06 October 2016
Boris Johnson, heir to Palmerston
A visit to Ankara.
By Chin Chin
Cripes, it must be jolly difficult, that foreign secretary lark. Round after round of canapés accompanied by good champagne but, my word, you have to keep your eye on the ball. Forget a name or say something indiscreet and, bang, that’s an ally lost or, worse still, a crucial trade deal scuppered. And it’s not just a question of your natural bonhomie giving offence. Your country’s enemies encircle you at every turn. Those sleek trade attachés wearing the elegant suits which say CIA or KGB just as surely as your own suit says Savile Row. Over they come, setting their traps.
“Don’t you find the French President’s wife rather tedious?” one asks, hoping that you will indiscreetly say “yes” and jeopardise the deal over the Calais jungle. “God, isn’t Switzerland tedious?” tries another. Sometimes they will even invent things that you didn’t actually say at all and try to pin them on you. It is all part of the subterfuge and deception which characterise the world of international relations.
It was always like that of course, a world of subtle insinuation where words which seem to say one thing really mean another, a world where casual comments can be misunderstood. Take 1850 for example, when the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston no less, received a plea for help from Don Pacifico, a British subject whose house in Athens had been ransacked by a mob encouraged by the refusal of the Greek authorities to intervene. There he was, at yet another embassy function, cocktail in hand, giving a confidential briefing to the attractive wife of the Spanish Ambassador, when one of his aides interrupted him and asked for directions as to what we should do about “this Greek thing”.
It was a very noisy room and Palmerston, thinking he had been asked for his opinion on the Greek king, replied “a blockhead of course.” His reply was hard to hear over the din but the aide thought he had the gist of it. So the Navy was ordered to blockade the ports of Greece which it did for two months and the term “gunboat diplomacy” entered the vocabulary as a soubriquet for particularly decisive international action.
These days, of course, gunboats are not dispatched as a result of conversations at drinks parties, but still it is important to watch what you say, especially if, like the current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, you happen to be a brilliant linguist and cannot blame things on errors of understanding. Actually his problems are greater than that because he has baggage. Most foreign secretaries start with a clean slate and will only be held to account for what they say while in office. Mr Johnson is a distinguished and amusing columnist and in that capacity has said rude things about almost everyone. By and large he can get away with that in Britain, albeit with the odd apology here and there. After all, his articles and speeches are genuinely funny and, in these islands, much is forgiven to those who make people laugh. Still, one can imagine that to those who have only read them in translation his sallies may be less amusing. His recent visit to Turkey is an example,
There is a bit of history to this. Johnson, then no longer mayor but with no obvious prospect of becoming Foreign Secretary, was being interviewed about the suppression by the German Courts of a skit by comedian Jan Böhmermann which was insulting to the Turkish President and rhymed the word “wankerer” with “Ankara”. Johnson, defending the comedian, said that if people wished to make jokes linking the President to a goat they should be allowed to do so and was challenged to come out with something then and there. He obliged with:
“There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
‘Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”
Okay, not absolutely brilliant, but good enough to win him £1,000 in a Spectator competition into which the interviewer, to his surprise, entered it, and not a bad effort totally impromptu in the middle of an interview. Had he made up a similar rhyme about a British politician, convention would have demanded that the victim laughed and at least pretended to enjoy the joke. Things might not be quite as simple in Turkey, however:
The President: “This Mr Johnson who I am to meet. He wrote a poem about me. That is a great compliment. I would like to understand it, please.”
Official linguist (a bashful young man of about twenty-five ): “It is a humorous poem, Mr President.”
The President: “Yes, yes, I like the humour. I studied it as part of my degree. Now, what is this word “wankerer”?
Official linguist (blushing): “It is a man who plays with himself, Mr President.”
The President: “Yes, I see. A man of independent action with no room for sycophants. How clever of Mr Johnson to rhyme that with Ankara. Most humorous. Now what is this reference to ‘wild oats’?”
Official linguist: “It is difficult to say, sir, it is an ambiguous expression. It could be a reference to sex or perhaps to agriculture.”
The President: “Well Mr Johnson is part Turkish so you never know. I think it would be better if I kept an official with me at all times just in case he…. Still, probably, it is only my agricultural policies which he admires.”
Official linguist: “Indeed, Mr President. That would explain the reference to goats further on.”
The President: “I believe that in England if someone pays you a compliment it is good manners not to refer to it?”
Official linguist: “Indeed so, Mr President.”
And to Mr Johnson’s relief he never did. That may go to show that he never had a full translation. On the other hand it may be the case that he and other important political and diplomatic figures are more interested in securing their country’s best interests than in worrying about whether the British Foreign Secretary said something rude about them in a previous incarnation. Let’s hope that it is the latter.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
