BEING HUMAN : IF - AND - THEN

It is the last day of November, a Monday and the beginning of the 49^th week of the year. Start the Week, a program on BBC Radio 4, was today hosted by journalist and broadcaster Amol Rajan. His subject was human ingenuity and shared inheritance. He was joined by three guests:

Simon Baron-Cohen FBA FBPsS FMedSci, clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge. He is director of the Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College. The show was plugging, in the nicest possible way, his latest book The Pattern Seekers: A new Theory of Human Invention. In the United States it is published under the title The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention. He shows how humans have evolved remarkable ingenuity from arts to the sciences by using complex systemizing mechanisms. The ability to formulate if-and-then processes.

 

 

Rebecca Wragg Sykes PhD, an archaeologist plugging, again in the nicest possible way, her first book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art depicting the Neanderthals as curious and clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and artistically inclined. Humans are not uniquely special and share many traits and GNA with Neanderthal relatives.

 

Susana Carvalho PhD, who describes herself: “I am a primatologist and palaeoanthropologist. I was one of main founders of the field of Primate Archaeology. I have been studying stone tool use by wild chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea, West Africa, since 2006, and carrying archaeological research in the Koobi Fora area, Kenya, East Africa since 2008, with a current focus on the archaeology of the Pliocene. I am the director of the Paleo-Primate Project Gorongosa since 2015, where an international team of 20 senior researchers is carrying an unprecedented interdisciplinary approach to understanding hominin origins and adaptations. In Mozambique, I am focusing on extant primates (baboons vervets) as models for behavioural evolution, and I am also directing surveys, excavations of fossil sites, and actualistic experimentations to achieve a more holistic understanding of our past evolution.”

She was not plugging a specific book but her research, in the nicest possible way.

 

The discussion centred essentially on what makes us human. The matter of the ability to make and use tools was mentioned as well as group interaction and empathy; however, the additional ingredient of imagination, a trait of planning for the long-term future, not only the immediate future, our extended friendship network and intensity is what makes a difference. We have an urge to transcend through interaction with others as well as through interaction with material things. We have a real urge to connect, to reach out and to share things and experiences or an urge to see and seek patterns. Humans have a generative inventiveness, an unstoppable inventiveness, an ability to systematize, a unique ability to see and form patterns, to visualise ‘if-and-then’. Or as Jacques Derrida would have it “le qui et le quoi”.

 

One of the aspects of this unstoppable invention is the ratchet effect, featuritis (feature creep), scope creep and mission creep. Things do not always go to plan and the invention can outstrip the technology meant to be able to cope with it. Which is why some computer systems so quickly become antique, because of the invention of new systems and software. It is the ability to imagine endlessly.

 

The first person to ever do something, like make a stone ricochet off water, never did it before. Barnes Wallis comes along and thinks “if-and-then” we have the bouncing bomb.

On the other hand, who could have imagined this endless Presidential election, or this seemingly endless pandemic. To a degree there had been some forward planning, or at least thinking about how to react to an infection crisis. There have been numerous stories and films about just such a crisis, so clearly it has been within the scope of human imagination.  Surely someone must have seen the pattern; however, seeing is never the same as coping or dealing with. The situation is effectively beyond control, or perhaps, within the small degree of control that takes the shape of lockdowns and other hopeful precautionary measures. The making of the vaccine was in effect already along the way, as research into different covid vaccines were being researched, and that research was shifted to deal with covid-19. That too is a question of ‘if-and-then’. Which is probably why it may not be so surprising that three vaccines have come along it such a short time, than might otherwise have been the case.

 

As to the matter of this fantasy limbo hovering over the United States, perhaps Simon Baron-Cohen could offer some incite. He has been looking into autism and people on the spectrum, assuming there is a spectrum. He did suggest that in some way or other we are all on the spectrum. It just depends to what degree and which end of the graph we find ourselves. It seems clear to some that Mr. Trump is at an extreme end of the spectrum. His obsessive self-obsessed behaviour, his obsessive denial and his obsessive attention deficit disorder, is something that surely requires therapy. His condition is not helped by the obsessive pandering to his obsessions. Journalist and politicians who continue to cater to his psychosis must surely see that they cannot continue on this path without losing the whole of any credibility they have left. Or perhaps I’m being obsessive.

