THE rain today did not deter the 100 local authority workers who demonstrated against the proposed cuts to public services by the Coalition Government outside Salford Town Hall in Swinton. Ray Walker, Branch Secretary of Unison, addressed the protest from the Town Hall steps. Salford Trades Council raised their huge red banner held by Alex Halligan and Steve North, and smaller flags of the GMB union and Unison were on show. Political groups like the local Green Party and the odd anarchist were in evidence as were some supporters of the National Shop Stewards Network. Today, of course, was a European day of action with a 'General Strike' in Spain and other actions in Greece, Ireland, and Brussels. Spain has had six 'General Strikes' (four of 24 hours; one of half a day; one of 1 hour) since the death of General Franco in 1975 only one, in 1988, which paralysed the country. These Spanish 'general strikes' are safety valves and what we would call token strikes, they are more effective than a day of action but not much more. But, it is doubtful that the British TUC could even call a successful Day of Action at the moment.
Buy Northern Voices12 with more stories on the Salford areas and with our special regular feature 'Salford Spy': price £1.50, out next month, from certain select newsagents in Swinton, Walkden, Eccles and Salford or write for postal subscription: £10 for the next 5 issues to Northern Voices: c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
LABOUR LIVING IN 'CLOUD CUCKOO-LAND'
'I know thee not old man.': Prince Hal in Henry IV [part II]
IT was like a play by Bertold Brecht when two weeks ago Dave Harker, of North East National Shop Stewards Network, declared to a large fringe meeting on the Blacklist: 'Anyone who asks us to vote Labour must be living in Cloud Cuckoo-Land'. This was met with spontaneous applause much to the dismay of the left-wing MP on the platform: John McDonnell. Mr McDonnell MP had urged voting Labour in the midst of his oration to the campaigners against the blacklist and another speaker on the platform went on to say it is 'a pity he was not one of the candidates for Labour leader'.
But 'Cloud Cuckoo-land' is still, not an easy realm to escape from for many on the left, and the big unions still spend millions supporting the Labour Party. Will they get their money's worth this time? The political pundits are not yet tipping the restoration of trade union rights to the pre-Margaret Thatcher situation, which is something unions like UNITE have been demanding. The best thing on offer from the new Labour leadership, at the moment, seems to be a 'Living Wage; right to request flexible working for all workers'.
This falls far short of what last March, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, the leaders of UNITE the UNION, were calling for when they said the last Labour Government had let the labour movement down by failing to do away with Thatcher's anti-trade union laws. Yet in second quarter of 2010, UNITE gave the Labour Party £1.67 million; this compares with £1.2 million that Unison gave the party and £1.05 million donated by the GMB.
At the TUC Conference in Manchester a local group calling themselves the 'northern syndicalists' issued a 'Trade Unionist Review' arguing that:
'After the General Strike in 1926 the Baldwin Government, like Thatcher in the 1980s, had been eager to exploit its victory and in May 1927 it introduced a bill to amend the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. Its main clause made illegal the sympathy strike or “any strike designed or calculated to coerce the government”... The historian, A.J.P. Taylor, writes of this Act (the Trade Disputes & Trade Union Act) that, unlike Thatcher's anti-union laws, “it was fiercely contested in the house of commons, and its repeal followed close on Labour's victory in 1945”. The northern syndicalist Review adds: 'No such attempt at repeal of Thatcher's anti-union laws followed the election of Blair in 1997, indeed the Labour Government, that was in office with an absolute majority up to May this year, dismissed trade union demands for change in the law.'
Today it would be a rash inmate of the Labour Party realm of Cloud Cuckoo-Land, who should risk forecasting any repeal of the laws that inhibit trade unions as a result of last weekends election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader. Indeed, John McTernan, political secretary to Tony Blair 2005 to 2007, wrote in the Telegraph yesterday that now that Ed Miliband has got the job 'he never needs to do anything for them (the unions) ever again.' Mr McTernan says he should tackle Derek Simpson as the newly crowned Henry V dealt with Falstaff when he came to Court looking for favours: 'I know thee not old man.'
IT was like a play by Bertold Brecht when two weeks ago Dave Harker, of North East National Shop Stewards Network, declared to a large fringe meeting on the Blacklist: 'Anyone who asks us to vote Labour must be living in Cloud Cuckoo-Land'. This was met with spontaneous applause much to the dismay of the left-wing MP on the platform: John McDonnell. Mr McDonnell MP had urged voting Labour in the midst of his oration to the campaigners against the blacklist and another speaker on the platform went on to say it is 'a pity he was not one of the candidates for Labour leader'.
But 'Cloud Cuckoo-land' is still, not an easy realm to escape from for many on the left, and the big unions still spend millions supporting the Labour Party. Will they get their money's worth this time? The political pundits are not yet tipping the restoration of trade union rights to the pre-Margaret Thatcher situation, which is something unions like UNITE have been demanding. The best thing on offer from the new Labour leadership, at the moment, seems to be a 'Living Wage; right to request flexible working for all workers'.
This falls far short of what last March, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, the leaders of UNITE the UNION, were calling for when they said the last Labour Government had let the labour movement down by failing to do away with Thatcher's anti-trade union laws. Yet in second quarter of 2010, UNITE gave the Labour Party £1.67 million; this compares with £1.2 million that Unison gave the party and £1.05 million donated by the GMB.
At the TUC Conference in Manchester a local group calling themselves the 'northern syndicalists' issued a 'Trade Unionist Review' arguing that:
'After the General Strike in 1926 the Baldwin Government, like Thatcher in the 1980s, had been eager to exploit its victory and in May 1927 it introduced a bill to amend the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. Its main clause made illegal the sympathy strike or “any strike designed or calculated to coerce the government”... The historian, A.J.P. Taylor, writes of this Act (the Trade Disputes & Trade Union Act) that, unlike Thatcher's anti-union laws, “it was fiercely contested in the house of commons, and its repeal followed close on Labour's victory in 1945”. The northern syndicalist Review adds: 'No such attempt at repeal of Thatcher's anti-union laws followed the election of Blair in 1997, indeed the Labour Government, that was in office with an absolute majority up to May this year, dismissed trade union demands for change in the law.'
Today it would be a rash inmate of the Labour Party realm of Cloud Cuckoo-Land, who should risk forecasting any repeal of the laws that inhibit trade unions as a result of last weekends election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader. Indeed, John McTernan, political secretary to Tony Blair 2005 to 2007, wrote in the Telegraph yesterday that now that Ed Miliband has got the job 'he never needs to do anything for them (the unions) ever again.' Mr McTernan says he should tackle Derek Simpson as the newly crowned Henry V dealt with Falstaff when he came to Court looking for favours: 'I know thee not old man.'
Sunday, 26 September 2010
CONVENTION OF THE LEFT or is it FUNERAL OF THE LEFT?
NOTHING to frighten the horses in the Labour leadership election at the Manchester's conference centre with the election of Ed Milliband yesterday. And, nothing to trouble the status quo at the Convention of the Left across the road at the Friends Meeting House. So the party which can only select between Oxbridge graduates confronts a Cabinet full of millionaires, while the far left in the Friends Meeting House yesterday acted, at times, as if it was at the Funeral of the Left addressed by a downbeat John McDonnell MP, he who never gets enough nominations, warning us all of a 'long haul' and that he didn't think the Liberals would split away from the government.
