I saw this aged notice tatooed onto a wall in Westminster, just off Smith Square. That’s the nice thing about living in old cities – there’s a piece of history on every corner.
I wonder if the vaults are still there, or whether they have been turned into luxury, windowless apartments for rich agraphobics.
Page 233 of 328
“Did you inhale?” A cliché of modern politics. Ever since Bill Clinton’s bizarre admission of not-quite-drug-use, that question has become a staple of sniggering journalists everywhere. Meanwhile, “Yes I have and yes I did” has become the boilerplate response for those politicians eager to demonstrate their flawed, human side.
I am finding the coverage of the recent gap-year crash in Ecuador rather uncomfortable. No less a broadcaster than the BBC could be found broadcasting the collapse of two grieving parents.
What is so cruel about this kind of coverage is the way in which the bereaved feel somehow obliged to co-operate with the media. The poor couple, Mr and Mrs Swann, looked like rabbits caught in headlights. But to refuse to go on TV to “pay tribute” to their daughter Indira Swann would now be seen as somehow dishonouring her memory.
All the crucial details of the incident are known. There is no wider political or social side to a tragic accident. That the roads in Ecuador are clearly very bad is undoubtedly a development issue. But the only thing that makes this a “second-day” story is the participation of the parents.
What are the chances that a news columnist will become indignant over the symbolism of this? “We are only interested in the story because they are good looking”, “gap years are the finishing school for the middle-class” etcetera. Or a mile-by-mile account of the survivors’ repatriation. Anything to print the photos of those five pretty women again.
A quote from an essay the latest issue of Prospect Magazine, where David Goodhart and Kishwer Falkner discuss citizenship:
To say “I don’t need a motto, I’m British … may sound post-moder, but it is actually pre-modern, it assumes the implicit understandings that come with ethnicity – we don’t need to spell things out because we know intuitively.
I think the existence of such “understandings” is an important and interesting idea, which feeds into the issue of race-relations in this country. It is also part of the debate over the meaning of multiculturalism. While such unspoken “understandings” might serve to unite people within a nation, it is other such understandings which signify membership of a minority (or, indeed, class) and therefore divisions within society.
I’m reminded of a comment by Katie from last year:
But to describe the law of return as being based on religion fails to take into account the fact that Judaism is more than just a religion. I do not often say this, because it sounds terribly patronising, but it is very difficult to make someone who is not Jewish understand this. I tried to on Pickled Politics once and I’m afraid it didn’t go down terribly well.
This seems to me to be the assertion of an “implicit understanding” to me. Another example I personally encountered when editing the LIP Magazine was the Slice( ) Mango collective of poets, founded by Christian Campbell and others. Christian’s feeling was that the title of the collective resonated with the members of the group, who (by virtue of their heritage) would immediately understood what it meant, and what it evoked. The bond was already there. I didn’t get it, but that was OK. I wasn’t meant to.
Another example from yesterday’s Observer sees Dawn Butler MP accuse the House of Commons of institutional racism. Ms Butler and her fellow MP Diane Abbott are sure that it exists, but others – especially the white male majority – find the facts harder to discern, because they are not a part of a the minority group and have no understanding of the black experience.
While I believe Dawn Butler’s example is sincere, I’m not sure how helpful it is at communicating with people on the other side of the debate. David Heathcoate-Armory, one of the Tory MPs accused of racism, was clearly not persuaded by her complaints: “they think that any kind of reprimand from anyone is racially motivated.” Clearly not a meeting of minds! The result is a further entrenchment of previously held views on both sides; a reinforcing of negative opinions.
I am more impressed with Barack Obama’s effort to bridge the divide, when he tried to articulate the “implicit understandings” that others may experience, and how this serves to keep groups apart and in conflict.
As I mentioned above, the more I think about it, the more I think that a discussion and comprehension of “implicit understandings” should be part of the multicultural debate. In the case of (say) black people in the UK and USA, this could just mean an attempt to better understand the life experiences of other people, and how your actions might affect them. The interactions between people of different colour or ethnic origin will usually be the political space that we are examining.
However, I think it is also important when discussing that other form of multiculturalism, which is when a single identity is born from more than one heritage or culture. Think of a person of mixed-race, or a second-generation Indian with British citizenship, who are able understand both experiences. The word “narrative” is often used in this context, because the confluence of two ethnic stories is a useful way to describe how different traditions can be merged. That’s also multiculturalism.
Part of the hostility to multiculturalism comes from an insistence on a common political ground, a set of agreed standards. Therefore, the legitimacy of “implicit understandings” is questioned – surely everything can be articulated in plain English? Goodhart and Falkner imply that we are allowed to introduce these shared yet unspoken concepts at the national level, when we’re talking about unity and citizenship. But when sub-national groups seek to introduce other stories, other “implicit understandings”, they are resisted. David Heathcoate-Armory simply doesn’t believe that Butler and Abbott are engaging in legitimate political debate.
Much has been said of Obama as an African-American presidential candidate, but as the speech above shows, his life stories from outside the black “experience” are just as important as those within it. Only with both is he able to articulate the “implicit understandings”, the intellectual or political starting points, for each group, in a language that the other can understand. This is not the way we usually do politics, but globalisation, immigration and the birth of more mixed-race children suggests that this is what we need for the future.
I was certainly of that opinion when I wrote the post “First Hand” last year.
As previously discussed, I have a new laptop, and feel reincarnated. ‘Tis a lovely MacBook Pro.
I thought I would note down all those programmes and plug-ins that I downloaded and installed immediately. Someone may be interested, and it will save time if I ever get burgled again.
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