Margaret Thatcher: A Great Leader and A Great Briton

Without a doubt, Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 through 1990, was the most influential person in the 20th century. She altered dramatically the world politics as a key figure in Europe and female leader. In a society traditionally dominated by men, she was a “star” , not being ignored by the Western Powers.

During her tenure as PM, she established a new style of politics based on meritocracy, free-market economy, high-technology, education, and democratic culture. Thanks to her, the United Kingdom is a democratic country often held up as the ultimate European success in many aspects. By 1979, she took office faced a severe budget and trade deficits.

Certainly, Thatcher’s leadership is the inspiration for several world leaders in the 21st century. Indeed, she had no idea of her far-reaching effects in modern history. Unfortunately, she passed away on April 8, 2013. Former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel once said: “I am proud to be a thatcherite. I have met many giants of world politics, but none of them has left such an impression on me as this exceptional woman”.

Toward the end of the 1970s, she gained widespread attention and admiration when she was elected Head of Government, becoming the first woman in the UK to ever hold that office at time when there were few ladies in world politics and five years after the 1975 UN Women’s World Conference in Mexico City.

Although she didn’t see herself as a feminist, ironically, Thatcher inspired to several women around the globe, among them Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma (Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991), Philippines’ President Corazón Aquino and Dominica’s head of government Mary Eugenia Charles. Also, men like Vaclav Havel, one of the most prominent democrats in Eastern Europe and a self-avowed lifelong thatcherite. Curiously, she refused to use a “feminist project” as a springboard to came to power unlike several female leaders in modern times.

Following Thatcher’s election, many regions produced female leaders. In troubled Bolivia, Lidia Gueiler Tejada was named Head of State in 1980, becoming one of the first women to do so in the Spanish-speaking world. Two years on, Minita Gordon was elected Governor General in the Anglophone republic of Belize, a democratic state on Central American soil. Previously, Iceland produced its first female leader when Vigdis Finnbogadottir began her career as President in the early 1980s. By 1988, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, who admired Thatcher, became the first woman to came to power in the Arabic-speaking world.

Curiously, Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher was the first female in the G-Seven countries to receive a status as leader of a state. After that, there were female rulers in France (Edith Cresson:1991-92) and Canada (Kim Campbell:1993) during a brief period.

In foreign affairs, Margaret Thatcher —the “Iron Lady of British politics— shot to fame when she was also a key player against the then Soviet Union/USSR and other totalitarian states such as East Germany of Erich Honecker, Libya of Muammar al-Gaddafi and North Korea of Kim Il-Sung. Alongside America’s president Ronald Reagan, she led a crusade against terrorism both within and outside Britain. Focusing on peace and security in Western Europe, she —in her first years as a PM — led her country to a convincing win over the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a terrorist organization.

As a result of her anti-terrorist policy, on October 4, 1984, she escaped unharmed when a bomb, planted by the IRA, exploded at the Grand Hotel in England’s city of Brighton during a Conservative Party Conference. One member of Parliament was killed.

In the face of widespread Olympic condemnation, she opposed to send British athletes to the Moscow Summer Olympics because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. However, in defiance of Thatcher’s foreign policy, the British Olympic Committee brought 218 sportsmen and women to the USSR.

Like Jorge Luis Borges — Nobel prize-nominated Argentine writer— Spain’s performer Julio Iglesias, and the world-class ballet dancer Margaret Fonteyn, she was criticized by some for her friendship with Chile’s anti-Marxist strongman Augusto Pinochet, one of the most controversial figures in Latin American history.

Under Thatcher’s leadership, Great Britain’s troops defeated Argentina’s military dictatorship during the 1982 Falklands War, beginning a new era for Argentina’s democracy and human rights. Over that year, the South American republic attempted to take possession of the British-held Falkland Islands (which the Argentines call the Malvinas).

In domestic politics, she put meritocracy on the political agenda, which had made Great Britain into one of the world’s most powerful economies, along with Japan, West Germany and the States. From the beginning, she used her power to create a strong meritocracy in the UK, recruiting experts and giving opportunities for Britain’s talented people to move out of poverty. This was how the European monarchy worked during Thatcher’s rule. Furthermore, she was a passionate about ecology, working on behalf of the environment both at home and abroad during the 1980s and early 1990s.

On the economic side, she ,in office for 11 1/2 years, was an advocate of a market-oriented economy, increasing the role of private enterprises. In fact, her economic philosophy attracted critical praise around the globe, inspiring to several governments in the developing world and some Socialist states such as Yugoslavia —present-day Serbia— and Hungary.

On the democratic side, pro-democratic reforms in Eastern Europe and some Third World countries were backed by Thatcher’s administration throughout the 1980s. In later years, Thatcher played a major role in post-Communist societies, providing an economic and democratic model for Eastern Europe’s political elite.

She is an icon for the world and personal hero of mine. Few leaders have represented the eternal values of democracy as well as she. God Bless Margaret Thatcher!

http://eggvan.com/tribute-to-margaret-thatcher-uks-former-premier/