Thailand’s Sporting Lift

Thais are celebrating coming out top in the medal tables in the South East Asian Games, which were held in Vientiane, Laos (for the first time). Thailand just pipped Vietnam in the gold medal tally (over 80 each), as well as overall. In honourable eleventh and bottom place came tiny East Timor, with three bronzes; though it is not a member of ASEAN, East Timor is increasingly cooperating with its larger neighbours. The Games’ triumph has given a fillip to Thai morale at a time when people have been unsettled by officially denied rumours about the octogenarian King Bhumibol’s health. Though there was an impressive fireworks display to celebrate the monarch’s 82nd birthday on 5 December, and he is deeply revered by the population at large, underlying concerns have not gone away. The economy (including tourism) took quite a battering following last year’s street demonstrations and the closure of Bangkok’s main airports. But what is impressive to someone like myself, who was also here last December when a new government took over, is how Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has defied pessimistic predictions and adverse press comments about some of his coalition partners and has managed still to be in power one year on.

Paddy Ashdown chez Chris Rennard

Few local party fundraisers attract three members of the House of Lords, even when one of them is the host, but (Lord) Chris and (Lady) Ann Rennard opened their house in Stockwell this evening for a soirée in honour of Vauxhall’s LibDem PPC, Caroline Pidgeon, GLAM, at which the star attraction was former Liberal Democrat leader (Lord) Paddy Ashdown (whose London base is in Kennington) — and at which the Party President, (Baroness) Ros Scott, was also present. Paddy was eloquent over the cocktail sausages about the three challenges he believes are facing Britain: financial, international and existential. Perhaps the last needs a little explaining, before people run for their Jean-Paul Sartre: in other words, the environmental threats to our planet. As world leaders haggle over climate change-related targets in Copenhagen, the Conservatives under David Cameron are trying to paint themselves green, but unconvincingly so, in Paddy’s opinion. He also, for what it is worth, thought Gordon Brown will go right through to May, rather than risking a March general election. Either way, there will be many thousands of leaflets for activists to deliver in Lambeth and beyond. 

Link: http://vauxhall-libdems.org.uk

Banning the DTP Is No Way to Solve Turkey’s Kurdish Question

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has banned the country’s leading Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), in a move that is a serious setback for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy of opening up to Turkey’s Kurdish minority. The DTP elected 21 MPs at the last election, but its co-leader, Ahmed Turk, and 36 other members have now been banned from political activity for five yars. The reason for this is their alleged links to a terrorist organisation, i.e. the PKK guerrillas, whose head, Abdullah Ocalan, is in prison. While the Court’s verdict will doubtless be greeeted with jubiliation by many Turkish nationalists, it is a disaster for Turkey’s community cohesion and its chances of joining the European Union. Prime Minister Erdogan had broken with decades of tradition by not only recognising the Kurds’ cultural rights but also engaging in political dialgoue with them. I was in Diyarbakir in south-east Anatolia at the end of March, when the DTP had sweeping victories in local elections and the local Kurdish population were ecstatic. This year should have ushered in a new beginning, whereas it now seems Turkey may be going back to a situation of confrontation in which a frutrated minority may turn once more to non-democratic means.

Aminatou Haidar’s Right to Be Free

Yesterday was International Human Rights Day and as I walked across Trafalgar Square at luncthime from the pomp and ceremony of the Vin d’Honneur for the new South African High Commissioner at South Africa House to a similar event for the new Czech Ambassador at the Athenaeum in Pall Mall, I passed by two human rights demonstrations outside the National Gallery. The first was by people protesting about the People’s Republic of China’s oppression of followers of Fa Lun Gong, while the second highlighted the case of Aminatou Haidar, the Sahrawi human rights campaigner who is on hunger strike at an airport in the Canary Islands. By coincidence, Lamine Baali, the Polisario representative in London had cornered me about her case at the South African reception. Then this moning I was pleased to see a related comment piece by Paul Laverty and Ken Loach in The Guardian. For those who are not familiar with the case, Ms Haidar was prevented from returning to her home town of Layoun in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara on her way back from receiving an award in the United States because she refused to fill in her nationality as ‘Moroccan’ on her landing card. She was thus deported to the Canary Islands are is staging her protest to be allowed to return to her family, but as a proud Sahrawi.

