Life Imitates Art - President Putin and the Threepenny Opera

Most people will have heard the opening song to "The Threepenny Opera" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht - even if you've never seen the play, you will have heard "Mack the Knife" at some time. Originally written and composed in the 1920s, it has proven to be an enduring classic, recorded by a wide range of singers such as Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Lotte Lenya (Kurt Weill's wife), Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and even modern singers such as Ute Lemper, Michael Buble, and Robbie Williams. There is also an excellent Country and Western version by Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The song is so highly regarded that it has been included in The Great American Songbook. This is a remarkable achievement, made even more remarkable when we examine the politics of the writers involved and the content of the lyrics.
Bertolt Brecht, the librettist, was what is now known as a "Tankie Marxist", who fled Germany just before the Nazi takeover in 1933. He took refuge in the USA during WW2, later being questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he denied being a Communist (to the disgust of many who knew him), eventually moving to East Germany, where he died, an apparent supporter of the regime. This is not the biography that might be expected of someone whose work appears in the Great American Songbook. His composer associate, Kurt Weill, who also escaped to America, split from Brecht in the 1940s, because, as his widow Lotte Lenya said, he could not "..."set the Communist Manifesto (by Marx and Engels) to music." Nevertheless, without Weill's jaunty tune, "Mack the Knife" would probably not have been the success that it has become.
The other remarkable aspect of the song's popularity is the content of the lyrics. Now, the song we know is translated from German, the best known being that by Mark Blitzstein, which was the Bobby Darin version, but there are other translations. Translations or not, the lyrics provide a chilling picture of crimes committed by the play's anti-hero, Captain Macheath ("Mack"). As a writer of lyrics myself, I am sometimes questioned about the serious nature of some of my subject matter. Even I, however (and I admire Brecht), would never touch on these events, found in "Mack the Knife":
1. Mack goes about "tooled up" with a jack-knife, and always ready to use it.
2. A man is murdered on a pleasant Sunday morning (Mack is suspected)
3.A grandfather and seven grandchildren die in an arson attack in Soho (Mack is suspected)
4. A corpse, presumably the victim of a hit, is dumped in the Thames (Again, Mack is suspected).
5. Wealthy Louie Miller is found dead and Mack suddenly "...spends like a sailor".
Well, I certainly would never include any such crimes in one of my lyrics -I write about them here, on my blog. It is a tribute to the artistry of Weill and Brecht that the song works so well.
If you read the playscript, or watch the play itself, you will see at once that Macheath is not a "real" person. Produced in 1928, it is one of Brecht's earliest plays to use the technique of "alienation", where the characters represent attitudes or abstractions. Anyone who has seen agitprop alternative theatre companies will be familiar with the technique. There are many interpretations of what Macheath symbolises, but what interests me is the fact that, in the first part of the play at least, Mack manages to avoid being directly incriminated for his criminal activities; there is no "smoking gun" (or bloody knife) that leads to his conviction. Mack is a "slippery customer" who, like many leading gangland figures, has friends in the police. Mack's "bent copper" is Tiger Brown who, in the play, assures Mack in Act One, Scene Two, that:
"There's nothing whatsoever on record against you at Scotland Yard".
This aspect of Macheath's character has sinister parallels with some historic and present day political figures. Lotte Lenya, for instance, saw a resemblance of Mack to Hitler during the build-up to the Nazi leader's seizure of power in Germany. No matter what crimes were attributed to the Nazi thugs of the SS and SA, nothing could be proved against Hitler. Even when planning, and executing, the Final Solution, Hitler saw the need to try and avoid written records of his heinous crimes. Mack would have been proud of him.
Mack's influence can also be seen today in the alleged outrages of President Vladimir Putin. It is said by some that President Putin has been behind the murders of numerous people who have been unwise enough to upset him Here are just a few (alleged) examples:
November, 1998, Less than four months after Putin takes over at the KGB, opposition Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, the most prominent pro-democracy Kremlin critic in the nation, was murdered at her apartment building in St. Petersburg.
April, 2003. Sergei Yushenkov, co-chairman of the Liberal Russia political party, was gunned down at the entrance of his Moscow apartment block. Yushenkov was vice chairman of the“Kovalev Commission” which was formed to informally investigate charges that Putin’s KGB had planted the Pechatniki and Kashirskoye apartment bombs (September, 1999) to whip up support for Putin’s war in Chechnya after the formal legislative investigation turned out to be impossible.   Another member of the Commission, Yuri Shchekochikhin, died of poisoning, a third was severely beaten by thugs, and two other members lost their seats in the Duma.
September, 2006. Andrei Kozlov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, who strove to stamp out money laundering, the highest-ranking reformer in Russia, was assassinated in Moscow.
October, 2006. Anna Politkovskaya, author of countless books and articles exposing Russian human rights violations in Chechnya and attacking Vladimir Putin as a dictator, was murdered at her home in Moscow.
November, 2006. Alexander Litvinenko, KGB defector and author of the book Blowing up Russia, which accuses the Kremlin of masterminding the Pechatniki and Kashirskoye bombings  in Moscow in order to blame Chechen terrorists and whip up support for an invasion of Chechnya (which shortly followed), was fatally poisoned by radioactive Polonium obtained from Russian sources. This killing, which took place in London, is currently under investigation here in Britain.
Now, as can clearly be seen, all these people - and these are just a sample of many victims worthy of mention - were not exactly friendly to President Putin. Many more of his critics (mostly journalists) have died in suspicious circumstances, and yet there is no conclusive evidence to prove Putin's involvement. Those of you who read this blog's Christmas Message last December will recall that he vehemently denies any involvement in the murder of people he dislikes. And, despite the best efforts of his foes in Russia and beyond, no-one has "the goods" on him. Like Macheath, there is nothing on record against him at Scotland Yard, or anywhere else.
The former world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, has said that to understand Putin's Russia, we should dispense with reading Karl Marx and read the books of Mario Puzo instead. Mario Puzo, we may recall, is the author of "The Godfather" books. Whatever books we read, it looks like Macheath is back in town.

IS and the Attraction of Evil - Baffled by Brutality?