The organisers of the Convention of the Left, with John Nicholson sounding hoarse and looking haggard, did their best to cheer up the throng of some eighty or so dispirited revellers at the event going on about Right to Work campaigns and Stop the Cuts. It all sounded thoroughly so 1980s. Is David Cameron really the new Thatcher? It all seems a bit overwrought. Thatcher was a lower middle-class grocer's daughter with all the bitterness of those particular social animals - the Midland shopkeepers- while Cameron has that English upper-class air. That's why I can't agree with Laurens Otter's analysis below and don't believe Cameron wants to grind down the poor and if we accept Professor Robert Skidelsky's thesis it is the markets that rule us and not the government (see Financial Times: June 17th, 2010: 'Once again we must ask: "Who governs?"'). Thus the consensus across the mainstream political spectrum, even that of the Milliband brothers, is that ultimately we have to please the international bankers and investors.
The Convention of the Left was full of hopes and vain expectations, and the spirit of Mr Micawber that 'Something will turn up' to transform the situation: a Poll Tax type riot perhaps or maybe the climate camp warriors will come to our rescue? One workshop was asked to define what the 'Left' was? Mostly for most that meant 'More of the State', look at what happens when you get a downsized State – look at the USA and Katrina; but some, like a film-maker and former anarcho-punk from Hackney called Sean pointed to Detroit, where people on their own initiative are transforming the depressed city by growing crops amid the desolation. Others, like a lad formerly from Big Flame, seemed to have misgivings the 'More State' solution.
Barry Woodling, who described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist, caused a stir when he drew attention to the decision of Castro and Cuba to set about reducing the size of the workforce employed by the State: The International Herald Tribune [18/09/10] reported: '... the Cuban government's recent eye-popping announcement that it will reduce the government work force by 10% and expect the hundreds of thousands of laid-off workers to find places in a new system that has a resemblance to free enterprise.' Screams came back from old codgers declaring: 'You read the wrong papers!' Barry battled on declaring that the National Shop Stewards Network, that had held a Lobby at the TUC conference two weeks ago that featured on SKY TV, offered a radical alternative to the current stale politics of the left. Meanwhile, I'm worried that I'll lose my bus pass.
The organisers of the Convention of the Left, with John Nicholson sounding hoarse and looking haggard, did their best to cheer up the throng of some eighty or so dispirited revellers at the event going on about Right to Work campaigns and Stop the Cuts. It all sounded thoroughly so 1980s. Is David Cameron really the new Thatcher? It all seems a bit overwrought. Thatcher was a lower middle-class grocer's daughter with all the bitterness of those particular social animals - the Midland shopkeepers- while Cameron has that English upper-class air. That's why I can't agree with Laurens Otter's analysis below and don't believe Cameron wants to grind down the poor and if we accept Professor Robert Skidelsky's thesis it is the markets that rule us and not the government (see Financial Times: June 17th, 2010: 'Once again we must ask: "Who governs?"'). Thus the consensus across the mainstream political spectrum, even that of the Milliband brothers, is that ultimately we have to please the international bankers and investors.
The Convention of the Left was full of hopes and vain expectations, and the spirit of Mr Micawber that 'Something will turn up' to transform the situation: a Poll Tax type riot perhaps or maybe the climate camp warriors will come to our rescue? One workshop was asked to define what the 'Left' was? Mostly for most that meant 'More of the State', look at what happens when you get a downsized State – look at the USA and Katrina; but some, like a film-maker and former anarcho-punk from Hackney called Sean pointed to Detroit, where people on their own initiative are transforming the depressed city by growing crops amid the desolation. Others, like a lad formerly from Big Flame, seemed to have misgivings the 'More State' solution.
Barry Woodling, who described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist, caused a stir when he drew attention to the decision of Castro and Cuba to set about reducing the size of the workforce employed by the State: The International Herald Tribune [18/09/10] reported: '... the Cuban government's recent eye-popping announcement that it will reduce the government work force by 10% and expect the hundreds of thousands of laid-off workers to find places in a new system that has a resemblance to free enterprise.' Screams came back from old codgers declaring: 'You read the wrong papers!' Barry battled on declaring that the National Shop Stewards Network, that had held a Lobby at the TUC conference two weeks ago that featured on SKY TV, offered a radical alternative to the current stale politics of the left. Meanwhile, I'm worried that I'll lose my bus pass.
Friday, 24 September 2010
BIG CUTS AT BURY COUNCIL
At the same time, proposed changes to the Management Board will see two senior managers benefiting from an additional £94,000 to their salaries. The Chief Executive of Bury Council, Mark Sanders, who last year denied that there had been evidence of blacklisting on the The Rock - a controversial construction site in Bury - told the Bury Times that he was resigning because he thought 'it was important that we all share in some of that pain ...' He also said he wanted to get to know his wife. He told the paper he wasn't being 'sanctimonious' and assured us 'There's no conspiracy under the surface here. There's not something going to jump out and bite you.' The locked-out workforce next Christmas may not agree!
Buy Northern Voices12 price £1.50, out next month, from certain select newsagents in Bury or write for postal subscription: £10 for the next 5 issues to Northern Voices: c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
The Coalition: Return of Maggie Thatcher? by Laurens Otter
There are obvious resemblances between the present Coalition Government and the Thatcher era; perhaps most relevant is that:
Thatcher came to power with what, some leftists then suspected, and now, in retrospect and after some government admissions, all agree was a preplanned scheme to provoke a showdown with the miners. They would be forced either to strike at a time of the government's choosing – when large stocks of fuel had been stockpiled and a press and Public Relations scheme had already prepared the ground – or alternatively, to suffer salami-slicing to reduce not only their pay and conditions, but also their future action.
Cameron has come to power and appears to be goading what remains of an active trade union movement in much the same way, with the same intent, and the fact that Liberals have agreed to join him in the Coalition does not contradict this, nor will it necessarily impede such a strategy and throughout he wishes to rub their faces in the shit by making them support a variety of right-wing policies, in the knowledge that they dare not break the alliance and go into opposition.
Thatcher was elected at a time when a number of articulate liberal middle class intellectuals were campaigning against nuclear power and were sympathetic to the miners; had they continued their activity, their testimony about the evils of nuclear power might well have been enough to sway the struggle in the miners favour. They didn't because in the year prior to the strike there were a significant number of curious deaths in such circles.
These were sufficiently worthy of suspicion as to cause those who took an interest in such matters to think they have been state murders, but not so far that there was any certainty, so that the Governmental party and venal press could dismiss the suspicions as mere conspiracy theory. It seems fair to expect a similar series of unexplained deaths.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
LOOKING BACK ON THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
'A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though what you are fighting for happens to be just.' from George Orwell's essay 'Looking Back on the Spanish War' written in the Autumn of 1942.
Last night, Charles Jepson of the National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 welcomed the recent decision of Tameside Council to award a blue plaque to James Keogh, an international brigade volunteer, who died in action in the Spanish Civil War in March 1938 in a confrontation in northern Spain with Italian troops. Mr Jepson was speaking to a group of local people at the Tameside Local Studies & Archives Centre on Old Street, Ashton-u-Lyne on 'Tameside People who served in the Spanish Civil War'. The event was organised by local archivist Alice Lock. Present at the talk were officers from Tameside Trade Union Council and Louise Atkinson, the Tameside Arts & Events Manager.
Charles Jepson spoke of the courage of young James Keogh, who lived on Wellington Street, Ashton, and the other young men from the Tameside area, who served in Spain fighting for what they saw as freedom and democracy. His younger sister, Claire Jackson, still lives in Stalybridge. Another man from Dukinfield, Albert Godwin, who served with James in Spain was captured by the enemy and is believed to have been forced, at one stage, to dig his own grave: in the end Albert and the others who went from Tameside survived the war. No grave nor James Keogh's remains, have ever been found, despite a visit by James's nephew, Mike Harrison, a couple of years ago.
