Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Galloway – “the collapse of the Assad regime is an Israeli victory”

    George Galloway swims, as ever, in murky waters. At least – some consolation – he's not at all happy with the latest developments in Syria. “October 7 now looks like a very bad idea, and it makes you wonder whose idea it was anyway.” Hmm.

    From MEMRI TV:

    Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi, who teaches English at Tehran University, told former British MP George Galloway in a December 8, 2024 interview following the collapse of the Bashar Al-Assad regime that “Netanyahu has succeeded in raising the black flag of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Damascus.” He lamented that after “what Erdoğan has done” he can no longer say that Israel has been defeated. Galloway replied that in fact, the collapse of the Assad regime is an Israeli victory and echoing a post on X he had written earlier that day, he said: “October 7 now looks like a very bad idea, and it makes you wonder whose idea it was anyway.” Marandi discussed Iranian regional influence saying that while Erdoğan was not serious about the Palestinian cause and did not give Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank a single bullet, Iran supplied weapons to the West Bank. He further said that Iran had sent troops and advisors to Damascus in order to ward off the opposition, but President Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian army refused to fight them.

    Not necessarily an Israeli victory, but certainly an Iranian defeat. Poor George.

    Oh lord, that hat….

  • A dangerous woman

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    The Manchester Evening News report:

    A judge has jailed a ‘dangerous’ woman for violent physical and sexual abuse.

    Angel Hill, 20, was handed an extended sentence for her crimes. Minshull Street Crown Court heard that Hill, who is transitioning from male to female, had demonstrated ‘violent, manipulative and controlling behaviour’.

    She pleaded guilty to assault by penetration, sexual assault, strangulation and threatening with a bladed article in relation to the victim. “I conclude you have no insight regarding your behaviour at all,” Judge Jason MacAdam told the defendant.

    “I see no evidence whatsoever that would lead me to conclude you are motivated to change your behaviour. Your approach being ‘it’s all about me’. The consequences of your actions don’t seem to register in your thought process, or if they do you ignore them. I find you to be dangerous, in the legal sense.”

    Hill, of High Peak, Derbyshire, was sentenced to an extended sentence of 11 years, including seven years in prison and four years on extended licence.

    Prosecuting, Stuart Neale said that the victim had struggled to breathe when Hill committed the strangulation offence. He said that Hill had said ‘I’m going to kill you’ earlier on the same occasion.

    A dangerous women? She? He's a man, ffs.

  • Parastoo Ahmadi

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    Full text:

    The concert was streamed live on her YouTube channel, quickly going viral on social media.

    Ahmadi is literally risking her life by performing with her hair uncovered.

    Doesn’t this deserve protests, boycotts, and encampments? 

    The brave Iranian women are waiting for your outrage.

    Latest:

    The Judiciary of the Islamic Republic has announced legal proceedings against Parastoo Ahmadi and others involved in producing an online musical performance….

    Ahmadi wrote: “I am Parastoo, a girl who wants to sing for the people I like. This is a right I could not ignore – singing for the land I passionately love. Here, in this part of our dear Iran, where history and our legends intertwine, listen to my voice.”

    Iranians on social media have praised Ahmadi for her defiance, as singing is forbidden for women under the Islamic Republic’s law.

    “I’m proud of her,” one user wrote on X. “Parastoo Ahmadi held a concert in Iran without a hijab. Her courage and this act will be remembered in history.”

    Another user shared: “I watched this video and cried with all my heart. For 45 years, women have been fighting despite gender apartheid in Iran, struggling for their most basic rights. For 45 years, a woman’s voice, body, and existence have been banned in Iran.”

    According to the Mizan news agency, the Judiciary declared the performance “illegal, lacking legal permits, and not adhering to the country’s legal and cultural standards.” 

  • At the Photo Portrait Prize exhibition

    The time has come round for the National Portrait Gallery's annual Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize exhibition. And this year's 1st prize winner…Sonam by Steph Wilson:

    Tw1
    [Photo © Steph Wilson]

    Not, as you might think, a trans man, but a woman wearing a false moustache. From the series Ideal Mother:

    Wilson was compelled to broaden the existing aesthetics and visual language of pregnancy by focusing on what can sometimes dismissively be referred to as ‘socially atypical mothers’. In a bid to subvert this cycle of representation and to embrace all types of beauty, she has spent nearly three years in pursuit of this vulnerable and revealing project. Sonam's profession is a wig maker, and the prop, a replication of her father's moustache, represents a third generation in this unconventional family portrait.

    Was compelled, no less. 

    There are plenty of fine portraits in the show. In my opinion this isn't one of the best, but there you go. Of course it had to win.

    There were, this aside, a few trans-themed contributions. Portrait of Ade "gives a glimpse into the journeys made and memories accumulated within a black trans body" and "asks us to consider the long established presence of queerness in nature", while Izzy, a portrait of  young lad with long hair, "is part of a project that [photographer] Charlotte Hadden has been working on for the past seven years, portraying young transgender people in the United Kingdom".

    You get to understand how impossible it must be to be "gender-critical" in today's art world. There's simply no room for doubt that trans is the next stage along in the great liberation, after gays. Transgender people are to be celebrated, and admired for their bravery.

