David Ward - taking words and meaning in their intended spirit

A decisive effort is now seemingly underway to have the Lib Dem party whip removed from MP David Ward or even to have him thrown out of his party altogether.

Ward is now to be called before the whip and party leader Nick Clegg this week to hear details of his likely censure. Again, this is despite Mr Ward having apologised for the careless wording of his comments and even offering suggestions for alternative wording that would accommodate fair and useful discussion.

Perhaps the party summons will help confirm for Ward the decisively pro-Israel and other power-prostrating ways of the Lib Dem leadership.

As with previous party 'culprit' Jenny Tonge, it's a predictable fate for any political, media or other notable figure who dares to openly criticise Israel.

The overt focusing by Ward's critics on these two words, "the Jews", is also a convenient diversion from the actual issue Ward was intent on raising: the long-running Israeli atrocities being committed against occupied Palestinians.

The main reaction of Ward's adversaries, it seems, is not to engage him in debate or enter constructive exchange about Palestine-Israel, but to have him pilloried and punished.

As Ward noted in the recent Guardian piece on his comments, whatever he might say, and whatever words he uses to express his opinions, he's likely to face the wrath of the pro-Israel lobby:

"There is a huge operation out there, a machine almost, which is designed to protect the state of Israel from criticism. And that comes into play very, very quickly and focuses intensely on anyone who's seen to criticise the state of Israel."

That kind of flak also finds supportive expression through myopic, personalised journalism, as in this claim by Ward's Guardian interviewer:

"And yet at the same time he seems not oblivious, but uncomprehending and seemingly uninterested in comprehending why it is that he has upset people."

But what also to say of many on the left who have seemed unwilling to back or express support for Ward because of his error?

While - as Ward himself has now realised - it's always wise and prudent to be as concise as possible when using such references, it's also important to judge a person's comments in the overall spirit in which they're intended.

To any fair and reasonable reader of Ward's thoughts, there's no credible evidence to suggest that his words were offered in any anti-Semitic, racist or otherwise malicious vein.

While Ward's outright pro-Israel opponents show no obvious interest in engaging with the substantive spirit of his thoughts, others, perhaps more sympathetic to his motives, may have kept a pragmatic distance, not wishing to be associated with the perceived slur. In particular, many Jews may have taken legitimate and honourable exception to being 'lumped-in' as endorsing Israel's aggressions against the Palestinians.

In all such cases - including those of his fiercest critics - one would appeal for a more thoughtful, indeed compassionate, reading of Ward's message, as in the overall, progressive and justice-seeking spirit in which it is offered.    

And just to reaffirm Ward's own sincere qualification and general intent, it's worth noting this reading from Jews for Justice for Palestinians:

"Mr Ward expressed himself very clumsily. By using the words “the Jews” – for which he has now apologised – he unintentionally gave encouragement to anti-Semites, who associate all Jews with the Nakba and with Israel’s subsequent human rights violations against the Palestinians. There are many Jews around the world and in Israel who dissociate themselves from these violations and from the ideologies that justify them."

It goes on:

"Nonetheless, however poorly he expressed himself, Mr Ward did not equate the Holocaust with the Nakba and is not an anti-Semite. He was pointing to a real connection that tends to be denied both by some supporters of the Palestinians, who refuse to see the historical background to the birth of Israel, and by supporters of the policies of Israel, who deny the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and the continuing human rights violations against the Palestinians. To mention just a few of these human rights violations: the demolition of some 27,000 Palestinian homes since 1967; the blockade of Gaza; the brutal Cast Lead attack on Gaza in 2008/9 that left 1,400 dead – most of them civilians – and destroyed Gazan civilian infrastructure; the military oppression, the theft of Palestinian water supplies and the violent attacks by settlers in the West Bank; the eviction of the Bedouin from their villages in the Negev."

The JfJfP statement concludes with a fitting citation of the late Edward Said's words:

"The connection between the Holocaust and the Nakba and continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people was expressed with great care and elegance by Edward Said, in an essay urging Palestinians and Jews to “think our histories together”.

