New Year Resolution: No More Criminals and Migrants

As 2019 ended, I recalled two interviews that I had heard on BBC radio. The first was with the pastor of a church in Texas, explaining why his congregation supported the separation of children from parents who had been apprehended crossing the border with Mexico. The pastor explained that if the police raided a drug den in Los Angeles, for example, the children would have to be separated from Mummy and Daddy to be cared for by Social Services. Similarly, when Mummy and Daddy cross the border, they have broken the law and the children must be separated from them. I consulted a friend who is a retired New Jersey judge. He told me that crossing the border without the correct papers is a misdemeanour, which in New Jersey includes offences such as spitting in the street, punishable by imprisonment only after three offences.

The second interviewee was a stand-up comic who had been a volunteer with a charity that supports people living near Calais, who are seeking to get to the UK. Some of these people at least are children, separated from other family members during a long and perilous journey, and who are trying to join family members in the UK. The British government has an agreement with France to prevent their reaching the UK and has spent considerable sums to do so. I suspect that little or nothing has been spent to make life more tolerable for people stranded between two unwelcoming governments. The comic explained that she had first volunteered when the people she helped lived in temporary structures known as the “Jungle”. Subsequently, under the terms of the agreement between the two governments the “Jungle” structures were destroyed to “encourage” the residents to seek refuge in the French government’s “reception” centres. However, many residents soon returned to live in tents. Apparently, the Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité (riot police) now slash the tents during the night and remove the shoes of those asleep in them, including the shoes of children. This is a rather heartless deterrence strategy.

The comic told of meeting a young Syrian man who was homeless in the UK while he waited for his asylum claim to be assessed. He was an architect, a graduate of a fine university in Damascus, but now homeless for reasons with which we are all familiar. As their friendship developed, the comic came to realize that the Syrian architect was not in any real sense a “migrant” but quite simply a person struggling with circumstances that we can barely comprehend, who had lost the right to live in his own land and was seeking a place on Earth that would give him a temporary refuge. In other words, “migrant” was not his identity, his personality, his profession, still less his identity. It is just a lazy word we use to lump together as one amorphous whole individuals struggling with misfortune.

This made me ponder that I was twice a “migrant”. The first occasion was from 1974-1976 when I was a research student in Mexico. On the second occasion, I arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1977 to set up a small Delaware corporation, Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, Inc., in its turn a subsidiary of a Hong Kong corporation, owned ultimately by Macmillan Publishers. In Mexico I was a pale-skinned rarity, especially in small mountain towns which I visited to meet the few remaining veterans of the 1910-1920 Revolution. I was asked “Do you have tea at 5pm every day?” or “Is it true that the English bathe only once a week?” Once it was evident that I was not a gringo, I was readily stereotyped. I was equally noteworthy when I visited a Texas college campus, or my printer in Virginia. My accent and strange choices of vocabulary marked me out as different, but in America gave me much more prestige than was afforded to a Mexican chamber maid, or a Central American farm worker.

I also once received a criminal conviction: for driving without due care and attention, an offence that probably qualifies as a misdemeanour in the USA. I wonder if the Texas pastor would have recommended a referral of my sons to Social Services.

So, my New Year’s resolution is not to label anybody a migrant or a criminal, but to attempt to see the person. And I will do my best to encourage others to avoid fitting labels to people who have qualities that labels do not describe.

How does the general election result matter?

This may be of more interest to friends beyond the UK, but I hope all will find something to provoke thought, even if you disagree.

The day after the general election we drove to Suffolk to visit my family. As I waited to pay for car fuel, a European lorry driver came into the shop clutching a 50 Euro note. He did not join the queue waiting to pay. A British driver called out “Oi mate there’s a queue here.” The other driver tried to explain that he just wanted to ask a question (he was unsure whether he could pay with Euros). The British driver responded “For f***k’s sake. Bloody ignorance. Good job we voted to get out yesterday.” This was the first reference I have heard to the election beyond the media. I cannot claim that this incident was typical, but it does illustrate one strand of the emotions aroused by Brexit.

