Mick Hartley

Michigan night

Another night-prowling photographer (after Soho at night, on Monday), Michael McCluskey has driven round northern Michigan to put together a collection of images of neon-lit buildings, distant floodlights, isolated houses, and misty interiors. They have the eerie feel of film stills where something is about to happen - an alien landing, perhaps, or a zombie lurching into view...

[Photos © Michael McCluskey]

The series is available as a limited-edition photobook.

Enemies of capitalism

The government - well, the Department of Education - has issued a warning to schools against using ‘resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters’, and defined ‘anti-capitalism’ as one example of an extreme political stance. Naturally this has provoked strong reactions from the likes of John McDonnell.

“On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.

“This is another step in the culture war and this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace.”

Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed “how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism”.

He added: “Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well, you don’t have to. Boris Johnson’s government has just instructed schools to do exactly that.”

The panic spread:

A writer at the Canary tweeted: ‘Under new guidelines the Johnson government is banning from schools in England works by William Godwin, William Morris, JB Priestley, Noam Chomsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, George Orwell and many others who critiqued the economic model of the established order.’ Author and broadcaster Stuart Maconie joined in: ‘So ironic that this would mean no teaching George Orwell.’

All of which is nonsense, of course. The warning was against using ‘resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances', not against the teaching of George Orwell - or indeed anyone else.

Daniel Finkelstein, in the Times, fights back:

The government is right to include overthrowing capitalism in its list of extreme stances.

There are lots of ways in which capitalism can be reformed and its institutions changed. Much of human progress over the last two centuries has come from gradually improving the regulation of private enterprise and the provision of social support. Abolishing capitalism is extreme, reforming it is not.

It is the attempts to replace a capitalist economy altogether that have, without exception, ended in murderous disaster.

In his book Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies Kristian Niemetz puts to the sword the excuse that socialism hasn’t really been tried. Of course it has.

As Niemitz notes: “Over the past 100 years there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Hungary, China, East Germany, Cuba, Tanzania, Benin, Laos, Algeria, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Venezuela.”

Each of these disasters has gone through three stages. First there is a honeymoon period in which the latest socialist model is proclaimed to have avoided the pitfalls that doomed its predecessors. Not for Venezuela, for instance, the errors of Stalin.

Then there is the excuses stage when obvious calamity is blamed by advocates on western imperialist intrigue or sanctions.

And then, finally, when the whole sorry dictatorial, poverty-creating mess can no longer be denied nor the blame diverted, the model and its leaders are disavowed. It wasn’t “real socialism” after all, we are told.

From the women’s section of Limerick Prison

I posted about Barbie Kardashian the other day, in the context of California's decision to house trans-gender inmates according to their self-proclaimed gender identity. He (I can't quite bring myself to use his preferred pronoun) is the troubled young Irish man with a record of sexual violence against women. He claims now to have transitioned, and his solicitor said that he was very anxious to be "detained in a prison facility for females, as she identifies as a female.” I assumed, naturally, that such a request would be denied given the man's record of violence against women, including a serious assault on his mother. Besides which, on his visit to London's Tavistock Clinic, he was said to have outlined his gender dysphoria symptoms by rote, without emotion - as though he was reciting from something he'd learned. Plus he looks like something from a horror film.

Silly me. Of course he's now in the women's prison:

A teenager was today remanded in continuing custody on charges of making threats to kill two people.

Barbie Kardashian, (18), of no fixed abode, appeared before Limerick District Court, via video-link from the women’s section of Limerick Prison.

She is accused of four counts of making threats to kill or cause serious harm to a woman and a man, on dates in July, August, and September this year.

The power of his gender re-assignment certificate over-rules any threat that he may pose to the unlucky women inside Limerick Prison. Ireland is, after all, a progressive country. The fantasies of a violent sexual predator must be humoured. If that's at the expense of women's safety, well, who really cares?

Last Friday, Kardashian also appeared in court. During that hearing, Garda Shane Kirwan of Roxboro Road Garda Station, Limerick, informed the court the accused was “born a male but identifies as a female”.

Garda Kirwan said he arrested Barbie Kardashian at 8.30pm last Thursday night, 24 September, and she did not reply to any of the charges.

Sergeant Moloney told the hearing that gardaí would make “strenuous objections” if the accused applied for bail.

Because, clearly, he's a threat to the general public, who need to be protected from him. Women in Limerick Prison, not so much.

Not everyone is happy about this.

Hijra persecution

It's an article of faith in the gender debate that trans people suffer disproportionately from oppression and violence here in the UK. In Pakistan, meanwhile, it happens to be true. From Kunwar Khuldune Shahid in the Spectator - Do ‘Terf hunters’ care for Pakistan’s persecuted trans people?

