Engage, Engage, Engage

The real problem with politics is not that it’s led by posh people who come from an exclusive club. They may not know the price of milk but at least they know about politics. The real problem is the lack of engagement from the grassroots, a local level from local people. The real problem of politics is that most ordinary people just aren’t engaged with it anymore and so a politician can really make any statement and it could be greeted with applause depending on how it is delivered or represented.

This means that people are simply accepting other people’s views, whether it is the view expressed in a newspaper or a family member. Without truly looking at the issues, views are immediately formed on the basis of a complete lack of information.

I watched Question Time and noticed something. It’s a British politics show that has a panel of MPs, newspaper columnist, and people generally involved in politics. Their given questions from members of the public on the most topical issues of the week. One of the questions this week was on the issue of welfare and the audience seemed to be applauding almost everything that was said. The views of the Conservative and Labour party are dramatically different yet, when they were expressed on the show, a huge round of applause greeted both. Is this just that they supporters were in the same number or are people generally confused?

I believe that people are generally confused. They are bombarded with information by the media and it comes attached with their very own viewpoint. Essentially they are been fed propaganda by both sides. Yet, because no one is engaged in politics anymore, this propaganda is not dismantled. The facts are never truly shown and people end up applauding both ends of the view point.

I’m not proclaiming that I have worked through the propaganda of both the left and the right. I simply do not know what I believe about the main issues of the day. The NHS, welfare, the EU. But I believed that if, in some way, everyone could begin to be engaged in politics then we would begin to arrive at some solution that we all want. People would stop spurting party lines and applauding propaganda, they would begin to govern for themselves.

I suppose what I’m talking about is grassroots organisations. In my view they isn’t enough. I haven’t heard about any in my area and my area is a prime target for one. It’s a working-class northern town where issues of welfare will be most felt. I think this needs correcting, but who to do it?

Forgetting About Kundera, Forgetting About History

I recently started reading The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. I loved the Unbearable Lightness of Being, it been one of my favourite books for some time, but I have unfortunately forgotten much of what happened. So I decided to pick up another of his to read, one which was mentioned in some of my History lecture last year.

Its mostly that reminds me of one of the cruel things that happens to history. It gets mixed with personal memories and interpretation which, as the novel shows through several stories that are linked with themes, changes over time.

It links strongly with one of my favourite quotes, I mentioned it in both my personal statement and based an essay on it. George Orwell wrote “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” In Kundera’s work the setting is the Czech Republic during the communist years, with the Prague uprising been one of the centres of the novel. Of course, its an obvious choice. From this point on the history of the nation had to be slowly rewritten to bring it closer to the USSR. In other words, other people began to be in control with the present and so they changed the past so that they could control the future.

This topic will always fascinate me. Our cultural identity shapes so much but memories are not perfect. Even academic history will never arrive at a truth, let alone truths. Seem as cultural identity is shaped on our sense of history how can we possibly precede?

In other words, Kundera is a definite most read for me. I fall in love every time.

Swimming Home: To A Review

It’s weird. Whenever I finish a book I feel I haven’t quite gotten I think that I’ll do a blog post about it. Write down my thoughts about the novel and I’ll somehow arrive at a conclusion. With Swimming Home I get  this feeling.

The novel is tight, finely crafted and beautiful written. Through out the novel I got the sense that something else was going on below the surface, something seemed to be itching to get out. It made me feel like I was missing something, yet perhaps I wasn’t.  Perhaps the novel is crafted in a way to try and make you feel as if there is always something under the surface trying to get out.

The novel itself is about a family who arrive at their holiday destination only to find a woman swimming naked in their villa’s swimming pool. Kitty Finch is her name and she is slightly strange. However she seems to be the way in which the author explores her major theme of the depression and mental illness. Yet Levy also paints a picture of a family that has supressed. In other words, that the feeling I got of something itching below the surface might just be the feeling that the family has themselves.

On such example of this is that Isabel, wife to Joe and mother to Nina, invites Kitty to stay with them in the villa. Why? Well the answers seems to be so that she can split up her marriage which has always been too distant and too fragile to last. Its seems a ploy by her to finally give her a reason to escape it. Is this the reason? Well it is certainly a compelling one but even with that explanation it still seemed as if their was more to explore.

Its fascinating the way in which the novel works. I was constantly left hunger for more depth and explanation and, in a way, I think this reflects the characters. They search for meaning and explanation but are presented with now. They seem lost and defenceless as they are hurtled towards a conclusion. Its a novel that doesn’t come with a definite recommendation but if you do read it, you might just enjoy it.

In other news, I am now Social Sec of UKC Amnesty International. Which means I get to organise parties whilst campaigning for human rights. I think that’s progress to at least been more involved in something meaningful?