Monthly Archives: January 2019

Arts, History, Literature, Theatre

Theatre: The Convert

REVIEW

COLONIALISM is undoubtedly one of the most vexed issues of modern times. If you throw God into the mix, things can really be stirred up.

But what many theatre goers will love about Danai Gurira’s dramatical play, set during the 1890s in what is now Zimbabwe, is that in the end it also achieves something transcendental.

First seen in America in 2012, Gurira’s story is about a young black Catholic called Chilford who saves a young woman from an arranged marriage.

The girl is the niece of his maid, who secretly practices the traditional religion of her Shona tribe.

Outside their home, trouble is brewing, with attacks on black collaborators known as “bafu” (meaning “traitor” in Shona). After a fatal scuffle, the girl is forced to choose between her people and her Catholic faith.

The big – and some critics may say ultimate – question posed by Gurira’s compelling and intense play is expressed by the maid: “What is wrong with our ways?”

It’s a subject that goes to the heart of our understanding of cultural identity, economic development and whether one way of life can ever be set above another.

The language is uncompromising, with the missionary reviling his fellow Africans as “savages”. But there is innocence and humour about the writing, too, with English phrases mutating into local forms, echoing the direct effects of colonisation.

Ola Ince’s solemn yet vital and emotional production distils all this, and more, into a spellbinding and riveting two hours and 40 minutes, with two short interludes.

The stage design by Naomi Dawson, with a central concrete arena set with European furniture surrounded by red cracked earth – all under a crucifix provocatively bearing a conspicuously white Jesus – is a clear example of the divisions on show.

It’s a fine play for two reasons. One is that it is potently tragic, hingeing on a hard-won and deeply moving act of forgiveness at the end. The other is that it has terrific stage parts for the actors. Paapa Essiedu is taut with uncertainty throughout as the strict and pious, chaste Chilford.

He is offset by Pamela Nomvete as his insubordinate maid, and Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as a social climber speaking the Queen’s English.

It’s Letitia Wright, though, who is the play’s dramatic engine, transforming from nervy tribesgirl to a confident young Christian woman. Her role portrays a determination to hold together her past and her present.

This is a serious piece of play writing, which deserves a run in the West End.

Verdict: A potent mix of God and tradition. A missionary’s culture clash in colonial Africa is utterly spellbinding.

★★★★

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Britain, Economic, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Should we really despair over Brexit? Europe is in a mess.

BREXIT–EUROPE

THE Brexit debate has plunged British politics into a rollercoaster of agony and self-doubt.

Following a year of political high drama and turbulence, and, given the parliamentary impasse over the Prime Minister’s deal, there are significant anxieties about the consequences of leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement in place.

Some will ask whether it will plunge us into an economic depression? Others are predicting that prices will rocket and ask whether essential goods will be in short supply? And some doom-mongers even suggest that there will be riots on the streets as the ugly new social divisions opens up as Brexit plays out.

We shouldn’t doubt for one moment that these concerns are wholly understandable, and it is right that we focus on them.

But we are also in a position where we should be counting our blessings. We are not the only country experiencing turmoil – and for many of our European neighbours it is far worse.

Around Europe, many leaders have spent the last few months contemplating chaos and political confusion, widespread public dissatisfaction, growing unrest and even violence. For some, economic winter is already descending.

Indeed, the continent of Europe confronts a growing crisis which could yet cause the collapse of the EU.

So whatever our Brexit troubles – and there are doubtless more to come – we should remind ourselves that unemployment is at a record low, and that since 2009 the UK has enjoyed continuing economic growth.

Compare this with Spain. Whilst our rate of youth unemployment stands at just 9.3 per cent, the comparable rate in Madrid is just under 35 per cent – and more than a third of young people who are able to work have never had a job. Moreover, this human tragedy is directly linked to Spain’s membership of the EU because the euro has rendered large tracts of the Spanish economy hopelessly uncompetitive.

Economically, Italy’s story is even more harrowing. Its economy is barely any bigger than it was twenty years ago, employment stands at 10.6 per cent and youth unemployment is 32.5 per cent. The national debt stands at almost 2.5 trillion euros – more than 130 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. That money will never be paid back and Italy is heading once more for bankruptcy.

