Galloway: A language of dissent?: Pablo Luis González

Having watched the rather impressive performance that George Galloway, MP, put at Hull Truck Theatre on Friday 30th of June 2006 as part of the Humber Mouth Literature Festival, where he spoke without notes or sitting down for nearly an hour, in spite of the rather fancy white leatherette chair provided for him on stage, I was enthralled not only for what he was saying - after all his views are quite known, although they have been grossly distorted by the media, but also for how he was saying it. His use of language, I believe, is quite unique in contemporary British politics. His description of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as being “two cheeks of the same arse” was not to be missed, although some in the audience winced at it. How often, I wonder, have the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the kingdom been characterized with such accuracy and colourful language, if not disrespectful? Certainly, any respectful façade they may have left was stripped out of them with just a few words, as sharp as a butcher knife.

I am aware that some people would say that his performance – such a tour de force - brought out not only the best, but also the worst out of the man and the politician, that his egotism was out in full display, clearly expressed in his language and behaviour, that he was acting as a celebrity, and so on. It may be so. Certainly, it could be argued that his participation in Big Brother was a testimony of that egotism, whilst simultaneously exposing his media naïveté (was he led to believe by Endemol, the producers, that he could argue politics in the show to ensure his participation?), and the dangers of such stunts. Did it damage his political prospects? I doubt it, at least not in the long term. I am sure that voters are capable of viewing it within a greater picture. However, his perceived egotism may well be much more damaging not only to his political prospects, but also to his capacity to muster support for Respect, the party he co-founded as an alternative to New Labour. I was told by several people during the evening of their distrust of the man and the politician, in spite of agreeing with much of what he said.

Notwithstanding these comments and doubts, I found this event to be fascinating as it gave me not only the opportunity to hear and watch at close quarters a politician with such firm, deep and unwavering convictions of social justice both at home and abroad, at odds with the political mainstream, as Galloway, but also to see how language unfolds and is moulded by a politician as a tool to get across his ideological position in adverse circumstances, and as a response to his situation within the political establishment of the United Kingdom, i.e., that of an outcast. His expulsion from the Labour Party in 2003 was the culmination of a process of marginalization of both the man and the position sustained, a process which, whilst it accelerated when the New Labour clique hijacked the party, had started many years before during the so-called “road to electoral recovery”. Even writing this last sentence posed a dilemma: should I call the party Labour or New Labour?

Stark choices faced Galloway when he made those comments regarding the participation of British troops in the attack on Iraq and the role that Blair has played in this disaster, comments that led to his suspension and, ultimately, expulsion from the party. If he had not made them, he would have betrayed not only his own beliefs, but also the trust that many people opposed to the war, and who care about workers’ rights, have on him. The reality is that the Labour Party that Galloway joined as a young man is no longer there, that it is, to all purposes, not only dead, but beyond any possibility of resuscitation. The cancer has spread too far. On this, I am in total agreement with him, as many other people in the audience were, for what I could gather. I write this with some sadness, as it was a Labour government that brought me here from the concentration camps of General Pinochet in 1976.

The directness of his language was for me, a regular listener to BCC Radio 4’s Today programme, so refreshing and in such contrast with the evasiveness and utter blandness of New Labour politicians, strange cyber creatures with amoeba-like qualities, and the vacuity of Cameron and his front line, mere feeble façades resembling those found, appropriately, in Hollywood studios.

Much of what Galloway said, his political philosophy, makes sense, and it is so obvious to normal human beings that I do not understand why other politicians, with a few exceptions, do not see it. And when they see it, as in the case of the debacle in Iraq, it is already too late. Yet we hardly hear this position expressed in mainstream media, either newspapers or broadcasters, not even in the BBC, particularly after the infamous “45 minutes” fiasco (and the death of Dr. Kelly). The concentration of press and broadcasting outlets in the hands of a few barons and the bullying and capitulation of the BBC to the government, takes care that such views do not get across to the public. And when they do, they get distorted. Galloway in Sky News or Fox Television? I don’t think so. The alternative media, especially web based outlets such as Thisisull.com, with their ubiquitous capacity to reach the farthest crevices of the globe, have a vital role to play here.

How do I see this relationship between politics, situation and language in the case of Galloway? When he was expelled from New Labour, he already was in a position of minority within the party, holding unsavoury views for the liking of the hierarchy in issues such as Palestine, the sanctions and bombardment of Iraq, workers rights, NHS, and many others. In fact, it seems that the case was that the comments he made regarding the presence and role of British troops in Iraq were used as an excuse to get rid of him, an excuse that the party hierarchy had been looking for a long time. He has since then not only been marginalized by the political establishment, in spite of having won a seat in the East End of London at the last general election against all odds, but also by the media, currently the two pillars of political power.

He has been accused of being a traitor, of being in the pay of Saddam Hussein, of encouraging subversion and suicide bombings, and of every other wrong doing possible under the sun. What can be expected from the man? To hang himself? Galloway is a heavy weight fighter, and he is getting out of the corner he has been forced into. Confronted with the reality of poor or no access at all to mainstream media, old style public meetings along the breadth and length of the country, shunned by most politician these days of dominant global news – a description of Blair wearing make-up was simply beautiful, literature festivals such as the Humber Mouth here in Hull, rallies, demonstrations and marches, and even Big Brother, have become platforms from which he is fighting for his beliefs for a just society, both here and abroad. For it cannot be morally justified to have a just and balanced society at home while either intervening abroad as a rather decrepit imperial power, like in Iraq, or supporting aggressive and militarized states such as Israel. Certainly he was right to be annoyed and enraged at the suggestion that Britain should intervene in Zimbabwe. The days of the empire where the sun never sets are gone for never to return, regardless of the lack of thrust or not that people may have had on their former colonial masters.

The directness and colour of his language, his attacks on morally bankrupt politicians and ministers, his skills to disarm, disassemble and throw back opponents’ arguments onto their faces, so evident and useful during the American Senate hearing, the repeated use of the words “I” and “I did this or that” or “I was there”, have been moulded initially by his political honesty and integrity, by his situation as an outsider to the political establishment, and honed by the fact that more recently he became an outcast, a strong willed politician with deep convictions facing the formidable machine that New Labour is and the combined onslaught by newspapers and broadcasters – just remember how he has been treated by the presenters of a supposedly balanced and neutral programme such as Radio 4’s Today in the very few occasions he has been interviewed – and all of this without a sizeable political apparatus behind him. Without a formidable ego to confront these combined brutal attacks, he would have been politically dead a long time ago.

When facing an establishment that uses words as weapons of mass destruction, sometimes in a subtle way and other times not so subtly, a language has to be honed to counter those and be able to be heard above all the noise. This is Galloway’s language, the language of a fighter deeply committed to social justice, equality and workers’ rights. Certainly, Britain needs more politicians and activists with these qualities and courage to speak out.

Note: This article was originally written for Thisisull.com website, and was developed from an entry to the Humber Mouth Literature Festival's blogspot entry, requested by Maggie Hannan