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Prijsvraag voor AFGETOPT BEVRIJDINGSMONUMENT op de Dam te Amsterdam

Posted in Amsterdam history, Art & Politics, Is everything propaganda then?, Memorials, tagged beeldhouwer J.A. Rädecker), Bevrijdingsmonumenrt, Dam Amsterdam, HERDENKINGSMONUMENT MET TWEE LEEUWEN door J.J.P Oud, herdenkingsmonument staat op het Damplein tegenover het Paleis op de Dam, Nationaal Comité voor Oorlogsmonumenten in 1949-1956, Nationaal Monument op de Dam te Amsterdam, Prijsvragen beeldhouwkunst on June 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »

BEVRIJDINGSMONUMENT AFGETOPT op de Dam te Amsterdam, het gebeurde nauwelijks opgemerkt afgelopen maand mei 2019… het onttopte monument is hier te zien op een screenshot dat ik deze middag nam van de gemeentelijke Amsterdamse webcam op de Dam, vergeleken met een opname die de Engelse wikipedia pagina over het monument op de Dam siert.Dit feit is – hoe onbedoeld ook – kan een zekere symbolische waarde niet ontzegt worden. Het is als een castratie, verlies van potentie van denationale heldhaftigheid van de Nederlandse staat. (*)
Ooit maake een cartoonist – zijn naam ben ik vergeten en de prent weet ik (nog) niet terug te vinden – een fraaie spotprent op het monument, in slappe toestand na een zaaduitstorting. Nu weet AT5 te melden dat het gehele monument bouwvallig is en recentelijk onderworpen werd aan een endoscopisch onderzoek waarbij scheuren doorlopend van de binnen- tot de buitenzijde aan het licht zijn gekomen.

Nog niet lang terug (2017) werd het monument op de Dam tot ‘nationaal monument’ in bouwkundig opzicht verklaard, dus we mogen aannemen dat het geval weer rechtop en getopt terug zal komen in het stadsbeeld en het nationaal bewustzijn… of – beter – is het een moment met ongekende kansen voor een verandering van het monument, waarbij de afgetopte fiere kolom gezien kan worden als een sokkel waarop een nieuw te maken kunstwerk geplaatst zal worden…

Ik lanceer hierbij dan ook DE GROTE PRIJSVRAAG AFGETOPTE BEVRIJDING die vanaf de Dam in Amsterdam een nieuwe blik op het verleden en daarmee een nieuwe wending van de toekomst teweeg moet brengen. Inzendingen kunnen als ‘commentaar’ op dit bericht alhier geplaatst worden.

[Iedere inzending wordt vooraf door de beheerder van de Hinkende Bode/Limping Messenger beoordeeld op geschiktheid om publiek gemaakt te worden, immers ‘herdenking van slachtoffers van geweld’ en ‘vrijheid van meningsuiting’ zijn zaken die niet altijd in overeenstemming met elkaar te brengen zijn.]

(*) “De pyloon bestaat uit een bakstenen en betonnen kern waaraan travertin platen zijn opgehangen. De centrale beeldengroep van geketende mannen verbeeldt het lijden van het volk, geflankeerd door beelden die het arbeiders- en intellectuelenverzet symboliseren. Het hierboven geplaatste beeld van moeder met kind gedenkt de bevrijding en kijkt naar een toekomst zonder oorlog. Ook de duiven symboliseren vrijheid. In de twaalf ingemetselde urnen bevindt zich de aarde van fusilladeplaatsen en erebegraafplaatsen uit de Nederlandse provincies en Indonesië.” Tekst ontleend aan de beschrijving in het Rijksmonumentenregister (Monument nummer: 530906)

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RIJKSMUSEUM WILDERS in bunkercomplex Scheveningen

Posted in Discrimination, Dutch politics, Is everything propaganda then?, Media history, Memorials, Museums, tagged ant-racisme, antisemitisme, belediging, bunkers Scheveningen, cartoons, censuur, Geert Wilders (1963-), godslastering, iconografie, interactieve media, majesteitschennis, multi-cultureel, multi-media, museumbeleid, PVV, racisme, Rijksmuseum, RIJKSMUSEUM Wilders, spotprenten, verzamelgeschiedenis, vrijheid van meningsuiting, waar de blanke top der duinen on September 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

biedt een nieuw museumconcept ‘een multi-mening-museum‘…

Het RIJKSMUSEUM Wilders [*] wordt gevestigd in bunkercomplex aan het Noorderstrand te Scheveningen. Daar komt een complete collectie Wilders-paraphernalia en -memorabilia van affiches tot spotprenten, van pamfletten, tot screenshots van sociale media… een computer systeem met gedigitaliseerde video’s en internet discussies. Dikke mappen met bergen krantenknipsels, een kleine handbibliotheek niet meer dan een plankje met het verzameld werk van Geert Wilders in boekvorm en een compactstelling waarin plaats is voor de tientallen strekkende meters publicaties waarin Geert Wilders genoemd wordt. Dit alles ongeacht het ingenomen standpunt van de publicisten, ongeacht de geaardheid en gezindheid van de cartoonisten, schrijvers, discussianten, fans, opposanten, ongeacht de politieke voorkeur of afkeer die uit een bepaald documentair object spreekt.

Het RIJKSMUSEUM WILDERS is volledig (1) en diepgravend en technisch vooruitstrevend ook in haar wijze van presentatie. Bezoekers aan de bomvrije ondergrondse zalen kunnen van te voren duidelijk maken via een enquete die zij via een app op hun mobiele telefoon dienen in te vullen, welk soort uitingen zij wel of niet wensen te zien of anderszins mee geconfronteerd willen worden. Vervolgens worden de bezoekers één voor één door een reeks van zalen geleid, waarbij aan de hand van het met de app gekozen ‘meningsuiting-profiel’ de musueale presentatie aangepast wordt door middel van verlichting en videoschermen die uit- of aangaan. Bijzonder complexe opstellingen hebben gordijnen die automatisch – naar gelang van een gekozen profiel – open en dicht gaan. Ook de bijschriften zijn dynamsich. De bezoeker kan van te voren kiezen voor een objectiverend of juist een geëngageerd soort bijschrift bij de tentoongestelde voorwerpen. Daarbij bepaalt het van te voren aangemaakte bezoekersprofiel wat de precieze inhoud van dat bijschrift is. Naast deze totale individualisering van het museumbezoek bestaat er de mogelijkheid van groepsbezoek, maar niet voordat – middels de app – gecontroleerd is of heel de groep hetzelfde normen en waarden-patroon heeft.

Rijksmuseum_Geert-Wilders_sculptuur_01 copy

Dit nieuwe RIJKSMUSEUM is een ‘pilot-project’ voor een mogelijke aanpassing van alle ‘rijksmusea’ in de toekomst op deze wijze. Dit museumconcept lijkt een antwoord te kunnen geven op de probleemstellingen en vraagstellingen van onze tijd. Het concept kan kort aangeduid worden als EEN MULTI-MENING-MUSEUM, een instelling waarbij de “eigen mening” van de bezoeker als uitgangspunt genomen wordt, daar waar in het verleden overmatige aandacht bestond voor (verbindende) gemeenschappelijkheid. Het museum als een instelling die de representatie volgens ‘heersende publieke opinie en geldende normen voor ‘politieke correctheid’ voorbijstreeft’.

Een dergelijk museaal beleid van de overheid kan ook een bijdrage leveren aan dat wat nu al geruime tijd maatschappelijk gestalte heeft gekregen, mede mogelijk gemaakt door het veralgemeniseerd gebruik (ubiquitous usage) van digitale media:

DE MULTI-MENING-SAMENLEVING

een samenleving waar ‘vrijheid van meningsuiting’ niet meer iets publieks, maar iets persoonlijks is, als een dancing met een dansvloer waar een ieder uitgerust met koptelefoon op de eigen favoriete muziek danst. Communicatie was, is en blijft iets waarbij de uitgedragen boodschap eenduidig mag zijn, maar de ontvangst dat niet is.

Naschrift

In het jaar 2004 maakt ik al eens aan ontwerp voor een tentoonstelling met censuurgordijntjes en opiniebuttons voor bezoekers, ooit gedacht in het Bijbels Museum te Amsterdam… titel “De Tolerantia and the art of provocation ” (over satire, smaad, racisme, majesteitsschennis, godslastering en obsceniteit) een project als reactie op de moord op Theo van Gogh… een project ook dat in al zijn conceptuele eenvoud onmogelijk is te realiseren binnen de toenmalige en nog minder binnen de huidige museumstructuren… Toen wel veel onderzoek gedaan en het bleek mij dat de idee van ‘meervoudige waarheid’, alsook het tonnen door de tijd heen van wat niet getooond mocht worden, in de praktijk niet onder te brengen is in een bestande tentoonstellingspraktijk… diep triest dat wel… zie de dcoumentatie over het project op mijn site, sectie Art Action Academia: http://imaginarymuseum.org/imp_archive/AAA/index.html#49

[*] Dat wat in de tijd zelve breed uitgemeten en massaal verspreid werd, daar blijft met het huidige archief-, bibliotheek- en museum-acquisitiebeleid weinig meer van over dan ‘vergetelheid’. Wat bewaard blijft van de roerselen van een samenleving wordt niet zo zeer bepaald door kwantiteit, maar door bepaalde opvattingen over ‘kwaliteit’ en dan met name volgens de normen van die maatschappelijke klasse die het beheer van geheugeninstellingen bestieren des te meer zo als het nationale instellingen betreft. Het bijzondere heeft meestal voorrang boven het algemene. Overbekend voorbeeld in het bibliotheekwezen zijn de schaarse exemplaren van ‘destijds massaal verspreide ‘pauper-bijbels’ die overgebleven zijn. Mijn bovenstaand betoog lijkt enkel gekscherend te zijn, maar het is meer dan een pastiche. Door onze eigen samenleving in de tijd zelve te documenteren, scheppen wij ons middelen om die samenleving zowel in het heden te kunnen analyseren, als ook een documentair corpus achterlaten voor volgende generaties om vanuit dat ‘toekomstige heden’ te kunnen terugkijken en daardoor vooruit te kunnen kijken. Met name de onderlinge samenhang, begrip van de context van al die mogelijke documenten is daarbij van groot belang. Documentatie van nieuwe media-vormen, zoals sociale media op het internet is daarbij een apart onderwerp. Hoe de vluchtigheid en de dynamiek van botsende meningen inzichtelijk te documenteren, zonder daarbij te vervallen in staats-spionage, is een open vraag, die hierbij nogmaals gesteld wordt. Het denkbeeldige project RIJKSMUSEUM Wilders, is bij de beantwoording van die vraag een hulpmiddel. Ik constateer wat betreft de huidige stand van publiek beschikbare museale documentatie van/over Geert Wilders het volgende:

Het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam heeft slechts drie objecten met betrekking tot Geert Wilders in haar collectie (een portret foto, een campagne foto en een foto van de PVV fractie)

De Atlas van Stolk, gevestigd in Rotterdam (Met bijna 250.000 afbeeldingen over de Nederlandse geschiedenis behoort de collectie van de Atlas Van Stolk tot de belangrijkste nationale beeldcollecties. Het woord Atlas verwijst niet naar een boek met landkaarten, maar is een negentiende-eeuwse term voor collectie. Grondlegger ervan is Abraham van Stolk. Hij was een Rotterdamse houthandelaar met een passie voor vaderlandse geschiedenis) heeft slechts 14 afbeeldingen met betrekking tot Geert Wilders.

De digitale verzamel website geheugenvannederland.nl (799388 beelden uit 132 collecties) geeft bij de zoeksleutel”Geert Wilders” slechts 3 objecten, waarvan 1 niet ter zake is, de andere twee zijn affiches.

Zoek ik – daarentegen – op trefwoord in worldcat.org (catalogus van catalogi zeg maar wereldwijd) dan krijg ik bij het trefwoord “Geert Wilders” 953 hits, videos, ebooks, audiobooks en artikelen (meestal uit wetenschappelijke tijdschriften) inbegrepen. Dus als het met name gaat om geschrven teksten, dan is er (wereldwijd) behoorlijk wat te vinden. Dat staat in schriol contrast tot de magere resulaten bij een zoektocht naar beeldmateriaal m.b.t. Wilders.

De Koninklijke Bibliotheek, die voor haar leden een zoekmachine heeft die via het internet doorzoekbaar is van teksten beschikbaar in digitaal formaat , geeft op de zoeksleutel “Geert Wilders” voorkomend in de full text van zo’n digitale publicatie, 750 hits (deze link is enkel beschikbaar voor hen die een inlog naar de KB hebben)….

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Only Self-Defense? ~ Gaza/Israel: Peace Needs other Weapons

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, Middle East, Uncategorized, tagged "self defense" (about the different meanings of the word), asymmetrical warfare, Gaza, Hamas/Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Israel, Israel Defense Force, Palestine/Israel war without an end, peace process, West Bank on April 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

This tableau picture and essay has been published first at my Flickr news-tableau page on the 18th of november 2012. It had over the years 96,875 views. I republish it today on this blog to be used as a reference in the never ending discussion on social-media on who and what is right and wrong in this part of the Middle East. Tjebbe van Tijen 10/4/2018

HOW TO REPRESENT THE ISRAEL/GAZA CONFRONTATION or if you want GAZA/ISRAEL confrontation of mid november 2012.

This has been on my mind the last days, seeing the usual Pavlov reactions to the conflict of people taking sides for what clearly are the underdogs, without much thought though of the consequences. There have been several demonstrations already that had as their main slogan STOP ATTACK ON GAZA (1) without even mentioning the attacks the other way around, however primitive the missile technology employed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades the official military arm of Hamas and other para-military groups.

I am neither pro-Israel nor pro Hamas and see with dismay how each time the warriors from both camps take over. As for Hamas they not only endangers others, but also themselves or their dear-ones and neighbours, because Israeli counter-attacks always come. Forgotten in the turmoil of war is, that the exchange of rockets, missiles and bombs does not only sow fear, kill people and damage buildings and infrastructure, it also is an attack on the many good willing initiatives between citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Their activities are not catching the headlines of the world press. Less deadly, less sensational activities that aim at diminish suffering and easing tension: support of joint economic projects and zones; promotion of free border crossing and travel; helping reconciliation; sharing of suffering by parents from both camps who lost their children in the conflict; joint environmental actions especially about water resources; arabic/hebrew language learning in schools; promoting fair trade products from Palestine in Israel; medical assistance; mixed summer camps for kids from Israel, Palestine and other arabic countries; joint academic research and education opportunities; mixed orchestras and theatre companies; training for conflict resolution; face to face dialogues initiatives; to sum up just a part of this positive spectre. (2) All these good willingness from West Bank/Gaza and Israel added by international partners, attempts to resolve the stalemate, are brutally brushed aside, once more.

