Mick Hartley

Carnival of bigots

Comparisons between Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are not new. As far as the topic of antisemitism goes, and the extent to which the two leaders have allowed it to spread within their respective support bases, the main difference would seem to be that Sanders, of course, is Jewish. In fact he seems recently to be making more of his Jewish heritage. Why might that be? James Kirchick:

Four years later and running for the White House again, Sanders has embraced public discussion of his Jewishness, apparently on the grounds that it is a useful way to deflect changes of anti-Semitism. Asked at the J Street conference how he would respond to critics who say the Democratic Party has become hostile toward Israel, Sanders cited his identity as a tactical plus. “Being Jewish may be helpful in that regard,” he answered. “It’s going to be very hard for anybody to call me, whose father’s family was wiped out by Hitler, who spent time in Israel, an anti-Semite.”  [...]

The problem with Bernie Sanders isn’t Bernie Sanders. It’s the way that the 78-year-old socialist, who has already suffered one heart attack on the campaign trail, is being used by an assortment of anti-Semitic frauds and weirdos who have glommed onto his campaign, using Uncle Bernie like an ATM that dispenses free passes for anti-Semitic bigotry (and campaign cash). 

It’s all of a piece with what 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton recently referred to as “the culture around” Sanders. “It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. With Sanders being the most high-profile Jewish politician in the country and the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in American history, that his campaign has become a vessel for such ugliness is a phenomenon worth exploring.

Let’s take a spin through the carnival of bigots surrounding the senator. Reprising her role as a Sanders surrogate is Linda Sarsour, a woman who espouses Saudi Arabia as a model for American feminists, cheered the clitoridectomy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and has fawned over Louis Farrakhan.

Sanders surrogate Amer Zahr has written of a “Jewish jihad” against Palestinians and defended Zahra Billoo, who was forced to resign from the Women’s March board over her support for Hamas.

Progressive internet grifter and Sanders surrogate Shaun King—whose representation of his own identity has come under scrutiny—praised Sanders for “speak[ing] out against apartheid-like conditions in Palestine even though it’s not popular” in a video that the Sanders campaign posted on its website. [...]

One wants to believe that Bernie Sanders isn’t aware of the insidious role his campaign is playing as a vector for anti-Semitism to spread on the American left. Perhaps, under the influence of younger advisers, he is being used as a prop. Whatever the story, one thing is clear: Either Uncle Bernie is being taken to the dry cleaners by a bunch of anti-Semitic bigots on the left–or, even worse, he is the dry cleaner.

Trans discourse control

As Kathleen Stock notes, the Conservatives may be in government, but the influence of the censorious trans lobby is growing not abating. And much of their success is due to the campaigning of Stonewall, and their “Diversity Champions” scheme:

The main protagonist in this war on free speech in the UK is Stonewall, a campaigning charity that was founded to promote the rights of the same-sex attracted, but which in recent years has switched its focus to an unconditional defence of (what it views as) transgender equality. Its website declares that “Trans women are women and trans men are men”, and—somewhat surprisingly to many gay people, given the charity’s original mission—that “of course” a lesbian can have “a trans woman as a lesbian partner” or “a gay man be with a trans man”.

A central aim of Stonewall is now to bring the public to agree with these pronouncements; and a major instrument is its “Diversity Champions” scheme. Many organisations see the association as useful branding and are keen to sign up. In 2018, Stonewall made more than £2.7 million in fees—a significant part of the organisation’s £8.7 million income—from membership of the Diversity Champions scheme and similar programmes, including providing speakers and consultancy. But scheme membership requires a host of further conditions upon institutional structure and provision that go well beyond existing law, and seek to control speech and attitudes about transgenderism and gender identity.

In 2020, several legal cases will challenge Stonewall-sponsored policy within organisations. One is against Oxfordshire County Council for its “Trans Inclusion Toolkit For Schools”; another is against NHS England and the Tavistock NHS Trust, for allegedly pursuing experimental medical treatment on under-18 trans-identifying children; and another against Girlguiding for allegedly expelling a leader for gender-critical beliefs. A further case being explored is against the National Theatre (unlike the other defendants, not a “Diversity Champion”, but currently selling Stonewall merchandise in its bookshop) for refusing to serve women wearing T-shirts bearing the (apparently) provocative words: “Lesbian: a woman who loves other women.”

