Are our leaders born to lead? February 11, 2008

 With the world (and smoothstonesinmyhand) entirely consumed with the race for the American presidency; as a very late comer to Fergal Keane’s Letter to Daniel and as someone with a passing interest in politics: I’ve recently been faced with a pertinent question. What makes someone want to lead? What propels these men and gloriously increasingly more women to a place where they believe they can lead a nation? What separated Nelson Mandela from every other disenfranchised, apartheid challenged South African? What set apart Martin Luther King Junior from every other African American who had been told to ‘get to the back of the bus’? What makes Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton (I ignore the Republicans almost entirely) believe they can lead the most powerful nation in the world when it is in such a state of peril?

These are not easy questions.

I had wanted to write something to give credence to the death of Benazir Bhutto but struggled to find the words to give justice to a death so politically devastating that it could give rise to civil war in Pakistan; an excuse for democracy to once more be derailed. This woman was a miracle: she continued to serve the country that had executed her father, killed both her brothers and made various threats on her own life; that they recently and catastrophically fulfilled.

Her crime? The pursuit of democracy. Something I, and probably many women of the western world take for granted. She is a leading political voice in a Muslim society, a place where women are too often taught to be second class citizens. Where in the most extreme, but entirely all too often (that it happens at all is a plague on all women, all societies and on humanity itself) women can be flogged or killed as a punishment for being raped. In these same extreme societies women are taught to hide their beauty, their intelligence, their individuality: the exist only to be at the whim of their men. And we, sit back and allow it to happen: the world over, time, time and time again. Where are our Leaders when these women need them most?

Even in death Bhutto was berated for being ‘hungry for the spotlight’; she put herself at risk by standing to greet the crowds at her rally. The unproved corruption charges that seemingly haunted her life continued to follow her in the columns of her obituaries. She returned from an unwanted exile in an attempt to save a country that has been tortured throughout its short history; but for many this was not enough.

I don’t deign to understand the complexities of political Pakistan, nor the intricacies of Islam; and as a woman who has been given the opportunities of education and intellectual freedom; that I understand neither, is entirely to my great discredit.

But now her son wants to step into the spotlight, this not yet graduated young man willing to take on the mantle of his ‘family business’ willing to face his mother’s executioners in a bid for democracy. Is nation building/political leadership something we are born to do? The political dynasties of the world abound and so many of them tragic. I always felt the vocational desire to teach, wanting to inspire others with the great literature education had exposed me to; do politicians feel the same, or in fact a much greater and burning ambition to run for office?

As we  were newly embracing  the new year I hoped entirely that for the first time ever that we would find a woman in the Oval Office of the White House. I hadn’t been following the emerging Presidential campaign particularly closely (again to my discredit) but entirely believe that a matriarchal approach to governing a society has to be better than a militaristic one. A highly educated women with an insight into the inner workings of the White House (and its many pitfalls) has to be a incredible improvement upon a Daddy’s boy who seems to fail to understand the magnitude of his world presence. 

I can remember feeling that Hilary Clinton was wrong to support her husband during the ‘Monica Lewinsky’ affair; at the time, I felt she should have walked away leaving him to feed the masses hungry for more sordid scandal all by himself.Yet I realise now she would have then become ‘the woman scorned’; her (and their collective) political purpose was a much greater deal than her husband’s infidelity: that was something that belonged to their privacy of their marital relationship. She’d worked much too hard on every aspect of her political persona to give it up in a moment of avengful passion.

I think she has the potential to accomplish great things; I don’t envy the weight of the world and womankind that’s about to fall upon her shoulders; but do envy the intelligent and capable women with whom she will surround herself and hopefully inspire to greatness.

But from stage left, Enter Barak Obama. I have to admit that the idea of a multi-racial, relatively young, Muslim man in the White House is equally if not more (and oh how I feel I’m selling out the sisterhood) inspiring than the promise of Hilary. I read the newspapers, I watch the news but not for a minute do I deign to suggest I’m entirely abreast with the complexities of the American Primary system nor the subtle and not so subtle nuances of the diversity within the Democratic bid for White House power. And I fear that it may be too easy to be swayed by the great oratory: to want not only for America, but for the world it so influences: the vision of hope this highly ambitious, intelligent and seemingly compassionate man sets forth.

George Orwell proclaimed with great literary fervour that ‘Power corrupts and total power corrupts totally.’  Unfortunately we need not reach back in time to our Thirties literature to see Orwell’s words being lived out in terrifying truth. What separates the Saddam Husseins, the Adolf Hitlers, the Robert Mugabes from the men and women of vision, democracy and a compassionate humanity? Is their desire to lead simply greater than their democratic/ less fundamental counterparts? Their arrogance more mighty? Are they simply more adept at turning the handle of the political machine? And how do we protect ourselves from such tenacity? How do we rid the world of such terror without ‘Americanising’ or ‘re-colonising’ ever inch of our ailing globe?

I was part of a group of “Young Leaders” that got to experience life as Political Interns in DC in the summer of 2000 (the Washington Ireland programme takes a group of approximately 30 students to America each summer: the programme grows from strength to strength): but as much as I was enthralled by the amazing opportunities that experience gave to me; and in the shaping of my political consciousness, I knew then that political power was not something I would ever or should pursue. But within the group there were people who did and will and do pursue political leadership within the professional political arena. They have intelligence, vision, wit, humanity and a belief that they have the potential power to make their corner of society a better place.

