Beware of Greeks bearing gifts for others

After the UK realised its mistake in not joining the European Economic Community from the outset, its subsequent attempts were rebuffed by French president Charles de Gaulle, still angry after the British withdrew from the joint-gunboat action in the Suez Canal zone under US economic pressure.  De Gaulle could not possibly use this excuse so he said that Britain represented a 'Trojan Horse' for US interests that would ensnare Western Europe.  And so Britain was rebuffed by the French veto until de Gaulle left the political scene.
As Russian action intensifies in Ukraine, the fall of what remains of Donetsk airport and the severe threat to once-safe Mariupol, attempts by EU ambassadors to beef up punitive sanctions was stymied and deferred by Greece.   Syriza, the new left-wing driving force behind the elected Greek government, still has old-time respect for the Soviet Union and see Vladimir Putin as restoring the old values of the USSR.  A lot of Greeks also have affinity for their Christian Orthodox cousins in Russia, like when Greece abstained and criticised its allies in the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 during the Kosovo War.  This Orthodox connection is ironic given the self-proclaimed atheism of the new Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras.
It's not the first time Greeks have cosied up to foreign dictators.  During the 1930s, Greece was very familiar with Germany, Greece's largest trading partner.  Italy's foolish invasion and British intrigue drew down the brutal wrath of the Nazis who, as elsewhere, committed unspeakable atrocities that still linger in the popular memory as modern Germany seeks to impose austerity.
It has been theorised that had Mikhail Gorbachev not become Party Chairman but rather a man in the mould of Yuri Andropov - the ex-KGB boss who ruled the USSR for two years but too late, when he was a hospital invalid - the Soviet Union would have staggered on for a few more decades, increasingly impoverished and militaristic.  It is not a great leap to see Putin as Andropov's heir, seeking to restore Russian greatness but more and more the Kremlin believes its own paranoid propaganda - a dangerous development.
There will be a meeting of EU leaders in February.  It is feared that with Syriza in the ascendancy, Greece will serve as a Trojan Horse for Russia into the EU.  Picking a fight over Russian sanctions when it has bigger fish to fry could be a bargaining chip but it should also be remembered that none of the new government have never been in a position to wield political power.  Greece may have created the original Trojan Horse but it's only a trick that works once.

David Cameron's lament

First the TV producers came to Labour and the Liberal Democrats and I refused to speak out (in TV debate) because I was not likely to win;
then the producers came for UKIP and I refused to speak with them
because I was not likely to win;
then they came for the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru and I refused to speak with them
because I was not likely to win;
then, after ruling them out, the producers came for the DUP, the UUP, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Monster Raving Looney Party.
And then I was buggered.

Background noise

It is said that Jordanian authorities are planning to release a high-profile prisoner with ISIS affiliations to secure the release of their captured pilot and the surviving Japanese hostage, in the wake of the first hostage being executed after Tokyo refused to pay a $200m ransom.  Though Prime minister Shinzo Abe was quite right not to bolster the terror-making capabilities of ISIS at the risk of two of his country's citizens, I can't help feel that, in the eyes of ISIS, Japan went from a neutral, far-away nation to a co-belligerent with the perceived enemies of ISIS when the prime minister lead the largest ever trade delegation to Israel.  That $200m ransom was exactly the same amount Shinzo Abe had pledged recently to give to countries fighting ISIS.  It is noteworthy that the nationals of the Empire of Nippon had not run into trouble in the Middle East before.  Like Jordan's cancellation of air combat missions ostensibly to safeguard their imprisoned pilot but possibly more in reaction to American and Israeli pressure on the Security Council members not to bring Palestinian statehood to a vote in the United Nations' highest law-making chamber, it may be apposite to scan the background noise.
This is not to say Japan can't trade with Israel forfending a reaction from ISIS, a death cult of nihilistic thugs, but it could have done so with less fanfare.  This was only Japan's fault in part because the visit formed another salvo in the incredibly divisive Benjamin Netanyahu's power-play with Europe.  In the wake of several European parliaments recognising in principle (and Sweden in fact) the existence of Palestinian statehood in the face of repeated stonewalling (literal and metaphorical) from Tel-Aviv in the peace process, the irascible Israel prime minister was boasting, 'look, we don't need you.  We have other friends and we'll trade with them'.  Son of a fanatical Zionist and brother of a posthumous national hero, Netanyahu comes across with a perpetual chip on his shoulder.  Sadly and arguably because of the Likud leader's natural bellicose demagoguery, one Japanese person has lost their life and another's hangs in the balance.

