Irish Political News

Watching Channel4 News this evening one might have been forgiven for wondering what the media was actually reporting, for it shifted from a headline at the start of the programme that Mugabe was on the brink of conceding power under pressure both from the opposition, the security forces and the South Africans to a point at the end where Morgan Tsvangirai had come out to say that while the results were delayed the people could ‘wait a bit longer’.

According to the U.S. there have already been talks brokered by the South Africans between Tsvangirai’s people and elements within the security forces and ZANU-PF about a transition.

It’s hard to know is this ferment of rumour and counter-rumour merely indicative of events on the ground or does it speak of a genuine splintering of the previously near-monolithic regime. And beyond that there is the issue of how the media attempts to report matters, satisfactorily or not.

It’s odd how little interest the elections (for there are parallel Presidential and General elections) has generated. But it is a fascinating - and in many respects dispiriting - example of the problems that face post-colonial powers as they wrestle with transitions of power. Whether this is ultimately successful, in the sense that the state apparatus will permit such a transition, remains to be seen. Hard not to view the delays as the machinations of a regime simply unable to comprehend the thought of not being in power. And while on the one hand one might argue that the next elections aren’t really that far away and were the MCD to take power there would be plenty of time for ZANU-PF to consolidate the reality is that the networks of patronage that we see in all political structures across the globe, but which are particularly embedded in effectively one-party states, once ruptured result in a rapid withering of influence.

Difficult, if not indeed impossible, to come to terms with that after three decades.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

What do John Waters and John O’Shea of Goal have in common? Not the fact that they’re both self-promoting bores who are the darlings of radio discussion programmes less for the insight of their opinions than for the shrillness of their hysteria. No, they both care deeply about Africa; they care so deeply in fact, that they realise it might be necessary to destroy Africa in order to save it.

Waters’ most recent column in The Irish Times (sub req’d) could be taken straight from the John O’Shea book of wisdom. He points to the success of an ongoing project run by Bóthar Ireland in partnership with Heifer Project International, which provides heifers to families in Uganda who use the dung and urine in order to produce energy.
At the scale at which they operate, initiatives like Bóthar’s can be extremely successful in lifting individuals out of extreme abject poverty. There are few who would argue with Waters’ statement that:

There are no absolute, objective reasons why a country such as Uganda should have poverty or inequality on the scale that exists. The land is fertile, the rainfall regular.

The main problem is an impoverished culture, to which many basic skills have been lost. The key resources required are know-how and a jump-start. After that, the people are capable of taking charge of their lives with passion and energy.

However, where the column starts to go off the rails is where Waters states that:

Those responsible for dispensing official western government aid say that such initiatives can only scratch the surface unless accompanied by systemic, infrastructural development, which can only come about through partnerships between western donor states and African governments. The problem with this, as John O’Shea and others have been pointing out for aeons, is that Africa is rendered developmentally incontinent by corruption.

From the traffic cop who invites the defaulting motorist to “share” the fine (pay half and he’ll tear up the ticket) to the kleptocrat at the cabinet table, the ubiquity of graft and theft render much of the continent unamenable to systemic intervention.

This is precisely the line taken by John O’Shea whenever the issue of direct government aid is raised. While on the face of it, it seems like a strong, principled approach to tackling corruption, on deeper inspection it’s actually completely defeatist or entirely self-servign.

It is certainly true that corruption is a serious problem in many African states, and that it limits the potential of substantial social and economic progress. However, it is equally true that the only way to tackle such corruption - at any level - is to engage with the national governments and civil societies in those states and try and use the lever of direct support (including direct Budget support) to encourage reform. Such an approach is, of course, anathema to someone like John O’Shea who believes that that all aid to Africa should be channelled through NGOs (like, conveniently, GOAL). O’Shea’s mindset is neatly ridiculed in a recent letter to The Irish Times:

One might conclude that Mr O’Shea is now so blindly prejudiced against African governments that even when they do something right his Pavlovian reaction is one of condemnation. This is not the basis for a rational evaluation of events.
- Yours, etc,
EOIN DILLON, Ceannt Fort, Mount Brown, Dublin 8.

