Can Cop28

bridge the gulf

between big oil
and climate
campaigners?
10

PLUS
Diane von Fürstenberg
On that dress, survival and love
51
 A week in the life of the world Inside
8 December 2023
As Cop28 opened in Dubai last week, it was difficult 4 -14 GLOBAL REPORT
to ignore the paradox of a climate conference in Headlines from the last
the home of big oil. Many argue that fossil fuel seven days
companies must be part of the net zero solution, 10 UAE What Dubai stands
but the scepticism of others was compounded by to gain from Cop28
Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber – also the chief
executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil 15-33 SPOTLIGHT
company, Adnoc – reportedly claiming there was no In-depth reporting
scientific basis for phasing out fossil fuels. and analysis
Ruth Michaelson writes on how Dubai hopes to 15 Israel/Palestine Gaza,
cash in on its oil industry networks in exchange after the ceasefire
for building its global soft power brand, while 19 Ukraine Kherson defiance
environment editor Fiona Harvey considers the role 22  Europe Why young
of Al Jaber and the bigger question of whether fossil voters are leaning far right
fuels should be phased out, or simply reduced. 24 UK Sellafield hacked
The big story Page 10  29 New Zealand Māori rights
under threat
Last week’s ceasefire in Gaza resulted in the release 30 Health Legal drug rooms
of hostages on both sides, but also allowed Israel and 33 US Kissinger’s legacy
Hamas forces to regroup after nearly two months of
fighting. International security correspondent Jason 34-44 F E AT U R E S

Dubai’s bid to
Burke assesses the situation for both sides. Long reads, interviews
Spotlight Page 15  and essays
34 Living with less stuff

build influence, Our Deaths column features some notable losses

this week, including ex-US secretary of state
Henry Kissinger, the ex-Pogues frontman Shane
40
By Chip Colwell
Late love in a care home
By Sophie Elmhirst
taking stock on MacGowan and the first woman to serve on the US
supreme court, Sandra Day O’Connor. On page 33, 45-50 OPINION

Israel-Hamas Julian Borger writes about how respect for Kissinger

transcended political divisions, while in the Culture
section chief music critic Alexis Petridis pays tribute
45

47
Simon Tisdall
Berlin and Kyiv’s love-in
Marina Prentoulis

war and kicking to MacGowan, a troubled but loved lyrical genius.

Deaths Page 7  48
The Parthenon squabbles
Gaby Hinsliff

consumerism
Rape must never be
How easy would it be to live without so much stuff ? trivialised, even in war
It’s a question many people ponder at this time
of year, with the gift-giving season almost upon 51-59 C U LT U R E
us. Chip Colwell and his family tried to kick their TV, film, music, theatre,
addiction to consumerism and found it harder than art, architecture & more
expected, but learned valuable lessons on the way. 51 Fashion
Too much stuff Page 34  The life threads of
Diane von Fürstenberg
54 Music
On the cover Some Cop veterans argue that Shane MacGowan, a lyrical
conference president Sultan Al Jaber can bring lightning rod
Middle Eastern oil producers to the table. But others 55 Books
fear his dual role as chief of the UAE’s national oil Booker prophecy realised
company is a clear conflict of interest. Sébastien
Thibault’s cover image this week perfectly captures 60-61 LIFESTYLE
the tricky balancing act of bringing fossil fuel 60 Ask Annalisa
companies and climate campaigners together. I don’t want to be the
Illustration: Sébastien Thibault ‘good girl’ any more

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The Guardian Weekly Australia. The weekly magazine has an international focus and three editions: global,
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4

Global
2 UKRAINE 4 CANADA

Key Hong Kong protest

report leader flees to Toronto

Agnes Chow, a high-profile Hong
Kong activist who was jailed
over the 2019 pro-democracy
protests and charged with foreign
Headlines from the collusion, has moved to Canada
last seven days and says she will probably never
return to Hong Kong to meet her
bail conditions.
1 C L I M AT E C R I S I S White House pleads with
In social media posts, Chow
Congress for $61bn for Kyiv said she had moved to Canada to
Cop28 head cornered over
The White House has said it is study and was suffering mental
fossil fuel phase-out claim “out of money and nearly out of health impacts as a result of the
Copyright © 2023 The president of Cop28 was forced time” to provide more weapons pressure and restrictions she was
GNM Ltd. All rights to mount a fierce defence of his to Ukraine as it tries to ward off under in Hong Kong, awaiting trial
reserved views on climate science, after the Russia’s invasion unless Congress on national security charges.
Guardian revealed his comment acts to approve additional funding Chow is a well-known activist
Published weekly by that there was “no science out and support. The warning, and a key leader of the youth-
Guardian News & there, or no scenario out there, issued on Monday in a letter to driven protest movements of
Media Ltd, that says that the phase-out congressional leaders, laid out how 2012, 2014 and 2019, running the
Kings Place, of fossil fuel is what’s going to the government has already gone pro-democracy group Demosisto
90 York Way,
achieve 1.5C”. through about $111bn appropriated with fellow activist Joshua Wong
London, N1 9GU, UK
Sultan Al Jaber, who is also for Ukraine military aid. and pushing back against Beijing’s
Printed in the UK, the chief executive of the The latest plea for money increasingly authoritarian rule in
Denmark, the US, United Arab Emirates’ state oil comes after the White House Hong Kong. She has not spoken
Australia and company, Adnoc, said at a press asked Congress to act on a $100bn publicly since she was released
New Zealand conference at the summit in Dubai, supplemental funding request in in 2021 after seven months in jail
which is due to conclude on 12 October, arguing that it “advances over a protest in Hong Kong in
ISSN 0958-9996 December: “I respect the science in our national security and supports 2019. She said that she was able to
everything I do. I have repeatedly our allies and partners”. The get her passport back by agreeing
To advertise contact said that it is the science that has request identified border security, to take part in a propaganda tour
advertising.
guided the principles or strategy as allies in the Indo-Pacific, Israel in mainland China accompanied
enquiries@
Cop28 president. We have always and about $61bn for Ukraine. by national security officers and
theguardian.com
built everything, every step of the Opinion Page 45  sign a letter of “repentance”.
To subscribe, visit way, on the science, on the facts.”
theguardian.com/ Al Jaber made the controversial
gw-subscribe comments in ill-tempered
3 U N I T E D S TAT E S 5 U N I T E D S TAT E S
responses to the former UN
Manage your climate envoy Mary Robinson
subscription at
Fabulist George Santos Trump can be sued over
during an online event on
subscribe. 21 November. At the press expelled from Congress January 6, court rules
theguardian.com/ conference, Al Jaber said: “I The New York Republican, Donald Trump must face civil
manage
have incredible respect for Mary fabulist and accused fraudster lawsuits over his role in the 6
Robinson.” George Santos, was expelled from January 2021 attack on the Capitol
USA and Canada
gwsubsus
He added: “I have said over Congress, becoming only the sixth by his supporters after a panel
@theguardian.com and over the phase-down and member ever expelled from the of the US court of appeals for the
Toll Free: the phase-out of fossil fuel is US House. Santos has pleaded not District of Columbia circuit found
+1-844-632-2010 inevitable. In fact, it is essential.” guilty to 23 federal fraud charges that Trump was acting “in his
The big story Page 10  but has not been tried. A previous personal capacity as a presidential
Australia and expulsion attempt failed in part candidate” when he urged his
New Zealand because senior Democrats voted supporters to march to the
apac.help no, citing the dangers of expelling Capitol. US presidents are immune
@theguardian.com members without convictions from civil lawsuits only for official
Toll Free:
secured. But a damning report actions. The panel made it clear
1 800 773 766
from the House ethics committee it was not precluding him from
UK, Europe and changed the political equation. arguing that he was acting in his
Rest of World Mike Johnson, the Republican official capacity as a defence as the
gwsubs@ speaker, had earlier sought to lawsuit proceeds.
theguardian.com persuade Santos to resign. Spotlight Page 32 
+44 (0) 330 333 6767

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023

UK headlines p9

9 FRANCE

Alleged killer of tourist ‘had

6 GERMANY
Snow stops indebted rail
company in its tracks
Decades of underinvestment in
the German railways have been
blamed for chaos in parts of the
country after heavy snow led to
much of the network grinding to a
halt. Snowfall of up to half a metre
in Bavaria, southern Germany,
led to numerous breakdowns
and prompted the cancellation of
scores of trains.
The head of the Railway and
Transport Union, Martin Burkert,
called large parts of Germany’s
rail infrastructure “creaking and
dilapidated”. Deutsche Bahn,
which is wholly state-owned,
has been described as being in
“permanent crisis” by Germany’s
national audit office, with debts at
€30bn ($32.7bn).
pledged allegiance to IS’
A 26-year-old man suspected
of killing a German-Filipino
tourist and wounding two
others near the Eiffel Tower in
Paris last Saturday night had
pledged allegiance to the Islamic
State in a video released online.
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, 6 2
a French citizen, “had recorded
4
a video before committing the
act”, according to anti-terrorism
3,5 prosecutor Jean-François Ricard.
Rajabpour-Miyandoab, who
had served four years in prison for
planning an Islamist attack before
being released in 2020, had been
monitored by the intelligence
10 THE NETHERLANDS
services for “persistent
radicalisation” and had undergone
psychiatric treatment.

Bidding wars for first

7 VENEZUELA
Bid to claim large swathe of
Guyana falls flat with voters
Guyana’s government were
reportedly “relieved” after a
referendum in Venezula intended
to rubber-stamp Caracas’s claim to
about two-thirds of its neighbour’s
territory appeared to have
backfired.
Nicolás Maduro had hoped to
leverage his country’s century-
long claim to the Essequibo
region to mobilise public support
but voting stations across the
country were largely quiet on
Sunday. Turnout appeared
so underwhelming that the
Venezuelan government has been
accused of falsifying the results.
8 P A R A G U AY
Deal with f ictional country
gets duped of f icial the sack
A government official was
replaced after it was revealed
that he signed a memorandum
of understanding with
representatives of a fugitive
Indian guru’s fictional country,
who also appear to have duped
several other officials in Paraguay.
Arnaldo Chamorro was
replaced as chief of staff for the
agriculture ministry shortly
after it was revealed that he
signed a “proclamation” with
representatives of the United
States of Kailasa. The fictional
country is led by a self-styled
guru, Nithyananda, who is wanted
in India on several charges,
including sexual assault. His
whereabouts are unknown.
edition of pulled royal book
Dutch first editions of the book
Endgame, which named King
Charles and the Princess of
Wales as allegedly speculating
on the skin colour of the Duke
and Duchess of Sussex’s unborn
baby, have been selling online for
many times above the original
retail price of €22.99. Bids on
Marktplaats reached €175 ($190)
the day after the revelation.
Eindstrijd, the Dutch
translation of Omid Scobie’s
Endgame, was pulled after Dutch
journalists said the book named
the two senior royals. Scobie
suggested in an interview that
there must have been a translation
error. “There has never been a
version I produced that has names
in it,” he said.

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

 11 I S R A E L / PA L E S T I N E

IDF warned by US and UN as

it pushes into south of Gaza
Israel has been urged by UN and
US officials to avoid a repeat of
the devastating impact that its
operations in northern Gaza had
on civilians as the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) expanded its ground
offensive against Hamas further
south to the city of Khan Younis.
On Monday, Israel ordered 20
the evacuation of parts of the
city, advising Palestinians to
head further south to Rafah, as 18
dozens of Israeli tanks, armoured
personnel carriers and bulldozers
entered the Gaza Strip near Khan 16
Younis. Hundreds of thousands
of displaced Palestinians are
sheltering in the city after fleeing
from fighting in the north.
Spotlight Page 15 

12 YEMEN

Three commercial vessels

attacked by Houthi rebels 15

Three commercial vessels came

under attack in international
waters in the southern Red Sea,
the US military said last Sunday,
as Yemen’s Houthi group claimed
drone and missile attacks on two
Israeli vessels in the area.
“We have every reason to
believe that these attacks, while
launched by the Houthis in
Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran,”
a statement read.
The Carney, a US destroyer,
responded to distress calls
following missile and drone
launches from Houthi-controlled
territory, according to US Central
Command. It named the vessels
attacked as Unity Explorer,
Number 9 and Sophie II.
13 H E A LT H
Criminalising gay sex
‘impedes fight against Aids’
Anti-homosexuality laws stop
people from accessing lifesaving
health services and seriously
impede progress on eliminating
HIV, a senior UN official said.
Sixty-seven countries have
laws criminalising gay sex. In
those countries, prevalence
rates are about five times higher
among gay men than in countries
where same-sex relations are not
criminalised, UNAids figures show.
“When LGBTQ+ people and
other marginalised communities
are stigmatised and criminalised,
their access to lifesaving health
services is obstructed,” said
Winnie Byanyima, of UNAids.
14 PHILIPPINES
19
Residents return home
after tsunami alert lifted
Residents were allowed to return
to their homes a day after a
magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck
the country’s south, killing at least
one person, with minor damage to
some infrastructure reported.
The quake last Saturday shook
parts of Surigao del Sur and Davao
Oriental provinces, triggering
coastal evacuations and tsunami
alerts in the Philippines and Japan.
The Institute of Volcanology
and Seismology said the
tsunami threat had passed, but
advised people in threatened
communities to heed instructions
from local authorities.

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


Global report
15 INDONESIA
At least 23 feared dead after
Mount Marapi erupts
Rescuers searching the hazardous
slopes of Indonesia’s Mount
Marapi volcano found more
bodies among the climbers caught
by a surprise eruption last Sunday,
raising the number of confirmed
and presumed dead to 23. A
rescue official said three people
were found alive on the volcano.
More than 50 climbers were
rescued after the initial eruption.
Another eruption on Monday
spewed a new burst of hot ash as
high as 800 metres into the air
and temporarily halted search
operations.
Marapi has stayed at the
third-highest of four alert levels
since 2011, a level indicating
above-normal volcanic activity,
prohibiting climbers and villagers
from coming within 3km of
the peak.
16 INDIA
Claims of plot to assassinate
Sikh separatist rejected
Delhi has responded to allegations
by the US Department of Justice
that an Indian agent attempted to
assassinate a Sikh separatist on US
soil, stating such a crime would be
“contrary to government policy”.
The DoJ indictment, which was
made public last week, included
damning details regarding the
alleged attempted assassination
of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US
citizen, by an Indian intelligence
officer referred to only as CC-1.
According to the allegation, CC-1
“directed the assassination plot
from India”.
Pannun is a vocal critic of the
Indian government.
The big story p10 
7
17 NIGERIA 19 SP ORT D E AT H S
Army drone strike accident Fears for Commonwealth
kills at least 85 civilians Games after hosts withdraw
An army drone strike accidentally The Gold Coast has withdrawn
killed at least 85 civilians its bid to host the 2026
observing a Muslim festival in Commonwealth Games, the city’s Henry Kissinger
the north-west last Sunday, the mayor, Tom Tate, said, after he Former US
country’s armed forces have admitted it had not received secretary of state.
admitted. enough support from the state or He died on 29
Villagers in Tudun Biri in the federal governments. November,
state of Kaduna had gathered With Victoria also having pulled aged 100.
for the Maulud celebration out of hosting the Games in July Spotlight p33
when at about 9pm they heard due to spiralling costs, and no
what sounded like an aeroplane obvious other candidates waiting Shane
followed by a huge explosion. in the wings, there are fears MacGowan
“We couldn’t even run,” Danjuma that the Games could be facing English-born
Salisu, a survivor, said from his an existential threat. However, Irish singer and
hospital bed, where he was being a Commonwealth Games songwriter.
treated for hand and leg injuries. Federation spokesperson urged He died on 30
According to local reports, patience while the hunt for a new November,
villagers fled the area, fearing host resumed. aged 65.
further strikes. Army officials The UK government has said it Appreciation p54
and representatives from Kaduna will not step in to rescue the event
state government have met village again, as it did with Birmingham Sandra Day
elders, promising that those in 2022 after Durban was stripped O’Connor
affected would be compensated. of the event in 2017. The first woman
The army said it had been to serve on the US
carrying out “a routine supreme court.
mission against terrorists but She died on 1
inadvertently affected members December,
of the community”. It did not give aged 93.
casualty figures or explain how the
accident had happened but local Alistair Darling
residents said 85 people, many of Politician who
them women and children, had was UK chancellor
been killed. 2007-10. He died
on 30 November,
aged 70.
18 S O U T H KO R E A 20 JA PA N Faustin
Twagiramungu
Seoul’s spy satellite launch Hibernation delay warning
Prime minister of
escalates space race as bear attacks hit record Rwanda after the
A SpaceX rocket launched South The number of people injured genocide. He died
Korea’s first military spy satellite, or killed in bear attacks this on 2 December,
intensifying a space race on year exceeded 200 for the first aged 78.
the peninsula after Pyongyang time, as experts warned of more
launched its own first surveillance encounters during the winter, Glenys Kinnock
satellite last month. when the animals are supposed Former UK
Seoul’s reconnaissance to hibernate. minister and MEP
satellite, carried by one of Elon The environment ministry said who was wife of
Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, 212 people had been attacked since Labour leader Neil
lifted off from the Vandenberg April, including 30 in November, Kinnock. She died
US Space Force Base in California according to broadcaster NHK. on 3 December,
last Friday. Six people have died, including aged 79.
Seoul plans to launch four an angler in the Hokkaido region,
additional spy satellites by whose partial remains were found Elliott Erwitt
the end of 2025 to bolster its near a 1.5-metre tall bear. French-born US
reconnaissance capacity over the The previous record injury tally photographer.
North. Until now it has relied on in Japan of 158 was reported in the He died on 29
US-run spy satellites. year from April 2020. November,
aged 95.
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
8 Global report
SCIENCE A N D EN V IRON M EN T
ENERGY
World’s largest nuclear fusion
reactor inaugurated in Japan
The world’s biggest operational
experimental nuclear fusion reactor
was inaugurated in Naka, Japan.
The goal of the JT-60SA reactor is to
investigate the feasibility of fusion
as a safe, large-scale and carbon-free
source of net energy – with more
energy generated than is put into
producing it. The six-storey-high
machine will contain plasma heated
up to 200mC. The ultimate aim is to
coax hydrogen nuclei inside to fuse
into one heavier element, helium,
releasing energy in the form of light
and heat, and mimicking the process
that takes place inside the sun.
GENETICS
Genomes of 500,000 UK
volunteers released for study
Health researchers from around
the world can now apply to study
the whole genomes of half a million
people enrolled in UK Biobank, a
biomedical research project that
has compiled detailed health and
lifestyle records on individuals since
it began 20 years ago. It amounts
to the largest number of whole-
genome sequences ever released for
medical research.
The sequences will be used with
UK Biobank’s anonymised records
and other data. Researchers believe
the new data will allow them to
calculate people’s individual risk
scores for a slew of cancers and other
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
diseases, and so work out who could
benefit most from early screening.
WILDLIFE
Elusive mole sniffed out 86
years after it was last seen
An iridescent golden mole not
recorded since before the second
world war has been rediscovered
“swimming” in the sand near the
coastal town of Port Nolloth in
north-west South Africa.
The De Winton’s golden mole
(Cryptochloris wintoni) lives in
underground burrows and had
not been seen since 1937. It gets its
“golden” name from oily secretions
that lubricate its fur so it can “swim”
through sand dunes. This means it
does not create conventional tunnels,
making it all the harder to detect.
The mole has now been
rediscovered 86 years after its last
sighting, thanks to a two-year search
by conservationists and a border
collie dog called Jessie, who was
trained to sniff out golden moles.
Their findings have been published
in the journal Biodiversity and
Conservation.
A ST RONOM Y
Planet sextet dances to same
ratio 100m light years away
Six planets that orbit their star in
a coordinated dance have been
discovered by scientists, who say
the finding could help shed light on
why planets in our own solar system
move to their own beat. The newly
discovered planets orbit a star that
sits about 100 light years away in the
constellation Coma Berenices, with
a mass about 20% smaller than our
Sun. Their movements appear to be
tied together: the team said the time
it takes one planet to travel around
the star was related to that of the next
planet by a neat ratio.
“This system has this very delicate
resonant configuration, which
has been preserved for billions of
years,” said Dr Rafael Luque from the
University of Chicago, co-author of
the research, which was published in
the journal Nature.
United Kingdom
I M M I G R AT I O N
Cleverly unveils plan to cut
net migration by 300,000
The home secretary, James
Cleverly, announced a five-point
plan aimed at delivering the
biggest ever cut in net migration
to the UK, prompting fears of
 The JT-60SA heightened staff shortages in the
is a joint project NHS and social care.
between the Cleverly announced that the
European Union minimum salary requirement
and Japan and is for a skilled worker visa would
the precursor to a rise to £38,700 ($48, 850), while
reactor in France a rule that allows for people in
NATIONAL INSTITUTES professions with the greatest need
FOR QUANTUM SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY/AFP/ to be hired at 20% below the going
GETTY rate will be scrapped.
Cleverly told the House of
Commons that these measures,
along with increasing the
immigration health surcharge to
£1,035 and reviewing the graduate
visa route, would help reduce net
migration by 300,000 after their
introduction in spring 2024.
The proposals are much more
radical than Downing Street
originally intended, owing to
pressure from Conservative
backbenchers and Robert Jenrick,
the immigration minister. Official
estimates say net migration to the
UK was a record 745,000 in 2022.
Cleverly told parliament
that in the year to September,
about 120,000 dependants
accompanied 100,000 care
workers and senior care workers.
“Only 25% of dependants are
estimated to be in work, meaning
a significant number are drawing
on public services rather than
helping grow the economy,”
he said.
He did not say how many fewer
10k
care workers the government
expected to come to the UK as
a result of the changes. There
The number are now 152,000 care worker
of naps – often vacancies in England.
for just four
seconds, but
adding up to
11 hours – that
chinstrap
penguins
take per day,
allowing them
to keep a
constant eye on
their nests

Eyewitness
 Snow angel
An aerial view of the snow-
covered Angel of the North
statue, in Gateshead, after
the first cold snap of the year
brought wintry conditions
to many parts of the country.
Thousands of homes and
businesses were left without
power after snowfall brought
down trees and stranded
hundreds of motorists, after
up to 1 metre of snow fell
in parts of the Lake District
last weekend.
OWEN HUMPHREYS/PA
LABOUR
Starmer bleak about post-
election public spending
Labour will not “turn on the
spending taps” if it wins the next
election, Keir Starmer said. The
Labour leader used a speech on
the economy to warn that Britain
is in its worst economic state in
more than half a century and
lay the ground for what shadow
ministers expect to be extremely
tight spending constraints after
the general election.
It was the first time Starmer
spoke publicly about the long-term
path of public sector spending
since last month’s autumn
statement, which put the UK on
course for another round of public
sector cuts after the election.
In a speech to the Resolution
Foundation thinktank, he said:
“This parliament is on track to
be the first in modern history
where living standards in this
country have actually contracted.
Household income growth is down
by 3.1% … This is worse than the
1970s, worse than the recessions
of the 1980s and 1990s, and worse
even than the great crash of 2008.”
DIPL OMACY
Was the King’s tie part of
knotty Parthenon problem?
The tie worn by King Charles
when he addressed Cop28
alongside Rishi Sunak raised
speculation that he was sending
a coded message about the prime
minister’s recent snub of his Greek
counterpart over the status of the
Parthenon sculptures.
A royal source said the tie, which
features the Greek flag, was one of
his current collection and pointed
out that he had also worn it during
the recent South Korean state visit,
as well as on previous occasions at
times of news stories about Greece.
According to Greek media, the
tie is from the Pagoni Maison des
Cravates, an Athens boutique.
Opinion Page 47 
UK Spotlight p24
9
C U LT U R E
Conan Doyle resented
Sherlock Holmes creation
Arthur Conan Doyle secretly hated
his creation Sherlock Holmes and
blamed the character for denying
him recognition as the author of
highbrow fiction, according to the
historian Lucy Worsley.
Doyle was catapulted from
“obscurity to worldwide fame”
after his crime stories began
appearing in a magazine in 1891,
Worsley wrote in the Radio Times.
Eleven years later he was awarded
a knighthood. Yet “beneath the
surface he was a discontented
man”, according to Worsley.
Conan Doyle struggled to find a
publisher for his Sherlock stories
after initially approaching the
intellectual Cornhill magazine.
“Only after they, and two others,
rejected Mr Holmes, was he
finally accepted by a fourth, much
trashier, publisher. They said the
work was exactly what they were
looking for: ‘cheap fiction’.”
Conan Doyle wrote four novels
and 56 short stories about the
mastermind’s pursuit of criminals
using his powers of deduction.
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
The big story
Cop28
U N I T E D A R A B E M I R AT E S
The city-state is offering the UN’s global climate
conference access to its oil-industry networks

T
HE DUBAI SKYLINE
in the hope of boosting its soft power brand. But is designed to inspire
wonder, the sparkling
who stands to benefit most? By Ruth Michaelson glass towers reflect-
ing the desert sky.
At the northern end

Dubai’s net
of the emirate, the world’s tallest
skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, juts into
the atmosphere.
If you face the tower with your back
to a neighbourhood that largely houses
migrant workers, you can gaze at it

zero gains
through a 150-metre-high gold frame
– also the world’s largest – intended
to present the real-life cityscape as
though looking at a photo.
The sense of awe that comes from

