Notes from Geneva: International Protection

UNHCR Standing Committee meeting, 2009

Introduction: Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller

The Global Needs Assessment (GNA) process has highlighted protection gaps and provided the opportunity to strengthen responses. Program design and monitoring will benefit. The Results Framework will provide the opportunity for comparative analysis & global consistency.

UNHCR is not the principle protection provider and can never be effective substitute for the exercise by States of their proper responsibilities.  UNHCR’s continued focus however is the building of effective national asylum systems through improved registration arrangements, expertise in refugee status determination or working to sensitise national legislative frameworks to age, gender and diversity considerations.

UNHCR’s protection mandate is delivered through protection staff with expertise and knowledge in a range of areas from refugee status determination, age/gender and diversity programming, Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) cluster co-ordination or protection capacity building.  Recent review of programs highlighted too few protection staff with low levels of knowledge and high turnover (due to temporary placements) which negatively impacts protection measures.

The GNA process illustrated the realisation by all offices of the implications flowing from UNHCR’s growing responsibility for Stateless populations.  The needs of Stateless persons feature more prominently in the plans than ever before. Some offices have found it difficult to move beyond advocacy and technical advice on statelessness issues to actual protection responses – this will be addressed through GNA planning and prioritization processes for mainstreaming of this population.

IDP’s are solidly integrated into planning, in the way of greater analysis of IDP needs, protection via documentation, land issues and other solutions.  Not all offices had sufficient budget to accommodate the needs of IDPs.  Further resources are needed to address the expanded IDP responsibilities of the offices, the GNA this has highlighted this as a key priority.

The offices have on-going dilemma of allocating the finite (and insufficient) resources between the competing protection objectives of all peoples of concern.  The GNA will highlight more protection measure gaps and act as an advocacy tool to secure more funds – if not, things will not get done.

Introduction: Director of the Department of International Protection Services, George Okoth-Obbo

• South and South West Asia, Middle East and Horn of Africa need special attention.
• Humanitarian Space shrinking due to the changing nature of armed conflict, restrictions on access, attacks on staff, use of the sovereignty argument by States and side effects of failed peacekeeping efforts. 260 humanitarian aid workers killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in 2008
• Staff security becoming greater priority for UNHCR
• Access to asylum for asylum seekers has become more difficult because of interception, detention and restrictive procedures which is a growing concern for UNHCR
• Need to transfer policies to practice.
• UNHCR leads 15 of the 22 IASC protection cluster operations 
• Goal of UNHCR to strengthen 1951 Convention, despite progress there is insufficient engagement by states, there remains a restrictive Refugee Status Determination system and national security is given priority over refugee protection.
• Stressed the importance of the Conclusion on Protracted Situations and the hope that the wording could be agreed by ExComm, as durable solutions, international solidarity and burden sharing were critical for the issue.
• Acknowledgement of the growing complexities of root causes of displacement – such as environmental, population growth, declining resources, inequality of access to resources, ecological damage, climate change, urbanisation, armed conflict, extreme deprivation
• The legal implications of implications of displacement driven by forces other than persecution, human rights violation and war have yet to be seriously assessed
• Whatever the cause of displacement the international protection process and response to provide asylum needs to be flexible to accommodate the varying needs and strengthen in areas where it is weak.  

Protecting Persons of Concern in Emergencies a particular focus of UNHCR – an overview

• Afghanistan and Pakistan have over 4.7m people of concern, intensified conflict and restricted access has created further disastrous situations
• Iraq witnessed greater security & co-ordination with the Government to create conditions for voluntary return and sustainable re-integration of refugees and IDPs. However, is still a fragile situation with over 4.3m displaced internally and in Jordan and Syria
• Darfur continues to host over 3m refugees & IDPs, the forced departure of 16 NGO’s threatening the international community’s ability to respond
• The Somalian situation continues to remain volatile with 1.3m IDPs and over 500,000 refugees hosted by neighbouring countries 
• The Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo remain extremely volatile and are witness to SGBV and recruitment of children by armed groups
• Sri Lanka’s cease fire allowed humanitarian forces in and seen 280,000 IDPs registered
• Columbia has 3m IDPs and 300,000 in refugee like situations in neighbouring countries

Response from Australian Government Delegation:

• Recognition of the complexity and frequency of global population flows, exacerbated by the global economic downturn, climate change and conflict induced IDP and protracted refugee situations.
• Reference to the new situations of displacement (Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia) and improved security situation in Iraq
• Requested that UNHCR clearly articulates its priorities for action for the various persons of concern
• Increased focus on protracted refugee situations announced by Australian Government and an on-going commitment to provide durable solutions through a new 4yr re-settlement planning framework
• Australia welcoming 13,750 people under its Humanitarian Program for 2009-2010, an increase of 250 places on 2008/9 (7,750 under the special humanitarian program and 6,000 under refugee component)
• Increased the target for the resettlement of women at risk and their dependents under the re-settlement program from 10.5% to 12%.
• Urge Nepal and Bhutan to work together to facilitate a return to Bhutan for those refugees who wish to take up this option
• Congratulates Japan on the launch of a pilot resettlement program
• Commends Indonesia for working co-operatively with UNHCR to build a strong framework to ensure protection and minimise irregular movements
• Australia will continue to provide resettlement palces for those referred by UNHCR and will continue to fund projects to stablilise displaced populations, support sustainable return and build protection capacity in the region.
• Pleased by the agreement reached at the 3^rd Ministerial conference of the Bali Process to use an ad hoc group process to mitigate increased irregular population flows and the impact on victims
• Australian Government announced its complementary protection model to give effect to Australia’s non-refoulment obligations within its protection visa framework.

Notes from Geneva: Kenyan Government & NGO views.

Kenyan delegation, UNHCR Standing Committee meeting, 2009

• Agreed with the Asst High Commissioner that dependence by governments on UNHCR makes governments passive partners. UNHCR should feel emboldened to challenge governments where they fail
• Dadaab is the litmus test for camps – now hosting 300,000 displaced persons – capacity is 90,000
• Committed to The Netherlands request to make land available to ease overcrowding
• Inability of UNHCR to protect is an indictment on UNHCR – the ‘worst’ places for displaced persons have the largest populations – naming and shaming discourages governments from doing more.
• Called on UNHCR to investigate root causes of risks – instigated by host communities or mixed migration flows where there is a lack, or complete absence of screening facilities – should be mandatory
• Levelling risk at host countries is now a cause for complaint – “no longer passive” – as recent UNHCR / Kenyan Govt standoff at Kakuma last month demonstrated, situation could have been avoided
• More displaced people from Mogadishu travelling 170 km to camps. In Kenya, there has been an increase in outflows; however, in Dadaab, the main concern remains tremendous overcrowding and congestion.

UNHCR Annual Consultation with NGOs – Africa Bureau

 Africa represents 50 per cent of UNHCR’s global activities.

Comment from the floor: refugees’ voices are being silenced in Kakuma. Refugees started a newspaper, UNHCR became concerned. A human rights lawyer has said the newspaper could go on under the right to freedom of association, however, UNHCR interfered and refused to provide a letter of support to the refugees as the Kenyan Govt had demanded. This is one way of ensuring refugees’ voices are heard, and bring awareness to the conditions in the camp.

Question from the floor (Kenyan NGO): I would like to raise the issue of the closure of the Kenyan Government closing its border with Somalia. Mogadishu is on fire; what is the intention of the Kenyan office; I understand the difficulties with the government but Mogadishu is not safe for anyone.

