In this case we assume that diplomatic means have been exhausted, therefore it remains to us to consider whether or not sanctions are a cheaper, faster, more humanitarian method of achieving international aims as opposed to war.

Clarifications: We will not go into justifications, nor consider whether the party imposing the sanction (unilateral or multilateral) is in the right or wrong, but rather judge the effectiveness of sanctions based on several key principles.

1) Were the goals of the sender country achieved?
2) How much time did it take to achieve?
3) Were they achieved with minimal total collateral damage (within and without the country)?

Inherent problems of sanctions:

In this particular section, we will consider problems of assumedly multilateral sanctions (ie UN-endorsed) that cause sanctions to be ineffective and questionably ethical in execution.

1) Ethics and justification

The use of sanctions inevitably harms the civilian population. While imposition of sanctions may result in a modest reduction of GNP (generally 5% for partial sanctions and 10%, as in Iraq, for comprehensive sanctions), it is the type of goods being restricted that matter.

For example, in Iraq no item was allowed in unless it was on the approved list, which meant that key medicines and foodstuffs were denied to Iraqis. Presumably, this operated under the hope that Iraqi policymakers survived in the same way as normal Iraqis, and would comply with resolutions in order to ensure their own continued comfort. However, though they may have felt the pinch, it should be noted that positions of power will carry their own perks, such as increased pay, foreign contacts and access to government-requisitioned stores. As a result, the ruling elite is essentially BUFFERED by the suffering populace.

Ethically speaking, this is a two-prong argument. Firstly, hoping as we do that it is the suffering of the people that will affect the government (who are at the end of the day, also citizens), can we justify causing millions to suffer to get a handful? Secondly, as the above argument shows, frequently the ruling elite are only slightly affected, while the development of the country is halted and as in the case in Iraq, the regime is bolstered as the middle-classes disappear.

2) Double standards of sanctions.

Firstly, sanctions are not imposed uniformly. Iraq was sanctioned for invading Kuwait, but Indonesia, Turkey and Israel were not likewise punished for their own invasions, even though a UN censure on their respective actions had been passed. This in itself is not a point on the ineffectiveness of sanctions, merely a note.

More importantly, we lack the mechanisms to enforce the sanctions. There is a lack of institutional memory in the UN, where the heads of sanctions committees are rotated every few years. Furthermore, the UN itself does not possess any proper monitoring system to ensure that sanctions imposed are being carried out efficiently, as a result sanctions-busting is rife. This leads to 2 problems: The entry of goods (albeit a lower volume) into a country defeats the purpose of sanctions. Secondly, the purchasers of these now-exorbitant goods will generally be the ruling elite, which is precisely the targeted group, while the populace is denied access for no particular purpose.

3) 3rd state effect

While some may argue that war is devastating in its reach, sanctions also affect countries beyond that of the target country. When a country is sanctioned, its trading partners suffer. They lose an export market, and this effect is exacerbated if they were previously exporting niche goods to the sanctioned country. This can lead to regional destabilization as the economies of trading partners in a region are frequently interlinked, and the shutting-off of one country, may lead to the collapse of another country’s economy, which in turn starts a domino effect. For example, sanctions against former Yugoslavia caused the international rail and road links through it to be shut down, thereby denying heavily used trade routes, which further caused an increase in prices around the region and export delays.

Even sender countries may suffer more than the country under sanction. For example, in 1980 the US imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union in an effort to force them out of Afghanistan. Not only did this measure fail, it also caused severe harm to American farmers as they lost a huge export market.

Conditions and circumstances of sanctions

It must be acknowledged that sanctions frequent succeed under a set of limited goals and circumstances.

Overall, based on an analysis of 116 case studies, beginning with World War I and going through the UN embargo of Iraq, economic sanctions tend to be most effective at modifying the target country’s behavior under the following conditions (Taken from http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Sanctions.html):

1. When the goal is relatively modest: winning the release of a political prisoner versus ending South Africa’s apartheid system, for example. Less ambitious goals may be achieved with more modest sanctions; this also lessens the importance of multilateral cooperation, which is often difficult to obtain. Finally, if the stakes are small, there is less chance that a rival power will step in with offsetting assistance.

