This dictatorship of the present has been enabled by around thirty years of material abundance and relative peace following the conclusion to the Cold War. As John Keegan, the military historian put it, Britain and American can afford our universalist idealism and our fantasies of a benevolent world united and ameliorated through commerce, given our good geographical fortune of being separated from continents by bodies of water. We can forget that the tides of history have pulled whole cultures under in violence and war, instead indulging in an imagined progressive history, moving ever upwards towards ever greater enlightenment and prosperity.
Our leaders, if they deserve the name, have forgotten the lessons of history, because they do not know history. They do not know the fate of nations and peoples. They are ignorant of the importance of the landscape of the world and the moral landscape of the heart, and how the interplay between the two shapes the destinies of civilisation. It is not to engage in nostalgia for a vanished age that never existed to reckon with the fact that those who governed us in the past were well aware of life’s tragic nature, of the reality of necessity and the ultimate goal of the avoidance of anarchy, its own form of tyranny. Our leaders in the 19th and up to the mid-20th centuries had been baptised in the fires of historical experience and therefore knew that the maintenance of right order, in accordance with the good, true, and beautiful, was the precondition for any liberty. Utopian, romantic ideas of universal rights, spreading democracy and natural freedom were dangerous in their unbounded idealism, leading nations and government astray in the quest for moral perfection.
History never ended, in the sense Francis Fukuyama meant it. Hegel, and his disciple Alexander Kojeve, were both wrong in discerning a direction to human History that would see the creation of the perfect liberal democratic regime and state of being in our world. History is the story of the deeds men and women do and accomplishments achieved together as clans, tribes, cities, empires, and nations. It is a story that will only end at the end of all things. Awareness of the living past reminds us that our lives are part of the weave of time, stretching back across the years, our own lives and the actions we take adding the threads that continue into the future.
This is an excerpt from “Mayday! Mayday!”. To continue reading, visit The Mallard’s Shopify.
-
On The Foreign Aid Sector
Foreign aid is a somewhat controversial subject.Those in favour argue that as a developed nation, we are morally obligated to help those who need it. They argue that it will improve the lives of others and that it is a great use of soft power. Opponents argue that charity should begin at home, that we have our own problems to deal with and that it has done nothing.
Regardless of your view on the matter, you cannot deny one thing- that the foreign aid sector is in need of dire reform. It’s not the sector that its advocates promise us that it is. It’s a sector rife with sexual violence, corruption, the spreading of illness, mistreatment of children and misallocation of resources. A movement that should be helping others is doing the complete opposite.
Let’s Talk About Sex (Violence)
One problem with the aid sector is the sheer amount of sexual violence that occurs within it. A person only needs to browse articles about UNICEF and others to see the deluge of scandal.
Women are encouraged to sleep with aid workers in order to obtain jobs. Children and women are raped, used as prostitutes. There are illegitimate children and abortions. It is not just one or two workers or just a single organisation. Numerous men and organisations were named by a variety of women.
One Congolese women died after a botched, illegal abortion. The man who’d impregnated her ghosted her after she told him. Who’s going to tell her children?
Haiti was another victim of deviance.
It is a country that has suffered political instability, dictators, and natural disasters for years. Even before the tragic 2020 earthquake, aid rushed to Haiti, so did those who sought to violate the innocent. For years, peacekeepers raped and abused Haitian citizens. Children as young as seven were raped. One report found 265 children whose mothers were abandoned after falling pregnant. These women suffered as family and neighbors cast them out. Peacekeepers took advantage of the poverty by offering food and money to minors in exchange for sex.
Even if these things were done to a consenting adult, it is a gross abuse of power and sexual manipulation. Sri Lanka, the country where most of the offenders came from, eventually paid up. The UN also took its sweet time to apologise, eventually owning up in 2016.
Let us not forget the famous whistleblower Kathryn Bolkovac. The former American police officer discovered a huge sex trafficking ring in the war-torn Bosnia, with young children involved. Further digging from Bolkovac revealed that those involved were foreigners, with many aid workers included. These crimes were actively ignored or covered up by the powers that be. After attempting to blow the whistle, Bolkovac was demoted, then fired. She luckily eventually gained help and did reveal it to the world, but barely anything was done. Whilst Bolkovac would eventually win money for wrongful dismissal, the company would not do much else. Even years after Haiti, Congo and Bosnia, cases are frequently dug up today.
Money, Money, Money
In 1983, a devastating famine hit the African nation of Ethiopia. News cameras from around the world broadcast images of devastation and starvation to the homes of millions. Donations poured in from average citizens. ‘We Are the World’ and ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ topped the charts. Live Aid gave us classic performances from the biggest acts of the age.
