Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that people are donating in their droves – and that various countries are continuing to up their pledges as a result. It looks like since Colin Powell’s visit (it’ll be a real shame when he’s gone) the US may up its donation again, so we can but hope that some real impact can be made.

But as aeuropean rightly says, money won’t solve everything – in the early days they were calling for heavy lifting equipment, now doctors, soon (I hope) they’ll need builders, carpenters and the like to help rebuild. Quite what practical help any of us can be, so many miles away, I have no idea – but every little counts.

Not that I’ve actually helped at all – just moaned like the typical whinging bastard that I am. Nothing’s ever going to be good enough, because the scale of the problem – and not just in the tsunami-affected areas but around the world, as I have pointed out in another post – is overwhelming.

That, of course, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try – but I’m still rather worried about the motivations of certain governments when it comes to this particular tragedy:

• The UK is (almost certainly) in an election year and the Labour government don’t want to be seen to be stingy
• US President Bush is entering his second term, and seems to see placating the largely Muslim Indonesia as a good PR move which may help prove to those sympathetic to those evil terrorists that America isn’t the Great Satan after all
• Most disgracefully of all of these is the fact that India has rejected foreign aid entirely – largely because it wants a place on the UN Security Council, and so wants to prove it can cope on its own

Note: This is a repeat – with a few hastily added links – of a comment I made to one of my earlier posts on the tsunami aftermath

(By the way, to follow up on one of the other comments to that post regarding the relative scale of aid, has anyone else noticed that the United States’ second pledge of $350 million to the tsunami-hit regions is but a tenth of the controversial $3 billion aid promised to that staunch ally in the war on terror (and military dictatorship), Pakistan?)

Le Monde reports that major charity/aid agency MSF has decided to stop raising funds for tsunami victims, largely thanks to the overwhelming response. They have currently received over 41 million euros and, if they carry on fundraising, they’ll apparently end up with more money than they can realistically put to good use.

It’s very easy to start wondering how they can be so stupid as to refuse money – especially (as the same Le Monde article points out) when after the Iranian earthquake just over a year ago so few of the promised funds were actually delivered. Shouldn’t MSF continue collecting – even if only to stash the cash in a high-interest account to be put to other good use later on or to pass the money on to other organisations working in the region? Better too much than too little, surely?

But the level of support for the tsunami victims is quite astonishing – almost unimaginable amounts of money have been pledged by governments and public alike. It is not hard to see aid agencies becoming overwhelmed.

However (as MSF and others have pointed out), it would be rather nice if – at the same time – there could be similar levels of support for other, less photogenically dramatic humanitarian crises in the forgotten corners of the globe.

The recent cover-version of the Band Aid single did well in the run-up to Christmas, but was so utterly dire many people couldn’t bring themselves to buy it. Now the tsunami disaster has blotted out the on-going problems in Africa and elsewhere once again, just as the talentless but well-intentioned pop “stars” behind the charity record seemed about to raise the profile of those dying in Ethiopa and elsewhere once more.

Here’s a thought – if you’re planning to donate to help the tsunami victims, why not bunk a percentage of your planned donation towards the African famine sufferers, and help them out a bit as well?

Nosemonkey would now like to apologise for sounding even more self-righteous than usual.

Go on, you know you want to…

I just caught the start of this interview with ex-European Commission President Romano Prodi on the Today Programme this morning (needs RealPlayer), but what little I did hear seemed to threaten a mini-crisis for pro-Europeans.

There doesn’t appear to be a transcript yet, so this isn’t verbatim, but he said something along the lines of “any referendum on the European constitution is not just about the constitution – it is about the EU itself.”

This is patently bollocks, but as there is a fairly good chance a referendum on this particular constitution may be lost (assuming the UK ever gets around to holding one – which considering how many other referenda have to be won in other member states before ours isn’t that likely), should this be the case the anti-EU cause will instantly be bolstered far more than simply winning the referendum vote. They will also then have a former Commission President’s words to back up their claim that a “no” vote on the constitution is a vote to withdraw from the EU.

We shouldn’t read more into the potential rejection of this constitution than is necessary. If it isn’t approved, a new (doubtless watered-down) version will be drawn up. Considering the complexity and confusion of the current document, this could well be the best thing for Europe.

I am largely pro-EU, and am one of the few people who doesn’t HAVE to who has read the constitution all the way through (fun, fun, fun!), yet I’m still not entirely sure whether I would vote “yes” to ratify it were I offered the chance in a referendum.

Most people haven’t read the whole thing and so will have to rely on biased (either pro or anti) summaries from the press; even if they do read the entire thing, most people are not well enough versed in European law or the language of diplomatic relations to make any sense of the thing.

It’s not a simple push towards greater integration, no matter what the Eurosceptics may claim; equally, it is not simply a tidying up exercise, as the pro-EU camp has argued. Even if you are capable of reading and understanding the constitution in its current form, it’s so bloody big and convoluted it’s nearly impossible to tell what the hell it actually stands for – if, indeed, it actually stands for anything.

