World as Stage

My previous two posts were a nod to the Czech political reality- which probably you knew very little about. Sorry for the irrelevance, but I actually think it should be relevant. After all, if Europe can't raise a mite of interest in the futures of 10 million of its inhabitants, what counts for anything? Big Brother and Jade's little outbursts?

Mark Steyn has a brilliant article in today's Chicago Times asking questions of the parochialism of US politics.

His main target is the Barak Obama love-in in the US media.

But, if the US is displaying a strong tendency to prefer talking about Iowa over Iraq, for instance, this at least has some apparent self-interest going for it.

However, quite rightly and incisively he speculates, amidst all this all-America dramatizing : "Whether the rest of the planet will be content with a non-speaking part".

And one just says, "quite".

I'm led to reflect on the fact that the world's most incisive columnist is a theatre critic. If we never go beyond the theatre concept in our understanding of the world we will be in trouble. This is no criticism of Steyn- he always points beyond the theatre but few are interested to follow his gaze.

It's what happens stage right that should concern, and the European media is not just parochial- if only- it's balkanised to a point where it cannot interest itself in its neighbours sharing its own interests.

Failure to support (maybe even school), for instance, the emerging Eastern democracies is a factor in their low birth rates (nb. the exception of Albania being above replacement level) which cannot be excused by conventional explanations of civilisational maturity etc. Eastern Europe has lowest low birth rates which endanger its emergence as a set of allies for a european future.

Here of course the EU is far more hindrance than help, entrenching outmoded social systems above economic necessity.

Failure to make due note of Imadinnerjacket's foray into South America, and Chavez's declaration of self-rule, and the trend towards formalising axes of evil, could lead to some pretty painful twists in the plot, rather than Shakespearian comedy.

And these are just two of the unfolding dramas that either never reach the limelight or only in the form of rough comedy for the lower orders.

Maybe Ahmadinejad will meet his Waterloo at home, but maybe that's not the fundamental drama anyway on the part of Iran.