STAY SAFE AND HOPE FOR THE BEST

In my surfing around the net, I have come across a couple of opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times. On 27^th and 29^th of November 2020 respectively. I happen to agree with the sentiments expressed in these articles, which is why I share them, and I am gratified that the Los Angeles Times has seen fit to publish them, given the current climate in the United States and considering the papers history as a supporter of a very conservative and Republican point of view. It certainly was so in the 1950’s and early 1960’s when I was in Los Angeles. It did begin to change under the leadership of then Publisher Otis Chandler who took over in 1960.

The paper is now owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a South African born billionaire, of Chinese immigrant parents, who apparently fled China during the Japanese occupation in World War II. He trained as a surgeon at UCLA Medical.

Norman Pearlstine

Patrick Soon-Shiong

 

 

The last Editor of the paper, appointed by Mr Soon-Shiong, was Norman Pearlstine, who stepped down in October of this year. 

 

Roy Hattersley

Mr Pearlstine has had a chequered career, both professionally and personally, having been married four times, earned a Law Degree from University of Pennsylvania and held numerous positions in journalism. His sister Maggie is now married to non-other than our own Roy Hattersley,  The Right Honourable The Lord Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock, and now also brother in law to Mr Pearlstine.

 

The links to the two articles are as follows:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-29/trump-election-violence-biden-administration  By Colin P. Clarke, who is a senior research fellow at the Soufan Centre, where his research focuses on terrorism, insurgency and political violence; and

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-27/defeating-trumpism-autocrat-political-movement By Ian Bassin and Justin Florence who are co-founders of the non-partisan non-profit Protect Democracy. They previously served as associate White House counsels to President Obama.

So clearly the opinions are not without some bias, but nonetheless express a view that cannot be ignored.

It is also clear that some damage has already been done, and it may be difficult to retrieve equilibrium.

I noted the news that Police Officers in Paris have been suspended after being filmed beating and racially abusing a black music producer. It would seem the actions of law enforcement officers in countries around the world are getting completely out of control. Were it not for the video cameras on mobile phones, placed on streets, undergrounds, subways, in offices and shops these abuses of the public trust would go unnoticed. Indeed, that may have been the case for years. Although the cameras on the street may have been installed for quite another purpose. I refer you to a previous blog entry on 13^th November “Do as you’re told”, which deals with a more minor incident, but is symptomatic of the incidents in the United States that have sparked many citizens around the world to publicly demonstrate their disapproval. For too long law enforcement officers have confused themselves with being the authority, rather than servants of the public, to keep the peace rather than break the peace. Despite the videos it keeps on happening, and it seems the response, although outraged at first, results in the incident being overlooked. Witness the Rodney King case, and there are a number of others. It starts at the top with the political atmosphere that seeks mastery and power rather than service and furtherance of freedoms. We live in very difficult times, particularly under the pall of a pandemic, seemingly requiring restraints. William Pitt the Younger expressed it quite well: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” We would do well to heed that advice. In the meantime, just hope for the best. Stay Safe.

WHAT DO WE DO NOW ?

Mr Trump has been alleging that ballots intended for Trump were somehow electronically and fraudulently switched to Biden, and that many of the votes cast for Mr Biden were illegal and were dishonestly allowed to be counted. He suggests that at least 6 million votes were wrongly tabulated, and that he won the election “by a lot”.

We should not forget that those 79 million plus votes were not just for Joe Biden, but were also cast for Kamala Harris. Vice-President elect Harris has a great deal to do with the number of citizens who turned out to vote in this particular election. Without her it is unlikely that the outcome would have been the same. Her mere presence made the difference, and she is not an invisible figure in the background. The world has a great deal to thank her for.

Kamala Harris

Be that as it may, the question remains, what do they do now? The prime objective, would appear to be to deal with the pandemic and its appalling consequences to the physical health of the nation and to its economic survival. Just as it is in every country round the world. To make this happen, they must, at the same time, create some sort of unity of purpose between all the political representatives chosen to govern and the people who elected them. Given the disruption and continued animosity between citizens and the obstructionist policies engendered by the present administration and his party followers, they have a very great task in front of them.

Whenever the Star Spangled Banner is played, or America the Beautiful, or My Country ‘Tis of Three, Americans become very proud, stand up, sing heartily and cheer. They sometimes weep with pride and joy; although, it’s usually at some sporting event but sometimes during times of adversity, to cheer themselves up. They get all choked up. Most Americans grew up in schools where they recited the pledge of allegiance to the flag most every morning; but, although they sing and recite the same words, they appear to have a very different idea of what being an American Citizen entails. They have become isolated, exclusionary and as egocentric as followers of the most narcissistic citizen of them all, spouting America First and Make America Great Again.

