Psychologists, Ethics and Torture

Below is a live tweet record by @BrandonHamber of the panel discussion at the International Congress of Psychology 2012 in Cape Town.

The panel began with the screening of Doctors of the Dark Side followed by a discussion on the ethical issues facing psychologists given the controversy about psychologists involved in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, and the American Psychological Association (APA) stance on the issue.

On the panel Leslie London (South Africa), Stephen Behnke (APA Ethics), Paul Kimmel (USA), Mike Wessells (APA), Chair: Umesh Bawa (South Africa) and moderator Norman Duncan (South Africa)

@BrandonHamber Tweet Record 27 July 2012

10:04am
Just watched Doctors of the Dark Side. Films about role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture ow.ly/cxoC9 #icp2102

10:05am
There is now a panel discussion on the issue of torture and psychologists role in allowing it to happen #icp2012

10:06am
Leslie London speaking first from South Africa #icp2012

10:07am
London notes the failure of accountability is striking for psychologists who oversaw torture in Guantanamo Bay #icp2012

10:08am
Failure to hold health professionals accountable will result in abuses in the future says London #icp2012

10:09am
London says at least 29 doctors reported for involvement in apartheid, only one ever investigate #icp2012

10:09am
Cannot have ethics without human rights says Leslie London #icp2012

10:11am
Stephen Behnke adresses accountability from APA perspective. Says we cannot do anything about non APA members #icp2012

10:11am
Stephen Behnke is the Director, APA Ethics Office #icp2012

10:12am
Behnke says organisations have a responsibility to offer support to psychologists in these difficult positions #icp2012

10:14am
APA made a list in 2007 of practices that are forbidden including water boarding. APA took to long to do that says Behnke #icp2012

10:15am
When to know when to pull out of a situation or not is a difficult issue says Behnke #icp2012

10:16am
Behnke uses the death penalty as an example. It is legal in US, APA has intervened to prevent it in some cases #icp2012

10:16am
But it is difficult to know if we should pull out entirely or if we should have intervened in some cases says Behnke #icp2012

10:18am
Discussion very polite so far, does not capture the massive tensions in the APA there have been over the years on this issue #ico2012

10:23am
Mike Wessells former Director of Psychologists for Social Responsibility now talking #icp2012

10:24am
Wessells says we need to think systemically because torture is an issue that is still not over, there are systemic pressures #icp2012

10:25am
After 9/11 in US a distortion of issues and psychologists were not immune from the images and manipulation of Bush administration #icp2012

10:26am
George Bush distorted the nature of law about torture #icp2012

10:27am
No laws should throw out human rights says Wessells. Human rights standards have to be above national law #icp2012

10:28am
Wessells says we need support for whistleblowers and accountability #icp2012

10:28am
Torture does not happen because of bad apples, systemic and enabling factors need to be addressed says Wessells #icp2012

10:29am
A coalition of all psychology associations is needed that rises above our own membership and offer moral guidance says Wessells #icp2012

10:34am
It was unethical for psychologists to be at Guatanamo Bay because it was decreed beyond international standards says Wessells #icp2012

10:35am
Floor getting heated, someone saying that surely we should have just been out of this altogether #icp2012

10:36am
Another person from the floor asks if the APA should apologise for any of its actions #icp2012

10:37am
Nora Soveass from UN Committee of Prevention of Torture raises the issue that convention also talks about prevention #icp2012

10:39am
If there are no rights in an area, like the ICR not being allowed into a place, we should no be there says Sveaass #icp2012

10:40am
Behnke now speaking. Says he agrees with Sveaass. There are no exceptional circumstances #icp2012

10:41am
Behnke says the Bush memos on torture were horrific #icp2012

10:42am
Behnke says APA was too slow, we took too long. But as we move forward, never again will US psychologist be involved in this #icp2012

10:45am
Wessells on again says Sveaass reminds us that the specificity of what was happening in Guantanamo was known #icp2012

10:46am
We need to do an honest retrospective and admit that big mistakes were made, we need a broader vision and not tinkering #icp2012

10:50am
Another question what is being done to prevent this from happening again #icp2012

10:47am
Behnke: APA is clear. No torture or involvement in this, and clear psychologists have to report torture if they're aware of issues #icp2012

10:57am
Behnke says he agrees with Wessells we need to think systemically #icp2012

10:57am
But Behnke says APA has not agreed about the issue of where we should be or not be, that is more controversial in the organisation #icp2012

10:58am
Leslie London says international human rights law is our benchmark, without that we end up asking how much torture is torture #icp2012

