Picture Post No 10: Faceless Fighters of Vietnam, 1972

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t that what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

Somewhere in the Nam Can forest, Vietnam, in 1972 ( Image: Vo Anh Khanh)

In the pciture above, faceless activists meet in the Nam Can forest, wearing masks to hide their identities from one another in case of capture and interrogation.

For many Americans, the dominant image of the Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies during the war was as a ghostly enemy sneaking down the Ho Chi Minh trail defying US bombs and apparently inured to suffering.

The visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by such images. There is Eddie Adams’ photograph of a Viet Cong fighter being executed; Nick Ut’s picture of a naked child fleeing a napalm strike, and Malcolm Browne’s photo of a man setting himself alight in flames at a Saigon intersection.



These scenes were captured by Western photographers working alongside American or South Vietnamese troops. But the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had photographers of their own. Almost all were self-taught, and worked anonymously, or under a nom de guerre, viewing their role as part of a larger struggle.

‘For us, one photo was like a bullet.’ 

As one of the revolutionary photographers, Nguyen Dinh Uu, put it much later:

‘Processing chemicals were mixed in tea saucers with stream water, and instead of darkrooms, film was developed at night.’

Another photographer, Lam Tan Tai recalls how they came up with a new form of flash photography in order to picture fighters and villagers who were living in bomb shelters and tunnels.

‘We emptied gunpowder from rifle cartridges onto a small handheld device and then lit the gunpowder with a match. The burning powder provided all the light we needed.’

For Mai Nam:

‘The vast dark forest was my giant darkroom. In the morning I’d rinse the prints in a stream and then hang them from trees to dry. In the afternoon I’d cut them to size and do the captions. I’d wrap the prints and negatives in paper and put them in a plastic bag, which I kept close to my body. That way the photos would stay dry and could be easily found if I got killed.’

These photographers worked in the shadow of death whether by bombing, gunfire or from the perils of the jungle on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nine out of ten Vietnamese photographers perished whether by bullets, bombs, or disease. Many, such as Vo Anh Khanh, working clandestinely in the South, could never get their images to Hanoi and the media, but instead exhibited them to fighters and villagers in the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta - to raise morale.

Each image was precious. Today, with digital images essentially infinite, it is revealing to read that one photographer, Tram Am, had only a single roll of film which he had to use judiciously for the whole duration of the war.

In the early 1990s, two photojournalists, Tim Page and Doug Niven, decided to try to track down surviving Vietnamese photographers. One had a dusty bag of never-printed negatives, and another had his stashed under the bathroom sink. Vo Anh Khanh still kept his pristine negatives in a U.S. ammunition case, with a bed of rice as a desiccant.

One hundred eighty of these unseen photos and the stories of the courageous men who made them are collected in the book: Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the Other Side (National Geographic, 2002).

These pictures tell the story of a simple, rural people fighting the most technologically advanced and militarized nation on earth - and finally defeating it. They reveal a reality that nobody outside of the local experience could truly imagine. Looking back today, at Vietnam itself, in many ways their sacrifices seem to have been for nothing. Yet perhaps their struggle, and the images it spawned served a more profound purpose.

Life is not a neatly defined itinerary as these safeguarded masked women neatly standing in line might seem to imply. Rather, there are always several layers of meaning. Indeed, as one Vietnamese proverb puts it: ‘If you travel with Buddha, wear a saffron robe, but if you go with spirits, wear paper clothes.’

Read (and see) more at Mashable.com

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Picture Post No 10: Faceless Fighters of Vietnam, 1972

---

'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t that what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

Somewhere in the Nam Can forest, Vietnam, in 1972 ( Image: Vo Anh Khanh)

In the pciture above, faceless activists meet in the Nam Can forest, wearing masks to hide their identities from one another in case of capture and interrogation.

For many Americans, the dominant image of the Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies during the war was as a ghostly enemy sneaking down the Ho Chi Minh trail defying US bombs and apparently inured to suffering.

The visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by such images. There is Eddie Adams’ photograph of a Viet Cong fighter being executed; Nick Ut’s picture of a naked child fleeing a napalm strike, and Malcolm Browne’s photo of a man setting himself alight in flames at a Saigon intersection.

These scenes were captured by Western photographers working alongside American or South Vietnamese troops. But the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had photographers of their own. Almost all were self-taught, and worked anonymously, or under a nom de guerre, viewing their role as part of a larger struggle.

‘For us, one photo was like a bullet.’ 

As one of the revolutionary photographers, Nguyen Dinh Uu, put it much later:

‘Processing chemicals were mixed in tea saucers with stream water, and instead of darkrooms, film was developed at night.’

Another photographer, Lam Tan Tai recalls how they came up with a new form of flash photography in order to picture fighters and villagers who were living in bomb shelters and tunnels.

‘We emptied gunpowder from rifle cartridges onto a small handheld device and then lit the gunpowder with a match. The burning powder provided all the light we needed.’

For Mai Nam:

‘The vast dark forest was my giant darkroom. In the morning I’d rinse the prints in a stream and then hang them from trees to dry. In the afternoon I’d cut them to size and do the captions. I’d wrap the prints and negatives in paper and put them in a plastic bag, which I kept close to my body. That way the photos would stay dry and could be easily found if I got killed.’

These photographers worked in the shadow of death whether by bombing, gunfire or from the perils of the jungle on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nine out of ten Vietnamese photographers perished whether by bullets, bombs, or disease. Many, such as Vo Anh Khanh, working clandestinely in the South, could never get their images to Hanoi and the media, but instead exhibited them to fighters and villagers in the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta - to raise morale.

Each image was precious. Today, with digital images essentially infinite, it is revealing to read that one photographer, Tram Am, had only a single roll of film which he had to use judiciously for the whole duration of the war.

In the early 1990s, two photojournalists, Tim Page and Doug Niven, decided to try to track down surviving Vietnamese photographers. One had a dusty bag of never-printed negatives, and another had his stashed under the bathroom sink. Vo Anh Khanh still kept his pristine negatives in a U.S. ammunition case, with a bed of rice as a desiccant.

One hundred eighty of these unseen photos and the stories of the courageous men who made them are collected in the book: Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War from the Other Side (National Geographic, 2002).

These pictures tell the story of a simple, rural people fighting the most technologically advanced and militarized nation on earth - and finally defeating it. They reveal a reality that nobody outside of the local experience could truly imagine. Looking back today, at Vietnam itself, in many ways their sacrifices seem to have been for nothing. Yet perhaps their struggle, and the images it spawned served a more profound purpose.

Life is not a neatly defined itinerary as these safeguarded masked women neatly standing in line might seem to imply. Rather, there are always several layers of meaning. Indeed, as one Vietnamese proverb puts it: ‘If you travel with Buddha, wear a saffron robe, but if you go with spirits, wear paper clothes.’

Read (and see) more at Mashable.com

---

The Difficulty of Change

Posted by Tessa den Uyl 

We often use the word 'change' in our conversation. Everybody seems to understand such expressions as: change yourself, we have to change, things are changing, change is needed, or if only something would change.

Change presupposes a certain kind of disruption in the way we think. We guide our perceptions through the creation of conceptual relations, which we think of as stable, of which we are consciously aware, and of which we recognise certain qualities within.

Upon such conceptual relations we act and react. And yet we desire change. This would not be so but for the fact that we question these relations.

In a world of myriad relations, we tend to extract only a few as valuable for the pattern of our proper life. And where we ascribe everything to specific relations in our life, desiring change signals trouble. Yet without change, we have no descriptive material. Without the stream of constant sensory change, how can we perceive life? 



This morning, in a small village in Morocco, I go out to buy a washing powder called Tide. My friend Ilias understands not Tide but tête, meaning 'head'. Ilias does not understand what I want. With the help of a description of laundry, and pointing to the package, eventually we arrive at 'Oh, you want Tide.' Now why would one buy a 'head' in a shop which sells products for the home?

Over the past two years, Ilias and I have conducted a dialogue over many such misunderstandings regarding pronunciation. I try to apprehend his pronunciation, to speak slowly, but today we’re still at the same place where we started.