Louise Atkinson of the Tameside Arts & Events Unit, has written that she 'anticipate(s) the plaque (to James Keogh) will be unveiled around Autumn/Winter 2011' and that the plaque will 'include reference to “all other volunteers” from the area that also fought in the Spanish Civil War'. At the last meeting of Tameside TUC, that nominated James for the blue plaque two years ago, the Council's decision was welcomed.
Mr Jepson's talk was a workmanlike and well balanced account of the Civil War. In the end, he echoed George Orwell assessment in his essay 'Looking Back on the Spanish War' that: 'The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain' and that General Franco's forces 'won because they were stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn't.' Spain in 1936, was one of only three democracies remaining in western Europe – Britain and France being the other two, and it had a legitimate right to international support. James Keogh and the others who fought in Spain, including George Orwell, understood this. Most people in this country, including in the trade union and Labour movement, choose to ignore this preferring a policy of appeasement and non-intervention, and Tory critics of Germany, like Winston Churchill and Harold Nicholson, were still in the political wilderness. Only after Munich did public opinion change on this.
Buy Northern Voices12 price £1.50, out next month, from certain select Ashton and Tameside newsagents & in the Local Studies Archive at Ashton Library, for more on James Keogh and other local heroes of the Spanish Civil War.
Last night, Charles Jepson of the National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 welcomed the recent decision of Tameside Council to award a blue plaque to James Keogh, an international brigade volunteer, who died in action in the Spanish Civil War in March 1938 in a confrontation in northern Spain with Italian troops. Mr Jepson was speaking to a group of local people at the Tameside Local Studies & Archives Centre on Old Street, Ashton-u-Lyne on 'Tameside People who served in the Spanish Civil War'. The event was organised by local archivist Alice Lock. Present at the talk were officers from Tameside Trade Union Council and Louise Atkinson, the Tameside Arts & Events Manager.
Charles Jepson spoke of the courage of young James Keogh, who lived on Wellington Street, Ashton, and the other young men from the Tameside area, who served in Spain fighting for what they saw as freedom and democracy. His younger sister, Claire Jackson, still lives in Stalybridge. Another man from Dukinfield, Albert Godwin, who served with James in Spain was captured by the enemy and is believed to have been forced, at one stage, to dig his own grave: in the end Albert and the others who went from Tameside survived the war. No grave nor James Keogh's remains, have ever been found, despite a visit by James's nephew, Mike Harrison, a couple of years ago.
Louise Atkinson of the Tameside Arts & Events Unit, has written that she 'anticipate(s) the plaque (to James Keogh) will be unveiled around Autumn/Winter 2011' and that the plaque will 'include reference to “all other volunteers” from the area that also fought in the Spanish Civil War'. At the last meeting of Tameside TUC, that nominated James for the blue plaque two years ago, the Council's decision was welcomed.
Mr Jepson's talk was a workmanlike and well balanced account of the Civil War. In the end, he echoed George Orwell assessment in his essay 'Looking Back on the Spanish War' that: 'The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain' and that General Franco's forces 'won because they were stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn't.' Spain in 1936, was one of only three democracies remaining in western Europe – Britain and France being the other two, and it had a legitimate right to international support. James Keogh and the others who fought in Spain, including George Orwell, understood this. Most people in this country, including in the trade union and Labour movement, choose to ignore this preferring a policy of appeasement and non-intervention, and Tory critics of Germany, like Winston Churchill and Harold Nicholson, were still in the political wilderness. Only after Munich did public opinion change on this.
Buy Northern Voices12 price £1.50, out next month, from certain select Ashton and Tameside newsagents & in the Local Studies Archive at Ashton Library, for more on James Keogh and other local heroes of the Spanish Civil War.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
BIG CYRIL
The political pundits say he was the best thing to come out of
Rochdale since Gracie Fields
After his death on September 3rd, the (Rochdale) Observer say their offices were inundated with tributes to Sir Cyril following the news - from friends and rivals alike ...
Nick Clegg, deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader: "Cyril Smith was a larger-than-life character and one of the most recognisable and likeable politicians of his day.
"Everybody in Rochdale knew him not only as their MP but also as a friend.
"Rochdale and Britain have sadly lost one of their great MPs, and I think we can safely say there will never be an MP quite like Cyril Smith again."
Jimmy Cricket, comedian and long-time friend of Sir Cyril: "Cyril was a giant who loomed over the political landscape of Rochdale for over two decades.
“He was synonymous with the town, like the Co-op and Gracie Fields...”
Lord (David) Steel of Aikwood, leader of the Liberals from 1976 until 1988: “Cyril was first and foremost Mr Rochdale..."
See the sinister side of Cyril in our next issue - Northern Voices12: out in October
Rochdale since Gracie Fields
After his death on September 3rd, the (Rochdale) Observer say their offices were inundated with tributes to Sir Cyril following the news - from friends and rivals alike ...
Nick Clegg, deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader: "Cyril Smith was a larger-than-life character and one of the most recognisable and likeable politicians of his day.
"Everybody in Rochdale knew him not only as their MP but also as a friend.
"Rochdale and Britain have sadly lost one of their great MPs, and I think we can safely say there will never be an MP quite like Cyril Smith again."
Jimmy Cricket, comedian and long-time friend of Sir Cyril: "Cyril was a giant who loomed over the political landscape of Rochdale for over two decades.
“He was synonymous with the town, like the Co-op and Gracie Fields...”
Lord (David) Steel of Aikwood, leader of the Liberals from 1976 until 1988: “Cyril was first and foremost Mr Rochdale..."
See the sinister side of Cyril in our next issue - Northern Voices12: out in October
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Surgeon Calls on Hospital Bosses to Quit!
"We are a clean safe hospital" declared Christine Green the chief executive of Tameside Hospital at the hospital`s AGM on Wednesday. The beleaguered Mrs. Green who is facing demands for her to quit her £144,000 post would like us all to forget the past.In 2006, local coroner John Pollard, denounced the standard of care at Tameside hospital as 'absolutely despicable' and 'chaotic'. The hospital responded by reporting him to the Office for Judicial Complaints. In 2007, the Fielding Inquiry also found that "the quality of care...over a number of years had been seriously deficient." In 2009, it was revealed that the hospital had death rates which were amongst the worst in the country.This July, Mrs. Green, told members of the Tameside Council health scrutiny panel:
"People are very relieved to find that Tameside hospital is not a killer hospital. If we keep reliving history, we wont move forward. We`ve got to get over our history..we've got to make sure everyone is saying the right things, that we're moving forward."
Alas, for Mrs. Green, not everyone who attended the hospital's AGM on Wednesday, were keen to say what she wanted to hear. Rod McCord her nemesis from the Tameside Hospital Action Group (THAG,)called on Mrs. Greeen and the Board to resign. He told the meeting:
"We're still saddled with the same old discredited management." Referring to the hospital's annual report, he added:
"By no stretch of the most febrile imagination could it be said that the reports by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Monitor, were 'very positive evaluations'. The CQC reported chronic understaffing and recommended immediate recruitment of staff under threat of legal action. The Monitor report,(which looked at clinical governance)had also commented that a good Board functioned without the need for regulatory intervention."
