The Plight of the Indian Pedestrian, Deccan Herald 16/10/09

Home Minister P.Chidambaram recently urged Delhiites to demonstrate decent behaviour, particularly on the roads, during the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games...

Being a pedestrian in India can seriously damage your health. But I am a little puzzled as to why it should take some sports event for a prominent politician to speak up on road behaviour, as it’s been blindingly obvious that road users and the authorities have been conspiring to make Indian roads an absolute nightmare for a very long time.

European pedestrians are very fortunate. They compete with less people for more space, sometimes having access to wide, smooth and obstacle-free pavements. There are laws that are enforced to prevent businesses from obstructing the pavements with advertising boards and parked vehicles from intruding. They are also very fortunate because vehicle users stop at red lights and crossings, drive on the correct side of the road and do not drive at pedestrians while blurting horns, with pedestrians running for their lives. Traffic rules are actually obeyed, police enforce the traffic laws and vehicles users show at least a modicum of respect for the pedestrian.

‘Pavements’ in Indian towns may consist of paving stones (or gravel, or sand), interrupted by covered manholes that protrude vertically by at least ten centimetres. Or there are holes covered with a slab of concrete. Or the paving is so uneven that it will cause serious injury to anyone who stubs their toe and trips (probably into an uncovered manhole). Pavements are so cluttered with protruding manholes and advertising hoardings strategically placed to cause maximum inconvenience that the poor old pedestrian is often relegated to walk in the road.

Of course, this assumes that pavements exist in the first place. Very often, they don’t. Why walk on a nice pavement, when you can put yourself in danger of serious injury by walking in the road, adjacent to motorized vehicles of every description? It must save city authorities a lot of money by not having to provide superfluous things like decent pavements.

I have lost count of the amount of times that I’ve avoided serious injury by walking along the road in India. Having been forced onto the side of the road, there’s no guarantee on a one-way section that vehicles go only in one direction. I have learned to look in all directions as cars, bicycles and mopeds tend to appear from nowhere, driving on the wrong side of the road.

When I look at them after they have barely missed me, their attitude is that it’s all really my fault for being in the way. So, after having been forced into the road, I’m now being forced from the road. The pedestrian is an inconvenience to traffic and city planners alike.

Focus on revenue

It would of course help if traffic police actually attempted to control traffic. Traffic police are often out in force, quite often not enforcing traffic rules of course, but hassling drivers of two wheelers for some or other administrative misdemeanour in order to boost the coffers.

In 2006, more than one lakh people died and an estimated two lakh were seriously injured on India’s roads. That constitutes more deaths than anywhere else in the world and claims far more victims than communicable diseases like Aids, TB and malaria combined. And many of the fatalities are pedestrians who were merely trying to cross the road. The lives of the injured are devastated.

However, a number of pressure groups are currently involved in encouraging better road safety, and steps are afoot to create new road safety agencies at state and national level. Certain initiatives are also trying to ensure standardised training for drivers, many of whom do not even understand the meaning of road signs. How successful this will be is anyone’s guess.

In the meantime, the less pavement space there is and as India’s traffic volume increases, the more people will continue to get pushed into increasingly crowded roads. And the more they are pushed to the middle of the road, the more likely it is that they risk being killed. Of course there is a simple solution to all of this — quite simply build more and more community devastating flyovers and wider roads with ever-diminishing pavement space and force people from venturing out on foot. Do away with the pedestrian altogether. It’s already happening.

It's More About Their £££ Factor, Morning Star 9/10/09

Colin Todhunter takes aim at the corporate brand of stardom that's become today's fashion

It's back! The X Factor, that is. This type of instant fame and fortune show is very much a global phenomenon. TV is becoming increasingly homogenised, with similar formats for programmes being used throughout the world, usually modified to attract the maximum number of viewers and the greatest amount of advertising revenue.

In 2007, I was in Nepal when the climax to Indian Idol was being aired. There were huge celebrations in Kathmandu when the winner was announced - he was from Nepal, in case you don't know. Good luck to the winners of Idol, from whichever country they come and whichever version they enter. The winners undoubtedly have a certain degree of talent and ability. But exactly how much remains open to debate.

The 67-year-old hard rock solo singer and former frontman of Black Sabbath Ronnie James Dio slighted American Idol recently by referring to it as American Karaoke - people who have a half-decent voice or who can't sing at all come along and attempt to sing songs that were written by other people and made famous by other people. This process has less to do with developing talent and is more about having "star quality," which these days seems synonymous with being good-looking enough for advertisers to want to latch on to you in order to push their products. Star quality - ripe for positioning, branding and mass commodification; ripe for becoming cross-branded with some pimple cream, fizzy drink or designer label clothes.

Whatever happened to putting in your apprenticeship, developing your skills and then trying to make it? These days it's a case of almost instant fame after having come through some preliminary rounds, with a bunch of millionaire judges telling you that you are good enough to be a star, to be positioned in the marketplace.

Dio asked just how many of these winning competitors will be remembered in 50 years time and how many will truly appreciate easy fame? Well, let me answer his question. Their longevity will mimic that of the consumer products that they resemble - if you do not possess the latest products on offer then you are a failure. If you do possess them, you will feel an even bigger failure because, by that stage, you will have bought into the lie and will be wanting the bigger, brighter, better versions of the older products that were supposed to be the biggest, brightest and best that could ever exist. Six months ago, you ran out to buy the latest miracle to hit the shelves. Now you are told that that particular cutting-edge commodity is obsolete and useless when compared to the super-improved-edge version. For modern consumerism, read modern fame. The fickle hand of the market will write the fate of many of the winners of this type of show. Easy come, easy go.

Acts like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young wrote their own music, or borrowed from others but transformed it in the process, paid their dues through years of touring or working as session musicians and are still very much around some 40 years later. Sure, these acts were eventually marketed and promoted but not before they had worked hard at refining their craft, toiling away in less than glamorous surroundings.

Some may say that programmes such as X Factor are a case of "the public gets what the public wants." The trouble is that, in this day and age, through increasingly sophisticated advertising and marketing mechanisms, mass public trends and opinions are all too easily formed and discarded in favour of the next one, like "stardom" itself.

Rock and roll is in the blood of Ronnie James Dio - it has to be, given that he is still belting it out in his mid-sixties. To some, Dio may not be particularly cute to look at or "user friendly" and his image might not readily attract advertisers in their droves. But he is, and probably always was, in it for the music and perhaps not so much the fame. How many competitors in these instant-fame shows can truly say that with hand on heart, as they clamour over one another in their desperate and often futile attempts to achieve overnight fame on the back of little or no talent at all?

Fame for fame's sake and money for God's sake? It sometimes seems so. Just ask Simon Cowell. He'd know all about that.

Myth and Madness in the Modern Age, Deccan Herald 14/9/08

Madness is back in fashion. This time, the unreasonable ones are found in the corridors of power.

We haven’t come very far, have we? The Enlightenment that began in Europe during the 17th century was a defining point of Western culture and intended to usher in a brave new world of science, progress and rational and open discourse, which was free from the oppression, myths and superstitions of the past. The second millennium is now behind us, and the 20th century was the bloodiest period of all, with science and technology being used to fuel industrial scale wars and atrocities. Are we set to repeat the history of the previous century on an even greater scale?

Prior to the 20th century, the grand theories of society and social change, stemming from the Enlightenment and posited by the likes of Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were all based on faith in the evolution and ultimate progress of humankind, however much those theories differed from one another. But various commentators have questioned the very notion of ‘progress’ and the outcome of the Enlightenment project.

The new mythology

Many philosophers and theorists, such as Theodore Adorno and Jurgen Habermas, noted that science itself had become the new mythology in the modern age and its institutions and practitioners willing servants in the market place and in the pay of the military-industrial complex. Far from liberating humankind, science and the often preset and closed nature of rational debate in the political and public sphere had very often become a tool of oppression in the hands of the oppressors.

Indeed, disillusionment with modernity has subsequently been encompassed by the catch-all term ‘postmodern discontent’ to account for anything from political apathy to the trend towards hedonistic materialism.

Of course, there is always the hope that things will get better. Just how much that hope is grounded in reality is another matter entirely, particularly when it comes to political leaders. Despite the ongoing impact of the ‘war on terror’ and the attempts to stick with a free market system and ideology that has failed so many across the world, the current crop of world leaders never gets tired of trotting out a series platitudes that point to ‘success’ or ‘recovery’ in order to convince a sceptical public that we are about to turn the corner and embark on a renewed golden age of economic neo-liberalism. There seems to be some confusion among political leaders between reason and fantasy here.

The G20 leaders live in an warped world in which right is wrong and wrong is right. Everything has turned sour, and it is the ordinary person who is paying the price. Instead of implementing real and radical change, these leaders have now turned their attention to regulating finance-sector bonuses, which are put forward as the main problem that must be addressed if the economic crisis is to be overcome.

The construction of such narratives, with the help of an assortment of sympathetic economists, financial ‘experts’ and media outlets, are merely an attempt to legitimate and continue a system that prioritises the wishes of the few at the expense of many. The very fact that controls are being mooted by political leaders undermines the theory on which their free market vision of society is based.

Alternative truth

At the very least, they are being unreasonable in their approach. Traditionally, in Europe, ‘unreasonable’ members of the population were often locked away and institutionalised. In the 18th century, madness came to be seen as the reverse of reason, and, finally, in the 19th century as ‘mental illness’. Madness was silenced by reason and lost its power to signify the limits of social order and to point to an alternative truth.

Well, madness is well and truly back in fashion. This time, the unreasonable ones are not to be found within the walls of asylums, but in the corridors of power. But, let’s be honest, looking back over the last few hundred years, we never really left the pre-Enlightenment age of myth and superstition behind. As many social anthropologists will tell you, we just became a little more sophisticated into fooling ourselves that we did.

As our great political leaders try to convince us of their ‘reasoned’ arguments and justifications for unfettered capitalism and ongoing wars, they exhibit a blind faith with their unbending allegiance to a particular economic dogma and the continued belief in the righteousness of failed invasions. Far from liberating humanity, the powerful are attempting to construct a brave new world shrouded in deception and superstition, under the guise of those high minded notions of openness and democracy. We haven’t come very far, have we?

Afghanistan - A Rock and a Hard Place, Deccan Herald 25/8/09 and The Rising Nepal 26/8/09

In the United Kingdom, public pressure is building for the troops to get out of Afghanistan.

(The italicised sections appeared only in The Rising Nepal version of the article and not in The Deccan Herald version)

Ever heard of a place called Wootton Bassett? No, neither had I until recently. Wootton Bassett has a long history, but few people in the UK had heard of it till a few months ago. Now, it’s well and truly on the map, due to regular coverage of events there by the British media. This sleepy, picturesque market town in the south of England has become synonymous with the UK’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

The sight on British TV screens of dead service personnel arriving by plane from the conflict in Afghanistan has become a common phenomenon. Shortly after arrival at the nearby air force base at RAF Lynham, they pass through Wootton Bassett on their way to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, in readiness for the coroner. Local people gather along the edge of the road in silent tribute as the formal procession of flag draped coffins makes its way past. The mainstream media also gather and report on proceedings. With over 200 dead British service personnel from the conflict, this has in recent months become a familiar event.

We are urged by the government and media not to forget that these men were killed fighting for freedom — ‘our’ freedom and that of the people of Afghanistan. The solemnity conveyed by TV reporters as the coffins move through the town resembles the tone used by commentators when the state commemorates the fallen of two world wars who repelled Hitler.

It’s almost as if the clock has been turned back, invoking populist sentiments of bulldog spirit as we once again repel the mighty invader on our shores. After regaining Afghanistan, these relatively poorly armed insurgents in one of the world’s poorest countries will no doubt march on London!

But, increasingly, the sanctimonious jingoism that characterises much of the media’s reporting does not wash with sections of the British public, many of whom are confused or angry about the loss of life in a far away place. And it’s no surprise that confusion abounds. Officialdom seems just as confused. At various stages, the official line over the invasion of Afghanistan has shifted from regime change to protecting women’s rights, from defeating the Taliban to eradicating the drug trade, from encouraging economic and social development to preventing terror on the streets of Britain, or to the task of creating a western style democracy within just a few years. Take your pick. The reason for the Brits being in Afghanistan seems to shift from month to month.

And, as the coalition sets out to ‘civilise’ Afghanistan by bringing a good dose of western values, the Left has argued all along that the invasion is illegal and smacks of neo-colonialism. Many figures within the UK, including MP George Galloway and the veteran UK politician Tony Benn, point out that the conflict has less to do with attacking terrorism or high minded notions of democracy, but more to do with geopolitics and US state-corporate self interest and regional domination.

Ordinary people are now increasingly questioning what the UK is doing in Afghanistan and are aware that there is no end-point in sight, despite the rhetoric of Gordon Brown and his ministers who claim that ‘we are winning’ and making Britain a safer place. Perhaps in saying this, Brown et al are trying to convince themselves because they are certainly failing to convince the public.

It is clear that ‘we’ are not winning, whatever ‘winning’ means, and that Britain isn’t a safer place - invading someone else’s country radicalises certain groups within Britain or encourages them to come to the UK to redress the balance.

As ministers are asked with greater frequency what victory in Afghanistan would look like, they flounder for a clear answer. Their words imply that ‘winning’ is ‘not losing’ and that ‘not losing’ would somehow constitute a momentous victory. But that’s politicians for you.

In one respect, in the UK, the events in Wootton Bassett have become symbolic of the ideological and moral battleground of the conflict. For some, egged on by the media and government, there is glory in the death of ‘our boys’ in Afghanistan who are fighting for our and Afghanistan’s freedom and democracy. They urge us all to be patriotic by supporting the troops and the war effort, regardless of whether one agreed with the invasion in the first place.

For others, however, this is a futile waste of young life, including the tens of thousands of Afghans who have been killed, which are too often overlooked by the media. But, then again, students of history will appreciate that the British Establishment has a long history of slaughter abroad and of sacrificing the lives of young and usually working class British men in pursuit of its aims and under the banner of a ‘greater good’, whether that is freedom, nationalism or some other concept contrived to galvanise the masses.

In the UK, public pressure is building for the Brits to get out of Afghanistan. Reading between the lines and despite the official message, the government wants out too, given that there is no end in sight, the loss of British life and the need to tighten public expenditure purse strings after having pumped so much of the nation’s wealth into the ailing banking system. But, having tied much of the UK’s foreign policy to the US in recent times, this will not be an easy thing to accomplish. Being caught between a rock and a hard place is not the best situation to find oneself in. Just ask Gordon Brown.

Click here: The British Establishment Revealed

Ad Breaks in an Indian Dream, Deccan Herald 23/7/09, The Rising Nepal 25/7/09 and the Morning Star 30/7/09

An edited version of the title chapter from Colin's book 'Chasing Rainbows in Chennai', which appeared on the edit pages of the Deccan Herald and The Rising Nepal and also in the Morning Star

Colin Todhunter reflects on how advertising urges us to keep chasing impossible rainbows

I was recently lodged for a long period in a Chennai hotel and have to admit to having watched far too much TV during my stay. The more I watched, the wearier I became. The advertisements were almost carbon copies of the ones in the West, in terms of the products and the shiny coca-cola lifestyles promoted.

The advertisements and the game shows that interrupted the commercial breaks were exponents of the kind of self-seeking materialism that now all too often passes for entertainment. I switched off. I think that the euphemism for all of this stuff is 'globalisation' or indeed 'westoxification'.





We now live in a kind of global box that, when opened, contains a model hand which pulls the lid shut to prevent light from entering and scrutiny of what goes on inside. Boxes normally contain something that can be looked at. Not this one - it has steel fingers to close the cover. Why be aware of the world's ills and challenge anything when you can live in the dark, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok and shop 'til you drop? We live in a consumer paradise where unfettered desire is a virtue and obsession is the faith. The advertising industry oils the hand that closes the box. Welcome to the nightmare.

Where on earth do advertising agencies get their sanitised screen images of urban India from - probably Singapore, with its gleaming skyscrapers, sterile streets, and super deluxe cars. Those images bear little resemblance to what I see in reality. The gap between the glossy world of adverts and reality may be big in the West, but in India it's gargantuan.

Reality may bite, but advertisements suck. In fact, reality lacerates. The sensation cuts deep, it's real, can be grasped and is free. Advertisements, on the other hand, deal in fantasy and create a thirst that can never be quenched. And for those who crave, it's an expensive endeavour. Billions are spent by the ad industry telling us that somewhere at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of gold. But as day fades to night, the rainbow disappears, and illusion gives way to reality - there is no gold.

There is nothing that can make teeth whiter than white, skin smoother than smooth, and hair shinier than shiny. Wearing the appropriate designer label product will not miraculously turn us into bright, young things. And - believe it or not - drinking the right type of cola will not suddenly make us God's gift to men or women - despite what the happy, smiling faces say.

The world of the TV commercial treats the viewer to the life-changing wonders of brand named alcohol, coloured fizzy drinks and labelled clothes. Just luxuries that we could do without? No. They are the necessary, must have, must be seen to have, lifestyle products, all because they are endorsed by some beaming cricketer, game show host or Bollywood star. If we do not possess them, then we are failures. If we do possess them, we will feel even bigger failures because by that stage we will have bought into the lie and will be wanting the newer, brighter version of whiter than white toothpaste which we acquired when it was newer and brighter than the previous bright, new version. Despite the trillions spent by the consumer in pursuit of the dream, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, just a bag of rotten teeth.

It's a precarious world we live in, based on hollow myths and promises. But don't tell anyone; it may shatter if people look too hard. It’s a fragile invention and because of that the label on the outside of the box probably reads 'Handle With Care'. Maybe it also reads, 'Do Not Disturb', as people bask in their emptiness and watch global TV with eyes wide shut.

Somewhere there is a rainbow, and somewhere over the rainbow there is a new tomorrow. But it's just the old yesterday recycled and sold back to us at a profit. If you chase it you will go full circle and will eventually end up back where you started from, wondering what was the point. The best things in life are free. Well, for the time being at least.

Michael Jackson: Death of an Identity Morning Star 29/6/09 and The Rising Nepal 30/6/09

Michael Jackson is destined to linger in the collective memory for generations to come. But just how will he be remembered? He went from the little boy performing with his brothers to the solo artiste, who continually transformed himself and his music over time, and finally to the tragic figure of the boy-man, who never had a childhood, lived in a world of self-delusion and fantasy and became mired in allegations of child abuse.

Seeing the TV clips of the Jackson 5 in the early 1970s, it was obvious that Michael was the one with the unique talent. The influences of James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke were already present in the young Jackson.

At age 23 in 1982, Jackson released ‘Thriller’, the biggest selling album of all time and a defining moment in pop music. A 14-minute video accompanied the single ‘Thriller’, released two years later. In that video, Jackson’s dance moves reshaped the pop performance genre, and in doing so, defined music spectacle and grand gesture for a generation to come. The legendary Fred Astaire was to proclaim that Jackson danced with rage in his feet.

Although he is labelled as ‘king of pop’, it is perhaps more fitting to say he was the king of pop sensation, in terms of his lavishly choreographed videos and stage performances, which set the stage for what Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and many others have since done in both video and concert.

But it was just as much about his music as it was about his movements. Jackson went from black Motown artiste to crossover act with Thriller, incorporating various musical styles. Combining rap with hard rock and mixing and matching various styles is commonplace today, but it was Jackson who set the template back in the early to mid-80s. At the time, it was quite groundbreaking to include hard rock maestro Eddie Van Halen performing a mesmerizing guitar solo on the song ‘Beat It’.

In a way, his music became more bleached over the years as he strived to appeal to black audiences and mainstream white audiences alike. His appearance did too. Plastic surgery changed his features. Gone was the black skin, which he claimed was the result of a pigmentation related skin disease. His changed physical appearance disappointed many in the black community, and some accused him of denying his blackness.

The bubble burst in the early 1990s with the first case of child abuse against him. He settled out of court. Although money made the case go away, it couldn’t prevent him being tarnished thereafter. Jackson became less known for his music and more for his failed marriages and the ‘wacko Jacko’ label that the tabloids went on to give him.

Tales of drug misuse and erratic behaviour came to the fore, stoked by the now infamous act of Jackson dangling his baby son from a German hotel balcony. In some respects, the death of Michael Jackson the artiste occurred in the early to mid-1990s and what we were subsequently left with were scattered remnants of his artistry laced with large helpings of media-driven ridicule.

The 2005 court case about Jackson’s activities with young boys at his Neverland ranch seemed to effectively end his career, although Jackson was cleared of all charges. It took four years for Jackson to push himself into the limelight once more with a series of much publicized comeback concerts scheduled in London for July 2009. At 50, could the Peter Pan of pop turn back time to put on a physically demanding pop spectacular of yesteryear? We will never find out.

Michael Jackson may well be remembered for opening many doors for black people long before Barack Obama, Tiger Woods or Oprah Winfrey ever did, as indeed Reverend Al Sharpton, Jackson’s close friend, has suggested. But he may also be remembered for being a child star who was driven too hard and who bought into and was ultimately crushed by the great illusion of the corporate driven ‘American Dream’. In a society that turns people into brand identities for mass marketing and lavishes them with untold fame and riches, is it any wonder than more than a few can’t cope, endure an endless crisis of identity and end up as tragic shadows of their former selves?

Whether it’s Diana ‘Queen of Hearts’ or Jackson ‘King of Pop’, such figures live lives that are far removed from the daily routines of ordinary people. They become media produced icons, forwarded as embodying certain core values that ordinary people identify with. It’s a trick sold to the masses and often accepted at face value, which can have sinister implications for all concerned – those experiencing fame and playing out the illusion and for many of the fans who buy into it.

In 30 years time, when Jackson’s records and videos are played, will it be the music, dancing and songwriting that endure and not the tragedy of Jackson the troubled figure? Perhaps we should strive to recall the tragedy of Jackson. In doing so, we might be reminded of the shallowness of fame, its fabricated essence, its manipulative nature and its many victims.

Ronaldo - Worth Every Penny? Don't Make Me Laugh, Morning Star 24/6/09 and The Rising Nepal 16/6/09

The transfer market in the world of professional football is currently at fever pitch. AC Milan recently received a staggering record 68 million euros from Real Madrid for the Brazilian player Kaka. A mere two days later, Madrid paid an even more staggering 93 million euros for Cristiano Ronaldo and smashed the world record amount that they had paid for Kaka. Ronaldo is now expected to rake in about 230,000 euros a week – that’s 11.5 million a year.

In 2007, Merrill Lynch's chairman, Stan O'Neal, retired after announcing losses of 8 billion US dollars and took a final pay deal worth 161 million. The boss of Citigroup, Chuck Prince, left with 38 million in bonuses, shares and options after multibillion-dollar write-downs. In Britain, Bob Diamond, Barclay’s president, received a salary of 250,000 GB pounds, but his total pay, including bonuses, reached 36 million. This occurred even as Barclay’s share prices continued to slump and the bank was forced to write off 2.8 billion pounds during the previous year.

Of course, the corporate world has been handing out inflated salaries for some time to its self-labelled ‘captains of industry’, and at least up until the bailouts for the financial system, it often went largely unnoticed by the media and public, not least because it was expected and encouraged in business.

Footballers, celebrities, pop stars or failing bankers taking home these figures? Come on, I don’t think society would fall apart without these people. What they are ‘earning’ in just one week is what most of the world couldn’t earn in even two lifetimes. Why do people deserve astronomical salaries anyhow? I am told because they are so ‘unique’- 36 million times more unique in Bob Diamond’s case.

But somewhere along the line may come the jolting realisation that people probably do not need or deserve what they receive or crave for in the first place. If people feel they can’t live on less than 11.5 million, or let's be realistic, even one per cent of that, then there’s something seriously wrong. Even when people delude themselves by perceiving that their mansions, luxury cars and diamonds and pearls are must-have possessions and justifiable rewards, there is often little thought for the consequences of how they were acquired in the first place. What happens in some African diamond mine, rain forest or hellhole sweatshop is neither here nor there as long as it’s out of sight, out of mind.

A minimum wage? What about a maximum wage? Let's inject a bit of morality into things. These high earners appear to be living in a bubble or are on a different planet. But the shameful reality is that they are actually living on this planet, where hundreds of millions go to bed hungry each night or don’t have access to basic necessities such as clean water.

