Cracks in Angrael

[imomus]

Sometimes, almost by accident, we create a pithy phrase that sums up a certain way of looking at things, a way that strikes enough people as accurate that it becomes a meme. If events move in the way our meme predicted -- if tomorrow is even better described by the pithy phrase than yesterday was -- then these memes can even make us slightly famous.

Such seems to be the case with a little phrase I first used in 1991, when I spun Warhol's dictum around and predicted that "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen people." Just yesterday, this phase popped up as the opening sentence in a Christian Science Monitor article about blogging entitled More Creative, Less Political:

"In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 people. When Scottish artist Momus used that phrase back in 1991, he might have had the blogosphere in mind. But even if he didn't, a new report on American bloggers released last Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life shows that he was right on the money."

The article goes on to say that most people are blogging about their cat for their family and friends rather than trying to set the world to rights with political analysis, but the history of my "famous-for-fifteen" meme shows that chaos theory really has something: the phrase was first published in an obscure Swedish fanzine called Grimsby Fishmarket in 1992, then picked up two years later by Swedish daily paper Svenske Dagblatt. From there, via my website, which started in 1995, it took over the world. A butterfly really can start a storm.



Speaking of taking over the world, I wonder if, fifteen years hence, the meme I'm best remembered for won't be "Angrael". I first used this phrase right here on Click Opera on March 10th, 2004, in a piece entitled "Anger in Angrael":

"Since the Iraq war I've been lumping Britain, America and Israel together in my mind and calling them Angrael. Angrael is the Anglo-American-Israeli alliance. Angrael is a place I've left, and a place I consider to be 'living wrong', but I'm always fascinated to go back for a glimpse, to guage whether it's changing, and in what ways," I wrote.

The current crisis in the Middle East brings Angrael into even closer focus, as Angrael separates itself ever-more-clearly from world opinion. The situation is described in a leader in today's Guardian entitled "Indulging Folly":

"The conference in Rome yesterday, attended by more than a dozen countries as well the UN, the European Union and the World Bank, offered an opportunity for the diplomats to put together a belated peace package. Predictably, it ended in failure. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, backed by Britain alone, spent 90 minutes deflecting and then blocking demands by all the other participants for a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the conference ended in fudge, calling for an urgent and sustainable ceasefire, not an immediate one... The US alliance with Israel has been a fact of international life for decades, but seldom has Washington acted so blatantly in support of the country and with such disregard for the rest of the international community."

Attempts in the early stages of the Iraq War to pass Angrael off as a multi-national coalition seem to have given way to a proud isolationism: Angrael against world opinion. Which paraphrases something Noam Chomsky said: "There are now two superpowers on the planet, the U.S. and world opinion. Our hopes should rest in the second superpower."

So will the Angrael meme (currently Google brings up only me using the phrase, and asks "Did you mean angel?") be as big in fifteen years as the 15 minutes one is today? Will the world divide more and more into two camps, Angrael versus everybody else? I certainly hope not.

I hope the whole idea of Angrael becomes an anachronism and gets quietly laid to rest. There are signs that the population of the UK, at least, is getting very sick of being the junior partner in the alliance. An ICM poll this week showed that 63% of the British public think (as I do) that Britain has got too close to the US. With figures like that, Angrael can't last long, can it? We live in a democracy, don't we? Well, let's see.

Comments

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

British public opinion counts for nothing; foreign policy is decided in Washington. I suspect that it has to do with the US having had the foresight to demand some key surrender of sovereignty in return for saving Britain from the Nazis, or at least some foothold that allows them to pull British leaders of all political stripes firmly into line, no matter how unpalatable their constituents find the line.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You seem to suggest that in the whole post-war period British foreign policy has been decided in Washington, since this goes back to a WW2 debt. That isn't the case at all. Harold Wilson refused to commit UK troops to America's war in Vietnam, for instance, while no doubt remaining as grateful to the US for WW2 as anyone else (although if we count people who died to save us from the Nazis, we should have been more beholden to -- and presumably taking our foreign policy cues from -- the USSR than the US).

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 euros

[(Anonymous)]

A friend of mine who works for a market research company recently worked on a poll about The Middle East Question for a large un-named U.S. based client (presumed by all concerned to be the U.S. Government).

He gave me a copy of the script. It contained the following...