It will be a very arduous endeavour to remind them of the words they have long cherished in recital and song:

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

 

My country, ‘tis of thee

Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing

Land where my fathers died

Land of the pilgrims’ pride

From every mountain side let freedom ring

 

America, America

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining asea

 

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God,

Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

And of course, there is the Gettysburg Address proclaimed by a Republican President.

“… a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

All of these pillars of America are toped off by the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Thus, the building blocks for Mr Biden and Ms Harris, to re-establish the unity of purpose they require, are all there. The wall on which they are inscribed and enshrined is a bit crumbly and in serious need of re-pointing, but re-point it they must. It is not Mr Trump’s wall of division and exclusion, but a memorial wall of remembrance defining what American’s have sacrificed in order to be what they have pledged to be.

The very symbol of America, standing in the upper bay of the Hudson River, declaims: “..Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The contrast of these last two images should be enough to make one wince in despair at the current state of affairs. That golden door has more than somewhat lost its lustre. It may seem cheesy and hammy to call upon patriotic speeches, lyrics and oaths to make a point, but it’s simple and direct, and if filled, like a detergent, into the cess pool brains of those baseball capped proud boys, it might take effect, but it will require, just like the covid vaccine, several doses to be effective.

 

Let us wish them luck in answering the question, what do we do now?

 

ADDING ONE'S TWO CENTS

I was on my way to spend a penny

When I was offered a penny for my thoughts

So I’ll put in my two cents worth,

In for a penny, in for a pound.

 

The current planetary winds have exposed a multiplicity of viruses. Although the affliction of Covid 19 may have brought the scientific community into a degree of co-operation (given that multiple groups set about mixing up a vaccine in record time} the political community has yet to form any degree of co-operation or global plan for distributing the vaccine to the entire planet. It is a global problem and should be dealt with accordingly.

 

The leadership that should have been in place is nowhere to be found. What we have is a rise in national self-interest. The scourge of Donald Trump’s America First campaign has spread through country after country, with baffling support for demagoguory of the most invidious kind. The racism exhibited by so called law enforcement personnel is an almost daily occurrence, prompting demonstrations throughout the world, that black lives matter. Indeed they do, but I was under the impression that all lives matter. Why, after the civil rights movements of 70 years ago in Mississippi and Alabama, the Watts riots in Los Angeles, the end of apartheid in Africa, Buddhist monks setting themselves alight and numerous other past and current examples, are we still having this discussion?

 

The American elections, so far as the Senate is concerned, is still to be completed in Georgia.  The state of Georgia has already elected various Representatives. They do not seem to have progressed beyond preachers of discord. In 1949, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the musical South Pacific. It contained a song that caused controversy in America. There were a number of legislative challenges to its decency and supposed Communist agenda. Lawmakers in Georgia introduced a bill outlawing entertainment containing an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow. One nameless legislator said “A song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life”. Here is that song from an album entitled American Standard:

The desire for nations to come together was once an ideal, which, after two catastrophic world wars, brought about the creation of the United Nations and the European Union. The graves of those people whose lives were thrown away in pursuit of peace and freedom are strewn round the world. One wonders why they bothered. 

 

South Africa

Japan

Thailand

France

Under the slogan of taking back control, the separatists are on the march, only to be thrown completely out of control by Covid 19. As a result, the UK economy will suffer greatly, as will others. Still, they persist, just as a failed fantasist persists in avoiding reality. Mr. Trump's niece Mary, has written a book about the family. Her uncle Donald was 3 years old in 1949 at the time South Pacific was first performed. She describes him as someone who was carefully taught to be the energumen that he is.

WHAT NEXT ?

Recently I have been tuning in to various Television News Programs available on You Tube, in particular from the United States, reporting on current events.  I am bewildered by the variety of opinion being proffered as news, and the amount of time given to some people to expound their theories about the state of affairs in America. I have commented before (The Problem of Listening to the News: Nov. 20) on reporting and fact checking, but since I briefly began to look at some of the more extreme reporting, those items that contain - shall we say - views more to the right of the political spectrum seem to be brought up more frequently on my screen. This in itself is disturbing. These days one kind of expects adverts to follow from searches, as a result of some Google or other search engine note of your “preferences”, but one does not expect political propaganda, which invariably seems to be on the right of the political spectrum.

