Green broadcast – the struggle of memory against forgetting
Is it just me or was anyone else hoping that that final Caroline Lucas speech ended with “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”? Probably just as well for everyone that it didn’t, but that is of course exactly what she meant.
Though superficially this broadcast opens like the kind of vox-pop that ends with a councillor pledging to fix potholes, it is in fact a broadcast about struggle.
The voters interviewed are looking for councillors that will fight. They want someone to help them fight cuts to the arts, social services, healthcare, transport, environmental initiatives and jobs.
It has become a shibboleth of the main parties that no-one is political. That all anyone ever cares about is getting potholes fixed, as cheaply as possible. But in fact we have not lost hope in our collective ability to build a better future, nor have we lost the ability to recognise the government’s political attack on our way of life.
The reason why the Greens are increasingly the party of that movement is because we are unashamedly political. Green councillors, for whom winning every seat is a battle, are hard workers who do an exceptional job of fixing potholes. But additionally, and uniquely, they are prepared to stand against cuts and for greater equality and justice as both a matter of principle and of practice.
It’s the kind of thing most politicians think can’t be done. While they lionise the names of Wilberforce or Roosevelt or Attlee, they have forgotten how to emulate them; they even deny it’s possible. We live in a post-ideological age, they say, where politicians are managers and the best we can hope for is to slow the decline of our welfare state.
They say Green belief in the contrary is nothing but youthful naiveté. In fact the opposite is true: we remember.
But its still necessary to forget that political parties have served social movements incredibly badly since their inception?
Great piece, Gary!
It is time to expose the hidden ideology of our age – neoliberalism -, because it is now possible to do so (because of the financial crisis, the climate crisis, etc.). And so then we can oppose it with our – green, ecologistic – ideology.
I dunno I quite liked that ending though… Definitely a highlight
I liked the councillor from Lancaster – she seemed very human and comfortable. A couple of the others looked a bit like they were trying to be a bit too much like politicians..
Lets hope the Greens manage to stay different whilst also getting elected
Don’t I know it in Hackney. Blogged about Labour tactics vs Green tactics here – http://politicaldynamite.com/2011/01/can-labour-out-green-the-greens/
Trouble is that Labour talking about pot holes seems to win them elections!
Interesting to see the topics they highlighted – police, libraries, transport costs, violence against women, housing, jobs, nurseries, disabilities, families, pensioners, home insulation (to tackle rising fuel bills), with only one mention of recycling and no mention of climate change…. quite a change!
I don’t dismiss individual exceptions but I genuinely feel that as a group no other national party offers this.
My Labour council has no interest in opposing cuts. Come election time it will blame them on whomever it suits their candidates to, but it is doing nothing to stop them. It thinks stopping cuts, or even trying to, is unrealistic and naive.
You may not feel a significant disconnect between the hopes expressed by the voxpops in this film and the ambitions of other parties’ representatives, but I do, and that’s why I wrote this post.
Dearie me, Gary, really?
Hooray for Kundera, but boo for the fatuous claim that Green councillors are “unique” in being “prepared to stand against cuts and for greater equality and justice as both a matter of principle and of practice”. That sort of absurd overstatement does a disservice to the video, which delivers its message very well.