History professor, Trinity College, Dublin: "There is a sense that with (them), unless it's written down you can't trust anything they say."
Former Dutch MEP: "A mixture of bemusement and bewilderment. On one level it's entertaining, great spectacle. A pantomime you can't stop watching... Except this isn't Monty Python."
Dutch language teacher: "We had such a close relationship... until now (when) you can't manage your own affairs. Those jokes, that posturing - it just looks silly. Irresponsible."
French commentator: "... a 'national psychodrama' or in more prosaic words 'un big mess'."
CEO of French port, Calais: "You had special conditions. You continued to drive on the left... so fundamentally insular... this is (your) destiny. But it's a pity."
Editor, Spanish newspaper: "Most people see it as chaos... (despite) a strong reputation for being disciplined and well organised."
German diplomat: "Melancholy (like) that of being dumped by a girfriend. 'I still have her jumper and I go round wearing it, hoping her scent will linger'."
Still stumped?
It is the same phenomenon that has kept me - nominally a writer in the winter of my life, keen to finish my fifth novel and desperate to outrun The Grim Reaper - lolling on the couch of an afternoon, reading The Guardian's every last tick and comma, even watching the Live Parliament TV channel, and discussing things in a low whisper with my wife.
Trump? Forget him. A mere shadow in two or six years.
Brexit, meanwhile, may cause my grandchildren's children to curse who-knows-how-many generations of English parents.
Thanks to The Guardian’s G2 Section, pp 8 – 9, “It’s like the crew of the Titanic deciding, by majority vote, that the iceberg should get out of the way.”
I loved your final two lines.
ReplyDelete"The Continent", I think, is still loved socially and individually. it's the Euro politicos that are detested.
Avus: Imagine a multi-storey block of 28 flats, established for decades. Imagine that one of the tenants not only wants to find another area to live but to take his flat with him. Putting the rest of the structure at risk and causing the other tenants endless commotion. Imagine the leaver starts belly-aching, vilifying and endlessly whingeing about the lack of co-operation he's getting. You get the idea.
ReplyDeleteOnly arch-Brexiteers dislike the EU politicos. I find them civilised, courteous and even emollient - except when asked to do something that is clearly impossible. And being all these things in a language that is not their first. Remember too that the first aim of the EU was to keep the peace between countries who tended to start wars. I believe we have now passed through the longest period in Europe's history without a war. A point never raised by Brexiteers who may - for all I know - be in favour of wars. After all the real die-hards favour a no-deal departure which sounds like the next worst thing to a war.
I am still trying (seriously) to understand what part of being a member state of the EU is so despicable, so unbearable that leaving seems the only way.
ReplyDeleteSometimes all I can find coming close to an explanation is that the leavers have maneuvered themselves into a corner (never expected the referendum to carry a leave vote) and like a temper tantrum toddler can do no better than stamp their feet while trying to pin the blame on whoever comes in handy.
As I have an allergy to politicians, I've avoided truly understanding Brexit, just noting that my friends in English and Wales don't want it. And I seem likely to continue in such a state. May the best happen, whatever that is.
ReplyDeleteTrala, I just turned in another hunk of work and can frolic... So my ignorance is not holding me back, it seems.
Sabine: I appreciate your attempt to understand our predicament. Safe to say it cannot be summarised so concisely as the second half of your first sentence. Here's just one of several paradoxes: the villains are what Sellars and Yeatman (in 1066 and All That) call the Romantics. Under the guise of pushing for freer trade rules they wish to re-create a Golden Era in Britain which never existed. An era where Britain won WW2, was renowned for its fair-mindedness, where "foreigners" would beg to have dealings with us, where China was and always would be third world.
ReplyDeleteBut it isn't even that simple. Other factors, equally cloud-based, play a part. For instance: The leader of the Labour Party, an extreme leftwinger who has spent a lifetime campaigning on behalf of disadvantaged Palestinians (good) should be challenging the government's craziness but cannot because his party has become electorally poisonous via an inferred conclusion that it is anti-semitic (bad).
Your second para is a fair summary of where we are now: a crisis point in a diplomatic version of the Stick Game to which the passage of time has been added. But as you point out: now is easy, how and why are difficult.
At a UK literary festival a well-known philosopher was asked how he would vote in the forthcoming referendum. He said: "To stay with those who gave us Goethe and Voltaire." Given the addition of Richard Strauss and Francois Truffaut, that was my view. I still hold to that but it's a very frail sort of commitment in the face of such things as possible mass unemployment and the resumption of shooting in Ireland.
Marly: You have made this antipathy clear before. But then many bad things in life can be traced back to political intransigence. Just suppose you had lived in California this summer. The wall of fire was travelling down the hill at the speed of a Chevrolet Corvette and your ten-bedroom hacienda (with indoor pool) stood in the fire's way. Would you have said: "I'm not going to get the hoses out because this fire can be attributed to the neglect of politicians; they and their activities do not interest me."
In Brexit the politicians are just the visible part of a dreadful national dilemma. Beneath them are terror, ignorance and a feeling of helplessness. One thing is certain: you wouldn't remain unaffected by what's happening.
Here in the US we get so much constant news about the Trump disaster that we do not follow Brexit that much. From what I understand Cameron was cornered into getting a vote on Brexit, thinking that it would not pass. I don’t think Brexit was a good idea for the UK and it surprised me that the UK would want to part ways with friends and allies, after receiving concessions from the EU. But, just like in the US, there is a large segment of the population that is racist. Both countries have super-nationalist citizens who do not want to confront the future and who aspire to return to the old times and ways that were never there. “Patriotism is the large refuge of the scoundrel.” Samuel Johnston.
ReplyDelete" I find them civilised, courteous and even emollient" - do you include the seemingly permanently inebriated Jean-Claude Juncker on your list.........?
ReplyDeleteVagabonde: I read your Christmas post as mentioned. Since we are "of an age" I yearned for the youth you enjoyed - unfettered in two of the world's great capitals, part of their two populations rather than merely a spectator. Decades were to pass before I was able to become a European.
ReplyDeleteYour summary of Brexitomania is fine but needs a tiny tweak. For decades the Tories have torn themselves apart over Europe. Cameron was not so much "cornered" as "self-cornered" by the referendum which he called as a sop to anti-Europe Tories. Not expecting to lose, as you say. Looking back over the subsequent two years it's almost impossible to believe how badly informed we were about the consequences of leaving Europe. The main topic seemed to be immigration; I can't remember anyone raising the subject of the Irish border, now the big sticking point. Many lies were told about the financial benefits of Brexit very little about the costs. I learned today the UK is presently spending £800m a week on Brexit and it hasn't even happened.
Avus: It's news to me. Could we conceivably be reading different newspapers? Perhaps J-CJ is a WSC admirer.