No Laughing Matter

There are two things that I will never joke at someone's expense about. (There are generally more than two, but these two are nolle prosequi material.)

1. A person's name. Even Drumpf. (Perhaps especially Drumpf; after all, it's not like you need to go excavating the ancestral past to find criticisms of that guy.)

No matter how unique you think your humour is, I guarantee you: the person has heard that joke before. Dozens of times. Maybe they even still give you a pity-laugh to stifle the sound of their eyes rolling.

2. What Bertie Wooster would call a person's "outer crust." Unless it's something foreign, like crumbs or something (which, you'll note, people never mention, and just leave you to discover it hours later in the mirror. Thanks.), you can rest assured that a person is much more intimately aware of what is on display than you are. There's simply no tact or sense in pointing out someone's unibrow, mole, acne, tendency to turn deep vermilion when embarrassed or just after the dreaded 20-minute-run PE class, birthmarks... the list goes on. I include tattoos in this, if the comment comes from a total stranger who would otherwise comment on the weather. For everything on this list, they know about it. They know you can see it. No need to verbalize.

There's something private about a person's body—even the visible parts—that merits respect.

A Million Things That Make Me Uneasy

I seem to be on some kind of roll here, so why not continue with the theme?

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

There probably are indeed at least half a million things that bug me. People who stand on the bus without hanging onto anything, for example (you just know they're going to blunder into you at the next unexpected halt). People who walk at anything less than a brisk stride (if they're in front of me). Little annoying human habits that drive me into a raging [wind]fury.

Because I endeavour to be a halfway-decent human, I keep my fury hidden as best I can until it subsides on its own. Sure, sometimes when random strangers are in close proximity I have to actively, repeatedly, inwardly tell myself don't knock them over, just don't do it—but that's a different conversation.

But there are even more things that are more than minor annoyances. Things that awaken a deep dread or terror. Things that make me sit in the pouring rain for 40 minutes rather than board a bus that might be uncomfortably crowded. And all these million things used to keep me at a well-maintained level of unease, which came to be increasingly broken by peaks of anxiety that set my heart racing in an infuriatingly unexpected and uncontrollable way.

Losing control over your emotions is a terrifying thing, and if those emotions end up affecting the way you can function in the world, then you are in a losing position indeed. I think it's shocking for everyone when that tipping point is reached and the most apparently sedate person lashes out—and perhaps most shocking to the person it's coming from. That's when I know it's time to get off the island for a few days.

When it comes down to it, the list of Things That Bug Me is actually pretty short; I could elaborate on a lot of the points, but I think most things are encompassed by the following (in no particular order):

1. other people's opinions
2. the word "whinging"
3. the guy upstairs
4. other pedestrians who obstruct my own pedestering
5. close-mindedness
6. unnecessary noise
7. beards
8. invasive landlords
9. mayonnaise
10. when people believe that their likes/dislikes are objectively good/bad

And yes, negativity too. 

The Ten Plagues of My Apartment

I hate to break stride, especially since I've been in the middle of writing another angryrant, but maybe a little comic relief is in order (even if it's a dark sort of humour).

Thursday morning I awoke to a mysterious dripping sound, which I reported later, from work, to whoever was in charge of the building in the manager's absence. When I got home, I saw that he had helpfully placed a 5-gallon pail beneath the drip, which freed up the container I had originally put there so that I could use it under a second leak.

The paint on the wall developed an impressive blister as water welled up between it and the drywall, and worked its way downward alarmingly quickly. Luckily it burst itself before it got halfway to the floor, and the carpet sponged everything up very neatly.

I did speak to the actual building manager on my lunchbreak next day; she explained that they had had to open up the walls and take up the carpet. I was a little afraid of what I might find at home that evening, but it had not devolved into too sorry a state:

The walls are much more intact than I was led to believe. The billowing carpet is a little unsettling, but the workers barely pried into my belongings while relocating everything into random other locations. If I squint slightly and look at the fans out of the corner of my eye, they almost seem slightly soothing, which is fortunate since they need to be on 24/7 until Monday.

