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You know all those theoreticians of democracy who appear not to have grasped one of the most basic principles of parliamentary-representative government? Well, they’ve got one of them right now in Australia. He’s Ramesh Thakur:

Worldwide, millions marched to demonstrate strong opposition – a unique example of a powerful anti-war movement before a war had started. But the war went ahead anyway.

The American, British and Australian governments brushed aside the public as ill-informed and dismissed the United Nations as lacking in cojones…

The consequence was disastrous for people’s faith in answerable, responsible and responsive government. Countless times as a senior UN official in audiences around the world, I heard the refrain: we made our views known very clearly; they (meaning government) ignored us, don’t trust us and are contemptuous of us…

Strangely, Thakur does show himself to be aware of the principle of representative government I alluded to above: the principle, namely, that representatives are called upon to exercise their own judgement. He says that governments shouldn’t be slaves to public opinion and that government should not be by plebiscite. But never mind, hey, chuck in the unresponsive, they-ignored-us, stuff anyway. What it amounts to is this: representatives in a democracy should decide the way I, or we, think on any issue. As you would soon discover were a democratic government to go with public opinion where public opinion is disagreeable – say, over capital punishment – to that sector of liberal opinion which knows it is always right. Then, there’d be no complaints from the same bunch of theoreticians. (Thanks: IM.)

Good sense from Ian Hislop: ‘… freedom of expression of the press is important and this does threaten it.’ You can hear it all here.

This is alarming (£):

Millions of people risk being labelled as mentally ill under new classifications that have prompted calls for a boycott by psychologists.

Dozens of new disorders have been created in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is due to be published in May following its first major revision since 1994.

The new disorders include Generalised Anxiety Disorder, which includes everyday worries; Minor Neurocognitive Disorder, for normal forgetting in old age; and Behavourial Addictions, which turn much of what people enjoy doing into a mental disorder.
…..
Today a group of psychologists launch an international campaign urging clinicians to boycott the new DSM until it is subjected to independent review.

The one that most bothers me there is ‘Behavourial Addictions, which turn much of what people enjoy doing into a mental disorder’. How many people do you know who have 1,400 books about cricket (and it used to be 2,500)? Who have catalogued them all, as well as their 805 jazz albums? Some might even say that the blogging was a behavioural addiction. Could we be sure that they were wrong? And I’ve mentioned this activity before. Well, now I have two of those.

I’ve also made another three for my grandchildren. Can you imagine the number of elastic bands that is, collected while out walking? So a bit less of the ‘disorder’, thank you. I’m very orderly, and anyone can see I’m just doing what I enjoy.

Back in January I posted an excerpt from and link to some reflections of Jeff Weintraub’s on the likely costs of Saddam Hussein’s having been left in power in 2003, as judged by reference to what is now happening in Syria. Tony Blair has lately spoken in similar vein to the BBC: ‘If you examine what’s happening in Syria, just reflect on what Bashar al-Assad, who is a 20th as bad as Saddam, is doing to his people today and the number of lives already lost; just ask yourself the question, what would be happening now in Iraq if he [Saddam] had been left in power?’ (Report also here.)

In Time Magazine, Bobby Ghosh makes the same case. He argues that none of the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan examples fits what is likely to have happened had Saddam remained in power. ‘That leaves only the Syrian example: a long, bloody rebellion that devolves into a sectarian war. Iraq already had its version in 1991, and the regime won easily.’

Naturally, no one reasoning out these counterfactuals can know for sure or with any precision how the costs of leaving Saddam’s regime in place would have measured against the actual costs of not having done so. What is pretty certain is that those former costs would have been very high. But they hardly get so much as a sniff, let alone a mention, from those who, ten years on, claim vindication for their opposition to the Iraq war. It’s generally just bloodshed, lives lost and mayhem on the one side, and… us not going to war on the other.

Noam Chomsky is talking to John McDermott:

I say that he hasn’t referred to Chávez’s human rights record. Some of Chomsky’s critics have accused him of going easy on the faults of autocrats so long as they are enemies of the US. Chomsky denies this vehemently: he spoke out against the consolidation of power by the state broadcaster; he protested the case of María Lourdes Afiuni, a judge who spent more than a year in prison awaiting trial for releasing a government critic. “And I do a million cases like that one.”

Still, Chomsky thinks about how hard to hit his targets. He admits as much as our soups arrive. “Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.” He argues that any criticisms about, say, Chávez, will invariably get into the mainstream media, whereas those he makes about the US will go unreported.

I must say I don’t find this altogether persuasive. If Chomsky sets out the human rights derelictions of the Iranian regime in conjunction with a clear registration of his opposition to bombing the country, then his views can’t be used in support of bombing it. Somebody could try to misuse them to that end, but misusing them is what they’d then be doing and Chomsky wouldn’t be responsible for that. No one can prevent others from selective presentation of what they think about some issue; they can only do their best to make it as clear as possible.

Two comparisons come to mind. Today, any criticism of Israel whatsoever is likely to be taken up by those who mean it ill. Does it follow that those of us who are friends of the country should never crititicize it? Absolutely not. Because I believe in Israel’s right to exist doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend I support the policy of settlements, which has been, and remains, a disaster for the country.

