Politicians are voted into office to represent people's opinions, not their anatomy. If a person is particularly good at representing the opinions of their fellow constituents, then their fellow constituents should vote them into office, irrespective of their race, age, height, gender or creed.
Easier said than done.
It would be hopelessly dim to believe that we live in a society free from prejudice, and as there those amongst us who are racist, so there are those who are sexist too. For that reason, women have until quite recently found it very difficult to get into places like golf clubs and parliament. For that reason, rather than win the day through reasoned argument, some thought it better to resort to more compulsive methods of getting women into the top jobs. Thus 'positive discrimination' was born. Brilliant! Don't give them a choice. It's woman or woman, so make your mind up! The inevitable result was that the number of women in the Assembly, amongst other institutions, increased markedly from what it otherwise would be.
Now the problem. You see 'positive discrimination', however you dress it up, is still discrimination. In this context, if a man applies for a position, he will be flatly turned down because he is a man. Thus one has simply replaced popular sex discrimination in favour of men with institutional sex discrimination in favour of women. The only way this stands even the remotest chance of achieving moral acceptability is if for every seat you reserve for a woman, you also reserve another, equally winnable seat for a man. This only stands up to scrutiny if one believes that politicians are there to represent anatomy as well as opinion. This also goes against the idea of a meritocracy, where it is individual ability that allows for progression, since one would thereby sacrifice ability for gender and so ensure we have a perfect 50/50 gender split of second rate politicians. 'Positive discrimination' is also undemocratic, since it does not permit a pure expression of will. It may also be the case that an extremely able female politician who was by far and away the best candidate finds her credibility somewhat undermined by observations that she only had to contend with a fraction of the possible number of competitors for her position as a result of 'positive discrimination'.
Of course, the final say is with people, and one Peter Law showed what could happen in these circumstances. The irony of it is that events conspired to see a woman hold that seat (Blaenau Gwent) in the assembly, a woman who got in without the direct of help positive discrimination and in fact would not have become an AM if the original reaction against 'positive discrimination' had not occurred. So in a haphazard and roundabout fashion, 'positive discrimination' did get a woman into office in a legitimate fashion after all.
Saturday 10 March 2007
Middle of nowhere.
It is often claimed that all the mainstream political parties are the same, and that rather than a contest of ideologies, politics has become a contest for the middle ground. In a country largely free of discomfort and where horrendous social injustice is increasingly confined to the inaudible few, it is no surprise that people want the status quo, and a steady 'more-of-the-same' line from their politicians.
This is something of a obstacle for Welsh nationalism. As a cause, it tends to thrive off injustice and outrage, and God only knows there has been enough of that throughout Welsh history. However, in recent times, the causes that could once again fuel the nationalist fire and give cause to alter the political status quo, in Wales at least, have not come to the public fore. Issues such as the ability of Westminster to out-muscle any Welsh dissent in the governance of Wales (don't think for a minute that over-glazed hole-in-the-ground down in the Bay would make a blind bit of difference should something of that nature occur), the purging of rural areas of their indigenous inhabitants (Edward I didn't need an army. A free and unregulated housing market would have done the trick at a fraction of the cost to the royal purse) and the hopeless over reliance of the Welsh rural economy on a seasonal, menial and poorly-paid luxury industry like tourism (luxury in the sense that it will be the first to feel the pinch should the economy splutter a little) are just a few examples.
The trouble is that these issues are perceived as either rocking the boat (tut tut) or extremely boring (yawn). Not because they necessarily are boat-rocking or boring, but because they don't fit in with the cosy established agenda of those in charge, which has had a decade to gel (or fester, depending on your point of view). None of the above issues are esspecially controversial. They simply require recognition and the will to do something useful. Sticking one's fingers in one's ears and humming loudly will not make the problem go away. From Westminster these may seem like small problems, but from Wales they are somewhat larger, and simply fiddling about on the centre ground in an ineffectul sort of way and contriving to hopelessly bog things down in a left/right debate when somebody tries to do something constructive is not useful.
This is something of a obstacle for Welsh nationalism. As a cause, it tends to thrive off injustice and outrage, and God only knows there has been enough of that throughout Welsh history. However, in recent times, the causes that could once again fuel the nationalist fire and give cause to alter the political status quo, in Wales at least, have not come to the public fore. Issues such as the ability of Westminster to out-muscle any Welsh dissent in the governance of Wales (don't think for a minute that over-glazed hole-in-the-ground down in the Bay would make a blind bit of difference should something of that nature occur), the purging of rural areas of their indigenous inhabitants (Edward I didn't need an army. A free and unregulated housing market would have done the trick at a fraction of the cost to the royal purse) and the hopeless over reliance of the Welsh rural economy on a seasonal, menial and poorly-paid luxury industry like tourism (luxury in the sense that it will be the first to feel the pinch should the economy splutter a little) are just a few examples.
The trouble is that these issues are perceived as either rocking the boat (tut tut) or extremely boring (yawn). Not because they necessarily are boat-rocking or boring, but because they don't fit in with the cosy established agenda of those in charge, which has had a decade to gel (or fester, depending on your point of view). None of the above issues are esspecially controversial. They simply require recognition and the will to do something useful. Sticking one's fingers in one's ears and humming loudly will not make the problem go away. From Westminster these may seem like small problems, but from Wales they are somewhat larger, and simply fiddling about on the centre ground in an ineffectul sort of way and contriving to hopelessly bog things down in a left/right debate when somebody tries to do something constructive is not useful.
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