in Australia - with or without humans - some 4000 years ago, or perhaps even earlier. The native thylacines found themselves out-competed, leading to their (presumed) extinction on the Australian mainland some 2000 years ago.

Dingoes interbreed with other dogs which arrived later with the Europeans - a major threat to their survival. These New Guinea highland wild dogs, living as they do in isolated pockets away from civilisation, will presumably be a pure breed free of such problems.

Up the Lea Valley

Starting at Markfield Skate Park, South Tottenham, then up through Tottenham Marshes:

Paint it black:

Blue sheds, Edmonton:

Stonehill Business Park - flattened, awaiting redevelopment:

Round the back of Banbury Reservoir:

 

A better quality of life, not more missiles

From the Daily NK:

North Korea’s recent test of a new high-thrust rocket engine on March 18 has incited condemnation among ordinary residents, particularly agricultural workers, for what they see as a waste of money. Many are claiming that the funds should have been used to alleviate the daily hardships endured by those in the most vulnerable demographics of North Korean society.

 

Those who watched the broadcast of the ground test of the “new type” of high-thrust rocket engine, trumpeted as “the birth to a wholly independent rocket industry, which has now changed to the development and creative industry” by Korean Central News Agency, have commented that Kim Jong Un has no concern for their dwindling food supply and daily struggles.

 

"There are an increasing number of people who are suffering from malnutrition in agricultural regions such as Pochon County, Kapsan County, and Samsoo County. People in these rural areas resent the fact that there aren’t enough potatoes to feed the people, yet the government is obsessed with missiles. What difference in our lives will launching a missile make?” a source in Ryanggang Province told Daily NK on March 21.

 

"Even ordinary people understand that the price of a missile is enough to feed the whole population for several months. So every time the regime conducts a nuclear test or missile launch, many become infuriated at the waste of money, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of tons of food.”

 

"The residents were especially outraged to see Kim Jong Un beaming while watching the test (on March 18). He seems to be satisfied even though he spent money that could have been used to save starving people,” noted a separate source in Ryanggang Province.

 

The North Korean authorities, who have recently responded to increasing pressure from the US and South Korea with the missile engine test, are reportedly emphasizing the need to strengthen the national defense forces, saying that the missile launch is for “enhancing self-defense capabilities,” during recent lectures.

 

"The lectures are all delivered by low-level (primary) Party chairmen and they keep emphasizing that the country will not be able to maintain peace and sustainability if self-defense is not strengthened and the population does not suffer for that ultimate goal,” he said.

 

"The authorities claim that we are a proud nuclear power and that no country can challenge us. But it is demoralizing and exhausting that [the regime] won’t recognize that ordinary people just want a better quality of life, not more missiles.”

 

Urban fox

Parkland Walk:

Unimpeachable logic

Should we blame Islam for terrorism, asks David Shariatmadari. The answer, unsurprisingly (this is the Guardian), is no:

Aspects of Islamic teaching do indeed justify some kinds of violence. Islam isn’t a pacifist religion. But again, it has this in common with Christianity, Judaism and other world faiths. Since that’s the case, and since we know that violence in the name of Islam has waxed and waned, it follows that we cannot look simply to theology to explain recent Islam-inspired terrorism....

What had changed? Not the religion. A political earthquake had occurred and religion was now being used by those in power as a vehicle for massive social reorganisation. But what this story captures is a tendency among non-Muslims to attribute magical, ahistorical qualities to Islam – to appeal to it as a black box when events are perplexing, or, as is sometimes the case, when their own wrongheaded policies are implicated.

It’s here that the question of politics – geopolitics – becomes inescapable. The Qur’an and the hadith, the sources of Islam, didn’t get rewritten in the last few decades. But they were taken up and used by certain political actors to justify horrific violence. Why?

The answer must lie among the political, economic, military and social changes in the Middle East in our times, and how they have ramified in the wider world. It’s only by looking beyond the texts that we can hope to understand why certain interpretations of them have gained currency among a tiny minority – but a minority willing to indiscriminately kill civilians.

This isn’t an excuse.... It’s unimpeachable logic. If you think that the causes of terrorism are embedded in the Qur’an and hadith, you’re proving yourself unable to deal with the complexities of a world in which politics – including military and non-military intervention by foreign powers – interacts with religion.

Saying “there’s something special about Islam” saves you from making the effort to learn more about this faith, the people who practise it and the conditions they live in.

It’s psychologically useful, granted. Islam can be a convenient focus for the rage we feel after hearing about acts of brutality. But don’t mistake something being seductive for it being accurate.

For some – and I suspect this includes Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen and more than a few British pundits – the natural conclusion is that people should be convinced to abandon Islam, and if that doesn’t work, it should be driven out. This, of course, would be a grossly illiberal and violent programme – but one, I suppose, that sits in a rather long tradition of nationalism and supremacism in the west.

Unfortunately this is one of those Comment is Free pieces that doesn't, in fact, allow comments. Which is a shame, because it would be torn to pieces.

There was a time, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, round 9/11 or the 7/7 2005 London bombings, when the line that these terrorist attacks were blow back for Western imperialist outrages could get a good hearing on the left. "Blair's bombs", they said about 7/7. America "had it coming" for 9/11. The underdogs were fighting back at last.

But now? Not so much. It's down to a tiny minority on the hard left, if it's there at all. The barbarities committed in the name of Islam - Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram - have been so relentless, so appalling, that even the Guardian commentariat have had enough. It's now only the desperate - like Shariatmadari here - who try it on with this kind of apologetics. As soon as we heard about Westminster, we all knew. A "terrorist", they said. Islam wasn't even mentioned for some time, but it didn't need to be. We knew it wasn't a Hindu extremist, or a Sikh, or a Christian. 