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


The full A foot in
picture both camps
Charting the The oil man
climate crisis running Cop
Page 13 Page 14
staring up at the towers of glass and
metal or the fake canals and lakes
between them, much like the mani-
cured islands created to function as
sea-level gated communities for the
wealthy and famous, comes from
the constant sense that everything
the eye lands on has been created by
human hands. Nothing is organic, and
nothing is accidental.
“The emirate’s brand identity is
a strange medley of Wall Street and
Disneyland,” wrote the Lebanese
typographer Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-
Farès. Dubai’s dedication to marketing
itself is paramount: it is no coincidence
that one arm of its government media
office is named Brand Dubai.
That the city-state of Dubai has been
hosting the UN’s Cop28 climate confer-
ence rather than the Emirati capital,
Abu Dhabi, is simply on brand, one
that rests on Dubai’s image as a global
transport hub and haven of free trade.
While the United Arab Emirates’
interventionist and regionally influ-
ential foreign policy once prompted
the former US defence secretary James
Mattis to label the country “Little
Sparta”, the image of a regional mili-
tary superpower is more closely tied
to Abu Dhabi, which sets the agenda
for the UAE’s domestic and inter-
national affairs.
“Within the UAE, Dubai has become
a centre of soft power while Abu
Dhabi is all about hard power, mak-
ing decisions on security, defence,
regional security issues,” said Kristian
Ulrichsen of Rice University’s Baker
Institute for Public Policy. “Dubai is
this aspirational hub intended for
people all over the world to live in, to
work, to do business – that’s replicated
in having this event in Dubai.”
With “brand Dubai” intent on
encouraging the world to visit, Abu
Dhabi’s approach is one intent on out-
reach and influence. Hosting the UN
climate conference “is all about the
positive international branding asso-
ciated with this event”, said Matthew
Hedges, an expert on the UAE who was
jailed and tortured there after being
accused of spying during his doctoral
research, charges he has long denied.
“To describe the Dubai brand, that
image is one of a liberal, global mod-
ern hub – one intended for holidays,
for business, for connection,” he said.
This image often belies the policies
underneath, including the environ-
mental costs: Dubai’s Blue Carbon
▲ The Dubai
skyline seen
through the giant
Dubai Frame
building
ALEKSANDAR TOMIC/
ALAMY
 Sultan Ahmed
Al Jaber (centre)
attends the
opening session
of Cop28
SEAN GALLUP/GETTY
11
‘In the UAE, Dubai has
become a centre of
soft power while Abu
Dhabi is hard power’
recently acquired 24m hectares of
forests across five countries in Africa,
intended for carbon trading. “The UAE
is trying to use its financial base to
exploit weaknesses in global actors,
and trying to dictate what is good
and what should be done for climate
action to suit their own benefit, rather
than something from a broader civic
consensus,” said Hedges. “It’s govern-
ment to government, not government
to civil society. It’s the UAE dictating
on their terms.”
While it is Abu Dhabi that sits atop
almost all of the Emirates’ oil reserves,
Dubai benefits from that wealth, pro-
viding a shiny gloss to the petrostate
that comes with being a regional
financial centre and glamorous inter-
national holiday destination, replete
with opulent bars and spots designed
for influencers to pose.
The emirate also champions
industries tightly linked with fossil
fuel consumption, despite having
little oil wealth of its own, with the
Dubai airport and the Emirates air-
line foundational to its decades-long
efforts to become a key hub for any-
one flying between Asia and Europe,
as well as its role as a centre of shipping
and logistics.
“Dubai has oil, but production
peaked in 1991, and has been declin- 
ing ever since,” said Ulrichsen.
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
12 The big story
Cop28
“It was the first [in the region] to
diversify its economy, partly because
it had to, and in a way it had a 20-year
head start on its neighbours in the
Gulf. But the financial crisis of 2008
showed that economic diversification
had shallow foundations, and Dubai
had to be bailed out by its oil-rich
neighbour Abu Dhabi.”
Dubai was forced to reorient its
economy towards an empire built on
tax-free trading, attracting merchants
and commodities traders from across
the world, including plenty of those
trading in the Middle East’s fossil
fuels. But this can still prove fragile:
images of abruptly halted construc-
tion, and sports cars abandoned by the
road as their owners fled the emirate
after the 2008 financial crisis, are still
fresh in the minds of many residents.
Abu Dhabi then gave Dubai a $10bn
bailout to ease the financial pain left
by the collapse.
The financial system also remains
under scrutiny, after it was recently
added to the international Financial
Action Task Force’s infamous “grey
list”, which demanded the Emirates
“address strategic deficiencies” to pre-
vent money laundering and potential
financing for terrorist groups.
Last year, shortly after Cop27
ended, the board of the Abu Dhabi
National Oil Company voted to bring
forward their planned 5m barrels a day
oil production capacity expansion to
2027, three years ahead of schedule.
In July, it reached 4.5m barrels a day.
An expanse of solar panels south of
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
Dubai reportedly provides 15% of the
emirate’s energy needs, but oil and
gas remain the bedrock of its energy
supply and business.
“The foundations of the UAE’s
economy are entirely fossil-fuel reliant
– there’s a direct connection through
oil and gas, but the aviation industry
as well as the shipping and logistics
industries are heavily reliant on oil
too,” said Hedges. “Life and society
in the UAE are not just dependent on
oil economically, but because of the
climate there, all food and provisions
have to be imported.”
D
UBAI’S IMAGE, he
added, was directly
linked to ruler Sheikh
Mo h a m m e d b i n
Rashid Al Maktoum,
sometimes referred to
as MBR, who is no stranger to personal
branding, particularly to his 8.4 mil-
lion followers on Instagram, where
he posts news such as his decision to
launch “flying taxis” in Dubai by 2026.
“The fact that Cop28 is being held in
Dubai, not Abu Dhabi, is a result of
his success in building that modern,
branded image,” said Hedges.
The figurehead who spurred
the current hypermodern, image-
obsessed version of Dubai and its
growth from a sedate Gulf town into
an international destination, Moham-
med bin Rashid is known for his love
of horse racing as well as for fathering
30 children with six different wives.
His rule has also been marked by
scandals involving kidnap and abuse,
including of his daughter Sheikha
Latifa, who attempted to flee Dubai
by boat in 2018, and his now ex-wife
Princess Haya, who fled to the UK in
2019, where she won a legal battle last
year to prevent his contact with his
children over what a judge termed
his “abusive behaviour”. A UK family
court ruled in 2020 the Dubai ruler had
orchestrated the abductions of two of
his children, including one from the
streets of Cambridge.
His reign has also seen the growth
of a sophisticated surveillance state
across the Emirates, one interwoven
with daily life through vast networks
of cameras and a requirement that
each resident carry a biometric iden-
tification card. Vast data collection
centres in Dubai hoard the minutiae
of human existence, from the type of
health insurance a person can afford to
whether they have infringed any laws.
▲ Dubai’s Moon Getting into debt can be cause
World resort for jail time in the Emirates, while
MOON WORLD RESORTS extensive laws against “cybercrime”,
INC
intended to prevent abuse or hate
speech, can also be used to litigate
online criticism. Political parties are
banned across all seven emirates, and
dissent is stifled, with many promi-
nent human rights defenders or those
in favour of political reforms, such as
activist Ahmed Mansoor, jailed and
dozens more living in exile.
The UAE led a decade-long
campaign against Islamist groups
across the Middle East, including
backing the autocratic regime of the
Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi,
an ally who hosted Cop27.
“When it comes to an event like
Cop, which relies on the infrastruc-
ture of expression, the right to pro-
test and express views freely, these
things don’t exist in Dubai or the
UAE. The authorities will grant it to
people coming to the conference at
a certain time, in a certain place and
only particular groups of people,” said
Hamad al-Shamsi, an exiled Emirati
‘When it dissident who heads the Emirates
comes to Detainees Advocacy Center, and who
was added to the Emirates’ terror-
Cop, the ism list for his role in a now banned
right to reform movement.
“What I always ask is: what will it
protest add for Emirati people and those living
doesn’t there? Not much. When it comes to
exist in Emirati human rights defenders,
they’re all in jail.”•
Dubai or
RUTH MICHAELSON IS A JOURNALIST
the UAE’ COVERING THE MIDDLE EAST
 ▼ Icebergs at Disko Bay, 13
Ilulissat, Greenland, in 2022
HOLLANDSE HOOGTE/ SHUTTERSTOCK

Atmospheric CO2 CO2 from fossil fuel burning

Parts per million. The chart baseline, Annual global CO2 emissions from
280ppm, is the preindustrial average fossil fuels and industry, billion tonnes
The climate
crisis in 10 440 Nov 2023 40 2021
420.3ppm 37.1bn
charts
From the 400 30

seemingly 360 20
inexorable
350ppm
increase in 320
Safe level for CO2 10
atmospheric in the atmosphere
CO2 to the 280 0
1960 1980 2000 2020 1850 1900 1950 2000
rapid growth
in green Source: Noaa, global CO2, updated 20 Nov Source: Our World in Data

energy, we
explore Global forest loss Methane emissions Arctic sea ice in September
Annual primary forest loss, Annual global mean methane levels • 2023 1981-2010 average
the data million hectares in air, parts per billion
North Arctic
6 2,000 America Circle
2022 2022
4.1m 1,912
1,900
4
Arctic
1,800 Ocean Siberia

2 North Pole
1,700

0 1,600
Greenland
2005 2010 2015 2020 1990 2000 2010 2020

Source: Global Forest Watch Source: NOAA. See footnote 1 Source: Sea Ice Index, National Snow and Ice Data Center

Global average temperature change Change in global sea level Share of additions to global
Monthly global surface temperature Mean change from 1 January 2000, mm electricity capacity
anomalies relative to 1991-2020 baseline • TOPEX • Jason-1 • Jason-2 • Jason-3* • Solar • Wind • Coal
Sep 2023
0.75C 100 60% 59%
+0.93C
0.5

0.25 50 40
▼ A bushfire
0
burns in
Millmerran, -0.25 0 20
21%
Queensland, -0.5
7%
Australia, in
-0.75 -50 0
October
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2010 2014 2018 2022
QUEENSLAND FIRE AND
EMERGENCY SERVICES/ Source: Copernicus. Jan 1979 to Oct 2023 Source: NOAA. *Monitoring system. See footnote 2 Source: BloombergNEF
REUTERS

Electric vehicle sales Lithium-ion battery cost

Sales of electric vehicles as Pack price, $ per kilowatt hour,
percentage of global car sales 2023 prices
2022
15 1,500
14%

10 1,000

5 500 2023
$139

0 0
2010 2013 2016 2019 2022 2010 2015 2020 2023

Source: IEA. See footnote 3 Source: BloombergNEF. See footnote 4

Notes: 1 Methane molecules in air after water removed. Long-term trend, average seasonal cycle removed. 2 Base set at approx zero for 1 Jan 2000.
Series shows change in absolute surface height using altimetry between 66°S and 66°N. 3 Electric refers to battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
4 Historical figures adjusted to real 2023 dollars.
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
 TheGuardian View p49
14 The big story
Cop28

A N A LY S I S development if the world is to A related goal of doubling energy

C L I M AT E C R I SI S remain within the 1.5C limit. efficiency globally is also likely to
Previously, Al Jaber has said that be adopted.
the company’s oil was lower carbon But the biggest fight at Cop28

Oil and water? than those of its rivals, owing

to investments in modernising
has been over the role of fossil
fuels. Although fossil fuels are
equipment and practices. overwhelmingly the culprits behind
Sultan Al Jaber, Al Jaber is hoping to lead a “global
decarbonisation alliance” at Cop28,
rising temperatures, global climate
talks have largely skirted the issue
the host fanning which would bring together dozens
of oil and gas producers, both in the
since they began in 1992.
That changed in 2021 when
flames of the private sector and, crucially, some
of the world’s nationally owned oil
the outcome of Cop26 included a
reference to gradually reducing coal

fossil fuel debate companies, which are responsible

By Fiona Harvey DUBAI
Cop28 is taking place in
Dubai, in the United Arab
Emirates – one of the
world’s largest exporters
of oil and gas. The man in charge
of the summit, Sultan Al Jaber, the
minister of advanced technologies
in the UAE government, is also chief
of its national oil company, Adnoc.
This dual role is a clear conflict of
interest, according to campaigners,
who have asked for him to resign
from Adnoc. Al Jaber’s response
has been adamant: he believes his
oil industry background will enable
him to engage with financiers and
company leaders.
Adnoc is also planning a massive
increase in its production capacity,
even though the International
Energy Agency has warned against
new oil and gas exploration and
for about 70% of fossil fuel
production around the world, but
their operations are often opaque.
This alliance of oil and gas
producing companies could take
major steps on cutting their own
emissions, for instance by updating
their technology and practices.
But this would not be enough: the
emissions associated with extracting
oil and gas are tiny compared with
the emissions from burning them,
meaning companies must seriously
address moving away from oil and
gas to renewables, or winding down
operations altogether.
Some Cop veterans argue that
Al Jaber can bring Middle Eastern
oil producers to the table in a
fruitful engagement. The economist
Nicholas Stern said: “I know that
Sultan Al Jaber personally takes
this very seriously. I am very clear
about his personal commitment
to building a much cleaner world.”
A diplomat from one d developed
country told the Guard
Guardian: “I want
s
him to deliver the oil sector.”
Even Greenpeace vo voiced qualified
support. “Cop28 in the UAE emerges
not only as a historical opportunity
b ut also as a stage to demonstrate
but de
the UAE’s diplomatic p power,”
said Shady Khalil, the regional
r Scientists forecast only a small role
campaigns lead at Greenpeace
Gree
MENA (Middle East an and North
Africa). “With the worl
world’s attention
focused on the UAE presidency,
pr
there lies a unique chance
cha to
facilitate a meaningful dialogue and
foster commitment am among nations
… towards climate actiaction.”
Al Jaber says that as well as
his Adnoc role, he was also in
2006 the co-founder o of Masdar, a
renewable energy com company, with
UAE government back backing. He has
also set his sights on a clear new goal
for clean energy at Cop
Cop28: to triple
global renewable energ
energy capacity.
use for the first time. It was bitterly
fought over, but the final outcome
was hailed as a major step.
Last year, at Cop27 in Egypt,
many countries tried to build
on this. At least 80 of the 198
signatories to the Paris agreement Global
pushed for a commitment to phase
out fossil fuels. But it was omitted climate
from the final text after pressure talks have
from oil-rich nations.
This year they will try again.
largely
Al Jaber has already signalled skirted the
UAE’s willingness to engage. He told fossil fuels
the Guardian: “Phasing down fossil
fuels is inevitable and it is essential; issue since
it’s going to happen.” they began
But a reduction is not the same
as phasing it out entirely. Al Jaber’s
in 1992
revealing comments that he believes
there is “no science” indicating
that a phase-out of fossil fuels is
needed to restrict global heating to
1.5C, made last month before Cop28
began, caused a furore when they
were first reported last weekend.
And some countries want to
insert another qualifier: they want
to talk, at most, of a reduction of
“unabated” fossil fuels. This means
that, for instance, power plants
fitted with carbon capture and
storage (CCS) technology could
continue to burn gas and coal.
for these technologies in the future.
For some campaigners, a
commitment to phase down
unabated fossil fuels would
be too great a weakening of
the commitment. “Abatement
technologies such as CCS are the
fossil fuel industry’s favourite
tool to distract from the need for
a full phase-out of all fossil fuels,”  Sultan Al Jaber
said Romain Ioualalen, the global heads the UAE’s
policy manager at Oil Change state oil company
International. “We have had enough and is co-founder
of endless delays.” of a renewable
FIONA HARVEY IS A GUARDIAN energy company
ENVIRONMENT EDITOR SEAN GALLUP/GETTY

The Gu
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The Guardian
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20223

In-depth reporting and analysis
EUROPE
The lure of the
far right for
younger voters
Page 22 \
A N A LY S I S
I S R A E L / PA L E S T I N E
History lessons
Will Israel win the battle but
lose the war against Hamas?
By Jason Burke in JERUSALEM
The scene is one familiar
from many conflicts.
Soldiers line up to get
food from a canteen,
weapons slung haphazardly over
their shoulders, boots muddy, shirts
undone. An armoured personnel
carrier clanks by, the roar of its
engine temporarily drowning out
the boom of artillery. Officers shout
orders. Tired men jump down from
dusty vehicles and swear.
Even during the recent ceasefire,
the rear areas of the massive Israeli
 Israeli soldiers near military offensive in Gaza were busy.
the border with Gaza So too was Hamas, which used the
after the temporary seven-day pause in hostilities to
ceasefire with Hamas reorganise its battered forces.
ended last week At 6.45am last Friday, 15 minutes
AMIR LEVY/GETTY before the truce was due to expire,
15
Hamas fired a barrage of rockets
into southern Israel. All day, phone
apps that warn Israelis of incoming
missiles buzzed and beeped. In
the late afternoon, drivers on the
northern outskirts of Tel Aviv
pulled over, left their cars and lay
down in the dirt of the roadside –
the recommended routine when
incoming rockets are signalled.
What the Israeli military had been
preparing rapidly became clear. At
7.04am exactly, the first airstrikes
hit targets in Khan Younis in the
southern part of Gaza. An hour or
so later, a doctor in the European
hospital in the city described his
fears for the coming hours.
“First, they’ll go to emergency
and then they’ll come to me,” said 
16 Spotlight
Middle East
Paul Ley, an orthopaedic surgeon
with the International Committee
of the Red Cross. When contacted
again in early evening, Ley had
performed eight amputations,
including the double amputation
of legs from a two-year-old child,
whose entire family had been wiped
out earlier in the day, except for one
badly injured brother.
That hostilities started again
came as little surprise to anyone in
the region. The seven-day ceasefire
brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the
US had been forced on the reluctant
Israeli government because
domestic public pressure meant
that the prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, could not refuse an
opportunity to bring home at least
some of the 240 hostages snatched
by Hamas when the militant
organisation broke through the
perimeter fence around Gaza close
to two months ago and killed more
than 1,200 people, mostly civilians,
in their homes or at a music festival.
But the ceasefire had run its
course. Hamas was the bigger
beneficiary, winning the release of
hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
from Israeli jails and receiving a
huge boost in popularity in return.
This worried many. Kobi Michael
of the Institute for National
Security Studies in Tel Aviv said
he was concerned that Israel
was prioritising the security of
individual citizens over “collective
and national security”.
Approximately 15,000 people
have been killed in Gaza during the
Israeli offensive, including about
6,000 children and 4,000 women,
according to Hamas-run authorities.
Hundreds more have reportedly
been killed since the ceasefire broke
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
down. “The Arabs only understand
force and anything else is seen as a
Hamas weakness,” one former intelligence
officer said.
sees an For the moment, Israeli society
advantage is convinced that the Israel Defense
from Israeli Forces (IDF) will win. But this
confidence may be misplaced,
overreach, according to some commentators.
which Last month, Jon Alterman,
director of the Middle East
builds programme at the Washington-
sympathy based Center for Strategic and
for Hamas International Studies, published a
commentary entitled “Israel could
lose”. It received little attention,
perhaps because the formidable
▲ Beirut in 1982: reputation of Israel’s military and
ruined buildings the disparity of forces now deployed
(top); Yasser in the conflict made its argument
Arafat inspects too counterintuitive.
bomb damage “Hamas is thinking about this as
ROLAND NEVEU/GAMMA- losing the battle but winning the
RAPHO/GETTY; MOURAD
RAOUF/AP war. Their concept is not that they
can beat Israel on the battlefield
 Israeli hostage ... Hamas sees what it is doing as
Raz Ben-Ami is a generational effort that is much
reunited with her larger,” Alterman said.
daughters GPO/AP The core of his argument is that
Hamas follows the logic of martial
arts such as judo and seeks to turn
the strength of its enemy into a
vulnerability. “Hamas sees … an
advantage from Israeli overreach …
[which] builds sympathy for Hamas
and antipathy towards Israel.”
The Israeli military is now trying
to root out an insurgency in the
middle of a densely populated
urban environment amid an acute
humanitarian crisis.
Many commentators have
pointed to a parallel with the
Yom Kippur war of 1973. A better
parallel may be the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon, which was also sparked
by a terrorist attack. In 1982, the
attempted assassination of Israeli
ambassador Shlomo Argov in
London served as pretext for a
long-considered, though wildly
unrealistic, plan. In 2023, the Hamas
attack revealed a lack of strategic
thinking, not an excess.
But in 1982 the IDF and the Israeli
government also ended up laying
siege to an urban area. The target
was the Fakhani neighbourhood
of Beirut, where the Palestine
Liberation Organisation (PLO) was
based. A key aim was to kill Yasser
Arafat, its leader.
Then, too, the toll of civilian
casualties was horrific, prompting
international outrage. Then, too,
Israel’s enemies deliberately hid
among the population, with bunkers
under blocks of flats and anti-
aircraft weapons next to schools.
The 1982 siege of Beirut ended
when US president Ronald Reagan
called Israeli prime minister
Menachem Begin and warned that
the “holocaust” in the Lebanese
capital risked damaging relations
between their countries.
“I think I know what a Holocaust
is,” drily replied Begin, whose family
had been wiped out by the Nazis,
but who complied nonetheless.
Thousands of PLO fighters then left
on ships for other Arab countries
and Israel claimed victory.
Now, the 1982 war is seen as a
catastrophe. Not only did it mark a
turning point in the view of Israel
in international opinion – from a
plucky Middle Eastern David to a
bullying, heavily armed Goliath –
but it divided Israeli society.
The expulsion of the PLO
Opinion p48
also aided the rise in Lebanon of
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed
Islamist militant group and political
movement. This enemy is now
considered by Israel to be far more
formidable than Hamas.
In Gaza, violence is now an
extension of negotiations, and the
negotiations part of the violence.
Many observers predict successive
rounds of fighting and ceasefires
as hostages are gradually traded
for Palestinian prisoners and other
concessions, such as increased
humanitarian aid.
Hamas leaders have also said they
would trade all Israeli hostages for
all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails. Eyal Hulata, a former national
security adviser in Israel, said no
one should expect Israel to “go for
something like that” and that Hamas
were “overplaying their hand”.
But if this fits with Israeli military
planners’ vision of a grinding
campaign to obliterate Hamas,
and force the group to free the
hostages, it does not quite match
the political reality.
As in 1982, decisions in
Washington may end or at least
mitigate the violence. US president
Joe Biden and the Democratic party,
facing a tough election campaign,
have many reasons for wanting this
deeply divisive conflict to end.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary
of state, has already signalled that
Americans will tolerate only weeks,
not months, of Israeli military
action. Hawkish Israeli officials say
this would leave their job in Gaza
“half done” but others see little
chance of a swift resolution.
Last month, Emi Palmor, a former
senior Israeli official involved in
the 2011 deal with Hamas to free
captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit,
suggested that bringing back all the
hostages may take years.
This timescale may suit Hamas.
Netanyahu has defined victory as
the elimination of the enemy, a goal
only rarely achieved by any military
force. But the old strategic adage
is clear: the insurgents, militants,
guerrillas, terrorists, or whatever
word you choose, need only to
survive to win. Observer
JASON BURKE IS THE GUARDIAN AND
OBSERVER’S INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
CORRESPONDENT
I S R A E L / PA L E S T I N E
‘We just wish
to be killed’
Fear returns
as truce ends
By Dan Sabbagh JERUSALEM
L
ast Friday morning, Reham
Shaheen had a rare chance
to talk to her husband,
Muhanad, who had been
sheltering with their family in Deir
al-Balah, in the southern half of Gaza,
shortly after Israel’s military restarted
its campaign of bombing.
The aid worker, now in Jordan,
had been separated from Muhanad
and their three children because of a
work trip two days before the war. Now
she could do little other than listen to
his despair down the line as Israel’s air
force struck again and again.
“He was feeling really helpless and
feeling frustrated,” said Shaheen,
who works for the disability charity
Humanity & Inclusion. “He told me,
‘I’m really regretting that I moved from
the north to the south, because now
the bombing this morning is targeting
the south. I am afraid we will get killed
after being forced to flee our home.’”
The fear – and distrust – had spread
to her two sons, 12 and 10, she said,
because they had been told by their
parents it would be safer in the south,
after Israel demanded the evacuation
of the north in October.
17
Another relative, an uncle, said:
“What we wish now is to be killed,
to avoid going through this feeling of
threat all the time.”
Israel’s military said last Saturday it
had bombed 400 targets in the first 24
hours of its renewed campaign against
Hamas on the Gaza Strip, including 50
in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Gaza’s health ministry said that at
least 193 Palestinians had been killed
and 650 wounded in Gaza since the
collapse of the truce.
An official video from the Israel
Defense Forces released on Saturday
showed a string of bombings against
combatants and infrastructure. In
‘My some cases whole buildings, such as
one described as a “Hamas military
husband command centre”, are engulfed in
felt helpless flames, apparently hit by heavy bombs
and able to destroy a block of flats.
Film shot by photojournalist Yosef
frustrated Basam showed the terrifying intensity
– he said he of the attacks last Saturday, a succes-
sion of loud explosions in the north of
regretted the territory captured from a distance.
moving Leaflets dropped by Israel’s mili-
from north tary demanded that residents of
certain districts near Khan Younis
to south’ head south to Rafah, on the Egyptian
border, warning that the area was now
“a dangerous combat zone”. Footage
on Saturday showed displaced Pales-
tinians making their way south on the
rubble-strewn main Salah al-Din road.
Jason Lee, the Palestine country
director for Save the Children, said he
had begun to see a fresh population
transfer in a country where 1.7 million
people have been displaced and close
to 2 million are crowded into the south.
Fuel and aid deliveries stopped last
▼ Palestinians Friday, and a modest 50 trucks were
flee across Khan allowed through the border on Satur-
Younis day. Camps and shelters are hopelessly
FATIMA SHBAIR/AP overcrowded – in one case by 35 times,
Lee said – and outbreaks of gastro-
enteritis and diarrhoea are becoming
increasingly common in a territory
where there are about 1.1 million chil-
dren. Lee said he had seen one family
spend a day searching desperately for
baby milk for a starving child, because
the mother had been killed.
Trauma, as well as illness, is becom-
ing a deeper problem. Shaheen said
her four-year-old daughter was unwell
from polluted water. “She was not eat-
ing since the beginning of the war,”
Shaheen said. “I can’t describe her
situation, to be honest.”
DAN SABBAGH IS THE GUARDIAN’S
DEFENCE AND SECURITY EDITOR
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
18 Spotlight
South-east Asia
THAILAND
Families
reunited as
hostages
return home
from Gaza
By Rebecca Ratcliffe and
Atitaya Teepawat BANGKOK
P
ornsawan Pinakalo’s three
great aunts would not have
missed his return for the
world. Kularb Pinakalo’s
knees couldn’t quite get her up to the
room in Bangkok airport where her
nephew was meeting other family
members for the first time since being
taken hostage in Gaza. But after travel-
ling for four hours by van to the Thai
capital, the 63-year-old was ready and
waiting for him to emerge in the arrivals
hall, alongside 84-year-old Nangnoi
Pattataysan and Noi Prakobkan, 82.
“I just want to give him a hug,”
Kularb said. She was so overwhelmed
that she could hardly think of what to
say to him, she added.
Pornsawan was one of 17 Thai
nationals who landed in Bangkok on
last Thursday after the foreign minis-
try and Thai Muslim groups worked to
negotiate their release.
Wearing shirts with the Thai and
Israel flags, the freed hostages stood
beside officials and paid tribute to the
39 Thai nationals killed in the war.
Before the attacks on 7 October, 30,000
Thais were working on Israeli farms.
Thais accounted for the biggest group
of foreign nationals killed or injured in
the conflict.
Initially, Pornsawan’s family, from
Nakhon Ratchasima province, had
believed he was among those killed.
His parents provided DNA samples to
the Thai authorities, fearing the worst,
but there was no match. His mother
went to a temple and promised the
monk that if her son could return
safely, he would be ordained for 15
days. When the Thai embassy in Tel
Aviv called to say he was still alive, his
mother cried with joy.
Nangnoi Pattataysan had brought
with her a white thread to tie around
Pornsawan’s wrist, a tradition believed
to bring the spirit to the body, and that
normally takes place during a bai sri su
kwan ceremony. The traditional event
is often held at times of celebration,
such as weddings or an ordination, but
also to bring consolation and comfort.
“I will tie up the white threads as
soon as I see him,” Nangnoi said. “It
is to call his kwan [spirit] back home.”
Pornsawan, 29, the main breadwin-
ner in the family, was one of thousands
32
of Thais who had moved from rural
areas of the country to work in Israel’s
agriculture industry, where salaries
Number of Thais are often much higher than at home.
taken hostage Other families, mostly from the
in Gaza by north-east, were not able to travel to
Hamas. Nine Bangkok to greet their loved ones.
hostages are
still being held
while 23 have
Boonchob Kongmanee, 62, from
Amnat Charoen province, whose son
Bancha Kongmanee was among those
been released.
A further 39 Thai
who flew into Bangkok last Thursday,
said she felt overjoyed. “It feels like I
nationals have
been killed in
the war
have won the lottery,” she said. “I will
say [to him]: I love you very much, I
miss you, it is good to see you again.”
Bancha had been doing overtime
in a farm close to Gaza on 7 October
when he was taken by Hamas. Prior to
being taken he told her over the phone
that he did not think the attack seemed
especially concerning. “He said he was
used to hearing bombs but didn’t think
it was critical,” she said.
His colleagues who had stayed
back at their camp informed her that
he was missing. “I thought I had lost
my son,” she said. She waited for
news and heard nothing. Monks at
the temple reassured her he was still
alive, she said. Like Pornsawan’s fam-
ily, Bancha’s will also hold a bai sri su
kwan ceremony to mark his return.
A total of 23 Thai hostages have now
been released in Gaza and nine are still
▼ Pornsawan being held.
Pinakalo (left) is Nattawaree Moolkan, the only
met by his mother woman among the hostages, cried
at Bangkok’s as she thanked everyone for their
main airport support last Thursday.
NARONG SANGNAK/EPA The foreign minister, Parnpree
Bahiddha-Nukara, who flew from
Israel to Thailand with the return-
ees, thanked the Israeli authorities
for looking after them, as well as the
governments of Malaysia and Qatar for
supporting negotiation efforts.
“It would be better if all of our
friends could come back,” Pornsawan
said. “When I was there I tried not to
think too much about what might
happen, because I was sad I wouldn’t
see my family again.”
His aunts said as many as 100 people
were due at a village ceremony to
welcome him home.
“We haven’t slept a wink last night
knowing that we would see him today,”
said Noi Prakobkan.
REBECCA RATCLIFFE IS THE
GUARDIAN’S SOUTH-EAST ASIA
CORRESPONDENT; ATITAYA TEEPAWAT
IS A BANGKOK-BASED JOURNALIST
Agence France-Presse contributed to
this report

