International Aid

Today, BBC figures "suggested" that the government could be cutting aid completely for fourteen developing countries. Lets go through the list, shall we?

• Angola- Britain is not specifically responsible for Angola's situation, as it was a Portuguese colony. However, the Angolan people are victims of European colonisation along with the rest of Africa, and it's up to us the inheritors of wealth that came largely from colonisation to assist those countries who suffered as a result of our expansion. It's also worth noting that Britain invested in Portuguese industrial activities during to colonial period. Angola should receive British aid.
• Bosnia- I don't see Britain as having any specific responsibility towards Bosnia and Herzegovina, other than the usual humanitarian cause. Most Bosniak people are exceptionally poor, and the GDP is 30% that of the average GDP of EU member states. Deficit or no deficit, they are in a far worse situation than us. I say Bosnia probably should receive British aid, but it's not too outrageous if they don't. 
• Burundi- A former German then Belgian colony, so same story as Angola. They should receive aid. 
• Cameroon- Half of Cameroon was a British colony from 1919 to 1961, during which time it was neglected even more than the other colonies. We share direct responsibility with France and Germany. Should receive aid. 
• Cambodia- Victim of European (French) colonisation. Secretly bombed by the US during the Vietnam war, a war which Britain supported. 40,000-150,000 Cambodian civilians died, and the country was entirely neutral. Should receive aid.
• China- It surprised me that China is receiving aid at all, given that their economy is bigger and faster-growing than ours, and their poverty rates are either smaller or insignificantly bigger. I don't really see any point in giving them aid. China should not receive British aid. 
• Gambia- Former British colony. Britain is directly responsible. Gambia should receive aid.
• Indonesia- Former Dutch colony, so similar story to Angola etc. Should receive aid, but their economy is fairly strong, so they are not in as much need as several other countries on the list. 
• Iraq-  I don't think I really need to go into the reasons why Britain is responsible for the instablity and chaos in Iraq. We all know. Should receive aid.
• Kosovo- Very similar story to Bosnia. Should receive aid, but only on a humanitarian basis.
• Lesotho- Colonised by Britain for a time, who fought over it with the Dutch, damaging the people even more. Direct responsibility. Should receive aid.
• Moldova- as with Bosnia and Kovoso. Should receive aid.
• Niger- Former French colony. As with Angola etc. Should receive aid.
• Russia- Some might be surprised as to why the Russians need aid, but they are still fighting bad levels of poverty, partly caused by the conversion to capitalism encouraged by NATO. Should receive aid, but on an almost entirely humanitarian basis.
• Serbia- As with Bosnia etc.
• Vietnam- Almost identical story to Cambodia, but far more innocent deaths from Vietnam War. Should undoubtedly receive British aid. 

I think people in Britain need to be made aware of how much suffering and poverty was caused so that our country could be as developed and comfortable as it is. We have a moral responsibility to assist the Third World as much as possible- and helping development in other non-developed countries will help to build ties and strengthen our place in the international community. That's a pretty strong argument before you even get to human ethics. 

International aid is a good thing. We all knew it was going to be cut, but it shouldn't be. We need to pay more attention to the need of those beyond our coastlines. We, the British, have reaped so much from the outside world- it's about time we sowed something. 

Westboro OWNED, much joy for everyone.

Ongoing story at JoeMyGod:
1)Hacking group tells Westboro Baptist Church to reel in the hatred, or they'll make their website crash.
2) WBC tells hacking group to "bring it on"
3) WBC website crashes!

As you might have guessed from the title, I'm overjoyed!


Okay, some backstory. the Westboro Baptist Church are the right-wing church in the American deep south who brought you such joyous rhetoric as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". They spend their time spreading the message that gays, Muslims, Swedes, Canadians, most Americans, Jews, non-Christians, Catholics, Protestants- essentially everyone who isn't involved with their own church- is evil and going to hell. They've decided that the John 3:16 applies only to them, and everyone else is hated by God.

I hadn't heard of the hacking group, Anonymous, before, but they're basically a group of computer nerds with morals who use their abilities to crash the websites of unethical and/or hateful organisations. And apparently, the WBC were the next on their list.

Now, I know I believe in freedom of speech and everything, but I don't think this is a FOS issue. Anonymous aren't the government. They're not oppressing Westboro, they're pranking them in response to the hate they spew. It's especially good because the WBC assume that nothing bad can happen to them ever ever ever, because God protects them from all the "sinful". Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for them.

