Letter to the editor: Why people protest against Israel and not Iran.

I'm a sucker for punishment, I'm sure they won't publish it but I wrote this because I haven't seen this point being made anywhere and I think it gives a pretty good answer to a commonly thrown accusation and even if they don't print it, I've been meaning to write about this for some time now.

Sir,

Eddie Naughton asks where are all the do-gooders protesting the death
sentence for Sakine Mohammedie Ashtiani in Iran (letters,
Jul 12th). The Irish branch of Amnesty International has a section
of their website devoted to Iran and are covering this case amongst
others, so the do-gooders are on the case.

As for why Iran and other states like it do not draw the same kind of
protests that Israel does, I would guess that it's because Iran does
not attempt to present itself as a modern, moderate, Western-style
democracy. Iran is not in the process of joining the OECD, it does not
seek approval from the West nor does it claim to have similar values
and morals to Western countries. So protesting outside its embassy or
criticising it in public is mostly a waste of time. Nobody expects any
better from them.

Israel on the other hand does all of these things. It wants to be part
of our club and that makes it vulnerable to bad press and peer
pressure. The Israeli government knows this and puts huge resources
into media and internet campaigns to defend its image - far more than
other states abusing human rights. Unlike in Iran, Israeli government
policy can and has been changed by public opinion, within the country
and without. They are listening. The USA, their main sponsor, is also
sensitive to such publicity.

In summary, people protest loudly and publicly against Israel because
it might actually work. People don't do the same with Iran and others
because it seems completely futile. Nobody has time to fight them all,
they're just fighting the battles they think they can win,

Iran is run by the religious and even if the last elections weren't actually rigged, the choice of candidates is controlled by the religious too. Holding a placard outside their embassy is pointless. Iran's problem seems most likely to be solved by an uprising of its citizens, at which point it will hopefully be a much more just and democratic place (it had a real democratic government in the past which was overthrown in 1953 by that beacon of democracy, the US).

Israel is controllable by its citizens and only able to do what it does because the USA currently approves and pays for it. All it would take is a moderate stance by enough of its citizens or an awakening of the US electorate to their massive subsidising of Israel or just to the reality of its actions. This all seems much more achievable and public action is a viable method.

It does not require a hatred of Israel or a hypocritical bias to explain why people focus on it. If anything, Israel is sick and in need of help (as was/is Northern Ireland). A peaceful, just Israel would be a great thing for Israelis, Palestinians, the region and the world. It would upset the plans of the radical Zionists and the fundamentalists who believe the land is theirs because it says so in their book. I'm not sure they can ever win that fight anyway so in reality, they'd probably be better off too. It would upset the plans of Muslim fundamentalists too.

So the reward could be huge and the goal appears achievable. I think that's why people choose to fight this fight and not the others.

I declare July 5th to be Dependence Day.

I spent July 4th in Mountain View, California (I'm visiting head office for two weeks). Apart from a very cool doodle on the Google homepage and hearing some fireworks as I sat in my apartment, it was just like any other weekend day I've spent in sleepy Mountain View. The official day off is tomorrow, so nothing was closed or out of the ordinary.

The name of the day got me thinking though. These days, the USA is no more independent than most countries, in fact it (and most other countries) are far more dependent now than ever before. So I am declaring July 5th to be Dependence day.

On this day we can celebrate (well maybe just acknowledge) our dependencies. First off, our dependence on brutal governments around the world to keep their people living in poverty and unimaginable pollution while selling us oil and raw materials at knock-down prices (hello Nigeria). And on countries that are exporting minerals stolen from their neighbour, mined by children and slaves, with all the care and humanity you would expect from such operations (Congolese coltan in your mobile phone).

We should also acknowledge the governments that make sure their workers cannot meaningfully organise for better pay and conditions. Like China, where any unions are run by the company and the state and not the workers. This article about a recent strike indicates that things may be changing but it includes this gem near the bottom

Many workers are asking for independent collective representation. Unions in China are usually funded by companies, staffed by management and answerable to the Communist party. During an earlier strike at the Honda plant in Zhongshan, union representatives fought workers, injuring two of them.

That sure is a militant union.

Without this setup we couldn't possibly have DVD players for €20 and other electronic devices that are cheaper to replace than to repair (e-waste is itself a massive problem, I'm not sure if ifixit.com is really the answer but fair play to them for trying). And of course all the cheap plasticky crap that we don't really need or want but end up with anyway. Stuff that may eventually make its way to the North Pacific Gyre and from there perhaps into the stomach of a soon-to-die albatross chick

As well as material dependence there is psychological dependence. Living in Ireland, I get to be relatively happy with my government's record on human rights and such-like. I'm not too happy with the US military planes landing at Shannon on their way to Iraq but we have a foreign minister that has attempted to visit Gaza and many TDs (in and out of government) who speak out against Israel's occupation and other issues. I get to rail against the US, UK, French etc. governments for their part in the exploitation of various people and places. If I don't think too hard about the origin of the things I buy, the power I use and the forces that keep the whole modern world ticking over, I can keep my conscience clean most of the time and I really couldn't do that without those foreign governments or for that matter the Irish government. Although it isn't directly involved, my government happily lies down with those who are, while only making a fuss about the more obvious bad-actors.

Happy Dependence day everyone.

Post Script

After writing all this I did a Google search for "dependence day", figuring someone had probably beaten me to all of this. I was half right. On the first page at least, all I could find was various right-wingers decrying the lack of independence within the US, the "over-reaching", "over-regulating" "nanny state", the dependence on health care and how the founders would be sick if they could see us now, blah blah. The usual libertarian guff. It makes me think of this video. So while I doubt this is really an original thought, it doesn't seem to be a common one.

In Soviet Canada, healthcare system pays for your problems.

Their nearest neighbour makes it very hard to find a way to exclusively make fun of Canada...

Jon Pilger on Afghanistan

Here's an article by Jon Pilger with a great line in it

Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, "[the Taliban] are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history".

The article talks about how the fight for women's rights before 9/11 was undermined by the Clinton administration's desire to do business with the Mullahs and get an oil pipeline for Unocal

It was the consistency of this client relationship that had been a prerequisite of US support, regardless of the Taliban's aversion to human rights. (Asked about this, a state department briefer had predicted that "the Taliban will develop like the Saudis did", with a pro-American economy, no democracy and "lots of sharia law", which meant the legalised persecution of women. "We can live with that," he said.)

Of course once they became the enemy, women's rights became one of the reasons for the invasion. I suppose we should be grateful that women's rights were well established in the west before the advent of high-altitude saturation bombing or we might have had to blow the shit out of ourselves too.