¡VIVA ZAPATERO!

In last week’s post, I wrote about fact manipulation through selective use of data. Any argument can be impregnable if one picks and chooses the facts and data that are suitable and convenient to the task at hand. Politicians often take a quote and use it out of context. On the other hand, one does not expect a respected newspaper to engage in such tactics when reporting news.

With a nod of apologies to those of you not familiar with the Greek media, I am sad to report that the Athens daily KATHIMERINI (“The Daily”) is guilty of such unseemly practices. I subscribe to the email version of the newspaper and usually read the sections on Greece as well as editorials. A few days ago, I read a piece on Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in The New York Times (“Leader Pushes Spain to Left, Rejecting Calls to Slow Down,” December 13, 2006). On the following day, a translation of the article promptly appeared on Kathimerini attributed to The New York Times, with which the Greek daily has an exclusive content agreement.

For some reason, I decided to re-read the article in Kathimerini and, to my surprise, discovered that the translation had omitted quite a few parts of the original. The editing resulted in a far more negative view of Zapatero. What was more troubling to me was that this view was attributed to The New York Times. And so, Kathimerini translated this quote:

''Zapatero takes for granted issues that many people, particularly the older generations, still worry about,'' said Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, a founder of the Elcano Royal Institute, a public policy research organization in Madrid, who added that the prime minister ''is governing with half of Spain, but against almost the entire other half. That is risky.'' So far, so good.

However, Kathimerini chose to ignore that Mr Lamo de Espinosa went on to say (in the Times original article) that “Mr. Zapatero acquired political maturity when democracy was already established in Spain. He takes democracy for granted, and he takes social and political stability in Spain for granted.'' Or, more importantly, that ''even if Spaniards are unhappy with the policies of Zapatero, it doesn’t mean they will prefer the opposition.”

Many more omissions from the original result in a ‘translation’ that is at once one-sided and a negative view of Mr Zapatero; the original is not. The original article’s point is summed up as follows: “Yet recent history suggests that Spanish governments are hard to dislodge from power in the absence of major crises or scandals, particularly governments that lean to the left.”

Do I have a problem with Kathimerini’s negative view of Mr Zapatero? None whatsoever: Kathimerini is a conservative daily and Greece is a free country, so Kathimerini can print whatever it pleases. Do I have a problem with an article that poses as a translation of an article in The New York Times; one that is nothing but a pick-and-choose version which promotes the position of Kathimerini’s editorial board under the veneer of legitimacy lent by The New York Times? You bet I do.

And so I decided to add my own brief take to the Zapatero story, so as to set the record straight for KATHIMERINI’s editorial board.

The title of this post (¡VIVA ZAPATERO!) is the title of a 2005 documentary by Sabina Guzzanti, a big hit at both the Venice and Sundance film festivals. The documentary tells the story of the conflict with Silvio Berlusconi over a late-night TV political satire show broadcast on RAI-3. The show, RAIot, lampooned Berlusconi and, this being Berlusconi, it was cancelled after the first episode. Guzzanti called her documentary ¡VIVA ZAPATERO! as the Spanish Prime Minister, immediately after gaining power, ensured that the head of the state-run public broadcasting company would no longer be a political appointee, as was and is the case in Italy.

It is a telling honor for Mr Zapatero who has quietly revolutionised Spain since being elected on 14 March 2004, just three days after the devastating Madrid train bombings which left at least 200 dead.

This is how Spain’s 43-year-old Prime Minister described his leadership vision in an interview with Time Magazine a few months after he was elected:

“The economic, social and cultural progress of a nation depends on citizens counting for more and having more rights. That's the essence of my policy. Democratic power is the only voice most citizens have. The corporations and the media don't need power; they already have it. I said when I came into office that I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a good democrat.”

I will neither dwell nor harp on Mr Zapatero’s well-known initiatives. Upon being elected, he immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. He drastically severed longstanding ties between the Spanish State and the Roman Catholic Church. He presided over the Spanish Parliament’s approval of the new Statute of Autonomy for the region of Cataluña.

Mr Zapatero decided to expend his political capital on reshaping Spanish life and society. Again, his initiatives in this sphere are well-known. He openly defied the Catholic Church by legalising gay marriage and making divorce much easier. He introduced a legislative package condemning Franco’s dictatorship and honoring its opponents. He gave a sweeping amnesty to 700,000 illegal immigrants. He offered more affordable housing, a massive expansion in education, and state aid to spur employment. Finally, Mr Zapatero has strongly promoted the expansion of women’s rights and access to power in a society that had traditionally confined them.