Spotlight
Europe
UKRAINE
The classic
children’s
books that
Putin could
not destroy
By Ed Vulliamy KHERSON
T
here it is, on a wintry morning:
charred masonry, gnarled
metal, glass shards, rubble
and dust.
Yet another ravaged building in
Ukraine: this violation is against Kher-
son’s regional library for children, a
place of effervescent creativity with a
wonderful collection, named Dnipro
Seagull library, after the birds that soar
over the city’s river.
Atop the stairs, there was a beautiful
stained-glass panel featuring a seagull
on the wing. The library was due to
celebrate its centenary next year.
The seagull glass is now shattered,
after the hit by two Russian artillery
shells late last month.
Library director Olha Kryzhanivska’s
greeting is weary, but fired with a will
to reclaim this haven and save its col-
lection. “It seems we should be used
to it,” she sighed. “The city is under
attack every day. We have already
repaired the windows after another
shrapnel hit.
“Decades of our lives are connected
with this institution, and when every
corner is dear to you, it really, really
hurts. One good thing was that the
attack didn’t harm anyone, because
it occurred in early morning.
“But looking at all these mangled
objects, at what used to be part of the
prosperous life of our irrepressibly
creative library, I can hardly contain
myself. But I know that we now have to
save what can be saved, by all means.”
In March, my sister Clara, brother
Tom and I sent a consignment of more
than 550 books by my late mother, the
author and illustrator Shirley Hughes,
to Ukraine – some earmarked for the
Kherson children’s library. Kryzhan-
ivska said the contribution was the
largest collection of publications by
a single foreign author in her library.
Before the books arrived, I visited
the library, in a city under relentlesss
bombardment then as now.
“On one hand,” said Kryzhanivska a sale – but also Vladimir Putin’s rockets.
Opinion p45
19
 The Dnipro following the latest strike, “it makes no
Seagull library’s sense to repair, because there is shell-
local history ing every day. On the other, something
learning room must be done with the roof, otherwise
after the attack everything will be drenched.”
KHERSON OBLAST Ukraine has an impressive and
committed children’s library network,
▼ More than 550 led and coordinated from the National
books by Shirley Library of Ukraine for Children, based
Hughes were sent in Kyiv. The director general, Alla
to Ukraine Gordiienko, reacted to the outrage in
DNIPRO SEAGULL Kherson: “What can be as safe, excit-
LIBRARY, KHERSON
ing and magical as a house filled with
children’s laughter and books? But not
for our enemy, who wants to destroy
us as a nation and all our historical
memory, destroying our children’s
terrain, our libraries for children.”
The Kherson library cites its top
priority now as being to “ensure the
Culture war safety of the collections and property
The attack on through evacuation”.
the children’s What of my mother’s books – I had
library is just the to ask? The initial report by Oleksandr
latest instance in
Prokudin, head of Kherson’s regional
Russia’s assault on military administration, was ominous:
Ukrainian culture “Barbarians destroyed the Kherson
in general, and
what might be
called “librocide” in
book collection, which for years
delighted the youngest visitors and
their parents,” he said.
particular. Shortly
before the attack
But staff braved the rubble to find
that many books had survived. This
on the Dnipro
Seagull library,
another in Kherson,
poetic missive arrived from Gor-
diienko: “In spring 2023, we were
delighted to replenish the children’s
the larger adult
Universal Scientific
library, was also
libraries of Ukraine with magical books
by the author and illustrator Shirley
Hughes. A miracle, because Ukrainian
targeted, hit and
children have never read such a kind
badly damaged.
and wonderful storyteller. Books we
passed to the Kherson library have
been preserved – it’s as though God
and Shirley Hughes’s ghost rescued
them from the afterlife.”
It seems Mum’s best-loved character,
Dogger, has survived not only loss by
his owner, Dave, and being put up for
The Ukrainian section of the inter-
national writers’ organisation PEN is
monitoring attacks such as these. PEN
Ukraine’s director, Volodymyr Yermo-
lenko, said
id more
m than 500 libraries had
been
en dest
destroyed or damaged by the Rus-
sians
i since the full-scale invasion.
“All I know is that when we win,”
said Kryzhanivska, “we will have the
strength and ability to restore not only
the premises but also the very spirit of
our library.” Observer
ED VULLIAMY IS A FORMER GUARDIAN
AND OBSERVER WRITER
Maksym Horobets also contributed to
this report
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
20
 21

Eyewitness
Ethiopia

 Party rings
Holidaymakers float on inflatable
rings at a water park in Bishoftu, in
Oromia region. Located just 40km
from Addis Ababa, the town is
known for its volcanic crater lakes
and resorts, which make it a prime
leisure destination for visitors from
the Ethiopian capital

PHOTO BY MICHELE SPATARI/AFP/GETTY

22 Spotlight
Europe
L
POLITICS unching on a sandwich in the
central market of Volendam,
a port north of Amsterdam,
Gerald, 24, was lucid about his
Why young
choice in last month’s Dutch election.
“I voted for Wilders, and many of
my friends did too,” he said. “I don’t
Europeans want to live with my parents for ever.
I want my own home, and to be able to
provide for my family later on. Wilders
are turning wants to figure out the housing crisis,
and make our healthcare better. Those
towards the are the most important topics for me.”
If everyone who voted in the
election were aged under 35, Geert Wil-
far right ders, the far-right populist whose Party
for Freedom (PVV) shocked Europe by
winning the most parliamentary seats,
would have won even more.
Housing, health and economic In last year’s French presidential
runoff, Marine Le Pen won 39% of
fears, not cultural factors, are
votes from people aged 18-24 and
pushing many younger voters 49% of those aged 25-34. Before Italy’s
towards political extremes election in September last year, Gior-
gia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy was the
By Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer largest party among under-35s, on 22%.
VOLENDAM Across Europe, the image of the
radical-right voter – typically white,
male, non-graduate and old – is chang-
▲ (Clockwise
ing, and studies suggest that in several
countries, support for the far right is
growing fastest among younger voters.
from left) Marine Several factors may explain the
Le Pen; Vox phenomenon, analysts say. “We really
supporters; should be careful about assuming a cul-
Geert Wilders tural or ideological alignment between
CHESNOT; OSCAR DEL
POZO/AFP; MOUNEB
young voters and the far right,”
TAIM/ANADOLU /GETTY; said Catherine de Vries, a political
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
scientist at Italy’s Bocconi university.
“We know in many countries young
people are more pro-immigration than
older voters. They have not become
xenophobic. But their lives are more
precarious. These are often votes for
what in this Dutch election was called
‘livelihood security’.”
The Dutch word bestaanszekerheid
translates roughly as an existence with
a sufficient and predictable income, a
satisfactory home, adequate access to
education and healthcare, and a cush-
ion against unexpected eventualities.
Issues such as housing, overcrowded
Youthquake
The far right
and the young
classes and struggling hospitals were
key to the youth vote, De Vries said.
“Wilders may want ‘Dutch people first’
but he promises to fix these things,” 17%
she said. “The government parties PVV share of vote
imposed austerity.” among Dutch 18-
In Volendam, where the PVV won to 34-year-olds
42.9% of the vote, that was Gerald’s
point. “Younger people, the woke
ones from the big cities, care about 27%
the climate and gender stuff but they Vox party share
are ignoring the real problems that we of vote in Spain
have here and now,” he said. among under-35s
“I am not a racist because I voted for
Wilders. It frustrates me that migrants
receive more help from the govern- 49%
ment than Dutch people – but I’m not Marine Le Pen’s
against Islam; I don’t want mosques share among
closed. I just think we need to control 25- to 34-year-
immigration better.” olds in the
Koen, 19, a student in Amsterdam, 2022 French
echoed that view. “I still live with presidential
my parents – I can’t afford a room runoff vote

in Amsterdam,” he said. “I have to
commute every day. Wilders wants to
give housing to people who are from
here – I don’t think that’s strange.”
Koen, too, said he did not believe
Wilders would go through with his
extreme anti-Islam pledges: closing
mosques and outlawing the Qur’an.
Far-right parties are not the
preferred option – or even second
choice – for younger voters everywhere
in Europe, analysts caution. The trend
appears strongest in countries such as
Austria, Germany, the Netherlands,
Sweden and Denmark. In Spain, the
ultra-conservative Vox party’s share
of the under-35 vote rose from 22% in
April 2019 to 34% that November. It fell
back this year but still stands at 27%.
In the Netherlands, the PVV surged
to become the largest party among
18- to 34-year-olds, winning 17% of
their vote against 7% previously. In
Sweden’s 2022 ballot, 22% of the 18-21
cohort voted for the far-right Sweden
Democrats, against 12% in 2018.
Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow
at the European Council on Foreign
Relations, also identified economic
insecurity as the most significant
factor. “Young voters haven’t moved
rightwards on migration, abortion,
minority rights,” he said. “Far-right
parties have convinced them that they
offer a credible economic alternative.”
Other factors include some far-right
parties “positioning themselves as a
‘cool’ electoral option”, he said.
Jacob Davey, the head of policy and
research at the Institute for Strategic
Dialogue thinktank, identified the
influence of a far- and ultra-right
youth counterculture, typified by the
far-right pan-European Generation
Identity group, as an additional factor.
And finally, said De Vries, there
was “normalisation”. For many young
voters, far-right parties have been part
of the political landscape their whole
lives, she said. “There’s not the stig-
matisation there once was.”
In Amsterdam, Conny, 22, said life
was becoming more expensive in the
city, but the outgoing government did
not seem to care.
“Wilders campaigned on investing
in healthcare and old people’s homes,”
she said. “When it comes to migration,
people from a war country deserve a
better life here but it shouldn’t be at
the expense of Dutch people.”
JON HENLEY IS THE GUARDIAN’S
EUROPE EDITOR; PJOTR SAUER IS A
GUARDIAN INTERNATIONAL REPORTER
THE NETHERLANDS
‘Heartbroken’
Muslim mayor
takes stock of
Wilders’ win
By Ashifa Kassam
S
oon after news broke that the
populist Geert Wilders and his
anti-Islam Party for Freedom
(PVV) had won the most votes
of any party in the Dutch elections,
Ahmed Marcouch found himself com-
forting his distraught eight-year-old.
Earlier in the day, a teacher at his
son’s school had explained the elec-
tion results, discussing the differences
between parties. Now Marcouch’s son
was terrified that the family would
have to leave the country.
“It was heartbreaking,” said Mar-
couch. But for the Moroccan-born
‘Wilders mayor of the eastern Dutch city of
Arnhem, it was also a worrying sign
addressed of just how deeply politics had veered
their anger. into the personal.
They didn’t PVV emerged as the most voted-
for party in the Gelderland province,
hear any home to Arnhem, with more than 20%
solutions, backing promises that included the
rejection of all new asylum claims,
but he gives the banning of Islamic headscarves
words to from public buildings, deporting dual-
their fears’ national criminals and ending the free
movement of EU workers.
Ahmed Eye-catching promises aside, what
Marcouch Marcouch saw in the result was a
23
pushback against traditional parties
and institutions by people frustrated
with spiralling housing costs and the
soaring cost of living. “For 40 years
they’ve heard promises: ‘Vote for me
and your life will become better,’” said
Marcouch. “But they haven’t seen any
change in their circumstances.”
This reality paved the way for
Wilders, he believes. “In the mean-
time they see Wilders addressing their
anger, their disappointment. They
didn’t hear any solutions, but he gives
words to their fears,” he said.
In 2017, after news broke that
Marcouch was set to become the mayor
of Arnhem, Wilders was among those
who showed up to the city to protest,
describing Marcouch in a statement
as “more suitable to be the mayor of
Rabat” than of Arnhem.
“He tried to humiliate me, but
he didn’t,” said Marcouch, who
responded in 2017 by noting that
everybody – including Wilders – was
welcome in the city.
“But of course, the problem is the
signal he sent to all the youngsters
with the name Ahmed or Mohamed
or Fatima. With that kind of protest,
he was saying even if do your best
and get to a place where you have
the competence to become a mayor,
it’s not enough to be accepted,” he
said. “And that’s the tragedy of this
kind of speech.”
Days after the election, he was again
concerned that the election had left
some young Muslims feeling alien-
ated. “I think it’s really important to
pay attention to these youngsters and
these members of our community, to
support them and tell them that this is
the voice of a very little minority. The
majority of our society is against this.”
While there are likely to be
protracted negotiations as Wilders
attempts to cobble together enough
support to lead the country’s parlia-
ment, Marcouch was adamant that
the election had offered a crystal-clear
outcome when it came to the erosion
of trust in democratic institutions.
What was needed now was
sustained funding in areas such as
education, housing and safety, he said.
“We need that kind of investment to
earn back the trust of voters and make
people see that democracy will also
work for them. Because our democ-
racy isn’t working for everyone.”
ASHIFA KASSAM IS THE GUARDIAN’S
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
CORRESPONDENT
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
 Spotlight
Europe
UNITED KINGDOM
SPECIAL R EPORT
Sellafield nuclear site hacked by
groups linked to Russia and China
Exclusive Malware may still be present and potential effects
have been covered up by staff, investigation reveals
T
By Anna Isaac he UK’s most hazardous
and Alex Lawson nuclear site, Sellafield, has
been hacked into by cyber
groups closely linked to
Russia and China, an investigation by
the Guardian reveals.
The astonishing disclosure and its
potential effects have been consist-
ently covered up by senior staff at the
vast nuclear waste and decommission-
ing site, the investigation found.
The Guardian has discovered that
the authorities do not know exactly
when the IT systems were first compro-
mised. But sources said breaches were
first detected as far back as 2015, when
experts realised sleeper malware – soft-
ware that can lurk and be used to spy or
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALEX MELLON/
attack systems – had been embedded in
GUARDIAN DESIGN Sellafield’s computer networks.
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
It is still not known if the malware
has been eradicated. It may mean
some of Sellafield’s most sensitive
activities, such as moving radioactive
waste, monitoring for leaks of danger-
ous material and checking for fires,
have been compromised.
Sources suggest it is likely foreign
hackers have accessed the highest
echelons of confidential material at
the site, which sprawls across 6 sq km
on the Cumbrian coast.
The full extent of any data loss
and any ongoing risks to systems was
made harder to quantify by Sellafield’s
failure to alert nuclear regulators for
several years, sources said.
The revelations have emerged in
Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian
investigation into cyber hacking,
radioactive contamination and a toxic
workplace culture at Sellafield.
The site has the largest store of
plutonium on the planet and is a
sprawling rubbish dump for nuclear
waste from weapons programmes and
decades of atomic power generation.
Guarded by armed police, it also
holds emergency planning documents
to be used should the UK come under
foreign attack or face disaster. Built
more than 70 years ago and formerly
known as Windscale, it made pluto-
nium for nuclear weapons during the
cold war and has taken in radioactive
waste from other countries, including
Italy and Sweden.
The Guardian can also disclose that
Sellafield, which has more than 11,000
staff, was last year placed into a form
of “special measures” for consistent
failings on cybersecurity, according to
sources at the Office for Nuclear Regu-
lation (ONR) and the security services.
The ONR confirmed Sellafield is
failing to meet its cyber standards but
declined to comment on the breaches,
or claims of a “cover up”.
In a statement, Sellafield also
declined to comment about its failure
to tell regulators, instead focusing on
the improvements it says it has made
in recent years.
The problem of insecure servers at
Sellafield was nicknamed Voldemort
after the Harry Potter villain, according

to a government official familiar with
the ONR investigation and IT failings
at the site, because it was so sensitive
and dangerous. The scale of the prob-
lem was only revealed when staff at
an external site found that they could
access Sellafield’s servers and reported
it to the ONR, according to an insider at
the watchdog. Other concerns include
external contractors being able to
plug memory sticks into the system
while unsupervised.
I
n one highly embarrassing
incident last July, login details
and passwords for secure IT sys-
tems were inadvertently broad-
cast on national TV by the BBC One
nature series Countryfile, after crews
were invited into the secure site for a
piece on rural communities and the
nuclear industry.
The ONR has prepared a notice of
prosecution for Sellafield on cyber-
security – a form of enforcement action
it can only take if it believes there is
“sufficient evidence to provide a real-
istic prospect of conviction”.
Cyber problems have been known
by senior figures at the nuclear site for
at least a decade, according to a report
dated from 2012, seen by the Guard-
ian, which warned there were “critical
security vulnerabilities” that needed
to be addressed urgently.
More than a decade later, staff at
Sellafield, regulators and sources
within the intelligence community
believe systems at the vast nuclear
waste dump are still not fit for purpose.
They also believe that there was a
deliberate effort by senior leaders to
conceal the scale of the issues posed
by cybersecurity problems at the site
from security officials tasked with
testing the UK’s vulnerability to attack
in recent years. This is the subject of
potential prosecution.
The latest annual report from the
ONR stated that “improvements are
required” from Sellafield and other
sites in order to address cybersecurity
risks. It also confirmed that the site
was in “significantly enhanced atten-
tion” for this activity.
The ONR said it had found
cybersecurity “shortfalls” during its
inspections and noted that it had taken
“enforcement action” as a result.
Such is the scale of cybersecurity
concern, some officials believe entire
new systems should be urgently built
at Sellafield’s nearby emergency con-
trol centre – a separate secure facility.
The ONR was so concerned by the
fact that external sites could access
Sellafield’s servers, and an apparent
cover-up by staff, that it interviewed
teams under caution. The Sellafield
board held an inquiry into the prob-
lem in 2013 and the ONR warned that
it would require more transparency
on IT security.
Cyber-attack and cyber espionage
by Russia and China are among the
biggest threats to the UK, according
to security officials. The most recent
National Risk Register, an official docu-
ment that outlines the key hazards the
UK could face, includes a cyber-attack
on civil nuclear infrastructure.
Attackers from hostile states have
targeted allies in the “Five Eyes”
intelligence sharing community in
recent years.
Growing government concern over
Chinese involvement in UK critical
national infrastructure has resulted
in the Chinese state-owned energy
company CGN being removed from the
Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk
and Huawei products being stripped
from the heart of the telecommunica-
tions network in recent years.
Rishi Sunak’s government has
championed expanding the coun-
try’s nuclear industry after the energy
crisis, picking up where his prede-
cessor Boris Johnson left off. Earlier
this year, the then energy secretary,
Grant Shapps, launched Great British
Nuclear, a body designed to provide
new nuclear power plants. A gen-
eration of new nuclear projects will
ultimately require an expansion of
Britain’s decommissioning activities.
Nuclear decommissioning, a large
Half-life Current status of the world’s nuclear reactors
Number of nuclear reactors by year that construction
started, coloured by 2023 status
• Decommissoned • Shut down • Suspended • Operational • Under construction
30 Europe and central Asia
20 Calder Hall, UK
1953, 1955
10
0
1950s 60s 70s 80s 90s
30 North America
20
10
0 ensure necessary improvements are
1950s 60s 70s 80s 90s
20 East Asia and Pacific
10
0 EDITOR; ALEX LAWSON IS A GUARDIAN
1950s 60s 70s 80s 90s
Source: International Atomic Energy Agency. Power reactor information system.
Note: Other regions with reactors not displayed in chart
25
share of which is done at Sellafield,
is one of the biggest drains on the UK
government’s annual business depart-
ment budget. The site costs about
£2.5bn ($3.15bn) a year to operate.
Decommissioning is such a huge,
long-term bill that it was examined
as a “fiscal risk” to the UK’s economic
health by the spending watchdog,
the Office for Budget Responsibility
(OBR). It is estimated it could cost
as much as £263bn to manage the
It is likely legacy of the UK’s nuclear energy and
weaponry industries.
foreign This figure shifts wildly depending
hackers on how future cashflow is calculated,
have and the OBR has warned that the long-
term costs of Sellafield could vary by
accessed as much as minus 50% to plus 300%.
the highest A Sellafield spokesperson said:
“We take cybersecurity extremely
echelons seriously at Sellafield. All of our
of secret systems and servers have multiple
material layers of protection.
“Critical networks that enable us
at the site to operate safely are isolated from
our general IT network, meaning an
attack on our IT system would not
penetrate these.
“Over the past 10 years we have
evolved to meet the challenges of the
modern world, including a greater
focus on cybersecurity.
“We’re working closely with our
regulator. As a result of the progress
we’ve made, we have an agreed route
to step down from ‘significantly
enhanced’ regulation.”
An ONR spokesperson said:
“Sellafield Ltd is currently not meet-
ing the high standards that we require
in cybersecurity, which is why we
have placed them under significantly
enhanced attention.
“Some specific matters are subject
to ongoing investigations, so we
are unable to comment further at
this time.”
A spokesperson from the
Department for Energy Security and
Net Zero said: “We expect the highest
standards of safety and security as for-
mer nuclear sites are dismantled, and
2000s 2010s the regulator is clear that public safety
is not compromised at Sellafield.
“Many of the issues raised are his-
torical and the regulator has for some
time been working with Sellafield to
2000s 2010s
implemented. We are expecting regu-
lar updates on how this progresses.”
ANNA ISAAC IS THE GUARDIAN’S CITY
2000s 2010s
BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
26 Spotlight
South America
CHILE
How Chile became
a voice for Palestine
The Andean nation has the largest Palestinian
diaspora outside the Middle East – and the
ongoing hostilities in Gaza are being felt deeply
By John Bartlett SANTIAGO
A
bove canvas awnings along
the narrow streets in Patro-
nato, a busy commercial
district in Chile’s capital,
Palestinian flags hang from lampposts
and frame warehouse doors.
Bakeries sell baklava, pitta and
falafel; and shelves are stacked with
products imported from the Middle
East, their ingredients hastily covered
over with Spanish approximations.
Here in Santiago, 13,000km from
Gaza, Palestine’s cause and culture
burn brightly: Chile is home to the
largest Palestinian diaspora out-
side the Middle East, numbering
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
as many as 500,000 people.
“I would love to say that the support
is born from an innate sympathy for
human suffering,” said Dalal Mar-
zuca, 28, a third-generation Chilean
Palestinian. “But I think it’s more likely
that everyone here just has a friend,
colleague or classmate with Palestin-
ian heritage.”
Marzuca works at a Palestinian
coffee shop in the city centre where –
between brewing thick dark coffee and
serving up sticky, sweet knafeh – she
follows the latest news from Gaza via
WhatsApp and Instagram.
“Being Chilean Palestinian is
unique,” said Marzuca. “I’m not
entirely one nor the other, but I know
▲ Fans of how much what happens in Gaza is
Palestino cheer affecting me.”
for their team Last month, Marzuca was one of
IVAN ALVARADO/ thousands of people who marched
REUTERS
beneath a sea of Palestinian flags
towards La Moneda, the presidential
 A child at a pro- palace in Santiago, as the diaspora lent
Palestine protest its considerable voice to the global
in Santiago clamour for a ceasefire.
MARTIN BERNETTI/
AFP/GETTY
“It’s a human cause, not a national
one,” said Kristal Kassis, a 39-year-
old Chilean-born demonstrator
whose grandparents emigrated from
Bethlehem. “Look around us: lots
of people who have no connection
to Palestine have joined us to call
for justice.”Between refugees and
migrants, at least 6 million Palestin-
ians live outside their homeland.
While the largest diaspora beyond
the Middle East is in Chile, there
are also large contingents in Central
America, particularly in Honduras and
El Salvador.
All three countries abstained from
the 1947 UN general assembly vote on
the partition of Palestine and Chile
has recognised Palestine as a state
since 2011.
It also has full diplomatic relations
with Israel. The two embassies in
Chile have no contact.
“Our relationship with the govern-
ment is very good,” said Palestine’s
ambassador in Santiago, Vera Baboun,
whose previous post as Bethlehem’s
mayor saw her visit Santiago in an
effort to foster closer relations with
the diaspora.
President Gabriel Boric’s foreign
ministry announced last year that it
planned to open an embassy in Pales-
tine, although it gave no timeframe
for the move.
Then, in October, Boric recalled
Chile’s ambassador from Tel Aviv,
saying that Israel was not abid-
ing by international law. Boric has
condemned Hamas’s attacks on
7 October in which more than 1,200
people were killed, but he has also
described the Israeli response, which
has killed more than 15,000 Palestin-
ians, as “disproportionate”.
In October, his government made
a $200,000 donation to a UN humani-
tarian fund to help those in Gaza. He
also called the Palestinian National
Authority president, Mahmoud
Abbas, to reiterate his commitment
to peace and security.
The conflict in the Middle East
occupies a prominent role in Chilean

