THE PRESENT IS ANOTHER COUNTRY


I do not know how important familiarity, routine, habit, the predictable, is in our lives, though I suspect it is much more important than most people might like to admit. Our lizard brains certainly prefer solidity. We sit in the same chair, sleep in the same position, take the same route to work each day. When we ascend on the escalator, we know that daylight will greet us as we leave the familiar tube station, supermarket or department store.  To gauge our reliance on familiarity for our mental health it only requires this orderly arrangement of things to be disrupted. We instantly feel uncomfortable, ‘put out.’ The greater the disruption the greater the discomfort.
When the reliable and familiar disintegrates on a much larger scale, at the national and cultural level, this sense of disorientation can be even more disturbing. This is best illustrated by the hyperinflation of Wiemar Germany, or the impact of the Wall street crash and the depression of the early nineteen thirties. When the familiar and trusted disappear panic sets in and people search for scapegoats. People, just like ourselves, demand order, that someone take control and bring back the lost security and familiarity. Demagogues’ rise to prominence by exploiting these fears.
For so long Britain felt immune from this phenomenon, ‘English’ exceptionalism in particular rested on the smug assumptions created by centuries without turmoil, revolution, or civil war, that that kind of thing couldn’t happen here. Change was something that if it happened, happened slowly in an evolutionary way.
Now these smug assumptions no longer seem to hold. Politicians seek and promise revolutionary change.  Our unwritten constitution, wholly dependent on politicians playing by the, unwritten, rules. When they cease to observe these unwritten rules and conventions the whole edifice is seen for what it is, a fragile framework of compromise and reliance on politicians behaving ethically. Our democracy is seen not as a stranding on the solid ground we thought it did but turns out to be as delicate as tissue paper and as just as easily blown away by gusts of a populist wind. More significantly these winds far from being confined to our own country seem to be sweeping the democratic world.

With so much that seemed secure and stable swept away it is no longer possible to be sure of anything. So already the period before 2015[1]has taken on an attractive hue, a period that feels stolen from us, when presidents did not tweet banal abuse and prime ministers behaved like prime ministers. The world we knew and understood and the rules that governed democratic discourse are vanishing fast into a cloud of the past. So that it is no longer the past that feels like a different country but the present.


[1] The real point of departure was, of course the 2008 financial crisis, the wave of populist anger was merely the delayed aftershock.

Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t
Read more

LONDON BELONGS TO ME PART ONE

Image
. I. I have lived in London now just over thirty years, having moved here on 4 th July 1983 . I don’t know how long you normally have to wait to claim squatter’s rights but thirty years seems a good enough period to me. The glory of London is its parks and open spaces, you are rarely ever far away from a London park, common or heath. I am within fifteen minutes walk of Kensington Gardens or Holland Park , much closer to several smaller areas with grass and flowers and benches on which to sit, all maintained by Kensington and Chelsea council who also still believe in the value of trees. Those who would see what they call ‘the state’ shrink rarely mention such items in their calculations. What does it cost to maintain a tree? Too much by far for the likes of those right wing think tanks whom and I fear the phrase is soon likely to break under the strain under which it is now being placed, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Holland Park is one of t
Read more