Two Incidents Involving Cats

 One cold, raw afternoon in November, I was walking home through the back streets when I saw a black cat cross from right to left in front of me. Inevitably at such a time I think of Jeff Beck's version of 'I Ain't Superstitious'. The cat went through the thin metal bars of a tall gate into an alley, & I hurried to see if I could get a closer look at it, to check it was completely black; because if it isn't completely black, it doesn't count. I got to the gate, and the cat was standing still in the alley looking at me. It was black all over except for a small downward-pointing triangle of white hair at the top of its chest, as if it was wearing a shirt which was open at the neck. I interpreted this to mean either no bad luck at all, or if it was bad luck, to be tinged with hope. That is the first incident.

The second incident happened another afternoon when I was at home. I heard that sudden, short mixture of yowls which means two cats are fighting. I looked out of my bedroom window into the back garden and saw the following scene play out: one cat, older and heavier, was sat upright on the right, vibing out a younger rival, not directly but by seeming to be oblivious of its existence. It was as if he was saying in cat to the other "This garden isn't big enough for both of us, and I'm not leaving, so draw your own conclusions." As far as the older cat was concerned, he had already won; it was just a case of the younger confirming this by withdrawing, of rectifying the incorrect fact of his presence. They didn't seem to have made physical contact, so I assumed the yowling had just been them threatening each other. The younger cat did indeed withdraw, but in a way so slow that it is difficult to describe. There is a hole in the hedge frequented by cats and some foxes; they have worn a little path in the grass. The younger cat was heading for this hole. But it didn't just walk very slowly; it advanced one paw, then looked round at the older cat - who ignored it - then waited 30 seconds or a minute; then advanced the next paw, looked round at the older cat, then waited, and so on. I watched, fascinated to see how it would end.  The older cat continued to ignore its rival as if it wasn't there. You can imagine with four paws, and a noticeable wait every time it moved one, the younger cat took a considerable time finally to cover the few yards to the hole in the hedge and disappear. I was puzzled how to account for this behaviour. I could understand it retreating slowly to stop the other cat chasing it, but this was far slower than needed for that.  Was the defeated cat trying to preserve some dignity in its own eyes ? I thought, "It doesn't matter how slowly you retreat, you're still retreating."

Against Suella Braverman's Ideas

 

Suella Braverman recently gave two speeches, one in Washington and one at the Conservative Party conference.

In these speeches and elsewhere she put forward several ideas I disagree with.

There is no such thing as a simple homogenous British identity. What constitutes ‘Britishness’ or ‘British values’ are subjects of permanent dispute, and are evolving, not fixed. There is a British national character, as every nation has a character, but it is complex, multifaceted and difficult to define: perhaps a national character is best described as a cluster of competing and complementary ideas, some more prominent than others, like a word cloud. Whatever Britishness may be, the Home Secretary does not get to define it and insist that the rest of us comply with that definition. That is overreach, & that is the power she is trying to assume. She unfortunately has the power while in office as Home Secretary to oversee who is and is not British when it comes to people applying for citizenship, but she emphatically does not have the power to decide who is and is not British over we who are already citizens.

Suella Braverman may disapprove of my way of life or my opinions. As long as I am not breaking the law, these matters are none of her business, and the same applies to all other British citizens in the UK, of every religion and ethnicity. A key British value which Suella Braverman is transgressing is our saying “Live and let live”.

I am a proud Briton, and a patriot. I dispute the right of Suella Braverman to decide who is or is not properly British – the absurdity is evident as soon as you write it down – and who is or is not patriotic. It contradicts our most basic British traditions of freedom to claim that the government can decide what Britishness is, and enforce that decision on the populace. The National Conservatives and others on the Right are trying to co-opt the terms ‘British’, ‘Britishness’, ‘British values’, ‘patriotism’, and co-opt the ideas behind the terms. We should not let them. They are trying to appropriate these very important ideas, which are held in common by all British people, to increase their own political power. We should dispute and fight this. We should not abandon those terms to them.

It is only a brittle and incomplete sort of patriot who cannot stand to hear anything bad about their country. If I research, think and write about the bad things the rulers and people of this country have done in the past – like, to take one example, the centuries of our misrule in Ireland – this does not mean that I ‘hate Britain’. It means that I am sufficiently adult to understand that a nation or group of nations with a long history will have done in that time both good and bad things. This is a blindingly obvious point, and a true patriot understands and embraces it. On the contrary, the National Conservatives seem to hate Britain because they are constantly promulgating a highly negative, distorted caricature of it.

Suella Braverman and others on the Right refer negatively over and over again to people living parallel lives in our society. It is a favourite theme. But all sorts of groups lead parallel lives in our society, perhaps it is an inherent feature of any society. The very rich lead parallel lives to the rest of us, but Suella Braverman is not proposing to confiscate their wealth to end this. The very poor lead parallel lives, but she is not proposing to increase their income. The homeless lead parallel lives, but she is not proposing to house them. It is only the alleged parallel lives of some immigrants which she is against, making sweeping assertions about them and offering little to no evidence. The logic that whole communities are a threat to the rest of us and must be monitored, integrated, controlled and re-educated leads to what the Chinese government is doing to the Uighurs.

In practical terms, what is ‘integration’ ? How much integration is enough ? Who is integrated in the first place i.e. what is it exactly that the people who it is claimed need to integrate need to integrate with ? Do different people or groups need to integrate more, or less ? Who decides all these things? ‘Integration’ and ‘integrate’ are words Suella Braverman is throwing about as if they are clear and clearly understood. They are not.

We should not cede the right to define Britishness to a tiny, paranoid, power mad fringe of the Right, which nevertheless has a considerable foothold in our current governing Party and in our national media. They are very noisy and claim on the basis of no evidence to speak for the majority of us. This is false. We must resist.