Equality before law, not sense of humour, at stake - the case of Paul Chambers and the Twitter Joke Trial

The case of the unfortunate Paul Chambers, one of the central figures in the Twitter Joke Trial, is a modern one. A quick recap of the incident - Mr. Chambers was arrested in the UK, by UK police, for having sent the following message, presumably accessible to all members of the public, and certainly to his few hundred Twitter followers, threatening the destruction of a UK airport, in the early hours of 06 January 2010: "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!". He was living in the UK at the time (and continues to do so, albeit elsewhere).

Many news resources covered the story, including the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/10/tweeter-fined-spoof-message) and the Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/twitter-joke-led-to-terror-act-arrest-and-airport-life-ban-1870913.html). Not to mention the Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2813031/Terror-arrest-for-Twitter-joke.html). Intriguingly, it was the Sun, and not its cousin defenders of truth, freedom and taste (?), the Guardian and the Independent, who felt compelled to represent the word "shit" as "s***". According the Oxford English Dictionary (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0765650#m_en_gb0765650), "shit" is indeed "vulgar slang". However, the OED goes on to say that the term was originally neutral and used without vulgar connotation". So concerned was the Sun (not to offend its readers?), that it even deleted the first word of the post (tweet), i.e. "Crap", without explicitly informing its readership of the censorship. Or is censorship the wrong word, and they did it for the sake of brevity? And tweets can be said to be tediously long, in some cases. Possibly.

Mr. Chambers presented his side of the story in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/11/tweet-joke-criminal-record-airport).

"I was arrested, shoved into a police car in front of colleagues, hauled off to Doncaster police station, and interviewed for the rest of the day. My iPhone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated during a search of my house. It was terrifying and humiliating."

"Whatever happens now, I remain terrified. Terrified of speaking my mind, terrified that my life has potentially been ruined."

"I have had some very dark days, and my family has been put through the wringer, because I made one silly joke."

This is not a pleasant account. For a sensitive person, this can only be hurtful and scarring. I sympathize with Mr. Chambers.

We modern ones anticipate an age without prisons, where certain basic freedoms are never taken away by the law, except in the most heinous of crimes; for example, as articulated by Nietzsche. However, whilst we still deal with crime and punishment in the best, most affordable way we have chosen at this time, we hold justice, law books and equality-before-law dear.

Here are the most important questions that this case raises:

1. Will Stephen Fry step up for us? Will we let television actors, who have entertained us so well, also decide who should be convicted and who let off'? And remember, Stephen Fry, to an extent, is the epitome of Britishness. Reminds me quite of the Sherlock Holmes case, where a plotter chooses a certain man as a (contrived) witness because of the latter's very British solidity, his respectability, who couldn't possibly fail to impress a British jury that he was telling an untruth, had ever told an untruth. But the whole point of our system of justice is that respectability is not an absolute defense. Eton is not enough. Note here that I am by no means suggesting that Mr. Fry is doing what he is doing out of anything but an inner conviction.

2. Shall the public vote on whether someone ought to be convicted or not? If so, almost every football/sports/movie star/whoever better manipulates the media ought to be able to get away with everything but murder / murder. Will the Guardian and the rest of Fleet Street allow us a platform to express our version of events, to tell our personal story? Because, when we tell our story, we become human. We are no longer a statistic, a type, a stranger from another community or another city. Notice that Mr. Chambers, in the personal account mentioned above, writes about himself thus:

"The vast majority of us like to consider ourselves decent people. We pay our taxes, hold doors open for others, stay out of trouble, that kind of thing. I certainly thought of myself this way, a 26-year-old man trying to forge a career and get on with life."

But he's writing about me! I pay taxes - perhaps mostly because I have never had a choice, it's always been deducted at source. I always hold doors open for others. And give up my seat to pregnant ladies and the elderly, queue, do not interrupt conversations without apologizing. He probably does that as well. And I too want my career to be an exciting one - have invested much in it and continue to do so. Indeed, I too was in a similar position, at the age of 24. And a friend of mine (28, single, harmless office worker, hobby guitar player, lover of barbeques, Harry Potter fan) had a police officer visit his home because he was illegally sharing 20 MP3 music files. His experience and mine were very frightening. And one wonders why the state is not pursuing those who actually hurt people, through terrorism, blackmail, domestic abuse, drunken brawls etc. or drive recklessly etc. - but instead people who've not harmed a single human being, animal or physical edifice. But the law is the law, unfortunately or fortunately. My friend and I were not given any preferential treatment. Cf. the ancient "why do you laugh; with a change of names, the story is yours" (Horace, Satires).