Hung up on you

Security measures are being reviewed at the heart of government after a caller got through to a hoax resident of No. 10 Downing Street.  A person claiming to be one 'David Cameron' (a clear anagram of 'I crave odd man') answered the person who was put through by the Downing Street switchboard.  "It was clearly a hoax," said the caller.  "No-one could possibly be prime minister speaking with an Old Etonian accent and talking about the tiresome, mutinous plebs and proles who stand outside in police uniform - we are a modern, democratic, meritocratic nation.  This isn't Downton Abbey!  He was clearly off his face on port and caviar, when for most of us it's cheap booze and cocaine - cost of living and all that.  And what prime minister doesn't know the voice of the head of GCHQ when he hears it?  The fraud could have been privy to any amount of sensitive information, like the nuclear launch codes or the porn stash in Barack Obama's crib.  I wasn't fooled by his posh-boy act though.  I hung up on him as soon as the true nature of this elitist windbag became clear.  I hope this impostor is turfed out of Downing Street as soon as possible or at least in May.  He's made monkeys out of the electorate."

Competitive Dad

While trying to fix the dishwasher, I made a mess on the floor by throwing all the carrier bags under the sink on the floor. Kimberley came into the kitchen and saw the punnet of plums and wanted one. Altaa was in the kitchen too and we jousted for Kimberley's favour as to whose mess it was. I said, "You can have the plum, if you say, 'Mummy's mess'." She came to claim the fruit twice but when I reiterated my demand, each time she backed away. Seeing my bribery failing in the face of her integrity, I gave her the fruit. Like a US congressional member taking money from a lobbyist but legally in the absence of a direct quid-pro-quo yet later upholding the lobbyist's interests, munching away on the fruit, she cried, "Mummy's mess!" That's successful parenting.

Earlier, inspired by Mongolian parents who carry their well-wrapped young through the streets like a sack of potatoes, I was carrying Kimberley as she had refused to walk and decided to sling her over my shoulder like the proverbial bag of spuds.  This new twist to being hoisted in the air gave her great merriment.  I said, "You're a sack of potatoes," to which she concurred in that child's third-person perspective, "Kimberley [is] sack of potatoes."  Given that she provocatively states, 'no' when we are complimenting her, inducing much laughter, her adoption of today's moniker is interesting.

Lost to posterity of the posterior

When I entered the last two years of my secondary school endurance, it came to a time of career advice and local 'experts' were sourced to provide a spread in the rough field in which a young person wished to progress.  At this stage, I had expressed a wish for working for the European Commission and my counsel was then newly elected MP for Gillingham Paul Clark.  We got onto talking about actual commissioners: Neil Kinnock was the UK's representation at the time and I also mentioned Leon Brittan, who had preceded the former Labour Party leader.  Effusive about the good work of Kinnock, I remember particularly Clark saying, "I don't have much time for Leon Brittan."
Lord Brittan as he became remained a somewhat obscure figure to me.  I didn't realise until recently that he was a one-time Home Secretary.  The reason why I became apprised of his wider political career was because of the fall of the high-profile dominoes after the Jimmy Saville revelations.  In the 1980s while Home Secretary, Brittan was handed a dossier by a Member of Parliament alleging an establishment cover-up of paedophilia that went right to the heart of Westminster.  Like Paul Clark regarding him, Brittan didn't have much time for it, despite the potentially explosive contents.  Instead, he handed it to some Home Office employees to deal with it, the very people who were part of the establishment that had been accused.
Theresa May, the current Home Secretary, through either design or incompetence has botched the inquiry into this dossier through lack of consideration of victims' groups.  To lose one chief panellist, to lose two looks like carelessness.  The inquiry itself is in limbo as May positions herself for a leadership bid in the event of David Cameron having to hand back the keys to No. 10 Downing Street four and a bit months from now.  With Brittan passing away aged 75 from cancer, we will never hear properly what he had to say on the exact circumstances of the document.  But his handling of this very sensitive issue was slipshod at best, part of the cover-up at worst.  Whatever the other tributes, he confirms Clark's assessment.  Brittan was an arse.

