Murakami and Libya

Oh dear - instead of working in the last 24 hours I read Norwegian Wood. Sexy, funny but ultimately incredibly sad (I was tearing up on the tube - NEVER good) and unputdownable - unless you find yourself with a spare few hours DO NOT start this book. At one point Watanabe (protagonist) calls Reiko a regular Sheherezade - the whole bloody book was like that! Annoyingly time consuming but enjoyable. My only slight issue with it was that it was a bit like A Single Man where EVERYONE wants to shag Colin Firth. Clearly he's lovely, but still, a little unbelievable.

I seem to be into my use of CAPITALS today.

Last night, in a short break from the world of Watanabe, I went to see a discussion panel on current events in the Middle East held by the SOAS History Soc. Speakers were: Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Amir Taheri and Abdul Bari Atwan and it was chaired by a somewhat harried looking Jonathan Lappage (or at least I assume it was him - he's the one who sent the email out....may not have been listening when he introduced himself :S).

Rifkind was SO LATE that I had to quickly text and rearrange my dinner date and there was much angry muttering. Come on, 20 minutes plus late, for an hour long discussion, seriously? There was a big lecture hall of people waiting for you. Already NOT A FAN. The words Tory scum lack of respect seemed to be circulating unsaid in the air...not without good cause.

So we kicked off with Abdul Bari Atwan - always excellent entertainment (though I admit I've only seen him in the flesh once before, also at SOAS :) ) who was, to be fair to Rifkind's later outburst, a little guilty of appealing to emotional sentiments and beliefs rather than fact based truths, but then, politics, come on, when's that ever been about facts? History (what we were supposedly there to discuss) has also always played fast and loose with empirical reality. Who's it for and why is something we can never forget to consider. His point though that what we had here was revolution, purely and simply, and one that had been built up from inside the country and driven by forces again, inside. He then launched into a bit of an attack on the west (to which, while I squirmed a bit, I did add my applause) as the heavy hand of outside, unwanted intervention that has left the Arab states in which it has involved itself (Iraq, Afghanistan) worse off in some ways. He also emphasised the important distinction to be drawn between Arab and Muslim. Arab doesn't mean fundamentalist Muslim just as Muslim doesn't mean fundamentalist. The west's fear of Islamic rule needs to be re-examined.

Amir Taheri began with a little quip that following Abdul Bari Atwan was a difficult, akin to following Elvis. I found his emphasis on democracy as a sort of learning process for a nation a little overstated. Why would having elections teach you anything about democracy? didn't work in Sri Lanka when the british introduced universal franchise in the hopes of educating the political elite about their responsibility to their populous. He, and Abdul Bari Atwan, had both also bought into the progressivist version of politics as the endless struggle toward liberal democracy. Id' prefer questioning of the western hegemonic discourse to take a few steps more. Not advocating any structure especially, but I'm not sure how the structured and divided identity groups of Libya will respond to a liberal doctrine that takes no account of, and indeed excludes, identity in the political realm. Still, ultimately very very interesting, with excellent points about how it was not helpful and indeed misleading to draw historical parallels.

Then came Rifkind. He SHOUTED everything into his microphone. Immediately on the defensive saying it wasn't the west's fault that dictatorships hadn't been overthrown before. Indeed he expressed surprise that it had taken so long (COME ON - Cold War interests, oil - the west had a vested and very real interest in keeping leaders who were predictable and not communist in place, people like Mubarak). He also refused to accept the role of the international community in domestic politics - clearly we're dealing with a die-hard realist of the old school here. He even claimed that the internal politics of a state never had anything to do with the foreign policy of other states.

This would have been a flawed but at least sustained tirade had he not then started harping on about how british foreign policy is ethical - HOW can it be both ethical and only driven by the concerns of realpolitik? Be mistaken, OK, at least then you can be argued with, but be hypocritical and your audience will spot this and will respond. SOASians were not impressed. Abdul Bari Atwan interjected a few choice responses and got applause every time, Rifkind's ever more desperate and increasingly illogical rejoinders drew muttering from the crowd.

I then, infuriatingly, had to leave, stayed for a few satisfying attacks from
Abdul Bari Atwan and Amir Taheri that exposed both the factual holes and hypocrisy of Rifkind's stance.

Lesson to be learned - Tories know your audience. DON'T try and tell SOAS that the west has, and always does its best, and that selling weapons to dictators is just realistic. And anyway, it's important to arm them against Iran. They ask for the weapons, they must be entitled to them, right? Surely they could only want them for self defence, right?

Of course Rifkind. Off you go and sit in your club and think you know what's best for everyone else. After all you are louder than them, that must mean your opinion is more valid. Might is right. Have we really come back to this in british politics?