Miss Kolka

Thought I should blog today since I wont be able to do so again before at least ten days. We're moving in less that two weeks and the Internet is going to be cut off tomorrow..Oh my.. what will I do with myself? No Google, no news, no facebook, no email. Its going to be weird.

And since its probably my last blog living in France (how dramatic) I thought as should go back to my criticism of french politics,which could not be more fitting.

Today is the day an unusal thing happens. The French president will speak in front of the whole Congress (Hard to say what it is really in english terms "Congrés" could also mean parliament including senate?) at Versailles. This has not happened in 150 years and is apparently bothering many. The opposition has been debating for over a week whether to attend or not (don't they have better things to do than to argue about THAT for many days??) and the result is that the small parties to the left such as the green party are not coming while the Socialist party (PS) has decided to listen to the speech of Nicolas Sarkozy but boycott the debate afterwards. WHAT? WHY? It just sounds ridiculus. And I doubt the french public will understand that move. Don't we live in a democracy with free speech where debate is the underlining of understanding and information? Not asking questions and being "lectured" to by the President, like many MPs view this excercise, is just plain stupid. Trust the PS to make a move like this. I am profoundly disappointed and I have to say that the president wanting to address parliamentaries is not so shocking to me. Especially not in times like these, where the government is cutting big time on public spending, thinking of raising retirement age and laying off many jobs in the public sector. It needs to be explained and debated BETWEEN parties. What is the point if you have no opposition? Can you really call it a debate if you are only talking to yourself?

Another debate in the "Hemisphere" as they call it, is a new proposition by the right to ban burqas in France. Burqas are the blue draps that women wear mainly in afghanistan and Pakistan, which hide all of the body and even the eyes. A similar outfit is the "Niqab", a black whole-body weil that also hides the eyes, mainly wore in Saudi Arabia. This ban would also apply to that one.

I know these outfits can send strong signals to non-muslims and I've even witnessed my mother's reaction when we have (occasionally) seen "black widows", covered from top to toe on the Champs Elysées. People can have their opinions about it, nonetheless it is a religious symbol important to many. It is debatable whether women wear it to get peace in their own community, by their own accord or because of pressure by family members. The reality is that burkas and niqabs are worn. But are they so common in France that a law is needed?

Now, the reasoning behind this ban, according to MP Jacques Myard, is that in secular France there is no tradition of weiling women (although arguably, some very religious catholic women used to wear a weil some hundred years ago) and it is important to ban burqas and niqabs in the name of adaptation of muslim communities into the society. Also somewhere in there is mentioned that by french law women are equal to men so since these outfits connote the submission of women it is illegal. (it did not change the fact that this MP is question felt the need on a France5 show to declare that he did not find the wail ugly, and that many women were very attractive wearing the weil! how is that of any importance?What about equal pay?). Also if we are going into this direction, why should jews be allowed to wear their hats and long hair, catholic women wear those awful cardigans and goths black hair?

I was very intrigued by this show and watched it all on a friday night, long into my sleeping hours. Especially did I admire the logic of the journalist Caroline Fourest who made very sensible points time and again. She said that this law could make sense but from a whole other perspective. The choice of security and safety. The fact is that the burqa and niqab hide the person completely so it is hard to know what woman (if it is indeed a woman) is hiding under there. (this technique has often been used by fugitives in explosive situations). In the security obsessed world we live in, burqas work against the identification process we need to feel safe and should not be tolerated in public spaces (you would not feel comfortable with a doctor wearing a burqa, but its a bit ridiculous because those who do wear it certainly do not work outside the home). By that standpoint the law could make sense.

But this has to be seen in another context. A law against "religious symbols" was applied 5 years ago in France. It banned any religous symbols such as a BIG crucifix, a veil or a turban in public schools. In reality it was meant mainly to ban the muslim veil since it is said in the text that only "big obvious religous signs that are ment to make visible a political standpoint" are banned. It caused outrage here in France, many organisations saw it as xenophobic and France even got threats from extremist groups for attacks on french soil. (not sure if any have been linked to that directly though).

So this new law begs the question: is it really necessary to introduce a new law, against outfits that are not so common, that could only become a trigger for more hostility towards french citizens? Shouldn't security concerns be more important than to reach a few people who perhaps don't even have a choice and would have to identify themselves anyway WITHOUT the burka or niqab where it is necessary? (Like is asked in the rare cases when people wed at townhall and have to take off the burqa?) It does not appear to me to be such a huge problem and it will not automatically induce more respect for women. You don't have to be muslim to be sexist. Most muslims aren't. Plus, the sexist men I have ever met were all atheist!

That's all folks! Read you in Copenhagen!

Suit up!

"What'z the buzz, tell me what's happening..." like that song in Jesus Christ Superstar.

I want to write about Iran, but no matter how I put it in my head, I don't know what to say!
I feel I dont know anything about the situation there, or enough about the historic importance of that place and I actually bought a book to enlighten me long before I realised there would be elections there a few weeks ago. (I have found time to read again now that sitcoms are on a summerbreak, hence the bedside reading of "The Secret War with Iran").