'Right to Offend' galvanises Europe

In the wake of the Paris terror attacks on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and in a Jewish supermarket, French people marched with world leaders through the streets of the capital in defence ‘of the principles of the French republic’ and in particular the right to offend others. The Interior Ministry abandoned its standard practice of at least attempting to quantify crowds by declaring the numbers were ‘uncountable’ – no-one dared to understate the size of the rally, although unofficial estimates claim four million took to the streets of Paris on a cold January Sunday, with many more marches across the country and indeed around the world, as the ‘Je suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie) label went viral on social media.
Of course, the ‘survivors’ of Charlie Hebdo were well aware that elements who they would regard as anathema marched under the ‘Je suis Charlie’ banner. The Front National (FN), who envisage a clash of civilisations between the West and Islam, unashamedly participated. The very next day the ‘anti-Islam’ PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident [West]) weekly Monday rally in Dresden drew its highest turnout with 25,000 people. The findings of an academic study by Dresden Technical University on the PEGIDA movement actually made out that only a quarter of protesters cited concerns they had with Islam, the vast majority expressing dissatisfaction with politics, unhappiness with the media and public opinion, and general concerns over immigration and asylum-seekers. These are all hot-button issues for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and before the party branched out to the working-class, most PEGIDA protesters were similar to the UKIP cliché - white, male, middle-aged and middle-class.
Although the Dresden rally on Monday 19th January was cancelled after ‘abstract’ death threats became ‘concrete’ according to PEGIDA leaders, 100,000 people took part in counter-rallies around Germany. PEGIDA had pledged to stage more rallies in Berlin and Munich, until 21st January when a photograph emerged of PEGIDA founder, Lutz Bachmann, sporting a Hitler moustache and hair style in conjunction with Facebook comments he had made calling immigrants ‘cattle’, ‘scumbags’ and ‘trash’. Bachmann immediately resigned throwing the future of the movement into doubt, though the offshoot in Leipzig, LEGIDA, still marched on Wednesday 22nd January.
Meanwhile, in Denmark, the country of the magazine Jyllands-Posten, whose controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad induced riots in some Muslim-majority countries in 2006 (and inspired Charlie Hebdo to reprint them), PEGIDA spread its influence to stage rallies in Copenhagen and Aarhus on Monday 19th January. Inevitably (and no doubt to the chagrin of its journalists), front covers of Charlie Hebdo were brandished. A splinter rally in Copenhagen protested against all forms of Islam, rather than the ‘fundamentalist’ version PEGIDA claims is its target. As in Germany, anti-fascist rallies were mobilised and drew greater numbers, though it was the PEGIDA affiliates that drew the most media attention.
Far from the sympathies expressed by most world leaders, in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, according to official figures, 800,000 people marched against everything Charlie Hebdo stood for, on 19th January. The autonomous Russian federal republic only has a population of 1.3m. It’s Putin-backed strongman Ramzan Kaydrov, who had declared a holiday to allow the rally, was the highest-profile speaker at the demonstration, raged against the ‘false slogans’ of free speech and democracy in ‘defiling’ Islam; it was extensively covered by Russian state media, it’s anti-western themes no doubt in tune with Kremlin beliefs. The Chechen mass turnout was replicated in many other predominantly Muslim countries around the world.
Islam has a strong tradition of aniconism (shunning images of God and religious figures) but whereas the proscription against showing the Prophet Muhammad has many justifications, the one that is rarely mentioned is the cautioning against idolatry. Such is the obsession though with the Prophet as has been recently displayed, it could be argued that many Muslims have fallen into that mindset which they most despise. The Chechen rally had an underlying subtext of curtailing of individual expression that fits in with the prevailing official Russian attitudes.
Moreover, while it is blasphemous for Muslims to produce images of the Prophet, logically the ban does not extend to non-Muslims and in a pluralistic environment, there should be freedom of thought. The ‘Survivors’ Edition’ of Charlie Hebdo had a very compassionate image of Muhammad on its front cover, but it still drew the ire of repressive Islamic regimes in Iran and elsewhere. Which is not to say anything goes – offending for the sake of offending because you can is very juvenile. Criticism needs to be pointed and aimed at the people in power, not ‘punching down’ on the marginalised. The home-grown terror attacks in France were only linked very obliquely to religion. Rather they were borne of humiliation and exclusion combined with radicalisation from Western actions in the Middle East and an atavistic desire for violence united in the minds of mentally troubled individuals. To successfully combat that and uphold cherished western values is through engagement, integration and inclusion, not suspicion, persecution and mockery.

