It's a crisis but not like you think

THE victory of the Syriza party in Greece has led to media reports making it sound as though we are on track for a Mad Max distopia.

In the short term the support for the anti-austerity platform it campaigned on has already seen fluctuations in the money markets. This is only to be expected though. The thought that the eurozone may be forced to write off €240bn is not a pleasant one, least of all for Germany which has the most to lose.

Statements by newly elected representatives of the party that the debt is unrealistic and should be wiped fail to explain why the country a) needed the loan in the first place and b) why it was issued if it could not be repaid. 

The easy answers are that accumulated mismanagement of fiscal policies led to Greece's collapse and that the debt can be repaid but only through lengthy and painful austerity measures. 

Euclid Tsakalotos', Syriza's economic spokesman, declaration that "nobody believes that the Greek debt is sustainable,"  failed to add the addendum which will have gone through the minds of European Central Bank policy makers. It is only unsustainable if Greece does not radically change its attitude to spending.

A comparison can be drawn by an individual maxing out credit cards, overdrafts and getting into arrears in the mortgage. While they may not be able to pay off the full amount in one go they can look at restructuring the debt, cutting back expenses and paying it off gradually. If they decide not to do this and take out more debt to buy a new television and computers for the kids then the debt is going to be unsustainable.

The key difference, other than the obvious size of the debt, is that it is harder to repossess the Parthenon than somebody's car.

Mr Tsakalotos seems to have forgotten that the €240bn was a loan, not a handout. While he may be correct in thinking that economists would agree that the debt is unsustainable it is only this way because Greek authorities have allowed it to become so.

His belief that the rest of the Eurozone will cave in the face of economic uncertainty, rather than risk a possible, albeit unlikely, exit from the bloc, is a very large gamble to take. Germany has already signalled that it is likely to call Greece's bluff. 

This could be disastrous in the short term as the euro suffers but it would not necessarily mean the end of the eurozone though. In a very simplistic explanation as the euro devalues it will make it cheaper for countries, such as America and the UK, to buy products from the member countries. This in turn increases the amount of foreign capital entering the country and thus begins the long road back to stability and prosperity. The fundamental issue is whether the bloc has sufficient resources to prop itself up in the meantime.

This may well be a risk worth taking though as one of the alternatives is that Syriza gets exactly what it wants. This in turn would provide a boost to other anti-austerity and anti-EU parties, a risky business for the long term survival of the European Union as a whole not just the euro.  

Has democracy had its day?

DEMOCRACY is in crisis. We must save democracy. 

It is a familiar chant of Western politicians. The reality is that while it may make a good soundbite to motivate a flagging electorate shouting about how much trouble democracy is in serves no purpose.

Part of the problem is that no-one actually seems to know what democracy is any more. I am not talking about a historical definition here but a subjective philosophical one.

Is democracy that which Western states decree? An excuse for war? A path to extremism and xenophobia? Is it even the removal of freedoms from some in the name of the "greater good".

Democracy has become a hot topic once more this week as Britain marks 750 years since its first parliament was elected.

This year also marks another key anniversary in the history of democracy, 800 years since the signing of the Magna Carta. Even this most notable document in the evolution of Western democracy does not reflect the governance we currently have today.

Democracy is at its ideological core about allowing all people to have a voice, however, as declining voter turnout has demonstrated, less and less people are actually taking the opportunity to have their voices heard.

Ostensibly interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya were, at least tentatively on paper, part carried out to bring democracy. What democracy though? 

Western imposed democracy forcing different cultural and sociological ideals on countries provided that they elect governments who will be more malleable to American and British interests in the region.

The elections may have had the look of being free and fair but how much does this really matter if everyone knows that the winner must support the West or face removal and the whole process being repeated. It is a global power politics version of a teacher keeping the class behind until everyone gets it right.

In the West several commentators have warned that the latest crisis to face democracy is the rise of the populist movement. I have no love for Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party, America's Tea Party movement et al. They play on fear and disillusionment. They use blame games and the politics of hate to entice the dispossessed. 

In a democracy though we must face that parties such as this may gain power. It is not that democracy is in crisis, this is democracy in action.

