If it's a symbol

I feel quite heartsick about what's going on in London. And I'm also getting annoyed by what seems to be the two major ways I'm seeing the riots perceived. The first is that this is mindless violence and theft by workshy scum. The second is that this is a righteous response to a corrupt state, the police are the enemy, and that looting and vandalism are anarchist actions against capitalism.

It's really too early for proper analysis of the situation - that will come in the aftermath. For now I have these observations.

These riots come following a year of austerity measures that have not managed to stem the tide of unemployment and economic depression, a time that has seen an extraordinary number of protests and public fury over the government's cutting of public services while pandering to big business. The UK is not the most economically deprived developed nation, but it is the developed nation with the least social mobility. The boroughs of London where violence has broken out are deprived, and there is a history of distrust between the police and local communities, racial tension, and educational underachievement. People feel helpless, trapped by their socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, and cuts to public funding - including outreach programmes and community policing - will only make such feelings stronger. People are anxious about their futures as unemployment stays high, the economic situation remains gloomy and benefits are cut. That in these circumstances it's easy for peaceful protest to tip over into violence is unsurprising, and those who condemn these people wholesale as mindless thugs are not only narrowminded, they're also missing an important wake up call about what it is these communities are so painfully lacking.

On the other hand, I don't have any time at all for the kind of armchair anarchist who, in a middle class sort of way, pronounces on how burning down or looting stores owned by major corporations is a strike against capitalism. Who do you think suffers when a local branch of a global chain is broken down? Not the corporation itself; one store out of hundreds or thousands is a loss that can be swallowed. It's local communities, who lose jobs when stores are shut down, who see property prices fall as insurance costs rise and store fronts go vacant, who see derelict buildings become foci of vandalism and petty crime. There were people in Tottenham - working class, ordinary people of all races - who were heartbroken because of what's happened to their area, an area they have pride in, an area they've seen struggle to get out of the mire of economic desperation over the past couple of decades. If you cheer on people who steal and destroy because you think they're sticking it to The Man, you probably aren't having to clean up broken glass or face the fact you don't have a shop to go work in tomorrow morning, or you don't know what it would be like to face that. Which means you're probably pretty privileged, and should maybe start thinking about whether you might be The Man, too.

Tonight I watched the BBC documentary This World: Stolen Brides, written and presented by Lucy Ash, a respected reporter with a background in covering Russian politics, warzones and women's issues. This programme was on the topic of forced marriages in Chechnya, a region with a complex and violence-ridden history, now struggling to recover after the Second Chechen War. Bride kidnapping has a long tradition in Chechnya, but it has seen a marked revival in recent years, with some estimating that up to 1 in 5 marriages begins with the kidnapping of the bride. Typically a young man and his friends snatch a woman off the street. They will then contact her family to negotiate for her hand. The marriage is usually agreed to, both to preserve the woman's honour and to prevent the need for a blood feud in a country where family honour is prized and where every man seems to have access to a gun. The narrative of the episode moved between the story of Zulikhan, a young woman snatched off the street and married a week later to a man she had met on only three occasions, and interviews with mullahs, human rights activists and ordinary Chechens.

I finished the programme feeling profoundly unsettled by what I had seen. There was a great deal to unpack from the footage, far more than could actually be analysed in the programme (though Lucy Ash gave a useful introduction to isues, she reported rather than analysed - which I think was probably more helpful in this context; it let the footage speak for itself). I sat in the bath, wondering why exactly it had upset me so profoundly. I see terrible things on the news every day, after all. Part of it, of course, was that there was a personal story there. Journalists know that a personal story is worth a hundred nameless casualties, and it would have been a stony-hearted person who wasn't moved by Zulikhan, a university student who suddenly had her career prospects and even her location taken from her as she was displaced through marriage to a near-stranger who moved them to remote Kazakhstan. Clearly bright and capable, Zulikhan had the air of a woman making the best of a bad situation; she liked her new mother-in-law (who enrolled her in a local university), and she described her marriage as "fate", but she had little to say about Bogdan, her new husband. Bogdan, meanwhile, was dismissive when asked if he thought his wife was upset about being snatched. Women, he said, just cried because they didn't want to leave home, but really they wanted to be married.

It would be easy to have gone away from the programme - with its men shooting guns in the air from the wedding cortege, mullahs exorcising women of demons that made them unhappy in their marriages, and grim statistics on women forced into prostitution and human rights activists murdered - thinking that Chechnya is an oppressive nation dominated by cruel, religious-fanatic men who are systematically crushing women's rights. Which in many ways is actually a fair assessment, but it's also a glib one.

