It’s Not About the Economy, Stupid

See: We really do like you. Pic:Rod Fleming

The unending and apparently increasing hysteria of the London commentariat in response to the spectacular rise of the SNP in Scotland continues to dominate the UK media. It is clear that many of the pundits – many of whom, amazingly, are actually of Scottish origin – really don’t get it.

Again and again the argument devolves to ‘why do the Scots hate the English so much?’ clearly implying that the only reason Scots would not wish to be governed from 400 miles furth of their borders must be that they dislike the English. It is both a petty allegation, because it offends the basis of democracy, and plain old wrong.

When I was 17 I left home and went to London, like so many other young Scots. The story of my time there is not germane, but I was amazed by how obsessed with money the people were. It seemed to be all they ever thought about. In later life I came across the same attitude not only from Londoners but from others in the South East. ‘You have to go where the money is.’ Even more strange, to me, was that amongst the most profoundly affected by this notion were expatriate Scots (who managed to add an insufferable air of superiority into the mix; but that is also another story.)

The rise of the SNP since 2014 cannot be explained in terms that someone whose sole measure of value is monetary can readily understand. The good folks of London and the southeast, who apparently have swallowed whole the lie that the economy is ‘booming’ – we are curious as to what kind of ‘boom’ it is that can only be achieved by subsidising the richest companies in the country by £11 billion a year in order that they can underpay their workforce, but, hey. Anyway those good folks clearly cannot comprehend why the Scots would even think about getting off this (imaginary) gravy train.

So they think we must not like them.

I think we should explain things so that they might understand why their cosy little political arrangement looks about to come crashing down like a house of cards.

The first reason is constitutional.  Westminster’s famed ‘first past the post’ electoral system is specifically set up to ensure that a party achieving less than half the vote share may still command an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. At the same time, the system is essentially bipartisan with one or other of the two ‘major’ parties enabled, by the voting system, to form a government supported by that commanding majority.

What may be less obvious is that it is also designed to favour London and the southeast, because this is the most populated part of the UK. That seems democratic enough in itself; but there is another problem.

Because of the constitutional arrangements above, the two ‘major UK parties, the Conservatives and Labour, have become totally focussed on winning over the ‘floating’ voters in London and the southeast. The Conservatives are the natural party of this region, and so Labour has, since the rise to power of Tony Blair, turned itself into a very slightly modified version of the Conservative Party. Time and again, the Labour Party has sworn to follow the Conservative economic line because its leaders believe that to stray from it will alienate those floating voters.

Nothing illustrates the catastrophic failure of the post-Thatcher era than this. Tony Blair adopted Thatcherism and called it ‘New Labour’, all in order to win those southeastern votes. This policy has led to, as we have mentioned before, a situation where there is simply no choice for voters: it’s Blue Tories or Red Tories and that’s your lot. This has disaffected the electorate such that the first past the post voting system has been compromised.

The present Tory administration was only able to govern in a coalition with the feckless ‘Liberal Democrats’ (a misnomer if ever there was one). Similar arrangements have applied before, for example in the 1970s when the ‘Lib-Lab Pact’ propped up a failing Labour Government, or, less well known, in the 1990s when the Ulster Unionists (now the DUP) held up Major’s lame duck Tory administration; however, formal coalitions are rare and happen, historically, only at times when the UK is under severe existential threat. This happened during World War Two.

Now, however, the political landscape has changed such that today, it appears that coalitions may become normal.

While the system favours the southeast and London, it is not exclusively dependent upon it. So in becoming increasingly right-wing to attract votes in London and the southeast, Labour has alienated its voters elsewhere. Labour high command believed that the tribal loyalty of its supporters outside the southeast of England would always be enough to carry it through, and as long as there was no credible left-wing alternative, they were able to do this.

In the north of England, there remains no such alternative, but in Scotland and also Wales, there is. Here too, Labour counted on historic tribal loyalty to hold up its vote, and made no changes to its overall policy when confronted with SNP gains in the Scottish elections, reckoning that the voters would always come back to Labour for the general election, since the SNP could never be one of the two big parties that are supposed to be able to form a Westminster government.

This might have continued, but for a catastrophic mistake made by Labour in the run-up to the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014. Knowing that a Tory-led campaign would inevitably be rejected by the Scottish electorate, Labour was persuaded to be the face of Unionism in Scotland.

This meant that Labour had to present the case for Unionism on behalf of the government. But that government was identified in Scotland with the Tory Party, which is toxic there; the poison stuck to Labour. This was exacerbated by David Cameron’s crass and opportunistic attempt, immediately after the result was announced, to link the promises of further devolution which had been instrumental in achieving a rejection of Independence, for the while, to so-called EVEL – English Votes for English Laws.

Many people who had voted ‘No’ in the Referendum saw that this as a betrayal of the promises that had been made and which most observers believe secured a ‘No’majority. Doubtless Cameron had his own reasons – centred on votes in London and the southeast, as usual – but in Scotland the gesture was badly received.

This set anyone who had campaigned for the disUnion up as a target. And that target was the Labour Party.

In other parts of the UK this might not have mattered, because as we have said, there is no credible left-wing alternative to Labour. But in Scotland that is not the case. The SNP has positioned itself significantly to the left of Labour on a wide range of issues and furthermore the SNP was the party of government on Scotland. Its credibility was cast iron and bullet-proof.

The landslide which all the polls predict will virtually wipe out Labour in Scotland has two principal causes therefore; the first being the establishment of Labour as a right-wing, neo-liberal party and the second was its clear identification with the Tories during the Referendum debate.

