http://money.independent.co.uk/personal_finance/invest_save/article2298342.ece
Fairtrade is booming - but is it still a fair deal?
Trade justice at last or a perpetuation of a rotten system? Decide for yourself, says David Prosser
Published: 24 February 2007
Fairtrade is booming - but is it still a fair deal?
It's almost 11 years since the first Fairtrade bananas went on sale in Britain, and on Monday the Fairtrade Foundation will launch a fortnight-long celebration of the movement. The foundation, the umbrella organisation of Fairtrade groups active in the UK, wants Fairtrade Fortnight to be a showcase for more than 200 products that now bear the movement's kitemark.
There's certainly plenty to celebrate. More than a million developing world producers of everything from commodities, such as coffee, tea and fruit, to essentials, including herbs, spices and cotton products, to luxuries, such as ice cream and biscuits, are now signed up to the scheme.
To bear the Fairtrade mark, a product's retailer must be able to show that local farmers have been paid a higher price for the goods than local markets stipulate, and that workers involved in production have been paid fairly.
The fact that an independent organisation strictly polices the award of the Fairtrade mark - and beyond these two basic criteria, there are all sorts of other tests - has meant consumers in the West have been able to buy with confidence. As a result, business is booming.
Fairtrade sales have been growing at 40 per cent a year over the past three years. Market analyst Mintel estimates sales reached £230m in 2006 and predicts they will continue to grow to as much as £550m by 2011.
It helps that mainstream retailers are embracing the scheme. Marks & Spencer last year began selling a range of Fairtrade cotton clothing. Sainsbury's has plans to switch to selling only Fairtrade bananas.
But should consumers really be so confident they're doing the right thing when buying Fairtrade? Is the scheme, now a hugely powerful voice in many parts of the world, really as fair as it seems? There is no doubt that Fairtrade has helped many farmers in countries that have suffered at the hands of the inequities of a world trade system dominated by developed countries. But at the same time, there is a small but vocal band of Fairtrade critics who insist the scheme has many serious flaws.
Claire Melamed, the head of trade and corporates at Action Aid, the charity that works on a broad range of issues in developing countries, says: "The Fairtrade movement has worked wonders in making consumers think about world trade, but it is very much the start of a journey."
Action Aid's main concern about Fairtrade is that it does nothing to address the fundamental injustices in world trade systems. "While it's great for those farmers in the club, millions are left on the margins scraping a living," Melamed adds. "What Fairtrade does conclusively prove is that markets can be rigged in favour of poor people - and that consumers do care where their products come from."
Put another way, the argument is that Fairtrade is not sufficiently ambitious; it helps a few people to cope with an unfair system, rather than tackling the system itself. It's a point that is taxing French trade justice campaigners such as Jean-Pierre Boris and Christian Jacquiau. Both argue that by working within the current system, Fairtrade undermines the chances for radical reforms.
However, Ian Bretman, deputy director of the Fairtrade Foundation, is fiercely critical of such arguments. "It's too cynical to say that because you can't help everyone you shouldn't help anyone," he argues. "We do what we can and in any case, the system is changing, partly because Fairtrade has encouraged many people to become more engaged with the need for reform."
Bretman is concerned about other criticisms, in particular the arguments first put by Tim Harford, the populist academic who two years ago published The Undercover Economist. Harford says that by subsidising the price of commodities, Fairtrade is sending the wrong message to farmers. The fact that the price of, say, coffee is so low, he argues, is a sign there is too much of the stuff on the market. Rather than relying on a subsidised price, farmers should be diversifying into other markets.
Fairtrade itself says it agrees with this argument - to a point. "We recognise farmers need to make changes, whether it's improving productivity or diversifying or developing in another way," says Bretman. "But all of those changes require investment, which people can't do when their goods sell for below-subsistence prices."
Then there's the issue of who is really benefiting from Fairtrade. Consumers are prepared to pay a premium for Fairtrade goods because they like the concept. But how much of the premium ends up with the end producer? Are supermarkets charging higher prices for Fairtrade goods and exploiting consumers' good nature?
Harford, for example, believes that just 10 per cent of the premium that Fairtrade customers pay for coffee in a coffee bar ends up with the producer.
Bretman says it is impossible to say whether Western retailers are pocketing fatter margins on Fairtrade produce because prices vary so much. He believes the danger of this will recede as growing demand for Fairtrade goods encourages price competition among retailers. Even so, Bretman admits: "The scheme guarantees a minimum price for the producer, but we don't feel it's practical to set controls further down the road."
That represents a challenge for ethical consumers because they want the end producer to benefit. Many have deep-seated reservations about supermarkets, and would be reluctant to buy goods that swelled their coffers further. Nor does the moral maze end there. Nestlé, the food giant, is one of the most disliked and boycotted companies in the world by ethical shoppers, yet last year it launched Partners' Blend, a Fairtrade certificated coffee.
Bretman describes Nestlé's decision to seek Fairtrade certification as "a victory that shows a huge company is recognising this growing market". But is Fairtrade selling out to big business, signing deals with the sort of companies many people believe are responsible for trade injustices in the first place?
Ruth Rosselson, a director of campaigning group Ethical Consumer, remains a fan of Fairtrade. You don't have to buy Partners' Blend, she points out; there are plenty of other Fairtrade coffees to choose instead. Nevertheless, she says many people have been concerned by the Nestlé development. "There are a large number of consumers who wouldn't buy from Nestlé for all sorts of reasons and there has certainly been a backlash," she warns. "Fairtrade should not just be about whether a product qualifies for certification."
The final worry some campaigners now have about Fairtrade is an environmental one. While there are plenty of Fairtrade goods that British shoppers have no choice but to source from abroad - it's tricky growing cotton here, for example - there are others where local produce does exist. Should people support far-flung providers of honey or green beans, say, given the environmental costs of transporting the goods to this country and the fact they are already available locally?
