We're still failing history
- From: ano457@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 28 Aug 2005 08:30:13 -0700
We're still failing history
>>From drinking to Iraq, the government wilfully disregards the
invaluable lessons of the past
Tristram Hunt
Sunday August 28, 2005
The Observer
Last week, the British Transport Police added its name to the growing
list of professional bodies opposing the government's licensing
reforms. Undaunted by this, or even by the shame of drunken British
holidaymakers in Zakynthos scandalising their Greek hosts, the
government is pressing ahead with the legislation to open up pubs and
clubs into the night here in Britain. A refusal to bow to public
pressure is often an admirable sign of strength in government. In this
case, it begins to look foolhardy. More importantly, how we got here to
begin with raises disturbing questions about modern politics and its
wilful indifference to history and culture.
When it comes to science and technology, ministers listen to the
experts. There exist any number of official panels advising departments
on issues, including nuclear policy, GM foods, embryo research or
fishery stocks. We even have a chief scientific adviser, Sir David
King, with a hotline to Downing Street and a particular influence on
climate-change strategy.
Similarly, when it comes to economic modelling, there is a small army
of statisticians, economists and actuaries in the Treasury, National
Audit Office or Bank of England ready to assist ministers. There is
recognition here of a clear need for expert advice in drawing up
legislation. At the same time, ministers are quite rightly ready to
listen to the demands of pressure groups and corporate interests.
But with social and cultural policy, a willingness to engage with
equally insightful academic and professional advice seems to be
blithely ignored. Take the case of drink. As numerous scholars have
pointed out, for hundreds of years, northern Europeans have had a very
different approach to alcohol from southern Europeans. As early as the
eighth century, Saint Boniface was writing to Cuthbert, Archbishop of
Canterbury, to report how 'in your diocese, the vice of drunkenness is
too frequent. This is an evil peculiar to pagans and to our race.
Neither the Franks nor the Gauls nor the Lombards nor the Romans nor
the Greeks commit it'.
Interestingly, this tradition of alcoholic excess has gone on to affect
much of our culture, even our public sphere and architecture. Whereas
in southern Europe, cafes and bars spill out into the street and subtly
intermingle public and private, personal and family space, in Britain,
the pub is an enclosed realm traditionally dedicated to drinking and
debate.
This is not new information, but one wonders if any sense of this
ingrained cultural tradition made its way into policy discussions at
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. How much time did civil
servants spend talking to sociologists or reading history books
compared to powerpoint seminars with lobbyists from the big drinks
group?
Is there any appreciation among policy advisers that there are
historical and social forces that a bit of legislation cannot uproot?
High-minded commentators tell us that the licensing reforms will help
us 'grow up', but I doubt that opening pubs until 2am will transform us
into sophisticated Continentals.
Similarly with government plans for super casinos. As revealed in this
paper, the influence of US lobbyists over this legislation was
worryingly strong. But did ministers really think that Las Vegas-style
casinos could be transported wholesale from native American
reservations straight to British town centres?
A similar but more damaging narrow-mindedness is apparent when dealing
with other cultures and histories. During the early 1990s, ministers
and diplomats liked to dismiss the Balkan crisis as a civil war between
ancient enemies about which we could do little. With scant regard for
the ethnic and cultural past, the Foreign Office decided that
non-intervention was the best course. Meanwhile, scholars around the
world, led by the redoubtable Noel Malcolm, were telling anyone who
would listen that this was a savage war of aggression orchestrated by a
nationalistic Serbia. Which, eventually, the mandarins were forced to
admit.
And so now in Iraq. While years of research and development, technical
planning and computer software went into the military operation, it
seemed no one had bothered to think about the complex heritage of Iraq.
Suddenly, there were Sunni, Shia and Kurds; there were tribal clans and
secular parties; religious affiliations and foreign influences, none of
which had been foreseen by Pentagon policy wonks. And when US and UK
officials did start to reach for advice from the past, it was the wrong
history. David Gilmour's biography of Lord Curzon began to appear on
State Department desks, as Paul Bremer modelled himself on a
particularly incompetent Edwardian proconsul.
Many fear the same lack of historical depth over policy towards Africa.
Cambridge historian John Lonsdale has argued that the rhetoric and
policies adopted by the G8 have no sense of African prehistory and
serve simply to perpetuate the idea of a relationship of feckless
victim and heroic rescue.
Tellingly, the Commission for Africa included no historians while the
policy prescriptions of old rockers were given greater credence than
experts. Not that experts are always a good thing for government. The
Clinton administration was chock-full of renowned scholars and visiting
professors but to little practical avail. Edward Heath appointed the
brilliant Victor Rothschild as his policy guru to no great advantage.
Not that this government has been been shy of expanding the advisory
payroll. But its passion is for flip-board merchants and white-board
wonks, embodied in the Gradgrind-like persona ('facts, facts, facts')
of Professor Michael Barber, formerly of the Prime Minister's Delivery
Unit. Barber is now with McKinsey management consultants (motto:
'Everything can be measured and what gets measured gets managed'), an
organisation holding an increasingly vice-like grip on Whitehall. Until
June this year, Lord Birt combined his advice to the Prime Minister
with advice to McKinsey, while former McKinsey consultant David Bennett
was recently appointed head of the Downing Street Policy Unit.
This is all very well for measuring league tables and targets, but when
it comes to culture, history and society, the McKinsey management
mantra doesn't have a clue.
Yet where this government has listened to advice beyond the Westminster
village, it has made a difference. John Prescott, for example, has
sought out relevant expertise, asking architect Richard Rogers to chair
an urban renaissance taskforce, and creating the Commission for
Architecture and the Built Environment.
>>From drink to drugs, foreign policy to identity cards, there exist
complex, detailed questions beyond the capacity of even the brightest
civil servant to summarise on two sides of A4. Unfortunately, we have a
government which reveres the mystery of scientific advice and is forced
to bend to the corporate concerns of business and labour, but takes
little account of what academics and scholars might have to offer.
As the binge-drinking debate has shown, we need less pie-chart policy
and greater respect for history and culture. For it will take more than
alcohol-disorder zones to change the habits of our boozed-up boys on
display in Zakynthos.
.
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