It is an ordinary Sunday afternoon in London. The sun is shining and the roar of the A40 deafens me as I grapple with the ever-present summer problem of noise and “fresh” air in my flat. I am trying to write at my desk when, suddenly, a deafening roar grabs my attention overhead. There, hanging above me, in a blue sky, is the President of the USA himself, in Marine One, being jetted into Downing Street to have tea with the Prime Minister. There are at least two other helicopters that I can see from my desk, circling central London, one right over Paddington Green station, notorious home to terrorism suspects who might now be held for 42 days in the window-less basement cells, without charge.

Ah yes, Welcome to London, Mr Bush.

The world has been so much safer since you have come to power. You have introduced the category of unlawful combatants to the world, denying them their basic rights, banging them up in a remote corner of Cuba to which your government still clings, failing to admit that your very own foreign policy relies on hating Cuba, yet grabbing her land. You have created not one but two wars which see no end in sight, yet you have solemnly proclaimed victory in them both, even as thousands of people have died and continue to die. You have signed up wholeheartedly to policies of torture at jails in Iraq and overseas, probably even here in Europe, within the comfort of jails in eastern lands desperate for your benevolent dollar, and you have fed a barbarous practice known as “extraordinary rendition”.  You have lied to the world and your own people about weapons of mass destruction, yet show no shame at now blaming intelligence for your own failings. You have created a disastrous division of peoples, subscribing to a faux-religious view of “them and us”, polarising the world yet further with your kind gifts of aid and weapons. You have contributed to, and fuelled, a nuclear race between two old foes, India and Pakistan, instead of advocating peace. You have thrown your cluster bombs around the world, killing and maiming innocents in pursuit of your power. You have removed so many freedoms from your own people, so encouraging the rest of your “free world” to follow, that now you have created populations too frightened to do anything but blindly follow. You backed Israel over their practice war against Lebanon. Now, you threaten Iran, again.

But Mr Bush, one cannot blame you for lining your own pockets, for creating such destruction in the name of your God, because, after all, you are only human. Oil and money are the only words you understand. We know your vocabulary is limited, and so you can only blandly spout freedom and human rights as your bandwagon to abuse of power.

No, you are right when you think that we have no right to protest against you or to blame you in this country, even though you have ensured that the British people can get nowhere near you this afternoon, or tomorrow. For after all, look at what we did in your shadow through our very own Blair, and now through Brown. We not only followed you into both wars, but lied for you, defended you in the Security Council, broke international law that we helped to create in the aftermath of the Holocaust. We allowed your planes to land and re-fuel here, knowing they were transporting blindfolded prisoners snatched from one land and taken to another without so much as a phone call to a lawyer or loved one, only to return physically broken but mentally full of hate. We took away elementary freedoms from our own people, in such piecemeal fashion that we didn’t even know we were losing out liberty. Suddenly, we are not allowed to protest any more around Parliament, not without a police warrant at least. Women are arrested and convicted for reading out the names of war dead in Whitehall. People are arrested for wearing anti-Blair t-shirts. Identity cards are being forced in, no matter what the civil, moral, libertarian or actual monetary cost. We are the most filmed and surveilled nation on earth. Biometrics, once the imagination of science fiction freaks, is now a requirement for all visa applicants, the guinea pigs for subjects of the country. Politicians have argued that human rights are for left wing liberals, and that the judiciary is either unnecessary or grossly out of control. No wonder the Attorney General’s own advice as to the legality of war was barely considered. Investigations into corruption at the heart of British policy, into BAE, are stopped overnight, on the government’s say so. Control orders are not enough, nor are 28 days to detain a “suspect” without charge. We can increase that limit to 42 days without so much as a shred of evidence, “just in case”. Apparently, habeus corpus, enshrined in the Magna Carta centuries ago, is out of date, unfashionable. Trial by jury too lies in danger of disappearing.

Mr Brown, you too, argue that this is all justified “in the name of the people”. When two million marched in London in 2003, you and your Mr Blair decided that politicians had a right to lead the people, not to follow them blindly. Slowly, the State has intervened in our lives so much that we have forgotten the value of real liberty, for which our ancestors fought. None of us can live our full potential in the shadow of an authoritarian, intrusive State, yet so many of us are willing to lay down our right to be free, in the name of a creeping fear which grows with every unfair and unlawful detention, with every bomb that rains down on a country in the Middle East, whose name we barely mention any more because we are bored of the violence, and the poverty and the misery of it all. In Europe, in the recent past, countries have fought for freedom, the Greeks, the Spanish, and more latterly, the Eastern Europeans.

Vaclav Havel, when he spoke to his people of the Czech republic on the 1st January 1990, said:

“The previous regime, armed with its arrogance and intolerant ideology, reduced man to a force of production. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy, stinking machine whose real meaning was not clear to anyone. It could do no more but slowly and inexorably wear itself out, and all the nuts and bolts too.”

We believe you intend to open a “Freedom Institute” to “defend cultural values”. Mr Bush, we ask you, do you even know what those words mean?

 We leave you with the words of Hermann Goerring, the Nazi criminal, hardly renowned for his enlightened views of liberty and freedom.

“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Welcome to London, Mr Bush. You have been a shining inspiration to our own Leaders.

London, June 15^th 2008

Detention Without Trial: The 42 day treachery

Gordon Brown, like Tony Blair before him, cried that the Terror facing us must not be underestimated. It was the same battle cry which led us into the Iraq war: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.

Fear is a fundamental tool in the hands of dictatorships. Without it, there is no power with which to hold a population to its knees. This government, like the one led by Blair before it, is using Fear as a weapon in the battle over its detractors to win any argument. Yet, although we must all be alive to what is a significant threat, no doubt, to the security and safety of this country in light of developments over the last few years, there has to be a convincing, lawful and rational response to it.

