In the Nineties, green issues were certainly apparent and in the minds of the general population; logging in the Amazon was a major concern, and who can forget Captain Planet and the Planeteers? Even educational videos designed to teach good spelling were themed around pollution on planet Earth (I can’t have been the only one to watch Earth Warp, surely?).
In the mid-Naughties, however, green campaigning really took off. ‘Global Warming’ became ‘Climate Change,’ pollution and wastefulness became your ‘Carbon Footprint’ and the dangers of Carbon Dioxide were no longer limited to an overflowing soft drink. But are people now, towards the end of the decade, getting a little tired? Jack Wellby argued in the last Greenbox that now is the time to stop trying to convince the sceptics, and I began this year’s OUSU Environment Handbook by saying anyone who didn’t believe in the existence of Climate Change is either misinformed or stubborn.
Whilst this is wholly true, I worry about the effect this will have on green campaigning as a whole. I think by relaxing our efforts, people have begun to forget the message of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, and especially the order in which those words should come.
I was appalled when I heard of an advert condoning leaving a light on all night because it was fitted with an energy efficient bulb; such a notion is wholly misleading. By reducing the amount of energy we use in our day-to-day lives, we should not therefore start engaging in more energy wasting activities.
The government has now finally agreed to a target for reducing the country’s carbon footprint by 80% by 2050, but there’s only one way to do this. We have to throw out the strategy of showing people little changes they can make to reduce their carbon footprint, and start impressing the importance of the big changes.
Line drying your clothes instead of using a tumble dryer will save much more energy than switching lights off when you leave the room, and I think everyone knows what to do when it comes to air travel. A renewal within the green campaign is necessary to provide the same effervescent campaign of earlier in the decade if we are to convince those that have installed the right lightbulbs that the next step is to unplug their tumble dryer.
Yes indeed; Christmas singles are starting to appear, or at least the first tentative attempts, like spreading damp or the nibbled leaves that warn gardeners of an imminent infestation of slugs. Ugh. I’m going to avoid treading on those slugs and concentrate on less yule-based offerings.
San Francisco’s Dodos have had the brighter idea of releasing ‘Winter’ from their megalithically good last album, Visiter. Either a very tinny guitar or a ukulele and rattling drums power on this hypnotic, depressive, brilliant paeon to all things wintry, with a horn break that recalls Beirut. Nothing remotely festive here, just a great tune. It’s a little bit like Noah And The Whale‘s ‘Five Years’, except very very good instead of utter drivel.
Now she’s had a Mercury nomination, it’s no longer interesting to be indie and love Estelle. Ah well. Her second album was still superb; this offering features Sean Paul and is subsequently not as intelligent as ‘American Boy’, ‘Substitute’ and their ilk, being more of a straight-up sexytune with the usual overtones of female subservience to macho hiphop males. Musically it’s also devoid of excitement and a big chorus. She has great tunes. This is mediocre.
This, I suspect, is what Britpop really wanted to sound like. Perky, uplifting, laddish and witty. Jolly background string samples, an insistent and childish piano riff, propulsive beat, various references to the devil, American evangelism and the definition of sin. Shame the original quotation was also heavily referenced by Lostprophets.
This song doesn’t so much ‘feature’ Emmy the Great, as pin itself entirely upon her. A nice idea, mind, to take her fey folk voice and back it with unobtrusive electronica. The verse is hypnotic and drowsy, whilst the chorus is extremely big indeed. All quite metronomic and boppy. A very nice and simple song, like Kraftwerk dummed down and tarted up.
This is mildly amusing in a very childish way if you listen to the vocal and imagine some small animal occasionally biting Gary Barlow’s balls at apparently random intervals, thus causing the absurd variations in pitch. Apart from that, this is toxic.
Clinic have been around for a very, very long time. This had made them respected, almost legendary indie cult veterans. It hasn’t, however, made them much money. This won’t change things, but it is at least better than most of their highly credible but frankly crap releases to date. It conjures up an intensely lofi Velvet Underground dirge vibe in a nice, slightly oriental opium-day sort of way. The song itself is a bit difficult, but top marks for persistence in bashing it along as persistently as they do.
Top Of The Ox – Local Tune Of The Week
Youthmovies’ song ‘Magic Diamond’ features repetition of the word ‘lachrymose’ and employs a simile about a Mobius strip. It is also a beautiful, waltzing piece of music that will lull and lap and generally make you a happier person – until two minutes in, when it starts howling and serrating and making savage mechanical noises. It then goes off in self-indulgent prog tangents, but it’s proved its point. Other, more accessible songs accompany it on their new Polyp EP. It will expand your mind and inner ear. That’s not a metaphysical or spiritual ‘inner ear’, like an inner eye, just the bit slightly inside your skull. It’s some kind of hyperbole or something.