Brexit                          

The election results mean that the UK will certainly leave the EU from a formal perspective on 31 January. Certain arrangements will continue for a transition period, which in theory ends on 31 December 2020. After that, all depends on negotiations. In the meantime, there remain many uncertainties, particularly for UK citizens who live in the EU (like our youngest son) whose rights are immediately reduced and far from clear, and for EU citizens in the UK.

By casting the Brexit decision as a Yes/No or Remain/Leave choice, the Conservative Party created two political camps with opposing views. Now, there are, of course differing views on any political issue. For example, one can have different views about the rate at which we can moderate CO² emissions, or how to prioritize transport investment. As the subjects are debated, policies can change in either direction. Brexit is fundamentally different in that it is an either/or choice for ever, or at least for a very long time. One section of the population wins and another loses everything. In the post-referendum political debate, the Conservative Party has been the party of Brexit, effectively telling those opposed to Brexit that the pro-Brexit faction has taken charge and Brexit opponents no longer have a say. A new noun was invented (“remoaners”) to label those who dislike Brexit as “bad losers”. No possibility of reconsideration or re-evaluation of the decision has been permitted. The Prime Minister’s first statement, after winning the election, that remoaners should “put a sock in it” reflect this attitude precisely. His subsequent speech was more conciliatory, but I suspect that reconciliation will be difficult in the short term at least.

It should also be noted that Brexit was not supported by Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and other large cities. Brexit was also supported disproportionately by older voters and opposed disproportionately by younger voters. Thus, Brexit is a project of the English regions outside major urban centres and of a generation who will be less affected by Brexit than its younger opponents.

The Labour Party

For about the last 100 years the Labour Party has vied for governmental power with the Conservative and Unionist Party. The principal third party, the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats), has been a voice for change and new ideas, but without any role in government apart from the five years of coalition 2010-2015. In short, the Labour Party has been, and still is the only alternative to the Conservatives.     

Labour’s origins in the late 19^th- and early 20-centuries was deeply rooted in trade unions, the cooperative movement and Methodism. And, geographically, the party’s heartlands lay in the Midlands, Northern England, the Welsh Valleys and Scotland’s cities. These were the coal-mining and industrial areas where working-class solidarity was a bedrock of society. When I reached voting age in 1970, it was still common for Labour MPs to rise to political office by being union officials. The 21^st-century Labour MP is now much more likely to be a lawyer or other professional. The party’s share of the vote in its old heartlands has declined as its leadership has had less in common with its heritage. Tony Blair, for example, was a privately-educated, Oxford-graduate lawyer who  represented Sedgefield in the County Durham coal-mining area. In this election, the Conservatives defeated the Labour Party in Sedgefield and elsewhere by targeting the pro-Brexit, largely older, voters in places such as Sedgefield which elected a Conservative MP for the first time since 1930.

The Results

There are 652 MPs. The Conservative Party received 43.8% of votes cast and won 365 seats, about 58% of MPs. Labour received 32.2% of votes and 203 seats, about 32% or so of MPs. However, the Liberal Democrats with 11.5% of the votes have only 11 MPs, while the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) with 3.9% of votes has 48 MPs. The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin had about 10% of the number of votes received by the Liberal Democrats  but have 15 MPs.  Similarly, Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists received a tiny number of votes, about 5% of those received by the Liberal Democrats, but have 4 MPs, more than a third of the number of Liberal Democrat MPs.

In short, where a party receives its votes, can have a disproportionate effect on the number of MPs elected. By winning more votes than Labour in Northern England and Wales and the West Midlands, the Conservatives were able to win a larger proportion of MPs than the party’s share of votes. The disproportionate share of MPs compared to votes is still more marked in the smaller “nations” (as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are now termed) than in England. This raised serious questions concerning national unity.

