Mother's Day for Nazanin

Yesterday morning, I attended a peaceful ceremony outside the Iranian Embassy in central London. As yesterday was Mothering Sunday in the UK, Amnesty International, together with Richard Ratcliffe, had organised the event to mark the third Mother's Day that his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has spent in prison in Iran. As Richard said: “We’ve come to deliver her a Mother’s Day card, because obviously we can’t do that in person, and to deliver 155 bunches of flowers, one for each week she has been held".
Now, as a number of people, including my colleague, Rednev, have noted, I am not a great fan of the regime in Iran. I am only too knowledgeable of the human rights abuses perpetrated by this theocracy. George Galloway's favourite state has an appalling human rights record, ample testimony to which has been collated both by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Anyone doubting this should read both these linked reports in full.

Richard Ratcliffe looks the picture of determination in the above photograph, standing in the doorway of the Iranian Embassy. If you looked a more closely at his face, however, the marks of strain were only too visible. He has not seen his wife and daughter for three years, and the suffering he must have gone through is unimaginable to most of us. He can communicate with Nazanin by phone at infrequent intervals, as with his daughter, Gabriella.  Gabriella was 22 months old when Nazanin was arrested at the airport in Tehran, waiting to fly back to the UK, on April 3, 2016. She is now four years old, and in the care of her maternal grandparents. Understandably, Gabriella now speaks no English. Nazanin herself has endured agonies of confinement, and fears have been raised about her mental health, especially since the Iranian prison authorities released her for a long weekend, and then peremptorily ordered her back to jail.

Although anyone outside Iran can see that Nazanin is being held on trumped-up charges, it's worth looking back at why she was arrested, the "charges" against her, and British Government intervention. The BBC says:
 "Iranian authorities allege Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was plotting to topple the government in Tehran - but no official charges have been made public. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said she was visiting Iran leading a "foreign-linked hostile network".

Further details can be found elsewhere, but it is difficult to see how a young mum and daughter can possibly be a threat to the organised paranoid spy state of Iran. If Nazanin was such a threat, why was she not banned from entry or arrested at the airport upon arrival? 

As we know, international pressure and the granting of diplomatic status to Nazanin by the British Government has not resulted in the Iranians releasing her and Gabriella, which begs the question: why are they really being held? Suggestions have been made that the Iranians are holding them hostage in order to recoup money owed by the British Government over the purchase of tanks ordered by the Shah, but not delivered. The tanks were paid for, and the Iranians want the money back. It seems rather a spiteful measure to detain an innocent woman and her child, but there may be something in this suggestion. If we remember, the Iranians have done this sort of thing before, during the 1979 US hostage crisis. The US hostages held during this 444 day crisis were finally released after the US Government unfroze Iranian financial assets, which may point to a financial factor in Nazanin's case.

As for our government, diplomatic efforts have been made to obtain Nazanin's release. Jeremy Hunt, our new Foreign Secretary, has said that he would do everything to bring it about. Unfortunately, remarks by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, have probably made Nazanin's situation worse. As the BBC says:

 "In November 2017 then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson faced criticism for suggesting Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists".

Boris later apologised for his gaffe and phoned Iran to retract his words, but, four days after he put his foot in his mouth, Wikipedia comments: 
"...Zaghari-Ratcliffe was returned to court in Iran where the Foreign Secretary's statement was cited as evidence against her".

Standing among the press and protesters yesterday, I began talking to a couple about Richard and Nazanin and what they were going through, only to discover that these two people were Richard Ratcliffe's parents, John and Barbara, pictured above. It came as quite a surprise to find myself talking to people intimately involved in a situation that I knew of only through the mass media. It was a pleasure and an honour to meet them, and they told me a number of details about how Nazanin's incarceration had affected their family life. I must be circumspect here in what I write; a number of people warned me that it was by no means impossible that the Iranian authorities would be reading this blog item. As we saw with Blundering Boris, the Iranians are adept at using unguarded statements as propaganda. Still, I was moved to learn of how, at family gatherings, John and Barbara's granddaughter, Gabriella, was able to speak on the phone to her uncles, aunties and cousins in the UK. 

I was very interested to learn that Richard, John and Barbara had applied for visas to visit Iran, but had all been turned down. Besides this, it appears that John is considered by the Iranian authorities to be a spy. If anything points to the absurd nature of Iranian governmental paranoia, it's that charge. If John was a spy, the Iranians wouldn't know - instead of catching true spies, they have to frame innocent people, such as Nazanin.. Besides which - at the age of 69, John is too old for MI6 and would have retired by now. 

