An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The great porn debate in The Islands: ...The Bahamas Christian Council (BCC) and all of its like-minded allies need to stop preaching spiritual values and start living them...
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day... The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year
The Emergence Of Reggae
jamaica-gleaner
Jamaica, W.I.
The name reggae has come to be accepted by many as the generic name for all Jamaican popular music since about 1960. But to those of us who lived with the music and understand the changes it went through will know that reggae is only one of several types of Jamaican music.
It is different from ska, rocksteady and dancehall, and occupies a specific period which began in late 1967. Jamaican popular music, since 1960, can therefore be roughly divided into four eras, each of which had its particular beat: ska (1962-1966), rocksteady (1966-1967/68), and reggae (1968-1983). From 1983, the prevalent beat was reggae’s offspring, dancehall.
However, there is one period of Jamaican music that has consistently been overlooked by musicologists. It is a period I would choose to call the pre-ska era, the earlier part of which was dominated by Jamaican mento music (approximately 1951-1956) – a type of calypso-flavoured music said to be rooted in the Jamaican slave plantation system and which was indigenous to Jamaica.
Forced to get creative
Between 1957 and 1960, Jamaican music was dominated by rhythm and blues and boogie recordings patterned off the American blues, which was very popular in Jamaican dance halls in the mid to late 1950s.
When the American blues records began ‘drying up’ and disappeared from American record shelves, Jamaican producers, promoters and sound system operators had no alternative but to make and produce their own recordings with the same flavour as the American ones in order to keep their business alive. Recordings like Oh Mannie Oh, and How Can I Be Sure by Higgs and Wilson,Boogie In My Bones and Little Sheila by Laurel Aitken, Muriel by Alton and Eddy andLolipop Girl by The Jiving Juniors were examples of popular recordings during that period, which also marked the birth of the Jamaican recording industry.
The first shift in the Jamaican music beat away from the mento rhythms was observed when Bunny and Skully recorded a cut entitled Another Chance, which Skully himself claimed was done between 1953 and 1954. On the heels of this came the Jamaican rhythm and blues and boogies, which evolved into what became known as the ska beat.
Jamaican popular music then went through several changes, culminating with reggae and dancehall beats. These metamorphoses have impacted reggae music to the extent that it has become an international phenomenon
Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown and Peter Tosh have played more than ordinary roles in establishing this phenomenon. As early as 1968, Marley’s Trench Town Rock and Brown’s No Man Is An Island a year later, signalled the direction in which the music was going. Cliff’s The Harder They Come helped to put Jamaica on the international music map when it appeared in a movie of the same name.
Possessing a sense of conviction, a lack of pretence and a natural intensity in the beat, reggae music grew by leaps and bounds across several continents during the 1970s, bolstered by more than half a dozen top-class albums by the reggae king Bob Marley for producer Chris Blackwell.
Many masters
At home, the initial impact was felt through recordings like The Cables’s Baby Why, The Heptones I Shall Be Released and Alton Ellis’s Breaking Up, among others.
What is most interesting is the many artistes and producers who lay claim to doing the first reggae recording and creating the reggae beat. For all intents and purposes, Toots Hibbert of the Maytals vocal group seemed to be the first to mention the name reggae in a song, although he never ever claimed to be the inventor.
Most musicologists, however, accept Larry and Alvin’s Nanny Goat, done for producer Clement Dodd in 1968, as the first recording with a true reggae feel. It was like the guitar on the delay meshed with an organ shuffle, one source claimed.
But in a sense, reggae combines all the previous forms of Jamaican popular music – the ska riff on top of a slowed down rocksteady bass line, with a touch of mento. Dodd, the producer of Nanny Goat, claims that he returned from England just before the reggae beat started with a few gadgets, like a delay, which influenced that Nanny Goat beat. Singer Stranger Cole, on the other hand, claims that his recording ofBangarang, done for producer Bunny Lee, was the first reggae song. Another record producer, Clancy Eccles, claims he started the beat.
Unsung legend
In the midst of all of this, there was a 1965 recording titled Heavenless by a Studio One aggregation that possessed a distinct reggae beat, yet no mention was ever made of this recording as being the first reggae song.
Many musicologists agree that the birth of reggae was a spontaneous act born out of experimentation with the existing rocksteady beat. Others claim it was a deliberate attempt by some musicians to change the beat from rocksteady to something that was more lively and exciting. The theory has also been advanced that new producers like Eccles, Lee Scratch Perry and Bunny Lee, couldn’t always get the regular musicians, who almost invariably worked for Dodd and Duke Reid, so they resorted to less-experienced musicians who tried something different and unwittingly created a completely new rhythm.
Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day. The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year.
January 15, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut
S&P downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut
Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their top ranking, a move that may complicate the currency union’s efforts to endure a worsening debt crisis.
The triple-A ratings of France and Austria have been cut by one notch to AA+, the agency said in a press release.
Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia also suffered a one-notch downgrade, while the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus have been cut by two levels.
"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone," the agency said on its website.
Germany, by far the strongest economy in Europe and main contributor to Europe’s bailout fund for troubled economies, as well as Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg maintained their triple-A ratings.
A deal reached by the EU countries during the Decemebr 9 summit in Brussels, which provides for the creation of a fiscal union to deepen the integration of national budgets, "has not produced a breakthrough of sufficient size and scope to fully address the eurozone's financial problems," the agency said.
"In our opinion, the political agreement does not supply sufficient additional resources or operational flexibility to bolster European rescue operations, or extend enough support for those eurozone sovereigns subjected to heightened market pressures," the statement reads.
MOSCOW, January 14 (RIA Novosti)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy
Understanding Bahamian parliamentary democracy
Front Porch
Today, 45 years to the day of the attainment of majority rule, there is chronic and widespread ignorance of our system of government and national constitution. Sadly, no longer surprisingly, so-called “informed” people in civil society, academia, business and “the press corps” are among the woefully uninformed.
Many of them regurgitate effluvia on the supposed problems of our parliamentary democracy on matters ranging from “checks and balances” to collective responsibility and the constitutional powers of the prime minister.
Mesmerized by American politics including the theatrics that substitute for news on U.S. cable news, some local commentators cannot utter “checks” without mindlessly adding “balances”, with seemingly limited appreciation for either term.
The supposed corrective measures to repair our supposedly broken democracy are, to paraphrase attorney Andrew Allen in the context of shallow arguments for term limits, superficial non-solutions to imaginary problems.
One recent and egregious example is an opinion piece entitled, “The Bahamas: A Constitutional Dictatorship?” The commentary is callow. It lacks depth and breadth. One wonders how conversant the columnist is with the Bahamian constitution, our constitutional history and the rudimentary history and philosophy of parliamentary democracy.
Noise
It is important to have a diversity of opinion on the issues of the day. But opinion devoid of or sloppy with facts, by personalities helping to form the opinions of others through talk radio, television, the Internet and in the print media, is just more noise. Public dialogue is impoverished not enriched when opinions are divorced from critical thinking and fact-finding.
The column in question descended into unthinking rhetoric and a cavalcade of contradictions partly because it was based on and began with false premises, so nauseatingly repeated that they have become accepted as fact:
“We have an anachronistic, colonial governance system that is no longer suitable for the needs of our developing nation in this 21st century. We inherited this Westminster system of governance from the British.”
It is difficult to take seriously opinions that get basic facts wrong. To discuss the issue of governance we need to get our language and concepts in order. The appellation Westminster system of governance is not quite precise and misses some critical differences between Bahamian and British parliamentary democracy.
For instance, at Westminster the British parliament is sovereign. There is no supreme law or written constitution in Britain. By a simple majority of parliament in Britain fundamental rights can be altered and the monarchy itself can be abolished.
The Bahamas has a written constitution with clearly defined checks on power. Before certain fundamental provisions of the constitution (entrenched and specially entrenched) can be changed, a two-thirds or three-quarters majority vote of both Houses of Parliament is required.
Furthermore, the proposed changes must be approved by the electorate in a referendum before they can become law. This process is an innovation that is not enjoyed by all parliamentary democracies, including some in the Caribbean.
It gives the Bahamian people direct control over the fundamental provisions of the Constitution, including provisions relating to citizenship, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the establishment of our national governmental institutions.
There are frameworks, templates and provisions utilized by most countries, including former British colonies, in the drafting of national constitutions. Still, The Bahamas does not have a cookie cutter constitution. Any suggestion to that effect is misleading and does not fully acknowledge or appreciate the role played by our constitutional fathers in the framing of the independence constitution.
Larger
A number of the customs and traditions used in the much larger British parliamentary system are not germane to and would be unworkable in our context. With a 650-member House of Commons compared to our much smaller House of Assembly, our practice of parliamentary democracy is necessarily different.
The assertion that we have a colonial system of governance in itself is patently not true. Furthermore, it contradicts the assertion, made in the same breath, that we have a Westminster model of governance.