It is now clear that the horrific Germanwings air crash was caused by the mentally ill co-pilot, not by terrorists, as some had at first suspected. In no sense can this be considered a "relief", but, given the recent catalogue of horrors perpetrated by Islamic State (ISIS) and its friends, it is something approaching a welcome change. I sometimes wonder if  ISIS are watching our response to their vile atrocities - it would be surprising if they weren't. If so, what are their strategic goals? Before trying to answer that question, it's worth reminding ourselves of the ugly nature of ISIS. They have:
1. Massacred Iraqi prisoners, Yazidis, Shia Muslims and Christians.
2. Women from minorities they hate have been enslaved and sexually abused.
3. They have introduced slavery into their areas of control.
4. Homosexuals are executed by being thrown from high buildings.
5. British and American hostages (and many others) have been beheaded - on film.
6. A Jordanian pilot was burned to death by ISIS after crashing in ISIS-controlled territory.
7. Their sympathisers, which include the murderous Boko Haram in Nigeria, have attacked targets as far apart as a synagogue in Belgium and a museum in Tunisia.
I could go on, but it would be more of the same. Listing these crimes is very bland, so it's worth remembering the terror and the horror experienced by the victims of ISIS. Last October, the Guardian ran a story about refugees who had fled ISIS to the comparative safety of Kobani, near the Turkish border. This was the story of just one such refugee:
"Kader fled 10 days ago, leaving his village, which lies 16km from Kobani centre, in the small hours of the morning. He and his wife took their five-year-old, their toddler and what little else they could carry.
His uncle planned to join them but at the last minute changed his mind, unable to leave a village that had been his home for more than eight decades. The militants beheaded him, refugees arriving later told Kader.
"He was 85 – he could not even lift a weapon," said the young father, baffled by the brutality. Even more haunting were stories from his wife's village, where the fleeing family found the bodies of her sister and an eight-year-old niece lying in pools of blood."
I am sure that the vast majority of people, learning of these appalling events and also baffled by the brutality, will have asked themselves the inevitable question: "How can anyone do such things?". Now, we ask this question a lot, usually after learning of the senseless murder of an innocent individual. This is a key question here, and I would like to attempt an answer, despite not being a criminologist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said:
"Men can only commit great acts of evil when they believe they are doing good".
I do not believe this applies to every member of ISIS, but it certainly appears to apply to similar ideological criminals of the past. For instance, Einsatzgruppen commanders, who led heinous atrocities against Jews and others in Poland, the Baltic States and German occupied Russia during WW2, saw themselves as waging a racial war for the glory of greater Germany. Even when brought to trial and sentenced to death, they expressed no remorse - because they believed they had done the right thing. The conduct of Stalin's torturers and jailers can also be explained to some degree in this way; they believed they were building a socialist state by eliminating or enslaving ideological deviants. Being convinced of the rectitude of your cause, sadly, seems to be able to override your deepest moral reservations - assuming, of course,that you had such reservations in the first place.
But does it end there? I don't think so. Some people like to blame religion - in this case Islam - for the problem with ISIS, and for war in general. This is a facile point, and invalid. It fails to allow for the fact that religious issues frequently combine, or run concurrently, with political issues. It also fails to recognise that violence and war exist in the human condition anyway, and exists where there is no religious dimension.
Another, admittedly broad, explanation for mass murder, is one that is suggested by the execution videos that ISIS make ( which Hitler's and Stalin's thugs never made). Anyone watching the hideous "Jihadi John" beheadings will have been struck by one thing:  Mohammed Emwazi, (Jihadi John) was enjoying what he did. From other ISIS videos I have seen, this is the attitude of most ISIS members. To be fair, many become sickened by such actions. ISIS executes such "deviants" if they speak out, or get caught trying to escape. But it seems an inescapable fact that committing atrocities is as readily acceptable to ISIS as it was to Hitler or Stalin. When your humanitarian compass is replaced by an ideology that legitimises evil acts, there is no crime you are unable to commit, especially if you believe you are doing the will of Allah.
Yet this is nothing new. We all remember the inter-ethnic strife that erupted after the break-up of the state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. What is forgotten is the fact that atrocities in the Balkans and Middle East were happening before WW1. At that time, the Edwardian Tory satirist, "Saki" (H.H.Munro), wrote:
“In the same way, whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under orders" from somewhere or another, no one seems to think that there are people who might LIKE to kill their neighbours now and then.”
The "I was only obeying orders" excuse should not be allowed for ISIS volunteers, any more than it should for the Nazis and Stalin's merry men. The known facts, together with reports of ISIS crimes against humanity preclude such a cop-out.
This leads to my final point. We all remember the fuss over the flight to Syria via Turkey by three East End schoolgirls.These girls, like many others, are pitied by many as victims of "grooming" by Jihadi militants. But do they deserve to be regarded as "victims"? And at what age do they lose their victimhood? The fact is, those three girls, and others, were fully aware of the nature of the ISIS state and the atrocities committed - so are they innocent dupes, or simply attracted by evil? No-one talks about this much, but it is certainly true that some individuals - many highly intelligent - seem to feel a fascination for evildoers.The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, for example, regularly received what can only be described as fan letters, mostly from women. Neo-Nazis, religious cults such as the Moonies, outlaw cults such as the Hell's Angels, and now ISIS, all attract admirers who blithely ignore the darker side of these organisations.
Finally, let's return to the question I raised first of all - what is the strategy of ISIS that drives their foul brutality? Well, as Lenin reportedly said, the object of terror is to terrify. This worked for ISIS with their initial military successes, when whole Iraqi Army units fled before them, and ISIS indulged their blood lust, confident their enemies would continue to be routed and run. A similar situation happened after the October Revolution when the Bolshevik Army invaded Poland in 1920. The Bolshevik advance was initially successful, like that of ISIS. Again like ISIS, the Bolshevik onslaught brought comparable atrocities against Polish prisoners. However, these atrocities did not daunt the Poles, who fought back all the harder, and were victorious. I have no doubt that ISIS atrocities will produce a similar effect. In the case of the Kurds, this has already happened. Perhaps, one day in the future, we will be debating how we should treat returning, defeated, ISIS volunteers.

Murder in Croydon - a Very Local Death

In April, 2014, a 52 year old man, Andrew Else, was stabbed to death on a Croydon street by a paranoid schizophrenic, 24 year old Ephraim Norman. Two weeks before, Norman had stabbed a 15 year old boy in the neck. At Norman's trial:
"Prosecutor Alan Kent QC said the teenager was "lucky" to survive after the blade was completely buried in his head with the tip poking out the other side."
Two weeks later, Norman followed Mr Else off a bus, then attacked him, stabbing Mr Else 200 times. Norman, who has been confined indefinitely to hospital treatment (hopefully), said that he felt no remorse for his deeds, or sympathy for Mr Else's family, because voices in his head were urging him on to kill:
"He told officers: "It is just my madness, it is just like how my mind is.... I know I could do that again. It is not a big thing for me to do ... I wanted him to die so much I just kept on stabbing him until he was dead".
Like other offenders of this type, it seems that Norman had stopped taking medication for his condition:
"The court was told that Norman attacked the teenager and Mr Else after he stopped taking his medication and claimed it made him impotent."
The judge who sentenced Norman said that Andrew Else was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as I can discover, no-one is being held to account for letting such an obviously dangerous man like Norman out on the streets in the first place.
I happened upon this story by accident. It is on the BBC London news section of their website, but has been given no great prominence. I find this alarming, not only because of the horrific nature of this killing, but because of the serious implications of failure in our mental health system. It raises the same questions that occurred to me when I wrote, in 2013, about the Nicola Edgington murder. Put simply, the questions are: How many murders are committed by released mental health patients? Why is it happening? Who is responsible?
For answers, I turn to the "Hundred Families" website, so called because, as it says on its Home Page:
"Around a 100 families a year will have a loved one killed by someone with mental illness."
The evidence for this is overwhelming; the website lists all known killings by mental health patients going back into the 1990s. In London alone, there were 272 known cases between 1993 and 2014; in the North West of England, during that period, there were 129 known cases. It is important to stress "known cases", as, in many murder and assault cases, the mental health problems of the perpetrators are not mentioned.
Julian Hendy, who runs the website, and whose own father was murdered in the street by a man with mental health problems, argues that this is happening because:

