Gorbachev

From David Remnick, whose book, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, is on my current reading list, this analysis. I have very conservative friends who will say that Gorbachev does not deserve the praise he is getting. I disagree. Of course, he stumbled into the right path and it could be said that his mistakes – rather than his intentions – more than anything led to the fall of the Soviet Union, but I think Remnick is more accurate and fair:

Gorbachev, of course, made mistakes, serious ones. He tried, for too long, to reconcile irreconcilable ideas and power bases. He failed to reform the K.G.B., which led a coup against him, in August, 1991. And so on. Yet he possessed both the idealism and the political skill to generate something in the world that is, at this dark historical moment of global illiberalism and malevolence, exceedingly rare: a sense of decency and promise. Here was someone raised in a totalitarian system who came to believe in democracy, the rule of law, and the peaceful and orderly transfer of power. Imagine. The hope is that, around the world, his example will prevail.

A propos, here is a very good piece by an incredibly smart fellow (who happens to be my partner).

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

  • W.H. Auden

Afghanistan: A Year After

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the attack on Kabul airport that killed 13 American servicemen and women. I remain dismayed at the abandonment of Afghanistan by not only the U.S. but other Western nations (such as allegedly progressive Canada). I posted quite a few things last year about the events – if you go through my August and July 2021 archives (sidebar) you can have a look. But I’d like to repost almost in full my initial thoughts:

There was a time in my life, from, roughly, 2005 till 2011 or thereabouts, where I posted on a website nearly every day about politics, headlines and such. Followers of the previous two incarnations of this site might remember. I honestly don’t know where I found the energy or time, but I did. I was working full-time as a journalist then – as opposed to my current occasional piece in the Wall Street Journal – which might have helped in that I felt motivated to communicate, as it was how I made a living. I was also single, which perhaps meant I had more free time. (But did it really mean that? I am not certain.) I don’t feel the need to voice views as strongly these days, but for the things that catch my fancy. What I mostly said back then was, “the West is f****d.” I said it in different ways and in various permutations, but the gist was consistent.

And today, I’m back on topic. I am dismayed at the U.S. departure from Afghanistan. (And yes, I know Canada buggered off from there, as well – seven years ago and an equally bad decision.) This is, I think, a colossal mistake. The Biden Administration were going to have the final soldiers leave on September 11th – an unbelievably tasteless and ghoulish choice. They have, thankfully, altered course on the date. But they are still abandoning Afghanistan and not just women and girls there – much focus has been placed on that, understandably – but so many men who will also suffer. In the aughts, I spent a lot of time – or so I recall – defending George W. Bush and I am happy to still do so. I lost “friends” over my views and I am fine with that. Bush has been dignified since he left office, never intruding or commenting on what his successors have done. He has put his energy into positive things. So the fact that he has spoken out about the Afghanistan decision tells you how deeply he must believe it is not the right path. (FYI, good interview here with W on German TV about Afghanistan and other matters, including the record of Angela Merkel.)

So here I am writing, in 2021, about it all once more – is the West still f****d? Well, the song remains the same…Thinking about Afghanistan these days, a Philip Larkin poem comes to mind. I’ll leave you with it.

Homage to a Government

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.

It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.

Back to 2022, I’d like to add a bit about “forever wars.” We really are silly in the West. To us, twenty years is forever, but we ought to keep in mind that to our enemies, that same span of time is the blink of an eye. They are totally on board for a forever war and we are so shortsighted. The fact that al-Zawahiri was taken out while lollygagging on his balcony in Kabul ought to tell us as much. I am thrilled he was taken out – it is a cause for rejoicing, no matter how many years it took. But his, er, “colleagues” are not finished and we have abandoned the people of Afghanistan to such a fate. What John Podhoretz wrote a year ago remains true, and what Tom Tugendhat said a year ago remains true (and what a magnificent speech):

Liz Truss

With the weakness of the U.S. leadership and – it goes without saying – Canadian leadership, the likelihood that Liz Truss will be the next UK prime minister is a good thing. Good piece about her here, which, unfortunately, is behind a paywall.

Money-quote:

A Truss-led government could be the most radical British Conservative administration since Margaret Thatcher, a game changer on the world stage, willing to challenge the old guard and offer conservative ideas and solutions to global problems. Truss understands, as did Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, that strength and determination – combined with a belief in cutting taxes and regulations, and reining in the power of the state – are a tremendous formula for success.

It is highly encouraging that Ms Truss is feared, even hated by the enemies of the free world in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. They understand that she will stand her ground. As foreign secretary, she amply demonstrated that she will not be intimidated by dictatorial regimes.

One lives in hope!

I’d like to add how impressed I was with the diversity of the British Tory leadership race and the party itself – some of these young up-and-comers are impressive: Kemi Badenoch, in particular.