Response: Menghesha Kebede (UNHCR – Officer in Charge of Africa Bureau)

One issue, which is a collective challenge, is ensuring refugee voices are heard. I have heard about the situations in Namibia and Kakuma. While I fully support the NGO stance, there is one principle that should be followed regarding information disseminated by refugees – it must have refugees at the heart. It should reflect conditions but be for the use of the camp committee which can use this important feedback to improve its plans. I understand these communications have news value, but it should firstly form the basis for programme planning. I don’t agree that it can’t be used for raising awareness, but it should inform programmes. Information disseminated outside should follow the principle of agreeing to avoid challenges with governments – local laws need to be respected. If external people are going into camps, that information should report internally. We will press on, but we must respect the civilian nature of refugee camps given political concerns. I support the full dissemination of information by refugees for refugees.

 The situation in Somalia is very concerning. Despite Kenya’s decision to close the border, it remains porous, with 57,000 new arrivals at Dadaab. If the border was open at designated points, screening could be done; if armed elements are coming in, we could report them from the office and approach the Kenyan Government – and probably try and resolve the issue.

In Dadaab, there are three major issues – the Kenyan Government, the local community, and land. More than 280,000 are crammed into a camp that was built for 90,000 people. It is not conducive to protecting public health, sanitation etc. UNHCR has taken the protection discussion to the highest levels – the High Commissioner has met with the President; this was followed with discussions with the Prime Minister and two missions. One positive is that 2,000 hectares has been set aside for a new camp. We remain hopeful that we can improve the situation but we need NGO support. We are encouraging voluntary relocation from Dadaab to Kakuma, but we are feeling the pinch from the local community, which perceives that too much attention is paid to refugees at the expense of the host community – and after 19 years, the impact of environmental degradation, destruction of trees, and effects on water supplies are devastating. It’s appropriate, we appreciate that as far as resources are concerned, the situation is unfair and more needs to be done, so in July we are starting an integrated project over two years for both refugees and the host community. ExComm and donors will tell us to stay within our mandate and budget, to focus on life saving needs, but these needs are not being met.

Notes from Geneva: Fire & Water

Notes taken during the UNHCR Annual Consultations with NGOs in Geneva, 2009.

Monday 29^th June: Integrated Solutions to Cooking Needs and Safe Water

Speakers:

Patrick Widner, Executive Director, Solar Cookers International

Valentine Ndibalema, Senior Technical Officer, UNHCR

The focus of the meeting is to discuss how food preparation needs and the provision of potable water can be met through an integrated approach of using simple technologies. Approximately one third of the world’s population still cooks over open fires utilizing traditional fuels such as wood, charcoal and other forms of biomass. Through the utilization of solar energy and solar cookers combined with fuel efficient stoves, hay baskets or fireless cookers, dependence on traditional fuels can be substantially reduced while decreasing environmental devastation and drastically reduce smoke related illnesses. Furthermore, utilizing solar energy to pasteurize water by use of the solar cooker can reduce water borne diseases such as those caused by e-coli, Hepatitis A and Rotaviruses.

Notes from Session

Speaker 1: Patrick Widen, Executive Director, Solar Cookers International

The challenges:

One third or more than 2 billion of the world’s population cooks over open fires fuelled by wood or other biomass materials. This contributes to degradation of our forests, produces smoke related diseases that cause more deaths than malaria and puts women, in particular, in danger while debilitating their strength and enslaving them to fuel gathering.

Approximately 1.1 billion people do not have access to improved water and 2.4 billion have no basic sanitation. More than 4 billion serious cases of diarrhoea occur each year world wide and case more than 2 million deaths, most of them children.

 Challenges in introducing the technologies presented:

• Availability of alternative fuels and water solutions
• Cultural considerations including gender issues
• Security, especially for women
• Direct provision of fuel to residents and hygienic practices in refugee/IDP camps and dependency
• Environmental degradation
• Use of solar energy for other purposes such as lighting and pumping of water

 Achievements of solar cookers and integrated cooking:

• The use of solar cookers by Solar Cookers International in humanitarian settings includes efforts in refugee camps of Aisha inEthiopia, Kakuma and Dadaab inKenya
• 1800 solar cookers being prepared for Danish Refugee Council for Darfur region of Sudan. Training and follow up services  being provided
• KoZon (Tchad Solaire) – successful manufacture of solar cookers and distribution of more than 15,000 inIridimi,Chadin addition to training. Replication has focused on camps of Touloum and Oure Casoni
• Evaluation of all of these efforts are at solarcooking.org
• Solar cooking is only one of the technologies that can help to relieve the fuel shortage in humanitarian settings. There are limitations on its application due in part to climatic conditions and cultural acceptance.
• Integrated cooking seeks to help alleviate these limitations by using a package of cooking methodologies including efficient stove, solar cooker and hay basket or heat retention device.

 Achievements of Safe Water:

The Solar Cooker International Water Project inKenyautilizes the Portable Microbiology (PML), the solar cooker, Water Pasteurization (WAPI) and ceramic water storage container. This group of technologies is known as the Safe Water Package.

• The PML, combines two scientifically vetted tests to detect the presence of e.coli in water. The tests used are the Colilert MPN Test by IDEXX and the e.coli Count Petrifilm by the 3M company.
• No formal education is required to learn these technologies; most people can be taught in two to three hours
• The WAPI is used in combination with the tests to determine when water has been heated sufficiently in a solar cooker or in another manner to pasteurize the water. Heating water to a pasteurization temperature of 65 Degrees Celsius will kill Hepatitis A virus, Escherichia Coli, Shigella, cholera, typhoid, rotavirus, worms, Giardia, Ehtamoeba and cryptosporidium.
• Training and use of the PML and WAPI has been implemented in a number of countries through government ministries and local NGOs.
• This past year, representatives of UNHCR and UNHABITAT from a total of ten countries took part in training.
• Application of the PML was used in Water Resources Management Authority inKenyain 2008 following an outbreak of cholera. 

Utilization of the PML and pasteurization of water is only one method to make water safe. Chlorine and products such as AQUATABS are other examples. The Global Water Initiative through eight major partners is also supporting efforts to make portable water available to all.

The way forward:  

Some of the issues to be considered are:

• Promotion of integrated development with a focus on health, income generation and education
• Relationships with local communities and host governments
• Integrating cultural considerations into product design
• Distribution and required extended services design to assist in adoption levels

 Speaker 2:

Valentine Ndibalema, Senior Technical Officer, UNHCR

• Main challenges from UNHCR perspective are primarily community education, on-going extension services, capacity building of implementing partners, securing long term funding partners and cultural adaptations and adoption. 
• Aside from the environmental benefits of solar cookers other benefits include time saving for women which allows them time for income generating activities, protection mechanism as women do not need to leave the camp as frequently to collect the fire wood
• Solar cookers are just one of a diversified array of technologies using renewable energy sources in the humanitarian context – UNHCR is also using solar technology for lighting (lanterns and flashlights); and the Safe Water Package is used in water purification and pasteurisation.
• Today we will look at where we stand vis-à-vis the application of these technologies, which began in the humanitarian setting in the early 1990s.

 Question: Which areas are these technologies being used in?

Response Patrick SCI: Used in Ethiopia for years. Going back toKenya (Dadaab and Kakuma). Next field programme –Darfur, in conjunction with Danish Refugee Council. Send trainers for two weeks, but constrained by security concerns.

