Equal but different is not equal at all

At last.
President Obama signed a memorandum extending to same-sex domestic partners of federal employees some of the rights enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts.
At last.

Still, this is no cause for celebration. This is basic stuff we are talking about. And although we are all happy this has finally happened, I can't help but be bothered by the fact that this simple memo is the result of months of study into how to extend benefits for same-sex couples without upsetting the conservative right and without violating the Defense of Marriage Act, an Act the Obama administration has vowed to scrap yet keeps defending.
So this memo, important as it is, is nowhere near enough if you are committed to ending the inequality marginalising same-sex couples. But it is too much if you care about not offending the conservative right.
There is no middle ground here and Obama is rapidly discovering this much to his dismay.

'This is only one step' said Obama in a conciliatory tone.
But that was a step too far for the conservarive right while pro-gay rights communities were left wondering when he's going to take the next step.
Obama has paid lip-service to the gay rights agenda but supporters feel he is not going fast enough or far enough. The conservative right, on the other hand, think he has already gone too far too fast.
From an electoral perspective, Obama needs to get this balance right. The gay community is a big chunk of votes he can't afford to lose but America's conservative heartland represents more votes still. From an electoral perspective, he needs to placate both sides, a mathematical impossibility as one side wants all rights to apply regardless of sexuality and the other, well, doesn't. So his only option is to anger both sides, a little but not too much. A thankless task if there ever was one.

All this considered, I still don't think that giving same-sex domestic partners access to healthcare is a breakthrough: it's a much-needed, long-overdue 'fix' to an unfair practice that discriminates and excludes people just because of how they find happiness and who they chose to love.
So the question, really, is 'now what?'

Obama has appointed openly gay individuals to prominent positions thus angering the right – name one thing that doesn't anger the right other than bible study – but beyond that, this is the first nod towards gay rights since he took office five months ago. Yes yes I know he has wars to finish and a financial crisis to manage but, to be honest, if he can't multi-task he's in the wrong job.

You wanna call a spade a spade?
In America, land of freedom and opportunity, some animals are more equal than others. So when a young black Democrat was elected to the supreme office, the entire world thought: here comes the end of 'equal but different' – segregation policies in all but name. But five months on, we are still waiting. What is he waiting for? The tide is already turning. Six states have legalised same-sex marriage. But, wait for it, Obama opposes that on religious grounds.

And that's where Barack lost me. Not that he cares. But he lost me.
Because that is a hypocritical narrow-minded rejection of difference (for political gain or out of personal cowardice and I don't know what's worse) and this is why:
- Christianity is a faith system based on love. Love for God and love for each other. No true Christian rejects love, wherever it is found, whatever form it may take, even if it is love you do not wish for yourself.

- Marriage is a civil bond that may or may not be sanctified by a religious ceremony. It is a contract allowing partners who spend their lives together to share the property they amass together, to make decisions regarding each other's health when the time comes, to be a unit in the eyes of the law. Religion comes into it if the couple feel it should and to reject a couple's legal right to marry on religious grounds is misguided and hypocritical.

- A same sex couple taking vows of fidelity and love hurts absolutely nobody. It takes away nothing from any other group. Even if you don't think that their love and partnership makes the world a better place, you cannot point to a single thing you lose through their union. If you don't like what you see, look away. Human and civil rights are granted on grounds of humanity and citizenship and cannot be legitimately withheld because you do not like the way people choose to exercise them.

And this is not about sexuality as such. This is about the sort of world you want to live in. And here is my problem: I think there should be anti-gun laws because people with guns can hurt others. I don't object to anti-smoking laws in public places on the same grounds but think that laws banning people from smoking in their own cars is penalizing a lifestyle choice and that's not how we do business in a liberal society. And that's the crux of the matter. My rights can only legitimately be curtailed in order to safeguard other people's rights. Not on grounds of the tastes and preferences of those in power. Objecting to gay marriage on religious or moral grounds, to me, translates to 'you can't have it cos I don't like it and don't want it for myself'.

So the time has come to stand up for what we believe in and that does not entail answering the question 'do you think gay servicemen and women should have the same right as civil servants not in uniform' (which they should); the question is 'do you want to live in a world where some animals are more equal than others'?

Obama promised to reverse the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act yet only last week the Justice Department filed a legal brief opposing a challenge to said Act (apparently administrations defend laws they oppose as a matter of course, according to Obama's press secretary) using unnecessarily strong language. If this was an attempt at conciliation, it failed. Gay groups are offended, rights activists are outraged while the right is not placated by the brief and finds Obama's memo a violation of the rule of law and the Defense of Marriage Act.

