This June I travelled with two friends to the near East for a month. A third of the way through we arrived in Beirut, which compared to Syria, where we had come from, was completely schizophrenic. As soon as we arrived in the evening we left the hotel and found ourselves walking down a street filled with incredibly sexy and fashionably dressed people, while a traffic jam of Ferraris, Mercedes and huge sparkling SUVs piled up next to us. We saw that the reason for the traffic jam was a soldier with an assault rifle standing in the road directing the traffic.
The next day we walked through the centre of the city, which was filled with roadblocks and tank traps (plus anti-aircraft guns in the evening) until the street suddenly opened on to a seaside swimming pool full of beautiful Lebanese sunbathers who told us how wonderful the numerous archaeological sites near Beirut were, and how we should visit them all. These were the contrasts of Beirut. What was interesting about talking to the people around the pool was the total disconnect between their lifestyles and concerns and what, to us, was the most interesting aspect of the place. Sitting by the pool it seemed incredible that there had been a war 3 years previously and that Hizballah were a couple of miles away.
Due partly to Lonely Planet advising against 'venturing into the southern suburbs of Beirut', and partly a lack of interest in wonderful archaeological sites, I started finding out what I could about this place. I discovered that during and after the 2006 war Hizballah had given a tour of Haret Hreik - the area where they are based which had been heavily bombed by the Israelis, to foreign journalists every morning at 11:00. Not expecting a tour, but inspired, a friend and I decided to go there the next day to hopefully see some still existing evidence of the damage and a few Hizballah posters.
After about 20 minutes in the taxi we were in Haret Hreik, but to us it just looked like a typical Arab suburb - no ruined buildings or posters in sight. We looked at our google map printout and saw a 'Hassan Nasrallah street'. As Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah we thought that this was likely to be where the action was, so this is where we told our driver to go. He didn't seem to know how to get there though, so started asking people on the street. Eventually, after a discussion, one of the guys he called over got in our car and swiftly directed us down a street that it soon became obvious led to a Hizballah development. As soon as we got out of the taxi one of the group of men standing around demanded our passports and drove off with them on a moped. My friend's phone was then confiscated and a guy in jeans, T-shirt and an assault rifle implied that we should wait where we were. He was guarding the gate in front of a building with Hassan Nasrallah's face on it. All the guys by the gate were very very concerned that we have a seat and wait. None were willing to speak to us in English, and we had no idea what was going on.
Eventually they said they were going to take us to our passports, so the taxi driver, who had been wearing a fixed grin ever since we entered the compound, drove us out and then into a building site halfway through post-2006 reconstruction. We stopped at a darkened doorway: "please don't make us go in inside there, we're just students" said my friend, but we were told "if you don't go inside, I will make you go inside". No choice then. Inside we were met by a young guy, who spoke perfect English, wearing a New York Yankees cap. He told us to take off our shoes, leave our belongings, and go into an interrogation room at the end of the corridor. Half of me was expecting a concrete cell, so I was pleased to find a leather couch desk and office chair. He followed us in, sat behind the desk and asked us for our names, DOBs, and professions. He wouldn't tell us what was going on though, and left the room.
He returned after a few minutes and told us what was going to happen. "We are going to take you to a restaurant, ask you some more questions, and you should be free to go after one hour"; it sounded kind of ridiculous, and neither of us believed him. We were then told to go downstairs, where we were directed into a black jeep with blacked out windows, which then drove off. At this point my friend came out with it: "are we being kidnapped?". The Hizballah guy laughed uproariously and snorted "you think this is how you kidnap someone?". Clearly it wasn't, because we soon actually arrived at the 'Haret Hraik family restaurant'; our hosts requested an outdoor corner table and ordered a pot of tea and a few bowls of nuts.
The two guys questioned us about what we were doing in Lebanon and Haret Hreik, what was the purpose of our trip, where else we'd been, who had funded it, what we did at home, our families, and why we wanted to meet Hassan Nasrallah. Wait, what? So here the truth came out: when we asked our taxi driver to take us to Hassan Nasrallah street he must have thought we were asking to meet the guy. I guess from his perspective all we had been doing in the taxi was jabbing at the map and shouting "Hassan Nasrallah".
After this had been cleared up, the Yankees guy proceeded to give us his justification for why we'd been arrested and for what Hizballah do. He started talking about this 'country' called Israel (quotation marks his) and how Hizballah wanted to prevent what happened to Haret Hreik in 2006 happening again. Apparently by going there with a camera and a map, we had been apeing the Israeli spies who had enabled its pinpoint destruction, although I don't think Israeli spies would have asked their taxi driver to meet the leader of Hizballah.