Question: Why is the programme no longer ongoing inKenya? Is it being used elsewhere? Is UNHCR in talks with UNITO about its technologies?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: UNITO is still struggling with the issue of where to start. Solar cookers can be made by communities. The Danish Refugee Council trainers will go to Kenya, see what is being used, manufactured and disseminated, and take that learning toDarfur. As to the question of the programme not working, there are different types of programmes but still pilot sites. The cooker could not be distributed in all settings. Firstly, it involves cultural and behavioural change on the part of refugees – cultural relevance is important and if not matched to needs will mean that the technology is not adopted. Also, in Kenya, UNHCR distributes firewood and solar cookers. Where there is no shortage of firewood, refugees do not see the need to use the new technologies. However, in Tchad, there is literally nothing. UNHCR needs to distribute kerosene and wood – and both must be imported. So the programme is working where there is a shortage of biomass, and where there is resistance, there is wood. The program is likely to work in environments where there are restrictions by governments on collecting fire wood.

Question: Why is UNHCR is still distributing wood in Kakuma?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: UNHCR can only meet 30 per cent of total refugee fire wood needs, and now the Kenyan government has put in place new laws to ban firewood collection, so UNHCR and beneficiaries will be forced to use alternate methods of energy. Cooking technology alternatives should go hand-in-hand with strong extension services to increase level of community understanding and adoption.

Response Patrick Widner SCI: Solar cooking also provides income generation opportunities in Tchad through time savings in not collecting fire wood. Women are producing salt, woven products, etc.

Valentine Ndimbalema: Income generation in Tchad also includes the manufacture of cookers by women in camps.

Question: In Darfur, is UNHCR intending to use the solar cooker (CookIt)?

Response Patrick Widner SCI:  It may be more appropriate to use box cookers.

Question Why would the solar cookers not be culturally accepted?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: The main issues are: 1) reflected heat, the people think the cookers might be too hot to touch 2) that the reflection could damage the eyes and that 3) food can’t be stirred which makes some people think that cultural foods such as ’ugali’, which require regular stirring doesn’t taste the same, this seems to be unacceptable to men, but not women, who say food doesn’t taste any different. However, the technology is encouraging men to become involved in cooking. This issues stresses the need for extension services to support the role out of the new technology.

Comment With regards to the acceptance of the technology, we worked with it in Dadaab. The Somali refugees didn’t like it. Cultural foods cannot be cooked, need to look at the way it is used.

Question What is the sustainability of the continued education and extension services?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: It depends on the situation. In Tchad, for example, there are established leaders within the camp. They worked to increase awareness of the technologies to overcome resistance, starting with small groups. After a few months, the response was overwhelming. It depends on common mobilisation and awareness building – and also on variable factors such as the weather. If there is no sun, there is no option to use the solar cooker. In one camp in Tchad, we were able to demonstrate the technology in one day. The next day, the weather turned bad and the refugees questioned how they could cook if the sun wasn’t out, so the dependence on weather conditions provides another challenge for the adoption of this new technology. UNHCR is encouraging use of the solar cooker as part of an integrated alternate energy approach. For example, the solar cooker can’t be used in the early morning (lack of sun), so in Ethiopia, we are encouraging people to use kerosene to make their breakfast, use the solar cooker during the day and keep food warm in a hay basket, made locally, for the evening meal. If you consider the range of cooking and energy sources used in homes inNairobi, people don’t just rely on a single means to cook – they have choice of a stove, or a microwave, which is particularly important due to the power cuts. 

Question: How does solar technology affect income generation?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: It decreases the time women – who are the ones looking for firewood – have to spend on that activity – anything between 4-6 hours in East Kenya is saved if they use the solar cooker. That time is then available for women to develop livelihoods via income generating activities. Also, the solar cooker doesn’t require as much watching as a pot.

Question Do you have any evidence of the impact this new technology has on SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence) incidence and to what extent has this driven the roll out of the product?

Response Patrick Widner SCI: Yes, we have undertaken an evaluation of a particular project and its impact on SGBV, it is available on our website.  I am particularly moved by the stories of the violence against refugee women as they collect firewood, not just perpetrated by the military outside of camps but by local host communities. I know of cases where women out collecting firewood who have had their feet stoned.

Valentine Ndimbalema: There has been a reduction in tensions between host communities and refugees, where the reduction in the supply and distribution of firewood has become a cause of SGBV incidents. However, firewood collection is also an income generating activity and despite women adopting and using the solar cookers they are still leaving the camps to collect firewood to sell.  So if solar cookers can reduce the movement of women in and out of camp environments it has the potential to reduce the incidents of SGBV.

Question: What about the implications for public health? Is there a corresponding decrease in the number of accidents, with fewer trips being made to collect firewood? Do you have any studies on indoor pollution?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: Not on the solar cooker, on ethanol and coal briquettes inNepal. We are carrying out an assessment inEthiopia, but that is with regards to quality control. Where the solar cooker is used, cooking is done outside, or the kitchen is open. Where smoke inhalation problems are encountered is where kitchens require a chimney.

Question Can you point to a success story? We have had problems promoting best practice.

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: Yes. In Tchad, and also in Nepal, where it has been shown that two families can share one stove. InKenya, the success is on and off. The government’s new restrictive rules on firewood collection will have an impact on the project success. Also, implementing partners like GTZ were receiving cookers from promoters but no extension services. We need to go to local staff and ensure they are well grounded in the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of the solar cooker. In Tchad, they can be provided for 8 euros including staff training, or 6 euros for the cooker itself. The cookers have a lifespan of six months, so we make a budget allowance of 16 euros per family per year.

Question At last week’s standing committee, the Kenyan delegation spoke at some length on environmental degradation associated with hosting large refugee populations. How is that impacting on UNHCR’s job?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: Energy is politics. InKenya, refugees will be affected by the new guidelines. Environmental degradation is not only an energy issue. The Kenyan government is making land available for a new camp, but it is only a few kilometres away from Dadaab, which was intended to host 90,000 refugees – current population now stands at almost 300,000. It also depends on the partner. We will have to draw water form the same aquifer. There are challenges from all perspectives. In Darfur, we had the funds to start the project, but then the partner was no longer working there. Now we are working with the Danish Refugee Council, but we need to build capacity, which is why we are conducting the two week training course. There are other factors at play too. In Tchad, UNHCR has to import fuel from Cameroon. There are impacts and costs from transportation, distribution, storage.

Question: Do you see a corresponding decrease in tensions between host communities and refugee populations?

Response Valentine Ndimbalema: In respect to host communities, what you have are great disparities in the size of populations, particularly around Dadaab. In Tchad, you are talking about 500 villagers compared with 20,000 refugees in a camp. Water sources are a cause of tension, as are livelihoods. If there is no development programme, you cannot build in an ongoing way; progress doesn’t tally between humanitarian and development planning. We need long-term thinking especially in protracted situations. For example, will donors continue to buy kerosene of 10-15 years?

Patrick Widner SCI: We have just met with UNHCR inKenya and will work on a joint programme for camps and local communities, but we are talking about nomadic societies in many cases, so the answer may be to start a mobile program.

Question: With regards to water sanitation and pasteurisation, when you are boiling water it’s easy to know when you reach boiling point, but what about pasteurisation – it’s more difficult.

Response Patrick Widner SCI: We use an enclosed pasteurisation indicator made of wax; it melts at pasteurisation temperature and can be used over and over again. It’s an effective tool that I have seen an eight-year-old girl train a community to use.

Valentine Ndimbalema: One of the challenges we face is that refugees may think water is safe, but in the event of a flood, even clean water becomes dirty.

