Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Citizenship, C24 and the Election.

It was no surprise that the Conservative government chose to revoke the citizenship of several dual-citizen Canadians in the middle of the election campaign - indeed a day or two  before the leaders' debate on foreign policy.  I have no doubt that they had this in mind when they passed the Bill C24 back in June.

Similarly I have no doubt that it played well with a big part of the electorate and that the Conservatives picked up quite a few votes over the issue.  From Harper's point of view both Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair played exactly the role he had crafted for them - that is being forced to defend the rights of convicted terror plotters in front of a national audience.  

The rights and wrongs of the issue can be debated.  Certainly I can see the point of view that those convicted of  plotting or conducting terrorist crimes don't deserve to keep their Canadian citizenship. There are of course arguments on the other side, namely that it creates two types of citizenship (those who have had it since birth and those who have gained it later in life) and that by revoking a dual citizen's Canadian status one is essentially exporting a problem to another country, that of the dual citizen's other nationality.  

These are issues open to debate and I could be persuaded either way.

However there is one very big objection I have to C24 and it is one I think that both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair would have done well to emphasize in the televised debate.

This objection is that the decision to revoke lies solely with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (or in reality with the Prime Minister, since the Minister serves only at the PM's pleasure).  

To me this seems to bypass a fundamental principle that decisions affecting basic liberties and rights are made not by the government of the day, but by the courts with due process being followed.  C24 as it stands gives far too much power to the government of the day and I fully expect that it will be overturned as unconstitutional when the first challenge to it reaches the Supreme Court.

As an example of how it could be abused consider the case of Mohammed Fahmy, a dual Egyptian-Canadian citizen convicted in Egypt on charges of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which since a military coup overthrew the elected Brotherhood government, has been a banned terrorist organization in that country.  Fahmy was alleged to have supported the Brotherhood through his journalism for Al Jazeera.

As is well-known he was eventually released following a pardon.  But he is now in a position where his Canadian citizenship could be revoked at the stroke of a pen by the current Minister.  Nobody of course expects this to happen. But suppose Fahmy had been a less sympathetic figure.  Suppose for example that he was a radical Marxist and had been a strident critic of Canada's involvement in the bombing of Libya and Syria.  Suppose he had publicly questioned the official narrative on 911, or that he had, in his journalistic career, exposed some wrongdoing by a member of the government.  Suppose he was someone like George Galloway in the UK.

The temptation to get rid of him might be too hard for a minister to resist, especially if he had little support among the public at large.  

Such power is not compatible with a truly democratic society where the rule of law is paramount.  As they say everybody deserves his day in court.  

Bill C24 could be amended by requiring any revocation of citizenship to occur after a Government application to a citizenship court.  Or perhaps even simpler to allow a judge in sentencing someone convicted of treason or terrorism, to include in the sentence the revocation of Canadian citizenship.  

As I say, I fully expect the law as it stands, will be overturned by the Supreme Court.  Stephen Harper probably expects that as well.  But for him it doesn't matter. It has provided him with a wedge issue during the election campaign, by which he can make his opponents look soft on terrorism.  Unfortunately he seems to have had some measure of success in this.





Sunday, September 27, 2015

The New York Times and Vladimir Putin.

On Sundays I have the New York Times delivered - between five and ten pounds (the record is 12lb.) of paper in eight to ten sections, a large chunk of it advertising. I read some of it in bed - after having separated the sections which don't interest me. 

Today there were two longish articles on Vladimir Putin, and I was struck by the tone adopted in both of them. The first, by Stephen Lee Myers, entitled "Never Let Them See You Sweat" attempts a sort of psychological profile of Putin, drawing on his background as a practitioner of judo and as a KGB agent in East Germany at the time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain.  Putin, it is claimed, disdains weakness. A commentator at the Carnegie Moscow Centre is quoted as saying that Putin's tactics are strong but that he lacks a strategy.  Putin's action in increasing his involvement in Syria is partly explained away as a move to distract attention from "Russia’s disastrous intervention in eastern Ukraine".

The second article by Neil MacFarquar is entitled "On Syria, Putin is Catering to an Audience at Home".  As the title suggests Russia's growing involvement in the Syrian tragedy is mainly an effort to boost his popularity at home, ignoring the fact that he currently enjoys approval ratings in Russia that any Western leader would die for.   His recent diplomatic activity in meetings with the leaders of Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are dismissed as an attempt to attract more attention to Putin himself, and as a way of leveraging a meeting with President Obama.

The head of the Center for the Analysis of Middle East Conflicts, in Moscow, is quoted as saying “He has to leave Russia to demonstrate that he is not isolated, that he is a respected member of the international community gathering in New York.”  
As the Myers article says  "Putin will swagger through New York seeking to regain the spot on the world stage he believes he has been unjustly denied by his rivals in the West."

The thing that struck me in both pieces was the way in which Russia's actions were described as being the consequence of the vanity and ambition of one man.  There was little acknowledgement that Russia might have a genuine interest in the Middle East, even that nations other than the United States might have the right to pursue their own foreign policies.  Anything which deviates from what Washington wants is dismissed implicitly as the result of the perverted ambition of one man, who (of course we all agree) is "bad" and power hungry.  

It would be entertaining to see in the mainstream media a scrutiny of US foreign policy carried out with the same underlying premises about the motives of the leaders and without the axiomatic belief that US always acts for good in the world.  

While (cf the Myers article) one could hardly say that Obama's tactics are strong, one could certainly say that he lacks a strategy.  Unless the strategy is one of creating failed states and chaos throughout the Middle East, in which case it would be one of unimaginable evil.

In the MacFarquar article it says "Mr. Putin has claimed repeatedly in recent years that the chaotic state of the world, particularly the level of violence in the Middle East, is because the United States is the solitary power. The underlying idea is that things were better off when the Soviet Union was around to check American might."

It is an interesting argument and one with which I tend to agree (see my previous blog Another Thirty Years War?). But its merits are not discussed.  It couldn't possibly have any merit, because it was uttered by Putin.  

Instead it is explained as a Putin tactic - a way he might frame his speech at the UN with a pitch about "establishing a new pillar so that power in the world is more balanced.”  

So this is the way the NYT shapes opinion among its readers.  And much of the mainstream media are much, much worse. 





