How Tony Blair can face the judgment of history February 18, 2014 <http://www.herald.co.zw/author/silence/> silence muchemwa <http://www.herald.co.zw/category/articles/opinion-a-analysis/> Opinion & Analysis
<http://www.herald.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tony_blair3.jpg> Description: Tony Blair Tony Blair Marina Hyde THE great thing about the judgment of history is that the defendant is never around for it. It is handed down in absentia, and unless Earth has an extradition treaty with the 357-room celestial palace in which Tony Blairs idiosyncratic brand of faith presumably leads him to imagine he will spend eternity, then the former prime minister is safe to continue telling every second interviewer that history will judge me, or that he is prepared to be judged by history. If only it were possible to leave someone elses body to cryogenic science, instead of being limited to freezing oneself in the hope that medical advances could effect reanimation at some moment down the line. By means of a whip-round, Im sure we could soon raise the necessary funds to keep the Blair corporeal form on ice in some secret Alpine lab, to be awakened at whichever vantage point in the future even he would concede might be lofty enough to survey his works. And then . . . well, then he would be forced to survey his works. Come my afterlife revolution, in fact, there would be a special circle of hell reserved for history-will-judge-me types, where they would be forced to absorb those very judgments before an audience. I rarely find myself searching for any kind of violent end to the personal journeys of the ages grotesque, great and small, though others will disagree. For instance, there are those who may wish for climate change deniers such as Jeremy Clarkson and James Delingpole to be swept away by a literal and metaphorical wave of poetic justice, in some disaster movie-style punchline to their heroic battle against science. But I must say it would be quite enough for me to imagine them being forced to read the history books they appear to think constitute their get-out-of-jail-free card, in which their flat-earthedess relegated them to mere comic footnotes. Seated at another desk in this most chastening of eternal reading rooms would be Mr Tony Blair, perusing the history books of the future, with a live web-cam trained on his face to transmit every individual moment of realisation of his own wrongness. Its only a hunch, of course, that Blairs fundamental wrongness will be the judgment of history. But it is the nagging suspicion engendered by each and every one of his interventions into early 21st century global affairs, with the latest one being a case in point. To Egypt, then, and Mr Blairs declaration that the military removal of a countrys first democratically elected head of state represents exciting progress for the Middle East, along with the violent crackdowns and human rights abuses that have followed. There is no point wondering if this announcement came shortly after he followed a white rabbit down a hole; he has lived so long in his moral Bizarro World now that to apply even his own logic to his utterances is as pointful as reasoning with a fart. Still, there are those who feel understandably obliged to try. The Middle East is a huge region and cannot be broken down into simplistic black-and-white realities, into blocks of good and evil, or as one picture as Tony Blair continually promotes, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding responded in frustration, going on to describe the parlous situation in Egypt post-coup as bearing the hallmarks of the security state dictatorship under Mubarak, a man Blair described in 2011 as a force for good even as (the former dictators) security forces were killing Egyptians in the streets. Ah yes. The old Blair kitemark, bestowed upon a sliding scale of obvious horrors from Silvio Berlusconi all the way through to Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi, and a virtual guarantee that the recipient should give up trying to take out any sort of long-term career insurance. For my money, even Cliff Richard has never been the same since the Blairs graced his holiday house. Indeed, the erstwhile PM may well be the Brownfinger of the Middle East, such is his effect on everything he touches (with the obvious exception of his personal finances). The puzzle is how even he can continue not to realise this, although of course and Im afraid theres no highfalutin way to put this he really does look quite insane now. By whatever strange satirical alchemy Thatcher eventually came to resemble her Spitting Image puppet, so Blair has now converged totally with the mad-eyed Steve Bell image that was once still an exaggeration of his essence. Still, on he goes and on the world must go with him. You know, we can debate the past, he opined this week. Its probably not very fruitful to do so. Which at least confirms that his professed interest in history is in fact a solipsistic, quasi-religious form of futurology as opposed to any attempt to evaluate recent events. In a week where Gentleman Jim Davidson has won Celebrity Big Brother, you might find yourself wondering whether there is any semi-pariah in British life who, by mere virtue of hanging around long enough, would not eventually find themselves restored to some sort of vogue given the right passage of time. Could Mr Blair end up the single exception that will prove the rule? Time will be the judge of that, needless to say. But on current form, only a man blessed with his legendary powers of historical foresight would bet against it. The Guardian. EM On the 49th Parallel Thé Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy" Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi "Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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