So what will it be Barack?
This war won't be won with token gestures and small concessions. While same-sex couples live in the margins because their rights are denied by a majority that doesn't care about what doesn't concern them, the right consider tiny redresses to the massive rights imbalance 'aggressive' and 'radical'.
Tony Perkins, President of the conservative Family Research Council, went as far as to speak of the homosexuals' extreme demands.
What would those be, I wonder?
The right for a couple to stay together when one partner is posted abroad? The right to take compassionate leave when your life partner is sick and needs you by their side? The right to live in dignity and peace? The right to publicly love and protect your chosen partner?

Extreme indeed.
As extreme as black kids going to school and women getting jobs. As extreme as black women voting and taking the bar exam.

The point is, fairness is not a popularity contest.
Equality is universal or it is not at all. Rights are universal or they are a sham.
That's why the world looked on in hope when a black man became President of the US. Because he didn't need to have some things explained to him. He didn't need to be told discrimination is criminal and 'equal but different' is an insult and a lie. And because he didn't need to have any of this explained to him, we expect him to stand up to be counted when fairness is at stake.

So Mr Obama, on the question of gay rights what we want from you is to eliminate the very phrase. We want equality for individuals to completely eclipse the need to even talk of gay rights. Because people who happen to be gay will have the same rights as people who happen to be straight.

Equality cannot be had by degrees. You are either equal or you are not.
So what will it be?

Greece, my Neverland

I just got back from Greece. I've brought back several tons of olives and a passable tan; I managed to forget half my clothes and take, instead, summer clothes I haven't worn in decades (because 'you never know' whatever that means, sometimes I don't even make sense to myself). And here I am back in London, back at work. Missing my mum. Missing the sunshine. And realising that storylines matter. 'Once upon time' creates its own imperatives. Stories have power, they don't determine everything but they do open up some options while closing others. That's why so much of the randomness of Greek life can be taken for granted while you are actually in Greece.
Take zebra crossings. I will go out of my way in London to find one, law-abiding citizen that I am. In Greece it never crosses my mind to cross at one. It wouldn't make a difference even if it did. Because crossing at zebra crossings doesn't happen in Greece. It's not part of the story.

Everything comes with a storyline. The way people behave in public, the way they approach politics, what they expect from the economy.

Take the European elections.

I flew out to Athens on Friday night last week. Thursday was the European election in the UK, Sunday was election day in Greece. In England you could have missed the fact that there was a European election altogether. Advertising did not go much beyond a 'don't forget to vote/make sure your papers are in order so you can vote' campaign and some flyers from various candidates. The actual candidates. 'Vote for me' type flyers including a photo and a name. Of the candidates. Themselves.

And then I fly out to Greece. And during the sleepy drive (worry not faithful readers, I wasn't doing the driving) from Athens airport to the heart of Thessaly (that's half-way up the country, for the non-Greeks among you. a drive of just over 3 hours) I saw literally thousands of political posters. More per hundred yards of high-way than in the whole of West London put together. In fact, I lost count of the political posters lining the streets before I even lost sight of the airport.
Poster after poster after poster but no sight of a candidate.

The posters fell in two categories: the two big parties (PA.SO.K – nominally socialist but essentially value-neutral unless lining your own pocket counts as an ideology – and Nea Demokratia – nominally conservative but in reality focusing more on being the most corrupt and inefficient government in a series of corrupt and inefficient governments, regardless of hue and creed. It's hard work but they are doing it very well). Those posters look identical: leader looking wistfully into the middle distance, backdrop in the party colours (green and blue, respectively) and an inspirational, void logo along the lines of 'we vote for Europe, we decide for Greece' or 'focusing on the citizen'.
The second type of poster was fielded by the communists (yes, we still have those in Greece) and the Euro-Communists (aka 'Syriza'). These were in various shades of red and focused on encouraging people to vote against the big parties as a sign of rebellion. Hasta la victoria siempre.

No mention of the European Parliament.
No mention of the actual candidates.
The storyline was all about parties and expressions of loyalty to colour schemes.

And that's the story both politicians and journalists stuck to.The entire European parliament election shebang was couched in a party narrative. The journalists were using the exact same language as if they were covering a parliamentary election. As were the politicians.
This party did this, this party got that share of the vote, a great success for the leader of the opposition, a blow for the Prime Minister.
And as all narratives, this one built up its own momentum and everyone around me was speaking of the European elections the same way. They even joked about how poorly Gordon Brown did over here.

