My mate Tamara, beautiful voice, like a velvet covered 15" shell
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=127261685
My mate Anna and her filthy webcomic
http://www.gingercomics.com/
My mate Humphrey and his poetry site
http://rainoverbouville.co.uk/
Visit.
Thursday 31 July 2008
Wednesday 30 July 2008
More on the riots in Belgrade
Please see -
http://invisiblesights.wordpress.com/
for a eye-witnesses account and a great all-round blog
(Hat-Tip - Sarah Franco)
http://invisiblesights.wordpress.com/
for a eye-witnesses account and a great all-round blog
(Hat-Tip - Sarah Franco)
More Orwell for all those stick shakers and his deep hatred of the elephant
Just saw this, starting from August 9th
They are running his work daily ala a blog format, good idea and a real chance to read a different George.
One quote of his whilst in Gibratar in '38
'Overheard local English resident: “It’s coming right enough. Hitler’s going to have Czecho-Slovakia all right. If he doesn’t get it now he’ll go on and on till he does. Better let him have it at once. We shall be ready by 1941.”'
One of the most underrated of his novels is Coming up for Air, a almost Proustian meditation of the loss of innocence post 1918 and the decline into the total war promised by Fascism's weltanschuuang. The protagonist traces how the world seems leaping into madness. We can see how much these nightmares affected Orwell himself.
(Hat Tip - HP)
ps. Let us not forget his visceral hatred of Elephants, mind.
Possibly the worst CD cover ever (left), I mean, that cardigan...However great music, enjoy..http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=86916086
Posting Karadic...
'Tis maybe a small mercy but in the ineviable nationalist backlash against Karadic's extradtion, it is welcome that the rioters of the Radical party mustered only in their tens of thousands rather then the hundreds
Progress moves in shades of grey.
Just realised what a terrible punt I have just made, oh dear...
ps. I will now check the credentials of any Alternative Medicine practitioner cum bagder very carefully
Tuesday 29 July 2008
The case for Universal Utopia Care
Another repost, from HP
The extremities of political ideology are places of utopia, be they of the left or right. The NF or the BNP are utopians of the highest order, as are Islamists. Even in Strassian thought or in the libertarian millieu, there is a golden age just waiting beyond the application of their prescription. Paleo-Conservatives think that 1954 (1825 in Peter Hitchen’s opinion) is utopia, a place sans discord or deviancy, a place of civilisation and ‘peace’ - Burke longed for a Lockean place of high church manners and civility to be ‘restored’ from the outrages of the Paris mob and the radicals of London.
Utopia is merely the perfect application of ideology onto reality, the ultimate aim of political radicals and extremists. That is why utopia - lit. no place is so accurate. The birth of the new Volk, the return of the Caliphate, the end of history, the Golden age, the return to the ideals of a past age or the promise of a new are battles against reality and humanity. The degree to which each school might seek to pursue its telos ranges widely, but utopias exists in every strand of political thought, just as elysiums accompany the religions.
The conservatism as common sense is merely part of their own ideological conception. If you didn’t critically assess such self conceptions, then fascists could be viewed as peaceful warriors pushed reluctantly to arms and Socialists would be awash with sex and good clothes. Both are self-conceited fallacies. The most successful ideologues in the west in the last 30 years have mainly been to the political right with their own ideal and conceivable society as a goal, just as the Keynesian/Socialist project of social engineering was in the 30 years before. They differ in their means and aims but not in their project to build a ‘better’ world, the interpretation of ‘better’ being their own conception of heaven on earth. Indeed extremities place a bipolar struggle deep into the route map towards this end. Manichean division and the promise of a reborn or renewed society are their positive and negative inducements.
Some commentators has a big spiel about making the right as being judged by a separate series of consideration with regards to political theory and science. The right (which to them means good guys, their definition is not very clear) is merely the real voice of humanity, plagued by demagogues and malcontents pointing towards false gods. Thus fascism is entirely a beast of the left, because one hack journo simplified a complex relationship to score partisan points against the Dems in the States (step forward Jonah Goldberg). Thus Islam is nowt but a theocratic brand of socialism. Thus the right is released from the need to critically think about itself as it is the font of humanity, beyond a veneer of tactical moderation.
I want a right that is clever, self-searching and honest, am I being utopian?
