The politics of grievance requires a 'bogeyman'. An all-purpose evil on which can be blamed everything that is wrong with life – and the only thing that stands between us and a vague promised utopia.
Bogeyman Politics asks you to believe that there is one simple cure for all of the interconnected problems of messy, complicated, fragile day-to-day life. Can't get a hospital appointment? Blame the Bogeyman. Wages don't stretch far enough? Blame the Bogeyman. Can't get on the housing ladder? Blame the Bogeyman. Marriage breaking up? Blame the Bogeyman. It is a crass oversimplification, peddled by charlatans who want you to think that they alone, in this big scary world, are on your side. It is a con.
For some, the Bogeyman is 'bankers', or 'neoliberalism'. For others, 'Westminster'. For many, it is 'immigration'. For the majority of people who will vote to leave the European Union tomorrow, it is the EU that fills that role; the EU is the Bogeyman, responsible for everything bad about Britain, and the one and only thing that's holding us back from being truly great (or, if you are of a nostalgic bent, 'great again').
Real life is more complex than that. More difficult than that. Anyone selling you the idea you can fix all your problems with one fell swoop is not telling you the truth.
Which is why it is sad to see campaigners for the 'Remain' camp in the EU referendum rebutting the 'Leave' campaign's Bogeyman Politics with a few choice Bogeymen of their own. All day today I have watched a steady stream of smug, supercilious Tweets and Facebook posts along the lines of "Oh, you think single issue x is to blame for everything bad? Ha! You fools! Can't you see that single issue y is to blame for everything bad…?"
No doubt the people posting this stuff think themselves very clever. They aren't fooled by the narrative that the EU is the root cause of all our nation's problems! They can see right through that! They know what the true cause is. But they have allowed themselves to be duped by a different narrative – one which is just as seductively simplistic, and just as destructively wrong.
As with most things, there is no one simple answer. The 'Bogeyman' concept is attractive because it is comforting. It is less frightening to be told you are a basically 'good' person who has been a victim of some malign conspiracy – and that you have it within your power to rise up and take back what is rightfully yours from those who have done you wrong – than that you are adrift on a rolling sea of entropy in the ever-changing, unforgiving, big wide world. Having someone, or something, to blame – giving it a form, a name, a face – makes life easier to cope with. At last, the question "Why do these things always happen to me?!" seems to have an answer.
It is an understandable, human reaction. But political movements based on grievance, where politicians knowingly perpetuate the 'Bogeyman' narrative to mobilise great swathes of the general public, have a long and ugly track record of turning very nasty indeed. And when campaigners for 'Remain' offer up an alternative Bogeyman as a focal point for the mystified anger of 'Leave' voters, they are guilty of it just the same.
The trouble (for both sides) comes afterwards – once the Bogeyman is slain. The Bogeyman may have been defeated, but the problems of ordinary life have not gone away. The hospital waiting times, the tax bills, the energy prices… These things have not disappeared overnight. The sunlit uplands of utopia glibly promised by the politicians who cynically played on people's fear of the Bogeyman to win votes seem as far away as ever.
And so, the search for a new Bogeyman must begin. Something has to fill that void. Something, or someone, has to be to blame. Who do we think that might turn out to be? When Britain votes to leave the European Union, and people's lives are not magically improved overnight, the public anger which did so much to drive the anti-EU movement won't just vanish – we should all be very concerned about what (or who) that ire might end up focused on next.
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Thursday, 3 September 2015
The Syrian refugee crisis is not about you
Isn't it remarkable how practically every large-scale global event always proves just how right you were all along?
People on the internet seem determined to use the Syrian refugee crisis as a means to shore up their own prejudices – whatever they may be.
Conservative supporters on Twitter were busily Tweeting last night that the crisis is all Ed Miliband's fault, for blocking military action against the Assad regime in Syria during 2013 (because bombing a country is a surefire way to ensure nobody wants to leave it and seek asylum elsewhere).
Labour and the Green Party are keen to lay the blame at the door of David Cameron and the 'heartless' Tories (although when Conservatives have shown compassion on this issue, they've just got abuse from the left all the same).
And of course the Scottish Nationalists are quick to point out that if 'Yes' had won the referendum, and Scotland were an independent country, this problem would simply evaporate (just as all other problems would evaporate if Scotland were an independent land of milk and honey).
Is there nothing we won't politicise? Is there nothing we won't use to bash our ideological nemeses over the head? People are dying, and they need our help.
Perhaps if we stopped sniping at each other with vituperations of moralising piety, using strangers' tragic deaths to score cheap points off our political opponents, falling back on the same tired, predictable 'bogey-men' we blame for everything, we might be able to do something to ease the suffering.
