FORTRESS EUROPE: ANTI-GLOBALISATION TURNS SOUR
When George W Bush visited Europe the anti-globalisation protests of recent years failed to materialise. Instead the US president was feted by the German parliament and French President. The anti-capitalist sentiment that held America to be uniquely reactionary has taken a knocking since Europe lurched to the right in recent elections: Chirac in France, Aznar in Spain, and the collapse of the Netherlands' Social Democrat government. Now European heads of state are vying with each other to 'get tough on immigrants' - so much so that the United Nations High Commission on Refugees felt it necessary to denounce the ugly mood.
The anti-globalisers have been eclipsed by a more militant hostility to global migration on the part of European Justice ministers. The incoherent reaction against globalisation on the part of an active, militant minority of grungy youngsters has given way to a determined attempt to play the race card on the part of European governments.
Measures like British Home Secretary David Blunkett's fast-track deportations are based on a perverse reading of the public mood. Recent election results in France, northern England and Holland are less indicative of an upsurge of racism than they are of a disaffection for the European political elite. There are backward prejudices against migrants amongst more lumpen sections of the population, but they are not very strongly grounded. The problem for the European elite is that, lacking popular institutions, they can only imagine garnering public support on the basis of hostility to foreigners - and that is what they have in common with the anti-globalisation protests.
THE LORD MAYOR OF BELFAST
In 1968, after the Londonderry Council retired under a barracking from the Housing Action Committee in the public gallery, Finbar O'Doherty vaulted down into the Mayor's Chair, declared himself first citizen of Derry an set about issuing decrees ending the sectarian allocation of housing. Yesterday the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland agreed to support Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey making his election as Lord Mayor of Belfast a done deal. O'Doherty probably would never have been elected, but his contribution to the protest against the sectarian state in northern Ireland was a greater blow for democracy than Sinn Fein's transition from nationalist revolutionaries to the custodians of British rule in Belfast.
GUARDIANS OF ORDER
In a remarkable move, Britain's Guardian newspaper revealed that it had been hosting secret talks between leading Palestinians and Israelis, along with advisors from both sides of the northern Irish 'peace process'. Blushing boy columnist Jonathan Freedland's many tortured examinations of Jewishness and Zionism suddenly made more sense when we learned that he had been chairing these international discussions. The Guardian's desire to transform itself from mere reporter of news into the story itself has been gathering pace in recent years: the Guardian hosted the What's Left conference in 1995 launching New Labour; in 1997 the paper was instrumental in pushing Martin 'white suit' Bell's anti-corruption election campaign against Guardian hate-figure Neil Hamilton; Guardian journalists were key witnesses in the Hague prosecutions of Serbs; earlier this year, they hosted a conference on Europe to galvanise the pro-Europe campaign.
There is a fine tradition of campaigning journalism in Britain, undertaken by such figures as Claud Cockburn, Paul Foot and the Sunday Times' Insight Team to expose miscarriages of justice and public scandals. Sadly there is a more strident tradition of bogus political campaigning undertaken by journalists who think they can do better than the politicians. Last week, one of them, Roy Greenslade admitted that as the Mirror's political editor, he had run a story about Miners' leader Arthur Scargill stealing strike funds that was a pack of lies.
The problem with the Guardian's foray into making news is that it can no longer be trusted to report the story objectively. If the Guardian is committed to the peace process in the Middle East, can it be trusted to report criticisms of the peace process? Will reporting be slanted to talk up the possibilities of negotiation at the cost of telling the truth? More alarmingly, will the conflict now take on a new dimension, as the two sides must angle their actions to emphasise their coverage in the Guardian?
-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'