Under the colonial system of governance the Colony of the Bahama Islands had a parliament that was, in the words of the late Bahamian constitutional expert the Hon. Eugene Dupuch, “representative but not responsible”.
There was no Cabinet, but there was an Executive Council, presided over by the British governor, who enjoyed enormous power. There was also a system of boards, forerunners to government ministries, with the governor enjoying ultimate control over major decisions by the boards.
The dismantling of that colonial system began with the 1964 Constitution that was negotiated in London the previous year. That Constitution ushered in a large measure of internal self-rule with the British governor still retaining some powers including defense, security and foreign affairs. That process continued with the 1969 Constitution, when more power devolved to the Cabinet, and was completed with the Independence Constitution of 1973.
Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy. While there were differences between the Bahamian political parties at the Independence Conference on a few matters relating to rights, there was general agreement on matters of governance.
We no more have a colonial system of governance than India, Australia, Jamaica, Barbados or Canada, fellow parliamentary democracies in the Commonwealth of Nations. Anything but anachronistic, this system has proven to be durable, flexible and workable across cultures, countries and centuries.
Unfortunately, many who should know better believe that parliamentary democracy itself is antiquated, and that the United States has a better system of government, and one that is inherently more advisable or workable. This is a fallacy to which we will have to return.
There are many non-Commonwealth nations which have opted for parliamentary democracy. They have similarly discovered a certain genius within the system, the rudiments of which are hundreds of years old having evolved into one of the more effective systems of government in human history.
Jan 10, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
...how The Bahamas could effectively create a new industry by focusing on renewable energy...
RENEWABLE ENERGY 'AMAZING CHANCE' FOR DIVERSIFICATION
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
Nassau, The Bahamas
THE Bahamas has an "incredible opportunity" to diversify its economy by becoming a renewable energy exporter, a leading Caribbean expert yesterday saying it could emulate Israel's 92 per cent penetration rate if it acted now to prevent the competition "blotting it out".
Jerry Butler, chairman and principal consultant of the Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF), said matching the likes of Israel on sustainable energy take-up was "not a pipe dream" for the Bahamas if the political will and leadership were there, and the correct plan implemented.
Noting the Bahamas' renewable energy export potential, given its proximity to the US, the world's largest energy consumer with 25 per cent of the global market, Mr Butler added that a substantial domestic industry could be created through cutting this nation's annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill by 25-33 per cent.
Noting the regional lead established by the likes of Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, the latter of which has a 95 per cent residential solar water heater penetration rate, the CREF chairman said his organisation had helped the latter nation to create a $10 million smart fund for renewable energy investments.
After the CREF conference was staged in Barbados last year, that fund attracted another $80 million, funds now available for Barbadians to partner with international financiers and developers on renewable energy projects.
Explaining how the Bahamas could effectively create a new industry by focusing on renewable energy, Mr Butler said: "It's a policy and never-ending journey that starts from the top....."
Noting the "age old focus on diversification" of the economy, Mr Butler, the former Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) country head for the Bahamas, added: "I truly believe that given what I've been able to accomplish with my team elsewhere in the Caribbean, a diverse sector of opportunity the Bahamas should focus on is renewable energy, both for domestic and security needs, and opportunities for international export."
This nation's proximity to the US, the nation that consumes 25 per cent of the world's energy supplies, meant "an incredible opportunity exists for us to provide a client base and financing to help the Bahamas' prosper".
Mr Butler, giving a preview of his contribution to this Thursday's Bahamas Business Outlook conference, said: "The incredible opportunity we have in the Bahamas will be lost to other jurisdictions if we do not take the chance to move on it on an erstwhile, consistent and well thought-out method. "
When asked by Tribune Business how long the Bahamas' window of opportunity to become a renewable energy leader would last, Mr Butler said: "Our window of opportunity will last as long as oil prices continue to rise, and as long as the competition remains in a working condition that has not blotted us out."
Multiple jurisdictions had plans to not only embrace renewable energy domestically, but export it. As examples, Mr Butler referred to Trinidad's 2020 policy, which aims to build on its own substantial gas and energy reserves to pave the way to renewables, and Barbados's 2025 policy, which speaks to growing this as a sector.
A Barbadian renewable energy company, he added, already had two representatives in the Bahamas, and was looking to export some 100,000 solar water heaters to other Caribbean nations.
"A Bahamian could very much have been involved in doing that," Mr Butler said. "The window of opportunity is there as long as the competition does not blot us out."
