Obama's accession to power

President Barack Obama's inauguration was stirring and powerful. I have enjoyed supporting him throughout his candidacy and elections. Having read both his published books twice, I have have on several occasions expressed the view that this is one of the finest intellects, if not the finest, to approach the White House since the Enlightenment.

It will be interesting to see how his administration proceeds. The most likely result is a cautious, pragmatic, skilful administration, as smooth as his election machine. I hope that in addition there are some genuinely original and effective policies. 

Since I am British, and since I speak as a libertarian left-winger, I look forward to the unrolling of his foreign policy. The areas which I hope he will be proactive and not merely follow in the footsteps of earlier administrations are in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and Africa. 

In Iraq, I was in favour of invasion, and of toppling Saddam (like the great majority of both the British and American populations at the time), but not of the occupation afterward. I was also in favour of a rapid withdrawal after the invasion, and I would support an early withdrawal now along the time-line which Obama proposes. The great benefit of American withdrawal of combat troops is that the disparate forces that have united against American "occupation" would be denied their focus, and would be more easily dealt with by the elected Iraqi authorities.

In Afghanistan, the war is being lost because the U.S. and their allies are losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people. A radical overhaul of civil, political and military strategy should now take place. The long term objective should be a peaceful, democratically elected country which is able to function as a healthy member of the international community. But the means of achieving that result should be subject to the most stringent analysis. Purchasing the poppy crop for medical purposes, eliminating the Taliban and warlord middle-men, should be seriously and objectively considered. The influx of payments for this cash crop directly to the peasants would help to support and strengthen the economic base of the rural communities, and enable peasants to invest in livestock and other crops. Given that effective rule of the majority of Afghanistan from Kabul seems impossible, federation into regions with different ethnic majorities should also be evaluated. Afghanistan can be successfully negotiated, but it will require political will and ruthless clarity of vision.

Turning to Israel, I suggested in my previous posting that Israel and America should seize the strategic initiative from Hamas and others who believe in violence by building a "peace-road" between Gaza and the West Bank, uniting the two Palestinian territories and demonstrating their commitment to a future Palestine state. 

In Africa, President Obama should demand the end of the corrupt political class which -- with the exception of rare countries like Botswana -- rules almost all African states. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the political elite are called locally the Wa-Benzi. Wa means "people" and Benzi refers to the fact that they always have the latest Mercedes Benz limousines. Obama should demand that South Africa immediately withdraw its support for the terrible, failed, genocidal regime of Robert Mugabe. Africa's problem is not that it produces tyrants -- every society has its potential tyrants -- but rather that Africa's cowed and impoverished populations permit tyrannical rulers to exploit them with little more reaction than passive fatalism. A powerful and high-minded black American President should raise their expectations and morale, and they should learn to demand effective and non-corrupt governance.

As a last wish, I hope Obama cold-shoulders Gordon Brown. Brown's profligate state spending has brought Britain to the brink of bankruptcy as surely as George W Bush's own uncontrolled state spending has contributed to America's current impasse. Perhaps Obama will be that rarest and most valuable of political leaders -- a left-winger at heart who at the same time respects tax-payers' hard-earned money and who uses it frugally and wisely. That really would provide a fine model for future political leaders.

ISRAEL - a strategy for peace?

It continues to surprise me that Israel, that most intellectually vibrant of countries and cultures, allows its political life to be dictated by Hamas. 

I say this because Hamas can, effectively at will, undermine and destroy any peace initiative or attempt at negotiation simply by firing rockets at the Israeli civilian population. The consequences are inevitable. However long or patiently the population may suffer the disruption caused by rocket attacks, Israel in due course will be forced to respond and launch an attack against the Hamas military operations in Gaza. However careful Israel may be in targeting its military response, the heavily populated area means that there will be collateral damage, including the horrifying sight of dead or mutilated women and children, and the result will be a wholly understandable international public outcry against Israel. 