The worst thing is that these rewards become perceived as either natural or inevitable and regarded as something to be respected and strived for. It’s a form of cultural hegemony that serves to incorporate people into an aspirational mindset whereby radical hedonism and corporate inspired greed are quite acceptable. And, as we surge headlong towards this irretrievable materialism and fetish for commodities, we surge further towards stripping the planet of its resources, ecological disaster and endless conflict for even scarcer resources to fuel the system.

Meritocracy supposedly contributes towards economic efficiency and social justice, whereby the ‘functionally most important jobs’ in society are filled according to individual effort and merit and are rewarded accordingly. This position was forwarded by the US sociologists E.G. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore back in the 1940s.

This faith in meritocracy and generic inequality has been increasingly challenged over time and is of course totally misplaced as black people, low paid workers, women and anyone from other discriminated against groups will tell you. For many, inequality (meritocracy) is the result of conflict, exploitation and power imbalances, not least the distorting influences that the private ownership and control of wealth and the manipulation of the market have on boosting the privileged positions of the already privileged.

When we pay some 11.5 million euros a year for kicking a leather ball around and 161 million US dollars to failing bankers are we implying what these people do is ‘functionally most important’ for society? If so, what is implied when hundreds of millions work hard in difficult conditions to produce what genuinely is ‘functionally most important’ for society - food - and receive less than two dollars a day? At 230,000 euros a week, Ronaldo is 4,600 times the man these farmers will ever be and perhaps 1,000 times more than a nurse. Unfortunately, that’s the message sent out. One does not have to refer to Marx to appreciate the debasement of human relations and to understand that the current rewards system implies that the value of people lies in the commodities they own or amount they earn and not in the person themself.

This coming season, no doubt thousands will worship at the feet of Ronaldo and buy the products he endorses or pay the entrance fees to watch him play. I just ask all football commentators not to be swept along by a wave of euphoria after Ronaldo kicks a ball into a net and tell me that he is ‘worth every penny’ - because it simply isn’t true.

Fear and Loathing in Liverpool, Gulf News 4/6/09

Rome was the setting for European club football's finale to the season, as Barcelona ran out 2-0 winners against Manchester United, with the Catalan side outclassing their opponents with a majestic interpretation of the beautiful game to pick up their third title.

Samula Eto'o and man of the match Lionel Messi sealed the win for the Spaniards with their goals. United had few answers to Barcelona's almost exhibition-type style of football at times. But United and their manager, Alex Ferguson, were perhaps a little handicapped because they were after all also conscious of playing against another team who were not even on the pitch - Liverpool.

Barcelona not only destroyed their European title hopes on the night, but also Ferguson's ambition for United to win the title for a fifth time before he retires, which would equal Liverpool's achievement. When Ferguson first came to manage United in 1986, Liverpool were the dominant side in England. There is a famous quote from Ferguson who when asked what he hoped to achieve when he first took over the reigns at the Manchester club, is reported to have said he wanted to knock Liverpool off their perch.

Since then, he has won 11 English league titles, which now equals Liverpool's 18, but is still behind their European title tally, which now stands at five. So, Ferguson has not quite knocked them off that perch just yet.

The rivalry between Liverpool and United is one of the world's fiercest. Just go to Anfield or Old Trafford when the two play each other and witness it at the sharp end. There is a fine line between passion and hate. And things have been stoked up a few notches further in recent times given that the two current managers appear to have a genuine dislike for one another. Rafael Benitez, Liverpool's Spanish manager, famously failed to congratulate Ferguson on winning this year's English premiership, after his United side just pipped Liverpool to the title.

I have no doubt that a loud cheer could be heard coming from the Benitez household as Barcelona lifted the Champions League title in Rome. I also know for a fact that a collective sigh of relief could be heard in Liverpool as United failed to edge closer to Liverpool's five European titles. I know because I was there.

And as Barcelona scored their second, I'm not ashamed to say that I stood and shouted, "Lionel Messi, I love you!" There's also a fine line between relief and madness.

The Poverty of Morality - UK-StyleDeccan Herald 9/6/09 and The Rising Nepal 10/6/09

The public at large has been captivated by the scandals and the everyday media revelations

The Big Brother reality TV show in the UK has just embarked upon its umpteenth series and will no doubt attract an assortment of oddball characters who wish to achieve instant fame on the back of appearing on the programme. The format is now way past its sell by date, and in an attempt to attract viewers, contestants have become more and more weird and outrageous with each passing series.

But do we really need this show anymore? We have after all been tuning in to a much more dramatic alternative media reality show in recent weeks: the meltdown of the British political class and the government itself.

It all began with the revelations by The Daily Telegraph about MPs' abuses of the financial allowances system and has been further stoked by blanket coverage from any number of TV news bulletins. We have been informed of MPs' claims for moat cleaning, duck ponds and adult films, alongside tax avoidance and profiteering scams.

In terms of jaw dropping disbelief, it is the equal of anything that the Big Brother freak show could offer. Of course, all of this has been at the taxpayer's expense. With each new scandal, the public has become increasingly outraged and in a strange kind of way has been licking its lips each morning in anticipation of the next tawdry expense-related affair to hit the news stands.

Usually, the everyday happenings in ‘Westminster village' - the small area of London that accommodates parliament and government buildings - is far removed from and of little interest to most of the public, although political journalists are obsessed with its machinations. Certain correspondents, party cadres and politicians at Westminster form part of the established navel-gazing political game, which provides endless media gossip, innuendo and speculation that culminates in an ongoing political soap opera for the chattering classes.

This time around, however, the public at large has been captivated by the scandals surrounding the abuse of the allowances system and the everyday media revelations concerning the goings-on at Westminster. Senior government ministers have resigned, partly because of the row over expenses, MPs from both political parties are standing down at the next general election in 2010 and many ordinary people are calling for an immediate election.

I cannot recall the British public expressing such high-minded indignation before. Indeed, rarely can I remember so many people being this fired up. There is more than a tinge of moral piety in the air from the tax paying public. After years of being told by pollsters and pundits that the British public are apathetic about politics, are not interested in it or are alienated from it, people now suddenly seem to be politically engaged once more.

Well, perhaps, but only to an extent. And only because their elected representatives have been caught stealing their taxes. It's personal.

As this obsessive reality soap opera has gripped both media and public alike, the reporting of other news has suffered. For instance, the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka and news about the Indian elections were marginalised to the end of news bulletins, or to far flung inside pages of newspapers. On some nights, the expenses scandal has taken up 80 per cent of coverage on TV news programmes.

Anger in UK

I am quite amazed at the blood letting and anger in the UK at the moment concerning the expenses scandal. Just think of all the injustices in the world that people could get fired up over but tend not to. For instance, how about getting worked up about the way the global trade system works to the advantage of the rich countries by picking the pockets of the world's poor? If such issues were to be reported on an ongoing basis and public awareness about them increased, would there be as much mass outrage from the media and public?

Or is it only when you yourself are being ripped off that moral indignation abounds? Perhaps it's a case of ‘I'm alright Jack' - I don't care, just as long as it's not my pocket that's being picked. But if it is, watch out!

But I don't want to be too unfair towards the great British public. When all is said and done, the current inward looking media-induced outrage over the expenses scandal is a classic symptom of reality TV. By their very nature, soap operas and reality TV are often obsessive and claustrophobic affairs. Although viewers may not know it, or indeed care very much, there is actually life beyond.

The Age of Media MisinformationDeccan Herald 2/6/09 and The Rising Nepal 3/6/09

Whoever said that nothing much good could ever come from idle chatter over a couple of pints of beer in a pub? Well, it wasn’t David Cromwell and David Edwards that’s for sure. While sitting in the Giddy Bridge pub in Southampton some years ago, they were discussing the issues of the day and the inability or unwillingness of the mainstream media to provide effective reporting on major events. They were pretty frustrated by the whole affair. One thing led to another, and in 2001, they set up the UK-based media watchdog Media Lens.

Cromwell and Edwards were inspired by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s 1988 book, 'Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media'. The book argues that the organisation and control of the media determines what gets printed in newspapers or broadcast by radio and television. Herman and Chomsky explained how dissent from the mainstream is given little, or zero, coverage, while governments and big business gain easy access to the public via the media in order to convey their state-corporate messages - for example, 'globalisation is unstoppable' and 'our policies are tackling poverty'.

You may ask, so what? If this is true, just what can be done about it anyway? You could try to access alternative news sources from elsewhere, from the Net, perhaps. But what about the many millions of people who rely on and accept the authenticity of what they read in newspapers or see on TV news bulletins? The type of information provided by the mainstream media has a direct bearing on the quality of democracy we have.

Indeed, as far back as 1964, the writer Herbert Marcuse in his book ‘One Dimensional Man’ argued that advanced industrial society integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption, and the mass media played a major role in this process. Left unchecked, the outcome would be an undemocratic, ‘one-dimensional’ society in which the aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behaviour withered away. In today’s media-driven age, Marcuse’s concerns are even more relevant.

In a similar vein, Media Lens was set up to challenge the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media, which Cromwell and Edwards believe results in the media acting as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. According to them, this is not necessarily the result of a conscious conspiracy by the media, but is more a consequence of the structural constraints and commercial impulses that determine the nature of news gathering and reporting.

Through its website, Media Lens highlights inaccuracies and omissions in the media and its failure to provide a true picture of what is happening in the world. It encourages the general population to challenge media managers, editors and journalists who set news agendas that traditionally reflect establishment interests. In doing so, Media Lens hopes to raise public awareness of the underlying systemic failings of the corporate media to report the world around us honestly and accurately.

The two editors regularly produce ‘media alerts’, which highlight perceived incidents of bias and often encourage email or letter-writing campaigns. They frequently engage in dialogue and conduct challenging interviews with senior journalists and media figures. The website hosts an article section, message board and a discussion forum, used for analysing political and media issues. The ‘media alerts’ are distributed to some 6,000 people worldwide.

Having the project centred on the Internet is crucial. Cromwell says, “When so much of the public is alienated from politics and politicians, we believe the Internet provides a tremendous opportunity for the public to get involved in matters of vital importance and debate these issues with journalists. So, at the end of each media alert, we add the email addresses of the reporters and editors whose work has been discussed in that alert, and we ask readers to send polite, rational challenges to them.”

Media Lens has been especially active in challenging mainstream reporting of events in Iraq and Afghanistan and on climate change and is keen to highlight the distorting effects on news that advertising, financial interests, ownership and traditional sourcing of news gathering has. It has not gone for the easy targets of tabloid journalisn, but has focussed much effort on the mainstrean ‘liberal’ broadsheets, as well as the BBC – what are regarded by many as constituting authoritative and ‘unbiased’ sources.

In 2007, Media Lens received the Gandhi International Peace Award from the Gandhi Foundation, which promotes, among other things, democratic systems that are decentralised, human-scale and involve the active participation of everyone and tolerant pluralistic societies.

As you may imagine, however, Media Lens has not gone down well with everyone. Such a resource was always going to be a thorn in the side of certain people. Media Lens and its methods have been criticised by investment banker and Times contributor Oliver Kamm, who has said that the organisation is a shrill group of malcontents who exploit the patience of practising journalists and that its practices are pernicious and anti-journalistic.

Alternatively, it would be easy to argue that Media Lens provides a major service to the public. Indeed, that’s what Noam Chomsky has stated. And John Pilger, the veteran journalist and documentary maker, asserted in the UK’s New Statesman journal that without the meticulous and humane analysis of Media Lens, the full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to bad journalism's first draft of bad history. As Pilger implies, it’s all too easy for the mainstream media to forward misinformation and, in doing so, recreate the world and manufacture history in its own image.

These days, you can tune in to a hundred TV channels and listen to any number of news bulletins, and they will all be reporting on similar stories, saying similar things and relying on similar sources. When TV channels mushroomed, we were promised choice and diversity. We didn't get it. We got standardisation. That's because we live in a corporate media-driven age, not an information age. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The two concepts are often cited as being one and the same, but there is a world of difference.

Nice and Sleazy Does It The Iron Cage of Hopelessness, The Rising Nepal 21/5/09

UK politicians from all major parties are currently running a daily gauntlet brought about by the media’s exposure of their near fraudulent expense claims. It has been front-page news for over a week now. The public is furious as it gets to know more about politicians’ use of public funds to claim for lavish expenses for second homes and all manner of costly but seemingly needless ‘perks’.

As usual, the media has fallen over itself to sensationalise the whole affair and make it all too clear to the public that its representatives in parliament have adjusted the use of the financial allowance system to maximise their personal benefit. They haven’t been doing what is morally right, as politicians often claim they do, but what they were able to get away with. In any other job, such dodgy dealings would not be tolerated, and the ordinary person would have been sacked in many instances or possibly would even be up in court.

Less Faith

Politicians were always in it for the money anyhow. At least that was the popular perception before all of this came to the public’s attention. If people had little faith in politics and politicians before, they have even less now. Indeed, parliament is in danger of losing its moral authority.

First, we had the economic meltdown, which did little for politicians’ reputations as they let the crisis unfold over a period of years. And when the crisis did finally arrive, they seemed pretty helpless in the face of it. In the UK, due to the huge bail out from public funds, a generation of taxpayers will be paying off the debt incurred. We now face tax hikes and cutbacks in public services for many years to come. So who had faith in the political class after that? We then had them standing in front of the TV cameras with their feeble excuses for not regulating the financial markets, and we now have them standing in front of TV cameras handing out even more feeble excuses for ripping off the taxpayer.

The European elections are upon us and the UK general election will take place next year. Given that politicians from all of the big parties are mired in sleaze and the main opposition party can offer little alternative because any future government will have its hands tied by the state of the country’s finances, just who will turn out to vote?

I remember back in the early 1970s in the UK when people still believed in politicians and ‘big ideas’. Times were different. The idealism of the 60s was still palpable. Mass rallies, fire-in-the-belly speakers and belief in a better tomorrow existed. People still believed in real change and organisations such as trade unions could galvanise their huge memberships.

This has been replaced with management speak, sound bites and a resignation that we can’t do much to radically change things, even if the will to do so actually existed in the first place, which it doesn’t. Postmodern discontent and apathy has kicked in, and as a society, we are more atomized and leaders are unwilling to seek out real alternatives to the prevailing economic and social system.

Where have all the heroes gone? They were found to have feet of clay. Where have all the big ideas gone? They fragmented. And where did all the money go? Into a black hole they call a financial bailout.

Is this the end game? Have we now become trapped in the ugly prison of modernity, what German sociologist Max Weber once called the iron cage of bureaucracy, albeit a corrupt one? Do we now exist in an era where the prevailing order is all that there is or ever can be? Has the preservation of that order become a goal in itself and a wider vision been lost sight of? Is the political bureaucracy intellectually and morally bankrupt. When in Britain, I sometimes think so.

Whereas Marx pointed towards the ultimate progress of society and the human condition, his compatriot Max Weber perceived that modernity would lead us towards a never ending polar night of icy darkness, where there is no hope of the morning. In these times, it is all too easy in Britain to look around and end up agreeing with Weber. We will be locked tight in our iron cage for a long time to come.

Big Ideas

As revelation after revelation about alleged political corruption in the UK unfolds and as we are constantly told that we must pay the price of financial collapse for a generation, for a fleeting moment at least, some of us still want to believe that heroes don’t have feet of clay and not all politicians are in it for themselves. We want to believe that ‘big ideas’ can still electrify and contain fundamental truths. But where will the heroes and ideas come from? From the current crop of political leaders? Not at all! You can bet your last expense claim on that.

Death of the Newspaper, Deccan Herald 12/4/09

With falling sales in newspapers and a shift in readership from print to the Internet, many newspapers may resort to having only an online presence. But can online formats rake in enough money to make these sites financially viable, asks Colin todhunter

Newspapers in the West are losing readers hand over fist. Many are going to the wall. My main local evening newspaper in Liverpool, The Liverpool Echo, now sells 100,000 copies per day, less than half it did some years back. Believe it or not, that is the largest selling provincial newspaper in England outside of London. The main morning city newspaper, The Liverpool Daily Post, has stopped printing a Saturday edition. That particular paper now gives out 6,000 free copies in the city centre each day, aimed at the business community. Another local newspaper, The Manchester Evening News, hands out over 60,000 free copies a day. Both publications have adopted a part for sale/part free hand out strategy, in order to maintain advertising revenues, which are also plummeting across the industry.

Horror stories abound. In the US, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went web-only quite recently, and a decade ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune sold for $1.2 billion. In January, it declared bankruptcy. The list of city dailies in the US that have folded in the past two years includes Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Examiner, Kentucky Post and Cincinnati Post. There is a similar story across the UK.

The writing may have already been on the wall for the ‘paid for’ newspaper model when a financially well-backed daily newspaper hit the streets for the first time a few years ago and was distributed for free across the UK’s main urban centres. Why pay for your daily newspaper when you can get one for free?

Many freebie newspapers have dented the traditional ‘paid-for’ model, but of course, the real culprit for the decline in the newspaper industry is the Internet. In the UK, there are already purely online sites that have been officially accorded ‘newspaper’ status, even though they have no printed copies for sale and never did. Many newspapers now have a bigger online readership than in print, and with falling sales, more printed newspapers may shift to having an online presence only. They will then have to compete for attention with a multitude of blogs, bloggers and all manner of sites.

There has been much written about blogging and the challenge it poses for traditional journalism and newspapers. And, indeed, ‘citizen journalism’ has become a much-used buzzword. Anyone can now be published. The money needed to acquire a printing press no longer restricts entry to publishing. Just gain access to a computer and off you go.

Although a lot of ‘citizen journalists’, bloggers and blogs are not really concerned with producing ‘news’, just personal opinion (often uninformed) or rehashed stories that came from news agencies or newspapers, there is some evidence that certain bloggers do actually break stories and shape opinion, particularly in the realm of politics. But, at this time, genuine investigate journalism still tends to emanate from traditional sources.

Blogs and other Internet formats have certainly challenged the dominance of the traditional print media and journalists, who for a long time held sway over what was ‘news’ and its interpretation. In a post-modern age when ‘expert views’ are often seen by some as just constituting yet another interpretation of the world, in a world when all interpretations are sometimes regarded as equally valid, the ‘professions’, including journalists, have often found themselves on the back foot and have been accused of privileging their views ahead of the rest of the population in order to bolster their role in society.

The accusation is that journalists and their corporate backers tend to put forward an unrepresentative view of the world and, often inadvertently, choke off alternative viewpoints or concerns before they see the light of day. In that respect, the Net is more democratic and some regard it as a vehicle for knocking some journalists off their perch as the ‘high priests’ of news and opinion.

However, in defence of journalists, a lot of rubbish and uninformed views are to be found on blogs (even more so than in newspapers!), and professional journalism, with its training and courses, must certainly count for something. When trained journalists band together and pool their resources to go online, there is the opportunity to produce really in-depth, quality products. Medialens in the UK and Tehelka in India, which actually undertakes investigate reporting, are good examples of quality sites run by journalists that offer a credible alternative to the print media, unlike much of the blogging world or the citizen journalists on the Net.

But can online formats really rake in enough money to make online sites financially viable and ensure that they are sustainable in the long run, as newspapers have been? Subscription only sites don’t tend to work — why pay for news content that can be accessed for free on any other number of sites.

Anyhow, people are reluctant to pay subscriptions to access sites when the overriding ethos of the Internet is free access. So, give your content away for free and rake in advertising revenue from the ads on your site. Right? Perhaps. But I, for one, never click on adverts when I visit sites, and I’m not unique in this.

In 2009, I’m writing in one of the last great newspaper markets — India. But even here, especially in the English language segment, things are changing and the dominance of news on paper perhaps won’t last indefinitely. The writing may already be on the wall... or should that be the Net?

London Calling! The G20 Protests, Kathmandu Post 1/4/09 - And the Aftermath: Jackbooted Thugs on the Streets of London

"Rungs torn from the ladder, can’t reach the tumour, one god, one market, one truth, one consumer" - Zak de la Rocha

The British state will be on hand to try to ensure that the protestors don't disrupt the G 20 meeting

World leaders are coming to save the world! Or, so they claim. The G-20 Summit begins in London on April 2, and the Metropolitan Police, the City of London Police and the British Transport Police have organised under a single command in preparation for the protests. Over 3,000 extra police officers from six different departments will be working during the summit, and one of the major priorities is to ‘protect the world leaders’. A protest campaign poster shows a mannequin wearing a suit being hanged with the caption "Burn a banker!" Bankers are advised that they could be a target and have been told to 'dress down' and avoid going to meetings.

Scotland Yard Commander Bob Broadhurst says that the protesters have some “very clever people.” In response, the security operation will cost around $14.5 million as certain protesters attempt to fulfill their stated aim to “thrust into the very heart of the beast.”

On the G-20 Meltdown protest group’s website, it says that they are going to put the heat on capitalists because the G-20 ministers are trying to get away with the biggest April Fool’s trick of all time with their tax dodging, bonus guzzling, pension-pinching, unregulated free market world in meltdown. The group says, “We can’t pay, we won’t pay and we are taking to the streets… At 12 noon, April 1st, we're going to reclaim the city, thrusting into the very belly of the beast: the Bank of England."

A posting on the Anarchy.net site states that, on the day, the purpose is to put direct action at the core of any fight back against the repossessions and redundancies. The aim is to stand shoulder to shoulder with all those who take direct action against their current situation (against the state and its institutions, against the bosses and the capitalism they cling to), and confront those who seek to hinder or recuperate that action. The post ends by stating: “2009 is our summer of rage - we are only as strong as the power we give ourselves.”

Another posting on the same site states that, while unemployment escalates alongside debt and poverty, we are told to tighten our belts, not to complain, to have faith in bankers, bosses and politicians. The poster can only imagine what is on offer as the solution “from the people that brought us wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, from the heads of economies that continue to concentrate the world's wealth in the hands of a tiny minority, from the obscene rich and powerful who continue to steal the products of our labour and time.”

If you surf the Net and also read various newspapers, it is clear that a lot of ordinary people are angry; in fact, they are seething. And who can blame them? The people who will protest in London cannot be dismissed as ‘extremists’ or ‘agitators’, as indeed some already have been and no doubt will continue to be. They will come from a diverse range of backgrounds and from various groups: not just anarchists but greens, socialists, trade unionists, people opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and anyone who just feels the world is heading in the wrong direction.

But one thing is for sure: the full force of the British state will be on hand to try to ensure that the protesters don’t disrupt the G-20 meeting or turn central London into a major battleground. The intelligence agencies will no doubt have done their homework with any number of covert surveillance and infiltration operations beforehand and will continue to do so on the day itself. The protestors will be allowed to demonstrate to their hearts’ content, just as long as the protest is ‘managed’ and controlled by the authorities and has little or no impact on the G-20 leaders themselves or on the ability of London’s financial centre to continue to operate.

And after the summit finishes and the protesters have dispersed, the leaders will advocate that people should swallow the harsh financial remedy that they have concocted because, although it may indeed be horrible and tasteless, according to them, it will be the only ‘realistic’ medicine available, even if it does make the majority of us ill. The prognosis: business as usual.


AND THE AFTERMATH: JACKBOOTED THUGS ON THE STREETS OF LONDON

The UK's Guardian newspaper has video evidence on its site about the police thuggery that may have caused the death of an innocent bystander in London on the day of the G20 protests.

Go here to read the comments placed on the site about the 'good old British bobby'.

Open prison Britain: despite all the sophisticated monitoring techniques used today in 'surveillence society UK', you can still rely on a good old-fashioned kicking to keep you in your place.

As you can see by the comments on that site, this type of action is par for the course when these violent thugs 'police' a demonstration. This type of police brutality, commonplace at protests and demonstrations, is just one example of what the British Establishment has always been about: when ideology and other forms of covert control mechanisms fail, violence, or the threat of violence, is used against ordinary people to intimidate and maintain order.

Police tactics on the day included penning in everyone in a confined area for hours on end, which they have done before, and not letting anyone out, even those who ask to be let out for medical reasons. The message to the public from the police: don't come to London to protest because we will make things as uncomfortable as hell for you. 'Freedom' doesn't count for much within the confines of an open prison.