Friday, September 18, 2015

Paleo Conservatives and Neo-Conservatives.

I have been surprised on several occasions in the last year to find that I am in agreement with the writings of so-called "Paleo-Conservatives" - in particular Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell, both I believe founding members of The American Conservative.

Their take on international affairs is orthogonal to that of the neoconservatives. For example back in July, Buchanan expressed sensible views on the nuclear weapons deal which had just been hammered out with Iran, and the potential cost to the US and the Republican party if it was rejected. And McConnell had an interesting article entitled "Why is America Addicted to War" (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42399.htm) in which he questioned the dangerous US policy in Ukraine.


Today I came across Buchanan's article "Putin: Friend or Foe" (http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-friend-or-foe-in-syria-124083) in which he discusses Russian policy in Syria.

Rather than follow the mainstream press line that whatever Putin does must necessarily be bad and therefore opposed by the West, he asks the sensible question of what is the motive for Putin's action. He quotes Winston Churchill:

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

He then analyzes Putin's policy and finds it far more rational than that being pursued by Washington.  Defeating Assad, he points out, would likely lead to an ISIS or similarly minded government in Damascus, something that Russia wants to avoid at all costs.  The policy the US is pursuing would likely lead to that very outcome.  Is that what they really want?

Again the "Cock-Up vs. Conspiracy" dichotomy comes to the fore.  Are policy makers in Washington so stupid as to not realize the consequences of Assad's defeat?  Or is that what they really want - a radical Islamic state with territory extending from the borders of Lebanon to the edges of Bagdad with ethnic murder on the scale not seen since WW2?  As Buchanan points out this would inevitably lead to calls for a full-scale US invasion and a war which would probably define a generation.


Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Answers to the Art Quiz.

For all of you who looked at the Art Quiz posted last Saturday (12 Sept.)  here are the answers.

Please blow your own trumpet if you did well and let the world know.   The best score on pub night was 32/40.  But this was a table of five or six advanced VISA students.

VISA PUB NIGHT QUIZ.

SIGNATURES.
How painters signed their art.

1. How did Marcel Duchamp sign the urinal (Fountain) submitted to Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917?
Ans. R.Mutt


2. How did Vincent Van Gogh sign paintings he considered ready for sale? 
Ans. Vincent

3. How did Claude Monet sign his paintings? 
Ans. Claude Monet + date.

4. How did Leonardo da Vinci sign his work? 
Ans. He didn't

5. Which painter only signed works at point of sale?. 
Ans. Picasso

QUOTES.
Which artist or artists said or wrote the following?

6. "Art is never finished, only abandoned". 
Ans. da Vinci.

7. "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced".
Ans. Van Gogh.


8. "Pablo. Oh Pablo, he used to be a good painter now he is just a genius." 
Ans. Georges Braque.

9. "I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring."
Ans. James McNeil Whistler


10. "Gordon's gin makes us very very drunk".
Ans. Gilbert and George.

CANADIAN ARTISTS.
11. Which Canadian artist, because of shortage of funds for materials, sometimes used gasoline to thin oil paint, thereby creating a nightmare for future curators?
Ans Emily Carr.


12. Which Canadian painter met his end at Canoe Lake in suspicious circumstances, possibly murder?
Ans. Tom Tomson.


13. Against a regiment I oppose a brain
And a dark horse against an armoured train.

For which Canadian painter were these words by poet Roy Fuller, the inspiration for one of his most famous works?
Ans. Alex Colville.


14. Which Canadian artist was mentored and championed by the New York critic Clement Greenberg and became a famous Color Field and Abstract Expressionist painter.
Ans. Jack Bush.


15. Which Canadian artist drove a Rolls Royce and owned several aeroplanes and threatened to publicly burn over a thousand of his prints in a dispute with Revenue Canada. Ans. Tony Only

ANAGRAMS.
16. HOV GANG. Surname - two words.                                    Ans . Van Gogh.
17. SCANT LOBE. Surname - one word.                                   Ans. Constable.
18. LAME OIL CHANGE. Surname - one word.                           Ans. Michaelangelo.
19. YEN YON LOT. First and surname- two words.                    Ans. Tony Onley
20. AN JOY SACK. initials and surname by which artist is known. Ans. A.Y. Jackson.

LIFE HISTORIES.
21. Name the French artist whose first and preferred language was Peruvian Spanish.
Ans. Paul Gaugin.

22. Name the artist who was born in Edinburgh and who has lived in England, Canada and Trinidad.
Ans. Peter Doig.


23. Name the French painter born in the Danish West Indies (St. Thomas) of a creole mother and a father of Portuguese Jewish descent.
Ans. Camille Pissarro.


24. What American artist was born in a town in the Russian Empire (now in Latvia), where he attended a Talmudic school, emigrated to USA at age 10 and attended high school in Portland, Oregon?
Ans. Mark Rothko.


25. Which French painter was heavily involved in the French Revolution as a Jacobin and as a friend of Marat and Robespierre, but who, unlike them, survived and lived in exile in Brussels after the Bourbon Restoration.
Ans. Jacques-Louis David.


FAMOUS PAINTINGS.
26. What work of art exists in four versions - two pastel (1893 and 1895) and two oil paintings (1893 and 1910) with the 1893 version being stolen in 1994 and the 1910 version stolen in 2004?
Ans. The Scream by Edward Munch.


27. This famous square painting executed in 1908 - 09 is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf.
Ans. The Kiss by G. Klimt.

28. This famous painting of the Spanish Golden Age, depicts the Royal Family and includes the painter working at an easel. Who is the painter? Or what is the name of the painting?
Ans. D. Velasquez. Las Meninas.


29. Of what painting did its creator stipulate that it should not be exhibited in Spain until a republic was established there (later amended to the establishment of liberty and democracy).
Ans. Guernica by Picasso.


30. What is the name, given by Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance art historian, to a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo - a name by which the painting is now known?
Ans. TheMonaLisa.


ODD FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS ARTISTS
31. A famous modern artist's full name comprises twenty words, but he is best known by his mother's family name. Who is he?
Ans. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.


