Shrinking U.S. Cities Find Splendor in Green

The article below is one of several I have seen recently along the same lines:

World Environment News - Some Shrinking U.S. Cities Find Splendor in Green - Planet Ark

I am aware that there are many millions of people, particularly in South America, Africa and parts of Asia, who would experience a vast improvement in their quality of life were they to be given the opportunity to live in these abandoned neighbourhoods. Is it ethically more sound to raze the houses to make green space, or to provide shelter for people who have none?

I am slowly but increasingly persuaded that no-one should be given the right to exclude other people from land that is not theirs: Israelis should have no right to exclude Palestinians from living in Israel; nor supporters of the British National Party [Front Nationale, Vlaams Blok/Belang] to prevent people with darker-coloured skin from living in western Europe. I guess that there are residents of Flint, Michigan, who would object to people from elsewhere in the world (such as refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants) taking up residence in abandoned neighbourhoods.

A related, though separate, issue concerns social welfare. Were familes say, from Timbuktu, to relocate to Flint, Michigan, or to Pennywell, Sunderland, who would be responsible for their social welfare?

[To be continued ...]

European invasion of the Americas (1)

My two visits to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC, prompted me to consider the ethics of the European invasion of the Americas from 1492 onwards. I have been journalling about this issue in detail on paper, but have been reluctant to date to commit any of my thoughts to publicly-accessible electronic form. However, having just read the article reproduced below, I thought that it would make a good start to the process of placing my thoughts about the issue in the public domain. The article is in Planet Ark, world environment news, which I believe to be a subsidiary of Reuters.

***

BRASILIA - Isolated native Indians in the Amazon forest of Brazil and Peru remain threatened by advancing loggers despite growing international attention to their plight, a senior Brazilian official said on Thursday.

"Pressure from Peruvian loggers continues, it's a concern," Marcio Meira, head of the government's Indian affairs agency, Funai, told the foreign press association in Brasilia.

Brazil's Acre state along the border with Peru is one of the world's last refuges for such groups, but increasing activity by wildcat miners and loggers puts them at risk.

Dramatic pictures of pigment-covered Indians from the region threatening the photographer's aircraft with bows and arrows were carried in May by media worldwide.

The Peruvian ambassador to Brazil subsequently told Meira his government was concerned about the issue and preparing measures, without detailing what these were.

Brazil has 26 confirmed native Indian tribes that live with little or no contact with the outside world. There are unconfirmed reports of an additional 35 such groups.

Many of them live in the forest like their forefathers did centuries ago, hunting and gathering.

More than three months after the photographs sparked an international media frenzy, Funai officials continue to witness logging activity in the region. "There is evidence. We see timber floating down the river which originates in Peru," said Meira.

Survival International, a group that campaigns for tribal peoples' rights, said last week that the Peruvian government had not lived up to its promise of publishing an investigation into accusations of illegal logging.

"The Peruvian government must not be allowed to bury this issue, or to turn their backs on the uncontacted tribes," said Survival's director, Stephen Corry.

The issue will be discussed at an international conference on native Indians in Georgetown, Guyana, later this month, Meira said.

Advancing loggers also threaten isolated tribes in Brazil's northern Mato Gross state and along the upper Xingu river in Para state, Meira said.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt, editing by Ross Colvin)

Story Date: 15/9/2008

***

A Twentieth Century man

I have several dictionaries. Working as a counsellor, words and language mean much to me. William Shakespeare is my hero: I watched my first Shakespeare play (Twelfth Night) when I was ten years old. I have four generations of Chambers dictionaries: from the 1950s (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, recently acquired second hand), 1972 (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, a Christmas present), 1988 (Chambers English Dictionary, my own choice) and 2003 (Chambers Dictionary, also my own choice). I prefer Chambers because its definitions tend to be more liberal-minded, less conservative, less reactionary than other dictionaries. However, I have an extreme objection to Chambers' progressive acceptance and incorporation of the '-ize' suffix, an appendage that, in spite of my Classical education (I studied Latin for five years, Classical Greek for two years, and some years ago made a serious attempt to teach myself Biblical Greek), I consider to be affected (as in an affectation, used by someone who wishes to puff up their language, making themselves sound clever and important, like people using the word 'whilst' when they mean 'while') and/or elitist (its 'correct' use - to use it incorrectly flagrantly demonstrates 'ignorance' - is only when the word's root is from Classical Greek, and who but a Classics scholar is likely to remember which English words have a Classical Greek root?), and gratuitously unnecessary. Use of the '-ize' suffix sneers at both ignorance and dyslexia: it is anti-language. In contrast, use of the '-ise' suffix is universally applicable, and to be favoured by the proles, the hoi poloi, the sans culottes - the people who make a reality of democracy and democratic language.