The extremities of political ideology are places of utopia, be they of the left or right. The NF or the BNP are utopians of the highest order, as are Islamists. Even in Strassian thought or in the libertarian millieu, there is a golden age just waiting beyond the application of their prescription. Paleo-Conservatives think that 1954 (1825 in Peter Hitchen’s opinion) is utopia, a place sans discord or deviancy, a place of civilisation and ‘peace’ - Burke longed for a Lockean place of high church manners and civility to be ‘restored’ from the outrages of the Paris mob and the radicals of London.
Utopia is merely the perfect application of ideology onto reality, the ultimate aim of political radicals and extremists. That is why utopia - lit. no place is so accurate. The birth of the new Volk, the return of the Caliphate, the end of history, the Golden age, the return to the ideals of a past age or the promise of a new are battles against reality and humanity. The degree to which each school might seek to pursue its telos ranges widely, but utopias exists in every strand of political thought, just as elysiums accompany the religions.
The conservatism as common sense is merely part of their own ideological conception. If you didn’t critically assess such self conceptions, then fascists could be viewed as peaceful warriors pushed reluctantly to arms and Socialists would be awash with sex and good clothes. Both are self-conceited fallacies. The most successful ideologues in the west in the last 30 years have mainly been to the political right with their own ideal and conceivable society as a goal, just as the Keynesian/Socialist project of social engineering was in the 30 years before. They differ in their means and aims but not in their project to build a ‘better’ world, the interpretation of ‘better’ being their own conception of heaven on earth. Indeed extremities place a bipolar struggle deep into the route map towards this end. Manichean division and the promise of a reborn or renewed society are their positive and negative inducements.
Some commentators has a big spiel about making the right as being judged by a separate series of consideration with regards to political theory and science. The right (which to them means good guys, their definition is not very clear) is merely the real voice of humanity, plagued by demagogues and malcontents pointing towards false gods. Thus fascism is entirely a beast of the left, because one hack journo simplified a complex relationship to score partisan points against the Dems in the States (step forward Jonah Goldberg). Thus Islam is nowt but a theocratic brand of socialism. Thus the right is released from the need to critically think about itself as it is the font of humanity, beyond a veneer of tactical moderation.
I want a right that is clever, self-searching and honest, am I being utopian?
Conservatism mit added Weber
I posted this over at CT a little while ago and thought I'd put it up. Having accidently got all specialised into the history of ideas, I have been trying to create hopefully useful heuristic ideal tpyes for political ideology. Thinking of doing a series. Thoughts?
‘An ongoing and evolving protect to ensure the survival of a mythical construct of the past, that tend to synthesis collective identity and social norms, a social ‘meritocracy’ informed by those norms and a form of national exceptionism’
To unpack –‘An ongoing and evolving project’ – Conservatism cannot stop change, it has to adjust. So in the 50-60s, a certain level of state provision was excepted by certain Conservatives as necessary to stop the atomising influence of economic breakdown. A similar instance to Tory paternalism. For instance the reverse racism argument trotted out over positive discrimination.
‘a mythical construct of the past’ – in true Burke-ian fashion, what survives works, society, however unjust, is structured like that for a reason. The base of this forgotten land to be conserved is of course mythical, actual 18th century Britain, 16th century France or 1840s America were not static, anodyne places, they were not a-historic steady states, brutally corrupted by innovation. The construct is myth, yet dynamic over time as a recently pasted era provides a new template
‘collective identity and social norms’ – Conservatives are fans of collective identity, just one formed by the attitudes they devine from their mythic construct. Thus Children know their place, Wives their Kitchen and Men their role, Blacks their cabin, gays their closet and heretics their exit visas. Collective identity as such provide a counterweight to atomising change. Such identities and norms create a veneer of social peace, unity and stability.
‘a social ‘meritocracy’ informed by such norms’ – contentious I know, but hear me out. In the Conservative weltanschauung, status is earned, but in a differing way to that of Liberal or Socialist schema. Those of good blood deserve their wealth as they are the scions of good successful and respectable families. Hard working Prols who doff caps and practice safe ‘self-help’ can be released from their origins via their surrender to ‘moderate’ society. Good Blacks or Hispanics can rise if they internalise the norms of ‘good’ society and behave.
‘National Exceptionalism’ – A term that comes from a sense of national identity, closing class lines. It can be isolationists or belligerent depending on the context, yet ‘us above others’, be it culturally or ethnically based is paramount.
The matter was then raised about Gemeinschaft and Gesellshaft (A society united by shared norms and one without)
Conservatism is indeed the protection of a mythical gemienschaft via evolving means, gesellschaft equals immorality, dearth of meaning, corruption, reason unbound etc.
