A day is a long time in politics. My forlorn program of political optimism proposed on day 43, namely that perhaps the long slow motion car crash of 20th Century politics was coming to an end leaving clear road ahead was proposed too soon.
There is great attention being paid to a domestic slavery and abuse story in the UK this week. It is fraught with all sorts of difficulty for the liberal media media and seductive scandal for the right wing media – racism – the alleged perpetrators are an Indian and Tanzanian and two of the alleged slaves were white – and now after three days of rumours about cults it has been announced that the alleged perpetrators were and possibly are Maoists. The story is morphing into something as fever pitched as the day Brittany Spears exposed herself getting out of a car or maybe in to one, I can’t remember.
I would not want to make light of any suffering involved but what has interested me is that the story has brought phrases like “expelled from the Communist Party for being a splittist” onto the front pages of today’s papers. A strong indication that the slow motion car crash is clearly going to be sustained for a good few more frames, perhaps extended for a lengthy period like Douglas Gordon’s 24 hour Psycho.
The BBC whose perspective on life I don’t really share has this to say in its attempt to help us all understand the slavery story:
Professor Dennis Tourish, from the Royal Holloway University of London, said followers of Marxism often committed their lives to their beliefs.
“They develop a number of organisational rituals of which communal living is one,” he said.
“The people they are working with and recruiting commit all their resources, including their time and money, and in a sense their souls to supporting the aims and objectives of the group.”
I am frantically reviewing my own organisational rituals for tell tale signs of Marxism. Is it ok to always order a large black americano twice a day? If I can’t locate my soul am I in trouble?