Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, future Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Liberal leader Clement Davies all talk in Parliament about the need to rethink nationalism and introduce a democratic world assembly.

Labour, Conservative and Liberal leaders criticising everything from the UN Security Council veto to “the barriers that divide us”.

This the language of today’s anti-G8 protesters. Whereas 60 years ago it was the voice of our elected politicians.

Do we have to wait for another world war before we find that language in the mainstream again?

Here are a few quotes.

(thanks to the amazing guys at mySociety for getting this material online):

“We need a new study for the purpose of creating a world assembly elected directly from the people of the world, as a whole, to whom the Governments who form the United Nations are responsible and who, in fact, make the world law which they, the people, will then accept and be morally bound and willing to carry out. For it will be from their votes that the power will have been derived, and it will be for their direct representatives to carry it out. You may invent all sorts of devices to decide who is the aggressor but, after all the thought you can give to it, the only repository of faith I have been able to find to determine that is the common people.” (Foreign Minister Bevin)

or,

“Unfortunately, during the last 150 years too much emphasis has been laid upon antagonistic nationalism, which has led to disruption, jealousy and, ultimately, to war. Men ought to be able to appeal to the commonman everywhere to surrender this national sovereignty and to do away also with all the barriers which divide us. Do away with all those man-made difficulties of communicating with other men. Let us share the benefits that Nature has provided in the world. If this were done and if we could look upon the world, which is now getting smaller and smaller, as one world with one people, subject to one rule, we should have accomplished more in our time than all the generations which have preceded us.” (Head of Liberals, Davies)

or,

“We have got somehow to take the sting out of nationalism. We cannot hope to do so at once, but we ought to start working for it now… We should make up our minds where we want to go. In this respect I know where I want to go. I want to get a world in which the relations between the nations can be transformed in a given period of time—we cannot do it in a short period—as the relations between this country and Scotland and Wales have been transformed. At an early date, in my judgment, the United Nations ought to review their Charter in the light of the discoveries about atomic energy which were not before us when the Charter was drawn up. Nothing showed more clearly the hold that nationalism has upon us all than the decision of that Conference to retain the power of veto. Surely in the light of what has passed since San Francisco the United Nations ought to look at that again, and, having looked at it, I hope they will unanimously decide that the retention of such a provision in the Charter is an anachronism in the modern world.” (Future PM Eden)

Full(ish) text.

Use the links to access the full record:

Anthony Eden – 22 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-22a.611.3

Let me come to what seem to me to be the fundamentals of this problem. The truth is that by the discovery of this atomic energy science has placed us several laps ahead of the present phase of international political development, and unless we can catch up politically to the point we have reached in science, and thus command the power which at present threatens us, we are all going to be blown to smithereens… I agree, too, that no safeguards by themselves will provide an effective guarantee. They have to be accompanied by the acceptance of the rule of law amongst the nations…

The truth is that all the inventions of recent years have tended the same way, to narrow the world, to bring us closer together and, therefore, to intensify the shock and sharpen the reactions before the shock absorbers are ready. Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty, and yet it is not the least use our deluding ourselves … It is yet true that national sentiment is still as strong as ever, and here and there it is strengthened by this further complication, the different conceptions of forms of government and different conceptions of what words mean, words like “freedom” and “democracy.” So, despite some stirrings, the world has not, so far, been ready to abandon, or even really to modify, its old conceptions of sovereignty. But there have been some stirrings… I have thought much on this question of atomic energy both before and since that bomb burst on Nagasaki, and for the life of me I have been unable to see, and am still unable to see, any final solution which will make the world safe for atomic power, save that we all abate our present ideas of sovereignty.

I am not making a party point. We have got somehow to take the sting out of nationalism. We cannot hope to do so at once, but we ought to start working for it now… We should make up our minds where we want to go. In this respect I know where I want to go. I want to get a world in which the relations between the nations can be transformed in a given period of time—we cannot do it in a short period—as the relations between this country and Scotland and Wales have been transformed. What are we going to do about that? What are the first steps that can be taken? One of the first steps has been described by the right hon. Gentleman in the communiqué which was issued from Washington, and I hope the further steps which I have traced will be followed up to get this United Nations Mission to work soon.

