Random rants from a busy Rant Mistress...

I've started a new job, I've been in and out of the country, I'll be out of the country and back again soon, I've been busy, I've neglected to rant. Here, in no particular order, are some random thoughts that I have not gotten around to committing to paper, or indeed the internet.

- Frankly, if the junior doctors' strike was only about pay, so fucking what? I want to live in a country that respects doctors enough to pay them properly. The race-to-the-bottom nonsense of wanting everyone to live in penury is pathetic.

- Richard Dawkins' absurd (and now deleted) tweet saying Queen Rania of Jordan is a good Muslim, showing off her lovely hair, is merely another tragic example of the fetishising of said queen. Sure, she is an attractive, articulate woman with good hair. But, thanks to her position of privilege, she has the luxury of being outspoken in a way that many in her country, particularly journalists do not.

- I don't think Jeremy Corbyn will ever win a general election.

- Trying to get people to understand that PFI and the cost of administering the marketised NHS are the two main cost pressures is bloody exhausting.

- The world will need fossil fuels for a while longer. If you own anything made of plastic or a T-shirt that is not 100% cotton, or you'd prefer to abseil using nylon ropes instead of hemp ropes, then you are using petrochemicals. Sorry.

- Stop asking stupid questions of women over 35 who do not have any children. If she wants to discuss the reasons behind her child-free life in detail, regardless of whether she is childless through choice or circumstance, she will volunteer the information. If not, butt out of her uterus.

- The Revenant is a completely overrated film.

- It is tiresome and ridiculous that the Zika virus outbreak is once again dragging non-scientific anti-vaxx arguments out of the woodwork yet again. Give it a rest. Learn some science. You are embarrassing yourselves.

- Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States of America.

- The UK will vote to stay in the EU - and I suspect the vote won't be as close as people think it will be.

- If you seriously think the homeopathy-mad, failed marmalade mogul, Jeremy Hunt, is a good Health Secretary, you are deluded and I am not sure I can help you.

- Does anyone find Keith Lemon funny?

- It was really moving to see the Stade de France full of spectators watching the France vs Italy Six Nations match yesterday.

- David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are all pathetic negotiators and I refuse to take any of them seriously.

- It is time for long-standing refugee camps in the Middle East to be turned into proper towns with proper schools, hospitals and economic activity, such as businesses and industry.

- Deutschland 83 is excellent television and should cure people of Ostalgie, even if it is a fictitious account. If not, read Stasiland by Anna Funder instead. Romanticising East Germany is ridiculous and makes elements of the left look completely stupid.













Photography by Kim Rempel

Thoughts on Paris after the inevitable atrocity

Here, in no particular order and with absolutely no sense of optimism about anything I say having any kind of influence, are some musings on the aftermath of the horrific events that took place in Paris on Friday.

1. Firstly, let us refer to Islamic State as Daesh for they really hate it. This is something people from across the political spectrum agree upon. Hell, I even agree with Tony Abbott on this one. That said, it is important to recognise that they are indeed attempting to create a state, they have had some success in doing so over relatively large areas, and, therefore, it is important to treat them like any other vile, repressive state. We should not recognise their sovereignty over the land they have stolen. We should not trade with them. We should join with the people who have lost everything in doing all we can to help them return home and for prosperity and peace to prevail.

2. We need to call on the countries that surround Daesh's territory to come together as one on this issue, even if they disagree on many other issues. Saudi Arabia, in particular, cannot continue enabling Daesh's ongoing existence - they have played a major role in creating what is essentially a more violent version of the absurd Wahhabism that has turned Saudi into a gruesome laughing stock, even among its Arabian Gulf neighbours. And Saudi's neighbours have played their role in enabling poisonous ideology to spread, even if this has sometimes occurred by complacency rather than design. In any case, no one country or small group of countries should ever play the role of the global policeman.