32. This satirical artist was born in Berlin in 1893 and died there in 1959. Bitterly anti-Nazi he left Germany in 1933 for the USA. After his arrival in there
he changed his style completely. He returned to live permanently in Berlin in 1958 , but died within 6 weeks of his return after falling downstairs following a night of drinking.
Ans. George Grosz.


33. This American artist was a Ruthenian Catholic (Byzantine Catholic). He suffered from St. Vitus' Dance as a child and Robert Hughes said of him 'He was one of the stupidest people I'd ever met in my life. He had nothing to say'. 
Ans. Andy Warhol.

34. What pair of famous artists were married to each other twice? 
Ans. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

35. This artist was known by over thirty names and he became famous after his work "Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji" appeared.
Ans. Katsushika Hokusai


GENRES.
For each question three artists will be given. Identify the genre or movement with which they are associated.
36. Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. 
Ans. Cubism.

37. Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. 
Ans. Pre-Raphaelite movement.

38. Rene Magritte, Hans Arp and Max Ernst. 
Ans. Surrealism


39. Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix.
Ans. German Expressionism.

40. C. Pissarro, C. Monet and E. Manet. 
Ans. French Impressionism.

TIE-BREAKER QUESTIONS.
101. The Australian painter Sidney Nolan painted a series of paintings about an Australian outlaw and folk hero. What was the series called?
Ans. The Ned Kelly Series.


102. This bisexual Art Deco painter was born in Warsaw and was part of the Paris Bohemian art scene in the 20s. When she died in Mexico she was a baroness. Ans. Tamara Lempicka

103. Name as many as you can of the top five richest artists in the worl.d.
NB There is not universal agreement on the list. So name up to five and earn a point for each one in the top ten.
Ans. 1. Damien Hirst 2. Jeff Koons 3. Jasper Johns. 4. David Choe
5. Andre Vicari. 6. Takashi Murakami. 7. Anish Kapoor 8. Anthony Gormley 9. Gerhard Richter. 10. David Hockney.


Source complex.com and design museum 

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Narcos.

I have just finished watching the last episode of Narcos on Netflix.  It is an excellent ten part series which deals with cocaine production and trafficking in South America and the struggle against the gangsters involved in the trade.

It is outstanding television, which is exciting, colourful and informative. I give it the highest recommendation.

While it is a drama with real-life characters - Pablo Escobar and other narcotrafficantes, and agents of the Colombian state and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) - at the same time it has something of a documentary feel, with voice-overs from Agent Murphy, one of the DEA agents involved.  

So there is an explanation of how the cocaine business moved from Chile, after Pinochet had all the producers and traders there shot, to Colombia.  Colombia, being the northernmost state in South America, with coasts on both oceans, had a long tradition of smuggling, - marijuana and emeralds were prize commodities before cocaine.  

The series progresses from when Cucaracha (Cockroach), one of the few survivors of Pinochet's massacre, introduces small-time operators in Medellin, to the possibility of dealing cocaine.  At first they deal locally but soon realize how much money could be made shipping to the USA.   Very soon these operators realize they would be better off working together and they form a cartel under Escobar's leadership. They get very rich very quickly.   It is reckoned that at the peak the cartel was bringing in $60 million a day!  It is estimated that Escobar personally was worth 30-50 billion dollars!

There are scenes in the show where the gangsters have so much cash they don't know what to do with it.  They end up burying stashes of US banknotes in holes in the ground throughout Colombia.  

With his wealth, Escobar bought soccer teams, and gave lots of money for schools, hospitals and churches in his native Antiochia, and western Colombia.  He gave money to the door and was seen as something of a Robin Hood in Medellin, an image he was careful to cultivate.  

But wealth was not enough for him.  He had ambitions of becoming a national leader and got himself on an election ticket as a deputy to a candidate for a senate seat.  With Escobar's money the seat was easily won, and then, surprise, surprise, the candidate resigned leaving Pablo as the legally elected senator.

With some assistance from the DEA, opponents in the Senate, uncovered official details of an earlier arrest for small-time drug trafficking, and Escobar was publicly humiliated and forced to resign.

This led to a campaign of terror, in which many politicians and leading figures were murdered.  The most audacious was the shooting of a presidential candidate who supported extradition to the US for narcotrafficantes.  In fact three candidates were murdered during the same election in 1989.  

When the newly-elected president vowed to continue with the policy of extradition, Escobar heightened his war against the state.  Probably the worst crime was the bombing of an Avianca flight, on which the president was due to fly.  At the last minute he was persuaded not to. Over 100 people died following the explosion.

He later modified his tactics to include the kidnapping of prominent Colombians as well as the liberal use of bombs and bullets.

There was counter-violence as well, both from right-wing paramilitaries and death squads as well as rival gangsters, especially the Cali cartel.

The TV series stops before the end of the saga.  Escobar is still alive, having escaped from the resort-prison in which he was confined, just as the army move in to finally deal with him.  So there is more to come in Series 2.  

There are only a few months left in Escobar's life as the series ends, so I hope in Series 2 we see how the Cali cartel took over, and then when it is broken up how the centre of the trade moves to Mexico, bringing with it all of the murder and mayhem that Colombia experienced.

The show was directed by a Brazilian director Jose Padilha, and it is a Brazilian actor, Wagner Moura, who plays Escobar.  It is in both Spanish and English (subtitles in English when Hispanics are speaking, and presumably for the Latin American market in Spanish or Portuguese when gringos are speaking).

It is pleasingly non-didactic.  There are no real shoot-em-up heroes. The leading role is that of Escobar, and while his ruthless murderous nature is made all too clear by his actions, he still comes across as a human being.  Likewise the DEA agents are not portrayed uncritically. In fact I found DEA Agent Murphy, who you might, in a simpler format, call the good guy, a rather unsympathetic character.  

The production values are very high and the violent scenes are very convincing, but violence is not gratuitously shown, as say in a Quentin Tarantino film.

Personally having spent a year in Colombia, I enjoyed  hearing Colombian Spanish and seeing the country depicted on TV.  It really is a very beautiful and varied country.  Its major cities, Bogota, Medellin and Cali are all cities located in splendid mountain valleys with moderate climates - in fact Bogota at 8,800 feet can be decidedly cool, frosts being not unknown.  But Colombia also has a Caribbean coast, spectacular mountains and equatorial jungle.  

