Canute, The Spin Doctor and an Anti-racist Fish
Photographs and words Nick Sidle
Photographs
It has to be said King Canute got a bad press. There he was, going about his life as a workaday European eleventh century monarch, and a successful one at that, he had made it to be king of England, Denmark and Norway at the same time, when he felt he had a bit of an image problem. The key thing was that he really thought it was about time to establish that he was not God. Perhaps he found the role a bit onerous, possibly there was a baronial re-shuffle due and all his nobles had gone into overdrive in the sucking up to the boss department and it was all getting a little bit too sickening, or possibly he was a genuinely pious man who might have believed in the divine right of kings but who was not comfortable with extending that to kings being divine. Whatever the reason, Canute decided that it was about time to make the point that he was good, but not that good, and so he came up with a brilliant idea. Today, it would be used as a key photo opportunity but since there are still several hundred years to go before the invention of the photographic process never mind electronic news gathering, Canute had to make do with histories and word of mouth and unfortunately, the sound bites got a bit mixed up. Canute’s plan was simple. At the seaside village of Bosham near Chichester, Canute had his throne carried down to the beach and ordered that it be set at the edge of the sea whilst the tide was coming in. He then sat on the throne and commanded that the sea should stop rising. The effect was of course minimal and the royal legs got wet up to around the knees. Canute then leapt up and said, “Know all inhabitants of earth, that vain and trivial is the power of kings nor is anyone worthy of the name king save Him whose nod heaven and earth obey under laws eternal.” Just to make sure everyone understood, Canute then refused to ever wear the crown again but insisted that it should be set above an image of Jesus on the cross possibly slightly distorting the New Testament account of the relationship of Jesus to temporal power. Unfortunately, of course, the whole story got garbled and Canute entered popular history as the monarch so vain that he thought he could command the sea. Canute really needed a spin doctor and a good one at that.
Photograph
Having reached the subject of spin doctors, it is interesting to speculate whether even the best of them could have rescued Canute’s image if he had been stupid enough to have made the claim to have controlled the waves that his reputation got stuck with. You can imagine the attempts; “Well of course whilst there was some sea contact with the king, which is disappointing, what you have to remember is that records show that year on year there has been a noticeable trend to lower tide levels”, or “this result must not be taken at face value, there is a complex picture here and we all should wait till there is a full analysis of the land height/tide level ratio”, which of course translates as, if we keep this up long enough everyone will get bored and move on to something else. Naturally, a spin doctor to the Canute of fiction rather than reality would have to be tempted by the two favourites, “whatever may have been the net tidal result under these circumstances, there is a clear indication that the tide control performance of this monarchy shows a positive trend better than previous kings”, or perhaps best of all, “one has to interpret this outcome not in isolation but remembering that all this is taking place in a wider system and allowances have to be made for the present point in the cycle”. For a spin doctor the last one is dangerously true, they would just hope that you would not notice. Their king, the Canute of fiction, has made a manifesto promise, has not been able to keep it and is now up to his knees in it (literally for once), is sinking fast and the only cycle involved is the approximately twelve hourly one of the tides that he promised to override. The Canute of fiction really would have needed a spin doctor way beyond even the best of the current masters of that art.
Photograph – Caribbean Reef Shark, Carcharhinus perezi, Bahamas
If one has any sympathy for those who lead and pursue extreme politics, one has to hope that they will have access to just such a super as yet unseen master of political spin, they are going to need one badly. The environmental concerns of the 1970’s about a specific pollution problem here, damage to a habitat there or specific species under pressure, have had to be replaced with something far more sinister, a minor question of life as we know it, or to be more precise, the lack of it. Global warming, climate change and before that, damage to the ozone layer represent real threats, not to the continuation of life on earth but certainly to the continuation of countries and societies as they presently are. The environmental search will not be for the bits that are damaged, it will be for any bits which are still intact. The only comparable previous threat was from the risk of global nuclear war and whilst any risk of that appalling nature was terrifying, at least there was an incentive not to start it and ultimately, during the cold war nobody did. Despite a close call, deterrents held. For present society, the short term incentives are mostly to keep doing the things that are causing the damage. Only a medium and long term view shows unequivocally the need to change the impact people are having on the earth, future generations will have to face the problems created today. Not only is it a medium and long term view and strategy which is required, it is also a collaborative one. Saving and protecting the world is an international job, not the preserve or within the capability of any country on its own.
Photograph – Red Sea Dwarf Sweepers, Parapriacanthus guentheri, Gubal Saghira Island, Red Sea
In their own way, fish understand this. The average piscine resident (and no we are not talking horoscopes, that’s Piscean) especially of somewhere in deep (no pun intended) trouble, like over fifty percent of the world’s coral reefs, understands in many ways much more than most people by sticking to the basics. Such a fish knows that every day, there is more disturbance and damage to the ecosystem they call home. Every sense and experience they have tells them that the present has been better and if fish contemplate the future, they can’t be very happy. If they could understand the elements of human activity that were making their lives so much worse, it is quite reasonable to think that they really would prefer people to change their ways. More particularly, if you held a fish referendum asking them to choose between the options of (a) people working together to try and halt and reverse the damage to the world or (b) people finding new ways to divide themselves from one another, new reasons for hate, suspicion and separation and, in the process, rule out any cooperation that could help the real world that ultimately we all depend on, it is a safe bet that there would be an overwhelming and probably unanimous vote for (a). By keeping it simple, the fish would have shown that they would know better. You don’t see fish supporting extreme groups, apart from having a better judgement of character you simply wouldn’t see a fish displaying their divisive insignia or whatever other symbols they choose, they know how stupid they would look. Fish also have a problem with armbands which are still favoured by some on the far right.
Photograph – Schooling Bannerfish, Heniochus diphreutes, Quei Reefs, Red Sea
Which brings us to those who do adopt such offensive regalia, either literally or at least metaphorically, those who cannot be complemented on their grasp of issues, judgement of character or presentation. They really should start looking for that supreme spin doctor right now because there is something they are going to have to deal with. If they do shape the future and their views are to form the basis of action or policy, the time will come when they have to face the rising waters just like Canute. The difference is that it will not be the tide but the global rise in sea level predicted to be one of the consequences of climate change. And they will have to stand there, hopefully getting very wet and looking very unwise and they really will need the best spin doctor ever to try and explain why they were so isolated in their world view that they could not build the relationships within societies and between peoples that might just have been able to offer some hope. To ask for universal tolerance and peace may be idealistic but is to look for understanding and mutual self-interests arising from respect really too much? This needs to be asked not just of the true extremists, not just of those involved in polarising politics of any type, it needs to be asked of all of us.
Photograph – Gulf St Vincent, South Australia
Photographs and text ©Nick Sidle, all rights reserved