Another inevitable consequence of concerted Israeli military action will be a new generation of militant Islamic youth ready to take up arms and follow the banners of organisations like Hamas.

Surely it is time to consider whether there should not be a pro-active policy for long term peace, preferably one which seizes the strategic initiative from Hamas and which is not subject to Hamas's military or political veto. On this subject, I have one suggestion which I hope the Israeli government, along with President Obama and the new US administration, might at least consider. 

Israel should act to undermine the Hamas militants, and all those who believe in the elimination of the Israeli state, by building a "peace road" between Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank, uniting the two segments of a future Palestinian state with a highway which would be under the control of the Palestinians. This would demonstrate Israel's sincerity in helping to create a viable Palestinian state. The building of the "peace road" would have huge symbolic value. Given appropriate will, it should not be affected by random attacks by militants on the Israeli population. On the contrary, an organisation such as Hamas which persisted in attacking the Israeli population with rockets while that same population was busy constructing a road uniting the two regions of Palestine would incur the condemnation of civilised and rational international opinion. 

On a purely pragmatic and physical level, it might be argued the "peace road" would divide Israel. This would be an unjustified fear. The contractual rights granted to the Palestianians would allow the Palestinians control of, say, 10 feet of earth beneath the road to effect maintenance, and, say, 20 feet above the road to allow all conceivable forms of traffic. That would leave Israel free to build bridges over the highway or tunnels beneath it. In practice, the "peace road" would be far less of a physical obstacle to Israel's transport infrastructure than natural or geographical obstacles such as a line of hills or a valley.

Set against this, the political and social benefits would be of almost incalculable value. The "peace road" would seize the strategic initiative in the region, and create powerful momentum to turn politics away from the terrible and apparently interminable axis of war and retaliation. 

Above all, a "peace road", because it would be built on Israeli territory, would require no formal Palestinian consent. This would overcome perhaps the greatest and most intractable problem of all in future peace negotiations -- gaining the consent of a politically divided Palestinian population to agree to any form of unified representation. This is why, it could be argued, such a programme is superior to other forms of proposed progress in the middle east. To be set in motion, it requires the consent of only one of the opposed parties -- the Israelis.

   

If a new American administration wishes to invest in a more settled middle east, the construction of a "peace road" would be a far more effective contribution to the future stability of the region than any comparable military expenditure. An estimated cost of $4 billion is a considerable sum, but it pales, for example, beside the total cost of the Iraq war, which is now estimated at $597 billion. Funded by America, and built by Israeli labour, there are good reasons for believing a peace road uniting Palestine has a better chance of transforming the politics of the region than any further costly and potentially destructive military adventures.

A new English national anthem?

It may seem odd, perhaps even perverse, during a period in which the levels of immigration to this country have seldom been higher, to suggest that this is precisely the time when those of us who think of ourselves as English should celebrate our diversity of background.

Regarding my own nationality, perhaps I should put my cards on the table and say that, although I consider myself to be English, and (for example) avidly support English sporting teams, I suspect I have relatively little “pure” English blood in my veins. My father, Robin Collins, always cheerfully assured me that his side of the family came from a long line of Irish horse-thieves, and my mother, whose maiden name is Irvin, is of largely Scottish lineage. But I should add that I hardly feel alone. Almost always, whenever I meet someone who appears to be English to the core, further knowledge nearly always reveals a more exotic, complex and perhaps more interesting ancestry.

Even in the seventeenth century, Daniel Defoe was aware of this variety in our social lineage. In his trenchant verse satire The True Born Englishman, he describes how the English were always happy to welcome foreigners. According to him, our ancestors:

In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,

Infused between a Saxon and a Dane

While their rank daughters, to their parents just

Received all nations with promiscuous lust.

The nauseous brood directly did contain

The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

Scurrilous though Defoe might be about our eclectic tastes in marital and sexual partners, like much of the best satirical verse, I would submit that The True Born Englishman makes a serious point. The notion of a pure-bred English race, in any scientific or genetic sense, is nonsense. The English are a remarkably diverse and varied bunch. And, frankly, that’s how I like it.