Scotland

Not long ago, Labour dominated Scottish politics. Indeed, it was Labour that devolved power to form the Scottish Parliament to placate emerging nationalist sentiments. There are 59 Scottish MPs, of which SNP has now 48. The Conservatives (who once had scarcely one) now have 6, the Liberal Democrats 4 and Labour a single seat. Moreover, the SNP is the governing party in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP lost the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. However, Scotland voted to remain in the EU and is being dragged out by England. A strong nationalist party combined with resentment against Brexit and the English creates a climate in which independence sentiment can flourish. Another independence referendum is not imminent, but is likely within the decade. If Scotland eventually leaves the UK, Brexit and the Conservative Party’s Brexit obsession will be in large part responsible.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland exists as a compromise solution to the movement for Irish independence from Britain in 1919. Contending unionist and Irish nationalist interests drive Northern Irish politics. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, to some extent constrained the potential for conflict, at least for armed conflict, but has recently been under severe strain. Now, the Republic of Ireland is a signatory of the agreement and plays a part in maintaining it.  Since Ireland is a member of the EU, the status of the border and of customs and trading arrangements between  the Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, constitutes a volatile element of Brexit, an element concerning which Conservative Party Brexiters were both ignorant and indifferent when Brexit negotiations began. The issue prevented approval of Mrs. May’s agreement with the EU and ended her Prime Ministership. Mr Johnson’s achievement of a revised agreement was the basis of his success in this election.

However, the picture is complicated. After her failure to win a majority in the 2017 election, Mrs May relied on the support of ten Democratic Unionist MPs. The Democratic Unionists were resolutely pro-Brexit, although Northern Ireland voted against Brexit in the referendum. They insisted that the EU agreement should not in any way treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. Nationalists were resolutely opposed to Brexit. The EU insisted on an arrangement that prevented the reimposition of any kind of border between the Republic and the North as a result of Brexit. Therefore, Mrs May negotiated the Northern Ireland “Backstop” (a contingency device to prevent imposition of a border if trade negotiations with the UK failed). The Backstop was fiercely opposed by the committed Brexiters in the Conservative Party and by Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson’s agreement creates a special customs/trade status for Northern Ireland, which is fiercely opposed by the Democrat Unionists.

In the election the DUP lost 2 of its 10 seats in Westminster, nationalist Sinn Féin retained 7 seats and the nationalist SDLP gained 2. Thus, there is now one more nationalist MP than unionist. So, Brexit and the election has altered the balance of power and sentiment between pro- and anti-nationalist groups with cosenquences that could, in the long run, further threaten the unity of the UK.

In short, Mr Johnson may be pleased with his victory and his rout of Labour, but the consequences for our nation that result from the Brexit obsession may be very serious.

Aphrodisiac elections

Jan and I will mark X next to our chosen candidate for our constituency tomorrow. We can walk through winter rain joyful in the knowledge that starting Friday we can engage in a prolonged period of erotic enthusiasm. This is what our current Prime Minister has promised us if he is chosen to lead our country. He tells us that he correctly predicted before the 2012 London Olympics that the Games would be such a success that Britons would become so hyperactive in the marital bedroom (or in his case anywhere else, one gathers) that the birth rate would increase substantially. He likewise predicts that Brexit will stimulate further reproductive excitement.

Who could resist voting for a man possessed of such priapic predictive powers? However, it seems that in 2013, following the Games, the birth rate fell. Perhaps the British electorate will suffer a profound Brexit anticlimax.

In case my friends overseas think that I am making this up and that nobody running for public office, let alone an aspirant to lead our country, could say something so preposterous, let me introduce you to “Boris being Boris”. This is the phrase used by his Conservative party colleagues to reassure the public that he is just a jolly British eccentric, a political Billy Bunter, whom we should so love that we fail to consider whether what he says is true or not. “Boris being Boris” is a carefully constructed contrivance designed to allow him to lie and dissemble shamelessly without any consequences.