Churchill's responsibility and the buck-passing of others

In two days time, it will be the half-century since Winston Churchill died.  Jeremy Paxman said the statesman wouldn't get to be prime minister today given all the machinations needed to run a party, let alone a country, a sweeping claim vigorously denied by his family.  The latter while praising him acknowledge that sometimes self-belief led to mistakes and the Gallipoli campaign is mentioned, with its centenary this year.  I would argue that the millions of Indians who died in World War II through famine because of Churchill's decision to requisition grain for the war effort would be a far greater affront to history, but it doesn't get the popular attention in the West or get made into feature films.
Actually Gallipoli and the subsequent operations in the Dardanelles was the one brilliant idea of World War One and could have altered the course of world history.  Unfortunately, the War Office kept its 'best' generals for the Western Front.  As the historian, Geoffrey Regan, said, the government may have regarded Gallipoli as a sideshow but that was no reason to send clowns to command the operation.  Success was not doomed from the start but from the idiots in charge.  Had the Ottoman Empire been knocked out of the war, it would have released Russian reserves from the Caucasus to fight on the Eastern Front, holding up the German advance; that in turn may have affected prospects of revolution.  And should the Tsar and then the Provisional Government fall, there would be a very interesting 'White' enclave on the Black Sea (as Constantinople and its environs were the price Russia demanded after the Ottomans' capitulation, a decision rendered null and void by the Bolsheviks taking over and renouncing all 'secret' deals).  Churchill does not deserve the blame for a campaign ruined by bureaucratic arrogance and incompetent generalship, yet it was his baby and he carried the can for it.  His time voluntarily in the trenches thereafter may have made him a more rounded individual, preparing him for the rigours of the highest office but there are other things that he should deserve opprobrium for but Gallipoli is not one of them.

On the question of war, still no sight of the Lesser-Spotted Iraq Inquiry Report.  Sir John Chilcot and his panel took the last witness statement in 2011.  Give it a year to arrange the million word document, taking us to 2012.  And then three years more inbetween and nothing.  It does not take three years, ill-health or otherwise, to receive representation from he has criticised - rather I think the 'pink letter' he has sent out was of the nature, "we'd like your reply but no hurry, in your own time."  If the report was wrapped up promptly, all those fine meals and ancillary expenses enjoyed by Sir John and his coterie would dry up and he'd have to find another sinecure.  It matters not one jot that no-one's mind will be changed by the document.  It puts an official full stop to the most foolhardy war-of-choice in this country since the Suez debacle.  As long as it remains unpublished, it may not be a major way, but this country cannot come to terms with what its prime minister did in its name.

The balance of numbers

So busy in recent days, my Twitter feed and Facebook also suffering long leaves of absence.  Anyway to put things in context.  Paris gets flooded by over four million people showing solidarity with "the principles of the French Republic" on a cold but dry January day.  This past weekend, Pope Francis has attracted six million people in the Philippines for his open air mass despite atrociously wet weather.  The publisher of Charlie Hebdo marvelled at how his "atheist magazine" (a quaint term redolent of Eastern European communist regimes) was experiencing more miracles "than all the saints and prophets combined."  Two million extra people than the French capital could muster beg to differ.  Pope Francis is proving to be an even bigger rock star than Pope John Paul II and with his understated, progressive charisma, he is turning the Roman Catholic Church by degrees into an organisation fit for the third millennium.  Long may his tenure continue.

Oh Lucky Man

Louis Van Gaal is a lucky so-and-so.  The Manchester United manager find himself on exactly the same number of points as his maligned predecessor David Moyes, despite scoring fewer goals, having fewer shots on target, playing more long passes but fewer passes in the find third before the opposition's goal, have fewer crosses but commit more fouls and earn more red cards.  Yet Van Gaal is under nowhere near the same level of pressure.  He is not the man who followed Sir Alex Ferguson but the man who followed the man who followed Sir Alex Ferguson, though in many important ways he is struggling to live up to what David Moyes did.
Important considerations have let him off the hook.  Firstly David Moyes arrived from Everton having won nothing.  Van Gaal had managed some of the biggest clubs in Europe, winning a hatful of medals and trophies and had recently guided the Netherlands to third place at the World Cup.  So his arrogance about what he has achieved is better at rebutting the media than Moyes' humility.  Secondly, Man United have more possession than last season, up to second in the league table from ninth in 2013-14, so it looks like they're controlling games more, even though such control is illusory.  Third and most importantly, Man United have been regularly in the top four this season, benefitting from the implosion at Arsenal and Liverpool and Tottenham Hostpur failing to kick on.  So Man United fans can look at the league table and feel warm, but had Spurs beaten Crystal Palace, the red half of Manchester would not be in a Champions League qualifying position and the question would have multiplied for Van Gaal.

