Woolwich

There was a brutal attack in Woolwich less than 24 hours ago.  Within hours of its occurring the British media was full of footage of a body lying in the street and a man with a cleaver in his bloodied hands.  As for as I can see, every major news outlet (television, internet and papers) in this country carried these, specifically before the 9pm watershed.  You would have had to be far away from things, or have taken a conscious decision and effort to have avoided them.  You don't need to buy a paper to see the front page of someone reading it opposite you on the train, bus or tube.

The media did not have to do this.  Their editors took a conscious decision to do so.  I've scanned European newspaper outlets.  Most copied our press.  Two definitely did not: the quality publications  Libération and Süddeutsche Zeitung.  It's not because they don't think the story is important: the latter (which the Guardian teams up with on European reporting) carried a full video report.  Click on the link.  Even if you don't understand it, you won't see images of the body, the alleged attacker, bloodied hands or a meat cleaver.  You'll see images such as the one above of flowers left near the scene.

This isn't accidental: La Libération expressly says it chose not to broadcast the video:

If you want an example of an English language report that gets the facts of the story over in a way our press failed to, the UAE's leading paper (The National) manages it quite well here.  It really, really is not that tricky: in fact the press used to do this for decades rather well.

[Postscript: I'm told Sky News deliberately did not broadcast the video.  Credit to them for that.  They are still carrying plenty of images of the man with the bloodied hands, however.]

[Further postscript 8pm on 23 May: Libération is now carrying the video having previously made the decision not to.  How depressing this race to the bottom is.  It was not last night, or this morning at the time of writing.] 

What Was Wrong with the Reporting

Lacking Respect

The first very obvious fact is the complete lack of respect for the victim, his family, his friends and his colleagues.  That was a real body lying in the street.  Someone got up yesterday morning, whose life was unexpectedly ended in the most hideous way imaginable.  It is entirely possible, and in fact extremely likely that people who knew him saw these images before receiving the personal news.

If someone you loved had been murdered in this way, would you repeatedly want to see the alleged perpetrator standing there, on every news channel, and in every paper, with blood on his hands and the weapon in his hands?  We cannot for one moment imagine what that must feel like.  It is basic human decency not to project these images.

Creating Terror

There was a heated discussion about whether the attack constitutes terrorism.  Looking at the broad legal definition set out in the Terrorism Act 2000, it would seem to.  My natural understanding of terrorism, however, is a bit different to that one.  To me, it's a politically motivated act, the effect of which is to make ordinary people in a society feel threatened, frightened and upset: to feel scared or terrorised going about their ordinary lives, if you like.  That's very subjective and hard to measure, but it's something I felt for example riding on the tube just after 7/7.  I was personally scared and upset because of what had happened.

If reports are accurate, the alleged attackers waited round and encouraged people to film them on their smartphones.  Everyone has one nowadays.  The man with the cleaver stated his political reasons for the murder, as he brandished the weapon and a man's body lay behind him on the street.  This was uploaded onto the ITV News website, picked up by media everywhere, and broadcast into homes across the country.  His aim was to get his message across and to terrorise ordinary people had been achieved.  The isolated, horrific killing of one man, had just become an act of terrorism for me personally, thanks to our media.

The terror extends specifically to children.  These images were broadcast well before 9pm.  Any child going into a newspaper to buy sweets today will be confronted by shelves full of an image of a man holding a meat cleaver in his bloodied hands. 

Prejudicing Justice

The chances of finding members of a jury who did not see the video footage are very slight.  You may belong to the mob justice group who feel that such people should be gunned down without trial.  I don't, and think that maintaining the checks and balances that the criminal justice system in a civilised society provides is more important than ever in the face of such attacks.  Further, if you feel that "hanging isn't good enough" for such people, how would you feel if people who do these things are actually acquitted because the execution of justice has been so badly prejudiced by reporting?  I'd be pretty darn sick and am sure you would too.

Applying a Filter

Where is news reporting heading?  The closest I've come to terrorism is my best friend at school's father, Colonel Coe, who was murdered by the IRA outside their house in Germany.  He was shot repeatedly in his car.  We had been there 30 minutes before dropping another friend off.  I didn't need to see images of the inside of his car to understand what had happened.  I didn't want to see the images.  I'm sure his family didn't want them to be broadcast across the country.  I didn't need to see the insides of dead horses across the road at the time of the Hyde Park bombing.  I didn't need to see the interiors of the 7/7 tube to understand the story.  Even as short a time ago as 7/7, little of this happened, fortunately.

Once we have crossed this bridge and established this precedent, it's hard to see it going back.  Will it be just terrorist attacks that are reported in this way, or will it extend to all news stories?  "Teenager killed in a car accident" - yes, let's show her decapitated body - never mind her grieving family, people just need to see this because we can show it.  There's been condemnation of the reporting in this instance, but each time we inevitably become a little more immune to the images of violence and tragedy.

Of course in the "internet age" people do take videos and upload them.  They can be accessed for people keen on seeking them out.   This is different to before and it is inevitable.  It's not inevitable that news sites with massive reach choose to promote them, however.  I don't know that there isn't a much more graphic video of the attackers actually hacking into the body that isn't out there somewhere, via a smartphone.  There very likely are several of them.  In this case, ITV News might have chosen not to put it on its website and make sure it was seen everywhere.  Next time they might.

There's an interesting point about "well the image is out there, so why don't we show it too, if everyone else is?".  Le Monde and Le Figaro are the rivals of Libération.  They carried the images.  Libération did not.  I know whose editorial team I now respect more. 

A Final Thought

Last night I was walking my dog through our historic Suffolk village.  The most exciting thing that happens here is a leaf walking off a tree, a bit like in that crap Hofmeister beer advert, if you remember it.  My mind was full of the horror of what I'd read and seen.  Terrible things have happened for centuries: awful brutality and occurrences.  People here would have been immune to them: protected and completely oblivious for better or worse in their quiet lives.

Now we have 24 hour rolling commentary, news blogs, and comment on Twitter.  I tweeted (yes, the irony), something to the effect of asking whether these developments were bringing us any benefit.  I'm really not sure they are.  Yes, I can switch off.  Perhaps I should.  


My thoughts should be with the family, friends and colleagues of the victim.  They now will be.

Criticism: Telling People Off on Twitter

Last Sunday I was having a fabulous time at a party: it was the Bat Mitzvah party of the daughter of friends I hadn't seen properly in years.  The place was decked out in pink, with real palm trees with fairy lights, huge ice sculptures on the tables, and the daughter was carried on a litter by male models. It was AMAZING: the best party I've ever been to.  It was as if you'd photographed your dreams - particularly if you're a teenage girl... or a gay bloke who can laugh at himself and appreciates the odd ten-tonne serving of kitsch.

Rather ironic then, that a notification flashed up during the meal regarding a tweet I'd posted 4 hours before.  Here is my tweet, reproduced in all its offensive, vile, outrageously nasty glory:

A natural reading of that would probably suggest I'm gently mocking myself for my musical tastes.  I like the same music that teenage girls do.  The tear rolling down my sad face at the end (the emoticon) quite possibly indicates this is not a statement that is meant to be taken entirely seriously and that it's quite light-hearted.  Also the fact I'm tweeting this in all likelihood indicates that actually I don't regard liking Lawson or Boyzone to be a crime.  It's the light-hearted fluff I'm wont to tweet and clearly not the most profound tweet that I've ever produced.  However, it led to this response from a follower, who was someone I'd never spoken to, which said "it's amazing the contempt in which teenage girls are held. That you deride yourself by saying you're like one.  Sad huh?"

No, I kind of disagree.

1) Are teenage girls really a persecuted minority? 2) Does the fact I've just driven 200 miles to attend an event for one prima facie suggest I share this supposed contempt on a personal level? 3) Why should I have to justify myself / what in general gives you the god-given right to criticise me in this way, and what response do you expect?  A block was all that resulted, but it was enough to put me in a bad mood for a good 15 minutes.  Thanks: you're so much a better person than I am for tweeting me this and upsetting a perfectly lovely evening.