My memory, mostly of western Colombia, is of a green country, with mountains seldom far away.  This comes across in Narcos, with some lovely shots of the country.

But it is a tragic country, which has had more than its fair share of violence and civil strife.  When we were there in 1976, it was well-known for its crime and violence and one never felt entirely safe.  But in fact that period was one of the more stable ones in its history.  It was a couple of decades after la Violencia, a civil war in the 50s mainly over land, but before the later strife of the 80s and 90s introduced by cocaine and the drug cartels.  

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Colombia and Venezuela (his sword features in Narcos) despaired of bringing peace and order to the land comparing it to "ploughing the sea".  At present Colombia seems to be enjoying a more peaceful period.  Indeed Medellin is now seen as a exemplar of modern urban planning. But with such a history I am not sure I would bet on peace, order and good government being a permanent feature of Colombia's future.







Sunday, September 13, 2015

Another Thirty Years War?

We have now had almost non-stop war in the Middle East since the US (with UK and the 'Coalition of the Willing') recklessly and illegally invaded Iraq in 2003. It is war since 2001 if we include Afghanistan in the extended Middle East. War and chaos seem set to last for a lot longer, with no end in sight for the conflicts in Syria and Yemen or the mayhem in Libya. It could very well end up rivalling in duration, barbarity and consequence an earlier catastrophic conflict.

I refer to the Thirty Years War in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century. Although referred to now as a singular 'war' it was actually a series of conflicts, centred on the German states. According to historians,it was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in all of European history.

Most of the following brief outline of the War is taken from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War).

It was initially a war of religion between Protestant and Catholic principalities in the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire. But nearly all of the great powers surrounding the area of what is now Germany, got drawn into the conflict.

Following the various conflicts takes some effort (see Wikipedia article for a chronology). The religious dimension involved three factions - Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. The political dimension involved the great power conflict between the Hapsburg Empire (which comprised Spain and territories in Austria, the Low Countries and Italy) and France with the Ottomans involved in the east.

The Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) kingdoms became involved opportunistically hoping to gain territory and influence in northern Germany and Poland.

The War along with accompanying famine and disease had a devastating effect on the German states and those surrounding it in Italy, the Low Countries and the Czech lands. It is estimated that the male population of the German states was reduced by almost 50 percent overall, with the losses in some areas much higher. For example Wurtternberg lost three quarters of its population. Villages were particularly hard hit, because mercenary armies were often not paid and relied on plunder for sustenance.


The War also had the effect of bankrupting most of the combatant powers. 


 All in all it was a complete disaster.

The current wars in the Middle East have a lot in common with the Thirty Years War. There is the religious conflict - Sunni vs Shia (and Alawite) with each side backed by a regional power (Saudi Arabia as champion of the Sunnis and Iran as champion of the Shias). There is great power involvement - the USA on the side of Saudi Arabia and Russia on the side of the al-Assad regime in Syria. And then there is Turkey hoping to gain territory and influence in northern Syria.

The Thirty Years War ended with a series of treaties between all of the combatant parties, collectively known as the Peace of Westphalia. This laid the ground for the future international system which held more or less until the early years of our century. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

The Peace of Westphalia established a new system of political order in central Europe, called Westphalian Sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states . Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by a balance of power. A prejudice was established against interference in another nation's domestic affairs.

Note the prejudice against interference in another nation's domestic affairs. While this principle did not prevent great power wars, such as the two World Wars of the Twentieth Century, it did more or less stop the ongoing interference into the affairs of other sovereign nations, which can lead to perpetual war.  Unfortunately this principle has been seriously violated since the ending of the Cold War.

In the last decade of the Twentieth Century the US invaded Panama, bombed Serbia and Sudan, and was heavily involved in the fight to unseat the elected government of Nicaragua. Things have got much worse.  In the Twenty-First Century with the US, along with some NATO allies, conducting all-out invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Aerial bombardment of Libyan government forces, conducted by NATO, achieved the goal of unseating Muammar Qaddafi, but left the country in chaos without a government. The US has fired missiles from drones and aircraft in Pakistan and Yemen in targeted killings, with unknown numbers of civilian casualties. For the last few months Saudi Arabian forces have been bombing Yemen, with US support and cooperation, and there has been hardly a murmur of protest. 


This is not to say that the US might not have real enemies in some of the places it has invaded or bombarded.  But there are other means of solving conflicts short of military intervention. Ending conflicts by diplomacy rather than warfare was one of the aims of the Westphalian peace.

Of course the US is not the only power to violate the non-interference principle - Israel is another serious violator, along with China and Russia - but it has certainly been the worst. The goal of 'regime change' in countries directly opposed to US interests, has become almost a principle of US foreign policy. 
And it is a very dangerous one.  


The end of the Cold War opened all kinds of opportunities for the West. Unfortunately these opportunities have been abused. The lessons learned from the catastrophic Thirty Years War and its ending in the Peace of Westphalia seem to have been forgotten. And another Thirty Years War seems to be a distinct possibility.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Art and Art Trivia Quiz.

Here are the questions of a pub-type quiz on art and art trivia which were used at the Vancouver Island School of Art (VISA) Pub Night, on Friday 11th. September.

The best score on the 40 questions was 32.  There were teams of 4+ people.

Try the quiz and see how you do.  No looking at the Web for answers!  The rules on pub night were that anyone caught looking at cell phones had to sit under the table.  No one was so humiliated!


VISA PUB NIGHT QUIZ.

SIGNATURES.
How painters signed their art.


1. How did Marcel Duchamp sign the urinal (Fountain) submitted to Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917?

2. How did Vincent Van Gogh sign paintings he considered ready for sale? 3. How did Claude Monet sign his paintings?

4. How did Leonardo da Vinci sign his work?


5. Which painter only signed works at point of sale?.


QUOTES.
Which artist or artists said or wrote the following?


6. "Art is never finished, only abandoned".

7. "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint', then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced".

8. "Pablo. Oh Pablo, he used to be a good painter now he is just a genius."

9. "I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring."

10. "Gordon's gin makes us very very drunk".

CANADIAN ARTISTS.
11. Which Canadian artist, because of shortage of funds for materials, sometimes used gasoline to thin oil paint, thereby creating a nightmare for future curators?

