One way, harassing, persecuting, levelling law and order, keeping to a power regime, with the ultimate expression of dictatorship. Other way, demonstrating for their rights. Way one, well known. Way two, less well known, but seen now also in Egypt.
The problem with police work is that it is entangled in keeping power in the most strategical sense, and yet, has the greatest need for not being kept hostage, to keep a professional distance on its own. I am a policeman, a dictator orders me to torture once in a while, I wont give up my work, I see no possibility to protest, yet who do I select as victims. As science fiction author Gene Wolfe has examined, in one way or the other, we are all part of the torturer’s game.
Amazing news, after having seemingly lost the momentum, the opposition in Egypt gathered again, and has won, the dictator has resigned. A great message of hope for everyone. Egypt with democratic fire in her eyes has come through. Whatever happens next, the democratic greatness of this moment of history will always be remembered. People rose against dictatorship and filled the streets even if some were shot and tortured, they did not give in.
This is like a cure for cancer, for human society. It tells of medicine for the future. Egyptians followed Tunisians, but in a sense, also following the Americans two hundred years before, creating a revolution from the English, and more recently, trying to create a new change policy.
Basically Egypt has lived up to the lessons of World War II, the need for democracy to avoid slaughter and holocaust. Democracy is risky, everyone knows that, but I am ashamed of some “western” messages to Egypt over the last weeks, as if democracy counted for little, expedience for all. Turn your love lights on, recognize that even for “Western” interest, democracy is what works best, in the longer run, recognizing some typical short term costs. If a regime allows or creates violence, target this as criminal activity across honour and politics divides, don’t give in to stereotypes like “wars” or the abhorrent “zero tolerance” sloganeering, instead, be constructive and realistic. Forget tabloid macho language, focus on real solutions. Learn from the pioneers in Egypt 2011.
My heart is with Egypt today, the way is opened towards democracy and prosperity.
What about class analysis for the web? Click class: researchers could measure social class or ranking by the number of clicks or input needed to get the result that the user wants on the internet. Hypothesis, low class – many clicks, middle – some clicks, high – few clicks. The greater the wallet or the contact capital relative to IT, the fewer the clicks. Similar methods, minutes to wait for customer support, and the chance that it will actually be supportive, could be employed also, like programs functioning, partly functioning or vaporware. What is the total chance of lowering “information society annoyances factors”?
This could be a social class related measure (index) in its own right. The empirical core would tell of “activation” of information society power (via the internet and the pc), which is not necessarily bound to existing “pre-pc” class, status or rank, but can be. Perhaps lower clicks rates are associated with considerable individual capacity factors and even “nerdism” and “in-group” empathy factors. Perhaps your time in the queue is lessened if you manage to give a signal “Hello I have a problem representing a big techno mystery” beyond the usual “Hello it broke down once more”? Our click class analysis might be able to tell.
Does it rise with the “day memory” needing to be refined, before given over to dream work, like Freud thought? Is it caused not just by ordinary learning and generalisation processes, but by more specific impulses too? Could being in the other person’s position, be an important factor?
In this blog, I write about my sociological sense whatever the cause, with the aim to widen and deepen the field of inquiry, and improve the methods to get there. My blog posts are explorative mainly, but with an authoritative element also, trying to sum up existing research, and how to go on from there. Learning and democratization are two main themes.
Re Fujiya and Miyagi: Ventriloquizzing LP
Sound is good, a bit bass heavy, bringing forth the electro momentum of the group. The vinyl does not disappoint.
The music? Sometimes very good, but also kept in a kind of boy-room atmosphere, with repetetive themes and lyrics. The best parts of the LP are certainly a step up from the last album (Lightbulb) but keeps some of the same mixed quality. I am left thinking how come no-one have told them to move on and deconstruct their message? It seems a bit hermetic, isolated, and the tendency to schematic lyrics doesn’t help. At their best, though, the band brings the legacy of krautrock and the group Can further, stepping forward in this tradition, which is a considerable accomplishment by itself.
A new report by Gary Barker and co-researchers, Evolving Men – Initial Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), published by The International Center for Research on Women, Washington, shows changing standards regarding men and masculinity. Men increasingly embrace gender equal ideals and translate this into practices, but are held back by traditional roles and structures. Men’s own choices play a large role, but at the same time, structures and constraints are a key to understand these choices.
The IMAGES survey was to a large degree based on Norwegian research (p 64-5). This is a case of rich world research used to wider benefit, and an example of how Norwegian research can become internationalized.
I am reading Susan Weissman’s Victor Serge – The course is set on hope (Verso, London 2001), a remarkable book on many accounts, not least showing more of the Stalinist purge in Russia and abroad. Serge was a Russian Bolshevik who was also a relative free-thinker, barely escaping Stalin’s purges, publishing a lot of comments and experiences. Serge documented what was possibly the first holocaust, or the overlooked twin of the holocaust of the Jews later – the systematic large scale death campaign against “rival” revolutionary factions, especially Trotskyists, but in fact everyone daring to gainsay Stalin.
Serge was sympathetic to Trotsky, but developed doubts, and characterizes the authoritarian tendencies of Stalin’s opponents also. A main matter is the documentation regarding the purge of the revolutionaries in Russia. Serge wrote that there was scarcely an “old” comrade left – they had all been imprisoned or killed by Stalin. Serge did not use the word holocaust, but he did argue that Stalinism created perhaps the bloodiest counter-revolution in history, killing off all the opponents.