Breeders of domestic animals have long been aware that the introduction of new strains tends to generate more active and fitter progeny. It is called “hybrid vigour”, and it has a strong base in genetics. Broadly speaking, every individual inherits half of his genes from his father and half from his mother. Each one of us contains some genes which are detrimental. Statistically speaking, the more closely related the parents are, the more likely their detrimental genes are to be replicated in the other parent, and the greater the chances of weaknesses being multiplied in the offspring. Conversely, the more distantly related our parents are, the more likely that any underlying weaknesses will be countered by very different genes in the other parent. For many years, genetic diversity has been positively associated with vigour or fitness, and for that reason, amongst others, perhaps we should be proud of our highly varied ancestry.

This in turn might seem an odd introduction to the main subject of this post, the English national anthem. It has been said by various commentators that God Save the Queen applies to the entire United Kingdom, and it is therefore somewhat anomalous that English sporting teams should sing it, not least when they are playing Scottish or Welsh teams, who are part of that same kingdom. These same commentators argue (justifiably, to my way of thinking) that this tradition perpetuates the view that England is not merely one part of the United Kingdom, but its dominant core.

For these reasons, I should like tentatively to propose a new English national anthem, one which does not assume or imply our English hegemony, but which instead emphasizes our own social richness and individuality. To me at least, the English as a culture are not only extremely diverse, but also extraordinarily inventive, outward-facing, and enterprising. Despite the credit crunch and the prevailing economic woes, we still have one of the largest economies in the world, arguably the greatest financial capital city in the world, and our elegant and flexible mongrel language (a blend of Germanic and Latinate elements, amongst others) has risen to become the dominant world language.

Parallel to this outward-facing dynamism, there is another view of English culture — as an historical leader in the development of individual liberty and its associated characteristics. Freedom of speech, freedom of association, private property, individual privacy and the universal rule of common law have all been significantly developed and extended in the course of our history. Compared with other dominant cultures, such as the French, German, Russian or Chinese (to name only four), it seems to me that what particularly distinguishes the English-speaking cultures, from Magna Carta to the present day, is an underlying historical progression towards the gradual, pragmatic but apparently inexorable decentralisation of power, and the greater enshrinement of individual liberty.

Taking these factors into account, in any new national anthem, I would suggest we should consider at least two important and specific changes to God Save the Queen. There can be little doubt that our society is increasingly secular, and that (not least in order to be fair to multiple religions and faiths) the state should distance itself from any given religion or specific official religious belief. Regarding the words of God Save the Queen, do the majority of us in the twenty-first century really believe a personal God not only exists but has a specific interest in our royal family? And is loyalty to the monarch really any longer the fulcrum of English society, the central belief which unites us?

My own wish would be that any proposed English national anthem would make reference to deeper unifying characteristics, preferably by making a virtue out of our diversity, and emphasising that what really unites our remarkable culture is not some mythical idea of race, or absolute fealty to a monarch, but certain distinguishing values held in common, such as our historical love of liberty. Perhaps there’s even room to mention our peculiarly self-critical and ironical sense of humour.

So here, at any rate, is my own submission for a new national anthem:

We’re made of waves of immigrants,

Who come in from the sea:

Tolerant, ingenious,

Jealous of privacy.

And one thing’s certain about our roots,

On our path to liberty:

From Magna Carta to the suffragettes

We always have been free.

Through industry and irony

We always shall be free.

At the very least, perhaps my own poor efforts will stimulate others to put forward their own versions of a new English national anthem, and their own arguments too as to why some features of our culture deserve greater emphasis than others.

