babies not really the point, nor all bad

Okay, I was reminded by this article to write about the youth policy work I was doing. The article is about Nashi, Putin’s youth organization which apparently includes around 7% of all Russians aged 17-25. There you have a highly nationalistic pro-natalism – babies for the fatherland – aimed at making Russia great again, all tied up with the pastime of making threats against neighbouring countries and harking back to a time before they were born.

At one point, Scaffolder said surely too many people in the world. Probably that’s true, and to be honest I’m rather neutral on the whole drive to increase the birth rate; but the situation relating to old-age-dependency ratios, pensions and the like is certainly pressing, and it motivates policy-makers, meaning among other things that it attracts money. Immigration and change in the social security system will have some effect, but it’s politically impossible to solve it through immigrant labour schemes (and probably immoral, if it meant bringing workers from Africa and Asia for a limited period, then send them back, denied pensions and justified with reference to unemployment at home…). Maybe it will lead to the great crisis of capitalism that shakes our system back to a pre-agricultural blissfest, but in lieu of that…

For me, the concern about demographic developments is an opportunity to change society for the better. Narrowly, with regard to youth policy, it is a chance to have a largely ignored and patronized section of society have more involvement in development of policies which affect them; it’s opportunistic, but that’s not an argument against it, and anyway only a minority of the agenda is about more money ‘for young people’.

More exciting in my view is that talking to young people about their reasons for fertility decisions recognizes that you can take a non-laissez faire approach to this area of policy; on the back of which: a) governments will do something, so it’s better that their policies are in line with other goals about gender equality, participation, individual choice and are aware of related areas (e.g. housing, reproductive health). Which is where U. N. technical advice comes in… b) perhaps luckily, there is more and more evidence that policies which increase fertility tend to be those which also support gender equality, and the wider restructuring of our priorities, particularly about the relationship between work and the rest of life, but also about the role of the market and state intervention. Which means there is a pretty strong case to make in contrast to more militant, wombs-and-soldiers pro-natalism.

Countries with higher female labour force participation and better parental and paternal leave entitlements and flexible working options tend to have higher birth rates. If the young Romanians you talk to tell you they don’t have kids because they can’t afford to live independently, then maybe you would consider a policy which mitigates the shameful effect of western European property speculation in poorer eastern countries, and that kind of thinking benefits everyone.

That’s a kind of best-case thinking or justification; at worst, this work has no effect (more likely the more rubbish the managers); somewhere in the middle it leads to more involvement of young people in both UN programming and government policy-making, related to gender equality, and sexual and reproductive health, and with any luck education and labour market issues also. It’s links like the latter that show the overlap with other areas of social concern away from ‘just fertility’ – given that fertility-related behaviour is complicated, but is significantly influenced by (actual and expected) job stability, employability (money for vocational training has also been in freefall in non-western Europe, despite all your Polish plumbers…), ability to do things you want to do before having children (mobility policy) et cetera. Market fundamentalists don’t have an answer to low fertility (that I have read – simply paying women to have babies doesn’t really work), so maybe this helps lessen their impact, important in this part of the world as it is further west, south and east. And I guess north, to Russia, if they want to listen.

Have to run, maybe more later. Open for questions ;)

The sunshine of home

Having soaked up all the glamour Petrzalka has to offer, Taylor and OJ said a quick farewell this morning, silver-lined in that I will now have a little more time to be here. Pix2follow, when my camera turns up. I guess you got home safe, chickens - doubtless aided by a glass of crisp, dry white wine and a scratchcard.

Top stuff, thanks for coming.

In other news, "Basra is not Surbiton."

