Today is Earth Day, and by all rights, I probably should be commenting on that. However, it would seem that a number of big ticket items are happening all at once: in addition to Earth Day, it’s Budget Day in the United Kingdom. We here in Britain will discover, at long last, how truly broke we are. But that’s a target rich environment for another day.

Earth Day itself has been worked over a number of times; in my opinion, every day should be “earth day”, rather than having its precepts consigned to one date in particular. I am concerned that some people are going to switch off their television and their lights for a few hours, eat an organic yoghurt and go back to normal tomorrow, thinking that they’ve done something substantial to save the planet. However, I’ve made my disdain for simple, unsustainable solutions quite clear.

South Africa’s election, in contrast, has received less attention. This is probably because the outcome is already known: it is highly likely that the African National Congress will win yet another term in office. It is also just as probable that the next President of South Africa will be Jacob Zuma, the ANC leader. This appears to be a matter of resigned acceptance.

I have personal links to South Africa: a number of my friends are from there and live there. I was once married to a South African. I have visited the country and loved it to the depths of my soul. I support the Springboks and drink rooibos tea like it’s going out of style. I’m not entirely sure why I have this mad passion: perhaps I was a South African in a previous life, or it might have been witnessing Pretoria’s jacaranda trees in full bloom, but there is something special about the country that inspires me.

It helped that my love affair began shortly after South Africa became politically inspiring too: I first visited soon after it became clear Nelson Mandela was going to become the next President. He remains the epitome of leadership: he is committed to progress over retribution, solutions rather than blame, unity rather than fragmentation. As a “Founding Father”, the reborn South Africa could not do better.

However, I remember at the time that President Mandela took office, one of my political science professors said, “Nelson is a lovely man, but he can’t go on forever. Who comes after him?”

Who indeed? After all, the African National Congress that stood behind him was a fragmented party in every respect and it still is. Its membership ranges in ideology from hardline Communists to Thatcherite capitalists. It incorporates both Zulu and Xhosa interests. After the National Party, the Afrikaner organisation that underpinned the apartheid system, merged with the ANC in 2005, I’m sure I was not alone in asking: “Who are you now, precisely?” That said, the reply probably would have been just as confused as the party itself.

Worse, the leadership that followed President Mandela has been, to be blunt, terrible. President Mbeki has presided over growing inequality, and is guilty of inexcusable dithering over the issue of fighting AIDS and the horrors being perpetrated by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. It was an absolute relief to see him depart: but it says much that his exit has only brought limited succour.

Finally, there is a case to be made about one party serving too long in office. The ANC’s rule over South Africa has been unbroken since 1994. Fifteen years is long enough for complacency and corruption to have set in; according to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perceptions Index, in 2008, South Africa was in 54th place. In 2007, South Africa was in 43rd place. A steep decline of this nature augurs poorly for the future if the present government is not provided with a suitably strong opposition to challenge it.

South Africa, sadly, only has a small Green Party to act as the voice of the environmental movement. This is understandable in a nation that has been outside of the political mainstream for so long. Given this situation, in my opinion, the best option is the Democratic Alliance.

For those who are unfamiliar with this organisation, the Democratic Alliance is a liberal political party which can trace its roots back to the South African Progressive Party. Overall, it can be summarised in a single word: prickly. It acquired this quality through its leading light and inspiration, Helen Suzman.

Helen Suzman is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela, but her role was nearly as heroic. She was the sole liberal voice in South Africa’s parliament for much of the apartheid period. She consistently challenged racism; she had the audacity to refer to the government as “narrow-minded, prejudiced bullies”, and once called the head of the Bureau of State Security, “South Africa’s very own Heinrich Himmler”. She also told John Vorster, the Justice Minister, that he should visit his constituency “heavily disguised as a human being”. Verbal prodding of this kind once prompted a government minister to say she was embarrassing the nation. Quite rightly, she shot back, “It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa; it is your answers.” On top of all this, she extensively visited Mandela in prison and championed his release.

Overall, she was principled, indefatigable, and if I may say it, apparently quite curmudgeonly. As soon as I heard of her existence and learned about what she had done, I liked her very much. The Democratic Alliance is picking up where she has left off by challenging corruption and demanding an open, non-racial society. On the surface, these demands are an invitation to the world-weary practitioners of realpolitik to rub their foreheads, sigh, and say that idea of a colour-blind, fully tolerant, liberal South Africa is a pipe dream. As I’m sure Ms. Suzman would have retorted if she was still with us, “Yes, so was demanding an end to apartheid.” A slogan from the Spanish Civil War seems apropos, “Be realistic, demand the impossible.”

It is unlikely that the Democratic Alliance will win the election today; however it is possible that they could win control of the Western Cape’s provincial government. This would be a useful check on the power of the ANC; by losing the wealthiest province to the opposition, the federal structure of South Africa would then become something other than a transmission belt of orders from the centre. Rather, President Zuma would then be subject to scrutiny, questions, and challenge. In order words, he’d have the thorns of principle constantly scratching at him.

A successful election outcome for the DA would achieve one other great good: anecdotal evidence from my circle of acquaintances has made it clear that there is growing comfort among white South Africans to vote for a Zulu or Xhosa President. Most, if not all of them, backed President Mandela wholeheartedly. If South Africa is going to truly rise up from its past, the same level of comfort should exist the other way around: the present leader of the DA, Helen Zille, is white. However, her record is without reproach; for example, she was the journalist who exposed the truth behind the murder of Steve Biko. She was also voted World Mayor of the Year for 2008, based on her outstanding record in Cape Town. Rather than judging her on her skin colour or even gender, it should be her experience, principles and policies that count. If this proves to be the case, then South African politics will emerge tomorrow a little bit more diverse, a little bit cleaner, and hopefully a lot more prickly.

I’ve never been a big fan of biofuels. Some may call me crazy, but I strongly believe there is something inherently perverse about turning crops into vehicle fuel when starvation is still rife in some parts of the world. Perhaps this issue’s apotheosis occurred during an episode of “60 Minutes” which aired last December. It featured Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was bragging that he had converted his Hummer to run on biofuels. He also put forward his belief that we could continue to have the life we lead now, so long as we make eco-friendly changes in the types of energy we use, and make conservation a greater priority.

However, it was recently reported in the Economist that biofuels are having an unforeseen impact: their production is putting more nitrous oxide into the air. While everyone has been focused on carbon output, this gas is even more lethal in terms of climate change, and worse, it is more difficult to disperse. According to the scientists quoted in the article, the nitrogen cycle, which is part of the functioning of plant life on earth, is changing, and not necessarily in ways that are beneficial. So: even if we do limit our carbon emissions, it appears that the task is not yet done; we will still need to profoundly change our lives. The idea that we can simply change to biofuel powered cars and stick a wind turbine in the back yard or solar cells on the roof and this will save the earth is a mirage.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this: our actions in response to the changing environment highlights a character flaw in the human race. We reach towards the simplest solution, even if a more thorough examination of that solution shows that it is insufficient. Indeed, we continue to grasp at these mirages in spite of simplicity’s terrible track record.

