Before you reach their feeble heart,
You have made them to shiver in fever and cold,
The Timberland Womens Sandals hands and legs are made weak,
Their lighting eyes have worn the screen,
The vital signs have shown the haphazard patterns,
They are neither drowsy nor in dream,
They float in the air holding their dear souls,
The smiling lips elongate as if found the truth,
When you finally touch to race with their hearts,
The stopping order is issued for the rebirth.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The Gods Of Universe by veeraiyah subbulakshmi
South Yorkshire zoo bid to save 'Mexican' polar bear
A wildlife park in South Yorkshire has announced plans to rescue a polar bear from a zoo in Mexico.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, has offered to rehome Yupi in a newly constructed 10 acre reserve but needs to raise £150,000 to do so.
A park spokesperson said Yupi was currently kept in a concrete enclosure in soaring temperatures, with "little shade and little stimulation".
The park is waiting for an official response to its offer to rehome Yupi.
Continue reading the main story Polar Bears Five nations have polar bear populations: the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and Norway. Adult male polar bears can weigh up to 1,200lbs (550kg), while adult females may weigh as much as 650lbs (290kg) Biologists estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 bears left in the wild Source: Polar coach outlet online canada Bears InternationalIt would mean a move of more 5,500 miles (8,900 km) away from Mexico for the polar bear.
According to the Save Yupi website, Yupi is 22 years old and was brought to the Parque Zoológico Benito Juárez, in Morelia, Mexico, from Alaska in 1992.
A Yorkshire Wildlife Park spokesperson said: "Her concrete enclosure has little shade, and little stimulation.
"The soaring temperatures are difficult for a polar bear to deal with as they easily overheat."
The park, which rescued 13 lions from Romania in 2010, began work on the new enclosure after being approached to see if it would offer a home to Yupi.
The reserve will be divided into four sections featuring hills, valleys and a main lake with streams, pools and waterfalls.
Its landscaping will mirror the Arctic Tundra with grass, herbs, shrubs and heathers.
It is expected to be completed in 2014.
The only other polar bears in a UK zoo are at the Highland Wildlife Park, in Scotland.
Park Director John Minion said: "This is the ultimate project for Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
"Polar bears are an iconic species that are increasingly threatened in their native habitat and we need to fight their cause."
Yorkshire Wildlife Park is more than 5,500 miles (8,890 km) away from the Parque Zoológico Benito Juárez, in cheap couch outlet link Morelia, MexicoUS drone strike killings in Pakistan and Yemen 'unlawful'
CIA drone attacks in Pakistan are responsible for unlawful killings, some of which could amount to war crimes, Amnesty International says.
Amnesty said it reviewed nine recent drone strikes in North Waziristan and found a number of victims were unarmed.
In a separate report looking at six US attacks in Yemen, Human Rights Watch says two of them killed civilians at random, violating international law.
Drone warfare has become common in the US pursuit of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Few details are known about the covert US drone operation.
Senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, but civilians have also died.
These attacks cause outrage in Pakistan, where many assert that the strikes cause indiscriminate deaths and injuries.
Last week, a UN investigation found that US drone strikes had killed at least 400 civilians in Pakistan, far more than the US has ever acknowledged.
UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson accused the US of challenging international legal norms by advocating the use of lethal force outside war zones.
Establishing precise casualty figures and identifying the dead in such attacks is virtually impossible as independent media are barred from tribal areas near the Afghan border.
'Very tight leash' Continue reading the main story Analysis M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad
The new Amnesty International report has sought to document more evidence of civilian deaths in drone strikes than before, but some of the cases they have brought forth as examples were already known to the media.
As for local claims of civilian deaths in strikes targeting militant camps, they are almost impossible to prove. One reason is the restricted media access in the region. The other is the militants' tendency to cordon off the targeted sites and make quick burials.
But Waziristan is a small place, with well-knit tribal clans living and interacting closely with each other. Civilian deaths cannot go unnoticed here, and anecdotal evidence travels fast.
The general impression that one gets from talking to elders and correspondents from the area is that drone strikes are for the most part accurate, causing little or no collateral damage.
They say if civilians deaths had been as high as those mentioned in some recent international reports, LULULEMON GROOVE there would have been more of an outcry against it both socially and also in the media.