As the transgender war plays out online in Britain, a far bloodier turn of events is unfolding in Pakistan. This month, transgender activist Gul Panra was shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s capital Peshawar. Another transgender woman, named Tariq alias Chahat, who had joined Panra to perform at a wedding, was also wounded in the attack. Panra's death adds to the grim toll of at least 69 transgender persons who have been killed in this province alone in the past five years. Yet many of those fighting the gender wars online are too busy calling out 'Terfs' to speak out on behalf of those dying thousands of miles away.

Despite the lack of support from abroad, Pakistan's transgender community has nonetheless managed to achieve hard-fought successes. The landmark Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act granted the community basic human rights in 2018; while the national census counted transgender people for the first time in 2017.

In some ways then, Pakistan has been ahead of the curve on gender rights: in 2012, Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) first issued identity cards allowing the transgender community to identify as a third gender, encompassing transgender male, transgender female and intersex identities.

Even so, despite these milestones, transgender people in Pakistan continue to be brazenly marginalised. For some transgender activists, this includes being sidelined from progressive movements locally, and being downright abandoned by the global trans movement.

In a parallel world to Gul Panra's, where words are violence, and where tweets muster more outrage than physical violence, transgender activists here question whether those burning JK Rowling’s books would spare some angst for transgender people being murdered. Amnesty International UK, Liberty and Human Rights Watch released a furious statement last week condemning the UK government's response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation. But shouldn't they instead focus their efforts on those dying for their identities?

Indeed for Pakistan's Hijra, or third gender community, the relentless focus by the Western trans movement on transgender identity theories is perceived as a hindrance rather than a help.

I'm not sure, mind, how useful the comparison is between trans women here and the Hijra in South Asia. From different cultures come different conceptions of gender. The Hijra, or Khawaja Sira in Pakistan, have a long history behind them, and are generally seen as a third gender - unlike here, where trans women insist that they're women, and the gender critical insist that they're men. 

There a useful Wiki entry on the subject:

In the Indian subcontinent, Hijra are eunuchs, intersex people, and transgender people. Also known as Aravani, Aruvani, Jagappa, or (derogatorily) Chakka, the hijra community in India prefer to call themselves Kinnar or Kinner, referring to the mythological beings that excel at song and dance. In Pakistan, they are called Khawaja Sira, the equivalent of transgender in the Urdu language.

Hijras are officially recognized as third gender in the Indian subcontinent, being considered neither completely male nor female. Hijras have a recorded history in the Indian subcontinent since antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra.

Many hijras live in well-defined and organised all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have consisted over generations of those who are in abject poverty or who have been rejected by or fled their family of origin. Many work as sex workers for survival.

The word "hijra" is a Hindustani word. It has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite", where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition". However, in general hijras are born male, only a few having been born with intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirvaan, which involves the removal of the penis, scrotum and testicles.

Since the late 20th century, some hijra activists and non-government organizations (NGOs) have lobbied for official recognition of the hijra as a kind of "third sex" or "third gender", as neither man nor woman. Hijras have successfully gained this recognition in Bangladesh and are eligible for priority in education and certain kinds of low paid jobs. In India, the Supreme Court in April 2014 recognized hijras, transgender people, eunuchs, and intersex people as a 'third gender' in law. Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have all legally accepted the existence of a third gender, with India, Pakistan and Nepal including an option for them on passports and certain official documents.

And there's a gallery here at LenScratch - scroll down below the women living as men in Albania. The strikingly elegant hijra on display show another significant difference to trans women here, who, frankly, can tend to look like blokes with a wig and a dress and an over-enthusiastic application of make-up.

Yellow, red, purple...

Early autumn colours at The Hill - again:

Including the issue of intensifying the scientific and educational work as required by the developing reality

Important news for those keen to update their library with the latest in revolutionary Juche thought, in works that comprehensively deal with the ideas and theories indicating the path of the struggle for further strengthening the Party in conformity with a new requirement of the developing revolution. From the official Rodong Sinmun:

The Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House brought out "Complete Collection of Kim Jong Il's Works" vol. 32 carrying Chairman Kim Jong Il's works in chronological order and in systematic and comprehensive way.

Carried in it are 82 works including talks, speeches and letters released by Kim Jong Il in the period from January to December Juche 69 (1980).

Those works comprehensively deal with the ideas and theories indicating the path of the struggle for further strengthening the Party in conformity with a new requirement of the developing revolution, effecting a great upsurge in the revolution and construction and greeting the 6th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea with laudable labor feats.