WHO IS TO BLAME? WHO STARTED IT?

Was it the summary execution by a missile fired by the Israel Defense Forces on a Hamas leader, Ahmed Jabari, last wednesday November the 14th? A missile hitting him in his car while driving along Omar Mukhtar Street in Gaza City, in the middle of a crowded neighbourhood, killing also his bodyguard. The 8th remote control assassination by the Israeli Air Force since January 2010 in the Gaza strip. (3)

Was it the barrage of 26 rockets from Gaza on the 29th of October into the South of Israel, which – by sheer chance – did hit no Israeli people or property? A rocket launch that – according to the BBC message of that day – was in response to an incident whereby a Gaza man at the border had been shot by Israeli troops, because he was – allegedly – attempting to fire a mortar at Israeli troops? A series of incidents that was summarised by this BBC news item with the header: “Violence ends Israel-Gaza truce.”

BBC correspondent Jon Donisson (based in the West Bank) noted on October the 29th. how precarious it is….

“to pinpoint when a specific escalation in violence started – both sides will always remember what they see as a previous act of aggression by the other which enables them to justify their attacks as retaliation” (3)

There are many other sources that tell the story of how it began in differing ways, from the ‘Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ to the ‘Electronic Intifadah’ website, and the British group ‘Media Lense’ specialised in scrutinising what they call the “biased” war reporting of the BBC. (4) The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights sums up a whole range of events starting on Saturday November 10th with Israeli army firing an artillery shell at a group of children playing football on a hill 1500 meters away from the border near the east part of Gaza City, killing two of them and a whole serious of subsequent incidents one involving the killing of two “Palestinian resistance” members by Israeli warplanes.

Apart from what has been the real chain of events (5), with each item added or left out, resulting in a change of classification – assault or retaliation – there is the extra input of political scheming on the Israeli political front in the preparation for legislative elections in January 2013. This – cynically – always stimulates the ‘hawks’ in power or the ones aiming at that, to give or call for ‘a good pre-election military show’ in the occupied territories.

—- interlude —-
It was less than a century ago we could still speak of ‘The Levant’ and see a future beyond the vague historical memories of the Mamluk Sultanate and the more recent Ottoman and British empires. The Levant having regional mixed ethnic and religious demarcations that still carried the potential for a new future with very different borders and states as we know them now. There were many plans of reconstructing ‘imagined nations’ from a past that never existed in the way as imagined by all those ideologists, the historical parade of religious and political leaders with their: Zionism, Greater Syria, Greater Arabia, and similar bordering visions of unity and hegemony like Pan-Arabism and Pan-Turkism, or the even greater idea of Pan-Islamism, the ‘Ummah’ as a unification of all countries in the world, deemed to be or become Islamic States.

The positive potential of the actual population of the East Mediterranean countries with its diverse ethnic and religious mix, has hardly been used as a source of inspiration. Each party seeking, finding and proving by means of archeology their favourite slice of historical time to lay a unilateral claim on the land. Political and religious particularism fired by the disasters of two World Wars have created the violent carving up, expulsion and mass migration that ended in fortification and imprisonment of divided populations, we know now.
———–

So the question in the once more flaring up conflict is:

DEFENSE OF WHAT?

Beyond the flood of ‘psychological warfare’ and ‘internet disinformation’ campaigns, that overwhelm us once again, each trying hard to force a singular ‘truth’ on us, there still is the space for multiple visions, a space that needs to be defended.

There is not only war in Israel and Gaza, there is a related ‘cyber war’, invading our social-networks in countries far away from the actual conflict zone. The Israeli army is real-time on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Partisan web initiatives for the Palestinian cause are counter attacking. ‘Ready Made’ arguments are produced by all sides, that multiply and circulating with just a click of a mouse. It is as if we need to make a choice: for of against israel; for or against Palestine. No other options. No ‘middle ground’. A ‘mass mediated dichotomy’ with many reminiscences of ‘Cold War rhetoric’.

We all know that the state of Israel is many times more powerful – in military sense – than any of its subjected regions and neighbours. This does not imply that we should neglect the relative small violent and criminal acts of its adversaries. Hiding or explaining away a smaller crime because of a related bigger one does not help to overcome what remains to be wrongdoing.

The fact that the confrontations between Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis in Israel tends to be mostly through the air by both advanced and primitive forms of artillery, says it all. Direct communications are failing. Israel certainly is responsible for a great deal of the actual stalemate, but not solely so. Israel persistently – for decades – using hard core military tactics only, failing totally in diplomacy, in social and economic measures to ease the situation of the Gaza-strip inhabitants. Murder having become a state endowed practice with remote control assassination as the highest Israel Defense Force attainment. The opposite side presents us – one can not be surprised – with a mirror image of such practice and mindset.

We are once again flooded with images of the shock and awe of modern weaponry, of fear and death, also similar photographic documentation of the terror spread by the uncontrolled launching of home-made rockets.

Weapons of peace are less spectacular. They are also more radical, in the sense that what is demanded is ‘compromise’, series of small temporary practical solutions that ease the life of the Palestinians, no more great and detailed ‘Peace Plans’ but small steps that need to prove themselves in practice, before the next one is taken. The actual self-righthousness, the shining historically polished positions – diamond hard – on both sides will only lead to further killing and destruction. Many say there is no space for such compromise, that the violence perpetrated now is the only thing that is left to the Palestinians.

I think that is just lazy thinking and it will leave people who have of another opinion trapped within a spiralling violence fired by sequences of misdeeds and retaliation that have become so frequent and continuous that any finger pointing to who started first will be countered by the other party with a reference to an earlier incident or act.

Taking sides in the actual conflict for either the Israeli Army or the Hamas military brigades and associated para-military groups, is equal to abandoning people on both the Israeli and the Palestinian side, who are long fed up by these warriors, who have another agenda, without the force of weapons. They need support. They need space to breath, They need some safeguards – especially within Gaza – to be able to speak out without being threatened or even liquidated by the reigning regime over there. (6)

The creation of a new union of nations forming a 21st century Levant / بلاد الشام Bilād ash-Shām may sound as a totally utopian idea, but anybody can see that the group of nation states that have been created in this part of the world are totally unstable and not able to offer their citizens the minimal level of peace each human should be able to enjoy.

An association of nation states into a Union of the Levant – in some way comparable to the European Union – is not a new idea and it may take a long time to come into existence. Still it will give a positive perspective for the whole region.

There are of course pre-formations of this idea in the Arab League which includes the Palestinians with a special status, with the ‘Arab Peace Initiative’ of 2002 which would normalise the position of Israel if it will withdraw from all occupied territories and make arrangements for the return of Palestinian refugees. This plan has only be sniffed at by some Israeli politicians and for the rest been refuted as a plan that has been made about israel without Israel. Still it has some formal status, not in the least with the Obama administration.

There are major shifts taking place in several of the Arab states that are members of the Arab League, other regional and supra-regional associations of countries could be formed. Circum Mediterranean countries have a potential to associate from Spain to Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. Turkey could over time become a member of both the European Union and such a new Union of Levant countries. These are the macro weapons that need to be forced by diplomacy.

Small arms are needed also for construct a peaceful situation. Opening of borders. Relaxing of social economic interaction between areas that are now sealed off. Freeing ways for all forms of assistance and cultural exchange. De-militarisation and reconciliation initiatives, employment opportunities for all those active in weapon production and military activities, and so on… It all may sound too idealistic and silly… still these are the kind of weapons needed for the self-defence of people against the all overruling violent forces of fear and hate.

—-
NB several years ago the then owner of Flickr (Yahoo) classified all my 700 and so news-tabelaus as ‘adukt material’. Completely wrongly as I do no porn, not even erotics, my tabelaus are well studied picture colages and my texts are all in a well controlled non-onscene language… I have protested this indirect censor measure, but only macjibes did answer me… I do not have the time and money to hire a lw firm to deal with the unjust classification of my materials… so bear with e with some of the links, you may need to click and say that you are aware of the (imposed and wrong) status of my visuals:

1) See my news-tableau on Flickr dated November 16 2012, which is a reaction on a call of the Dutch Palestina Komitee fro a demonstration: “Stop Attack On & From Gaza” stop supporting either war mongers side in the conflict”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/8189812045/in/set-72157…

Also another reaction on singular views of the conflict, starting with a cartoon by Simon Farr published in The Guardian in 2008 and used again for a call to demonstrate on November 17, in Amsterdam: “Gaza: Israeli Overkill does not legitimise Palestinian Terror Rockets”
www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/8190530957/in/set-72157…

2) List of fifty or so ‘Arab-Israeli peace projects’ that will be hampered by the “defending” warriors on Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_peace_projects

3) 29 October 2012 Last updated at 19:34 GMT “Violence ends Israel-Gaza truce – Militants in Gaza have fired 26 rockets into Israel, officials say, amid a flare-up in fighting which shattered a brief ceasefire between the two sides.”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20120505

4) Here short indications and links to non-main stream news sources that challenge the BBC reporting, though I must say that we can not expect a world news organisation to continuously report on each incident. Even when a local correspondent would send in such reports we can be sure that often things more fashionable or deemed more important will come first. In fact is the dilemma of our whole news systems that they only report when something grows out of hand grossly and than time restrictions and the haste of ‘the news’ as such make that the events that did lead up to a crisis deemed big enough to be represented, are simply left out. Social internet media, that is the good part of it, tend to fill up now-a-days the gap. Blaming of mainstream media is understandable and also helpful to keep up the quality of news broadcasts, but the problems are more structural in the whole idea of having ‘world news in half an hour or so’.

– Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: “New Israeli Escalation against the Gaza Strip, 7 Palestinians, Including 3 Children, Killed and 52 Others, Including 6 Women and 12 Children, Wounded; Sunday, 11 November 2012 – 00:00
www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&a…

– Electronic Intifada: “As Israel assaults Gaza, BBC reporting assaults the truth” by Amena Saleem; London 16 November. “On the morning of 15 November, the day after Israel carried out the extrajudicial killing of Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari and unleashed a wave of terror against Gaza’s civilian population, the BBC put an article onto its website headlined: “Gaza rocket arsenal problem for Israel.” / The article goes into minute detail about what the BBC’s diplomatic and defense correspondent Jonathan Marcus describes as “the Palestinian rocket arsenal.” / Nowhere in the article, or elsewhere on the BBC, does Marcus investigate Israel’s weapons stockpile, which is funded to the tune of $3 billion a year by the United States. / There are no reams of paragraphs devoted to describing the different types of bombs, mortar shells, drones, fighter jets, gunboats, tanks, guns, nuclear warheads or white phosphorus shells that are in Israel’s arsenal. Yet, with the exception of nuclear missiles, all of these have been used at some point against the people of Gaza with devastating consequences.”
electronicintifada.net/content/israel-assaults-gaza-bbc-r…

– Media Lens: “Gaza Blitz – Turmoil And Tragicomedy At The BBC” by David Cromwell and David Edwards; November 16, 2012. “The Israeli attacks have routinely been reported as ‘retaliation’ for Palestinian ‘militant rocket attacks’ on southern Israel. In a study of news performance in 2001, the Glasgow Media Group noted that Israelis ‘were six times as likely to be presented as “retaliating” or in some way responding than were the Palestinians.’ A BBC correspondent in Gaza said ‘there are now fears now (sic) of a major escalation of violence’. But the Israeli execution of Ahmed al-Jabari was a major escalation of violence. BBC News reported three Israeli deaths by rockets fired from Gaza with the briefest mention of the earlier deaths of ‘eleven Palestinians – mainly militants but also children’. As ever, there was no explanation of how a Gaza civilian is distinguished from a ‘militant’.”
www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=a…

5) A “List of Israeli assassinations” from the 1950s onward can be found on Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations

There are of course a whole series of lists that involve killing by all sides, from Palestinian rocket attacks to suicide attacks, the index page of these lists can be found at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Israeli–Palestinian_conf…

6) The non-biased Israeli peace organisation B’Tsalem keeps for many years a refined classification of casualties that helps to understand this point.. For the period 19/1/2009 to 30/9/2012 for the Gaza strip and the West Bank. For the Gaza strip it lists: “Palestinians killed by Palestinians = 45”; “Palestinians executed by the Hamas Government = 14.” The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces over this period for Gaza = 271, of which 158 are detailed as “Palestinians who took part in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces.”
old.btselem.org/statistics/english/casualties.asp?sD=19&a…

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Zuckerberg Thumbscrew a new Facebook app

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, Media Wars, news-tableau, tagged clickjacking, commercial deviation of social media, facebook economy, Facebook IPO, Flipside of Facebook, likejacking, thumb-up-strategy, Zuckerberg Thumbscrew App on May 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The latest Facebook ‘app‘ is of German origin: the Zuckerberg Thumbscrew… an old device of restrain and pain put to new use after the recent FB IPO demise.

There is also an improvised cheap app version of the ‘Zuckerberg Thumbscrew’ which can be found at any hardware store…

There is a flipside to everything including the Facebook singular thump-up-like-strategy and the likejacking/clickjacking that comes with such commercial deviation of social media.

click book cover to read a limited selections from one of the many books how the Zuckberg empire works… “The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook” by Brian Carter (*) Click book cover for GoogleBooks link

BE AWARE: what you and me may see as something semi-privat and social is of course nothing else than selling our vanities to the advertisement industry, or is it more a schizophrenic situtaion with us users also profiting from the profit of Facebook by having handy communication tool for “free”?

“In 2011, Facebook made $4 per user per year. To earn its market cap of $100 billion today, it would have to earn five-times that figure per user. This sets up a tug-of-war over user information.”

Click stats to go source web page “Facebook’s Value: What’s the Price of a Billion People Watching Each Other?” by Derek Thompson of ‘The Atlantic’.

