Tony Benn - messiah or devil?

Ed Miliband said that Tony Benn was a champion of the powerless, a conviction politician, and somebody of deep principle. In other words all the things that Ed isn’t.

I am sad at Mr Benn’s death. He was the reason why, in 1981, at just 17 years of age, I joined the Labour Party. I was electrified when I heard him speak alongside the open-shirted dockers’ leader, and communist, Jack Dash at the National Museum of Labour Party History.

I also heard him at a Tribune fringe meeting in Brighton shortly after he lost the deputy Labour leadership contest to Dennis Healey. A Bennite sitting two rows behind us shouted “Judas” at Neil Kinnock who had voted for Healey. “Is Benn Christ then?” responded a guy sitting right behind me. That was the atmosphere of the time. He was for some a messianic figure, and if you were young and idealistic this was especially beguiling. For others he was the devil incarnate. I remember a Daily Express cartoon depicting him in a Gestapo uniform. This was a man who served during the war as an RAF pilot. This was not something he ever particularly emphasised, but not because he was ashamed of it. He was a patriot but of a different kind. His pride in British parliamentary democracy made him opposed to the EU, NATO and the influence of the US over UK foreign policy. Like Benn said of the Labour Party, he was "more Methodist than Marxist." 

He had begun his political life as a fan of the then Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who, whilst a socialist to my mind, was subsequently seen by the hard left as the Tony Blair of his day. Benn’s commitment to democratic socialism hardened in office in the 1970s under Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. He never resigned his cabinet post. After 1979 he wielded the knife against the government in which he had just served, and intoned about the great betrayal he had apparently witnessed from the inside.

His followers would demonise anyone insufficiently left-wing and would fellow travel with the enemies of democratic socialism. He does have some responsibility for the departure from the Labour Party of some very able politicians (and Gaitskellites) who founded the SDP in 1981, and especially for the 1983 election manifesto. Despite that devastating electoral defeat, the strength of the Labour left, of whom he remained the unofficial leader, made it hard for Kinnock to criticise what had to be criticised about violence and intimidation in the 1984-5 miners’ strike. After the loss of the 1987 general election, Benn largely became irrelevant to the party’s fortunes.

He could though still be powerful critic of the realism that so many of us went along with. I met him in February 1998 on the eve of an aborted US/UK military build up in the Gulf aimed at Iraq. I muttered what I thought was a relatively inoffensive comment about how the Blair Government was just helping to "shore up" containment. Benn rebuked me sharply with a statement about the moral bankruptcy of what then had been seven years of containment.

Harold Wilson once said that Tony Benn immatured as he grew older. As Benn’s socialism became more and more unfashionable, he ironically became something of a national treasure. However Benn’s radical opposition to the anti-democratic whims of the free market and his criticism of the closeness of some UK governments to Washington have arguably more relevance than ever.  

Meet Ukraine's New Bosses (more or less..) the Same as the Old Bosses

The celebrated, if rather pompous, UK professor of history, Timothy Garton Ash, repeated a now sorrily familiar canard on the BBC World Service on Sunday when he said that what had happened in Ukraine is “definitely a revolution”. The next day I read in the International New York Times that the revolution in Ukraine may need to be “better represented” in the about to be formed interim government.

When analysts comment about Yemen it is sometimes said that the Gulf Arab-backed interim deal that changed the president, and consequently the government, did not represent the “revolutionary forces”. That is perhaps a better formulation.

The “revolution” in Ukraine hasn’t really affected the apparatus of the Ukranian state, even if it has weakened the state’s writ. Despite Yanokovich having something akin to a democratic mandate, the revolution obliged him to depart and has aided the chances that his nemesis Tymoshenko, a failed premier, will take over. In the meantime the speaker of the old parliament keeps the presidential chair warm.

The revolution hasn’t affected the structure and membership of the police, intelligence services and the military, but it has succeeded in giving the interior and defence ministers the sack.

The revolution has seen self-appointed groups enforcing popular justice on the streets of Kiev, but is being actively resisted in the east of the country.

