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Fear the prayer of the oppressed, there is no barrier between it and Allah
Tag Archives: Palestine
Reading: Edward Said — Orientalism (2nd time)
Distracting myself from a quartet of books I’ve been struggling with for an age (thanks, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak), I “accidentally” picked up Edward Said’s Orientalism again. It’s been a while since I blearily (and slowly) read an academic book over breakfast; I am well out of practice. I don’t remember how awkwardly his gendered language sat with me in the past as this time around, though he was almost exclusively writing about white European men, nonetheless, Orientalism remains a depressingly relevant and critical read.
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Post-Weekend Hoonage
There is only one guaranteed fix for weekend blahs: hoonage! Looking through all my hundreds of car photos (excluding gifs here: they’re either drifting, burnouts, rally, or LMP1), I think it’s safe to say Frances likes Subaru WRX, Ford GT40, LMP1, rally, and burnouts. And chicks in or doing any of the above.
When I was in Brussels, I went to Autoworld. They had a white Ford GT40 Mk II from Alan Mann Racing. It’s a beast. I’d seen photos, heard it spoken of in awe, but to see it there all metal and gently stinking of fried brakepads, fuel and oil, I got how intimidating and impressive it is. I love this yellow one, especially how it’s slammed. Surprising for me also, cos mostly I dislike American cars. But this was built to win Le Mans, and owes as much to the Europe of that as to the US of auto design.
Above that is the GT40s descendant, the 2016 GT. I mean, faaark, no? Flying fucking buttresses! Pretty sure I’ve blogged this before; definitely Tweeted. Still don’t really like US cars, but come on, this is magnificent. And to hear it braking hard and downchanging, it’s a glorious, frightening work of art.
I’ll likely never afford either, unless I have a spare mid-6 figure or low-7 figure slab of cash. Could afford a WRX STI though! My favourite hoonable car, preferably in metallic blue with gold rims. Nah, actually that’s the only acceptable colours for a WRX. It’s got one of the dirtiest engine sounds around, thanks to the turbo flat-4 boxer. Fond memories of biking up Chapel St in Melbourne on a Friday night with that as the soundtrack. And it’s a fucking legend of a rally car. No poncy suburban pseudo-hoon here. It goes around corners sideways! For a road car, with those rims, the bonnet scoop, the bonkers massive rear spoiler, and the price, Frances, yes, even for you, hoonage is attainable.
Could also be a Volvo. Their equivalent of the STI is Polestar, which has an insanely gorgeous shade of powder blue. Volvo stationwagons are also hoonable. No? Don’t believe me? Volvo raced them in the Aussie Super Touring Championship in the ’90s. Not winning, but the 850 sedan did (and had one of the best ad campaigns—made me want to buy one, something about “The Car to Free Your Soul.”) The fully murdered black S60 Polestar TC1. Look at those fucking insane wheel arches. I’m always joyously delighted Sweden of all places is a country of petrolheads.
Anyway! Burnouts! Lots of countries do them, only Australia does them right. It’s kinda like swearing, not especially eloquent but they make up for it with prodigious consistency. It’s the only country that has replaced the spaces between words with “fuckin’” (also used for capitalisation at the start of sentences, punctuation, as well as actual swearing), and they do burnouts with the same single-minded dedication. Are the wheels on fire? Probably ’Straya. Helps heaps having Commodores and Falcons. It’s like Ford in the ’60s asked Australia, “What are you looking for in a car for such a Lucky Country as ours?” And collectively Australia responded, “Fuckkin’ hooning an’ fuckkin’ burnouts ya fuckkin’ cunt!”
Back in Germany. I’ve seen fleeting examples of Germanic hoonage, mostly in Wedding or the outer suburbs/nearby small towns (of course, god, what else are you supposed to do?) but nothing as concerted as say, Chapel St on a Friday night, though Ku’damm or Friedrichstr are perfect for blockies. Instead we go off to the Nürburgring. I love LMP1 (and quite a few of its Prototype class ancestors), and when Porsche got back in the game—with Mark Webber! I was all, yup, time to sit up all night for the ’ring 24h. (Yeah, I am certainly giving Porsche the side-eye at the moment, being part of VW and all the bollocks of their emissions cheating.) The 919 looks like an alien spacecraft, and sounds all kinds of mad insane alien spacecraft. (As much as I’m not an Audi fan, I gotta admit their LMP1 downshifting could probably give me orgasms, so yeah, even better than the 919). Also at Nürburgring is the simply beautiful Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003C, not quite a GTE, not quite an LMP, sublime to watch racing.
Aaaand, from a documentary on women racing in Palestine, Speed Sisters. Mad hard hoons, them.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime
This letter of attorneys and academics appeared in the Times of London on Sunday. I suggest that all bloggers who agree with it just reprint it so that it is everywhere in the blogosphere. It is a succinct and cogent refutation of the reigning right-Zionist talking points that have dominated American media reporting on this atrocity.
January 11, 2009
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime
ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.
The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.
The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.
For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.
Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.
We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.
Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers
Nothing happened in Palestine
Yesterday, Melbourne’s The Age ran a front page story on a work by two artists in a Flinders St gallery window. The work is a giant Israeli flag, with the text:
“Since the creation of Israel in 1948, 200,000 Palestinians have been killed, 5,000,000 refugees have been created, 21,000 square kilometres of land has been annexed, 385 towns and villages have been destroyed, 200,000 settlements have been built, 300 billion military dollars have been spent, 100+ WMD have been manufactured, 65 UN resolutions have been ignored.”
Naturally, Jewish groups in the city were righteously outraged, just like when Swedish artist Gunilla Skoeld Feiler and Israeli born Dror Feiler caused a fit of apoplexy in the Isreali ambassador at the sight of Snow White and the Madness of Truth.
So today, amid much blustering by State Opposition Robert Doyle, Mayor John So and various Jewish groups that emerge from time to time to denounce anything that slightly criticises their country as anti-semetic, the work was removed. Victoria’s Premier thinks the Mebourne City Council which funded the work has now had an opportunity to “re-examine its policy on what is and what is not art”.
Various civil-liberties groups and Palestinian Delegations have called the censorship “outrageous”, and accused politician of being bullied by small-minded extremist lobby groups.
Amidst all of this though, not one person has called into question the validity of the statistics that caused such an hysterical reaction.