Amnesty said it had investigated nine of 45 recently reported attacks by US drones, unmanned aircraft operated remotely in control rooms, often on other continents.
The group called on the US to disclose information and the legal basis for strikes carried out in Pakistan.
In the report, Will I Be Next? US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, the rights group named several victims who, it says, had been unarmed and "posed no threat to life".
In October 2012, 68-year-old grandmother Mamana Bibi was killed in a double strike as she picked vegetables in the family's fields while COACH TOTE sale surrounded by her grandchildren, said the report.
It said US President Barack Obama's pledge earlier this year to increase transparency around drone strikes had not been fulfilled.
"This secrecy has enabled the USA to act with impunity and block victims from receiving justice or compensation. As far as Amnesty is aware, no US official has ever been held to account for unlawful killings by drones in Pakistan," the report said.
It called on the governments of Pakistan, Australia, Germany and the UK to investigate drone strikes or other abuses that may constitute human rights violations.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said in its report that six US drone attacks in Yemen killed 82 people, including at least 57 civilians.
It added that two of the strikes killed innocent people indiscriminately.
A controversial aspect of the US policy is that drone attacks are carried out not by the military but by the Central Intelligence Agency.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has argued in favour of the policy, saying that the US will continue to defend itself.
President Obama has insisted the strategy was "kept on a very tight leash" and that without the drones, the US would have had to resort to "more intrusive military action".
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Carbon from nuclear tests could help fight poachers
The atmospheric carbon left over from nuclear bomb testing could help scientists track poached ivory, new research has found.
These bomb tests changed the level of carbon in the atmosphere, which can be traced to date elephant tusks.
Trafficking poached ivory is increasingly being used to fund civil wars, groups warn.
Scientists say the findings, published in PNAS, could make it easier to enforce the ivory ban.
The number of elephants being poached is now at the highest it has been for two decades, according to a UN backed report.
This was highlighted in January when a family of 11 elephants was slaughtered in Kenya, their tusks hacked off with machetes.
Growing demand Continue reading the main story Bomb carbon dating Traditional radiocarbon dating determines the age of ancient objects by measuring the amount of carbon-14 (C14) The approximate time since an organism died can be measured from the amount of C14 left in its remains But remains from after the Cold War contain higher levels of C14 due to the nuclear bombs In a new study Dr Uno and colleagues used this increase in carbon to date herbivore samples, which they matched to corresponding points on the bomb-curveIn the 1980s, more than half of Africa's elephants are thought to have been wiped out by poachers. This led to an international ban on trading ivory in 1989. As public awareness of the threat of extinction increased, the global demand for ivory dwindled.
But today conservationists believe that a growing demand for ivory in China and other Asian countries is responsible for a huge increase in the number of animals being poached.
Many governments have huge stockpiles of ivory, and it is often unclear when this ivory was acquired and whether or not some of it is leaking into the illegal market.
The bomb-curveNow scientists have found that radioactive carbon in the atmosphere emitted during the Cold War bomb tests will make it easier to distinguish between illegal ivory to that which was acquired before the trade ban.
The amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere nearly doubled during nuclear weapons tests from 1952 to 1962, which steadily dropped after tests were restricted to underground. This has been dubbed "the bomb-curve".
The levels have declined since but as they are still absorbed by plant, they enter the food chain and are measurable in plant and animal tissues.
The concentration of radiocarbon found in tiny samples of animal tissue can accurately determine the year of an animals death, from 1955 until today, explained lead author Kevin Uno from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, US.
"This black friday is different to the traditional dating technique which takes advantage of the loss of radiocarbon through time."
Continue reading the main story Rhinos are increasingly being targeted as countries like China and Vietnam believe powdered rhino horn has medicinal powers. One preventative tactic is dehorning rhinos safely An Asian appetite for ivory is believed to have fuelled poaching in recent years and highly organised crime groups increasingly put the lives of park rangers at risk Zakouma National Park in Chad has hired a military unit to protect its Elephants, 90% of which have been poached in the last decade Conservationists warn that unless the demand is curtailed, poaching is edging the African elephant ever closer to extinction Continue reading the main story previous slide next slideTraditional radiocarbon dating would only be able to pick up an "imperceptible amount of decay" added Dr Uno, but because the bomb spike doubled the concentration or carbon, they were able to find huge variations over the last 60 years, which enabled accurate dating.
Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteThese wildlife forensics are ready to roll, now we need to speak to people who can set up a programme to make it happen”
End Quote Dr Kevin Uno Columbia University, USDr Uno said this technique "would dovetail very nicely with DNA testing which tells you the region of origin, but not the date".
As anti-poaching funding is extremely limited, understanding where the poaching hotspots are, as well as how old the tusks are, could help the international community to direct funding to the places most at risk, he added.
"The year an elephant died plays a big role in whether or not the trade [of ivory] is legal. black friday sale Poached ivory makes it to market relatively quickly, so by measuring the age of a tusk we can say what year it's from. This will help us pinpoint the source of the ivory and how it's getting to market."
Big government organisations like the UN and Interpol have also recently increased efforts looking into the problem.
"Saving elephants - majestic and wonderful species - is priceless. These wildlife forensics are ready to roll, now we need to speak to the organisations who can set up a programme to make it happen."
Organised criminal gangsPoaching is a problem closely linked to poverty, politics and conflict. Poachers include poor opportunistic individuals and increasingly heavily armed militia groups who use ivory to fund conflicts.
WWF's regional East Africa manager Drew McVey welcomed the new research, and said any help in securing convictions could reduce ivory trafficking.
"The key thing to note is that ivory has been smuggled so far and wide, we've got to cut down the loopholes as much as we can. Though the amount of seizures [of illegal ivory] is increasing each year, we don't know how much we're catching, it's realistic to think we're not catching all the big ones."
He added that poaching is not easy to prevent as "one thing Africa isn't short of is poor people" which is why it's important to cut down the ways people are moving ivory around.
"Rather than targeting people on the ground, we need to reduce the demand from middle men and the consumers," Mr McVey told BBC News.
The researchers analysed tusk samples smaller than a pinch of saltAs for the scientific process involved, Paula Raimer from Queen's University Belfast, said the study removes doubt that the C14 emitted from bombs can be used to date ivory.
"The work is of particular importance for forensics use in endangered species because the authors show that C14 can be used to determine the age of death or collection of ivory as well as establishing growth rates, so that other data from the teeth can also be put on a calendar time scale."
The study has wider implications for crime forensics, she added, as bomb carbon could be used to date human bones as well as to detect art forgeries.
Zimbabwe election Votes counted after 'orderly' polls
Votes are being counted following presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe.
Turnout was high in a fierce contest between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and PM Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC.
African monitors say voting on Wednesday was peaceful, but the MDC claims the electoral roll was tampered with. Results are due within five days.
Mr Mugabe, 89, has said he will step down after 33 years in power if he and his party lose.
Police warned they would take action against anyone trying to leak early results.
Zanu-PF and the MDC have shared an uneasy coalition government since 2009 under a deal brokered to end the deadly violence that erupted after a disputed presidential poll the previous year.
The first round of the 2008 poll was also praised for being peaceful - trouble broke out after the results were announced, with Mr Tsvangirai gaining more votes than Mr Mugabe.
Western observers barred Continue reading the main story At the sceneBrian Hungwe, Harare
People are queuing with enthusiasm and determination.
Most of the voters have been speaking of the hope that the outcome will make a huge difference in their lives.
The polling officers told me some voters had been turned away for various reasons, such as because their names are missing from the voters' roll in their ward.
The majority of these are newly registered voters - and party agents are having to intervene to get electoral officials to check with the electoral commission's national command centre to see if the names are on the constituency register.
If the name is verified, they can go ahead and vote, but it is a long, tedious process which voters are finding frustrating.
Thabo Kunene, Bulawayo
Hundreds braved the cold and the wind to stand in queues, which started forming as early as 04:30. A security guard said he saw some people sleeping opposite one polling station.
Women with babies strapped to their backs were being given special preference by other voters and allowed to go to the front. Women selling tea and coffee nearby made good business as those in the queues bought hot drinks to ward off the cold.
At one polling station in Makhokhoba, voting was progressing in an impressively ordered manner. People from different parties were chatting to black friday for sale each other and laughing but they avoided discussing who would win.