These aren’t easy issues, by any means. The idea that aid intended to develop the infrastructure of an impoverished state and help raise the living standards of its citizens is actually being used to support what are often corrupt authoritarian regimes can leave a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth. But if one is serious about achieving the Milennium Development Goals which go beyond basic survival to address issues such as primary education and gender equality - what choice does one have? GOAL might be able to build an individual school or clinic, but only a functioning state can develop and maintain a health or education system.

This is a point well made by Amartya Sen in his Development as Freedom, where he demonstrates that strong social growth (that is, respect for human rights, the rule of law, gender equality, civil society) is a prerequisite for sustainable economic growth which enhances the well-being of all citizens in a state. Of course, it goes without saying that even substantial government-to-government aid isn’t sufficient to create a society where all citizens are able to achieve a quality of life on par with that enjoyed in the West. The wealth of the West is, to a large extent, built on the poverty of the developing world and without a real political will to addressing this (for example in relation to WTO negotiations or reform of the CAP) this is not going to change. However, in terms of the discussion about humanitarian vs. development aid, this is something of a side issue.   Indeed, the debate on how best to achieve real progress and reform, economically and socially, in the developing world is one that’s far too broad to be tackled in this piece.  What is certain, though, is that it won’t be achieved through electricity from cow shit alone.

The balance between delivery of humanitarian aid where needed and defending human rights (or, rather, not abetting the violation of human rights) is a very difficult one. It’s addressed in a somewhat different context in Samantha Power’s Chasing the Flame where she describes how Sergio Vieira de Mello was often required to negotiate and compromise with particularly unpleasant individuals, and gloss over serious human rights abuses in order to ensure that humanitarian aid reached those who needed it most. However, for the likes of John O’Shea, and his new disciple, John Waters, these issues are very simple, and with a rather nasty, racist undercurrent. Africans can’t be trusted to do things for themselves; the only aid that should be provided should come from Western aid agencies (of course, ignoring the fact that the same kinds of messy compromises made at governmental level with African regimes are made, at a micro-level, on the ground every day by aid workers in order to ensure that they are able to deliver humanitarian aid and do their jobs effectively). The fact that this effectively condemns hundreds of millions of people to a subsistence level existence does seem to cause them much concern. Far more important that we stay morally pure in dealing with them. 

Waters concludes his piece by stating:

Intervening at the lowest level of necessity, they move people off the subsistence line and, over time, create functioning micro-economies which allow communities to become self-sufficient and optimistic. It is difficult to resist the idea that, coupled with a multiplier of some kind, such thinking might be the key to a more equal and functional Africa.

Difficult to resist? It’s easy to resist, as it represents the height of sanctimonious wishful thinking. Certainly initiatives like Bóthar’s may lift people from the subsistence line, but they’re not going to build road, install IT infrastructure or train doctors. That’s something that requires moral compromise and a willingness to make tough decisions. However, if one believes that Africans aren’t capable of that kind of progress (or don’t deserve the opportunity to try), it’s easier and cleanier to see them as ‘Half-devil and half-child’, dependent on the generosity of the Man from GOAL.

Just to share the following small anecdote (link maker not working again (natch!) - http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10006) from Prospect magazine from some months back, which notes an entertaining aspect of the current coolness between the United Kingdom and Russia… “as has been revealed by the row over Russia’s crackdown on the British Council”.

The recent skirmishes between Britain and Russia give some credence to the idea of “the new cold war” (the title of a new book by the Economist’s Edward Lucas). But in the absence of any big ideological clashes between the two nations, there is really no reason why they shouldn’t be friends. Culturally, Britain and Russia have always appealed to each other—an affinity that the two countries’ increasing business ties will surely enhance.

