2013-05-22T13:36:26-04:00 Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=sorab-shroff Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Sorab Shroff Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3038690 2013-04-08T13:37:14-04:00 2013-04-08T13:49:41-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
Ha dato il via ad una rivoluzione sociale che si è materializzata in molti aspetti del viver quotidiano. Era linfa giovane e viva in un partito conservatore all'epoca pieno di anziani rappresentanti dell'alta borghesia. Ma è stata la figlia di un fruttivendolo del Linlolnshire, a guidare questo paese per 13 anni. Basti ricordare che durante i primi tempi alla guida del partito, un parlamentare proprio dei conservatori, si riferiva a lei chiamandola pubblicamente Hilda, il suo secondo nome, per sottolineare e deridere le sue origini di basso rango.

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Poiché Margaret Thatcher è stata la prima donna occidentale a ricoprire l'incarico di primo ministro, il primo chiaro esempio di una donna alla guida di una nazione che ci ha aiutato a rompere le catene psicologiche in cui ci trovavamo. Dall'irruzione della Thatcher sulla scena politica ad oggi, il seggio dei conservatori in Parlamento è stato occupato da una donna musulmana e da 13 politici apertamente gay (mentre negli Stati Uniti in tutte e due le Camere del parlamento ci sono solo due politici apertamente gay).

E lei ci aveva visto proprio giusto a riguardo dell'euro. E non si può dire il contrario. Una volta chiese: "Stiamo pensando davvero di aderire ad una moneta unica che non potremo mai controllare e che non ci permetterà mai di determinare i nostri stessi interessi?".

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Sì, la Thatcher ha commesso errori. Forse perché era troppo acuta. Lei, ad esempio, non ha mai promosso o incoraggiato le quote rosa. Era estremamente conservatrice per i costumi sociali e un vero disastro nella battaglia per le uguaglianze di genere, come la nota 'Section 28' (norma inserita nel Local Governmen Act del 1988, ndt). Ma al di la di ciò, ha fatto del Regno Unito una nazione più forte e più prospera. La media delle entrate è aumentata del 25 per cento durante il suo premierato. Ma ancora più di ciò è stata capace di ridare forza e vigore alla Gran Bretagna. Di dare forza in termini nazionali. E' semplice tassare i cittadini ed ottenere, così, un rafforzamento dello stato sociale, aprire più miniere di carbone e far crescere la spesa pubblica. Ma il Regno Unito non ha più un impero da tassare. E, dunque, alla fine l'unica possibilità rimane solo quella di tassare i più ricchi prima che il paese vada a rotoli. E l'unico modo utile a costruire un paese più forte è quello di rendere le persone libere di poter fare impresa, assumendo personale e facendo così crescere l'economia. La Thatcher ha avuto l'intelligenza di capire e il coraggio di dirlo apertamente.

Ha rappresentato senza dubbio un'ingiusta benedizione per l'Inghilterra, una vera e propria "botta di culo". Dire con semplicità: "scusate, lo Stato non ha più soldi da spendere", non è da tutti. Un messaggio molto simile a quello che i capi delle potenze occidentali non sono stati capaci di dare nel corso degli ultimi anni. Una spesa pubblica eccessiva e i salvataggi in extremis delle banche sull'orlo della crisi hanno portato l'occidente alla situazione in cui ci troviamo: piegato sulle sue stesse ginocchia. "Non sono i governi che creano benessere - disse la Thatcher -, ma la gente. La politica deve dare strutture che incoraggino le persone a dare il meglio di sé. Dobbiamo necessariamente abbandonare il concetto, debilitante, dello stato onnipresente che prende troppo dai singoli cittadini e cambiarlo con quello di uno stato che dà ai suoi cittadini".

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Le sue politiche hanno provocato comprensibilissimi patimenti alle famiglie dei miniatori che, un po' alla volta, hanno perso tutto. Ma, d'altro canto, la domanda cui si deve rispondere è: è compito dello Stato quello di gestire le miniere, guidare le compagnie di bandiera o supportare il settore manufatturiero? Lo Stato deve aiutare ogni settore professionale morente? Prima dell'avvento della Thatcher i sindacati proclamavano lo sciopero ogni qual volta una nuova tecnologia si affacciava sul mercato o quando la disoccupazione cresceva. Ricordiamoci cosa era diventato il paese tra la spazzatura per le strade ed i morti non seppelliti. Eravamo sotto ricatto. Lei riuscì a spezzare il controllo dei sindacati su tutto ciò. Come disse una volta Martin Amis: "lei fu la fredda infermiera che ci diede la medicina di cui avevamo bisogno, ma che non volevamo. Lei fece degli inglesi un popolo più consapevole di se stesso, più moderno e deciso".

Di fatto se n'è mai fregata di quello che pensavano gli altri. Era solita affermare che la sua ricetta per salvare il paese avrebbe funzionato bene nel lungo periodo a differenza di quella socialista che avrebbe esaurito le risorse in poco tempo. E grazie a questo semplice concetto ha conquistato il cuore ed i voti dei cittadini. Non certo perché diede licenze gratuite alle televisioni o carità di sorta, come invece facevano da sempre i laburisti. Il cittadino comune sapeva che quei soldi uscivano direttamente dal suo portafoglio, dalle sue tesse.
C'è una ragione per la quale l'iPad o l'iPhone sono stati creati e disegnati negli Stati Uniti, costruiti in oriente e reso profitto in occidente. C'è una ragione perché gli aspirapolvere Dyson sono stati pensati e progettati in Inghilterra, costruiti in oriente, e creato reddito ancora una volta in occidente. Questo accade perché le società che si basano sul libero scambio, dove lo Stato non decide cosa devi dire, fare o creare sono società di grande creatività.