Bretman says such issues are never black and white, but that ultimately consumers have to make up their own minds about any purchasing decision.
Nevertheless, he remains convinced of the power of Fairtrade - and that the brand will continue to grow. "There are more opportunities all the time," he says. "What I've seen over the past 10 years has been a move from us knocking on the door of businesses, trying to get a foot in, to them knocking on our door; that's down to the power of consumers."
How fair trade works
* The Fairtrade Foundation is an independent certification body that awards the Fairtrade mark to products that meet international Fairtrade standards. These are set by Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International.
* The label guarantees consumers that disadvantaged producers are getting a better deal. More than five million people - farmers, workers and their families - across 58 developing countries benefit.
* Fairtrade itself describes its mission as "addressing the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest providers".
* Producers must be paid above market prices for their goods, and workers involved in production must be paid minimum levels of wages.
* The organisation urges consumers to be sceptical about suppliers that claim to pay fair prices if they have not applied for Fairtrade certification.
* Full range of Fairtrade products: coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, sugar, bananas, apples, pears, plums, grapes, lemons, oranges, satsumas, clementines, lychees, avocados, pineapples, mangoes, fruit juices, smoothies, quinoa, peppers, green beans, coconuts, dried fruit, rooibos tea, green tea, ice cream, cakes, biscuits, honey, muesli, cereal bars, jams, chutney, sauces, herbs, spices, nuts, nut oil, wine, beer, rum, flowers, sports balls, rice, yoghurt, baby food, sugar body scrub, cotton products.
* In recent times, other such schemes have been developed, such as Equitrade, Rainforest Alliance and Utz Kapeh. All have different standards, to which Ethical Consumer (www.ethicalconsumer.org) publishes a guide.
Saturday 24 February 2007
Friday 23 February 2007
The Internet and the 'market revolution'
Hamish McRae: The internet has shifted the balance of power
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/hamish_mcrae/article2296811.ece
Published: 23 February 2007
It is what in theory ought to happen - but it is good to know that it is indeed happening. In theory the development of the internet is hugely democratic. It gives all of us the access to knowledge that a decade ago would have required a research department in a multinational. But it takes a while for people to figure out how to use the new technologies and for the services distributed through those technologies to be developed. Email, broadband, Google, eBay, Youtube, Skype and other ventures are changing the balance of power between the individual on the one hand and the state and big companies on the other.
The past few days have seen examples of this shift of power. The ability of consumers to compare gas prices has combined with market liberalisation to enable us to switch to the supplier which can offer the best deal, as Centrica has found to its cost. The power of the net has given bank customers the confidence to complain about charges, plus the mechanism for so doing. The easy access to email has enabled 1.8 million people to protest to No Ten about road charges.
This shift of power has happened as part of a wider market revolution. There would be less point in being able to compare gas prices if, as in many countries, you could not switch suppliers. But even where there is a monolith on one side of the equation, the very fact that individuals have access to global information changes the balance of power between them and it.
We are still in the early stages of this shift. But already we can pick out some of the consequences.
One is a sustained increase in the power of the consumer. We are already able to seek out good deals and compare quality as well as price but it takes time to do so and poor suppliers are not immediately punished. In the future they will be, forcing up the quality of goods and services further.
A second is a decline in the power of the expert. For example, doctors' prescriptions can be checked for their effectiveness - and checked globally. Incompetence can be spotted, challenged and punished.
A third is a decline in power of politicians, or more accurately, much more pressure on politicians to do what their electorate wants.
On the other hand the benefits of this "net democracy" only accrue to those individuals who are well-educated enough to take advantage of them. We have to have access but we also need to know how to use the flood of information now available. As with all advances - and this is a huge one - there are people who are left behind. Society needs to look after them too.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/hamish_mcrae/article2296811.ece
Published: 23 February 2007
It is what in theory ought to happen - but it is good to know that it is indeed happening. In theory the development of the internet is hugely democratic. It gives all of us the access to knowledge that a decade ago would have required a research department in a multinational. But it takes a while for people to figure out how to use the new technologies and for the services distributed through those technologies to be developed. Email, broadband, Google, eBay, Youtube, Skype and other ventures are changing the balance of power between the individual on the one hand and the state and big companies on the other.
The past few days have seen examples of this shift of power. The ability of consumers to compare gas prices has combined with market liberalisation to enable us to switch to the supplier which can offer the best deal, as Centrica has found to its cost. The power of the net has given bank customers the confidence to complain about charges, plus the mechanism for so doing. The easy access to email has enabled 1.8 million people to protest to No Ten about road charges.
This shift of power has happened as part of a wider market revolution. There would be less point in being able to compare gas prices if, as in many countries, you could not switch suppliers. But even where there is a monolith on one side of the equation, the very fact that individuals have access to global information changes the balance of power between them and it.
We are still in the early stages of this shift. But already we can pick out some of the consequences.
One is a sustained increase in the power of the consumer. We are already able to seek out good deals and compare quality as well as price but it takes time to do so and poor suppliers are not immediately punished. In the future they will be, forcing up the quality of goods and services further.
A second is a decline in the power of the expert. For example, doctors' prescriptions can be checked for their effectiveness - and checked globally. Incompetence can be spotted, challenged and punished.
A third is a decline in power of politicians, or more accurately, much more pressure on politicians to do what their electorate wants.
On the other hand the benefits of this "net democracy" only accrue to those individuals who are well-educated enough to take advantage of them. We have to have access but we also need to know how to use the flood of information now available. As with all advances - and this is a huge one - there are people who are left behind. Society needs to look after them too.