Different perspectives

Yesterday, it was the million person rally in Paris in support of the 'ideals of the republic', although the Interior Ministry, in a departure from standard police practice, said the numbers were 'uncountable' (or rather they declined in bothering to count).  Also, yesterday, it was the Golden Globes Awards, where celebrated were "the films North Korea was happy for us to see."  Freedom of expression seems increasingly under threat.
Although Sony may just about break even on The Interview - a stoners' comedy about killing Kim Jong-Un from the people behind Pineapple Express, so a kind of 'Pyongyang Express' - and people may queue round the block not just to enjoy the talents of Seth Rogen and James Franco but to show their commitment to free speech, the studios may become more 'safe' than they already are in who they offend - another 'green-lit' project about North Korea starring Steve Carrell has been cancelled.  Not quite requiring the oblique analysis of power that artists labouring under communism in Eastern Europe had to endure but a Finlandisation.  David Low never lowered the asperity of his cartoons though they were banned from circulation in first Germany, then Italy in the pre-war period.
The cartoons of Charlie Hebdo are said to capture the 'spirit of 1968' - while Britain had a summer of love that year, France had a summer of violent would-be revolution.  Vive la difference!  They attacked politicians and religions willy-nilly, yet a true contrarian would have held nothing sacred, except secularism and freedom of speech were and are holy cows for Charlie Hebdo and the crowds who marched in Paris.  One does not have to support totalitarianism and murder to ridicule the blinkers others, who believe themselves fearless, apply to themselves.  The French government is funding the million-edition print-run for a special version of Charlie Hebdo - so much for not being in the pockets of the establishment.
Something very far down the list of worthy news items after the deaths of 20 people in Paris is the massacre of 2,000 people in north-eastern Nigeria by the cancer that is Boko Haram.  You won't get scores of world leaders making a pilgrimage to this part of Africa to link arms with President Goodluck Jonathan.  Hey, even President Jonathan would probably not visit this area, even though he has begun a re-election bid.  Western journalists prefer the comforts and amenities of Paris and all want to have their say on what is an attack on their profession.  Like the apocryphal headline, "Earthquake in Chile.  Not many dead" other, less-developed regions are afforded just a few sentences.  Is it an implicit racism?  Perhaps for some and plain ignorance for many.  Each life lost in Nigeria is equal to those in France but the coverage is nowhere equivalent despite it being two-thirds of the fatalities of the total killed on 9/11.  There is talk of 9/1 for France but no-one has coined a similar epithet for Nigeria or Pakistan or the hundreds of thousands dead in Syria and accompanying carnage in Iraq.  Yet fundamentalists thrive here and feed back their radicalism in occasional, unpredictable attacks on the West.  Maybe if we cared more about these places, the blowback could be curtailed.

Germany - Fascism Redux?

“Tell me, what do you expect/ From what we are striving for in Germany?” – Goethe, Faust, 1.