Although hospital mangement did their best to pack the meeting with lackeys who were only too keen to do Mrs. Green's bidding, they were visibly shocked when Milton Pena, (pictured above)consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital, told the meeting:
"I support the petition for the Board to resign. I have no confidence in the Board. I`ve reported the Trust on three separate occasions to the Health Care Commssion." In 2005, Mr. Pena went public telling the press that elderly and vulnerable patients were being put at risk due to a lack of nursing staff on the wards and were being left unattended for hours. Hospital management responded by disciplining him for speaking out about his concerns.
Outside the building, Mr. Pena, posed for photographs with Liz Degnen, who is campaigning for the dismissal of Mrs. Green and the Board at Tameside hospital. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, she said:
"I'm pleased Mr. Pena has been bold enough to support our campaign. It takes guts to do what he has done and I think a lot of people admire him for his courage."
SEXUAL ABUSE: Cyril Smith's Family vs Private Eye
In the Rochdale Observer yesterday Cyril's brother Norman castigated these reports in Private Eye saying: 'He (Cyril) thought of nothing else than the people of Rochdale.' He claimed: 'These allegations were proved completely untrue and were dropped.' That, alas, is not how many people remember it! None of the evidence was tested or seriously challenged. At the time RAP's editors declared in conclusion:
'It is not RAP’s function to pronounce on guilt or innocence. We do however believe that the investigation of 1970 should have resulted in a court case. We cannot but believe, like many of the men we interviewed, that had the allegations involved a less prominent person, it would have had exactly that result... Private preferences are, and should remain, personal business. The use of public position for personal gratification at the cost of exploitation of others must be prevented.'
Only last year, one of the former editors of RAP assured me that the paper had a mountain of evidence to prove their case regarding Cyril's behaviour. In the print version of Northern Voices 8 (in the Winter 2007/08 issue) we had suggested that Cyril Smith may have been the subject, along with Jeremy Thorpe, Harold Wilson and others, of a special branch operation called 'Clockwork Orange'. There was a paragraph in RAP's original report of May 1979 that suggested such an interest:
'(7) SPECIAL BRANCH
The file, kept since at Preston, the HQ of Lancashire Constabulary, came to the centre of national events in February/March 1974. Then there was discussion of a possible coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The possibility, if that happened, of leading Liberals holding Ministerial posts, prompted the Special Branch to acquire a copy of the Preston file on Smith which was taken, with special security precautions, to London.'
Thursday, 16 September 2010
BOB CROW AT THE TUC
Now it's Swampy, Direct Action & Extra-parliamentary Man ( & Woman)
LAST SUNDAY on Sky TV Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, was calling for Fathers4Justice type actions, but by Wednesday he was reminding a fringe meeting of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) at the Friends Meeting House in Manchester, of Swampy and other extra-parliamentary actions. The Chair, revolutionary syndicalist, Dave Chapple, was moved to ask him if Swampy had now joined the RMT? He said that what was needed was broad based imaginative campaigns in the community and that he thought that this year's TUC conference had been positive with calls for coordinated action and strikes which, in his view, had to be 'political', and he said that, for the first time in many years, the media had turned up in strength. He argued that we had to put forward real social demands.
Linda Taaffe, Secretary of the NSSN, called for a 'strategy of mass action' like the Poll Tax campaigns of the early 1990s. She said it was not just the poll tax riot that had won that battle but rather the determination of ordinary people not to pay the tax. In the end, of course, the Prime Minister who superseded Margaret Thatcher, John Major, had said that as a tax the Poll Tax was 'uncollectable'. Indeed, it was Margaret Thatcher that who through her anti-trade union laws helped bring back the riot to streets of England. In the 1970s and 80s some Industrial Sociologists like Tony Lane and Huw Beynon saw strikes and industrial action as a safety valve in society and some at that time saw the union official as the 'manager of discontent'. Calls for the increasing use of the law to limit the right to strike from people like Boris Johnson may well lead to more insurrectionary, less predictable forms of action
Amid the slogans and rhetoric at the TUC conference and on the streets during the demo last Sunday, there is a sense in the air up here in Manchester of a possibility of summat different on the horizon, summat more exotic perhaps, some alternative action more surprising than an ordinary strike. The utterances of Bob Crow, perhaps unconsciously imply something strange is in the offing and all week senior policemen, with an eye on their own interests, have been warning of social disorder if the cuts are implemented. Perhaps the National Shop Stewards Network will find a role for itself yet.
LAST SUNDAY on Sky TV Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, was calling for Fathers4Justice type actions, but by Wednesday he was reminding a fringe meeting of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) at the Friends Meeting House in Manchester, of Swampy and other extra-parliamentary actions. The Chair, revolutionary syndicalist, Dave Chapple, was moved to ask him if Swampy had now joined the RMT? He said that what was needed was broad based imaginative campaigns in the community and that he thought that this year's TUC conference had been positive with calls for coordinated action and strikes which, in his view, had to be 'political', and he said that, for the first time in many years, the media had turned up in strength. He argued that we had to put forward real social demands.
Linda Taaffe, Secretary of the NSSN, called for a 'strategy of mass action' like the Poll Tax campaigns of the early 1990s. She said it was not just the poll tax riot that had won that battle but rather the determination of ordinary people not to pay the tax. In the end, of course, the Prime Minister who superseded Margaret Thatcher, John Major, had said that as a tax the Poll Tax was 'uncollectable'. Indeed, it was Margaret Thatcher that who through her anti-trade union laws helped bring back the riot to streets of England. In the 1970s and 80s some Industrial Sociologists like Tony Lane and Huw Beynon saw strikes and industrial action as a safety valve in society and some at that time saw the union official as the 'manager of discontent'. Calls for the increasing use of the law to limit the right to strike from people like Boris Johnson may well lead to more insurrectionary, less predictable forms of action
Amid the slogans and rhetoric at the TUC conference and on the streets during the demo last Sunday, there is a sense in the air up here in Manchester of a possibility of summat different on the horizon, summat more exotic perhaps, some alternative action more surprising than an ordinary strike. The utterances of Bob Crow, perhaps unconsciously imply something strange is in the offing and all week senior policemen, with an eye on their own interests, have been warning of social disorder if the cuts are implemented. Perhaps the National Shop Stewards Network will find a role for itself yet.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
What is Anarcho-Syndicalism?
The common objectives of social movements described as "anarcho-syndicalist", "revolutionary syndicalist" and "industrial syndicalist" is to overthrow capitalism through revolutionary class struggle based on the workplace in order to construct a social order devoid of economic, social and political oppression.
Many socialists believe in political action via parliament and the state to institute socialism , anarcho-syndicalists however reject this approach and concentrate on the revolutionary potential of working class economic organisations e.g. industrial unions, rank and file bodies etc. The emancipation of the working class can thus only be achieved not through political means, but by direct action, culminating in the social general strike and the setting up of workers control of the economy and society.
Anarcho-syndicalists place a major emphasis on decentralisation and horizontal organisation and demonstrate a fundamental opposition to the state compared with syndicalist movements outside of the syndicalist milieu. Syndicalists have been derided by Marxists who slavishly adhere to Leninist orthodoxy. Vide Lenin's "Preface to the pamphlet by Lunacharsky on the attitude of the party towards trade unions (1907)" & "On the Syndicalist and Anarchist deviation in our Party (1921)".
Marxists paint a stereotypical picture of syndicalism as "amorphous", "petty bourgeois", "atheoretical" and "neglectful of politics and the state". This couldn't be further from the truth. Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalism has developed a sustained analysis of class struggle. Historically, it has articulated a cohesive structure of aims and methodology. Furthermore, Anarcho-Syndicalism is overtly political and recognises the importance of challenging state structures and the power of capital. Syndicalism has achieved mass support among factory workers, miners and craftsmen.
