Eurovision: Thuggery & Football
A post I recently wrote for New Eastern Europe. See also the comments to this guest blog.
I also wrote recently for the journal on protests in Moscow following the elections in December and March. You can find that post here.
Josh
We learnt little from the appearance of the Right Honourable Jeremy Hunt before Lord Leveson, save that he is barely worthy of his appellation.
Mr Hunt told the inquiry into press standards (more on that later) that he considered resigning when the extent of contacts between his office and James Murdoch’s point man at News International became known. What that little titbit of information was meant to signal, we can only speculate, but when paired with the revelation that he called his special adviser, Adam Smith, by telephone to say that a committee of the great and the good had decided to offer a lowly sacrifice to the raving press in order to sate their blood lust with the words “everybody thinks you have to go,” something of common decency withered and died. For Smith, the rational, invisible hand, operating through Mr Hunt, had taken a cruel turn.
Mr Hunt eulogised his special adviser at the Leveson enquiry but regretted that he had not somehow eleviated the pressure exerted on him from the Murdoch empire. For a ‘former’ cheerleader for Rupert Murdoch, this is a strange statement indeed. One might think as much if an actual cheerleader apologised for the pressure she was heaping on her sports team through vigorous support.
Mr Hunt was in favour of the bid to take over BSkyB when he was awarded the responsibility in the wake of Vince Cable’s proven bias. To any disinterested observer, this would be a curious understanding of the term impartial. Yet there was a logic. No one would sue the government for favouring the Murdoch bid, the cost of opposing it was high.
Then there was the argument that Mr Hunt referred the bid to Ofcom, when legal advice stated that he did not have to. Legal advice, written before the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal was known. Ignored in the wake of allegations that the police investigation into Milly Dowler’s disappearance was hindered by the activities of News International journalists. For six months Mr Hunt did very little on the bid, at no point did he show any discernible political or personal courage.
This is symptomatic of the parochial, narrow-minded nature of this Government. True, New Labour were often hubristic – one thinks of the hasty sacking of Sharon Shoesmith by Ed Balls (which The Sun also pressed for vehemently) – but the Coalition’s inaction far outweighs the damage it is doing directly. The Chancellor of the Exchequer forgives multi-national companies huge tax arrears, the Prime Minister walks out of EU summits when they are discussing subjects close to his country’s own interests then lectures them from a distance and the Home and Justice Secretaries are allowed to bicker in public. Little wonder that there is so much bunting around London. Great Britain has rarely felt so small.
Unsurprising but Utterly Misguided
Labour’s attitude to the whole affair has been to cause as much collateral damage as possible. Tom Watson and Chris Bryant have been allowed to pursue their personal interests in the case, while many of the front bench have already written for The Sun on Sunday. Harriet Harman is hot on the heels of Jeremy Hunt, yet the Prime Minister has given his full backing to the Culture Secretary. In truth, the Jacobean tragedy that is the BSkyB bid does not deserve or require another head. Ridiculous as it is, Murdoch taking the head of another British politician merely emaciates the government, however indirectly it happens.
The Leveson inquiry itself has been allowed to slide into irrelevance by focusing on the link between politicians and the media, rather than press standards. Meanwhile, the sources and content of their columns are ignored. The fatal flaw at the heart of this tragedy is not the arrogance of power, but the fear of it.
In 2008 the historian, Mark Mazower, gave a lecture at Columbia University on Greek Ideals and the World Order in the Twentieth Century, charting the thinking of the Oxford Classicist and foreign office minister Alfred Zimmern.
Zimmern was forced to confront the reality of the international political order in the wake of the Boer War, when the British Empire showed the first alarming signs of disintegration and the mercantilist ‘scramble for Africa’ was widely derided. His response was to turn to the concept of the commonwealth as pioneered by Ancient Athens – to allow for the supra-national body with teeth promoted by Woodrow Wilson or the world government of HG Wells’ imagination would be to paper over the cracks of ethnic differences – only by adopting the spirit of commonwealth would nations be able to put the First World War behind them.
Just as intellectuals in the twentieth century had to face the unfortunate truth that the Germans, pioneers through Kant of intellectual ethics and romanticism in place of inhuman liberal enlightenment, had produced Hitler, Europe now faces a crisis of identity with Greece on the edge of not merely exiting the Euro but the EU.
