THE FAÇADE OF ARMS CONTROL:
How the UK's export licensing system facilitates the arms trade
Goodwin paper #6
The UK is one of the world’s most largest arms exporters. It manages to do this under the cover of a licensing system that fails to restrict arms exports-providing only the most superficial transparency while obscuring deep ties between the government and arms exporters.
Anna Stavrianakis provides an overveiew of the licensing system and clearly explains how it does not make for an ethical policy- while showing us how the unique background and evolution of the UK arms trade, aswell as how the context of increased emphasis on national defense, means that the UK arms trade is still booming.
Her central argument is that the UK government claims its licensing system is amongst the most transparent in the world, yet it remains impossible to ascertain what equipment was exported, to whom, and when, or what equipment was refused, to whom, when and for what reason.
Cases covered by the media, for example the BAE Systems-Saudi investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, are only the tip of the iceberg. Examples relating to human rights and regional instability feature widely in the press. Exports to the USA and other NATO allies and much of the Middle East, as well as the trade between arms companies and the UK military, which make up the bulk of UK-based companies' sales, are less widely remarked on.
In general, the UK's role as one of the world's largest arms exporters and military spenders is not often seen as a problem in and of itself. This is a missing part of the debate about the arms trade. What Stavrianakis brings to the debate table is the role New Labour has played in perpetuating the way the arms trade works, while simultaneously claiming to change it:
“Arms control was a key element in the "ethical dimension" that the Labour Party proposed to bring to foreign policy. Since its arrival in power in 1997, however, the Labour government has been widely criticised for its record on arms exports, with critics pointing to the disjuncture between its rhetoric of benevolence and its practice of sending weapons to repressive states, conflict zones, and areas of regional instability.”
In this era Tony Blair hangover, it is a timely information- we do not want his role downplayed, while Labour may well have had its day for a long time, it is important that Brown’s problems and the economy don’t help to obscure the foreign policy blunders over which Blair presided. In light of the last decade, ‘ehical foreign policy’ as espoused by New Labour is the kind of hyprocrisy which needs to be addressed before it is brushed under the carpet with newer problems and challenges.
It’s the licensing system, stupid
Stavrianakis’ work on this provides a useful starting point for challenging the existing system from where it is deeply ingrained:
“The arms export guidelines are written and interpreted in such a way as to facilitate exports, and pro-control actors within government are weaker than pro-export actors. This, combined with the close relationship between the arms industry and government and the rhetoric of sovereignty and national defence, means that the licensing process is a ritualised activity that functions to create the appearance of restraint rather than significantly restrict the arms trade.”
Under new labour, the legislation provides cover for these dubious activities.
Arms control is the left hand of the government – while we tell other countries how to treat its minorities, we sell weapons to even more repressive regimes, under cover of loopholes:
“The default position is to grant licences for exports, and government-to-government deals do not require a licence (as it would be perverse for the government to licence itself ). So, for example, the Al Yamamah contracts with Saudi Arabia are government-to-government deals between the UK and Saudi governments, with arms companies such as BAE Systems acting as contractors to the government. As no licences have been granted, no details appear in the government's annual reports.”
Stavrianakis also examines the claim that the arms trade is good for the economy-a claim which has no real observable proof. She also attempts to explain why there is so little change- the massive political backing. Thatcher was famous for personally intervening to secure arms deals such as the massive Al-Yamamah deal to Saudi Arabia, and under New Labour, Tony Blair himself successfully lobbied for a £3 billion arms deal to South Africa.
So where does Stavrianakis’s work fit in global disarmament debate? It is a concise and convincingly picture of the UK’s role in the global arms trade-illuminating the webs between governments and arms exporters. It provides an ideal complement to the wider debate about disarmament and the challenges the movement faces in the future.
Anna Stavrianakis is an Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex
For more information about the Campaign Against Arms Trade, visit www.caat.org.uk.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Smuggling music and sex education: ‘Bravo’ magazine in the German Democratic Republic
Where there is prohibition, a vacuum is filled with a black market. On the long list of prohibited items in the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, the most sought-after contraband for young people was not Coca Cola, clothes or David Hasselhof (contrary to what he might think) but copies of Bravo magazine, the German cult rag for young people. Its coverage of music, film and television stars, (and Hasselhof here has to be grudgingly included) as well as its handling of teen issues, made it a highly-coveted black market commodity.
The Bravo phenomenon
Calling itself a tabloid that unashamedly targets the teen market, this muted definition of Bravo belies its prominent role in providing generations of Germans with frank sex education. Many credit the magazine, at least in part, for Germany’s free and uninhibited attitudes towards sex and the body. The magazine was founded 1956 (with Marilyn Monroe gracing the maiden cover) at a time when post-War Germany wanted to emerge from its misery and embrace modern life. Since 1962, it has given no-holds-barred advice on sex and growing up through the advice of “Dr Sommer”, resident agony uncle and real-life doctor (though Dr Sommer is a pseudonym). Generations of Germans and other Europeans in this way received their Aufklaeurung (‘clearing up’) on matters of sex.
