Tunisia's constitution is a reality check for a free Ukraine

This weekend saw the fall of the Ukrainian government (Walker & Salem, 2014). After massive protests in the face of violent suppression that began in November 2013, it became the latest in a line of governments over the last four years to have fallen in the face of popular movements.

Following the outbreak of the Arab Spring, which set off this recent trend, many regimes have been rocked, and a few tumbled. In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring itself began, the toppled regime has now, four years on, enacted a modern constitution (BBC, 2014).

That constitution represents a beacon of hope for the people of Ukraine. But it should also be a lighthouse warning of turbulent waters and rocky shores ahead.

Massive organised protest managed to oust the Tunisian government in just four months, with the free elections following seven months later. Yet after the speed of all of these initial changes, it has taken a further three years to confirm the shape of the new institutions to follow. Those interim years have been filled with assassinations and political deadlock, as the different factions struggled to control the country's future (Legge, 2013).

For the Ukraine's Euromaidan movement, this moment, right now, is one filled with the joy of victory but also with the want for rest after hard labours. On her arrival on Saturday at the Maidan Square in Kiev (Walker, 2014), the heart of the Ukrainian protests, former President and newly freed political prisoner Ms Yulia Tymoshenko praised the protesters but also called upon to keep up their energy:

'Now you have a right to rule this country and decide for this country. Ukraine has an opportunity to build its own future today.'

The fact remains that political freedom and civil liberty are hard won products of a long and arduous journey, of which the committing of ideals to paper and to law is only a step along the way. The full realisation of a free state is a symphony of many pieces, all playing in concert - many and diverse voices finding a way to harmonise - which means, above all else, that people will need tolerance and perseverance to prevail.

Tunisia has so far shown Ukraine the hard road ahead, the compromises that need to be made by competing factions to build a state. Now, as Ukraine takes to that road itself, one eye should be kept on what happens next in Tunisia. They should be watching to see what happens after the institutions are established and how hard it will be to live the ideals committed to paper.

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References:
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+ Shaun Walker & Harriet Salem's 'Ukraine: 'The dictatorship has fallen.' But what will take its place?'; in The Guardian; 22 February 2014.

+ BBC's 'Tunisia assembly passes new constitution'; 27 January 2014.

+ James Legge's 'Tunisia shocked by assassinations: Opposition leaders Mohamed Brahmi and Chokri Belaid killed with the same gun'; in The Independent; 26 July 2013.

+ Shaun Walker's 'Ukraine's former PM rallies protesters after Yanukovych flees Kiev'; in The Guardian; 22 February 2014.

For Matteo Renzi, the fate of Italy and the internal struggles of Italian democracy are bound together

Italy has found itself once again mired in political instability (Hooper, 2014). This time it is centred on the struggle over the leadership of the Partito Democratico. The party, having taken the largest share of seats at the last election, seemed relatively sure-footed. That illusion very quickly faded in the election's aftermath.

The first leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, was nominated to be Prime Minister, but couldn't put together a progressive governing coalition. He resigned, and his deputy Enrico Letta took a more moderate approach and formed a grand coalition between left and right. That, however, alienated many on the left and his position became untenable when the deal with the right failed to deliver speedy reforms (BBC, 2014; Frye, 2014).

The new leader, Matteo Renzi, the Mayor of Florence (BBC, 2013), is faced with an almost impossible task (Grillo, 2014). He needs to form a government, overcome crippling public debts, and find a way to restart the Italian economy. All of that has to be achieved within an unstable political system where one party can gather itself into a position to singularly affect a whole society, even with its own internal debates.

It would be nice to able to put down this present state of intransigence and instability to some modern corruption, but the truth is more complex. It is a quagmire that has developed over time, as group after group has reacted and adapted to the political realities of their day.

In a 1974 Harvard publication, Romano Prodi, who would be Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Commission, stressed the important role that the Italian state institutions played in Italy's economic development. Prodi pointed out the intense integration that existed between the state and the country's industrial sector. That influence made the Italian state incredibly influential.

It has been the state's economic power, in particular, that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his political factions have sought to undermine. However, instead of breaking state power, his movements have merely diffused it, miring it in a factious, squabbling, divided and uncooperative central body - thus ensuring that the power, while remaining present, is impossible to use. Political debates and policy considerations have been replaced with a brash, loud and short-termist populism, that has done little to break corruption or satisfy the demands of the public sector.

The response of the left has been to build its own groups, but they have often been short-lived enterprises. Such efforts also carried the risk of stifling all of the best things about the movement - diversity, dissent, and debate - in the name of generating the raw power to oppose conservative forces.

