How to Run a Caliphate
The horrors of IS rule are well known: the killings of Shia; the choice offered to the Christians of Mosul (conversion, ruinous taxation or expulsion); the slaughter of polytheists; the revival of slavery; the massacre of Yazidis on Mount Sinjar. Less well known are the thousands of mundane regulations instituted by the caliphal bureaucracy. The claim to be a state, not just another band of zealous militiamen, was central to what IS stood for. In support of its statehood it operated marriage offices, a telecommunications agency, a department of minerals and a central birth registry. Its department of alms and social solidarity redistributed wealth to the poor. Its department of health brought in sanitation regulations that stipulated more frequent bin collections than in New York. More
Prince
One evening recently I was in the local supermarket, which always has a surprisingly tasteful collection of old pop and soul hits on its playlist. ‘Raspberry Beret’ came on and I just couldn’t help it: I was instantly transported, singing along and showing out, right there in Aisle 3. It still sounded so good: those unexpected violins, the slightly ‘off’ backing vocals (a white girl sound, reversing the usual formula where a so-so white male lead is vamped by phenomenally good black female singers), the down-home cornbread of the song’s narrative queered by tiny splinters of subtext that black listeners would immediately flash on (Prince’s store-owning boss ‘didn’t like my kind/cuz I was way too leisurely …’). Was there really ever such a phantasmagorically odd pop hit as this, or was it all just a dream? More
Daddy Lacan
In Sibylle’s recollection, their father – she refers to him simply as ‘Lacan’ – would appear in his overcoat, a ‘silhouette in the doorway’, at the family apartment on rue Jadin, where he would come to lunch once a week with Sibylle and Thibaut – ‘the little ones’ – along with their big sister, Caroline, and their mother, Marie-Louise, known as ‘Malou’. He took the children on holiday to Brittany, Saint-Tropez, Italy and to his country house at Guitrancourt; he bought them ‘superb’ birthday presents, even if he probably didn’t choose them himself. ‘We knew we had a father but apparently a father was something that wasn’t there,’ she writes. More
The Myth of the Strong Leader
Wanting to be Margaret Thatcher is tempting some prime ministerial hopefuls to flirt with being Donald Trump. Trying to be Trump is likely to mean that they end up as Theresa May: full of purpose, empty of product. Maybe there are some out there with a surer understanding of what made Thatcher’s successes possible in the first place. It was a mix of astonishing luck, political pragmatism and an eye for the path of least resistance, all dressed up as implacable resolve. Thatcher was also a stickler for the rules, sensing that they were her best protection against the devious men who were determined to thwart her if they got the chance. More
