politics is opportune moments and well tailored narratives
The year is 1989 and November is upon them.
The midnight blue sky bereft of clouds is a sight for sore eyes.
The air is cool and crisp, though their home is warm.
Her father is working beef for his signature - my mémé’s recipe - pepper pot stew, her mother sits on the couch folding laundry while she flies through her french - les verbes du 1er groupe - worksheet.
Hermione is determined to finish all her written assignments today, for she had Volleyball this morning, and they’re driving down to her grandparents’ house in Salt Pears tomorrow.
She’s done her reading comprehension and science exposé yesterday after school, her math exercises after lunch today and is currently tackling her French homework after memorizing her notes. Hermione’ll have an hour to reread her lessons tomorrow night, before bedtime.
Insufficient , for sure, but better than no time at all. Or worse yet, submitting incomplete work.
She shudders and goes back to work.
Je tapisse
Tu tapisses
Il/Elle/On tapisse
Nous tapissons
Vous tapissez
Ils/Elles tapissent
By the time she starts on her second sheet - les verbes du 2ème groupe - onions, garlic, chili and ginger have joined the casserole, her mouth waters at the flavors sailing the kitchen where her father works his magic. Thyme, cinnamon, stock and coconut milk are up next. Sweet potatoes are washed and to the chopping board they go.
Her mother had gone upstairs with a basket of clean, folded clothes in her arms. She comes back with the iron and a pile of creased shirts. She turns the telly on, volume low enough not to hinder her daughter’s studying.
Hermione scribbles on.
Je frémis
Tu frémis
Il/Elle/On frémit
Nous frémissons
Vous frémissez
Ils/Elles frémissent
“ Hooligans! All of them! Violent groups who know no order and have no respect for authorities. Fertile ground for organized crime and felony–” Hermione pauses startled at the vehemence and looks up.
Her father’s chopping halts.
“ – I commend our police forces for imposing law and order. Brave men, they are! Brave men we should cele– ”
Her mother switches the channel.
“ The police officers were doing their duty- ”
“ Is it the officers’ duty to harass , destroy property and brutalize citizens with no proof of misdeed or crime? That all these citizens happen to be black a coincidence? How can you– ”
Switch.
“ Instead of turning our streets into war zones! Go find work! Get off your arse– ”
Again.
“ Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s stance remains firm. This morning at the Conservative Party gathering, the prime minister refutes allegations of racial inequality and discrimination when entering the workforce, as well as claims of police brutality and unlawful inspections. Margaret Thatcher denounces abusive exploitation of Protesting Rights to incite disorder and violence, she adds ‘ felony won't be tolerated in this country, disruptions will be swiftly stomped down. The dole doesn’t justify violence. Nothing justifies violence.’ “
“ The nerve of her,” her mother spurns, “ Why on earth did we elect her ?”
“A collective lapse of judgment,” her father drawls, readies a separate pot for rice, his tone faux-nonchalant, his face blank.
Her father does that a lot.
When they dine in those book-in-advance-restaurants. In the upper floors of Bernan’s Shopping Mall. Sometimes at the cash register when they buy groceries.
Only a year ago, did Hermione understand why.
People - Some people - stare at her father. They stare even longer when her mother is by his side.
They stare at her father’s dark skin and her mother’s white skin.
And when their faces contort and break into hushed conversations or when they keep.staring. the aloof, unflappable persona bleeds into her father’s face.
For all that Hermione is ten, her parents had never shied away or hid from explaining the whys and the hows. Certainly not when those unfriendly attentions soon turn to Hermione’s own dark skin and voluminous hair.
It’s a difficult conversation and not at the same time.
Because Hermione cannot remember a time where demonstrations against racism and police brutality weren’t regular occurrences.
Because Hermione doesn’t know of a time where some very ‘ important ‘ and very ‘ smart ‘ statesman didn’t spew hate or didn’t reduce people with her complexion to ‘criminals ‘ who ‘ have no place in polite society ‘ on live television.
Because Hermione can at last define and put a name on those off behaviors.
( the loaded stares, the jeers, the abandoned seats on the bus, on the tube, the customers concerned about who dines next to them, who shops with them, unsolicited opinions on her parents’ union, Riley and Hazel’s rancid taunts, a mouthpiece for their parents’ bigotry–)
The pieces were there, until last year, Hermione hadn’t known they fit together.
Diversity makes older folk uncomfortable. It’s that simple. They’re not used to it, having grown up and married in the white Great Britain of the early 1900’s. She'd heard an anchor say the other day.
A pretty, neat way to dress up bigotry and absolve it.
Immaculate, really.
Racism is not a real issue in this country , they claimed. Exaggerated, it’ll calm down soon enough with adequate handling .
Racism is a real issue.
It runs rampant in their cities, from the streets to the highest institutions of their country.
Last Hired, First Fired, they say.
The police, well, there is plenty to be said about what they believe is their ‘ duty ‘ and their ‘ rights ‘and how they go about their ‘ investigations ‘.
It’s so blatantly clear, even to her ten year old self, how problematic it all is. For all that they keep eyes on the sky for fear of Soviet or American bombs, the metaphorical powder keg has been going off once a month on British soil for as long as she's been alive.
An entire decade. That’s ten years. Ten long years.
The prime minister looks the other way, concerns herself with matters she cares for.
