Nottingham Alternative News Service
Pilot Bulletin No. One - September 2003
Trial issue posted at http://www.veggies.org.uk/news/bullet01.htm
With thanks to Veggies and Sumac Centre
Introducing the Alternative News Service - Learning by doing.
Brian Davey explains about the idea behind a Nottingham alternative news service and this first rough trial issue. This is the news that you won't find in the Evening Post.
Ranjan Chaudhuri discusses the current situation in Iraq and support activities by the Nottingham Friends of the Iraqi People.
Nottingham activists are concerned at the possibility that asylum seekers might get sent back to Afghanistan (and Iraq.) As this report shows, the situation in Afghanistan is not at all safe.
Destitution among Asylum Seekers
An increasing number of people who have been made completely destitute by government policy are in need of support.
Recent list of links on asylum issues
Corruption in Medicine - Article and web links
Brian Davey looks at the influence of vested interests and PR in Nottingham, national and international health politics.
Who are the Terrorists? One Viewpoint
"The successful revolutionary is a statesman,the unsuccessful one is a criminal." said Erich Fromm. Ian Juniper reflects on the use of the term "terrorist" in Northern Ireland.
A report from the Nottingham FoE shows where pollution is a problem - near the hospitals as it happens.
The occasion of the annual Nottingham Carnival causes Mogs to think about what is happening to the Forest Recreation Ground.
Poem by Lord Biro
Reporting a Pub Conversation on Conceptual Art from the Vernon Arms - it's not popular.
Local Nottingham Artist Paul Matosic looks at skeletons
The News that you won't find in the Evening Post -
Our Rough and Ready First Trial Edition
The secret of developing anything is to just get on and do it - and then help it evolve, step by step. The first attempts are not the best because you are still learning. If it is a co-operative venture you are still still coming together as a team, people have yet to get hold of the idea and have still not woken up to the full possibilities. There are inevitably problems to be ironed out. You only see with the benefit of hindsight the pitfalls and the full potential. But that comes.
The idea of a Nottingham Alternative News Service that gives the view of the world that you don't find in the Evening Post, and which exploits the full interactive power of the Internet, has been tossed around by a few people over a number of weeks. A month ago a number of us met at a room we booked at the Broadway and looked at some examples of alternative news services which demonstrate the potential of the Internet. At the bottom of this article you will find a list of the sites we looked at to give yourself the idea - sites like Counterpunch, Information Clearing House, and Indymedia. Then we discussed a host of the issues involved in setting up a Nottingham based service - whether we have a paper based version, where the money comes from, what model we adopt, whether we charge or whether it is free, whether it is entirely DIY produced and open access or whether we exercise editorial control, whether we end up paying people to work on it, whether it's to be produced by a co-operative, a voluntary sector organisation or a not for profit company.......and and and..
You can discuss hypotheticals endlessly and go round and round in circles - in the end we decided to leave many of these things open and just put something rough and ready together as a first issue, seeing what the people present, and people we knew, might submit by the end of August. And this is the result. Or rather this is the result after we met on Tuesday 2nd Sept and discussed what we had got and how it might be edited together.
A lot remains to be sorted out. As we met for the second time at the SUMAC Centre several people there were very sympathetic to the indymedia model. Others of us weren't sure what adopting the indymedia model, as a package, would be tying ourselves into ideologically and practically. There were other issues too, as we looked at the articles and suggestions we had. Some are practical - send us your articles in plain text please - e.g. In an RTF format. One question is why people should look at our service and not go instead straight to Indymedia, or Counterpunch or Information Clearing House. One idea here is that, if the news is not to be presented to passive consumers of information, but is instead to be about your participation as a world and British citizen, then we should present things as connected, if only minimally, to what people are doing in Nottingham. It's not that you can get involved in everything but you need an overview - so if its about Iraq, then articles should ideally be written by the Nottingham Friends of the Iraqi people or should reflect the fact of the coming demonstration on Sept 27th. (Telling you that can get coach ticket from Nottingham by ringing 07947 609401 for example!). That local angle doesn't apply obviously to all things of course and the arts and cultural stuff only needs to be by local artists, making reference to things going on here. We've yet to do links to listings. This first issue has yet to develop all these things - other ideas are that we should have a list of links to organisations events diaries - so you can tell at a click what Veggies, Stop the War, The Refugee Forum, The Trade Justice Campaign, Friend of the Earth and so on are planning for the coming months.