Yes, I know that the "People" are questioning the results of the presidential election where sitting president Ahmadinejad is supposed to have won more than 62 percent of the vote. Yes, I know that in western media just before the election, all we heard about was how popular his main opponent Moussavi was, a former prime minister and apparently the saviour of all good for the West (when compared with Devil Ahmadinejad of course who wants to bomb us all up with the nuclear bomb they're not supposed to have and especially eradicate awful Israel). Except that this so called "reformist" is just as radical in these matters, he does not recognise Isreal and he also was part of the establishment when thousands of oppenents to the regime were executed in the 80-s and 90's I think. (thanks CNN's "101 Iran, understanding the unrest")

So probably the results are rigged - but it doesnt mean Ahmadinejad would not have won anyway. If he would have lost to Moussavi, it does not mean either that the relations with the west would have been better since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is really the one in charge. And although I dont doubt Iranians are unhappy with how this has been handled, there is still something telling me that we don't know half the story behind these protests. There's always something bugging me with news stories from Iran - all since that infamous "axes-of-evil" speech by W. No matter how much I read on the subject, I just become more and more sceptical.
And if the protests go out of hand, could this not be used as an excuse to intervene by foreign powers? Some people seem to think so already.

In the words of the blog Enlightenment project:

...[Regarding] the Iranian elections, I'm reminded of own stolen election in 2000. As a thought-experiment imagine that after all the dirty tricks and the selection of George W. Bush by a Supreme Court packed with his supporters, some foreign power like the EU had intervened. Personally I'd have been delighted, but I suspect most Americans, obsessed with notions of national pride and the avoidance of stoogery, wouldn't have liked it one bit. I would love to be a colony of the EU because all I've ever wanted politically is a social democratic welfare state and I don't care who runs it: I couldn't care less about sovreignty, independence or national pride and being a colony wouldn't bother me in the least.

But most people don't feel that way, either in the US or in Iran. So I hope, and optimistically, expect that the US will bud out. This is their culture war, not ours, even if it is part of the larger global culture war between the educated upper middle class and the masses.

I dont know about the middle class and the masses, but we are certainly in some kind of global war, whether its cultural, religious or a mixture of both - somesort of clash of civilizations (like predicted by Samuel P Huntington). Where is this going to take us?

(Another question, to be answered or at least discussed at a later date is: why are so many young men ready to sacrifice themselves for a cause /identity? - I find the protesting movements in the Middle or Far East interesting in that they are almost only made of men between the ages of 14-35. But like I said, it' s a whole other debate.)

Remind me.. I have to say something about Iran...soon

The sad flag.. like the union, it probably needs some wind beneath its wings.

A day after the European parliamentary election (which I have to admit noone in this household voted in) it's clear that Europeans could not care less. Well perhaps 40% less, but lets be honest, many people who did vote, often did not vote with European interest at heart. When anti-European parties that campaign to withdraw from the union are allowed to participate (such as BNP and UKIP in the UK) one wonders why this election is taking place.

What is the future of Europe?
We already saw how powerless the union is in the face of international crisis (be it war or of financial origin), Europeans in general do not seem to agree on much (some want the same currency, others want a common language - wait what was it again? That's right, Esperanto (!)) and with the enormous burocracy that follows the stiff institution, the future is bleak.

In France, people (from the right) saluted the "huge" victory of the power in place, the UMP. With less than 30%, I cannot see where the "huge" comes from. The other winners are apparently the green party Europe Ecologie  (EE) with a few personalities on board such as Eva Joly and Jose Bové. They did fine (around 17%) and all attention brought to environmental problems is good. The conclusion that french voters voted for EE because the film HOME was on public television on friday is somewhat insulting though.

(The big frenzy around that environmental film goes over my head, saw some of it on youtube, ok the images are nice - many from Iceland and even from Nysted!-  but I found the text cheesy and it could have been reduced to the last 10 minutes to have a better impact. Its good marketing though, as can be seen in how the sponsors (some high fashion companies) were linked directly to the name of the film at the very start. It gives the false impression that these luxury brands are somehow environmental conscious, very clever.)

Back to Europe. Is it possible that if consumer concerns had been better adressed and the leadership would have been tougher on financial institutions and had actually had a plan to help European citizens out of the crisis that people would have been more interested? I think so. The European parliament is not useless. But these elections are. We dont want a national debate about cross-border issues - we NEED international solutions. And they are certainly not going to come from parties that think inside their protective bubble, and only about themselves.

• Who's Anatomy? | 24-11-2009
• Here we go again. | 19-11-2009
• Of Sex, Violence and Bad men | 08-10-2009
• of Bloggers and other creatures | 05-09-2009
• swineflu - what are we to think? | 13-08-2009
• Was it for an underwater Rock concert? | 11-08-2009
• The city of the Happy People | 04-08-2009
• Felix meets Loulou | 21-07-2009
• This is Iceland! | 13-07-2009
• Popularity! | 22-06-2009
• Aurevoir..mais pas Adieu! About Burqas, Sarkozy and all that | 22-06-2009
• ... | 18-06-2009
• What's happening? | 18-06-2009
• Reminder | 15-06-2009
• What can Europe do? | 08-06-2009