Mick Hartley

Bluebell watch

My annual visit to the Ashridge Estate, near Tring. Earlier than usual this year.

Click on images for a clearer view.

The myth of the poor terrorist

I think we know this by now, but it's good to have the message repeated as often and as forcibly as possible. Claude Berrebi and Owen Engel in Tablet - Ending the Myth of the Poor Terrorist:

Last week’s Easter Sunday bombing, targeting Christian worshipers in Sri Lanka, was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history. The massacre, in which some 250 people were killed, showed signs of sophisticated coordination and planning and was quickly linked to the Islamic State, a group that, whatever role it is ultimately found to have played, is known to possess the technical expertise and operational network necessary to carry out this kind of attack. The bigger surprise for many has been the background of the nine Islamist terrorists, including one woman, who carried out the suicide bombings. Far from the common image of hardscrabble terrorists driven to desperate acts by their desperate lives, the Sri Lankan bombers were members of their country’s elite. “Most of the bombers are well-educated [and] come from economically strong families. Some of them went abroad for studies,” Sri Lanka’s junior defense minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, told a press conference. One suspected attacker went to law school in Australia while two others, brothers, grew up sons of a wealthy and well-established businessman.

Contrary to persistent myths surrounding terrorism, the background of the Sri Lankan attackers is closer to the norm than the exception. Researchers have been demonstrating for years that most terrorism is committed by individuals who are, on average, wealthier and better educated than the median level in their respective society.  [...]

The conventional view predicted that terrorists would hold lower levels of education or be uneducated and thus have fewer employment alternatives to terrorism than their better educated peers. Here, researchers again refuted the conventional conclusion, finding that terrorists are not only not uneducated on average but, in fact, tend to have achieved a higher education level than the average in their respective region.  [...]

There are many more unexplored theories that may help to further explain the roots of terrorism, yet one thing is certain: The conventional view is far too simple. Politicians like Jeremy Corbyn need to stop treating terrorist threat as though it is a unidimensional problem which is solvable by raising individual wealth and education. Corbyn’s paeans to the noble suffering of hopeless Hamas terrorists rests on a myth. The massacre against Christians in Sri Lanka was not committed by desperate volunteers drawn from the wretched of the earth. The terrorists who carried out that mass murder were well-educated members of their society’s upper middle class, a background that is not exceptional in the broader context of terrorism and, if anything, suggests that the perpetrators were representative of a common socio-economic class of terrorist.

As terrorism evolves further, we must treat this issue as one impacted not just by poverty, education or terrorist organizations, but other factors as well...

Well, the most important other factor, I would suggest, is ideology. It's not dissimilar, surely, to the phenomenon which sees universities as the main seed-bed for left-wing extremism. Whether it's Marxism, anarchism, or radical Islam, the better educated are generally more susceptible to the appeal of ideologies, and more prepared to take violent action in the pursuit of those ideologies.

In the garage

Marion Post Wolcott, May 1939. "Repairing automobile motor at the FSA warehouse depot in Atlanta, Georgia." 

[Photo: Shorpy/Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration]

After Vladivostok

We don't know much about the details of Kim Jong-un's meeting with Putin in Vladivostok last week, beyond Putin's bland account to reporters later, but one immediate result would seem to be an increase in North Korean labourers heading to Russia, in defiance of sanctions. From the Daily NK:

On the heels of the Kim Jong Un’s summit with Vladimir Putin, the number of North Korean laborers being dispatched to Russia appears to be increasing, according to sources close to North Korean affairs in Russia and China.

“The number of North Korean laborers in Vladivistok and Khabarovsk has been recently increasing. The influx of North Korean female workers is especially conspicuous. The women usually work at textile or seafood processing factories and the men usually work on construction projects,” a source close to North Korean affairs in Russia told Daily NK.

These are, in effect, slave labourers, having to send most of their money back to the regime in Pyongyang.

A lawmaker told Interfax News agency on April 16 that North Korean officials requested Russia continue to employ the country’s overseas workers despite sanctions stipulating their repatriation by the end of 2019.

China and Russia recently submitted reports to the UN North Korean Security Council sanctions stating that they had sent home more than half of their respective North Korean contract workforces.

However, a source in China with ties to North Korea said, “Recently I spotted a group of North Korean contract workers heading from Sinuiju via Dandong to their final destination in Moscow.”