There is another possible step in connection with the San Francisco organisation. At an early date, in my judgment, the United Nations ought to review their Charter in the light of the discoveries about atomic energy which were not before us when the Charter was drawn up. Nothing showed more clearly the hold that nationalism has upon us all than the decision of that Conference to retain the power of veto. Surely in the light of what has passed since San Francisco the United Nations ought to look at that again, and, having looked at it, I hope they will unanimously decide that the retention of such a provision in the Charter is an anachronism in the modern world.

Clement Davies – 22 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-22a.631.1

The cost of war is, as we all know, illimitable and immeasurable, in the agony, sorrow and misery that it causes not only for one generation but for many generations. Peace also has its price, but the price is not heavy. It would be a small premium to pay for the abolition of war. It would merely be the surrender of national sovereignty. Unfortunately, during the last 150 years too much emphasis has been laid upon antagonistic nationalism, which has led to disruption, jealousy and, ultimately, to war. Men ought to be able to appeal to the commonman everywhere to surrender this national sovereignty and to do away also with all the barriers which divide us. Do away with all those man-made difficulties of communicating with other men. Let us share the benefits that Nature has provided in the world. If this were done and if we could look upon the world, which is now getting smaller and smaller, as one world with one people, subject to one rule, we should have accomplished more in our time than all the generations which have preceded us.

Ernest Bevin – 23 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-23a.783.1

[Eden] said there must be established a rule of law, but law must derive its power and observance from a definite source, and in studying this problem I am driven to ask: Will law be observed, if it is arrived at only by treaty and promises and decisions by governments as at present arranged? In all the years this has broken down so often. I trust it will not break down again but, if it is not to break down again, I think it must lead us still further on. In other words, will the people feel that the law is their law if it is derived and enforced by the adoption of past methods, whether League of Nations, concert of Europe, or anything of that kind? The illustration was drawn of the constitution of the United Kingdom, which took many years to establish. Where does the power to make law actually rest? It is not even in this House, it is certainly not in the Executive, it is in the votes of the people. They are sovereign authority.

It may be interesting to call attention to the development of the United States of America. Originally, when the States came together, they met as States with separate Governments, but they soon discovered that they had little or no power to enforce their decisions, and it is the enforcement of the decision, the sanction, that is the real difficulty in world law or any law. They then decided, for the purpose of conducting foreign affairs, taxation, defence and the regulation of commerce, that they would create a federal body and in that body there would be direct representation of the people, not through the 13 States, but direct from the people to the federal Parliament of the country. So, from the outset, the United States drew its power to make laws directly from the people. That is the growth of the United States to the great State which it is today.

… I think it right to let the country see exactly where the surrender of sovereignty leads us. The fact is, no one ever surrenders sovereignty; they merge it into a greater sovereignty.

A portion, for specific limited purposes… It can only deal with the specific objective that the people feel is necessary for their security.

[Eden:

Might I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, because he keeps saying that I referred to the surrender of sovereignty, and I never said anything like that. The point I was trying to make, which I think he is trying to make, is that these modern developments make nonsense of certain old-fashioned conceptions of sovereignty.]

Bevin:

Well, I am trying to put a new one anyway.

I am asked to restudy San Franscisco [where it was agreed to form the UN]. I have not only restudied it but, when it was being developed, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, I was gravely concerned, with him, as to whether we were really finding the right solution. There was no conflict between us. We were all trying to do our best, and what worried me, and the right hon. Gentleman and others on the Committee of the then Cabinet, going through all these meticulous documents, was whether again the people would be disappointed. That was his worry, I know, as it was ours. Now that is added to, and accentuated, by the coming of the atomic bomb and many other devastating weapons. In 1940, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford [Churchill] offered France joint citizen ship—

Mr Winston Churchill (Woodford)

We were all in it.

Mr Ernest Bevin (Wandsworth Central)

Yes, that is quite right. Often after that I tried to study how we could have given effect to it, and it seemed to me that joint citizenship involved joint Parliament and joint responsibility. It involved an acceptance of this for certain limited purposes in order to derive the powers of law. Therefore, when we turn from all the things you have built up the League of Nations or your constitution—I feel we are driven relentlessly along this road: we need a new study for the purpose of creating a world assembly elected directly from the people of the world, as a whole, to whom the Governments who form the United Nations are responsible and who, in fact, make the world law which they, the people, will then accept and be morally bound and willing to carry out. For it will be from their votes that the power will have been derived, and it will be for their direct representatives to carry it out. You may invent all sorts of devices to decide who is the aggressor but, after all the thought you can give to it, the only repository of faith I have been able to find to determine that is the common people.

