Forget me Knot

Just got back from the Cleethorpes Memorial service for workers on International workers Memorial Day. Despite the melancholy nature of the event I think it went pretty well. The weather was good, nice and sunny with a cooling sea breeze, and there was a big turnout, with delegates and speakers from the local Labour group both Council and party, every Trade Union operating in our region (North East Lincolnshire, and North Lincolnshire there's a bit of an overlap) relatives of some of those killed in work related accidents in our area Unfortunately Northern Lincolnshire, is above the national average in this regard due to the towns Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham and the surrounding villages are home to a large number of refineries and chemical plants, which contribute to the injuries and deaths from warehouse and factory accidents. There was even a delegation from the local Liberals ,well only two of them, but to there credit these two had supporting the event and the campaign for recognition before that, and kept the speech non-partisan so I have no objections to there attendance. Strangely though no local Tories turned up, maybe they collectively had a scheduling mishap, perhaps something had gone awry with the royal wedding preparations? or they didn't fancy having to answer for the ConDems "Easing business regulation" plans that will gut Health and Safety measures on our docks, airports and transport hubs? who can say if they won't.

Unfortunately since this was a memorial service it wasn't long before the content started to but dampen the mood. 151 killed in work related deaths in UK last year, and that figure does not include those killed while driving, or those whom have succumb from a work related injury or illness contracted several years prior. And an estimate of 2 million killed on the job globally. The speakers made a very good point, if every work related death received an eighth of the media attention that are service men receive when then sadly are killed in relation to there work (funny since the army used to a few years ago advertise the statistics that your more likely to be killed in a civilian occupation then as a front-line servicemen)then there would be a lot more pressure on government and employers to clean up there act.

If a country lost two million in a year due to war, there would be a lot of questions being asked to why, are the Generals incompetent? is the equipment or training inadequate? and what solutions are being offered to prevent next years 2 million casualties. But alas work related injury and deaths do not receive much attention, outside of the Morning Star. I couldn't even find details about today's service in the local paper I had to ring up a friend and double check the starting time.

Even big global disasters that are guaranteed to sell copies and get viewers usually ignore the human costs, like the Oil rig of the coast of the US, how much time was spent on the 11 workers killed in the explosion before the "mainstream" newsreaders started discussing things like stock hits and loss of confidence? not much. They didn't even bother covering the environmental impact in detail until heartbreaking pictures of oil covered animals started coming in. Nor did they show much interest in the loss of livelihoods suffered by the small fishermen and local business until people started getting angry and the issue of compensation numbering in the hundred millions started to turn a few heads.

In short we must as this memorial day implores us, remember the dead and continue to fight for the living.

Another Day of Life

Sorry for the quiet time, after attending the Union march on the 26th I had to work to get a lot of assignments finished. Anyway in between them I managed to find time to read Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski Cold War journalist of much acclaim and controversy. The book is his account of both the last days of Portuguese colonialism, and the early months of the Civil War that followed.

One thing that has annoyed me greatly is the almost universal (in the west at least, maybe other regions and countries are better at this) "whitewashing" if you'll forgive the term of African history. Africa has a wealth of experience of conflict, liberation, subjugation, peace, compromise, mediation, Socialism, Marxism, Nationalism, Pan-Nationalism, Capitalism, formal and informal trade, cultural exchange, regional entities etc. Yet at best it is either depicted as a continent of passive victims, genuine lessons about the evils of imperialism and warnings of continued exploitation by the industrialised North and East are watered down by this perception that it is up to the benevolent Liberal sensibility of those nations to save the day usually ignoring the knowledge and resistance to those forces done on the ground and at high risk. Or even worse problems on the continent are seen as evidenced of native inferiority, words like "Tribal" and "Warlord" are thrown about without proper context or explanation. You could actually see a bit of this in the reporting of the earthquake in Haiti which of course is not in Africa it just shares ethnic and cultural links to it.

The most well known events of modern Africa are of course the fall of Apartheid in the South Africa, but again in the west there are some problems with the retelling of the tale. Most of the thanks goes not to the internal resistance to the regime of "Boer" supremacists or the Cubans dying to check South Africa's military expansion,but to the boycott movement, its true that the boycotting of South Africa helped and those who took part in it should rightly be proud. However as North Korea has shown an regime can survive no matter how marginalised globally so long as internal dissent is contained or non existent, also if it wasn't for the brutal repression of civil rights activists black and white like that ugly joke went "how many South African police does it take to crack an egg? none it fell down the stars" would enough people in the West care enough to say no to South African orange? I'm guessing no.