“Who would want morally to equate mass extermination with mass dispossession? It would be foolish even to try. But they ARE connected – a different thing altogether – in the struggle over Palestine…..the distortions of the Holocaust created distortions in its victims, which are replicated today in the victims of Zionism itself, that is the Palestinians….Understanding what happened to the Jews in Europe under the Nazis means understanding what is universal about a human experience under calamitous conditions. It means compassion, human sympathy and utter recoil from the notion of killing people for ethnic, religious or nationalist reasons….such an advance in consciousness by Arabs ought to be met by an equal willingness for compassion and comprehension on the part of Israelis and Israel’s supporters, who have engaged in all sorts of denial and expressions of defensive non-responsibility when it comes to Israel’s central role in our historical dispossession as a people….Jewish and Palestinian experiences are historically, indeed organically connected…..we must think our histories together, however difficult that may be, in order for there to be a common future.
“Bases for Coexistence”, Al-Hayat, November 5th, 1997, published in “The End of the Peace Process” , Granta Books, 2002, pp 208-9)

[Said's words: my emphasis.]

David Ward may not have articulated his thoughts as concisely and eloquently as Said, but I'm reasonably sure he, like many fair-minded others, would approve the spirit of Said's appeal to address and understand such historical connections.

Perhaps those denouncing or keeping safe distance from Ward will, likewise, find the same suitable temperament to acknowledge the essential spirit of his own words and meaning. 

JC's 'little detail' problem in attacking David Ward

There may be a certain reddish face just now at the Jewish Chronicle following a piece by JC writer Jennifer Lipman entitled, 'Lib Dems could remove whip from 'the Jews' MP David Ward'.

In the article, Lipman continues to berate Ward:

The MP wrote on his website this week that he was a victim of "political and media hounding".  

In the statement, he said: "Whatever lack of qualification or carelessness in his words, were we really to believe that [he] meant or implied that all Jews were/are responsible for Israel's repressions?"

The post added that Ward had linked the Holocaust and the situation in Israel only "in the obvious sense that the Holocaust was used as a part of the Zionist agenda for occupying another people's land".

It said his "real 'mistake', as far as the Zionist lobby and many liberal commentariat are concerned - and as his Liberal colleague Jenny Tongue also found out to her cost - was to criticise Israel at all."

Alert readers of my own humble blog may recognise those words attributed by Lipman to Ward. In fact, they're mine, not Ward's at all, a detail that the most cursory examination of the piece and its footed source at Ward's site would instantly show.

The error - shall we be kind and not suggest calculated distortion - by Lipman was realised by fellow JC writer/blogger Matthew Harris in his piece: 'David Ward blog post written by John Hilley'.

Generously, Harris calls the gaffe "an intriguing PS" to Lipman's "very interesting article". Oddly, the words "careless" or even "carelessness in her words" didn't seem to occur.

An ironic omission, some might say, from someone who, like Lipman, shows no interest in letting up on David Ward's own careless use of language - for which he's apologised - or the essential points he's been trying to make on Palestine-Israel.

___________________________________

Update, 17 Feb 2013

The above-noted article by Jennifer Lipman has now been modified (16 Feb 2013), removing all quotations from the Zenpolitics piece and comments about what David Ward was reported to 'have said in it' at his site. There appears to be no acknowledgement or apology to Ward or anyone else for the error.

For the record, Lipman's original piece in full:


By Jennifer Lipman, February 14, 2013
Follow Jennifer on Twitter

Senior Liberal Democrats are considering removing the whip from MP David Ward in the wake of his repeated slurs against Jews and Israel.

The Bradford East MP is to meet Nick Clegg and deputy party leader Simon Hughes at the start of next week, where he will face further questions over statements such as that "the Jews" have failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust or that there is a powerful pro-Israel "machine" in operation.

He had already been formally censured and had committed not to "again use the phrase 'the Jews' in this context", when, last week, he suggested that in discussing it might be advisable to substitute "the Jewish community" for "the Jews".

