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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
BRITAIN, it seems, is drowning in a vale of tears. One after another, in the run-up to their general election, British politicians are lining up to emote in public. Never before have so many cried so easily, so openly and so often.
Like yawning, crying is proving contagious. Is this a sign of damp times ahead in Ireland, one wonders? It’s tempting to believe that 1997 was the turning point in Britain, the year that they of the famously stiff upper lips suddenly turned into a race of whimperers. You’ll recall Tony Blair’s croaky voice as he beatified "the people’s princess" and the so-called national outpouring of grief as the great unwashed demanded that their queen weep on cue over Diana’s tragic death.
But, in fact, political tears have a more ancient history. Viscount Goderich, briefly Tory prime minister of Britain and Ireland in the 1820s, reportedly burst into tears when George IV dismissed him and the king had to lend him a handkerchief. He went on to serve in high office again but never managed to escape his nickname, "The Blubberer".
The conventions surrounding weeping vary from age to age. Sometimes it is, as Thomas Hobbes said, the prerogative of the powerless; at others, generals and politicians weep openly and are applauded for it.
A lot has changed since 1972 when US Senator Ed Muskie watched his presidential campaign crash and burn once moisture was spotted on his face during an emotional news conference where he had to defend his wife from criticism. Muskie always maintained the wetness was snow dripping off, but it sealed his fate as a man too sensitive for the White House.
Today in America the softer side seems par for the course for politicians. President Bush was a renowned weeper — at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and, not least, when meeting the families of servicemen killed in Iraq. His father, the first President Bush, was just as susceptible. Like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and others with tough guy images, they could tear without fear.
Bill Clinton, on the other hand, could be just a bit too soulful. His finger moved so regularly to wipe a tear from one eye that political observers wondered whether he had acquired the skill of monocular weeping. His lip-biting became so frequent he began to look petulant and — dangerously for a politician — inauthentic.
Context is key. Everyone knows the SDLP are an emotional lot with much to cry about. It was no great shock, therefore, that Mark Durkan’s eyes moistened during his farewell conference speech. More surprising — and disconcerting — was DUP leader Peter Robinson’s mewling when he outlined (some of) the details of his wife’s shenanigans.
The danger is that once the tap is turned on, it sticks at open. Self-pity, like power, is addictive. After one indulgence, even the toughest can make themselves cry again, just by remembering how tragic they felt the first time.
That was certainly the case with Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady, stoic in public all the way through the Falklands War, the miners’ strike and the Brighton bomb, dissolved as she was driven out of Downing Street after her colleagues had told her to go for the sake of the party. Recalling that treachery months afterwards she again had to dab away the tears during an interview.
No one would suggest Mrs T’s breakdowns were planned or enjoyed, though. Equally, when Brian Lenihan recalled last year his brother Mark’s death from leukaemia in the 1960s, or when John Bruton became visibly moved about murdered Garda Jerry McCabe, few doubted their sincerity.
These were not genuine public performances unlike, say, Australian PM Bob Hawke’s "I’m only human" snivelling as he admitted on TV to an affair. It worked for him, upsetting the perceived notion that all politicians are power-hungry cynics devoid of all feelings.
It was the same when Bertie Ahern reached for the onion skins during his infamous RTÉ interview in 2006: "It was a very, dark period for me; a very sad period for me," choked the Taoiseach. The commentariat sniffed mightily but, in tribute to his acting abilities, the nation melted into those big, round, dewy eyes. By contrast, FF Senator Tom Fitzgerald was universally scorned for sobbing when Charlie Haughey finally took his leave of office.
So, yes, people expect their leaders to be human, not always entirely rational — but within limits.
For politicians the tricky question is when to show emotion, how to show it, and how much. Long before she started yammering in New Hampshire, for instance, it was obvious that Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the Democratic nomination had been advised that she came across as too controlling and controlled.
The quaver she injected into her voice might have shored up her key support but such emotionalism made others nervous. Politics is the one area of life where men can choke up more safely than women.
Male or female, the crying game is still a complicated one. As he seeks to project his real self, it’s not a strategy Enda Kenny should adopt lightly. Gordon Brown might have much to cry about in his personal life but on the eve of an election a previously buttoned-up politician’s motives are bound to be called into question.
Once tears have been shed at, say, a refugee camp in Congo or Gaza, should more be shed at a natural disaster? Do numbers matter? To cry or not to cry when it’s at home rather than abroad? What about personal tragedies? On the face of it, these should come lowest in terms of public display, but does a politician want the reputation of caring more for the world than for his or her own family?
MOREOVER, it is but a short step for politicians from feeling that they are allowed to cry to believing that they must cry. Like at the doctor’s, will every political interview have to be conducted with a box of tissues on the desk?
Politicians risk believing they have to turn themselves into replicas of celebrities to get anyone to pay attention to them anymore.
But did great leaders of the past feel the need to show their feelings, I wonder? How would people have felt if Dev had turned on the waterworks during the IRA’s 1956-’62 campaign, or Churchill had flooded his cheeks during the Blitz?
Personally, I like my politicians good and strong, like decent coffee. I want them dignified, determined, au fait with policy and patently up to the job — not wailing over every car accident in their constituency. The celebrity route cheapens genuine feelings and makes us believe that if it isn’t displayed on camera, it isn’t real. It makes us prize narcissists over real people with deep, private emotions. Do we really want rulers who reach for the tissues during Titanic but remain impassive over 15% unemployment?
This general attitude has its roots in the therapy culture, which tells us it is bad for individuals to repress emotion. That doctrine has now developed into the belief that anyone who fails to parade their emotions in public is a heartless bastard. It’s a tendency that should instinctively be resisted.
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