A MODERN LIFE

I often wonder if, in my dotage, I have lived a full enough life – so many activities in which I have not participated, so many sensations untasted, so many ideas undeveloped, so many places unvisited, so much knowledge untouched. Yet very few of us are polymaths, avid researchers or men of action or are even in the slightest degree adventurous. I have settled into a comfortable, privileged married life as a member of the British middle classes, rational, Tory-voting, Brexit-supporting, after a solid career in finance, now holding mainly conservative opinions with a slight dash of liberalism, leading a calmly conventional life-style, enjoying classic books and music. Oh my God, how paralyzingly boring, I hear my critics groan!

I guess in some respects my critics are right. It was our old friend Nietzsche who described the twin natures of Man, the famed dichotomy, as consisting of the Apollinarian and the Dionysian. The Apollinarian “plays a straight bat to life” – I have those “qualities” in spades – while the Dionysian is passionate, thinks outside the box, is self-indulgent or even orgiastic, and surrounds himself with the enchanting and the magical. I am sadly deficient in these qualities. We all have a tincture of both sets of characteristics but clearly the Dionysian has most of the fun, damn him!

Apollo                         Dionysos

I wonder about what I have missed. There were plenty of influences in my youth which could have led me down more esoteric by-ways but somehow, I flunked my chances. I read intellectually curious Aldous Huxley and he had published his The Doors of Perception in 1954 recording his experimental use of the drug mescaline in 1953 in his West Hollywood house. The psychedelic and hallucinatory effect of the mushroom-derived drug became well-known and its use was encouraged by “Beat” writers like Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs (whom I also read) and the poet Allen Ginsberg (whom I never did). A more immediate influence was the poet, writer and classical interpreter Robert Graves, a leonine and eccentric figure, who became professor of poetry at Oxford in 1961. I attended a lecture he gave at the Oxford Union when he too described taking the hallucinogenic mushroom substance psilocybin in a Mexican ritual and his subsequent visions. Graves did not recommend the use of the drug and in time stopped his experiments. Graves was particularly interested in the alleged use of “magic mushrooms” in ancient religions and speculated that the prophet Ezekiel and the writer of the wildly apocalyptic Revelation of St John had swallowed a similar drug.

Robert Graves

Both Huxley and Graves were Dionysian characters. Their examples coincided with an unleashing of a psychedelic LSD flood and an orgy of drug-taking and pill-popping in the Western world. Pop musicians led the charge – Elvis, the Beatles and a host of others. Pot-smoking became endemic in US campuses and cities, criminal gangs developed the trade and much human misery ensued amid some transient pleasure. All this passed me by and so square am I that I admit I have never smoked a joint or “spliff,” as the lingo has it. Huxley and Graves were Englishmen but they lived principally in California or Majorca, where the sun beats down addling the brain. A few months in rainy Huddersfield would have washed some sense through them and put their hats straight!

The mystical or hallucinatory are not my thing. Such experiences are private and attempts to describe them are often unhelpful. A recent Telegraph reviewer, Steven Poole, cites gibberish like “I was turned into a sheaf of little papers and they were being scattered in the wind…. I was paint!” or the lady who exulted she was “literally holding the face of Osama bin Laden” or the American academic who “felt as though he had been repeatedly sucked into the asshole of God”. Enough said.

No, on reflection I am content that my life has been straight-forward and uncomplicated. We have quite enough excitement with meteorological events, earthquakes and the daily tweets of Donald Trump. Let accessible Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde carry the modest burden of our split personalities.

SMD 

30.10.18

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018

BREXIT FIASCO

I suppose there have been other hideously mismanaged episodes in our British history – I have in mind the American War of Independence, the Crimean War or the policy of Appeasement – but the Brexit negotiations are down there in the rancid depths, as a prime example of incompetence, posturing, pussy-footing, lack of clarity, intellectual dishonesty, incoherence, a failure to connect with the public and a glaring absence of committed political leadership on a matter of supreme national importance.

Lord North, who lost America

Neville Chamberlain, who misread Hitler

It would be simplistic to place all the blame on Theresa May, though she heads the government and should be in ultimate control. She is not a Brexiteer and seems indifferent to EU shenanigans and incivility. She is a poor speaker and does not connect with the electorate, but she has the talent of persistency. Her elevation to the Premiership was in retrospect a mistake, though it was a relief at the time. Her decision to call a snap election in 2017 proved disastrous and her weak parliamentary position has made her timid, unable to face down her many antagonists.

