Suck my Magna Carta: Let's Have a Drink.

I've decided to clump together all of my political rants into one title, 'Suck my Magna Carta'. This is for a whole load of reasons, the main one being that I'm quite immature and the rest are more boring things like clarity.
I've used the Magna Carta because it was a document that was a) imposed by peasants onto Lords which given the class ridden nature of British society, I rather like and b) because it was arguably the first written charter of rights in the Anglo world. 
I think I've made it pretty clear how much I value freedom, especially individual freedom before, but these posts will cover more specific issues, from the fundamental to the rather silly. I'm going to start with an issue that is both of those options: the consumption and attempts to regulate alcohol in the UK.


Now I'm going to make a disclaimer right here right now: drinking lots of booze is really bad for you. It messes with your liver and generally makes you act like a dick (actually not necessarily- a unit of alcohol takes nearly an hour to process through your system so if you just had a shot and suddenly feel elated, light-headed and inclined to high five and start wet t-shirt competitions it's either earlier booze or the result of your brain dumping dopamine onto you because you've trained it to associate alcohol with good).

However, just because it's bad for you doesn't mean that the government should fuck with your right to sink a bunch of cheap lagers after a week of hauling shit around at the factory or being beaten down by your condescending boss.

I say cheap lager for a reason. The government isn't for example limiting imports of the high alcohol  'gets you smashed at weddings' drink i.e. champagne but is instead targeting cheap lager, the type bought in supermarkets by poor people because if there is nothing worse than poor people it's drunk poor people.

The pint, especially a true British pint is a holy thing for the Brits. The government aren't going to mess with it except to tax pubs out of existance and then moan about how poor people are buying piss-weak foreign lager instead of just meekly paying higher prices they can't afford.

I also get that we have a National Health Service which we all pay for and dealing with boozy people is expensive. So is looking after old people though, in fact that's pretty much the most expensive thing. I'm not try to equate alcoholics with say, your lovely gran, but the point is that lots of things cause health problems and we are still paying them. Actually that isn't the point at all. The point is that enforcing a collective morality on people of low incomes is a flat out terrible thing to do, especially since people of middle and upper income actually drink more 

That's OK though since they work hard unlike say someone who slogs through hours of a depressing job just to pay an extortionate rent in London since it is next to impossible to find anywhere cheap to rent in the city since much of its economy is driven not by actual enterprise but through rent collection.

Also they're probably wealthy because they drink. Poor people on the other hand: fuck them they can't enjoy a few cold ones because they might behave in ways you don't like and then who knows what will happen.

I'm not ignoring the blight of alcoholism on a culture, ours especially. I'm saying that government intervention is logically fallacious and morally wrong. See for example how Real Ale is making a comeback all on its own with the re-emergence of microbreweries as a place to visit and the fact that people now value individualism in their drink. Minimum pricing and cross-board tax can only harm growth in an industry that is actually entrepreneurial: you know, the type where you actually make a product and then sell it and the best product sells the most.

As a final addendum, I'd point out that in Japan you can buy alcohol from shops 7 days a week and 24/7, the citizens there get blind drunk too and yet the crime-rate is relatively low.

Anyway, this is really quite a silly post and though perhaps confused at times, I hope highlights what I generally feel about government i.e. they should absolutely not be in the business of 'promoting responsibility'. Especially given the character of those who are actually elected into office.

Malaise in Malawi

I’m learning to love alliterative blog-titles, even if they are completely inappropriate and don’t really mean much. Both apply here.

Anyway, I read with interest a new BBC article regarding Malawi’s President Bingu regarding foreign donors who are, according to him, plotting to have him overthrown.

It is difficult as an outsider to gauge exactly the threat that Bingu is for the Malawian people. He arrived in the post-Banda era of a new-found multi-party politics as a talented civil servant, educated in India and Los Angeles who quickly advanced through the ranks to be elected President in 2004 before his successful handling of the economy had him reelected in a landslide in 2009.