Open Prison Britain: The Jade Goody Effect Deccan Herald 26/3/09 and Kathmandu Post 27/3/09

I didn’t grow up on a diet of text messaging, mobile phones and personal computers. In the early 1970s, they didn’t exist. Times were different and thought and aspirations were simpler. In the UK, back then, there were just three TV channels, only a handful of radio stations and ‘consumerism’ was still in its infancy.

How times have changed. The big news in the UK at the moment is the unfortunate death of Jade Goody. Someone like Goody could never have existed 30 years ago. This ordinary woman from humble beginnings, propelled to fame by being monitored and evaluated 24 hours a day in the Big Brother house on prime time TV, was very much a product of her time. Her rise to international celebrity status seems to fit the popular ideology that we now live in a more democratic and multi-dimensional world. In Britain, these days we can choose from hundreds of TV and radio channels, are hooked up to the Net, are not bound by tradition and virtually anybody can be famous a la Jade Goody, regardless of whether or not they have much unique talent or ability. She embodied the notion that the individual is now well and truly free to shape his or her own destiny. Her story truly is one of individual freedom, isn’t it? Well, no, not really.

In the UK, society may have opened up in many areas, but the trappings of individual ‘freedom’ are merely an illusion. Look at the evidence. The UK never used to be a surveillance society based on fear and paranoia. It is now. ‘Dataveillance’ — information derived from credit cards, internet cookies, vehicle registration plate recognition cameras, mobile phone and loyalty card data and CCTV — is now used to monitor and evaluate the citizen throughout every facet of his or her life.

Monitoring of travel and telecommunications is also rising. There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain, about one for every 14 people and more than any other country in Europe. Surveillance ranges from US security agencies monitoring telecommunications traffic passing through Britain, to key stroke information used to gauge work rates and GPS information tracking company vehicles. By 2016, shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk.

Privacy International, a human rights organisation, suggests Britain is the worst western democracy at protecting individual privacy. The two worst countries in a 36-nation survey conducted by the agency a couple of years back were Malaysia and China, and Britain was one of the bottom five with ‘endemic surveillance’.

Vanishing control

Of course, much of the surveillance is spuriously justified on the basis of enhancing personal security. Call me a cynic, but fear mongering followed by the excessive monitoring of a population go hand in hand and are used by authorities to control people when more traditional and latent forms of social control are insufficient or have vanished, as indeed they have in the UK: religion, the work ethic, community cohesion, deference, etc.

Michael Foucault, the French social philosopher, noted that society now resembles a bright modern prison, but he warned that the bright visibility is a trap. Increasing visibility leads to power being located on an individualised level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggested that a ‘carceral continuum’ runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police and teachers, to our everyday working and domestic lives. Let me add — now more so in Britain than ever before.

Given this state of affairs, it’s ironic that Jade Goody achieved her fame and sense of personal freedom on the back of being incarcerated, monitored, criticised, evaluated and high media visibility. The particular kind of voyeurism embodied by the Big Brother TV show was and continues to be an endless source of entertainment for the public; however, the ordinary people of Britain may now care to take a few steps back to see how monitoring and the carceral continuum that Foucault spoke of has been used to sleepwalk them into a real life surveillance society, where they themselves are the ones being controlled, monitored and judged from cradle to grave. While they were fascinated with all manner of voyeuristic TV shows, they failed to appreciate that they themselves were the subjects of a much wider, more sinister process.

In years to come, the next generation may well ask why people let this happen. Perhaps they were too preoccupied with the life and death of the Jade Goodys of this world or with the ‘freedoms’ afforded by shopping malls, text messaging, computer games or 100 TV channels to notice or even care.

A Tragedy of Shakespearean ProportionsDeccan Herald 22/3/09

Colin Todhunter on how television audiences are being sucked into mindless entertainment and have become an easy prey for the obsessive celebrity culture

Celebrity Love Island, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here: these are just some of the wonderful delights served up by British TV in a bid to draw in the viewers without having to tax production budgets or brain cells too much. The ‘celebrities’ who appear on these reality shows are usually ‘C’ list people trying to revive their flagging careers. Many of them were once famous for something, but we can’t quite remember what for and others are famous for... well, just being famous.

Go into any high street shop and the shelves will be bending over with magazines that groan under the weight of the faces of these C-listers on their covers. What they had for breakfast, their latest sexploits, when they last went to the toilet: world-shattering news about nothing in particular. Of course the message is “you too could and should live like them”... if you had half a brain that is, a humungous ego and a desire to sell your soul to the media.

The public loves it. The magazines and tacky tabloids sell by the cartload and viewing figures for the programmes sometimes hit the roof. It has such an appeal that it is often difficult to differentiate between this type of reality-show stuff and whatever else passes for news. Take the saga of Jade Goody. She first achieved celebrity status by winning the non-celebrity version of Big Brother, which was subsequently built on with her role in the ‘Shilpa Shetty affair’. Her life’s story was already sad enough before she became ill. But alas Jade has now topped it all with a finale to end all finales. Her slow death resembles that of a real life Shakespearean tragedy, all cooked up by the media, as it is played out on a daily basis in front of the TV news cameras. Just wait for her funeral and the media attention; she plans to go out in style. Maybe in death, she will achieve a saintly level of fame that she could never have acquired in life.

But the ‘Goody effect’ is all too symptomatic of the slow decline towards the ultimate infotainment society. Even some of the news programmes have now adopted the format of an upbeat breakfast-time TV chat show, with celebrity guests and uninformed opinion on topics. The next stage in this magnificent evolutionary process will of course involve some celebrity presenting the show, with a bit of stripping, singing and dancing thrown in. Too much gloom, doom and analysis is of course bad for the soul (and those all-important ratings).

A certain happy-hearted fizz to it all is a must and the commercials are part of the act. Indeed the commercials are seemingly dictating the act. What better fizz is there than Pepsi and Coke! They are the ultimate in emptiness with their ‘just-do-it’ mentality. Their advertisements represent a triumph of blandness over meaning. About as much substance as the air bubbles in a can. Just do what? I don’t know. Who cares? Let’s have a cola and settle down for ‘chat-show news’, ‘celebrity I-love-myself island’, or ‘I’m a celebrity but no one remembers why’. The viewers aren’t really sure why they like such shows (or those colas) but they do.

Mind numbing blandness and emptiness sell. And the media executives know it. So it’s goodbye to lofty ideals such as diversity of thought and informed analysis, it was nice knowing you. You were always under threat and in danger of being swept aside by those forces that appealed to our narrower and baser instincts. Such forces now sometimes seem almost irresistible.

In Britain, we don’t really need God anymore, but still yearn to believe in saints and sinners and worship them through some TV programme or the sickly, sweet pages of a glossy magazine, even if it is an average woman who achieved fame on a tacky TV show dying of cancer on our screens. I’ve seen the future and it’s not a pretty sight. Look out: coming to a satellite TV station in India soon — “I’m a has-been celebrity with half a brain cell trying to revive my flagging career on some low-budget, second-rate programme.” This will be followed the next day by some seething journalist writing a column bemoaning the loss of a vibrant media and the narrowing of cultural concerns. Come to think of it, the article will probably be very similar to this one.

Sex in the City: Human Trafficking Kathmandu Post (4/3/09) and Deccan Herald (8/11/08)

Colin Todhunter talks to journalist-turned-activist Ruchira Gupta who has made a documentary on the brothels of Kamathipura in Mumbai, where women and girls from Nepal were kept in small four-by-four foot rooms and made to service 15 to 20 men a day

During the late 1990s, journalist-turned-activist Ruchira Gupta went to the brothels of Mumbai to make a documentary about sex trafficking, the award winning and extremely harrowing 'Selling of Innocents'. She says she had never before seen anything like the type of human exploitation that she encountered in the city's red light district. In response, she started an initiative called Apne Aap to help women and children who had been sexually exploited regain their independence.

Trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation is a worldwide, multi billion-dollar industry. One million girls and women are trafficked in Asia as a whole, and between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepali girls are trafficked every year to India. The process comprises a chain of supply, which includes the financially poor parent, the procurer, the border guard, the agent who takes the girls across the border, the people who then transport them to Mumbai and the brothel madame.

Gupta travelled to the brothels of Kamathipura in Mumbai, where women and girls from Nepal were kept locked in small four-by-four foot rooms, with no windows and made to service 15 to 20 men a day. They were subjected to rape, physical abuse, torture, violence, repeated abortions and life-threatening diseases. They had been sold, tricked or forced into a life of sexual slavery.

The women had been sold into prostitution when they were nine or ten and had been locked up inside the brothels for years. They were isolated and scared, but taking part in the documentary helped them come together. And that is essentially how Apne Aap was born.

Right not to be

Apne App means 'self help' in Hindi. Based on the notion that rights aren't just given, they have to be claimed, Apne Aap articulates the struggle of women who want the 'right not to be a prostitute'.

At Apne Aap, women are welcome any time during the day to sleep, bathe or drop off their children for care. The project has various community centres, based on the model that you have to train women on rights and how to access them. There are also resource and training centres as well as re-integration centres in red light areas and slums in Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra and West Bengal. It also runs night crèches and soup kitchens in red light districts.

Sex trafficking

When girls and women first have contact with Apne Aap, they don't have a sense of what is right, and what is constitutionally their entitlement. Gupta says, "They don't know that it's not allowed to extort money from them or that men cannot go inside the brothel anytime and smash the furniture." Apne Aap is trying to inform women how to challenge the police and how to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and various other issues.

Gupta wants to eradicate sex trafficking, but argues that just buying the girls off is no solution because the demand will still be there, and as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. So Apne Aap is going into villages and launching prevention campaigns. For instance, the girls go and talk about their own life experiences, what happened to them inside the brothel and what can happen to young girls who come in. The project also promotes the rights of a girl and how she has equal right to property as her brother.

Workshops for men

Workshops are also being held with men, including the police, customers and pimps. Sometimes men come to the brothels thinking that because they have a sexual urge, the thing is to go and look for a really young girl and find an outlet. Apne Aap makes them aware that this is exploitive, and new ideas are introduced and old ones discarded. For example, they may think that masturbation is wrong and that it will make them blind, or they might think that sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS.

Apne Aap wants to eradicate what is the biggest method of trafficking: intergenerational prostitution. Gupta says, "When a woman's children and her children's children are also sold into prostitution, it becomes institutionalised. They've seen the exploitation, the repeated rapes and the kind of lifestyles that their mothers have, who live in back rooms, locked up, waiting for clients."

According to Gupta, none of the mothers want their daughters to get into prostitution, but when they become older and disease-ridden, and their earning capacity decreases, they push their daughters into prostitution because otherwise they starve. The documentary 'Selling of Innconents' closes with the camera focusing on rows of toddlers sleeping in the brothels and the meaasge, "If nothing is done to stop sex trafficking this is the next generation of Kamathipurak girls."

Gupta notes, "These children could literally be growing up on the streets when their mothers die. The boys will become part of gangs and the girls will end up becoming prostitutes. We are trying to get the girls placed in boarding schools, and the boys are given some vocational classes."

The root causes of trafficking lie in the inequality of certain groups and women as well as economic policies that fail to ensure universal access to education and legal protection. Apne Aap aims to highlight the plight of these women and provide them with the resources they need to break out. For Ruchira Gupta, it is about getting the issues across effectively to the outside world: "You have to find how to connect, and explain to people about sexual trafficking. See, you always have to look for these moments of connectivity - from outrage, exploitation, and victimisation to moving on. It truly is a bipartisan issue."

Death of a Nation, The Rising Nepal 3/3/09

"We understood the Conservative government's determination to use the state machine against us. In order to dismember the welfare state, they had to break the trade union movement and they needed to break the miners first." - Mick McGahey, Vice President of the National Union of Mineworkers 1972-87.

Margaret Thatcher is responsible for the death of a nation: Britain. Thatcherite philosophy has been the guiding force in British politics (and beyond) since 1979. Thatcher's stated mission was to roll back the nanny state from the common person in order to let him stand on his own two feet, but at the same time, she then went on to help the privileged with financial incentives (subsidies) and tax breaks and handed over key economic state assets to the private sector under the guise of 'privatisation'. She introduced a whole array of business-friendly interventions. Most important of all, given the current crisis in the banking system, Thatcher, and the City of London financial interests who backed her, introduced deregulation of the financial markets.

Populist sentiments

I remember living through the 1980s in Liverpool, the UK city worst affected by Thatcher's monetarist policies. It was a thoroughly depressing time, with huge unemployment, industrial decline, economic and urban decay and mass rioting in the city. An extreme Left city council came to power, trying to bring Thatcher down. Well, if the mighty shock troops of the Labour movement, the National Union of Mineworkers and its leader Arthur Scargill, were defeated in the 1984-85 miner's strike and ground to dust then what chance did a single city authority have?

The most frightening and frustrating thing was that Thatcher and her backers were highly skilled in manipulating certain strands of latent populist sentiment and prejudice. They passed off their free market, anti-big-government platitudes to a public that was all too eager to embrace them as constituting basic 'common sense'. That is the frightening bit. In 2008, to many Britons, at least before the current financial crisis, what were once regarded as the extremist social and economic policies of the New Right had become entrenched as the norm, as the common sense of the age. That's the frustrating bit.

But now the UK is in dire straits and citizens are questioning the previously held received wisdom. Britain's economy is about to suffer its biggest slump since 1946, shrinking by 2.8% this year, according to the European Union's latest estimates, and the country is predicted to suffer the worst recession of any large European economy. The consequences will include mass unemployment, while the economy hovers on the brink of deflation. Unemployment will rise by more than 900,000 over the next year, driving the jobless total to 8.2% of the workforce, from 5.3% at present.

The pound has fallen dramatically against the euro and the US dollar, amid growing fears of the collapsing UK economy and banking system. This coming year, the UK government's borrowing levels may be equal to 8% of GDP.

Britain will not be able to gain much from a lower pound for exports because the economy has out-sourced, and under the Thatcherite vision, the service sector, finance and banking became the drivers of the economy. Margaret Thatcher presided over the virtual destruction of UK manufacturing industry. With the banking sector in meltdown, and future generations being saddled with debt to help bail it out, what price a sound manufacturing economic infrastructure now?

In destroying the country's manufacturing base, the stronghold of the unions, Margaret Thatcher deliberately set out to crush organised labour and the power of the 'common man' and any real opposition to the policies of her backers on the Right. I, like many others in Britain, waited 18 years for a Labour government to come to power. However, by that time the party had reinvented itself as a Thatcher-hugging, right wing, media-friendly concern: a watered down version of the former Conservative regime, with the prime minister, Gordon Brown, protecting the Thatcher legacy by overseeing the economy as Treasury Secretary.

Thatcherism did of course eventually make us all totally free: free to be monitored and surveyed by the State like no other country in Western Europe, free to be cynically targeted by the market, free to pick up the tab for the failings of financial capital, and free to build up the greatest amount of personal debt and misery in Europe. 'Freedom' within the confines of what increasingly resembles an open prison isn't much to celebrate.

Britain was unraveling long before the current financial crisis, however. Thatcherism created a society based on me-first acquisitive individualism, the effects of which are so graphically witnessed in our towns and cities today: a descent into drugs, alcohol, crime, community breakdown, fear for personal safety, youth offending and a range of other social problems. According to a study by York University in 2006, British children were among the unhappiest and unhealthiest in Europe. A UNICEF report came to similar conclusions: children growing up in the United Kingdom suffer greater deprivation, worse relationships with their parents and are exposed to more risks from alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex than those in any other wealthy country in the world.

Too late for Britain

Brown and the current Treasury Secretary Alistair Darling refuse to reveal how much the bail out will eventually cost taxpayers, and this tactic is becoming difficult to sell to an increasingly hostile public. They seem to be trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse as they doggedly stick to the fundamental principles of a discredited Thatcherite philosophy. The current crisis in the economy has served to drive home the point that Thatcherism hasn't worked. Now the chickens have come home to roost, we watch and wait to see if Gordon Brown is capable of deviating from the Thatcherite path that he has stuck to for so long. But maybe it's just too late for Britain. As the world economy continues to shift in balance from west to east, instead of solidifying its economic position on the world stage, Britain seems to have lost its way.

______________________________________________________________


The following data is from the mediahell.org site.

The figures are a few years old and inflation must be accounted for, but if looked at in terms of percentages, a fair picture is provided. Contrary to the impression given by newspapers, corporate fraud and defence spending cost the UK far more than dole cheats.

WELFARE
The annual cost of welfare in Britain is about £100 billion. The tabloid media blame this high cost on the 'workshy', but most of it goes on pensions:

Annual cost (£ billions)
• Job Seekers Allowance: 2.3
• Housing benefit: 4.1
• Income Support: 6.5
• Child benefit: 8.8
• Benefits for disabled: 10.8
• Contribution-based pensions: 42.1

(Smaller costs include winter fuel payments for the elderly, at £1.7bn, etc. Source: Department for Work and Pensions, 2003)

TAX AVOIDANCE & FRAUD
When it comes to swindling, 'dole cheats' aren't the biggest drain on the UK economy:

Estimated annual cost (£ billions):
• Corporate tax avoidance: 85
• Business fraud: 14
• Government fraud in Whitehall: 5
• Tobacco smuggling: 3.5
• VAT fraud on mobile phones: 2.5
• Total welfare fraud: 2
• Jobseekers Allowance fraud: 0.19
• Bulldozer smuggling: 0.15

(Sources, respectively: Guardian, 12/4/02; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 23/8/01; BBC Radio 4 News, 1996; Guardian 17/12/99; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 3/7/03; DWP, 2003; The Informal Economy, by Lord Grabiner, March 2000; Guardian, 25/8/01)

CORPORATE WELFARE

The biggest 'welfare leeches' are corporations. British businesses receive billions in handouts from the Department for Trade and Industry – the DTI is basically a corporate dole office. One of its many grants – Regional Selective Assistance – pays companies millions to 'safeguard jobs'. Nearly one in eight companies receiving this grant are paid more than once, which according to the National Audit Office contradicts the aim of 'helping firms become self-sustaining'. It sounds like welfare dependency.

Angelina, It's the Pitts, Deccan Herald 15/2/09

Do we live in a world where acting is considered more worthy than being a doctor, teacher or nurse? We certainly do if we go by the financial rewards dished out, feels Colin Todhunter

I notice that the ‘Brangelina’ show is back on the road again. Last I heard, Angelina and Brad, with an assortment of their adopted and biological children, were in Japan to promote Pitt’s new film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Pitts’ estimated wealth is currently well over $150 million and either of them can command easily over $10 million for one film. Pitt reportedly got $20 million and Jolie $10 million for their film Mr and Mrs Smith. Knox and Vivienne, their six-month-old twins, along with their other children, are set to inherit at least $40 million of the Pitt-Jolie fortune one day.

There is little doubt that Pitt and Jolie are excellent actors. Indeed, I admire their work. I also like the fact that they give hundreds of millions of dollars to their favourite charities. They don’t have to. The government of Namibia said that to celebrate the birth of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt there a couple of years ago, Jolie and Pitt donated $300,000 to help other babies in the impoverished African country. The rights for the first images of their new babies were recently jointly sold to celebzines People and Hello! for $14 million, but all the proceeds were donated to charity.

But come on, they are only actors and they are only acting! Do we live in a world where acting is considered more worthy than being a doctor, teacher or nurse? We certainly do if we go by the financial rewards dished out. The Pitt’s offspring have been born (or were adopted) with silver spoons in their mouths that their collective heads would have to be the size of the Grand Canyon for them to fit in and their neck muscles with the strength of steel to hold them. I think you will agree, those are some silver spoons.

But don’t be shocked. I’m sure you are not. Most of us merely laugh in astonishment at the rewards doled out to superstars. Of course, few of us may think that their talent and ability merit the type of financial remunerations given (but many do), but hey that’s life! That’s the way the market works. That’s the way the cookie crumbles... and any other number of sayings to be said while holding one’s hands in the air in complete and utter resignation.

Little Knox and Vivienne will never want for anything. They will inherit millions that they never earned, will go to the best schools, and will be pampered from cradle to grave. In the weeks leading up to Shiloh Nouvel’s birth in 2006, the couple retreated to Namibia for government-assisted privacy. Jolie had the best bodyguards, nutritionists, gynaecologists and health care team that money can buy. And when she grows up she can, if she so wants, just like her siblings, own a hundred pairs of shoes that if she lived to be one hundred, she would never be able to wear out (or even wear). But that’s no crime.

In today’s world, where most people have a real struggle to get by, it is totally acceptable. Yet let some needy person in the US work all day long for a pittance, or struggle to get by on welfare given the current economic crisis, and steal a single pair of shoes from a big corporate store and that is without doubt a crime.

Unfortunately both the underprivileged and the Jolie-Pitts are victims of an upside down world of warped values, albeit in different ways. Pitt and Jolie know it. In a joint statement released shortly after the birth of Shiloh Nouvel, they said that while they celebrated the joy of the birth, they recognised that two million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives. They went on to say that these children can be saved, but only if governments around the world make it a priority. I admit to having a soft spot for the Jolie-Pitts.

Pitt and Jolie own all they will ever need. They and their children may vacation wherever they want and can live in any number of mansions of their choice. It’s not a crime is it? Perhaps not. The massive rewards and huge privileges received are totally acceptable within the framework of today’s standards. It’s just the standards of the modern world that are absolutely criminal.

Fail and Fail Again with Consumer Capitalism, Deccan Herald 18/1/09

Also published in the New Sunday Express on 20/8/06

Based on a chapter from Chasing Rainbows in Chennai

Colin Todhunter wonders if happiness can be found at the supermarket

I used to feel really great. Then I started to watch TV on a regular basis. I didn’t know it previously but I’m ugly, have bad hair and don’t possess the latest gadgetry that will make me supremely happy. My diet is lacking, my fingernails poor, my eyes faded, my skin sagging and my taste in food, fashion and lifestyle choices questionable. I’m a total mess! I should do the world a favour and end it all now, the sooner the better. I’m a complete and utter failure.

Or so I’m led to believe. We are what we wear? Don’t believe a word. There is nothing proper about lifestyle propaganda. TV commercials talk about the miraculous wonders of the newest worthless household gadget, the latest tastier-than-tasty fizzy drink or the better-than-ever overpriced designer label clothes. Luxuries that we can do without? Of course not. They are the necessary, must-have, must-be-seen-to-have lifestyle products, all because some beaming sportsperson, celebrity or movie star endorses them.

I used to quite like the music of The Beatles. Now I hate it. That was because Nike shoe commercials used some of their songs to grace their fantastic products on TV. I now no longer think of wonderful youthful idealism when I hear particular Beatles’ songs — just smelly feet and mass-produced footwear. If you do not possess the latest products on offer, then you are a failure. If you do possess them, you will feel an even bigger failure because by that stage you will have bought into the lie and will be wanting the bigger, brighter, better versions of the older products that were supposed to be the biggest, brightest and best that could ever exist.

Six months ago you ran out to buy the latest miracle product to hit the shelves. Now you are told that that particular cutting edge commodity is obsolete and useless when compared to the super-improved-edge version. Or do they mean that YOU are obsolete and useless? You don’t have time enough to begin to get that hollow feeling because the message is relentless.

Retail therapy? Some therapy! Advertisements create a thirst that can never be quenched. And for those who crave, it’s an expensive endeavour. Billions are spent telling us that somewhere at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of gold and the hapless consumer in the quest spends trillions. But as day fades to night, the rainbow disappears, and illusion gives way to reality: you may find that there is no gold.

There is nothing that can make teeth any more whiter-than-white, skin any more smoother-than-smooth, and hair any more shinier-than shiny. Wearing the appropriate designer label product will not miraculously turn us into bright, young things and, believe it or not, drinking the right type of cola will unfortunately not suddenly make us God’s gift to men or women, despite what the happy, smiling faces say.

But it is all about freedom of choice, isn’t it? I can now go and buy some Botox, miracle facial cream, a fantastic plasma screen TV, a wonder hair strengthening shampoo... I nearly forgot — a newer super improved version of a credit card that will enable me to shop till I drop beneath an even greater burden of debt. Of course you may say the ultimate choice is that you can either take it or leave it. So I think I’ll leave it. After all, I’m already happy...or perhaps I only think I am.