No wonder so much of the country feels total frustration and fury at distant EU bureaucrats whom they believe – and with some justice – have condemned Italy to economic decline and failure, let alone their incompetency on migration, which Italians feel they are now bearing the brunt of.

In Greece, the very birthplace of European democracy, an epic tragedy continues to play out: membership of the eurozone has wiped out businesses, jobs and entire industries that will take generations to recover.

Let’s look, too, at fraud and corruption. We’ve had serious problems on this front here in Britain, not least among scores of MPs who infamously were found to have fiddled their expense claims. And, yes, the occasional business executive is disgraced or imprisoned. But Britain is a remarkably honest country compared with what has been happening throughout the EU.

Take Malta, viewed by most Britons as a holiday paradise. Recently, a dark underside came to light with the murder of a journalist investigating government corruption, including the sale of EU passports to shady figures from the former Soviet bloc. Many believe Malta escapes sanction from Brussels because the country’s deeply compromised ruling elite can be relied on to do what the European Commission tells it to do.

Romania and Bulgaria are two other countries where corruption flourishes. The culture of greed and backhanders in these two former Iron Curtain nations helps explain the poverty and mass emigration to the rest of the EU. The problem is so flagrant that the Romanian government has sacked the EU-backed chief anti-corruption prosecutor.

As for concerns about law and order, well we have no reason to be complacent. London has seen 131 murders during 2018 – an increase of 38 per cent (excluding deaths by terrorism) on 2014.

There is public anxiety about the ability of our police forces to deal with everyday crimes, while the recent events at Gatwick – when the drone scare brought the airport to a standstill – did us few favours by exposing lax security.

Politicians were slow to react, while the police, military and intelligence services were made to look foolish.

But compare that with France, where for more than seven weeks now, the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) fuel protestors took violent unrest to the streets.

The protests are about more than just France; they are of existential importance to the EU because President Macron has become the poster boy for the European project as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s star starts to fade in Germany.

Macron’s response has so far been weak. He has responded with a mixture of police brutality and concessions to rioters which so far have not worked.

As for political stability in Europe, well therein lies the greatest crisis for the EU.

In Britain there have been warnings that the two-party system which has governed us for more than two centuries may collapse – damaged irreparably by the Brexit fallout. And there are menacing signs that the far-Right racist parties are on the rise, all the more so now UKIP employs the thug Tommy Robinson as an adviser.

No one should dismiss the reality of these fears. Only Italy’s government, out of the EU’s Big Four (France, Germany, Spain), has strong support and a clear political majority.

And that is for the so-called “government of change” – made up of two populist parties – which has flouted EU budgetary edicts, and rails heavily against immigration policies.

Consider also the bitter dispute between Madrid and the Catalan separatists, whose leaders either await trial at home or are in exile.

In Germany, social democracy is on the wane and the far-Right poses a menacing threat with the electoral successes of the popular nationalists of the neo-fascist Alliance for Germany party.

Even Belgium, the headquarters and the centrepiece of the EU, is in a political shambles. Prime Minister Charles Michel has resigned leaving a vacuum, while concerns about chronic unemployment and immigration fester.

Further east, the situation is much more threatening with the rise of far-Right parties exploiting popular fears about immigration. Poland and Hungary, both at daggers drawn with Brussels, increasingly present a chilling authoritarian alternative to the EU model of liberal democratic politics.

Brexit confronts Europe with a fresh problem. As one of the biggest financial contributors to the EU, the UK has been essential for balancing the books.

At a time of economic stress, Germany, Holland and the other large contributors will refuse to pay more. However, supplicants such as Bulgaria and Romania will be furious at receiving less.

Elections are due in the spring for the European Parliament and these may prove a shock to the EU elite as Right-wing parties score more significant gains. We will see new populist politicians emerge.

There is no question the EU is about to enter the greatest crisis in its 60-year history – and Brexit is just a small part of it.

This is not a reason for the Brexiteers to gloat. Trouble among our closest neighbours will hurt us badly at home. We are entering truly troubling times, but we should keep a sense of perspective during 2019 and remind ourselves we have every reason to feel some pride in the stability, prosperity and decency of 21st-century Britain.

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Arts, Books, History

A Review of Recommended History Books 2018:

SUMMARIES

. Churchill: Walking With Destiny by Andrew Roberts (published by Allen Lane for £35, 1,152pp)

ANOTHER Churchill biography? Surely, some might say, that’s as unnecessary as a second Brexit referendum.