The past three years, during which Greece has occupied ever greater amounts of time and effort, have been a disaster. Germany, thrust into a steering role which it has consciously shunned for the past fifty years, has become a symbol of priggishness to Greeks as ill-disciplined and tactless officials sought to sell austerity by hinting that those who could not pay their way were lazy, tax-dodging and ultimately feckless. Some Greeks, in turn, derided German leaders as Nazis. Governments in Greece and Italy collapsed after losing the confidence of Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy and a referendum in Greece on a bailout package was cancelled, giving an untrue impression of a democratic deficit (though Ireland is holding a referendum soon on a new fiscal treaty).
Greece may or may not now exit the Euro. Privatisation at a time of global deleveraging has failed to produce the hoped-for results, attempts to cut spending have made little headway and what political will existed behind pursuing austerity appears to be fast evaporating. Nonetheless, it would be foolish to pretend that the results will not be horrible. Greece’s major banks will collapse as depositors withdraw their remaining savings (banks were already 30% more under-resourced before €700m were withdrawn on Monday); the new currency will plummet, making debts formally unmanageable and default will follow.
Unlike Russia and Argentina, which were able to rely on an upsurge in the global climate and raw material stocks after defaults in the 1990s, Greece has few prospects for growth. To cut Greece out of the EU entirely, including access to the single market and cohesion policy expenditure would be to invite disaster. EU leaders should not underestimate the capacity of Europe to return to the place it was when the Coal and Steel Community was merely germinating in the mind of Jean Monnet. Abandoned, Greece is highly likely to drift towards extremism.
It is worth noting that the PIIGS which are the supposed cause of the crisis are not merely Mediterranean countries (with the exception of Ireland) as the casually racist insinuation has it. Rather, with the exception of Italy, they all became EU Members in the 1970s and 1980s and immediately set about pursuing growth by any means necessary. In 2004 the accession of ten former Soviet states benefitting from much lower labour costs and tax rates as part of the shock therapy liberalisation of their economies saw a flood of investment East, which the PIIGS could counteract only through access to credit – the same credit which in the case of Ireland and Portugal now exceeds 120% GDP. This comparative advantage and the redirection of EU Commission investment has sown mistrust, which will need to be repaired.
Britain’s financial markets are condemned for allowing the shorting of the Euro, Germany for failing to allow the auctioning of Eurobonds and France for either keeling over in the face of German pressure or for electing a dangerous left-wing loony, depending on the perception of the viewer. Europe is no longer attractive to its neighbours, who have been forced either to wait too long, partly because they see the EU as merely meddling in their internal politics without understanding the reasons why things are as they are. In Belarus, the dictatorship may be the antithesis of the people. In Ukraine, apathy is more widespread. Finally there is Hungary, partly disowned as an economic problem (since it lies outside of the EU) and partly offloaded onto the IMF, but with the EU specifying the political criteria of aid.
The idea of an elected European President is absurd. Presidents with few executive powers are common enough in Europe, but even a directly elected figure would struggle to represent such diverse interests and cultures. He would be either embarrassingly weak or disastrously strong. What is needed is rather for European leaders to work together with a sense of urgency and solidarity, before the resentments created by the Eurozone crisis are allowed to stiffen. Europe will have to reinvent itself. Unfortunately, there are no classicists in government and few Greeks working on that.
Having seen off the Front Nationale, Francois Hollande must now establish a European popular front.
In 1936 the Jewish socialist academic Leon Blum was sworn in as Prime Minister of France. The consummate outsider, Blum’s government lasted a matter of months before it collapsed, consigning the idea of the Popular Front to failure. Easy though it is to minimise the impact of Blum’s short tenure, its achievements and basic programme (the four day week, two weeks holiday and wage increases) were the point at which the French decided they had ‘left off’ nine years later when desperate to erase the memory of Vichy.
Similarly, though the Fourth Republic is rightly considered to have been chaotic and fatally flawed, it was from out of this milieu that Jean Monnet emerged with the idea of a European Community. Starting with coal and steel tariffs to refocus domestic production, this supranational project might be said to have taken off.
The newly-mandated Socialist President, Francois Hollande, comes to office derided as a small player at a time of great instability. The EU has fixed only the most temporary of sticking plasters over the spiralling cost of borrowing for Greece; although there is a clear estimate for the haircut bondholders will have to take, the government’s target for deficit reduction looks fanciful. Now, with the collapse of PASOK, the political will to maintain that course appears to have evaporated. The disease of high unemployment and unmanageable bond rates appears to be spreading to the more substantial economy of Spain, although there is some comfort in that Italy is under control (at least, until the technocrat Mario Monti is forced to face the voters).