Or do we, as a nation, honestly care more about assigning blame than saving those in need?
People on the internet seem determined to use the Syrian refugee crisis as a means to shore up their own prejudices – whatever they may be.
Conservative supporters on Twitter were busily Tweeting last night that the crisis is all Ed Miliband's fault, for blocking military action against the Assad regime in Syria during 2013 (because bombing a country is a surefire way to ensure nobody wants to leave it and seek asylum elsewhere).
Labour and the Green Party are keen to lay the blame at the door of David Cameron and the 'heartless' Tories (although when Conservatives have shown compassion on this issue, they've just got abuse from the left all the same).
And of course the Scottish Nationalists are quick to point out that if 'Yes' had won the referendum, and Scotland were an independent country, this problem would simply evaporate (just as all other problems would evaporate if Scotland were an independent land of milk and honey).
Is there nothing we won't politicise? Is there nothing we won't use to bash our ideological nemeses over the head? People are dying, and they need our help.
Perhaps if we stopped sniping at each other with vituperations of moralising piety, using strangers' tragic deaths to score cheap points off our political opponents, falling back on the same tired, predictable 'bogey-men' we blame for everything, we might be able to do something to ease the suffering.
Or do we, as a nation, honestly care more about assigning blame than saving those in need?
Monday, 20 April 2015
On Nick Clegg and Evan Davis
No, I couldn't think of a 'funny' title for this, and I was running out of time…
Nick Clegg must have become fairly accustomed to being given a hard time in the media over the past five years (not always deservedly), but even so I was surprised to hear that Newsnight's Evan Davis had interviewed Clegg recently and brought up the Liberal Democrat leader's European heritage (his mother is Dutch) and multilingualism as evidence that he might be 'out-of-touch' with the 'British working class'. Of course, 'out-of-touch' is a spectacularly vapid and meaningless accusation to level at any politician – but these comments by a presenter on one of the BBC's flagship political programmes strike me as particularly stupid.
What, exactly, does Mr Davis feel is bad about Clegg being able to speak more than one language? The idea that if a politician has at least some level of intelligence and decent communication skills, that should somehow count against them is one I find completely baffling. In matters of trade, of diplomacy, or of foreign policy, multilingual Clegg – who speaks five languages fluently – is surely an asset to the British government when it comes to communicating with foreign diplomats and politicians, and forging relationships with other nations?
And think about those photographs you see in the press sometimes – more frequently than ever, now, as we approach a general election – of politicians desperately trying to look at ease as they meet people in a mosque or a gurdwara, but clearly not feeling comfortable… It might be fun to make amusing posts about it on Tumblr, but integration is a real issue which politicians often don't do enough to address. Maybe the sons and daughters of immigrants in government – who have an innate understanding of other cultures – would be able to reach out to other communities (both in Britain and abroad) with more success, and help to improve relationships between them?
To dismiss Nick Clegg as 'out-of-touch' or 'élitist' is foolish – to do so because he possesses skills which are actively useful and beneficial in the day-to-day work of government is just staggering.
Nick Clegg must have become fairly accustomed to being given a hard time in the media over the past five years (not always deservedly), but even so I was surprised to hear that Newsnight's Evan Davis had interviewed Clegg recently and brought up the Liberal Democrat leader's European heritage (his mother is Dutch) and multilingualism as evidence that he might be 'out-of-touch' with the 'British working class'. Of course, 'out-of-touch' is a spectacularly vapid and meaningless accusation to level at any politician – but these comments by a presenter on one of the BBC's flagship political programmes strike me as particularly stupid.
What, exactly, does Mr Davis feel is bad about Clegg being able to speak more than one language? The idea that if a politician has at least some level of intelligence and decent communication skills, that should somehow count against them is one I find completely baffling. In matters of trade, of diplomacy, or of foreign policy, multilingual Clegg – who speaks five languages fluently – is surely an asset to the British government when it comes to communicating with foreign diplomats and politicians, and forging relationships with other nations?
And think about those photographs you see in the press sometimes – more frequently than ever, now, as we approach a general election – of politicians desperately trying to look at ease as they meet people in a mosque or a gurdwara, but clearly not feeling comfortable… It might be fun to make amusing posts about it on Tumblr, but integration is a real issue which politicians often don't do enough to address. Maybe the sons and daughters of immigrants in government – who have an innate understanding of other cultures – would be able to reach out to other communities (both in Britain and abroad) with more success, and help to improve relationships between them?
To dismiss Nick Clegg as 'out-of-touch' or 'élitist' is foolish – to do so because he possesses skills which are actively useful and beneficial in the day-to-day work of government is just staggering.
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