3. And just as we need to acknowledge that Daesh's ideology is a particularly vile theocracy that is just as political as it is religious (if not more political than conveniently religious...), the West needs to acknowledge its role in destabilising the Middle East. This has been going on for a while now. And all we are left with are crude hypotheticals to which we will never know the answers. These include: Would 9/11 have happened if Gore than Bush was president? Regardless of who was president and 9/11 still happened, what would have happened if America took a truly Biblical turn-the-other-cheek approach and didn't plough into a misguided war with Iraq? What the hell has killing Osama bin Laden achieved apart from a mic-drop moment for Barack Obama? What intelligence has died with bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and even the relative minnows, such as Mohammed Emwazi?

4. Merely attempting to bomb our way out of the current state of affairs is probably not going to be particularly effective. Daesh should have its lines of communication cut off too. In the aftermath of this weekend's events in Paris, some idiots seemed amazed that murderous thugs in the Middle East could communicate with murderous thugs in France. It is the same mentality that leads to people saying moronic things such as: "Those people cannot be refugees if they have mobile phones!" as if modern telecommunication only happens in the West. Bombs are raining down on Daesh targets in Raqqa as I write this post but it will not be enough. The city was already bombed last November and the main casualties were civilians.

5. Likewise, Daesh should have its weapons supply lines cut off. This will be quite the task but it is essential. Daesh's arsenals are made possible because of modern transportation as well as weapons from eastern European arms manufacturers getting safe passage into Syria through Turkey, Libyan armouries ending up in Syria, captured arms from the US and Saudi ending up in extremists' hands, arms supplied by funding from Saudi extremists with Saudi laws against such funding not really being enforced at all, Daesh sympathisers in Pakistan and Afghanistan obtaining US surplus from the black market in Quetta and Peshawar...

And then there is the money to be made from the global arms marketplace that supplies the "good guys", but war has always been great for business.

6. There has been some good and responsible reporting on the events in Paris amid the bloody awful reporting. Tragically, Sky News word-puker Kay Burley tweeting a picture of a dog with the words "sadness in his eyes" was not even the daftest thing she did this weekend. She also asked someone lining up to give blood why they were giving blood. Merde, I dunno, Kay. Because they were really looking forward to the banana afterwards?

7. The relentlessly hungry beast that is 24/7 news coverage has given rise to some awful journalism, in particular on the issue of passports found at the scene. Most distressing was an Egyptian passport found at the Stade de France that some reporters were quick to link to the terrorists, except it turned out to belong to a spectator who is currently critically injured. Unfortunately, the nonstop model of news means that being first tends to take precedence over being accurate.

8. Andrew Marr got it so wrong this morning on BBC when he said that Paris is the only story today. No. It is not. There are other ongoing stories that have a Paris terror angle, such as the government's rush to pass the snoopers' charter even though such powers proved ineffective in France this weekend, what impact cuts to police, the military, and the NHS will have if a similar attack happens in the UK, and the refugee crisis. But even so, there are still other stories both in the UK and abroad that still need to be reported and it would have been good to see coverage of other news especially when the news channels inevitably started repeating themselves and news tickers remained unchanged for hours.

Amol Rajan, who often makes sense, described 9/11 on Marr's programme as an attack on capitalism. No. It was not. The twin towers were an easy target for amateur pilots. It was an attack on so much more than that. Equally, Bono describing the attack on the Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris as an attack of music was head-up-the-arse nonsense of the highest order.

9. Despite what you may be seeing, hearing and reading in mainstream media sources, there are plenty of brilliant journalists out there who are working tirelessly to cover stories other than Paris. Lebanon, Yemen, Burma, Iraq, South Sudan, Kenya, the list goes on of places where newsworthy events are taking place. Despite what many a moaner says, other stories are being reported - but you might have to actually do some damn research and find some alternative news sources or recognise that it was covered in mainstream news outlets but you might not have bothered to pay attention. Additionally, local and regional news sources are often easily found online - and when you do find these stories, share the hell out of them. In this free market world of news, consumers have the power to give all manner of news the airplay it deserves.