The Rape and Murder of Scarlett Keeling, Deccan Herald 13/12/08

Most of the 50 million missing women who have been 'eliminated' from India's population due to foeticide, infanticide, neglect or murder never got any justice. So it is naive to expect the authorities to care about a dead white girl, laments Colin Todhunter

Cast your mind back to February this year. Remember Scarlett Keeling? She was the 15 year old from the UK who was found half-naked and dead on Anjuna beach in Goa. What happened next was huge media coverage in the Indian and the UK media as her mother sought justice and was herself put under the spotlight.

The British tabloid media rounded on Fiona Mckeown for leaving Keeling behind in Anjuna with a local family and her 25-year-old guide, Julio Lobo, who also turned out to be her lover, while she, her boyfriend and the rest of her children went to Gokarna, further down the coast. It wasn't just Mckeown's apparent negligence the media didn't like, but the fact she was on state benefits and led an 'alternative' lifestyle. The tabloids were outraged and had a field day. To them, Mckeown was symptomatic of all that was wrong with the 'welfare state Britain'.

The war of words between Mckeown, the Goan police and authorities was especially bitter. Mckeown and her legal team, led by Vikram Varma, drew attention to supposed cover-ups, botched procedures and subterfuge on the part of the police. In turn, the authorities sought to put the blame on McKeown for parental negligence.

Mckeown went one step further by saying that her daughter's murder would have been one of the many that are covered up in Goa each year if she had not have taken things so far. She alleged links between local politicians, the police and the underworld. The CBI was brought in and Placido Carvalho and Samson D'Souza were arrested for raping and killing Scarlett.

In September, the prime suspect Samson D'Souza, was released, prompting fears that the killer may never be brought to justice. The other suspect, Carvalho, had already been released. However, Mckeown stated that the real killer has been protected by the Goa Government.

Seedy side

The Indian authorities now appear bereft of leads. The CBI have apparently made little headway. Investigators claim that they had been unable to make progress partly because they have been unable to interview MacKeown, who has refused to return to India, alleging that her life has been threatened there.

Scarlett's murder exposed the seedy side of Goa and compounded fears about the safety of foreign women in the country after a series of sexual assaults on tourists earlier this year.

Throughout this sorry saga, Mckeown has said that the only thing she was guilty of was naivete and for being too trusting of the Lobos. But should this long drawn out affair come as a surprise to any of us?

The seedy side of Goa has already been well-documented: drugs, pay-offs, local and international underworld involvement. It's big business.

And who really cares about the death of another woman? The media, for a while. A dead foreign white girl, raped, murdered and thrown into the edge of the sea like a piece of garbage was always going to be a headline grabber. Perhaps any assumption that Mckeown was going to get justice was as naive as her actions in leaving Scarlett behind in Anjuna. Let's face it, most of the 50 million missing women who have been ‘eliminated’ from India's population due to foeticide, infanticide, neglect or murder never got any justice. Who cares about them? The authorities seem more taken with their own ability to put a probe on the moon rather than with the plight of women within their own borders.

So, just why would they care about some dead white girl?

Why Writers Write, Deccan Herald 23/11/08

I'm a raging success but nobody knows it, says Colin Todhunter

I often wonder why writers write. I suppose writers write for many reasons: to inform, to educate, to entertain, to make money, as therapy, to provoke and so on. However, most would agree on one thing: most writers write to be read. This then begs the question: To be read by whom? Many famous writers write with both eyes fixed firmly on the market and aim for maximum readership and income. Indeed, I recently heard about one famous author who has a computer package that runs through his finished text to see if he has satisfied various preset criteria, which will guarantee maximum sales and cater for what his public wants. He writes with these considerations in mind and there is little deviation from the formula. Quantity of readers is what matters. His books sell by the cartload. He’s a great writer... Well, isn’t he?

If you are not in it for the money then readership numbers shouldn’t really matter, should they? I recently met a musician who plays to his friends and local community in a bar in the US. He cut a CD for his family and friends. Somehow, it began to receive airplay on a big radio station in Seattle. This was not really his intention. He played for pleasure and not to be rich or famous. Who knows, with the right marketing his music could have gone on to bigger things. He wasn’t interested in that. He just wanted the people who matter to him to listen to his stuff. His music was not meant as a commercial venture. He played for the sheer enjoyment and wanted to pass that on to a select few. That was success to him.

The publishing firm behind Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian writer (The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes and all that), is fond of letting the book buyer know that his books have sold over 43 million copies. Publishers of course are all about market penetration, money and publishing deals. After all, it’s a business for them. But some writers can become pretty obsessed at times with how many people read them when their stuff gets published. What about me? I really don’t care. Do I want to be rich and famous and have complete strangers read my stuff...do I? Complete strangers, whom I will never meet and many of which probably would not want to give me the time of day if they knew me. No, I don’t want to write for them, do I?

I’m not just being bitter and twisted because 43 million don’t read me (honest). Me being bitter just because I’m not reaching the parts that Coelho reaches? He attracts the wrong 43 million anyway! I want to write something much more deep and meaningful (could be a very long time coming however!) and attract the ‘right’ type of reader.

I’m just happy that my peers in the writing world read me. My friends also read me. Wait a minute, the biggest reader of them all...my mother, she reads me! It is her! She is the elusive ‘quality’ reader I’ve been looking for all along. She’s the one who counts. Forget the 43 million. I’m an unqualified success!

Hardly anyone reads me, I’m flat broke, and I’m extremely happy that the wrong 43 million people don’t read me and haven’t propelled me to untold riches and fame. Brilliant! I’m an absolute legend. Trouble is, apart from my mum, no one will ever know it.

The Big Credit Crunch Bail-Out Con, Deccan Herald 26/10/08

Calling himself consumer capitalism's waste of space, Colin Todhunter takes a closer look at the financial 'credit crunch' in today's globalised world

The chickens are coming home to roost with a deluge of bone crunching credit misery. There was an attempt to hoodwink us all into believing that we were no longer citizens with a collective contract between individual and state, but individual consumers with a 'right to buy'. Yes, a right to buy anything we desired, as and when we wanted. Buy now, pay later.

I was brought up to believe you buy what you can afford, and if you couldn't afford what you needed, you saved to get it. And that's how I still live: debt-free, credit card-free and consumer mentality-free. I'm a banker's worst nightmare. I'm consumer capitalism's waste of space. I didn't buy into the get-rich-quick propaganda, and so I didn't get rich quick, unlike so many who are now laughing all the way to their luxury villas in the Bahamas and elsewhere on the backs of many more who will soon be crying all the way to the dole queue.

It used to be a case of the right to employment, social welfare, freedom of association, equality before the law, free speech, etc, in return for paying into the system – you know, society as a collective entity – a somewhat radical idea these days! Then came the notion that there was no such thing as society. A huge range of 'wealth creation' policies in favour of the tyrannised, downtrodden rich were implemented and a variety of welfare-state-bashing policies for the work-shy, scrounging poor were put into place. We suddenly became consumers, the market took over and it became a case of everyone for themselves.

Consumer was king and if you could afford it then you could get what you wanted by purchasing it in the market place. If you couldn't, you were left to fend for yourself and rely on a run down public sector for services or welfare. It was a case of rolling back the nanny state to let 'common man' stand on his own two feet (and make him 'free'), except that people couldn't see the small print: after it had been rolled it back from the poor, it was extended to the privileged via financial incentives, tax breaks, legal statutes, handing over key economic assets under the guise of 'privatisation' and a whole array of business-friendly interventions, including the current massive bail out plan for the banking industry in the US and Europe. Now we are all 'free' – free to pick up the tab for the failings of financial capital!

But who cares? Not the media, it seems. It is obsessed with Wall Street, share prices and the Dow Jones. A commentator in the UK recently hit the nail on the head when he stated that the 'credit crunch' is a nice media-friendly term which gives the impression that it is a mere hiccup in an otherwise wonderful neo-liberal globalised world which could be corrected with a vast subsidy from the taxpayers to put the Wall Street casino and its partners worldwide back into profit.

The presentation by politicians of the current crisis goes along the lines of, 'we are going to bail out Wall Street… and you, the taxpayer, should be grateful'. Yes, very grateful as the effects of financial capital's dodgy dealings kick in and we all lose our jobs.

The dominant portrayal of the crisis is that it is due to the 'overzealousness' of financial institutions and the individuals working in them. But, it's more than that, as any proper analysis of the past two decades will show. And the outcome is the exploitation of the taxpayer and ultimately the ordinary citizen as he or she pays the price through economic hardship and job loss. It's all so cynical. It reminds me of the fact that when slavery was abolished it was the slave owners, and not the slaves, who received compensation from the government of the day.

____________________________________________________________


The following data is from the mediahell.org site.

The figures are a few years old and inflation must be accounted for, but if looked at in terms of percentages, a fair picture is provided. Contrary to the impression given by newspapers, corporate fraud and defence spending cost the UK far more than dole cheats.

WELFARE
The annual cost of welfare in Britain is about £100 billion. The tabloid media blame this high cost on the 'workshy', but most of it goes on pensions:

Annual cost (£ billions)
• Job Seekers Allowance: 2.3
• Housing benefit: 4.1
• Income Support: 6.5
• Child benefit: 8.8
• Benefits for disabled: 10.8
• Contribution-based pensions: 42.1

(Smaller costs include winter fuel payments for the elderly, at £1.7bn, etc. Source: Department for Work and Pensions, 2003)

TAX AVOIDANCE & FRAUD
When it comes to swindling, 'dole cheats' aren't the biggest drain on the UK economy:

Estimated annual cost (£ billions):
• Corporate tax avoidance: 85
• Business fraud: 14
• Government fraud in Whitehall: 5
• Tobacco smuggling: 3.5
• VAT fraud on mobile phones: 2.5
• Total welfare fraud: 2
• Jobseekers Allowance fraud: 0.19
• Bulldozer smuggling: 0.15

(Sources, respectively: Guardian, 12/4/02; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 23/8/01; BBC Radio 4 News, 1996; Guardian 17/12/99; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 3/7/03; DWP, 2003; The Informal Economy, by Lord Grabiner, March 2000; Guardian, 25/8/01)

CORPORATE WELFARE

The biggest 'welfare leeches' are corporations. British businesses receive billions in handouts from the Department for Trade and Industry – the DTI is basically a corporate dole office. One of its many grants – Regional Selective Assistance – pays companies millions to 'safeguard jobs'. Nearly one in eight companies receiving this grant are paid more than once, which according to the National Audit Office contradicts the aim of 'helping firms become self-sustaining'. It sounds like welfare dependency.

Female Genocide in India, Deccan Herald 11/10/08

Photographer and writer Rita Banerji has begun an online campaign '50 Million Missing' through which she hopes to raise public awareness about the high mortality rate of women and girls in India and force the Indian government to act, says Colin Todhunter

Did you know that there are some 50 million missing persons in India? Who are they, and where did they go? They are girls, women and foetuses, and they were murdered, aborted or died through neglect. More specifically, they died as a result of female foeticide, female infanticide, dowry murders, the high mortality rate of girls under the age five due to deliberate neglect, and a very high maternal mortality rate.

It has never ceased to surprise me that so little media attention in India is given to what is essentially a major human rights issue. This may be about to change, however, if Rita Banerji has her way. Through the online '50 Million Missing' campaign, she hopes to raise public awareness of the issue and move the Indian government to act.

Banerji says, "In an article in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics in September 2002, it is estimated that between two to five million female foetuses are aborted in India each year. Women in this country are lucky to escape being killed at almost every stage of their life; as a foetus, as an infant, as a little girl, as a bride and even as a widow."

The campaign began in December 2006 on the image hosting and community platform website Flickr. Banerji, a writer and photographer from Kolkata, says the ‘50 Million Missing’ campaign now has a photo pool of close to 10,000 pictures of Indian women and girls as a powerful visual reminder of the fact that millions of faces like these have been deliberately eliminated.

People who contribute to the 50 Million Missing campaign are photographers, amateurs and professionals, tourists, people from NGOs and those sharing family pictures. People who don't have any photos to share but still want to join the group are also encouraged to join, as there are many ways to participate.

Banerji opted to use Flickr as the focal point because visual imagery is a powerful tool and information and images placed on the Internet have a certain permanency and international reach. The campaign aims to increase national and international awareness of the issue and to make information available to the public about the various factors involved in this mass elimination. It has started a petition online to urge the Indian government to take rapid and urgent action, and to make its own laws effective.

Dowry murders

Some of the discussions covered so far on the site include dowry murders, abandoned widows in Vrindavan and Benaras, female foeticide, the exceptionally high mortality rates (40 per cent higher than boys of the same age) of girls under age five and female infanticide. Banerji wants the campaign to shed light on the fact that the very high maternal mortality rate means that one woman dies every five minutes; this is the highest MMR in the world and is largely due to the fact that 70 per cent of females married and reproducing in India are under the age of 17. She also wants to draw attention to the fact that women are repeatedly forced to undergo abortions in order to get that much-prized male child, and their bodies just can't take it.

The legalisation of abortion in India in 1972 may be a major cause of the current situation. Its legalisation was a very smooth process and did not involve the women's rights groups as it has in the US and Europe. In fact from the title of the Act 'The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1972', it is pretty obvious that there was a medical lobby behind it, she claims.

Banerji says, "One of the main reasons given by the government for this Act was 'population control'. That is strange: why would people choose abortion instead of contraception, which is much easier and economical if they wanted to limit families? My argument is that what the government knew from the start is that people would use sex-selected abortion to exclusively abort female foetuses."

Selective abortion

The earliest use of Amniocentesis to determine sex was in the mid 50s (in the US), which means by the late 60s doctors in India were definitely using the technology. "They just needed to legalise abortion to practise the selective abortion of females more freely," Banerji argues.

Banerji believes that the overall situation is largely due to a lack of motivation on the part of the government. She says that there are the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Test laws which are ignored: "I would think that we would have had thousands of clinics shut down by now and thousands of doctors put on trial.

On the contrary, we now have about two million female foetuses selectively aborted annually. Our law states - 'if a woman dies of dowry death...', How does one die of dowry death? Is it a clinical condition? Why this reluctance to treat homicide as homicide? Whether in-laws and husband kill a woman or parents kill their new-born baby girl - all these acts are homicides."

In 2004, according to CNN-IBN, 58,319 dowry cases were registered. The total number of men arrested was 1,34,757. But only 5,739 men have been convicted, the rest were acquitted. Banerji asserts this state of affairs is a disgraceful failure of law and order.


Find out more about the 50 Million Missing campaign and sign the petition

Tony Blair Toothpaste, New Sunday Express 26/2/06

Far from cleaning whiter than white, Tony Blair toothpaste seems pretty murky itself, writes Colin Todhunter

Buy Tony Blair Toothpaste now while stocks last — soon to be withdrawn from the market. Ingredients: beaming smile, the moral high ground, political naivety, and mock sincerity. You are assured to get it at a reduced price, since it is way past its sell-by date.

Tony Blair Toothpaste came on the market in 1997 offering to clean up the British political landscape. It was an advertising executive’s delight, with its youthful smile and apparent vibrancy. This brand of toothpaste was different from previous ones manufactured by the company. There was no talk of the ‘‘S’’ word (Socialism) and Tony represented ‘‘New’’ Labour and new values. Tony was hip, Tony was cool; Tony was the brand leader. He was tuned in and turned on to the meaningless ‘‘Cool Britannia’’ soundbite manufactured by the media at that time. Brits were told that it was cool to be British and to bask in their achievements in music, industry and youthful endeavour. Indeed, Tony’s spin-doctors did a great job in placing the Tony brand at centre stage.

But nine years later, consumers are wising up and the media are getting sick and tired. The new brand has become the old brand — grey, worn out and discredited. There was no substance to it. When it arrived we were hoodwinked into believing that the newer, brighter version of whiter-than-white Tony Toothpaste was newer and brighter than any of the previous bright, new versions. Now we know there is no promised land or pot of gold at the end, just a bag of slowly rotting, yellowing teeth.

Tony’s backers said he would clean whiter than white, and Tony himself believed this. The small print on the tube proclaimed: Moral crusades included. Tony has taken Britain to war no less than five times since 1997 — an achievement unequalled by any other British PM.

Tony Toothpaste is more often than not seen on the shinier-than-shiny moral high shelf of the ‘‘Freedom and Democracy’’ superstore, standing shoulder to shoulder with George W’s Good Ol’ Homemade Apple Pie. For all the sugar-induced cavities that George’s product brings, Tony is always at hand with gleaming smile and little-boy innocence to gloss over wrongdoings. He whitewashes clean with his catchy speeches and the ‘‘I’m just an ordinary guy like you’’ persona. He has become America’s PR man par excellence; let’s face it, the gibbering, incoherent Bush is useless at the job. The small print on the tube also proclaims: Naivety guaranteed.

Tony Toothpaste was a product of its time. What people didn’t realise was that it differed little from the stale and ugly brand that went before. In fact, Tony stole Thatcher’s ingredients to carry on where she left off, leaving Britain bloated with its misguided importance on the world stage and in the grip of consumerism where the cut of clothes, brand of beer or size of car is all that matters.

The truth has been squeezed dry, and sales figures have become disappointingly low. Voting turnout figures in general elections may soon get below the 50 per cent mark. Tony’s done well. George will be proud. Political bankruptcy is imminent.

Tony Toothpaste was a flimsy invention based on hollow morality and misguided jaunts in faraway lands. But we should have known this, as the small print also said: ‘‘Fragile: handle with care’’. It also read ‘‘Do not disturb’’ as Tony pressed ahead with his agenda regardless of that damned inconvenience known as public opinion.

But at least we may rest assured knowing that the ‘‘George and Tony Show’’ may soon be over. If I ever see them standing ‘‘shoulder to shoulder’’ at one more stage-managed press conference, I will scream. Let’s hope the replacement products are a little better.

Lord Gym, New Sunday Express 28/1/07

A tribute to the A & B gym of Temple Street, Liverpool, which closed its doors in the early 1990s

Going to the gym is probably the greatest passion in my life, although it sometimes feels like a self-imposed penance: there is a lot of pain involved. But I guess I had it coming. I was brought up with an overdose of hardcore Roman Catholicism, so I’ve always felt guilty about indulging in some or other form of harmless pleasure. Consequently, the concepts of punishment and guilt have never been far from my mind. That’s why lifting weights in the gym has been ideal: the price for any pleasure that may have been involved has been paid for by the painful muscle-crunching punishment entailed.

I can still recall the first gym I set foot in. It was in 1976, in a warehouse in a seedy city-centre street. The gym was situated on the third floor of a near-derelict Victorian four-storey building whose other occupants had sensibly vacated long ago. When it rained, the water poured through the roof and when it was cold outside, it was absolutely freezing inside. The gym was a musty, dreary, cobwebbed dungeon.

Placing your hands on a barbell in mid-winter was strictly for the strong hearted. The bars were so excruciating cold, you had the distinct feeling that the skin from your hands would be ripped off and left sticking to the bar. Above the door there was a handmade sign: “No pain, no gain.” It really was painful to train there, and the best incentive to train was the cold. Warming the body through hard exercise was the perfect remedy. Although it was the 1970s, it felt like the 1950s. Faded black and white photos of bodybuilders adorned the peeling walls and much of the equipment was old and rusty.

But the gym had one thing going for it: a strong sense of camaraderie, probably helped by the feeling that you had to be a hardcore trainer or just plain mad to spend a good deal of your spare time there. Everyone knew each other and the good-natured owner was always present and talkative. It was “our” place. That gym closed its doors in the early 90s, but occasionally I still bump into people who frequented it back in the 70s. We reminisce about the place, how awful it used to be but strangely just how great it was to have been part of the crew that had trained there.

These days when I’m in the UK, I train in a huge, modern place with the latest in health and fitness technology. In my old gym, if you required some water during training, you would drink from the rusty tap in the corner of the room. In the new gym, if you require water, apart from bringing your own, you may purchase a 500 ml bottle for a scandalous £1 (Rs 85)! The place is part of the world’s biggest chain. Last year, it even opened its first branch in India in Mumbai. Unlike my old gym, the manager of the branch that I go to is hardly ever there. Even when he is present, he is in the office with his paperwork. I’ve never spoken with him.

The place is all about turnover, getting new members through the doors and enticing people with various promotions. My branch has hundreds of members but hardly anyone knows each other. But although the non-commercialism, intimacy and character that were the hallmarks of my old gym are missing, I must admit that it is clean and pleasant. And what’s more, I actually look forward to going there. Perhaps there can actually be pleasure without pain! I’m finally putting my hardcore past to rest.

Rosy-Cosy TV, Deccan Herald 27/7/08

Colin Todhunter comments on what UK daytime TV has come to, giving the audience only a rosy view of the world

Perhaps it tastes nice. Perhaps it's therapeutic and soothing. In fact, it does taste nice and it is therapeutic and soothing, in a sickly vomiting kind of way. So, why not relax and tune in to the hypnotic trance of UK-style daytime TV. There is usually some or other smug, user- friendly couple fronting the show, informing us of how we may smooth away the wrinkles, according to the gospel of some grossly overpaid beauty queen to the stars, who chats endlessly to the grossly overpaid hosts on a comfy sofa, in a comfy studio.

But bless them, give them their due, these programmes do attempt to get 'serious' now and then. Well, as serious as they are able to given their penchant for mind numbing trivia. With an anguished expression, no doubt well rehearsed in front of the mirror that morning, one of the hosts says, "A recent report says that high street fashion retailers use children to make its clothes in the developing world." Then a light and punchy studio debate among the show's hosts and a 'fashion guru' will ensue, peppered with a certain degree of moral outrage. But only a 'certain degree' because hypocrisy abounds: "Stay tuned as next up you will be informed of how you too can dress like the celebs but for a fraction of the price."

The next day it's competition time!! Win £1,000 worth of vouchers to go shopping for the latest high street fashion items. "Top of the range stuff… But the prices are so cheap… Just how do they do it?" one of the hosts remarks: the very same person from the day before who fronted the 'in-depth debate' about how they actually manage to do it by using child labour.

It's all very cosy and comforting. It's all very jolly. A daily diet of snooztime TV, straight from the heart of middle England, with its sanctimonious view of the world, serving up a daily dish of sexed up infotainment and bland titillation for the can't-be-bothered-to-look-beyond-the-sound-bites crowd.

"Next up, we have a man who swallowed a live rabbit and lived to tell the tale" is sandwiched between "How you can save on your weekly cheese and wine expenditure" and "Knife crime – lock 'em up and throw away the key" Forget about informed analysis of issues when platitudes, simple emotion and 'common sense' outlooks will do. You will rarely find anything radical or challenging here because that's not the point of it all. The point of it all is to provide the viewer with an upbeat rosy view of the world and to convince viewers that their trivial concerns are indeed the major concerns of the day and that the real major world concerns can be trivialised with a few glib clichés.

"Hold on… Some breaking news… Nuclear war has just broken out… Oh well, not to worry, let's see what French superstar chef Pierre is rustling up in our on screen kitchen." That's a much tastier dish for the viewers.

It's not so much a case of snooztime TV, more a case of tug-at-the-emotional-heartstrings TV mixed with knee-jerk-reaction TV and quick fix analysis TV. It must be great to live in a cocoon, where your world basks in a rose-tinted glow. It must be great to have a one-dimensional view of the world spoonfed to you, without having to tax those brain cells too much. Life's easier that way. Ignorance is bliss? Do me a favour, if I ever get blissed out to this extent, someone wipe the smug smile off my face.

A Hollow Sort of Fame, Deccan Herald 20/1/08

Colin Todhunter believes that certain TV shows encourage empty talent and whip up mass hysteria in the name of entertainment

It’s best if you don’t read this article if you are a fan of Indian Idol. But, then again, maybe you should because “Idol” is very much a global phenomenon. TV around the world is becoming increasingly homogenised, with formats for programmes being “borrowed” from one country and used in another, usually modified to attract the maximum number of viewers and the greatest amount of advertising revenue.