These are the groups that should be submitting their favourite local, national and international news stories and links, posting up what is happening and what Nottingham citizens can do. Also of course this is the place where local artists will be telling us where we can get a bit of culture and enjoy ourselves - as well as expressing their views on which places to avoid to prevent terminal boredom. Ideally in the future we will be prodding a range of people into posting things to the Alternative News Service as a matter of course, adding us to the e mail list of their own members or network. And we should be "commissioning articles" - where the overview that comes with producing this suggest things to us. We will probably be developing an open access system, where groups can post their ideas, actions and messages directly and automatically - yet to be determined is whether in the indymedia format or having some of its open access features. If not I can see that routing all the stuff through someone like me - and an editorial group is going tobe very time consuming!
It's all still to be developed. This first issue is far far less that we can do - but then it's just a first start, the trial run with many features and the full potential still to emerge.
Examples of American alternative news services. (None of these sites are however local or created by activists: http://www.buzzflash.com/ . http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ . http://www.counterpunch.org/
Much more interactive is http://www.smirkingchimp.com .
Indymedia's features are open access http://www.indymedia.org.uk/
The next Open Editorial Meeting to finalise the next edition, and to discuss
further the development of the project, is on Tuesday 30th September, at 7.30pm at the Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone
Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham. (Directions can be found at http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html).
Deadline for next issue - Sunday 28th Sept.
Articles in text file format please (e.g. rtf) by email to news@@veggies.org.uk
Spam filter: delete one of the '@' signs in the address field.
Feedback also invited on content and style.
To include to more projects and people, offers from organisations with an internet connection and meeting space to host subsequent editorial meetings would be welcomed.
International
By Ranjan Chaudhuri, Nottingham Friends of the Iraqi People (NFIP)
The situation and its implications: It is becoming impossible to hide the fact that the level of instability of Iraq is drifting inexorably toward a scenario of civil war in the context of an illegal and unwanted occupation. The latest killing of the moderate and popular Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and an uneasy ally of the coalition (Friday September 30), magnifies and underlines the internal tensions in Iraq. The sheer range of speculation about who was responsible is an indicator of the range of rival interests in Iraq and the potential for violent factionalism. About the only thing the factions agree on is that the occupation is unacceptable, and about the only thing that is clear about the ground situation is that the occupation is thus far failing miserably in its goal of creating a stable Iraq well disposed to the interests of the US and its present administration. It is very difficult to envision a way forward in the current situation. My personal view is while the invasion certainly removed the brutal authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein, the occupation is going to put the Iraqi people in a worse situation. The goal of the US administration was to establish US military and economic dominance to exploit Iraq's oil reserves and geostrategic importance in the Middle East. This is obvious to most Iraqis, and easily explains the broad-based guerrilla resistance the even the US now publicly acknowledges it faces.
Many of us think that the best response for progressives to have is adopt the position of "Iraq for the Iraqis", and work toward an immediate and total withdrawal of the occupying forces, leaving the Iraqis to sort out the resulting mess. My personal view is that this is a problematic position. I believe that the fact and manner of the occupation has left Iraq in a position where immediate and total withdrawal (a demand that is of course going to be completely ignored in any case) will very likely lead to open and savage civil war in Iraq. Instead, I believe that we should use the pressure that the US administration increasing feels over this occupation gone awry to demand that a genuine international coalition take over the administration of Iraq and its transition to genuine democracy. This could be the UN if the dangers of "bluewash" can be avoided, but perhaps it is best to have a peacekeeping force that is led by Arabs or Arab-speaking countries, or a joint UN/Arab League force. In addition, our demands should minimally include that this transitional authority be strictly time-bound, that it alone administer the oil accounts and rebuilding contracts, and that it initiate a bottom-up transition to democracy based on local assemblies electing popular representatives based on proportional representation. Also, the notion that the current coalition has to pay reparations to help the reconstruction should also be prominent in the list of demands. This seems to be the best of a range of bad options rather than an obvious way forward. In the present situation however, the need for humanitarian relief is great, and the latter half of this short article needs to be devoted to that.
