It's the economy, dumbass!

The political change taking place across the Middle East and North Africa has surprised most commentators and politicians in terms of its success and speed. Many of the countries that have changed during the ‘Arab Spring’ had been controlled by strongmen who had been in charge for decades. Hosni Mubarak, who stood down from Egypt after thirty years, was only the third president since the 1952 revolution. What has interested me most besides the timing, has been the reaction of the world’s major countries, particularly America. The US has been a major player in the region in the past sixty years, providing aid (and arming) Israel, placing sanctions on Iran and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The US has a varying record across the world but it is always unanimous when it comes to promoting and pushing values of democracy and liberty.

These values are mentioned dozens of times in any presidential speech and evolve ultimately from America’s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. American troops are deployed all around the world to protect the love of their country and the values it evokes. Yet despite the vivid portrayals of flags and parades adjoined to the rhetoric from the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, I wonder whether America is perhaps over-democratised and whether its ‘brand’ of politics is tarnishing the way the system works?

To many, 20 January 2009 was a historical day across the world, but particularly in America. Barack Obama was sworn in as the first black US President. It was a magical moment to watch and the banners for change were painted across cities and small towns in America through the ubiquitous ‘Hope’ posters that will come to define a generation. Yet since that day the obvious stalling of the American economy has defined Obama’s first term as President and with that an infectious antagonism has developed between the President’s Democrats and the Grand Old Party (GOP), the Republicans.

The passage of Obama’s healthcare bill that in essence extended insurance provision to the poorest in society caused fractions between both parties. Obama’s Presidential opponent, Senator John McCain called the bill ‘unconstitutional’ and the President was called a liar by Republican Joe Wilson during a joint session of Congress, a major disrespect in American conventions and in most democracies. The issues of late has been the nation’s high unemployment rate, around 9%, and the inability to agree on America’s deficit (currently America’s total debt stands at $14 trillion (and increasing)). The Democrats, who suffered defeats during the midterms, struggled to pass through the President’s budget until the last minute. Yet, the belligerent GOP who block every bill proposed by Mr Obama, have struggled to formulate their own deficit reduction plan. Congressman Paul Ryan who put forward a much tougher plan, compared to the Democrats, called the ‘Path to Prosperity’ wanted tighter reforms to healthcare and federal spending. This too was voted down. Politicians are embattled over the Treasury’s ceiling limit of American federal debt and the unrest is visible as states such as New Jersey, California and New York struggle to tackle their public spending, even the NFL nearly went on strike. Yet amongst all this, it appears we are yet again in election season.

Despite the US elections being over 18 months away, we have already descended into the hubbub of caucuses and campaigning. The Republicans candidates are still deciding whether 2014 is the best opportunity for them to run. Most headlines nationally and internationally focus on the glamorous, relentless yet fallible Sarah Palin. An ambassador of the Tea Party and a saviour to America’s right, Palin has taken herself on a tour of the US but has yet to confirm whether she will stand. The flamboyant property tycoon Donald Trump also ruled himself out after questioning Obama’s citizenship. Another unhealthy idea evolving from America’s Right is the re-emergence of Reagonomics, in honour of the Republican’s ideological God – Ronald Reagan. Yet Reagan’s policy of cutting taxes yet maintaining a large military capability through borrowing seems idiotic but plays with the patriots’ hearts, despite a horrendous deficit. There appears to be plenty of choice of candidates but no one outstanding.

American electioneering has revolutionised the way democracy and politics works and moves. From the advent of Presidential debates that saw the rookie John F, Kennedy defeat the experienced Richard Nixon to the sophisticated internet campaign that saw Obama steamroll Hilary Clinton as nominee then John McCain. Presidential campaigning is a billion dollar industry and has been used over the years to the Philippines, Venezuela, even the Scottish National Party (SNP) adopted the technology in the recent local elections in the UK.

Now here is the problem, expect utterances of ‘American exceptionalism’ and the usual musings of freedom, hope etc. Yet, it appears to deflect from the big elephant in the room. Bill Clinton’s infamous election phrase, ‘It’s the economy stupid!’ America is in a safer position compared to Britain because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency and developing nations are still prepared to buy US Treasury bonds. Yet the dynamics of American electioneering deflect from the intrinsic importance of policy making and sorting out the economy. The current UK coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats could of course collapse at any time, coalitions do, but the five year plan to wipe out the deficit, despite its critics, is backed and understood by most members of the British public. The British economy is of course entirely different to the American, but the flexibility of the Parliamentary system, which does have its flaws, has shown that the benefits over a codified and rigorous constitutional system. America’s love of democracy isn’t helping any recovery.

