Another day another victory for a xenophobic nationalist party in Europe.

They're dropping like flies. The latest victim to succumb to the smooth-talking bigots is Finland, that mysterious country I've always wanted to move to, for literally no other reason than being inexplicably but desperately in love with the sound of the language.

I'm beginning to think the prophecy might be about to come true. That's the prophecy that Ariyeh King, uber-zionist and founder of the Israel Land Fund (which organizes the building of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land), made during our discussion in the pleasant and leafy courtyard of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

In King's estimation, the levels of discrimination and division that exist in Israel, though they would make the founders of apartheid proud, will soon appear moderate in comparison to the massive scale of racism within Europe. This phenomenon, he predicts, will eventually culminate in a full-scale expulsion of immigrants (islamic, essentially) or even, presumably in the case where they fail to go quietly, “a war”.

To back up this contentious proposal, he cited the bans on minarets in Switzerland, and on the veil in France. But he didn't have to stop there. He could also have mentioned the creeping banalisation of the far-right discourse in the UK (English Defence League "spokesperson" invited onto Newsnight, and then allowed to leave freely afterwards?). Or even the way that European countries like France, Austria and Germany, those great shining beacons of human rights, have pulled up the drawbridges, shut their borders and told trains carrying migrants from North Africa to kindly go back from whence they came (unfortunately for them that was Italy - the country that either allows migrants to drown in the sea, or uses military weapons to prevent them from entering).

The case of the French burka law is particularly staggering. Apart from the fact that virtually every other type of face-covering conceivable appeared to be exempt from the law, I must confess I fail to understand the logic by which making the wearing of an item of clothing into a political offence empowers muslim women and instantly frees them from the complex social and religious structures of oppression that hold them back. Although it did clearly succeed in empowering the two women in burkas who promptly went out and got arrested. Good for them, standing up for themselves, exercising their right to protest, that's what freedom is all about!

Because that was the point, right? It wasn't just about legitimising a pernicious perspective whereby people who do things a bit differently and don't look like the majority are automatically flouting, and engaged in a lifestyle totally incompatible with, the fundamental values upon which the republic was founded, was it? Or was it a pathetic last-ditch attempt by Sarkozy to drag up the opinion poll ratings a notch or two before the election campaigns get underway? No, probably and yes, respectively, would be my guesses.

Suffice to say, there is no shortage of reasons not to be cheerful. The lies, the racism, the political opportunism of it all is, like, wow. But when has it been any other way, in Europe…

Still. No amount of relativising matters historically makes it possible to stomach anti-immigrant politicians bemoaning the relentless influx of scroungers and criminals into their previously edenic nations, who are then treated like privileged citizens to the detriment of the white working-class (especially male, weirdly enough) population. While at the same time barely adult victims of sex-trafiking are being deported. Wonder what demographic of society is generally driving this trade by frequenting these kinds of girls? Hmm, on the other hand, perhaps best not to...

I have to commend the Guardian for helping to raise awareness recently of just some of the projects, organisations and charities that are going to get axed by the cuts. Given the way David Cameron's government has run its operations so far one might be tempted to think they're doing it on purpose, actively seeking to elicit as much outrage as possible at their attempts to destroy the social fabric of absolutely everything in an attempt to shake us out of our complacency and remind us what's important in society, what needs protecting.

So maybe we'll have to wait it out. For a few more nationalists to celebrate their landslide victories, and a few more fascist lunatics to get scarily close, to the point where things have gotten so bad that nobody can get away with ridiculous arguments about politics correctness gone made or immigrants being treated like royalty. To the point where one day Europeans wake up and realise that they are putting the Israelis to shame. That for all their routine violations of the basic rights of Palestinians, bulldozing through houses and cutting off water supplies, they look like care-bears compared to the bigoted, racist pieces of work leading most European countries.

Maybe then we'll remember why it was so important to fear racism.