Q.42 As you may know, Iran recently barred inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency from inspecting it's nuclear facilities, please tell me whether you support or oppose the following actions...

Ban all international sales to Iran.

The international community placing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Iran.

The UK placing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Iran.

Targeted military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities by the United States.

Targeted military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities by NATO.

Targeted military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities by the United States and it's allies.

Targeted military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You know, if this war is planned as a lead-up to targeted strikes by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities, you'd hardly think they'd prepare for it by sending missiles into UN positions in Lebanon, would you? It seems shockingly incompetent, as surgical strikes go. It takes "let them hate, so long as they fear" to new levels of recklessness.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I first read that "famous for fifteen people" variation in the NME in the late seventies, '78 or '79. It was even the title of the article, about independent labels, if I remember correctly. I'm guessing that variation on Warhol has been independently "invented" several times.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't surprise me... but it would be nice to have a specific reference. It must be archived somewhere.

Who knows, perhaps Warhol himself said the "fifteen people" line. He liked to confuse journalists by changing it every time he said it: "In the future 15 people will be famous" and "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous".

Anyway, I seem to be, until someone pulls out an actual reference to an earlier usage, the only verified source for the "15 people" meme.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, Labour goverments have, on the whole, been closer to the USA than Tory ones. Possibly because the Tories still imagine Britain at the head of an empire.

Thatcher criticised Reagan in public over Grenada, and Major did the same to Clinton over Yugoslavia. The US refused to support Eden in Suez. The US were funding the IRA during the Heath administration. There were more US military planes than RAF ones in Britain during the Wilson/Callaghan years.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Although I don't quite agree with this (it doesn't explain Wilson keeping Britain out of Vietnam), it could be a result of the dreaded "doves more hawish than hawks" syndrome. I've heard it said if Ariel Sharon were still around this wouldn't be happening. It's happening because Olmert is the first Israeli PM not to be a war hero. Therefore he needs to be ultra-hawkish just to survive.

Needless to say, in a world in which doves need to be more hawish than hawks, there are no doves.

[hulegu.livejournal.com]

To a point, Lord Momus. I think the term 'Angrael' has about as much validity as 'Eurabia' i.e. not much. It's lazy shorthand for people who don't understand the complexities of global politics or culture and who can only think in terms of monolithic states, transnational organisations or grand alliances. It also encourages a herdlike manichaean interpretation of the world that ill-serves anyone - and frankly, I dislike such simplistic worldviews.

It's not that I've spent sitting so long on a fence that the iron has entered my soul, but I prefer to think of life as being like those parliaments where the delegates are arranged in a horseshoe, which recognise the manifold shades of difference bwtewwen left and right, rather than the British-style parliamentary seating arrangement which merely encourages an 'us vs them' bearpit mentality.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

So for you yesterday's performance at the Rome conference, in which Britain alone backed the US and refused to call for an immediate ceasefire, was some kind of freak event? I'd love you to be right, and me to be wrong. Let's wait and watch for all the wonderfully various ways Israel, the UK and the US go in future, shall we? Lots of shades of grey on the way! (Perhaps.)

[(Anonymous)]

Why are you surprised that "might makes right"? You really believe the propaganda that we in the west are goodie two shoes compared with Hitler and all that? Do you really believe that you would be any different if you had any power? I can tell you for a fact that over 200,000 children are killed each year in the United Kingdom and not a squeak is made about it. In fact it is paid for through tax.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're one of those Bush-style anti-abortionists are you? As far as I can gather that means that human life is sacrosanct while still in the womb (unless it is the womb of an Arab woman subject to bombing with Bush-regime supplied weaponry) but pretty much free game once it emerges squalling into the light.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

That Chomsky quote is so clichéd - almost again as much par for the course as Ward Churchill describing any atrocity as genocide.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I completely disagree. It's a quote that suddenly makes a political struggle seem worth the effort. Before thinking that way, you see no hope. There's just this monolithic "sole remaining superpower" that nobody can stop, no matter how appalling its acts or how right wing its administration. After thinking that way, you see a massive sense of global solidarity being created by exactly the same people. But not the solidarity they would wish; quite another "coalition of the willing" in fact.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven’t a clue why every British PM defers, without thinking, to the States. Probably ‘who else is there?’ and ‘well, we need someone to genuflect to’. In the big gang, by association. Even David Cameron, in a perfect position to exploit a public dog tired of it all, admitted he’d get up do the same fanny-shake.