Egypt is going through a comparable (non) revolution. In either case was it the popular will or the shadow state that wrought the change? In Ukraine the oligarchs didn’t like the former president’s method of crowd control, in Egypt the military initiated two changes of president in two years and are about to finish the job by once again assuming the country’s political leadership. However perhaps one of several differences is that, while Egypt cannot control the Sinai, it doesn’t any longer fear the loss of part of itself to a powerful neighbour. 

1984 at the Almeida... but where are the proles?

Without poring over every word of George Orwell’s dystopian novel it is hard to be sure of how far the theatrical interpretation of 1984 currently showing at the Almeida in London has gone in updating the message. However the word “prole” has definitely been expunged from the contemporary NewSpeak dictionary used by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan in putting this production together. Orwell, I recall, wasn’t afraid to liberally pepper his text with it, mindful that “The Party” that he was partly satirising would alternately ideologically deify the working class, and exploit them as revolutionary cannon fodder. It was the Soviet Union after all that gave us that wonderful Newspeak neologism “Proletkult”: the term for the state’s promotion of what they imagined to be “true” working class culture.

In one of the most telling moments in the book, Orwell, through his anti-hero Winston Smith, says on hearing a woman sing an old East End pre-revolutionary tune, “if there is any hope, it lies with the proles.” In this attitude Orwell partly betrays the superior attitude of what he famously defined as his lower upper middle class roots. But he was also underlining the disconnect between the particular class in whose name the totalitarianism of the left was enforced, and that class “in and of itself” (as Marx famously prophesied it would one day become).

The Almeida version of 1984 has Smith talking rather more than I recall his original self doing about the common bonds between us all, and the need to end the suffering imposed across a global system. This was a more liberal internationalist message than Orwell was making when he wrote the book in 1948. He was, it is true, warning of the dangers of the illiberal trends with which he was personally familiar in a post-war Britain that was rebuilding the state machine and constructing a new (Soviet) enemy at breakneck speed, and, as this production also underlines, he was warning of our unthinking complicity in the destruction of freedom. However his particular venom in his later years was directed at the central model of the book: the Soviet system and its international fellow travellers, including those in the UK then were very prominent in literary circles, who would merrily trot out the latest Moscow line. This play begins where the book ends, a meeting of a book club set way into the future, who, cleverly, are talking rather more about the fate of Orwell and his warnings than they are the diary of Winston Smith that Orwell actually has them discussing. What use was it if it didn’t change anything, and, anyway, it was the vision of a dying man, they lament.

Women don’t fare too well in this production (contrast the indifferent Julia as played by Hara Yannas at the Almeida with the powerful performance by Suzanna Hamilton in the 1980s film version), but  in practically the final lines of the play, a woman member of the reading group fumbles her way to the opinion that the reason they don’t know when The Party lost power was because …maybe …it hadn’t.

Trite, but that’s the update I guess, and one, whilst not irrelevant to Orwell’s worldview, that is, ironically, a little too devoid of historical context. It was Smith after all who spent his days helping to destroy history to suit The Party. O’Brien, the high party official played by Tim Dutton, in the best scene in the play and of the book, says to a gruesomely tortured Smith (played by Mark Arends) that you think your idea of truth can save the world, but we control what is true because we control the past and, therefore, the future.

There are perhaps parallels to be made with the fast changing received wisdom of the contemporary era. History is not so much made by the victors as systematically disregarded in the pursuit of an understanding forged through the equality of instant exchange on social media. Orwell could not foresee this. For him what was in real life only the nascent technology of the “telescreen” was likely to become an instrument of state control. In a loaded contemporary media spin the play has us watching Winston and Julia in bed – we are all Big Brother. On social media we are the complicit destroyers of history, instantly creating new realities, all of us equally worthy of our say. We are now global citizens, fighting for freedom against the global Big Brother. 

Orwell had a word for that. Doublethink.

Muscat's Matra marina - into and out of the blue

Matra, or Mutra, is a 20 minute drive from the centre of Muscat, Oman. Being there just for an afternoon made me feel like a tourist in the Middle East again for the first time since we spent New Year’s Eve 1999 in Tunis. 