We are stuck. Ilias thinks that I should learn to speak better French – or from my point of view, I should learn to speak his kind of French. We are caught in a no-man's-land, where there is a problem about who will leave their territory to risk entering another – in which proper communication becomes possible.

What do we learn from this situation, about change? We learn that, in attempting to communicate, both parties need to reconsider the relations which lie behind the words and concepts of their communication. The problem was never really about Tide or tête, but rather about different cultures and perceptions, different languages and foci.

Ilias and I have no 'common ground' where we may place our verbal misunderstandings. His change is not my change. 
My interests are not his, and the relations which he traces in this world are not mine.

However simple this example might seem, it illustrates the difficulty of finding the mutual understandings which are essential before we try to change something in the understanding of another: my lack must become his lack, and his lack must become mine. To be able to act for change, we have to be willing to change the descriptions of the world which we ourselves possess.

In arguments about words, there is always a defence of a supposed norm. And so it is with all change. Change challenges ideas of truth which each one of us carries about with us inside. Psychological change always trespasses on property in this sense – the property of truth. Could it be, then, that change can only come about when we are aware of the diversity among us?

Consider another example. A Yemeni woman exclaims: 'Sometimes I hope that a missile would just blow us all away' – meaning: destroy herself and her family. What the woman desires is her liberation by that same force which took the old, recognisable relations from her.

Often we desire change without having to let go of ideas we have previously used to describe and make sense of the world. We want to continue to recognise something, while (impossibly) including within that old recognition a new, unlived experience of change. This may be why the Yemeni woman 'desires' death – which is the most logical change we can imagine. Although death itself does not change.

Change poses the problem and risk of being reconstructed inside of previously constructed ideas, which are thought upon the logic of some existing principle. Change, then, will eventually serve the function of that principle. If there is to be true change, apart from the irreversibility of death, then this change is not found in adapting to previous notions.

Yet if change is something that does not conform to a previous pattern, then where does change live? Can change then be thought? In a certain way, change can only live in a space unknown to our psyche.

We long for change, knowing that change is about a combination of more things than we can consider. These unconsidered things create not only linguistic difficulties when we talk together, but muddy all of our living together. In whatever way we may use the word 'change', perhaps change truly means the inability to point to ourselves.

The Difficulty of Change

Posted by Tessa den Uyl 

We often use the word 'change' in our conversation. Everybody seems to understand such expressions as: change yourself, we have to change, things are changing, change is needed, or if only something would change.

Change presupposes a certain kind of disruption in the way we think. We guide our perceptions through the creation of conceptual relations, which we think of as stable, of which we are consciously aware, and of which we recognise certain qualities within.

Upon such conceptual relations we act and react. And yet we desire change. This would not be so but for the fact that we question these relations.

In a world of myriad relations, we tend to extract only a few as valuable for the pattern of our proper life. And where we ascribe everything to specific relations in our life, desiring change signals trouble. Yet without change, we have no descriptive material. Without the stream of constant sensory change, how can we perceive life? 

This morning, in a small village in Morocco, I go out to buy a washing powder called Tide. My friend Ilias understands not Tide but tête, meaning 'head'. Ilias does not understand what I want. With the help of a description of laundry, and pointing to the package, eventually we arrive at 'Oh, you want Tide.' Now why would one buy a 'head' in a shop which sells products for the home?

Over the past two years, Ilias and I have conducted a dialogue over many such misunderstandings regarding pronunciation. I try to apprehend his pronunciation, to speak slowly, but today we’re still at the same place where we started.

We are stuck. Ilias thinks that I should learn to speak better French – or from my point of view, I should learn to speak his kind of French. We are caught in a no-man's-land, where there is a problem about who will leave their territory to risk entering another – in which proper communication becomes possible.

What do we learn from this situation, about change? We learn that, in attempting to communicate, both parties need to reconsider the relations which lie behind the words and concepts of their communication. The problem was never really about Tide or tête, but rather about different cultures and perceptions, different languages and foci.

