V for Vendetta (1982/1988) is the most profound critique that has been presented on the subject of Parliamentary sovereignty. The appreciation of political philosophy that Alan Moore and David Lloyd have exhibited in its writing exceeds any other who has attempted a comment on the problem: whether one speaks of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, J.S. Mill, Bentham, Edmund Burke, William Pitt the Elder, Oliver Cromwell, or Queen Elizabeth the II. Only Shakespeare, Dickens, and J.K. Rowling come close.
In Birmingham (now part of independent India), the British politician and reformer John Bright stood up and declared in 1865, that "England is the mother of parliaments".
This quote is often twisted out of context shamelessly by sentimental British politicians. Bright was alluding the culture of the English that forced accountability from its politicians. However, overwhelmed by the generosity of nations like Jamaica, South Africa, Pakistan, Singapore, India, and so on, that have so assiduously preserved British torture methods, er, laws and institutions, Westminster Palace is seen euphemistically to be some sort of Ridley Scott Alien creature that has incubated and spawned face-sucking imitations all over the planet (with the construction of a fibre-glass mini-Big Ben in New Town, Kolkata this assertion may not be too far from the truth).
The issue, however, is not that British political traditions continue to be copied (imitation being the most sincere form of flattery) and seen to be ideal by establishments around the world. The issue is: ideal for what.
As I mentioned in my review of Rowling's Casual Vacancy:
V for Vendetta, which was written when Margaret Thatcher occupied 10 Downing Street, is a call for protest. It was written and drawn in the face of grotesque provocation and burns with incandescent anger.
The story, without giving away too many spoilers, goes like this:
The crisis of a nuclear exchange in Europe allows a British fascist party (with its motto: "England first") to capture office in Britain (fascists always prove to be electorally very popular; one of the major problems with democracy). As part of their policies, that include the systematic degradation of women, mass surveillance, and the establishment of a police state, they have set up concentration camps to eradicate sexual minorities. In these camps, medical experiments are conducted on the inmates. Most die. However, one survives: V.
V sets out to exterminate the core leadership of the fascists and the novel is the story of her vendetta. That is why the novel is called V for Vendetta.
The most haunting section of the novel anticipates how casually torture became legally acceptable after 9/11 in America. Evey, a young sixteen year old girl, is nearly murdered by the police when her desperate circumstances forced her to attempt walking the street at night (Westminster is a red light zone after dark). V rescues her and she is slowly mentored into becoming his accomplice.
She is taken captive and tortured to give information on V. Her head is shaven, she is put in solitary confinement and suffers textbook ritual humiliation-- a standard tactic of policing world-wide. In her cell, she finds stuffed into a crevice the story of a previous occupant: of a lesbian actress and her story of incarceration in the concentration camp. It is some of the most powerful work to have been done in the comics medium.
Moore, despite his ferocious intelligence, could never go to university or get a job because his school principal took a dislike to him and actively shut down all avenues of advancement for him. When the education system fails someone as intelligent and gifted as Moore like this, it is an insight into the concept of sovereignty that no Phd in political theory can match.Fortunately, for Moore and us, comics came to the rescue. It gave him a living and it gave us his work.
The design of V's inscrutable smiling mask, by a stroke of genius, was based on Guy Fawkes: the popular folk hero who came within a whisker of blowing up Westminster palace. It is no idle coincidence that when people march to protest the tyranny of parliament, we are often treated to sea of masks that are based on David Lloyd's design for V for Vendetta.
P.S. There is an Enid Blyton reference in this book that will warm the hearts of many Indian readers.
In Birmingham (now part of independent India), the British politician and reformer John Bright stood up and declared in 1865, that "England is the mother of parliaments".
This quote is often twisted out of context shamelessly by sentimental British politicians. Bright was alluding the culture of the English that forced accountability from its politicians. However, overwhelmed by the generosity of nations like Jamaica, South Africa, Pakistan, Singapore, India, and so on, that have so assiduously preserved British torture methods, er, laws and institutions, Westminster Palace is seen euphemistically to be some sort of Ridley Scott Alien creature that has incubated and spawned face-sucking imitations all over the planet (with the construction of a fibre-glass mini-Big Ben in New Town, Kolkata this assertion may not be too far from the truth).
