Jade

Over two years ago I wrote on my previous institution's 'inside security' blog the post I've reproduced below. It was inspired by the row that rocked celebrity big brother at the time, with the late Jade Goody at the heart of it. It reflects my then (and current) perception of the 'celebrity' culture and the damage is causing to our rights to privacy - arguing that besides the big brother state, is us too that are responsible for it.

However, Goody's decision to take this publicity to the end had a massive effect in raising awareness of cervical cancer, and regardless of any exploitation by media etc., that in itself is of great value for our society and will helpfully contribute to many early diagnoses and positive treatment. My Greek ancestors were nearly obsessed with their posthumous reputation (υστεροφημία), aspiring to lead a life and manage achievements for which they'll be remembered and celebrated by those who survived them and the many generations after them. I don't know about Jade's past, but in my opinion her last act has secured her just that... Rest in peace.





The 'feel Goody' effect: The real death of privacy is inside us
January 30th, 2007

Now that the BB furore has calmed down, there's a thing or two that came to my mind in retrospect. You'd say though, hardly are the societal effects of reality TV and d-list ‘celebrity' media exposure an issue of information security and privacy. Or maybe not?
Let me explain myself. I bet, if you live on this island, you know who Jade is. I know too. On the top of my head I can remember that she was in big brother, a series of other, otherwise successful, low-end TV productions, exercise DVDs, magazine covers, you name it. I also know that she is not married, has one or two kids, a boyfriend that is younger than her and that her mother has had recently a glamorous makeover. Oh, and of course, she was in the centre of the racial controversy in celebrity big brother.
Blimey! How did I end up knowing that much about her? You see, the thing is, as Clark Gable puts it, ‘Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!', for reality TV - and especially for Jade. But unless you live in an area that is poorly serviced by satellite or cable TV signal (and even then...), you must have seen her somewhere on that telly. She's right there, in your face, whether you want to know about her or not.
I understand the public's thirst (including myself in there) for insider knowledge of public figures' lives. The Queen, Tony, the Archbishop, my wife's all favourite Colin Firth, Jonathan Ross, Stephen Hawking etc. etc. Yes, we do like to know about the private moments of the people that rule us, bless us, drag us to war, make us laugh, make us wiser. Many are the reasons; if not for any other reason, it is for that selfish instinct, that feeling that, they too are mortal and as a consequence, we too have a chance to have an impact in life as human beings. Sociologists would argue many other reasons but I'm not one. I'm satisfied with just this one.
But this, and any other reason related to the necessity of public scrutiny of important figures' lives, cannot really explain why the media, and in consequence the public, are obsessed with the literally (extra-)ordinary lives of people like Jade. The ‘common' people from Nasty Nick, to the Badger, to Teddy Seringham's girlfriend. Hardly can those people affect us, as a mass, as the public in a collective manner. But more than they themselves do, I think that it is us who need their fifteen minutes of that glorious, temporary fame of the ordinary.
For good or for bad, judging the Queen or Tony, even for aspects of their personal lives, you inevitably become political. There's a political dimension throughout their lives as they are figures we relate to in this respect. Everything they do, including their vacation abroad, may become a political issue - such as the volume of the emissions from the PM's holiday plane in an age of global warming. But what is there in concern for someone like Jade? Following their private lives is different, from their anonymity, to the brief celebration of their commonality, to their inevitable downfall, we experience emotions by proxy - participating in their success, but primarily savouring their bitter failure from the comfort of our IKEA sofa. This kind of ‘celebrities' exists merely to the satisfaction of a judgemental, cannibalistic instinct - like the one satisfied by the morituti of the roman coliseum, in, the otherwise civilised, Rome.
I bet I have managed to get you confused by now. In the beginning of this post, I tried to make it as if information security and privacy were involved in all of this. Well, they do. There's a disastrous effect of this repeated, habitual violation of the privacy of the ordinary man. The ‘feel Goody' effect, stemming from the need of satisfaction of that savage instinct of experiencing one's self-destruction by proxy, is that we accept de facto the violation of the privacy of ordinary life, such as Jade's. And in doing this, we accept the violation of our own's. So much for the concerns of civil libertarians for the fearful technology and Orwell's big brother society - it's all going out of the window the moment we switch our telly on to watch BB.
At the end of the day it's neither the cameras nor the ID cards alone that signify the end of privacy; the true causes may as well be found and deep inside the human soul.

A strip of despair

The continuing drama in Palestine concerns me greatly these days. The incompetence of international establishments to provide the grounds for a long-lasting resolution in the Middle East leaves me with a bitter reassurance that institutions such as the UN have become as much ineffective as the League of Nations they replaced. Meanwhile, more people get killed.

I know this is a complex problem and it is not my job, nor expertise, to provide views for simplistic, or otherwise, solutions for it. But I am also concerned about the aftermath of the disproportional use of force by the state of Israel, in theory against the forces of Hamas, but at large against Palestinian civilians.

The inappropriateness of the means that Israel uses to resolve a situation that is (obviously) irresolvable by raw military force is striking. My view is that serving a short-sighted political ambition, the Israeli administration is probably rushing to establish a new status quo before the new US president gets in power, whilst at the same time keeping domestic voters reassured of their adherence to the (vote-attracting) hard line. Indeed, the psychology of security (1) in this situation would assure this: Israeli civilians confronting a realistic threat manifested in the form of frequent rocket launching, blended with unfounded claims for the rise of a new antisemitism (2) are more likely to support 'decisive' action of their government, than to oppose a humanitarian disaster of an 'alien people.