Either way - keep on truckin, monotheist moon-howlers – bomb one other to a hell that doesn’t exist for a hallowed ground that is all in your sweet heads. Soon you’ll all be boot scrapings and I’ll be in a love commune with hot atheist chicks whimpering ‘Come back to bed, UO, it’s your duty to repopulate. Give us a braver new world with no Jews, Muslims, Christians etc. It’ll be, sigh, Heaven.’

-Urban Ospreys

[northrop-fried.livejournal.com]

What is world opinion? Some amalgam of the opinion of Arab states where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are published in the Newspaper, France, where every Jewish cemetary is covered in swastikas, Russia, China? World opinion may be a superpower, but it's certainly not a moral authority.

Your "Angrael" isn't clever; it's just a safer, cuter repackaging of hoary conspiracies about Judeao-Masonic alliance.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

It's chibi LaRouche!

Angry face

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

On a lighter note, Momus, I like when you use the angry orange-faced entity next to your posts: they look so martial!!

Also, I've just decided that even if I knew you, I would still call you Momus. Sort of like when I see one of my teachers from school, I'll always call them Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so...

Re: Angry face

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Lots of people do call me Momus face-to-face. It's nice, I answer to it!

[(Anonymous)]

As an addendum, in amidst all the bickering about who ais and who isn't supportive of an immmediate ceasefire, it's interesting to note that nobody thought to invite any of the Arab States - despite the fact that the Ta'if Accords, on which so much of the bickering is based, were largely negotiated by Arab States.

Again, the Rome Conference was another example of how the West - and yes, I am lumping the USA and Europe together, despite my earlier aversion to catch-all terms (see above) - seems to think it can get by without asking the opinion of the people over whose affairs it likes to lord.

Given the right framework for negotations, I'm sure that Lebanon and Israel can sit down together and reach some sort of agreement. I'm also beginning 9already!0 to revise my opinion of the Rome Conference, on the grounds that a ceasefire would at least give the warring sides time to realise just what the hell it is they've done.

However, the fact remains that at the heart of the matter remain two intractable issues upon which both sides will find it very hard to swallow their pride, namely:

1) In accordance with UN Resolution 1559, Hezbollah must disband - as indeed it was supposed to have dome under the Ta'if Accords.

2) Israel must give up Shebaa Farms.

However, both are intertwined - Israel's security must be guarunteed, and with the way things are in the Middle East, it is unlikely that Hezbollah wouldn't, if given the opportunity, use Shebaa Farms to bombard Israel - unless Hezbollah was disbanded. In which case, surely Shebaa Farms should be a UN-controlled zone? just a thought.

[hulegu.livejournal.com]

ps. the above comment was from me.

[(Anonymous)]

I think Mr Momus' Angrael meme is a very good one, unfortunately there are few people in the UK able to see this semi-visible axis of evil.

As to the reason for the Blair involvement, I've heard explanations ranging from:

Blackmail on the part of The US and/or Israel over alleged paedophiles within the Blair Government.

To:

Karmic cycle connected to Atlantaean genetic memory.

Whatever the reason, the certainty is that those in current control of The U.S. are determined to have full-spectrum dominance over The Middle East, and are quite prepared to kill, maim, and confuse any number of human beings in order to achieve that end.

[(Anonymous)]

It's probably a reciprocal partnership - the US make the UK look like it is has a big scary friend, the UK makes the US look like they've got degrees from Oxford.

An extensively ignorant question

[beketaten.livejournal.com]

Why does no one ever talk about the other countries that joined the coalition to go to war with Iraq? Were they more or less forced into it, or was it a situation of leaders not representing public opinion?

Re: An extensively ignorant question

[ex-newironsh15.livejournal.com]

Their contributions were pretty token, and mostly serve in the more peaceful areas. I think Fiji sent like five troops.

Spain, Italy and Poland (?) have either withdrawn or are planning to do so, I think.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

"After receiving the news that 63% of the British public believe Britain is simply too close to the United States, the stalwart lads of the Oxford Crew Team A Squad have taken up positions standing in the surf at various points around this nation and rowing furiously - with an aim towards moving the UK to a point somewhere closer to the midle of the North Sea."