Humanitarian assistance: The toll of all this on the "ordinary people" of Iraq is truly stretching them to the breaking point. A generation of instability and security stretching back to decades of war, starting with Iran, leading to the first Gulf War, ten years of devastating sanctions, followed by the present invasion and occupation have meant that an entire generation of Iraqis have lived in a perpetual state of physical deprivation and high mental stress. This is hardest on children and young people, and suggests that even those lucky enough to have escaped the immediate physical violence will have to deal with these mental traumas for the rest of their lives. One tragic implication of this instability and lack of security/ law and order is that relief organisations cannot operate in Iraq with anything near their necessary capacity. As of September 26, for example, the Red Cross is scaling down its operations in Iraq due to security concerns, and as attacks on agencies perceived to be proxies of the occupation inevitably mount, this trend will continue. This spells disaster for the most vulnerable elements of the Iraqi population: women, children, elderly, refugees, poor. A few, primarily Muslim relief agencies will be able to continue to operate in Iraq. Nottingham Friends of the Iraqi People is working with one such agency, Nottingham-based Muslim Hands, to initiate "people to people" solidarity aid projects in Baghdad. Based on a trip to Iraq, we have identified several worthwhile projects that the people of Nottingham can support. And although any help we can provide is likely to be miniscule compared to the need, in this situation such direct links and assistance provide one of the few avenues available to mitigate the suffering of the Iraqi people. For more information about NFIP and its projects, please ring (0115) 875 4761.
Sources of information: Several good sources of information beyond the mainstream media exist for those interested in the ongoing situation in Iraq. I have listed a few here, which in turn contain links to many others.
Electronic Iraq: http://www.electroniciraq.net
Iraq Today: http://www.iraq-today.com/
Iraq Occupation Watch, http://www.occupationwatch.org/
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation, http://www.idao.org/
UN Humanitarian Info Centre: http://www.hiciraq.org/default.asp
Reuters AlertNet Iraq: http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/countryprofiles/216595.htm
ReliefWeb Iraq: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vLCE/Iraq?OpenDocument&StartKey=Iraq&Expandview
Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/index.html
War in Context: http://www.warincontext.org/
Education for Peace in Iraq: http://epic-usa.org/about/test_newsoniraq.php
AFGHANISTAN: Report exposes continuing human rights abuses
By Dr. Lynette Dumble
In late July, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report entitled Killing you is a very easy thing for us, a 101-page documentation of the chief forms of abuse prevalent today in Kabul and the densely populated provinces in the southeast of Afghanistan.
These are violent armed robbery, extortion and kidnapping by armed troops, police and intelligence agents, government-led attacks on fellow politicians and the media, and Taliban-like persecution of women and girls. According to the report, the abuses are not restricted to Afghanistan's southeast, but are 'emblematic' of what is happening throughout the country.
HRW assigns blame for this situation to Afghanistan's infamous warlords, many of whom are remnants of the late Ahmad Shah Masood's United Front (the patchwork of the Mujaheddin or holy warrior factions which is currently referred to as the Northern Alliance) which, bankrolled by the US, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, overthrew the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992.
These factions introduced a reign of terror until they were ousted by the Taliban in 1996. In HRW's words: 'Past and current support for local forces by the US government, along with support by Pakistani and Iranian government agencies, has done much to entrench the warlords responsible for the worst abuses.'
HRW concludes that the responsibility for Afghanistan's post-Taliban terror belongs chiefly to the US administration of President George Bush, and to a lesser extent the country's US-imposed President Hamid Karzai. The report chides Washington for 'propelling the Northern Alliance back into power, failing to take steps against abusive leaders, and impeding attempts to force them to step aside', and Karzai and his political allies within Afghanistan's interim government for being 'overly cautious in their attempts to remove warlords and rotate or dismiss military commanders responsible for human rights violations'.
The overall impact of human rights abuses in Afghanistan is starkly obvious. A climate of terror prevails in a country which has already suffered immensely. Washington's promise of security for Afghan men, women and children remains a distant dream. So does the country's reconstruction.