If more mainstream parties want to put the threat to democracy to rest then they must debate effectively and challenge the principles of hate which are fuelling these parties.

There is a wider question though. Has democracy had its day? Is it time for a new political system. Eight hundred years since the Magna Carta. It is nothing more than a flash in the pan of political institutions. While it's very principle may have started with the Greeks its implementation has proven a long and arduous journey.

Not everything lasts. Religion, politics and art fade away over time. As we increase surveillance on our citizens, denigrate our opponents, dismiss ideas and hide from principles of unity. As we sacrifice morals and ethics on the great altar of Western democracy and bury culture and systems which have survived for millennia because they don't fit anymore, is it not time to consider that the future of freedom may be what is truly in crisis. A crisis caused in no small measure by our blind approach to democracy.

A positive sum approach to a negative sum game

JE SUIS Charlie has become a rallying cry for freedom of speech following last week's senseless killing of 14 people in Paris.

The attacks, most notably that on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, shocked not just France but people around the globe. They have been called attacks on liberty and freedom of speech. 

For all the media's bleating and politicians posturing they weren't though. They were murderous attacks carried out by a handful of deluded and twisted individuals. They were an attempt to show power which ultimately just demonstrated weakness.

Attacks on free speech and democracy are taking place all the time. They take place when governments ban ideas and when people allow those ideas to be banned. Freedom of speech ends when people no longer stand up and shout. It doesn't end by the barrel of a gun and a bullet. It ends by quiet degrees of apathy.

The journalists who died last week knew this. They knew that free speech only ends when the people speaking allow it to. The surviving journalists from Charlie Hebdo have gone out of their way to demonstrate that this week. Refusing to be cowed by the brutality of events surrounding them they have brought out a new edition, and one which makes their views very clear. It demonstrates once again that terrorism is 100% ineffective.

In a very oversimplified way terrorists are by their nature carrying out a negative sum game. Individuals or cells will face the reality of negative consequences against themselves if they believe that their opponents will suffer even greater losses. 

As a stand alone game this appears completely irrational. Why cause harm to yourself only to cause harm to another individual? The key lies in the terrorist's rational irrationality, they believe that they are carrying out actions which will form part of a greater equation. In a sense they are taking part in a game within a game. Their negative sum outcome may they believe lead to a positive sum, in this case changing the entire mentality, moral and legal system of the Western world, outcome for the larger game.

Another way of thinking about it is that the terrorists in this instance are pawns prepared to be sacrificed for a greater tactical advantage.

What they have forgotten is a crucial exogenous part of the equation, human feeling. Terrorism isn't a failure because it doesn't meet its objective. Of course it does. Terrorist acts make people feel afraid and vulnerable, public beheadings sicken and shock us, grief numbs us and fear cripples us. After the initial shock though one of two things tends to happen, solidarity or hatred. The outpouring of support for the families and survivors of the Charlie Hebdo massacre demonstrate the first. The pegida marches in Germany represent the other. 

Back to the theory and gradually a pattern emerges. When we react with hate to a terrorist attack it leads to more fear. Already 10,000 troops have been deployed in France and tough new antiterror legislation in Britain threatens to do more damage to free speech than any number of bullets. In essence we allow the terrorists to achieve their aims. A negative reaction creates a negative sum.

Defeating them isn't easy, nothing worth fighting for is though. It involves taking the path of peace. Of standing tall and showing that their actions cannot diminish us. We will not stoop to their level of hate and animosity. Creating a positive sum is hard but if we are to win the game then it is the only logical and rational approach to take. 

Whose in the right in humanitarian intervention?

THE idea of humanitarian intervention is, and indeed should be, a contentious issue. It revolves around the principle of assuming that one group of individuals are better suited to solve issues and decide what is right rather than another.

By its very nature it speaks of an unevenness in the international system and the implication that some states are unable to manage their own affairs. 

There is an argument to be made that intervention, particularly in recent years in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya et al, has been conducted via a British and American led concept of imposing westernised thinking on the rest of the world. It is a post-colonial argument that we have never stopped seeing ourselves as the saviours of the rest of the world.