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Here's a little parallel world exercise. It's 2008, and the US presidential elections are being fought. One candidate starts using the catchphrase "Read my lips: no new wars!" This campaign

a) is brilliant, and perfectly captures the wishes of an American public tired of militarism. The candidate is swept to power on election day.

b) is an appalling miscalculation of the mood of the times. The American public rejects what it perceives as weakness. The candidate is trounced and tossed aside.

[(Anonymous)]

I can see the t-shirts. 'Is Totally The Gayest Guy On Earth Or What?'

re: places you've left

[(Anonymous)]

"Angrael is a place I've left..."

Understood for US and the UK, but have you ever been to Israel?

Re: places you've left

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A youthful idealism almost led me to work on a kibbutz, but in the end my sister went instead. The closest I've been to living in Israel is living in the Lower East Side.

American parochialism

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

The double page just before the World News section in today's
_Times_ was a "placed item" calling for the roads around the U.S.
Embassy in London to be closed to traffic, and hypothesising how much
damage to wealthy shoppers would be done by a vehicle bomb going off
against the Embassy (M&S &c prettily highlighted in the radial damage
pattern). But with property prices so high, maybe we can tempt a
radical developer?

Fucking pay your road tolls, America, and quit shipping laser-guided
bombs through Scotland without alerting the regional or national
goverments, oh, and maybe sending weapons to wipe out UNIFIL folks
isn't going to win friends at the U.N.?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4770293.stm

(we won't pay London's road taxes says US "diplomat" Tuttle)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5218036.stm

(Prestwick used to ship weapons to Israel)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

Alas, paid inserts do not appear on the _Times_ website,
but I'm tempted to scan and blog it.

Re: American parochialism

[imomus.livejournal.com]

we won't pay London's road taxes says US "diplomat" Tuttle

"George Bush yesterday nominated Robert Tuttle, a Beverly Hills car dealer, presidential friend and fundraiser, as the next American ambassador to Britain." Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1503553,00.html)

You really couldn't make it up. And you can't parody it. Unless you're Tony "Cash for Peerages" Blair and just do a straight pastiche.

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

In the future, everyone will be Momus per obscene clone-kits.

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

Oh, but 15 minutes is hardly enough time!!

That Fabulously Binary Mind

[subtechnique.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the (sometimes implied, sometimes clearly stated) insistence of several posters that our choice is between “supporting” Israel or Hezbollah.

This is a false choice. Israel is not a special case in need of especially tender mercies but a state, just like any other. Tel Aviv's actions are no more weighted with morality than say, the ancient Romans' efforts in Gaul. Indeed, to understand the regional meaning of Tel Aviv's militarism, it's useful to investigate the ideological underpinnings of the “Monroe Doctrine” the idea, expressed in 1823 by then US President James Monroe, that the US should have exclusive reign over events in the Americas (of course, the 'doctrine' was coached in fine sounding language about the rights of nations in the new world to be free of European interference – that was true, but Euro influence was to be replaced by US interference).

As for Hezbollah.

Curiously, no one bothers to mention the origin of this organization – during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon that began in 1982. Occupations tend to spawn resistance movements. Of course, by saying people are, understandably, resisting occupation I'm not implying their every thought and action is praiseworthy (for example, the rocket attacks on civilian populations in Israel are war crimes – retaliatory though they might be).

These context-less and history-free discussions of Hezbollah – as if it arose, fully formed from the head of Zeus, a manifestation of Arab 'hatred' and nothing else – are weightless and quite useless really.

“Do you believe Israel has a right to defend itself?” This is the loaded question – not dissimilar from that old chestnut 'so, when did you stop beating your wife?' - that Tel Aviv's apologists routinely toss into the air like radar scattering chaff from a fighter jet.

It's tiresome. It isn't defense we (those of us who try to soberly critique Israeli actions) object to but aggression.

Israel, like other states that are armed, relative to their neighbors, with an excess of force is attempting to maintain its regional hegemony.

Re: That Fabulously Binary Mind

[pixelmist.livejournal.com]

These context-less and history-free discussions of Hezbollah – as if it arose, fully formed from the head of Zeus, a manifestation of Arab 'hatred' and nothing else – are weightless and quite useless really.

Absolutely agreed. I think, in general, the utter lack of context and history with which we've discussed the current problems in the Middle East is lamentable.

back to artful decadence and depravity, please

[(Anonymous)]

more art posts! fashion tips!