There has never been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented. The fact is they are kept separated from one another. How did Hitler do that? He enslaved Germany with a law as bad as our Vagabond Act of centuries ago, and did not allow anybody to move hither or thither. I knew a South African professor who went into Germany for 12 months as an experiment and read nothing but Nazi papers. He was hard put to it to resist the mental influence as a result—a strong-minded man who made up his mind to try the effect of it upon himself. The common man, I think, is the great protection against war. The supreme act of Government is the horrible duty of deciding matters which affect the life or death of the people. That power rests in this House as far as this country is concerned. I would merge that power into the greater power of a directly elected world assembly in order that the great repositories of destruction and science, on the one hand, may be their property, against the misuse of which it is their duty to protect us and, on the other hand, that they may determine in the ordinary sense whether a country is acting as an aggressor or not.

I am willing to sit with anybody, of any party, of any nation, to try to devise a franchise or a constitution—just as other great countries have done—for a world assembly, as the right hon. Gentleman said, with a limited objective—the objective of peace. Once we can get to that stage I believe we shall have taken a great progressive step. In the meantime, there must be no weakening of the institution which my right hon. Friends built in San Francisco. It must be the prelude to further development. This must not be considered a substitute for it, but rather a completion or a development of it, so that the benefit of the experience and administration derived in that institution may be carried to its final end. From the moment you accept that, one phrase goes, and that is “international law.” That phrase presupposes conflict between nations. It would be replaced by “world law,” with a moral world force behind it, rather than a law built upon case made law and on agreements. It would be a world law with a world judiciary to interpret it, with a world police to enforce it, with the decision of the people with their own votes resting in their own hands, irrespective of race or creed, as the great world sovereign elected authority which would hold in its care the destinies of the people of the world.

While the UK news is full of stories about John Bercow and his role as Speaker of the House of Commons, spare a thought for his opposite number in the Palestinian parliament: Aziz Duwek (pic above).

Duwek was released today after nearly three years in Israeli prison. He was seized along with 40 others six months after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority.

Duwek is lucky today, but what of the other Palestinian MPs that are part of the 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons?

Highly Improbable Numbers

The numbers. Official figures claim Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote or 24.5M ballots cast. An extra 7M people are supposed to have voted for him since the second round of the last election when there was only one other candidate, Rafsanjani, another conservative.

What has changed since the last election:

• In 2005, following two-terms of popular reformist president Khatami, Iranians had to choose a new president, but reformists fielded several candidates. Through a combination of disatisfaction over reformist achievements during Khatami's rule,  candidates disqualified from standing, and a split in the reformist candidates that were eventually allowed to run, many voters stayed away from the ballot
• In 2005, Ahmadinejad was running in the second round against Rafsanjani, a regime stalwart, who twice served as president of Iran (during the Iran-Iraq war). The choice between the two conservatives (albeit to varying degrees) led to a relatively low turnout, and many choosing Ahmadinejad as the unknown non-cleric, non-Rafsanjani candidate
• In 2009, voters were motivated (massive turnout) and reformists solidly backed one candidate, Mousavi

There is strong evidence linking turnout with reformist victories:

• In 1997, Khatami took 70% of the vote with a 88% turnout in a reformist vs conservative election
• In 2001, Khatami was re-elected with 78% of the vote with a similarly high turnout
• In 2005, in initial turnout of 63% (already relatively quite low) dropped to 48% when the second round run-off made it a conservative vs conservative election, resulting in Ahmadinejad's election
• In 2009, a huge turnout with voting extended by four hours results in a 63% win for the conservatives?

Conclusive?

While none of this is conclusive proof that the results of the elections were rigged at the final stage, we know the dice were loaded from the outset.

Personally, I like the analogy of democracy as pregnancy; you can't be half-pregnant and you can't be semi-democratic.

The screening of candidates by the guardian council and the absence of free domestic media means that there is no democracy in Iran and that is what people are in the streets protesting about.

When they shout 'death to the dictator', it's not directed against Ahmadinejad, it's against the ‘supreme leader‘ himself.

Let's hope the protesters are victorious.

Have a look at this UN map (2 Megs) to see the area (south of Hebron). The map also gives a good idea of the current restrictions and closures in the West Bank.