3. Will every single person be afforded the same compassion by the State, or will this depend upon how we look, our age, our profession, our extent of belonging to the establishment? Will it depend upon our past history of run-ins with the law? Will it depend upon our religion or our race or where we were born or our sexual orientation or our nationality? Would Mr. Fry and the other lovers of freedom still be standing up for Mr. Chambers if he were 43 years old, called Mohammed Akhtar Al Mustafa, had a long, black beard, dressed up only in some ethnic-Asian dress (or whatever passes as such), had most of his relatives in a small town in Pakistan, and urged the downfall of capitalism in the City at every gathering of the Bradford Young Muslim Mens Club, over lots of orange juice? A hypothetical tweet by this person: "They have three decades/weekends to bring about economic justice and cut the ridiculous bonuses that arrogant investment bankers rake in or I is going to blow up Canary Wharf". Oh, and assuming that said Mr. Al Mustafa was not as well acquainted with the English language as Mr. Fry. I am all for prosecuting the Al Mustafas of this world (all right, we'll still let them have a trial, and we'll let them go if we can't actually prove anything; but maybe if we keep watching them and their computers, they might slip up and we will get them in the end) if it makes it a better one for the rest of us well-mannered ones. And if we do wish to allow people to say anything they want, including making specific threats of violence against individuals and school playgrounds, on public fora like Twitter, the mosque near Finchley Road (or the one at Finsbury Park? Which one was referred to by Jack Bauer?) etc., that's fine - but let's make that clear and live with the consequences. We lovers of freedom and the liberal society would be shocked if people were prosecuted, the privacy of their homes invaded etc., on the basis of their race or religion. What about the opposite, i.e. if they were not prosecuted, solely on the basis of their race or religion?

Mr. Fry argues that "that Chambers' tweet was an example of Britain's tradition of self-deprecating humour and banter." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13102490).

I suggest that it is not British humour, but British equality-before-law, that is at stake here. That is not to say that there is no room for compassion and tolerance, of course.

Defending against every attack on freedom

Richard Stallmann, or rms, as he is known to many, recent posted the following thoughts next to this link (http://stallman.org/archives/2011-jan-apr.html#13%20April%202011%20%28Free%20Speech%20Trampled%29) on his website, about a Briton arrested in the UK for burning the Qu'ran :

13 April 2011 (Free Speech Trampled)

The UK has arrested a right-wing extremist politician for burning a Qur'an (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/09/bnp-candidate-arrested-quran-burning).

Burning the Qur'an is a way of expressing disapproval of Islam. People have a fundamental right to express this opinion, or any other. To arrest people for expression of opinions is an act worthy of China or Iran. The UK government has violated the rights of Britons on behalf of murderous foreign fanatics.

The particular Briton arrested this time may be a fanatic of a different stripe. He may be a racist. If so, those views discredit him, but they do not excuse censorship.

I too disapprove of certain aspects of Islam, such as its contempt for women, and its contempt for the religious freedom of everyone (including Muslims). I express this condemnation in a more articulate fashion, writing words rather than burning words, to make a clearer point. But if the latter is criminalized, how long can it take before the former is criminalized too?

Plus, of course, how do we know that a book is the Qur'an? Is it enough if someone tells us so (someone we are strongly opposed to, for instance)? Is it enough if the cover is visible with words to the effect "This is the Qur'an"?

Then comes the bit that only the unabridged Qur'an in Arabic is holy (to orthodox Muslims, at least). Translations are not (to orthodox Muslims; or to anyone else, probably, except fanatics).

And then comes the cultural notion of what is disrespect. Among the Zorastrians and Hindus (and probably Buddhists and Jains), fire is regarded as holy. The colours white and black can both represent mourning. Must we be able to understand the language of a book-burner before we know what he or she is doing?

Is it disrespect meant by the protagonist that we oppose? Or disrespect according to our conventions, irrespective of whether or not said protagonist is aware of our conventions?

And after all those layers, we still have the fundamental question of whether, a hundred years after the Death of God was first proclaimed, we still are willing to bring about the death of humans who differ from our view of what a God looks like, how many there are, where he was born, whether he thinks that the Ugandans and Mongolians are His Chosen People, what his name and gender is (or are), whether he had sex, got drunk, stole, lied, revels in gore etc..

And then another one of those questions - whether we truly mean it when we say we are all free, or are only so as long as we don't upset some really violent groups. The latter is the thin edge of the wedge. We must defend against all attacks on freedom, even the ones where we do not feel that the potential victims are decent chaps.

