An Interview of Zygmunt Bauman

By Adam Puchejda, August 22nd, 2013

What will, in your opinion, the future left look like? Conservative in terms of social manners, placing emphasis on redistribution of wealth, disinclined to Europe, or maybe avant-garde, ecologically radical, fighting for the human rights?

None of these. The characteristics mentioned by you do not encompass all the complexity of the concept of the contemporary left. For a long time we have had two approaches to building the left, each of which is unfortunately wrong. Still the influential idea is the idea to create the left by making it similar to the right, of course, adding the promise that we will do the same what the right is doing, but simply better and more efficiently. Let’s have regard to the fact that the most drastic moves to disassemble the social state were taken under social democratic ruling. Although the prophet and the missionary of the neo-liberal religion was Margaret Thatcher, it was Tony Blair, a member of the Labour Party, who made that religion a state religion.

The second method of constructing the left was based upon the concept of so-called “rainbow coalition”. This concept assumes that if all the dissatisfied can get together under one umbrella, no matter what troubles them, a strong political power will emerge. But, among the disappointed and the frustrated there are violent conflicts of interest and postulates. To imagine the left as, for example, consisting on one hand of the discriminated promoters of single-sex marriages and on the other hand, of the persecuted Pakistani minority, is a solution for disintegration and powerlessness and not for integration and power for effective acting. The concept of ‘rainbow coalition” must result in dilution of the left identity, dilution of its programme and the disabling of the postulated “political power” as early as at the moment of its birth.

What can the left base its programme on? Jacques Julliard who in his latest book Les gauches françaises 1762-2012,) critically analysed the heritage of the French left, claims that the left can refer only to the idea of fairness. It cannot even talk about progress since it gives a worried look at technology which the progress is identified with, but exhibits friendly attitude towards ecology, which . . .

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August 22nd, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Margaret Thatcher: Strokes of Genius or Strokes of Luck?

By Lukasz Pawlowski, April 12th, 2013
Margaret Thatcher reviewing Bermudian troops, April 12, 1990 © White House Photo Office | margaretthatcher.org

On November 28, 1990, the entire world could see Margaret Thatcher crying. The Iron Lady of British politics, who for over a decade had been whipping her domestic and foreign opponents into line, was now standing in tears in front of 10 Downing Street for the very last time. After more than 11 years as the British Prime Minister she was leaving politics forever. The impact she had on it can be seen to this day.

How did it happen that the first woman in British history to run a government also became the longest-serving Prime Minister in the twentieth century? Political genius – say her supporters. The unique confluence of lucky circumstances – reply her opponents. Both groups have strong arguments to support their claims.

Gravediggers on strike and a tragicomic war

When in 1979 she took over as the Prime Minister, Great Britain was the “sick man of Europe.” At the end of 1978, still under the Labour Party government, strikes broke out one after another starting what would later be known as the “winter of discontent.” Blackouts became a part of everyday life, garbage littered the streets and in Liverpool even gravediggers refused to do their job. Inflation and unemployment soared. The Conservative Party campaign slogan – “Labour is not working” – aptly reflected the public mood. Thatcher won decisively but was it her own strength that secured victory or just the weakness or her opponents?

When a year after her government was formed the economy only got worse, Mrs. Thatcher – despite a growing pressure from her own party – refused to change the course and carried on with even larger spending cuts and even faster privatization of public wealth. Her popularity plummeted and the conservatives would probably have lost the next election if it had not been for a stroke of luck brilliantly played out by the Prime Minister. On April 2, 1982, Argentine attacked the Falkland Islands – tiny British archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. Hardly anybody expected a military response but Thatcher accused Argentinian military junta . . .

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April 12th, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , ,