In the run up to forthcoming Salon debates in Leeds and Manchester on fracking, I decided to go down to Balcombe and find out what inspired the protestors to oppose this drilling technique.
I was expecting climate change to loom large in interviews, but I was surprised to discover this particular concern was barely mentioned. Beyond the specific risks that were believed to be posed to water, the protestors were animated by a wider sense that things were not right in the world.
‘When people threaten to blow up your family and rape your mum thats taking things too far’, said James Duncan of recently reunited Blue on Newsnight last night. The theme was internet trolls and the limits to free expression online and on twitter.
‘Its easy to say oh there’s just trolls, but when people make rape and bomb threats where do you draw the line? Do you wait for someone to get raped or bombed?’
My mum was absolutely petrified, Duncan claims. But did he really believe that there were anti-Blue terrorists just waiting to strike?
He then changed tack and made another argument – trolling is serious because someone committed suicide. So now its not the actual threat, the fear that they could be real, its the hurt of the actual insult that Duncan feels is problematic. Is Duncan taking these threats seriously, or is it really a case of there are some things you really shouldnt say, especially when it upsets my Mum?
‘We cant have that. We’ve got thick skin. We’ve grown thick skin over the years. Thats why I dont post things about Blue on twitter anymore. I dont ask what people think of our new single because I’m going to get ‘your bands, duh duh’. And you know I can’t be bothered with that’.
Blue are clearly jumping on the bandwagon of the anti-trolling debate fuelled by those who want to tell people what they can and can’t say in the unruly online world.
In BBC4’s fantastic documentary Supersized Earth we are taken on a journey around the world to see how humanity is transforming the planet. Episode 3 featured, amongst other things, the world’s largest cattle ranches (Brazil), the world’s biggest opencast mine (USA), and the construction of the earth’s largest man-made river (China). The Chinese are building a 700 mile aqueduct from the South to the North, with each 45m long concrete section, built on site, falling exactly 1cm from end to end.
According to the Telegraph this is one of the world’s five largest engineering projects. Yet strangely it has barely featured in the British media.
And while ordinary bloggers wrote enthusiastically about this inspiring documentary, newspaper reviewers were less excited.
TV critic at the Metro Keith Watson was the most vitriolic, claiming the documentary ‘insulted the viewers intelligence’ because it didn’t mention the problems caused by humans, only the way humans have invented solutions. Startlingly Watson accused the doc of ‘lacking an agenda other than pulling off crazy stunts’. Writing in the Guardian Tim Dowling commented that ‘there is virtually no moral dimension to this tribute to the man-made’.
The lack of a ‘moral dimension’ also puzzled other critics, who seemed lost without one. The Independent’s Tom Sutcliffe was ‘slightly at a loss to describe what Supersized Earth is about. Engineering?Social change?An opportunity to make Campbell do thrillingly ghastly things?’ Andrew Anthony in the Observer complained that ‘you constantly had to remind yourself what it was about’.
‘It’s probably best if you don’t try to pull out a coherent thread’, Sutcliffe concluded, ‘and just treat it as the television equivalent of a flick through the technology section of the Guinness World Records’. For Anthony it was ‘the documentary as hyperactive panic attack. It left you feeling exhausted’.
Its as if they couldn’t appreciate that man’s mastery of his environment has been an achievement, instead of a problem. ‘Carrying on as if all the ecological challenges facing Earth didn’t exist – many of which can be laid at the door at the rampant urbanisation that has stripped us of many natural resources’ complained Watson in the Metro.
‘The viewer isn’t required to fret about the population density of Hong Kong’, an astonished Tim Dowling reflected. ‘Even colossal man-made problems are portrayed as man-made solutions-in-waiting’. A massive sewerage problem under Mexico City? ‘Don’t worry – they’re building a 62km-long sewer pipe – at 7m in diameter, the world’s biggest’.
Perhaps expressions of confidence in progress through technology, without anxious worrying about risks and unequal benefits, simply goes against the grain of British culture. It seems ‘don’t worry’ is the last thing some people want to hear.
The 25 year old Chinese crane driver responsible for lifting the concrete aqueduct sections into position had a different outlook. ‘I never thought that I could participate in such a big project. Because what I normally do is the small things’, she told the camera, grinning from ear to ear. ‘To lift such heavy loads, from my point of view I feel… I feel very …. honoured, yeah, honoured‘.
The BBC’s Robin Lustig announced yesterday that next Monday will be the 70th anniversary of ‘one of the most significant and least know international declarations ever made’. Was this the declaration of independence by some obscure colony? No, this was a statement agreed by the Allied governments of Britain, the US, the Soviet Union, in which they condemned the German Nazis for their ‘appalling brutality’ and ‘bloody cruelties’ towards the Jews of Europe.
