Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: Politics (Page 55 of 57)

Two Zizou round-ups

14 July 2006 / / 7 Comments

Jarndyce links to a number of posts discussing that headbutt, and analyses the the political victimology of Zizou:

The presumption that Zizou was justified in “retaliation” can only be explained by assuming Materazzi fits the northern European stereotype of the Italian as a racist wop. To those that charge Materazzi with racially abusing Zidane, on the basis of so little evidence, I call right back at you.

The speed at which this particular narrative (is it ‘The Rise and Fall..’, ‘The Fall and Rise…’, ‘Hero to Zero’?) has cycled through its steps is astonishing. On Sunday, Zidane was the villain who lost France the World Cup. Monday and Tuesday was the lip-reading intrigue over what was said. On Wednesday he apologised and by now he is the toast of all France for standing up to racism! It is as if a peice of history has been manufactured at high-speed.
Now it is Friday, and we are into post-modern parodies for laughs. Anil Dash has compiled a movie of the Internet’s best Zidane animations, in the inaugural Zidane World Cup Headbutt Animation Festival. Full circle.

Sunny at Pickled Politics has curated a similar festival. Apologise to the visitors from there who visited here looking for the above linked YouTube video – I accidentally deleted the embed code from the post. Now reinstated…

Seven-Seven

7 July 2006 / / 4 Comments

Plenty of discussion on the blogs and in the media about the london bombings, this time last year, notably from survivors such as the irrepressible Rachel and the idosyncratic Dave Taurus.
The bombings were a terrible punctuation to a bizarre week. The previous Saturday, I had worn white and joined the Make Poverty History march, along with thousands of others. It was a hot day, and we stopped half-way round to have a pint on George IV Bridge. We chatted to a couple who had taken a bus from Bristol to join in the event. The G8 summit was about to start, and there was a feeling of optimisim in the air. It was genuine.
Watching the ‘Live 8’ highlights on TV that evening, and later that week when another concert was staged at Murrayfield, it seemed to me that those events had a certain falseness. Jonathan Ross and his interviewees kept talking about what an historic concert Live 8 would be, before it had even begun. The whole event was a paean to the original Live Aid concert, a consolation prize for those who had missed it first time around. I remember saying that you cannot package and market those moments that will define a decade, and that history has a certain spontenaity – it does not take place at a pre-arranged meeting point.
Of course, the following day four guys went straight ahead and made some real history, at their own pre-arranged meeting point. Not only did they destroy lives and property, but they destroyed the sense of optimism, a rising tide of political activity and awareness, that had been swelling over the previous week. And do you know what? One year on, I don’t think we have regained that momentum. Instead we flounder in scandal and misdirection.

A Most Respectful Letter from an Englishman in Scotland, to a Scotsman in England; In Which the Subject of Their Shared Britishness is Discussed at Some Length.

6 July 2006 /

This was my shortlisted entry into the Ben Pimlott Essay Prize. The winning entry, by Rowland Manthorpe, was published by The Guardian last week.
Read close, o my best beloved, and picture the scene. It is a cold and idle weekday in February. The dance-floor at L— Nightclub is barely a third full. The clientele are young, but in this light it is difficult to be sure that they are over eighteen. Many wear those jumpers with hoods you will have seen in photographs. Thin girls in white denim dresses have braids in their hair. Three youths in turbans lurk in the corner, by the dirty pillar that blocks the view from the bar.
Chunky hip-hop performer ‘Sway’ saunters on stage with the arrogance of a MOBO winner (for that is what he is). Behind him bounces his accompanist for this evening, DJ Turkish. They are both wearing Union Jack tea towels over their faces, like patriotic bank robbers. “These rappers couldn’t see me coming if they were vaginas with spectacles,” shouts Sway, before telling us a story about the mysterious Land of Harveynicks. The entertainment has begun.
We are in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital – yes, you know it well, my friend! – in the shadow of the famous castle, where legions of tourists flock each summer to watch the tartan fuelled military tattoo. It is a place where English residents of the city complain that, these days, it is being over-run by Australians. It is a place where a man with a Ghanaian name is reciting American-inspired slam poetry, to a beat hammered out by a Turk from North London. And what of this young audience? Believe me when I tell you, if you were to conquer the countries of their parents, then truly the sun would never set upon your Empire.
Let us be clear, so we make no mistake. Your task in 2009 will be to unite all these people: The tartan tattoo day-trippers, the snobbish English students, the sullen Sikhs… and Sway, who waves the Union Jack proudly, just as you asked. You must convince them that they are one people, and that they all belong to the same privileged club. You must describe the values and the traditions that they must learn to love.
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Ben Pimlott Essay Prize

1 July 2006 / / 2 Comments

I was delighted to be shortlisted for this year’s Ben Pimlott Essay Prize, run by the Guardian and the Fabian Society. The theme this year was “on whether history can help us define British identity”.
It was great to pull together some of the ideas on Britishness I have been reading and writing about online. Tragically, I fear my essay was too much like an extended blog post with not quite enough depth… and my particular offering was pipped at the post.
Rowland Manthorpe is still a student (and a good looking one at that, dammit). His winning essay is published in today’s Guardian. Excerpts from mine will be posted to Guardian Unlimited at some point, I believe. I’ll wait for the dust to settle before discreetly posting the entire thing to this blog…
Over at The Sharpener, Paul has posted his entry, while at Ministry of Truth Unity finds a true Brit: A Pakistani immigrant, British Citizen, hoping to become the first Asian MSP by standing on a platform of Scottish Independence.

Alaa Free

27 June 2006 / / 3 Comments

Funny how the same words, in a different order, mean vastly different things. Last month I blogged about the Free Alaa campaign, an online drive to raise awareness of the detention of Egyptian blogger and democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fatah. I heard about his detention via blogging, and by the same methods (via Adloyada) I now hear he has been released.
Part of the campaign was a GoogleBomb, whereby bloggers attempted to fool Google into returning pages from the Free Alaa campaign site, whenever the word ‘Egypt’ was searched for. As Adloyada suggests, this particular tactic may have had minimal effect, but the wider use of the internet as a medium for campaigning is what interests me here.
We are updated regularly on the ‘explosion’ of blogging, with about a billion new blogs created daily. Many of these – arguably the more interesting ones – are likely to spring up in places where democracy and human rights are not guaranteed. I worry that examples of bloggers being detained, already a regular occurence in Iran, will increase with the popularity of blogging in general. Perhaps we will begin to see a form of campaign fatigue, whereby it is difficult to keep track of which bloggers have been detained, and where!
This is where Web 2.0 innovations such as wikis and RSS feeds can come into their own, ensuring we can keep updated and active over a lengthy period of time. Metaphorical ideas of momentum and critical mass are crucial factors in political movements. It will be interesting to see whether technology will lead to more sustained and effective campaigns, or just higher-profile, yet ultimately damp, squibs. Looks like the former in the case of Alaa, thank goodness.

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