I have a reverse dictionary that has been useful only very occasionally. I have a dictionary of words first used in the twentieth century. This latter, although of little practical use, is interesting. I have a much-used Roget's thesaurus, and much-less used Brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable, Brewer's concise dictionary of phrase and fable, and Brewer's twentieth century dictionary of phrase and fable. There are also the Oxford dictionary of quotations, and Oxford companions to both the English language and English literature. Beyond English alone, there are dictionaries of signing (BSL) and of other European languages. Were I to be required to shelve all these dictionaries in an attic, I should probably guess that they weighed in at about 50 kg. So why is my first port of call always the internet? Reading The Wisdom of Crowds, recently, I came across the word 'fungible'. The context in which the word was being used offered few clues about its meaning. I checked it out on the internet. As well as definitions, I read the Wikipedia entry. I felt enlightened. I then checked Chambers. The definition was clear and concise, just as I should expect. Yet had I not also read more widely, including the Wikipedia entry, my understanding would have been as thin as gravy made only with a vegetable stock cube.

The words and phrases that I use, and the thoughts that inspire my articulations, belong to the twentieth century. I was born in the middle, the heart, of the twentieth century, the century that provided the context and backdrop for everything I thought and said and did. I learned to speak and think twentieth century, and I have twentieth century preoccupations, such as a concern for technology, for communication, for identity, for democracy, for equality, for spirituality freed from the shackles of traditional religion. Whilst it could easily be shown that none of these is unique to the twentieth century, their assemblage certainly is. It is true that being born and raised in Western Europe, and in Britain in particular, I also became, and continue to become, progressively more aware of previous centuries; but this itself is the root and relativism of post-modernism, a philosophical framework that belongs to the second half of the twentieth century. Simply by being brought up in the second half of the twentieth century, without the requirement of an elite education, I have the capacity to identify with the industrial entrepreneurs of the nineteenth century, the enlightened free-thinkers of the eighteenth century, the radical Commonwealth republicans of the seventeenth century, and so on.

What of the twenty-first century? I am not sure. If the twentieth century could be characterised as a battle between the old and the new, between empire and new democracy, between generations, between the sexes, between enforced adherence to stereotype and searching for new identities, then to a large extent we won. At the start of the twenty-first century, Britain is much closer to France than to Britain at the start of the twentieth century. However, now those battles are over, apathy appears to have set in. Politicians bemoan the public's lack of interest in politics, whereas people vote in their millions for ghastly television trash such as Big Brother and the X-Factor. (Whilst Marx's aphorism about religion is widely misunderstood as a criticism of religion, when he was observing the solace that drown-trodden workers were able to find in it, his 'misquotation' could more aptly be applied to the early twenty-first century addiction to television soap operas.) People no longer appear to have much interest in raw spirituality, and the church pews tend to be occupied by people who have chosen to leave elsewhere and make Britain their home. Concern by adults and children alike for technology seems to focus on games consoles, and battles and wars that are fought look increasingly like computer games and disaster movies. Royal Mail, the UK postal delivery organisation is close to collapse because no-one writes letters any more - it is not that I am knocking e-mail, it is my sadness that the text-message culture hardly favours deep and careful thought.

What of the twenty-first century? The battles having been fought, apathy and lethargy won. I think that ordinary, everyday, twenty-first century Britain lacks a sense of direction, purpose and aspiration. Maybe that is one of the reasons I remain a twentieth century man.

Nationhood (1): Fiddler on the Roof

I recently watched a television broadcast of Norman Jewison's 1971 movie Fiddler on the Roof. I have the VHS video, which I have watched several times, and I am wondering whether to buy the DVD. I often watch on television movies that I have on video. Not only is the quality of the broadcast picture superior - we have a Freeview digibox (digital television signal) box - but the inability to pause and rewind, which I do a lot in order to reflect on what I am watching, much to the mounting annoyance of my wife and daughter - we do not have TiVo - gives the viewing experience an edginess that whilst usually less intellectually satisfying, with the inevitable risk of disengagement between awareness and an integrated cognitive/conative/affective and imaginal response, can be emotionally more gratifying.