Contrary to the assertions of many oppositionists in Europe, German has not forced austerity on these countries, but it has not been prepared to gamble with its own creditworthiness (despite running a significant deficit of its own). This is why Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski went to Berlin to plead the case for German activism.
Nicholas Sarkozy has been an important part of the Eurozone’s response to the fiscal crisis; flying to China to plead for investment in a central bailout fund and providing political cover for the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, but he has not driven the process or won any obvious battles. This in turn forced him to make a last-ditch promise to reform the European Central Bank and allowing Hollande to appropriate the populist political bandwagon that is the Eurobond (i.e. a centrally issued bond, giving all EU countries the ability to borrow at the same rate).
Hollande enters from stage right (like Clement Attlee at Yalta) promising fundamental change but offering a slightly different emphasis. Growth and austerity have been by-words during the crisis for supply and demand side reforms; initially, the crisis was considered to be one of competitiveness, but is fast becoming a problem of demand as businesses and consumers hold back from expanding.
The Accession countries (twelve mainly Central and Eastern European countries have joined in the past decade) have mostly been disciplined in their spending and have just accepted a smaller fiscal transfer in the form of the Cohesion programme. Meanwhile, Hungary’s economy (closely linked with Austria’s) continues to be a basket case and its new constitution and media law are testing the ability of the EU to enforce its basic conditions of membership (it is worth noting that the Fiscal Pact that Hollande has objected to is merely an affirmation of the Euro’s original premise).
Drawing meaning from Europe at this moment of crisis is a task worthy of the French Presidency, yet it is not entirely clear that Hollande has considered the many factors at play. While I suspect that he may be more compatible with Merkel than many have suggested (the German Chancellor is more personable than she is given credit for, but she is also in a corner), Europe is currently a tangle of meanings.
In order to regain the initiative, Europe needs to stimulate demand while convincing outsiders of its fiscal discipline. Moreover, it needs to decide what the point of its fiscal transfers is to be – protecting old industries, bringing new members up to a certain level of wealth or subsidising the purchase of goods made in Germany or Central Europe. All of these are valid at one level or another, but are not necessarily tailored to make the maximum economic impact. Deepening the common market and thereby averaging out the price of energy might be a start.
The irony of today is that fear of Hollande demanding that Europe abandons its efforts to pay its debts that the value of the Euro has fallen considerably. This competitive boost has been just what has been argued Greece needs (although more dramatically). Thus, out of the spectre that Hollande appears to represent to some might come the breathing space to achieve what he hopes.
Despite many rueful sighs to the contrary, feminism isn’t dead. Or at least, it isn’t in the Arab World. The Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy has caused some controversy – I will not describe it as a veritable storm, as some have, because the reaction is surprisingly muted – by writing an article in Foreign Policy on attitudes to women in the Arab world, much of which should be uncontroversial. Her central contention, that misogyny is widespread, is verifiable. Indeed, she discusses at some length the political disenfranchisement, sexual abuses and socio-economic inequalities that result from what she calls a ‘toxic mixture of culture and religion,’ not to mention an unwillingness to challenge attitudes for fear of offending or blaspheming.
Like all good polemicists, Ms Eltahawy uses strong language and a broad brush. Predictably, the blogosphere has objected rather facetiously to the implication that all Arab men are consumed with hate for the fairer sex. Yet however polemical Ms Eltahawy’s article, there is a germ of truth that deserves more credit than condemnation. The difference between Ms Eltahawy and the editors of a Danish magazine who mocked Islam some years ago to widespread derision is that Ms Eltahawy is not wilfully ignorant, as those magazine editors were. On the contrary, she is well aware of the issues she is describing. So to deride her sensationalist style, as Nesrine Malik does in The Guardian, is beside the point. Ms Malik goes on to admit that all of the issues described are true enough but suggests, isn’t politics the answer?
On the strength of the response from the Freedom and Justice Party, the political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, one shouldn’t get ones hopes up. NATO will leave Afghanistan in two years time with meaningless commitments to women’s rights by whatever government is left behind (quite possibly including the Taliban by that time), despite many lives that were, on some level at least, lost in the fight for human dignity. In Bahrain, politics is belittled when sport and big business is at stake and in Egypt itself, Tahir Square has been cleared to reveal something akin to a military dictatorship. In Saudi Arabia, one conservative monarch will give way to another.