Between the noise, the bits of plaster all over, the gaping holes in the wall, the wintry industrial-grade breeze, the heap of furniture and other possessions tetrised into the living room, and the unrelated problem of ants everywhere, my apartment is really not a hospitable place at the moment.

On the other hand, the guy I reported the leak to in the first place noticed the ants "all over the kitchen counters" so they'll invite an exterminator to the party. I'll be glad to have that cleared up, though I'm not sure I believe it was as infested as that. I'm the one who squashes ants all day, after all, and I've never seen more than 5 on the counter at once, which I don't classify as "all over."

The silveriest lining is that the drone of the fan drowns out the guy upstairs, who acquired an electric guitar several months ago. While he demonstrates a complete lack of musical understanding (i.e. he thinks that the louder he amplifies it, the more it qualifies as music), I have to commend him for practicing constantly in an effort to perfect his technique. I've recreated a sample of his playing, and would be happy to provide a transcription if anybody is interested:


Back to the apartment invasion: I figured that they would probably also notice that the new "low-flow" toilet (which they recently installed as part of a building-wide conversion) runs 100% of the time, and would want to extend the invasion by another week or two to fix that. So, I finally took the 2 minutes necessary to glance into the tank and fix it myself, which on retrospect would have eliminated the annoying filling sound for the past few months, but also increased the amount of electric guitar audible in my suite. Life in this apartment is such a paradox.

February Day Rant

UH OH, a holiday celebrating families. Rant time.

Today was the second annual Family Day statutory holiday in BC (why we are different from the rest of the country is beyond me). This morning I was in line at the coffee shop near my house, and the fellow in front of me struck up a fairly one-sided conversation (because anyone who thinks I want to participate in social interaction when I'm not in customer-service-mode is gravely mistaken). In the midst of similarly bizarre utterances: "What do you think about having a holiday today? Do you like it? I guess nobody complains about a holiday."

No indeed. In truth, though, this holiday rankles with me. In fact, it's a pretty uninclusive week for those of us who are muddling through life on our own.

It isn't that I'm necessarily envious of what other people have that I don't. Maybe someday I'll find a very special guy, and we will mutually tolerate each other to a high degree. I hope so. But in the meantime, I'm happily single; I do what I want, go where I want, and these days focus on doing what makes me happy. I surround myself with fantastic friends, and have enjoyed as fulfilled a life as I could hope for (and of course still going strong).

But family (that is, the lack thereof) has started to become a thorn in my side. Here's a brief tour of the damage:

Too Much Information

2013. And I thought the year before had been a rollercoaster. Looking back, 2013 had some pretty ridiculous highs and lows, and both ends of the spectrum ended up changing the course of my life.

But right now, I'm only going to talk about the lows. Right now is going to be a truthful glimpse into my mind. I'd turn back if I were you.

The Worst Good Advice

[I have no idea when I wrote this, but I found the draft buried amongst other posts when I was going through old writings the other night]

My grade 12 graduating class sat on stage under enormous bristol-board letters: "Shoot for the Moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Aside from being blatantly false, it seemed like a good slogan at the time. Optimistic, encouraging, like an anthem to carry forward into some imaginary rose-coloured future where the sky was no limit. It's the kind of advice all youngsters are fed; anything is possible, chase your dreams. Well sure, I grew up in lucky times and am grateful for it. When food is abundant, war is overseas, health care is free, and going to university is a given, the future is pure potential waiting to be realized.

But there are things that throw a wrench into the future. Bad experiences throughout your youth that shape your personality in a way that's detrimental to your own future. Personal traits that aren't compatible with some types of work. The sudden onset of a debilitating medical condition that gimps your capacity to do things. Circumstances in your personal life that create competing claims on your priorities. Things that just don't pan out; goals you just can't afford to attain. They say you can do anything, but you can't.