Of course, if someone were to accost us on the street and burn a copy of the Qur'an, or Vanity Fair, or of any other publication much admired, in front of our faces, it would be offensive. We value our private sphere. However, if someone uploads videos thereof , where symbols precious to many are abused, on an internet site, then it appears to be childlishly easy to avoid these videos. If someone sends us graphic photographs, clearly meant to offend and upset, in the mail - then that's hate crime, and we have laws against it.

PS: In this regard, another interesting article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/10/nick-cohen-religion-science) on the special place that religion appears to occupy in our supposedly secular polity and consciousness; it suggests that the notion "that you must respect the privacy of ideologies that mandate violence, the subjugation of women and the persecution of homosexuals and treat them as if they were beyond criticism and scientific refutation – is the most cowardly evasion of intellectual duty of our day."

What the Anna Hazare phenomenon says about India

Anna Hazare and Jantar Mantar have, these days, been "trending" on Twitter, which is what popular tweets do.

For those not in the know, Mr. Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare, popularly called Anna Hazare, an Indian social activist, is currently "fasting unto death" at Jantar Mantar, a centuries-old complex dedicated to astronomy and now a popular protest site in the heart of the Indian capital of New Delhi. His agenda is to force the Central Government of India to accept and/or examine a bill prepared by Mr. Hazare and his collaborators called the "Jan Lokpal Bill", instead of the similar "Lokpal Bill" that the Government is working with. Both bills concern themselves with tackling corruption in the public sector. The one with the "Jan" (meaning "people") prefix calls for more stringent punishments (e.g., a minimum punishment of five years as against six months) and greater powers to the anti-corruption watchdog, including the authority to issue enter-and-search warrants to police officers.

Everyone in the Indian media and on online social networks seems to be completely on board.

I wonder if his supporters have pondered the point that he is attempting to subvert the democratic process. Remember that the Government of India enjoys the confidence of the lower house of the Parliament of India, directly elected by the people of India. Are we to allow every single person who goes on a "fast unto death" to blackmail the legitimate functioning of our parliamentary democracy? What if someone else now "fasts onto death", demanding the opposite of what Mr. Hazare wants? What if twenty five people, instead of one, make that demand? Will our conscience now take their side?

Is this how we want our laws to be created? How our public institutions to function?

Mr. Hazare's record suggests that he himself truly believes in the good of his fellow-man. But this sort of cheap publicity stunt is deplorable. What about getting people together, forming a political party, building up awareness, standing for elections and introducing the bill in Parliament? Also in that case we shall expect our courts to check that no fundamental rights are violated, and our press to examine the bill, and NGOs and concerned individuals to attempt to channelize public opinion for or against the bill.

Or is the democratic way too long and boring? It is obviously far easier to fast-unto-death than to expend physical and intellectual energy and be part of the democratic process.

The other point is that this hunger fast is taking place in India. Given that many millions of the world's destitute live in India, is it meet and right to use a fast as a political device - given that many fast perforce, because they don't have access to food? Why is Mr. Hazare's fast special? Because he's wearing a Gandhi cap? Because of his past record of doing well in the villages? Both strongly Gandhian qualities, and Gandhi fasted too, didn't he, and we love Gandhi, we must love Gandhi, and let's ban that new book about him, so that no one learns that he was a human being, after all, we've made him a Great Soul and we would all look a little silly if it turns out that he wasn't divine, and let's not ask too many questions about whether Hitler and Stalin too had a role in the independence of India.

Let us further examine this popular movement.

"The dream of India as a strong nation will not be realised without self-reliant, self-sufficient villages....." - Anna Hazare, http://www.annahazare.org

But this is precisely what Gandhi wanted - economically self-sufficient villages. And we long know that that is not a viable economic model. This idyll of a village with almost everyone involved in farming, one ironmonger, a couple of tanners etc. with everyone being nice to each other, children running about in robust health and then smartly reciting to their mothers what they learned in the school today, one run by a single, benevolent teacher - is pleasing to behold, but implies keeping villages out of the benefits and pains of modern society. Higher education, intellectual exchange with people across the world, the perfumes of Paris etc.. Ah, but why would the villages want the perfumes of Paris, you ask? Probably they don't - but shall we take it upon ourselves to make this choice for them? Shall we not tell them that they and succeeding generations are not condemned to be farmers forever, but they can do pathbreaking work in linguistics, if they choose?

And have all the supporters of Mr. Hazare's fast-unto-death read both the bills (actually, only one of them is a bill, http://www.annahazare.org/pdf/Lokpal%20Bill%20by%20Government%20of%20India.pdf)?