(most happen to be white, and upper class.)
Hermione asks her parents how Margaret Thatcher came to power.
To understand, they start, context is needed.
In the seventies, the economy was crumbling. England was in terminal decline, or as foreign observers put it “ an offshore industrial slum “.
At the time, the state knew best and wanted to make the stories of streets in the sky a reality in the hopes of allotting better housing and a better life. That’s how the concrete jungles came to be. A fine fiasco, that turned out to be. .
The housing jungle debacle gave birth to a growing mistrust toward government planning and the bureaucrats who managed said planning.
That distrust soon bled into education.
Margaret Thatcher a conservative party politician, was then the Secretary of State for Education and Science.
She advocated to up the standards of British education by abolishing the selective system in favor of a comprehensive school, allowing the majority to have a hand in what they studied.
Which means grammar schools and modern schools had to go or rather merge.
(94 grammar schools remained, still.)
The Labor Party took power in 1974, they carried on with the merger but faced strong backlash. The press raved that their schools were infiltrated by mad marxists armed with ‘teaching methods so progressive, they turned promising children into delinquents’.
Some parents followed suit blaming the state for depriving their children of grammar school, of a competitive, engaging environment.
Never mind the infighting among parents. Those who believe the individual’s interest primes over that of the community and those who believe the community primes over the individual.
Thatcher, as the head of the opposition party then, took the opportunity to support the individualists because “ We have to stop destroying good schools in the name of equality. ”
“ But didn’t she initiate said merger a few years back? “ questions Hermione, eyes squinting.
“ Yes,” her father sagely nods.
“ … ”, she tried again, “ what? ”
“ Politics, “ her mother replies, in lieu of explanation.
Never you mind her crisp hand in the merger.
The prime minister, Hermione realizes as her parents continue the Margaret Thatcher exposé, goes through stances as she goes through her books.
Though Hermione at least shows genuine care to her books.
Economics, education, housing, divorce laws, abortion, Scottish devolution, capital punishment, hare coursing, homosexuality.
She ties her rope to whichever boat of thoughts brings her closer to the finish line. No matter who or what, as long as she advances.
A shapeshifter, Hermione thinks, as close as humans can resemble one anyhow.
They take a small break as she puts away her French homework and helps her mother ready the table for dinner, her father is nearly done with the cooking.
The late seventies, they explain, were a mess.
Rising prices were eating people’s wallets, strikes and walkouts had become the new normal as workers demand better wages.
Snow was upon them in the bleak and bitter winter of 1978, when Laurie drivers went on strike effectively disrupting supply chains of food and fuel. Thatcher seizes the moment and delivers a memorable speech on unity and cohesion
1979 comes with its own surprises. A massive and most effective industrial strike takes place. The likes of which hadn’t been seen since 1926.
“ One and a half million walking out,” her father stresses with the spoon, as he serves rice with the pepper pot. “ and it extended to all fields, falling dominoes. ”
Falling dominoes, indeed.
One thing leads to another, rolling strikes plunge the country in utter disarray, as heaps of uncollected rubbish piles up, medical supplies are blocked, the dead are not buried, and medical professionals walkout as well.
Hermione isn’t surprised to hear the Labor Prime Minister lost the vote of no-confidence and elections are called.
They’ve reached a point where either they walk out or the country does.
The unrest has made Britain weak but ripe for the taking.
Margaret Thatcher had begun a sleek and shrewd election campaign targeting women and young adults. She chose her moment well. She chose her targets well. She read the room, played the game and left her opponents in the dust.
On the 4th of May 1979, she became the first female British Prime Minister.
Her rise is marked by a series of thoroughly seized opportunities.
“ Politics is opportune moments and well tailored narratives,” remarks her mother when she peels them fruit.
Tailored narratives , reverberates in her head like a broken record.
Then something clicks.
“It’s what’s happening isn’t it,” she asks, soberly, “ Tailored narrative. The government adjusts the narrative of the demonstrations to suit their needs, so do those police officers.”
Hermione pauses. She remembers those news headlines with acute clarity.
“ What‘s initially ‘ frustration and outrage at police brutality and racial discrimination’ turns into ‘ tension escalates into violence between the forces of order and folk A’ then ‘ lootings and crimes are at an all time high, police reports shop break-ins, property damage and rubbish bins on fire’.”
It makes a startling, disgusting amount of sense, when she thinks of it.
“ Suddenly demonstrators are no longer seen as fighters for respect and justice, they’re reduced to an out of control, dangerous, violent mob. Which further worsens the stigma slapped on us. ”
And back they go to heavier discrimination and messier police altercations. And the cycle goes on and on.
It’s distressing, how much it works. She’d have been impressed by the cleverness of the twist if she wasn’t on the execrable receiving end.
How many causes have gone through similar treatment, she wonders with mounting desolation, stripped, contorted and fired right back at the people.
Her parents’ faces are an amalgamation of things by the end of her spiel. Warm and so very proud but also terribly, terribly sad.
“ There’s much power to gain when you have a narrative and a platform,” her father says quietly.
They clean the table, wash dishes and tidy up the kitchen on solemn notes.
Hermione goes back to her worksheets, though what is said tonight doesn’t leave her mind.
It seems to her, that in 1979, they traded one car crash for another.