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(*) To find it in a library nearby go to worldcat.org for this book and fill in your country

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“ayrauliser” a new French verb introduced by a new French Prime Minister

Posted in French Politics, Is everything propaganda then?, news-tableau, tagged ayrault meaning of name, David Pujadas, defamation, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Le Journal de France 2, politicians, press scandal, public memory, social effects of digital memory on May 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

‎”Flux de bouche” we say in dutchified French, whereas the French say “flux de paroles”, ‘flood of words’ in English. For all those who are following the French TV news (‘Le Journal de France 2 sur TV5’ here in the Netherlands) that is what is awaiting us with the new Parti Socialiste Prime Minster (PS/PM), Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was interviewed yesterday first time by anchor man ‘le toupet’ (our tv-divan pet name for David Pujadas, because of his well groomed hair that seems not to be all his). Ayrault certainly creates a ZAPMOMENT with his autonomous avalanche of memorised catch words making one forget what again was the question posed by the interviewer… It will be a verb soon ‘ayrauliser’ and – by mere chance – it is meaningful as the surname ‘ayrault’ is an older French spelling of ‘herault’ or ‘herald’ in English. Indeed ‘a herald’ does not answer questions, a herald proclaims!

As is often the case with a new dignitary the ‘homophone’, or ‘homonym’, or transliterated versions of his name into other languages, do produce some embarrassment, in this case in Arabic speaking countries, where his name is conceived as the name for the male sex organ (like the name of late Dutch Prime Minister Kok, is perceived as ‘cock’ in English).

Ayrault on his first introductory interview on France 2 news did not get any embarrassing questions – though – from ‘le toupet’, like one about his local ‘favoritisme’ scandal during his office as a mayor of the town of Nantes, triggered by a municipal contract for a news and publicity service without a public tender. This was fifteen years ago, and it did produce a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine for Ayrault in 1997. Ayrault did not appeal against this ruling at that time.

As François Hollande did announce during his campaign that his new government would consist of impeccable persons only, tens of thousands professional and self-proclaimed defamers where sitting behind their computers and waiting for the moment the first nomination would appear from the confines of the new master in the Élysée, to cut & paste it into their favourite internet search engine. One of the first to post their resulted defamation was the fifth column of Sarkozy with their Facebook page “Non au PS” (has just 8.753 likes). Their home banner reads: “NON AU SOCIALISTES; NON AUX COMMUNISTES; NON AUX MODEMS, NON AU VERTS; NON A HOLLANDE ET LA GAUCHE” (‘MODEM” is ‘Mouvement Démocrat of François Bayrou; “Verts” is Green Party; “GAUCHE” is left). It is claimed that the post below did get the eager inquiry machine rolling, though the exposed disgraceful event must have been public knowledge anyhow.

“- The first (premier) “prime minster” nominated with a condemnation of 6 years of prison; – 62 years, must be pensioned by now like he advocates for others.” Click picture to check out the Facebook page with other examples of bashing the socialists.

In times we are progressively losing our ability to remember, because of electronic memory devices that have taken over that function, the instant recall of cases from the past by our ubiquitous digital machines, does pose a problem. The ‘waning of time’ ceases to exist. Forgetfulness which is a social device leading to leniency and clemency , forming the basis of human cohabitation, is made impossible. A “minor affair” from the past is easily turned into a ‘major’ one in the present.

We need to come to terms with this new social phenomenon. I would say that a conviction in the past of someone running for public office, is not necessary a negative thing. A convicted person, who has done his or her term, or who has been given a provisional sentence, can not be excluded from participating into politics or government all his or her life. Also, such a person may have gained – because of a punishing sentence – a better insight in the realities of life, in some cases even better than all those impeccable careerist bureaucrats. The fact that the past of Ayrault could be checked so easily renders his case ‘transparent’, though some sources (Le Monde 15/6/1996; a pay archive link) suggest that the legal construction of the publishing tender in Nantes, were “rather opaque.” The French web site “@rrets sur l’image” of May 11th 2012 has a detailed overview article on the case with this long title: “AYRAULT ET LA “BOULE PUANTE” : UNE AFFAIRE DE 1997 REFAIT SURFACE – Mais la presse n’a pas mis le nez dans ses archives pour en fournir les détails” (Ayrault and the stink bomb: an affair of 1997 surfaces again – But the press did not put its nose in its (own) archives to supply the details about it).

Scrutiny of acts and proclamations of the new Prime Minster is enhanced by all such bad publicity, which may hopefully help him sobering his ‘flux de paroles’.

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WHAT WHEN ALL DISSIDENTS IN THE WORLD COULD STUDY LAW IN AMERICA?

Posted in America, Is everything propaganda then?, news-tableau, tagged Chen Guang Chen, China, dissidents, 陈光诚, political exile, political marionettes, USA on May 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I was reading yet another article about the case of the Chinese dissident Chen Guang Cheng (陈光诚) in Le Monde today which mentioned that his case may be head lines in the world, but not so in China itself (it almost sounds like a definition of what ‘a dissident’ actually is). Chinese media if mentioning the case at all are referring to him as “a marionette of the USA.”

The article brought some emblematic pictures to my mind and so I did an image search on Google on marionettes and ‘puppets on a string’ and the last one brought me the image that opens this small note. Paper puppets that when they act become puppets on a string. It is a typical ready-made image to be sold to web sites for may different uses. So I will put the allegory of the picture to my own use here….

Click picture to do a Google search on: ‘puppets on a string’

With the Chinese dissident case in the head lines of the “free world” we seem to be back all the way in the Cold War and its definition and use of ‘dissidents’ who would raise issues felt as a danger to the existing rule in their own countries. There are always many more dissents around in far away countries than we will ever hear about, protesting paper puppets hidden from our view. The ones that manage to come on stage are the ones that will get strings attached to them, if they want it or not. The hand of the puppet player may change during the performance.

Smart and lucky dissidents would manage at one moment or another to get their message across their state borders and raise enough attention elsewhere to create – at some moment in time – an opportunity to be shuffled into what is supposed to be a heroic exile.

The same kind of dissident criticism at home can also be applied to similar circumstances in any of the dissident hosting countries, but as courtesy and realism makes an exiled dissident cautious, exiled dissidents tend to be silent about their host. This is the sad fate of who – in order to safe his own life – is forced to become a hero-dissident, who will nevertheless have a hard time to defend her/himself against accusations of being just a marionette of a foreign power. The possible hosting country of Chen Guang Chen – the United States of America – does have a long long history of schizophrenic political morality and changing interpretations of the the word ‘freedom’. It is unavoidable that the shadow side of a rescuing power will reflect on a rescued dissident.

The manipulating hand of state power with the people as multiplied paper puppet marionettes in the picture is reflecting in the floor space and so the position of the expelled dissident elsewhere becomes a mere mirror image.

Chen Guang Chen – when he manages to get out safely – is said to get the opportunity to study law in the United States. He is not the first and certainly not the last getting such a chance. Imagine when all the world dissidents would gather in the United States and study, discuss and further their insight by exchanging experiences. Then, the mere quantity of dissidence could create a new quality and such a combined insight in world political matters could reflect back onto the United States itself. The marionettes would come alive and become players without strings.

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Warrior President Sarkozy proves it: “A friendship bought will be betrayed.”

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, news-tableau, tagged Aerial bombardments Libya 2011, bribing, Brice Hortefeux, Gaddafi, Mediapart, President Sarkozy, presidential election campaigns, presidential elections France 2012, Sarkozy scandals, slander on April 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A sitting president of any nation at the end of his term always has stains on his/her presidential uniform and the frequency with which the presidential suit has to be brought to the state-media-dry-cleaning-services may increase when she or he is so bold to want a second term. Sarkozy is no exception to this rule and indeed his stains are numerous, some are hard to remove older stains on the shirts he was wearing during earlier stages of his career: Karachi-gate (1994) Bettencourt (2007), La Garde-Tapie (1993-2007), and several stains by ‘the always well documented slander’ of Le Canard Enchainé (like the October 2011 article on how a death sentence of Gaddafi has been instrumented by French Military Intelligence). Last stain thrown at him was by Dominique Strauss Kahn saying his sexual misconduct in New York was manipulated by the French government to keep him from running for President . Yes, the same DSK who is like Sarkozy a master of doing things and than saying he has not done them.

There is a method to remove such scandalous stains in one go from the president uniform and that is an old governmental recipe: WAGE WAR!

War is is something as glorious as it is dirty and a president that leads a nation into war – even when it is just a small one – will not be judged anymore for his civil stains. A president in the double role of a warrior wears the military stains that come with that exercise like medals of honour on his uniform.

This understanding of the manipulation of the mood of a nation made me write several weeks ago this small article which may have still some informative relevance today, only one week from the final decisive presidential elections in France.

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Election Marathon for the Presidential Election in France today and how Sarkozy tries to distinguish himself from his opponents… as a world leader taking the lead in liberating an oppressed people and killing the dictator that suppressed them, a man capable of bringing democracy by decisive force. A glorious picture that has more than one layer….

Below some pictures of Sarkozy’s enjoying his greatest moment during a visit to Libya in September 2011. Applauded as the embodiment of the liberating force of France, France of the Great Revolution centuries ago, still bringing liberty, equality and fraternity.

L’Express September 16., 2011: “A Tripoli, Sarkozy savoure sa victoire libyenne” (in Tripoli Sarkozy savours hisLibyan victory). Pictures from both Benghazi and Tripoli.

“Amis de Benghazi, nous vous demandons une chose: nous croyons dans la Libye unie, pas dans la Libye divisée.” Aujourd’hui, “vous devez montrer un nouveau courage, celui de la réconciliation”. (Friends of Benghazi, we are asking you one thing: we believe in an united Libya, not in a divided Libya.” Today, “you must show a new courage, the one of reconciliation.”)

The words of Sarkozy about a needed ‘reconciliation’ were spoken in Benghazi on the 15th of September 2011. It is now one year ago that the revolt against the Gaddafi regime in Libya started and the USA, Canada and its West-European Allies intervened on behalf of anti-Gaddafi insurgents. The step from support of insurgents – who would not have been able themselves to beat the troops of Gaddafi on a short term – with aerial bombardments, to a civil reconciliation process, has been impossible to take. The way in which a regime change takes place also determines what kind of new social structure will appear. There have been over 25.000 air missions by NATO, but, throwing bombs from high in the sky and repairing means not only repairing material devastation on the ground. Repairing the social devastation is an even bigger task. The military victory and the jubilant proclamation of a new order leave the population a weak non-elected self-appointed government in Tripoli, secessionist regions, all sorts of retaliation against all kind of layers in society that have been closely allied with the former regime. How else could it be after a regime that has been busy establishing and keeping its power during four decades.

Click image to do a new Google Image Search with the text string “la france forte”

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Nota Bene the news tableau has five layers:
1 – the picture in the centre is from Le Petit Journal exactly one hundred years ago glorifies military aviation in its earliest days.

2 – French airplanes returning to their base in Corsica after flying a bombing mission over Libya, article in Los Angeles Times March 21, 2011, taken over by Australian web site. “Gaddafi fervour wanes as bombs hit” is the header of the article.

3 – the picture of Sarkozy with Gaddafi dates from 2007 made at his state visit to Libya posing in the head quarters of Gaddafi Bab-Al-Zizia, which were later bombed by French airplanes. The monument with the clenched fist destroying a jet fighter is a monument commemorating the USA air attack on Gaddafi on April 15th 1986, ordered by the President Reagan government in retaliation of the bomb attack on a dancing in West Berlin which fitted in a whole series of Libyan involvements in terrorist activities (Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Fraction (Rote Armee Fraktion)and the Irish republican Army). on From 2003 onward the Gaddafi regime had started a diplomatic normalisation process, moving away from their earlier hard line violent international policies. The header for this article in which this picture appears is: “Libyan market seen as a bonanza.”

Picture as published by US Today on March 8, 2007. With the following caption: “Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi right, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy stand while national anthems are being played, at the Bab Azizia Palace in Tripoli, in this July 25, 2007, file photo. European defense and aviation group EADS said Friday it had finalized two military contracts with Libya to supply anti-tank missiles and communications systems. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said the contracts had not yet been formally signed, despite the comments of a Libyan official, who said Thursday in Tripoli that Libya had signed the contracts. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)”

The same photograph appeared since 2007 illustrating different articles and also an article that sheds an other light on the Sarkozy Gaddafi ‘amourette’. I just choose one of the many English language articles that followed on a report published by the French journalist research web site ‘MediaPart’ on the history of Sarkozy and Gaddafi contacts starting in the year 2005 (when Sarkozy was Minister of Interior under President Chirac). The web site Business Insider of March 12, 2012 starts of with: “Nicolas Sarkozy allegedly received €50 million ($65.8 million) in illegal campaign contributions from Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi when he first ran for president of France in 2007.” Sarkozy and his party have denied all allegations and “as France’s head of state, Sarkozy cannot be prosecuted while in office, but if he loses the upcoming elections (which seems likely) a full investigation could be conducted into his party’s finances.”

Cropped version of the Michel Euler photograph of Sarkozy’s visit to Gaddafi in 2007.

Somehow the detailed report of Mediapart first published on March 12, 2012, has been maneuvered out of the public eye and some of the persons cited in the Mediapart documents have publicly distanced themselves from references to them. The allegations are not much part now of the last week debates before the French presidential elections, though suspicion is lingering on. Reading though the complicated relationships of the various ‘strawmen’ and other profiteering intermediaries involved,explains that such wheeling and dealing is part of regular politics, and that the players involved in it have learned enough lessons to obscure and hide their traces. The answer of the Sarkozy election campaign office came this week end with an article in Le Monde “Pour Sarkozy, Mediapart est “une officine au service de la gauche” (for Sarkozy Mediapart is “an office at the service of the Left.”)

The French language web page that refers to the alleged financing of the Sarkozy presidential campaign in the year 2007 (one needs to be subscribed to see the full French text) There is an English summary also, that opens in this way: “According to information contained in a confidential report prepared by a recognised French expert on terrorism and terrorist financing, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign received up to 50 million euros in secret funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.”

Another bit of news shedding light of the Gaddafi-Sarkozy relationship before the French President choose to attack his former ally, is March 16, 2012, interview with the son of Gaddafi for the Television station of EuroNews. Saif al-Islam did survive until now and has not been silenced yet, though he may use some of his knowledge first of all to protect himself. If he ever will face the International criminal Court in The hague, remains doubtful.

21011 March 16, Saif al-Islam: “Sarkozy must first give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people. He was given assistance so that he could help them. But he’s disappointed us: give us back our money. We have all the bank details and documents for the transfer operations and we will make everything public soon.”

4 – Vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi explode after an air strike by coalition forces along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah, Sunday, March 20.

This map that appeared on many web sites shows the French participation in the aerial bombardment in March 2011 of strongholds of the former ally of Sarkozy, Gaddafi.

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Stimulating ‘PowerPoint’ presentation of Dominique Strauss Kahn at The Cambridge Union Society

Posted in Economics, Is everything propaganda then?, news-tableau, tagged Dominique Strauss-Kahn, economic slump, erectile economics, IMF, powerpoint presentations, The Cambridge Union Society on March 11, 2012| 5 Comments »

Dominique Strauss Kahn flanked by security guards explains how to drag global economy out of its actual slump using the famous 1926 diagram of Fritz Kahn published in "Das Leben des Menschen/Life of Man" as a concrete metaphor of how to stimulate economic growth. Seven steps can be distinguished: 1) Die Geslechtsdrüsse/Sexual glands; 2) Erotische Eindrücke/Erotic impressions; 3) geslechtlige Eregung/Sexual arousal; 4) Hemmungen wie moralische Bedenken/Inhibitions like moral considerations (that have to be overcome); 5) Rückenmark/Spinal cord (transporting the accumulated data to...); 6) Erektionszentrum/Erectional centre; 7) Schwellkörpernadern/Erectile tissue (that will produce the intended rise). ---- click picture for full size view ----

For an inside report of the lecture in the guarded off hall of Cambridge Student’s ‘Union Society’ I can recommend the student’s paper ‘The TAB Cambridgetab.co.uk” in its issue of Saturday, 10 March 2012 which has several readers comments from within the Cambridge student community:

<quote> Dominique Strauss-Kahn managed to talk about economics for most of the evening to an under-capacity Union, but the ex-IMF Chief was forced from home turf when a student asked about rape allegations made earlier this year. Will Lawn, a 3rd year student from King’s College asked Strauss-Kahn to “explain why Diallo had vaginal bruising the day after you met her,” referring to the hotel maid who alleges that DSK raped her in May 2011. Security, who flanked DSK throughout the talk, tried to rush him out, but both Strauss-Kahn and Union President Katie Lam let him finish his question. Strauss-Kahn responded by saying: “I’m not quite sure that’s the topic of this evening. New York dismissed the case… What more do you want?”</quote>

<quote>But while there was limited opposition within the chamber, outside the Union the atmosphere was vitriolic. Behind the debating chamber over 200 protesters clashed with police and security, parading anti-DSK placards and chanting slogans such as “No more violence, no more rape” and ”DSK, go away, justice for Diallo.” Activists also clashed with a pro-DSK campaigner, ripping the sign he was carrying, which was covered in free speech slogans.</quote>

<quote>Chants were audible throughout the talk, but when asked about the protests Strauss-Kahn said: ”We live in a culture of freedom; they are allowed to do what they want, even if I think they are wrong.”</quote>

<quote>In a statement released shortly after the event, the Union emphasised that: “there was no restriction on questions from the audience or on their content”, adding that Lawn was approached by security after his question because “a private security guard mistakenly interpreted this question as an attempt to disrupt the event… his actions had not breached the code of conduct for the event.”</quote>

I id post a reaction on this blog that can be found at the end of this posting. (**)

The lecture took place on Friday, March 9 at the University of Cambridge with a confident Strauss Kahn in spite of protests outside the lecture hall.

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(*) Documentation on the mechanical schemes of the functioning of the human body by Fritz Kahn, can be found here…

(** )My reaction on the TAB Cambridge blog and its comments:

“Not guilty until proven” seems to be a strong proDSK argument, but those who use it apparently did NOt follow the way how someone with lots of power and lots of money could wriggle out of almost any justice procedure.

Casting doubt on the status of a victim is one of the ugly aspects of such a process. Next are conspiracy theories and there were several suggestions of attempts at framing a prospected French President candidate. The the colour of the victim versus the colour of the perpetrator and discriminatory law practices was brought in also, amplified with the aspect of class differences and discrimination of women. Differences also of culture, between a more protective attitude toward private life of politicians and officials in France versus the overt judgemental morality stance taken in the USA further obscured the issue. This bristle cloud of public debate has thrown so much dust in the air that Dominique Strauss Kahn’s lawyers managed to wriggle him out of prison, into a luxurious safe house and finally had him acquitted and free to leave the USA. There is NO Truth to be found in this kind of sensational cases. They do get Mythical and a myth is a unstable piece of lore that – nevertheless – does have some founding in a real event that occurred in whatever way in the past.

There was an escapade of DSK in a New York Hotel and the chances that this was just a spontaneous consensual ‘rendezvous’ are at best hypothetical. More important DSK has a history of non-consensual relieve of his libido upon the bodies of ladies of which some have found the courage to express their disgust and anger publicly. All cases not formerly proved, none that has lead to a conviction. Muffling by hired lawyers of free speech, and whatever undisclosed means of pressure available to a man of political power like DSK, form the basis of his actual standing. Arguing that honouring an earlier invitation to the Student Union of Cambridge (as I understood) of DSK should be kept in the name of ‘free speech’ is preposterous.

What remains is DSK’s record as an economist and his abilities to influence the global market in a remarkable way. None of this seems to be true in the eyes of economists, there are monitoring and evaluation reports of his own International Monetary Fund – nicely put on-line – that take a critical stance at his performance in this field. Here is an introductory text and the source link “The affair DSK and the forgotten IMF self-criticism report of May 20, 2011”: http://wp.me/pw0cu-11S

My suggestion is a less emotional and more analytical approach to the now historic DSK in Cambridge case. What I did find most ‘endearing’ was not only reading your magazine, but also the photographof the actual crummy stage of the Student Union lecture hall, that must have been such a non-glorious and shaming stand for Dominique Strauss Kahn to end up as a speaker in such an environment. Just compare it with the glamorous settings of his Far East come back attempt as a speaker on an economic conference in Bejing in December 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76fm35fycG4

Comment on TAB student paper blog by 'Cambridge Moonion': Re: "crummy stage". The actual room is a pretty amazing example of Victorian architecture. He was just giving his speech from the back of the room rather than the front because he needed to be near a door for security reasons. The lecture is since monday March 12 also available in video on the official web site of the Cambridge Union Society. (****)

In contrast an image of the Beijing business conference performance of Dominique Strauss Kahn, this come back event was arranged before DSK was once more publicly associated with a prostitution ring embracing two continents, form Lille in the North of France to New York. (***)

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn delivers a speech at an economy conference organized by Chinese Internet company Netease in Beijing, China, Monday, Dec. 19, 2011. -- click picture for link to original article ---

(***) Le Monde: Infographie Comprendre l’affaire du Carlton en trois minutes. Mis à jour le 20.02.12. An animated information graphic in the form of a narrated organigram that explains the complicated set up of the Lille/New York prostitution ring (L’Affaire Carlton) in which Dominique Strauss Kahn also plays his own role. The narration is in French.

Comprendre l'affaire du Carlton en trois minutes (Understanding the Carlton Affaire in three minutes) - click image to go directly to the page of Le Monde and click the button 'démarrer' to start the info graphic.

(****) “The global financial climate, globalization and the Eurozone” at http://www.cus.org with several applauding comments in favour of DSK..

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Putin’s Imaginative Plot: from tyrant to martyr

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, news-tableau, tagged election plots, tyrannicide, Vladimir Putin's presidential election 2012 on February 28, 2012| 1 Comment »

‎”PUTIN ASSASSINATION PLOT DENOUNCED AS RUSSIAN ELECTION SPECTACLE'” The Guardian 27th February 2012. (1)

There are multiple meanings to this news, but they all end up with the same conclusion in favour of strong man Putin running once more for president: a win win situation.

There is first of all a historical analogy and reference…. which fits in with Putin’s role of the new Czar.

An attempt at the life of Putin to take place – as news sources say – in Moscow the day after his election, on his usual ride to work through the capital. Supposedly a bomb attack, which in the Russian mind traces back to the assassination of Russian Czar Alexandre II in 18881, March the first, by conspirators of the ‘Narodniki’ followers of the Narodnaya Volya (Peoples’s Will) movement. An act to show to the poor and subjugated majority class of the peasants that the Czar was not an omnipotent supernatural being, that his life could be taken and their position of powerless could be changed.

Pages from Russian history: Newspaper photograph of a Putin convoy heading to the Kremlin in Moscow May 2007; illustrate magazine engraving reconstructing the bomb attack on Czar Alexandre II 1881 in St. Petersburg. The killing of the Alexandre II - who had a dual policy of allowing some reforms and at the same time strengthening reaction - in 1881 lead to the cancellation of all reforms and a period of a quarter of a century of bolstering of central czarist power.

If the plot against Putin was real, the Chechen conspirators would have revenged the suppression of their revolt against the Moscow reign of Chechen people. An answer to the Second Chechen War, a merciless clamp down strongly supported by Vladimir Putin. An act of tyrannicide by the Chechens as a symbol, a start to liberate themselves from Putin’s yoke. For many Russians such an act of revenge would prove the need of a strong figure like Putin to protect their homeland from the rebellion of insurgent regions, religions and nationalities. Putin as the man to stand up against those threatening the unity of what is left over of the great Russian empire. Something constantly expressed in the core message of Putin’s rhetoric: the protection of the Russian fatherland.

использовать свое воображение (use your imagination)

If the plot was – completely or even half – staged (by provocative methods), Putin’s secret service entourage would have used Putin’s widely expressed negative appraisal to create an event that can be imagined to be true. The proposed story line of a newly elected president killed straight after the day he has been elected fires the imagination and changes – even if it did not actually happen – his position. We know, that when it would have had happened in real, all forging of election results would be overshadowed by such a drama and soon be forgotten. Putin’s role would have changed from ‘a tyrant’ into ‘a martyr for democracy’. Real or fake, it hardly matters. Putin’s Plot has enough verisimilitude to fire people’s imagination and he will profit from that.

: использовать свое воображение (use your imagination)

Tyrannicide is the assassination of a tyrant for the common good. A tyrant in classical Greek history was someone who had taken power in a ‘polis’ by illegal or unconvential means. In the year 514 Aristogeiton (the bearded one) and Harmodius assassinated one of the two sons of the tyrant of Athens, Peisistratus. Their deed is said to have helped the establishment of Athenian democracy. A bronze statue has been made of the two ‘tyrannicides’ by Antenor and placed to their honour in the Agora, the public meeting space close to the town’s assembly. We all do know that ‘Athenian democracy’ was something meant only for the local male population, excluding women and Athenian residents originating from other poli and not to forget: slaves.

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(1) A choice of three news source renderings of the alleged plot agains Putin

THE GUARDIAN, Miriam Elder in Moscow, February 27., 2012: “This is part of a clear election campaign,” said Yevgeniya Chirikova, a leader of the protest movement that has brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets of Moscow calling on Putin to quit. “It’s to bring attention to Vladimir Putin, and to develop this idea that there’s a threat everywhere. It’s a spectacle.” Putin’s press secretary described such statements as “blasphemous”. (…) State-run Channel One television reported that two men arrested by Russian and Ukrainian special forces in the Ukrainian port of Odessa earlier this year had been dispatched to kill Putin by Chechen rebel Doku Umarov, the leader of Russia’s separatist Islamist movement. (…) Channel One said it received information about the assassination attempt 10 days ago but did not explain why it did not release the news sooner. (…) Putin’s critics allege that a series of apartment block bombings on the eve of his first election in 2000 were orchestrated by the Kremlin to boost the then unknown politician’s popularity, rather than by Chechen rebels, as claimed. A similar assassination attempt on Putin was allegedly foiled on the day of Russia’s last presidential election in March 2008.”

CBS ATLANTA, Vladimir Isachenkov Associated Press, February 27. 2012: “The Ukrainian Security Service said earlier this month it had detained a man sought by Russian authorities on charges of terrorism and two of his accomplices in Odessa on Feb. 4, but said nothing at the time about linked them to an anti-Putin plot. (…) Channel One said the source for its information was Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency dealing with domestic security. The agency refused to comment. (…) A Chechen rebel website, KavkazCenter, shrugged off the report about the assassination plot as “election propaganda nonsense.” The website noted that the explosion in Odessa was initially reported to be a gas leak and the men were said to be preparing explosives for a contract hit on a local businessman. (…) The nationalist party leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said the assassination plot was invented by political spin doctors and designed to appeal to “poorly educated old ladies” and housewives, the news agency reported.”

KAVKAZ CENTER web site (a channel used regularly by Chechen opposition), February 27., 2012: Putin said that the victory over the Chechen rebels is one of the major achievements of his reign. Putin has counted the victory over Chechen rebels as one of the key achievements of his rule, and the report about the alleged plot is likely to further boost support “, АР reports from Moscow. An influential French daily, Le Monde, writes: “For Frederick Longuet-Marx, chairman of the conference at Caen University, an expert on Islam and national identity in the Caucasus, “it was clearly a pre-election manipulation”. “Vladimir Putin just want to inflate a bit his pre-election rating and play on the fear of the Chechens. Indeed, during his 12 years of rule in Russia, Vladimir Putin has created an image of a strongman over his fierce struggle with Chechen terrorists. “Thanks to the assassinations of 1999, which were clearly the work of Russian secret services, the public opinion was prepared to resume the war against Chechnya”, recalled Frederick Longuet-Marx. Today, the prime minister is opposed by the growing mass of people, and he is forced to use once again the bogey of Chechen terrorism, which helped him so well in the past. However, other people seem to doubt. () “Osmayev is completely unknown in the ranks of the Chechen movement, and the name” Pyaznin” sounds absolutely non-Kazakh”, explains Frederick Longuet-Marx. He has also doubts about the very existence of the alleged terrorist organization. () “For an Islamic terrorist, it makes no sense to take refuge in Ukraine. The laws there are the same as in Russia”. () Another major French newspaper Le Figaro quotes an independent Moscow sociologist Dmitry Oreshkin on KGB anti-putinist radio Ekho Moskvy: () “This is a sign that people from the FSB are trying to use the tools to mobilize public opinion in an old way: “We are surrounded by the enemies. There is only one strong, intelligent and courageous leader, whom they are trying to eliminate”.