Speaking to representatives of Anglo-Jewry, Chief Whip Alistair Carmichael pledged this comment would be treated as a fresh issue.

Mr Carmichael has now confirmed that the party is willing to invoke "the full range of sanctions" over Mr Ward's conduct and that they will meet the MP again once Mr Clegg returns from a trip to Mozambique on Saturday.

The MP, who has been backed by anti-Israel academic Noam Chomsky, was summoned to Mr Carmichael's office on Monday and given a chance to explain himself.
But he clarified that his statements had not been misreported and there was "no innocent explanation" and refused to backtrack.

Mr Carmichael said he was following the parliamentary party's disciplinary process for breaches of party discipline. "Obviously without prejudging the outcome all options are available at the end of that process," he said. "I can confirm that these options include the suspension or withdrawal of the whip."

He said Mr Ward's was the most serious disciplinary issue he had encountered since becoming whip in 2010. "In the time I've done this job it is the first time I've even got to the point of issuing a formal letter of reprimand, and the first time we've gone beyond that."

The MP wrote on his website this week that he was a victim of "political and media hounding".

In the statement, he said: "Whatever lack of qualification or carelessness in his words, were we really to believe that [he] meant or implied that all Jews were/are responsible for Israel's repressions?"
The post added that Ward had linked the Holocaust and the situation in Israel only "in the obvious sense that the Holocaust was used as a part of the Zionist agenda for occupying another people's land".

It said his "real 'mistake', as far as the Zionist lobby and many liberal commentariat are concerned - and as his Liberal colleague Jenny Tongue also found out to her cost - was to criticise Israel at all."

Questioned on "MPs who use the conflict in Israel to make inflammatory comments about Jews" in parliament, Mr Clegg said he was "unambiguous in my condemnation of anyone… who uses insensitive, intemperate, provocative and offensive language to describe a long running conflict about which people have very strong feelings".

Najib and BN not so 'cool' after phony Tony's farcical promotions

The financial reach and calamitous hand of Tony Blair seems to have no limits.

Blair's PR-connected firm Centreground Political Communications has, apparently, been behind a truly cringing ceremah event in Penang held by the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional government.

In a pre-election effort to proclaim their 'cool image', Najib and other party heads had spurred-on the crowd to entice South Korean star Psy back on-stage. Introducing him earlier, the announcer must have worryingly realised the mood of the crowd: "Are you ready for Psy? Yeeeees. Are you ready for BN? Nooooo." And, apparently reluctant to be seen endorsing Najib and his increasingly unpopular administration, Psy seemingly reverted to 'gone-gone style', much to the acute embarrassment of the expectant clique.

It's rather pleasing to see both the BN elite and Blair's PR coterie undermined by a singer whose globally-renowned hit is actually about sending-up pretentious high-earners.

The hasty stage exit is also, perhaps, a bleak omen for the money-driven BN, a crony cabal which has bought it's way to power in Malaysia for over half a century. How fitting that Blair, a man in similar shameless pursuit of wealth and seeking to shroud his own dark record should be so closely associated with the BN network.      

Aside from using some classic understatements about Blair's 'tarnished image back in the UK' - he's actually a prima facie war criminal, a rather more serious indictment to be noted than any mere populist deficit - this piece from the Sarawak Report offers some illuminating background to the PR disaster and key insights into Blair's own wealthy operations.

 

Najib's apparent desire to style himself on Blair the 'cool moderniser' suggests all the same political nous as the Psy fiasco. And with all those earnest Blair advisers around him peddling the 'Tony brand', we see how that process of vanity-money politics comes together.   

As a desperate Najib and his worried BN friends spend millions on Blair's public relations 'expertise', they probably won't be thinking too much either about the million lost Iraqis and millions more still suffering the tragic consequences of 'cool Tony's' judgements.

One also wonders what ex-PM Mahathir Mohamad, the BN's most adept image man, money politician and now relentless critic of Blair's war crimes makes of the latter's advisory role in the current BN propaganda. The dark paradox of it all.