Amidst the nightmare, troops and police loyal to Afghan political and military figures have taken over most of the country's major cities and villages. They invade private homes, usually at night, to rob and assault civilians, hold residents hostage, terrorise them with weapons, steal their valuables and sometimes rape women and girls.
Outside their homes, under the threat of beatings, arrest, torture and ransom, Afghans face extortion on the roads and at proliferating official and unofficial checkpoints, as do shopkeepers in the market place. The rape of women, girls and boys is common but seldom reported.
The liberty for Afghans promised by Washington at the 2003 constitutional loya jirga [which constructed the current Kabul regime] 'and supposed to be extended following the June 2004 national election' appears doomed as high-level officials in Kabul and warlord commanders in the south-east intimidate journalists and women's rights activists into silence. Those attempting to create political parties or non-government organisations are confronted with death threats and/or arrest.
Many of Afghanistan's journalists have been harassed, threatened, arrested and beaten during the first half of 2003. This has resulted in the country's journalists deciding against publishing critical or objective commentaries.
With the majority of the Afghan population unable to read, and few able to afford television even if they had electricity, radio is the more crucial means of circulating information. Local radio stations broadcast in many cities, but almost all are under the control of the warlord and Northern Alliance-affiliated authorities. One former journalist, now a rickshaw driver, told HRW that he had ceased working as a journalist 'because here in my taxi, to some extent, I am by myself and independent. Journalists, however, have no security.'
Women and girls interviewed by HRW admitted that life in 2003 was better than that under the Taliban, as regulations barring women and girls from studying, working and going outside without wearing a burqa or unaccompanied by a close male relative had gone. However, many, especially in rural areas, explained that they prefer to remain at home rather than risk beatings, rape, abduction and/or forced marriage at the hands of armed men. For example in Jalalabad and Laghman, government officials threatened to beat or kill women not wearing a burqa.
Although around 1 million girls are now enrolled in school, many millions more are not. Many families explained to HRW that they declined to send their older girls to school, even where one was available, for fear that they might be attacked or kidnapped. Returning refugee families who felt it safe to send their girls to school in Pakistan or Iran said they were afraid to do the same in Afghanistan.
"...sexual violence against women, girls, and boys is both frequent and almost never reported. Women, girls, and boys are abducted outside of their homes in broad daylight and sexually assaulted. In some areas girls have been abducted on the way to school. Women and girls are raped in their homes, typically during the evening or night during armed robberies. One attack was seemingly intended to silence a women's rights activist. Cases of sexual violence are also noted in other sections of this report in the contexts in which they occur."
Residents in one district outside of Kabul reported that soldiers were actively discouraging girls from seeking an education. A number of women believed that the troops were acting on orders from the likes of former United Front leaders Abdul Rabb al Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose appalling persecution of women pre-dated the Taliban's atrocities.
According to HRW, the fears of many Afghans stem not only from current abuses, but have their roots in the crimes committed by the Northern Alliance rulers in the pre-Taliban days. As one woman explained: 'We are afraid because we remember the past!'
Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) warned that 'until yesterday, the US and its allies were Jihadi [Mujaheddin]-fostering, Osama-fostering and Taliban-fostering. Today, they sharpen the dagger of the Northern Alliance, a policy which plunges our people into immense fear at re-experiencing the dreadful happenings of the years of the Jihadis' `emirate'.'
Almost two years on, the HRW report has confirmed RAWA's fears.
[Dr Lynette Dumble is the international co-ordinator and director of the Global Sisterhood Network.]
HRW Report is available publicly at: <A HREF=http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/afghanistan0703/>
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/afghanistan0703/</
National
Destitute: asylum seekers pushed on to the street by an official letter
Among the huge number of problems for people supporting asylum seekers and refugees in Nottingham some of the most desperate are those associated with the government's vicious policy of denying any form of benefit to people whose claim asylum too late. This is a collection of links about the government's abuse of human rights, starting with an excerpt from an article that appeared in the Guardian. In later editions we hope to get articles abut the experience of asylum seekers and refugees in Nottingham, and the issues for those supporting them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Refugees_in_Britain/Story/0,2763,1020870,00.html
Excerpt from Article by Angelique Chrisafis, Monday August 18, 2003
The Guardian
Cross-legged on the pavement, Joseph, 28, a Palestinian with mental health problems, was guarding a pink blanket and a packet of custard creams. As the morning's street sweeping machine went roaring through the residential street in Brixton, south London, polishing the curb, he sat amid open bin bags and cigarette butts.