Theresa May, who inspires nobody

The team surrounding her has been pretty weak. She over-ruled staunch David Davis, ignored harrumphing Boris Johnson, side-lined cerebral Michael Gove, relying instead on cataleptic doom-merchant Philip Hammond and entrusting current negotiations not to her bright new withdrawal secretary Dominic Raab but to an unaccountable civil servant Olly Robbins. Behind him stands a civil service strongly hostile to Brexit and drenched in the old complacency “Whitehall knows best”, but it never does.

Olly Robbins, the power behind Theresa

The issues to negotiate were sequenced by Brussels. Firstly, the divorce bill was finally agreed at £39bn (payable only if a deal is done, says the UK). Then came very technical talks about the relationship between the EU and the UK, with the Geiger counter fluctuating between the Norway option, Canada +++, an EU free trade arrangement or a hard Brexit (on WTO terms). Wrangles about the jurisdiction of the ECJ (a red rag to Brexiteers), alleged “Cherry-picking” by the UK were over-shadowed by furious disagreements on the status of Northern Ireland and the border with the Irish Republic, coupled with a so-called “backstop” arrangement. This issue has stalled the talks, rather surprisingly, as it was not initially such a big problem – I suspect there is mischief-making emanating from Dublin and Brussels, where “Green” Brit-bashing always plays well.

Confusion was twice confounded by Theresa’s so-called Chequers Proposal, an attempt to rail-road the Tories into a close relationship with the EU. It was never going to fly, upsetting the Brexiteers, the DUP, and many who merely wanted the referendum result to be honoured. A fruitful dialogue with the EU seems doomed. The UK simply want to withdraw from a commercial agreement – the EU are defending their imagined dogmas with theological intensity like members of the Inquisition. Any UK waverer must now see that Brussels harbours Anglophobic fanatics with strong absolutist tendencies, a dangerous breed.

EU Fanatics - Tusk, Juncker and Verhofstadt

It is indicative of the unreal world Brussels inhabits that it takes seriously the current views of Tony Blair, Lord Heseltine and Nick Clegg (sic), a trio of has-been Remoaners whose words hold no sway in the UK, and hope they will deliver a Brexiteer surrender, a second referendum and abject kow-towing to the will of Brussels.

Yet, the UK cannot blame the EU for fighting its own corner as it sees fit. The original Brexit campaigners were in truth taken aback when they won the referendum. The fundamental issues were well understood – the necessity of regaining sovereignty; the need to wrest back from Europe the supremacy of our courts and our laws; the rejection of enforced political, economic and fiscal integration with the rest the EU; the refusal to trade in a protectionist bloc and the deep respect for democratic practices. The UK government machine was ill-prepared for the complexity of unravelling the UK’s links with the intransigent EU. Even at this 11^th hour a deal can be done, but if it cannot the UK must walk with confidence and determination through the exit door.

That exit door leads to our liberation and fulfilment. Seize our destiny!

SMD

21.10.18

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018

DIVERSITY

            

Our world praises countries which embrace “Diversity”, cultural, political, religious and social. The underlying narrative is that such societies are richly tolerant and modern and that the cocktail they deliver is much stronger than the sum of their parts. An idealistic aura envelops diverse societies – we want them to succeed, but we often underestimate the effort required to make the model work. There are many sad examples of failed diverse societies and far fewer examples of those embedding the rare virtues which make successful diverse societies so attractive and admired. Let me focus first on the success stories and I cite the merits of Switzerland, Germany, the UK, the USA and Canada.

Cultural Diversity in Canada

With her 4 languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh, Switzerland is inevitably culturally diverse. A cherished cantonal arrangement protects the distinctive cultural identity of her rural and city-dwelling communities. Religious freedom is now taken for granted, after historic battles. Universal military duties fortify centralised loyalty while philanthropic tradition and accumulated wealth make possible a global involvement in the less developed world. Immigration control is tight for permanent settlement but ethnic communities are encouraged and the Swiss life-style is enviable, if you can afford it.

Germany has been the great European success story since WW2 ended in 1945. Rebuilt on liberal democratic principles with a sturdy 1949 constitution, her economy surged ahead and she re-unified with her Eastern provinces in 1990. At first the country was largely culturally homogenous, but the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1960 triggered off a search for fresh labour and immigrants were welcomed from other European countries and crucially from Muslim Turkey. The education, benefit and workplace systems seem to have been effective in absorbing these new arrivals and hitherto political parties have accepted immigrants and accorded equal rights to them. The sudden surge of 1m immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2015 unbalanced the German political consensus; the nationalist AfD party has attracted much support and in the more socially backward East we have seen ugly disorder from extremists in Chemnitz and elsewhere. For all that, Germany is still among the most attractively diverse and tolerant countries in Europe.