And so it goes on. The politically-connected get richer, the voters get seduced and lied to, the 'foreigners' get bombed and the politicians get ever-shadier in how they cover that mass deception. And all the while, criminal ex-leaders like Blair get ever-more pots of cash to dispense their facile advice on how to keep spinning the same brazen lies.

Chomsky defends David Ward's comments on Israel-Palestine

It was admirable and reassuring to see Noam Chomsky join others in defending MP David Ward over his comments on Israel's treatment of Palestinians. 

Chomsky said:

"I agree that there's nothing remotely anti-Semitic in his remarks, which are in fact familiar in Israeli discussions."

David Ward has registered his appreciations:

"I would like to thank Dr Chomsky for his comments. His comments are particularly important to me as he has been used by critics, without his knowledge or permission, to condemn my comments."

He continued: 

"The intention behind my comments was to start a genuine discussion about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and how the Israeli government seemingly acts with impunity for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank. I now intend to work with groups around the country to start a discussion that can take a frank look at this conflict and what we can do to bring an end to atrocities committed by both sides in this appalling and long lasting conflict."

Given the considerable power wielded by Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem Friends of Israel, it's very encouraging to see an MP stand up to such sustained flak from a highly-mobilised pro-Israeli lobby and a media ever-ready with its barbed responses to people like Ward.

It's also good to see him pledging to promote serious discussion of Israel's crimes and ask why it seems able to act with such open impunity.

 

While having little or no time for the Lib Dems - notably, its hypocritical, power-serving hierarchy - or any other mainstream party, it's important to defend anyone within or outwith any party willing to speak truthfully and without racist intent about the brutal treatment of the Palestinians. This, David Ward has conscientiously done, with all the backlash one expects.

However, it's also worth noting a key caveat here concerning his additional statement about "atrocities committed by both sides".  

 

While it's entirely right to make the valid case for non-violence in pursuit of a just outcome, it's crucial to specify and repeat with clarity which party is the principal aggressor here. The problem in using the 'both sides' line, even in the obvious humanitarian sense that David does in this comment, is that it often allows the demonstrably false impression of equal culpability - something that the Israeli state and its propagandist arm take great comfort in.

As ever, we need not approve of any such violence to see that it's an understandable response to oppression. The serious and constructive point is to recognise, understand and help amplify the context of that respondent violence in order that more people come to comprehend the source of the problem and how it must be justly resolved. 

 

Having read David Ward's diaries of his time in the West Bank and many of his other statements on Palestine-Israel, there's little doubt that he sees quite acutely the particular persecution and violence being visited on the Palestinians and that Israel is primarily to blame for this historical catastrophe.

And how are we to respond as humanitarians to that injustice? How do we ensure through our own considered use of language that the primary guilt of the oppressor is identified?  Ward himself makes the point admirably in citing this central lesson of the Holocaust: 

"In the words of the Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, as quoted in the booklet 'Holocaust Memorial Day - Learning Lessons from the past to create a safer, better future': "I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
 

David Ward's own refusal to be silent or neutral is commendable.  And that, primarily, is why he himself should be supported here.    

 

Guardian continues the hounding of David Ward

The political and media hounding of Liberal Democrat MP David Ward continues despite his public apology for using the generic term "the Jews" when criticising Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Ward had said at his blogpost:

"Having visited Auschwitz twice - once with my family and once with local schools - I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza."

It's notable, firstly, that Ward uses the generic term "the Jews" in an obviously sympathetic vein to note the horrors of the Holocaust. The second aspect of his sentence is to ask how they, "the Jews", could have gone on to inflict daily atrocities against the Palestinians.

While the first use of this generic term was treated as unproblematic, the second was regarded as an affront. Yet, whatever lack of qualification or carelessness in his words, were we really to believe that Ward meant or implied that all Jews were/are responsible for Israel's repressions and occupation?

In a particularly pernicious piece of liberal hatchetry from the Guardian's Aida Edemariam, Ward is taken to task for his comments. Asking him: "Was he surprised when the chief whip got in touch?" Ward replies:

 "There is a huge operation out there, a machine almost, which is designed to protect the state of Israel from criticism. And that comes into play very, very quickly and focuses intensely on anyone who's seen to criticise the state of Israel. And so I end up looking at what happened to me, whether I should use this word, whether I should use that word – and that is winning, for them. Because what I want to talk about is the fundamental question of how can they do this, and how can they be allowed to do this."