Stonewall’s big policy shift came in 2015. In its “Vision for Change: Acceptance without Exception for Trans People” document, it argued that trans people have the right “to determine their own gender” rather than leaving “intrusive and demeaning” medical panels or legal experts to decide for them. It simultaneously lobbied to have an inner feeling of gender identity (in Stonewall terminology: “a person’s innate sense of their own gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth”) replace gender reassignment as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act; and to have non-binary identities (roughly, an inner feeling of being neither man nor woman) legally recognised. Perhaps most controversially of all, it lobbied to have exemptions for single-sex services and spaces removed from the Equality Act, so that there could be no space or resource designated only on the basis of biological sex. Goodbye, “exclusionary” bathrooms, changing rooms, and sport—or so Stonewall hoped.

So far they've been remarkably successful. Most British universities are "Diversity Champions", and have as a result been instructed to come up with appropriate trans-friendly policies:

These policies tend not to be confined to personnel matters, but also dictate what acceptably may be taught and said on campus about trans people. Some university policies require that “any materials within relevant courses and modules will positively represent trans people and trans lives”. (No such clause appears in university policy for any other group, to my knowledge.) Training reinforces such messages, during which people with PhDs are shown diagrams such as the “genderbread person”, shaped like a gingerbread man but with sex depicted between the legs and gender identity in the head. A glossy Stonewall document entitled “Delivering LGBT-inclusive Higher Education” tells universities that inviting “anti-LGBT” speakers who deny “that trans people exist as the gender they say they are” causes LGBT people “to feel deeply unsafe”. 

They're also active in primary and secondary schools:

It provides “toolkits” for early years, in order to “prevent children from developing . . . transphobic attitudes”. It provides assembly plans and various other guides aimed at teachers, and holds conferences for children and young people. Another significant indirect source of influence is via local authorities, whose own membership of the Diversity Scheme leads them to insist on policies and toolkits in local schools, provided by Stonewall or other like-minded organisations. One such toolkit (not one of Stonewall’s) tells children: “Remember that a pupil who identifies as a girl but was assigned male at birth is not a ‘boy dressed as a girl’ but is a girl.” In a society with increasing numbers of children and teens identifying as trans—sometimes with lifelong medical consequences—this degree of discourse control has worrying implications.

But perhaps 2020 will mark a waning of their influence. 

Simon Fanshawe, a Stonewall founder and vocal critic of its present incarnation, says that its early strategy was “winning by losing”: perhaps losing cases, but winning hearts and minds along the way. Whether or not future legal battles are won or lost, Stonewall’s sinister absolutism and intolerance of disagreement means that it is, perhaps, already losing the wider war.  

You Can't Hurry Love

The Supremes, with their 1966 Holland-Dozier-Holland hit:

Let's hear from Wikipedia:

The song, a memory of a mother's words of encouragement ("My mama said 'you can't hurry love/No you just have to wait' ") telling her daughter that with patience she will find that special someone one day, is an example of the strong influence of gospel music present in much of R&B and soul music. "You Can't Hurry Love" was inspired by and partially based upon "(You Can't Hurry God) He's Right on Time" ("You can't hurry God/you just have to wait/Trust and give him time/no matter how long it takes"), a 1950s gospel song written by Dorothy Love Coates of The Original Gospel Harmonettes.

The recorded version of "You Can't Hurry Love" showcases the developing sound of The Supremes, who were progressing from their earlier teen-pop into more mature themes and musical arrangements. This song and "You Keep Me Hangin' On" were finished together; when it came time to choose which single would be issued first, Motown's Quality Control department chose "You Can't Hurry Love."

Written and produced by Motown's main production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, "You Can't Hurry Love" is one of the signature Supremes songs, and also one of Motown's signature releases. The single became The Supremes' seventh number-one hit, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for two weeks, from September 4, 1966 to September 17, 1966, and reaching number one on the soul chart for two weeks. The group performed the song on the CBS variety program The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, September 25, 1966.

