Myths in a Time of Uncertainty

Were Europe still in the past, there would be no need for myth-making. From the time of Asterix to the present day, the Gauls would still be the French, the Britons the British, the Goths the Germans, and Hispania the Spain of today. In a time when ‘only one small village of indomitable Gauls still held out against the Roman invaders’, the Bretons already played rugby, and the Hispanians were even more addicted to bull-fighting and Flamenco. Such are the thoughts of present-day national nostalgia, though seldom with the wit of Goschinny and Uderzo, both of whom, in writing and illustrating the adventures of Asterix, were as quick to unsettle the stereotypes of nationality as to parody them to absurdity. According to Goschinny and Uderzo, all the polities of that past were muddled by the quirkiness of difference and similarity; the ‘Britons’, says Goschinny, were actually ‘just rather like the Gauls’, even if their speech was riddled by a peculiarity or two: ‘Goodness gracious! This is a jolly Rum thing, eh, What?’

Obtained from Asterix in Britain, available at: http://www.intrepidtravel.com/adventures/asterix-history/

 But the myths of nations, as absurd as they may be, trigger anger and fear more often than jollity and irony. Many of us are all too carried away by the spectacle of uniqueness and difference, which lies at the heart of one of the main trends of myth-making in Europe. The other lies with the lovers of the left.

That said, lovers of nations and of the left, despite their incommensurate differences, are all united in their struggle against the status quo. No matter how they present themselves aesthetically, as either nationalists or leftist revolutionaries, those who oppose the status quo do so not by looking to the future, but by invoking myths.

Obtained from Wikimedia Commons.
Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muralbelfast2.jpg

The status quo of today is no longer criticised for ignoring the future, characterised by the looming inevitability of a classless society or the rise of a superior race, but rather because it is no longer consistent with the past, whatever that was and whomever it served. Whereas progress - be it national, economical, technological or social– was once taken to be the organising principle from which to organise distinctive political views, ideologies and parties, today the opposition in both Europe and the United States centre their protests on their unswerving adoration of the past. Of course, lovers of the past have always existed, even at a time in which progress – liberal, Marxist, feminist, imperial, national-socialist – was acclaimed to be the main, if not the single, organising principle of political action; against progress spoke conservatives of various forms, whom Marxist and Liberals alike portrayed as visceral reactionaries.

Now, however, the status quo encompasses those who still harbour ideas of progress, albeit in a less energetic manner. Indeed, those who favour the status quo speak, although sometimes timidly, of their past love for progress. Today’s technocrats of the European Union (EU) no doubt look forward to a time in which Europe and the EU will be taken as synonyms without hesitation, and when technology and technocratic regulation, coupled with market competition, finally bring the much awaited prosperity of old. The status quo of the present day is then obviously defended by the victors of past disputes over progress. If only they were better opposed.

In any case, progress as it was once taken is increasingly questioned in the present age. Uncertainty reigns. And in these times of uncertainty, when the Gauls are no longer French, when progress is questioned, past myths offer unrelenting reassurance, especially when no language is yet able to make sense of changing times, and when we have no new set of ideas to give new meaning to the present. Indeed, when myths remain too strong a force to forget, they also remain the central pillars by which to make sense of the present.

So the challengers of the status quo are harbingers of myths. One of those harbingers rests upon trenchant nationalists, looking nostalgically at the world of Asterix, though with less humour than anger. For them the world was once clear and neatly split amongst Gauls and non-Gauls. It is that version of the mythical past which they seek, though they are (unadmittedly) riddled by as many quixotic idiosyncrasies as Goschinny and Uderzo’s Asterix. For was a Gaul not a Celt? And were the Gauls not also Romans and was French not also derived from Latin? Of course, such questions trouble lovers of past-nations, who prefer the clear-cut distinctions of a bygone age; it is not so much the past they love, however, but the myth. It thus becomes the means by which to dispute the status quo. If Brussels remains unable to make sense of the present, we Britons (whoever we are) and we Gauls (whoever we are) will bring order where there is none, all made by ourselves for ourselves, so long as the Gauls remain Gauls and the Britons remain Britons.

It is precisely that treasured simplicity of myths which makes them so deceptively reassuring and so easy to embrace instead of the present, because ‘myths’, says Georges Sorel, ‘have to be judged as the means of acting on the present.’ They gain their violent force by way of splitting society ‘into two camps, and only into two, on a field of battle.’ When times remain uncertain, the power of the imaginative past, however misleading, makes the present meaningful again, triggering action along the way.