Zapatero’s era is merely an acceleration of Spain’s amazing trajectory to modernisation in the years since 1975, when General Francisco Franco died. Greece too returned to democratic rule in July 1974 when the military junta that had ruled the country with the support of the US government collapsed in the wake of the Cyprus fiasco. One would have expected the two countries to follow a parallel path to modernisation upon return to democratic rule. Sadly for Greece, this has not been the case.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Kathimerini editorial board, please make sure you afford your Greek readers a bit more fairness next time you translate an article on Mr Zapatero’s achievements.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy and Healthy New Year 2007 to all! Unless I decide to take my laptop along to the beach next week, I will not be publishing my next post until 7 January 2007.

WEEK OF OUTRAGE

Iran’s much touted Holocaust conference opened Tuesday in Tehran with former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard David Duke, hot off the “White World’s Future” conference this summer in Moscow, in attendance. He thanked “the distinguished scholars who are here at a conference that history shall one day deem as one of the most important of the 21st century.” Duke explained that his primary reason for being there is a commitment to freedom of speech, although he did refrain from expressing an empathy with those who are hanged in Iran for a similar commitment. Also attending the conference were Frenchmen Robert Faurisson and Georges Thiel, veritable poster boys for Holocaust denial, who claim that gas chambers were never used to kill Jews, and Australian Fredrick Toben, who claims that, at the very most, 2,007 people might have been killed at Auschwitz.

“Results of surveys so far show Holocaust is no more than a myth,” concluded Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipour, secretary general of the International Congress to Support Palestinian Intifada and former Iranian interior minister, in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency. In his speech to the conference, president Ahmadinejad said: “The Zionist regime will disappear soon, the same way the Soviet Union disappeared,” Thus, “humanity will achieve freedom.”

When one participant, Gholamreza Vatandoust, from Shiraz University, talked about the scholarship confirming the Holocaust, his views were quickly dismissed. For three days, seventy revisionist historians and white supremacists from thirty nations denied the atrocities of the concentration camps concentrating instead on such trivia as the existence of exhaust chimneys and the half-life of the poison Zyklon B.

While previous revisionist conferences have been held in seedy motels, largely ignored by the world's media, as would conferences of flat-earthers, the Tehran revisionists were the honored guests of the president and parliament of a sovereign nation.

Meanwhile, in the United States, former president Jimmy Carter has been on a tour promoting his new book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” On Tuesday night in Phoenix, Arizona, after a hastily arranged hour-long meeting with a group of rabbis, Carter declared: “We ended up holding hands and circled in prayer.” In a letter to The New York Times published on 15 December, however, Rabbi Darren Kleinberg representing the executive committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, asserted that Mr Carter’s statement should not be construed “as representing any agreement or conciliation by us with Mr Carter’s position” and that “the opposite is true.”

Both Mr Carter’s use of the terms ‘apartheid’ and ‘colonisation’ to describe Israel’s policies, as well as his assertion that Israel is guilty of human rights abuses, have been very controversial. The furor comes a week after Kenneth W. Stein, an adviser to Mr Carter and former executive director of the Carter Presidential Library, resigned after calling the book “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments.”

But Mr. Carter is steadfastly defending the book, saying he believes there is a valid comparison between Israelis and the white South Africans who oppressed blacks. “It was obviously going to be somewhat provocative,” Mr. Carter said of the title. “I could have said ‘A New Path to Peace’ or something like that.” But Mr. Carter said he felt apartheid was the most pertinent word he could use, and in retrospect he would not change any of the book’s content.

And finally, on Wednesday in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen unveiled new election posters that seek the support of Arab and black voters and criticise what he characterises as the failed integration policies of the political establishment.

In one poster, a young black woman with a long mane of hair and a bare midriff makes a ‘thumbs down’ sign. The slogan reads: “Right/Left. They have broken everything!” Another poster shows the 78-year-old Mr. Le Pen walking with the young woman and a number of other people under the slogan, “With Le Pen. All Together, Let’s Lift Our France Back Up.”

Worse still and more troubling is his support: His latest poll rating, according to TNS Sofres, is 18% - higher than it was before the 2002 election.

What is the world coming to?

EATING HUMBLE PIE

On 17 November, I published a post hailing the election of Ségolène Royal as the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS) in the presidential election of April-May 2007 (“France’s New Royalty”).

