Here are three items I’ve noted down for posting about this weekend but haven’t managed to, so just link to, with minimal comment, for those interested.

> This is a welcome development:

Uzbekistan, an authoritarian state with which Washington forged a controversial alliance to aid its war on terror in neighbouring Afghanistan, is set to lose its $100m (£55m) annual US aid because of its poor human rights record.

> And this is a most unwelcome development:

For four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce or male favouritism in child custody and property disputes.

Saddam Hussein did not touch those rights. But the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering that family laws shall be “cancelled” and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal law or sharia.

This week, outraged women – from judges to cabinet ministers – denounced the decision in protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues.

It scarcely needs saying that the American presence in Iraq should not be for turning the clock back in such a matter.

> And this is very worrying:

Colonel Muammar Gadafy of Libya has been buying complete sets of uranium enrichment centrifuges on the international black market as the central element in his secret nuclear bomb programme, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors.

The ease with which the complex bomb-making equipment was acquired has stunned experienced international inspectors. The scale and the sophistication of the networks supplying so-called rogue states seeking nuclear weapons are considerably more extensive than previously believed.

Anthony Cox has another post up at Black Triangle with excerpts from the views of Iraqi doctors who think there was a perfectly good justification for showing footage of Saddam’s medical examination. Anthony questions the principle of absolute medical confidentiality regardless of all other considerations. He also writes:

Some of the contributions from non-Iraqis have the air of typical post-modern Westerners, who skip over atrocities like they are abstract constructs, then over-moralise about complete trivia. Perspective, and an appreciation of context, in Western countries appears to be sadly lacking.

Nick Cohen has a thoughtful piece on the subject of evil in today’s Observer. It comes, coincidentally, on the heels of Eve Garrard’s series here at normblog, in which she argued against standard objections to the concept; and it contains some points in common with hers. Having made reference to Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘the banality of evil’ and to a remark of Ahmed Chalabi’s, Cohen concludes his article as follows:

[T]hat, I think, is about as near as you can get to defining evil. It is pure selfishness and pure thoughtlessness. Once a Shipman or a Saddam has been overthrown, the only point worth dwelling on is how on earth the rest of us let them get away with murder for so long.

The final sentiment is, I think, one widely felt in such situations, but it’s Cohen’s definitional suggestion that I want to focus on. Like some other attempts to define evil which I’ve come across lately, it seems to me to fall at the first hurdle. It doesn’t meet the test of fitting our most basic moral intuitions – whether first off or in so-called reflective equilibrium – about when the concept applies. To see this, just take some obvious candidate for what you would regard as an evil act. I don’t wish to be graphic about this, so you choose your own absolutely clear-cut case. Now, would this act – whatever it is you’re thinking of – not be evil if it were done after much deliberation, instead of thoughtlessly? Or if it were done, instead of selfishly, quite selflessly in pursuit of some putative good on behalf of others than the perpetrator?

Neither of these considerations would be the key thing for me, though I don’t propose to try coming up with an alternative definition myself here. Perhaps another time.

(Update at 10.20 PM: Mick Hartley, over at Mick Hartley, discusses the same Nick Cohen article, concentrating on the issue of evil persons, as opposed to evil actions.)

Here’s an issue of cultural discussion of a rather more controversial sort:

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Israel’s ambassador to Sweden was kicked out of Stockholm’s Museum of National Antiquities after he destroyed an artwork featuring a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber, the artists said.

The incident, widely reported in the Swedish media, occurred at the opening on Friday of the “Making Differences” exhibit, part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish government and in which Israel is scheduled to participate.
…..
The art installation, called Snow White and located in the museum’s courtyard, featured a basin filled with red water, designed to look like blood.

A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa suicide bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.

“For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador to Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality,” the ambassador told Swedish news agency TT.
…..
One of the two artists who created the work, Israeli-born Dror Feiler, told AFP the ambassador was “totally unreasonable and undiplomatic” and would not listen to his explanations.

“He said he was ashamed that I was a Jew,” Feiler said. “We see this as an offensive assault on our right to express our thoughts and feelings.”

The other artist, Feiler’s Swedish wife Gunilla Skoeld Feiler, told daily Expressen that the work was “not a glorification of the suicide bomber.”