In 2007, I was in Nepal when the climax to Indian Idol was being aired. Of course, there were huge celebrations in Kathmandu when the winner was announced (he was from Nepal, in case you don't know). Good luck to the winners of “Idol,” from whichever country they come and whichever version they enter. The winners undoubtedly have a certain degree of talent and ability; but, exactly how much, remains open to debate.

I recently heard the 65 year old hard rock solo singer and former frontman of Black Sabbath Ronnie James Dio slighting American Idol by referring to it as American Karaoke: people who have a half decent voice or who can’t sing at all come along and attempt to sing songs that were written by other people and made famous by other people. The process has less to do with developing talent and is more about having “star quality,” which these days seems synonymous with being good looking enough for advertisers to want to latch onto you in order to push their products. Star quality: ripe for positioning, branding and mass commodification; ripe for becoming cross-branded with some pimple cream, fizzy drink or designer label clothes.

In the UK, TV is awash with these types of shows: Pop Idol, Popstars, the X Factor and Fame Academy. Whatever happened to putting in your apprenticeship, developing your skills and then trying to make it? Now it’s a case of almost instant fame after having come through some preliminary rounds, with a bunch of millionaire judges telling you that you are good enough to be a star, to be positioned in the marketplace. Mr Dio asked, just how many of these winning competitors will be remembered in 50 years time, and how many will truly appreciate easy fame?

Well, let me answer that question in this way. Their longevity will mimic that of the consumer products that they resemble: the consumer is led to believe that if you do not possess the latest products on offer then you are a failure, but, if you do possess them, you will feel an even bigger failure because by that stage you will have bought into the lie and will be wanting the bigger, brighter, better versions of the older products that were supposed to be the biggest, brightest and best that could ever exist. Six months ago you ran out to buy the latest miracle product to hit the shelves. Now you are told that that particular cutting edge commodity is obsolete and useless when compared to the super-improved-edge version. For modern consumerism, read modern fame. The fickle hand of the market will write the fate of many of the winners of these types of shows. Easy come, easy go.

Acts like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young wrote their own music, paid their dues through years of touring or working as session musicians and are still very much around some 40 years later. Sure, these acts were eventually marketed and promoted but not before they had worked hard at refining their craft, toiling away as session musicians or in small clubs in less than glamorous surroundings.

I’m simply out of touch some may say because the programmes in question are a case of “the public gets what the public wants.” The trouble is that in this day and age, through increasingly sophisticated advertising and marketing mechanisms, mass public trends and opinions are all too easily formed and discarded in favour of the next one, like “stardom” itself.

Rock and roll is in the blood of Ronnie James Dio – it has to be, given that he is still belting it out in his mid-sixties. To some, Mr Dio may not be particularly cute to look at or “user friendly” and his image might not readily attract advertisers in their droves. But he is, and probably always was, in it for the music and perhaps not so much the fame. How many competitors in these instant fame shows can truly say that with hand on heart as they clamour over one another in their desperate and often futile attempts to achieve overnight fame on the back of little or no talent at all?

Fame for fame’s sake and money for God’s sake? I sometimes think so. As the multi-talented, long enduring Bob Dylan once said: the times they are a changing.


Watch Ronnie James Dio's interview in the following link, where he talks about 'Idol' and what it represents: Dio Interview

Hedy Lamarr Articles in the Indian Press in 2009 and 2007

• More than just Face Value (Deccan Herald, January 2009)
  
  
• A Legend Called Hedy Lamarr (Deccan Herald, November 2007)
  
  
• Brain Behind Beauty (Deccan Herald, June 2007)
  
  
• Calling Hedy Lamarr (New Sunday Express, January 2007)

Photos courtesy of Mischief Films - After Image Productions, Vienna











More than just Face Value (commemorating the anniversary of her death in January 2000), Deccan Herald, 31/1/09









Colin Todhunter tells a fascinating story of how a Hollywood movie queen ended up inventing the very basis of modern communications

She's hot, she's sexy and she's famous. Well, she was, back in the 1940s. I am talking about Hedy Lamarr, a huge Hollywood movie star and once regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world. What's more, she was responsible for inventing the spread spectrum, the technology that underpins the workings of mobile phones and WiFi Internet connections, among many other things. Austrian-born Hedy Lamarr was one of the top actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood and her heart-melting beauty was a monument to womanhood.

Her rise to fame began in her native Austria by appearing nude in the 1933 film Ecstasy. Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Keisler in Vienna on 9 November 1913 and died on 19 January 2000 in Florida, aged 86. Her first marriage was to Friz Mandl, a much older man who dealt arms to the Nazis. After spectacularly fleeing from her controlling Nazi-sympathising husband in 1937, by reportedly drugging her maid, she ended up in London where she met MGM studio boss Louis B Mayer who kickstarted her career in Hollywood.

So how did a Hollywood movie queen come to invent the basis of modern communications technology? Lamarr had learned about the latest in weapons technology at her husband's munitions plants and by accompanying him during his business meetings. When she met music composer George Antheil in 1940, she shared with him what she knew about the design of remote-controlled torpedoes, which were vulnerable to detection and jamming. Lamarr believed the solution was to broadcast the weapon's signals on rapidly changing frequencies. She and Antheil developed a frequency-hopping system by incorporating the basic technological principles of the piano. The invention enabled both the transmitting and receiving stations of a remote-control torpedo to change at intervals. They received a US patent in 1942, but their research was largely ignored.

Eventually the invention was used and Antheil later said that the whole concept was really all down to Lamarr, not him. Her frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. In 1997, both she and the then deceased Antheil received the prestigious Electronic Frontier Foundation Award (EFFA) for the invention.

However, during her lifetime, she thought that she never received due recognition for the invention. She was of course right, and she never received any financial remuneration for it either. In her later years, Lamarr felt that the world owed her something. It may well have. Lamarr's technological invention was first implemented in the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s. Her technology now underpins the basis of the US government's defence communications system. From wireless heart monitors to blue tooth gadgets and from mobile phones to the USA's defence communications system, it's an impressive legacy she’s left behind.

Thankfully, there will soon be a Hollywood film ‘Face Value’ about Hedy Lamarr's life and she will forever remain immortalised on film as the most beautiful woman in the world. In a strange twist of fate, we may now see just how enchanting she actually was by watching her old films on our mobile phones.






A Legend Called Hedy Lamarr (on the anniversary of her birthday), Deccan Herald, 4/11/07

Close to actress Hedy Lamarr's birth anniversary on November 9, Colin Todhunter finds out what made this communication technology expert truly special and where she faulted

It is one of the saddest tales ever to be told. Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), directed by Georg Misch, is a documentary that attempts to make sense of the actress and inventor’s life, mainly from the point of view of her son, Anthony Loder, and her friends. Hedy Lamarr was arguably the most beautiful woman of the 20th century. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1940s and also a communication technology innovator.

As a young woman, she fled from her native Austria and was signed by the MGM studio. Calling Hedy Lamarr highlights her son’s ambition to make a film on her one day. The actress was an enigma, even to her children. Loder says that he has a lot of his mother in him but he never really knew her. As a mother she was distant. In the film, his sister Denise says that she used to play with Hedy dolls and cry. Denise says that her mum loved being a film star but did not like being a mother, and she should not really have been one.

In one respect, the film is a form of therapy for Anthony Loder. Early in the film, he pulls out a box containing old photos of Hedy as a child and as a teenager in Vienna. Snapshots of her movies are shown throughout, interspersed with photos of Hedy. Then, later in the film, we see her on German TV in her mid to late 50s, after having had plastic surgery. It was extremely sad to see the extent to which she went to maintain her beauty. She had been constantly told that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And she believed it. But as the wrinkles began to appear and the skin began to sag, she could not come to terms with it and tried to keep the aging process at bay.

The interview she did in the late 1960s for German TV epitomised the tragedy of this actress. As the camera zoomed in to her face, the once gorgeous looks were distorted and she no longer looked like Hedy Lamarr, the beautiful actress. Anthony Loder in the film says it would have been better if his mum had grown old gracefully, without resorting to plastic surgery. But I guess she found it difficult to throw off the shackles of an image imposed by Hollywood. Anthony Loder recently said that her star status ruined her. Indeed, Lamarr herself had once stated that after stardom, everything else was poverty.

Eventually, she became reclusive and seemed hell bent on trying to preserve her beauty. She faded from public view, perhaps because she did not want people to see her old. However, near the end of the film, we see Hedy Lamarr in a home movie in her early 80s, old, frail but still full of life.

Calling Hedy Lamarr is largely about reconciliation, understanding and forgiveness: about Hedy’s children and friends attempting to peel away the layers of Hedy Lamarr’s film star persona and understanding who she was. She was described as being too bright. She had many gay friends, was in court for shoplifting on two occasions, she had six marriages and at least 70 lovers. The film depicts Hedy Lamarr as a complex woman. And the viewer is left in no doubt that she was. The ultimate tragedy of Hedy Lamarr is not really the fading beauty bit but that few people now remember her.

In Calling Hedy Lamarr, Anthony Loder talks of the baffling range of modern day products that his mother is responsible for – from wireless heart monitors to blue tooth gadgets and from mobile phones to the USA’s defence communications system.

It is tragedy enough that she could not come to terms with her fading beauty, but let’s not compound the matter further by forgetting Hedy Lamarr the inventor. Like all great inventors, her palpable contribution towards human civilisation should never be forgotten.






Brain Behind Beauty, Deccan Herald, 17/6/07

Colin Todhunter talks to Anthony Loder, son of Hedy Lamarr described the most beautiful woman in the world. But not many know that she was also an inventor.

This article also made it onto the official Hedy Lamarr site

Hedy Lamarr was an extraordinary woman. During the 1940s, she was a huge Hollywood movie star and was regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world. But, unlike her contemporaries, there was more to her than met the eye, a lot more. You may not know it, but her legacy is everywhere in India today. In fact, it has probably become part and parcel of your everyday life.

The inspirational Austrian-born, Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr is the inventor of the spread spectrum, the technology that underpins the workings of mobile phones and WiFi Internet connections. Back in the 1940s, when she was at the peak of her movie career fame, she was also busy inventing the technology that would lay the basis for modern communications. So the next time you pick up your mobile, you may like to give at least a passing thought to Austria’s finest export: the talented and intellectually astute Ms Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr had learned about the latest in weapons technology at her first husband Fritz Mandel’s munitions plants in Austria. Later, in 1940, she met composer George Antheil in the US and shared with him what she knew about the design of remote-controlled torpedoes, which were vulnerable to detection and jamming. Hedy came up with the frequency hopping concept and they developed a system, which enabled both the transmitting and receiving stations of a remote-control torpedo to change at intervals, only to have it rejected by the short-sighted Department of the Navy, who did not see the value of their efforts at the time. Antheil later credited the invention of the technology to Lamarr.

If Lamarr’s legacy as a movie star from the Golden Age of Hollywood is huge then her impact as an inventor is even greater. Over the past few years, mobile phones have taken India by storm. Many of these new “mobile citizens” live in poorer and more rural areas with scarce infrastructure and facilities. However, according to a recent study by the Bangalore-based Center for Knowledge Societies, mobile communication is helping transform economic and social life in rural India, creating greater access to social services and potentially impacting on transport, micro-commerce, healthcare, governance and education.

A similar trend can be seen in the WiFi Internet market. The laptop market will double over the next two years. Over 200 rural villages in Maharashtra have already formed a wireless Internet co-operative, establishing 50 WiFi ‘hotspots’ in their communities. The co-op has managed to raise more than $400,000 (Rs 20 million) to expand the reach of wireless Internet locally. The WiFi market is predicted to grow from the current $41.57 million to exceed $744 million by 2012.

Hedy Lamarr’s son, Anthony Loder, recently granted me a rare interview. Speaking to me from his home in Los Angeles, I asked him how he feels about the massive impact his mother's technology is having, particularly its influence in India, and whether he feels she has received due recognition for it.

How do you think the American public perceive Hedy Lamarr?

Unfortunately, only a small percentage of people are aware of Hedy at all in the US now. She has given the world so much, but I guess we live on an ungrateful planet. She, like a lot of other creative people, had put in so much work. We live in an upside down world where celebrities get all the attention. But what they do is short term, and eventually, they will be forgotten about. It’s very sad. It’s a comment on the society we live in. It has been a struggle all along to receive recognition for what Hedy achieved as an inventor, even on a small scale. I am very proud of the technology that Hedy invented, more so than the film star part of her life, which in many ways ruined her life.

She received an Electronic Frontier Foundation Award in 1997 and you collected it on her behalf.

The EFFA was a very prestigious award to receive. Many high level people from the scientific community recognizing Hedy in that way was a very great tribute. It was a big accolade, and to me, it was a great honour. Hedy felt that people gave out awards to make them feel better. But it’s not always like that. It’s a two way street.

How do you feel that Austria, Germany and Switzerland hold Inventor’s Day on November 9 to coincide with her birth anniversary?

I was not aware that those countries hold Inventor’s Day on Hedy’s birthday in honour of her. However, when I was in Austria I met with the minister of culture and asked why they had a monument to Gutenberg who invented the printing press and not for Hedy. In a way they were honouring the written word, and I couldn’t really understand why they were not paying tribute to Hedy in a similar way considering what she has done for the spoken word in terms of modern communications technology. But at least they now have an award in schools for the most promising student – the Hedy Lamarr Award.

Before she died in 2000, was she aware of the impact that her invention was having in the world?

Hedy appreciated that her technology finally caught on. It was first implemented in the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that respect, it was 20 years ahead of its time. She certainly knew that the military were using it to very good effect. In fact, she received the Milstar award for frequency hopping. Her technology underpins the basis of the US government’s defense communications system. Three 28 billion dollar satellites now orbit our planet and allow the military to communicate, and that stems from my mother’s technology. However, she could not appreciate what the technology has done since her death and could not foresee the impact of WiFi.

Hedy felt good that her invention had contributed something useful, lasting and profound. Creativity can be profound, and she liked the fact she was appreciated for her brains. She was very aware that beauty is fleeting. Unfortunately, beauty is a short term value, and modern society worships that kind of thing. Creativity is profound, and its source and effort largely ignored and unappreciated .

By the end of 2008, three quarters of India’s population will be covered by a mobile network. Communities, both rural and urban, across India have also begun to embrace WiFi. This is a result of your mother’s invention. How does that make you feel?

I have always been attracted by India, its people and philosophies and would like to visit one day. Seeing India rise to a sound economic force is good for the world and good for India. I know for instance that telephones have previously been rare in parts of the world and in India, but Hedy has essentially succeeded in connecting the planet. It’s great. Anything that raises the standard of living has got to be good.

I notice that there are two official Internet sites for Hedy Lamarr. I was particularly drawn to the hedylamarr.org site. I found it quite moving and very inspiring. How did that site come about?

Yes, there is the hedylamarr.com site, mainly run by my sister, but I set up the hedylamarr.org site sometime ago because I thought that if people are taking the trouble to try to find out about Hedy, they should be given suitable information. I suppose it was part of my mission to have her remembered. In a way that’s why we made the film Calling Hedy Lamarr in 2004 with the director Georg Misch. We made it so my mother would not be forgotten. It unpeels the layers behind the persona created by the film industry. In a way it is partly about her son trying to make sense of his mother’s life. Ten million people have seen that film, and it would be really great if people in India had an opportunity to see it on TV. And in terms of her old films, I think Come Live With Me (1941) is the closest we get to the real Hedy, her true Austrian personality.

That’s were my interview with Anthony Loder ended. Hedy Lamarr once said that films have a certain place in a certain time period, but technology is forever. Her son is acutely aware of that.

I began this article by stating that Hedy Lamarr was an extraordinary woman. But I do not think she should be talked about in the past tense. Her legacy is all around us in our everyday lives. Quite simply, Hedy Lamarr is!







Calling Hedy Lamarr, The New Sunday Express, 21/1/07

Colin Todhunter profiles the Hollywood icon who is also the godmother of the mobile phone. Bet you didn't know that.

This was a full page, front cover tribute to Hedy Lamarr, which appeared across South India in the magazine section of the New Sunday Express.

Colin,
Thank you very much for taking the time to share this with me. It is very much appreciated! Great article.
Viva Hedy!
Anthony

Message from Hedy Lamarr's son, Anthony Loder.

Why is it that every time I see a mobile phone or log onto the Internet, I automatically begin to dream of the most beautiful woman in the world. And why does a certain goddess of the silver screen lead me to think of something called spread spectrum technology? I can assure you that there is a simple explanation. The concept of the spread spectrum forms the basis of mobile phone and WiFi Internet technology, and its godmother was a certain Hollywood icon.

Hedy Lamarr was one of the top actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood and her heart-melting beauty was a monument to womanhood, which has been captured forever in the various films that she starred in from the late 1930s to the late 1950s. During the 1940s she was known as the most beautiful woman in the world and for good reason. Few women have come close to matching the type of beauty that radiated from the subtle blend of perfect bone structure, thick red lips, porcelain skin and striking black hair.

Her rise to fame began in her native Austria by appearing nude in the 1933 film Ecstasy. The film is famous for bringing the naked female form to the screen for the first time, along with Lamarr performing the first fake movie orgasm. In the 1980s she told a confidant that she had been tricked, then coerced, into acting in those particular scenes. Nevertheless, it was pretty strong stuff for that period, I?m sure you will agree.

Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Keisler in Vienna on 9 November 1913 and died on 19 January 2000 in Florida, aged 86. She learned her acting skills by being a student of the famous theatre director Max Reinhert in Berlin. Her first of six marriages was to Friz Mandl, a much older man who dealt arms to the Nazis. Mandl actually attempted to buy all of the remaining copies of Ecstasy so no one would be able to see his wife naked. He never succeeded however. Incidentally, the mansion used in the 1965 film The Sound of Music was their home while they were married. After spectacularly fleeing from her controlling Nazi-sympathising husband in 1937, by reportedly drugging her maid, she ended up in London where she met MGM studio boss Louis B.Mayer who kickstarted her career in Hollywood.

Lamarr appeared in a string of films, including Lady of the Tropics (1939), The Strange Woman (1946), and Dishonored Lady (1947), but one of her best roles, and reputed to be her favourite, was Delilah in Cecille B.Demille?s production of Samson and Delilah in 1949. Apparently, Demille liked to give a gold coin to his actors and actors whenever they pleased him by bringing something special to a part or scene. He ended up presenting Lamarr with five, which was a record. He didn?t give them away readily; other performers throughout the years where lucky if they acquired just one!

So how did such an unlikely figure as a Hollywood movie queen come to invent the basis of modern communications technology? Well, Lamarr had learned about the latest in weapons technology at her husband's munitions plants and by accompanying him during his business meetings. When she met composer George Antheil in 1940 she shared with him what she knew about the design of remote-controlled torpedoes, which were vulnerable to detection and jamming.

Lamarr believed the solution was to broadcast the weapon?s signals on rapidly changing frequencies. She and Antheil developed a frequency-hopping system by incorporating the basic technological principles of the piano. The invention enabled both the transmitting and receiving stations of a remote-control torpedo to change at intervals. They received a U.S. Patent in 1942, but their research was largely ignored at the time, with some government officials being more than a little cynical by possibly envisioning a piano strapped to a torpedo.

Eventually the invention was used and Antheil later said that the whole concept was really all down to Lamarr, not him. Her frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. In 1997, both she and the then deceased Antheil received a pretigious Electronic Frontier Foundation Award for the invention. Her son collected the award on her behalf and played an audio recording of Lamarr, who was then 83, thanking the foundation. That was the first time her voice had been heard in public for over twenty years.

During her lifetime, she thought that she never received due recognition for the invention. She was of course right and she never received any financial remuneration for it either. Georg Misch, the director of the film Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), is reported to have said that in her later years, Lamarr felt that the world owed her something. It may well have.

In honour of Lamarr, Germany, Austria and Switzerland now celebrate ?Inventor?s Day? on November 9, her birthday. The aims of the celebration are to encourage people to develop their own ideas to bring about a change for the better and to remind people of forgotten inventors. In the realm of science, it seems quite fitting that Ms Lamarr has become somewhat of a role model, particularly for girls and young women.

Lamarr was intelligent, articulate, daring and self-confident and seemed to have had everything going for her. She packed so much into her life and said that she could excuse everything but boredom as boring people don't have to stay that way. Lamarr was always a sworn enemy of convention, despising the conventional in anything, even the arts. The secret of life, according to Hedy Lamarr, was to get involved, to try everything, to join everything and to meet everybody. Her attitude to death mirrored her attitude toward life. She once said that she didn?t fear death because she didn?t fear anything she didn?t understand.

But six husbands, fading looks, having plastic surgery and becoming semi-reclusive in old age indicates that everything in the garden wasn?t always rosy. Fame, fortune and beauty do not last forever. Unfortunately, she appeared to have had some difficulty in coming to terms with her disappearing looks and post-stardom years.

Perhaps she was not the greatest actress to come out of Hollywood, nor was she the most expressive. But she didn?t need to be. Her on-screen presence mesmerised and captivated so much so that she managed to raise $7,000,000 for the war effort in one evening by selling kisses for 25,000 dollars a go. Hedy Lamarr is one of the true greats of Hollywood and will forever remain immortalised on film as the most beautiful woman in the world. In an ironic twist of fate, we may now see just how enchanting she actually was by even watching her in her old films on our mobile phones. The world in which we live is a very strange place. And it is indeed a much sadder one without her. Some stars are inspirational; a few select ones are uniquely so. Hedy Lamarr is one of them.

Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna on 9 November 1913. She died in Altamonte Springs, Florida, on 19 January 2000.

Inside Marcuse's Head, Deccan Herald 2/12/07

Colin Todhunter argues that Marcuse's analysis of society is still relevant, even if his remedies are somewhat outdated.

It is almost 100 years since the birth of the German social philosopher Herbert Marcuse and 28 years since his death in 1979. Marcuse was a member of the famously influential Frankfurt School of Social Research and wrote what some consider the most subversive book of the 20th century, One Dimensional Man (1964).

I first came across the book in 1983 and it articulated many of the things I had felt about the world around me from my mid-teens onwards but, at that time, was unable to express. Picking up Herbert Marcuse’s book on a damp winter’s day in England didn’t necessarily change my life back then, but it certainly had a huge impact on it and encouraged me to find out more.

The book is a damning examination of ‘democratic unfreedom’ and technocratic rule in modern society. It is no less prophetic than Orwell’s 1984 but is far more biting in scope due to it’s more grounded exploration of cultural indoctrination and mass delusion.

Marcuse was a leading figure of the New Left in the 1960s and many themes in the book are outdated. For instance, he discusses the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union and the hopes for a workable socialist system— with students, the dispossessed and marginalised groups being at the vanguard of change. However, what remains relevant today, some 45 years later, is his insightful analysis of society, even if many of the remedies he put forward have not stood the test of time.

Leftist thinking underwent a dramatic change during the Sixties. After fifteen years of unprecedented prosperity in the US— the working class, instead of being ripe for revolution, was contentedly partaking in the general boom and was as far from revolution as one could imagine. This presented a huge challenge to left-leaning radicals and One Dimensional Man was Marcuse’s response.

One Dimensional Man argues that “advanced industrial society” created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management and contemporary modes of thought. This results in a “one-dimensional” society in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behaviour withers away.

Against this, Marcuse promotes the “great refusal” (described in the book) as the only adequate opposition to the all-encompassing methods of control. Marcuse summed up the problem facing society by saying that the capabilities— both intellectual and technological— of contemporary society are immeasurably greater than before, which means that the scope of society’s domination over the individual is also immeasurably greater than ever before.

Marcuse was concerned with liberation, which he saw receding ever further over the horizon. He viewed society as a treadmill where workers are kept enslaved to their jobs by the desire to purchase newer and ever more products. Rather than seeking liberation, workers willingly put up with the endless regime of time-work, discipline and consumerism in the hope of gaining greater material rewards, as opposed to spiritual well-being.

In true 1960s style, part of the liberation that Marcuse talked of was in the realm of sexuality. In his view, sex was exploited and distorted by commercial interests to increase productivity and to generate increased consumption. The use of a certain form of one-dimensional sex appeal in marketing was repressive and suffocating and was at the expense of encouraging new forms of “enlightened” and liberating multi-dimensional relationships, whether heterosexual, homosexual, experimental or bisexual.