Moreover, there will be no political space for women subject to any form of cultural or religious curtailment. One commentator has drawn on her knowledge of the Muslim world to conclude that:
Ms. Eltahawy has every right to speak out aggressively against injustices — both real and perceived — in the Arab world. It is important for her readers, however, to understand the dangers of sensationalist coverage that over-simplify complex matters of gender, politics, and religious observance in Muslim-majority countries.
Over-simplification is an odious description of what Ms Eltahawy is agitating for, while to be compared to Ayaan Hirsi Ali should not be an insult. The Arab Spring, diverse as it has been, has shaken the kaleidoscope. Many thousands have risked life and limb, suffered abuse and much worse in order to see a change in their lives. To offer them liberty for quietude is an insult, and very easy for those who enjoy the very rights which are abused elsewhere.
Other obnoxious arguments are deployed with disarming ease. Men are also the victims of repression; the cause of women has been set back as much by the wars in Iraq as it has been by Islamic culture; misogyny should not be treated as a monolithic structure; feminism is equated with neo-conservativism. None of these are reasons why Ms Eltahawy should not have written her article. Others try to divert the issue to the niqab, which is barely mentioned by Ms Eltahawy. As for sniping at injudicious editors, who have admittedly chosen a pictorial and headline designed to shock rather than convince, but please be serious.
So often, moderates pick fights for argument’s sake that excuse the extremists from answering for their views. Because of Mona Eltahawy, those who disagree with her vision of female empowerment have an opportunity to say why, and those who seek to defend the attitudes to women she eviscerates can do so. Both groups are conspicuous in their absence.
The empowerment of women is part of the pacification of politics and is indispensable to development. However much the Arab world denies that it needs these, evidence suggest otherwise. Oscar Wilde once observed that before women will call each other ‘sister,’ they will call each other much worse besides. Sadly, that still rings true.
Sweet Home Alabama: the Southern Rock Saga, BBC4, 13 April 2012
The Lynyrd Skynyrd song eponymous to this fine documentary is a difficult beast. Undoubtedly a catchy tune (Eminem, poet of northern, urban decline, riffed on it in 8 Mile) and patriotic, it easily justifies its legendary status in American music. In fact, Sweet Home Alabama is endemic to American music. There is not a main street in New Orleans, Memphis or Nashville – all places where far finer songs have been written – that you will not hear this song coming from a bar at some point in the evening.
That cannibalising effect would be reason enough to be suspicious of it, but the backstory makes for a more unpleasant read. Sweet Home Alabama is a response to Neil Young’s broadside against cross burning and lynching, Southern Man. Instead of merely rebranding the South as America’s spiritual home of manly work and rest and relaxation as is often assumed it does, the song equates Governor George Wallace’s support for segregation with Watergate. Live and let live, it says, we have our own way.
Knowing this makes it impossible to approach James Maycock’s documentary without a small amount of prejudice (although the fact that Young and Skynyrd frontman Ronnie van Zandt not only made up but that Young wrote Powderfinger for Lynyrd Skynyrd at least admits of a certain happy apolitical dimension to this bizarre episode). The story it tells is slightly more complex – even if it doesn’t begin to explain to the outside observer why playing in front of a giant conferederate flag is cool.
For a start, almost all rock music came from African-American origins in the mid to late-sixties. Therefore, the documentary argues, southern musicians showed a fair amount of broad-mindedness in pursuing their muse. By way of example, Duane Allman featured on Wilson Pickett’s cover of Hey Jude. Second, Lynyrd Skynyrd assisted Jimmy Carter in his Presidential election campaign – a sure sign of no-hoper liberalism in today’s America at least. Third, southern rockers had long hair and thus endured the taunts of their conformist (and red-necked) neighbours as ‘hippies’. Fourth, although left unmentioned, Greg Allman went on to marry and record with Cher, ticking both the Native American and the what-were-you-thinking boxes.
In the style of the documentary, these facts don’t quite paint a picture of anything, yet they do illustrate why life was a little more attractive on the other side of the tracks. As Keith Richards puts it in his biography:
There’s food going, everybody is rocking and rolling, everybody’s having such a good time, and it was such a contrast from the white side of town, it always sticks in my memory. You could hang there with ribs, drink, smoke… You wake up, where am I? And there’s a big mamma there, and you’re in bed with her daughter, but you get breakfast in bed.