THE SONNETS - again

It's strange, isn't it, how sometimes favourable reviews can disconcert more than unfavourable ones. John Self, the estimable denizen of the celebrated blog Asylum, has just written a characteristically insightful review of my recently published novel The Sonnets, which also happens to be highly favourable. In this respect at least I could hardly hope for more. However, in the comments beneath his article there follows (and this is the disconcerting part) a lengthy and to my mind absurd debate between his various readers on the subject of the cover of The Sonnets, which features a (to me at least) beautiful image of a seated woman. Several correspondents are disturbed because the image is "headless". Against this, one of the reasons I liked the picture immediately it was suggested to me by Scott Pack, my publisher at the Friday Project, was that it features a beautiful image of a woman's hands. Female hands are the subject of one of Shakespeare's most beautiful sonnets (amongst the 32 sonnets quoted in full in the text) and female hands are the subject, too, of one of my two imitation sonnets.

No doubt one should allow for diverse opinions, not least on the internet. Another largely favourable and beautifully written review by Sally Zigmond criticises these same two "imitation" sonnets because they "suffer by comparison with Shakespeare". It would be very surprising if they didn't! But just so the reader can judge for his or her self the effectiveness or otherwise of my two imitation sonnets, I'm going to include them both below.

The first occurs when Shakespeare is incensed on discovering that the Earl of Southampton's formidable and Machiavellian guardian Lord Burghley has encouraged his secretary, John Clapham, to write a poem called Narcissus which accuses the youthful Southampton of narcissism, and admonishes him for not turning his thoughts to marriage. Lord Burghley's motive appears obvious because several years before he used his position as Chancellor of the Court of Wards to arrange a marriage contract between the underage Southampton and his own granddaughter, Elizabeth de Vere, which neither of the youthful parties wishes to follow. In response, Shakespeare writes the following sonnet criticising Burghley's role in instigating Narcissus:

Lord of laughter, you showed me Narcissus,
A poem whose heart is hollowed by power;
Falsely addressed, it pretends to kiss us,
Telling of beauty, Cupid’s sweet bower;
Yet cold hearts form cold minds, eyes lose their sight;
Stealing our childhood, it counsels good faith.
Framed by deceit, the sun’s fatal glower
Reversing all virtue, makes permanent night.
In hell’s own smithies, Authority labours,
Shadow on shadow, reversing the year;
And what is more wretched, than making wretched,
When, lacking all mercy, he sheds no tear?
Then punish him not for what he may say;
A mind without light can never see day.

Afterwards, I make it clear that the poem does not survive, because Southampton -- after being amused by its sentiments -- instructs Shakespeare to destroy it in order not to put himself at risk from the formidable Lord Burghley.

The second imitation sonnet occurs when Shakespeare has been rejected in his suit by Emilia Bassano, one of the main historical candidates for the "dark lady". She was also the mistress of Shakespeare's theatrical patron, Lord Hunsdon, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. In the course of rejecting Shakespeare, Emilia bites the poet's hand, and admonishes him "not to bite the hand that feeds" him. When the wily old Hunsdon notices Shakespeare's bandaged hand, and asks him what was the cause of the wound, Shakespeare replies, "A faithful female hound." Hunsdon, guessing that Shakespeare was bitten by his mistress, admonishes him not to test the patience of "faithful female hounds" in future. Accordingly, in my second imitation sonnet Shakespeare addresses his rejection by Emilia and mentions the subjects of hounds and women's hands, amongst others:

If I hear music in the painted day,
Drawing myself towards those fateful sounds,
And all my thoughts move outward to the lay,
Like lines of scent on which run faithful hounds,
Then I must hide my thoughts in careful praise
Which, praising you, fall short of what I feel.
If I should moan your loss, make better days
The sad account of my most bitter meal,
Your fingers on the cloth, touching their hem,
Press me to sit and watch your subtle hands;
The singular white thoughts which rise from them,
Graceful as hinds towards that hidden land.
O, let me sit beside you while you play,
Allowing thoughts to alter night for day.

As with the first imitation sonnet, I tried to signal to the reader that the poem did not survive (in this case Shakespeare burns it immediately after writing it) and that therefore it was my own construction.