One of the issues I have as a researcher on masculinities is the way so many people invoke the word "patriarchy" without actually understanding what it means. And before you ask, no, I don't know what it means either. I may have written a thesis on fatherhood, but I think I've only begun to understand what patriarchy really is. What this programme brought into sharp relief for me was the complex ways in which patriarchal constructs can shape, promote, and oppress. The people of Chechnya are victims of grotesque and repeated abuses of privilege. In 1944 the entire Chechen population was deported by the Russians. Half a million people were exiled to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and allowed to return only in 1957. Unsurprisingly, the ensuing years have seen continued bloody struggles with Russia. An increasingly radicalised Chechen population has in recent years moved away from seeking a western-style democracy independent of Russia and moved toward the ideal of a powerful Islamic state fighting for Caucasian independence - at almost any cost. The war with Russia is supposedly over, but violence is endemic, the unemployment rate stands at a third of the population, and a Médecins Sans Frontières survey in 2007 found that an astonishing 77% of respondents showed evidence of psychological trauma as a result of the war.

It is perhaps not surprising that in a nation that has been systematically brutalised and humiliated by a more powerful enemy that its citizens should seek ways of self-empowerment. It's all very well if we at home, comfortable in our privileges of peacetime and education, think it would be better if people sought productive ways to empower themselves. For many Chechen men, growing up with the expectation that their lives may be cut short by violence, ambitions stymied by economic stagnation and political corruption, an act such as bride-stealing may seem to them an exertion of personal choice and of vigorous masculinity. Patriarchal constructs tell men that they are not really men if they are not demonstrating their masculinity, if they do not prove their manliness. And of course the constructs of patriarchy involve not only the domination of women by men, but the domination of men by more powerful men. This isn't, by the way, all about gender; patriarchy's a lot more complex than that, and maybe sometime I'll have time to get into that. But for now - Chechen men have lived for decades as the whipping boys of their own government and of the policies of an autocratic and powerful neighbour. Is it surprising that a radical and conservative version of Islam which allows men to marry more than one woman, that allows men to make women cover their heads, that encourages men to take back their nation's independence, that neatly gives the blame for their problems to Russia and to the population's moral laxity. In many societies, patriarchal constructs subtly instil the notion that the household is a microcosm of society, and so the man who controls his household is a man who can take his proper place in a social hierarchy.

I couldn't warm to Bogdan, who seemed to have little interest in his new wife, and who did seem like the kind of cold misogynist you might expect. But Lucy Ash spoke to his father on Bogdan's wedding day. The father was visibly relieved; most people, he said, got married at eighteen or nineteen, but then the war came... And now Bogdan was thirty. There was in what he said a sense of an anxiety that went beyond a typical parental desire for a child to settle down and start a family. There is a sense in Chechnya of there being very little time; lives are borrowed, not owned, and this attitude makes snatching a wife - a custom that seems better suited to a more ancient time, not to a society with glossy billboards and a busy TV industry - make more sense. "I didn't want to wait," said Bogdan, and whilst his dismissive attitude toward his wife's ambitions was repulsive, it was easier to understand his anxiety to be married when an old man started speaking at the wedding reception. He discussed how he and his family were deported, how he saw his siblings die - a tiny fraction of the horrifying one-third of all deportees who died during transport or shortly thereafter. He talked about how women knelt down in front of Russians so that the fighting would stop, and how they were mowed down. Everything that the Chechen people have has been scraped together, fought for, stolen, wrung out. They are simultaneously absolutely certain of their right to be Chechen and absolutely uncertain of anything else that governs their own lives. They are fiercely proud of their race and nation; they are afraid of their government, of the future, of the shadow of Moscow.

"It's the law of our grandfathers," one man said about bride-snatching. "We have to respect our Chechen traditions." "Tradition" is often a useful cloak for abuse, and you may rightly sniff at men using dubious "history" to justify the abuse of women's rights - but in a society with an uncertain future and a distressing and bloody recent past and present, the concept of "tradition" is something to cling fast to. Whether or not it actually does anyone any good.

There is plenty you can read online about the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. There are just a few notes I want to make here. My life has been thankfully free of the violence of Northern Ireland, but my mother and her family are from Belfast and the region around Belfast, and their daily lives were shaped and fundamentally affected by the Troubles. It was a difficult, chaotic, frightening time, and no one party or group of people can really be "blamed" entirely for what went on. The Troubles are used to talk about a short period of time, but really they started centuries ago and they continue, in a thankfully smaller and less damaging form, today. But Bloody Sunday was one of those situations where there is clearly a wrong side, and it was the British Army, and its reckless, revolting, unjustifiable resort to arms on that Sunday in 1972 had a profound effect on the course of the Troubles. Many Catholics had initially welcomed the presence of the Army in Northern Ireland, because they hoped it would be a neutral force that would help protect them. Bloody Sunday underlined the fact that Catholics were the enemy, not only of the Protestant Irish but also of the British generally, and that Catholics could not hope that what they were supposed to accept as their government would protect them or their interests.

Patrick Doherty was shot as he tried to crawl to safety.

Bernard McGuigan was shot as he went to help Doherty; he waved a white handkerchief to signify his peaceful intentions.