Many Mental Health Services are in denial about violence

They are failing to investigate properly

They are failing to learn lessons

They have a culture of secrecy

They treat symptoms not causes

Psychotic patients often don’t think they’re ill

This explains why these murders keep happening, in my opinion. It is also the opinion of many relatives of the victims. Jennifer Mills-Westley, a 60 year old woman, was decapitated by a Bulgarian, Deyan Deyanov, in 2011. Although the murder happened in Spain, Deyanov had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and admitted to Glan Clwyd Hospital’s Ablett Psychiatric Unit in North Wales in the summer of 2010. Leaving the unit, he moved to Tenerife, where his schizophrenia deteriorated, leading to murder. Mrs Mills-Westley's family sought the truth and , in a statement, laid the blame at the door of the mental health managers who released Deyanov. Here is an extract from their statement:
"Three and a half years after the brutal murder of our mother we now know the truth leading up to that tragic events on Friday 13^th May 2011.
The Health Inspectorate of Wales report has highlighted a number of significant basic medical best practice failures. These failings are far worse than we had imagined.
We are shocked to learn that the clearly prejudicial views of the medical staff severely compromised the diagnosis and therefore subsequent treatment of Deyan Deyanov.
Had Betsi Cadwaladr recognised that Deyan Deyanov was a young man with very serious mental health problems then our mother would still be alive today."
Now, it can be argued that mental health diagnosis is very difficult, and it is not always possible to judge the future actions of such patients upon release. This may be true, but the fact remains that there are far too many of these murders. So far, released mental health patients have killed more British citizens in the past 20 years than have Jihadi terrorists and the IRA.
To conclude, I would like to express my sympathy to the relatives of all such murder victims as described here. In particular, I send my condolences to the family of Andrew Else, whose horrific death was not thought of sufficient interest to be included on the national news. How sad it is, that the murder of a victim of some faceless person's decision to set at liberty a murderous schizophrenic should be thought of as being purely of local interest.

Education, Politicians and Conjuring Tricks

Readers of this blog will know that I have the habit of making cynical assessments of OFSTED and the "initiatives" in Education advanced by "concerned" politicians. Before I retired from full time teaching, I was accused several times of being a cynic (usually by Headteachers). My reply was always the same -  there was only one thing wrong with being a cynic about education - I was always right.
Two recent events, which I believe to be nothing more than political sleights of hand,  have done nothing to change my view. One is the recent change in school league results, which is, as Richard Garner said in the Independent :
"...a result of changes to the tables which make it harder for schools to obtain top grade passes.
First of all, those who allow their pupils to sit the IGCSE exam – the international equivalent of GCSE’s based on traditional O-level lines – have been told the exam is no longer recognised for the tables. 
Secondly, only the first sitting of an exam counts towards the tables – thus stopping many schools attempting to bump up by their grades by allowing pupils to sit the exam early and then retake it if they do not get the correct pass rate."
So, at the stroke of a pen (or a wave of the wand?), schools which were thought to be doing well, suddenly are not doing well at all. This has caused much dismay in the schools themselves and understandable anger on the part of the teaching unions. Perceptive commentators have noted that these new league table results will be used by this government to advance their policy of creating educational academies. Quite right, but there are a number of aspects that have not been noticed.
To begin with, there is the question of OFSTED inattention. By this I mean: if any schools are not now up to a good standard, why has OFSTED not detected it before? After all, they have been in existence for two decades, and never seem to achieve a perfect school system.
Next, arising from my first point, I think it obvious that OFSTED does not want perfection (whatever that may look like), nor does it want to leave schools in peace. If they did, there would be no need for OFSTED. As I have pointed out before, Emile Durkheim wrote of the "dialectic of ends and means" whereby a means to an end becomes an end in itself. We have no better example of this than the history of OFSTED.
The next educational conjuring trick that has been presented by a politician comes from no less a person than Mrs Nicky Morgan, Michael Gove's successor as Education Secretary. Mrs Morgan has said:"We will expect every pupil by the age of 11 to know their times tables off by heart, to perform long division and complex multiplication and to be able to read a novel,".
The implication of Mrs Morgan's comment is that schools are not teaching times tables, long division, long multiplication or anything else. As a teacher for 33 years, I can state with some authority that this is utter rubbish. Having taught in a number of schools in Liverpool and London, both as a full time member of staff and as a supply teacher, I can say that I have never been in a school where these subjects were not included in the teaching of Numeracy. In every school where I have taught, there have been regular weekly tables tests from Year 3 to Year 6. Also, Mrs Morgan does not give examples of the novels she expects children to read that are appropriate for their reading levels. I believe that Mrs Morgan and her advisers (including Michael Gove), if they implement their new measures, will, in several years time, trumpet their achievements in improving results for knowledge of times tables by 11 year olds. In other words, they will take credit for what is being done already. Paul Daniels could do no better.

