June 06, 2004
My Country, Left or Right
I remember talking with a friend from France in February of 2003, shortly after the massive worldwide protests against the invasion of Iraq. She was extremely torn about the situation in Paris, and about allegiance and support of one’s nation in particular. The irony was that only weeks before the war protests, which in France were essentially aimed at supporting Chirac’s stance against the war, the French people were on those same streets protesting against him and his corrupt political machine. The French anti-war and pro-Chirac protests were some of the biggest in the world that year. In fact, it was only the threat of the election of the quasi-fascist Jean-Marie LePen that brought the country into line to support Chirac. For the French, it was the same choice between “lesser evils” that governs most of American politics.
An article in The New York Times today reports a widespread movement in France this year to dissociate G. W. Bush from “Americans,” with the main point being that people understand that he does not represent the American public. The reporter, Roger Cohen argues, however, that this is wrong: unfortunately, many (perhaps even most) Americans do support this president, and for a host of reasons, from his evangelical messianism to his controversial tax cuts. While it is tempting to think that Bush is operating "illegitimately," this is only true within a specific and extremely narrow understanding of legitimacy. Legitimacy was legally bestowed on Bush when the American people simply sat back and accepted the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision; if the public had truly rejected that decision, they would have been in the streets, instead of wandering about aimlessly pondering the significance of “hanging chads”. It was a sad day.
Of course, all governments are illegitimate in a very basic sense. They are all based on violence, in terms of their ability both to manufacture opinion and, if need be, to send in the troops - whether Army or NYPD. All governments are also, in this sense, authoritarian and, as such, must be wary of the idea of cohesive publics as a potential threat to that power. The tactic used by many (perhaps even most) governments is to divide and fragment the public so as to leave centralized authority in tact. This reality saw its clearest articulation in Nixon’s now-famous prediction to Henry Kissinger: If they could only divide the nation in two, they could pick up the bigger half (and win).
Cohen’s point that the American people are responsible for Bush is well-taken, but only if we are to assume that a people can be gauged at all by how it supports or doesn’t support a political regime. Such support, in the final picture, really doesn’t matter as much as people tend to think, and it is thus pointless to talk of the relationship between political leaders and a nation. Just as they may come to power for anti-democratic reasons, so too will they often fall for their smallest crimes. Remember, Nixon fell not for orchestrating the murder of civil rights leaders or for waging an illegal war, but for a relatively insignificant break-in. If politics were at all about absolute standards or values, a Nixon, a Reagan, a Clinton and, yes, a George W. Bush would have never been in the running.
My point is this: we shouldn’t bother asking the question of whether a leader represents the people or whether the people are responsible for a leader’s deeds. We probably shouldn’t even bother to think about what a “nation” is. Political leaders make both good and bad decisions, sometimes because they believe in them, but more often out of political expediency. They are not moralists - they are tools that need to be controlled as much as possible, and one hopes that our chosen leaders will use whatever power we give them to this end. Sometimes they do right - like Chirac and his opposition to the war in Iraq – but this shouldn’t necessarily make the French people proud of their government. It also shouldn’t lead the French to support Chirac, who is still the same bastard he was before the war. Support needs to remain fleeting and tenuous.
Incidentally, George W. Bush is still the same bastard he was on September 10th, and if the American people happen to wake up on Election Day and vote to get rid of him, good for them. But they shouldn’t spend too long congratulating themselves for doing the “right” thing. There will be bigger things to worry about, like protesting a Kerry White House, for example. National identity and the relationship between a people and their leaders should never be cozy or complete, or even identifiable or tangible. It is the struggle that makes politics relevant, and it is the possibility that nations can make better and better decisions that makes politics endless. Could it be otherwise? Should it be?
Posted by Palabris at June 6, 2004 11:56 AM
Hi Palabris - great job on the site...
There's a difference between willful malevolence/apathy and being misinformed. The average political non-fanatic understandably sniffs no further than the televised news at the end of the day, and finds herself with a remarkably distorted picture of the world as a result. Most people wouldn't tolerate the corruption of the 2000 election if the media had dragged it out into the light where it belongs...
Ah...I only had up to "hanging chads" when I wrote that.
Don't you think support of a government should vary based upon its legitimacy and competency? After all, the collapse or undermining of a government may lead to greater evil than the use of force by said government. With an ideal government (perhaps run by god), all dissent would be as evil as Rush Limbaugh believes....
I'm not necessarily calling for the dissolution of government, although I also don't think that would necessarily be such a bad thing. The point for me is get rid of this idea that political activity is something that we should strive to "get past". Instead, I see it as a crucial part of human co-existence - just as eating and sleeping makes human life possible, political activity (which begins with the formation of opinions and awareness) is fundamental to society. There can be no society without political struggle. Now, it needn't always be bloody, but it must always be critical and kinetic.
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