Thursday 22 February 2007
Cameron Speech
Comment
No one will be left behind in a Tory Britain
By vigorously promoting equal opportunity and fairness, we will make this a better country for all
David Cameron
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
The subject of community cohesion, for understandable reasons, has become prominent in our national conversation over the past few years. But it is a challenge we have faced before: the question of how we live together is as old as humanity itself. Throughout history, there have been periods when Britain has not been entirely comfortable with itself or individual communities within it.
Who would now question the contribution made by Jewish people to British society - or even talk about there being a conflict between being British and Jewish? And yet, only 50 years ago, this was exactly the debate going on in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. More recently, Britain’s Irish community was questioning and being questioned about its loyalty to Britain.
Each time, over time, we have kept our country together by having faith in our institutions and our way of doing things: freedom under the rule of law, a common culture defined by pluralism and tolerance and a distinctively British approach (calm, thoughtful, reasonable) to potentially incendiary issues. The challenge today may have its own specific characteristics, but our approach should be the same. In that context, I am concerned by the direction that the debate on cohesion has taken recently. I believe it is time for a more British approach.
First, we must not fall for the illusion that the problems of community cohesion can be solved simply through top-down, quick-fix state action. State action is certainly necessary today, but it is not sufficient. Second, it must be the right kind of action, expressed in a calm, thoughtful and reasonable way.
The doctrine of multiculturalism has undermined our nation’s sense of cohesion because it emphasises what divides us rather than what brings us together. It has been manipulated to entrench the right to difference (a divisive concept) at the expense of the right to equal treatment despite difference (a unifying concept). But in seeking to atone for those mistakes, we should not lurch, with the zeal of the convert, into a simplistic promotion of ‘Britishness’ that is neither in keeping with our traditions, nor likely to bring our communities closer together.
Yes, we need to ensure that every one of our citizens can speak to each other in our national language. Yes, we need to ensure that our children are taught British history properly. And I do think it is important to create more opportunities for celebrating our sense of nationhood. Unlike Labour, we will set out a clear and consistent path to ensure these things actually happen, starting with our policy review which will make specific recommendations this week.
But I think we need to go much deeper than this if we are to address the substantial alienation and division that exist in our country today. It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new ‘Veteran’s Day’ when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn. These and similar clunking attempts to address the complexities of community cohesion show a serious misunderstanding of the scale of the challenge, and the shape of the solution. Above all, we have seen a dangerous muddling of concerns: community cohesion, the threat of terrorism and the integration of British Muslims.
Promoting community cohesion should indeed be part of our response to terrorism. But cohesion is not just about terrorism and it is certainly not just about Muslims. Similarly, promoting integration will help protect our security. But too mechanistic a connection between these objectives will make it harder to achieve both, by giving the impression that the state considers all Muslims to be a security risk.
This week’s report from our policy review, the product of months of dialogue with Britain’s diverse communities, will seek to disentangle these threads and point a clear and responsible way forward. There will be no shying away from the tough issues: the influence of those who twist faith into ideology; the cultural attitudes that exclude women from mainstream society; the impact of foreign policy on domestic affairs; and, vitally, the divisive effects of the catastrophic failure of state education in many parts of urban Britain.
I want the Conservative party to stand for a broad and generous vision of British identity. In a speech in Birmingham tomorrow, I will argue that questions of social cohesion are also questions of social justice and social inclusion. Cohesion is as much about rich and poor, included and left behind as it is about English and Scot or Muslim and Christian. Inspiring as well as demanding loyalty from every citizen will require a new crusade for fairness. A society that consistently denies some of its people the chance to escape poverty, to get on in life, to fulfil their dreams and to feel that their contribution is part of a national effort: such a society will struggle to inspire loyalty, however many citizenship classes it provides.
Fairness will be our most powerful weapon against fragmentation. In America, new immigrants feel part of something from the moment they arrive because they feel they have the opportunity to succeed. It is that belief in equal opportunity that we need in Britain today and it is why the denial of quality education to so many is such a vital part of the cohesion argument.
There is no easy short cut. Having tried to impose democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun, we must surely realise that we will never impose cohesion at home with the ping of a press release. There are serious divisions in our country today. Many thousands - maybe millions - feel shut out, under attack. Turning the situation around will require patience. We must be calm, thoughtful and reasonable: that is the British way.
Building cohesion is a social responsibility. Government must enforce the rules of the road - speaking English, teaching history, upholding and celebrating the symbols of nationhood - and we will be absolutely clear about what needs to be done. If the government brings forward these measures, they will have our full support.
But this is about much more than government and politics. We must each do all we can to make this a fairer and more just society - helping others, creating opportunity and ensuring that no one is excluded from it.
The article was accompanied by a leader comment and a news report:
Inclusive Cameron sets a welcome benchmark
Leader
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
Any community subjected to the sort of public scrutiny that has been brought to bear on British Muslims in recent years would feel defensive. Their customs and beliefs are analysed, their habits are judged against ill-defined notions of ‘Britishness’.
Often, devout Muslims are compared not with other conservative groups - ultra-orthodox Jews or evangelical Christians, for example - but to the liberal values of the Enlightenment, which had anti-clericalism as one of its central pillars. Not surprisingly, they are found wanting, as if it is not enough for Muslims to obey the law, but that they should also study Voltaire.
The reason Muslim illiberalism is scrutinised more than that of other faiths is that terrorist acts have recently been committed in Britain in the name of Islam. That is why a cultural and historical debate about what it means to be British, once the province of academics, has become a favourite theme for politicians.