Amongst the barbed rebukes to this and Ward's other reasonable explanations, Edemariam opines:

"There is something admirable as well as foolish about the tenacity with which he insists on keeping his head above the parapet. Does he not see that to link the Holocaust and the Occupation is, among other things, a total category error? The Holocaust was genocide – an overt intention that the Jewish people should not exist. You might disagree with what the Israeli government does, but it is not setting out to annihilate a people."

She further berates Ward for asking how one can be free to state fair criticism without being labelled a racist. Edemariam replies: "Being careful who you are blaming for what would be a start."

Besides the expected criticism from outraged Zionists and disgraceful pressure from his own party hierarchy, Edemariam's article is a further shameless twisting of Ward's essential meaning and motives.

Behind the lofty defence of 'responsible language' which she uses to attack Ward, Edemariam, like all Ward's detractors, really knows what he meant and who he's blaming: he wasn't, in any meaningful sense, generalising all Jews, merely saying that Israel, a Jewish state, and one that does purport to speak for all Jews, was/is now in the process of persecuting Palestinians.

Nor was Ward linking the Holocaust and the Occupation by comparing or equating them as "categories". He was linking them in the obvious sense that the Holocaust was used as a part of the Zionist agenda for occupying another people's land. Should that preclude him or others from speaking about the Nakba/Occupation in the same, explanatory context as the Holocaust?

If only Edemariam had the careful integrity to state that basic truth and to highlight the main perpetrators of the distortion as the central point to her piece.

And if Edemariam really does believe after sixty years of ethnic cleansing, mass IDF murder, settler takeovers, apartheid transfer policies and the continued prison camp siege of Gaza that Israel "is not setting out to annihilate [the Palestinian] people", perhaps she is the one who should be more carefully considering her incendiary language.

Ward's point about the "huge operation out there, a machine almost, which is designed to protect the state of Israel from criticism" also applies to this kind of liberal baiting.

Again, some still insist that Ward's key 'mistake' was to use the word "Jew" instead of "Zionist". And this, as his apology indicated, has now been unambiguously acknowledged.

Clearly, as Ward always understood, not every Jew is responsible for what the Zionist state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians. How facile that any serious commentator could even read his words as such.

If only Ward's sole 'transgession' had been the inappropriate use of those two words - even though his meaning is likely to have been well understood.

In truth, that wording looks more like an unconscious error than any major mistake. Ward's real 'mistake', as far as the Zionist lobby and many liberal commentariat are concerned - and as his Liberal colleague Jenny Tongue also found out to her cost - was to criticise Israel at all.  Not a word here from Edemariam on that much more central indictment.

Moreover, how likely is it that those same Zionist or/and Jewish denouncers of Ward would defend other Jews who do actually support the Palestinians and who find it immoral what Israel and Zionist Jews are doing in the name of all Jews? The reserved label for them is usually severe and similarly-generalised: "self-hating Jews".

In all this discussion, there's a rather basic set of sequential things to restate:

The Holocaust was an historical abomination, an unquestionable genocide, which sought to eradicate an entire race of people, the Jews.

It was part of a systematic purge on any community, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, deemed inferior or/and a threat to Nazi ideology and power.

Anyone who seeks to deny or misconstrue these basic facts is either peddling lies, misinformed or uninterested in the truth.

The Holocaust formed a central ideological, political and militarist agenda in the Zionist formulation and creation of a Jewish state.

The Nakba, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and ongoing Occupation have been the direct consequence of that Zionist process.

Anyone who seeks to deny or misconstrue these basic facts is either peddling lies, misinformed or uninterested in the truth.

We cannot reasonably learn or understand anything about Palestinian suffering without referencing the Holocaust and the ways in which Zionism has used it to legitimise the Occupation.

