I have returned to Marlborough in Wiltshire to stay with my family for the Christmas week. As I start this Christmas break I have a funny feeling of deja vu. Many years ago, although it doesn't seem that long ago, I came back home to Wiltshire as a uni student, idealistic and looking forward to the future. But at the same time not entirely sure where that future would leave me. I find myself in a similar position today. I am yet again at uni, though not at UWE but at the posher (although founded long ago via tobacco industry money) University of Bristol. A part of me feels a bit like an overgrown kid, going to classes and spending hours at the library like I did between the years of 2004-2007.
The past term has been an eye opener. I have met some extraordinary people. Some who dwell in these soggy isles, others who have come from much further away. We have all congregated in the great city of Bristol to learn about the hallowed field of International Development, in my case it is to learn about that and International Security. When I was asked what International Development was in "in a nutshell" by someone who by their own admission didn't care about the answer, I gave them an offhand answer meeting their level of enthusiasm: "it is about feeding starving babies and shit". That may seem a bit crass, but while my nervous younger self used to feed the egos of people who treated with me with disdain, nowadays I am too old to entertain such sensibilities.
International Development seems to be many things, in a polite nutshell, it is about analysing why certain countries don't seem to work, and helping to fix them. In the colonial days and early post colonial days we were very confident we could cure the ills of other (and as far as we were concerned lesser) countries. Nowadays we have the vantage point of history, that is the ability to look on a history of unintended consequences, absolute failure, disappointment and often at best half truths. There are simply put, no right answers in International Development. Some academics say we should just get out of the Development business for good. While I am less idealistic about the cause I am when it comes down to it still a believer in the field's mission. As far as I can tell the field will not die but instead will change. It will have to take into account politics in the wider world (which is inescapable) and be aware that with great power comes great responsibility.
Politically I have changed too. When I first arrived at UWE a good Conservative friend of mine referred to me as a "wacko commie". Now I have still some beliefs that could be described as some as "wacko" but I am not in the least "commie". I am still republican (want an elected head of state) am staunchly against nuclear weapons and believe in the total separation of church and state. I have moved on from my Che Guevara phase, although I respect certain elements of his character and personal philosophy. I no longer look on those strange beasts we call Conservatives as money grabbing monsters that feed on the flesh of poor people, well not all of them anyway. While before I saw a wide unbridgeable chasm like divide, between the right and the left. To me that chasm is looking less and less wide every day.
This probably sounds pretty wishy washy and far-fetched. I only realised how moderate I have become when I found myself encouraging some leftist activist students to engage with Conservatives with similar goals in mind. Some of the students reacted in a way I would have done 5 years ago, that is react like I have been asked to do a deal with the dark lord Sauron. Don't get me wrong, those on the right and left can't agree on everything and likely won't ever. But I think with the way things are in this country, with politicians as hated as they are, some co-operation may be just what we need.
I read a good article in The Economist the other week. It described the state of this country in a rather sad light. This country is basically in damage control. We are in full austerity mode. Public expenditure is down as are expectations. It is a time of licking ones wounds and not too great expectations for the future. A government once abound with great noises about reformism and radicalism (of sorts) has allowed that wave of excitement and expectation to pass and peter out. We are in short a country without a mission, a purpose. The article described us as in a way in stasis, on a flat line, seemingly drifting into irrelevance and terminal decline.
What gets to me most about this period of history is the base feelings it generates. Bitterness and tight fisted attitudes abound. People who need help are automatically suspect, people are encouraged to spy on their neighbours to make sure they are not benefit cheats. Rich people more than ever are singled out by virtue of being rich. Some of them are accused of not paying their way. Some of them probably don't, but it is not just the wrong doers who are being singled out in this witch hunt. At the same time we are fearful, we want our streets orderly and uneventful. In return for this order we are allowing more and more police control to creep into peaceful protests. Protesting once seen as a great British tradition is worryingly starting to be seen as troublesome and in some cases ‘disloyal’. But we still have hope, some of it rests with genuine pillars of our community, others rest with false idols.
As a republican some of those false idols are the Royal Family. I reject the institution of the British Monarchy on moral principle grounds, political technical grounds and personal grounds. I shall not elaborate on this blog, for I have stated my views many times over on that matter. But suffice it to say I think this country’s people need to find the confidence to challenge its institutions when they fail to meet their expectations or defy them outright. Institutions are there to promote stability and continuity. But I say continuity is only worth pursuing when its’ ends are just and serve the true ideals of the people.
I have started a long term project, the Radical Party Manifesto. It is basically my ideal political manifesto, with a difference. With the exception of my main radical beliefs (republicanism/nuclear disarmament/church and state separation/environmental regulation) I have purposefully dedicated this manifesto as a centrist reformist project. It is probably an idealistic project doomed to failure, but I thought I should try it as an experiment to see what could come out of it. The idea is to basically analyse ideas from all parties in the UK systems and see if some kind of centrist course can be woven in between them to find some similarities and shared visions if not ideas. It is basically a blue sky project, something that is not necessarily made with political realities in mind. It is supposed to promote a more technical view of politics as a problem solving process, not an ideological shouting match. How politics in this country has got to this state I believe is down to the hypocrisy of the public AND politicians. The only way I see out of it is to get people to challenge conventional thinking and actually think, about why people who disagree with them think the way they do. To actually get to know their enemies, before they are encouraged to hate them, bankers, welfare claimants, leftists etc. To actually look at a situation, analyse a problem and solve the damn problem and challenge conventional thinking.
I have no illusions, I don’t think the above project will solve all problems within British politics. But I am a confessed politics nerd, and this sort of stuff is like catnip to me.
I still don’t know exactly in what job I will work in when I graduate. It will intersect with foreign affairs/development in some way I am sure. I am not sure if I want to be an outright Development worker. I am a humble politics nerd. I have simple dreams of being a bookish and enthusiastic Foreign Office researcher living with my lovely girlfriend in a house clustered with my books and her art projects with a dog and a cat (brought up with each other so they don’t tear each other apart) in a liberal part of London I don’t detest. But one day, one day I would like to leave this simple life to try to get elected to a seat within the House of Commons, with an idealistic manifesto. Even if I would end up losing that chance I would be happy to have tried, to make that place less a place of disappointment and one of hope. And then I would go back to my book clustered hovel.
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