Today, as before the last war, opponents of Blair’s “45 minute” scare-mongering (and the voices grew quieter and quieter) spoke reasonably and logically of any misguided war in Iraq creating a real terror threat to Britain which did not exist before. July 7th 2005 in London was living proof of that. Yet, here is Brown wearing the same cape as Blair and trying to scream Terror in an attempt to dismantle a fundamental principle of any lawful system: That there be no imprisonment without charge.

Brown is trying very hard to appease those who denied Blair his 42 days, and wish to deny Brown the same lip-smacking tyranny. He has come up with a number of so-called soft option amendments, chief of which allows Parliament to have a say in whether the 42 day provision is lawful in any individual case of “grave and exceptional” threat, which upon close reading amounts to no more to a case where “serious loss of life” is foreseen, no different then to any of the terror plots which have found themselves successfully prosecuted on the current system.

Allowing Parliament to be the ultimate arbiter of whether or not the 42 day provision is a clever ploy, designed to appease the revolting backbenchers but which, in fact, only transfers judicial power to the legislative. Let the blind obvious be spoken clearly. The role of judging  in any functioning democracy should lie with Judges. Dictatorships take judicial decisions. Autocracts take judicial decisions. In Britain, we have bombed such countries and spoken sanctimoniously about the need for “human rights”. Yet, here we are, doing the same. One has to ask when it will ever end? Will 42 days stretch into 84 days? Can 84 days stretch into six months? Is it feasible that six months could stretch into an acceptance of “gentle” torture? This is not dramatic licence. This is a country which has knowingly conspired, failed to speak out about the American atrocities of Guantanamo Bay, about the disgusting policy of extraordinary rendition. Currently, there is not even a requirement for the police to tell the suspect what he or she is doing banged up for weeks on end. Such policies  did not work during the IRA’s bombing campaign on the UK mainland, and it will not work now.

Judges are qualified, impartial and understand – one hopes – the competing provisions which have to be applied. By contrast, politicians hope only to last that bit longer in their jobs, selling out on principle and ethic to survive. We saw Parliament buy the rubbish over the Iraq War, which any neutral could easily have questioned. Why are they likely to do any different now?

Gordon Brown says that information can be put before Parliament which would allow it to decide in each individual case whether 42 days is required in the circumstances. But if, and it is a big If, the security services are willing to put such sensitive information in the public domain, there must be enough material with which to charge the suspect.

Under the current regime, police have 28 days in which to question and charge a suspect.  That period is already longer than in most other European democracies. If we keep chasing ghosts long enough in Britain, we will create armies of them shadows chasing us until the fear becomes very real.

London, June 7^th 2008

http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/2-terrorism/extension-of-pre-charge-detention/index.shtml

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jun/09/terrorism.justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/08/terrorism.justice

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-the-government-is-pursuing-the-42day-law-for-the-basest-of-party-political-reasons-842801.html

“Please, my son, don’t shoot today,

They are kind, perhaps ordinary, our neighbours for so long.

Please, habibte, don’t go out today,

Stay home, eat mana’ich, break bread with your family.

I peer through my broken window onto Hamra Street below,

They are boys, as my own,

Eyes glazed, shoulders solid.

We, and our mothers, gave birth silently, to these children;

They, and their fathers, give birth violently, to this hell.

Please, my son, don’t shoot today,

They are tired, like we are,

We have lived this for so long.”

May 10^th 2008

 Don’t switch off. Please, just bear with me for five minutes and read on. The Mayor of London race is strll cold, London has barely looked up from its free newspaper gossip on George Clooney being in town. But we have the right to vote, and the obligation to input our views into how we want to see London over the next few years. We have to vote, and that decision, for whom we are going to vote, is the reason most of us are switching off.

Nobody knows how they are going to vote next week

Nobody really knows how they are going to vote next week. The choices are unappealing, and the Barak Obama v Hillary Clinton debate just looks sexier, and more enticing. All we really know about our candidates is whether they plan to vote for bendy buses.

The truth is, we all need to inject some thought into this process. The candidates may not be inviting, and they may not really deserve much of our time, but the post of the Mayor of London is important. Think how many people know something about New York’s well known Mayor Giulliani?

Ken Livingstone, unattractive but a serious contender

 Ken Livingstone is an unattractive vote for many of us. Arrogant and brash, he has waded into hot water over ill-advised comments on many an occasion. He has lied openly and contemptuously about the congestion charge, and probably plenty of other issues. He has ridden rough shot over public consultations, for example over the western extension of the congestion charge. He has now affiliated himself with the Labour party, party of war. He has chosen his advisers with much lack of sensibility and, some may argue, sense. His multicultural benefits are hugely undermined by the open consideration amongst London’s Jewry that there is an anti-semite running their city. The man has done nothing to quell their fears. Stick vividly in my throat as it will, there remains one real reason why Ken will get either my first or my reserve vote next week. He is independent enough to shout out against New Labour. He has spoken out against the Iraq War since the outset, and since the majority of Londoners represent an anti-war vote, it is inconceivable that we could be represented by a politician who clamours in support of more deaths and destruction in Iraq. The war is not over. Thousands remain under fire in Iraq, and life is a daily struggle for the entire population. The Iraq Body Count estimate sthat between 80-90,000 civilian deaths have taken place since 2003. That is about half the population of Kensington and Chelsea borough. It is selfish in the extreme for us to vent our petty concerns over bendy buses and other such trivia, when our government has led us into war, and now relies on the general public indifference to keep us there. Ken, for all his faults, has dared to speak out and continues to speak out. The war must remain on the public agenda, and it is a reason, perhaps the reason to vote in favour of Ken.