Charlie Hebdo, Free Speech and Fraternity

Charlie Hebdo, the magazine, belongs to a tradition unique to France. I am no authority on French history, but I know that before the French Revolution in 1789, there were numerous magazines and pamphlets circulating in Paris, making what can only be described as scurrilous and pornographic attacks on the Monarchy and the Church. Some historians regard these publications as one of the main contributory causes of the revolution, and their influence could be discerned after the downfall of the Ancien Regime, in Jean-Paul Marat's newspaper, "L'Ami Du Peuple" and the accusations of incest made against Marie-Antoinette at her trial. Charlie Hebdo clearly follows in this anti-establishment, anti-clerical tradition, and is intent on continuing this irreverent and offensive practice, despite last week's horrific massacre.
I mention all this because this exclusively French angle on the free speech debate that now rages has been overlooked. It is very difficult to make an original contribution to this debate, but, if a solution to this whole issue of free speech, satire and religion is to be found, I think it is to be found in France, in the best tradition of the Revolution of 1789.
But that is to come. To begin with, Muslims in Europe (i.e. Western Europe) clearly are unhappy at their Prophet being represented in cartoon form. In fact, they do not like any representation of him at all; it is forbidden. Most Muslims in Europe were appalled by the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. However, there seems to be a feeling among Muslims that they are being unfairly treated when it comes to their religion being ridiculed. As Mehdi Hasan says in "The Huffington Post":
"Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren...You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent...and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life..."
Even the post-massacre edition of Charlie Hebdo, which actually makes a sympathetic representation of the Prophet, is resented by many Muslims.
The wave of horror caused by the massacre(s), as we know, led to a great march of indignation in France, supported by millions of ordinary French people and a number of world leaders. Mark Steel, the ex-SWP comedian and author of a book on the French Revolution, following the Charlie Hebdo example, turned this occasion into a grim opportunity for satire in his article for the Independent, pointing out that many of the world leaders attending the event had an inglorious record on free speech and human rights:

"To start with, we should congratulate the Prime Minister of Israel and ambassador for Saudi Arabia, for honouring satire in its time of need, by turning up to a march for free speech and against violence and murder.

Across Gaza, people must have sat in the rubble that used to be their living room or local hospital and said: “Fair play to Netanyahu, at least he knows how to have  a laugh.”
And Raif Badawi will appreciate the Saudi government’s presence on a day for free speech, because he’s been sentenced to one thousand lashes by the Saudi government for setting up a liberal website. They must be lashing him for not being critical enough I suppose."

Quite. And the Pope himself has joined the debate, saying, among other things:

 “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”

With all due respect to His Holiness, he has a point, but, as Polly Toynbee says in today's Guardian:

"No, it’s not normal to punch someone who insults you; the pope’s Christ certainly didn’t think so. Verbal provocation is never an excuse for violence – that’s the wife-beater’s defence.
Is he saying we must respect any old cult: followers of Black Sabbath, Odin, Scientology, astrology? Or is it the size of a faith that earns it the right to gag mockery?
Whenever the faiths come together to protect their rights jointly, you should smell a rat."

So much has been said, and much more will be said on this issue; all I can do is express my own opinions, for what they are worth. But that's the value of free speech.
First, I try never to gratuitously offend any religious believers on this blog. I have made many criticisms of Islamic regimes around the world for their treatment of religious (and irreligious) minorities, but I would never attack or ridicule any religion per se, as I have valued friends in a number of different faiths, and would never offend them. I do, however, feel the need to point out that while Muslims in Europe suffer angst over cartoons of their prophet, religious minorities in most Muslim states face discrimination, violence and death on a daily basis. Neither Mehdi Hasan, Mark Steel or the Pope (surprisingly), given all the talk about "double standards", mentions this. Nor, suspiciously, has there been much expression of sympathy from Muslim pundits for the Jewish victims of the massacres. If anything, British police are warning of possible attacks on the Jewish community in the UK. "By whom?", one wonders. I must also state that, though I would not seek to offend any religious believers, I support the right to free speech as it stands. Provided articles are not defamatory or inciting hate crime, there must be no change in the law. After all, why should Islam be given special legislative protection (i.e. banning of offensive cartoons) and not every other religion? And what legal chaos would that cause? Nor would the Muslim terrorists stop their activities if we give in on this issue. They would see it as a victory and concentrate their attacks on some other issue that incurs their disapproval - gay weddings, perhaps, or the sale of alcohol.
To conclude, I would like to return to the three core values of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The Revolution has a very bad name in history. As Mark Steel has said, in "Vive La Revolution": "It seems to me that we're not supposed to like the French Revolution very much".
The negative images abound, from "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens, through "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy, to "Citizens" by Simon Schama. Our collective mind's eye sees tumbrils, the guillotine, the September Massacres and Marat in his bath. Nevertheless, not everything the revolutionaries did was evil. The First Republic was the first country in the world to abolish slavery (1794), and they inspired hope in the European youth, poets, musicians and artists of the day. Besides this, in August, 1789, they published the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", which led to the emancipation of Jews and Protestants in France for the first time in French history. It also inspired the emergent labour organisations across Europe, and influenced the writing of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights at the end of World War Two. Hope for today, I think, lies in the last of the three core values - Fraternity. If it is possible for Muslims to protect Jews and lose their lives defending a satirical Paris magazine, then it is possible to reach out to fellow citizens of the Muslim faith. If Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Unbelievers can march together in Paris, then they can live together anywhere.

The Rhymes and Routes Christmas Message, 2014

This is yet another scoop for Rhymes and Routes! At short notice, and at some inconvenience to himself, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has agreed to write the Rhymes and Routes Christmas message this year. Comments in brackets are by me – signed “B” for Blogmeister – otherwise, no changes have been made to President Putin’s text, even when he is critical of Rhymes and Routes.

Zdrastvootye! I am very glad to be writing Rhymes and Routes Christmas message, as the British newspapers never publish anything I send them, despite my articles being so brilliant and perceptive. As you can see, I am wearing my party hat, as I am very busy getting ready for the Kremlin Staff Christmas Party (That’s a party never banned in Russia!-B), and I think it show the lighter side of my nature.

I wish to extend Christmas greetings from all the people of Russia to the whole of Great Britain. Relations between us have been strained in recent times, but I wish to assure the British people that I bear no animosity towards them, despite their leaders and their interference in the Ukraine. I have been much misrepresented as an aggressor in this matter, but it is not fair. As that outstanding Angliski politician, Nigel Farage, a man who admires me greatly, has said, it was the Ukrainian fascists, with western support, who overturned a democratically elected Prime Minister, and replaced him with a nationalist puppet. Mr Farage is a man with whom I could do business; I hope he becomes UK Prime Minister.

There is lot of nonsense talked about me and my country in Western media. One of our many detractors, the Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, has written a scurrilous book called “Mafia State”, where he makes many unfounded accusations. I only wish he would back to Russia for visit, as I need a new judo partner. Even Mr Harding, though, praises me for presenting a positive image of my country to the world. As he rightly say, I spend more on the “Russia Today” channel than I do on social welfare programmes (er, well, Mr President…B).

My critics point to the fact that 56 journalists have been murdered in Russia since the early 90s – as is it were my fault! Anyone (especially Georgians, Chechens and Ukrainians – B) knowing me will tell you that I am far too busy to go round liquidating a bunch of pen pushers. If I did that sort of thing, would Luke Harding have left Russia alive? (I bet he locks his doors at night! – B) No, Russia is now a democracy, which allows legitimate protest. As an example – did we not release those anarchist harridans, Pussy Riot, from jail? Even after they blasphemously disrupted an Orthodox Church service, they were released from incarceration. I myself am a devout Orthodox believer, but I believe in free

speech. In the old days, in USSR, the Pussy Riot protest would not have happened, as there were no churches and no protests. I have to admit that I sometimes stand at the window of my office in the Kremlin, listening to Barbra Streisand singing “The Way We Were” on my iPod, and a little tear comes to my eye when I think back to those far-gone, happy times (What a touching image! – B).

