Originally written for The Independent in 2003 "The politics of history" has become a post that continues to resonate with your humble e-scribbler if no one else. it first appeared in July 2005, came back in a reprint in 2010, and now re-appears once more.
Some of you will have read it at least once before. I you recall it, then you will probably feel those uncomfortable sensations of familiarity as you look at politics today and then think back on the recent past. Readers who have only recently discovered these scribbles will hopefully get a jolt out of it to make you think about the repeating patterns in local political rhetoric.
Clearly we are not on a mere merry-go-round of words. We are on one in which ideas and actions come back again and again. The time between the repetitions seems to be decreasing. There is one glaring error in the post. Voters are not getting better at spotting the charlatans. They embrace them more fervently than ever.
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History is a powerful thing in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.
In his victory speech a few weeks ago, premier-elect Danny
Williams pledged that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians had voted to seize
control of their destiny using words eerily reminiscent of Joe Smallwood, Brian
Peckford, and Brian Tobin. "There will be no more giveaways. The giveaways
end right here and right now!"
Why are we stuck on this rhetorical merry-go-round?
One reason is that political leaders take a Calvinist
approach to history. As Calvin told his stuffed tiger Hobbes many years ago,
people reinvent history to suit modern prejudices and to fit modern needs. We
spin our history, old and new, reweaving the threads of fact to suit the
immediate need. Tories blame the Liberals for job cuts in the early 1990s,
conveniently forgetting the world recession and the abysmal state of the
province’s finances. New Liberals blame old Liberals for the Upper Churchill
give-away. Nationalists blame foreigners for everything from the collapse of
responsible government to current resource "giveaways", all the while
forgetting that we have controlled our own destiny for most of the past 200
years.
The second reason is that spin seems to work. Politicians
like to get elected. Brian Tobin and Brian Peckford won huge majority
governments promising that one day the sun will shine, that we will be masters
in our own house or that not one teaspoon of ore will leave the province. They
hammered at the giveaways, vowing never again. At least in Peckford’s case, he
stuck around long enough to make a decision, yet, as good as his intentions
were in signing the Atlantic Accord, newer politicians have found in that deal
their latest scapegoat.
The third reason is that politicians are people and people
like sameness; it's a human characteristic. Change in any form is often
intimidating. For politicians in a province that has experienced relatively
little change throughout its history, more of the same seems like the answer to
everything, especially if you want to get elected.
The fourth reason is that there is a certain expectation
that everything in the province is government's responsibility. For most of our
history, Newfoundland and Labrador has been a top-down
place. Churches and politicians ran things. The churches handled schools,
salvation and morality. The government ran everything else, from job creation
to the dole. If voters expect you to walk on water, and you don't have a better
idea, politicians found it easier to take a step or blame someone else for the
supposed failure, if they wanted to get elected.
History seems to push politicians to more of the same, but
ironically, history is about change. And as the Newfoundland and Labrador electorate
changes, they are getting better able to spot the same carpet being sold to
them time and again.
The choice for the new crop of politicians elected last
month is whether to spin history for immediate, and ultimately short-lived,
gains. Or use history - our experience, our culture - as one tool to guide
substantive changes in and for Newfoundland and Labrador. In
eight years’ time, they may find that many of the changes they hoped for like
massive new industries will still be little more than the fodder for someone
else’s rhetoric.
The four factors just mentioned, though, are all within
their power to change.
For a politician to change those in Newfoundland and Labrador would
be something truly historic.
-srbp-