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Lawson, Dominic
5 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Let men and women compete together
Dominic Lawson writes in the conservative paper The Sunday Times on the calls for gender tests for the South African runner Caster Semenya after her performance at the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin: "These will be immensely distressing to the athlete, especially as they might well reveal that, despite the absence of any observable male genitalia, Semenya is genetically a man. ... In the spirit of diplomacy and fair play, let this column offer a solution to these embarrassing difficulties, ... an action which will cut the Gordian knot of ambiguous sexual identity. Let there be no male or female athletics championships, divided with all the rigidity of South Africa's former apartheid laws. Instead, let men and women - and all those anomalously and uncomfortably perched in the middle - compete against each other in a single championship. There would be no requirement for undignified and distressing genetic testing - only cheats who use drugs to change their bodies would need to fear the men in white coats."
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More from the press review on the subject » Sport, » Germany
Robert Mugabe unsettles the EU
The columnist Dominic Lawson is not convinced that Gordon Brown's refusal to attend the EU-Africa summit will be very effective. "Like most (if not all) sanctions, this has the effect of making us feel slightly more virtuous while doing nothing to end the oppression it is notionally designed to deter. I would imagine that Robert Mugabe would be delighted if his presence in Lisbon turns out to be the cause of Britain's absence from the table; and if Portugal should rescind its invitation, does anyone seriously imagine that this would do anything to put a single extra gram of maize into the mouths of Zimbabwe's children – or accelerate by one second the ending of Mugabe's rule? ... The view that it was sanctions that brought an end to white apartheid rule in South Africa is a common misconception."
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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » United Kingdom, » Africa, » Europe
Salman Rushdie at the heart of a new controversy
Dominic Lawson considers Salman Rushdie's recent knighthood in the light of some of its more infamous recipients, like Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. Rushdie's title isn't as disgraceful as some make out. "Only two years ago Iqbal Sacranie, the former chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, was awarded a knighthood. This is the same Iqbal Sacranie who, when the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on Rushdie, announced that 'death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him'. There were, shamefully, no expressions of outrage when the contemptible Mr Sacranie was made 'Sir Iqbal'. On Tuesday night I attended Salman Rushdie's 60th birthday party. There were a number of congratulatory speeches - but while all mentioned his age, none referred to his knighthood. Perhaps that is not so surprising. For a man who had been sentenced to death in the name of an entire religion, to have reached the age of 60 at all is a much greater achievement than any bauble."
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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Literature, » Cultural Policy, » United Kingdom
Poland's Rip Van Winkle is delighted with a post-communist world
"It isn't just doctors who should be queuing up to talk to Jan Grebski, a 65-year-old who suddenly and inexplicably emerged from a 19-year-long coma. Economists and political scientists should also pay a visit to the ex-railway worker's home in Dzialdowo, northern Poland", considers the commentator Nigel Lawson. "Mr Grebski fell into his coma after being hit by a train in 1988, the year before the fall of Communist rule. Last weekend he told Polish television that 'when I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere. Now there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.' According to his wife, Gertruda, 'Jan was so amazed to see the colourful streets. He says the world is prettier now.'"
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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Central Europe
Loach film puts class war above historical truth
"A hard-line Marxist distortion of history," runs the headline above a thought piece by columnist Dominic Lawson about this year's Golden Palm winner at Cannes - Ken Loach's 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' - about the Irish independence fight in the 1920's. "It is true that some among the British military did unspeakable things in Ireland, just as it is true that some American soldiers have committed atrocities in Iraq. But the important thing to realise about Ken Loach is that almost everything he has ever done as an artist ... is designed to further the overthrow of the capitalist system. ... In Loach's socialist realism, the IRA represent the victims of class struggle and are therefore all heroes, while the British soldiers represent the ruling elite and are therefore all brutes. Real history is much more complicated - and much more interesting."
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More from the press review on the subject » Film, » United Kingdom
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