Ilias and I have no 'common ground' where we may place our verbal misunderstandings. His change is not my change. 
My interests are not his, and the relations which he traces in this world are not mine.

However simple this example might seem, it illustrates the difficulty of finding the mutual understandings which are essential before we try to change something in the understanding of another: my lack must become his lack, and his lack must become mine. To be able to act for change, we have to be willing to change the descriptions of the world which we ourselves possess.

In arguments about words, there is always a defence of a supposed norm. And so it is with all change. Change challenges ideas of truth which each one of us carries about with us inside. Psychological change always trespasses on property in this sense – the property of truth. Could it be, then, that change can only come about when we are aware of the diversity among us?

Consider another example. A Yemeni woman exclaims: 'Sometimes I hope that a missile would just blow us all away' – meaning: destroy herself and her family. What the woman desires is her liberation by that same force which took the old, recognisable relations from her.

Often we desire change without having to let go of ideas we have previously used to describe and make sense of the world. We want to continue to recognise something, while (impossibly) including within that old recognition a new, unlived experience of change. This may be why the Yemeni woman 'desires' death – which is the most logical change we can imagine. Although death itself does not change.

Change poses the problem and risk of being reconstructed inside of previously constructed ideas, which are thought upon the logic of some existing principle. Change, then, will eventually serve the function of that principle. If there is to be true change, apart from the irreversibility of death, then this change is not found in adapting to previous notions.

Yet if change is something that does not conform to a previous pattern, then where does change live? Can change then be thought? In a certain way, change can only live in a space unknown to our psyche.

We long for change, knowing that change is about a combination of more things than we can consider. These unconsidered things create not only linguistic difficulties when we talk together, but muddy all of our living together. In whatever way we may use the word 'change', perhaps change truly means the inability to point to ourselves.

Machiavelli’s Understanding of the Art of Politics

Posted by Bohdana Kurylo

Can Niccolò Machiavelli’s political philosophy be compared with a dance?

Niccolò Machiavelli, who is often regarded as the founder of modern political science, is generally deemed a propagator of cruelty and immorality. Yet while he broke with the conventional language of politics in his day – based upon Christian values and a Ciceronian belief that a prince achieved glory through virtue – it is more appropriate to think of him as a pragmatist who introduced a greater realism to political philosophy. More important still, it was Machiavelli’s creative interpretation that helped him convert politics into scientific art which could be applied in everyday practice.

In The Prince, Machiavelli offered a pragmatic approach to politics which, rather than focusing on moral values, combined the importance of skill and prudence. Inspired by the success of the Roman State, Machiavelli thought of history as being cyclical – as he thought, too, of political issues. His understanding of politics thus came with an interest in history and statecraft, and he drew his conclusions from historical examples of agents. This contributed to his pessimism in regard to human nature and morality. Therefore, his most famous work, The Prince, which shuns the received views, Christian and Ciceronian – in fact warns against them – states that a successful ruler should act according to the circumstances, whereas being ‘good’ will lead to his downfall.

It could be claimed that Machiavelli sought to justify vices when speaking of the conflict between morality and reality. However, as the political philosopher Leo Strauss rightly suggests, it would be unfair to echo ‘the old-fashioned and simple opinion according to which Machiavelli was a teacher of evil’. As an example, when making an analysis of Agathocles of Sicily, who came to power with wicked cruelty, Machiavelli clearly condemned his actions and stated that ‘one cannot call it virtú to kill one’s citizens, betray one’s friends, to break one’s word, to be without mercy, without religion’. In addition, Strauss remarks that many extreme statements of Machiavelli were not intended to be taken seriously, but rather had the pedagogic intention of freeing ‘young’ princes from effeminacy. In the view of professor of politics Maurizio Viroli, he did not ‘construct a new language’, but provided a new, more pragmatic assessment of the art of politics.



