Talking Cents
August2016
Talking Cents is an ecumenical group charged by the Auckland Anglican Diocesan Council to promote an alternative to current economic and political thought, and to encourage debate within the church. Ministry units are encouraged to distribute these articles. This article is contributed by Kevin McBride from Pax Christi Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Adrift on a Sea of Discontent
Turning and turning in the widening gyre *
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) wrote this verse, part of his poem “The Second Coming”, in 1919, a period of confusing turmoil following the end of the disastrous First World War. He was himself becoming more involved in the Irish struggle for independence leading up to the failed 1921 Easter Rising. The gyre* represents an image of a world spinning out of control, understandable in the context in which he wrote.
I was in England for the last few days of the Brexit campaign and at a conference in Brussels with several delegates from the UK to share its result with them. Although it was a long way from New Zealand, the whole sorry business gave me lots of food for thought about the wider field of politics. Before Brexit and since, there has been the spectacle associated with the presidential primaries in the United States and a messy contest for leadership in Australia which has delivered an inordinate amount of power to the likes of Pauline Hanson and other fringe elements. It was no comfort to come home to the “he said/she said” reportage of issues as serious as our growing housing crisis and revelations in the Panama Papers of wilful ignorance, if not implicit collaboration, in international tax evasion schemes. It all echoes the concerns of the poet Yeats.
Although we in the “democratic West” have enjoyed a time of relative peace over the past few decades, we face a rising tide of violence in countries we have helped to form, together with inter-community and domestic violence in our communities. Alongside all this is a growing lack of confidence in our political systems to deal with the current crises, associated with a perceived failure on the part of our media to analyse and responsibly report on them. Here in New Zealand, respected journalists have disappeared from our television screens and editorial columns to be replaced by infotainment and press releases from politicians or their publicity managers.
This was not so much the case in England where I was able to enjoy careful and critical analysis of the Brexit campaign in the likes of “The Times” and “The Observer”. While each had their own bias, it was refreshing to find a thoughtful coverage of the views from all sides in the campaign. I quickly became aware that both Remain and Leave sides were appealing to a populist rather than a considered approach to the referendum, with the latter more focussed on denigrating politicians and experts than presenting considered possibilities which would follow their own success. Conservative politicians Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and UKIP’s Nigel Farage were named by Observer columnist Nick Cohen, as “paranoid populists” who “scream that all politicians are liars and crooks then sit back expecting to be applauded as heartily as they applaud themselves.” Their favourite vehicle is social media where they demand that the BBC sack journalists who “report uncomfortable facts” and they emulate “Donald Trump’s smears of all who cross him.”
Another tactic applied in the campaign was the dismissal of “experts”, often cited as “nothing more than paid-up propaganda arms of the European Commission”. (“Observer 19 June 2016). The Bank of England, World Trade Organisation, OECD and World Bank, together with nine out of ten economists surveyed, all warned of the dangers to the economy of both Britain and the EU if the Leave vote prevailed. Academic and church leaders, former political leaders of all parties, historians and serious political analysts (“Observer” Letters 19 June 2016) all shared their concerns about the effects of such a blunt instrument as a simple-majority referendum called as a desperate political gesture by a Conservative leader pressured by rifts in his own party.
Perhaps most misleading and dangerous of all tactics was the attack on migration as ‘weakening the fibre of being truly British’. Significantly, this tactic was strongest in the north-east, where recent migrants account for just 2% of the population, whereas London, one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the world, was solidly for remaining.
In contrast to the “clarity” and “certainty” of the Brexit leaders, popular media presented main party leaders as lukewarm and uncertain. I watched Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn on TV facing a roomful of young questioners. He was trying to adopt a measured approach and appeared to me to be clearly against Brexit, but commentators at the end could only remark on his “lack of passion” and completely ignored the strength of his arguments. The contrast with the likes of Johnson, Gove and Farage, illustrated clearly the last two lines of Yeats’ poem quoted above.
I read recently that this is part of our living in a “post-truth era” where what one says about an issue relies not on discernible reality but is a “matter of perception.” Certainly, it is most unlikely that those who circulated posters threatening that Turkey was preparing to send 77 million migrants to take advantage of Britain’s National Health Service believed that. Equally unlikely was the promise of the Leavers that billions saved from the exorbitant costs of EU bureaucracy would be transferred to the same health service. Such extravagances dropped from sight even before the campaign was over. But the damage had been done and its effects were reflected in the dismay and shock shown by British participants in the conference in Brussels. As newspapers emerged, it became obvious that even some of those who had voted to leave the EU wished they could have turned the clock back.
I wonder how much similar reflection is going on in the United States at the moment as they deal with the reality of having Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and potentially president? The campaign that has brought him to this stage has been remarkably similar to that run by the Brexit promoters in Britain: a campaign based on slogans, sound-bites and mob-reaction to appeals to the prejudices of those wishing to return to a past which never existed. It hardly looks like responsible democracy.
As we look at these examples from countries with which we are closely allied, whose trends we frequently imitate and reflect, might we examine their presence in our recent and current political debates and decisions? Are desperately important issues smothered in a cloud of verbal fudgings and spin? Does our media give more attention to controversy and political points-scoring at the expense of disinterested analysis and facts-based solution-finding? My suspicion is that when we find ourselves in the position of trying to address real social and regional needs, we are faced with a very similar environment of “post-truth” explanations and “it’s a matter of perception” statements already colouring interviews with our political leaders.
Are there any remedies? I agree with the analysis of Naomi Klein (“This Changes Everything”), that there is a massive need for a revival of civil society. Dame Anne Salmond (NZ Herald, 15 July 2016) named essential values for such renewal as: “ideas such as truth and justice, decency and a fair go – in the media, political life, the justice system, education and in business … to protect democratic checks and balances”. Otherwise, she goes on, “we are likely to find ourselves adrift with no ethical compass to guide us and heading for the rocks. Much of life in the Anglo-American world looks like that at present.”
My experience of the Brexit campaign, reports of the American presidential election preliminaries and media exposure to our own leaders all indicate that we are already adrift and in need of a new set of navigators. Could it be time for more faith-based community engagement?
* a vortex or spiral