Today, people gathered in central London to pay
their respects to Lady Margaret Thatcher, the controversial politician who came
to be the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the twentieth century.
More than twenty years after her departure from office, Thatcher still divides the nation. In the past few weeks, a number of articles, editorials and commentaries have celebrated or deplored her legacy. I do not intend to summarize the positions presented elsewhere or take sides in the debate on her domestic policies. It is entirely up to the British people to determine whether Thatcher advanced or not their interests and well-being. Yet, today I feel obliged to take sides on the debate on her foreign policies.
Recently, two articles came out on two
well-known and respected publications. One is Margaret Thatcher: Freedom Fighter by The Economist, and the other
is Thatcher, Argentinian liberator by
John Carlin for El País. Both paint a rosy picture of Thatcher.
According to these sources, Thatcher was a champion of (political) liberalism
who relentlessly fought dictators here, there and everywhere. “Her willingness
to stand up to tyranny” helped to depose oppressive regimes all over the world,
from the Soviet Union in the north, to the Argentinian military junta in the south.
Her relentless fight for the ideal of individual freedom makes of Thatcher, a “great
liberator of the twentieth century”, claims Carlin –maybe even more than Sir
Winston Churchill, hints The Economist. In their opinion, the Russians, the
Argentinians and the world in general owe a great deal of their present-day political
freedoms to Thatcher.
Carlin and The Economist’s accounts are not oversimplifications
of reality. They are utter lies.
It was not the political freedom of
Argentinians what Thatcher had in mind when she pursued a military solution to
the occupation of the Islas Malvinas/Falklands Islands in 1983. Thatcher could
not have cared less about the oppression which Argentinians had been undergoing
at the hands of the military since 1976. Thatcher wanted a prompt retaking of the
Islas Malvinas/Falklands Islands which would win her broad political support back
at home. A swift military victory makes much better headlines than a slow
diplomatic solution.
It was not the political freedom of Chileans
what Thatcher had in mind when she called for the release of Augusto Pinochet,
the general-come-dictator who ruled Chile with an iron fist for 17 years, when he was detained in London based on a request from the Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón. Thatcher
could not have cared less about the terror regime that Pinochet had run in
Chile. He may have overthrown the democratically-elected government of Salvador
Allende in a bloody coup d’état; and he may have ordered the incarceration,
torture, or death of more than 110,000 people whose sole ‘transgression’ had been
the pursuit of political freedom for Chile. But to Thatcher he was the
man “who brought democracy to Chile”.
No, it was not political freedom what Thatcher
championed around the world. Thatcher championed economic freedom, or at least
what she interpreted it to be, coupled with political steadiness.
For Thatcher, the preservation of the status quo in the international arena was of outmost importance. Be it the firm
British control of distant islands, the safeguarding of her friend Pinochet from
the hands of vigilantes like the Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón, the continued
existence of a divided Germany, or the negotiated end –i.e. the continuity– of
apartheid in South Africa, Thatcher was fond of political steadiness.
It is claimed that Lady Thatcher once told
President George Bush: “this is no time to go wobbly!” Her catchphrase neatly
summarizes the kind of foreign policies Thatcher pursued during her
administration: economic liberalization and political steadiness.
Margaret Thatcher may be many things. But
freedom fighter is not one of them.
