David Sifry described social networking and other new forms of communication in an emergent world of public opinion as a "conversation among the people formerly known as the audience". The phrase sprang to my mind when the Today programme wrestled with explaining to itself and its audience what is inspiring about Abbas Kiarostami's latest film, ‘Shirin', recently showcased in the Edinburgh festival. Is it subversive? What are its politics? What is the people's hunger and spirit behind the insurgency? Is it on our side? The problem is that the film consists of 90 minutes of close-ups of more than 100 women, including a headscarved Juliette Binoche, as they watch a film based on a 12th-century poem by Nezami Ganjavi about a love triangle involving an Armenian princess and a Persian prince.
"Light from a screen flickers on the women's faces; their expressions alone create the drama." I learn more when I repair to Maya Jaggi's interview with Kiarostami in the Guardian, although I have to flap away an intrusive advertisement that informs me ‘Your opinion matters' and invites me to complete a short survey before I can proceed. Eventually, it appears that the maestro has been willing to give us a couple of clues. He has gone so far as to say that the "beauty of art lies in the reaction it causes", and that "a work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience".
The fact is that this is yet another of those moments when one has to say: "They just don't get it do they?" This interesting rhetorical question has peppered political commentary in the last few weeks, most recently when the limousines drew up outside Mansion House. In politics it always carries the danger of complacency, since the people who point the finger are invariably the ‘brother' that had the ‘mote' in his eye last time around. This week one feels even more nervous using it because the onion has begun to unpeel with a vengeance as foolishly self-serving expenses claims settle around the ankles of those other ‘civil servants', BBC top management, with all around in the media ducking for cover.
Still - I want to use it about the commentariat and a remark by Mary Riddell in particular. This comes in an article where this astute political commentator is pointing to the farce of the election of the Speaker. She points out that what is presented to us as the symbolic orchestration of the ‘handing back of power to the people' is in fact so cram-packed with the unedifying tactics deployed between the political parties in ‘business as usual' that it is proof positive ‘that expecting the system to reform itself is futile'. A ‘written constitution' to ‘codify the limits of the state and the values of a modern democracy' is what the country really needs, she decides, and turns away from this ‘unedifying Speaker's contest' in disgust to point out the contrast with Iran, where ‘people are dying in the streets for a democracy that they will get one day because they will settle for nothing less.' This is the theme to which she returns in her conclusion, ‘In Iran, citizens sacrifice their lives for a better future. In the UK, we cling to the comfort blanket of the past.... Those who resist the wider changes needed to forge a modern democracy worthy of the name should look towards Tehran, and feel ashamed.'
Now, who exactly is she talking to and what exactly is she talking about? It seems to me that in this conversation between herself and herself what is remarkably absent is the British people. As it happens, that morning I also received an e-mail from Joanne Landy and others - an ‘Academics' Declaration of Support for Iranian Demonstrators initiated in Great Britain, but gathering signatures from many countries, including the U.S., gathered by the New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy'. This spells out rather more clearly what we are really talking about and who she should be talking to.
The statement declares that
Khamenei's argument that to make concessions to popular demands and 'illegal' pressure would amount to a form of 'dictatorship' sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives.
The statement notes that
Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims.
Which brings us to Mary Riddell's remark. There was something wrong with her opening statement which, the more I thought about it, really made me want to say, "they just don't get it, do they?" She said of John Bercow, "He is the outsider, the risky choice, with some claim to be a people's Speaker."
OK, perhaps we have to descend from the rather lofty heights of popular demonstrations in Iran even to contemplate the truths of this ‘claim'. But, if you ask me - you only have to listen to John Bercow's speech to realise that he is part of the arcane Westminster set-up, formed, deformed and mired by that set-up. Look at the photo - this is a court jester just without the motley, the liliripes, jingle bells and mock sceptre... the ‘critic' in their midst who keeps the whole cynical rigmarole of Westminster on track... It is not just that I am gobsmacked to think that Mary Riddell should imagine for one moment he might qualify as a people's Speaker - (It would indeed be a useful exercise on OK to imagine what a ‘people's Speaker' would actually be like?? How would one qualify???) - it is the cheerful way in which she imagines, like the new Speaker himself - "There is simply far too much noise. The public doesn't like it and neither do I" - that she can tell us who would qualify as such.
My reservation about these ‘real politique' commentators is that they are so complacently capable of speaking on behalf of a permanently absent public. They remember to acknowledge our existence (and think that's enough, realistically-speaking) - but they don't think we exist in the sense of ‘counting for something'. That goes to the nub of what is unsustainable about the current forms of representation in our democracy. No wonder, as they cast about for any signs of a real change, their heads swivel over to Iran.
Well - I'm very glad to consider myself one of the British people at this juncture, and I'm very interested to know what the rest of the British people really do think - not just about the Speaker, but the whole hall of mirrors of the Westminster charade and what should replace it. Isn't it time that the army of commentators set themselves the task of asking us, before telling us, what it is that the public thinks, and what it is we think matters. That's why I'm hoping that an initiative like Real Change can take up where many of our forefathers and mothers left off - so that we as well can set about rescuing our democracy, hopefully without deaths on the streets.