To conclude this Christmas message, I would like to address the two contributors to this blog: Rednev and Blogmeister. My Friendly Security Boys – FSB  (It really means Federal Security Bureau - B)– have checked out both men carefully, and so I invite Rednev to come and sing at the Kremlin Folk Club Christmas Party. I offer him a 20 minute slot between Igor, the Whistling Tractor Driver from Tobolsk and the Under-21 Moscow Folk Dance Society. Please get in touch, Neville. As for Blogmeister, the FSB say he think of himself as a songwriter and poet – I offer him example of VladimirMayakovsky (He shot himself in 1930 – thanks, Mr President. B) and from what I see of his prose writing ability, he, too can come to the party – to write the menu. Anyway, I must return to work on Staff Party – I need to parcel up my presents. To the British people from the Russian people: с рождеством! – Merry Christmas!

Many thanks, Mr President, on behalf of the people of Britain. I don’t know if Neville will take up your offer, but I’ll pass it on. I must decline your offer to write the menu for the Folk Club Party, as, examining your message in detail, you are perfectly capable of writing badly yourself. Anyway, I can’t write in Russian. As for what you say in your message, readers must draw their own conclusions!

Christmas, Christians, and a Season to be Wary

I was hoping never to return to this subject. Last year, I compared and contrasted the persecution worldwide of three groupings: Christians, Atheists/Agnostics and the Bahais. I was so dismayed by what I learned about their sufferings, usually in Islamic countries, that I decided not to discuss it again. Yesterday, however, I was in Central London with my wife, where I picked up a copy of the London Evening Standard. Glancing through casually, I saw an article by Rupert Shortt on the issue of religious persecution. Although Mr Shortt  writes only about the treatment of Christians in non-Christian countries, this extract from his article shocked me into action:
"Last month in the Pakistani province of Punjab... a Christian couple were tortured and burned alive in a kiln by a mob who falsely accused them of desecrating the Koran."
Mr Shortt's article covers a good deal of ground that I examined in my blog items. Christians (and others) face persecution and discrimination in countries from Morocco to Pakistan. In some countries, such as Nigeria, they face horrific violence. Shortt comments about Iraq:
"Even under Saddam Hussein, Christians enjoyed a relatively quiet (if not wholly untroubled) life. Before the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were 1.4 million Christians in the country. Now the figure has fallen below 300,000."
Such is the price of liberation. We can be sure that the so-called Islamic State will do nothing to reverse this trend.
I was interested enough to buy Shortt's book "Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack", which deals in greater detail with the repressive treatment of Christians in Middle Eastern countries, and North Africa. Of particular interest, given the season, was the treatment of Christians in the Holy Land, which is home to some of the most sacred places in Christianity. It was depressing to learn that local Christians face harassment and hostility from local Jews and Muslims. There have been attacks on Christians and their churches by ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel itself. "The Christian Post" comments:
"While most persecution against Christians in the Holy Land is at the hands of radical Muslims, believers are also persecuted by anti-missionary Jewish activists. The activists sometimes spray graffiti on Christian churches in what are called "price tag attacks" (exacting a price on anything that seems to threaten Jewish sovereignty). A few months ago, they painted "Jesus is a monkey" on a church that is a major pilgrimage site for Christians."
This harassment pales into insignificance, however, when we compare it to the treatment dished out to local Christians by radical Muslims. Consider this extract from a Wall Street Journal article in 2009:

"Meet Mr. Ibrahim (a pseudonym to protect him from reprisals), a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendants of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Ibrahim fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn't running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.

Mr. Ibrahim's crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists' eyes by writing love poems.

"Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice," says Mr. Ibrahim, and he didn't want to find out what they'd do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn't seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone."

The pressure continues. In an article from "The Arab Daily News" (click on link to see in full) printed in May this year, Roy Hanania says:
"Under Hamas, the population of Christian Palestinians has dwindled as fast as it has under Israeli oppression. In 1997, there were more than 5,000 Christian Orthodox Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Today that number barely surpasses 1,500. Hamas fanatics have persecuted Christians not only in Gaza but also in the Palestinian West Bank."
Supporters of the Palestinian cause against Israel never mention this; during the recent Gaza conflict, the ugly side of Hamas was quietly ignored. This is monstrously unjust, because Palestinian Christian leaders have been among the most vocal advocates of the Palestinian cause.
So, as the season of goodwill and the Nativity of the Saviour of Mankind approaches, many of the followers of Jesus will be cautious in celebrating their faith.
Deus misereatur!

Nationalism Reconsidered

I meant to write this post just after the Scottish Referendum vote. I didn't, and am glad I didn't, because nationalism, Scottish, Welsh or otherwise, is a big issue, and needs to be discussed seriously. It is not simply an issue that applies to Wales or Scotland, but a force that has had a major impact on modern history across the world, and especially in Europe.
To begin with, then, what exactly is nationalism? The answer appears to be simple, but, as so often in political thought, it is not. The dictionary makes it sound straightforward:
"Nationalism is a belief, creed or political ideology that involves an individual identifying with, or becoming attached to, one's nation".
All quite tidy, seemingly, but this is wrong. Far Right extremists consider themselves nationalists. Hitler spoke of his desire to aggrandise the power of Germany, expressing his nationalist sentiments in numerous vituperative speeches and acts of murderous evil. Compare this type of nationalism to the anti-racist, anti-war, ecologically minded individuals to be found in the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru (PC), and you are entitled to be confused. For a fuller understanding of the differing explanations of nationalism, you can do no better than read the relevant Wikipedia article.
For ourselves, however, I think we should focus upon what nationalism in its Scottish and Welsh varieties means for us in Britain today.
I shall start by saying that I was glad when Scotland voted "No" in the referendum, even though I said nothing at the time. I have several reasons for this, and think they apply as legitimate causes for criticism to be levelled at both the SNP and PC, should they ever achieve their goal of independence.
My first area of concern is that an independent Scotland and/or Wales would divide the labour movement, and make it difficult for English, Welsh and Scottish workers to support each other. If, say, teachers in England strike for higher pay, there might be all kinds of legal barriers stopping Scottish and Welsh teachers supporting them. If anything, SNP and PC might take an ultra-nationalist line, telling their teachers not to get involved in another country's affairs. And there would be the vexed issue of pay. How would a nurse in, say, Rhyl, feel, if a nurse doing the same job in Chester, less than 50 miles away, was getting a higher salary? And what effect would it have upon people who have to cross borders to work every day? Producing your passport twice a day at a customs post to make a journey that is now uninterrupted would be time-consuming and irritating.
The other major issue lies in the nationalist parties themselves - SNP and PC. The problem with single issue parties is that they have only one unifying factor - one raison d'etre. Essentially, they are alliances. Once they achieve their objective -in this case, independence for Wales or Scotland- internal tensions are sure to appear. Nationalist parties in western Europe have left-leaning and right wing-leaning factions; I can't imagine that SNP/PC are any different. Without their unifying factor, the drive for independence, division and discord would follow.
One issue that I have some sympathy with is the language issue. PC are right when they talk about how the Welsh Language has been treated unsympathetically in the past. Welsh-speaking children in the late 19th/early 20th century were harshly punished for speaking their mother tongue in school. One of these punishments was the wearing of "the Welsh Not", or simply being made to stand on one leg for half an hour, or caning. All due credit is due to PC - or would it be more accurate to say the Welsh Language Society? - for campaigning on this vital issue. (It has to be said, however, that there have been complaints by parents of their English-speaking children being victimised in Welsh-speaking schools). I would now argue that the Welsh language issue has been resolved, without the need for a Welsh parliament. Visitors to Wales find bilingual roadsigns, notices and instruction manuals, as well as a Welsh TV Channel - Scottish Gaelic speakers are well served by television as well. To be frank, I do not believe that any more can be done for the Welsh language, or Scottish Gaelic. Perhaps other national grievances can be resolved in the same way?
In sum, I was glad at the result of the Scottish referendum; let's hope there are no more.