THE SONNETS - a new novel

I apologise for being absent from my blogs for several months. It seems, looking back, I have spent much of this summer revising various texts and proofs of forthcoming publications. This winter is likely to see publication of three different works. Having not been published in this country since 2000 (The Marriage of Souls) this is rather a heady prospect.

The first is my novel of The Sonnets, which is due to be be published in a limited edition in hardback on November 3rd by The Friday Project, an imprint of Harper Collins. Scott Pack and his colleagues at TFP have overseen a beautiful-looking production (the front cover image is shown here). Paperback publication is due next year.

The Sonnets is set in 1592-4, when the London theatres were closed by plague, and William Shakespeare was forced to earn his living by other means. The twenty-nine-year-old Shakespeare was fortunate to find a patron in the youthful Earl of Southampton, then nineteen, to whom he dedicated his long poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. The Sonnets is written from Shakespeare's perspective, and recounts Shakespeare's struggles to survive and write during those arduous and brutal times.

Thirty-two of Shakespeare's full sonnets are integrated into the narrative. One of my interests was to use a fictional form as a framework for some of Shakespeare's most well-known sonnets. A further interest in setting The Sonnets in this period was to recount the struggle between two powerful aristocrats. The Earl of Southampton had lost his father aged eight and his legal guardian was the brilliant but Machiavellian Lord Burleigh, Chancellor of the Court of Wards and Queen Elizabeth's most influential adviser. Where Southampton loved the arts, Burleigh regarded the theatre in particular as deeply seditious. The Sonnets recounts the conflict between these two powerful men, with Shakespeare a reluctant pawn between their opposed interests.

I shall be posting more blogs below on the progress of these various books in the next few months.

Africa's colonial trauma

Perhaps the worst thing that could be said about Robert Mugabe is that he has exploited his populus more ruthlessly than the colonialists whose rule he effectively replaced. In what appears to be a terrible (and no doubt subconscious) caricature of the worst aspects of colonialism, he has enslaved the people of Zimbabwe. He has concentrated power in the presidency, used violence systematically to subjugate the population, granted a small elite of his cronies vast privileges and rights above others, undermined the supremacy of parliament, and debauched the currency to the extent that it has effectively corroded almost every aspect of normal economic life. He now appears to be engaged in systematically rigging the election and defying the democratic mandate of the people. In this latter attempt it could be argued that his actions demonstrate his own fundamental feelings towards his fellow Africans more eloquently than any amount of grandstanding on the evils of colonialism.

Compared with Mugabe, the former British colonialists at least established freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, a stable currency, and a functioning economy capable of supplying its own food and exporting surpluses. A significant progressive proportion of the former colonial power believed (no doubt patronisingly but sincerely) in the emancipation of the indigenous peoples — a set of assumptions which eventually culminated in Macmillan’s “wind of change” policies granting independence to Britain’s remaining African colonies.

Those who are not familiar with Africa are perhaps unaware of the degree to which so much of the continent has been genuinely traumatised by colonialism. It could be argued that all colonies are to some extent affected, but the level of African colonial trauma is unusual, and quite possibly unique. After all, colonialism has not held back China, or India, or southeast Asia states such as Singapore or Thailand, from advancing by various paths towards functioning modern states. In Africa, however, a large part of the population unfortunately regards the colonial past as the key or defining aspect of their lives. Decades after the last colonial administrations, certain African leaders continue to use the threat of re-colonisation as a means of unifying a populace against a largely imaginary external conspiracy. Mugabe epitomises this in its most extreme form.

The unique African colonial trauma is not only powerful in its continuing appeal to a significant proportion of the population, but has been potent enough to guarantee Mugabe in power for 28 years. Whenever his administration is threatened, he rushes to reassert what seems to him to be a simple, primal truth. If his country is not eternally “vigilant”, it will be re-colonised by the British. Mugabe invariably portrays himself as the last bulwark against re-colonisation, and justifies all his actions accordingly. This was the centrepiece of Mugabe’s speech at his most recent mass rally.

