Remembering Margaret Thatcher

[cali]

The British will have the final say on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday morning at the age of eighty-seven. She was their leader, Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, the first woman to lead a European (or North American) country. But she has a presence in so many political images and ideologies—and world historical and cultural moments—that the rest of the world has some reckoning to do, too. She was a grocer’s daughter. She died as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. She went to war with Argentina. She seemed ready to provoke the Soviet Union to a civilization-ending conflict, bringing American nuclear missiles to Europe, and instead was present at the Warsaw Pact’s mostly peaceful disintegration. She once told George H. W. Bush that it would be “wobbly” of him not to go to war with Iraq. She met with Nelson Mandela, smiling, after years of what might generously be called ambivalence on her part about what he represented for South Africa. If the relationship with Northern Ireland was still as it was when she was in charge, her obituaries today might have a sharper tone—from both sides. She was the most powerful woman in the world and went regularly to pay homage to a Queen.

Thatcher, undeniably, was a revolutionary figure in terms of women’s power. There is some mystery in why she didn’t always feel that way—why she isn’t entirely experienced as a feminist icon. She was the Iron Lady—and the lady part, with its carefully chosen accoutrements, may explain part of why she could come across as an affirmer of the status quo, rather than the breaker of barriers that she certainly was. Perhaps, with her death, that will change. As with Angela Merkel, her place in her country’s domestic-political constellation is complicated by other factors—class in Britain, the East-West divide in Germany—that can be hard for outsiders to sort out. (Coincidentally or not, both women trained as chemists.) Thatcher’s status not only as a leader but as the evangelist for an ideology—anti-union, pro-privatization, militaristic, disdainful, or so it felt, of those who couldn’t manage—is part of what confounds anyone who tries to tell her story simply in terms of gender and power. Even more than that, she was a character so singular that it is hard to conjure up the feeling of wanting to grow up to be Margaret Thatcher. That is a triumph, if one as cold as it is dazzling.

For Americans, especially of a certain age, she is difficult to disentangle from one’s overall feelings about Ronald Reagan and his Presidency—their alliance and affinity made it harder for those who were not Reaganites to like her, and something like a sainted conveyer of the Churchillian blessing to those who did. There were those who saw her as the savior of Britain and a pathfinder for Americans, and those who danced to “Stand Down Margaret,” by the English Beat, and worried about the poll tax while being vague about the details. In different ways, the extremism of today’s American Republican Party and the relative moderation of the British Conservative Party have softened both pictures. She neither ruined nor defined everything. That both she and Reagan had a long departure, marked by dementia, adds another screen in looking back at those years. But to be an Iron Lady is not to be forgotten.

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/04/remembering-margaret-thatcher.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true

[backscatter712]

1. Hark! I hear the popping of champagne corks!

I'm hearing the haunting notes of Elvis Costello too!

That's how the Brits are marking her death...

[whatchamacallit]

2. She sucked

Good riddance.

[backscatter712]

3. Best comment from that article:

"Thatcher should indeed be remembered, for the same reason we remember the Holocaust. Never again."

[truebrit71]

4. She supported fascist dictators, was FOR apartheid in South Africa, called Mandela a terrorist...

...and destroyed entire industries in the UK...I am glad she is dead. I hope she rots.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

7. I'm fairly certain she will rot

Unless of course she is coated in some kind of polymer.

[cali]

5. I think this is an excellent piece. Davidson always has something to say

I think she sums up Thatcher well and damns her much better than those frothing at the mouth saying "she sucked" "she was evil incarnate".

[truebrit71]

6. As one that lived through her reign of error let me be the first to say..

...she sucked because she was evil incarnate...

[cali]

8. but that just doesn't say anything.

[Morning Dew]

9. Top 13 anti Margaret Thatcher songs

http://louderthanwar.com/top-13-anti-margaret-thatcher-songs/

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[Cleita]

10. The Irish would beg to differ with that flotsam.

http://www.ibtimes.com/irish-nationalist-leader-blasts-margaret-thatcher-even-after-her-death-full-text-1177075

Irish Nationalist Leader Blasts Margaret Thatcher, Even After Her Death (FULL TEXT)
By Staff Reporter | APRIL 08 2013 10:03 AM
Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin, released the following statement on the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:

“Margaret Thatcher did great hurt to the Irish and British people during her time as British Prime Minister.

Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies.

Her role in international affairs was equally belligerent whether in support of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa; and her support for the Khmer Rouge.

Here in Ireland her espousal of old draconian militaristic policies prolonged the war and caused great suffering. She embraced censorship, collusion and the killing of citizens by covert operations, including the targeting of solicitors like Pat Finucane, alongside more open military operations and refused to recognize the rights of citizens to vote for parties of their choice.

Her failed efforts to criminalize the republican struggle and the political prisoners is part of her legacy.

more at link