Of course there's a problem with Islam. It's the fact that so many commentators like Shariatmadari here refuse to acknowledge it, offering instead this kind of pathetic insult to our intelligence, that politicians like Trump or Marine Le Pen get the support they do. 

As far as the history goes, we could perhaps point out that Islam was founded by a warlord, and that submission to the sword has been the Way of the Crescent since its inception. But historical comparisons can be contentious. Christianity, it has to be admitted, has been the cause of bloodshed aplenty. The problem, clearly, lies with Islam's relationship to the modern world. Christianity, by and large, has adapted. Indeed the modern western scientific liberal order has grown with, and as a reaction to, the Church and its teachings. Islam has been on the outside looking in, and as a result has been excluded. The modern world has passed it by. It's now regressing. 

There are modernisers - Muslim secularists, like Maajid Nawaz. These are the people we need to encourage. You'd think the left would support them - but you'd be wrong. The Guardian did a particularly nasty hatchet job on Nawaz back in 2015. By one David Shariatmadari.

 

A new vision of conservative nationalism

First we take Washington, then we take....Paris?

Marine Le Pen made a surprise visit to the Kremlin Friday, and Vladimir Putin’s warm reception left little doubt about Moscow’s choice to win the French Presidential election in a month.

The French National Front leader was looking for at least a de facto Kremlin endorsement a month from the first round of voting, and she received it with news footage that showed the Russian strongman smiling next to her.

“We do not want to influence events in any way,” Mr. Putin said, and how would anyone get that idea? Pro-Kremlin news sites merely published reports that the Kremlin had pledged to “help” Ms. Le Pen’s cash-strapped campaign before correcting the stories and deleting the tweets. In 2014 the National Front received a $10 million loan from a Kremlin-linked bank.

Ms. Le Pen returned the public admiration, saying Mr. Putin represents a “new vision” of conservative nationalism and sovereignty along with Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That’s an insult to Messrs. Trump and Modi, who have won fair elections. She also called on Paris and Moscow to join forces to combat “globalization and Islamic fundamentalism.”

Ms. Le Pen made clear that she’d pursue a policy of appeasement toward Russian aggression against the countries that live in Moscow’s shadow. Sovereignty is sacred to her—unless you’re Georgian or Ukrainian. “I was one of the few politicians in France who were defending their own point of view on Ukraine that coincided with that of Russia,” she said at the Russian Parliament.

She went on to denounce Ukraine’s elected government using rhetoric that would make the producers at Russia Today blush: “We are forced to deal with a government that came to power illegally, as a result of the Maidan revolution, and now bombs the population in Donetsk and Luhansk. This is a war crime.” She vowed to fight European sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and proxy invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Ms. Le Pen has long been a Putin apologist, but the difference is that now she has a plausible path to the Élysée Palace. Being open to negotiations with Mr. Putin is one thing, excusing and endorsing Russian imperialism another. If she’s elected, Mr. Putin will have an overt fifth columnist in the heart of NATO.

Stijlising The Hague

Dutch art movement De Stijl was founded one hundred years ago.  Studio VOLLAERSZWART are "Mondriaanising" The Hague in celebration:

Moonlight tiger

The Thylacine may not be extinct after all:

Scientists in northern Australia are preparing to hunt for the Tasmanian tiger following a series of “sightings” of the species, which was declared extinct after the last one died in a zoo in 1936.

As part of a search due to begin next month, scientists plan to set up more than 50 camera traps to try to spot a so-called tiger, or thylacine, in Cape York, a peninsula in the country’s north-east corner.

This follows two apparently credible sightings in the region, including one by Brian Hobbs, a former tourism operator who revealed earlier this month that he spotted a family of the animals in 1983 after they startled his German shepherd.

"These animals, I've never seen anything like them before in my life," he told ABC Radio.

"They were dog-shaped — I had a shepherd with me so I certainly know what dogs are about — and in the spotlight I could see they were tan in colour and they had stripes on their sides."

Patrick Shears, a former ranger who also claims to have seen a tiger, said local Aborigines reported regularly spotting the creature.

"They pretty well confirmed that they know about a dog-like creature — not a dingo [a native Australian dog] — that's often seen at night," he said.

"They call it the 'moonlight tiger'… They're curious. If you're not moving and not making a noise they'll come within a reasonable range and check you out then just trot off.”

Professor Bill Laurance, one of two researchers from James Cook University undertaking the search, said the sightings appeared to be credible but admitted it seemed unlikely that the species would have survived in such low numbers.

“All observations of putative thylacines to date have been at night, and in one case four animals were observed at close range - about 20 feet away - with a spotlight,” he said.

“We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye shine colour, body size and shape, animal behaviour, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs.”

The Tasmanian tiger, a carnivorous marsupial which disappeared following the arrival of British settlers, has gained an almost mythical status in Australia.

The last known creature died on September 7, 1936 at a zoo in Hobart, the capital of the island state of Tasmania.

There have since been countless alleged sightings, but none has ever been confirmed. Scientists in Australia have also been attempting to clone it.

The creatures were believed to have once roamed the mainland but became extinct there – possibly after being preyed on by dingoes, Australian wild dogs – and were left only in Tasmania. They were then hunted and trapped by the colonialists, who believed the tiger was a threat to their sheep.

Well yes...despite attempts to blame it all on the British, the extinction of the thylacine from mainland Australia seems largely to have been caused by dingoes, which arrived there some 4000 years ago - well before Captain Cook.

Onwards and upwards

San Francisco ca. 1923. "Studebaker Big Six touring car." At the Vanderbilt Apartments:

[Photo: Shorpy/Christopher Helin]