More Ukraine

Ah! I knew I would find some informed comment eventually. But who'd have thought it would be in the Grauniad?

Ukraine's postmodern coup d'etat

Yushchenko got the US nod, and money flooded in to his supporters
Jonathan Steele
Friday November 26, 2004

The Guardian
Oranges can often be bitter, and the mass street protests now going on in Ukraine may not be quite as sweet as their supporters claim.

For one thing the demonstrators do not reflect nationwide sentiments. Ukraine is riven by deep historical, religious and linguistic divisions. The crowds in the street include a large contingent from western Ukraine, which has never felt comfortable with rule from Kiev, let alone from people associated with eastern Ukraine, the home-base of Viktor Yanukovich, the disputed president-elect.

Their traditions are not always pleasant. Some protesters have been chanting nationalistic and secessionist songs from the anti-semitic years of the second world war.

Nor are we watching a struggle between freedom and authoritarianism as is romantically alleged. Viktor Yushchenko, who claims to have won Sunday's election, served as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial clans who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet privatisation.

On some issues Yushchenko may be a better potential president than Yanukovich, but to suggest he would provide a sea-change in Ukrainian politics and economic management is naive. Nor is there much evidence to imagine that, were he the incumbent president facing a severe challenge, he would not have tried to falsify the poll.

Countless elections in the post-Soviet space have been manipulated to a degree which probably reversed the result, usually by unfair use of state television, and sometimes by direct ballot rigging. Boris Yeltsin's constitutional referendum in Russia in 1993 and his re-election in 1996 were early cases. Azerbaijan's presidential vote last year was also highly suspicious.

Yet after none of those polls did the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main international observer body, or the US and other western governments, make the furious noise they are producing today. The decision to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik and whether the challengers or the incumbent are considered more "pro-western" or "pro-market".

In Ukraine, Yushchenko got the western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organisation, Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the US and other western embassies paid for exit polls, prompting Russia to do likewise, though apparently to a lesser extent.

The US's own election this month showed how wrong exit polls can be. But they provide a powerful mobilising effect, making it easier to persuade people to mount civil disobedience or seize public buildings on the grounds the election must have been stolen if the official results diverge.

Intervening in foreign elections, under the guise of an impartial interest in helping civil society, has become the run-up to the postmodern coup d'etat, the CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet conditions. Instruments of democracy are used selectively to topple unpopular dictators, once a successor candidate or regime has been groomed.

In Ukraine's case this is playing with fire. Not only is the country geographically and culturally divided - a recipe for partition or even civil war - it is also an important neighbour to Russia. Putin has been clumsy, but to accuse Russia of imperialism because it shows close interest in adjoining states and the Russian-speaking minorities who live there is a wild exaggeration.

Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow but by the US, which refuses to abandon its cold war policy of encircling Russia and seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side. The EU should have none of this. Many Ukrainians certainly want a more democratic system. Putin is not inherently against this, however authoritarian he is in his own country. What concerns him is instability, the threat of anti-Russian regimes on his borders, and American mischief.

The EU should therefore press for a compromise in Kiev, which might include power-sharing. More importantly, it should give Ukraine the option of future membership rather than the feeble "action plan" of cooperation currently on offer. This would set Ukraine on a surer path to irreversible reform than anything that either Yushchenko or Yanukovich may promise.

Sceptics wonder where the EU's enlargement will end, but Ukraine is undoubtedly a European nation in a way that the states of the Caucasus, of central Asia and of north Africa are not.

The EU must also make a public statement that it sees no value in Nato membership for Ukraine, and those EU members who belong to Nato will not support it. At a stroke this would calm Russia's legitimate fears and send a signal to Washington not to go on inflaming a purely European issue.

j.steele@guardian.co.uk

Ukraine

Znet can always be relied upon to give a different view of what's happening in the world. Rarely do they reproduce pieces from a publication as right-wing as The Spectator. I fear their decision to reprduce John Laughland's comments in the latest issue on the Ukraine may have more to do with the fact that they like his conclusions - ie that the UK and US (and many other) governments' line on the current situation supports more anti-democratic forces than those currently still holding the reins of power (if only by a thread). No time to give this full investigation right now, but I will try later in the week. It looks like pretty dodgy, and not very "sophisticated" sophistry even at a brief glance. Notice how the only connection made between the anti-Semites who appear at the start of the piece and Yuschenko's supporters are that both live in Western Ukraine. The same kind of logic makes anyone from anywhere North of Birmingham a fascist, or a communist, depending on whether you start with the BNP or Arthur Scargill. Here is the Laughland piece, as posted on Znet:

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sent to Kiev by the British government to teach Ukrainians about the Western democratic system. His pupils were young reformers from western Ukraine, affiliated to the Conservative party. When they produced a manifesto containing 15 pages of impenetrable waffle, he gently suggested boiling their electoral message down to one salient point. What was it, he wondered? A moment of furrowed brows produced the lapidary and nonchalant reply, 'To expel all Jews from our country.'