Telling People Off: Everyone's Favourite New Twitter Pastime

Point 3 is what this blog post is about and the above is just one recent, silly, but irritating example of it.  Criticising others has, in my experience, become endemic on Twitter.  You hear time and again "Twitter has changed".  This is the biggest change I can identify: people attacking others for their views or more specifically the manner in which they express themselves.  Word censorship, if you like.

I'm not referring to pointless political arguments which go on hours: they have been on Twitter ever since Noah landed on Mount Ararat and sent his first tweet.  I'm still to be convinced in 140 characters that immigration is a bad idea, or that austerity is a good one.  Similarly I doubt anyone has ever been convinced by my tweets.  Links to news articles, or blogs: perhaps.  Tweets, rarely.  It is a feature of the medium that people exchange views, argue, and leave more convinced of their own opinions than before.  Fine, it's not for me, but I've no issue with it.

I'm talking instead about people criticising and sometimes attacking others for their use of language and daring to express themselves in the natural terms that people do every day across the country.  I've seen it time and time again: people leaping on others and chastising them as if they were small children who had been naughty for the words they have used. 

Some Examples

There seems to be a whole set of words on Twitter that are entirely VERBOTEN*:

"Hysterical" is now not permitted, because when it entered the English language around 1610, it had its etymological origins in the word hystericus (Latin, of the womb).  It has clearly been unwittingly used since before WW2 to mean "very funny" by millions of closet misogynists, women amongst them - but now it must be expunged from the vocabulary of Twitter because a self-appointed language policing panel has declared it unacceptable.

I was attacked for my use of "nannying" by a well known member of the TWITTER TALIBAN** (who doesn't follow me) when I retweeted a blog that had this word in it.  Apparently I was /sexist/ for repeating it.  Never mind that there are male nannies and it has a very natural, widely accepted meaning that is neither sexist nor offensive to 99% of the population.  I was able to escape and was very fortunate not to have a Twatwah issued against me in all the circumstances.

Twitter has been superbly informative for me in helping me understand, and share on a daily basis, the experiences of people with mental health issues.  I've seen blogs that have moved me and made me realise how little understanding there is more widely in society regarding this subject.  People, particularly with depression, for some reason seem to find the medium a "safe place" to break down the silence and challenge the stigma.  Wonderful.

But my god... do not ever use a word on Twitter as people do in completely natural everyday speech without the slightest intent to disparage those with MH issues.  I give you the examples of using "manic" to describe your day at work, or call something "madness".  You will instantly be cast into the fiery pit of ableist hell if the wrong person sees your use of them on Twitter.  I saw one person lecturing another recently about the other's use of "delusional" and "idiot"***.  Both words are apparently now Verboten because they are abelist vocabulary.

BAN THIS OFFENSIVE FILTH. BURN IT. IT IS SICK.

"Cretin" started as a medical term.  It was originally well-meant: it is from the French word for "Christian" and implied that someone with severe intellectual impairment still deserved to be treated with human dignity.  It was dropped from medical usage when it began to become an insult.  The same has happened to moron and any other number of terms including of course retard and retardation (which simply means to be held back, and is actually still a World Health Organization actual medical term).  It is the so-called euphemism treadmill: whatever term is chosen by the medical profession for intellectual impairment, it eventually becomes perceived as an insult and has to be replaced.

What word are we now to use, Twitter, to describe someone who has done something stupid, and how soon will it become abelist to do so?  Interestingly I've a real life friend who has been sectioned twice, who has blogged brilliantly on her experiences, in the process no doubt helping and educating many, and who light-heartedly refers to herself as a "loony" on Twitter.  I'd love one of the Twaliban to stumble on her by accident one day, and watch her response if they attacked her for her own very deliberate choice of language.  

(Thanks @thesaharadesert for the image)

My suggestion also for the punishment of the unnamed senior Tory who recently called Conservative Association members as "mad swivel-eyed loons" is to give him a Twitter account and make him read the responses of the pack who would lay into him.  These wouldn't be the actual people he'd insulted (the Tories), it would be those who object to his use of English in doing so (the "well-meaning, caring" brigade on Twitter).

A lovely, liberal, lefty friend of mine was laid into for hours for describing a woman on TV as having arms like hams.  I'm still not entirely sure what her crime was.  Swineism?  I could go on and on... the mob does after all.

What's Happening?

What is happening is that people for some reason have decided to take upon themselves the task of policing the language of others.  Those others may be friends, they may be (and frequently are) complete strangers.  I have serious doubts that these Twitter Police behave like this in "normal" life, by seeking to enforce their personal linguistic preferences on people such as work colleagues or strangers in the street.  It is worth emphasising that is all they are: personal linguistic preferences that they have created. 

Twitter provides a uniquely suitable medium for this, because they can safely and bravely fire off tweets from their keyboards.  They have already formed a like-minded group of people in their followers.  One passive aggressive ".@" mention is all it takes to assemble their troops and rapidly form a mob to dictate what another individual may and may not say.  If you are encouraging your followers to get involved in this way over someone's use of language, you are to me a bully.  Nothing more, and nothing less.

It is in essence all about making yourself right and someone else wrong.  There may be personal reasons for this: latent passive-aggression, low self-esteem, wanting attention, feeling you gather followers if you are the centre of a Twitter storm by doing this to a high-profile tweeter, personal dislike of the target, proving how "right on" you are to your followers - or whatever.  But what you are doing is essentially saying "See, I'm better than you.  I get to determine what language you use.  I'm right, you're wrong."  Many are permanently, and almost professionally, outraged.

[I am of course aware that there is a certain irony in my writing this blog, the whole purpose of which is making me right and them wrong, but there we go.  None of us is perfect ;-) ]

This is a key thing to remember too: the Twaliban member is frequently taking offence on behalf of unnamed people in a group who might theoretically be hurt if they read the guilty party's tweet, which contains language that they don't approve of.  But by sending them an @ message on Twitter to make them wrong, they are definitely going to upset an actual someone to a lesser or greater degree.  

What's Missing?

There's a whole load of stuff missing in this behaviour.  One is respecting that other people have a right to express themselves in any way they choose, provided it doesn't infringe the law.  That would fall under the basic heading of "tolerance".  If you don't like what someone has tweeted, you can of course :

• ignore it (if it's someone you like)
• unfollow them (if it's someone who has done this a few times)
• block them (if you never want to see this again)

You don't have to pick a fight, regard that it's your duty to police language, and assert that you have an inherent right to tell them off about their self-expression.   If you choose to do so (of course, it's your right to), and they tell you to get lost in no uncertain terms, please don't go crying about it (I've seen this too, so many times) - you're the one who started it.  It might also be helpful to remind yourself that you are not actually their parent, or their teacher, and this is another adult you are talking to.

The next thing missing is agreement on what is offensive.  My friend who has been sectioned does not find "loony" offensive.  You might.  My 72 year old mother might use the word "twat" interchangeably with "twit".  People in the South of England generally do.  The Prime Minister did so and it was confirmed that this is not a swear word under Radio Guidelines.  You might be from the USA or from the North of England, where "twat" is synonymous with "cunt" and is just as strong.  You might actually like the word "cunt" and use it regularly in your tweets because you consider it a good feminist term.  Others might not and would find it a lot more offensively sexist than my use of "nannying".  You might object to people calling Mrs Thatcher a witch (I don't like it personally and wouldn't use it): others would disagree and say it's harmless.  So it goes on. 

One thing is sure: language is a diverse, powerful, creative thing and if you try to set precise parameters of what it acceptable and what is not, you will be the only person who agrees with them.  People will disagree with you and they are entitled to do so.  We all have different standards regarding what we think is okay or not.  Yours are inherently no better than mine. 

