Amy
Goodman with Tariq Ali
มาร์กาเร็ต แทตเชอร์ (1925-2013): ทาริค อาลี พูดถึงตำนานของอดีตนายกฯ
อังกฤษ จากรัดเข็มขัดสู่นโยบายแบ่งแยก
เอมี กู๊ดแมน กับ ทาริค อาลี
To discuss Margaret Thatcher’s
legacy, we go now to London, where we’re joined by Tariq Ali, British-Pakistani
political commentator, writer, activist and editor of the New Left Review.
เพื่อถกตำนานของ
มาร์กาเร็ต แทตเชอร์, เราไปที่ลอนดอน, ที่ทาริค อาลี ได้เข้าร่วม เขาเป็นนักวิจารณ์การเมือง,
นักเขียน, นักรณรงค์ ชาวอังกฤษเชื้อสายปากีสถาน, และบรรณาธิการของ New Left Review.
In these last minutes we have,
Tariq, talk about the legacy of, talk about the tenure of the former British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
ในช่วงนาทีหลังๆ
ที่เรามี, ทาริค พูดถึงตำนาน, พูดถึงสมัยของอดีตนายกฯ อังกฤษ มาร์กาเร็ต แทตเชอร์.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the breaking news of the death of former British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the age of 87. She was Britain’s first
female prime minister, serving three terms in office. Known as the "Iron
Lady," Margaret Thatcher became synonymous with austerity economics as a
close ally of President Ronald Reagan. She famously declared to critics of
neoliberal capitalism that, quote, "There is no alternative." Her
long-running battle with striking British miners dealt a major blow to the
union movement in Britain and ushered in a wave of privatizations. On foreign
policy, Thatcher presided over the Falklands War with Argentina and provided
critical support to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and famously labeled
Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" while backing South Africa’s apartheid
regime.
AMY
GOODMAN: เราเปิดฟังข่าวการตายของอดีตนายกฯ
อังกฤษ มาร์กาเร็ต แทตเชอร์ อายุ 87. เธอเป็นนายกฯ หญิงคนแรกของอังกฤษ,
ดำรงตำแหน่งอยู่สามสมัย. เป็นที่รู้จักในนาม “หญิงเหล็ก”, แทตเชอร์ ได้กลายเป็นคำเดียวกับเศรษฐกิจรัดเข็มขัด
ในขณะที่เป็นพันธมิตรใกล้ชิดกับประธานาธิบดีโรนัลด์ เรแกน. เธอประกาศจนเป็นที่เลื่องลือต่อนักวิพากษ์ต่อลัทธิทุนนิยมเสรีนิยมใหม่,
“มันไม่มีทางเลือก”. สงครามอันยาวนานของเธอในการปราบปรามการประท้วงของคนงานเหมืองอังกฤษ
เป็นการกวาดล้างขนานใหญ่ต่อขบวนการสหภาพในอังกฤษ และ เปิดทางสู่ระลอกคลื่นของการแปลงวิสาหกิจเป็นบรรษัทเอกชน. ในด้านนโยบายต่างชาติ, แทตเชอร์เป็นประธานใน
สงครามฟอล์กแลนด์ กับอาร์เจนตินา, ได้ให้การสนับสนุนสำคัญแก่เผด็จการชิลี ออกัสโต
ปิโนเชต์, และ ได้ติดป้ายอันมีชื่อเสียงแก่ เนลสัน แมนเดลา ว่าเป็น “ผู้ก่อการร้าย”
ในขณะที่หนุนหลังระบอบแบ่งแยกสีผิวในอาฟริกาใต้.
TARIQ ALI: Amy, there’s no doubt about it. She transformed British politics.
She basically won over the opposition. Her legacy is still very much in force,
so she’s not at all dead in terms of what is going on in this country. Her
policies are being carried out by the coalition government. Tony Blair and
Gordon Brown, New Labour prime ministers, were completely enthralled to her.
She was the first person invited by Blair to 10 Downing Street when he became
prime minister, to show how much he owed her, and Gordon Brown did exactly the
same thing. So we have had a continuum, that the process Margaret Thatcher
started off was carried on by Blair, who used rhetoric on the Iraq, Kosovo and
Afghan wars very similar to the rhetoric she used on the Falklands. And this
policy has continued. So her legacy is effectively to have wrecked Britain
economically and to have made it a total vassal state of the American empire.