What Labour had not recognised was that it had not taken its Scottish voters with it. During the last few weeks, many disillusioned former Labour voters have been reported as saying that ‘Labour left me, I didn’t leave it.’

This is the crux of the issue. There is a fundamental difference between the vast majority of Scots and the people of London and the southeast of England. This difference is visceral but Labour’s high command simply thought it could be swept aside. And the difference is that while for London and the southeast, it is indeed, all about the economy, in Scotland it simply is not.

Scots are not obsessed with money the way people in London and the southeast are. Those Scots who are so obsessed, move to London – and so are no longer Scottish voters. Those who remain in Scotland are interested in other things, notably quality of life, free education, good health care, fair treatment of the elderly and vulnerable, social fairness and a justice system available to anyone. These values are far more important than they are elsewhere. Scots do not, in general, seek to become filthy rich but instead, to have a nice life, in reasonable comfort, with good health care. This is exactly what ‘austerity’ is denying them.

It should have been blindingly obvious to the Labour high command that their strength in Scotland would remain only while the party was seen as being the only one that could deliver the things that Scots value. But Labour has adopted right-wing policies, in order to please the voters of the southeast of England, to the point that it simply is not a credible left-wing party any more and, worse, as far as Scotland is concerned, does not reflect Scottish values. It has become Tory Party Lite and almost as toxic in Scotland as the original version.

This landslide was just waiting to happen and it counts as the most massive own goal of any British political party in recent years; it is one that Labour high command should have been able to predict, too.

There are many reasons why the defenestration of Labour in Scotland is welcome, not least its arrogant cronyism and presumption of the right to voter support despite slavishly following Tory policies like ‘austerity’ and a replacement for Trident. It has nothing to do with Scots ‘hating the English’ and everything to do with their having completely different, and increasingly incompatible, values.

The real, underlying reason for Labour’s fall from grace is simple: as far as Scotland is concerned, it’s not about the economy, stupid. Both Scots and English people must realise that this is a profound difference and reflects two completely, and arguably increasingly, different national characters.

At the same time the changing nature of voter patterns and the likelihood of another hung Parliament means that the SNP, if it securs the share of vote that all the polls suggest it will, will hold the balance of power. Since there is no evidence whatsoever that Labour will be able to recover in Scotland — and many in the party now consider Scotland a ‘lost cause’ — then as long as the constitutional crisis brought about by having inadequate voter choice remains, the likelihood is that the SNP will continue to play a pivotal role in UK politics, althought hey could never themselves form a government. Well, so be it; the SNP is simply using a system designed by others.

The disUnion may stumble on for a few more years, but unless London and the southeast moves back from the right, it cannot survive in the long term. The differences in values between the two national characters is now linked to a failure of the first past the post system such that the larger, English component may have no choice but to heed the will of the Scottish one. For decades a right-wing England has dominated a left-wing Scotland and considered it fair and even ‘democratic’. Now that same England may be faced with a left-wing government that is held in place by Scotland’s votes.

Those in England who say this is undemocratic only reveal their misunderstanding of what the disUnion actually is and demonstrate that they do not consider it to be one nation at all; or rather, perhaps, that they see it as ‘Greater England’. They underline the intrinsic failure at the heart of the disUnion: Scotland and England are different countries.

Scots don’t hate the English; they just aren’t English themselves.

Rod Fleming on Google+

The post It’s Not About the Economy, Stupid appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.

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Boris Johnson is Right on Sharia

Pic: BBC

It’s not often that I give the words of the disingenuously shambolic Boris Johnson an awful lot of thought, really. He has occasionally given me a good laugh and there’s no doubt that he’s a lot smarter than he lets himself appear to be.

But a post on Facebook by the excellent Eu Citizens for an Independent Scotland brought to my attention one of BoJo’s statements in March, when I was too busy getting jetlagged to really notice. The article is here.

In it, BoJo is reported to have slammed the practice of allowing Sharia courts to have legal validity in the United Kingdom, and he is quite right.

It is totally unacceptable that a ‘legal code’ that treats women as livestock and mandates the execution of apostates, the mutilation of criminals, child marriage and killing anyone who dare criticise it, should be allowed to have influence in a modern, secular democracy.

Sharia is a crude, wicked, misogynistic, patriarchal code that bears all the hallmarks of the savage era that it was written in. Muslims believe that it was handed down from ‘Allah’ to the prophet ‘Mohammed’ via the angel ‘Gabriel’. Because Islam also contains an assertion from ‘Allah’ that no further intimations of his will would be coming to humanity, no part of Sharia can ever be changed.

This is why Islam lives in a time-warp. It’s why it is regarded, rightly, with abject horror by any right-minded person not infected with its nonsense. The truly horrific punishments that are part and parcel of Sharia have no place in a modern secular democracy and even the crimes themselves are absurd. This, remember, is a ‘legal code’ that routinely judicially murders women for having sex outside marriage, to name but one of its obscenities. Sharia prescribes rules for every part of an individual’s life from how they brush their teeth, how and with whom they can have sex with, through how business is to be run to what can and cannot be said.

This is completely at odds with how a secular democracy works, and it is no exaggeration at all to say that most Muslims do not properly grasp what democracy actually is. (The fact that many non-Muslims who live in Western democracies don’t either is deplorable, but of no help here.)

Democracy is not just about voting for who rules your country. This is easy and Muslims can, to an extent, deal with it. However, a far more important part of democracy as it is practised in the West is that it allows us to change our laws in accordance with the view of the majority, and in the context of a changing world view informed by science rather than religious prejudice.

