Reading about the unfolding credit crunch, a name which now seems rather quaint given the burgeoning catastrophe throughout world markets and personal finances, has been rather like rubbernecking a car crash around the corner, only to realise too late that the car in front has slammed it’s brakes on and you’re about to plough into it. As the consequences of the crisis in financial markets trickle down into everybody’s lives (”trickle down economics” never before contained such bitter irony), it seems an appropriate time to survey some of the more readable and enlightening articles about the crisis, while taking a look at what happened, what’s happening now, and what might happen in the future.
In the first of three articles we take a look at what happened and how, despite the financial arrangements being characterised as almost immeasurably complicated, it is in fact pretty easy to understand what happened.
John Lanchester, in the New Yorker, reviews what sounds like a fascinating book “Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed, which takes a timely look at the role of central banks and central bankers in the world’s financial markets: Heroes and Zeros
The portrait of Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, reminded me of a piece from the notebooks of Geoffrey Madan, a well-heeled London socialite with many artistic friends. (Harold Macmillan, in his introduction to the notebooks, described Madan as having “something of the look of those young men who stand about to no apparent purpose in Renaissance paintings”).
This morning I saw a magnificent sight. I came up to the City in the Underground rather late, about half-past ten. At Bond Street a man got in whom I just know, and have spoken to three or four times in my life.
He wore loose clothes, a ringed and jewelled tie, a crumpled black hat. His general presence made a most distinguished effect, suggesting all manner of romantic things: a Restoration poet, a historic French admiral, a bearded nobleman of Spain – the ideal which everyone would like to think his own great-grandfather attained, to adapt a famous obituary phrase. This strange being was in a state of high tension. He lay back looking half strangled, as it fallen from a great height, or praying to be supported in some heavy trial; darted a glance away, focussing a distant passenger and slowly dropping his chin; glared round with the queer look of a man swelling with laughter and longing to share it with someone else; or groaned aloud in pain.
Richard Pryor shows how farcical the idea of a black president seemed in the 1970s. Eddie Murphy seems to think that it’s a bit closer in 1983 – at least if enough white folks get drunk before voting – but hopes he’s nimble if he does win. More than 20 years later, Dave Chappelle still shares his fears and suggests a Mexican vice president as insurance. James Earl Jones has to deal with becoming The Man in 1972 (”It took an accident to make this man President of the United States. What they do to him now won’t be an accident.”) Finally, Obama’s refreshingly honest and thoughtful speech about race in the USA during the election campaign. (This is a YouTube playlist. If you want to see a list of the videos, click the icon next to the play button at the bottom left.)
A minimalistic improvisation by Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj ’duetting’ with the Israeli Air Force as it bombards Mazen’s home city of Beirut. Recorded by Kerbaj on the balcony of his flat in Beirut on the night of 15/16 July 2006. Silence, space, explosion, boredom, scuffling – the psychoacoustics of modern conflict (it’s very quiet – turn your volume up).
Mahmoud Darwish was born in Galilee in 1941. The specific conditions we are born into is a crapshoot, and Darwish just lost. In 1948 his family fled to Lebanon. He became the poet laureate of Palestine, an expression of a dispossessed people. Like many in his generation his influences included Ginsburg and Rimbaud. In 1971 he moved to Cairo and worked in Al-Ahram. In 1973 he joined the PLO, and was hence banned from entering Palestine.
Published in 1987, his landmark Memory for Forgetfulness expresses the plight of the refugee under siege. This book is an eyewitness account of the peak of shelling in Lebanon during the civil war, called Hiroshima Day. Comparable to Slaughterhouse 5 or Murakami’s The White Sky of Hiroshima, Memories for Forgetfulness is a coherent exploration of a life that is already forfeit, a life of isolation, injustice and alienation.
When he died in 2008, discussions were held with Israel to bury him in his home town. He was buried in exile from that home village so that he could be where all Palestinians can visit. His remains rest in Ramallah at the heart of the disputed West Bank.
What follows is a short excerpt where Darwish recalls going out into the city streets under bombardment.