Then we come to appreciation of the medium.  By "calling someone out" on Twitter, if you stop for a moment to think about it, you are presumably aware that other people will see this (e.g. mutual followers or all your followers if you opt for the passive aggressive "shout out" method).  Do you enjoy being criticised in public, often in front of your friends?  I don't - but hey, perhaps I'm just weird.  There are two ways round this: you might direct message the person.  Chances are a quietly put, polite private word will have much more actual effect on getting the person to consider what they've said, rather than chastising someone in public, which almost always will raise heckles.  If you aren't on good enough terms to be mutually following, how about putting your point generally, rather than attacking a specific individual by naming them?  It's just a suggestion, and of course you're free to ignore it.

The last thing missing is intent and context (which often includes humour).  Before you leap on someone and accuse them of all manner of things because of something they tweeted, you might well keep in mind that these things are key components of how language works.  If my boyfriend calls me a "stupid poof" in a tweet, that is very different to a homophobic threatening lout screaming it across the road at me.  Ofcom even rejected a complaint about the use of "retard" on TV  because they said "it was not used in an offensive context [...] and had been used light-heartedly".  Having seen the particular context, I'm not sure I'd personally agree with them, but the point is that intent is highly relevant, even with a word that most people would agree is inherently offensive.

Effect on Free Speech

If you've never experienced being told off on Twitter for your language, good for you.  I know it's a complaint that many share though.  I'm mainly friends with other left-leaning people that I would consider caring and not at all reckless about upsetting others.  They, like I, would certainly not go out of their way to do so deliberately - yet they feel censored, told off, and limited in their free speech.  This is both in respect of voicing an opinion, and their specific use of language.

The following tweet, which expressed my frustration at being labelled a hater of teenage girls for my perfectly well-intentioned and innocuous tweet above, certainly seemed to strike a chord with plenty from the number of retweets:

You might just say: well you choose to put things out on the Internet, suck it up.  You'd have a point, but I choose to come on Twitter for fun, to talk to my friends, express myself, read what others are up to etc.  I do genuinely think I have the right not to be told off repeatedly for my language, mainly by strangers, when I am hardly tweeting the most offensive content.  I left Twitter for 2 months earlier this year in part because of this.  I honestly think that's pretty shite.

I'm aware of a growing body of people who have been on Twitter for years who have a second, locked account, just for their friends.  I've heard it called the "second wave" of Twitter: they made wonderful friends on "big" Twitter, but there are so many people on there who love taking offence that some no longer consider it safe to be themselves and speak freely, unless they're feeling 100% robust and up for a fight.  Jesus, that's really quite disturbing in my view.  People are scared to speak on a medium that's all about the free flow of thought and speech.   Thanks, Twaliban, what a service you're providing.




 



* I'm sure using the word "Verboten" lays me open to charges of anti-German racism.  Again I say to you, please keep your judgements to yourself.  I'm actually really not that interested in hearing your opinion.  I'm half-German, love the place, and despite having spent half of my life there, amazingly managed to keep a sense of humour.  Develop one yourself?

** I'm sure using the word "Twitter Taliban" lays me open to charges of belittling the suffering of victims of the actual Taliban in Afghanistan.  I will self-flagellate for hours, fear not - you don't need to tweet me to point out what a terrible person I am, and how oblivious I am to the suffering of others.

*** The two people involved in the public conversation I've referenced have tried to leave comments on this blog telling me to "fuck off" and "mind my own fucking business".  I deliberately did not name or identify them in the post: they simply illustrate to me an idiotic stance regarding language that I don't agree with. One asked me to remove this part of the post, or to make clear she was happy to be lectured to.  Fine: she was happy to be told off in public.  Plenty of people aren't.  The two are rather neatly proving my point by sending me the type of personal abuse that people are entirely fed up of. 

Twitter Reacts to Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson, a barrister, published an article in Spiked Magazine yesterday.  Here it is: if you haven't read it, I suggest you do, rather than relying on media reports about it or what people are saying about it.

Criticism

My views on the article is that it raises a couple of valid points, that are put badly.  One line that suggests abuse victims are to blame for putting themselves in compromising positions is particularly objectionable - another is the belittling of Stuart Hall's offences towards a 9 year old.  The piece is offensive to all sorts of people who battle against rape culture and I understand their outrage.  This is about the best article I've read explaining (in Zoe Stavri's typically passionate terms) why it's so objectionable.  Do please read it, and if you have time this good piece by Peter Tatchell with his very measured, sensible reaction.

[Addendum: Just to make it crystal clear this blog post is not a critique of Hewson's piece.  It's about the reaction the piece received on Twitter.  How shit it was or wasn't, as opposed to the quantity and type of abuse she received as a result of it, are two completely separate issues.  I thought that blindingly obvious, but clearly not from comments I've received.]

Age of Consent

Many people on Twitter have reacted most strongly, however, not to the apparent victim blaming (the aspect of the article that deserves the most attention) but to the final suggestion in the piece that the age of consent be reduced to 13.  This element, that was somewhat bizarrely just thrown in at the very end, is what all of the main stream media focused on in their headlines and formed the basis for almost all of the personal attacks I go on to detail.

Hewson's article raises the suggestion of lowering the age of consent without bothering to explain the (actually quite obvious) implicit missing link: she is talking about consensual sexual acts.  That's why it's called the age of consent.  Currently, as Tatchell explains, two 15 year olds who have sex together are criminalised under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 if they have consensual sex. They can be put on the Sex Offenders Register, alongside rapists.  That is to me, quite simply wrong.

I'm assuming Hewson is suggesting that by removing currently criminalised consensual acts from the equation, the police and courts will have more resources to follow up on cases of non-consensual acts: sexual abuse, assault, and rape of children.  These are inherently far more serious and deserving of attention than consensual acts.  That is true, but it's a shame the article does not spell that out.  Instead it clumsily at least appears to suggest there will be fewer cases of child abuse if the age of consent is shoved down to 13.  That cannot be what any right-minded person thinks. 

Here's a map of Europe showing ages of consent.  The blue colours reflect countries where it's 13, 14 or 15.  You're welcome to disagree and say the age should be 16, and below that age children should not be having sex.  But do not suggest the proposition that the age be lowered below 16 is some outrageous, unthinkable suggestion or a "paedophile's charter".  It's not.  These "blue" countries include the more socially conservative, Catholic nations of Poland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.  Those countries have not set about legalising sex with pre-pubescent children.  It's about deciding where an appropriate age is, and views differ on that even with our closest neighbours.

Don't also think that criminalising teenagers prevents them having sex.  The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles has found that 14 is now the average age of first sexual experience for both gay and straight young people in the UK.  Children are becoming physically mature earlier and are having sex earlier.  You might not like the idea of 14 year olds having sex (I don't think it's great and was 20 when I first slept with someone), but many are - and criminalising them seems to have remarkably little effect on their activities if that's the average age.

Teenage Pregnancy

Nor does criminalising kids having sex together prevent teenage pregnancies.  The factors which cause high teenage pregnancy rates are a lot more complex than the age of consent.  I've set out some figures taken from here:

(Births per 1000 teenage women aged 15-19)

Netherlands 7.7 (age of consent 12/16)
Spain 7.5 (age of consent 13)
Italy 6.6 (age of consent 14)
Denmark 8.8 (age of consent 15)
UK 29.6 (age of consent 16)
USA 55.6 (age of consent 16-18)

The USA teenage birth rate, the country with the highest age of consent in this group, is more than seven times that of Spain where the age of consent is 13.  It also seven times greater than that of Netherlands where the general age of consent is 16, but they will not prosecute two adolescents with a (maximum) 4 year age difference.  That means for example a 17 year old can legally have sex with a 13 year old, but a 25 year old cannot with a 15 year old.  Make that a 3 year age gap and I think it a perfectly sensible policy.  Dutch law categorically does not say adults can have sex with children, which 99.9% of the world agrees is abhorrent and wrong, yet in practice it has an age of consent in certain circumstances of 12.  Categorise them as a bunch of paedos if you will... but you're a fool in my book.