His anxiety pills, prescribed by a doctor in Margate, Kent, had run out. He felt everyone was looking at him.
"I can't think properly. I forget my name, I get insomnia, I'm anxious, nervous, depressed, and I hear voices," he mumbled through chipped teeth. He had not eaten all day, but would not leave his blanket for a boiled egg and bread offered by a refugee charity.
People had been trying to steal his covers, or asking him to move so they could park their car. In the early hours, strange women would approach, asking him for foil. "For drugs, I think. I can't handle it."
Joseph, in the same clothes for a week, felt he presented an odd picture. But not as odd as the 35 others who bedded down with him each night in a neat row down the street on a carpet of cardboard boxes and multicoloured raffia beach mats.
They were from countries including Liberia, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Somalia. Muslim women in hijabs were seen lying on the pavement between rushing to use the toilet in a local pub, fighting their way through baffled drinkers.
One woman nursed a hugely swollen foot from a bomb wound. Others were in tears with stomach infections or were begging for sanitary towels.
In the past two weeks, huddles of asylum seekers have begun visibly sleeping rough in central and south London, and in gardens and car parks in Croydon. It is not a question of a random night spent on a park bench. They have had letters from the government denying them support, in effect leaving them on the street, where they have been setting up permanent "homes" - gathering cardboard boxes.
It is the beginning of what refugee charities and homeless organisations predict could be hundreds of asylum seekers sleeping rough within a few months as the government implements its policy of denying state support, including food and shelter, to asylum seekers who it believes failed to claim refugee status as soon as they arrived in Britain.
The Refugee Council and other refugee charities feel the policy is unfairly hitting genuine asylum seekers who registered the day after arriving in Britain. But the visible problem for the government is homelessness.
Currently, the total number of rough sleepers across Britain is estimated to be 532. Tony Blair, who made a big show of clearing the streets, hit his reduction targets last year. But Shelter, the charity for the homeless, warns the number will now rise dramatically. Once denied support, these asylum seekers face having nowhere to live while their applications to remain in Britain are being decided.
The Refugee Council and similar organisations are unable to house asylum seekers who have been denied support. They feed them what they can but have to lock them out at night. Homeless shelters cannot provide beds without housing benefit. Asylum seekers cannot work and have no means of finding money to pay for beds. Refugee groups lose track of them as they disappear into cities.
"Our hands are tied," said Margaret Lawly, acting chief executive of the Refugee Council. Ben Jackson, Shelter's director of external affairs, said: "This is a complete contradiction of the government's attempt to tackle homelessness."
Two weeks ago the high court heard the story of an Ethiopian, a Somali and a Malaysian left malnourished and destitute on the streets.
Judges ruled that the implementation of the government's policy - section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act - amounted to inhumane and degrading treatment in breach of the European human rights convention. The Home Office is appealing against the judgment and a hearing is expected at the end of the month.
Until this year, all destitute asylum seekers could apply to the national asylum support service for shelter and food while their claims to stay in the UK were processed.
Now the government denies food, shelter and money to destitute asylum seekers if it decides they did not apply for asy lum "as soon as reasonably practicable" after arriving in the UK. There is no right of appeal.
AsylumRights.net: - 'Asylum measures hit people in need of protection' - Compilation
1) Numbers games:Fighting one abuse with another
29/8/03
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1031367,00.html
2) Tough asylum policy 'hits genuine refugees'
29/8/03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Refugees_in_Britain/Story/0,2763,1031511,00.html
3) The Thursday Q&A: Is the government's asylum policy a success? ...
28/8/03
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,1031124,00.html
4) Asylum measures hit people in need of protection
28/8/03
http://www.ippr.org/home/index.php?table=press&id=247
5) Q and A: Fall in asylum numbers
"What does the latest fall in asylum numbers mean?
