There aren't many who didn't find Laurel & Hardy knee-slapping funny. Yes, their humor was mostly visual. And yes, they were a couple of sad sacks who never had a plan to achieve their ends, in fact it was clear from the start they'd most likely never even get started. But, we loved them in spite of all their innate shortcomings, for they never hurt anyone, not even themselves.
Oh, how different in the farce of epic proportions that just played out on the British Isles.
When I see Boris Johnson and Niall Farange, I can't help but think of the famous hapless duo, but the hard-hitting reality of it is: they are willing to exact any cost to serve their own ends, and before it's all over millions of us are going to have to pay for it, in more ways than one. Oh, don't get me wrong, as the old saw goes, "the people have spoken" ... or at least they think they have. For all the ranting, raving, ravaging, and in the end, death, that was perpetrated on all of us, it's pretty the same, old, same-old. Except for the nice mess you've put all of us in.
Even if you draw a personal analogy and look at Great Britain and the EU as old married couple, you realize that it's hard to live too long with an abusive partner: one who's in he marriage, but not really; one who declares his fidelity, but within limits; one who loves it when things go well, but tries to blame you for his own shortcomings; one who always wants more than he gives, well, because he always gives you the feeling that he's somehow better than you and deserves just a little more.
Divorce papers have been filed, and now 40 years of almost togetherness has to be unraveled. If that's not a fine mess, I don't know what it. On the Continent, we all knew that's what's coming. My reaction from taking in the news from several sources in several countries is that this was apparently not so clear to the British electorate. The number of Google searches regarding "what happens next" after the Brexit more than tripled. You'd think you'd have worked that out ahead of time.
Of course, Mr. I'll-give-you-a-referendum Cameron, who is typical British-EU style was for leaving then staying then letting everyone else decide and then staying again, it politically cowardly fashion didn't resign as promised, he decided to postpone it till October. Why? What's still to decide? Everyone knows what needs to be done now, but Cameron doesn't appear to be the one who wants to do it.
What is more, our Stan & Ollie stand-ins are claiming there's no need to rush into exit negotiations. I might not have liked them before, but should this turn out to be true, it will only confirm my suspicions that they just might be what I took them for before: snake-oil salesmen. The farther to the right you go on the old political spectrum, the more oily they become. You wanted out. The people said "out", so get on board and see that you go. That's how it's supposed to work. But, I can't say I can see a real plan at work there, but it would be hard to make out amongst all the posturing the supposed winners. Not a word of substance from a one of them. But I didn't expect any.
The result of the referendum was fairly close overall, but the regional distribution of in-and-out votes was revealing. England, except for London voted out; Gibraltar, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in. In other words, the referendum showed the rest of us quite clearly just how unified the United Kingdom is at heart, namely not at all, and that is going to bring us yet more time-consuming trouble before the exit negotiations even begin, if they ever do.
The most crucial knock-on issue of this whole debacle, of course, is Scotland. The vote had hardly been tallied with the Scottish prime minister let us all know that her country's independence referendum is back on the table. They'll probably even get busy about it and push it through again. (Rumor, not unexpectedly, had it Northern Ireland was considering its options in this regard as well.) To top everything off, they'll likely vote to leave Great Britain. And then? What then? The EU can't in good conscience take them in. It's not just that all the agreements which now need to be unraveled have been agreed to with a third party and therefore cannot be legally binding, and it's not just that there is no rulebook for parts of a whole doing anything.
I don't know if it's clear to everyone that for the past two years, the United States, in particular, but the EU (against its own best interests and suffering under the undue neoliberal pressure being exerted by -- you guessed it -- the UK) have been trying to sanction Russia into submission for doing precisely that: accepting the vote of a quasi-autonomous region and taking them into their fold. Over there it was a violation of human rights and international law; over here, it's going to be what? Democracy? I don't see that the EU can do a damn thing for anyone in the UK any more and the integrity of the UK itself has been threatened.
And then there's my favorite side effect that not a single politician, talking head, or journalist on either side of the Channel even mentioned during the last month, but it should have been on everyone's mind: NATO. The UK voted to leave the EU, that is true, but they aren't leaving NATO, that's for sure. They, like their across-the-pond heroes, love waging war too much to even consider that. The crisis within the EU has become a potential military crisis. Should the exit negotiations get too difficult -- in common parlance, if the divorce should get too messy -- there are always ways to get everyone rallying around the flag. NATO should know, it's what they do best, and so now, at this very critical juncture in history (and the Brexit isn't the biggest issue), when the USA and NATO are so openly provoking Russia that even American and toe-the-line European politicians and journalists are starting questioning their true motives this biggest of all side shows had to take place. They say that in comedy, timing is everything, and right now, I don't hear anybody laughing.
Great Britain will now have the dubious distinction of electing what will without a doubt be the most far-right national government in Europe. Yes, yes, we have practiced having ultra-right factions in supposedly democratic governments ever since the coup in Kiev, and we're more comfortable with the idea now, but it's much easier to shrug off a second or third-world country, is it not? It's something we've very good at in the West, and now all the rest of those self-seeking, self-serving, militaristic crypto- and neo-fascist elements have found the legitimacy they have long sought but never deserved. They will feel energized and, worst of all, legitimized, so that's yet another major factor that the rest of us are going to have to deal with in the near future as well. Well, perhaps we should be thankful for the fact that we can now address the issues that need to be addressed to preclude this nonsense from spreading ... if we're wise enough to see the opportunity we've been given. (But of course we can't get to that as long as the Leavers are hanging around and why aren't they now so keen on leaving?) Oh well.
Politically, socially, economically, militarily: what a fine mess we have.
No comments:
Post a Comment