Comment: In Dadaab, the water provided is clean, but the containers used by refugees and the way they are handled means the water becomes contaminated.

Patrick Widner SCI: That’s why we have a ceramic water container with a small opening at the top; it’s too small to put a container in. The water must be sourced from the tap at the bottom.

Question: Given the cultural issues which have been raised, to what extent do you involve refugee communities in the design of the cookers?

Response Patrick Widner SCI: In Tchad, a group called Tchad Solare is involved in all major decisions. The camp is divided into zones. Refugees voluntarily went to the local Tchad women; they speak the same language and have formed their own NGO, Tchad Solare. There is also a Dutch engineer who has addressed the difficulties in cooking traditional Sudanese food. He has adjusted the design to match the needs of the local population. UNITO is looking into what he has done. His name is Derk Rijks; he is from a Dutch non-profit called KoZon.

Valentine Ndimbalema: In conclusion, dissemination is still a big problem; uniformity is not there between NGOs, which is something the Women’s Commission is trying to do – standardise household energy needs. But we need your advocacy. Energy is “nobody’s business”; but if we want to move beyond the environmental discussion, if we want to protect women, we are left hanging, there is no agency – we depend on our mandates, we started talking with UNITO but it is a question of commitment, a question of working with NGOs and individual institutions.

Patrick Widner SCI: Outside of the camps, we have been working with UNHabitat very well.

Valentine Ndimbalema: This is everyone’s issue. In Dadaab, the problem is still there, but the energy agenda is not a high priority, even though we have had to go from 60 to 100 kilometres away to get firewood, and still then, we are not meeting demand.

Wank words

This is a list of my pet irritants, with accompanying reasons for said irritation. Sometimes it’s because there is a better, shorter word; sometimes because I do not understand it, but mostly because I think they are full of wank. Feel free to add, subtract, or tell me I’m full of wank.

Your starters are:

Bogan: methinks the latte-sippers doth protest too much (speaking as an inner-city, latte sipping, elitist wanker). Watching Q&A does not imply critical thought or style.

Cashed-up bogan: there are plenty of things to call people who own two cars, three 60-something inch TVs, and have fake tans applied every four weeks. Those with healthy bank balances or maxed-out credit cards?

Co-Captain / Founder: it’s not The Beatles. Someone had the idea first or is better at it.

Courage: I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re playing with a broken leg; if you’re running around a park for the entertainment of others you are not courageous.

Educator: just teach, will you. Even professors do it, so if your charges are under voting age, be a teacher & be proud of it

Elite: Antonym of bogan, apparently (speaking as a Novocastrian-born, football-loving, trackie-dak wearing bogan)

Evangelist: don’t. Just don’t. Advocate, unless you’re bringing a revival tent to TEDx

Foodie: I blame this on anti-European attitudes, which dictate that any French word is a wank word. Wrong. Foodie means nothing. “I watch Masterchef, therefore I am a foodie?” No. If you take pleasure in food, you are a gourmand.

Futurist: one, I admit, may be a profession, but one I don’t understand. Sounds like a cross between inventor & the Wizard of Oz.

Guru: oh, this is right up there. See ‘evangelist’, swap the tent for saffron robes.

‘…gate’: there is only one ‘gate’: Watergate. Resulted in resignation of a US President? Anything less is just full of wank.

Humourist: see educator. You are a comedian. If you bring the funny by drawing, you’re a cartoonist. If your writing makes people laugh, you’re still a writer. Just a funny one.

Kim: do not abbreviate someone’s name without asking them. It’s impolite. This is different to a nickname, i.e. …

Kimbo: … which is generally a term of endearment, as opposed to …

Kimberley: … which is my nom de work.

Legend: too readily applied to those who are not.

Masterchef: just fuck off. I love chefs, especially Marco Pierre White & Anthony Bourdain. My sister was a chef. To become even a sous chef requires years of peeling potatoes, cuts, burns & no tears. “I cried because they didn’t like my chocolate & prawn soufflé?” Imagine having a soufflé thrown against a wall by a chef who is about to send mains to a table of four. That’s pressure.

‘… one of Australia’s leading …’: says who? Even TIME’s lists are subjective.

Pastafarian: last time I looked, the key ingredient of pasta was wheat, not plasma.

Plating Up: see “Masterchef”. Your kitchen bench does not qualify as a pass in a commercial kitchen.

Political spin: a favourite of lazy journos who call political advisers for story ideas 10 minutes before they go to news conference, & then write about how much governments spend on political advisers. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and one I will expand on.

Senior party source: journalistic code for pissed-off backbench MP and / or photocopying kid.

Share: “Thanks for sharing.” I can’t explain it, I just loathe the saying as much as the very intimate *hug* has a metaphysical attribute that somehow escapes me.

Sustainable: as opposed to? Unsustainability can be measured via changes in behaviour / consumption over time. Sustainability is dependent on it happening, & is therefore difficult to argue.

Winning: a la Charlie Sheen. It’s not. It’s losing everything.

Wonk: About .037 per cent of the population is actively engaged as policy wonks. Chances are if you describe yourself as a wonk, you’ve just discovered “The West Wing”, almost a decade after it finished.

Talking Points Memos

Malcolm Farnsworth’s critique of the Prime Minister & Australian political scene, published today by The Drum, is as ever, spot on. (“Malcolm Farnsworth: Three occasions, three glimpses of Barack Obama, three lessons for Julia Gillard. http://bit.ly/leu38P“)
Sadly, the piece isn’t counter-balanced with a more nuanced take on the US political discourse. In fact, it reads more like a DCCC talking points memo.
President Obama’s favourables still hover around 44%; the crowd that has thinned-out among potential GOP presidential-candidates has been Donald Trump – the declared candidates include Gingrich (damaged), Pawlenty & the dark-horse libertarian darling, Johnson. Then there are Romney, who has $6m cash-on-hand at present, & yes … Palin, who has just bought a house in AZ.
I say this as a supporter of the President, but his oratorical talent has rarely been doubted. He’s given a few good speeches in Europe … unfortunately, the speech that counted, delivered to AIPAC, was nothing new. In fact, he’s stuck to the same rhetoric and policy as his two immediate predecessors. The difference is like it or not, Israeli-Palestinian peace seems further away at a time when Israel’s neighbours – & therefore the Palestinians – are looking to make Israel’s claim to be the Middle East’s only democracy a thing of the past.

The Jihadist Pimpernel

‘Osama bin-Laden and his protégés are the children of desperation: they come from countries where political struggle through peaceful means is futile.”

Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia

International Herald Tribune, 11 October 2001

As a self-confessed international relations & human security nerd (note nerd does not equal expert in ANY way), news of the extra-judicial killing of Osama bin-Laden is like a really good one night stand. It’s great, sexy, an intense bout of oxygen for my passions, listening to smart people talking about my world view. Like a great one-nighter, it won’t last, despite the smart people; we’ll go back to opinion polls and leadership challenges soon enough. So here are a few thoughts, probably incoherent and a cautionary tale for Fairfax as to why sub-editors are required – without them, newspapers will become foolish blogs like mine.

1/. Osama bin-Laden: ir/relevant?

Many of the counter-terrorism and Middle East experts I greatly respect have already put it out there: bin-Laden is irrelevant; his legacy is not outstanding. Despite its grim successes – embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the strike against the USS Cole and 9/11 – al-Qaeda has failed to achieve its stated aim, to inspire an Islamic caliphate, ridding the oppressed of dictators and false kings propped up by infidels. It is ordinary people demanding democracy who are achieving results, not those carrying bombs in their underpants. Alternately, bin-Laden undoubtedly kept al-Qaeda in the money, not only through his own wealth, but through his extensive contacts. He wasn’t entirely passed his use-by date to the organisation he founded; perhaps the organisation itself is struggling for relevance as Arabs rise up and demand 21st century freedoms, not a 7th century ideology.

