Alternative Editorial 319: Why The Alternative Is Not Simply Better
Are you getting to the end of your tether with Winter? Of course, we're speaking largely to Northern Hemisphere countries here - those whose days are short and dark, who can't ever seem to get quite warm enough in the office or at home. But maybe suddenly too hot when the tube or in a department store - anywhere its unhealthy or overly lit. It's not right and we're grumpy - will Winter ever end?
Or maybe we're just talking about the political landscape. The future seems dark, the prognosis gloomy. We're mad and frustrated with the ongoing tragedy in Gaza/Israel and alarmed that after two years of fighting in the Ukraine, we're not more hopeful. Let alone every other victims of war-zone.
War has never been the answer to violence but no-one wants to be proved right about that: everyone fights for a win and imagines a triumph. While in reality the only option on offer is lose, lose. Even stopping now will have proven to be an unforgiveable waste of life.
The stramash playing out in the Westminster Parliament during the week was a good representation of the confusion at the heart of our power and agency. The SNP came with a clear motion for debate - the call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza - which should then have been put to a vote.
Given the cross-border humanitarian crisis occuring as a consequence of the earlier attack on Israel by the military wing of Hamas, itself the latest outbreak of a long history of violence in the region, this was a popular debate and one that many MPs would vote for
However the two dominant parties Labour and Conservative - both wanted to avoid that vote as till now, both have officially backed Israel's right to keep attacking Gaza until they had eliminated Hamas. Despite the futility of that goal: for every Hamas fighter killed by Israel, two more are born to take revenge.
Neither Sunak nor Starmer could afford a party rebellion so close to a general election, so both put amendments to the original motion. The Speaker of the House - who takes a vow of neutrality before accepting the task - nevertheless allowed Labour's amendment, which watered down the motion, effectively putting an end to the SNP debate and vote. And worse, any possibility of decisive action in Gaza. Mayhem broke out.
Of course, it's easy to see the politicians' behaviour as craven - how many put the victims of war above the chance of political goal-scoring? On the other hand, party leaders without power are, well, powerless. Winning power is everything to them as that is the starting point of being able to help the people.
It's a self-made trap: where means and ends are at odds. It imagines that one way of thinking and being will lead to the future chance to behave differently. But behaving badly guarantees you'll never get that chance.
In a talk to Intelligence Squared on the 6th February, Alistair Campbell recommended young people who are protesting about Labour's stance on Palestine to 'get off their high horses' about the political stalemate.
He described the possiblility of MPs voting with their consciences as a gamble because the press might interpret that as antisemitic. To the dismay of all those who understood the plight of all those under fire - or being conscripted - Campbell described the call for an immediate ceasefire as a 'waste of political capital'.
Maybe some strategically-calculating AI would have come to the same conclusion. But the evidence that men with as much power - past and present - as Alistair Campbell could not sense the lack of humanity in his assessment of what is required at this time, was chilling.
Imagine being told your daughter, mother, best friend's survival is less important than landing a symbolic blow to the opposition party?
Maybe because Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousuf had (and has) relatives on the ground in Gaza, he has not been blinded by short-term political gain: his claim that every life is equal has easily leapfrogged the risk of being called out in favour of one side. But politicians with no personal connection are finding it hard to tune in with the passion currently bringing millions out on the streets worldwide.
This kind of disconnectedness is at the heart of so many political compromises: acknowledging human rights and a flourishing planet while at the same time caving to the easy votes of those who object to the discomfort of environmental measures, fear refugees, and hold social justice at bay.
The problem for politicians, caught in the structures and culture of division - within a broader context of maintaining the status quo - is that they can't see the disconnect. Worse, they have come to see daily, real life considerations - death, destruction, lives and futures stolen - as collateral damage. Any over-attachment to such things is not 'realpolitik'.
Those protesting are often also trapped in the same system - its laws, its economy, its dominant narratives, its version of history. For many the demand is to do 'better'. They prefer one party to another - without calling for reform of Westminster’s party-political first past the post system. They ask for cessation of violence without knowing how to transform conflict. They demand an end to racism without understanding the causes, leaving the structure and culture in place to enable the next target for exclusion.
They want a different distribution of the budget without questioning the principles of capitalism or colonialism. This is not to make the protestors wrong - they are often heroic. But to bring attention to the insufficiency of, as Audre Lorde would put it, using 'the masters tools to dismantle the master's house'.
The last UK general election was lost, at least partially, by the Conservative Party (and conservative elements of the Labour Party) successfully labelling Jeremy Corbyn antisemitic. Will the next election be affected by either party becoming the party of Islamophobia? The storm is clearly brewing, and the opportunity could be taken by either party. This could be done positively - by standing with the Muslim citizens of all countries including UK. Or negatively - by standing with those who 'want their country back'.
In the same way that Spring is not a better version of Winter, a new politics is not just a better politics. Spring does not solve 'the problem of Winter' with longer day-time hours and less cold. The trees come back to life, seeds sprout, people come out of their houses and spend time together: a completely different daily experience of life causes moods to change, makes imagination more possible.
A new politics would not simply solve the problem of our current harsh politics with nicer, kinder versions of the current one (although we wouldn't say no to that as a start). A new politics questions the root causes of our dysfunction and starts from a novel place. This is the question we began to ask nearly seven years ago and - after roughly 2000 blogs and 77 editorials - have come to some conclusions around, as our regular readers will know.
Next week on our 7th anniversary - March 1st, the first day of Spring - we'll launch the latest stage of this new I-We-World, socio-economic-political project. See you there.