INSOLUBLE
`SO WHAT,' we are now constantly asked about every foreign hotspot, 'is the solu- tion?' What is 'the solution' in the Middle East, Central America, Eastern Europe? Will Mr Gorbachev find a solution for Russia? Will Mr Botha find a solution for South Africa? — enquire the headlines on our features pages. There can be no convincing answers because the question is rooted in a false metaphor. There are solutions to problems in mathematics and the physical sciences. But the Lebanon is not a differential equation. Belfast is not a Rubik cube. Politics is not mathematics. If someone were to ask 'Does Mrs Thatcher have a solution for Britain?' I wIe would find the question ludicrous, yet we continue to talk with a straight face about 'a solution' for South Africa, Poland, Nicaragua or wherever. The metaphor gives deceptive reassurance. It is a semantic blanket con- cealing cold truths. We would be better off without it. As the great Alexander Herzen observed more than a century ago: in general, modern man has no solutions.
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