Most of it didn’t go to the starving Ethiopians. A large portion went to arming militants and the dictatorial government of the day.
We all hear jokes about how palaces are built with aid money and sadly, it’s not incorrect. Aid to Afghanistan went to the Dubai holiday homes of the elite. Rebels, politicians and tribal chiefs are stealing money destined for the starving population in Yemen. A sixth of foreign aid ends up in the bank accounts of the wealthy and the powerful.
Who can forget the Oil-for-Food scandal in Iraq?
Just look at how much the heads of charity organisations are on. Since taking on the role of CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), David Miliband has seen his pay treble in eight years. A recent £20K pay rise has seen him with a new salary of £768K. That’s over $1M. This money, as one would expect, is helped by taxpayers’ money.
We can wax lyrical about the pay of CEOs in private charitable organisations, but it’s still pretty darn shady. When it’s coming from taxpayers, well, still not great. Over $1M could pay for malaria treatment or schooling for a child. Instead, it all goes to rich fat cats.
Ineffective Bureaucracy
Aid isn’t easy. You don’t just dole out cash to a hospital or a school. Aid creates bureaucracy. There are multiple layers, not least in the ground. You must pass through so many people- it may create jobs, but it also creates problems. Before it reaches those who need it, it’s gone.
In countries with mass amounts of corruption, money is siphoned off to numerous individuals. Politicians and those in charge often get kickbacks in order to get things moving. It changes hands far too often.
The world was horrified by Biafra in the 60s, Ethiopia in the 80s and Haiti in the 10s. Yet, years later, we still see adverts for starving children being forced to walk for miles for water. International aid has not found a way to break decades of issues. It is not necessarily their fault- wars and disasters are pretty hard to predict- but the point still stands.
Where are the schools? The water pumps? The hospitals?
Sometimes it’s not safe for aid workers. It just might not be feasible. They also need to pull their fingers out. How can they help when they’re based in cities? How can they help when the assistance of officials is based on bribery?
Take Indonesia for example. The country has attempted to put themselves in the forefront of the international aid community with a pledge for millions. That’s all well and good, but it’s a conversation that’s been going on for years. Bureaucracy has prevented management and funds being properly allocated.
As the government argues with itself on the merits, or lack thereof, of international aid, they need to look at reform first. We cannot support a sector that rapes children, can’t allocate resources and takes money from the mouths of the needy.
-
We Must Ban Cousin Marriages
The fact that Charles II of Spain lived to the age of thirty-eight was nothing short of a miracle- and that’s not because he was born in the 17th century. His nearly four-decade life was filled with physical and mental ailments that would be hard to live with even today’s medical technology.
He flew through wet nurses due to continually biting their nipples until his mother ordered them to stop. Charles could not walk until he was four and walk until he was six, having trouble with both for the rest of his life. He suffered from severe depression and unknown learning and developmental disabilities. On top of this, he had hallucinations, seizures, a congenital heart defect and premature ejaculation. An autopsy revealed a body that sounds like something out of a horror film- one single shrunken testicle, a body without a single drop of blood and rotted intestines. Despite his litany of ailments, he was reportedly a kind boy who enjoyed hunting. Whilst he was clearly at fault in terms of infertility, his poor wives were blamed for not bearing an heir.
The problem with Charles, inheritor of the famous Habsburg chin, was his family line. The Habsburg clan famously interbred and between 1515 and his birth in 1661, no new members were brought to the genetic line. His family tree reads like a wreath and he is related multiple times to each of his family members. Charles’ father was born to two first cousins, whilst his mother was the daughter of an uncle and niece. His parents were similarly uncle and niece. Charles’ sister Margaret Theresa managed to avoid the worst of it all, but she was married off to a man who was both her cousin and her uncle. Only one of her four children managed to pass infancy- she was originally intended to marry her uncle, but never did.
Years of cousin marriage in royal circles led to poor outcomes. Many of these marriages were more distant, but first cousin marriages were not at all rare, particularly on the continent. Philip II of Spain and Maria Manuel were double first cousins, and the only son they produced was so severely disturbed that there was no way that he could take the throne. Philip would marry thrice again- to his first cousin once removed Mary I of England that resulted in no children, the unrelated Elisabeth of Valois with whom he had two very intelligent, capable daughters, and to his niece Anna of Austria, with whom he had one living son.
Another example is that of Philip’s daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia, who married her first cousin Albert VIII of Austria. None of her three children lived past childhood. Philip’s other daughter Catalina Micaela married an unrelated husband but was weakened by having children every year. His son Philip also married his first cousin once removed but fortunately had five children live to adulthood.
