Legacy: Important and Irrelevant

The public response to the death of several prominent leaders in the past year raises two interesting questions about legacies: how much control does any leader have over the lasting impressions of their actions? And, why do we care so much about them?

In the ancient city of Rome, statues and busts were used to carefully craft the image that leaders of the era needed portray - to look like the solemn and responsible public servants of the Republic or the unchanging messianic rulers of the Empire (Sooke, 2012). The tools at the disposal of modern leaders are more advanced, but they serve the same basic purpose.

In Britain, the death of Mrs Margaret Thatcher set off a storm of reactions, a battle over whether her policies and time in office had rescued or devastated the country. The conflict, and the extreme polarisation of viewpoints, shows the true difficulty of managing an image even with all of the available tools. For her part, Mrs Thatcher believed she represented a kind of liberating force, that sought efficiency and freedom in the capitalist market place (White, 2013).

But then her death exposed one of the complexities facing attempts to craft a lasting image: that however hard you try, others will come after you and fight just as hard to define that heritage for themselves. In this case it has led to claims of attempts at perverting biography and analysis by hagiographifying Mrs Thatcher, quelling all alternate opinions under claims of sanctity (Greenwald, 2013).

The death of the late Venezuelan President Signor Hugo Chavez presents a different sort of case. Having died in office, there has been little time for the ritual construction of the myth, impartial assessment, or criticism unshackled by official power. Instead Signor Chavez's contribution has to be measured in contrast to his predecessors and on the active appearance and popularity of his policies.

It has been pointed out that his socialist revolution has been particularly costly to the Venezuelan economy, which will make the inheritance left to his successor a potentially double edged sword (Carroll, 2013). Such issues, that might force substantial changes, makes control of how the past is interpreted incredibly important to those in the present: Signor Chavez's own party cannot afford to diminish any of the his popularity nor to distance themselves from it - for the boost it gives - but at the same time may need to change direction and undo many of his policies.

While some leaders have passed and left their legacy in other hands, others find themselves in the situation of having plenty of time after leaving office to perfect their message. One of those also happens to be Mr Tony Blair, one of the most (in)famous users of public image in politics. It has been six years since he stood down as Prime Minister, but he is still active in managing his legacy.

Mr Blair's premiership was largely defined by the role it played in advancing the age of spin in British politics. Yet even with all the skills and tools of publicists and PR people, all the expertise and technology of the modern era, his legacy is a divisive issue. There is an extreme amount of distortion between his own autobiography and the satirical treatments of his life, like More4's The Trial of Tony Blair or The Comic Strip Presents... The Hunt for Tony Blair.

It seems that the legacy we try to craft for ourselves is not always the one that lasts. That would require a level of control - achieved in the past through domination of battlefields and civil tyranny - that just isn't realistic or desirable in the twenty-first century. Yet that has not stopped people struggling for control.

Even in the name of vanity, this obsession is excessive. This isn't how you establish truth. The struggle to define what people stood for, or represent, has to be about something bigger than just determining the accurate narrative of any given individual's life story. There must be a bigger prize. The prize that history of any kind has always offered is an inheritance: a legacy, a heritage, a tradition; an anchor to which parties can tie their causes, to ground their ideologies in something tangible.

In this scramble to claim legacies as part of an ideological inheritance, history is turned into a tool. That tool can be used to exploit our own cultural obsession with personalities and narratives to distract us from more rigorous analysis, evidence or debate. To remain vigilant against deception, we must reject personal qualities, successes, and morals as irrelevant, and demand instead logical arguments backed with evidence.

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References:
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+ Alastair Sooke's 'Treasures of Ancient Rome'; on the BBC; 2012.

+ Michael White's 'What is Thatcherism?'; in The Guardian; 8 April 2013.

+ Glenn Greenwald's 'Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette'; in The Guardian; 8 April 2013.

+ Rory Carroll's 'After Chávez's funeral, who gets Venezuela's poisoned chalice?'; in The Guardian; 5 March 2013.

Elezioni Italiane 2013 - Problems Unresolved

Following the dramatic elections in February, Italy has been struggling to build a government capable of handling the country's continuing economic crisis. In resolving the first issue, another has been exposed: a political crisis in the form of collapsing confidence in the legitimate political order.

As Italy has moved towards resolving the stalemate between the left and right parties, and between the establishment and its opponents, it has been exposing itself to the risks inherent in failing to reform. Popular sentiment has turned against the status quo. The major political parties, with vested interests, are making laws, hidden behind complicated electoral rules and detached from the people in whose name they act. They exist in an abstract political world, and hand down abstract solutions to abstract problems that bear little similarity to the issues people see day-to-day. While reform of these institutions is delayed, disillusionment will grow.