Lacking traditional academic qualifications will no longer be a bar to study at Oxford, as the University will now accept applications from students with new government Diplomas as well as A-levels.
Oxford will now consider students with an Advanced Engineering Diploma for a place on an Engineering course. However Diplomas such as Hospitality, IT or Health and Beauty are still ruled out by the Admissions Office.
Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, said that the University recognised some people may be qualified for entry onto Oxford degrees despite lacking A-levels.
He said, “this provides a route for those who opt to study the Advanced Diploma in Engineering to apply to study Engineering at Oxford.”
He added, “Oxford has always looked at more than just qualifications – academic ability and potential is assessed through a range of measures.”
Nicholson emphasised that Oxford encouraged all appropriately qualified students to apply regardless of their school or college background.
The Advanced Engineering Diploma, which is to be launched in 2010, is worth the equivalent of three and a half A Levels. Oxford applicants must also have a Physics A-level to apply for an Engineering degree.
The new Diplomas designed by the government are largely vocational and include ten days work experience as part of the qualification.
Some students think those with Diplomas will face some academic difficulties. One commented, “no one at Oxford has done anything vocational really. I don’t know if a Diploma would prepare you for the type of work here.”
However, many students feel this move will not make much difference to the applications system. One student said, “If the Diploma is worth more than 3 A Levels, you’ve still got to be pretty academic.”
Jim Knight, Minister for Schools and Learners, claims the benefit of the Diploma system is that students have, “a genuine choice about where their qualifications take them, be it university or straight towards employment.”
Almost all the Russell Group Universities have responded positively to the new Diploma system. Mike Nicholson maintains that the new qualifications “have the greatest relevance for our courses.”
He said Oxford academics involved in the project are keen to “ensure that the Diplomas can deliver the highly rigorous academic content and study skills that candidates to highly competitive universities need.”
An Oxford graduate has been selected as Carol Vorderman’s replacement on the popular daytime TV show Countdown.
22 year old Rachel Riley has been selected as the new co-presenter alongside TV sports presenter Jeff Stelling.
Riley, a graduate from Oriel with a Masters Degree in Mathematics, was selected for the Channel 4 programme from over 1,000 applicants.
For the auditions, she and other applicants had to complete an interview and were examined on their maths expertise.
Riley was shortlisted together with 5 other candidates to attend a screen test in Leeds where candidates had to put up several letters selections and tackle various maths games at the numbers board.
Riley announced that she was ecstatic to have been chosen for the job. She said, “this is the best graduate job in the world. There’s only one cool maths job around and I was lucky enough to get it so I’m absolutely thrilled.”
Channel 4 said, “Rachel’s on-screen presence, easy going nature, coupled with fantastic maths skills meant she excelled in all rounds of the auditions.”
Helen Warner, Head of Channel 4 Daytime, said “I’m very excited that Jeff and Rachel will be picking up the Countdown baton from 2009.
“They make a great team and I feel certain that our much-loved words and numbers game will go from strength to strength with them at the helm.”
Long-standing Carol Vorderman announced on the 25th July 2008 that she would be quitting the show after failing to agree with Channel 4’s terms for a new contract.
Reports have suggested that she was told to take a 90% pay cut of her estimated salary of between £900,000 and £1m a year.
Vorderman recorded her last Countdown show on the 13th November 2008 which will be broadcast on the 12th December this year.
Stelling, who will be the new host for Countdown, is best known for presenting Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports and was awarded Sports Broadcaster of the Year by the Sports Journalists’ Association for the third consecutive time earlier this year.
He declared that, “I am delighted to be hosting Countdown and follow in the footsteps of such great broadcasters as Richard Whitely, Des Lynam and Des O’Connor.”
Stelling and Riley are set to present the 60th series of Countdown, which will commence in January 2009.
Armed police flanked the Bodleian on Tuesday night as Shimon Peres arrived in Oxford to present a lecture to staff and students at the Sheldonian.
But the heavy security could do little to prevent a verbal assault on Peres as students interrupted his speech with a series of attacks on Israel’s policy on Palestine.
Throughout the course of the talk, entitled ‘the globalisation of peace’, a string of eight students stood up and shouted over the president in what they described as a gesture on behalf of the Palestinian people.
