This was something that struck me then I saw it picked up by 'The Guardian' editorial last Saturday too. I rarely agree with the editorials even if I do find journalists in that newspaper I share a viewpoint with. However, it did seem to capture the unease that has been growing within me around the regimentation of remembrance. Having been someone who in his youth argued for more remembrance, I am bitter now that I have come to feel that recent changes have taken things too far and it now needs reining in.
In the UK up until the mid-1990s remembrance was associated almost exclusively with Remembrance Sunday, the nearest Sunday to 11th November. There would be sales of poppies by the British Legion and especially children and the elderly would buy them and the funds would go to help the wounded and their families and families who had lost husbands/fathers in war. Of course, the iconography of the poppy is strongly related with the First World War, but though there is often a direct association with that conflict Remembrance Sunday is supposed to be about all conflicts. Apparently since 1945 Britain has had deaths of service personnel in conflict every year except 1968 and I certainly know that growing up in the 1970s reports of deaths and maimings of soldiers in Northern Ireland were as regular as they are now from Afghanistan. A friend of mine lost her brother in the Falklands conflict in 1982 too. Despite the way we portray Britain, it is a very militaristic country, we have constantly been involved in conflicts in a way many neighbouring states have not, certainly since the end of the colonial empires in the 1960s-70s, now 30-40 years ago. Much of this involvement I have disagreed with, but this does not stop me admiring those people who fight and are wounded or die and to raise funds for them, I feel is vital.
As someone always involved in history, in the 1970s and 1980s I felt too much was being forgotten about what earlier generations had experienced. I still think this is the case especially when I hear that 'oh, the Holocaust, it was so long ago' despite the fact that survivors are still with us. In that period aside from perhaps buying a poppy only those with a direct connection with the military or those who were regular church attenders tended to reflect much about what was being marked, even if just about the First World War, let alone any subsequent wars. I felt we should move to what happens in France, where even now you can still see the marks of wars in so many parts of the country, but particularly the North which I have spent most time in. From the Belgian border deep into Normandy you walk in the foosteps of millions of soldiers and almost every town is one that features in history books. My view was that we should have Remembrance Day, i.e. have a bank holiday on 11th November no matter which day of the week that fell and have all the shops closed and all kinds of memorial activities, secular as well as religious. People forget that many Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Jews died fighting for the British Army in the First World War and subsequent conflicts. Britain still has Gurkha forces. Of course, some people felt that remembrance was an element of the past and anticipated that in time it would fade as an activity. Apparently the government considered dropping it after the Second World War. However, to a large extent remembrance has always been driven by the public, from the building of the Cenotaph to local war memorials and events, it has been a public force of will not necessarily something officials have been able to control.
Having been driving through rural Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset in the past couple of weeks I constantly see memorials in even the tiniest villages. War has impacted on all locations in Britain. For me remembrance is about remembering that the people who die in wars are generally not heroes, they are simply ordinary people sent to fight by people who are not at risk. This was brought home sharply to me in the early 1990s when I was in the Imperial War Museum, a large section of which is dedicated to the First World War and where they now have a database of war memorials. A woman, a little younger than me, this was 1992 so I would have been 25, said, standing among all the materials about the First World War, 'I don't really know what all the fuss is about the First World War; none of my family suffered in it'. I was rather stunned by that, especially as she was there with a school party and was apparently training to be a history teacher! My mother's father and uncle both fought in that war and survived into the 1980s, due to a generational slip, my father's grandfather also fought in that war and died in the 1920s as a result of gas poisoning he had suffered during the war. They experienced horrors, but I do not engage in remembrance for the specific personal connection, but more broadly because I mourn that young people were sent often to be slaughtered in futile actions. I asked her what was the lowest rank that her ancestors in the war had been, and she answered colonel. One of her living relatives was a serving brigadier. In that instant I felt as much distance between her (though socially I have climbed far higher than my grandparents and great-grandparents) and me as I feel my ancestors would have done.
My father's grandfather had served in the Boer War and had been decorated. He was called up in 1914 and served an 18-month tour of duty. He was a sergeant but was demoted twice for hitting silly officers commanding suicidal missions. He was lucky not to have been executed. He ended the war back as sergeant because all those above him were killed. He was big man, a prime target, so you wonder if he was trying to stay alive. However, I think that given his proven bravery, he was not afraid of facing the bullets but what he, as a very experienced soldier, was not going to let amateurs from a social class that had not seen hardship (40% of volunteers in 1914 were turned away on the grounds they were malnourished) and were willing to toss away lives. To some degree, you might feel wrongly, this has left a rather class-orientated angle for me regarding remembrance. I see it as a reminder to the elites that they should value life and not waste it as they too often do. People from the upper classes do die in wars too and the elites of 1914 were stripped of many of their best and brightest as much as the working and middle classes were. My referencing social class aspects in my remembrance is probably a bad step on my behalf because it politicises remembrance and that is at the root of the current difficulties.
