Election special: vote to change how you vote

Election-time in the UK is fast approaching so get your party hats on and sing a happy song, for it is election time and we have all fallen into the trap of watching the leaders' debate and reading the rankings as if they mattered.
Don't they? You ask.
Of course they don't, I reply – and not, for once, just to be controversial.

The leaders' debate is interesting. It shows you how photogenic your new prime minister will be. How good a debater. How good at repeating or creating sound-bites. It may even give you a tiny little glimpse of what his politics will be like once elected, but let's not get over-excited. These guys are trying to get elected, not give you an insight on how realism and constraints on the ground influence policy-making in real life.

The numbers that we all pore over the morning after each debate are also interesting. But ultimately completely misleading.
So we know who the country, overall, would vote for if choosing a prime minister across the nation was how we voted over here. But it ain't so the figures we look at are no use at all in understanding what will happen with the election. They would and could be useful in another place, one with oh I don't know a proportional representation electoral system, perhaps? But this is not that place and looking at those figures is not simply a waste of time, it is a deeply misleading political proposition.

First past the post, folks.
That means you vote for your MP, not your PM.
Yes, yes I know you often actually just choose a party; often not even knowing what your local MP stands for – although you really should not be doing that because that is not how electoral responsibility works in this country but that's another conversation for another time. And yes you vote 'Labour' but you voting Labour doesn't necessarily help Labour get elected. Or the Lib Dems, more to the point.

Diffuse support all over the country is no good whatsoever for making it into government in this United Kingdom of ours. You need concentrated support in a winning number of constituencies. That doesn't even mean a majority in said constituencies. It just means more than the other guys.
An excellent system for choosing your MPs who will then go on to form a government. A pretty poor system for choosing a presidential-style Prime Minister or which party you want in government.

So cut back to the debates.
You look at the three of them and make your choice. 'I'll have Clegg. I like his politics, I like his wife, I like that he doesn't do God, he's my sort of guy'.
And now what?
In a PR system if you vote Lib Dem, you've voted Lib Dem. Your votes towards both your local MP and the government swing the same way. But what about here? You vote Lib Dem and maybe your candidate gets the seat and you are home free. But if not? You may actually be helping the bad guys (whoever you deem them to be) get into government.
Does that matter?
It depends. If you think you are choosing a government on polling day, it matters a great deal.
And our parties seem to want us to choose a government, to select a premier and only as an afterthought also choose our MPs on polling day.
Which is fine, it is how many countries successfully run their democracies after all. But their electoral system fits the way their election is being fought so at least the numbers add up. Most of the time. All things being equal.

So now what?
We are in the land in-between, where the way we are encouraged to vote by party political broadcasts, manifestos, debates and advertising has absolutely no connection to the way we actually vote, the way our vote counts or is counted. Voters in Wonderland and through the looking glass nothing is as it seems so you don't get what you bargained for.

Electoral reform is needed, my friends. Or a return to fighting a pre-election campaign that is suitable to our electoral system.
Eliminating the disconnect between the choice we are given and the way we can make it is the only way to help democracy remain vibrant and relevant in this country. So. If you want to give me presidential-style debates, if you want me to think of politics at party-level and in terms of sweeping national mandates, give me a voting system that allows me to make those choices without unwittingly helping re-elect the people I wanted out in the first place.

Democracy needs informed, responsible voters or it perishes.
So here we are .
Traditionally the main defense of the current system has been its empowering simplicity.
But the simplicity is outdated and its guardians are making the most of the disconnect between the way we vote and the way those votes are counted. Apart from Clegg. He's honest about the need for electoral reform – especially as he stands to gain from it most of all.
Actually, that's not true.
He stands to gain more than any other party.
But the real victor, that would be us. You. The voters. The people.
So power to us, damn it. It is a democracy after all.
And although we tend to forget all about participation between elections, let's at least remember on polling day.
And make it count.
If not in the grand scheme of things then let's at least make the numbers add up.

When 'every little' doesn't help

'May you live in interesting times'.
That, says my beloved Terry Pratchett, is not a blessing. Rather it's a bit of a curse, if you think about it. And there is no denying that we are now living in interesting times. And there is no denying that's not all that great. But that's no excuse for totally losing all sense of perspective.