Najla Dowson-Zeidan, a fourth-year from Wadham, shouted, “I represent the thousands of farmers who’ve had their land stolen illegally to build Israeli settlements.”
Abdel Razzaq Takriti, a History graduate student from Wadham, began walking towards Peres and calling him “a war criminal” before being escorted out of the building by security guards.
After the event Takriti said, “By saying ‘I represent…’ we were bringing the absent voices of the Palestinian people oppressed by Peres’ government to the lecture. Instead of honouring the occupiers and rewarding them for their human rights infringements, we urgently need to listen to those who are forcefully occupied.”
The 85 year-old president was noticeably unsettled by the students, who interrupted him roughly every five minutes throughout his lecture. While he chose to ignore some of the interventions, to Dowson-Zeidan he responded, “It’s not too bad to open the ears and the eyes but keep the mouths for a later occasion.”
Around 40 students also gathered in front of the Sheldonian to protest at Peres’ visit and carried placards bearing the slogan ‘Balliol honours Peres while Gaza burns.’ At one point their chants of ‘Free Palestine’ threatened to drown out the lecture entirely, with students at the back of the theatre struggling to hear.
The response of other students to the protests was mixed, with some booing and some clapping in response to those who interrupted.
One third year Brasenose student, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “I have every sympathy with the complaints of the protestors and their right to protest, but given that it was announced that there was to be a question and answer session at the end the interruptions were misguided and severed only to frustrate and irritate the vast majority of the audience.
“Free speech means giving those who disagree with you a chance.”
In response, Omar Shweiki, one of the hecklers, said, “When such a grand event takes place, with all the prominence granted a head of state, there is no room afforded for alternative voices but I am proud to say through collective effort we made it clear that many in the University refused to be complicit in legitimising an apartheid regime, one that only days before the lecture was bombing a besieged and defenceless people in Gaza.”
At the end of the talk, some students chose to remain seated while those around them got to their feet to enthusiastically applaud
Peres, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, was in Oxford as part of a three day visit to Britain, where he met with Gordon Brown and was awarded an honorary doctorate at King’s College, London. He invited to Oxford by Andrew Graham, Master of Balliol College, in order to inaugurate the first of a series of five lectures on the subject of world peace.
The visit to the UK was bound to be difficult for the Israeli president. In 2007, members of Britain’s University and College Union voted to boycott Israeli universities, despite worldwide condemnation of the move. Mr Graham said that he was “well aware of the opposition that has been expressed about this invitation,” but that “the fundamental purpose of a University which is to hear and discuss and examine all points of view.”
Peres’ sets out world view
Shimon Peres came to Oxford this week at the invitation of the Master of Balliol to inaugurate a series of five peace lectures. He used his speech to praise the outcome of the US elections and express his optimism about the prospect of a more peaceful world.
Peres hailed Barack Obama’s recent victory as a turning point in modern history.
He said, “Zionism started because of racism and anti-Semitism. In a way, the election of Obama is the end of racism. The fact that a black person got the top job in our time is a clear demonstration that we live in different world.”
Describing the problems of achieving Middle Eastern peace he said, “We have had to defend ourselves militarily but have hoped, philosophically and otherwise, to make peace.
Both sides paid heavily – thousands of youngsters on both sides. It was a mistake. All wars are a mistake whether you win or lose.”
On the subject of Palestine he said, “We are still negotiating with the Palestinians. It is difficult to make peace – you have to negotiate with your opponents and with your own people; I don’t know which is more difficult.” He added, “The problem for the Palestinian people is Hamas. Were it not for Hamas they would already have a state of their own.”
He said that with his age and experience had come a sense of optimism, saying, “I feel that maybe we are nearer to peace now than any time in the last 100 years.”
Despite the frequent interruptions Peres persevered to the end of his talk, stopping only a few times to express his frustration with the protestors. In his closing speech, Sir Adam Roberts, Emeritus Fellow of Balliol, praised the Israeli president for “demonstrating grace under fire.”
The day before the long-standing human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is due at Wadham for our interview – as well as a talk on the unfinished battle for LGBT rights after 11 years of Labour – he writes to say that he will be attending the demonstration against former Israeli President Shimon Peres’s talk at the Sheldonian.
It seems pertinent, therefore, to begin my questions by asking what Tatchell’s views on the invitation are. “Peres is welcome to come to Oxford to support a peace settlement based on Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories,” he says, before asserting: “recent history, though, shows he is keen to support Israeli domination of the Palestinians.”
