Welcome to Vaclav Havel Airport

According to a recent poll 49 per cent of Czechs are against naming Prague Airport after Vaclav Havel. From an international point of view, you have to ask what is wrong with naming your capital's airport after a dissident and intellectual who spearheaded the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia and the break-up of the Soviet Bloc?

Just look at the guest list of Havel's funeral in Prague last year to see how influential he was: the Clintons, Lech Walesa, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, John Major and most European foreign ministers. Looking at that list it's not hard to guess which side of the political spectrum Havel's detractors come from. Unfortunately, there is still a sizable number of hard-line leftists in the Czech Republic, who stayed away and tried to forget Havel.

But even some Havel admirers object to renaming the airport after him. They say that he never liked flying and would not have wanted to be remembered in this way. This all sounds rather petty. It's as though they're in some kind of competition to tell everybody what Havel would and would not have liked best. 'Oh, I knew him better than you', 'Oh no you did not, I knew him better than anybody else' and so on and so forth.

I don't think Havel would have minded. It would probably suit his sense of humour, to see all the foreign tourists struggling to pronounce his name correctly as they arrive in the Bohemian lands.

Overall, it's a good way to remember the man who gave birth to the idea of 'the power of the powerless' which is still used by people fighting oppression the world over today. Although he is a major political figure, he still lacks the fame of JFK and John Lennon, who probably did not need airports named after them to be known and remembered. And how come there's no Winston Churchill airport in London. Imagine that!

Human Rights Watch Report 2012: Europe

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published its 2012 World Report on Friday. This international non-profit NGO has spent years monitoring the abuses and development of human rights with researchers on the ground in pretty much every country in the world.

The 690-page report which can be downloaded for free, examines everything from poor access to AIDs medication to instances of domestic violence from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Whilst there is a large focus on the events of the Arab Spring, which is likened to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the report includes a damning resume of the state of human rights in Europe.

Three main trends are identified as creating the ‘human rights crisis’ in Europe.

Firstly, counterterrorist measures in the wake of the attacks in Madrid and London have justified stripping all terrorist suspects of basic rights. An unknown number of suspects have faced torture in secret rendition centres abroad at the behest of national governments. This contravenes both international law against torture and the advice of terrorism experts who recognize the rule of law as the best way to counter terrorists.

Secondly, in the name of security, the idea that the rights of the majority can only be protected by sacrificing the rights of the minority has won widespread support in mainstream political discourse. As a result, Europe's migrants and minorities have faced increasing discrimination and xenophobic violence. This is evidenced by headscarf bans for Muslim women in several EU countries (France, Belgium, Germany and Italy) as well as the continued segregation of and discrimination against Roma, especially in eastern Europe.
 

Finally, the rise of populist extremist parties has furthered undermined the founding EU principle of universal human rights. Rather than combating the rise of the far right, mainstream parties have co-opted many of their policies. The ideal of democracy has been used to justify discriminatory and abusive policies - for example some argue that evictions of Roma from France protect the rights of the national majority and are therefore legitimate. The rights of the minority are considered irrelevant.

Ignorance and fear in Europe are again resulting in dangerous arguments that see some humans as more equal than others. As we have seen over the past century, such ideas can have catastrophic consequences.

Whilst the report identifies the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights as crucial actors that have the power to hold national governments to account, it remains to be seen how the people of Europe will respond as the economic recession deepens.

Will easy scapegoats be found and abused? Or will people rise to the challenge of building a better future, united in diversity?

Links:

World Report 2012
Chapter on the European Union
Essay by Benjamin Ward, ‘Europe’s Own Human Rights Crisis’
Video about Human Rights Watch

Missing the Big Band Bravado

Homage to Thad Jones
HR Big Band conducted by Jim McNeely
Suedbahnhof Musik Lokal, Frankfurt/Main, 27.01.2012
Tickets: 17 Euros

I had high hopes of the HR Big Band homage to Thad Jones, not least because it was led by Jim McNeely a seasoned veteran of The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra and a stunning jazz pianist in his own right. However, in the end the concert was rather a mixed bag.

Given that the halcyon days of big band music are long gone, it was fantastic to see such music performed live and to a sell-out crowd of some 300 fans. Indeed, the big bands funded by the German state broadcasters (in this case Hessische Rundfunk, hence HR) are amongst the few practitioners of this music remaining in Europe.

The 17-piece ensemble put in a professional performance of an impressive set-list that spanned Thad's entire career. Jim introduced each piece, giving just the right dose of anecdote in his smooth American accent.

The band took a while to get going and poor amplification did not help proceedings. Much of the original power and drive of the music was lost, especially since the drums were virtually relying on natural acoustics alone. Germany may be green, but who wants a sleepy windmill, when atomic energy is needed?

Nevertheless, 'A Child Is Born' with Jim McNeely himself taking the piano chair was an undoubted highlight of the concert. The audience stopped chewing their Wurst (sausage) for once, as the sheer beauty of this moving waltz demanded full sensory attention.

The set-up in the venue did not facilitate a full-out big band bash. The whole audience was seated at long tables and there was barely room for standing let alone dancing. In a mirror image to the aging audience, there was little kinetic energy on stage. At times, it looked as though these professional jazzers were just going through the motions, waiting for the next paycheck.

However, the finale went some way to bringing the house down. 'Suite For Pops' was a worthy blast of bebop magic and would have done Louis Armstrong proud. If only Jim could have whipped the band into such a frenzy earlier on, then this could have been a true revival of Thad's music. Like so many tributes, this could only hint at the genius of the original.

Book review: The Fat Years

Shanghai-born author, Chan Koonchung

The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung

First published in Chinese in 2009 by OUP, Hong Kong as Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013

English translation by Michael S. Duke, 2011

318 pages, £6.50 on amazon.co.uk

The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung has been billed by some as the Chinese Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although the novel has been banned in China, it is far less radical than George Orwell's masterpiece that was first published in 1949.

 
Koonchung's story is set in the China of 2013. Whilst the rest of the world languishes in economic depression, China has forged ahead to a 'Golden Age of Properity'. As Old Chen sips his Lychee Black Dragon Latte in the local Starbucks, it barely crosses his mind to question his own feeling of contentment or that of anybody else around him. On the surface, everybody is happy.

It takes several encounters with old friends before he seriously starts to suspect that something is wrong with reality. First, the spiritual traveller, Fang Caodi, insists that a whole month has been wiped from people's memories. Second, Chen's ex-girlfriend Little Xi is constantly shadowed by undercover agents because of her internet activism.

The story follow's Chen's somewhat rambling path to unveiling the truth. Along the way there are plenty of essayistic style dialogues with wizened Party official, He Dongsheng. Although these offer interesting perspectives on Chinese history and politics, they clog up the action.

In the end, the book is more philosophical treatise, than straight thriller. Is it better to live a lie and be happy or live in truth and be unhappy?