We are scared.
Of terrorism. Of pedophiles. Of swine flu. Of the E coli 0157:H7 virus and other pathogens carried in poorly packaged or poorly cooked meat. Of Nick Griffin and hate preachers. Of racists. Of Islamic fundamentalists. Of sounding racist. Of our own shadows.

We are scared at the citizen level and we are scared at the government level. And what do we do about it? If you look through the papers of a day, you may well come to the same conclusion as me: what we do about it is kick frantically to all directions, keeping clear of the heart of each issue but making enough noise to look like we are doing something. When all we are doing is making noise. And noise is rarely a good thing.

Now as you know, I live in Britain so my examples are local yet I fear that, no matter where you are, similar things are happening every day: a sense of impeding hysteria, an overwhelming sensation that we really do not know what to do to prevent bad things from happening so we'll just try to allow few things to happen full stop and thus play the numbers game.

We all laugh when we see airport security staff putting children's plastic sandals through the scanner. Laugh but don't stop them because you never know and better to be safe and late than sorry and dead.
But what is the outer limit of caution?

Britain's tabloids have gone wild this week as parents in Watford are no longer allowed to supervise their children in playgrounds unless they have undergone criminal records checks. Vetted 'play rangers' are to supervise children instead of mums and dads.

Why? Because the case of Vanessa George has sent shock-waves through the nation. She is a paedophile. She is a woman. She is a mum. That means the demographic of potential dangers to children just widened to include absolutely everyone, so absolutely everyone is banned from playgrounds and here's to hoping that whatever tests play rangers are subjected to are the right kind and perverts don't creep through. I would still personally prefer to know that each kid was looked after by his or her parent. And that parents are keeping an eye on each other. What the hell. I would like to know that when I have kids I will be allowed to keep an eye on them myself.

But with a recent case of suspected rape of an eight-year old girl by two ten-year-old boys, stunning us all into silence, the only truth is that we really don't know how to keep our kids safe and putting them in a glass jar may well be the only way forward. Because if our children are not even safe from other children, then what is safe?
A glass jar. Safety through separation.

Now, I don't have kids. But I'm guessing, in light of recent events, if I had kids and was not allowed to keep an eye on them in the playgrounds, I'd just keep them away from the playgrounds and be done with it. Was that what the council was going for? I'm guessing not. But that's what they'll get. Because a blanket policy of considering everyone guilty until proven innocent is never going to bring about good things. Still how can we expect Watford council to maintain a sense of perspective when everyone else has lost it?

A woman in labour asked for 'ethnic minority' staff to leave her bedside, at a hospital in Milton Keynes earlier this week. It is not clear what particular minority she objected to (although according to reports, it was one group in particular she objects to) and it is not clear why she objected to them being present. What is clear is that the hospital refused to accommodate her. So the hospital acted as they should. Her request was racist, unreasonable and by the sounds of it unreasoned. The hospital overruled her and she went home a while later with a healthy child.

Now she could be facing action in a county court on grounds of discrimination. And although I object to her racism and find her ability to demand racial segregation between contractions faintly amusing, I can't help but think that the thought police are on the prowl. I disagree with what she stands for. But she didn't act on it because the hospital did not let her. So what would the trial be about? And why is there a threat from the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the hospital may be under suspicion as well, when no discriminatory act was perpetrated by hospital staff?

I fear the answer is simpler than we are comfortable with: this is the sort of problem we can deal with, be outraged by, 'handle', judge and close. Only it doesn't solve a thing. If anything, it exacerbates the situation. The likes of Nick Griffin can spin the whole 'no place for Britons in Britain' tale and the bottom line remains that we have lost perspective because the big issues are just too big for us to deal with so we contend ourselves with the contained little issues thinking it's better than nothing. Only it isn't. It's actually worse than throwing hands up in the air and going 'this is too big and I can't fix it the way I've been fixing things hitherto. I need to think, I need to change'.

If you are not sold yet, here is another example:
An elderly lady in Norfolk wrote to her council to complain about a gay pride march in her vicinity. I personally enjoy Pride and everything it stands for and tend to join when I can although I am not, myself, gay. Nobody cares. Pride, as I know it, is inclusive and open and most participants would welcome elderly ladies from Norfolk if they wanted to join in the festivities. But they would equally accept her right to refrain, even to disapprove of them. Each to their own and all that.