Bravo of course is also a celebrity gossip mag. Teenagers learn about the lives and loves of America’s biggest stars along as well as the best method of contraception for young couples. Amusingly, unlike its British counterparts, (heat for example) it never pokes fun, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, at the people it covers. Every also-ran gets treated like they are the next Elvis Presley- from international superstars like Michael Jackson to German pop runts Tokio Hotel and some of Central Europe’s most embarrassing “dance acts”- DJ Bobo and DJ Oetzi, take note. This affectionate strategy does seem to pay off, however. It should be noted that Bravo followed boy band ‘N Sync’s fortunes like a swooning teenager (its key demographic) from the mid-1990s, when they could barely fill school gyms in Germany and Austria and Justin Timberlake had yet to grow facial hair.
Despite its importance, Bravo manages to completely avoid political issues, with the exception of the environment and animal rights - issues that are deemed important to its target audience. Its most politically daring acts to date: printing a picture of Pope John Paul II and publishing stars’ thoughts on America, post-9/11.
Smuggling Bravo
Thanks to its whole-hearted celebration of Western celebrity, the Bravo was banned in the GDR, not for its sexual content but because it was labelled an example of ‘decadent Western thought’ and ‘imperialist literature’ by the Committee for Entertainment Arts. But for young people in the GDR, it formed a vital connection to the world beyond the wall because of its voyeuristic coverage of music and film stars. More than that, it was a link to the stranger world of growing up and sex, its frank treatment of which children in the West may have taken for granted.
An article in the Berliner Zeitung in 2006, marking Bravo’s 50th Anniversary, discusses the smuggling of the magazines into the GDR. One teenager used to travel to Hungary with her friends to loot the music shops for albums banned under the GDR, as well as editions of Bravo. Another girl paid the equivalent of 20 DM (£8) for the latest issue - it would have set her back about 1.70 DM had she lived on the right side of the iron curtain.
Despite its status as culturally bankrupt and unfit for GDR eyes, Bravo was thoroughly catalogued, archived and rated. Possession of Bravo was strictly prohibited, which is why it was often smuggled on 18-hour train rides from Hungary, under sweatshirts against bare skin, at the mule’s annoyance upon finding the cover illegible by the sweat. Often it would have to be peeled from the belly. For West Germans, who could pick them up while buying toiletries, this may sound somehow romantic.
Along the borders and in the Post offices, the government did its best to stop the influx of Western literature, but some Bravos managed to slip through. Covert trade of Bravo’s colourful posters in GDR schools was so brisk that it even had fixed prices: A double-sided poster went for 20 Ostmarks, a single page poster for ten. The larger posters could fetch up to 40 marks and a whole magazine would cost 100. This was at a time when young apprentices in the East earned only 120 Ostmarks per month, and children’s pocket money was not usually more than 20 marks a month. Somehow, the money was always there.
Most people brought Bravo to the GDR when returning from visits, but because the eager customs goons would search luggage, smugglers had to be inventive. Sasha Lange, in his book “DJ West Radio - My Happy GDR Youth” recounts how his mother, when returning from the West to visit his grandmother, would go to the toilet just before she went through the checkpoint, and hide various papers and magazines in her boots. Another magazine would go under her sweater.
There was further money to be made in the photographs taken of Bravo pages, again with fixed prices: “These became so valuable that they were given out as prizes at the Leipzig fun fair shooting gallery. I once won a picture of Kim Wilde, but because I was such a bad shot, I spent five marks on ammunition,” says Lange.
Lange says that the obsessive collection of posters among schoolchildren surpassed the collection of music records. Finding a poster which you wanted required making use of every contact you had, inside and outside school, to find out who had something you wanted and who might want something you had. “I had a grandmother in the West- this is how I managed to get my hands on over 80 posters of Depeche Mode,” says Lange.
Black market music
Bravo also helped people in East Germany place words and faces to the music from ‘over there’. Claudia Rusch writes in her 2003 book, My Free German Youth, that music was more difficult to censure than literature. If a book was banned, it was simply not imported. End of story. “Music was different. As soon as Western songs were played on the West’s radios and people walked down the street singing them, it was too late. They settled like fine dust on the ears of people in the GDR,“ says Rusch. The furtive and urgent collection of Bravo, with its voyeurism of music stars and colourful posters, was part of this vicarous consumption of Western music, and sated some of the hunger for banned music.