Africa’s special colonial trauma is by no means uniform across states, and in this at least there is cause for hope. By contrast, Botswana — (and perhaps nostalgically) evoked for English readers in Alexander McCall Smith’s novels — managed a less traumatic and more gentle transition to independence. Its founding political leader, Sir Seretsi Khama, had far easier relations with the former colonialists than Mugabe. After his country’s independence, his BDP party won the general election in 1965 and since then Botswana’s democratic institutions have taken hold and appear to be stable. It is, geographically speaking, a landlocked country with an arid climate which includes large swathes of the Kalahari desert, and its economy continues to have a too large dependence on diamonds. But despite these physical disadvantages Botswana demonstrates the obverse of the special colonial trauma which affects Zimbabwe. The populus, by and large, tends to trust its elected politicians. It is also one of the few African countries where there is a genuine attempt to isolate and limit corruption amongst the political elite.

In other parts of Africa the colonial trauma still holds strong sway, and tragically dominates political discourse. Its prevalence not only explains why Mugabe has been able to enslave his own population in the name of anti-colonialism, but it also helps to clarify why the leaders of neighbouring countries, such as Thabo Mbeki, accord Mugabe such latitude in his attempts to retain power. In the mind of Mbeki, the colonial trauma is of such overwhelming importance that Mugabe’s status as his country’s liberator outweighs and supersedes all the crimes he has committed against his own people.

Britain, and Prime Minister Brown, find themselves in a paradoxical position in attempting to negotiate this delicate situation. On the one hand, any interest in Zimbabwe’s democratic structures (or the lack of them) can be immediately characterised by Mugabe and his allies as an attempt by the former colonial power to reassert its hegemony. This in turn can make such pronouncements — however well-meaning — counter-productive.

A better strategy is to face directly the legacy of colonial trauma, recognise its importance, and begin to help Africa by attempting gently to dismantle its most self-destructive elements. We are fortunate perhaps that the forces of history are on our side. A newer generation of African leaders, who have no direct experience of colonialism, will soon come to power. They do not define themselves as anti-colonial liberators, and will have stronger incentives to make their own countries function effectively in a modern world. Other more intangible factors, such as the rise of a formidable African-American presidential candidate in the United states, may further help the process by subtly moderating the attitude of Africans towards themselves and their social and cultural inheritance.

One thing, however, is certain. The sooner that the last vestiges of colonial trauma are removed from Africa or are superseded by natural political evolution, the sooner African states will be able take their place in the modern world. And if this is so, there can be little doubt that we ought to conduct our policy towards African states largely with this in mind.

Against a background of provocative actions by the Mugabe regime, we should be extremely careful that our actions cannot be used as evidence that we are planning to interfere in that country, and thus as a means by which Mugabe can prolong Zimbabwe’s agony. Against our better instincts, the best we can do is stand back, and offer at most quiet and covert support to those opposition parties who genuinely wish to rid themselves of Mugabe’s dictatorial regime.

Within Zimbabwe itself, Morgan Tsvangirai is one of a newer generation of leaders whose political consciousness has been formed after his country’s independence. On the wider front, both Mugabe and his South African supporter, Thabo Mbeki — two old freedom fighters who embody the colonial trauma at its most extreme — are receding forces in the developing African states. Mugabe’s increasingly desperate regime is engaged in the last desperate throw of the dice. Mbeki’s position has been irreparably weakened by his loss of the ANC leadership to his rival Jacob Zuma, who promises a more pragmatic and less tolerant attitude to Zimbabwe’s electoral violations.

However slowly it happens, and however tortuous the process may appear, we would be justified in assuming that African countries are capable of reforming themselves, and should be left to forge their own destiny. A severe political and social crisis has been averted in Kenya largely through the responsible intervention of other African politicians. Zimbabwe too will emerge from under its present terrible regime, probably sooner rather than later. The country and its people will benefit greatly if it does so under its own auspices and independently of the former colonial power.