There is another argument, however, that due to our past involvement with much of the world we have left the foundations for current crises. This does not necessarily mean historic involvement though. 

In the case of Iraq it seems inevitable that we will once again deploy ground troops. When we invaded in 1990 it started a chain of events which has by clear and predictable means led to the situation whereby much of the country is ruled by terrorist insurgents and it balances dangerously on the precipice of becoming a failed state.

Both invasions into Iraq, led by Bush and son inc, served no purpose in increasing US, or another nation states, power. Indeed they could arguably seen as diminishing power by demonstrating weaknesses in American long term foreign policy, particularly in regards to divisions between the Republicans and Democrats outlooks. On a separate front it has opened America, and the West as a whole, to a new wave of terrorism which weakens them domestically.

The recent interventions, and lack of intervention in some places, has additionally highlighted the failure of liberal ideology and the use of international agencies. 

The US had overruled the United Nations on a number of occasions to launch interventions under the pretext of defence of self interest. In other instances opportunities when intervention may genuinely be justified it is blocked by the self interest of member states with the power of veto. Likewise individuals in an increasingly networked society may be under the illusion that they have the power to shape the choices and identity of states. Evidence in the international system at present, think new order in Egypt as a crucial example, proves this wrong though, with non-state actors having a transitory effect at best. Protests for or against intervention may gather a few extra viewers for the news, and add a couple of column inches, however if it truly had an effect then we would not be back working with Iraq.

As such humanitarian intervention cannot, and should not, be seen as something which can be covered by one particular mindset. No single theory can cover the multifaceted issues which surround the moral and legal justifications for intervening in the affairs of a sovereign state. As Lebanon buckles under the sheer volume of refugees from Syria, and in turn finds itself under threat of civil war, it is clear though that for the sake of a global society we must do something to help our fellow human beings. What higher justification can be needed than to preserve the basic human rights of our fellow beings?

Trials are only way to restore faith after torture

THE release on Tuesday confirming that CIA officials used torture has only proven that which most people already knew a priori.

The 6000 page Senate report lambasts the intelligence agency for using extreme enhanced interrogation techniques which amounted to torture to gain information. Officials have long hinted at the idea that they may have gone too far in their pursuit of terrorists. Former US President George W Bush dismissed claims of torture, claiming that he had authorised enhanced interrogation techniques, something which the Senate had concluded what many had suspected is merely another name to cover horrendous human rights abuses.

Messers Bush, Blair et al may attempt to cleanse their souls through semantic debate but this report will leave them nowhere to turn. 

More than that though it will weaken the West in the eyes of the world an diminishes it ability to act as the policemen to the world. No longer can America and Britain claim the moral high ground in their battle against extremists such as Islamic State. There may be those who claim that torture was necessary to protect freedom and democracy from terrorist threats. What they forgot was that for freedom to exist it must exist for all or it exists for none. By judging that they could discard human rights for suspected terrorists they undermined the very foundation of the democracy they claim they were protecting.

It is too late now to backtrack. It is too late to apologise and move on. The damage has been done. The threat which the CIA was trying to battle through torture has been strengthened by its actions. To think that this will be anything other than a rallying call to terror groups would be delusional at best. This is not to say that it should not have been published though. What needs to happen now, however, is that the full weight of international law needs to be used against those accused. 

If the enemies of freedom and democracy are to be truly defeated then it will not be through torture. It will be by showing that no-one is above the law. That everyone is equal and deserves to be treated as such in the international theatre.

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism Ben Emmerson has stepped forward to demand just such an action.

"As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Mr Emmerson said in a statement made from Geneva.

"The US attorney general is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible."

It had previously been claimed by officials that it was only left wing conspiracy theorists who would call for President Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair to be indicted for war crimes. Anyone who thought otherwise was in their view just as bad as the terrorists themselves. To prevent those terrorist groups gaining ground these officials must now recognise that a trial for war crimes is the only way to restore faith and hope in freedom and democracy.  

  

A terrifying definition of the data

FIGURES released this week have pointed to a dramatic upswing in the number of terrorist attacks globally. While the majority of these are based in Iraq where the self proclaimed Islamic State is a highly visible presence some in Western media and political circles have picked up on the news as an excuse to call for ever more draconian measures to be implemented in the curtailing of civil liberties.