But the era of nations is not the only compelling form of present-day myth-making and opposition, although perhaps the most dangerous. The other version lies with the so-called ‘lovers of the left’. These sceptics, like the lovers of nations, hark back to the Marxist ideas of impending struggle in order to offer clarity where there seems to be none, and thus reveal yet another myth from which to divide society into quarrelling, uncompromising camps. The form is the same, though with distinctive content. Where the lovers of nations speak of impending threats to an apparently ordered and foregone community, the lovers of the ‘left’ revamp the slogans of old revolutions, appealing (ironically) for more national sovereignty, the will of the people (in a time of universal suffrage), class struggles, and the invisible though pernicious structure of power, which apparently wreaks havoc across Europe: neo-liberalism, free markets, multinationals and big capital. Such slogans, for that is all they are, are relentlessly put forth by the lovers of the left. They return to tales of class struggle and the fight against Capitalism for which Marxism, in all its variants, became renowned. Just as there was the bourgeois and the proletariat, now there is the poor bourgeois (and some proletariat), who fight against the same capitalists. And the mythical language of the past does not persist only in speech, but extends to the realm of aesthetics, a strategy that once served well the sincerer left of the past. Like James Keir Hardie, who refused to wear a frock coat and top hat upon being elected to the British Parliament in 1892, that same practice of leftist protest continues to the present day. The suit remains, but the left has now got rid of the tie – and so the capitalists tremble. Likewise, and even more ironically, commodified images of Che Guevara and the semblance of Guy Fawkes make headway, as symbols of the past remain the means with which to efface the status quo.

Either way, the myth-making of the lovers of the left, in their ready adoption and reproduction of Marxist language, do nothing other than galvanize divisions, just like the lovers of nations. For how does big, perhaps paternalist, government - and thus larger bureaucracy – become a solution to multinationals and so on? Is that not precisely the problem of the status quo and of the ever growing, opaque Brussels in particular? Apart from the pernicious practices of present-day finance, how would nationalisation replace one big interest group with another? Would bureaucrats and politicians be as enlightened as the CEOs? How also would mobilising street parades, such as Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London among other urban movements, change the status quo, if that same status quo consists of multi-nationals that buy in rural Indonesia, manufacture in suburban China, lobby in Brussels, finance themselves in central London, sell in the Midlands and headquarter themselves somewhere in the outskirts of Stockholm?

And yet, myth as a distortion of the past remains all too compelling in a time of uncertainty. Sadly, however, the actions that it inspires provide more confusion than clarity. The present and the status quo remain unintelligible, but fraught with the specter of ever growing division.

The Political Questions of Haper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman'

Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman was a fantastic read this summer, even more so if you happen to look at it through a political lens. As a disclaimer, though, the following contains a few spoilers; I also take it for granted that to Kill a Mockingbird has to be read before Go Set a Watchman, if one is to enjoy the shocking experience for which Lee sets us up.

Now, about Harper Lee’s work: both her first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the sequel, Go Set a Watchman, make strong statements about politics, one of which is explicit: racism. However, I will leave that topic aside; not because it is irrelevant, but simply because it seems something of a no-brainer for Lee, at least from an ethical point of view. In both her first and second books, discrimination (even more so when based on skin colour) really has no justifiable argument. The content of that argument remains largely the same: no racist comes out clean, although the second book slightly complicates that argument, as we shall see.

All the same, Scout - or Jean Louise as she is now called throughout most of the Watchman – is consistently ‘colour blind’. And what seems to matter for Lee, almost as much as the question of racism, is the politics of Maycomb, Alabama. I am thus more interested in what the book has to say about politics in general than about any particular issue, however crucial it may be. This, I hope, will clarify some unjust critiques of the portrayal of Atticus Finch – a hero in the first novel, only to fall from grace in the second. By unjust, I do not mean that he ought not to fall from his high pedestal; rather that Lee’s decision to unsettle our initial idea of Atticus is a fantastic argument in its own right, regardless of how one may think the whole affair ought to have been portrayed. The critique that Atticus is too underdeveloped a character - particularly in the Watchman – simply has no ground. It has to be that way if one is to understand the political questions bubbling under the plot. That is precisely where I feel Lee brings out her masterful touch, revealing just how fuzzy the whole issue of that mean, hated beast called Politics really is. And what she has to say, although not novel by any means (is politics ever new?), is worthwhile for any actor, student or artisan of politics to consider, be it the activist or the critical painter. With those premises in mind, Lee reveals in the Watchman a few troubling and largely interconnected questions about politics: the problem of judging intimate vs public spheres; the lack of conversation; blindness; the weakness of belief; the problem of age. As of yet, I have no answers to offer, but it is interesting to condense some of the questions that Lee raises.