12. Which Canadian painter met his end at Canoe Lake in suspicious circumstances, possibly murder?

13. Against a regiment I oppose a brain
      And a dark horse against an armoured train.

For which Canadian painter were these words by poet Roy Fuller, the inspiration for one of his most famous works?

14. Which Canadian artist was mentored and championed by the New York critic Clement Greenberg and became a famous Color Field and Abstract Expressionist painter.

15. Which Canadian artist drove a Rolls Royce and owned several aeroplanes and threatened to publicly burn over a thousand of his prints in a dispute with Revenue Canada.

ANAGRAMS.

16. HOV GANG. Surname - two words. 


17. SCANT LOBE. Surname - one word.

18. LAME OIL CHANGE. Surname - one word.

19. YEN YON LOT. First and surname- two words.


20. A JOY SNACK. initials and surname by which artist is known.


LIFE HISTORIES.

21. Name the French artist whose first and preferred language was Peruvian Spanish.

22. Name the artist who was born in Edinburgh and who has lived in England, Canada and Trinidad.

23. Name the French painter born in the Danish West Indies (St. Thomas) of a creole mother and a father of Portuguese Jewish descent.

24. What American artist was born in a town in the Russian Empire (now in Latvia), where he attended a Talmudic school, emigrated to USA at age 10 and attended high school in Portland, Oregon?

25. Which French painter was heavily involved in the French Revolution as a Jacobin and as a friend of Marat and Robespierre, but who, unlike them, survived and lived in exile in Brussels after the Bourbon Restoration.

FAMOUS PAINTINGS.

26. What work of art exists in four versions - two pastel (1893 and 1895) and two oil paintings (1893 and 1910) with the 1893 version being stolen in 1994 and the 1910 version stolen in 2004?

27. This famous square painting executed in 1908 - 09 is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf.

28. This famous painting of the Spanish Golden Age, depicts the Royal Family and includes the painter working at an easel. Who is the painter? Or what is the name of the painting?

29. Of what painting did its creator stipulate that it should not be exhibited in Spain until a republic was established there (later amended to the establishment of liberty and democracy).

30. What is the name, given by Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance art historian, to a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo - a name by which the painting is now known?

ODD FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS ARTISTS
31. A famous modern artist's full name comprises twenty words, but he is best known by his mother's family name. Who is he?

32. This satirical artist was born in Berlin in 1893 and died there in 1959. Bitterly anti-Nazi he left Germany in 1933 for the USA. After his arrival in there he changed his style completely. He returned to live permanently in Berlin in 1958 , but died within 6 weeks of his return after falling downstairs following a night of drinking.

33. This American artist was a Ruthenian Catholic (Byzantine Catholic). He suffered from St. Vitus' Dance as a child and Robert Hughes said of him 'He was one of the stupidest people I'd ever met in my life. He had nothing to say'.

34. What pair of famous artists were married to each other twice?


35. This artist was known by over thirty names and he became famous after his work "Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji" appeared.

GENRES.
For each question three artists will be given. Identify the genre or movement with which they are associated.

36. Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris.

37. Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. 38. Rene Magritte, Hans Arp and Max Ernst.


39. Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix.


40. C. Pissarro, C. Monet and E. Manet.


TIE-BREAKER QUESTIONS

101. The Australian painter Sidney Nolan painted a series of paintings about an Australian outlaw and folk hero. What was the series called?

102. This bisexual Art Deco painter was born in Warsaw and was part of the Paris Bohemian art scene in the 20s. When she died in Mexico she was a baroness.

103. Name as many as you can of the top five richest artists in the world.

NB There is not universal agreement on the list. So name up to five and earn a point for each one in the top ten 

Thursday, September 10, 2015

NOW ITS BLOWBACK TIME - THE WEST SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.

Now listen you, people of NATO. You’re bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe, and in the way of Al-Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You‘re breaking it. You’re idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of migrants from Africa and for supporting Al-Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now." 

This is what Muammar Gaddafi wrote in an open letter obtained by the Russian daily Zavtra and published in May 2011 several months before the Libyan leader was killed.  

No doubt Saddam Hussein and Bashar al Assad could have made equally prescient warnings about the dangers of deposing them.  But US/NATO went right ahead doing their utmost to achieve regime change.  


With Iraq it was straightforward invasion.  That turned out badly and western electorates wouldn't stand for sending more troops to die in foreign adventures.  So when a chance came up to depose Qaddafi in Libya they bombarded from the air, abusing a UN Security Council resolution, mandating civilian protection.  


And with Syria they used proxies, arming the opposition to the Assad regime via the CIA with weapons from Qaddafi's arsenal and encouraging the flow of money and weapons from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  


Of course it is all done in the name of removing odious dictators.  But the US has supported a lot of odious, brutal dictators in the past, ranging from the very same Saddam to the Shah (Reza Pahlavi) of Iran;  from Mobutu of Zaire to Somoza in Nicaragua etc. etc.  Indeed there is a new tyrant emerging almost next door to Syria, who is tolerated if not loved by USA.  I refer to Field Marshall el Sisi in Egypt, who shows every sign of becoming a new middle eastern tyrant (was it LBJ would said "A bastard, but our bastard"?)  


So I am afraid the moral argument doesn't hold much water for me.  Simply put the US cannot tolerate regimes which won't bend the knee to US hegemony.  


The blowback from Libya has been building for the last few years, as the trickle of refugees across the Mediterranean has grown along with the presence of ISIS and other jihadi groups.  Just as Gadaffi  warned.  And the blowback from Syria has now exploded creating a serious refugee crisis for Europe.  

Sadly very few commentators link these disturbing events with Western efforts to remove the dictators.   No lessons seem to have been learned. Rather we hear calls for more bombing of ISIS or a more determined effort to oust Assad.  I am afraid it is only going to get worse.


Wednesday, September 9, 2015

PEACE IN SYRIA OR AT LEAST CLEAR WAR AIMS FROM THE BOMBERS.

The refugee crisis in Europe has at last stirred the world to the horrors of the Syrian civil war.  People finally are calling for end to the war.  For some leaders, such as David Cameron and Stephen Harper that means more bombing.