This is why I find Another Day so refreshing it like the documentary on Burkina Faso's Martyred revolutionary Thomas Sankara, seen here on Youtube and a few others get past the cultural blinkers and show us at least a glimpse of Africans acting on their own, responding to the great challenges that push down on them, sometimes successful sometimes not, but always acting like real proactive human beings.

The Civil war that forms both the "setting" and "narrative" of the book is perhaps most famous for two things first its length (late 1975-2002) and a battle outside a small southern town involving Cubans and Afrikaners , but despite that being in the 80's the events of Angola's turbulent birth as an independent nation can be seen as a dry run for South Africa's later invasion of its northern neighbour (Namibia was of coursed occupied by South Africa at this time giving it a direct land border with Angola's southern region.

The first section of this 144 page book describes the evacuation of the Portuguese from the Capital Luanda, how they stripped everything of value they could physically drag to the Airport and docks, there fears about "black primitives" coming out of there mud huts in the African quarters (a universal feature of colonialism in Africa was that the natives didn't even enjoy freedom of movement in the cities that were built by them on their own land) with sharpened knives, and their resentment at having wasted 40 or more years trying to tame these savage lands and build a new life for themselves. Many Portuguese colonists where relatively new as the then recently deposed Dictatorship of Salazar's cronies used the colonies as a dumping ground for the poor and restless. And the physical decay of Luanda as the infrastructure and services of the city one by one breakdown or leave, this was before the agreed official hand over of power to Angola in November 1975 which meant that all official state functions and property like the fire service and police where still under Portuguese control which meant that the Angolans couldn't legally replace them without violating the agreement leaving the few citizens left in the cities with a rough few weeks in the Autumn run up while the Faction (there where three) in control cobbled together its own replacements. Water pumping stations for example where kept running until fighting damaged them as an accepting feature of the war was those without water surrender or day quickly. But in the case of Luanda the Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was usually able to repair them after a counter attack.

The second section is about Ryszard's travels to the "front" unlike in Europe, the geographical features of Angola and much of Africa mean there exist a different form of warfare. Things like heat, and water scarcity meant that long lines of trenches and fortifications with clear statements of who controls what where infeasible. So a front was where ever a isolated unit happened to be stationed and territory was divided up based on who was the last faction to enter the village or town. To get to a front often meant passing through a number of checkpoints with almost no way to tell which faction held what ahead of time, since uniforms helmets and flags where pretty scarce. Given that the Civil War was from its start tied up in both African regional ambitions between Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the North and South Africa in the... well South and the global Cold War meant that foreigners like Ryszard from Warsaw where by default considered supporter of one Faction or another. In Ryszard's case he was sided with the MPLA due to the Soviet Union's support for that movement, in fact early anti-MPLA propaganda incited the murder of any East European in the country because of this. The trick was to call the guards either Camrada (comrade, for MPLA) or Irmao (brother for other factions) in a way that couldn't be heard properly so the guards would identify themselves asking for a repeating.

After a cross country tour of all the fronts, Ryszard while at the MPLA's most southern front hears rumours from a friendly Portuguese who initially fled to Namibia before returning after the massacres and looting long feared didn't materialise and his mother ended up baking bread for an MPLA unit, that the South Africans have been amassing across the border and have been recruiting local mercenaries, Portuguese exiles and UNITA troops for what can only be a big push straight up for Luanda and the MPLA national headquarters. The third faction the FLNA in North has an understanding with UNITA and the support of Zaire and will also be making a push down South in a coordinated attack on the MPLA. This means that Ryszard is in a unique position as one of the few journalists in Angola (the Portuguese media is more concerned with the turbulent domestic situation at the present) and who is friendly to the MPLA and has contacts with Poland which I'm sure we all know who else he has contact with by association (hint they drink Vodka) all of which add up to an immediate race by Car back to the Capital through no mans land and past several battles in a scene that would look great in a film adaptation to inform the Polish Press Agency whom will no doubt inform Moscow.