On 20th February 1997, 28-year old journalist Michaela Weigel, writing in the mainstream newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, described the British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (later Sir Malcolm Rifkind) in the wake of a speech he delivered in Bonn, as 'the Jew Rifkind' (a German turn of phrase often used pejoratively during the Third Reich). The newspaper apologised several days later, saying that there was 'no anti-semitic intent'. Still, the nemesis of its 1930s/40s past is an ever-present anxiety for Germany. That same year of 1997 saw the highest number of crimes committed by German far-right activists in their political cause since 1945.
And now the turmoil has returned to the streets of Germany as the European ‘project’ of integration is increasingly questioned in what is arguably the Eurozone’s paymaster. This is not so say that the inhabitants of Europe’s largest economy are intent on taking the country backwards, but a significant minority have stoked tensions with their anti-immigrant and Islamophobic posturing with a steady racheting since October.
Sometimes, these marches can backfire. The town of Wunsiedel, often a magnet for neo-Nazis being as it is the original resting place of Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess, tricked the home-grown admirers of the National Socialists. On 15th November, the annual date of the march, shop owners and residents in the 1,000-strong town pledged to donate €10 for each metre covered by the neo-Nazis. Eventually raising €10,000, the money went to EXIT-Deutschland, a charity that helps people leave far-right groups. The pro-Hess marchers were oblivious to why motivational signs along the way were set up and confetti was thrown as they crossed the finishing line, only to read a sign at the end explaining they had raised money against themselves.
This was a humorous exception in a bleak set of months. The backdrop is that Germany has received more immigrants than any other country in the European Union (EU), indeed it the world’s number two destination for migrants after the USA. It has already by far and away the largest population in the EU too and so assimilation would in theory come easier. But a falling birth rate and consequent decline in population has played on certain fears within German society about a loss of identity. As in the UK with the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) drawing support from marginalised and/or right-leaning people, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) has seen a leaching of support to Alternative for Germany (AfD) which takes a hard-line on immigration. Like the British Conservative Party, the CDU has clamped down on immigrants ‘abusing’ the social welfare system, but does draw a limit, castigating a proposal from the Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), that new arrivals who wish to live in Germany permanently should be obliged to speak German in public and at home.
It is against this political storm giving a spurious credence to those who seek to scapegoat and sluggish economic growth, that rallies have taken place by a group calling itself ‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident [the West]” (PEDGIDA) in Dresden. It began with a dissatisfied local man with no political background, Lutz Bachmann, calling his first protest against perceived Islamisation in October. It only attracted a few hundred people but as word spread, by early December, 7,500 had joined the weekly Monday marches and it was inspiring similar demonstrations in other German cities such as Bonn, Munich, Kassel, Rostock and Würzburg (though the spawned offshoots e.g. BOGIDA – Bonn against the Islamisation of the Occident – have not mustered the same numbers as in Dresden). On 22nd December, for the tenth march, 17,500 rallied and celebrated their rapid rise by singing Christmas carols. The management of the historic Semperoper concert hall, where the protesters gathered outside, was not impressed, turning off the building’s lights and flying flags preaching openness and tolerance. Despite the appalling weather and withering condemnation by church leaders, business groups and politicians (except AfD which said the rallies had “struck a chord in German society”), a record 18,000 people turned out in the eastern city synonymous with controversial firebombing in 1945 by Allied forces, with other PEGIDA marches in Berlin, Stuttgart and, notably, Cologne, where the massive Gothic cathedral dimmed its outdoor lights, like the Dresden opera house, to avoid serving as a pictorial backdrop for the movement. It was followed by the city hall and other public buildings in the city in lowering the lights. Similar actions were taken in Berlin. A viral idea on Twitter urged ‘Darkness wherever there is PEGIDA’.
Though Merkel has denounced xenophobic ‘rabble-rousing’ and extremism, with other lawmakers deploring what they describe as ‘pin-striped Nazis’, a poll for Stern news reported that almost 30 per cent of Germans think Islam has too big an influence in the country and that the PEGIDA protest marches are justified. PEGIDA calls itself a grassroots movement and says it merely wishes to uphold ‘Judeo-Christian values’ and has no animus for ‘integrated’ Muslims (an ambiguous caveat). It also distances itself from the anti-Muslim protests in Cologne early in 2014 that turned violent, proclaiming itself a peaceful movement composed of ‘patriots’. Though it displays no neo-Nazi symbols, opponents say its rhetoric is reminiscent of fascists, it has been infiltrated by known Neo-Nazis and that it seeks to exploit xenophobic sentiment. PEGIDA’s leaders have singled out Muslim immigrants for their ire, but overall the movement has become antagonistic to immigrants of all backgrounds, especially the ones they denigrate as ‘economic refugees’, i.e. not ‘genuine’ ones. Moreover, the founder Bachmann has been revealed to possess a substantial criminal record, including convictions for burglary and drug-dealing.
In wanting to avoid the outcomes of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s The Hangman poem (“First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist…”), massive counter-demonstrations to PEGIDA have emerged. On 22nd December, 20,000 nationwide turned out for counter-protests (an estimated 12,000 in Munich alone), outstripping pro-PEGIDA rallies as outside Dresden, the right-wing populist movement could only assemble several hundred marchers in other cities. On 5th January, 3,000 Dresdeners paraded to show that PEGIDA had significant dissenters in the city. Roughly the same amount of PEGIDA opponents were present in Cologne, while 5,000 people in both Berlin and Stuttgart each easily outnumbered pro-PEGIDA people there. Even the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas showed his solidarity with anti-PEGIDA feeling by joining the Berlin counter-demonstration.
Where each set of protestors go from here is uncertain as is how long their enthusiasm will remain. PEGIDA may try to organise itself as a political party or ally itself with AfD – anti-immigrant political parties are strong in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and the UK, so a similar trend could be emerging in Germany, with some in Merkel’s CDU saying she has moved too far to the centre ground of politics (an unusual charge given that this is a coveted space), allowing this disillusion to spread. The upshot of these passions and counter-passions could lead to a general re-engagement in politics and higher turnouts at elections but be careful what you wish for – the results might usher in a new era of less tolerance.

