The Joy of Six 1331

Heidi Siegmund Cuda and Dmitrii Kovegin discuss where the anti-Putin resistance in Russia goes from here: "Putin killed Navalny. There is no other way to look at it. Putin along with Russian intelligence kills anyone who opposes him and the regime and who is influential. Anna Politkovskaya, Nemtsov etc. I believe Navalny went back to Russia knowing he would be imprisoned and likely die because he was courageous and believed in his purpose."

J. Mckenzie Alexander asks if Popper's 'Open Society' can survive the information age: "In the book I question if, in looking for likes or retweets, we’re actually chasing the sugar rush rather than the truly nutritious, substantive meal. My concern is that, in a number of senses, people are using these proxies as a way to satisfy very real and justified human needs - but these proxies just aren’t adequate to doing the job right,"

Georgia is descending into a pro-Putin Mafia state, reports Will Neal.

Felicity McWilliams explores the disproportionate impact of a small group of West Berkshire Commoners on the US-USSR nuclear arms race in the 1980s.

"What we have, then, is an omniscient narrator. Except, in a twist that seems to make no sense, where he does pop up to make a comment in his own person, it’s often to admit uncertainty, or to explain that what he’s saying is close to speculation." Daniel Soar on Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamzov.

"The collective angst of the motherless von Trapp children is vaguely written and blandly performed. The film urgently needs the stakes-raising intrusion of the Nazis in its second half; the breath-held tension of its climactic escape sequence may be drafted in from another movie altogether, but necessarily so." Guy Lodge celebrates the flawed but enduring film The Sound of Music.

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"The international community has failed to rise to the occasion. Western governments have largely confined their responses to handwringing statements of “concern” over the violence, and the introduction of travel restrictions on a few government officials. The EU’s hands have been tied by Hungary and Slovakia, who have threatened to veto any effort to introduce tougher measures, such as sanctions." Alexandra Hall Hall says the West will regret abandoning the Georgian people to the clutches of Russia.

Gilo dissects the culture that prevents Church of England bishops from speaking out on abuse in the Church of England.

Jonathan Liew finds that the brave new world of cricket is now so new after all: "All over the world, at differing rates, players are learning that cricket’s new dawn is really the oldest tale of all: a game that was always rigged against them. Where a few get rich, and the rest simply fight over the scraps."

New research reveals that Doggerland - a sunken swath of Europe connecting Britain to the mainland - was more than a simple thoroughfare. It was home, reports Tristan McConnell.

"'I loved that man,' Kenneth Williams wrote that night in his diary. 'His unselfish nature, his kindness, tolerance and gentleness were an example to everyone'. Barry Took, one of Horne's regular scriptwriters, was similarly moved, describing him as 'one of the few great men I have met, and his generosity of spirit and gesture have, in my experience, never been surpassed'." Graham McCann looks back on the career of the comedian Kenneth Horne.

Francis Young considers a seasonal theological dispute: "It does seem that in the minds of some clergy, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus exist in a kind of cosmic opposition, with belief in Santa representing a hindrance to faith in children because it keeps faith always at the level of childish fantasy. The trouble with this approach, however, is that it fundamentally fails to understand the nature of faith and belief - and speaks, in fact, to a deep lack of faith in those religious believers who feel threatened by myth and story."

The SDP: From Cold War warriors to placating Putin

#495245019 / gettyimages.com

Back in the 1980s, one of the dividing lines between the Liberal Party and the SDP was defence.

While the Liberal Party had many unilateral disarmers and was generally keen to reduce Britain's nuclear arsenal, the SDP was convinced for the need for strong nuclear defence against the Soviet threat.

That debate has a period charm now, because what neither side realised was that the Soviet Union was just a few years from dissolution.

The only person in Alliance circles who seemed to have grasped this was an academic called Brian May (not the rock guitarist turned badger campaigner), who argued that the idea that the Soviets still dreamt of invading Western Europe was mistaken. But he was a marginal figure who soon disappeared from the debate.

Time has moved on and now we have a Russian leader who does invade other countries - Georgia and Ukraine - and threaten others, such as Estonia. His allies in Eastern Ukraine brought down a passenger jet and killed British citizens.

So are the founders of the SDP warning us of the need to stop Putin?

Not a bit of it. Just look at the Lords' debate on Russia earlier this week.

Here is David Owen:

It is very hard to see Ukraine, with all the financial difficulties that it has had and its considerable and long record of corruption, achieving the economic growth and prosperity that it deserves without co-operation, first, heading towards membership of the European Union, and secondly, retaining good, strong working relations with the Russian Federation. There is no escape from that, and some of the language that we have heard in the past few months, seeming to think that a solid division between Ukraine and Russia is in the interests of Europe, let alone the world, is a great mistake.