Indeed, if the documentary argues anything, it is that the increasing gulf between black and white in the wake of the King murder drove the Allmans and Skynyrds to strike out on their own. In fairness, you can hardly argue with Malcolm X that blacks were widely patronised by white southern society. Martin Luther King Jnr’s great rival said of Gone with the Wind, the classic text of the Lost Cause, that it made him want to crawl under a rug. Yet its author, Margaret Mitchell, was a long time donor to black education. Despite writing unfavourably about farmhands, she did not believe African Americans were incapable of learning.
Like Malcolm X, Lyrnyrd Skynyrd were a product of their own cultural uncertainties, determined to defend their own identity and relatively indifferent to others. Unlike Gone with the Wind, which was the catalyst for the introduction of black Americans to the ranks of the Academy Awards winners, southern rock brought little acclaim directly to black musicians. Indeed, southern rock was long regarded as the poor relation of the American music scene. The 1970s saw Duane Allman dead in a motorcycle accident and a plane crash killed three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd; Howlin’ Wolf went to college and Chuck Berry went mad; more to the point, California was invaded by Canadians.
Is it safe to admire southern rock and not be cast as a Jeremy Clarkson type (Top Gear famously has the Allman Brothers as its theme music)? The jury is most definitely out on that one, although Eric Clapton regarded Duane Allman as a great guitarist – the two duelled on Layla. For my part, I think it is the Texan Janis Joplin who most expemplifies the fruitful blending of black and white music (such as they can be distinguished) and gives due respect to these origins. Enjoy this:
Reading this very interesting article about this autumn’s parliamentary elections in Ukraine (as you do), the predicament of the opposition movement struck me as a game of risk similar to the board game of that name. Of course, the main opposition parties will have little choice but to size each other up and fight their corner like a couple of middleweights. An alliance with the nationalistic Svoboda (Freedom) Party is undesirable, yet arithmetic may determine it as necessary.
In fact, the position of the only real boxer taking part is most interesting. Vitali Klitschko, who leads the aptly and subtly named Strike Party, is polling just over the 5% required to obtain a share of the seats in the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament). However, many do not quite believe the precipitate decline in the governing Party of Regions’ share (currently a third of its 2010 peak) and the approach of the elections may consolidate support behind the larger parties, depriving Strike of a share in the seats.
Consider This
Your candidate is a charismatic, popular national figure with a bit of money (but not as much as the other, oligarch-backed parties). Multipolar politics means that while you have run as an independent against the government, you are not necessarily of the opposition. You have to decide how to play the other parties in the run up to the elections – complete independence is an option, but the introduction of new/old rules allowing parties to decide on closed lists for the elections means that you have more to gain from cooperation.
Assumption one – you are not going to get over the 5% threshold. This is easy – you identify the prevailing mood in the country and stick so closely to the representative party that you may even merge at some point. At least, they put you on their list.
Assumption two – you get over the 5%, however, the opposition do not constitute the majority in parliament. Do you sell out to the governing party, believing that an entrenched majority could keep them in power for the next decade, or do you plough your own furrow outside of the major political blocks. This risks irrelevance, although the third option, a vigorous attempt to lead the opposition parties through policy choices (dragging them either left or centre) also entails risks.
Assumption three – you get over the 5% and the opposition do constitute a majority (albeit with Svoboda as part of the majority). Strike will be attractive in this scenario – both mathematically and politically. The major parties will try to manipulate Klitschko into fronting their own vehicles, but concessions are also a possibility. In this scenario you can either:
a) Cleave to one or other of the major opposition parties, adopting most of their policies and accepting a relatively fixed quota of seats; or
b) Seek to exacerbate divisions between the two major opposition blocs, establish yourself as a national personality and ultimately get both to support you as a Presidential Candidate in two or three years time.
Quotes in the article referred to above suggest that Klitschko may be more inclined towards the latter, yet the really interesting feature of Ukrainian politics is that this sort of horse trading takes place before the elections, forcing the opposition to show its hand. Neither scenario is perfect, given that the opposition has not imposed itself as a force on Viktor Yanukovych’s administration. Sviatoslav Khomenko, however, appears to believe that Yanukovych may be worried enough to try dirty tricks. With the eyes of the world on Ukraine during the Euro 2012 Championships and with the EU Association Agreement in limbo, that would be a form of social suicide, yet it is far from impossible.
Coda
Klitschko’s record in the most compelling saga in Ukrainian politics is worth an in-depth look, which I do not intend to do, having bored you, dear reader, for too long. Following the arrest of former Prime Minster and Presidential Candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, Klitschko has been vocal in calling for her release. Yet, while the major opposition parties have coordinated but not combined using an association called the Dictatorship Resistance Committee, Klitschko has so far refused to sign his party up.
