Mojo Rising!

War is bad.

Sorry if that seems simple. Three monosyllabic words that every child in Syria understands perfectly from first hand experience. War is bad.

So when George Osborne describes the bombing of Syria as meaning Britain has "got its mojo back" I am struggling to comprehend what the fuck he means!

The tories have imbued language with a disturbing plasticity, as governments often do, an Orwellian ability to make some verbal signifier adhere to a semantic value previously considered antithetical to its original meaning. We are all familiar with various examples of slippery newspeak emanating from Whitehall.

However, I wonder if this is the most slimy, stomach turning example of tory newspeak I have yet to encounter. I feel physically violated by Osborne's use of the term "mojo". I feel soiled with a filth I cannot wash off. I feel the world has been diminished, that we have now irretrievably lost something beautiful and valuable since Osborne commandeered that wonderfully vague linguistic vehicle, the word "mojo", and shat all over it. We can't listen to Jim Morrison sing L.A. Woman now without a preliminary act of mental hygiene. If words are linguistic vehicles I feel like a taxi driver that now has to clean all the piss and shit and vomit of a busy Saturday night off the seats before I can use this specific word again. I feel that particularly acutely given the name of my blog! I should sue him.  

At least the word "cunt" has yet to fall foul of tory government redefinition. At least the word "cunt" has yet to be subsumed in the toxic ooze of newspeak that now seems to seep from every tory pore. At least I can call George Orborne a "cunt" without fear of ambiguity or contradiction. He's a cunt. Three more monosyllabic words that we all understand.

It is the wonderfully visceral, nebulous content of the word "mojo" that makes his use of it so insidious and offensive. It is not a well-defined, precise technical term one calmly deploys in committee meetings such as the one Osborne was attending. It is about direct experience rather than circumspect calculations and assessments of different sets of circumstances.

Did the 26 civilians that were killed in NATO air strikes recently directly experience Britain's mojo, George? I know last week Hilary Benn argued persuasively (if the applause is any indication) that these deaths, while unfortunate, are acceptable, because we didn't do it deliberately (another individual for whom the epithet "cunt" is now most apt, I would contend). But by invoking the black magic of "mojo" are you now saying these deaths actually satisfy some sort of sick appetite for blood we have, which we can now, finally, admit to, now that we have given up the pretence of believing war is bad and finally found our mojo?!

It is such a stupid remark I am reminded of that classic scene (is there any other kind) from Father Ted, where Ted, holding a toy cow, explains to Dougal "this cow is small, those cows are far away". Except in this instance we are not talking about cows, George. We are talking about children, far away in Syria, who are now directly experiencing what you think the word "mojo" means.

You stupid cunt.