Significant public figures like Norman Finkelstein, whose own Jewish family were murdered in the extermination camps, has, with others like Noam Chomsky, written extensively on how this has been turned into ideological propaganda through the Holocaust Industry.

Those, like David Ward, who courageously speak in any kind of similar vein - despite his subsequent corrections - are, as usual, pilloried for being anti-Semitic and hounded by liberal media types for not subscribing to the template Zionist narrative.

And if we are to castigate such generalised labels, what of references like "Islamic terrorism" and "war on Islamic terror"? Would you ever likely hear the term "Jewish terrorism" or "war on Jewish terror" used by the BBC or in the pages of the Guardian?

Edemariam, like many other 'fair-minded' journalists, can take safe liberal refuge in the claim to be just ''guarding the language', just challenging people like Ward over their political/racial/religious 'insensitivities'.

What they're really doing is shrouding the central issue by focusing on a careless discrepancy, thus serving to keep other journalists in a state of cautious apprehension about discussing the Holocaust in relation to the Occupation.

The key media and educational development of this story should have been David Ward's honest point about that very issue. Instead, this kind of personalised hatchet-job does exactly what the Zionist lobby and self-protecting editors want in keeping all that prudently off-limits.

Richard III: those battles and bad back are just killing me

Fighting, killing, bad back: wish I'd
just stuck to the yoga

Remarkable news that the remains of Richard III have been retrieved from underneath a Leicester car park - some fatal altercation with a moody medieval ticket attendant, perchance?

And what astute combination of archaeological detection and scientific technology in authenticating the royal bones.

Evidence of multiple battle wounds combined with a pronounced spinal deformity testify to the probable extreme pain and discomfort of this last Plantagenet skeleton.

What point in being a king, eh? Why all this dreary weight-bearing armour, helmet-bashing and other tiresome bludgeoning when he could have been stretching out at the physio or doing some supple body balance for the dodgy back?

Which leads us to wonder what use was really served in the longer run by the Bosworth brawl and other such bad-tempered battling - or as the 15th century song hit goes: 'War, huh, yeah, what is it good for? Absolutely everything if you're the victorious Henry VII and now in control of the national spoils.'

But even that only prompted more and more revenue-requiring, tax-gathering, arms-procuring and peasant-drafting wars.  You'd think the political economy of the kingdom somehow depended on it.

Still, it was, at least, pleasing of those past warmongers to name their conflict after some nice summer flowers - unlike serious-sounding slaughters like 'Desert Storm' and 'Cast Lead'. 

And so it's gone on, since time immemorial, war, feuding and quelling of the foreigner hordes: from monarchical pretenders to royalist defenders, lionhearted crusaders to crown invaders, despotic throne fillers to president drone killers.

In the 1954 film King Richard and the Crusaders, actress Virginia Mayo (playing the fictional Lady Edith) chirpily berates Richard I with one of the greatest ever 'anti-war' lines, delivered in finest Hollywood accent: "Oh, fight, fight, fight! That's all you ever think of, Dickie Plantagenet!"

And, you know, with all the mad warring, invading and occupying still to come, she probably had a point.

Reclaiming George Square

"You proud house town mouse, ha ha charade you are.

You're trying to keep our feelings off the street..."

As the £15 million George Square 'revamp' moves from fiasco abandonment to open recrimination, it's worth pondering just what essential issues have been ignored or circumvented in Glasgow City Council's invitation of the design proposals.

There must be a proper assessment of sustainable traffic arrangements.
It's remarkable that barely a city council memo or media report has been afforded to what should be the primary issue of environmental sustainability.

It's notable also that none of the design submissions made any firm proposal for traffic removal or prioritised such crucial environmental factors.

It is entirely feasible to either pedestrianise George Square's surrounding streets or, like the nearby Merchant City, curtail their use as traffic thoroughfares. Creating an extended concourse/piazza would demonstrate a serious commitment to discouraging city centre car use and reducing carbon emissions.

It would also provide greater pedestrian connectivity from all sides of the Square. Presently, the Square is an underused and still oddly detached public space.