I can't remember now if I worked hard in high school. I did my work, for sure, and I got top marks because of it, but it came easily. The first couple years of university weren't much different; although I was told to expect a 10% decrease in grades, it wasn't the case. My first year English prof read excerpts of one of my essays in class as a model example, then went on to tell the class as a whole that the essays were almost universally abysmal. When I applied for music performance the next year, the department was awed by my "perfect theory test" and audition. When I moved on to English I got several writing prizes, and then during my final year's foray into the sciences for fun, I consistently got top marks in both coursework and labs.

During that brief but magical year of Music Performance, I sang at a vocal masterclass where the clinician advised us to be very sure that we wanted to be performers; if we weren't, we'd best back out now because it would eventually break our hearts. That summer I had the good fortune of being chosen as my province's soprano for National Youth Choir. Although it was the best two weeks of my life and I came home inspired, I couldn't help thinking that my university's department just wouldn't get me as far as I would need—there was only one voice instructor in the department at that time, for one thing. I contemplated going to another university, but in the end chose to switch faculties. The truth was, I didn't want to perform (at the time; now I'm undecided), and I unfortunately was under the impression that musicians must perform. The dept head did mention composition during my parting meeting, though, which I later followed up on in my own way.

People are full of the best-intentioned advice, but most of it has turned out neither helpful nor comforting:

• You just need to "find yourself." It could have been the complete lack of career guidance, but I had no idea what I wanted to do after school. If I could have had my way, I probably would have been happy to stay in high school forever, even though it has its own subsection in the "worst years of my life" category. But I didn't worry about it, because everyone said I'd only find my path after I'd taken a year of general classes. Ten years of "finding myself" has slowly painted me into an increasingly narrow corner. At some point, you need to make a (good) decision and stick with it.


• You're so smart, you could be anything you want. I've heard this a lot, and it infuriates me. It's particularly unhelpful because it insinuates that you don't even have to try in order to succeed; it will just come to you because you're so clever. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though I have to say, my whole family is very hard-working; I don't know how I turned out so unambitious.
  


• It's never too late to change your career. While this is technically true, it completely disregards the practical concerns that eventually catch up to you. Even if you're a hopeful new grade 12 graduate set to enter university on a full scholarship, with the next four years neatly paved out in front of you—once you realize your error at assuming your mind wouldn't change during those four years, you realize that you'll have to pay out of your own pocket to fix that error. After one degree, you get exhausted just at the thought of going back to school for something entirely different. After two degrees, it becomes unthinkable. That inner clock ticks more loudly the older you get, and it can easily work you into a frenzy. Besides, someone who hasn't even had a successful first career doesn't exactly have the means to indulge in being a dilettante.

The internet compounds the problem; it makes it seem like anything really is possible.

toothpastefordinner.com
When I was younger, I was an anti-feminist; I just didn't think they had an argument anymore. My upbringing was just that liberating, that I thought of myself as equal to anyone. In recent years, the internet has destroyed that idea; in certain circles I feel embarrassed just for being a girl. I remember the first time I encountered the internet. It was in the early years of high school, and a friend and I logged onto one of the new computers during lunch and I caught my first glimpse of Metacrawler. The internet seemed much smaller then, a tool rather than a space of social interaction.

At one point when I used to take composition lessons, my instructor told me that I probably wouldn't ever hear most of my work performed; that most of the time, composers have to live with hearing their music in their own heads. That was one of the most discouraging moments of my life. I don't even believe it's true; in undergrad the composition students wrote for and were regularly performed by a small new music ensemble. But for a struggling no-name composer who has never been in an instrumental ensemble and can't even write an instrumental part in the right transposition, there's more disappointment than hope. I didn't understand how hard one has to work in order to succeed (but that you could). All along I had been led to believe that I could be anything I wanted—yes, a successful composer—simply by willing it to be so. I gave it up as an impossible feat.

Once, a couple years back, my Dad gave me some actual good advice. I was still foundering at the question of what I planned to do after finishing my MA degree, and he said something like "You have to figure out what to do and do it, because life is passing." I have a bit of a phobia of temporality, and my fear of time passing can surface and derail my productiveness for weeks years at a time.

