Issue 16
February 1997
Contents
Paying the parties
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Party funding is a burning issue in the US, even after the election. Labour, if elected, will expand public funding for political parties in Britain. But in the meantime where are the parties getting the money to fight the most expensive election this century?
Fidel Ramos
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The president of the Philippines has made one of the most unusual journeys in the democratic world. The former security boss to Ferdinand Marcos became the unofficial spokesman for liberal democracy in authoritarian Asia
Among the Serbs
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The Milosevic regime in Belgrade is faltering but the spirit of Serbian nationalism burns as strong as ever in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb mini-state. William Tribe, who taught English for more than 25 years at Sarajevo University, visited Srpska as an observer in last year's Bosnian elections
A stake of one's own
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Has the robust health of the freewheeling British economy weakened the case for stakeholding? It is still the only coherent response to the new right, but stakeholding must be adapted to Britain's liberal economic culture and dissociated from the declinism of Will Hutton
The nowhere man
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The transcontinental tribe of wanderers is growing, global souls for whom home is everywhere and nowhere. Pico Iyer, one of the privileged homeless, considers the new kind of person being created by a new kind of life
Journey to the end of the night
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Francis Stuart, one of Ireland's finest living writers, spent the last war in Berlin writing scripts for Lord Haw Haw. Jason Cowley visits the 94 year old writer in his Dublin bungalow and considers the relationship between great art and brutal politics in the lives of Stuart, Céline and Knut Hamsun
The west and the rest
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The west won the cold war, but cannot and should not impose its distinct values on other world civilisations. Samuel Huntington, in an elaboration of his "Clash of Civilisations" essay published in 1993, argues that the west can only flourish in a more hostile world by abandoning its universal aspirations
The enemy within
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Nightmares are not invasions of evil, they come from within. Fay Weldon recounts how she was cured of them
One step back in Pakistan
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
In the 50 years since its birth Pakistan has shuttled chaotically between dictatorship and democracy. A leading Pakistani democrat, writing anonymously, says it is time to try something different
Do you take sugar?
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Many British habits have been shaped from the fruits of slave labour. James Walvin considers black claims for compensation for slavery and hopes they will at least encourage an open discussion of Britain's central role
The Whig illusion
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The fashionable Whig view that the executive is secretive and tyrannical and the House of Commons impotent is nonsense. That does not mean that all is well with our parliamentary system or our MPs
Hopping mad
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Foreign fishermen gaining access to British fishing quotas seems unjust to the fishing communities in the west of England. But it makes some of their members rich and is economically efficient
Crash, ban, wallop
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
When Christopher Tookey suggested in the Daily Mail that the film "Crash" should be banned, he became a hate figure of the liberal establishment
Anarchy postponed
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Robert Kaplan's 1994 predictions of coming anarchy were based on spurious statistics and powerful metaphors. Alex de Waal welcomes a mellowing of his views
Playing victim
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The modern cult of the victim was foreshadowed by American playwrights in the 1940s. Blanche DuBois is the classic victim heroine and is almost beyond Jessica Lange
Classes for grasses
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Deborah Kellaway enjoys a book about how class difference has found new expression in the gardens of Britain. The book has one drawback: it puts you right off gardening
The altruistic ape
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Matt Ridley has written a fine book on the nature of altruism, not a Blairite manifesto. But neither author nor reviewer has an answer to the "groupishness" problem
Life in the footnotes
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The 27th edition of Social Trends is published at the end of January. Paul Barker, a compulsive browser since the first edition in 1970, celebrates the big trends and the small print
How I became a poet
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
The transformation of a perky, blonde cheerleader into a sandal-wearing writer
Modern manners
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Jeremy Clarke confesses a blind spot for Dickens and a love of playing Pat the Balloon
The prisoner
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Peter Wayne becomes a magazine editor and decides to interview the proprietor-the prison governor
Letter from Russia
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Edward Skidelsky shuttles between two contending realities in the new Russia
Science and the X-files
20th February 1997 — Issue 16
Richard Dawkins complains that a healthy enthusiasm for the unknown is being abused by the media's obsession with the paranormal. To fight back, real science must move from the laboratory into the culture