Writing in today’s Observer, David Cameron enters that fray. This week, he announces the results of his party’s policy review on social cohesion. Measured against the many forays into the subject from the right, Mr Cameron’s tone is not hysterical. Compared with the government’s approach, it is not activist in its view of the state’s role in promoting integration. Mr Cameron recognises that the exclusion of many Muslims, and, indeed, non-Muslims from mainstream society is a problem, but one that is best seen as a subset of wider issues of poverty and lack of social mobility. For that reason, there is not much sense ordering the excluded to ‘integrate’. We should, rather, have confidence that social cohesion will flow naturally from fair access to good education and more equitable distribution of prosperity.
This is hardly revolutionary thinking. But it does mark a welcome alternative to the view that young Muslims should be urgently inculcated with ‘Britishness’ in the interests of national security. It is also a departure from the Tory habit of waving the flag and waiting impatiently for immigrants to rally to it. But Conservative members have already shown a reactionary queasiness about their leader’s new direction on other issues. It would be shame if they cannot embrace a tolerant message on social cohesion. It is the right one.
Cameron blast at crude bullying on ‘British values’
Muslims must end curbs on women’s study - Tory leader
Gaby Hinsliff and Jamie Doward
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
David Cameron today dramatically shifts the terms of the debate over Britishness by demanding a new language of cohesiveness on the controversial issues of faith, race and nationhood.
In a ground-breaking article in today’s Observer, the Tory leader lambasts the government for its aggressive approach, arguing: ‘It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
The call for a ‘calm, thoughtful, reasonable’ approach to defining Britishness rather than hectoring ethnic minorities comes ahead of a speech today in which Cameron will nonetheless warn that such a stance must not mean tolerating injustices, such as Muslim women being prevented from studying or working outside the home.
In today’s article Cameron attacks ‘clunking’ government ideas to shore up national identity, such as urging Britons to fly the flag at home, and the ‘dangerous muddling’ of community cohesion with the threat from terrorism. New ways should be found to celebrate ‘our sense of nationhood’ instead, he adds, although it is not clear what these might be.
‘A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new “Veterans’ Day” when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn.’
And while promoting cohesion could be part of responding to the war on terror, it was ‘not just about terrorism and certainly not just about Muslims’, he added.
His argument will be underlined by a report this week from the party’s policy commission on national security calling for new thinking on community cohesion. It will highlight the removal of teenage Asian girls from school and question whether some Muslim parents are supporting their daughters’ desire for education, as well as calling for forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. In his speech in Birmingham, Cameron will argue that the oppression of women in some communities is a cultural rather than religious phenomenon. Tories must ‘be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity, to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support’.
Sayeeda Warsi, Tory vice-chairman and adviser to Cameron, said she was struck by the way some female Muslims were held back while she was out canvassing at the last election. ‘The number of women I came across who said they wanted to go to university but their parents didn’t want them to, who wanted to get a job but were not allowed, who were not allowed to vote freely because the men in their family got postal votes... I came away feeling that here was an enormous resource wasted,’ she said. ‘This way of life is not because of the faith, it is cultural interpretations of it. David feels we can’t be culturally sensitive to issues which are fundamentally wrong.’
Cameron’s decoupling of cohesion from national security issues was welcomed by the Muslim Council of Great Britain. However, the Commission for Human Rights and Equality said it would reserve judgment for the full report.
Muslim extremists are mirror image of BNP, says Cameron
Hélène Mulholland
The Guardian, Monday 29 January, 2007
David Cameron today compared British Muslim extremists to the British National party, claiming that they were the “mirror image” of the racist organisation.
In a keynote speech on community cohesion, the Tory leader said that extremism was one of five “Berlin walls of division” blocking community cohesion.
Mr Cameron demanded an end to the oppression of women inside the Muslim community who are denied the opportunity to go out to work or attend university.
And he warned that difficult issues must not be avoided by hiding behind a “screen of cultural sensitivity”.
Raising educational standards, controlling immigration and tackling poverty all had important roles to play in bringing down the barriers, he said at the event in Lozells, Birmingham.
Mr Cameron's strong attack on the failure to improve community cohesion comes as a survey published by the Policy Exchange reveals growing militancy among young Muslims who feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents' generation.
While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16-24-year-olds, the survey found.
The percentage of people who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
Mr Cameron insisted that the question of community cohesion was not “all about terrorism or all about Muslims”. But he went on to attack fundamentalist Muslims who sought to rupture efforts at cohesion.
“Whether it's the BNP, or those who want to separate British Muslims from the mainstream, their aim is to act within the law to subvert its ends, changing the law as and when they can to achieve their ends,” Mr Cameron said.
“We must mobilise the instruments of public policy to draw people away from supporting such ideologies.
“The BNP pretend to be respectable. But their creed is pure hate... and those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP.
“They also want to divide people into 'us' and 'them.' And they too seek out grievances to exploit. “
Mr Cameron also insisted it was important to be bold as he highlighted the plight of many Muslim women denied access to education, work and political engagement.
“I'm told time and time again by women that the denial of these opportunities is not because of their Islamic faith but because of current cultural interpretations in Britain.
“We must therefore be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity... to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support.”
The government's failure to control immigration was another key source of tension, he added.
The Tory leader also attacked educational apartheid created by the existence of “good and bad schools” that denied some a decent education and made them prey to extremists who offered “easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people ... instead of becoming productive citizens who can make a constructive contribution to the community and the country”.
“Some make it despite the obstacles - but too many don't. Those who get left behind are prime targets for extremists who offer easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people.”Mr Cameron also took the opportunity to criticise a recent government decision to pull free language classes for migrant workers as running contrary to government pledges to help integration. “Quite how that helps bring the country together I don't know,” he said.