The Problem with Public Displays of Integrity

Two peculiar instances of apparent about-turns caught my eye recently. In the case of Richard Goldstone and the report into Cast Lead, it is the timing that is surprising. In the case of George Monbiot's sudden penchant for nuclear energy, it is strength of the statements he's made in its defence that seems uncanny. It's almost enough to make one suspect the "other side" got to them in some way, especially knowing who those sides are.

Monbiot's trajectory began with an article hinting that nuclear power may not be so bad after all, followed by a piece in which he as an individual came out in active support of it, and now by a piece in which he denounced members of a movement to which he once belonged for not being completely coherent.

Monbiot dismisses the arguments made by John Vidal, in response to his previous article, on the basis that he doesn't provide irrefutable evidence of linkages between the phenomena that were and still are observable in the region surrounding the Tchernobyl powerplant, and the meltdown of this plant.

I'm not a scientist, but I have it on a good authority that there are many linkages between phenomena that cannot be fully explained, yet all the evidence suggests the link is there. A number of medical treatments, for instance, are prescribed on the basis that they work - but we don't know yet quite how they work.

I may have found the anti-nuclear campaigners' response to Japan tactless but Monbiot's accusations of deliberately misleading people seems a step too far.

And yet I understand why he did it. The Green movement is one that has many principles. Within its ranks are individuals who admirably hold themselves to very high ethical standards. To an extent which I think it pretty much unique. Monbiot's response to what he regarded as misrepresentation of "the facts" has reinforced this opinion.

But it's also bloody stupid. Stupid, I mean, to admit weaknesses in public, to confess to nagging doubts and open criticisms in the face of such powerful forces who tend to interpret these matters in black and white terms, for their own interests.

As if the nuclear industry or the ruling class in Israel are whiter than white in their own representations. Politicians and the media, not to mention private companies, routinely distort and manipulate information for any number of reasons. Does Monbiot feel that environmental campaigners are so well placed, or their views so dominant, that they can afford to be undermined by giving their opponents such gifts? Knowing, of course, that these opponents would never do the same for them and knowing also how, unfortunately, public debate often fails to take into account the nuances of such arguments, but rather zooms in on the headlines, the soundbites, and runs with them.

Being exposed to some of the Israeli press concerning Goldstone's qualification of the earlier report, at the time, allowed me to gain some insight into the way it was interpreted by the media and politicians there. Namely, that it was immediately seized upon as evidence that the whole report was flawed and invalid, regarding this admission as equating to a revocation of the entire report, and, in the words of Netanyahu, confining it to the "dustbin of history". However educated and refined these individuals no doubt are, the level of appreciation for nuance here is clear.

No doubt the nuclear industry & its lobbies are not far behind, driven as they are by stakeholders and profit, rather than a long-term vision for the perpetuation of the planet, as is the case for environmentalists.

This article commended Goldstone for his statement, describing him as "a man of integrity and independence... It's the easiest thing in the world to stay silent; to come out in this very public fashion is a brave act."

I agree with this. I think it is absolutely the right and correct thing to do. I admire fervently the integrity of those who admit their weaknesses and mistakes in public without being pushed. They are few and far between. But I have to ask - what is the use, when they are not greeted with reflection and willingness to compromise, but rather manipulated and taken out of context as a total victory for those being criticised?

My argument, and it is a practical one for an un-ideal world, is that such admissions should be confined to within the ranks of an organisation or movement, in such circumstances. In this way, the aims of integrity and consistency can be acheieved, and mistakes can be learned from.

But there is also a question of responsability here, not only utility. It is not just about protecting credibility and political reputations. It is also about refraining from handing such criticisms over to those who would use them to the detriment of others.

So in we went.

At this point I've heard compelling arguments from both sides. Off the top of my head, I'd be fascinated to hear Daniel Cohn-Bendit debate Simon Jenkins on the question.

There's those who want to draw lessons from Iraq, those who'd sooner look to Bosnia, and all the various other precedents that've been mobilised to support a particular course of action, or inaction. When we can't seem to agree which history it is that we do not want to repeat, taking a clear moral position becomes tricky.