And a letter to the council is a rather innocuous – if pointless – form of protest that will not have any real effect on Pride. On this occasion, however, it may have a real effect on the person complaining as the council wrote back to the homophobic old lady warning her that she may be guilty of a hate crime. The matter was passed on to the police and I expect it to be dropped but the point remains: with real hate crimes committed every day, why is a narrow-minded pensioner exercising a democratic right to free speech targeted? It could be because a council employee was not thinking or was misguidedly over-zealous. It could also be that she is simply an easier target than say the thugs who still engage in gay bashing in the centres of our towns. The same way that a bigoted mother in labour is an easier target than the police officers whose routine racism victimises young, black males as a matter of course as the Guardian recently revealed.
And I use 'revealed' very loosely here.
Because we all know.
We know racism is a violent reality for many people in our communities. Homophobia is spectre in many lives. Real, physical dangers to people's bodily integrity and sense of safety.
And yes we do know that child abusers of all genders and all ages are also abroad.
We know all that.

The question is what do we do about it?
And all I'm saying by pooling together three largely unrelated examples is that we are currently doing NOTHING. Because bashing soft targets and imposing blanket bans is not making our society more tolerant or safer, it is just making it more hypocritical, harder to live in and less likely to resolve the real issues underlying the violence and sense of threat that seems to hide in every dark corner.
Making every person a suspected paedophile does not make children safer.
Punishing unsavoury opinions does not make hate crimes less likely. Making opinion - however unpalatable - a crime makes us the bad guys. It makes our democracy shambolic while race and homophobic crimes - actual acts, the stuff the law should target - carry on occurring because they are not properly prevented or followed up.

And creating a society of division, mistrust and fear will not make anyone safer.
So no, ladies and gents, every little does not always help. Particularly when we are trying to navigate through 'interesting times' without throwing everything we have achieved through decades of social struggle, democratisation and liberalisation overboard.

Blogging for democracy

World rejoice. I am back.
I've been offline for a whole month and, although I am sure you missed me and, I assure you, I missed you back, I must report that it is possible to live away from a computer. For a few weeks, I caught a glimpse of a parallel universe in which my friends were not scattered the world over, my job did not rely on shared documents and email and day-to-day activities did not depend so totally on the internet.
You guessed it. I was on holiday.

In real life of course staying away from the computer is not an option. Work. Checking cinema listings. Submitting my tax return. Downloading the latest TED talk. Reading the papers. Chatting to friends. Grocery shopping. Job applications. Travel bookings and theatre reservations.
What did we ever do before the internet? But really, what are we really doing with the internet?

Bear with me.
I was walking through Athens a few weeks ago till a gaggle of teenage tourists caught my eye.
'The Pnyx. Where the hell is the Pnyx. I don't see anything' said one.
Behind you, you moron, thought I.
But I didn't say it. Because really, the Pnyx is not much to look at. Places where real business takes place rarely are. The Pnyx, or what is left of it, is easy to just walk past and, in the dark, it looks less like a world heritage site and more like an empty lot. Which, nowadays, it is in more ways than one.
So the tourists walked on, having decided that their guide book was rubbish and it was time for a drink and I was left thinking that they are not alone in having totally missed the Pnyx.

Athenian democracy was flawed, we all know that. But the one thing that was right about it was the Pnyx and everything that transpired there as this was where the citizens, free and equal, got to speak, openly and on any subject they wished to speak on.
Dull? I bet it was.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry having a constitutional right to go on and on and on (and on) about their pet peeve, their favourite gripe. Painful. But vital. For democracy. For community. For fairness. In the Pnyx no politician could ever claim to be 'the voice of the people'. The people would speak for themselves and tell him where to get off. The people can of course be wrong – they did, after all, kill Socrates and exile Aristeidis – but that's an occupational hazard if you are a democrat. At least back then the people had a chance to get it wrong themselves, rather than by proxy.

Democracy is not meant to be the system of good outcomes. Democracy takes care of the many. If the many are wrong, so is their polity. If the many are brutal so is their state. If the many are inspired, so is their society.
Democracy has nothing to do with the what and everything to do with the how.