This is all very rambling and un-cohesive, but the point is that the norm of being overly encouraging and optimistic to new graduates is a disservice. I'm not saying they should be deliberately intimidated—there is enough intimidation as it is in high school to alter a person's future, as I well remember—but rather instilled with the desire to achieve that optimistic future, not unconditionally promised it.

And, too, all of this could just be my own misinterpretation of that slogan emblazoned on the wall.

Concerning Music

It's been a relentless two weeks, and even though I spent a good twelve hours in a makeshift office at the university on this last day of Summer Piano Academy—and subsequently spent a good two hours recording piano pieces only to discover that the quality was terrible—I wanted to complete these thoughts concerning music that I've been collecting for the past several months.

Not too many years ago I had high hopes of being a musician and composer; now my role is largely to facilitate other people's musical endeavors. While my work at the VCM keeps me within the musical world, it also feeds my own regret and disappointment at how time seems to have drained itself away. (N.B. This is not a blog post about work; it just happens that my workplace features prominently.) Each year brings a new class of hopeful students who are living my dream—one that I briefly lived but woke myself from for a now forgotten reason. I still like to think of myself as a composer, though I've been stuck on the same piece after only a few bars for... well literally years.

What ultimately discouraged me from finishing my composition/theory ARCT? Well, it's not that I was entirely unsuccessful. My song cycle was performed at the VCM, for one thing. The last competition I entered, my Anglo-Saxon choral piece was a finalist and only didn't make the very final cut; more than anything else, I would have loved (and still would) to hear that piece performed. And that's the ultimate discouragement: my composition instructor told me in one of our last lessons that as a composer, I'd have to get used to hearing my music only in my head; that the pieces I wrote simply wouldn't be performed. Of course that isn't entirely true; in fact, both times I entered that competition, I have been eligible to apply for a recording grant. But, I'm perceptive enough to realize that it would be true for me, given my self-defeating personality. Anyway, that was the day I walked out of that endless fugue class and decided I was wasting my time, along with what little money I had.

I can't write a post about music without mentioning my biggest musical inspiration. One of the people I admire the most (in pretty much every way, and particularly musically) is Melissa Dunphy. (I highly recommend checking out her What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?—and I'm totally in love with Tesla's Pigeon; I wish I were still studying voice just for the chance to perform this song cycle! While I'm making asides, I also love this video.) Very often at the conservatory I feel that the musical environment that we perpetuate is increasingly irrelevant: stodgy rules about harmonic progressions; centuries-old pieces that now seem to have obligatory positions in every performer's repertoire. I just wish there was more excitement built around new music in my city; I think works like the Gonzales Cantata are fantastic for the place they have in the society we live in today.

At any rate, this is what I wanted to create in life: beautiful, transcendent choral music. I wanted that since the summer I sang in National Youth Choir, when for two weeks we were a single instrument and the small rehearsal hall would fill with tangible waves of sound. It's what I tried to achieve in the few choral pieces I completed and the Missa Brevis I left hanging after the Kyrie. And now I'm surrounded by musicians pursuing all their dreams and more. How could things turn out this way in a music conservatory?

Three times since Christmas, I've woken in the night, delirious with perpetual poor health, seized with some idea that impressed itself upon my fevered mind as being the most important thing in life. In morning light they always turn out to be dumb ideas, but there's one idea that I think someone should take on in this conservatory, even if I'm totally unqualified. So here was my fevered dream: wouldn't it be the best idea in the world, if I get myself into a conducting class at the consesrvatory (in my delirium, a semester was all I would need). Then I would get a group of some of these fantastic musicians I've come to know over time at work, and we would create a new music ensemble to perform the works of us student composers. For several nocturnal hours, this was the best idea in the world.

But it gnaws at me—why doesn't the conservatory do something like this? It doesn't have to be a large ensemble. It doesn't have to offer a wide range of instrumentation. People like me will take anything with eternal gratitude. My new-found passion for new music is so strong that I start to seethe a little when I have to sit through too much Bach, or arias from Italian operas (do they not go in the most predictable direction imaginable?). And the almost single-minded emphasis on Baroque music in the vocal department has me rethinking my decision to finish my ARCT in voice performance. I can't see the relevance anymore.

