Turning point??

So I turned 30 yesterday.

And for the last few weeks I have been drafting a bit of a philosophical post, questioning all sorts of things and meanings of life and why we are here etc etc etc.

It is not finished.

But for now, here is a poem my mum wrote a couple of weeks ago. Mums are cool :)

FOR HAZEL’S BIRTHDAY
Our Small is turning 30 in a while
And in those three decades how much she’s done
And ev’rything she does, she does with style
Like study, travel, work and having fun
Degrees she has with honours and first class.
America has seen her and Taiwan
In Thailand she saw Buddhas made of brass

And rode an elephant like Genghis Khan.
No verses about Hazel are complete
Without a mention of a certain cat
Who’s mostly black with white on chest and feet
And often joins us for our tea and chat.
Haze makes us laugh and entertains us too
And someone, very proud, is saying “Boo!”

Go figure....

I haven’t written for a while. Since my last post I have finished my masters, and started a job. Is that excuse enough for a bit of silence?

So this is just a quick one. I read an article in a Malawian newspaper on Friday. I don’t have it with me but it went along the lines of… USAID has stopped providing US donated contraceptives to Banja la Mtsogolo, a Malawian family planning and reproductive health NGO (along with organisations in 5 other sub-Saharan African countries). This is apparently because BLM (and the other organisations) receive funding and technical support from Marie Stopes International, a British not-for-profit sexual and reproductive health organisation.

The reason that they have banned the contraceptives coming to these countries is that the Bush administration claims that a UN program in China (in which Marie Stopes is involved) is promoting coerced abortion and sterilisation.

So, in order to address their concerns over a program run by the UNITED NATIONS in CHINA, the US government is barring contraceptives to some of the poorest countries in the world, that are badly affected by HIV/AIDS.

Now I must admit that I only have one side of this story. I am going to speak to a friend who works at USAID here in Lilongwe to try and get more information.

But for now, all I can think is:

IT’S NOT JUST THE US THAT NEEDS YOU OBAMA – THE REST OF US DO TOO!!!

Panopticon

In 1785, Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher, designed a model for a prison called the Panopticon. The defining feature of the Panopticon was that an observer (prison warden) could watch all prisoners without them knowing that they were being watched. This involved partitions intersecting at the correct angle to eliminate shadows, zigzag openings, pods, modules, 180˚field of views. The intended effect was to produce a round-the-clock surveillance machine. And apparently Bentham explained that it was not just a model of a prison – it could be a school, a hospital, an institution. Basically, it was a mechanism.

In 1975, Michel Foucault, a philosopher, described the implications of “Panopticism” in his work Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison: "Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.”

The prisoners are, in effect, disciplining themselves. Because they will never know whether they are being watched, they will always act like they are being watched. This psychologically changes the behaviour of the prisoners.

‘He who is subject to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontane­ously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relations in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection’ (Foucault again).

Foucault associated “Panopticon” with the birth of disciplinary society and the production of docile bodies. Our mass surveillance society has been equated with this concept. One can find much literature and movies warning of the danger of mass surveillance – Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Minority Report, Enemy of the State. And obviously it is a very controversial topic in politics.

What about us? Are we the docile bodies behaving “well” in fear that we might get caught? And if so, who is at the top of the power structure? The hegemony?

But what I want to know is when did we begin to want so desperately to be watched? Is this at all related?

Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Please let me go on crappy reality TV. Let me reveal to the world my dysfunctionalities. Let me become famous for the sake of being famous.

Read my blog.

Look at my profile. Look at my friends. Look at my photos. Look at what I did last weekend. Let me tell you what I am doing every minute of the day. Please. Let me tell you what I am feeling every minute of the day. Please. See how popular I am? See how well travelled? See what kind of a person I am? See how much I am loved? Look at what I have done with my life! This is ME. Now you know! ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!

Globalisation

So what is the definition of globalisation? Not an easy thing to define - various authors have of course made pretty good attempts at a definition.

