Morality in the 21st century is an optional extra

In the year 2012, who can we say are humanity's role models? Our politicians? Hollywood celebrities? Religious leaders? Writers? Musicians?

Until the middle of the 19th century, the answer for most of humanity was a simple one: God, Allah, Buddha, or whatever divine figures were relevant to your culture. After a moment's thought, a person may have thought of a living religious figure (priest, imam, or whatever), and then they may have thought about secular humanity, and the leading figures of the time: in the 19th century, where the vast majority of humanity did not experience democracy or free thought, so the moral role that a politician had, even less a "celebrity" was of little relevance to most people's lives.

In 2012, the only parts of the world where religion still holds a significant role in morality are the Middle East/the Muslim world, Africa, India and "Middle America". In all other parts of the world ("liberal" USA, Europe and the rest of the "developed world", China, Russia and South America), humanity is either indifferent about religion's role in morality or ignorant.

So, where does the agnostic rest of humanity get its morality from?

As China is the most populous of these "agnostic" parts of humanity, it makes sense to talk about them first. China gets its morality from Confucius. While Chinese people are atheists and their government officially Communist, their moral philosophy still is based on principles established more than two thousand years ago. The basic premise is "know your place": to conform with the rest of society; see yourself as one part of the seething mass of society as a whole; respect and listen to your elders; maintain the system and hierarchy. These key principles have been used to maintain social and moral order in China ever since, and are a key part of the Chinese mindset. When Westerners go to China and feel like they are in Mars, there is a good reason for this: because the people have maintained an ancient conservatism. They are not interested in democracy (or most of them) because they see it as dangerous; part of this is government-speak, but part of it is also genuine truth.

The morality of the rest of the "agnostic world" could be summarised, for the most part, as an extension of the morality of modified versions of the Capitalist free market. Some parts of the world are more concerned about "society" (such as Europe), whereas others are more concerned about the morality of the "individual" (such as the USA and Russia), but they all broadly adhere to an obedience to moral principles of Capitalism.

You might wonder why I rank Russia and the USA as morally equivalent. It is because since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has replaced its "social" morals with "individual" morals, to such an extent that there is effectively no real safety net against poverty in Russia; as is the same in the USA. Furthermore, this "morality of the individual", in both the USA and Russia, has resulted in a ruthless corruption of society.

In Russia, that corruption permeates almost every level of society, from the top to the bottom. In some parts of Russia it is worse than others (as is the same for much of the rest of the former Soviet Union), but this corruption means that "individual morality" becomes a moral black hole: if no-one follows the rules, then individuals have no incentive to have a "moral code": the only rule is "me".

Many Russians have fled to the USA, which they see as an ideal market-place to put into practise the "dog-eat-dog" psychology they have honed in corrupt-individualist Russia. Although corruption is not as endemic in the USA as Russia, USA has corruption of its own kind, just by another name. It is true that Russians move to the USA because there are objectively fewer hurdles to opportunity (such as low-level corruption), but the USA has its own atrophied elite as it Russia; it is simply older and a little more diverse, including dozens or hundreds of established families that have the real power in the country - the medieval Republic of Venice operated on a similar level for hundreds of years. The fact that a black man with a Kenyan father can become the American President may be an inspiration to others, but it is also worth noting that for all Barack Obama's good intentions, he had to gain the financial support of the elite in order to become a viable candidate. In other words, it suited many of the elite's plans that an articulate, smart black man become President. Why this is, is worth thinking about.

I'll return to the question I asked at the start: who are humanity's role models? Apart from China (which I've already discussed), the average human being in the developed world has very few real role models. I've just mentioned Barack Obama: as it happens, I am quite a big fan of his, but there are important things to remember about his time in office. Apart from restoring some of America's lost respect around the world, at home his achievements have either been stymied by his political enemies (supported by those in the elite who are against him), if not blocked entirely, as well as him receiving continual insults and slurs. It's fair to feel sorry for him in that way, and I do. And yet, because of all this, the financial crisis has gone by with few real lessons being learned, as well as the banks responsible effectively getting away with mass fraud, while at the same time, the average person suffers more than at any time since the Depression in order to pay for it. It's enough to make a decent person's blood boil.

The living role model that most people in the world would agree gives humanity the most inspiration is probably Nelson Mandela. It's worth remembering the reason he was imprisoned for nearly forty years: because he was promoting civil disobedience and strikes by the black population to get equal rights. In other words, he was following the same strategy as Gandhi. Thus when he was released from prison and became President of a free South Africa, the black population expected everything would become better. But it didn't happen, and still hasn't, really. Yes, they have equal rights under law as the whites, but their decades of poverty through lack of opportunity still mean that most of them are effectively second-class citizens, through circumstance if not by law. And also, when Mandela took power, the white elite pressurized him not to do anything else too radical that would frighten away the rich whites from South Africa, so another opportunity was lost. I wonder what kind of conversation Mandela and Obama would have about these types of harsh lessons in political reality.