I met Spartacus when I first got to Egypt and was looking for a job. She is an imposing personage. I tend to have a different experience of Egypt from her, for reasons you will no doubt understand from the following excerpt of an interview I held with her. We are obviously touching here on issues of gender and race. Whereas I agree that one shouldn’t generalize to the point of being prejudiced, I do hope the reader will be open minded about the events here related. Every truth is partial, and there is much truth to what Spartacus has to say. She has been living in Egypt, off and on, for the majority of the last decade, and by that very fact she deserves the respect of anyone who seriously wishes to understand this deeply troubled country.
We start with a commentary on the Olympic opening ceremony as seen from Egypt by Lelyn Masters, Our Man In Cairo:
Envy is at the root of much racism, against China, against America, against the Jews.
I saw the Chinese spectacle. The Arabic commentator, in the dress of a sheik, explained to us that the Chinese were using the spectacle to intimidate the world. It was quite interesting to me how the Chinese adapted the Greek ceremony. It was as if the far east and the west had joined together and skipped the Arab world.
When the commentators spoke of Arab competitors they spoke of competitors from the “united Arab nation.” They didn’t speak of them as if they were from individual countries. The broadcast was from Dubai, of course, and there was no rhetoric of Emirate superiority in sports, the way it was no doubt spoken of in the US. Again, the key phrase was “Arab unity.”
PanArabism is an interesting movement, often at odds with Islamists, but equally enraged at the existence of Israel. It is in a spirit of Panarabism that Egyptians would feel personally threatened by Israel and the US, whereas these two countries are doing nothing against Egypt, but rather are giving tons of financial aid.
So actually, all this talk of Arab unity could be read as antisemitic, anti-Chinese (who are trying to intimidate us) and ultimately an expression of one thing: envy.
Ninety-seven percent of women in Egypt have had some sort of genital mutilation. The majority of these cases are Type 1, clitoridectomy, involving the removal of the prepuce (clitoral hood). A smaller percentage involve complete removal of the clitoris, and an even smaller minority involve the removal of part or whole of the labia. According to polls, this practice is embraced by men and women of all races and religions in Egypt.
Five years ago almost no women in Egypt wore the headscarf (hijab). Now they nearly all wear it. A man cannot address a woman in public. Marriages are arranged, and the couple usually meet under parental supervision. Women are subordinate to men, and a woman whose honor is in question, through infidelity, rape or pre-marital promiscuity, may be killed by her family so that they save face. Without honor, a man cannot find work, and his entire family will bear the shame.
In 1979 a law passed to protect women’s rights made it more difficult to marry several women, and more difficult to divorce. In 1985 another law reversed the earlier 1979 law. But I ask you, is a law that protects a woman’s right to an inherently one-sided relationship really a protection of her rights? It still remained nearly impossible for a woman to ask for a divorce.
The 6th of July is George W. Bush’s birthday. To celebrate this infernal occasion, for one week only Viralux are making their song Happy Birthday Mr. President available to download as a high-quality MP3 – just click below…
[Edit: Unfortunately the week has come to an end. Subscribe to the blog using RSS or the email subscription box on the right to receive updates as soon as new blogs like this are posted.]
“This place is ready to explode,” she said to me with great relish. Her name was Karen or something, and I stood there having a nice conversation with her and her fiancee. They were from northern California. At that moment we were in an art gallery during the opening of a new collection of photographs of graffiti. She was really excited by the idea that Cairo was on the verge of violent revolt.
I am not convinced. However, I left her with her enthusiasm. People need drama. They really will die without it. Have you ever met someone without any sense of passion or imagination? Zombies are real.
Is this what is meant when we say that music touches us or that a painting moves us? LoveHowlMuse was formed by such questions.
Founded on the principles of cross-fertilization, LoveHowlMuse works with London-based artists and musicians who draw from the fertile grounds of punk and street culture, documentary filmmaking, junk stores, artist's studios, recording studios, film sets, wine cellars, archives, laboratories, observatories, lavatories, forces of nature and appetite.
John Lanchester, in the New Yorker, reviews what sounds like a fascinating book “Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed, which takes a timely look at the role of central banks and central bankers in the world’s financial markets: 