Nonostante le sirene degli anni scorsi relative alle cosiddette tigri asiatiche (qualcosa che sentiamo dire ormai da una quarantina d'anni) e le pressioni provenienti dall'Unione europea per una maggiore regolamentazione dei mercati, l'Inghilterra è ancora oggi una delle nazioni più ricche del mondo. E questo è possibile grazie al fatto che, a differenza di molti paesi orientali, un imprenditore creativo non deve guadare per messi o anni nel mare magnum della burocrazia al fine di ottenere tutte le autorizzazioni necessarie a fare ciò che vuole. Abbiamo molta meno burocrazia e, per questo motivo, molta meno corruzione statale. A differenza dell'Est, dove lo Stato decide chi può avere attività imprenditoriali (come la "Licenza raj" indiana, che ad oggi rappresenta un esempio paraleggendario di come i politici e i loro amichetti guidino le industrie, prevenendo ogni mente creativa dall'uscire fuori dal sacco). Grazie alla Thatcher è stato distrutto buona parte dell'incubo burocratico nazionale.

Persino i critici di destra della Lady di Ferro ammettono, ora, che "siamo più sani, forti, sicuri e che le aspettative di vita sono più alte del passato... il nostro standard di vita è senza dubbio più alto di quello degli stessi nostri imperi passati". E questo sempre grazie al libero mercato. L'ultraliberale Charles Murray ha affermato che: "Dalla notte dei tempi fino al diciottesimo secolo, la maggior parte della popolazione mondiale era povera, a fronte di una sparuta minoranza di benestanti al di sopra di essi. Poi è venuto il capitalismo e la rivoluzione industriale. E dovunque il capitalismo è stato portato, lì il benessere è cresciuto e la povertà diminuita. E, allo stesso tempo, dove il capitalismo non ha conquistato il potere, lì le popolazioni sono rimaste povere ed arretrate. E, infine, dovunque, il capitalismo è stato cacciato, lì la povertà è tornata a crescere".
Afferma Dominic Lawson: "Il socialismo distrugge la responsabilità morale, e coloro che fanno fortune nei mercati in cui c'è competizione (attraverso prezzi più convenienti o merce migliore) aiutano la società molto meglio dei sindacati". E questa lezione è stata ampiamente compresa dalla Thatcher.

La democrazia è la virtù e il valore più alto e nobile delle società occidentali. La Thathcer ha parlato a chiare lettere in favore della democrazia, della libertà economica, del libero mercato e ha fatto di tutto per aiutare l'Europa orientale, all'epoca sotto il giogo del comunismo e del totalitarismo, al fine di aiutare le persone e renderle libere. L'intera Europa (non solo l'Europa occidentale) è ora un luogo democratico e il vigore della Thatcher nel condannare il comunismo ha senza dubbio aiutato ad ottenere tale risultato.

Bisogna comunque dire che la mera liberà economica non rende le persone felici. Ma, ancora una volta, il mondo lasciatoci dalla Thatcher offre una consolazione espressa nelle parole di Helen Gurley Brown: "Se il danaro non porta la felicità, aiuta quanto meno ad essere confortevoli nella tristezza".

Le persone che criticano una delle più grandi eroine occidentali (e del mondo capitalistico) di tutti i tempi, lo possono fare proprio grazie ai diritti che sono loro garantiti in occidente. Questi privilegi includono la "libera" educazione e, in buona parte d'Europa, una sanità pubblica, un sistema pensionistico e altri tipi di supporto simili. Questi critici sono, dal punto di vista economico, ignoranti. Non capiscono che questi diritti non esistono in buona parte del mondo, e che la maggior parte degli abitanti della Terra non ha accesso a servizi neanche lontanamente equiparabili a quelli di cui loro possono godere, in termini di sanità, e questo perché la gran parte degli abitanti della Terra vive in paesi poveri e con economie disastrate. Questi privilegi occidentali esistono grazie alla crescita economica, alle tasse, all'occupazione e alle corporazioni. Le persone di sinistra che criticano il mercato libero (e gli eccessi, gli alti e i bassi che vanno di pari passo con i mercati) pensano che l'educazione, la sanità e in generale lo stato sociale siano donati da un'entità superiore o ottenuti per grazia ricevuta. Hanno la folle pretesa che uno super Stato li stia guidando.

Il padre della Thatcher non è mai andato all'Università. "Il percorso che porta al potere - affermava la Lady di Ferro - semplicemente non c'era. Lì, a quei tempi, non c'era alcun percorso. Ognuno si deve fare da se. Quest'è".

Fanno ancora eco le parole di Ben Machell che affermò, in un contesto differente: "In Inghilterra, preferiamo pensare che le persone che raggiungono il vertice sono stupidi e, in linea teorica, è odiosamente così. La mobilità sociale del nostro paese è diversa da quella degli altri, e purtroppo è ancora troppo forte la predominanza del 'chi' conosco sul 'cosa' conosco. Così quando qualcuno riesce a rompere questo terribile sistema, riesce a polverizzarlo e raggiungere il vertice della scala sociale, non possiamo fare altro che tributare loro il dovuto rispetto".