No one will be left behind in a Tory Britain
By vigorously promoting equal opportunity and fairness, we will make this a better country for all
David Cameron
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
The subject of community cohesion, for understandable reasons, has become prominent in our national conversation over the past few years. But it is a challenge we have faced before: the question of how we live together is as old as humanity itself. Throughout history, there have been periods when Britain has not been entirely comfortable with itself or individual communities within it.
Who would now question the contribution made by Jewish people to British society - or even talk about there being a conflict between being British and Jewish? And yet, only 50 years ago, this was exactly the debate going on in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. More recently, Britain’s Irish community was questioning and being questioned about its loyalty to Britain.
Each time, over time, we have kept our country together by having faith in our institutions and our way of doing things: freedom under the rule of law, a common culture defined by pluralism and tolerance and a distinctively British approach (calm, thoughtful, reasonable) to potentially incendiary issues. The challenge today may have its own specific characteristics, but our approach should be the same. In that context, I am concerned by the direction that the debate on cohesion has taken recently. I believe it is time for a more British approach.
First, we must not fall for the illusion that the problems of community cohesion can be solved simply through top-down, quick-fix state action. State action is certainly necessary today, but it is not sufficient. Second, it must be the right kind of action, expressed in a calm, thoughtful and reasonable way.
The doctrine of multiculturalism has undermined our nation’s sense of cohesion because it emphasises what divides us rather than what brings us together. It has been manipulated to entrench the right to difference (a divisive concept) at the expense of the right to equal treatment despite difference (a unifying concept). But in seeking to atone for those mistakes, we should not lurch, with the zeal of the convert, into a simplistic promotion of ‘Britishness’ that is neither in keeping with our traditions, nor likely to bring our communities closer together.
Yes, we need to ensure that every one of our citizens can speak to each other in our national language. Yes, we need to ensure that our children are taught British history properly. And I do think it is important to create more opportunities for celebrating our sense of nationhood. Unlike Labour, we will set out a clear and consistent path to ensure these things actually happen, starting with our policy review which will make specific recommendations this week.
But I think we need to go much deeper than this if we are to address the substantial alienation and division that exist in our country today. It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new ‘Veteran’s Day’ when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn. These and similar clunking attempts to address the complexities of community cohesion show a serious misunderstanding of the scale of the challenge, and the shape of the solution. Above all, we have seen a dangerous muddling of concerns: community cohesion, the threat of terrorism and the integration of British Muslims.
Promoting community cohesion should indeed be part of our response to terrorism. But cohesion is not just about terrorism and it is certainly not just about Muslims. Similarly, promoting integration will help protect our security. But too mechanistic a connection between these objectives will make it harder to achieve both, by giving the impression that the state considers all Muslims to be a security risk.
This week’s report from our policy review, the product of months of dialogue with Britain’s diverse communities, will seek to disentangle these threads and point a clear and responsible way forward. There will be no shying away from the tough issues: the influence of those who twist faith into ideology; the cultural attitudes that exclude women from mainstream society; the impact of foreign policy on domestic affairs; and, vitally, the divisive effects of the catastrophic failure of state education in many parts of urban Britain.
I want the Conservative party to stand for a broad and generous vision of British identity. In a speech in Birmingham tomorrow, I will argue that questions of social cohesion are also questions of social justice and social inclusion. Cohesion is as much about rich and poor, included and left behind as it is about English and Scot or Muslim and Christian. Inspiring as well as demanding loyalty from every citizen will require a new crusade for fairness. A society that consistently denies some of its people the chance to escape poverty, to get on in life, to fulfil their dreams and to feel that their contribution is part of a national effort: such a society will struggle to inspire loyalty, however many citizenship classes it provides.
Fairness will be our most powerful weapon against fragmentation. In America, new immigrants feel part of something from the moment they arrive because they feel they have the opportunity to succeed. It is that belief in equal opportunity that we need in Britain today and it is why the denial of quality education to so many is such a vital part of the cohesion argument.
There is no easy short cut. Having tried to impose democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun, we must surely realise that we will never impose cohesion at home with the ping of a press release. There are serious divisions in our country today. Many thousands - maybe millions - feel shut out, under attack. Turning the situation around will require patience. We must be calm, thoughtful and reasonable: that is the British way.
Building cohesion is a social responsibility. Government must enforce the rules of the road - speaking English, teaching history, upholding and celebrating the symbols of nationhood - and we will be absolutely clear about what needs to be done. If the government brings forward these measures, they will have our full support.
But this is about much more than government and politics. We must each do all we can to make this a fairer and more just society - helping others, creating opportunity and ensuring that no one is excluded from it.
The article was accompanied by a leader comment and a news report:
Inclusive Cameron sets a welcome benchmark
Leader
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
Any community subjected to the sort of public scrutiny that has been brought to bear on British Muslims in recent years would feel defensive. Their customs and beliefs are analysed, their habits are judged against ill-defined notions of ‘Britishness’.
Often, devout Muslims are compared not with other conservative groups - ultra-orthodox Jews or evangelical Christians, for example - but to the liberal values of the Enlightenment, which had anti-clericalism as one of its central pillars. Not surprisingly, they are found wanting, as if it is not enough for Muslims to obey the law, but that they should also study Voltaire.
The reason Muslim illiberalism is scrutinised more than that of other faiths is that terrorist acts have recently been committed in Britain in the name of Islam. That is why a cultural and historical debate about what it means to be British, once the province of academics, has become a favourite theme for politicians.
Writing in today’s Observer, David Cameron enters that fray. This week, he announces the results of his party’s policy review on social cohesion. Measured against the many forays into the subject from the right, Mr Cameron’s tone is not hysterical. Compared with the government’s approach, it is not activist in its view of the state’s role in promoting integration. Mr Cameron recognises that the exclusion of many Muslims, and, indeed, non-Muslims from mainstream society is a problem, but one that is best seen as a subset of wider issues of poverty and lack of social mobility. For that reason, there is not much sense ordering the excluded to ‘integrate’. We should, rather, have confidence that social cohesion will flow naturally from fair access to good education and more equitable distribution of prosperity.
