Showing posts with label Brexit and Lancet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brexit and Lancet. Show all posts

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Brexit and Lancet


email from Lakshman Karalliedde

1:49 AM (4 hours ago)



Comment
Published online June 29, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30903-5
1
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Offline: The meanings of Brexit
Slavoj Žižek, in his 2014 book
Event
, perhaps describes the
way many (certainly 16
141
241) people feel about our
present Brexit moment: “the effect that seems to exceed its
causes...an occurrence not grounded in sufficient reasons”.
For those who voted to remain, it has been tempting to
let emotion take (back) control—shock, sadness, anger,
recrimination, blame. A forlorn feeling that maybe
xenophobia, intolerance, racism, extreme nationalism,
and even violence have emerged as new national values
in post-Brexit Britain. The Science Media Centre collected
a round-up of rapid reactions from the UK’s medical and
scientific elite. Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the
Royal Society, said, “we must make sure that research,
which is the bedrock of a sustainable economy, is not
short changed”. Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick
Institute, noted that Brexit, “is a poor outcome for British
science and so is bad for Britain”. Robert Lechler, President
of the Academy of Medical Sciences, called Brexit, “a very
disappointing outcome for medical science”. Although
understandable, these responses were dispiriting.
The “surprising emergence of something new which
undermines every stable scheme” (Žižek) surely demanded
reflections that were less self-absorbed.
*
The “insufficient” causes and reasons of last week’s vote
suggest uncomfortable truths. The divisions between
old and young, north and south, and England/Wales and
Scotland/Northern Ireland threaten the cohesion of not
only our four nations but also communities up and down
the land. What is the origin of discontent among those
who voted to leave the European Union? In one word—
unfairness. For those with fewer resources and in the face
of unemployment, deindustrialisation, urban decay, rural
poverty, and the excesses of globalisation, there was a
strong sense that governments and political institutions
(such as those of the European Union) had turned their
backs on those they purported to serve. Many people
feel forgotten at best, ignored at worst—humiliated,
alienated, dispossessed, and culturally lost. Brexit was
a triumph for direct democracy. It exposed the failure
of representative democracy. The chief question now
is what does the UK stand for? A clue might be found
in
Magna
Carta
, one of the founding documents of our
country: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny
or delay, right or justice.” Brexiteers were protesting that
they had indeed been denied “right or justice”.
*
Here is where the UK’s medical and science communities
have a crucial part to play. Medicine and science embody
values of solidarity and society. The purpose of both,
through health and knowledge, is to build stronger and
more resilient communities, to provide foundations for
the fulfilment of hope and aspiration. Our task must be
to defend the 800-year-old promise of “right or justice”.
That means delivering the right to the very highest
attainable standard of health. It means attacking the
social, political, and economic determinants of inequality.
It means investing in children and young people as the
foundation for a sustainable future. It means improving
daily living and working conditions throughout the life
course. It means restoring as best we can some measure
of unity across geographies and generations. This task
will not be easy, since the arguments that underpinned
the Brexit campaign are inimical to a strong cohesive
society. The Brexit dogma thrives on division and
conflict. Boris Johnson, a leader of the Leave campaign
and a potential future Prime Minister, put it this way
in 2013—”some measure of inequality is essential
for the spirit of envy...that is, like greed, a valuable
spur to economic activity”. Those who led the Brexit
campaign seek to build a society based on envy, greed,
and inequality. They see these attributes as “essential”
prerequisites for national success. Science and medicine
urge something very different. The National Health Service
is a core social institution that makes equity and altruism
central values in our society. The response to Brexit from
our scientific and medical leaders should be to widen the
circumference of their concerns, not implicitly endorse
a philosophy of competitive greed that some Leavers
wish to foster. Instead, we should be strengthening our
associations across society, encouraging a less selfish and
more generous spirit in our public words, and promoting
a more constructive internationalism that recognises that
there is a slowly emerging world society, one that will
depend on our full participation and engagement.
Richard Horton
Published
Online
June 29, 2016
S0140-6736(16)30903-5