Well, let’s not overstate things, but certainly there is a russophile sentiment in the UK, at least in certain quarters. But then one would have to be pretty closed minded not to have at least some interest and fascination in a country that large, that historically significant, and that varied. Intriguingly it would appear to be a sentiment that is reciprocated in some unexpected places. For, consider the following:

One irony of the current situation is that British Council staff fondly recall the assistant to the mayor of St Petersburg who in the early 1990s worked tirelessly to help the council set up its office in the city.

And this paragon of cultural exchange and openness?

His name? Vladimir Putin.

Via Normblog, a rather disappointing Sunday Times interview with the very intriguing Samantha Power.Power’s an interesting character. She’s a strong human rights advocate who doesn’t fall into any easy ideological categories. Her opposition to the invasion of Iraq distinguishes her from both the hawkish elements within the current US administration who use the language of human rights to cloak a rather more base military adventurism and the Nick Cohen-ite ‘muscular liberals’ so comprehensively ridiculed in the always brilliant Encyclopedia of Decency. However, she’s by no means a pacifist and her support for military intervention in certain cases puts her at odds with much of what might loosely be described as the broad-left anti-war movement.

There’s nothing like a dispute in a foreign territory away to get people talking. And with Kosovo/Kosova we have a doozy. Usually reliable and/or informative commentators are worried. We’ve phrases such as ‘gangster state’ being thrown around. The Empire is seen at work. NATO intervention. Minority rights. National identity. And worst of all the unpleasant sense that whatever decision is taken is the wrong one.

So we learn that the European Union is split between those who recognised Kosovo in the first hours after it’s independence and those who appear unlikely to. The split is predictable. Spain - cogniscent of it’s own centrifugal dynamic - is unlikely to recognise, although the EU with gnomic diplomacy has engineered an approach which allows for Kosovo to become a European protectorate and EU states to develop bilateral relationships as and when they see fit.

Putin at his marathon press conference before the weekend rather unfortunately likened the situation to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (an unhappy comparison on so many levels and to so many people):

Speaking at his annual press conference in the Kremlin - his last before stepping down as president in May - Putin insisted that Kosovo did not deserve special status. “I don’t want to say anything that would offend anyone, but for 40 years northern Cyprus has practically had independence. Why aren’t you recognising that? Aren’t you ashamed, Europeans, for having these double standards?” he said.

He went on: “Why do we promote separatism? For 400 years Great Britain has been fighting for its territorial integrity in respect of Northern Ireland. Why not? Why don’t you support that?” he asked a journalist from German TV.

Well… when he puts it that way…

Still, as noted by Tracy Wilkinson for the Los Angeles Times, on To the Point (KCRW) ‘they won’t be [an independent nation] for quite some time.’ Expectations are ‘unrealistically high’ as to what independence might mean. And ‘Serbs are angry and humiliated by this’.

Remember, this is unilateral. But one doubts that it would happen if the US didn’t want it.

A further point. Nothing makes me more unhappy than to hear how Kosovo is somehow predestined to be a gangster state - or already is. This discourse seems to me to be all too similar to that used by some antagonistic to Palestinian self-determination who argue that they are ‘not ready’ and that such readiness will arrive at some ill-defined future point in time. I think this is problematic on so many readings. Failed and emerging states are per definition going to tilt towards ‘gangsterism’ of one form or another. This is neither news nor particularly relevant one way or another. What is disturbing is that it seems to be used as a way of further implying that they are somehow not worth of self-determination.