Hard times make this flaw worse. In Britain, the British National Party appears to be gaining support despite, or perhaps because of, their long advocacy of anti-Semitic and racist policies. They recently elected a member of the London Assembly; additionally, they presently hold 56 seats in local government. They have cleverly repackaged their uncivilised and brutal creed by swiping a misstatement made by the Prime Minister; he once stated that his priority was “British jobs for British workers”. The BNP took this quote and plastered it on their website. Unemployment is growing as the recession takes its toll; in this context, a slogan as simple as this sounds good. Racism also sounds like a simple solution: if the Asians are removed from society, the argument goes, there is less competition for jobs and public services. Of course, the BNP is a party by and for the intellectually challenged: they never want to answer the questions which pertain to treating one neighbours with common decency and without prejudice. Furthermore, they also fail to come up with an answer for the likely international retaliation that would ensue due to following their policies; they also cannot answer questions regarding who would fill the labour gap the departure of minorities would leave behind. Complexity would obscure the message; it might even make some people question it. Therefore it is hidden beneath a mountain of childish, petty rhetoric which appears to be endemic among the European far-right.

But it’s not just the political extremes, nor individual peons like Schwarzenegger who have succumbed to the narcotic of simplicity. Most democratic politicians cling to it like a toddler clings to a favourite stuffed animal. As was stated by the writers of the programme, “Yes, Minister”, most elected officials adhere to what is referred to as “The Politician’s Syllogism”:

We must do something
This is something
Therefore we must do this

This has led to a plague of rash decisions, ranging from the toppling of the Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in the 1950′s (which is the basis of Iran’s mistrust of the West to this day) to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the dash for biofuels now. Blood has been spilled, lives have been ruined, billions have been spent chasing the mirage of a simple solution. Perhaps this an evolutionary hurdle that the human race cannot fully climb over: we still have not learned to face up to rather than shrink away from the complexities of the world. Indeed, past history suggests that when things become too painful or complex, that is the precise moment that human beings are most ready to surrender liberty.

I’ve been spending much of today watching “The World at War”; admittedly, I am one of those people who cannot bear silence as a form of background noise. What is striking about the portions which focus on the German home front prior to and during the war, is how readily nonsense was believed: the hysterical anti-Jewish, anti-British, and anti-anyone propaganda that Herr Goebbels put forward should have been worthy solely of laughter. Even prior to the Nazi takeover, the Jews were a tiny minority within Germany, and their influence on society was neither malevolent nor disproportionate: any “occupation” by Jews of “portable” trades such as finance and medicine was partially due to previous persecutions. Anyone with eyes to see would have been able to discern this.

Similarly, the idea that the Russians were any less human than anyone else is just as laughable; but again, it was believed, and used to justify tactics which rank alongside the Christian knights’ barbarism during the Crusades. But to blame one race or another for one’s problems was simple; it was easier to do this than to discuss issues like hyperinflation, the over extension of global finance, the domination of the German economy by firms like I.G. Farben. Far simpler to let someone else to do the thinking than to face up to these issues; but in abdicating from this responsibility, the Germans made themselves into both slaves and a menace.

By refusing to face up to the complexities which plague us now, we too are slaves, albeit a different kind. We have become servants to fads and fashions: if we assemble an “Earthship”, for example, or buy a Toyota Prius, we feel able to pat ourselves on the back for our virtue. There, we can say, problem solved. We don’t want ourselves to be troubled by the environmental costs of putting a Prius together (i.e., the toxic chemicals required in making the batteries), nor deal with the fact that Earthships are only viable in certain places with an adequate supply of land and sunlight.

We are also a menace too, but again, a different kind. As the example of biofuels shows, we often trade one problem for another, more intractable one; the environment, as per usual, ends up paying the price.

Lest I be unduly harsh on the human race, it is important to note that the phenomena I’ve just described does indicate that we are improving in some ways. At least outside the environs that vote for the likes of the British National Party, there is a healthy scepticism about totalitarian and racist solutions. Furthermore we have better information than ever before, thanks in part to the internet: with this knowledge, we are able to disperse mirages much more quickly than in the past. While evolution may not be happening fast enough, at least this is an indication that it is possibly moving in the right direction. If the eventual result is free individuals who acknowledge their role in the world, and their responsibility to posterity, even if that means living far less luxuriously than we do now, then perhaps all our present tribulations will have been worth it.

I am a latecomer to the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Perhaps I can be forgiven for this as I am allergic to Simon Cowell: I recall he was once asked if he enjoyed the process of crushing the hopefuls that came his way. While he didn’t explicitly say “yes”, he nodded and smiled in such a way that made my stomach churn. There is a pomposity, a smugness, a noblesse sans oblige about him which suggests he has an endless reservoir of cruelty. If I deign to watch him, I believe I would merely help fatten his bank balance. So I don’t.

However, I also believe in karma. I remain firmly convinced that whatever one puts into the world creates feedback which reflects the input. To put it in computer programming terms: garbage in, garbage out; I thought that Cowell’s eventual comeuppance would be in encountering someone worse than he. I don’t think anyone expected his Waterloo would take the shape of a middle-aged spinster from Scotland.

Much has been written about the contrast between Ms. Boyle’s appearance and her singing abilities. Certainly Cowell didn’t expect her to be so talented: if the You Tube clip is any indication, it took a few moments for him to regain his composure. Afterwards, he stated that he knew that she would be great as soon as she stepped out. I had difficulty preventing myself from shouting something obscene.

The panel’s attitude, as well as that of the audience, was perfectly summarised by one of the judges: she stated, “When you came out, everyone was against you”. It was this quip which really caught my attention: it appears that the last acceptable prejudice left is that which discriminates against the unconventionally beautiful.

Ms. Boyle should take comfort in the fact that she is not alone. For example, journals such as the Daily Mail are constantly analysing the weight gain or loss of celebrities. I remember a particularly unpleasant article in which they referred to Jessica Simpson as being a “bigger star than ever”. The tone of the article is condescending, the writer implies something is wrong with Ms. Simpson. The piece states she was once the doyenne of Hollywood red carpets, and it also engaged in speculation about her love life. We learn nothing about her intellectual, moral or personal qualities from articles of this type: when it comes to describing her kindness, generosity and overall benevolence, there is a noticeable void. Beauty is reduced to mere measurements.