It is in the west of Ukraine that support is strongest for the man who is being vigorously promoted by America as the country's next president: the former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko. On a rainy Monday morning in Kiev, I met some young Yushchenko supporters, druggy skinheads from Lvov. They belonged both to a Western-backed youth organisation, Pora, and also to Ukrainian National Self-Defence (Unso), a semi-paramilitary movement whose members enjoy posing for the cameras carrying rifles and wearing fatigues and balaclava helmets. Were nutters like this to be politically active in any country other than Ukraine or the Baltic states, there would be instant outcry in the US and British media; but in former Soviet republics, such bogus nationalism is considered anti-Russian and therefore democratic.

It is because of this ideological presupposition that Anglo-Saxon reporting on the Ukrainian elections has chimed in with press releases from the State Department, peddling a fairytale about a struggle between a brave and beleaguered democrat, Yushchenko, and an authoritarian Soviet nostalgic, the present Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych. All facts which contradict this morality tale are suppressed. Thus a story has been widely circulated that Yushchenko was poisoned during the electoral campaign, the fantasy being that the government was trying to bump him off. But no British or American news outlet has reported the interview by the chief physician of the Vienna clinic which treated Yushchenko for his unexplained illness. The clinic released a report declaring there to be no evidence of poisoning, after which, said the chief physician, he was subjected to such intimidation by Yushchenko's entourage - who wanted him to change the report - that he was forced to seek police protection.

It has also been repeatedly alleged that foreign observers found the elections fraught with violations committed by the government. In fact, this is exclusively the view of highly politicised Western governmental organisations like the OSCE - a body which is notorious for the fraudulent nature of its own reports, and which in any case came to this conclusion before the poll had even taken place - and of bogus NGOs, such as the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, a front organisation exclusively funded by Western (mainly American) government bodies and think-tanks, and clearly allied with Yushchenko.

Because they speak English, the political activists in such organisations can easily nobble Anglophone Western reporters.

Contrary allegations - such as those of fraud committed by Yushchenko-supporting local authorities in western Ukraine, carefully detailed by Russian election observers but available only in Russian - go unreported. So too does evidence of crude intimidation made by Yushchenko supporters against election officials. The depiction is so skewed that Yushchenko is presented as a pro-Western free-marketeer, even though his fief in western Ukraine is an economic wasteland; while Yanukovych is presented as pro-Russian and statist, even though his electoral campaign is based on deregulation and the economy has been growing at an impressive clip. The cleanliness and prosperity of Kiev and other cities have improved noticeably.

There is, however, one thing which separates the two main candidates, and which explains the West's determination to shoo in Yushchenko: Nato. Yanukovych has said he is against Ukraine joining; Yushchenko is in favour. The West wants Ukraine in Nato to weaken Russia geopolitically and to have a new big client state for expensive Western weaponry, whose manufacturers fund so much of the US political process.

Yanukovych has also promised to promote Russian back to the status of second state language. Since most Ukrainian citizens speak Russian, since Kiev is the historic birthplace of Christian Russia, and since the current legislation forces tens of millions of Russians to Ukrainianise their names, this is hardly unreasonable. The continued artificial imposition of Ukrainian as the state language - started under the Soviets and intensified after the fall of communism - will be a further factor in ripping Ukraine's Russophone citizens away from Russia proper. That is why the West wants it.

Equatorial Guinea

At this stage, it's unclear how much of an issue this is going to become, but we should find out in the next few days. The Observer says it has found documents which reveal the British and US governments were given in-depth details of the plans to launch a coup in Equatorial Guinea.
"The revelations of Britain and America's prior knowledge of the plan to topple the oppressive regime of President Teodoro Obiang raises questions about whether they ignored clear UN conventions designed to protect heads of state against violent overthrow. There have also been claims that western government were keen to see regime change in the oil-rich state because it suited their strategic and commercial interests."
They say that shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram is going to be pushing Jack Straw on the matter....
As far as I can see, no other papers have picked up on it yet. So keep an eye out over the next few days for developments...