This is hardly revolutionary thinking. But it does mark a welcome alternative to the view that young Muslims should be urgently inculcated with ‘Britishness’ in the interests of national security. It is also a departure from the Tory habit of waving the flag and waiting impatiently for immigrants to rally to it. But Conservative members have already shown a reactionary queasiness about their leader’s new direction on other issues. It would be shame if they cannot embrace a tolerant message on social cohesion. It is the right one.
Cameron blast at crude bullying on ‘British values’
Muslims must end curbs on women’s study - Tory leader
Gaby Hinsliff and Jamie Doward
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
David Cameron today dramatically shifts the terms of the debate over Britishness by demanding a new language of cohesiveness on the controversial issues of faith, race and nationhood.
In a ground-breaking article in today’s Observer, the Tory leader lambasts the government for its aggressive approach, arguing: ‘It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
The call for a ‘calm, thoughtful, reasonable’ approach to defining Britishness rather than hectoring ethnic minorities comes ahead of a speech today in which Cameron will nonetheless warn that such a stance must not mean tolerating injustices, such as Muslim women being prevented from studying or working outside the home.
In today’s article Cameron attacks ‘clunking’ government ideas to shore up national identity, such as urging Britons to fly the flag at home, and the ‘dangerous muddling’ of community cohesion with the threat from terrorism. New ways should be found to celebrate ‘our sense of nationhood’ instead, he adds, although it is not clear what these might be.
‘A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new “Veterans’ Day” when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn.’
And while promoting cohesion could be part of responding to the war on terror, it was ‘not just about terrorism and certainly not just about Muslims’, he added.
His argument will be underlined by a report this week from the party’s policy commission on national security calling for new thinking on community cohesion. It will highlight the removal of teenage Asian girls from school and question whether some Muslim parents are supporting their daughters’ desire for education, as well as calling for forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. In his speech in Birmingham, Cameron will argue that the oppression of women in some communities is a cultural rather than religious phenomenon. Tories must ‘be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity, to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support’.
Sayeeda Warsi, Tory vice-chairman and adviser to Cameron, said she was struck by the way some female Muslims were held back while she was out canvassing at the last election. ‘The number of women I came across who said they wanted to go to university but their parents didn’t want them to, who wanted to get a job but were not allowed, who were not allowed to vote freely because the men in their family got postal votes... I came away feeling that here was an enormous resource wasted,’ she said. ‘This way of life is not because of the faith, it is cultural interpretations of it. David feels we can’t be culturally sensitive to issues which are fundamentally wrong.’
Cameron’s decoupling of cohesion from national security issues was welcomed by the Muslim Council of Great Britain. However, the Commission for Human Rights and Equality said it would reserve judgment for the full report.
Muslim extremists are mirror image of BNP, says Cameron
Hélène Mulholland
The Guardian, Monday 29 January, 2007
David Cameron today compared British Muslim extremists to the British National party, claiming that they were the “mirror image” of the racist organisation.
In a keynote speech on community cohesion, the Tory leader said that extremism was one of five “Berlin walls of division” blocking community cohesion.
Mr Cameron demanded an end to the oppression of women inside the Muslim community who are denied the opportunity to go out to work or attend university.
And he warned that difficult issues must not be avoided by hiding behind a “screen of cultural sensitivity”.
Raising educational standards, controlling immigration and tackling poverty all had important roles to play in bringing down the barriers, he said at the event in Lozells, Birmingham.
Mr Cameron's strong attack on the failure to improve community cohesion comes as a survey published by the Policy Exchange reveals growing militancy among young Muslims who feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents' generation.
While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16-24-year-olds, the survey found.
The percentage of people who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
Mr Cameron insisted that the question of community cohesion was not “all about terrorism or all about Muslims”. But he went on to attack fundamentalist Muslims who sought to rupture efforts at cohesion.
“Whether it's the BNP, or those who want to separate British Muslims from the mainstream, their aim is to act within the law to subvert its ends, changing the law as and when they can to achieve their ends,” Mr Cameron said.
“We must mobilise the instruments of public policy to draw people away from supporting such ideologies.
“The BNP pretend to be respectable. But their creed is pure hate... and those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP.
“They also want to divide people into 'us' and 'them.' And they too seek out grievances to exploit. “
Mr Cameron also insisted it was important to be bold as he highlighted the plight of many Muslim women denied access to education, work and political engagement.
“I'm told time and time again by women that the denial of these opportunities is not because of their Islamic faith but because of current cultural interpretations in Britain.
“We must therefore be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity... to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support.”
The government's failure to control immigration was another key source of tension, he added.
The Tory leader also attacked educational apartheid created by the existence of “good and bad schools” that denied some a decent education and made them prey to extremists who offered “easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people ... instead of becoming productive citizens who can make a constructive contribution to the community and the country”.
“Some make it despite the obstacles - but too many don't. Those who get left behind are prime targets for extremists who offer easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people.”Mr Cameron also took the opportunity to criticise a recent government decision to pull free language classes for migrant workers as running contrary to government pledges to help integration. “Quite how that helps bring the country together I don't know,” he said.
Friday 9 February 2007
Monday 5 February 2007
One Contemporary Take on the Enlightenment
Johann Hari: The art of subverting the Enlightenment
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2237694.ece
The Chapman brothers' declared aim is an old one, offered by fascists and priests for the past 300 years
Published: 05 February 2007
If a single work of modern art has penetrated our distracted consciousness in the past decade, it is the penis-nosed, vagina-mouthed child-mannequins designed by Jake and Dinos Chapman. These monstrous "zygotic twins" stare at us from behind their genital-noses and demand we stare back. After an infinity of watery watercolours and old Old Masters served up as the only face of Art, the Chapman Brothers offer a kind of punk art that spits in your face, punches you in the stomach, and nicks your wallet while you are puking on the floor.
