06 red pepperoct/nov2007

letters

Environmental indulgences In an otherwise useful guide to the environmental consequences of different travel choices (‘Guerrilla Guides’, Aug/Sept 2007), Tamanna Kalhar says that ‘if you feel you have no option but to take to the skies’ you should consider offsetting your carbon emissions, even though this is ‘hugely controversial’. Perhaps it would have been better to explore why carbon offsets are so controversial before endorsing their use. Yes, we can visit websites that calculate the carbon footprint of our flight, but most online calculators under-estimate, and some totally ignore, the enhanced global warming effect when greenhouse gases are emitted in the upper atmosphere. We can access estimates of the potential carbon reductions of different offsetting projects, too, but these routinely exaggerate likely savings – by including reductions that would have occurred anyway, for example, or disregarding the carbon released back into the atmosphere when the trees planted on our behalf decay or are cut down. What is most disturbing is the way offsets, like indulgences sold by the medieval church, are promoted as a way of easing our guilt, and absolving us of responsibility to change our behaviour. The more we are persuaded that paying for a carbon offset somehow repairs the damage we cause by flying, the less we question our addiction to air travel, and the more our support for determined collective action against climate change is compromised. Alan Neale Dorset

tim sanders

Liveyourpolitics: supportRed Pepper

Can you help us give a platform to newvoices, alternative views, inspiring perspectives and vitallyneeded investigations? Actions always speaklouderthan words butwith yourhelp Red Pepperwill provide thewords, theresources and debates to inspiretheactions you taketo makea positive differencein theworld. Aftera yearofhard decisions Red Pepperis turning a cornerand weknowthat– with yourhelp – wecan nowbea real challengeto thestatus quo and a constructive forcefora moremeaningful, engaging politics. Please send donations (payable to ‘Red Pepper’) to Red Pepper, 1b WaterlowRoad, London N195NJ ordonate atwww.redpepper.org.uk Special thanks to PatrickBaker, theRoddickFoundation, AndrewHood, D Jones, KLippold, J J Parkman, JoycePickard, N Trangmar

Two problems, one solution The article ‘Opium jihad’ ( Red Pepper , July 2007) showed the futility of our government’s policy in Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed and injured in a valiant but useless attempt to stop farmers there from growing opium. At the same time, the incidence of cancer in Africa is rising, according to a recent report in the BMJ , and people there are dying without access to morphine or heroin. Two problems, one solution: instead of burning the Afghan opium crops, we could purchase it from the farmers, process it, and make it available in Africa. A think-tank, the Senlis Council, is proposing poppy licensing (see www.senliscouncil.net/modules/Opium_lice nsing). This would decriminalise poppy growing, and allow UN agencies to buy up the whole crop and turn it into medicine. Any Red Pepper readers with access to paper and envelopes should ask the ministers for defence and international development why they will not consider this as an option. Richard Lawson Joint international coordinator, Green Party

Dis-organising labour Jane Wills (‘Low pay, no way’, Aug/Sept 2007) is right to draw attention to the exploitation of London’s migrant workers, but it is a mistake to believe that only the especially vulnerable are at risk from the trend she describes. In fact, a systematic shift towards disguising employment as a commercial contractual relationship is undermining all organised labour. On a recent visit to the port of Rotterdam, a sprawling array of everything it takes to be a key logistics hub in globalisation’s supply chain, I had a glimpse of capitalism’s future, the reorganisation of work it requires and the dismantling of solidarity its designers intend to bring.

Ports used to be vibrant places, full of human activity. Today, not a hand is laid on containers as driverless automated guidance vehicles move them around. But there are some tasks that cannot be mechanised, which leaves the ‘lasher’, whose task is to physically secure or release a container ship’s cargo, in a key strategic position. The port employers know it, which is why Europe Container Terminals (ECT), a subsidiary of the world’s biggest freight carrier Hutchison, has contracted out the task so that the workers who do it are divided from its own employees. But that is nothing compared to what is to come. Within a year, ECT plans to open for business at the new Euromax port a few miles down the Dutch coast. There, landside container movements will be fully automated and the only manual operations will be the preserve not of dockers but of lorry drivers. The plan depends on a parallel trend in road transport – the steady spread of ‘owneroperation’, whereby drivers are selfemployed individual contractors rather than employees of the companies on whom they remain wholly dependent. At Euromax, drivers who push the buttons that load their lorries will be personally penalised for every minute’s delay. Capital has responded with great creativity to the forms and structures through which labour challenged it in the past. We must respond just as imaginatively to build the alliances and networks on which tomorrow’s social justice will depend. Brendan Martin Labour World, London

Political place Doreen Massey’s captivating essay on the ‘spatialisation of radical politics’ (‘A new politics of place’, Aug/Sept 2007) urges us to think beyond the narrow category of localism to recognise how places are agony auntie