And forgetting politicians, what about others, the celebrities, who have taken the place of role models? The problem here is that the media are wont to build up celebrities for their own ends, and then when celebrities demonstrate that they are (shock, horror) all too human, knock them back down. In other words, the necessarily symbiotic link between the media and celebrities feeds a selfish, amoral cycle that is fed into our senses on a daily basis.

So if the media are amoral, and most famous people are amoral, and the capitalist elite are amoral, where are the moral guardians?

A footnote here worth mentioning is that the European court just gave the green light to "kettling" by British police. It is also worth remembering that in the UK, as I understand it, you should ask permission from the police to have an organised protest. So in the UK, people can be detained in the open air without human rights for hours on end without charge; at the same time, there no automatic right to freedom of protest.

That's just worth remembering what Syrians are dying for: the same rights that the UK took away. Hypocrisy? Who would have thought it?

The Republic Of North Azerbaijan

In the parliament of Azerbaijan not long ago, an MP proposed changing the name of their nation to "North Azerbaijan".

To those not familiar with the nuances of this etymology and the history, they might well want to know what the reason given for the proposed name change was, and where was "South Azerbaijan", for that matter?

The nation state called Azerbaijan was created in 1992. However, the historical area known as "Azerbaijan" (also called "Atropatene") roughly corresponds with contemporary Azerbaijan (capital: Baku) and north-west Iran (major cities: Tabriz, Ardabil). This geographical area had been populated with ethnic Azeris (and a number of Kurds) for around a thousand years or so.

This historical "Azerbaijan" had been part of, and divided by, various empires over the centuries; arguably reaching its cultural zenith during the times of the Safavid empire around 500 years ago, ruling for more than two hundred years; the Safavids ruled from Ardabil and controlled the area of contemporary Iran, as well as parts of the Caucasus, Pakistan and Afghanistan, making it arguably the greatest of the dynasties of Persia. They were also the first dynasty to make Shi'ism the state religion. As Azeri was the main language of the Safavids, it could therefore be said that the apogee of the Persian empire was when it was, in effect, a greater Azeri empire.

After the fall of the Safavid dynasty in the middle of the 18th century, the nadir of Azeri fortunes was the treaty of 1821 between Russia and Persia. This carved up the area of "Azerbaijan" between the two warring states, the northern portion going to Russia, while the rest remained part of Persia. This northern portion is what the Republic of Azerbaijan is today.

Two hundred years is a long time for people to be apart. Since the re-establishment of an independent Azeri state twenty years ago, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have, understandably, been strained. Thousands of ethnic Azeri Iranians have relatives in "the north", and even more of them take regular trips to Baku. But although the people of the north and south may still be technically the same, there is much to separate them.

Since becoming part of Russia, the Azeris in the north (I'll use this term from now on to describe people from the Republic, and those in "the south" being those in Iran) naturally became Russified. However, since independence, the northerners have increasingly rediscovered their faith. While the culture of "the north" has been increasingly influenced by the West, there is more and more anecdotal evidence to suggest a kind of "culture war" in Baku; those who still want to look to Russia, those who look to Europe and the West; and increasingly, those who look to their conservative culture, Shi'ism and the religious influence of Iran.

This "culture war" can be seen in the media, where judgemental journalists (who look like they're competing with the sanctimony of the UK's "Daily Mail" -ha, ha) harangue minor celebrities for their uncouth dress sense, women on the length of their skirts, couples kissing in public, women who smoke, and so on. This confusing cultural mess goes on every day in Baku. Turkey has similar issues, to be sure; but in Turkey, no-one is saying that the country is so clearly pulled three ways at once.

The Azeris in the south have had to contend with thirty years of Islamic fundamentalism. Ethnic Azeris make up fully a third of the population of Iran; ethnic Persians are not even a majority in their "own" country; they just happen to be the largest minority. So Persians have been extremely diligent in their oppression of other minorities; as Azeris are the largest minority after the Persians, it is they who are the most oppressed.

This "oppression" includes the active discouragement of Azeri being accepted officially. In response, Azeris in Iran react by ignoring it. It should be remembered that Ayatollah Khameinei is an ethnic Azeri; Iranian Azeris, however, have been taking their religion less and less seriously since the Islamic revolution. More and more, they take their inspiration from the West.

So the Azeris in the south have been growing gradually more and more conscious and vocal in asserting their identity; there is a South Azerbaijan movement that demands a breakaway from Iran, much as there is one for the Kurds in Turkey, minus the conspicuous terrorism.