This is compounded by the basis for arguing that Serbian sovereignty should remain unbroken. Kosovo is the well spring of the Serbian nation. Well, indeed, it may be, or it may not be. But for materialists to tread on such metaphysical ground or to give it any credence whatsoever is remarkable. This is not to say that one should not acknowledge such thinking and the power of such thinking. Nationalism is problematic for socialists (and it’s hardly news that the opposite is also true). On the one hand the enormous energies that it unleashes are looked on with both distrust and envy by many of us on the left. On the other it’s not really part of the solution - is it? It’s a sort of cul-de-sac. We admire its ability to marshall societal energy. But we’re not happy about the destination it often seems to be taking that society. And as even the most shallow reading of Benedict Anderson or Tim Edensor will indicate it is more problematic still in that it leads to competing calls for self-determination which cut right across the egalitarian axes of socialist thinking. How to choose? Who to choose?

And I find it interesting that people turn into the most hard-nosed of pragmatists when it comes to Kosovo. This is hugely problematic because it generally leaves little room for movement when it comes to arguing against the equal and entirely cynical pragmatism of the various powers hovering around the issue. After all, bad and all as the Empire is, it’s hardly by basing its position in pragmatism and self-evident self interest acting in a way which is much different from those arguing the opposite point of view.

Yet, that said, this is also a massive failure by the European Union. A failure in so much as it has not been willing - or able - to contemplate or execute a new approach to sovereignty in these cases. It’s not that one ’side’ or another is right. Or that one claim or another has a greater validity. The basic problem is that both claims are valid, both sides have a palpable legitimacy. There is a case for Albanian self-determination. There is an equal case for Serbian connections.

So, why have people been forced to choose between the two positions? Why has it not been possible to accept that sovereignty within the EU is going to be a compromise, a web of inter-relationships. We already have something of that on the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is approaching a sui generis consocietational status. Sovereignty is no longer indivisible but is explicitly divisible, not merely between the UK and the North, but between the North and the Republic of Ireland. Overlaps develop. Pooling and sharing takes place. These are only small steps, and these are also early days, so we have yet to discover their efficacy, but they sit within structures and agreements already forged within the European Union. And surely that sort of approach - one where sovereignty could be shared in some fashion to safeguard the rights of Serbs within Kosovo and the access to that heartland - was worth pursuing. Consider too that the Serbian government actually made some reasonably flexible proposals including one rooted in ‘one nation, two systems’. Some sort of inversion of that, ‘two overlapping nations’, could perhaps have been explored further.

This is, of course, largely academic now. Kosovo becomes de facto the latest addition to the Union. That’s not necessarily the worst option (so far). But so will Serbia at some point in the future, and it seems perverse that dilution or merging or overlapping of sovereignty could not occur prior to their accession when it will afterwards as they settle in the embrace of the common European homeland. Of course that is to ignore, to some extent, the very real limitations of the European project, limitations on sovereignty and suchlike which mean that for the forseable future we will have a confederation of states rather than a truly federal structure.

And beyond the hyperbole there is a useful article in the Irish Times which punctures some of the expectations and beliefs on either side. Dr. Aidan Hehir notes that:

In reality, Sunday’s declaration has not fundamentally altered the distribution of power in Kosovo nor will it precipitate a chain reaction of secession. Beyond the superficialities of flags and diplomatic gestures, recent developments in Kosovo are far less transformative than they have been portrayed.

On what basis is Kosovo now independent? Serbia’s authority and jurisdiction have been formally repealed but it is clear that the new “state” will have few of the traditional trappings of sovereignty. In key respects the ruling structure has been reconfigured but the paternalistic relationship between Kosovo’s rulers and the Kosovars themselves persists.

Crucially:

Kosovo has for centuries been subject to external governance in various guises. This disjuncture in the relationship between Kosovo’s inhabitants and its rulers characterised the period of Yugoslavia’s existence but persisted after Nato’s intervention in 1999 when the province was governed by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.

While the UN did establish local political institutions, ultimate authority was exercised by the unelected international administrators. The UN mission wielded extensive power over all aspects of the political system and economy in Kosovo while the local population continued to be subjects of power exercised beyond their control.