Until only a few decades ago, for example, homosexual men could be imprisoned or chemically castrated and, if we go back to the 19th century, even hanged. And this is in the Christian West. But nobody – or at least nobody sane – thinks like this any more and if there are such people, they are in an isolated and largely ridiculed minority. (At least in Europe and America.)

The same is true across the spectrum of laws. Very few secular democracies now allow judicial murder, for example. Abortion is legal in enlightened jurisdictions. Women are allowed to vote and are no longer considered the property of their husbands – it is not so very long since rape within marriage was legally condoned, even within the UK – would we want to go back to such a situation?

All of these and many other laws have been changed because our populations, as the have become more educated, have become more open to new ideas. We have accepted that we were wrong and we have changed – usually for the better. The old religious certitudes have given way to a more fair and balanced social view that accepts that not everyone is alike and that the law should not be used as an instrument to enforce conformity, but instead as a means to prevent harm and protect the vulnerable.

This is all completely outwith the understanding of Islamic culture because the Sharia ‘legal code’ can never, ever be changed in even the tiniest detail. So the most fundamental tenet of modern democracy – that we can modify our laws in line with a better understanding – is completely unavailable within Islam, and is in fact itself illegal.

Because such a great part of our modern legal framework, in the secular Western democracies, is to protect the vulnerable, Sharia presents a deep challenge which cannot be resolved. Within Sharia, a man’s wives and children are his possessions, his property. Just like his horse – though women have less protection under Sharia than a horse does under democratic law.

Every person who lives within the jurisdiction of a secular democratic state, for example Scotland, England, France, the US, most of the free world, is absolutely entitled to the full protection of that country’s laws.

It is impossible to afford this protection if the legal system in force at national level is forced to co-exist with Sharia. It simply cannot be done and the inevitable result is that groups who would be protected under national law, such as women and children, are thrown to the wolves and have to suffer the unequal and degrading status that Sharia – which regards them as being of less value than the man who ‘owns’ them – metes out.

It is a meaningless sop to the conscience to suggest that people need only submit to Sharia voluntarily. In the UK, which is, lest we forget, what BoJo was talking about, we have allowed ghettoes to grow up where English is not spoken and where the most aggressive forms of Islam are routinely practised. This makes a mockery of the notion of ‘voluntary compliance’. The peer pressure brought to bear upon women by their families and the people around them is such that even if they would far rather not have to submit to Sharia, they have no choice.

Remember, ‘honour killings’ are commonplace amongst Muslim communities. Refusal to accept Sharia is de facto refusal to accept Islam, which in turn is apostasy, and this is the most dishonourable thing a person can do, at least under this benighted death-cult. Indeed Sharia specifically demands that apostates should be killed. So anyone – be that person woman or man – who states that they do not wish their cases to be heard under Sharia is literally asking for their own death.

This completely confounds the central principle of modern law, which is, to state again, that the most vulnerable should be protected. By allowing Sharia courts to operate within the UK we have created no-go zones where the democratically decided laws of the land simply do not apply. This is an atrocious abdication of its own responsibility by the State.

It is perhaps worth mentioning, as an afterthought, that the reason that Sharia courts are allowed to exist within the UK is because of Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister. Blair was never one to put principle before political advantage, and in giving this sop to the hard-line Islamist clerics who desired it, he was doing exactly what has made the Labour Party a laughing-stock: adopting gesture politics in the hope that no-one would notice the moral vacuum that they were designed to gloss over.

Well it is the State’s responsibility to protect the weak and vulnerable, even when the threats they face come from their own families or the religion they ostensibly espouse (though in a cult where one may be killed simply for changing faith, one must ask how much is ‘espousal’ and how much is simple coercion.) It is the State’s responsibility to ensure that the duly decided laws of the land are applied fairly and without exception, to every citizen, without fear or favour. This is why the national laws prevent religiously-deluded parents from denying essential medical treatment to their children.

Sovereignty comes from the people and we accept the State because we recognise that the protections it affords to everyone are a worthwhile counterbalance to both the cost of its upkeep and the restrictions it places upon us. But just as we must all pay our taxes, so must the State carry out its duty of protection to all who live within its jurisdiction. The existence of Sharia courts makes this impossible.

Permitting Sharia to exist in the UK is therefore a gross and wilful dereliction of the duty of the State. And BoJo, for all his other faults, was dead right about it.

It is high time these courts were closed and anyone applying, or attempting to apply Sharia in preference to the law of the land, arrested and tried for sedition.

Because that is what it is.

Rod Fleming on Google+

The post Boris Johnson is Right on Sharia appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.

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We Live in Interesting Times

Pic courtesy of Bella Caledonia

We live in interesting times, as the proverb says, politically speaking at least. The ‘United’ Kingdom’s lack of unity is being demonstrated once again and the whole beast now seems to be in the throes of a terminal case of dyspepsia.

For decades the right-leaning south of England got its way; it elected Margaret Thatcher, a puppet of the patriarchal hegemony, and the decline has gathered pace ever since. Even when a government calling itself ‘Labour’ and playing the socialist card was elected, under the repulsive Tony Blair, it was soon shown to be Tory Party Lite.

The result of decades of rightist government has been the almost complete abandonment of any controls on the behaviour of business and in turn the consequence of this has been a string of boom-bust cycles each worse than the previous. The most catastrophic came in 2008 and is still, seven years later, being paid for. Remember, that was a right-wing financial collapse brought about by right-wing economic policies.

The right’s response has been so-called ‘austerity’ – for certain parts of society. It is an absurd and deeply offensive policy that has seen soup-kitchens once again operating in the country and millions more people thrown into abject poverty – and all while the rich and their poodles in the right-wing parties continue to get richer.

