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-----Original Message-----

From:         Kabir Njaay <[log in to unmask]>



Date:         Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:26:08 

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Subject: Fwd: Britain without Blair





Britain without Blair



http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/42829



Tajudeen Abdul Raheem (2007-07-27)



Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reflects on the political processes in Britain after

Blair and looks the fall of Thatcher and the origins of New Labour. Can you

imagine, he asks, a similar situation in Africa?



In the past two weeks I have been in countries with a 'new' head. I left

Yar'Adua's Nigeria for Gordon Brown's Britain. For the first time in ten

years one entered Britain without having to put up with the arrogant and

sanctimonious Blair and his spin doctors. The Long Good Bye is finally over.

For those who think it is only African leaders who are desperate not to

leave office just look at how long it took the Labour Party to get rid of

their Savior-turned-Judas of a leader. Unfortunately for the Palestinians,

this fraudulent prophet has been made their interlocutor. How a second-hand

leader parceled by Bush could be their savior I do not know.



I must confess that I have not made the transition from Blairism to Brownism

properly. Seeing Brown on television in Britain I was still looking at him

like the Chancellor he had been for the past decade. But being in Britain

got me thinking about the many years that I have spent in that country.



It is a big shame that Africans do not write about Westerners the way they

write about us; but we keep complaining about their prejudices, inaccuracies

and false knowledge about the African condition.



Two weeks safari in the Masai Mara and someone becomes an expert on our

foods, lifestyles, culture, history, geography or whatever. Millions of

Africans have been in the West from time immemorial, but we do not lay claim

to being 'Europeanists'!



It is one of those vicarious 'benefits' of the British imperial past that as

'commonwealth ' citizens, British-resident citizens, immigrants and settlers

from former British colonies (except the USA which has its own uncommon

wealth in which Britain shares!) can vote and even be voted for in British

elections. Being voted for has been relatively easier for citizens from the

old White Commonwealth of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa,

though second generation descendants of the non-white Commonwealth from

Asia, the Caribbean and Africa are also beginning to break into the system

(though they are more successful at the local levels than in the British

Parliament in Westminster).



The visibility of black MPs both in parliament and government positions

including the Cabinet only serves to show how uncommon it is. They are so

few that we know them all; they become instantly famous just for being

black! One of the ironies of uncommon wealth politics is that many Africans

have probably had more opportunity to vote and be involved in democratic

politics in Britain than in their own countries. I have voted more often in

Britain than in Nigeria. And this is not just because I have been away for

'too long', my peer group who did not live outside have never had many

opportunities to vote since the military had been in power for most of their

lives. Until recently, military rule with civilian interludes has been the

order of the day. Thankfully that is now more or less over and we are now in

the era of 'voting without choosing' or choosing without making any

difference.



It can be argued though that even in more stable societies elections do not

change much because there is too much public contentment or governing

consensus among the ruling classes, and between their main political

parties. Consequently, politics has become more commercialized, money and

media driven, with no disagreement on fundamentals therefore reducing

politics to forms of presentation largely devoid of substance. Hence the

increasing democratic deficit in many Western democracies of voter apathy,

especially among the young.



All that taken into consideration, and despite obvious Americanization,

British politics in the 1980s and early 1990s still inspired great

ideological disputes and debates, essentially because of the Thatcherite

Conservative counter-revolution that tore apart the old consensus within the

British political establishment. She shifted the politics to the extreme

right, provoking moderates, the 'noblese oblige' type Tories in her own

party, and all kinds of leftist opposition in the Labour Party, the Labour

movement and eventually the whole country.



The main opposition Labour Party swung between left and right for many

years, even provoking a split that led to the walkout by more openly

right-wing elements who felt that the militant left had taken over the party

and made it unelectable. They formed the SDP which initially attracted a lot

of support from across the board among people who wanted a different kind of

politics from the tribal war between the Tories and Labour. Unfortunately

for David Owen and his tiny bunch, the two party system (and its ethnic,

provincial and regional voting patterns) is so embedded in Britain that the

room for a third party (let alone a fourth one) is extremely limited. They

merged with the Liberal Party which had always operated as the halfway

lounge between the Tories and Labour. Their hopes of becoming a powerful

third force, holding the balance of power in a 'hung parliament', evaporated

as Labour became more and more moderate and electable.



What really happened in the Labour Party was that the smarter right-wingers

did not leave the party but bided their time and embarked on a long term

right-wing counter revolution inside the party, involving a reform of old

ideological positions and a loosening of the traditional Labourite,

socialist and egalitarian conscience. The emergence of Neil Kinnock as the

Party Leader facilitated the right-wing coup. He came from a staunch Labour

background, solidly in the left of the party and a credible working-class

hero. He sold moderation to the party and the movement and helped to begin

the process of Labour recovery and electability by facing down the hard left

and Labour militants. Still, he lost two elections to Margaret Thatcher but

held Labour votes and increased it as the Conservatives took lower votes.

Unfortunately Kinnock did not make it and lost the 1992 elections to a

little known John Major after the Conservatives had committed political

matricide by getting rid of Margaret Thatcher. That was the last time I was

most passionately involved in British partisan politics.