“I wanted to show how incomprehensible it is that a mother-of-two, who is a lawyer no less, can do such a thing,” she said.

“When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought she looked like Snow White, that’s why I gave that name to the piece,” she added.

See also here and here. From the latter:

[T]he expatriate Israeli artist, Dror Feiler, rejected the criticism of his work, saying it had a message of openness and conciliation.

“I’m absolutely opposed to suicide bombers,” he added.

Mr Feiler called the envoy “an intellectual dwarf” who had tried to “stop free speech and free artistic expression”.

It may not be prudent to adopt a firm view without having seen the art work in question. But provisionally I would say that Israel’s ambassador acted intemperately and foolishly; a quieter protest would have been more effective. And the organizers of an event about genocide might also have given some thought to the aptness of this particular piece. At the same time, the most difficult issue is the ascription of meaning to art in politically volatile contexts. The pleas of these two artists concerning free expression are to be taken seriously. But the view that the artist is authoritative in deciding what his or her work means is not easy to defend. They can say what they intended, but that is something else. Meaning is in the public domain and often escapes the purposes of its initiators. Personally, I find one of the statements of the artists quoted here – ‘I thought she looked like Snow White’ – fatuous in the given context; and another – ‘it had a message of openness and conciliation. “I’m absolutely opposed to suicide bombers”‘ – a good instance of the point I’ve just made. In light of the description of the work that these reports give us, I don’t think Dror Feiler’s thought would necessarily be clear to everyone.

(First two items via Drudge Report. Hat tip: MN.)

My post about The Human Stain yesterday has prompted the following comments. Wendy James, of Troppo Armadillo, writes from Aus:

I haven’t read the Roth in question, but as to whether it matters “that the convention of Nathan as the narrator requires, as Mullan says, ‘peculiar suspensions of disbelief’”: I would say that if it’s in the context of a novel set in the real world, then yes it does. I remember in a graduate writing class a student – whose novel has since been published and was reasonably well-received – read a scene in which the narrator told of a journey made while the protagonist was unconscious. If it had been told by an omniscient third person narrator, well, no problems. But when the novel’s being told in the first person, that point of view’s just not possible; the first person is a very limiting perspective (the novel I’m currently writing is first person – you get sick of the ‘voice’ apart from anything else), but readers know and expect these (human?) limitations.

Then again, if it didn’t bother you… I s’pose if you’re Philip Roth, you can get away with anything. (p.s. The author of said novel did remove the scene in question before publication.)

Luke Weiger writes from Michigan:

“…However, this man (Nathan Zuckerman) narrates things which he cannot possibly know about through direct experience, research or anything else.”

Roth does the same thing, and does it more noticeably, in American Pastoral (an even better book than The Human Stain). It’s his way of drawing our attention to what authors are in the business of doing (i.e. narrating “things which [they] cannot possibly know through etc…”). Much of Roth’s work during the ’80s and ’90s reflects his deep scepticism towards narrative building (a process which, of course, all reflective beings engage in)…

I shall mull this over before making up my mind. It’s similar territory, I guess, to the question about whether it matters or not – whether it spoils the novel – that John Fowles gives The French Lieutenant’s Woman two alternative endings. Someone I know well thinks it does, but I wasn’t troubled. I just chose the ending I preferred.

Chris Brooke points us to a new blog started by his brother at michaelbrooke.com. My eye was caught by Michael’s post about the children’s picture book The Elephant and the Bad Baby, since it’s one of many such books fragments of which are lodged permanently in some part of my brain through my having read them aloud so often. Michael undertakes an in-depth moral analysis of Elfrida Vipont’s tale. I’m not going to make any judgement about the cogency of that analysis, nor even summarize it for you. You can read the whole thing yourself. What I am certainly willing to affirm with all due solemnity, though, is that ‘they went rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta, all down the road’.

This being Sunday, I thought I’d have a go at the What Christian Theologian are you? quiz – discovered via Die Niemandsblog – even though there are those, including myself, who would say I’m definitely ineligible. Not only am I not a Christian, I’m also a lifelong atheist. Well, I think I may have wavered for a week or two at the age of 12 while studying for my Barmitzvah. Anyway, I know precious little about Christian theology and therefore had not a clue who I was likely to turn out. Here is my result:

“God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity he would be careless; and understanding of his adversity he would be senseless.”