If it were the Daily Mail alone, we could leave it as a symptomatic of the myriad pathologies which drive that publication. However, merely visiting a local newsagent is sufficient to show how widespread the problem is. Look at the long rack of so-called “women’s magazines”: the vast majority talk about beauty tips, cosmetics, diets. The celebrities interviewed are generally on the rise or comeback, in which case their secrets are “revealed”. Alternatively, the celebrities are on the wane or have crashed (Amy Winehouse springs to mind) in which case they provide carrion upon which the vultures of individual vanity can feed. All, however, are focused on “looking good”, outer appearance in this instance becoming a reflection of inner virtue.

There is nothing natural about this; if we believe both Freud and Lacan, we are not born with an inherent knowledge of what we should find desirable. Rather, this is something we learn over time from society’s influences. Looking at the history of art bears out this interpretation: the women painted by Pieter Paul Ruebens in the 17th century would not be confused with the elfin waifs that inhabit our catwalks today.

Again, the judge on Britain’s Got Talent said it best, “When you first came out, everyone was against you”. By the learned, societal standard, Ms. Boyle is not reassuringly conventional in her looks: she did not dye her hair to hide her grey, it does not appear that she has a personal trainer, nor was she dressed to the nines. She is more “everywoman” rather than “superstar”: she is the person we encounter in the supermarket or book store rather than an idol that we assume will emerge from a limousine. Because of our cultural conditioning, the expectation was that her outer visage was a reflection of some sort of inner decrepitude. The audience perhaps also resented her presumption: she had the audacity to “expose” herself to them and the viewing public.

However, everyone changed sides as soon as she sang. Her voice, melodic, powerful and clear, was such a shocking contrast that tears appeared in the eyes of two of the judges, and the audience burst into a standing ovation. She is now an international phenomenon. While Ms. Boyle’s raw talent is no doubt a motivating factor in this response, one wonders what else is behind it.

The negative interpretation is that perhaps she offers an opportunity for the public to expiate its guilt over how it views people who don’t meet the standards it sets for celebrities. She is the exception which supposedly means that the rule no longer applies, rather than the exception that proves the rule. This reduces Ms. Boyle to freak show status, and the audience to that of the gawking spectators who relish the curious juxtaposition of talent and ugliness.

However, this can be also viewed positively: Ms. Boyle’s arrival is a liberation from the straight jacket of our present culture. There can be no doubt that it is stultifying and worse, dull: one of the most depressing features of modern pop music, for example, is its constant churning out of cookie cutter singers. They all dress the same way, sing the same way, are coiffed the same way. Their careers rise and fall with an alarming regularity. Their songs are also very forgettable: it is unlikely that future generations are going to thank us for the works of Westlife, Boyzone or whatever boy band is popular this week. Ms. Boyle is different; she is by all means herself, rather than a manufactured product. She stands out in a field that is otherwise mundane.

Furthermore, perhaps she provides us with a salutary lesson: rather than having to erect monuments made of silicon and plastic, we have a symbol of the beauty that potentially lies in the truth. The early signs that she could provide this moral example are encouraging: she has already indicated that she will not change, in spite of her elevation to celebrity status. If this inspires others to burst forth in sweet song, or put pen to paper to compose flowing prose, or don their dancing shoes to trip the light fantastic regardless of societal constraints, so much the better.

I haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been going on in America this past week: theoretically, I’m on vacation. It’s been pleasant to have time to read, listen to music and to go out and experience Spring in England, even if that means getting rained on a few times.

However, I got a phone call from America yesterday; among other things, I was asked if I had seen anything in the British press about the Tea Parties.

“No,” I admitted, “but then again I haven’t looked for it.”

If my acquaintance’s estimate is to be believed, about 300,000 people gathered across the country on tax day, April 15, to protest at the high levels of government spending and taxation implied and stated by President Obama’s budget. This demonstration was supplemented by activists mailing tea bags to politicians; I can imagine the mild British retort about the quality of American tea making it unworthy for any other purpose.

Some commentators have tried to dismiss this as an irrelevance; while 300,000 across a country as vast as the United States does sound relatively minor by dilution, I don’t believe it is. I don’t believe it’s also right to say that this protest has no genuine echoes of the past. There was an alarming refrain from 1860; Governor Rick Perry of Texas said that his state had the right to secede if it wanted. The name “Appomattox” is apparently not one he’s heard before.

More fundamentally, the Tea Party of 2009, and its namesake in 1773 are similar in the following respect: a lot its energy came from an unwillingness for people to pay for public services which otherwise they will happily consume.

Perhaps one of the greatest (but most subtle) shocks I’ve experienced since moving to the United Kingdom was the shift in my perspective on the American Revolution. First, the British don’t call it the “American Revolution”; they refer to it as the “American War for Independence”. As many of the fundamentals of American governance were unchanged by the war (i.e., property rights, the rule of law), this is probably a more accurate moniker.

Second, I had the opportunity to look at the other side of the issue. The British perspective was actually very simple and utilitarian: they were not imposing taxes as part of some plan to impose tyranny on America. Rather, Britain had to raise cash to pay for the Seven Years War, which was fought between 1756 and 1763. When Americans talk about this particular war, they refer to it as the “French and Indian War”; this is accurate insofar as the American theatre was concerned (and furthermore it began in 1754), however the overall struggle was international and hugely expensive.

The French empire in 1756 rivalled that of the British; furthermore, their dominance of Louisiana, Quebec and all along the Mississippi River meant that the American colonists were essentially boxed in. Furthermore, the French were allied to the Native Americans (an exception were the Iroquois) who had an uneasy relationship, at best, with the Americans. If the colonies were going to be able to expand and thrive, this state of affairs could not be allowed to stand. War, in this instance, was welcome: there was no noticeable “peace movement” in the Thirteen Colonies during the conflict. Indeed, one of the more famous early portraits of George Washington show him dressed in a Virginia Militia uniform in preparation to battle the French.

The British won the war; the French were eliminated as a threat to the Colonies and the Native Americans’ resistance was crushed. Given the amount of men, materiel and money that had been expended by the Crown, it was not unreasonable for Britain to want a contribution from the Americans to help pay the bill.

If one subscribes to the hagiography of the Founding Fathers, this simple truth gets lost: if viewed through the fog of distorted history, the causes of the conflict change from a refusal to pay for services rendered, to the mighty issues of “taxation without representation” and preferring liberty or death to British rule. This is not to excuse the means by which the British imposed the tax: the proper method would have been to negotiate an arrangement with the colonial assemblies. There was also a disconnect between the London government and the colonists’ representation in Parliament. Finally, the British use of troops was incompetent and heavy handed, which led to the tragedy of the Boston Massacre. However, contrary to legend, George III was not a monster; he was certainly not an autocrat in the mould of King Louis XVI, with whom the Americans later allied, nor was the British government particularly possessed of evil intent. Again, it was simply short of money and needed the Americans to help pay the bills.