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MOE-landers: statistical categories as a basis for discrimination by Dutch political parties PVV & VVD

Posted in Discrimination, Dutch politics, European politics, Is everything propaganda then?, Migration, tagged aliens, allochtones, autochones, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS), discrimination by statistical category, forced labour, Geert Wilders, Henk Kamp VVD Minister, MOE-landers, natives, NAW-ers, Niet-Westerse-Allochtonen, NON Western Allochtones, NYFER rapport, PVV party, VVD party on February 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

"Hotline MOE-landers (middle and East Europeans (...) leave your story here" click picture for full size. For rough translation of the PVV text in this picture see further on in this article.

A ‘détournement‘ for the latest campaign of PVV/Wilders group targeting Middle & East European workers… what I see when I check out the Complain Web Site of the PVV.

The word ‘MOE-Landers’ is a post Cold War invention, before there was the monolithic term ‘Oostblok (East-block from the East germany/DDR all the way to Vladivostok in Siberia ). MOE is an ‘acronym’ of Midden Oost Europees (Middle East European), which is then glued to the word ‘lander’ (someone from a certain land or country).

The word ‘MOE’ in Dutch means being tired. This is an interesting association as the MOE-landers may be coming to the Netherlands because the Ducth lower paid classes are tired (moe) of working for too low wages and in too bad circumstances. The Dutch entrepeneurs are of course the last to complain about willing Middle-East-Europe employees.

Wilders and his PVV movement specialise in using generalised ‘statistic group names for humans’ as a basis for their pointing-a-finger-to-others politics. It is not just those belonging to a religious entity like Islam that are targeted by the PVV. The party of Wilders also points to other groupings of people, often groups that have been defined as a specific statistical category by the State Statistical Bureau (CBS). Autochtoon (Old-Greek: αὐτος; autos = “self” and χθων chthoon = “land/earth”) and Allochtoon (ἄλλος (allos) = other; + land/earth) are important ‘catchwords’ to be found in the ‘policy nets’ of the PVV. ‘Native’ and ‘alien’ to use other dividing terms, or simply ‘us and them’.

The above ethnic scheme is taken from Wikipedia and I found this comment of an expat in the Netherlands web blog DutchDirt, on the social labelling tradition in the Netherlands: "Why do the Dutch continually focus on this condescending word? What is 100% allochtoon anyway? Did they forget the history of the Netherlands and who their ancestors are? Even the Royal Family are Allochtonen… Anyway to me the whole allochtoon situation is totally absurd and ridiculous. They have in general not yet been able to realize that this whole ‘putting people in boxes’ system is what is causing a lot of social issues and friction. The word has been abused and consequently a negative connotation has stuck. Alas, as it seems it is a cultural thing to give people labels. So maybe we haven’t come that far from apartheid (literal translation = being different) either, oh yeah that’s also a Dutch word." (the author makes only one mistake in the origin and connotations for the word 'Apartheid': it is a Dutch language word originating from the Afrikaans/Dutch spoken in South Africa. The Dutch word 'apart' comes from the French (à part) and is used in three ways: separate in space, separate in circumstances, and extraordinary; 'heid' means 'state of being' (apart))

Sub-categories – all neatly defined by the Dutch State Statistic Bureau – are singled out by PVV strategists for their populist campaigns, like the seemingly geographic notion of ‘Niet Westerse Allochtoon’ (non Western Allochtones). NWAers would be an acronym for this group, proposed to us as a non-adaptive foreign element in the mythically national entity of ‘echte Nederlanders’ (real Netherlanders) originating from ‘non Western countries. The last thing is historically and geographically such an absurd notion that it will take a separate article (in the making) to explain it in maps. For the rest I need not detail here the fact that all nations exist only by the grace of migration. The ethnographer searching for a real aboriginal Dutch will have a hard time finding one.

This map (by me tj.) does NOT appear on the web site of the State Statistical Bureau of the Netherlands, but is construed from the textual information they give. I made it to understand what this idiot term 'Niet Westerse Allochtoon' means. Just before the elections in the year 2010, the PVV financed a study by consultancy bureau NYFER, that managed to construct a demagogical interpretation of the social costs of migration (benefits were not mentioned) focussing on the statistical category of Non Western Allochtones (NWA), claiming this group "costs Dutch society 7,2 milliard Euros a year." These 'statistical lies' were cleverly launched just before people went to the ballots.(*) As the financial crisis had been a part of all television debates between the candidates, who had to explain how they would cut in state budgets and who would suffer from that, and the magic number was 15 milliard, Wilders put forward triumphal how he would solve the 'crisis', by getting rid of NAW citizens. The NYFER report (**) of Wilders failed to be sufficiently discredited (in time) by trade unions, academics, other political parties and so on. (***) It brought Wilders to power with 24 seats in parliament (before he had 9 seats) and the extra-governmental position of power to deliver a majority to a minority cabinet of VVD (liberals) and CDA (Christian centrists).

The singling out of MOE-landers as a target is not a new PVV policy. It fits in their long term structural policy of ‘the Netherlands for the Netherlanders’ (Nederland voor de Nederlanders). The definition of what a real Netherlander is – according to the PVV – remains kind of vague. I do not see a ‘jus sanguinis‘ (the fact of being born in a country) approach by the PVV as a basis for citizenship, as Dutch citizenship is something in their opinion that can be taken away from first, second – who knows where it ends – generations of migrants, that have committed a crime. “Send them back to their homeland” is the adage, while – crime or not – these are Dutch citizen born and educated in this country.

Middle and East Europeans in the Netherlands: (blue) not registered employee in the GBA (Gemeentelijke Basis Administratie Persoonsgegevens/Municipal Basic Administration of Persons Information); (brown) idem registered. Source CBS . Click image to go the CBS web page.

It is certainly not only the PVV who is campaigning against former East-blockers, East-Europeans or MOE-landers. The Liberal Party for Freedom (VVD) – the main power in government now – is in fact the main motor behind the PVV action against MOE-landers. The VVD minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Henk Kamp, proposed already a year ago to expel unemployed Polish workers, not withstanding European accords on free movement of employees. The number of problem cases of such economic migrants, as suggested by the minister last year, have been criticised and relativized by informed sources and members of parliament, accusing the minister of a party-politic election show over the backs of EU migrant workers.

What we see is an orchestrated campaign whereby the PVV takes an extremist stand by actions like the call to complain on a web site about MOE-landers (anonymous and without check on double entries if wanted), while the VVD plays it more subtle and indirect. Minister Kamp has a personal campaign, often televised by the NOS television or the State Information Service (RVD), whereby he draws his double sided sword: threatening to scrap the welfare benefit of Dutch unemployed workers, if they refuse to do the jobs now done by the MOE-landers and at the same time move MOE-landers out of their Dutch jobs. Jobs often in the greenhouses of the agrarian export sector. Double sided sword, double side profit, especially for the state, who can earn a few milliards of Euros on this move.

Minister Henk Kamp (VVD) of Social Welfare and Employment in a video during a working visit to horticulture firms in the Noord-Oost Polder, filmed by the Dutch State Information Service (RVD), later broadcasted without mentioning its original source by the NOS tv news: "..if you can work and there is work, than you must work." Click picture to go to the RVD information page of this work visit. Kamp (his name means 'camp' in English) speaks about the number of unemployed Dutch workers in the 'polder region', being the same as the number of MOE-lander workers employed there the horticulture . The horticulture entrepeneur explains on camera that these MOE-landers can be called to work on short notice and even for short time contracts only, whereas the Dutch looking for employment in the region are looking for an all around year job. Nobody seems to know the historically speaking distressing association that the Noord-Oost Polder (new land on what once was an inner sea) has consumed a lot of real 'forced labour' when it was laid bare and made into farmland during World War II, including arrested Jewish men that had some (ill-fated) hope to survive here.

The agrarian sector itself certainly does not embrace this proposal for a number of reasons: refusal or incapacity of the “real Dutch” unemployed to do this kind of work, because of what is not said in the VVD minister’s campaign, the not so brilliant economic and social conditions offered to workers employed in EU competitive factory greenhouses and the fact that many jobs a only for a short time. The horticulture industry thrives on EU seasonal migrant workers.

The media performance of VVD and PVV is perfectly orchestrated these days, with Geert Wilders being attacked for his discriminatory MOE-landers campaign while Henk Kamp appears on television giving him indirect support by saying that it is up to any parliament fractions to take on measures and do researches they deem necessary. What is ‘discrimination’ for one, is ‘freedom of expression’ for another, according to Minister Henk Kamp, being asked about his opinion on the complaint against the anti-MOE-lander campaign by the Polish ambassador to the Netherlands.

The text below is a GoogleTranslation of the PVV new anti-MOE-lander campaign web site on February the 9th 2012 (it is an automatic translation of PVV prose, that is as much as I am willing to do about rendering PVV Dutch in some kind of English, it is enough to get the gist of it):

“Reporting Central and Eastern Europeans

Since May 1, 2007 there is free movement of workers between the Netherlands and eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. At present the estimates to the number of people from these countries, which resides in the Netherlands, apart from 200,000 to 350,000 people. As one of the few parties, the Freedom Party from the beginning against the opening of the labor market to Poland and other CEE nationals. Given all the problems associated with the massive arrival of especially Poland, is that attitude materialized. Recently, the PVV whatsoever against further opening of the labor market for Romanians and Bulgarians voted.

This massive labor migration leads to many problems, nuisance, pollution, displacement and integration in the labor and housing problems. For many people, these things a serious problem. Complaints are often not reported, because the idea that nothing is done.

Do you have trouble of CEE nationals? Or have you lost your job on a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other Central or Eastern European? We would like to hear. The Freedom Party has a platform on this website to your symptoms to report. These complaints, we will identify and offer the results to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment.

Submit your story here”

Original Dutch web site for complaint hot-line by the PVV is here: http://www.meldpuntmiddenenoosteuropeanen.nl/

———–
EPILOGUE

… in Dutch by farmer Merijntje produced by a farmers son, Rinus van Wezel, a 8 minute discourse with birds singing in the background with the title:”Minister Kamp sends forced labourers to the horticulture”

A long and well argued call to the minister that “forced labour tomato picking will be a disastrous undertaking”; Merijntje describes what will happen with strawberry harvesting by workers that are forced and try to evade it in all kind of creative ways. In all detail farmer Merijntje sketches the fanatic posture of VVD minister Kamp in his zealous campaign to have Dutch workers to pick Dutch fruits and the consequences it will have for those law abiding farmers like him. “Just imagine”, he says lifting his arms in the sky, “government falls because of strawberry picking.” The horticulture entrepreneur also knows his classics on prudent politics when he uses the metaphor of the need for the Minister to stop being a hardliner to become “bendable… in the wind, bendable like the reed.” The European Union reality is better understood by farmer Merijntje, than Minister Kamp, when he comes to the plight of all those Bulgarian and Rumanian workers that are employed as season helps by him, already for years, and he recalls the expectation they have to earn something once in a while in the Netherlands. Think about their families, their situation at home often without work.The contrast between the PVV and VVD campaigns and this video discourse from the other side of the field is enormous. Recently similar reasoning by other employers of MOE-landers could be heard in the Dutch media.

Still the low level of payment (I doubt if the Collective Payment Agreements (CAO) by the trade unions for this sector of industry is always applied), the meagre working conditions and the social impact of this new kind of EU seasonal migration work, must not be forgotten. We also need to get a better understanding of horticulture market prices, European and international competition, economic risks and profits that are or could be made, to be able to better judge the claims that no other employment schemes – as the one we see now – can be deployed.

Having looked at the case at hand of the public discrimination of “MOE-landers”, it seems to be such an anachronism with high overtones of xenophobia and authoritarian control of the labour market. A minister of employment accusing – underneath well formulated lines – ‘profiteering lazy bones’ that do not want to work for a living, threatening them with good beating by cutting their social welfare. Anachronism also of a ‘liberal’ and ‘free market’ propagating VVD party, that switches for electoral reasons to a social poker game. A game that supports a statistical based discrimination of EU citizens. Political liberals that have switched to protectionism and support for outmoded forms of fear and hate of foreigners. Does the VVD of today still fits their own image of a liberal and somewhat progressive party? Are VVD and PVV by now not two faces of the same Janus head?

—

(*) Below the PVV web page on the NYFER report.

"10 YEARS IMMIGRATION COSTS 72 MILLIARD EUROS" This web page, dated May 19th. 2010, neatly documents how main stream media have amplified this instance of semi-academic statistical lies: Elsevier Weekly; free newspater De Pers; De Telegraaf a big right from the middle newspaper; RTL television news; NOS Journal (state television news, though they like to see themselves to be independent). Click picture to go to the PVV web page with all these links (all in Dutch).

(**) Het NYFER report has a much more blank title as the rendering of its content in the words of Geert Wilders: “Budgettaire effecten van immigratie van niet-westerse allochtonen.” (Budget effects of immigration of non-western-allochtones)

(***) There were of course many reacting who did not get sufficient platform for their criticism to have an impact on the elections in February 2010. I just give here a link to one example by a young trade unionist Vicent Bontrop: “Wilders en het NYFER rapport.”

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Wientjes nullijn voor iedereen = bevriezing van ongelijkheid

Posted in Economics, Is everything propaganda then?, National propaganda, tagged Bernard Wientjes (VNO-NCW), inkomensongelijkheid, loonstop, nationale nullijn inkomen, schuldencrisis, verbod op loonactie on February 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Bernard Wientjes, voorzitter van ondernemersorganisatie VNO-NCW, vandaag in een ingezonden brief in Trouw.

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Elfstedentocht 2012 a national Dutch skating drama – North Korean style

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, National propaganda, tagged Elfstedentocht 2012, Mart Smeets (sport journalist), NOS Journaal, Peter ter Velde, Peter ter Velde (embedded journalist) on February 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Dutch State Television (NOS) had a special prime time news bulletin of 30 minutes on a skating event in the Northern Province of Friesland, that has been cancelled because of insufficient good ice. This is seen by Dutch media as ‘a national disaster’, after them whipping up public attention and commercial expectations during the recent cold winter weeks.

De Elfstedentocht (the eleven town tour) is a 200 kilometer skating tour and competition through the Northern Province of Friesland, existing since 1909 and – only rarely – takes place, because of too soft winters. The last skating tour was held in 1997.