In the weeks since, on several occasions, I caught myself wishing I hadn’t. Google’s Blogger has a Delete feature; I could have just clicked on it and my post would have vanished forever. I decided to eat humble pie instead. In public.

Ségolène Royal had long appeared (to me!) to be a most appealing choice for the highest office in France. France seemed very much in a rut after twelve years of Chirac and, who seemed better suited to turn the page than Ségolène Royal! A fresh face, a candidate with compelling beliefs and a personal lifestyle to match, a charismatic leader in her home region of Poitou-Charentes, a woman. Yes, I have to admit I wanted to see a woman elected President. Edith Cresson, in 1991, became the first woman to be appointed France’s Prime Minister; but to be elected to the highest post in the land is quite different from being appointed to the second-highest.

So, what went wrong? In the weeks since she won the PS primary, Royal has come, as was to be expected, under increased media and public scrutiny. She has come under my humble scrutiny as well. Since buying a ticket to Paris so I may witness her second round victory on 6 May 2007 in person, I have watched hours of footage of Royal’s speeches and pronouncements and foreign trips and press conferences, on France 2 (courtesy of TV5 in New York), on France24, and on her own website (http://www.segolene-video.org/).

My verdict is in, and Ms Royal is no Indira Gandhi or Golda Meir; she is no Margaret Thatcher; she is no Hillary Clinton either, as The International Herald Tribune recently argued in an aptly titled article (Clinton and Royal as Future Presidents? The Likeness Ends There). While Clinton is widely regarded as a politician whose strength is based on substance and clear positions, Royal's success beyond gender has been largely linked to her appearance of modernity and talking about modernizing a country on the decline. Polls show that being a woman is her single most appealing attribute.

On her first foreign trip since she was chosen as her party’s candidate, Royal visited Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel. Even allowing for the fact that she was a diplomatic débutante, she stumbled badly.

In Lebanon, she met with parliamentary deputies, among them Ali Ammar, a member of the pro-Syrian, Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

“The Nazism that has spilt our blood and usurped our independence and our sovereignty is no less evil than the Nazi occupation of France,” Mr. Ammar reportedly told Ms. Royal. He also attacked the “unlimited dementia of the American administration” and called Israel the “Zionist entity.”

Ms. Royal replied that she agreed “with a lot of things that you have said, notably your analysis of the United States.” She defended Israel, calling it not an “entity” but a sovereign state that had the right to security. She did not comment on the Nazi reference.

Questioned by journalists about her criticism of the United States, she clarified her position, saying she had only meant to be critical of American policy in Iraq, not the “the wider policies of the United States.”

Asked a day later about the Nazi remark, she said she had not heard it, saying it was a problem of interpretation. “If that comparison had been made, we would have left the room,” she said.

At a press conference in Jerusalem last Monday, Royal told reporters: “You have in front of you the only French political figure who has clearly taken a stand against Iran’s access to civil nuclear power. This will be my position if I am elected president of the republic.”

On Tuesday, Royal was promptly accused of undermining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows signatories like Iran to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It is too early to know whether Ms. Royal’s debut in the Middle East signifies “her audacity or her flightiness,” a foreign affairs expert, Daniel Vernet, wrote in Le Monde. Elaine Sciolino of The New York Times, reporting from Paris, wrote an article titled “A Candidate Abroad, or an Innocent Abroad?”

If last Monday was a fiasco, here’s what transpired on Sunday, as reported by Daniel Ben-Simon of the Israeli daily Haaretz in an article titled “A snub from Segolene Royal:”

It was a very embarrassing moment. The scene: the lobby of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The players: Segolene Royal's spokesman Julian Dray and a representative of CRIF, the umbrella organisation of the Jewish community in France. "I have nothing to talk to you about!" said Dray heatedly to the astonished Jewish representative. "You have sold your soul to the other side; you have nothing to look for with us. Go back to your friend Nicolas Sarkozy; he's your landlord."

The CRIF representative tried with all his might to convince Dray that his organization is taking an absolutely objective position with regard to the presidential race in France. But Dray stuck to his guns. "You are going to pay dearly for your one-sided mustering," he went on to shout. "Segolene will be president, and you will have to pray for her to receive you for a discussion."

But at the end of the day, I have to admit it was personal impressions that tipped the scale. And when I say ‘personal,’ don’t think I have ever been anywhere near Ms Royal. Yet, personal these impressions were.