There is more than enough shallow political review & analysis & way not enough art!


Keep art alive!


p.s. yay E.U. and China please become big giant superpowers SOON maybe you can figure out what to do about Israel. Maybe all the jews can move to Florida... turn that nasty swamp into a thriving democracy...

luv, LaTrix

[(Anonymous)]

I think your Angrael meme is only half the story. Apart from "Angrael" (the pro-Israel faction in US foreign policy), there's also "Saudi America" (the oil faction). Some people think Bin Laden and co represent the downtrodden Mulim's understandable anger at "Angrael". But he's more a product of the cossetting of psycho-Wahhabism inherent in "Saudi-America".

I sense a lot of fear in Israel's current actions; fear that, over time, things can only get worse for them, as their allies weaken and their enemies strengthen and become more numerous. They think "better war now than war later". They think America will decline, and will anyway tilt back closer to a "Saudi America" policy. Emerging super-power China, with its insatiable thirst for oil, is already following its own version of a "Saudi America" policy, but far more intensely than the US ever has. Oil money is enriching Iran, a country where wiping Israel off the map, and the imminent second coming of the twelfth Imam are discussed in the same matter-of-fact terms that, say, NHS reform is discussed in the UK.

I find much to object to about "Angarel"'s behaviour. But the claim that it represents the most right-wing, reactionary force on the planet is wrong. What about Saudi Arabia - its policies on elections, gays, women, religious freedom, law and order, the racist contempt Saudis feel towards the foreigners that do pretty well everything productive? Plus, if I take your "man equals man" equation at face value then I have to ask about Darfur. It adds up to far more death and destruction than all of Israel's wars put together. And who's been blocking international action to stop it? Not "Angrael".

[ex-newironsh15.livejournal.com]

But Israel has a better relationship with the "Gulf monarchies".

Speaking of taking over the world...

[(Anonymous)]

What kind of folding orange bicycle does Momus ride?

Re: Speaking of taking over the world...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't have a bicycle at the moment. I had one on Tuesday. I parked it under a bridge next to the Ostbahnhof and it got stolen. It's true I'd been leaving it unlocked, as a social experiment, to see how long it would be before it got stolen. The answer to that question: two months. But it was a wonderful two months, jumping on and off my €20 bike (stolen when I bought it too) without having to fiddle with a lock. Such freedom! And I learned something about German society. And now I get to buy a nice new bike. Perhaps I'll buy a cheap one, and leave it unlocked too. Or an expensive one, and lock it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's all about oil (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/greg_palast/2006/07/blood_in_beirut_7505_a_barrel.html) by Greg Palast makes the point that oil prices go up when there's trouble in the Middle East. None of the states sponsoring the current violence (or refusing to rein it in) have any motivation to call this war off when it brings in so much extra oil revenue. If the war made oil prices go down, they would be quick to intervene.

The laws of the market, in other words, have been allowed to get fundamentally at odds with the basic conditions which make life bearable for ordinary people. As Palast says, Hamas was about to decide to recognize Israel's right to exist, and purge its radical wing. But the US and Iran and Saudi Arabia have no financial interest in that kind of development: it doesn't put the price of oil up.

[subtechnique.livejournal.com]

While I'm sympathetic to Mr. Palast's analysis I believe there's much more to this than petro-profits alone (which, for firms such as Exxon, have been unprecedented of late).

For a fuller treatment of the topic of oil and ME war, I recommend you read a book by Jonathan Nitzan (York Univ, Toronto) and Shimshon Bichler (Israeli researcher and political econ prof) titled "The Global Political Economy of Israel".

http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/8/

And in particular, the chapter entitled "Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition" which is available for free download here -


http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/121/

Nitzan and Bichler provide a comprehensive overview of Tel Aviv's place within the geopolitical order of things and the role petroleum and the arms trade (among other factors, such as occupation) play in shaping Tel Aviv's policies.

Actually, the entire Nitzan and Bichler site is filled with important information and perspectives.

Living Wrong

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< Angrael is a place I've left, and a place I consider to be 'living wrong', but I'm always fascinated to go back for a glimpse, to guage whether it's changing, and in what ways >>

What does it mean to 'live wrong'? Is it living wrong simply to be a U.S. citizen? What about those of us who wish to leave Angrael, but feel we can do more by staying inside, exploiting the great things about the U.S., and trying to stop the imperialism from within?