Tag Archives: nations

Software, blogging, estrangement

Vikshepa Posted on by
piwigo logo

Befuddled by FOSS

The new woman who is set to replace me when I retire in a couple of months seemed a little surprised today. First of all there was a screaming match going on in the next room over the submission of a fundraising proposal. I wasn’t paying much attention to it as I was busy trying to explain some things about the job (maybe that surprised her too). Then, when I got into explaining about Piwigo (the photo gallery software we use), and kept praising the recent changes introduced by the “developer”, she asked me what I meant by “a developer.” She is used to big companies with hundreds of developers, not free open source software. She said she didn’t feel safe otherwise because “What would happen if the developer goes away?”

So I pointed out that Google (whose software we also use) is guilty of dropping so many applications – just yesterday, I had mentioned another one (Currents) that they are dropping. And I pointed out that if Gmail one day becomes unprofitable, Google could drop that too. “And look at Twitter…” And then, I said, it isn’t so strange to be using something that doesn’t have a powerful company behind it, because the same is true of many essential parts on which the whole structure of the internet is built! Finally, I showed her the Piwigo website, which says that the application has been around for 20 years and is used by numerous universities, etc.

This is really insignificant

I think that most people with the audacity to publish what they write probably think that they have some essential contribution to make, or something important to tell or sell humanity, and usually this is true. So I feel a heavy responsibility to explain that none of this is true here.

Hardly anybody reads this stuff and they have no good reason to do so. This is, rather, a compendium of unoriginal reflections on the life and times of a forgetable nobody. Whatever ideas are expressed here will certainly have been stated more cogently by people with greater intelligence. If you haven’t come across the ideas already elsewhere, you are welcome to restate them in a better way, without credit or, instead, to use them as a prime example of flawed understanding, with or without credit. flags

Those flags…

With the above thoughts in mind, I listened this evening to a podcast on the Haaretz site by journalist and TV anchor woman Ilana Dayan. She felt that the judicial reform that is going forward is so significant that she had to step out of her usual role as a presenter of content and to analyze its deep negative impact on Israeli democracy. She made me aware both of my extreme ignorance, and of how much of an outsider I am to Israeli society and culture. Her presentation was erudite and informed. But it also had the essential quality of issuing from an insider. Her gut feelings and trust in Israeli society are based on her familiarity with the way things work and the way Israelis think.

I lack all of that. I can’t and don’t feel like an Israeli. I’m not even sure that I know what other Israelis, especially those who are involved in politics, are really feeling. I simply know that I’ve emotionally rejected the reality in which they feel at home. I cannot sympathize with a national group that, on the one hand, is proud of its democratic institutions while, on the other hand, it denies basic rights to Palestinians. Somehow Ilana Dayan, who, as an investigative journalist, has a much keener understanding of how the system works, and how it is skewed against Palestinians, can juggle that, and still come out thinking that she is blessed to live in this country.

There was another Israeli journalist, Yossi Gurwitz, whose early death was discovered on Monday. In his later years, he became an anti-zionist, called for BDS, castigated religion and the state. Yet I somehow feel that even he was speaking out of the Israeli experience; existentially linked to the Israel he rejected.

The rejection of an insider is different from the rejection of an outsider. I’m an outsider to Israel as I’m an outsider to the other countries I have lived. I’m a stranger to the national life of those countries as well as to their institutions, such as their academic life, culture, news media and other facets of civilization. Wherever I go, I live on the outskirts, and without the least regret.

My experience is not unique – it’s surely commonplace. Perhaps even the majority of people, or a growing number of them, are rootless in a similar way. If I’m more aware of my position, or am more self-reflective about it, it is probably because I have lived so long in a country that is like Israel, which places a high value on the nurturing of its national identity.

National self-harm

Vikshepa Posted on by

I watched the 2nd part of the BBC’s The Modi Question, heard a discussion with a historian of modern India, on The Wire, and watched the Israeli TV news.

Israel’s turn to the right has many of the same characteristics as India’s. In both cases, rightwing politics are causing ongoing national self-harm. This is not unlike the self-harm caused by Brexit in the UK.

