Saturday 12 December 2009

The pleasure of cycling

After being secluded at home for over a week thanks to the swine flu, I've rediscovered the pleasure of cycling. It's true that Madrid isn't the best of cities to go by bike, nor is it the best prepared for it either, but I still enjoy using my bike to go everywhere. Even though it can be quite stressful to cycle through the crowded streets full of impatient drivers, I feel that slowly but surely the bicycles are conquering Spain's capital.

When I came back from Berlin, one of the things I missed most was my bike, crappy though it was (I never had it stolen, even though I once forgot to lock it). In the successive years I've noticed a serious increase in the number of bikes that circulate through Madrid. That and the discovery of a cycling lane finally separated from the road to get to uni made me buy a decent bike to use in my everyday trips.

It's true that there is still a long way to go to make Madrid a safe city to cycle. Not only do we need more cycling lanes inside the centre itself, but it is also necessary to educate the car drivers to make them conscious of the new users of the road. This latter necessity will be the hardest to achieve since, sadly, the cars still think they are the only ones entitled to the use of the streets. Hopefully, in a few years, Madrid will have caught up with the other European capitals as regards the use of bikes and its citizens will feel safe while making the world an environmentally friendlier place.

Thursday 26 November 2009

Monday 16 November 2009

20 years ago

20 years ago a wall fell. And it wasn't only a physical wall, in the end, those are the easiest to break down. The fall of the Berlin wall meant far more than just that. It meant the reunion of families and friends that hadn't seen each other in years, it meant the come together of two cultures that had been fighting each other through the ways of fear, espionage and psychological torture. Two cultures which tried to bend and shape the human nature to their own will, to represent their ideals and interests.

The fall of the Berlin wall, however, was far more than the symbol of the end of the Cold War. In its own way, it meant the failure of communism in Europe. The realisation that the human nature wasn't prepared for a proletariat society, where the government was the people and the people was the government. This idea, which has been unsuccessfully tried many times, seems to clash with something which is buried deep within us. That "something" is selfishness. Why do something for the common good when I can do something that will benefit me more? This is, to put it simply, the reason why probably communism as Marx and Engels understood it will never work in our society. The human being is selfish by nature, probably due to the survival instinct which we are born with. It is possible to overcome and to teach that the "greater good" is always more beneficial than the private "smaller good" on the long run, however, this concept is only viable in practice within small communities of individuals; once it is expanded to a whole nation, it seems it is doomed to fail.

The celebration they put up stroke me as quite hypocritical, all the presidents standing together and smiling at the cameras as if to show how big friends they now are. When everyone returns to their home countries, this false friendship is turned into studied enmity. The Cold War is over, but Russia still doesn't want US military bases in Poland or the Czech Republic, countries which it still considers its influence zone. Europe condemns the construction of the Berlin wall and celebrates its fall, but still closes its eyes on the 6 times longer wall that exists in Gaza. Hypocrisy seems to be the (un)ethical value politicians fashion these days.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

No man is an island

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."

- John Donne (1572-1631)

Saturday 7 November 2009

Poema 6

Te recuerdo como eras en el último otoño.
Eras la boina gris y el corazón en calma.
En tus ojos peleaban las llamas del crepúsculo.
Y las hojas caían en el agua de tu alma.

Apegada a mis brazos como una enredadera,
las hojas recogían tu voz lenta y en calma.
Hoguera de estupor en que mi sed ardía.
Dulce jacinto azul torcido sobre mi alma.

Siento viajar tus ojos y es distante el otoño:
boina gris, voz de pájaro y corazón de casa
hacia donde emigraban mis profundos anhelos
y caían mis besos alegres como brasas.

Cielo desde un navío. Campo desde los cerros.
Tu recuerdo es de luz, de humo, de estanque en calma!
Más allá de tus ojos ardían los crepúsculos.
Hojas secas de otoño giraban en tu alma.

- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Thursday 22 October 2009

Heimliche Gedächtnise

It's strange how memories come back to us, always when you least expect them. A small gesture or something that you see with the corner of your eye may bring back thoughts of other times that were kept within the subconscious.