Apart from export opportunities, the CREF chairman said the Bahamas' annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill gave it the chance to develop a sustainable renewable energy sector for supplying the domestic market.
Just seizing a 30-40 per cent market share from fossil fuels would free up $300-$400 million annually for a renewable energy industry, Mr Butler said. "That's a lot of people they can employ," he added.
The CREF chairman added that he had driven from south to north Brazil without having to fill up his car once with fossil fuels. The Latin American nation, which has one-quarter of the Bahamas' per capita GDP, had reduced its fossil fuel reliance through ethanol and ethanol derivatives, and there was no reason why this nation could not follow suit.
Pointing out that the Bahamas Electricity Corporation's (BEC) financial and generational inefficiencies were not new, Mr Butler said its reliance on fossil fuels to run generators that were primarily slow speed diesel was "unsustainable".
"BEC cannot continue to be subject to world oil prices and pass them on to you as a surcharge," Mr Butler added. But, if it was able to derive a percentage of its generation needs from renewable sources, the impact of oil price volatility would be reduced, and the outflow of US dollars and foreign currency reduced.
Describing this as "a win-win" for utilities such as BEC, Mr Butler suggested the Bahamas could even split off power generation from its distribution and transmission. Depending on how it was implemented, this could permit businesses and homeowners to receive credits for selling excess power back to the BEC grid, and allow independent power producers (IPPs) to reach commercial agreements with BEC to supply it with electricity.
This would ultimately reduce electricity prices for Bahamian consumers, who have to put up with fuel surcharges that have averaged $0.28 per kilowatt hour (KwH) over the past two years. This compared to $0.42 per KwH in Jamaica, but just $0.18 per KwH in Miami.
Mr Butler said Bahamian homeowners could likely install solar power to run their homes at a $0.19 per KwH cost, "empowering" themselves and steering the country in "a totally different direction" on energy.
Noting that it was not impossible to see the day when the likes of the airport, hotels and government buildings had solar panels installed on the roof, Mr Butler said Germany - which saw sun for just two-thirds of the year maximum - already had a 26 per cent renewable energy penetration rate.
"It's a totally different visionary concept for what could be in the Bahamas," Mr Butler said. "It's not a pipe dream. This is workable for the Bahamas. We just need a vision that can be implemented with the right people, and need Bahamians behind it to sustain it."
Mr Butler added that by just focusing on energy conservation and efficiency, though initiatives such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, and placing timers on hot water heaters, the average electricity bill could be cut by 40 per cent.
January 10, 2012
tribune242
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
Nassau, The Bahamas
THE Bahamas has an "incredible opportunity" to diversify its economy by becoming a renewable energy exporter, a leading Caribbean expert yesterday saying it could emulate Israel's 92 per cent penetration rate if it acted now to prevent the competition "blotting it out".
Jerry Butler, chairman and principal consultant of the Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF), said matching the likes of Israel on sustainable energy take-up was "not a pipe dream" for the Bahamas if the political will and leadership were there, and the correct plan implemented.
Noting the Bahamas' renewable energy export potential, given its proximity to the US, the world's largest energy consumer with 25 per cent of the global market, Mr Butler added that a substantial domestic industry could be created through cutting this nation's annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill by 25-33 per cent.
Noting the regional lead established by the likes of Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, the latter of which has a 95 per cent residential solar water heater penetration rate, the CREF chairman said his organisation had helped the latter nation to create a $10 million smart fund for renewable energy investments.
After the CREF conference was staged in Barbados last year, that fund attracted another $80 million, funds now available for Barbadians to partner with international financiers and developers on renewable energy projects.
Explaining how the Bahamas could effectively create a new industry by focusing on renewable energy, Mr Butler said: "It's a policy and never-ending journey that starts from the top....."
Noting the "age old focus on diversification" of the economy, Mr Butler, the former Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) country head for the Bahamas, added: "I truly believe that given what I've been able to accomplish with my team elsewhere in the Caribbean, a diverse sector of opportunity the Bahamas should focus on is renewable energy, both for domestic and security needs, and opportunities for international export."
This nation's proximity to the US, the nation that consumes 25 per cent of the world's energy supplies, meant "an incredible opportunity exists for us to provide a client base and financing to help the Bahamas' prosper".
