Luther Blisset, in his guise as a left-wing novel writing
collective from Bologna, described in his book Q how the force of the Reformation unleashed by the Augustinian monk,
Luther, was picked up by a rag-bag of about to be formed working class plus
disparate elements of the lost and the dispossessed, the dissidents and the
natural revolutionaries, inspired, led and betrayed by Anabaptist iconoclasts
who wanted to change the church and maybe the world. A rage against the
privileged defence of wealth and power, fuelled by the potency of sacrifice as (genuine,
renewed) followers of Jesus the Christ.
To be a parent is to sacrifice oneself for the future
generation; to be a revolutionary is to sacrifice oneself for the cause.
Of course, the axe might not fall with a soft sigh. But, it might
well fall with due weight and solemnity, cleaving the bony carapace of the
skull, clumsily dissecting for all time the rather softer hemispheres of the
brain . . .
and changing one’s mind about all sorts of things. Does it
let in more light? At least momentarily.
Or only darkness?
Perhaps more light AND darkness. Radiance followed by the
brutality of revenge, the violence of the iron axe.
I hardly dare breathe, not even a soft sigh.
Yes, I whisper, of course I believe in democracy. Even the
current crude ritual of placing my mark against a name, a party. YES, TODAY
EVEN, I’ll walk down the road to the polling station and scrawl my cross, my X,
however limited, however impotent an act it might be, however lacking in nuance and
sophisticated thought as to the complexity of the issues, because we have been
granted at least this much collective power.
But how is democracy to move on from this place of grumbling
dissatisfaction? And what of those of us who occupy somewhat suspect liminal
spaces in the universe? Shouting from the edges, croaking dirty jokes and
ribald asides. What have we got? Cameron’s going to roll his sleeves up, Clegg
will continue reading his hero Samuel Beckett and Brown will (maybe) retire to
his manse.