At the close of the ceremony, which saw a Mother's Day card for Nazanin being delivered to the Embassy and the 155 bunches of flowers laid on the entrance steps (I laid one), Richard Ratcliffe thanked us all for coming and urged continuing support for the struggle to release his wife and daughter. His parents told me how much the whole family valued the worldwide support they received. They thanked me for coming, which means a lot; it made me feel I'd done something worthwhile (which it was). I can only pledge my continuing support for the Ratcliffe family, and look forward to the day when they can all be reunited. We must not give up on the struggle; we must not abandon hope. Anyone wishing to help, please click on THIS LINK.

Fighting the Far Right - From the SA to the Lone Wolf

Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister, has said, following the horrific attack on the mosques in Christchurch, that she was calling for:
"... a global fight to root out racist right-wing ideology following last week's deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch."
That is a worthy aim, and one which has been pursued by many thousands of anti-Fascists of all hues since the founding of the Nazi Party in Germany,1920, and Mussolini's National Fascist Party in Italy, 1919. The trouble is that it's not as easy to identify the extreme right as it once was. When the S.A. paraded through German cities in the 1920s, you had an enemy you could recognise; it's not so easy now. There are still fascist groups who take to the streets in Europe and the USA,  and it's possible to identify them easily. The Christchurch attacker, Brenton Tarrant, however, though an obvious right-wing extremist, wasn't even on a terrorist watchlist, nor does he seem to have appeared on right-wing demonstrations anywhere. 
The problem, of course, is that Tarrant, and others like him, including jihadis, are being radicalised by the internet in the privacy of their homes. Even if identified by the security forces, it does not follow that they are planning terrorism. We sometimes describe terrorists radicalised in this way as "lone wolves", but I believe this to be a slight misnomer. If these people, jihadi and fascist, are being radicalised by what they see on the internet (the Dark Web, in Tarrant's case), then, strictly speaking, they are not acting alone. They do not have the support of an organised group, but they do have a cyberspace community from which they draw inspiration and strength. As Foreign Policy says:
"...the perpetrators operate in isolation from each other without direct communication or formal cooperation between them. But that doesn’t mean that these lone actors and autonomous cells don’t draw inspiration from each other."
There are, of course, many examples of so-called "lone wolf" attacks, many of which can be found listed on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Yet, if we look deeper, even the most murderous and disturbed of the "lone wolves" has operated with some support, logistical or otherwise. Take the case of the right-wing extremist, Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. As Wikipedia says:
" Terry Nichols was convicted of conspiring with him, though his involvement was limited to helping mix the fertilizer and other bomb ingredients; McVeigh had threatened to harm him and his family if he did not help".

Robert Gregory Bowers, who has been charged with the murders of eleven people during the Pittsburgh Synagogue attack on October 27 last year, drew much of his "inspiration" from websites such as Gab and other extremist outlets. Should we continue to use the term "lone wolf"?

Here in the UK, I myself have noted that the struggle against far-right ideas has changed, if not become more difficult, in recent years. In the 1970s, when arguing against the National Front and others, describing the neo-Nazi past of NF leaders and their aims was highly effective, and it was a relatively straightforward matter to discredit the NF and others. It comes as an unpleasant surprise to learn that one in twenty British people does not believe the Holocaust took place. As WW2 becomes further away in time, people's understanding of what the Holocaust was, and what Fascism is, seems to be weakening. As "The Guardian" says:

"One in 20 British adults do not believe the Holocaust happened, and 8% say that the scale of the genocide has been exaggerated, according to a poll marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

Almost half of those questioned said they did not know how many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and one in five grossly underestimated the number, saying that fewer than two million were killed".

Besides this, it comes as a nasty shock to learn that some counter-terrorist experts now believe that far-right extremists pose a serious threat in my home turf of the north of England, following the Christchurch attack. The highest number of referrals to Prevent have been made in my home region. One expert, "Simon", told the BBC:

"We've got former mill towns and cities across the north where this ideology, that white people are supposedly superior to everyone else, is growing and becoming more entrenched. I've no doubt that there are far-right extremists across the north who are planning to use violence to target Muslim or Jewish communities.They'll harbour the ambition to copy what happened in Christchurch"

Lest we dismiss this as alarmist, let's not forget that one Yorkshire fascist, Thomas Mair, murdered Jo Cox, MP, and that Leeds, in particular, has a grim history of neo-Nazi violence dating back to the 1970s. Remember also, that while the fascists in UK don't have the same access to firearms as their "brethren" have in the USA, hate crime continues to rise across Britain. As the BBC says:

 "The number of religious or racially motivated hate crimes in England and Wales, increased from 37,417 in 2013-14 to 79,587 in 2017-18, according to the Home Office."