And here, more remarkably, is Shirley Williams:

I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said: the Ukrainians did not start very sensibly by trying to rule out Russian as the second language of Ukraine. The blame is not entirely distributed on one side. 

The noble Lord was also absolutely right to say that we do not sufficiently consider the history of Russia. The history of Russia is a history of one invasion after another, one occupation after another, and growing fear within Russia herself which has led to security being the overwhelming consideration for those who vote. ... 

Of course we should accept the independence of Georgia and Ukraine, but it is unwise to talk as widely as we do about the possibility of both joining NATO. Ukraine has long been the buffer for Russia against the attacks of other countries. The thought that she might roll NATO’s power right up to the border of Russia itself is not timely.

It was left to Kishwer Falkner to speak up for human rights in Russia and the countries it menaces:

Ultranationalism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, predatory capitalism, gross human rights violations and a stealthy expansion of the state at home are there for all of us to see in Russia—a European country. One can add to that list belligerent action against neighbouring states, annexation, the use of hybrid warfare, cyberwarfare, targeted assassinations abroad and disappearances of people—that is the new normal as the projection of Russian power. 

This miscalculation on the part of the West was not just revealed in the morning mist in Crimea this February; for the 140 million ordinary Russians, it has been coming for some time. In fact, it has been building up since 2000, when Vladimir Putin first came to power. It is the people of Russia who have paid the price for their country’s misrule, which looks set to continue well into the 2020s as elections are fixed again and musical chairs reflect choice between President and Prime Minister. 

But now Ukrainians are also paying for Putin’s imperialism. The invasion and occupation of Crimea is already rendering Crimeans poorer as their economy has collapsed along with the region’s tourism. Crimean Tatars are once again dispossessed in their own land. Non-ethnic Russian Ukrainians are displaced or consigned to being non-citizens in their own country.

I believe that Kishwer joined the Liberal Democrats after the two parties had merged, so there are no neat Liberal vs SDP lines to be drawn here.

But it is worth pausing a moment to reflect on how far David Owen, at least, has travelled in 30 years.

Putin may threaten Estonia next

UN Dispatch reports:

Last week Russian security forces abducted an Estonian security officer along the country’s border with Russia. The incident is a serious development, but is also merely one of several that have analysts looking at Estonia as the possible next theatre for Russian ambitions.

And concludes:

Now analysts are having to contend with a real possibility that the Baltic states will be the next of Putin’s foreign adventures. If so, despite their small size, it will have far wider consequences than the current conflict in Ukraine. 

With their NATO membership, any attack on Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania will inevitably lead to a much wider conflict between the West and Russia, the type that can reshape Eastern Europe as we know it today.

So far Putin has met with little opposition from the West as he seeks to reassemble, if not the Soviet Union, then Russia's 19th-century empire.

We were silent over Georgia, near silent over the Crimea and tonight there are rumours that many European nations are resisting the sanctions over Ukraine that were agreed last week.

What I fear is a return to the situation when I was young where, not only was Estonia not an independent nation, but any thought that it might be was near ridiculous.

This is what I wrote about John Le Carré's Smiley's People and its television adaptation three years ago:

One thing that interests me about Smiley’s People is that it reminds us how much the world has changed since it was written in 1979. The plot begins with the murder by the KGB in London of an elderly former Soviet general who has defected to become the head of an Estonian nationalist organisation. 

To the realists who have taken over the Circus since Smiley’s retirement – and to an extent to Le Carré himself – the Estonians are relics of the past and somewhat ridiculous. The future lies in détente with the Soviets. I take this as a true picture of the official view under Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan’s governments of the 1970s.

If we are to avoid a return to a world like that - and it is not hard to find left-wingers who will bend over backwards to find excuses for Putin's imperialism - then the West is going to have to stand up to Russia and its ambitions.

China and Central Asian nations fail to support Russia over Georgia

An interesting report from Associated Press says China and four Central Asian nations have rebuffed Russia's hopes of international support for its actions in Georgia. The Shanghai Co-operation Organization issued a statement today denouncing the use of force and calling for the respect of every country's territorial integrity.

The report later says:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had appealed to the Asian alliance, which is made up of China, Russia and four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations, for unanimous support of Moscow's response to Georgia's "aggression."

But the alliance, which was created in 2001 to improve regional co-ordination on terrorism and border security, opted to take a neutral position and urged all sides to resolve the conflict through "peaceful dialogue."

"The participants ... underscore the need for respect of the historical and cultural traditions of each country and each people, and for efforts aimed at preserving the unity of the state and its territorial integrity," the alliance's statement said.