Vote around the countryBecause of the high turnout election officials granted long extensions to the opening hours of some polling stations.
To be declared a winner, a presidential candidate must win more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate reaches this mark, a run-off will be held on 11 September.
The elections were the first to be held under the new constitution approved in a referendum in March this year.
The government barred Western observers from monitoring Wednesday's elections, but the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as local organisations, have been accredited.
The AU described voting at most polling stations as "orderly and peaceful", while the main domestic monitoring agency, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said aside from the long queues voting was "smooth".
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who heads the AU monitors, told Reuters there had been no "serious incidents that... would not reflect the will of the people".
At a news conference as polls closed, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba warned that "all people who may wish to announce the results of elections before the ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] does... risk being arrested".
The warning comes after monitoring groups, newspapers and social media users reportedly planned to publish provisional tallies.
There have been numerous complaints that voters were unable to find their names on the electoral roll.
According to villagers, MDC polling agents and local election observers, irregularities were recorded in parts of rural Masvingo district.
Continue reading the main story Zimbabweans have been voting in fiercely contested presidential and parliamentary elections. These voters queued up in the capital, Harare, before polls opened. It is winter in Zimbabwe, so the mornings are chilly. Before polls opened there were already allegations of fraud over the voters' roll which was only published on the eve of the elections. The document features the names of thousands of dead people. Some names also appear twice or three times with variations to their ID numbers or home address. Zanu-PF's Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai are the main contenders in the presidential poll. Mr Tsvangirai's supporters are hoping it will be third time lucky for him. Mr Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe for 33 years, has said he will step down if defeated. His wife Grace (middle) has played a prominent part in his campaign. Campaigning was mostly peaceful, with few reports of intimidation. Mr Tsvangirai, casting his ballot in Harare with his wife Elizabeth Macheka, described the poll as a historic moment. But there have been reports of some Black Friday lebron shoes violence, especially in Mashonaland West, a Zanu-PF stronghold. The house of 65-year-old Monica Chivera, from Hurungwe, was set ablaze on Friday in an incident suspected to be politically motivated arson. ''We were force-marched to a Zanu-PF meeting but I did not do a slogan denouncing Tsvangirai. I escaped with my five children but I lost virtually everything,'' the widow said. In the same region on the same day a young family's thatched hut was also set ablaze by an unknown arsonist. ''I lost everything,'' said 18-year-old expectant mother Chipo Matemo whose husband Daniel Bhobho is a Zanu-PF activist. Police said the incident was being investigated. Some had hoped for the election to be held later in the year so there would be more time to prepare but the Constitutional Court ruled it must be held by 31 July. Zanu-PF has been campaigning on a platform of indigenisation and economic empowerment. At its campaign launch in Harare, a spelling mistake was noticed on the main banner. After an hour a sticker was put over the word "indegenise". The turnout is expected to be high among the 6.4 million people registered to vote, with tens of thousands of people attending rallies in recent weeks. To be declared the victor, a presidential candidate must win more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate reaches this mark, a run-off will be held on 11 September. Continue reading the main story previous slide next slideAnd on Tuesday, the MDC accused Zanu-PF of doctoring the roll of registered voters, which was released by the ZEC only on the eve of the polls after weeks of delay.
Continue reading the main story Zimbabwe election: Key facts About 6.4 million registered voters Vote for president and parliament Zanu-PF's Robert Mugabe and MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai are the main presidential contenders Mr Mugabe, 89, is seeking to extend his 33-year rule Mr Tsvangirai, 61, hopes to become president after two failed attempts The poll ends the fractious coalition between Zanu-PF and MDC, which was brokered by regional mediators after disputed elections in 2008 that were marred by violence First election under new constitution Q&A: Zimbabwe electionsThe MDC claimed the roll dated back to 1985 and was full of anomalies.
A BBC correspondent has seen the document and says it features the names of thousands of dead people.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said there were as many as two million such names, while some genuine voters were not on the rolls.
"The greatest worry which we have is the number of persons that are being turned away," he added.
The MDC has handed its evidence to observers from the SADC. But a Zanu-PF spokesman denied the allegations and pointed out that appointees from both parties were on the ZEC.