Facing up to Facebook

DearSubcomandauntie , I’m addicted to Facebook, spending days onlinedesperateto add more‘friends’to my profileand consumed with theneed to spill themostintimatedetails aboutmy life. What should I do? Lostin Cyberspace

DearLostin Cyberspace , Auntiehas always caughtthewhiffofthe zeitgeist, toyed with itand moved on before thepartystarts – Stalkbookis no exception. Marshall McLuhan said ‘Publication is a selfinvasion ofprivacy’– it’s ourultimate freedom, so whygiveitaway? When your housegets burgled becauseyou announced in detail yourupcoming holiday, don’tbe surprised iftheinsurancecompanythinks you’rean idiot– Auntiethinks thesame. You need a realitycheckwhen you sufferanxietybecauseyou’vefewer Facebook‘friends’than thatloserChloefrom primaryschool, and competein the friendship raceon thebasis thatiftheyare aliveand on thesameplanetthen theyall countthesame. Fortherecord, ‘friend’ doesn’tmean thetraineratthegym you oncewentto fiveyears ago. Auntiequicklytired ofcorresponding with peopleshespenta lifetimeavoiding (and Andrewin Facebook’s London network, Auntieis nota ‘naughtyschoolgirl’, you sleazyperve). There’s a reason when the ‘friend’you haven’tthoughtaboutin years writes ‘Let’s meetup soon’whyit’s bestit doesn’thappen. And hell, what’s this ‘meeting up’business anyway– whybother when Facebookis open 24/7and you can avoid thebuses. Yourlifeis notqualitativelyimproved by hourlyupdates on Mattfrom Birmingham’s shoefetish; and justbecauseKath in Liverpool likes curries too itdoesn’tmean she’s yoursoulmate. Takea deep breath and kill yourpage. Wehavea world to win, barricades to storm, dancing to bedone, pubs to crawl and peopleto snog. It’s better than a virtual ‘poke’anyday. auntie@redpepper.org.uk

oct/nov2007 red pepper

07

implicated in the production of each other’s inequalities. The Chavez-Livingstone initiative and tax justice campaigns are highlighted to make her point. Such initiatives, however, also raise the thorny issue of what counts as a democratic practice: what is accountability and what does it mean to be responsible to others? Massey suggests we put less emphasis on abstract categories like ‘local’ or ‘global’, focusing instead on the power geometries that make places responsible and accountable to each other. She shows how London is implicated in the production of shocking inequalities worldwide. But just as Massey has done much to disrupt distinct, abstract categories of space, foregrounding interconnections between places, perhaps we should also get away from talking in the abstract about different models of politics. For too long, radical politics has taken deterministic views of models of politics, rather than looking at how they play out differently, through different situated practices. In the Chavez-Livingstone case, the coming together of territorial, representative government with post-territorial, single issuebased politics (and no doubt other ways of doing politics) had productive consequences. Neither models of politics nor categories of space operate in the abstract. When we treat them as if they do, attacking or defending them as such, we close down the possibilities for democratic spaces. The network I direct – ‘The Space of Democracy

Joel A nderson

Anita Roddick The redesigned Red Pepper magazine and website would not have been possible withoutthe supportofAnita Roddick, news of whose death reached us as we were putting the finishing touches to this issue. Herloss shocked and saddened us all. She will be greatlymissed byeveryone whose lives she touched and who were inspired byherunflagging vision and beliefin the possibilityofa betterworld. Oursincerestthanks forherhelp and support, and our heartfeltcondolences to her husband, Gordon, and her daughters, Sam and Justine.

and the Democracy of Space’ – seeks to address such issues, by bringing together over 400 people with similar concerns. As illustrated in the most recent debate, involving Tony Benn, Bernard Crick, Hilary Wainwright and David Chandler, the spatialisation of radical politics requires that we attend to situated practices. Jonathan Pugh Newcastle University Director of ‘The Space of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network’

Eager members In the summer issue of Red Pepper (Aug/Sept 2007), Agony Subcomandauntie described herself as a ‘political lesbian’. This has broken many a male heart here at GLC Reunited, where a number of our members had been harbouring hopes of attracting her affections. We are wondering, however, whether a quick shag would be out of the question if we convert to political lesbianism ourselves? Horace Cutler London

Musicoftheforgotten: celebrating thearts and cultureofAfrica’s lastcolony London’s firstWestern Sahara musicand arts festival

Showcasing therich cultureoftheSaharawi peopleto raiseawareness and supportfortheirplight. Largelyignored and forgotten bythewestern powers and its media, theSaharawis werepromised a UN-organised self-determination referendum in early1992, butarestill waiting foritto take place15years later. TheSandblastFestival will bring 20 Saharawi artists based in therefugee camps and from Spain to theUKforthefirsttime, to presenttheirstorythrough theperforming and visual arts, culminating in a concentration ofmulti-media events atRich Mixin EastLondon overtheweekend of3and 4 November. 29October-4November2007 www.sandblast-arts.org