The “Face of London”

Then there is another related matter – the face of London. The Mayor has some hand in shaping policies that affect us all, but perhaps more than anything else he is the face of London. Ken represents the best of London, the forgiving tolerant face of London in the wake of the 7/7 atrocities. Ken stood up and united voters. Can you imagine what would happen with a Boris Johnson or a BNP member in power? Anarchy, localised civil war, communities hating each other, blaming each other, deep resentment brewing at every corner. Trite as those multicultural festivals are in Trafalgar Square, they are a welcome addition to London life, showing off this city as truly multicultural, such trademark being its glory, colour and vibrance.

 Brian Paddick as the Face of London just gets us nowhere. The Liberal Democrats’ reversal over their Iraq War stance has lost them serious credit as a party, and Brian Paddick (unlike Ken, who has merely attached himself to Labour without any simultaneous hinging upon Labour policy, least of all the war) is attached to the Liberals, or at least does not seek to differentiate himself from their current and disappointing blandness in any way. It is true that he is seeking to distinguish himself on detailed transport policies, which are promising, but his manifesto promises do not go much further than this sole area. As the face of London, Brian Paddick just doesn’t have enough personality and charisma for the job. A vote for Brian Paddick sadly may be a wasted vote.

The Environment

Finally, one other serious issue should be considered when voting next week. The Environment. Since we live and breathe in this polluted city, the environment should be our 2^nd biggest concern after being the “face of London”. We have to consider the polluting effects of vehicle emissions when we think of our own health and that of our children. It means a vote for cheaper and more affordable public transport. It means looking for new sustainable sources of energy, like solar or wind panels. That may be a vote for  the Greens, or maybe Ken. The Greens significantly want to re-nationalise the tube. Given the catastrophe of the PPPs, that could yet be the reason I vote for Sian Berry. Especially since she also represents anti-war and the Greens want the UK to pull out of Iraq. But the Greens policy on immigration leaves everything to be desired, indeed it is a right wing disgrace of the first order. Where does that leave one’s vote?

Cojones

There is one final reason why I may yet give Ken my first preference vote over the Greens or Respect (which exists only as a protest vote, for all the reasons recorded above). He has balls. I may not like them, we may not appreciate them all the time, but he has forged ahead and introduced visionary ideas in London, like the congestion charge (though I personally disagree and disagreed with the western extension), oyster cards and even his dealings with Chavez in the oil exchange programme.

We need someone who can lead London forward, and sadly, though I wish there was another choice, Ken remains the only viable first or second vote.

 The Unforgivable Boris

Boris Johnson is an unforgivable vote for the following reasons:

1)      His response to any further terrorist atrocity in London would most likely inflame civil relations; because ….

2)      He is totally contemptuous of Londoners, foreigners and anyone not like him;

3)      He supported the war on Iraq;

4)      He has consistently made some of the most outlandish racist comments over the years as a Tory politician and journalist. It is even more offensive that he now suddenly find his Turkish grandfather out of the grave, as though that makes his racism acceptable. The comments he has consistently made about Islam are so vile, and ill-advised as a political spokesman that he will no longer represent London but invite further suicide bombings on London (on Asian Network, he tried to u-turn with a ridiculous comment saying he could “out-ethnic” an Asian presenter…;

5)      We know he has apologised for his offensive comments, where he described black children greeting the Queen as “flag-waving piccaninnies”, and  he once said that when Tony Blair visited Congo “the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles”. We know he has said they were taken out of context. Really, how can black Londoners be represented by a man who was even capable of such comments? How can white Londoners believe that it is in their best interests to be represented by a man who appears to sour community relations that are the bedrock of a happy London?;

6)      He plans to do nothing to “green” london. In fact basically he has no environment policies other than to banish bendy buses;

7)      He has indicated that he might reverse the smoking ban in London. How stupid is that? Even many smokers prefer the non-smoking ban;

      Though Ken has no power to intervene on the tube, he has spoken consistently against the private-public partnership which has left the tube management unaccountable and the rest of us like sardines. Boris is unlikely to go against PPP, and positively likely to favour them, though since he almost never articulates his policies, it is hard to know;

9)      What does BJ know about the people of London? He never travels by tube, and the oyster card has been an excellent introduction to London. I doubt he would even know what one looked like since he is so out of touch with ordinary people in London;

10)  He sends 3 of his children to private school rather than state schools. Whilst one might accept this as a personal choice for many London parents, a politician needs to be willing to say he suffers like the majority of the population. If he does  not know how awful the schools are, who will consider improving them?

11)  The BNP have endorsed BJ as their reserve candidate. Isn’t that reason enough not to support him?

12)  He doesn’t seem to have any policies other than reversal of the bendy bus policy. Everything else amounts to a soundbite.

Don’t get me wrong, I would rather vote for anyone except Ken, and I may yet vote Sian Berry (Green). Londoners have not been given much choice in this upcoming election, there is no candidate worthy of this amazing city – but a vote for Boris, the reserve candidate of the BNP, is the death of a London we know, love and of which we are proud.  

April 22^nd 2008,

London

Also read these:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-londoners-would-be-mad-to-vote-for-boris-812669.html

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tariq_ali/2008/04/livingstone_for_peace.html

List of candidates for the Mayor’s election

·                       Richard Barnbrook, British National Party

·                       Lindsey German, Left List

·                       Boris Johnson, Conservative Party

·                       Sian Berry, Green Party

·                       Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats

·                       Gerard Batten, UK Independence Party

·                       Alan Craig, Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party

·                       Matt O’Connor, English Democrats

·                       Ken Livingstone, The Labour Party

·                       Winston McKenzie, an independent candidate

“The Games have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles. The upcoming Games will feature athletes from all over the world and help promote the Olympic spirit.”

(Official Website of the Olympic Games)

Londoners have woken up today in the throes of a blizzard, white frosting coating their city. Temperatures in Lhasa are similar, with thundery hail showers blowing through their rooftop city. Beijing is chilly, but without the grace of snow. In all of these cities, thoughts of the impending Olympics heat the air.