Hehir points to the intriguing fact that as recently as 2004 the Kosovars were rioting against the UN and Nato. That the situation has changed is clear. Pristina must be one of the few places on the planet where the Stars and Stripes is waved entirely without any discernable irony. But the declaration of the Republic is, at best, lacking in substance.

The “independence” Kosovo now enjoys, however, constitutes a very similar configuration of power to that exercised since 1999. According to a report by the International Commission on the Balkans, Kosovo has, since its declaration of independence, moved into a period of “guided sovereignty”. This involves the transfer of control from the UN to the EU and an accelerated focus on “EU member state building”.

The final stage in Kosovo’s guided evolution is described as “shared sovereignty”, when Kosovo will become a full member of the EU. One might well ask, “At what stage in this evolution is Kosovo just ’sovereign’?” Membership of the EU is not presented as an option to be accepted or rejected by the “independent” state of Kosovo but a requirement determined by the international administrators. No state has ever had so many conditions and constraints imposed upon its independence.

This latter point is important too. If, as the EU argues, Kosovo is genuinely sui generis (although their reasoning for that is due to the break up of the FRY) then it appears odd that sui generis structures could not have been established between Serbia and Kosovo. A shared or joint sovereignty as a transitional step towards the EU might have addressed some of the issues and perhaps prepared the ground for a future breakup. It certainly would have dealt with a key aspect which was the remarkable trajectory of Kosovo from autonomous region to nation by slowing the pace of that change.

And, in a pattern replicating itself across the Balkans, we see that ‘the the newly “independent” state will be governed by an international civilian representative, Pieter Feith.

This international administrator will have the power to “take the actions necessary to oversee and ensure successful implementation of the settlement” and may “correct or annul decisions by Kosovo public authorities”. This of course significantly compromises Kosovo’s independence. The people of Kosovo have no authority to elect or remove the international representative and will be powerless to resist his decisions. This political structure does not equate with the legal definition of sovereignty and clearly compromises any notion of “independence”.

An interesting species of independence, is it not? And Hehir points to the reality that since there is no agreed international recognition Kosovo will assume a half-life similar to Taiwan.

Recent developments in Kosovo constitute an aberration, born of a unique confluence of factors. The exceptional nature of Kosovo’s recognition and the superficiality of its newly acquired independence will likely conspire to generate more problems in the future as other separatist groups decry the international community’s hypocrisy and the Kosovars realise that their newly declared “independence” does not mean independence per se.

Beyond the talk of ‘gangster states’ this is the reality. A Kosovo which will have limited sovereignty. Sovereignty which in no way is equal to other states and is unlikely to become so for quite some while. A Serbia which is profoundly unhappy about this situation where the governing elites have already compromised with the EU and the US and whose political stability remains unpredictable. The torching of Kosovar border posts by Serbs (from within Kosovo if the reports are to be believed) is predictable. If it is contained, well and good, but the fundamentals do not bode well.

Surely, if the EU represents anything positive it really has to address this. While Kosovo remains constrained there is - perhaps - room to rework this dispensation preparatory to future accession. To recognise that neither self-determination or historical or cultural links must in an of themselves be mutually contradictory or prevent genuinely imaginative ways forward.

A piece by Tom Griffin on NATO reminded me of a fascinating article in Prospect magazine by Ian Kearns from some months ago.

Once upon a time the pragmatists and practitioners of realpolitic in international affairs were largely of one mind, that nuclear weapons were broadly speaking a necessary evil, if not quite a good thing. The reasons were numerous, but perhaps most importantly due to a bipolar world in which two competing blocs neatly, or often not so neatly, were able to largely contain nuclear proliferation to their proxies. The ideological chasm between the US and the USSR necessitated - indeed exacerbated - the development of stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Okay, those days are over, well, to some extent. Both the US and Russia have moved into a period of management of nuclear weaponry. It’s fairly transparent, neither is likely to do anything stupid. But of course those proxies exist and worse still the technical know-how continues to spread. It’s not easy. Non-state players appear to be broadly locked out of the process. Serious nuclear weapons, bar dirty bombs, are simply too complex to develop without the support of nation state-like structures. But… there’s an awful lot of states out there, aren’t there? The potential for mischief grows. And grows.