This happened to me this morning as I was locking my bicycle and I held my scarf back to stop it from getting full of oil. This simple gesture, which is by now quite automatic, made me think of a different city and a different time. For a second, I was back in Berlin, locking a different bike (mine was green then) and holding back a different scarf (a very long white one that easily got dirty). Berlin, one city that's actually still two, with its small quasi Victorian buildings in the west, the huge blocks of anonymous apartments in the east and its completely out of scale monuments, scarcely thought for humans. A city so different to all the ones I know.

It's strange how I now miss the streets that were already dark at 3 pm in the winter and empty of people by 6; but then again, a city is not only the buildings, but the moments lived within it. It is so, that, when I recall the huge, impersonal German capital, always fond memories spring to mind. The butcher shop round the corner, Lietzensee park, Straße des 17. Juni, die Weinerei, Unter den Linden, Adlershof, Sophienstraße... all islands within the city which I will always remember as they were 3 years ago, no matter how much they change.

I don't know what's got into me, maybe it's the influence of the books I've been reading (I've just finished The Quiet American and Understanding Power and have started O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis). As H says, I'm only reading sad or melancholic books lately. Perhaps that's the reason why I felt this nostalgia today which made me think of other places.

Monday 19 October 2009

Nobel prize for... peace?

It's been a while since I wrote the last entry of my blog and I decided I should retake it with this year's Nobel laureate for peace: Barack Obama. I was quite surprised (probably as many of the readers of this blog) when I found out that the Norwegian academy had awarded the peace prize to the president of the United States.

I must admit that what most shocked me was that the prize for peace was awarded to a president that's involved in two wars. Moreover, hours after the announcement, Obama had a meeting with the Department of Defense to decide by how many would he increase the number of troops sent to Afghanistan. Even more astonishing is the fact that the military budget of the US has increased since he's in office.

Looking back in history, it's not surprising that Obama has been awarded the prize considering that also Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger have been Nobel peace laureates. Although remembered for being the founder of the League of Nations, that was later to become the UN and that was never quite successful in keeping world peace, Wilson involved the US in the first World War, occupied Haiti and bombarded Mexico.

Roosevelt brought peace between Japan and Russia, but also helped Cuba liberate from Spain while setting US influence over the island. He was also president during the war with the Phillipines. Finally there's Kissinger, who ended the war in Vietnam which he had helped start and supported Nixon's bombing of peasant villages in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. All of them were found worthy of a prize that supposedly rewards peace. Unbelievable.

Keeping this in mind, it's hard to find reasons why the Norwegian academy has decided, yet again, to award a peace prize to someone so involved in war. Some say that more than rewarding Obama for his promises (one cannot say deeds, for he hasn't accomplished any), the Nobel Committee has sought to punish George W. Bush for his actions. Even though this may be true, it still seems paradoxical for the above reasons to give a prize to someone that promises so much and, in the end, does so little for peace.

Friday 9 October 2009

Expensive non-Olympic games

Madrid's mayor, Albert Ruiz Gallardón announced today the cost of Madrid's candidacy for the Olympic games of 2016. In total, the failed candidacy has cost the people from Madrid the total of 16.8 million euros. Since 2006, when it was first decided that Madrid would apply as an Olympic city, 37.8 million euros have been spent, out of which the above mentioned 16.8 million have come out of our taxes.

The question is: what have we, the everyday citizens of the city,  gained out of these many millions? A half built stadium, a nearly one year long paralysed underground system and the prospect of suffering the Olympic games. I say suffering because that is what we would do if the Olympic games were to take place here: the prices of everything would go up, the city would be filled with tourists (sure that tourism is a boost for the economy, or that is what the politicians sell us, but it would only be so for the short time the games last for), property speculation and many many more expensive construction works on a city which isn't precisely lacking them.

I can accept that some people can see something positive in hosting the Olympic games, but it is outrageous and I would also add pretty ridiculous, to have spent so much money, our money, on something that we have lost already twice. When did we give our permission for the government to spend our taxes on such an absurd project? Did they consult the residents of Madrid if we wanted to be an Olympic city? Especially after losing the candidature for the 2012 edition.

At least we have the relief that until after the municipal elections of 2012 Madrid will not apply to be an Olympic city again. Hopefully, people will have learnt the lesson and will not vote Gallardón again; but then of course this is only dreaming, because the PP will win yet again and, because it's so great to be an Olympic city, Madrid will also apply for the 2020 candidature. It always surprises me how people don't seem to mind the endless construction works and the millions spent.

Thanks to H for making me aware of this news.