There’s no doubt a witty comment about the constitution being a metaphor for the EU itself to be made here – after all, it’s very hard to get agreement on what the EU stands for these days. This is precisely why we need a constitution – but why couldn’t we simply have followed the American model?

Update: Both The Road to Euro Serfdom and Lose the Delusion have takes on this as well – not about Prodi’s comments, but those of EU Secretary General Javier Solana who, while not going as far as Prodi, has stated the obvious fact that if the constitution is rejected there will be consequences for the EU relations of those member states whose citizens don’t fancy it much. This will, of course, largely be because those states which do ratify it will be a tad pissed off that they can’t go ahead and do what they want because people in other countries don’t want to. In other words, the checks and balances of the EU system will be frustrating those who want greater integration, while those who don’t will be able to carry on pretty much as before – the EU project will (for now, at least) progress only as quickly as its most reluctant members will allow.

Update 2: Via the ever-interesting Political Theory Daily Review, a good American summary of the proposed European constitution and its problems: “The document reads more like the by-laws of a very large corporation or a bureaucratic behemoth rather than like a constitution organizing the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government… It could thus seem that this entire proposed “Constitution for Europe” may be the first draft needed to grow the concept out of its initial amorphous neutered stage into an organized system of mature checks and balances… Let’s hope so. A vigorous debate might just create the conditions needed to transfer the discussion from the “artful compromise” full of brilliant yet seemingly paralyzing definitions to the design of a practical fundamental law democratically determined by an in-formed electorate.”

Well, 2005’s off to a good start. Loads of people dead via a natural disaster, ongoing violence in the Middle East and Africa and so on and so on. Now, to top it all, a load of past-it and D-list “pop stars” (including Tony Blair’s favourite God-botherer Cliff Richard, the putridly bland non-talent that is Jamie “mutilating the classics” Cullum and Olivia “I was famous for a bit about 25 years ago, honest” Newton-John) are going to be releasing a single to raise money for tsunami victims.

But hey, every little helps, right? And who am I to point out (as, doubtless, many have already) that the United States’ $350 million pledge (as with the two World Wars, better late than never guys…) is but a tiny fraction of the vast amount of money that has been pumped into Iraq? Who am I to suggest that the cost of the vital reconstruction work in the areas affected by the tsunami has been estimated at less than half what the US has set aside to pay (largely) American companies to get Iraq up and running again?

It’s the hypocracy of the thing. Like the way the British government pledges �50 million and we’re supposed to think “wow, how generous!” when this money is for saving lives. The same government has quite happily wasted BILLIONS of pounds taking lives in Iraq over the last couple of years.

All this bollocks that’s been spouted about the world coming together, holding two minutes’ silence before the fireworks at midnight and the like, is typical of the self-congratulatory attitude of us holier-than-thou Westerners. Look – we care, alright? We held off boozing for a couple of minutes and bunked you some small change! Now shut up and die quietly because that’s all you’re getting, and you should be bloody grateful.

Happy New Sodding Year.

I’m still in the provinces, so nothing new for a while.
In the meantime, donate money to help victims of the tsunami here.

(Geddit? More on – “Moron”? God, I crack me up…)

Following yesterday’s post, there have been a few more responses to the government’s attempts to peer into every aspect of our lives. This will, after all, be dragging on for ages…

DoctorVee reckons I’ve lost all sense of proportion and got a few things wrong, while The Yorkshire Ranter confirms my suspicions that I don’t in a piece that looks into the practicalities of the things a bit more.

In the real world, Labour are soaring ahead in the polls despite (because of?) all this – although Dead Men Left notes that poll support for ID cards is misleading; stripped of its “war on terror” rhetoric, and with the cost of the scheme laid out, it disappears entirely.

Meanwhile, to keep loyalists onside, the rumours start that the Tories may drop their support for ID cards after the election – Guido notes that nearly half the parliamentary Conservative party abstained… Our own blogging Tory, Boris, was one of those who had more pressing engagements – he promises an explanation on Thursday. And during the confusion, UKIP again try to gain more Tory votes.

Where next? Well, if it carries on like this, somewhere warm and sunny overseas is sounding increasingly appealing… As for the kerfuffle over ID – God alone knows. Although I’m increasingly beginning to suspect that the government is suggesting the worst so that we’ll all be massively relieved when these things are finally introduced in a watered-down version.

And for those who aren’t convinced by any of the anti-ID arguments, my main problem with the thing is that I know how crap I am at remembering things. I’ve lost ten cigarette lighters in the last two months – those only cost 50p to replace; no matter how much ID cards will be, I know I’ll be losing the bloody things all the time and object to the introduction of what is – for me – effectively a tax on the absent-minded.

The fact that the government will have a handy database of most of the contents of that mind, as well as the ability to retrace my steps for me to discover the last time I used the thing, just freaks me out.

That’s how many voted against the ID card bill just now. Many more abstained – but let’s face it, that simply isn’t good enough.

Angry and afraid. More tomorrow, if time.