Does Johnson With His Vulnerabilities Make Corbyn
More Acceptable?
Saeed Naqvi
“Ek na shud,
do shud”
(We were not
done with one, and now we have two.)
There is a
quantum leap in derisive mirth that stand-up comedians on both sides of the
Atlantic are generating ever since a Donald Trump look-alike entered the black
door at 10, Downing Street. In fact if Boris Johnson disciplined the outside of
his head with a touch of Brylcream that would confirm a twin-like Boris-Donald
duet.
There are
other dubious comparisons: racism, for instance. It was a common story at Trump
towers that “When Donald and Ivana came to the Casino, the bosses would order
all the black people off the floor.” Johnson measures up quite well. His description
in one of his columns of blacks as “piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”, remains
a classic in racial insensitivity.
Little wonder
Britain’s 77th Prime Minister has been greeted dismally by major
newspapers. A “New Nadir” in British public life, screamed the Independent. “A
shameless clown” it went on.
The Guardian
thought Johnson and Trump made for a pair: “two loud mouthed man-children”,
singularly lacking in character. Scheming, devious, lying, unreliable are some
of the common adjectives being employed.
In a sense,
Trump’s election was clearly more democratic than Johnson’s. Even though he
trailed Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, he won atleast 46 percent of that
vote. Johnson has been elected by the Conservative party members, which works
out to 0.2 percent of the population.
After three
years of a non-descript Theresa May, is Great Britain only capable of producing
a Prime Minister who the British intelligentsia dismisses as a man of doubtful
ability and character. Similar things are happening elsewhere, but let me
confine myself to the trans-Atlantic cousins.
To make my
point, let me in a few sentences, describe the scene on November 2016, election
night at my friend’s Dumbo Loft in Brooklyn, New York, where we had collected,
say, 20 friends from all sorts of disciplines: State Department Veterans, World
Bankers, Columbia University faculty, artists, writers and a Fox News
journalist . Everybody was eager to pop Champaign bottles as soon as Hillary
Clinton’s victory became imminent. But when Trump won Florida the party was
suddenly in the grip of something between hysteria and melancholia. The woman
from the World Bank was shrieking like she had seen an apparition. A woman from
the neighbouring loft was banging at the door. “Please let me in; I can’t bear being
alone.”
It fell to my
lot to commiserate with the crestfallen. They, each one of them, had difficulty
digesting my diagnosis. “If you make Bernie Sanders impossible, you make Trump
inevitable.”
How does this maxim
apply to the elevation of Boris Johnson?
Well, “if you
make Jeremy Corbyn impossible, you make Boris inevitable.” I am aware that
these formulations would be anathema to friends who are sworn to “liberalism” according
their lights.
Liberalism,
which defined one’s life in the 60s and 70s, is an open minded accommodation of
diversity in faith, tastes, manners and customs. Economists, committed to
capitalism, ignore the warts it has developed. Crony capitalism, for instance, which
renders the people redundant except for casting their votes during elections. The
control this system has on the media helps perpetuate the Corporate-Government
nexus. It is then a simple barter deal: you promote my interest, I promote
yours. Come next elections, scramble to devise some new strategy to market yourself.
Turn to terrorism if other issues do not work.
The perpetuation
of this arrangement in democracies worldwide has caused a fatigue factor. In an
earlier age, people revolted against the feudal system; they are now trying to
bring about radical change through the ballot box. There are known and unknown
eruptions in parts of the world where people are “struggling” outside the
system altogether because, in their perception, the ruling class controls all
the instruments of the modern democratic state.
The unending post
9/11 wars, the continuing ascendancy of the Deep State, disparities leading to
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party in retaliation, generated an anti-Establishment
wave. This is what Bernie Sanders sought to ride. But the Establishment in its
Democratic Party Avatar, had set its heart on Hillary Clinton who was upto her
neck in Deep State plots in Syria, Libya and, ofcourse, Putin’s Russia.
In an anti-Establishment
atmosphere, projecting Clinton as the candidate was clearly a risky hand. Clintons,
after all, were The Establishment in Washington. Hence the consequent gnashing
of teeth at the Brooklyn Loft party.
Reverting to
Britain, once Prime Minister David Cameron’s referendum on Brexit in June 2016
had gone wrong, the Conservatives have been on a weak leg. Theresa May, limping
from London to Brussels with a hundred stops en route, always empty handed did
the Tories no good. In direct proportion to the Conservatives vulnerability is
the right wing media’s tendency to paint Jeremy Corbyn in lurid colours as a
raving anti-Semitic, a friend of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The Economist has
made him up as Che Guevara.
The spirit of
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch hunt of 50s permeates American
public life to this day. But its resurgence in the UK is all part of the
Establishment digging its heels in to keep the centre of gravity of global
discourse so far to the right that leaders like Corbyn and Sanders look like
communists.
There must be
deep consternation in Conservative power structure at the BBC’s prestigious
Panoroma programme which, with rigorous research, knocked the bottom out of the
anti Corbyn campaign. It will now be impossible to pin the anti-Semite label on
him.
Meanwhile, the
media spotlight is on Boris and his cabinet choice like Priti Patel, the new
Home Secretary. According to The Guardian she was sacked from Theresa May’s cabinet
two years ago for failing to disclose secret meetings with Israeli Ministers on
“India related matters”. With Patel by his side, Boris Johnson has connections
which can help win the elections which, by some calculations, can be soon,
given that half the Conservative party has its knives out for him.
# # # #
No comments:
Post a Comment