"The Ruling Class" to "The Riot Club" - Plus ca Change

It comes as a relief, after looking at murder, war and education, to write a review of an old film. I was asked to write this review by a friend in Southport, who was pleased with my previous review of "If". It is gratifying to be appreciated, and I hope that I do a good job here. The film under review is "The Ruling Class", a satirical comedy from 1972. I borrowed the dvd for this review, but anyone interested can see the whole film on YouTube. It stars Peter O'Toole, Coral Browne (Vincent Price's wife), the splendid Alistair Sim, Arthur Lowe and many other stars of the period. I choose the word "period" with care, as this film is very much a period piece, although it has acquired a devoted cult following.
1972 was a turbulent year, which saw the Bloody Sunday shootings in Londonderry, a miners' strike in January, Idi Amin expel thousands of Asians from Uganda, the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) die and Geri Halliwell born. It is important to place this film in a historical context, in order to assess its relevance and impact at the time.
I expected to dislike the film, but found, happily, that I rather enjoyed it, despite the poor sound quality and the instamatic colour photography. Reading the plot beforehand, I thought it artificial, but it works when you realise you are watching a satire, not a story.
Basically, the plot runs like this: A member of the House of Lords dies, leaving his estate to his son. Unfortunately, his son (Jack Gurney - played by O'Toole) is insane. Jack thinks he is Jesus Christ, spending much of his time hanging on  a cross. The other, apparently more respectable, members of this family plot to steal the estate from him. Their attempts to have him committed to an asylum fail when an independent psychiatrist, meant to section Jack, finds that they are both old Etonians and passes him as sane. For some reason, Jack then becomes convinced that he is Jack the Ripper and murders two women. In between murders, he makes his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in which he calls for the return of capital and corporal punishment.
As a story, this film is bewildering and tiresome, but as a satire, it makes sense. The screenplay was written by Peter Barnes, and based on his own stage play. I have not seen the play, but my guess is that it was more pointed and political when produced for the stage. This type of theatre is usually described as "agitprop", found in its most explicit form by travelling radical theatre companies such as "Red Ladder". The film, though less didactic, is clearly an attack on the British aristocratic Establishment. The characters, apart from O'Toole's character and Arthur Lowe's marvellous communist butler, are shown as scheming, effete and hypocritical. One criticism of O'Toole that I have is that his rants, as Jack, are so histrionic (and, to me, tedious) that you miss some of the biting  satirical dialogue. For example:
Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God?
Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.
And again:
Dr. Herder: He can't forget being rejected by his mother and father at the age of 11. They sent him away, alone, into a primitive community of licensed bullies and pederasts.
Sir Charles: You mean he went to public school.
Dr. Herder: Exactly.
But the core issue raised by the film is the portrayal of a lunatic's acceptance into the House of Lords, which Barnes clearly infers is a lunatic institution in need of reform. The latter part of the film is heavy (some might say laboriously so) with symbolism, in which we see alternating shots of the peers of the realm as dozy old men, then robed skeletons. In sum, then, the film's message is that Britain is being ruled by a bunch of degenerate dotards who preside over an antiquated system. Whether Barnes is calling for reform or revolution is not made clear.
I know that some movie buffs will be unhappy with this kind of analysis, but, as George Orwell pointed out: "All art is propaganda", and to ignore the political message of this film is impossible. A "Time Out" review of the film says: "This (ie, the film's message) is buried beneath a load of old jokes, song'n'dance routines, bad jokes, physical obsessions, random send-ups", but goes on to say:"the latent and overt ideas are fleshed out all too obviously."
Yes, but that is the point of the play. Beneath the bad jokes and song and dance routines which some critics have compared to classic Ealing Comedy (Alistair Sim - the archbishop - was a star of this genre), there is a definite similarity to the works of the great German Marxist playwright, Bertolt Brecht, whose influence on 20th century dramatists was immense. Like those of Brecht, Barnes' characters are not meant to be real people but representations of political and social attitudes in human form. Again, anyone who has seen radical theatre productions will recognise the method. Brecht called this "alienation", where the actor is seen as an actor, not as a character in what is called a "naturalist" type of play. Perhaps it is a tribute to Peter O'Toole that his character does seem "naturalistic" - even if he is as mad as a hatter.
Unlike the theatre companies, Barnes does not prescribe a remedy to the problem. Like Brecht, he leaves that up to the audience - to us. Well, in the 42 years since this film came out, the House of Lords has been reformed to some people's satisfaction. Thanks to Mrs Thatcher, "money men" now have moved into positions of power and influence, replacing what was left of the old aristocratic privileged clique, so things have changed since 1972. Or have they really? Britain's richest 1% of the population own as much as the poorest 55%, and, as "The Guardian" said recently:
 "Despite the fact that around only 7% of British children are privately educated, 34% of MPs went to fee-paying schools, and the figure for Tory members of parliament is 54% (the Labour figure, to put that in perspective, is a mere 12%). People who have had expensive educations dominate journalism, law, finance – and, of late, even the supposedly meritocratic powerhouse that is British pop music (witness Mumford and Sons, Florence Welch, Lily Allen, Laura Marling et al). "It is remarkable how many positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power in our society are held by individuals who were privately educated," said the education secretary, Michael Gove, in May last year."
And if Michael Gove, the ex-education secretary said that, things have not really changed that much since 1972. Today's ruling class may be younger, livelier and more fashionably dressed, but they are still in charge.
It is ironic, really, that this review is written when a new film about our present day ruling class goes on general release. Even more ironic is the fact that the author of "The Riot Club", Laura Wade, like Peter Barnes, adapted the screenplay from her own stage play, "Posh". Even more of a coincidence is the fact that, according to some reviews, the play was said to be more "agitprop", like I suspect Barnes' play to have been. Despite Wade's denials, the film is about a bunch of rich young hell raisers at Oxford University who belong to a drinking club, rather like the Bullingdon Club, to which David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne belonged. I have not seen the film yet, but it shows that our ruling class is still worthy of satire. Like I said in the title, plus ca change.