In The Prince, Machiavelli proposed the twin conceptions of virtú and Fortuna. Whereas Fortuna is chance or contingency, virtú is open to interpretation, and may be associated with prudence, skill, and the ability to adapt to contingencies. This further emphasises the fact that he introduced a new kind of political understanding which was independent of any established norms, and tied to the idea of flexibility. The Prince provides Cesare Borgia as an example of a ruler who acquired his principality by chance, and had great virtú in taking advantage of his power. Although virtú alone is likely to be useless for the achievement of the highest goals and glory, Machiavelli believed that, through flexibility and bravery, it could win over Fortuna, since ‘Fortuna is a lady’. In doing so, he made room for chance and flexibility in politics, knowing that focusing on rigid scientific rules would be detrimental.

Understanding Machiavelli’s perception of politics is complicated by the presence of both scientific and creative elements in it. At first sight, The Prince gives historical examples and practical advice. However, despite pragmatic scientific elements, it is more art, as it understands that there is more than one interpretation for doing politics. Mutatis mutandis (the necessary changes having been made), there is a likelihood of failure if the prince does not continue to adapt to changing circumstances, because ‘he will continue to behave in the same way’. Moreover, Machiavelli emphasises that the notions of luck and flexibility are influenced by one’s own interpretation, thus further highlighting that there is no set way by which success is achieved. The text shows, too, the importance of self-presentation and the ‘creative use of deception’ as a part of virtú, describing politics as a ‘space of appearance’.

In many ways, Machiavelli’s perception of politics can be compared to a political dance – for which one should learn the right moves, but also listen to the melody and be flexible enough to adjust to its flow. Clearly a dance, like politics, can be different to other dances, and would require different costumes, too, to accentuate the movements – which recalls Machiavelli's statement that the prince’s qualities should change, depending on the situation. In fact, The Prince, as much as it is political science, exemplifies the artistic side of Machiavelli’s understanding of politics, which applied the art of politics to everyday practice.

Machiavelli’s Understanding of the Art of Politics

Posted by Bohdana Kurylo

Can Niccolò Machiavelli’s political philosophy be compared with a dance?

Niccolò Machiavelli, who is often regarded as the founder of modern political science, is generally deemed a propagator of cruelty and immorality. Yet while he broke with the conventional language of politics in his day – based upon Christian values and a Ciceronian belief that a prince achieved glory through virtue – it is more appropriate to think of him as a pragmatist who introduced a greater realism to political philosophy. More important still, it was Machiavelli’s creative interpretation that helped him convert politics into scientific art which could be applied in everyday practice.

In The Prince, Machiavelli offered a pragmatic approach to politics which, rather than focusing on moral values, combined the importance of skill and prudence. Inspired by the success of the Roman State, Machiavelli thought of history as being cyclical – as he thought, too, of political issues. His understanding of politics thus came with an interest in history and statecraft, and he drew his conclusions from historical examples of agents. This contributed to his pessimism in regard to human nature and morality. Therefore, his most famous work, The Prince, which shuns the received views, Christian and Ciceronian – in fact warns against them – states that a successful ruler should act according to the circumstances, whereas being ‘good’ will lead to his downfall.

It could be claimed that Machiavelli sought to justify vices when speaking of the conflict between morality and reality. However, as the political philosopher Leo Strauss rightly suggests, it would be unfair to echo ‘the old-fashioned and simple opinion according to which Machiavelli was a teacher of evil’. As an example, when making an analysis of Agathocles of Sicily, who came to power with wicked cruelty, Machiavelli clearly condemned his actions and stated that ‘one cannot call it virtú to kill one’s citizens, betray one’s friends, to break one’s word, to be without mercy, without religion’. In addition, Strauss remarks that many extreme statements of Machiavelli were not intended to be taken seriously, but rather had the pedagogic intention of freeing ‘young’ princes from effeminacy. In the view of professor of politics Maurizio Viroli, he did not ‘construct a new language’, but provided a new, more pragmatic assessment of the art of politics.