Durante l'ultimo periodo da Primo ministro, la Thatcher diventò superba, quasi imperiale. "Siamo diventate nonne" disse usando il "noi" di suono regale, quando suo figlio Mark divenne padre. Durante il suo periodo in carica passò da una sorta di sicurezza coscienziosa ad una consapevolezza (del suo potere, ndt) splendente, radiosa. Una sera, presente all'Operà di Parigi, sembrava assomigliare sempre più ad Elisabetta I. E in quella stessa sera i suoi giovani colleghi di partito tramavano contro la loro "splendida madre". Ma per quale motivo non sarebbe dovuta essere così sicura, radiosa e finanche imperiale?

Ha dovuto superare discriminazioni di classe di genere (ancora esistenti) radicate nei secoli, è riuscita a spazzare via il pregiudizio contro le donne diventando la prima leader del mondo occidentale. Quando Obama ha sconfitto secoli di discriminazioni razziali diventando il primo presidente nero degli Stati Uniti, abbiamo festeggiato alla possibilità che a volte gli uomini possono sconfiggere i vecchi pregiudizi. Quindi, perché non fare lo stesso con la Thatcher? È giusto che lei sia considerata di caratura imperiale nella nostra storia perché, proprio come Churchill, ha salvato la Gran Bretagna sull'orlo del baratro. Nonostante la mancanza di ingenti quantità di riserve petrolifere o risorse naturali, nonostante la fine dell'impero, nonostante tutto, l'Inghilterra è ancora tra le prime economie del mondo. E tutto ciò lo si deve solo grazie alla Thatcher.

Ci sono in giro tanti bravi ed intelligenti commentatori che criticano intensamente la Thatcher. Questi osservatori non sono come gli altri, che scimmiottano le opinioni altrui e sputano critiche stantie e vecchie. Loro hanno davvero qualcosa da dire. Uno dei più brillanti è Hanif Kureishi il quale, nonostante ciò, le riconosce il merito di aver cambiato profondamente il nostro paese e di aver creato una nazione meno provinciale. Nel libro "Qualcosa da dirti" (titolo originale: "Something To Tell You"), un romanzo su desiderio, solitudine, sesso e mezza età, Kureishi riflette sull'Inghilterra di oggi, il paese che la Thatcher ha contribuito a modellare. "Ora ovviamente - si legge nel libro -, viviamo nella mente, se non nel culo, della Thatcher. Nel mondo che lei ha creato, fatto di competizione, consumismo, celebrità, sensi di colpa dei figli di puttana, carità: di abbuffate e debito".

La verità è che la maggior parte di noi non ne vuole sapere di tornare indietro alla vecchia Inghilterra degli anni '70, fatta di grande pressione fiscale, nazionalizzazioni e dal cambio controllato, ovvero il paese da cui la Thatcher ci ha liberato. Poiché ora viviamo nella nostra Inghilterra della prosperità, con la possibilità di scegliere del nostro futuro, abbiamo un prezzo da pagare in quanto figli di questo sistema consumistico. E questo prezzo si chiama X-Factor, Tesco. E io credo che, in fin dei conti, sia un prezzo accettabile. Prima dell'avvento della Thatcher l'Inghilterra era come un paese invecchiato ed ingrigito, dove ognuno parlava solo di declino e passato. La motivazione grazie alla quale i contribuenti hanno potuto pagare le tasse e contribuire alla rinascita delle città, alla creazione della Tate Modern, ai musei ed a tutte le altre luccicanti imprese pubbliche che sono spuntate come funghi in tutto il paese (includendo anche le Olimpiadi ovviamente) è da ricercare nell'intervento dello Stato che, proprio come il latte caldo sgorga dal seno di una madre affettuosa verso il proprio piccolo, lo Stato ha foraggiato tutte queste imprese. E tutto ciò è stato reso possibile solo grazie alla Thatcher e al fatto che ha tagliato il debito, durante gli anni '80, tagliandolo in modo selvaggio senza dubbio, ma facendo sì che lo stato non fosse più appesantito dal debito e frastornato dai tassi d'interesse degli anni '90 e dei primi anni 2000.

È un merito di Margaret Thatcher non essere stata amata da tutti, perché non è stata gentile con tutti. La sua eredità è ancora dibattuta ed ancora odiata da tanti. Come ebbe a dire Alan Clark in merito al perché la Thatcher non fosse amata, disse: "Gentile? Amata? Lei (la Thatcher, ndt) non è qui per essere amata, imbecille! Lei è quel che è!".

Spesso penso che lei sia odiata prevalentemente dalle persone che odiano se stessi, perché queste persone vivono vite pacifiche solo all'apparenza e solo in superficie. Vite fatte di compromessi e vissute senza rischi. Persone che non hanno, con tutta probabilità, neanche mai provato a capire quali sono i loro sogni o provato a renderli realtà. Parlo di coloro che hanno gettato al vento le loro vite odiando la Thatcher e aspettando unicamente la sua morte. "Ogni vita deve avere senso, Dennis" dice Meryl Streep, recitando il ruolo della Thatcher in Iron Lady, il ritratto grandioso e magnifico della vita e della caduta, come per Re Lear, della Lady di Ferro.

Ma la Thatcher è anche amata da tante persone perché ha lottato e creduto in qualcosa. Noncurante di cosa era apprezzato dalle persone e da cosa no. E questa è la definizione dell'essere vivi. Di coraggio. Di passione. L'opposto, insomma, dell'ottusità. Un recente sondaggio di YouGov ha mostrato che i britannici la considerano la nostra migliore primo ministro dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale. Provoca ancora sentimenti contrastanti nella maggior parte della società. Ma comunque rimane una potentissima consolazione per coloro che credono nell'ambizione, nel duro lavoro e in se stessi. Margaret Thatcher è stata la nostra Britannia. È stata come il rivoluzionario Cromwell dei nostri tempi. Margaret Thatcher è stata, come disse la Gentildonna Antonia Fraser a riguardo dello stesso Cromwell, il nostro "comandante in capo".