He also accused Mr Biti, who is finance minister, of not funding the commission properly. The ZEC has not commented.
In addition to Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai, there are three other candidates standing for the presidency - Welshman Ncube, leader of the breakaway MDC-Mutambara; Dumiso Dabengwa of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), and Kisinoti Munodei Mukwazhe, who represents the small Zimbabwe Development Party (ZDP).
Are you in Zimbabwe? Are you taking part in the elections? Please send us your thoughts and experiences using the form below.
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
Read the terms and conditions
(Required) Name (Required) Your E-mail address (Required) Town & Country (Required) Your telephone number (Required) CommentsIf you are happy to be contacted by a BBC journalist please leave a telephone number that we can contact you on. In some cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. When sending us pictures, video or eyewitness accounts at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. Please ensure you have read the terms and conditions.
Terms and conditions
Send ClearA quarter of a billion people tuning in
We have heard so much about the decline of established media brands that it is a rare occasion when one of them celebrates a milestone audience increase.
Yet that is just what the BBC can do today, with the news that a quarter of a billion people around the world are tuning into the BBC's global news service every week.
The Global Audience Estimate, released on Tuesday, shows that in the year 2012-13 the BBC's global news services - that is, the World Service, World News and the website bbc.com/news - reached 256m people each week, a rise of 7% or 16.6m.
These are huge figures - around the world, one in every 28 people is a viewer, listener or reader of BBC global news.
Eighty years after the BBC's Empire Services began broadcasting, its successor, the World Service, reaches 192 million people around the world, from Libya to Burma to Peru.
This is almost double the number of people who listened at the height of the Cold War, when the World Service was often the only source of objective news.
Today's media landscape - and indeed today's world - would of course be unimaginable to these previous listeners.
Although many people in the UK associate the World Service with radio, we now broadcast on television in eight languages, and online in all 27 World Service languages. Added to this are our commercially funded services, BBC World News and bbc.com/news.
So while radio remains the mainstay for our audiences, we are reaching out in new ways. Around the world, people are reading the news on smartphone apps, and watching news video on tablets. In Burma, where the BBC is playing a ground-breaking role, audiences are Hollister Black Friday receiving news bulletins via audio bulletins on their mobile phones, and soon by text messages.
Smartphones are on the increaseIndeed, our digital services now reach an audience of 38 million every week, an increase of 8 million from last year. Mobile accounts for a large volume of this traffic.
Innovations like new apps and TV services have helped us stay relevant to our audience. But they would be meaningless without what I believe is the key to our success - the quality of our journalism.
Whatever media platform audiences use to access BBC news, what they will find is accurate, impartial, trustworthy journalism. In the past year BBC journalists have covered big and surprising stories ranging from the Pope's resignation, the Olympics, the US election - and the discovery of Richard III's skeleton in a Leicester car park.
A significant development this year saw BBC World News relaunched from our new state-of-the-art HD studios, with a refreshed line up of programmes and presenters, including Jon Sopel, Linda Yueh and Yalda Hakim.
Two of the other big factors in our audience increases have been the growth of our BBC Arabic and BBC Persian services.
BBC Arabic has increased its audience by 7m viewers, 6.5m of these in Egypt. The audience grew massively during the Arab Spring and has stayed high ever since.
For the first time the estimate measured audiences in Libya and Darfur. The BBC reaches nearly a quarter of the population in Darfur and 42% in Libya.
The audience for the BBC's Persian service is up by 90%. Despite continued censorship and satellite blocking, more than 40% of Iranians with a satellite dish watch the BBC. This service comes at considerable personal cost to our Persian service journalists, who, along with their families, face harassment, intimidation and even death threats from the Iranian authorities.
The BBC is subject to reporting restrictions in IranThe last few years have been tough for the World Service, with repeated funding cuts, job losses and the closure of some of our language services. Today's good news comes despite, not because of this - our figures would be higher still were our journalism able to reach all the countries we did before.
But as our new director general Tony Hall has said, the BBC's best days lie ahead of us.
International broadcasting is a highly competitive business, which requires predictable, stable funding. The BBC Trust has announced the budget for the World Service will be better protected next year, when it moves to licence fee funding.