There can never be an objection to managing budgets with care; yet that is specifically not what the current administration in the disUnited Kingdom is doing. Theirs is a ‘silk purse and no knickers’ policy that starves, dispossesses and disenfranchises the very poorest while ‘investing’ in completely unnecessary trinkets like a replacement for Trident – which will never, ever be used. It is exactly like the father who spends all his money on a new car and has not the wherewithal to feed and clothe his children. The ‘financial probity’ of the right is no more than the dietary awareness of pigs at their trough.

And for decades this continued, with the two major ‘UK’ parties vying with each other to be the more oppressive on the most oppressed.

Something has changed and the patriarchal hegemony of the English establishment do not like it. Oh no sirree they do not, and their horror is clear to see.

Last week a televised debate was held in which the leaders of seven ‘UK’ parties took part. These were the Tories, the Liberals, Labour, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and UKIP. These parties were represented by three women and four men. What was interesting – and deeply satisfying – was that the four men had their collective backsides well and truly kicked by said three women, most especially by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, whose approval rating was the highest amongst viewers – including the English, who cannot vote for her. After the broadcast a twitter storm broke out that again confirmed this.

We have to admit to being proud that a Scottish woman did so well, but the fact is that we should all be glad that women were able to give a coterie of some of the nastiest products of a vile patriarchal hegemony such a hiding. It is, unreservedly, a very good thing and it is not before time. Furthermore, it is something the British State is determined to prevent, and that makes it all the more pleasant a turn of events.

Democracy itself, for the patriarchal hegemony, is an annoyance that it tolerates as long as it does not interfere with its ability to get on with running everything in its own interests. Even when women are allowed to ‘rise up’ it is because they have so successfully adopted the patriarchal model of behaviour that they are better at playing men than the men are. Margaret Thatcher would be a classic example of this, and one that makes us believe that ‘transgender’ should have a much wider meaning – were it not for the fact that the transgender people we know are all such thoroughly nice folks.

On top of this, within the disUnited Kingdom. ‘democracy’ has been tailored to ensure not only the preservation of the patriarchal hegemony, but also the continued primacy of the south-east of England over all other parts, and indeed the whole, of the disUnited Kingdom. As such, all the ‘major’ parties have concentrated their efforts there, which is one reason why Labour has abandoned all of its founding principles and become just another party of the right.

Yet now, there is a very real prospect that what the English like to call ‘the regions’ – but are in fact, at least in Scotland’s case, national partners – might actually be more important than the whim of the bloated and gluttonous south-east of England. Horrors! And how can this be?

In fact, the Tory and Labour parties have become so entrenched in their desire to please the voters of the Home Counties that they are indistinguishable – the Blue Tories and the Red Tories. Lacking any substantial differences, they have become irrelevant to most people and the result of this, as well as other demographic changes, has been that the old ‘first past the post’ system of ‘UK’ voting, which is expressly designed to ensure that a party lacking an overall majority of the vote may nevertheless command an unassailable majority in the House of Parliament, has broken down.

In the last General Election, the Tories were only able to form a government with the assistance of the Liberals, in order to achieve which, as we expected, the Liberals threw out whatever vestiges of principle they were still clinging on to. (One must not forget that the Liberals are actually the party of the landed gentry, once known as the Whigs. Political connivance has ever been their stock-in-trade.) The direct result of that opportunism – every cloud has a silver lining – looks likely to be the virtual eradication of the Liberals as a political force; yet the two major parties are unable to make up the ground and stalemate – in the form of a hung parliament – looms.

Enter the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens. In Scotland, the SNP looks set to hammer the Labour Party at the polls. If they do as predicted they will send a phalanx of perhaps 40 MPs to Westminster. They would therefore be cast as kingmakers, able to support one of the major parties so that it could form a stable government. However, the SNP has made its position clear: it will not support a Tory government, even if the Tories have more seats than Labour. That means that even if the English vote Tory, they might well still get Labour. Even more galling – for them – would be that because the SNP is significantly more progressive than the current version of the Labour Party, it would oblige Labour to implement socially-inclusive and egalitarian policies, and, perhaps, even put an end to the obscene profligacy of Trident’s replacement.

This has the mouthpieces of the English Establishment foaming. Scottish voters are not meant to count; only English, and particularly, southern English voters are. Scottish MPs are expected to do as the leaders of their London-based, English parties decide. That is why Winston Churchill described the Scottish MPs as ‘cannon-fodder’. They were makeweights and that is all; all they would ever be allowed to be too. While Scottish politicians have been from time to time honoured with positions of power by their London masters (notably in the Labour Party over the decades of the rise of the SNP – we wonder why) the corollary has always been that they must not rock the boat; London and the southeast rules and must always do so.

So the prospect, of a democratically elected force that does not obey the ‘London First’ rule having a pivotal role in governance, is deeply objectionable to – well, London and the southeast in general and to the Tories in particular. It’s quite all right for a minority Tory group to form a government with the acquiescence of the Liberals – but for shame! Decent humanitarian policies to be put in place because voters outside the southeast of England desire it? An end to the outright deceit of ‘austerity’ because other people see that it is only a way of making London richer at the expense of everyone else? That would never do.

Those very English politicians and pundits who only last year fought tooth and claw to prevent Scotland leaving the disUnion – thus depriving the British Exchequer of its assets – and who promised with tearful eyes how they would never again take Scotland for granted, how, if only Scotland would stay, they would be better people in the future and not lie, deceive and chisel at every opportunity, are now up on their hind legs baying for blood.

