Anna Lo stays in job and fights rising racism in Northern Ireland

A positive story among the horrors of the European turn to the right. The UK's only parliamentary politician of Chinese origin — the Alliance Party's Anna Lo – has defied racists in Northern Ireland and will stay on in her job. Lord knows we need people like her.

It was bad enough that a Christian pastor in Belfast, James O'Connell, condemned the entire Muslim people of the world as following a "satanic" religion that was "spawned in hell".

Northern Ireland's First Minister, Peter Robinson, then inflamed the situation by agreeing with the rabble-rousing pastor by saying he would only trust Muslims to "go down to the shops". One wonders if he'd trust the loyalist mob who did go down the shops and chased Anna Lo out of Connswater shopping centre. Then there's Dineen Walker, Newtownabbey deputy mayor and Democratic Unionist Party member, calling Anna a racist. Which "satanic" dimension are these people inhabiting?

Imagine being a Muslim today in Northern Ireland. It must feel as if the First Minister has just painted a big target on you.

Name one religion or belief system that isn't a nightmare when it descends into fundamentalism.

The world is at war in various hotspots, we no longer love our neighbour ... it is the unholiest of messes and demagogues will always try and whip up hysteria against an entire group defined as "other". All other social and economic factors from which they themselves benefit are buried in a slurry of hatred: no challenge to the unneccessary austerity or the recession brought about by bankers' excesses which continue today. No serious measures to retrieve the billions in tax lost to evasion and secreted off-shore that should have been spent on health, housing, job creation.

Ed Miliband could do with learning from Anna Lo instead of capitulating to the Ukip agenda following their win in the European elections.

Anna Lo's defence of minorities dates back to even before she became the first ethnic politician to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007. Not just the Chinese, who were subjected to a mail-out from the loyalist marchers who rerouted their parade past her home in the year of her election, but Poles, Romanians, Roma and anyone in need of an honest politician.

Speaking on Channel 4 News, Anna called out the racism of personal insults she's been subjected to. She criticised the "outrageous" anti-Muslim comments of Pastor O'Connell followed by Peter Robinson's "ludicrous and negative comments about a whole race, about a whole religion" in a climate of rising racism. In answer to whether the First Minister had made it worse, she said: "That was my concern and my anger, seeing the rise in racism in Northern Ireland in the last six months, and for him to come up with such comments supporting … such negative sweeping comments about the Muslim community." She thought he should make a public apology and retraction in response to public anger or else resign.

Widespread support and a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #istandwithanna has persuaded her to stay and continue her work.

Robinson may well have breached the rules of Stormont's Code of Conduct. Even Ian Paisley's son, Kyle, has called him "a condescending ignoramus", (although this was somewhat marred by his description of the DUP politicians' cowardice as "yellow". Still, it's the thought — or lack of — that counts). Decent politicians should give this brave principled woman maximum support — she is a model for us all.

The Book of Mormon review: South Park creators' gentle mayhem in London

Here's my review of The Book of Mormon for the Morning Star Thursday 25th April 2013.

The Book of Mormon may not represent the much-heralded death of satire but, with full-page ads taken out in the show programme by lampooned subjects The Lion King and the Mormon church itself, this effervescent musical inches us ever closer to the abyss.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are equal opportunity offenders, transferring their gleeful lack of respect for everyone and everything to Broadway and the west end with the help of co-writer Robert Lopez.

Race, gender, colour, creed and the do-gooding leftism they so despise: if you are an identifiable type, you will be done over by these libertarian scamps. Show them a sacred cow and they'll skewer it and serve it back to you with BBQ sauce.

These caveats in mind, if this is the sort of thing you like then you will like this thing very much. If not, look away now.

Odd-couple Elders Price and Cunningham (ace Broadway imports Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner) are paired up to save souls in Uganda as soon as their Salt Lake City training as "latter-day saints" is completed. They're assigned to a miserable village under threat from local warlord General Butt Fucking Naked (basso-profundo voiced Chris Jarman) whose mission is to subject all women to clitoridectomies.

Demolishing a slew of clichés straight out of the charity handbook, everyone has AIDS; one character shags babies; and the doctor is forever singing, "I have maggots in my scrotum" when the chorus isn't belting out, "Hasa Diga Eebowai" (Fuck You God).