10. An interesting quote from Richard Dawkins that sprung up this weekend deserves more analysis: "They're the ones who don't take their religion seriously." He was referring to the religious people, in particular Catholics and Muslims, who he deems to be "good". My instinctive interpretation of "not taking religion seriously" is to refer to the people who happily identify with a particular religion but don't follow every single example of their faith's book to the letter.

They are, for example, the Muslims who drink alcohol, the Muslims and Christians who have sex outside of marriage or blaspheme when they're angry or surprised, the people who may indeed have conservative attitudes to issues such as homosexuality but do not believe that execution is an appropriate punishment despite some of the more startling passages from their holy books, the people who may indeed be offended at jokes at the expense of their faith but do not seek to kill or even arrest anyone over such humour.

The phrase "don't take their religion seriously" is a glib soundbite but my broader interpretation probably encompasses more religious people than we realise, even those who may bristle at being described in that manner. It strikes me as a lazy shorthand term for moderate religious people but, in my experience, moderates are actually the majority. It's just that moderate voices, especially in the wake of terror attacks, are seldom heard. Noisy idiots, such as Anjem Choudry, end up getting airplay as representing entire faiths and all this achieves is a recruitment drive for Daesh.

11. It's OK if you don't put a French flag filter on your Facebook profile photo. It's OK if you do. Whatever you do, don't be dick about it. There are enough of those in the world already. See Bono etc.



Photo by Lode Van de Velde

King Abdullah is dead, satire is on life support...

I had to check and double-check and check again. The world is currently such a ridiculous place that sometimes even the sharpest among us can accidentally fall for a spoof article. So when I found out a US Army General was sponsoring an essay competition in honour of the recently departed King Abdullah, I did a double take.

But sure enough, there it was, announced on the Department of Defense website on January 26, the same day the first execution by beheading under Saudi Arabia's new ruler, King Salman, took place. General Martin E. Dempsey is the brains behind this absurd idea.

I even tweeted the writer of the announcement to ask if this competition was real, if this really was the next innovation of the awful grief orgy for a despotic monarch of a terrible regime. He replied, rather adorably: "No, ma'am. Not a spoof. It is the real deal." I was last called "ma'am" when I went through passport control at the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2009.

The thing is the focus of the competition isn't a terrible idea. The statement said that the competition focuses on "issues related to the Arab-Muslim world and is designed to encourage strategic thinking and meaningful research on a crucial part of the world." There is nothing at all wrong with intelligent research on the Arab-Muslim world. Indeed, intelligent research is a welcome alternative to oversimplification, ignorance and lack of understanding of a region that is both troubled and fascinating.

But the whole idea jumps the shark when it is stated that King Abdullah is a "man of remarkable character and courage" and a "fitting tribute to the life and leadership of the Saudi Arabian monarch." This would be the "leadership" of a man who, despite being an absolute monarch, has still let the religious arm of the state run an oppressive, evil regime. Come on, Abdullah - if you were going to be an absolute monarch, you may as well have tried for the benevolent dictatorship style rather than the useless style where you turned a blind eye to religious police being ridiculous, awful and violent to people trying to live peacefully in your country.

I get it. Saudi Arabia is joining the military effort in the fight against ISIS. Saudi is letting the US use their land to train and equip Syrian fighters. Saudi buys arms from the US and the UK for its well-equipped military, even though it has done pretty much bugger-all since 1991. Saudi is, naturally, are more than happy to let the US buy its oil - despite all the noise about the US being so close to energy self-sufficiency, 13% of oil consumed in the US is imported from Saudi.

But the sad fact is that Saudi lending a hand in the fight against ISIS won't do a whole lot to stop the radicalisation that leads to terrorism. It cannot be denied that ISIS has its ideological roots in Wahabbism, the extreme form of strict Islam which has formed the basis of Saudi law and society since the start of the 20th Century with its influence starting much earlier.

Saudi Arabia can throw whatever military might and money it likes behind the fight against ISIS, but as long as the country is beholden to Wahabbism, to the vile religious police, and to a judicial system that does not include fair and open trials and favours public beheadings for crimes ranging from murder to witchcraft, it is part of the problem. It sets a hideous example that inspires some of the worst of humanity.