William McKinney was shot as he went to the aid of Gerald McKinney (no relation); he had left cover to help the other man. Both died.

It is no wonder that after this the Provisional IRA began to attract more and more radicalised and disaffected young people, nor that the divisions between Catholics in Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain deepened. They were on a civil rights march. They died for nothing, and that day of violence led to who knows how many more pointless, bloody deaths on all sides.

Now David Cameron, on behalf of the Government, has officially apologised. I hope that it can bring the families of the deceased some kind of peace, and mark another step toward reconciliation - a process that began in one way or another 12 years ago and continues today. It will take a long time for these wounds to heal, and they will always leave scars; but this is something. It is an important something.

Exciting news: I passed my viva with flying colours! Huzzah huzzah, I can haz PhD.

But since this blog is more about bits and bobs that I find interesting rather than my life's events (I have lj to detail all that), I am currently irked by this:

The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.

He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.

The home secretary said he had "lost confidence" in his advice and asked him to step down.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK's official drugs advisory body.

Following his sacking, Prof Nutt told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects.

He described his sacking as a "serious challenge to the value of science in relation to the government".

Absolutely outrageous. Prof Nutt isn't saying anything that hasn't been said by many other scientists, medical professionals and those involved in drug rehabilitation and social work. In 2004, cannabis was downgraded from Class B to Class C. But this didn't last long - it was put back into Category B in 2007 - against the advice of official advisors who had presumably been hired to determine whether this was a good idea or not. But who needs SCIENCE or LOGIC when there is a fun IDEOLOGICAL WAR ON DRUGS to wage?

As even the BBC is unable to get inside Iran, I looked to Twitter instead, where brave and ordinary people in Iran are microblogging about their lives - when they can get through blocks put up by the Iranian government. Here are some examples; I think they stand without need for comment.

Mousavi supporters are having "Calmness will beat the bullets" placards and standing near TV/Radio station's mosque. #IranElection

my fellow student is telling me of the horrible things Gov officers did to them when they were under arrest. & I'm crying#gr88

Iranian Army, Basiji, Foreign forces blockading Tehran University, Protesters. Travel in groups, take side streets.

Do not dig out shrapnel in wounds,doing so can hurt it more. نه از گلوله انفجاری در چاه زخم, می تواند کار را هر چه سریعتر حکومت آسيب ببيند.

Gmail and Yahoo messenger is filtered too. They are blocking all the communication means. #iranelection

People have been receiving random automated calls of “You have participated in the protests" to scare them. #IranElection

we have info that tehran uni will be attacked tonight - have contact inside - says uni blocked #Iranelection

confirmed by farsi twitters: around 2000 basiji is now standing in front of dorms.

Masood just called (he's OK), his laptop is destroyed & unfortunately gov intelligent found and arrest Reza at shariati Hospital.

gas eye solution 1/2liquid antacid like Maalox 1/2 water Always irrigate from the inside corner of the eye towards the outside #iranelection

You know that the MP expenses furore has become a really big deal when a newspaper like the Torygraph is holding "socialist" MPs up as a good example!

In some ways, the storm that has arisen over MPs expenses really feels like a tempest in a teacup. Similar expenses have been claimed in years gone by, and it feels as if this story is a good filler now that people aren't worried about swine flu. (Today I received a leaflet from the government, by the by, on how to protect myself from swine flu - possibly a bit late, guys?) Many of the expenses that MPs can claim seem reasonable considering the remit of their jobs. The fuss over the accidental claiming for 2 adult films by Jacqui Smith - clearly an embarrassing mistake - reflects a desire by the press to feed gossip to a public that is increasingly dissatisfied with its government. On the other hand, it does seem like a lot of people have really been taking advantage of the system; the fact that so much money can be spent and the rules have not been broken suggests a need to reform those rules (a process which has in fact already begun). This is particularly annoying when I think how I have worked for central government departments on several occasions, and I know how carefully civil servants are expected to watch their expenses - it would be nice if MPs did the same.

It seems that a lot of the queries about expenses comes from the practice of owning second homes. Most MPs require a base in London as well as in their constituency, and MPs are not paid so lavishly that running two households is necessarily easy. I do think that greater common sense could be applied to the way second properties are run, however, and I like Kelvin Hopkins' suggestion:

...I have signed an Early Day Motion calling for the nationalisation of all second homes. If the state owned flats and rented them out to MPs, there wouldn’t be any problems about second home allowances or switching homes from one place to another and you wouldn’t have these problems with capital gains tax.

This would of course involve a substantial initial outlay from the government, but in the long term could be beneficial, I think. The Prime Minister's residences are owned by the state; why not do the same with MPs' properties? Obviously, I'm not an economist, so I have no idea if this idea has any weight...

Anyway, this is all by-the-by when we consider the more important breaking news of the moment... Peter Andre to divorce glamour model Jordan. And here we were all rooting for those crazy kids to make it.