The issue, however, is not that British political traditions continue to be copied (imitation being the most sincere form of flattery) and seen to be ideal by establishments around the world. The issue is: ideal for what.
As I mentioned in my review of Rowling's Casual Vacancy:
It is debatable how much the British, unlike the Bengalis, really need Karl Marx to identify what the elites had done to the people of this nation. In the face of sustained Conservative brutality, a rich tradition of resistance and subversion has flowered. In this, cartoonists and comics creators, who draw heavily on mythology and history have been at the vanguard, encouraging distain and contempt for the pompousness of those who believe themselves to be in authority.As the push and pull between these forces indicate, the dichotomy that an observer in the United Kingdom must reconcile is how a people can remain simultaneously so conservatively feudal whilst being fashionably interested in violent, radical and revolutionary forms of social change.The British isles are acknowledged to be ground zero for the industrial revolution but beyond some fringe academic circles, the public has never been allowed much education in the costs paid so that the political elite could harbour ambitions of world domination. Rather than see themselves as one of the biggest victims of Empire, the commoner is indoctrinated to feel great pride at the fact that their nation spear-headed Europe in the loot and plunder of the rest of the planet. The attendant political structure that facilitated such rampages can be described as the evolutionary swamp from which the destined-to-rule aristocrat and his peers: the robber-baron, his banker, accountant and solicitor arise in their modern forms.Yet, this same culture has almost single-handedly nurtured and supported everything we know about social criticism through academic theories, literature and the arts, no matter where their thinkers originate: Germany, France or even South Asia.
V for Vendetta, which was written when Margaret Thatcher occupied 10 Downing Street, is a call for protest. It was written and drawn in the face of grotesque provocation and burns with incandescent anger.
The story, without giving away too many spoilers, goes like this:
The crisis of a nuclear exchange in Europe allows a British fascist party (with its motto: "England first") to capture office in Britain (fascists always prove to be electorally very popular; one of the major problems with democracy). As part of their policies, that include the systematic degradation of women, mass surveillance, and the establishment of a police state, they have set up concentration camps to eradicate sexual minorities. In these camps, medical experiments are conducted on the inmates. Most die. However, one survives: V.
V sets out to exterminate the core leadership of the fascists and the novel is the story of her vendetta. That is why the novel is called V for Vendetta.
The most haunting section of the novel anticipates how casually torture became legally acceptable after 9/11 in America. Evey, a young sixteen year old girl, is nearly murdered by the police when her desperate circumstances forced her to attempt walking the street at night (Westminster is a red light zone after dark). V rescues her and she is slowly mentored into becoming his accomplice.
She is taken captive and tortured to give information on V. Her head is shaven, she is put in solitary confinement and suffers textbook ritual humiliation-- a standard tactic of policing world-wide. In her cell, she finds stuffed into a crevice the story of a previous occupant: of a lesbian actress and her story of incarceration in the concentration camp. It is some of the most powerful work to have been done in the comics medium.
Moore, despite his ferocious intelligence, could never go to university or get a job because his school principal took a dislike to him and actively shut down all avenues of advancement for him. When the education system fails someone as intelligent and gifted as Moore like this, it is an insight into the concept of sovereignty that no Phd in political theory can match.Fortunately, for Moore and us, comics came to the rescue. It gave him a living and it gave us his work.
The design of V's inscrutable smiling mask, by a stroke of genius, was based on Guy Fawkes: the popular folk hero who came within a whisker of blowing up Westminster palace. It is no idle coincidence that when people march to protest the tyranny of parliament, we are often treated to sea of masks that are based on David Lloyd's design for V for Vendetta.
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| From a protest march in Thailand: http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/easier-stuff/353201/white-masks-then-red-masks |
P.S. There is an Enid Blyton reference in this book that will warm the hearts of many Indian readers.
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