Who said...?

We are "proud nations on the path to democracy, modernity, and progress. We have vast resources. Significant opportunities are before us."

NB: I translated this from a French paper; the person in question is not French and it is not Bush but the picture is a slight hint.
NB: no more

Read more!

Love Letters?

From President Ahmadinejad’s website.

NB- No More

Read more!

News story of the day

The EU is the most endearing political organization in the world; if you're in any doubt, just click here. On the front page of the BBC News website, under the headline "Shootout at the EU-Americas summit - but it's only penalties," they report on a charity football match involving Alejandro Toledo, the president of Peru, Commission president Jose Barroso, Wolfgang Schuessel (the Austrian Chancellor) and a selection of European prime ministers including Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey (who, we are told, is a former professional footballer and had "a strong game"). They were raising money for street kids in Romania and Moldova.

Never before have I heard of such a thing. Obviously Blair wasn't involved - he's happier just having successful sportspeople round to Downing Street for a bottle of Beck's in the back garden. Politics should definitely have more occasions like this, it does a great deal to humanise the actors, speaks of a certain balance in people's lives and worldview, and raises money for those street kids too.

[N.B. no more below]

Read more!

Heights of imperialism

For all the time I spent last year talking and reading about Western Europe's overseas empires of the 16th to 20th centuries, I wasn't quite prepared for the contents of this article. It's from the Manchester Guardian of 10 May 1877, and reports on Britain's annexation of the Transvaal in South Africa. It's an amazing read, especially considering the fact that the present-day Guardian is a bastion of woolly liberalism.

(N.B. no more below)

Read more!

OhmyNews

I've just added a link in the sidebar to OhmyNews International, a site that's currently scaring the pants off the established global media as it uses non-professional "citizen journalists" to supply all of its content. Naturally it's based in South Korea, the world's most enthusiastically online country (GS poll), and has huge popularity over there which is beginning to filter out into the rest of the world.

I've not spent a great deal of time reading OhmyNews, and I'm sure a lot of its content is rubbish, but it does seem incredibly important to begin to pay attention to things like this. Given the significance of the media to everyone with a stake in public attitudes (like governments, companies, civil society...), if people start choosing this type of channel over traditional channels, how will this affect communications, democracy and attitudes?

It's quite true that a lot of people in the media (especially at the just-finished WeMedia Conference) have got overexcited about the changes being wrought by online sources. The poll shows that TV is still first choice for everyone, and any changes in usage are mainly demographically driven, so newspapers have several decades yet before all their loyal readers die. While a fan of getting news online, I still buy a paper every now and then, and the Economist most weeks (although if all its content was available for free online, I might reconsider).

However, we've got to address the fact that the channels through which people receive information will never again be as monolithic as they are now (which isn't to say they're not fairly diverse already). People are not just going to seek out information about their hobbies and interests online, but they will go there for information about local, national and international events, customising it to their interests and increasingly using online sources for the opinion and analysis they want. This is pertinent, because while not many people have trust in the factual news available through non-traditional media, it's where they go for a) reaction to major events from opinion formers they admire and b) the stuff the mainstream doesn't care about/censors/etc.

There are huge benefits to be had: online, independent sources monitor and fact-check the mainstream media and occasionally provide an expert point of view that can discredit alarmist stories. They make it harder for people to get away with doing ridiculous stuff - the example given this week being a Samsung employee who exposed the fact that a team of 500 had been used to plan and check every detail of a director's family holiday to France. When everyone is potentially a journalist, everyone has to consider themselves accountable to the wider world. The risks however are also obvious: citizen journalists don't have the skills of the pros and will often produce shoddy stuff: unbalanced, ill-researched, unfounded, rumours. People who just want to download the day's news will not bother to go searching for it on a string of websites, they'll sit in front of the TV or just go on the BBC News website.