Mr Butler, giving a preview of his contribution to this Thursday's Bahamas Business Outlook conference, said: "The incredible opportunity we have in the Bahamas will be lost to other jurisdictions if we do not take the chance to move on it on an erstwhile, consistent and well thought-out method. "
When asked by Tribune Business how long the Bahamas' window of opportunity to become a renewable energy leader would last, Mr Butler said: "Our window of opportunity will last as long as oil prices continue to rise, and as long as the competition remains in a working condition that has not blotted us out."
Multiple jurisdictions had plans to not only embrace renewable energy domestically, but export it. As examples, Mr Butler referred to Trinidad's 2020 policy, which aims to build on its own substantial gas and energy reserves to pave the way to renewables, and Barbados's 2025 policy, which speaks to growing this as a sector.
A Barbadian renewable energy company, he added, already had two representatives in the Bahamas, and was looking to export some 100,000 solar water heaters to other Caribbean nations.
"A Bahamian could very much have been involved in doing that," Mr Butler said. "The window of opportunity is there as long as the competition does not blot us out."
Apart from export opportunities, the CREF chairman said the Bahamas' annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill gave it the chance to develop a sustainable renewable energy sector for supplying the domestic market.
Just seizing a 30-40 per cent market share from fossil fuels would free up $300-$400 million annually for a renewable energy industry, Mr Butler said. "That's a lot of people they can employ," he added.
The CREF chairman added that he had driven from south to north Brazil without having to fill up his car once with fossil fuels. The Latin American nation, which has one-quarter of the Bahamas' per capita GDP, had reduced its fossil fuel reliance through ethanol and ethanol derivatives, and there was no reason why this nation could not follow suit.
Pointing out that the Bahamas Electricity Corporation's (BEC) financial and generational inefficiencies were not new, Mr Butler said its reliance on fossil fuels to run generators that were primarily slow speed diesel was "unsustainable".
"BEC cannot continue to be subject to world oil prices and pass them on to you as a surcharge," Mr Butler added. But, if it was able to derive a percentage of its generation needs from renewable sources, the impact of oil price volatility would be reduced, and the outflow of US dollars and foreign currency reduced.
Describing this as "a win-win" for utilities such as BEC, Mr Butler suggested the Bahamas could even split off power generation from its distribution and transmission. Depending on how it was implemented, this could permit businesses and homeowners to receive credits for selling excess power back to the BEC grid, and allow independent power producers (IPPs) to reach commercial agreements with BEC to supply it with electricity.
This would ultimately reduce electricity prices for Bahamian consumers, who have to put up with fuel surcharges that have averaged $0.28 per kilowatt hour (KwH) over the past two years. This compared to $0.42 per KwH in Jamaica, but just $0.18 per KwH in Miami.
Mr Butler said Bahamian homeowners could likely install solar power to run their homes at a $0.19 per KwH cost, "empowering" themselves and steering the country in "a totally different direction" on energy.
Noting that it was not impossible to see the day when the likes of the airport, hotels and government buildings had solar panels installed on the roof, Mr Butler said Germany - which saw sun for just two-thirds of the year maximum - already had a 26 per cent renewable energy penetration rate.
"It's a totally different visionary concept for what could be in the Bahamas," Mr Butler said. "It's not a pipe dream. This is workable for the Bahamas. We just need a vision that can be implemented with the right people, and need Bahamians behind it to sustain it."
Mr Butler added that by just focusing on energy conservation and efficiency, though initiatives such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, and placing timers on hot water heaters, the average electricity bill could be cut by 40 per cent.
January 10, 2012
tribune242
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Has neoliberalism knocked feminism sideways?
By Rahila Gupta
How should feminists read our current times? A major economic crisis rocks tthe developed world. While austerity measures don’t appear to be working across Europe, the mildly Keynesian efforts of Obama to kick-start the US economy have had only a marginal effect. The Occupy movement has gone global and the public disorder in the summer, with more disorder being predicted by the police, are an indication of deep discontent with the system. Yet we have seen an enthusiastic and vibrant third wave of youthful feminism emerge in the past decade. At the rate at which these waves arise, it will be some time before the rock of patriarchy will be worn smooth.
The current phase of capitalism – neo-liberalism – which began with Thatcher and Reagan in the 1970s, promotes privatisation and deregulation in order to safeguard the freedom of the individual to compete and consume without interference from a bloated state. According to David Harvey, a Marxist academic, the world stumbled towards neo-liberalism in response to the last major recession in the 70s when ‘the uneasy compact between capital and labour brokered by an interventionist state’ broke down. The UK government, for example, was obliged by the International Monetary Fund to cut expenditure on the welfare state in order to balance the books. The post-war settlement had given labour more than its due, and it was time for the upper classes to claw these gains back.
