'Cult of Colston' & the 'Constipated Clerks'

by Brian Bamford
In a comment on this NV Blog John Pearson said:
 'The British ruling class can take lessons from no-one on efforts to "bury the past, hide it, and sanitize it".

 & that
'Those Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol, descendants of slaves, many of whom will have been trafficked by Colston's company, were not erasing history they were making history.' *

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THE LAST time I was in Bristol it was at the invite of the Bristol Radical History Group at a Bookfair in 2011 to give a talk on 'The varieties of historical investigation and experience'.  The Bristol Radical History Group has been at the forefront of the campaign against the slave trader Edward Colston whose statue was recently toppled in Bristol. **


Marxists writers often vary between those like John Pearson, who credit the British ruling class as superbly cunning little Machiavellian's, and those who rate the boss class as little more than incompetent buffoons.

In Bristol it was, where over recent years my friend Roger Ball would take folk on a pedestrian stroll round the city to appraise and provide an alternative view of the ‘cult of Colston’ that was said to "form part of our city’s ‘identity’."*  Only to culminate at Bristol Cathedral, to discuss 'how the institutions of the Church of England and the Merchant Venturers collide within the education of our children to promote Colston as a Parable of the Good Samaritan.'


George Orwell once remarked that 'whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.'

As long as I have lived my life the British Empire has been in a state of decline.  Men like Edward Colston, were a  bygone thing even between the wars.  As Orwell argued in The Lion & The Unicorn:  'Men like Clive, Nelson, Nicholson, Gordon would find no place for themselves in the modern British Empire.  By 1920 nearly every inch of the colonial empire was in the grip of Whitehall.' [1941]

Yet it is unlikely that either Comrade Pearson or Dr. Ball would ever venture to unleash their passions against the constipated clerks who had by then taken over from the empire builders of yesterday.  So as long as I have been alive its been the clerks that have been in the driving seat, but no one is going to launch a war against these clerks and managers, because these are the very people who sign the cheques and give the research grants so that these post-modern historians can get awarded their PhDs.  These constipated clerks are the modern managerial class who have taken over not just in the universities; and you just don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Instinctively both John Pearson and Roger Ball will identify with the clerks who among other things administer our universities and so vividly contrast with the one-time empire builders, because it is now as fashionable as it was in the 1930s for the shallow leftists to look down on physical prowess and snigger at the very idea of Englishness.

The last time I saw Roger Ball was at the Casa Club in Liverpool on the 8th, June 2018, at an event organised by Ian Gwinn and was entitled 'Fuck May 1968'; at that time Roger had been anxiously scouring the thoroughfares of the city looking for suitable architectural monuments to condemn owing to their links with slavery.  Though I have great respect for the research work Roger Ball has put into this issue, I do share the concerns of others like Derek Pattison and Les May about as to what will be the logical outcome of this kind of fetish for censorship.

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*    After popular demand the Countering-Colston group are re-running their recent history walk.

Starting with St Mary Redcliffe church, this walk takes in other historic Diocese of Bristol churches in the city centre where ‘the life and work’ of Edward Colston is still provided religious legitimacy on an annual basis.

Along the way we will share the most recent historical research regarding this man’s involvement with the transatlantic slave trade and discover how the Victorian elite created a ‘cult of Colston’ that is now said to form part of our city’s ‘identity’.

At our final stop, Bristol Cathedral, we discuss how the institutions of the Church of England and the Merchant Venturers collide within the education of our children to promote Colston as a Parable of the Good Samaritan.

**https://twitter.com/i/status/1269634408069435392

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After statutes, is it book burning next?

Statue of Edward Colston Toppled by Protestors in Bristol

I well understand why some people in Bristol wanted to pull down the statue of the Tory slave trader, Edward Colston, and I won't lose any sleep over that . But where does the toppling of statues lead to?  Certainly, it will lead to counter protests from the far right defending the statues, and the far right demanding the removal of monuments connected with the left, such as that of Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery.  I believe it already gets regularly vandalised.

And are we going to have ritual book burnings next, of books that contain racist, sexist, imperialist, colonialist, transphobic, homophobic, themes?  If we do, authors like Dickens, Trollope, Orwell, Conrad, and Waugh, had better watch out.

This trying to turn the clock back in order to transplant modern views onto the past to rewrite history, can set a dangerous precedent.  Are we trying to bury the past, hide it, and sanitize it?   It's not just the English imperialist Cecil Rhodes that they want to remove after taking his scholarships for donkeys years, but there is also a campaign by feminists to remove a bust of Arthur Koestler, from Edinburgh University, because they've accused him of being a 'rapist'.  I gather that vegans and vegetarians are also trying  to get a statue of 'Cow Pie' Desperate Dan, removed in Dundee.

There are also demands to remove a statue of the journalist, explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, (real name John Rowlands), which was unveiled in Denbigh in March 2011. Robert Aldrich, his biographer, says Stanley's birth certificate describes him as a 'bastard' who was abandoned by his mother and family and dumped in the St Asaph Union Workhouse, for ten years from the aged of six to sixteen.  He emigrated to the US in 1859 aged 18, arriving in New Orleans, and after working in various jobs and having fought in the civil war, he became a journalist working for the New York Herald.