In The Prince, Machiavelli proposed the twin conceptions of virtú and Fortuna. Whereas Fortuna is chance or contingency, virtú is open to interpretation, and may be associated with prudence, skill, and the ability to adapt to contingencies. This further emphasises the fact that he introduced a new kind of political understanding which was independent of any established norms, and tied to the idea of flexibility. The Prince provides Cesare Borgia as an example of a ruler who acquired his principality by chance, and had great virtú in taking advantage of his power. Although virtú alone is likely to be useless for the achievement of the highest goals and glory, Machiavelli believed that, through flexibility and bravery, it could win over Fortuna, since ‘Fortuna is a lady’. In doing so, he made room for chance and flexibility in politics, knowing that focusing on rigid scientific rules would be detrimental.

Understanding Machiavelli’s perception of politics is complicated by the presence of both scientific and creative elements in it. At first sight, The Prince gives historical examples and practical advice. However, despite pragmatic scientific elements, it is more art, as it understands that there is more than one interpretation for doing politics. Mutatis mutandis (the necessary changes having been made), there is a likelihood of failure if the prince does not continue to adapt to changing circumstances, because ‘he will continue to behave in the same way’. Moreover, Machiavelli emphasises that the notions of luck and flexibility are influenced by one’s own interpretation, thus further highlighting that there is no set way by which success is achieved. The text shows, too, the importance of self-presentation and the ‘creative use of deception’ as a part of virtú, describing politics as a ‘space of appearance’.

In many ways, Machiavelli’s perception of politics can be compared to a political dance – for which one should learn the right moves, but also listen to the melody and be flexible enough to adjust to its flow. Clearly a dance, like politics, can be different to other dances, and would require different costumes, too, to accentuate the movements – which recalls Machiavelli's statement that the prince’s qualities should change, depending on the situation. In fact, The Prince, as much as it is political science, exemplifies the artistic side of Machiavelli’s understanding of politics, which applied the art of politics to everyday practice.

Brexit? What's really been going on in Brussels

Posted by Martin Cohen

What’s really been going on in Brussels? On the face of it, the UK Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, has taken Britain to the brink of rupture with the European Union over the issue of child support payments to EU citizens working in the UK, but whose children live at home. The arguments over this raged for two nights and two days, as Mr Cameron pounded the table and wagged his finger and threatened to pull the whole EU house down. Official European plans for a post-discussion English dinner, and then - even more sacrosanct! - English Breakfast were left in tatters.

And that means something serious is going on. Eventually the ‘migrants’ as apparently fellow EU workers are now to be called, lost the right to the full child support benefit, but retained the right to a miserly version phased on the cost of living in their home country.

You’d have to be either pretty stupid, or very ignorant, like the vast majority of English people itching to unshackle themselves from the world's largest free trade area, to think this issue really was what the best minds of the Tory party were concerned about.



No, the real issue going on in the ‘renegotiation’ concerned the City of London. The amounts riding on the child benefit wrangle amounted - at most - to a few tens of millions of euros. EU leaders were baffled at why the UK had dragged them to an Emergency summit. However, the amounts involved in the City’s ability to continue to act as the EU’s financial centre (despite the UK government not being part of the actual Europe currency) are rather more serious. Even the strident ‘vote Leave’ campaign estimate them at 10 billion euros a year.

What Cameron and the Conservative government demanded was that the City be protected by changes to the EU’s core Treaties enshrining the right of the UK government to decide which financial regulations and standards to follow - and which to ignore or water down. In effect, to allow the City to undercut the rest of the European banks by being allowed to offer dodgier financial deals. The City of London represents an obscene 20% of the UK GDP these days. Augmenting this would have been a prize worth having.

And it almost worked! The ‘migrants’ talk and the bluster about not wanting to be part of a ‘political union’ distracted most of the other European leaders. Only, as far anyone can tell, the French really dug in, insisting on the principle of the ‘level playing field’ between financial institutions in Europe. Victory would have been well worth the loss of breakfast.

It seems an initial draft even conceded the right to the UK government to let the City of London run rampant, but this, as Reuters put it very discreetly ‘raised concern’ in France that different banking regulations in London and the euro zone might unfairly benefit the former.

This is no small matter. Had the UK ‘won’, a repeat of the 2008 banking crisis would have been not merely more likely but flat inevitable. As it is, Europe’s banks remain in a fragile state, with their assets largely imaginary and their potential debts dwarfing the entirely ‘real’ economies of their host countries. Iceland learned what happens when the banking bubble bursts, as to a lesser extent the world did in 2008.