At various times in recent years some of us on the left have been critical of Amnesty International. I was one of them, though a longtime supporter of the organization. Voices were raised to say that by criticizing AI one weakened it in face of its enemies. But that is a counsel of folly. One has to be critical of organizations and other collectivities one supports, when criticism is what they deserve, in order to do what one can to ensure that they are as little open to attack by their enemies as possible.

One does one’s best to avoid being misunderstood or misrepresented and that’s all one can do.

(Postscript. As for Chomsky going unreported, all I can say is, poor thing. Everyone should have to labour against such inattention.)

WotN of this locality, and better known as the eminent writer Adèle Geras, is in the news:

[Jane] Wood [of Quercus] has also signed two new books from Adèle Geras, a novelist who has written for adults and children. Quercus has signed the backlist of four of Geras’ adult novels, including Facing the Light which Wood published at Orion. Her first new novel, Cover Your Eyes, is a romantic supernatural suspense story, set for publication in 2014. UK and Commonwealth rights were signed from Jane Gregory.

As Adèle’s bibliographer, I will add that she’s now nearing her century in books published. Not bad going.

Rowenna Davis may not have come across Stuart Fox’s evidence regarding the satisfaction levels of young people with respect to British democracy. Whether she has or not, she’s re-telling the story of how the Iraq war disillusioned her generation – remember, those protesters of February 15 2003 who weren’t obeyed. Forgive me for sounding like an old cynic, but reading Davis you could get the impression that the generation she belonged to was that of the playgroup population finger-painting its way through London in support of love and universal goodness. But in any case it’s the familiar tale:

For many, the Iraq war was a demonstration that power could ultimately bypass any civil protest. Two million people came out marching and 2,000 young hands were raised, and they were overridden.

Except that Davis then departs from the usual script by allowing that street demonstrations don’t in fact rule:

Of course not every protest can or should be successful…

But here there has to be a ‘but’, and so there is:

… but this one felt defeated by something disingenuous. The left was supposed to be the party of peace and democracy, now it was the one misleading us into conflict for reasons that kept changing. It marked the beginning of the disenchantment with party politics in general.

The reasons kept changing? I don’t know – I had a pretty firm grip on them. As for the left being ‘the party of peace and democracy’, it’s just obvious to Davis that such a party wouldn’t want to see the end of a fascistic tyrant and his special forms of peace. Note, in passing, that she uses the phrase ‘brutality of power’, yet absolutely not with reference to the regime overthrown by US and British arms.

This looks like good news, so why not feature it?

Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation. The report, by Oxford University’s poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates.

It identifies “star performer” nations such as Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh as places where deprivation could disappear within the lifetime of present generations. Close on their heels with reductions in poverty levels were Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia.

The study comes after the UN’s latest development report published last week which stated that poverty reduction drives in the developing world were exceeding all expectations. It says: “The world is witnessing [an] epochal ‘global rebalancing’ with higher growth in at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new ‘global middle class’. Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.”

The brighter global picture is the result of international and national aid and development projects investing in schools, health clinics, housing, infrastructure and improved access to water. The UN also pointed to trade as being a key factor which was improving conditions in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

I don’t have the expertise to judge how these conclusions have been arrived at, but something is said about that in the remainder of the report.

Theodor Meron is President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Here he is in conversation with the BBC’s Stephen Sackur on matters relating to the development of the ICC, and it’s worth a listen. Three topics of discussion caught my interest.

The first of them – in the first five minutes of the interview – concerns how effective the work of the ICC and other international tribunals is in acting as a deterrent. Meron is more sanguine about this than Sackur, at least in believing that the deterrent effect will gradually be strenthened with the increase in international criminal prosecutions for crimes against humanity. But an important point not mentioned by either of them in this connection is that there are reasons other than deterrence for such prosecutions. These are reasons of simple justice. We should prosecute people for whom there is powerful prima facie evidence of their being responsible for grave crimes against other human beings, otherwise we implicitly declare, as a human community, that such crimes don’t matter.

The second topic of discussion touches on the conflicting concerns of criminal justice and various political consideration – such as reconciliation. On this Meron quite properly emphasizes the autonomy of criminal justice vis-à-vis political calculations of one kind and another, however important these may be.

Finally, there’s the issue of the lack of universality in the ICC system, with the US and other countries not signed up to the Rome Statute. It’s a point discussed in this earlier post of mine. In face of Sackur’s questioning, Meron insists, rightly in my view, that an incomplete system of international criminal justice is better than none at all. Would it be better, he asks, if there were no prosecutions? (Via.)

This morning first thing, I’m lying in bed innocently reading my novel, which is The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster, when I get zapped by this:

Iris’s father liked him because he was a Manchester City, and not a United, fan…

Reader, I ask you. I like Margaret Forster’s novels. I have never done her any harm that I know of. It’s an unprovoked assault. And what does she know from Manchester? She was born in Carlisle. Well, you know what they say about City’s support, don’t you? The quoted passage, just by the way, is on page 101.