Higher powers

I was going to write a little something about the pathetic bigot refusing to officiate over gay ceremonies in her role serving society, but Dave's post sums it up, so I thought a comment would suffice. Otherwise, sorry for my absence: I have been entertaining (or at least giving a bed to) Oli and Sarah, with predictable hilarious consequences.

red star - swastika - west-east train of thought

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgement in the case of Vajnai vs Hungary. This case concerned a man, Vajnai, vice-president of the Workers' Party, who was arrested at a demonstration for wearing a red five-pointed star, and convicted (though not punished further). That symbol is banned in Hungary (and several other former communist states) for its association with totalitarianism.

The ECHR found that Vajnai's freedom of expression had been violated, as the restriction was not "necessary in a democratic society". This means in effect that Hungary's law - and those of other countries - banning that symbol can't be enforced and should be revoked. (Though in theory a country demonstrating that it suffered even more under Soviet influence, or facing a live 'totalitarian communist' movement dedicated to seizing power, could get away with a ban.)

Several European states, including Germany, Austria and France, have similar bans on Nazi symbols; after Henry Mountbatten-Windsor wore a swastika armband at a posh-idiots-only colonials and natives themed party, Germany moved to have a ban on the swastika covering the whole EU. Several former-communist states insisted such a ban should cover the red star and the hammer and sickle as well. Needless to say, it didn't pass, partly due to major Hindu opposition.

This ruling is relevant, but I don't think it will affect the bans existing on the swastika. The court clearly accepted that the red star is more than just the symbol of the USSR /advocating totalitarian rule, which is obviously true; in the ruling it is described as "a symbol of the international workers' movement". The swastika, by contrast, is much narrower and less ambiguous, partly due to its restricted use in (European) history (please ignore Hinduism and Latvian traditional knitwear).

I don't think banning symbols is an appropriate way of dealing with the threats associated with them, and obviously shouldn't be done for fear of causing offence. But this does raise a question about the relative western perceptions of the Nazi and communist totalitarian regimes, which I think has left Europe a bit deformed. Speaking for myself, but I think reflecting the tone used in western education/media/normal leftist view, the obviously important points about childcare and poverty obscure the suffering caused by the communists.

Even attached to their respective regimes, the swastika is far more offensive than the red star, right? Hitler-holocaust-dead Jews (and gypsies etc), incarnation of evil... Well, yes and no - it's hard to top the industrial slaughter of an entire race of people for 'badness'. But people suffered massively under communism: famine, large scale routine torture and execution of largely meaningless victims ('40s-'60s, smaller scale thereafter), and the moral-mental pain of the identification of society with the party and the destruction of trust and intellectual life and the scary arbitrariness of it.

Having a hot war with one lot and a cold war with the others makes a difference, and the German regime didn't survive long enough to become part of the furniture and get its belly lodged confortably under the table of international relations. But it's the war that was fought, rather than the holocaust, which means Nazi Germany keeps such a legendary status in english-speaking discourse - the intense dislike, coming from war propaganda largely unconcerned with the holocaust, has been kept up over decades, its basis morphing from existential threat in war to moral shock at genocide. In the UK at least, that kind of anger was never sustained (or developed?) regarding communism, and that over Nazism is a bit false.

Anyway, many leftist groups in the west (democratic and not) failed to judge the socialist regimes by any critical standard. The UK Labour government in the seventies even gave an honourary kinghthood to Nicolai Ceasescu! So when those regimes collapsed, the ambiguous sentiments of the centre-left meant the post-communist folk found the open arms of the market fundmentalist parties and politicians.

And this has its effects. One little one is the contribution to the further meaninglessness of political parties and their naming in Europe: no mainstream party in an ex-socialist country was going to join the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament, so instead of renaming the EP group to the European Social Democrats or something equally bland (as it is called in German), parties fitting with PES (especially a PES which includes all these highly capitalist socialist parties from western Europe) are instead members of the European People's Party with the Tories. But there are exceptions, and Serbia's Democratic Party is aligned with PES. (Not that any of this really matters, or detracts from the damage which political parties to to democracy.) The PES is left with the renamed ruling communist parties. Which might from where UK Labour is getting its liberty-squishing zeal and intellectual nullness.