For the ancients, getting that right involved leaving women and slaves out of it because they had no cognitive abilities. Do I disagree with it? Of course I disagree with it. But I don't disagree with the premise, even though it would leave me out in the cold without a vote.
Deciding who your citizens are is hard and every benchmark is arbitrary – gender, age, money, nationality, religion, race: what criteria define 'the people'?
Lines need to be drawn and it is not always obvious where you should draw them. Women today have universal suffrage while monarchs, refugees, migrants, lunatics, children and criminals don't get the vote.
Defining 'the people' is neither easy nor straightforward.
In Athens that group was narrow and closed. But at least it was equal and free. Which is more than we can say about the citizen body of any modern democracy.

In Athens only free-born, Athenian-born males of some property were part of the 'people'. The group was small. Still it had wild variations within. But once you were in you were in and you got to benefit from a system that was there to serve you. Now there's a thought.
Inequalities of wealth and status among citizens did not matter in the exercise of civic duty and the enjoyment of civic rights. Politics was the great leveller. The exact opposite of today's democracy where status, money, skin colour and connections determine power, access, influence and civic security.

Democracy in its purest form rested on three simple principles: isonomia, isopoliteia, isigoria.
All citizens are equal under the law.
All citizens have equal voting rights.
All citizens have an equal right to debate policy.

The Pnyx is the spatial substantiation of the principle of isigoria, the forgotten heart of democracy, the right and opportunity to speak on an equal footing in matters of state.

Of course, the three principles of Athenian democracy are mentioned in every self-proclaimed democratic constitution in Europe, America and, I am sure, in a few even less probable locations. We pay lipservice to isigoria: everyone is allowed to speak. Everyone is allowed to stand for election. Everyone is allowed to speak to their MP. In the UK you are even allowed to stand on a soap box and speak to the pigeons of Hyde Park Corner.
So bloody what?
It ain't the Pnyx is it? It ain't the Pnyx if nobody is listening.

Isigoria means you have a right to be listened to. Not just a right to babble.
Isigoria means you have guaranteed access to media that will allow your opinions to be heard and considered. In ancient Athens that medium was a rock near the Acropolis. Central. Good acoustics. It worked.
Today it would be an online citizen forum, a people's assembly, a rally.
Today it could be a million and one things – we have, after all, the internet.
We have it, but what do we do with it?

A lot. Actually.
Our governments may not be helping here. They don't protect our access. They don't encourage our participation. But now, for the first time ever, we don't need them to. We have the internet.
The internet is for porn and facebook.
The internet is for speed dating and spam email.
The internet is full of fascinating blogs, community portals, grassroot mobilisation sites, civil society organisations and communal action outlets.
The internet is our Pnyx.

So blog away my friends and let's get back what is rightfully ours.

And next time someone asks where the Pnyx is within earshot, I'll give them the only possible answer: it's wherever you make it happen.

Greece: Where democratic ideals go to die

Today is a broken record day. You know the drill. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
Nothing is special about today. But it’s as good a time as any to take (yet another) look at the motherland. So. Where are we?

Katerina Goulioni is dead. Don’t rake your brains. She’s not a famous artist or politician. She was a substance abuser, prison inmate and activist – trying from her cell to end the prison guards’ right to submit inmates to vaginal searches at will. She’s dead and nobody will tell us exactly how she died.
Inmate Giannis Dimitrakis was savagely beaten in prison by ‘Periander’ a notorious fascist agitator, finally behind bars.
We get it.
Inmates have no rights. They betrayed the sacred bond of citizenship when they broke the law and the system is punishing them in more ways than one.
We get it.

But what about the rest of us?

Well, it depends.
On your skin colour – as racist attacks are reported all over Greece and courts reduce the sentence imposed on ‘Periander’, racist attacker extraordinaire.
We get the message.
So earlier this month a Nigerian man is stabbed to death and it doesn’t even make the news and an Afghan migrant ‘strangles himself’ in his cell while students attack a group of Pakistanis in central Athens. Nothing at all ensues. Conditional rights. We get it.

It also depends on your sexual orientation. Only a week ago, a bar in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood was attacked by hooligans screaming bloody murder against homosexuals. Naturally they attacked everyone in the bar, regardless of tastes in the bedroom. No-one was arrested. We get that too.

