Only Authorised Nonconformism Is Permitted

Today I went around the Turner Prize nominees' exhibition. This is probably Britain's most famous annual art award. At the end of the exhibition there was a place where visitors could write their feedback onto hundreds of cards maked "comment" arranged in a grid pattern around three walls of the room. I treat this kind of art fairly light heartedly, but found one piece thought provoking and so wanted to write down a quick reflection on it. The comments cards, however, were quite small and had only about 4 ruled lines on them. To get around this limitation I simply turned the card over and was able to write out my full reflection on the blank rear. I pinned it back up on the wall but when I glanced back, a minute later, one of the gallery staff was removing it. All the other cards had been filled in on the front side of the headed cards, and they clearly didn't like my one breaking their ordered array. But isn't this ironic that, in an exhibition of art which is in large part about challenging conventions and conformity, my tiny piece of self-expression against the mold was immediately squashed. I violated the ordained layout and my voice was unacceptable, unlike the exhibiting artists who were being paid and honoured for making far more blatant challenges to social norms. It seems that only authorised nonconformity is permitted.

The comment I was trying to make concerned Langland & Bell's installation "NGO" about post-war Afghanistan. Their imagery of NGO signs and names was very familiar from my time in central Africa (and Iraq to a lesser extend, although organisations no longer want to advertise their presence there). The implication of the work seemed to be that the proliferation of NGOs was a hindrance rather than a help, and focused attention on their little subculture rather than the real human needs of the country. Certainly there is a real danger that NGOs become restricted by a particular way of doing things, and there's a danger of waste and duplication, not to mention confusion, with so many mysteriously acronymed groups piling into fashionable disasters. However there is a counter argument, with which Langland & Bell don't seem to engage, that the variety of NGOs can result in creativity of response and a better chance that local concerns are met, instead of a situation where relief and development is delivered by some homogeneous entity.

Anyhow, I think art which stimulates a response is interesting and therefore Langlands & Bell get my vote for the Turner Prize this year. If you're in London go and have a look yourself and post up your views. And if you're worried I'm becoming pretentious and arty-farty, don't be, as the other thing I saw today was Alien vs. Predator. The catch phrase of the film "Whoever wins, we lose" sounds very much like what many of my Iraqi friends said during the war last year, and unfortunately they seem to have been correct.

My ears are burning...

I'm a huge fan. I've read the book, plastered the stickers on the tube, worn the t-shirt and bought all the other branded merchandise, and now she's quoted little me in a Guardian editorial: "If justice and not power prevailed in international affairs, then Saddam's creditors would be paying reparations to Kuwait as well as far greater reparations to the Iraqi people."

Ghareeb was NOT a spy

My dear friend Ghareeb was killed 6 weeks ago defending Italian Enzo Baldoni on the journey home from taking medicial aid to Najaf. The tragedy has been made worse for his family - living in Kuwait, Jordan and Palestine and unable to get into Iraq - because his body hasn't been found to bury and now because some Italians have been making blatantly false accusations.

Maurizio Scelli, the coordinator of the Italian Red Cross (who opposed taking the desperately needed medical aid to Najaf), has called Ghareeb "a double faced Palestinian who spied for the Israelis" ("doppiogiochista, palestinese spia degli israeliani"). He said on Italian TV that Enzo and Ghareeb were kidnapped because they were on a CIA spy list. Pino Scaccia, a Italian journalist in Iraq, wrote on 30th September "I myself have a lot of doubts about those days and, i'll be honest, on Ghareeb's role. But I swear that I, at least, am not a spy." [I've been in touch with Pino to assuage his doubts and ask him to defend Ghareeb's reputation in the future].

In a recent interview the two Simonas rebuffed these accusations: "For us, Ghareeb was a generous man who often came to us asking for drugs to take sick people"(Simona Pari replies). "He took serious risks in this work. I remember him organising a convoy to Falluja in the days of the worst bombardments on the city. He even managed to get a few wounded people out of that city" (Simona Torretta).

Ghareeb was a generous self-giving man who regularly risked his life for no personal gain to help people. He gave away everything he had and devoted his time and health (he never slept!) to help people ranging children crippled by the war through to naive do-gooder visitors (that's me!). He was committed to the Palestinian cause and longed more than anything to be able to return home one day. His character and his actions do not fit with the accusation that he was a spy, least of all an Israeli one.

Yet another raid

I just recieved a distressed message from an Iraqi doctor friend. I've heard so many stories of agressive American nighttime raids, which real reveal the cruel and contemptuous attitute that so many in the US army have for the people they claim to be liberating: "I do not know what to do. Yesterday at 1am at morning a group of the Americans crossed the fence of my house in Baghdad ...trying to smash in the main door of the house inorder to enter, while my family was sleeping. My father thought that they are thieves (actually they r), and they ordered him to open the door threatening to kill him. He asked them for any papers but they refused and pointed the gun toward him. He opened the door then they grabbed him and put the pistol to his head and dragged him to my sisters room. They also grabbed them and took them to the roof of the house where they started to humilate my father under the eyes of my sisters. When he asked them for the reason they did not answer him and started beating him, and he is an old man of 65 years... Then they gave my father a gun and told him if u have the courage kill yourself now (can you imagine how sick they are). Then the neighbours called the police. Five police cars came but said they could not do anything because they r the Americans. They kept him till 6am, finally leaving when the local people started making a demonstration. This is the new democrasy..." See the updated Christian Peacemaker Teams report on detainees (Word document) for more accounts of abuse similar to this.

In the belly of the Beast

So here I am at the centre of world government, not Geneva of course, this is Washington DC. I'm actually blogging from the belly of the beast, two floors underground in the IMF. I've been here for the last three days lobbying for a just resolution of Saddam's debt and generally making a nusiance of myself. There have been some formal "dialogue" meetings which i've attended (here's a webcast [at the 38th minute] of me stutteringly asking a question and Gordon Brown refusing to answer it). I've also gatecrashed a few events I don't think I was meant to attend and asked some controversial questions... it's amazing how far you can wander with a smart suit and a confident stride!

Today there hasn't been much for me to do at the Fund and Bank, so I've been wandering around the city. I went to church this morning just east of the Capitol and then had a picnic lunch with some people I met there. Then I went wandering along the Mall, snapping like a typical tourist at all the iconic buildings and monuments. It's strange how familiar it all seems. I think almost everyone who's grown up in the last quarter of the 20th Century with access to a television (and particularly in Britain) can't avoid but feel partly American. It's one of those classic love/loath relationships. I loath US foreign policy, decedant consumerism, introverted nationalism etc. etc. Yet at the same time there's lots I admire about the ideals the US theoretically aspires to and many exemplary individuals and organisations. You find the extremes in America - the very worst and the very best that humanity has to offer... not to forget the very wierdest as well!