TARIQ
ALI: เอมี,
ไม่มีข้อสงสัยเลยเรื่องนั้น. เธอได้พลิกโฉมการเมืองอังกฤษ. โดยเบื้องฐาน เธอชนะใจพรรคตรงข้าม. ตำนานของเธอยังมีพลังอยู่, ดังนั้น
เธอยังไม่ตายเลยในแง่ของความเป็นไปทุกวันนี้ในประเทศนี้. นโยบายของเธอถูกนำไปดำเนินการโดยรัฐบาลร่วม. โทนี แบลร์ และ กอร์ดอน บราวน์, นายกฯ
แรงงานใหม่, ล้วนหลงเสน่ห์ของเธอ.
เธอเป็นคนแรกที่แบลร์เชิญไปที่ บ้านเลขที่ 10 ถนนดาวนิ่ง
เมื่อเขาได้เป็นนายกฯ, เพื่อแสดงให้เห็นว่า เขาเป็นหนี้บุญคุณต่อเธอมากแค่ไหน, และ
กอร์ดอน บราวน์ ก็ทำอย่างเดียวกันเป๊ะ.
ดังนั้น เราจึงมีการต่อเนื่อง, นั่นคือ กระบวนที่แทตเชอร์ ได้เริ่มไว้
ถูกรับลูกต่อโดยแบลร์, ผู้ใช้โวหารสงคราม อิรัค, โคโซโว และ อัฟกาน คล้ายๆ
กับโวหารที่เธอใช้กับฟอล์กแลนด์.
และนโยบายนี้ก็ได้เดินต่อไป.
ดังนั้น ตำนานของเธอ คือ ได้ทำให้อังกฤษอับปางทางเศรษฐกิจอย่างมีประสิทธิผล
และ ทำให้มันเป็นเมืองขึ้นหมดต่อจักรวรรดิ์อเมริกัน.
AMY GOODMAN: Tariq, can you talk about the legacy of Thatcherism for the
working class in Britain?
AMY
GOODMAN:
ทาริค, ช่วยพูดถึงตำนานของลัทธิแทตเชอร์สำหรับชนชั้นแรงงานในอังกฤษได้ไหม?
TARIQ ALI: Well, basically, she took on the workers’ movement, which had
become very strong. Trade unions were very powerful in this country, and they
were effectively challenging capital by demanding a share of the take, and
being quite successful. The miners’ union, one of the most respected unions in
the country, challenged her. She organized the state, the use of the police,
use of the secret services, to defeat them. And she did it, and she referred to
union militancy as "the enemy within." She was very hot on enemies,
either abroad or at home. And that phrase, "the enemy within," has
been used subsequently against dissidents of other sorts by her successors.
TARIQ
ALI:
เอาล่ะ, โดยเบื้องฐาน, เธอโจมตีขบวนคนงาน, ซึ่งมีความเข้มแข็งมาก. สหภาพแรงงานทรงอำนาจมากในประเทศนี้,
และพวกเขาก็ท้าทายฝ่ายทุนอย่างมีประสิทธิผล ด้วยการเรียกร้องให้แบ่งผลประโยชน์,
และก็ประสบความสำเร็จมากทีเดียว.
สหภาพคนงานเหมือง, หนึ่งในสหภาพที่ได้รับความเคารพมากที่สุดในประเทศนี้,
ท้าทายเธอ. เธอจัดกระบวนภาครัฐ,
ใช้กำลังตำรวจ, ใช้หน่วยสืบราชการลับ, เพื่อเอาชนะ. และเธอก็ทำสำเร็จ, และเธอเรียกความเข้มแข็งของสหภาพว่าเป็น
“ศัตรูภายใน”. เธอรุนแรงมากเรื่อง ศัตรู,
ไม่ว่าจะอยู่ต่างประเทศหรือในประเทศ.
และวลี “ศัตรูภายใน” ต่อมาได้ถูกใช้เพื่อต่อต้านคนที่ไม่เห็นด้วยในเรื่องต่างๆ
โดยผู้สืบทอดอำนาจของเธอ.
This work is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Published on Monday, April 8, 2013
by Democracy
Now!
galen066
• 11 hours ago
"One should speak good of the
dead. She's dead. Good." - Bette Davis
'Bout time the Iron Battle-axe
kicked off. No loss, and no tears from this end.
Thatcher was an evil, ruinous,
fascist Corporate tool.
Great
Bette Davis quote. Do you know who it was she was speaking about, or was it a
movie line?
Bill
from Saginaw
Bette
was referring to Joan Crawford, upon hearing of the latter's death.
ah!
I didn't know that. I love to watch old Joan Crawford movies. Yes, they never
got along but sad to find that comment was about Joan Crawford.