But Andrew Robert’s immensely readable and engaging addition to the already vast oeuvre poses a timely question: are sheer bloody-minded grit and bulldog determination really enough to win the day against impossible odds?

They were for Churchill – but now?

For all the failures in his political life – with the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in World War I just one of many – he proved himself equal to a crisis. When the crunch came, he, unlike more timid contemporaries, had the vision to call correctly the biggest issue of the time: that Hitler had to be faced down and damn the consequences.

Just as importantly, he had amassed the political skills, the rounded life experience that comes from both success and failure and the sheer strength of personality to be a leader who, against incalculable odds, could pull this off.

He had the oratory too – that soaring ability to persuade and inspire, to win over hearts and minds to a common cause. (Yes, he told lies, he exaggerated, he talked setbacks into victories – regrettable but necessary for the greater good, he argued.)

Politicians today are sound-bite ciphers, robots or clowns by comparison. This book is a reminder of what greatness is, and how far short of it they fall. Too many, on all sides in the Brexit debacle, believe destiny is calling them, as it did Churchill in 1940. But is there a new Churchill among them at this hour of need? Many will fear not.

. Written In History: Letters That Changed The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore (published by W & N for £14.99, 272pp)

PRIVATE LETTERS are crucial building blocks for the historian, their authentic voices a passport to the realities of the past – and so much more discreet and revealing than today’s emails and texts are ever likely to be. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s entertaining and enlightening miscellany includes Gandhi, Napoleon, Picasso, Mozart and a hundred more across the centuries where rich pearls of their lives can be extracted.

Some are truly revolutionary and visionary – such as Christopher Columbus’s 1493 message to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that he has sailed west across the ocean and discovered “many new islands”. He reassures them that “I saw no monsters”.

Others are very personal – a defiant Mark Antony insists he’s done nothing wrong in sleeping with Cleopatra.

Then there’s Hitler explaining to Mussolini why he’s about to invade Russia, signing himself off with “With hearty and comradely greetings” and unaware that this was the action that would ultimately lose him the war.

Not all changed the world – Leonard Cohen’s farewell to his muse Marianne is not in that category – but all are fascinating, as are the compiler’s comments on each letter, little gems of potted history in their own right.

. Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (published by Allen Lane for £30, 752pp)

NOR is there anyone with the political genius of Thomas Cromwell, the architect of the original Brexit – England’s split from the pan-European power of the Pope in Rome in the 16th century.

He did this initially so his royal master, Henry VIII, could divorce the queen who had failed to produce him a son, and marry Anne Boleyn. In the process, he established the supremacy of the Crown, national independence from a foreign overlord and the distinctive Protestant nature of the Church of England.

What gave the low-born Cromwell the edge to carry through such fundamental change was that he combined the skills of businessman, lawyer and astute politician to outmanoeuvre the aristocrats of the Tudor court. His meticulous, almost obsessive attention to every last detail was the key to his success, along with a ruthlessness and ambition that helped him acquire positions, wealth, power – and enemies.

He fell in the end because Leaver Henry turned out to be a closet Remainer when it came to religion. Clinging to the Catholic faith and distrusting Cromwell’s brand of Protestantism, he cut off his chief minister’s head out of pique – and promptly regretted it.

The book is, though, a master-class in good, old-fashioned academic history as MacCulloch, professor of church history at Oxford, brings Cromwell to life exclusively from contemporary sources. No speculation or flights of fancy, just superb investigative work in the archives. Hard going at times but well worth it.

. Crucible by Jonathan Fenby (published by Simon & Schuster for £25, 624pp)

THE 13 months from June 1947 to June 1948 are when the modern world as we know it was forged, according to Jonathan Fenby, sadly stacking up more problems than solutions and bequeathing us global troubles that, 70 years on, are still flashpoints.

In the aftermath of World War II, there was flux and change everywhere. It was as if the world were recalibrating and rebooting itself all in one go. Old certainties were discarded; new alliances formed.

The British left India in a hurry and religious groups fought each other for supremacy in a civil war of such violence that the only solution was the partition between India and Pakistan, leaving a terrible legacy of distrust and hate.