In the UK there has been a multiplicity of syndicalist movements e.g. Industrial Syndicalist Education League, British Advocates of Industrial Unionism, Industrial Union of Direct-Actionists, Industrial Workers of Great Britain, Syndicalist Workers Federation, Direct Action Movement etc.
Within the National Shop Stewards Network, Anarcho-Syndicalists are addressing the central issue of revolutionary class struggle and breaking the link between the Unions and the Labour Party.
Many socialists believe in political action via parliament and the state to institute socialism , anarcho-syndicalists however reject this approach and concentrate on the revolutionary potential of working class economic organisations e.g. industrial unions, rank and file bodies etc. The emancipation of the working class can thus only be achieved not through political means, but by direct action, culminating in the social general strike and the setting up of workers control of the economy and society.
Anarcho-syndicalists place a major emphasis on decentralisation and horizontal organisation and demonstrate a fundamental opposition to the state compared with syndicalist movements outside of the syndicalist milieu. Syndicalists have been derided by Marxists who slavishly adhere to Leninist orthodoxy. Vide Lenin's "Preface to the pamphlet by Lunacharsky on the attitude of the party towards trade unions (1907)" & "On the Syndicalist and Anarchist deviation in our Party (1921)".
Marxists paint a stereotypical picture of syndicalism as "amorphous", "petty bourgeois", "atheoretical" and "neglectful of politics and the state". This couldn't be further from the truth. Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalism has developed a sustained analysis of class struggle. Historically, it has articulated a cohesive structure of aims and methodology. Furthermore, Anarcho-Syndicalism is overtly political and recognises the importance of challenging state structures and the power of capital. Syndicalism has achieved mass support among factory workers, miners and craftsmen.
In the UK there has been a multiplicity of syndicalist movements e.g. Industrial Syndicalist Education League, British Advocates of Industrial Unionism, Industrial Union of Direct-Actionists, Industrial Workers of Great Britain, Syndicalist Workers Federation, Direct Action Movement etc.
Within the National Shop Stewards Network, Anarcho-Syndicalists are addressing the central issue of revolutionary class struggle and breaking the link between the Unions and the Labour Party.
BLACKLISTED FILM FRINGE: Professor calls for action at European Court
ON the day that the TUC Conference moved a motion to fight to get the Government to outlaw blacklisting, a fringe meeting organised by the Manchester Campaign Against the Blacklist hosted a TUC fringe meeting and Film Premier that attracted close to 100 people at the Central Methodist Hall. The UCATT motion at the TUC Conference demanded that 'blacklisting be made a specific criminal offence' and the that workers have 'an automatic right to be informed, should a blacklist be discovered on which their name appears.' The Fringe Meeting ran a film in which victims of the blacklist were interviewed and shown campaigning against the practice.
Professor Keith Ewing, from the Institute of Employment Rights and author of the UCATT report 'Spoiled Lives' on the legal aspects of blacklisting, told the meeting that there ought to be a complaint to the International Labour Organisation (a UN body) that had in 1992 determined that the British Government was in breach of human rights in respect of the right someone to be a member of a trade union and that the evidence of blacklisting also made a case at the European Court of Human Rights now likely. He said that companies operating blacklists fell foul of Human Rights laws in two respects:
Article 8 provides a right to respect for privacy and this could only be set aside if the government could show it was 'necessary': and Pro. Ewing said in the case of blacklisting it would not be possible to show it was 'necessary'.
Article 11 provides a right to freedom of association: the evidence shows that the companies were using blacklisting to hinder freedom of association.
He said: breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights meant that people subject to the blacklist would be entitled to a remedy and compensation.
Some at the meeting criticised the length of time it would take to get all this through the legal process and others challenged the failures of the previous Labour Government to do anything serious about blacklisting or the anti-trade union laws. Even John McDonnell as a Labour MP was on the defensive saying that the previous Government hadn't been 'Labour' but had been 'New Labour'. Mr McDonnell characterised himself as 'Real Labour'. A newsletter 'Our Next Step' claiming to come from some 'northern syndicalists allied to the National Shop Stewards Network' was circulated at the meeting arguing that British trade unions should break with the Labour Party.
Professor Keith Ewing, from the Institute of Employment Rights and author of the UCATT report 'Spoiled Lives' on the legal aspects of blacklisting, told the meeting that there ought to be a complaint to the International Labour Organisation (a UN body) that had in 1992 determined that the British Government was in breach of human rights in respect of the right someone to be a member of a trade union and that the evidence of blacklisting also made a case at the European Court of Human Rights now likely. He said that companies operating blacklists fell foul of Human Rights laws in two respects:
Article 8 provides a right to respect for privacy and this could only be set aside if the government could show it was 'necessary': and Pro. Ewing said in the case of blacklisting it would not be possible to show it was 'necessary'.
Article 11 provides a right to freedom of association: the evidence shows that the companies were using blacklisting to hinder freedom of association.
He said: breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights meant that people subject to the blacklist would be entitled to a remedy and compensation.
Some at the meeting criticised the length of time it would take to get all this through the legal process and others challenged the failures of the previous Labour Government to do anything serious about blacklisting or the anti-trade union laws. Even John McDonnell as a Labour MP was on the defensive saying that the previous Government hadn't been 'Labour' but had been 'New Labour'. Mr McDonnell characterised himself as 'Real Labour'. A newsletter 'Our Next Step' claiming to come from some 'northern syndicalists allied to the National Shop Stewards Network' was circulated at the meeting arguing that British trade unions should break with the Labour Party.
Monday, 13 September 2010
THE PUBLIC SECTOR: PERSISTENTLY PROTESTING
IT was a very English demo. Yesterday, in Manchester, saw what Dave Chapple, President of the National Shop Stewards Network, described as the 'first national demonstration against the Coalition Government's cuts' and their slogan was that the 'TUC Must Call a Demo'. Well that should scare the Coalition! But were they merely pushing at an open door all the time? Today, the TUC has declared that it is planning a 'campaign' against the cuts.
Last night, SKY TV and other media captured the occasion on the evening news: 500 flag waving demonstrators outside the convention centre at Manchester's G-Mex. Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, calling for co-ordinated strikes and civil disobedience and right winger, Les Bayliss of Unite the Union, saying this will be suicide.
All the usual suspects were on parade - the Socialist Party with their 'New Workers' Party'; the SWP with its Right to Work campaign; the refashioned communists; Trade Union and Trades Council banners from up and down the country; even a handful of folk from the Manchester Solidarity Federation. Young syndicalists like Becca (UNISON) from Birmingham addressed the crowd and the old anarcho-syndicalist former miner Dave Douglass (NUM) from Northumbria told us that great industries like coal mining did not die 'they were slaughtered' by Thatcher and Major.
This is a movement – the National Shop Stewards Network – that is backed by public sector unions such as RMT; PCS; CWU; the National NUM and the POA. So yesterday's demo was about preserving jobs in the public sector and not about a new world order. Calling on the TUC to call a national demonstration against the public sector cuts must be one of the most timid demands imaginable and this conservativism of the British left is typical. Bob Crow sounds militant and even harks back to the poll tax riots but expectations of radical social change seem very remote at the moment.
Last night, SKY TV and other media captured the occasion on the evening news: 500 flag waving demonstrators outside the convention centre at Manchester's G-Mex. Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, calling for co-ordinated strikes and civil disobedience and right winger, Les Bayliss of Unite the Union, saying this will be suicide.