"Supporting the Great Leader Well Is Our Noble Duty", "Let Us Learn from the Faithfulness Cherished by the Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Forerunners" and other works deal with the ideas of modeling after the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters to bear in mind the loyalty to President Kim Il Sung as the revolutionary faith and obligation, so as to hold the President in high esteem and protect and secure the President's authority in every way.

"The People's Army Should Vigorously and Continuously Push Ahead with the Work of Establishing the Party's Leadership System" and other works clarify the tasks for strengthening the People's Army into an invincible rank that is boundlessly loyal to the leadership of the Party and fight for the President at the risk of their lives.

The collection also carries the works giving perfect answers to theoretical and practical issues arising in the socialist construction, including the issue of intensifying the scientific and educational work as required by the developing reality, the issue of further improving the people's standard of living, the issue of improving the social and cultural life and the issue of imbuing the Party members and working people with great national pride and revolutionary self-confidence.

I noted the publication of Volume 29 back in March, but somehow Volumes 30 and 31 passed me by. Must have had other things on my mind.

Back street Pittsburgh

Arthur Rothstein - July 1938. "Houses on slum section 'The Hill.' Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

[Photo: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration]

Les parapluies de Camden

The umbrella look at Camden Lock:

Continuing the farce

After I posted on that Judith Butler interview in the New Statesman last week, I've been waiting for someone - well, someone else - to take her apart. And now here's Meghan Murphy in Feminist Current - Judith Butler resurfaces to remind the world she is a fraud:

Butler is not known for clarity in writing or concept, but is nonetheless referenced more often than any other gender studies scholar, today. As such, New Statesman sought to interview her, in order to follow up on her views on the transgender debate, and those very bad feminists who dare continue to question the legitimacy of gender identity ideology and to insist women’s rights matter.

When asked how far ideas Butler explored in Gender Trouble help explain how the trans rights debate has moved into mainstream culture and politics, she responded with cluelessness typical of someone so seeped in academia they have lost touch with the real world. She insists on referring to women who express concerns about the impact of erasing “woman” as a legal category as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” and further insists this is a “marginal” position that feminists (she apparently sees herself as one) must fight to ensure remain marginal.

One presumes Butler does not see the hypocrisy of advocating to marginalize women in the fight for women’s rights. This lack of self-awareness remains present throughout the interview, offering at least some consistency.

The truth is, of course, that to question the notion that one can go from man to woman in a moment, simply by pronouncement, and that men who identify as transgender should have free, unchallenged access to women’s change rooms, transition houses, sports, and prisons is not, in fact, a “fringe movement.” Rather, there is a loud minority insisting on a fringe position that appears to dominate, thanks to social media manipulation and liberal media cowardice and bolstering. [...]

Butler goes on to conflate sex with gender, the most basic confusion underlying the trans debate, pointing out that “Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled” and that “It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women…”

It feels strange to have to explain the meaning of “gender” to a gender theorist, and point out that what feminists have been arguing for the past century has been that one’s biological sex should not determine one’s interest in masculine or feminine stereotypes or roles, but here we are. I can only assume Butler has plugged her ears like a child every time women like me have explained, patiently, that “sex” refers to one’s body and biology, and “gender” refers to the social roles imposed on or assumed based on one’s sex. We have argued that one’s affinity for femininity, for example, does not make a woman, and that the only thing that makes a woman is the fact she is female. Rather, it is gender identity activists who have insisted that identification with regressive, sexist, gender roles and stereotypes is what defines a man or woman. That is to say, that preferring femininity to masculinity actually determines one’s biology. Butler is arguing against herself. [...]

It is amazing to me that a respected scholar could be so deeply confused as to fail to even understand her own claims and arguments, but I suppose this is a testament to the situation of fields like gender studies, wherein scholars have their heads shoved so far up one another’s asses, they no longer feel required to think. All they need is an endless circle jerk of positive reinforcement to continue to receive funding and keep their jobs. Usefulness and rationality be damned — if we all participate in the charade, there is no threat. Indeed, this has been the tactic of trans activists as well, for whom “no debate” has become a mantra, saving them from the humiliation of having to defend their own statements.

Butler must know her career depends on her continuing this farce, and trusts no one will call her on it. She can hang on until she retires, financially secure and perhaps, therefore, content with her lack of integrity and investment in leading a duplicitous life.

Had it not been for this interview, I may have forgotten what a fraud she is, so I suppose we can thank her for reminding us.

Good stuff.

Soho at night

Insomniac photographer Joshua K. Jackson walked the streets of Soho at night, from 2017, to produce these images for his photobook Sleepless in Soho:

[Photos © Joshua K. Jackson]