Diana Ross, as ever round that time, looks alarmingly thin:

[Berry] Gordy drove Ross diligently throughout this period and Ross, due to anxiety arising from Gordy's demands of her, began suffering from anorexia nervosa, according to her autobiography, Secrets of a Sparrow. During a 1967 performance in Boston, Massachusetts, Ross collapsed onstage, and had to be hospitalized for exhaustion.

Monochrome murals

By Mexico-based artist Paola Delfín:

“Èèn” (2019), for The Crystal Ship, Ostend, Belgium. Photo by Arne Deboosere.

2019, for Proyecto Panorama, Cancun, Mexico. Photo by Gino Caballero

“La emperatriz“ for Shine Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo by Michelle Tannu

“Familia/Suku” (2019), for Upeart Festival, Tampere, Finland

2019, Mexicalli, Mexico
[Images © Paola Delfín]

On Instagram.

Trump's new deal

I can't claim to have spent much time poring over the details of Trump's so-called Deal of the Century, which he unveiled at the White House on Tuesday alongside Israel's Netanyahu. Naturally the Palestinians have rejected it, and naturally there have been earnest well-meaning articles about how they should have been consulted, and how nothing can be achieved till both sides show more empathy. It could be a very long wait indeed for the Palestinians to show empathy, however, and the only peace plan as far as I can see which would meet with Palestinian approval would be one in which the state of Israel was destroyed and all the Jews, one way or another, disposed of. That's the reality which the Palestinian leaders have talked themselves into, aided by an absurdly one-sided media view of the conflict which paints the Palestinians as permanent victims.

So yes, I rather enjoyed this Tablet article by Liel Leibovitz:

You may resent the president and dwell on his many shortcomings. You may admire him for a number of his finer qualities. But one thing is now evident: Like the small child in the tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Trump has an impressive ability, at least when it comes to the Middle East, to point out and ridicule the preposterous pieties his predecessors considered sacrosanct.

When confronted with the myth of Palestinian refugees, for example—Palestinians being the only people in history for whom the condition of statelessness is hereditary and observed rigidly even as new generations strike roots elsewhere—Trump slashed support for UNRWA, the United Nations’ agency devoted to perpetuate this outrage. He moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, doing in deed what a long line of American politicians promised and failed to deliver. He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And now, perhaps most meaningfully, he put to rest the lifeless notion that the 1967 borders—the so-called Green Line—were the sine qua non of any and all future negotiations.

What these decisions have in common isn’t just the ability, not always in ample supply in Washington, to see Israel’s point of view. They also share a refreshing ability to observe reality coolly and without too many preconceived notions. Any intelligent and impartial observer of this conflict—as opposed to the politruks on the Potomac—would’ve long ago realized that insisting on a framework that has been rejected for 20 years straight was folly, and that it was far more constructive to acknowledge that actions have consequences; that decades of declining offers came at a price; and that, given the circumstances, a new deal should begin by affirming conditions on the ground and proceeding from there....

"I hope my father can see that smile"

Asia Bibi, the woman who spent eight years on death row in Pakistan for alleged blasphemy after an argument with co-workers - they'd refused to share water with her because, as a Christian, she was unclean - has released a photo of herself in her new home in Canada, alongside Anne-Isabelle Tollet with whom she's written an autobiography:

[Photo: Francois Thomas/Éditions du Rocher]

Ms Bibi, who lives under a new identity and still faces death threats from Islamic extremists, is promoting her autobiography, Free at Last, which she co-wrote with the French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, a prominent campaigner for her release.

“You know my story from the media, perhaps you have tried to put yourself in my place to understand what I suffered,” Ms Bibi said in a press release for the book. “But you are far from understanding my day-to-day existence in prison, or my new life, and that is why I tell you everything in this book.”

The prospect of a tell-all memoir from Ms Bibi will trigger alarm in some quarters of Pakistan. Islamist groups condemned it yesterday and the Pakistani military, which was accused of pressuring Ms Bibi not to embarrass the country before allowing her to leave last year, will be paying close attention.