The fact that second wave feminism and neoliberalism flourished from the 1970s onwards has led some to argue, notably Nancy Fraser, that feminism ‘served to legitimate a structural transformation of capitalist society’. I am with Nancy Fraser in so far as she says that there is a convergence, a coinciding of second wave feminism and neo-liberalism, even that feminism thrived in these conditions. It is well known that in an attempt to renew and survive, capitalism co-opts the opposition to its own ends. If part of the project of neoliberalism is to shrink the size of the state, it serves its purpose to co-opt the feminist critique that the state is both paternalistic and patriarchal. Critiques of the nanny state from the right may chime with feminist concerns. However, the right has little to say about patriarchy. What is left out of the co-option process is equally significant. The critique of the state mounted by feminists such as Elizabeth Wilson when state capitalism was at the height of its powers suited neoliberal capitalists seeking deregulation and a reduced role for the state.
Fraser’s analysis does not explain the current resurgence of feminism at a time when the shine of neoliberalism has faded. It is not so much that feminism legitimised neoliberalism, but that neoliberal values created a space for a bright, brassy and ultimately fake feminism - the ‘I really, really want’ girl-power ushered in by the Spice Girls. This transitional period between second wave and the current wave of feminism (which some commentators characterised as post-feminist) represented the archetypal appropriation of the feminist agenda, shorn of its political context, by neoliberalism. Incidentally, many of us rejected the label post-feminist because it felt like an attempt to chuck feminism into the dustbin of history and to deny the continuing need for it. In hindsight, there was something different going on in that lull between the two waves in the 70s and 80s and today; the voice of feminism was being drowned out by its loud, brassy sisters.
If the culture of neoliberalism had something to offer women, it was the idea of agency, of choice freely exercised, free even of patriarchal restraints. It emphasised self-sufficiency of the individual while at the same time undermining those collective struggles or institutions which make self-sufficiency possible. The world was your oyster – all you needed to do was compete successfully in the marketplace. The flexible worker, in order to make herself acceptable to the world of work, may even go so far as to remodel herself through cosmetic surgery, all the while under the illusion that she was in control of her life. In her essay on ‘Feminism’ in a forthcoming book, Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, Clare Chambers argues that liberal capitalism is committed to what she calls the ‘fetishism of choice’. If women choose things that disadvantage them and entrench differences, it legitimates inequality because the inequality arises from the choices they make. The few women who do well out of the sex industry do not believe that their work entrenches inequality because it is freely chosen, because prostitution is seen as a liberation from the drudgery of cleaning jobs. Choice is their weapon against feminist objections. In their so-called free expression of their sexuality, they are challenging nothing in the neoliberal schema because the work reduces women to the status of meat and commodity.
Neoliberalism had other impacts: on the actual day-to-day political and social commitments of those concerned with gender justice. At first feminists stood to benefit from the state’s gradual shedding of its functions which began under Thatcher, in that classic double-edged way in which capitalism operates. Southall Black Sisters (SBS) was founded in the same year that she came to power. We who set up anti-racist, feminist and other community groups in the 80s complained that we were providing services which should have been part of the remit of the state – and that we were doing it for half the cost at the expense of our pensions (none), maternity rights (shockingly for a feminist group, none), working all the hours in the day with no employment protection – all this self-exploitation justified by our commitment to the cause. The up side of it was that the service we provided was grounded in political insights into the nature of patriarchy, racism and class.
But this was only the half of it. Over the next thirty years, the grants culture morphed into contracts and commissioning. Why? Partly because neoliberal ideology popularises the view that grants make us complacent whereas commissioning brings in competition, the ideal Petri dish for human development. But competition for funding destroyed the solidarities we worked so hard at building with other women’s groups. ‘Value for money’ concerns led to the introduction of targets; meeting them sometimes needed an element of creativity – how do you quantify success in supporting a woman facing domestic violence if she does not choose to leave her violent partner? These outcomes take a long time and the short-termist, box-ticking culture of neoliberalism destroys the integrity of such work.
Fortunately, the neoliberal project of rolling back the state is not yet complete; some of the state institutions from the earlier, statist period came to SBS’s rescue. The judiciary, hardly a bastion of progressive wisdom, put a break on the commissioning process when SBS challenged Ealing Council’s decision to offer the domestic violence “contract” to all comers without having carried out a proper race equality impact assessment first. It was the equality duties placed on the state as a result of earlier political campaigns which, in this case, attempted to inject equality concerns into a depoliticised culture which is what neo-liberalism aims to create.
