Where Is The Opposition?

While we stand on our differences of opinion, our elected representatives graze as political sheep

by Ananda Ghoshal

05/06/03. (Information Clearing House) All around me, people are either screaming victory or pleading injustice. The war in Iraq, the Project for the New American Century, the neo-cons, the lies about WMD's, tax cuts for the rich, Israeli intelligence operations in the U.K., Freedom Fries, the mainstream media propaganda war: these are now everyday subjects of conversation, speculation, and bitter dispute. The debate is 'shock and awe' indeed -- for both sides -- and I, for one, cannot remember a time when political discussions were so quickly aroused and so viciously fought.

 

But these are the people, the citizens of our lands, who are embroiled in arguments and endless finger-wagging. What of our elected representatives, our acting agents in the democracies we live in? Well, while our countries make war, they are busy making peace -- with each other.

Here in the U.K., the Tories and New Labour stand united as... Tories. The opposition? It comes from so-called "leftist" elements of Blair's own backbench; and, fleeting as their dissent is, it is quickly whipped into submission by threats of career-ending expulsions from The Party. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats look more like a third wheel than ever. Unable to tie their own shoelaces, how can they be expected to run the opposition marathon?

In the U.S., the absence of opposition is even more startling - and the reasons for it even more flagrant. Democratic dissent has folded in the face of Republican hegemony, but not because the Republicans have won the political argument: it is because the Democrats have picked up their principles and left the battlefield.

Once upon a time, on both sides of the Atlantic, political parties could be counted on to mock the deceit, hypocrisy, and outright lies of the opposition, whilst portraying themselves as saints. Such spirited partisanship wasn't always a pretty sight for children, but it offered choices, got the public's attention, and polarised debate in the organs of government where debate is needed.

Things have changed. In the US, the Democrats are playing at being Republican, much in the way New Labour so successfully played at being Tory. In both cases, this is in no small part because they covet the same things as their more right-wing brethren: freedom from unpopular trade union, welfare and tax principles, a sturdier, more globalised economic platform -- and piles of alluring corporate cash. In the U.S., corporate donations make and break election hopes. The U.K. situation is more balanced, but the politics of practicality prevail. New Labour has hijacked Conservative policy -- and managed to string along the middle-leftists, who see no other way of fulfilling their political aspirations.

Gone are the principles of politics as a calling, and the representation of interests other than those that best serve a politician's career. Gone is the will to represent the people. Gone is the democratic ideal, to be replaced with a democratic practice: the pervasive military logic of "might means right."

Whether you are for or against it, invading and occupying Iraq is a diversion of scarce financial resources and a distraction from domestic issues. But Democrats in the U.S. signed a blank check over to the President last autumn because their leaders wanted "to move on to more important things": the mid-term elections, which they lost anyway. Here in the U.K., Clare Short ducked after taking a stray bullet to the shoulder. And now she stays down, only too aware of the political flak she might catch if she moves again out of cover.

And where does this path take us but to a single-party consensus, a suffocation of the very thing which makes a democracy function: healthy, necessary dissent.

Democrats and principled Labour need to put their political gloves back on and crawl back into the ring. Who knows? They might even save the Republicans and New Labour from themselves in the process.

 

[Ananda is a writer and freelance journalist working in London]