My favorite moments were when he said "in Hizballah, we don't hurt people... usually" followed by "we don't kill spies, we only send them to prison. (pause) I think this is wrong". Once they were satisfied with our answers things got a lot more relaxed; the two guys were acting like kids, pushing each other around as they got back into the jeep. They drove us to the side of the highway back to central Beirut, kicked us out of the jeep, hailed us a taxi and disappeared.
In the afternoon we went and visited one of the wonderful archaological sites I was so bored by. This time though, I quite enjoyed it.
We assumed that was it, but a few days later when we arrived at the border with Jordan, having returned to Syria, the Jordanian passport official looked concerned at what he saw on his computer screen after scanning our passports. The supervisor arrived, and looked at us quizzically. "You requested to meet Hassan Nasrallah?"
He let us in though - he seemed to find it pretty funny.
I still have no idea how Hizballah has access to the passports database, and what it actually says on there.
(I'm spelling it Hizballah, as it translates in Arabic as 'Party of God'. Hizb = party, allah = god. I don't know why the media spells it Hezbollah)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Ed Miliband debates Green policies in Oxford 27/07/09
On Monday evening, Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband spoke to hundreds of people in Oxford about the government's plans for a low Carbon Britain. The one-off meeting was an idea of Miliband's, and was organised by Friend's of the Earth Oxford, whose aim was to challenge him on government policy towards climate change ahead of the Copenhagen talks in December. Friend's of the Earth had engaged a soon to be unemployed wind turbine manufacturer and four high-profile climate change scientists and activists to speak with Miliband.
He looked nervous as he waited for things to begin, probably because of the extra act that had been added to the bill to speak before him: David, one of 500 employees at Britain's only wind turbine manufacturing plant. The announcement in April that the plant on the Isle of Wight is going to be shut down, when the government's low-carbon transition plan is meant to create 1.2. million "Green Jobs", has caused many to ask why it has refused to step in to save the plant. This is the question that Miliband spent his speaking time answering.
"It's not about the money", he said. Vestas, the Danish company that owns the plant claims to be shutting it because there is no market in the UK for what it produces. 60% of planning applications for onshore wind farms in Britain are turned down because of local opposition, so the company is stepping up production in the US and China instead. Miliband argued that as the government could not just nationalise the plant, and that no other company had come forward to buy it from Vestas, its closure was unavoidable. The claim that nationalisation was impossible was met with opposition from the audience; one man cited the wave of recent government takeovers of companies hit by the credit crisis, but Miliband stuck to his position, citing the bad impression it would give to businesses wanting to invest in the UK.
The speakers following Miliband were Mark Lynas, author of 'Six Degrees', Oliver Tickell, author of 'Kyoto2', Ian Leggett, director of People & Planet, and Dr. M.A. Khalid, of Earthwatch. Leggett challenged Miliband on the government's plan for a replacement for Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, and on its failure to lessen the now state owned RBS's heavy investment in fossil fuels. Lynas, Khalid and Tickell made more general points, about the latest science on climate change, the view from developing countries, and how to break the climate deadlock at the upcoming talks in Copenhagen respectively.
People were clearly much more interested in the event than Friends of the Earth had planned for. With a vast amount of people unable to get in to the small collegial room that had been booked in the Town Hall, we had to move to the biggest room in the place, where hundreds of people were eventually seated, or stood around the edges. There were huge cheers for the Vestas workers, and for certain audience questions. 'Why doesn't the government do more to educate people about the dangers of catastrophic climate change?' got the biggest, and 'Why is it cheaper to fly to Rome than to take the train?' got another. Answering the first, Miliband agreed, but said that constant scare warnings were counterproductive, claiming that you have to offer people something positive to get them to change. To the second, he said: "domestic flights have got to become more expensive...We have argued strongly for aviation to be included in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Personally I think aviation is undertaxed." However he didn't go far enough for some of the audience, continuing with: "we have an 80% reduction target. If we cut aviation emissions by that by 2050, we'd go back to 1974 levels of flying. But the world is getting closer together, not further apart." He concluded by saying that flying is so important, especially for the young, that cuts would have to be made in other areas.
Miliband used the phrase 'let me be candid with you' about seven times during the evening, but overall he was actually pretty good, addressing all the questions fired at him, and exhorting us to generally give the government a harder time about climate change, and to get involved in activism ourselves as we approach Copenhagen, especially regarding wind farms. He claimed that the silent majority in favour of wind power must do more to stop planning applications being rejected by a small vocal minority.