I watched the unveiling of his statue on youtube, and there was a delegation of black people from the Congo.  One of them said that they realised that the name of Stanley was controversial (he was accused of being a slave trader and of using indiscriminate cruelty against Africans, including shooting them, which is all true), but they came and spoke at the unveiling ceremony.  I also know that William Morris and members of the Socialist League wrote pamphlets against Stanley and demonstrated at meetings.

Stanley is best known for finding Dr Livingstone and the source of the Nile.  But he also worked as an agent for King Leopold II of Belgium.  It was the Afro-Arab slave trader Tippu Tip, that helped Stanley to find Livingstone.  It is said that on one occasion, Tippu Tip, raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and had 2,300 slaves, mostly women and children, bound in chains and transported to the markets of Zanzibar.

As regards the question of slavery, it's not just whites like Colston who were slave traders.  We must not forget the Muslim Barbary pirates who abducted people to sell them in slave markets all the time and who felt it was their religious duty to do this to the infidel.  This went on for centuries and in 1631, they abducted 107 people from the little village of Baltimore, in West Cork, Ireland, for a life of slavery in Algiers.  Today, this is known as the 'Sack of Baltimore'.

And should we start a campaign to remove the plaque in Ashton to the famous travel writer, H.V. Morton, who was born in the town?  It is alleged that he was a Nazi sympathizer and an antisemite.  In a diary entry from February 1941, he confessed:

'I must say Nazi-ism has some fine qualities', and, 'I am appalled to discover how many of Hitler's theories appeal to me.'  Another diary entry describes the US as 'that craven nation of Jews and foreigners.'

Let me know what you think.

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Bristol Radical History Group

Two important events coming up....

Pauper Graves Memorial Unveiling - Avonview Cemetery, St George
Date: Wednesday 8th May, 2019
Time: 1.00pm
Location: Avonview Cemetery, Beaufort Road, St. George, Bristol, BS5 8EN
In 1972 the Eastville workhouse buildings (an elderly peoples home) at 100 Fishponds Road were demolished. Our research has shown that there was a crude disinterment of the workhouse burial ground during the demolition, with 167 boxes of large bones moved to unmarked common graves at Avonview Cemetery, St George. Thanks to donations from the Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group, the Church of England dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol and Bristol City Council a gravestone has been designed, carved and installed by local mason Matthew Billington. This will be a fitting end to a project which has both researched and memorialised the 4,084 inmates of Eastville workhouse who were hitherto forgotten. All welcome. More details here.

Book launch: Behind the Myth of Peter the Painter 
Date: Monday 3rd June, 2019
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, [off top-left of King Square], Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8JD
Price: £5/£4, booking here
Bristol Radical History Group is excited to host the UK book launch of A Towering Flame: The Life and Times of the Elusive Latvian Anarchist Peter the Painter (published by Breviary Stuff Publications). The Houndsditch murders of three City of London policemen, and the ensuing “Siege of Sidney Street” on 3 January 1911, in which Latvian anarchists took on Winston Churchill and the British Army, have entered into East London folklore. But no one ever accounted for the mysterious Peter the Painter, the leader of the gang. This book has finally solved the mystery. Here for the first time is proof of the real identity of Peter the Painter; the amazing story of his life and revolutionary career; and of the hitherto unknown history of Latvian anarchism. The author, historian Philip Ruff, will present and talk about his book. There will then be a Q&A and discussion. More details here.

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Commemoration, Conflict & Conscience festival

THE full programme of events for the national Commemoration, Conflict & Conscience festival at M Shed (Saturday 27th - Sunday 28th April) and other venues in Bristol has been announced and can be viewed here. Highlights include Cyril Pearce, one of the foremost researchers into WW1 conscientious objectors, Janet Booth who has campaigned to clear the name of her grandfather who was shot for desertion, Piet Chielens of the 'In Flanders Field' museum and many others. On the evening of Saturday 27 April at the Southbank Club, Paul McGann will be in conversation about his appearance in the classic BBC TV series 'The Monocled Mutineer'. Two events happening over the next few days as part of the festival are:

Play: This Evil Thing 
Date: Sunday 21st April, 2019
Time: Performances, 3.30pm and 7.30pm
Venue: Crypt at St John the Baptist Church, Broad St, Bristol BS1 2EZ
Price: £11/£9, but need to book here. Note: spaces are left for the evening performance.
With: Michael Mears
This acclaimed solo play tells the compelling and inspiring story of Britain’s WW1 conscientious objectors. January 1916: Bert Brocklesby is a schoolteacher and preacher at his Methodist chapel; Bertrand Russell is one of the greatest philosophers of his time. With the advent of military conscription their worlds are about to be turned upside down. More details here.

Film showings: These Dangerous Women: Women who stood up for peace during and after the First World War
Date: Tuesday 23rd April, 2019
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, [off top-left of King Square], Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8JD
Price: £5/£4, booking here
With: Michele Ryan, June Hannam
Thursday’s Child: Best remembered as a suffragette, Sylvia Pankhurst was also a passionate supporter of the Russian revolution, a founder of the British Communist Party and a talented visual artist. Narrated by Marxist historian Gwyn Williams.
These Dangerous Women: A drama-documentary on the women who tried to stop WW1. In 1915, 1,300 women from 12 warring and neutral nations got together in the Hague to find a way towards peace. More details here.