The dispirited Mormon posse of clean-cut all-American fabulously repressed gays share the "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream", inhabited by Jeffrey Dahmer, Saddam Hussein, Genghis Khan and Johnnie Cochran: "I got O J free".

Elder Cunningham inadvertently twists Mormon history out of shape from its patently absurd mythical beginnings — shades of South Park's most excellent Scientology take-down with Tom Cruise "in the closet" — and finally wins over the villagers. They agree to be baptised after staging an outrageous parody of the show-within-a-show scene in The King and I, including a monstrously priapic Jesus.

Goal achieved, the Mormon proselytisers celebrate with a cheery rendition of "I Am Africa" hilariously satirising imperialist wet-dreams of the benevolent kind.

The all-singing all-dancing cast kick up a storm. More than half the actors are black, as is the leading lady love interest, the multi-talented Alexia Khadime.

Puerile, offensive and rude, The Book of Mormon acts as a welcome reboot of faculties numbed by moralising authoritarian edicts substituting for political solutions. What's not to like?

Prince of Wales Theatre, London W1
Runs until January 11th 2014

Which religion are you?

Which religion are you?

Madam Miaow's New Internationalist column: Hello Dalai!

Oh, yes. Nearly forgot to post my August column for New Internationalist magazine.

So here it is ...

How lucky we are to be born in the enlightened West where we eschew cults of personality in favour of merit. Not for us those mindless automata praying at the altar of Stalin, Mao or Simon Cowell. No, we sophisticates know when we’re being shimmied up the garden path. After all, we got rid of our troublesome clergy in the 16th century. Hey, we even decapitated one of our kings – only one, but it’s the thought that counts.

So what exactly is the lure of the satsuma in specs that is His Holiness, the Dalai Lama? In contrast to China’s trigger-happy capital punishment system he’s certainly seductive.

Celebrities and politicians – two cheeks of the same overfed bottom – flock to Dolly for enlightenment and the chance to soak up a bit of the transcendency transmitted by His Happiness without doing any of the work. Fame, glamour and power? Yum!

Caught with a rodent gnawing away at your fundament and in need of redemption and a bit of nifty PR? Hello Dolly! Owned a few human beings in your time like Dolly’s beloved mother? Forgiveness is yours.

But Sharon Stone, reincarnated as a moron, said the recent devastating earthquake in China was karma for Tibet. Seventy thousand people died as some sort of divine retribution for politics. What kind of a religion is that? Funny how when anything happens to other people it’s karma, or bad stuff they’ve earned through their own actions. Yet whenever bad stuff happens to the Tibetan ruling élite it’s so unfair.

Just a suggestion: maybe what’s happening to them is divine karma coz in their medieval feudal theocracy one tiny group of Tibetans used to own all the other Tibetans. Maybe it’s divine karma because those peace-loving Buddhists used the death penalty until 1920 and torture well into the 1950s. Dolly was overseeing CIA-funded guerrilla warfare from exile in the 1960s – even while he was publicly renouncing violence. What is that, anyhow? Extra backup just in case the divinity’s asleep on the job? It’s okay, God, move along. Nuthin’ to see, we got it covered.

Ooh! There I go being all Chinese and oppressive again. ‘Leave him alone, he’s mastered the art of being happy.’ Know what would make me happy? $180,000 dollars a year paid into my personal bank account by the CIA. I reckon I’d never be in a bad mood again.

On the other hand, look what China’s had in one year: freak snowstorms, earthquakes, flooding. One plague of boils and I will be hedging my bets.

[In 1998 the LA Times reported declassified documents showing $1.7 million a year paid by the CIA to the Tibetan independence movement in the 1960s, with $180,000 paid to the Dalai Lama personally until Nixon stopped US support in the 1970s. The Tibetan government-in-exile acknowledges the $1.7m but denies any went directly to the Dalai Lama.]

Madam Miaow's New Internationalist column: Hello Dalai!

Oh, yes. Nearly forgot to post my August column for New Internationalist magazine.

So here it is ...

How lucky we are to be born in the enlightened West where we eschew cults of personality in favour of merit. Not for us those mindless automata praying at the altar of Stalin, Mao or Simon Cowell. No, we sophisticates know when we’re being shimmied up the garden path. After all, we got rid of our troublesome clergy in the 16th century. Hey, we even decapitated one of our kings – only one, but it’s the thought that counts.

