London innit?

Gis' us a sugarlump or I'll nick you

This somehow sums up the tube

Tariq Ramadan - sometimes accused of being a bit fuzzy, looking fuzzy

The thin chestnut line - helping to make Finsbury Park a bit more crappy

Knife crime, this summer's avian influenza

Just in case anyone has been wondering, I'm in London. I've been at two day conference held on the fringes of Islam Expo, along with all sorts of Islamist figures, hacks, spooks, ex-spooks, plods, professors - and finally other various lowly academic researchers and thinktankers such as myself. It has been a mixed bag, some wonderful presentations of academic clarity and objectivity - particularly from the American and Turkish professors - and then some political posturing without saying much substantive from others. My contribution from the floor was to suggest to Anas Altikriti that if Islamists parties want to be treated just like 'normal' parties they should stop whining when liberals points out they are ultra-conservative on social issues and if you are a woman or gay you have plenty of reasons to be very nervous about their politics. I think this annoyed him.

I came originally because I'm interested in the injection of Islamist politics into UK politics, and how different reactions to this have formed on both the left and the right. There were going to be various debates and discussion about these issues at the Expo and I wasn't just interested in hearing what the experts and pundits said, but how an audience of British Muslims reacted to it. But IslamExpo has become a victim of those new politics, albeit with a self inflicted wound. With rather stupid timing Mohammed Sawalha, the head of the British Muslim Initiative (one of the organisers of the whole Expo) and who is also closely linked to Hamas, threatened to sue Harry's Place for reporting his allegedly racists comments (read the whole thing on HP because it is a bit of long story around an Arabic translation). Looking from the outside it would appear that Harry's Place is in the right and Sawalha is pissing in the wind, but time and lawyers will tell. Anyway, in protest - and I think understandably - Martin Bright of the New Statesman pulled out of the debate he was to be part of, and now also Douglas Murray (Britain's own proud neo-con) has also withdrawn from another session tomorrow I was thinking of watching. It is a shame that Bright did pull out because he has done excellent work investigating British Islamist figures and we got left with Soumaya Ghannoushi ranting in circles and and no one calling her out the general innanity of her 'argument'. Her tone is also somewhat reminiscent of Thatcher which is never going to be reassuring...

On the way back to my friend's place tonight I stopped in Finsbury Park to go and see the infamous mosque, as it had been discussed this morning. Having not been to Finsbury Park before I can safely assure anyone else who hasn't that it is a shithole and you haven't missed anything. I'm sure the majority of the residents are lovely people but it has to be one of London's shabbiest boroughs.

Flying the flag!

David Millar, rolling out in yesterday's Tour de France time trial where he came a very credible third overall, and third in the stage. Keep at it David. Photo from Yahoo Sports. I want that bike - actually I don't as I'd look quite silly wheezing slowly along on it, but it is pretty cool. I was probably going to buy a Felt bike, but now - proving that advertising works great - I'm just going to have to!

What's wrong with the MCB?

I wrote a conference paper not long ago on the British State meeting political Islam that had quite a lot about the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in it. I've been asked to submit a revised version of the paper for an academic journal which is very flattering, as it was essentially an elongated version of the type of stuff I tend to go on about here, but of course if must go through peer review so I'm not home and dry yet. Anyway Yahya Birt has written an excellent, brief and pithy piece on the MCB for Open Democracy - laying out it's limited achievements and numerous failings and structural weaknesses. If you're even vaguely interested in the new-ish British politics of "communities", it's well worth the few minutes it takes to read.

Bike Helmets

YLE reports that two thirds of Finns don't support fining cyclists who don't wear helmets. There is currently a law saying you must wear one, but there is no penalty for breaking that law - a bit like MPs must say who funded their election campaigns but don't get into trouble if they don't!

I always wear a helmet, but don't believe you should have to. It's gesture politics - it's not that helmets aren't important - they can be, and I can think of one occasion since I started cycle commuting (out of maybe 12 000 kms ridden) where I'm pretty certain the helmet saved me from serious injury when I landed directly on my head in a fall. It's rather that pushing a helmet law is ridiculous when the Finnish police seem to care very little about cyclists' safety in policing issues such as cars refusing to stop for cyclist who have the rights of way at crossings, cars parking on cycle paths, and an increasing problem of motorcyclists and moped riders riding at excessive speeds on cycle paths. They could probably add far more to cyclists' safety by making sure riders have brakes that actually function - something that many non-serious cyclists don't seem to worry about at all.

Weekend Climbing

Sore hands. Yesterday: rough granite cracks and panicky finger jams - thinking I might fall off and not being convinced by the gear - taking chunks out my knuckles and heels of my palms. You can bleed like hell and it doesn't hurt at all when you're scared. The chalk quickly cakes in the cuts and stops the flow. Today bouldering. Pulling on little holds that I'm too fat to pull on, it's warm and the friction is shit and it just wrecks your skin on your tips. Try and do the washing up and the hot water hurts like hell, it's like you have holes in your hands right through to your nerves. I guess you do have holes in your hands. Lots of wild strawberries and bilberries in the woods though so it's all good.

Elina leads, Dianna belays

Dianna high up on the excellent "Varisuora" VS 4c

Your correspondent managing not fall off. Just.

Jody bouldering at Riistavuori

Pulling funny faces

How much does it cost to get waterboarded?

So Christopher Hitchens got waterboarded for Vanity Fair. You can watch the video here and read his thoughtful article about the experience here. Conclusion - it's torture, but I kinda hoped everybody knew that already. But there seems to be a some bizarre little side industry in waterboarding journalists springing up. Presumably it is ex-military or CIA people doing it? Hence the fashion for balaclavas and once again a penchant for those vests with lots of pockets in them, favoured by wannabe foreign correspondents. Do they get paid for this? At the same time other former military interrogation experts are desperately trying to get Hollywood to stop making films and TV shows where the heroes torture, because American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be copying them.