Could it be that Klitschko is gambling on there being a political resonance to the Tymoshenko case wider than the political battle between her party and Yanukovych’s and is unwilling to estrange the latter? His pro-European stance fits in well with the opposition, and yet he has kept his distance. Only time will tell what the fight will ultimately look like.
Of all the performers in the first rank of American music, it is Bruce Springsteen that I listen to almost purely on the strength of public acclaim. While perennially good reviews of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and others have tended to incline my feelings towards appreciation of these musicians over the years, I believe could also pin-point the moment or the album where I finally ‘got’ them. Not so the hero of Ashbury Park, New Jersey – though I often feel that I may be alone in this.
In many ways, it seems easier to list the things which I do not ‘get’ about the man they call The Boss. Wearing workman’s boots and espousing radical left-wing politics are not especially rare in popular music, yet I have never quite been able to take them seriously in Springsteen. This is peculiar, because it is hard to think of any musician or artist more serious than Springsteen. Ever since Born in the USA, The Boss has relentlessly critiqued the Republican Party, their conservative philosophy and the big politics which does not take into account the little man.
It was not always so. In my very earnest efforts over the past few days to get under the skin of Springsteen, I have gone back to his earliest records, most of which are celebrations, albeit very serious sounding celebrations, of urban youth, odd city scenes and breaking out of restrictive social settings. The Velvet Underground these are not (despite the common fixation on pimps and ho’s).
Perhaps it is the obsession with broken or compromised men and women, as opposed to the invincible arty types of Manhattan or Greenwich Village which populated so many of the songs written by Lou Reed or Dylan, that makes Springsteen’s vainglorious efforts to evoke freedom less than liberating. In truth, I think the voice, and the band – though it will undoubtedly shock some long time defenders of the E-Street Band to hear me say it – have some role in the matter.
I do not think it coincidental that the most popular singers tend to have quite high vocal ranges. There is something in a strong whine that appeals it reminds people of a more internal voice. Somehow, in contrast to Neil Young, Dylan, or either of the Beatles, I never quite feel that Springsteen is speaking for me, despite having a more ‘everyman’ voice. That is Springsteen on record, and then there is the live act. Somehow I recoil when the thought of a three and a half hour, workman-like concert and when I recently read that the current tour features a 17-piece incarnation of the E-Street Band I was not particularly swayed. On the other hand, I was quite impressed to hear of the Boss’ habit of taking requests from the audience leading to his playing nearly 200 songs on a single tour.
While I could dwell on the cacophonous sound that the E-Street Band have made their own, or pick up on examples of bland backing tracks, I do feel that this would take me down a road I do not wish to go. The fact is, I am not trying to prove Springsteen as a fraud. In fact, I am coming to like his music, especially his last few records. What I would love to understand is how and why Springsteen fills a particular niche in American music; having been called the saviour of rock and roll, but self-consciously adopting the folk mantle of Peter Seeger et al that Dylan equally consciously rejected.
These two contradictory factors I can somewhat reconcile myself to. There is undoubtedly a ‘Springsteen sound’ that is good for a party, good for running to and even occasionally complimentary to the message his lyrics try to convey. As for the message, I respect Springsteen’s consistency and his eloquence in describing American decline is unrivalled.
However, for that matter I do think that there is a tendency to apocalypticise the commonplace in Springsteen’s songs which does but rarely have the benefit of wit or subtelty. Thus, I would suggest, Springsteen has never written a lyric as cutting as Neil Young’s various takedowns of Richard Nixon (“even Richard Nixon has got soul” or “tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming/we’re finally on our own”) and George Bush Snr. (“we’ve got a thousand points of light/for the homeless man/a kinder, gentler machine gun hand”). I await correction on this, as I will surely be disproven on the merits of Springsteen’s lyrics.
More importantly – given my experience of American culture generally – I struggle to see how someone so angry can be such an icon in the good old USA. It seems to me that this point does need answering, because since Springsteen’s greatest success came during the 1984 Reagan campaign, commercial success corresponded with limited political influence and yet being politically outspoken has never cost Springsteen musical success. Controversy over the meaning of Born in the USA and Springsteen’s anti-jingo attitude could have led to the sort of reactions Crosby Stills Nash & Young saw on their Living With War tour in 2004. Instead, Springsteen is a national institution in an increasingly partisan society, putting out albums of which no-one can be uncertain of the political subtext.