There are a number of problems arising out of this phenomenon, but what it has revealed is the glaring disconnect between various sections of the American public. There was a long interview on a Fox News broadcast with a lawyer called Sidney Powell.

 Ms Powell is convinced that the ex-president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez (deceased in 2013) is behind the conspiracy to switch, electronically, thousands of votes from Trump to Biden. She claims to have affidavits in support of this contention from witnesses who were on the ground and saw this happen.  It’s all an orchestrated communist conspiracy by Mr Chavez to destabilise American democracy. She does not say who in the Democratic party are co-conspirators, or how they might have achieved their goal.  

As to Hugo Chavez, he is quoted as saying in June of 2010:

“Democracy is impossible in a capitalist system. Capitalism is the realm of injustice and a tyranny of the richest against the poorest. Rousseau said, 'Between the powerful and the weak all freedom is oppressed. Only the rule of law sets you free.' That's why the only way to save the world is through socialism, a democratic socialism... [Democracy is not just turning up to vote every four or five years], it's much more than that, it's a way of life, it's giving power to the people... it is not the government of the rich over the people, which is what's happening in almost all the so-called democratic Western capitalist countries.”

 

Have we ever heard anything like that before? ‘…a government of the people, by the people, for the people…’ I wonder?

 

Mr Chavez, was indeed a Marxist. He was from a middleclass family and had a military career. He was President of Venezuela between 1999 and his death from cancer at the age of 58 in 2013. He was very popular with the voters, but in the end failed to successfully achieve his goals. He tried to use the country’s oil revenues for reform, but with so much money floating around, corruption was never far away. Oddly enough oil wealth has never been a friend of any government. In any event, in looking at Mr Chavez’s history, it is difficult to see how he would have found the time to develop such a conspiracy that would only come to fruition 7 years after his death.

So to give Ms Powell such a considerable amount of air time on such absurd nonsense is incomprehensible. How on earth did she ever pass a bar exam? Even Jenna Ellis and Rudy Guiliani have distanced themselves from her. They have their own conspiracy and fraudster claims to be going on with. On 22^nd November, Mr Trump’s legal team released a statement isolating Ms Powell from its team. It read: “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump legal team. She is also not a lawyer for the president in his personal capacity.” The letter was signed by Mr Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer, Jenna Ellis.

One comes back to the plethora of newscast that support this barrage of fantasy. If, like myself, anyone surfing the net, who is buying into this farrago of inanity, will be besieged by much more of the same stuff, all in the guise of serious reporting.

Over the years a certain style of news broadcasts took shape. In America, the demeanour and gravitas of a Walter Cronkite defined broadcast news. This was amplified by Messrs Huntley and Brinkley. We grew used to that kind of televised reporting, and so we have a slightly expanded format attempting to convey the same sincerity of purpose, to simply bring us the news.

 

 

Walter Cronkite

Huntley Brinkley Report with David Brinkley January 5, 1959 on NBC

However, we are brought nothing of the kind  [It is interesting to note, by the way, the take on the news in 1959  of  the events around Castro and Cuba, as well as comment made by Cronkite about Vietnam, which he states is his own view, and not a matter of news] 

There is hardly a newscast now that does not project some sort of editorial agenda. We are always being invited to listen to opinion and the story as explained by the 'political correspondent', 'education correspondent', 'health correspondent', 'economics editor' etc. all in the guise of an informative conversation with the studio host as if we need an explanation of events. Is the listener not able to form their own view without the editor's explanation? Why must everything be editorialised? But that seems to be the preferred format. Reporters feel they are required to challenge the interviewee. They feel they are asking the questions the viewer/listener would want asked, and so they have their lists which they must get in before there allotted time for the story is up, and so they interrupt with great frequency, wanting to push for a controversial answer as if there can only be one answer. Often, the reporter will adopt an opposing view, no matter who they are talking to, simply to elicit argument, to show they are aware of an opposing view.  To what end? It rarely leads to clarification and it only succeeds in irritating the listener. There is also the bonhomie that many newscasters are now adopting. Phrases such as "We've heard, haven't we…"

Who on earth cares what the reporter has heard? Report what's being said, and let the person saying it, say what they have to say. If there is another side to the story, get whoever is involved to tell it. 

There was a time when the BBC was the reliable source of correct information. It sometimes reported information that was incorrect, but that they believed to be correct at the time, and they then corrected the story. I do not know how much of that gets done now, but the news has become a mixture of some straight reporting and tabloid. Not a very good mix in my view. I appreciate human interest stories, but the length of time spent is disproportionate to the events going on round the world. And must every reporter feel they have be ‘investigate’ everything. “Your reporter has uncovered etc..” ..