Who are they kidding?

James texted me in the week on the subject of NGOs, and whether they are "working for the forces of darkness," before technology failed him and he disappeared from the digital world almost completely.
By coincidence, the new Private Eye (1120, Nov 26)has a story illuminating just this issue:

"Why are children's organisations apparently so willing to cosy up to the modile phone companies?
The official advice from the UK's chief medical officers is still that if children and young people do use mobile phones, "they should be encouraged to use mobile phones for essential purposes only and keep all calls short".
That advice is based on findings of the Stewart report on mobile phones and health, and when it was first published the Mobile Operators Association pledged on behalf of its members that it would take a precautionary approach and review "marketing strategies and information literature" to stop targeting children.
However, the not-for-profit children's organisation Childnet International, which runs internet safety awareness campaigns, has just run the second Vodafone-sponsored Childnet Challenege, through which children in Belfast and Dublicn are encouraged to become...mobile phone pals and work together via phone technology on a project!
Meanwhile UK charity Save the Children has got into bed with the Norwegian mobile phone company Telenor, currently expanding across Europe, to start providing school visits that teach children all about mobile phone use. While the classes aim to give children the skills to avoid text messages from paedophiles, another message is clear: mobile phone companies are plugging their phones to youngsters and using kids' charities to do it."

And since I'm in the mood for copyright infringement, this is interesting too:

Financial Times (London, England)
November 27, 2004 Saturday
COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 13
Scaring voters is a high-risk strategy
By JEAN EAGLESHAM

Phoney fury or simply silly? The alliterative insults in this week's spat over claims that the public's fear of terrorism is being exploited for political gain bode ill for the quality of debate in the run-up to May's expected general election.

The furore over the government's claim that Britain is "safer under Labour" showed that the main parties have learnt the lessons from the US and Australian elections - and intend to apply them with brute political force.

There is a widespread Westminster belief that John Kerry lost the race for the White House because voters could not trust him to defend homeland security. Labour has lifted the twin Democrat election themes of opportunity and security for its own campaign. But it is determined not to repeat Mr Kerry's mistake of being outflanked on security.

The electoral link between bombs and votes was made explicit this week by David Blunkett. Voicing his party's concern that voters "turn to the far right, not the liberal left, when they are fearful", the home secretary said: "I don't pretend that I can win elections on improved security . . . butI could certainly lose it."

This calculation underscored Peter Hain's contentious claim that "Britain will be safer under Labour." The gaffe-prone leader of the Commons deserved flak for his characteristic lack of subtlety. To many, his claim translated simply as: "Vote for us or al-Qaeda will bomb you."

But Mr Hain has some justification for accusing his opponents of "phoney fury" in the outrage that greeted his remarks. The Tories' concerted attack coincided with the launch of their latest political party broadcast.

Portraying adults scared to leave their homes at night because of drunken yobs roaming the streets, the Conservative propaganda was a prime example of the "politics of fear".

In truth, most political messages boil down to an appeal to greed or fear, or both. Promises of tax cuts or higher spending are mixed with threats that the other parties will raise taxes or cut public services.

The most potent fear during much of the 1970s and 1980s was economic insecurity. Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979 on the back of "Labour isn't working" posters threatening mass unemployment. The "Labour's tax bombshell" campaign helped the Tories cling on to power in 1992.

But full employment and a fairly buoyant economy have robbed such threats of much of their potency. The main parties are now squaring up for an election battle where fears of terrorism, crime and immigration are central themes.

Much of this is politics as usual. But the parties run a risk in trying to ramp up concerns about yobs and terror in a country where the overall crime level is falling and there has yet to be a successful al-Qaeda attack. Trust in politicians is already at an all-time low in Britain. Election campaigns that stoke irrational fears can only fuel such scepticism.

The writer is an FT political correspondent

Polls

For many lefties, the last few weeks have been filled with more discussions about polling statistics than anyone should have to endure, so I'm not going to discuss the general validity of opinion polls, the issue of cellphones or any of the rest of it. But the New York Times and CBS have just done the first big post-election poll on a range of election-related issues.
Most of it's quite predictable, but a few bits are interesting. Here are a few of the results:

55. How worried are you that popular culture -- that is, television, movies, and music —- is lowering the moral standards in this country -- very worried (40%), somewhat worried (30%), not too worried (17%) or not at all worried (12%)? 1% weren't sure.