How dare the uppity Scots attempt to rise above their station? How dare Scotland influence how England shall be governed? How dare a woman (who is not one of those creatures who have already sold their souls and principles to the patriarchy for a place at its trough) presume to tell men how things should be run? (And this last in terms reflecting the outright misogyny of the writers, lest they should think we might not have noticed.)

Which leads us to reflect that these commentators might be well advised to consider that for decades, Scotland has had the will of English voters imposed upon it willy-nilly, and that women, an overall majority, have had to do as men decide, not for decades, but millennia. An impartial observer might consider that what is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander.

So in the disUnited Kingdom last week, momentous events took place. Three articulate, intelligent, educated women gave a public dressing-down to four of the most repellent examples of the privilege-assuming patriarchal hegemony that is ‘meant’ to run things; once again, the Scottish National Party, far from being crushed by the manoeuvring of London and its agents, has returned stronger, bigger and more powerful; and for perhaps the very first time, the southern English may have to recognise that democracy is a tool that does not exist to serve them alone.

It is all deeply gratifying and frankly, we can’t wait for more.

Rod Fleming on Google+

The post We Live in Interesting Times appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.

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New Year’s Resolution

molinot

New Year’s Resolutions have never really been my thing, but this year I have made one. Let me explain.

Twenty-two years ago, almost to the month, my then wife Madeleine, my first son Brodan and our dog Dina, set off in a Ford Granada Estate car to find our dream home in France and live the life we pictured there.

The quest, discovery and purchase of said house became the subject of a series of books called French Onion Soup!. The first was published in 2013 and the second will be later this year; my notebooks have enough in them for perhaps one or two more.

Did we live the dream? Yes we did. Was it what we expected? In some ways it was more so and in others less; but it was altogether far greater than we had anticipated.

We lived in the big house in Molinot – renamed P’tit Moulin in the books – for two years. Our second son, Silas was born there. But in 1995, with another baby on the way, we elected to go back to Scotland. We worked hard and did well and then, now with a brood of four and another two dogs, we returned to Molinot in 2001. Again we stayed for two years and returned, again for a complex variety of reasons. This is a decision which, though it had unforeseen and drastic consequences, I have never regretted.

During the next few years our family was blighted by cancer. Madeleine suffered breast cancer and required a radical mastectomy. Yet I could not give her the support she needed and deserved, because at the same time, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, which I believe to have been caused by decades of using carbon tetrachloride in the boutique she owned. Even I was touched by this horrible disease, and had to have a skin tumour removed. I am one of those white-skinned, fair haired Scots for whom the sun is both blessing and curse.

During this time I struggled to complete the self-build house we had begun and somehow, at the same time, hold together a business. It was not easy and the summer after my mother died, 2005, almost broke me.

But then the phone began to ring again and business came through our doors. We survived.

For five years we did not set foot in our home at Molinot, and then, in October 2008 we finally returned: Me, Charis, Ythan and Silas. It hadn’t fallen down, though it had suffered from neglect. Still I rolled up my sleeves and set to work and from then on made at least two visits a year.

In 2009 Madeleine and I decided to separate. After much heartbreaking wrangling, I took on the house at Molinot and she the one in Scotland, finally completed.

In 2011 I moved to Molinot permanently. I arrived just before Christmas with Brodan, my eldest son. After he returned to Scotland in January, I was alone. It was the first time really alone in decades. Alongside working on the house I began to write again, the Onion Soup! books but also more serious works. The first of these, now called Why Men Made God, is due for publication on May the first 2015.

Through FaceBook I met a woman in Canada, Karis Burkowski, who became the editor and now the co-author of Why Men Made God. Her enthusiasm and support made the project actually happen.

But I get ahead of myself. In 2012, I was in France, but I still had a sailing boat in Scotland. I wanted to bring her to France but soon realised the futility of the idea. Still undecided, I returned to Scotland in April, repaired and launched the boat – called Misty – and sailed her, with my sons, up the east coast of Scotland, through the Caledonian Canal and down to Oban, with a very hairy sail round Mull.

I had received an offer on Misty and in August, with no other real alternative in sight, decided to take it. A few more great solo sails were had and then, with great sadness, she and I parted in September.

I returned to France. Charis and Ythan visited for the school holidays and once again there was life in my house; but not for long. The days drew short.

I had been looking on online dating sites to see if I could find a partner. A couple of girls had chatted and one really seemed to be interesting, but then something happened: a whirlwind blew into my life and turned it on its ear.

The whirlwind’s name was Crissy Cruz José. She is from the Philippines. From the very beginning she was like a drug for me, a poison. Within a few weeks – during which time we were online every day, often more than once – I decided that I had to meet her. I told the other girls I was chatting to that I could not go further with them and bought tickets to Manila.

I will tell the story of what happened, with her permission, another day. Suffice for now to say that we fell in love. I returned to France after three heady weeks with her, and came back in late February 2013. Something was wrong; we had had silly tiffs before, but now we were arguing a lot. Crissy and I both hated it. But we worked hard to resolve the issues, and the second half of the visit went better. Nevertheless I had a bad feeling as I said goodbye to her outside her house when I left for NAIA.

2013, while not as bad as 2005, was not a great year. I was really tight for money and began to lose sight of the plans Crissy and I had made, for her to come to France. She saw herself finding a job there – I know the place and knew how unlikely that would be. The plan was flawed and in the end that flaw ate, like the cancer I had known before, through our relationship. At Christmas, full of misery, I ended it.