Monday saw another important step in this transition when the Trust published a consultation on the World Service's operating licence - and a http://www.beatsbydrefriday.com/ document which, for the first time ever, sets out the World Service's purpose and identity.
PDF download World Service's purpose and identity[123KB]
So I am hopeful for the future of global news. The move to our new headquarters earlier this year marked a new era for all of our global news services.
And the BBC's multi-lingual journalists are contributing their global insights on stories in Brazil, Russia, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Bangladesh to domestic BBC services as well. Eighty years after the BBC began its broadcasts to the world, the BBC is also now bringing the world back to Britain.
A Point of View Is democracy overrated
Democracy is championed as a universal good by the West, but we over-estimate its power to guarantee personal and political freedom, argues Roger Scruton.
For some time, the leading Western nations have acted upon the assumption that democracy is the solution to political conflict, and that the ultimate goal of foreign policy must be to encourage the emergence of democracy in countries which have not yet enjoyed its benefits. And they continue to adhere to this assumption, even when considering events in the Middle East today. We can easily sympathise with it. For democracies do not, in general, go to war with each other, and do not, in general, experience civil war within their borders. Where the people can choose their government, there is a safety valve that prevents conflicts from over-heating. Unpopular governments are rejected without violence.
The championship of democracy has therefore become a settled feature of Western foreign policy. In retrospect, the Cold War has been seen as a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism, in which democracy finally triumphed. And with democracy came the liberation of the people of the former communist states. Where there had been tyranny and oppression, there was now freedom and human rights. And if we study the words of Western politicians, we will constantly find that the three ideas - democracy, freedom and human rights - are spoken of in one breath, and assumed in all circumstances to coincide. That, for many of our political leaders, is the lesson to be drawn from the Cold War and the final collapse of the Soviet empire.
Continue reading the main story Find out more Roger Scruton is a writer and philosopher A Point of Black Friday jordan View is usually broadcast on Fridays on Radio 4 at 20:50 BST and repeated Sundays, 08:50 BST Listen to A Point of View on the iPlayer BBC Podcasts - A Point of View Four Thought podcastIn my view, the idea that there is a single, one-size-fits-all solution to social and political conflict around the world, and that democracy is the name of it, is based on a disregard of historical and cultural conditions, and a failure to see that democracy is only made possible by other and more deeply hidden institutions. And while we are willing to accept that democracy goes hand in hand with individual freedom and the protection of human rights, we often fail to realise that these three things are three things, not one, and that it is only under certain conditions that they coincide.
Democracy was introduced into Russia without any adequate protection for human rights. And many human rights were protected in 19th Century Britain long before the emergence of anything that we would call democracy. In the Middle East today, we find parties standing for election, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which regards an electoral victory as the opportunity to crush dissent and impose a way of life that for many citizens is simply unacceptable. In such circumstances democracy is a threat to human rights and not a way of protecting them.
Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteThe totalitarian system endures by abolishing the distinction between civil society and the state”
End QuoteI had the opportunity to study some of these issues during the 1980s, when visiting friends and colleagues who were attempting to plant the seeds of opposition in the communist countries. These were public-spirited citizens, who ran the risk of arrest and imprisonment for activities which you and I would regard as entirely innocent. They ran classes for young people who had been deprived of an education on account of their parents' political profile. They established support networks for writers, scholars, musicians and artists who were banned from presenting their work. They smuggled medicines, bibles, religious symbols and textbooks. And because charities were illegal under communism and religious institutions were controlled by the Communist Party, all this work had to be conducted in secret.
The totalitarian system, I learned, endures not simply by getting rid of democratic elections and imposing a one-party state. It endures by abolishing the distinction between civil society and the state, and by allowing nothing significant to occur which is not controlled by the Party. By studying the situation in Eastern Europe, I came quickly to see that political freedom depends upon a delicate network of institutions, which my friends were striving to understand and if possible to resuscitate.
So what are these institutions? First among them is judicial independence. In every case where the Communist Party had an interest, the judge was under instructions to deliver the verdict that the Party required. It didn't matter that there was no law that the victim had breached. If necessary, a law could be invented at the last moment. If the Party wanted someone to be in prison, then the judge had to put that person in prison. If he refused, then he would end up in prison himself, if he was lucky. In such circumstances the rule of law was a complete fiction: law was simply a mask worn by the Party, as it dictated its decisions to the people.