For the music-hungry in the GDR, every titbit contained in Bravo’s pages was considered sacred. “Everyone knows the anecdotes,“ Rusch writes. “The black market, the false covers of Bohemian horn music, and of course the Bravo posters, which could cost up to a month’s salary.“
Every song that contained the word „free“ became a cult hit in the GDR. Rusch laments that Bob Dylan could not have known the true importance of his 1987 concert in East Berlin, and how disappointing it was for his music-starved audience that he said almost nothing during his performance: “Like it was just another one more point on a long list of irritating obligations- but for the people there, it was like seeing God.“
Still here and not forgotten
Antje Pfeffer of the Youth Archives Project in Berlin, says that presumably the yearning for the music-and sex-education paper was nowhere stronger than in the GDR. The Archives Project documented the German history of the magazine to accompany its 50th anniversary celebrations. Pfeffer herself grew up in the GDR, and does not recall any smuggling of Bravo but remembers other curious behaviour. She has fond memories of a black and white picture of Rory Gallagher a childhood friend photographed from his copy of Bravo and then sent on to her. The Archives museum is full of such grainy, overexposed and secretly developed snapshots of Bravo stars and articles.
The subject of Bravo within the GDR was also examined by the magazine itself. In 1967 it published letters from girls from sent from ’over there,’ assuring them their names and addresses would not be printed. The letters described how they were approached by middlemen, who offered 12 Deutschmarks per page and 60 Deutschmarks for a whole edition.
Of course, there was nothing comparable at the time. Nowadays Bravo is one of many youth magazines, its copycat versions, Popcorn, Pop Rocky and Girl skimming its profits and diluting its circulation. In days past, whoever wanted to have posters of Western stars could not avoid Bravo.
Perhaps another reason to be nostalgic for the Cold War: Bravo is now available everywhere but is nowhere near as coveted.
The Bravo phenomenon
Calling itself a tabloid that unashamedly targets the teen market, this muted definition of Bravo belies its prominent role in providing generations of Germans with frank sex education. Many credit the magazine, at least in part, for Germany’s free and uninhibited attitudes towards sex and the body. The magazine was founded 1956 (with Marilyn Monroe gracing the maiden cover) at a time when post-War Germany wanted to emerge from its misery and embrace modern life. Since 1962, it has given no-holds-barred advice on sex and growing up through the advice of “Dr Sommer”, resident agony uncle and real-life doctor (though Dr Sommer is a pseudonym). Generations of Germans and other Europeans in this way received their Aufklaeurung (‘clearing up’) on matters of sex.
Bravo of course is also a celebrity gossip mag. Teenagers learn about the lives and loves of America’s biggest stars along as well as the best method of contraception for young couples. Amusingly, unlike its British counterparts, (heat for example) it never pokes fun, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, at the people it covers. Every also-ran gets treated like they are the next Elvis Presley- from international superstars like Michael Jackson to German pop runts Tokio Hotel and some of Central Europe’s most embarrassing “dance acts”- DJ Bobo and DJ Oetzi, take note. This affectionate strategy does seem to pay off, however. It should be noted that Bravo followed boy band ‘N Sync’s fortunes like a swooning teenager (its key demographic) from the mid-1990s, when they could barely fill school gyms in Germany and Austria and Justin Timberlake had yet to grow facial hair.
Despite its importance, Bravo manages to completely avoid political issues, with the exception of the environment and animal rights - issues that are deemed important to its target audience. Its most politically daring acts to date: printing a picture of Pope John Paul II and publishing stars’ thoughts on America, post-9/11.
Smuggling Bravo
Thanks to its whole-hearted celebration of Western celebrity, the Bravo was banned in the GDR, not for its sexual content but because it was labelled an example of ‘decadent Western thought’ and ‘imperialist literature’ by the Committee for Entertainment Arts. But for young people in the GDR, it formed a vital connection to the world beyond the wall because of its voyeuristic coverage of music and film stars. More than that, it was a link to the stranger world of growing up and sex, its frank treatment of which children in the West may have taken for granted.
An article in the Berliner Zeitung in 2006, marking Bravo’s 50th Anniversary, discusses the smuggling of the magazines into the GDR. One teenager used to travel to Hungary with her friends to loot the music shops for albums banned under the GDR, as well as editions of Bravo. Another girl paid the equivalent of 20 DM (£8) for the latest issue - it would have set her back about 1.70 DM had she lived on the right side of the iron curtain.
Despite its status as culturally bankrupt and unfit for GDR eyes, Bravo was thoroughly catalogued, archived and rated. Possession of Bravo was strictly prohibited, which is why it was often smuggled on 18-hour train rides from Hungary, under sweatshirts against bare skin, at the mule’s annoyance upon finding the cover illegible by the sweat. Often it would have to be peeled from the belly. For West Germans, who could pick them up while buying toiletries, this may sound somehow romantic.
Along the borders and in the Post offices, the government did its best to stop the influx of Western literature, but some Bravos managed to slip through. Covert trade of Bravo’s colourful posters in GDR schools was so brisk that it even had fixed prices: A double-sided poster went for 20 Ostmarks, a single page poster for ten. The larger posters could fetch up to 40 marks and a whole magazine would cost 100. This was at a time when young apprentices in the East earned only 120 Ostmarks per month, and children’s pocket money was not usually more than 20 marks a month. Somehow, the money was always there.
Most people brought Bravo to the GDR when returning from visits, but because the eager customs goons would search luggage, smugglers had to be inventive. Sasha Lange, in his book “DJ West Radio - My Happy GDR Youth” recounts how his mother, when returning from the West to visit his grandmother, would go to the toilet just before she went through the checkpoint, and hide various papers and magazines in her boots. Another magazine would go under her sweater.