So what exactly is the lure of the satsuma in specs that is His Holiness, the Dalai Lama? In contrast to China’s trigger-happy capital punishment system he’s certainly seductive.

Celebrities and politicians – two cheeks of the same overfed bottom – flock to Dolly for enlightenment and the chance to soak up a bit of the transcendency transmitted by His Happiness without doing any of the work. Fame, glamour and power? Yum!

Caught with a rodent gnawing away at your fundament and in need of redemption and a bit of nifty PR? Hello Dolly! Owned a few human beings in your time like Dolly’s beloved mother? Forgiveness is yours.

But Sharon Stone, reincarnated as a moron, said the recent devastating earthquake in China was karma for Tibet. Seventy thousand people died as some sort of divine retribution for politics. What kind of a religion is that? Funny how when anything happens to other people it’s karma, or bad stuff they’ve earned through their own actions. Yet whenever bad stuff happens to the Tibetan ruling élite it’s so unfair.

Just a suggestion: maybe what’s happening to them is divine karma coz in their medieval feudal theocracy one tiny group of Tibetans used to own all the other Tibetans. Maybe it’s divine karma because those peace-loving Buddhists used the death penalty until 1920 and torture well into the 1950s. Dolly was overseeing CIA-funded guerrilla warfare from exile in the 1960s – even while he was publicly renouncing violence. What is that, anyhow? Extra backup just in case the divinity’s asleep on the job? It’s okay, God, move along. Nuthin’ to see, we got it covered.

Ooh! There I go being all Chinese and oppressive again. ‘Leave him alone, he’s mastered the art of being happy.’ Know what would make me happy? $180,000 dollars a year paid into my personal bank account by the CIA. I reckon I’d never be in a bad mood again.

On the other hand, look what China’s had in one year: freak snowstorms, earthquakes, flooding. One plague of boils and I will be hedging my bets.

[In 1998 the LA Times reported declassified documents showing $1.7 million a year paid by the CIA to the Tibetan independence movement in the 1960s, with $180,000 paid to the Dalai Lama personally until Nixon stopped US support in the 1970s. The Tibetan government-in-exile acknowledges the $1.7m but denies any went directly to the Dalai Lama.]

Manqué business: personality cults and the retreat into mysticism

"My dad's bigger than your dad and he's gonna do you, sunshine!"
"Yo mama so fugly, we gonna kill the lot of you."
"Yo Dalai so feudal he gotta suck Amurkin dick fo dollahs!"
"Yo side so oppressive we gotta give special dispensation for violence. Om!"

So what are we to make of the current tsunami of lunacy rolling around the world? It's crashing on my beach and I don't like it one little bit.

The end of the dream of China being a genuine socialist state was tragic. The last great hope. Elsewhere, political dregs that identify as socialist fight like rats in a sack. We've given up on the ingenuity of the human mind and retreated into mysticism while the social and cultural superstructure collapses into the base like the melting tiers of a soggy wedding cake. (Or, to quote replicant Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner, "Like tiers in reign".) Prophets and demigods and their MiniMees supplant Marx and Darwin. We're expected to be in thrall to the deities' earthly representatives, uncritically swallow their lip-service to Peace and be very, very respectful indeed ... or get bashed up or worse for our irreverent offences.


"Like tiers in reign" Roy Batty, Bladerunner

Having been raised on one personality cult, I've been pretty effectively immunised against all others. Full credit to Mao for leading the communists to victory against all odds in 1949. But if the sight of weeping 'n' wailing Red Guards in Tien An Men Square while the Great Helmsman beamed down from the Emperors' old heavenly throne set alarm bells ringing, the Book of Revelations written by his doctor, describing all his earthly excess in putrid detail, made you want to call in the emergency services.

That was faith dressed up in politics. We now have the real thing; The Return of Religion: This Time It's Personal. One of the most powerful and pernicious myths of our time, welcome to the cult of the Dalai Lama. He ticks all the boxes that spiritually impoverished westerners could ever desire (and there's me thinking desire was a no-no). He's an earth-bound deity. A god king. Kind and wise granter of redemption - unless you're a Tibetan serf. Coz it's all illusion, see?