After passing on the message unaware if he is too late, remember the borders are confused and there little in the way of national communications, he is contacted by two Cuban military advisers for a chat. The airport and ports are still at this point in the hands of the Portuguese as the deadline for independence 11th November is a week or to off, which is probably why the South Africans where desperate to invade right away and finish off the MPLA before the gates where opened to economic and military assistance, after all even though Portugal is still Officially in control of the country its clearly in capable of resisting or punishing South Africa if it took offence to this technical invasion. And since the MPLA is nominally Communist the Western powers wouldn't shed more then Crocodile tears over there demise especially if South Africa generously gave power back to a FNLA-UNITA alliance, neither faction posed much threat to its regime.

You might be wondering what made Angola such a special interest for Cuba, since the 1970's where a decade of Insurgency with many Guerilla armies existing in Africa and South America why focus on Angola? well apart from first getting into contact with the MPLA during their ill fated Congo mission Angola and Cuba have an intertwined history. Angola was the capital of the slave trade, many Africans where captured and shipped over sea's when the Portuguese figured out how to exploit the inter tribal rivalries to negotiate "contracts" for captured prisoners. In fact the majority of Blacks living in Cuba, Brazil and the Dominican Republic ancestors where shipped from Angolan ports. So interlinked where these states that when the People's Republic of Angola was announced by the MPLA leader and first Native President Agostinho Neto the first country to recognise them was actually Brazil despite the vast political differences between them.

So when the MPLA began there Revolution it was the Cubans rather then the Soviets who first stepped up to the plate, in Solidarity and provided assistance. When the Airport in Luanda was relinquished to Angola the first planes to land where Cuban Airliners carrying troops and supplies.

Needless to say despite a close call the assault is repulsed and by March 76 the South Africans withdraw. They would return for a visit on occasion, officially they went into Angola the first time to protect the dam systems on the Cunene river that forms a natural border between Angola and Namibia. On aside note the South African "Defence" Minister at the time was Pieter Willem Botha who go on to lesser things in human terms. The final section of the book is an appendix for those unfamiliar with Angola and the conflict, it includes a history of the Portuguese colony and the new nation, as well as a time line of important events in regards to the forming of the three major factions, what they believed and who supported them. In fact it might be worth reading the final section first to acquaint yourself with some background information and key terms.

This book is a short and concise summary of the beginnings of Angola and the civil war and the MPLA, and I highly recommend it as a starting point for those interested in them and Africa as a whole.

The kind of Socialism Sinatra would enjoy

I first heard this "swing" version of the internationale on the end credits of Michael (no relation)Moore's Capitalism a Love story , and spent a few hours trying to track it down, however since I mistakenly thought it was by Richard Cheese perhaps most well known for his cover of "Get down with the sickness" in the actually not quite bad Dawn of the Dead remake(shame about the remake of the sequel), and not Tony Babino my searches where fruitless until recently.

Despite the odd marriage, the emancipation of the global Proletariat, the overthrow selfish tyrants and all artificial divisions (looking at you nationalism) and quite rich Sinatra inspired vocals by Tony B do make for a good song, I found this vid this morning and have been singing it all day.

Metro 2033

"Fear the Future"

A quick disclaimer, this a rveiw of the novel Metro 2033 and not the video game which I have not played, though a friend who has tells me the plot is fundamentally the same, so this may get into spoiler territory for both.

Metro 2033 by Dimitry Glukovsky is on one level the standard fiction tale of a young man growing up in a back water being a “chosen one” who must journey to the far corners of his world in order to save his home and by extension the rest of the world from a great external threat. That we've all seen in dozens of works for years. While on another level it is a complex, at times darkly comedic satire of Russia’s political history. Some stations are the run by Communists on the “red line” in clear reference to the Soviet Union, there’s also a Trotskyist station and a run in with some funny extremely dedicated but weird Trots. Three stations have been overrun by Fascists in a clear comment on the depressingly large “national Bolshevist” movement and the trend of Ultra nationalism in current Russian politics. The dominant faction in terms of stations under its control are the Hansa (short for Hanseatic league) a cabal of merchants who have embraced market capitalism, another critique of the rise in neo-liberalism in the 90’s. Some stations are run overtly by Mafiya’s and Caucasian gangs again a transparent comment on the rise of organised crime throughout the Russian Federation. Smaller factions include Jehovah witnesses again a group that has caused a bit of a stir in contemporary Russia.