The statement was read out in the House of Commons on 17 December 1942.
What the BBC didn’t ask is why this ‘significant’ declaration was made only in 1942, over two years after the start of the war – a global war which was fought in North Africa and Asia, and included India, the Middle East and other colonial areas under British and European rule.
And Professor Jean Seaton of the University of Westminster struggled to explain why the declaration was then swiftly dropped and ‘put under the carpet’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p7bxy/The_World_Tonight_12_12_2012/
So what was the Second World War all about?
In a recent debate at Sheffield University, authors and academics took part in a discussion about some of the myths of the Second World War.
Above is the contribution by James Heartfield, author of a new ‘Unpatriotic History of the Second World War’, who forthrightly rejects the notion that it was a ‘people’s war’ against dictatorships or facism.
The full debate can be seen at www.sheffieldsalon.org.uk/category/previous-events/
Have you ever wondered why we buy flowers from places like Kenya and Ethiopia when people there are struggling to feed themselves? In an area of the world in which regular droughts result in hunger, wouldn’t the water and land be better used to grow food?
In 2010 I visited Kenya to talk to some of the people involved in the flower industry. This is highlights of an interview with CEO of the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya, Dr Stephen Mbithi Mwikya, along with Nancy, a flower farm worker, talking at the Panda Day Care Centre in Naivasha, one of Kenya’s ‘flower towns’.
This video is part of a work in progress documentary, called ‘Bloom’, about the growth of the flower industry in Kenya.
In October 2012 The Anglers Club in Leeds was the venue for a World Music Fest. Non-stop music and dancing featured local performers as well as acts from all around the World, including Songo Drumming. Watch this space for video highlights.
We are told that the press needs regulating because people have been the victims of press abuse. But what exactly is press abuse? This vague term, trotted out by politicians, judges and ‘responsible’ journalists, includes reporters pestering bereaved relatives, press photographers chasing after celebrities as well as stories or pictures which the victim finds upsetting. Press abuse can be anything we find immoral, vulgar, uncaring or hurtful.
It seems that today annoying behaviour and difficult relationships are being redefined as abusive, and we are finding abuse behind every closed door.
So alongside child abuse we now have elder abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse and even parental abuse (that’s abuse of parents by their kids). We live in a society in which smacking, having an argument, getting drunk, getting high, and shouting at our parents are all redefined as abuse. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the press has come under the same catch all term.
Other professions are regulated then why not the press? Post-Levenson this has become the new mantra. But the press is not like the medical profession, which is a closed body with exams and qualifications needed to gain admittance. The hack is not like a gas engineer who can expose its customers to harm if a pipe is not soldered correctly.
Professions are, quite rightly, elevated above the general public as experts. In order to maintain standards in their expertise they regulate themselves. Writing articles or researching stories, on the other hand, is not a skill. It does not require exams or qualifications.
The media does not engage with the public as clients who can be harmed through malpractice, but as free citizens who are robust enough to answer questions and read articles they don’t like. Of course the press can annoy and upset people – but none of this does anyone any real harm, in spite of claims by high profile celebrity ‘victims’ of ‘press abuse’.
To say the press needs regulating is like saying we all need regulating – over and above the laws which already ‘regulate’ us. The press is not a profession, despite the inflated egos of some media pundits. They are not a cut above the rest, in a class of their own. They simply exercise the freedom of expression enjoyed by us all as citizens – no more no less.
For this short vox pop I wanted to find out what students thought about the rise in tuition fees. I drew up a series of questions asking them why they had made the decision to come to Leeds University and whether fees had put them off. I wanted students to tell me whether they thought the fees were worth it. But I quickly realised that most saw the degree as simply a necessary step into a job, so I decided to get them to reflect on the purpose of university. I wanted to know – had students no interest in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake?
There is a website called ask where everyone can be anonyomous in their questions, but you can see who you are asking questions to. Not surprisingly this is a great opportunity for kids to ask cruel questions to people they know. Like why are you so fat Simon? Why are your lips so big Andrew? Or why have you got no friends Saleem? The standard playground stuff that as we grow older develops into good humoured banter.
A girl had been invited on to describe how she was told anonymously that she wore too much make up amongst other things. She had left the site as a result.
A boy had been told his dead brother must have experienced a lot of pain before he died. It turned out that it was one of his best friends. He’s still on the site but is no longer friends with the ‘abuser’.
If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything, argued an expert invited to comment on Radio 4 this morning.
Increasingly though the message is if you can’t say something nice, then you can’t say anything unless you want to be arrested. Currently this only applies online. But no doubt calling people names and being nasty will soon become a crime in real life. Oh hang on, it already has. On the football terraces.