When Southerners come to "the North", it is not difficult to spot them. They look obviously more Westernised than Northerners, the women wearing stylish dresses and the men smart suits. By comparison, except for those conspicuously showing-off in the top-class Baku cafes or on the "Bulvar", average Northerners wear very simple clothing. This is the paradox: that many of those in "the north" are slowly becoming more "Iranian", at the same time as those in "the south" are becoming more and more Westernised.

In an odd reversal of the 1821 treaty, whereas many Azeris in "the south" want to be an independent, Westernised nation-state, many Azeris in "the north" would like to be a virtual satellite of Iran.

I wonder what the Ayatollah would think of that. Or the West, for that matter. No wonder the powers that be in Baku are twitchy about their own population. They have a fair right to be on the current evidence.

The psychological state of the Conservative government

The Conservative party, led by David Cameron, have been in government in the UK (with their Lib Dem coalition partners) for nearly two years now.

Politically, if you ignore Cameron's involvement in the war with Libya, the Conservative government's time has been dominated by a series of controversies, so much so that they have defined their time in office: the austerity cuts; student fees; health and education reform; the Liam Fox resignation; the UKBA controversy (fresh in the news today); and the future status of Scotland.

That's a pretty long list for a party that's less than two years into government. And let's not forget, that's a government led by a party than didn't win an overall majority; the two main "left-of-centre" parties have more MPs in parliament put together than the UK's sole "centre-right" party. Only by the grace of the Lib Dems do the Conservatives earn the right to govern.

By comparison, when the Labour government came to power in 1997 with a majority of more than 170, its main priority was to avoid controversy at almost every turn, so that its first two years in power were virtually empty of bad headlines. The only exception was over the introduction of tuition fees. The major changes it did bring about in the first two years - on things like the minimum wage, and devolution to Scotland and Wales (and later, following the success of the peace process, Northern Ireland) - it did with broad public support.

It is obvious to say that circumstances in the UK have changed since then. Yes, the financial crisis, partly brought about through the Labour government's reluctance to regulate the financial industry, has changed things. But that does not explain, even less justify, the mentality of the Conservatives.

Depending on the issue, the Conservatives' attitude to government has varied.

On the austerity cuts, government has shown a myopic narrow-mindedness (what they call "determination to see things through"), even in the face of evidence of the folly of their approach and the clear plight being caused as a result.

On the health reforms and education reforms, the relevant Conservative ministers have shown a disregard for others (failing to ignore the concerns of professionals, let alone the principles of democracy, given that they have no mandate for "reform").

On student fees, the same behavioural pattern was shown - intransigence and lack of empathy in the face of criticism and the needs of young people.

The Liam Fox resignation displayed the arrogance and casual disregard to proper behaviour, favouritism and cronyism that many Conservatives are habitually guilty of. In other words, behaving as though they were above reproach.

Meanwhile, the way that the Prime Minister and his ministers have been dealing with the constitutional wishes of the Scots (independence or otherwise), is with a similar bloody-minded unwillingness intransigence and narrow-mindedness. Given the fact that the Conservatives' natural political support in Scotland is negligible, this attitude is even more unfathomable. The Conservatives have no moral voice in Scotland; they rule the nation as though it is a virtual colony. Thus they indirectly generate support for the policy that they say they totally oppose.

Lastly, and most recently, is the UKBA controversy. This was a border fiasco that a report has shown was at least indirectly the result of governmental confusion and ministerial incompetence; yet the minister responsible, Theresa May vents only scorn at the border officials who were trying to do their best under confusing governmental advice, while failing to take any responsibility on her part.

So, taken as a whole picture, the Conservatives' approach to government can be summed up as having the following characteristics: lack of empathy to others' misfortune, intransigence, narrow-mindedness, arrogance, failure to accept responsibility, and incompetence.

There was a documentary some years ago about the psychological behaviour of corporations, coming to the conclusion that if corporations were psychologically analysed as people, they would be considered psychopaths.

One wonders, looking at the behavioural traits mentioned above, what conclusions would be reached if the Conservative government as a whole were measured in the same way.

Greece's collective nervous breakdown

Greece is a country and civilisation with a long history, the longest in Europe. But in its four thousand years of history, what it is going through now must rank as being one of the most humiliating episodes in its national history.

We'll forget about some of the ancient past for the sake of brevity; the 300 Spartans, the wars with the Persians, and so on. We'll forget Greece's occupation by the Romans for four hundred years. Moving on, we'll forget (for the moment) about the Fourth Crusade; that moment when Constantinople, Christendom's richest and most populous city at the time, as well as it's intellectual heart, was looted bare and half burned to the ground by fellow Christians. We'll forget about the Byzantine's long and painful decline after the Fourth Crusade until its eventual overthrow by the Ottoman Turks. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Turks for nearly four hundred years. We'll forget about Greece's occupation by the Nazis during the Second World War, and the bloody civil war afterwards. And we'll forget about the time when Greece was ruled by a brutal military junta, backed by the CIA during the middle of the Cold War.