The crossing from Jerusalem into the West Bank (towards Bethlehem). You have to go through two rotating gates, put your bags through an unmanned x-ray machine, scan your hand, and show your documents through the bombproof glass to the Israeli soldiers on duty. The colourful poster on the wall is from the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and it says: “Peace be with you”.

Welcome to Hebron, West Bank. Home to several hundred ideological Israeli settlers who frequently attack Palestinians in the area (who number 30,000). These settlers are protected by approx 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

JDL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League

World’s Worst Football Pitch? Downtown Hebron. The Israeli flag is flying over Shohada street, which is out of bounds for Palestinian vehicles (and effectively people, unless you want to get attacked).

Two Palestinian schoolgirls stand at the top-end of Shohada street, in front of concrete blocks to stop vehicles entering.

Smashed windows of a Palestinian building and an Israeli army post watches over the end of the street.

An armed settler takes a stroll in Hebron.

Leaving Hebron to the village of At-Tuwani. Behind our van you can see the Palestinian road (dirt) crossing the settler road (tarmac). Palestinian cars with green number plates are not allowed on settler roads. You need a yellow Israeli numberplate to drive on them.

The view from At-Tuwani. You can see the Ma’on settlement in the distance. An ‘illegal’ settler outpost (they’re all illegal under international law) is hidden at the top of the green hill on the right.

Playing football with the boys and girls in At-Tuwani village.

Waiting with the schoolkids from Tuba who have to walk between the settlement and the outpost to get home. Since CPT activists were attacked while accompanying the children to school, Israel has said that only the Israeli army can now accompany them, the international presence is considered ‘provocative’.

Soldiers finally show up to escort the kids up the path between the settlement and the outpost.

off they go.. (outpost up the green hill on the right). Settlers frequently attack the kids, verbally and physically, and the army is often of little help to the kids.

The mosque in At-Tuwani. It was bulldozed by the Israelis for being built without a permit. After praying in a tent for nearly a year, they rebuilt it, only to have a demolition order reissued on the mosque.

Walking with Josh to the village of Tuba where the schoolkids live. We have to take a lengthy detour (1 hour) to avoid walking straight past the settlement (which only talkes 15 minutes).

Meet Omar, a farmer who lives with his 10 kids in a cave in Tuba. He obsessively listens to BBC Arabic from the radio on the right. Omar has to keep the white sacks of animal feed in the cave because settlers have set fire to it in the past.

Omar’s son Ahmad in the cave in front of the animal feed. Three of his sisters are sleeping in the background.

Waking up (too early). The view from outside their cave.

The view across the valley to the settlements.

Breeding birds. [The hamam above the hammam - one for the Arabists]

Omar keeps (terrifying) dogs to warn when settlers are approaching. The sheep don’t seem to mind them (unlike me).

Accompanying Omar on the long route to At-Tuwani so he can go for Friday prayers.

At least the settlers force us to take the scenic route

Behind Omar is a ridge that Palestinian drivers without permits for Israel can take to go find work. So when you hear arguments about The Wall stopping bombers, it’s rubbish; there are plenty of ways to get into Israel for ‘illegal’ Palestinians.

At least Omar hasn’t lost his smile..

Helping farmers harvest their barley in the valley below the settlement. The presence of foreigners and their cameras deters settlers from some of their more blatant attacks, according to the Palestinians.

Palestinian donkeys get a rough ride too..

A couple of settlers assessing the situation of Palestinian farmers in the valley.

The Israeli army and settler security arrives to watch over the settlers as they walk provocatively through the farmers and their flocks, asserting their right to be there. Fortunately, no violence ensues.

Welcome to Umm Al-Kheir, where Bedouins live literally a stone’s throw away from settlers. The roof in the background is the settlement.

It’s unbelievably close. Not only is the settlement built on the bedouin land, but settlers often throw projectiles at their Bedouin neighbours.

A Bedouin house next to a new extension to the settlement.

Bilal points out how the settlement houses have no windows on this side, despite a fantastic view of the valley. “They want to pretend we don’t exist, that they’re not stealing our land”, he said.

Bilal points to one of his family’s houses which has been marked for demolition because according to Israel it was built without a permit (like the mosque in At-Tuwani). In case you’re wondering, Israel never issues permits for these properties.

Two of the other houses scheduled for demolition. In the background you can see the settlement houses.