But question the old fraud and suddenly you are met with some very un-Buddhist howls of protest and a plethora of "How dare you?"s. Don't they know it's the revolutionary's duty to give a kicking to a myth when they see one?

The search for the ideal benevolent father figure is a universal. Coca-Cola knew this when they created the modern image of Santa Claus. Add to that the muscle wielded when the other kids knock over your sandcastle or teecher won't acknowledge your true worth, and the result is intoxicating.

Do I want to believe? You betcha! In a disintegrating world, I crave certainties as avidly as the next sistah. I, too, seek comfort. The reassurance that, somewhere out there, lies a sea of love in which I can immerse myself and wash away all pain. Perhaps it's the siren call to my innate hunger for spiritual parenting that makes me kick up when I see the seductive powers of the image. I happen to like my capacity for original thought, and anything that threatens to turn my brain into jelly can expect a rough ride.

As a schoolgirl I was relieved not to have been kept in China for my education during the Cultural Revolution, as my gobby character flaws would have made kneeling on broken glass an inevitability. But I saw enough of it to recognise the Red Guard types: bellowing bullies tasting power for the first time, high on self-righteousness and confident of a strong daddy behind them. Lacking in imagination themselves, they whacked anyone who didn't conform to their tramline minds. They scared me sumfink rotten.

Many of these Red Guards are now middle-aged depressives: self-loathing, guilt-ridden, unemployable or suicidal. That's a post-party hangover to beat all hangovers.

The specific conditions may have changed but the type remains. I'm sure you've spotted the phenomenon already and I hope, in the spirit of comradeship and siblinghood, you are not one yourself: those brittle sticks who think they are mighty oaks marking out the boundaries of what is allowed, making landgrabs in a shrinking thinking space.

What can we do but piss up against these fences?

So, in the Mean Time, I'll continue to batter my head against these walls even if it means signing them with splattered blood and brain matter. Don't worry — you can hose it down afterwards and obliterate all memory.

I am the lone dog pacing your purlieus; the barbarian at the gate. I am the carapace-free lungfish trapped where the sea has drained, gulping down the poisoned air and staring at the stars.

If you're one also, I'll shake you by the hand. If not, I'll probably want to shake you by the throat.

"Religion is the new social evil" Joseph Rowntree Foundation report

Manqué business: personality cults and the retreat into mysticism

"My dad's bigger than your dad and he's gonna do you, sunshine!"
"Yo mama so fugly, we gonna kill the lot of you."
"Yo Dalai so feudal he gotta suck Amurkin dick fo dollahs!"
"Yo side so oppressive we gotta give special dispensation for violence. Om!"

So what are we to make of the current tsunami of lunacy rolling around the world? It's crashing on my beach and I don't like it one little bit.

The end of the dream of China being a genuine socialist state was tragic. The last great hope. Elsewhere, political dregs that identify as socialist fight like rats in a sack. We've given up on the ingenuity of the human mind and retreated into mysticism while the social and cultural superstructure collapses into the base like the melting tiers of a soggy wedding cake. (Or, to quote replicant Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner, "Like tiers in reign".) Prophets and demigods and their MiniMees supplant Marx and Darwin. We're expected to be in thrall to the deities' earthly representatives, uncritically swallow their lip-service to Peace and be very, very respectful indeed ... or get bashed up or worse for our irreverent offences.


"Like tiers in reign" Roy Batty, Bladerunner

Having been raised on one personality cult, I've been pretty effectively immunised against all others. Full credit to Mao for leading the communists to victory against all odds in 1949. But if the sight of weeping 'n' wailing Red Guards in Tien An Men Square while the Great Helmsman beamed down from the Emperors' old heavenly throne set alarm bells ringing, the Book of Revelations written by his doctor, describing all his earthly excess in putrid detail, made you want to call in the emergency services.

That was faith dressed up in politics. We now have the real thing; The Return of Religion: This Time It's Personal. One of the most powerful and pernicious myths of our time, welcome to the cult of the Dalai Lama. He ticks all the boxes that spiritually impoverished westerners could ever desire (and there's me thinking desire was a no-no). He's an earth-bound deity. A god king. Kind and wise granter of redemption - unless you're a Tibetan serf. Coz it's all illusion, see?

But question the old fraud and suddenly you are met with some very un-Buddhist howls of protest and a plethora of "How dare you?"s. Don't they know it's the revolutionary's duty to give a kicking to a myth when they see one?