We'll forget all that for now. It's worth remembering that words like "trauma"and "psyche", as well as pretty much most words to describe government, such as "democracy", "tyranny"

and "anarchy", are Greek. These could all be applied to describe in different ways the state of Greece today.

Greece as a nation-state is in collective meltdown. It just hasn't realised it yet. For decades (since the fall of the military junta, but moreso in recent decades), successive governments gave generous salaries and benefits to their population, in order to satisfy their wants and to garner popularity. At the same time, Greeks, from politicians down to hairdressers, were doing what they could to defraud the system, subsequently draining the government's revenue while at the same time the government was doing what it could to spend even more of it.

So it's no surprise that Greece would eventually find itself in a state of virtual bankruptcy. The question was what to do when the government eventually was forced to admit the truth to itself and to the public.

What it did do, considering that Greece was in the Euro, along with sixteen other countries, was ask for help. And because of the collective nature of the Euro (that when one country is screwed, the rest may well follow) the European Central Bank (mostly bankrolled by Germany, the Eurozone's strongest country) was obliged to provide it.

But Germany and the ECB were not in a sympathetic frame of mind, and in order to give Greece the money it needed to keep functioning, it asked for a lot in return, and (as the Greeks did not have trustworthy history of keeping to commitments) in a fairly short space of time. The result of that? The Greek government is forced to tear the guts out of its own institutions: government assets sold off to (foreign) privatisation; massive government lay-offs, salaries and pensions cut and cut again; meanwhile taxes are increased again and again. The consequence? Fury on the streets; 100,000 homeless in Athens; middle-class workers forced to queue for church handouts - a population and a country of modern Europeans, reduced to virtual poverty to pay off a loan.

Greece, in other words, is no longer in control of its own fate. The government, paralysed by the fear of being kicked out of the Eurozone and having to fend for itself under its own currency on one hand, and a fury at being a virtual hostage to a foreign power on the other, is stuck in a death-spiral trajectory. But this death-spiral of poverty is due to last for several more years at least, if Greece is to pay back its debts to the ECB/Germany. Meanwhile, in the real Greece, outside the parliament, it is clear the people cannot tolerate this forever. Already there has been looting and burning of buildings.

Greeks have been here before, though a long time ago. The Fourth Crusade of 1204 occurred when Crusaders were sent to Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine (Greek) Empire, in order to replace one emperor with his nephew on the throne. The nephew had promised a large financial reward to the Crusaders for this service. However, the empire at this time was practically bankrupt due to governmental mismanagement. The Crusaders forced the nephew, once installed on the throne, to raise taxes and loot the churches of gold and valuables. Riots were not long in coming, and within a matter of months the nephew was forced from the throne and replaced by a Greek who was not a pawn of the Crusaders. As a result of this, the Crusaders attacked the city a second time; this time, when they entered the city, it was looted bare of valuables and partially burned to the ground.

Greece these days is in a similar bind of its own making; only now, instead of being held hostage to Crusaders, it is held hostage to bankers in Frankfurt.

It's not Germany's or the ECB's fault that Greece is a financial colony. Greece could have decided that the best thing to do, given the kind of strict conditions that the ECB offered, was to choose to leave the Euro and fend for itself, using its own strategy. Some German politicians, secretly would prefer that; it would make it easier for them, and easier on the stability of the Eurozone.

There is to be an election in Greece in a couple of months, and I guess the question that most Greeks will be asking when the make their vote will be "Who runs Greece?". It is up to them to decide.

Incomparable Edinburgh

For those of you who haven't been to Edinburgh, you really should. Really. Truly.

Here's why.

People talk about cities like Paris, Venice, Rome, St Petersburg, Prague and Istanbul as being amongst the most romantic cities in Europe, if not the world.

But what makes a city romantic, evocative, and distinctive?

For those who adore Paris, they talk about the sights (the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Champs Elysee, Notre Dame, etc.), the River Seine, and the overall beauty and gracefulness of the city. Now, all this may be true, but there are also many people who have also been to Paris, and leave feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. I tend to sympathise more with the latter view: as much as Paris is beautiful, the Eiffel Tower, once you take a photo, is nothing more than a photo opportunity; the Champs Elysee is incredibly over-rated; and the city is horrendously expensive and populated with an irritable and pretentious population. Only the Louvre, in my view, is a truly outstanding destination, rightly famous for its art and a place to while away hours on end.

Well, I don't want to go through each of the places I mentioned; after looking at Paris, I guess you get the point I'm making: many of the most famous "romantic" cities in the world can be a disappointment; it depends on your perspective.

Which brings me to Edinburgh.