Naturally MEP election results are often read as a rough indication of how well big parties are doing at home. But no more than that. MEP elections are safe (because MEPs have no power whatsoever so a voter will never live to regret a poor choise) so people vote in ways that they wouldn't vote 'at home': they vote Green, they vote Liberal, they vote 'funky' because they can.
No-one suggests that the result doesn't reflect poorly on Labour in the UK (not least because the nationalists did so well in the UK MEP election) but here's the newsflash: Brown was not running in the European election. The Greek Premier and his arch rival were not running the European election. Their parties weren't even running in the European election as MEPs belong to EU-wide amalgamation parties with separate leaders and rather loose party discipline.

But the narrative was so over-powering, no-one questioned it in Greece.
The narrative of the European election as a national election means that the premier has to hang his head in shame and promise the voters that he will reflect on the message they sent him (in this election that had nothing to do with him). But this same narrative allowed him to dismiss parliament, hide a series of scandals under the carpet and literally get away with murder.
This narrative gave all political parties a breathing space of several months 'preparing' for an election that didn't affect them and basking in the glory of a victory that doesn't concern them.

Stories matter.
'Once upon a time' sets the tone and we follow. It takes skill to spin a good story, to make sure things are understood a certain way, viewed a certain way, linked a certain way. Stories matter. Because we live in terms of stories and we understand our experiences in terms of the stories they fit into and we all assume our roles within the stories. And although we question events and people and facts, we rarely question the story.
Remember the Matrix? It's a bit like that minus the kicks and the leather coats.

Of course, I do realise that, in the grand scheme of things and in light of all our erstwhile leaders have put us through, this is small fry. In some ways, the European election gave our leaders something to play with that meant the economy, justice system and social structures were left in peace for a while. And yet this little game matters immensely. Because this story, as many others, was spun to perfection as far away from reality as it could possibly be without giving the game away.
And we swallowed it whole.

All I'm saying is that those who determine the 'once upon a time' also hold the 'happily ever after' and if we want a part of that, we'd better keep an eye on the storyline they are feeding us.

The wicked witch of the west, the cowardly lion and the murdered abortionist

Once upon a time there was a famous Wizard who made wishes come true. In the weird and wonderful land of Oz, the Wizard captured people's imaginations and creatures travelled far and wide just to ask him for a favour. Of course those of us who know the story, know that all said creatures already had what it is they were after and the journey to the Emerald City was one of self-discovery during which our heroes learned to accept themselves and others.
The story I am about to tell you now has many similarities to that tale but, as it's a true story, we are not holding our breath for the happy ending.

So, my story begins with the cowardly lion. Not the cute one in the movie but the man who shot a doctor dead a few days ago in the US of A, in church, no less, because they disagreed on the issue of abortion. Well, we sure are not in Kansas any more, if people who call themselves 'pro-life' kill a man to stop him from doing things they disagree with. Only, we are in Kansas, cos that's exactly where the crime took place: in a church foyer in Wichita Kansas.

And here's me thinking anti-abortionists were church-going folk who objected to a woman's right to choose on God grounds and would never desecrate a church.

As you would expect, anti-abortion groups in Wichita were fast to condemn the murder. They would never do that, they said. Harassment was their method of choice. Without a hint of embarrassment they relate to the press how they have spent money, time and effort to have Dr George Tiller investigated by the health authorities and prosecuted for 'his crimes'. Which are? Doing something that is perfectly legal but contrary to the moral code of some.

News flash, everyone: 'but I don't like it' stops being a valid argument roundabout the time you start kindergarten. Especially when the thing you are pouting at is a. legal b. none of your business.
Because abortion is legal and the people who are objecting to it are not being forced to have one, so what is their problem? Or, to put it more scientifically, whatever happened to that most glorious gift of American democracy: liberty? Was the gift a lie – smoke and mirrors, a bit like the Wizard of Oz himself? Is your liberty actually mitigated by who disagrees with you and how powerful they are? The short answer to this, I'm afraid, is yes.

And of course abortion is a very controversial subject for American politics. In fact, it is bordering on the obsessive. Election after election, the christian right will find a way to make abortion a debate topic somehow. Why? Because they care. But why they care quite so much, beats me.