Conservatism likes to think of itself as an anti-ideology, as reactive. It clearly is not. It actively seeks to protect and indeed recreate the virtuous past, both fostering elements in society that nourish its vision (the family, the self-made) whilst coercing those who’s very identity (ambiently created) threaten same vision.
Indeed, consider the first patron state of statist government, FeldMarshall Hindenburg. Oversaw the most rapid expansion of state powers in European History till that time for basically classic conservative aims. Wilson and Lenin being huge fans.
Consider the regimes of Franco and Salazar, both created a huge state system based on the continued preservation of a mythical Spain and Portugal. This was a pro-active attempt to both nurture ‘healthy’ ambient life and weed out the ‘dangerous’ variety (And I submit to the view both were authoritarians governments rather than fascist, more similar in spirit to Vargas or Carol II than Mussolini)
Even the continuing consensus over large state subsidies for the military-Industrial complex was to conservative minds, a strut against instability both domestically with regards to social conditions and aboard with the contest with the Soviet Union.
Conservatism is an ideology, it just wishes it didn’t have to be
‘An ongoing and evolving protect to ensure the survival of a mythical construct of the past, that tend to synthesis collective identity and social norms, a social ‘meritocracy’ informed by those norms and a form of national exceptionism’
To unpack –‘An ongoing and evolving project’ – Conservatism cannot stop change, it has to adjust. So in the 50-60s, a certain level of state provision was excepted by certain Conservatives as necessary to stop the atomising influence of economic breakdown. A similar instance to Tory paternalism. For instance the reverse racism argument trotted out over positive discrimination.
‘a mythical construct of the past’ – in true Burke-ian fashion, what survives works, society, however unjust, is structured like that for a reason. The base of this forgotten land to be conserved is of course mythical, actual 18th century Britain, 16th century France or 1840s America were not static, anodyne places, they were not a-historic steady states, brutally corrupted by innovation. The construct is myth, yet dynamic over time as a recently pasted era provides a new template
‘collective identity and social norms’ – Conservatives are fans of collective identity, just one formed by the attitudes they devine from their mythic construct. Thus Children know their place, Wives their Kitchen and Men their role, Blacks their cabin, gays their closet and heretics their exit visas. Collective identity as such provide a counterweight to atomising change. Such identities and norms create a veneer of social peace, unity and stability.
‘a social ‘meritocracy’ informed by such norms’ – contentious I know, but hear me out. In the Conservative weltanschauung, status is earned, but in a differing way to that of Liberal or Socialist schema. Those of good blood deserve their wealth as they are the scions of good successful and respectable families. Hard working Prols who doff caps and practice safe ‘self-help’ can be released from their origins via their surrender to ‘moderate’ society. Good Blacks or Hispanics can rise if they internalise the norms of ‘good’ society and behave.
‘National Exceptionalism’ – A term that comes from a sense of national identity, closing class lines. It can be isolationists or belligerent depending on the context, yet ‘us above others’, be it culturally or ethnically based is paramount.
The matter was then raised about Gemeinschaft and Gesellshaft (A society united by shared norms and one without)
Conservatism is indeed the protection of a mythical gemienschaft via evolving means, gesellschaft equals immorality, dearth of meaning, corruption, reason unbound etc.
Conservatism likes to think of itself as an anti-ideology, as reactive. It clearly is not. It actively seeks to protect and indeed recreate the virtuous past, both fostering elements in society that nourish its vision (the family, the self-made) whilst coercing those who’s very identity (ambiently created) threaten same vision.
Indeed, consider the first patron state of statist government, FeldMarshall Hindenburg. Oversaw the most rapid expansion of state powers in European History till that time for basically classic conservative aims. Wilson and Lenin being huge fans.
Consider the regimes of Franco and Salazar, both created a huge state system based on the continued preservation of a mythical Spain and Portugal. This was a pro-active attempt to both nurture ‘healthy’ ambient life and weed out the ‘dangerous’ variety (And I submit to the view both were authoritarians governments rather than fascist, more similar in spirit to Vargas or Carol II than Mussolini)
Even the continuing consensus over large state subsidies for the military-Industrial complex was to conservative minds, a strut against instability both domestically with regards to social conditions and aboard with the contest with the Soviet Union.
Conservatism is an ideology, it just wishes it didn’t have to be
Turkey, Nationalism and the hidden bodies...