This book is mainly about Serge’s biography, with limited citations from his writings, but very valuable nevertheless. Especially interesting is Serge’s portrait of the way that the Stalinist pressure increased authoritarian tendencies even within the opposition.
Highly recommended.
I have finished reading Jonathan Littell’s The kindly ones, 1026 pages in the Norwegian translation, a remarkable book, even if I retain some scepticism on the psychology level. SS officers need not be personal killers, like the protagonist in this book, yet Littell’s way of treating this theme can also be seen as a way for creative literature to make its voice heard, to create an experimental field – and as such, very interesting.
The last part of the book contains a scathing critique of the idea that the Nazi gas chamber and elimination strategy was only directed against the Jews. It was directed against everyone “inferior” in Nazi race terms, the Jews were only the first victims. Empirically, in some contexts, the proportion of communists killed may have been as large as the proportion of Jews, and the main strategical matter was to eliminate everyone who were opposed to the new order.
Littell thereby also goes beyond David Goldhagen’s thesis that the holocaust was about the Jews and that more or less “any” German supported it. Littell’s fiction portrait of Nazi power basically willing to eliminate all opposition is more realistic. Goldhagen’s idea that almost every German was behind this, is not directly addressed by Littell, but is – mainly correct, I think – undermined by his storytelling, showing how even SS officers had a lot of private doubt and problems regarding the killing machine that they participated in.
It may be strange to post to this section through a kind of extended “beat poem”, but OK here it is.
Egypt with fire in her eyes
Home is where the heart is
But when there is no work, no food, no future – there is no home
Egypt has arisen with fire in her eyes
So-called apathy and lethargy, but now, banners in the streets
People showing up, we want human rights, and we will not yield to dictatorship
We don’t flee, we don’t give up to fear, we won’t use violence, and we stop looters and violence
I bow deeply in honour, as I watch street demonstrations in Cairo, Alexandria and other places in Egypt
It is not the sword of Islam, it belongs to all religions
It is not the superiority of Marxism, Liberalism or any other -ism
It is not the voice of any single belief
Instead, it is the big voice of all, of democracy, the experience of history
A power of old, a sister and brother, an ancient parent, a deep prayer
Learning from the best, South Africa not just for the black man, not the killing, but peacefully, together
Many things can come out of this, and for a poor country, it won’t be easy
Yet nothing can stop the forwards momentum, if people hold on to justice and democracy
People power is old women, not just young men
People power is a critique of those who have traditionally represented people
People power is an old power, like the power of cancelling debts, freeing labourers, letting the Jews go, equalizing beliefs
People power is a new power, women as much as men, peace before violence
Egypt has arisen – and the fire in her eyes gives hope to the whole world
I am just a European watching Egypt’s revolution on TV
I am just exposing my troubled mind
I am steeped with killing solutions, my history is full of it, even in small Norway, like the persecution of the Sami people
The west has blood on its hands – how can it help, making things better, from now on?
I am tired of the north African world being a despotic world, why can’t they get a chance like everyone else?
When I was young, South East Asia was a poor and war-torn region, now it is prospering
South America had dictatorships, now it has democracy
Now is time for Africa to move
My mother barely escaped the Nazis, fleeing to Sweden in World War II
My father fought with the British marine, securing convoys to Murmansk
My uncle was in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen, and barely survived
My other uncle fought in the Norwegian resistance
Egyptians, unite for democracy, and you will have the victory on your doorstep
Develop democracy for all, in everyday life, and it will lead to the developments you want, for all the people
We Norwegians united, to create a democratic state from 1814 onwards
We resisted colonialism and occupation, and won
We have some fire too
As world citizens, we were all betrayed by the horrendous 20th century killing solutions
Nazism especially, but also Stalinism
I was born in 1952
Seven years after the gas chambers
The gulags still ongoing
The two worst horrors humanity has yet seen
Why did these horrors happen?
Capitalism did not work out, not for the people, only for the rich
Reactions appeared, these were misused, catastrophies followed
Capitalism’s antidotes, its vaccines, like Marxism. were initially good, but were misled and became killing solutions instead
Why could such beliefs be misused?
They missed a central point, democracy
It was so weakly developed, that power people could take the front instead
The first holocaust, before the Nazi execution of Jews, was the Stalinist killing of revolutionary opponents
My uncle told me, German communists were the first inmates in Sachsenhausen
It all started with imprisonment of the opposition, breaking the first democratic principle
“Freedom is the freedom of the person that disagrees with me”
This is why I look into the eyes of Egypt and see a fire that is different
How can the democratic fire of street demonstrations remake a nation?
It is the spirit of democracy that makes people rise, the need for dignity, not the right belief
Perhaps there is a greater historical purpose, to get the message across, to get the old power to work
Don’t give in to factionalism, split interests or fundamentalist causes
Just get the little gold ring in place in the middle
Gold not for its value but for its prophecy
The voice of wisdom
To unite, to make democracy work
Women, as much as men
Is the ring whole?
At first it seems broken, but you can find the missing parts, they are there
The fire creates the ring
The fire in her eyes
Home is where the heart is
Egypt is our home today
The once-successful Norwegian group Babel Fish, relocated to Florø Melody Grand Prix, was voted first place into the final yesterday, with a father’s love song to his child, Depend on me.