2. When the target is much smaller than the country imposing sanctions, economically weak and politically unstable. The average sender’s economy in the 116 cases studied was 187 times larger than that of the average target.

3. When the sender and target are friendly toward one another and conduct substantial trade. The sender accounted for 28 percent of the average target’s trade in cases of successful sanctions, but only 19 percent in failures.

4. When the sanctions are imposed quickly and decisively to maximize impact. The average cost to the target as a percentage of GNP in success cases was 2.4 percent and in failures was only 1.0 percent, while successful sanctions lasted an average of only 2.9 years versus 8.0 years for failures.

5. When the sender avoids high costs to itself.
Aside from these, prevailing circumstances today, namely the increase in globalization, have had a double-bladed effect. Firstly, increasing interdependence and specialization of output have made sanctions more painful as countries are denied goods of which they produce very little. However, globalization also means that it is that much easier to find alternative sources to replace the halted source, and as it is difficult to get a consensus from countries on imposing sanctions, generally alternative sources can and will be found. The key determinant here is in how fast and how hard sanctions are imposed.

In support of sanctions:

However, sanctions should still be considered as a very viable alternative to war. Perhaps one way of looking at it is that sanctions, while having a long list of failure, also has certain successes (see below). War, on the other hand, inevitably results in huge loss of life, as well as various other costs such as restructuring and rebuilding. Sanctions provide an opportunity to achieve war’s goals, with a lighter cost.

Essentially, one can regard sanctions as a gamble: You might achieve your objective at a very low cost, or you might now achieve it at all, and still pay a high price. However, war is a purchase. You almost certainly achieve your objective, be it regime change, disarmament or the like. But it inevitably has a high cost. ‘Clean wars’ only mean the media has cleaned up the scenes.

Furthermore, there are situations in which sanctions are a far more versatile weapon than war. For example, sanctions were used in South Africa to induce the government to give up its apartheid policy. It would have been (And still is) difficult to justify a war on the basis of what a country does to its own citizens. Indeed, a country supposedly has the sovereign right to its own citizens. However, by imposing sanctions, other countries are merely exercising their own right to show displeasure with certain policies, and also modify the target government’s behaviour. South Africa’s renouncement of apartheid was credited in part to sanctions placed upon it. A case study is provided below.

Britain and the United States opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa, in spite of strong pressures in the Security Council. Finally, after weak “voluntary” measures (voted in 1963) had little result, Britain and the US agreed to a Council-imposed mandatory arms embargo in 1977. Efforts to toughen sanctions through the UN met with further Anglo-American opposition, including a draft resolution vetoed by both permanent members on March 8, 1988 . Nevertheless, an international campaign induced private investors and governments to adopt sanctions measures. In 1989, the campaign finally succeeded in pushing a sanctions bill through the US Congress, against the opposition of the administration. Throughout, shippers, especially big oil companies, often flouted the embargoes. But thanks to the international campaign, maritime and longshore unions, along with United Nations agencies, helped enforce the sanctions by exposing sanction-breakers to public scrutiny. Many believe that the sanctions helped force the apartheid regime to finally capitulate, in a relatively peaceful transition of power. Whatever hardship the sanctions imposed on both Zimbabwe and South Africa, the outcome seems to have been well worth it.

Perhaps it is not that we should remove sanctions, but rather improve them continuously. The fact is, every weapon we can add to our diplomatic arsenal is going to be very useful. Smart sanctions are all the rage now, namely the idea that we can embargo certain government-essential items like arms and nuclear material, but we allow in food and medicine. The problem is of course, dual purpose goods, such as computers, which could easily be co-opted for military use. Even refrigerator trucks for medicine are suspect (refer to notes). However, it is a large step forward in making sanctions more sensitive.

Below are policy recommendations to bring about more precise and regulated sanctions.

1. Sanctions should be resorted to with caution
Sanctions cause considerable damage and even suffering, so they must not be seen as an early-response, but rather as a late-resort, after preventive and diplomatic means have been exhausted.

2. Sanctions should be applied under laws, rules, guidelines or binding criteria
Sanctions should be applied under predictable and roughly similar circumstances (no double standards). Sanctions should be incorporated into (and subject to) international law, possibly through a treaty or other instrument. Short of a formal treaty, the Security Council should develop and publish rules or guidelines for its own reference.