Wednesday 7 October 2009

La ciencia en España no necesita tijeras


Esta es una iniciativa colectiva que ha nacido en internet y que creo que merece la pena. El concepto es muy sencillo: todo aquel que tenga un blog debe publicar el día 7 de octubre una entrada en la cual dé una razón por la cual no se debe recortar el presupuesto para la investigación, como prentende y lleva haciendo el gobierno desde el año pasado.

Pues bien, la razón por la cual yo creo que no se debe disminuir el presupesto para la investigación en España es también simple. Si queremos que los investigadores españoles estén al mismo nivel que los del resto del mundo, es necesario invertir en investigación. Ahora que la ciencia está avanzando tanto y que hay nuevos campos por explorar es el momento de participar más activamente. Para ello, el gobierno tiene que ser consciente de que hay que invertir ahora para formar y mantener en España a científicos de alto nivel que puedan competir con los de las mejores universidades del mundo. Si no es así, que no nos sorprenda que todas las futuras promesas se vayan al extranjero.

Los políticos tienen que entender que para salir de la crisis no hay que invertir en construcción ni dar ayudas para que la gente compre más coches. Donde hay que centrarse es en valores sociales, y la investigación es uno de ellos, aunque no tenga necesariamente una aplicación práctica en la sociedad de consumo en la que nos hemos convertido.

Monday 5 October 2009

Eyes for the blind

Recently, a friend of mine told me that all the entries in my blog are negative. Well, just to prove that I'm also aware of the good things that happen in the world, here is a "happy" post about an article I read a while ago.

The responsible for this positive entry is a physics professor at Oxford University named Josh Silver. His idea, which dates back to 1985, is to make what are now known as adaptive glasses. The physics behind it: lenses that can be filled with a fluid and thus have varying strength (the fatter the lens, the more powerful it is). The motivation: make it affordable for millions of poor people in the world to be able to see.

The principle behind the idea is marvelously simple: you just take a normal pair of glasses and replace the lenses with two circular sacs which are filled with fluid. The amount of fluid that goes into them is controlled by two syringes which can be operated by the wearer of the glasses without the need of a qualified optician, thus reducing their cost immensely.

It has taken over 20 years for this idea to come to fruition. Now Silver, already retired, has embarked himself in the incredibly ambitious project of supplying the poor a billion of these adaptive glasses by 2020. Moreover, the project today is not only pen and paper: there already exist 30 000 such pairs  distributed over 15 countries, being the next target to send a million pairs to India. The project is in a few years to be upgraded to produce 100 million spectacles annually.

The consequences of such idea are well beyond just letting people see. Literacy rates are supposed to improve hugely and people will not have to retire because of poor eyesight. If coordinated with good development strategies, making people see can even change the economic situation of many  Third World countries (in Africa the ratio of people with eyesight problems to optometrists is 1000000:1, forcing most of them to retire at the early age of 35). However, life is not a bowl of cherries and mass producing these glasses is not going to be an easy task. Silver, who isn't making any profit out of it, wants to reach the target price of 1 dollar per pair. To do this, the rather heavy and bulgy model that now exists must be improved to a lighter and cheaper one to produce. Needless to say, although retired, Silver is working on it.

That such projects exist, that there are enthusiasts with such vision for a global good makes it still worth it to have hope in a world like the one we live in. I sincerely hope that Josh Silver succeeds in the task set before him, that is, of course, if it doesn't clash with US corporatist interests... only time will tell.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Áspero Mundo

Para que yo me llame Ángel González,
para que mi ser pese sobre el suelo,
fue necesario un ancho espacio
y un largo tiempo:
hombres de todo mar y toda tierra,
fértiles vientres de mujer, y cuerpos
y más cuerpos, fundiéndose incesantes
en otro cuerpo nuevo.
Solsticios y equinoccios alumbraron
con su cambiante luz, su vario cielo,
el viaje milenario de mi carne
trepando por los siglos y los huesos.
De su pasaje lento y doloroso
de su huida hasta el fin, sobreviviendo
naufragios, aferrándose
al último suspiro de los muertos,
yo no soy más que el resultado, el fruto,
lo que queda, podrido, entre los restos;
esto que veis aquí,
tan sólo esto:
un escombro tenaz, que se resiste
a su ruina, que lucha contra el viento,
que avanza por caminos que no llevan
a ningún sitio. El éxito
de todos los fracasos. La enloquecida
fuerza del desaliento...

