Get Out of Denver (Baby)
Jan. 8th, 2006 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningI want to expand on a comment I wrote on someone else’s post yesterday. The general theme – brought about in part due to Charles Kennedy’s difficulties and subsequent resignation – was along the lines of “what can we do to increase political awareness” within the British electorate. (I am paraphrasing from memory – it was put a lot better – and less patronising – than that.)
The general view from the comments I read seemed to be that there was a need for political education at some level. I am not sure that I wholly agree, but that is a different matter.
My comment was that politics is about much more than how you vote – it is about where you shop, what you buy, what you eat – and so much more.
I want to explain why this is.
I grew up mainly in the 1970s – I went to secondary school in 1971, and university in 1979 – and these were troubled times. There were rapidly failing governments in Westminster, there was for a time a Liberal-Labour coalition; there were riots on the streets, with both the far right and the far left getting in on the act; there were rampant strikes and industrial shortages as a result. (The piles of rotting garbage in the streets were more than compensated for by the clear night skies brought about by the power-cuts – you cannot imagine the joy of seeing a wealth of stars in the London skies.)
And there was racism. I was first aware of this through the inequities of apartheid – a little further back, in the 1960s: I recall a black South African exile, a friend of my parents, was told he could returned to attend his father’s funeral – and when he did so, he was arrested at the airport and deported. I didn’t understand the politics, but I thought that any country that could be so cruel at a personal level had to be wrong.
Then in the seventies, the right rose fighting: and the left fought back. Being a good middle class kid, I didn’t go to any riots; but I did go on quite a few marches – I particularly recall a huge Rock Against Racism march to Victoria Park in Hackney. The presence of a concert featuring the Clash and Elvis Costello may have accounted for most of the people there – including myself – but what the heck: we were giving voice to our feelings and beliefs.
So politics became deeply entwined with music too. I remember an review of Costello’s “Armed Forces” LP in the NME had the headline Emotional Politics and Political Emotions. I was taken to jazz concerts by my parents of the Brotherhood of Breath, formed around a nucleus of South African emigres – black and white – who had to leave South Africa so they could play music together. (OK, I hated the music back then – I was too young to get it – but the politics wasn’t lost on me.) I remember listening to Louis Armstrong sing “Black and Blue” - I’m white inside but you can’t hide what is in your face and Billie Holiday sending a shiver down my spine with “Strange Fruit” - southern trees bear strange fruit: blood on the leave and blood at the roots; black bodies swinging in the southern breeze – strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. (A song written by a Jewish émigré, I believe.)
Then there is a politics of modern jazz, which developed in hand with the civil rights movement in the US: Let Freedom Ring, the Freedom Suite… this wasn’t just artists affecting a connection, this was their lives. The anger within much of the American free jazz movement stems from the politics of the time.
In 1979 I spent a few weeks in Israel/Palestine: I met Jews and Palestinians; I was kicked under the table as a relative trying to tell a young cousin to shut up mistook my ankle for hers. What shocked me was the blatant racism against the Palestinians – we were only stopped when we were with Palestinians; I returned to London pro-Palestinian, much to my grandfather’s concern (he had hoped I would become a zionist).
So in the seventies and early eighties, politics was very much about what food you bought (Israeli oranges? South African wine? Chilean? It all depended on what the government was), where you banked, and what you actually did. Sexual politics were changing too, and politics became engrained in our very behaviour – perhaps this was the start of political correctness, perhaps it was just a phase.
It seems a long time ago; it is. But the habits remain: I still find it hard to buy Soputh African – though maybe that is because of the South African government’s bizarre stance on AIDS.
I think the domination of British politics by Thatcher and the Conservatives in the eighties did a lot to change the mood: the old politics failed, and without a viable opposition, there was no visible alternative. Being in Scotland for the first half of the eighties was certainly a strange experience – with no representation (Scotland was solidly labour; England solidly Tory), the Scots were subjected to every Tory experiment going. (The one bright spot – retrospectively – is that the Tories – or more likely, Margaret Thatcher – ignored what the Scottish experiments told them: singularly failing to learn from the experience, they implemented the poll tax in England which lead to their demise.)
I have changed too: like it or not, I am one of Thatcher’s children. The starvation of academia of funds in the eighties had a direct influence on my career choice – I left a research job and became an accountant (and my only regret is that it is exactly what Thatcher would have wanted).
I now work for a bank; and politics is still part of the job. We have a joint venture with a Chinese bank, part of an intolerant regime which allegedly uses torture (or is that the USA?) and greatly restricts the personal freedom of its citizens. I don’t have to work with the Chinese; but if I did, where would the job finish and politics start? I don’t think they can really be separated.
Does politics interact with life? Of course it does: they are one and the same.
The general view from the comments I read seemed to be that there was a need for political education at some level. I am not sure that I wholly agree, but that is a different matter.