11:00am
Wessells says as long as we use language like do what is safe and legal its a problem, we need ethics that transcends national law #icp2102

11:05am
Paul Kimmel ends and says we don't need lawyers but we need to be humanists, and go back to that to prevent torture #icp2012

11:06am
Umesh Bawa, Chair from South Africa says we must remember we have said never again after Nuremberg and there was Rwanda etc. #icp2012

11:07am
Bawa notes that there is continuing torture around the globe and calls for us to remember that as it is going on #icp2012

11:07am
Bawa says we have to commit ourselves to defending human rights in all situations #icp2012

11:08am
Panel ends. Will it make a difference? I don't know? Better we have it, but so much to be done and is the system as Wessells notes #icp2012

11:14am
And here is a photo of the panel for good measure ow.ly/i/NMwJ #icp2012

11:30am
Here is a piece "The Ghost of Jeffrey Benzein Lives On" that I wrote about torture and professionals a while back, read here.

11:44am
The discussion on APA and torture still bouncing in my head #icp2012

11:45am
The more I think about it the more ridiculous the notion of lists of acceptable and unacceptable practices seem to me #icp2012

11:46am
The fact 'torture' lists are needed suggests a moral and ethical vacuum at the core of the APA and training of psychologists #icp2012

11:47am
Mike Wessells is correct there is a systematic problem in the profession and wider society #icp2012

Other resources:

Psychologists for Social Responsibility Documents on Torture

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

10-Year "Psychology, Torture, and the APA" Timeline

Timeline of APA Policies and Actions

Torture at Abu Ghraib

Shoe today, bomb tomorrow

There were not many highlights in the George W Bush Presidency. But one event, other than the occupation of Iraq, that stands out in my mind was the shoe-throwing attack on Bush by Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi.

As everyone knows by now, Zaidi, as an insult and a form of protest against the illegal occupation of Iraq by the US, hurled his shoes at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad last December.

For his troubles, Zaidi has been imprisoned, allegedly tortured and potentially faces two years in jail. He has also become an international icon. Zaidi’s internment has led to protests and shoe throwing has become a global phenomenon and a symbol of resistance.

George Bush ducks the thrown shoe 

U.S. Federal Government / Public domain

Shoes were left at US embassies around the world as part of the demands to release Zaidi. Various protest groups have engaged in symbolic acts of shoe flinging. Antiwar group Code Pink tossed shoes at a Bush effigy outside the White House. Others have engaged in similar acts. Another creative initiative included building an enormous sculpture of a shoe to commemorate Zaidi’s bravery. The sculpture was built by children at an orphanage in Tikrit. Earlier this month, in a copycat attack, a protestor wishing to register his disgust at the Chinese human rights record threw his shoes at the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, during a speech at Cambridge University.

In short, shoe throwing is catching on and I am not surprised. There are so many global events that ordinary people have less and less control over these days. Wars are waged in the name of regular citizens when, in fact, many want nothing to do with warmongering. Many of us fantasise about doing things differently or forcing governments to be agents of peacemaking rather than peace breaking. But it is normally impossible to get your voice heard.

Peaceful protests are becoming increasingly ineffective against counterattacks from media agencies controlled by governments. Tight security makes it difficult to get near political leaders to express your opinions. Blogs, letters and email petitions are popular ways to register disagreement but they are often only read by those who share your views rather than those in power. There is a popular sentiment that political leaders now live in a detached bubble and, even in democracies, the only time you can register your protest in a meaningful way is in the ballot box every couple of years.

People need an outlet and many are fed up with being disempowered from decision-making. Hurling shoes provides a relatively harmless way (well, as long as hobnailed boots are not used) of effectively registering your opinion. Shoes are readily available, easy to transport and simple to get through security checks since most of us wear them (unless you are Zola Budd).

Of course, I am not advocating unbridled shoe chucking every time we are unhappy. But we should salute the courage of those who choose to register their voice in a way that is direct, yet, broadly speaking, a symbolic gesture of disgust rather than a hard-core act of violence. I know such a comment is controversial and I wonder how Gandhi would feel about it. Is shoe tossing, especially if you miss, an act of peaceful protest? I do not know. I also acknowledge that Zaidi’s act was not particularly professional from a journalistic perspective, and he might have caused Bush a mild head injury, causing him to do something rash, like starting a war without planning it.