At the same time, Israel was forcibly created out of Palestine, in the teeth of deep-seated Arab opposition and displacement. The British Balfour Declaration which created the initial territorial split in Palestine was the precursor to seeding decades of a dangerous conflict which still remains unresolved.

Europe split into the armed camps of western capitalism, led from Washington, and Soviet communism, led from Moscow. Lands were fought over and divvied up between the super-powers. Germany was divided. A Cold War ensued.

Fenby plots these changes month by month as, across the globe, a brand new world emerged – one every bit as fragmented, perhaps even more so, than the one it replaced.

. Arnhem by Anthony Beevor (published by Viking for £25, 480pp)

WHAT turns battles is often not the enemy but the overreaching egotism and dubious motives of the commanders who plan them.

Arnhem was far-fetched from the moment Britain’s Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery proposed flying Allied paratroopers to eastern Holland, seizing the bridge across the Rhine and launching a surprise attack through the back door into Hitler’s Germany in September 1944.

It was a product of his self-obsession with getting one over on the Americans. He felt slighted that they were grabbing pole position for the invasion of the Third Reich. I’ll show them how it’s done, was his response.

High-risk even on paper, to have any chance of success the operation depended on precision, coordination and good luck. But when boots were on the ground, none of these happened.

The result was a shambles, with communication lines hopelessly overstretched and those at the forefront of the assault outgunned and outflanked.

With his telling eye for personal detail, Beevor’s roundly researched account of the battle is overladen with gloom that so many men fought heroically but went to their deaths or into captivity for no good reason. He quotes a despairing officer who watched his men fall one by one to sniper fire and could only hope that “the sacrifice that was ours will have achieved something – yet I feel it hasn’t.”

. See also Book Review – Arnhem: The Battle For The Bridges, 1944

COLD WAR

. A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean by Roland Philipps (published by Bodley Head for £20, 448pp)

TWO things never cease to amaze about the Cambridge spy ring exposed in the 1950s.

First, that these closet communists who sold their souls to the Soviet Union were allowed to reach some of the most sensitive positions in British government circles; second, that their indiscreet personal behaviour never raised any doubts that they might be security risks.

Donald Maclean was given two monikers at the Foreign Office – “Sir Donald”, because he was an exceptional Whitehall mandarin tipped for the top job as Permanent Secretary, and “Gordon”, after the gin he was often inebriated on. This incompatibility should have triggered red-flag warnings.

Instead, since he was so palpably “one of us” – aristocratic air, MP father, public school education, first from Trinity Hall – the deluded, self-serving Establishment failed to realise that, in reality, he was “one of them”, a mole working undercover for Stalin.

Drawing on classified government files not released until 2015, Roland Philipps reveals the truth about the troubled toff who was a genuine convert to communism in his student days and recruited by the Russians with the deliberate intention of infiltrating the Civil Service.

As this superbly written tale unfolds, you find yourself screaming in exasperation – how did no one within the security and intelligence community notice until it was too late?

. The Spy And The Traitor by Ben Macintyre (published by Viking for £25, 384pp)

LIKE Maclean, Oleg Gordievsky was a believer who switched sides – though in the opposite direction. A senior KGB officer, he came to detest the dour Soviet regime in Moscow and its denial of freedom.

Seeking its downfall, he took the huge personal risk of dangling himself in front of MI6, who (cautiously at first) snapped him up and made him its most successful double agent.

The story – of his recruitment, his spying activities as he rose to be the top KGB man in the Soviet embassy in London, then his grim encounters with the Moscow spy-catchers and hair-raising escape from Russia under the noses of suspicious Soviet minders – is told with the panache of a spy thriller. And it’s all the more gripping because this is real life, not fiction.

But, as well as the drama, what is fascinating is to discover what the West learned from Gordievsky. He passed on a deep, insider’s knowledge of the inner sanctum and workings of the KGB and the paranoid mindset of the Kremlin. This was invaluable to the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in deciding how to stand up to the Soviet leadership without frightening them into precipitating World War III.

More than 30 years since his defection in 1985, Gordievsky still lives in hiding for fear of a revenge attack. His caution is wise, given the attempt to assassinate a more recent double agent and defector, Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury. Though the Skripal event should properly rank more as current affairs than history, it is, nevertheless, the latest phase in the lengthy spy war between the West and Russia.

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