Incidentally, just because the law allows it, does not mean that all Dutch kids are all having sex at 12.  Thanks to their sensible, liberal education policies, they have proper, detailed sex education and are taught to make the choice to have sex when they feel full ready and want to.  The average age of a Dutch girl having sex is apparently 17.5, and it is higher for a boy.  That is the true meaning of consent to me, not some arbitrary rule in law that says a couple of 15 years and 11 months are criminals for having sex together, but an immature adolescent can be pressurised into having sex on her 16th birthday without realising fully what she is doing and that's "okay".  Note that the UK teenage birth rate is four times higher than the Netherlands' one.

So - Hewson's article, which put forward her (poorly unexplained) view that the age of consent should be 13 is not exactly as insane as the baying mob is suggesting and is concentrating almost exclusively on. You might disagree with her, strongly perhaps; but let's be clear, she wasn't suggesting the law should be changed to allow babies to be raped, which anyone might think from the reaction below.

Twitter Shows its Worse Side

So, that little explanation of my personal views on this out of the way, let's turn to how Twitter reacted to Hewson's article.  There were some high profile people like Stavvers and Fleetstreetfox who set out sensible counter-arguments in blogs and articles, and plenty of people who registered their disagreement in strong, but reasonable terms in tweets.

And then there were the others.  They didn't engage as a criticism of her views so much as form a pack-like abuse attack on her. The most relatively benign were the calls for her to be "sacked by her employers" (a bit pointless as barristers are self-employed).  It then went through repeated calling her a paedophile herself, demands for her to be lynched, through to being cut up and having her organs removed.  Sure the latter is almost certainly not a credible threat, but how can anyone think that, let alone type it and then send it someone else?  This is for expressing an opinion.  Disagree with her, strongly, but how does this make you a better person than you think she is?

Apart from the non-gender specific abuse, the special misogyny that is reserved for women who voice their opinion was of course in evidence.  When Hewson tweeted that she had received a rape threat, plenty of people said they did not believe her.  When victims of sexual abuse come forward, many people say that should be believed, but that they are discouraged from speaking up because the system is set up to disbelieve them.  Yet in this case, a woman is not to be believed, because being a "paedo defender" she is somehow bound to be a liar.  If a rape threat didn't come up in a tweet search, ever consider that it may have been deleted or the threat was received via another medium such as email?  I believe she received this threat, particularly given the other abuse she received.

I was also attacked for pointing out that tweets at her were misogynistic.  I'd like to know how calling her an "old hag", a "witch", a "whore", a "sick, crazy bitch", a "paedo loving slag" and a "cunt" and the apparent threat to rape her do not fall into that category, but hey.

If you've got a stomach for it, here we go then - I think this lot should be recorded just as reminder of how grotesque people on this medium can be:

 

[always good when someone misuses "your" when calling someone else a cretin]

[Hung up from a lamp post AND shot? Isn't that tricky to do?]

 

Charming stuff, eh?  A little reminder here.  Victims of abuse may have been rightly upset by reading Hewson's piece.  They no doubt feel it contributes to the deeply ingrained culture that encourages rape and abuse, and does not take their experiences seriously.  I would hope Hewson did not write it to target anyone individually and have no reason to think she did.  She was voicing an opinion, not matter how misconceived you might think it is. 

Each one of these abusive tweets is, by contrast, deliberately addressed to her, with the knowledge that she will read them.  That isn't recklessly nasty: it's deliberately and utterly vile.

Immigration

We've seen a wave of people across the country voting for UKIP recently.  Political commentators are reading all sorts into this and the potential impact on government policy.  Some Tories are calling for action both on an EU referendum before the next general election, and further tightening up of immigration.  Labour has repeatedly said it will "listen to voters' concerns" in this area, fearing that if seeks to argue against this, rather than pander to these prejudices it will lose out at the ballot box.

My response to this that I like immigration.  I think immigration is absolutely essential to the health of a society.  I love seeing people who are of different skin colours and races and hearing those who speak different languages.  They bring variety, they bring different ideas, perspectives and they enrich our country.  Fear of the "other" is to me the most primitive emotion.  In essence it goes back to cave people: "you're not in my tribe, keep out".  I don't believe babies are born with hatred of others in them.  I believe they are taught it, and the more varied and cosmopolitan the range of influences they are exposed to, the less likely xenophobia and prejudice will be.

A nation of immigrants: more so than most in the world

I can argue about history, and how Britain is a nation of immigrants.  We all know full well that wave after wave of new people has settled here since well before Roman times to create over centuries the identity we have today.  Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans, Hugenots, Jews... Each group came in turn and was eventually accepted into British society.  My father's family came from Holland in the late seventeenth century.  I'm sure they were shunned as "weird foreigners" with a funny name and religion who didn't fit in when they settled in Sussex.  My mother is from Germany.  She certainly had a massive helping of prejudice, both from strangers and from my English family, when she moved here in 1961.  Now by virtue of some magical privilege of time, people don't see our family as foreigners and my family has the right to vote, if we wanted, for the likes of UKIP, in order to demand that others are shut out.  It's worth remembering the simple fact that the family heritage of virtually every UKIP supporter will be the same: we are all immigrants to this country.

I can argue about economics, and how both skilled and unskilled labour are a huge benefit to us.  So many successful economies have realised this, from the Netherlands and Prussia inviting in the religiously persecuted in the 17th and 18th centuries to huge benefit, through to more recent "immigration nations" such as the United States and Australia.  Skilled workers are always focused on, but unskilled ones, who are prepared to work hard doing jobs that others feel are below them, are important too.  They do vital service jobs, often for low wages, pay taxes and spend money just like everyone else.  Blaming them for our economic situation is simplistic, stupid and spiteful.  If our unemployment is too high or our growth is too low, let's look at the way we as a society, and successive governments have run our own economy, rather than the knee-jerk reaction of blaming immigrants for our woes.

I can argue about the enrichment of our culture.  People of different backgrounds bring different cuisine, music, art and other hugely broad-ranging influences.  How many anti-immigration supporters' favourite food is a curry, kebab or Chinese takeaway; and how many love downing an East European beer?  I spent my first 12 years abroad and it's not tricky for me to remember just how limited the choice of anything non-British was in the average supermarket in 1983.  It was absolutely striking.  There has been a sea-change in this time, unnoticed, I suspect, by most people.  Modern day Britain is an absolute cultural melting-pot and I adore the very real variety this brings in my day to day life.

Hitler loathed Vienna.  It was too Slavic, too Jewish, too multicultural and too cosmopolitan for his tastes.  When he moved to Munich he declared "Finally, a German city".  After the War, (by now ethnically cleansed) Vienna was by all accounts a stiflingly dull place.  It's how I remember the city in the early 80s on my first visits.  Then, after 1989, it again became the cultural crossroads it always was, and it's a far, far more pleasant and interesting place for it.  For a regular visitor such as me, the change in 20 years is absolutely striking.  It is a brilliant embodiment of how immigration can enrich and change a place in a very short space of time.

I can argue on the grounds of basic humanity.  I don't see what gives me the right to regard all the good fortune I have, by accident of birth, as being my right to the exclusion of all others.  There are people who suffer terrible misfortune and persecution in their own countries: it was the Russian pogroms that brought the wave of Jewish immigration here in the early 19th century despite the spite and hatred spewed out at the time by the right-wing press.  It is the right thing to do for us to take in people who face hardship elsewhere, I am proud to be part of a society that agrees, and I think we will also benefit in the long run.

Ultimately though, UKIP seems to have tapped into a simple emotional, basic response.  Their supporters just don't like immigration.  If they have the right to argue on this simple, basic level, so shall I.  I like immigration.  We have always had it, and long may it continue.  The more of us who agree and who state this clearly, the better.  It is our society, and our country, and we deserve to be heard too. 

70s German slogan: All people are foreigners. Almost everywhere.

 
  

Old Holborn, Liverpool and Freedom of Speech

There's been hell of a lot of nastiness on Twitter of late.  This post seeks to reflect on that, rather than perpetuate it further.