The Prospect article notes that the British debate on nuclear weapons has centred on preventing ‘rogue’ states from acquiring such devices and on the issue of renewing the Trident submarine deterrent system. But it argues that “These debates have combined to obscure an important third development: a paradigm shift in thinking about nuclear weapons policy among some of the world’s leading nuclear strategists, a shift rich in potential to put multilateral, not unilateral, nuclear disarmament back on the agenda.”

And who are these strategists? Well, swallow hard because some are both familiar and unexpected as champions of multilateralism in this area.

Last January, a group of senior American security analysts—Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Sam Nunn among them—published an article in the Wall Street Journal describing future American reliance on nuclear deterrence as “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.” Going further, they called for a reversal of the world’s reliance on nuclear weapons for security, and for the eventual “ending” of nuclear weapons as a threat to the international community.

The article drily notes that: These are significant developments, not least because the calls for reduced reliance on nuclear weapons come from some of the most ardent, thoughtful and influential former believers in the principle of nuclear deterrence.

But the reasons for this ‘paradigm shift’ are relatively straightforward. Kearns argues that there are three… firstly international instability as more states gain weapons, secondly the dangers of nuclear terrorism and thirdly the potential for the expansion of civilian nuclear energy production allowing the opportunity for fissile materials to become the basis for multiple state nuclear weapons programmes around the globe. Combined the sense is that:

…this mix of developments puts us on the brink of a second nuclear age that will likely be more unstable and dangerous than the first. The prevailing view, even among many of the high priests of cold war deterrence strategy, is that the world has been lucky in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons since 1945 and that it is time to act now, before our luck runs out. It is time, in other words, to migrate from a reliance on deterrence to a strategy aimed at marginalising and eventually eradicating nuclear weapons.

The solutions are surprisingly pragmatic although they have significant implications as regards nuclear energy.

Kearns points to “an investment of political capital by leaders of the existing nuclear powers to build a shared commitment to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world… [and] a roadmap for co-ordinated and verified reductions in the weapons stockpiles of the existing nuclear powers, starting with the US and Russia but bringing in other states at agreed stages. “ in order to prevent international instability. Secondly he argues that there must be “urgent attention [centred] on the security of the world’s nuclear weapons and sources of highly enriched uranium and plutonium…Hillary Clinton’s recent commitment to remove all nuclear material from the world’s most vulnerable nuclear sites and effectively to secure the remainder during her first term in office, in the event of her election to the US presidency, is a welcome sign that the message is beginning to strike home”. Finally he suggests: the creation of an international nuclear fuel bank that guarantees access to uranium for nuclear power reactors at reasonable prices. This could initially be built around the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and eventually be run through the International Atomic Energy Agency. This key innovation would decouple states’ use of civil nuclear power from the need to develop their own enrichment programmes.
He points to: The recent Saudi suggestion—a shared uranium enrichment plant in Switzerland, available to all countries in the middle east—[as] an example of the role nuclear fuel banks could play in the management of regional nuclear tensions in some parts of the world, even if a global regime takes longer to establish.

I can see the latter one as being a real problem, if only because it may well be perceived as a trojan horse for the advocates of nuclear energy, a sort of divide and conquer if one will? By detaching nuclear weapons from nuclear energy there may be a sense that the latter may get an easier ride as the climate situation and the energy crunch worsen. As it happens I’m agnostic on the issue of nuclear power, but I appreciate how it resonates for many many people - and there is a solid argument that it is a diversion from research and development of renewables and/or forms of ’safe’ nuclear power.