The problem of judging intimate vs public spheres. As a matter of clarification, there exist noteworthy distinctions about what it is to be intimate, private and public, all of which are crucial to the field of politics and law. I will not, however, delve into those differences and the perennial - particularly modern - debates to which those distinctions often give rise. What interests me is how Lee raises the issue through the character of Atticus. In a nutshell, does it matter that Finch is terribly bigoted? Given the widespread shock at the revelation of Atticus as a racist, the answer is straightforward: yes, it does matter. But why does it, and should it? After all, not all beliefs translate themselves into pernicious political action. And if judging has political, not to mention historical, repercussions, how is one to acknowledge someone for posterity? It is here is where having an apparently underdeveloped character, such as Atticus, pays off. To my mind, Lee does this purposefully, for the character of Jean Louise is precisely his opposite in this regard. We manage not only to see her actions in public, but also her thoughts, insecurities and prejudices. We enter her role and thus come to see how and why she thinks and acts in the way she does. With Atticus, both in the first and second stories, we only witness his public persona. His thoughts are never there for us to disentangle, like all other people with whom we interact. His intimate sphere is only his; not ours. In the first book, we also find him to be a man of principle; an amazing orator as he defends an innocent, black boy from a tendentious court. We come to laud Atticus and adore his stalwart, dedicated manner: it is hard to find fault in him, for Atticus is consistently serious, noble, wise, kind, patient and composed, wrapped in an aura of serenity. The second book dissolves our pristine image of him. We see him participating, albeit not discoursing, in a Citizens’ Council, where he introduces an overtly racist speaker and allows him to talk nonsense without interruption. This revelation astounds Scout, for Atticus is apparently both a bigot and a racist, no matter his past nor even his consistency of demeanour. On top of that, we later see him conversing with Jean Louise and defending that blacks are not ready for responsible political action. How can such a gentleman, so seemingly erudite, be so swayed by the idea that the combined effects of melanin and light somehow affect our ability to act? One may as well speak of the repercussions of hair pigmentation from which to preach hair-colour superiority. In any case, and the absurd aside, do his intimate beliefs really matter if one is to judge Atticus? Because, it seems to me, this is one of Lee’s aims: to shock or at least unsettle through Atticus’s revealed beliefs. So where do we go from there? Lee, of course, does not leave it there, but rather complicates the portrayal: we are also told that he is the least problematic of the bigots. As a matter of fact, he remains the voice of reason. His aim is to traverse the middle-ground across an increasingly unstable and threatened town, so as to prevent intolerant populists from spreading fear and apparently self-righteous human rights’ defenders from wreaking havoc on the town’s tradition. What does this tell us? A counterfactual is pertinent at this point: imagine we were not told of his beliefs, and that we were only to observe action at one point in time. If we had remained blind to the politics of the time, or if Scout had showed up a few days after the Council meeting, our image of Atticus may well have remained untainted. If he had actually continued to defend blacks in court, would his beliefs matter if we were to judge him through his actions? This then brings us to the more general question of how exactly we should describe men and women of uncertain times. To which side of history do they belong? Lee, by revealing one side of Atticus, asks us that same question. Do we judge him by his actions, by his beliefs or both somehow? And if beliefs matter, does the fact that he is also a loving father, a ‘Jeffersonian’ and a gentleman play any role whatsoever in how we judge him in posterity? Or do his racist credentials tilt the balance decidedly toward our condemning him?  I have no answers, but Lee prompts us to become watchmen ourselves, to become aware of we how build castles in the sky, only then to see them fall from grace.

The lack of conversation. From Socrates to Gadamer, Habermas and Oakeshott, conversation or dialogue (I will not bother with the distinction) has often been portrayed as one of the more suitable, more civilized ways of approaching questions of a political nature. It is a laudable endeavour no doubt, but is it at all possible if political deeds are actually at stake? As she speaks with and listens to her father, Jean Louise moves from being baffled to shocked. And when Atticus tries to reason with her, if that were even possible, she rejects and systematically admonishes him to the extent that, if we were not aware of the content of the ‘conversation’, we would probably be on Atticus’ side, such is her vitriolic attack. On top of that, Atticus is not convinced; only exhausted. He succumbs to silence and probably remains a sort of Jeffersonian to the end, whatever that may be, in spite of the very emotional argument Jean Louise puts forth. In short, Lee offers us everything but a panegyric of political deliberation. The Uncle of Jean Louise even hits her to get her attention. Only afterwards do they begin talking.

Blindness. This is obviously one of the more poignant points of the story, not least because of its title. But if seeing is the opposite of being blind, then Jean Louise barely fits the paradigm; maybe because she sees, but does not watch. Jean Louise lived a great part of her life in a racist town, with people whom she loved, but never once did she watch and disclose fully the nature of her surroundings. She could have lived her whole life without watching and continued with her harmless petit bourgeois concerns, thinking endlessly about whether she should marry Henry Clinton or not; whether New York is the city for her, etc. Even when the Supreme Court declares itself against segregation, she is angry, but not so much because of the content of the decision; rather because it was the federal government telling the South what to do. To the issue itself, namely segregation, Jean Louise remains oblivious, almost indifferent, and only awakens to it when her own town and father are deeply involved in it. Until then she never watched.