3. Sanctions should have clear, precisely-defined objectives and termination criteria
Sanctions when applied must have very clear objectives and well-defined criteria for termination. When the target country meets these criteria, and the objectives are met, sanctions should be lifted. In some types of cases, when criteria are partly met, sanctions could be partly lifted as a means of encouragement for further progress.

4. Sanctions should expire at the end of a specified term unless renewed
UN sanctions now continue until a decision is taken to lift them. In the Security Council, this means that a single Permanent Member can veto the lifting, against the will of a large Council majority. Sanctions should instead require a “green light” for renewal, even though the initial term could be set for a lengthy period.

5. Sanctions must always exempt food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies
General trade sanctions, such as those in place against Iraq, now often block humanitarian supplies including food and medicines. Rules for sanctions must allow clear exemptions for virtually all foods, medicines and other humanitarian supplies. Sanctions must also provide for delivery of these supplies and for their financing.

6. Sanctions aim to modify behavior, not to punish or exact retribution
Sanctions should not be confused with criminal law that results in a punishment. Sanctions must not punish or ostracize, but rather they must encourage a change of policy that leads to compliance with standards of international law.

7. Sanctions should be subject to pre-assessment
The effect of particular types of sanctions on a targetted population should always be subject to a pre-assessment study. Such a study would advise the Security Council on the probable impact of the proposed sanctions from a humanitarian point of view, as well as from the point of view of enforcement and efficacy.

8. Sanctions should be subject to monitoring and regular review
Sanctions must be reviewed on a regular and pre-established basis by the Security Council, and they must be monitored on an ongoing basis by the Secretariat. The monitoring process should employ regular indicators, to assess the humanitarian impact and other aspects of impact. Monitoring reports should be made public.

9. Sanctions regimes must take full account of “collateral effects”
Sanctions can have serious negative effects in nations that are neighbors or major trading partners of the target. Sanctions should seek to minimize such effects. When sanctions are put in place, they should provide for measuring collateral effects and allocating compensation, especially compensation to poor and vulnerable groups. Compensation funds must be fully and adequately financed.

10. Bodies imposing or supervising sanctions must have maximum possible transparency and accountability as well as improved working methods
The Security Council and its committees must have greater transparency and accountability in the matter of sanctions. This means regularly-scheduled meetings of the sanction committees, public reports on the work of the sanction committees, open debates (not closed consultations) on the occasion of the imposition of the sanctions and the periodic reviews, open reports on the monitoring process, and so forth.

11. UN Secretariat budgeting and staffing on sanctions needs to be strengthened
The budgets and staffing of the Secretariat must be sufficient to carry out the pre-assessments and regular monitoring, provide services for more frequent and regular sanction committee meetings, oversee enforcement, and fulfillment of other tasks not now sufficiently provided for.

12. Improve substantially the means of sanction enforcement
Sanctions are now very inadequately enforced and the UN has virtually no enforcement role. Sanctions must in future be enforced within the most multilateral possible framework. The UN should have sufficient naval and other inspection forces to be able to play a major role in enforcement. Minimally, the UN should have a fully-funded compliance-monitoring capability, free from member-state pressure and able to issue periodic reports that could mention member-states (including Security Council Permanent Members) that are not complying with the sanctions.

13. Unilateral sanctions must be eliminated
While regional bodies as well as the United Nations should be authorized to impose sanctions (if they use an established international code), individual states, sub-national entities or ad hoc coalitions should be forbidden from imposing sanctions. Only sanctions that command broad support at the regional or international level should be tolerated. Unilateral sanctions might themselves be considered a breach of law that might provoke sanctions by the international community!

14. Sanctions that don’t hurt the general population succeed better
It has been assumed that sanctions should be designed to hurt the general population of a country, who then are expected to bring pressure to bear on the political leadership to change policy. But this doesn’t work with non-democratic regimes, against whom sanctions are normally imposed. Such regimes are not open to such pressure from the public and they typically mobilize even stronger mass support when faced with a foreign challenge.

