LONDON LETTER JANUARY 2017 ARTURO UI AND THE DELINQUENT ADOLESCENTS
‘History repeats
itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.’
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852
History does not of course repeat itself in such a neat
manner, as Marx well knew as he wrote his famous diatribe against the
preposterous figure of Napoleon III. What periods of time sometimes do possess
is something more akin to flavours, colours, echoes even smells, of another era.
Thus, anyone from late Belle Epoch Paris or the 1920’s avant-garde would
recognise the vibrancy of the 1960’s.[1]
Similarly, the members of the Paris Commune were imbibing the same intoxicating
perfume of 1848, as their reactionary opponents.
So, as we enter the new year, a year that will be dominated
by the populist neo fascism of Trump, that will be scattered with references to
the 1930s, Hitler and the collapse of Wiemar culture we need to keep our antennae
attuned to what is actually happening now.
First statements of the obvious. 1. Trump is not Hitler; he is not even Mussolini.
Trump is interested in money, power and control, he has the morality and ethics
of a gangster and the temperament of a petulant self-centred adolescent. These
are extraordinarily dangerous things for a US president, we can however be reasonably
certain he is not set on a campaign of mass murder and genocide. 2. The US is
not Wiemar Germany; it is not even depression era America. The US is a vibrant
democracy, which, some serious problems notwithstanding, possesses a healthy civil
society attuned to protest, civil disobedience and all forms of political engagement.
That said Trump’s presidency will place challenges to the structures and
institutions of American democracy that hitherto it has not faced.[2]
The person to whom Trump is closest, both in literal and
analogous terms, is Vladimir Putin. Trump openly admires Putin and, less
openly, the system he operates. It is this system that needs the closest study
if we are to understand the threat we now face. It can best be categorised as
rule by the Mafia, or oligarchical fascism. We are witnessing in Trump a 21st
century Arturo Ui.[3]
II
Of Britain ceasing to be a member of the EU, so called ‘Brexit,’
the scenario is if anything even more bleak than in the US. Presidents must
stand for re-election after four years, - though they can do a lot of damage in
that period of course, - whilst leaving the EU is for keeps. For even if we
should join again at some future date, - I would guess at least a generation,
possibly two, would need to have passed, before such a possibility arose, the
EU will have evolved without the UK and we will never again enjoy the same
generous terms of membership or degree of influence we had at the beginning of
2016.
The consequences of our departure will ripple through the
coming years. Can the United Kingdom itself survive as a union? Can the UK keep
hold of its UN security council seat, in its considerably reduced state? These
are just two of the larger questions. Certainly, London’s preeminence as a
financial centre will be eroded, this is already happening, and standards of
living reduced, as the economy takes the biggest hit since World War Two. In
the months to come an urgent cry will echo not only in the corridors of power
but in pubs and coffee shops, as the juggernaut that has been unleashed runs
amok. “Can it be stopped?” Only the delinquent adolescents now in charge,
waving the flag of ‘the will of the people,” will shout back “too late, too
late.”
III.
It is not often pointed out that Nigel Farage’s aim was not
just to take Britain out of the European Union but to destroy the union itself.* This is the reason for his staunch support for far-right groups such as Marine
La Pen’s Front National. The chaos of Brexit has however resulted in a volte-face by La Pen as she now backtracks on a French exit. Indeed, support for the EU
has grown across the union, whilst in the UK we have seen the emergence for the
first time of a staunchly pro EU voting bloc. You can be sure that these are
not developments of which Farage foresaw.
My generation, born in the 1950’s never had to fight for basic
rights such as free speech[4]
and the victories of the secular enlightenment. We thought those victories were
won for good. It seems to have fallen to the next generation to discover that
there are no permanently won rights and that they must learn over again how to
fight for such rights. How they will fare in the age of Trump and the
Nationalist resurgence I don't know. However, from what I have seen thus far
they are not going to just roll over.
I enter this year in a more pessimistic mood than I have
ever done during the strange days of early January, but also curiously more
determined and more focused. So, for those with a mind to fight back Happy New
Year. And remember the dictum oft quoted by ‘the Hitch’ “heart on fire, mind on
ice.”
*An aim he shares with Vladimir Putin and, it seems, Donald Trump.
[1] I
am currently reading ‘The Rites of Spring, The Great War and the Birth of the Modern
Age’ by Modris Eksteins and am struck by the similarities in the ways that Mick
Jagger and Nijinsky were perceived at the height of their respective notoriety.
[2]
And I am old enough to remember the Nixon administration and Watergate. The key
to opposing Trump will be the independence of the judiciary. If the judiciary
does its job, then Trump will be bound to accept the checks and balances on his
power like any other US President. However, there are worrying portents, and
how the US ended up with a system in which politicians could be so involved in
the appointment of Supreme Court judges is truly mystifying.
[3] Bertolt
Brecht's ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ is a 1941 play that chronicles the
rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster, and is a parable on the
rise of Adolph Hitler.
[4] Lady
Chatterley, the Oz trial, and other struggles were ultimately mere skirmishes
in the fight to extend existing liberties. True gay rights campaigners and the
women’s liberation movement had to fight real battles, but these were battles predicated
on the assumption of free speech and the right to protest.