But as long as there are arms deals at stake and cheap petrol to be enjoyed, it is clearly far preferable for the leaders of the western world to drop everything, including flags to half mast, and head over to Saudi Arabia like dumb labradors to lick the face of the new king in an unironic grief orgy.

Kudos to Michelle Obama for not covering her hair (and looking suitably bored) in Saudi this week - and kudos to Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush for also eschewing headscarves when they visited the kingdom -  but it would have been even better if she didn't go at all. Perhaps she could have released a YouTube video, dressed in one of her trademark sleeveless dresses, saying that she was defying her husband by not going to Saudi. That would have been cool.

Instead, we have witnessed commentators on TV news channels talking about King Abdullah as if he was the Saudi equivalent of Germaine Greer. He mentioned that women will be able to vote and run for office in this year's municipal elections, but we will have to wait and see if King Salman makes good on this promise. He promoted one woman, the Utah-educated Norah Al Faiz, to the position of Deputy Minister of Education for Women's Affairs. She is very accomplished but she is still the deputy to a man who oversees these matters pertaining to women. There are more women in higher education than men in Saudi, this is true, - but when these women cannot drive a car, when they cannot work or travel without permission from their male guardians, when not all professions are open to them, the potential to be gleaned from their education is reined in by misogynistic restrictions. Women's testimonies in courts are worth less than those of men. Women who have pressed rape charges have ended up being punished for immorality if the accused is found not guilty.

On the upside, King Abdullah has daughters who have received university education. But these would be the daughters that he keeps locked up in the palace in terrible conditions, a hangover from his anger at that particular wife not giving him a son. He is a latter day, science-denying Henry VIII, seemingly unaware that it's his contribution to the reproductive process that determines the sex.

So, yeah, I'm not about to shout from the rooftops about what a great guy King Abdullah was for women of Saudi.

And no, it's not just a matter for Saudi Arabia to deal with internally. It is everyone's business. Even if you don't subscribe to the principle that no woman is free if even one woman is oppressed, how about considering, for example, that Saudi beheads people of other nationalities too. It is easy to say: "Well, just don't get a job there if you lose so many rights!" but with cases such as Burmese and Nepalese maids beheaded after farcical murder trials, it is clear that vulnerable people see working in a place like Saudi as an escape from poverty. There is a global problem to consider here.

After all, the world had the balls to impose sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid years. How is the gender apartheid of Saudi any less a crime against humanity?

One state? Two states? ISIS? IS? What's going on in Syria? It's never simple in the Middle East...

Another day, another broken ceasefire, another attempt to get Israeli and Palestinian leaders around the table, another round of futile arguments on social media... And so it goes on and on. It all reminds me of a Facebook argument that broke out on my Facebook page in about 2008 about Israel and Palestine which led to me defriending someone after he started out arguing eloquently for Israel but ended up throwing an ugly racist insult at another friend. Six years on, the same arguments are cropping up on social media and it seems just as pointlessly circular this time around.

But what is interesting is that I have observed with the 2014 round of social media debates is that many people from across the political spectrum are advocating a one-state solution rather than the well-worn "we support a two-state solution" rhetoric that politicians, safely away from the threat of either Israeli or Hamas rockets, like to trot out in a weedy attempt to look fair and balanced.

The obvious problem with a two-state solution is that no matter how borders are drawn, yet again, there will be angry, unhappy people, there will be more displaced people, there will be people left homeless and possibly stateless too. Any attempts to draw boundaries for two states will highlight that this conflict goes beyond religion because everyone will want their land to include the fertile parts, the pretty tourist draw cards, the bits with natural gas reserves and so on...

As the images of death and destruction from Gaza have become part of our living room furniture yet again, it is clear that the constant retaliation from both sides is not doing anything to get the Middle East anywhere near a lasting peace. The hatred is palpable and it not concentrated to the battered shred of land that is the Gaza strip.