Is that all?
Well no, as the country’s flagship mental health hospital is virtually non-functioning as it’s understaffed by over 50% and a man gets beaten up by riot police for asking a question (you don’t believe me? Check out tvxs.gr for yourselves), rights seem to depend on a million and one things.

So where did we get to?
Rights are not for everyone. Prisoners, immigrants, homosexuals, the mentally ill and people who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time may suffer. But the rest of us are ok, surely. Right?

Well, that also depends.
On whether a policeman armed with a stun-gun takes a shot at you with his Taser possibly causing permanent muscle damage. If that happens, you may find there is no recourse because the weapons are ‘safe’. Same applies to teargas.
On whether you found yourself arrested for being near a demonstration and then find that a number of policemen swear blind that they saw you throwing Molotov cocktails with your right arm. And then find that, even though your right arm is in a cast, the judge does not dismiss the testimony. Check out Sunday’s Eleftherotypia for a detailed breakdown of just how often this sort of thing happens.

Of course there are quotas. The police need to make arrests, show activity.
But when the only proof of guilt is the policemen’s own testimony, then all our rights depend on their moods. And I’m not all that comfortable with this idea.

So the police arrest those they can get to rather than those they need to get to.
D. Sarafianos, a representative of the Constitutional Rights committee of the Athens Bar Association, put it rather bluntly: ‘anyone is in danger of finding themselves accused of something they have no connection to’. We get it.

So a policeman’s word is enough to get me into prison?
Looks like it.
So just being at or near a demonstration can land me in prison. Being or being near an ‘undesirable’ singles me out for victimisation.
Of course, the courts don’t uphold all those arrests. Of course the system is not completely defunct. Yet. But it sure looks like it’s heading that way.

Police depositions are, according to reporters and journalists, formulaic, designed to send people to prison. Identifications of suspects are so detailed that, mr Sarafianos notes, they can only mean one thing: identifying traits were singled out after people were arrested. What are the chances of identifying the logo on a shirt pocket or the colour of a collar in the midst of a violent demonstration? You tell me. I’d go with slim.
But what do I know?

I know that statistically, the DA tends to accept police depositions.
As do many judges, claiming that if all police depositions are the same, any opposite opinion entails an accusation that the police suffered mass hallucinations or colluded to lie against the public.
Yes. Well. Now you mention that.

To be fair, because someone has to and I wouldn’t leave that to the state right now, so far, statistics suggest that most of these cases collapse in court.
Which is reassuring, but not enough. As it is not reversing the trend.

So let’s recap.
Rights. Depend. On your lifestyle and personal morality, on your skin colour and political affiliation, on wardrobe and geography, on bad luck, sheer luck and the mood the police, public prosecutor and district judge may be in that day.
An awful lot of variables.

That’s all I have to say today. No analysis. No clever repartee.
Nothing but anger, despair and fear over what comes next. Because if one of us is hit we are all hurt. One of these days, we’ll realise that. I just hope it’s not too late by then.

Cheer for freedom of expression, but not too loud

Next person to call Greece the cradle of democracy gets their ears boxed, courtesy of me.
It’s not even funny any more. It actually hurts to hear Greeks and non-Greeks sing the praises of our ancient glories when, nowadays, Greece looks more like the place where democratic ideals go to die. Part of that is a government that just doesn’t care enough to even pretend they care. Part is a repressive and irresponsible police force. And part – the worst part – is that chunk of citizenry that doesn’t care to fight for freedom and some times is way too eager to shout against it.
Freedom is great you see, as long as it cleans up after itself and doesn’t cause unnecessary traffic jams. Oh and as long as we like it and it doesn’t take up too much time or clash with this evening’s socio-cultural happening.

But a couple of weeks ago, clash it did.
A co-production of the Greek Lyriki Skini and the Opéra de Nice was expected to be one of those events attended both by genuine music lovers and by those who wanted to say ‘oh yes, I saw Dvořák’s Rusalka, didn’t you?’ Neither group expected the opening to turn into a struggle over artistic freedom, censorship and homophobia.

The story begins with a new interpretation of a known work. Happens all the time. But not all revisionist directors have a vigilante musicians’ union to reckon with.

