Mary Dejevsky

France is burning because politicians ignored the problems of its immigrants

Mary Dejevsky — 2005-11-07T16:24:40Z

France is in flames. Not the elegant, discreet, bourgeois France that is Paris and the great cities. Not the countryside, where the late grape harvest is peacefully nearing its end and the white cows graze untroubled, as they have for generations. But the other France: the France that is marooned between town and country, shut away behind ugly concrete walls, confined inside rotting tower blocks: the France of the cités, the banlieues and the quartiers difficiles. The France that has failed.

Few claim, even in the tough estate where it all began, that Bouna Traore and Zyed Benna lost their lives other than accidentally. Apparently fleeing a police patrol, they scaled the enclosure of a high-voltage transformer and were electrocuted instantly. But the sparks from that one incident, 11 days ago in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris, ignited a fire of anger and frustration that has leapt across France. (...)

- / Independent

Media Alert: Burying The Lancet - Parts 1 And 2

Mary Dejevsky, Les Roberts — 2005-09-13T12:27:00Z

"It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces." (Les Roberts, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health)

As a test of the independence and honesty of the mass media, few tasks are more revealing than that of reporting our own government's responsibility for the killing of innocents abroad. In an age of 'converged' political parties and globalised corporate influence, few establishment groups have any interest in seeing such horrors exposed, while many have much to lose. Corporate journalists are therefore subject to two very real, competing pressures:

1) the moral, human pressure of reporting honestly our responsibility for mass killing, and

2) state-corporate pressure and flak punishing dissent and rewarding servility to power.

The results tell us much about the moral and political health of our media and our democracy.

(...)

[September 5 and September 6, 2005]

- / Media Lens

The west gets Putin wrong

Mary Dejevsky — 2005-03-04T04:25:00Z

Vladimir Putin is fast joining the long list of Russian leaders who have failed to meet the west's inflated expectations. Across the United States and Europe, the establishment media paint lurid pictures of an ex-KGB man who never acquired the taste for a free market or free media, a new Czar in the making, a would-be dictator who delights in snapping off each new green shoot of democracy as it appears. Tony Blair has grown noticeably reticent of late about his friend, Vladimir. And when George W Bush left Washington for his recent trip to Europe, it was with Congressional calls to “get tough on Russia” ringing in his ears. (...) - / openDemocracy

Russia finally backs Kyoto. Does it matter?

Mary Dejevsky, Michael McCarthy, Andrew Osborn — 2004-10-01T16:17:00Z

It's not enough, but it's a start. Politicians and environmentalists around the world cheered yesterday when after a long period of vacillation, Russia finally moved to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty on countering climate change. (...) - / Independent

The world through the eyes of Vladimir Putin

Mary Dejevsky — 2004-09-11T15:07:32Z

The catastrophic denouement of the school siege in North Ossetia has brought out the best and the worst of Vladimir Putin. Into the category of "worst" goes the initial day's resounding silence from the Kremlin, so reminiscent of the non-response to Soviet-era disasters, the enforced resignation of the editor of the liberal newspaper Izvestia, and "provocations" - a poisoning and a trumped-up "hooliganism" charge - against two of Russia's most fearless reporters.

In the "best" category belongs his subsequent address to the nation, in which he hinted that he would use the disaster to take on institutional resistance to reform in the security services and the military. His decision to support a parliamentary inquiry into Beslan, and to take the risk of a question-and-answer session with a group of foreign journalists was also consistent with his image as a rational risk-taker.

Certainly, our session could have benefited from the presence of Russian journalists. Nonetheless, what our three-and-a-half-hour audience with the Russian president afforded was a unique window on his world, a glimpse of how the landscape in Russia and beyond looks to the man in the Kremlin.

The first overriding impression is his recognition of Russia's weakness and his willing acceptance that the days of empire - Russian or Soviet - are over. The plus side of this is that Moscow is not about to intervene in support of rebellious, pro-Russian regions of other republics - Transdniester in Moldova, South Ossetia in Georgia - to name but two. "There are parts of the former Soviet Union," he said, "that believe that if Russia wants something it will happen. This is a mistaken view of Russia as an imperial power - which we are not."