In such morally ambiguous situations, one feels small. I certainly do, and so this post isn't meant to be a political "prise de position" based on which stance is more ethical. But on that note - quick parenthesis - although I wouldnt align myself with it completely, perhaps it's worth recalling Chomsky's view of Obama. It may sound cynical but to me it's an alarming reminder of fears voiced by some back in 2008 that under the Obama administration "regime change" and power politics would be rebranded and acquire a renewed legitimacy after the Bush era. Just in passing.

Actually, I'd rather keep my distances and comment instead on a particular aspect of the semantics of the coverage and the debate, such as it comes across to me, at least.

At the same time as European nations are intervening and putting the lives of some of their own citizens at risk for the people of North Africa - this is occuring.

Is it contradictory that navy ships sent to help the rebels are also blocking escaping boats, or that democratic countries that happen to be in the south of Europe allow immigrants to drown at paddling distance from their shores? I think so.

It seems that the situation in Libya is one of at least two pivotal events currently unfolding in the world informed by this syndrome.

In the case of Libya, I think this work of mental abstraction operates in a somewhat incoherent way. If we see people in collective terms then there's two big sets - the heroic figures of the revolution - the protestors risking everything fighting for freedom, who are admired, as opposed to the hordes of asylum-seekers whom we fear and dread.

The process of abstraction which turns individuals into statistics or "illegalises" them, is encouraged and even made inevitable by the political language that characterises the debate about immigration. Like all discourses, it is far from innocuous, but I'd say this one is particularly corrosive.

In her article "Welcome to Britain: the cultural politics of asylum", Imogen Tyler makes a number of very important points about the rhetoric surrounding immigration. The popularisation and banalisation of the term "asylum seeker", as essentially a synonym for a scrounger or a criminal, has been encouraged by mainstream political parties and taken up by most of the media. The worst xenophobic discourses (found in tabloids largely) depict the asylum-seeker as a dehumanised, undifferentiated foreign mass or influx.

The figure of the asylum-seeker invokes the "non-status" of a person who has not been recognised as a refugee - someone who is literally pending recognition. Tyler argues that "inscribing the category of asylum-seeker in British law through the enactment of a series of punitive asylum laws has enabled the British government to manoeuvre around the rights of the refugee as prescribed by international law."

This discourse then identifies and excludes individuals as asylum-seekers on the one hand, and secures the imaginary borders of nations and shores up a normative fantasy of national identity on the other. It also conveniently obscures all the complexity of the phenomenon.

Interestingly, Tyler also speaks of the tension that exists between the urgency of staking a political claim (on behalf of asylum-seekers, for example) and the need to reflect critically on the language in which those claims are made. In other words, although the way politicians and NGOs formulate their arguments and responses may be to some extent complicit with the xenophobic discourses, sometimes the humanitarian urgency is such that there is little time to reconfigure the terms of the debate. I think this is pertinent to the case of Libya where, while the critical thinkers are reflecting sociologically about the terms of the debate, Gadaffi is busy massacring his people. Dilemma.

So I won't denounce the intervention. I will save my condemnations for Marine Le Pen, who went to Lampedusa last week. It's a bit like if Bruno Gollnisch went to visit Auschwitz. It's like when Nicolas Sarkozy went to Turkey. It's an insult. A calculated, cynical insult, designed to impress domestic audiences and win brownie points with voters at home. Incidentally the most conservative, reactionary, racist breed of voters.

The fact that people respond to major catastrophes in the manner described by Chakrabortty means that so often, international crises are met by domestic responses. This seems to me the way that many responded to the nuclear crisis in Japan. In Libya, there is a disconnect between the two responses. It does not add up to declare unflinching support for citizens in a country and yet treat those fleeing danger as potential criminals. We need to connect the dots, and fast.

(UPDATE: This article is very insightful about the way Italy in particular frames the question of immigration in terms of security and criminality, requiring a military rather than humanitarian response)