But, equally, we must acknowledge the frustration felt by ordinary citizens the world over who feel excluded from politics and marginalised from key decisions. We must find ways for average people to be heard and influence global events, whether in Iraq, South Africa, or the US. Without this, a shoe today will be a bomb or a gun tomorrow and that would be no laughing matter.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on  12 February 2009 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

A war on terror or a war on reason

India defies description, especially after you spend only a week there and in one city, Delhi. Delhi is a great city of the world, embodying dozens of cultures, old and new. The city survives on teeming markets selling anything from bananas to electronics and a modern financial sector that is expanding rapidly.

The Indian economy has been growing at an annual rate of 8% to 9% recently, the second-fastest expanding economy in the world, behind China.

However, when I first arrived in Delhi, the signs of this new economic giant were hard to spot. The airport was underdeveloped – OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, makes it look like a small regional airport time-warped in the 1960s. At first glance, the city looks like it is more in decay than development. Crumbling buildings, beggars and poorly kept streets with children in gutters and thousands of people peddling cheap small items is the norm.

However, as I acclimatised to the bustling capital, I started to see development everywhere. In the middle of a row of rundown buildings and behind people, cars, animals and bicycles are upmarket clothes stores, software companies and international banks. Once you start to head out of the city, it becomes even more evident: new shopping malls, office blocks and modern apartments for sale. This is a country on the move, although still with a massive underclass.

Billboards advertise "the lifestyle you want", complete with pictures of compact apartments, swimming pools, fully equipped with 'German kitchens' and a photo of a smiling family, which invariably includes daddy, mommy, son and daughter. The influence of the West is pervasive and growing.

However, it is not only the Western lifestyles that is being imported. Ethnic strife, marked by what George W Bush would call the 'war on terror', is also notably present in India.

This was made all too real on the last night of my stay, when a series of five bombs exploded across Delhi, killing 25 people and injuring over 100. Two of the bombs went off fairly close to my hotel. I had eaten in the bombed district and driven through the area numerous times. The attacks were claimed by a group called the Indian Mujahideen, which is said to be linked to al-Qa'ida.

Immediately following the blasts, eerily familiar debates began playing themselves out on television. Was the government tough enough on radicals, asked the media. And the word 'terrorism' was thrown about by the Indian government in a way reminiscent of a US Republican convention or Sunday lunch on the Bush ranch.

Of course, the bombs in Delhi are acts of terror. Blowing up innocent people is immoral. But is it helpful to lump every act of terror in the same boat? Those setting off the bombs and world governments are equally guilty in that.

It is comfortable for governments to frame all extreme acts of violence as being about the war on terror. Such language justifies tough military action and tighter police control, while often diverting attention from other problems, such as poverty, structural discrimination and long histories of political tension. Governments seem to take perverse pleasure in being part of the global 'war on terror' club.

The alleged perpetrators also like to oversimplify matters. In an email from the Indian Mujahideen, the bombs are said to be a response to the "hostile hatred" of Islam and justified punishment for the "sins" of the people.

But when did global politics and political ideology become so simple?

Bush wants us to believe that there is only one war, and the bombers that there is only one justifiable struggle.

The rise of the totalising discourse is of great concern. Surely, it denies complex local politics, individual power struggles and massive cultural variations in how the so-called war on terror plays itself out. Painting everything with the same brush is not only lazy, anti-explanatory and culturally vacuous, but dangerous.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 3 October 2008 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

The times they are not a-changin’

The musician Burt Bacharach wrote a song, probably at the time I was entering this world, called Knowing When to Leave. It contains the clichéd lines, “Go while the going is good. Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn...Sail when the wind starts to blow.” Simple advice, but many people pay no attention to the wind, and sometimes even miss a hurricane when it is blowing in their face. Take, for example, Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister – the writing has been on the wall for months that his time is up, but he insists on dragging out his Premiership for as long as possible. Seemingly, he wants to hit the magical ten-year mark next year before throwing in the towel. It reminds me of lying in bed in the morning trying to kid yourself that five more minutes in bed will make all the difference.

What is it about leaving that is so hard? Love and passion are the most difficult things for humans to walk away from. But hanging in there for such noble endeavours is always excusable, even if it is downright stupid at times. But Tony no longer loves his people – how could he, they do not love him? That said, in the words of Dan Quayle, “This isn’t a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.” Power also has a hold over us mortals. I do not need to rattle off a list of dictators addicted to power to make the point. But what is it that makes people like Robert Mugabe think that being in power for over 25 years is good for him or his country? Perhaps, however, it is not leaving that is the problem but, rather, the anxiety that change provokes that causes people to stay put. Change hurts. As Saul Alinsky, the American community activist, wrote, “Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.” The result is that most people do not like things to change. Being in a rut seems preferable to ploughing through a new field, even if it offers a better harvest.