The minus side is that Mr Putin sees any effort to change any more borders as a direct threat to Russia's existence and is preoccupied, to the point of paranoia, with the idea of further break-up. This means that Chechnya, for instance, can have de facto autonomy, but that Russia's national frontier must run to its south, not its north. The risk here is that the remedy - repression - will be worse than the threat of break-up, and in the end counterproductive.

Back to the positive side, Mr Putin is sanguine about the newly independent states' right to run their own affairs. He is relaxed, for instance, about Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union and only slightly less relaxed about its desire to join Nato. Mr Putin was also clear that he preferred a world with Nato than without. It was, he said, a force for stability and he would not like to "witness its burial".

But Mr Putin is also looking further into the future. And what he sees is not so much Russian membership of the EU or Nato but a "single European space", in which EU economic, communications and other standards pertain across the whole area of Eurasia. This sounds suspiciously like the old Soviet idea, championed by Mikhail Gorbachev, of a Common European Home. It may sound less menacing since the demise of the Soviet Union, but neither may it be quite as innocent as it currently seems.

If Mr Putin accepts that Russia is weak - it has lost so much territory, so many people and can only aspire to a GDP the size of Portugal's - he also sees it, in his mind's eye, as a big country, one that is essentially European, but one whose attitudes and outlook are more akin to those of America. Mr Putin finds it easier to deal with the US than with European countries on subjects such as terrorism. He appreciates and understands the black-white tones and sweeping scale of American discourse, which echo his own on Chechnya.

Twelve years ago, soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I had the opportunity to interview, or sit in on interviews with, many of the leaders of the newly independent republics. Some were exhilarated, others appalled by what had happened. But what struck me most at the time was how they fell into one of two groups. There were those who agonised and philosophised about the historic events of which they were a part - these included Vytautas Landsbergis, who had led Lithuania to independence - and those who acted on instinct and an innate sense of their nation's interest. The most egregious of these was Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin.

Watching Vladimir Putin at first hand this week, I found him a different kind of Russian leader for different, perhaps more stable times. He is a strategist and a tactician who lays plans, weighs the risks and acts accordingly. This is could be one of the most positive features of his presidency; given certain aspects of his thinking, it could also be one of the most worrying.

- / Independent

Putin Slams Call for Chechen Talks As Funerals Fill Beslan Streets

Mary Dejevsky, Scott Peterson — 2004-09-08T03:51:49Z

On the second day of national mourning in Russia, President Putin attacked those calling for Russia to enter talks with Chechen separatists and rejected a public inquiry into events that led to 335 people being killed. We go to Beslan to speak with the Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson and Moscow to speak with Mary Dejevsky of the Independent (UK) who was one of the people invited to the special conference of journalists and academics who met with President Putin last night. -

This is not a dream ticket for the Democrats

Mary Dejevsky — 2004-07-07T11:32:16Z

Democrats across the United States will have sighed with relief at yesterday's early-morning announcement that Senator John Edwards of North Carolina is to be John Kerry's running mate. They might even have allowed themselves a modest frisson of excitement. John Edwards generated enthusiasm on his all too brief stretch of the Democrats' primary campaign trail. He is a persuasive speaker with good lines in rhetoric, and he has an almost Clintonian life-story to tell - with vastly more money at the end of it, and fewer risky escapades en route. With his nomination, the Kerry campaign is at least still alive.

But it is only alive, it is not yet kicking with the confidence that is essential to any victorious run. That the name of John Edwards has not injected an instant magic ingredient is a reflection less on him than on the mental wish-list that rank-and-file Democrats had drawn up. At the top of this list was Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose candidacy had ignited the early 2000 Republican primaries, and whose criticism of how the Iraq venture was conducted makes him a newly poisoned thorn in George Bush's side.

A Kerry-McCain alliance was the ultimate dream ticket: a double dose of military heroism to take on a president who cast himself as a war leader by choice; a sober northerner and a fiery Westerner to reinforce each other; a Democrat and a Republican offering national unity where George Bush had sown division. The combination was so perfect, held such potential for triumph, that many persuaded themselves it could happen. It could not.

The other tempting prospect was so out of reach as to be hardly mentionable. Might Hillary perhaps be convinced to run? Victorious, she would be well-placed for the presidential contest four or eight years hence; defeated, she could notch up the experience as a valuable rehearsal. Already a star, though, she had no need to be a running mate. Wisely, she gave no one grounds for hope and will remain in the Senate.

