On June 17th, I attended a SOAS/British-Syrian Society Conference on the Golan Heights - pretty dry stuff you would think but not so.  As a so-called PR expert, I got called on to the final panel at short notice (Mark Seddon of Al-Jazeera could not make it) to sit alongside such luminaries as my friend Ghayth Armanazi of the Syrian Media Centre, Ian Black of The Guardian, Patrick Seale, Charles Glass and Sharif Nashashibi of Arab Media Watch to discuss why it was that the Arab side of the debate could not get its message across.  Well, I am not bad at bluffing my way through these things - partly because I try to get the same few, very simple, messages through: that political communications is, despite claims to the contrary, rocket science, a highly honed technology that emerging countries simply need to invest in when faced by the superior skills of the West; that information and political warfare are both very different from propaganda and that propaganda no longer works; that democracies work in mysterious ways that need to be understood and mastered (and I believe, eventually, emulated); and that elites are stuck in their own group-think wherever you are in the world (and that group-think literally kills).

The Reception was nice - a chat with old friends from the British-Syrian and Arabist community [Ambassador Sami Kiyami, Antar and Barbara Bandi, Fawaz Akhras, John McHugo] and a few new acquaintances - a bottle of cherry liqueur from the Heights to take home.  The Middle Eastern theme continues on Monday morning as I chair a debate between the two sides on the Israel boycott debate where I shall stay studiously neutral.  Although I am widely associated with the Arab political community, I have a good many friends from the Zionist and London-Jewish community.  I can say that I have never once heard an Arab, let alone a Syrian, ever utter an 'anti-semitic' word in all the years I have moved in those circles.  Yet I know that so many of my Jewish friends are utterly convinced that every Arab is liable to have a copy of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by their bedside.  There are certainly issues surrounding stereotyping and political propaganda in the Arab world, especially at 'street level', but much of the fear has been engineered on both sides.  As the Ambassador pointed out, you should see what they write about Arabs in the French educational system.

The core problems remain what they always have been - imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, relative deprivation and poverty.  If Hamas has developed a base in Gaza this week, it is because some idiots in Washington and Tel Aviv (supported by weaklings in Brussels and London) have not had the imagination and humanity to relieve the suffering of a lot of ordinary people when they could have done.  And so it goes - economic disadvantage and humiliation feed a radicalism that I find hard to condemn because I would share it if I lived in those conditions.  The West is going to reap a whirlwind (not just in the Middle East) from its history of economic exploitation and cultural imperialism as its technological advantage begins to lessen - and only the wise can see this.  It is contentious to say this but whole distinct cultures of Judaism in the Middle East, from Baghdad to Aleppo and onwards, have been sacrificed on the altar of Middle European Zionism as one nationalism calls forth another, eventually culminating in the viciousness of the Iraqi branch of Baathism.  I would love to see Jews in these cities again, not as tourists or businessman, but as part of the community - and, you know, so would many Arabs.  Now even the Christians are being chased out as 'crusaders'.  The vast majority of these Christians are not any more 'Western' or 'agents of imperialism' than the Jews who were forced to leave before them.  So many communities, Palestinian, Iraqi or whatever, forced into enclaves, into a diaspora and into camps - enough already!  

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Denis Healey gave a talk and answered questions at the Labour History Group in Committee Room 4A in the House of Lords on June 14th.  This man is 90 and with a razor sharp mind.  The politics was stimulating enough but what was really interesting was his advice to eager youngsters that they should (in effect) 'get a life', that poetry, music and the arts were always going to be far more important than holding office and politics.  Of course, he has decided to forget that he was once a driven man himself, but he was driven (remembering that this is a man who had seen war at close quarters as beach master at Anzio) by fundamental principle - in his case, to avoid a Third World War that would have involved nuclear weapons of devastating destructive power.  His politics were of then and not now but he had the good grace to understand this. There were, however, insights for today.  He told of why he felt that we had won the Indonesian war against the Communists but  the Americans had lost the near-contemporary one in Vietnam.  As Minister of Defence, he had simply refused to use bombers despite pressure from the military side.  To him it was axiomatic that if you kill villagers, you create more and more determined insurgents. This is a lesson the US has still not learnt if the experience of Afghanistan is anything to go by.

I have seen four 'ancient' Labour politicians at close quarters in the last few years - Michael Foot (with whom I worked in the refinancing of Tribune), Tony Benn, the late Barbara Castle and now Denis Healey. They all four make and made the current bunch seem like pygmies.  Why?  Is it a romantic attachment to the past?  No, not at all.  Each of them are or were in their different ways, people of passion and engagement instead of manipulation and management, men and a woman who could engage with ideas and were grounded in profound core values.  Perhaps I should consider the late Robin Cook as someone who fell into that category.  Perhaps Gordon Brown and John Reid should be included.  But so many contemporary politicians seem flaccid by comparison.  Healey closed with a rendering of a great Shakespearian sonnet to his wide, Edna, wholly from memory as he quoted much poetry that evening from memory.  This too was impressive - a love, expressed in public, that was still strong after so many years.

Tags: international affairs, politics
Current Location: London
Current Mood: pensive