Bright blue sky in early February, like an imagined perfect European summer’s day. I strolled along the corniche, stopping periodically to drink in the view. The best part was climbing up coastal watchtowers, or just gazing, transcendent, into the milky white foam as the waves lapped at the shore. Behind me were the dark hills that dominate Muscat, reminiscent, in part, of the Northern Emirates, which used to be Oman anyway, but I have never seen a coastline like this in the Gulf. I mused on past ship journeys as a luxury cruise liner came into view. 

My first ever ship’s journey was more an open-top ferry, carrying me to the overly promised land. My first entry to the region was through the prism of Israel before I hitched to Syria, or at least, unbeknownst to me at the time, that Israeli occupied strip of Syria otherwise known as the Golan Heights. Bowie and Pat Metheny were performing their then current smash, “This is Not America”, on Israel Army Radio in the first vehicle I got into in Haifa. "Nir?" a woman I got chatting to hoped my name was. Her son’s name apparently. No, sorry, its Nee-illl. Oh, she said, disappointed that I was obviously just another goy boy, washed up on any Mediterranean shore that would serve me cheap booze and free love. I certainly went on to drink the kibbutz’ subsidised booze.

My mind blanked again, I wish it had stayed that way, just gazing at the white Omani foam, as the preoccupations of a research trip ebbed away and I felt able to experience the environment. Not the scribbling down of other people’s wisdom, or the aroma of hotel coffee, or the nervous plotting of taxi journeys, or the haggling over fares, or even, sometimes, the renegotiation of apparently agreed fares. Just experiencing; alone, but for the water and the rocks. 

I didn’t want to walk back along the corniche because I knew that that mean the end of the escape. One crow, then several, perched themselves right next to me as I was looking out to sea. One eyed me cautiously, as I did I it. All I could think of was "The Omen" and other tales of the demon bird’s love of eye balls. Obviously a sought after delicacy in the avian world. I decided to meander a bit further long before turning back to town. What I had presumed from a distance to be stray cats playing ahead of me were in fact stray puppies. I had hoped to get among their "unclean" ambiance but they backed away, resentfully.

Back along the path into town I spotted some more of the dying butterflies I had seen earlier. I strange and depressing sight. I do not know what constitutes a butterfly season in Oman, but this one seemed over a little early to me.

A busy day of meetings today after a night of fitful sleep, partly affected by car park revelers as the nightly disco here goes on to 3am. I asked for a room far away from the disco, so I shouldn’t complain. Maybe I should have been at the disco. I get the feeling it would largely be populated by Asian prostitutes, German tourists and the odd curious local. I have seen this movie before. Tomorrow it’s back to storm-damaged Blighty. A mixed bag to contemplate.

The UAE highway to heaven and to hell

This time round, returning to the UAE, our former home, has been an emotional experience, redolent of both the torpor and the pleasure I felt when living here. My research-related meetings have mostly been very useful; and reacquainting myself with some familiar local faces has been very enjoyable. I have also made one key break with the past: I finally took to the road under my own steam. Viewing a fairly large swathe of the northern Emirates when you are driving is a wholly different experience to that of the usual visitor. Normally I bottle it when it comes to driving anywhere in the Gulf, having become inured but not insensitive to the hair-raising escapades of taxi drivers in this part of the world. Did I want really want these guys up my arse (as it were), lights-a-flashing? What is still heavily frowned upon in the UK is perfectly normal driving practice out here. In the end hiring a car became a test of my mettle.

A planned day in Al-Ain at the UAE University had in any case fallen through as a member of the academic staff there apparently decided that he no longer wished to see me but somehow could not summon up the good grace to tell me. Two emails, an attempted phone call and a text seeking to confirm our provisional arrangement brought exactly zero response. I sincerely hope that the next time he tries to arrange a meeting with someone in Britain that they go out of their way to show him the same level of respect.