In this respect, I believe that it makes as much sense to view Springsteen as a conservative Catholic, as as a radical leftie (each to their own, of course, but few things are above politics in America and religion is one of them). More to the point, Springsteen’s increased workload and critical success during the divisive Bush Jnr. years could arguably only have been achieved with the grain of the greater religiosity in American society.
Tonight I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town
Springsteen is elliptical about religion at best but some have picked up on his distinctive traits on record and in concert (distinctive at least for a white musician, given the career paths of James Brown and Al Green), calling him the ‘rock and roll preacher.’ The redemptive themes on Working on a Dream and the preacherly new album Wrecking Ball illustrate this nicely.
Fairness dictates that I should conclude this article by saying as many nice things about The Boss (such an ironic nickname, given the anti-capitalism inherent in pretty much every word he has ever sung), yet I cannot quite bring myself to go that far. I am an appreciative, yet unconverted listener. That said, Wrecking Ball is a fine album and, like several of the more recent albums, improves with each listen.
Reading The Boss’ keynote speech to SXSW does not reveal a great thinker or music critic but at least one interesting thought. America has at once the most consistent and contradictory culture in the world. It has assimilated practically every thought, culture and style and values its national icons, be they Presidents (very often) and musicians (Lester Bangs was only half right when he said that ‘after Elvis, we will never agree on anyone again’). Springsteen is an example, of not the prime example of this. The rebel who did not rebel against Woody’s memory as Bob did (note the appalling familiarity with which folk musicians describe Woody Guthrie), society’s chief critic and healer, Catholic and communist. As he put it:
It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn’t drive you crazy, it will make you strong. Stay hard, stay hungry and stay alive.
Think on that when you listen to that bitter, sardonic national anthem…
The Civil Wars, Shepherds Bush Empire, 19 March 2012
Harking to a couple of chorus’ from Nashville’s finest sure makes you think. The Civil Wars, fast becoming a runaway success on both sides of the Pond, have a lot going for them: their sound, such as it is, is pretty unique, despite sounding like a thousand other artists; they have the looks (not to mention the style) to make the front covers of magazines; and they call Tennessee’s capital home.
Let’s start with the sound. Americana is in vogue, it seems fair to say. The Civil Wars combine a pair of beautiful voices with the simplest of guitar tracks (ok, not quite as simple as your vintage Leonard Cohen). Having two singers lends itself convieniently to songs about love and loss, while the juxtaposition of John Paul White’s gruff directness and Joy William’s high earnestness suits the country genre they are grouped in, for want of a better one.
I suggest that this might not be the best nomination (though the Grammy board clearly disagree) because the music the Civil Wars create is a far cry from the wailing, honky tonky staples of Nashville’s glory days. This undoubtedly befits the times we live in, however, I suspect that a critic from the 1950s or 1960s might vere towards gospel and would undoubtedly be more correct. Had folk not become so associated with Dylan and Woody, it might have proved a more suitable nominer, for the spook of English popular song both New and Old is not far from the surface in ‘If I didn’t Know Better’ or ’20 Years’.
All of which brings me to Nashville. If Music City is no longer the stomping ground of Johnny Cash or Hank Williams, except as a museum-town, it is more Music City than ever. While country music did not evolve as an art form in the same way that jazz and rock ‘n’ roll did (on the other hand, commercial experimentation was rife), both Nashville and the Civil Wars are reaping the benefits of a melting pot of musical styles.
Music wealth has moved into Nashville, with both the Kings of Leon and Jack White III decamping there in recent years. The latter has certainly been influential, setting up Third Man Records and acting as consligliere to acts as diverse as the Black Belles and Wanda Jackson, but just as power gravitates to power, so to do the musical follow the muse. The very manner in which Williams and White met, at a song-writing workshop, illustrates this very prettily.
Nashville’s young talent, like Caitlin Rose and indeed, the Civil Wars, make up for the celebrity names. Moreover, their inspiration is much broader than the country music ouevre or the Alan Lomax tapes that catapulted American popular music into the first rank of nations. Rose is known for constantly posting her latest fetishes on facebook, while the Civil Wars cover everyone from Michael Jackson to Portishead.
Whether the Civil War continue their extraordinary success is open to debate. They have been called ‘safe and samey’, which is perhaps slightly harsh. On the other hand, they have a long way to emulate the great Richard & Linda Thompson, whose short collaborative years as a musical couple produced some great music.