Additionally, the ‘best value’, the more for less principle opens the door to any provider as long as they can prove that they have some track record. It is precisely this de-politicised culture that allowed the Home Office to take away the contract from POPPY for services to trafficked women, the foremost agency in the field, and award it to Salvation Army. It didn’t matter that the women may not have easy access to abortion advice or services, that the service is provided within a strong Christian ethos, that the umbrella body, Churches Against Sex Trafficking in Europe or CHASTE - to which the Salvation army belongs, also bids for government contracts to lock up trafficked women on their way to being deported in the same safe house where trafficked women are fighting for their right to remain; one building is both prison and refuge. The climate in which we operate has become so depoliticised that agencies in the field who want to differentiate themselves from the faith sector call themselves the ‘violence against women sector’ and not feminists!
While the state plays an important role in safeguarding the rights of women, a state in hock to the neoliberal project can damage the health of vulnerable sections of society. Black women, in particular, are alive to the contradictions that the state polices their communities more heavily and uses harsh immigration rules instead of better resources when we turn to it for protection against issues like forced marriage.
This marketisation of the voluntary sector is neoliberalism’s attempt to find new markets. It thrives on the continuous expansion of markets; hence the growing privatisation of what had been regarded as off-limits – public utilities, education, prisons, social housing – but we are reaching saturation point. Neoliberalism is no longer delivering growth in the developed world, and therefore profit, the holy grail of capitalism as we can deduce from the mess in Europe and America. David Harvey believes that the main achievement of neo-liberalism has been re-distributive; money has flowed from the poor to the business elites. Our latest budget makes the poor rather than the rich pay for growth programmes to kick start the economy. In Brazil, Nestle has targeted people earning less than $2 a day by launching a floating supermarket along the Amazon selling fizzy drinks and milk powder – so we have the obscenity of obesity and malnourishment sitting side by side. If this is not scraping the barrel then I don’t know what is.
I believe we are witnessing an implosion of neo-liberalism but the opposition to it has yet to take a concrete shape. As Elaine Husband of the New Democratic Party in Canada said, people are tired of being trickled down on. How do we re-capture the state from the neoliberal project to which it is in hock? What is the way forward? A new society hovers on the horizon and feminism should play an important part in shaping it.
I’m no Mystic Meg but here are some issues worth considering: Resistance is important. That’s one of the reasons why the neoliberal project developed unevenly. Thatcher privatised many things, but left the NHS alone because there would be fierce resistance although David Cameron seems less daunted by it; women have often been the
backbone of resistance movements, from the miners’ wives onwards to Skychef and Gate Gourmet, second wave feminists from the 70s are both strengthened by and need to nurture the current wave; we need to let go of growth as a gold standard of economic health. Serge Latouche, a French academic, argues for 'degrowth' or contraction economics. Growth in terms of meeting real human need makes sense, growth achieved through consumerism does not; the market needs the state more than the state needs the market as we have seen from the massive injection of government funds to rescue the banking sector; neoliberalism has encouraged the growth of a permanent underclass, usually made up of illegal immigrants and predominantly women in some categories, who live completely outside the system, which makes a nonsense of democracy’s commitment to universalism.
Feminism needs to guard against atomisation – which is what neoliberalism thrives on. We should be a transformative movement, should recognise, understand, analyse what damage neo-liberalism has done to all our traditional allies. We need to get involved in the major movements of our time, to redraw the links, participate in Occupy London, fight religious fundamentalism as well as sexual violence, wage inequality and poverty. These may be old goals for a new culture but they can do with re-stating as we haven’t got there yet.
This article stems from an ippr roundtable discussion on Gender Justice, Society and the State, held in December 2011 to examine the role of the state in delivering gender justice and whether the culture of neo-liberalism had anything to offer women.
4 January 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Caribbean: Where tyrants and terrorists prowl at ease!
By Rebecca Theodore
Behold the tyrant! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran is intensifying bilateral relations with ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America) in the Caribbean. Amidst escalating threats in the Strait of Homuz, a dispute between Teheran and the West over the manufacture of atomic weapons, Iran is feeding uranium into its first and only nuclear power plant and strengthening ties with Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Foreign terrorists have national identity cards that identify them as Venezuelan citizens.
“Lord have mercy,” they cry. There is a lethal, anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, loose in the Caribbean. Has President Obama failed in his efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program? Why are we vulnerable after billions have been spent to fight insurgents and terrorist in the Middle East?