But such an approach does little to alleviate the problems caused by a political system that is factious, and sometimes monolithic, but never particularly prone to cooperation.

Italy isn't alone in these problems. The United State Congress has been trapped in the same conditions by a partisanship only reinforced over the decades. The inability of the factions to work together has crippled these political systems where state power is constructed so, when the electorate is divided in its opinions, that it may only be exercised by those who co-operate or those who wield monolithic strength. Reluctance to compromise then forces those parties to stifle internal debate and crush internal dissent, which in turn robs them of the intellectual stimulation that might have offered the originality necessary to engineer a way out of such an impasse.

Renzi, whatever his abilities or ambitions (Davies, 2014; The Guardian, 2014), is inheriting a country sunk deep into this model for instability. His first moves have to be towards bringing an end to, not just the political stalemate, but the system that causes it. Failure to do so will be simply be a perpetuation of the cycle and in that, no one wins.

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References:
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+ John Hooper's 'Matteo Renzi asked to form new government by Italian president'; in The Guardian; 17 February 2014.

+ BBC's 'Italy PM Letta in battle for survival with Matteo Renzi'; 12 February 2014.

+ Andrew Frye's 'Letta Pressed to Quit as Italy Premier to Make Way for Renzi'; in La Repubblica; 12 February 2014.

+ BBC's 'Profile: Florence mayor Matteo Renzi'; 9 December 2013.

+ Francesco Grillo's 'Becoming Italian PM would be a pyrrhic victory for Matteo Renzi'; in The Guardian; 14 February 2014.

+ Romano Prodi's 'Public Policies: Italy'; in Raymond Vernon's 'Big Business and the State: Changing Relations in Western Europe'; Harvard; 1974. [Buy Now]

+ Lizzy Davies' 'Italy's new prime minister: is Renzi a young Blair, Berlusconi – or the Fonz?'; in The Guardian; 14 February 2014.

+ The Guardian's 'Matteo Renzi, Italy's smooth-talking prime minister in waiting'; 14 February 2014; and The Guardian's 'Italy: young man in a hurry'; 14 February 2014.

For more information, see also:
+ Lizzy Davies' 'Matteo Renzi: 'we want to restart Italy''; in The Guardian; 24 April 2013.
+ Lizzy Davies' 'Italian PM Enrico Letta to resign'; in The Guardian; 13 February 2014.
+ Lizzy Davies' 'Enrico Letta steps down as prime minister of Italy'; in The Guardian; 14 February 2014.
+ Frances D'Emilio's 'Renzi may be asked Monday to form new Italy gov't'; in The Guardian; 16 February 2014.
+ Lizzy Davies' 'Italian president set to ask Matteo Renzi to form new government'; in The Guardian; 16 February 2014.

Obama's State of the Union Address: Modern liberals, social mobility and positive liberty

At the end of January US President Mr Barack Obama used his State of the Union Address to announce his intention to fight inequality (BBC, 2014). The speech bears a resemblance to that of David Lloyd George, former leader of the British Liberal Party, who accompanied the announcement of the 1909 People's Budget with a speech declaring that:

'This is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests.'

Lloyd George's time as Chancellor, and then as leader of the Liberal Party and as Prime Minister, ushered in a new era for liberalism. His 'modern liberals' used their mandate to pursue the Liberal welfare reforms, bringing in Progressive Taxation and School Dinners, National Insurance and Pensions.

The US President is now striving for these same sorts of reforms. Success, as it was measured by Lloyd George's liberals, will depend upon social security in health and welfare, and on social mobility. These two factors, within a market society, are the expression of positive liberty - the idea that liberty is not just the tearing down of certain barriers, but also the raising of those people in need up and over them, and enabling them with the tools and knowledge that they need. The idea that, freed from fear by security in health, people will pursue their careers with enthusiasm. The idea that, with fair and plentiful access to opportunities, people will apply themselves and succeed, claiming the rewards that follow to the benefit of all.

Lloyd George's successors, the Liberal Democrats of today, have made this social mobility a priority campaigning issue at recent elections. That commitment has evolved out of the old Liberal Party belief that a government can do more for people than get out of their way. That it must also strive to help everyone to advance and join a universal, educated and skilled middle class. That idea forms a core part of the Lib Dem's stated commitment to building a fairer society.

In essence, achieving this means ensuring two things: first, that everyone, no matter where they start, can get access to opportunities; and second, that everyone is fairly rewarded for their efforts by way of training, skills, wealth, and advancement.

