Free Gaza boat makes landfall

Good news from Gaza for once. The Free Gaza Movement, a US/international activist group, has managed to land another boat filled with humanitarian supplies in the besieged Palestinian territory. The Israeli government sealed Gaza in completely over 16 months ago following a deliberate destruction of its civilian infrastructure similar to that which it attempted to in southern Lebanon. It was already a difficult, dangerous and often humiliating process attempting to get in and out of Gaza for Palestinians, but in 2006 Israel turned it from virtually a prison to an actual prison.

Since then Palestinians have faced a desperate struggle to get essential supplies. A jubilant but brief mass breech of the Gaza-Egypt border helped, but since then Palestinians have relied on smuggling goods through tunnels dug under the border. Forty people have died in these dangerous attempts to survive.

The 'international community' has done nothing for Gazan Palestinians. It refuses to put any real pressure on Israel despite the clear humanitarian implications. To give just one example, the EU could suspend its Association Agreement with Israel, which gives Israeli goods preferential access to European markets, but which has a clause which allows suspension of the agreement in response to human rights concerns.

In this context, the Free Gaza boat is a hugely important symbolic gesture. The supplies its delivering are real, although small compared to the needs of 1½ million Gazans. Israel obviously decided that the negative PR it would get from stopping the boat would be less that it would get from ignoring it, and that its small load would not really affect the blockade. But either outcome is vastly better than if no-one had gone. It says to the world, and to the Palestinians, that we have not forgotten Gaza, and piles on the pressure for change. Congratulations to the Free Gaza Movement.

Towards a diet of only ocassional meat!

As a bit of a foodie (or food snob as certain of my colleagues at work would have it, apparently due to the fact that I express opinions about food) I tend to get drawn in to watching cookery shows on television. The fact that most TV chefs are quite annoying tends to act as a countervailing tendency, ensuring I pick and choose rather than watching them all.

A recent new show on BBC 2 is a case in point. 'What to eat now' is a series about eating seasonally – an environmentally important direction we need to go in, and something which I personally try and do. Not that the environment gets mentioned in the programme. The presenter, an infeasibly posh man by the name of Valentine, just tells us eating seasonally is the tastiest way to do it. Well, that's OK, we don't need to be banged over the head with our carbon footprint the whole time, and I'll watch to find out what seasonal stuff I can cook.

So off Val goes to shoot deer on the Isle of Arran, since it is of course the season for venison, and then cooks up a delicious venison pie. Which I'm sure is as scrummy as his audible gasps of delight suggest, but which rather begs the question of how practical this show is for most people.

Like most cookery programmes, of course, 'What to eat now' is more an aspirational show than a practical guide to making better meals. Modern consumer capitalism has ensured that most people don't have either the time or the ability to cook properly, destroying as it does what is an important cultural activity. Cookery shows mollify us instead, providing a spectacle of food preparation in place of the real thing. And for those of us who can and do still cook, they offer up a tantalising prospect of aspirational fulfilment through culinary advancement.

Which is one reason why so much meat is on the menu. Trouble is, we need a lot less meat on our menus. The latest report from the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), 'Cooking up a storm' recommends a significant reduction in the amount of meat we eat, and dairy products too. These are by far the most carbon intensive parts of our diet, and in the rich world we tend to eat much more than we need. The chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has also made the rather more gimmicky call for everyone to have one meat-free day a week.

For me, that would be a significant increase in meat consumption, but not so for the majority of people in the UK I suspect. That's why we need a change in food culture. I'm not someone who advocates world veganism as a solution to climate change – its not feasible or necessary. The figure that some vegans quote in this regard, that livestock account for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, though it comes from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation is perhaps a little misleading. It includes, for instance, the emissions from clearing the Brazilian rainforest to graze beef cattle, which while a massive problem, could be stopped without really changing how the world eats.

The FCRN estimates the UK figure is more like 8% of our greenhouse gas emissions. While the difference is partly because our emissions from other sectors are so massive this is somewhat lower than 18%. Its still something we have to deal with though, which brings me back to the celebrity chefs. It may be but a small part of the solution, but we (as in the nation, rather than the people reading this blog) need to start to see a meal made entirely from vegetables, grains and pulses as normal and acceptable.

That means, for instance, that Nigel Slater's seasonal vegetable stew doesn't need to include pancetta – he may hold up his hands in horror, but it really doesn't. I'm not arguing for vegetarian cookery shows, as they will only appeal to existing vegetarians, but for mainstream cookery shows (and tie-in books) to start cutting out a big chunk of their meat and some dairy too. Certain celebrity chefs have discovered a zeal for campaigning recently, and mostly that's welcome. Now its time for all of them to step up and help us towards a diet of only occasional meat-eating.

Bolivian democracy under threat

When Evo Morales was elected President of Bolivia in December 2005, it was a watershed in Bolivian politics. Not only was he the first indigenous President in a country whose political system was monopolised by the wealthy white elite, but his victory was not simply that of a well fought election campaign, but was on the back of the massive growth in social movements in Bolivia. The victories these movements had clocked up included kicking private water company Bechtel out of Cochabamba and taking the water system back into public hands. Those movements, whilst supporting Morales in the main, have not dissolved themselves into his Movement towards Socialism political party, but remained mobilised.

Bolivia is also internationally significant. As an ally of Venezuela's Chavez in particular, at the radical end of the new spectrum of left-leaning governments in Latin America, Morales' role in starting to find alternatives to neoliberalism is crucial. The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a co-operation agreement between Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Dominica, has seen trade agreements between individual countries in the alliance based not on business interests, but on mutual social benefit. In many ways, Bolivia is at the heart of the hope for the world for those on the left.

Just like in Venezuela though, a shrill wealthy minority have been kicking up a stink. They haven't tried a coup yet, like they did in Venezuela against Chavez, but in the regions where they are concentrated there has been widespread political (and racist) violence. Bolivia's landowners don't want the poor, the indigenous to reclaim Bolivia, and the USA agrees. USAID, the United States' overseas development organisation has been pouring money into the coffers of the opposition. It spent $89 million in Bolivia in 2007, a massive amount considering Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, but it won't disclose what on.

There's lots more to be said about this and two places to read more are the open letter to the US State Department written by US activists, and analysis from Jim Shultz at the Democracy Center. But its also time we did something to defend one of the most progressive governments in the world. There was a protest at the US embassy in London the other week, but we need to step up our efforts. WDM's online action is a start, not least because the silence of our own government has been deafening. Bolivia is a beacon to the world; let's ensure it is defended.