My definition of globalisation:

One day I am going to have to spell it with a z.

Upside down

How many real heroes/heroines do we have in our world today?

And it was only yesterday that Nelson Mandela was taken off the US terror list.

I'm afraid I can't think of a nicer way to describe this.

F***ed up.

Shock

This morning, bag got left on train.

Bag contained laptop. Laptop contained dissertation.

Bag also contained other trivial items such as phone, wallet, keys.

Laptop also contained other trivial items such as photos.

I noticed when I was on the tube platform. It was a terrible 5 (maybe 10) minutes while I sprinted up, looked, found lovely friendly train man who helped me find it.

Moral of story: back-up back-up back-up.

Is 10am too early for a whisky?

Left, Right, Left, Right

Over the past few months, it has been impossible to ignore the run up to the November 4th, 2008, United States presidential election. The pre-primary campaigns, the primaries and caucuses, the excitement of there being both a black and a women candidate, and the thrilling final stages of the race for the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. Being in the UK over the last 6 weeks has also been an interesting time, with Gordon Brown’s popularity rapidly falling – a first anniversary opinion poll out today. With this simultaneous focus on the policies of different politicians and parties, it has been impossible not to compare the goings on across the pond. And I must admit it has left me somewhat confused.

Malawihazel attempting a political commentary? A scary thought, I know, but I must put these thoughts down. These thoughts are about the Democrats and the Republicans, the Tories and Labour. Can they be compared? Is there such thing as the Left and the Right?

In the last couple of weeks, Obama praised the Supreme’s Court’s decision to grant Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspects a right to challenge their detention in civilian courts, while McCain expressed concern. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time that police can hold terror suspects without charge, to 42 days (that’s 6 weeks!). All but one Tory MP voted against the proposal, and the affair ended in a dramatic resignation by the Shadow Home Secretary, defending “British liberties”.

Talking of time limits, it is the conservatives in Britain who have proposed a reduction to the 24-week limit for abortions, with Gordon and many other MPs opposing it. Pro-choice and anti-abortion in the US seems to be one of the major divisions between the Republicans and Democrats.

In the States, the Democrats are known for being the progressive party with regards to the environment – evidence is Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize (and Oscar), and George W denying human-induced climate change and refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol. On this side of the Atlantic the green card is strongly played by the conservatives (David Cameron even put a web cam in his home to show how good he is at recycling). Although, admittedly, the environment is taken seriously by the Labour government, and it is still “right-wing” newspapers such as the Daily Mail that try to claim climate change as a conspiracy.

One of Tony Blair’s legacies is the city academy. This Labour PM thought that the answer to education was to turn schools into businesses; prevent teachers from joining unions and blame them for the school’s failings rather than address the social problems in the school’s surrounding area.

Although there is no precise definition as to what “left-wing” politics are, and (as always) there are often contradictory views, I think there is a general consensus that they promote a more equal distribution of wealth and privilege and attempt to build a society with equal opportunity. “Left-wing” politics have been associated with trade unions, combating oppression, the welfare state and central planning. “Right-wing” politics are associated with the preservation of personal wealth and private ownership, self-reliance, and the free market.

So where do Labour and Conservatives lie? And Republicans and Democrats?

Could globalisation have something to do with this confusion? Pro- and anti-globalisation advocates suddenly find themselves agreeing on subjects such as the CAP and NAFTA. One set are singing praises about the power of the free market while the other set are questioning why OECD countries’ total agricultural subsidies amount to more that the GDP of (all of) Africa, and suggesting that this puts farmers in developing countries at a disadvantage.

Does the “left-wing” ideal of a more equal distribution of wealth and privilege include everyone? Or is it just the voters? They believe in a level playing field (unless you are a suspected terrorist).

Blair and Bush’s special relationship seems to have pushed America more towards the “left” and Britain more towards the “right”. Or is it the other way round? Britain’s left towards the right? Britain’s right towards the left.

Let’s just say, I am confused.

I will end with a quote from George Orwell’s 1984:

"From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."