Morocco and Mauritania occupied the Western Sahara after Spain left its former colony in the mid-1970s, though later the Mauritanians were defeated by the Polisario Sahrawi fighters and withdrew, leaving the territory divided (literally, by an earth wall). I slept under the stars in the desert there the night I heard on the BBC World Service of Nelson Mandela’s release from jail in South Africa in 1990. It would be wonderful if tonight I could hear of Aminatou Haidar’s safe return, as her hunger strike is taking its toll. Meanwhile, the Spanish (for all their concerns not to offend the Moroccans) really must accept their moral responsibility to get this matter resolved.

Westminster a-Twitter over 25 March

For some time there has been a widespread assumption that the British general election will be held on the same day as the local elections in 2010, i.e. on 6 May. But recently I have been hearing rumours that officials are being asked to prepare for a March general election instead, and now Ladbrokes are said to have stopped taking bets for 25 March. The logic behind this is that having chickened out of an election (which he might have won) soon after he was annointed into the premiership, Gordon Brown might want to show that he has some gumption after all. Very Machiavellian, all this posturing, of course — or maybe Mandelsonian. The real likelihood is that the Prime Minister is keeping both options open and will plump for the one that looks the least disastrous. Certainly, several Labour councillors have said to me that they would prefer not to have to defend their council seat on the same day as a general election, in which an anti-Labour swing is likely. And I guess many other activists from different parties don’t exactly savour the prospec of fighting at two levels simultaneously (especially in London). Anyway, the final decision is indeed Mr Brown’s — which only serves to remind us just what a crackpot electoral system we have in this country.

Zahi Hawass and the Future of Ancient Egypt

Egypt’s Head of Antiquities, Dr Zahi Hawass, is a man on a mission: to try to persuade some of the world’s leading museums to repatriate several of the greatest treasures of ancient Egypt — starting with the bust of Nefertiti, from Berlin. A man who courts publicity by his style — he is not known as the Indiana Jones of Egyptology for nothing — he has ensured plentiful coverage for his quest during the past few days in London, as one of the artefacts he is after is the Rosetta Stone, the tablet seized by the Napoleonic French before being bagged by the British, and which provided the key to understanding hieroglyphics. The Stone is in the British Museum and that august institution has just as strong an intention of hanging on to it as it does to the Parthenon (‘Elgin’) Marbles. However, that has not dissuaded the tenacious Dr Hawass from running his campaign to get his six target objects back to Egypt in time for the opening of the Egyptian Grand Museum in about five years’ time. 

This evening, Dr Hawass was the guest speaker at a sell-out dinner of the Political and Economic Circle of the National Liberal Club in London, where he also enlightened us with some of the fruits of his research over the past 18 months using DNA testing on mummies in the Valley of the Kings (quite a departure for someone whose earlier career was based almost entirely in and around the pyramids of Giza). Two separate laboratories in Cairo worked on the relevant material, some of it from the mummy of King Tutankhamun; Dr Hawass hopes that we may therefore not only learn who King Tut’s father was, but also solve the mystery of what the young monarch died from. An institute in the United States is currently doing extra research on the material, but Dr Hawass hopes to be in a position very shortly to announce the dramatic findings at a press conference in the Valley of the Kings. In the meantime, he is promoting a couple of new books, including a beautiful coffee table tome on some of the treasures of the current Egyptian Museum, with magnificent pictures by Sandro Vannini (Heritage World Press, £35).

Link: www.heritageworldpress.com

In the Bowels of the National Liberal Club

I have been a member of the National Liberal Club for over 25 years, but I never realised that underneath the cavernous basement reception rooms there is another subterranean layer which has recently been turned into an upmarket, ultramodern (if narrow) entertainment suite: the wine cellar. The Biographers Club (which likes to try fresh venues each year) held its Christmas party there tonight, bringing together writers, publishers and agents not just to bemoan the state of the biography book market (other than celebrity stuff, of course), but also to rejoice in the fact that a literary culture still exists in London nonetheless. Indeed, Britain produces more books each year than any other country on earth; no wonder most of them sell so few copies. But it’s true that most biographers are dedicated, even obsessive, creatures, who spend most of their time in reference libraries or at home in front of their computers, rarely socialising except at events such as this. I guess I am something of an exception, juggling the biographer’s craft with an active politico-social life. But I am Gemini, after all. At least, that’s my excuse.

Link: www.biographersclub.co.uk

What Is Respect up to in Tower Hamlets?

