There were three frightful instances recently during a short visit I paid to the UK to watch my beloved Hammers at Wembley quickly making it back to the Premiership, which made me think somewhat seriously about the unstoppable passage of time.
The first two took place at Wembley itself.
One: As we filed in, one anxious West Ham fan after the other, into the awesome stadium people were of course being frisked as is wont to happen in these terrorism days at every massive public gathering. When it was my turn, I just got a nod from the young frisking officer and that was it. He must have decided I posed no threat to anyone, but a voice within me was suddenly screaming: you must be looking your age, boy!
Two: At the end of a most entertaining match, happily won by the East Londoners, it was celebration time. Some 50,000 cockney fans stayed inside the stadium to sing and dance to the music from the PA system as they applauded and lauded the delirious players. We had watched the whole 90 minutes of the game standing, which I did not mind, except when the two adjacent 6’2” gorillas in claret and blue threw themselves at me immediately WH scored the winning goal. They hugged me, they lifted me, and one, Jesus, even kissed me.
So far so good. But when it came to keeping up with the frenetic post-match music being thrown at us, I realised my jumping gradually slowed down to a wimpish, straight-body reaction that was more robotic than human. Even that evergreen Beatles favourite, “Twist and Shout”, failed to get the old adrenalin juices going full throttle.
As for the third instance: I have always had this masochistic thrill when using the London Tube. On the way back across the city, a young foreign (i.e. not English) student sitting on one of those odd-corner seats reserved for the infirm and the old, made a gesture at me as I stood holding on to one of the train’s convenient hanging rods. Oh, no, I realised, she’s asking me if I wanted to take her place on that seat. I could have died. Instead, I just blurted out, as coolly as possible: “Thanks, but I’m not that old!” She smiled sweetly and went back to her pink iPod.
The moral of the story? When you grow old, well, you just grow old, hoping you avoid the grumpy old men syndrome that often afflicts people caught between what they think is old and other people’s perception of it. It does not happen to people only, though, it can also creep into the psyche of governments and the politicians who run them.
Our Gonzi government, for example, is as old as anyone or anything can get, but it refuses to accept reality. Not only has it inherited an administrative state of mind that continues to work on the maxim that money is no problem until the problem actually becomes money, but for the past four years it has also had to limp about on the just one crutch. It tries to give an impression of agility when it can only do senseless one-minute hob-dance routines inside Parliament and during what have become predictable public activities as some sort of collective morale-boosters.
Like everything and everyone old, the Gonzi government has become myopic, disoriented and hopelessly out of touch. When serious issues crop up, such as ministerial responsibilities, economic maladies and political stalemates, it groans down to a corner and starts saying and shouting things that hardly make any sense to anyone at all. The next thing you expect is the threat of having that solitary crutch thrown at you with a vengeance.
For what sense does it make to exclaim, in a high-pitched voice, to the world that “the party will always be there” and that “no one will destroy the party” when your parliamentary majority is persistently in jeopardy? An Opposition, as its very title implies, is there to oppose, and censure or no-confidence motions in Parliament are part of an everyday routine that every democracy in the world accepts with minimum fuss but with maximum respect.
The inability to distinguish between what is party and what is government is a dangerous condition, very often the glaring symptom of a party too long in power, too old to act reasonably and too isolated to think freely. A hint of totalitarianism wrapped in flashy, false principles. A siege mentality soon develops, but while it does instil some sense of comfort to those inside the fort, it also breeds internal feuding.
Should we let the drawbridge down, open the doors and make a run for it, or should we just sit and wait, here in this unnatural peace, for the next move from yonder? That is the kind of dilemma that haunts a government in agony and a party in crisis. There will be the young hawks shouting for blood. Of course, they have time on their hands. There will also be the holier-than-thou group huddled in a corner who still think that lighting candles can frighten away the enemy. And there will be the “elders” – aha, back to the grumpy old men syndrome – who know it’s over, cannot accept it, but cannot do anything about it. They just display an air of authority that, in truth, has long been lost, to the absurd point where the king, in one irate and farcical moment, declares to the king-maker he would, with hindsight, have contemplated giving him the order of the boot!
The besieged, as history often tells us, tend to become self-centred and delusional. When they do not know what the next hour will bring, they start making plans for the future. The dungeons and other hell-holes of mediaeval times are, to this day, full of graffiti showing flying saints, beautiful women and impressive galleons on their way to the promised land. All of them painstakingly inscribed by the condemned. Today, that work is left to the Photoshop whizz-kids whose patrons are urgently asking for smart, electronic designs of projects intended “for after the siege”.
To be or not to be a minister, to be or not to be in power, are no longer valid questions. The warrior holed up in a granite cell can only play with himself. Metaphorically killing the messenger, be his name Franco or Arthur, on the other hand, may bring some mental respite, but the message remains. And it says to any stale government or embittered party: You’ve grown old. Stop the acting. Face reality. It is time to reflect and to regenerate yourself as part of the whole and inevitable political cycle. As in life cycle.
When one finally does that, even with regard to his or her own physical deterioration, suddenly age can be safely assimilated with wisdom.