Old Holborn vs Liverpool

Old Holborn is a well-known libertarian blogger and tweeter.  Let's just get it out there that he's not my cup of tea: in fact he wished me to contract Aids whilst I was having a lovely evening in Munich a couple of summers ago, after which I blocked him.  I think it's fair to say he's upset a lot of people both with his general views and individual "trolling".  Equally, many seem to like his "politically incorrect" views.  He is generally intelligent, he is provocative, and he apparently delights in offending.

He carried out his online activities from an anonymous position that he was very proud of.  He'd even managed to stand for the Cambridge seat in the 2010 General Election under his pseudonym, without revealing his real name or identity.

Liverpool. I love it.

Around the recent anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, in which 96 were killed and 766 injured, he tweeted and re-tweeted a set of comments aimed at the people of Liverpool.  Much of it was fairly low-grade trolling and insult throwing, about Scousers being stupid, and out of work thieves etc.  They also however included comments about the murder of two year old James Bulger, which were not aimed at his mother, but which she apparently later saw and upset her greatly.

Someone in Liverpool discovered Old Holborn's real name, apparently from a Flickr photo stream he had incautiously left online.  His name, address, phone number, work details and his wife's details were published on Twitter, in breach of Twitter rules.  Once his identity was clear, the Police apparently became involved because of complaints about his posts.  If his claims are to believed, several hundred abusive messages, including death-threats, were left by Liverpudlians on his phone, and the Police also took an interest in these.  He claims that an arrest has followed.

Something Voltaire Really Didn't Say

I have read several blogs from libertarians in connection with all this.  The primary theme is the mantra that free speech is (or should be) absolute and Old Holborn is doing everyone a public service by exercising his right to speak his mind.  The hackneyed quote (wrongly attributed to Voltaire*) about disagreeing with your statement, but "defending until death your right to say it" is unthinkingly reeled out.

It is equally hackneyed, but worth reiterating that just because you might have the right to do something, that does not mean it has to be exercised.  Old Holborn frequently tweets about abuses of power in politicians and the Police.  When free speech is exercised in such a context, it's very easy to argue that this right is an absolute cornerstone of a democratic society.  Without it no one is held to account and power corrupts rapidly (or to be accurate: even more rapidly). 

Voltaire: would he be defending hate speech? Methinks "non"

Let's be clear that with Holborn's tweets about Liverpool, however, this "sacred" right was not not be exercised for the greater good or to hold anyone to account.  He was simply being gratuitously and deliberately offensive simply because he could be.  He aimed to hurt and upset people.  Most of us apply a filter, being mindful of others.  To him, his right to say whatever he feels, apparently is the justification for his doing so.  He is not a free-speech martyr for (indirectly) causing distress to the mother of a murdered two year old or for (directly) causing distress to plenty of other individuals.  He is quite simply, an arse.

Why anyone would want to go out of their way to do what he did (he implies it is for his amusement) is beyond me.  My partner is from Liverpool.  For what it's worth I think it is an amazing city where people have a warmth, pride and sense of belonging that I've never encountered elsewhere in this country.  I love the place.  However, even if I did not, why would I go online to spew bile about the place, knowing that it would upset people?  Why do that - just because I can?  I have the right to go up to the elderly woman who lives opposite me and tell her, for no particular reason, that I think she's an ugly fat old bag, but I don't.  It would upset her for no reason and I wouldn't want someone to do this to me.  I at least try to live my the standard "do unto others" and think it makes the world a more pleasant place.  Thankfully so do most members of society.

Legal Restrictions on Free Speech

Free speech is of course not an absolute in this country, nor is it almost everywhere.  It is expressly protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights - but society has also agreed there should be limits, which are reflected in that text.  Racist speech, incitement to hatred, language that threatens public safety etc are all obvious valid restrictions that the law has chosen to spell out.  It's worth remembering that all laws are, is an an attempt to codify what the majority of members of society feel and agree is the correct thing in a society.  Laws can be, and are, frequently refined and changed.

Apart from these "red lines", the crossing of which society has decided should carry consequences (and which I am broadly glad exist),  I would always come down on the side of the law giving the most freedom as possible, and trusting that most people will exercise their rights responsibly.  The law cannot and should not seek to determine every time someone opens their mouth whether it is to be deemed "right" or "wrong".  We have to do that ourselves.  Most people do the right thing, most of the time.

Did Holborn cross the line with his comments?  Well he has recently deleted a particularly charming post of his entitled "Co*ns and Muslims" (you can still see the heading) but if you do a search there are plenty of tweets with content such "Sleeping with black men gives you AIDS" etc.  He, and other Libertarians, can set out his argument for an absolute right to say anything, but if they do cross the red lines set out they will find out there are consequences.  Unless they persuade society that the rules should be changed, that's the deal - most people have a clear enough idea of the law on hate language is and if they want to become "Free Speech Martyrs" by paying fines as a result, so be it.

As for the comments on Liverpool, I don't know (and strongly suspect not) - at least in terms of the law.  I guess the Police/CPS will determine that.  In moral terms I come back to: why do this?  They were expressly designed to hurt, upset and distress other people and he didn't have to do this.  He chose to do so.  The photos on Holborn's Flickr account show a man surrounded by friends and family at his wedding.  I bet there are plenty of people who can vouch to his being a nice guy and will testify to his kindness and decency.  Humans are complicated, and as much as we want to label them in polarised ways as "good" or "bad" they aren't.  We all do good things and bad things to greater/lesser extents at various stages in our lives.  All I will say is that Holborn's years of tweets have created the image of someone who isn't terribly kind or happy, and that is sad.

A Bankrupt Philosophy

It's been of interest to me to see how Holborn's case has shown up several key "mantras" to his libertarian beliefs to be flawed.  These are:

1) Do no harm.  Holborn repeatedly says language doesn't harm: physical acts do.  This simply isn't true.  Words can upset, distress and cause long-lasting harm.  I think that he and "Mrs Holborn" experienced this first hand with the threats pouring in.  It's entirely possible a slap in the face you receive as a kid, which then heals up, will be less formative and stick less in your mind than years of taunting or bullying.  I'm sure if Holborn is honest he knows the harm his comments may have caused to James Bulger's mother and I doubt he's proud of them.

2) You choose to take offence.  Another line trotted out is that words aren't offensive; people choose to take offence.  He, and others, fall back on the "block" argument.  If you don't like it, don't listen and block.  That's what I did 2 years ago with him and paid him little attention until all this came up.  The argument is true, but only to a certain extent.  People who these tweets were not directed to chose to get involved and to get upset.  However, when he tweeted me in Munich I didn't have the option of ignoring it.  It was before I had blocked him and doing so didn't take away the upset he caused me deliberately and voluntarily at the time.  I'm guessing James's mother didn't know who he was before his comments were drawn to her attention.  The situation is a lot more complicated than this simple attempt to defend the right to be vile to others.

Holborn says he doesn't mind the abuse he receives all day, but he draws the line at threats to burn his house down.  Why?  Those threats are "only words" after all.  His house hasn't actually been burned down.  This is therefore either an acceptance that words can do harm and he is "choosing" to be offended/threatened (if so, why does he condemn others for feeling the same?); or that words do actually on their natural meaning carry offence (and his assertion is nonsense.  He is simply placing the bar higher.)

3) Take Responsibility.  Libertarians love taking people to take responsibility.  The Greeks should take responsibility because they're tax-dodging cheats, and shouldn't be bailed out.  People on the dole should take responsibility and shouldn't have children, etc.  There is no compassion, no understanding and precious little humanity in these beliefs.

People sometimes do things they hope they can get away with. They exaggerate about their income on mortgage forms.  They engage in dubious tax-avoidance schemes.  They break the speed limit in the middle of the night.  They send out abuse from anonymous Twitter accounts.  They expect not to get caught.  When they do, presumably they should just live with the consequences.  Threats to burn your house down?  Shouldn't have sent the tweets, should you. Remember it wasn't you or I who had 700 angry Scousers phoning us up: Holborn chose to do what he did, and expected to get away with it.  He didn't.