(traduzione ed adattamento a cura di Francesco Maria Cirillo)





E C'ERA CHI, SU TWITTER, NON SAPEVA NEMMENO CHI FOSSE MARGARET THATCHER...





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Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
She began a social revolution - in more ways than one. She was fresh blood in a Conservative party that was stuffed with upper class grandees. A Lincolnshire grocer's daughter led this country for 13 years. During her initial stint as party leader, some fellow Tory MPs openly referred to her as 'Hilda' - her middle name - to mock her lower-middle class background.

Because Margaret Thatcher was the first Western woman prime minister, the sheer visual example of a woman leading a nation helped us psychologically break other moulds. Since Thatcher's example, the Tory Chair has been occupied by a Muslim woman and the British Conservative party at one point had at least 13 out gay MPs (America's entire Congress has only a couple of openly gay representatives).

And she was so right about the Euro, wasn't she? "Are we going to have one single currency over which we can have no control over, which we cannot determine our own interest rate [over] or anything?" she asked.

Yes, Thatcher made errors. Perhaps she was too strident. She did not encourage or promote women MPs. She was socially too conservative - a disaster in the fight for gay equality. And Section 28 was one example of that. But overall, she made Britain better, more prosperous. Average incomes rose 25% during her time as Prime Minister. More than that, she made Britain strong again. Strong as a nation. It is easy to tax people so that we can have more welfare, more coal miners, more state spending. But Britain doesn't have an empire to tax any more. And in the end, there is only so much one can tax the rich, before even that runs out. The only way to build a strong country is to free people to set up businesses, employ people, grow the economy. She had the intelligence to understand this - and the courage to say so.

She was an undeserved blessing to Britain, a kick in the pants. To say, "Sorry, the State just can't keep spending," is a very difficult message to deliver. A message recent generations of Western leaders haven't been able to deliver. State overspending, and the bailing out of failing banks has brought the West to its knees in the recent crises. She said, "It is not governments which create wealth, but people - provided we have policies that encourage people to do it. We need to get away from the debilitating concept of the all powerful state which takes too much from you, to do too much for you."

Her policies caused understandable pain amongst coal mining families, who slowly, lost everything. Conversely, is it really the state's job to mine coal, run airlines or to prop up manufacturing? Should the state subsidise every dying profession? Before her, the unions went on strike each time new technology or job losses were introduced. Rubbish on the streets, unburied bodies, Britain held to ransom. She broke that union control. As Martin Amis once said, she was the dry nurse who gave us the medicine we did not want - but knew we needed. She made Britons more self-reliant, more modern, more decisive.

She stood up for her views. She said that her medicine was better in the long run for Britain than the fast running out comfort of socialism. And this is why ordinary people voted for her. Not because she went round giving free TV licences and handouts like Labour always does. But because they knew that the money for all of that came from everyone's own pockets, their own taxes.

There is a reason the iPad and the iPhone was created and designed in the US and built in the East, with the profits returning to shareholders in the West. There is a reason Dyson is conceived and designed in Britain, built in the East, with profits returning to the West. This is because the societies with free-markets, where the state doesn't decide what you say, what you do, what you create, are societies of great creativity.

Amidst all the dull talk of the booming "tiger economies" of the East (something we have heard for forty years now) and the pressure of more regulation from the EU, Britain is still one of the world's richest nations. This is because, unlike many Eastern countries, a creative businessman here doesn't need to wade through months, sometimes years of paperwork. We have less bureaucrats and so less corruption is encountered. Unlike the East where the state decides who can trade (the Indian "licence raj" was a legendary example of how politicans and their cronies ran entire industries, preventing the creatives from rising up). Thatcher was responsible for dismantling much of the bureaucracy nightmare.

Even the critics of the right accept now that, "we're healthier, wealthier, more comfortable, and longer living than ever before... our standard of life is on average higher than emperors of the past." This is the ethical case for free markets. Charles Murray the libertarian said, "From the dawn of history until the eighteenth century, every society in the world was impoverished, with only the thinnest film of wealth on the top. Then came capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Everywhere that capitalism took hold, national wealth began to increase and poverty began to fall. Everywhere that capitalism didn't take hold, people remained impoverished. Everywhere that capitalism has been rejected since then, poverty has increased."

Dominic Lawson said, "Socialism destroys moral responsibility and those who make fortunes in competitive markets (through lower prices or better goods) are serving the public good more than any trade union leader." Thatcher understood that.

Democracy is the West's noblest, highest virtue. Thatcher spoke out for democracy, economic freedom and free markets everywhere and she pushed for Eastern Europe, then under vicious communism and totalitarianism, to be free people. The whole of Europe (not just Western Europe) is now democratic and Thatcher's stridency in condemning communism helped achieve that.

That's not to say that having economic freedom makes people happy. But here too, Thatcher's world has a consolation: "Money if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort," said Helen Gurley Brown.

The people who criticise one of the West's (and capitalism's) greatest recent heroines take the privileges we enjoy in the West for granted. These privileges include 'free' education, and, in large parts of Europe, 'free' healthcare, pensions and other benefits. These critics are economically illiterate. They don't realise that these things don't exist in most countries in the world - most people in this world don't have access to quality, free healthcare from the state because their economies are broken. These Western privileges come from economic growth, taxes, employees and corporations. The lefties who criticise open markets (and the excess, the rise and fall, that goes with markets) seem to think education, healthcare, pensions and benefits are god-given, they just materialise out of sunshine, music and mist. They have foolish delusions that an all-powerful benevolent state is guiding them.