So speakers are only welcome at Oxford if they share the same political opinions? I ask him if for his thoughts on an email from the organisers of the demonstration, which described the Israeli policy towards Palestinians as “ethnic cleansing.”
“I’m not sure I would go as far as that, but it’s certainly ethnic suppression,” he replies. “The state of Israel was founded on the dispossession of Palestinian land.”
When I offer the hawkish view that many Israelis and Palestinians are in fact descended from similar Semitic tribes around the Middle East, all of whom share some claim to land in the area, he nods: “a similar ethnic group, yes, but the Palestinians are dispossessed – because they are Palestinians.”
Tatchell emphasises the importance of those in the “Occupied Territories” having the opportunity to assert their democratic right, and choose the government that rules them.
I ask him how he would feel about the democratic election of a hard-line Islamic government in a newly independent Palestine – something that seems ever more likely as Hamas continues to dominate the formerly pre-eminent Fatah. Surely this would only serve to cement the oppression felt by women, those from the LGBT community and other marginalised groups?
“It’s up to the Palestinians to elect a government of their choice. If they elect an administration that violates human rights, there should be an international solidarity campaign to support the many Palestinians who defend the human rights of woman, gays, non-believers and others,” says Tatchell.
“The era when the West dictates to the rest of the world is over; our job is to simply support Palestinian civil society groups.”
When pressed about the effect of returning Israel to its pre-1967 borders, however, Tatchell admits that “as part of the settlement, [he] would favour a human rights charter that would protect those threatened under a fundamentalist government.”
“Surely that’s a form of Western dictation about the way others should conduct themselves, albeit slightly more restricted in its scope,” I suggest.
But Tatchell’s argument is that human rights cross borders. Speaking passionately about the need for West to shift its focus in the Middle East, he argues that our “priority [should be] to support the new Palestinian state by funding a massive programme of new housing, schools, hospitals, sports facilities and roads.”
His faith in human rights is no more evident than in the words that follow this. “Economic development will undercut support for the men of violence and enable the Palestinian people to secure their national aspirations without resorting to conflict.”
And how about engendering a culture of respect for the human rights that Tatchell regards as universal? His belief is, that given the right support, the pressure groups within Palestinian society that are fighting for the rights of the groups we discussed will win the day.
Ultimately, I can’t help but think that this presumption is just another form of the long Western tradition of exporting our cultural values abroad, and believing that all those who seek development in economic terms will seek to emulate our own behaviour when they achieve their financial goals.
As a person with a degree of pessimism about domestic Palestinian politics, however, it a pleasure to talk to someone with so much faith in the universality of human ideals. I hope Tatchell is right. But I remain to be convinced.
With one simple phrase, Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap changed the face of rock music forever. The words “These go to eleven” resound in every guitarist’s head as they reach for the volume control to turn it up that extra step. The introduction of the 11th setting on the Marshall JCM 900 amplifier allowed guitarists to play louder, harder and… wait.
Sorry… because… I thought… was it…didn’t they… No, it wasn’t and they didn’t. Just like the 11th setting on a marshal amp, Spinal Tap has its long, lady lapping, Gene Simmons tongue placed firmly in its cheek. It wasn’t real but it did change the face of rock music forever.
The fact that some people thought that “The Tap” were a real band goes to show the film’s power. There were popular bands who actually acted like that, prancing around a prop-cluttered stage singing songs about pagan rituals, all the time maintaining a straight face and with their tongues, far from in their cheeks, flapping wildly about their faces. What the film did was to make this sort of posturing embarrassing, and rightly so.
Unfortunately, not all of the lessons so well taught in Spinal Tap are universally adhered to. Theatrical sets, egoism and auto-erotic fret marching do still occur. In 1997 U2 became stuck in their giant lemon during a shocking piece of rock shamelessness strangely similar to Spinal Tap’s on stage womb episode. More fool U2 in general, but more fool them especially for not taking heed of Spinal Tap’s razor sharp critique.
Japan is often depicted in the Western cultural imagination as the epitome of hyper-modernity: a land of robots, anime, bullet trains and overpopulated metropolises. However, for all its obsession with the new, many elements of traditional Japanese culture still remain, not least the theatrical arts of Noh and Kabuki, protected by the government as national treasures.
I first encountered the other-worldly, aristocratic art of Noh as an exchange student in Tokyo. In a quiet auditorium square, a stage of Japanese cypress sheltered under the eaves of a shrine roof.
