Reflections on sunday: Happy recovery, Baroness Thatcher!

How joyful I was, to see Baroness Thatcher in good form and out of hospital last Saturday! She was a little worse for wear, undoubtedly, but who wouldn’t be if born in 1925?If we, toddlers (!) of the 1940s, can hardly walk without assistance today, imagine us twenty years hence. In case you were born the other day and can’t tell Mandela from Merkel, Margaret Hilda Thatcher was British Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990. And if the mere mention of her name excites me, it is because Thatcher has made crooning history in her time, and a lady of equal courage I can hardly think of any. Golda Meir of Israel may perhaps come to mind, but that’s another topic best kept for another day. In Great Britain of her time, Thatcher was a first in everything. She was the first woman to enter parliament at the young age of 34, first woman minister at 44, first woman to chair the Conservative Party and first woman to head the British government as Prime Minister. Of her, Paul Johnson said: “As champion of free minds and markets, she helped topple welfare states and make the world safer for capitalism.” Her path had been thorny, as Great Britain was not prepared for a woman at the helm, unless blue blood flowed in her veins. She was as red-blooded as you and I, and so even in her Conservative Party it was all she could do to find somebody to talk to about party matters. It is said of Edward Heath, gay party head before her, that when she entered his office and expressed her wish to stand as party head, he never looked up from his desk: “You’ll lose,” he said curtly. “Good day to you.” Anyway, what endeared her to me in the 1980s, had nothing to do with the accolades that she collected in her life. It had everything to do with the way she electrified the world at a time when it had become a comfy carpet on which lay two uneasy, rival giants that could never dare raise their heads: capitalism and communism. Not disturbing each other, the two giants were said to be separated by an iron curtain. That, however, was before the good lady hit the scene. As early as 1976, even before becoming Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher had started ruffling socialist and communist feathers by attacking Russia and China for putting “guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.” For that, Moscow ‘honoured’ her with the nickname “Iron Lady”, which was indeed fitting, considering her unwavering and steadfast character. At home, she had acquired other nicknames, but none had stuck. For abolishing universal free milk in primary schools as education minister, she had acquired the unflatteringly poetic title: “Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher!” And, as PM, for sticking to her guns and refusing to yield to rampant picketing by mine workers (and closing the mines instead!), and for letting IRA hunger strikers die rather than win their demands, she was called “Attila the Hen”! We, of course, cared little about what went on inside Britain. We keenly watched her only on the world scene as she rode roughshod, sword in the air, leading the verbal battle against the Eastern Bloc. Eighteen months into her premiership, to her luck, she was joined by a Wild West lone ranger in the names of Ronald Reagan, and the duo plunged into fierce battle with the “Evil Empire” in what they dubbed “Star Wars”. Ronald Reagan had just won presidential polls in the United States of America and, like Thatcher, he had grit and weight and was willing to use them within and without his country. Unlike Thatcher, he had warmth and wit in addition, qualities which he used to bring big government to its knees (as Thatcher had done), minimising its participation in business and encouraging individual choice and initiative. Riding on the success of their economies, “Thatcherism” for Thatcher and “Reaganomics” for Reagan, the two turned to the East and took words and sent them to fight for the West. In a thankful twist of fate, however, the new tenant of Kremlin, four years after their ascendance to power, turned out to be an ally. In the words of “Iron Lady”: “Michael Gorbachev is a man we can do business with.” Nothing can symbolise better that new camaraderie between the West and East than the photos of Thatcher and Gorbachev in one of the British tabloids of the time, when Thatcher visited Moscow. With arms around each other’s waists, the two ‘romantics’ were shown variously strolling in the Kremlin gardens, handing each other red roses or cosying up to each other on the park bench! The rest, as they say, is history. The “iron curtain” fell in 1989 and the cold war ended. Maybe, today’s “War on Terror” can borrow a leaf from “Star Wars”. As for Rwanda, “Thatcherism” and “Reaganomics” should be an endorsement of the path she has chosen of fat private enterprise and thin government involvement. Contact: ingina2@yahoo.co.uk