life and politics. Chilean politicians
regularly spar over the conflict, which
inflames passions even beyond the
diaspora and extends into student
politics. In 2016, Boric’s alma mater,
the University of Chile’s law school,
voted to boycott events where par-
ticipants were “functionaries of the
State of Israel and/or are funded by the
Israeli embassy”.
The first migrants from Palestine
arrived in Chile with Turkish passports
in the late 19th century, having left the
crumbling Ottoman Empire, success-
fully setting up textile businesses and
working in commerce. A new wave
joined them as the 20th century began,
with many crossing the Atlantic Ocean
from European ports to Buenos Aires –
an arduous journey that could take up
to three months – and continuing over
the Andes into Chile by mule.
Most were Orthodox Christians
from Beit Jala, Bethlehem and Beit
Sahour, and by the second genera-
tion, many were already integrated
into Catholic churches. Chile’s first
Arabic-language newspaper, Mur-
shid, was founded in 1912, and 20 more
soon followed.
“Chilean Palestinian culture is a
time capsule,” explained Mauricio
Amar, an academic at the University
of Chile’s Eugenio Chahuán Arabic
Studies Centre. “The identity exists
in an in-between space and the tra-
ditions we have are those that were
passed down from the first generation
that arrived in each family.”
On study visits to Bethlehem, some
young Chilean Palestinians recall their
Palestinian contemporaries telling
them that their names were several
generations out of fashion.
At their packed stadium down in
La Cisterna, a southern suburb of San-
tiago, Club Deportivo Palestino, a foot-
ball club founded more than a century
ago by Palestinian migrants, play in
Chile’s top division in the colours of
the Palestinian flag.
A map of Palestine before the crea-
tion of Israel 75 years ago is embla-
zoned on the left sleeve.
“Those spaces are important for the
community. They are where Chilean
Palestinians meet,” said Marzuca,
referring to the football club. “It’s
important that people stay in touch
with these roots, however distant they
are, because we’re so far from the land
our families had to leave behind.”
JOHN BARTLETT IS A JOURNALIST
BASED IN SANTIAGO
Spotlight
Middle East
I R AQ
Gaza conflict
reignites
tensions
with the US
By Simona Foltyn BAGHDAD
A
salvo of machine gun fire,
customary during funerals,
illuminated the night sky as
dozens of men converged in
a dimly lit, unpaved alley on the edges
of the sprawling slums of Sadr city to
pay their respects. A giant picture of
Ali Hassan al-Daraaji had been erected
outside the family home in north-east
Baghdad to announce his “martyr-
dom” in last month’s US airstrikes on
med groups.
Iraqi armed
The series
er of strikes left nine fighters
dead, in
including Daraaji, the first Iraqi
fatalities
ti linked to the Israel-Hamas
war. The
T Pentagon said it acted in self-
defence
n of its troops, who returned to
Iraq in
i 2014 to help the Iraqi govern-
mentn fight Islamic State.
Many of the men at the funeral were
Ma
members
m of Kataib Hezbollah, the
secretive
et group believed responsible
for the
ebbulk of the latest attacks. Some
had joined
ne when it first formed during
the early da
days of the occupation. Oth-
ers, like Ali
li and
an his uncle Dholfaqar
al-Daraaji, followed
lowe suit in 2014, when
Kataib Hezbollah ostensibly merged
into the state security apparatus under
the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an
umbrella of Shia paramilitaries that
received Iranian support to fight IS.
27
Anti-American sentiment runs deep
in this community, which has reeled
from loss after loss. “The people don’t
want the Americans. They are the
ones responsible for the destruction
of Iraq,” Dholfaqar said.
Ali, aged 32 at the time of his death,
was the seventh family member killed
in the intermittent spasms of violence
that have gripped Iraq since 2003.
Iraq has a long history of supporting
the Palestinian struggle for statehood,
an issue that is deeply ingrained in
Arab identity for Sunnis and Shias.
When Israel launched its ground
▲ Popular offensive on 26 October, prayers in
Mobilisation support of Gaza rang out from mina-
Forces soliders rets across the Iraqi capital.
carry a coffin The latest flare-up poses a headache
for the Iraqi government and has once
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/
GETTY
again exposed the authorities’ limits in
restraining armed groups. The prime
minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani,
was brought to power last year by a
ruling alliance that included political
allies of “resistance factions” such as
Kataib Hezbollah, who agreed to tem-
porarily lay down arms to give Sudani
a chance to renegotiate the US-Iraq
relationship and agree on a timeframe
for the departure of US troops.
But patience inside the ruling alli-
Boiling over ance is wearing thin. “There is pres-
On 21 and 22 sure on the government to accelerate
November, the US the withdrawal of American forces,”
targeted fighters said an adviser to Sudani, who asked
it believed were for anonymity to speak freely.
responsible for While most members of the rul-
dozens of attacks ing alliance support Sudani’s efforts
carried out on to advocate for a political solution
American troops to the Israel-Hamas war that would
in Iraq and Syria. also calm the situation in Iraq, some
The operations think that negotiations are “not suf-
were claimed under ficient to deter Israeli aggression”,
the banner of the the official said.
so-called Islamic The government has tried to quell
Resistance in Iraq the fallout by deploying security
in response to “the
forces to stop Kataib Hezbollah from
crimes committed
launching fresh operations. But as
by the enemy
the mourners began to leave Daraaji’s
against our people
funeral, phones buzzed with news of
in Gaza”, according
yet another attack on US troops in
to statements
western Iraq.
released on its
A Kataib Hezbollah statement
Telegram channel.
issued on 25 November announced a
reduction in the pace of attacks until
the end of the Gaza truce, but vowed
that they would continue until Iraq
was “liberated” from the “occupation
forces”, no matter the sacrifice.
“For every martyr, a thousand more
will take his place,” said Dholfaqar.
SIMONA FOLTYN IS A JOURNALIST
BASED IN BAGHDAD
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
28 Spotlight
South Asia
N E PA L
Landmark
marriage
brings joy
for same-sex
couples
By Rojita Adhikari DORDI
T
he dancing continued until
the early hours. Family and
friends – and Suru the dog –
gathered in western Nepal to
mark the joyful end to what had been
a historic day for Maya Gurung and
Surendra Pandey. Last Wednesday,
they became the first same-sex couple
in south Asia to have their marriage
legally recognised.
“Finally we are completely
together, finally we are completely
each other’s, finally we can perform
each other’s funeral if we die tomor-
row,” Gurung, 37, a transgender
woman, said as the couple sat in the
register office in rural Dordi munici-
pality, where she was born.
“Yes, we won it, we did it. We can
have a beautiful future now,” said
Pandey, 27, a cis-man.
Six months ago, Nepal’s supreme
court issued an interim order directing
the government to create a separate
register for marriage between same-sex
and transgender people until marriage
legislation could be amended. In 2007,
the court ordered the government to
look into law changes to allow same-
sex marriages, which are allowed in
the constitution. However, successive
governments failed to bring legislation
before parliament.
The supreme court ruling in June
prompted huge celebrations among
the LGBTQ+ community in Nepal.
However, for Gurung and Pandey,
who had a Hindu wedding ceremony in
2017, it proved short-lived: they faced
significant legal hurdles and opposi-
tion to get their marriage recognised.
“We thought we got justice. But
that happiness did not last long,” said
Gurung. Marriages can be registered
in the courts or at local government
offices, but both initially refused to
allow the couple to register.
“We were married socially but
officially we were still single. We could
not open our joint account, we could
not buy property together, we could not
open a business as a couple,” Gurung
said. “If I died tomorrow, or if he died,
we couldn’t hold a funeral legally.”
Finally, after weeks of discussion
and finding the right forms to fill,
Gurung’s home town in Lamjung dis-
trict agreed to register them. Ranju
Biswhokarma, municipality registrar,
‘We won said: “I am so proud that I am the first
registrar in this county who got to sign
it, we did a historic marriage certificate.”
it. We can Pinky Gurung, who leads Blue
have a Diamond Society Nepal, which sup-
ports the LGBTQ+ community, said:
beautiful “We heard that there was a meeting
future now’ of a few judges of the district and high
courts who decided not to let LGBTQ+
marriages be registered at the court.
But village people showed humanity.”
Gurung and Pandey’s marriage has
given hope to other LGBTQ+ couples.
Malina Neupanne and Prakash
Chaudhari, both 33, who had a trad-
itional marriage three years ago, plan
to register their union. The couple,
from Bhairahawa, were turned back
from Rupandehi district court when
they tried to register their marriage
after the supreme court ruling.
Bhakti Shah, 38, who has been living
with her partner Ramila Shrestha, 36,
in Kathmandu for 19 years, is excited
about the future.
“We can’t wait to move forward
to legalise our marriage,” Shah said.
“Our marriage is not legal, so there
were some insecurities in our rela-
tionship: like I often thought that she
might leave me or I might think the
same sometime. Another huge prob-
lem is we can’t transfer our properties
to each other. If I die tomorrow, she
will not inherit my properties. Isn’t
▼ Surendra
this injustice to us?”
Pandey (left) and Dil Bahadur Tamang, director of
Maya Gurung the Department of National ID and
ARYAN DHIMAL/ZUMA /
Civil Registration, said marriage
SHUTTERSTOCK registration forms have been amended
to allow same-sex and transgender
couples to marry.
“It’s our duty to do it,” he said. “If
other same-sex couples want to register
their marriage we will facilitate them.”
Armed with their new marriage
certificate, Gurung, who before tran-
sitioning was forced to marry a woman
when she was 18, and Pandey were
joined by Gurung’s extended family
to dance and celebrate.
Dhana Maya Gurung, 61, Gurung’s
aunt said: “I never thought this day
would come. It was unfortunate that
we had to watch her pain, but could
not help. Rather, we forced her to be
someone that she did not want to be.”
Gurung’s cousin, Shanta Maya
Gurung, said: “I used to feel ashamed
to take Maya with us as he used to dress
like a girl, but I feel ashamed of myself
that I did not understand her.”
ROJITA ADHIKARI IS A JOURNALIST
BASED IN KATHMANDU
 Spotlight
Asia Pacific
NEW ZEALAND
‘This is war’
Māori treaty
rights at risk
from new
government
By Michelle Duff WELLINGTON
M
ore than 180 years after
Māori leaders gathered
near the banks of the
Waitangi River to sign
the treaty that became New Zealand’s
founding document, their descend-
ants fear the rights afforded to them
in the agreement may be under attack.
The country’s new coalition
government, sworn in last week, has
said it will review the principles of Te
Tiriti o Waitangi, or Treaty of Waitangi,
which upholds Māori rights.
“For us, this is a modern-day
confiscation of our treaty rights,
hard-earned and fought for by our
predecessors,” said Tukoroirangi
Morgan, hundreds of whose ances-
tors were killed by British troops in the
invasion of the Waikato in the 1860s.
The government – led by National’s
Christopher Luxon and with the popu-
list New Zealand First leader, Winston
Peters, and Act party libertarian David
Seymour sharing the deputy prime
minister role – has announced at least
a dozen policies that provide for Māori
will be repealed or reviewed. This
includes minimising Māori language
use in the public service and scrap-
ping the Māori Health Authority, Te
Aka Whai Ora, set up to reverse nega-
tive Māori health outcomes.
Luxon said voters wanted services
provided on the basis of need, not race,
and he was “strengthening demo-
cracy” for all New Zealanders. He told
the Post newspaper: “There are some
things there that we just need a bit of
rebalancing and a bit of clarity.”
Critics say the moves are an affront
to four decades of legislative decisions
that form the basis of the modern
interpretation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Morgan, who is Waikato-Tainui
tribal leader and a former New Zea-
land First MP, described the policies
as “anti-Māori”. “Part of our nation is
under major attack, and all of the gains
that have come as a result of activism
in the last 50 years,” he said.
Luxon has pledged with New
Zealand First to review all mentions
of the treaty principles in existing leg-
islation and repeal or amend these.
Seymour campaigned to end co-
governance and “division by race”, and
wanted a referendum on the treaty. He
has described co-governance, or the
crown making decisions in partner-
ship with Māori in line with Te Tiriti,
as “dismantling democracy”.
Luxon, who told Radio New Zealand
a referendum would be “divisive and
unhelpful”, stopped short of agreeing
to this – but the coalition will support
Act’s treaty principles bill, which seeks
29
 A protest to replace current meanings with its
in Waitangi in own interpretations, to select commit-
February tee. This would mean a public debate,
FIONA GOODALL/GETTY and the possibility of a referendum.
A Human Rights Commission survey
last month found over half of New
Zealanders think Te Tiriti applies to
everyone in the country, and 80% want
respectful discussion of racial issues.
The Māori lawyer and independence
advocate Annette Sykes said the
moves are an overreach by the crown.
“This is a declaration of war into the
rights and interests of Māori. It is also
an attack on the essence of our nation.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie
Ngarewa-Packer expects backlash to
the government’s policies around Te
Tiriti, especially among younger peo-
ple. Her party gained six seats in the
Founding treaty 2023 election, four more than in 2020.
The treaty is an “Do they really think that Māori
agreement reached would be silenced?” she said.
in 1840 between Te Pāti Māori is now opposing the
the British and
oath every MP has to make to the king
Māori. While to be sworn into parliament, saying it
it is not a legal is not an equal partnership as it does
document, it forms
New Zealand’s
constitution and its
not mention Te Tiriti.
Softening provisions that provide
for self-determination and protect
principles – which
include the right
Māori rights could deepen existing
inequalities. New Zealand has one of
of Māori to self-
determination, or
tino rangatiratanga,
the least equal education systems in
the developed world. Māori children
are five times more likely to be in state
and the protection
of Māori interests
– are woven into
care, and 67% of female prisoners are
Māori. International evidence shows
self-determination can reverse these
legislation. This
outcomes, said Prof Claire Charters of
began in the
the University of Auckland .
1970s with the
“You can’t just take the simplified
establishment
approach that by treating people
of the Waitangi
Tribunal, a exactly the same you’re going to
commission achieve equality. You’re not. This effec-
of inquiry that tively just prioritises those who have
investigates power,” said Charters, who is also the
treaty breaches Indigenous rights leader for the New
by the crown. Zealand Human Rights Commission.
There are plans to “restore bal-
ance” to the country’s new history
curriculum, launched in 2022 under
the previous government, which made
learning about Te Tiriti and the New
Zealand Wars compulsory.
Te Herenga Waka Victoria
University of Wellington professor of
Māori education Joanna Kidman fears
attempts to rewrite history. “It looks
like they want a different kind of soci-
ety and in order to do that they have to
destroy the foundation of the society
we live in, which is Te Tiriti,” she said.
MICHELLE DUFF IS A NEW ZEALAND-
BASED JOURNALIST AND WRITER
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
30 Spotlight
Science

H E A LT H

At Quai 9 in Geneva, safe equipment and care have cut overdoses and illnesses among addicts.
But opinion differs over whether such projects actually reduce drug usage or just contain it

Inside a legal drug use room

I
By Charlotte n a lime-green room behind
Lytton Geneva’s main train station, a
man is slumped over a chair, the
heroin he has just injected taking
effect. Around him, a handful of others
are in the process of reaching that same
state of bliss: administering bands to
their arms to produce a vein, unpeeling
plastic-clad syringes, exhaling as the
needle goes in. Some will return today
– maybe a handful of times – to get their
hit at one of the oldest supervised drug
consumption rooms in the world,
where users can take their own illicit
substances without fear of prosecution
by Swiss authorities.
A state-provided supply of safe
injecting equipment, along with tea,
croissants and hot showers, may seem
an unusual way to handle a citywide
drug epidemic, but Geneva’s Quai 9
facility – which turned 20 this year – may
provide a blueprint for other countries.
In September, it was announced that
the UK’s first legal consumption room
is to open in Glasgow, a city in a country
with higher fatal overdose rates than
anywhere in Europe; deaths caused by
drug poisoning in Scotland are 2.7 times
higher than the UK average. First pro-
posed seven years ago, the city-centre
site will cost £7m ($8.8m) to run for
three years. Kirsten Horsburgh, chief

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum,
said she is “delighted” by this “massive,
massive achievement” .
Studies of the approximately 120
facilities worldwide appear positive:
Vancouver’s has been “associated with
improved health outcomes” such as
reducing HIV and hepatitis C trans-
mission by providing clean needles;
Sydney’s, which opened in 2001, noted
a reduction in ambulance callouts. A
2011 paper found that consumption
rooms reduced fatal overdose rates
by a third, while a paper published by
French researchers last year showed
emergency department visits and
crime dropped too.
Its proponents argue that
consumption rooms provide better
outcomes for users’ health, the public
– and the public purse. A 2021 UK gov-
ernment review found that the societal
cost of drug misuse in England and
Wales is £20bn annually, yet that for
every £1 spent on harm reduction and
treatment, there is a fourfold return on
investment via alleviated pressure on
health and justice services.
Of course, the idea seems mind-
boggling to many, even if consumption
rooms have been around since the first
opened in Bern, Switzerland, in 1986.
After a five-year trial, a small group of
vocal protesters expressed their fury
at the recent opening of the medically
supervised injecting room (MSIR) in
Melbourne, sharing photos of addicts
lying in the street outside.
Quai 9 appeared to have cracked the
not-in-my-backyard thinking. Run by
Première Ligne (a nonprofit focusing
on drug harm reduction), with 4m
Swiss francs ($4.5m) in funding from
the Canton of Geneva over the past
year, it has become a fundamental part
of the city’s makeup. Its central loca-
tion and lurid lime-green exterior are
intended to signpost it to those in need.
DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS; ILLUSTRATION BY OBSERVER DESIGN
The relationship between the centre
and locals, and the fact that, to date,
there has not been a lethal overdose
at Quai 9, are “a matter of pride … It’s
nice to think that good decisions were
taken in Geneva”, said Ruth Dreifuss, a
former Swiss president and ex-chair of
the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
Dreifuss, who was elected to the
Swiss cabinet in the early 1990s – when
the country was in the grip of the HIV
crisis – is adamant that “drug use is
a health problem”. She believes that
penalising users of illicit substances
serves only to potentially worsen their
health and social footing.
A central location is
considered essential for
consumption rooms, so
they are based where
excessive drug use is, but
this requires cooperation
between businesses,
police and residents.
£7m Yet Quai 9 has been hit hard by new
challenges. Geneva is facing a crack
Cost of running cocaine epidemic, with cheap “rocks”
the UK’s first available for as little as $11. Quai 9 has
consumption introduced a smoking room, with plas-
room, in tic dividers to help contain the fumes.
Glasgow, for “You cannot predict what’s going to be
three years the next step,” said Thomas Herquel,
Première Ligne’s director.
6k Around the world, shifting drug use
habits have unseated what appeared to
Number of be permissive drug law success stories.
overdoses Portugal decriminalised consumption
managed in of all drugs for personal use in 2001; it
Melbourne since technically remains against the law,
its centre opened but instead of prison, users are regis-
tered by police and referred for help.
12.8% Initially HIV transmission rates via
syringes dropped, as did the number
Illicit drug use of overdoses, and prison populations
rate in Portugal were down 16.5% by 2008. But a recent
in 2022, up from national survey shows illicit drug
7.8% in 2001 use up from 7.8% to 12.8% between
2001 and 2022; overdose rates are at
a 12-year high, having nearly doubled
in Lisbon between 2019 and 2023 (this
is still below the European average).
Crimes such as robbery in public
spaces rose 14% from 2021 to 2022,
which police have in part blamed on
the rise in drug use.
D
rug reforms in Oregon and
Canada have also failed to
live up to their promises.
‘We have a Measure 110, introduced in
the US state three years ago to limit the
safe place; role of law enforcement in drug use,
we don’t has resulted in rising overdoses and
have to delays in funding for treatment; a state-
wide poll in May found that more than
use drugs 60% of residents believe the policy has
outside worsened levels of addiction, crime
and homelessness. In British Colum-
houses, on bia, decriminalisation efforts amid an
the streets’ opioid crisis have been called a “failed
Vincent* experiment” by the Conservative party
Quai 9 visitor leader, Pierre Poilievre.
31
Dr Nico Clark led the establish-
ment of the MSIR in Melbourne,
worked on drug treatment efforts at
the World Health Organization and
is now head of addiction medicine at
Royal Melbourne hospital. He remains
optimistic that “if you redesign [drug]
services in a way that works for [drug
users], then you have this combined
benefit of helping people stay alive,
but also helping them change their
lives and improve their lives”. He
points to figures showing a drop in
ambulance callouts in the area around
the centre once it opened, and data
modelling that estimates more than
6,000 overdoses have since been suc-
cessfully managed, and 63 lives saved.
For Keith Humphreys, a professor of
psychiatry and behavioural sciences at
Stanford University, it is hard to con-
clude whether consumption rooms are
really the answer to rising global drug
use rates. Evidence is “methodologi-
cally weak”, Humphreys said. “Super-
vised drug consumption sites may
make a small difference or they may
not, especially when compared with
better evidenced services that could
be supported with the same money.”
Increasingly, how well consumption
rooms work comes down to what
“working” looks like. Do reduced
ambulance callouts and less anti-
social behaviour constitute success?
Or does that only come with a drop in
drug use and crime rates? Is the main
goal simply keeping people who would
be injecting anyway off the streets?
Vincent*, who has been visiting
Quai 9 for six years, told me: “At the
beginning I was only smoking heroin.
After four or five months, I started
injecting, and started mixing medica-
tion [taking other substances], which
made things feel much stronger. It
makes me calm, but at the same time,
it’s a false calm, because I’m very nerv-
ous, stressed and anxious.” Inside his
mind is a prison, he said, from which
he is unable to escape.
He is grateful for the centre, to “have
a safe place to smoke and inject, we
don’t have to use drugs outside people’s
houses, [or] on the streets”. But he also
attends five times a day, his addiction
showing no signs of slowing. Vincent
aspires to have “a beautiful family”,
he said, smiling, and “to be given a
chance”. Quai 9 may be the safest place
he can achieve that. Observer
CHARLOTTE LYTTON IS A JOURNALIST
BASED IN LONDON
*Name has been changed
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
32 Spotlight
North America
A N A LY S I S
U N I T E D S TAT E S
Evasive action
Can Trump
really have
it both ways
on abortion?
By Carter Sherman
A few months ago,
the former president
Donald Trump accused
the Republican party
of speaking “very inarticulately”
on abortion. And yet, for the
GOP presidential frontrunner,
inarticulateness seems to be a
feature, not a bug, of his own
approach to abortion.
Trump thinks he can run in
2024 as a “moderate” on abortion,
Rolling Stone reported last week
– even though he’s currently
running ads in Iowa, a crucial
state in the Republican primary,
proclaiming himself “the most
pro-life president ever”. It’s a title
to which Trump has a legitimate
claim: his three nominees to the
supreme court not only handed the
nation’s highest court a definitive
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
conservative majority, but all three
voted to overturn Roe v Wade in
summer last year.
While Republicans have flailed
over how to message on abortion,
Trump has – in typical Trump
fashion – flip-flopped on it with
apparent ease. He has refused to
say whether he supports a federal
ban and called the decision by Ron
DeSantis, the Florida governor,
to sign a six-week abortion ban a
“terrible thing”.
But all the while, Trump
continues to take credit for
overturning Roe.
Howard Schweber, a professor
of American politics and political
theory at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, said that
“Trump has what, in my experience
of observing politics, seems like a
nearly unique ability to maintain
cognitive dissonance in ways that
his supporters find untroubling.
“His supporters will say, ‘Oh,
well, he really means that when he
says’ – and then finish that sentence
with whichever position they
approve of. That’s the gamble that
he’s taking,” he said.
Trump has not said what, if any,
specific abortion policy he would
support as president.
Iowa has a reputation for
conservative evangelicalism, but
most Iowans believe that abortion
should be legal in all or most cases.
By not letting himself get nailed
down on a specific abortion policy,
Trump might be approaching Iowa
as though the presidential primary
is already over, said Tim Hagle, a  A rally in
political science professor at the support of
University of Iowa. “Things that you abortion rights in
might say a little more forcefully Kansas City
during the nomination process in 2022
during the primaries, you back off a CHARLIE RIEDEL/AP
little bit when it comes time for the
general election,” Hagle said. “And
that’s been a strategy of candidates
for decades.”
Republicans in Iowa have
launched an effort to amend the state
constitution and clarify that it does
not protect abortion rights. In order
for the amendment to show up
on the ballot, the Republican-
controlled state legislature would
have to pass it before handing
the measure to voters. That could
backfire, increasing turnout
among abortion rights supporters
who oppose Trump.
Most Americans oppose the
overturning of Roe. But that doesn’t
mean voters are all that motivated
by it: numerous polls since Roe’s
overturning have found that
Democrats are highly energised by
abortion, while Republicans are
less so – a reversal of the status quo
while Roe was the law of the land.
As long as Trump wins the
primary, he’s in little danger of
losing the conservative evangelicals
who oppose abortion rights. While
they may want him to be more
forceful on the issue, it’s improbable
that they would turn to a Democrat
in response to Trump’s reticence.
“It does create a little heartburn
on the part of the pro-life folks that
supported him if all the sudden he’s
taking a more moderating position,
but he may see that that’s more
appropriate given his electoral
strategy,” Hagle said.
Schweber, though, is convinced
that there are would-be Trump
voters who will defect solely based
on their support of abortion.
“Women voters – particularly Trump
middle-class and upper-class, has what
suburban women voters – do take
abortion rights seriously,” he said. seems like
In 2016, Schweber said Republican a nearly
women told him: “‘It doesn’t matter,
they’re never going to overrule Roe.’
unique
“That sense of security is ability to
obviously gone,” he added. maintain
CARTER SHERMAN IS A REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH AND JUSTICE REPORTER AT
cognitive
GUARDIAN US dissonance

U N I T E D S TAT E S
Why esteem
for Kissinger
transcended
political
divisions
By Julian Borger WASHINGTON
O
ne of the few things that still
brings the Republican and
Democratic political estab-
lishments together is their
shared reverence for Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger’s death, at the age of 100,
has served as a reminder that the wide-
ranging and substantial allegations of
war crimes against him never dimmed
the admiration he inspired among the
powerful in Washington.
“Henry Kissinger, war criminal
beloved by America’s ruling class,
finally dies,” was the Rolling Stone
headline on his obituary, expressing
the bewilderment and frustration of
many progressives at his enduring
popularity among the elite.
Republican tributes were hardly
surprising – it was as national security
adviser and then secretary of state to
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford that
Kissinger made his mark on the world.
What is more striking is the enduring
fealty of Democrats, who otherwise
identify as liberals and defenders of
human rights on the world stage.
The current secretary of state,
Antony Blinken, said he had sought
Kissinger’s counsel as recently as a
month ago, and issued a lengthy trib-
ute to Kissinger’s “enduring capacity
to bring his strategic acumen and intel-
lect to bear on the emerging challenges
of each passing decade”.
Joe Biden was a little more
measured, praising the late states-
man’s “fierce intellect and profound
strategic focus”, while adding the two
men often strongly disagreed.
That note of caution was the
only veiled nod by the administra-
tion towards Kissinger’s record of
ruthless acts, some of which have been
categorised as war crimes or crimes
against humanity.
In 1968, he helped sabotage
Demo cratic President Lyndon
Johnson’s peace talks with the North
Vietnamese, helping ensure Nixon’s
election and the extension of the Viet-
nam war by another five years.
In 1969, he orchestrated the carpet-
bombing of Cambodia, a neutral
country, which resulted in the killing
of up to half a million people, without
consulting Congress or declaring war.
He gave US acquiescence in the 1971
slaughter of 300,000 Bengalis in what
was then East Pakistan by the dictator,
Gen Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan.
In 1973, he helped orchestrate
a coup against the democratically
elected president of Chile, Salvador
Allende, installing a military dictator,
Augusto Pinochet. And in 1976 he gave
a green light to the military junta that
had taken over Argentina to get rid of
its leftist opposition.
It is a litany that cuts across
everything liberal Democratic foreign
policy is meant to stand for, and yet
one powerful Washington Democrat
after another has feted Kissinger.
“I’ve always been genuinely
mystified by it myself,” said Ben
Rhodes, who was Barack Obama’s
deputy national security adviser for
strategic communications.
Rhodes suggested a couple of
possible explanations , including
Democrats’ inferiority complex over
foreign and national security policy.
33
“Some Democrats and some ▼ Henry Kissinger
liberals have a lack of confidence on inspired admiration
foreign affairs, and there’s this aura of among both
credibility around Kissinger,” he said. Republicans and
Obama was an exception to the Democrats
Democrats’ fandom, noting in 2016 that DEREK HUDSON/GETTY
the Nixon and Kissinger legacy in south-
east Asia had been “chaos, slaughter
and authoritarian governments”.
But for others, Kissinger’s record
of pursuing détente with Russia and
China, reducing the threat of nuclear
conflict, was more important than his
involvement in atrocities elsewhere.
Sidney Blumenthal, a former
adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton,
argued there was a more practical rea-
son they were keen to meet Kissinger
long after he had left office.
“He stayed around for a long time
and made himself invaluable as an
intermediary and made a tremendous
amount of money, particularly as a
channel to China,” Blumenthal said.
Brett Bruen, the director of ‘He stayed
global engagement in the Obama
White House, said you could admire around for
Kissinger’s craft without necessarily a long time
endorsing his policies. and made
Aaron David Miller, a former senior
diplomat, argued Kissinger’s agility as a himself
statesman, and his ability to get things invaluable
done, was the real secret to an appeal
that transcended political differences.
as a
“What is the world’s most compelling negotiator’
ideology?” Miller said. “It’s not nation-
alism, it’s not communism, it’s not even Sidney
capitalism. It’s success.” Blumenthal
JULIAN BORGER IS THE GUARDIAN’S Former Clinton
WORLD AFFAIRS EDITOR adviser
36 Too much stuff