The first impression was formed by watching footage of Royal’s Middle East trip on France 2 and TV5. My alluring, photogenic, and charismatic candidate is filmed in Israel speaking on her cell phone at the end of a press conference. Who walks past but Françoise de Panafieu, a deputy of the ruling party, UMP. She too is on a business (fact finding?) trip to Israel. I can see her wave at my captivating hero Ségolène; obviously they know each other! My hero, however, frowns. “You are saying all these un-nice things about me and now you expect me to say hello to you? I will not. ”

Then and there ended my love affair with Ségolène Royal. In refusing to shake the hand of a deputy (a Congresswoman to you, my American readers), Royal proved to be petty and vindictive.

Cut to Royal’s exclusive interview on France 2 on Friday 8 December; she was the guest on the evening news. Anchorwoman Béatrice Schoenberg asked Royal what she thought of the interest rate increase just approved by the European Central Bank (ECB). Royal said rates are too high; she severely criticised the ECB and its president. She further advocated a review of the ECB statutes and treaties.

A review of ECB’s statutes and treaties? Was I witnessing a case of lack of gravitas, a lack of experience, or just a loose cannon in action?

The French constitution of 1958 grants broad powers in the realm of foreign policy to the President of the Republic. And, whatever criticism one may level at Jacques Chirac’s leadership, there is no denying that he has served France’s interests abroad masterfully. Can France afford a President who is gaffe-prone?

As much as I may want a woman to be elected President, I am very happy indeed to defer my wishes and hopes.

ANOTHER VOTE FOR BETTER HEALTH

New York, December 5, 2006 (The New York Times)- The New York City Board of Health voted today to ban artificial trans fats in the city’s eateries, establishing more rigorous limits than any American city.

Dan Fleshler, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association, said today that the city’s proposals were “an attempt at misguided social engineering by a group of physicians that don’t understand the restaurant industry.”

You don’t get it Mr Fleshler, do you? It is not the restaurant industry and its health that the Mayor was concerned about; rather, it is the health of and, more specifically, the prevalence of heart disease in, New Yorkers. And far from being advocated just by “a group of physicians,” the measure has widespread public support. The American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Cancer Society all supported the plan. Mayor Bloomberg was most wise to introduce the bill.

Trans fats, also known as hydrogenated fats, are man-made or processed fats. Trans fats pose a higher risk of heart disease than saturated fats, which were once believed to be the worst kind of fats. While it is true that saturated fats -- found in butter, cheese, and beef, for example -- raise total cholesterol levels, trans fats go a step further. Trans fats not only raise total cholesterol levels, they also deplete good cholesterol (HDL), which helps protect against heart disease.

If you want to get an understanding of trans fats, think pouring bacon grease down your kitchen sink. Trans fats are used in foods such as vegetable shortening, some margarines, crackers, candies, baked goods, cookies, donuts, snack foods, fried foods, salad dressings and many processed foods.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned about the direct, proven relationship between diets high in trans fat content and LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels and, therefore, an increased risk of coronary heart disease – a leading cause of death in the US.

There is no nutritional need whatsoever for these man-made fats. The fact that their use is pervasive simply serves the interests of the food industry. Food manufacturers started putting them in products because they allow for a longer shelf life. Crackers, for example, can stay on the shelf and stay crispy for years in part because of the hydrogenated fats in them.

Instead of advocating the adoption of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and corn oil), which are beneficial to health, Mr Fleshler would rather we think this ban is “misguided.” To help us decide whether this ban is indeed “misguided,” it is helpful to know who is behind most products which will be affected. The trans fat powerhouse is Kraft Foods. Kraft Foods is a fully-owned subsidiary of Altria. And, for those of you who don’t know Altria, the company that goes by a name which conjures up altruism, until recently it used to be known as Philip Morris. Yes! Trans fats are brought to you courtesy of the very same nice folks who have been bringing you Marlboros, Benson & Hedges, Parliaments, Virginia Slims, Murattis, Larks, and so on.

Here’s to you Kraft! Here’s to you Altria! You are truly my heroes.

Kraft Foods North America Brands

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Cheese

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Insh’Allah, indeed!

Caracas, Venezuela, December 3 – It is impossible to go far in Venezuela without seeing Hugo Chávez, not least because today is Election Day. Market stalls have been doing a brisk trade in red Chávez scarves, anti-imperialist umbrellas and baseball caps denouncing George W. Bush before today’s presidential election. They are almost out of chávecitos — the battery-operated figures of the Venezuelan President dressed in either a red beret and combat fatigues or suit and presidential sash.