But will it really bring peace?  Very unlikely I say.  It seems to me that the Western allies who are currently bombing ISIS really have no clear war aims.  And the so-called allies under the NATO umbrella have different enemies.  So we have the US, UK and Canada supposedly trying to defeat ISIS, with the Kurdish Pesmerga as their allies.  Meanwhile NATO ally Turkey is bombing the Peshmerga and not doing much about ISIS.  In fact many claim that Turkey is covertly aiding ISIS.  Certainly for many months it did little to stop ISIS recruits crossing over its border into Turkey and there is pretty good evidence that Turkey's intelligence service tipped off the jihadi group Al Nusra about Division 30, a US trained group opposed to Assad, who were infiltrated back into Syria.  They were almost immediately rounded up and captured.
See
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/turkey-duped-the-us-and-isis-reaps-rewards-10478720.html

At the same time the US, UK and Canada say they want to see the defeat of the Assad regime, even though it is the Syrian Arab Army under Assad's control which is doing most of the on-the-ground fighting against ISIS.

I say the utmost priority for all Western governments must be to stop the fighting.  And the only way to do this is to have peace talks, without pre-conditions, among all parties prepared to talk.  The Assad regime has said it is prepared to talk, but always the NATO allies have said that a pre-condition is that Assad can play no part in any future government.  This is prolonging the war, possibly indefinitely.

Assad is still in control of about 50% of Syrian territory, including the capital Damascus.  His army and Hezbollah allies are a formidable fighting force and they are now being backed up by Russian advisers and possibly weapons and troops.  Why would Assad ever agree to talks if he is told that he cannot play any part in a future government?  He would almost be putting the handcuffs on his own wrists to be led away to a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

So in the name of humanity, pressure must be put on Western governments to start peace talks without pre-conditions.

At the same time they must be pressed to state their war aims.  At present the stated aim is the defeat of both ISIS and Assad.  But supposing by some miracle,  a fairy waved its wand and both these fighting forces disintegrated, who then would form the government of Syria?  There has been talk of a "moderate opposition".  But even if such a group could be put together rapidly to form a government, they would soon be pushed out by violent jihadi groups who have done most of the fighting against Assad.  Presumably this is not what the West wants to happen.

Or is it?  Either the US and NATO leadership are guilty of muddled and wishful thinking or perhaps their war aim really is perpetual chaos.  This idea sounds outrageous, but many gain from it - Israel, the arms industry, the armed forces with all the consequent opportunities for new advanced equipment and career advancement etc.

I hate to think that this could be the case.  But ultimately the explanation for western policy must boil down to a choice between a cock-up or a conspiracy.






Monday, September 7, 2015

Europe split East-West as well as North-South.

During the Greek debt repayment crisis and referendum of a couple of months back there was a lot of talk about the possibility of two Euros - a northern tier Euro for Germany, Netherlands, France etc. and another Euro for those countries considered less fiscally responsible - mainly Mediterranean countries although it could of course include Ireland.

But, the Euro aside, it seems to me that there is almost de facto two Europes within the EU. On the one hand there are the original six plus perhaps Britain and the Scandinavian countries and possibly Poland. On the other there are the countries of central and southeastern Europe,most of which were in the Soviet bloc, before 1989. This includes most of what was once referred to as Mitteleuropa - Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia - as well as those which were once under Ottoman rule - Bulgaria, Romania. Greece was also under Ottoman rule but, never in the Soviet sphere.

In the eighties and nineties there was much debate about whether Europe should seek greater depth or greater breadth. While France with its centralizing tradition was all for deepening the existing union, Britain with its insular tradition of scepticism of too much involvement with 'the continent', pushed very hard for expansion eastward, taking in former Warsaw Pact countries. What actually occurred was both broadening and deepening, although perhaps not to the extent that the promoters of either wanted.

The EU was deepened with the relaxing of border controls and the formation of the Euro and the creation of a European parliament. But the deepening was only patchy - several countries stayed out of the Schengen agreement on borders, most notably the UK, and many more stayed out of the Euro.
With hindsight we can now see some of the problems with the deepening - the crisis of the Euro, and the rules for refugees entering and moving across borders within Europe are the most obvious.

But the refugee crisis has also revealed serious problems with the broadening. The attitudes of some of the newer EU members from the east seem to be very much at variance with the liberal democratic values on which the EU was founded. Hungary is a prime example.

We have seen pictures of Hungarian police blocking refugees from entering the railway station in Budapest, and then eventually letting some on to trains which were diverted to a police-controlled camp in Biscke, even though they had tickets to Munich. Germany had publicly stated that it would accept all refugees reaching its border, so the Hungarian police action was gratuitous and presumably carried out to make a point. What was the point?
Well the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban who heads a conservative nationalist government has said:

“those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims.”

“This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity.”

In a similar vein Slovakia has said that it will only accept Christian refugees from Syria.

Pointing out the ethno-nationalist attitudes which prevail in some of the eastern countries does not mean to say that similar attitudes do not exist in the western core EU nations. France's National Front and Britain's UKIP are anti-immigrant parties, neither of them friendly to Muslim immigrants or refugees. The UK Conservative government has shown extreme reluctance to allow refugees entry. In fact Germany alone seems to stand out as the one country willing to act with generosity towards Syrian refugees.

But even in Germany there is some hostility to immigration, especially from Muslim lands. But interestingly enough most of this opposition seems to be concentrated in the former DDR. Pegida, an anti immigrant group drew large crowds to protests in Dresden but failed miserably when rallies were organized in the former FRG (West Germany). Ossies and Wessies seem to have different attitudes to having foreigners in their midsts.

And it seems fair to say, more generally, that the majority attitude towards refugees and outsiders is different in the eastern reaches of the EU to that in the West, and an interesting question is why this is so.

I think it lies in the fact that after the World War II, West Germany and France were open societies that came to terms with what had happened during the Nazi period. This is especially true of West Germany. In the east however, under Soviet sway, it was all too easy to blame the sins of the past on the Nazis, who after all were virulently anti Communist. Thus even in the DDR (East Germany) people were not asked to examine their consciences about what happened during the war. Rather it was all conveniently blamed on Hitler and his Nazi henchmen.