I've been to this city three times now in my life, the last just a few days ago. To those who don't know the geography of the city, Edinburgh's centre is a few miles inland from the sea, south of the port of Leith (although this is these days just a suburb of the city itself), with a vista of several hills in varying directions from the city.

The old city (what is called "Auld Reekie") is built on a hill, more like a ridge, that slopes up from the east to the west on a gradual gradient, reaching a cliff-top summit at the western end, on which is perched the castle. The old city, therefore, was built on this long but fairly narrow ridge, about a mile or so in length. The main street, called the "Royal Mile", runs right down the crest of this ridge, from the castle in the west, to Holyrood Palace, at the eastern extremity of the old city.

The old city slowly grew from its beginnings in ancient times, around two thousand years ago, to gain most of its current size and appearance about four hundred years ago. By the early eighteenth century (around the same time that Peter the Great of Russia was building St Petersburg), it was decided that Edinburgh needed to be expanded, as the old city was becoming dangerously overcrowded with tall medieval tenements. Therefore, north of the old city, just beyond the loch that then lay beneath it, a New Town was built.

The New Town was designed on classical principles, as St Petersburg was, with wide and straight streets, squares and parks, and rows of spacious housing. As an aside, it should not be forgotten that Edinburgh's classical legacy (of being called the "Athens of the North") owes as much to the city being the birthplace of the Enlightenment, as to its architectural classicism.

Over the following centuries, additional features like statues were added in squares and at intersections, and while the city was further expanded again as other suburbs were added over the next two hundred years, those same classical principles were not forgotten. The loch separating the old city and the "New Town" was eventually drained and turned into a park, giving the city centre a further dose of character; finally a bridge was built over the basin that separated the two parts of Edinburgh's centre.

For that reason, Edinburgh remains a city steeped in history, with much of the city, proportionally much more than London, looking more or less the same as it did one or two hundred years ago. Not only is there the medieval old city, dramatically perched on an angled ridge that rises to a summit crowned by the castle; the old city also overlooks the so-called "New Town" below - acting as the contemporary centre of the city, but in fact a grandiose eighteenth-century creation of classical urban planning and architectural ambition.

So that leads me to the comparisons.

If you look at the old town and new town of Edinburgh separately, Edinburgh's new town can be compared architecturally with cities like St Petersburg or Paris, or the Scandinavian capitals of Copenhagen and Stockholm; though it makes the most sense to fairly compare it to St Petersburg as they were near-contemporaries when they were built, and with the same classical ideals and scale of ambition in mind.

If you look at the old city, it compares quite well with some of the old European cities such as Krakow (an old city with a castle on a hill) or Prague (ditto, though with a river separating them), or even Tallinn (like Krakow, an old city beneath with a castle on a hill). But I know of no major European city that has a medieval centre built on a ridge with one long main street, as the "Royal Mile" in Edinburgh. What is unique about the Royal Mile is that its length has been used to emphasise its status as a royal capital, lined with suitably impressive medieval buildings; no other medieval city in Europe is able to show off its stature on such a long, straight thoroughfare. The length of the Royal Mile also allows it to have, as I see, two different "characters": the western (higher) end, mostly "High Street" and up to the castle, retains the most impressive buildings; the eastern (lower) end ("Canongate"), is narrower, has more modest buildings, and so feels cosier, like walking through an ancient country town.

The combined city centre of Edinburgh as a whole reminds me in an odd way of Istanbul, albeit with some role reversal. In Istanbul, Beyoglu/Taksim, sitting on a ridge across the water from the old city, is the commercial centre; in Edinburgh, it is the old city that sits on a ridge, with the "Royal Mile" comparable to (if a little longer than) Beyoglu's famous "Istiklal Caddesi", while it is the commercial centre (the "New Town") that is beneath the old city; separated by a park, or accessed by the North Bridge (the Galata Bridge in Istanbul serves a similar function).

Looking at the wider geography of the city, though, Edinburgh as a city in its entirety shares some characteristics with Athens. Athens has its most famous ancient area on a cliff-top hill in the city centre, the Acropolis; Edinburgh has its castle and medieval city on cliff-top hill in the city centre. Athens' suburbs are punctuated by hills; as are Edinburgh's. Athens itself sits close to the sea rather than next to it; since ancient times the port of Piraeus, a few miles distant (though now a suburb of the Greek capital) acted as its link to the sea. In Edinburgh, the port of Leith serves the same function as Piraeus does to Athens. So in more ways than one, Edinburgh can call itself the "Athens of the North".

But, as I've said, after going through all these comparable cities, none fit Edinburgh's mould exactly. Edinburgh is just unique, and for that reason, deserves more respect and attention than it gets on the tourism circuit.

Paris, Rome, St Petersburg, Istanbul, and others, all have something to offer; but Edinburgh manages to have a heart than contains the spirit of them all.