Altogether, an extended pedestrian square would foster much-improved air quality and create a noise-reduced area in which people could relax and move around without the feeling of being in the middle of a bustling, polluted traffic island.

George Square should remain a public space, not an events-driven one. 
And that includes the right to free assembly, demonstrations, protests and any other such activity integral to citizen democracy.

The council's plans to further commercialise the Square has, unsurprisingly, seen efforts to serve notice on such activity, negating an entire social and radical history of mass gatherings, from the First World War rent strikes to the anti-poll tax and anti-war rallies.

It's always useful to 'follow the money' in seeking to understand such motives. The Labour Council Leader Gordon Matheson appears to favour a plan that links the Square's overhaul with an extended commercial plan for Buchanan Galleries and Queen Street.  As noted at the Guardian:

"Rather than a place for contemplation, assembly and meetings, the square was to become a far more commercial space, for events and money-spending; the square would effectively have become part of the so-called Buchanan Quarter redevelopment to its north. Demonstrations on the square were to be banned outright. A preview of the likely effect has been present for a while – for the last few years the council has been letting the square out for Christmas events and the like, making it feel like the concourse of a shopping mall rather than a public open space."

The warning is reinforced by campaign grouping Restore George Square:

"The continued emphasis on events (and the tents, portaloos and crush barriers that go with them) and the same funding source suggests the plan is generally the same: improve the events infrastructure of the square with a view to herding as many people as possible into the square in the hope they empty their pockets, particularly in Land Securities’, Buchanan Quarter, who are providing much of the cash for the development."

The Restore site also outlines some of the cosy interconnections amongst the business lobby pushing for an increased events agenda on George Square, including figures from the George Square Project Board and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.

While nominally attractive, the 'winning' design by John McAslan (even with its extended revisions, left) still only envisages a sparsely green space which, one suspects, will allow for an events-driven concourse easily adapted to the staged commercialism favoured by the council.

Since the curtailment of his plan, McAslan and his team have made notable efforts to engage both the public and Matheson's council. He has also spoken encouragingly of incorporating new forms of sculptured design while retaining the generally favoured feel of the Square.

However, it remains to be seen what further consideration the McAslan plan would give to any more park-like and traffic-free space - and, of course, whether any of his proposals will ever be approved by Matheson.

Due time and consideration should be given to public views and wishes for the Square.
It's rather obvious now that Matheson's singular dismissal of the favoured bid and authoritarian handling of this issue demonstrates a flagrant disregard for due process or the actual feelings of Glasgow's citizens.

Matheson is keen to promote his own vanity project in time for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, one which, he probably prides, will be his 'political legacy'.

Such is the edict-passing style of Glasgow council leaders, notably New Labour's Frank McAveety who, in 1998, with barely even a nod to public opposition, ordered the bulldozing of 75-year-old trees and the green lawns to make way for the infamous red tarmac and more staged events. 

Likewise, the so-called 'qualitative research' exercise carried out by the current council in fact 'consulted' all of 42 people, arriving at the unsurprising 'conclusion' that: “They wanted a square that … had more staged events.”

In more democratic spirit, discussion sites like Restore George Square, Glasgow Guide and Urban Realm have been inviting wider and more thoughtful opinion on what people really want.

The Square and what eventually goes there will have to please and facilitate Glasgow and visiting people long after the games. Any refurbishment, 'grand design' or basic 'facelift', should be allowed ample time for consideration and completion rather than rushed through as some kind of flash presentation.

Alongside proper consultation and free assembly, people also have aesthetic rights. The appropriate way to resolve the issue is to have a fuller set of options and discussion of the details followed by a local referendum.

Should the statues stay, go, be replaced?
It's impossible to please everyone in such cultural or political regards.  But it's apparent from the gathering online campaigns that, with the desire for replanting trees and green lawns, most people want some kind of return to the old George Square, statues and all.

