mandag den 25. juli 2011

Exposed: Ethiopia gives farmland to foreigners while thousands starve


"A Survival investigation has uncovered alarming evidence that some of Ethiopia’s most productive farmland is being stolen from local tribes and leased to foreign companies to grow and export food – while thousands of its citizens starve during the devastating drought."

Om ideologi.

Enhver ideologi er et forsøg på en altomfattende verdensforklaring og netop deri ligger fælden, for når vi forsøger at forklare verdens enorme mangfoldighed indenfor rammeværket af en altomfattende ideologi, reducerer vi simultant vores perspektiv på tilværelsen og verden, til hvad vi kan få til at passe ind i det kognitive rammeværk som den ideologiske overbevisning udgør. Information der ikke passer ind i det ideologiske koordinatsystem ser vi bort fra, mens information der opretholder vores tro på, at den verdensforklaring vi nu engang er tilhængere af, er den eneste egentligt sande, til gengæld ganske let plottes ind i den ideologiske matrice vi opererer indenfor.

Vi er alle vidner til dette fænomen ofte. Når religiøse mennesker af monoteistisk observans eksempelvis tager skarp afstand fra evolutionsteorien er det et udtryk for dette, idet den darwinistiske evolutionsteori er uforenelig med de hellige bøgers skabelsesberetning og den deraf udledte teori om intelligent design, hvorfor evolutionsteorien altså snarere end at beskræfte rigtigheden af de monoteistiske religioners dogmatik, i stedet afkræfter dens krav på endegyldig sandhed. Et andet eksempel på hvordan information der ikke passer ind i verdensanskuelsen bortfiltreres, kan i denne tid ses hos dele af den yderste amerikanske højrefløj, hvor man gør et stort nummer ud af, at drage den klimatologiske konsensus omkring den globale opvarmning i tvivl, fordi det der vidt og bredt indenfor naturvidenskaben betragtes som kendsgerninger, ikke passer sammen med et ideologisk tankesæt, hvor uendelig forøgelse af rigdom og akkumulering af ressourcer betragtes som et ubetvivleligt gode.

At hævde, at ideologiske overbevisninger har været kilde til megen splid og splittelse op gennem menneskets civilisationshistorie og fortsat den dag i dag, er næppe at tage munden for fuld. Eksemplerne på dette er så talrige, at ingen i besiddelse af blot et minimum af dannelse kan være i tvivl om dette udsagns rigtighed, men selvom det burde være åbenlyst for enhver, at ideologierne skaber splittelse, had og vold, ja endda truer menneskehedens og andre livsformers kollektive eksistensgrundlag, forsyner vores samfund os kun i ringe grad med de nødvendige kognitive våben til at forsvare os mod at blive tilfangetagne i ideologiernes kvælende spindelvæv. Ideologisk overbevisning er ikke blot en stopklods for tænkningens frie udfoldelse, men også en grænsebom der sørger for, at vores empati og lydhørhed sjældent tilfalder folk hvis meninger og holdninger ikke befinder sig indenfor det rum af mening og betydninger som den ideologisk overbeviste befinder sig indenfor.

Skal vi gøre os forhåbninger om fredelig og positiv sameksistens med hinanden og den biosfære der er garanten for vores eksistens, bliver vi derfor nødt til at sætte en stopper for den vold, splittelse og splid som den ideologiske bevidsthed afstedkommer og i stedet skabe rammerne for, at et nyt, mere inklusivt og holistisk verdensbillede opstår og vinder udbredelse. Et nyt verdensbillede som har en ydmyghed indbygget i sig, i forståelsen af, at enhver afbildning af væren og vores tilværelse i verden, nødvendigvis må være begrænset og ufuldstændig. Et verdensbillede hvor der derfor er plads til mange perspektiver og erkendelsesveje, som alle komplementerer hinanden i en søgen mod positiv kollektiv evolution og den videst mulige genforening af mennesket og verden.

Breivik's manifesto in perspective.

The following is an attempt to put Anders Breivik's actions and ideological viewpoints into a larger perspective. The reason why I'm mostly using examples from Denmark is simply that they are the ones with which I am most familiar. Other examples abound!

In his manifesto we learn about Breivik's ideological views, which is a fusion of liberalist views in the realm of economics (he mentions the ultraliberalist Austrian School as an inspiration) with national conservatism, anti-marxism, anti-multiculturalism and anti-islamic views, and, last but not least, strong Christian views of a rather authoritarian variety. Above all he considers himself a freedom fighter and attempts to justify his actions by stating that they have been necessitated by the threats to the purity of Western culture generated by the influx of immigrants from non-western cultures in general and Islamic culture in particular.

Had he lived in the United States he would've made a good Republican in that the above-mentioned melting pot of ideological viewpoints to a great extent are the dominant ones within the current Republican Party. To a very large extent Breivik's views are also reminiscent of those of the Danish political party Fremskridtspartiet (The Party of Progress) whose sister party in Norway he was formerly associated with. Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader of the Danish national conservative party Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party), started her political career in Fremskridtspartiet and besides from Breiviks liberalist economic views, it seems that the party she leads shares most of the above-mentioned views with him. Dansk Folkeparti has been in constant growth for many years and parties similar to it are on the rise everywhere in Europe. In Denmark Dansk Folkeparti has been the supporting party of the government and the guarantor of its power for the last ten years. Within this rather short timespan this cooperation has resulted in some of the world's strongest anti-immigration laws, the rise and rise of the surveillance state and very concerning threats to our fundamental political freedoms.