So why am I ranting, because there are so many stations with slanted views, beaming into so many homes, that the minds of many are being clouded and filled with prejudice and fear. The disconnect between societies is becoming increasingly worrying, as is manifestly demonstrated by what is going on in the United States. One sees the results on the faces of Mr. Trump’s ardent gun carrying supporters and those opposed to them. It’s not just a few but over 70 million. If that is not a worry, I'm not sure what is. It is happening in the UK and it is happening around the world. What next?

TRUMP - SAVIOUR OF THE NATION

Mr Trump's continuing ‘fight’ to save the American public from fraud has a wonderful senior legal advisor in Jenna Ellis. In a statement to NPR News (National Public Radio) she said  “Every American deserves to know that our elections are conducted in a legal manner, no matter who they are or where they live”,,,”That’s our only goal: to ensure safe, secure, and fair elections. That’s what the Constitution requires.”

 

Well done Jenna Ellis, by repeatedly losing in court and demonstrating that you can find no evidence of massive fraud or massive illegal conduct, you have proven beyond a doubt, to all Americans no matter who they are or where they are, that the elections were conducted in a legal manner.

 

Bravo and well done. Perhaps you could now tell your client that you have achieved his only goal, and that he can now be secure in leaving his office knowing that the Constitution is safe and in the good hands of Americans chosen by the American public in a free, legal and fair election.

 

It’s of course unfortunate that the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene have also found favour with some of the Americans from North West Georgia, but that too was conducted in a legal manner.

So there can be no dispute.

 

Thank you again Jenna Ellis.

 

Jenna Ellis - Mr Trump's  legal adviser

LET'S MOVE ON

We have a very strange situation in the United Kingdom. We have the appearance of leadership in Government. That is to say, we have a Government, but we have no leader.

 

Things get done because of the Civil Service. That is to say the people who actually serve, who put into practice those things that need to be done. Some with greater or lesser efficiency. Government Minister, who allegedly come up with policy and award contracts where necessary, are less then efficient, such as awarding a shipping contract to a company that has no ships or track record of shipping. This is just an example. Ordering personal protection equipment that doesn’t actually work, is another. Be that as it may, we struggle along, comforted in the knowledge that there is a group of people working behind the scenes, actually doing the work, and keeping things going, with greater or lesser efficiency.

Government ministers, who are meant to direct this group of people, are ever changing, as are the policies and programs they seek to implement. So Civil Servants must be extremely flexible and cooperative towards their different and ever-changing ministers, as well as letting ministers have the benefit of their advice as to the best way to get those policies and programs implemented, with greater or lesser efficiency. That relationship was so brilliantly portrayed on television by the sit-com Yes Minister. In order for this relationship to happen with greater or lesser efficiency, a “Code of Conduct” was devised to define how the relationship between the Civil Servants and their Ministers would function. Because of the difficult nature of sometimes frequent and rapid changes in policy and programs, there is inevitably a high level of stress and anxiety in the offices and corridors of the workplace.

 

Ministers, who are merely temporary, but with a job to do, are even more stressed because they have to try to get done things, that may be quite challenging, in what they perceive as the very short time they are in the job. They want to be seen as being active with great efficiency, and so feel they must push the people who actually do things, to do the things they want done as soon as possible, Hence, the code of conduct, to regulate the stress levels.

 

The long and short of it is, that if Ministers cannot cope with the stress levels, they should not be Ministers. We, unfortunately have just such a Minister at the Home Office. Ms. Priti Patel. She has been found wanting, and very much in breach of the Code of Conduct. She has repeatedly been accused of bullying staff, and her behaviour has been found to be just that, although it might have been unintentional. She added that there were difficulties because some civil servants had been un-cooperative. She has profusely apologised, and claimed that if she has caused distress it was entirely unintentional.  It is clear, however, that she had been warned on several occasions that she must not treat her staff in ‘that manner’, or speak to them in ‘that way’. Despite this, she claims it was unintentional, which clearly indicates that she is not able to control herself, and will more than likely carry on behaving exactly as she has before the enquiry. The stress is obviously too much for her to deal with her own behaviour.