The fourth house marked for demolition, with more settler houses in the background. Bilal’s grandfather talks of when the settlement started in November 1981. “We’ve tried to reach agreement on sharing the well water. On sharing the land. We want a peaceful agreement but they don’t want any agreement”.

This apparently used to be a volleyball court… We found out during our visit that the Israeli settlement had sent round a vet who shot two of the bedouins’ dogs. He is threatening to shoot the rest unless they pay for vaccination. The Israeli group I was with (Tayyush) said they might be able to get an animal rights group to help the Bedouin. Animal Rights, not Human Rights.

Martyr poster of Samer in the Yarmouk camp, who died fighting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Will Smith in ‘I am Legend’

“Would you ever blow yourself up?” 24-year-old Ibrahim asked me over the bubbles of his water-pipe.

I had just stepped off the plane back to Damascus, having spent the flight watching Will Smith’s heroic role as suicide bomber in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘I am Legend’. At the end of the film, Smith hurls himself and a grenade at a wave of salivating zombies, enabling the other two humans to escape with the cure that will save humanity. A pretty noble act in my opinion; a view probably shared by the millions of Americans who helped it smash box-office records.

But this isn’t a deserted Los Angeles, this is a Palestinian refugee camp, and those zombies are Israeli, American and to a lesser extent, British soldiers. Ibrahim is not talking on my hypothetical level; he’s talking about Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I don’t think I’d do it,” said Muhammad, another English Literature student who had come to me for some help reading Wuthering Heights. “What good is it going to do? Put a dent in a Hummer?”

Muhammad’s cynicism is not shared by the powers that be. My free pullout from this month’s ‘Muslim Palestine’, the Hamas mouthpiece I receive as one of the many perks of my gym membership, is a picture of an AK-47, the gun covered in the kind of flower combination you only see in the Greenfields at Glastonbury. It now covers a rusty crack on my fridge.

“Our life is jihad, our martyrdom is victory”, runs the poster’s slogan, under the smaller title: “Week of the Martyrs 2008”.

The slogans at the gym are more poetic, albeit the accompanying scenes more graphic. Alongside the omnipresent faces of the assassinated Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi are peeling posters extolling the gory glory of ‘martyrdom’. Next to the bench press is a picture of an imaginary battlefield, the bloodied heroes stepping over their dismembered foes.

However, despite the propaganda, few of the gym members pay much attention; they spend more time concentrating on the dog-eared photos above the free weights.

“He’s British like you. Incredible. Look at him”, says Ali, pointing at one of the orange bundles of muscle, bursting out of steroid-shrunken Speedos. Before I can comment, he’s off to the storeroom in the corner to inject himself towards his idea of a perfect body.

Although stories of ‘martyrdom’ don’t permeate gym-chat – at least not while I’m there – there are plenty of tales out there.

Ahmad, a 28-year-old perfume seller with a passion for Ingmar Bergman films, tells me about his neighbour and friend Samer who went to fight in Iraq.

“His parents thought he was on holiday in Saudi Arabia, and then the news came that the Americans had killed him. He was quite senior, you know, apparently he carried a holdall full of dollars and even had a sat phone”.

Samer had become more religious a few years previously, so much so that he moved out of his parent’s flat – he couldn’t live with a TV in the house. When you climb the stairs to his brother’s flat, there’s a fading poster of his face on every landing, accompanied by a fresh rose.

For most in the west, we think of people like Samer when we hear terms like ‘terrorist’ or ‘martyrdom operations’. A faceless, bearded Muslim, young and angry. It fits well with the idea of virgins in heaven as a reward for self-sacrifice. A frustrated male in a conservative society. A simple sexual urge, not a political act. I asked my friends what they thought.

“You think they do this to get laid?” asks Muhammad, laughing hard. “Why not pay $20 dollars and go to Jeramana [an Iraqi refugee district]?”

Hadi, a university student and member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is not smiling. He’s frustrated with the way Islamist groups try to monopolise the concept of martyrdom.

“Martyrdom is not Islamic, no matter what the Islamists will try and tell you,” he says, frustrated. “What about the operations of the PFLP? Do we not have our martyrs?”

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel and Palestine, the PFLP carried out a series of suicide bombings, despite being a secular organisation. The party’s founder and leader until 2000 was the late George Habash, a Palestinian Christian.

Posters following the death of George Habash; the first in the Christian quarter of Damascus, the second from Yarmouk.

“Hamas and others are taking advantage of the Muslim society, and using that to boost their support. This is not about religion, it’s about land.”

Muhammad disagreed. “It’s a religious issue because we live in the Muslim world. I accept that certain groups exploit that for their own propaganda, to get more recruits.”

Turning to me, he added: “but the political issues are real. The occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are not an illusion and of course we will resist. Sunni, Shia, Christian or Communist, we will continue to have our martyrs.”

“The people of Britain and America support the Iraq war. That’s why they re-elected Blair and Bush.” (near-daily comment I hear)

“Well not really. It’s just they prioritise their own issues. Like the domestic economy or opposing abortion. You can’t expect citizens of one country to care about those somewhere else. Everyone votes for self-interest. The war in Iraq affects Iraqis; they are the ones who need a vote.” (my tortured response)

So why not? And this is the plan: to give Iraqis a vote in the forthcoming US election.

Ok, so it’ll be a publicity stunt, but it will also be real.

The idea is to connect Iraqis with Americans who either don’t want their vote, or actively wish to give a voice to those in Iraq who will be directly affected by the election outcome.

One of the main issues of the Republican vs. Democrat battle will be whether US troops should stay in Iraq.

Don’t you think it’s time we asked Iraqis?

Realistically, I can only imagine a handful of people would participate, but I’m hoping that maybe some accompanying media coverage will make people think about how national democracies are not the answer to global problems.

If you know of anyone who might give some seed funding to a crazy idea like this, let me know

I’ve been in Syria for the past six weeks so haven’t been reading the Guardian (or writing on this blog).

However, I just came across a May 22nd copy of the Guardian on Indymedia, which to be frank, was shocking.

The headline of the article reads: Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq.

At this point, you might think: interesting story. However, at the end of the first paragraph, Simon Tisdall reveals his sources, writing “US officials say”.

Wow. How terrible is that journalism? The headline is not even in quotation marks. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand the skewed interests of ‘US officials’ and the likelihood of media manipulation.

Imagine if the Guardian broke a ’story’ on its front page about US plans to carpet bomb Damascus, only to find out further down that their source was Iranian officials.

I must say I’m quite disappointed because I generally read the Guardian, although the Independent does have better Middle East coverage.

***
ps went to the Iranian Cultural Institute in Damascus the other day and was invited to a recital of Khomeini’s poetry. Would have been comedy. Happy 100th birthday AK.

Today I had lunch with two colleagues, Samir and Farid.

“He asked what caste we are – I don’t know that!” complained Birmingham-born Samir, as he nudged his battered cod with a fork.

Samir is about to get married. Or at least he hopes so. He’s lined up a girl (a friend of his sister) and he’s trying to persuade her dad that he’s good enough for her. Last weekend, Samir and his parents went round to Aysha’s house to meet her family and get to know each other.

“Usually, at these things, you’re meant to talk about everything but the marriage. But her dad got stuck in, asking me dozens of questions and saying I wasn’t good enough. Then my dad lost it and said they weren’t good enough”, said Samir in his Brum accent.

“But Aysha’s been great, really fighting our corner”, he continued, smiling. “She’s been pleading with her dad and crying all the time”.

At this point Farid planted the pepper grinder in the middle of the table, as if staking his claim in the conversation.

“Samir, you need to take control of this situation. Who cares about what her dad says. You know what you should do? You should call the police, they’ll help sort him out. They’ll show her dad how important his opinion is”, he advised in his Urdu-accented English.

“That sounds a bit heavy”, I commented, “Samir probably wants to stay on good terms with his in-laws.”

This time Farid brought the salt shaker to join the pepper grinder, as if calling reinforcements.

“You know, in the past 50 years, us Pakistanis have progressed, whereas everyone who came to Britain back then seems to have frozen in time. When I went back to Pakistan last year, all of my married cousins – except one – were in love marriages. I went to a dinner party where three of my male cousins were there with their girlfriends. If that was fifty years ago, they’d have been shot”, commented Farid, as he flicked part of a chip from his pin-striped suit.

Samir evidently wasn’t listening. “It’s all because of her older sister, he wants to marry her off first.”

“This is ridiculous,” interjected Farid, “why do you pay attention to any of this religious crap?”

“It’s nothing to do with Islam – it’s rubbish tradition”, replied Samir, a little slighted by the remark.

Ultra-friendly and softly spoken, Samir is the most religious person I work with. He goes to mosque regularly and fasts quietly during Ramadan.

Farid, on the other hand, is almost anti-religious. Like Samir, he has Pakistani roots. Unlike Samir, he was born in Pakistan and lived there for thirty years.

“Well, at least you don’t have my problem,” mused Farid. “My mother won’t stop going on about me getting married. At first she was picky, saying ‘Farid, please don’t marry a Shi’a girl. If you do, I’ll kill myself’. Then she was like ‘I don’t mind if you marry a Shi’a, any Muslim’s ok’. Now she says ‘marry anything, I just want grandchildren’”.

Samir flipped his cod over and started picking at the greasy batter, I think he was getting bored of the wedding conversation. Either that or he was getting depressed.

“So why do you want to learn Arabic in Damascus?” he asked me, sending the conversation off on a new path.

“Well, you know, I’m interested in Middle East politics and I’ve spent a lot of time in the region. I want to improve my Arabic and Syria’s the place to do it. Besides, it’ll help my job prospects,” I conceded.

“Arabic and Farsi,” Farid pondered, “you could probably get a job at the Foreign Office with those skills.”

“But that would mean working for the government”, I replied, “and that’s a bit of a red line for me.”

“Oh come on.” Farid dismissed my position with a shake of his spoon. “You’ve got to get involved with power if you want to do anything. Change it from within”.

“You’re not buying into the whole work-your-way-up-from-the-inside thing are you?” I asked. “I don’t want to be another chump spinning policy designed by the politicians on top. Besides, how much foreign policy is really driven by the UK anyway? Don’t we just follow the Americans?”

Samir smiled. We’d had a related conversation that morning with one of his Welsh colleagues, Daffyd, who’d interrupted our 10-minute coffee break by clanging his tray on the table and asking the immortal opener: “so what are the prospects for peace in the Middle East, then?”

Samir had tried to dodge the question but found himself at the end of his break, halfway through saying something about US power in the world. He is a firm believer that the US ‘empire’, like all others in history, is destined to collapse at some point.

Farid replied: “This whole chat about US this and that is rubbish. You know damn well that if Palestinians were in America’s position right now they’d be doing the same thing.”

“Completely agree”, I said, sensing it as an opportunity to chat about changing global institutions – a subject I have learned to talk softly about, since most people think I’m loopy at the first mention of the topic. “What we need to do is change the structure behind the power. I think we need some sort of assembly where we can be heard irrespective of where we live or what passport we hold.”

Farid’s eyes glazed over slightly and I rapidly became paranoid about sounding like a lunatic again.

“That’ll never happen. Think of the EU and Turkey. Europeans will never accept Turks as one of their own. No matter how much you want to, you can never persuade the richer countries to share their resources with the poorer ones”.

“I’m not talking about a world government,” I replied, “just an assembly, a parliament. Besides, the EU – like any country – is defined by a created identity, ‘European-ness’. So it’s always going to need ‘non-Europeans’ to define itself by. A democratic world assembly doesn’t suffer from the same constraints. All you need to be is human.”

Farid was unconvinced. “Not everybody wants to see themselves that way. Plenty of people are happy with their national identity”.

“I know, I know. But the whole point of a world assembly is that you could choose to put your national identity first. You could still vote as a Brit, or Pakistani, along with others who feel the same way. However, if you defined yourself in other ways – as a Muslim, a Catalan, a securlarist, a European, or indeed a Halfiranian, you’d have the freedom to do so, and your ‘group’ could make itself heard in an open and democratic way. At the moment that’s not the case. It’s be British or be quiet”.

Farid was looking pensive when Samir chimed in:

“Human. That’s how I see myself. Not British or Pakistani, but human”.

Hmm, I thought to myself. Maybe it’s us mongrels and migrants who will have to get this ball rolling.

Today’s truck bomb in Baghdad has killed well over a hundred people.