Live in concert, the Civil Wars appear both impressed and impressive. Critics love to bring real life to bear on a band’s output – the Civil Wars are unusual in that their story is entirely a musical one, yet Barton Hollow will leave a mark on Music City nonetheless.
You can download a free album from the Civil Wars at their website. More on Nashville here.
We are a little less than two weeks past the Russian Presidential elections that took place on 4 March 2012 – elections which opposition leaders promised would see the end of Vladimir Putin’s dominance of political life, and the reawakening of Civil Society. Mr. Putin won the election, undoubtedly more comfortably than he could reasonably have expected to, and appears to have performed well in the postscript; a protest on 5 March 2012 polarised the opposition when the likes of Alex Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov attempted to ‘Occupy’ Pushkin Square in Moscow and the riot police moved in. The follow-up protest, on 10 March 2012, drew a fraction of the hundred thousand marchers that the city had become accustomed to over the past three months. Several protest leaders have been arrested and jailed, albeit for short periods.
While not admitting defeat, the opposition has highlighted one area in which Putin stands to gain. The repeal of the Jackson Vanik law, moved by the US Congress and with the strong support of the White House and the US Ambassador in Russia, Michael McFaul, has proved controversial, to say the least.
On the one hand, the law is illogical. The initial object of the bill was to impose sanctions on any country that impeded the free movement of labour, in response to the Soviet confiscations of Jewish property in the 1970s. Today the law applies to Russia, which does little to hinder immigration on the scale of the USSR, but does not impede American trade to China. Russia has long felt this iniquity and along with WTO membership, has sought a repeal in order to open American markets to its products. With the Reset, and Russia’s accession to the WTO (which exists to prevent trade restrictions), the law is unnecessary and economically useless.
A day or so ago, Russia’s opposition leaders lent their support to the repeal of the Amendment. This was smart thinking, a popular issue and one which would illustrate the business friendly potential of Russia’s opposition. However, it allowed Ambassador McFaul to invoke their support when he called for the repeal not to be held up by the substitution of so-called ‘smarter sanctions’, such as a targeted list of individuals thought to be involved in corruption or human rights abuses. This has led Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov, two of the older generation of protest leaders to clarify their position, effectively asking for US support in restricting Putin’s freedom (they might say impunity) of action.
This raises the wider question of how the United States of America can aid democracy in semi-authoritarian countries, of which Russia is undoubtedly one. Critics, such as David Kramer of Freedom House, argue that human rights violations need to be addressed vocally. That can be and is important, especially when the US calls into question fraudulent elections, giving protestors moral support and legitimising their cause. However, the Russian Presidential elections probably delivered a fair result, unfairly; Putin might have won unaided but the result was inflated by fraud.
Furthermore, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes often rely on antipathy towards the United States. This is not helped by what can be seen as hypocrisy on the part of the Americans. US foreign policy has come a long way since the realpolitik of the Kissinger years and the obfuscation of the Reagan administration, but the Clintonian approach to Russia in the 1990s left deep sores, especially when so much support was targeted towards Eastern Europe. The advantage of the Reset is that it lends no credence to Putin’s claims of American interference.
This is not to say that the US should not impose the Magnitsky list sanctions. On the contrary, these well targeted sanctions highlight the contradictions of the Russian government, separating criminality from diplomacy. Only one of these can be rewarded.
To punish the entire Russian economy, as Jackson Vanik does, to some extent, is not right. Russia is moving in the right direction on arms control, it has not interfered in neighbouring countries during the past three and a half years and it is debating political liberalisation.
A rational step towards improving the links between the Russian and American people is therefore in the interests of both countries. The attempt to attach conditionality to a request from the Obama Administrations is a long-established Congressional practice. From outside America, it does not look so attractive.
The same is true of non-governmental diplomacy. In a surprise move, uncovered by the New York Times, the Obama Administration is attempting to free up funds invested through the 1989 Supporting Eastern European Democracy Act (SEED), which could mean a $50m bonanza for Russia NGOs and civic groups. This is likely to anger Vladimir Putin, who since 2004 has been paranoid about an Orange Revolution in Russia. Some democrats fear reprisals, but promoting a civil opposition movement should be a priority for all Russians, given the chaotic party system and problems with corruption.
The Obama Administration is currently keeping counsel over recent arrests following the election. Mr McFaul could undoubtedly be more vocal here, although American efforts in the Khodorkovsky case have not been productive. In the current climate the American policy is sensible – nudging both Russia’s government and opposition down the road of moderation and due process.
For further information on the potential flashpoints in US-Russian relations, see my previous blog, here.