Oscar Pistorius and a Lesson for Abusive Partners

Some years ago, a serving police officer was talking to me about the difficulties of bringing charges in an assault case when there were no witnesses. Essentially, what he said was this:
 "If A attacks B and someone witnesses the attack, then we charge A for assault. If A attacks B and there are no witnesses, we don't know who started it, so we charge the person with the lesser injuries."
There are a number of concerns with this method, but there are some similarities (and some very obvious differences) with the Oscar Pistorius case. The similarity lies, not in who is to blame for the killing of Reeva Steenkamp, but in the Prosecution's difficulty in proving that Pistorius intended murder. In other words, without witnesses, justice might not be done in either case, because there is insufficient evidence to prove otherwise. The person with the lesser injuries might have simply been defending him or herself; Pistorius might well have intended murder, but there is no conclusive evidence.
A few months back, I wrote a blog post about the Pistorius case, in which I set out my doubts about Pistorius' explanation of how he came to kill his partner. I have similar doubts about the verdict delivered by Judge Masipa yesterday, which, as we all know, found Oscar not guilty on the charge of premeditated murder. I am not alone in having doubts, of course. Reeva Steenkamp's distraught mother has said:
"It doesn't add up," said Mrs Steenkamp, composed but evidently bitterly disappointed.

Holding her husband's hand in a hotel room hours after the not guilty verdict was read out, she told American channel NBC: "She died a horrible death. A horrible, painful, terrible death. And she suffered, you know? "
Mrs Steenkamp is right - it does not add up. I find myself puzzled by Judge Masipa's thought processes and am dubious about her conclusions. She accepted, albeit with reservations, that Pistorius did not intend to kill Reeva Steenkamp, and could conceivably have mistaken her in the darkness for an intruder. 
She accepted Pistorius' story that he was terrified for his life, and thought Steenkamp was safe in the bedroom when he fired four bullets through the wooden toilet door.
The only possible verdict, according to Judge Masipa,  was culpable homicide - in Britain, we call it manslaughter. This verdict carries a sentence of up to 15 years in South Africa, although it could lead to Pistorius doing nothing more than community service.
Now, in expressing my opinion, I am well aware that I am thousands of miles away, and perhaps do not fully appreciate the situation in South Africa. A South African lady explained to me that, living in a violent society such as South Africa, when an intruder enters your home, you panic. It might explain Pistorius' behaviour that night.
It might, but I don't think it does. As Owen Bowcott says in today's Guardian, South African legal experts are gravely concerned at the verdict:
"As state prosecutors announced they were considering appealing judge Thokozile Masipa's decision, legal experts suggested she may have focused too closely on the relationship between Reeva Steenkamp and Pistorius.
Had there been an intruder behind the toilet door, as Pistorius told the court he believed, then firing four shots into such a confined space would probably have been considered murder by other courts, some lawyers argued."
This is quite correct - even if Oscar did not intend to kill Reeva Steenkamp, he certainly intended to kill somebody. This is quite clear from his actions. If he had been as frightened as he said he was - why did he not stay in the bedroom? If he was in sufficient control of himself to confront an intruder, why did he not fire a warning shot above head height, or call out a warning? Once that hypothetical intruder had locked himself in the toilet, he was effectively trapped and, practically and legally, at Pistorius' mercy (such as it was).To me the conclusive evidence of a desire to kill is the fact that his shots were angled to hit a seated person in the toilet. The photographs of the toilet door clearly indicate this. Not only this, Pistorius fired four times, with reasonable accuracy. One shot could have been fired in panic, but I do not accept that he was out of control when firing four. No, I am convinced that Oscar Pistorius was out to kill that night, and deserves a long sentence. The best that can be said for him is that he was criminally irresponsible. At worst, he is a wilful murderer.
To conclude, I have to say that the defence lawyers in this case have been very skilful in a number of ways, not least by using the world's media as a theatrical means of presenting their client to the world as a heartbroken man - despite the evidence of his darker side.
Lastly, I return to the point at which we started - the possibility of injustice arising from lack of witnesses. As Deborah Orr says in today's Guardian:
 "Many people feared a failure of justice comparable to OJ Simpson’s acquittal for the murder of Nicole Brown, his former wife, and Ronald Goldman, who had been visiting Brown’s house on an errand. They are relieved that Oscar Pistorius has been found guilty of culpable homicide. I’m not. I’m troubled by the fact that all over the world, people now know exactly what to say when they shoot their partner dead, at home, without witnesses."
In other words, this case has set a precedent for abusive partners everywhere. The guilt of Oscar Pistorius runs wide and deep.