Who'd be a teacher in the UK? And who'd want to be a teenager?

In the latest batch of education "reforms", the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has declared a revamp to the inspection system, as described here by the BBC.

In brief, Wilshaw intends to remove from any inspection teams the previous requirement to give notice to any school or college for inspection; he also wants to re-assess the grading system for schools so that any school that is consistently graded as "satisfactory" (compared to the opposing extremes of "outstanding" or "deplorable").

Wilshaw says that "we have tolerated mediocrity for far too long" in our education system. His inference is clear; that our education system is broken, and that poor teaching is to blame. On the first point he may well be right; on the second, he is completely wrong.

Now, I'm not saying that all teachers are perfect, or that we should not strive for better standards, but the "Chief Inspector" (read "Chief Persecutor") of Schools is doing what all politicians do: treating education as a political football.

Education is a stressful profession to get into in the the UK. The financial rewards are modest, in spite of the government's encouragements and incentives for people to train as teachers. Due to previous "reforms", many schools "compete" for students (and therefore government revenue); this is meant to help improve standards. Teachers are regularly assessed in their techniques to check that they are giving the best quality teaching. Teachers are meant to act as motivators for students who are also being assessed themselves more and more.

(The schools system, to paraphrase Sir Ken Robinson, has become a factory: teachers no longer really "teach"; they show students how to best pass exams, which he talked about here. I'll talk more about the "industrialisation of education" later.)

Teachers nowadays are given more and more responsibilities than ever before, yet with less and less real power: a textbook recipe for disaster. Due to "safeguarding" issues, they are given the task of looking after the social care of their pupils; meanwhile, to those youths who are anti-social or worse, they can do little in class except follow bureaucratic "procedures". No wonder, then, that some school classrooms in the more deprived and socially-dysfunctional parts of the country resemble war-zones. And all this while teachers are meant to be doing what they can to "raise standards" in those very same war-zone classrooms.

So the Chief Inspector's recommendations, to introduce "on-the-spot" inspections, will send panic through the corridors of our high schools. Teachers already are stressed about the current regime of constant pressure to raise the game while using less cash and with more and more extra responsibilities. Anyone saying that teaching and studying is easier than it was before, simply has not been in a modern UK high school.

And the idea that schools can no longer rely on "mediocrity" to avoid criticism is to simply be ignorant of reality, let alone logic. Anyone understanding how averages work in mathematics or in anything that can be measured, will know that "being average" is by definition the norm. Expecting all schools to be "outstanding" simply means that your method of measurement is skewed, and therefore unreliable. Not all teachers can be "outstanding"; this is because they are human beings, not robots. Neither are students, and it would be absurd to expect otherwise.

Education in the UK in the 21st century is, to use the former Home Secretary John Reid's quote to describe his ministry, "not fit for purpose". I talked before about the "industrialisation of education". This problem began with Labour's seemingly admirable aim to have half our young population in university. This instinctively meant that A-levels and GCSEs gained even more credence (read "status") so that young people were expected to have a degree in order to get a good step up onto the career ladder. Hence the problem we now have at our "industrialised" schools that Sir Ken Robinson talked about. It's all about passing exams and getting the best grades for the students; a conveyor belt approach to getting young people into university.

And for what? It's only now that the country is in a recession that we see the lack of vision and myopic thinking that has led to an entire generation of educated, unemployable young people.

The point is this: the degrees that young people are doing are in many cases, effectively useless. Employers have been guilty of putting too much focus on having a 21-year-old candidate with a degree, rather than a 21-year-old with five years of relevant or useful work experience; employers value a piece of paper over the actual experience of being in the work environment. What is the point of an academic university system that bears little relation to the kind of skills and knowledge that our young people actually need in today's working environment? This is the precise reason why many of them cannot find a job; the UK doesn't need 20,000 Sociologists; it doesn't need 20,000 historians - it needs young people with skills that will keep the UK competitive in the world. And our education system is not built for that as it stands.

Our education system is completely out-of-date. Apart from the skills issues I've mentioned, there should be a comprehensive look at our "industrial" education system. We need an organic education system. This means looking at completely restructuring our approach to people and education. The "traditional" subjects (maths, literature, science etc.) are no longer enough; nor are they the best way to find a young person's talents.

Finding a child's talent means using a holistic approach, using a wide variety of methods of teaching in in order to pry out young people's talents. As things stand, a child is pigeon-holed up to the age of eighteen, and therefore is limited in knowing what educational choices best suit them. It's a miracle that so many people at the age of eighteen have a clear idea of what career would best suit them: the primary and secondary system gives so little scope for a young person's self-analysis of their talents; as things stand, our education system is nowhere near vocational enough.

Teachers in the UK are undervalued; students in the UK are being taught the wrong things. Both are the fault of the knee-jerk logic and short-sighted thinking of the government towards education.