We imagine these cousin marriages happening hundreds of years ago, but it is not quite as extinct as one might hope. Even more worryingly, first cousin marriage is perfectly legal in the UK. There’s a stereotype in the Southern USA that white trash folk marry their cousins, but it’s actually completely illegal in most of those states. Here, however, you can go ahead and marry your uncle’s kid.
The practice is most common within Muslims in the UK, with areas such as Bradford seeing large numbers marrying their cousin. The BBC recently reported that cousin marriage for Pakistanis and those of Pakistani origin in Bradford dropped from 60% to 46%- a drop, but not a large enough drop to be sure.
This needs to stop.
First, we must understand why people marry their first cousins. Whilst the Quran lists people who it is forbidden to marry and have relations with, such as siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins are not one of them. Furthermore, across all religious lines, there are economic and social reasons. Money is kept in the family instead of outside clans, tribes and faiths. It keeps a person linked to their family, with an expectation that they will have a stronger connection. For some whose family are originally from abroad, it might keep them linked to their heritage in an alien culture.
The problem, however, lies with the results.
When a person marries a close relation, there is a higher chance of genetic problems for any children. The chance is further increased if there is a family history of cousin marriages. The risk of birth defects increases from 3% to 6% in a cousin marriage- not a huge jump, but an unnecessary and entirely avoidable one for innocent kids. When it comes to fatal genetic disorders, children of South Asian parents are overrepresented in the data- they make up 65% of deaths but 37% of the population. Cousin marriage resulted in the death of 53% of children mentioned.
A 2017 study found that 1 in 5 child deaths in East London came from the parents being related. A 2010 study found 700 children a year were born with genetic disorders as a result of cousin marriage. It is not a minute problem. In a recent episode of the thoroughly fascinating show Cause of Death, which follows the work of a coroner, a young man of thirty-three died suddenly of a rare disorder. Two of his siblings had also died, whilst at least two of the others had tested positive for the disorder. Their parents are cousins.
When it comes to pregnancy, women are told not to take any risks that may harm the baby. She is required to stop smoking, drinking and consuming caffeine. Doing any of those things means risks to the unborn child, so why do we permit cousins to marry when we know the risks?
Even Islamic countries have picked up on the issues, though they have obviously taken no steps to ban the practice. Cousin marriage is very high, even the norm, in Saudi Arabia, and is a nation home to a high number of genetic disorders. As a result, Saudi Arabia has mandated premarital genetic screening for couples. If the results are revealed to be risky, then there’s a way out for the couple. It is said that 60% of couples have ended their engagement after receiving bad news. Iran has implemented a similar system, as well as six other Middle Eastern nations.
If these countries can do something, why can’t we?
-
The Tory Leadership Wedge
As the Conservative Party leadership contest has unfolded, an issue wedge has gradually been inserted into its surrounding discourse. What is an issue wedge? It is a tactical device, not an organic manifestation, that is designed to divide ongoing political issues in a specific way. More specifically, it is meant to override organic political divisions with an arbitrary political division which favours the political agenda of the wedge-driver(s).
The problematic nature of the wedge is not its divisive nature. Quite the opposite, the problem of the wedge is that it denies all forms of political division; all political division except the form of division established through the wedge.
Division is the nature of the political; as Schmitt says: “the distinction between friend and enemy”. Where there is division, there is the opportunity for deliberation and conflict, and where there is deliberation and conflict, there is opportunity for change. When the opportunity for change is taken away, all that is left is the status quo. I refer to this as a wedge, rather than “depoliticization” for the sole reason that I am concerned with a specific instance of depoliticization, rather than depoliticization as a phenomenon. Whether it is understood as a strategy to create distance between governments and responsibility for implementing policy, an attempt to remove politics for the formulation of policy, or the more general practice of curtailing the agency of non-governmental actors, depoliticization is underpinned by the idea of removing things from the political arena, inoculating them against political critique, challenge, or change. Who decides what issues are removed from the political arena? That itself is a political matter, and more the focus of this article.
In this case, Tory Leadership discourse has been fractured by a Costalivin-Culture War wedge. In short: you must choose between solutions to Costalivin or fighting the Culture War. You are not allowed to support both.
Are you concerned by the police’s indifference to violent crime, or their willingness to harass normal individuals? Do you approve of vandalising and destroying taxpayer-funded statues of British icons? Are you concerned illegal immigration and immigration-led demographic change? Do you find the idea of “trans children” just a tad ridiculous and possibly very damaging?