Attempts to bring democracy to Egypt have run into troubleThen there is the institution of property rights. Normal people in the communist state had virtually nothing to their name - nothing legal, that is. Their houses or flats were owned by the state, their few personal possessions could not be freely traded in the market, and their salary and pension depended on their political conformity and could be removed at any time. In these circumstances the entire economy went underground. No court of law would enforce the contracts that people needed if they were to get on with their lives. You might have a deal with your neighbour to exchange vegetables for maths lessons. But if one of you defected and the other took the dispute to law, the only result would be that both of you went to prison for conducting an illegal business. All transactions therefore depended upon personal trust, in a situation in which trust was in shorter and shorter supply. Hence society was riven by conflicts and suspicions, which neither law nor politics could remedy. And the Communist Party rejoiced in this situation, since it prevented people from combining against it.
Continue reading the main story Democracy in a few words George Bernard Shaw: "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve" Winston Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Clement Atlee: "Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking" Tom Stoppard: "It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting"Then there is freedom of speech and opinion. The freedom to entertain and express opinions, however offensive to others, has been regarded since Locke in the 17th Century as the pre-condition of a political society. This freedom was enshrined in the US constitution, defended in the face of the Victorian moralists by John Stuart Mill, and upheld in our time by my dissident friends. We take this freedom so much for granted that we regard it as the default position of humanity - the position to which we return, if all oppressive powers are removed from us. But my experience of communist Europe convinced me of the opposite. Orthodoxy, conformity and the hounding of the dissident define the default position of mankind, and there is no reason to think that democracies are any different in this respect from Islamic theocracies or one-party totalitarian states.
Of course, the opinions that are suppressed change from one form of society to another, as do the methods of suppression. But we should be clear that to guarantee freedom of opinion goes against the grain of social life, and imposes risks that people may be reluctant to take. For in criticising orthodoxy, you are not just questioning a belief - you are threatening the social order that has been built on it. Also, orthodoxies are the more fiercely protected the more vulnerable they are.
Continue reading the main story More from the MagazineJohn Gray examines the trouble with toppling tyrants (August 2012)
Andrew Whitehead speaks to historian Eric Hobsbawm about the possibility of Arab democracies cheap black friday buy (December 2011)
And in 2009, Clive James argued liberal democracies are are the 'first and essential requirement for all countries of the world'
Both those principles are surely obvious from the reaction of Islamists to criticisms directed at their religion. Just as it was in the wars of religion that ravaged Europe in the 17th Century, it is precisely what is most absurd that is most protected. And critics are not treated merely as people with an intellectual difficulty. They are a threat, the enemies of society and, for the believer, the enemies of God. So it was too under communism, in which a system of government had been built on theories that may have looked plausible in the early days of the industrial revolution but which in the post-war economy of Europe were palpably ridiculous. For that very reason it was the greatest heresy to criticise them.
Finally, there is legitimate opposition. This was perhaps the greatest casualty of communism as it afflicted Europe. When Lenin imposed the communist system on Russia it was in the form of a top-down dictatorship, in which orders were passed down to the ranks below. It was a kind of military government, and opposition could no more unite against it than soldiers in the ranks can unite against their commanders. In times of emergency this kind of discipline is perhaps necessary. But it is the opposite of civilised government.
It has been assumed in this country from the time of the Anglo-Saxons that political decisions are taken in council, after hearing all sides to the question, and taking note of the many interests that must be reconciled. Long before the advent of democracy, our parliament divided into government and opposition, and except in stressful periods during the 16th and 17th Centuries it was acknowledged that government without opposition is without any corrective when things go wrong. That is what we saw in the Soviet Union and its empire - a system of government without a reverse gear, which continued headlong towards the brick wall of the future.
In the underground universities of communist Europe, my friends and colleagues studied those things, and prepared themselves for the hoped-for day when the Communist Party, having starved itself of every rational input, would finally give up the ghost. And the lessons that they learned need to be learned again today, as our politicians lead us forth under the banner of democracy, without pausing to examine what democracy actually requires.
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)