I was concerned, having watched the movie for the nth time, to discover what some of the critics have written about it. Roger Ebert was mildly scathing, whereas others have been more generous, although generous is probably what they intended. I find it helpful to read critics' reviews because they inevitably confirm some of my own thoughts and responses, and suggest others that had not occurred to me. I do not fully trust my own judgment. Most obviously for me, a good movie is one that I wish to watch many times. I feel cheated if the movie is not worth watching more than once. For this reason I rarely watch made-for-television movies. I am also likely to feel cheated if the only differences between the first and second viewings are that I know the plot twists and the denouement. On this basis I have learned that I have little interest in watching Ocean's Xteen. I was intrigued to find out whether I would find watching Memento as satisfying for the second time. The jury is still out on whether I should buy the DVD (the issue of memory is important to me). At the other end of the spectrum, the movies I like best are one's that, every time, take me on a journey, if I am up for it, into an even deeper understanding of what it is for me to be human in this world. This is what makes the movies of Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, Peter Greenaway and Godfrey Regio so compelling for me, and also why I have a fascination for dystopias. In a 'good movie' there will always be the opportunity to discover more. Sometimes this involves seeing/hearing more clearly. My best analogue for this concerns a CD of music by Peter Maxwell Davies. I did not 'understand' what I was listening to the first time I heard it. The dissonances sounded like a cacophony, and the broken rhythms sounded like chaos. Only from many repeated playings have I come to hear the beauty and poise, accompanied by a progressive appreciation of his music. I care what critics write about Peter Maxwell Davies, or about Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Greenaway or Regio, because I wish to 'understand' more. I am not required to agree with the evaluations of critics. A case in point is the movie I Heart Huckabees. I took the movie at face value albeit on three levels: 1) the level of plot / story / entertainment, etc.; 2) the movie-making level - script, acting, characterisation, filming, editing, etc.; 3) a philosophical level. On the first two of these levels the movie is terrible, and nothing on earth would induce me to watch it again. However, on the philosophical level the movie has something to say, and I shall watch it again. Naturally the critics slammed the movie. I also discovered from the reviews is that the movie is considered to be a spoof, the director intentionally mocking intellectual movies. Maybe, therefore, unlike the Peter Maxwell Davies CD, the movie has little so say - a second viewing and I shall be done with it - maybe. The idea of an existential detective agency interests me, even if the director intended it as a joke.

What does Fiddler on the Roof offer me in repeated viewings? There are major issues of personal, social and national identity, of cultural tradition ("Tradition"), and of spirituality. During the most recent viewing I felt challenged by the concept of personal, cultural and spiritual identity determining national identity. I like the globalised world in which we now live, and the breakdown of a one-to-one mapping between cultural and spiritual identity on the one hand and nationality (whether it be where I live or what is written in my passport) on the other. Whilst I understand something about Israel and about Kosovo, I also understand something about early twentieth century Japan, about Nazi Germany, about Afghanistan's Taleban, about aspects of Putin's Russia. I applaud the European Union both for its programme of smudging the statehood of nations, and for its support of cultural and spiritual diversity. These kinds of articulated insights are gold dust. I wonder what Fiddler on the Roof will offer me next time.

The UK Immigration Debate

This post is based partly on two postings I made on the weblog of BBC television's flagship current affairs programme: Newsnight. During late October and early November 2007 the print and broadcast media have been making much of announcements made by the UK government about the number of people without British nationality who are living in the UK. I have been very unhappy about the tone of the discourse, the tenor of which is to wish to reduce or relegate the validity of people not born in the UK to live and/or work in the UK. The pronouns most frequently used are "we" (referring to people born in the UK, with the strong implication that these people are white-skinned and speak English as a first language) and "them" (referring to people not born in the UK, with the strong implication that these people may or may not be white-skinned, but do not speak English as a first language). I do not wish to be categorised as part of the "we". I should much rather that the focus were on 'people living and/or working in the UK'.

I am fed up with hearing commentators endlessly repeat immigration statistics. I would much rather listen to an informed and intelligent discussion about the changing demographics of ecomically-developed and -developing states, about the desirability or otherwise of doing anything about the changing demographics, about an ethical analysis of migration (refugees, asylum seekers, poor people wanting a better life), about the pros and cons of classic nationhood in this
globalised world, and about the ways in which the news media and political parties address, or fail to address, these issues.

Myth-buster 1:
Britain is not a small island. Britain is huge: not only are there are vast, unpopulated tracts, there are many towns and cities in northern England that are under-populated with stagnant local economies awaiting revitalisation. Britain is far from the most densely populated economically-developed country. Greater Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York City, Monaco and the Netherlands, for example, are more densely populated than the supposedly over-populated south east of England, and they are social and economic powerhouses for that.

Myth-buster 2:
Indigenous culture is a determinant only for people who wish to make it so. Contemporary Britain has more in common with most of the economically-developed world than it does with Britain a century ago ("The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Hartley, L.P., London, 1953) The culture of a country is whatever the people who happen to live in that place make it to be, not what it used to be. Christianity was once alien to the islands now called Britain. Happily, few of the world's major cultures are now strangers to each other here in Britain.

Myth-buster 3:
I have neither a legal nor a moral right to determine who lives in my street. I do have a right to choose in which street I live. Many Britons choose to exercise that right by migrating to France, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and so on. I am happy that people from all around the globe choose to exercise their legal right to migrate to Britain. Rather than tightened, as the current political rhetoric would have, I should prefer that legal restrictions on migration were eased.