I was there on the foot steps of the Old Labour Party Headquarters on

Woolworth Rd in South London when Kinnock conceded victory to Major and

announced his resignation to crying party supporters. The second day you

could not find many people who would admit that they had voted Tory. If it

was in Africa opposition supporters would have cried 'rigging' because the

media and popular opinion widely predicted a Labour Victory. From then

onwards I never really bothered about being active in British politics

anymore even though I remained a passive supporter of the anti-Tory

movement. After Kinnock it was John Smith who unfortunately died very early

in his leadership. His sudden death made it possible for the brewing

right-wing coup to be brought forward with Blair emerging as the Leader. Had

Smith lived longer who knows if Blair would have been that fortunate? Smith

was very much to Kinnock in opposition as Gordon was to Blair in power. One

does the politics and the other the economics.



The party was hungry for power and in Blair they found a winner even if it

was at the expense of their ideological souls. Brown continued Smith's

number-crunching that made business interests to begin to take Labour

seriously as managers of British capitalism. The Labour party became more

middle class.



In power Mr. Blair was more of an adopted political son of Margaret

Thatcher, more at home when battling the Labour party and so called OLD

Labour values. The Thatcherites used to sing: 'If it is not hurting it is

not working' to justify their assault on the poor and to subsidise the greed

of the rich and powerful. In Blair's Britain it was punned to mean: If the

Labour Party is not complaining, it cannot be right. Even when he seemed to

have conquered every tendency, save for a small group of non- conformists,

he would deliberately pick quarrels with the Party. He was the closest

Britain got to having a truly Presidential PM and the Peoples' Party became

the Leader's Party. For a few years it seemed he could walk on air and

water. He took on the party and won, took on the Government and won, and

then he took on the British people on many issues- but Iraq was to be his

Waterloo from which his authority never quite recovered. In politics, as in

real life, once an elephantine problem knocks you down then all kinds of

crawling crawlers will climb on to you. Like Thatcher he was kicked out

after 'winning' a consecutive third-term electoral victory.



Blair's fall from grace is proof, yet again, that whatever goes up will come

down; but politicians like other human beings never learn. When they are up

they never think they will come down and they always do. However there are

important lessons. One, a politician is the servant of the people not their

master, no matter how popular he or she may be. In a genuine democracy, as

in a real consumer driven society, the citizen (i.e. customer) is always

right. Two, political parties, parliament, judiciary, the media and other

autonomous institutions are necessary for democracy to take root and

democratic culture to be nurtured. Strong leaders influence people and

institutions and sometimes destroy them. But for sustainable democracy these

institutions must endure. It was not the electorate that threw out Blair or

Thatcher before him, but their own political parties on whose behalf they

were acting.



Can you imagine a similar situation in many African countries? The President

will dissolve the party and dissolve the Parliament! Three, there must be

credible alternative leaders, whether within the ruling party or outside of

it, deliberately nurtured without being considered traitors or disloyal. Can

you imagine if Gordon Brown had been a Cabinet Minister in some African

country? Would he have retained his post breathing down the President's neck

for so long? In the worst of cases he would probably be dead by now or

hounded out of cabinet or politics or be in exile.



However, there are encouraging signs in some countries like Ghana, Botswana

and Tanzania. The immediate Foreign Minister of Ghana, Nana Akuffo Ado had

never hidden the fact that he wanted Kuffour's job, having been beaten to

second place by him in 2002. Similarly, the current President of Tanzania,

Jakaya Kikwete, was a runner up to his predecessor and remained Foreign

Minister for ten years before becoming President. However in many countries

up to now even mere suspicion of the ambition can land you in 'hot soup'.

These are countries where the people are not supposed to even imagine life

without the current occupant of state house. However, no matter how long it

takes they will all become 'former current chairman' as Idi Amin famously

said of himself!



Blair's exit also shows that sometimes people may just want a change for the

sake of it. I am not sure there is much ideological difference between Blair

and Brown, but there is a difference in style and presentation. In the end

people just got fed up with Blair and his lectures, his missionary

strictures and braggadocio. The truth though is that Brown even takes

himself more seriously as an intellectual politician than Blair. Both

domestically and internationally there may be more action than words, and

probably less of the razzmatazz and media obsession of the Blair years. But

it may well be the same difference on many issues.



With huge apologies to the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy, It's the God of

Small Changes. The Conservatives remain unelectable because thanks to Blair

and Brown all their clothes have been stolen by New Labour. Just like the

Tories prevented a Labour victory in 1992 by having a change within with

John Major. Labour may have guaranteed itself a fourth term by being rid of

Blair. Unfortunately, David Cameron sounds more like a Blair clone. May be

he should just vacate his post and give it to the real Blair, currently

wandering like Moses in the Middle East as Cameron is getting lost in

Rwandan villages in the name of showing Africa he cares. Blair did the care

for Africa, and this never led him or those Africans naïve enough to trust

him, anywhere.



* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium

Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his

personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to [log in to unmask] or comment online at

http://www.pambazuka.org/





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