    You can see a few more of the entries here at the Guardian.

  • A clear and present danger to Jews and the West

    We've heard this before – how extraordinary, how vile, has been the response by many on the Western Left to the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7th last year – but it's always worth reminding ourselves of the sheer scarcely believable outpouring of antisemitism – disguised, very thinly, as anti-Zionism – that we've experienced, on the streets and from universities in particular: both students and academics. This, from Joanna Tokarska Bakir in Fathom (translated from the original Polish) is a powerful summary – Part of the Western Left is now a clear and present danger to Jews and the West.

    Worth reading in full. Her conclusion:

    For left-wing politics today, support for the Palestinian cause has become as important as anti-capitalism, vegetarianism, opposition to coal mining and support for the right to abortion. The left craves a simple way of looking at the world, and it needs some groups which it can hate with impunity, and others which it can bombard with love.

    Jews do not need the left, for in spite of what antisemites say about them, they are a collective of anti-victims: following the greatest catastrophe in history, they took advantage of a historical opportunity to build a collective life. That is why we will never forgive them for what we did to them.

  • Zero names so far

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  • A crime committed under their watch

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    Full text:

    -The Oxford Union debate audience was hand-picked by the Union Muslim president Ebrahim Osman to guarantee vote results that suited his personal political views.

    -The president of the Union stepped down from his chair and took the floor on behalf of the proposition in favor of the motion condemning Israel as an apartheid state committing genocide in Gaza.

    -Ebrahim's carefully selected chorus would have not reported information to authorities to prevent Oct 7 massacre, preventing the bloodshed on both sides.

    -Participants overwhelmingly cheered the hateful speech of proposition calling for the destruction and the dismantling of a democratic state, an ancient nation, and a religious minority as the only solution to the Middle East problem.

    -The proposition denied the obvious, that Oct 7 was a religiously motivated attack against an ethnic minority, and went on expressing their broken record of victim narrative.

    -Later that evening, the same audience condemned Israel as an apartheid state committing genocide in Gaza against facts provided by the opposition.

    -Finally, the Oxford Union published all speeches of the proposition and opposition except two;

    1-Miko Peled's speech in an attempt to destroy evidence against one of the proposition speakers.

    2-My speech in an attempt to hide the moral rot among Ebrahim's audience.

    The Oxford Union MUST release both speeches without delay; they should be held accountable to the public and authorities. This is not about the debate anymore; this is an attempt to destroy evidence of a crime committed under their watch.

  • The Turkish flag raised over the citadel of Aleppo

    Matt Broomfield yesterday: "Aleppo, the first city to fall to HTS’s blitzkrieg advance, was a former jewel in the Ottoman Empire’s crown. After its capture, the Turkish flag flew from the Aleppo citadel once more."

    Here's Turkish MP Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party which is currently in coalition with Erdoğan’s AKP party:

    "You cannot encounter a son of the homeland whose heart does not tremble at the mention of Aleppo, because Aleppo is Turkish and Muslim to its core. We are not the only ones who say this.

    "History says this. Geography says this. The reality says this. The ancestors say this. The Turkish flag that is raised over the Citadel of Aleppo says this.

    "Whatever Istanbul's Grand Bazaar is Aleppo's market is that also. The 'Amens' that rise up from the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara are the same 'Amens' that echo from the Great Mosque of Aleppo. If Aleppo is there, then the Turkish nationalists and the Turkish nation, who heed the call of history, are here."

    Does Turkey now have territorial aims in Syria? Is that Turkish flag on the Aleppo citadel there to stay?

  • Jews in Syria

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  • North Korea and Yoon’s martial law incident

    More from the Daily NK, this time on reactions within North Korea to South Korea's president Yoon and his abortive attempt to impose martial law. While high-ups in Pyongyang were aware of the situation, and kept the entire military on an emergency footing for around 18 hours after Yoon’s martial law declaration, the general public were never informed:

    North Korean media provided to the general public, including the Rodong Sinmun newspaper and Korean Central Television, have not covered the martial law incident at all.

    The Rodong Sinmun’s lack of coverage of this issue — despite its frequent articles about demonstrations calling for Yoon’s resignation — appears to be due to concerns about how North Koreans would react to the news that the president’s martial law declaration was countermanded by the National Assembly.

    In North Korea, the orders of the supreme leader take priority over the Constitution, as well as resolutions of the Supreme People’s Assembly (North Korea’s legislature, similar to the South Korea’s National Assembly). The regime apparently fears that if North Koreans were to learn that the South Korean president’s orders had been immediately invalidated by the National Assembly, it could encourage them to entertain fantasies about democracy.

    In fact, North Korean party officials were more surprised that the martial law order was lifted by South Korea’s National Assembly than that it was declared in the first place.

    “How could an order given by the president be rescinded by the National Assembly? Officials were shocked to learn the order was immediately canceled because of opposition from the National Assembly,” the source said. 

    “If the South Korean government’s unilateral martial law declaration had gone into effect, the North Korean regime would have immediately used that in propaganda about the chaotic political situation in South Korea. But since the martial law declaration was canceled through the democracy process, the regime is uncomfortable with sharing those facts with the public,” Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told Daily NK.