However Al-Ain’s loss was eastern Sharjah and Fujeirah’s gain. After a while I entered the appropriately named "Wadi Helo", or rather it would be appropriate if the sign writer thought this place was called “Greetings Gorge”. 

The Arabic actually, more or less, means “beautiful gorge” and beautiful it is. This place is a minor (almost) undiscovered gem on the Sharjah-Kalba road. It did lack the more obvious tourist-friendly feature of a café. In fact the only shop in a brand new building designed to house three units did not seem to be used to visitors of any kind. 

Leaving the wadi I drove along incredible twisting roads and, literally, through dark, foreboding, mountains. Going through a tunnel I was reminded both of Dartford and of a transcendent scene from Tarkovsky’s film “Solaris”. From relative darkness and monotony, I emerged into a different world. The damp, shadowy rocks had been turned black by the storm-heavy clouds that in seconds had dominated the horizon.

   

Soon I was in the emirate of Fujeirah, where one very early summer morning we had once hiked up the mountains. However I had always wanted to know that Fujeirah the city was like. I wasn’t disappointed. It really is as awful as I’d imagined, a bit like the less appealing parts of Sharjah proper. One central drag, and, on either side, one tacky-looking poor apology for a Dubai sky scraper after another. The corniche, while not long, is nice enough. It was there that I encountered two guys from the Damascus suburbs, one of whom had had trained in Fujeirah to be a pilot (civilian), but, as he reminded me, this modest emirate lacks an airline to go with its international airport.

On my way back into Dubai in the rush hour, the absurdly false sense of security I had begun to acquire about driving in the UAE hit me like a sledgehammer. This was the most adult driving experience I had ever had. Overtaken on all sides and having to take serious risks in a relatively small and slow car to get on to exits because people not only don’t let you in, but they accelerate toward you when you’re trying to get into their lane. Part of me really enjoyed the thrill of dodgems for grown ups, part of me assumed that my opting for only third party insurance (let alone no health insurance) had been a definite mistake.           

The next day it was with considerable sadness that I left my friends and their beautiful beach-side villa in Dubai to get on the plane to Doha. Whilst this time not slumming it, as is my usual want, my middling but good value Mercure hotel in Musherib is conveniently located next to an enormous building site (of which there are many in a Qatar fast tracking diversification on the back of gas riches). A room with a view indeed. This was sunset as seen from my balcony on Wednesday evening.

My meetings (the actual purpose of my visit) have been pretty thin here, in part as Qataris seem to have taken an informal (and out of character) vow of silence in the face of increasing intra-Gulf tensions over events in Egypt.

A visit to the branch of Georgetown University in Doha reminded me of a sight I had seen when teaching a few years back in Sharjah (see picture below). It seem as if Israeli penetration of the Gulf states really is as deep as some of their Arab detractors claim.

A loft full of yesteryear

I have spent a good part of the day in my loft disinterring old memories by sorting through carrier bags of paperwork, slightly damp books, and yellowing photo copies. This was a difficult exercise. A good deal of it I am putting aside to trash, give away, or in some cases to offer to specialist scholars with a penchant for copies of UK and US Government documents relating to Kuwait in the 1960s and early ‘70s. Sad. Aside from the Kuwait documents, this was a difficult and often emotional exercise.

I am a hoarder. Why else would I have found boxes quite literally containing nothing but newspapers from the 1990s? However when the items I find are Christmas cards from long lost friends, a receipt for studio time in 1985, and heavily annotated 20 year old articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they stir up memories difficult to simply dispose of in the waste pile. A box of photos from the 1980s and 1990s mostly brought me cheer, especially those of my wife and I. Thinking of her does not invoke pain. A copy of a Sunday supplement magazine with Dylan on the cover, and with “For Neil” in my mother’s hand-writing, does.