Let's look at the document (http://www.annahazare.org/pdf/Jan%20lokpal%20bill%20by%20Expert%20(Eng).pdf) proposed by Mr. Hazare and his collaborators:

"(The composition of the selection committee (6.1):)
...
All Nobel Laureates of Indian Origin
...
Last two Magsaysay Award winners of Indian origin"

Interesting that the award winners don't have to be Indian, but of "Indian origin" (am unsure why the O is capitalized in the first instance). Why "Indian origin"? Because we trust those who have brown skin? Who are racially similar to us? We look for foreign awards, because of independence or foreign superiority, but we want those who look like us? We reject those who too have won such awards but are White, or Black, or Yellow, or Red? Sad to see this sort of adolescent thinking has gone into this document, for which a grown man fasts unto death.

"Public feedback will be invited - by putting these names on the website"

Really? And the feedback will represent the will of the people of India? A majority of whom are literate and have easy access to the Internet? Will this so-called public feedback replace democratic elections, at some point?

The Facebook page, "liked" by 14,759 at the time of writing, states (www.facebook.com/annahazare?sk=info):

"A bachelor, an ascetic, he has no possessions, no bank balance and lives in a temple. He is a living Mahatma Gandhi!"

The implication is that being a bachelor is a good thing. Why? Because one does not have sex? Do we really want this sordid, life-denying morality foisted upon us? No bank balance? Is that to be emulated? Do we not understand the benefits of modern banking, the flexibility to spend at a future date? Does he own the temple he lives in? Does he pay rent? Because if we can all live rent-free, then perhaps we don't need to work so much. A living Mahatma Gandhi - this is the most insidious of the propaganda techniques. How is he a living Gandhi? Why is a living Gandhi a good thing?

"In Maharashtra, Anna has single handedly transformed barren and dry regions into green and food surplus areas."

Really? Single-handedly? Does he have a magic staff? This feat ascribed to Anna is, of course, possible, but scarcely probable.

"He has fasted unto death on several earlier occasions."

Can it be that the writer of this line is unaware of the irony? Not quite unto death, one takes it.

An online petition site (http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_anna_hazare) - and we all love online petitions, all we have to do is put in our email address and click "submit", and voila, we are part of meaningful social change, and completely agree with the text of the petition, and all its clauses, states:

"But dirty politicians are desperately trying to water down or kill the law."

Really? Dirty politicians? Is this the level of political debate Indians are used to? Name-calling and hoary old stereotypes of all politicians being dirty? The White Rider comes at dawn and solves all problems with a wave of a magic wand, liberating the Children of India, that they might once again know what it is to drink the pure milk of the loving cow, as we did all those millennia ago, we pure blooded ones. There is no instant fix. For change to be sustainable, it must be part of the democratic process and tolerate discussion, even opinions that are contrary to the dreams of certain individuals. Revolutions appear to be easy solutions, but they tend to be a return to the status quo, with a change of names, and some people lynched or shot in the dark of the night.

"For the first time in forty three years, we have the chance to change the way politics is done."

Forty three years. Let's see, that would mean, since 1968? What happened in or around 1968? Lots of things, one imagines, but what precisely does the writer allude to? In any case, what about the last ten years - there was a functioning parliamentary democracy in India, was there not?

And now the website of the India Against Corruption movement, supported by Mr. Hazare's website.

"Why is it that no one goes to jail in our country despite indulging in corruption?"

No one? Not one single person has ever been convicted in India on charges of corruption? This appears to be hyperbole, or disregard for truth.

"Support Anna's fast! Supported by 5 lakh 70 thousand Indians and growing."

How did they reach this (suspiciously round) figure? In any case, it's nice to have sources next to statistics when employed in a debate. An adult debate, that is. Or may opponents of Mr. Hazare's anti-democratic highjack claim that "11 lakh 83 thousand and growing" Indians against Mr. Hazare?

Their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IndiACor) goes further:

"India Demands.......Make Anna and not Pranab Mukherjee the chairperson of the joint committee."

Delusions of grandeur. India? Do you pretend to speak for India? How dare you! What about the Government of India, the democratically elected ones? Were they elected by the people of Ukraine?

"Left to themselves, the politicians and bureaucrats will never pass any law which subjects them to any kind of objective scrutiny - Anna"

Yes, but they are not "left to themselves", are they? That's the reason we have checks and balances - periodic elections, an independent judiciary, a free press.