On wednesday February 8th the association that organises the tour called it all off, because of insufficient thickness of the ice (15 centimeter were needed ‘iceologists’ explained). This non-event was blown up beyond proportions, with five or so journlists at different spots in the Northern province telling us that nothing would happen.

Everything was so serious and exalted in the presentation of this “world news” – a life press conference on non-skating – that it managed almost to reach the level of the famous North Korean public television drama display of ‘national suffering’, though others may have thought to watch the Monty Python News.

The journalist in the middle of the picture is the senior and schizophrenic sports reporter Mart Smeets who said first (February 5th.) that the whole skating event of the Elfstedentocht was nothing more than “an abject commercial funfair” (een platte commerciële kermis) and later could not stop himself to be in the camera lime light of this ‘local world news’, even where it was nothing more than an anti–happening.

In the previous week I noticed also the NOS reporter Peter ter Velde (his name means “in the field”) well known as an embedded NATO journalist in Afghanistan, standing in front of a half frozen ditch in Friesland, with the same serious face as he puts on when reporting about the successes of the Dutch troops in Uruzgan and Kunduz in schooling Taliban fighters.

When you missed it you can enjoy it all at: http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1238898

World disasters and local misery have to wait a bit for receiving again full Dutch State Television attention, till after the Frisian meltdown.

Side effect is – once more – that we are updated on the social and political priorities of the editorial staff of the NOS Television Journal.

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17th CENTURY SPIN FOR FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE I

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, tagged Balthasar Gracián (1601-1658), François Hollande presidential election 2012, maximes, prudence, spin, spin doctors on January 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

17th CENTURY SPIN FOR FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE: Oráculo Manual of the art of prudence by Balthasar Gracián (1601-1658). Almost daily (on French news) we see the foolish triumphalist behaviour of one of the very few alternatives to the reign of Sarkozy, and his UMP, François Hollande of the SP. Mass rallies and visits to pre-arranged supportive crowds as if he has already acquired the presidential seat. Election to the royal position of French president is – sadly – first of all a matter of ‘rhetorics’ and not of a party program. Person comes before content. The 21st century SPINS of Hollande are in my view hopeless and lead him to electoral disaster. I recommend a more classic SPIN, the study of the classic ‘art of prudence’ and the best master remains Balthasar Gracian a 17th century priest at the Spanish court, who published a pocket book (hand oracle) from which I will quote in the coming election time. This is the first maxime, number xix (19):

Arouse no Exaggerated Expectations on entering. It is the usual ill-luck of all celebrities not to fulfil afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realise them. (1)

—–
(1) English translation under the (alternative) title “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” done by Joseph Jacobs, [1892] in an on-line edition at Sacred Texts web site.

The Spanish original text “Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia” is on-line also in HTML format at the Biblioteca Virtual

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Gaddafi, tyrannicide: who are the puppets that are dancing in the streets

Posted in Africa, End of voluntary servitude, international justice, Is everything propaganda then?, Justice, tagged dictatorship, Killing of Gaddafi 20 October 2011, summary execution on October 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A dictator is never alone. A dictator is a system whereby one man or woman is the figurehead with whole strata of society deriving their social position and wealth from their participation in a system of rule both headed and symbolised by a specific ruler. Removing just the figurehead and his or her direct entourage does not cleanse a nation of its dictatorial past. With a figurehead removed in a spectacular way, entrenched deeper layers of a system of dictatorship tend to remain largely intact. Summary execution – which may have happened today to Gaddafi by unruly troops of the new power – bypasses any attempt at reestablishing a just society.

Trying a dictator in court may help to lay bare the social strata that have been keeping a dictatorship in place. The dictator and his entourage may defend themselves and point to others who were part of their rule and may now pose as liberators. The defence of a dictator in court may also expose all forms of international support for a regime by countries, parties and other leaders who may only recently have turned against a dictator whereas before they were supporting a totalitarian system in economic, military and diplomatic ways.

The killing of Gaddafi without any form of justice serves many interests: many members of the new Libyan government involved in Gaddafi’s regime; Libyan businessmen that derive their wealth from dealing with the Gaddafi rule; political leaders both retired and active who have received Libyan support or did make economic deals; academics, intellectuals, artists, architects and so on that did get Gaddafi’s financial support or who performed for him. The killing has been tried by NATO many times in the last months, throwing tons of bombs on Gaddafi’s premises and saying that they were not targeting the leader as such. Now we will have to wait to see if sufficient details of the circumstances of the violent death of Gaddafi will come out to establish at least some form of truth of what has happened today.

Those who dance in the streets to rejoice the violent death of a dictator may well be the recruiting force for the next totalitarian regime in the making.

====

written Thursday October 20th 2011

See also these related articles from previous months on Libya, Gaddafi and international law:

– 2011/05/02 NATO’s Collateral Tyrannicide: will it bring Justice and Peace?
– 2022/05/16 Yet another telephone call from Libya to The Hague…
– 2011/05/26 2006 Saddam ~ 2008 Karadzic ~ 2011 Mladic captured alive: what about Gaddafi?
– 2011/05/28 G20 2011 dinner: dessert from the desert: a Libyan Oil Cocktail
– 2011/07/23 The disembodied Leviathan of Libya
– 2011/08/02 Emblem for the International Criminal Court: Iustitiae Languor
– 2011/08/21 What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

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What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

Posted in Africa, Is everything propaganda then?, tagged Benito Mussolini, Gaddafi, Green Revolution 1969 -, Muammar el-Qaddafi, Omar Al-Mukhtar (1862-1931) on August 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

which way up?

which way down?

what will be our last view of him?

the anti-colonial guerilla fighter hero he associated with Omar al Mukhtar – Lion of the Desert – hung in 1931 by the Italian fascist colonial regime under Benito Mussolini
(Gaddafi wore the last photograph of Mukhtar alive just before his execution as a badge on his military uniform when visiting Berlusconi in Italy in 2009)

the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, as captured by Italian Partisans in 1945, when he tried to flee to Switzerland and executed on the spot, hung by his feet

—
the flag of his copy cat green revolution waved four decades

the regime he helped create repressed as many people as it did bind, to its peculiar form of common wealth

despised and embraced at the same time, by other leaders from other countries
who drew their plans for his removal while celebrating their meetings with him

those from his own camp, who now leave him to face up to his last days
will trample on his face to hide their own past

will his court be in the streets or in The Hague?

there will be no singular view of Gaddafi

as with all dictators both his face
and the way we see it
are split.

========
see also “The disembodied Leviathan of Libya” on this blog.

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The affair DSK and the forgotten IMF self-criticism report of May 20. 2011

Posted in Economics, Is everything propaganda then?, tagged Christine Lagarde, Domique Strauss Kahn, IEO, Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF, International Monetary Fund, Jean Matouk, QR-codes, tableaus on August 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

THIS IS MY FIRST QR-CODED tableau try it:

“Bonnet d’âne pour le FMI” (dunce’s cap for the IMF; literary ‘donkey’s cap’) I read in Le Monde Diplomatique of August 2011, with a sarcastic comment by Pierre Rimbert on how the arrest of Dominique Strauss Kahn for sexual assault of a hotel worker on May 15th overshadowed a self-critical report of the International Monetary Fund by its own “Independent Evaluation Office” (IEO) published on May 20. The report itself is on-line and worthwhile reading, because the ‘economic assault of international banks’ on all of us is too easily overlooked as we all like daily scandal better…

These are some harsh findings in the report of the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF:

“…the relevance of research to authorities and its utilization were hampered by the lack of early consultation with country authorities on research themes and by a lack of country and institutional context.” [page 27; paragraph 75]

“…there is a widely held perception that IMF research is message driven. About half of the authorities held this view, and more than half of the staff indicated that they felt pressure to align their conclusions with IMF policies and positions. Policy recommendations provided in some research publications did not follow from the research results, and a number of country authorities and researchers noted that IMF research tended to follow a pre-set view with predictable conclusions that did not allow for alternative perspectives. This detracted from the quality and credibility of studies and reduced their utilization.” [page 28; paragraph 77]

“…there was no IMF-wide leadership of research. Research activities were highly decentralized, and there was very limited coordination across departments. There was no mechanism to set IMF-wide priorities or quality standards. Collaboration among staff across departments was limited and mostly based on personal relationships.” [page 28; paragraph 79]

Click picture for bigger version and test the QR-code: tested with iPad 2 and 4 QR-code apps: QR HD, Scan, QRdeCode, Qrafter (the last one is the best as it zooms automatically and is a free app) It should bring you directly to the report of IEO "Research at the IMF: relevance and utilization."

Reading the self-critic report of the IMF made me check its reception and how it was related to the impact of Strauss Kahn and his short lived IMF reign. It lead me to the English language Turkish newspaper ‘Today’s Zaman’ (said to be close to the Turkish Justice and Development Party) and a long comment by their columnist Asim Erdilek, from which I took this citation:

What both IEO reports omit, however, is that since 2008 the IMF’s official views have been moving away from the Washington Consensus. This began under the former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former socialist French finance minister, who chose his compatriot MIT macroeconomist Olivier Blanchard to be the IMF economic counselor and research department director (see my columns “The IMF’s evolving policy makeover” (1) and (2), published on Feb. 22 and March 1, 2010, respectively). In several recent publications the IMF has demonstrated its tilting to the left in economic policies by calling for higher inflation rates as well as greater financial regulation in developed countries and for capital controls in developing countries. We have to wait and see whether this tilting to the left will continue, creating an opposite research bias, under the IMF’s controversial new managing director, also from France.

Christine Lagarde one of the few ministers in the cabinet of Sarkozy’s UMP party that survived the frequent reshuffles of France’s president (“Le joker de Sarkozy”; Le Figaro; 2009), is a lawyer by profession and not an economist, she is known for publicly denying bad news and proposing her view of “la vie en rose.“:

Christine Lagarde estime que “le gros de la crise est derrière nous” Le Nouvel Observateur 20/8/2007 (Christine Lagarde estimates that the main part of the crisis is behind us)

Christine Lagarde: conférence de presse “L’économie française repose sur des fondamentaux qui sont solides […] Je ne conçois pas aujourd’hui de contamination à l’économie mondiale” Le Monde Blogs 17/8/2007 (Christine Lagrande during [an often cited] press conference: “French economy is put on solid fundaments […] I do not conceive today a contamination of it by world economy”)

Lagarde : “Il n’y aura pas d’éclatement de la zone euro” Le Figaro 18/11/2010 (Lagarde “the Euro zone will not be blown up”)

If she will be anything more than a mouthpiece for the international banking world is doubtful, if her method of public broadcasted optimism is enough to quell the financial crisis is most unlikely.

The conspiracy theories that have been circulating with Dominique Strauss Kahn as a supposed leftist belonging to the French Socialist Party, to be discredited by a schemed sexual intervention, leading to the appointment of another French director of the IMF from the right wing UMP party of Sarkozy, are grotesque. DSK is a man finding apparently pleasure in risky violent sexual behaviour. The coming-out of the lady he assaulted, did also put an end to any Hollywood movie inspired conspiracy story, with high class call girls on secret missions. It was indeed just a lady doing hotel work who befell the outrageous assault. Sarkozy may even not have been comfortable with the demise of DSK, as with DSK the interest of France in an international organisation, was some how manifest, at a level beyond national politics. That a politician like Sarkozy grabs the occasion delivered to him by DSK’s fall, is obvious, but this was first of all a improvised emergency measure. And so Christine Lagarde, promoted by France, added this “personal touch to her pitch to lead this global institution” for the board of IMF directors on on June 22, 2011:

“I stand here as a woman, hoping to add to the diversity and balance of this institution. I stand here as former head of an international law firm with a dedication to integrity, to the highest moral standards and a belief in participative management. I stand here as a Finance minister who has been tested in times of crisis. I would like to put these skills and experience at work to serve the International Monetary Fund”

‘Rue 89’ a daily platform for commenting the news has a comment on a radio interview with Lagarde still as the French minister of finance with ‘France Inter’ on April 11th this year, where she also has to answer questions by listeners. A pensioned lady comes in the broadcast and explains how she tries to live on 800 Euros a month and succeeds only to cover 15 days with this amount. Comes the answer of Lagrande:

“Le gouvernement a tout a fait conscience de votre problème et c’est pour cela qu’il a décidé d’augmenter de 2% les pensions de minimum vieillesse.” (The government has been completely conscious of your problem and has therefore decided to augment with 2% the minimum elderly pensions)

The commentator on ‘Rue 89’, the economist Jean Matouk, precises in his article (*) the actual government measures, 4,7% augmentation for the minimum elderly income and 2% for the pensions. Matouk tells us in a sarcastic tone also to what it boils down: “16 Euros more pro month. What is she moaning about?” The next question to Finance Minister Lagarde from radio listeners make her jumps from tens of Euros to milliards, as the support for Greece and other “weak economies” in Europe and its financial consequences are brought in. I will not cite the whole interview here, details are on-line in French, but what is striking, is the correlation between the way the poor pension lady is helped by Lagarde and her world of high finances and the way ‘global economy’ is handled by the same forces.

Christine Lagarde riding the Euro bull in front of the European Parliament Building in Strassbourg while the New York Wall Street bull is waiting her, a symbol of the recovery of the American people from the stock market crash of 1987 by the Italian-American artist Arturo Di Monica, who placed the sculpture on his own initiative at first, later integrated as a city highlight. The charging bull shows in Di Monica's words: "the energy, strength, and unpredictability of the stock market." (**)

“I stand here as a Finance minister who has been tested in times of crisis.” The pitch from Lagarde for the board of directors of the IMF and she did get the job. “Been tested” seems to be the ability of politicians to remain in the saddle during an economic rodeo, which does not mean that the bull she has been riding has been tamed. Alternative forms of domestication are needed and there seem to be no ‘alternative views’ possible with the IMF, neither with the board of directors, nor with their new head Lagarde, let me cite again IMF’s Internal Evaluation Office May 2011 report:

“researchers noted that IMF research tended to follow a pre-set view with predictable conclusions that did not allow for alternative perspectives.”

It is ‘alternative perspectives’ on economy we need to put an end to orchestrated ‘economic assaults’ that are at the basis of the legal system of our societies and remain thus – most of the times – unpunished

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(*) Vivre avec 800 € par mois quand les banques enfument le monde (‘Living on 800 Euros a month while the banks smokes up the world’; there is a double meaning here in ‘enfumer’, one of a smoke screen, the other of something being fucked).