America should be proud of its values and persistence to promote and enhance the lives of others across the world. Its labour markets are flexible enough to create new jobs and adapt to the global economy, yet it the constant dogmatism and disorder, perhaps over-democratisation, mixed with the professional electioneers, has caused it to stall and lose focus on important matters. By no means, would any American lust for the Chinese political system or the over bureaucratic system of India but it would aspire for year on year high economic growth and end site to potential financial meltdown. The world could not afford the American economy to default, but you wish someone would stop talking about flags and just say ‘it’s the economy stupid!’

Next stop, Mugabe.

Lord Palmerston, one of Britain’s most influential Foreign Secretaries in the nineteenth century is often remembered for his famous dictum:

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

This is true of any nation. The US delegation that visited Mao’s China in 1972 was treading on dangerous ground. History Professor David Reynolds from the University of Cambridge said at the time it is like comparing ‘America opening talks with Al Qaeda’. Every story has a context and President Richard Nixon was pursuing a policy of containment from Soviet influence with his mandarin Henry Kissinger. China, under the insular rule of Chairman Mao, were political pariahs. They had contributed in World War 2 to help defeat Imperial Japan, but several years later (after the Mao’s succession) sent forces against the West on the Korean peninsula. The US decision to open talks was made easier by the Ussuri River conflict agaisnt the USSR three years previously. Communist China and Soviet Russia were now sworn enemies. This not only allowed the US to start talks with China, particularly about containing the Vietnam War but it opened up a diplomacy that would transform the two nations economically.

It is the same within the Middle East. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was transformative, after decades of war, it showed the ability to negotiate over trade and ultimately co-exist. This asks the question of Britain and whether it is willing or able to move on and talk to the wasp’s nest in the loft, Zimbabwe and its belligerent and ailing leader Robert Mugabe.

British history in Africa is grey. Comparing it to other nations and their empires such as Belgium or Portugal then you could mistake the British for saints. The ‘Scramble for Africa’ saw land divided between other countries with the line of a ruler. Unlike places like India or Hong Kong where institutions were laid down, a loose form of indirect rule was placed with strong tribal leaders to control affairs on site, whilst decisions were made from the Colonial Office in Whitehall.

The 1960s and the ‘winds of change’ speech uttered by PM Harold MacMillan saw swathes of British Africa declare independence; The Gold Coast, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. All these nations elected their own governments and power was truly handed over from London. Yet the British exit from Rhodesia did not change much in terms of politics. Ian Smith, a white militant, took charge and retained the apartheid system that subjugated Black Rhodesians. The guerrilla war that ensued finally ended in 1979 through the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in London that ended Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence. It also introduced to the world the wily and implacable Robert Gabriel Mugabe, a product of the British Colonial system.

Why does Mugabe in particular revile the British establishment? Zimbabwe has a shocking human rights record; but what of the genocide in Darfur or the habitual rape of women and children in DR Congo? Freedom of the press – it is hardly a model system but compared to Eritrea. The dispute over land distribution is probably worse in neighbouring South Africa. If Mugabe is going to win an Oscar then it will be for his economic mismanagement, but the picture is often presented more fiendish than it is in comparison. Yet Zimbabwe, behind Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, still features highly for UK press concentration. It ultimately boiled down to the fact that Mugabe, with his agile political skills and connivance, managed to defeat the British who left an Africa unfavourably for black Africans.

Yet despite his brazenness and ferocity, Mugabe still admires his ‘mother country’. He is known to enjoy afternoon tea and like Idi Amin, the Ugandan tyrant, wistfully respects the Queen and the Royal Family. Travel bans to the EU and US not only prevented his wife from trips to Harrods but separated him from the Establishment. This of course is entirely different to his revulsion towards the British Government, they only made things worse.

This is a man that oversaw an operation translated from Shona (the majority ethnic language) meaning ‘drive out the filth’ that saw bulldozers smash through homes of voters of the MDC (now in government with Mugabe’s Zanu PF) and Zimbabwe’s other ethnic group. This is a man that caused great instability across the whole of Southern Africa. A Black African killing black Africans, driving millions of refugees into neighbouring countries and overseeing the disastrous appropriation of white farm land to black natives that caused the whole region to suffer economically and without food.