All the usual suspects were on parade - the Socialist Party with their 'New Workers' Party'; the SWP with its Right to Work campaign; the refashioned communists; Trade Union and Trades Council banners from up and down the country; even a handful of folk from the Manchester Solidarity Federation. Young syndicalists like Becca (UNISON) from Birmingham addressed the crowd and the old anarcho-syndicalist former miner Dave Douglass (NUM) from Northumbria told us that great industries like coal mining did not die 'they were slaughtered' by Thatcher and Major.
This is a movement – the National Shop Stewards Network – that is backed by public sector unions such as RMT; PCS; CWU; the National NUM and the POA. So yesterday's demo was about preserving jobs in the public sector and not about a new world order. Calling on the TUC to call a national demonstration against the public sector cuts must be one of the most timid demands imaginable and this conservativism of the British left is typical. Bob Crow sounds militant and even harks back to the poll tax riots but expectations of radical social change seem very remote at the moment.
Friday, 10 September 2010
BLACKLISTED: Film Premier & TUC Fringe Meeting
The first showing of Blacklisted, a new documentary about the illegal Consulting Association's blacklist of 3,213 building workers. This secret data-base was used by multi-national building firms to stop trade unionists who had raised concerns about safety and unpaid wages from getting jobs.
Speakers:
John McDonnell MP
Professor Keith Ewing: Institute of Employment Rights
Shaun Dey: Film Director - Reel News
Chris Murphy: UCATT Executive Council
plus blacklisted buildingworkers & Bury Binmen from
UCATT & UNITE>
Monday 13th, September at 5.30pm,
METHODIST CENTRAL HALL, Oldham Street, off Piccadilly in Manchester City Centre.
Speakers:
John McDonnell MP
Professor Keith Ewing: Institute of Employment Rights
Shaun Dey: Film Director - Reel News
Chris Murphy: UCATT Executive Council
plus blacklisted buildingworkers & Bury Binmen from
UCATT & UNITE>
Monday 13th, September at 5.30pm,
METHODIST CENTRAL HALL, Oldham Street, off Piccadilly in Manchester City Centre.
Tameside considers a blue plaque for James Keogh
Last week, an Arts & Events panel for Tameside MBC considered an application from Tameside TUC that James Keogh be awarded a blue plaque in tribute to him and other volunteers from the Tameside area who served in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. If a blue plaque is awarded to James Keogh and the others, it is expected that the event will take place later next year.
Monday, 16 August 2010
ARROGANT ACADEMICS & AN HONEST HISTORIAN
'AGAINST METHOD': RICHARD BAXELL'S ADMISSION
RICHARD BAXELL'S TALK [7TH, August] on his book 'Anti-Fascistas', containing a collection of voices from British volunteerS in the Spanish Civil War, culminated in questions about such things as the 'May Days' (the suppression of the POUM & undermining of the CNT in May 1937) about 'How much the International Brigade volunteers knew?'; the execution of dissidents and deserters eg 'How widespread were these?', etc. My question was on his methodology: asking how he selected his material for inclusion in the text and how this kind of work differed from a journalistic account such as George Orwell's in 'Homage to Catalonia'?
Mr Baxell's reply was quite subversive arguing that he published what to him appeared 'poignant or what jumped-out at me'. His use of the word 'poignant' in the selection process is revealing and my Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary defines it as meaning: 'Appealing to the emotions; affecting; touching: poignant sentiment'. This was a honest reply and one that did not seek to invoke superior knowledge or some grand methodology only known to initiated into the historical community or belonging to some special interpretive community of historians. What Baxell, who also wrote the valuable 'British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War' [2004], was saying was that his editorship was intuitive endeavour, a subjective thing that was more art than science and that anyone, given a bit of time and effort could do.
How different is this response to that of an historian like Paul Preston who attacked George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' declaring that 'I would rank "Homage to Catalonia" alongside Spike Milligan's "Adolf Hitler: My part in His Downfall", another interesting book by someone who was a foot-soldier playing a tiny part in a much wider conflict'. What the swaggering swanking historian of Professor Paul Preston's demeanour is claiming here is that he as a distinguished historian and member of the community of scholars at a southern university can embrace a level of knowledge that far surpasses that of the ordinary member or eyewitness to events: it implies that the little people like Orwell and Milligan and the rest of us cannot grasp the 'wider conflict' which will only be available to the great scholar. It is this claim to historical superiority and special knowledge that, I suppose, comes with the job of Professor at the London School of Economics and is a kind of occupational disease; which for people like Preston there is no known cure: note here that one of the best books in English on Spain written in the 20th century - 'The Spanish Labyrinth' - was authored by a man, Gerald Brenan, who was an auto-didact and no academic background of note.
The social sciences suffer from a severe inferiority complex generally and they try to make up for this by the kind kind of long-haired supercilious swaggering scholarship portrayed by Professor Preston in his remarks on Orwell and Spike Milligan. Thank God, there have been challenges within the social sciences to these superior claims by academics like Paul Preston from sociologists like Harold Garfinkel in his 'Studies in Ethomethodology' [1967]. Fortunately younger historians like Richard Baxell and the Cornish man, Louis Mates, now living up in the North East, and who recently published 'The Spanish Civil War & the British Left' about the impact of that war on the North East of England, are thankfully more modest in their claims. As a social science history and the historians have much to be modest about.
RICHARD BAXELL'S TALK [7TH, August] on his book 'Anti-Fascistas', containing a collection of voices from British volunteerS in the Spanish Civil War, culminated in questions about such things as the 'May Days' (the suppression of the POUM & undermining of the CNT in May 1937) about 'How much the International Brigade volunteers knew?'; the execution of dissidents and deserters eg 'How widespread were these?', etc. My question was on his methodology: asking how he selected his material for inclusion in the text and how this kind of work differed from a journalistic account such as George Orwell's in 'Homage to Catalonia'?
Mr Baxell's reply was quite subversive arguing that he published what to him appeared 'poignant or what jumped-out at me'. His use of the word 'poignant' in the selection process is revealing and my Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary defines it as meaning: 'Appealing to the emotions; affecting; touching: poignant sentiment'. This was a honest reply and one that did not seek to invoke superior knowledge or some grand methodology only known to initiated into the historical community or belonging to some special interpretive community of historians. What Baxell, who also wrote the valuable 'British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War' [2004], was saying was that his editorship was intuitive endeavour, a subjective thing that was more art than science and that anyone, given a bit of time and effort could do.
How different is this response to that of an historian like Paul Preston who attacked George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' declaring that 'I would rank "Homage to Catalonia" alongside Spike Milligan's "Adolf Hitler: My part in His Downfall", another interesting book by someone who was a foot-soldier playing a tiny part in a much wider conflict'. What the swaggering swanking historian of Professor Paul Preston's demeanour is claiming here is that he as a distinguished historian and member of the community of scholars at a southern university can embrace a level of knowledge that far surpasses that of the ordinary member or eyewitness to events: it implies that the little people like Orwell and Milligan and the rest of us cannot grasp the 'wider conflict' which will only be available to the great scholar. It is this claim to historical superiority and special knowledge that, I suppose, comes with the job of Professor at the London School of Economics and is a kind of occupational disease; which for people like Preston there is no known cure: note here that one of the best books in English on Spain written in the 20th century - 'The Spanish Labyrinth' - was authored by a man, Gerald Brenan, who was an auto-didact and no academic background of note.