The Olympic movement, with its message of peace and global harmony, however, has largely failed in London today. The enthusiasm and celebration that greeted the torchbearers in London four years ago, before the Athens Olympics, is scarcely to be seen. It is true that a global hotchpotch of people have lined the 31 mile route across London: Chinese, Tibetans, British people and tourists have turned out, in limited numbers, for a glimpse of the symbolic flame. The symbolism, though, is more Orwellian than Olympian. Neither the Chinese authorities, nor indeed the British government, can be delighted with the television images being broadcast across the world.

Most people lining the route have been barely able to snatch a glimpse of the torch, as it races by at surprising speed. As the day has worn on, the police presence has become considerably heavier and rougher. Bystanders have been prevented from approaching the procession, police riding bicycles, both in front and behind the magic circle, have pushed people out of the way both physically and verbally. The ring of police around the torch has grown so thick, as the afternoon has progressed, that at times it is only the fluorescent yellow of official uniforms that appears alight. Like it or not, the Beijing Olympics is now marred by a police presence across the world, from Athens through to China and now in London.

Understandable though the police concerns may have been, having dealt with fire extinguishers being unleashed towards the flame by creative protestors earlier in the morning, and then with a handful of individuals attempting to knock the flame from the torchbearers’ hands, there has been a disconcerting lack of regard for the rights of the onlookers, the legitimacy of the protestors and the message of the Olympics themselves. If we have to enforce public harmony with handcuffs and arrests, shout the police barricades, so be it. If the public cannot see the flame, let that be their punishment for failing to react as we would wish them to do so.

The Free Tibet group has successfully organised protests to line the route. Their instructions to supporters have been to be visible, loud and peaceful. That has certainly happened in spots along the route – chiefly in Bloomsbury Square, Tower Bridge and St Pauls – where the protestors have shouted and booed, check-by-jowl with the applauding onlookers who welcome the presence of this almighty sporting effort on their doorstep. In other places, it appears that a carefully orchestrated Chinese campaign has tried to suppress those protesting shouts with aggressive contra-campaigning. Large student groups of Chinese in and around Trafalgar Square have tried to drown out any protesting voices with loud singing demonstrations of their own, praising the motherland in Mandarin unison. The same groups deliberately have surrounded individual Tibetan flags with several unfurled Chinese flags and banners, so that lone voices calling for a Free Tibet seem to melt away in the snow. Don’t mix politics with sport, they say. The irony of this suppression appears to have escaped them.

Across the route, flags and banners have been waved – Free Tibet, the red Chinese national flag and the commercial savvy of the Samsung Olympics banner, being handed out from carrier bags by men walking through the crowds. “One World, One Dream” shout the many Chinese, out in proud force in Trafalgar Square. That very slogan ignores the fact that people in our one world have different dreams, and they dream in their own languages. The right of self-determination is a fundamental right for which societies have fought for millennia. The United Nations recognised that right of self-determination “is of particular importance because its realization is an essential condition for the effective guarantee and observance of individual human rights and for the promotion and strengthening of those rights”.

No amount of propaganda or manipulation of the truth can deny the Tibetan people their right to self-determination. The Olympics are a tremendous cause for celebration, and many people across the world have felt torn by a wish to celebrate this great sporting event and a simultaneous desire to condone the Chinese government for their brutal suppression of human rights. It may yet be possible to do both, but in order for that to happen, our own government needs to send out a clear message to Beijing. Gordon Brown’s ham-fisted efforts to appease both sides by appearing beside the torch, but without taking part in the relay, are a clear example of the damage done by sitting on the fence. Failure to speak out against the Chinese actions in Tibet, combined with the images of the police event that has been organised in London today, deliver an altogether alternative message of the Olympian movement in 2008. The people will do as we wish them to do, say the authorities in both London and Beijing, and if they do not, we will simply ignore them.

Last words, then, to the Olympic Charter:

“Olympism is a philosophy of life exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind.  Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity…

The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play”.

Anyone lining the Torch Route today in London will have queried whether the upcoming Olympics will indeed be compliant with their own Charter. Human rights are for life, not just for one month every four years.

From the Torch Procession, London,

April 6^th 2008

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/what-human-rights-legacy-beijing-olympics-20080401

Bariloche – Of Good Spirits, and Bad Ones 

There are spirits in these mountains, they never leave, they have never left. 

High in the Patagonian Andes, I nestle amongst my clothes for warmth. The air is bright, alive with life. I can breathe again. 

The cordillera rises, like a spiny dinosaur. The rock face creeps down the bare mountains, a bluish purple, bruised from its birthing battle with the earth, millions of years ago. The snow cap on the Chilean border hangs high in the transparent blue sky. As the gaze lowers, forests cover some of the lower slopes. From a distance, they are just a dark green haze, like moss or algae, dripping into the clearest blue water the eye has ever seen. Neither cobalt, nor azure, the icy fresh water lakes glint like giant sapphires winking at the interminable skies overhead. They reach depths of some four hundred metres. No one knows what might live down there, and no one has tried to find out. 

I have dipped my toes into these jewelled, precious waters, whispered to the ripples to bring me back the secrets of its calm. The image of my own feet shines back at me, not distorted by sand, or mud or any other sediment. This is the water that feeds the spirit life, echoing in the tress. 

I have walked amongst fairies, and wood sprites and elves. For the moss is not algae, but an enchanted forest of life. Electric green canes of bamboo are hidden by the deciduous conifers. Hidden, dense walkways where the bamboo folds and bends and fold and sways until it is covering the dirt paths with its own artistic canopies. There are murmurs in the forest, where the robins jump with sticks. Small clouds of dust rise from the chimneys of elves. 