NE FREEZING COLD MORNING, I drove past the to date, we must acknowledge that the situation is unsustainable.
outer edge of Denver, Colorado, past Buckley air And yet, we can’t seem to stop ourselves.
force base, past the suburban neighbourhoods At the start of 2021, my wife, our daughter and I had a meeting to
huddled at the edge of the Great Plains. I saw see if we could restrain our household’s consumption. I had been
rising from the prairie several low bumps, lifting drawing inspiration from a range of so-called minimalists and wanted
from the horizon like icebergs. As I got close to to give it a try. I had investigated the likes of Lauren Singer, who lived
them, I saw they were encircled by barbed wire a “zero-waste lifestyle” in Brooklyn, limiting her trash of eight years
and knew I had reached my destination. to so few items that they could fit in a single mason jar. I’d read about
I pulled into the Denver Arapahoe Disposal a family of four in Los Angeles who had given up all plastics. I had
Site, cutely known as Dads. I was part of a tour, learned about Lara Joanna Jarvis, a mother of two in Hampshire, Eng-
arranged by a local reporter. Ten people gathered land, who didn’t buy anything for a year and saved £25,000 ($32,000).
around our guide, Doc Nyiro, a Dads manager, “What could we do?” I said, as I opened my laptop and pulled up
middle-aged, with a studious, geeky demeanour. a Forbes article (ironic for a magazine with a “billionaire’s index”)
Nyiro began by telling us that Dads is open 24 that provided a guide to a “no buy” year. “How about this?” I asked.
hours a day, six days a week. Every day, 800 trucks My then nine-year-old daughter nodded in agreement. “I
arrive, culminating in about 2m tonnes of refuse want to save the environment,” she said. She didn’t like all the
a year. We watched the trucks pulling into the weigh station. “It just boxes that things came in. My wife eagerly subscribed to the idea.
doesn’t slow down,” Nyiro said. “Truck after truck.” “And I want to be less consumerist,” she said, “because sometimes
Nyiro took us to an area where a new cell was being constructed: you think you have joy out of things. But things don’t bring joy.” We
the foundation for a new mountain of trash. It was 10 hectares in size were off to a good start.
and lined with clay and crushed glass to prevent the liquid that would There are a wide range of possible motivations for this kind of
gather as the rubbish breaks down from leaking into the groundwater. strategic living: an aesthetic sense (when people like spaces with fewer
Once completed, the cell will be filled with waste, and would reach things), sustainability (driven by concerns over the environment),
90 metres high within two years. thrift (saving money), mindfulness (wanting to be more intentional
Next, Nyiro took us to an active landfill area. We watched as a line in one’s life) and experience (when people are excited to try different
of trucks stopped around us to empty out everything imaginable. “It lifestyles). For my daughter, it was the environment; for my wife,
looks like they just took all the contents of my apartment and dumped
it here,” a man on the tour said, not joking. The wind whipped trash
into the air like snow as 100-tonne tractors compressed couches and
cookie boxes and everything in between into thick strata that contain
the full record of modern life. The result: a dry tomb of waste that
will endure for millennia.
Nyiro then led us to a tragically small area of Dads dedicated to
gathering recyclable and compostable materials. At the final stop, we
visited an electricity plant, with old train motors powered by methane
released from decomposing trash. The plant produces enough elec-
tricity to power 2,500 homes a year.
By the tour’s end, I couldn’t help but admire the landfill’s efficiency,
the engineering that goes into managing so much waste. Dads enables
the endless cycle of consumption of my city to go on uninterrupted
while reducing the chances of immediate environmental harm. But
not every place has the resources to manage such monumental waste.
Ghana, for instance, imports around 15m items of secondhand cloth-
ing from countries including the UK, US and China every week. Many
garments end up in informal dumps, which, after seasonal rains, wash
out millions of rotting, tangled pieces of clothing on to local beaches.
While grateful for the work of Nyiro and his colleagues, I also felt
nauseated. It is hard to stomach seeing what actually comes of our
collective consumption – the waste that makes literal mountains, not
to mention the waste of resources that are spent on dealing with it. Just
this one dump was a perpetual-motion machine to manage a cease-
less flow of abandoned things, like trying to manage the ocean’s tide.
Mass consumption has brought numerous benefits: jobs and
financial wealth, physical safety and security. New ways of connect-
ing, talking and thinking. Easy travel to nearly anywhere in the world.
Lights that keep the dark nights at bay. Music constantly available.
But the costs have also been staggering. Economic inequality and
wars over non-renewable resources have killed untold numbers.
The steep increase in products in recent decades has accelerated
pollutant emissions, deforestation and climate breakdown. It has
depleted water supplies and contributed to the rapid extinction
of animals. There are vast “garbage patches” floating across the
world’s oceans, with infinite bits of microplastics working their way
into food webs. Even if we accept the positives of mass consumption

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


mindfulness. For me, I lean toward a minimalist aesthetic. But mainly
I was exhausted by endless shopping, and terrified by the possibility
that our over-consumption was destroying the planet.
After a moment of silence, my wife reconsidered: “OK, maybe a
speaker that brings out music brings out joy.”
She had a point. Living without things is impossible. And things
can give us experiences of joy. Things connect us to each other, our
pasts, our identities. Even if we loathe some things for the destruc-
tion they bring, we love the things that make us who we are. After
all, humans have long depended on our things.
“What if,” I improvised, “we don’t do a no-buy year, but a slow-buy
year? Besides necessities, we each only get to buy five things this year.”
We considered this. I drafted a list of approved items, not to be
counted toward our five things: food, school and work items, health
necessities and car parts (if needed). We could accept gifts from others,
though we would discourage them. But if we bought gifts to give,
then it would count toward our five.
Everyone happily agreed. But after I closed my laptop, I began to
think about all the things I wished I had bought before we arrived at this
plan – another phone plug, a better automatic cat-feeder, running shoes,
sunglasses … maybe this would be more difficult than I’d imagined.
MY FAMILY’S EFFORT WAS A VERSION OF MINIMALISM, a growing
movement in many consumerist societies to live with less. There
are those who refuse to bring more stuff into their lives. Elizabeth
Chai, a 40-year-old in Portland, Oregon, got rid of 2,020 posses-
sions and didn’t buy anything in 2020 except food, drink and toi-
letries. Others refuse to buy certain things, such as anything made
of plastic. Others may give up single-use gadgets or fast fashion or
things that just seem wasteful, such as paper plates.
Then there are individuals committed to the ethic of reuse, who
throw away less and save items that would otherwise be tossed. In
recent years, the Nextdoor app has gained popularity: neighbours
use it to borrow tools, trade items and give away things headed to
landfill. Nextdoor reports that it is used in 11 countries and in nearly
one in three US households. Similarly, Buy Nothing – a social network
group founded in 2013 and dedicated to the “gift economy” of sharing
and loaning items that would otherwise be bought or tossed – has a
massively popular app. Creative reuse is also central to Singer and
others seeking a “zero-waste lifestyle”, which requires reusing items
(such as cloth grocery bags), borrowing others’ items (such as wine
glasses from a neighbour for a party), and repurposing or “upcycling”
an item (such as turning wine corks into a countertop).
Finally, there are those who reduce, as with my family’s attempt
at a slow-buy year. Some have reduced to just 100 possessions. The
2021 Netflix documentary The Minimalists: Less Is Now challenges
viewers to consider getting rid of one thing in the first month, two in
the second, three in the third, and so on – selling, giving away or trash-
ing the items. Another version is a kind of “heirloom materialism”,
in which people try to purchase only items that will endure for many
years. My family’s attempt to slow-buy for a year fell into this category.
My initial panic endured for a week. I kept coming across things
that I “needed” to buy – a bouncy ball to play with my daughter after
our favourite one got a hole, a new book, a gift for a friend who had a
baby. Let it be said: I resisted all these temptations. I reminded myself
to be grateful for what we had, and I found ways to make do. But then
the pandemic hit, and suddenly, our small house became my office,
gym and vacation spot – the place where our family spent almost
every moment of our lives. Hesitantly, we started house-hunting.
By April, we had bought a piano book and a new bike for my daugh-
ter. A hole finally opened in the toe of one of my running shoes; I had
no choice (I thought) but to buy a new pair. After all, my physical
fitness depended on it. My wife bought two books as a gift to a friend.
Then things got dicey. Some permanent pens accidentally went into
37
The number of possessions given away by
Elizabeth Chai in 2020. She didn’t buy anything
that year except food, drink and toiletries
a load of washing with nearly all my clothes. Still, I resisted buying
new ones. But then, the next month, we saw a great house for us. We
made an offer, knowing – half-accepting, half-denying – that to make
it our home, we would have to buy a lot more than five things each.
When our slow-buy year was on the brink of failure after just six
months, I came across a harsh but hilarious screed against mini-
malism, written by Chelsea Fagan of the Financial Diet blog. Fagan
levels multiple arguments against all forms of minimalism. She
writes that it is classist, a fad for the rich, because people in real
poverty don’t have to worry about what not to buy, and because
of how expensive “sustainable” and “heirloom” items often are.
“‘Stop wasting money on all that Ikea nonsense!’” Fagan imagined a
minimalist saying. “‘With this $4,000 dining table hand-whittled by
a failed novelist in Scandinavia, you will never need another piece
of furniture!’ – which really just points to having enough disposable
income to ‘invest’ in your wardrobe and surroundings.” Further-
more, she derides the idea that a simple aesthetic and decluttering
equals moral worth, a “faux spiritualism”. Every form of minimalism,
Fagan concludes, “is just another form of conspicuous consumption,
a way of saying to the world, ‘Look at me! Look at all of the things
I have refused to buy, and the incredibly expensive, sparse items I
have deemed worthy instead!’”
Others have pointed out that attacking consumption itself in order
to solve the problems of over-consumption is unlikely to succeed.
Consumerism has become a symbol of liberty and democratic equality
– in today’s world, the idea goes, anyone can consume anything, and
thus be turned into the person they want to be. The symbolic glow of
consumption cannot simply be turned off.
People do love things. The anthropologist Daniel Miller studied
shoppers in London and saw that many people do not see consump-
tion as an act of hedonism, but as necessary provisioning for them-
selves and their families. The items brought into the household were
a way of showing thought and concern about the needs of the people
in it. In this way, shopping is a means to express care – an act of love.
Anti-consumer logic, in a strange way, can be interpreted as anti-love.
And who doesn’t want love?
While these arguments against minimalism struck me as worryingly
true, I also reflected on how much, by at least trying it, I learned about
myself, my family’s needs, my relationship with things. When I asked
my wife about these critiques, she explained how our slow-buy phase
made her pause before each purchase, to ask herself if she really
needed the item, or if there was some other way to obtain it. She was
less stressed during holidays and birthdays because she knew she
didn’t have to worry about what to buy. And it made her consider
how, just because a person has the ability to buy something doesn’t
mean she should. For her, minimalism isn’t faux spiritualism,
but a real contentment and reframing of what brings true joy. 
I agreed, even as I worried that while minimalism can be
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
38 Too much stuff

Hard to stomach
An albatross chick lies dead
on Midway Atoll in the Pacific
after ingesting plastics
DAN CLARK/USFWS/AP

an important approach for individuals, we still need bigger answers

– answers that don’t reframe just individual consumption, but how
our larger world of consumerism operates.

IN THE EARLY DAWN OF ONE SUMMER DAY IN 2008, Marcus Eriksen’s

raft, floating in the Pacific 100km west of Los Angeles, was sinking.
Fifty-knot gusts churned the sea and threaded through the powerless
vessel, pulling it apart. This should not have been a surprise. After all,
the raft, named Junk, was constructed of a Cessna airplane fuselage
sitting atop ply board and strapped to 15,000 plastic bottles.
Eriksen had been motivated by the plastics crisis eight years earlier,
when he had visited Midway Atoll, a speck of land at the western The volume of plastic waste
edge of the Hawaii archipelago. There lay hundreds of thousands of generated per person in the US in
laysan albatross nests. Led by the biologist Heidi Auman, Eriksen’s 2021 – totalling nearly 51m tonnes
visit was focused on the amount of plastic the birds ingest as food.
Albatross parents feed their young the shocking range of plastics that

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


litter the island and its waters – toothbrushes, wires, cigarette lighters
– providing a false sense of satiety. Many of the birds die, and their
rotting carcasses burst open to reveal stomachs stuffed with plastics.
Eriksen is a man of action. He dedicated his life to bringing what
he witnessed at Midway Atoll to those who were unaware of how
humanity’s love affair with plastic had become a horror show for
our oceans. In 2003, he paddled 3,200km down the Mississippi in
the Bottle Rocket, a raft made of 232 two-litre plastic bottles, to bring
attention to the waterway’s pollution. Next, Eriksen wanted to see
where all the plastic from North America’s rivers ends up.
He travelled to the Great Pacific garbage patch – a collection of
human debris trapped in a circular ocean current – guided by the
man credited with discovering it, Capt Charlie Moore. There, Eriksen
learned that the patch is less garbage and more a thick soup of frag-
mented plastics, or as he would write, “a kaleidoscope of micro-
plastics, like sprinkles on cupcakes”. He realised it would be nearly
impossible to clean up the tiny fragments infiltrating marine life. In
2014, after 24 expeditions, Eriksen and a team of scientists would be
the first to estimate the total weight of plastics in the world’s oceans:
around 250,000 tonnes.
The scale of this crisis mocks attempts such as my family’s to reduce
the amount of waste – especially plastic – in the world. The US Environ-
mental Protection Agency estimated that Americans threw out nearly
51m tonnes of plastic in 2021, or about 140kg per person. Even if I had
somehow managed not to consume and throw away any plastic for
an entire year, my actions would have reduced the country’s total
plastic waste by a vanishingly tiny amount. The amount of energy
and worry I’d spent on my slow-buy year seemed absurd.
This was the conundrum buzzing in my head when I sat down to
interview Marcus Eriksen. Although ascetics point to the question of
individual responsibility for what we consume, Eriksen emphasises
that our modern debate has been shaped by narratives created by some
of the corporations most responsible for the crisis we find ourselves in.
Eriksen believes the primary responsibility for solving the
environmental crisis belongs to businesses and governments. Those
who produce materials, and those responsible for overseeing it, can
act at the scale necessary for real change. “We’re fooling ourselves if
we think that individual actions are going to move the meter,” Anna
Cummins, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute, a non-profit focusing on
reducing plastic pollution, recently told the Los Angeles Times. “Every
little bit helps, but public policy and corporations have to change.”
Eriksen believes the overall strategy must involve moving from a
“linear economy” to a “circular economy”. This is a shift from a single-
use, throwaway economy, as he wrote in 2017, to a model “with end-of-
life design, recovery, and remanufacture systems that keep synthetic
materials like plastic in a closed loop”. Ideally, synthetic materials
are increasingly replaced by less environmentally harmful and less
wasteful substitutes. Businesses can develop innovative packaging
and delivery systems, such as returnable and reusable boxes.
Governments can pass laws that ban certain products, and moderate
planned obsolescence – for example, in the US, proposed right to repair
legislation would support far more gadgets being repaired instead of
replaced. In 2020, France passed an anti-waste law that compelled
makers of smartphones, washing machines, televisions, laptops
and lawnmowers to list their products on a “repairability index”,
and banned companies destroying unsold items. Kenya, Rwanda,
Uganda and Tanzania have all banned single-use plastic bags, and
Kenya recently outlawed all single-use plastics, along with glass and
silverware, in national parks. Legislation in Chile will ban all single-use
food and beverage products by 2025. “There is also the zero-waste city
model,” Eriksen said. “We especially see this movement in emerging
markets that don’t have space for landfills or funds for incinerators.”
This strategy involves creating a workforce built around waste sort-
ing, recycling and composting.
39
HESE IDEAS, WHILE VISIONARY, have received
criticism. Some suggest that there is little evidence
that industrial societies can make the switch from
linear to circular and have the anticipated environ-
mental benefits. From an engineering standpoint,
some have suggested that it is impossible to build a
truly closed-loop system. In industrial production,
there will always be times where new materials must
be introduced into the system and waste products
must exit it. Materials wear down. Machines leak.
Some toxins are too dangerous to be recirculated.
Additionally, when one study looked at circular
economies – not just the industrial mechanisms to
create closed-loop systems – there was a paradoxical
increase in overall production.
The reason is that precisely because circular
production decreases per-unit production costs, there is an increase
in demand for the cheaper stuff, which ultimately increases produc-
tion and reduces the intended environmental benefits of a circular
economy. In other cases, the savings in efficiencies are offset by
consumer choices about what to do with those potential savings.
For example, in recent years, there have been leaps forward in fuel
efficiency in cars, but those savings in fuel have been offset by the
increase in car size. The study found that steps can be taken to mitigate
this “circular-economy rebound”, but that they are incongruous with
the goals of for-profit companies.
Still others argue that the circular-economy idea merely reframes
rather than rejects the corporate and capitalist assumptions that got
us into this mess in the first place. Instead of challenging the goal of
growth, circular economies create a new form of growth that is still
in the hands of industrial corporations.
The accusation is that the circular economy has become a corporate
slogan that depoliticises our environmental crisis by seeing the answer
as a technical one to be solved by industry, rather than tackling an
unjust economic system that gives power and benefits to a few at
the cost of the many.
There are strong moral arguments that we have an obligation to
reduce our consumption and its associated waste, because although
our individual contributions to the environmental crisis may be infini-
tesimally small, our small sacrifices – buying less plastic, for example
– do add up to meaningful change. Such sacrifices also express our
values, which can inspire others around us to do their part.
On the collective level, changes must be structural – new public
policies, laws, international treaties, infrastructure, economic pro-
grammes, investments. No doubt, the idea of the circular economy
has practical limitations and may be usurped by commercial inter-
ests. But I find it naive to imagine that the world can simply do away
with capitalism and the global economy in time to save our planet.
In practice, the circular economy is not one approach but many – a
wide array of practices within certain industries, a way of thinking
about engineering problems, a set of guidelines and aspirations for
governments and corporations. Although this range of approaches
in some measure fractures the movement into parts, it also means
that we can look to these different experiments to see what works
and what doesn’t. This moment of emergency requires immediate
action, and for now that must mean collaborating with the companies
that make our modern world.
It does not mean acquiescence, however. All of us must do our part
to push those in power to create real and meaningful change, even as
we must seek to make real and meaningful change in our own lives •
CHIP COLWELL IS AN ACADEMIC AND WRITER, AND FOUNDING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF SAPIENS
This is an edited extract from Stuf f: Humanity’s Epic Journey from
Naked Ape to Nonstop Shopper
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
Mary and Derek weren’t the first
couple to get together at Easterlea
Rest Home. But those other
relationships had been more
like friendships – and this was
something else entirely

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023


HAT WAS THE SONG? Mary
couldn’t quite remember.
It was one of Mr Pepper’s
classics, certainly. A ballad.
Possibly You Are My Sun-
shine? What did it matter;
the point was the voice. Not
Mr Pepper’s – she knew what
By Sophie he sounded like well enough, being one of Easterlea Rest
Home’s regular afternoon entertainers. No, this voice was
Elmhirst new, and belonged to a man who had sat down in the chair
next to her and started to sing along. She was so stunned
– by the way his voice seemed to pour out of him, by its
fierce clarity and defiance of age – that she turned to stare.
The man winked at her. Cheeky bugger, thought Mary.
It’s not entirely clear when this was. Two years ago,
maybe three? Timings, the order of things, time in general,
can be confusing. But there are some things we know for
sure. Mary is Mary Turrell, nearly 80 years old. She had
been living at Easterlea Rest Home in Denmead, near Ports-
mouth, in England, for a little while, when the man with
the voice arrived. And his name was Derek Brown.
It’s funny, what sticks in the memory. The crystalline
moments, mostly from childhood. Like building a telescope
with her older brother, Ian. Or hiding in a bombed-out crater
in the woods. Or having whooping cough, and the feeling of
the crusty sore that developed on her upper lip. Her mother
told her not to pick it, but it was so tempting.
Aged five, at primary school in Norbury, south London,
Mary started winning races against the boys. When she was
Tying the knot seven, a woman turned up on the doorstep, summoned
Derek and Mary, Mary’s mother and said, “Your daughter’s a bully.” Mary
then both 77, on had bashed the woman’s son in the head with a netball in a
their wedding day string bag. One of the string knots must have got him hard
PORTSMOUTH NEWS/ in the forehead, as a chunk had been gouged out. Well, the
SOLENT NEWS
boy had been picking on Ian. She wasn’t going to let it lie.
Mary wanted to run faster. Her father told her to join
an athletics club, and Mary wondered if she was brave
enough to take the bus on her own. She was. They served
hot Ribena at the club. It wasn’t long before she was run-
ning 100 metres, 400 metres, hurdles, then for the English
schools’ national team. One time, she won a medal, a dull
old thing: third place.
Her father, who worked for the Bank of Scotland, had
rules. Mary would not wear trousers. She would go to the
local school, not the paid-for one, like her brother. Mary’s
mother would not have a job. It would be humiliating, sug-
gesting that he couldn’t provide. Her father was the head of
the household; he made the decisions. Oh, it was a fine thing
to be a man. Mary was one, briefly, in a school play. She had
to draw a sword. Her body felt different; a kind of uplift.
Her mother stayed at home and made their clothes from
old clothes. When they came back from school, she would
be sitting in an immaculate living room with a freshly baked
cake on a tea trolley and jam made from the fruit picked from
the trees in their garden: cherry, pear, plum. She made their
beds. She made apple pies. She made everything lovely.
Mary knew what she wanted to be: a PE teacher. She
got a place at Chelsea College of Physical Education, in
Eastbourne, and was packed off with instructions that her
brother never received when he went to university. Don’t
get pregnant. Don’t stay out after 10pm. Don’t work too
hard. Because it didn’t really matter, did it, as she would
only be playing at working until she married.
41
Well, that was rubbish, she thought, until it was true.
Halfway through Chelsea she met Nicholas, who was study-
ing at an agricultural college in Guildford. She felt divided:
what mattered more, pursuing a career in sport or being
with this man? She loved sport, but she had never felt for
someone before; not properly.
They married, and she became a farmer’s wife. Nicholas
was a contractor, working on other people’s farms. There
was never much money, but there were perks: a cottage to
live in, and free fruit and veg. A lot of potatoes. Mary knew
nothing about farming. She had to get one of those Ladybird
books to learn the different crops: corn stands up straight
and barley bends over. A cow has an udder.
Early on, she set the terms. If he was working, she was
working. She would do any job she could fit around their
children, two little girls. Bits of nannying, a stint in a nursery
school, caring for a woman with multiple sclerosis whose
children used to climb out of their windows at night.
They were married 31 years, and then one evening
Nicholas said he wasn’t feeling well. He had a funny neck.
It had gone all scraggy, like Cliff Richard. He went to see
the doctor, found out it was cancer, and died a few months
later. Not long after, she married his best friend, Arthur,
and raised his two young sons. Thirteen years later, Arthur
died, and she was on her own again.
So much life, in a life.
AFTER MR PEPPER’S SINGALONG, AFTER THE WINK,
THINGS MOVED QUICKLY. Derek sat next to her every day.
They chatted. A week later, he leaned over and kissed her,
softly. Not long afterwards, he asked a question: Mary,
will you be my woman? That’s how he put it: my woman.
Derek wasn’t shy. He had very good teeth and clear
eyes. He was a big man, butch, but he was soft underneath.
He’d give you the shirt off his back and forget about it five
minutes later, said his niece, Kerry. He had grown up in
Newcastle, one of a brace of kids. He was in the navy for
years, and the stories he told: Christmas on the beach in
Australia; diving into the Suez Canal from the bow of the
ship. He used to buy a load of fags on shore, store them in
his locker, wait for his shipmates to run out and then jack up
the price and sell them on. He had some filthy jokes. Mary
can’t repeat them. He was naughty, that’s what she’d say.
He flirted with some of the carers at the home, the ladies,
a little too much sometimes. He was a flirt to his marrow.
Derek had been married, divorced, then married again,
but never had children. Over the years, he had fallen out of
touch with his family. After his second wife died, he lived
in Bognor Regis on his own. One of his half-sisters called
from time to time, and when he stopped answering, she
tracked him down through the police and discovered he
had been in hospital for three weeks after a fall.
His family charged back in. Kerry, his niece, was tasked
with dealing with him. Kerry was good at things like that:
practically minded. She took Derek in, and it was lovely,
at times: he taught her sons to fillet fish. But then he had a
couple of falls. When he first arrived at Easterlea, he would
call Kerry up five times a day, out of sorts.
Falls change everything. You don’t realise, when you’re
young, what a fall can do. How much it can hurt, when you’re
old. It’s not just your body but your mind. You start to think
you can’t do things. You’re scared of moving about.
Mary’s happened at her daughter Jacquie’s house. 
She’d moved there after a few years living alone, then
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
42 Last love
in assisted accommodation. Finally, at Jacquie’s, she fell on
some hard slate tiles in the bathroom. Soon, she couldn’t
get out of the bath, so Jacquie started bringing her into
Easterlea once a week to wash.
Mary liked it immediately. The carers were kind and it
was small, only 17 residents in a pretty, two-storey house
with red slate roof tiles, white-framed windows and a gar-
den. Carol Boyce-Flowers, the manager, prided herself on it
feeling like a home, not one of those new chain care homes
that are more like hotels or fancy hospitals.
When a room came up, Carol offered it to Mary. It made
sense. She didn’t want to be a burden to her daughter. And
really, she couldn’t have asked for a nicer place than Easter-
lea. It didn’t smell of wee or bleach, as these places often do.
Her room was at the front, with large windows that looked
out on the car park, so she could see all the comings and
goings from the real world, as she called it.
It wasn’t that the home didn’t feel real. It was more like
a parallel society, where life moved a little slower and with
greater gentleness, according to established routines. A cup
of tea in bed at six, a wash, breakfast, coffee in the lounge
at 10, lunch at 12, a cup of tea at two, an afternoon activity,
high tea at four, telly, another wash, a hot drink, bed.
So yes, she had chosen to come in, but at the same time,
it wasn’t quite how she had imagined this phase of her life.
She had always thought she would end up in her own home,
with people coming to see her and saying, “Hi Mum.” Still,
she was lucky to have made the choice herself. Most people
here, Mary thought, had been dumped, told it was for a
holiday and then left to wonder quietly when their son or
daughter would be back to take them home.
Once Derek met Mary, the five calls a day to Kerry dried
up. He and Mary felt as if they might never stop talking. He
claimed the seat next to her in the Easterlea lounge, where
everyone seemed to have their designated spot. Joyce and
Doreen to the left, the lady with the beautiful hair to the
right. People could be possessive about their chairs.
Mary wanted to know everything about him. What
Newcastle was like; how life had been on board a ship. They
sang together on Saturday mornings. They watched sport.
Any sport. Football, men’s and women’s. She liked to point
out how the women passed more. Athletics most of all.
They opened new, small worlds to each other. Mary got
Derek reading, introduced him to Dan Brown, tickled by the
link: Derek Brown reads Dan Brown. He got her into colour-
ing, those books for adults, the ones that are supposed to
be good for your mind. He loved drawing, loved painting.
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
Everything he did, he seemed to do well. He did puzzles,
meticulously. If a piece was missing, he would get down
on the floor and scrabble around until he found it. He was
the tidiest man she had ever met. Every shirt and sweater
folded and put away in drawers. That was the Navy’s doing.
So was the way he looked at you: straight in the eye.
It’s different, meeting someone late in life. You know you
won’t have long, so the love feels more urgent. It’s closer
to first love, though it’s probably the last. There’s none of
the logistics that can cloud a relationship in middle age:
who’s doing what, who’s paying the bills, who’s cooking.
All institutions offer some form of infantilisation, with
their timetables and structures. The routines, the activities,
craft sessions and singalongs, the tactful management of
incontinence and naps: it is all a breath from nursery school.
There are kind people, mostly women, doing things for you,
sometimes talking to you as if you don’t fully understand,
washing and feeding you, if you need it.
Mary and Derek hadn’t reached that point yet. In fact,
Mary insisted on doing things for herself, and encouraged
others to do the same. She had a little rule: she’d only help
someone cut up their food if they’d attempted the task at
least twice by themselves.
F IT’S TRUE THAT AS WE AGE WE GRADUALLY
REGRESS, Mary and Derek had, perhaps,
reached adolescence. It matched how Mary
felt in her head. She often said she was a young
person in a bashed-up body. In her mind, she
could get up and dance for you. With Derek, Happy couple
they could play at being young again, falling in Derek and Mary
love like 16-year-olds: the love of people with (left) met and
no responsibility. married at
The days took on a new shape. Derek would sneak to Easterlea Rest
Mary’s room as early as he could. And yes, they were inti- Home (right)
mate. Not the whole way, but the desire was intense. You PORTSMOUTH NEWS/
SOLENT NEWS;
don’t stop feeling those things just because you’re old. SARAH LEE
Derek didn’t seem to mind her body’s various betrayals.
She could give you a list:
Your teeth fall out.
Your throat constricts so it’s difficult to swallow.
Your knees give you hell and your feet swell up.
Your back hurts.
You use pads for incontinence. If they fill up they can
slosh around, leak down your leg and get your shoes wet.
You can’t do your bra up, so you have to twiddle it round
to the front.
You can get dizzy.
You can’t wash your own hair.
You get nasty bits on your skin, on your legs, like psoriasis.
You can’t rely on your body: a leg might suddenly give
way without warning.
She’d said about the teeth already, hadn’t she?
Then there were the other, regular humiliations. Being
washed, for one. Not being able to get out of a chair, or off
the toilet. She often felt reduced. There was an unavoid-
able loss of status. People don’t tend to listen to the old.
With Derek, it all fell away. They were consumed by each
other. They tried to be respectful, but they made noises once
or twice. Other residents complained; the carers found it
awkward. Jacquie and Kerry had to be drafted in to have
words with their respective elders: keep the volume down.
Most of the time, they glided around holding hands. They
probably drove everyone crazy, Mary thought. Two almost-