You
did know that Joan Crawford was a violent, child abusing drunk in her private
life, right? She was also notoriously difficult to work with professionally.
As
are most prima donnae.
She
was speaking about Joan Crawford.
It's saddened me that some
"feminists" have held up Thatcher as a model of women's rights. Those
feminists that seek to prove their "equality" by adopting the worst
of "male" traits...
The
dimwit feminists have caused a lot of harm by not recognizing their allies in
the opposite sex broad brushing for too long, they are yet another tool to the
fascist corporatists pitting races, genders, etc...to divert attention from
their crimes and other far more important issues.
Most
feminists (female & male) are not dimwits. That there are male
feminists-and I'm one-negates your point -doesn't it. There are certainly some
tin-hat feminists out there, just as there are tin-hat lefties. Quite a few of
the latter post frequently on CD. There are more idiots on the right, but
that's just my humble opinion. I could be wrong.
You
know I've never met a feminist that feels that way about Thatcher. And I know
more than a few. I did see Hollywood try to rebrand her but the feminists I
know weren't buying it.
Good
point. I assume you're not referring to all feminists...
I
still tend to think that the term "feminist" is extreme as is a
sexist male "male-ist", why not humanist an inclusive term that is
inviting and pluralist.
The
feminist creed has always been "women's rights and nothing less, men's
rights and nothing more". I.e., equality and balance.
I
go by the Dictionary definition...
feminist
- noun
One
who advocates for women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
When
you add the word "sexist" you're talking about the belief in the
superiority of one sex over another, rather than equality.
I
don't see any problem with calling shitty, demeaning behavior by men towards
women "sexist". In no way does the term imply female superiority over
men. It refers to the assumed 'superiority' of men as manifested in certain
kinds of obnoxious behaviors, and in some instances outright repression. Got a
problem with that?
If
you google the humanists you'll see they are atheist hate groups. I like cool
open minded athiests. Those ones are nasty and attacking - how dare everyone
not think just like them!
It's
possible to be a humanist and not be an atheist. I'm a humanist, and for me, at
least, the jury is still out on religion. My wife is a Quaker. It's people who
think they're in possession of the absolute truth, be they atheists, believers,
communists, fascists or whatever that are the problem.
Didn't
Kurt Vonnegut describe himself as a humanist?
Should
one consider the person who calls one a dimwit an ally?
Women
have the same right to screw up the world as men. It's that basic.
Unfortunately. There are examples of women doing better than the men they
supplanted. Maggie was not one of them, unless you are a plutocrat, in which
case, she was heroic in reducing democracies to extractive industries. Did we
hope a Black dude would have a better understanding of inequality and would
therefore try harder to correct injustices? Hope schmope. He slung the jargon
like a grade nine debating club member, but look at the mess he's making. And
unfortunately, his missus the single mom, is cut by the same cookie cutter.
I agree with you: equality in adopting the worst is not progress.
I agree with you: equality in adopting the worst is not progress.
Very
well said.
There are those who come into the
world as if destined to do their fair share of harm. Margaret Thatcher (may she
NOT rest in peace!) was one of those sinister persons. I remember Thatcher
before she made it to the top of the shit pile. Even then, as a backbench Tory
MP, the grim sides of her character were already in evidence. The daughter of a
shopkeeper, she had all the provincialism, petty-bourgoeis philistinism and
narrow prejudice of that cohort that was once the bastion of "little
England," "Home Counties" Conservatism. These are the people who
love "our Royals"; who think Britain is really "Great"; who
think "the Empire" was the greatest creation in the history of the
world; and who think "colored people" are a stain on the fair place
that is "England." In short, Thatcher was the quintessence of
cultural chauvanism and reactionary nationalism. She was like a caricature of
the "Britisher" as penned by Dickens. Indeed, she claimed fondness
for the Victorians but liberal Victorians would have condemned her for shameless
pandering to the patriotic herd and for her cynical money grubbing. The sad,
scary thing: Thatcher was all too real and in her appointed role--as the Great
Leader of a Great Nation--she was brutally effective.