The weakness of belief. I do not know how exactly to term this issue, but the phrase seemed appropriate. It is also obviously related to the matter of blindness, for, if we live blindly and without watching, how do we question our beliefs? More important, to what extent do we actually believe in what we say we believe? For all of Jean Louise’s admonitions against her father, Jean Louise admits that she probably would not marry a black from the south and that she doesn’t actually think the south was all that bad. Again, apart from the issue of racism, are beliefs ever really questioned before they are blurted out in the open?

The problem of age. Lee is not at all circumspect in describing the fact that Atticus, despite his outward demeanour, is an elderly man suffering from debilitating arthritis. Jean Louise, by contrast, is blooming with youth, though slightly uncertain of where she wants to be and what she ought to do. The question then is, would a younger Atticus have been less conservative and more willing to accept the changing times? As a young man he could potentially pick and push for the ‘right side of history’. The same could be asked of Jean Louise. Would she have been as unforgiving of Maycomb if she were not young? She can, for all intents and purposes, leave Maycomb and remain in New York. In fact, is it not just a bit too easy for her? Having a privileged education, a comfortable home, a loving father, what are the costs of taking the moral high-ground? History can forget just as well as remember. And so, Atticus, who lived in that town all his life, who once defended a black man in court, cannot abide by the fact that things are now changing radically and that everything he once knew or took for granted is withering away. As he grows old and Maycomb with him, he learns he is on the wrong side of history. But it is his home after all and he is an old man. Should that matter?

Scotland’s referendum; hidden nationalism, role politics and the underlying problem of Europe?

As a foreigner currently residing in the UK, I have over the past few years been able to appreciate the politics of Britain – a place which I now call a second home. Most of my time has been spent in Scotland and my experience of reading and talking about the referendum has led me to reflect about an underlying problem pervading not just Britain but also much of European politics. My thoughts on the subject are not yet entirely clear; but I thought that by jotting them down, I would be able to make better sense of what is at stake. So allow me to sketch my points by way of thought experiments, beginning with my initial assumptions about the referendum and ending with what I consider, personally, to be some of the underlying issues affecting Scottish independence and broader European politics.

To start, let us address what many of us take now for granted: nationalism.

Rousseau in the 18^th Century, when recommending a constitution for Poland, made a rather explicit appeal for polish authenticity: “I should like Poland to be, in all these respects, itself, not like some other country; for only by being itself will it become all that it is capable of being.”

Scotland has certainly followed Rousseau’s recommendation for Poland. Having lived in Scotland for five years, I am convinced that Scotland is not “like some other country”. Scotland, in the words of Rousseau, is already “itself”: having  all the attributes of a unique, authentic nationhood or collective unity – a national anthem, a national flag, control over national education, a national parliament, a national team, a national instrument, a national plant, national wear, national heroes and all the like.

Though nationalism is not the reason for the referendum, it has always been there in the background and behind a lot of rhetorical hogwash on both sides of the border. Indeed, the peculiarity in referring to Scotland, Britain, or the people of any other nation-state for that matter, is that many of us are now comfortable in saying who we are without actually defining it. Being Scottish or Portuguese is rather self-explanatory. But that betrays a subtlety which makes separatist politics difficult to disentangle. I actually have no problems in locating Scotland the land, Scotland the culture, but do find it difficult to locate “actual” Scots, though I am often assured that they do in fact exist. A friend of mine – born outside the UK - once informed me that he was a “Scot” but not an “ethnic Scot”. I was puzzled by the remark and found no satisfactory answers for what exactly he meant.

My curiosity for understanding what it is to be a Scot, however, was sincere because I too was baffled what was once to me pretty straightforward. Having arrived in the UK, my understanding of British differences was based on the kilt-wearers and the non-kilt wearers and some vague notions about accents. There was the Queen’s accent, Dick Van Dyke’s (apparently unconvincing) Cockney and Mel Gibson’s Scottish. But after landing in Edinburgh, I realised Mel Gibson got it wrong, and having lived in (the Kingdom of) Fife and now in England the references have all but disappeared. Britain is far too diverse in accents but, for me, homogenous enough in its culture to make me have to dig deep to unpack what this whole issue of independence was about. As is often the case when being part of a national-state system, I assumed first that it was some underlying nationalist question that was causing the divide.