As you may have fathomed by this stage, not everything Marcuse wrote about was music to the ears, particularly his views about sex, for example, or about suppressing the freedom of expression of those who held what were, in his opinion, repressive views.

Some may argue that he engaged in a kind of secular theology, with his unwavering adherence to certain theoretical viewpoints. For example, the concept of a “false” need presupposes that he knew what an “authentic” and “pure” need is, wrenched free of any social impositions. Basically, it is a value judgement, which, in turn, is based on assumptions of what people are really like and what they actually need and, consequently, how society should be moulded. Furthermore, others may regard workers’ “enslavement” to a consumerist mentality, as the freedom to achieve better material standards and to exert self-expression by gaining access to goods.

Regardless of the shortcomings, however, Marcuse was the darling of the student movement in the US, being a regular and high profile speaker on various campuses at a time of youthful idealism and radicalism. He also had a big impact on the gay and lesbian movements.

Many commentators in 2007 often argue that the US population and the West in general are strategically marginalized into apathy and indifference. People are removed from the concerns of policy-making decisions by vested interests who attempt to make huge profits by tricking the public into subsidising high-end military technology and by appealing to base attractions and distractions in order to secure the compliance of the population. Could this be Noam Chomsky or Gore Vidal talking? Actually, no: that is what Marcuse said in One Dimensional Man in 1964.

In some respects, therefore, One Dimensional Man could have been talking about the increasingly globalised world of 2007, with its irretrievable consumerism, news infotainment, concentration of media ownership, the war in Iraq and the beneficiaries of such military action. I wonder what Marcuse would be saying if he were around today? “Well, I did warn you,” perhaps?

The Miriam Hyman Memorial Trust

The following three articles have all appeared in the Indian press. The more recent 2008 article discusses how over £70,000 from the trust has been used to open the Miriam Hyman Children’s Eye Care Centre in Orissa, India. The centre offers world class services to children from underserved and economically underprivileged backgrounds. The older articles, published in 2007, are slightly different versions of each other and focus on an interview with Miriam's sister, Esther.


To Sister... With Love in the Deccan Herald 13/7/08







July 7, 2005 will be etched in Esther Hyman’s (in the pic) memory forever. On that date, a bomb exploded on a bus in Tavistock Square, London and killed Esther’s sister Miriam. She was 32 years old. 700 people were injured and another 52 were killed by a series of bombs that were planted on the London transport system that day.

Three years later, on July 3, 2008, the newly built Miriam Hyman Children’s Eye Care Centre (MHCECC) was officially opened in Bhubaneswar.“Through the Miriam Hyman Memorial Trust, we have made something positive come out of the events of 7/7, which is a fitting legacy for my sister, a woman who was so positive herself,” says Esther Hyman, to whom the opening of the centre was very significant. She adds “Two of Miriam’s great loves were nature and art, and she was aware that she would not be able to appreciate these so fully without the gift of sight.”

Over £70,000 has been raised by the trust, which will be used to fund high-quality, comprehensive eye care for children attending the centre, irrespective of the ability to pay. State-of-the-art surgical facilities will be made available as well. There will also be specialist paediatric teams on hand. In addition, the trust will strive to increase awareness of the high incidence of avoidable childhood blindness in developing countries, which is especially important for India which has approximately eight million blind people, of which one million are under 16.

The newly opened MHCECC is part of the L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), which is a globally recognised Centre of Excellence. Esther and Miriam’s parents, Mavis and John Hyman, initiated the collaboration between the trust and the LVPEI. Mavis Hyman says, “The MHCECC will be a living memorial to Miriam. This would have given great pleasure to Miriam who visited India twice with us. She felt a strong connection with the country and its people.”

Esther travelled to India for the first time at the inauguration of the centre. Visiting India has special meaning for Esther as her mother lived in Kolkata until the age of 26. Esther aims at making the most of her short trip to India, reconnecting with her ancestral roots.

She says, “The children who benefit from services at the centre will experience an improvement in their quality of life and life chances as early diagnosis and treatment of many conditions can significantly reduce the debilitating effects of visual impairment on a growing child.”



A Memory in Sight in the Deccan Herald 17/6/07

Colin Todhunter talks to Esther Hyman about her sister Miriam Hyman who lost her life in the London blast and how her legacy continues.

Miriam Hyman (32) was on the Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square, London on 7 July 2007when Hasib Hussain blew himself up. Miriam was a freelance picture researcher and was on her way to work. She was also an artist, creative, outgoing and extremely well-liked by her large circle of long standing friends and relatives. I only had to look at the remarkably overwhelming number of profoundly felt tributes that have appeared online and in the printed media over the past two years to appreciate this. On the day in question, Hussain and his cohorts planted a series of bombs on the London transport system with the sole intention of bringing maximum death and maiming to the UK’s capital.The bombs indiscriminately killed 52 people and wounded 700 others.

Miriam’s sister, Esther, says that as her only sibling, Miriam (Mim) was her closest confidante and that their relationship was irreplaceable. But after 7/7, instead of apportioning blame in public, Esther reached out to Muslim groups near her Oxford home. She wanted to make contact with them after the attacks, to extend the hand of friendship and to make sure that they knew that she did not lay any blame with them as a community. Esther believes that all of the current problems have come about because globally we are divided. Her belief is that if she can show that what she wants is unity then other people can do the same.

She and her family have spent the two years since 7/7 keeping Miriam’s memory alive with a series of events. They were adamant that something positive could emerge from such a dreadful event. They wanted to honour Miriam by setting up the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund, which supports a charity called ORBIS, an international charity for the prevention and treatment of blindness in the developing world. Miriam studied the History of Art with French at University College London and went on to create many pastels, oils and silk paintings and it seemed only fitting that the Memorial Fund should set out to help the visually impaired.

In 2006, the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund supported an eight-week ORBIS fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, for Indian paediatric ophthalmologist, Dr Kuldeep Srivastava. He is head of the Children’s Eye Care Centre at Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya (SNC) an eye hospital in Madhya Pradesh.

The fellowship developed Dr Srivastava’s ability to provide children’s eye care services, and he will provide training for colleagues in the skills he acquired in London. During the fellowship Dr Srivastava was mentored by consultant ophthalmologist John Lee, a leading figure in paediatric ophthalmology. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Esther Hyman, and we discussed the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund, the connection with India, her feelings about 7/7 and Miriam’s legacy.

I found Esther’s attitude and outlook to be deeply inspiring, particularly after what she and her family have been through. After having talked with her, I realised that Esther and people like her are instrumental in sowing the seeds that can one day make the world a better place.

Can you say why you decided to set up a memorial fund after 7/7?

We, Mim’s family and friends, felt the need to respond positively to the events of 7/7 and we set up a memorial fund in order to do some good. The difficult thing was to decide what to do with the fund. We considered many possibilities, including scholarships and the like. Miriam herself was a fund-raiser for charities. A friend of Miriam’s brought the charity ORBIS to our attention.

Why did you decide on a vision-based charity?

It’s a bit of a spooky story actually. Although Miriam didn’t have a connection with ORBIS, their aim is to eliminate avoidable blindness globally, and we knew that she would identify with this. She very much valued the gift of sight. She discovered in her teens that she was short-sighted, and when she first wore glasses and was able to see the leaves on the trees, it was a revelation to her. Now for the spooky bit. One day, mum was in Mim’s room, and she asked out loud – “Mim - I need some kind of sign - I just don’t know how to use this fund!” The next morning, she got a call from Mim’s closest friend who didn't know that ORBIS was one of the possibilities that we were considering. She phoned mum to tell her that she had had a dream but didn’t know what it meant, but she knew that she had to call mum and tell her about it.

She had dreamt that she was sitting next to Mim who was carrying a white walking stick. In the dream, she was very concerned, and she tried to ask Mim why she had the blind person’s stick and what was wrong, but Mim didn’t answer. Then she woke up and felt that she had to call mum straight away. Well, mum asked for a sign: could it be any clearer?

What is so unique about ORBIS?

There are a few things that are particularly important to us about the way they work. Firstly, they aim to train practitioners to use simple, cheap operations to restore sight; for example, in the case of cataracts or squints, where a simple cheap procedure can completely restore sight, which is life-changing.

Secondly, they train practitioners to train others so the benefits of the training are multiplied. Finally, ORBIS invests the capital and uses the interest; therefore the money can be used in perpetuity.

How did the connection with India come about?

ORBIS operate in many countries and when we found out that the first person to be supported was to be a paediatric ophthalmologist from India we were delighted because we have a family connection with India: my mother is from Calcutta. In addition, I was a teacher so was delighted that he was a paediatrician.
The truth is, it was by chance that ORBIS allocated the support to an Indian practitioner. Nevertheless, we felt that it was a way of redistributing something from the West to the East. Moving on a little, I see by Dec 06 the fund had raised 56,000 pounds. This must be a big part of your life now.

It is time and energy consuming, but it is a healthy focus for our energies. As for keeping it going, we don’t have any strategy as such for the future of the fund. We are still surprised and delighted that it has continued this far, but we will continue to raise money for the MHMF and to hold any other events that seem appropriate for as long as it feels right. Not all events have been fund-raisers you see.

More a celebration of Miriam’s life?

I think of it this way: I feel that Mim sowed seeds during her lifetime, and that she has left to us the responsibility of nurturing those seeds and helping them to flourish. The MHMF is one vehicle for this. She was such a positive person. I feel that she gave her life, in these particular circumstances, in order to do more good than she was able to do in life. That’s the kind of person she was. I believe that Miriam was also a bit of an activist. Yes, Miriam took part in those huge anti-Iraq war street protests in London, a few years back.

And what about your views?

I have tried to avoid apportioning blame in the public arena because I don’t feel that it serves any constructive purpose. I don’t expect to be able to change world politics, but I must try to influence for the better, within my reach. I would also like to use my public voice to promote good relations between the Muslim population and the wider community.

Just one final thing, two years on, how do you feel about the people who planted those bombs... anger, forgiveness...?

Really, I just feel that they are misguided souls. I feel sadness; not an all-consuming sadness as it was at first, but a gloomy sadness at our unending capacity to set ourselves against each other. But at the same time I am determined not to be ruled by negativity. It would be so easy to go into a huge downward spiral, but right from the start my support systems have been so very strong. I am blessed and I appreciate my blessings. If I have lost my sister, at least I have 32 years of good memories, and no one can take that away.



Lighting up Lives in the New Sunday Express 2/12/07


An Indian paediatric opthalmologist is the first person to be trained by Orbis, a vision-based charity supported by the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund

This is a tale of hope and inspiration. It involves a young woman called Miriam Hyman and her sister, Esther. Miriam was an artist, highly creative, very outgoing and extremely well liked. Her 32 years of life came to an abrupt end on a bus in Tavistock Square, London on July 7, 2007, when Hasib Hussain blew himself up. Miriam was a freelance picture researcher and was on her way to work. Hussain and his associates planted a series of bombs on the London transport system and indiscriminately killed 52 people and wounded 700 others.

Miriam’s sister, Esther, says that Miriam (Mim) was her closest friend and confidante and that her death was a tragic loss. However, after 7/7, instead of apportioning blame, Esther reached out to Muslim groups near her Oxford home to extend the hand of friendship. Her belief is that if she could show unity then other people can do the same.

She and her family have spent the two-and-a-half years since 7/7 keeping Miriam’s memory alive with a series of events. They were adamant that something positive could emerge from such a terrible event and set up the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund (MHMF), which supports a charity called ORBIS, an international charity for the prevention and treatment of blindness in the developing world. As Miriam studied History of Art with French at University College London and went on to create many pastels, oils and silk paintings, it seemed only fitting that the Memorial Fund should set out to help the visually impaired.

In 2006, the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund supported an eight-week ORBIS fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, for Indian paediatric ophthalmologist, Dr Kuldeep Srivastava. He is head of the Children’s Eye Care Centre at Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya (SNC), an eye hospital in Madhya Pradesh. The fellowship developed Dr Srivastava’s ability to provide children’s eye care services, and he will provide training for colleagues in the skills he acquired in London.

I recently interviewed Esther Hyman, and we discussed the Miriam Hyman Memorial Fund, the connection with India and Miriam’s legacy. It was a touching interview and Esther’s words and actions speak for themselves.

Why you decided to set up a memorial fund after 7/7?

We felt the need to respond positively to the events of 7/7 and we set up a memorial fund in order to do some good. The difficult thing was to decide what to do with the fund. We considered many possibilities, including scholarships and the like. Miriam herself was a fundraiser for charities. A friend of Miriam’s brought the charity ORBIS to our attention.

Why did you decide on a vision-based charity?

Although Miriam didn’t have a connection with ORBIS, their aim is to eliminate avoidable blindness globally, and we knew that she would identify with this. She very much valued the gift of sight. She discovered in her teens that she was shortsighted, and when she first wore glasses and was able to see the leaves on the trees, it was a revelation to her.

What is so unique about ORBIS?

Firstly, they aim to train practitioners to use simple, cheap operations to restore sight; for example, in the case of cataracts or squints, where a simple cheap procedure can completely restore sight, which is life-changing. Secondly, they train practitioners to train others so the benefits of the training are multiplied. Finally, ORBIS invests the capital and uses the interest; therefore the money can be used in perpetuity.

How did the connection with India come about?

The truth is, it was by chance that ORBIS allocated the support to an Indian practitioner. Nevertheless, we felt that it was a way of redistributing something from the West to the East. ORBIS operates in many countries and when we found out that the first person to be supported was to be a paediatric ophthalmologist from India we were delighted because we have a family connection with India: my mother is from Kolkata. In addition, I was a teacher so was delighted that he was a paediatrician.

I see by November 2007 the fund had raised almost 65,000 pounds. The Fund must be a big part of your life now.

It is time and energy consuming, but it is a healthy focus for our energies. We don’t have any strategy as such for the future of the fund. We are still surprised and delighted that it has continued this far, but we will continue to raise money for the MHMF and to hold any other events that seem appropriate for as long as it feels right. Not all events have been fund-raisers you see.

I feel that Mim sowed seeds during her lifetime, and that she has left to us the responsibility of nurturing those seeds and helping them to flourish. The MHMF is one vehicle for this. She was such a positive person. I feel that she gave her life, in these particular circumstances, in order to do more good than she was able to do in life. That’s the kind of person she was.

I believe that Miriam was also an activist.

Yes, Miriam took part in those huge anti-Iraq war street protests in London, a few years back.

And what about your views on these wider issues?

I have tried to avoid apportioning blame in the public arena because I don’t feel that it serves any constructive purpose. I don’t expect to be able to change world politics, but I must try to influence for the better, within my reach. I would also like to use my public voice to promote good relations between the Muslim population and the wider community.

Two years on, how do you feel about the people who planted those bombs?

I feel sadness; not an all-consuming sadness as it was at first, but a gloomy sadness at our unending capacity to set ourselves against each other. But at the same time I am determined not to be ruled by negativity. It would be so easy to go into a huge downward spiral, but right from the start my support systems have been so very strong. I am blessed and I appreciate my blessings. If I have lost my sister, at least I have 32 years of good memories, and no one can take that away.

Voice of Hope, New Sunday Express (Natalie Imbruglia interview) 7/10/07

Singer and Songwriter Natalie Imbruglia’s involvement with The Campaign to End Fistula has drawn worldwide attention to this little known condition, says Colin Todhunter

How many of you reading this article have heard of the condition obstetric fistula? Not too many, I suspect. Until a couple of years ago, I had never heard of it either. I first heard about it from the Australian singer/songwriter Natalie Imbruglia who was talking about it on a UK television news programme as an official spokesperson for the UN-backed Campaign to End Fistula.

Fistula is a horrendous condition that affects poor young women in Africa, the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent. It is caused by a hole in the birth canal brought about by prolonged labour without suitable medical intervention, usually a Caesarean operation. Apart from having to cope with the trauma associated with giving birth to a stillborn baby, left untreated, fistula can lead to a woman getting ulcerations, kidney disease and nerve damage in the legs.

Two million women have the condition, with up to 100,000 new cases emerging each year. In the main, they have little say in who they marry, when they marry and the social pressure to give birth can be intense. It affects women living far from medical services, who may be undernourished, giving birth at a very young age and/or who have births in quick succession.

The condition is characterised by leaking urine and faeces. The misery is endless, the smell can be overpowering and the cleaning up constant. Husbands leave, family and neighbours ostracise the women and a life of intense isolation and hardship ensues. Early marriage and poverty cut off many life opportunities for these women, including access to education, meaning that they later have little, if anything, to fall back upon in terms of economic independence.

Until recently, the condition was usually out of sight, out of mind to policy makers. However, the Campaign to End Fistula is in the process of changing that. I recently contacted Natalie Imbruglia and asked her about her involvement in the Campaign to End Fistula.

How did you initially hear about fistula and the Campaign to End Fistula?

I was talking to Richard Branson about wanting to get more involved in a charity and he thought I would be drawn to fistula, and he was right. I became an Ambassador for Virgin Unite and they linked me up with UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), the agency leading the Campaign to End Fistula. I was horrified that I had never heard about fistula before, so within weeks I was on a plane to Nigeria and Ethiopia to learn more about it.

What was your particular motivation to get involved with a campaign to eradicate fistula?

This issue struck a chord with me. It was so devastating to me that all these women were suffering from a condition that is preventable and treatable. I just didn’t think it should be happening in this day and age. It didn’t seem like fistula was being talked about at all and I was alarmed by the lack of attention it was receiving. I felt that these women needed a voice. That’s what made me so keen to get involved.

How did your trip to Africa affect you and how did it enhance your understanding of fistula?

My experience in Africa was shocking at first, but the women are so inspiring. In Nigeria I visited various hospitals in Kano and Katsina. I met women who were waiting to have fistula surgery, and women who had already had their surgery. I also went to a village and met a woman who was getting on with life in her community after surgery.

I met a girl who lived with fistula for 16 years. It was just horrible—her baby had died, her husband had left her and she had been ostracised by her community. After she’d been treated, she was just so ecstatic and looking forward to having another baby.

It’s amazing to think that for 300 US dollars, a simple surgery can give a woman her life back. These women are so happy that someone is helping them. To see their dignity restored is a wonderful thing.

There are obviously huge social, cultural, economic and health issues at work, but what do you think is the best way forward for eradicating the condition?

The Campaign to End Fistula is working in three main areas: prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. Prevention is really the key to ending fistula. One of the main ways we can prevent fistula is by making sure that women have a professionally trained midwife on hand during the delivery who can recognise complications and refer them to a hospital for emergency care if needed.

Education is also important — educating men, the community and spiritual leaders about this problem, and educating women so that they understand the need for appropriate care during pregnancy and childbirth. Through the Campaign, we also focus on treating women who already have fistula, and teach them skills so that when they go back into their community they are economically independent.

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to raise awareness and funds for the Campaign to End Fistula — it’s important that people know what fistula is, and to know that they can help. You can go to www.EndFistula.org to learn more about fistula and how to get involved.



The Campaign to End Fistula is bringing the plight of women affected by the condition to a wide audience. In just a few years, $20 million has been mobilised by donors to help the campaign. Some cynics may ask what is the point of rich and famous individuals getting involved in certain issues that affect the lives of people with whom they have very little in common. But that would be missing the point entirely. If it were not for Natalie Imbruglia, I would never have heard about fistula. If it were not for Natalie Imbruglia, I would never have written this article that you see here today. Ms Imbruglia says that she did not want to be part of the silence. Neither did I. When you think about it, none of us should be.

The House that UK TV Built: Shilpa Shetty and Big Brother

Two articles that appeared in The New Sunday Express in January 2007 - 'The House that UK TV Built' and 'Letter from London'

The Big Brother controversy was more than a storm in an international teacup; it allowed society to engage in a dialogue with itself, says Colin Todhunter in London

The House that UK TV Built, New Sunday Express 21/1/07

Pay a volatile mixture of famous personalities a shedload of money to live in an enclosed house, present them with certain annoying challenges and hope they’ll get on each other’s nerves, and let the nation vote them off the show one by one. The last one in is the winner. Welcome to the reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother. Until last week, the ingredients for the 2007 series were producing a rather drab dish. Viewing figures were disappointing and hardly anyone was talking about it. Enter Shilpa Shetty.

The cast is mainly an assortment of desperate publicity seekers trying to revive flagging fortunes: has-been pop stars, media personalities, models and the talentless Jade Goody, whose main claim to fame is that she once won the non-celebrity version of the show. The show airs on Channel Four, and, early in the week, it belatedly hit the headlines but for all the wrong reasons: the media watchdog became inundated with viewers’ complaints about Ms Shetty being the target of racism and bullying, with Jade Goody being the main culprit. The controversy even haunted the British PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown during his stay in India. People were astounded that a TV show could actually be responsible for almost causing a diplomatic incident or even undermining international trade talks!

On Tuesday, a British politician claimed that the UK’s image was being tarnished by the antics of just two or three stupid, ill educated individuals who were in the house with Ms Shetty. The ignorance of some of the housemates was admittedly cringe worthy. One housemate asked another if Shilpa Shetty lived in a house or shack and if everyone in India (“or is it China?” someone chipped in – oh well, one of those strange faraway places) ate with their hands: the implication being that it was a such a dirty habit. At one stage, Goody referred to Ms Shetty as Shilpa Poppadom and someone asked why she didn’t just “go back home”.

By Wednesday, the Shilpa saga was the main story on most UK news bulletins, which were carrying reports about protests on the streets of India by Shilpa Shetty’s fans. News reports made it clear to a public, which was largely unaware of Ms Shetty’s standing, that she has an almost goddess-like status in India, and implied that she is perhaps not used to having to mingle with certain British C list celebrities, some of who originally hail from the less salubrious parts of some less salubrious towns and cities in the UK.

In response to accusations of it condoning racist bullying as a form of entertainment, Channel Four said that what had been happening within the house was more a case of class and cultural differences. Well, class differences were present in abundance but the racism accusations failed to go away. The concept of “girly rivalry” was also forwarded to justify the sniping and arguing, and, indeed, such personality clashes are part and parcel of the show, with a potentially explosive mix of residents always certain to increase the ratings. Anyhow, Channel Four had got what it wanted all along: controversy.

After 38,000 viewers’ complaints and with senior government ministers attacking the show, the sponsor of Big Brother finally suspended its sponsorship. Amid the allegations of racism, the careers of Jade Goody and former “Miss Great Britain” Danielle Lloyd appeared to be in free fall. As a direct result of their behaviour on the show and while still in the house, Lloyd had lost a very lucrative modelling contract and Goody’s best-selling perfume had been withdrawn from the shops. Blissfully unaware of what was happening in the wider world, both Goody and Lloyd apologised to Ms Shetty for their behaviour, which they all agreed (including Ms Shetty) had been unacceptable but not racist.

The next day, Shilpa Shetty went head to head with her main tormentor, Jade Goody, on the weekly public vote. Thankfully, the British showed good sense and voted off the truly dreadful Goody by a landslide margin.

All of this has been a storm in an international teacup. But as the ratings sky-rocketed, Channel Four must have been relishing raking in big profits via the public voting mechanism, regardless of the loss of the three million pound annual sponsorship. That was until MP Keith Vaz urged the channel to donate the profits to charity. And, for the sake of good PR, the channel obliged.

Ms Shetty will receive a huge fee for appearing on the show, probably the largest sum out of all the contestants, but some may argue that there must be a better stepping stone to take from Bollywood to Hollywood or the West. Apart from such misgivings, thanks to an unnerving brew of race, politics, ratings grabbing and the ensuing publicity, her name is now on the lips of millions of people in the UK. Her agent must be very happy indeed and Ms Shetty seems likely to be the ultimate winner, both financially and in terms of publicity, regardless of whether she actually wins the competition.

Throughout the saga, people in the UK were expressing concern that the nasty underbelly of British society was being exposed to the world. But, as a result of the furore surrounding the show, the British became increasingly captivated by an image of their society reflected back at them by the drama being played out on their TV screens. While some of it made for uncomfortable viewing, at least it allowed society to engage in a dialogue with itself as a result of the issues that emerged. However, a lot of reality TV, including the consequent debates, is often trivial, unsophisticated and deliberately sensationalist. People in the UK remain unsure whether the ongoing proliferation of this type of “entertainment” on their screens is the kind of thing that Britain, as a modern society, either wants or deserves.