My comment was that politics is about much more than how you vote – it is about where you shop, what you buy, what you eat – and so much more.
I want to explain why this is.
I grew up mainly in the 1970s – I went to secondary school in 1971, and university in 1979 – and these were troubled times. There were rapidly failing governments in Westminster, there was for a time a Liberal-Labour coalition; there were riots on the streets, with both the far right and the far left getting in on the act; there were rampant strikes and industrial shortages as a result. (The piles of rotting garbage in the streets were more than compensated for by the clear night skies brought about by the power-cuts – you cannot imagine the joy of seeing a wealth of stars in the London skies.)
And there was racism. I was first aware of this through the inequities of apartheid – a little further back, in the 1960s: I recall a black South African exile, a friend of my parents, was told he could returned to attend his father’s funeral – and when he did so, he was arrested at the airport and deported. I didn’t understand the politics, but I thought that any country that could be so cruel at a personal level had to be wrong.
Then in the seventies, the right rose fighting: and the left fought back. Being a good middle class kid, I didn’t go to any riots; but I did go on quite a few marches – I particularly recall a huge Rock Against Racism march to Victoria Park in Hackney. The presence of a concert featuring the Clash and Elvis Costello may have accounted for most of the people there – including myself – but what the heck: we were giving voice to our feelings and beliefs.
So politics became deeply entwined with music too. I remember an review of Costello’s “Armed Forces” LP in the NME had the headline Emotional Politics and Political Emotions. I was taken to jazz concerts by my parents of the Brotherhood of Breath, formed around a nucleus of South African emigres – black and white – who had to leave South Africa so they could play music together. (OK, I hated the music back then – I was too young to get it – but the politics wasn’t lost on me.) I remember listening to Louis Armstrong sing “Black and Blue” - I’m white inside but you can’t hide what is in your face and Billie Holiday sending a shiver down my spine with “Strange Fruit” - southern trees bear strange fruit: blood on the leave and blood at the roots; black bodies swinging in the southern breeze – strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. (A song written by a Jewish émigré, I believe.)
Then there is a politics of modern jazz, which developed in hand with the civil rights movement in the US: Let Freedom Ring, the Freedom Suite… this wasn’t just artists affecting a connection, this was their lives. The anger within much of the American free jazz movement stems from the politics of the time.
In 1979 I spent a few weeks in Israel/Palestine: I met Jews and Palestinians; I was kicked under the table as a relative trying to tell a young cousin to shut up mistook my ankle for hers. What shocked me was the blatant racism against the Palestinians – we were only stopped when we were with Palestinians; I returned to London pro-Palestinian, much to my grandfather’s concern (he had hoped I would become a zionist).
So in the seventies and early eighties, politics was very much about what food you bought (Israeli oranges? South African wine? Chilean? It all depended on what the government was), where you banked, and what you actually did. Sexual politics were changing too, and politics became engrained in our very behaviour – perhaps this was the start of political correctness, perhaps it was just a phase.
It seems a long time ago; it is. But the habits remain: I still find it hard to buy Soputh African – though maybe that is because of the South African government’s bizarre stance on AIDS.
I think the domination of British politics by Thatcher and the Conservatives in the eighties did a lot to change the mood: the old politics failed, and without a viable opposition, there was no visible alternative. Being in Scotland for the first half of the eighties was certainly a strange experience – with no representation (Scotland was solidly labour; England solidly Tory), the Scots were subjected to every Tory experiment going. (The one bright spot – retrospectively – is that the Tories – or more likely, Margaret Thatcher – ignored what the Scottish experiments told them: singularly failing to learn from the experience, they implemented the poll tax in England which lead to their demise.)
I have changed too: like it or not, I am one of Thatcher’s children. The starvation of academia of funds in the eighties had a direct influence on my career choice – I left a research job and became an accountant (and my only regret is that it is exactly what Thatcher would have wanted).
I now work for a bank; and politics is still part of the job. We have a joint venture with a Chinese bank, part of an intolerant regime which allegedly uses torture (or is that the USA?) and greatly restricts the personal freedom of its citizens. I don’t have to work with the Chinese; but if I did, where would the job finish and politics start? I don’t think they can really be separated.
Does politics interact with life? Of course it does: they are one and the same.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-08 09:18 pm (UTC)It surprises/upsets me how little many people consider these things. My choice of bank is informed by my ethics, as is where I will buy food from (the Israeli stuff stays on the shelf, as does almost everything from further away than Spain). I think this year I have to get to grips with ethical clothes-buying, which is increasingly difficult since everytyhing seems to be manufactured in China :-/
But I'm probably only like this because I was brought up by parents who were highly educated, members of the local anti-nuclear group, had an allotment, were largely vegetarian, etc etc. And I know I'm in the minority in that regard.
I think the bottom line is that we are becoming ever more selfish as a people, and that combined with this is a burgeoning political apathy which means that people don't even consider the politics of their everyday lives. *sigh*