We hear rumours that Mr Mugabe, now 87, is terminally ill with prostate cancer, yet still clutching to power. His latest economic policy is to see that all foreign owned enterprises must be have least 51 per cent ‘native’ Zimbabwean investors, a policy that is unsettling big firms such as Barclays Bank. The US and EU sanctions have also seen Mugabe flirt towards the Chinese, trading diamonds for military hardware. With a breakdown in relations between Mugabe and Prime Minster Morgan Tsvangirai the elections scheduled for next year could turn out as farcical and bloody as 2007.

Is this the opportunity for Britain, like Nixon all those years ago, to reach out an olive branch to Mugabe and reset relations? Not only could it possibly heal fractious wounds and generate a new relationship akin to somewhere like Sierra Leone; but it could prevent trouble in the short term. Who is to say that when Mugabe finally releases power (probably through death) that there will not be a power struggle from rapacious generals creating more unrest ; or alternatively a backlash against Mugabe’s ‘vets’ (war veterans who are in effect work as a paramilitary, yet they were probably not old enough to have participated in the independence war.) This would not be akin to an Arab Spring but another Rwanda, with consequences across the region.

Yet both parties are too stubborn to think along these lines. Mugabe will never give way and Britain would see this as submission. However; after its mismanagement since the 1890s and post independence, this could be the Empire’s medicine and redress after decades of mistakes, and ultimately an avenue for economic cooperation as Palmerston said.

Foreign trade: The moral or economic good?

An interesting story bypassed the news agenda last week that could affect British interests in the future. The Chinese vice Premier Li Keqiang visited London and other parts of the EU to sign multi-billion pound trade agreements. He was also trying to rebuild China’s image after the Nobel Peace Prize, where the winner Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese pro-democracy campaigner, was absent through house arrest. China is opening its frontiers to the world and formulating its own foreign policy, proscribed to be undermining the work of many Western Governments insisting on human rights and education, compared to China’s open trade policy with any nation. To what extent can countries like the UK lecture other nations about human rights, yet trade openly with them. Can foreign policy in any way be idealistic or does pragmatism rule the waves. In any instance, self-interest or supranationalism is always going to affect one party.

Anglo-Sino relations have historically been fractured. The Chinese have always felt that British global hegemony had subjugated their proud traditions and the effects of two 19th century opium wars humiliated the Chinese Emperor and its people. These measures saw the frosty handover in 1997 of Hong Kong, in what the British saw as the end of Empire and the Chinese saw as a return to status quo. Almost 15 years after the handover, to what extent can Britain lecture China about human rights, not because of its own colonial past but more the obvious economic and cultural gulf between the two nations. There have been run ins over the past few years; the former Climate Change Secretary and now Labour leader Ed Miliband, angered the Chinese Government over his comments that they had destroyed potential negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009. Ties were broken off after the UK saw Chinese policy in Zambia as a form of colonialism and then there is the continuous argument that perpetuates over Tibet.

The ultimate goal of foreign policy between countries, effectively nowadays, is to pursue trade and maintain friendly relations. Realists identify with this and the dictum of 19th century Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston is often quoted, “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Newer forms of diplomacy like the one pursued by American President Woodrow Wilson through the advent of the League of Nations ultimately failed, and failed disastrously because of the self-interest of individual states. The EU and other trading blocs have been more successful because the financial incentives are axiomatic. The pursuit of a moral foreign policy has been unsuccessful because no matter how pressing an issue is, if 5000 defence jobs are lost because of a philosophical foreign secretary then the people will call for his head. The idealistic legacy of William Gladstone perhaps is something to learn from history. A grand social reformer at home, but his dogmatic pursuit of Christian interventionalism saw him fail to convince other nations that it was for the moral good. Something his indefatigable rival Benjamin Disraeli saw from the Opposition benches as naive. Perhaps the belief the world can be shaped by universal truths is a failing itself.

It is therefore in Britain’s interests to be trading with countries like Libya. There is the obvious financial benefit but there is a diplomatic discourse that breeds ideas. Opening economic borders opens groups to the realms of democracy and free speech. China learnt in South Africa, a country with a history of human rights abuses, that it cannot expect South African workers to work in the same conditions as its Chinese counterparts. Britain will continue to increase trade in China, Turkey and Russia but it will be well aware that in the aftermath of recession the pound speaks louder than a human rights lobby.