Category — Politics

It is difficult, even for those of us with limited attention spans, to bring ourselves apart from the developments in Egypt and the region at large. Nearly all of us are impressed with a great and palpable sense that history is moving in seismic shifts even as we watch. This sense is compounded by the speculation we all indulged in, a little more than a week ago, as to whether other countries in the Middle East would follow Tunisia’s example. To be sure, the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, as well as the subsequent toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was more likely than most things to set off such massive demonstrations elsewhere, but most of us tend to quietly believe that history never progresses quite at the rate we would have it move if we were the deities of such things, and that the best realistic outcome was a few minor demonstrations scattered over the region, followed by the usual arrests. [Read more →]

“People, it’s time to tell the truth! This is a great crime! A conspiracy of Tusk, Obama and Putin!” Thus shouted one man through a loudspeaker in Warsaw when the coffin of Maria Kaczyńska, the Polish president’s wife, was being carried through the streets. In itself, this was unusual—if not necessarily the theory expounded, at least the public voicing of it in such a time of national mourning—but what followed was perhaps even more so. A white-shirted member of the public pleaded with the man to calm down, put away the loudspeaker, kneel on the ground and pray to God for forgiveness. The bewitched conspiracy theorist did so, after which he silently left the scene of the crime, loudspeaker in hand. [Read more →]

There’s a nice, long, fascinating article in The Nation on the ideas of Thomas Hobbes. The writer, Corey Robin, discusses the view posited in Quentin Skinner’s book Hobbes and Republican Liberty that Hobbes was the first counter-revolutionary. What does he mean by that? As he says, the English Civil War of the 1640s, often thought of as a revolution, was not a revolution at all, so what was there to be counter to? Well, Hobbes did think of it as a revolution, in the slightly antiquated sense that the ancients used the word—the cyclical change of a political system. (As an aside, that must surely be the origin of the modern political sense of the word, since when real revolutions started popping up, the word picked up new baggage.) The “revolutionaries” of the time were aiming for a republican system of government, and Hobbes was avowedly against such a thing. Where Hobbes’s genius lay, though, was in coming up with arguments against it that were not utterly terrible. [Read more →]

After the furore over Nick Griffin’s Question Time appearance has died down somewhat, perhaps we might be able to see more clearly its potential consequences for the British political landscape. Dianne Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, argues in The Independent that it was not the triumph for free speech that “white metropolitan liberals” tend to think it was. On the contrary, she says that it “legitimised” Griffin, and brought his extreme views a level of acceptance they would not otherwise have achieved. She makes the point that although Griffin has the right to express his views however he sees fit within the law, it is by no means his right to appear on the BBC with other “legitimate” politicians. That is true enough; however the reason for his appearance was not only the fact that he represents a small minority of voters, but also that he would inevitably expose his views for how ignorant and unacceptable they really are. [Read more →]

Following the BBC’s revelation that it is considering inviting Nick Griffin of the British National Party onto Question Time, there has been much angry debate. Sunny Hundal is firmly against it, and in the Guardian summarises the liberal “myths” that are posed as good reasons to have him on the show. The first and perhaps most obvious of these is: “the BNP’s arguments can be defeated through rational argument.” That in itself is not a myth: their arguments can be defeated through rational argument. After all, most reasonable people rightly think that the BNP’s views and policies are unjustified and evil. What Hundal means to say is “the BNP’s supporters can be converted through rational argument.” I have very little doubt that Sunny Hundal’s view on the matter is correct: there is no possible use of logic that can convert someone committed to such illogic. The BNP’s supporters, as he rightly says, are driven to their position by emotion, not reason—but they were driven to their position in the first place. Hardly any politician convinces by logical reasoning: why not apply their rhetorical and political skill in this case? [Read more →]