A unique tree lives in these cloud forests, the twisted red Arrayan, a Chilean myrtle which the Mapuche used for medicine, fruit and health. At 20 metres high, it towers over the creatures below and gives no other tree space to grow. Their cinnamon latte bark glows orange and cream, as though drops of milk are splashed all over its bark. I sat against one, the first one I saw. It was hiding, spying on me from a clearing in the bamboo, and then teasing me with its twisted, furling branches that beckoned me into its grasp. I could not let this mockery pass, and so I sailed, across the icy waters, in search of the elusive, beautiful strangler until I fell upon a whole forest of its tangled sisters, the Bosque del Arrayanes, where gnomes live under the fallen leaves. 

But it is not just gnomes who lay disguised, building homes. I stayed in amongst Nature, but just once, I drove, towards humans, towards their town. Driving into a settlement known as the Swiss colony, my heart froze and I could not breathe. The clear, oxygenated air was being used up, and I could not see the owners of such greed, such barbarity. I could see no one, and yet someone was there. The road was too narrow, we could not turn the car around, and so we had to continue down this dirt track for several miles, isolated and remote. Grand houses lay behind hectares of land, with large threatening signs warning people to stay off the private property. Forebodings of  evil. What could people be hiding that they need to warn trespassers to stay away, wanderers that do not even exist in so remote a wilderness that even the Devil needs transport? The land was aching, burning, despite the biting cold.  

The Germans, Swiss and Austrians who fled here fifty years ago created this little town, which we never dared to enter. They brought with them their houses, chalet style, Mont Blanc pens and Alpen choclate. There were spirits in the air here, bleeding evil, reeking of another time, when the people who had built these houses were fleeing from a country that had just been vanquished. I could no longer feel the protection of the forest fairies, and we needed to get out, away from the fences that hid the protectors of fascism, away from the land where the Peron government, and many since, tolerated and protected, nay welcomed the highest order of the Third Reich. I needed to escape and get back to my forest, and so I drove, with the lake Nauhel Huapi, misnamed by the Indians who thoughts the pumas were tigers, dropping away to my side as the sun was setting on the earth, fire falling through the clear skies so that it could take revenge on the souls who lay buried here, and perhaps those who still sat, elderly and frail, but alive with the knowledge of what they had done on the old continent, maybe still celebrating the 20th April, the birthday of their satanic god, every year, behind closed doors, behind closed fences that warned trespassers not to enter. Primitive rites of passage dressed up as legitimate heirs to thrones far from here.  

It was later, after I left, that I learned that those roads had been the homes of the Nazis. Open about their roots, until Israel began to prosecute. Open about their affiliations, since impunity ran deep in the veins of this country at the end of the earth. Protected, ironically, by the remote Patagonian Andes, Pacific and both Argentina and Chile’s vile dictatorships. The house to which Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had escaped, the streets where Mengel, and Eichmann, Priebke and many others had wandered, with false names, and with dirty, filthy honour, reclaiming Patagonia as their own. 

And this is the land of the fabled Mapuche tribe, a tall,beautiful people who were almost wiped out by contact with the white man. This is the land where they understood the puma. This is their territory, and the survivors of this other genocide breathe through the stunning faces of the mixed population of these parts. Here are the smiles, and the welcomes, and the people of the Andes. Here are the protectors of the spirits world, and the trees. 

I stole back to the forests, where the green soothed me, and cleansed me. Where the scent of wild lavender revived me and brought back serenity. Where the rose hips glowed coral against that sapphire of the lake. Where the giant sequoias, and cypresses waved away the crippling energy with their huge, shady branches and roots spread solid in the earth. They were here, long before, and they will remain, long after. 

There are spirits in these mountains, they never leave, they have never left.  

March 28^th 2008

Buenos Aires: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 

27^th March 2008

After the riot, spectacle and melodrama of Iguazu, we returned to Buenos Aires to see that riots, spectacles and melodrama were hitting the big smoke in our absence. First off, the tail end of a tornado had swept through the city the day before we returned, knocking and breaking things about, although causing no loss of life or serious damage. Next, massive anti-government protests across the country were spreading to Buenos Aires.

On March 11^th, the government hammered export taxes of around about 44% onto soybeans and sunflower seeds. The farmers, whose livelihoods are made from the export market world’s since the country constitutes the world’s second- largest corn exporter and the third-largest soybean exporter, went out in protest before Easter, blocking the roads and setting fire to tyres. By today, March 27^th, buses between major cities have been cancelled by the protests and supermarkets across the country are running out of essential products, including all dairy products and meat. Thousands of people have descended on Buenos Aires, banging pots and pans, symbols of protest here which clang eerily like reminders of the huge financial crisis herein 2001/2. They are the noisy clamour of anti-government demonstrations that are threatening to unseat the government of Argentina’s first elected female President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She insisted yesterday that she would not back down, and the farmers show absolutely no sign of ending their protest. The pots and pans, it seems, will continue to clang for some time.

A different theme  

But, I have moved beyond myself. Whilst this new tension has been hotting up, we realised that a few essential things remained that we had not seen in Buenos Aires.  The first must-do was MALBA, the Latin American Modern Art Museum about which we had heard such marvellous comments, and the other was to see, even for a moment, the Casa Rosada, seat of power in this vast country, with a tumultuous past and, by the shape of the protests now swinging across the country today, potentially a rocky present and future.