The Armenian Genocide has ceased to be the forgotten genocide. Its shape, form and the endless horrors it contained have been increasingly examined by historians and social scientists in the last 40 years. The facts outside of the borders of Turkey are clear. In 1915-16, the dying Ottoman regime carried out mass deportations of Armenians from Anatolia towards Northern Syria. The aim cannot be doubted either. There were no areas set up for relocation at the end of these marches, no supplies and no pity. Those who failed to succumb to brutality of the Guards, special sections and local scavengers, who did not expire in the gruelling heat, were shot and staved to death. Any such numbers games are by their very nature contentious but most agree that 600 thousand (McCarthy) to one and half million men, women and children (Rummel, Kevorkian and others) were killed on those marches or in various pogroms around the crumbling empire. Along side this vast charnel house took place simultaneous massacres of Assyrian Christians and the Pontic Greeks (an additional butcher’s bill of nearly 600 thousand).
This was truly the triumph of death
Two issues need addressing. Firstly and primarily…why?
For the observers at the time and there were many (There was a considerable American relief effort), it seem to be an extension of the very nature of the ‘Terrible Turk’. The reports of Ottoman brutality against their Christian subjects had been a moral lightening rod for Europeans throughout the 19th century. Indeed the pressure to bring the Porte (the term used for the Sultan’s government) to ‘order’ over such mass killings (and the increasingly feeble nature of the Empire) had helped create a host of new nations in South-East Europe. The Armenians were merely the latest in a series of outrages by an Asiatic and Islamic power on its subjugated Christian peoples.
This narrative has been taken on by some of the Dhminitude labelling Manicheans of the west today, arguing the continuity between Ottoman repression, the Armenian genocide and the Islamist movements of today. In this re-telling, the wrath visited on the Armenians in 1915 stems solely from the sectarianism within the Koran. For others, Hitler’s opinions on the ‘success’ of the Armenian Genocide and his perceived emulation of this obscenity are taken as proof of Islam’s prescient role ‘establishing’ genocide as a ideological tactic.
There is a connection and a similarity between the NSDAP and the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress), the loose organisation that controlled the Ottoman state in 1915, but it doesn’t lie particularly with Islam. The CUP were seeking to reverse the long decline of Ottoman power. They contended that Ottoman society was backwards and inefficient, that the Porte could never bring about this revival. Their diagnosis and their prescription for the sick man of Europe increasingly revolved around nationalist ideas and pressing on with modernising the rump empire into a ‘mono-identity’ nation state. For the Ittihadists of the CUP, this involved creating an identity that would attain the dominance of German or French national identities. Various formulas of Ottomanism (Influenced by Persia), Turkish Cultural awareness and fantasies like Turanianism basically defined the body politic in terms of primary identity. This identity was by no means based on religion. There were many Ottoman Jews and even Christians within the CUP, Tekinalp being a Salonikan Jew. It was about perceived loyalty and subsuming other sources of collective belonging.
The CUP were in many ways ultra-modernizers, their very name is owed to the writing of Comte. Gökalp, one of the foremost intellects behind the movement was clearly indebted to Durkheim and Tönnes. His own sociological work echoes Spencer. Islam was only useful if it buttress their national project, as a contour of identity. If not, then it was hapless bulk. The CUP’s main opponents during the pre-war period were not the minorities of the empire (indeed Bulgarian and Armenian Socialists were allied with them in parliament). The main force of resistance came from traditionalists and monarchist who looked aghast at the progress of these modernising secularists.
The divergent nature of the western model for modernisation, Liberal democracy along with nationalist indoctrination began to unravel soon after the 1908 revolution that saw the CUP move into government. The ‘traditional’ brutality of ottoman rule, of mass murder as a tool for maintaining social stability had already poisoned intra-ethnic relations. Indeed Armenians had been the repeated victims of horrific pogroms in the preceding 30 years. As such there was a widening chasm between a centralising CUP agenda and the Armenian community’s leadership aim of autonomy within the empire. Djemet, one of the troika who lead the events of 1915 was a keen critic of schemes of autonomy, seeing them as a waypoint before foreign intervention and their loss to the Empire. One of the most notorious proponents of Armenian Genocide, Dr Nazim declared, ‘The Ottoman State must be exclusively Turkish. The Presence of Foreign elements is a pretext for European intervention’. He then adds euphemistically, ‘They should be forcible Turkicized’ (M Mann, 2005, pg. 132)
By 1915, the threat of a Russian invasion of Anatolia, evidence of very small scale Armenian collaboration with Russia and the strains of a war that was defeating the Empire’s ability to carry on coincided. Convicted of both the potential for widespread Armenian rebellion and the collapse of their nationalist ambitions, the CUP sought to solve this ethnic ‘question’ once and for all. After the genocide of the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Pontic Greeks, came another extremely brutal clash over identity as Greece pursued the Great idea and the Kemelists took their revenge. This left Turkey as an ethnically ‘pure’ state.
