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GORGEOUS GEORGE BATTERS BUSH'S BEAUTIFUL FAIRY TALE
Michael Portillo
"I would like to thank the returning officer." That clich� is uttered by election candidates in the moments after the result is declared. Many, like me, may have said the words through gritted teeth having watched the pedantic official milk his 15 minutes of fame after taking 4 hours to count a mere 30,000 pieces of paper.
When I heard the victorious George Galloway (in a stunningly graceless acceptance speech) describe the electoral arrangements in his Bethnal Green and Bow constituency as a shambles and call on the returning officer to resign, I had to salute his political incorrectness.
Much though I liked Oona King, whom he defeated, I am delighted that Galloway and two other independents will enliven the new parliament. This is a good time for charismatic figures espousing popular causes to get elected. The voters find it deeply satisfying to snub the main parties.
Galloway's success is impressive. The man who first entered parliament by defeating Roy Jenkins in Glasgow Hillhead has now had to change party and country. Even so he defeated a high-profile Labour incumbent. On paper he is as out of place in London's East End as Jenkins was on the Clyde. But thanks to Galloway's opportunistic seizure of a largely Muslim seat, the Commons will continue to enjoyhis formidable rhetorical prowess.
Last week, however, it was Galloway's performance in the US Senate that held our gaze. In the days since he harangued Senator Coleman's committee there has been a fresh outbreak of British snootiness about the inferiority of the debating skills of US politicians. That underplays Galloway's achievement: we have not always felt so superior.
I have seen MPs on select committees bully their witnesses as, Walter Mitty-like, they dream of being the young Richard Nixon on the house committee on un-American activities crushing Alger Hiss. That reputations and lives have been destroyed before such committees did not faze Galloway. Indeed it provided him with an opportunity to parody that catchphrase from the Hiss era: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" What is it about Galloway that makes normally cautious people behave recklessly? The Daily Telegraph is �1.35m poorer, including costs, after a court found that the newspaper had defamed Galloway (it is appealing). The Senate committee accused him of wrongdoing before giving him a chance to comment, allowing Galloway to claim justifiably that Coleman (a distinguished lawyer) had a cavalier attitude to justice.
At a time when no documents relating to weapons of mass destruction could be unearthed within the ruins of Saddam Hussein's ministries, papers bearing Galloway's name blew into the hands of British journalists within days of the Americans' arrival in Baghdad. They were the basis of the Telegraph story. Did none of the newspaper's newshounds smell a rat? Did Coleman not know that Galloway had won lawsuits by claiming that the documents used against him were forgeries? The British MP may have been evasive in his answers to the committee but it in turn failed to convince us that we should rely on its new evidence that somehow had reached it.
The committee foolishly gave Galloway a platform in Washington to berate the US for the hypocrisy of its foreign policy. Gorgeous George might as well have been in Hollywood, because the Americans enabled him to achieve superstar status, as demonstrated by the adoring crowd that greeted him in Bethnal Green on his return.
One of Galloway's most telling lines was that he had met Saddam only twice, as had Donald Rumsfeld, the difference being that the US defence secretary had sought him out in order to sell arms. The gag works because of its simple juxtaposition and also because it is delivered like machinegun fire and with conviction. Only later did I stop to think: what arms did the US sell to Iraq (whose tanks were Russian and whose warplanes were French)? The Senate hearings are not mainly about Galloway but about the United Nations' oil for food programme, which is thought to have enriched Saddam's regime by $17.3 billion and lined the pockets of many outside Iraq. But Galloway was on to a good point when arguing that another disgrace is America's administration of Iraq following the fall of Baghdad.
You do not hear many claims today that life there is returning to normal, or that electricity and water are running better than in Saddam's time. I have never believed that the war was about oil, but the way that regeneration contracts have been directed towards US companies sullies America's motives. Also, if we care so much about setting the Iraqi people free, why do we refuse to keep any record of how many of those we have liberated have been killed? As one who supported the war, I think it is right that we should be held to account for what has happened on our watch. It is because the allies employ double standards that a showman such as Galloway becomes a popular hero.
As the cabaret was being played out on Capitol Hill, the US administration was framing its first mealy-mouthed comments on the slaughter of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Uzbekistan. Condoleezza Rice managed eventually to call for political reform and the State Department said it was deeply disturbed, but still its spokesman condemned the violent protesters who had stormed government buildings.
Maybe America believes President Islam Karimovs claim that the trouble is caused by Muslim extremists. Craig Murray, Britain's former ambassador to the country, says that is a lie. The pressure, he says, comes not from militants but from businessmen in Andijan who want capitalism and democracy. Murray has described a regime that tortures and murders, sometimes by boiling victims alive. For his pains he was sacked as ambassador.
The American and British attitude to this former Soviet republic contrasts sharply with their approach to Ukraine and Georgia. George Bush greeted Viktor Yushchenko, the new Ukrainian leader, with these words: You are an inspiration to all who love liberty . . . an example of democracy for people around the world.
In Tbilisi Bush's rhetoric was still more grandiloquent: Georgia is today both sovereign and free, a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.He recalled that a Georgian crowd had once pulled down Lenin's statue. You sense that if the Uzbeks did such a thing the State Department would condemn them for vandalising public art.
Times Online -- 22 May 2005
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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