Yet some people seek change. Recently, the European Space Agency completed its three-year mission to study the moon by deliberately crashing the Smart-1 orbiter into the lunar surface. They assured the world that progress is being made in understanding the surface of the moon. They say their research will pave the way for a moon colony.

The mission sparked a debate about whether such science was worth the bother, given the poverty on earth. Such critics have a point. But, at the same time, there is something about a moon colony I find enticing. It conjures up images of Star Trek, the sci-fi TV series that has now been running since 1966, a mere three years longer than Libyan leader Gaddafi has been in power. What is it about this show that makes it so appealing? The answer is simple. Unlike what those that cling to power can offer, and even if Star Trek is light years from reality, it is filled with promise. The line “to boldly go where no man (sic) has gone before” is the most tantalising line ever.

Right now, however, it feels like the promise of a new world has been lost somewhere between the Iraqi desert and the recently wrecked space probe now polluting the moon. If change was needed, now is the time. As science-fiction writer, Alvin Toffler, notes, “Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life.” So now I am raising money for a one-way rocket ride to the moon for Blair, George W Bush – the dictators of the world – and all those who think killing civilians enhances their cause. Donations are welcome.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 September 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

You are either for him or against him

There is nothing worse than seeing your own country denigrated in the foreign press. Sadly, this is what the blinkered supporters of Jacob Zuma, the former Deputy President of South Africa fired for alleged corruption and on trial for rape, are doing. Stories of his supporters protesting outside the court have been splashed all over the foreign media. It has been shocking to see supporters burning pictures of the woman who accuses Zuma and carrying placards reading ‘Zuma is being raped’. Liesl Gerntholtz, executive director of Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, claims she even heard teenage girls outside the court saying: “We are waiting for Zuma to rape us too – we want to be Zuma’s women.” Given that some 50 000 rapes are reported each year in South Africa, this must leave outsiders, and I hope the majority in the country too, wonder- ing just what is going on.

Of course, people have a right to support whoever they want, especially someone they see as having a significant role in liberating their country. I do not take issue with this. However, what is startling is how unequivocal and ferocious this support is. It seems like his supporters, to twist George Bush’s famous mantra, are saying: “You are either for him or against him.” If you do not support him, you are a political enemy and will be subjected to abuse. The fact that their aggressive protests will deter future rape survivors from bringing charges before the court in a country where one in nine cases of rape are reported seems of little consequence to them. The protestors’ actions highlight that there is still something deeply wrong within parts of South African society. The old apartheid mindset, which taught that the world was literally a black-and-white place, either all good or all bad, is alive and well. Further, if Zuma’s supporters have such unwavering conviction of his innocence, something neither they nor I have a clue about, then why not let the law run its course? The response, I imagine, most would give is that the charges are a political conspiracy to oust him as the next president. Do they seriously believe the entire legal system will conspire to deliver the exact verdict his enemies want? Sounds like paranoia to me, which is the flip side of the ‘You are either with us or against us’ mentality. Of course, Zuma’s supporters are not alone in this didactic thinking. Remember how Hansie Cronje was one day a hero and the next the pariah against all Afrikaners for fixing cricket matches. The inability of African leaders to condemn Robert Mugabe’s recent actions because of his past accomplishments as a liberation leader is another case in point, not to mention the way many whites use someone like Mugabe to make blanket assumptions about the draconian tendencies of all black politicians.

The ability to treat a situation with any subtlety seems to have died somewhere in our violent past. Is it not possible that someone can support a person politically or value his or her past actions, but, equally, be concerned about his or her current behaviour? It is time to shake off the past and grow up as a democracy. It might have been functional during apartheid times to see all those on your side as heroes and beyond reproach or all your enemies as evil, but the real world is just not like that. Surely, one can respect what Zuma has done as a politician but, at the same time, deplore the way he has let his supporters run wild in recent weeks, especially considering he is a former chairperson of the Moral Regeneration Campaign. Likewise, if he is found guilty, it will not erase his earlier contribution to helping the new South Africa on its way but, equally, his past achievements should not deter the law from taking its course.

