Following the recent election, Vaclav Klaus will be succeeded as Czech president by Milos Zeman, a former prime minister and head of the Citizens' Rights Party. I had a bit of soft spot for old Vaclav, as he seemed to be one of those rare politicians who understood -and could readily articulate- concerns about the yawning chasm that has opened up between those who are elected to govern and those who do the electing.
Klaus, who had direct and bitter experience of an earlier European form of totalitarianism, had very firm views on recent developments within the EU. He summed it up thus:
"The manifestations of transnational progressivism—global governance and the European Union—are supplanting liberal democracy and nation-states and driving us into the stage of post-democracy. The EU wants to replace the project that is malfunctioning today by even bigger doses of the same. That is entirely absurd. In contrast to Marx, supporters of global governance do not believe that salvation will arise via the proletariat: they humbly suggest that it will come from themselves."
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham claimed that current voluntary agreements with the food industry were “not working” and that the obesity problem was “worsening”, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that: "This is not a problem we can just wish away. If we don't meet our targets and continue to make the progress that we have to make, then we would consider legislation.”
The comments made by these two politicians contain several telling phrases. Mr Burnham said that the "time has come for new thinking" particularly when it comes to foods aimed at children. He said: "I think parents need more help to make healthier choices for their children.” I’m not sure how Mr Burnham defines ‘help’, but I know now that he spells it l-e-g-i-s-l-a-t-i-o-n. Imposing further limits on food manufacturers does not ‘help’ parents; it merely imposes more conditions on food manufacturers. Legislation, in this case, can only be defined as helpful if you think that it is your responsibility is to remove choices from people who are unable to act rationally and who might otherwise damage themselves. Legislation only counts as help if you believe that people are not capable of helping themselves, not capable of making informed decisions in their own interests.
Most of us would concede that it would be appropriate for a parent to remove the ‘choice’ of a 10-year old child to have unlimited internet access, unlimited fast food or unlimited late-night leisure time during school term, because the parent is best-placed to decide what is and what isn’t good for the child. But that is not the kind of relationship that should prevail between the state and the citizen. The very notion of legislating to 'help’ people make more ‘responsible’ choices –that is, the choices you want them to make- is a perfect illustration of how the political class view those they are elected to represent.
It simply does not occur to our politicians that most parents are capable of saying: “No Johnny, you can't have another triple-decker bacon cheeseburger with extra chunky fries." They’d much rather introduce a law that ‘helps’ those hapless parents avoid the awkwardness of having to make an actual decision, like perhaps having to say ‘no’ to their child.
Health secretary Hunt said that the government was "making very good progress" in tackling childhood obesity, but added that “the reality is that supermarkets and the food manufacturers need to understand that we do reserve the right to legislate. This is not a problem we can just wish away ... if we don't get agreement, let's be absolutely clear, we will look at legislation.”
In case you didn’t pick up the subtlety of that message, I’ll translate. "If we don’t get agreement" means: "If you do not do as you’re told".
It is quite clear that for the professional political class, the answer to every perceived issue, problem or situation is always: more government action. Left unchecked and unchallenged, there is simply no area of private life into which they will not attempt to intrude. The more we acquiesce in this process, the greater our loss of personal freedoms.
Sadly, it seems that a lot of folk have come to accept that government legislation can somehow take the place of common sense. They argue that legislation is required because the food industry can’t be trusted to act responsibly. The darker and less palatable truth is that this legislation is being proposed because the politicians don’t trust us, the people, to act responsibly.
As he tries to complete the research before his own physical collapse, W.G. starts to unravel an unlikely tale of sporting genius, political corruption, match-fixing and organised crime. Strange as it may seem, but the ramblings of some drunk old men really do provide an insight into the four C’s at the heart of this book: cricket, corruption, conflict and colonialism.
The story features actual characters from Sri Lankan cricket and politics, along with composite characters like ‘Graham Snow’, the tough old English pro turned media pundit. Most of the cricket matches mentioned in the book are real, as are their protagonists, but the lines are skilfully blurred between fact, fiction and something that lurks somewhere between the two. If you google ‘Pradeep Mathew’, you’ll find that Karunatilaka has cleverly created an online presence for the character, including a cricinfo profile and crikipedia entry.
You don’t have to be a lover of cricket to be enchanted by this novel. Along with its many observations on Sri Lankan life, ‘Chinaman’ somehow manages to be a history book, a detective novel, a sports biography and, latterly, a moving treatise on the relationship between fathers and sons.
W.G. believes that most of our lives won’t amount to a hill of beans, but, as he puts it: "in a hundred years, Bulgarians will still talk of Letchkov and how he expelled the mighty Germans from the 1994 World Cup with a simple header”. Like most folk who read newspapers from the back page to the front, he thinks that “Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls and transcend race, the past, and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters.”