28/8/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3189361.stm
6) Head to head: Asylum policy
"A refugee group and Home Secretary David Blunkett's discuss the claim that
new figures show the asylum policy is working.
28/8/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3189263.stm
7) Job losses as asylum numbers fall
"Jobs are due to be cut at the organisation which deals with asylum seekers
as
the government announces a fall in applications.
28/8/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3188983.stm
8) Port uses hi-tech asylum controls
"Equipment installed by the UK at the Dutch port of Zeebrugge leads to a
reduction in illegal immigrants heading for Britain.
28/8/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3187761.stm
9) Figures published today show increased border controls denying help to
those
who need it
28/8/03
http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/aug2003/relea132.htm
10) Home Office: Quarterly Asylum Statistics - Second Quarter 2003
PDF file
http://uk.sitestat.com/homeoffice/homeoffice/s?rds.asylumq203pdf&ns_type=pdf
&ns_
url=%5Bhttp://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/asylumq203.pdf%5D
Home Page:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html
Campaign News - legal aid for immigration casework
http://www.jcwi.org.uk/lawpolicy/consultation/consultation.html
11) Electronic Immigration Network Annual General Meeting
www.ein.org.uk
12) Liberty responce: Publicly funded Asylum & Immigration work
Liberty's Response to the Lord Chancellor's Department Consultation Paper:
"Proposed Changes to Publicly Funded Immigration and Asylum Work"
27/8/03
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/resources/policy-papers/policy-papers
-200
3/pdf-documents/asylum-legal-aid-aug-2003.pdf
.
Thanks
Frank Corrigan
Comment
In a pub conversation last night, a young man expressed his surprise that the Atkins diet - that's the one promoted by the meat trade that gives you smelly breath - was developed by a doctor. I can't say it surprises me - if you ask me, regarding medics with scepticism is one of the skills needed to stay healthy. If you think that is overstating, and that I've a chip on my shoulder, then sorry. I can't help it - I can't be "balanced and fair" to the healthcare industry - you see I think it's been extensively corrupted by business and professional vested interest. If you doubt me, read the web links at the end of this article - there's plenty of evidence from very credible sources.
It hasn't just been reading articles that has made me so sour - it has been personal experience. For years I was supposed to have an incurable mental health problem and took unpleasant medication - then I got a job, a life, some direction, developed my own explanatory framework for my emotional turmoil, stopped taking the medication and stopped seeing the psychiatrist. Twelve years later - I'm just fine. Then again - they told me I had an incurable foot problem, for life. I dutifully hobbled around with a painful insole for 2 years - then went to an complementary therapist. Two sessions later, no foot problem and it's not reappeared for 2 years.
I've worked on the edge of the mental health services for 17 years now - and it has made me a total cynic. I worked for years above and beyond the call of duty to help create what is widely acknowledged as a successful model of a community project for people with mental health problems called Ecoworks. But for years now Ecoworks has struggled to survive with barely any funding - its staff running up personnel debts while they work for no pay, because of their commitment to the users. There's no money for a proven project - but there is plenty of new money in mental health in Nottingham. It is going to pay for new drugs and for a mushrooming bureaucracy. I suppose they get the money because they are pursuing excellence.
In the last year I've gone along to meetings organised by a group who have formed themselves into a " Nottingham Mental Health Alliance". The Alliance as pinpointed the chronically catastrophic situation on Nottingham's acute psychiatric wards and got along the local mental health boss , Jeremy Taylor, "to consult". Taylor listened. When he came back again later nothing much had changed. Well, I wouldn't expect that anyway - his organisation is too big, too centralised and too much preoccupied with government agendas to be therapeutic. I gave up trying "to consult" with people like him 15 years ago. The frustration was made me emotionally ill.
To be fair there are some honest and self critical medics who realise the extent of the rottenness. For example, in the last few years there have been a whole series of articles appearing in the medical journals about the over-medicalisation of life and death, and what is called "disease mongering". Medicalisation is the process of defining an increasing number of life's problems as medical problems and interfering in them. Most people want to die at home, for example, but end up dying in hospital. Disease mongering is another problem - the boundaries of treatable illness are widened to sell drugs. Ordinary ailments are turned into medical problems; mild symptoms are oversold as serious; bog standard personal problems turned into medical ones; risks like high blood chloresterol are sold as diseases. A classic is baldness - which suddenly becomes a source of terrible emotional problems as soon as there is a drug for it.
