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.