“Inside Egypt” John R. Bradley.

“Inside Egypt” by John R. Bradley.

It’s too long since I’ve done a book review so I think I should mention John Bradley’s “Inside Egypt: the land of the Pharaohs on the brink of revolution”. I saw it sitting on a colleagues desk and asked if I could read, “yes” was the reply, “but do it quickly”. Well it has taken me two days so that says a lot for the readability of the book. I’ve not been to Egypt and this book unfortunately isn’t likely to make anyone go, unless of course you are a weird social scientist who is interested in political disasters. So, I’m more interested in going now than before.

Bradley paints a very bleak picture of a country failing. The regime has no ideology and stands for nothing except its own continuance, hence the Egyptian state is utterly corrupts and having no other way to rally the nation to its cause, uses violence to repress society instead. Bradley suspects this is unsustainable as, unlike say China, the regime is not bringing people out of poverty whilst denying them freedom. Actually it is doing the opposite, pushing the middle class into penury whilst ignoring the poverty stricken working and underclass.

He notes that Egyptian civil society is utterly beaten down, producing virtually no culture, despite the country’s immensely rich multi-ethnic and –religious heritage. Not even the corrupt super-rich are using their money to make anything beautiful or interesting: “In all but ethnically cleansed and culturally purged post-Nasser Egypt… even money has gone stale, producing for the rich only barren imitations of life elsewhere, and financing only the thugs’ indulgence in beating any individual expression to a pulp.” (p.55)

He argues that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the greatest beneficiary of this oppression, as Mubarak has crushed all secular opposition. His view of the MB is that its rise is indicative of the malaise in modern Egypt, where demonstrations of public piety cover private spitefulness and corruption of the spirit. Bradley believes that they would just be a minor force if real democracy was allowed – noting although they took 20% of the vote in 2005 parliamentary elections, only 25% of the electorate could be bothered to vote in the heavily rigged elections and mostly consisted of committed supporters of the Brothers and then the state employees forced or obliged to vote for Mubarak’s NDP. Hence that 20% probably greatly overestimates their support in the country. He believes that the MB is true to its word that it is a peaceful organisation, yet at the same time is a clerically-fascist, sucking all the joy and celebration out of Egyptian heritage, and spreading sectarianism amongst different groups in the countries.

He argues that American policy of support to Egypt, the second biggest recipient of US aid after Israel, in return for its “cold peace” with the Jewish state is part of the problem. American support for democratic reform was both half-arsed and half-baked, and was abandoned immediately once it became apparent elsewhere in the Middle East that Islamists groups would win free elections in the current geopolitical climate. He quotes Hisham Kassem, a human right activist who was awarded a Democracy Award from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy in 2007. Kassem got to meet President Bush as a result, and Bush’s bemusement at being told how the current situation is building the MB’s support is telling: “we give your country $2 billion a year in order to keep it stable and prevent it from turning into a theocracy” Bush replied looking dismayed.

The book is very readable and cracks along at a fair pace, but isn’t perfect. The chapter on the Bedouin of the Sinai is basically a discussion of the Crisis Group report on the area. Crisis Group reports are generally excellent, but the other chapters show Bradley’s original reporting and feel for the country much more. His chapter on “Lost Dignity” is basically about old European women and European gay men coming to Luxor to find young Egyptian “studs” to shag. It’s really depressing but perhaps verges on the salacious. Bradley makes a decent case that it is representative of wider issues in the country, but in comparison to his horrific chapter on the endemic torture and violence in what passes for Egypt’s criminal justice system it seems like something of a smaller issue that just attracts disproportionate media attention as it involves sex and westerners.

"Troofers" - David Shayler has gone nuts

"Troofers" - those who think 9/11 was a massive plot - they're an odd bunch aren't they? I think it is like a new form of spiritualism or ghost hunting - except for the oddly dull "troof" that they seek. Instead of being interested in what really produced 9/11: massive global trends of immense complexity, involving resurgent religious belief, transnational capital flows disturbing entire national economies, and the geopolitical rivalries of great and medium powers, they instead look for some ultimately rather insignificant crime - the owner of the WTC did it to make an insurance claim, or Cheney did it to increase the value of his Haliburton stock. It's so parochial and dreary, suggesting an exceedingly limited perspective.

Anyway, rising to the prominence in the British 9/11 (and now add in 7/7) truth movement in recent years, was David Shayler. For those who don't remember, Shayler was an ex-MI5 employee. Troofers would probably like me to say "agent" or "operative", but ultimately he was a civil servant and a desk officers so not very James Bond. Shayler left the Security Service, blabbed to the media a bit about stupid political stuff MI5 had done in the past, got into trouble for it, ran off to France, got sent back and went to prison for a bit. Then he decided 9/11 was all a conspiracy, and later that 7/7 was as well. A low point was Shayler attacking Rachel North, who was in one of the bombed trains on 7/7, as being an MI5 disinformation agent or some such shit - Jon Ronson called him out on this and you can hear how it went on This American Life (not very American, I know).

UKClimbing.com, where I hang-out too much, has its own little band of troofers, they always link to videos on google vids - presumably because reading taxes them too much - these videos are meant to convince us of something - aliens did it, controlled explosions were set of by remote control monkeys or some such. Anyway, they reminded me of Shayler, so I googled him and it appears that last year Shayler went sort of mad, and not just lovably eccentric. No, rather totally fucking nuts - "I'm the messiah, come to save the world" mad. Poor chap.