Since the heyday of Respect, when it got George Galloway elected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 and became the official opposition on Tower Hamlets council one year later, the party has been in the doldrums. Mr Galloway’s reputation took a nosedive as he donned a red leotard and pretended to be a cat in the Big Brother house, and a whole raft of Respect councillors later defected to Labour and the Conservatives (sic). Indeed, rather like the rival Palestinian factions in the classic movie, ‘The Life of Brian’, the party then split into two pieces, each claiming to be the keeper of the true flame, which has left all but those at the centre of things at a loss to know what Respect really is these days and what it stands for. But now the party has a new rallying point, which it hopes will help it rise like a phoenix from the ashes: a referendum for a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets. There already is one in neighbouring Newham, Labour’s Sir Robin Wales, but presumably Respect is hoping that it could win a mayoral contest in our scandal-torn borough. And who would be their candidate? Everyone is assuming it would be George Galloway. ‘Gorgeous’ George is standing down from Bethnal Green and Bow at the forthcoming general election and moving over to my home seat of Poplar and Canning Town. But assuming he doesn’t win here, a mayoral contest a few months later would suit the party nicely, to have him bear its standard. So the party has been collecting signatures on a petition to move to a mayoral system. As 7,000 of the 17,000 signatures collected were reportedly inelligible, because the people did not fill in their full names or else did not live in the borough, one hopes that Respect will be a little more careful when it comes to filling in George’s nomination papers. It’s all a bit of a fiasco, but at least he adds to the gaiety of the nation.

Four Years of Chameleon Cameron

David Cameron celebrates four years as Conservative leader today — a record that eclypses those of his three predecessors. Like them, however, he has not yet had the chance to get his hands on the keys of No 10 Downing Street. Moreover, while it is perhaps still more likely that he will be Prime Minister than Gordon Brown this time next year, the prospect of a Tory landslide is diminishing. This is not because Mr Brown and his Ministers have suddenly been performing more brilliantly, but rather because Brand Cameron is failing to convince. He increasingly comes over as Blair Lite and large numbers of people in Britain — including some members of the Conservative Party — are not convinced that is what the country needs right now. I don’t give a fig which school Mr Cameron went to or how posh his shadow Cabinet are. The core of the problem is that we just don’t know what chameleon Cameron really stands for. One minute he is expressing all-inclusive views about the diversity in modern society, the next he is championing traditional family values. Just how sincere and deep is his environmental commitment? And what exactly would be a Cameron government’s engagement with our European Union partners be like, once he has finished trying to appease the Eurosceptics inside his party? So many unanswered questions, which is disconcerting after four years in the spotlight. Which is maybe why Gordon Brown has been looking so much more cheerful lately. I doubt if the Prime Minister has yet consolidated his chances of remaining in office after the  general election, but at least it now looks as if David Cameron won’t be carried into 10 Downing Street shoulder-high.

Spotlight on Ukraine

The European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, had some frank words for his host, President Victor Yushchenko, in Kiev today at an EU-Ukraine Summit that was dominated by fears over possible new disruption to European gas supplies via Ukraine, the former Soviet Republic’s economic decline and its ongoing political turmoil. As Mr Barroso declared starkly, ‘it often seems to us that commitments to reform are only partly implemented and words are not always accompanied by action. Reforms are the only way to establish stability[and] closer ties to the EU.’ Mr Yushchenko is determined to pursue the eventual goals of Ukraine’s membership of both the European Union and NATO, to the concern of the largely ethnic Russian inhabitants of the Crimea, and it is by no means certain that he will win presidential elections next month against his bitter rival, the Prime Minister, Yulia Timoshenko, or his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovich (and nearly a dozen other, lesser contenders).

While the Summit was on in Kiev, I was attending a seminar on Social and Economic Developments in Ukraine at the ING (Bank) headquarters in the City of London, organised by International Financial Services London (IFSL). As Chatham House rules were in force, I shall not reveal who said what, but suffice it to say that the main presentation was almost brutally honest about the economic problems that Ukraine has been going through over the past 18 months, though there have been recent signs of a recovery. Manufacturing ouput, in particular, has slumped, though agriculture (including agricultural exports) has done well, and there are some sectors attracting inward investment, including telecoms. Apparently, there are more phone subscribers than inhabitants in Ukraine, which shows that it is not only in the Arabian Gulf that people like to have two or more mobile phones.

The Ukrainians present stressed the importance for them of the strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, while several of the Brits highlighted their goodwill towards Ukraine. But it seems clear that concrete cooperation is largely on hold until the political situation is clarified. The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for 17 January, with a run-off (if necessary) on 7 February.