- Ángel González (1925 - )

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Mediatised fascism

Over a week ago the BBC announced that it would host Nick Griffin (leader of the BNP, British National Party) on its program Question Time. The reason for doing this, according to a BBC spokesman, is that:

"the BBC is obliged to treat all political parties registered with the Electoral Commission and operating within the law with due impartiality. By winning representation in the European parliament, the BNP has demonstrated evidence of electoral support at a national level. This will be reflected in the amount of coverage it receives on BBC programmes such as Question Time."

This, however, should not be accepted. The BBC has already given the BNP coverage way beyond any arguable obligations, and it started doing so long before the BNP had demonstrated any 'national support' (it should be noted that actually the number of votes they received this time went down). There is absolutely no obligation on them to host Griffin on Question Time. This is not about the law, representative coverage, free speech or anything of that kind - although if the BBC wants to cite those points, the BNP is lawless, opposed to free speech and doesn't believe in representation of any group its Nazi ideology deems fit for persecution. The legality of such a political party is actually quite debatable. It does not permit non-white people to join the party and therefore practices racial discrimination. Griffin, in a carefully coded statement evoking the famous 'fourteen words' of white supremacist ideology, has suggested that the BNP may have to adapt to the law but will still seek "to secure a future for the true children of our islands".

On the other hand, part of the BBC's normative rationale for hosting fascist propaganda is that it must be fair and impartial, and must faithfully represent all points of view. Few readers of this blog will believe for a second that the BBC is non-biased, or that it represents all points of view fairly. The BBC has an institutional bias toward power, as we have seen demonstrated in surveys concerning its coverage of Iraq and Israel-Palestine. It has a similar bias over class issues, and is instinctively hostile to strikers, protesters, environmentalists, anticapitalists, the left, etc. That hostility also extends to antifascists. Take for example the coverage of the massive Welling protest in 1993, which was brutally attacked by police. The BBC in this case sought to vilify the protesters and to imply that they were violent and disruptive.

So, to put it plainly, what the BBC is doing is offering fascism a great opportunity to advertise itself, which is certainly in agreement with its policy of being against any left-wing movement. Furthermore, I'm sure Griffin is delighted by the amount of expectation that his appearance on QT has managed to create and how he has managed to attract not only the general public's attention, but also the government's. Gordon Brown has suggested the justice secretary, Jack Straw, or the communities secretary, John Denham, to appear alongside the BNP leader on Question Time. The Conservatives have also said they will put up a senior figure for the programme and the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said he would be likely to field its home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, to take part.

To conclude, this is a further example of how the media behaves in our modern society. What the BBC is doing with the BNP is done everyday on a smaller basis by other mainstream media worldwide, perhaps not so blatantly. If you look closely enough, you can notice how the press choose very carefully what they tell and how they tell it and that, in the end, is another form of mediatised fascism.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

The long forgotten

Once upon a time, 27 years ago today, a terrible massacre that is rarely remembered took place. On the 16th of September 1982, the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia entered two Beirut refugee camps called Sabra and Shatila which were inhabited by Palestinian refugees. Their mission was authorised by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), under the command of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, that held the territory around Beirut at that time as a result of the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Phalangists, whose Maronite Christian president, Bachir Gemayel, had just been assassinated on  the 14th of September, entered the camps on the afternoon of the 16th and carried out a 62-hour rampage of rape and murder until Saturday morning, September the 18th. They were motivated by revenge for the Gemayel killing, which they attributed to the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation). Later, information revealed that Gemayel was assassinated by the Syrians, who opposed his alliance with the Israelis, and not by the PLO. The exact number killed by the Phalangists is disputed, with estimates ranging from 328 to 3500, according to Wikipedia. 

The killing attracted international attention, especially because the gates of both refugee camps were under the control of the IDF. The Israeli government set up the Kahan Commission to investigate, which held Israel indirectly responsible for the murders of Sabra and Shatila. Amazingly, it went as far as to bear Ariel Sharon personally responsible for "ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge" and for "not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed." The Commission even demanded Sharon's resignation as Defense Minister, which he did reluctantly, probably forced by the international outcry that had erupted. The US, of course, didn't waste the opportunity to praise the government of its mercenary state. Here is an extract of what former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said of the Kahan Commission: 

"[It was] a great tribute to Israeli democracy... There are very few governments in the world that one can imagine making such a public investigation of such a difficult and shameful episode."