Of all the other possible nominees, Mr Kerry has undoubtedly selected the one best equipped for his purpose. Mr Edwards is the only candidate who can enliven his campaign and help him to victory. The others - Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean - were either too boring or too excitable. Mr Kerry could afford neither. Mr Edwards is the classic complementary candidate. He brings the hospitable warmth of the south to offset the chilliness of Mr Kerry's north-eastern manners. A self-made millionaire, his career balances Mr Kerry's patrician New England privilege; a natural orator and instinctive politician, his spontaneity could help disguise Mr Kerry's stilted reserve.

Senator Edwards was, from the start, such an obvious complement to John Kerry that it was almost as though he was looking for reasons not to choose him. And there were at least two: rumours that Al Gore had rejected John Edwards as a running mate four years ago because of some never-identified skeleton in his closet, and fears that the younger, more telegenic Edwards could outshine the candidate himself. Mr Edwards' career as a trial lawyer - a very unpopular species with business because of its penchant for high-paying liability lawsuits - was also considered a possible disadvantage, even though business is hardly the Democrats' biggest constituency. It is to Mr Kerry's credit that he settled on John Edwards after all.

As Mr Kerry chose his man, so he also chose his moment. His campaign has languished in recent weeks. Latest polls have suggested that, while just ahead, he has not pulled away from George Bush, despite the continuing casualties in Iraq and the flow of embarrassing questions about the war. Well before the 4 July holiday, many Bush-haters, and even many convinced Democrats - not necessarily the same thing - were asking whether Mr Kerry had the charisma, energy and killer instinct that he will need if he is to have a chance against George Bush.

So it was an astute move by the Kerry campaign to time the announcement about a running-mate so soon after the holiday. Democrats needed to be woken up before resignation set in; they needed to know John Kerry could deliver a surprise. Yesterday brought a little of both. And while common wisdom has it that the choice of running-mate has little or no bearing on the result of the race, this has not always been true.

Four years ago George Bush's choice of Dick Cheney lent his campaign a solidity and depth of experience it sorely lacked - strange though that judgement may ring now. Mr Cheney's reputation may even have clinched those 300 or so Florida votes that sealed Mr Bush's victory. The promise of John Edwards is similar, except that it is populism and glitz, not solidity, that he needs to add. How well the two men operate as a team will start to be apparent today when they hold their first rally together. As sometimes happens with the more awkward public performers, Mr Kerry already seemed more relaxed yesterday in the knowledge that he was no longer alone.

Kerry-Edwards is not the dream ticket. The question is whether a winning campaign can ever start with the lukewarm verdict that the candidate's choice of running mate could have been a great deal worse.

Every country could use a nuclear deterrent

Mary Dejevsky — 2004-06-24T11:47:56Z

Here, for quiz show enthusiasts, is your starter. Whose words are these and what are they referring to: "The talks were held in a cordial and constructive atmosphere. Both sides approached the talks in a positive framework, aimed at taking the process forward and making them result-oriented."

All right, so the words are wooden and bureaucratic, and they could have followed almost any reasonably successful international meeting - which rules out a good many. In fact, they are from the interim communique on a meeting between India and Pakistan to discuss nuclear security. Amid the mayhem going on elsewhere in the world, this calm, almost routine meeting between the two rival powers of South Asia was a remarkable development that passed almost unnoticed. (...)

Why America is discussing the draft again

Mary Dejevsky — 2004-05-04T07:23:30Z

As US military operations in Iraq have turned sour and casualties have mounted, so the comparisons with the American entanglement in Vietnam have multiplied. And the parallels are there to be drawn: the political misjudgements, the ideological presumptions, the quick and limited intervention that became ever more deeply bogged down, the mistaken belief that the native population would share the occupiers' view of themselves as liberators, however long they stayed and however hostile a face they showed. (...) -

The uncomfortable truth about Putin

Mary Dejevsky — 2004-03-11T05:00:00Z

On Sunday, Vladimir Putin will be re-elected President of Russia for another four years. So overwhelming will be his majority that it hardly seems worthwhile anyone counting the votes. He dominated state television during what passed for a campaign. He refused to engage his dwindling number of opponents in debate, and he cynically exploited the advantages of incumbency, travelling the country on official presidential business that was really electioneering. (...) -