Social There Are Many Interesting Political Actors

¶ … Social

There are many interesting political actors in the world today, some who challenge conventional thinking and others who reiterate the status quo. Though former Prime Minister Tony Blair is not always thought of as the most popular of public figures, in large part due to his involvement of the UK in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq he is a formidable political activist, for change. Tony Blair is clearly one of the most influential political leaders of the modern era. He demonstrates significant and sound reasoning in areas where many politicians and others seek to either look the other way or follow the popular reasoning of others. Blair became a political activist in the Labour party at a relatively young age and much that he went through within his early life molded his later opinions and strategies for change, especially with regard to environmental change and sustainable living and governance. Research surrounding Blair's position as a political activist and an environmental activist should stem from his history and experiences before and in government. The interest of this research is to determine how and why change leaders come about.

Research Topic

Blair had a rather conventional upbringing and was not a likely candidate for activism or at the least a Labour Party leader, having been raised in relative privilege by an academic father attending all the right schools, yet he took what he learned and went forward with a clear understanding of our need as people and especially as a nation to seek sustainable outcomes and systems, despite the many sacrifices that might be a result of such sweeping change. Blair clearly grew up and came of age in an era that began the demand for social and environmental change. He lived through the years of the 1960s and 70s with the protests associated with change and was likely moved by such a call to action as his position as a Labour party leader led him to fully entrench the ideals of socialism, rather than capitalism or conservatism. This work will seek through documentary sources the reasoning and influences as stated mostly by Blair himself as to why he became a political and environmental activist.

Documentary Sources

Blair's first speech to The House of Commons in 1983 states; "I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality…" (Radis, 2010, p.44) Blair recognized early on, through the loss of his mother at the age of 22, while finishing his Oxford years that life is finite and must be lived accordingly, "Life was never the same after that. That was when the urgency took hold, the ambition hardened, the recognition grasped that life was finite and had to be lived with that knowledge," (Blair, p. 11). Sustainability is at the core of Blair's belief system in both government and environment. One of his first goals as a politician was to seek to make his party the Labour party sustainable, as not a "party of protest," but a "party of government," (p.85). In doing so he succeeded in creating a shocking victory for himself and the nation as he was elected to his very first public office, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. As Prime Minister he then sought to challenge sustainability in other ways, from the environment and economy to international relations, especially with regard to the Middle East, his and other government's actions with and toward it. The sources used to gather this information are two, Blair's autobiography A Journey and through an excerpt from his first speech to The House of Commons. These sources seemed to provide the most authentic observations of self that demonstrated Blair's core beliefs in activism and social and environmental change. Though the speech and the autobiography are offered as a public statement of elf, leaving them at least somewhat challenging because they are both meant to influence other's opinions of self they do give great insight into the facts and insight of the man himself, of himself. I located both sources by doing a preliminary internet search on Tony Blair. As he was and still is a well-known figure a great deal of information was available, much of it in his own words, but most glossed over his early life, leaving the supposition of early indoctrination in the voices of equality and social and environmental change that peppered his youth. In other words beyond his early political career, and his later observations of self he gives no documentary history of his youth but instead demonstrates what he has become as an activist.

Summary

What I have found, despite Blair's importance as a political figure has glossed over his adolescence and young adulthood, with less reputable sources mentioning his involvement as a rock and roll artist, but this deserves no mention in his documentary history. Blair therefore serves a s good example of modern change, but to some degree he also serves as a modern example of what one would call a self-made man, one that has worked diligently to carefully choose that which he seeks to leave as his legacy of information. His politics are clearly ongoing as he currently works as an ambassador in the Middle East. (tonyblairoffice.org)