This article was published on Polity prior to the conclusion of the case. Jacob Zuma was found not guilty.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 14 April 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Simple lesson from 9/11 and reprisals

A few months after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York, I visited the site where the World Trade Centre once stood. I was drawn to it out of a desire to turn the almost celluloid television event that was Hollywood-like in its magnitude into reality. On one level my visit did this. The enormity of the calamity was immediately apparent. The gaping space where the 110-storey Towers once stood was a poignant marker of the size of the disaster. The heart-rending messages on the fence surrounding the site and posters of the missing a reminder of the human loss.

At the same time, however, my visit was decidedly unreal. Tourists clamoured for the best view of the site. Some disturbingly posed for photographs smiling in front of the rubble. An array of tasteless souvenirs were up for grabs. You could procure a roll of Osama Bin Laden toilet paper with the message 'Osama Kiss My Butt' for a few dollars. The pyre was still smouldering and people were making money. Nothing felt sacred about the place. It was a sad mess.

9/11 Memorial Under Construction
Rebecca Wilson / CC 

Recently, on a trip to New York, I found myself drawn to the space again. I was hoping for something different a few years on. I arrived at the site via the newly-renovated World Trade Centre station, a large clean area with stainless-steel finishes. The whole site was cleared, contained and ready for development. The hawkers had been shunted elsewhere. Signs urged visitors to keep the site special and not to buy any items. Makeshift memorials and posters had been removed. Memorial plaques had been erected, listing the names of those killed. Of course, there were tourists, even those posing in front of the site. But tourist buses shuffled people on and off the site without much commotion. Everything seemed more subdued and ordered.

But something remained amiss and reality still felt distorted. This might be inevitable, considering the site is in the midst of an energetic city with little time for reflection. The scale of the devastation remains overwhelming. The attacks are also still recent. How can we memorialise history while it is in the making?

But the most startling realisation I had on my second visit was that, although Ground Zero now seems more ordered, this too was an illusion. The mess has not gone away but has been transferred elsewhere, namely to Iraq and Afghanistan. What makes this worse is that the US reprisal attacks, especially on Iraq, regardless of the commercial advantage to various US concerns, really boils down to misguided revenge. In fact, the whole sorry situation, from the attacks on the Towers to the US invasions, reek of vengeance justified by a whole range of perverted moral claims.

These claims seem tragic in the true meaning of the word. In literature a tragedy is a story in which a character is reduced to ruin because of moral flaws in their character. There are those who feel that the US has reaped what it sowed; its penchant for interfering in the business of other countries, commercialism and exploitation has meant that it finally got what it deserved. Equally, the "you are either with us or against us" mentality advocated by George W Bush is used to justify any action against those labelled as morally-bankrupt 'terrorist', no matter the consequence.

But, really, it is the mentality behind both of these views that is deeply tragic. They teach us nothing about how to deal with fundamental difference constructively and they do not enhance our ability to address complex social problems one bit.

As I walked away from Ground Zero for the second time, the message I took away was simple: two wrongs just don't make a right.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 8 April 2005 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Forget the war on terror, it's morals that count

It was a strange time to be in Boston in the midst of the US election. The tension was palpable and the support for Kerry-a native son of the city-pervasive. Right up until counting started the mood was optimistic. Early exit polls suggested a Kerry victory. But very soon it all started to turn for the Democrats. By 5:30am on election day, as I sat glued to the television abandoning my plans to observe the downtown Kerry “victory” rally, it was all but over. Bush was going to win.

The following day the usually lively city seemed melancholic. Over breakfast, hotel patrons spoke openly about their disappointment. Some told me they were embarrassed to be an American. They felt isolated and that they were living in another universe to their Bush-supporting compatriots. That evening in a shop I greeted an attendant “Hi. How you doing?”

His response: “I'm looking for a new country to live in,” his words indicative of the deep ruptures that now exist within the US.

Sometime on Wednesday, President Thabo Mbeki officially congratulated George Bush. He wished him well and “fervently” hoped for “greater world stability and peace under his leadership”. No one noticed. The US is a country that is wrapped up in itself these days despite its military exploits abroad. Those of a liberal persuasion-or at least a sizeable proportion of the 56 million people or 48% of the electorate who voted for Kerry-are struggling to figure out what went wrong and what is going on. Much soul searching is being done.

When asked what issues mattered most in choosing a president, survey data in the New York Times revealed that “moral values” ranked top with economy and jobs, followed by terrorism and the Iraq war. Seemingly issues such as tax, education and health care were seen as less important. A swathe of Americans feel that the moral world is crumbling about them. A strong, principled leader that can oppose abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage is what they feel is needed. Just over half of voting Americans feel that Bush is such a person. To the remainder, Bush as a moral icon is laughable, given his warmongering overseas.

