Ian Benson
On Monday, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away after suffering a stroke. Thatcher was never a figure that I particularly admired. In my mind, she served as a distaff counterpart to Ronald Reagan. For whatever benefits Thatcherism brought to the United Kingdom, it also caused industrial production to sharply decline, with 3.3 million unemployed in Britain during the height of her reign, (nearly double the unemployment rate when Thatcher entered office) and which further left 28 percent of British children below the poverty line. She and her ideology became synonymous with nationalism, moral absolutism, and an uncompromising approach to achieving political goals. She once said that Nelson Mandela belonged to a terrorist group. Needless to say, I do not count myself among her biggest fans.
Still, despite my dislike of her political ideology, as well as the impact she had on the U.K. and world as a whole, I don’t approve of the celebration of her death. My Facebook newsfeed and Twitter feed were filled with people (chiefly Americans) rejoicing. I understand the sentiment — the embodiment of what you despise has passed away — but I dislike the action. Lifting a glass to her death changes none of the problems that were created. Instead, they ignore the issues and operate under the illusion that her death will somehow fix the harm caused by Thatcher’s policies.
These problems, of course, will never be solved until these groups actively take the steps towards fixing these issues across the gulf of ideological difference. Drinking to Thatcher’s death does none of that.
I have another issue with the backlash. The majority of these responses I have seen come from my peers. Eighteen to 22-year-old Americans reacting to the death of an English Prime Minister who left office in 1990 just sounds like borrowed nostalgia from the 1980s. Yes, I disagree with her ideologies but she serves as a representation of an era I never knew. Thatcher’s reign had ended prior to my life, and by the time I was beginning to follow world politics, she was long gone. She didn’t directly impacted me with policies that affected me or people I knew.
Once I reached the age where I was able to grasp her impact globally, I also recognized that one person is rarely the lone person responsible for political upheaval and change. Thatcher was the head of it all, but she wasn’t the only one responsible for the problems that were created from it. And by the time she died, she became an icon for it all, a relic of past age. She was just an old woman who used to have power but in the end only had influence left.
I disagreed with her, but that doesn’t mean I find joy in her death. Maybe it’s the sentimentalist in me that sees no reason to rejoice at someone’s passing. George W. Bush was the first politician of my lifetime that I rebelled against, but if he died tomorrow, my first reaction wouldn’t be celebration. Surely, his death wouldn’t particularly tear me up, but I wouldn’t feel the need to tell the world how happy I am about it. Regardless of any ideological differences, the death of another person is an event which deserves the respect of everyone.