The media coverage of these new drugs is commonly misleading - and the financial ties of the 'experts' cited in the 'scientific studies' go unrevealed. That has been proved, by the way, in other scientific studies (see the references). The PR industry and drug companies regularly downplay the negative effects of drugs and oversell their benefits. That's been clear for years in psychiatry - where a repeated catalogue of disasters go largely ignored and industry critics are sidelined. But there are plenty of cases in other branches of medicine too - as recently with Hormone Replacement Therapy or Viagra. That's not all: drugs are commonly sold where a self help technique would be better - like selling ventolin for asthma instead of learning breathing techniques, or prescribing addictive tranquilisers instead of relaxation techniques. Again, medicines can often be replaced by less invasive complementary therapies.
There's a bigger picture too. While in the rich markets of the first world, medicine and the drugs industry disgracefully oversells itself and proliferates PR lies, its genuinely useful products, and they do exist, are largely inaccessible to people in the countries of the south, despite the greater need. Useful drugs are often sold in these countries more expensively than in the first world. Moreover medical services are so poorly equipped, because many countries are forced to pay all their foreign exchange to international banks to service their debts, that their desperately needed doctors give up, and migrate to the participate in the charade that passes for a health service in our own countries.
By the way, the company which is overseeing the computerisation of the NHS is Kellogg Brown and Root. KBR is also building the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp (and its death row too?). It doesn't surprise at all.
Articles about disease mongering and the PR antics of drug companies
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2003Q1/monger.html
http://www.cmwf.org/media/releases/nejm_release06012000.asp?link=11
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7411/400?eaf
http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/20020420/news/marketingploy.html
http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/20020525/comment/lett07.html
http://abcasiapacific.com/englishbites/stories/s773546.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective/stories/s894964.htm
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15096
Web site of leading critic of psychiatric medicines:
A health organisation with integrity: Medicine Sans Frontiere
Why I did better without psychiatry than with it ( a talk I regularly give on psychiatric nursing courses)
Http://www.sharelynx.com/web/BDavey/KnowThyself.htm
WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS? ONE VIEWPOINT
Bush & Blair would have us believe that the terror bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq is to defend Western values of freedom and democracy. The history of both states shows otherwise. The U.S. supports "terrorism" when it is in their interests (e.g. support for the paramilitary Contras in Nicaragua). People take sides. If they agree with the aims of a particular group, they are "freedom fighters" using "armed struggle". But if they disagree, they are terrorists.
LESSONS FROM IRELAND
Ireland has suffered this sort of hypocrisy from the British state for generations. Britain has been in collusion with Loyalist terror gangs showing that the use of "terror" is not a question of morality but of whether or not it is used for or against British military and political objectives.
The sections of oppressed people who have taken up arms against the state are denounced as "terrorists", and demonised as amoral cowards and psychopaths. Not so. The United Nations itself opposes terrorist acts, but does not condemn those who fight in the struggle for self-rule, independence or freedom from racist, colonial or foreign rule.
"The successful revolutionary is a statesman,
the unsuccessful one is a criminal."
(Erich Fromm, psychologist and philosopher, 1941)
In Ireland, the Republican Movement has been struggling by force of arms over the past decades to force Britain to end the occupation of Ireland. The majority are now involved in a political struggle to secure the re-unification of Ireland. However, the British state has continued to terrorise people and stand by while loyalist thugs terrorise children going to school. They have failed to learn the age-old lesson that repression breeds resistance.
Fighting oppressive regimes has resulted in some horrible incidents and the loss of innocent life. But they are nowhere near the scale of death and destruction wrought by the British and American states defending their strategic global geo-political interests.
When it comes to deciding which side you're on in the present conflict, one thing is certain. The 2 B's and their bombers over not just Afghanistan and Iraq and anywhere else their fancy takes them shows that the "New World Order" is nothing but a euphemism for Barbarism.
Ian B. Juniper,
September, 2003
Local
Nottingham's Air Quality Review
The Nottingham FoE Web Site gives a picture of Local Pollution Problems.
http://nottfoe.gn.apc.org/airpoll.htm .