But it was not just my own assumptions that led me to that way of thinking, for in the course of my conversations, the Scots, especially, made either tacit or explicit reference to the differences between the two nations: “The Scottish are more hospitable”; “The Scots are friendlier”; “The English are Posh”; “the English are more arrogant and inconsiderate” are all remarks I have heard either overtly or implied in many a talk about independence. Yet those labels, too, if unpacked carefully, have little of nationalism. Rather they were more about some sort of entrenched economic divide than anything else. By the same token, politicians in Edinburgh were also not so keen on using nationalism in the defense of independence. It would mean actually defining that rather illusive concept of what it is to be a Scot, and the referendum nicely avoids the issue by making voter-eligibility a matter of residency; rather than one of birth or ancestry. So independence was, fortunately, not being pursed under the auspices of Walter Scott being better than Kipling or of the Scottish way of life facing extinction (albeit the latter still having some resonance, though not necessarily under purely nationalistic terms).

So I then turned toward looking at class inequality. But there too I found lots of talk, yet poor arguments. For one, the experience of class divide seems to me a much broader phenomenon. It is more a UK thing than a distinct national trait of either Scotland or England. One’s education, for example, makes class readily apparent - be it in Edinburgh or in London - because in the UK, curiously, education shapes not just the vocabulary but the accent too. Of course, not all those who speak the English version of Hochdeutsch are wealthy nor do they necessarily identify themselves as posh, but it does entrench an already prevalent sense of division. I also have my doubts about whether the differences in class reflect any sort of systematically distinct type of action in Britain, whether north or south of the border. Differences in accent or even clothing aside, I feel that the two or three classes – regardless of which side of the border they live - would not take issue with partaking in some of the more typical British delights: having a picnic in a park; admonishing the weather; not finding that three to four pounds for either lager or tepid British Ale is excessively expensive; having no qualms with drinking white or rose wine when the weather is chilly outside; enjoy Sunday lunch; referring to the same pop songs; watching the Bake Off; talking about class differences; probably having a relative, even if a distant one, who is a vicar; frequenting a pub once in a while; referring to the Daily Mail as either a wonderful source of gossip or as the pernicious source of all gossip; indulging in curry; eating chips at the beach or anywhere else for that matter; somehow enjoying fancy dress; respecting the impartiality of the BBC (which maybe is likely to wane after the referendum); calling surrounding neighbours European, except the Irish who are lovingly admired for being just that, “the Irish”; accusing non-British footballers of diving; never booing your own club after a dismal performance; and not being the least bit surprised that besides lettuce there are other vegetarian options available in a restaurant. 

So building national differences based on some sort of general class difference did seem strange to me, but politics today is more about emphasizing particular, often petty, differences rather than arguing about different general ideas or suggesting alternative arguments. That would be too unpredictable and is in fact an issue pervading both the UK and Europe (though the UK is part of Europe – politically and culturally). Unfortunately the result is that those who actually gain from the focus on petty discussions is the far right, who always appear to be more spontaneous. Indeed, much of the debate around the referendum, particularly in private conversations, seems rather shaped by roles which in one way or another capture those petty class differences and particular grievances with which so many British - Scots and English alike - identify. In effect, one might as well speak of UK politics as being shaped by competing roles: eager Cameronites, pompous Borisites, lukewarm Milibandites, cunning Salmondites, uninspiring Cleggites and mischievous Faragites.

In no way, though, is this experience of politics something unique to Britain. One need only cross the English Channel and go to France or down to the far West of Europe, such as Portugal, and find the same sort of political squabbling. In Lisbon, though politics is not characterized by grievances over class, there are roles, or let us call them parties, that shape politics. There, most roles are turned toward the centre-left, and the electoral success is also dictated by addressing petty grievances; accusing one role of misrepresenting the centre or of beleaguering the true meaning of the centre-left. The form in Britain is the same, albeit different in content: Cameronites and Borisites are conservative economically and sometimes culturally, though their approaches differ only in the degree of hilarious pomposity. Milibandites, Salmondites and Cleggites are those who remain committed to a left after the Blair years brought UK politics definitely toward the centre. They are thus at odds with how to differentiate themselves, albeit knowing for certain that Thatcher’s grandchildren (Cameronites and Borisites) are loathsome, but far more acceptable than the Faragites. Milibandites are middle-class proponents of more workers’ rights in a post-industrial era; Cleggites are well-intentioned, uninspiring speakers from the middle class for the middle class; and Salmondites are the new kids on the block, taking identity away from the conservatives and mixing it up with social issues. They can, for that reason, be more appealing and certainly more innovative than the rather dull, repetitive Milibandites and Cleggites. They would also seem original like the Faragites in the way they mix identity or degrees of nationalism with social issues, but that is far as the comparison goes. For Salmondites know what they want and what they do not want; Faragites know perhaps what they don’t want, but certainly don’t know what they want, which is how to maintain the illusion of political consistency.