This is the key passage:

“The single rulebook is to be applied by all credit institutions and other financial institutions in order to ensure the level-playing field within the internal market. Substantive Union law to be applied by the European Central Bank in the exercise of its functions of single supervisor, or by the Single Resolution Board or Union bodies exercising similar functions, including the single rulebook as regards prudential requirements for credit institutions or other legislative measures to be adopted for the purpose of safeguarding financial stability, may need to be conceived in a more uniform manner than corresponding rules to be applied by national authorities of Member States that do not take part in the banking union.”

(for full test see here )

So, at the end of the day, (apart from that newly defined right to deprive Europeans working in the UK of child benefit) all that the UK has won is a chance to complain about financial regulation. This is The Financial Times’ solemn take on the matter:

“The City of London will also be poring over the small print to see whether the “emergency brake” intended to protect Britain from intrusive, Eurozone-inspired financial regulation will actually work in practice. For all the talk of non-discrimination and “mutual respect” between the Eurozone and non-euro countries such as Britain, will Mr Cameron’s right of appeal to his fellow EU heads of government necessarily produce a different result?”

It won’t, and slightly to my own surprise, it seems that the EU has once again - Houdini like - escaped diabolical perils. Until the next time!

Brexit? What's really been going on in Brussels

Posted by Martin Cohen

What’s really been going on in Brussels? On the face of it, the UK Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, has taken Britain to the brink of rupture with the European Union over the issue of child support payments to EU citizens working in the UK, but whose children live at home. The arguments over this raged for two nights and two days, as Mr Cameron pounded the table and wagged his finger and threatened to pull the whole EU house down. Official European plans for a post-discussion English dinner, and then - even more sacrosanct! - English Breakfast were left in tatters.

And that means something serious is going on. Eventually the ‘migrants’ as apparently fellow EU workers are now to be called, lost the right to the full child support benefit, but retained the right to a miserly version phased on the cost of living in their home country.

You’d have to be either pretty stupid, or very ignorant, like the vast majority of English people itching to unshackle themselves from the world's largest free trade area, to think this issue really was what the best minds of the Tory party were concerned about.

No, the real issue going on in the ‘renegotiation’ concerned the City of London. The amounts riding on the child benefit wrangle amounted - at most - to a few tens of millions of euros. EU leaders were baffled at why the UK had dragged them to an Emergency summit. However, the amounts involved in the City’s ability to continue to act as the EU’s financial centre (despite the UK government not being part of the actual Europe currency) are rather more serious. Even the strident ‘vote Leave’ campaign estimate them at 10 billion euros a year.

What Cameron and the Conservative government demanded was that the City be protected by changes to the EU’s core Treaties enshrining the right of the UK government to decide which financial regulations and standards to follow - and which to ignore or water down. In effect, to allow the City to undercut the rest of the European banks by being allowed to offer dodgier financial deals. The City of London represents an obscene 20% of the UK GDP these days. Augmenting this would have been a prize worth having.

And it almost worked! The ‘migrants’ talk and the bluster about not wanting to be part of a ‘political union’ distracted most of the other European leaders. Only, as far anyone can tell, the French really dug in, insisting on the principle of the ‘level playing field’ between financial institutions in Europe. Victory would have been well worth the loss of breakfast.

It seems an initial draft even conceded the right to the UK government to let the City of London run rampant, but this, as Reuters put it very discreetly ‘raised concern’ in France that different banking regulations in London and the euro zone might unfairly benefit the former.

This is no small matter. Had the UK ‘won’, a repeat of the 2008 banking crisis would have been not merely more likely but flat inevitable. As it is, Europe’s banks remain in a fragile state, with their assets largely imaginary and their potential debts dwarfing the entirely ‘real’ economies of their host countries. Iceland learned what happens when the banking bubble bursts, as to a lesser extent the world did in 2008.