Thatcher's father never went to university. "The path to power - there wasn't a path there," she said. "There was no path there," she repeated. "You made it yourself."

"In Britain, we prefer to imagine that the people who [make it to] the top are stupid, and ideally, hatefully so," said Ben Machell in a different context. We aren't as socially mobile in Britain as other countries are - sadly it's too much of who we know, not what we know that determines success. So when someone has broken through that terrible trap, broken through that magnificently, and made it to the top, we should cheer.

In her later years as PM, she became grand, almost imperial. "We are now a grandmother," she boomed, using the royal "We," when her beloved son Mark became a father. Over time she moved from a kind of diligent confidence to a glittering confidence, attending the opera in Paris, looking like Elizabeth I, as the Tory boys in London plotted the downfall of their splendid mother. But why shouldn't she have been confident, glittering, imperial? She had overcome class discrimination and centuries of (still existing) crushing sexism to become the first female leader in the Western free world. When Obama overcame centuries of racial discrimination by becoming the first black US President, we cheered at the evidence that human beings could sometimes defeat old prejudices. Why not the same with Thatcher? She deserves to be imperial in our history because like Churchill, she rescued Britain from peril. Britain, despite a lack of vast quantities of oil or natural resources, despite the end of Empire, despite everything, is amongst the worlds top economies. Thatcher freed us up to achieve this.

There are a great many intelligent commentators who criticise Thatcher interestingly. These commentators don't harp on in the usual, borrowed postures, sprouting second-hand ideas - they actually have a point. Hanif Kureishi's sparkling criticism of Thatcher's Britain also contains an acknowledgement of how she changed our country, made it less provincial. In Something To Tell You, his novel about desire, loneliness, sex and middle age, he reflects on Britain today, the Britain Thatcher helped mould. He says, "Now, of course, we live in Thatcher's psyche if not her anus, in the world she made, of competition, consumerism, celebrity and guilt's bastard son, charity: bingeing and debt."

The truth is, most of us are no longer interested in going back to the overtaxed, nationalised, foreign exchange-controlled Britain of the 70s, the Britain Thatcher liberated. As we live in our Britain of plenty now, with greater choice, the price we pay for it are the children of celebrity and consumerism: with the X-Factor and Tesco being the horrendous elder siblings. I think it's a fair price to pay. Before Thatcher, Britain felt like a big grey country, everyone discussing decline. The reason we could afford taxpayer funded regeneration of cities, Tate Modern, museums and all the other sparkling, wonderful public spaces of culture sprouting all over the country (including, later, the dazzling Olympics), all this flow of delicious warm milk flowing from the teat of the state, washing down all over us - all this was only because Thatcher cut the debt in the eighties, and cut it savagely, so that the State was not weighed down with debt and dizzying rates of interest in the nineties and early noughties.

It is a tribute to Margaret Thatcher that she is not loved for being nice to everyone. Her legacy is still fought over. She is bitterly hated by many. As Alan Clark said in response to a question about why she wasn't liked: "Like? Like? She's not there to be liked, you idiot! She just is!"

Often, I think, she is most hated by people who hate themselves - because these people have led pacifying, plastic, approximated lives. Lives with compromise. Lives without risk. People who haven't even tried to identify or achieve their dreams. I'm not saying everyone who disagreed with Thatcher hasn't achieved their dreams. I'm talking here about some people who have been wasting their lives hating her, waiting for her death. "One's life must matter, Dennis" says Meryl Streep, playing Thatcher in The Iron Lady, the glorious depiction of her large and significant life - and her King Lear type fall.

Thatcher is also loved by many because she stood for something - and she acted on it. Irrespective of whether it was fashionable or not. This is the definition of being alive. Of courage. Of passion. The opposite of dullness. A recent YouGov opinion poll showed that we consider her our best post-war prime minister. The silent majority feels differently about her. She remains a powerful consolation for those who believe in aspiration, self-reliance and hard work. Margaret Thatcher was our Britannia. She was the revolutionary Cromwell we needed for our times. Margaret Thatcher was, as Dame Antonia Fraser so famously said of Cromwell, Our Chief of Men.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1595789 2012-06-15T19:00:00-04:00 2012-08-15T05:12:05-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
At St. Paul's we took him up the staircase, up the dome on top of the church. Every few steps up my father needed a rest, his usual exertion limited to crossing the road of his home in Mumbai to the vegetable seller. Halfway up the dome, we encountered a special glass plate on the stairs, which allowed us to look down into the church from a great height and have a magnificent view. My brother and my father both looked down at the same time and lightly bumped each other's heads. My father went crazy and said, "Oh no! There is sure to be terrible rivers of blood coming down my face, I think!" The usher woman came running over. My father continued, "I think this may be an aneurysm! Or a stroke! Or a clot?" My brother and I asked him to calm down, told him there was no bump, no blood and told the woman it was fine, and that my father is an anxious man. "NO, NO, blood there is, I think!" moaned my dad as he took off his large glasses and wiped his face with his handkerchief. The woman ran at full speed, terrified, to get her first aid kit.

When she returned she examined him. My brother and I moved away - it was all too much for us to take. The woman said he seemed fine. My father looked disappointed and asked her to check again, which she did. Finally he said he had a small cut on his finger, one he got a few months ago - could she give him a band-aid for it? No, said the woman.