 

She should have the decency to resign herself, but where the current administration is concern, the matter of integrity does not arise. Boris Johnson, our prime buffoon, stands by her. She's made an apology, and that is that. He will no longer discuss it. When asked he will just say, "That's over with, she's apologised, let's move on." That is what he does. With anything embarrassing, and clearly a mater for acting responsibly, such as with Dominic Cummings earlier this year, he employs the same tactic, "He's apologised, let's move on." He always  moves on, and he is allowed to get away with it. He has never been pushed to act with integrity. Oh well, that's just Boris. Well it isn't Just Boris, he's supposed to be a Prime Minister. If ever there was a person out of his depth, it's 'Just Boris". He is straight out of the pages of a Richmal Crompton book. All it needs is for Martin Jarvis to actually do the voice overs for Boris' speeches and we'd have the full flavour of Boris and The Outlaws

 

Violet Elizabeth Bott

So that is what I mean when I say we have a Government, but it’s really just Boris and the Outlaws with Priti Patel as Violet Elizabeth   “I'll thcream and thcream 'till I'm thick"”

 

 

 

AN AMERICAN CRISIS

This is not the first time America has faced severe adversity towards its democracy. At the very beginning in 1776, once the Declaration had been made, it had to be put into effect. That required a revolution. Many people died, and some stood by.  Thomas Paine, English born, American activist, was only too well aware of the difficulties and, as a theorist, activist and writer, he provided the appropriate call to join the cause:

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

 

The White Hart Hotel in Lewes, Sussex, UK

Thomas Paine

 So do not despair, but get out and shout  “Donald Trump – You’re Fired!!!”

The public should inundate the white house with letters and emails with just that sentiment.

Here is the email contact for the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

 

Do it today

IN THE AFTERMATH - A MINOR PROBLEM

Apart from the disturbing events in the United States, the drift of middle European states, Austria, Hungary and Poland to the political right, is itself a cause for concern. The countries appear to be falling back on their isolationist pursuits exposing the bigotry and racism that, in my experience, has always been bumbling along under a veneer of polished behaviour. The overt racism I observed in Budapest in 1965 has clearly never gone away, and has been little remarked upon. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, is overtly homophobic. In 2018, Hungary and Poland blocked a joint statement by EU employment and social affairs ministers intended to promote gender equity in the digital era because of objections to a reference to LGBT people; however, Austria—then president of the Council of the European Union—adopted the text regardless, though with modifications. While the reference to LGBT people was retained, the text was classified as "presidential conclusions" which do not carry the legal weight of formal Council conclusions. Recently, more and more politicians have resorted to use openly homophobic rhetoric. That same rhetoric applies to Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups under the guise of ‘foreign immigrants’. In Austria, there is a legal requirement by immigrants to learn German. The cost of tuition can be reflected by way of a reduction in the amount of benefit they may be entitled to.

But this resurgence of the right is not just a middle European problem. Professor Henry Giroux writes:

Henry Giroux

The ghosts of a fascist past are with us once again, resurrecting the discourses of hatred, exclusion and ultra-nationalism in countries such as the United States, Hungary, Brazil, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines. In addition, right-wing extremist parties are on the move politically in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The designers of a new breed of fascism increasingly dominate major political formations and other commanding political and economic institutions across the globe. They have infused a fascist ideology with new energy through a right-wing populism that constructs the nation through a series of racist and nativist exclusions, all the while feeding off the chaos produced by neoliberalism.”

President Donald Trump;

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan;

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro;

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban (AP/Getty/Salon)

Note the present chaos in our own Labour Party, and the fall away of the Labour vote in the last election towards the Conservative Party and of all people Boris Johnson. The turmoil surrounding the Labour leadership during the last election, when the Party, had it been united, should have had an open door to Government, was catastrophic. It continues even now. A party that once welcomed diversity and stood proudly and loudly against prejudice of any kind, fouling its forward progress with the stupidity of anti-Semitism, and allowing it to become an issue. It provided a weapon for every journalist interviewing any labour spokesperson. No matter what the import or content of the interview, a simple “What about anti-Semitism?” and any attempt at making as case for Labour was lost. That is still the case. 

  "There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."

If the United Kingdom wants to avoid being swallowed up by this tide, grow up. Breaking away from the European Union and this Island will be more at sea than ever. If it is to remain afloat, and not sink under the mountains of customs paperwork, and tons of lorries blocking ports and motorways, it had better make some progress in its dealing with the rest of the world, and in particular the European Union; otherwise, they might just plug up the hole at Calais, and be done with it.