The British-made films of the 1940s and ’50s that are commonly known as the Ealing Comedies might seem like a bad source for understanding local and global political trends. These parochial moments in the history of celluloid refer to a bygone era, of a racially homogenous Britain, with the vestiges of “the Blitz Spirit” still filtering the air. But they do, I think, have something to teach us.
They generally tell the story, often with the help of Alec Guinness, of the desire of the lower-middle class and working class to get “one up” on their traditional class enemies in the British establishment. The everyday heroes that stand at the centre of these stories are people who long to be free of a world from which they gain little benefit.
I hope that it is not too overly simplistic to observe that these are, in some ways, the same kinds of people that are at the root of current populist trends around the world. As we are so often told by analysts, populism has taken root in communities that feel excluded from the economy.
But as the historian Tony Judt observed, long before many others, the rise of right-wing populism in France is not merely about economic exclusion, it is about the loss of a cultural “reason for being”.
As he suggested, the traditional industrial and mining towns in France were, even in the early 2000s, turning away from their communist and socialist roots and finding succour in the rhetoric of the right. They were doing this, he argued, not because they were worse off financially — the state made sure they did not starve — but because they were, in a globalised world, losing their working culture, their understanding of just who they were.
This is one aspect of the world that one does not see in the Ealing films. The petit-bourgeois and working-class heroes of the Ealing Comedies identify very strongly with their jobs as clerks, shopkeepers, haberdashery assistants, touts, toolmakers, pub owners, petty criminals, musical hall performers and pavement artists. They live in a culturally solid world, while at the same time longing for economic and social freedom.
These men and women are not revolutionaries, they are dreamers. Their crisis is not one of fitting into a changing society, it is simply a desire to be financially free and to “stick it” to those sanctimonious upper-class prigs who traditionally held it over them.
Nevertheless, in these films, the crisis or fault line is there to see. One can see that these are the people whom global markets have affected most and whose sense of identity has been challenged.
What makes the characters of the films so likeable, however, is the joy they take in their attempts to overcome their masters, their distinct sense of their own identity and a sense of inclusion. They are not, as Judt would say, people “whose programme constitutes one long scream of resentment — at immigrants, at unemployment, at crime and insecurity, at ‘Europe’.”
Far from resenting immigrants, the films that came out of the Ealing studios were often hymns to inclusion. The Proud Valley, shot in 1940, tells of the story of a black American miner and singer (played by Paul Robeson) who ends up in a Welsh miners’ choir and whose voice and sense of camaraderie overwhelm a community. Europe has come a long way since then and it is not a happy story.
On revisiting one of the first of these comic masterworks, Passport to Pimlico, on a cold Cape night, I was struck by its particular relevance not only to modern-day Britain but to our own particular set of problems in South Africa.
Government of Burgundy Unity
As the plotline runs, a group of socially minded lower-middle class denizens of London discover, one sunny day, that their street is, by ancient decree, legally part of French Burgundy. In a glorious moment, of sticking it to the establishment, they Burxit from Britain, only to discover that trade barriers between themselves and their traditional trading partners from down the road cause a considerable set of drawbacks. And, with an alarming swiftness, they are referred to as “undesirable aliens”.
How they solve their political dilemma is by forming a Government of Burgundy Unity with the help of the charming and handsome Duke of Burgundy. The key to their success is that the members of the cabinet — a banker, a shopkeeper, a seamstress, a fishmonger and a French aristocrat — are capable of communicating with each other about their hopes and aspirations for British Burgundy.
And with this ability to communicate is their realisation that they must rejoin Britain, but with the caveat that they will control their local politics — they want to build their own recreation centre and park.
Running throughout the film is the sense that petit-bourgeois and working-class values should not be undermined by greedy upper-class capitalists. Interestingly, the aristocratic Frenchman in the film is portrayed as being more conscious of these issues and more able to integrate into the lower-class structures than his British equivalents. At least here, the European “foreigner” is not a threat but an ally!
Well, you might well ask, what does this have to do with us in South Africa? On one level, Passport to Pimlico speaks to inclusive federalism and the devolution of powers. Local communities are better placed to understand their needs while at the same time reliant on certain national/transnational structures. This is something that we are not unfamiliar with.
But it also speaks to just how our government of national unity (GNU) will have to behave if South African society is to benefit. Our herd of GNU, like that of British Burgundy, will have to talk to each other and make compromises. Democracy is, after all, a method by which a group of people make collective decisions about their common affairs and interests.
The government of Burgundy has no liking for the British establishment. They war with each other via loudspeakers, and they hold up the Tube trains on the District Line with demands that commuters on their way to work must declare any fruit, poultry or livestock. Throughout, the “Burgundians” are portrayed as having a distinctly different ideological outlook from Westminster and yet they do choose to rejoin Britain.
As Passport to Pimlico suggests, democracy is about compromise, it is about the acceptance and tolerance of others and their ideologies. This is what the GNU will now face head-on.
Many analysts have decried the size of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet. But considering that many of our problems have arisen from a dysfunctional legislature, it may well be desirable to have a larger multivocal and more democratic executive, so long as its members are prepared to listen to each other. After 30 years of democracy, there have been few chances to make collective decisions in our common interest. This might well be one.
Luckily, our democracy has, to date, avoided the global trend of populism. Many of the excluded in our society still seemingly have some belief, like those in British Burgundy, in the democratic project — although for how long this will continue is hard to say. Certainly, MK and the EFF are beating at the gates, while the populist posturing PA is already in the building.
What we are yet to see, and what Europe and North America have seen, is the destruction of industrial and agricultural working cultures. If there is one lesson coming from France it is this: communities can switch from trade union-supporting socialists to right-wing populists at the closing of a colliery.
In democratic theory, it is the force of communication, deliberation and common interest that leads to a stable, flourishing society. And to (mis)quote Alec Guinness, in a very different set of films, “May this force be with the GNU.” DM
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