And to me this issue is deeply political, it has nothing to do with antisemitism or Muslim fundamentalism - religions or races. Such overweight military action is in line with the ill conceived doctrine of confronting systematically, standardised if you like, global terrorism; the means matching the also inappropriate phraseology of 'war' against a new 'axis' (of evil). And indeed there is a huge problem arising from this approach. George Lakoff in his analysis of metaphors of terror (3) analysed, a lot better than I can do here, what this problem is.

It is my firm opinion that it was a gross mistake of the Bush administration to bag under the same blanket all sorts of existing groups branded under 'terrorist' or 'revolunionarist' identities. That 'classification' of the infamous 'with us, or against us'. Nonetheless, Hamas and Hezbollah in reality have nothing to do with the Tamil Tigers, the Kurdish Workers' Party, far-leftish urban guerrillas etc. Putting them altogether, blatantly ignoring most of the crucially differentiating socio-economical, cultural and political factors around them and grossly recognising only a few (e.g. their religious identity) reduces our analytical capability to understand them and to put their actions in context. Without this understanding there can be no solutions or effective strategies devised.

Furthermore, using the same raw military force to confront all of them on 'equal' terms, be they states (Iraq), elected governments (Hamas), loosely structured coalitions of crooks/bandits/religious fanatics/morons etc. it can only force them to get together, share and exchange for real. The increase of suicide attacks employed by traditional groups which, under conventional circumstances, did not consider historically such modus operandi is a telling sign. The changing profile of such attackers, now often being women, is another. Global terror as a concept, I think, is shaped not because of genuine intentions of those groups to collaborate (their own interests are far too diverse to allow for that and even competing), but in their unity against a response from the states in power that is indiscriminate and disproportionate ('my enemy's enemy is my friend').

Religious identities and fundamentalism in this case is not much more than an excuse that both sides buy in in need of a quick justification of the deeper, political causes of the conflict - competition for land in a crowded part of the world and the right to exercise autonomous political will. Just as the Northern Irish conflict had deeper roots than the Protestand/Catholic identities. The recycling of global terror and security justification by Israel, accompanied by an implied, underlying religious fundamentalism argument is a distorted view of the world in this context and the sooner we understand that, the sooner we will stop its later backfiring. There is a true need, more that ever before, for ceasefire and diplomacy. Meanwhile, more people get killed.


(1) http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/the_psychology_2.html

(2) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040202/klug

(3) http://www.press.uchicago.edu/News/911lakoff.html

A Systems insight into the Athens riots

I grew up in a suburb of Athens, in its not so privileged west side. And although I am not a particularly nostalgic type I do follow with some interest the Greek news, particularly now that the fragile socio-political situation seems at the end of its tether. And to most, this violent eruption of youth wrath, manifested in red paint, rocks and firebombs thrown against an evidently poorly skilled, outdated in design and heavy-handed mechanism of public order may seem bizarre, even unfounded. But my own memory is still sharp and here's my interpretation of why this happens.

Recalling my own experiences from the late eighties, adolescence in Greece was not easy – and not a lot have changed since then. The poorly implemented, sterile state school curriculum tries to engage pupils in dry and uninteresting subjects, often heavily influenced by the most unimaginable of stakeholders (e.g. the Greek Orthodox Church). Not only does this fail to develop creative learners, but also drives even the most competent of the pupils, and primarily their parents, to complement their tuition with private supportive classes.

I was personally lucky to attend schools with a few inspiring teachers who were doing their best within their limitations to provide us with quality education, and I will always be grateful for this, but the majority of the Greek kids aren't. Most teenagers in Greece will spend six to eight hours per day at the state school, two to three at private, complementary tuition of key subjects and a lot of those will allocate other as much in learning at least one foreign language at the same time – in private language schools of course. Most of those kids will spend their weekday working probably harder than their parents. And the weekends, well, they may attend additional music classes to learn to play the piano, or the guitar.

Whether through own initiative, peer, or parental pressure most kids will go through some hard years in preparation for university entry exams, the sort of equivalent of A-Levels. But they have to do it painstakingly, with disproportional effort. The Greek Generation Y, much like my own in the past, spend more time in classrooms and public transport between them, than in learning whilst making the most of their age. And that all would be acceptable, if at the end of it there was a clear vision of an outcome, a promise of good things to come.

But the harsh reality for most twenty-odd year-olds is that they're facing a global recession with an anticipated starting gross income of around £15K - irrespective of gaining a degree or not. Leaving most to pursuit a civil service appointment, similarly underpaid, but at least with less pressure, ample vacation leave and secure pension package. The disproportionately large Greek civil service sector, serving throughout the life of the modern Greek state some short-sighted political interests (i.e. appointments in exchange for votes) will become the envy of another, soon waisted generation.

Ironically this week we discussed with my postgraduate students in my introduction to systems module how the loss of the vision is by definition a compromise of quality. Opportunities for creative growth of the Greek people and their country are lost in poor vision and incompetent politicians' short-lived ambition for re-election and of most grown-ups' obsession for a place in civil service. Islands of meritocracy are merely enough to provide an excuse of a fair system in the eyes of most, where institutionalised corruption forms inherent part of everyday life – from a simple MOT inspection to a planning permission, you learn how the system is flexible.

And to most, as I said in the beginning, this eruption of wrath of the pupil and student youth is gross, mislead, unfounded. They do not understand how the great privilege of those kids currently flooding Athenian and other cities' roads is that their vision is pure and how therefore they can see it all as it should be. Let me make myself clear here, I do not approve of any violence as expression of political will – this is the easy way. Any moron can cover his face and pick up a rock. But our fathers and theirs, and the ones before them, even maybe most of us of the gen X, are now well blinded of how they are responsible for damaging my place of birth and its youth's hope for a brighter future. And it is those kids' right to not aspire to follow us; I am glad every now and then they decide to exercise it...