These events were about a project of creating a nation, an identity and pushing these templates to a modern future onto an ethnically diverse and increasing fractious empire. These delusions were driven by nationalist ideas, by a nation made sacred and deified. Islam may have inspired many an act of brutality and been used to justify inhuman crimes, but in the case of the Armenian genocide, it was the idea of nationhood that lead to murder.
Secondly – Turkish denial of Genocide is a crime against itself. Having been to Turkey briefly and lived near the Turkish community on Blackstock Road in London, I am quite and hopelessly enamoured by its people (Only Iranians have a more wicked sense of humour). Don’t even get me started on the food either, Aubergine mezes, Apple Tea, Sujuk. But Turkey has to face up to what happened in Der-I-Zar and what that means about its subsequent history. Kemel (a member of the CUP) was in mild bureaucratic disgrace in 1915 and posted to a seemingly unimportant post in Galipoli. He thus avoided being involved in the events to the east. How would he have reacted? His project of Turkish modernisation is directly linked to Ittihadist visions for a modern Ottoman empire, what does that say about the roots of the Kemelist revolution? Can you separate the Triumvir of Enver, Talaat and Djemet from Kemel? Given the bloody history of Greco-Turkish relations since 1917, how far has the Kemelist state (and indeed Greece) been able to move on from a body politics defined by the ethnos, towards one by the demos?
Kemel is deified to an extraordinary extent even today. I remember a tour guide describing his life and breaking down into tears when she reached the point of his death. Every village has some monument to him, indeed this cult rivals Islam for its geographical universality. Yet given the violent activities of the ‘deep state’ and the ongoing contest between liberalising and nationalist parties, would admitting that the state and nation needn’t be eternal moral paragons in the face of historical evidence, that the state and the nation you make today are what matters be ‘insulting Turkishness’. I say no.
This was truly the triumph of death
Two issues need addressing. Firstly and primarily…why?
For the observers at the time and there were many (There was a considerable American relief effort), it seem to be an extension of the very nature of the ‘Terrible Turk’. The reports of Ottoman brutality against their Christian subjects had been a moral lightening rod for Europeans throughout the 19th century. Indeed the pressure to bring the Porte (the term used for the Sultan’s government) to ‘order’ over such mass killings (and the increasingly feeble nature of the Empire) had helped create a host of new nations in South-East Europe. The Armenians were merely the latest in a series of outrages by an Asiatic and Islamic power on its subjugated Christian peoples.
This narrative has been taken on by some of the Dhminitude labelling Manicheans of the west today, arguing the continuity between Ottoman repression, the Armenian genocide and the Islamist movements of today. In this re-telling, the wrath visited on the Armenians in 1915 stems solely from the sectarianism within the Koran. For others, Hitler’s opinions on the ‘success’ of the Armenian Genocide and his perceived emulation of this obscenity are taken as proof of Islam’s prescient role ‘establishing’ genocide as a ideological tactic.
There is a connection and a similarity between the NSDAP and the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress), the loose organisation that controlled the Ottoman state in 1915, but it doesn’t lie particularly with Islam. The CUP were seeking to reverse the long decline of Ottoman power. They contended that Ottoman society was backwards and inefficient, that the Porte could never bring about this revival. Their diagnosis and their prescription for the sick man of Europe increasingly revolved around nationalist ideas and pressing on with modernising the rump empire into a ‘mono-identity’ nation state. For the Ittihadists of the CUP, this involved creating an identity that would attain the dominance of German or French national identities. Various formulas of Ottomanism (Influenced by Persia), Turkish Cultural awareness and fantasies like Turanianism basically defined the body politic in terms of primary identity. This identity was by no means based on religion. There were many Ottoman Jews and even Christians within the CUP, Tekinalp being a Salonikan Jew. It was about perceived loyalty and subsuming other sources of collective belonging.
The CUP were in many ways ultra-modernizers, their very name is owed to the writing of Comte. Gökalp, one of the foremost intellects behind the movement was clearly indebted to Durkheim and Tönnes. His own sociological work echoes Spencer. Islam was only useful if it buttress their national project, as a contour of identity. If not, then it was hapless bulk. The CUP’s main opponents during the pre-war period were not the minorities of the empire (indeed Bulgarian and Armenian Socialists were allied with them in parliament). The main force of resistance came from traditionalists and monarchist who looked aghast at the progress of these modernising secularists.