Oh, and their other major site, http://www.godhatestheworld.com/, seems to have gone down as well. This is fantastic!

Getting one over the Giant Tentacles of Homophobia is always a thing to celebrate. Let's dance to our latest "gay anthem!"

The Burqa

A substantial number of people in Europe and America, with British groups becoming a prime example, are calling on the government to ban the garment worn by Muslim women known as the burqa. As you might have guessed from my general pro-Muslim stance on, like, everything, I don't agree with these proposals.

The burqa is a piece of clothing that covers every part of a woman's body and face except her eyes. It's kind of an upgrade from the de-sexualising headdress worn by most female Muslims. It's the ultimate expression of the Muslim belief that women should not be looked upon in a sexual way before marriage- that sex and male-to-female relationships should be regarded as pure.

Banning it is a stupid idea that will do nothing but demonise those of the Muslim faith. If we profess to live in a free society, then we must allow people to express what they believe and live their life by those beliefs.
However, let's take a look at the burqa-banning arguments:

The Burqa is sexist.
I think people who claim this misunderstand the basic purpose of the burqa. It's not to mark women as inferior, it's to stop men from looking at them in a lustful way. To that extent, it's perfectly harmonious with the feminist cause, as it prevent women from being seen as sex objects. True, it highlights the difference between man and women. But to prevent gender difference being demonstrated by clothing, you'd have to ban 90% of the things western women wear. 

Women are only coerced into wearing Burqas by Muslim men, they don't want to wear them.
Granted, we can not prove that this isn't the case. But no Muslim woman has ever testified to the above being the case, making it baseless. Female Muslims are just as committed to Islam as male Muslims, so they are just as likely to want to express that faith, via clothing if that's what they want.

It's a security breach to let people whose faces are covered into banks and such.

This is indisputable. But it's not a reason to ban the burqa altogether. Burqa-bearing women can be convinced to reveal their faces briefly to heterosexual women working at the bank, or they can make use of Muslim banks. 

People feel threatened when they see Muslim women covered by burqas.

People only feel threatened by burqas for the same reason they might feel threatened by a career-obtaining woman, or a gay couple, or an interracial couple. We can't pander to the ignorant gut reaction of "oh no! that person's different from me! run for the hills!". Other people's prejudice is no reason to stop people from expressing their faith.

So, that's that, I think. Freedom of expression needs to be approves in all it's forms, for every point of view that is being expressed. 

An Acknowledgement of Libya

Over this weekend, hundreds of people protesting against the tyrannical Libyan government were fired upon. 200 people have died and 900 injured.

It is truly horrifying what the consequences are of standing up for freedom in a state run by domineering maniacs.  Every day, we take it for granted that we can speak our minds about the way the state is run, that we can declare our opinions about politics and religion and humanity then go home safe at the end of it. Most of us, most of the time, forget that millions (billions?) of other humans do not have that ability. And the reason they've gone so long without that ability is that the tyrants of the world react with bloodshed and hellfire whenever anyone tries to change anything.

I call upon the inhabitants of the free-speaking world to stand in solidarity with those who are not free. Let no-one who can criticise Gadaffi and his minions without being slaughtered stand by silent as they suck the life out the six and a half million people living in their little kingdom. Words are more powerful than bullets, but only if we have the willpower to use those words.

Tyrants of Libya: you are scum. And the people you oppress will not be oppressed for long.

Freedom will out.

iPlayer-Induced Reflection

So, I just finished watching this. It's a documentary on what it's like to be a gay man or woman in the African nation of Uganda, presented by subtle homo Scott Mills. And it got me thinking for a number of reasons.

The "highlights" of the programme include:

• Gay people being forced to live in slums, because a) no-one will hire them, so they have no money and b) it's safer for them to live there than the more central areas, where they will be inevitably hounded.
• Ugandan pastors and politicians vehemently condemning everyone involved with homosexual activity, from the usual hellfire/brimstone stuff to revolting speculation about supposed gay sexual practices
• A laughably ineffective re-orientation therapy aimed at the desperately prosecuted
• Endless stories of gay-bashing, including one woman being raped in order to "teach her how to sleep with men"
• The above-mentioned pastors and politicians plugging the now-infamous Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality bill, which would enforce the death penalty for anyone caught having gay sex multiple times, imprisonment for anyone accused of acts of same-sex intimacy, and imprisonment for anyone who knows of a homosexual and does not turn them in.