Why is there a large chunk of the American public who cares so much about something that doesn't necessarily concern them?
Bear with me here:
Abortion is never compulsory even when it is advisable on medical grounds. So those who object to abortion don't need to have one. Surely that should be the end of the conversation, in a democracy, right? Right. Unless you are a neo-con, Christian rightist who believes that their morality is the straightjacket humanity has always needed.

Now I am not for a moment suggesting that all anti-abortionists would condone the killing of George Tiller, publicly or privately. And I don't think anyone would disagree that the man who shot him is a danger to society and should not have had access to a weapon. But – oh hold on, what do I see here? Do I see statistics suggesting that anti-abortionists are in their majority pro-guns? And, no, before you ask, they don't see the irony here.

I will not patronise you by saying I am pro-choice and anti-gun, it's dead obvious – no pun intended. But I will say that this is where we have a communication breakdown with 'The Other Side' – the Wicked Witch of the West and her ultra-right flying monkeys: when it comes to gun laws, they uphold every man's right to own a gun. To this, I say it is my right to not live in fear that some lunatic will buy a gun from Wal-Mart and wreak havoc just because. I fail to see how guns are useful items of everyday life and do seriously believe that my right to stay alive outweighs somebody's right to have a very dangerous toy. Go to the range and shoot all you like buster but don't take it to the mall. Where other people may suffer the consequences of your choices.

You see where I am going with this.
Abortion is different. It's personal and private. Doing or not doing it affects only the mother and the foetus. And although the entire controversy is, of course, around whether the foetus is a person that should be protected, the point remains that the debate is around a medical procedure that affects one body: that of the mother. And while the debate on whether a foetus is a person continues, how about a musical interlude during which the pro-lifers explain to us why, feeling as strong as they do on the subject of the foetus as a living being whose life is sacred, they remain in favour of free access to deadly weapons and the death penalty?

Dr Tiller's death will now reopen the debate on abortion – a debate that President Obama was rather keen to not have to deal with just yet as it never leads to anything other than bitter recriminations, value judgments and frothing at the mouth by some.
But debate they will now.
And what I want to know is this: what's there to debate?

A woman's right to choose is something to defend and fight for.
Dr Tiller's death is something to castigate and prevent from ever reoccurring.
But if you want a debate, how about discussing the harassment Dr Tiller dealt with in life (blockades and attacks outside his clinic, home and church; a series of legal challenges including two grand juries convened by citizen-led petition drives; and a previous non-lethal gun attack), how about discussing how all this can be stropped and a doctor administering a legal procedure protected from thugs and bullies?

Abortion is legal but there's nothing stopping pro-lifers from following the yellow brick road and seeking out the wonderful wizard of Oz with a plea to reverse the law and make abortion illegal. But while doing that they have to the stick to the yellow brick road and avoid breaking the law themselves (through harassment, murder or intimidation).

And you never know, the journey of self-discovery that helped the tinman realise he already had a heart may help pro-lifers too. They may realise that pro-choice stands for just that. Nobody is saying abortion is a good or pleasant thing. Nobody is saying it should replace contraception. Nobody is saying it is an easy choice. But it is a choice that must be available. Because women get raped, because pregnancy may present a danger to the mother's health, or because a woman is not emotionally and psychologically ready to cope with motherhood.

And while the pro-lifers will preach abstinence and threaten us with fire and brimstone and the pits of hell, I just hope that Glinda will glide in and reset terms, reminding everyone that while abortion remains legal, the state has a duty to protect practitioners from violence, intimidation, harassment. And a duty to protect the women who choose the exercise that right.

And failing that, maybe Obama should take some time to remind everyone – not what he thinks on the issue of abortion - but what the law prescribes and what the state will uphold, for as long as the law stands.

Then let the debate resume in these terms, while I rub my ruby slippers, willing a house to collapse on the thugs who have killed 4 doctors in the past ten years just for giving women the right to choose as the law prescribes.

Actions speak louder than words or why I'd like to slap the prom queen

A few days ago I read an article that winded me. It upset me. It angered me more than I can say. And my anger revealed a basic truth about myself: there are limits to my open-mindedness. I am not proud of this for, although I reject and resent those who attempt to silence me, there are people I would like silenced. So this is less of a polemic, for a change, and more of a confessional. Bear with me.

Beliefs are important.
But beliefs only come about on issues where more than one answer is possible. You don't believe in breathing because without it you die. There is only one way to deal with the issue and that is to breathe. You don't believe in what is given, natural and non-negotiable. Belief is about conscious espousal. Belief is about choice.