(**) For details on the Wall Street bull of Di Monica see Wikipedia.

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The disembodied Leviathan of Libya

Posted in Africa, Art & Politics, Colonial history, Is everything propaganda then?, tagged Colonel Gaddafi (1942-), effigie, Hobbes, leviathan, scapegoating on July 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

A picture today in Aljazeera of the Green Square (1) in Tripoli struck me, it had a caption “People gather near a portrait of Gaddafi in Tripoli’s Green Square on Friday, before the explosions [Reuters]”. This news picture showed a huge street painting or print of Gaddafi and what seems to be a dwindling crowd around it. There is a fence around the picture that must be something like 50 by 250 meter in size. On the inside of the fence once sees guards posted at regular intervals. The picture shows Gaddafi in one of his hundreds of outfits, possibly the uniform of an air marshall he wore when visiting the Italian president Berlusconi in June 2009. On the right side of his uniform jacket Gaddafi wears a gallery of medals and on the left the a photograph has been pinned on his uniform. The photograph shows the martyr of Libyan resistance Omar Mukhtar, the “Lion of the Desert”, on the day before he was hanged by his Italian colonial masters in 1931. A provocative statement for his host Berlusconi, who hugged him nevertheless as he was about to make some big business deals with the Libyan leader.

The people around the fence at the Green Square in Tripoli in July 2011 look at the picture of this moment of theatrical revenge on the former colonial power, a picture that shows the leader completely, from his golden adorned cap to this shoes, with a saintly light blue glowing aura all around him. If one would not trust the strict editorial rules of Aljazeera and Reuter’s photo agency, it could have been a photoshopped picture.

This made me think of the frontispiece of the book by Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan” published in the mid 17th century during the English Civil War, which describes the necessity of a sovereign authority to be accepted by all, to avoid ‘the state of nature’, everybody for themselves, a ‘war of all against all’ (Bellum omnium contra omnes).

For the sake of peace, the people, so did Hobbes argue, had to make a social contract with an absolute ruler, best in the form of a king. The ruler in 1651 is depicted as an embodiment of ‘the people’. There is a crowd that marches from a landscape into the body of the ruler. The ruler has a sword in one and a crosier s used by priests in the other hand, showing he is in command both of state and church.

The display of the picture of the ruler as if he was a landscape, one could walk in, at the Green Square in Tripoli, has a similar function: Gaddafi as embodiment of the Libyan nation. Only, the aerial photograph unveils that it is but a meagre crowd assembled around their leader. It expresses how the maximum leader has inflated himself disproportionally to the feelings of embodiment by ‘his people’. In mathematical terms one can even speak of an ‘inverse proportionality‘, the more his popularity shrinks, the bigger his pictures.

The 17th century theory of state of Hobbes can still be used today, to understand the prolonged rule of dictators. There is some form of common interest, expressed in a social contract, by the ruler and his subjects. (2) How such a two dimensional state of affairs – ruler and ruled – may become a more diverse structure where more people can participate in the affairs of state, is apparently not well understood. The attempts of outsiders – like the Western coalition forces under NATO command – to kill the ruler have failed until now. Aerial bombing, even under the title of a UN mandate to protect civilians from attacks by their own ruler, are counterproductive. To deliver the idea of democracy to a nation does not work, or at least it takes many generations to wear off the effect of long distance destruction perpetuated by outside forces in one’s own country. (3) Interventionist regime change – as we witness for a few months now – does do little to empower the common people. Meanwhile, the ranks of the opposition forces are more and more filled with former supporters of the Gaddafi regime that try not only to evade the eminent purges after Gaddafi’s downfall, but also are preparing to continue the old rule, hidden under new revolutionary slogans.

The inflated picture on the pavement of the square of revolution in Tripoli of the dictatorial ruler Gaddafi, serves more than one purpose. It glorifies him and at the same time it shows him as an ancient non-heriditary king who knows his days are counted when he hears the song in the streets: “the king must die“. (4) The ruler as scapegoat to cleanse the history of a nation. The ‘effigy of Gaddafi’ may serve an extra purpose, as a painting to be trampled on by thousands of feet in a direct release of anger , thus avoiding or diminishing the acts of revenge that accompany any change of regime.

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(1) Green Square named so after the Green Revolution coup d’état of Gaddafi in 1969 (Arabic: الساحة الخضراء‎ As Sāḥah āl Ḥaḍrā), also known as Martyrs’ Square (Arabic: Maidan Al Shohdaa‎); a downtown landmark at the bay in the city of Tripoli. Mainly constructed during Italian colonial times. Named Square of Independence during the short lived Libyan monarchy (1951-1969). On February 20th an anti-Gaddafi demonstration took place here, which was harshly suppressed. One source, a mortuary orderly from Tripoli who fled to Tunesia, later told the BBC that he saw hundreds of dead and wounded be brought into the hospital where he worked: “Many young people went to protest in Green Square that day, and I believe almost no-one came back alive that night.”

(2) This phenomenon is explained in another way one century earlier (1548) – and with more foresight – by Etienne de la Boétie in his “Discours de la servitude volontaire” (The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude). Boétie notes that “…the best and most virtuous man would not remain so if he ruled alone…” See also the study of David Lewis Schaefer “Freedom over servitude: Montaigne, La Boétie, and On voluntary servitude”, page 40, partly available at GoogleBooks.

(3) Incendiary carpet bombing of Germany, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, imprecise precision bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan…

(4) See the famous chapter of Frazer in his book the ‘Golden Bough’: “Kings killed at the end of a fixed term.”

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Wilders & the Dutch Press: the Scapegoater hunted as a Witch

Posted in Dutch politics, Economics, Is everything propaganda then?, Nederlandse rechtsstaat, Parliamentarian system limits, Privacy, tagged criminal records, de jager gejaagd, Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders, Mccarthyism, modern media with hunts, RTL Nieuws, scapegoating, the hunter hunted, Wilders Twitters, witch hunt on November 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

A neo-McCarthyism is flooding the Low Countries these days with the islamophobe law & order PVV party of Wilders being hunted down by almost the whole spectre of “respectable” Dutch news media. Five of the 24 PVV members of parliament appear to have some sort of criminal record, though most of these for minor violations. The hunters of the PVV, chasing what they see as persons and behaviours that threaten their image of what the Netherlands should be, have now become prey themselves. The media that have served Wilders and the PVV and helped them to rise to power, have now turned against them. Party chief Wilders started today to send around one of his famous Twitter comments to newspapers complaining about what he feels as an orchestrated persecution.

It makes me feel queasy. The burrowing of the media into the past of PVV members, starts to look like an ordinary witch hunt. So, we will not any more assist this.

When one reads and sees the sensational front page articles and prime time television programs these last days, the implicit conclusion is that members of parliament should have have had no intercourse with real life in their past. Parliamentarians should be as innocent as lambs. Like in the shivering years of the early Cold War every member of parliament is checked and each side step in a career of any politician is dug up from the deep and smelly waste heap of history. A few days ago, one of the commercial television companies RTL formally asked all the parties in the Dutch parliament which of their members in the Second Chamber (Tweede kamer) had a criminal record. Of the 150 members 149 answered this question, one member refused at first, but later gave in when confronted with some driving with too much alcohol incident, a decade or so ago. This call to confess by RTL Television News, may have its origin in complaints about their alleged bias toward Wilders and the PVV. The outcome has been 7 members of parliament with a formal criminal record of which – as said before – 5 belong to the parliament fraction of the PVV.

In the year 2008 the other side of the political spectre has been attacked by the same media that always propose themselves as the legitimatized representative of the abstraction called ‘public opinion’, as the watch dogs that protect the needed ‘credibility’ of ‘representatives of the people’. A politician of the Green Left Party, Wijnand Duyvendak, felt compelled to give up his seat in parliament because of his – previous known – involvement in radical direct actions against nuclear energy a few decades before. A tactical chosen moment of amplification in the media of this dated public knowledge, was sufficient to make him fall. All this media hunting is done with the implicit intention of supporting ‘democracy’ by cleansing the house of representatives of anybody having whatever ‘criminal record’. The assumption of these ‘righteous press campaigns’ is that elected representatives should have no criminal or any other kind of controversial past. The house of parliament appears – in this vision – to be some kind of church solely populated by purified and canonized saints.

This premise, is more undermining than supporting a system of elected representatives. Society has more to offer than innocent lambs and national crime statistics show this clearly. Sanctions (sancties) and sentences (veroordelingen) range in the hundreds of thousands. There is positive potential in the experience of “unclean” members of parliament. First of all the definition of ‘crime’ is a shifting notion, like squatting becoming a criminal act in the Netherlands only recently and, maybe soon, softdrug blowing becoming a punishable offence, whereas these activities were tolerated before. Ex-criminals and ex-offenders in parliament may help to tone down hard liners with neither social understanding nor human empathy. Acceptance of deviancy in some one’s career – also in the political party domain – must first be established. The prevailing witch hunt mentality we see now has the opposite effect. Politicians try to cover up and hide their past and tend even to pursue more extreme repressive policy measures (if only to hide their own past or inclination).

click picture for link to the Statistical Bureau web page with details on criminality in the Netherlands

The notion of what ‘crime’ can be, has so many shadings of colour as can be found in a rainbow: from almost legal white collar crime committed by those who mostly manage to stay out of prison, to the ‘blue collar criminals‘ that are picked up from the streets and make up the main population of our state prisons. When any citizen has committed a crime and when it comes to a conviction and a subsequent punishment, the social rule can only be, that a specific case of law-breaking has been settled, that the ‘criminal’ has become an ‘ex-criminal’, who should be helped to reintegrate in society. Such basic humane understanding of social relations have disappeared from the media scope and has been replaced with the practice of eager journalists acting like 21st century inquisitional witch hunters.

Meeting of Witch Hunt and Scapegoating

Wilders and his “Party of Freedom” (PVV) – known for their scapegoating of Muslims and other ‘Non-Western-Allochtones’ – are now targets themselves. Sudden changes of the direction in which the cleansing wind of media attention blows, may occur. The ‘line of legality’ is never straight, bending this or another way constantly as power relations in society change. Side stepping from what is supposed to be ‘the correct path’ may happen to anyone. There is an established juridical system to judge both the perpetrators and the laws they may have ignored. Additional levels of punishment should be avoided. A democracy can not allow eternal damnation of one of its citizens because of a ‘faux pas‘. Even in the case of a felony, once a person has been convicted and has ‘done time’, a case should be closed. Disqualification from active voting and passive voting (being a candidate for parliament) can be imposed by a court decision, but the cases in which this is possible are very much restricted. The right to vote and to be elected are constitutional rights. Criminal acts against the head of state or the overthrow of a government are specifically mentioned as a basis for exclusion from voting. There are hardly any cases of disqualification from voting and election in the last decades in the Netherlands.

I see the judgemental journalism about members of parliament as a kind of orchestrated ‘mob-justice’, presenting a bigger danger to society than the persons pursued by it. Over the years I have come to the understanding that ‘the enemies of my enemies are not necessarily my friends’. I will rejoice in the demise of Wilders and his PVV, but I would prefer that this happens on the basis of a more generalized understanding of the faulty ways of their xenophobic arguing. The PVV is at all time ready to take up their role of lower and middle class underdogs. Victimhood always have been an effective political weapon.

The former Prince of the Netherlands, husband of the deceased Queen Juliana, had a long history of trespassing over the line of the law, from causing car accidents to accepting smear money for weapon deals and being involved in conspiracy against an other state, to only mention a few of his deviating deeds. All this has been accommodated over decades in such a way that the Prince did not have to face any public court. It is a grotesque example of the double standards of the law abiding officialdom in the Netherlands who – on the other hand – may unscrupulous prosecute someone with less royal credentials.

Structurally speaking, the whole cleansing operation fury does function as a media smoke screen for the draconic economic measures under way of this peculiar minority government coalition of VVD liberals (31 seats) and CDA christians (21 seats), with the extra-govermental PVV of Wilders conditionally supporting the government – in hostage – with his voting machine of 24 seats, “criminal” or not, a total amount of 76 seats creates what is called a ‘democratic majority’ (half of the 150 seats +1) .

However dislikable Wilders and his PVV movement is, their involvement in ‘white collar’ and ‘fountain pen’ crime is – as to this moment – neglectable in comparison with the older more embedded parties with their long histories in the governance of the country (be they on the right, left or in the middle of the political spectre). Some gigantic forms of stealing like the channelling away of 25 milliard Euro in the nineties from the reserves of the major Dutch Pension Fund for the civil workers, ABP, as will be disclosed coming saturday in a television program by a former investment director of that fund – Jean Frijns – will most probably not even rank as an ‘economic crime’, it will – almost certain – be classified as ‘a governmental budget policy measure’ of that period.

Critical self-reflection of Dutch media on their role in the recent blaming campaigns is rare, and when it occurs it is only launched as a side show, like an editorial comment on the Wilders Witch Hunt by the national News Hour television program (Nieuwsuur), not in their broadcast, but in writing, somewhere hidden on their web blog… ”

Chief editorial comment: criminal record should not necessarily break up a member of parliament

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Afgang der Batavieren in Nederland: geen Nationaal Historisch Museum in Arnhem

Posted in Colonial history, Dutch politics, Dutch Royal House: 21st Century View, Is everything propaganda then?, Museums, tagged Allard Pierson Museum, Batavieren, Bijbels Museum, historiebeeld, huichelhollander, jodenvervolging, Joods Historisch Museum, koloniaal verleden, kunstroof Lombok, Nationaaal Historisch Museum (NHM), National Historical Museum of the Netherlands, nationale geschiedenis, Paleis Soestdijk, Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), Scheepvaartmuseum, schoolplaten, slavernij, Tropenmuseum on November 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

Een van staatswege gecanoniseerde eenduidige geschiedsrepresentatie is een 19e eeuws idee. Het voorstel voor een nieuw Nederlands Historisch Museum in Arnhem is daarmee een 19e eeuws plan voor de 21e eeuw. Als er iets mis is met het historisch besef in Nederland dan hebben al die honderden al decennialang bestaande musea zich onvoldoende van hun taak gekweten en dienen we eerst uit te zoeken waaraan dat ligt. Een van de belangrijkste knelpunten is volgens mij het ‘huichelhollander’ complex: zich humaanvoelend en vooruitstrevend wanend in weerwil van enkel met de grootste moeite omzeilbare historische gegevens die weinig voedsel kunnen geven aan zoiets als ‘nationale trots’ en daarom verhult worden. De nu bestaande musea dienen eindelijk eens te beginnen om ook de keerzijde van het Hollands heldendom te tonen: de slavenhandel permanent in het Scheepvaart Museum, een aparte zaal over de Oost-Indische slachting en kunstroof op het eiland Lombok in het Rijksmuseum, de ontmaskering van de Batavierenmythe in het Allard Pierson, de gewelddadige aspecten van zowel Christendom als Islam in het Bijbels Museum, waarom Nederland de meeste Joden verloor in het Joods Historisch Museum en het Paleis Soestdijk met 2x de geschiedenis van de Oranjes: in monarchistisch en republikeins perspectief. – Ad Libitum. Kortom, geschiedenis als meervoudige waarheid. Geschiedenis die doet twijfelen. Geschiedenis als aanzet tot zelfstandig denken en handelen. Er zullen heel wat mensen zijn die dat weer ‘een tautologische stelling’ zullen vinden, geschiedenis kan immers enkel meervoudig zijn, maar… probeer dat de initiatiefnemers voor het aankweken van een ‘nieuw nationaal besef’ in de Lage Landen maar eens uit te leggen.

