Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette

The dictate that one 'not speak ill of the dead' is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures

• 
• • Glenn Greenwald
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 April 2013 15.41 BST

Margaret Thatcher Photograph: Don Mcphee

News of Margaret Thatcher's death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. British Labour MP Tom Watsondecreed: "I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today." Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls "on the left" who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he "will continue to add to this list throughout the day". Former Tory MP Louise Mensch, with no apparent sense of irony, invoked precepts of propriety to announce: "Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her."

This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here.

But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.

Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless." Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. Here, for instance, was what the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez:

 " To the millions who detested him as a thug and charlatan, it will be occasion to bid, vocally or discreetly, good riddance."

Nobody, at least that I know of, objected to that observation on the ground that it was disrespectful to the ability of the Chavez family to mourn in peace. Any such objections would have been invalid. It was perfectly justified to note that, particularly as the Guardian also explained that "to the millions who revered him – a third of the country, according to some polls – a messiah has fallen, and their grief will be visceral." Chavez was indeed a divisive and controversial figure, and it would have been reckless to conceal that fact out of some misplaced deference to the grief of his family and supporters. He was a political and historical figure and the need to accurately portray his legacy and prevent misleading hagiography easily outweighed precepts of death etiquette that prevail when a private person dies.

Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.

What Sexual Consent Really Means

How do we teach young people what sexual consent really means?

Reports from youth workers suggest that many young people are confused as to what constitutes rape. But recent events show that they are not the only ones

• 
• • Emine Saner
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 August 2012 20.00 BST

Many young people believe that sex education comprises "too little, too late" Photograph: Rex Features

"Young people will describe scenarios where, I think 'this sounds abusive'," says Rhiannon Holder, a youth worker for Brook, the sexual advisory service for young people and co-chair of Bread, a Bristol youth project.

"They're not sure if they had sex or they wanted sex – and if they did have sex they're not sure if they consented to it. As professionals, we're having to reflect to young people [that some] of the situations they have experienced could be labelled as sexual bullying or assault, or rape."

With politicians such as George Galloway and Tony Benn spouting shameful ideas of what consent means (having sex with someone who is asleep is "bad sexual etiquette", not rape, according to Galloway), a worryingly high proportion of the adult public doesn't seem to grasp it either. A survey for Amnesty found 37% of respondents thought a woman was responsible for being raped if she didn't say "no" clearly enough. With attitudes like this, is it any surprise young people may be dangerously confused?

They certainly seem to be. Only 69% of young men would not try to have sex with someone who did not want to, and one in 20 said they would try to have sex with someone who was asleep, according to a shocking 2010 survey of young people aged between 18 and 25 by the Havens, the specialist London-based sexual assault referral centres. A significant proportion also seemed confused about what constitutes rape: only 77% of young men agreed that having sex with someone who has said no was rape. While in 2009, a study for the NSPCC found a third of girls aged between 13 and 17 who were in relationships had experienced unwanted sexual acts, and one in 16 had been raped.

So, what needs to change? "Too often [consent] is viewed as a simple yes or no, and it's much more complex than that," says Holder. "I don't think many young people are offered the opportunity to explore all of the factors involved in giving consent: peer pressure, alcohol and drugs, self-esteem, coercion, gender issues."

When Holder does workshops with young people, she asks them to consider different scenarios, "and generate discussion around what it means to be in a relationship; what it means to have safe and positive sex. For instance, we would look at situations where you have had sex with someone before, or if you've kissed somebody; does that mean youhave to go on and have sex? Also it's about taking responsibility for consent, so making it clear it's not just the person who has the responsibility for saying 'yes'. Young men should actively be seeking consent."

It isn't just about the words, she says. "We'll explore what 'yes' does, and doesn't, look like."

"Often people don't say 'no' but they'll say 'that hurts', or 'not yet', or 'I don't like it'. Or it might be in their body language," she adds.

Then there are the assumptions about timing, she says. "A lot of the young people I have met are shocked that you can revoke consent – you might have had sex with somebody before, or started a sexual act, but that doesn't mean the sex can't stop at any time.

"I've spoken to young people who have said they didn't really want to do it, but they didn't know how to say 'no' or 'stop'."

Whitney Iles, a community activist, agrees. She thinks many young people are confused by "so many different messages. On one side, you're told about how you should have sex within a loving relationship, on the other side you can see how pop culture is highly sexualised. It's a real confusion over identity and value of self, which then makes it harder to know what you want and where the line is. There is a blurred line of what is normal, or what has become normalised, and what is crossing a line."

Earlier this year, the government launched an online and TV advertising campaign to educate teenagers about rape, and consent, but it seems a poor substitute for good sex education in schools. The problem, says Simon Blake, chief executive of Brook, is that sex education "is incredibly patchy, and what young people have been saying for a really long time is 'too little, too late, too biological'."

The Labour government failed to do enough to make personal, social, health and economics education (PSHE), of which sex and relationships education (SRE) is a part, a statutory requirement for schools. "Although secondary schools have to teach some SRE, virtually nothing is specified and there is no agreed curriculum for it, so schools can teach what they like," says Jane Lees, chair of the Sex Education Forum.

The government's review of PSHE, which ended last year, is still to report, but things could get even worse, Lees fears. "Our concern is that it is likely to slim it down much more, or reduce the expectation that schools will teach it," she says. "When the coalition came in and started the review of PSHE, one of the issues that they raised was about consent, so it is on their minds but we still have no final outcomes from it. We're in limbo at the moment."

"A lot of young people are growing up without really knowing what consent means," says Whitney Iles. "But then I think a lot of adults don't really know either."