Having said all this, I could be branded a horrible traitor by many of my fellow countrymen. The hagiography of the Founding Fathers is extremely resistant to any alteration. I recall visiting Philadelphia in the mid 1990′s to attend my uncle’s wedding. Out of curiosity, I went to Independence Hall; I had not seen it since I was a small boy. I listened to the extremely earnest guide from the National Park Service talk about Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in reverential terms. I invariably wanted to pipe up and present the British perspective on the matter; however, given the intensity with which the guide spoke, it would have been rude and tragic to interrupt his flow. It is still considered not apropos to ask what the Founding Fathers were really fighting for; certainly, they were men of genius, talent and character. However they were human beings, and as such, they were not infallible.

In many respects, those today who want to party like its 1773 are not out of line with tradition: the American government is short of cash. The services rendered are different: the wars are abroad rather than against a local enemy. Americans also appear to want the government to improve their health care beyond the obligations that Medicare already provides, they also want Social Security payments to continue to be made, they want unemployment insurance, and they want the government to provide a variety of subsidies and payments ranging from agricultural price supports to infrastructure projects. They have voted for solid Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, as well as for a Democrat President to ensure these services continue. There is a price tag associated with these demands; I no more accept the demonstrators’ protestations that they want small government than I would a (fictional) American colonist in 1756 saying that he didn’t mind the French building up their presence in North America. It may sound fine in theory: but when Social Security stops being paid or the Native American allies of the French burn down your homestead, the real-time consequences are sufficient, at least, to cause one to pause.

However, it is likely that the impetus behind the modern Tea Party movement will peter out. Today’s Tea Parties lack a John Adams or Thomas Jefferson to give a coherent theoretical and political edifice to the opposition, nor is there a Sam Adams to provide the necessary agitation: the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are no substitute. Furthermore, President Obama’s recent call for ensuring America’s money is well spent indicates he has some understanding of how to defuse the issue: articulating clearly what the money is going towards forces the public to view spending as a specificity, a payment for services rendered, rather than a generality. Knowledge, rather than propaganda, can take the steam out of public anger. I would also suggest that he takes steps to get rid of earmarks, the majority of which can only be described as waste (a “Lawrence Welk Birthplace Museum” built in North Dakota springs to mind).

Finally, if President Obama wants to talk about history, there are plenty of ways in which it can come to his aid: he can talk about John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay fighting for federal expenditure on internal improvements or about Andrew Jackson’s lack of support for America’s financial infrastructure, namely the Second Bank of the United States, and how this led to the panic of 1837. However, I don’t suggest he re-examine history in the manner which I have just done: “Tea Party Pooper”, for an American, is probably a title best acquired from a distance if at all.

I’m not usually inclined to comment on a book before I’ve read it. However, I’m moved to make an exception in the case of Anthony Giddens’ new tome, entitled “The Politics of Climate Change”.

For those who aren’t familiar with Lord Giddens’ previous works, he is one of the intellectual architects of the “Third Way”, the philosophy which underwrote both Tony Blair’s and Bill Clinton’s approach to politics. I recall one of Clinton’s speeches in which he articulated this perspective: he rejected the choice to be made between state intervention and free markets as false, rather, he called for a partnership between the two for the betterment of society. Rather than stop there, he continued in this vein for an additional thirty minutes; the lecture made one think of political philosophy as a caramel stickiness, a sugary adhesion between two diametric opposites in one great metaphysical globule. In an era of prosperity, few questioned this “post-ideological” approach; people were more interested in snickering at President Clinton’s sexual dalliances at the time.

Not content with creating a intellectual abortion based on avoiding the idea of choice altogether, Giddens’ latest work attacks the green movement. According to the Economist, he refers to greens as “relentlessly downbeat” and rejects the “hairshirt” approach as offered by environmentalists. He suggests that greens need to offer a vision of a bright future as opposed to issuing dire warnings.

Other commentators agree. Will Hutton stated in the Guardian that “the environment is too important to be left to the green movement”. In his words:

The green movement as it stands should receive the last rites. Its only hope is for a complete overhaul. Its mystic, utopian view of nature and its attachment to meaningless notions such as sustainable development or the precautionary principle should be done away with. It is time to move on.

To which I feel tempted to reply, “Oh, really?” Which has been proven to be unsustainable and impractical, the philosophy both Hutton and Giddens represent, or the principles for which the green movement stands?

I’ve often thought that the Green Party should base its next general election campaign around a single question: “How’s that working out for you?” It sounds very American, to be sure, but the tone behind the question: sardonic, sarcastic but pragmatic all at once should provoke thought about the modern world and how it is presently structured.

We have had nearly twenty years of Giddens’ philosophy being in vogue among the political Centre-Left; it was put into practice in the United States and Britain. Everyone thought they could have their cake and eat it too: Clinton thought he could spend more, solve the deficit and eliminate the barrier between investment and commercial banking (i.e., through the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933) and it would all come right. Yet, it was the refusal to diminish expectations (e.g., by pricking the housing bubble), and his government’s elimination of regulation that helped pave the way to our present crisis. It is possible to ask the American public now: how’d that work out for you? Unemployment is on the march, people are locked into debts they can no longer afford, banks will be propped up by the taxpayer for years, industries are shutting down. The pessimists, the Cassandras, those who sounded a cautionary note and were swept aside by the Third Way optimists were the ones who turned out to be correct.

Similarly, in Britain, we have had a Third Way government in operation since 1997. The Labour government thought the party would last forever: it gave the Bank of England operational independence, and spent more. Gordon Brown went so far as to say that the cycles of “boom and bust” had been abolished; this is a mistaken claim for which he has not yet apologised. The British public should also consider how well this played out: the sceptics, the dour pragmatists, the hairshirt wearers and those who watched the proverbial economic canaries in the mine keeling over proved to be those who understood more about what was going on than the optimists.

Yet after having been so categorically and tragically wrong, we are presented with the likes of Giddens and Hutton telling those who were right, that they are the ones who are wrong and indeed that they need to change their ways. These esteemed gentlemen also tragically underestimate the intelligence and discernment of the public: they simply refuse to believe that an informed electorate is capable of making difficult decisions, rather, like children, they need to be given bright colours and more sugar candy in order to make the bitter pill of greenery that much easier to swallow. This is a “bread and circuses” brand of politics which is the province of the authoritarian regimes, rather than the hallmark of a responsible, representative government.

Let’s be clear: it is time to don the proverbial hairshirt in most respects. We have one planet, with a limited set of resources. Under these circumstances, economic growth has constraints: there are only so many products we can pull out of the ground, whether they are agricultural or industrial. There are only so many people that this world can feed, clothe and allow to breathe. Either we correct the problem through our actions, or nature will correct the problem for us, in ways we would probably rather not contemplate.

