Ars longa, vita brevis

Petition for Roman Polanski

We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski’s arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

He's a great film maker.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978

an awfully long time ago. Don't you think we can just let bygones be bygones?

against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

We don't judge other people by standards of bourgeois morality.

Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

He's a great film maker. We all think so. You can't go around arresting great guys like that. Film festivals are sacrosanct. This is tantamount to arresting a priest in church.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

We claim diplomatic immunity for our event. Otherwise, what next? They will be arresting people for showing films that someone doesn't like. This is like McCarthysism.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country,

Switzerland was neutral in WWII, and is not a member of NATO or the EU and it's um we think it's probably therefore neutral in the enforcement of cases of morals

where he assumed he could travel without hindrance,

He's been able to get away with it for so long he thought he could get away with it this time.

undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects.

What next? They will be arresting people for showing films that someone doesn't like. This is like McCarthysism.

Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renowned and international artist now facing extradition.

He should be immune from your bourgeois American moral judgements.

This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom.

And he should be free, because he's a great film maker.

Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians—everyone involved in international filmmaking — want him to know that he has their support and friendship.

He is one of us. He is our friend.

On September 16th, 2009, Mr. Charles Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, received French artists and intellectuals at the embassy. He presented to them the new Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the embassy, Ms Judith Baroody. In perfect French she lauded the Franco-American friendship and recommended the development of cultural relations between our two countries.

We appeal to all enlightened French-speaking people

If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.

* * *

If a friend of mine were threatened with jail I'd go to some lengths to help keep them out, and if they went to jail I'd go and visit. (Assuming they hadn't done something so gross I didn't want to stay friends.) I'm not going to boycott anyone for signing this petition. There are many people I like and admire who support it. I just think their arguments are woolly.

It's a long time ago.
OK, so you want a statute of limitations for rape. Some jurisdictions have that. No doubt some elderly clergymen wish they had the benefit of a statute of limitations. But you will have to make a better argument than this. He's hardly Jean Valjean is he.

Hollywood, rock stars, the golden days - everyone was messing around with kids back then.
There have been powerful people indulging their urges since time immoral, and society sometimes lets them get away with it. Then people start thinking you can get away with it if you're rich and influential enough. There is never a shortage of victims. There should have been a lot more prosecutions. Why should an auteur be treated differently from a priest, or someone who lives in a trailer?

Her mother knew all about it.
The victim was thirteen. I don't know what her mother has to do with it. (It's a pity she didn't stay around during the shoot.) The sexuality of children isn't - in western society at least - the property of their parents. How many times did that kid say No? I've lost count, but it was a lot.

The victim wants it dropped.
And some offences are so difficult or humiliating that the victim may not want to talk about them. But unless the offence is really trivial, the victim shouldn't have a say in the matter. Otherwise the perp would be able to intimidate the victim into dropping charges, or if they were rich enough, buy the victim off.

But he's Roman Polanski! He makes great films! What about Chaucer, Villon, Marlowe, Byron, Wilde, Eric Gill &c, &c?
Let's separate the man from his work.

And why focus on him when there are all these other guys running around evading prosection?
Because of the petition. People like me are sounding off because we don't think the petition should be unchallenged. We may speculate on why it's taken the US so long to catch him, and why now. They need to catch the other guys as well.

Feelings are running high. There's wild talk of witch hunts, of pitchforks and torches, of lynch mobs. This isn't Salem, it isn't McCarthyism, and it trivialises what the Ku Klux Klan did. It's not even as if Polanski can be claimed an innocent man. It's not totally unreasonable, is it, to call these celebs out on their assumption of entitlement to immunity?

[Edited to remove link to victim's testimony.]

Weblog

As any fule no, a blog is a weblog, and it started out by being a list of sites visited. As an antidote to Blytonia, here are some of the more interesting items I've come across in the past few days.

Jim Murdoch ponders the dearth of modern nursery rhymes.

Lorna Watts is refused the loan of scissors by a north London librarian: They are sharp, you might stab me.

Anton Vowl suggests what Gordon Brown should have answered to that question from Andrew Marr.

Belle Waring has an impassioned post on Crooked Timber about sexual harassment in the academy, with a sideswipe at "look but don't touch" Kealey from Buckingham. Mary Beard isn't so bothered. Is Terence Kealey as misunderstood as Juvenal? (Or as contemporary? I'm inclined to add.) Yes, it may have been satire, but it's pretty lame satire.

In a post entitled Because Men are Stupid and Shallow, That's Why, Jeff Fecke demonstrates that some men are capable of seeing the person beyond the breasts. He challenges the Canadian Rethink Breast Cancer campaign (aimed at raising men's awareness by concentrating on breasts):

the thing about breasts that I generally like the most is that they’re usually attached to living, breathing women, and I like women, because, you know, they’re people. Many of them are people I like, and consider friends. All of them are worth far more than the breasts attached to them; that should go without saying.

Ben Goldacre considers the AIDS-denialist film House of Numbers, which was shown at Cambridge Film Festival and (temporarily) hoodwinked rationalist sceptic Caspar Melville. Goldacre starts a lively discussion about how to deal with moonbats - exposure, ridicule, debate? Or by ignoring them? (There's no widely accepted noun for that, but ignoral might suit.) This comment in particular struck me:

The best advice my late Dad ever gave me was; “Never argue with an idiot, because people watching lose track of which is which”. The older I get, the more I appreciate his words. Several times a week, I’m given cause to think of them.