PS: Interesting to see that the ECHR ruling was unanimous, even with judges from Georgia, Hungary and Lithuania among the panel. (And Turkey, a country also quite into banning symbols.) But this reflects the fact that judges in the ECHR tend to be legal professionals in service of the convention, in contrast to their nationalist lackey equivalents at the International Court of Justice.

PPS: Aside on legal procedure: the Hungarian courts initially referred the case to the European Court of Justice, the highest EU court, for a judgement on whether the principle of non-discrimination prevents one member state from banning a symbol which would not be banned in another state. (The ECHR is a court of the Council of Europe, not the EU.) This looks like a rather strange move - as would be expected, the ECJ found this was totally not in their field of competence; but if it had been able to rule on it, the court would have almost certainly found that such measures do not contravene the principle of non-discrimination. This would maybe have strengthened the hand of the Hungarian government when the case came, inevitably, to the ECHR.

nothing much to report

I have just discovered that people post advert breaks on youtube. This isn't even narcissistic. It's just plain odd! Not a lot completely defies understanding or explanation. Can anyone help? (Thankfully, the colleague who just now tapped on my window to enquire about my shocked face is well disposed to me.)
~
At its height, the largest employer in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was a classy ceramics factory in Pécs, which I think is rather nice. Although a lot of the stuff is quite ugly and kitch, Zsolnay's techniques were new to pottery. Including getting painted-style pictures onto high temperature fired pieces:~
Things we missed as children/How to make kids' TV stomachable to adults:

"Any more calls, Janine?"
"...ghost terrorists in the UN - they're protesting the Monroe doctrine - and some guy named Samsa called to say he's been posessed by a giant cockroach."

Those were the days, I am tempted to say, but I haven't watched children's telly for a long time, so it wouldn't be fair.

more sharp things

I listened to the first episode of the new sharp things series, and give it thumbs up. The Ways of the Country had a lovely twist; Egging On was chirpy, but I missed something. Anyway, have a listen.

fury i

Fuck governments. Or maybe Fuck dishonest, lazy responses to things your opponents say. (Or Fuck the axiom better Labour than the Tories...) It's admittedly easy to say whatever you like in opposition, but then this case is different, since Labour aren't so in power in town halls. In short, the Tory communities-and-local-government bloke has told Tory councils to 'not cooperate' with the government (in the words of the Grauniad). To read the article, it seems that the message is more not to let the central government present local governments with faits accompli that are strenuously against local wishes.

Overall, I'm in favour of local government, I like local responsibility as a principle, and I don't think the 'legitimacy' of central govt is greater than that of local. At the same time, I value the ability of the central level to prevail in some policy areas - what local council will risk pushing for a wind farm etc on its territory? Or for some consistency in healthcare in a country with a so far still national health (less convincing, perhaps!). Or immigration. Point being, there is a legitimate question to be asked about relative powers of different levels of government. Preferably not addressed in a spirit of strong-crushes-weak.

My despair: the issue comes into the open, and the government's response is

The statements amount to political posturing and political hubris. It will be up to the electorate to decide in two years' time who is running the country. I hope the majority of Conservative councils will have the sense to ignore this and continue co-operating with the government to benefit their local community.

which says nothing, completely ignores that there is an issue to discuss, and is arrogant. Make a principled argument for why the central government should have power in the areas of conflict raised by cantankerous local authorities... but not a principled peep out of the government, except the drivel over 42 days. (Mind you, even Liberty missed the ball on that... And someone tell David Davis that you cannot care for the individual's freedom from state power while supporting edath penalties.)

Not that the Tories have been any better (look at London local govt in the eighties...), and they will doubtless do their own version of the worst when in government. So it's not Labour or the Tories that is the problem, but the absence of principled discussion, driven by the attitudes of those who own and operate the media (on market principles). Which makes this as irrelevant as a calendar under the ocean.