2/. Kill bin?

As a Twitter friend of mine, @SenamBeheton wrote tonight:

Are people celebrating #OBL’s death or the end of his possibilities? Reaction if he was arrested not killed? Would have been the same.

It’s a worthy, skilfully put statement. Why kill bin-Laden?

Why do I, a believer in the imperfect, largely unwritten world of international law, not have a problem with his assassination. Is this why I fear NATO is overstepping the mark in bombing Muammar Qaddafi’s compound; yet have few – almost no – qualms about bin-Laden’s assassination? Both are violations of my interpretation of international law – UN resolution 1973 does not entail the extra-judicial killing of a man who, like it or not, remains a head of state. bin-Laden’s death surely violates Pakistan’s sovereignty – I cannot be convinced that anyone in Islamabad had prior knowledge of the kill squad – and is the unilateral action of the hegemonic power. So why am I uneasy about one, and not the other? I have thought about it since I saw President Obama’s carefully worded statement. Killing bin-Laden shuffles the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ leaderboard, but his strategic input to al-Qaeda’s activities after the Battle of Tora Bora is questionable – so was the kill team necessary? His value to the organisation on 30 April 2011 was as a figurehead for al-Qaeda franchises and bogeyman for the West, in particular Americans. This is why I understand President Obama giving the go ahead for his assassination. This is not an episode of “The West Wing’. Given he was first briefed on the potential operation last August, President Obama has had time to consider his options. I applaud him for using his intelligence agencies and military in an ‘old skool’ manner; after 9/11, the reputation and morale of the American intelligence community reached a nadir. The security apparatus of the US could not prevent such an attack. Despite the Revolution in Military Affairs, and his own use of drone aircraft to bomb suspected Taliban-held areas of Pakistan, the POTUS made sure it was he, as Commander-in-Chief watched as Navy SEALS, not an unmanned plane, killed bin-Laden. The photographs from the White House Situation Room do not reveal any sense of jubilation, but white-knuckles; fear for the safety of their own troops, especially after one of the helicopters stalled, and, I dare say, some horror at what those assembled were witnessing. Then, having ordered the kill and witnessed it, Obama wrote a speech, alerted the press corps and gave a compelling, sombre statement and delivered it down the barrel of a camera late on Sunday night. There was little hyperbole, no ‘Mission Accomplished’; yet I cannot condemn the crowds who gathered at Ground Zero and the White House. Sure, “USA, USA” is not the most intelligent chant, but I truly believe it was a cathartic expression, not a celebration. We experience security subjectively. Americans felt violated by 9/11, and they had a long-bearded Saudi jihadist to blame. I don’t remember Americans spontaneously greeting the capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the tactical magician behind the attacks. Americans subjectively experienced terror at the hands of bin-Laden, & people are happy he is dead. Is it necessary for the US administration to release pictures of its dead prey? Difficult call. I was repulsed by the scratchy vision of Saddam Hussein’s execution, taken by a guard on a mobile phone, and yet I circulated a photograph allegedly showing the dead bin Laden on Twitter as soon as I saw it. The photograph was confirmed as a pitiful photoshop job. Embarrassing for me, more embarrassing for the three journalists whose hands it passed through before reaching me. Releasing the photos? Ghoulish? Will it put to rest the ‘deathers’ who don’t believe the President of the United States, or those who insist that he died years ago? I doubt it. There is no putting brains into statues. Release the photos? Will it spark anger, cause reprisal attacks? Probably. Yet the sight of the bloodied body of Ché Guevara, laid out for the world to see in Bolivia is not the Ché first year arts students venerate on their $2 t-shirts – the handsome young Ché of the Cuban revolution. bin Laden’s whippet features already appear on $2 t-shirts; I doubt they’ll be updated to feature his death mask. Is this a neat end to a shadow-caster? Definitely. I am not going to engage in what bin-Laden could have dumped on the US in a trial at The Hague. Buckets of shit that would make Julian Assange look like a flea in the ear of a dog; but Saddam Hussein’s trial didn’t afford the world a real look into the business he had done with the West. Would bin Laden’s have been any different? Does it help Obama politically? Absolutely. The carnival barkers, Palin, Bachmann and Trump look positively idiotic. Does it secure his re-election? Put it this way – his job approval ratings will go up for a month or so. Then, like us, Americans will go back to their real insecurities: unemployment and unending wars. Which brings me to … 

3/. The realpolitik: what now for the Middle East and Pakistan?

While al-Qaeda has publicly declared its support for protestors in Tunisia & Libya, the only rebel or revolutionary force where there are ‘flickers’ of al-Qaeda is Libya, as acknowledged by Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander and Commander of EUCOMM in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in March (Reuters, The Telegraph, BBC). The President of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, claims al-Qaeda has snatched SAMS (surface-to-air missiles) from the rebel zone. Of potentially greater import is the future role of Atiyyah Allah al-Libi, one of the few Libyans in al-Qaeda’s central leadership group. Could he drive a greater jihadist influence through the rebel hierarchy? Is that why Libya’s protestors were able to unsheath weapons and fight Qaddafi? I worry because of my perception of security. I fear that NATO has pursued an illogical strategy in Libya, and its only easy ‘out’ is to kill Qaddafi. Air strikes are not preventing the humanitarian outrages in Misurata and other towns. With every dragging day I am more convinced that the unspoken civil war which is being fought in the Maghreb will split and spread and Libya, torn in two, will not draw parallels with Vietnam, but Lebanon. There have already been incursions by Qaddafi forces into Tunisia. The President of Chad is right to fear weapons seeping from rebels and loyalists – his country has been involved in one of those ugly, unknown wars with Libya for decades. And Qaddafi – Qaddafi has been armed to the hilt since the arms embargo was lifted & he was rehabilitated by the Europeans. Arms in the hands of al-Qaeda and its pretenders in Libya means arms in Somalia, Yemen. Arms mean one thing: arma-fucking-geddon. And on that cheery note, we shift east, to Pakistan.