And they utter profanities against the ghost of Einstein.
American embassies, consulates, corporate headquarters, energy pipelines and Jewish-sponsored community centers and citizens are ready targets but American officials are asleep at the wheel.
“If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” is their only pronouncement but, regrettably enough, that fist is tightly clenched.
There is no extended hand.
As yellow smoke whirls into light, Iran cajoles in its Hezbollah presence in Latin America, and ALBA nations are rapidly becoming aides in the acquisition of nuclear weapons of the apocalypse. Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda are conceding their freedoms in the political and economic domains and are no longer free negotiators within the assemblies of CARICOM.
But they don’t care.
Venezuela has at last ruptured CARICOM’s hymen from behind. The bandage of trust bleeds. The birth of a modern ‘Frankenstein monster’ yields into being.
A “doppelganger!” I learnt from the papers that Chavez and Ahmadinejad share joint paternity.
Out from the murky, quivering flames Ahmadinejad hastens the return of the Twelfth Imam in genocidal tempest right on America’s southern doorstep.
Will Islamic terrorist bombs rain in Atlanta, Washington and New York as well?
And in the midst of flames tossing against the firmament, I lay speechless. Nuclear energy was once the hope of humanity's future. The atom promised a boundless supply of power and possibly world peace but now faces are placed on stories of leukemia, breast cancer, stillbirths, and government deception.
I look out my window. It’s swampy, almost glaucous, and military advocates, peace activists and disillusioned scientists stare in amazement. The batteries of life are spent. Scientific discoveries of nuclear weapons are our own demise. Our pristine Caribbean home is now a nuclear waste dump.
Herein lies the harsh realities of the ideal.
January 9, 2012
caribbeannewsnow
Like something from the planet Krypton, a blinding flare and surreal atmospheric light disguise the cerulean beauty of the Caribbean Sea. Fear revels in the image of a radioactive glow and mushroom clouds soar in swirling winds. Oceans can no longer separate sovereign nations from massive meltdowns. A despot prowls at ease in my backyard. He denounces American imperialism and calls for a new world order free of US leadership.
Behold the tyrant! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I watch the flaming lights blazing across the Caribbean skies and a thousand voices sound the dreadful happenings.
Iran is intensifying bilateral relations with ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America) in the Caribbean. Amidst escalating threats in the Strait of Homuz, a dispute between Teheran and the West over the manufacture of atomic weapons, Iran is feeding uranium into its first and only nuclear power plant and strengthening ties with Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Foreign terrorists have national identity cards that identify them as Venezuelan citizens.
“Lord have mercy,” they cry. There is a lethal, anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, loose in the Caribbean. Has President Obama failed in his efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program? Why are we vulnerable after billions have been spent to fight insurgents and terrorist in the Middle East?
And they utter profanities against the ghost of Einstein.
American embassies, consulates, corporate headquarters, energy pipelines and Jewish-sponsored community centers and citizens are ready targets but American officials are asleep at the wheel.
“If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” is their only pronouncement but, regrettably enough, that fist is tightly clenched.
There is no extended hand.
As yellow smoke whirls into light, Iran cajoles in its Hezbollah presence in Latin America, and ALBA nations are rapidly becoming aides in the acquisition of nuclear weapons of the apocalypse. Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda are conceding their freedoms in the political and economic domains and are no longer free negotiators within the assemblies of CARICOM.
But they don’t care.
Venezuela has at last ruptured CARICOM’s hymen from behind. The bandage of trust bleeds. The birth of a modern ‘Frankenstein monster’ yields into being.
A “doppelganger!” I learnt from the papers that Chavez and Ahmadinejad share joint paternity.
Out from the murky, quivering flames Ahmadinejad hastens the return of the Twelfth Imam in genocidal tempest right on America’s southern doorstep.
Will Islamic terrorist bombs rain in Atlanta, Washington and New York as well?
And in the midst of flames tossing against the firmament, I lay speechless. Nuclear energy was once the hope of humanity's future. The atom promised a boundless supply of power and possibly world peace but now faces are placed on stories of leukemia, breast cancer, stillbirths, and government deception.
I look out my window. It’s swampy, almost glaucous, and military advocates, peace activists and disillusioned scientists stare in amazement. The batteries of life are spent. Scientific discoveries of nuclear weapons are our own demise. Our pristine Caribbean home is now a nuclear waste dump.
Herein lies the harsh realities of the ideal.
January 9, 2012
caribbeannewsnow
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