Is there life in the old republic after all?
View(s):Help me, dears: I can’t quite make up my mind… Is the Old Republic we all know and love alive and well? Or is it lifeless, dying slowly, or well and truly dead? There is – as the actress said to the archbishop – some difference of opinion between us. These days, their voices – those of the abovementioned archbishop and the aforesaid actress – are about all the opinions that are heard around the town square and about the marketplace.
(Let those who have ears, hear.)
Let me clarify. For the purposes of this piece, “actress” represents the ‘hot’, ‘new’, ‘young’, ‘talent’ that is emerging as a fresh voice in the life of the Old Republic (OR). They include actual starlets who seek a seat in the House, so to speak, as well as a host of new arrivals who have given the OR a shot in the arm. (Some of them literally. Think you dope!) Arriviste, nouveau-riche, and embarrassingly attractive, they threaten to subvert the power base of the Old Guard (OG) with their good looks, bad ideas, and ugly connections with certain favoured flunkeys of the OG.
Also for the purposes of this piece, “archbishop” stands for the ‘old’, ‘cold’, ‘boring’, ‘cynical’ pontiffs, prelates, and spiritually perverse politicos who prop and underpin the power base of the powers that be. Their ilk spans the gamut from actual archbishops to active barons (of both ‘drug’ and ‘robber’ types) to aggressive members of the not-at-all bashful, ‘alien’-bashing type. Entrenched, infinitely corruptible, and awfully reactionary in their outlook, their jaundiced eye is ever on the watch-out for plots and conspiracies. These encompass complex paranoid delusions that envision a nation-state free of ‘foreign’ influences and interferences.
(Let those who have eyes, see.)
So you can discern my quandary, dears. I am – as the actress said to the archbishop – on the horns of a dilemma. Any point of view you may have would be welcome?
On the one hand, there are the traditionalists who would support the voice of the arch-b. These worthies are of the view that the Old Republic, or OR, is coming apart at the foundations and needs to be arrested, restored, and reinstituted. This they would do with an iron fist in a velvet glove. The iron fist is more visible these days, as it moves around the OR, discipling here and disciplining there. It has been tangible since those first detractors were bumped off, bruised and bloodied by bullets, brought to heel, battered and bowed. If that was injury, the velvet glove was a neatly inserted insult. We found out – to our utter amazement – that the conflict, the successive crackdowns, the diverse crushings of the jackboot – were all our fault. If only we had held our peace and not said our piece, insisting as we did on peace with justice, then all would have been well with the world and the OR could have sailed on to its place in the sun. But no! Some of us had to be silly enough to say boo to the spirit of the arch-b.
(Lord, have mercy.)
On the other hand, there are the triumphalists of a new order who endorse the spirit of the a. These bright young things appear to be knocking on the front door of the Old Guard, or OG, but have in reality been let in through the back entrance. Lacking sense, they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Pretty as a picture, they have yet to realise that they have been framed, and will possibly be relegated to the attic when the now-quite artistic election campaign is done and dusted.
(Let our cry come unto thee.)
There are those who would argue that the actress and the archbishop have entered into an unholy alliance. It is a devil’s bargain in which the OR is still ostensibly under the OG, but appears to be slowly being taken over by the new kids on the block. The actress has made her bed, and will have to lie down with the lion and the wolf. Have stranger bedfellows ever led our sheep by still waters or greener grass?
(Thy rod and staff comfort me.)
Do you get the allegory, dears? No? Maybe I need to ask the question more plainly!
Is it a good thing for art to imitate life? Can a celluloid (notice I didn’t mention cellulite) princess make a clever, caring, or convincing politician? Will the romance of these beauties with those beasts end in tears for all of us? Would you vote for beauty over truth (if only the old could, if only the young knew how)? Should you? Could it be that the entry of new young blood into the Old Republic’s Old Guarded circulation is not a much needed transfusion of life, but the embalming fluid that will bury us – OR, OG, and you and me – alive?