I coined the phrase “Dysunited Kingdom” (or at least, gave it that particular spelling) around this time last year. It was an almost throwaway concept at the time, purely to add a bit of spice to a press release that I was writing. It went down well and has been re-used occasionally in that context ever since. It alluded to something more than merely “disunited”, with a hint of “dysfunctional” thrown in.
The “dis-” prefix has Latin roots and literally means “apart” or “asunder”. In English, its usage before an adjective or noun implies reversal, the opposite of the word that follows. “Dys-” (Greek in origin) indicates something much more emotive: “lacking” in its most objective form, but more frequently veering towards “bad”, “ill” or “unlucky”… a sinister, malign force of misfortune and sickness.
I’ve repeated the trick numerous times, in writing both published and currently in draft. Dyscontented, dysconnected, dysillusioned… no opportunity has been spared. But I keep coming back to the incarnation that sparked it off. For obvious reasons during This Current Period Of Parliamentary Uncertainty, the initially mythical Dysunited Kingdom seems more substantial than ever.
I’m both fascinated and repulsed by politics. My views are instinctive, half-formed and utterly contradictory. I can move in the blink of an eye from expounding my firm belief in the need for government regulation as a force for collective(-ist) good, to being staunchly against any form of state intervention that impacts the individual’s basic rights to freedom and privacy. Dogmatic, I’m not.
I think that what I most distrust about politics, in its British form anyway, is its tribal nature. Left versus right, red versus blue… it’s like a football match. Or maybe, given the nature of our “first past the post” parliamentary system, a horse race. One winner, multiple losers. No wonder many people become apathetic and ultimately feel disenfranchised. Whoever they vote for, the Government gets in.
And then there’s this constant back and forth, the need for “strong government” that manifests itself in fifteen years of This followed by fifteen years of That. A pendulum that inevitably ends up right back where it began, only to do it all over again in an apparently endless cycle. It’s enough coping with my own mood swings, without having to suffer the effects of Westminster’s bipolar dysorder.
The Dysunited Kingdom was a wry comment that became an inadvertent prophecy. Fuck “strong” government. We need the politics of compromise and negotiation, because that’s how life works. We need people who have absolutely nothing in common to be forced to talk to each other and to make things happen. Better a Con-Dem Nation than this recurring ideological condemnation.
Party politics are boring, but politics as a whole becomes interesting as a manifestation of basic human relationships. When people start to accept that we will never all agree on major issues – that bullying and bloodletting solve nothing, that dialogue is everything – the Dysunited Kingdom might fade again from view and return to being a cute line at the top of a punk-rock press release.
Obviously this is a half-baked, half-crazed jumble of ideas; a playful diatribe, rather than a considered and well-reasoned philosophy. Take it in the spirit it’s meant… a first attempt at exploring a (ma)lingering oddment of capricious wordplay that suddenly seems to have a topical relevance. Ultimately, I think (/hope) it goes way beyond politics
ConDem Nation – oh my god, that’s very good!
I come from tribalism – grew up in a working class very right wing family, realised this was sick and all about self-hatred and unsurprisingly swung strongly to the left, still cleave pretty firmly to the left – or rather to what the left used to mean to me; it doesn’t actually exist now if it ever did. This last being the case, and given the horrors that tribalism always leads to, you’re right about that of course.
And right about the effect of bi-polar alternation of power and the misguided esteem for a macho conception of ‘strong government’.
What we could do instead is always so much harder. On the whole I pretty much identify with how you’re feeling, I think, though I probably got here by a a different route.
Thanks Jean. Can’t really claim credit for that one… I did clock that a Conservative and Lib-Dem alliance/coalition/whatever could be the Con-Dems before I saw it anywhere in print, but “Con-Dem nation” is something that appeared in one of the Sunday papers.
These abbreviations are so inherently comical. Con-Dem. Lib-Lab. Flip-Flap.
“What we could do instead is always so much harder.”
Agreed. Hard to put into practice, maybe, but blatantly obvious where the effort should be directed (to me, at least).
There was some vox pop stuff on the radio news this lunchtime and people were sound(bit)ing off with the predictable “The Tories didn’t get a majority, Labour got even less yet we still have a Labour PM and now it all seems to be up to the party that came third to decide – how ridiculous!!!” stuff. (Mock outrage for the sake of a quick adrenaline fix, it seemed to me.)