In Northern Ireland it is easy to minimise politics to ‘pseudo-intellectual’ sectarianism. It is easier to sit back and let someone else clear up a century’s worth of mess. But I entirely believe that “decisions are made by those who show up”. I berate my family, friends, work colleagues, Year 14 pupils if they do not register to and then cast their vote. I can name you various Assembly ministers, the constituency MP and MLAs but not my local Councillors. So how involved am I really?

I am always struck by the episode in The West Wing in which President Bartlett reflects upon his presidency and can only see the things he failed to achieve. Why in a world ravaged by war, dying from AIDS and in too many places a devestating lack of clean water; at the mercy of religious terrorists and in massive environmental terror, would anyone step up to the plate? Especially when a media crazed audience awaits the first of your downfalls, the first sliver of the skeleton to be exposed in your closet, for your flawed and all too human nature to scandalously shine through.

I don’t know the answers to these too many questions. I do know that the men and women who step up to the plate need to be those people of vision, need to understand the people they serve,and need to want to make the world a better place. However I  worry that  only in hindsight can we truly judge our leaders and by then the damage is done. A movie The American President that was the forerunner of The West Wing: suggested that it was not only our duty to question our leaders but our obligation. So I’ll do my part and ask the questions.

The Wonder of ‘The West Wing’ August 24, 2007

“The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight…The streets of heaven are too
crowded with angels, but every time we think we’ve measured out our capacity to
meet a challenge, we look up
and we’re reminded that the capacity may be limitless. We will do what is hard, we will
achieve what is great. This is the time for American heroes and we reach for the
stars.”
(From ‘20 Hours in America- The West Wing- Series 4).

I watch too much television: much of pure escapism,some of it entertainment and too much of it mind-rotting rubbish. But I love The West Wing. I am entirely betrothed to the promise of a better America (and therefore world) it projects- I rarely go a week(although I now get my Brad Whitford/ Josh Lyman fix from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: and get a Chandler Bing fix at the same time, my Rob Lowe /Sam Seaborn fix from Brothers and Sisters) without indulging in the next episode on the box sets that reside beside my DVD player.

I’m a girl with a minor degree in Politics. I’ve spent an inspirational summer in Washington DC as a Congressional Intern- a less than minor cog in the very mighty machine. So a fictionalised account of life in political crazed Washington is an obvious choice for a “televisual” obsession. Many of my memorable and most inspirational lectures while at Queens came from a visiting American Professor- who actually engaged in a dialogue within the lecture context (something that was severely lacking from the rest of my university lecture experience).

It is too easy to be disengaged with Politics: on a Northern Irish scale to be political is too often paralleled to being sectarian; on a national scale we are somehow the country cousins who’ve had enough attention for a while so we should now sit back, shut up and let somebody else make a mess of it for a change; and on our what has been described as an “unholy alliance” with G W Bush- it is too, too easy to be critical of a incredibly flawed situation.

In America there is one key political choice: you are either a Democrat or a Republican (there are of course the core shaking Independents/ Undecideds), you’re Blue or Red, Pro-Guns or Pro- Choice…It says much about me that I’m able to define myself politically by American standards but sit on an uncomfortable fence here at home.
What The West Wing offers is a politics to believe in. An America that is what it wants to be: a country that models democracy for a waiting world.

Yes, I love the characters: I love their wit and their relationships, their oh so human flaws; the will- they, won’t they romance of Donna and Josh, the intellectual and moral badinage between President Bartlett and Toby Ziegler, that Rizzo from Grease (Stockhard Channing) dumped Kenickie and married the President of the United States instead. I want to be CJ Cregg. I want to be Amy Gardner; and as for Sam Seaborn he is EVERYTHING I want a man to be- but its more than this, much much more.

The writing is simply phenomenal-you could write a book of modern philosophy on the gems of quotes this programme offers. The characters are believable, empathetic, witty, warm, intelligent; with both a deep passion and understanding for a complex country and its citizens. There are people here, especially the women, who inspire me to want to be more aware and involved; who remind me that democracy is not a right but a privilege; and that it is in fact our duty to humanity to be an active member of your local, national and global society.

This is a show that faces America’s problems, unearths the dark periods of its recent history and presents answers to what then only seems like unanswerable questions. Nowhere else have I encountered such a clarified explanation for the Middle East conflict (a subject The West Wing returns to time and time again: most memorably perhaps in ‘Issac and Ishmael’- their acutely apt response to the atrocities of 9/11a deeper understanding of America’s relationship with Cuba (in ‘90 Miles Away) or with the political aftermath of each of the twentieth century wars.

By the series end they have intervened in Darfur, created a lasting Middle East Peace Accord; promoted a liberal woman to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and elected a Hispanic President; which somehow makes the promise of this or a woman President, in the next actual Presidential election, potentially all the more probable.

The America it projects and the show itself, is not perfect and I’m sure if i was an American my view would be entirely different. There are times when the writing doesn’t quite meet the mark when it is too sugar coated or gun-ho even for me. Although the willingness to explore the flaws of its own political system really is key to the philosophy of the show as a whole; I simply don’t believe that ‘Downing Street’ – a British “televisual” counterpart would inspire in anywhere near the same way. I entirely believe that ‘Carson’s Corridors- Inside Stormont‘ would lead only to further ridicule of our own sapling system.

Maybe the Atlantic Ocean is not quite enough distance to give credence to my opinion. My Dad, from whom my political consciousness stems, used to say that I looked at the world through very rose tinted glasses.I guess this amazing programme allows my tempered view to exist if only in the corner of my living room.