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'Fuck May 1968'.& Anthropological Illiteracy

by Brian Bamford
THE distinguished historian A.J.P. Taylor once wrote that he was a vain rather than ambitious historian. Radical historians, one would have thought would be vain rather than ambitious, yet my dealings with the radical historians recently suggests that they are both vain and ambitious. My review below reflects upon how the new wave radical historians may have become corrupted in their own studies to a degree in which they are now becoming part of the problem:

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ACADEMIC righteousness prevails most among those of us to whom the truth is revealed.  So many PhD's doing papers on this and that, so many historians in receipt of grants and bursaries. Vernon Richards, the former editor of Freedom - 'the anarchist weekly', once called for exporting the PhD's.

Ian Gwinn, who was organising the event Liverpool on the 8th, June which was rather coyly entitled 'F*ck May 1968, Fight Now: Exploring the Uses of the Past from 1968 to Today', welcomed participants at the CASA Club. The first session was 'History is a Weapon' addressed by Christopher Garland on 'Circumnavigating the past, foreclosing the future: commemoration of the radical past in the amnesiac present'. The title of the event, I learnt, was based on a bit of graffiti from Athens in 2008.

In his book 'DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE: A history of Anarchism', Peter Marshall talked of graffiti on the walls of Paris in 1968 declaring: 'NEITHER GODS NOR MASTERS; THE MORE YOU CONSUME THE LESS YOU LIVE; ALL POWER TO THE IMAGINATION; IT IS FORBIDDEN TO FORBID; BE REALISTIC DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE.'

Marshall claimed that unlike other French revolutions, which had been mainly concerned with overcoming economic scarcity, 'the French revolutionaries in a society of abundance [in 1968] were preoccupied with the transformation of everyday life.'

As General De Gaulle correctly noted, they were 'in revolt against modern society, against consumer society, against technological society, whether communist in the East or capitalist in the West'.

The then editor of The Times, William Rees Mogg, came to the same conclusions in his editorials at that time, and had supported the Rolling Stones, who according to Keith Richards, would have been destroyed at the height of their notoriety more than 40 years ago if The Times under William Rees Mogg had not not launched its famous attack on their jail sentences for drugs offences.'

The program for the Liverpool event quotes Walter Benjamin’s maxim that ‘nothing that has ever happened can be regarded as lost for history...’.  With in Spain the ‘Memoria Historico’ movement drawing on evidence from the Spanish Civil War that the families of victims of that war are still trying to recover.

Eric Azera from Barcelona talked about the recent threats to squatting in Catalonia and elsewhere. Tim Briedis addressed the 1994 National University occupations in Australia, and student radicalism which had developed beyond the 1960s.

Piotr Paszynski and Joaquin Armanet spoke on Jacques Ranciere’s concept of ‘Radical History and Proletarian Experience’. Jacques Ranciere was a student of the Marxist thinker Althusser, but clashed with his teacher over the events of May ’68. While Althusser and other Marxists were asserting the importance of Marxist academia in the French student revolts, Ranciere began to break away from this traditional mode of thought. Marxist intellectuals accused the revolts of being bourgeois and undisciplined. To which Ranciere accused Marxists of being a bunch of little shits.

From a criticism of Althusser and orthodox Marxism, Ranciere’s message soon became ‘Philosophy – it’s a big bag of dicks.’ Writing Hatred of Democracy, Ranciere attacks the Platonic tradition and ties it to practically every Marxist philosopher. He argues that everyone in the Western tradition, from Plato to Marx, wants to become a philosopher king to shovel Truth into the mouths of the blind ignorant masses. Ranciere carries this line of thought to his other books such as “Disagreement” where he accuses every theorists of democracy of being a Platonic saboteur.

Hannah Arendt in an essay entitled ‘Communicative Power’ wrote: ‘We have recently witnessed how it did not take more than a the relatively harmless, essentially nonviolent French students’ rebellion to reveal the vulnerability of the whole political system, which rapidly disintegrated before the astonished eyes of the young rebels…. they intended only only to challenge the ossified university system of government power, together with that of the huge party bureaucracies - ‘une sorte de desintergration de toutes les hierarchies”. It was a text-book case of a revolutionary situation.’

Roger Ball of the Bristol Radical History Group seems to be always trying to turn history into agitprop, and capture the headlines. His latest offering is based on an old theme: Unseating the local influence of the Society of Merchant Venturers and pointing to their trade in slavery: ‘Kick over the statues: using history as a weapon’. More recently their efforts have led to a ‘Countering Colston campaign’ in Bristol, which in turn has inevitably resulted in a doctoral paper ‘IS IT WRONG TO TOPPLE STATUES & RENAME SCHOOLS?’ by - Dr. Joanna Burch-Brown* Perhaps radical history has now itself become an industry from which various academic hangers-on are now profiting: even my friend Roger Ball a pioneer of radical history has now been anointed Dr. Roger Ball, and is currently employed as a Research Fellow at Sussex University.

Kerrie McGiveron discussed the part played by the New Left and the rise of Big Flame in the early 1970s, with particular reference to the Kirby Rent Strike (1972-73). She gave an ethographic account of the Rent Strike with the help of a film documentary produced by Nicholas Broomfield. At one point in the film a woman interviewee between puffs on her cigarette in the setting of what appeared to be her front-room, said:

‘

You can take your film, but the position of the working class won’t change’

To which the interviewer responded: ‘Why do you think I’m making this?’

She then said: ‘Just for your personal satisfaction!’