On opening night, a union picket was handing out leaflets outside the theatre, informing the audience of the dangers lurking in the director’s revisionism. They accused director Marion Wasserman’s adaptation of adulterating the libretto and undermining the work.
And those stalwart defenders of artistic purity would not stand for it.
Of course the libretto was untouched, the score unaltered and the musicians’ union did not object to the orchestration or casting. In fact, this had nothing to do with music. This was about stage instructions, the manifesto denouncing Wasserman's addition of ‘extreme scenes’ of a sexual nature.
Extreme scenes, ladies and gentlemen.
Drum roll please.
A kiss.
One.
Kiss.
Between men.

Homophobes of the world unite.
The union complained to the ministry of culture and staged a picket outside the theatre. Inside the theatre large parts of the audience – possibly egged on by agitators – booed, heckled and jeered when the performers and director took to the stage after the end of the performance. Disgruntled opera-goers spoke to the ‘Nea’ news crew. My favourite was a man who exclaimed he could not possibly bring his wife to ‘shows like this’. His wife obviously inhabits the 17th century. As does the rest of Greece, it seems.

A homophobic picket? An audience that boos its disagreement?
And before you say it was an isolated incident, when, at the Lyriki’s urging, Les-Bi-Gay representatives issued a statement before curtains-up on the second night, they were booed by the orchestra and audience in perfect synchronisation.

So art is to be censored and curtailed and never to show us anything we don’t already know, like, are comfortable in and agree with.
The same applies to life, it seems.

Greece’s Supreme Court has now legitimised the firing of an HIV-positive worker. This is not a case of someone being fired, who also happened to be HIV-positive. This is someone who was fired because he was HIV positive. And the Supreme Court ruled that the firing was legitimate and the man was consequently not entitled to compensation as the decision to let him go was within the limits of labour legislation and the employer’s rights. How?
His presence was disrupting the smooth operation of the company. How?
His work mates were upset.

The man was sacked in February 2005 after his workmates submitted a written request for his dismissal. On health grounds.
Understandably, he appealed and won.
So his employer counter-appealed bringing us to the Supreme Court. That effectively ruled that it’s ok to demonise people and to yield to unscientific fears and prejudiced instincts and to hell with the lives of those who don’t fit into the grand plan of ‘how things should be’.

So to recap: it is the year of our Lord 2009 and people in Greece think that they may catch HIV by sharing a water fountain with a patient, the Supreme Court not only fails to point out how ludicrous that is but goes ‘there, there’ and pats them on the head, encouraging the notion that it’s ok to drive away everyone that makes us uncomfortable meanwhile a subtle reference to homosexuality in a work of art is met with full-blown industrial action.

Let’s cheer the birthplace of philosophy, democracy and ethics everyone.

Oh of course we are all for democracy and freedom. Just not for those who disagree with our tastes and beliefs, those who look different, live differently and smell funny. Particularly not those who smell funny.

So go on children, cheer for democracy, individual rights and freedoms and free speech.
Just not too loud. We don’t want to give people ideas now do we?

Is this a hoodie I see before me?

Last time ‘fashion policing’ actually occurred in Greece, a slightly deranged dictator dispatched policemen with measuring tapes onto the streets of Athens. His name was Pangalos and he objected to short skirts. This time things are more sinister because fashion policing is coming from a democratically elected government trying to outlaw the hoodie. Because trouble-makers wear hoodies you see. Ergo hoodies mean trouble.

Justice Minister Dendias clarified that sporting a hood is not a crime in itself. But if someone is caught breaking the law and wearing a hood at the same time, they will be punished more severely than if they had made a different wardrobe choice.

Is it true that vandals often pull hoods tightly around their faces in order to make identification harder? Oh yes.
Is it true that Athens has experienced a spike in vandalism since December 2008, and that many of the culprits wear hoods? Oh yes.
Is it true that the government has been unable to curb, control or even understand the wave of violence and has thus been ineffectual in every way? Oh yes.
Hence the hood legislation.
It could have been worse. Apparently loud voices in parliament demanded that wearing a hoodie was outlawed as such. This time they were not listened to. Just.

But this law is bad enough as it is – elevating a wardrobe choice to the factor that turns a misdemeanour into a crime in sentencing terms, regardless of context, the severity of the acts committed and the existence (or not) of prior convictions.
And I can’t help but think that this will only help play the statistics game.
Surely the vandals have broken the law already. Hood or no hood they should be arrested. But they are not. Because the police can’t or won’t find them.
How is the hood law going to help with that?