Horrible outbreaks of anti-semitic and anti-Islamic sentiments, all of which reduce religions to stereotypes and ignore the diversity that exists within both faiths, are not helping anyone. So many ridiculous and awful things have happened that it is hard to know where to start with calling out the bullshit behaviour - Hamas hiding weapons in supposed places of safety, images of Israelis getting comfortable with a few brewksis to watch attacks on Gaza, George Galloway declaring Bradford an Israeli-free zone, Joan Rivers declaring that Palestinians deserve to die, the banning of a Jewish film festival in London, and the banning of an Edinburgh Fringe Festival show by an Israeli group that promotes Jewish-Arab co-existence, IDF soldiers leaving racist graffiti, urine and bowel movements in Palestinian homes... All these things are terrible and moronic and it just goes on and on and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.

Today, we have a lack of enthusiasm for Egypt-mediated peace talks which, given they are about as neutral as Liberace's living room, is entirely understandable from all sides. But if a one-state solution emerges from this mess as a more realistic prospect, it is interesting to speculate on what this might look like. It'd be amazing if everyone around the negotiating table could even agree on a name for this new state, and even if they did, its citizens would probably refer to themselves as hyphenated nationalities, like Italian-Americans, but I digress. We are not even close to that level of nitty-gritty detail today.

Do we dare to dream of a secular state where everyone is free to practice their religion in safety, where churches, mosques and synagogues can exist in the same street without violence erupting, where atheists are allowed to get on with their lives without interference from any religion, where your sexuality is not a criminal offence, where tourists can visit and roam the whole country in total safety, where children are not raised to hate anyone, where my friends with Palestinian passports but have never set foot in Palestine can finally return home, where everyone has equal access to education and opportunity, where women can dress as they please, where there is no need to conscript young people in an army and imprison them if they conscientiously object?

But who should try and negotiate such a solution? For starters, probably not any of the nearby Arabian Gulf nations. The combined economic might of the Arabian Gulf nations could pay for a Palestinian Iron Dome and then some, but these states instead pay lip service to supporting Palestine and send aid such as blankets and medical supplies. The leaders of the UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia, choose their words very carefully when it comes to speaking out on behalf of Palestine. After all, there are alliances with the US that they do not want to jeopardise. And if their leaders were seen to be calling for a new secular state with democratic elections and freedom of religion, that would reignite the pro-democracy campaigners who stuck their heads over the parapet during the Arab Spring only to find themselves silenced or imprisoned or lashed. It has been suggested by many analysts that Qatar, among others in the region, supports Hamas (and the US sells billions of bucks worth of weaponry to Qatar so, once again, the moral high ground turns to quicksand...).

I could muse on who the hell can fix this this all day long but it would only be a matter of time before someone chimes in with: "OK, Gaza is a bad situation but what about ISIS?". ISIS, or IS as they are now being called in today's new bulletins, is completely appalling. Horrific. Beyond vile. A tragedy for Iraq and beyond. They are all about a ruthless land grab achieved through the mass killing of Muslims who don't strictly adhere to their narrow interpretation of a faith that has 72 sects, and of Christians, of children, babies, anyone who gets in their way, basically.

IS is such a revolting organisation that it doesn't actually matter that the stories of forced, mass FGM were never proven - their heinousness is such that there is no shortage of appetite for airstrikes to blast them off the face of the Earth. Of course, nobody is saying the the Kurds, who as I write this, have, with the help of the US, managed a victory over IS fighters in two Iraqi towns, have one of the biggest problems with FGM in the region. But nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever black and white in the Middle East. Equally, the situation in Syria has created unholy alliances as intervening nations try to decide what group is the least dreadful.

And while all this is going on, while my Twitter and Facebook feeds continue to fill up with more and more arguments that will never be seen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Khaled Mashal, Mousa Abu Marzouq, Mahmoud Abbas, Tzipi Livni, Moshe Ya'alon, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Bashar al-Assad, Zahran Alloush, or anyone else who can actually do something about any of this crap, innocents continue to be killed, families separated, people displaced, and, hey presto, we have another refugee crisis on our hands.