The reference to the 2012 Olympic Games is part of this contrivance, because Mr Johnson was Mayor of London during the Games. He was therefore constantly in the media and claimed credit for the success of the Games. However, he was first elected Mayor of London in 2008, after the Labour government had won the bid to host the Games. The planning and most of the execution was carried out by Labour politicians. Thus, Mr Johnson can claim little credit for the Games, but that does not prevent his doing so.

Behind the jolly japes, untruths and boundless bluster and false bonhomie, lies an ugly intent. During the tenure of the Conservative government the number of foodbanks in our country has increased many fold. The uncomfortable fact that destitution and hunger have increased under Conservative rule does not quite fit the jolly japes picture. When one of Mr Johnson’s colleagues, the Home Secretary Priti Patel was challenged about the increased reliance on foodbanks to feed families, she stated that the government bears no responsibility for increased destitution. This, she declared is the responsibility of local governments whose funding has been decimated under her party’s rule. Do you think she cares or that a government in which she is a senior minister will do anything toreduce poverty?

The party that now promises us a “Points-based Australian-style immigration system”, has been responsible for deporting British citizens (who just happen to be of Caribbean heritage) because they could not produce sufficient documentation to satisfy Ms Patel’s department. In other words, the government does not have to prove that one is a citizen with full citizen’s rights, the citizen must prove it (unless he or she is of the correct colour). Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that Ms Patel’s department has illegally imprisoned victims of torture seeking asylum, with inestimable damage to their mental health. And the Conservative Party manifesto promises to make life difficult for Gypsy and other traveller communities.

Can anybody guess for which party I will cast my vote tomorrow?

Divided by Two Languages

The truism that the UK and the USA are two countries divided by a common language formed a leitmotiv of my working life, since I spent a good half of my time in publishing in North America. I must confess that I rather shamelessly used my exotic accent and formal suit and tie, to ensure that a visit from Ian Jacobs was a memorable affair. But I still had to make sure that I used terminology that was readily understood. In my last job at Thames & Hudson, I regularly referred to Vincent Van Go (in Japan I learned that he is Gogo), and had to remind myself that he was Van Gogh whenever I had a meeting in London.

Jokes abound of ignorant Brits in the USA failing to ask for an eraser or looking for a lift. But, of course, the differences are not simply a question of linguistics. I recall an urbane music publisher who was from the Deep South, explaining to me and our Yankee colleagues that where he came from, the polite way to accept an invitation is to reply “I don’t care to at all”. The phrase had the opposite meaning to that understood in New York City. Behind the language differences are real, and often profound differences of culture, even within the same country. Yankees may have fought a Civil War, but folks from Tennessee or Texas valiantly defended their homes against rapacious northerners in the War Between the States.

 

The pledge of the Children of the Confederacy defines the War Between the States

Last year, while on holiday in Spain, we sheltered from a downpour in a shopfront in Valencia and got into conversation with a Spanish couple who were also waiting for the storm to abate. I did not hear one remark and used the standard Mexican phrase that means “Excuse me”: mande usted (literally, “instruct me” or “give me orders”). In Spain a more direct ¿Cómo? or ¿Qué? (”what?”) is used. Our Spanish acquaintances explained to me that my Mexican phrase is considered to be servile. I could have replied that, to my ears, Spanish directness smacks of plain rudeness, but we did not pursue that topic of conversation any further.

Just as a Brit has to re-learn his native language in the USA, when I arrived in Mexico proudly speaking Castilian, my friends suggested that it would be much more agreeable if I were to speak like a Mexican. There are probably considerably more differences of vocabulary between Mexican and Castilian Spanish than there are between British and American English. A drinking straw is a popote not a pajita. You catch a  camión (literally a truck) rather than an autobús, and the verb you use for to catch is never coger (English f**k) but agarrar ("grab"), conseguir ("get hold of") or tomar ("take").

