There Is No Alternative

The other day, suspicious as I am of free-market Capitalism, I looked through a Communist newspaper. It was full of prefabricated screaming slogans. (A bit like the X-Factor build-ups, but with long words.) Nevertheless, from its pages I learned many things.

Firstly, I learned that the Syrian government is “magnanimous”, its agenda “peaceful” and its people “heroic and dignified”. (I will accept the last point.) And I learned that Colonel Gaddafi – who harboured Yvonne Fletcher’s killer and feted the Lockerbie bomber as a national hero – was “great” and that his works command “a feeling nothing short of awe”.

I’m aware that the West has an agenda. We routinely intervene in (say) Libya or Iraq, but not in Zimbabwe or Rwanda – which see equal atrocities but don’t have oil. Funny, that. But if we elect, or tolerate, people like Bush and Mugabe, that doesn’t suddenly make Saddam and Gaddafi good guys.

Secondly, I learned something about the Royal Jubilee. I don’t mean the revelation that the royal family (and all rich people) are a bunch of parasites. I wouldn’t expect a Communist newspaper to say anything else. I’ve blogged elsewhere (Sons and Daughters) about the useful role a ceremonial head of state plays in a democracy: but I don’t suppose democracy interests Communists any more than it does Capitalists.

No:  the surprising news about the Jubilee was quoted from an online commentator, who wrote: “The only sentiment allowed to be expressed in the media was pro-monarchial.”

Fair enough, it’s not everyone’s plate of cucumber sandwiches. But the only sentiment allowed? I’m sorry, but this is paranoid nonsense. The press includes reds as well as redtops. You may produce The Morning Star as freely as The Daily Star, and I may as freely buy it. There are countries where this would be impossible: where one cannot speak (much less write) against the establishment.

A more interesting question might be: why do we overwhelmingly buy newspapers with a pro- Establishment slant?

But maybe it’s a trick question. The attitude of the mainstream press (and its readers – chicken and egg) is more complex. In 1992, when Royal Divorce memorabilia was selling 3-for-2, the papers were largely anti-monarchial. The church, the Lords, the banks, politicians in general, are routinely pilloried. Fat-cat salaries and dodgy Middle East wars are fair game.

True, the mainstream press doesn’t really question Capitalist assumptions. The Guardian (for one) has a go, but it doesn’t hack at the roots. The redtops don’t even behave as though the questions exist. They would rather tell us about Wayne Rooney or … well, Kate and Wills.

And perhaps that is the problem with the coverage of the Jubilee. It has become another celebrity story with which the redtops fill their front pages. And they are free to do so.

The Communist press, by contrast, is quite happy to hack at the roots of the system. (Not with subtlety; nor with evidence of independent thought on the part of individuals. That’s OK.) Or they too can obsess about the royals. And they are free to do so.  

There are places where this precious freedom does not exist. Syria springs to mind.

There are other countries whose leaders oppose sanctions against the Syrian regime. (Perhaps because they look at its actions and they see nothing wrong: they see normality: they see themselves.) Which countries would those be? Ah, yes, of course.

Thatcher said “There is no alternative.” She was wrong. There is an alternative. There has to be an alternative. But this isn’t it.