The setting is of course the Moscow underground after a nuclear war in the near future hence the title, we never find out why the war was started and who exactly was involved, but we do know that humans cannot survive on the surface without environment suits and shielding without suffering extreme mutation. The Metro survivors subsist on a diet of moss, mushrooms and chicken, pig and rat, the only stable currency is ammunition meaning that you literally shoot money in a fight, which might explain why there have been so few overt takeover attempts between the factions, with the only one of note being a war between the reds and the Hansa that was resolved before the events of novel start.

Artyom our protagonist accidently opened a route to the surface as a child and now in his twenties it appears that large numbers of psychic mutants “the dark ones” have been entering the Metro and have begun encroaching on his home station VDNKH. Hunter a stalker embarked on a mission to seal the doors Artyom opened but presumably did not succeed. This means that Artyom via Hunter’s last request must journey throughout the Metro to Polis the closest thing to a city left underground and seek aide from the government there. Though initially a simple task the politics of the Metro force Artyom to take a painfully long and circuitous route to Polis frequently getting side tracked with some travelling companions. He frequently comes close to death particularly when being hung for shooting a Fascist officer only to be rescued by the aforementioned Trots. After finally making to Polis Artyom is forced to agree to a scheme by the cities scholars whom suspect him of being a prophet who can find them a sacred tome. This tome is located on the surface within the Moscow library a place infested with a type of mutant known only as the “librarians”.

After surviving the journey to the surface Artyom is given the information he seeks. It seems the key to his salvation is the location of a missile silo that was spared in the Great War, however getting there will require both a “rocket man” (a missile commander) and the location of a secret entrance to that Silo’s bunker found only on the hidden government underground Metro-2.

After a run in with a cult of cannibals Artyom and a group of Stalkers in the company of one of the few remaining “rocket men” discover Metro-2 and get to work on setting up the Missile launchers. Artyom is then tasked with aiding the missile targeting and must journey back on to the surface to a lookout post in order radio in coordinates. And the novel ends shortly after.

Before I get much further I should point out that there is a sequel cleverly named Metro 2034 however as far as I am aware that one has not yet been translated into English, it has however been translated into German so those who speak it or its original Russian might want to give it a try.

I have also omitted quite abit from the above synopsis because despite having the standard overall adventure plot Metro 2033 does have quite a few twists on the established tropes that would be ruined when spoiled. Also the first two chapters are easily the worst, the book has a lot of back story to establish and does so in the worst way, the first 40 pages out of a total of 459 are almost all flashbacks triggered by snippets Artyom hears whilst by the camp fire. Fortunately by the final half of the second chapter the writing gets immeasurable better, there are still frequent cases of exposition and background info being given to Artyom and by extension the reader but in those instances you not only have an established feel for the world of the Metro and have to come to grips with much of the establishing back story, and the fact that they take place in a more organic way in settings that make more sense given Artyom has never left his station before and needs information on the changing nature of the Metro particular its politics an area where the young man is especially clueless.

The tone of the book is very similar to Roadside picnic by the famous (to Russians anyway) Strugatsky brothers(they even have characters called stalkers) and of course the film it inspired though perhaps the comparison most well known to a Western audience would be the Ukrainian video games series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. not unsurprising given that both they and the game Metro 2033 share some of the development team.

I would definately recommend Metro 2033 to anyone intersted in the dystopian after the end style survival genre, as well as those who have an interest in Russian history and politics as well as Sci-Fi fans in general as aside from those first chapters and some translation hiccups it is an highly intelligent and enjoyable read.

Revolutionary roadblocks

Unfortunately the present situation in Libya is a graphic demonstration of how Revolutions are in a constant state of motion (hence the name) and do not always move forward. Earlier in the week things looked very good for the Revolution, though Gaddafi was able to retake parts of the West, while unfortunate it was quite likely given that Tripoli is in the Western part of the nation and the government had built up a high concentration of loyal forces there, The Eastern revolt had got its act together and began march on Tripoli, major battles took place in both Brega and Ras Lanuf as the below video's show,

Brega


Ras Lanuf


Unfortunately as has been widely reported Gaddafi now feels secure enough to began bringing the full might of his forces to bear against the revolution,. Air strikes and artillery bombardments have become common and have been enough to force the Revolutionaries to withdraw from the city of Ras Lanuf