This excerpt from Anti Social Music's website really sums up my thoughts:

Frustrated?

We get it.

We started this whole thing because we were a handful of young composers sending scores into the black, thankless void of competitions, open calls, grant applications...the Kinko's fees add up and the postage is crushing, and for what? A one-line rejection, if that. So we got together and started performing and recording our own damn pieces.

My greatest wish in the world is to be able to hear my work performed. The greatest dissuasion from composing, for me, is the crushing defeat of watching yourself age and your compositional output cease, and all of it be swallowed up silently, the pieces you agonized over for months and years to slowly turn to dust.

drawings only nominally from the library

I finally got around to uploading a new batch of drawings, but I also created a Facebook page (cmon, be a fan!) that now has all recent drawings (recent = starting February 2007). For the archives, you still have to trawl through the drawings website.

The whole MA essay thing is shaping itself up rather nicely, and things are no longer in the hypothetical, will-think-about-looking-into-it stage. So, I'm now working through all kinds of books on virtuality and animality. Pretty slow going, since I've always hidden from theory. I'm sure it must be possible to write theory books in an accessible manner... the point almost seems to thoroughly muddify an already obfuscated concept. I'm a bit at a loss about how to start searching for serious work on digital animals; delicious.com is pretty much my hero.

No summer should really go by without some sort of birthday rant. In addition to New Year's Resolutions Hypotheticals every year, I usually make a sort of Birthday Resolutions. Things that I hope to have accomplished by the time I'm 25, or 26, or whatever. Things like, you know, it would be nice to not be in the exact same spot come next year. This past birthday cycle turned out to not yield any accomplishments whatsoever X( Oh yeah, something about someone's birthday, somewhat recently. My birthday has historically been a lowpoint in my year, like the time I didn't see or hear a single human during the whole day. Or the time I turned 18 while sleeping on a metal slab in a pig barn with a bunch of Frenchmen in Quebec (only days before I was abandoned at the airport after my plane had already departed). Or the time I turned 21 on the last day of counselling at camp (during which time a teenager inadvertently stomped on my ribs and I couldn't stand up straight for a month afterward) and the liquor stores weren't open so we got me a handful of Red Bulls for the staff party, and then I had to keep pulling over on the way home to nap because they made me so drowsy. Great birthday memories... Anyway, Birthday Resolutions 2009 include a good deal of composing, as well as finally becoming Master of Arts (I will of course refer to myself as Magister Artium).

Updation

My song cycle was indeed performed during Canada Music Week (way back in November) and they did a great job. I finally finished a choral setting of an Anglo-Saxon poem, but am told that although there's much to admire in it, it just doesn't work. Recently I've been thinking more about Tintinnabulation (because Arvo Part is my compositional hero, hands down), but figure that anything I try will probably be a repeat of the Anglo-Saxon thing. It's pretty disheartening, but maybe I'll wise up someday and learn how to write 'properly' or something. In December, we went to see Nine Inch Nails again (non-festival this time), which was superlative. It was neat to see how the show had changed over the months since we saw that very first one. You know it will be awesome when there's a marimba on stage. I still marvel at Year Zero every few months when I remember to give it a listen. Year Zero also makes me feverishly want to continue working on my conference paper. Speaking of which: I can't say I had an overwhelmingly great grad experience last year (despite a couple awesome classes) so I withdrew for the fall term to think things over. Ideally, I'd like to develop the paper I did for the UCLA conference into a Masters-Essay-worthy piece, but that doesn't look too promising. This past spring, though, I took a fantastic zoo-texts (generally multidisciplinary) class and could envision my final paper as my Masters project... if only I wasn't forbidden to elaborate on it when anybody asks ):< At Christmas I flew back home, and I had fully intended to recount the horrors of the trip. I ended up stuck in Calgary airport for some 13 hours with nothing but Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son and a blank notebook. Charles Dickens. For thirteen hours. I halfheartedly started doing some Drawings from the Airport, but have let drawings slip as well. I have the best intentions of doing the Aphex Twin transcriptions that people keep asking about, maybe over the summer. Who can say.