The reality of global constraints must be accompanied by a recognition of individual constraints. We have been encouraged to think that our individual sovereignty is linked to unlimited consumption. Through advertising and the present construction of the economic order, we have been led to believe that we are entitled to have whatever we want, whenever we want: we have become autocrats in our own domains. However, this fallacious link should be severed: liberty is not a matter of being free to consume, but being free to think, to act, to question and to be entrusted with responsibility. Is this less “fun” than carefree self-indulgence? Certainly. But at the same time, we’ve seen that the other way is a dead end.

This analysis moves green political thought from a “utopian” project, as both Giddens and Hutton believe, into a project which is actually more realistic than what they propose. Interestingly, it is Giddens and Hutton who are buying into fantasy: as the Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek once stated, we labour under a paradox, namely that we have the power to destroy the world, which is true, but that we also are simultaneously powerless to change the present economic order. Giddens and Hutton would rather not work to remedy the conundrum, rather they want to continue to indulge it.

The Economist notes, with some implied sadness, that despite Giddens’ work being “woolly”, that the author’s previous significance will “propel it onto shelves in high places”. This is probably true. With a bit of luck, however, the volume will remain on those shelves, gather dust, and then be quietly forgotten. The era of hard choices is upon us, whether we like it or not. Giddens’ fantasies are not a help, but a hindrance.

Nostalgia for days gone by is nothing new. The statue of Richard the Lionheart in front of the Houses of Parliament is a testament to Victorian aspirations of medieval nobility. I remember back in the early 1990′s that my younger sister developed a penchant for tie dye clothing and Janis Joplin records. “The good old days”, as a cliche, has been used so much that not even advertising executives will touch it any longer.

However, lately I’ve noticed a creeping sentimentality about an era that deserves no such tribute. I’ve seen grown men wearing polyester in broad daylight. Disco music and multiple shades of brown have made an appearance in perfume ads. Even prawn cocktails are being mentioned on cookery programmes. God help us: the Seventies are coming back.

I was born in the early 1970′s, so my awareness of the era is somewhat limited; this is probably for the best. However, older, wiser people than me have summarised the period by using words like “tasteless” and “tacky”.

I got a good dose of what they were talking about in my Elementary German class: one day, I was handed a textbook which was printed in 1975. We were instructed to turn to a page which would give us the vocabulary describing various articles of clothing. When I reached it, I discovered a drawing of a young man in quite possibly the most outrageous flared denim trousers imaginable. This was accompanied by a (presumably polyester) shirt with a very wide collar, and a denim jacket that had flared sleeves. I couldn’t help myself: I burst out laughing. After five minutes, I had to be excused from the room. Just recalling the photo is sufficient to cause mirth to well up within me now.

The same values, or lack thereof, applied to music as well as fashion. While I know some individuals enjoy the sounds of Abba or the Bee Gees, there is a a saccharine odiousness to both in my opinion. Some musicians were even worse: last night, I saw a programme called “Room 101″. The show invites celebrities to put things they despise into an Orwellian torture chamber, presumably never to be allowed out again. Richard E. Grant, sturdy soul that he is, wanted to put in a performance of Tony Orlando singing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”. The audience was “treated” to an accompanying film clip: in it, Mr. Orlando was wearing a light grey polyester tuxedo with black filigree brocade on the lapels. After the clip ended, Mr. Grant summarised my feelings precisely: he quickly and violently assaulted the presenter.

Still, this misplaced nostalgia seems to be unstoppable. I changed channels and found celebrities willingly hosting “Seventies Revival” evenings for each other. It is unlikely this was being done out of intentional discourtesy. Even the sober-sided Economist recently presented side-by-side reviews of one movie set in the Sixties (“The Boat that Rocked”) and another set in the Seventies (“The Damned United”) and found the latter, though it portrayed a more gritty, nasty and dull era to be a far superior reflection of Britain today.

This all leads us to a question of why: why do people want to remember an era that was lacking in anything worth remembering? Do people really believe the Austin Allegro, lava lamps, platform shoes and pet rocks will be remembered as some pinnacle of cultural expression? Or is this merely tapping into the silliness centre of the brain, which is a form of release given the grim signs of economic decay that we see all around us?

The only real comfort I find in revisiting the Seventies, apart from a few masterpieces like Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Tom Baker in Doctor Who, is the fact that we survived it. Let’s not forget how bad it was back then, particularly in Britain. Rather than adopt a consensus model like Germany or France, Britain chose an adversarial paradigm and thus faced constant strife with the unions; the clashes had become quite ugly by the time the Seventies arrived. Edward Heath’s short-lived “dash for growth” policies proved to be a failure. Higher oil prices and decimalisation kicked off a round of inflation. The full employment that people had become accustomed to in the Fifties and Sixties was fading away. There were even routine blackouts in the United Kingdom, accompanied by enforced shorter working weeks.

Yes, there was progress from an environmental perspective: awareness of man’s impact on nature grew substantially, and the Green movement became a genuine political force for the first time. However, this was also an era in which people ate more chemicals than ever before: prepackaged and frozen foods contained preservatives that would make people now blanch in horror. Organic food was what one grew in the garden.

Diminished prospects, diminished cuisine, diminished culture: all these appeared to be the themes of the era. But somehow we’ve muddled through and survived worse. But to look back on that particular era with any fondness appears to be unduly sentimental at best, and an act of masochism at worst.

But perhaps the most galling feature of this nostalgia is that looking backward may prevent us from looking forward: rather than trying to reconstruct the Seventies, perhaps we ought to attempt constructing a new era about which future generations can be genuinely sentimental. Yes, if one sees films advertised like “Lesbian Vampire Killers” it is tempting to believe that we are in an even worse cultural morass than we were in say, 1978. I cannot confess to being a great fan of some of modern art either: Damien Hirst’s activities with a chainsaw and helpless livestock don’t press my buttons. Nor do the latest dance compilation albums appear to be ready to stand the test of time.

At the same time, for every “Lesbian Vampire Killers” film, we have a “Let the Right One In”. For every Damien Hirst, we have scores of undiscovered young artists who deserve more attention. For every cheap dance compilation album, there is a musician toiling somewhere in a symphony orchestra or an anonymous blues bar who is taking performance, composition or improvisation in a different direction. We have no need of the Seventies, we should recognise the plenty that exists in our midst now. Ours is not a golden age, but it is not one that needs a coating in alabaster or beige either, nor needs the glitter of a disco ball or Beef Wellington on the dinner menu. We can do better, and quite frankly, we should.

For those who have been spending their Easter holiday away from the news or are living abroad: one of the chief aides to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Damian McBride, resigned yesterday. The reason for his departure was the revelation of certain emails which he sent from his 10 Downing Street address. In these missives, he described a series of smears he wanted to use against the leadership of the British Conservative Party.