57. Do you think popular entertainment media--such as movies, television, and books--are including too many gay themes and characters these days, (42%) not enough, (6%) or about the right amount (44%)? 7% unsure.

59. Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin of human beings? 1. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process; (13%) OR 2. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms, but God guided this process; (27%) OR 3. God created human beings in their present form? (55%). 5% unsure.

I remember being the only one in my A-Level Economics class both able and willing to explain Darwinian evolution (although the teacher stopped me as I got in to slightly mangled detail over dis/advantageous mutations) and therefore find it quite worrying that 37% of those polled favour teaching creationism INSTEAD of evolution in schools (65% favour teaching both). Surely biology lessons can stick with biology, and religion lessons (which I assume are compulsory for at least a few years) can deal with matters of faith. Hopefully, even if the religion teachers fail to be very objective (as they did at my school) a bit of science will help students engage their critical faculties and learn not to believe everything they are told. Also, I think paleontology might be a good addition to the curriculum. Even if every schoolkid had to watch and pay close attention to "Jurrasic Park" we might be getting somewhere.


Also, Ozzy managed to chase a burglar out of his house yesterday, but the villain still got the loot. And Sharon's meandering attempts to justify her ownership of all the jewellery the guy got away with make it seem as though she harbours some doubts herself about whether one woman really needs so many precious stones. "I worked for every goddamn penny" she says, no doubt true, but less rewarded were those sent down mines to retrieve these decorations. Still, as Jonsnow points out, at least Ozzy restrained himself from killing the intruder.

A week's a long time in politics

And indeed, plenty has happened since my last update, although whether it amounts to anything fit to overshadow the hoody-ASBOs is highly debatable.
The presidential election results are coming in from the Ukraine and it looks like the current Moscow and oligarch-friendly incumbent has won, but it also looks like he cheated. Obviously, if you take democracy seriously, then this is a problem, and a Senator (Richard Lugar) from the best-functioning democracy on the planet has been sent to make sure there's no funny business.
Jon Snow is adept at summarising these sorts of things quite succinctly, if a little dramatically:

"Tectonic, maybe prehistoric, plates begin to shift. A new east-west ideological struggle. The great Ukraine election campaign that has burned fiercely but eternally on the very back burner has now ignited every ring on the stove. To the barricades at seven as the result is all but known and it looks like the forces of reaction - pro-Moscow, pro status quo - have won. But the pro EU-forces, the liberalisers, are calling foul and the international election observers with them. A filthy campaign in which the main oppsition leader was poisoned and horribly disfigured.

How will it all end? There are tens of thousands on the streets. The city of Lvov is refusing to recognise the result. Trouble with a capital T is brewing." For more of the same, daily, go here.

In other developments, BBC America are showing the top-class comedy series "Peep show" in prime time. Of more interest to UK residents, the series one DVD came out here last week.

And is the fact that Colin Powell is getting replaced by Condoleeza Rice significant? Massoud Derhally convincingly argues that if you live in or care about Arabic countries, then it is.

How do you stop bullying in schools? A good question, and one that deserves some attention. The problem is that short of the most ludicrous invasions of privacy and restrictions of kids' freedoms, you can't. What you need to do is make kids less afraid of telling teachers when they're being bullied, and do this by clearly demonstrating to kids that if they do tell someone about it, it's going to make the problem better and not worse. If kids are afraid to tell teachers theyre being bullied, it's because they think the teachers' response will be insufficient to prevent the bully from exacting their revenge. And if kids think this, they're unlikely to be entirely wrong. This is a matter of taking time and effort to think about how teachers can best combat bullying, along with parents and with kids, which is the kind of thing "New" Labour love to say they are doing, but the kind of thing that is too much time and effort for them to actually carry out.
The solution reminds me of István Bibó's concept of "Political Hysteria" as used by Emmanuel Terray:
"When a community fails to find within itself the means or energy to deal with a problem that challenges...It will substitute a fictional problem, which can be mediated purely through words and symbols, for the real one that it finds insurmountable. In grappling with the former, the community can convince itself that it has successfully confronted the latter." (Terray, "Headscarf Hysteria" New Left Review 26 March/April 2004, 118.)
Of course, this isn't quite the same thing, but the Blairite tendency to do something about a problem, or rather to be seen to do something, no matter how obviously ineffective, seems to have the same kinds of tendencies. Thus, to solve the bullying problem that clearly concerns so many parents, they come up with... plastic wristbands. Honestly, there is no more substance to it than the wristbands. "Wearing the band will give young people the opportunity to make a visible commitment that they are not prepared to tolerate bullying and will stand by their friends" says schools minister Stephen Twigg.