There was further money to be made in the photographs taken of Bravo pages, again with fixed prices: “These became so valuable that they were given out as prizes at the Leipzig fun fair shooting gallery. I once won a picture of Kim Wilde, but because I was such a bad shot, I spent five marks on ammunition,” says Lange.
Lange says that the obsessive collection of posters among schoolchildren surpassed the collection of music records. Finding a poster which you wanted required making use of every contact you had, inside and outside school, to find out who had something you wanted and who might want something you had. “I had a grandmother in the West- this is how I managed to get my hands on over 80 posters of Depeche Mode,” says Lange.
Black market music
Bravo also helped people in East Germany place words and faces to the music from ‘over there’. Claudia Rusch writes in her 2003 book, My Free German Youth, that music was more difficult to censure than literature. If a book was banned, it was simply not imported. End of story. “Music was different. As soon as Western songs were played on the West’s radios and people walked down the street singing them, it was too late. They settled like fine dust on the ears of people in the GDR,“ says Rusch. The furtive and urgent collection of Bravo, with its voyeurism of music stars and colourful posters, was part of this vicarous consumption of Western music, and sated some of the hunger for banned music.
For the music-hungry in the GDR, every titbit contained in Bravo’s pages was considered sacred. “Everyone knows the anecdotes,“ Rusch writes. “The black market, the false covers of Bohemian horn music, and of course the Bravo posters, which could cost up to a month’s salary.“
Every song that contained the word „free“ became a cult hit in the GDR. Rusch laments that Bob Dylan could not have known the true importance of his 1987 concert in East Berlin, and how disappointing it was for his music-starved audience that he said almost nothing during his performance: “Like it was just another one more point on a long list of irritating obligations- but for the people there, it was like seeing God.“
Still here and not forgotten
Antje Pfeffer of the Youth Archives Project in Berlin, says that presumably the yearning for the music-and sex-education paper was nowhere stronger than in the GDR. The Archives Project documented the German history of the magazine to accompany its 50th anniversary celebrations. Pfeffer herself grew up in the GDR, and does not recall any smuggling of Bravo but remembers other curious behaviour. She has fond memories of a black and white picture of Rory Gallagher a childhood friend photographed from his copy of Bravo and then sent on to her. The Archives museum is full of such grainy, overexposed and secretly developed snapshots of Bravo stars and articles.
The subject of Bravo within the GDR was also examined by the magazine itself. In 1967 it published letters from girls from sent from ’over there,’ assuring them their names and addresses would not be printed. The letters described how they were approached by middlemen, who offered 12 Deutschmarks per page and 60 Deutschmarks for a whole edition.
Of course, there was nothing comparable at the time. Nowadays Bravo is one of many youth magazines, its copycat versions, Popcorn, Pop Rocky and Girl skimming its profits and diluting its circulation. In days past, whoever wanted to have posters of Western stars could not avoid Bravo.
Perhaps another reason to be nostalgic for the Cold War: Bravo is now available everywhere but is nowhere near as coveted.
Monday, 11 August 2008
Congrats to Lozza
Deadline reporter cleared of interview impersonation charge
August 11th, 2008 Posted by Laura Oliver in legal
Lauren Crooks, a reporter with Scottish press agency Deadline, has been cleared of impersonating a court official to gain an interview.
Crooks was cleared of the charge on Friday after a year spent fighting the allegation and eight court appearances, the agency has said in a press release.
The reporter was arrested in August 2007 following an interview with an assault victim, whose case she had been covering at Edinburgh’s Sheriff Court.
Despite giving out her business card, the interviewee contacted police to say they had only agreed to the interview because Crooks she said she was a court official.
Crooks said she ‘couldn’t have been any clearer’ in making her position as a reporter known during the interview, even making requests for photographs to be set up for a Sunday newspaper
“I have spent 20 years in the Scottish media and everyone I have spoken to has expressed nothing but disbelief that this should have happened at all. I dread to think how much this ludicrous case has cost the taxpayer in wasted police, procurator fiscal and court time,” said Scott Douglas, founder of Deadline, in the release.
“Even more sinister is why a police force - already under fire for its deliberate erosion of media relations - went to such lengths to pursue a reporter and an agency with an unblemished reputation on a case which didn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.”
Tags: Court, Deadline, Edinburgh's Sheriff Court, Lauren Crooks, press agency, Scott Douglas
August 11th, 2008 Posted by Laura Oliver in legal
Lauren Crooks, a reporter with Scottish press agency Deadline, has been cleared of impersonating a court official to gain an interview.
Crooks was cleared of the charge on Friday after a year spent fighting the allegation and eight court appearances, the agency has said in a press release.
The reporter was arrested in August 2007 following an interview with an assault victim, whose case she had been covering at Edinburgh’s Sheriff Court.