The United Kingdom has plenty diversity with the ancient rivalry of Scotland and England only resolved in 1603 and 1707 by the unions of crown and parliament. The UK hit highs of prosperity with her industrial revolution and the acquisition of a profitable empire mainly in Canada, South Africa, India, the Far East and Australasia. She became an economic draw for poorer Commonwealth countries in Africa and the West Indies and in the sub-continent. The first Immigration Act restricting access was in 1962 but large black and Asian communities co-exist and are being integrated. The relative success of this process is demonstrated by the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London and the appointment of MP Sajid Javid as Home Secretary; both have Pakistan-born parents.

Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor

UK Home Secretary, Sajid Javid

The UK has liberal abortion laws and recognises same-sex marriages – all the buzzwords of our time. The visceral hatred of a hardcore of benighted Scotsmen for the English (hardly ever reciprocated by the phlegmatic English themselves), worked up by the SNP as a matter of policy, is the principal serious blemish on the serenity of the diverse UK. An earlier tendency to encourage ethnic “ghetto” diversity is being reversed as quite tough citizenship tests are introduced focusing on knowledge of the English language and on UK national institutions. Anyway, I feel myself blest to be British..

The USA has a great claim as a melting-pot creating a new being, the all-American classless, democratic good-neighbourly citizen. For over a century this claim was undermined by the ferocious discrimination against black and Hispanic people in America. Successive civil rights legislation and its enforcement have transformed the US to somewhere near the American Dream. There is no doubt more to do in terms of sharing prosperity, improving social security and reducing the violence of life there, but America has long been, and remains, a beacon of hope for the world’s dispossessed and disadvantaged.

Trump, flawed standard-bearer of the American Dream

Finally, in this round-up of the pick of diverse societies comes Canada, incorporating the best of Britain, France and the USA, a vast country successfully steering a contentedly generous route, made possible by wealth and geography. It is impossible to mention everyone, but similar accolades are due to the Benelux, Scandinavian countries and Australasia.

I regret I have not included highly civilised France, but she has failed to integrate her large North African population and the 10.6m votes (33.9%) won by Marine LePen in 2017’s presidential election are evidence of deep-seated hostility to diversity from a significant minority. Yet I may be wrong. To have doubts about diversity is not the same as being racist or xenophobic. A country like France is intensely proud of her culture and terroir and resists radical change to the character of her nation. It is no offence to disparage pop culture, franglais, junk food and venal politicians!

Another far from perfect but often admirable country is India, dazzling in her ethnic diversity, so polyglot there are 21 official languages among the 400+ actually spoken. Amazingly India has remained a functioning democracy since 1948 almost uniquely within Asia. But there is a huge downside; the ancient caste system still casts a shadow over the employment prospects and social mobility of many millions of Hindus and the status of women, especially in respect of marriage, is abject in much of rural and provincial India. Women are routinely physically, socially, sexually and intellectually abused in their native country to India’s shame. An enormous reform is required and cannot be expected quickly within the existing political structures.

Dynamic, modernising but socially backward India

Among the sad failures in Diversity, I must mention Yugoslavia, always an artificial concept, dominated by Serbs and Croats and unable to reconcile Slovenes, Bosnians, Kosovars, Montenegrins and Northern Macedonians whose festering rivalries led to a bloodbath break-up in the 1990s. Another Versailles 1919 construct was Czechoslovakia, peacefully divided again in 1994, as the two nations could not co-exist. Pressure of war has seen multi-ethnic Iraq fracture and ancient communities (many Christian) flee for their lives. Even the mighty Soviet Union saw 15 republics secede and the Russian Federation was left to pick up the pieces and atone for 70 years of murderous Communism.

Diversity, social and communal, is an ideal presently only attained by relatively rich nations. A few countries, like say Iceland or Paraguay, can live in a peacefully homogenous fashion with basically their own kith and kin; yet so far has globalisation gone that people move between countries with astonishing ease. In a few years, Poles have become the largest foreign-born minority (900,000+) in the UK, while other European countries have experienced similar influxes. These pressures make diversity a necessity, but the emotions and habits of mind of the nation-state die hard and there is much there worth retaining. We must keep our values as we adapt to hectic and profound change.

SMD

10.10.18

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2018