It was a shitty thing to do and I deeply regret it. But what is done is done. I was hollow and broken. I had lost so much; my mother, my wife, the house I built. My kids were a thousand miles away. The loss of a beautiful love seemed just another coin in the well of my unhappiness. Crissy, I reasoned, would be better off without me and would quickly find someone new. I cried over her and tried to move on.

2014 turned into a good year. With Karis Burkowski I finished Why Men Made God and the project began to look like it might work. French Onion Soup! sales began to creep up, and I had plenty of other work.

So much so that I arranged another visit to the Philippines in December.

I had a few contacts for girls I had met on line and I went on dates with four of them – all for a big nothing. They were nice and all but…I was totally cold. I had known this feeling before, earlier in 2014, with other women, both online and in real. It was as if a part of me was missing. These relationships just felt wrong and I could not pursue them.

Then I saw Crissy on the same dating site where we first met. ‘Why not message her, just for old times’ sake,’ I asked myself. So I did and to my amazement she replied, saying yes why indeed not, we might meet.

The story of the next four weeks is between me and my Crissy. Suffice to say that as I write this she is sleeping in the bed we share in a rented condo. She looks so beautiful and peaceful and I love her so very much.

So where is this rambling parable taking us? Only here: Crissy’s redemption, her return to my life, is bought at a price. No more fantastic schemes of bringing her to go mad in rural France. I will do as Mohamet had to, and go to the mountain.

Which means that the big old house in France, which has brought so much joy and is full of over two decades of my life, will go on the market as soon as I return there. I will cry when I finally close the door but I will get over it. It’s just a house.

Crissy is not just a house. She is the person I want to be with for the rest of my life. She is a flesh and blood human with needs and desires, who can be hurt – and I have hurt her – and yet still love. I could never ask for more of a partner than that she would forgive the wrong I did her and open her warm heart to me again.

So the great French Dream will finally, after twenty-two years, come to an end. I will miss it and doubtless, in my dotage, sigh over my memories. But with the end of every chapter comes the start of a new and I know how that will begin, though not yet how it will end.

I will sell up in France and move to the Philippines to spend the rest of my life – or a long as she’ll have me – with my lovely Crissy. The decision has at last been taken. It’s time to start again.

And that is my belated, but at least considered, New Year’s resolution for 2015.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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A watershed month

January 2015 has been a watershed month.

France and the world was shocked by a brutal and vicious massacre of journalists at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This atrocity was perpetrated by Islamists with the specific aim of preventing criticism of their ideology. In the aftermath, unprecedented levels of public outrage and grief were displayed all over France.

Just this week, 44 men of the Philippines Special Action Force were murdered by Islamists in southern Mindanao. The officers had their throats cut. This barbarity was carried out by the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf, which has made a career out of the usual stock-in-trades of the Islamist – murder, kidnapping, torture and extortion. Here too, there has been a massive outpouring of public emotion.

Alongside these headlining acts of religiously-inspired terrorism were many others; hostage takings, murders, kidnappings, the background noise of Islamic violence that is now always present.

In France, Muslims represent a large minority of the population, perhaps as much as 10%. In the Philippines they are a small minority, only 1.5%. In both countries, the vast majority of Muslims are, apparently, well integrated and some in France even voiced outrage at the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo.

But herein lies the problem: even though the majority of Muslims are peaceful, within those the nice, peaceful shop-owners and businesspeople, doctors and lawyers, there is a small minority that is sworn to murder everyone else, in the name of Islam, and to totally destroy the cultures that they live in and benefit from.

The foul objectives of this minority within a minority are perhaps best revealed in the so-called Islamic State in the Levant, and in Saudi Arabia. In both these territories, which are fierce enemies vying for influence over global Islam, human rights abuses are on a level approached only by the great monsters of the 20th century. Women are abused in the most appalling manner. They are blinded with acid if they have the temerity to chow their faces. The may not drive cars, their voices are silenced. ‘Homosexual’ men are murdered and LGBT people of all varieties live in terror, persecuted. Religions other than Islam are not tolerated and even within Islam, different sects murder each other with apparent glee.

Richard Dawkins, blessed of a good classical education, pointed out that ‘islamophobia’ just means ‘fear of Islam’ and, in view of the activities of this minority of Muslims, the Islamists, everyone should indeed be islamophobic. It is neither a condemnation nor a pejorative to be named so, it is a demonstration of common sense. Within Islam there is a rabid minority which does not hesitate to kill, murder, torture and abuse anyone it disagrees with. Only a fool would not fear it, and a greater one would deny its existence – yet this is exactly what many people do.

How can anyone claim to be feminist and not fear Islam? How can anyone claim to support the LGBT community and not fear Islam? How can anyone who supports universal human rights not fear Islam? How can anyone who believes in the equality of all humans not fear Islam? How can anyone who believes in democracy and the sovereignty of the people not fear Islam?

We know what would happen were the Islamists to get their way – a living hell on Earth would be established in the name of a fictional god, and all those who resisted would be killed. This is, after all, what the Qu’ran instructs its readers to do, and it is what we can see in ISIL and Saudi Arabia. We don’t have to guess what happens when the majority are Muslim: we can see it in failed state after failed state, in appalling horrors that blight the world.

When Muslims are a minority, they provide succour and cover for those who would kill the rest of us. When they are a majority, they give the fanatics a free hand to kill or suppress the rest of us. This is not guesswork or hyperbole. We have the living examples, the laboratories where the experiment has been conducted. We can see where Islam leads. That is why we should fear it.

Yet we are faced with a conundrum: what about the majority of Muslims, at least in the West? Is it legitimate to fear them, because of the activities of the extremists? The answer must be ‘yes’, for without that majority, the minority simply would not exist. It feeds on the majority and is sheltered and succoured by it.