What's interesting is how far ahead of the population the media themselves are. They've been desperately scrabbling around for answers to the web for years; no sooner do blogs become a hot topic than the Guardian website has about 6 up and running, and the Beeb's not far behind. Some content providers will probably go down because they invest too much too early in technologies that don't lift off. They're all concerned right now (I happen to know) about news on mobile devices. Why bother getting on a mobile (which costs money dammit!) when you can use a computer at home or at work to see all the news on a big screen? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but the mobile just doesn't seem like a browsing device to me, and browsing's what it's all about.

Slightly tangential that, but I've been having to think a lot about these things over the past little while. Effects on democracy and attitudes - I dunno right now. I think it's good though.

Read more!

Brand Europe

When you've got a minute, take a look at this. FT article reporting the fact that Brussels has hired brand expert Simon Anholt plus a bunch more people to work out how it can repair its brand following the big "no" votes (man they act fast don't they?). How do you think Europe's
brand differs internally and externally? I'm curious about this - I imagine it varies quite strongly by region, i.e. accession seems to be pretty attractive to its neighbours, the US thinks Europe are a bunch of spineless, ageing, overly comfortable do-nothings... Perhaps. We'll have to do some more rigorous polling before I could comment fully.

N.B. Don't click "Read more!" - there isn't.

Read more!

The 'Islamic Bomb'

The nuclear issue in Iran is not new and the information regarding the negotiations and developments of this issue are far from scarce. It therefore seems appropriate to re-evaluate one of the fundamental premises underlying this issue. That is, the view that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This is BY NO MEANS intended to imply that, contrary to current evidence, Iran is developing nuclear weapons!

more…

As seen in a previous post, Israel, a state who’s mere existence has caused historical and contemporary regional instability, is perceived as a threat by Iran and vice versa. I am admittedly simplifying a complex historical relationship, but the point is to establish the nature of the current relationship (or lack thereof) between Iran and Israel rather than to justify one or the other’s position. Israel, who, unlike Iran, has never signed NPT and yet IS known to have nuclear weapons, is a strong ally of and beneficiary of aid (economic and military) from the U.S. Iran, on the other hand, is an enemy of and subject to an embargo from the U.S.

Some might say that “it is the most absurd manifestation of irony that the single state who caused this single nuclear catastrophe in a twin attack on our earth now has assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.” WW4

It should be noted than Iran distrusts the West, and the US in particular, as much as it is distrusted by the West.

If history is any guide to the future, and if we take into consideration the nuclear developments between two hostile states ( India and Pakistan ) and their current ( largely improving) relationship, it seems unlikely that Iran would use its nuclear capabilities as anything more than a deterrent or defence mechanism.

Although words are important and President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric can be inflammatory, it can be assumed that the current Iranian government is, like most of those holding power in the world, fundamentally pragmatic. Presumably, the said government is well aware that any aggression directed as Israel will cause severe reprisals from Israel, the U.S., and, in the case of nuclear aggression, Europeans. To take the extreme case, if Iran detonated a nuclear bomb in Israel, Iran would be showered with nuclear bombs. Such a situation was known during the Cold War as ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ (MAD).

As for the spreading of nuclear technology to ‘terrorist organisations’, a pragmatic Iranian government would be quite aware of the fact that they would, for right or for wrong, bear the responsibility of any use of nuclear material by such organisations regardless of whether Iran supplied the nuclear material or not.

We only have examples of nuclear force, when possessed by two enemies, serving to moderate potential crises. MAD served to keep the Cold War cold. MAD also brought India and Pakistan to negotiations. Admittedly, nuclear deterrence never brought the type of reconciliation witnessed after WWII between Germany and France but it also never led to direct confrontation between nuclear powers. I therefore wonder whether an ‘Islamic Bomb’ (as fearmongers refer to it) could not result in a rapprochement of sorts between Iran and Israel (and the U.S. by default).

Could the most extreme weaponry paradoxically be the best avenue to normalisation of relations between mutual foes?

Read more!