And here is where my trouble begins.
There are certain things where I don't believe choice exists. There are some issues on which I feel there is only one natural reaction. And when, on those issues, someone disagrees with me, I experience it as a violation of the laws of nature.
Take racism for instance.
I struggle with it. Not just because of its intrinsic injustice and irrational rejection of some human beings in favour of others. But because to my mind it is unnatural and therefore it should not exist. And this is not just a moral 'should'. It is physiological. It should not be possible for racism to exist. The equality of all human beings is not up for debate. It does not need to be believed to be true. Yet it does. In practice, it does. Because unless you act like it's true then it stops being true for many people.

And here is my problem. I do not accept the racist's right to their convictions. I think they deserve a thorough beating. I am ashamed to be saying this. But it is true and the urge to hit someone overwhelmed me when, a few days ago, I read an article in a back copy of the New York Times. Here is the issue: At Montgomery County High School in Georgia, USA, black and white students mingle freely in the classrooms and corridors but every year, without fail, they hold separate proms.
On the face of it, that's no big deal. Schools are no longer segregated and what's in a party? Well. Everything. Actually.

First of all I can hardly believe this occurs in the first place. And let me say that segregated proms are not a Montgomery County specialty but take place across the rural South of the US. Only last year, actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for an integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state. This was to be the first prom of its kind and students supported the idea but a group of white parents rejected the offer and held a rival prom for the 'white folk'. That then the white folk dully attended, perpetuating the problem.

The segregated proms are organised outside the schools by parents and student committees. While all students are welcome to the black prom, few if any white students turn up. The white prom on the other hand is governed by an unspoken rule that keeps black students at bay.
Omerta in the schoolyard.

Black students, the New York Times report, have put pressure on Montgomery County High to hold a single school-sponsored prom to no avail.

Students are quick to note that interracial friendships and couples are common at Montgomery County High School. White parents don't always approve but what they don't know, can't hurt them.

We are not like our parents, say the students.

Bullshit you are not. If you go to the white-only prom they throw for you, you are as much part of the problem as they are.

And the fact that the students interviewed discuss what is natural as a breakthrough in public morality ('we have black friends, we have black boyfriends') simply underlines the hypocrisy of it all.

Your friends are the people you want to spend the prom with. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is the person you want to go to the prom with. What fun is a prom that excludes the very people you are supposed to share it with? What good is a celebration that excludes and humiliates the people you want to share it with?

And how come, neither love, nor friendship, nor moral outrage stand in the way of hundreds of students attending such proms, year in year out?

We are not racist, say the students. It's just how it's always been. Our parents refuse to pay for mixed proms and having segregated ones is a tradition.
It's how it's always been.
To hell with that.
'It's how it's always been' was the argument used to defend slavery, the disenfranchisement of women, the criminalisation of homosexuality. 'It's how it's always been' has been the argument in favour of the continuation of all repressive practices in human history. And I have news for you: it is a lie. No social practice has always been. Every social practice is human made and can be unmade by humans. And few have been so lucky as to be able to affect social change of this magnitude by simply not going to a party.

Beliefs matter. But actions matter more.
These kids say they believe in one thing, but when it comes down to it, they do another. It's hard work, living up to your beliefs. Standing up to Dad. Missing parties and whatnot. Practicing what you preach is hard work.
I understand them, I know reading about their predicament has put me in the same position they are in, of believing in one thing and wanting to do another. You see, although I believe in everyone's right to hold and express any belief they choose, my action of choice in this particular isntance, if only distance permitted, would be to go over to that white-only prom and kick their righteous racist asses to hell and back.

When it comes to scandals, size really doesn't matter

Life may not imitate art but my conversations seem to follow on from my blog posts in a rather peculiar way. Barely a week since my 'dangers of not caring post' and I am sitting in the most unlikely of settings – a wedding reception – talking to a complete stranger about this and that. The stranger, it turns out, lives and works in Zimbabwe and on those grounds dismisses the British MPs expenses scandal.
When put that way it makes no sense does it? But you've seen it happen again and again.
'You call this a scandal? Wait till you've seen one of ours'. The principle here, evidently, being that when it comes to scandals size does matter.
Well, friends, I am not sure it does.