The cancer of Islamism uses the cover afforded by the well-meaning majority to kill and maim the innocent. Charlie Hebdo and the SAF massacre are just a repetition, another example in a long list. For decades, the Islamists have perpetrated atrocity after atrocity, and yet we still say, ‘It is wrong to be islamophobic’. It is not wrong, it is common sense.

In some countries, where rabies is either not present or very rare, no-one really fears dogs; yet where rabies is endemic, as here in the Philippines, sensible people fear all dogs and if they are bitten, immediately seek anti-rabies treatment. All dogs are feared because a minority are deadly.

The same is true of Muslims. We have a duty to fear all Muslims, because some are deadly and have repeatedly proven just how much they are. Not to be islamophobic would be stupid.

Clearly this is hard on the majority of Muslims, just as the presence of rabies in their midst is hard on dogs. But whereas dogs cannot eradicate the affliction of rabies, the majority of Muslims could eradicate the extremist Islamists. They could expose them and reveal them to the authorities, prevent them from spreading their message of hatred in the mosques, prevent them receiving money and force them out of their communities.

But they do not.

It is not enough to wring hands, dissemble and cry crocodile tears in the wake of yet another – and there will be more and more – atrocity perpetrated in the name of Islam. Muslims must unite to rid their communities of Islamists.

The consequences of a failure to do so are predictable. Here in the Philippines, to be a Muslim right now must be frightening. Over 98.5 million people are appalled and angry at the actions of a tiny number of Islamists, members of a minority of 1.5 million. While people – who do not understand Islam – may say that Abu Sayyaf does not represent ‘true Islam’ their anger is intense and could spill over at any time. The generally peaceable nature of Filipinos should not be taken to mean they will not, if pushed too far, react.

In France and elsewhere in Europe, the reaction has already gained focus and traction. The political right may be xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic and racist but that does not necessarily mean it is wrong about everything. Misrepresenting Polish plumbers as scroungers is nasty and untrue; pointing out that as long as there exists a Muslim minority, a minority within it will exist that is dangerous and must be feared and destroyed, is simply a statement of fact.

It is a very uncomfortable paradox that Islamist extremists force fee-thinking liberals into bed with their most hated enemy, the political right. The clear and present danger of Islamism makes strange bedfellows. The consequences for the whole of Western society, and especially the Muslim minorities may be very bleak if the political right rises again; yet Islamic terrorism in our midst makes this much more likely

It is in the hands of the Muslim community to do something about this, to avoid the inevitable polarisation and possible violence against Muslims. They must fully accept the cultures that they have moved into as their own, embrace the values of free speech and association, the equal rights of women and LGBT people, the equality of all people regardless of skin colour and mush else, and they must deliver into the hands of the authorities all of the Islamist extremists. They must do this now, as a matter of urgency.

The world has seen many massacres and genocides because of religion. As long as humanity is subject to this scourge, these will happen again. For Muslims, this means that they must take action; they must clean their houses of Islamists.

For the rest of us, until they do, islamophobia is the only intelligent position to take.

Rod Fleming on Google+

The post A watershed month appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.

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Philippines Diary: Jeepneys

Jeepneys at Waterfun, Taguig. Pic Rod Fleming

Most people have at least heard about jeepneys, the ubiquitous, colourful and incredibly noisy backbone of the Philippines public transport system. For those who have not, you’ll catch up.

The first jeepneys were in fact modified Willys Jeeps that the Americans left behind. The enterprising pinoys lengthened the chassis and fitted seats. Now they are custom built with stainless steel, all-enclosed bodywork and diesel engines.

Most jeepneys are 20-seaters; 18 in the back and 2 in the front, guv. This makes them unquestionably the friendliest form on transport on the planet, because actually there’s only enough room for 16 in the back and we are talking kitten-hipped pinoys here.

pic: Rod Fleming

This ensures fairly intimate physical contact as you are wedged in between people on either side. The conductors will make sure you’re wedged in too, banging on the outside and telling the passengers to squeeze up.

(I have only once had a conductor look me in the eye and say ‘You’re too big.’ I laughed it off as a matter of principle. If you’re one of those colossal American things, best get a cab.)

The next thing to be aware of is that there is only about 1.5 metres of headroom, so if you’re much over six feet, you will bang your head off the roof even when seated. For everyone, the low height means entering and leaving the jeep in a crouched position, of which more later.

Once wedged in between your new friends-for-life…well, at least for the next few minutes of it anyway… comes the small matter of fares. If you board at a terminus, a conductor will either take the fare as you enter or he’ll come on board to collect it. (I have never seen a woman doing this job. Jeepneys do appear to be strictly male that way.)

If you board en route, however, things are slightly different, and the etiquette demands that you call out ‘Bayat po,’ to the driver before handing him the fare. This he will take while driving and sort out your change and return it, also while driving. It’s quite a feat. Unless you tell him otherwise he will assume you want to go to the terminus, so if you don’t tell him. This also means he’ll stop to let you off at the right place. Since otherwise you won’t have a clue when to get off, this amounts to Good Thinking.

Pic: Rod Fleming

Jeep fares range from a low of four pesos to a maximum of sixteen, at least on the routes I have travelled.

Now the observant among you will probably already have picked up on a problem: what happens if you are not sitting right behind the driver? You’re wedged in, right, and negotiating a forest of knees crouched into a hunch while rattling along in this, let’s be honest, fairly basic machine would be impractical anyway. (At least if you lose balance you won’t fall far.) Well, there is a system. You call out ‘Bayat po’ just as if you were sitting behind the driver and wave the fare in his direction. One of the other passengers will take it and pass it forward till it reaches the driver.