15. Develop targeted sanctions as the most effective and least harmful option
By contrast with general trade sanctions, targeted sanctions have a narrower focus and seek to minimize negative humanitarian effects and coolaterial damage while maximizing pressure on leaders. Targeting can aim at many possible items, including weapons trade. But more effort should be devoted to bringing pressure on decision-makers by targeting their travel, their personal assets and the like. Especially promising would be sanctions that freeze personal bank accounts and other assets like real estate.

16. Sanctions should not be considered alone, but as a last step in a broad process of prevention
Security crises and violations of international law typically arise in conditions of poverty and unjust development. Weapons trade and intelligence operations, based in northern countries, often worsen crises as means to gain geostrategic or corporate advantage. Those who aim for greater justice must look beyond sanctions towards preventive measures of a more fundamental and lasting type. The UN’s own initiatives for “prevention” can be strengthened as one part of this larger process.

Censorship: Consider that by not allowing certain words to be spoken, on basis of offensive meanings, is usually for the purpose of pretending that such acts/thoughts do not exist.

Acronyms: Orwell’s Party has Minipeace which is naturally, the Ministry of War. Singapore has Mindef, which is…

Political Correctness: Politically correct language, is said by supporters to free individuals from stereotypical preconceptions caused by the use of prejudicial terminology. Or is it merely unneccessary euphemisms that further accentuate a bias? For example, African-American versus Black. Alternative lifestyles versus gay. Could the sheer hypocrisy of using such terms lead to people’s prejudice becoming even more ingrained? If so, how?

Use these thoughts and the previous article to tide you over between trainings.

To find out more about Newspeak…

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad — I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen — but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

Professor Harold Laski
(Essay in Freedom of Expression )

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .

Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )

3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?

Essay on psychology in Politics (New York )

4. All the “best people” from the gentlemen’s clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

Communist pamphlet

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion’s roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as “standard English.” When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o’clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma’amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!

Letter in Tribune

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically “dead” (e.g. iron resolution ) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles’ heel, swan song, hotbed . Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a “rift,” for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung , are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g. and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous , and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations — race, battle, bread — dissolve into the vague phrases “success or failure in competitive activities.” This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing — no one capable of using phrases like “objective considerations of contemporary phenomena” — would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (“time and chance”) that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes. As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry — when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech — it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip — alien for akin — making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning — they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another — but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.” Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning’s post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he “felt impelled” to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: “[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany’s social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe.” You see, he “feels impelled” to write — feels, presumably, that he has something new to say — and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out of existence, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defence of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a “standard English” which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one’s meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a “good prose style.” On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one’s meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin, where it belongs.

Think and link:
- Why would we need to use vague language to explain certain policies?
- George Bush’s speeches have used plenty of imagery (ref: city on a shining hill).How is this good?
- Back to the original question: Should we try to standardize English in the future? Arguments for and against

Currently, the world is divided as to whether or not we face an energy crisis. Some fear that our traditional sources of energy are rapidly dwindling, as we consume huge amounts of oil and gas and fail to develop alternative sources as rapidly. Others however, most notably CEOs of large oil companies such as Lee Raymond and Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil, are fully confident that there is plenty of oil and that large scale exploration should continue.

Regardless of which view is correct, the current situation is such that oil prices have reached a historical high, breaking past the psychological $65 per barrel last year, hovering around the $80 p/b this year, and possibly touching $100 p/b in the near future.

Analysis: What are the factors causing oil prices to skyrocket?

1) The rising demand of China

China’s industrial base is consuming oil rapidly, contributing to 1/3 of the rise in oil demand. The number of cars on mainland roads—about 20 million—is expected to increase by 2.5 million this year alone. Even if China’s blazing GDP growth of 9.4% this year moderates to 8% in 2005, as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicts, the country is now a permanent major player in the global competition for oil.

2) Turbulence in energy-producing nations

Terrorism in Iraq and previous threats to the Basra pipelines once caused oil prices to spike. As it is, a risk premium is levied on each barrel – the higher the potential risks to oil supply, the faster prices increase. Currently, worries about conflict between Iran and the US are pushing oil prices higher again. Iran is one of the major producers of oil in the world, and any action taken against it would surely result cutting off the gas, and might even induce OPEC to reduce it’s exports as a form of protest. Muslim solidarity is a powerful factor in this case. Finally, Russia’s Gazprom is beginning to realize the power it holds by being a major supplier of natural gas to European nations. The effect will be covered more thoroughly in later paragraphs.