In case you've missed it (because as luck has it you may live in a country that has impressive, block-buster style scandals and this one did not register as being worthy of column inches in your location) the UK is in the midst of a scandal of its own around the expense claims members of Parliament have been submitting and getting away with. Such claims range from the illegal (mortgage payments for a house that is already mortgage-free) to the absurd (cleaning a moat, yes a moat) to the downright hilarious (porn for the MP's husband). Claims cover huge value items such as houses and tiny items such as a chocolate bar. And if I am allowed to digress briefly, I am not entirely sure which one of the two extremes bugs me more – the insanely huge bills on something like new hardwood floors and chandeliers or the tiny tiny bills for tampons and fizzy drinks. Obviously, as a tax payer I resent the massive items more yet, as a citizen, I find the small ticket items more offensive because they seem to be telling me that the MPs have no intention of using their salary to pay for anything. At all. Ever.
But I digress.
The point is, some of these claims are illegal but mostly they are within the rules and that is the problem: that the rules allow for way too much of this to go on so the rules need to be reformed while the rest of us have a conversation about morality and whether the MPs were actually breaching our trust and their sacred duty even if they were not breaking the law.

And all this is very important. In a democracy.
Because it entails discussions of trust in your elected representatives and systemic transparency. Because it concerns the use and potential misuse of public funds and the public, whose funds these actually are, merits an explanation and an apology.
And because this is supposed to be a democracy the fact that regulations exist does not end the matter. We need to ask if the regulations are appropriate to the situation, whether they do what we want them to do, whether our system is serving us as it ought to.

Which is where the person living in Zimbabwe guffawed saying it was sweet that those of us living in England could get flustered over things like the expenses scandal when corruption and inefficiency in their political life is so high and so common that millions of dollars' worth of public funds appear in politicians' bank accounts and nobody even thinks about prosecuting.
In short this translates to 'you guys have nothing, ours is bigger than yours'.

And my first reaction was a need to win, to trump her, to show her I had scandals as big as hers up my sleeve.
It was an interesting inversion as my interlocutor is English albeit living in Zimbabwe and I am, as you all know, Greek living in England. So what England fails to provide by way of scandals, the motherland obligingly offers. 'You call that corruption? We closed down Parliament for 5 months, we have massive scandals implicating the government, opposition, private sector and some priests to boot. We have corrupt policemen, corrupt judges, corrupt civil servants. Millions of euros go missing from public coffers as a matter of course, rights are trampled, nothing moves without bribery and nobody even blinks. Try that one on for size'. My scandal is bigger than yours. I win. Well done me.
Only not so well done as scandals are not good things and big bad things are a whole load of bad more than small bad things. So what's with the pride in being totally shambolic? And exactly why are you so chuffed your scandal is bigger than anybody else's? This is one of those things where size really really doesn't matter.

And that's the problem with comparisons.
You put something next to something else and all of a sudden both are reduced to the sum of their differences. Inevitably one will be bigger. And then what?
The fact that Zimbabwe is more corrupt than the UK and Greece is somewhere in between does not absolve Greece and the UK, it does not render their inadequacies irrelevant, it does not make taking the citizens for a ride ok if others do it too.

We all live in imperfect systems, that much we know.
Power corrupts and no political system has ever escaped sleaze, corruption, misuse. The question is what do you do to prevent it and, when it occurs, what do you do about it?
In Zimbabwe, you do nothing because doing something may put you in real physical danger.
In Greece, you do nothing because, well we've been through this before: you do nothing because corruption is what you expect, scandal is what public life is made of.
And in Britain? In Britain you do nothing until you can no longer get away with doing nothing. And then you do the absolute minimum but at least you do it and therein lies the difference.

British public life is full of blunders, attempts at cover ups, corruption and dishonesty. But there is also this basic instinct somewhere in the gut of the body politic that something needs to be done about the things that are going seriously wrong.
So when the expenses scandal appeared, the newspapers screamed bloody murder until an investigation started and some heads rolled. The rules will be revised. And at the end of it all the system will still be imperfect, corruption will still be a possibility, but it will not be the norm.
So rather than laughing at them, because their scandal is smaller than ours, how about we take a leaf out of their book and stop taking scandals for granted?

This is not an art to be perfected, size does not denote expertise and 'when you do it, do it right' should not be the attitude we take to corruption.
Scandals are bad, boys and girls, and on this one size really doesn't matter: a scandal is a scandal is a scandal – big or small, the only constant fact about them is that they shouldn't be there.
And if ours is bigger than anyone else's then one thing we shouldn't be doing is a victory dance.

The dangers of not caring

Politics.
I love it. I hate it.
It moves me. It inspires me. It pains me. It angers me.

And, as you know only too well, I don't shut up about it.