His ideas range from the plausible, such as the suggestion that a gay Tory MP was using his office to promote his boyfriend’s company, to the preposterous, including speculation about the mental health of the Shadow Chancellor’s wife. Overall, the emails are a mental wastebin of dirty tricks: there is nothing in them about attacking the Tories on the issues, rather, it’s mostly gossip, intended to inflict damage even if the claims can’t be substantiated. There is a most unpleasant smell of mischief about the entire enterprise.

The television news is full of stock footage of Mr. McBride which indicates his former proximity to the Prime Minister: he has been shown by the Prime Minister’s side, or just behind him, or talking with him. Both looked dour and grim: they appeared to be two of a kind. As I watched, I couldn’t get a line from Pink Floyd out of my head:

All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.

In this case, the wall is a barrier between Gordon Brown and re-election. I can’t say I’m sorry: I know that the Conservatives won’t be any better, however the McBride scandal is yet another indication that the Labour Government has run its course. Having clung to power for so long, some fear losing it so much that they will resort to desperate means to hang on.

That said, perhaps the most feeble operation that Labour has attempted is their efforts to disassociate themselves from the present recession. Gordon Brown has been saying, unconvincingly, that the crisis was manufactured in America: this must have made for an interesting topic of conversation when President Obama came to Downing Street for tea. Interestingly, however, the McBride incident can be viewed as “another brick in the wall” which boxes Labour in to its responsibility for the economic crisis as well.

If there is one ethos that has united both the government and the bankers, it is the idea that the end justifies the means: it didn’t matter to the bankers that they had to cut corners in order to achieve gigantic bonuses, it also didn’t matter that they had to put together investment vehicles which no one understood, the profit, the win was what was all important. What does it matter if you stand upon a house of cards, if you can touch the sun?

Labour did not defy nor challenge this culture, rather, the entire New Labour experiment indicates how the party had become part of it. Pitch all previous commitments over the side, pitch the awkward party members out of the convention hall, pitch clear policies into the rubbish bin and replace them with a glossy brochure: it didn’t matter in 1997 if this left the party with an agenda that was bereft of solid ideas. They then proceeded to manipulate what is best in human beings: the tendency to hope, that burning idea that the present state is not optimal, nor is it pre-ordained that things have to remain as they are. In other words, their house of cards rested on a cynical promise of a new dawn. It worked for a time: Labour reached the summit of power and has remained there since.

We have had over ten years of this grasping and grabbing without regard for what lies beneath. Each time someone cheated, someone lied, or someone manipulated a situation without regard to ethics, they put another brick in the wall of the prison in which we now reside. We are now wandering in the proverbial grey mist that follows a disaster, disoriented, vaguely seeing, barely comprehending. We still have not had a reckoning. At best, we get committees on standards in public life or another committee about banking regulation; what we don’t get is a cultural discussion, and it is rare to hear the question asked: how did we destroy ourselves?

From my vantage point in academia, I can get a view of society’s priorities: my observations may provide a clue. If you are a scientist, and you have an idea for a product on the basis of your research, it is relatively simple to get funding: if companies aren’t beating down your door, certainly the state funded research councils will do so. Both Brown and Obama have stated that they want science to remain a education priority.

Neither has talked about education in terms of providing “morals” and “ethics”. This is a thorny area, because whenever these are mentioned, the association tends to be with religion, and fanatical preachers persecuting individuals on the basis of lustful malfeasance. Perhaps the greatest damage the Religious Right has inflicted on society is to create a situation in which ethics has become a taboo subject, lest one be accused of intolerance or homophobia. However, ethics should belong to everyone, not necessarily in terms of describing one’s responsibility to God, but certainly in describing our responsibility to each other. To this end, philosophy should be there to to provide guidance as part of a balanced curriculum.

However, in contrast to science, philosophy is in dire straights. The University of Liverpool, one of the more well-established institutions in the United Kingdom, is likely to close its philosophy faculty. So: we are presented with a situation in which our knowledge what we can do is relentlessly on the rise, but it is not being accompanied by a subsequent increase in our knowledge of what we should do.

Every indication I see suggest that policy makers don’t want to think about this; the bailouts and stimulus packages look to me like an attempt to reconstruct the old order rather than an endeavour to put a new framework in place. The G20 summit was not a redux of Bretton Woods; while leaders say that things are changing, the relationship between governments and giant corporations has become one of mutual dependence, rather than disassociation and dissolution. The deck of cards is merely being reshuffled, a prelude to another attempt to reach the sun. Considering the misery that is presently afflicting the unemployed, the repossessed, and the poor, this is more than a shame, it is a crime. One wonders how many bricks in the wall we require, how high do the prison walls need to be, before a genuine rethink occurs. I just don’t know; but hope remains, so long as the aforementioned human instinct to progress refuses to lay down and die.

If there is one day in the year when it is positively encouraged to be down on the Roman Empire, it would have to be today, Good Friday. I recall seeing an oil painting reproduced in a children’s Bible, which showed Pontius Pilate washing his hands in a jewel-encrusted golden bowl; a beaten, bleeding Christ was prostrate at his feet. Crucifixion, I was told, was a punishment the Romans reserved for the worst of the worst; given that they did this to the Son of God, what kind of people were they?

Even after Christ died, rose and ascended into Heaven, the Romans behaved no better: St. Paul was executed. St. Peter was crucified upside down. Nero made the Christians into the scapegoat for the fire which engulfed Rome. From a Christian perspective, Rome was a menace, a brute, up until Constantine arrived and turned the Empire into a force for the propagation and preservation of Christ’s message.

Diocletian, who reigned from 284 to 305, was not a friend of the Christians. He arranged for the last major persecution of the faith; to this day, he is remembered by the Serbians as “Dukljan, the adversary of God”. It is perhaps because of this, and the fact that Constantine’s reign was shortly after his, that he has been mostly forgotten, relegated to being a trivia question, if he’s recalled at all. This is too bad, for he has as much to teach us as Julius Caesar or Augustus: given the endurance of much of his achievements, perhaps more.

When Diocletian came to power, the Roman Empire was surrounded by enemies (including the Sarmatians and Persians), and was fraught with internal issues: its tax system was irregular, the provinces were badly managed, and it was lurching from crisis to crisis. Worse, the empire was suffering from a problem of manpower: for example, the Germanic tribes which threatened Rome had a tradition of “every man is a also a warrior”. Rome’s relative sophistication had created a society of specialists: it was not reasonable to expect a Senator or tax collector to suddenly pick up a spear and wield it usefully.

Diocletian’s response to inheriting this messy, dysfunctional system was interesting, and leads to his first management secret: you can’t run everything, even in a crisis, so delegate.