A green activist I spoke to after the event thought that Miliband could have been pushed to give more details on what exactly the Labour government was doing on the issues raised. While the activist thought it was fantastic that the event was put on, he said he wished that the questions on government policy could have been more focused. I imagine he had wanted the evening to show clearly to Miliband that a large section of the public wanted him to go much much further in his green policies than the government is presently doing. Things could have been more like this if the four speakers had not been talking about completely different things. The set-up as it was was good for people who wanted a chance to hear Miliband's policies on a number of different issues, but frustrating for those who knew what the policies were, disagreed with them, and wanted to see Miliband properly grilled.
Ian Leggett concluded by saying that Copenhagen would probably be the most important climate talks ever to take place. Britain is now one of the leading nations in advancing policy on preventing catastrophic climate change, so it will indeed be interesting to see whether Miliband will live up to the expectations of his audience in Oxford.
He looked nervous as he waited for things to begin, probably because of the extra act that had been added to the bill to speak before him: David, one of 500 employees at Britain's only wind turbine manufacturing plant. The announcement in April that the plant on the Isle of Wight is going to be shut down, when the government's low-carbon transition plan is meant to create 1.2. million "Green Jobs", has caused many to ask why it has refused to step in to save the plant. This is the question that Miliband spent his speaking time answering.
"It's not about the money", he said. Vestas, the Danish company that owns the plant claims to be shutting it because there is no market in the UK for what it produces. 60% of planning applications for onshore wind farms in Britain are turned down because of local opposition, so the company is stepping up production in the US and China instead. Miliband argued that as the government could not just nationalise the plant, and that no other company had come forward to buy it from Vestas, its closure was unavoidable. The claim that nationalisation was impossible was met with opposition from the audience; one man cited the wave of recent government takeovers of companies hit by the credit crisis, but Miliband stuck to his position, citing the bad impression it would give to businesses wanting to invest in the UK.
The speakers following Miliband were Mark Lynas, author of 'Six Degrees', Oliver Tickell, author of 'Kyoto2', Ian Leggett, director of People & Planet, and Dr. M.A. Khalid, of Earthwatch. Leggett challenged Miliband on the government's plan for a replacement for Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, and on its failure to lessen the now state owned RBS's heavy investment in fossil fuels. Lynas, Khalid and Tickell made more general points, about the latest science on climate change, the view from developing countries, and how to break the climate deadlock at the upcoming talks in Copenhagen respectively.
People were clearly much more interested in the event than Friends of the Earth had planned for. With a vast amount of people unable to get in to the small collegial room that had been booked in the Town Hall, we had to move to the biggest room in the place, where hundreds of people were eventually seated, or stood around the edges. There were huge cheers for the Vestas workers, and for certain audience questions. 'Why doesn't the government do more to educate people about the dangers of catastrophic climate change?' got the biggest, and 'Why is it cheaper to fly to Rome than to take the train?' got another. Answering the first, Miliband agreed, but said that constant scare warnings were counterproductive, claiming that you have to offer people something positive to get them to change. To the second, he said: "domestic flights have got to become more expensive...We have argued strongly for aviation to be included in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Personally I think aviation is undertaxed." However he didn't go far enough for some of the audience, continuing with: "we have an 80% reduction target. If we cut aviation emissions by that by 2050, we'd go back to 1974 levels of flying. But the world is getting closer together, not further apart." He concluded by saying that flying is so important, especially for the young, that cuts would have to be made in other areas.
Miliband used the phrase 'let me be candid with you' about seven times during the evening, but overall he was actually pretty good, addressing all the questions fired at him, and exhorting us to generally give the government a harder time about climate change, and to get involved in activism ourselves as we approach Copenhagen, especially regarding wind farms. He claimed that the silent majority in favour of wind power must do more to stop planning applications being rejected by a small vocal minority.
A green activist I spoke to after the event thought that Miliband could have been pushed to give more details on what exactly the Labour government was doing on the issues raised. While the activist thought it was fantastic that the event was put on, he said he wished that the questions on government policy could have been more focused. I imagine he had wanted the evening to show clearly to Miliband that a large section of the public wanted him to go much much further in his green policies than the government is presently doing. Things could have been more like this if the four speakers had not been talking about completely different things. The set-up as it was was good for people who wanted a chance to hear Miliband's policies on a number of different issues, but frustrating for those who knew what the policies were, disagreed with them, and wanted to see Miliband properly grilled.
Ian Leggett concluded by saying that Copenhagen would probably be the most important climate talks ever to take place. Britain is now one of the leading nations in advancing policy on preventing catastrophic climate change, so it will indeed be interesting to see whether Miliband will live up to the expectations of his audience in Oxford.
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