Political Crimes: The Law as Accessory

Only a simpleton would believe what comes from the mouth of a British politician today (indeed from any 'official' in British public life) and it has always been so, but the denials coming from the squalid person of David Miliband really is difficult to stomach. This war criminal's musings did have one effect on me: it got me thinking that these denials are the first step in a program of legitimising crimes, an attempted fait accompli whereby laws will be created that will de-criminalise past crimes and, indeed, will make future crimes not crimes.

The denial is two-fold at least. They (is it 'we' too?) deny the actual act of torture, but they also deny that they knew of any acts of torture if torture did happen. But they did know, they even shaped policy around this known fact. And here's the link between a past crime and the new crimes of the present: Most people probably think Britain's colonial past is long gone, this isn't necessarily true as the UK still has a few overseas territories, including Diego Garcia. Not only is the story of the appropriation of these small islands in the Indian Ocean an example of shaping law to bypass a crime, but the current use of these 'dependent territories' is also an act of complicity in another's crime. This is surely beyond a 'knowing and doing nothing' stance towards a complete partnership in crime. Of course the US government under the Bush administration are much more naked in their attempt to create a legal foundation for their crimes.    

There is a lot of disingenuous behaviour over this issue of torture, murder and war crimes. Democracies, the naive say, can only be good. This is the typical response from a democratic citizen in a consumer economy, they are too bloated and consumed by credit worries that they cannot see the truth straight in front of them: democracy is no foil against tyranny, quite often it supports tyranny. Examples are the support Britain gives to Saudi Arabia, and many other middle-eastern oil producer despots (who help keep the consumer ideology going) and historically the British state supported the Pinochet dictatorship. Now, as then, our British democracy also creates political crimes as well as fostering them: the Iraq war and the subsequent tortures, abductions, murders and false imprisonments all fall foul of various UN mandates that the British state are signatures of (In particular Articles 5, 8, 9 and 30). It seems that politics is gangsterism.

Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision

Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision
Saturday 11 October 2008 - Sunday 11 January 2009
Manchester Art Gallery

I should like this stuff, it's medium is oil on canvas (for the most part), with a healthy splattering of colour and they even try to explore a narrative, yet Pre-Raphaelite paintings leave me cold. As a contemporary comparison, Impressionist paintings do not leave me cold and it is their lack of morality and their profound interest in representing nature truthfully (and aesthetically) that warms me every time I view them.

So, what is it about the Pre-Raphaelite's that I'm sceptical about? A quote from Holman Hunt himself goes some way to explaining my troubles with the Pre-Raphaelite movement:

"Painters should go out....like merchants of nature, and bring home precious merchandise in faithful pictures....with something like the spirit of Apostles, fearing nothing, going amongst robbers and in deserts with impunity as men without anything to lose."

Nothing in life is disinterested and having spiritual impulses should not necessaryly detract from a work of art, but this quote shouldn't hide the propaganda behind such images, and nor should such "merchants of nature" be considered as representing nature truthfully, they do not, they represent a cultural imposition: not the method, just the message.

For Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites, nature is sick - you see this in the paintings on display in this exhibition, the representation of torment that can only be relieved by the Christian promise – the colours of life are garish, there is an imbalance somewhere. This 'sickness' we see in The Scapegoat with its other-worldly dusk and wobbly, symbolic goat. This symbolism and 'other-worldliness' reaches a disturbing conclusion with The Triumph of the Innocents, this image of children fleeing Herod's infanticide with Mary, Joseph and Jesus is disturbing, not because of the subject matter, but rather because of the picture itself: frankly the infants look demonic and this is probably an insight into the perverse relationship the British have with children. These demonic 'cherubs' are far removed from Botticelli's puttos, they don't seem to belong in the scene that is painted. While the rounded infants found in Botticelli's work can provoke they are also evanescent, captured with delicacy.

Tom Lubbock in the Independent expressed what I felt walking through this exhibition:

“He oppresses on three fronts. Symbolism. Moralism. Materiality. In a Hunt painting, every detail signifies something. It preaches a lesson. And most oppressively it has a solid, glistening physical presence.”

His work is too 'heavy', especially the palette with its bold, contrasting colours. Above I said that Pre-Raphaelite paintings leave me cold while Impressionist paintings don't. Yes Monet's palette contains bold, contrasting colours, but he used them in a much less incongruent way, leaving a more natural impression. With Hunt (and the other Pre-Raphaelite painters) there is, I think, an unintended dissonance between their depiction of nature and their 'moral message' super-imposed over the paintings – unintended to the modern viewer, at least. No doubt their way of representing nature 'truthfully' came at the insistent call of their Christian philosophy.

All in all, I won't deny that these paintings hold interest but they are not profound, they are too circumstantial for that, historical paintings with too much baggage that instigates their origin.

Dwain Chambers & Our Vindictive Culture

I ‘m no fan of Dwain Chambers or athletics but I was disappointed to hear that he has lost his legal action against the BOA by-law which bans convicted drug users (spent conviction or not) from competing at the Olympics. Anything that annoys the arrogant BOA, the pompous BBC Sport and cretins like the Tory toss-pot Sebastian Coe is good in my book. It’s a shame because their vindictive attitude only creates more vindictiveness.

I’m not interested in debating the intricacies of the ‘drug offence’ here, that’s boring, and it’s not relevant to what I want to talk about: the vindictive nature of our culture. Maybe I expect too much from sports people, be they professionals, fans or media, and maybe I am swimming against the tide of society on this, but whatever happened to forgiveness and redemption? Have they ever thought that a vindictive attitude facilitates cheating? After all, what helps “getting ahead” more than a desire to punish irrevocably? What’s more some of these Solomonian ex-athletes are committed, practicing Christians, obviously they seemed to have mislaid one of the fundamental tenants of Christianity, forgiveness. On second thoughts, they’re only acting in the same way as all religious groups, hypocritically and obfuscatory.

Ultimately though it is the self-perpetuating nature produced by too much emphasis on retribution that disturbs me most: I’m feeling quite unforgiving of those I’m criticising now and I will have to fight the impulse to be uncharitable towards them in the future, especially if any of them – perish the thought – were to fall foul of some rule or other themselves. Worse, the vindictive attitude spreads throughout society and soon everybody is guilty, real or otherwise, and suspicion rules the day. In any case, what goes around comes around.