If UK politics is seen according to a role-playing drama, the plot for Scottish independence is disputed between entrenched Salmondites against the Cameronites and Borisites. Milbandites and Cleggites, in contrast, are reluctant secondary actors. Yet, being representatives of a distinctive class and fearing that the Salmondites may eventually lead the way toward a new left, they are reluctantly walking alongside their arch-rivals on the right.

As already noted, Salmond and the SNP, while tying in social issues with identity, do not address nationalism explicitly. It’s a taboo issue, for too much of an emphasis on nationalism would in fact disparage the leftist credentials of the SNP and the overall socialist-leaning ideas with which most Scots, alongside Northern English – where the industrial revolution had full sway - identify. Hence, the surest way to voice publicly what many Scots discuss privately in conversation is by suggesting that the welfare way of life in Scotland, in and of itself, is inherently part of its make-up. And that seems to be one of the strategies of the campaign. Of course, if that were the only argument put forth against Westminster, it would be self-defeating, for the differences between the Salmondite and the Milibandite would wane, each of whom sees him or herself as a defender of workers’ rights. Moreover, the Milibandite, as an older defender of those rights, would probably be able to placate the efforts of the Samondite. So with nationalism being put to the side – publicly at least - and with only partial success in mixing nationalism with welfare, it is the social-economic question of independence which has led the debate in the last few months.

That is where, unfortunately, the debate has remained, with endless reports and counter-reports about the potential material success of Scotland, culminating, of course, with Alistair Darling pointing the finger at Mr Salmond: ‘What about the pound, Mr Salmond?’; ‘Is it x or y barrels of oil that we have in the North Sea, Mr Salmond?’.

To an extent, a debate on economic well-being is to be expected, though I find the alarm-bells pressed by some professional economists, such as the renowned Paul Krugman, unconvincing. Scotland can of course have the pound while keeping budgetary independence, if it coordinates its policies with London. Comparing it with the recent events in the EURO zone, as many so-called experts have done, is over-extending a historical analogy. It misses the point that two-state coordination is not as complex as coordinating the whole eighteen members of the euro zone. But there are, of course, pressing concerns which the non-Salmondites are right to point out, such as the issue of national debt amongst others. Uncertainties will exist and I feel it is very likely that a slump will be rather expected in the “short-term” (whatever that means in economist lingo), especially if subsequent conversations between an independent Scotland and foreign investors do not take a polite route. Panic will do harm and very little good, if Scotland becomes independent. At any rate, Westminster parties have done such a poor job in warning about those uncertainties (and not focusing on other issues such as cultural unity, for example) that it has only helped in reinforcing those petty difference that already characterize private antagonism against the English. Although Westminster has 52 Scottish MPs, the voices we hear are those of a Cameron and Miliband and haughty Osborne, who, like patronising brothers, punish Salmond for being naughty. ‘No pound for you, sir! Now, be quiet and take some more fiscal powers instead!’

It is too late to consider whether the campaign could have gone differently. And while I have emphasized what seems to me petty differences that have to an extent instigated and evidently politicized the whole issue of independence, as it should have been, there is something to the underlying grievance of Scots with which I fully identify. However, it has, little to do with social class roles and how those get mixed up with an idea of a nation being different than another. Sadly, though, it may be too late to prevent that from becoming the predominant narrative.

What I see in Scottish independence is the continued centralization of states to the point of them becoming city-states. Scottish independence will not solve it because, as a small country, it will experience the same that other smaller and peripheral nations already face in the EU: periphery. My impression is that Scots (and perhaps the North of England too) do legitimately feel that - in spite of globalization, social media and news channels - London and thus Westminster are actually more distant: a sort of inverse proportional growth, where technology facilitates movement, but also gradually confines that movement within one delimited space. The positive spill-over of city-state growth is multi-culturalism and the potential effacement of our national, social stereotypes at the centre; the negative effect, however, is the emptying of the periphery and the rising cost of living at the centre.

If we picture the UK as a smaller version of the EU, we see that, like the EU, it is booming economically. But that is only if we take the whole as indicative of all. In fact, the EU’s motor is mainly Germany and the UK’s London. So what has happened and still happens in the EU is the flow of people to the city-states. What Scotland sees - and Salmondites note implicitly and sometimes explicitly - is increased centralisation and thus the ‘brain drain’ of Scots from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London. For the Salmondites, the problem is perceived to be caused mainly by the policies of Westminster and Cameronites alike. Independence therefore becomes the solution.