The search for the ideal benevolent father figure is a universal. Coca-Cola knew this when they created the modern image of Santa Claus. Add to that the muscle wielded when the other kids knock over your sandcastle or teecher won't acknowledge your true worth, and the result is intoxicating.

Do I want to believe? You betcha! In a disintegrating world, I crave certainties as avidly as the next sistah. I, too, seek comfort. The reassurance that, somewhere out there, lies a sea of love in which I can immerse myself and wash away all pain. Perhaps it's the siren call to my innate hunger for spiritual parenting that makes me kick up when I see the seductive powers of the image. I happen to like my capacity for original thought, and anything that threatens to turn my brain into jelly can expect a rough ride.

As a schoolgirl I was relieved not to have been kept in China for my education during the Cultural Revolution, as my gobby character flaws would have made kneeling on broken glass an inevitability. But I saw enough of it to recognise the Red Guard types: bellowing bullies tasting power for the first time, high on self-righteousness and confident of a strong daddy behind them. Lacking in imagination themselves, they whacked anyone who didn't conform to their tramline minds. They scared me sumfink rotten.

Many of these Red Guards are now middle-aged depressives: self-loathing, guilt-ridden, unemployable or suicidal. That's a post-party hangover to beat all hangovers.

The specific conditions may have changed but the type remains. I'm sure you've spotted the phenomenon already and I hope, in the spirit of comradeship and siblinghood, you are not one yourself: those brittle sticks who think they are mighty oaks marking out the boundaries of what is allowed, making landgrabs in a shrinking thinking space.

What can we do but piss up against these fences?

So, in the Mean Time, I'll continue to batter my head against these walls even if it means signing them with splattered blood and brain matter. Don't worry — you can hose it down afterwards and obliterate all memory.

I am the lone dog pacing your purlieus; the barbarian at the gate. I am the carapace-free lungfish trapped where the sea has drained, gulping down the poisoned air and staring at the stars.

If you're one also, I'll shake you by the hand. If not, I'll probably want to shake you by the throat.

"Religion is the new social evil" Joseph Rowntree Foundation report

How to clean your soul: Tony Blair's makeover

How nice for Tony Blair to be absolved of his sins of the past decade by joining the Catholic Club.

If I were him, I too would be worrying about where my immortal soul was going to be spending the rest of eternity. There aren't many of us who can claim such a spectacular starring role in the deaths of over a million Iraqis, the first ever increase in the gap between rich and poor under a Labour government, such profligate waste of public money through privatisation of our services via the PFI back door and mad IT schemes, and rewriting Magna Carta regarding our liberties.

Blair has followed in Thatcher's footsteps in helping turn British society into Pottersville, Bifftown, Las Vegas-On-Sea.

Now he wants the money, he wants the glory, he wants all the baubles the material world has to offer AND he wants to go to heaven. Does this boy want to have his cake and eat it or what?!

Spirituality is a major part of being human, but why, when organised into religion, does it turn into something repellent? If he thinks that saying a few Hail Marys and being chucked under the chin by a bloke in a big hat is actually going to change anything, he has a serious shock coming when he passes on into the void that is death.

And. Everything. Stops!

How to clean your soul: Tony Blair's makeover

How nice for Tony Blair to be absolved of his sins of the past decade by joining the Catholic Club.

If I were him, I too would be worrying about where my immortal soul was going to be spending the rest of eternity. There aren't many of us who can claim such a spectacular starring role in the deaths of over a million Iraqis, the first ever increase in the gap between rich and poor under a Labour government, such profligate waste of public money through privatisation of our services via the PFI back door and mad IT schemes, and rewriting Magna Carta regarding our liberties.

Blair has followed in Thatcher's footsteps in helping turn British society into Pottersville, Bifftown, Las Vegas-On-Sea.

Now he wants the money, he wants the glory, he wants all the baubles the material world has to offer AND he wants to go to heaven. Does this boy want to have his cake and eat it or what?!

Spirituality is a major part of being human, but why, when organised into religion, does it turn into something repellent? If he thinks that saying a few Hail Marys and being chucked under the chin by a bloke in a big hat is actually going to change anything, he has a serious shock coming when he passes on into the void that is death.

And. Everything. Stops!