The social sciences suffer from a severe inferiority complex generally and they try to make up for this by the kind kind of long-haired supercilious swaggering scholarship portrayed by Professor Preston in his remarks on Orwell and Spike Milligan. Thank God, there have been challenges within the social sciences to these superior claims by academics like Paul Preston from sociologists like Harold Garfinkel in his 'Studies in Ethomethodology' [1967]. Fortunately younger historians like Richard Baxell and the Cornish man, Louis Mates, now living up in the North East, and who recently published 'The Spanish Civil War & the British Left' about the impact of that war on the North East of England, are thankfully more modest in their claims. As a social science history and the historians have much to be modest about.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Richard Baxell Lecture on the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War
Richard Baxell gave a lecture on the British Battalion of the International Brigades (IB) during the Spanish Civil War. I posed some searching questions about desertions and executions carried out by the communist leadership of the IBs. Marty, the French Communist leader of the IBs whose epithet was "the butcher of Albacete", claimed 500 executions of members of the International Brigades. Baxell tended to evade the questions and gave rather ambiguous replies. He did, however, acknowledge the existence of Camp Lukacs run by the communist commissars and euphemistically described it as a re-education camp for deserters. The sordid history of the role of the communist leadership of the IBs has been exposed in R Dan Richardson's "Comintern Army", Radosh et al's "Spain Betrayed" and James Hopkins' "Into the Heart of the Fire".
ANTI-FASCISTAS & CNT IN MANCHESTER
YESTERDAY, two events took place in Manchester: one organised by the Solidarity Federation at the Town Hall Tavern was addressed by a young man from the Spanish CNT in Tarragona, Diego Delgado, and the other organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust at the Peoples' History Museum entitled Antifascistas was presented by the historian, Richard Baxell. The Cenitista meeting was in a the upstairs room of the pub and had over 30 people present. Diego spoke for over an hour outlining the history of the emergence of the CNT in Spain from the early pre-runners such as federalism to about the beginning of the Second Republic in 1931. It was a detailed, in depth, talk dealing with predecessor trade unions and federations particularly strong in Andalucia and Catalonia, up to the founding of the CNT itself in 1910. The CNT called the National Confederation of Labour was set up following the Barcelona events of the Semana Tragica (Tragic Week) in 1909. After the persecutions that followed, it was thought necessary to have a national organisation to protect workers rather than loose regional federations and it marked a shift towards syndicalism, and the general strike in the style of the French CGT.
Despite this, the reaction of the Catalan workers in Barcelona during the Semana Tragica showed the distinctive nature of the Spanish movement as opposed to the syndicalism of France, England and northern Europe. The Catalans did not succumb when the Government in Madrid called up the reserves to fight in Morocco in 1909 to war-mania like British and French workers did in 1914. The people of Barcelona were anti-war then, perhaps because of their experience of what had happened to their young men in the war in Cuba when they returned starving and suffering from malaria. The British, German and French workers in 1914, despite the advance of their respective industrial revolutions, the development of class consciousness and disciplined trade unions, flocked to fight each other when their Governments made its appeal and they did so without conscription.
Why was this the case? Well the difference of Spanish history and national characteristics must have something to do with it, but the strong establishment of an anarchist culture with its capacity to educate workers, create initiatives and build solidarity must also have been a big factor. The northerners were well disciplined and possibly better educated, in the German case profoundly so, but they lacked the Spanish and Catalan spirit of anarchism.
It was noticed that Diego finished his talk in 1931, and thus missed out the developments of the CNT under the Second Republic and in the Civil War. This might have presented some difficulties because these periods involved problems for the Spanish CNT and later a compromise of principle during the Civil War; though it must be said we left the meeting at 2pm to go to the Antifascistas event and these matters may have been raised during question time.
The Antifascistas event was bigger possible 200 strong. Richard Baxell who wrote an history of the involvement of the British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War in 2005 was now promoting the booklet 'Antifascistas' published jointly by the International Brigade Memorial Trust & Lawrence & Wishart. His talk, I suspect, was more valuable to people with some knowledge of the Spanish War than the book which looks like the Spanish Civil War for beginners. He broke with the usual nostalgic narrative of these events to present a series of ethnographic accounts by participants and volunteers in the war. This was at once more colourful and realistic with the kind of brutal trench talk and banter on powerpoint that marks so much of everyday life as it was lived on the front during that war. We discussed afterwards the need to get away from the old romantic presentations of this war and give more lifelike accounts by people who took part using. There has been far too much historical glossing by people like Paul Preston, who will next year no doubt be bringing out further editions of their old histories of the Spanish Civil War to co-inside with the 75th anniversary of the start of that war.
Despite this, the reaction of the Catalan workers in Barcelona during the Semana Tragica showed the distinctive nature of the Spanish movement as opposed to the syndicalism of France, England and northern Europe. The Catalans did not succumb when the Government in Madrid called up the reserves to fight in Morocco in 1909 to war-mania like British and French workers did in 1914. The people of Barcelona were anti-war then, perhaps because of their experience of what had happened to their young men in the war in Cuba when they returned starving and suffering from malaria. The British, German and French workers in 1914, despite the advance of their respective industrial revolutions, the development of class consciousness and disciplined trade unions, flocked to fight each other when their Governments made its appeal and they did so without conscription.
Why was this the case? Well the difference of Spanish history and national characteristics must have something to do with it, but the strong establishment of an anarchist culture with its capacity to educate workers, create initiatives and build solidarity must also have been a big factor. The northerners were well disciplined and possibly better educated, in the German case profoundly so, but they lacked the Spanish and Catalan spirit of anarchism.
It was noticed that Diego finished his talk in 1931, and thus missed out the developments of the CNT under the Second Republic and in the Civil War. This might have presented some difficulties because these periods involved problems for the Spanish CNT and later a compromise of principle during the Civil War; though it must be said we left the meeting at 2pm to go to the Antifascistas event and these matters may have been raised during question time.
The Antifascistas event was bigger possible 200 strong. Richard Baxell who wrote an history of the involvement of the British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War in 2005 was now promoting the booklet 'Antifascistas' published jointly by the International Brigade Memorial Trust & Lawrence & Wishart. His talk, I suspect, was more valuable to people with some knowledge of the Spanish War than the book which looks like the Spanish Civil War for beginners. He broke with the usual nostalgic narrative of these events to present a series of ethnographic accounts by participants and volunteers in the war. This was at once more colourful and realistic with the kind of brutal trench talk and banter on powerpoint that marks so much of everyday life as it was lived on the front during that war. We discussed afterwards the need to get away from the old romantic presentations of this war and give more lifelike accounts by people who took part using. There has been far too much historical glossing by people like Paul Preston, who will next year no doubt be bringing out further editions of their old histories of the Spanish Civil War to co-inside with the 75th anniversary of the start of that war.
Saturday, 7 August 2010
EARTHQUAKES, COAL & 'THE WORKERS' NEXT STEP'
Rousseau vs Voltaire; Whittaker vs Douglas?
The other week I had an email from Dave Douglass, the famous NUM militant who has just published his memoirs of the Miners' Strike of 1984-5, who said he was not willing to review our booklet 'The Workers' Next Step' – a discussion document considering the modern day issues surrounding ideas put forward almost 100 years ago by the South Wales Miners' Federation in their 'The Miners' Next Step'; Dave said he was not willing to review the booklet because of a contribution by Rachel Whittaker, the anarchist environmentalist and conservationist. Both Dave and Rachel support a body called the Northern Anarchist Network. Dave, now a retired miner living in South Shields, believes in clean coal and the NUM; while Rachel from Shropshire rejects this, supporting campaigns like the Climate Camp.
