Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Jon Bright, now enjoying a New Labour Free stay in Madrid, wrote a hilarious post about the many roles of Tony Blair, for whom the illusion of grandeur is a mere ante-chamber to his ambition. Jon called it He'll Save Every One of Us. It followed my own predictable reaction to the announcement that Blair was going to teach faith and globalisation at Yale. Now we have a quick summary of his university course by Michael Elliot in Time Magazine as Blair launches his Faith Foundation in New York having just belted back from Bethlehem, doubtless via the grand country house he has just acquired outside London.
It is so easy to mock. It is so hard to take seriously. Poor Michael Elliot does his best while nervously looking over his shoulder to make sure that he doesn't lose standing with his fellow Brits. Don't worry Michael! There are some serious issues here. And Elliot is right to attack the casual cynicism that so often passes for common sense and even intelligence in the UK when it is really an expression of the mental subservience that has kept British rulers safe from democracy. So, let's think about what Blair is saying. Elliot reports: "For Blair, the goal is to rescue faith from the twin challenges of irrelevance—the idea that religion is no more than an interesting aspect of history—and extremism. Blair and those working with him think religion is key to the global agenda. "Faith is part of our future," Blair says, "and faith and the values it brings with it are an essential part of making globalization
work"."
It looks banal, but it isn't, it is a con-trick. One similar to 'The Third Way' that Blair propagated when he became premier. Behind both clichés there is an insidious presumption: in "the third way" it was the word "the" - the idea that there was only one way (and Blair was its prophet). Here the same manoeuvre is cast on a larger canvass. It assumes there is only one model of 'globalisation'; only a single way that it can "work" (and only one Blair to interpret this for us). If, however, there is more than one way for globalisation to 'work' as there clearly is, then there needs to be an argument about the best way and judgements have to be taken. Blair implies by slight of hand that, really, there is only a single good form of globalisation - otherwise all is lost. But how do we know what this is, except by following the one who knows? And how can we know whether to trust him? Through the depth of his sincerity.
This is Blair's game, if I may be allowed to decode it. He wants us to attach ourselves to his sincerity and evaporate arguments over judgement. I don't doubt that he is a sincere believer. But so what? In politicians it is judgements that matter. Blair tries to get us to feel differently: "The worst thing in politics," he tells Elliot, "is when you're so scared of losing support that you don't do what you think is the right thing. What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength to do it."
Michael Elliot suggests that "in a nation like Britain, where cynicism is a way of life, that distinction—between faith as a guide to action and faith as an aid to decision—is almost bound to be lost". But at this point it isn't just cynicism to object to the use the distinction is being put to. For what Blair is saying is that "faith" permits him to do the wrong thing well. It does not matter so much if the decison itself could have been better or different, provided it is sincerely done and the sincerity is drawn from a true spirit of belief. But isn't this just what the fundamentalists argue in their own way? Maybe innocents do die in an indiscrimate terrorist attack, but if the faith of the believer is pure... the virgins await.
Blair, Elliot reports, "understands that faith is what gives meaning to the lives of millions". But he is hardly alone in this insight. Now he tells us that he wants to make his living out of it, bringing faiths of all kinds together, so that their competition does not lead to ignorance and fear. He tells Time Magazine that the Foundation "is how I want to spend the rest of my life". Hang on! At this point one does also begin to doubt his sincerity. This sounds to me like a funding pitch. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that he was running flat out for the presidency of the EU.
There is one final point. Where does all this come from? Blair is recognisably British in his mixture of self-depreciation and grandiosity although as elliot observes he is not like most Brits. Nor is he like the regular professionals, or pragmatic and businesslike, in the manner of many politicians. Thinking about the Time Magazine profile I came up with an answer. All this stuff about combining many faiths while doing good deeds is a global projection of what Prince Charles pioneered. He, of course, believes in divine right and expects to become King. As such he will be head of the Church of England and "Defender of the Faith". Early on he told an interviewer that at his coronation he wanted to be proclaimed as "defender of the faiths". Theologically ridiculous, but eminating from his total sincerity, and his recognition that what matters is that believers are sincere. To put it another way, Charles wants to become 'Defender of Sincerity'. Because he is seen as clumsy and uncharismatic he is too lightly dismissed. True, he didn't manage to hack it with Diana, whom Blair famously declaraed on her death to be the "People's Princess". But might this not mean there is a vacency? Doesn't the world need a Peoples' Prince? Looking at the short video interview you can find on the Time Magazine link you can see how much Blair has learnt from Diana. As for the small matter of divine right... what better way to achieve it than through a Faith Foundation.
Declaration of interest. I live with a historian whose first great book was, as she put it, "a study of the development of the Christian faith... the capacity of faith to mobilise... is indicative of a force that may determine other factors, particularly at a time of political failure and economic crisis... the history of faith is far too important to be left to adherents alone."