And it is teachers and students who are suffering in the real world.

Syria and the Great Game Of The Middle East

It's ironic that the so-called "Domino Theory" that the USA predicted would cause South-East Asia to collapse into Communism in the Cold War was proved so wrong, whereas the same "Domino Theory" has been proved right where it applies to democratic uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

A year on from the Arab Spring, and of all the uprisings and protests that proliferated across the region, the one that was one of the first, and in the country with so much strategic and political baggage, remains the most violent, the most tenacious, and the most intractable; a situation that retains the strongest danger of being a Pandora's box.

The first thing to be understood about Syria is the nature of its society and its government, before we talk about the plethora of wider issues.

Like Iraq and Lebanon, Syria is a multi-faith, multi-ethnic country created in the aftermath of the First World War. The ruling Baath party came to power in the sixties, the same as their former namesake in Iraq. In Iraq the Baath party was a party that had the support of the Sunni minority over a Shia majority (as well as Kurds and a small number of Christians); in Syria, the Baath had the support of the Alawites (a Shia sect), who ruled over the Sunni majority, with Christian acquiescence.

In both Iraq and Syria, in spite of the religious differences, the Baath were a secular party that encouraged the active suppression of religion; during the Cold War, and as allies of the Soviet Union while the USA were allies of Israel, even the Prophet was in danger of being seen almost as a person of ridicule, although the Baath in Syria and Iraq were always keen to indulge Islam where useful.

So, with Iraq liberated, Syria remains the only bastion of the Baath party: a party that, by definition, is the party representing a small religious sect, now atrophied by five decades of rule into an elite clan that remains in power by sheer force of will over an opposing Sunni majority, backed up by the fear of religious and civil war.

Bashar Al-Assad has remained in power through using similar techniques to Saddam Hussein; a personality cult, an efficient police state, and fear of sectarian civil war as the only alternative to the father of the nation. Saddam Hussein used his sons to ensure that his regime stayed in place through brutality and paranoia; Bashar Al-Assad uses his brother, Maher for the same purposes (more about him later).

But Bashar's situation still has some crucial differences. For a start, there is the personality. Saddam Hussein seemed to come across as the "Stalin of Iraq"; a gangster-like figure who ruled Iraq by his singular force of will, backed up by his male offspring and extended family. By comparison, Bashar Al-Assad seems on a personal level as threatening as, say, John Major: as much as Bashar might sound the tough guy, it hardly ever sounds natural or believable. In fact, Bashar does not appear to have the natural leadership skills, because it seems not natural to his personality; in every interview seen of him, he sounds passive, his voice soft, difficult to carry. When you see him at party rallies in front of his closest, most fanatical supporters, his body language even there seems slightly awkward, almost embarrassed of his supposed supreme power and popularity.

This is where Maher, his younger brother, comes in. Bashar was not, in fact, meant to be destined for power; that was meant to go to his elder brother, Basil, who died in the mid-nineties. The status as heir apparent then passed to Bashar, so that when his father, President Hafez, died a decade ago, Bashar was still getting to grips with the role.

Interestingly, soon after Bashar came to power, there was a movement towards modest political reforms backed by the new President, seemingly in order to make some sort of clean break with his father's leadership style. This didn't last long, though: Maher has been leader of the army and security services since Hafez died, and he quickly put wind to any real steps towards reforms. Those calling for freedom and a democratic process were quickly suppressed by the military; since that time, Bashar has not bothered to make any further efforts at reform.

And so we get to the situation of a year ago. With what we know of Bashar's personality, it can be quickly guessed that it is Maher who is the real power behind the throne, along with the elderly patricians of Hafez's generation. It is Maher who has been orchestrating the military campaign against the majority of his own country's people; Bashar has, more than likely, been stuck in a bubble of his Baath hardliners who urge further fighting and brutality because they fear for their own lives if they fall. Meanwhile, the likes of Maher and others like him are in a psychotic death-march to genocide, intent on killing anyone who gets the way of the regime, using any spurious justification possible.

So that's a summary of the internal situation: a virtual genocide by a government, who have declared war on most of their own people; furthermore, it has become a sectarian genocide, because it is effectively the government of the Alawite sect persecuting the majority Sunnis. Gaddafi also committed genocide; due to the swift actions of the international community, the worst of the violence was over within the first few months, leaving the remaining six months a gradual war of attrition across the wide open spaces and desert towns and cities of Libya.

Alas, those being persecuted in Syria have seen no such response from outside after almost a year of unrest and virtual civil war. Apart from the political reasons, which are many (and I'll go into those shortly), there are also tactical differences that explain why the same response as in Libya has not happened.

