A propos my post on Amnesty below, Evelyn Gordon makes an excellent point on the Commentary blog. She draws attention to two shocking pieces in the New York Times by Nicholas Krystof, here and here, on the war in the Congo. Gordon observes: The civil war in Congo, Krystof writes, has claimed almost seven million lives over the last dozen years. It has also created a whole new vocabulary to describe the other horrific abuses it has generated – such as ‘autocannibalism,’ which is when militiamen cut flesh from living victims and force the victims to eat it, or ‘re-rape,’ which applies to women and girls who are raped anew every time militiamen visit their town. Yet the world rarely hears about Congo — because groups such as Amnesty and HRW [Human Rights Watch] have left Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (4) Forward to the past with post-Blairism 5:25am One could almost call it socialism. Novel! Can’t you just see that winning election poster now: ‘Forward to the past!’ So what are the characteristics of this ideology that will bring a post-Blairite clarity and radicalism to left-wing politics? The party’s goal should be ‘active equality’, challenging injustices in society as a means of enabling people to achieve their ambitions ‘To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment. Her views have been endorsed by Amnesty’s Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi, who has said in an internal email to his staff: ‘We should be clear that some
Tuesday, 16th February 2010
The moral blindness of the 'human rights' industry
7:17am
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James Purnell, the über-Blairite former Cabinet minister who quit the government last year calling on Gordon Brown to resign, clearly thinks of himself as having a Vision for the party of which the world needs to be made aware. Accordingly, he made a speech yesterday on the future of left-wing politics which is reported in the Telegraph. Apparently, Labour’s problem is that it doesn’t have an ideology. Describing the ideology he recommends, Purnell told his audience:
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The true intolerant, illiberal, unjust face of the ‘human rights’ industry has been on graphic display in recent days in the case of Gita Sahgal. Last week Sahgal, head of Amnesty’s gender unit, spoke of her concerns about Amnesty’s relationship with Cageprisoners, an organisation headed by Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo internee. Since his release in 2005, Begg has spoken alongside Amnesty at a number of events and accompanied it to a meeting at Downing Street. Saghal wrote to Amnesty’s leaders:
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Tuesday, 16 February 2010
3:12am
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