3) Natural disasters

Hurricane Katrina showed just where the bottleneck in oil production lies. While oil may seem to be in short supply (82 million barrels pumped a day, 81 million consumed daily), it is oil-processing facilities that may limit the production of usable oil and hence its appearance on the market. Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf region terribly, and destroyed much of the oil refineries and storehouses there, causing an immediate jump in prices. While the effect has subsided as refineries are rebuilt, it is nevertheless important to note that with the sharp spike in hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and possibly other natural disasters, oil premiums may continue to remain high.

Analysis: How energy shortage determines political maneouvering

1) Energy protectionism

The importance of energy has led to severe protection of each country’s oil producing companies. The reasoning is obvious: Should foreign companies be able to control a majority stakeholding in local oil-producing companies, they would by proxy control an important part of that country’s energy production and distribution. Therefore, in event of conflict of interests occuring, such control could conceivably be used to hamper or disrupt the supply of energy within the target country. For example, recently CNOOC of China tried to take over Unocal of America in an $18.5 billion dollar bid. However, this move was blocked by US lawmakers who felt that it would severely compromise ‘national security’. China later demanded that the US Congress “correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues and stop interfering in the normal commercial exchanges between enterprises of the two countries.”

2) Energy is power, no pun intended

By controlling the flow of energy (gas and oil) to other countries, supplier countries are able to impact the actions of client countries. Should client countries fail to act in a way desired by supplier countries, the energy card is played, and supplies are either cut off or redirected, sometimes on the pretext of selling to ‘newer markets’. History has shown us the power OPEC wielded when it dramatically reduced oil output in the past, leading to a surge in oil prices. However, more recently Russia, with it’s huge natural gas supplies, has begun to realize how the energy card can be played. In the wake of the Orange revolution in Ukraine, where pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko won, Russia raised gas prices in Ukraine fourfold, which Ukraine refused to pay. Gas supply to Ukraine was then halted, worrying many as winter approached. It was later resumed, but it clearly demonstrated the power of energy. Now, as Russia looks towards taking over Centrica (another energy company) in the UK, it has implied that there are other markets to which it can sell its’ gas should the EU try to stop its potential bid.

Russia-Ukraine
Russia-EU

Point: Why should Russia’s move be regarded as a double-edged sword?

3) Alternative energy

With an increasing understanding that energy security is vital, conscientious governments have begun championing a swing towards alternative energy and energy conservation. It is interesting to note that the USA, while choosing to disdain the above for the Kyoto Protocol, have nevertheless changed their tune in light of a growing trend towards energy security. Currently, President Bush is exhorting Americans to reduce fuel usage, an almost taboo subject in a country where driving is seen to be a God-given right. Furthermore, biofuels and biodiesels have gained prominence due to political reasons and high fuel prices. In Hawaii and Minnesota, all petrol must contain 10% ethanol, while Washington state requires petrol and diesel to contain 2% renewable fuel by volume. Conclusion: If nothing else, current political uncertainties may well push the world towards a cleaner and greener future, plus break the stranglehold oil companies have on the energy industry. However, do bear in mind that alternative energy is expensive, and the fuel used in the PRODUCTION of alternative energy itself is usually quite significant. This is the main reason fuel-cells have failed to take off.

Right, in this post significantly less information relevant to the debate topic has been given out, and now we expect significantly more examples to come from you. The information given may seem biased to one side of the debate, so the early bird gets the worm! A few examples you should look up are ALBA, comprising Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru; Iranian oil and of course OPEC. Naturally, these SHOULD be appearing in your points

Also, answer the question on Russia posed above, and show your chain of reasoning.

Topic: This House Would Sacrifice Economic Advantage for Energy Security

Firstly, the juxtaposition of wealthy but aging nations, against poor but young nations with high unemployment rates. Naturally, those from the poorer nations seek to enter richer nations, which presumably have greater job opportunities and frequently greater personal freedom and political stability as compared to their home country.