Meanwhile, Mbeki, in his message to Bush, appealed for “renewed support for, and interest in Africa and the developing world, reform of world institutions and an era of multilateralism marked by a concerted drive to deal decisively with the challenge of poverty and underdevelopment”. It is hard to imagine that this is even on the map for the US right now. A conservative revolution is on the march.

It is easy for those from a liberal perspective to write this off or treat Bush supporters as if they are misguided bible-bashers. But the problem is more complex than that. It is time to face the fact that the right-wing in the US is organised. They moved door-to-door securing their position. The Bush campaign utilised 1,2 million volunteers with four times as many workers in Ohio than 2000. They sold “Faith, Family and Flag” and the majority of the electorate bought it.

This suggests that many fear some sort of global moral vacuum that they think the Republicans can fill. Such views litter internet chat rooms across the US. As one Bush supporter put it: “I'm sorry but I don't lose sleep over Iraq. What I do lose sleep over is my children's future in the immoral cess pit that this country is becoming”.

We all want a safe and decent world; one that embodies good values. This is why Bush attracted the vote of some moderates as well as his traditional neo-conservative and Christian fundamentalist supporters. But their votes have endorsed, whether knowingly or not, an approach whereby the language of moral values will continue to be used to hide a value-free political and economic agenda.

The politics of morality is a new global battleground. The results can be disastrous. Estimates put the death toll in Iraq as anywhere between 20 000 and 100 000 civilians. These people were killed in the name of freedom, democracy and to allegedly make the world a safer place.

But who has really benefited from this “moral” campaign? Mostly those who sell weapons, reconstruction contractors and private security firms, many close to the Bush regime. The Bush administration has, in Iraq's most vulnerable moment, tendered it off to the lowest bidder with no discernible benefit to its indigenous economy. Defence contracts worth 76 billion dollars, for example, have been connected to nine out of thirty members of the US Defense Policy Group.

In South Africa we cannot ignore these developments. The influence of the Bush administration is going to be felt more than before in the coming years. Negotiating investment may soon not only be about crude economic negotiations alone. Is it possible that South African constitutional approaches to issues such as gay marriage could be on the table in future trade talks? As South Africans we must not simply beg for investment or bend over backwards to get it no matter the cost. We need to unmask what is going on and ask what the “real” price of investment might be.

This is particularly important given that the language of morality may also find resonance in conservative parts of Africa. Think of the views of some African churches on homosexuality. Will these confluences of interest be used to open more economic doors into Africa for Republican-aligned companies that give little back to local economies? We cannot simply dismiss the right-wing any more or get away with taunts of imperialism. Poking fun at Bush's gaffs on the podium is not enough. A serious analysis of the politics of morality and conservatism and its implications for the developing world is desperately needed. Supporting moral values sounds benign but we must ensure that the debate on morality is detached political projects.

It is time for a renewed interest in the US. We need to reach out to those who do not want morality used negatively. It is time for new alliances with liberals and progressives in the US, many of whom feel besieged in their own country right now. After all, there are only about 1 400 days to the next US election.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 19 November 2004 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Sorry Everybody

Well, this is interesting...a little initiative about the US election in 2004, see Sorry Everybody.

OK, I was wrong...Bush wins

OK, I was wrong in some of my earlier postings...Kerry is not going to be the new US President. All the initial exit poles were wrong. My optimism was misplaced. I am still in Boston and the city is in mourning. Last night I was in a shop and simply greeted a shop attendant saying "Hi. How you doing?". His response, "I'm looking for a new country to live in!". Says a lot, and it is important to realise at this time that 49% of North Americans are deeply distressed by this result (not to mention most of the rest of the world!)...that said, it is small comfort for what is to happen over the next four years...as someone else said to me this morning, "You ain't seen nothing yet...".

Bush is scary...vote Kerry

I am currently in Boston and while walking the lovely autumn streets came across this. I took a picture and thought it rather an appropriate posting for Halloween...

Happy Halloween!

Bush website blocked outside US

Apparently if you are outside the US you cannot visit the campaign site of Bush (as if I was going to!). Wonder what that is about? The BBC reported "Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush. The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it. The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp". To read the full article click here.

Bush launches controversial mental health plan

Jeane Lenzer writes in the British Medical Journal this week that "President Bush announced on 26 July that his administration has begun implementing the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to "improve mental health services and support for people of all ages with mental illness" through comprehensive screening. The plan states that schools are in a "key position" to screen the "52 million students and six million adults who work at the schools" and includes recommendations for screening preschool children. Mr Bush's announcement comes after new reports showing that increasing numbers of toddlers and children are being prescribed amphetamines, anti-depressants, and antipsychotic drugs. Concern that widespread screening will only increase the number of young people taking drugs has triggered criticism of the plan. Dr Daniel Fisher, one of the 22 commissioners responsible for writing the final report for the president, said that widespread screening—at a time when medical education was "geared to the biomedical model and teachers want to get kids fixed"—could result in greater numbers of children being given "a label, a diagnosis, and a medication. What troubles me a little bit," said Dr Fisher, "is that mental health will continue to be used as a substitute for addressing the social, cultural, and economic needs of children." More...

Wild Week with "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore

Michael Moore has published a letter about his movie Farenheit 911, worth a little read. I have published it below:

6 July 2004

Friends,

Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop. "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn't we just lose our distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is Bush packing?

Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:
** More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months.
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III's" record for the biggest box office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a thousand theaters.
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all- time list for largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in wide-release.
How can I ever thank all of you who went to see it? These records are mind-blowing. They have sent shock waves through Hollywood - and, more importantly, through the White House.

Montclair Film / CC BY

But it didn't just stop there. The response to the movie then went into the Twilight Zone. Surfing through the dial I landed on the Fox broadcasting network which was airing the NASCAR race live last Sunday to an audience of millions of Americans -- and suddenly the announcers were talking about how NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took his crew to see 'Fahrenheit 9/11' the night before. FOX sportscaster Chris Myers delivered Earnhardt's review straight out of his mouth and into the heartland of America: 'He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see.' Whoa! NASCAR fans - you can't go deeper into George Bush territory than that! White House moving vans - START YOUR ENGINES!

Then there was Roger Friedman from the Fox News Channel giving our film an absolutely glowing review, calling it 'a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.' Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice surmised that Bush is already considered a goner so Rupert Murdoch might be starting to curry favor with the new administration. I don't know about that, but I've never heard a decent word toward me from Fox. So, after I was revived, I wondered if a love note to me from Sean Hannity was next.

How about Letterman's Top Ten List: 'Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11":

10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing 9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election 8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words 7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported 6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger 5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true 4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe 3. Where the hell was Spider-man? 2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth 1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball

But it was the reactions and reports we received from theaters around the country that really sent me over the edge. One theatre manager after another phoned in to say that the movie was getting standing ovations as the credits rolled - in places like Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City -- and that they were having a hard time clearing the theater afterwards because people were either too stunned or they wanted to sit and talk to their neighbors about what they had just seen. In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end. Ladies' church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping afterwards.

It was this last group that gave lie to all the yakking pundits who, before the movie opened, declared that only the hard-core "choir" would go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." They couldn't have been more wrong. Theaters in the Deep South and the Midwest set house records for any film they'd ever shown. Yes, it even sold out in Peoria. And Lubbock, Texas. And Anchorage, Alaska!

Newspaper after newspaper wrote stories in tones of breathless disbelief about people who called themselves 'Independents' and 'Republicans' walking out of the movie theater shaken and in tears, proclaiming that they could not, in good conscience, vote for George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote of a conservative Republican woman in her 20s in Pensacola, Florida who cried through the film, and told the reporter: 'It really makes me question what I feel about the president... it makes me question his motives'

Newsday reported on a self-described 'ardent Bush/Cheney supporter' who went to see the film on Long Island, and his quiet reaction afterwards. He said, "It's really given me pause to think about what's really going on. There was just too much - too much to discount." The man then bought three more tickets for another showing of the film.

The Los Angeles Times found a mother who had 'supported [Bush] fiercely' at a theater in Des Peres, Missouri:

'Emerging from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11,' her eyes wet, Leslie Hanser said she at last understood. My emotions are just....' She trailed off, waving her hands to show confusion. I feel like we haven't seen the whole truth before.'"

All of this had to be the absolute worst news for the White House to wake up to on Monday morning. I guess they were in such a stupor, they "gave" Iraq back to, um, Iraq two days early!

News editors told us that they were being "bombarded" with e-mails and calls from the White House (read: Karl Rove), trying to spin their way out of this mess by attacking it and attacking me. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett had told the White House press corps that the movie was "outrageously false" -- even though he said he hadn't seen the movie. He later told CNN that "This is a film that doesn't require us to actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies." At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.