Israel, Gaza and a Hamas Victory

In today's Guardian, there is an interesting article about the possibility of the different Palestinian organisations indicting Israel for war crimes. Hamas is apparently in agreement with this, although the article raises the point that Hamas itself could be arraigned by a war crimes court. As the article says: "After the last major round of Israel-Hamas fighting more than five years ago, a UN fact-finding team said both Israel and Hamas violated the rules of war by targeting civilians."
To me, this goes to the neglected heart of the matter in the Gaza conflict - the fact that both sides have been prepared to inflict civilian casualties. Personally, I find the conduct of both sides in the Gaza conflict deplorable, but there is an issue of realpolitik here that is being overlooked. It is the fact that Hamas has been prepared to accept civilian casualties, which has enabled them to win a propaganda victory.
Now, as I have noted before, the Gaza conflict, and the wider Israel/Palestine issue of which it is a part, arouses intense emotions. This is understandable, but we should not let our feelings for the deaths of innocents in Gaza or Israel cloud our judgement or analysis of the underlying strategic achievements and blunders of both parties. It is very difficult to do this, I find, as any criticism of either side brings accusations of favouring the other side. The BBC has been accused, in the past, of being pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian by partisans of both opposing camps. Nevertheless, I shall try.
At the risk of repeating myself, I have noted before that provocation is a standard tactic by what can loosely be described as "guerrillas". History, and especially modern history, provides many examples (9/11, of course, is the most outstanding "provocation" of recent times). Spanish partisans used it against Napoleon; the Irish rebels who rose up against British rule at Easter, 1916, were clearly seeking, and got, a heavy-handed (and counter-productive) reaction from the British authorities; Soviet partisans in "quiet areas" behind German lines in World War Two employed the same tactic; Zionist partisans used it against British forces during the British mandate in Palestine (Now, there's an irony!) after the Second World War; the Viet Cong exploited the My Lai massacre; the IRA exploited Bloody Sunday in 1972. A more recent example occurred during the fighting in Iraq, when a group of US soldiers massacred some Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha, providing invaluable propaganda for the Iraqi insurgents. It is debatable whether or not provocation was employed at My Lai, or on Bloody Sunday, but the result was the same.
All these events discredited the more powerful occupying powers and gave propaganda victories to the weaker, "guerrilla" sides.  Besides the publicity value of such actions, they provided a boost in recruitment to the guerrilla movements. After Bloody Sunday, for example, it is said that the IRA were turning away recruits.
Perhaps the most glaring example of this tactic came during the war for Algerian Independence, when, in 1955, the FLN resistance slaughtered over a hundred French civilians in the town of Philippeville. This provoked a ferocious French reaction during which, as the historian Alistair Horne noted in "A Savage War of Peace", up to 12 000 Algerians were killed. These reprisals took the lives of mostly innocent Algerian civilians, and discredited France in the eyes of the world. It also created even wider hatred of the French among Algerians, and led to more recruits for the FLN.
Now, if my analysis of resistance movements is correct, Hamas have learned the lessons of such previous conflicts very well. The present war (which is what it is) began when three young Israelis were abducted and murdered - provocation. Israel reacted with predictable heavy- handed anger and force leading to what we have seen happen in Gaza - reprisal. Hamas fought back with ambush and rocketing - heroic David/Goliath resistance (yet another irony). The brunt of death, destruction and suffering has fallen on innocent Gazan civilians, leading to widespread condemnation and opprobrium of Israel around the world. Result - an important propaganda victory for Hamas. Israel's stature with her friends has been eroded, and will doubtless erode further as long as the war goes on. The fact that Hamas has deliberately sited military posts near civilian targets - a tactic that would do credit to any previous guerrilla movement - has been ignored, as have Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians and Palestinian "collaborators". The Hamas political leadership has cause for great satisfaction.
I am not taking sides here; I am simply trying to provide an analysis that I think is missing from the discussion about Gaza. The UN is right -any future war crimes trial should see both Israelis and Hamas in the dock.
How sad it is that Hamas and Israelis worship the same God, to whom they both pray for victory.

Hamas fighters pray.

Israeli soldiers pray.

The Trojan Horse, OFSTED and the Faith Schools Issue

Now that a suitable lapse of time has gone by, it's worth re-examining the Birmingham "Trojan Horse" schools issue, and the seemingly related issue of faith schools.
We are all familiar with the "Trojan Horse" story, and the divisions it has created, in Birmingham and beyond. Some say that it is a genuine issue, while others deny it. Wikipedia sets out the issue in simple terms:
"Operation Trojan Horse was an organised attempt by Islamists to covertly co-opt schools in England.^[1][2] The name, based on the Ancient Greek legend, came from a leaked letter of questionable authenticity discovered in March 2014, alleged to be from Islamists in Birmingham, detailing how to wrest control of a school and speculating about expanding the scheme to other cities."
A subsequent investigation by my old friends at OFSTED found that there was some evidence of an attempt by Muslim extremists to take over schools, and several schools were placed in special measures (no easy option, as I know well). Birmingham City Council was accused by Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw of a "serious failure" in supporting schools in protecting children from extremism.
^{Peter Clarke, former counter-terrorism chief for the Metropolitan police, wrote, in a report for the Ministry of Education, that there had indeed been an organised attempt to introduce an "intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos" into some Birmingham schools. The Daily Mirror set up a "sting operation" against Shahid Akmal, a governor of one of these schools, by sending an undercover reporter to interview him on a business matter. During the interview , Mr Akmal reportedly said that white women were lazy and that both gays and adulterers should be sent into exile.  - but he did not admit to conspiring to radicalise any schools.
This was one side of the case. The other side was led by The Muslim Council for Great Britain, who described the report as a "witch-hunt". The former leader of Respect, Salma Yaqoob, an ex- Birmingham city councillor, organised a pressure group to challenge the findings of the report, and condemned the authors of the report as being carried away by "a climate of political and media hysteria." George Galloway, the MP who has appeared on this blog before, dismissed the report as "Trojan horse-shit", and "a dog whistle response to UKIP".
Now, I am no admirer of either OFSTED or George Galloway, and it pains me to be  seeming to side with either. Instead, I will say that there appears to be no "smoking gun" evidence of a conspiracy, despite all the evidence presented. It seems to me that we will never know the whole truth of this matter - which perhaps is the best conclusion for both sides.
Instead, I think it worth examining what, to me (but not everyone!), is another issue completely - that of faith schools. I honestly do not know why the two topics became linked in the media, but it happened somehow. I remember an atheist commenting on the Jeremy Vine programme on BBC Radio Two, that he found all religious practices in schools to be "extremism" , and that all religious dogma should be banned from schools. I vaguely recall an article in The Guardian on this topic which said the same thing: that all  British schools should be secular, in line with the rest of Europe, and faith schools should be abolished. To be fair, the proponents of this view do not wish to ban religion altogether. They simply object to paying taxes to fund schools which have a religious ethos they do not share. Religion, they say, should be a private matter. Perhaps the best exposition of this view is made by the British Humanist Association (BHA), whose views can be read HERE.
As a teacher with a special interest in Religious Education, and having taught it in both faith and non-faith schools, I think that it needs to be taught as a subject in order for different faith groups to learn about, and understand each other. Eliminating the study of religion as an academic subject will deprive British children of not only knowledge of each other, but also an understanding of our history - for good or bad.
As far as faith schools are concerned, I am prepared to admit that the BHA and others have a case, but that some secular criticisms are way over the top. I have taught in a number of Christian faith schools and have never encountered anything that a reasonable person might class as "extremism". One typical misplaced criticism is that of the atheist on the Jeremy Vine programme who I mentioned above. How anyone can equate the saying of prayers at the end of the school day to telling children that wives who do not have sex with their husbands will be punished by angels is beyond me. I also know that religion does not dominate the curriculum, and that other faiths are represented in RE lessons. I myself have taught about other faiths in faith schools.  As a supply teacher, I often teach in a Roman Catholic Primary School not far from where I live. I know how important the school is to parents. Any attempt to close down faith schools will be fiercely resisted.}

George Galloway

George's ex-comrade, Salma Yaqoob