Diocletian was a soldier, and thus he had a pool of talented people with whom he had served to choose from. He chose a fellow officer, Maximian, to assume the title of co-emperor, or more specifically, “Caesar”. While the idea of ruling with others was an old concept in Rome (the Roman Empire began with a series of “triumverates”), this rejection of power in order to preserve the nation was unprecedented. Indeed, it was a recognition on Diocletian’s part of his own limitations: while he had sufficient guile and intelligence to become emperor, he did not believe himself to be all-powerful.

Humility worked well; indeed, the empire was divided again, thus yielding a Tetrarchy. Much depended upon the co-emperors’ willingness to agree, but while Diocletian was alive, the system held. Diocletian took the concept further within his own court by creating what could be called a “cabinet”, with departments (called scrina) responsible for specific issues. Again, he realised the limits of his knowledge, and thus created a mechanism whereby decision making could be transferred to an appropriate level.

Having created a formula for leadership, Diocletian’s reforms moved in another direction: he decided to base his authority on a religious obligation as opposed to continuing to rely upon his influence in the army. This decision yields a second lesson: might won’t make right.

It had been a tradition among Roman emperors to proclaim themselves gods; Diocletian could have gone in this direction, but rather, he went for a humbler designation, that he and his fellow emperors were merely the representatives of the gods on Earth. This is a subtle distinction but nonetheless an important one: rather than proclaim divinity, he proclaimed himself a man albeit one with a divine charge to keep. It may very well be this decision which was the first few pebbles in the eventual avalanche which took out the divine right of kings.

The shorter term effect of this decision, however, was to remove the army as the arbiter of who was emperor and who was not. Diocletian obviously believed that its might was far too shaky a foundation for his rule, no matter how much brutality he could summon them to do. After all, another general could happen along, win the support of the army and take him and his co-emperors out, if the previous principle persisted.

As important as these decisions were, Diocletian still had to stamp down the overriding administrative chaos and furthermore, deal with problems of taxation.

One of the commonalities between ancient Romans and modern Western citizens is their dislike of taxes, and their willingness to evade those taxes in whatever way they can. However the Diocletian experience is very interesting: if rules are clear, fair and accompanied by appropriate transparency, people tend to follow them.

Diocletian reformed taxation to be based on heads (e.g., the number of people employed by a landowner) and land size. He also stressed that everyone had to pay taxes, whether they were poorest or the richest. He also supplemented the system by putting tax records into the public domain, so that everyone could see how much their neighbours were paying. This clever reform also likely acted as a deterrent to fraud.

Consistency in the administration of taxes was also important; Diocletian ensured that the rules that applied in Mediolanum, also were in effect in the most remote border town. This added coherence to the functioning of the Empire, and likely assisted in supporting its overall identity.

That said, perhaps the greatest lesson Diocletian has to teach comes from how he departed the scene. Unlike most of the Emperors, he did not die in office, either through natural causes or at the hands of an assassin. He knew:when you no longer have the will to lead, don’t lead any longer.

Diocletian fell ill in 304. The following year, he addressed a crowd at Nicomedia, telling them he needed to rest and thus had to retire. He then proceeded to his palace in what is today Split, Croatia. He enjoyed a six year retirement before his death in 311, in spite of being begged to return to power. He reportedly told one such petitioner: “If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn’t dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed.”

While the Empire was not fully secure due to Diocletian’s work, he had many reasons to be satisfied: the administration had improved, the frontiers had stabilised. Diocletian had managed to secure peace with the Persians after a bloody war, and had held the line in the Balkans and Egypt. Things were not perfect, but they were better. Yes, the Western Roman Empire collapsed less than two hundred years after his death; however the division of the empire that came out of his reign, between East and West, meant that there was a basis for the East carrying on in the same tradition. That empire, later referred to as the Byzantine Empire, survived until the fifteenth century, in no small part thanks to the reforms they inherited from Diocletian.

None of this is intended to disguise the more horrific aspects of the Roman Empire; Diocletian was an autocrat presiding over a brutal regime that relied upon slavery. It was no beacon of progressive ideals in most respects. The Empire’s (and Diocletian’s) virtues mainly reside in comparison to what existed before, and what was spawned later on, namely an intellectual basis which eventually led to modern, Western progressive thought. However the Diocletian experience shows that even amidst the gloom of such a Social Darwinian atmosphere, small gleams of wisdom still were able to penetrate. We know that power corrupts, we know that the worst kind of manager or leader is the one that takes too much control, we know that rules should be clear and fair, we know that there is a time to let go. The problem is that this knowledge doesn’t always translate into action. With Diocletian, to his credit, it did.

Chicago

Farouk Abdel Wahab (Translator). Harper 2008, Hardcover, 342 pages, £16.57

It’s difficult not to sympathise with Margaret Mitchell. After she put down her pen upon completion of “Gone With the Wind”, she must have wondered, “how can I top this?” The same situation faced Harper Lee after she wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird”. If I recall correctly, J.D. Salinger disappeared for years after the publication of “Catcher in the Rye”, preferring to become a hermit rather than face the typewriter again.

However, most writers don’t have the time or the financial capacity to choose a poetic form of exile. Rather, they have to keep pushing onwards towards the inevitable second work, and hope for the best.

I couldn’t shake these thoughts as I read Alaa Al Aswany’s latest novel, “Chicago”, which was published last October. His first major novel, “The Yacoubian Building”, was masterful, a key work which provided inspiration and information that I used in writing my PhD. That novel established Al Aswany as a master of “human mosaics”, he created a long work out of assembling a number of narratives, which in my opinion is an admirable reflection of day-to-day reality.

With the Yacoubian Building, the mosaic had a clear, strong frame in which the bricolage was contained and constrained; it also helped a great deal that Al Aswany had worked in a building of that name. In “Chicago”, the mosaic is assembled within the city limits, specifically, within the campus of the University of Illinois and its environs.

Yet, the frame does not hold: despite the title and setting, this is most decidedly an Egyptian novel. Most of the protagonists are Egyptian; though it must be said all of the Egyptian characters in the novel are emigres or overseas students. Very little is mentioned about any Egyptian neighbourhoods within Chicago or the presence of a permanent diaspora. Indeed, apart from some historical notes about the city, the setting is incidental to the story. Aswany’s research even falls down in some places: he suggests Chicago is called the Windy City due to its inclement weather. This has been proven to be false: the moniker came about due to the pomposity and long-windedness of Chicago politicians.

I’ve been to Chicago; I first arrived there on a summer’s day, but a chill wind had blown in off Lake Michigan and thus the city was covered in a cold mist. Shorts and a t-shirt were inadequate. Yet, a few hours later and the sun shone out again.