On another occasion, we travelled with a friend on the London underground. It is a stressful way to travel at the best of times and my father was on full alert. My friend was standing at the end of the carriage, an open window behind her, looking out into the open window of the next carriage. As the train moved, the wind between the open windows caught her hair, swinging it up. "YOUR HAIR IS FLYING!" screamed my father. "It will get caught in the tunnel! Death and murder - terrible!"

There have been less stressful moments. My father is fascinated by the bins in London. "What does 'general waste' mean? What is 'mixed recycling'?" We spent a day on the London Eye and seeing various other tourist places and when asked what his favourite part of the day was, he mentioned the bins with some fondness and compassion.

At Tesco, I asked him what he'd like. He asked me the price of each item and converted it into Indian Rupees. The pound is incredibly strong versus the rupee, so my father was feeling faint, as he converted each item into eye watering rupees. He ended up picking up a selection of free leaflets for Tesco Mobile Insurance and Tesco Home Insurance. "What do you want with these?" I asked him. "They're very colourful. I will give them to your mother," he said. He was fascinated and pleased that London had a free morning and evening newspaper including various free magazines and never failed to collect them all with a smile on his lips. My poor mother, I thought, who will be receiving as gifts from London a large bag full of Tesco brochures, catalogues and free London newspapers.

My neighbours fell in love with my father, not for the most rational of reasons. They found his deafness and his communication in sign language unique and endearing. "How sweet your father is, he is deaf," one said, slightly aimlessly. Nevertheless, their interest gave my brother and me some respite and it felt warm and kind. They wanted to learn sign language, each time saying to me, "Do that sign again," or "Tell me what he is saying now," or "Can you tell him this?" or "How do you say this in sign language?" My feelings about my father being patronised - seen as a delightful child with his sign language tricks - were contradicted with the reality that my father loved all the attention he got and wanted to see more of the neighbours. My father, because he cannot hear, cut off from most conversations, always the tourist, wherever he is.

Hard water doesn't exist in Mumbai so my dad had never come across limescale. Seeing the encrusted limescale in my electric kettle alarmed my father greatly. "Poison!" exclaimed my father and proceeded to try to wash the electric kettle with vigour.

On our bus journey to my home one day, my father did not want to sit on the top deck of the bus as we usually did. His knees were hurting from the trip to St. Paul's. He is getting old. We sat on the more crowded bottom deck. He was a little suspicious of an old Somalian man with a wispy beard in a red and white long dress - a sort of religious garb, I suppose. My father signed to me suspiciously and surreptitiously, "Is he a good man? Or a bad man? Or a religious sadhu?" Without being racist, my father was simply showing me his bewilderment with the multicultural London we are all thrown together in, which, to the outsider, appears chaotic and unsettled.

When there was a delay on the underground he declared to me, "Ask the man next to you why this train is so slow." I refused, explaining that people don't chat to strangers on the tube. He asked me why people don't talk to each other in the underground. "What would happen?" he asked. "What would happen if you talked instead of staying silent?" My father isn't completely silent. However, most of his communication is via sign language. I did wonder - what would his life have been, what would our lives have been if he talked, like most other people's fathers did. What would happen if he wasn't condemned to silence?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1145751 2011-12-19T19:00:00-05:00 2012-02-18T05:12:02-05:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
As children, if we are loved, our parents ask us what we want from life, what we want for Christmas. I asked for a piano once and my parents couldn't afford it. I got a plastic guitar instead. I was happy enough. This was a good lesson for how life turns out.

If Santa existed, what would we, as adults, ask for? Unlike kids, adults are weighed down by life. The usual cocktail of thwarted ambitions, extinguished desire and the need to remember to buy adequate amounts of loo paper.

Writing to this benevolent Santa, far, far away, telling them what you want, is like sending up a prayer.

I think we all have two Christmas lists. The first list contains the material presents we want. Although, contrary to what the magazine supplements tell us, I really do hope no man actually desires the latest Calum Best fragrance.

The worryingly named site Celebrity Fragrances tells us that, "Calum Best, son of footballer George Best, released his fragrance titled 'Calum' and it became an instant hit. Beautifully presented, with its unique fragrance, it makes a perfect gift for any man."

My first list contains the latest box sets of Mad Men and In Treatment (latest series of both cruelly bought up by Sky TV and taken away from most viewers). Something melancholy to read, to bide my time in that dead period between Christmas and New Year (even Twitter and Facebook seems to fall silent at this time - what are people doing during this period, I wonder?) Short stories by Alice Munro or the latest heartbreaking book by Joan Didion will do nicely, thank you. And, of course, the Calum best aftershave.

The second list Christmas list we all have is more private. It contains what we really want - our deepest, most secret desires - the unfulfilled desires that have entered our souls.

If you could write to a Santa that existed, one who might reward you for being good, what would you ask for? Would you ask for a flat in Sloane Square? Someone to love and care for? Reassurance that we're doing ok, all things considered? A best friend - just one will do - a friend who will really connect with you and understand what you feel? To not feel guilty about what you really want? As the wonderful Alain de Botton says, "Definition of a present: something you can't get for yourself. As a child, that meant toys. In adulthood: reassurance, sympathy, forgiveness."

On Coronation Street, a beautiful young woman, weighed down by the problems of her life says to her boyfriend, "Oh, Let's just forget about it, right? Let's get drunk, have a meal, a laugh?"