The FoE point out that local authorities are required to assess pollution hot spots and draw up Action Plans. In Nottingham there are two problem pollutants - Nitrogen Dioxide and Sulphur Dioxide. The latter is a problem in the area around the City Hospital - because of its coal fired boiler and effects part of Sherwood and the Edwards Lane Estate. The hospital is to be asked to change its fuel. Nitrogen dioxide is a traffic related problem and particularly concentrated along the MI, several parts of the Nottingham ring road and the city centre. The area around Dunkirk, the QMC and the University Technical Blocks is a particular cause for concern. The City is consulting for a clear zone in the city centre.
Art and Culture
by Mogs
Mid August and it's time for the annual Nottingham Carnival. And for once the weather was hot as a chilli pepper sauce. I hope all of you who went had a good time amid the sonic mayhem and clouds of smoke from the spliffs 'n barbecues. I know I did, even ended up taking a more active role on Sunday evening until 9.30 when the power was turned off and it was all over for another year.
And there's the rub, 9.30pm only 9.30pm. Understandably the audience didn't seem too pleased either. But the anger at this cultural curfew died down when they realised there was the other curfew of 'last orders' to beat. I mean to say we are talking Carnival, supposedly a time for celebration. Does Mardi Gras finish at such an early time? I think not.
Then there's the security fencing, high police presence including the C.C.T.V van parked up at Gate 16. Will the edited highlights be available at the local video shop I wonder? Anyway most people I spoke to thought that all these security measures spoilt the ambience of the event somewhat. It's as if the authorities begrudgingly allow Carnival to happen at all and would rather such events to disappear into the mists of time.
Which they might do on the Forest anyway. Remember the sad demise of 'Rock and Reggae'. And how many more years will Goose Fair be allowed to continue to be held on the Forest site? I'm not sure there will be a recreational open space to speak of in the not too distant future. The new park and ride tram stop at the Noel Street end has taken up a larger amount of land. While the Mansfield Road end is still under threat from being developed with a new leisure complex. The project has only been shelved.
As the population of this area of Nottingham increases with the development of 'brown field sites' the Forest is an ever more precious asset. It is one of the few city 'lungs' apart from the Arboretum. It would be a crime if it disappeared under a sea of concrete at the behest of the very people who have been entrusted to look after it.
See you all at next years Carnival.
Lake of Hope and Glory
wetland of the free.
Now the Arctic's melted
we're all at ruddy sea.
George Bush has left his Lighthouse
but cannot find his ranch
Coz due to tidal currents
it's bobbing over France.
Tories clad as frogmen
swimming everywhere
scream at floating voters
"We're not as wet at Blair"
Here comes the Admiral Tony
on his battleship
still chasing sea snake Saddam
the guy's a lunatic
Everybody's paranoid,
but now it's shark attack
One swam up the Queen's flagpole
and ate the Union Jack.
A seagull's nicked my giro
my submarine's on tick
Lake of Hope and Glory!
You must be bleeding sick.
You get a high quality of conversation in the Vernon Arms on Sunday afternoon. Well, sometimes. Yesterday the hot topic was conceptual art. The argument was that Joe Public don't understand it and it is putting them off art in general. The argument was also that it's the fault of places like Nottingham Trent University that generates this sort of stuff.
The occaision for this criticism was the latest exhibition at the Angel Row Gallery. Speaking for myself I don't think its conceptual art per se that is the problem but where the concepts are trivial, banal or overworked. Then you go away and think - so what?
This small paragraph is designed to provoke comment by the way. I mean to say - there are enough powerfully important topics in the world that engage the fears and passions - that relate to important questions of life, love, death, politics. So why are the concepts so shallow? If you are a conceptual artist and feel my conceptualisation was too vague and unspecific to be relevant to anything then hit back and say how deeply involved you are and how passionate you feel about your concepts.
Meanwhile here's some art by Paul Matosic. It reminds us that we've got skeletons and when we die, the soft tissue rots away first and the skeleton, is usually the last bit of us left. Paul's skeletons are standing up however and are still in semi transparent envelopes of soft tissue. (Paul what else would you like me to say?)