 MALBA 

MALBA turned out to be vastly disappointing, both in respect of the art itself and the famous café-restaurant, which was packed to capacity on that Easter Monday. The café was waitered by the most stuck-up Argentines we had yet had the privilege to meet, and since almost every female customer present owned (and proudly displayed) at least one Prada or Gucci bag apiece and every male customer seemed to have been drinking large pieces of ice, doused in several bottles of white wine, for most of the day, the atmosphere in this aesthetically pleasing modern space, sadly was less than convivial. The art collection whetted our appetite still less. We immediately learned two things. One: Most Latin American modern art is housed in Mexico City, despite the grandiose name of this Austral museum. Two: Argentine modern art is bizarre. My adorable two year old nephew could have reached the same elevated standard of many of the paintings adorning these walls. True, there was one Frieda Kahlo, one Diego Riviera and one Amelia Paelez to be admired, but that was the end of the creative road. There was, however, one exhibit worth mentioning – a 20 minute video called The Fox in the Mirror, which consisted of a toy duck being soaked in the rain, and the “artist’s” hand then cutting off the toy duck’s wet hair with nail scissors, in an act of exquisite barbarism. A Chairman Mao watch then tick-tocks furiously in spiral circles, whilst a pair of children’s dolls, not unlike those used in the film, Chucky, spin uncontrollably across the screen. At first we laughed hysterically, wondering in whose name this constituted art. Then, when we watched part of it again, this time from the beginning, only to realise that the piece claimed to illustrate the apparent fact that angels did not recognise concepts of  time and space. Suddenly, this “art” represented some dark, deranged picture of a troubled, abused childhood. We left MALBA needing a drink.

  PLAZA DE MAYO 

Hesitating to drown our sorrows in Malbec too early in the evening, we hailed a cab to cart us across town to the Plaza de Mayo. This seemed a less touristy way of asking the driver, who was swearing chronic expletives at other crazy cab drivers all the way through town, without so much as a “Pardon-my Disgusting-Filthy language” for the two elegant women sitting in the back of his taxi, to get us to the pearly gates of the Casa Rosada. This swearing, we have since learned, is a typically Argentine trait that we have heard boarding planes, sitting in cafes or lying half-naked sun-tanning in the park of a Sunday in the presence of all and sundry.

As we approached the central area, police were blocking off the roads and the cab driver let us out, grunting vaguely in the direction of the Plaza de Mayo.

“Barbaro!” we thought. “We managed to pass for locals, and did not look like complete tourists heading for the famous Pink House.”

We were right. He obviously thought we were on our way to the huge protest march which was converging on the Plaza looking onto the Casa Rosada. Huge chants could be heard, and the sound of marching. We had been totally oblivious to the recent news, having been parked in the fashion show of Iguazu for a few days, and neither of us knew about the farmers’ protests, nor whatever this particular march seemed to be about. From where we were standing, however, it all looked quite carnival-like, with lots of people dressed in brightly coloured cotton clothing, backpacks and Doc Martens, much like any anti-war rally in London. Riot police looked casually onto the scene, parked outside the square. We did notice the red flags being hurled above the trees, and the face of Chairman Mao on one of them came up unexpectedly for the second time that day. It seemed we were having a Communist Day. Ah, and that much painted face here, my very own Che Guevara also looked out at me across the swirling mists of banners and flags. Since Che is little more than a famous Argentine with a recognisable face in this country of conscious consumerism, I paid surprisingly little attention.

 EVITA and the CASA ROSADA 

For now, I was more fascinated with viewing the Casa Rosada. For those not in the know, this is the famous rose- pink edifice from where Evita and Juan Peron famously roused the nation’s masses in the 1940s, shouting to the descamisados (the shirtless ones, in other words the workers) about their rights, and where the First Lady famously made speeches (from the lower balcony of the edifice, ostensibly to be “closer to the people”) about bombing the middle classes, whilst inconveniently being kitted out in diamonds and fine European fabrics herself. But, put aside the controversy for just a moment- Evita has mythical status in Argentina. There have been numerous petitions to the Vatican for her to be canonised, and her public works of charity and for women’s rights are much lauded. On an earlier visit to the Museo de Evita, I watched her informal canonisation take place in a small house, in the wealthy suburb of Recoleta: Her speeches are televised in black and white, her dresses lay hang on display behind glass cases (similar to the collection held for Princess Diana in Kensington Palace in London) and even her sewing machine from her early film days is put out for the adoring public to consume, cry over and remember how much they loved their lady, even those who are too young to remember or to have known her. Her speeches are framed on the wall, and even the cynics amongst us cannot fail to be moved by the images of an entire nation in grief when she died at the age of 33 from cancer, only for her corpse to be stolen by the incoming military, battered and buried in a hidden grave. She was eventually found in Italy, and her body was brought back to be buried in the Recoleta cemetery. I also visited this on a previous occasion. Unlike most cemeteries, there is nothing remotely haunting about this ground of mini-palaces and shrines to the most applauded or most aristocratic in Argentine history. Families have invested stocks and shares to get the best situated chapels, towers and remembrance houses. It is no more a cemetery than a small town, peopled only by the dead and the visitors who come, often in family outings on Sundays, to place olive branches on the buildings that house their physical remains. Evita’s final resting place is here, along with that of her husband, Juan Peron.

Reading a recent interview with Antonio Banderas on board the Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Iguazu last week (quick aside: it was something of a miracle to find an actual interview, since most of the airline magazine’s pages were dedicated to the advertisement of Spa Plastic Surgery treatments, which made us finally realise why all the girls from trendy Palermo all have the same nose), the Spanish love god himself revealed that one of the most passionate and intense moments of his life was when Madonna sang “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” live, without rehearsal, from the lower balcony of the Casa Rosada. Although the choice to have the Material Girl play the “Actress-Comes-Good-Turns-Politician-Turns-Saint” was hugely controversial in Argentina, apparently Madonna played such a life-like interpretation of their icon, as she sang to 7000 extras in the Plaza de Mayo, with her hair tightly pulled back in a blond bun, that thousands of people genuinely wept as she sang, remembering their beautiful Evita. The images of grief that we watch in that film are all genuine. I would venture that Madonna looked so beautiful as she played the steely actress/politician that the actual pictures of the real Eva Peron are not as photogenic as I had imagined before I came here. Criticism still rages about whether Evita was a gold-digger with knives neatly stuck out for her opponents, or whether she was a Mother Theresa character. Whatever the truth, it is undeniable that she was instrumental in bringing universal suffrage to the country in 1947, and that she was heavily responsible for the Peron labour laws, which certainly played a positive role amongst the iron fists of their dictatorship.