This - this attitude - is exactly what I would like to ask for - the ability to celebrate life no matter what.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.925243 2011-08-15T09:06:36-04:00 2011-10-15T05:12:02-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
'It's better to spend time with friends than watch Friends,' said a newspaper columnist recently. But surely it is better to watch television, do anything really, than spend time with a friend whose company you can no longer bear. A friend broke up with me last year. She simply stopped returning my phone calls. I had to check with a mutual friend that she was still alive. I wasn't sure if she'd taken ill or just gone off me. What if, instead ceasing to reply to my calls, she had simply said, "Look - I'm sorry, but I would like to end our friendship." Would I have preferred that? I'm not so sure.

I spent a nightmare day at a friend's home recently. She used to be funny, kind and we were interested in each other. Now, as her big TV screen blared out relentless episodes of 'Come Dine with Me,' at full volume, she spent most of her time cooking furiously and ordering her husband about. "WHAT'S UP WITH YOU?" she shouted at me, every few minutes over the din. I'd open my mouth to respond - and within seconds she was gone, her head back in the oven, checking on dish number seven. At that moment, a friendship already on intensive care was dead.

Another friendship break up happened a few years ago, when my then friend kissed someone he knew I was deeply in lust with. In my presence, at my party. He did not see anything wrong with what he did. For me, as they turned into each other, it was the loneliest I had felt in a long time.

I have urges to tell former friends why I ended our friendship. Although I am not sure it serves any purpose. It is true, that while others can clearly see what is wrong with us, we can never see ourselves clearly enough, even when we are told. Is it really helpful to point by point, list out why someone who once stimulated us, now makes us want to run for the hills?

One wonderful upside about breaking up with a friend - apart from the sheer freedom of not ever having to see them again - is that you understand more about yourself. About what you are looking for in a friend. I used to look for clever, glitzy, emotional people. Now I look for friends with empathy, kindness, the ability to put themselves in other people's shoes. And then, once again, it gets better to spend time with friends than sit at home, watching reruns of Friends.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.926419 2011-08-14T09:56:04-04:00 2011-10-14T05:12:01-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
The Anglican, Somalian and Nigerian churches resume their Sunday Service after being so rudely interrupted last weekend. As I had my hair cut, we heard some urgent shouting and we all looked out of the hairdressers, worried. The spot outside was where the bus was burnt down last weekend. It only turned out to be a man shouting about the end of the world. We smiled and hid our relief.

The post office that got burnt down was a large one, with many, many counters. I wonder where the pensioners go to get their pension now? A pub, that only opened three months ago, now partially boarded up. It's name: The Pride of Tottenham.

A friend recently wrote on Facebook, "I have to admit surprise that Tottenham had any shops to loot." But it had, and still does. Beyond the Asda and the fried chicken shops, there are shops that sell stuff that is so good, it wouldn't be out of place in some artisan shop in Wimbledon. The shop at the end of my lane gets warm, freshly-made crisp Turkish bread thrice a day. The fishmonger has better fish than you'd find in the aisles of Waitrose. The Muslim and Christian butchers (the first butcher has words praising Allah on its walls, the other butcher has a Cross on his) sell an extraordinary array of meat, such as you wouldn't find in the shrink-wrapped average supermarket.

The Anil Supermarket, Medina Butchers, Shivani News and the International Hairdressing Saloon in Tottenham are all open for business.

After the dramatic, awful events of last week, it is difficult for those of us who live here to craft a narrative: for some, life seems to go on; for others, who were burnt out of their homes, they need to find reasons to go on.

The Irish woman next to me continues her careful gardening, the elderly mother still takes her disabled daughter out for a walk, saying hello to all the shopkeepers - and it all seems to carry on. Without being sentimental, this doesn't feel like the ghetto. The SkyCopter has left - and The Pride of Tottenham, despite being partially boarded up, continues to serve. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.920369 2011-08-07T04:56:37-04:00 2011-10-06T05:12:01-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
Tottenham is one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. I live streets away from where eight-year-old Victoria Climbié died because of her abusive guardians. A few years ago, Ikea opened up at the edge of Tottenham, with a deep discount on the first day. It became a scene of a stabbing over sofas. A few years ago, my partner and I were beaten up, yards from my home by several thirteen year old boys and girls.

No doubt, once more, some commentators will come out blaming "deprivation and poverty" for these riots. I reject this view completely. I grew up in India, where there is real, abject poverty - families without homes, food, shoes. Anger about a fatal police shooting does not necessitate burning buses and looting shops. This view is also unfair to the many, many families in Tottenham and elsewhere, who live on a tiny income and never once think about going out and ruining our public streets. I just received a phone call from an elderly Jamaican lady, who misdialled her daughter's number and connected to me. All she cared about speaking to her daughter, making sure she was safe. She doesn't want to burn cars and shops to make a point.

The actions of this small, but significant group tarnishes the entire area and it shouldn't. My area of Tottenham is one of the most diverse in Europe, from Holocaust refugees to Eastern Europeans.

Every day, when I sit at my bus stop, overlooking the spot in Tottenham where those kids kicked and punched my partner to the ground, I know whose side I am on. Not on the side of those who think looting widescreen TV's from shops is a way to express a view, but on the side of the ordinary resident - the Turkish hairdresser, the takeaway owner, all of us who choose not to allow the rule of the mob to triumph over the rule of law.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.908646 2011-07-25T12:33:09-04:00 2011-09-24T05:12:01-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
Then we have the techie Facebook user whose updates focus on coding, 'source codes' and a then just little but more about coding. I understand none of these updates. "Going to override equals but skip hashcode," they gush, relentlessly. I read this and wish I was equally passionate about something the way these guys are.