Hungary was a willing ally of Hitler from the outset, but in 1944 with the Soviets advancing, Hitler sent in German troops when he learned of contacts between the Hungarian government and the Western Allies. Under Adolf Eichmann's direction, Hungarian authorities willingly participated in rounding up Jews and forcing them on to trains headed for Germany and death camps further east.

But the current government of Hungary likes to portray Hungary as a victim of Nazi aggression. In July 2014, in spite of many protests, a monument in Budapest's Heroes' Square was unveiled. Central to it is a statue of the German eagle attacking the Archangel Gabriel, a symbol of Hungary.

I think an acknowledgment of the crimes of the past has helped the countries of western Europe avoid the temptations of fascism and xenophobia. The police in occupied France and the milice in Vichy both assisted the Nazis in rounding up Jews for deportation, in a similar way to the Hungarian police a few years later in 1944. But the French have publicly acknowledged their guilt, while such a public reckoning has not happened in Hungary. Modern France is not free from racism and anti-Muslim sentiment, but it has not become official policy as it apparently has in Hungary and Slovakia. 


So this is the east-west divide I see in the EU - the western countries with a longer-stnding tradition of liberal democracy and the rule of law, and a more tolerant attitude to change and to outsiders; and the eastern countries with shakier democracies and a tendency towards extreme nationalism if not racism.  


Of course as always there are exceptions.  Spanish and Portuguese democracies have only been established for forty years or so, but they seem robust, even though anti-Muslim sentiment can be quite strong in Spain.  France as I mentioned has the National Front.  On the other hand the Czech Republic seems to have been quite successful in establishing a liberal democracy.

Back to the deepening-enlarging dichotomy. Deepening has led to the Euro crisis; enlargement to a loss of homogeneity.  Britain in seeking an enlargement was worried about too much power being concentrated in the Franco-German axis. But now Britain is contemplating exiting the EU largely because many of its citizens don't like the immigration from many of the newer EU countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania etc.). Be careful what you wish for, one might say.

There surely is an irony here as marked as that of Hungarian authorities hindering thankless refugees given that thousands of Hungarians fled to Austria and became 
refugees in the West following the Soviet invasion of 1956. 












Saturday, September 5, 2015

THE REFUGEE CRISIS AND THE WAR IN SYRIA.

In this last week, a slow bubbling tragedy that has been affecting mainly Italy and Greece, suddenly boiled over into a full-blown crisis affecting the whole of Europe and indeed the whole of the world.  

The heart-breaking image of a small boy, washed ashore and upside down in the surf of sandy beach seemed to awaken the world's conscience.  And following, the pictures from Hungary seemed to emphasize the scale of the problem - hundreds if not thousands of people with little more than the clothes on their backs embarking on the long walk to the Austrian border.  


Politicians were forced into responding to people's anguish.  For once it was the public leading the politicians.  It reminded me of the distress following the death of Princess Diana.  We have heard many, no doubt sincere, words of sympathy from western leaders, but apart from Germany's Angela Merkel, very few leaders came forward with proposals for concrete steps to alleviate the situation.  


Both David Cameron and Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper talked about accepting more refugees, but stated that the only solution to the problem was ending the war in Syria.  This is no doubt true, but both leaders would have had more credence if they had taken any steps to date to achieve that end.  I suspect that there was a subtext to their messages, reinforced in Cameron's case by the statement today from his Chancellor, George Osborne, hinting at air strikes in Syria.  


The subtext is of course is western intervention in the conflict.  To me what we are hearing is very reminiscent of what we heard before the NATO interventions in Kosovo and Libya.  For the more bellicose western leaders I suspect that what is meant by ending the conflict is defeat of Assad.  If they were serious about ending the conflict they would have backed talks between the warring parties which have been proposed many times.  But always the leaders of NATO countries have stated that a pre-condition for such talks is that Assad cannot be part of any future government of Syria.  


It was stated categorically by the British and French foreign ministers following a meeting in February of this year that there was no place for Assad in a future Syrian government, and then in March the Obama administration reiterated this, following an CBS interview with Assad in which he stated that he would be open to a dialogue with the U.S., provided it be "based on mutual respect."  


Assuming that Assad is not going to relinquish power voluntarily, the only way for the war to end would have to be for the military defeat of the Syrian army and its irregular allies.  Even if this is possible, it could take years to accomplish, and result in further destruction of Syrian cities and infrastructure and the exacerbation the terrible refugee situation.  


The question of who would form a new Syrian government following Assad's defeat is not discussed by our western leaders who refuse to contemplate a role for Assad and his colleagues.  Perhaps they still believe in their chimerical "moderate opposition".  Even if such a faction existed in sufficient numbers to form a government, it is a pretty sure bet that it would be toppled very quickly by the jihadi groups who have been doing the bulk of the fighting against Assad's forces.  


Another thing often ignored by those who want to see the end of Assad, is the fact that he enjoys wide support among the non-Sunni population of Syria - the Alawites, Shia, Druze and Christians.  This is probably not because of any great love of Assad, but because they fear much more the possibility of falling under the control of groups like Daesh (ISIS) or Al Nusra.  


If western leaders really do want to end the suffering of the Syrian refugees and really want to end the war, then it seems to me that the only possible way to do this is to try to get all parties to attend peace talks.  And these talks must include the Assad regime.    


What to do about Daesh is another matter, and I fear that there may be no simple answer.  Perhaps quarantining them in a limited geographical area is the best that can be hoped for.


In the meantime whenever Cameron, Harper et al. utter platitudes about ending the war they should be asked for more details of how they see Syria being governed if ever their policy of defeating Assad were to come to pass.

Friday, September 4, 2015

MORE OF THE FRAGILE UKRAINIAN SITUATION.

The Guardian today has an article by Volodymyr Ishchenko on the situation in Ukraine. He claims that the current government bears more responsibility for the continued conflict than the right factions.
He is very critical of the Poroshenko government claiming that his government has brought in "new repressions, censorship and discriminatory measures". The measures introduced by Poroshenko to the legislature with respect to the Russian-speaking east, which brought on the violent clashes in Kiev, were apparently a long way short of what had been agreed upon in the Minsk accord. There was no mention of the called-for “special status” to separatist areas, nor any specific details on autonomous rule in Donbass. Furthermore the proposals far from being a constitutional change could later be revised by a simple majority vote in Ukrainian parliament. At the same time the so-called “decentralisation” was accompanied by a strengthening of the presidential control over local self-government via centrally assigned “prefects” with broad powers.