80-year-olds going barmy for each other. And he was loud,
Derek: that geordie voice. He never stopped talking. They
spent the mornings doing puzzles or chatting; lunch – too
much lunch, they both put on pounds – then the afternoon
entertainment, and back to Mary’s room for more chatting,
or watching the television. They wanted to share a room,
but Carol said there wasn’t a room big enough for them
both. So eventually, after dinner, Derek would have to go
back to his own room, to sleep.
In 35 years of running a care home, said Carol, they’d had
a handful of couples getting together, but it was usually just
to sit with each other in the lounge, or at meals. More like
a friendship; keeping each other company. Not like this.
Mary had so many metaphors for it. Derek was a blinding
meteorite across her sky; it was like someone had lit a can-
dle, or switched on the sun. She was knocked off her feet,
smashed over the head with love.
Derek was a meteorite across her
sky. She was knocked off her feet,
smashed over the head with love
43
Derek proposed. Just in her room one day, quietly. Did
she want to get married? Yes please.
He bought her an amethyst engagement ring, because
she had always wanted an amethyst.
If you’re going to do something, do it properly. Mary
wrote invitations to friends and family. Carol and the carers
set up the garden with gazebos and bunting, chairs and
tables covered with pink tablecloths. The day turned out
to be lovely, warm and sunny. There were sandwiches and
two cakes, one made by Jacquie, the other by Kerry. Mary
wore a new grey lace dress and carried a posy of pink roses.
Derek bought a suit and ironed his trousers with a knife-
edge crease down the front. The vicar came and gave a
blessing. They sang and ate an immense amount of cake
and sat in two chairs on the patio. In one photograph,
their heads are tilted towards each other, as if holding 
the moment privately between themselves.
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
44 Last love
EBRUARY, THIS YEAR, A WINTER’S DAY,
fish and chips for lunch, so it must have
been Friday. Mary and Derek were sitting
in their chairs, talking about something,
probably what they’d watched on the
television or read in the paper. Derek
said he needed the loo, and he got up
and said he had to see a man about a
dog, because he was always saying funny things like that.
He had that look on his face, a kind of mischief. Often
he was after one of the carers with a flirty word or a pat on
the bum. Carol had spoken to him about it: she knew it was
all for fun, but he couldn’t keep doing it, it wasn’t right.
Anyway, he walked across the room and right there, just
by Carol’s office, he fell. He was there and then he wasn’t.
He went down with a crash, like a tree.
They knew it was bad. He couldn’t move. Carol called
999 and after what felt like hours the paramedics arrived.
Mary couldn’t help getting upset with them: she had no one
else to blame. They seemed so slow. But he was a big man,
hard to move. They got him on a trolley and took him out
to the ambulance. They said she could follow on, so Mary
called Jacquie and they drove to the hospital, the Queen
Alexandra in Portsmouth, where they found him on a ward.
Mary thought he’d be all right. She thought he was
coming back. She sat with him as he came in and out of
consciousness. He said a few nice things. The hours passed,
and then he died at about 8 o’clock in the evening.
Mary knows she has been lucky. She’s had three men in
her life, and they’ve all been good: 31 years with the first
husband, 13 with the second, less than one with the third.
And yet, how idiotic to have been widowed this many times.
Derek had changed everything, and now everything
changed again. Just after he died, Mary thought, briefly,
about saving up her pills and going out in a blaze of glory.
But she quickly dismissed the idea. She had to keep doing
all the things he would have done with her.
Now, she puts on a cheerful face, because that’s
important. Just like her makeup: foundation, powder,
eyeliner, mascara. Every day. You look nice and smile,
because if you can convince others you’re all right then
you’re halfway to convincing yourself.
The days are different now, without him to fill them.
There is the space next to her where he used to sit. She feels
he’s with her, the way the dead can be present in everything
but physical space. It was so sudden. He was here, right
here, and then he wasn’t.
Without him, without the distraction and company
of him, she depends on other things to enliven the daily
repetition. Spillages, stumbles, visitors. Someone will come
in to see their mum. Everyone stops by Mary’s chair to have
a chat. Sometimes, the staff will put someone in the chair
next to her because they know she’ll talk to them.
In the rectangle of chairs in the lounge, most of the ladies
are quiet, or asleep. One to the right of Mary, the lady with
the beautiful hair, comes in with her book, which she places
carefully on the table in front of her before lowering her
chin to her chest and closing her eyes.
Mary tries to think of the good things. Egg sandwiches.
The pork chop she had for lunch, served with mashed or
roast potatoes. They let her have both. She couldn’t have the
chocolate tart for pudding, though; the doctor has ordered
a diet. People don’t realise how strong chocolate smells.
What happened to Derek shocked Mary out of an illusion
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
she suspects they all share but never talk about. The illusion After Derek
that this is temporary; that they will go home again. Mary Turrell is
Alone, you start to live in your mind. On a blowy still a resident
November afternoon, her lounge neighbour, Joyce, had at Easterlea,
her feet gently placed in a foot bath. Joyce looked out to the 10 months
spot in the middle distance where she often looks, if she’s on from her
not talking. Mary looked at her. “Joycie’s at the seaside,” she husband’s death
said. “She’s got an imaginary knotted hankie on her head.” SARAH LEE
In her dreams, Mary goes backwards, to childhood, to
the summers, to the telescope. Sometimes she has bad
dreams, but the bad dreams bear no relation to her day.
She can have a wonderful day and then awful dreams, or
a bad day and wonderful dreams.
She has Derek’s old dressing gown, some of his ashes
and a teddy Kerry had made for her out of one of his shirts.
She has his diaries, too, so she can read about what they
did together, and other things she didn’t know.
Before he arrived, she had been simply trying to survive.
Do three new things a day, she’d been told, or was it three
new things a week. Keep the mind going. Do puzzles. Move
the body. Then suddenly there he was, singing.
Sometimes she feels very alone. Not quite well. Ian, her
brother, said to her recently: I’m not surprised. You’ve been
knocked sideways.
And yet, at the same time, it’s not all doom and gloom.
She wants you to know that. There are upsides to growing
old! You can be more outrageous, more outspoken, more
honest. You don’t have to be pushed into things you don’t
want to do. You don’t have to do anything. She has spent
her life cooking and caring and cleaning and earning and
making sure everyone was all right and there was shep-
herd’s pie on the table and cuffs turned over, and now she
can finally relax. Today, she has nowhere pressing to be.
That’s her version, anyway. Everyone will be old in their
own way. And what does anyone really know about being
old until they are old themselves? It’s just how we are with
children: imagining they’re all the same, until their indi-
viduality insists upon itself.
In truth, she had never expected anything like it. Her
time with Derek had made her feel not just loved or young
again, but distinct. He had blown life wide open, just when
it seemed to be narrowing inescapably. What luck, really.
To know, before the end, that such a thing is possible •
SOPHIE ELMHIRST IS A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO
THE GUARDIAN
 45
Comment is free, facts are sacred CP Scott 1918

GABY HINSLIFF
Rape in war
is as wrong as
it is in peace
Page 48 \

UKRAINE
Berlin is Kyiv’s new best friend.
What a difference a war makes
Simon Tisdall
GUARDIAN DESIGN
†
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
46 Opinion
O
laf Scholz, Germany’s safety-first
chancellor, has been harshly criticised
for foot-dragging on military assistance
for Ukraine. As Russia’s invasion loomed,
he was ridiculed for offering 5,000
helmets instead of heavy weapons.
Early German doubts and prevarications delayed
delivery of missiles and Leopard tanks. It got so bad that,
in April last year, Germany’s president, Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, was bluntly told he was not welcome in Kyiv.
What a difference a war makes! As the conflict
approaches the two-year mark, Scholz, remarkably, is
now leading the western effort to keep Ukraine afloat.
Continued US military aid is in doubt. President Joe
Biden’s proposed new $61.4bn package has been blocked
by Republicans in Congress. EU funds worth €50bn
($54bn) are held up by Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly
leader, Viktor Orbán.
Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson boastfully
claimed to be President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s best
friend. Yet Rishi Sunak, his latest successor, has so far
failed to renew annual assistance of £2.3bn ($2.9bn) in
the year ahead. Visiting Kyiv last month, David Cameron,
one of Sunak’s predecessors, vowed to provide “all the
military support that you need”. But Cameron had no
new hardware or cash to offer, and the government’s
autumn budget statement avoided the subject.
“UK leadership on Ukraine is flagging,” said Labour’s
shadow defence secretary, John Healey. “UK military
funding runs out in March, while this month Germany
announced military aid for next year of €8bn.”
Unlike Cameron, Scholz’s defence minister, Boris
Pistorius, made a downpayment in Kyiv last month.
It comprised €1.3bn of medium-range missiles,
artillery shells and Panzer anti-tank mines. The
ammunition was doubly welcome, given the EU has
missed its target of providing one million artillery
rounds. Addressing parliament, Scholz showed how far
he has travelled since spring last year.
“We will continue with this support as long as it is
necessary,” he said. “None of us want to imagine what
even more serious consequences it would have for us if
Putin won this war.”
Scholz’s leadership is a bright spot in a gloomy
landscape. His fears about the wider dangers inherent in
a Russian victory, while broadly shared, do not appear
daunting enough to spur fellow EU and Nato members
into more urgent, substantive action. Their attention and
resources are increasingly directed elsewhere when they
are not fighting among themselves.
The Kremlin is evidently
hoping for a repeat
victory by Donald
Trump or at the very
least, Biden’s defeat
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
Orbán is not alone in his scepticism about the war.
Slovakia’s newly elected leader, Robert Fico, is setting
conditions on further assistance. In the Netherlands, last
month’s far-right poll victor, Geert Wilders, wants to end
it altogether. Nato foreign ministers, meeting last week,
offered the usual strong words of support for Ukraine.
But Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, admitted
there were creeping doubts. “Some are questioning
whether the US and other Nato allies should continue to
stand with [Kyiv] as we get to the second winter, but the
answer here today is clear,” he said. “In some way, we
must and we will continue... to ensure Russia’s war of
aggression remains a strategic failure.”
Blinken said he expected Biden’s latest aid package
would be unblocked before Christmas, but Congress-
watchers say that’s optimistic.
US officials say they believe Putin will keep fighting
until at least next November, when the US presidential
election is held, and possibly to spring 2025, before
entering into any kind of peace process. The Kremlin is
evidently hoping for a repeat victory by Putin-admiring
Donald Trump or at the very least, Biden’s defeat – and
latest US opinion polls suggest both outcomes are on the
cards.
Nato governments know this only too well, and
it is influencing how they think about the war. “The
challenge now is that we need to sustain the support,”
urged Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary general. “We just
have to stay the course.”
All the while, Russia is ramping up the cost to the
west. A recent example is the Finland-Russia border,
where Helsinki says Putin has launched a hybrid warfare
operation by weaponising asylum seekers and refugees
seeking to enter the EU. Finland has closed the entire
border, claiming Moscow is punishing it for joining Nato
after the Ukraine invasion.
Nato unity is also being tested by the antics
of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s leader, who
continues to try to extract political and security
concessions in return for ratification of Sweden’s post-
invasion Nato membership push.
The disappointing results of Ukraine’s summer
counteroffensive, domestic budget pressures,
insufficient military supplies, signs of wavering public
support – plus the distraction of
Simon the war in Gaza – are all insidiously
Tisdall is a combining to sap EU and Nato resolve
foreign affairs despite brave public words about
commentator undying solidarity.
Add to that below-the-radar doubts
about Zelenskiy’s leadership, declining trust in his
government, low morale among families of mobilised
soldiers, and relentless Russian ground and drone
attacks and the war begins to look, to some US and
European politicians at least, like a dead end.
Zelenskiy and his generals must find ways to
disrupt this defeatist dynamic before it takes firm
hold. A big military escalation may be the only way
to avoid slow death by a thousand cuts. Yet that way
lies extreme danger – for Ukraine and its uncertain
western backers • Observer

GR EECE
Parthenon marbles
spat is a gift for a PM
with troubles at home
Marina Prentoulis
or Britain, renewed demands by
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s
prime minister, to relinquish the
Parthenon marbles brings the
country face to face with its colonial
past. For Greece, repatriating the
sculptures, which have been housed
in the British Museum since 1817, is
a matter of national identity.
For the past 200 years, Greeks have leaned heavily
on the idea that the present-day nation is an extension
of ancient Greece. From a young age, this is what I was
taught in school. Ancient Greece was everywhere in
the curriculum and we were encouraged to feel great
pride in having originated from the cradle of European
civilisation. But after moving abroad as an adult and
reading more widely, I started to question the fragile link
between our past and present. Most Greeks will argue for
repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures on the basis that
ancient Greek artefacts are part of its national heritage.
But the current debate exceeds national borders.
For a large part of international public opinion,
the return seems only fair. For some, it is a matter
of aesthetics: repatriating historic monuments to
exhibit them in the environment they were created
for. For others, it is a political question: another step
towards accepting the many crimes committed by
imperialism and colonialism. Irrespective of where
STEVE TAYLOR/SOPA
IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK
the antiquities are going to be exhibited, however,
/GUARDIAN DESIGN we should not be blind to the political motivations
47
behind the demands of Greece’s rightwing government
to repatriate the marbles to Greek soil.
With inflation soaring and Greece in the grip of a
cost of living crisis that shows little sign of abating,
Mitsotakis could be right to want to deflect from these
issues. Despite his recent landslide electoral victory and
polls suggesting he still enjoys considerable popularity,
optimistic rhetoric proclaiming Greece as one of the
fastest-growing economies in the EU seems at odds with
the day-to-day experience of Greek people. In August,
the price of food and beverages had increased by 10.7%
compared with August 2022, according to the Hellenic
Statistical Authority. When going to the supermarket is
nothing short of a nightmare, an appeal to Greek national
pride over the Parthenon marbles makes absolute sense.
The historian Benedict Anderson argued that modern
nations were not based on blood lines, history or
even language as it is commonly argued, but were
“imagined communities” created by nationalism.
It is true that national identity often cuts through
right- or leftwing ideology. As Antonio Gramsci, the
Italian political theorist, argued,
Marina national consciousness is the glue
Prentoulis binding together groups with
is associate opposing interests. But nationalism
professor in also confirms the legitimacy of
politics and those in power over territory and
media at the population. Common language and
University of religion, but also common history
East Anglia and civilisation is what national
identity is based upon; it’s not hard
to see that demanding the return of the Parthenon
marbles is part of this story.
Mitsotakis’s government might struggle to convince
the public of its role as pious conservators of Greek
architectural heritage, however. It has long suffered from
a problematic relationship with the Greek Archaeological
Association, clashing over the preservation of
Greek ancient heritage, with critics arguing that the
government is prioritising economic considerations
over the protection of the sites. A new passageway
made of reinforced concrete and a lift enabling disabled
access to the site of the Acropolis fuelled an outpouring
of condemnation. Yannis Hamilakis, professor of
archaeology and modern Greek studies at Brown
University, argued that these alterations played into the
“neo-classical colonialist and nationalist dream” with
little prior study. In a country where tourism is the main
industry, attracting more visitors to the site seems to
many to have been the main driver of the changes.
Despite moral considerations and questionable
decisions related to the Greek archaeological sites that
seem to be driven by economic rather than cultural
considerations, we should not forget that the spat
between Rishi Sunak and the Greek prime minister may
have to do with an altogether different agenda. Sunak
has been accused by the Greek government of using the
row to distract from difficulties at home, a well-worn
tactic when one wants to divert the attention of the
public from other significant matters. I suspect the same
could be said, however, for the Greek prime minister 
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
48 Opinion
ISR AEL/
PA L E S T I N E Rape is rape, whatever
your view of the war.
To trivialise it is wrong
Gaby Hinsliff
here is no such thing as a perfect
victim, but a million ways to be an
imperfect one. She was drinking.
Her skirt was too short. She went
willingly back to the footballer’s
mansion, or up to Harvey Weinstein’s
hotel suite, so what did she think
was going to happen? Maybe she was
a teenage runaway, or a sex worker; he was a good boy,
or a much-loved celebrity. There is a long list of reasons
rapists get away with it, but it all too often starts with
a jury’s refusal to listen to a woman they have already
decided for some stubborn reason not to like. Remember
that, as we come to the distressing picture now emerging
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
of alleged multiple rapes and sexual assaults by Hamas
fighters amid the atrocities of 7 October.
Last week, the UN secretary general, António Guterres,
finally called for what he described as “numerous
accounts of sexual violence during the abhorrent acts of
terror by Hamas” to be “vigorously investigated”.
Harrowing stories had begun emerging within
days from the desert rave where traumatised young
women, who survived only by hiding from the gunmen,
described watching in silent horror as other women were
gang-raped, mutilated and shot. Israeli women’s rights
groups, worried that chances to collect forensic evidence
were missed in the initial chaos of a country under
attack, swiftly mobilised – and last week, Dr Cochav
Elkayam-Levy, the lawyer chairing a civil commission
hastily created to document crimes against women and
children during the massacre, flew to meet UN officials
to discuss the testimony collated. Look away now if you
would rather not read about women and young girls
found dead with their pants pulled down, and telltale
evidence of bleeding, bruises and scratches; about
smashed pelvises, semen samples and graphic details I
wouldn’t normally go into except that otherwise it seems
people don’t believe it. Though some won’t, even then.
Rape is a war crime as old as war itself, and yet
still often invisible thanks to the stigma surrounding
Illustration Danielle Rhoda
 Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust

survivors, the practical challenges of gathering evidence

under fire, and bleakly, sometimes also the lack of
survivors. But we have at least got better at recognising
Rich nations that benefited
a pattern deserving of investigation. So when tales of
Islamic State fighters raping and enslaving Yazidi women
began to surface, or when horrific stories started filtering
most from fossil fuels must
out from women in Ukraine last year, I don’t remember
too many sceptics demanding to see video proof. Only
in this conflict have some normally proud progressives
commit to a fairer future

C
seemingly gone out of their way to show they don’t olombia’s economy it was allowed to industrialise
always #BelieveWomen, after all. is dependent on under the Marshall plan. Half
The response to Jews posting about the issue on X last fossil fuels, which the debt accumulated after
week ranged from casual whataboutery to a gruesome account for about half two world wars was cancelled.
variant of the “pics or it didn’t happen” school of online of its exports. But at the UN Germany was allowed to
scepticism, questioning why there aren’t any actual climate summit last weekend, replace imports with home-
live rapes visible on that grisly compilation of atrocities Gustavo Petro, the country’s manufactured goods that,
the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are screening to select president, committed to stop thanks to generous trade
opinion formers. Evidently the stomach-turning images the expansion of coal, oil and concessions, could be exported
millions have already seen online – a dead woman, lying gas exploitation and reorient to richer nations. Despite
with her skirt pulled up and no underwear on; the young his nation away from such recovering from war, the US
woman bundled out of a truck, the crotch of her jogging “poisons”. Colombia is the sent Germany 5% of its GDP,
bottoms soaked in blood – aren’t enough for some. first big economy to endorse about $1.5tn in today’s money.
a fossil fuel non-proliferation What’s needed today is a
Why do people who would probably happily judge an treaty. This raises the question “green Marshall plan”. But
allegedly predatory actor or MP based on little more than of why other carbon-exporting former colonial powers with
hearsay seemingly struggle to entertain doubts about OECD members, such as historical climate responsibility
the sexual conduct of a terrorist, as if to do so would Britain, shouldn’t follow suit. won’t stump up the cash. The
somehow be a betrayal of the Palestinian cause? For those A handful of nations could world’s poorest countries are
who still conceive of Hamas gunmen as freedom fighters, show how phasing out fossil paying more than 12 times as
it’s perhaps easier to rationalise away dead women than fuels can lead to sustainable much to their creditors as they
raped ones. But a crime born of misogyny, revenge and green development and rebut are spending on preventing
exploitative power is not so easily the absurd denialism of Sultan environmental destruction.
Gaby Hinsliff explained away. The easiest thing is to Al Jaber, the oil boss and Some resource-rich poor
is a Guardian decide that it just didn’t happen. The Cop28 president. nations are negotiating a
columnist survivors must be liars, along with the Developing nations, such as place in green industrial
first responders who reported finding Colombia, often run deficits supply chains by playing
half-naked bodies, and the pathologists and women’s in energy and food while the US off against China. But
rights activists and news agencies claiming to have been exporting low-value goods the Kenya-based economist
shown supporting photographs and ambassadors saying relative to their imports. Fadhel Kaboub is right: the
they believe what they’ve heard from morgue workers; Africa’s largest crude oil climate emergency needs
liars, the lot of them. Because if they aren’t, what are you? exporter, Nigeria, imports transformational change in
The war crimes allegedly committed by Israel against nearly all its fuel. Seven in the trade, investment and
Palestinians during this conflict require investigation 10 economies import more finance architecture.
every bit as urgently as the ones that triggered it, and the food than they export. Fossil fuels are today’s
UN’s ability to investigate rape claims has doubtless not Consequently, developing weapons of mass destruction,
been helped by the Netanyahu government’s reluctance nations suffer a structural representing an existential
to engage with a body that has been critical of Israel’s trade deficit that leads to a threat. There are parallels
past actions in the occupied territories. weakening currency and the with 1968’s treaty on
But all that said, this isn’t some ghoulish competition, need to borrow dollars. Poor the non-proliferation of
nor a zero-sum game where any empathy shown to dead nations under such a regime nuclear weapons. Part of
Israelis somehow leaves less available for Palestinians. transfer about $2tn a year to the solution is to increase
Collectively, our international institutions must be rich ones, studies suggest. the use of renewables. But
capable of keeping more than one wrong in mind at once. Developing nations want to equally important is to stop
And individually, we should expect of ourselves what replace the inequitable model the expansion of fossil fuel
we ask of juries, judges and police every time they hear a of globalisation with a fairer production. Richer nations that
rape case, which is not to unquestioningly believe every one. This has been done before. benefited the most from coal,
word, but to listen with compassion and an open mind. After 1945, West Germany oil and gas extraction should
A war crime is a war crime, regardless of who committed was to be a “pastoral state” commit to ending, equitably,
it. And rape is rape, even when perpetrated against – dependent on others for the era of fossil fuels. Anything
someone you secretly don’t want to think of as a victim • energy, food and technology. else, as the president of Timor-
International helplines for anyone affected by rape or But two years later, to keep the Leste, José Ramos-Horta, says,
sexual abuse issues are at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html country from Moscow’s orbit, would be “crocodile tears” •

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

50 Opinion
Letters
WRITE We need to go cold turkey
TO US on all things Trump
When David Smith writes
about the nightmare
scenario (Big story,
Letters for 17 November), is he
publication
referring to the man
weekly.letters@
himself or the global
theguardian.com
— media addiction to all
Please include a things Trump? Who
full postal address among us would not
and a reference become the leader of their
to the article. respective countries if
We may edit letters. they too received over
Submission and $1bn in free news coverage
publication of all every day 365 days a year?
letters is subject The illusion of our
to our terms and
former president’s larger-
conditions, see:
THEGUARDIAN.COM/
than-life influence stems
LET TERS-TERMS from nothing more than
a media desperate to
Editorial satisfy their yearnings for
Editor: Graham attention, for recognition,
Snowdon all under the guise of
Guardian Weekly, reporting the facts.
Kings Place, When will the nightmare
90 York Way, scenario end? When global
London N1 9GU, media outlets admit they
UK
have an addiction, and are
ready to go cold turkey on
To contact the
editor directly:
all things Trump.
editorial.feedback John Marshall
@theguardian.com Hot Springs, Montana, US
Corrections The unacceptable face of
Our policy is to Palestinian punishment
correct significant How I agree with Arwa
errors as soon as Mahdawi (Why is it
possible. Please too much to ask for
write to guardian.
Palestinians to be viewed
readers@
as humans?, Opinion,
theguardian.com
or the readers’ 17 November).
editor, Kings Place, Not all Jews support
90 York Way, Israel. The concept
London N1 9GU, that one is entitled to
UK expel people from their
land because your god
supposedly gave it to you
is the unacceptable face
of religion. It’s difficult
to find words to describe
the dreadfulness of the
Holocaust. The Germans
(with some help from
other Europeans) were
guilty; the Palestinians
have been punished.
One iniquity does not
justify another.
Charles Menteith
Nowy Sącz, Poland
• More evidence from
Jonathan Freedland (Big
story, 1 December) of
unspeakable brutality
in the Gaza conflict
with the greater share
of that brutality being
inflicted by a traumatised,
desensitised, Israel.
It’s history repeating
itself. Israel’s saturation
bombing of Gaza recalls
that which occurred on
all sides in the second
world war. It was morally
repugnant then, as it is in
Gaza now. When will we
ever learn?
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
This arbitrary definition
lets elite off climate hook
The definition of what
your cover headline calls
the 1% polluter elite is set
at an income of $140,000,
a threshold presumably
lowered by Oxfam until
the required attention
grabbing round number of
1% was reached (Big story,
24 November).
The disparity of
billionaires’ wealth to the
rest of this statistical elite
is wholly disproportionate
to that between the global
poorest and the people on,
or just above, this arbitrary
threshold. Additionally
it ignores significant
regional differences.
Many earning above
$140,000 in, say, South
Korea, Japan or the EU are
unlikely to have private
jets, and most probably
produce less CO2 than a
commensurate number
in the Americas who lie
below the threshold.
Decrying the
behaviours of an arbitrary
1% elite shifts focus back
on to the individual,
and away from the
social responsibility of
multinational corporations
and governments.
Jonathan Watkiss
Ostfildern, Germany
Simple steps to keep your
money out of royal hands
Re your investigation on
royal estates collecting,
bona vacantia, the
financial assets of people
who died without a
will or known next of
kin, individuals in the
duchies of Lancaster and
Cornwall can avoid having
the royals snatch their
assets by simply making
a will and ensuring they
have a copy somewhere
accessible (King’s estate
changes investment
policy after revelations,
Spotlight, 1 December).
If you have no next of
kin, you can at least make
sure your assets go to a
cause close to your heart,
not to the monarchy.
Maggie Johnston
St Albans, England, UK
• Having trousered
dead people’s money for
centuries, the royal family
has decided to put its ill-
gotten gains into “ethical”
investments after the
Guardian’s investigation.
Who gains from this? We
need a “crownfall” tax of
at least £1bn ($1.26bn) to
claw back our loot from
the royal robbers.
Kit Jackson
London, England, UK
• Having starred as
third merchant in Purley
grammar school’s
production of The
Government Inspector
(1968), it’s been easy for
me to see that Nikolai
Gogol’s satire has
remained relevant to
modern life. But in light
of the revelations about
bona vacantia, I’ve been
shocked to realise that it is,
in fact, Gogol’s Dead Souls
(con artist buys details
of dead serfs to raise
mortgage) that is the most
apposite text for our times.
Paul Michell
Bristol, England, UK
COR R ECTIONS
A Spotlight story about
Lachlan Murdoch taking
over at Fox (1 December)
should have clarified that
Smartmatic is a separate
company from Dominion.