And finally, is this the Hollywood version of a veiled threat?

Boriswatch

johnsonborisPA256
Originally uploaded by ukplc. Boris Johnson wasn't going to be the biggest story of the day, but then he did what Boris does best, and came out of the house wearing this:
The Grauniad are devoting all their attention to covering the latest developments.


I'm starting to wonder whether the concept of "nationalism" is really so useful after all. I suppose that in some respects the problems of nationalism are those of the social sciences as a whole: why do groups of people act the way they do, and in the context of a society, what is identity? Looked at that way, it shouldn't surprise us too much if we don't have many concrete answers. In this case, the concept has to be used with care if it is not to be stripped of all of its explanatory power. In the hands of the careless hack, the concept becomes not only useless, but worse than useless. And this is what irritated me reading Martin Woollacott's review of Anatol Lieven's new book, "America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism". Now I havn't read Lieven's book, but if the gushing review is an accurate assessment of its contents, then it seems that doing so would be an unnecessarily masochistic undertaking. For one thing, trying to weigh up nationalism when one has no regard for history is a guarentee of disaster. "Lieven argues...that instead of the mature nationalism of a satisfied and dominant state, American nationalism is more akin to that of late developing and insecure states such as Wilhelmine Germany and Tsarist Russia."

One reason why so much nonsense gets written about nationalism, I think, is that to understand nationalist movements, a pretty detailed understanding of a country's history is necessary. The reason why it's hard to generalise about the nature of these movements is a combination of their inherent heterogenity and the fact that most specialists only have a really good understanding of one or maybe two countries' histories. When you don't understand any history at all, and think that Wilhelmine Germany is comparable to "Tsarist Russia" (I assume this refers to late Tsarist Russia, at the end of the 20th century, or perhaps this anachronistic entity never underwent any change throughout its undeveloped history in Woollacott's view) then you really are heading for trouble.
There are important points to be made about nationalism in a diverse, almost entirely immigrant society that has its historical basis in the near-extermination of a people and now finds itself as the global hyperpower, led by a group of reactionary neo-imperialists who seem to believe it is their destiny to bring order to the world, but they aren't illuminated by this review, and if the review is anything to go by (I am sceptical) by Lieven's book.
Just what ""civic nationalism", based on respect for the rule of law, constitutionality, democracy, and social (but not economic) equality" is supposed to be, I havn't a clue, but that it relates in no way to nationalism - or indeed reality - seems pretty clear.
The pages of the Guardian have done enough to retard the progress of humanity in the last couple of months already. The latest contribution is less than welcome.


In other scary news, the US government want to put little antennas on medicine bottles so they can keep track of them. Seriously.

And still there is more lunacy. James alerted me to the news that "Antisocial behaviour orders" or Asbos if you are "New" Labour-literate, will be used to ban yoofs from wearing hoodies. As winter is on the way, I thought I'd make a list of other offending items of clothing that could be used to conceal identity:
hats of any description
scarves
balaclavas
gloves (prevent potential offenders from leaving fingerprints!)
coats with hoods

The aim is surely twofold: 1) Freeze Britain's young gangsters to death
2) Put Millets out of business.

Quite what the dastardly plan is behind these twin aims, I am hesitant to guess, and even if I knew, I'd be careful who I told, lest Mr. Blunkett should decree that the fact that I am allowed internet access promotes "anti-social behaviour".

Friends, Romans, Anyone who'll lend me even one ear....

Well it seems like all the cool kids are on Blogspot, so here I am: UKplc relaunched, reinvigorated, reinvented for 2004. Hopefully by channelling my ranting tendencies in to one specific location, those who know me will be spared (some) of the less welcome outbursts that are sprinkled liberally over my day...

Anyway, to business:

Arafat's illness, then death has been dominating the headlines for the past couple of weeks. I think the important matter that's been missed is the fact that his successors, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) and Ahmed Querei(a) have nearly no popular support, as revealed in surveys done by An-Najah university
Not entirely surprising then, that militants shouting that Abbas is an agent of the Americans (a not entirely groundless assertion, it must be said) started a gun battle at a mourning ceremony for Arafat attended by Abbas - "not an assasination attempt" - he says.