The scene was entirely bare, save for a pine tree painted upon the back wall. The musicians, clad in formal black kimono, entered and began to play; the piercing voice of a flute, discordant and melancholy, faded into the snaps of hand drums and the lingering, ethereal cries of the players.
Most Noh plays concern a tormented spirit unable to renounce its ties to the world seeking salvation from a Buddhist monk, and often these are the only two actors on stage. Clad in an elaborately carved mask, the principal actor traverses the stage, sometimes dancing, sometimes singing, in a slow but intense performance profoundly removed from the naturalistic conventions of Western theatre. With one step he traverses a thousand miles whilst landscapes may be suggested by no more than a wave of a fan.
A vital part of aristocratic culture, Noh is an experience at once religious and dramatic: an entry point into a spiritual world of breathtaking depth and subtlety.
In contrast with Noh, where much of the (elderly) audience appear to be there to sleep, Kabuki is a fireworks display of flash costumes, elaborate make-up, intricate staging and dramatic set-pieces.
Peopled with larger than life heroes and villains, often jousting for the love of famous courtesans (played, in Shakespearean style, by men), the stories are akin with 18th century soap-opera, filled with tragic love, suicide, revenge and duty.
Noh and Kabuki were both born out of the milieu of pre-modern Japanese culture, but ultimately show off the diversity of dramatic techniques within it. From the aristocratic, serious and stately, to the populist, gaudy and glamorous, they represent differing ends of the spectrum of traditional,Japanese arts.
In their heavy stylization they have influenced many foreign, writers and directors looking to break away from conventional naturalism in Western theatre, whilst travellers to Japan may still find much in them to inspire new ways of performing.
By the time you finish reading this article, Asia Osborne’s Romeo and Juliet will be sold out. So go and book now, and I’ll spend the rest of this review telling you why.
At present, I’m sounding out ways to say “this is amazing, this is utterly amazing, mug old ladies and small children for tickets if you have to” without forsaking all claims to cool judgment. Unfortunately, most of my reaction to this show is just jealousy (of Osborne – I so wish I’d directed this) and inarticulate, flapping-hand gestures of love.
Osborne’s adaptation of the text savages the play, tumbling it into a dark world of Carrollian dream-fantasy, American Gothic and the sublime. Heavily inspired by Punchdrunk, makers of site-specific theatre, to my mind this promenade production actually improves on their ethos: whereas Punchdrunk theatre often only allows small audiences into small spaces, Osborne’s production redresses this elitism by re-radicalising an existing large space, democratising theatre in a way that’s incredibly relevant to contemporary explorations of the ensemble.
Into the transformed O’Reilly come a masked audience, guided by a weaving, black-suited cast. Together, they explore a space filled with white silk, red flowers, black umbrellas, built on an aesthetic equally indebted to Sondheim’s West Side Story and the Mexican Day of the Dead.
With contrasting scenes running simultaneously, and audiences free to move around the space, the performers have nowhere to hide; a bored audience can easily turn their backs and head across the hall. And yet my interest never waned.
Osborne is as clever as she is creative: student acting often suffers from being too big for its space, with gestures too grandiose, voices too loud. In the big, bleak box that is the re-made O’Reilly, an Oxford ensemble finally has the space to run, to jump, to leap and climb and even to scream; above all to create theatre that’s intense without being pointlessly in-your-face.
She has accomplished a miracle of dramatic development: frankly, there are several in this cast whom, in previous productions, I have seen be as bad as an Oxford stage will allow anyone to be. All were vastly improved, and fully deserved their place especially strong ensemble.
This is the theatre of audacity. Osborne kept doing things that shouldn’t work, should absolutely stink – people stab each other with umbrellas, wrap each other in white silk, and (repeatedly) chase each other through the back doors of the O’Reilly, necessitating a delay before their appearance on the balcony.
This happens last, and most notably, at the moment before Will Spray’s Tybalt is murdered by Etiene Ekpo-Utip as Romeo. The delay – unmasked, for once, by action elsewhere in the room – has the potential to be slow, to be awful, to be embarrassing. Nevertheless, Will Spray’s waiting game, as the ‘prince of cats’ realises he’s cornered, becomes the second most exciting moment of the piece.
It’s surpassed only by the brutal, satisfyingly scrappy tussle that follows. Seriously, go and watch Spray and Ekpo-Utip beat each other up. There were audible whimpers and yelps from my section of the crowd. I even liked the shouting.