These works have somehow leeched into our collective subconscious. So why - as I staggered around their retrospective in Tate Liverpool, gaped at their new exhibit at Tate Britain, and read through their scattered essays - did I find myself ravaged by hatred for them?
Many people assume that the Chapmans' work is simply a scattering of anarchic insights and provocations with no underlying coherence. They're wrong.
In the 18th century, a swelling of philosophers, scientists and artists launched the Enlightenment. At its core, they argued that instead of relying on divine revelation, we should closely observe the world around us and base a rational world-view on the empirical evidence we gather. Everything good about our world, such as the miracle of modern medicine, or the birth of human rights movements, comes from this project. The Chapmans' declared aim is an old one, offered by fascists and priests for the past 300 years: to puncture and destroy it.
Jake Chapman has declared that "the Enlightenment project. ... virulently infects the earth". Let's look at an example of how this hatred animates their work.
Francisco Goya was one of the first great artists of the Enlightenment. In 1799, in his famous Caprichos etchings, he caricatured the religious figures who controlled Spain, and he lauded the secular and liberal politicians who fought against them. It was his Enlightenment commitment to showing the unvarnished truth that later made him paint war-scenes as they really were, for the first time. He stripped out the old chivalry and romance; he showed the blood and broken bodies. In 2003, the Chapmans bought some of Goya's original prints - and vandalised them.
Where Goya drew with documentary clarity the agonised victims of war, the Chapmans painted the jeering faces of clowns and puppies over them. "Goya's the artist who represents the kind of expressionistic struggle of the Enlightenment with the ancien regime," Jake Chapman explained, "so it's kind of nice to kick its underbelly." Goya famously said "the sleep of reason produces monsters". The Chapmans say the opposite: it is when reason is wide awake that it produces monsters. (Really? Did Hitler scrupulously adhere to fact, evidence and reason-based inferences?).
The Chapmans trashing Goya is a pure expression of postmodernist philosophy. They vandalise and ridicule the fruits of reason - and what do they offer in its place? At times, they offer up an imaginary pristine past, before reason supposedly contaminated the world. You can see this mentality in The Chapman Family Collection - a gathering of fake African tribal artifacts which the viewer gradually realises are modelled on Ronald McDonald and his friends. We are supposed to lament the contrast between their "authenticity" and our "fakeness".
But ditching the Enlightenment quickly leads to even darker places than this. The Chapmans' intellectual hero is Georges Bataille, the French writer and (anti-)philosopher who was obsessed with moments of "transgression", when the "prison" of the Enlightenment could be left behind. And these glorious moments? They mostly consist of torture. He lauded the Marquis de Sade, an aristocratic rapist who preyed on working-class women, because he "had only one occupation in his long life which really absorbed him - that of enumerating to the point of exhaustion the possibilities of destroying human beings, and of enjoying the thought of their death and suffering".
Jake Chapman echoes his hero. He talks about the "libidinal pleasure" that comes from seeing a real picture of a real person being tortured, because of the "transgression of the ethics that that image is supposed to trigger or incite". A few years ago he was asked in the Papers of Surrealism: "Does Battaille's formulation of the conception of transgression relate to the way that work like your own is sometimes suggested as being part of a necessary force?" He replied: "Yes - a good social service like the children who killed Jamie Bulger." (Perhaps opening their exhibition in Liverpool was not such a smart idea).
Some foolish critics have praised the "moral anger" in the Chapmans' work, directed at "injustice and cruelty". Precisely the opposite is the case. This is immoral anger, celebrating injustice and cruelty as "transgression".
This isn't surprising. When you strip away our Enlightenment defences against psychosis, what are you left with? The best thing you can say about this philosophy is that very few people will ever take it seriously. But a few have: look at Michael Foucault, the postmodernist icon who was another disciple of Bataille. In a telling parable about postmodernism, Foucault went to Iran in 1978 to witness the incipient revolution. Having dismantled the Enlightenment, this was for him "year zero" in terms of political thought.
He was searching for a new intellectual project. He found it with the Ayatollah Khomeini. He met him, called him an "old saint", and fawned about "the love that everyone [in Iran] individually feels for him". He attacked the secular, democratic and feminist wings of the revolution, saying Iranians "don't have the same regime of truth" as Westerners.
Khomeinism descended into tyranny and mass murder. If Foucault has stayed another few months in Tehran, he would have been hanged for his homosexuality. But he only ever criticised "the old saint" once - when he worried he might be about to adopt democracy, because "we know where that leads".
His embarrassed defenders see Foucault's flirtation with the Ayatollahs as a weird abberation. It isn't. It's the culmination of his life's work dismantling reason. Why shouldn't premodernism and postmodernism come together in the face of a common foe? After reason, what remains but raw irrationality?
The Chapmans inhabit the same fetid dead-end. Jake has described the international opposition to the Taliban blowing up ancient Buddhist sculptures as "strange", describing it with bland semi-admiration as the "live, vital religious opposition to something that has a direct and local meaning to them".
