The Politics of Dancing

I read in one of the free newspapers last week that the decision that Abu Qatada can be deported to Jordan was described as inhumane by Omar Bakri Mohammed of Al Muhajiroun. This is the same man who has defended beheadings, stoning of women and even the Beslan school massacre. Presumably beheading being a more humane response than say garrotting or hanging drawing and quartering! It is difficult to know quite how to respond to this disgusting man, however there is a Yiddish word and somehow it feels apposite to respond in Yiddish, the word is chutzpah, though a doubt that Mr Bakri Mohammed will appreciate the subtly and wit of the expression. * * * * * * * * * * * * The Pakistani Government have now reached a deal by which Sharia law is to be introduced in the Swat region in exchange for the Taliban ending a campaign of terror, involving beheadings, assassination and the burning down of girls schools. It must now be clear to all that Pakistan, never a success story, is now emerging as ...

Like many things I discovered the pleasures of the visual arts in my late teens. In all the years I spent at school I never recall visiting a public art gallery once. Sometime in the early seventies I fell in love, I’m tempted to say of course, with the Impressionists, with Manet, Degas Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec. It was sometime later when sitting in the Hayward that I experienced the powerful, stimulating, curious and even numinous interaction that can take place when faced with a great painting. Like most people I am not as knowledgeable about the visual arts as I would like, but I do know that deprived of the incredible and intense experience that great painting and sculpture can induce life would be immeasurably poorer. Unfortunately in this culture it is all too common for the arts to be viewed as an elitist interest not for the ‘ordinary’ people. Which brings me to the Turner Prize; now I cannot remember how many years ago it is that the prize was awarded to a stack, one must admi...

From last weeks New York Times, ‘as can be seen from the recent eruptions in Gaza,’ I had no idea there were volcanoes in the short strip of land between Israel and Egypt! When someone resorts to this kind of euphemism they have something pretty disgusting to hide. * * * * * * * * * * * * The cowardly decision by the BBC not to show the joint charities appeal for Gaza, ostensibly as a means to demonstrate ‘balance,’ of course demonstrates no such thing. It is difficult to imagine the BBC taking a similar stand over any other conflict other that the one between Israel and the Palestinians. What is does demonstrate is a continued willingness to bow to pressure from the Zionist lobby, a group who will not be appeased until our own TV coverage matches the craven quality of the US media. * * * * * * * * * * * * In the latest edition of the New York Review of Books a petition addressed to President Obama signed, one assumes by prominent US intellectuals, (I am not sufficiently familiar with ...

Every time I witness yet a further Israeli atrocity, for there seems always to be a step further in the pornography of violence that Israel is prepared to take, the steady accumulation of atrocity, of war crimes, it is Auden who comes to mind, ‘I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn. Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.’ I have not wanted to write about Gaza, not out of any reluctance to engage with the issues, but more out of a sense of despair and impotence. I did not go on any protest rallies this time. It now should be clear that Israel is impervious to such protests, indifferent to indignation and disgust. The only meaningful action now is economic and trade sanctions. The EU is now Israel’s major trading partner and even the rather feeble move of the EU in freezing talks to upgrade EU Israel trade relations has hurt the electoral prospects of Tzipi Livni , the foreign minister and leader of the centrist Kadima party. This is the same Ms Livni who has rec...