How to break through the film of dread and write something, anything?
One
option’s to quote from the terrifying vision of W B Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’ (1919)
and hide. No: two sentences of prose
instead.
To be defeated and not give up, that
is victory. To be victorious and rest on your laurels, that is defeat.
He
should know. That was said by Józef
Piłsudski, Polish hero of the fight for independence and leader for many of the
interwar years. (Quoted by Timothy Garton-Ash in the Guardian – a piece like many this week but with added
historical depth.) It’s looking as
though we’ve rested on our laurels of peace and security within (most of)
Europe for far too long.
Now
the 48% need to not give up. So often we
only really care about something when we risk losing it.
The
bitter irony of the referendum is that it’s the people who voted Leave because
their lives are fraught with difficulty who will suffer most. Their expectations have been failed in the
last 8 years and will be failed again – and then what?
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| Scotland, Europe... |
It
would be madness not to try to find a path through this that ends back where it
started: in Europe. The country’s future
is at stake! Leave campaigners’ lies/promises
are already being reneged on. Scotland’s heading for the door (my biggest dread
throughout the campaign: nightmare of a truncated UK with all that it implies)
and Northern Ireland is smouldering. Racism’s rearing its head as if given the
stamp of approval. Money is falling out
all over the place and Putin & co are having a laugh.
Reasons
to be positive: the passion of the 48% and of the young, the parliamentary
majority for Remain, the referendum’s advisory nature, the political and
economic turmoil, Leavers’ regrets, a new urgency about addressing Leavers’
concerns, Angela Merkel being calm. Reasons
to be negative: the political and economic turmoil, the tabloids, the Eurocrats
who want to teach us a lesson so others don’t follow, the main UK parties’ failure
to address the problems and perceptions (most of all those around immigration) that
motivated the 52% leave vote.
It
must be possible to call another referendum on the terms of departure, once
these have been negotiated. And/or delay
until circumstances and opinions have changed. And in the meantime do some hard thinking about
how to address things that aren’t working well in the world (here’s Gordon Brown on globalisation). A general
election might help, if one gets called; or not help. The scary thing is that various complex
elements would have to fall out right for there to be a good outcome.
So:
back to Piłsudski and not giving up. For
Europe, for peace and stability, for a UK that remains united, for equality of
opportunity, for progress on the environment, science etc, and for
tolerance. For the 52% as well as the 48%. Shelley, too, 100 years before Piłsudski and
Yeats, 200 years before us, ended this sonnet with hope:
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and
dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull
race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a
muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor
know,
But leechlike to their fainting
country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood,
without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th'
untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all
who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt
and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book
sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute,
unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious
Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous
day.