So, as we gazed up at the lower balcony, glowing a dusky pink as the sun set on Buenos Aires, it was with a uncanny sense of deja-vu that we thought we heard a woman shouting for Justice for the People, for the Workers and for the Cartoneros.

 CARTONEROS 

Cartoneros are the Argentines (and sometimes the Bolivians or Peruvians) that nobody wants to see. The ugly birthmark hidden behind a neatly pressed shirt and tie. They are the reverse of the coin, the shanty town dwellers, who do not visit modern art museums, and who do not drink in the trendy Palermo bars, although they frequent the Palermo haunts every night, sifting through rubbish bins for cardboard which they pile into their heavy wheelbarrows to sell for pittance to recycling plants. Porteños do nothing to make their life easier. With consummate arrogance, they fail even to separate the card out from the domestic trash into separate bags of rubbish, so that the young boys who often walk 30-50 kilometres every day simply to retrieve these bits of cardboard, are forced to wade through the waste of the wealthy. In my view, this failure of consideration is an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to deny even the existence of this underclass. Such denial is rampant, and extends even to the governing classes who have recently declared that many of the train routes into the city from the shanty towns (known as Villas here) are to be closed, effectively impoverishing yet further whole communities who rely on this pathetic wage; in the case of those who cannot walk the distances which measure from one end of the London Piccadilly line to the other, and back, every day to collect this cardboard, the end of any paid work.

 THE RALLY 

Back to the rallying cry for Justice then. It was as if Evita was speaking to the people again. And then, suddenly, there they were, the masses, thousands of them, pouring into the Plaza de Mayo with banners, and flags, banging drums and chanting songs that bore strange resemblance to the tunes we had joined in with at the Boca Juniors football game a few weeks ago. A carnival atmosphere prevailed, despite the riot police who stood calmly and without provocation, at some distance from the main podium.

Although there were many hundreds of people marching in support of the farmers’ protests, this was an organised march to mark the 32^nd anniversary of the military coup which ended with over 30,000 “desaparecidos” (the disappeared), and thousands more executions. This was the day for the nation to remember, and to ask for truth and justice.

The Partido Obrero (the Workers Party) was out in force. Firecrackers exploded in front of thousands of people, and in front of the Churches which line the square, overlooked by the eerie, glowing Masonic symbol high up on the Banco Galicia building. As the speeches called for the perpetrators of the atrocities to be brought to justice – in a country that is finally seeking to come to terms with its past, but shackled by a justice system that is grinding to a halt under the weight of the petitions to the courts – the Casa Rosada glowed in the background, an ever-present reminder of what the seat of power has brought to the people of the Pampas. Children sit on their father’s shoulders, watching and learning, whilst Quilmes sellers carry crates of the local beer to quench the thirst of the participants. This is a side of Argentina we have not seen before, and we are electrified. Gone are the beautiful people of Palermo, and out come men and women of striking mixed Indian ancestry, ardent men with tattoes of Che on their arms, bearded and revolutionary, without identikit haircuts or noses. Mothers bang on drums, calling for justice for their sons as they have been doing since 1977. The anti-war and anti-globalisation rally is out in force too, calling for Bush and Uriarte to get out of Latin America. Peruvian flutes are whistled in Andean unity, drums are beating and people are dancing. This is no poker-faced protest of the kind seen in London. This is real, and the people are demanding change. The Casa Rosada fades into insignificance as the light disappears. Autumnal nights are drawing in now, and fires are being lit in the middle of the streets to keep the marchers warm.

It is a long time until we finally decide to move from the electricity. This is the passion of Latin America that seemed to be lacking in the city that has been our home for the last month.

 Some thoughts on Argentina Today 

As we move onwards past the rallying masses, looking for the warmth of hot chocolate at one of the famous old cafes along these central streets where Borges and Lorca sat to write their works, we are confronted with the reality of Argentina today.

A country of football, literature, grilled beef and a dream of tango. A country of bad coffee – since the good stuff is all exported – and great clothes. A people caught between a crazed Latin passion and a stifling European reserve. A country moving into the future of design and innovation, but a country where mothers still bang drums in front of the Casa Rosada every Thursday asking what happened to the thousands of their sons. A country with pride in itself and its identity, but unsure of how it should value its Indian heritage, since those of Indian blood are still considered second class citizens. A country with a strong European heritage, though with dubious Nazi links. A country unsure of its future, whilst its past remains haunting its every movement. The dollar may be worshipped in these parts, but it cannot buy justice. Argentina’s “dirty war” (1976-1983) left scars deep in the spirit and soul of this country, and although twenty years’ worth of impunity laws were lifted in 2005 (known as the Full Stop and Die Obedience laws), the healing process has barely begun. Judges, human rights lawyers, witnesses still face death threats, and the prospect of potential “disappearance”.

The people, though, still have power here. I could feel it on Easter Monday. I can hear the shouting in the streets below, as ordinary people take to the streets, and those who do not join them come out to applaud them on their balconies. They might not go to Mass, but they do still believe they can bring some righteousness to their country. Argentines still believe in something, and that makes them uniquely Latin American.

 http://www.humanrightsblog.org/archives/cat_argentina.html (the link to an Argentine human rights blog page with some interesting perspectives on the attempts to seek justice)     

Visitng Iguazu Falls on the Argentine/Brazil border

The Autumn/Fall Collection is out on display in Iguazu this year, in a blaze of striking monochromes. Set against a fabulous variety of greens in the dense rainforest foliage, which extends over miles of the region across the Brazil/Argentine border, a startling array of Blacks and Whites marked the designers’ moods this Fall. 