Listening to an edition of Newsnight broadcast on the evening of Thursday 8 November 2007, during which telephone callers were invited to offer their opinions, it became clear that few if any of the callers were interested in generalisable facts and statistics. They did little to demonstrate that their minds were open to rational argument. Instead they used slogans such as "Britain is a small island", and "We are an island nation", "Our country has been flooded with immigrants" and "We have become an ethnic minority". It was, at the same time, clear that many of the callers, speaking from their own experience, perceived no benefit to themselves from the presence of people who they considered to be from elsewhere ("foreign", "immigrant"). Whilst I am enthusiastic to live in a modern, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic country, many people born in the UK would prefer to live in a society made up of English-speaking, white-skinned, anglo-saxons. Their intentions, as they so readily (too readily, perhaps) stated, are not (strongly) racist. However, they directly experience the discomfort of social change, including dislocation, but perceive themselves as receiving none of the benefits. Arguments such as "The NHS/London Transport/fruit picking would collapse without the work of people from overseas" are weak in their eyes for two reasons: many of the jobs undertaken by unskilled people from overseas are low status jobs, and are invisible in the way that homeless people on the street tend to be looked through (and being poorly recognised quite how many jobs of this kind there are, there is little sense of how vulnerable to collapse these sections of the UK economy may be); there are white British people who are unemployed who should be doing such jobs (with little attention being given to the location of the people versus jobs, and the health status of many unemployed people in relation to physically demanding jobs).

Migrant Workers

Some of the UK public debate about immigration focuses on the perceived value to the UK economy of people from other countries. The argument is that the British economy benefits from both the specialist skills, and also the lower wage expectations, of people from other countries. The debate revolves around the concept of migrant workers. The term is used largely to refer to people who are undertaking low-skilled, poorly-paid jobs such as fruit picking and other agricultural work, office and hospital cleaning, and low status care roles. At the high-status end of the spectrum, it would be unusual for a Chicago-born Managing Director of the UK office of a transnational corporation, or a young, Hong-Kong-born international banker working for a few years in the City, or a partly Frankfurt-based Commodities and Futures Manager who commutes to London for three days each week, to be referred to as 'migrant workers'. Perhaps intermediate in status are the specialist skills of a computer software engineer from, say, Bangalore, who takes a well-paid job in Bristol, Birmingham or Manchester, sending much of his salary to his family in India; or a dentist who has let her flat in Warsaw so that she can live and work in Nottingham for a few years, earning enough money to be able to buy a house in the southern mountains of Poland.

I am unhappy that people from other countries are being seen in terms of their economic worth to the British economy. To me, this view approaches the attitude of seeing people primarily, or even merely, as units of production. Ultimately this is the attitude that permitted (and in some cases still permits) the slave trade. People are, first and foremost, human beings.

Asylum Seekers and Bogus Asylum Seekers and Refugees

I am certain, although I cannot prove it, that in the minds of many people in the UK there is no distinction between the categories of refugee and asylum seeker, and there is an elision between the categories of asylum seeker and migrant worker (who in this context is more typically referred to as an economic migrant, which is considered synonymous with 'someone who is out for whatever they can get'). I am equally certain that, whilst there are occasions when the overall tenor of public discourse leads to more overt expressions of compassion for people fleeing disasters such as drought, flood, famine and wars, the duration of the compassion rarely extends to an enthusiasm to rehouse the victims of such circumstances in the UK. For example, when a volcanic eruption devastated the Caribbean island of Monserrat, there was a national failure in Britain to understand why the displaced people had to come to the UK. "Why can't they go elsewhere?" It was the same with refugees from the war in Bosnia. There appears both to be an unwillingness to accept that, along with every other country with UN membership, the UK has international legal obligations, and also a belief that Britain already does more than its fair share. There is also the perception, expressed most vocally in the 'red-top' press, that people claiming a fear of persecution as the reason for their need to leave their home country, are either lying or exaggerating, and are principally motivated by the simple desire for a better life. These so-called "bogus asylum seekers" are most charitably described as economic migrants, and much resentment is expressed by white British people who would like a better life for themselves. The fact that it may be very hard to leave the country in which one has always lived, the country in which one's relatives and friends (those that remain alive) still live, a country in which one fears that the police (e.g. Jack Mapange) or the military (e.g. asylum seekers from Rwanda and Burundi) or the death squads, will be watching the ports, and also that it is remarkably difficult to arrive in, and gain admittance to (see The Terminal starring Tom Hanks), the UK, is considered to be of little relevance. In The Net, the character played by Sandra Bullock expects to get her life back, which she does in the end, as do the characters played by Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, and by Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Life on the run in one's own country is lonely and miserable, and played by Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State.