In exactly like manner, your change, if there is any, will be returned to you.

Naturally etiquette demands that you participate, so when someone thrusts money at you, pass it in the appropriate direction. It should be obvious enough.

Now all this is very well, but how do you decide which jeepney to get in the first place? Well, they all ply defined routes for which they are licensed by the relevant city authority. The route will be painted on the side of the jeep itself…so, not obvious at night or when one is coming towards you. However in the windscreen there will be a small destination board with the terminus the jeep is heading for on it. These are only about 20cm x 8cm, so you’ll need sharp eyes and at night, a sixth sense. Best to ask if unsure.

Hailing jeepneys is easy, just wave your arm at an approaching one. If it has vacant seats, the driver will stop, if it doesn’t, tough. There will be another along soon.

To get the driver to stop and let you off, the standard method is to tap one of the stainless steel overhead rails with a coin. There are no real jeepney stops, the driver will just pull up as quickly as he can.

Getting off a jeepney is almost as entertaining as getting squeezed into the seat, especially at a terminus where everyone gets off. Here, you will leave in crouched stance, following the crowd in single file. This means that your face will be around a foot away from the person in front’s bottom. Depending on your preference, choose to enter the line after a boy or a girl…

I told you it was a friendly form of transport.

[contact-form]

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Marriage is not as simple as they want you to think

Human pair-bonding can be one of the most satisfying and awe-inspiring experiences available to us. The feelings of love, closeness and complicity, strengthened by sexual desire and reward, combine the best of what it is to be human.

Together, in the context of the shared adventure of life’s journey, these emotions are even more deeply satisfying. In a good pair-bonded relationship, the couple are not only best friends but also lovers, enjoying the most satisfying fruits of both.

These powerful emotions combine to make a level of intimacy between two people possible that is spiritual in intensity and can indeed last for the lifetime of the partners. Yet the mechanism is much more complex than is often realised. In the first place, there is absolutely no imperative which says that the parties must be of different sex or even gender. Successful, lasting and loving relationships exist between two cis-men, two cis-women, transwomen and cis-men, transwomen and cis-women, transmen and cis-women, between two transgenders and other forms.*

In fact there is as much scope for variety in successful pair-bonding as there is in any other facet of human life. Furthermore, humans can develop sexualised pair-bonds that are lasting and profound, but not necessarily exclusive; this occurs in extant polyamorous cultures – which have survived despite centuries and more of oppression by the patriarchy – all over the world.

Thus it is quite possible for both women and men to have pair-bonds with several others at once, of any sex or gender. Over a lifetime this becomes even more complicated. Same-sex, same gender and multiple, concurrent sexualised bonding models are all completely viable and all, as seen where they continue to exist, provide for the birth and raising of children, and the successful management of society. In many cultures such models have endured for hundreds or even thousands of years and are probably as old as humanity.

Formalised marriage ceremonies are not necessarily a bad thing and the steps taken in more enlightened parts of the world to overturn the old patriarchal model and allow for so-called ‘same sex’ marriages has clearly made many, including me, very happy. As long as the rights of both individuals are equal and protected and it is possible for either party to end the arrangement without excessive cost or social opprobrium, the arrangement can work very well, especially by allowing the couples’ close friends and family to celebrate and support the partnership. In this case the pair-bond comes first and is always the most important factor; so if the couple, for whatever reason, falls out of love, then the marriage can end so that they may move on.

However, the patriarchal marriage – the one that we are used to and was exclusively the case until the last few years – is not a voluntary union between two equals, which exists out of the mutual love of the parties, but one in which a woman is possessed by a man. The patriarchal marriage prescribes exactly who is allowed to enter into a pair-bond and invariably reduces this to one man and one or more women. This is so pervasive that we need to make the point again: heterosexual and exclusive pair bonds are neither the only ones available nor are they intrinsically ‘better’ than any other. They just conform to the patriarchy’s model of social domination.

Essentially, the patriarchy has done the same to human pair-bonding as patriarchal religions have to our sense of wonder at the natural world. It has appropriated positive emotions and perverted them to its ends, such that only pair-bonding of the type it arbitrarily permits is sanctioned. It then goes further and attempts to eradicate all other forms of bonding, through violence, murder, patriarchal law and relentless peer pressure.

The patriarchy sets out not only to prescribe with whom we are allowed to fall in love, but how we are permitted to express that love. It makes certain expressions of intimacy taboo or illegal– for example, public sex, kissing and, in some cultures, even holding hands. It restricts how couples – even those it accepts as ‘legitimate’ – may have sex and has a long history of making laws proscribing anal and oral sex, even within the privacy of the bedroom.

It produces religious nonsense, bogus philosophy and pseudo-science to pretend that it has a case; yet none of it is true: there is no one ‘correct’ form of pair bond, and no form of consenting sex is any less ‘natural’ than any other.

By appropriating and perverting something so fundamentally human, so profoundly beautiful and so powerful to its own ends, the patriarchy uses the human pair bond to enforce its control over society. It is a telling example of the wickedness at the heart of the patriarchy.

The issues discussed here will be explored more fully in ‘Why Men Made God’, co-authored with Karis Burkowski, which is scheduled for publication on 1 May 2015

* The term cis refers to a person of particular birth sex who presents in a gender role usually thought to be conforming to that, or gender-normative. Thus a cis-woman is a person of female birth genitalia who is a woman. This differentiates her from a transwoman, a person of male birth genitalia who is a woman. The inverse applies to cis and trans men.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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