Teach the debate is what creationists say.

Jack of Kent argues why English libel law is a danger and makes a proposal for reform.

Shuggy has a go at performative theists aiming for the class prize.

no man ever forsook his father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter and took up his cross in order to support the nuclear family, preserve the work ethic, reduce crime in the neighbourhood or foster charitable giving as an important ingredient in civil society.

Terry Glavin doesn't know how to handle the human tide, except that the handling should be humane. Who could disagree?

Right, I'm off to Oxford now for the launch of See How I Land.

London's lease hath all too short a date

Diamond Geezer draws our attention to

The Golf Sale. The legendary never-ending Golf Sale. The sports shop down a Mayfair sidestreet near Oxford Circus. The iconic Golf Sale advertised along Oxford Street by men with sandwich boards since time immemorial. Much imitated, never beaten. The Golf Sale. Closing down. Nip down to Maddox Street fast if you want to snap up a cut-price putter...

The lease is up.

Three landowners control most of the West End:
The Portman Estate

The Portman Estate is principally located within Marylebone, central London.

It encompasses Oxford Street from Marble Arch to Orchard Street, from Edgware Road in the west to beyond Baker Street in the east, and stretches north almost to Crawford Street. The Estate includes Portman Square, Manchester Square and the residential squares of Bryanston and Montague.

The Duke of Westminster (Grosvenor Estate)

Key locations in Mayfair are: Mount Street, Grosvenor Street, North Audley Street, Duke Street, Park Street
Key locations in Belgravia are: Grosvenor Gardens, Motcomb Street, Elizabeth Street, Eaton Square, Pimlico Road, Ebury Street

and HM the Queen. Details of Crown London holdings here.

(Not forgetting Cadogan Estates' massive - though diminishing - holdings in Chelsea.)

Between them, they own enough to make the market.

The Portman website advertises retail premises to let:

Shops are available on new Full Repairing and Insuring leases for 5 years, without rent review and outside the Security of tenure provisions of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954.

Are we just starting to see the effects of the 2004 amendments to the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954? And we've just passed Lady Day, when rents are due... I'd love to know more, but alas do not have a subscription to Estates Gazette. What sort of business is prepared to take on a five year full repairing lease without right of renewal? Someone selling Olympic tschotskes, maybe? You'd have to be reckless, unless there were no choice.

The erosion of tenants' rights that began under the Tories has continued apace under New Labour. Under the guise of market liberalisation, most new residential lets are unprotected; new agricultural and business lettings suffer the same sort of insecurity. It doesn't allow a business to put down roots. It doesn't make for cohesive communities. It can cause dreadful hardship. It took generations to build up security of tenure but it seems to have been pissed away in under twenty years.

On their website (which doesn't let me link to a specific page) the Cadogan Estate exonerates itself from blame for the homogenisation of the High Street:

Today, Cadogan's holding in Chelsea is substantial in value, but is nevertheless still patchy. The assumption, for instance, that Cadogan owns everything on the King's Road is wrong. And the associated assumption that Cadogan is therefore responsible for the influx of High Street brands is profoundly inaccurate.

Not their fault, then. No-one's fault.

Cantuar

It's not clear from the press what Dr Williams had in mind, but it won't be the sort of thing the mad dogs have been howling over. There is no way even he, with his knees on a hassock and head in the clouds, could seriously suggest applying sharia law to anyone who doesn't consent. So it couldn't apply in matrimonial cases (children to consider, even if women can be assumed to be giving free consent) or family inheritance cases (what about potential beneficiaries who don't consent to the sharia court?) let alone in criminal cases.

There may - just - be an argument for using a sharia court as an agreed arbitrator in contract cases, much as one might have the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors written into a contract as arbiter for development disputes. Consenting adults should be able to decide how to settle their disputes. However, this would be fair only between bargainers of equal bargaining power. And even then, just imagine the hoohah when someone appeals against the decision of such a sharia court because it's partial (judges related to plaintiff), incompetent (judges comatose) or capricious (judges didn't consider evidence), just to take three examples that might happen in any tribunal. In such a case, the appeal would lie to the civil courts in the usual way. "English Law Overrules Sharia!" "English Rules OK!" Just imagine. And heaven forfend that it's a Jewish judge in the Appeal Court.

The prelate espouses a misguided pluralism, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, it doesn't take too much imagination to foresee this as encouragement and sanction for enclaves of sharia law in the sort of place where young men like Abu Izzadeen can say to the Home Secretary: "How dare you come here, to a Muslim area, after you have arrested Muslims..." It's already happening informally. There are tribal areas in New Zealand which apply tribal law with the consent of the state, and I believe there are many other places around the world with such enclaves, where colonisers have exempted certain areas from application of their Law. Should it make any difference whether such enclaves are indigenous or immigrant? Personally, I deplore that sort of separation whatever its genesis, but then I'd do away with faith schools and the established church and -- don't get me started. Let's keep one law for all, please.


Update
Here's what he said.