Ms. McGiveron, when questioned about this exchange in which it was suggested that the woman was displaying ‘apathy’ and a claim to ‘privacy’, claimed to have background information in which it was suggested that the interviewee was a member of a far-left party and was in fact very active. Ms. McGiveron had already made clear she was conscious of the dangers of post-facto rationalisation in doing this research. So can we take this special claim to background knowledge seriously?

Terry Wragg of Leeds Animation Workshop showed an animated film which was designed to portrayed male sexism. What began with building site banter, randy pestering and innuendo, concluding with more full-on approaches of the #Me Too variety. What was important here about the animated film was that a picture of reality is much more powerful than saying something; that’s why a docu-drama film like ‘Three Girls’ about the grooming scandal in Rochdale was so effective. But while one can do a feminist-take on predatory men in a social context, it would be just as anthropologically appropriate to do an animated film on ‘Pancake Tuesday’ and the initiation ceremonies, the ritual ‘de-bagging's’ and ‘ball greasing’ of apprentices, that were indulged in widely in the factories and mills in the North of England by both working-men and women in the last two

centuries. But when we talk about radical history in this context we are really, I suspect, joining the bandwagon of the fashionable addicts and the politically correct crowd.

The case of Geoff Brown who took part in the Round-table discussion ‘Remembering 1968 & After’ is significant in this respect. Geoff claims he is ‘active as a historian of Manchester “from below” ’, a softly-spoken Southerner and someone who moved up North in 1972. The jury must still be out over his claim to be a historian ‘working from below’. His publication record as presented in the program for the Liverpool event is rather sparse, he has written something for International Socialism entitled ‘John Tocher and the limits of commitment’ for the North West History Journal (2017/2018); ‘Il Principe, a handbook for career-makers in further education’ and ‘Pakistan, failing state or neoliberalism in crisis’ in International Socialism.

What we are getting here in the sphere of the fad for radical history is something like what Proust showed us in Sodome et Gomorrhe, and what Wyndham Lewis described in ‘The Art of Being Ruled’ as ‘an analysis of the powerful instinctive freemasonery of the pederast’. Dr. Ball wants us to kick over the statues to cleanse the architecture of Bristol and beyond of former historical adventurers, Penguin Random House want to diversify to the nth degree to take care of talented minorities such as the trans community this year, and, who knows, perhaps the necrophiliacs next year.

* Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol.

Bristol Radical History Agenda

Some events featuring BRHG this month in Weston-super-Mare, Cardiff and Bristol :

The Captain Swing Riots

Date: Fri 10th Feb, 2017
Time: 2:15 pm
Venue: United Reform Church Hall, Boulevard, Waterloo St, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1LF
Price: Note: this is for University of the Third Age members, you will need to join at the event if you are not a member.
With: Roger Ball

The ‘Swing riots’ were a massive wave of protests, machine breaking, arson and extortion carried out by impoverished farm labourers and village artisans between the summers of 1830-31. More details here.

The 1831 Bristol rising - solidarity in South Wales

Date: Sat 18th Feb, 2017
Time: 1.00-2.00 pm
Venue: Room 1, Cathays Community Centre, 36-38 Cathays Terrace, Cardiff CF24 4HX
Price: Free-Donation
With: BRHG
Note: This workshop is part of Cardiff Anarchist Bookfair.

After the defeat of the first reform bill in early October 1831 violent protests exploded in many British cities. The rising in Bristol was the most spectacular and suffered the harshest repression by the military. This talk considers this revolt and, using new research, solidarity actions in South Wales to aid the Bristol ‘rioters’.

Spies and Trouble Makers: Wales's response to the Russian revolution

Date: Thu 23rd Feb, 2017
Time: 7:30-9:30 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol BS2 0EZ
Price: Donations
With: Aled Eirug
On the centenary of the February revolution in Russia, this talk considers the impact of these world changing events on the Welsh people. Aled Eirug is the former head of news and current affairs at BBC Wales and is writing a book on Welsh opposition to the First World War.
For more information on these events see: http://www.brh.org.uk/site/event-diary/

Bristol Radical History Group Agenda

Slaughter No Remedy: Walter Ayles, Bristol Conscientious Objector

Date: Monday 16th January, 2017
Time: 7.00pm
Venue: Upper Engagement Room, The Students' Union at UWE, Union 1, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QYPrice: Free
With: Colin Thomas
Organised by UWE Debating Society

‘Canting humbugs’ was the way some in Bristol characterised opponents of the ‘Great War’. But it is now clear that men like local councillor Walter Ayles, prepared to go to prison for their beliefs, had considerable local support. Colin Thomas author of  Slaughter No Remedy: The life and times of Walter Ayles, Bristol Conscientious Objector recounts the life and times of Bristol's most famous war resister.

Life and Death in two Victorian Workhouses

Date: Tuesday 17th January, 2017
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Concorde Hall, Downend Folk House, Lincombe Barn, Overndale Road, Downend, Bristol, BS16 2RW
Price: Visitors £3.00With: Rosemary Caldicott and Di Parkin
Organised by Downend Local History Society (DLHS)
Rosemary Caldicott author of The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire tells how a local community pulled together to uncover murder in the Bedminster Union workhouse. Di Parkin co-author of 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and Death in a Victorian Workhouse gives an illustrated history of life, death and burial at the Eastville Workhouse.

