Another Spectator's Notebook
As my editor departed for his hols in County Cork last week I promised him that my first Notebook would consist entirely of grouses, some of which I have been saving up for some time. Here goes.
Get that pedestrian
The vicious — indeed murderous — conspiracy against pedestrians continues unabated, to such a degree, indeed, that I have come to believe that the GLC's scheme for a pedestrian area in central London is no more than a smoke screen to distract our attention and raise our hopes while further plots are laid against us. The two main arms of the conspiracy are an assault on the nerves and patience of the pedestrian, and regular assaults on his life. Nerves and patience are cunningly attacked by little electrical devices attached to traffic lights at crossroads. These invite the pedestrian wishing to cross the road to press a button which will work the traffic lights, halt the traffic and allow him to cross over. Of course they do no such thing. At regular, if well-spaced, intervals —with which the button has not'hing to do — the lights change and the pedestrian can cross the road — if he is quick. For this is the point at which the second assault is made. It consists simply of the utter refusal of the typical British motorist to observe any courtesy or care for life as he bears down on a pedestrian.
With a quite splendid irony the motorist is particularly reckless at things laughingly called pedestrian crossings. Theoretically, once the pedestrian puts his foot off the pavement oncoming traffic pulls to a stop: in fact it rarely does. I have myself evolved an admittedly risky, but so far highly effective way of counteracting this homicidal impulse. Instead of hanging around on the pavement I walk out anyway: they never actually have the nerve to kill you. And it is one of my greatest pleasures, when some motorist is forced to scream to a halt, to stop, to gaze at him for some seconds, smile broadly, and shake my finger at him. Some of the consequent fits are gratifyingly apoplectic.
Black barbarity
One of my longstanding grouse's'IN' now shared by an increasing 'number of civilised people. It is a groUse, against the racialism and barbarity of Tai'ge"iirhbers of African leaders who are ibreeilrbeefing about the injustices done to them ,hY Western nations. I need refer only in passing to the savagery of that King Kong figure of modern African politics, General Amin; and to the bitter irony of Uganda taking a leading part in the campaign to keep Rhodesia's multi-racial team out of the Olympics. The issues involved in the expulsion of the British Asians of Uganda and the rows at Munich have been well covered elsewhere, and the fundamental idiocy of white people allowing the blacks to dub them racialist without any sufficiently strong contrary accusations and actions was brilliantly dissected by Peregrine Worsthorne in this week's Sunday Telegraph. One or two correspondents have, however, proffered a certain amount of sympathy to the brutal Amin, on the possibly sufficient grounds that he is only semi-literate, and really rather stupid. I prefer, anyway, to direct my fire against those African leaders who used to be — and to some extent still are — pets of the left-wing establishment in this country. Foremost among them is Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, the cruel results of whose complaisance and cowardice in Zanzibar we explored last week.
Death in Zanzibar
I now hear that, under the new Zanzibar regime of Aboud Jumbe, sixty-three people are to be brought to trial on charges arising out of the assassination of Shaikh Karume. They will be tried by something called a People's Court. This is a group of individuals, with no legal training, chosen by the dominant Afro-Shirazi Party. Nyerere, it is true, once sent some judges to Zanzibar to clean things up. They were met at the airport and sent back: he did nothing. The sixty-three, I need hardly add, will not be allowed to offer any defence before the People's Court. They are doomed; but there are also seven other accused who, according to Jumbe, are somewhere out of the country; and some two score imprisoned on the mainland under Nyerere's own jurisdiction. What is to happen to them? That, says Jumbe, is "a matter for the mainland government." But he clearly expects Nyerere's co-operation which, after all, was extended to Karume when he wanted to bump off some political prisoners who had taken refuge in Dar-es-Salaam.
Fascistic gibberish
A colleague has just passed me a copy of a brochure advertising part-time courses at the Polytechnic of Central London. Ac companying the brochure is something that looks rather like a glossy book-jacket, On the front of this are the letters PCL and the words ' part-time courses,' as well as a meaningless abstract design that looks like a printer's blot. There is nothing on the back but, on the inside, are these words from Harold Laski: "In any society the tactics of a privileged order are always the same tactics. Declare, in the first place, that the &mend is impossible, that its time for translation into statute has not yet come; then when it is clear that there is an urgency about it, say that the time is coming but that this is not yet the time; then when an angry clamour surrounds the demand, insist that you cannot yield to violence; and when finally you are driven to yield, say that it is because you have been intellectually convinced that the perspective of events has changed." Note, in this piece of totalitarian and fascistic gibberish, two things, The first is the use of the word ' demand ': it is not defined; it does not claim to be related to anything just or right; its use rejects implicitly all the uses of civilised democratic procedure; and it is clearly a product of the selfish impulse to dominance of the dissatisfied intellectual who feels out of things. None of this, however, makes up my real grouse, whic'h is not what is said, but what courses the brochure is advertising. They are in Statistics and Mathematics.
Ruthless Democrats
I find it really saddening that Charles Wheeler, the BBC's man in Washington, and one of the best broadcasters around, either on radio or television, should have joined the chorus of carping criticism about the highly efficient organisation of the Republican convention in Miami. All commentators agree that there is no controversial issue likely to arouse excitement as President Nixon is re-nominated. Fair enough, and a bit tiresome for reporters. But they go on to emphasise and elaborate on the organised character of the enthusiasm at Miami for the President and his lady in a tone of voice that suggests that reveals something wicked about the nature of the Republican party; and many contrast it to the fetching gaiety and openness of the unwashed scruffies at the Democratic convention. The worst offender in this respect is I. F. Stone, in the current New York Review of books who goes on and on about McGovern's beautiful children who, he thinks, will inherit the earth. The fact of the matter is, as Henry Fairlie showed in our pages recently, that McGovern got the Democratic nomination only through the most ruthless, hard-nosed and unrelenting organisational chicanery
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