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A long road
Abdul-Rehman Malik
27th
June 2007
openDemocracy
Abdul-Rehman Malik bids
farewell to Tony Blair
Dear Tony (or Yo
Blair),
George's informality shouldn't have bothered us so much. You always
liked that kind of casual, "first names only please" familiarity. It
went so well with Oasis, designer jeans and active listening. I didn't
even live in the UK when you were first elected, yet I remember being
excited (Canadians often get unduly thrilled by what happens in the
"mother country" - a residual colonial impulse) at the possibility of
the kind of "big ideas" transformative politics you promised. Your
electorate, eager for some skip-in-the-step political change, were
willing to give you more than one chance to make good.
Change came, but with a strong dose of political prozac. Back-door
Thatcherism and contracting out public services didn't need to get in
the way of blue-sky spin. Your decade in power forever seemed to be
prefaced by consensus-talk and forward not back sloganeering. With all
the latest social policy thinkers crowding your front room (Giddens,
Putnam and Le Grand to name a few), it looked like you were on to
something. In the end it felt like intellectual faddism. You weren't a
philosopher-king. You were a head chef standing over a hodge-podge
policy stew: it tasted alright, some of the time.
British Muslims should have had little to complain about. New Labour
ushered in a period of unprecedented access to the corridors of power.
Muslim peers, MPs and even a few knighthoods were meant to demonstrate
that Muslims were no longer on the margins of the British body politic.
Some Muslim schools got voluntary-aided status and hard-campaigning
community activists saw the ossified race-based classifications start
to soften. Funding streams opened up and there were units struck to
deal with "faith". Yet after 9/11 you jumped headlong into a "war on
terror" not of your own making. When the time came to be an
international statesman - independent, inventive, inspired - we got a
civil liberties clawback, a misguided battle of hearts and minds and,
eventually, Iraq. Any gains made under your premiership have simply
been overshadowed.
When millions came to have that "Big Conversation", you retreated into
moral certitudes. Cool Britannia wanted nothing to do with you anymore.
Sitting in the press gallery, I finally got a chance to see you in the
flesh as you delivered your final sermon to Muslim grandees at
Lancaster House earlier this month. Contrition would have been too much
to ask for, but your language was more generous than usual as you
called on that soon-to-be "feral beast" to pay more attention to the
"authentic voice of Islam". The hand-wringing about the "arc of
extremism" was replaced by earnest entreaties to get a solution for
Palestine. When questioned about ethics and foreign policy, you paused
- uncharacteristically I was later told - and said aloud that you "had
to choose your words carefully." As you bounded out of the room, I
noticed more smiles and nods from the audience than I had thought. I
was astonished when one Muslim activist sidled up to me afterwards and
said in a bit of a conspiratorial tone, "He was good, wasn't he? I mean
Iraq was bad, but you can't say he wasn't a great leader."
Tony, you old charmer! Still got some of that '97 magic left in you,
eh?
I don't think charm will help you in your new envoy duties, though.
Time might be better spent finding a nice monastery and spending the
next few years deconstructing the spin in your soul. The engine of
murder and mayhem you helped launch shows no signs of sputtering. Yes,
yes, we know: you only did what you thought was right. Saying it
repeatedly doesn't excuse the error. God surely forgives, but He also
judges. The road to hell, as a religious man like you knows, is paved
with good intentions.
..............................................................
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