The divergent nature of the western model for modernisation, Liberal democracy along with nationalist indoctrination began to unravel soon after the 1908 revolution that saw the CUP move into government. The ‘traditional’ brutality of ottoman rule, of mass murder as a tool for maintaining social stability had already poisoned intra-ethnic relations. Indeed Armenians had been the repeated victims of horrific pogroms in the preceding 30 years. As such there was a widening chasm between a centralising CUP agenda and the Armenian community’s leadership aim of autonomy within the empire. Djemet, one of the troika who lead the events of 1915 was a keen critic of schemes of autonomy, seeing them as a waypoint before foreign intervention and their loss to the Empire. One of the most notorious proponents of Armenian Genocide, Dr Nazim declared, ‘The Ottoman State must be exclusively Turkish. The Presence of Foreign elements is a pretext for European intervention’. He then adds euphemistically, ‘They should be forcible Turkicized’ (M Mann, 2005, pg. 132)
By 1915, the threat of a Russian invasion of Anatolia, evidence of very small scale Armenian collaboration with Russia and the strains of a war that was defeating the Empire’s ability to carry on coincided. Convicted of both the potential for widespread Armenian rebellion and the collapse of their nationalist ambitions, the CUP sought to solve this ethnic ‘question’ once and for all. After the genocide of the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Pontic Greeks, came another extremely brutal clash over identity as Greece pursued the Great idea and the Kemelists took their revenge. This left Turkey as an ethnically ‘pure’ state.
These events were about a project of creating a nation, an identity and pushing these templates to a modern future onto an ethnically diverse and increasing fractious empire. These delusions were driven by nationalist ideas, by a nation made sacred and deified. Islam may have inspired many an act of brutality and been used to justify inhuman crimes, but in the case of the Armenian genocide, it was the idea of nationhood that lead to murder.
Secondly – Turkish denial of Genocide is a crime against itself. Having been to Turkey briefly and lived near the Turkish community on Blackstock Road in London, I am quite and hopelessly enamoured by its people (Only Iranians have a more wicked sense of humour). Don’t even get me started on the food either, Aubergine mezes, Apple Tea, Sujuk. But Turkey has to face up to what happened in Der-I-Zar and what that means about its subsequent history. Kemel (a member of the CUP) was in mild bureaucratic disgrace in 1915 and posted to a seemingly unimportant post in Galipoli. He thus avoided being involved in the events to the east. How would he have reacted? His project of Turkish modernisation is directly linked to Ittihadist visions for a modern Ottoman empire, what does that say about the roots of the Kemelist revolution? Can you separate the Triumvir of Enver, Talaat and Djemet from Kemel? Given the bloody history of Greco-Turkish relations since 1917, how far has the Kemelist state (and indeed Greece) been able to move on from a body politics defined by the ethnos, towards one by the demos?
Kemel is deified to an extraordinary extent even today. I remember a tour guide describing his life and breaking down into tears when she reached the point of his death. Every village has some monument to him, indeed this cult rivals Islam for its geographical universality. Yet given the violent activities of the ‘deep state’ and the ongoing contest between liberalising and nationalist parties, would admitting that the state and nation needn’t be eternal moral paragons in the face of historical evidence, that the state and the nation you make today are what matters be ‘insulting Turkishness’. I say no.
Up and about
Heellloooo
Due to the criminal international deficit of blogs written about politics, I have reluctantly stepped up to the plate and am taking one for the team. Please read and enjoy, comment and slap me about when I do something really idiotic.
A few project over the summer include: a series of wee essays on the left, a project looking at political violence and ritual, learning how to make an American quilt, posting some friends' prose and poetry, investigating the question 'does swearing make you: A. Big and/or B. Clever and probably reviewing a few films and other bumpf that I stumble upon.
Let the Republic be born - Neither God nor Master!
Due to the criminal international deficit of blogs written about politics, I have reluctantly stepped up to the plate and am taking one for the team. Please read and enjoy, comment and slap me about when I do something really idiotic.
A few project over the summer include: a series of wee essays on the left, a project looking at political violence and ritual, learning how to make an American quilt, posting some friends' prose and poetry, investigating the question 'does swearing make you: A. Big and/or B. Clever and probably reviewing a few films and other bumpf that I stumble upon.
Let the Republic be born - Neither God nor Master!
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