Letter from London, New Sunday Expressy Express 28/1/07

The debate about Celebrity Big Brother continues to simmer in the UK. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has called for Channel Four to have its franchise revoked and some are saying that the show should have been taken off the air when the controversy over racism was at its height. The debate has taken many forms. Senior politicians were very embarrassed and twitchy over it, many of who had never watched the show. In certain quarters, the fashionable thing is to not watch the show, or at least not admit to having watched it, because it is tacky and way too low-brow. So what we had from Tony Blair and some senior ministers when questioned about the show was glib responses that went along the lines of: I have never seen the programme in question, but condemn all forms of racism outright. Well, for many commentators, that was just not good enough. These senior politicians were unable to engage in meaningful debate about the show and the issues it raised. And, as far as the public was concerned, that was highly unimpressive.

Others, of course, were all too ready to jump on the bandwagon and condemn the programme and its backers as racist. The tabloid newspapers were sometimes at the forefront of this condemnation — the very newspapers that have, in the recent past, run screaming headlines and sensationalist stories that bordered on racism about immigrants and asylum seekers. Whether what occurred was racist or not is open to long, protracted debate. Some argue that Jade Goody and her cohorts were engaged in intolerance and bullying. Others throw racism into the equation where any form of unacceptable behaviour is applied to certain ethnic groups particularly given Britain’s cultural and historical legacy of colonialism and slavery.

If the programme has done little else, it has placed racism in the public sphere of debate for a short period at least. This, in itself, is no bad thing given that it can be one of those topics that too often gets swept under the carpet, being regarded as too hot to handle. Racism affects millions in Britain but only seems to be debated on the back of an atrocity that emerges from time to time. However, some have argued that it is such a pity that racism has been placed on the agenda by a tawdry reality TV show, which manufactured the debate as a result of its own commercial interests. I have to agree, that is indeed a sad state of affairs. But, at the same time, the debate about commercial interests, popular culture and entertainment (reality TV in particular) has been thrown open and has come back to haunt Channel Four.

People who bemoan this state of affairs often refer to a more idealised realm of public debate, where reason triumphs over commercial or other forms of interest. But they may wish to consider that rational and reasoned debate is always open to distortion, compromise and coercion as a result of vested interests. The prevailing philosophy about public debate has been shaped by the premise that that an approximation of “the truth” can be achieved through the open exchange of dialogue. However, compromise, distortion and domination by one party over another usually replaces trust in reason and “enlightened” debate. Elected and unelected opinion formers such as politicians, business people, trade unions and the media are all playing to their respective constituents and the free and open exchange of ideas rarely leads to debates or policies based on objective reason and logic alone. So the public is left to analyse and contribute to debates that are always preset to some or other extent.

In an ideal world, the reports that cite the extent of racism in relation to access to housing, healthcare, employment, etc. should be leading the debate. Those reports document the marked inequalities that exist between ethnic groups and were available prior to Big Brother being aired but, regardless, there was no ongoing hue and cry about racism in Britain. The overwhelming majority of the public does not sit around reading reports or debating the issues in a university seminar room.

So what we are left with are debates instigated by reality TV, mischievous politicians or other groups, transmitted via the media, all of which have their own axe to grind. That’s the current reality we have. That’s the situation we must deal with. We may ban Big Brother, censure debate or do any other number of things but surely any debate is better than no debate. And somewhere along the line, within the chat-show debates and the caricature headlines emerging from the Big Brother fiasco, at least a degree of informed insight into the issues at hand will seep through. Hopefully.

Ivan Illich: One Great Thinker, Three Great Books

Published in the Deccan Herald on 16/3/08. Originally appeared in the New Sunday Express (New Indian Express) on 12/3/06

He wasnt just another anti-consumer-society polemicist. Illich offered alternatives, some of which may appear too idealistic, others more realistic, writes Colin Todhunter

Ivan Illich can be considered one of the most radical political and social thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century. Illich was co-founder of the widely known and controversial Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and directed research seminars on "Institutional Alternatives in a Technological Society", with special focus on Latin America. He was a researcher, writer and activist and was at the time considered to be a "troublesome" individual by the authorities much the way that the US establishment today regards Noam Chomsky.

Illich rose to fame in the 1970s with a trilogy of prominent books. He died in 2002 and 2006 marks the 30th anniversary of Medical Nemesis and the 35th anniversary of his most evocative work Deschooling Society. The other book in the trilogy is Disabling Professions. Illich was a gifted linguist and beneath his some times flowery language and emotive muses he made some exceptionally valid points. His critique of modernity was founded on a deep understanding of the birth of institutions in the 13th century, a critical period in church history, which enlightened all of his work.

Deschooling Society (1971) set the tone for Illich's other books. In it Illich stated that many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. The pupil is "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions that claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question. By making school compulsory, people are schooled to believe that the self-taught individual is to be discriminated against; that learning and the growth of cognitive capacity, require a process of consumption of services presented in an industrial, a planned, a professional form; that learning is a thing rather than an activity.

His critique of experts and professionalisation was set out in Disabling Professions (1977) and in his exploration of the expropriation of health in Medical Nemesis. The latter book famously began, "The medical establishment has become a major threat to health". The case against expert systems like modern health care is that they can produce damage which outweigh potential benefits; they obscure the political conditions that render society unhealthy; and they tend top expropriate the power of individuals to heal themselves and to shape their environment. Health, argued Illich, is the capacity to cope with the human reality of death, pain, and sickness. Technology can help, but modern medicine has gone too far launching into a god like battle to eradicate death, pain, and sickness. In doing so, it turns people into consumers or objects, destroying their capacity for health.

Experts and an expert culture always call for more experts. Experts also have a tendency to cartelise themselves by creating "institutional barricades" for example proclaiming themselves gatekeepers, as well as self-selecting themselves. Finally, experts control knowledge production, as they decide what valid and legitimate knowledge is, and how its acquisition is sanctioned.

Professionals and the institutions in which they work tend to define an activity whose production they monopolise, whose distribution they restrict, and whose price they raise beyond the purse of ordinary people and nowadays, all governments. Illich argued for the creation of convivial, rather than manipulative institutions.

Illich was concerned with the way the developing world, in particular Latin America, had a tendency to unthinkingly ape the West and its institutions in its quest for development. Movements advocating alternative living, community based living, traditional medicine and anti-globalisation owe a great debt to him. He wasn't just another anti-consumer-society polemicist. Illich offered realistic alternatives, some of which may appear too idealistic.

On a personal note, as a social researcher in the UK during the 1990s, working in some of the country's more deprived areas, I was confronted with ordinary peoples critiques of their conditions and just how relevant Illich remained. It was a period of officially endorsed consumerism (individualism) within social policy, which stressed the role of "community participation", "user-led" provision and "user involvement". However, this kind of backfired as the potential for the collective expression of discontent was unwittingly thrown open. Residents in those communities were heavily critical of the police, schools, social workers and a range of both public and private corporations, all of which were regarded as effectively stripping away their dignity, independence and rights to citizenship: in effect they were the "disabling professions".

Although the people residing in those communities were acutely aware of their exploitation on an economic level, and therefore were often staunchly socialist in outlook, they often advocated solutions that resonated strongly with Illich's call for convivial communities and the deprofessionalisation of human relations. But their calls largely fell on deaf ears. They were considered too radical and oppositional (to those who wielded power).

Despite this, Illich?s impact has been vast. His critique of the school and call for the deschooling of society hit a chord with many workers and alternative educators. Illich's argument for the development of educational webs or networks connected with an interest in "non-formal" approaches and with experiments in "free" schooling. His interest in professionalisation and the extent to which medical interventions, for example, actually create illness has added to the critique of professions and a concern to interrogate practice by informal educators - especially those in more community-oriented work.

Illich may be regarded by some as being a product of the liberal 60's: an idealist swept along by the times. He may also be accused of somewhat downplaying the economic conditions that serve to produce the type of society he describes. The Left often asserted that changes to the education system or professions on their own would be insufficient - the crux of the matter lies with altering the mode of economic production; therein lies the basis for all other change, whether cultural, organisational/professional or political. Some of his critics certainly have valid points. Despite their deficiencies however, many would assert that Illich's writings are even more relevant today than they were 30 years ago.

Ruin with Beckhamism, Deccan Herald 21/5/06

Over the past eight years or so I have spent more time in India than in the UK. My recent arrival back home heralded my stark awareness of just how homogenised and dulled the British mentality has become. Sometimes, it can be a long journey back from where you have been. It is quite paradoxical really; at a time of increasing globalisation the national consciousness appears to be stuck in an insular quagmire. In the UK we have the serious press and TV news programmes, but by and large the nation is gripped by tabloid gossip that masquerades under the banner of news. And in a nation of sixty million people, it never ceases to amaze just how narrow concerns have become.

Now and then people may be jolted by business of a more serious nature. For instance, I recall watching the BBC World TV channel while in India in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Rumsfeld, Powell, Bush and Blair stood in front of the cameras on an almost daily basis attempting to justify war. But back in the West did it become easy for the orgy of press conferences and sound bites to turn into a daily ritual of armchair entertainment to be consumed and then almost forgotten? And when it began, did it become just another TV-dinner war designed to be gazed at in some kind of post 9-to-5 after-work hypnotic stupor? - apparently not.

This time around, too many could see that it was a mere charade being carried out under the guise of democracy. Thankfully, there is hope. Liberal democracy may arguably be the best shell for capitalism (to borrow from Lenin), but in the run up to war, it was cracking and spewing out its guts for all to witness in the form of protest marches on the streets of London, Rome and Sydney. But I suppose that eventually, for most people it will reach the point once again where normal service is resumed, and trivial desires and concerns once again prevail.

I would not have believed it if I had not been there to witness it at first hand. In mid-2003 after returning from India, the aftermath of the Iraq invasion still simmered in the background, but the nation was fixated by the belief that it was being swamped by marauding bands of asylum seekers, allegations about a TV celebrity and his supposed sexual misdemeanours, and by “Beckhamisation”.

“Beckhamisation” is centred upon David Beckham and his pop singer wife, Victoria. They have become Britain's celebrity couple. She is a former Spice Girl and he is the former captain of the England soccer team. They court the press wherever they go and whatever they do is splashed across the papers and on the TV news. At that time he had just been transferred from one club to another for £25 million (around $40 million). Both of the Beckhams are multi-millionaires and most of us would find it difficult to imagine the enormity of their wealth. The nation was gripped by his move, and what it would mean for the country, his wife and their son, ‘Brooklyn’. The end of civilisation as we know it perhaps! Blair had recently made changes to the constitution but that was overshadowed by the “Beckham phenomenon”.

Indeed, the Beckham thing is becoming a global affair. He even appears on some satellite TV channel in India pouring a well-known motor oil into himself. Super-powered Beckham! Football is not such a big thing in India, but Beckham now transcends the world of sport and is launching himself as a global market brand.

German philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, noted this trend in the West in the 60s and 70s - long before Beckham was born - a one-dimensional culture obsessed with trivial pursuits and false needs and desires where the type of car, size of house and cut of clothes are all that matter. And these days the measuring stick for all of this is - you’ve guessed it - the Beckhams: they who wallow in self-infatuation.

But what can we expect? People are animals. No, that is not meant in a derogatory way; I quite like animals. Quite naturally, we like to elevate our own species and view ourselves as possessing inherent virtues. And yes, we are capable of love, altruism and logical thought. But reality also shows us, however, that people can be pretty brutal, intolerant and easily swayed by greed, dogma and fads and fashions based on popular myth and emotion. Beckhamisation?

Well, people are people and lofty ideals such as democracy, diversity of thought, and informed opinion are always under threat and in danger of being swept aside by forces that appeal to our narrower and baser instincts. Increasingly, in these times, those forces sometimes seem almost irresistible.

In Britain, we have largely done away with the need for God in daily life, but we still need to believe in something and worship it in the pages of a glossy magazine or tabloid newspaper. And the more it is cloaked in myth the better. I’ve seen the future and it’s not a pretty sight. Look out: coming to a satellite TV station in India soon - the Tendulkarisation of popular culture; that is, of course, if Beckham doesn’t get there first!

England in the 2006 World Cup

Broken English, New Sunday Express, 9/7/06 and
Not Just a Game, It's War, Deccan Herald, 30/7/06

Broken English, New Sunday Express 9/7/06


Colin Todhunter laments that supporters of the England football team have been let down yet again

It has all gone rather flat. Like a cheap bottle of warm British beer that fails to sparkle, the England football team has once again flattered to deceive. The "beautiful game?" You wouldn't have known it if you had watched any of England?s five performances of predictable play-it-safe mediocrity in the World Cup.

70,000 English people had gathered in the small German town of Gelsenkirchen with high expectations of seeing England make it through to the semi-finals. Despite four uninspiring performances earlier in the competition, the fans' optimism was tangible. Things could only get better. Right? Wrong!

The fans should know better. Well, at least the older ones should. I, like them, have been brought up on England football teams that consistently fail to deliver. Over the last three decades I have come to take with a pinch of salt the media hype that tells me that the current England team is packed with the best talent we have seen for a generation. Then when pitched against the best the world has to offer, they fail miserably - although I have to admit that "luck" has rarely been on their side.

I am used to being told that we have a team of world-class players that frequently do not turn out to be so "world class" when pitched against the true world-class players of Brazil, Argentina or France for example. Wayne Rooney was supposed to be the saviour of the nation. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have told him that as he was sent off the pitch after one hour for stamping on a Portuguese opponent. Then in a typical backs-to-the wall finale, England, one man down, held on for another hour to force a penalty shootout. It was all such a waste of time because the script was already set: another series of missed penalties ending in bitter defeat.

Footballers from decades past did not earn too much, were not media stars and lived lives that were not too far removed from those experienced by the public. Today, they are up there in the stratosphere along with rock stars and film stars when it comes to celebrity status and inflated salaries. As a result, the tabloid press feels they are fair game for stinging criticism when they serve up such mediocrity: their perceived talent and ability seems totally disproportionate to the rewards received. They have a point.

The all-too-familiar screaming headlines have appeared since England?s exit. Sven Eriksson came in for much of the criticism. It was all Sven's fault. But no, wait a minute, it was team captain David Beckham's fault for being past his sell-by date. It was the fault of Rooney for lacking maturity. It was Steven Gerard's fault for missing one of the penalties. It was the fault of the England team as a whole for lacking the steely mentality of the Germans, the silky skills of the Brazilians or the luck of the Italians. Of course the money factor always emerges at some stage as people ask how we can expect a bunch of multi-millionaire players to possess the necessary passion for going all the way to the final: they only try when they have to - when they go behind in a game or go down to ten men.

Then when all the sensationalist blame mongering has been done a reasoned piece will appear in one of the more serious newspapers criticising the government for not investing in the game at grass-roots level to engender the skills that the Brazilians possess or the teamwork of the Germans. But no - that's too boring by half. We need something to get everyone off the hook - the heat! During the tournament an assorted array of TV pundits constantly forwarded the heat as a factor for England?s below par performances. After all, how could England be expected to compete in a blistering freak German summer of over 30-plus degree temperatures against the likes of teams that hail from such sweltering places as - err, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands?

So as the English watch the final of the tournament on their TVs today, they will be left to ponder that normal service has been resumed - both on and off the pitch. It's all so predictable.



Not Just a Game, It’s War! Deccan Herald 30/7/06

Playing the World Cup in Germany had a patriotic significance for the English, owing to the history behind the nations and the fervour that the English feel for their team, says Colin Todhunter

On the 1st of July 2006, tens of thousands of English football supporters gathered in a celebratory mood in a small town in Germany to watch England play Portugal in the quarter finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The England football fans who gathered in Gelsenkirshen supported their team with usual patriotic fervour, evoking memories of Empire and the Second World War. They sang ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘God Save the Queen’ and themes from famous movies made about the Second World War. The fact that they were in Germany meant that they swelled with a little bit more patriotic pride than usual, as the war still governs a part of the England football fan’s psyche when they gather en masse, particularly in Germany.

They flocked to Germany in unprecedented numbers. When a German official welcomed English fans with the words “Hello, United Kingdom”, many let out a groan. Some were quick to yell out that the team playing was England, not the UK. But people have been confusing England, Britain, and the UK for centuries.

England is essentially Europe's largest stateless nation— 50 million people with no parliament and few national emblems. Even the Scots and Welsh now have their own national assemblies. While much has been done to help minorities in Britain express their cultures, and the Scots and Welsh have no difficulties in expressing theirs, the English have largely felt awkward celebrating their own. Indeed they have had some difficulty in defining or recognising a distinct English as opposed to British culture.

That is one reason why the England football team is assigned a particular significance and has become the main vehicle of what it means to be English. It gives supporters a chance to express their Englishness, as opposed to Britishness, at a time when they feel that everyone around them is celebrating their identity.

Perhaps this is the reason why English football fans who support the national team do so in greater numbers and with more passion than their European counterparts do in relation to their own teams. These days the two most striking features of Englishness for many are the national football team and in some respect ‘the war’.

On the 1st of July 1916, exactly 90 years ago to the day when England met Portugal in Gelsenkirshen, the bloodiest day in British military history took place as Britain's army took the leading role in the Battle of the Somme against German forces on the Western Front in France. The British suffered 60,000 casualties on that day alone, with 20,000 dead. Waves of soldiers were sent ‘over the top’ and into no-man's land only to be gunned down within metres of their trenches.

Blood-drenched fields

The Somme offensive during the First World War was intended to achieve a decisive victory for the British and French Allies over the Germans after 18 months of trench deadlock. Although the Germans were weakened, the Allies failed to achieve all of their objectives and the war was to continue for another two years.

In a four and a half month period, over a million men became casualties in the long and bitter struggle on the Somme. The offensive cost Britain and its colonies 419,654 casualties, 125,000 of them dead. In Britain, the impact of the losses was severe, particularly in the north of England where many of the men had been recruited. French casualties numbered 204,253. Estimates of German casualties vary widely between 437,000 and 680,000. A German staff officer described the Somme as ‘the muddy grave of the German field army.’

On the day that the England team took the pitch in Germany and the England fans sang their songs, memorial services in Britain and France were beamed live on TV into homes across Britain. Numerous documentaries were also shown. Black and white silent footage showed the living hell and carnage of trench warfare. Thousands of ordinary working class men had been transported from their tight-knit northern English working class communities to the blood drenched battlefields of France.

One who survived to vent his scorn on the generals who planned and implemented the battle was Cyril José who had signed up as a 15-year-old in 1914. After being badly wounded on the first day of the battle, José sheltered behind the body of his platoon commander for hours within feet of the German trenches, then took 18 hours to crawl back 600 yards to his own lines.

Writing after his experience, he said: "Such a pity that Haig and his Brass Hats did not lead us into battle instead of urging us on from their safe positions in the rear. They might not have survived to sacrifice hundreds of thousands more of my generation. So many lives wasted to cover up their incompetence. So many less to witness the great betrayal by our politicians."

His is one of many voices from the battle, which all these years later stand testimony to the utter waste and brutality of the Somme. Many of the men who fought and wrote about their experiences became known as the "Trench Poets". People like Robert Graves, Wilfred Owens and Siegfried Sassoon depicted through their writings, a modern type of warfare and its shocking impact that had hitherto been unimaginable.

Fortunately these days, Europeans mainly express their competitive fervour on the football field. Perhaps as time goes by, England fans will do away with the often alcohol-fuelled tub-thumping songs that evoke celebratory images of Empire and war. Hopefully a more positive and less aggressive version of ‘Englishness’ may eventually emerge that finds new vehicles of expression beyond football.

Memories of past encounters on the continent’s battlefields remain strong. Those memories are best kept alive through the literature, cinematography and photography of the period and modern day memorial services. The past should be remembered with dignity. After all, football is only football, it’s not life and death.

Tangled Web Indeed, Deccan Herald 26/1/06

The modern age recognises the individual yet strips him of his identity, says Colin Todhunter

It had been a long ride, which had begun in the previous century; from a place when duty and obligation meant something. My friend was a product of his time— a solid, dependable type. He had lived the prime of his life when people made the best of what little they had and got by together in the overcrowded terraced streets of Northern England.

Now he was dying: in an age of quick-fix divorces, immediate gratification and where the notion of community had been bulldozed by a society that worships at the altar of the individual at the expense of the collective. Times had changed. He had witnessed the journey away from the period of trade unionism and factory-labour tyranny, to a time of consumerism and gleaming shopping malls bathed in designer lifestyle propaganda.

In a world of shifting, shallow values, he had remained the man he had always been; the man who he had been brought up to be. Now he was lying on his deathbed. At almost eighty-four, the journey was coming to an end. One that had begun in the urban poverty of early twentieth-century England and had moved into the carnage they call the Second World War.

The Germans were unable to finish him off. He had been shot and blown-up on more than one occasion during the war, but had survived. Pieces of shrapnel were still embedded in his body, but bombs and bullets were now a thing of his past. Indeed, living was almost now a thing of the past. He had been dying for the last month or so. A slow and painful death. He was given the dignity of being allowed to die at home, in his own bed. The sanitised world of the hospital ward is a soulless place where care and dying are standardised and conveyor-belt nursing is the norm.

A week or so earlier, the doctor had visited him. She asked what he wanted. His reply was to get better, live for as long as possible and to be able to go on holiday. She told him that holidaying was off the agenda and that he was eventually going to die. Getting better and life were also off the agenda. You can't ‘get better’ from old age and a worn out body.

There was no ‘gradual disclosure’ taking place here. It was straightforward honesty. He asked the doctor was she saying that he had nothing to look forward to. According to her, he should re-evaluate his priorities and enjoy the company of his family. It was her way of saying that he was right— basically there was nothing to look forward to except death itself.

Sometimes there is no easy, sugar-coated way to tell someone the reality of their predicament. She asked if he was religious; he wasn't. She asked if he wanted morphine to decrease the pain; he didn't. She had made it plain to him that if he did take morphine, then it would shorten his life. So that was it; the medical profession had surrendered to the forces of nature.

He was old, and his body had fallen to pieces. All they could do was to make his time left as comfortable as possible. The professional term for it is ‘palliative care’ (i.e. we can't do anything for you, but we will invent a technical term to disguise the fact). The simple fact was that he had pneumonia and found it almost impossible to breathe. The pain of breathing eventually led him to seek release through morphine.

Before he took the morphine, he looked at me and said that it had gone so fast (his life). After he took the morphine, he never regained consciousness. I stood by myself in his bedroom, looking at him and wondered if he had ever thought that the end-game would be like this. I wondered how my end-game will be: how old will I be when I die; how will I die. Will it be slow and lingering, like his, or short and sharp? One thing is for sure, I am aware that my life is also going fast.

When you get to his age, people try to take comfort in the loss of a loved one by saying things like "He had a good innings" as if the old deserve to die. Or maybe they say "He died peacefully in his sleep." Just coping strategies that help onlookers to deal with death. As I stood watching him take in his final gasps, I thought what a waste it all was. He was about to ‘expire’, along with his memories, experiences and knowledge.

Before the morphine took over, he must have still remembered the first girl he had kissed, the first woman he had loved, and the first best-friend he had lost to machine-gun fire during the war. Memories he would take to the grave. Unique ones that we all carry, seldom if ever talked about, but ones that will stay with us to the point of death.

We all hope to have ‘a good innings’. But how many would sacrifice a good innings for a younger yet quick and painless death? The ideal is to live to a ripe old age. But old age can leave a bitter morphine-induced aftertaste. If we don't get knocked down by a bus tomorrow or get struck down by some ugly disease, his may be the kind of old age and death that awaits us all in this age of soulless and mechanised living and dying.

In Britain at least, we are now all supposed to be individuals with our own unique needs and identities. But the reality is that the modern world attempts to strip us of our identity and too often we are regarded as a quick buck to be squeezed, then left for dead; all in the name of freedom of choice and individualism.

Life was brutal in the past, but at least no one tried to hoodwink us into believing otherwise. Death is tragic; life, even more so. Essentially, we are all on a dead-end journey.