What struck me most was the sheer condemnation from literally everyone he spoke to. Everyone interviewed believes homosexuality is an abomination, that homosexuals should be locked up, killed, that they aren't real people. The rife homophobia he showed was truly sickening.

It was with some grim satisfaction, though, that I noted all the homophobic views were irrational and self-contradictory. "Accepting gays is a Westernized concept"- when most cultures in that region were fine with gays until colonisation. "The anti-homosexuality bill will help people overcome homosexuality"- by which I suppose you mean they won't be able to have any more filthy, filthy gay sex when they're dead. "Gays should stop being gay because it's unhealthy and shortens their lifespan"- even assuming that wasn't a baseless assumption designed explicitly to fit with your own prejudices, homosexuality is going to be made a lot more unhealthy if gays are being forced into slums, and their lifespan might just go down a tad if you stone them to death? 

The ignorance just saddens me, more than anything else. They are judging something they have no experience of. They base what they believe about homosexuals based on heterosexual ministers, who base what they believe about homosexuals on their personal ick-factor combined with cherry-picked sections of religious texts. 

The best bit is that anti-gay activists in the US are going over to say "great work, guys! we'll keep these filthy sodomites down! yeah!" then returning to the West and saying "me? endorse violence against homosexuals? certainly not!" As much as anything else, this just reveals American "pro-family" types for what they really are. 

This has meant I've had to review my take on homophobia being something that's slowly dying. While it certainly is dying in the West and more Westernised cultures (please note that that's NOT an endorsement for westernisation), in many places this kind of hatred is just getting started. As such, I think I'm going to have to abolish Gay Fridays/Sundays, and blog about gay stuff more frequently. Not because that's going to have any effect on Ugandan law, just because pro-gay sentiment needs to be put out there as much as it ever did. 

The demonisation of homosexuals has to stop. In Africa, in the West, everywhere. All forms of homophobic sentiment feed into each other, and creates nothing but violence and discrimination. 

I keep visualising a giant multi-tentacled homophobia monster, seizing people with spite in their hearts and using them to as pawns, so it can feed on rights, dignity, and solidarity between human beings. No matter how social conservatives in the "civilised" west like to try and make their views sound decent, it's the same ugly tentacles motivating them as are motivating the pastors in Uganda.

Stand against heteronormativity. Stand up for sexual minorities. Fight the tentacles! We're better than them if we let ourselves be. 

Look! Look! Look! LOOK! You looking? You better be! You are? Sure? Definitely? Good!

Gay marriage is coming to town! Yaaaaay!
http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory/4825/13/02/2011/gays-set-to-legally-marry-in-the-uk.aspx

Of course, there's lots of regulations to pass and lawsuits to win before this battle is won. Right now, the law only says gays can get married in churches, and the majority of churches won't allow it anyway. But Lib Dem Lady (forgotten her name and will check after blogging) says she'll work to make it available in all the places heteroes can get married.

If this works, though, I will forgive the Lib Dems everything. Well, maybe.

The Quakers are just about the only institution that will definitely allow gay weddings as of yet. It'd be so funny if I ended up getting married in a Quaker church...

Still. Best Gay Sunday ever? YES! 

On Homophobic Crime and Homophobe-pwning

Okay, so I missed Gay Friday. And failed to make up for it with a Gay Saturday. But I have a Gay Sunday lined up for you! That's good enough, right?

Two pieces of g'news for you today. The first is this tragic statistic that claims that violent homophobic crime has increased by 28% in the London area. 1,202 hate attacks on gays were reported last year in the city, the number this year is 1,545. Racist attacks have also risen, from 9,617 incidents to 10,268. The racism figure is for the last four years, but it's still fairly sickening
If I was to guess the reason for the increase, I would link back to this post in which I argued that we are going through the death of the bigoted right, and they are making one last, drawn-out cacophony of bigoted noise as a result.American Republicans and British Nationalists alike are systematically condemning minority groups such as Muslims, immigrants and people on benefits as well as the LGBT community. And unfortunately, there are those who take their words to heart.
Don't get me wrong, people like Ruby Thomas (mentioned in the PinkNews article) are always going to find someone to be violent towards. But the amount of hate spewing out the mouths of the righties regarding ethnic and queer minorities puts members of said minorities in the hate-filled spotlight that makes them such a target for the violent.