Well it won’t of course. But it will give the police latitude to arrest fringe elements in protests or demonstrators who dare protect themselves against tear-gas – a riot police favourite. The hood law will allow the police to look busy. And it will lead to the harassment of anyone kitted out in ‘criminal attire’.
You think I’m reading too much into this?
Well, if the Greek government can read your character through your wardrobe choices, I can read political intent in legislative reform if I want to. And I have a bit more than a jumper to go on. As the hood law is in good company.

As part of the new bout of legislative frenzy, ‘insulting’ public servants – which includes shouting out chants against the police or parliamentarians – is to lead to automatic prosecution.
Now that’s a blast from the past.
Greece used to have laws that banned citizens from insulting the authorities.
Greece also used to have a dictatorship.
Getting rid of those laws, allowing citizens to protest and, if they so wished, to chant against the police or their government was a huge step towards democratisation. And now it’s being revoked ‘in light of recent events’ according to the Justice Minister.
What events would those be, sir?
Would they have anything to do with the death of a 15-year old boy?
Do I need to remind anyone that the policeman who shot Alex in December 2008 claimed that Alex and his friends taunted him and his colleagues?
In light of recent events, I hardly need to ask myself whose side the law is on.
It wasn’t on Alex’s and it’s not on mine.
It’s not on yours either, unless you are a policeman.

You see, the police need our protection and support now, in light of recent events.
I swear I am not making it up. I am quoting the Justice Minister verbatim.
We cannot yell at the police or insult them, in light of recent events.
We need to protect them from the cowards protesting with their faces hidden.
Thus spake the Justice Minister trying to whip up some rightful indignation.

Well.
I for one am not feeling any of that.
I’m too busy being horrified at the government’s blatant disregard for the basic premises of the rule of law and democratic freedoms.
I’m too busy being furious at the government’s evident confidence in their ability to fool us. They think we can’t see through their inability to understand and their unwillingness to act. They think we can’t see the difference between noise and action.
They think we can’t understand the difference between the ‘who’ and the ‘why’.
But we can.
And we can see no-one is addressing why these young people are so desperate, so angry. Why they are out on the streets, wearing hoods, setting things on fire.
So go on, arrest them.
But while you are not thinking about the why, you can keep on arresting and they’ll keep on coming. That’s how it goes. The dispossessed have nothing to lose.

I don’t want to point out the obvious here but the vandals are breaking the law anyway. If they are not yet arrested, it has nothing to do with the existing legal framework.
So these new pieces of legislation are doing two things: mocking us and gagging us. And I don’t much like either of those.

‘We must protect the police’ said the Minister of Justice.
Well, no, not really.
On a good day, they must protect us.
On a bad day, like the ones we’ve been having recently, we must be protected from them.
How a bit of legislation doing that, mr Prime Minister?
Or are you too busy banning yellow T-shirts next?

A lesson in losing perspective: Muntadhar al-Zaidi

Remember Muntadhar al-Zaidi?
We all cheered him when he threw a shoe at Bush in December last year. Some of us even thought ‘oh man, I wish I had done that’. We cheered him and we forgot about him. And when he was sentenced to three years in prison a few days ago, for attempting to assault a foreign leader, nobody really noticed.

Zaidi, a journalist, pleaded ‘not guilty’ to charges of assault, considering his act a reaction to the violence he and his people had suffered in the hands of the American invader. But as it often happens with these things, if you have an army, your trespasses are discussed in round tables, if you protest on your own, you soon find that most of what you can think of doing breaks the law. So Bush is sitting at home and Zaidi is going to jail.

Now, I'm not saying that chucking shoes at people you dislike is an acceptable form of political disagreement. I am saying that, in the context of Iraq, war changes the normal rules of the game.
Of course there is a debate to be had here about the limits of lawful protests and the boundaries of legitimate expressions of disagreement. But this debate cannot be had in war-torn Iraq, not yet. Not while the US occupation forces are still on the ground. Not while democracy and civil society are still just words in textbooks.
But rather than admitting that the debate regarding acceptable limits to freedom of expression cannot be had in the context of a war and what Zaidi did cannot be judged as if it were done in peace time, the court ploughed on ahead regardless.