Jacinda Ardern is right to call for a campaign against racism worldwide, but I don't see it happening when the threat of Islamic terrorism remains so serious. Also, I doubt that "the Fash" will change their ways because of the horror and condemnation of the Christchurch massacre. In their twisted little worlds, they will be gloating about it and someone, somewhere, will be planning their next attack.

Racism, anti-Semitism and the Conservative Party

While the controversy over anti-Semitism has raged in the Labour Party, the question of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party has gone largely unnoticed. That happy state of affairs for the Tories has been brought to an end with the recent accusations made by Baroness Warsi that Theresa May was burying her head in the sand about Islamophobia in the party. As the BBC comments: 
"Former party chairwoman Baroness Warsi said the PM had failed to "acknowledge" or "tackle" the problem and this was "symptomatic" of her wider leadership."

 The Conservative party has since suspended 14 members for making Islamophobic Facebook comments. Significantly, the BBC goes on to say:

 "The suspensions followed messages posted on a Facebook group called the "Jacob Rees-Mogg Supporters Group...She (Baroness Warsi) suggested the "rot had set in" several years ago and accused senior party officials of being "in denial".

With all due respect to Baroness Warsi, while the Tory party may have problems with Islamophobia now, the "rot" of racism and anti-Semitism set in with the Conservatives a long time ago.

From its founding in 1834, the Conservative Party has had a "problem" with anti-Semitism. The party founder, Sir Robert Peel, was a vocal opponent of Jewish Emancipation. Benjamin Disraeli, a Jewish convert to Christianity, was shunned by fellow Conservative MPs following his election as an MP in 1837. The Conservatives fought against the Jewish Relief Act until its passing in 1858.

With the influx of Jewish refugees from Tsarist persecution at the turn of the 19th century, Conservative party members founded the para-military British Brothers League and the  Parliamentary Alien Immigration Committee, both of which exerted pressure to pass the Aliens Act of 1905.

 Fast forwarding to the 1930s, the Conservative government expressed no condemnation of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews, dismissing it as an internal matter. In more recent times, Alan Clark, who later became Minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, wrote in his diary in 1981:

 'I really believed it (National Socialism) to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished'

Both Edwina Currie and Leon Brittain reportedly felt that they were criticised unfairly by other senior Tories simply because of anti-Semitism.

More recently, there have been a number of instances of anti-Semitic activity at national and grass roots level. Boris Johnson has held talks with the alleged anti-Semite, Steve Bannon. In November 2017 it was revealed that Conservative Party activists were members of a Facebook group called Young Right Society, which posted anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying and racist material. Conservative history on this matter dwarfs Labour party anti-Semitism into next to nothing - no wonder the Tories have been so quiet on the subject.

As for racism against black and Asian people, we saw clear manifestations of this in the Tory party with the election of Peter Griffiths, MP for Smethwick, in 1964, and the infamous so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech of Enoch Powell, in 1968. In 1978, Margaret Thatcher, then Leader of the Opposition, said on TV:

 ""People [in Britain] are rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture"

She also described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist", and did nothing to stop Conservative university students distributing "Hang Nelson Mandela" posters. Also, it's forgotten now, but future Tory PM David Cameron went on a "sanctions-busting jolly" to South Africa with the anti-sanctions Conservative Research Department.

It's no surprise , then to learn of incidents such as this, taken from REKNR:

"In a 2002 column for the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson (then MP for Henley) described black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. He apologised six years later in 2008 (when running to be London Mayor). No disciplinary action was taken by the Conservative Party at any point."

Or this:

"In January 2010, Tory Councillor for Colne, Smith Benson, complained that there were “too many P***s” in his town.  Council Leader Tony Beckett refused to discipline him and said, “I think for the Labour Party to say he should be sacked for making a sweeping statement is a bit strong.”

One last example:

"In December 2015, it was revealed that Oliver Letwin, then an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, had made a series of racist remarks following the riots in 1985, describing black people as having “bad moral attitudes”, and saying schemes to help black people would be spent in “the disco and drugs trade” and employment programmes would only see black people “graduate… into unemployment and crime”. The Conservative Party took no disciplinary action and Mr Letwin remains a government minister".

All of which points to a far worse situation in the Conservative Party than a recent outbreak of Islamophobia. The worst racists I have ever known were all Conservative Party members or supporters; the passage of time and the development of a multicultural and multiracial society has clearly not eradicated those racist attitudes among the Tories. Good luck, Baroness Warsi - you've got your work cut out.