A WEEK
IN VENN
DI AGR A MS
Edith Pritchett

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023

 51
Film, music, art, books & more
BOOKS

Booker winner
Paul Lynch's
dark prophecy
Page 55

The miracle baby of a Holocaust survivor, who married a prince then became a
hugely successful and inf luential fashion designer, ref lects on her 'folkloric' life

Power
dressing
INTERVIEW
Diane von Fürstenberg

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

52 Culture
Fashion
Stepping out
Diane von
Fürstenberg in
New York, 1970
SUSAN WOOD/GETTY
INTERVIEW iane von Fürstenberg e picks
erg pick up on the th firs
first
s ring. We are
By Jess speaking by phone, not on Zoom, so I start by asking her
Cartner-Morley where she is at the moment. “Oh, it’s very complicated,”
COVER she says. A drawn-out, gravelly sigh crackles down the line.
PHOTOGRAPH “I’m in a very contemplative place. I’m almost 77, and I have
Carmen De Vos had a big life. A folkloric life. A great adventure. And now it
is time to look at the balance sheet of that life.”
I was actually wondering about her geographical
whereabouts, not her philosophical ones, but the answer
is pure Von Fürstenberg. She has always been one for the big
picture, for the grand gesture, for feeling all the feels. Even
the wrap dress that made her fame and her fortune – an icon
that turns 50 next year – was only ever a means to an end,
a way for Von Fürstenberg to get the life she wanted. As a
little girl, she says, she didn’t know what she wanted to do
when she grew up, but she did know what kind of woman
she wanted to be: a woman in charge. “I didn’t know the
specifics of what that meant, but I absolutely knew the feel-
ing. And I became the woman I wanted to be, because of that
dress. I created the dress, but really the dress created me.”
Von Fürstenberg is very much in charge. She can’t help
but take the reins of any situation, or any conversation,
which makes her almost uninterviewable, but fabulously
entertaining to listen to. Eventually, I find out that she is
talking to me from her apartment in Manhattan, a glittering
glass penthouse with a vast leopard-print carpet and views
over the High Line. I’m sad not to get her on camera, because
she is glorious to look at: Joan Collins-esque panache with
a Bohemian edge. “It is wonderful to get older,” she says. “I
don’t understand why people don’t like it. Anyway, I always
liked to look a little bit destroyed, you know?”
She has been packing a suitcase to take with her to weekend
I became with her family at the Connecticut estate she bought herself
for her 27th birthday. Then she was due to travel to Oxford-
the woman shire in England for Voices, a conference run by The Business
I wanted to of Fashion website, where she was in conversation with the
be, because film-maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who recently finished
a documentary about Von Fürstenberg’s life.
of that In an industry where most trends are lucky to survive
dress. I for six months, how does one dress last half a century?
created the “That dress is a survivor because it gives a woman the body
language of confidence,” she says. “The tricks of dress-
dress but it making are about how a woman feels.” Von Fürstenberg
created me never studied design, but learned the craft of fabric, colour
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
and print in the Italian factories of garment maker Angelo
Ferretti in her early 20s. One day, she took a trip to the US
to visit her new boyfriend, Prince Egon von Fürstenberg,
who she had met at a nightclub in Geneva, and discovered
New York. “When I got back to the factory, all I could think
about was how to get back to America. So I made some
samples and I went back to New York with a suitcase full
of little dresses. They were sexy, but proper. Someone said
to me, ‘It’s a dress you can get a man in, and his mother
doesn’t mind.’”
The secret, she says, is the fabric. “I remember Christian
Lacroix once said to me, ‘Women make clothes, men make
costume.’ Male designers don’t like jersey because it’s not
particularly beautiful to look at, but when you wear it,
you understand the value of it, of how it feels and how it
works on the body.” Von Fürstenberg, like Donna Karan,
Coco Chanel and Sonia Rykiel, knows that jersey, unpre-
possessing on the hanger, grows beloved in the wardrobe.
Survival is at the heart of Belgium-born Von Fürstenberg’s
story. Her mother, Liliane Halfin, was taken to Auschwitz
on a cattle train at 21, and later moved to Ravensbrück.
Liberation came 13 months later: “She was a bag of bones
in a field of ashes.” Hospitalised at a nearby American base,
doctors did not expect her to live, let alone go on to have
children. But, reunited with her fiance, she married, and
gave birth to Von Fürstenberg within 18 months. “I was
born so close to being liberated that I consider myself a
survivor, too,” she says. “My birth was a triumph of love
over misery. That is my flag. My mother used to call me
her torch of freedom, and she wanted me to have a big
life.” The legacy sounds like a lot for a little girl to handle.
Her mother would bless her bed every night: thankful for
the sheets, the blanket, the pillow and the warmth, after
sleeping on a wooden plank shared with rats in the con-
centration camps. When Von Fürstenberg was afraid of the
dark, her mother locked her in the closet. “She taught me
that fear is not an option.”
IN THE FEBRILE CLIMATE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, Von
Fürstenberg has faced criticism for expressing sorrow and
sympathy for the loss of innocent lives on both sides of
the Israel-Hamas war. There are those who feel that any-
thing less than full-blooded support for Israel constitutes a
betrayal of her family history. “I am absolutely devastated
by what is happening in the world,” she says. “I don’t know
what to say. I look for the light, I believe in peace. As a sur-
vivor, I have the right to believe in miracles.”
We talk a little more about the horrors of current events,
but later, a few minutes after we finish the interview, my
phone rings again and it is Von Fürstenberg, concerned
about how she phrased her thoughts. “I don’t want to speak
out, because there is nothing I can say and I don’t take words
lightly,” she says. Her own narrative is a fairytale and this
bleak moment is no time for fairytales. She is lost for words.
On any other topic, though, she is anything but.
Questions roll off her like water from a duck’s back as she
steers her own conversational course. If I interject she says,
“Yes, yes, I’m getting to that,” and then never does. In the
midst of her paean to the wrap dress that carried her to
stardom, she mentions she has never really worn wrap
dresses that much herself. “I never felt like I had the waist,”
she says, “so I prefer a shirtdress.” Later, enthusing about
her scheduled trip to the UK, she reminisces about her
teenage years at boarding school in Oxford. “Oxford was
 53

Show off ▼ Grand designs where I discovered nature,” she recalls, “and also where I
Display honouring Von Fürstenberg in her lost my virginity. I have so many good memories.” I attempt
Von Fürstenberg New York office in 1973 a follow-up question, but too late. She has moved on.
PHOTONEWS/GETTY FAIRCHILD ARCHIVE/PENSKE / Five decades in a notoriously fickle industry has been a
GETTY
rollercoaster ride. “Every 20 years, the young people dis-
▼ It's a wrap
cover me again. It’s happened twice already,” she says wryly.
The Von Fürstenberg
The 2000s were boom time, the 2010s saw overexpansion,
spring 2016 show
and when Covid hit in 2020, the DVF brand came close to
GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY
bankruptcy. “We had grown very big, and I had hundreds of
stores, and suddenly I was losing money. I could have sold
the brand for a fortune to someone who would have pros-
tituted it. But I didn’t want to do that.” Instead, she closed
all but one store in the US and streamlined the business,
bolstering finances with a strategic partner in Hong Kong,
but keeping majority ownership in the family. A pared-down
operation, without messy licensing deals to dilute the brand,
is part of what the designer calls “a third rebirth” for the
label. Talita von Fürstenberg, who at 24 is the eldest of her
five grandchildren, is now co-chair of the company, tasked
with bringing the DVF brand to generation Z.
Earlier this year the brand launched a resale platform
called ReWrap. Prices range from about $50 to $350. (A new
DVF wrap dress retails for upwards of $350.) “The best way
for a dress to be sustainable is for it to live for 50 years,” says
Von Fürstenberg. “You can find a dress in a vintage store, and
it might have lived three lives already, and it will still be in
good health, with no holes.” She’s right, by the way: jersey is
hard-wearing, and with no fastenings to break and no embel-
lishments to decay, these dresses are virtually indestructible.

THE SWISS PRINCE DIDN’T LAST, however, although he did

give her two children and her last name, and they remained
on friendly terms – he died in 2004. Since 2001, she has
been married to the billionaire media mogul Barry Diller.
As well as New York and Connecticut, they have homes
in Beverly Hills – where they recently threw an engage-
ment party for their friends Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez
attended by Oprah Winfrey and Barbra Streisand. They also
have “a nice boat” (Eos, a 92-metre yacht, from which Von
Fürstenberg loves to swim for two hours a day) and a place
▲ Party people in Venice, where she hopes to spend more time, when her
Von Fürstenberg work schedule allows. “Now that I’m in the winter of my
(centre) in 1977 life, all the pieces of the puzzle start to make sense. My
with Andy Warhol children call me The Oracle. I have learned many things
and Bianca Jagger along the way, and it is time to share that wisdom.” During
WWD/PENSKE /GETTY the pandemic, she wrote Own It: The Secret to Life, which
is a sort of manifesto of Von Fürstenberg-isms in the form
▼ Home viewing of a dictionary. (Sample extract: “Ego is a positive outlook
A model poses in on oneself that can easily become an unbearable flaw when
Von Fürstenberg’s abused. See narcissism.”) “I’m proud of that little book,
apartment in 1975 because it’s so useful,” she says. “Do you have children? A
PIERRE SCHERMANN/ girl? What’s her name? That’s a beautiful name. How old
WWD/PENSKE /GETTY
is she? I will send you a copy for her …”
▲ On the catwalk ▼ Coupled up Love affairs with Warren Beatty, Omar Sharif and Richard
New York fashion With husband Gere; nights at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol and fellow
week, 2015 Barry Diller designer Halston, surviving cancer. Von Fürstenberg has
JP YIM/GETTY MG22/GETTY/MET lived quite the life, and has kept diaries throughout. When
MUSEUM/VOGUE
I ask
a if she plans to publish them, she says no. “They are in
French,” she adds, as if this closes the topic. Then, she con-
Fr
tinues: “A diary is a communication with yourself. That’s
tin
the most important relationship you will have.” I hope she
th
changes her mind; her memoirs would be a gripping read.
ch
JE CARTNER-MORLEY IS ASSOCIATE EDITOR (FASHION) AT
JESS
THE GUARDIAN
TH

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

 Culture
Music
a point: the songs that seemed to pour out
of MacGowan between 1984 and 1987 – the
period covering the Pogues’ first three
albums and most of the music on which his
reputation rests – really were as extraordinary
as Fearnley suggests. He could write things
like The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn, which
opened 1985’s Rum Sodomy & the Lash – a
gripping, chaotic phantasmagoria that lasts
barely three minutes, but manages to touch
on pre-Christian Irish mythology, the disabled
18th-century criminal Billy Davis, Austrian
tenor Richard Tauber and the saga of Frank
Ryan, an Irish Republican who became a Nazi
collaborator. And he could write songs like
Streams of Whiskey or Sally MacLennane,
which, at least while they played, made a life
of permanent alcoholic stupefaction seem
hugely exciting and inviting.
He could write, too, furious political songs
about the Troubles, most notably 1988’s
Birmingham Six, which was recorded as a
medley with fellow Pogue Terry Woods’ more
measured Streets of Sorrow. And he could
write extremely funny songs.
But his real speciality were songs that
shone a light into ruined lives. Bookies, pubs,
drugs, mental illness, penury, the grimness
of London: this was the milieu to which
Shane MacGowan would keep returning,
the world that lurks in the background of
even his sweetest lyrics. MacGowan never
set himself up as a poet of the working class:
what he wrote about, again and again, was
a kind of underclass of outcasts. He wrote
about its inhabitants with a startling empathy
and tenderness, most notably the dissipated,
quarrelling couple in the deathless Christmas
hit Fairytale of New York, surely the most
improbable subject for a perennial festive hit.

Shane
I
n accordionist James Fearnley’s memoir “I’m very, very aware that there but for the
of his time with the Pogues, Here Comes grace of God go I,” he once suggested. “I’m just

MacGowan Everybody, there is a description of the

band’s first headlining tour of Ireland,
lucky. Because I’m no different from them.”
Moreover, MacGowan set his lyrics to

1957–2023 and in particular, a gig in Carlow during which

The former Pogues
frontman created, for a
brief period, extraordinary
a mass brawl breaks out in the audience.
Afterwards, Fearnley is horrified, both by
the crowd’s behaviour and frontman Shane
MacGowan’s reaction, which involves turning
on his bandmates and delivering them a
lecture on human nature. “People are just this
much away from murdering each other, this
much away from raping each other, this much
away from knifing, shooting, massacring,
garrotting … It’s fucking dog-eat-dog
everywhere you look … It’s what they want
to do and if it’s what they want to do, they’re
tunes that sounded as though they had been
around for ever. Musically, at least, it was
often hard to distinguish the Pogues’ originals
from the traditional material they charged
through at a ferocious clip.
He gave occasional interviews, which
were invariably sullen or bad-tempered and
which never shone any light on the process
or inspiration behind the incredible burst of
creativity he’d essayed in the mid-80s.
The Pogues had always dealt in mythology:
from the besuited image MacGowan described
as equal parts “Brendan Behan and typical
IAN DICKSON/SHUTTERSTOCK

songs of fury, humour
and incisive beauty before
succumbing to addiction
By Alexis Petridis
going to do it anyway no matter how much
fucking whingeing you do.”
Fearnley is baffled: how, he wonders,
can MacGowan – who died last week aged
65 – think like that but also “write songs
of such incisive beauty, full of chastening
self-pity for the human condition”? He has
Irish grandad” to the Irish legends his lyrics
relocated to north London’s back streets and
pubs, to the persistent rock’n’roll fable of the
damned, beautiful loser. It made sense that
their frontman became a mythic figure himself.
ALEXIS PETRIDIS IS THE GUARDIAN’S HEAD ROCK
AND POP CRITIC

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023

 Culture
Books
Prophet sharing
‘T
he universal trickster has been at
Irish author Paul Lynch on work on my life in all sorts of wild
his brush with cancer, how ways,” Irish novelist Paul Lynch tells
me the day after he was awarded the
world events inspired his Booker Prize for his novel Prophet Song, which
Booker-winning novel and imagines Ireland taken over by a fascist regime.
why readers are cheated It has been a dramatic few years since he started
writing the novel in 2018: his son had just been
by happy endings born; he had long Covid, which made writing an
impossibility some days; he has had cancer and
By Lisa Allardice separated from his wife. And now he has landed
the biggest prize in contemporary fiction.
Before beginning the novel, Lynch had spent
months writing “the wrong book”. Then, one
Friday afternoon, he realised it was dead. The
following Monday he sat in his shed at the bot-
tom of his garden in Dublin, opened a new Word
document and the first page of Prophet Song
came to him almost as it appears in the novel. He
describes it as “one of the miracles” of his writing
life. “The entire meaning of what was to come
▼ Soul man in the book is encoded in those first few lines
Paul Lynch’s and yet I didn’t know what I was going to write.”
Prophet Song That opening page begins with a knock on the
is set in a door on a suburban Dublin street. Two members of
dystopian the newly formed Irish secret police are looking for
Ireland Eilish Stack’s husband, Larry, a leader of the teach-
TOLGA AKMEN ing union. From that first line to the devastating
55
final pages, we are dragged into Eilish’s world as
first her husband and then her eldest son are “dis-
appeared”. Creeping surveillance, the erosion of
civil liberties, curfews and censorship grow into
all-out civil war. Democracies crumble gradually
– then suddenly, to quote Hemingway.
It is impossible to read the scenes of a city
under siege, shelling and walls plastered with
photographs of missing loved ones, without
thinking of current conflict zones. Not to men-
tion the refugee crisis and the rise of the far right.
Back in 2018, though, the situation in Syria was
very much on Lynch’s mind – in particular the
tragedy of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler found
washed up on a Turkish beach. “I started to think
about how I’m desensitised by the news. Even
now, watching TV, we’re starting to switch off
from the Middle East in the same way we switched
off from Ukraine. It’s inevitable. If we were to
truly take on the enormity of the world and its
horrors, we would not be able to get out of bed
in the morning.”
He chafes at the label “political novelist”,
although he realises it will be hard to shake off
now. “Too often writers of political fiction believe
they have the answers, they know what it is that
needs to be fixed.” He is more interested in asking
questions. “This is fundamentally about grief. It’s
about the things that we cannot control, the things
that are beyond our grasp, the things that are lost.”
Lynch, now 46, writes “state-of-the-soul
novels”, he says. He wanted to make the reader
feel what it must be like to be so desperate you
contemplate taking your children on a small boat
in the middle of the night. “It’s about not averting
your gaze,” he says. “Locking the reader into a true
sense of inevitability so they cannot turn away.
So they cannot say, ‘I don’t want to look at this.’”
He succeeds. Written in long, poetically
charged sentences, the book plunges the reader
into a 300-page nightmare. “There’s no escape,”
he says. “Events are pulling you and so the
paragraphs are not there, and they’re not there
because there should not be white space. Because
Eilish has no room to breathe, the reader should
have no room to breathe either.”
Lynch talks as he writes. His book is set in a
near-future or counterfactual Ireland, but there
is no mention of Irish history or party politics.
This lack of specificity gives the novel a mythic,
timeless quality. As a story of one woman’s heroic
attempts to hold her family together, the novel
makes politics obsessively personal.
He also wanted to show that the idea of the
end of world reoccurs throughout history. “This
idea of the armageddon is actually a fantasy; the
idea that the world is going to end in some sudden
event in your lifetime. But the world is always
ending over and over again. It comes to your
town, and it knocks on your door.”
It knocked on Lynch’s door not long after he
delivered the manuscript for Prophet Song. He
was 45 and felt he was writing at the top of 
his game, and then he was diagnosed with a
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
56 Culture
Books
tumour on his kidney. “When you sit in the chair,”
he says, “and you’re told you’ve got cancer, that
thing you carry around with you all your life,
that invincibility shield, it’s just shattered into a
million pieces. You become vulnerable in a way
that’s almost inconceivable to your previous
self.” The idea that he would not be around for
his two children was unconscionable. After an
operation and immunotherapy, doctors have
told him the likelihood of it returning is very low.
A year later, on the same day he was on the
operating table, he discovered he was on the
Booker shortlist. During this time his marriage
ended. “I’ve had so many changes in my life, I’m
sort of finding out again who I am now.”
The middle of three children, Lynch was born in
Limerick, in the south-west, but the family moved
to Donegal and his childhood was spent in remote
Malin Head. He recalls once being lifted off his
feet by the wind. He banged his head and suffered
a mild concussion. “And that’s what’s just hap-
pened to me now,” he says of
▼ Winning ways his Booker win. He called his
Paul Lynch with parents at 1am to tell them the
his Booker Prize news. “It’s a fairytale as far as
trophy they’re concerned. They know
LUCY NORTH/PA what a few years I’ve had.”
Nearly all of Lynch’s
previous four novels – Red Sky in Morning (2013),
The Black Snow (2014), Grace (2017), Beyond
the Sea (2019) – deal with Irish history and his
characters all suffer, but none is as bleak as
Prophet Song. “I’m a writer who belongs to a
tragic worldview,” he concedes cheerfully. The
final line of the novel came to him early, and he
wrote towards that point. Did he ever think he
might give Eilish a happy ending? Is there hope?
“I think that’s a shocking question,” he admon-
ishes me, amicably. “Do you think it’s my job
to solve and offer solace to the reader? I don’t
think about endings as happy or sad, I think about
being truthful. If you cheat the reader of truth
they will turn away from you.”
All his novels are about “the dignity of human
beings faced with an indifferent and alien world”,
he says. “Life is suffering and yet it’s beautiful.
And there’s so much that falls between those
two places. I’m never going to get bored of that.”
LISA ALLARDICE IS THE GUARDIAN’S CHIEF
BOOKS WRITER
Reviews
MUSIC
i/o
Peter Gabriel, Real World
★★★★☆
Peter Gabriel’s 10th original studio
album has been compared to both
the Beach Boys’ Smile and Guns N’
Roses’ Chinese Democracy, records
with legendary gestation periods.
i/o, which Gabriel has been
working on for 28 years, has clearly
changed dramatically over time. It
frequently reads like an extended
meditation on old age, Gabriel
haunted by the passing of a previous
generation on And Still; aware of
his own encroaching mortality on
So Much; happy to let “the young
move to the centre” on Playing for
Time. Even when its lyrics venture
into current events – Four Kinds of
Horses could be aimed at violent
religious fundamentalism or
rightwing populism and The Court
explores the effect of the internet
on public discourse – they do so
from the vantage point of someone
who’s been around a long time.
It’s effective and affecting, but i/o
couldn’t have started out like that,
as Gabriel was only 45 when he
began work on it.
It’s to i/o’s immense credit that
doesn’t feel like an album that’s
been reworked over decades. It’s all
clearly carefully considered, but it
still sounds remarkably fresh. It’s
dense and rewarding and has more
interesting things to say than the
earnest but pat song titles suggest.
It ebbs and flows beautifully. Its
highlight might be Playing for Time,
a ballad that slowly moves to a
dramatic climax. The lyrics feature
Gabriel climbing a hill, as the lyrics
of his debut solo single did, but
here he is lost in memories and the
thought of time’s passing. It would
work perfectly as a grand finale. i/o
is so rich in ideas, you hope it won’t
have to. Alexis Petridis
Podcast of the week The Rest Is Entertainment
Richard Osman and the Guardian’s Marina Hyde team up for a
chemistry-packed take on the week’s pop culture – and it is
absolutely priceless. The highlight is the riotously funny
takedown of the Vogue interview with Jeff Bezos and his
fiancee Lauren Sánchez. Alexi Duggins
TELEVISION
The Artful Dodger
Disney+/Hulu
★★★★☆
Long before horror movies and
doomscrolling, audiences partial
to gnarly spectacle found their
entertainment elsewhere – including
live surgeries and public hangings.
Both are recurring events in The
Artful Dodger, Disney+’s darkly
comedic eight-part series set in
Australia circa the 1850s. The plot
zigzags around the exploits of the
Dickensian character – real name
Jack Dawkins – who appeared in
Oliver Twist as the leader of a gang
of pipsqueak riff-raff. Now he lives
on in his own narrative, which
imagines he scooted off to Australia
and became a surgeon, while
continuing his dodgy ways.
Being a surgeon and a pickpocket,
you see, both require quick fingers.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster brings
pluck and derring do to the role.
Director Jeffrey Walker keeps it
fast, keeps the action bubbling,
and doesn’t give audiences time to
ponder how silly it is.
The Artful Dodger joins a run of
recent television shows set during
the 19th-century Australian gold
rushes, and is easily the most fun;
it doesn’t run out of puff, fully
committing to a twisty storyline told
with panache. Luke Buckmaster
 Culture 57
Books
where a spurious allegation of “menacing a white
woman” might result in being flogged with whip.
Though the book is part memoir, Rankin is
keen to include a plurality of voices, including
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, whom he describes as Kenya’s
greatest author, and especially other Africans pre-
viously eclipsed in the romanticised presentation
of Britain’s civilising mission in the colonies.
The dispute over land is front and centre.
Britain’s failure to fully accept the concept of
the Kikuyu – the country’s largest and most wide-
spread single tribe – of ownership and squatting
rights vexed local Africans. A policy of displacing
them from ancestral lands and into waged labour,
working for British settlers, was often contested,
but still went ahead. The seeds of African discon-
tent were also sown in the enforcement of the
despised registration system, the kipande “neck
box”. “In the name of social control,” writes
Rankin, “human beings were being ordered to
wear the identification collars of dogs.”
In the 1950s, Mau Mau militants killed dozens
of white settlers and thousands of Africans

MEMOIR
Black and white
An insightful mix of
historical research and
memoir illuminates
British behaviour in
Kenya at the time of the
Mau Mau uprising
By Colin Grant
▲ Empire lines
A teenage boy
is arrested by
colonial police in
Nairobi, 1956
JOHN CHILLINGWORTH/
PICTURE POST/HULTON
ARCHIVE/GETTY
‘W
e only went to Kenya because a deemed to be traitors and enemies. The myth of
Nairobi businessman fumbled British fair play, of being free from perpetuating
in his jacket pocket.” So begins such atrocities, though, has been skewered in
Nicholas Rankin’s hybrid of recent years. In 2013, the UK government paid
history and memoir focused on the Mau Mau almost £20m ($31m) in reparations to more than
uprising in the 1950s. The businessman’s car keys 5,000 surviving Kenyans who had suffered tor-
“snagged the trigger of his Beretta, and he shot ture and abuse during the uprising.
himself in the stomach. My father got his job.” Rankin’s portrayal of that violence is
Historians don’t write history, they curate unflinching, with graphic testimonies such as
it, and in Trapped in History Rankin challenges from the then 15-year-old Jane Muthoni Mara,
his own childhood absorption of propagandistic who, suspected of being Mau Mau, was horrifi-
accounts of Britain’s imperial past. Nearly 70 cally sexually assaulted. She was at least spared
years after his arrival in Kenya from Sheffield, the hangman’s noose that awaited more than a
Rankin, a former BBC World Service producer, thousand of her compatriots.
writer and consummate storyteller, has com- Britain defaulted to blunt collective
posed an insightful tale of hubris in colonial east punishment, detaining thousands of suspects
Africa, underpinned by rigorous research. behind barbed wire, under observation from
When, in 1953, Rankin’s stockbroker father, watchtowers. As a boy in Kenya, even if he’d
James Tennant Rankin – known as Tennant – told been made aware of it, such action would have
his pregnant wife, Peg, that he’d been offered a been unfathomable to Rankin. “What I could
job in Kenya, at a time when the country was in not conceive, as I sat on the floor of my father’s
a state of emergency, Peg’s response was: “When study in my shorts and shirt and Bata sandals,
do we leave?” The adventurous couple with three was that we, the brave British who I knew had
young children in tow – Rankin was three years won ‘The War’ ... were now building … concen-
old – arrived in 1954 in the middle of Operation tration camps.”
Anvil with British soldiers patrolling the capital In attempting to interrogate his privilege and
and detaining thousands of Kenyans suspected divest himself of it, Rankin enters the territory
of sympathies towards the Mau Mau of shameful histories mapped out by
anti-colonial armed uprising. contemporaries such as Alex Renton
Early on, a tension arises in the book in Blood Legacy and Rian Malan in
between the historian’s demand for My Traitor’s Heart. Such books seem
circumspection and the memoirist’s marked by the authors’ determina-
need for candour. While Rankin tion to embark on an empathic journey
doesn’t shy away from self-revelation, towards self-abrogating enlighten-
he defers to older writers for their BOOK OF ment. Rankin frees himself, and per-
remembrance of the times. T H E W E E K haps readers, in curating a narrative
Mining his own recollections Trapped in History: that serves as a distillation of Britain
elicits a tug of constant shame in his Kenya, Mau Mau and Kenya’s complex and contentious
complicity, even though an innocent and Me shared history. Observer
child, in a social order where any By Nicholas Rankin COLIN GRANT IS AN AUTHOR, CRITIC
black man would be called “boy” and AND DIRECTOR OF WRITERSMOSAIC

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

58 Culture
Books

J
FICTION onathan Lethem is best known for are critically documented. The motives of the
his inventive use of genre and elegiac “Brownstoners” seemed positive enough: revers-
musings on his native borough. In his 1999 ing the inner-city “white flight” trend, renovating
breakthrough novel Motherless Brooklyn, condemned houses, sending their kids to local
Locale hero its narrator Lionel Essrog’s Tourette syndrome schools, dreaming of an integrated communality.
propelled a fast-moving neo-noir with an explo- Where did it all go wrong? “Is premature gentri-
The neighbourhood sive glossolalia. The title nodded to Essrog’s fication a crime?” the narrator wonders.
orphaned status, and his struggle with loss and Reflecting on his own coming-of-age, Lethem
of Brooklyn speaks for displacement was embellished with obsessively examines the awkward coexistence of the
itself in this sparkling inventive linguistic flourishes. Lethem’s 2003 children in this interzone. The uneasy racial
bestseller The Fortress of Solitude was also set in dynamics of the street are defined as the “dance”,
f ictionalised memoir Brooklyn, a complex bildungsroman with richly and the well-meaning parents become part of
of gentrif ication and its layered references to music, comic its choreography, teaching their kids
books and street art. Twenty years to hide any money they might need
ef fect on a community on, and Lethem’s return to his home in a sock or a shoe, but to have some
turf sees the language stripped down. extra change that might be found as a
By Jake Arnott “Keep the light, let alone the honeyed decoy. This is the “mugging money”
light, from your eyes,” an anonymous to be genially extracted by kids from
narrator insists early on. “Just the facts, the housing projects. A series of tales
man – no painterly effects. We’re here Brooklyn Crime called The Funny Muggings recount
▼ House style to enumerate crimes.” Novel the sad absurdity of being preyed upon
Brownstone Brooklyn Crime Novel is a fiction- By Jonathan in such affable fashion by one’s own
apartments in alised memoir channelled through Lethem schoolmates. In another episode, set
Brooklyn a kaleidoscopic series of vignettes in 1978, two 14-year-old boys use a
ALAMY
that jump around in time. In what is more a hacksaw to cut their mugging money into pieces,
sociological inquiry than a forensic one, the simply to bewilder their assailants.
author interrogates what happened to the neigh- This crowded cast of Brooklyn Crime Story
bourhood he grew up in, and we overhear the rarely get named credit. Many are simply des-
collective splutter of the street. The crimes and ignated “white boys” or even “no name white
misdemeanours investigated become plural too, boys”. A Black kid is allowed a single letter signi-
and uncertain, but a single plaintiff emerges: fier. “What does it take to get a name around here
Brooklyn itself. In a time of staggering gentrifica- anyway?” the author quips. “Call him C.” Other-
tion, a whole community has become orphaned. wise characters are designated by characteristics:
The whodunnit here is something of a the Screamer, the Spoiled Boy, the Slipper. And
rhetorical question (the obvious answer being the identity of the narrator becomes a game of
that property is theft). The modus operandi of hide-and-seek. “Me? I’m just a character in this
the generation of white liberals who moved into novel,” it’s admitted near the end, “the one who
the blighted borough from the late 60s onwards happens to be writing it.”