After the months of negotiation and stand-offs following the election, the Italian Parliament made its first step towards breaking the deadlock with the re-election of President Giorgio Napolitano (Davies, 2013). His return brought about the resignation of the leader of the Partito Democratico, Pier Luigi Bersani, who had failed to secure a majority at the February election and backed losing candidates for the Presidency (BBC, 2013). Bersani, as the leader of the largest party, had held the responsibility to form a government but had resisted pressure from President Napolitano to resolve the deadlock by creating a grand coalition between the left-leaning Democrats and Berlusconi's right-wing faction. With Bersani's resignation, the responsibility fell to his former deputy, Enrico Letta, who agreed to take up the task set by Napolitano and formed the grand coalition (Telegraph, 2013).

Under Bersani the Democrats had been attempting to create a strictly reforming minority government. The aim was to rely on support from Beppe Grillo's Movimento 5 Stelle on a bill-by-bill basis, to pass legislation designed to heal Italy's political system (Hooper, March 2013). However, without a formal agreement no stable government could be formed.

Letta, in choosing a grand coalition, was able to get around Grillo's determination not to bargain with, and to sweep away, the old order or to obstruct political action if no other means is available (Guardian, 2013). But the coalition path brings with it different problems.

From within his own party, Letta faces obvious opposition due to the decision to ally in government with the Democrats major opponent Il Popolo della Liberta. Since prior to the election, that support has been coalescing around the young Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi. Renzi is considered by some to represent a new age for the Italian - and European - left (Davies, 24 April 2013), and is believed to have support from the left, centre and right of the political spectrum. Further, Letta has also risked a diplomatic backlash from other European nations by opposing austerity and a new tax rise - both of which are meant to deal with the crippling national debt - while Italy's economic crisis continues.

By cooperating with the right, Letta weakens his position within his own party and with their supporters. By building that grand coalition and reinforcing the establishment, Letta weakens his chances of finding any ground with the Movimento 5 Stelle. By opposing austerity to appease the left, the right and the people, he forfeits the support of the international conservative austerity orthodoxy that may have offered some backing, as it did to former premier Mario Monti.

But of the three, the most dangerous thing is to prove Grillo right. By constructing a grand coalition reminiscent of the trasformismo of pre-war Italian politics - where political left and right merged in the collapse of the old order to protect the establishment - the major parties risk giving weight to Grillo's rhetoric. The risk is not posed by Grillo and the Movimento 5 Stelle themselves, though; rather it is posed by what they represent: the organised face of political disaffection, disillusionment and disenfranchisement.

The new government has slowly begun to address reform in some small ways. One of great significance is the greater number of women than ever before who have been chosen for cabinet appointments (Hooper, May 2013).

But to stave off the potential disaster that awaits when confidence in the legitimate political process completely collapses, reform of the political process must be the primary focus. Italy needs to, first and foremost, move towards a new political settlement that restores confidence that laws can be made, and public sector funds can be handled, through a legitimate representative democratic process.

However, even the economic crisis facing Italy is no excuse for delay. Despite the weight of debt, the establishment provoking civil strife by losing the confidence of the people, and then failing to respond, will have much more profound long term consequences.

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.' (Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

Italy's political establishment, and others facing this same crisis of confidence, would do well to remember George Dawson's adage: 'reform delayed, is revolution begun'.

Jeffersonian democracy, sovereignty and UKIP

UKIP have tried to stress that rather than a protest vote, they represent a heartfelt ideological ideal to be found amongst the British people. That is a difficult argument for a party that contemplates buying policies from right-wing thinktanks to successfully make (Boffey, 2013). But it is worth considering what idealistic voters would find represented by UKIP.

UKIP's most consistently pledged policies seem to promise the withdrawal of an island nation back to its small island, there to survive on trade deals with the world's rising empires. And on that island there will be a smaller state but a bigger army; less taxes on income, but also less on business; less revenue but more military spending that means less money for public works or public services. They are a limited government, anti-federal, national sovereignty movement (BBC, 2013).

It is the Thatcher-Regan legacy, libertarianism, tied to nationalism. But it is nothing new.

In the early days of the United States of America, debate raged as to the shape it should take. Jeffersonian democracy argued for small independent states, filled with private tenant farming individuals ruled only by very limited government; while Hamilton's federalism argued for states to cooperate with each other and a central federal government that might act on behalf of the people.

While serving as popular national propaganda, Jeffersonian democracy was unable to deliver the prosperity required by early Americans. It was a massively unequal system that allowed only a few landlords - those who already possessed massive wealth - to flourish, and most of those did so on the backs of others: in this case, on the work of slaves.

So Jefferson's way lost the debate and the United States embraced federalism. The individual States found it is easier to express their own independence through the solidarity of a community. In federalism they found an allied community with which they could protect their common interests, while drawing up safeguards for the right to govern themselves.

Yet even when this was all in place, the limited independence of the early States was only achieved by playing competing empires against one another - a luxury that other small states that broke free of the British Empire did not have, such as those of the Canadiens and Boers. Once independence had been established, America only secured it against the grasp of the British and French empires when they built an empire of their own.

