by Jock Coats
http://jockcoats.me/thatcher_why_celebrate_her_regime_and_her_legacy_are_our_own_fault

I want to get on and write my essay attacking the very basis of the state that every one of our Prime Ministers has fought to uphold and develop with their own elite and more or less authoritarian vision. But I was reading the Glenn Greenwald piece in the Guardian about stifling criticism of the dead, public or private figures and I wanted to respond.

There is a big difference between “criticising” someone’s life, achievements and legacy and “celebrating” their death as if you are finally rid of some thorn in your side that has pained you for a long time. I don’t really think that legitimate “criticism” of that life, her achievements and legacy fall into the category of “speaking ill of the dead” as “celebrating” does. You can certainly criticise her without having a champagne supper to thank your lucky stars she has gone.

I agree that silencing such legitimate criticism is dangerous, that it helps to let equally deluded supporters write her hagiography before anyone else is able to prevent the cult that can grow up. And into that category fits, as an example, a piece today by Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance, who, we might recall, was in a cadre of enthusiastic young libertarians that put their faith in the Thatcher project at first and have felt let down ever since. It’s highly critical. But it’s not disrespectful or celebratory.

Now I was also pondering whether, say, it is permissible for someone to want to celebrate the death of a Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler or even, as Greenwald alludes to, a Chavez, but not permissible to do the same for a Thatcher, even if you believe her to be, with an awful lot of hyperbole, in the same sort of category as these figures. Surely few could not have wanted to celebrate Hitler’s downfall and death, or criticised others for celebrating the vent. But there was no democracy. His, and that of these other tyrants, were regimes that were ended by their deaths, effectively. A regime that, had you lived under it, would have seemed possibly never ending.

But we have, for better or worse, a democracy of sorts, and we have a way of getting rid of our leaders. We don’t have to wait for them to die to end their tyranny. The time for celebration, I suggest, was November 1990. That was the end of her tyranny, if that’s what you think it was. If you believe her regime has not really ended, that it has been perpetuated by the “sons of Thatcher” – Blair and Cameron in particular – that’s not really her fault now is it. You’ve had more than two decades, five general elections, in our broken democracy, to put an end to that legacy and have failed.

If you are one of the nearly half the population that hasn’t even bothered to vote, let alone vote for change, over those two decades, the more fool you now, blaming an 87 year old dementia sufferer who has hardly been seen or heard from for a decade (other than to grace the halls of Number 10 as her successors paid her homage, both Labour and Tory).

Me, I’m somewhat ambivalent. I did feel quite sad this morning, even though I knew she was likely to die soon in any case if not today. After all, she was in power in probably the most formative years of my life, between my 12th birthday and my 24th and, for all the faults I find in her regime, I cannot find it in me to dislike her more than I do, say, Tony Blair.

So, in the language of politics degree essay questions, now is the time to “critically analyse” her life and legacy, both positive and negative, but really, if you are celebrating, and especially if based on post facto reputation rather than personal knowledge because you dimply didn’t experience her regime, I suspect you should have a pill, take a big breath, and think “calm down dear, someone’s granny has died.” And then assess your own role in not overturning her legacy by the democratic means that have been at your disposal for twenty-two years since she really “passed away” as a political leader.

Ultimately, I cannot speak well of anyone who thinks they can rule others as all our leaders do. And I think it is the system we have that perpetuates the cult of leadership and makes it much, much, harder to change things we don’t like in society. And I think, like Sean, that she was, on balance, a bad thing for Britain and for freedom, unlike the eulogies doing the rounds of “full spectrum media” which will no doubt continue for weeks.

But “celebrate”?

Not a chance.

I can’t and won’t lay all the issues I’ve had at the feet of a long impotent, senile, old and now dead woman. The real problem for voluntaryists like myself over the next few weeks will be to persuade anyone that we don’t need people like Thatcher, Blair or Cameron at all in our lives, as one side claims how much good she did and the other claims we need strong political opponents to put her failures right. Both are wrong.

If you must celebrate something today, celebrate the fact that her death brought nearly all work at Mordor-on-Thames to a standstill, and let’s hope that particular legacy will run for a good while!

Related posts:

The Unraveling of Keir Starmer: A Sacrifice to Salvage the Regime Tiananmen Square 1989: The Truth, the Lies, and the Reality of a Police State The British Museum’s Mummies: Yet Another Excuse to Attack Britain A World Reconsidered: The Greek Polis and the Sino-Hellenic Turn

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