The city was full of lively bars and brownstone buildings, great museums and jazz clubs; like a number of great cities, Chicago can create the illusion that it is the entire world and that it’s impossible to see and know it all. There is an air of industry, grit, effort, yet sophistication, culture and sheer naughtiness. The politicians may be crooks but they do it with a smile. Things may not run well all the time, but the gin of 1920′s speakeasies still flows through its veins. It’s a place of contradictions. However, in my opinion, Aswany under-utilises the setting’s potential, and its possible impact on his characters.

That said, the characters themselves are very interesting: however, some items did make me raise an eyebrow. Really, is the medical faculty of the University of Illinois a bolthole for Egyptian exiles? These exiles range from the Americanised to the fiercely traditional, encompassing both Muslims and Copts. If there is one thing that unites them all it is the impression that Egypt is not something any of them left behind, rather, Egypt is there with them.

It’s there with a brilliant surgeon, who left for America because he was discriminated against for being a Copt. It’s there with a professor of medicine because he believes himself to be a coward for not having stood up to the regime long ago. It’s with a young couple struggling with love: thrown together by the circumstances of their university, they realise that actual “courting” is atypical, and yet they need each other. It’s with an Egyptian professor who believes himself thoroughly Americanised, but then he discovers that he has rather traditional ideas when it comes to dealing with his daughter. Egypt hangs over a young poet in exile, who has mixed feelings about falling in love with an American Jewish girl, but no such hesitation about wishing for the downfall of the Egyptian government. Aswany even brings in a member of the Egyptian security services who threatens the poet; at this point, Chicago almost fades away entirely. We are back in Cairo. If that was the point – that you can take the Egyptian out of Egypt but not the Egypt out of the Egyptian, well all right. But using Chicago to this end, and making it such a focus that it lends the book its title, seems somewhat odd.

I had another problem with this novel: its preoccupation with sex. Yes, the effect that lust has on people can be an interesting dynamic, however there is a point where it detracts from rather than supplements the narrative. For example, one of the American wives of an Egyptian professor, is almost incidental to the story until we are taken through a rather painful narrative in which she purchases her first sex toy. We know more about this aspect of her than anything else, which seems rather shallow. Similarly, we are introduced to the misadventure of the poet trying to arrange a liaison with a prostitute, and the awkward fumblings of a devout Muslim couple who are yet to be married. There were more finer feelings in the Yacoubian Building; it is a shame Al Aswany wasn’t able to produce them here.

Despite its weaknesses, “Chicago” has one great virtue to recommend it: it’s a good read. I picked it up in the morning and finished it in the afternoon of the same day. Not all of this alacrity is due to the speed at which I read: even when he isn’t at his best, Al Aswany draws you in, makes you suspend disbelief, even if that suspension is tentative. It isn’t the “Yacoubian Building” – however, at least he’s gotten through the barrier of tension and pain that surrounds a second major novel. Liberated from this, it will be fascinating to see what he produces next.

Blindness

Giovanni Pontiero (Translator). Harvest Books 2008, Paperback, 334 pages, £9.58

I happened across the works of Jose Saramago quite by accident; the Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek mentioned him in reference to the novel “Seeing”, in which a democracy ceases to function because the electorate decides to submit nothing but blank ballots.

Intrigued, I decided to keep an eye out for his works. One day this past February, I was forced to remain home due to poor weather: the skies alternately dumped snow and sleet on Chichester, leaving a cold, slushy mess which trickled into the gutters, flooded the streets and made the sidewalks impassable. I braved this to go to the local book store: there is only so much weather reporting that can one take, and the BBC had become particularly apocalyptic in its predictions, stating this was the worst winter storm since God knows when.

After sliding along the pavement for a time, I arrived at my local Waterstones. I had hoped they would have “Seeing”: no such luck. Instead, they had “Blindness”. I don’t regret their lack of selection in this instance.

Saramago is a Portuguese author, and perhaps knowing this coloured my impressions of the novel from the start. As I settled down into my chair with a mug of coffee and the novel, I envisaged sunnier climes, a clear contrast to the harsh, cold grey light penetrating my living room window. While the setting is not stated, I couldn’t help but think “Lisbon”: there is a definite southern European feel to it. I could imagine the old buildings and modern traffic lights side by side, and life proceeding at a sultry pace.

The story is relatively simple: a plague of “white blindness” runs rampant through the population. The first sufferer is struck down while sitting in traffic. From there, the disease spreads in a geometric progression: the optometrist who examines the first victim gets it. A thief who steals the first victim’s car also loses his sight. Other patients who are in the optometrist’s office also become infected, including a man with one eye, and a young woman in sunglasses. Strangely, the only exception is the optometrist’s wife, who tells the authorities she is blind in order to join her husband in quarantine. She helps her husband and the group at the heart of the story to avoid the worst consequences.

Saramago vision’s of humanity in crisis is rather dark; the authorities respond to the plague with panic, first by quarantining people in a disused mental hospital. Within the walls of the hospital, things quickly become unhygienic, and hardened criminals rule the roost; I was somewhat nauseated during a scene in which the criminals demanded “favours” from female inmates in exchange for food.

The plague, however, becomes total, and systems entirely collapse: after the group at the heart of the story escape from the facility, they find people are sleeping where they can, collecting rainwater to drink, and eating whatever they can find. Saramago perfectly captures the general dissolution and selfishness that would take place in this scenario.

However, Saramago’s writing style won’t be to everyone’s taste. Saramago utilises a lot of run-on sentences, and none of the characters are explicitly named. Under normal circumstances, this is to be avoided: however, in this case, it’s peculiar but it works. Even without names or a typical structure, the reader can follow precisely what’s going on.

The novel has a deep philosophical core which is particularly appealing: the book draws our attention to the fragility of what we call civilisation. Saramago goes into exquisite detail; he tells us what it would be like if we were deprived of water and sewage services: there is a touching scene in which the blind wash themselves in the pouring rain. While some people are unchanged in character due to their infirmity, others become feral: we are introduced to a blind woman who has eats animals raw. Knock one support of civilisation away, and does the edifice entirely crumble, or does it fall down temporarily, only to be rebuilt again? Saramago offers no clear answer, but presents a number of potential scenarios through his characters. There is the spectacle of the blind lecturing the blind in the streets, and the tragedy of the blind wandering into whatever empty edifice they can find to shelter from the weather. There is love too: the old man with one eye and the young woman with sunglasses fall in love, a scenario that Saramago implicitly suggests would not have taken place without the plague.

The best novels, in my opinion, make one think: Saramago’s “Blindness” is definitely a journey of reflection. On a day when the apocalypse was being proclaimed due to poor weather, it was interesting to have in hand a sketch of a genuine calamity. The novel confirmed for me that perhaps the worst of any disaster may not be the catastrophe itself, but rather what people make of it. I look forward to delving into the other scenarios, other books that have arisen out of Saramago’s fertile imagination; it is perhaps this hunger for more that “Blindness” leaves behind which is its most potent recommendation.