Here and now, the twenty-first century doesn't seem a realistic place to start empire building.

Modern examples of the alternative - moderately sized independent states on the world stage - can be found amongst the Commonwealth countries, where the likes of Canada and Australia offer a guide to what Britain can expect as an independent nation in the twenty-first century.

In Canada, debate rages over the influence their large American neighbour has in Canadian domestic politics, particularly with regard to oil pipelines and foreign policy (Goldenberg, 2013). And in Australia, the struggle to find sources of capital investment has trade and relations with China dominating domestic policy (Garnaut & Kenny, 2013).

This is the reality of absolute independence in the twenty-first century. Juggling relations and treaties with China and the USA, with questions on matters of independence curtailed, marginalised and guided by the interests of these larger neighbouring empires. UKIP's nostalgia for Britain's past imperial influence threatens to sleepwalk citizens out of an alliance friendly to workers rights, human rights and multi-lateral cooperation and into a position of trying to eke out both foreign and domestic policies where gaps allow in fleeting treaties and the interest of surrounding empires. Unfettered national sovereignty is gift of uncertain value, bought at a high price, and, while it may be help national identity propaganda to flourish, history teaches us that individual prosperity will likely not.

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References:
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+ Daniel Boffey's 'Ukip in chaos over policy on the eve of key poll, emails reveal'; in The Guardian; 27 April 2013.

+ BBC's 'Local elections: What does UKIP stand for?'; 3 May 2013.

+ Suzanne Goldenberg's 'Keystone XL pipeline not good for Canada, opposition leader suggests'; in The Guardian; 13 March 2013.

+ John Garnaut & Mark Kenny's 'Gillard urges closer Asian ties to ease tensions'; in Sydney Morning Herald; 7 April 2013.

+ John Green's 'Crash Course US History':
'#8 The Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism';
'#9 Where US Politics Came From';
'#10 Thomas Jefferson & His Democracy'.

Coming of Age

Cultural expressions of growing up make for depressing reading. Our stories - laid out in books and films - present growing up as a thing to be avoided. The consensus when it comes to coming of age seems broadly separable into two parts:

    1.    We don't want to grow up, and

    2.    Complaining that no one is listening to part one.

Peter Pan, the Pevensie children of the Chronicles of Narnia, Lyra Belaqua of His Dark Materials, and Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye: through all of these we see children embodying heroism and bravery in worlds where adults are treacherous, selfish, self-absorbed or just plain neglectful. But this seeming disdain for adulthood also gives us an insight into the qualities we cherish.

The Pevensie children find in Narnia an escape from the horror of war and the fear of their exile amongst strangers. Lyra Belaqua wants nothing more than to be left running wild around her Oxford, where she is free from the proud, lying, kidnapping, murderous adults. And Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, hates grown-ups more than anything else:

'…he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible'

When we look at how our art depicts grown ups, it's not hard to to see why.

Peter's own main adversaries are Hook and his pirates, who are shown to be greedy, violent and vicious. Peter himself, in the film Hook, grows up into a middle-aged mediocrity - whose relationship with his children is on the rocks as a result of an overbearing work life.

In one of the worlds encountered in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, anyone who grows up to become an adult faces the serious risk of having their souls consumed. On top of that adults are largely portrayed as prideful, cruel and narrowly ambitious which often causes difficulties for the more simplistic, and kinder, aspirations of the children.

JD Salinger's Holden Caulfield fights the most hopeless expression of this battle - trying to find a way to resist the relentless passage of time even as it drags him towards his own adulthood. Holden wrestles with the 'crushing phoniness of the adult world' in his attempts to find comfort for his fears from the people he meets. He tries to find the answers to his questions, but the world turns a deaf ear.

Opposing this view of adults, the children themselves are often shown to be heroic, and unfettered by the double standards of adult life. Lyra's curiosity, determination, and talents for lying, are qualities she shares with her parents - but she is unspoiled by their ambitions, their pride, and their willingness to exploit others or treat them as expendable in the pursuit of their goals.

The disliked grown ups in these tales all share characteristics: making peace with being under an authority, becoming an authority, not having as much time as would be liked for the things most loved, not asking too many questions; these are the antithesis of the qualities of childish innocence.

Fundamental to childish innocence is curiosity. Asking questions is at the core of what it means to be childlike. It is also absolutely imperative to living an extraordinary life. The great adventures, the great discoveries, the great inventions; these things are all the result of the relentless asking of questions and the finding of unceasing wonder at the infinite marvels of existence.

Those characteristics that are despised in grown ups are not inevitabilities, but the result of the crushing pressures of society, and authority, and orthodoxy. Slipping free of those restraints is the rediscovery of innocence. It is also the first step to living a life of purpose, reason, and adventure.

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References:
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John Green's 'Language, Voice, and Holden Caulfield: The Catcher in the Rye Part 1' and 'Holden, JD, and the Red Cap- The Catcher in the Rye Part 2'; from Crash Course Literature; 2013.