Thatcher had few virtues, but one of
them was that she at least had the good taste to disavow any connection with
feminism. She had none of the sentimentality about the caring side of the
female principle. As a politician, she was just about as "masculine"
as any man you wish to mention. Once she became Prime Minister, Thatcher came
into her own as a militant "conservative." It has often been observed
by wise historians of politics that when the small-minded are given power they
are wont to lead the state in dangerous directions, as they feel it is their
mission to doggedly pursue every dogma and doctrine in the playbook (think here
of the simpleton W. Bush). Thatcher's attitude towards neo liberal capitalism
was that of the true believer. She girded her loins for war against heretics of
all stripes. Never an intellectual, Thatcher sought privatization and
austeritywith a singular passion and viciousness. She used every strategem in
the book (and then some) to bring down the unions. Her opponents did not grasp
(until it was way too late) that Thatcher was truly "religious" in
her desire to win. Being the slave of a simple idea, she was not interested in
compromise, negotiation or even half a victory. For her, it was total victory
or nothing. She laid waste to the industrial heartlands of Britain in order to
bring the working class to its knees. The capitalists were jubilant and they
duly rewarded her by leaving her at the helm for what seemed like an eternity.
On cultural matters, Thatcher was
poison. She stole "the neo nazi vote" from the National Front by
famously stating that the ordinary Britisher was anxious at being
"swamped" by undesirable "colored" immigrants from India,
Pakistan and other colonial outposts. The "swamped" metaphor is
typical Thatcher--subtly, deliberately nasty, with a real undertone of
violence. Whenever she spoke of "the British" or "the
English," Thatcher made it clear that she had in mind God's
"white" people. Meanwhile, in the real world of political economy,
she sold the country to the highest bidder, and this was often an oil sheikh in
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the Emirates. One almost had to admire Thatcher for her
breathtaking cynicism.
On Ireland, she was terrible. On
South Africa, despicable. On Central America, reprehensible. Her foreign policy
was little more than an echo of the brutal barbarities of Reaganism. During the
Falklands War, she spoke of Britain being "great again." So many of
the populace were lost in the neo-liberal house of dreams, they treated the
pathetic Falklands episode as though it were the defeat of mighty Germany all
over again. This culture of belligerence, paegentry and theatricality was
another hallmark of the dark Thatcher years.
Like any people, the British are a
complex lot. Many decent folk, a great number of nondescripts, and the usual quotient
of mindless assholes. But in the Thatcher years, the country noticeably went
backwards towards barbarism. The "emancipation of the market" (as
they like to call it) destroyed a lot of what was good in British society. The
communalism and moral sensibility that fed into the creation of the welfare
state (at the end of the second world war) was replaced by "American
style" individualism, where it is all "dog eat dog" and "I
got mine" and "gimme more." Money became the only national
religion. Poverty became a crime. The rich became demi gods. The country became
a crass and unfeeling realm. Symbolic of all of this was a notrious incident
where soccer supporters from the wealthier south of England taunted supporters
from the impoverished north by waving paper money in their faces, while
chanting "loads-of-money." It was enough to make an old time Labor
socialist weep. I remember Thatcher told the long-term unemployed "to get
on their bikes" and go in search of work. For there is always "a
job" waiting to be filled in the perfect world of the pure market. When
Thatcher had finished with the British economy, it looked much more like the
economy of the United States, with so many of the same charming features we
have come to know so well: disintegrating cities, high crime rates, high rates
of anomie and alienation, rampant consumerism and commercialism, degraded
welfare provisions, massive investment in the military and the growing police
state, etc, etc. Her triumph in politics was to get the Labor Party to kick out
all the socialists and to become a Conservative Party lite.
More could be said of Thatcher, for
her crimes were legion. Her epitaph can be simply stated:
"Here lies Margaret Thatcher,
ex-Prime Minister of Britain and junior partner in the American Empire. She
rose to power, harmed a lot of people, fell ill in later life and died a
natural death. She escaped judgement in this life. But she shall not escape the
judgement of history."
I
read this entire post of yours with bated breath. Please, I hope you are
writing professionally somewhere - you must be. What a wonderful piece!
Brilliant!
Great
post. Worthy of its own article. I assume you were around during Harold
Wilson's reign. The BBC recently aired a documentary entitled "The Plot
Against Harold Wilson", worth checking out.
Good riddance ... but nowhere near
soon enough.
Bingo!
The damage is done:(
My
issue with this is I'm Buddhist and she gets to reincarnated and come back. I
mean, okay, maybe she'll be a worm because of her crimes against humanity, but
I suspect she'll get to be a human again and a do over. What if the worst
humans have been the same people(souls) throughout history? I agree, good
riddance, but she was so old, I think she couldn't have hurt anyone further.
Too bad she didn't make it to 120 before she got to come back and try again, is
all I'm saying.