Many, and smarter minds than I have put the US / Pakistan problem down on paper with great eloquence. I will concentrate on what I see as the drivers of insecurity. In short, the gin joint is teetering on the edge of the clichéd ‘failed state’; unlike Somalia, no one can walk away. Unlike Afghanistan, we cannot pull the pin and hope for the best. Pakistan cannot topple over the edge. It dances around handbags with its nuclear-armed neighbour, India. It is terrorist central. It is fairly broken with corruption and human insecurity. It is not a failed state, but it is one ruled by networks of influence which have freed political actors from formal constraints of governance – the rules of representation, accountability and transparency. At the domestic level, informal networks coalesce around influential individuals, and may infiltrate every element of the political process, helping those in power to keep it by manipulating the national polity and cultivating a culture of cronyism, where network allies network receive government positions for personal reward. This solidifies a power base and may make the machinery of government inefficient and susceptible to corruption. Such networks flourish in states where power is not diffused, particularly if the judiciary is not independent and the rule of law breaks down. Influence can extend through families, clans or villages and across these boundaries, reaching out to other key ‘influencers’ and offering mutual benefit. This makes it difficult for opposition voices to be heard legitimately and competitors hungry for authority, particularly if it is accompanied by prestige and access to public wealth. Groups which may once have been confined to local rivalries will seize on a mood of disaffection and extend their networks in states struggling under the weight of government by favour. Hardened opposition networks of influence are less susceptible to dysfunction of that nature; it may prove more difficult to build connections on little more than promises, but success demands loyalty and discipline, norms which are diminished when a culture of entitlement becomes deeply entrenched. The delegitimization of social, political and military structures is a root cause of conflict. Conflict and fear. A University of Maryland report, Pakistani Public Opinion on the Swat Conflict, Afghanistan, and the US (1 July 2009) found the Pakistani public’s views of militant groups operating in Pakistan have become sharply more negative over the last year and a half; very large majorities now see them as a serious threat to the country’s future. A major shift has taken place in Pakistanis’ perceptions of religious militant groups in their country. In September 2007, only 34 percent thought the “activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban in FATA and settled areas” were a critical threat. In the current study this increased dramatically to 81 percent. In 2007, only 38 percent thought “the activities of religious militant groups in Pakistan” were a critical threat; in this study, 67 percent did. There has been a major shift in Pakistani opinion toward al-Qaeda – so far as it regards Pakistan itself. In late 2007, 41 per cent saw al-Qaeda’s activities as a critical threat to the vital interests of Pakistan in the next ten years; 21 percent called these activities an important, but not critical threat; and 14 percent said they were not a threat. In the current study, 82 percent called al-Qaeda’s activities a critical threat to Pakistan—a 41 percent increase. Twelve percent said al-Qaeda was an important, but not critical threat; only 2 percent said it was not a threat. If security is experienced subjectively, the Pakistani people are frayed and frightened. The US has little or no option but to keep the faith (at least in public) and perform a seismic shift against the multiple threats Pakistan faces from the extreme negligence of its government, its intelligence service and military. This is the great challenge facing this cool-headed President. Killing bin-Laden exposes the sores, and will prove to be pivotal in helping Pakistanis claw back their democracy; restore the apparatus of state. Maybe, bin-Laden’s death will bring an ‘Arab Spring’ to Islamabad and prevent non-state actors from pouncing on a state which is simply too big to fail.

Blowback

As the conflict in Libya drags on, it is becoming increasingly clear that as with most armed conflicts of the last 100 years, a bombing campaign will not ‘succeed’ (success in this case being the removal from power of Muammar Qaddafi). Having secured a United Nations resolution for ‘all necessary measures’ to protect Libyan civilians from their government, NATO began air strikes which had an immediate effect on Qaddafi’s forces. Then again, they were easy pickings in Libya’s vast deserts, chasing the ‘rebel’ forces aligned with the National Transitional Council east towards the putative capital of Benghazi. It doesn’t take a military genius to work out that once Qaddafi’s forces & arms reached population centres such as Tobruk and Misurata, bombing, no matter how surgical, is going to endanger the civilians the planes were sent to protect.

Resolution 1973 is the clearest indication yet that the international community is willing to implement the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect”. Military intervention is not the beginning of “R2P”; it is the last resort. The responsibility to prevent is crucial. It was clear for weeks before the conflict escalated that Qaddafi would not go willingly. Any hope of negotiating with Qaddafi, or his son, Saif, was doomed by pushing them into a corner. I am not saying that it was feasible or even wise; but Qaddafi rules because he is rat cunning and controls tribes. He is no Mubarak, a ‘strongman’ whose power was based on more readily understood (to the Western observer) military structures. Libyan society, like much of the region, is based firstly on tribe, family, and blood. The TNC is a collective of Western Libyan tribes. Qaddafi’s power is drawn from Sirte, his tribal home, yes; but also from Tripoli. With a population of 2 million in a country of 6 million, with Tripoli goes Libya. At the height of its surge west, the TNC reportedly came close to taking Tripoli (many Western media outlets breathlessly and prematurely reporting Qaddafi’s end was nigh). And this is where it all went pear-shaped. While there may have been broad support for getting rid of Qaddafi, he stared them down, fairly frothing at the mouth from a balcony, doing what he does best. Cornered, he blamed everyone from al-Qaeda spiking the Kool-Aid to his old enemies in the West for the uprising. I’m sad to say I called his strategy. Libyans, particularly Tripoli residents, remember the American raids of 1986 after the Berlin nightclub bombing and other outrages. The targeting of his compound killed an infant girl, who Qaddafi claimed was his adopted child. Qaddafi reverted from the prodigal son role he had played to win redemption with the European powers & United States in the wake of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. He galvanised his army, the tribes still paying fealty to their lord and did as he has done for 40 years: fight. As the rebels withdrew, the international community prevaricated. By the time the first planes were in the air, it was all but too late.

The National Transition Council is recognised as the legitimate government of Libya by three Member States of the United Nations – France, Italy & Qatar. For the other 189, it is the opposition, including Britain, Australia and the United States – for all of our huffing and puffing. The Arab League, at first supportive of the no-fly zone, withdrew it almost immediately. The ‘Mad Colonel’ happily posed for photos with an African Union delegation dispatched to mediate between the warring sides. They were then treated with contempt by the TNC (given the AU’s rapprochement with the self-proclaimed ‘Lion of Africa’, who could blame them?). In the early days of the insurrection, there was the farcical discovery of what appeared to be British Special Forces on the ground. They were rejected, and ejected by the TNC. NATO has not been able to dislodge Qaddafi, and unless there is a change of tactics, they won’t be able to. What now? An ignominious choice: to prevent the wholesale slaughter of residents of Eastern Libya – the real and present danger put to the UN under Resolution 1973 – they must do one of two things – negotiate a ceasefire and enter the country with peacekeeping forces, as the UN and French have done most recently in Côte d’Ivoire; or arm the rebels to ‘level the playing field’.

There are several problems with both strategies. Firstly, Qaddafi has said he will negotiate along the lines of the plan put to both sides by the AU. The sticking point: the TNC will not entertain any plan which does not remove Qaddafi from power. The risk is the rebels are over-run; already fighting street-by-street in Misurata, Ajdabiya shelled and without effective air support from NATO, this is a real possibility. The pay-off is a true balls-to-the-wall gamble: that the international community will respond by putting boots on the ground. Perhaps that is why, as I write, the US is spinning into overdrive, trying to find an African country to provide an African solution – play host to Qaddafi in exile. God knows where, and at what price? Every effort must be made to strike a compromise. The TNC must understand that the West has no stomach for another war. President Obama would kiss a second term goodbye, and with wars in Iraq & Afghanistan still very much open sores, it is not going to happen, as UK PM David Cameron has today made perfectly clear.

While there are rumblings from the US and Britain about responding to the cries of the TNC and breaking the blanket arms embargo enforced by the UN to arm the rebels, it is, in my opinion, stupid in the extreme. Firstly, NATO Commander Admiral James Stavridis has stated that the Mad Colonel may not be entirely wide of the mark. As veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson reported on 29 March 2011 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12901820), intelligence has shown ‘flickers’ of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah activity. Secondly, the rebel army is far from one. The fighters are undoubtedly committed, but untrained civilians used to shooting semi-automatics at best. NATO (or whichever body broke the embargo) would be arming groups of young men who may in turn seek to inflict terror on those loyal to Qaddafi, whether they are true believers, paid protestors or foreign workers, lured by the promise of the oilfields, and marked as mercenaries. The rebels are already rigging up ‘Mad Max’-style adapted light weapons. Thirdly, Libya is subject to an arms embargo. Breaching it is illegal and sets such a reckless precedent that attempts to control the trade in small arms and light weapons (SALW) or respect other embargoes will be laughed at. Finally, Libya’s borders are porous. Here is where we really gear up for the frightening prospect of a steady supply of arms flowing through Libya to Tunisia and Algeria on the east; south to its former foe, Chad; or west, to Egypt and Sudan. Do we really want more weapons in these post-conflict zones?