“I don’t know why they transferred in Dandong if they’re going to Moscow, but they were all previously on Chinese work visas, sent back, and are now headed to Russia,” he said, noting that this would be a violation of sanctions, which prohibit new working visas for North Korean citizens.

Despite the sanctions, it is likely North Korea is exploiting loopholes in order to send workers to Russia, just as it has done in the past in China.

“North Korea often dispatches workers deceptively classified as students or workers with admissible technical qualifications,” a separate source in China reported.

Oh Gyeong Seob of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said that North Korean contract workers may also be engaging in illegal work after entering the country on travel visas.

“This has been a tried and true method used by the North Korean authorities to send its workers to China and seems to be the same tactic at play with the Russia influx, as they can’t officially accept new North Korean contract labor due to the sanctions. The situation certainly demands continued scrutiny of official figures,” the researcher added....

There has been much speculation on the outcome of the recent North Korea-Russia summit, with some observers positing that contract labor and energy issues would have been among the topics on the agenda.

For his part, Oh argued that North Korea is looking for economic support and collaboration with Russia while searching for ways to get the UN sanctions lifted.

“That said,” he noted, “it will be difficult for Russia to overtly violate sanctions, but they may try to employ previously-used methods that are less obvious, like moving North Korean coal through the country for export to third-party nations.”

Clueless intersectional feminists

More on the by-now familiar story of Western feminists more interested in displaying their anti-imperialist credentials than acknowledging the genuine oppression of women in the Islamic world. In Quillette, Omayma Mohamed, who renounced Islam at the age of 21, tells how she assumed that she'd find understanding and support on the progressive left. Oh dear no. How Intersectionalism Betrays the World’s Muslim Women:

As I became acquainted with the activism of role models such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Yasmine Mohamed, Armin Navabi and Ali Rizvi, I began to recognise the cognitive dissonance afflicting the left, leaving them with a severe blind spot. A bizarre alliance with Islam, a set of very conservative ideas, has earned them the label of “regressive left’’ instead. Their misguided campaign against “Islamophobia” has failed to separate the ideology from the people, conflating prejudice against Muslims with valid opposition to the doctrine. The stigma has hindered constructive discourse and established a concerning trend whereby issues typically challenged by the left, such as homophobia and gender inequality are disregarded where prevalent in Muslim majority countries or even Muslim communities within the west.

Like me, many ex-Muslims have felt it to be their responsibility to fill this void in leftist activism. Yet we are often met with reflexive accusations of bigotry or intolerance. Despite lived experiences and intimate understanding of the doctrine driving our stances, we are denied a platform to voice them. This censorship of confronting ideas stems from the left’s fixation on distinguishing themselves from the right. A severe overcorrection has ironically pushed them into an illiberal territory. Affiliates of the left must conform to prescribed beliefs and behaviours to prove their loyalty. Those that pass the test are rewarded with the illustrious “woke” status. Failure to do so carries the risk of misalignment with “the enemy” and exile as a result.  [...]

The progress of Muslim reformers, dissidents and apostates is hindered by leftists that use cultural relativism as a basis for their activism. Within this framework, Western progress and improving standards of equality, justice and freedom is naively attributed to white privilege rather than a long and bloody struggle towards enlightenment values. To take responsibility for their imperialist past and its impact on other cultures, leftists operate under a perceived obligation to remain impartial to practices they wouldn’t accept for themselves. These double standards undermine the principle of international human rights and has been termed as “the bigotry of low expectations.” Refusing to acknowledge social justice issues where prevalent among Muslims allows the disparities in quality of life to continue while they pat themselves on the back for being “culturally sensitive.”

Misguided celebrations such as “World Hijab Day”—and the recent New Zealand iteration, “Headscarves for Harmony,” which is designed to honour the victims of the Christchurch mass shootings—exemplify the misguided direction of western feminist activism. Rather than showing solidarity with Muslim women by challenging purity culture, moral policing and forced modesty, clueless intersectional feminists are actively normalising their oppression.

Painting photography

I suppose these are the kind of pictures they meant when they worried about how photography would making painting redundant. Very much a painterly aesthetic here, but the kind of aesthetic more evocative now of Victorian art than of anything produced more recently. This, in a way, is what modern art left behind.

From Belgian photographer Léonard Misonne (1870 – 1943).

Misonne previously: Brussels, 1937, London, 1899.