I found an old cigar box with letters and cards. Some were from a slightly eccentric Edinburgh Quaker who many years ago would send me clippings apparently affirming unmitigated Israeli evil. He himself would not set foot in the Holy Land…on principle. However many were from my now deceased mother and father. I had long forgotten that my father had actually expressed in writing his “pride” in what he thought I had “achieved”. I don’t recall him ever clearly saying such a thing mind you. Rereading a note from my mother expressing similar sentiments was difficult, not because I don’t recall her ever verbalising such sentiments, but because in the end isolation and the disappointment she felt with her life made her love of her sons insufficient to want to keep on living.

Another dimension to the afternoon of half-remembered enthusiasms and distant echoes of longings once felt, and often discarded, were the piles and piles of rock magazines and newspaper clippings. Musicians’ obituaries, gig and album reviews, band profiles. Even a copy of Paul Yates’ execrable “Rock Stars in Their Underpants”.  The Middle East somehow took over from, but never entirely replaced, my youthful love of pop. The latter had rendered Tommy Docherty’s Man Utd pretty irrelevant for me when I was a mere 12 or 13. Pop has been a constant. It is a profession that I vaguely flirted with once as a would-be manager (briefly) and periodically ever since as an amateur critic.

The stuff I was going through was overwhelming, partly by virtue of its sheer quantity as it began to merge with the piles and piles of old books and magazines that already clutter our landing. However it also began to make me feel hopeless. Of course your life isn’t defined by old newspaper articles you’ll never read again and notebooks filled with scrawl. However they can say something about what your life was about, and, by now being old, what your life has become. Memories, past enthusiasms, hand-written notes suggesting real concern for the conflicts of far-away places. My notes from the present will not later be discoverable in box files or cardboard boxes. They will be on hard drives and memory sticks. Some will be included here, at least for as long as this blog exists. Their concerns, aside from what I need to do to earn money, will often be personal, whether I am writing about myself or an old band I have seen.   

Right now I just want to cleanse myself in all senses of the dust of yesteryear, but the boxes surround me, awaiting collection or council recycling. I am going out tonight and perhaps the booze will wash away some of the cloying sense of the past. At least until the morning when I will sit at this screen again, switching awkwardly between sad musings and professional assignments. 

The sad demise of Barry's Bench

A Dubai source has given me the very sad news that “Barry’s Bench” is no more. The Mexican-style restaurant that sat inside the very pleasant Arabian Courtyard Hotel (located opposite the Dubai Museum) has closed. This was my favourite restaurant in the whole wide world. I once considered holding our anniversary party there (after we had already moved back to London). I am totally gutted. It has, I am told, become a pizzeria.

Now, my sense of what is good in the world has been circumscribed by too much time spent in the Middle East. When we lived in the UAE, finding any restaurant with character, aside from de facto male-only joints rejoicing in such names as “Pak Express”, was a difficult exercise. Barry’s managed to utilise the advantage of being within a hotel (booze was on the menu) without actually seeming like you were. In fact you could enter and exit directly from or onto the bustle of Bur Dubai in the old Creek area of town. Location was very much part of Barry’s charm.

Seating was mostly in spacious booths. This modest-sized restaurant was designed for comfort, not to cram as many punters in as possible.  An undoubted factor in the particular appeal of “Barry’s Bench” was the almost obligatory Margaritas. These we enjoyed whilst waiting for our mains, with our mains, and as desert. They were lovingly prepared at the enticing restaurant bar where the odd punter would sit. I, for one, have not tasted better.

The food? Oh yes…that was always superb (I did once eat there sober). The burritos and tacos tasted as authentically Mexican as anything I ever had on the west coast of the US, and I never (knowingly) saw a Mexican in Dubai. The staff who served you in the restaurant were south Asian men and a Filipino woman. They were friendly and attentive, but not overly so. Unlike most waiters in 4 or 5 star hotels in Dubai, they respected your space and your need to take your time. Perhaps that is why it closed. However it was always busy when we were there.

I never did find out who Barry was, and exactly what or where his bench was either.

“Time Out Dubai” lists a “Barry’s Bench Express” as located within the Times Square shopping centre on Sheikh Zayyed Road. It seems the legend continues. However a fast food version located in a mall without being able to savour Margarita Time would really not be the same. Not at all.