It is not, however, only on the fringes of the Danish right-wing that we find these ideological melting pot tendencies. Soren Pind, who is one of the most prominent politicians on the right in Denmark at the moment, is a good example of this. Pind is a neoconservative when it comes to foreign policy, a national conservative in domestic affairs and a liberalist in the domain of economics, which of course makes him anti-marxist. He is currently the secretary of integration and he recently proposed that people from countries with many cultural similarities with what, in his mind, is Danish culture, should be allowed easier access to the country than people from cultures that are more dissimilar. He also recently stated that the goal of Danish integration policy shouldn't be merely to integrate immigrants into the culture but to assimilate them so that they become as much like the Danes as possible. This clearly indicates that he is a national conservative holding anti-islamic and anti-multiculturalist views, in that the dissimilar culture he is refering to is seemingly (what he considers to be) Islamic culture. Pind is probably the leading candidate to become the next leader of his party (Venstre), which together with De Konservative (The Conservatives), is currently in charge of government. The two governmental parties are lagging behind in all opinion polls though and the next election is at the most 3.5 months ahead. After his party's very probable loss he will likely become its leader, in that it is tradition for the leader to step down after losing an election and I can't really see any likelier candidate for the foremanship among the members of his party.

Breiviks ideological views are therefore not fringe right-wing views neither in Scandinavia nor the world at large and we should therefore be careful not to think of him as a lone madman, for even though we are definitely witnessing the work of a very narcissistic man seriously lacking in empathy for others, his actions can not be understood in isolation from his ideological views.

Take for example the war on Iraq, which claimed far more numerous lives than Breiviks actions. Is it not the case that this war stemmed from ideological views very similar to those of Breivik? Was it not presented to us - after the falsity of the evidence of Saddam's possesion of weapons of mass destruction had been made abundantly clear - as a crusade for freedom and democracy? Indeed it was and right-wing politicians from all over the West vehemently supported the war on ideological grounds similar to those of Breivik. Soren Pind has even ventured as far as saying that the war on Iraq caused the Arab Spring which is just another way of saying that the inferior Arabs didn't understand the true value of freedom and democracy until it was imposed upon their collective consciousness by the benevolent bombings of the superior West!

Rather than seeing Breivik as an isolated case we should view him as a product of far greater forces that are everywhere in the West trying to dismantle welfare, establish far reaching surveillance states and sow the seeds of hatred, separation and therefore violence.

We are no longer afraid of fascism thinking that we are too smart to ever let something like that happen again but unfortunately this has made us unable to see the forest for the trees. Sure, contemporary fascism is not an exact replica of any of the fascisms that ravaged Europe and South America during the twentieth century but it has enough similarities to justify the use of the term 'fascism'. Look at modern day Russia or the developments that have taken place in the United States and Europe, particularly since the turn of the millenium and it should be abundantly clear that we are heading in a very dangerous direction, especially when it is taken into account, that times of turmoil and economic recession are the breeding grounds of fascism.

When history repeats itself the charateristic phenomena of earlier times do not necessarily return exactly as they were in the past. Look therefore not for talk of the necessity of a strong leader. Contemporary fascists market themselves as good, sound democrats in favour of political freedoms, but do not be mislead! Look not for racebased ideology and anti-jewish rhetoric. Contemporary fascists are backers of the Israeli right-wing and its Zionist doctrines. The anti-jewish rhetoric and talk of the inferior race has vanished and instead been replaced with anti-islamic rhetoric and talk of the inferior Islamic culture! Look not for the roman salute or the swastika for they are not the primary characteristics of contemporary fascism. Fascism is now returning wrapped in the national flag and wearing the cross!

torsdag den 7. juli 2011

The Empathic Civilisation

Quotes of the day: Stéphane Hessel.


The quotes below are all taken from the now famous pamphlet by the French World War II resistance fighter Stéphane Hessel, entitled "Time for Outrage!" ("Indignez Vous!"):

"The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it; I’ll just get by.” Behaving like that deprives you of one of the essentials of being human: the capacity and the freedom to feel outraged. That freedom is indispensable, as is the political involvement that goes with it."

"We must realize that violence turns its back on hope. We have to choose hope over violence—choose the hope of nonviolence. That is the path we must learn to follow. The oppressors no less than the oppressed have to negotiate to remove the oppression: that is what will eliminate terrorist violence. That is why we cannot let too much hate accumulate."

"The Western obsession with productivity has brought the world to a crisis that we can escape only with a radical break from the headlong rush for “more, always more” in the financial realm as well as in science and technology. It is high time that concerns for ethics, justice and sustainability prevail. For we are threatened by the most serious dangers, which have the power to bring the human experiment to an end by making the planet uninhabitable."

Freedom and Terrorism

onsdag den 6. juli 2011

Quote of the day: Rudolf Rocker.

“Every new social structure makes organs for itself in the body of the old organism. Without this preliminary any social evolution is unthinkable. Even revolutions can only develop and mature the germs which already exist and have made their way into the consciousness of men; they cannot themselves create these germs or create new worlds out of nothing. It therefore concerns us to plant these germs while there is still yet time and bring them to the strongest possible development, so as to make the task of the coming social revolution easier and to ensure its permanence.”

Dokumentar: Dødelig Profit.