Government counter attack


However despite the grim news I remain confident that the Revolt will prove in the end to be sucesfull, you will I'm sure notice that the government has only been able to win in clashes where the odds are heavily in there favour such as in the West and when they aren't bogged down in extended fighting like when using Air and artillery this suggests that Gaddafi believes his troops are loyal enough to kill for him but not as he repeatedly claims to die for him. This will probably mean the conflict will take the form of bloody air strikes against population centres in order to break the will of the Revolution. Fortunately at present that will seems to still be very strong as the demonstration by the free women of Benghazi shows.



This is where the issue of a "no fly zone" comes into it. The US,UK and EU nations have been caught in an embarrassing situation, on the one hand Africa and the Middle East have seen an upsurge in mass mostly peaceful demonstrations demanding Democracy and an end to corruption and state brutality, the very ideas the Liberal West prides itself on and has been lecturing those very regions on how they should adopt them. On the other hand every single regime with the exception of Syria and Iran that has been threatened by has been a key ally of the West both in terms of resource acquisitions primarily energy products like oil and gas but also geo-strategically by ensuring other competitors like Russia and China can't get make a claim.

For example guess who makes those Mirage jets that are carrying out bombing runs on the Libyan people? thats right the French Dassault company. This is why the reactions from government on both Tunisia and Egypt have been so pathetic and why they are now bringing up the issue of a no fly zone over Libya since there own "bosses" (Yeah right) the western population is getting pretty annoyed that there governments aren't living up to there ideals.

The issue of a no fly zone is a little contentious with some citing the spectre of renewed imperialism, my problem with this argument is that it seems to ignore the wishes of the Libyan Revolutionaries who lets face it are the most qualified to make statements regarding the situation in Libya. It also seems to imply that the dedicated men and women of the Revolution who have time and again clearly stated that they don't want an armed intervention or military aide, and that they correctly see the governments of the West as opportunists who collaborated in there oppression as soon as the heat from Lockerbie and the IRA arms sales cooled down and the extent of oil supplies were confirmed. Would then just switch off and get back on their knees and welcome business as usual. Furthermore the sooner Gaddafi's air-power is neutralised the sooner he'll be overthrown and the stronger and more energetic the Revolution will be to resist foreign intervention, as they'll have less damage to repair and wounded to treat.

Avaaz a sort of global 38degrees is running a petition to but pressure on the UN to honour the wishes of the Libyan people, I've signed it and I hope anyone reading this will too.

Happy International Womens Day!

Sorry its a bit late (it should still be women's day for those of you to the West of me) I was celebrating Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) with my relatives to mark the annual fast where not really religious though they are Catholic Irish so a lot of the customs rubbed off, this year I am giving up lager.

Anyway heres a quick post to celebrate the centenary of international womens day. To clarify in case the video confuses, I agree with the sentiment and it is a good thing that we have at least one day where the issue and discrimination affecting women past and present is guaranteed attention and discussion, I just don't see why it should stop at 00:00 the next morning. I mean I think its good that Daniel Craig is prepared to risk even more ridicule from fringe arseholes by coming out in support of women's rights, but is 007 in drag really the best way to get across a reminder that despite the hard work of Feminists and Socialists ( Keir Hardie and The Labour party was the first British political party to back universal suffrage rather then the Sexist and classist policies of their Liberal and Conservative counterparts including a number of women's suffrage groups tied to them) women even in the "civilised" liberal west still face a lot of abuse both personal and systematic?

Anyway hope everyone had a good womens/pancake day and that Daniel Craig was at least able to raise a bit of awareness whilst giving the internet loonies a bit of a chuckle.

Shame on You

Just a quick post to break in the new month. Captain SKA the group behind the excellent Liar Liar have released another musical rebuttal to the ConDems dishonest preaching of fiscal responsibility. For me the song isn't as good musically as Liar Liar but then my musical tastes are extremely random as clicking on the Music tag below will show. As such I'm not the best judge of musical quality, however I will say this I can listen to it from start to finish it isn't bad and it clearly gets its points across, and that is after all the most important thing a political oriented musician(s) can hope to achieve, and on that front Shame on you is a big success, I hope it and many other songs like it do well.