The
Buddha taught rebirth not reincarnation. There is a difference, and it doesn't
have to do with any sort of cosmic recycling. The Tibetan Buddhists took the
rebirth thing and meshed it with the indigenous Bon religion to construe
rebirth as reincarnation. Reincarnation has more of a home in Hinduism than
Buddhism.
In
any case, the Buddha frowned upon metaphysical speculation. See for example,
A
hookworm.
Yep--87
LONG years of mischief.
While the world's plutocrats mourn
Ms. Thatcher, much of Britain appears to be meeting the news with a festive
spirit. Parties and fireworks are being planned, and a campaign has been been
launched to place "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" at the top of the
charts. The British press is responding with outrage.
George Galloway was decidedly
non-elegiac. After first tweeting Costello's "Tramp the Dirt Down",
he then stated 'Thatcher described Nelson Mandela as a 'terrorist'. I was
there. I saw her lips move. May she burn in the hellfires.'
The ghoulish yet entirely
appropriate celebrations of the working class will make for an interesting
contrast with the somber ceremonies of the plutocracy. Today, they mourn one of
they own - a wicked, sadistic, black-hearted parasite.
Durrutix:
Margaret Thatcher? A "wicked, sadistic, black-hearted parasite." THAT
WAS HER!
And
yet the move The Iron Lady, which came out a couple of years ago and starred
Meryl Streep in the title role, decided to gloss over what Thatcher had done
when she was in office.
Leni
Rufenstahl is smiling, knowing her place in propagandist heaven is safe...
Leni
set the standard.
R.I.H., defender of the rich,
warmongerer, neoliberal imperialist, weapons dealer extraordinaire.
Thatcher told the world with a
straight face that "society does not exist" (the fundamental axiom of
neo-liberalism).
Well, of course, it doesn't. Witness
the exemplary society-less life of the Lady herself. She was found on a desert
island at the age of seventeen. By then, she had already taught herself English
and all the rudiments of a solid "public school" education. She was
found fully dressed in garments of her own making, styled with that English je
ne sais quoi. The meals she so lovingly prepared for herself in this isolated
island stemmed from the best English tradition.
Having made herself so well and so
successfully and in such an inimitable English way, it was very easy for her to
come to England and eventually preside "iron-like" over the
neo-liberal revolution, along with her American neo-liberal champion Ronald
Reagan, the revolution that gave us the miserable world we inhabit today.
What
are these beasts looking for? A world of dog eat dog isn't sustainable and
humans are wired to be socialist, social animals for survival. Theirs is just
an act to rob what people have put together as collective wealth of the
community, nation, city, etc....
Of
course, they are robbing the collective wealth. In fact, there is really no
wealth apart from societal formations to begin with. The creation and the
accumulation of wealth (starting with basic processes such as food storage and
energy sources (firewood, for example) storage) are inconceivable without
societal networks and the cooperation inherent in them. There is no wealth
without society, although there are societies without wealth.
These
plunderers (what you call 'the beasts') are looking for wealth, power, and
prestige, and they are looking out for the interests in wealth, power, and
prestige of a very few, the Happy Few, as they used to say and as we may now
witness with our own eyes in the most fanatical neo-liberal economies in the
world, those of England and the United States: since Thatcher and Reagan, the
divide between the rich and the ever more wretched many has only been growing,
to the point where the salaries of most in the U.S. have been stagnating for
decades, while those of the CEOs have been undergoing massive increases (several
hundred percent).
"Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)"
Hooraaaaaaay!
If only her policies died with
her...
Yeah,
but they never do do they? Reagan's trickle down theory just keeps pissing big
time on the
Maggie and Ronnie
Sitting in a tree
K - I - L - L - I - N - G
Rust in Peace, Iron Lady.
If there's any kind of Hereafter
(doubtful) I hope that Thatcher has to answer personally to each one of the
miners and families of the North of England she destroyed in the '70s....before
she is allowed to rest in any kind of peace. ( I'm originally from the North of
England - the feelings of those times remain engraved on my heart.)
You
and millions of others.
I think this is a better barometer
of the popular perception of Thatcher in the UK:
"For three million pounds you
could give a shovel to everyone in Scotland, and we would dig a hole so deep
you could hand her over to Satan personally."
Update: CBC just played video of NDP
'leader' crypto-con Tom Mulcair praising Thatcher's legacy.
I need a drink. Preferably several.
Funny
that's not the press she's getting in the US. They are making her out as a role
model.
Well
of course...the US corpomedia has totally sold out. Even the Torygraph
isn't as bad as the US "left wing" stenography corporations.
Are
they really going to spend 3 million on her funeral?
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