Aankomst der Batavieren in Nederland

klik plaat voor grotere versie

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Good news: plan for new National Historical Museum of the Netherlands cancelled

Posted in Dutch politics, Is everything propaganda then?, Memorials, Migration, Museums, National propaganda, tagged Dutch colonial history, imagined communities, Jan Marijnissen (politicus SP), Nationaal Historisch Museum, National Historical Museum of the Netherlands, nationalism on October 31, 2010| 5 Comments »

Good News from the BAD POLITICAL FRONT: the building of a new “National Historical Museum of the Netherlands” has been cancelled by the new Dutch government. This is excellent news! Who wants Double Dutch History cast into lots of building materials? Who wants to institutionalize persistent Dutch denialism of their colonial past? Who wants the governmental ‘imagined community’ of the Low Countries to be even further Disneyfied? Who wants to look at the glorified Dutch self-image through the canonized windows of state dependent historians? We have plenty of museums in the Netherlands offering such kind of idealized Dutch-centric history representations, already for decades… the whole idea is a belated 19th century concept of constructing a past that never actually was, to forge a ‘new Dutch national consciousness’ in post-national times.

"Daaag Geschiedenis..." ~ "Byeee History..." is what I imagine hearing when seeing the waving bronze woman. The Dutch text is a promotion text in a special design as produced by the launching organisation of the National Historical Museum and reads: "The National Historical Museum stimulates the historical imagination." The orange building in the back is the actual design for the new building now stalled; the white building in front is the former palace 'Soestdijk' of the deceased Queen Juliana by some proposed as another possible national historical museum site; the statue shows the Queen and her husband Prince Bernhard, Juliana waving as she used to do each year when a 'defilé' of Dutch citizens came to congratulate her with her birthday on 'Queensday', the 30th of April.

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The image shows the design for the National Historical Museum in the Eastern border town of Arnhem and the palace of former Queen Juliana in Soestdijk (in the heart of the country) the last one has also be proposed as a seat for such a new National Historical Museum. The idea for such a museum has been strongly propagated by Jan Marijnissen, the party leader of the Socialistiese Partij (SP). His proposal – dating from 2003 – was later also supported by the Christian Democrat Party CDA, a party now in government and deciding to stall the whole museum building project. As it is a ‘national Dutch’ project, I fail to find English language links on the subject. That in itself may be seen as symbolic for the whole undertaking, a sign of the isolating tendencies in Dutch politics of the last decade, moving away from a more internationalist position before.

Jan Marijnissen opens his original proposal with “a nation without history does not exists” and speaks about “the nowadays confusion about our moral, cultural and political identity” which finds its origin – partly – in “the missing of a historical consciousness in broad layers of the population.”

Een volk zonder geschiedenis bestaat niet. Elk volk, ook het Nederlandse volk, heeft dus een geschiedenis. De hedendaagse verwarring over onze morele, culturele en politieke identiteit vindt voor een deel haar verklaring in het ontbreken van historisch besef in brede lagen van de bevolking.

Marijnissen acknowledges the existence of many museum institutions and the cornucopia of objects and methods of display on Dutch history, offered by them, but he regrets that nowhere “the rise of society in the Low Countries at the Sea (he uses the conjunction ‘wordingsgeschiedenis’ = history of coming into being) is told. In other words he is longing for a singular narration of national history.

Echter, hét verhaal van de wordingsgeschiedenis van (de mensen die wonen in) “de lage landen bij de zee” wordt nergens verteld. In het kader van een herwaardering van het belang van historisch besef zou het goed zijn als dat wel zou gebeuren.

His longing for a singular ‘grand narration’, a genesis of the the Low Countries, is something that frightens me because put in practice, it will be more a product of ‘imagination’ and ‘believe’ than of ‘history’. Such a singular story is the opposite from what I envisage as the practice of history: dynamic confrontations of differing views. It will more hamper than help, the finding of a ‘social identity’. In my vision we need not put our energy in redefining what is ‘Dutchness’, but better come to an understanding of the multiple identities and the plurality of the social territories in which we are living. The times of the fenced off Garden of Holland (Het Hof van Holland) with a gate defended by a lion with a sword, lay far behind us. Already in its time this was an allegory of a non-reality. Man is both a migratory and a sedentary animal. Nations are ‘imagined communities’ and the new narratives we need, do not fit in any ‘national building’.

"Houdt op in mijn tuin te wroeten Spaanse varkens!" (Stop burrowing my garden Spanish pigs!) A Dutch engraving 1578/1582 in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (object code: RP-P-OB-77.682). One sees the Dutch lion defending the fence around the garden with a sword or club. Click Picture for bigger view...

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Old Dutch text has been reconstructed as:

Houdt op in mijn thuyn te wroeten Spaensche beesten
wilt uwen verckens-cop toch achterwaerts trecken
oft mijn Guesche-cndse [cnodse ?] salt u soo verleeren
die u thooft sal breken oft den hals doen recken;
den edelen prince daer ghij meed’ woudt ghecken
sal u te water en land’ bespringhen all;
vertreckt met u vuijl soghen en jonge specken
loop guyten loop oft Geux u daertoe dwinghen sall.

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An interesting photograph of the inauguration of the statue of the former Queen Juliana and her husband Prince Bernhard by queen Beatrix can be found on a royalist web site and the photograph below, showing the unveiling in the year 2009, while the wind blows the orange drapery into the shape of the tower with its shifting floors as can be seen in the design for the new National Historical Museum. The design of the Historical Museum dates from 2007 and is by one of the founders of the architect association Mecanoo, Francine Houben (1955-).

Statue designed and made by Kees Verkade (1941-) in 2009.

Building designed by Francine Houben (1951-) in 2007 and stalled in 2010.

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Uruzgan: Vijfde Politionele Actie van Nederland in Azië een nog gesloten geschiedenisvenster

Posted in Asia, Colonial history, Dutch politics, Is everything propaganda then?, National propaganda, tagged embedded journalists, en-toen-nu de canon van Nederland, Fokke & Sukke, Politionele Acties Indonesië, Uruzgan, Vijfde Politionele Actie van Nederland (Afghanistan 2006-2010) on September 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Uruzgan was de “Vijfde Politionele Actie” van Nederland in Azië. ‘Politionele Actie’ een Hollands eufemisme om het werkelijke imperiale streven van de inzet van Nederlandse troepen te verhullen: Pogingen eerst om het koloniale rijk in Den Oost te behouden: de Indonesische eilanden en Nieuw Guinea. “Politionele acties” 1 en 2 van 1947 tot 1949 op Java en Sumatra met inzet van vrijwilligers later ook dienstplichtigen; nummer 3 was de koude anti-comunistische Korea Oorlog 1950-1953 met uitzending van soldatenvrijwilligers; nummer 4 Nieuw Guinea 1959-1961 waarbij dienstplichtigen gedwongen werden deel te nemen in een krampachtige poging dit strategisch gelegen mineraalrijke eilandsdeel voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden te behouden. Laatste in dit rijtje is het eveneens grondstofrijke Afghanistan met inzet van beroepssoldaten, de VIJFDE NEDERLANDSE POLITIONELE ACTIE IN AZIë, die in NAVO-jargon ‘Task Force Uruzgan‘ genoemd wordt.

Traditiegetrouw wordt iedere beëindiging van zulk een typische Hollandse ‘politionele actie’ met stille trom gevierd en rest enkel nog de nazorg van de familieleden van de omgekomen Nederlandse militairen en de getraumatiseerde soldaten die het overleefd hebben. Zij kunnen – hier ten lande- op meer begrip rekenen, dan de even getraumatiseerde achterblijvende Afghanen. Jammer genoeg moeten de laatsten bij hun eventuele reisplannen, om-er-even-uit-te-zijn, rekening houden met deze, op de website van de Partij Voor de Vrijheid te vinden, reisbeperking: “Invoering quotum asielzoekers van maximaal 5.000 per jaar, opvang in eigen regio.”

Deze recente cartoon is - heel verrassend - op de officiële Nederlandse geschiedenis canon web site te vinden die anders weinig uitblinkt in het kritisch weergeven van het Hollands koloniaal verleden. In mijn hoofd zie ik vrijwel dezelfde prent met twee Hollandse dienders tegen een bergachtige achtergrond, één van de mannen op het bankje heeft een Afghaanse muts en de rechtse bromsnor zegt: "... zitten we een beetje de Taliban te spelen soms?." Klik cartoon om het canon-venster te zien....

Het wachten is nu op de lange en vertraagde nasleep met details en cijfers over het totale aantal doden en andere slachtoffers van deze “vredesmissie” – ongeacht of zij nu het stempel Taliban of niet opgedrukt gekregen hebben. Nu de ingebedde journalisten met ander werk uitgescheept gaan worden, zal met het verloop van de tijd het nog verzwegene alsnog gaan spreken. Weer “een venster in de nationale geschiedenis canon” erbij waarvan het gordijn nog opgeschoven moet worden.

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Images that prevent us from thinking: the Afghanistan case

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, Media history, Visual Language, tagged Afghanistan, atrocities photographed, demonstrations, emblematics, NATO, Taliban, United States Army on September 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

IMAGES THAT PREVENT US FROM THINKING… is the subject of an article in Le Monde Diplomatique of this month. The article starts with the the portrait of Bibi Aisha, on the cover of the july 29. issue of Time magazine, the Afghan woman with her nose cut off by her father in law because of an affront to his authority, an act supported by a local – supposedly Taliban – official. The display of this horrific picture triggered a fierce debate, because of the emblematic way it was used with the descriptive accompagning text: “What happens if we leave Afghanistan.” One may confront this implicit argument for Western involvement in Afghanistan and its continuation, with images of civilian casualties by NATO and American forces, especially the structural case of ‘collateral damage’ as a result of always imprecise air attacks.

In the words of Serge Halimi of Le Monde Diplomatique: “Will there be more mutilations “if we leave Afghanistan”? Well, “our” presence has not prevented the people of Afghanistan from being mutilated. The Taliban have plenty of pictures of civilians who have lost limbs or been killed by western missiles. Perhaps Time will publish one. Will it make the front cover? And what caption will it carry?”

July 2010 front cover of Time magazine and a elsewhere published photograph of a demonstration in Kabul August 2010: "Afghan protesters hold placards during a demonstration against U.S. forces and NATO in Kabul, Afghanistan Sunday, Aug 1, 2010. More than 400 demonstrators have marched toward the presidential palace in Kabul to protest the alleged killing of 52 civilians by a NATO rocket strike in the south. NATO has disputed the report of civilian deaths."

The photograph of the Kabul demonstration has been published (just one example of its usage) by an American news web site cleveland.com with the header: “Holland bails out on Afghanistan war, adding pressure on Germany, UK to scale back.”

In Holland itself this news item on a demonstration against US Forces and NATO has – as far as I can conclude after 15 minutes of precise web searches – not been published. Which is in line with the general strategy of embedded journalism and evasive reporting on civilian casualties,during the years of military involvement of the Netherlands in Afghanistan. I can not recount any serious attempt of the Dutch press to come up with a civilian body count of the Afghan War. Quiet some money must have been invested in embedded reporting, but serious ‘open source’ research (which is much cheaper to do) of casualties of this war other than “our own” boys and girls have not been undertaken. A case of death by ‘friendly fire’ of Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan may be found back in the national Dutch news lines over weeks, but the fate of the the local population during all kind of disastrous incidents and the needed debate of how casualties are counted at all, just does not exist. It makes me remember the ‘news’ on the Vietnam War before 1975 (the Fall of Saigon) and how it was often implicit that when a town or village was under attack, the victims that fell in such an operation could only be ‘insurgents’, Vietcong or their allies. The same thing seems to happen now, with only another insurgent stamp: Taliban.

This being said does not mean that either the Vietcong or the Taliban were or are to be exempted from any criticism on their deeds. We may better try to be conscious of the underlying process of imposing an emblematic picture of ‘the enemy’, a phenomenon for which the German language has one single word ‘Feindbild’ (Ennemy-Picture). A ‘Feindbild’ is a generalised picture and mostly pre-cooked in written language and later on may get a visual expression. Often the caricaturist lends a helping hand to typify the ‘enemy’ by enlarging what is seen as typical features of the face, the rest of the body and the way of clothing. The racist and non-racist dividing line in the depiction of face and ethnicity is often hard to draw.

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Embedded journalism needs WikiLeaks to wash its dirty face

Posted in Is everything propaganda then?, tagged embedded journalism, war propaganda, Wikileaks Afghanistan on July 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

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WikiLeaks Afghanistan are result & product of embedded journalism. Embedded journalism is an euphemism for ‘state propaganda’, so in cases of warrior states it is about the role of media as ‘state propaganda’, as ‘war propaganda instruments‘. Who benefits? is the ultimate question and time will answer that. Though we may speculate… Withdrawal needs its path to be prepared… and news media need to wash their face after a dirty operation …. So this leak may serve two purposes: withdrawal from war and a media face wash.

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slow delivery of messages, articles and comment by Tjebbe van Tijen / Imaginary Museum Projects

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Images that prevent us from thinking: the Afghanistan case

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