The People's Budget of 1909 was only the beginning of this turn for liberalism. Its expressions continued to evolve, having a particular influence on the Liberal Party's 'Yellow Book' (1928), an intense study of economic and industrial conditions in the UK in the 1920s, between whose pages lay the words:

'We believe with a passionate faith that the end of all political and economic action is not the perfecting or the perpetuation of this or that piece of mechanism or organisation, but that individual men and women may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'

To meet those same aims, President Obama has, throughout his time in office, pursued a path now very familiar to US Democrats. The path of intervention by the government. From Keynesian intervention in the market - marked by stimulus packages and progressive taxation funding public works - to government intervention on matters of social liberty and social justice.

In this 2014 State of the Union, Mr Obama has called for another push towards those goals, saying that should any opportunity arise to fight inequality, that he will take it. He called for an increase in the minimum wage, and a drive to get people signed up for Obamacare, to ensure universal coverage by medical insurance (NPR, 2014).

The aim for these modern liberals is to, through the ideas of positive liberty, build a world better than the one we dwelt in before civilisation arrived. As Thomas Paine put it in Agrarian Reform:

'In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period. But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began.'

For Obama, as for the Liberals of Lloyd George of 1909 and the UK's Liberal Democrats of today, the success of their endeavours will be shown by measurable outcomes: social mobility for the poorest, shown by beginnings never being able to get in the way of success; by social security guaranteed through universal health coverage and pensions for all citizens. Only with those frameworks in place will these modern liberals and Democrats see liberty as being a reality.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'State of the Union: President Obama's Full speech'; 29 January 2014.

+ BBC's 'State of the Union: Obama promises action on inequality'; 29 January 2014.

+ NPR's 'Inside The State Of The Union: What The President Proposed'; 29 January 2014.

+ State of the Union Address 2014

+ 'Yellow Book' or 'Britain's Industrial Future: being the Report of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry'; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1928.

+ Thomas Paine's 'Agrarian Justice'; 1795.

The Musketeers shows us the strengths and weaknesses of the state

The BBC's latest original drama The Musketeers is a fairly faithful remake of past versions. As in Alexandre Dumas' 1844 original, we're shown a France with a monarchy weak and dependent upon its government, its government conducted by an ambitious and scheming cardinal, and its law enforced by a state controlled paramilitary guard of whom the heroes are members.

'The Musketeers' is a fascinating story to present to Britain today, to a country that seems to despise its own elected officials as ambitious, selfish, greedy and corrupt, but remains largely unconcerned and even positive towards its unelected theocratic monarchy which offers the country, through a neutered passivity, a harmless link to the past and a comforting continuity for the present and the future.

In particular, the fascination with this incarnation of the story comes from the show's characterisation. So far the BBC's Musketeers has been careful to show its characters as weak, manipulable and vice-ridden - including the royal household. The King is vain and frightened; the Queen, while strong, is suggested to be possibly adulterous. The Chief Minister, the Cardinal Armand Richelieu is ambitious, paranoid and murderous. The three Musketeers are drunks (Athos), gamblers (Porthos) and lovers of others men's mistresses (Aramis). Even the protagonist, d'Artagnan, is impatient and reckless.

In the second episode Sleight of Hand, the Queen argues the virtues of mercy and reform for criminals, while the musketeers spy and deceive to uncover a plot, and the captain of the musketeer guards cautions the Queen over weakness of mercy:

The Queen Anne:    'Did you see the gratitude on their faces Captain? Mercy is more effective than any whip or gallows.'
Captain Treville:    'The worst offenders would only consider Your Majesty's gentle nature a weakness. Some men are just born bad.'

However, these characters find themselves nonetheless bound together. What binds them, what makes them able to work together whilst simultaneously scheming against one another, is the idea of the nation. The idea of the wellbeing of France. In the second episode we see the different parties pull together to track down a terrorist and thief, while the King shows resolve, with the support of the Queen, to play out the role of Monarch:

'My father never shirked public obligation, no matter what the threat to his person... I will not have it said that the son of Henry IV is a coward. It is my task to show courage and leadership, it is yours to protect me.'

But those ideas of monarchy and nation are also a façade, behind which these manipulations are hidden from the people. They are a lie constructed: the idea of a stable and lasting framework, a fixed structure around which the passage of life might drape itself securely and upon which people can depend for continuity.

The nation, the monarchy, are ideas upon which the state depends to impose order. While it can offer a means of rallying people to the common good, The Musketeers also warns us of the vice and corruption which it can also conceal.

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References:
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+ BBC's The Musketeers, episode 1 'Friends and Enemies'; 2014.

+ BBC's The Musketeers, episode 2 'Sleight of Hand'; 2014.

+ Alexandre Dumas' 'The Three Musketeers'; 1844.