The wildlife  

First up, the Coatis, whose black and white raccoon tails perfectly accessorised their brown stoat-like clumsy bodies, as they scuppered amongst the shrub, foresting for food. All programmes are marked with warnings that, no matter how much they might smile and batter their lashes, coatis are not to be fed. Size zero, it seems, is maintained with rigour across these parts. 

The Vultures are, as ever, resplendent in their funereal blackness as they soar in packs over the forest canopy, landing to sleep with an eye crooked open on a single naked tree, all hooded and gothic, as the dark night creeps in overhead. Contrast could be found in the Toucans, whose shining squat black and white coats, glossed to a perfect finesse, are lit up by their magnificent yellow beaks, an oversized coating of bold lipstick so clown-like that one could believe they requested extra lip filler just to look different. Or it could have been botox, since the beaks are so rigid that they practically cause the birds to topple sideways out of the high branches. 

As the sun came out, so did a kaleidoscope of butterflies, with uniformly black slim bodies, dressed up in vintage lace designs, red and orange spots, electric blue wings and every bright blockprint imaginable. These girls are all about pretty, and they certainly know it as they flit about all over the place, eliciting exclaims of “how beautiful”, everywhere they go.  

The reptiles, also out with the sun, maintain their image as the gangsters of the neighbourhood. As ever, they let the side down with their monotonous greys. It is true that the odd lizard got somewhat decked out for the new collection in greens that would change to yellows according to the stage backdrop, but by and large, the reptiles hung back from accessories and stuck decidedly with shades of grey. As we traipsed over the raised walkways which crossed the broad tributaries of the river Iguazu, a dark grey crocodile lay sunning himself on the rocks just a couple of metres below us, face turned to one side to maximise his sun tan. Too much meat lends one to laziness, definitely not lithe and in shape. Perched on rocks a few ripples away sat a group of turtles, also preferring the camouflage shades this season. Very military. Thankfully, no serpents were out on show this year and the author of this piece had no reason to freak out. 

The big cats

Fur is happily out of favour again this season: For all my fevered imaginings of pink pumas and beady-eyed jaguars, the big cats were nowhere to be seen, though they stalk these catwalks of Natural beauty. Given the advice of backpacker’s Vogue (Known quietly, in a whisper, as the Lonely Planet), this was a good thing. That sage of wisdom counselled as follows: 

“Park wildlife is potentially dangerous; in 1997 a jaguar killed the infant son of a park ranger. Whilst this is not a cause for hysteria, visitors should respect the big cats. In the unlikely event that you encounter one, don’t panic. Speak calmly, but loudly, do not run or turn your back on the animal, and do everything possible to appear bigger than you are, by waving your arms or clothing for example”. 

My companion practised this routine by flapping her red lycra skirt around madly. Frankly, I am convinced that would drive any creature to madness. As we say, fur looks much better on the television. The lack of any sighting on the catwalk this season was no doubt to be welcomed. 

The stars of the show - the Falls themselves 

The stars of the show – the ones we were all waiting eagerly to glimpse, from afar or near, whatever we were given – were the Falls themselves. Pouring, bursting and hurling torrents of white water over the black cliff faces, it is though the river is leaping from the earth and freefalling as far as the crater will let it go. Blessed with front-row seats, we viewed these creations from every possible angle, soaked by the mist as we gaped, mouths-open, from below, eyes glazed over as we stood literally beside the masses of water being flung down without mercy for any creature who may find itself in its clutches.

Brazil vs Argentina

Different views are afforded by crossing over the Brazil from Argentina, and no designer worth his salt today is content with showing his collection in just one location. We made the trip to both sides of the border, noticing the different habits of the human species on both sides too. The Argentine audience remained as addicted to its yierba maté tea as ever, carting around giant thermoses of the green leaves and hot water concoction, in leather or plastic cases specially attached to the hips for the occasion. Despite the heat and humidity, it seems maté is the new champagne for these folk. The Brazilians were having none of that. Tiny shorts, large ice creams and belly laughs came out of this audience. Both were equally appreciative of the catwalk, they just strutted around it in a different manner. 

An unfortunate ending  

Apparently, when the Falls first became open for public viewing, the locals would make a buck by rowing the aspiring photographers to within an inch of the Falls, and the furiously row on the spot whilst they looked down and took pictures. Eventually, one hapless canoeist did not have the strength to row against the overpowering current and the whole boat was taken down the chute, so to speak. Nowadays, those who make their way to the Devil’s Throat can view the giant whirlpool from a safe, but wet distance, over artfully constructed bridges on both sides of the border. The sheer unworldly scale of the water is overwhelming. No one with vertigo should attempt the views from above. 

A happier ending 

 Our unrivalled access allowed us to sleep without curtains to the gushing roar of the water all night, waking at first light to see the black curtains being raised over the jungle, giving way to the spectacle of white mists and spray over the Falls glowing red with the sun’s first rays. By dusk, our caipirinhas afforded us a blurry vision of the rocks, jungle and waterfalls that we had been climbing all day, and when we closed our eyes, we could hear the rush and see the shower of water that some wizard had created. So magical seemed these moments that we could have sensed the spirits of the jungle present in every flower and plant that we laid eyes on, and more profoundly, in those we could not see. 

What a tremendous privilege, and what a spectacle! This year’s Fall, it’s all about Iguazu. 

Buenos Aires – “I left my Tango shoes in London..” 

I left my Tango shoes in London.

It is sad, but true. The obsession with Tango is one shared by many a woman, charmed yet further by the seductive charms of the Strictly Come Dancing men. It is a dream that envelopes the holder in a smoke filled room in the 1930s, wearing a black satin dress, slit to the thigh, hovering dangerously over creaky wood-panelled floors in wine-red shoes so impossibl