Of course I know few care about politics as much as I do. But I avoid people who don't care at all. I don't want their friendship, I don't want their time. And that's not because I am an intellectual snob (ok, maybe a little) but because of two fundamental and interconnected beliefs I hold: 1. politics is everything and 2. only fools fail to care about what doesn't immediately concern them. Because only a fool feels sheltered from bad things happening elsewhere or to other people.

Let me explain.
There are people who think that politics equal elections and tax reform, parties and prime minister's question time. Of course all this is politics but everything else is politics too. Nobody is outside it. School curricula, bus routes, pub opening times are all political and not just because they are regulated by law, policy and institutional practice. Whether you can buy fags in the supermarket, enjoy a late-night pint, adopt a child, sign your child out of school, buy a house with a partner, have a duvet day and take your boss to HR for being a bully boils down to politics. Politicians may not be involved but policy, principle, communal action and public negotiation are involved and that makes all of this political. You call it what you like. It is politics to me. If it entails the ordering of public life, the negotiation of social interactions and the matching of realities to ideas then it is political. So everything is political and politics is everything.

On the second issue. Well. I've already said that I believe that the ability for reflection, abstraction and compassion is what singles humans out from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can see the significance of things that don't directly affect us. We are capable of caring for and about things taking place outside our own backyard. Some times we choose not to care. But we still have the ability.

Well, when it comes to choosing my friends, an ability and propensity to care is something of a clincher.

So it has come as a huge shock to me, how many of my own friends in Greece don't care.
They do.
But they don't.
They care about the civil war in Sri Lanka being over and civilian deaths in Pakistan proliferating. They care about Darfur and the fact that Palestine is still not at peace. They care about Guantanamo Bay. They care about the British MPs' expenses scandals. They care both about the what and about the why. And they care about the implications of all that they care about.
But try talking to them about Greek politics and they talk to you about Sakis and the Eurovision.

Yes they know things on the political front are bad. They know. A boy standing trial only yesterday for wearing green shoes, a man being attacked by a flower pot (the police find ever more creative ways of dismissing injuries suffered during interrogation or arrest) and parliament being shut for 5 months so it doesn't get in the way, yes they know all these things and they know how bad they are. And they know why they are bad. But they don't want to talk about it. Or do anything about it.
And why not?
Because they are tired. And bored. And feel they've seen it all before. Which I guess they have to a certain extent. But that makes it worse, not better.

But because people are jaded and care less; because they don't expect anything good from their politicians; because corruption and ineffectiveness surprise no-one, these have become the baseline that politicians work from.
When expectations are below zero it's almost impossible to truly disappoint. So politics is no longer about ideas, policy or persuasion, it's not even about compromise and image management. The voters expect nothing between elections so the politicians deliver nothing between elections. Instead they focus on the game at hand – securing power, getting pay-offs, getting re-elected.

Politics has become a binary game of election/non-election for those playing it: did I get in? Doesn't' matter how many votes I got or how I got them, I'm in. Is my party in power? Forget about protest voting, the narrowness or margins and political intimidation. Forget about mandates and policy promises. Forget about pressing problems. Did we get in?
Yes/no, black/white – binary.
Only politics is not binary. It is convoluted and multi-faceted, complicated and multi-layered, nuanced and always capable of as many possible endings as there are people on this earth. So politics, the activity of negotiating public life, only works if we care enough to acknowledge its complexity and seek compromise.
Our politicians don't – they've gone binary.
And more and more people don't – they are as tired as their prime minister it seems.

So what are we left with?
An ever-plummeting benchmark of acceptability: it takes more and more to shock us so there's forever more the politicians can get away with before we will go 'hold on a minute buster'.

First I thought all the scandals would do it.
Then I thought the runaway police and colluding judicial system would do it.
Finally I thought closing down parliament would get people on their feet.
But no.
People are blasé, tired, bored.
They expect little so when they get little they are not surprised.
A pretty sweet deal if you are a politician I guess.
But for the rest of us it's a pretty dangerous place to be, a dangerous thing to have given away, a slippery slope without crash barriers.

Because if you were a politician and you did get away with all this, wouldn't you find yourself wondering what else you can get away with?

If it looks like a dictatorship and acts like a dictatorship

He adjurned Parliament.
The Greek Prime Minister shut up shop.
It doesn’t compute, does it?
Dictators dismiss Parliament, elected Prime Ministers call elections. You’d think.
But no, he decided Parliament can go home for a few weeks, shocking even his own team.