On a lighter note, Lady Gaga (one of my new favourite people) roundly pwned a homophobic punter outside one of her gigs in Ottawa last month, and it seems like everyone I know missed it! Basically, the silly man was shouting homophobic slander, and added in the usual "LOL Gaga's a man" crap, as they do, and Gaga was just like "yeah, you're an idiot". Then he got personal about friend-of-Gaga Adam Lambert, and she poured a drink over his head and stormed away. Which we should all take a moment to applause her for.



Have you applaused? No? APPLAUSE, DARN IT! Thank you.

Anyway, in case you were wondering, the main point of this post is to provide ammunition against anti-gay types, particularly those who say "ZOMG gays make such a fuss about EVERYTHING there SOOO not actually discriminated against!!" Yeah, people like that do exist. I may return and add a link to someone like that later.

But, for now,
Happy Sunday!

Speech, and the freedom thereof.

So last night, I had the pleasure of receiving lots of less-than-happy comments regarding this blog post about the Richard Keys fiasco via Formspring. You can browse the fun if you like, it's just as likely to change anyone's mind about the issue as my post was in the first place (read: "not likely at all"). 

However, long story short, I ended up adding a whole new point to my argument- that regarding freedom of speech. It's this issue which I'd like to expand upon today.

Freedom of speech is stupidly important, it's essentially what makes democracy democracy. No diverse public opinions, no political opposition, no voting. 

Deeper that that, it is right and natural that every human being has a unique take on the world. If we block out those opinions different from ours, then we consistently live in our own world where everyone works the want we want/expect it to, and we never progress as human beings. 

All democratic regimes in this present world we are living in agree that speech should be basically free. Anyone living in the democracy has the right to openly criticise his government, and can more or less say whatever he likes about any situation or group of people. But where the "more or less" comes in is where people in the West are divided on. Should we have hate speech laws to protect certain vulnerable members of society? Are there some opinions that are just not acceptable to hear? Or should anyone be allowed to say anything, any time?

While it's more difficult than the Stats Monarchs of the world would have us believe to polarise people's opinions, for the sake of simplicity, we shall say that opinions on this issue fall into two categories: "restrictionists" and "ultra-freedomists."  

The restrictionist argument is that there should be limitations on what people say and how they say it. Proponents of restrictionism support hate speech laws and the like, saying that certain opinions are too aggressive/offensive to be allowed to be expressed in the public arena. The arguments for this are that a lot of the more controversial opinions are directly offensive towards certain groups of people, and that these people should not have to put up with prejudiced speech. Also, exposing people to thing like racism/sexism/homophobia/Islamophobia means that these prejudices will spread, and cause life to be even more unpleasant more the members of whichever minority group are being hated on.

Ultra-freedomists, on the other hand, think that people should be able to state any opinion at any point in time.  Many ultra-freedomists believe that hate speech laws are a sugar-coated way of stopping people vocally disagreeing with the norm, and that even if we hate what someone is saying, we should hear them regardless. They say that it is not up to society to decide which opinions are "acceptable" or not, and that human opinion is always human opinion. 

So, who wants to hear what I THINK?!

As is predictable, I lie between the restrictionist and ultra-freedomist views. But I'm closer in kin with the ultra-freedomists. Basically:

1. All hate speech laws should be abolished. They are too vague and easily manipulated; a proponent of gay marriage could accuse a Traditional Family Values Dude of be hateful towards gays, but the Traditional Family Values Dude could counteract by saying that Miss Gay Marriage Proponent is being hateful towards those with a social conservative outlook. This very example happens all the time, chiefly in the US, where they don't even have hate speech laws. 
2. There are two categories of speech that should be abolished. The first is when someone is going up to another person and swearing, shouting, using racist slurs. This is "slander", so no need for a hate speech category yet.
3. The second kind of illegal speech is when someone is directly encouraging the people listening to commit violent acts, against a certain demographic, or otherwise. This is one instance in which the safety of others comes before minor freedoms. I say minor, because if someone was homophobic, he could still say "I dislike gay people," but he could not go up to someone and say "hey! You! Go kill a gay person!".
4. No other speech should ever be illegal. Among the justifications stated in the pro-freedomist section above, I also think that it is nothing but counter-productive to ever tell a racist to stop saying racist things. She's not going to change her mind about blacks/Muslims, she's just going to add "OMFG I'm being oppressed!!!!" to her train of thought about society. Prejudiced opinions need to be expressed so that we can challenge them rationally. 

