Exams, Protests, Iraq

James Heartfield Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Sun Sep 29 02:08:51 PDT 2002


The WEEK ending 29 September 2002

WORST POSSIBLE A-LEVEL RESULT

British education minister Estelle Morris sacked exams watchdog William Stubbs after a row about A-level results, reported last WEEK. Far from government intervening to raise the bar for A-level standards as was claimed, Morris intervened politically to lower standards at the behest of private schools, embarrassed at having failed to deliver the promised results. Following an enquiry, the Education Department has undertaken to re-grade exams. Tellingly, they have promised that no mark will be graded downwards - oblivious to the fact that all the results have been degraded by this political sop to anxious teenagers.

NOT IN THEIR NAME

More than 150 000 marched against war on Iraq in London on Saturday, another symptom of the 'Coalition Against Terror's jitters (see below). Numerically, the protests against the build-up to this new Gulf War, have been much larger than against the previous one in 1991, around ten thousand at most. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, part of the coalition that organised the protest, coined the slogan 'not in my name'.

Unfortunately 'not in my name' sums up the spirit of the anti-war movement. The slogan appeals on a largely personal and moral level. It implies that the war will go ahead, but the protestor concerned relinquishes all responsibility, by opting out, and thereby keeping his conscience clear. The role of the protest is not to affect public policy, but to demonstrate the morally pure soul of the protestor.

A similarly passive attitude to the war is contained in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's position that no German troops will be involved, though the US will get logistical support from the Wehrmacht. As long as German soldiers' hands are clean, he implies, that is all right.

Opinion polls in Britain come out overwhelmingly against unilateral US action, but favour an attack as long as it is undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations. This is not opposition to war, but an insistence that it is carried out according to the Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

WAR JITTERS

Throughout the World, the Whitehouse's demands for resolute action are exposing jitters in the coalition against terror. Last week France and China signalled opposition to a new UN resolution, and re-elected German Chancellor Schroeder reiterated opposition to German troop involvement. Islamist advance in Morocco's election were watched nervously in the West for signs of Arab disaffection. In America, leading Democrats like Tom Daschle tentatively signalled their doubts, joining Republican veterans like Brent Scowcroft. In Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair's policy of rallying support for a strike provoked waspish criticisms from within his own party, and the minority parties; meanwhile the Welsh and Scots nationalists and the Liberal Democrats all felt that they could sense a groundswell of opposition to Blair over Iraq, and started to break ranks.

Any campaign that the government takes head on is almost bound to go wrong, from the 'integrated transport policy', to 'Education, Education, Education'. So it is no great surprise that Blair's government is thin-skinned about the impending war on Iraq. But despite this weekend's protest, there is little likelihood that opposition to the war will form into a real protest movement, since it is for the most part, just an expression of the establishment's own anxieties about what to do next.

-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'



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