Ms Bibi, a mother of four, was arrested in 2009 after Muslim neighbours accused her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad during an argument over a cup of water. She was sentenced to death on hearsay evidence the following year and the case sparked uproar at home and abroad....

In Pakistan, politicians who spoke up in Ms Bibi’s support were murdered as debate raged about the country’s draconian blasphemy laws.

Blasphemy carries the death penalty, and is considered so serious that parents have been known to murder their own children merely for being accused of the crime. The law is open to flagrant abuse with allegations used to smear rivals and settle scores. Activists say many prisoners facing execution for blasphemy in Pakistan were convicted on little or no evidence.  [...]

The release of the photograph was met with jubilation from Ms Bibi’s supporters on social media. Among them was Shahbaz Taseer, son of Salman Taseer, the murdered governor of Punjab province. Mr Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard after calling for Ms Bibi to be pardoned and the blasphemy laws reformed in 2011.

“I hope my father can see that smile — it’s his greatest victory. God bless Asia Bibi and her family,” his son wrote on Twitter.

Ms Tollet said she was proud to have worked on the book, promising it would take readers “behind the scenes of ten years of fighting against religious fanaticism, worthy of a political thriller”.

Conservative groups in Pakistan, who campaigned for Ms Bibi to die and took to the streets when she was allowed to flee, denounced the book launch.

“This is a failure of the judiciary and the politicians for releasing her in an Islamic country. They gave her security and allowed her flee the country. Now she is launching her book that will portray a negative image of Pakistan and Islam,” a senior official with the ultra-conservative Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party told The Times.

Complaining that the book "will portray a negative image of Pakistan and Islam"?? They've got some fucking nerve.

Breton beasts

From photographer Mark Neville's Parade series, taken around the town of Guingamp in Brittany:

[Photos © Mark Neville]

Soon to go on show at The Photographers' Gallery as a nominee in the 2020 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.

Labour business as usual

Labour's internal election report has been leaked to the FT:

Labour’s official report into its worst electoral defeat for 80 years has exonerated leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying it would be “unrealistic” not to blame the result on Brexit.

The report was circulated on Tuesday at a meeting of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) as election co-ordinators Andrew Gwynne and Ian Lavery gave a verbal presentation about the election result.

The document concluded there was “no easy way for Labour to address the Brexit issue” given how it divided voters, according to party officials who have seen it.

The authors briefly considered the possibility that Mr Corbyn’s leadership and radical manifesto could have played a role in the epic defeat. But they said this was not the case, arguing neither had been a problem in the 2017 general election, when the party made large electoral gains. “It is unlikely that radicalism per se was the problem in a country looking for change,” the report said.

Mr Corbyn, far from being a weak or divisive leader, was instead the victim of four years of unrelenting attacks on his character, they wrote. This was an “assault without precedent in modern politics”, they said.

So...no lessons learned, then. The party continues on its journey to irrelevance....

Women did not seem to have much choice in the matter

Well now, this is.....something. From the Guardian:

Men drinking their partners’ breast milk is not uncommon in some areas of Uganda, and in parts of Tanzania and Kenya. It is now being linked to gender violence and coercive behaviour and there are concerns over the impact on babies’ nutrition. Little was known about the practice until Uganda’s minister of state for health, Sarah Opendi, broke the silence in parliament in 2018 and warned against “a growing culture of men demanding to suckle, which was becoming a problem for some breastfeeding mothers and their babies”.

The reasons for the phenomenon, and its consequences, are now the subject of what is believed to be the first preliminary study into the practice, by Kyambogo University in Kampala and Britain’s University of Kent, supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund.  [...]

The preliminary research suggested that men often drink before the child is fed, usually once a day, sometimes more frequently, and for about an hour at a time.

For about an hour at a time! Jesus...

The men said they found it energising. “It sustains me, I come home for lunch and it relieves stress in the middle of the working day,” said Thomas*.

