Issue 79
October 2002
Contents
A Tory communist
Why did Eric Hobsbawm remain loyal to the blood-soaked communist cause for so long?
Intellectual property
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Poor countries should use intellectual property rights rules to get a better global deal. And the west should help
Haruki Murakami
Japan's most popular novelist has finally woken up to events in his own country. But can this ageing adolescent really grow up?
Marriage for a night
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Under Islam, a woman can get married for an hour. The "sigheh" is a shi'a solution to a physical need. In Iran, it is an anomaly - a sexual freedom sanctioned by religion but taboo in society
Human conditions
20th October 2002 — Issue 79John Gray is a tragic fatalist. Steven Pinker believes in a progressive science of humanity. Are either of them right?
Media manifesto
The news media are the last great unregulated power. Journalists need to take responsibility for their influence
Tories on the couch
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Instead of rethinking its message, the Tory party has experienced a collective nervous breakdown.
Reason to believe
20th October 2002 — Issue 79The spirit of the left has been extinguished. But there is still a case for radical ideology
Good books
Doomsayers persist in the belief that the book world has been overrun by philistinism. They are wrong. Publishers can rejoice in unprecedented levels of both quality and quantity. We are living in a golden age of the book
Shake, rattle and roll
20th October 2002 — Issue 79At Birmingham's symphony orchestra, Simon Rattle showed the way forward for cultural politics. May he do the same in Berlin
Saddam as Samson
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Will Saddam have his Samson moment? Does the security of the world really hang on a Bush family psychodrama?
Islam in Europe
20th October 2002 — Issue 79My constituency has 23 mosques and 25,000 Muslims. It is in places like Blackburn that a new European Islam will emerge
Israel lobby part 3
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Both the Israel lobby and the oil lobby have warped US policy in the middle east. American patriots should reject both
Listening banks
20th October 2002 — Issue 79The IMF and the World Bank are lending institutions; they cannot be run by their borrowers. But they can listen more to poor countries
We three would-be kings
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Crosland, Jenkins and Healey were the reforming leaders Labour never had. They ruined each other's chances of saving the party from its wilderness years
In the centre of the middle
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Centrist political thinking is surprisingly thin in Britain. An example from America shows that it can be more than difference-splitting between left and right
Young person's guide to Stalin
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Martin Amis's Koba is another exhibitionist work-yet endearing and instructive. A Harry Pottering among the ruins of 20th-century political illusions
Scots on the rocks
20th October 2002 — Issue 79Neal Ascherson has found geological origins for Scottish nationalism. This is not as mad as it sounds but it is still no reason to abandon the Union
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