The former paratroop commander, who led a failed military coup in 1992, has been in power for eight years. To supporters, Chávez smashed a corrupt political duopoly that for fifty years stole Venezuela’s oil wealth while the population languished in poverty; distributed that wealth to the country’s poor, curbed the power of the elite, and put the American President in his place. To opponents, Chávez is a dangerous autocrat intent on transforming the country into a dictatorship; he has systematically dismantled the country’s democratic institutions, exercised untrammelled power and used it to persecute his political opponents.

Today, Venezuelan voters are deciding whether Chávez should get another six-year term. Given he has vowed to change the Constitution to allow “indefinite re-election,” today may well be the last chance Venezuelans have to check Chávez’ ambitions.

Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia State in western Venezuela, is trailing badly in most polls. Thanks to high oil prices, Venezuela has been the fastest-growing economy in Latin America: GDP climbed 10.2 per cent in the latest quarter alone and the economy has boomed.

But not all is rosy. For one, crime has exploded. According to human rights groups and a UNESCO study, Venezuela has the highest rate of gun-related deaths of 57 countries surveyed — far surpassing Brasil, one of the most violent nations in Latin America. The number of homicides in Venezuela climbed 23 percent from January to August of this year alone.

A history of far graver abuses by the police has gone unchecked. Last year, the attorney general’s office said it was investigating 5,520 presumed executions by the police between 2000 and 2005, involving 6,127 victims. Of the police officials implicated, prosecutors have filed charges against 517, and fewer than 100 had been convicted, according to Human Rights Watch.

The highway from the international airport in Maiquetía to Caracas Center is jam-packed with armed gangs rear-ending cars and robbing passengers of their belongings. Carlos Colina, a consultant for Hewlett-Packard, was shot to death on the route in July, one of several incidents that led the United States Embassy in Caracas to issue a warning against traveling on the road after nightfall. Around the same time, burglars shot Walter Rehberger, a consul at the Austrian Embassy, during a break-in. Diplomats were singled out again this month, when thieves broke into the trade office for the Chinese Embassy and stole $14,000. While much of the recent attention has focused on killings among the privileged, the vast majority of homicides in Venezuela occur in the country’s poorest communities — Mr. Chávez’s strongest base.

The Bolivarian Revolution

There is no doubt that high oil prices have helped Hugo Chávez tremendously.

Without petrodollars, how much would he matter? However, oil talks. After the collapse of the wretched Soviet Union, Cuba would be completely bankrupt without the subsidies it received from Moscow. In steps Chávez, who is now Fidel Castro’s hermano; more importantly, Chávez subsidises Cuba’s oil imports.

Exporting the Bolivarian Revolution is serious business. To that end, President Chávez embarked on an international trip in July-August of this year. His eight-nation tour took him from Argentina to Benin. At each stop, the Bolivarian revolutionary delivered superheated denunciations of the United States and called for a global coalition to combat "the U.S. imperialist monster."

In Minsk, where he met Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator, Chávez said the United States is "a senseless, blind, stupid giant that understands nothing about human rights, humaneness, culture, consciousness and awareness."

In Moscow, where he signed a contract for a $1 billion purchase of advanced SU-30 fighter planes, raising Venezuela's arms buys from Russia to $3 billion in the past 18 months, Chávez said that "the biggest threat in the world is the U.S. empire."

In Hanoi he discoursed at length on the "pre-animal" depredations of the U.S. military, including the bombing of Japanese cities in World War II. Then he praised the Vietnamese for their defeat of "the monster," while warning it "will never give up its plot to stop and undermine us."

Chávez's next-to-last stop was the poor African country of Mali (!), where "imperialism" usually means France, the country's former colonial master. Never mind: "We must unite, we countries of the South, against the hegemony of the United States," proclaimed the unlikely visitor to Bamako. "Or we will all die."

Chávez's best performance during this trip, however, was in Tehran. In a joint press conference with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chávez launched into a vitriolic denunciation of Israel, “the usurper Zionist regime.”

“Do they want war because they have the devil inside them?” demanded Chávez. “I say to them from here, from Iran, once and a thousand times: Murderers! Cowards! Frankly, their fate has been sealed, from the depths of the people's soul.” “God, throw the lightning bolts at the monsters. Insh’Allah.”