So there are only two options left in assessing the faeces-flinging provocations of the Chapmans. You can dismiss them as a pair of unserious middle-aged millionaires who grew up in Cheltenham and now pose as rebels from the badlands of Tate Britain. Or you can assume they mean what they say. So which is it, boys - are you clowns, or monsters?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2237694.ece
The Chapman brothers' declared aim is an old one, offered by fascists and priests for the past 300 years
Published: 05 February 2007
If a single work of modern art has penetrated our distracted consciousness in the past decade, it is the penis-nosed, vagina-mouthed child-mannequins designed by Jake and Dinos Chapman. These monstrous "zygotic twins" stare at us from behind their genital-noses and demand we stare back. After an infinity of watery watercolours and old Old Masters served up as the only face of Art, the Chapman Brothers offer a kind of punk art that spits in your face, punches you in the stomach, and nicks your wallet while you are puking on the floor.
These works have somehow leeched into our collective subconscious. So why - as I staggered around their retrospective in Tate Liverpool, gaped at their new exhibit at Tate Britain, and read through their scattered essays - did I find myself ravaged by hatred for them?
Many people assume that the Chapmans' work is simply a scattering of anarchic insights and provocations with no underlying coherence. They're wrong.
In the 18th century, a swelling of philosophers, scientists and artists launched the Enlightenment. At its core, they argued that instead of relying on divine revelation, we should closely observe the world around us and base a rational world-view on the empirical evidence we gather. Everything good about our world, such as the miracle of modern medicine, or the birth of human rights movements, comes from this project. The Chapmans' declared aim is an old one, offered by fascists and priests for the past 300 years: to puncture and destroy it.
Jake Chapman has declared that "the Enlightenment project. ... virulently infects the earth". Let's look at an example of how this hatred animates their work.
Francisco Goya was one of the first great artists of the Enlightenment. In 1799, in his famous Caprichos etchings, he caricatured the religious figures who controlled Spain, and he lauded the secular and liberal politicians who fought against them. It was his Enlightenment commitment to showing the unvarnished truth that later made him paint war-scenes as they really were, for the first time. He stripped out the old chivalry and romance; he showed the blood and broken bodies. In 2003, the Chapmans bought some of Goya's original prints - and vandalised them.
Where Goya drew with documentary clarity the agonised victims of war, the Chapmans painted the jeering faces of clowns and puppies over them. "Goya's the artist who represents the kind of expressionistic struggle of the Enlightenment with the ancien regime," Jake Chapman explained, "so it's kind of nice to kick its underbelly." Goya famously said "the sleep of reason produces monsters". The Chapmans say the opposite: it is when reason is wide awake that it produces monsters. (Really? Did Hitler scrupulously adhere to fact, evidence and reason-based inferences?).
The Chapmans trashing Goya is a pure expression of postmodernist philosophy. They vandalise and ridicule the fruits of reason - and what do they offer in its place? At times, they offer up an imaginary pristine past, before reason supposedly contaminated the world. You can see this mentality in The Chapman Family Collection - a gathering of fake African tribal artifacts which the viewer gradually realises are modelled on Ronald McDonald and his friends. We are supposed to lament the contrast between their "authenticity" and our "fakeness".
But ditching the Enlightenment quickly leads to even darker places than this. The Chapmans' intellectual hero is Georges Bataille, the French writer and (anti-)philosopher who was obsessed with moments of "transgression", when the "prison" of the Enlightenment could be left behind. And these glorious moments? They mostly consist of torture. He lauded the Marquis de Sade, an aristocratic rapist who preyed on working-class women, because he "had only one occupation in his long life which really absorbed him - that of enumerating to the point of exhaustion the possibilities of destroying human beings, and of enjoying the thought of their death and suffering".
Jake Chapman echoes his hero. He talks about the "libidinal pleasure" that comes from seeing a real picture of a real person being tortured, because of the "transgression of the ethics that that image is supposed to trigger or incite". A few years ago he was asked in the Papers of Surrealism: "Does Battaille's formulation of the conception of transgression relate to the way that work like your own is sometimes suggested as being part of a necessary force?" He replied: "Yes - a good social service like the children who killed Jamie Bulger." (Perhaps opening their exhibition in Liverpool was not such a smart idea).
Some foolish critics have praised the "moral anger" in the Chapmans' work, directed at "injustice and cruelty". Precisely the opposite is the case. This is immoral anger, celebrating injustice and cruelty as "transgression".
This isn't surprising. When you strip away our Enlightenment defences against psychosis, what are you left with? The best thing you can say about this philosophy is that very few people will ever take it seriously. But a few have: look at Michael Foucault, the postmodernist icon who was another disciple of Bataille. In a telling parable about postmodernism, Foucault went to Iran in 1978 to witness the incipient revolution. Having dismantled the Enlightenment, this was for him "year zero" in terms of political thought.
He was searching for a new intellectual project. He found it with the Ayatollah Khomeini. He met him, called him an "old saint", and fawned about "the love that everyone [in Iran] individually feels for him". He attacked the secular, democratic and feminist wings of the revolution, saying Iranians "don't have the same regime of truth" as Westerners.
Khomeinism descended into tyranny and mass murder. If Foucault has stayed another few months in Tehran, he would have been hanged for his homosexuality. But he only ever criticised "the old saint" once - when he worried he might be about to adopt democracy, because "we know where that leads".
His embarrassed defenders see Foucault's flirtation with the Ayatollahs as a weird abberation. It isn't. It's the culmination of his life's work dismantling reason. Why shouldn't premodernism and postmodernism come together in the face of a common foe? After reason, what remains but raw irrationality?
The Chapmans inhabit the same fetid dead-end. Jake has described the international opposition to the Taliban blowing up ancient Buddhist sculptures as "strange", describing it with bland semi-admiration as the "live, vital religious opposition to something that has a direct and local meaning to them".
So there are only two options left in assessing the faeces-flinging provocations of the Chapmans. You can dismiss them as a pair of unserious middle-aged millionaires who grew up in Cheltenham and now pose as rebels from the badlands of Tate Britain. Or you can assume they mean what they say. So which is it, boys - are you clowns, or monsters?
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