In our media, it becomes just another bomb attack in Iraq – a conflict that bores us these days. Well, to jog your memory, here’s a list of major bomb attacks in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein:

• Aug. 19, 2003 – A truck bomb wrecks U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
• Aug. 29, 2003 – A car bomb kills at least 83 people, including top Shi’ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.
• Feb. 1, 2004 – 117 people are killed when two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Arbil at the offices of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
• Feb. 10, 2004 – Suicide car bomb rips through a police station in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killing 53.
• Feb. 11, 2004 – Suicide car bomb explodes at an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad, killing 47.
• March 2, 2004 – 171 people are killed in twin attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala.
• Dec. 19, 2004 – A suicide car bomb blast in Najaf, 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, kills 52 and wounds 140.
• Feb. 28, 2005 – A suicide car bomb attack in Hilla, south of Baghdad, kills 125 people and wounds 130. It was postwar Iraq’s worst single blast.
• July 16, 2005 – A suicide bomber in a fuel truck near a Shi’ite mosque in the town of Mussayib, near Kerbala, kills 98.
• Sept. 14, 2005 – A suicide bomber kills 114 people and wounds 156 in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad.
• Sept. 29, 2005 – 98 people are killed in three coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shi’ite and Sunni town of Balad.
• Nov. 18, 2005 – At least 74 people are killed and 150 wounded when suicide bombers blow themselves up inside two Shi’ite mosques in Khanaqin.
• Jan. 5, 2006 – Two suicide bombers kill over 120 people and wound more than 200 in the cities of Kerbala and Ramadi. Fifty-three were killed and 148 wounded in Kerbala and 70 killed and 65 wounded in Ramadi.
• July 1, 2006 – A car bomb attack at a crowded market in Sadr city, a Shi’ite district of eastern Baghdad, kills 62 and wounds 114. The Supporters of the Sunni People, a previously unknown Iraqi Sunni Muslim group claim responsibility.
• July 18, 2006 – Fifty-nine people are killed by a suicide bomb in Kufa, near Najaf, in an attack claimed by al Qaeda.
• Aug. 10, 2006 – Thirty-five people are killed and 90 injured by bomb blasts near the Imam Ali shrine in southern city of Najaf. The Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions) group claims responsibility.
• Nov. 23, 2006 – Six car bombs in different parts of the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad kill 202 people and wound 250.
• Dec. 12, 2006 – A suicide bomber kills 70 people and wounds at least 236 in Tayran Square, in central Baghdad after luring a crowd of labourers to his vehicle with promises of work.
• Jan. 16, 2007 – A car bomb and suicide bomber strike the Mustansiriya University in central Baghdad killing at least 70 people and wounding 180.
• Jan. 22, 2007 – A double car bombing at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, a busy commercial area in central Baghdad, kills 88 people and wounds 160.
• Feb. 1, 2007 – Two suicide bombers blow themselves up at a crowded market in Shi’ite town of Hilla, killing 61 people and wounding 150.
• Feb. 3, 2007 – Truck bomb kills 105 people and wounds 225 in a busy market in central Baghdad.

Farmer Hasan Turkmen and his son Ahmad sit outside their demolished house just north of Jenin in the West Bank, September 2003. Israeli forces had arrived that very morning giving them ten minutes to clear out the house. There are no militants in the Turkmen family, their crime was to have built the house without a permit over a decade ago.

Anyone who spends any time in the occupied Palestinian territories – as I did in September 2003 and 2004 – will tell you that Israel is running an apartheid system there. Roadblocks, checkpoints, 24-hour curfews, house occupations, detention without trial are some elements of the system that never make it to our newspapers. Separate paved roads, control of water supplies, and license to carry arms are only some of the priviledges that the Israeli Settlers enjoy.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Jenin was under curfew for 3,466 hours between July 2002 and December 2004. That means about 150 days of complete shutdown; no work, no school, no leaving the house.

Curfew in the usually bustling centre of town, Jenin, September 2003:

***

One man who recognises the apartheid is former US President Jimmy Carter. He’s drawn the ire of the Israel Lobby in the US by publishing “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” which documents his involvement in peace efforts in the ‘holy land’. It’s not a fantastic book, but what’s important is Carter’s stance, he’s obviously decided that someone needs to speak out.

Although his views are seen as toxic in the US, Carter’s standpoint has been endorsed by former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most widely circulated Hebrew daily (English Translation / Hebew Original).

Talking of speaking out, “Breaking the Silence” is a group of Israeli soldiers – past and present – who want to speak about what’s going on in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly what they’re seeing in the Second Intifada.

This really is a fantastic interview because it describes first-hand what sorts of operations are being carried out by the Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza. Watch it to understand what’s going on.

And then ask yourself why you have to watch it on YouTube.