“There is a belief in some communities that breast milk has energising and curative powers, even curing diseases such as HIV and Aids and cancer,” said Dr Peter Rukundo, a senior lecturer at Kyambogo University who assisted with the research.

The men also said it was a way of initiating sex and showing affection. “But then it is happening to women who have just given birth,” he added.

One man told the researchers: “When breastfeeding, I feel like I’m being looked after like a child, and this becomes addictive. I feel like a prince.”

Women did not seem to have much choice in the matter. “It appears to be a hugely coerced behaviour from the people we spoke to,” added Merritt.

When asked what might happen if she said no, one woman replied: “I fear that my husband might go elsewhere if I wouldn’t let it happen.”

Thomas admitted that resistance could result in the women being beaten. “She can’t say no because you become obsessed, it’s hard to stop. If women say no it can cause violence, it’s a big issue,” he said.

The behaviour has been linked to gender-based violence in the Karamoja region in north-east Uganda. “The principal nutritionist has claimed that it is a common practice there in the form of violence, that when the men get drunk some went for the breasts forcefully,” said Rukundo.

Health professionals, including midwives and nutritionists, told researchers about cases where babies had to be given formula milk because partners wanted the breast milk, and where women came to clinic with infected or bitten nipples caused by a man suckling. There are also risks to babies of cross-infection from the man’s saliva.

The case of Qais Abu Ramila

The old blood libel lives on. When an Arab boy disappears in Jerusalem, the rumours start. From the Jerusalem Post:

In a week in which Israel and the world mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this year commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, accusing fingers pointed at Jews suspected of kidnapping and killing a non-Jewish boy. In this modern version of the ancient blood libel, it was “Israeli settlers” accused of killing a Palestinian boy, seven-year-old Qais Abu Ramila.

Qais went missing on Friday afternoon when he set out from his home in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood to buy pitot at the nearby grocery store. When he failed to return, his family began searching for him. From this point, the story quickly blew up into a harrowing tale gaining international attention and igniting local violence.

Security camera footage of a child being pulled toward a car inflamed the situation. The family issued a statement saying, “If it turns out he was kidnapped by settlers it would set the entire neighborhood on fire.”

Qais’s father later acknowledged that the child in the camera footage was not his son but apparently an uncooperative child being dragging to a car by his parent. But the damage was done.

A Twitter account belonging to “Real Seif Bitar” accused “a herd of violent Israeli settlers” of kidnapping Qais and throwing his body “in a water well.” Hanan Ashrawi, a former Palestinian Authority legislator, re-tweeted this lie, adding, “The heart just shatters, the pain is unbearable, no words.” Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who proudly flaunts her Palestinian roots and anti-Israel stance, re-tweeted Ashrawi’s post, spreading the blood libel further.

While Ashrawi later apologized for “re-tweeting something that’s not fully verified. It seems that the news of his being kidnapped is not certain,” Tlaib simply deleted the tweet with no explanation or apology.

More at Aish.com, from Dr. Yvette Alt Miller:

Abu Ramila’s parents mourned their son, telling local Israeli journalists that he was “the flower” of their family. They acknowledged that his death was a horrible accident. Yet while the Abu Ramila family was grieving, an anonymous social media post declared the completely fabricated lie that Israeli Jews had murdered the boy, kidnapping and assaulting him before throwing him into a well to drown. This lie was reminiscent of medieval accusations that Jews poisoned wells and killed Christian children. Despite its obvious falseness, the post gained traction, being shared and re-tweeted by prominent figures around the world.

Palestinian official Hanan Ashwari re-tweeted the false accusation. Former British MP and radio personality George Galloway took the lie even further, asserting that the boy (whose age he got wrong) was murdered by "illegal Israeli settlers” (sic) and - in what sounded a lot like an incitement to violence - called for “anyone (to) check this evil rampage against the people of Palestine. Anyone?” In the US, Rep. Rashida Tlaib also re-tweeted the slanderous lie that the eight year old was murdered by Jews. She deleted the tweet when it’s grotesque accusation proved to be false, but not before it was seen by supporters, baselessly smearing Israeli Jews as murderers.