Shakespeare and Politics

March 21, 2010

www.thestar.com.my

by Karim Raslan (March 16, 2010)

The current crises taking place in Bangkok and indeed elsewhere in South-East Asia seem to resonate with ‘A Man for All Seasons’, a play based on events during the reign of England’s King Henry VIII.

There are times when works of the imagination – whether novels, plays or films – best capture the intricacies and extremes of human life. As observers, we are unable to envisage the depths to which men and women can stoop.

And now with Bangkok teeming with red-shirted demonstrators, an end-game of sorts is fast approaching in Thailand.An estimated 150,000 of ousted Premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s supporters gathered in the streets of Bangkok, protesting against the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration. They want Parliament’s dissolution and fresh polls.

The City of Angels, with its eight million or so inhabitants, is caught in the grip of an unresolved and potentially bloody drama. Indeed, both the personalities as well as the setting are Shakespearean. On the one hand, there is the frail and aging monarch – King Bhumibol – in seclusion at the beach resort of Hua Hin.  He is of course surrounded by his Court, many of whom must be fearful for their future.

His own son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkhorn, lacks the authority and prestige of his father – a man who has reigned for over 50 years. Meanwhile, the King’s universally-loved daughter Princess Sirindhorn has been lying low – lest she tempt fate.

On the other hand, there is Thaksin’s masses – drawn from the many millions of poor farmers who benefited from the multi-billionaire’s populist policies. The “Red Shirts” are headed for a collision with over 50,000 police and military men.

This titanic feud between the monarch (supported by the traditional elite) and the Chiang Mai-born upstart now stripped of his vast fortune by a recent court decision is a supreme contest of wills.

There can be no compromise. One side must be utterly defeated. The rawness of the conflict, and the speed with which men and women are being toppled from positions of power and influence, has reminded me of the prize-winning novel Wolfhall by writer Hilary Mantel.

Wolfhall is set during the reign of Henry VIII, the much-married, Renaissance-era English monarch. It’s a superb account of the years leading up to Henry’s dramatic decision to break with the Catholic Church.

The novel also deals with Henry’s desperate need for a male heir in order to cement his Tudor dynasty’s hold on the English throne.

Unfortunately his first wife, the Spanish Queen Katherine of Aragon, only produced a girl (who later became Queen “Bloody” Mary). Driven by his need for a son, Henry became obsessed with a flirtatious (and decidedly vulgar) commoner Anne Boleyn, who demanded he first divorce Katherine.

For various reasons (among them the fact that Katherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor, had just sacked Rome and sent the Pope packing) the Church refused to grant a divorce.

Henry’s commanded his advisers – among them Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More – to resolve the impasse. Both failed to find a solution and paid the ultimate price as they were stripped from office, and in the case of More, executed.

This is when the novel’s anti-hero Thomas Cromwell emerges. Cromwell – a smooth-talking lawyer from a lowly background – proves to be an agile and adept adviser. Moreover, he soon devises a way for Henry to divorce Katherine and make an enormous amount of money by seizing the Church’s assets in the process.

For a perpetually indebted monarch like Henry, the solution is a double godsend. This is a well-known period in English history. The events are well-documented and there have been countless novels, TV series, plays and films set during the period.

Among the most well-known must surely be Richard Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons – an account of More’s spectacular fall from power. By comparison with the sainted More, historians and writers (with the exception of Mantel) have judged Cromwell very poorly.

Most have seen him as an unprincipled opportunist – conniving and duplicitous as he pushed Anne to the forefront.

Mantel also revels in her portrayal of the wilful and meddlesome mistress Anne. We watch as Anne steadily increases her influence and interference in affairs of the state, insinuating herself into her husband’s court.

At the same time, Anne clearly takes great pleasure in punishing and humiliating those who had crossed her when she was a nobody.

Ironically, not long after arranging for Henry VIII’s divorce, both Cromwell and Anne were to fall from power.Anne failed to bear a son (though her daughter became Elizabeth I) and Cromwell erred in selecting one of her successors. Both their lives were ended by an axe.

Why does Wolfhall resonate with the events taking place in Bangkok and, indeed, elsewhere in South-East Asia? Well, first of all, we are dealing with a world where personal vendettas are taken to the extreme – where men and women can pay the ultimate price for their politicking.

The level of personal animosity in Bangkok is very deep. The gap is unbridgeable. When a conflict becomes personal and this bitter, there is often no way out without the loser’s total destruction, if not death.

Similarly, the novel is about a world where vendettas are a way of life, where those in power take sadistic pleasure attacking and then destroying their enemies – a cycle of violence that has now got Thailand firmly in its grip.

For all those who hold power now, I’d advise them to read Mantel’s Wolfhall. When you’re on top, you often feel like you’ll never fall.

However, fall you will, sooner or later. And when that time comes, your enemies – the people you abused, cheated and ruined, will come after you because that is what happens when you create a world where violence is cyclical and where one wrong is met by another.

What goes around comes around. We may not be able to publish all that we as writers know. However, we will always remember your sins and crimes. As I said earlier, I used to scoff at Shakespeare’s plays as unreal. Now I know better.

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