 

A road sign to the Central Camionera, officially known as the Central de Autobuses

It is perhaps in the social graces that a foreigner first notices that the differences are far more than merely linguistic. Mexicans retain the use of the formal usted (derived from the antique phrase vuestra merced, or “your honour”) and the familiar tu to say "you", a distinction shockingly abandoned in contemporary Spain. In addition to learning whom to address as usted, the newcomer soon learns to litter his speech with titles and honorifics. You do not ask for señor Sánchez, but for licenciado (a person with a first degree), arquitecto, ingeniero, doctor, maestro (somebody of superior education), señor director and the like. The use of first names is for friends and close colleagues, rarely for new acquaintances unless permission is explicitly or implicitly given, and certainly not to address social superiors. In other words, language expresses quite an elaborate social hierarchy.

At this stage you might agree with the Spaniards that all of this is much too servile. But these language conventions are an integral element of a society in which politeness, respect, consideration and an instinctive generosity towards, and desire to please, new acquaintances is quite profoundly and sincerely felt. Of course, in crowded and stressful urban environments, an elbow in the ribs to get on a bus, or a rude remark if displeased with someone, is quite common, but nevertheless a visitor is much more keenly aware of courtesy than in Spain.

In fact, in the days of the Spanish empire, Spaniards had a phrase: “As courteous as a Mexican”. I think that there are quite profound historical reasons for this rhetorical and social formality. In Aztec Mexico a ruler was known as a huey tlatoani (“the man who speaks” or “orator”) and rulers were depicted in ancient manuscripts with speech signs coming out of their mouths. Mexican society began to take shape when prehispanic ritualized behaviour met Spanish social and rhetorical norms in the 16^th century. Some colonists accumulated fabulous wealth. Those who did not had to find positions in the households of the wealthy or seek government appointments. In either case, seeking favour required plenty of deferential forms of address to people of higher social status, while maintaining one’s superiority to indigenous people or African slaves. So, ingratiating yourself was important and adequately deferential forms of address were keys to success.

 

Ahuitzotl, tlatoani of Tenochtitlan. Note the speech symbol

Today, if you are invited to a Mexican’s home for the first time, when you arrive you will be addressed with a phrase such as Aquí tiene su casa (“Here is your home”) or Esta es su casa (“This is your home”). Such phrases are a social ritual, but they reflect sincere pleasure and pride that you have agreed to enter the home. I was told a joke about this language. A Mexican says to an American acquaintance “It would be a great pleasure to have dinner with you where your home is” (Sería un gran placer cenar con usted donde tiene su casa). A date and time is agreed. That day the Mexican host devotes many hours to preparing a sumptuous dinner. But his guest never arrives, because he is at his own home spending many hours preparing an American dinner for his new friend. The American is also disappointed that his expected guest fails to show up.

Commemorative stamp of the Abrazo de Acatempan

Artist's impression of the abrazo de Acatempan

Then, of course, there is the Mexican abrazo. Every year in the small town of Acatempan, Guerrero, the locals celebrate, with great pageantry, perhaps the most significant abrazo in Mexican history. On 10 February 1821 two military leaders met in Acatempan. On one side was general Vicente Guerrero, leader of the rebels seeking independence from Spain. On the other was the royalist general Agustín de Iturbide. The two generals reached an agreement to consummate Mexico’s independence (Iturbide became Emperor Agustín I, although he did not last long as emperor) and sealed the deal with an embrace.

 

The reenactment of the abrazo de Acatempan

I must confess that as a reserved Englishman for whom a handshake was intimate, liberally embracing men took some getting used to. But upon arrival at a party, or a business meeting, embrace one must – repeatedly until all other men have been embraced. The right arm goes over the shoulder of the other man, the left under his right arm, and both pat one another’s backs. They say that the patting was originally a way of checking whether the other man was armed. I can remember social occasions when it took a good few minutes to kiss all the women and embrace all the men. Then another guest would arrive and another few minutes were spent kissing and embracing.