Despite giving out her business card, the interviewee contacted police to say they had only agreed to the interview because Crooks she said she was a court official.
Crooks said she ‘couldn’t have been any clearer’ in making her position as a reporter known during the interview, even making requests for photographs to be set up for a Sunday newspaper
“I have spent 20 years in the Scottish media and everyone I have spoken to has expressed nothing but disbelief that this should have happened at all. I dread to think how much this ludicrous case has cost the taxpayer in wasted police, procurator fiscal and court time,” said Scott Douglas, founder of Deadline, in the release.
“Even more sinister is why a police force - already under fire for its deliberate erosion of media relations - went to such lengths to pursue a reporter and an agency with an unblemished reputation on a case which didn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.”
Tags: Court, Deadline, Edinburgh's Sheriff Court, Lauren Crooks, press agency, Scott Douglas
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Plus ca change
Austria’s governing coalition has collapsed-will this lead to the rise of the far-right Freedom Party?
The Austrian government collapsed on Monday after months of acrimonious dispute between the nation’s two largest parties. New elections are slated for September 28 after the People’s Party (OVP) withdrew from the governing coalition.
The leftist Social Democratic Party (SPO) and the conservative People’s Party had been locked in an uneasy governing coalition since January 2007. The inconclusive results of the election in October 2006, in which the Social Democrats won 35 per cent of the vote and the People’s Party 34 per cent, meant that neither could form a government with a smaller party, and the major parties were forced to join together.
Meanwhile, fears about rising consumer prices have aggravated longstanding tensions over immigration. Public sentiment toward the European Union has also soured drastically, and analysts said that in the election anticipated this year these trends could benefit far-right parties.
The populist right-wing FPO or Freedom party’s support now stands at 20 per cent- doubling their share of two years ago, making it unlikely that a government will be formed without them. For the first time since Joerg Haider’s ascension in 1999 the party is in with a solid chance. In 1999 Haider won a nice chunk of power on the back of growing discontent with the coalition, with anti-immigration policies, Euroscepticism and promises to preserve cultural identity. Nine years later, the issues seem all too familiar, with hostility to Europe again a potent force in Austrian politics: the latest Eurobarometer poll found only 28 per cent of Austrians were positive about the EU - the lowest among the union's 27 member states
‘Big Parties’ forced to the right
Despite the official stance of the Social Democrats and the People's party to rule out a coalition with the party, the Freedom Party’s growing popularity has already forced the main parties to the right. The People's party has grown tougher on immigration - to the extent of deporting asylum-seekers resident in Austria for nearly a decade. And while still pro-Europe, the party rejects Turkish membership and is committed to hold a referendum before any such step.
The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have moved closer to the Freedom party on Europe. In April, party leader and Austria’s Chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, was replaced. It is widely accepted that his political undoing was both self-inflicted and multi-faceted, but most notably he fell foul of a powerful anti-EU faction in Austrian society. Hans Dichand, the 88-year old publisher of the Kronen-Zeitung newspaper, is one of Austria's major architects of political campaigns. Dichand had been writing opinion pieces for months under the pseudonym "Cato" against the EU's new Lisbon Treaty. By signing that document, Dichand argued, the government had sacrificed the country's sovereignty.
As recently as late June, advisors warned Gusenbauer not to be swayed by the paper's clout just to boost his popularity among Austrians. But 43 per cent of Austrians read the Kronen-Zeitung, and recent opinion polls showed the chancellor with only a 16 per cent approval rating. So in a stunning display of flip-flopping, the chancellor signed an open letter to Dichand, announcing referendums for future EU treaties. Dichand acknowledged this gesture of submission and thanked the chancellor, the began to promote Gusenbauer’s colleague, Werner Faymann, as the SPÖ's candidate for chancellor in this year's new elections. Faymann has since replaced Gusenbauer as leader of the Social Democrats.
Explaining the rise
As the coalition crumbled, Haider’s former party, led by Heinz-Christian Strache, has reached out to the ranks of blue-collar workers, the unemployed and energetic pensioners who have had enough rising prices and the bickering of the "big parties."
It has also flourished since Haider branched off with a minority in 2005 to start up the BZO, or the Alliance for the Future of Austria, partly to hamper the rise of the 39-year old upstart Christian Strache. Strache, who once staged paramilitary games with fellow gun enthusiasts in the forests of the Austrian province of Carinthia and was affiliated with the now-banned neo-Nazi Viking Youth group, uses tried and tested methods to win popular support. He calls for more social services for the needy, and agitates against EU dictates. Most alarmingly, he is responsible for the political posters for his parties that have slogans like "Daham statt Islam" (Home, not Islam) and "Deutsch statt nix versteh'n" (German, not "I don't understand").
Strache's political mentor, Jerg Haider, turned the Party into the country's second-largest using the same rhetoric nine years ago. After the September election, Strache hopes have a role in shaping the new government, and his prospects look good.
How has the extreme right wing been able to develop its influence in Austria, a country where the social democrats have been in power for decades? Many point to Europhobia-Austria since its accession in1995 has had official pro-EU stance that belies the undercurrent of public dissatisfaction with Brussels- this is trend however that is not unique to Austria.
