“Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving.”

I thought I’d post this as I suppose in some sense it has some relevance to my previous post – it’s definitely up there as one of my favourite quotes. I picked up The Road To Serfdom and started reading through a few chapters about a year ago. I have to say I’m still yet to read through all of the it, though.

For those that haven’t read it: the book follows the story of Winston Smith, a worker at the Ministry of Truth in the dystopian Oceania, who rewrites the past to suit the needs of the ruling political party and its leader, Big Brother. The book essentially focuses on how an authoritarian regime can control the population which it rules.

Now to state the obvious. Like Animal farm, it was likely an attack on the ruling communist party in Soviet Russia. But, when you consider the book’s title (the book was written in 1949) – and the fact that the book is set in a country that was, once a upon a time, called England – it is clear that it is also a warning. A warning against the dangers of authoritarianism, that could be brought on by radical socialism (Clement Atlee’s government had come into power around the time of the books publication).

While understanding the main focus of the book is in how the ruling elite manage to control the population through lies and deception, the area of this that captured my attention most was when Orwell describes Winston’s job of rewriting history. It made me think to myself: How altered could our current history be? Did such regimes not exist in the past?

Being an Agnostic (borderline Atheist) I obviously have massive doubts about the legitimacy of historical claims made in religious texts such as the Bible and the Qu’ran. But what about other claims? Did Caesar really get stabbed 23 times on the senate floor? Or was it perhaps just a story told to the plebs of Rome? (Caesar’s supporters may have seen it as an act of cowardice; Caesar’s enemies may have seen it as an act of bravery… god knows what Rome’s population were made to think of it?)

And there’s others. Was William Wallace really a great warrior? Did Nietzsche really go insane? Was Cleopatra really beautiful? Did Henry the VIII really have six wives? Was there ever a wooden horse outside the gates of Troy? The list could go on… but I think we get the point.

I doubt very strongly we’ll ever know the validity of historical stories and events, especially those before the 20th Century, but it’s worth thinking about. After all, we’ve all told lies – just imagine if they were ingrained into history.

Obviously the government that Tony Blair is associated with in the UK (the Labour Party) is currently receiving a bit of a hammering (huge understatement), which is reflected in the polls – the last poll I looked at yesterday in the Guardian said only 22-23 per cent of the people surveyed said they’d be voting Labour at the next election, compare that to the 40 per cent the Conservatives were supposed to have voting for them and it looks ever more likely Labour are going to get pretty humiliated, whenever the election takes place.

While this is undoubtedly good news for the Conservatives, the idea of a Blair presidency is most certainly not. In fact, due to the party’s large amount of Euroscepticism and opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, a European presidency in itself is bad enough news. The party seem to feel that if such a role is to be created, that Europe should opt for a more diplomatic option, someone to chair meetings, coordinating the Council of Ministers, not “some new powerful… all-singing, all-dancing, all-acting president,” as David Cameron described it (i.e. we don’t want some attention-seeking celebrity that’ll only further the idea of a federal Europe). David Milliband, the Foreign Secretary, however seemed to be after a president who would “stop traffic” in the cities he visited.

Now, forgive me for sounding like some right-wing, Eurosceptic, xenophobe – because believe me, I’m not like that – but I can’t help but feel that there’s something not quite right about Europe. I do, like many others, believe it has the potential to bring about massive action – especially on issues such as climate change – and then there’s always the feel-good factor that comes with a ‘united’ Europe, you know, “we’re all working together, look how far we’ve come. Give each other a pat on the back, why don’t you!” it’s this which makes me, on the surface, pro-European.

The problem, however, that I have with the Europe Union, is it seems to be, how can I put it, largely ‘ceremonial’? Just a feel-good institution that got carried away. And the problem I have with a big “all-singing, all-dancing” EU President is that, it’ll probably make it more so. I think that also there is a worry, a legitimate worry, that the road-to-federalism that the EU seems to be taking could have a seriously negative impact on the democratic decisions of nations all across Europe.  There’s sure to be serious problems with 27 nations all trying to say the same thing on issues such as foreign policy. I just don’t think it’s realistic.  And when you look at Europe’s response to the no-vote that the Republic of Ireland previously gave to the Lisbon Treaty  it seems to show that Europe doesn’t really know how to deal with a difference of opinion within it. OK, is the Lisbon Treaty going to be good for Ireland’s economy? Most likely. But was Europe’s response to the no-vote inappropriate? Most certainly.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks unravel. For me, the jury’s still out on whether the Lisbon Treaty is a good idea or not; and I will approach the idea of a president of Europe with much scepticism.

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