The Dings and World War One: The Remarkable Story Of The Jefferies Brothers

Date: Wednesday 18th January, 2017
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Bethesda Methodist Church, 138a Church Road, Redfield, Bristol, BS5 9HH
Price: BHHG Members £1.50 - Non Members £2.50With: Geoff Woolfe
Organised by Barton Hill History Group (BHHG)
An illustrated talk by Geoff Woolfe  author of The Bristol Deserter on the life and times of Arthur and Alfred Jefferies, both of whom were born in St Philips and lived in the Dings. Both fell as victims of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Arthur was killed in action in Geuedecourt on September 16th 1916. Alfred was shot at dawn for desertion on November 1st 1916.

Cheers,

BRHG

Bristol Radical History Group

Slaughter No Remedy

Date: Monday 5th December, 2016
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Cube, 4 Princess Row, Kingsdown, Bristol, BS2 8NQ
Price: £5/£4
With:  Colin Thomas, Lois Bibbings, Ben Griffin, Ben Pike

The premier of Slaughter No Remedy a short film that studies the life of Walter Ayles a leading member of the Independent Labour Party in Bristol who was jailed in 1916 for his refusal to fight in World War One. This is followed by Watford’s Quiet Heroes a documentary telling the dramatic and largely forgotten stories of WW1 war resisters. Finally, The Unseen March exposes the contemporary policies that are increasing military involvement in schools across Britain. From the expansion of cadet forces to academies sponsored by the arms industry, the armed forces are playing a growing role in education without public debate.

A panel discussion follows, featuring historian of conscientious objectors Professor Lois Bibbings, Ben Griffin of Veterans for Peace and documentary film makers Colin Thomas and Ben Pike.

Book this event here

Plaque to mark Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Road

Date: Wednesday 7th December, 2016
Time: 11.00am
Venue: 100 Fishponds Rd, Pedestrian Entrance to East Trees Health Centre, Bristol BS5 6BF
As part of the ongoing Eastville Workhouse history project a cast aluminium, painted plaque by local artist Mike Baker will be unveiled on the surviving gates to the workhouse at 100 Fishponds Rd. Over eighty years, thousands of men, women and children passed through these gates, driven by poverty, great age or ill-health. Families were separated, endured hard labour and a punitive regime. The plaque shows a relief of Eastville Workhouse and Fishponds Rd in the late Victorian period and marks the location of the institution which remains a dark, but important, symbol in the history of East Bristol.

Detroit: Future City?

Date: Wednesday 7th December, 2016
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, Old Market St, Bristol BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
With: Sarah Coffey

The US city of Detroit had a population in the region of 1.8 million in the 1950s but automation and the flight of big business, particularly in the automotive industry, led to massive redundancies, foreclosures and the displacement of millions. The population now stands at less than 700,000, the lowest it has been for a century. In the midst of this neo-liberal catastrophe and the associated withdrawal of public services, residents have banded together to create their own solutions including food networks, community safety patrols, free schools and neighbourhood housing projects. However, these pioneering  Detroiters are faced with an onslaught of further privatisation, dissolution of democratic control of local government, the removal collective bargaining and raids on pension funds. These competing models of the 'future city' will have ramifications not just in the US but worldwide. 
Sarah Coffey, a longtime Detroit resident, community organiser and a co-founder of the Midnight Special Law Collective has been closely involved with autonomous communities in the city.

Bristol Radical History Group: Deserters!

Deserters, Conchies and Mutineers

Date: Saturday 15^th October, 2016

Time: 2:30pm to 5:30pm

Venue: Central Friends Meeting House, Champion Square, St Judes, Bristol BS2 9DB

Price: Donation

With: Julian Putkowski, Lois Bibbings and People’s Histreh
The Remembering the Real World War One Group have issued a programme of their events for Oct-Dec 2016. Entitled Resisting the War, the full programme with a downloadable guide is here.

 

THE stereotype of World War 1 soldiers dutifully marching to their deaths was always a conservative mirage. Only a handful of books have drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of British soldiers and military auxiliaries who rebelled, mutinied and challenged their commanders and political masters during the war. Among the most notable historians of soldiers' opposition to the war is Julian Putkowski, author of several works including British Army Mutineers 1914-1922 (1998). Julian will consider the ringleaders and ‘reds in khaki’ who organised these revolts inviting debate about the social interpretation, political significance and leadership of these mutinous outbreaks. Resistance was also very much evident on the home front. Professor Lois Bibbings will talk about her long-standing work on conscientious objectors (Telling Tales About Men: Conceptions of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service During the First World War (2009)), focusing on the different motivations of COs and on the legal-military machine which they opposed. Returning to mutiny, the Nottingham based People’s Histreh group will present their research into members of the Sherwood Foresters regiment who were sentenced to death or charged with mutiny. Come along and hear stories you won't hear in the official WW1 commemorations.