Point: What are good examples of nations with high unemployment rates, a large percentage of the population below 30, and widespread poverty? Conversely, what are the most popular nations to immigrate to?

Secondly, the increasing rate of globalization and traffic between countries has opened up many more opportunities for illegal immigrants to enter host countries. For example, several Chinese citizens were recently discovered in a container trying to enter the USA through a major port (which then later sparked fears of how terrorists could have done the same). Larger volumes of cross-border traffic and integration such as that espoused by the EU may also make immigration more feasible as immigration laws are relaxed.

The controversy:

The drawbacks of having a large immigrant population are generally said to be firstly, social instability. As witnessed in France, the disaffection of second generation French immigrants was the main cause of last year’s rioting and burning of cars. At the peak of the crisis, emergency powers were assumed by the government, the Paris suburbs were afire every night with burning cars, and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy referred to the rioters as ‘scum’ and ‘rabble’. Such disaffection was said to stem from a feeling of alienation and ostracization felt by many French Muslims, whos’ viewpoint may have been further reinforced by prevailing socio-economic chasms, as many of them were living in ghetto areas. Latinos in America have recently demonstrated repeatedly, the largest being on May 1, when large cities in America were hampered by a concerted plan of Latinos going on strike, protesting a law that would make illegal immigration a felony instead of a civil offence, and further considering any who aided such immigrants felons as well.

Secondly, immigrants (illegal and otherwise) provide a cheaper source of labor and are generally preferred to citizens for lower-end jobs. Such competition for jobs has left many worried regarding their own job security, and naturally politicians have jumped on the bandwagon, frequently using the threat of immigrant dominated labour pools and depressed wages to garner votes, thereby further inciting citizens against immigrants. Turkey’s potential accession to the EU is feared to have precisely this impact, in the midst of an already large flood of former Soviet nation workers entering the less competitive labour pools of Germany, France and Britain. Mexico, too, has long been a source of illegal immigration into the USA, which some contend is stealing jobs from everyday Americans. Legislature such as the Sensenbrenner Bill is being considered.

Finally, with Muslim diasporas forming in many countries, coupled with a growing sense of alienation, host countries fear the formation of terrorist breeding grounds, as well as the potential for terrorists to enter countries with porous borders.

However, consider also what good immigrants can do. Skilled workers, while forming a minority of immigration volume, are still highly essential. All the more so in countries which require all the talent they can get to remain competitive. America was reputedly founded on immigrants, and its dominance in various fields is the fruit of an immigration policy that has attracted the best and brightest. Recent cutbacks in immigration quotas have severly constrained this flow. For example, Saudi Arabia claims that the number of student visas awarded have dropped by more than 75% from pre-911 levels. Singapore, too, is another country which relies on and will continue to rely on attracting high profile immigrant talent to the country, especially in the fields of biotechnology.

Immigrants also provide cheaper labour needed to give national industries the competitive edge required to survive today. Immigrants also tend to occupy low-paid, low-skilled jobs which are nevertheless highly necessary for the functioning of the economy. According to the Economist, only 10% of lorry drivers turned up in Los Angeles on May 1; tens of thousands of Florida farm workers left farms untended, and certain food processing companies were shut down for the day. Restricting immigration means that a gap would have to be filled, and not many are willing to fill it. French companies are notorious for fantastic employee benefits, which tend to cut into efficiency and productivity. But reports show that private French companies aggresively hiring foreign workers who settle for less are doing much better than their nationalized counterparts.

Point: And yet the French reject the CPF. What is the CPF (First Employment Contract) and how could it have potentially alleviated the immigrant situation?

Finally, immigrants also seem to exert an increasingly strong political presence, which means that
politicians will have to bear this in mind when formulating policies. Extended families whos’ members are citizens can frequently form an important swing vote in elections. Also, diasporas like the Latino, Chinese, Indian and Muslim diaspora may increasingly assert race and civilizational loyalties in elections in the future.

Topic: This House Would Slam Its Doors Shut

Additional Key Words: Outsourcing; USA/Mexico; French-Muslim; Turkey-EU; War refugees (?)