Ghosts of Segregation

Vestiges of America’s racism in the vernacular landscape. From photographer Richard Frishman's series Ghosts of Segregation:

Ellis Theatre; Cleveland, Mississippi 2018. On the left is the Ellis Theatre's entrance for "colored people." On the right is the colored restroom entrance. © Rich Frishman

Meridian Colored Entrance; Meridian, Mississippi 2018. During the Jim Crow era people of color were forced to enter the State Theatre in Meridian, Mississippi by walking down an alley to a separate colored entrance and colored ticket booth. © Rich Frishman

Sunset Café; Chicago, Illinois 2018. The Sunset Cafe, also known as The Grand Terrace Cafe, was a jazz club in Chicago, Illinois, operating during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. It was one of the most important jazz clubs in America. The only clue as to its past fame is the back wall of the bandstand, with its iconic mural, which dates to 1937. © Rich Frishman

Medgar Evers's House; Jackson, Mississippi 2018. © Rich Frishman

African Free School; New York City 2018. © Rich Frishman

Paramount Theatre; Clarksdale, Mississippi 2018. While white theatre goers entered under neon lights on Yazoo Street, people of color had to purchase their tickets in the alley around back and use these stairs to reach the segregated sections of the upper and lower balcony.© Rich Frishman

Peterson revisited

Last month Jordan Peterson, as we recall, had the offer of a visiting fellowship at Cambridge withdrawn after a photo surfaced with our man standing next to a New Zealand fan wearing an "I'm a Proud Islamophobe" t-shirt. Well, in fact the man's t-shirt read "I'm a Proud Islamaphobe", but it wasn't the spelling mistake that caused the furore.

Now he's interviewed in the Times (£) by Josh Glancy, and the subject turns, inevitably, to that word:

But always there are controversies, following him around like a pack of stray dogs. Why doesn’t he like the word Islamophobic, for example? He acknowledges there is “inappropriate bigotry” towards Muslims, but also believes the concept of Islamophobia is “partly constructed by people engaging in Islamic extremism, to ensure that Islam isn’t criticised as a structure”.

What about the millions of Muslims experiencing real prejudice every day? What about the massacre in Christchurch? Call it what you like — Islamophobia, anti-Islam, anti-Muslim, whatever — 50 people died that day because they were Muslims. Peterson isn’t convinced.

“Was that anti-Muslim prejudice? Was that anti-immigration prejudice? Was that anti-pluralism prejudice? He [the shooter] obviously had an agenda, his agenda was to divide people. He stated this forthrightly. He was anti-immigrant. To think of that as an example of Islamophobia is a radical and dangerous oversimplification of something that was actually far worse.”

Hmm. Peterson’s views on Islamophobia sound eerily like Roger Scruton’s, who was sacked from his position as a government housing adviser this month for calling it a “propaganda word”. Sure enough, Peterson believes Scruton was “witch-hunted” out of his position. “It’s not surprising, this kind of thing happens all the time now,” he says, decrying our “cruel mob” mentality and the baying hordes of Twitter, a “dangerous social platform” that is not “technologically suited to human psychology”.

I don't know why it is that interviewers have such trouble with those like Peterson or Roger Scruton who express their unease at the word "Islamophobia". It's always, what??...you deny that Muslims suffer prejudice?...what about Christchurch? etc. etc.. But that's not the point. The point, as they and many others keep trying to explain, is that the word conflates the people, Muslims, with the religion, Islam. It's not that hard to understand. Though I think by now it's a losing battle.

Mind you, I don't think Peterson defends himself well here. Why can't he just say that, yes, anti-Muslim prejudice exists, as we saw to appalling effect in Christchurch, but I would prefer to call it that - "anti-muslim prejudice" - rather than use the dubious term "Islamophobia"? Instead he waffles on about Christchurch being more like an anti-immigrant attack, and to call it Islamophobic would be a "radical and dangerous oversimplification". As though he's denying that the killer was targeting Muslims. Which he clearly was. Peterson doesn't need to do that. It makes him look dishonest, frankly, and in denial.

It's as though he himself doesn't in fact understand the problem with the term "Islamophobia".

The Tyrant

Inside North Korea, Kim Jong-un's image is carefully controlled - always smiling, always benevolent. Outside North Korea he can be photographed more realistically - as with this powerful and chilling portrait of the Supreme Leader attending a wreath-laying ceremony at a navy memorial in Vladivostok yesterday, after his summit with Putin:

[Photo: Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters]

Hold Up a Light

My grandson features in this, so....

Take That singer Mark Owen with the children of Grasmere Primary School in Stoke Newington, raising money for The Salisbury Hospice Charity.

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