And yet these tepid measures, far from what Poroshenko had agreed with Merkel, Hollande and Putin, were enough to cause the neo-fascist right wing groups to bring death and chaos to the streets of Kiev.  

Predictably it was all blamed on Putin and Russia. In an interview with Sky News, Poroshenko claimed Russia was in fact responsible for the deaths. The president claimed the Kremlin’s ongoing “campaign of destabilisation” was to blame, despite clear indications that it was far-right nationalist supporters who were driving the clashes with the police.

Ishchenko fears the growing power of the extreme right and the for the future of Ukraine.  

I think the situation reveals once again the blinkered thinking of American neocons and fellow travellers who will support any group, no matter how odious, who are the enemy of the current enemy.  Putin was the enemy; Yanukovich sided with Putin, although Putin apparently loathed the man; so any faction who was against Yanukovich was to be supported.  This included Svoboda and Right Sektor who used murder and violence to overthrow the elected Yanukovich.  The new government of Poroshenko was then beholden to the fascist groups and now could very well be overthrown by them, even though they lack much popular support.  

It sounds a bit like a repeat of  the support of the Mujahaddin in Afghanistan in the 90s, which led to Al Qaeda, or the support provided to any group opposed to the Assad regime in Syria, which led to ISIS.

Here is the link to the Guardian article:

Thursday, September 3, 2015

UKRAINE AND THE WESTERN MAINSTREAM MEDIA

UKRAINE AND THE WESTERN MAINSTREAM MEDIA

I have always maintained that the line we have been fed by the mainstream media on the Ukranian situation has been extremely biased if not mendacious to say the least.  The line followed by US and British media has for the main part followed a very simple plot line which can be summarized as "Putin evil with ambitions of territorial expansion - Poroshenko good democrat who wishes for nothing more than a liberal democracy for Ukraine".  

There have been several ceasefires between combatants in the Donbass region, the two most notable being the Minsk I and II agreements.  Unfortunately they never seem to hold, and always the mainstream media line is that the untrustworthy Russians are violating the ceasefire.  

Perhaps it is worth considering how the fighting started.  After the overthrow of Yankovich following the so-called Euro-Maidan protests in Kiev, one of the first acts of the new parliament was to make Ukranian the only official language of the country.  Not surprisingly many citizens in the Russian-speaking eastern provinces were outraged, especially as they felt that the ousting of Yankovich was essentially an illegitimate  coup d'etat, backed and promoted by the US and EU.  Certainly the US state Department was heavily involved (remember Victoria Nuland's intercepted phone call when she identified  "Yats" - Arseniy Yatsenyuk - as the US's man).   

Many in the Russian speaking Donbass region were outraged by what was happening in Kiev and widespread public protests took place in Donetsk, Luhansk, Khakiv, Odessa and other places.  While the Kiev parliament did backtrack on the language proclamation, citizens in the Russian speaking east still felt that  their concerns were not being met and independent republics were declared in Donetsk and Luhansk.  It was at this point that Kiev sent troops to the east and began shelling civilian areas in the cities.  

Remember the outrage by western governments and press when Qadaffi was supposedly bombarding Libyan cities opposed to him.  Remember the allegations of how Saddam Hussein had gassed his own people.  Did anyone express outrage at the Kiev government's bombarding the cities of the Donbass region of Ukraine?  Of course not.  It was all blamed on Russia and the evil Putin.  Even when pro-Kiev louts locked pro-Russian demonstrators in the Trade Unions House in Odessa and set fire to it, resulting in 48 deaths from the fire and smoke inhalation, and 10 from people jumping from high windows, there was no real condemnation - rather it was un unfortunate incident, in spite of the fact that the crowds outside the burning building prevented access by fire crews.  

Later Poroshenko claimed "toxic substances" had been placed in the Trade Unions House to facilitate an increased death toll, and that the events were organised in advance by Russian and local officials.  Poroshenko's  acting chief of staff  said "That which we saw in Odessa was a [Russian] Federal Security Service provocation to deflect attention from the anti-terrorist operation [in eastern Ukraine]".  Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper   responded by saying that the "latest incidents were very deeply concerning" and accused President Vladimir Putin of starting a "slow-motion invasion" of Ukraine.  And much of the western mainstream media went along with this, without really questioning, because it went along with the pre-established narrative  

But getting back to the cease-fire violations which are routinely attributed to pro-Russian forces, it is worth remembering that in the latest Minsk agreement (Minsk II from last February, brokered by Merkel, Hollande and Putin) one of the commitments of the Poroshenko government was constitutional reform to permit more autonomy to Russian speaking regions.  Nothing much happened on this for seven months.  But last week some legislation pertaining to this issue was introduced into the Kiev legislature and a preliminary vote taken.  It passed by a small margin, but the result was serious rioting involving bombs, explosive devices and grenades. Three police officers were killed, and more than 100 people injured. The instigator of the violence was the same party that turned the Euro-Maidan demonstrations last year into a coup— Oleh Tyahnybok’s Svoboda, the neo-fascist party that canonizes Nazi collaborators and has as its symbol the swastika like Wolfsangel.  



Until recently the deputy prime minister in Kiev was a Svoboda member.  the party holds other offices in the Kiev government. 

Svoboda has been heavily involved as irregulars fighting in the Donbass, along with the  like-minded Right Sector.  If these groups are prepared to use fatal violence against the government in Kiev because they object to it making any accommodation with the Russian-speaking East, it doesn't seem at all unlikely that they would happily break the cease-fire in the East, knowing that the knee-jerk reaction of NATO and the western press would automatically blame the renewed fighting on the Russians.  


But Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have invested a lot in reaching a peaceful settlement and in spite of warmongering from NATO and the US Congress, they seem to want to persevere in this direction.   The attached article discusses this aspect in some detail.  It suggests that the possibility of a coup attempt by Svoboda and Right Sector is quite possible in the next few months if they see that peace may actually hold.


http://www.salon.com/2015/09/02/outright_lies_from_the_new_york_times_what_you_need_to_know_about_the_dangerous_new_phase_in_the_ukraine_crisis/