Discussions about Turkey’s accession to the EU have become mired in Austria and Turkey’s historical enmity, that reached its pinnacle in the Ottoman siege 1683 and is today manifest in uneasy relations with insular Turkish communities in Vienna. Moreover, some argue that Austrians are easily seduced by far-right rhetoric because of a fear of the consequences of immigration caused partly by its small size. People fear it may not cope with the influx of immigrants its geographic position will almost certainly expose it to if the EU borders stretch any farther.
It’s the government, stupid
Less attention has been paid to the question of Austria’s government itself. In 1999 Joerg Haider won more than a quarter of the votes, successfully capitalising on widespread disillusionment with the traditional governing parties of Austria, employing a mixture of racist agitation against foreigners, social demagogy and a campaign against corruption and nepotism.
It is a truism in Austrian politics in the last 20 years that the Freedom Party has made strong gains in times of grand coalitions. For the bulk of the post-war era, the two popular parties have ruled the nation jointly. As a result, Austria has seen decades of social calm and only cautious reform. Social philosopher Norbert Leser has criticised the coalition, arguing that by strenghening the centre, where the government benefits are hoarded, the grand coalition drives many disgruntled voters to the fringes.
Scholarly debate attributed the rise of the ultra-right is a direct consequence of the political dilapidation of the larger traditional parties.
For example, Austria's economy is characterised by a large number of small and mid-size factories that co-exist with a large portion of the economy under state control. The private factories are primarily orientated to the domestic market, and the opening up of the east European states after the Cold War, the entry of Austria into the European Union and the consequences of globalisation have increased competition and reduced the political and economic room for manoeuvre for traditional forms of social collaboration in Austria. A part of the middle class feels that its social status and its material security are under threat. It is here that the Freedom Party gains a foothold.
Throughout the 1990s the Social Democrat-led coalition government made big changes to the economy. One strategy was to consolidate the national budget by cutting back state debt and reducing the level of new debt. As in all other European countries social security payments were cut, leading to a bleak social climate. The system of proportional representation centralised and boosted the power of the ‘big parties’ and prevented opposition against government policies. Increasingly, the political establishment developed into a stronghold for economic favouritism and nepotism. The Freedom Party was able to capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with the lumbering party system. Haider repeatedly emphasised that “the aim is to complete the liberal ideas of constitutional and free rights through the liberation of the people from the political parties.... the power cartels of the grand coalition, into which both the main parties have fled in order to maintain their areas of power, will be stripped of their significance.”
The Freedom Party, now as then, touts the importance of the free economy, the most important element of which is private property. It believes politics should not be limited to the protection of existing property, but should ensure that every individual can, through their own efforts, actually acquire property.
This is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's propaganda about “people's capitalism”, which enabled the former British Prime Minister to mobilise sections of the middle class in a campaign to dismantle the welfare state system. The Freedom Party is also seeking to find broad acceptance for measures such as rationalisation, flexibility, wage cuts and the abolition of measures designed to protect the rights and conditions of ordinary workers.
The racist elements of the Freedom Party’s policy is a political strategy that it reinforces through its social and economic policies. Their racism serves to mobilise the most backward sections of society and to divide with growing social tensions The stripping away of all rights for foreign workers is envisaged as a means of establishing a cheap wage sector which, in turn, can be utilised to reverse the existing union-employer contract system governing wages and conditions.
What next?
On Tuesday the new Social Democrats chairman Werner Faymann declared on Austrian TV that he hopes to be the new chancellor of Austria. He promises open discussion on matters of the EU and his official line is he will be happy to work with the People’s Party. He remains firm that he will not form a coalition with the Freedom Party. However, some suspect that at least one of the main parties will form a coalition with the Freedom Party after the elections. Strache expects his Freedom Party to make strong gains and it looks like he may be right.
The last time around, in 2000, the European Union imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria when the Freedom Party, with Haider at its head, became a member of the two-party national governing coalition. When Wolfgang Schuessel, the head of the People’s Party at the time and the elected chancellor, agreed to form a coalition with Haider’s Party, it was on the condition that Haider retire as head. The agreement still provoked the European Union into imposing sanctions against Austria.
Coalitions with the Freedom Party have collapsed in the past (as in 2003) over key policy disagreements, but this time around, with more support and a more palatable leader, the Freedom Party may get a piece of the pie with less incident.
The Austrian government collapsed on Monday after months of acrimonious dispute between the nation’s two largest parties. New elections are slated for September 28 after the People’s Party (OVP) withdrew from the governing coalition.
The leftist Social Democratic Party (SPO) and the conservative People’s Party had been locked in an uneasy governing coalition since January 2007. The inconclusive results of the election in October 2006, in which the Social Democrats won 35 per cent of the vote and the People’s Party 34 per cent, meant that neither could form a government with a smaller party, and the major parties were forced to join together.