Why?
Because Parliament was investigating his government for a number of scandals (code names: Vatopedio, SIEMENS, Germanos – among others) and there was a real and present danger that unpleasant things would be discovered, ugly truths would be told.
But why wait around for bad things to happen when you can go all dictatorial and just send the MPs home?
Of course this is not the stated reason – the European election is – and all this is conjecture on my part. Nevertheless four things are true:
Parliament was investigating a number of scandals; members of the governing party appear heavily implicated (read: in it up to their eyeballs); the opposition party was leading at the pre-European election polls; parliament was sent home. You do the math.

So now the Prime Minister doesn’t need to worry his pretty head over managing the scandal debates in Parliament and he can focus all his energies on mounting a vicious and vitriolic election campaign. The opposition party is ahead in the polls, you see, and governing the way the constitution prescribes would get in our PM’s way of winning the election – which is what he’s there for. Right?
Only, hold on, the election in question is for MEPs, not for a new national government. The Prime Minister is not actually running in it. But his party is and he needs the message at the polls to be loud and clear ‘Costa: your people love you’. And what’s a month’s worth of parliamentary deliberations compared to happy news for the party?

So here we go, the longest recess for Parliament before a European election – otherwise known as ‘a way of stopping the deliberations and scandals’ discussions’. Nice work Costa. Nice work.

If you are wondering on the ‘how’ – as in ‘how the hell did he pull that one off’ – it seems that our Premier spoke with the ‘boys’ (high ranking ministers within the party tho not necessarily male – hint hint) and then ambushed the president of the republic after the day’s news cycle had closed on Friday. Apparently most of the governing party were surprised by the announcement and scrambled to see to unfinished business when they heard. On Friday night, high-ranking governing politicians were informed after the ball had been set rolling whereas lower-ranking government MPs were stunned and confused after hearing it on the news.
Shall I say it again: that’s how dictatorships come about. A small group strike under cover of darkness and the inner circle are presented with a fait accompli once the process is set in motion.
The people usually sleep on until it’s too late.

Of course the government claim that they have nothing to hide and parliament is shut because they don’t want to politicise the elections. Oh I like this one. This one actually made me laugh out loud. The PM actually stressed his continued commitment to the ‘big issues’ that plague our land. And he practically expressed this commitment by sending parliament home. This buys him not one but five months of peace and quiet as summer recess kicks in by the time they are all back from this unexpected holiday. And with this little interlude comes blissful over-right for a series of cases that concern the ‘first period’ of the governing party’s period in office.

So yes, a number of uncomfortable issues will now be silenced. Legally. Don’t you just love procedure and regulations?
Meanwhile the political leaders are still accusing each other of ‘political cowardice’ and a tendency to ‘politicise the agenda’. And to be honest with you all, I’ll be damned if I know what any of that means any more.

But the leader of the opposition, always on the ball, challenged the prime minister to call early national elections, castigating the early closure of parliament as an ‘institutional digression’. You tell him boy. Bet he’s shaking in his boots now.
Don't you just love made-up innocent-sounding names for things? It’s not unconstitutional it’s an ‘institutional digression’. Linguistic acrobatics obscuring the issue. Otherwise known as grade-A bullshit.
How about we say it like it really is: Dismissing parliament threatens democracy, constitutionality and the rule of law.
Is anyone listening over there?

And here we are being asked to vote for MEPs. In fact we are being encouraged to turn up en masse for the European election, to ‘send a message’. That’s what both the party leaders want us to do. Send a message to the other guy.
They count on us to carry on acting like elections are simply about sending messages. Not about electing decision-makers. Who will then govern.

And while adjourning parliament for a whole month in order to focus on a different, separate and unrelated election, makes a mockery of democracy and politics as a whole, what I want to know is why does no-one feel like the system is sliding into dictatorship?
Dictators don’t always wear uniforms. Dictators don’t always launch campaigns of death and destruction. Dictators can wear suits and be the butt of jokes. The measure of the regime is not how afraid of them you actually are but how afraid you should be. What makes a dictator is not how many people he kills but whether he ignores democratic structures and legal frameworks in going about the business of government.
And Costa’s greatest success to-date is that he keeps breaking our already derelict system bit by bit and we are still not afraid. Tired, fed up, amused, disgusted – but not afraid.

Wake up and smell the bacon brothers – if it acts like a dictatorship, reacts like a dictatorship and looks like a dictatorship then maybe we should treat it like one and start fighting it again.