The drama queens are the most interesting: "Sad, broken and devastated, my dear friends - can't breathe," a friend's update said recently. Within minutes, forty friends rush to comfort with urgent comments like, "You ok? Sending you love and hugs my love!" It almost always turns out to be nothing - some work tiff or the pasta hasn't turned out right.

I'm the sort of Facebook updater who bangs on about various causes I believe in. Linking to petitions and events, imagining that a post here and a point of view there signifies progress. 'Free Ai Weiwei!' 'Sign the petition against Uganda's death penalty for gay people!' It's the equivalent of reading Nelson Mandela's biography and pretending that makes you a political person. Although I strongly believe that speaking out about what we believe in is important, people who post stuff like this are usually full of self-righteousness, so I have to be careful not to get too preachy like Ned Flanders.

My absolute favourite updates are about love, friendship and family. No matter how clichéd and mawkish, it seems to display the warmest sides of ourselves. A new born baby, someone writing about their anniversary, how much they love their husband or wife, picture of the kids. Much cooler achievements in my book in comparison to pierogi and cocktails in a secret Shoreditch bar.

In case you've heard rumours about a select crowd migrating to Google+, creating a less hysterical version of Facebook, don't worry. Almost all the people I know who are on Facebook are slowly making their way on to Google+ as well. Just like Facebook, Google+ is full of urgent, angry and fun updates, giving us an insight into people's real preoccupations.

A friend of mine in his forties recently updated his profile with, "Yo bro - dog!" I'm still not sure what kind of Facebook user that makes him.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.896968 2011-07-18T10:25:50-04:00 2011-09-17T05:12:01-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
I always smile at shop assistants, a big smile, when I engage with them. Some of them look suspicious or simply stunned. Of course, there are life circumstances in which a smile won't happen. If someone's having a bad day, for example. On the tube, of course, we know a smile is high treason. What I'm talking about though is the day to day social interaction with people - at the supermarket, the coffee shops, the gym - it seems we're too busy, too cool, to smile.

In the workplace I routinely notice people who avoid smiling to communicate a variety of signals. The "I'm too important to smile at you" simile-avoidance has been around as long as power has. But now, we have new and more urgent smile-avoidance signals - such as the, "I am too busy to smile" or the "nothing can ever amuse me" non-smile. Every other gay man I come across seems to have this "nothing will ever amuse me" look. Gay bars, especially the 'cooler' ones have become simply a room of po-faced men who look like their mothers have just died. Perhaps a lack of a smile is a way of protecting yourself from getting hurt. After all, what if someone doesn't smile back? Think of the humiliation.

This isn't a city-centric or London-centric thing either. In Cornwall last month, a man serving me at a bar was saying the nicest things to me, although for some reason the corners of the mouth remained stubbornly unmoved throughout the conversation. It has become uncool to smile perhaps. I talked to a friend about this and he said, "Smiling is for old ladies at the bus stop." There is nothing wrong with old ladies at a bus stop, especially if they smile. My mum and dad are deaf, and they are not able to gauge someone's warmth by their voice. They depend on an expression, a frown, a grimace - especially a smile.

If we lose the joy of smiling in our day to day interactions, we lose a great deal more than a display of our imperfect teeth. We lose the currency to communicate, to express desire, to reassure. So please don't be cool, please smile.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.896963 2011-07-13T10:21:06-04:00 2011-09-12T05:12:01-04:00

Sorab Shroff http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorab-shroff/
You will do anything to save your life if you think you're going to be killed. When they were kicking my boyfriend, a strapping guy, down to the floor and then in the head, I thought, "That's it- we're going to die." I invented a fictional sister and kept repeating, "My little sister's at home, we really need to get home - just let us go."

At some point my boyfriend's rib broke. He shouted out, "You've broken a bone," They thought they'd cracked his skull and ran off, in terror and on a high at what they thought they'd done. A few more kicks and they would have - cracked his skull, that is. He'd have died and I'd have been without my partner of many years - not because of a car accident, or because he smoked too much - but because a few fifteen year old boys and girls thought it was important to kick a gay man to death.

Once I got over the fear of what had happened, I got angry. I couldn't understand why people who I had nothing to do with, people whose personal life I didn't give a damn about, were so enraged by what I chose to do with another consenting adult. Why did it bother them so much? I'd also started looking at my previously lazy, liberal views - we live in a country where it's generally fine to be gay. But then I've always lived in cities and am fairly confident. A broadsheet commentator recently said that gay people wanted too many rights and that, anyway, we were lucky because we lived in, "a land of King Elton and Queen Norton," referring to our gay celebrities. But what's it like growing up gay in a tiny Welsh village or in a community or religion where gay people are considered evil? And why, somewhere in North London is someone routinely beaten up for who they choose to sleep with?

Seems to me that the more gay people ask for the same kinds of rights as straight people, it provokes a bigger backlash. People are more aware of our existence, and bigots will use it as an excuse to attack us. Those who beat gay people up aren't outraged by our presence - they are terrified of someone different, they want to shut them up, get rid of them.

With time and therapy I was all right again - I also moved on to the world of work, trusted new people again. I revelled in the affection of friends and felt celebrated for who I was. It was like waking up again. But forgetting isn't easy. Things come back. This year, when the local pizza chain refused to deliver to my street because their deliverymen "get beaten up by the residents they deliver to," the randomness of that violence hit me once more. And I am back at that bus stop with those screaming lyrics.
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