The item in the Israeli TV news spoke about how the uncertainties created about Israeli “democracy” and the independence of its judicial system is likely to damage its economy by discouraging investment in its all-important high-tech industry.

The articles about India showed how the policies of Modi and the BJP have destabilized the delicate structure that keeps the (soon to be) world’s largest nation together and undermined its democracy while failing to address core issues of concern to every Indian no matter what caste or community they belong to, such as the dead rivers and poisoned air, disease and poverty.

The articles about Britain speak of the reversal in public opinion regarding Brexit, as people gradually realise that they were mislead: the broken promises regarding the public health system that is now in crisis; the so-called economic opportunities that have come to naught, and the prospect of a shrinking economy.

It seems to be an almost universal paradox that right-wing political parties, while championing nationalism, only harm the nations where they come to power. It should be obvious really that the only way to advance a country is to bring benefit to all citizens, rather than promoting some and leaving others behind. Otherwise, the structure you are building is a house of cards.

In Israel, this means creating a nation where Jews and Palestinians from every ethnic, religious, geographical and economic sector can live as equal citizens.

In Britain, the Brexit referendum was determined by the country’s longstanding inequalities; huge parts of the population that felt left behind, and a large segment of older people who were willing to betray the hopes and dreams of the young.

In India, the BJP came to power for a host of reasons, including the lingering after-effects of colonial rule, but the result has been to deepen the country’s divisions and to damage, perhaps irreparably, the secular democratic framework that made India so unique among South Asian nations.

India’s Taken a Dangerous, Divisive And Self-Destructive Direction Under Modi: Ramchandra Guha https://yewtu.be/3SjZNXIDibQ

Indian students watch banned BBC documentary critical of PM Modi https://www.france24.com/en/video/20230126-india

Truss and Brexit have sunk Britain’s economy – and the right is in deep denial about both

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/01/liz-truss-brexit-sunk-britain-economy-right-in-denial-imf

Hundreds of economists warn on gov’t judicial system reform https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-hundreds-of-economists-warn-on-govt-judicial-system-reform-1001436443

Bank of Israel governor says judicial reform could hurt economy – reports https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/25/bank-of-israel-governor-warns-netanyahu-that-judicial-overhaul-could-hurt-economy-reports

UK visa process

Vikshepa Posted on by

I spent the late afternoon and evening helping a neighbour and friend fill out his application forms to obtain a temporary charity work visa to the UK – a frightful process. Among the tasks involved was to detail every visit to another country within the last ten years, page after page of form filling, questions about having expressed “extremist views” or support for “terrorism”, if he had committed “war crimes”, if he had been convicted of breaking any law.

I wonder about the mentality of people who formulate such questions. Israel is a fairly open, western-style democracy (for Jews). It isn’t ruled by an autocrat and isn’t a place where the violent overthrow of the government might be seen as more humane than preserving the status quo. But, even in this blessed national oasis of democracy, it would, for example, be an “extremist view” to hold that the Israeli army regularly commits “war crimes” in Gaza. The idea that Palestinians have a moral right to resist the occupation, such as by throwing stones at tanks, would be “extremist”. Even to express humane, democratic values would in some case be “extremist”. One could be convicted of incitement for expressing such views.

And what of Britain itself? Those climate activists who, the other day, broke the windows of media outlets for producing feel-good stories about the recent heat wave – “Enjoy the sunshine, carry on as usual” – would obviously be seen as dangerous extremists in the minds of those who created those forms. Maybe they should be expelled from the UK? – if they happen not to have UK citizenship they probably could be – but if so, they might not be allowed into other countries that express a similarly restrictive mentality and who produce similar visa forms.

The visa costs around £350. There’s another £50+ for a meeting to provide biometric data (where one pays to enjoy the privilege of being fingerprinted and photographed). Every additional service, such as help with uploading forms, asking procedural questions, even getting an SMS to inform you that your passport has been returned to you, carries an additional price tag. Calling someone to ask questions costs 69p per minute. I would personally have strong doubts about seeking a temporary work permit to assist in a UK charity if I had to go through such a process. I would probably conclude that the UK is a paranoid and exploitive nation undeserving of my support, though it might be badly in need of all the help it can get.