I don't think there's much to add to that, other than "what do you think about freedom of speech?". It's a interesting topic, so other opinions are always welcome!

OVER AND OUT. See you for Gay Friday tomorrow! 

Seriously, Britain. Get over yourself.

I was reading this article on the Guardian Online a week or so back, which I find both highly interesting and highly significant. The columnist basically talks about how Britain is losing the influence it once had in international politics, as well as (or because of) losing economic competitiveness. She says that this is inevitable, and we need to "accept it gracefully". If I could have high-fived her, I would have done.
What? People don't high-five enough when talking about serious subjects!

Every Brit realistically knows that out economic and political strength is only going to get more and more dwarfed by that of China and India, and soon Brazil will overtake us too. America is declining as well, but they'll probably stay more relevant than us.
What the government needs to decide is whether it's going to react to this by trying to cling to international relevance, or whether it's going to ensure that quality of life for British people remains high and work on increasing it. Are we going to do brash, loud things to try and get China and America to listen to us, or are we going to withdraw politely to the background and use our resources to make Britain more sustainable, more equal, with a better welfare state and as excellent education as we can muster?

Frankly, the answer is obvious. As nice as it is to be able to have a disproportionally large voice in the international community, as we have done for much of the last two centuries, the primary responsibility or the government is to ensure that the British people are living good lives. And let's face it, sending troops to "sort out" Muslim nations and trying to pass rules on who does or doesn't get to hold nuclear weapons doesn't really affect the lives of the people the UK's government is supposed to be helping/protecting.

I know this all probably sounds a bit BNP, "Britain should look after itself and ignore everyone else", but that's not actually what I'm trying to say. It's still vitally important to maintain good trading and political relationships with neighbouring countries, we just don't need to try and tell them what to do.

Look and Sweden and Switzerland. Their voices are among the quietest when it comes to the international stage, but their people are among the happiest. They got their priorities right.

The irony is that if the British government does the things that are really necessary to improve life in Britain, like making energy 100% renewable, replacing crude oil products, reducing tension between the majority population and minority groups such as Muslims, then we will become pioneers for the rest of the world. We will have more influence than we have done since the British Empire- and it will be a genuine influence based on our merits, rather that a superficial voice back up by clever accountants and men with guns. The phrase "actions speak louder than words" happens to be an extremely true one.

So, yeah. That. In summary- embrace decline, because it will only be a bad thing if we try to avoid it.

How to solve all the worlds political problems. Except not really.

I've been thinking of a new political system that would allow for maximum freedom and diversity, and solve the problem of the "tyranny of the majority". Because that's what I do with my spare thinking time, apparently.

Basically, instead of nation-states, we should all form tribes. There should be one universal rule to the tribes: members can leave whenever they want, unless being sanctioned for breaking tribal law. There is only one pan-tribal authority, a Global Inter-Tribe Committee or something, that enforces the one rule, and makes sure each tribe gets enough basic resources. And that's that. Each tribe can do what the hell they want.

This way, every individual is living under laws they agree with, or at least laws they are apathetic towards. If a member doesn't like what his tribe is doing, he joins another tribe. If he doesn't like what any tribes are doing, he starts his own tribe. It goes without saying that this is a drastically different situation to now, where the politically concerned heavily compromise their beliefs in order to join the biggest club of politicians they can, in order to have some vague hope of slightly altering the way their country is run.  

Because political opinion is so diverse, we would in theory end up with countless small tribes rather than a few big ones- rather like the Greek poleis, but without the strict notion of citizenship. This way, the balance of power is practically perfect- if one tribe or even the GITC tries to take over, the other tribes will have more than enough collective power to subdue them without too much hassle.

In my head, the plan is to have multiple tribes occupying the same space/very close together spaces (like, different districts of a single city close), so that you have people from five, ten different tribes drinking the the same bars and going to the same schools. This would lead to greater unity than ever between people of different political and ideological dispositions, because Mrs X would be exposed to Mr Y's opinion, while knowing that said opinion would not affect her life in any way unless she wanted it too, so she would have no need to feel "threatened" by his views.

And then the world would be perfect.

Yes, I know this is impractical and/or logically impossible. I'm just hypothesising. It's fun. You should try it some time.

Ciao!