Not
Just A Brexit Election: Outcome Will Tilt Global Balance
Saeed Naqvi
In a hall somewhere in England, a
propagandist for the Tories, a sort of marketing man, is being bombarded by angry
citizens on bad schools, bad housing, bad health service. The salesman, wriggling
against the wall, furrows his brow and comes up with an explanation. After
stuttering a few times, he says:
“The answer to your problems is here, in
this very room.” Then, foaming at the mouth on the issue of health services, he
points to a young man. “Ali” he blurts out. “It’s all because of him.”
A white man shouts back. “What has Ali
got to do with the fact that my mother can’t get a surgery?
Well, there is a shortage of money, says
the salesman, “There is too much pressure on the system because of”, stutter,
stutter, stutter. “Ali”.
Ali at the back mutters shyly. “But I am
a doctor.”
An alert audience has seen vast sums
being passed on to a man in a pin stripe suit by the very same salesman. A howl
of protest goes up. “You said you had no money.”
“He is the CEO of a major tech company –
he is a job creator” says the salesman. Wealthy Corporations need massive tax
cuts for this reason, he says.
Boris Johnson and the Tories will
ofcourse mount a resounding rebuttal, but they do not seem to have a case which
can be encapsulated like Corbyn’s. The Right, it was said, has to make up in
style what it lacks in substance. In the British context, The Spectator and The
New Statesman were cited as examples of the Right having more head and the Left
more heart. But those were days when debate was civilized.
After the collapse of one system
represented by the Soviet Union, the victorious system embarked on a mission which
did not promote human rights, democracy; it promoted runaway capitalism which,
alas slipped and fractured its legs on a bend in 2008. Since this major fracture,
capitalism is being made to run on artificial legs. People are “occupying Wall
Street”; Mammoth Corporations are mobilizing powerful establishments to thwart
the march of people screaming “inequality”.
Liberals, under the Establishment’s “Chhatra-Chhaya”
or canopy, begin to show their colours: “Communism” they say. Ed Murrow of CBS
News single handedly stopped Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt. Murrow’s was
the compassionate, liberal, democratic expression of Journalism.
After the first Boris Johnson – Jeremy
Corbyn debate three weeks before the elections, the media commentariat has been
even handed. They gave victory to neither. They did not take into account
Tories fixing a twitter account to boost debate ratings. This “balance” would
appear to be a tilt in favour of Corbyn, because earlier BBC’s political
correspondent, Rob Watson, for instance, never mentioned the Labour leader’s
name without shrugging his shoulders and wincing. Such gestures would certainly
touch the right chords with the establishment that keeps Watson buoyant.
Boris is not exactly an adorable
character. He is Prime Minister without having been elected as one. A
reputation for lying, inflating expense accounts, making merry with the rich on
the Continent, looking lost at airports after late night binges, public
quarrels with girlfriend and so much more – all these the establishment will
overlook if only Johnson can help abort the Corbyn project. “You can go to
Caracas or to your Mullahs” snarled Johnson in Parliament. For Caracas read
Hugo Chavez, disciple of Fidel Castro, Communist, enough to invoke the ghost of
McCarthy. When Johnson taunts Corbyn about the “Mullahs”, the Labour leader is
sought to be cast as one soft on Muslim immigrants, the basic source of
terrorism – “Ali” of the clip above.
The only way Capitalism in trauma can
fight a progressive politician is to cast him as a “Communist”, anti-Semitic or
one negligent of Islamic terrorism. When Johnson handpicked Priti Patel as Home
Secretary, he had all these themes in his mind. Consider Patel’s background: as
Secretary of State for International Development in Theresa May’s government,
she travelled, without any authority, to Israel, meeting Netanyahu’s ministers
in pursuance of her own agendas. She was found out and was sacked but Johnson
needed just such cloak-and-dagger talent. Recently, when Hindu groups turned
upon Corbyn because he was critical of recent actions of the Modi government in
Kashmir, informed folks asked: is this Priti’s handiwork? For electoral gains
Johnson would not mind Priti Patel (strictly behind the scenes) stoking a
little Hindu-Muslim polarization.
Look at the contrast. Corbyn has reached
out much more elegantly for sub-continental support. The Labour party has promised
in its election manifesto something Indians have been demanding for some time:
an official apology for the Jalianwala Bagh massacre.
That is why the December election is not
just a Brexit election as the British see it. The outcome will tilt the global
balance one way or the other. Two competing forces, in a general sort of way,
are Progressivism and an ultra-right global coalition which I call Bannonism.
Even though his stay in the White House
as President Trump’s principal adviser was found to be untenable because of his
brazenly racist, ultra right views, Steve Bannon has been travelling around the
world stitching together Right extremism everywhere under the banner of what he
calls the Movement. Trump to Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Matteo Salvini, (Italy),
Marine Le Pen (France), Nigel Farage (Britain), and the new Rightist eruption in
Spain, Vox, under Santiago Abascal have all been embraced by Bannon. Johnson’s
victory will strengthen this group of which Narendra Modi’s India too is a
part.
At the Progressive end, Podemos is the
first communist party to be in a Spanish coalition government. Portugal,
Greece, Italy and France have strong Left currents. Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren are Americans of this bent. This entire formation would take
heart from a Corbyn victory. But, beware of establishments which can cause even
a conflict to protect a crumbling capitalist order. Nothing can be taken for granted.
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