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The Value of Eye-Witness Accounts

By Brian Bamford CENTRAL to Colin Ward's critique of anarchist analysis and practice in the 1960s, was his belief that it was too obsessed with history and historical accounts.  That is too focused on the historical narrative of what had transpired in earlier times, and lacking an awareness of the here and now, and what people like me who have been brought up in anthropological study or ethnomethodology may call 'the missing what-ness'.  In May 2011, I gave paper at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair entitled:  'Pro. Preston and George Orwell: The varieties of historical investigation and experience'.  It was an attempt to access the qualitative value differing accounts such as that of the academic historian Professor Paul Preston and George Orwell's more ethnographic eye-witness studies and descriptions.  At that event a young lad asked me to define the meaning of 'ethnography' and, as I recall, at the time I fancy I gave a rather poor and unsatisfactory description. The cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, and author Brian A. Hoey has defined the term thus: 'The term ethnography has come to be equated with virtually any qualitative research project where the intent is to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice. This is sometimes referred to as “thick description” — a term attributed to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz writing on the idea of an interpretive theory of culture in the early 1970s (e.g., see The Interpretation of Cultures, first published as a collection in 1973). The use of the term “qualitative” is meant to distinguish this kind of social science research from more “quantitative” or statistically oriented research.'  That quote represents a rather overly technical explanation for what I wanted to deal with at my talk at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair in 2011.  What I was asking was more straight forward: 'Is a modern history, written in a library by a professional historian such as that of Professor Preston's, to be preferred to a first-hand account of the conflict written almost in the heat of battle, or shortly afterwards? Will not the professional historian and scholar's account be more objective than that written by the former combatant and novelist? Is not the one clearly superior to the other? If not, how do we judge and value these differing contributions? '  These questions are important and not just to anarchists.  Pro. Preston himself has openly attempted to rubbish the work of George Orwell when some years ago at a gathering of the International Brigade Memorial Trust he declared George Orwell's  'Homage to Catalonia' , and said: 'It is not a bad book but the trouble is, it is the only book many people read on the Spanish Civil War' or words to that effect. Pro. Preston suggested that 'Homage to Catalonia' was a book written about the Spanish War from the narrow perspective of someone who had only spent six or seven months involved in the conflict on a quiet front in the North of Spain - Aragon & Catalonia - and, that it left out much which the professional historian could now encompass supported, as he is, by the enriched 'body of scholarship which has been published in Spanish, Catalan, English ... since 1996' (see Preface to Preston's ‘The Spanish Civil War’ [2006]).  Can the professional historian have a better insight into the nature of a conflict like the Spanish Civil War than a combatant who was actually there like George Orwell?  In one of his 'As I please' essays Orwell comments on Sir Walter Raleigh:  'who when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent enquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about; whereupon, so it is said -- and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be -- he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.'   Orwell took the view that Sir Walter Raleigh was wrong to abandon the project.  I think that the two approaches to historical analysis are best described by Pro. Hoey below.  Pro. Hoey distinguishes the two approaches:  'Ethnographers generate understandings of culture through representation of what we call an emic perspective, or what might be described as the “‘insider’s point of view.” The emphasis in this representation is thus on allowing critical categories and meanings to emerge from the ethnographic encounter rather than imposing these from existing models. An etic perspective, by contrast, refers to a more distant, analytical orientation to experience.' and he continues:  'While an ethnographic approach to social research is no longer purely that of the cultural anthropologist, a more precise definition must be rooted in ethnography’s disciplinary home of anthropology. Thus, ethnography may be defined as both a qualitative research process or method (one conducts an ethnography) and product (the outcome of this process is an ethnography) whose aim is cultural interpretation. The ethnographer goes beyond reporting events and details of experience. Specifically, he or she attempts to explain how these represent what we might call “webs of meaning” (Geertz again), the cultural constructions, in which we live.'  Following another talk commemoration the anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, that I and the Anarchist Federation comrade Luis Mates gave in Newcastle at an event organised by Dave Douglass together with the International Brigade Memorial Trust up there, also in 2011,  one questioner pointed out that he had been to the spot in Barcelona where George Orwell had been confronted with the street fighting in Barcelona, and this questioner claimed that Orwell, from where he was standing, was not in a position to witness the events as he had claimed to do.  This represents another problem.  What can the eye-witness actually see?  Is the witness on the spot claiming too much in his account?  A recent example of this would seem to be Mr. Jason Holdway's comment on the post 'PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ!':  'I was there and frankly Brian's behavior was bizarre and completely counter productive. He caused his injuries when he tried to shoulder barge his way back in to the building, rebounding off someone half his age and fell sprawling onto the pebbled floor. I can only conclude that Brian's provocative behaviour was precisely designed to create a situation where he could make some claim to victimhood. on PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ!'  This above  is an eye-witness account of the events in Angel Alley on the 22nd, June this year.  Jason Holdway was indeed there in Angel Alley at the time, as he had been nominated for a place on the Friends of Freedom Press by the Secretary Steve Sorba, who was himself at the time of the attack on me presiding over the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Freedom Press in an upstairs room at 84B, Whitechapel High Street.  Mr. Holdway makes some preliminary observations about my behaviour before going on to claim ' He caused his injuries when he tried to shoulder barge his way back in to the building, rebounding off someone half his age and fell sprawling onto the pebbled floor'.   How can he know that?  Did he see the blood begin to flow at that moment?  Perhaps he saw a fountain of blood smeared across the 'pebbled floor' in Angel Alley?  I have been witness to number of these kind of events - in sit-in strikes and sit-downs - and afterwards it is not so easy for the actual participant or 'victim' to say precisely when the damage occurred.  But Mr Holdway goes further to make an even more remarkable conclusion:  'I can only conclude that Brian's provocative behaviour was precisely designed to create a situation where he could make some claim to victimhood.'  What Mr. Holdway is doing here is claiming to have solved 'the problem of other minds'!   He is claiming effectively not only that the injuries were self-inflicted because of my 'behaviour [which] was bizarre',  but also that he has the insight to know my full intentions or what the solicitor's call the mens rea.  The notion of mens rea or intention is a problem for lawyers and the courts, but it is also a problem for social scientists.  Clearly the ethnographer has many problems no less than the professional historian, and slipshod treatment of the subject can always occur in our accounts.  But as has been pointed out it is probable that an ethnographic eye-witness account such as that of George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' will probably survive better that many of the histories of the Spanish Civil War that are currently being written.  In short it possesses the 'missing what-ness'!