Meanwhile, fears about rising consumer prices have aggravated longstanding tensions over immigration. Public sentiment toward the European Union has also soured drastically, and analysts said that in the election anticipated this year these trends could benefit far-right parties.
The populist right-wing FPO or Freedom party’s support now stands at 20 per cent- doubling their share of two years ago, making it unlikely that a government will be formed without them. For the first time since Joerg Haider’s ascension in 1999 the party is in with a solid chance. In 1999 Haider won a nice chunk of power on the back of growing discontent with the coalition, with anti-immigration policies, Euroscepticism and promises to preserve cultural identity. Nine years later, the issues seem all too familiar, with hostility to Europe again a potent force in Austrian politics: the latest Eurobarometer poll found only 28 per cent of Austrians were positive about the EU - the lowest among the union's 27 member states
‘Big Parties’ forced to the right
Despite the official stance of the Social Democrats and the People's party to rule out a coalition with the party, the Freedom Party’s growing popularity has already forced the main parties to the right. The People's party has grown tougher on immigration - to the extent of deporting asylum-seekers resident in Austria for nearly a decade. And while still pro-Europe, the party rejects Turkish membership and is committed to hold a referendum before any such step.
The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have moved closer to the Freedom party on Europe. In April, party leader and Austria’s Chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, was replaced. It is widely accepted that his political undoing was both self-inflicted and multi-faceted, but most notably he fell foul of a powerful anti-EU faction in Austrian society. Hans Dichand, the 88-year old publisher of the Kronen-Zeitung newspaper, is one of Austria's major architects of political campaigns. Dichand had been writing opinion pieces for months under the pseudonym "Cato" against the EU's new Lisbon Treaty. By signing that document, Dichand argued, the government had sacrificed the country's sovereignty.
As recently as late June, advisors warned Gusenbauer not to be swayed by the paper's clout just to boost his popularity among Austrians. But 43 per cent of Austrians read the Kronen-Zeitung, and recent opinion polls showed the chancellor with only a 16 per cent approval rating. So in a stunning display of flip-flopping, the chancellor signed an open letter to Dichand, announcing referendums for future EU treaties. Dichand acknowledged this gesture of submission and thanked the chancellor, the began to promote Gusenbauer’s colleague, Werner Faymann, as the SPÖ's candidate for chancellor in this year's new elections. Faymann has since replaced Gusenbauer as leader of the Social Democrats.
Explaining the rise
As the coalition crumbled, Haider’s former party, led by Heinz-Christian Strache, has reached out to the ranks of blue-collar workers, the unemployed and energetic pensioners who have had enough rising prices and the bickering of the "big parties."
It has also flourished since Haider branched off with a minority in 2005 to start up the BZO, or the Alliance for the Future of Austria, partly to hamper the rise of the 39-year old upstart Christian Strache. Strache, who once staged paramilitary games with fellow gun enthusiasts in the forests of the Austrian province of Carinthia and was affiliated with the now-banned neo-Nazi Viking Youth group, uses tried and tested methods to win popular support. He calls for more social services for the needy, and agitates against EU dictates. Most alarmingly, he is responsible for the political posters for his parties that have slogans like "Daham statt Islam" (Home, not Islam) and "Deutsch statt nix versteh'n" (German, not "I don't understand").
Strache's political mentor, Jerg Haider, turned the Party into the country's second-largest using the same rhetoric nine years ago. After the September election, Strache hopes have a role in shaping the new government, and his prospects look good.
How has the extreme right wing been able to develop its influence in Austria, a country where the social democrats have been in power for decades? Many point to Europhobia-Austria since its accession in1995 has had official pro-EU stance that belies the undercurrent of public dissatisfaction with Brussels- this is trend however that is not unique to Austria.
Discussions about Turkey’s accession to the EU have become mired in Austria and Turkey’s historical enmity, that reached its pinnacle in the Ottoman siege 1683 and is today manifest in uneasy relations with insular Turkish communities in Vienna. Moreover, some argue that Austrians are easily seduced by far-right rhetoric because of a fear of the consequences of immigration caused partly by its small size. People fear it may not cope with the influx of immigrants its geographic position will almost certainly expose it to if the EU borders stretch any farther.
It’s the government, stupid
Less attention has been paid to the question of Austria’s government itself. In 1999 Joerg Haider won more than a quarter of the votes, successfully capitalising on widespread disillusionment with the traditional governing parties of Austria, employing a mixture of racist agitation against foreigners, social demagogy and a campaign against corruption and nepotism.
It is a truism in Austrian politics in the last 20 years that the Freedom Party has made strong gains in times of grand coalitions. For the bulk of the post-war era, the two popular parties have ruled the nation jointly. As a result, Austria has seen decades of social calm and only cautious reform. Social philosopher Norbert Leser has criticised the coalition, arguing that by strenghening the centre, where the government benefits are hoarded, the grand coalition drives many disgruntled voters to the fringes.
Scholarly debate attributed the rise of the ultra-right is a direct consequence of the political dilapidation of the larger traditional parties.