What was really surprising was the media coverage of the event. Instead of investigating how the killing had come to happen, they centred their attention on the number of victims, trying to get the world to see how what had happened in Beirut wasn't really a massacre, but a standard, everyday killing...

When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a massacre? Or, put another way, how many killings make a massacre? Thirty? A hundred? Three hundred? When is a massacre not a massacre? When the figures are too low? Or when the massacre is carried out by Israel’s friends rather than Israel's enemies? If Syrian troops had crossed into Israel, surrounded a Kibbutz and allowed their Palestinian allies to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants, no Western news agency would waste its time afterwards arguing about whether or not it should be called a massacre.

But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly Christian militiamen, but the Israelis were also to blame. Even though the Israelis had not directly taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp knowing that they were seeking revenge and that surely a bloodshed would happen. They were coldblooded enough as to sit back and watch how refugees were being slaughtered. This happened 27 years ago. Today we have a wall along the Gaza strip separating it from Egypt which, although it has been compared on several occasions with the one in Berlin, hasn't received half of the attention. The question today shouldn't be how many deaths it takes for a killing to become a massacre, but how many massacres and how many walls will it take for the world to react.

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
 
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

- Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Monday 14 September 2009

A suitable lunch

Thursday the 10th of September. COSMO'09 conference taking place at CERN about to end. I'm sitting outside restaurant 1, enjoying one of the few sunny days left in Geneva. Around my table are a collection of people from several places around the world: friends from afar that I've made along the way in the many travels that scientific research puts you through. Perhaps a bit of background about them is necessary: There's Zé, Portuguese, 24, cosmology PhD student at Portsmouth; Anastasia, 25, originally from Kazakhstan, living in Tel Aviv since she's 17 and also a cosmology PhD student; same goes for Irina. Finally there's Joan Antoni, 24, from Catalonia and working on extra dimensions and me.

Having two people from Israel or, better said, currently living there, I couldn't resist the temptation to ask them about their point of view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how the situation is lived from inside the country. I thought their opinion would be particularly interesting since they're educated students, people that have been granted the privilege to the ability to question the world that surrounds us. I was to be proven wrong...

To start with, the question wasn't very well taken. The first answer I received from Anastasia is that such topic is not suitable to debate during lunch. Of course, what she wanted to say is that she didn't want to discuss it at all, probably because she sensed that our opinions might be divergent, and she was right. However, this was not what surprised me the most. What most startled me was the reaction of the whole table. After a few awkward minutes of tense silence (in Spain we would use the expression that an angel had passed) a sort of dialog started - much to Anastasia's distaste. Hope uplifted, I listened to what people's thoughts on the matter were... and was again disappointed. A managed to utter something like: "the Jews were there first" as if this gave them the right to bomb Gaza and exterminate the Palestinians, I thought. J would just keep repeating that the situation was more complicated than how we were depicting it - but didn't add a more profound explanation or viewpoint. Z started comparing the conflict with the Basque country in Spain... I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. After some attempts to try to refute these nonsensical ideas - the general position was clearly pro-Israel - I abandoned all hope and kept quiet.

The real problem here is not that a group of future doctors were clearly pro-Israel. What's really scandalous is the nonexistence of a profound critical reflection amongst young educated people. I'm not expecting them to read ZNet or listen to Democracy Now, but I would think it normal within such a collective of individuals that they would have informed themselves and, why not, involved themselves in what's happening in the world we live in. It's all fine to sit in a desk 8 (or more) hours a day solving impossible formulae, but, even though our imagination is free to roam through the Universe, our feet are still bound to a convoluted planet.

Morning view

This is the first time I ever write in an internet blog. The idea comes from a friend of mine with whom I argued that I wouldn't like to have my thoughts on the web available for everyone to read. To be fair, this still holds. I'm not keen on writing anything personal here, just some of my opinions about the world around us.

The title of this blog - another hard decision - comes to describe the photograph that accompanies this post. This is the view from my apartment in Saint-Genis at about 8 in the morning. On very clear days it is even possible to see the Mont-Blanc while having breakfast. This view, with CERN in the foreground (reminding me that I have to leave to work) is what I like to contemplate while thinking about the things that will probably be published here, hence the title of the blog.