Many news shows were more than eager to buy the White House spin. After all, that is a big part of what "Fahrenheit" is about -- how the lazy, compliant media bought all the lies from the Bush administration about the need to invade Iraq. They took the Kool-Aid offered by the White House and rarely, if ever, did our media ask the hard questions that needed to be asked before the war started.

Because the movie "outs" the mainstream media for their failures and their complicity with the Bush administration -- who can ever forget their incessant, embarrassing cheerleading as the troops went off to war, as though it was all just a game -- the media was not about to let me get away with anything now resembling a cultural phenomenon. On show after show, they went after me with the kind of viciousness you would have hoped they had had for those who were lying about the necessity for invading a sovereign nation that was no threat to us. I don't blame our well-paid celebrity journalists -- they look like a bunch of ass-kissing dopes in my movie, and I guess I'd be pretty mad at me, too. After all, once the NASCAR fans see "Fahrenheit 9/11," will they ever believe a single thing they see on ABC/NBC/CBS news again?

In the next week or so, I will recount my adventures through the media this past month (I will also be posting a full FAQ on my website soon so that you can have all the necessary backup and evidence from the film when you find yourself in heated debate with your conservative brother-in-law!). For now, please know the following: Every single fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three teams of lawyers and the venerable one- time fact-checkers from The New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can make this guarantee to you. Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to disagree with them. And the questions I pose in the movie, based on these irrefutable facts, are also mine. And I have a right to ask them. And I will continue to ask them until they are answered.

In closing, let me say that the most heartening response to the film has come from our soldiers and their families. Theaters in military towns across the country reported packed houses. Our troops know the truth. They have seen it first-hand. And many of them could not believe that here was a movie that was TRULY on their side -- the side of bringing them home alive and never sending them into harms way again unless it's the absolute last resort. Please take a moment to read this wonderful story from the daily paper in Fayetteville, NC, where Fort Bragg is located. It broke my heart to read this, the reactions of military families and the comments of an infantryman's wife publicly backing my movie -- and it gave me the resolve to make sure as many Americans as possible see this film in the coming weeks.

Thank you again, all of you, for your support. Together we did something for the history books. My apologies to "Return of the Jedi." We'll make it up by producing "Return of the Texan to Crawford" in November.

May the farce be with you, but not for long,

Michael Moore www.michaelmoore.com mmflint@aol.com

P.S. You can read letters from people around the country recounting their own experiences at the theater, and their reactions to the film by going here.

P.P.S. Also, I'm going to start blogging! Tonight! Come on over and check it out.

Original Source.

Afghanistan...forgotten?

For those interested I would strongly suggest reading Kim Sengupta article on Afghanistan that provides a snapshots of a continuing conflict in Afghanistan. As Kim Sengupta puts it "a war of attrition taking place largely in the shadows with the focus of the world's media firmly fixed on Iraq". Also questioning: "George Bush and Tony Blair made grand promises when they took on the Taliban. They sound hollow now. What does it all mean for Iraq?". Also includes some UNICEF figures like the fact that 1 million girls still need to get into education in the country! Have a read, more...

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

There's an article in the Guardian about a $1.2m study done by US psychologists on "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" which apparently concludes that "conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity" and that George Bush is a textbook case. Now I could have told them that for much less money. Seriously though - clearly there is something about the way Bush and those around him think that seems unpleasant and odd (and even insane) to more liberal-minded people. However, I have my doubts about turning it into a psychological pathology. I think Bush et al. do bad things for selfish reasons and then use dishonest intellectual tactics to justify their actions. I think they sometimes tell deliberate lies and sometimes they just delude themselves. But I don't think they are any more 'neurotic' than the rest of us...

Job growth in the US under all Presidents

Below is a scorecard of job growth in the US under all Presidents since H. Truman.

Clinton First Term: 242,000 jobs gained per month
Clinton Second Term: 235,000 jobs gained per month
Reagan Second Term: 224,000 jobs gained per month
Carter: 218,000 jobs gained per month
Johnson: 206,000 jobs gained per month
Nixon First Term: 129,000 jobs gained per month
Kennedy: 122,000 jobs gained per month
Truman Second Term: 113,000 jobs gained per month
Reagan First Term: 109,000 jobs gained per month
Nixon/Ford : 105,000 jobs gained per month
Truman First Term: 60,000 jobs gained per month
Eisenhower First Term: 58,000 jobs gained per month
G. Bush: 52,000 jobs gained per month
Eisenhower Second Term: 15,000 jobs gained per month
G.W. Bush : 69,000 jobs LOST per month

Posted on Radioleft (www.radioleft.com), 13 May 2003