You are Augustine!

You love to study tough issues and don’t mind it if you lose sleep over them. Everyone loves you and wants to talk to you and hear your views, you even get things like “nice debating with you.” Yep, you are super smart, even if you are still trying to figure it all out. You’re also very honest, something people admire, even when you do stupid things.

“Nice debating with you” I do often get, but I wouldn’t say it’s an altogether universal reaction. Die Niemandsblog was Karl Barth, and Anti-Climacus was John Calvin. You?

Robert Graham talks to Bernard Kouchner over lunch:

Kouchner co-founded Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) and more than 30 years later remains one of the most admired public figures in France…

With his plain talk and confident contrarianism, Kouchner stands out in a country where too many people in high places are non-committal to the point of being labelled langues du bois (wooden tongues). Even as a Socialist minister, Kouchner has rarely toed the party line. He has infuriated the French left by daring to endorse the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
…..
He has known Iraq since 1974 when he visited Kurdistan and saw the horrors Saddam Hussein was perpetrating on the Kurdish population. “Saddam was a monster. The case for going to war to get rid of him was not one of weapons of mass destruction – they probably weren’t there anyway. It was a question of overthrowing an evil dictator and it was right to intervene.”

The conversation is interesting more generally, and so, for those that way inclined – as I have to confess I am not – may be the lunch, whose progress and components are described blow by blow:

It’s a cold Monday and we decide on a hearty soupe du potiron followed by magret de canard au miel.
…..
Our dessert, Charlotte au creme fraiche, arrives and looks so rich and enticing – a slim white triangular vessel in a sea of raspberry sauce – that it momentarily stops the conversation.

One for The Daily Bread? (Hat tip: Chris Bertram for the Kouchner link.)

The Guardian has a series in which, ‘[a]s a service to reading groups, John Mullan analyses a notable novel available in paperback’. This month he’ll be discussing Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. I don’t belong to a reading group, but it’s a fortuitous choice from my point of view, since I’ve recently read the novel, was greatly impressed by it and am looking forward to seeing the movie, which opens soon. The book has a truly remarkable plot development that it’s obviously best not to know before you read it, and I’m not therefore going to say any more about this other than to suggest that, if you want to do the both, try to read the novel and then see the movie rather than the other way round. But not having read Philip Roth for many years, since I tried Portnoy’s Complaint and gave up on about page 50, I was struck by the sweep of his prose and the acuity of his insight into the human drama – our complexity, troubles, weaknesses and the rest.

Today, Mullan homes in on an oddity, if it really is one, that I also noticed. Roth tells the story of the central protagonist (Coleman Silk) through the voice of a narrator who is also present in, and so contemporary with, the story. However, this man (Nathan Zuckerman) narrates things which he cannot possibly know about through direct experience, research or anything else. What takes place, in fact, is a kind of backwards and forwards slide between this notional narrator’s voice and the voice of the all-seeing author. As Mullan puts it:

So the frame that Roth has made for himself is sometimes a convenience to be forgotten. This is why it is important that Nathan is so clearly Roth’s representative. The very flouting of the framing convention catches the author’s own passionate, lucid exercise of his imagination.

Does it matter that the convention of Nathan as the narrator requires, as Mullan says, ‘peculiar suspensions of disbelief’? Search me. I’m not the literary theorist. I just thought, ‘Oh, well’, and read on.

(Amended at 8.20 PM.)

This, as reported by Neil Manthorp from Centurion, is quite some achievement:

There have been only 10 opening partnerships in excess of 300 in 128 years of Test cricket. Yesterday, under gloomy skies at Supersport Park, Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs achieved the feat for the third time in only 29 innings at the top of South Africa’s order.
…..
Gibbs and Smith, who have become close friends since the latter assumed the captaincy just under a year ago, are also the first pair to record three triple centuries for any wicket, surpassing Sir Donald Bradman and Bill Ponsford and, more recently, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, who have done it twice.

Manthorp goes on to suggest that the ‘secret of their success, if there is one, is the way they play for each other, literally and emotionally’. It can’t be that simple.