Surely, when shoot-outs on the streets are a daily occurrence, the boundaries of what constitutes ‘violent behaviour’ ought to be slightly adjusted to fit reality?

But even if context is not taken into account, a three-year jail sentence is radically out of proportion with the nature of the crime, if flinging a shoe can be described as a crime at all, raising important questions about the sobriety, independence and reliability of Iraqi courts.

It is telling that Zaidi’s lawyers failed to convince the court to reduce the charge of attempted assault to insult. The courts were evidently making a point, still the tragic irony of the terminology is way too poignant: In the context of an on-going war, you would expect people to know the difference between a flying loafer and mortar. But everyone is in a flap over insulting the Americans and moderation has gone out the window. Premier Nuri Al-Maliki described the throwing of the shoe as a ‘barbaric act’ in December, earning himself universal scorn for having no sense of perspective. Obviously the sentencing has done his reputation as an American mouthpiece no favours.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory is shocked and dismayed at the harshness of the decision. Public opinion in Iraq, however, remains divided, some believing that a foreign guest should not be insulted under any circumstances and a journalist should be able to keep a cooler head. Others of course have hailed Zaidi as a hero.

The court had a chance to diffuse this situation without taking sides, but the harshness of the sentence imposed shows they have no such intention.
The anti-American Shiite factions have already accused the pro-US factions of leaning too heavily on the judges while the response form Maliki’s party was the incredibly callous: “If this case was politicized, the punishment would have been harsher.”

And the Americans?
Desperate to leave Iraq, they have stopped caring about their legacy.

This was a unique opportunity to lead, to inspire, to show what democracy, free speech and toleration look like in practice.
Maybe they did lean on the judiciary to get retribution of sorts – and if that happened it shows a complete lack of vision, humanity and imagination.
But maybe they didn’t lean on the judiciary at all. They left the Iraqi judges to fret over expunging the insult and placating the Americans on their own and, in doing so, they missed a momentous opportunity to lead, teach and inspire.

So Zaidi is going to prison for throwing a shoe at Bush.
Bush goes home to tend to his presidential library after carpet-bombing Zaidi's country.
And ‘democracy-building’ in Iraq has gone from being an empty shell to a hollow promise, not even symbolically upheld by those who made it.

So when we start wondering when America went beyond caring about democratisation in Iraq, remember Muntadhar al-Zaidi.

Chavez latest: calling a spade a spade

Have I or have I not already said that the essence of democracy is that it can vote itself out of existence at any time?
No need to search back through old posts. I have and it is.

Knowing this, however, doesn’t make it less painful to watch when it happens.

So Hugo Chavez has been given the people’s blessing (via referendum) to run again and again and again for President. Because the 10 years he’s already had in power are not long enough.

Mr Chavez is popular. He is charismatic, he is loudly anti-American and that always goes down well with the masses the world over. His socialist programme has moved many but the jury is still out on his effectiveness as a president. To put it mildly.
Nevertheless when he announced that he needs to stick around for another term after this current one expires in 2012, in order to consolidate Venezuela’s socialist revolution, the referendum was called and the people spoke: 54% backed an end to term limits. In other words, 54% chose ‘more Chavez’.

Chavez’s time in office so far has not been smooth and uncomplicated.
Removed from office for 2 days by an abortive coup, winning a recall referendum and several elections, you may say that his survival in office despite the hurdles is a sign of the people’s will and his own determination.
You may also say that this is not the first time he tried to ensure he can run indefinitely – a similar attempt in 2007 failed but that, evidently, did not put him off. And now, 2 years on, he got the constitutional amendment he was after in a vote that was described by observers as free and fair. Although critics claim that government funding and blanket TV coverage (a Chavez speciality) swayed the vote, no allegations of fraud have been made.

So the people have spoken and, in a democracy, the popular will wins the day. Right? Right.
And it is within the people’s power to scrap the limits on how often politicians can run for office, right? Right.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Democracy is all about voting and free choice, of course, but it’s also a system that relies on certain vital ‘mechanical’ elements in order to actually function. One of them is checks and balances. One of those is the limit on how many times someone can run for office.

So democracy can vote itself out of existence alright, but once it’s done that, let us not kid ourselves, it no longer exists.