Bristol History Group & War Resisters

Discovering British War Resisters 1914-1918 Hoped-for outcomes and challenging surprises
Date: Monday 20th June, 2016
Time: 7:30 pm
Venue: Friends Meeting House, Champion Square, Bristol BS2 9DB
Price: Donation
With: Cyril Pearce

Cyril Pearce is Britain’s foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors (COs) and war resisters. His book ‘Comrades in Conscience‘ looked at the anti-war movement in Huddersfield. Since then, Cyril has extended his work to look for other ‘Huddersfields’ and has created a database of British COs – the Pearce Register of British Conscientious Objectors The database currently contains details of almost 20,000 men who refused to fight in the war and is an invaluable tool for any local research. The 350 names we have published for Bristol are extracted from Cyril’s database.
The database has enabled the creation of maps of all the British counties plotting numbers and densities of COs and identifying anti-war ‘hot spots’. This research process has exposed hitherto hidden aspects of the anti-war phenomenon among them an underground network of safe houses and hiding places and, with the collaboration of Irish rebels, an escape route to North America.
Come and hear Cyril talk about his research, including stories of Bristol people who opposed the war.
Cyril Pearce is an Honorary Research Fellow at University of Leeds, School of History.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com

Bristol Radical History

THE 'Remembering the Real World War One history group' have announced a talk, a historical recreation, a film and a walk for their 'Summer 1916' events in Bristol:

The scale of Britain’s involvement in World War 1 changed in 1916. Any initial enthusiasm for the war was wearing off. Early recruits had been trained and sent to the front. There was no sign of imminent victory. Volunteer numbers were drying up. Those who had opposed the war in 1914 were joined by opponents of conscription when it was introduced in January 1916. After almost two years of sporadic fighting, July 1916 saw the start of the Battle Of The Somme.

Over the next two months we are putting on a number of events marking the centenary of this new stage in the war.

Monday June 20^th
‘Discovering British 1914-1918 War Resisters – hoped for outcomes and challenging surprises‘ – hear Cyril Pearce, Britain’s foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors and war resisters, talk about his research, including stories of Bristol people who opposed the war. Full details here.

Sunday June 26^th
‘Slaughter No Remedy’ – a re-enactment of Walter Ayles’ appearance before a Military Service Tribunal, exactly one hundred years after it happened, in the same room it took place. 1916 dress optional! Full details here. This will be a popular event – you need to book (free) via the link provided.

Sunday July 3^rd
‘Battle Of The Somme’ – a showing of the historic propaganda film with live piano accompaniment and panel discussion. Full details here. Note special price for Remembering The Real World War 1 supporters

Sunday July 10^th
'Smoke, Gas, Strikes, Metal And Slums’ – an historical walk through St Philips and The Dings remembering Alfred Jefferies, Bristol’s Deserter and Bristol in the early 1900s. Full details here.

For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com

Jack Sheppard Bristol Event

Escape was on Everyone's Mind: The Tale of Jack Sheppard

Paper theatre by Otherstory

Sat 14th May 2.30 pm at Southbank, Dean Lane, Bristol BS3 1DB

Post show discussion led by Roger Ball of Bristol Radical History Group

SEE how an ordinary apprentice carpenter became the legendary jail breaker and hero of the people. Witness his daring and miraculous escapes! Watch him outwit judges, jailers and the Thief-taker General – until the hangman’s noose beckons and it’s now or never, neck or nothing…

18th Century London, its rebellious mobs, rapacious merchants and well-fed judges, are brought to vivid life on a table. The use of simple cut-out puppets and zigzagging set leads the audience through unexpected turns among the characters, institutions, and dodgy deals of a time of upheaval: a time with parallels to our own.

"Beautiful sets accompany a funny but searing critique of mercantile London in the 18th Century via the hidden history of the peoples' hero Jack Sheppard" - Roger Ball, BRH

"Intimate, intricate and insurrectionary...set in a Hogarth-like landscape of love, intrigue and revolution" - Hilary Ramsden, George Ewart Evans Storytelling Centre

£8 or £5 concessions (but no-one turned away for lack of funds). Show is for adults and older children.

Show lasts 70 minutes - plus post show discussion

To book tickets, and to view trailer, go to https://otherstory.org/

Note: this event is not organised by BRHG

_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Ireland, Spain & Tolstoyan Anarchism

Captain Jack White DSO, from Imperialism to Anarchism
  Meeting  Date: Tue 10th May, 2016
Time: 8:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
With: Leo Keohane, Kevin Boylan

Captain Jack White DSO attracted adjectives like jam does wasps – flamboyant, gallant, romantic, handsome, idiosyncratic, incorrigible – and every one of them was appropriate.  He was a Presbyterian from the northern part of Ireland who fought in the Boer War, became the first commander of the Irish Citizen Army in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, was arrested for sedition during WW1, fell foul of all the police/paramilitary/governmental authorities in Ireland between 1913 and 1936, and participated in the Spanish Civil War.  As well as travelling the world, Jack also participated in the Tolstoyan Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire.