This is the key passage:

“The single rulebook is to be applied by all credit institutions and other financial institutions in order to ensure the level-playing field within the internal market. Substantive Union law to be applied by the European Central Bank in the exercise of its functions of single supervisor, or by the Single Resolution Board or Union bodies exercising similar functions, including the single rulebook as regards prudential requirements for credit institutions or other legislative measures to be adopted for the purpose of safeguarding financial stability, may need to be conceived in a more uniform manner than corresponding rules to be applied by national authorities of Member States that do not take part in the banking union.”

(for full test see here )

So, at the end of the day, (apart from that newly defined right to deprive Europeans working in the UK of child benefit) all that the UK has won is a chance to complain about financial regulation. This is The Financial Times’ solemn take on the matter:

“The City of London will also be poring over the small print to see whether the “emergency brake” intended to protect Britain from intrusive, Eurozone-inspired financial regulation will actually work in practice. For all the talk of non-discrimination and “mutual respect” between the Eurozone and non-euro countries such as Britain, will Mr Cameron’s right of appeal to his fellow EU heads of government necessarily produce a different result?”

It won’t, and slightly to my own surprise, it seems that the EU has once again - Houdini like - escaped diabolical perils. Until the next time!

Poetry: On Nuclear Logic

Editorial note: Poetry touching on the great stories of our time, from Iran to North Korea, to Turkey to Israel, to...?

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A poem by Chengde Chen 

Dr Strangelove provided a fictional insight into something all too real

On ‘Nuclear Logic’



Hearing that nuclear control on Earth is troublesome,
God sends His envoy to investigate.
Riding down the wind and passing over countries,
the envoy is puzzled by what he sees:
in country A, nuclear missiles striding proudly ahead;
in country B, nuclear programme being openly upgraded.
but in small countries like C and D,
there are inspectors under UN flags sniffing around,
searching for traces of nuclear evidence, or intention.

The envoy can’t figure out the logic,
so he asks the Secretary General of the UN,
‘If such weapons endanger human existence,
shouldn’t those who have them destroy theirs first?
If the UN principle is that all nations are equal,
why are they treated differently over the same thing?’

The Secretary General replies, ‘Your Excellency,
nuclear logic is different from ordinary logic.
It is not something that if I can have, so can you,
but that because I have it and you don’t,
I can forbid you while you can’t stop me.
“Equality” means that we have one right each.
Since I have had the right to have,
you have to have the right to have not –
which is just as important to the world peace and order.
It is most irrational and irresponsible to think that
that I can set a fire means you can light a candle!’

The envoy is stupefied,
‘What interesting logic; no wonder you’re unique!
I’d better hurry back to report it –
let the Old Man learn something new too.’ 

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Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry: On Nuclear Logic

Editorial note: Poetry touching on the great stories of our time, from Iran to North Korea, to Turkey to Israel, to...?

---

A poem by Chengde Chen 

Dr Strangelove provided a fictional insight into something all too real

On ‘Nuclear Logic’

Hearing that nuclear control on Earth is troublesome,
God sends His envoy to investigate.
Riding down the wind and passing over countries,
the envoy is puzzled by what he sees:
in country A, nuclear missiles striding proudly ahead;
in country B, nuclear programme being openly upgraded.
but in small countries like C and D,
there are inspectors under UN flags sniffing around,
searching for traces of nuclear evidence, or intention.

The envoy can’t figure out the logic,
so he asks the Secretary General of the UN,
‘If such weapons endanger human existence,
shouldn’t those who have them destroy theirs first?
If the UN principle is that all nations are equal,
why are they treated differently over the same thing?’

The Secretary General replies, ‘Your Excellency,
nuclear logic is different from ordinary logic.
It is not something that if I can have, so can you,
but that because I have it and you don’t,
I can forbid you while you can’t stop me.
“Equality” means that we have one right each.
Since I have had the right to have,
you have to have the right to have not –
which is just as important to the world peace and order.
It is most irrational and irresponsible to think that
that I can set a fire means you can light a candle!’

The envoy is stupefied,
‘What interesting logic; no wonder you’re unique!
I’d better hurry back to report it –
let the Old Man learn something new too.’ 

---

Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here