That fits with a seemingly common wish to regain or preserve things that were/are solidly familiar, an instinctive wariness - following years of closing cherished buildings and other public places (like Paddy's Market, shut down by Matheson) - of the council's 'modernist' ignorance and ineptitude:

"There is a feeling that the council’s ­vision of Glasgow as a shiny shopper’s paradise will eventually engulf entirely the older, rougher, more characterful city; a triumph of the bland."

However, it may be suggested that, while recognising the broad desire to retain a traditional Victorian square, there may still be careful room for removing, relocating or replacing statues that are not just ugly and monolithic to many an eye but redolent of a past imperialist age.

Would most Glaswegians really resist de-plinthing, for example, Field Marshall Lord Clyde (whose colonial exploits included quelling the 1823 slave rebellion in Demerara and putting down the Indian Rebellion of 1857) or Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore (whose military cv involved the crushing of Irish rebels, circa 1798)?

John Maclean

And if we are to cherish historical heroes and events, why not honour those like Glasgow anti-war radical John Maclean and commemorate the George Square riots which saw government tanks on that now red tarmac?

From the Merchant City's dark founding on overseas slavery to George Square's own Hanoverian and Victorian iconography, it's sobering to think that Glasgow has precious little in the way of truly humanist and revolutionary remembrance.

Of course, there are those supposed purists like Sandy Stoddart ("Sculptor in Ordinary to Her Majesty The Queen in Scotland DL RSA (London) RSE") who would little countenance any such radical imagery while zealously defending assorted statuary of the Empire.

Here's Stoddart on the above-noted exhibits and what he thinks of their critics:

"There is also one who fought in the Crimea and in India (Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde) and although his presence often most excites those with a pathological desire to make George Square statue-free, owing to his easy castigation as a soldier in service of the Empire, nevertheless he is certainly more of a man than any, or all of those put together, who would seek the erasure of the statuary on his account."

And Stoddart again on his own lofty architectural pedestal dismissing the 'philistines' of Glasgow for 'desecrating' the nearby Duke of Wellington:

"Marochetti’s statue of the Duke of Wellington is the one the abuse of which Glasgow has taken to its heart like a class delinquent (I mean the infernal traffic-cone at which our foreign visitors are aghast and about which we as hosts are perfectly mortified; what does the treatment of this statue indicate about Glasgow and its “authorities” in general?)" [My emphasis.]

Whatever it may suggest of the city's people - rather than its authorities - one hopes that it reflects the humanitarian heart of Glasgow life and a democratic appreciation of culture rather than the boorish snobbery of Stoddart, who goes on to damn, in more melodramatic tones, its 'barbarous iconoclasts':

"Be certain, then, that the Taliban in Afghanistan target the rock-cut Buddhas of Bamiyan with exactly the same sense of resentment against their perpetual peace, as certain thrusters in Glasgow seek to expel the statues from George Square. There is a deep-seated, natural-barbarian instinct to topple, oust or deface the graven image, as fundamental to Nature’s plan as the cycle of rebirth itself." 

So, anyone with the temerity to remove or replace a statue is to be equated with religious fanatics.

Such opinion, 'expert' as it may claim to be in the history of sculpture and, yes, helpfully defiant of the council's own commercial-led vandalism, nonetheless reveals itself as brutally fundamentalist in permitting no room for alternative sculptural innovation.

And while risking such opprobrium, why not open a proper citizen's dialogue on what might more appropriately replace the cenotaph structure - one that's more inclusively humanitarian in style and message rather than the present edifice which, like the villainous Field Marshall Earl Haig who unveiled it in 1924, seems only to lionise war and the tragically fallen?

While there may be little likelihood of any change to this section of the Square, it shouldn't preclude open discussion of it.

In that explorative spirit, there may be scope for introducing and blending other more imaginative statue and art forms across the Square which are representative of Glasgow, past and present.

Again, these are matters always subjective, the outcome of which, perhaps with a fair input from sympathetic artistic and architectural bodies, should be determined through a full consultation process and referendum.

Whatever eventually appears, the most vital task is to re-create George Square as an inviting, environmentally-friendly, people-centred, green-pleasing space rather than the creepingly privatised, money-driven blandscape controlled by ego-driven councillors and their commercial coterie.