But, I see the point. It IS ridiculous.
So, institute PR and let a 36%-29%-23% split between the three main parties become an unarguable democratic mandate that they have no choice but to accept and make work, rather than merely the starting point for the crazy game of rock-paper-scissors currently underway.
Mm. If they did manage to form a Labour-Liberal coalition or alliance, it would be a blow against the mystique of ‘strong’ government, wouldn’t it? Even if they do so and then mess up, it might be worth it for that…although if they did it and messed up (as most – all? -governments do), as suppose that woudl be seen as absolute proof that it shoud never happen again. The more I think about the way it’s widely viewed as a given that you’ll do better to support the party that got most seats than the party you most agree with, the more it shocks me.
Part of Nick Clegg’s speech last night seems especially relevant to my comment above:
“I hope this is the start of the new politics I have always believed in – diverse, plural, where politicians of different persuasions come together, overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country. That was what we were asked to do by the people of Britain at the General Election last week and that is what we will now seek to deliver.”
For a minute or two I was able to put my habitual cynicism to one side and believe it might be possible that something new and interesting is about to begin. Both history and human nature suggest otherwise, but I’m happy to be proved wrong. Let’s see.
Yeah, I too would be very happy to be proved wrong
I like to think that most politicians start out with a genuine passion for politics, the wish to make a difference, strong beliefs and good intentions, but it seems that as soon as they get involved in politics properly, they have to divert their views slightly and compromise, and the higher up they get, the less their original beliefs and ideas matter, to a point where they don’t matter at all and they just act on behalf of their party. You can have all the ideas in the world if you’re just thinking them through in your head but things change very quickly when you have to put those ides on the line, have them judged by others, and be taken ‘seriously’. I find it extremely fascinating to see how in politics noone seems to mean what they say and I try to figure out what is actually going on in their minds, whether they are feeling sorry for themselves because of how much they had to leave their ideas behind and pretend to believe in stuff that’s really not what they think, or whether they have worked so had to try to persuade themselves that what they say is what they think, that they actually do. I am sure somewhere deep inside they realise just how much they’ve had to compromise with themselves and don’t like it but try not to think about it. Honest ones are probably thinking ‘Of course this is all bollocks but this is what you’re supposed to hear so I’m telling you, what I mean I won’t say and the actual truth you’ll never know.’ The less honest ones have given in to a point where they actually mean what they say.
Sorry – yawwwn – not sure why I bothered, I don’t even get to vote!
x
Hi Silvia… thanks for dropping in to see me on home turf
Reading your thoughts, I kept coming back to the old cliché/trusim: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Which might be a bit harsh in this particular context, maybe.
People end up having to fall in line with political parties because of this whole “strong government” obsession. Diversity (or “plurality”, which seems to be the current buzzword) is discouraged. It’d be nice to think that a coalition demonstrates how mature, responsible adults can actually agree to disagree, or compromise in order to get things done.
I’m starting to sense a slightly weird, kinky edge to this “strong government” nonsense. It’s almost like a domination fixation. The person responsible for making sure that everyone votes according to party policy is the Chief Whip, for fuck’s sake!
I’m not sure i’d say they get corrupted , more that they are asked to conform and accept ideas and policies that are sometimes clearly not great but that are necessary to preserve the balance that keeps the party going. Which I totally understand but then I’d like to see politicians say ‘ this isn’t quite what I think but I’m having to go with it’ and be totally honest about it. I like people telling the truth. I also understand why things have to be the way they are to keep the machine going and how intricate it must be to govern a whole country – so I am under no illusion that anything will ever be much different. Corruption however does bother me but I don’t see that much in this country. I’m from Italy you see and that’s a place where corruption is part of the cultural heritage. Politicians there are allowed to pass laws that benefit them personally and money constantly disappears into their pockets. Unfortunatly when you are brought up in a strict catholic environment you are taught to accept and respect higher authorities without questioning them which is why said things are allowed to happen. I always wondered why people back home don’t use the Internet as much as over here then I realised it’s because they are not used to search for info by themselves. No wonder I left. That and the fact I used to watch tons of bbc period drama and thought men over here still wore top hats.
I vote for a top hat resurgence. Or insurgence, maybe