4) The Police.  The police are, as far as I can see, a major object of dislike to Holborn.  He sees them as organs of the State, and an expression of their power.  Yet when he is threatened, he talks to them, voluntarily provides them with information, and assists them because it suits him to.  I don't blame him for doing so: but then I don't fill my timeline with assertions that they are a corrupt, damaging force in society.  I have rather a lot of faith in most of them.

Threats and Ugliness

All of this said, I was possibly in a minority when I saw what was happening to Holborn the day of the threats.  I was genuinely horrified and upset at the though of what he and his family were going through.  I cannot imagine how terrifying it must have been to have had a mob apparently doing what it was doing.

There was no obvious general public interest in publishing Holborn's real name/address and I'm deliberately not repeating it or them.  If people chose to blog and tweet anonymously, and they are not breaking any laws or holding themselves out to be something they are not, so what.  There is of course an unresolved question, which is not for any of us to determine, about whether he did break any laws.  The fact he has deleted his blog about "co*ns" indicates to me he thinks he might have done.  It would be nice to think other online characters who post similar items might think about about how safe they are hiding behind anonymity. 

The reason people published his name (and worse, his address, phone number etc) wasn't to hold him to account with the Police, however.  It was because of anger and outrage at his Liverpool insults. What it led to was a nasty, threatening mob after him some of whom apparently threatened to kill him and burn his house down.  It's possible to have been upset and extremely offended by his comments, but not leave death threats on his phone.  I'm sure thousands in Liverpool and elsewhere fall into that category, myself included.  It makes me sick to imagine what poor James Bulger's family and those connected to Hillsborough felt, but I'm also sickened by what was done to him.  Sure, he absolutely should not have written what he did, and he is the one who caused this.  But if we want to put it in the most simplistic terms "two wrongs don't make a right". Or, ugliness begets ugliness. 

It really tests the limits of your compassion when you end up feeling sorry for someone who has continually expressed views that are abhorrent to you.  I genuinely feel that about Holborn here.  I've highlighted what I feel is the lack of humanity in the simplistic "take responsibility" line he churns out.  I don't share that philosophy and I'm sorry anyone had to go through this, no matter how much of an idiot they were.  I'm also sorry for everyone who was upset, particularly in Liverpool, and who witnessed all of this.

"Do no harm" is of course a wonderful philosophy.  If anything good comes of this, it's a vain hope that people aren't such utter kunts to each other online.  We really, really, don't have to be.





* It was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall who penned this line almost 130 years after Voltaire's death

Thanking the Universe

It was my birthday on Saturday, the 20th of April.  Every night of 19 April I go to bed a little excited (we're all still big kids I guess.. at least I am) and I thought back to something that happened when I was 9.  I do every year.

"Presents This Way"

We were living in our house in Herderstrasse in Bielefeld, Germany.  I had put up a big sign on my bedroom door last thing at night, the day before my birthday, that said "PRESENTS THIS WAY" and had gone to bed.  I was nine.  Kids do that type of shit.

My Dad came in and had pulled the sign down.  He started to give me a lecture.  I said "I know, I should just be grateful I have a Mum, Dad".  I was remembering what he'd said at Christmas about "getting an orange and a hoop and being happy with it" and how my elder brothers had taken the piss out of him for it.  No, he told me, Christmas was a time to be grateful for your family and being together.  A birthday was a time to count your blessings about yourself.  About being well, about not being in a wheelchair, about all the good things in your life.  This didn't include how many presents you did or didn't get.

That's pretty hard on a nine year old.  It wasn't said nastily, but I felt utterly bloody miserable.  I think I really resented it: it was MY birthday and everyone likes/ expects presents on their birthday.  The rest you just take for granted.

I've Grown Up

This year I had the *most* wonderful day.  It was brilliantly sunny, my boyfriend came down from Manchester despite having exams and hating trains, and I was genuinely enjoying a moment of complete bliss.

I find this fascinating.  I'm thinking about the day: it was the things I mention there I remember.  It was also lying out on a field with Ste, looking at the sky, and taking a birthday "selfie" pic of the two of us and Oscar (my collie) that stick in my head.  My next tweet after that was the following.  I really mean it.

I'm not trying to be some up-itself, affected, non-materialist, worthy wank-piece here.  I like nice things.  We all do.  My little home is beautiful.  I'm so excited about getting a new car in July.  What will I remember in years to come, though?  The material things in my life, as lovely as they are, or moments like lying in a field with my boyfriend, being on holiday, feeling loved and giving love, or real achievements to be proud of, like working hard in my degree and graduating from university?
 

Dad was, of course, wrong to make some implicit suggestion that you can't be happy, or grateful for all manner of other blessings in your life, if you are in a wheelchair.  But his enormous heart was entirely in the right place.  My dad died in 2000, and would have been 74 this 14 April.  It is fascinating I don't remember a single one of the presents I received on my ninth birthday, but I do remember what he said to me.  That gift has lasted. 

The Bombing of Germany

Pforzheim in the Black Forest

Pforzheim was an extremely pretty little town in the Black Forest.  It dated back to Roman times and was known as the "Gold Town" because of its precision jewellery and watch making industries.  Cuckoo clocks, after all, hail from this part of Germany (not Switzerland as many think).  It was awarded market rights some time before 1080.  Its centre was made up of typically German "ginger bread" half-timbered houses.

 The town had about 50,000 inhabitants: that makes it the size of Havant in Hampshire (ever heard of it?) or less than half the size of Bath.  In 1938 the Pforzheimers had watched on as the Nazis burned down the handsome Moorish style synagogue that had been built in 1890. In 1940 a large proportion of the town's Jewish population was deported to a concentration camp in France.  55 of the 195 Jews deported survived the holocaust.

By the end of February 1945 Nazi Germany was on its knees.  The Soviets were advancing rapidly towards Berlin.  Millions of German civilians, my Mother and her family amongst them, were fleeing the troops.  Auschwitz had been liberated a month before.  The Germans' Ardennes offensive in the West had entirely failed.  France and Belgium had long since been freed.  US forces would shortly be crossing the Rhine.  Many German cities were entirely unprotected by this stage from aerial attack.  German historian Jörg Friedrich, who made his reputation by reporting on the Majdanek trial, described the situation in  Germany simply as follows: "By March 1945 there was no longer any morale, oil or transportation".  The bombing raids which the Allies were conducting with ever greater ferocity were "almost totally devoid of military purpose and free from all tactical risk."

Pforzheim was small.  It was regarded as irrelevant by the Allies as regards armament production.  It was also highly flammable because of its historic buildings and narrow, winding streets. On the evening of 23 February 1945 the Royal Air Force flew over.  They dropped 330 high explosive and thousands of phosphorus incendiary bombs.  1551 tonnes of them.  The incendiaries were designed to rain through the old tiled roofs of people's homes, destroying everything you owned.  Your bed, your clothes, your furniture would catch ablaze.  Flying wood, splinters, debris and glass would be hurled through the air.  The noise would be deafening.

Hundreds of small fires would merge into a major blaze.  The superheated air would shoot upward like a giant chimney.  The heat would climb to 800C and suck in wind like a typhoon at speeds of up to 170mph.  It would suck everything into its centre, uprooting people and trees and drawing away the oxygen.  There would be precious little chance of escape for you, your children, or your dog or cat.  If you sought refuge from the inferno in a fountain you would be boiled to death.  If you were in a cellar seeking protection with your family you would either be suffocated, or it would quite literally serve as a crematorium.  Metal with a melting point of 1700C would become molten as the fire storm progressed. 

Survivor Hermine Lautenschlager:

"On the floor of the cellar, there were piles of ashes here and there.  Part of a human torso that looked like a charred tree stump was in the middle.  Near a pile of ashes in the corner lay a key chain.  They were the keys of my sister.  That's where she always sat during the air-raids, that's what my brother-in-law told me.  Later they even found a small piece of fabric from her dress."

