Isn't Tony Blair the last person you would have expected to alienate himself from European and Middle Eastern leaders and align himself with ' a warmonger' like George Bush? But the two men have more in common than you would think, writes Kathryn Holmquist
The looming showdown between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein is as macho a spectacle as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush talks only of good guys and bad guys and sees no shade of compromise in between. The language of blood-sacrifice is what you'd expect from George Dubya, but how did Tony Blair get caught up in this posturing? There's more than statesmanship involved. Bush and Blair are human beings - one far more malleable than the other. And the more malleable one is Blair.
That's according to Andrew Samuels, a Jungian psychologist, founder of the Antidote think-tank and a political adviser to world leaders.
Samuels, who has shared podia with Mary Robinson and gained the support of President McAleese in his work concerning Irish survivors of institutional abuse in the UK, has a reputation as "Tony Blair's psychoanalyst". He will neither confirm nor deny this reputation. As an ethical psychoanalyst, he cannot. But his insights into Blair's personality have the ring of truth.
Just as JFK and Fidel Castro were two men, as much as they were two powers, so Bush, Blair and Hussein are men. All leaders are surrounded by foreign policy analysts, military advisers and spin doctors. Beneath it all, they are human beings. Tony Blair, in fervently aligning himself with Bush, is as vulnerable to unconscious forces as any other human being.
Call it psychobabble if you will. The history writers in 30 years time will call it motivation.
When Tony Blair became British Prime Minister in a landslide victory five years ago, there was talk of a "new man" mentality. Blair surrounded himself with female colleagues, talked about his feelings, had a wife who equalled him in status, shed a tear on the death of Diana and, soon after, had a new baby to prove his virility.
Isn't Tony Blair the last person you would have expected to alienate himself from European and Middle Eastern leaders and align himself with "a warmonger", as Clare Short, Blair's secretary of state for international development, has described George Bush?
Bush and Blair seem to be opposites. Blair surrounds himself with intellectuals while Bush despises them. Blair gives the impression of governing by consensus, while Bush's White House has a strict style where no one dare speak out of turn and creative thinking is discouraged. It's Bush's way or no way. Blair is a cuddly, left-wing "new man", while Bush is an old-fashioned conservative republican.
Yet, says Samuels, the two men have far more in common than media spin would lead you to believe. What they share, is a way of thinking. It's a heterosexual male way of viewing the world, where humanity is subsumed into competitiveness. Where men have to be blood-thirsty heroes all their lives.
Men are conditioned by society, Samuels believes, into such homophobia that they are terrified of thinking and relating in ways they perceive as "feminine". The fear of being accused of being "gay" runs so deep in the male psyche, that a man will give up his principles just to avoid the accusation.
The US-Iraq conflict is a classic case of such thinking, Samuels asserts.
"What I tell the politicians I advise, is stop regarding yourself as normal and start thinking of yourself as a male. Stop assuming that the way men run the world is the only way to do it," says Samuels.
Blair's instincts are against such bully-boy tactics. "Blair is an intelligent guy. If you were to say to him 'we do have a problem with masculine aggression in the world', he would know what you were talking about," says Samuels.
Yet Blair has been seduced by Bush's aura of power and confidence, and has thus allowed himself to be "shamed" by Bush into acting macho, Samuels states bluntly. He compares the two leaders to two teenage boys posturing on a street corner. The bully wants to pick fights to impress girls, while the more sensitive friend goes along with it, against his better instincts. "Blair's instinct would be to say cool it, calm down. But Blair has been seduced. He is now acting out of a sense of shame. Blair would be embarrassed if he were to be found out as peaceable at this point," says Samuels.
The fear of homosexuality in society is so intense that one man can keep another in line simply by threatening him with the accusation that his sexuality is not "normal". Consider Bush's comment to Vladimir Putin, when Bush gave Putin a bear-hug and stated: "You can't agree with your mother on every issue. You still love her don't you?" Bush was putting it up to Putin to ally himself with the men, rather than the women - with macho, hierarchical competitiveness, rather than compromise and co-operation.
Nine out of 10 men are vulnerable to such bullying because of their conditioning, Samuels believes.
Blair and Bush haven't got the rapport that Blair and Clinton enjoyed - you only have to look at their body language to see that. At a recent press conference, Bush lazed confidently, one hand in his pocket as if on his gun holster, while Blair stood tentatively erect with the tips of the fingers on his left hand touching the tips of the fingers on his right hand, in a half-hearted praying position.
Blair and Clinton genuinely got on with each other, mostly because Clinton didn't put pressure on Blair - on a personal, unconscious level - to be anything but himself. This was because Clinton was totally contented with who he was and regarded as insignificant the succession of scandals that threatened his reputation, says Samuels. This freed Blair to be himself as well.
Bush, on the other hand, is an overtly macho man's man who insists that Blair do the John Wayne routine as well. But could it really be that simple? Could our lives and, especially, the lives of the Iraqi people be vulnerable to such base, unconscious impulses?
Samuels' argument becomes more convincing when you consider that beneath the superficial image created for Blair by Labour's spin doctors, there is a deeply conservative man.
Bush and Blair are both the sons of prominent men - Bush's was a President, Blair's was a law professor. Both Bush and Blair have had lighter lives than their fathers' generations. Born after the second World War, they have never been forced to fight and haven't lived through a depression. Both men are deeply religious and both had privileged upbringings. Both sowed their wild oats - Bush by drinking too much, and Blair by playing lead guitar and singing with a band called Ugly Rumours, before settling down to play political parts. Some Downing Street insiders say that Blair's tenure was traditionally hierarchical from the beginning - you did what Tony wanted, and that was that. Blair-style consensus - which took the form of stage-directed cosy chats with the public - was always an illusion.
Whatever about his unconscious motivations, Blair has now consciously decided to use threatening, macho language in an attempt to convince the public that the "allies" would be justified in attacking the people of Iraq. It is as though the male, hierarchical form of discourse is the only one he knows. Any true diplomacy - which would be based on feminine, consensual language amongst "allies" - has been dismissed and the public are increasingly resenting it. Blair seems to have underestimated the shift in public discourse away from what Andrews calls "male" forms of dominance, to "female" forms of cooperation.
PERHAPS we shouldn't be surprised then that Blair has altered his image from that of soft, visionary male to pragmatic, hawkish politician. It may not so much be a question of Bush having bullied Blair into acting like a home boy, as Blair being willing all along. Surrounded by spin doctors, Blair, an accomplished actor with a background in youth theatre, may be capable of changing his values as easily as he changes his clothes.
Samuels believes Blair is a far deeper character, and would like to see him questioning the relationship between leadership and heroism, rather than just taking on the role Bush offers him. "The heroic mode is not the only way to be a leader," says Samuels.
Peace in Northern Ireland has come only as a result of co-operation and compromise. The non-macho way of leadership is to always allow your opponent a way out with dignity. Paint someone into a corner, and violence is likely to be the only way out.
Bush's plunging popularity rating in the US would lead you to believe that many in the US have seen through his macho heroics. As peace activist Father Daniel Berrigan has pointed out, it is the families of victims of September 11th, after all, who have been among the most vocal in their pleas for resolution rather than retaliation.
Dr Andrew Samuels, professor of analytical psychology at the University of Essex, is the author of Politics on the Couch: Citizenship and the Internal Life (Profile Books, £15.99 sterling). He will give a talk, "Homosexuality: Do Psychotherapists Still have a Problem? Does Society?" in Dublin on September 27th at The Irish Analytical Psychology Association, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin, at 8 p.m. (€15 non-member, €10 members, OAPs/non-waged €6).