Perhaps urban Indians and the media are bored, now that the engaging ICC Cricket World Cup is over, and that's why they are so passionate about this pseudo-democratic, publicity-seeking, not a little ironic, fast-unto-death. Perhaps we need, as some cynics have opined, only wait till the cricket starts again, or the next circus comes to town.

Olives, Economic Development and Cultural Dignity

Two recent entries on the Poverty Matters Blog (The Guardian's blog about the causes, associated issues and development efforts regarding poverty worldwide; in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), posted within a week of each other appear to reinforce each other, albeit in a surprising way.

One, posted earlier today, is titled "Greening India's deserts with olives" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/04/india-deserts-olives-cultivation) and describes a pilot project to import saplings and grow olives in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, using technology developed in Israel.

On the face of it, there are only advantages to the scheme. The poor are introduced to a new cash crop with export implications, appropriate technology transfers take place, bare land is cultivated and the Indians have easier access to olive oil, helping against heart disease prevalence rates.

The other, five days old, is called "There's more to development than ending absolute poverty" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/31/ending-extreme-poverty) and suggests that living standards across the board and across the north-south divide are steadily improving and absolute poverty is on its way out. The author, Mr. Glennie, appears to make the point that the eradication of absolute poverty, in so far as it is the dwindling to zero of a number, is not wholly a good thing and deserves close inspection as to the means.

Some extracts from his post bear this out:

"But there is more to poverty than absolute poverty. The hundreds of millions of people working in sweatshops are not living in absolute poverty.

Women and minorities who suffer persecution are not poor in an absolute sense.

Farmers who had lived in poverty, but with dignity and hope, became people living on the margins, part of someone else's plan, having lost their land, their self-reliance and culture.

Many indigenous and tribal communities will contribute to the eradication of absolute poverty by quietly being wiped out over the next few years and decades."

So development is not just about increasing GDP per-capita, but ensuring that people behind the statistic are treated with dignity, even if it means that the figures will improve at a slower rate.

Now that we've made this assertion, let's go back to the first post, the one about olives, the one that is utterly devoid of any mention of a disadvantage. The author, Ms. Patel, writes:

"The challenge will be how to modernise the traditional farming community and encourage small farmers to come together to farm and manage olives on larger, more efficient plots."

How is this "challenge" going to be met? Many Indian farmers work small plots of land - this is obviously inefficient. What is the solution? Allow market forces to ensure that prices of their produce fall so low that they are forced to sell, leading to a consolidation of arable land? This shouldn't be too difficult, given that richer farmers, with bigger holdings, able to invest in modern farming technology, should be able to afford a lower selling price. On top of that, the government can cut off any existing subsidy and call in any existing loans - that ought to do the trick.

What does "come together" in this context mean? Collective ownership, like in the Soviet textbooks?

What does "encourage" mean? How does the State go about encouraging adult citizens, who might tend to be illiterate and unsophisticated, even if schooled in cynicism? Will there be lectures by local politicians? By agricultural experts accompanied by the respected, held-in-awe, bureacracy?

The way I see it, in one possible playing-out, Indian farmers will be forced - through simple and cold-blooded economics and political-scientific blackmail - to grow olives. We'll have lots of olives, the profits will help to pay for overseas technology development costs, Indians will have less heart-disease and the farmers will make more money. In return, they will have given up their independence to plant what they wish and their sense of land-ownership. They will be growing a plant they have never heard of and which has been chosen for them by outsiders. They will stop growing crops which are part of the local culture, celebrated in the local spring festival through millennia. Perhaps we no longer need all of them to be farmers - modern machines tend to save labour. Diets will change - we'll soon be able to enjoy alu-olive curry. Alu is an Indian word for potato. The Indian word for olive is olive; or will be, anyway, when Indian languages first encounter it. Later, perhaps we can persuade the Indians to bake crusty bread. And wine goes really well with bread and olives, doesn't it? Toothpicks are a natural follow-on. The winds of change and all that sort of thing.

The global economy creates value and allows more humans more leisure time - and is the way forward. But there are many possible ways, open for us to choose.

The introduction of the olive will certainly, one hopes, not be as brutal and disastrous as the indigo planting in Bengal, on the other side of India, in the nineteenth century. But surely that's not good enough, is it? Development, yes, but development and aid with open dialogue and participation.

Another possible progression of the olive story involves the local community, not just the farmers, but also their suppliers and current customers, being brought in at an early stage and probable future consequences explained to them. Really explained, with independent controls to evaluate level of comprehension. If the community then does decide to go the olive way, being an informed decision, then the olives will taste just a little better.