The smoke rose over Pforzheim to a height of 3 kilometres.  The glare of the fire could be seen 160 kilometres away.   The carpet bombing of the town lasted from 7.50pm to 8.12pm: precisely 22 minutes.  There were 20,277 deaths in the hellish inferno.  More than one in three people in the town died.  In Nagasaki, one in seven died.  Over 85% of the city was destroyed.  Not even the pattern of the streets was visible the following morning.  Lead bomber Major Edwin Swales, whose plane crashed in Belgium on the way home, was posthumously awarded a VC for this work that night.

Pforzheim after the Firestorm

Not The Only One
 
You quite possibly hadn't heard of Pforzheim.  That's one of the points of this blog post.  Dresden is remembered every 14 February, the night that the RAF delivered its Valentine's Day gift to the city.  Between 25,000 and 35,000 died.  We are nearing the 70th anniversary of "Operation Gomorrah" in July 1943 when 1 million people were made homeless in Hamburg and 42,600 were killed.  I'm sure that will be the subject of a couple of articles and then it will be soon forgotten. 

Every time I visit Germany I'm aware of the effect on the Allied aerial bombing on the country.  Literally a handful of towns survived untouched: centuries of culture, architecture, beauty and history was wiped out with the repeated destruction of 160 towns, most of them with medieval hearts.  That's not even to mention the human cost: a staggering five hundred and fifty thousand Germans were killed by the British and Americans.  550,000.  76,000 were children or babies.

Whenever Dresden is mentioned, Coventry is thrown in, as if the scale of destruction and loss of life were equivalent.  Goebbels fully exploited the horror of the bombing of Dresden and totally overstated the losses.  Here are some simple comparisons of actual statistics:

• Deaths in Coventry: 568
• Deaths in Dresden: 25,000-35,000
• Total deaths in German raids on the UK: 60,000
• Total deaths in Allied raids on Germany: 550,000
• German bombs dropped on the UK: 75,000 tonnes
• Allied bombs dropped on Germany: 2,800,000 tonnes

Charred bodies in the ruins of Dresden, one of Europe's finest cities

Whatever you think about the rights and wrongs of Allied area (carpet) bombing (which I shall come on to), please do not take the simplistic position that there was equal killing and destruction on both sides.  The British and Americans dropped almost 40 times the amount of bombs on Germany than the Luftwaffe did here, and killed almost 10 times more civilians.

From a human perspective, to me, every death is a tragedy.  In that respect this is far from a "competition".  It doesn't matter to the individual who was killed (or to their family) how many others died at the same time, but it does matter when assessing the historical record and behaviour of a country.  Germany was responsible for the deaths of many, many more people in the war than Britain, but I am concerned in this piece with Britain's behaviour, not Germany's.  I'm at pains to stress that below.

For the avoidance of doubt the above figures say little about intention.  I've seen nothing to suggest that Germany would not have wreaked the same level of destruction on British cities had they had the ability to do so.  The fact is that they did not, thank god.  Intent is one important aspect of moral (and legal) culpability; execution is the second.  The Allies had both.

"We shall.... kill 900,000"

A widespread bombing of civilian targets in carpet bombing raids (as opposed to tactical bombing of strategic targets) was feared when war broke out.  The Germans had demonstrated their lack of concern for civilian human life in Guernica (400 dead), Warsaw, and Rotterdam (900 dead, rather than 30,000 as claimed in the Western press).  The first bomb of the London Blitz fell on the City on 24 August 1940 - and is now believed to have been a mistake.  The RAF retaliated with an attack on Berlin and the tit for tat began.

For the first part of the war, the aim was still predominantly to destroy German means of production, despite the revenge attacks.  The accuracy of these raids was sketchy at best.  The RAF even managed to hit the wrong country when it bombed Geneva, Basel and Zurich in neutral Switzerland in 1940.  Later in the war, the USAF killed 40 in Schaffhausen in Switzerland.  Their target was Ludwigshafen, 235km north in Germany.  The US ambassador held a reception in Zurich to apologise and was forced to take cover when yet another USAF bomb raid hit the city, killing five.  The target this time was Aschaffenburg, 280km north.

By October 1942 the policy of aiming mainly for strategic targets changed.  Air Marshall Sir Charles Portal framed Bomber Command's new policy: "I suppose it is clear that the new aiming points are to be the built-up areas, not for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories."  Air Vice Marshall Harris explained his superior's policy:

"We shall destroy Germany's will to fight.  Now that we have the planes and crews, in 1943 and 1944 we shall drop one and a quarter million tons of bombs, render 25 million Germans homeless, kill 900,000 and seriously injure one million."

Think about these words.  This was a deliberately framed, express British policy to render tens of million homeless, to kill almost a million civilians, and to maim a million more.  The strong belief of Bomber Command was that the war could be shortened in this way and British lives saved.  Targets of cultural value were deliberately included, as their destruction would allegedly damage German morale and break the will to fight, as were "flammable" cities, which would burn better.  Centuries of human heritage, art and achievement (what today would be called "World Heritage" assets) were irrelevant in this fight against the then German government.

Britain issued a warning to German citizens.  They dropped leaflets to say that all German cities were now considered valid military targets.  Quite how 30 million people were supposed to leave their work and homes as a result of this, during wartime, is a good question.  The USA was at first quite reticent to join in the British plans to carpet bomb German cities.  By 1944 attitudes had hardened and the US too joined in the revenge attacks - which were labelled "terror raids" by the Germans. 

Two Points to Remember: a Just War and Morale

A couple of things need to be remembered here.  This was a just, brave war.  The Nazi machine was one of the murderous the world has ever known.  We hardly need reminding of the grisly images of the most barbaric treatment of human beings that is possible in the form of the German death camps.  Seen in retrospect, there is an argument that anything that would harm Nazi Germany was a good thing.  Britain held out alone with dogged determination through the years of 1940 and 1941.  Our country has an enormous amount to be proud of in this respect, and more generally for seeing the fight against the Nazis through until the bitter end.

However, caution also needs to be exercised.  It is too easy to simplify matters and to see things with the benefit (or hindrance!) of hindsight.  Britain did not go to war in 1939 to save the Jews.  The world was not aware of what would happen to the Jews in 1939, or even in 1942 when Bomber Command decided to fire-bomb German cities.  The "Final Solution" to murder Europe's Jewry was decided upon in January 1942.  90% of the holocaust's eventual victims were still alive at this point and the policy of mass-murdering them was to be kept a closely guarded secret.  The reality of the death camps only became fully clear in 1945 with their eventual liberation.  Britain went to war because of alarming, threatening German territorial expansion.  When the enemy was finally crushed, Britain and the USA handed Poland on a plate to Stalin's Soviet Union.  A war started for the protection of a country ended with over 40 years of communist rule being inflicted on it. 

Morale: a key part of WW2. But at what cost?

The second is that the area bombing of German cities was considered important to British morale.  After the defeat and flight from Dunkirk, followed by the significant victory of the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, there was for years very little opportunity to actually fight the war.  Other than the fight in North Africa, and a failed attempt to invade France in 1943, Britain had little chance to engage properly until June 1944 and D-Day.  By highlighting the fact German cities were being destroyed, morale could be kept up.  Revenge is a powerful motivator in war time.  Whether that justified deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of people and wiping out centuries of culture for every future generation is another matter.

The Cost to British Lives

An aspect in this ghastly story that absolutely must not be forgotten is the cost to British life that the policy of bombing Germany involved.  Bomber Command crews suffered horrendously high casualty rates.  55,573 mainly young men were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew.  That is a death rate of 44.4% and is a testament to the extraordinary courage of these men.  Only one in six was expected to survive their first tour of duty (30 sorties) and they knew this.  The death rate was far higher than infantry officer rates in the trenches of WW1.  Bomber Command losses represent a staggering one in five of all British losses in the six years of world war.  Considerably more Britons died flying raids over Germany than the Luftwaffe managed to kill here during the long months of the Blitz (40,000).