None of the other alliance members joined Russia in recognizing the independence claims of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are Russia, China and four Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Craig Murray recently described it as:

a dictators' club. Despite having several theoretical fields of activity, the main practical focus is entirely on security and, in the words of their declaration, combating "terrorism, separatism and extremism". That is code for repressing any moves to freedom in Central Asia.

Even so, the Central Asian states may have reason to be less keen than some Western left-wingers are on the concept of a "former Soviet space" where Russia may do as it pleases.

Resist the Finlandisation of Georgia

There is a good article on Comment is Free about the situation in Georgia. It is written by Alan Johnson.

It begins:

Finlandisation is back. During the cold war the term described those states which had a formal independence but existed in barely disguised servitude to Moscow. Finland, Jean-Francois Revel noted in his 1983 book. How Democracies Perish, "preserved the inviolability of its territory, what was left of it, and the right to live privately in a non-totalitarian society" but was forbidden to accept Marshall Plan aid, join the EEC or sign trade agreements with Europe. It took its orders from Moscow in foreign policy.

This is the fate Putin (and some in the west) now seek to impose on Georgia. And now, as then, Russia hopes to impose Finlandisation by a mix of hard and soft power.

The hard power comes in the form of tanks and Russia's control of other countries' energy supply.

And the soft power?

That, says Johnson, is supplied these days by the anti-American left. He rightfully takes issue with a shameful article published on Comment is Free on Thursday by Seumas Milne.

Johnson takes fire at Milne here:

The conflict in Georgia "is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion". Georgia is no fledgling democracy to be defended but a "fully-fledged US satellite". Its government came to power in a "western-backed coup" don't you know, and western support for Georgia meant "conflict was only a matter of time". And after all, "'unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome".

Milne here manages something quite extraordinary: he "forgets" the mass escape from the prison house of nations that was only made possible by the collapse of Communism, while supporting the resurgence of an authoritarian Russia as the very means to open up "genuine space for self-determination". Astonishing.

The trouble is that elements of the left in Britain are so consumed with the Bush administration that they will support anyone who opposes it. Even a hard-line Russian government intent on holding its 19th century empire together.

Johnson also links to a valuable article by Ronald D. Asmus in The New Republic which analyses the West's failure to support Georgia.

Next week: Resist the Georgiaisation of Finland.

Russian cyber war on Georgia

From The First Post ("The online daily magazine"):

While Russian tanks rolled into Georgian territory on August 8, a simultaneous 'cyber-attack' was turning Georgia's government web pages into a tangle of broken links.

Malicious technological mischief is something of a feature of Eastern European diplomatic relations. But the scale and, particularly, the timing of this cyber-attack, and the existence of a mysterious 'practice attack' a month earlier, pose important questions about the lead-up to the Russia-Georgian conflict.

There is nothing funny about the situation in Georgia

But it was hard not to smile at this item in the Guardian Diary today:

Comprehensive coverage of the crisis developing in the South Ossetia province of Georgia on Sky News - it's just unfortunate that the breaking news service seems to think the war is raging in the US rather than eastern Europe.

"Georgia is a state in the southern United States," reads the ever-so helpful "Background on the Region" section of its "Georgia In Depth" pages. "Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution ...

I expect Sky think this is the Georgian national anthem.

Spencer Davis Group: Georgia On My Mind

With tomorrow being Steve Winwood's 60th birthday, I have an excuse for returning to this blog's favourite band.

This performance comes from the same Finnish TV concert as the version of "I'm a Man" featured here a few weeks ago. Which means it comes from 1967 when Winwood was 18 and about to leave the group to form Traffic.

Winwood's homage to Ray Charles is extraordinary. And it raises the question of why it was that in the early 1960s a generation of white middle-class boys found such affinity with the Black American music of the blues.

I read somewhere that Pete Townshend attributed it to the fact that we were all so depressed after World War II and the austerity years. My own theory is twofold.

The first is that this generation had fathers who played jazz. This was true of Jimmy Page and his fellow skiffle players and also of the Winwood brothers, whose father was a semi-professional musician. So they grew up in households that were steeped in Black music.

The second is the influence of the church. Religion was a greater presence in middle-class life in those days, which gave British boys a musical education that was closer to the American South than anything they will experience today. Steve Winwood sang in his parish church choir for years as a boy, as did Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. (Rod Argent of The Zombies was even a chorister at St Albans Abbey.)

Chris Welch writes in his biography of Steve Winwood:

Just like so many of the original black soul artists, Steve's earliest singing experiences were on sanctified ground. When the church organist had finished playing, taken his cassock off and got on his bicycle to go home, Steve and Muff used to stay in church with a couple of other friends, switch on the pump and get the organ going.
With Steve pedalling furiously he sang out "What I'd Say", his voice echoing to the rafters of St John's, Perry Barr.

It is all a long way from Simon Cowell and a far better musical education than anyone is likely to get today.