Since the tragic events of September 11th 2001 for many in the West terrorism has become synonymous with Islam. The history of its use over even the last century has been lost. The actions of the Provisional Irish Republican Army appear to have been forgotten. 

White supremacist bombings in the United States are pushed to one side in favour of a new belief that terrorism is religious rather than political, and by religious the conservative right wing mean Islamic.

The report into the rise in terrorist attacks will not help the debate by making claims that the  four main groups responsible for 66% of all deaths from terrorist attacks throughout 2013, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram and the self-styled Islamic State, were motivated by a radicalised and perverted form of Islam.

All four groups used "religious ideologies based on extreme interpretations of Wahhabi Islam", claimed the report before adding, "To counteract the rise of religious extremism, moderate Sunni theologies need to be cultivated by credible forces within Islam."

What the report seems to overlook by counting attacks by groups such as IS and Boko Haram is that terrorism, rather than the ideology of the groups, has changed. These are not loosely organise networks of cells with a clearly defined political agenda. These are highly trained hierarchical insurgent armed forces. If they are to be counted as terrorist groups, which by their methods of instigating fear and anti-state actions they can arguably be claimed as being, then so to should dissidents in Ukraine. So to should drug cartels in South America. 

If we are to get an accurate figure for terrorist actions then it needs to be made clear what a terrorist act is and what classes as a terrorist group. 

While the report itself is a well balanced academic and useful piece it allows for its misuse by the right wing by not addressing this issue clearly enough.

As with any form of data gathering, particularly on such a complex and wide reaching issue clarification of the measurements and ensuring a lack of bias is always going to be a difficult thing to do.

In Israel this week a horrendous attack on a synagogue has left five people dead. There is no doubt that this was a hideous and brutal attack. What could be questioned, however, is whether this was a terrorist attack. There is nothing to say that this was not an act of madness by psychologically traumatised individuals. Indeed if the act had been carried out by a Christians in exactly the same way then this is what it would quite probably have been counted as.

Before we dismiss a rise in killings as a rise in Islamic fundamentalism we must clearly identify what the criteria we are using is lest we taint a religion based on peace and honour unjustly. 

War hasn't ended but it has changed

"THEY shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them." So say the words of the famous ode to remembrance taken from Lawrence Binyon's poem For the Fallen.

One hundred years ago millions of young men, and women, faced the horrors of a war unprecedented in the history of mankind. A war where the grim technology of death turned the fields of Europe into blood soaked patches of mud where the poppy sprung up in defiance, standing strong as proof that life will rise from death and loss shall never been diminished. It is those Poppies which continue to stand as a memorial not only to those who died in the first Great War but to those who have died in every conflict since.

There are those who have argued that after a century we should stop marking armistice, those who  have claimed that calling it the "Great War" somehow glorifies it. It is not nationalism to remember the dead. It is not idealism that allows us to thank those who laid down their lives in a bitter and futile struggle. Great is a reflection of size not glory.  

More than this though is that Armistice day is not just for those who died in World War One. The war to end all wars failed singularly in that particular respect, as in so many others. Only twenty years later the world was once again pitched into a brutal struggle, this time a fight for its soul against the evil of Nazism rather than a battle for land and resources as World War One at its core was. Nor has war ended since. Indeed as technology grows so to does the threat of death, although there are those who have argued that it diminishes it. There are many who would agree that far from being an obsolete idea World War Three is only a matter of time, an inevitability where the only question is if it will occur within our lifetimes. War has not ended, although its face may have. The implementation of violence within and without national borders is no longer the sole mandate of the state. With the emergence of powerful militia and terrorist groups such as in Ukraine, Nigeria, Iraq and Syria and elsewhere war has become an act between polities not states and polities are no longer just the states which once were their representatives.

There is very little that can be done to avoid further conflicts. If the memory of those who deaths have stained the global soul for a century could not prevent it then very little anyone can say or do will now. 

In their memory though we must not forget. Great is not glorification it is a warning. A threat for what will happen again if we fail to remember that they died for our very future.