Of the women, Juliet Dukes as Juliet, and Eleanor Rushton as the Nurse, excel. Dukes perhaps overplays Juliet’s sweetness, delivering an occasionally prettified performance, but the scene where she learns of Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment is monumental.
When the delayed agony of the Nurse’s revelations finally breaks over Juliet’s head, we see in Jukes a baroque grief made intimate not grandiose, horrific and not hysterical. She also does a fabulous line, incidentally, in believable sobbing. Brian McMahon, as a spider-like Mercutio, exemplifies the spirit of the piece with his creepy, cocksure characterisation and sustained energy.
When you see Romeo and Juliet, share the company’s boldness, passion and playfulness. Don your mask and doff your inhibitions. There are rough edges, but there are moments, minutes, scenes and sequences of sublimity; places where criticism has to stop and I have to clutch your sleeve and say, book. Book now.
Not because it’s been co-opted by a clique, or because the lead is famous or because anyone takes their top off. But because it’s intoxicating and ambitious and different, and – unfortunately – it’ll be over by Sunday.
Romeo and Juliet is on at the O’Reilly Theatre at Keble until Saturday.
The 85 year-old president was noticeably unsettled by the students, who interrupted him roughly every five minutes throughout his lecture. While he chose to ignore some of the interventions, to Dowson-Zeidan he responded, “It’s not too bad to open the ears and the eyes but keep the mouths for a later occasion.”
Interview: Peter Tatchell
The day before the long-standing human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is due at Wadham for our interview – as well as a talk on the unfinished battle for LGBT rights after 11 years of Labour – he writes to say that he will be attending the demonstration against former Israeli President Shimon Peres’s talk at the Sheldonian.
It seems pertinent, therefore, to begin my questions by asking what Tatchell’s views on the invitation are.
“Peres is welcome to come to Oxford to support a peace settlement based on Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories,” he says, before asserting: “recent history, though, shows he is keen to support Israeli domination of the Palestinians.”
So speakers are only welcome at Oxford if they share the same political opinions? I ask him if for his thoughts on an email from the organisers of the demonstration, which described the Israeli policy towards Palestinians as “ethnic cleansing.”
“I’m not sure I would go as far as that, but it’s certainly ethnic suppression,” he replies. “The state of Israel was founded on the dispossession of Palestinian land.”
When I offer the hawkish view that many Israelis and Palestinians are in fact descended from similar Semitic tribes around the Middle East, all of whom share some claim to land in the area, he nods: “a similar ethnic group, yes, but the Palestinians are dispossessed – because they are Palestinians.”
Tatchell emphasises the importance of those in the “Occupied Territories” having the opportunity to assert their democratic right, and choose the government that rules them.
I ask him how he would feel about the democratic election of a hard-line Islamic government in a newly independent Palestine – something that seems ever more likely as Hamas continues to dominate the formerly pre-eminent Fatah. Surely this would only serve to cement the oppression felt by women, those from the LGBT community and other marginalised groups?
“It’s up to the Palestinians to elect a government of their choice. If they elect an administration that violates human rights, there should be an international solidarity campaign to support the many Palestinians who defend the human rights of woman, gays, non-believers and others,” says Tatchell.
“The era when the West dictates to the rest of the world is over; our job is to simply support Palestinian civil society groups.”
When pressed about the effect of returning Israel to its pre-1967 borders, however, Tatchell admits that “as part of the settlement, [he] would favour a human rights charter that would protect those threatened under a fundamentalist government.”
“Surely that’s a form of Western dictation about the way others should conduct themselves, albeit slightly more restricted in its scope,” I suggest.
But Tatchell’s argument is that human rights cross borders. Speaking passionately about the need for West to shift its focus in the Middle East, he argues that our “priority [should be] to support the new Palestinian state by funding a massive programme of new housing, schools, hospitals, sports facilities and roads.”
His faith in human rights is no more evident than in the words that follow this. “Economic development will undercut support for the men of violence and enable the Palestinian people to secure their national aspirations without resorting to conflict.”
And how about engendering a culture of respect for the human rights that Tatchell regards as universal? His belief is, that given the right support, the pressure groups within Palestinian society that are fighting for the rights of the groups we discussed will win the day.
Ultimately, I can’t help but think that this presumption is just another form of the long Western tradition of exporting our cultural values abroad, and believing that all those who seek development in economic terms will seek to emulate our own behaviour when they achieve their financial goals.
As a person with a degree of pessimism about domestic Palestinian politics, however, it a pleasure to talk to someone with so much faith in the universality of human ideals. I hope Tatchell is right. But I remain to be convinced.