Unravel the Injustice

Friday's Unravel the Injustice evening went well. I didn't get much of a chance to hear the speakers or watch the sweatshop presentation during the first half, because I was helping keep the models backstage organized. But, I did sneak out during the second half to listen to the keynote speaker Shirley Klassen talk about the effects of NAFTA in Mexico.

So 1994 was the year the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, which was basically the FTA extended to Mexico. It was also the year of the Mexican Peso crisis. Maquiladoras are manufacturing zones in Mexico. Under NAFTA, thousands of jobs disappeared from Canada and the US to Mexico, and sweatshop jobs were created where workers earned US$50 per week. Good paying service sector jobs disappeared because of privatization. In order to allow NAFTA, the Mexican government changed the constitution to allow foreign ownership of indigenous lands, and that ownership went to transnationals. Roads, education, and healthcare were privatized when the government simply removed services; the services were eventually brought back through American contracts and privatization. The control of the military also went to transnationals. Now all crops are of genetically modified seed. Railways, which were once for people, are now privatized and only for the transportation of goods.

Mexicans were forced off their rural lands into urban centres; many squat in colonia—shanty towns that grow in the toxic wastelands created by manufacturing. Piles of toxic waste sit beside people’s houses. According to the statement of a member of a delegation who visited a colonia, the Rio Grande was a toxic soup where people fished. Fish are found floating dead, some are mutated, and when they are cut open are blackened inside. For the Mexicans, the choice was simple: “eat this now and die later, or don’t eat anything and die now.” The delegate also mentioned that the stench of the Rio Grande alone made one of the other delegates vomit. And, when asked why they chose to live in the toxic areas, Mexicans said that they had no choice; they had been forced off their lands, and nobody bothered them here.

Chapter 11 of NAFTA allows corporations and individuals to sue governments. My friend Wikipedia tells me here that "Metalclad, an American corporation, was awarded US$15.6 million from Mexico after a Mexican municipality refused a construction permit for the hazardous waste landfill it intended to construct in El Llano, Aguascalientes." Does anybody else think NAFTA doesn't really benefit people?

Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras

Lest We Forget

"Lest we forget" is the catchphrase around this time of year. It comes from Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "Recessional." Obviously, he didn't have the World Wars in mind at that early date (actually, maybe he did; he predicted that the Boer War was just a skirmish and the most important war of all time was yet to come in the early 20th century. But this poem is not about that). My best prof happened to be a Kipling expert, so this is what I learned from her.

First, you need to know a few things about Imperialism and Kipling's view of it. Kipling spent a good portion of his life in India, where he was born. He must have seen the toll Imperialism had on colonized peoples. At a time when Imperialism happened in faraway places that ordinary people didn't see, it was easy to turn a blind eye towards its effects, or just not know about them. Rudyard Kipling knew. He knew that Imperialism was one of the ugliest things there is. And yet, he felt that it was necessary; apalling, but necessary. The same went for war in general; there was nothing glorious about it (many people at the time were suckered into the notion, though), but it was necessary. The "lest we forget" enters here: as necessary as war and Imperialism were, Kipling felt that it was of vital importance that we always remember the cost it exacted.

And what was that cost? Interestingly enough, not the sacrifice that soldiers make in going to war. Rather, it was the sacrifice we make of our soldiers. It is our duty to know why that sacrifice was made, and why it is important. One other interesting point: "lest we forget" is, I think, now linked to the general idea that soldiers fight for peace. Kipling, though, believed that soldiers died for freedom, not for peace (remember, war is necessary and you can't get rid of it). What he despairs of is that the sacrifice we have made of others will be rendered faceless.

Others didn't share Kipling's views. In 1899, for example, Robert Buchanan accused Kipling of "hooliganism" (sounds almost like soccer). Buchanan thought Imperialism itself was a noble goal, and shouldn't acknowledge the nature of its own project. We shouldn't know the cost that Imperialism exacts.

