| October 2nd, 2010 |
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Nifty thing I saw today: Indian couple parking their car. Their car had one of those text decals at the top of the windscreen.
My first thought as I approached the car, having not registered the humans in any real sense or parsed the text, was: "Ugh. Those windscreen decals always say something really douchey."
To my pleased surprise, the decal read Shree Hari.
Neat.
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So, the Miliband brothers were in competition for the British Labour party's leadership.
I don't know enough about them to say which I think should have won, my comment is on some of the media commentary.
This was this running theme in a lot of the coverage I saw: that Ed Miliband was, somehow, undertaking some kind of uprising to contend for the leadership against his older brother. A sense that because David is the older brother, it would be natural for Ed to leave the leadership to him.
As a younger sibling, let me say this: fuck that noise.
There is something wrong with all of society that thinks that older siblings have some kind of natural right to take precedence over younger siblings. This only applies to monarchies, okay? There's no ethically or morally defensible argument I can think of to explain why "you were born earlier" should grant someone a higher state of privilege.
I have an older sister. We don't exactly have a great relationship - in fact, at present, we don't have any kind of non-biological relationship at all. I think the last time I saw her was last Christmas, which was in turn the first time in a number of months, and in all likelihood the next time I'll see her will be in the vicinity of Christmas - if then.
So obviously I'm going to have some bias against the idea that she has some kind of inherent superior Rights to mine because she's older.
On the other hand, I have friends who don't hate their older siblings whom I know agree with me. (Note least because of a conversation with one about this very topic that started with the Milibands.)
The point is: Ed Miliband had every right to contend against his older brother for the leadership. This wasn't some kind of usurpation, David had no greater claim to it than Ed just because he's older.
And, like all the other privilege mechanics of the kyriarchy, the assumption of power and authority of older siblings can fuck right off right around the time all involved parties achieve parity in their ability to cross the road by themselves.
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