Leo Keohane, author of Captain Jack White: Imperialism, Anarchism and the Irish Citizen Army (Merrion Press, 2014) is a lecturer in Critical Theory at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, Ireland.

More details about this event here.

_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk  http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Poaching in the South West: The Berkeley Case

    Date: Thursday 28th January, 2016
Time: 7:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
With: Steve Mills

Steve Mills will give a talk on the contents of his recent BRHG pamphlet 'Poaching in the South West' which considers the poaching wars in rural areas in the 18th and 19th Centuries and the arms race conducted between the poaching gangs, landowners and game keepers. He will also look at the development of the 'poaching' laws in the period and the famous Berkeley Case.

More information here.

Syria, The Kurds, ISIS and the West: Revolution in Rojava: Strengths and Challenges

Date: Tuesday 9th February, 2016
Time: 7:30-9:30 pm
Venue: The Conference Room, Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, BS1 3QY
Price: Donation
With: Dr. Jeff Miley (Dept. of Sociology, Uni. Of Cambridge)

Since the descent into civil war in Syria, revolutionary forces have seized control of the Kurdish region of Rojava.  This talk aims to assess the strengths, challenges and vulnerabilities of the revolutionary project under way there. In terms of strengths, I will focus principally on four:
(1) revolutionary discipline and the power of ideology
(2) consciousness-raising, collective mobilization, and assembly democracy
(3) gender emancipation
(4) attempts to accommodate ethnic and religious diversity
In terms of challenges and vulnerabilities, I will focus on questions of isolation and embargo, the alliance with the U.S., and especially the threat from Turkey.



_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Bristol Radical History Meetings

TWO public meetings coming up....

Pauper deaths and burials in Victorian England

Date: Thursday 15th October, 2015Time: 6:00pm-7.30pmVenue: Studio 1 & 2, First Floor, MSHED, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Map: http://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/getting-here/
Speaker: Roger Ball (BRHG and Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group)
Price: FreeFuneral ceremonies were very important to middle class Victorians, with detailed and often elaborate rituals to mark the passing of cherished family members. But for paupers who died in the workhouses, things were very different. Building on continuing research into the unmarked graves at the site of Eastville workhouse, Bristol, this talk exposes the contrast in treatment between rich and poor in death.
This meeting is organised by UWE Regional History Centre as part of its M Shed Seminar Programme, 2015-16.
Black Flags and Windmills: Creating power from below

Date: Thursday 22nd October, 2015Time: 7.30-9.30pmVenue: Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Speaker: scott crow
Price: Donation
When both levees and governments failed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the anarchist-inspired Common Ground Collective was created to fill the void. With the motto of 'Solidarity Not Charity', they worked to create power from below; building autonomous projects, programs, and spaces of self-sufficiency like health clinics and neighborhood assemblies, while also supporting communities defending themselves from white militias and police brutality, illegal home demolitions and evictions.
U.S. activist, scott crow, a co-founder of Common Ground, is the author of Black Flags and Windmills - in equal parts memoir, history and organizing philosophy - which vividly intertwines his experiences and ideas with Katrina’s reality, illustrating how people can build local grassroots power for collective liberation. It is a story of resisting indifference, rebuilding hope amid collapse and struggling against the grain to create better worlds.

Bristol Radical History Meetings

Justice For Alice Wheeldon!

Date: Monday 28th September, 2015Time: 6:00pm-8.00pmVenue: Studio 1 & 2, First Floor, MSHED, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Map: http://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/getting-here/
Speakers: Chloe Mason and Sheila Rowbotham
Price: Donation

In 1917, socialist, feminist and anti-war activist, Alice Wheeldon, her daughter Winnie and husband Alf Mason were given long prison sentences for supposedly plotting to kill the Prime Minister Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson, the leader of the Labour Party. The evidence was flimsy, their accuser an MI5 agent provocateur so dubious the prosecution kept him away from the trial.

Last autumn as part of our Women Resisting the Great War meeting, Sheila Rowbotham, renowned historian and feminist, spoke about the case. Since then Sheila's book Friends Of Alice Wheeldon has been re-published and Chloe Mason, great grand-daughter is visiting the UK as part of her campaign to clear the name of Alice and other family members. Sheila and Chloe will discuss the new evidence they have uncovered, the issues it raises and its bearing on the ongoing campaign.

Full details on our website: here For more information email rememberingtherealww1@gmail.com

This meeting is organised by the Bristol Remembering the Real World War One Group

Pauper deaths and burials in Victorian England
Date: Thursday 15th October, 2015Time: 6:00pm-7.30pmVenue: Studio 1 & 2, First Floor, MSHED, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Map: http://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/getting-here/
Speakers: Di Parkin and Roger Ball (BRHG and Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group)
Price: Free

Funeral ceremonies were very important to middle class Victorians, with detailed and often elaborate rituals to mark the passing of cherished family members and those deemed ‘important’. But for paupers who died in the workhouses, things were very different. Building on continuing research into the unmarked graves behind the site of Eastville workhouse, Bristol, this talk exposes the contrast in treatment between rich and poor in death.
This meeting is organised by UWE Regional History Centre as part of its M Shed Seminar Programme, 2015-16