Ayoon Wa Azan (Thatcher: Lover her or hate her)

Was Margaret Thatcher “the Woman Who Saved Britain,” or was she “the Woman Who Divided a Nation”? These were the word-for-word headlines I read in British newspapers about the former British prime minister. But perhaps the strangest thing about the two conflicting views is that they are both true. Thatcher had indeed saved Britain from insolvency, and reduced the clout of trade unions that, until then, had been stronger than all successive governments. However, Thatcher, at the same time, caused a deep rift among social classes. The left, for instance, proclaimed that she had destroyed some of the country’s foundations, and no sooner than her death was announced that protesters took to the streets chanting “rejoice, rejoice,” while MP George Galloway said he hoped she would burn in hell. I believe I was a fair witness to that period. I arrived in London in 1975, and co-founded the newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in 1978, near the end of the Labour government’s tenure under James Callaghan, when Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy. Strikes riddled the country, and the streets were filled with uncollected garbage bags. I even remember that when my daughter was born in 1979, there was a strike that had crippled several hospitals. Margaret Thatcher’s term as premier could have passed without consequence like a summer’s cloud, and indeed, she admitted in her memoirs that 1981 was her worst year in office. Many expected that she would lose the next election. However, the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982, and Britain’s liberation of the islands within two months, helped Thatcher win the election in 1983. With the economy improving significantly under her government, Thatcher was reelected in 1987, before her party rebelled against her and replaced her with John Major – who won one term in 1992 before Labour ultimately returned to office. I often saw Mrs. Thatcher in London when Arab leaders visited, and also in Riyadh when she visited Saudi Arabia and the late King Khaled bin Abdul Aziz. I conducted a lengthy interview with her, published by Al-Hayat on October 25, 1990. Less than a month later, Thatcher resigned after her party leaders abandoned her because of her stubbornness and refusal to heed their advice, amid voter anger against her. I always found Mrs. Thatcher nice and extremely politically skilled. When I interviewed her at her office in 10 Downing Street, she insisted that I sit next to her. The photographer took many pictures of us, and I tried to get clarifications about her answers. But Mrs. Thatcher spoke to me in the manner of someone giving a speech, and I felt that she was addressing Arab readers from above my head. She was very firm over the occupation of Kuwait, and repeated many times during the interview that Saddam Hussein had to withdraw and pay reparations, and refused to negotiate with him before he fulfilled those conditions. If I were to judge Thatcher’s years as objectively as possible, I would say that she inherited a bankrupt country, and left office with London competing with New York as a global financial center. After the upper income tax rate was 80 percent (no typo here) under Labor, Mrs. Thatcher quickly lowered it to 60 percent, and then to 40 percent, the rate I pay today. I cannot give the readers information about Mrs. Thatcher that the British media is not aware of. Yet I will recount something that the reader will not find anywhere else other than in this column. After Mrs. Thatcher’s resignation on November 22, 1990, John Major headed the British government. I interviewed him as well, on the back of the invasion of Kuwait. I sat waiting for him in the same room at 10 Downing Street where I interviewed Mrs. Thatcher. I noticed that the window in the room was broken, and the curtain torn, so I asked the photographer to snap a shot of it in that condition. When Major entered the room, the first thing he told us was not to photograph the window. The latter, he said, broke when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) fired a mortar round on February 2, 1991 from the street in front of the prime minister’s residence, and landed in the garden behind it. The government, he stressed, did not want the terrorists to know where the shell had fallen. I did not tell John Major that we had photographed the window. I did not publish the picture either, and did not mention this until today, more than 20 years later. All I want to add in the end is that I have always appreciated Mrs. Thatcher’s role in the liberation of Kuwait. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.