To begin with, the UN declared a no-fly zone to prevent attacks on civilians. The air attacks happened in Libya partly because the sheer size of the country, the distances between towns, and the terrain, meant that air attacks were the easiest way for the Gaddafi regime to deal with the unrest. The Al-Assad government has had no urgent need for air support, so therefore a no-fly zone, even if it were supported in the UN, would be pretty pointless.

The Western powers then took the UN resolution with such a broad interpretation that they used it to justify air attacks on Gaddafi's military instillations and hardware. Furthermore, some countries also began supplying the opposition with more effective firepower. These things have not happened either because there is no UN agreement on a tactical resolution to the conflict; Syria is seen as "messier" from a tactical point of view because there are more closely-packed urban areas than in the open desert of Libya.

But the main issues are political, and these are many. Apart from the sectarian nature of society that brings about discouraging comparisons with Iraq, the wider outside implications of the fall of the Al-Assad government is what caused the real sleepless nights in the major capitals in the region and the wider world.

Going back to the Cold War, Syria contains Russia's only naval base that exists outside of the immediate Russian sphere of influence; of obvious strategic value to Russia, any change of government would make Russia feel uncertain to the status of this prized piece of real estate. Apart from that, Russia has always been keen to discourage any country's internal affairs being interfered in from the outside. This is a point of principle, but one that houses an obvious self-interest. Looking back to 2008: in February of that year, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a historic Russian ally; almost immediately, Russia supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, resulting six months later in war. So, point taken.

The Al-Assad government are Alawites, a Shia sect; since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the ties between Iran and Syria have got closer and closer; these days the Middle East is diplomatically as divided like during the Cold War (or like the years leading up to the First World War in Europe), with Iran and Syria on one side (implicitly backed up by Russian and Chinese "neutrality"), and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the other (implicitly backed up by Western "democratic values" from the US, Turkey and Europe).

For that reason, no-one is really sure how Iran would react if the Al-Assad government fell.

This partly depends on the nature of its removal (a clear outside intervention could easily be seen as a "provocation" leading to God-knows-where, whereas internal removal by the opposition would put Iran in a trickier position).

It also depends on the state of play within Iran itself: whoever is really in charge, the Ayatollah or Ahmadinajad or the more "moderate" in the regime voices at the time.

And it also depends on whatever mood music is coming from the West; if the Iranians feel threatened and encircled due to Western intransigence and rhetoric, they may well lash out in desperation if the Al-Assad regime fell. If the West plays a more considered game, some sort of accommodation might be reached; if not, then things could get very sticky, very quickly.

In that sense, although the Middle East in 2012 may seem like a re-hash of the Cold War alliances, in another sense it feels more like Europe in 1914: Syria is like Bosnia, Damascus like Sarajevo; in itself a fairly small and not massively important country on paper, but a geopolitical powder-keg sitting on a melting-pot, primed to explode.

It's often forgotten that the Balkans, the birthplace of the Great War, had for the first thirteen years of the 20th century, been host to a number of minor conflicts and internal insurrections. So, in the same way, has the Middle East for the first eleven years of the 21st century. The territorial boundaries of the Balkans were drawn and squabbled over by various imperial powers from the 1820s onwards, right up to the 1910s; the same could be said of the Middle East if you shift the timeline forward a century.

In any case, it seems almost unthinkable that the current situation in Syria could last as it is for another twelve months. Somehow, it appears that there will be some sort of Syrian endgame in 2012. But what?

As things stand, with the Arab League shunning Syria, yet still not yet ready to take the plunge militarily, and with the USA and Europe most likely to do what they can to cause problems for the Al-Assad regime short of getting involved militarily, the most openly vocal critics, with the means at their disposal, as well as the moral force and support of regional powers to do something meaningful, are Turkey.

There is a kind of clear logic to the thinking that, since the Turks' excellent relations with the Arabs, some kind of intervention, with the support of willing Arab forces from, say Jordan and/or Saudi Arabia and Qatar, could well happen. This, at least would have clear moral support from the likes of the Arab League, and without the need for direct Western involvement. Besides, much of the Syrian opposition are based in Turkey.

Although what Iran might think of such an intervention is another matter, but as I suggested earlier, what Iran thinks about the likes of Turkey is also important. As far as I know, Turkey retains cordial relations with Tehran, so this might hold back the more hard-line elements of the Islamic regime from winning the argument.

But, then again, it's also hard to deny that if the Al-Assad regime does fall sometime this year, that there could well be a bloodthirsty period of revenge by Sunnis against the Alawites. After what they have been subjected to for the past year, one could hardly blame them for wanting it. That could then, at its worst, provoke a further counter-backlash by Shias in Iraq and Lebanon, instigated by Iran.

But that's just one of many possible outcomes. Like throwing dice in a deadly game of chance. The Middle East in 2012 could turn out into a new version of the Balkans in 1914; albeit, with even higher stakes.