Thinking about women rulers, it is interesting to see how progressive South-Asia has been in this regard. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all had female leaders. In fact, the latter two have had more than one, as has India if you were to count Sonia Ghandi.
Critics of Asian culture in general, and Islam in particular, do like to remind us of the essential backwardness of the regions and religion, with a general misogyny being the primary exhibit. To those Muslims who voted for Benazir Bhutto, say, this might seem a spectacularly unfair accusation… especially when the USA (moralizer-in-chief) is turning itself inside-out over the question of whether the country is ‘ready’ for a woman (or a black man) to lead.
Perhaps an alternative measure of democratic maturity is not the length of time a country has sustained democracy, but the point at which the populous begins to elect leaders whose sex, race, and religious combination differs from that of the traditional ruling elite.
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The Sunday Times has an interesting feature on women leaders. Sarah Baxter asks “Are we ready for a triumvirate of Iron Ladies?” Hilary Clinton in the USA, Angela Merkel in Germany, and Ségolène Royal in France.
Last year, I interviewed Stella Chiweshe, the Zimbabwean Diva, at the WOMAD Festival in Reading. She was the first woman to achieve popularity playing the mbira, the traditional African instrument… so naturally I asked her about the role of women in her culture. She gave me a more globalised answer:
“I tell you: Let the women lead! It is the woman who feels the pain of burying a child. You men just say “my child, my son, my daughter” for pleasure. You never feel these pains. You suffer, I know you suffer, men, but not as women suffer. And if you let us rule, you see how happy you will be! You are only making yourselves sad. You men are creating problems for yourself. They say a man without a wife is not a good ruler. Why is that? It is because we feel he needs that support. So why don’t you sit back and let the women rule, and then support her instead? Then the world will be so peaceful, because we wouldn’t create so many wars.”
As Baxter points out, the evidence so far might not support this view. Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi all became the first women to lead their respective countries, yet all took their country to war.
Over at the Demos blog, Duncan O’Leary notices that several politicians have been invoking the metaphor of a house in order to convey whatever political point they wish to make that day. David Cameron’s renewal of the Tories is being built “brick by brick“, while Gordon Brown wants to raise educational standards by “raising the floor and removing the ceiling.”
I am reminded of how often it is that buildings are used as a by-word for institutions. We do not talk of the office of the Prime Minister: We say Number Ten. When we hear of interference from those next door, we hear of The Treasury. Either might incur the displeasure of The House of Commons. If a member of the Royal Family does something noteworthy, Buckingham Palace or Clarence House issues a statement. It is The Bank of England that rises interest rates. The United States’ Foreign Policy is conceived and implemented by, variously, The White House, Congress and The Pentagon.
These are all familiar, innocent, journalistic short-cuts, but they can be unhelpful. By embodying the institution in the building, they give the impression that these institutions are inpenetratable. It is as if to influence them, we would literally have to penetrate the six-foot thick walls. When we hear (as we so often do), of a feud between “Number Ten” and “The Treasury”, this conjures the idea of two megaliths colliding in a kinetic, titanic battle – Mere flesh and blood mortals do not stand a chance against them. In reality, the ‘clash’ is between less than half a dozen civil servants, men and women shorter and older than you or I, sending curt e-mails via Outlook Express. The Great Failures of the New Labour (read: Alastair Campell’s) spin machine, were precisely those instances where the facade of the institution crumbled, and the profoundly human cogs that drive the system were exposed. Jo Moore’s memo to “bury bad news” and the David Kelly affair are the most memorable examples of this.
A few years ago I spent a short time working for a think-tank in Westminster. One valuable lesson I learnt is that politics and governance are not a high-brow interactions between great institutions of State. It just a load of people wandering around corridors and pavements in the SW1A vicinity of Central London. Most people who spend time working in the ‘Westminster Village’ are already aware of this, but for a provincial suburbanite such as myself, it was a welcome revelation.
Often, ‘taking on the government’ need not mean a well-financed campaign planned with military precision. It just means getting the e-mail address of the civil servant who is best placed to help you: no battering ram required.
It’s a bit chilly out there at the moment!
Here’s an interesting round-up from The Times new TV supplement, Seer:
Last Night’s TV – Henrietta Quain – 21/01/2008
Big Brother may be off our screens for good, but the turmoil of last year’s so-called race row still resonates today. Yesterday, we were treated to three programmes that re-opened some old wounds, and cauterised others.
First up was Silk Route (BBC1, 8pm) Shilpa Shetty’s first British TV acting role. This over-trailed six-part drama places Shetty as a determined Indian lawyer, battling against the apparent institutional prejudices of a Barristers’ chambers in London. Sadly, both the characters and storylines lack any depth. The white characters are stereotyped to the point of absurdity, behaving in a generally patronising manner that would simply never happen in real life. Shetty’s acting is melodramatic and her character erratic. Are we really supposed to believe that she will stand up to the bolshy lawyers at her chambers, but not to her over-bearing brother (played by newcomer Abhishek Bachchan)? It is as if the producers of this programme are deliberately playing on Shetty’s victim status, to force their politically correct views upon the rest of us. Shetty rightly surfed the wave of sympathy after the bullying she experienced on Celebrity Big Brother (although few now accept that the abuse was actually ‘racist’). That sympathy may wane if Silk Route does not improve in weeks to come.
In one of those ironic co-incidences that British TV schedules periodically throw up, last night also marked the return of the now-infamous Jade Goody to our screens. Jade Goes to India (C4, 9pm) chronicled the eponymous anti-heroine’s journey through the sub-continent, experiencing the various local ‘delights’ and meeting ordinary Indians. We are treated to the extraordinary site of Jade trying to meditate in Dharamsala, temporary home of the Dalai Lama. “He’s like the Pope, but for India,” says Goody. We also see her riding, then falling off an elephant, visiting the Taj Mahal (“It is smaller than on TV”) and some excruciating scenes in the third class carriage of a train, where the hapless protagonist tries to ask some passengers who probably do not speak English, whether they would be offended if she called them a ‘Popadom’.
More poignant, however, was a final sequence in Bombay itself. We see Jade take a tour-bus around the city, visiting homes of the Bollywood Stars. Inevitably, the route includes the apartment block where Shilpa Shetty is a resident. As Jade dismounts the bus and walks up to the security gate, observed by a passive security guard, we heard the guide announce that Shilpa is away, making a film in New York. Goody is uncharacteristically quiet as she looks upon the building.
The programme is not so much a journey of discovery for Goody, as a nose-rubbing exercise. It seems that Shetty has become an ever-present spectre that cannot be shrugged off. And so the expected catharsis or renewal never comes for Goody, just a constant reminder of an elusive fame. In the final shot of the programme, at the check-in desk at Bombay International Airport, the cameraman catches a close-up shot of Jade, with a bill-board in the background. The face on the advert is Shetty’s, twenty feet tall. Her doe-brown eyes watch, unblinking, as Jade hands over her passport.
If the travelogue was intended to resurrect Goody’s career in some form, no such miracle was intended by the offering that followed immediately after. Big Brother’s 101 Greatest Moments (C4, 10pm) was clearly intended as a defiant last stand. Russell Brand presented the count-down, as determined by the public in a telephone vote. I half expected the demise of Nasty Nick to pip the ‘Popadom’ clip to the top spot, but it was not to be. Jade’s exploits had won her one last triumph, at least.