From the 1890s on, Kipling's work predicted an English war with Germany. That coming war, Kipling felt, was the war that mattered. Kipling believed that Britain was unprepared for such a war—and they were. He believed that the treatment of ordinary soldiers would put them at risk—and it did. The crazy prevailing view was that soldiers were too stupid to do anything other than walk forwards in rows. We all know how that turned out. Here's the last bit of Kipling's poem "Tommy":

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Well, last time's empty fun fact was an artistic statement (or something), but supplying your own fun fact was a good idea too. This week's fun fact: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). You can read more about it on good old Wikipedia here. Other topics of interest are the Agreed Framework and NATO.

First Pillar: non-proliferation

“Five states are permitted by the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] to own nuclear weapons”—namely, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Why? Because they were “the only states possessing such weapons at the time the treaty was opened to signature.”

Second Pillar: disarmament

According to Article 6 of the Treaty, “The states undertake to negotiate toward general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

NWS parties have a formal obligation to “pursue plans to reduce and liquidate their stockpiles”—a formal obligation, that is, which “has never been adhered to by the NPT-recognized nuclear weapons states…. The failure of the NPT-recognized nuclear weapons states to comply with their disarmament obligations, and the unconditional indefinite extension of the NPT, has left a simmering discontent among many signatories of the NPT, and a justification for the non-signatories to develop their own nuclear arsenals.”

Third Pillar: the right to peacefully use nuclear technology

The NPT “gives every state the inalienable right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” such as light water reactor nuclear power.
Now, here are some fun facts on NATO nuclear weapons sharing:

• “At the time the treaty was being negotiated, NATO had in place secret nuclear weapons sharing agreements whereby the United States provided nuclear weapons to be deployed by, and stored in, other NATO states.”


• “As of 2005, it is estimated that the United States still provides between 180 and 480 tactical B61 nuclear bombs for use by Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey under these NATO agreements.”

Well, so much for nonproliferation. “Under NATO convention, in the event of a declaration of war, these nuclear weapons cease to be subject to [the NPT] treaty. Such a declaration my occur quickly, and in secret; in effect, the NATO nations will become instantaneous overseas bases for deployment and usage of U.S. nuclear weapons. Many would argue that this situation violates the spirit of the treaty, and perhaps even the written rule.”
In Iran:

• Iran has a uranium enrichment program, which is “a step towards a civilian nuclear energy program, which is allowed under the terms of the NPT”—that good old unalienable right. “However, the United States and the European Union accuse Iran of using this program to help covertly develop nuclear weapons, in violation of the NPT. Iran remains under investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.”

Now, as for North Korea:

• North Korean Foreign Ministry statement: “We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have manufactured nuclear arms for self-defence to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK.”


• Terms of the Agreed Framework (signed in 1994) include:
  
  • North Korea’s obligations: shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor; abandoning construction of two larger nuclear power plants; placing of spent fuel under IAEA controls.
  • What they get in return: two light water reactors to be constructed by 2003, primarily supplied by Japan and South Korea.
  • Soon after, the US came under the administration of the Republicans, who—although they didn’t support the agreement—“agreed to phase out economic sanctions that had been in place since the Korean War.”

The US didn’t deliver on this though, and by 1999 “North Korea warned that they would resume nuclear research unless the US kept up its end of the bargain.” North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003.

Here’s a breakdown of the opinions at the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT (happens every 5 years):

• United States: “wanted the conference to focus on proliferation, especially on its allegations against Iran”
• Most other countries: “emphasized the serious nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers”

I don’t believe anybody should have nuclear weapons, but if you’re someone like Iran and the US is trying to stop your nuclear energy program, when the US itself is probably the most nuclear state there is—and quite obviously has no plans for disarmament—then how can you help being angry? Or say you’re North Korea and you were promised some light water reactors (for civilian nuclear energy), and then never got them? Nobody likes a Global Police, or Big Brother, or whatever you call it.