But I do not buy it, even assuming that a small state like Scotland could be wealthy enough to contour the problem of periphery. The problem is not necessarily one of sovereignty. It is apparently economic on the surface, due to the changing technological landscape of our world (as well as growth in the East) and only in part reinforced by the policies led by Westminster. And it has remained problematic, because the underlying issue of representation remains unaddressed. Technology and the ease with which it facilitates centralisation aside, jobs and work are also attracted to where power lies. It is not by mere coincidence that the European Parliament, which otherwise convenes in Brussels most of the year, has to meet mandatorily in Strasbourg for at least twelve sessions a year. The French in this respect have always been very clear about how their power (and by power I do not mean simply material power, but the power that comes from collective action) might wane within an EU system which would be unable to maintain, even if only the illusion of, representation. But, of course, I am not lambasting solely against the EU. Within Europe there is too much of Central Europe and too little of Peripheral Europe. Likewise in Britain: jobs, parliament, the Sovereign’s palace can almost all be found within a few square miles surrounding Trafalgar Square. In the EU, power lies mainly in Brussels, being also dispersed around the capitals of larger countries and the remaining manufacturing centres of Europe.

While economically it is obviously difficult and perhaps dictatorial to tell companies to stay in one place rather than another, that is not the case for political representation. Technology need not only drive centralization. In a world of swift transport, social media, and face-to-face communication, why do key governmental offices of the EU – the commission, parliament, the European Council - have to remain around Brussels in particular, and around the rest of Central Europe in general? Why do major decision-holders in the UK remain and thus drag people to crowded London? Why does government (I do not mean the legislature), in fact, have to stay permanently in one city in the 21^st Century?

Beyond these points, there are other perplexing issues in the UK that make (mis)representation - the feeling that distance between countries is increasing - problematic. The fact that the UK has no written constitution and that it still treasures institutions like the House of Lords only complicates issues of representation, especially as some of its seats are still hereditary. For Salmondites and the like, that is too much tradition getting in the way of politics, and it only distances Westminster further from Scotland. Surprisingly, though, Milibandites and Cleggites, particularly more rebellious factions thereof, did not see this as an opportunity for greater federalism or for discussing solutions about representation; for making citizens experience or at least feel the proximity of their institutions. Instead their campaign, being about the status quo for all except the Salmondites, was only reactive and did not explore underlying issues which pervade all of British and wider European politics.

Lord Sumption in a November 2013 speech made note of that problem in Scotland when he referred to the decline of the Kirk – the church of Scotland – throughout the past hundred years in establishing a sense of community and control over rural affairs. With no likely replacements, even with independence, the broader issue of representation will probably persist, with the exception that Edinburgh, rather than London, may gradually became the locus of new grievances. With a united UK (pardon the tautology) there would, at least, be the advantage of recognizing that representation and the problems of increased political disinterest are widespread, deeper issues, not just a national ones. In fact, what may happen if Scotland becomes independent is for enthusiasm to give rise to disillusionment - maybe even cynicism. Hannah Arendt accounted for the challenge which comes from revolution: how to continue addressing participation and actual representation. While independence is certainly not revolution, the change is there, and the challenge is to keep that feeling of belonging and activism after September 18^th.

So, regardless of the results of the referendum, and some hidden truths which it helped reveal, I am not optimistic that underlying issues will be addressed, either here or in Europe. If anything, a successful referendum might create a backlash in Europe by way of instilling divisive appeals to nationalism and identity rather than to actual discussions of politics, participation and representation. And so long as we persist in a politics of roles, rather than of issues, we are likely to be driven more by those partisan grievances than by actual arguments about our sense of belonging in the world of politics.

Jamilia de Chingiz Aitmatov

Terminei o rascunho do primeiro capítulo da minha tese. Aguardo agora o feedback imprescendível da minha orientadora. Porém, pude nesta semana dedicar-me a outras coisas e ler algo que não apenas política internacional.

Li a pequena história de amor "Jamilia" de Chingiz Aitmatov. O exíguo romance, embora inicialmente escrito em Russo, é das grandes obras da cultura Qirguiz, da actual República Qirguiz. Aitmatov, que viveu grande parta da vida, sob o domínio Soviético descreve em apenas 100 páginas a cultura da Ásia Central; as suas diversas contradições; a necessidade de se desenvolver; a intimidade das relações familiares; o amor pela música, artes e misticismo; e o choque da tradição com um mundo em mudança.

Apaixonei-me pela Jamilia. Adorei, vale bem a pena ler, e o pequeno enredo amoroso é belo, sem ser previsível e sem sentimentalismo banal. Obra-Prima.