Bravery doesn't even do it justice: the stats are terrifying

Those who survived (I knew one) were sometimes scarred for life with their experiences and conflicted about what they had done and the effect it had had.  I too am deeply conflicted when I see the memorials to Bomber Crews which dot my part of the country, Suffolk.  It is, I believe, possible to honour and respect the bravery and sacrifice of individuals, whilst disagreeing with the policy that was initiated by those far higher up the chain of command.

Opposition in Britain

Not all Britons of the time welcomed the reports of German cities turned in giant infernos and "1000 bomber raids".  George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, was perhaps the most outspoken.  He was an active supporter of the German resistance, and a great humanitarian.

He wrote to the Times in 1941 and described the bombing of unarmed women and children as "barbarian".  He said it would destroy the just cause of the war, thereby openly criticising Churchill's support of a bombing strategy.  Two years (to the day) ahead of the destruction of Dresden he urged the House of Lords to resist the War Cabinet's decision to engage in area bombing.  He said it called into question all the humane and democratic values for which Britain had gone to war.  In 1944 he called the bombing of cities such as Hamburg and Berlin an illegal "policy of annihilation" and a "crime against humanity".  Other senior Church figures did not support him.

A (very) few spoke out

Major Sir Richard Stokes, MP for Ipswich (Labour) also openly and repeatedly criticised the policy of area bombing in Parliament and helped force a partial change of policy following Dresden.  He was joined by Alfred Salter, MP for Bermondsey West (Labour) whose own constituency had been heavily bombed, but who held heavily pacifist, Quaker inspired beliefs.  Theirs views were not supported (at least in public) by other Labour MPs.

The existence of these three men, all strong opponents of the Nazis, who in war time could rise above the general clamour for undirected revenge gives me tremendous comfort.  I believe it is to their eternal credit that they did so.

The Rights and Wrongs of the Bombing

It is beyond my abilities to weigh up in a shortish article like this all aspects of the bombing and their rights and wrongs.  I do have a few points though, before passing over to someone (Professor Grayling) who has assessed this far better than I could.

The first is the lack of natural justice that is involved in area bombing.  Germany was the perpetrator nation in WW2.  It doesn't however follow that all Germans should be punished, by death, for the actions of their government.  If an individual commits a crime, s/he should be held responsible.  "Justice from the skies" does not fulfill this.  50 of the surviving 150 surviving Jews of Dresden were killed in the firestorm.  Socialists, opponents of the Nazis, resistance members, babies and children (remember, 76,000 were killed by the British and US) were as likely to be killed in the infernos as committed Nazis or perpetrators of war crimes.  The very top of the pile were entirely safe in their bunkers: the evil judge Freisler is the only prominent Nazi I can think of who was killed in this way.

The next is the question of destroying morale.  Time and again it has been shown that by bombing, people are united in terror and hatred of the people doing the bombing.  That is exactly what happened when the Luftwaffe bombed London during the Blitz.  The Allied destruction of German cities in no way led to a shortening of the war because the people turned against the government.  This simply did not happen as a matter of fact.

We also have the issue of reciprocity.  The basic idea here is that they did it, so it was okay for us to do it back.  Leaving aside the fact that the Allied bombing of Germany was SO much more extreme than the German bombing of Britain, let's just think about this for a moment.  There is zero question that the Nazi regime was evil.  It was so evil, it still almost makes me physically vomit when I discover new aspects of it.  We are not concerned with Nazi actions, however.  What we are concerned with is a democratic nation that takes a premeditated decision "to kill 900,000", which is then accepted in the Mother of Parliaments with the smallest of opposition.

It is perfectly possible to have fought a just war, but in this (actually quite important) aspect to have fallen far short of how we should have behaved.  Area bombing was not, in my view, justified on a tit-for-tat basis: it lowered us to a level where we aimed to murder civilians.  It is a tragic stain on the brave conduct of a nation at war.

The question of whether area bombing was a war crime is one which will never be tested in the courts.  Perhaps surprisingly, a raft of academics from across the political spectrum seem to be  agreed on this point.  They usually focus on Dresden, but the logic presumably applies to other cities.  Dr Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch said: "The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history.  But the Allies’ firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes... We are all capable of evil and must be restrained by law from committing it."  Historian Professor Bloxham, editor of the Journal of Holocaust Education is unequivocal that Dresden was "a war crime".  Frederick Taylor in his outstanding work Dresden is however less clear: he finds the city was in many ways a typical wartime target and bounces back any moral judgement to the reader.

Finally we have the issue of whether area bombing shortened the war by damaging German war production.  Historians take different stances on this, but the consensus seems to be "somewhat".   The major problem was that German production was spread out across the country, not centered in a single place.  Despite the 2.8 million tonnes of bombs dropped, production continued to rise right through until 1945.  Questions include: whether simply targeting specific factory targets or purely industrial towns would have been yet more effective; and whether the massive cost of 550,000 civilian lives justified the benefit received. 

Professor Grayling's Conclusion

Professor AC Grayling wrote a 350 page book in 2006 that considered in great depth the moral, international law and strategic (did it help end the war sooner, were these valid military targets etc) aspects of Allied area bombing.  Here is his conclusion:

On the basis of the foregoing chapters the answer I give to the following questions are these:  Was area bombing necessary? No.  Was it proportionate? No.  Was it against the humanitarian principles that people have been striving to enunciate as a way of controlling and limiting war? Yes. Was it against the general moral standards of the kind recognised and agreed in Western civilisation in the last five centuries, or even 2,000 years? Yes.  Was it against what mature national laws provide in the way of outlawing murder, bodily harm, and destruction of property?  Yes.

In short and in sum: was area bombing wrong?  Yes.  Very wrong?  Yes.

What can I add to that?  It is as clear as it could possibly be, and having read the whole of his work very carefully I cannot fault his logic or analysis.  I really recommend the book if you are interested in finding out more on the subject.

Some Final Thoughts

This subject evokes very strong emotions.  In some ways this is good.  Killing 550,000 civilians and wiping out the historic fabric of 160 towns and cities should be discussed.  These were acts implemented and carried out by the British government.  Consider the shock and contemplation in peacetime when there is an accident or an act of terrorism and 20 or 50 people die.  How little is actually spoken about this subject in this country?

Each and every loss of life was horrendous and tragic.  The aim of this piece is not belittle British deaths or claim German ones are more important: far, far from it.  It is to remember from a simple human perspective the astonishing suffering that happened on all sides.  How wrong it would be to claim that the life of a German child who died in Pforzheim, a British child killed in the Blitz, and a Jewish child murdered in Auschwitz are somehow of different values.  To see them as members of groups to be accorded different rights to life is to go down the path of the philosophy of evil.  My aim is also not to somehow claim that by remembering and critically assessing the sufferings of Germans under area bombing, the culpability of Nazism is diminished.  That is what neo-Nazis try to do and it is illegitimate, offensive and wrong.

My father was bombed out of his childhood home in Portsmouth by the Luftwaffe.  He remembered the raids and hiding in the shelter in the garden.  We, as one of the nations on the winning side, are able to remember this type of suffering.  Most Germans do not feel able to highlight what happened to their suffering for obvious reasons.  A member of a perpetrator nation cannot ever be a victim, so the narrative goes.  I disagree, but understand why a different perspective should ideally come from our side of the fence, rather than theirs.

My favourite writer, WG Sebald wrote an incredibly elegant essay on this - On The Natural History of Destruction - in which he considered why there is an almost absolute absence of post-War German literature on this massive series of events.  Almost every German city is scarred by ugly 50s and 60s centres, yet no one speaks or writes about it.

Almost 70 years after the end of the war, I would hope this topic can be spoken about with some objective distance and without people taking simplistic, entrenched views as if we are supporting soccer teams.  It is not, I believe, an insult to the people who lived through or fought during the war in Britain, for me to come to the conclusion that in the course of a just and courageous struggle, our government made mistakes.  Area bombing was a huge and deadly one.