Bush Cola, New Sunday Express 15/1/06

Sale now on! Buy Bush Cola at prices even lower than George W's IQ! That is a very tempting offer. Open the ring-pull on top of the can and feel the spray. He's so refreshingly cheap everyone knows that but there?s a heavy cost to be paid.

Inside the cola can

From the outside Bush Cola can look tough, grim or happy depending on the mood, but most of all, it just looks empty. Impossible as it may seem, it is actually even emptier from the inside looking out. It's not only emptier but darker. Drink it in and you will find there is a kind of nothingness. Someone in the boardroom filled the Bush-can with disjointed logic: a foggy black liquid containing a thousand air bubbles, disconnected from one another and lost in the darkness.

Throughout the ages, some have turned appearing lost and confused into an art-form. Bush came along and turned it into an absolute science.

Bush Cola has a kind of bitter-tasting fizz, built from a recipe of paranoia and fear. Of course, the recipe was contrived on the back of September 11. The Bush version of freedom and democracy: feel free to endlessly consume the world?s finite resources, to envy your brother, to hate your neighbour, to fear anyone who is different, and of course to believe and to keep believing in his version of the American Dream.

Keep telling yourself that it tastes good and eventually it may in a sort of Bush-like sickly-sweet way. It's definitely an acquired taste. Some spit it out immediately, claiming it to be poisonous, but others swallow it whole and are hooked.

Outside the cola can

From the outside, Bush Cola can look enticing and glamorous, a bright red metallic cola-can sexiness draped in the Stars and Stripes and cloaked in Hollywood fantasy. Emblazoned across the can is his pained, anguished face taken from some or other press conference, and the sales slogan: "We're going to smoke 'em out, and when we've smoked 'em out, we're going to bring them to justice or bring justice to them."

A classic Bushism, an adman's delight designed for maximum sales effect. Good old tub-thumping stuff. After drinking Bush Cola you may just be inspired to round up a posse and ride into Afghanistan on the back of a cluster bomb and then ride on further into Iraq.

But the metallic red is not paint but blood: bloodstained by those sacrificed in pursuit of the Bush Dream. If you drink Bush Cola you will find that it chills. And that is exactly the plan: to refrigerate and to comatose so that people no longer feel. Chill out! Or more precisely, be chilled out. It has become the brand-named cola containing truths that are self-evident but only to the Bush sponsors themselves.

So what does it actually taste like? A fizzy type of sickliness, a gaseous fantasy that leaves a gut-wrenching aftertaste. Some may argue that, like the man himself, it's rather tasteless. In fact, here in India, a particular branded cola (one of the "big two") says on the bottle "Contains no fruit products", or words to this effect. Void of any positive substance.

Look out! Coming soon to a country near you Uncle George?s branded cola, the brand being "Globalisation and Liberty". But for God's sake, before sipping at the trough, read the small print. Ingredients: militarism, neo-imperialism, regime change, democracy, B52s, bullets and bombs, all marketed with a liberal helping of nonsensical Bushisms. What it lacks in taste or substance however, it more than makes up for with a kick a knock-out punch.

Be aware; be very aware. Warning: contains no freedom, harmony, self-determination or independence. Chill out. Sweet dreams.

Fool Britannia*/Brit Reality Bites**

Originally published in the New Sunday Express* (New Indian Express) on 9/4/06 and in the Sunday Herald** (Deccan Herald) on 3/6/07

Based in part on chapters from Chasing Rainbows in Chennai

Colin Todhunter goes nostalgic about England, in fact the idea of England and not the reality

Over the past nine years, I have spent more time in India than I have in Britain. There are times when in India that I get homesick. I have come to realise, however, that it is not England that I miss but the idea of the place. The reality is somewhat different.

Whatever happened to Britain? The place where a pub existed on every street corner and a church on every other one. Indeed, whatever happened to the British pub? Its plight mirrors that of hollowed out British society. Many of the churches are now empty shells, but the pub — it has been transformed into the modern theme bar, the ‘‘theme’’ being a notion of the very tradition that was destroyed under the banner of ‘‘progress’’. Now that traditional communities have been swept away and lost, there is a media-induced thirst for what once was. Or, more precisely, for a fairytale, misty-eyed view of the past, bogusly reproduced and resold for profit.

The modern pub: mass-produced ‘‘real ale’’, wooden floorboards and old-world mythology. There is a huge profit in nostalgia, even if the whole thing is a massive con trick. People now sip at the trough of make-belief sentimentality — of how they think things used to be. But it is not how it really used to be; it is how it is now — a theme world dreamt up by advertising executives and consumer trend analysts. It is a cynically manufactured reality, which quenches the thirst for ‘‘community lost’’.

Britain is now a place of quick-fix divorces and immediate gratification, where the notion of community has been bulldozed away by a society that worships at the altar of the individual. I just have to look at the various web sites of UK newspapers to cringe at the result. A black boy gets an axe embedded in his skull just for being black: he dies. In a case of ‘‘road rage’’, a man gets out of his car and attacks another with a crowbar for beeping his horn at him. Women’s health is in danger because so many now indulge in binge drinking on a regular basis. You only have to walk down the vomit-soaked streets on any Friday night in any city centre to see the grip that alcohol has.

The last time I was in the UK, I was in my local post office when a man ran in, attacked the cash delivery man with a cosh, and made off with the takings. It must have been the third time that something like this happened at that office in the last 18 months. As the thief absconded, I thought to myself: ‘‘Welcome home!’’

When I am back in Britain, I will only realise that I am there for sure when I see shopkeepers and cashiers caged in behind reinforced glass, and when I walk down the road, or enter a shop or a railway station, only to see CCTV cameras pointed at me. The almost ubiquitous arm of ‘‘law and order’’ has found its way into every nook and cranny of public life in the UK.

CCTV came into its own when certain people’s livelihoods were being stripped away in the name of producing a ‘‘flexible’’ and ‘‘cost-effective’’ workforce, again in the name of “progress”. They couldn’t become fully paid-up members of the consumer society, so they were sacrificed on its altar.

The legacy has been a permanent underclass of people who cannot ‘‘pay their way’’. They are now surplus to requirements: a drain on welfare resources at best and a threat to society at worst. It was impossible to wall them in on their housing estates, so CCTV became the next best option. In order to root out the ‘‘unsavoury’’ elements everyone is now on screen. Paranoia at its finest.

And entertainment on TV is not much better. It is part of the same act. The advertisements and the game-shows that interrupt the commercial breaks are exponents of the kind of self-seeking materialism that now all too often passes for entertainment. Why be aware of the world’s ills and challenge anything when you can live in the dark, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok and shop till you drop? It is a consumer paradise where unfettered desire is a virtue and obsession is the faith.

The poor old Brits can see no way out. For instance, they are disengaging from party politics, and who can blame them? There’s little to choose from. In recent times, the shaping and controlling of agendas has meant that the threshold of opinions considered ‘‘subversive’’ has grown: forms of political ‘‘involvement’’ are encouraged which seek to guarantee integration and ‘‘participation’’, rather than forms of critical thought or action that may lead to a direct questioning of or a challenge to prevailing forms of institutionalised power.

Oppositional stances are stifled and “consensus’’ is manufactured both in cultural and political terms. For instance, political discourse and much of the popular mass media is void of analytical debate, and even the news has become public theatre, often presented in emotive, one-dimensional, ‘‘human-interest’’ terms.

Harold Macmillan, the Tory Prime Minister in the 1950s, once told the Brits that they’d never had it so good, as a result of rising post-war affluence. Times have changed since then, from a period of factory labour trade unionism to an era of consumerism and gleaming shopping malls bathed in designer lifestyle propaganda. Maybe now it’s a case of ‘‘you’ve never had it so bad’’ as people drown in their Friday night vomit, shop till they drop for things they don’t really need or indeed want, arrange the next credit loan from their banks, and bask in their emptiness by watching TV with eyes wide shut. Yes, it’s the idea of England that I miss, not the reality.

Clint Eastwood: The Man with No Name, New Sunday Express, 23/9/07

I first encountered Clint Eastwood in the trilogy of ground-breaking Spaghetti Westerns (filmed in Italy): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), A Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). As soon as Eastwood rode into town and across my TV screen, I was hooked. Prior to Eastwood, John Wayne had set the standard for the western/cowboy movie genre. Wayne represented all that was supposed to be good and true in post-war US society. By contrast, Eastwood’s characters and films of the 60s, 70s and 80s mirrored the times, representing a shift towards exposing the ugly and more realistic undercurrent of US society.

I loved Eastwood’s freedom loving, gun-slinging characters. They were likeable but unnerving and often lived in a world where morals were dubious and ‘‘good’’, if it existed at all, was only relative given that there was so much ‘‘bad’’ around. I’m told that Wayne was once on a set and someone encouraged him to shoot an outlaw in the back because Eastwood would do so. Wayne reportedly said that he didn’t care what that kid (Eastwood) did, but John Wayne doesn’t shoot people in the back. That kind of purity did not exist in Eastwood’s films. And that’s what I liked. Eastwood’s characters were free and didn’t care what they did or how they did it. I wanted to be Eastwood.

In the Spaghetti Westerns he played ‘‘the man with no name,’’ the tall and mysterious cigar smoking killer whose words were few and actions devastating. That character was carried over to a series of other excellent westerns that he appeared in, including High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985). He rode into town from nowhere, reluctantly rid the place of wrongdoers then rode out again with no more to his name than his gun, a fistful of dollars, his horse and blanket. Now, that’s freedom.

Clint Eastwood began his acting career in B-movies before landing the role in the US TV series Rawhide. However, it was not until the mid-60s that the Spaghetti Westerns happened. Eastwood also starred as the modern day cop, Harry Callahan, in the legendary series of five Dirty Harry films, which began in 1971 and ended in 1988. In a similar vein to his western movies, he played the violent avenging ‘‘angel’’. Eastwood’s America, both 1800s and urban modern-day, was often a place of lawlessness and desolation. It was bad and it was ugly, and quite often Eastwood represented the only tinge of goodness. As Harry Callahan, he bent the rules or broke them and invented his own.

Eastwood used silence to powerful effect in many roles and also in some of the films that he has directed, including the thought-provoking Mystic River (2003). In real life, it therefore comes as little surprise when he admits to not being a great talker… unless he has a few beers inside of him!

Clint Eastwood describes himself as a libertarian. Indeed, it is the libertarianism that often shines through in his films and is, for me, what makes them so watchable. He is also a highly accomplished director and producer, having directed such classics as Play Misty For Me (1971), which he also starred in, and Million Dollar Baby (2004). But I will always remember him as the iconic figure in the western movies and the Dirty Harry series.

In an age of increasing mass conformity, some of Eastwood’s rule-breaking, couldn’t-care-less characters are arguably more inspiring today than they were back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. At 77, Clint Eastwood is Hollywood’s greatest living legend.

I'm Not a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! New Sunday Express 15/10/06

Colin Todhunter bemoans the British obsession with celebrities

Celebrity Love Island, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here — these are just some of the wonderful delights served up by British TV in a bid to draw in the viewers without having to tax production budgets or brain cells too much. The “celebrities” who appear on these reality shows are usually “C” list people trying to revive their flagging careers. Many of them were once famous for something, but we can’t quite remember what for and others are famous for... well, just being famous.

Go into any high street shop and the shelves will be bending over with magazines that groan under the weight of the faces of these C-listers on their covers. What they had for breakfast, their latest sexploits, when they last went to the toilet: world-shattering news about nothing in particular. Of course the message is “you too could and should live like them”… if you had half a brain that is, a humungous ego and a desire to sell your soul to the media.

The public loves it. The magazines and tacky tabloids sell by the cartload and viewing figures for the programmes sometimes hit the roof. It has such an appeal that it has often become difficult to differentiate between this type of reality-show stuff and whatever else passes for news or entertainment in the media. Even some of the news programmes have now adopted the format of an upbeat breakfast-time TV chat show, with celebrity guests and uninformed opinion on topics. The next stage in this magnificent evolutionary process will of course involve some celebrity presenting the show, with a bit of stripping, singing and dancing thrown in. Too much gloom, doom and analysis is of course bad for the soul (and those all-important ratings).

A certain happy-hearted fizz to it all is a must and the commercials are part of the act. Indeed the commercials are seemingly dictating the act. What better fizz is there than Pepsi and Coke! They are the ultimate in emptiness with their Just-Do-It mentality. Their advertisements represent a triumph of blandness over meaning. About as much substance as the air bubbles in a can. Just do what? I don’t know. Who cares? Let’s have a cola and settle down for “chat show news”, “celebrity I-love-myself island”, or “I’m a celebrity but no one remembers why”. The viewers aren’t really sure why they like such shows (or those colas) but they do.

Mind numbing blandness and emptiness sell. And the media executives know it. So it’s goodbye to lofty ideals such as diversity of thought and informed analysis, it was nice knowing you. You were always under threat and in danger of being swept aside by those forces that appealed to our narrower and baser instincts. Such forces now sometimes seem almost irresistible.

In Britain, we don’t really need God anymore, but still yearn to believe in something and worship it through some TV programme or the sickly, sweet pages of a glossy magazine. I’ve seen the future and it’s not a pretty sight. Look out: coming to a satellite TV station in India soon — “I’m a has-been celebrity with half a brain cell trying to revive my flagging career on some low-budget, second-rate programme”. This will be followed the next day by some seething journalist writing a column bemoaning the loss of a vibrant media and the narrowing of cultural concerns. Come to think of it, the article will probably be very similar to this one.

A Jolie Good Life, New Sunday Express 29/10/06

Some months ago the Hollywood star Angelina Jolie finally had her first biological baby with Brad Pitt. Including two adopted children, they now have three. Their estimated wealth is currently $150 million and either of them can command easily over $10 million for one film. Mr Pitt reportedly got $20 million and Ms Jolie $10 million for their film Mr and Mrs Smith. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born on May 27. “Brangelina” is set to inherit at least $50 million of the Pitt-Jolie fortune one day.

Mr Pitt and Ms Jolie are excellent actors. I admire their work. I also like the fact that they give hundreds of millions of dollars to their favourite charities. They don’t have to. The government of Namibia said that to celebrate the birth of their daughter there, Ms Jolie and Mr Pitt donated $300,000 to help other babies in the impoverished African country.

But come on, they are only actors and they are only acting! Do we live in a world where acting is considered more worthy than being a doctor, teacher or nurse? Indeed we do if we go by the financial rewards dished out. Brangelina has been born with a silver spoon in her mouth that her head would have to be the size of the Grand Canyon for it to fit in and her neck muscles with the strength of steel to hold it. I think you will agree that is some silver spoon.

But don’t be shocked. Most of us merely laugh in astonishment at the rewards doled out to superstars. Of course, few of us may think that their talent and ability merit the type of financial remunerations given (but many do), but hey that’s life! That’s the way the market works. That’s the way the cookie crumbles… and any other number of sayings to be said while holding one’s hands in the air in complete and utter resignation.

Little Brangelina will never want for anything. She will inherit $50 million that she never earned, will go to the best schools, and will be pampered from cradle to grave. In the weeks leading up to her birth, the couple retreated to Namibia for government-assisted privacy. Ms Jolie had the best bodyguards, nutritionists, gynaecologists and health care team that money can buy. And when Brangelina grows up she can, if she so wants, own a hundred pairs of shoes that if she lived to be one hundred, she would never be able to wear out (or even wear). But that’s no crime. In today’s world, where most people have a real struggle to get by, it is totally acceptable. Yet let some needy person in the US work all day long for a pittance and steal a single pair of shoes from a big corporate store and that is without doubt a crime.

Unfortunately both the underprivileged and the Jolie-Pitts are victims of an upside down world of warped values, albeit in different ways. Mr Pitt and Ms Jolie know it. In a joint statement released shortly after the birth of their daughter, they said that while they celebrated the joy of the birth, they recognised that two million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives. They went on to say that these children can be saved, but only if governments around the world make it a priority. I admit to having a soft spot for the Jolie-Pitts.

Mr Pitt and Ms Jolie own all they will ever need. They and their children may vacation wherever they want and can live in any number of mansions of their choice. It’s not a crime is it? Perhaps not. The massive rewards and huge privileges received are totally acceptable within the framework of today’s standards. It’s just the standards that are absolutely criminal.

Veil of Hypocrisy, New Sunday Express 5/11/06

Colin Todhunter is amazed at the hypocritical cultural standards in the UK

On a regular basis in the UK local newspapers, I come across stories about people being fined for not declaring their meagre earnings to the authorities while claiming welfare. At the same time, however, senior executives are receiving massive “golden handshakes” after turning in dismal performances. They are effectively being fired but the “golden handshake” clause was set into their contract when they started. Others are receiving huge bonus payments for… well, just doing their jobs. Of course, they will use their well-paid accountants and off-shore bank accounts to avoid having to pay as much tax as possible.

Staying within the UK, the so-called “hard” drugs such as cocaine and heroin are illegal and, according to various headline-grabbing politicians and sections of the tabloid media, are the scourge of the age. What about our old friend, alcohol? Over the last couple of decades it has become available virtually everywhere. The British public is in love with it. But it is a one-way love affair. It is a killer. Hospital wards are steadily filling up with people who have developed alcohol-related diseases and alcohol is a major contributory factor in public disorder and violent offences, domestic violence and a huge range of other social problems. Only now are the negative effects of alcohol beginning to be looked at in a serious way — just when bars can be open 24 hours a day and alcohol seems to be on sale as and when you like.

I recently had the opportunity to watch Saturday morning TV in the UK, much of which is aimed at young teens. Music videos dominated certain programmes and contained a large helping of scantily clad Britney-wannabes who swayed, hip-thrusted and simulated sex movements better than any bar girl could ever do while dancing around a pole in Bangkok. This type of thing and the role models being forwarded it seems are perfectly acceptable for young teens to watch. Sex sells, or at least increases the ratings, and as long as you do not say certain sexually explicit words on British TV, almost anything goes.

The Blairs and the Bushes of the world often portray Western democracies as the pinnacles of development, but in terms of cultural and moral values those societies are creaking under the weight of their own hypocrisy. It is acceptable and within the law for the rich to use and abuse the system. It is acceptable and within the law for corporations and the exchequer to continue to rake in revenues by encouraging the use of alcohol. And it is acceptable and within the law to pump out an endless array of sexually explicit images of women to young teens.

Yet let a woman (a Muslim woman of course) dare cover herself with a veil and have the audacity to stand in front of a class of children to teach! She must duck for cover. You can shave your head, wear next to nothing on TV, have tattoos plastered about your body (it is “cool”), wear your hair how you like, dodge paying your taxes by employing top lawyers and accountants, drink till your liver packs up, but wear a veil... that is way beyond the standards of decency!

Politicians and opinion leaders state that the “veil-wearing-thing” must be “debated” and in doing so are giving credence to those who imply that there is something sinister about it. So much for multiculturalism. Politicians who should know better and the media feel a need to demonise the women who wear them. A standard case of hypocrisy? Perhaps. A classic case of Islamophobia? Most definitely!

A Syringe in a Vein, Deccan Herald 14/1/07

When I was a boy my relatives kept asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. At the time, I had little notion of what I wanted to do. I had little concept of ever being grown up. Now I’m physically grown up, I still don’t know what I want to be. I kind of knew what people expected me to be but I didn’t want to be it. But no matter how much I try to resist conforming to other people’s expectations, I can’t escape them. I want to live my life according to my criteria. But that’s not so easy these days. Someone, somewhere is always trying to rewrite the script.

I once thought that I was a unique individual but now I am looked on as just piece of data on a spreadsheet. I used to belong to a community but have become part of a specified target group. And I used to live in a neighbourhood where closeness and interdependence mattered. But now I encounter professional detachment from service-providers who ‘cover’ my area in order to ‘provide’ for my needs. I don’t want to have needs. I want to have rights. I’m not a client. I want to be a citizen. I don’t want to interface I want to talk.

Who made the market god and the technocrats kings? The language of the age is now one of performance indicators, targets, corporate objectives, market segments and best practice. I thought value for people was what mattered not value for money. I speak English, the world appears to talk gibberish with its leverage, benchmarks, competitive advantage, core competences, learning curves, synergy, inputs and outcomes.

When I began to write this article I was having negative start up synergy, but then I became incentivised, began visioning and brainstorming. Or was it just a simple case of writer’s block, which was overcome by inspiration and thinking? At one point I had even thought about giving a power point presentation but decided to be boring and just write it.

Since when did people become human capital and the world become a competitive landscape? When did high performance corporate culture begin to prevail and when did we stop doing jobs and begin to engage in proactive functionality? When did people and communities cease to exist and service-users and client groups begin to count? And when did citizens become reincarnated as consumers?

This type of language originated in the private sector and seeped menacingly into the public sector, so much so that many politicians often slip into using it with ease. Every time I look at and listen to image conscious Tony Blair and his ministers I can’t help thinking that they were cloned in some global corporate boardroom, had a jargon-chip inserted into the brain and were then let loose on the world.

Consider this: only 500,000 people in the UK own shares. But TV news seems obsessed with providing constant reports on how many points have been lost or gained on the Dow Jones or FTSE index. I won’t even mention India and the Sensex. Tens of millions in the UK go to work and don’t own shares, yet ‘industrial relations’ correspondents who once reported on workers pay, conditions and rights have almost disappeared from view. Their voices have been drowned out by the contant drip, drip, drip of management speak: a loaded syringe emptying into a vein.

The script has been rewritten. Welcome to the nightmare.

Letter to George Bush, Deccan Herald 26/8/07

If Colin Todhunter were to write a letter to the US President, it would run like this

I was thinking about writing a letter to George Bush recently. He’s in a bit of a pickle these days with the Democrats in control of both Houses. And he always looks so pained, as if the whole world has got it in for him (it probably has). But I don’t really know whether to feel sorry for him or to condemn him outright for his actions over the last few years. My letter would be something like this:

Dear Mr Bush,

Many people appear to think that you were never up to the job of President of the USA. They suggest that you are a bit lacking, intellectually that is. Others argue that you are quite bright and your inarticulate nature hides a burgeoning intellect. I think we must draw our own conclusions based on the evidence at hand.

I must admit to feeling a little weary. Anyone can have a bad day or two and gibber inarticulately in front of an audience for minutes on end. I guess you must have had lots and lots of bad days in the last six years given your gibbering, inarticulate performances. And yes, we can all have a rush of blood to the head at times and make a few poor judgement calls or tell a couple of white lies here and there in order to deceive. Perhaps you’ve had quite a few blood rushes to the head over the duration of your tenure. Maybe you are in need of some medical help to stop that. In fact, I think you are in need of help... a lot of it.

To be serious for one moment if I may, I think you missed your calling in life. You were not much of a businessman before you entered politics, even with the help of dad, and you’ve proved not to be much of a politician have you, again even with the help of dad. You should have gone on stage. Instead of facing audiences that despairingly hold their head in hands in response to your gaffs, you could have performed at comedy clubs across the world and elicited bouts of uncontrolled laughter. Your act could have been based on being the President of the USA – you know, pretending to be the president and basing the character on some half-wit. It would have been a bit hit, with audience members nudging one another and saying “just imagine if that guy actually was the president” then bursting with laughter at the mere thought.

But sadly it has been all too real. I just wish I could have met with you a few years ago. I could have saved you and the rest of us such anguish. Based on my evaluation of your early performance as president I would have given you the following advice.

Too often what you say is comprehensible to too few and incomprehensible to so many. You tyrannise meaning through language and tyrannise language with garbled meanings. Your words could mean everything but frequently they mean nothing. I think you should try to specifically define what you mean in order to mean what you say. But perhaps you are happy to continue as you are because by imposing preciseness you would expose ambiguity. By burdening your speeches with intellectual substance, you would strip them of emotional content.

No doubt you would have carried on as before and ignored my advice. You would have continued to put forward your version of unconditional truths based on certain knowledge, as indeed you did. And in doing so would have merely succeeded in highlighting the total lack of it, as indeed you did.

Why on earth did you not go on stage instead? Comedians throughout the world must be thinking what a loss you were to their profession. Their loss was our gain? Not really. You've been a dead loss to the presidency as well. A complete and utter one.

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