Kearns argues that Trident is actually useful as a means of leveraging other nuclear powers to discussions about multilateral disarmanent. And there is some sense in this. It certainly moves on from a rather arid, and so far fruitless debate about jettisoning Trident. I don’t agree with him as regards a twin-track strategy of going for renewal while attempting to negotiating it away as part of a broader agenda. My sense would be that an immediate push towards multilateral disarmanent is the priority… but… it is possible that as a pragmatic approach that might reap dividends. He posits: The vision is of a world free of nuclear weapons. Gordon Brown should embrace it.

The problem is whether that is feasible in the context of the multiple overlapping agreements between the US and the UK (or indeed whether Gordon Brown is intellectually or emotionally open to the idea). I tend to doubt it (and that). The military industrial complex may well be a cliche, but it’s not entirely incorrect. Without being paranoid about it one wonders as to the nature of protocols between the two nations which might actually prevent movement towards disarmament. That being the case perhaps Kearns is right and only a broad frontal approach is appropriate, one that does indeed start with the status quo and push towards something better.

It is important thought to note another issue which Tom Griffin and I were briefly discussing on his blog. That is that there are distinctions of tone and substance within political elite groups both in the UK and US, and everywhere to be honest, about many different issues. It’s seductively attractive to attempt to reduce argument down to a reductionist conclusion that there are no differences within elite groupings. This can be a comforting analysis because it suggests that there is no reason to engage with them on various issues. But recent history tells us quite a different story. Note the way in which the US Army through intelligence reports was able to hobble, at least to some degree, the Bush push for action on Iran. Consider the example above whereby extremely hawkish individuals are willing to consider other views. I’ve already noted previously how within the UK there have been numerous and often quite contradictory views on the North. This provides opportunities for those who seek progress on any range of issues. It doesn’t always work, perhaps most often it doesn’t work at all, but it doesn’t preclude the opportunity that it might work.

Case by case.

What can I say? The appointment of Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal and husband as respectively chairman and co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party is surely evidence of the bankruptcy of that party as a vehicle of political change. Because the calculation that is being made is so obvious, so overt, so cynical, as to be unconscionable. And it clearly goes along the lines of ‘use the name’.

As the Guardian reports:

When Bilawal read out his mother’s political will it emerged that her first choice was her husband, Zardari. But the party elders deemed that fresh blood was needed.

With his political inexperience, shy demeanour and Armani glasses, Bilawal was not the obvious candidate to lead his mother’s party. During the press conference Zardari deflected reporters’ questions away from his son, pleading that he was at a “tender age”.

One feels that tenderness is not a feature of the Pakistani political system at this point in history.

His son’s name would be changed, he said, from Bilawal Zardari to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari - a key piece of branding in Pakistan’s tribal-feudal political system.

“We will avenge the murder of Bhutto through the democratic process after winning the elections,” he said.

“God willing, when it is the People’s party’s reign, when the People’s party government is formed, then we would have taken revenge for Bibi’s blood and that blood would not have gone to waste.”

But this is all awful stuff. Benazir Bhutto was party president for life. Quite a title, but one which had real effect. The appointment of Zardari and Bilawal is a neat piece of dynastic politics. But one which merely cements further elite groups within an already perilously flawed political system.

Who can know the mind of Benazir Bhutto now? Christopher Hitchens has argued that she had an Electra complex. But was that complex strong enough to wish this upon her 19 year old son? And it is fascinating and depressing to note that party elders forced the son into the limelight. Where are those within the PPP who genuinely hold a left line? Are they satisfied with this political coup de main by the Bhutto family? And shouldn’t any one who does hold a left perspective think long and hard about belonging to a formation that would continue in this line? Myself and Mick Hall have been discussing the issue of Bhutto herself over the last day or two. While I disagree with some of his thoughts on the matter today’s events certainly support his broader thesis of a political system beyond repair. But… since that is the analysis of commentators as diverse as Hitchens and Tariq Ali then perhaps we should expect no progress at all…