'Virgem Suta' and 'Rupa and the April Fishes'

Há duas semanas estava na fnac à procura de umas preciosidades musicais para escutar. Já tinha ouvido 'Virgem Suta' na televisão, mas depois de comprar o CD fiquei a gostar mais. Ouvir o álbum completo pode tornar-se talvez enfadonho, devido ao estilo, mas eles têm músicas individuais excelentes. Infelizmente, o myspace não tem lá as minhas três preferidas, mas vale bem a pena escutar a canção: "Linhas Cruzadas" http://www.myspace.com/virgemsuta

Entretanto, encontrei uma banda que canta em francês: 'Rupa and the April Fishes', que estão aliás prestes a lançar um novo CD, e o álbum é divinal! Meti aqui uma ligação para o youtube. Esta é uma das minhas canções preferidas desse álbum verdadeiramente excepcional, "Maintenant": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEn5cD8Ne9s

Se quiserem visitar o myspace desta maravilhosa banda eis o link: http://www.myspace.com/aprilfishes

Entretanto, ando a trabalhar desde que cheguei, mas terei em breve, espero, um post sobre o SCP (depois do jogo do Benfica) e sobre o regresso à Escócia! Entretanto, tenho de discutir uma triste notícia para a comunidade do Espaço.

Lettres Persanes

Estava numa livraria e notei uma pequena preciosidade escrita anonimamente por Montesquieu, em 1721 – Lettres Persanes. Dado o meu fascínio pela Pérsia, comprei o romance epistolário. Montesquieu, autor do incontornável Espírito das leis, nunca esteve na Pérsia. As referências à Pérsia (Irão de hoje) são fruto da sua imaginação e de fontes de viajantes europeus que passaram por Teerão, Ishafan e Tabriz.

O romance escrito durante o advento do iluminismo na Europa descreve, através de cartas, as viagens de dois persas a Paris e as suas observações. Montesquieu comenta assim a França metropolitana, durante o reinado do Princípe Regente Duque de Orleães, e delicia o autor com retratos sobre sociedade, virtude, sexualidade e política; todas dignas heresias em pleno século XVIII, sendo nos dias de hoje ainda politicamente incorrectas. Descrições algumas merecedoras de uma fatwazita e também de ávida discussão intelectual no nosso Ocidente.

Aqui vão passagens, algumas interessantes, outras escandalosas:

Carta 11 (sobre filosofia):
… sometimes simply to persuade people of truth is not sufficient, one must also make them feel it; moral truths belong in this category…

Carta 18 (sobre os otomanos):
… I have found only Smyrna that can be considered a rich and powerful city; it is Europeans who make it such; had it been left to the Turks, it would be just like all the others.

Carta 22 (sobre o rei, o sistema monetário, e o Papa):
…this king is a great magician… If he has a war that is difficult to support, and he has no money, he has only to suggest to them (os franceses) that a piece of paper is money…
…the pope; sometimes he makes the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread, or that the wine he drinks is not wine, and countless other things of that nature.

Carta 28 (sobre reacções parvas ao exótico):
‘Oh! Oh! Monsieur is Persian? That’s most extraordinary! How can someone be Persian?’

Carta 31 (sobre a moderação):
…the law forbids our princes to drink wine, and they drink it to such excess as to make them less than human. Christian princes on the other hand, are allowed wine, and it does not appear to lead them into evil ways.

Carta 32 (sobre mulheres estrangeiras):
Persian women are more beautiful than French women; but French women are prettier. It’s impossible not to love the former and not to enjoy oneself with the latter; the first are more tender and more modest; the others, livelier and more playful.

Carta 34 (sobre o que é ser académico e intelectual)
…when I arrived in Paris I found them all worked up over the most trivial dispute one could imagine: it concerned the reputation of one Greek poet… Both sides admitted that he was an excellent poet: it was simply a question of the degree of excellence to be attributed to him.

Carta 36 (sobre mulheres)
…if it’s not true that our power over women is purely tyrannical, it’s no less true that women possess a natural advantage over us, that of beauty, which nothing can resist.

…in the most civilized races, women have always had authority over their husbands…

Carta 46 (sobre académicos)
Those who love knowledge are never idle…. I am nevertheless occupied. I spend my life observing and in the evening I record what I have noted…

Carta 48 (sobre a modéstia)
…happy the man who is vain enough never to praise himself, who fears his audience, and never compromises his own worth by ruffling the pride of others.

Carta 48 (sobre os chatos)
…they will tell you about the most trivial things that happened to them, hoping that the interest they find in this will increase their importance in your eyes.

3º Andamento da Sinfonia Fausto de Liszt

Chorus:

Everything transitory
is only an approximation;
what could be achieved
here comes to pass;
what no-one could describe,
is here accomplished;
the Eternal Feminine

draws us aloft

Fausto, prestes a ser condenado ao inferno pelo seu pacto com o Diabo, motivado pela sua busca insaciável por conhecimento, atinge talvez um momento de redenção através do divino feminino (Será a Scarlett?). Imaginação à parte, esta última parte da Sinfonia Fausto de Liszt é isso mesmo, salvação:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U_g0UnWjJU