If you care at all about these matters, you are a culture warrior; a low-status, GBNews-watching, Leave-voting, Union flag-waving culture warrior. If you are a culture warrior, you are indifferent to the cost-of-living crisis. If you are indifferent to the cost-of-living crisis, you are condemning the nation to poverty and suffering. If you condemn the nation to poverty and suffering, you are evil, and so on. Focus on Costalivin, categorically ignore Culture War. If you don’t categorically ignore Culture War, you are categorically ignoring Costalivin. In summary: you can challenge the status quo, just not all of it.
Who decides what aspects of the status quo may be challenged? Supporters of the status quo. Surprise, surprise! Wedge-drivers drives the wedge. By dividing Costalivin against Culture War, attributing public interest to the former and distraction and subversion to the latter, the wedge-drivers hope to ensure that the public are cut off from politically engaging with cultural issues under the guise of public interest.
When called out on their wedge-driving, the wedge-drivers insist they are merely prioritising The Issues. This disguise is immediately betrayed by the fact that priority implies multiplicity. One can have multiple priorities and stratified priorities are nevertheless priorities. To reduce any ambiguity, just note that the wedge-drivers (God save them) have taken it upon themselves to decide our priorities for us.
Discussing cultural issues is, according to the wedge-drivers, definitive proof of having no solution to Costalivin; discussing immigration, crime, censorship in public life, etc. is necessarily a diversion. Given the shallow, often non-existent Costalivin solutions of the wedge-drivers, it can just as easily be argued that their attacks on “Culture Warriors” is also necessarily a diversion.
The wedge-drivers aren’t necessarily conscious of their wedge-driving, but their mentality is generally the same. “Those stupid culture warriors and their divisive Us VS Them tactics. We need to push them out of the discourse so then people like us, those worthy of political participation, can get on with discussing “The Priorities”. It is effectively a way for political participants (especially political commentators) to pull rank on each other.
If Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak were giving speeches about nothing but “men in the women’s bathroom” or “[REDACTED] nonsense in our universities”, that would be one thing. However, despite the crippling un-remarkableness of both candidates, I don’t think it has come to that. Criticising a candidate for failing to have an agreeable answer (never mind a solution) to a concurrent political issue is different to criticising a candidate for having no answer (or solution) to a concurrent issue.
Members of the Tory Party, and the nation collectively, are affected by Costalivin and Kulturkampf (albeit in different ways) and should be allowed (perhaps, expected) to demand effective solutions to both, which necessarily entails the freedom to criticise candidates that fall short of their expectations without being accused of second-hand genocide and in need of censorship, ostracization from the political sphere, etc.
The wedge-drivers don’t want cultural matters to be in the political arena because it would make these matters contestable. By coming out in opposition to the deliberation of these matters, they reveal themselves to be supporters of the status quo; a status quo which denies deliberation and conflict over these matters, leading to the imposition of whatever can be imposed.
Keep in mind: none of this is the same as arguing that certain things are, as a matter of fact, mutually exclusive or heavily contingent on one another. Indeed, wedge-drivers seem blissfully ignorant of the fact that economic policies do have social implications.
It’s one thing to suggest that liberal government handouts, legitimised in the name of responding to a crisis, will drive immigration (legal and illegal) and if one is concerned by the latter, the former is ill-advised. It’s another thing to demand political participants self-censor their concerns about immigration because the wedge-drivers (journalists, policy wonks, commentators, etc.) have decided that talking about immigration is “Culture War Nonsense”, etc.
It is a matter of fact that mass immigration increases demand for houses and that, without any means of placating increased demand, already eye-watering housing costs will increase as well. Given this, one would imagine such a matter would be of interest to Costalivin Warriors, but it isn’t. Why? Because, as I mentioned earlier, earnest solutions are not the “priority”. It’s about preserving a dimension of the status-quo that has come under an ever-increasing amount of criticism.
In summary, the Tory Leadership wedge is an attempt to deny political choice at a time when people need it most. We should not have to choose between low taxes or low crime. We should not have to choose between constructing nuclear plants or controlling our borders. We should not have to choose between building more houses and defunding border-dodging NGOs. We should not have to choose between abolishing the Town and Country Planning Act (1947) and abolishing the Equality Act (2010), etc, etc.
This attempt to declare a state-of-exception on political discourse itself must be resisted. We must not allow wedge-drivers to give the British people the illusion of no alternatives. People are quick to note British democracy’s negative turn; the increasingly common habit of voting for “the least bad option” rather than “the good option”. Though they are right, I fear this is becoming an understatement. Not only is our politics degenerating, so too is our political commentary. The sorry state of our politicians creates political deprivation. The wedge-driving from many in our political commentariat not only makes this deprivation worse, it adds insult to the initial injury: expecting people to listen to you whatever you have to say, after having whittled down almost all their means of response.