For example, Austria's economy is characterised by a large number of small and mid-size factories that co-exist with a large portion of the economy under state control. The private factories are primarily orientated to the domestic market, and the opening up of the east European states after the Cold War, the entry of Austria into the European Union and the consequences of globalisation have increased competition and reduced the political and economic room for manoeuvre for traditional forms of social collaboration in Austria. A part of the middle class feels that its social status and its material security are under threat. It is here that the Freedom Party gains a foothold.
Throughout the 1990s the Social Democrat-led coalition government made big changes to the economy. One strategy was to consolidate the national budget by cutting back state debt and reducing the level of new debt. As in all other European countries social security payments were cut, leading to a bleak social climate. The system of proportional representation centralised and boosted the power of the ‘big parties’ and prevented opposition against government policies. Increasingly, the political establishment developed into a stronghold for economic favouritism and nepotism. The Freedom Party was able to capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with the lumbering party system. Haider repeatedly emphasised that “the aim is to complete the liberal ideas of constitutional and free rights through the liberation of the people from the political parties.... the power cartels of the grand coalition, into which both the main parties have fled in order to maintain their areas of power, will be stripped of their significance.”
The Freedom Party, now as then, touts the importance of the free economy, the most important element of which is private property. It believes politics should not be limited to the protection of existing property, but should ensure that every individual can, through their own efforts, actually acquire property.
This is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's propaganda about “people's capitalism”, which enabled the former British Prime Minister to mobilise sections of the middle class in a campaign to dismantle the welfare state system. The Freedom Party is also seeking to find broad acceptance for measures such as rationalisation, flexibility, wage cuts and the abolition of measures designed to protect the rights and conditions of ordinary workers.
The racist elements of the Freedom Party’s policy is a political strategy that it reinforces through its social and economic policies. Their racism serves to mobilise the most backward sections of society and to divide with growing social tensions The stripping away of all rights for foreign workers is envisaged as a means of establishing a cheap wage sector which, in turn, can be utilised to reverse the existing union-employer contract system governing wages and conditions.
What next?
On Tuesday the new Social Democrats chairman Werner Faymann declared on Austrian TV that he hopes to be the new chancellor of Austria. He promises open discussion on matters of the EU and his official line is he will be happy to work with the People’s Party. He remains firm that he will not form a coalition with the Freedom Party. However, some suspect that at least one of the main parties will form a coalition with the Freedom Party after the elections. Strache expects his Freedom Party to make strong gains and it looks like he may be right.
The last time around, in 2000, the European Union imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria when the Freedom Party, with Haider at its head, became a member of the two-party national governing coalition. When Wolfgang Schuessel, the head of the People’s Party at the time and the elected chancellor, agreed to form a coalition with Haider’s Party, it was on the condition that Haider retire as head. The agreement still provoked the European Union into imposing sanctions against Austria.
Coalitions with the Freedom Party have collapsed in the past (as in 2003) over key policy disagreements, but this time around, with more support and a more palatable leader, the Freedom Party may get a piece of the pie with less incident.
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Friday, 13 June 2008
Lexeth Mundi
Got a request from some Chinese company. Once again there is confusion between "LatinLawyer, business law publication" and "Latin lawyer, attorney." You've got to love the wording of his letter though.
This is the letter:
"Dear sir/madam,
My name is XXXXX am the managing director of the XXXXXXXX in China.
it is a family business that has been functional for over XXX years.
My present goal is to instigate expansion beyond international borders.
This is an official request for legal representation on behalf of XXXXXXX. We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers and we request for your services accordingly. We got your contact information from the Online Lawyers Directory as a result of our search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested.
After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that you are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested.
My offer is this, we will want you to represent XXXXXXXX in your Country and help to collect these outstanding bills.
If you are willing to assist, you would be paid 10%of the total sum you collect on behalf of our company.
And my reply:
Dear XXXXXX,
I do apologise for the misunderstanding but we are not in fact a law firm. We are a legal publication specialising in business law and legal news in Latin America.
We do wish you well in your search for legal representation.
Kind regards,
Alexa van Sickle
Reporter
LATINLAWYER
This is the letter:
"Dear sir/madam,
My name is XXXXX am the managing director of the XXXXXXXX in China.
it is a family business that has been functional for over XXX years.
My present goal is to instigate expansion beyond international borders.
This is an official request for legal representation on behalf of XXXXXXX. We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers and we request for your services accordingly. We got your contact information from the Online Lawyers Directory as a result of our search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested.
After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that you are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested.
My offer is this, we will want you to represent XXXXXXXX in your Country and help to collect these outstanding bills.
If you are willing to assist, you would be paid 10%of the total sum you collect on behalf of our company.
And my reply:
Dear XXXXXX,
I do apologise for the misunderstanding but we are not in fact a law firm. We are a legal publication specialising in business law and legal news in Latin America.
We do wish you well in your search for legal representation.
Kind regards,
Alexa van Sickle
Reporter
LATINLAWYER
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