December, 2009
6
Dec 09
The Astro Black lives, sort of
There are many things that look awesome about Slingers. Ocean’s Eleven in space? Awesome. Sean Pertwee? Awesomer. Something to take the place of the late lamented Firefly in our bitter fanboy hearts? Awesomest.
More awesome than all, however, is that the trailer uses Theme de Yoyo by the Art Ensemble of Chicago as background music, drawing the natural dots between science fiction and avant-garde jazz.
Let’s hope for a guest appearance by Sun Ra in a later episode.
5
Dec 09
An education in terror
David Blair’s coverage of education in Pakistan – more accurately, the lack of education in Pakistan – threw up some interesting stats in the war on terror.
This year the central government will spend 66 per cent of its budget on defence and debt servicing, and only 2.5 per cent on education. Throw in the immense burden of corruption and there is precious little money for schools. The central education budget is only £478 million, or about £6 for each school-age child in the country. Defence, by contrast, receives £2.6 billion according to the official figure – and probably more in reality.
As Blair points out, over the border in Afghanistan primary school attendance for boys (although not for girls) is higher at 66% to Pakistan’s 23%. The situation for girls in Afghanistan is of course dire compared to boys purely because of ideology rather than finance, which is one reason why I don’t share Una Vera’s relative optimism about the position of women.
An entire generation of girls has not missed the opportunities afforded by basic education, and the current crop of female activists in Afghanistan is from the previous generation. Blair’s article is fair-handed about the role that madrassas play in offering rudimentary education to the poor, but he doesn’t look too far to the future. I can’t blame him – it’s not a pretty sight.
Lack of educational opportunities in Pakistan is the single biggest problem the country faces, a timebomb waiting to happen no matter who happens to be in power once the dust of the war on terror settles. It drives an even bigger wedge between the Pakistani elite and the people who they govern, and it closes the door to future growth for Pakistanis in every area of life.
The article does mention that DFID and other actors are investing in the educational system, but that the funding tends to go through the government, which creates problems due to corruption. So here’s an alternative suggestion: why not channel funding through the madrassas, an already existing network of educational facilities?
This gives Pakistan two opportunities. First, it won’t cost as much as starting from scratch, although obviously in areas where there are no facilities, scratch is all we got. Second, it creates more pathways for dialogue between the government and the people, undermining the monopoly that religious groups currently have.
For success, the key thing would be to work with madrassas to expand the curriculum beyond religious study, into relatively non-controversial areas such as science and languages. There’s no reason why, if it’s handled properly, at a future date madrassas could become integrated into the national education system. Not ideal, but better than what exists now.
I have no illusions that this would be ridiculously difficult to pull off, and that neither the government of Pakistan or the madrassas is likely to engage with it quickly, given their ideological antipathy. The tragedy of Pakistan is that nobody else seems to have alternative suggestions – it’s just business as usual, as if state-based education was the only meal on the menu.
4
Dec 09
Free Music Friday
The magic of Soundcloud. It’s music. For free. On Friday.
First, the remix of “Two Sips and Magic” by Nickodemus. Straight up gypsy rock messed up funtime on Kush Arora‘s bass-heavy mixing desk. The original track is a bit of a plodder, but this version gives it a donkey kick and tells it to get back to work.
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/bobbyfriction/nicodemus-sips-magic-kush-arora-remix"]
Anybody who thinks this next track “sounds like Goldfrapp” needs their head examined. The Black Mountain Installation cuts some blues harmonica into a downtempo pitcher of homebrew called “Good Morning Mister Woods”. A 2009 vintage but will probably age well.
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/blackmountain/good-morning-mister-woods-2"]
I’ve got no idea who recorded “Josephine Theme” but it is pleasant. I’d like to hear it in an elevator, but I wouldn’t like to be stuck in that elevator for more than about 17 hours, if you know what I mean.
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/akatim/josephine-theme"]
The magic of YouTube, you already know about. Shugo Tokumaru jumps out of the folk-pop plane and releases his “Parachute”. Whoosh! Watch him float to the ground with musical precision, and there’s no topping that.
1
Dec 09
Remembrance, Forgettance
For the second year running, I spent Remembrance Day in the company of the military, treading water in a sea of green on a parade ground while the army chaplain made me grate my teeth. Nothing to do with him personally – he’s actually a very nice guy and apparently good at his job. The reason I was grating my teeth (for the second year running) was because of a quote that the padre used (for the second year running), paraphrasing words allegedly but apocryphally attributed to Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, a Sergeant in the US Marine Corps:
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
This is part of the great narrative that our militaries (and by our, I mean the western world and their extensions, e.g. anybody who trained at Sandhurst) build their legitimacy on. To a large extent it’s the product of the two World Wars – the First lending us a more romantic view of dying for one’s own country than had ever been felt before (partly because the very idea of dying for your country in the modern sense was quite new), the Second giving us a get-out-of-jail-free card for any future atrocities that might be committed simply because Nazi Germany was so clearly a wrong ‘un.
This miltitary narrative certainly isn’t built on colonial hijinks such as the suppression of the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya, politically-motivated escapades such as the Falklands War or counter-productive “humanitarian interventions” such as Kosovo. However the myth is carried through into those episodes, giving the military something to reassure itself that all is well even when things are going wrong, and also providing the backdrop for civilian discussions about how the military should be used.
So, back to the quote that set my teeth a-grating. I don’t begrudge the military their narrative – everybody needs one just to get through the day, and this narrative at least has the benefit of being positive – but they need to be careful saying things like that in the presence of civilians against whose experience it jars so completely. I like working with the military, but it’s a very specific sort of military that I like working with – the sort that really believes the words of this poem.
I’d love it if the words of that poem were true, but they’re not. The truth is that, for the vast majority of recorded history, the military has been the tool of oppression rather than the defender of freedom. True story. Those freedoms have had to be wrenched from the jaws of the military at great personal cost, and I count myself lucky that I live in a country where the military is checked by civilian balances, where it willingly agrees to those balances, and where it has fought to protect those balances.
This is something solid to hold on to each Remembrance Day, even for a pseudo-pacifist like me, who likes to use Remembrance Day to remember all those who have died in war – on every side, soldier or civilian. Obviously I’m biased towards people who died because they agreed with me, but I assume that I don’t have to excuse myself that. Nor should I have to excuse myself for disagreeing so strongly with the padre’s words, or for working with the military to ensure that, over time, those words become increasingly true. In the meantime, I stand in the back row, teeth grating noisily.