He inherited a nation ravaged by AIDS with over 50% below the poverty line and fast fuel and food shortages despite growth in neighbouring Zambia and Tanzania. Bingu was and still is keen on his relationship with Western powers and still is a capable economic technician. Whilst aid has declined over the last few years, the situation in Malawi in terms of fighting HIV, food supplies and fuel shortages has drastically improved.

Sadly, Bingu’s technocratic micro-management of the economy is often reflected in his social views. Homosexuality was made illegal in 2010 but despite describing it is ‘bad in the eyes of God’, the Malawian government promised to review the law in December 2011.  Discrimination against homosexuals is par for the course in certain parts of the world, which is a cheap shot to make, but I only bring it up because it was asked of me by a Malawian native when I visited last July.

Actually, a lot this post is going to be based on things people said to me, but for someone who visited only once and drew from that everything that I know about the country I have little else to go on.

Malawi is a nation stretched around the vast Lake Malawi. It provides a major route for resources being transported through East Africa and forces a strange sort of local town planning. Unlike much of South-East Africa where towns are clumped and easily discernible, in Malawi settlements stretch along the road side intermittently, a few shacks here, a couple of houses there, slowly building into a larger settlement. People string the roadside too, mainly children. Life expectancy here is low and the lack of adults means that a good amount of these kids are orphans, many of whom have formed their own social strata and town life.

Most of the tourist attractions are to be found round Lake Malawi, an awe inspiring stretch of freshwater with a lot of tourist destinations attached to educational missions. Khandi beach in particular is attached to a lively town, obsessed with soccer like most of Africa and home to a number of educational establishments and clinics.
Khandi beach is also the home of Chibuku festival, a yearly dance party that brings European and global DJs together to dance on the lakeshore. The name is taken from a product incongruous to the country, the wheat beer Chibuku, a disgusting but strangely moorish local drink.

I was at Khandi beach when the president himself arrived, motorcade in tow for a supporters rally. Despite his calls for youth-league members to crack down on protest, local Malawians were vocal in their disliking of the man.

“He is just stupid,” said one, “He promised much when we re-elected him, but he has not done these things.”

I asked whether they thought things had got better under Bingu, “Yes,” they said. Credit where credit is due I suppose, but there was a caveat. “He has done some good things, but not enough. He does not like how little we care about him.”

That lack of care became apparent rather fast. I do not know what numbers the president expected to turn out for his rally, but most people were happy to simply get on with their day once the motorcade had gone past. The rally was televised I am told by locals, with crowd noise added.

There are two points to be made at this stage: Malawi did elect Bingu, and from an outsider’s perspective at least, his leadership has done a lot of good things in Malawi. He is worrying autocratic, but has delivered a surplus in food supplies and increased attempts to fight HIV. Moreover, it is not always clear that Western tactics of decreasing aid and in the case of the UK, pulling out diplomats are working. Malawi’s national identity is only just establishing itself and it would not do necessarily to encourage anti-UK nationalism when there lives a sizable minority of Europeans and Indians in the country. Also, for all his bluster, the president seems keen to keep his allies sweet in order to get Malawi growing again. The capital shows signs of growth, complete with a lively affluent shopping centre, bookshops, gyms and a Nando’s though naturally these are way out of the reach of many citizens still.

If this is sounding too much of a ‘I saw things on my Gap Yah’ then feel free to tell me. I’m not trying to impose my opinion on the situation, I’m just telling it how I saw it at the time and for the most part what I saw was this: Malawians are relatively optimistic about their future but with major caveats. There did not seem to be much rebellious sentiment about their current government, more a healthy opposition and from many, complete ambivalence. Of course for people in power, to be ignored is often a worse crime than outright hostility and the current president must be watched.

Malawi is a beautiful place and like any number of curious, sometimes disruptive and sometimes observant western explorers before me, I was bewitched by the place.

I can only hope that something good will happen.

NB Photos to follow.