Perhaps a one-state solution could honour the original spirit of the creation of the state of Israel and be a safe haven for refugees displaced by these latest Middle Eastern conflicts, regardless of religion. There is a long way to go before that idea is even remotely feasible but, as far as aims go, it sure beats the aim of obliteration in anyone's name.

Because I am well overdue to share with you another installment of World Of Stupid!

All manner of things have been setting off my Damn Fool Radar of late and my Zero Tolerance of Idiocy policy has again taken a hammering. Here is a selection of choice morsels of recent stupidity in no particular order.

1. "OH MY GOD! MICK JAGGER HAS A SEX LIFE!"
Seriously, everyone who is outraged at the recently bereaved Mick Jagger apparently finding a new girlfriend after the suicide of L'Wren Scott needs to get a grip. There is no statute of limitations on how long one must be celibate after the death of a partner. It is precisely nobody's business. Trust me, I know all too well that it can feel weird to have sex again after losing a partner, as if you're cheating on them, especially if you were perfectly happy when they died. There is no timetable for grief just as there is no timetable for scheduling in a convenient death but the two things that can outlive a lost partner are one's sex drive and desire to be loved.

2. BoJo offers to be cannon fodder
It was a stunt, pure and simple. A moronic distraction. Boris Johnson went ahead and bought secondhand water cannons from Germany, shitty, outdated water cannons that the Germans stopped using with one of the main reasons being safety concerns, such as poor visibility for the driver. It is easy to imagine bumbling Boris stumbling aimlessly around a used water cannon yard while a greasy-haired, shiny-suited salesman rubs his hands together in glee because another sucker has come through the door. And just to prove they are the law enforcement equivalent of being struck by a water pistol, Boris offered to be hosed by one of these beasts. He knew full well that (a) despite countless volunteers to either fire the water cannon or replace the water with their own urine, he was never going to be hosed and (b) it would prove a huge distraction to stop people talking about real issues such as policing by consent and why water cannons are ineffective.

3. Tony Blair: Middle East peace envoy
A farce and a joke. Except it's a sick, horrific joke that has killed countless people and will continue to do so. Nobody sane thinks Saddam Hussein was a lovely bloke. But more than 10 years ago, former Australian politician Carmen Lawrence got it right when she said that the scale of the original invasion was excessive for getting rid of just one man. Classic case of using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut on a deadly, expensive, tragically futile and violent scale.

4. A bloody mess in Spain
A group of Spanish performance artists, Sangre Menstrual, took the streets in apparently menstrual blood-stained jeans as part of their "Manifesto for the Visibility of the Period". They say they are tired of the shame that accompanies menstruation even in 2014. Except that in Spain, and indeed any developed country, the days of women being declared unclean and made to remove themselves from society during their periods isn't happening. Sure, some people, both men and women, might be grossed out by period blood, but plenty of us are also grossed out by other perfectly natural bodily fluids such as urine, excrement, vomit, bile and pus. It doesn't mean we want to walk the streets smeared in any of them.

Painful periods and heavy periods are real and they can be incredibly debilitating - it is important that if a woman is suffering like this, that she can access whatever healthcare she needs. If she needs time off work or school, that should also be acceptable. For women in the developed world, there are over-the-counter fixes for period pain, we can choose from tampons, menstrual cups, sea sponges and sanitary pads and most of us can attend to these needs hygienically and privately. To be able to menstruate and still get on with one's day thanks to all these things is wonderful. It levels the playing field between men and women. It means we do not have to be weakened by our periods.

Overall, a woman on her period in a developed country is not being oppressed. The girls and women who are being oppressed while menstruating are in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. ActionAid, a most excellent charity, is helping girls and women in such countries to access the menstrual accoutrements women in the developed world take for granted. They do not deserve to be insulted by a protest by women who fail to see how privileged they are. Click here to find out more about ActionAid's work in this field.



Photography by Petr Kocurek