SOCIETY
Books of revelation
From plans for f lying
machines to hospital
observations, a
celebration of the joy
of jotting things down
By Sukhdev Sandhu
R
oland Allen loves notebooks. Why continued by relatives. This latter practice could
wouldn’t he? He is, after all, a writer. backfire; Allen cites a zibaldone in which someone,
In his new study he declares: “If your possibly the writer’s brother, has added: “Note
business is words, a notebook can be that you are lying through your teeth like the
at once your medium – and your mirror.” Paul scoundrel you are, and you are a crazy windbag.”
Valéry was at least as devoted to his notebooks An especially haunting chapter concerns
as the symbolist poetry for which he LHD 244, a musical treatise used by
is best known. He awoke early each generations of singers and players
morning for half a century to write from the 15th to the early 17th cen-
in them, amassing 261 books in total. tury, that became “tatty, scarred …
“Having dedicated those hours to the passed from hand to hand, accreting
life of the mind, I earn the right to be knowledge and nuance as it went. The
stupid for the rest of the day.” constant companion of a succession
Notebooks in different guises have The Notebook of childless Franciscans, living and
been around since at least the 13th By Roland dying together in the community of
century. In Florence they were used Allen their order, perhaps it came to embody
as ledgers and spurred the develop- the bonds that grew between teachers
ment of double-entry book-keeping. In the form and students as they worked together to make
of sketch books they allowed artists to depict music to the glory of God.”
their surroundings and develop their techniques. Possibly the most celebrated notebooker of all
There also emerged rapiaria – grab-bags was Leonardo da Vinci. Every day he scribbled,
of phrases from scriptures. And zibaldoni – doodled, diagrammed. He filled thousands of
collections of recipes, prayers and personal pages with sketches of waves, bubbles, vor-
information that could be shown to friends and tices; designs for pumps, valves, furnaces;

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023

 59

As the stories start to coalesce, the “crimes” BOOKS OF THE MONTH

become harder to define, let alone solve. We The best recent poetry
learn that a character named the Wheeze, a
secondhand bookseller and bar room psycho-
geographer, has been contributing to the narra- By Fiona Sampson after one of the Her storytelling blend
tive with “enigmas from yellowed newspapers, earliest free villages of the confessional, the
materials dug out of old basements and store- in Jamaica, Dawes’s fabular and the lightly
rooms”. In a scene set in 2019, he tells the now family home. From this feminist is thoroughly
adult narrator: “So you were a bullied child. We psychogeographic starting moreish. Her highly tuned
all were. Don’t make a furshlugginer religion of point, “stained with ear produces a free verse
it, like that writer.” The Wheeze rails against a shadows”, unspools a that seems artless while
“whiteboy Brooklyn novelist” whose bestselling richly intelligent, deeply being perfectly poised.
work helped to make the borough so trendy. The descriptive exploration These are poems to read
Novelist, though clearly identifiable as Lethem of home and identity. aloud as well as to oneself.
himself, is unnamed and described in the third Divided into five loosely
person. The crime becomes a metafictional one, All Souls thematic sections,
as the narrator becomes a character in search By Saskia Hamilton Sturge Town follows the
of an author, confronting the Novelist with the This posthumously writer-narrator through
accusation: “You gentrified gentrification.” published fifth collection a profound process of
Given his genre-bending proclivities, it’s no faces both the existential synthesis. After the
surprise that Lethem makes a bold grab at the problem of our shared introduction to the
fashionable mode of autofiction. Adding some mortality and the poet’s half-fantasised “elegant
deadpan sparkle to a form that can often be flat own rapidly approaching homestead”, which is “of
and drab, he comes up with something truly com- death with directness course … rotting”, come
pelling. Anonymising his characters, giving them and steely grace. “To say poems of family and Mapping the Future: The
nicknames or unattributed pronouns, is perhaps something sincerely yet childhood, friendship and Complete Works Poets
witness protection for old friends. But in refus- inauthentically is the dawning self-awareness. Edited by Karen McCarthy
ing to fictionalise his compatriots he gives up his danger.” There’s nothing A third section includes Woolf and Nathalie Teitler
own authority as a “voice” for them, and simply phoney here; no casually poems of lived identity. This generous anthology
allows a neighbourhood to speak for itself. I felt worded, emotionally Next come poems of marks 15 years of the
engaged to the end, carried along by an honest, indulgent lines in this revelation and prayer, transformative project
melancholy humour. This is a heartfelt testimony beautiful quartet of “that earnest gesture / of founded by Bernardine
of Brooklyn, where the urge for discretion out- sequences and shorter eyes closed so tight we Evaristo, which has been
weighs the temptations of style. “I am in their pieces, prose poems and see the bright / darting of rocket fuel for work by
company,” Lethem says of the locals. “I love them lyric verse. Hamilton, spirits”, and finally, Sturge British poets of majority
too much to want to say any more.” who died this year at 56, Town Redux, the return global heritage. Since its
JAKE ARNOTT IS AN ENGLISH NOVELIST AND gives us the abundant, “down a path into the inception in 2008, poets
DRAMATIST sensory world, “flowers dark valley”, in which this of diverse backgrounds
at once religious, secular, personal odyssey becomes have gone from less
and sexual”, alongside a universal journey. than 1% to more than
closely observed bodies. He explored geometry, family ghost stories and 20% of the mainstream
anatomy, mechanics, colour itself. Speculative memories. A writer of poetry published in the
as much as forensic, he imagined prefabricated profound literary and UK. The 30 Complete
mobile homes and flying machines. The books emotional intelligence, Works fellows comprise
themselves are almost airborne with possibilities. her closing sequence, a roster of some of the
This quality – of movement, of freedom – Museum Going, is a most influential voices
makes notebooks enduringly appealing. They fitting culmination to the in the UK today. This
often contain primary information, pre-theorised testament that “Although volume demonstrates
experiences. But not all notebooks are reliable; remedy does not exist, how visionary that
one chapter discusses how police pocketbooks the remedy is no exit, only programme was. There’s
have often been tampered with, fabricated, or, death is – ” A Handsel: New & a breathtaking variety
in the case of the Hillsborough disaster, withheld Collected Poems of poetics, from Nick
from official inquiries. By Liz Lochhead Makoha’s postmodern
Allen points to evidence that maintaining a When Lochhead became politics to Kayo Chingonyi
notebook with pen and paper is best for process- Scotland’s makar, or making myth shape-shift.
ing and retaining information. It is an example of national poet, in 2011, she Read this for excitement,
the superiority of slowness. A beautiful chapter had for decades enjoyed inspiration, and also to
honours Danish intensive care nurses who started a brilliant career as a map, as Eileen Pun puts
patient diaries to detail the physical changes and playwright and translator it, “How thought becomes
progress made by men and women whose sense of classical drama. Now A manifest, how the I /
of self had been decimated by sickness. Paying Handsel brings together continually tries every
attention, caring, handwriting: this is love. Sturge Town her substantial body of variation of light”.
SUKHDEV SANDHU IS AN AUTHOR, CRITIC By Kwame Dawes poetry. Lochhead is a FIONA SAMPSON IS A POET
AND ACADEMIC Sturge Town is named deeply enjoyable writer. AND WRITER

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly

60 Lifestyle
ASK
Annalisa Barbieri
How do I get rid
of the ‘good girl’
label that always
plagued me?
I am an 18-year-old autistic person
with complex mental health issues,
including addiction, which I am
seeking treatment for.
I’ve been forced to do a lot of
introspection as part of trying to get
sober, and something that has come
up is the pressure I’ve felt of being
the “good girl” when I was a child.
I was very book-smart and
well-behaved; I feared getting in
trouble. As such, teachers fawned
over me as the “perfect student”.
It was only in my early teens, when
my mental health issues started
affecting my attendance and grades,
that any adults in my life really
acknowledged that I was struggling.
Even then, this came across as
disappointment that I wasn’t “living
up to my potential”, rather than
genuine concern for my wellbeing.
The “good girl” label has
contributed to unwise decision-
making (abusive relationship,
drink, drugs), in part to prove I was
not going to take the path in life that
they imagined for me.
I don’t know how to break free
STEPHEN COLLINS
The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023
of this cycle. I don’t want to be the
good girl. But I also don’t want to
destroy myself with bad decisions
in an attempt to prove them wrong.
I don’t know how to find balance.
I
’m so sorry for everything
that’s happened. Your letter
was full of such insight but
I was astonished that there
was just one mention, in passing,
of your parents. You are technically
an adult, and maybe to them you
became one a long time ago. But
it’s clear you needed, and need,
emotional support.
Is it possible you could go back to
whoever diagnosed you with autism
spectrum condition (ASC) to ask if
there is some specialised support?
I went to Association of Child
Psychotherapists-registered child
and adolescent psychotherapist
Graham Music. He explained
that with ASC “you can get more
overwhelmed by sensations than
neurotypical people, there can
be less processing capacity so it’s
harder to ‘make sense’ of things”.
Someone shouting at you
becomes terrifying noise (rather
than the other person unable to
control their temper, say.)
None of this excuses what the
adults around you were doing and
none of this excuses the neglect.
“My heart really goes out to you,”
said Music. “It seems that the child
you were was ignored in order that
they – teachers and parents – could
have a precocious, brilliant student.
That’s a high price you paid.”
If you would Big feelings, if you are not allowed
like advice to really know and feel them, and
on a family feel OK about having them, well they
matter, email don’t go away. They go inwards and
ask.annalisa@
theguardian.
can be turned towards ourselves,
especially anger. Music thought it
com. See seemed in the absence of anyone to
theguardian. see through the carapace of “good
com/letters-
terms for terms
girl” to how you really felt, you
learned that you could only really
and conditions rely on yourself. Music wondered
if anyone has ever had your back
– someone who understands
neurodiversity, but also someone
you can be vulnerable with.
You ask a very good question,
how to find balance. It seems you’ve
learned that you’re either the good
girl or your rebellion takes on an
extreme, self-damaging form.
There’s the middle ground where
you get to define yourself, not let
others do it for you.
“You need to find a context,
which could be therapy, where
your feelings – including those of
anger and despair – are taken really
seriously in a way that you can own
them and feel OK about being that
person,” said Music.
You need Music felt your defiance was a
really positive sign. You’re rebelling.
to f ind a That’s good. You just need to learn,
context with some help, that doing the
opposite of what those around you
where want, “proving them wrong”, isn’t
your the way forward if the way you do
this is self-harming, as that repeats
feelings the neglect of your real needs that
you experience earlier. Doing this is
are taken not only harmful to you, but it still
seriously lets others dictate how you behave.
 FOOD AND DRINK
By Nicholas Jordan
Dressed for success: expert advice
on how to make a super salad
I
love salad. I eat it almost
every day: as a meal, as a side,
sometimes as a side to another
salad. What I don’t like is a
bad salad, and I’ve had hundreds of
those, often made by me.
We asked Australian cooks, chefs
and fresh produce enthusiasts for
their tips on making a great salad.
Choose your leaves ...
There are more options than rocket,
baby spinach and lettuce. Thanh
Truong, a fruiterer who also goes by
the moniker Fruit Nerd, loves micro-
greens, sorrel and fresh herbs. And
there is no shame in buying a pre-
mixed salad pack, as the combination
of leaves is chosen for flavour and
balance. Truong says a salad spinner
is essential. “If there is a little bit of
water you’re diluting the dressing.
It’s the cardinal sin of salad.”
... Or choose no leaves
“Of the hundreds of salad recipes I
have written over the past decade,
leaves are rarely the main player,”
says Hetty McKinnon, a cookbook
author and salad enthusiast. She
instead prefers to base her salad
on seasonal vegetables, plus grains
and legumes. Her recipes often call
for vegetables such as capsicums,
pumpkin and onion, or pearl barley,
quinoa and lentils.
Sneh Roy, the author of recipe
blog Cook Republic, adds “comfort”
ingredients: “Something you are
looking forward to finding in your
JESSICA HROMAS
bowl, it can be something hearty or
creamy, like a cheese or protein.”
Add crunch and texture
A good salad should be texturally
interesting – and it helps to think
about contrasts. But sometimes,
says Mark Best, culinary adviser
to Melbourne’s Ritz-Carlton, you
might want to double down on a
particularly satisfying texture. He
likes cos lettuce, crisp bacon and
croutons – a triple-crunch.
There’s more to dressings than
olive oil and balsamic
Best says both ingredients are
grossly overused. He encourages
cooks to experiment with other
vinegars plus sour fruit like lemon.
In some cases, Best recommends
using neutral oils instead of extra-
virgin olive oil. One classic dressing
is oil with vinegar and mustard.
“Use a light fruity olive oil or a
neutral one like grapeseed.”
Serve at room temperature
Cold mutes flavour, says McKinnon,
“and your taste buds cannot pick up
the nuances in the dish”.
Experiment
The last step is making a lot of
salads, with varied ingredients.
“We should not put salad in a box,
figuratively,” says McKinnon. “To
me, anything can be a salad.”
NICHOLAS JORDAN IS A SYDNEY-BASED
FOOD WRITER
T H E W E E K LY R E C I P E
By Ravneet Gill
№ 247
Brown sugar
offe
ee
meringues with coffee
es
cream and cherries
Prep 25 min There is always
lways a debate about
Cook 2 hr Christmass dessert in my family.
I like to bring
ring something new
ne to the
Makes 6-8 table. This year, I’m making chic
• GLUTEN FREE
brown sugar meringues studded
with syrupy tinned cherries and
laced with coffee cream.
Method
Heat the oven to 120C (100C fan)/gas
Ingredients low, and line two large baking trays
For the meringues with greaseproof paper.
5 egg whites (150g) Put the egg whites and cream of
¼ tsp cream of tartar in a large, clean bowl or the
tartar
bowl of a stand mixer, then use an
230g soft dark
brown sugar
electric handheld whisk or the whisk
2 tbsp cornflour attachment on the stand mixer to
beat the whites on a medium speed
For the coffee cream until frothy. Add half the brown
200g mascarpone sugar, whisk until thick, then add
60g caster sugar the remaining brown sugar and
A pinch of flaky salt whisk on a medium speed until the
1 tbsp instant coffee meringue mix is really thick and
granules, dissolved in
stable. Add the cornflour and beat
1-2 tbsp warm water
400ml double cream
slowly to combine.
Using a large metal spoon, dollop
To serve the meringue on to the lined trays,
200g tinned cherries leaving space in between each one
in syrup, drained, or because they will expand as they
fresh cherries, pitted cook. You’ll end up with six to eight
50g grated large meringues.
chocolate Bake for an hour and a half to two
hours. Test they are ready by gently
lifting one off the paper: it should
feel light and come away easily
without sticking; if it’s resistant, it
needs a little longer in the oven.
Remove and leave to cool on
the trays. They will now keep
in an airtight container at room
temp
temperature for up to three days.
W
When you are ready to serve,
make the coffee cream. In a large
b owl gently beat the mascarpone
bowl,
with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar,
salt a
and dissolved coffee granules,
and mix
m well. Add the cream, then
whis
whisk to a stiff cream.
To serve, spoon the coffee cream
on to the meringues, top with the
cherr
cherries and finish with a generous
g rati of chocolate.
grating
8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly
 Notes and Queries
62 Diversions The long-running series that invites
readers to send in questions and
answers on anything and everything

QUIZ 8 Which sculptures depict CINEM A CONNECT COU N T RY DI A RY

Thomas Eaton the troops of Qin Shi Huang? Killian Fox LITTLE LONDON
What links: Isle of Man
9 Mathews (timed out,

T
1 Which animals survived 2023); Endean (handled Name the films and the person who he ford is a problem. We
on Wrangel Island until ball, 1957); Hutton connects them. shuffle across the Rhenass
around 2000BC? (obstructing field, 1951)? River, water almost at
2 What legal body is Scotus? 10 Hula; lei; kahuna; the top of our wellies.
3 Whose memorial read: muumuu; ukulele; wiki? Somehow free from squelchy socks,
“Hereabouts died a very 11 Sam Ryder; Imaani; Sonia; I ponder when somebody last
gallant gentleman”? Michael Ball; Live Report? walked this lane. This is one of the
4 Who wrote the 1826 12 Mount Whitney and island’s most isolated upland areas,
dystopian sci-fi novel Badwater Basin, both in and we cannot see a single house,
The Last Man? California? person or car in any direction. Above
5 Which Bond film borrowed 13 Crown; escapement; us stands Greeba Mountain. At its
a plot twist from Austin mainspring; motion works; base, the Blaber bog. This muted
Powers in Goldmember? wheel train? landscape is desolate yet alluring.
6 What common objects 14 Salisbury (1); Chartres Across the valley, cattle graze old
are made from wood and and Cologne (2); Lichfield pastures ringed with gorse. Raven
potassium chlorate? (3)? and redpoll pass overhead, then a
7 Which Microsoft program 15 William the Conqueror; buzzard. Five years ago, I would have
was originally called found Dr Livingstone; made been awestruck to see one; today I
Presenter? arrows; Noddy’s band? have seen three. Our cave-dwelling
Manx ancestors once ate them.
PUZZLES 3 Same Difference We stare at our feet as we search
LIGHT, OTHELLO.
POSTMASTER. 4 Cryptic PIVOT, VERY
Chris Maslanka Identify these words that REFURBISH. 3 SD PAST MASTER, for one of the unsung delights of
differ in the letters shown: these islands: grassland fungi.
Puzzles 1 Wordpool d). 2 EPU
directed by Christopher Nolan.
*A** ****** (most expert) Memento and Inception were all Waxcaps, crazed caps, corals, clubs,
1 Wordpool *O******** (not just a man (prison). Cinema Connect Insomnia,
Norman; Stanley; Fletcher; Slade
earth tongues, spindles, pinkgills;
Find the correct definition: of letters) cathedrals. 15 Porridge TV series: their names redolent of their forms.
XYSTON 14 The number of spires on (medieval) Confined to the oldest
a) subatomic particle 4 Cryptic pastures free from agricultural
of a mechanical watch movement.
lowest points in contiguous US. 13 Parts
b) early Whovian alien Turning-point for number Eurovision runners-up. 12 Highest and “improvement”, they are
c) thermionic valve in vessel (5) abundant only where the soil
10 Words of Hawaiian origin. 11 UK
dismissals in international cricket.
d) ancient Greek spear Flare doesn’t weigh very Terracotta Army. 9 The first instances of has not been broken in living
much (4, 5) 6 Matches. 7 PowerPoint. 8 China’s
Antarctica). 4 Mary Shelley. 5 Spectre.
memory. By lunchtime we have
2 E pluribus unum Old testament greeting to 2 US supreme court. 3 Captain Oates (in recorded four that are globally
Rearrange BRUSHFIRE to Shakespearean character (7) Quiz 1 Woolly mammoths. threatened – crimson, ballerina,
make another word. citrine and splendid waxcap – yet
Answers
© CMM2023
here they thrive on fields farmed
CHESS but he performed well in margin in a complex, with the lightest touch.
Leonard Barden the recent Grand Swiss confident style. We eat by an abandoned hill
and US Championships In a post on X/Twitter, farm, or tholtan. Like Scotland, our
before his stellar and Niemann provocatively uplands have been cleared, but
The traditional London career-best success at compared himself to here it was voluntary, indicated by
Chess Classic started last Zagreb, Croatia, last week, Bobby Fischer, who won field names such as Ohio, Egypt and
week, and Hans Niemann, where he outclassed a in Zagreb in 1970 during Virginia. This tholtan has a horse-
the most controversial strong field, winning first his world title campaign, walk – a traction-powered mill,
character in the game, prize by a three-point which led to his 1972 proving that a century or more ago
arrived at the board in the victory over Boris Spassky. these fields were indeed ploughed.
3896 White mates in three moves
form of his life. The US (by Emil Palkoska, Sachove Listy
The American’s Despite the passage of time, the
20-year-old, who made 1898). Just a single line of play, but performance rating after fields closest to the mill still contain
headlines when the world you’ll do well to find it in 10 minutes. scoring 8/9 was 2946, a the fewest waxcaps. You can read
No 1, Magnus Carlsen, number not far behind the the history of a place through its
8
refused to play him, and three greatest in modern mushrooms. David Bellamy
who launched a $100m 7 tournaments: Fabiano
lawsuit against Carlsen 6 Caruana’s 3098 in the 2014
and others, has been in 5 Sinquefield Cup; Carlsen’s
constant action since their 4 3002 at Pearl Springs,
out-of-court settlement China, in 2008; and
3
three months ago. Anatoly Karpov’s 2985 at
Niemann’s form had 2 Linares, Spain, in 1994.
dipped below the 2700 1 3 b8=N mate!
elite grandmaster level, a b c d e f g h
3896 1 Kc4! Ka7 2 Qc7! Ka6
ILLUSTRATION: CLIFFORD HARPER

The Guardian Weekly 8 December 2023

 Guardian Puzzles & Crosswords
Access over 15,000 puzzles on our app. 63
Download from the App Store or Google Play.
Read more: theguardian.com/puzzles-app

1 2 3 4 5 6
Quick crossword
7 8 No 16,712
9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11 12 9 10

13 14 15 16 11 12

All solutions published next week

17 13

18 19 20 14 15 16

21 17

22 23 24 18 19 20

21

25 26 22 23

27 24

The Weekly cryptic By Paul Across 7 Spot the difference (12)

1 Unofficial (communication) (3-3-6) 8 Something to brighten up a
No 29,239 9 Unesco-recognised South living room? (8,4)
American dance (5) 13 Tale of woe told to elicit
10 Divine beings (7) sympathy (3,5)
Across 14 The sad sculpture beneath which I must go? (9)
11 Biblical boat-builder (4) 16 Oiled MP (anag) – suddenly
1 Sweet, say, particularly covered in fluff (12) 16 Turning to blusher initially, ladies preening
12 Time-server (8) collapse (7)
9 Winter Olympian’s weapon (5) without foundation? (4,5) 17 Confidence (6)
14 (Brief) means of ventilation (3-3)
10 Folk hero made chips with silicon, say (9) 17 Glower about a cut that’s turned up in card 19 Aircraft wing support (5)
15 Soft, silvery-white metal (6)
11 Poorly, eyelid on the blink after end of game (8) 18 Calamity – I’d assert (anag) (8) 21 Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (4)
operation (7) 18 Issue certainly not arising when expected (2,4) 20 Slant put on information (4)
12/15 What might secure the bucks, ship bound 20 Wonder when 2, all but its first and second 22 How something may be assumed Solution No 16,706
for Madeira? (7,4) failing (6) (1,6) Q U I P Q U A G M I R E
13 Fallout from 12 15 (10) 21 See 18 Across 23 Take up (5) U M T L A N
15 See 12 23 God, a hand perhaps skyward? (5) 24 Naval rank equivalent to a I B I D E M B A L M E D
18/21 Slough crossed by rower, if old wizard on 24/7 Puncture in fizzy drink can sprayed around sergeant (5,7) S T S O C B S
bridge playing role? (4,6) holiday location (5,6) L E A D E R S H I P
Down I T A T A M S
19 Old pianist with cry of pain leaving Jack
N O O D L E S T O O G E
Sprat’s wife? (4,6) 2 Travelling show (7)
G R I V I R R
22 Unclosed box is in front of class (7) 3 (Archaic) trust – wort (anag) (4) U N B E C O M I N G
24 How might one force entry, murder getting a 4 Last – bear (6) S S G I N B E
drink here? (7) 5 Substance released (8) C A K E W A L K H U L A
25 Comic, backing of scary woman by parliament 6 Major constellation which A I A E N N
(3,6) includes the star Betelgeuse (5) MO N O X I D E E D I T
26 Celebrate elasticity in latex (5)
Solution No 29,233
27 Macerate a substance picked after first of
apples, most of the time (2,5,2,3)
Sudoku
C H E L S E A T R A C T O R Hard
H N H D R C R E Fill in the grid so
Down O U T D O D I A P H R A G M that every row,
1 WW1 gun in comfortable position secured by
P R V E C E N O every column
a wedge from below (3,6)
P L A N E T R E E S S A T and every 3x3
2 Third rock’s troubles irreversible, first of all:
Y P L A S A E box contains the
very sad about that (8)
A L P H A B E T I C A L numbers 1 to 9.
3 Composition engaging swots, primarily, for
G S I I L A T Y
example (5) Last week’s solution
E N H A N C E M E N T S
4 Birds gripped, stuffing is awful (9)
N O G R U D O
5 Distant workplace discussed by drunkard? (6)
6 Leader briefly annexing capital of large I R E N A N O S E C O N D
country (5) U H S R R T N E
7 See 24 S L O W P A C E D T O K E N
8 Love of 10 pirouetted, often with some E R A H E E E S
leaping (6) S Y N E R G Y R E S T Y L E

8 December 2023 The Guardian Weekly