Change in Sri Lanka

It seems that democracy is not dead after all in Sri Lanka.  The country with arguably the longest name for a capital in the world (Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte - Colombo is just the commercial capital) has ousted Mahinda Rajapaksa from power after ten years in power.  Ten years is probably sufficient for an individual to wield power to achieve their policy aims before either jadedness or power mania take hold.  When Tony Blair left office after a decade at the top, the nature of his utterances ("The more I listen to myself and the less I listen to others, the more I realise I am right.") suggested it was not a moment too soon.
Rajapaksa is a divisive figure on the island, successfully ending the decades-long struggle against the Tamil Tigers insurgency but committing war crimes in the process, he also instituted curtailments to civil liberties while acquiring sweeping powers for himself.  Yet his concession of defeat to a former cabinet colleague, Maithripala Sirisena, is important.  Mr Sirisena, who benefitted from the votes of the disgruntled Tamil community, installed veteran opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe as prime minister in a ceremony laden with symbolism. His oath was not taken by the chief justice, a tainted Rajapaksa appointee, but by a judge from the Tamil community whose votes swept Mr Sirisena to victory.  Whether Mr Sirisena is the man to restore 'freedom, democracy and the rule of law' remains to be seen - history is littered with idealist leaders who became corrupted by the trappings of power - but that an alternation as president has occurred is crucial in itself.

Live by the pen, die by the sword/gun

In the 99 years between Napoleon's final defeat and the start of World War One, anarchists were responsible for committing many atrocities.  They argued they were fighting the forces of reaction but sometimes they targeted 'liberal' authority figures in the hope of bringing an over-the-top response that would drive the masses to revolution (in the end the establishment figures signed themselves into history by refusing to refrain from war in 1914, which brought revolution in its wake).  Thus the anarchists targeted the 'Tsar-Liberator' Alexander II, killing him on the very day he was to sign a paper that may have led to a Russian constitution eventually.  It changed the course of history for the worse - that is what terrorists do.
Now, after the slaying of 12 people in Paris by Islamic extremist terrorists, fulminating atheists are demanding to blaspheme to the utmost while denigrating religion as their prerogative.  They don't look at the fact that one of the dead was a Muslim policeman, just as the terrorists dismissed him when they executed him cold blood while he begged for his life.  The terrorists' alleged motive may have been some cartoons long ago by a Danish agent-provocateur that bordered on racism but as the late editor of Charlie Hebdo, Stéphane Charbonnier, 'Charb' said, "When activists need a pretext to justify their violence they always find it."  In reality, in common with other millennial Islamic lone wolf extremists, they may have hoped to induce a wrong-headed public backlash against ordinary Muslims who abhor such cruelty, which may result in further alienation and maybe future grounds for recruitment into extremist ranks by others who can't find any other way to validate their own worthless existences other than by taking the lives of others.  In this way, those self-righteous atheists may be playing right into the hands of the terrorists.
One does not need to publish near-racist cartoons to 'win' freedom of speech, as dullard atheist voices claim (Nick Clegg, looking at you, for instance).  Of course, the state regulates free speech in itself.  In Germany, it is illegal to glorify Nazism.  In the UK, racial or religiously motivated insults come under the purview of the justice system.  In France, it is an imprisonable offence to deny the Armenian holocaust.  So all those quoting Voltaire - "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - are 21st century politically correct hypocrites - they wouldn't agree with Twitter arseholes who issue rape threats to people and certainly wouldn't defend to the death the right to say  it.  Je suis pas Charlie - I am not Charlie.  Free speech is not only about pissing off people needlessly just because you can.  That is not free speech, that is just immaturity.  Satire needs precision.  As  one Charlie Hebdo staffer (who survived the attack), Laurent Léger, said in 2012 explaining the motivation behind the cartoons, "The aim is to laugh. ... We want to laugh at the extremists - every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept."  An interesting viewpoint because it doesn't aspire to laugh at atheist extremists too.  Private Eye, the closest UK equivalent to Charlie Hebdo, is more of a truly anti-everything publication because no-one escapes its satire, instead of just targeting religions and politicians.  Like virtually every other UK outlet, it declined to publish the Danish cartoons when they became available, probably because they weren't funny.  Charlie Hebdo was being ideological rather than amusing when it did go ahead.
After the firebomb attack on the offices when it made Muhammad 'guest editor', Charb said, "I don't have a wife or kids," explaining his fearlessness.  Maybe his colleagues felt the same way.  But they do leave someone behind (former Charlie Hebdo director Philippe Val for example) and had a duty of care not to self-censorship but be more intelligent in how they criticised religions.  Making the Prophet a guest editor was exquisite in that regard.  It's not black-and-white between self-censorship and freedom of speech as demagogues, it's about nuance and being smart.
The lives of these terrorists are worth just spit in the wind and every person they have killed was worth a 1,000 of what they are.  They want to die in a death-by-cop scenario so twisted have their minds become, ironically because of the freedom of speech afforded to Islamic extremist hate preachers.  Go figure, atheists.  But like so many Muslims who have embraced nihilistic violence, they have become heretics.  The proscription on the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad has been described as being impossible to display the embodiment of human beauty.  It is more prosaic than that.  It is avoid idolatry.  When the Paris terrorists shouted "The Prophet has been avenged," 'Allahu Akbar' was almost an afterthought, if evenly consciously thought.  In their minds, the Prophet has become more important than God.  Roman Catholics may venerate the Pope but they wouldn't elevate him to the level of a deity.  These terrorists are stupid because of their bloodlust and hatred of all life (witness the killing of the Muslim policeman) and this is another aspect of their stupidity, having a very limited understanding of the Koran.  As Alexander Pope wrote, "A little learning is a dangerous thing;/ Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:/ There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain/ And drinking largely sobers us again."  These dickheads were the equivalent of the angry drunk who lashes out at any slight, perceived or otherwise.  The poisonous philosophy that they have imbibed is the greatest generational challenge to normality in leading countries since the end of the Cold War. New York, Washington D.C., Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Moscow, London, Mumbai, Boston, Kunming (in China) and other places can all attest to that.  It is more than just cutting off the head of the snake (such as the killing of Osama bin Laden).  It is about having having a rapidly different approach.  Blaspheming as much as possible is the idiot's approach.

