Lee's random blog

As I’ve been watching what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya alongside the UKs anti-tax avoidance movement, I can’t help but wonder if we are witnessing a moral revolution.

In the Middle East it’s plain to see the causes. These regimes have been run by dictators for years, squashing freedom of expression and collective action, siphoning money into Swiss bank accounts while the price of food rises. What initially seemed to be valid power structures have failed to meet the needs of the people, have been shown to produce terribly unequal outcomes for the inhabitants of the nation.

That the people are taking to the streets to demand regime change, food price reduction and democratic elections is understandable. They have personally and collectively developed faster than the power structures, they have outgrown them and their tolerance has disappeared. In some cases their intolerance has been so great they have been willing to die for progress.

In the UK it takes a different form. UK Uncut has successfully inspired people to come out on the streets to demonstrate in favour of new tax laws. The anger here is about the ‘tops’, banks and telecoms companies and the like, not paying what is seen to be their due in corporation tax, not contributing their ‘fair share’ to the nation. That this is set against what some see as ideologically driven cuts in public services only adds fuel to the fire.

Whether these companies are doing anything illegal or not is in some ways not the main issue. What does seem curious and exciting is that we are struggling to articulate a desire for a new morality in our nation, a new social contract between the players. We ‘know’ that it’s wrong for the corporations to make billions of pounds when people are potentially losing their jobs. We ‘know’ that it’s wrong for our Prime Minster to be heading to the newly liberated Middle East to sell more weapons, weapons that we have watched people die from. We ‘know’ that it’s wrong to sell off our public forests. And we are confused by the fact that our laws, our leaders, don’t share our moral sentiments.

But what is our knowing based on? Knowing the difference between right and wrong behaviour is a moral issue. And morality has to be based on something. For some, its based on the word of God, in whatever form. For a secular nation though, it need to be based on something else, some conception of ‘the good life’, a shared story of what it means to be a responsible and contributing citizen.

We need a new social contract in the UK. We need to have a national debate on what rules we really want to play by. Are we committed to paying our fair share of tax? We certainly want the banks to do it but are we all prepared to play our part? That means no cash in hand work, no undeclared income, no black market activities at all. It means a set of shared values that apply to all levels of the hierarchy, all classes, all industries.

Are we ready for that? I think, quite possibly we are beginning to be.

20 years after attending my first political conference, I find myself sitting in the audience for the launch rally at the Lib Dems spring conference.  After being welcomed by a plethora of prospective parliamentary candidates, a quarter of whom I gladly noted were women, the big guns of party come out to inspire us, to rouse us for the remaining short time before the election.

Paddy Ashdown came on first and appealed directly to our heads.  The country faces four great threats, he says and goes on to tell us why the Lib Dems are the party to address them.  The first one, the economic crisis, basically needs to be handled by Vince Cable.  Given the fact that Dr Cable predicted the collapse, we trust him to come up with some sort of way through the mess.  Yes, I can buy that and as he pointed out, you need to vote Lib Dem to get Vince Cable as Chancellor.

Paddy Ashdowns style, tone and rhetoric are all convincing and moved me to follow his logic calmly and sanely, to understand deeply that the Lib Dems are an option this election. Perhaps the only real option.  But for all his logic, and he was inspirational, it was Shirley Williams that captured my heart and made me want to act.

Dame Williams reminded the audience that we get involved in politics because we have a passion for a just society.  However we start, we share a desire to live in a country that is just and fair.  Right now, it is clear that we do not.  Though I can intellectually grasp this, Shirley’s words reached through to my heart when she asked ‘Why are we not furious?’ about the state of housing, our classroom sizes, the bankers bonuses.  Good question, why are we not furious? Because, she says, we have lost the capacity for indignation.  We allow so much to slide by us, to go un-noticed, unchallenged.  She reminded us that we are called upon now to step up and make a difference. As I listened to her I felt she was awakening our morality.

Both speakers had good points to make, though through appealing to different parts of me.  Great orators know this, that to fully engage with an audience takes more than a rational argument, it takes something that appeals to the heart, that stirs the spirit.  I think politics needs more of what Shirley Williams was offering, more of an appeal to that part of us that is more that just logic.  Just logic is what created the financial crisis.  Just logic is what produces poverty.  Its humanity that will be required to solve these problems. Humanity includes logic but logic is not sufficient.  More is required.  An ability to feel, to connect with another human being, to be moved to action by an individuals predicament, by the state of the world, that is what is required of us now.  This is what will engage people back in politics, the sense of making a difference.  We need to be more like Shirley Williams, ready to accept that we need to stand up and be counted, or there will be no-one left to do the counting.

Kira Cochrane has written a good article in the Guardian today celebrating 40 years of women’s liberation.  What really struck me was the list of causes that the women were fighting for back then,

“the family, motherhood, delinquency, women and the economy, the concept of ‘women’s work’, [and] equal pay”

These are largely still the themes that women are concerned with today.  How far we have come and yet how much further there is to go.  I wonder what the new feminism is and what it’s goals are going to be?  My money is on power and leadership, transforming the nature of those terms and the relationship that women have to them.

Though I also believe that we need to demonstrate women’s leadership, not just talk about it.  What marked the beginning of the feminist revolution 40 years ago was action and we need that again.  Something that allows women to come together to do what they do, in their ways, to step up into leadership roles.  On our terms.

What do you think would help this cause?

(Photo by felipe_gabaldon under Creative Commons, no association to post)

Laurie Penny has written a great piece on the Guardian Comment is Free about the motivations of the Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1999.  She says that the millennial generation is typecast as a narcissistic, shallow, carefree generation, not nearly as worthy or spiritual as Gen X or baby boomers.  This seems to be justified by the rapid decline of millennials attendance at churches and other religious organisations.  However, she clams this marks something else.  Speaking about Tasmin Omond, a trainee Anglican priest turned political activist, she says:

“Like many young people, Omond has a deep sense of moral and social justice, but does not trust ancient spiritual and political institutions to deliver the change she wants. That change is specific and, compared with the ambitions of previous generations, surprisingly restrained: most millennials do not dream of vast riches or a utopian new world order, but of the chance to hold down a decent job in a world that isn’t on fire.”

Maybe part of what is going on here is the youths movement towards politics as a way to make the world a better place.

“Godless though we are, the millennial generation is far from degenerate: we are driven by an urgent impulse to stabilise society. Given the opportunity, we may yet save the world – and like the war generation before us, we are also destined to be the next great generation of squares, the solid, conventional adults who future generations will grow up to rebel against. My generation’s ambitions, like our pop stars, are ambitious, bland and bourgeois. But with the world falling down around our ears, can anyone blame us?”

Read Laurie’s full article here.