In a way this dispute fought out some years ago at a NAN conference reminds me of the 18th century dispute between Rousseau and Voltaire. This year has seen two serious earthquakes – one in Haiti and the other in Santiago in Chile – and it was the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 that led to the famous quarrel between these great two thinkers. Voltaire wrote a poem on the Providential government of the world. Rousseau replied: 'Voltaire, in seeming always to believe in God, never really believed in anybody but the devil, since his pretended God is maleficent. Being who according to him finds all his pleasure in working mischief. The absurdity of this doctrine is especially revolting in a man (Voltaire) crowned with good things of every sort, and who in the midst of his own happiness tries to fill his fellow-creatures with despair, by the cruel and terrible image of the serious calamities from which he is himself free.'
Rousseau saw no reason to make a fuss about the earthquake and thought it a good thing that a few people should get killed now and then. Besides, the people of Lisbon suffered because they lived in houses several stories high; if they had been dispersed in the woods, as people ought to be, they would have escaped uninjured. One wonders, reading this, if the people living in shacks and shanty towns in Haiti and Chile fared better than those in the big houses? Is modern living bad for us? Should we return to the woods from whence we came with Rachel Whittaker? Or should we, with Dave Douglass, huddle round the fireside stoking the cinders? Should we invoke Rousseau with his implied classical anarchism and return to the wilds, or should we stop indoors and enjoy the comforts of modern living and the enlightenment with a more liberal-minded Voltaire?
In 1755, Voltaire replied to Rousseau's essay 'Discourse on Inequality', in which Rousseau had argued that 'man is naturally good, and is only by institutions made bad'. Voltaire responded thus: 'I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it...'
Do we don our woolly jumpers from Oxfam and retreat to a farm in the mountains of Iberia with Rachel Whittaker in the spirit of Rousseau? Or do we jump in Dave Douglass' scrappage-scheme car and visit Beamish Museum with its drift mine colliery?
Meanwhile, our NV publication 'The Workers' Next Step' languishes on the bookshelves almost unwanted: Dave Douglass won't review it and the Peoples History Museum, which happily stocks Northern Voices and sells our Spanish Civil War booklet like hot cakes, has rejected it. Housmans bookshop in London has said the poor reception may have something to do with the Lucien Freud illustration of a 'Benefit Officer Sleeping' on the front cover and the lady at Bookcase at Hebden Bridge said she didn't expect it to do as well as our Spanish booklet. Another explanation may be that, since the defeat of the miners, workers are no longer fashionable in our post-modern world.
The other week I had an email from Dave Douglass, the famous NUM militant who has just published his memoirs of the Miners' Strike of 1984-5, who said he was not willing to review our booklet 'The Workers' Next Step' – a discussion document considering the modern day issues surrounding ideas put forward almost 100 years ago by the South Wales Miners' Federation in their 'The Miners' Next Step'; Dave said he was not willing to review the booklet because of a contribution by Rachel Whittaker, the anarchist environmentalist and conservationist. Both Dave and Rachel support a body called the Northern Anarchist Network. Dave, now a retired miner living in South Shields, believes in clean coal and the NUM; while Rachel from Shropshire rejects this, supporting campaigns like the Climate Camp.
In a way this dispute fought out some years ago at a NAN conference reminds me of the 18th century dispute between Rousseau and Voltaire. This year has seen two serious earthquakes – one in Haiti and the other in Santiago in Chile – and it was the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 that led to the famous quarrel between these great two thinkers. Voltaire wrote a poem on the Providential government of the world. Rousseau replied: 'Voltaire, in seeming always to believe in God, never really believed in anybody but the devil, since his pretended God is maleficent. Being who according to him finds all his pleasure in working mischief. The absurdity of this doctrine is especially revolting in a man (Voltaire) crowned with good things of every sort, and who in the midst of his own happiness tries to fill his fellow-creatures with despair, by the cruel and terrible image of the serious calamities from which he is himself free.'
Rousseau saw no reason to make a fuss about the earthquake and thought it a good thing that a few people should get killed now and then. Besides, the people of Lisbon suffered because they lived in houses several stories high; if they had been dispersed in the woods, as people ought to be, they would have escaped uninjured. One wonders, reading this, if the people living in shacks and shanty towns in Haiti and Chile fared better than those in the big houses? Is modern living bad for us? Should we return to the woods from whence we came with Rachel Whittaker? Or should we, with Dave Douglass, huddle round the fireside stoking the cinders? Should we invoke Rousseau with his implied classical anarchism and return to the wilds, or should we stop indoors and enjoy the comforts of modern living and the enlightenment with a more liberal-minded Voltaire?
In 1755, Voltaire replied to Rousseau's essay 'Discourse on Inequality', in which Rousseau had argued that 'man is naturally good, and is only by institutions made bad'. Voltaire responded thus: 'I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it...'
Do we don our woolly jumpers from Oxfam and retreat to a farm in the mountains of Iberia with Rachel Whittaker in the spirit of Rousseau? Or do we jump in Dave Douglass' scrappage-scheme car and visit Beamish Museum with its drift mine colliery?
Meanwhile, our NV publication 'The Workers' Next Step' languishes on the bookshelves almost unwanted: Dave Douglass won't review it and the Peoples History Museum, which happily stocks Northern Voices and sells our Spanish Civil War booklet like hot cakes, has rejected it. Housmans bookshop in London has said the poor reception may have something to do with the Lucien Freud illustration of a 'Benefit Officer Sleeping' on the front cover and the lady at Bookcase at Hebden Bridge said she didn't expect it to do as well as our Spanish booklet. Another explanation may be that, since the defeat of the miners, workers are no longer fashionable in our post-modern world.
Monday, 2 August 2010
NEW CHARTER TENANT ACCUSED OF STARING AT ADULTS & CHILDREN!
Tenant Steve Fisher has become something of a bête noire to his landlord New Charter Housing Trust in Tameside. In June we reported on Mr. Fisher's abortive attempts to become a tenant director of New Charter Housing Trust. Mr.Fisher, aged 53, who has lived at his current address for 26 years, had been told by John Arden, Director of Business and Assurance that his nomination was unacceptable because he was considered too 'adversarial'. For the last 2 years, Mr. Fisher has also been banned from entering New Charter offices and he's prohibited from speaking to any New Charter staff, other than John Arden, his go-between to New Charter.Last week Mr. Fisher received a rather strange and perplexing letter from his go-between, John Arden. Writing to express how much New Charter valued his commitment in addressing Anti-social behaviour in the area where he lived, he then went on to add:
"I wish to inform you I have received some complaints of concern about the way in which you may have been gathering the information submitted to us. There is a perception that you are standing at your bedroom window, for long periods of time, staring at adults and children whilst they are present in their home or garden space.These complainants have expressed feeling very uncomfortable by your behavior (sic). I am aware that you have used binoculars to gather information which may also be seen as excessive and an intrusion of privacy....I must encourage you, however, to avoid placing yourself in a position where you may be singled out and place yourself at risk."
In his letter John Arden, says that he is also concerned about 'warlike' comments made by Fisher and that New Charter always encourages a 'cohesive, friendly community, promoting unity and understanding in the positive endeavors (sic) of all residents'. Pass the sick bucket! Mr. Arden then ends by warning Fisher: "A 'warlike' attitude within the area, where there are many children is undesirable in assisting the needs of an evolving community and, indeed, is contrary to the purpose of the assistance you have afforded. I trust....I will not receive further complaints in regards to your conduct."
It seems that dealing with New Charter, on the subject of anti-social behaviour can be quite perilous and hazardous for those who are prepared to stand up and be counted. One is never quite sure what side of the street New Charter are standing on! No doubt those pre-simian life-forms who engage in anti-social behaviour to wreck the lives of others will derive great consolation from the words of Mr. Arden.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