Already, the rebels are claiming to have seized weapons from pro-Qaddafi forces made in Israel, while Qatar is suspected of shipping anti-aircraft guns to the rebels. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the embargo has only been reinforced this year, being lifted in 2004 after pressure from the Italians in particular. According to www.defencetalk.com, Russia had an order book from Libya worth 1.5b euros; official EU data for exports in 2009 show Italy exported weapons worth 205m Euros, followed by France (€143m); Malta (€80m); Germany (€57m); Britain (€53m) and Portugal (€21m). The US was not to be left behind: according to Reuters, representatives of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon Co. visited Libya as members of trade delegations. South Africa also saw a piece of the Libyan action: its National Conventional Arms Committee annual report for 2010 showed the country sold R70m in arms last year. Manufacturer Denel has denied sales, but a leaked memo outlined a visit to Libya in April involving the planned sale of artillery systems, missiles, grenade launchers and anti-materiel rifles (www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/SA-sold-R70m-weapons-to-Libya-20110410)

Now, the West is bombing an army it armed, much as it did in Iraq. Reading over the articles of Qaddafi’s ‘rehabilitation’, it seems so long ago; now, those guns are involved in bloody civil conflict. They fall into the hands of the rebels, who shoot back with the same small arms & fire the same light weapons. Mistakes in the name of greed and guns have already been made. Tilting the balance in the conflict by arming the rebels presents moral hazards the world cannot afford to entertain.

Altern-oPod

So DJ JG’s Aussie song collection for POTUS was a fizzer among the Twitterati. She also gave him the second most expensive Sherrin, which is the equivalent of not ordering lobster on your first date. I think I can do better, mostly because I am style, fashion & politics at once.

In alphabetti-spaghetti order:

AC/DC:

• It’s A Long Way To The Top
• Thunderstruck
• Shook Me All Night Long
• Highway To Hell

The Allniters:

• Montego Bay (every list has to feature a cover)

Australian Crawl:

• Errol
• Reckless (Don’t Be So)
• Boys Light Up
• Downhearted
• Beautiful People

Who wouldn’t want a tribute to Tasmania’s greatest pantsman? OK, Maybe more Bill Clinton’s style. Have to include Reckless if only for the accompanying subtitles.

Boom Crash Opera:

• Dancing In The Storm
• The Best Thing

The Cat Empire:

• Hello
• Days Like These

The Church: (meh, under ‘C’)

• Under The Milky Way
• Almost With You

Love song dedication for FLOTUS on those long return flights on Air Force One

Cold Chisel:

• Flame Trees
• Bow River
• Khe Sanh
• Saturday Night
• Forever Now

Essential prep for 2012 campaign when visiting factories in the flyover states.

Crowded House:

• Into Temptation (hmm, maybe one for Bill …)
• Private Universe (because no one knows what it’s like to sit behind that desk, except the other people who have)

The Cruel Sea:

• The Honeymoon Is Over
• Black Stick
• Better Get A Lawyer Son

Because let’s face it, it is.

Deborah Conway (incl. Do Ré Mi)

• Man Overboard
• Consider This
• It’s Only The Beginning

Decoder Ring:

• Out of Range

Whispy vocal has to come in at some stage, right?

Divinyls

• Science Fiction
• Boys In Town

Dragon: (if Crowded House count, the fucking Hunter brothers do)

• April Sun in Cuba (derr …)
• Get That Jive (for trips to Chicago)
• Are You Old Enough?
• Still In Love With You
• Rain

The Dynamic Hepnotics:

• Soul Kind Of Feeling

The Easybeats

• Friday On My Mind
• She’s So Fine

Ed Kuepper:

• The Way I Made You Feel

The sexiest chord progression. Maybe not of all time, but it is right up there.

Eric Bogle:

• And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

GANGgajang:

• Sounds of Then

The Go-Betweens

• Cattle and Cane
• Bachelor Kisses
• Streets Of Your Town

Hoodoo Gurus:

• My Girl
• Bittersweet
• Like Wow-Wipeout!
• Good Times

Hunters & Collectors:

• Throw Your Arms Around Me
• Holy Grail
• Say Goodbye
• Do You See What I See?

One of the seminal bands of my (misspent) youth

Icehouse:

• Hey Little Girl

INXS:

• Need You Tonight
• Original Sin
• Never Tear Us Apart
• New Sensation
• Don’t Change
• What You Need
• I Send A Message
• Burn for You
• Mystify
• Devil Inside

OK … THE seminal band of my (misspent) youth. Limiting it to 10 tracks was difficult.

Jet:

• Are You Gonna Be My Girl?

Jo Camilleri (Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons & The Black Sorrows):

• Shape I’m In
• Hit & Run
• Chained To The Wheel
• Hold On To Me

Kylie

• Confide In Me
• Love At First Sight
• Come Into My World
• Better The Devil You Know
• I Believe In You
• Can’t Get You Out of My Head
• Spinning Around
• On A Night Like This
• Slow

Because it’s Kylie. Because she rocks.

The Loved Ones:

• The Loved One

Machine Gun Fellatio:

• The Girl of My Dreams Is Giving Me Nightmares

Midnight Oil:

• US Forces (fuck him!)
• Beds Are Burning
• Power and the Passion
• When The Generals Talk
• The Dead Heart
• Blue Sky Mine
• River Runs Red
• Stars of Warburton
• Kosciusko

Models:

• Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight
• I Hear Motion

Mondo Rock:

• Come Said The Boy

Nick Cave (solo, associated collaborators, bands)

• Red Right Hand
• The Weeping Song
• The Ship Song
• Where the Wild Roses Grow
• Henry Lee

Someone’s got to growl at the man (occassionally)

Paul Kelly:

• From St Kilda To Kings Cross
• Before Too Long
• How To Make Gravy
• Sweet Guy
• Dumb Things
• Darling It Hurts

Powderfinger:

• My Happiness

The Presets:

• My People

The Reels:

• Quasimodo’s Dream

Richard Clapton:

• Girls on the Avenue

The Saints:

• Stranded

Sherbet:

• Howzat

Sia:

• Breathe Me

Silverchair:

• The Greatest View
• Tomorrow
• Straight Lines

Newcastle. Reprezent.

Skyhooks:

• Ego Is Not A Dirty Word
• Horror Movie

Slim Dusty

• Pub With No Beer

Split Enz (yeh yeh, whatever. I’ve got Crowded House & Dragon.)

• One Step Ahead
• I Hope I Never
• Message To My Girl
• I See Red

Stevie Wright:

• Evie (Parts I, II & III)

The Triffids:

• Wide Open Road

Warumpi Band:

• My Island Home

Wendy Matthews:

• The Day You Went Away

The Whitlams:

• No Aphrodisiac

Yothu Yindi:

• Treaty

See the mountain

“I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him.”

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

Acceptance Speech on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize,

Oslo, December 10, 1964

The third Monday in January is a public holiday in the United States: Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Delivering his speech before the great and the good assembled in Oslo, The Rev. Dr King became, at 35 years old, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Feted before royalty and heads of state, he then became its shortest lived, assassinated on 4 April, 1968, aged 39.