New Year's Day

My blog output is definitely slowing with the number of spinning plates I have to keep from falling over.  Some are perpetual like care for my daughter, some are ongoing but immediate and some have to be done ASAP.  For the Christmas and New Year breaks, I took my eye off the ball, not least because I had to attend my regular work, 9-5, for all of last week bar Thursday (New Year's Day), with the post-Christmas output the heaviest workload of the year in Telegraph Announcements (engagements abound and old people giving out having made a last Christmas/New Year).  There's nothing like temporising with 'real' work.
So, I'll keep this entry short.  For the first time since Kimberley was born, I went to a house party.  The plan was for Kimberley to attend, if asleep in a spare room, but when it was time to leave (8 pm), despite my entreaties, Altaa ruled that it was too cold and dark for Kimberley to be leaving the house.  Also, against my entreaties, Altaa insisted that I went.
So, in some ways with reluctance, I went to Saff Lahndahn, specifically the area around Peckham Rye (although Nunhead train station is closer geographically to the flat).  It was a route well-worn for me as Denmark Hill, where one of my grandfathers resides, is just a stone's throw away (if you are Hercules).  Journey up to Bromley South and switch trains for a journey through the suburbs that takes just as long as the journey to Bromley South in the first place.
The party was movie-themed and so fancy dress was, if not mandatory, desirable.  With a tweed jacket and waistcoat, brown trousers and loosened tie, I was Colonel Mustard from Clue.  Alternatively, I could have been Flynn Carsen from The Librarian (TV movie series for the SyFy channel).  Further still, one of the guests guessed that I was Indiana Jones from the academia scenes from the movies.
The host, Simon Savory, was dressed up as Donkey from Shrek though he later changed his identity to Warhorse. There was Sandy from Grease (whose underlying message is that you have be a slutty bitch to get the man you want), Batman (using a dressing gown as a cape, it has to be from The Dark Knight Rises, where Bruce Wayne has spent the best part of a decade in his bedroom), a geisha girl from Memoirs of a Geisha, the murderer from Scream (1, 2 or 3), Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby) Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's but not Audrey Hepburn in her evening dress but a leftfield turn of Holly waking up in white shirt with tassle earrings and velvet eye cover, plus turns from Cats, Pulp Fiction, Ace Ventura and others besides.
Simon's notorious punch was in operation and limoncello and copious champagne was consumed.  I call Altaa up as I had promised at ten seconds to midnight to see in the New Year with her, long distance.  We danced away to old favourite songs until three in the morning and then crashed until quarter to noon.  As I helped clear away the recycling, my fragile state was not helped by the smell of dog food/poo (one or the other) in the downstairs lobby, though the brutal cold and wind of outside freshened me up (you know the wind is strong when the grass at ground level is seen to ripple and writhe).  I eventually sloped off at three in the afternoon, thanking Simon again.  That was how I saw in 2015, just like the good, old days.