I have been thinking about The Rev. Dr King for some time. Along with several other Twitter friends, I wanted to organise drinks for people with a passion for US politics eary in the new year, and thought this past weekend would be the perfect opportunity to do so. That was until the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, the deaths of six people and wounding of 19 attending her first ‘Congress in the Community’ meeting of 2011. The frenzied tweeting; the race to be first with the news – any news (including reports that Congresswoman Giffords had died, or was sitting up in bed); the hasty conclusions, claims and counter-claims about the mental health, political affiliation, musical tastes and reading habits of the young man arrested after the shootings; the impact of political rhetoric; gun laws; healthcare; homegrown terrorism – everything about America in 2011, compacted into one tragedy. I thought about it. USPol wonkdrinks would have to wait. Chiefly, because I was astounded by the way so many people I follow on Twitter saw this crime – and it is a crime: through the bifocal lens of our political system, ignoring the multipolarity of the US system, where a Jewish woman who had been a member of the Republican Party could be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat representing a district in urban Arizona; where her seat, or her head, could be targeted in a map of surveyors’ marks or gunsight cross-hairs; a system which identified her as a “Blue Dog”, or fiscal conservative, who voted for President Obama’s healthcare reforms; a woman who was pro-choice and pro-gun. There is a left and right in US politics, but its electoral system encourages a middle ground where individual representatives put their individual interests ahead of the collective and attach demands of bridges to nowhere for their vote on a bill, blatant pork-barrelling known as ‘earmarks’. Few seem willing to acknowledge or understand the level of resentment towards ‘Washington’ and the perception that it writes cheques it cannot afford to cash that inspired the amorphous entity we know as the ‘Tea Party’; while its adherents might also be social conservatives, they are not the cookie-cutter base of the GoP. In short, the tie that binds is fear, not of God, but of government. It is a movement that has been hijacked by politicians and purveyors of the 10 word answer, hacks and haters more notable for backing failures in the 2010 Senate mid-term elections than successful candidates in the House.

The Rev. Dr King has been playing on my mind for weeks. His leadership of another amorphous entity, the civil rights movement; its expansion from the bigotry in Montgomery, Alabama, through to the March on Washington and his final push against the Vietnam War and poverty, whoever and wherever it marked. I was mindful in the early hours of this morning of other quotes from a preacher of the doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience, that, ‘a riot, is at bottom, the language of the unheard’; that ‘a man who won’t die for something is unfit to live’. He remains forefront in my mind as I read more claims and counter-claims regarding the “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia and whether it was fomented by social media.

I say a resounding ‘no’. There is a breathtaking, post-colonial arrogance at the suggestion that Tunisians took to the streets to protest, and eventually ouster the despot Ben Ali, because social media made it so; that the truth of a leaked American diplomatic cable alerted the Global North to what Tunisians have known for years – that Ben Ali and his family and hangers on were corrupt; that educated young men have no prospect of employment, and were willing – nay, acted, on their despair – willing to die by their own hand in the belief, as the Rev. Dr King states, that, ‘freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed’. Acts of self-immolation have spread from Tunisia to Algeria, and now, Egypt. I see monks burning themselves in Vietnam, a war which cost America Johnson’s Great Society, according to King. The dictators of the Maghreb Union and Arab League may yet follow Ben Ali into the arms of the House of ibn Saud – but it will be in real life, at the cost of lives, not thanks to a Twibbon. We may know more – and information may spread faster – thanks to social media, but does it play that different a role to the French pamphleteers of 1789 – particularly in Tunisia, where al-Jazeera was not welcome and the internet and press censored and strangled?

Networks exist, but I cannot ascribe the fleeing of self-styled kings to ‘social networks’ as we know them. They are the palpable cry of people against networks of influence which free political actors from formal constraints of governance – the rules of representation, accountability and transparency; networks that coalesce around influential individuals, and infiltrate every element of the political process, helping those in power to keep it by manipulating the national polity and cultivating a culture of cronyism, solidifying a power base – such as Ben Ali’s – for 23 years – and making the machinery of government inefficient and susceptible to corruption. Such networks flourish in states where power is not diffused, making it difficult for opposition voices to be heard legitimately. When a society is wracked by what Kennes terms the ‘banalization of corruption and theft’, the nomenclature of the state ceases to bear meaning other than as a rallying cry for opposition. If the perception arises that just about anyone can do just about anything, longstanding norms and behaviours are turned on their head – suddenly and shockingly to us, as we read 140 character updates. If the norm-reversal extends across North Africa, then we must do more than hope that these ancien regimes will recede into the darkness. We must see the mountain, as Martin Luther King, Jr did in the final days of his life. We must say no to injustice, everywhere, wherever it exists. We can use social media as a tool, as Gabby Giffords did, inviting her community to be a part of her work in Congress; but in doing so, we must open ourselves to multiple voices, not simply amplify the ones we want to hear. Dismissing the dissenting opinion without applying critical thinking invites closed networks to flourish.

Dear Nellie …

Nellie of Penrith Posted at 5:54 PM October 17, 2010:

… as for Kristina Keneally allowing her husband and sons appear in a family photo and allowing the stillbirth of her daughter to be used as brownee points for politics. She should be ashamed, I know any respect I had for her has gone, gone, gone.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/spin-out-of-control/story-e6freuy9-1225939672167

Dear Nellie,

My name is Kimberley. I have one brother, and three sisters. I was born a huge (9lb, 11 ounces, 23 inches long!), healthy baby girl at 1.18am on 6 December 1971. I am my parents’ second child; their oldest surviving one. I am the younger sister of Kelly Margaret, who was born, and died, in 1969. In all of our birth notices, my parents celebrated their healthy babies’ arrival with the words, ‘sister / brother of Kelly, in heaven’. I cannot begin to tell you how much I respect my Mother, who quietly, but factually explained to us as children that she went into labour with her daughter’s heart beating; a heart which stopped beating before Kelly was born.

As the member of a family with first-hand experience of stillbirth, I find your comments, which I believe relate to this story (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/kristina-keneallys-sad-memories-of-a-stillbirth-10-years-ago/story-e6freuzi-1225939374867), abhorrent. If you click on this link, (http://www.stillbirthfoundation.org.au/node/125), you’ll see that the story relates to the Premier’s decision to become patron of Stillbirth Foundation Australia.

As an adult, I look at my parents in awe to think that they could even attempt to turn what must be unspeakable pain into a part of our lives; just as Ben & Kristina Keneally have done for their sons. I am proud that the Premier has shared her love for her daughter, and her very real place in her family’s heart, since she entered public life. You may not know, but Caroline Keneally’s name is in the NSW Parliament Hansard, in her mother’s maiden speech, along with the rest of her family. Like the Keneallys – and too many families – mine has an angel in heaven as well.

Yours sincerely

Kimberley Ramplin

PS: You can help make a difference to this parent-run charity by visiting http://www.stillbirthfoundation.org.au/node/95. The five-year Little Feet lunch raised more than $50,000 for research into why so many stillborn babies’ babies’ deaths remain unexplained.

DISCLAIMER: I work in NSW politics, as a ministerial adviser. I disclose this on my Twitter account and in the ‘about’ section of this blog. While this post isn’t about politics per se, it was sparked by the ‘anonymous, vicious, troll’ debate. I actually agree with the, ‘yes to anonymous, vicious, trolls’ argument, but I have been obsessing over it today because it instantly brought to mind this pseudonymous online comment – almost one month later. If you think I didn’t cry when I read it, or cried again when I started typing tonight, think again.