What began to happen in the mid-1990s was partly what I had hoped for in the preceding decades. Whilst shops did not close on 11th November, suddenly, primarily driven by tabloid newspapers there was a two-minute silence (up from one minute) and not only on Remembrance Sunday but on 11th November too. I remember the first time when travelling on an underground train and people were invited to be silent at 11 o'clock; a couple of years later I was in a shop. I used the minutes to reflect on people I knew had died in the First World War whose records I had seen at the National Archives (only 40% remain as the rest were burnt as a result of bombing in the Second World War). This seemed the right way: remembrance now was impacting on everyday lives for the bulk of the population.
Fifteen or so years on, things may now beginning to go too far. Remembrance is now being very mixed up in political issues. I commented earlier in the year about how the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin had been asked not to wear a poppy outside of the remembrance period, because he seemed to be trying to associate it with his racist views. Military leaders attacked his used of particular imagery because they are aware he does not see many British service people as legitimate, despite the fact that the British military has always had a range of ethnicities and religions. This trend of the BNP would be easier to contain if there was not a parallel pressure from the tabloid media. I am not accusing them of backing the BNP but they certainly are seeking the regimentation of remembrance. There have been demands that footballers should wear embroidered poppies on their kits. A lot of this stems from an attitude that a 'real' man backs the military and is in line with other things such as a Veterans' Day. These trends seek to move away from a sombre, sober remembrance of conflict to something more celebratory of the military. The rise of the charity Help for Heroes, is not a bad thing in itself and they do good work, but that more exclamatory title as opposed to the calmer, British Legion, unfortunately is being hijacked by those who feel that we should all be compelled to celebrate the military. It is interesting the shift in the British Legion's poppy campaign this year to using more of the current photographs that Help for Heroes does.
The issue is particularly poignant at present because every week British soldiers are dying. Things are reducing in Iraq but Afghanistan is dragging on as a British soldier from the 1840s or a Soviet one from the 1980s could have told you it would. The Retreat from Kabul in 1842 may be seen as a shameful action on the British Army's part but it did prevent thousands of men dying there in subsequent years. The mixing up of remembrance with celebration of the current military now is almost becoming, if you do not support the current battles then somehow you are shaming the previous dead. This is a difficult leverage to contest and it was particularly notable that in pictures of parliament not a single MP was not wearing a poppy and absolutely everyone on television wears one. It has been a uniform that everyone in the public eye must wear or face being challenged that they do not care about Britain's military; not even that they do not remember previous sacrifices. It has been great for the British Legion who have sold record numbers of poppies and the funds are useful for those soldiers coming back wounded from Britain's various current wars, but to some degree, the whole thing is becoming regimented even mechanised.
Politicians feel pressured by the media as they know that any one of them who has no poppy will be ridiculed or severely attacked in the press. Any complaints around militarism and certainly initiatives like the white poppy movement which arose in the 1980s are now excluded from debate. As was noted in 'The Guardian' civilian casualties of war are ignored entirely in this process, partly, I imagine because of the resentment against asylum seekers who are blamed for so much, but of course, in many cases are fleeing from the wars that the tabloids want to celebrate.
Militarism now dominates the media; it is a baseline assumption for so much of what we are presented. Of course, while I was hoping for for greater attention to remembrance, the right-wing has been more successful in using remembrance to leverage participation in militaristic attitudes. Some generals are seeking to separate out these different approaches, but these are subtle things that the bulk of the population does not have the time or inclination to work on. Alongside the assumption that immigration is wrong, that racism is acceptable, that the EU (or insert whichever international body you favour) only does Britain harm, that the death penalty is naturally right, we now have the assumption that militarism is good, it makes Britain strong and anyone who does not support that line is weak and a traitor. Such characteristics are seen in all authoritarian and Fascist states.
Remembrance has been taken by the popular media and those people who run it to promote militarism and this trend has stepped up a gear in 2009. This creates fertile ground for extremism. It also betrays the bulk of the people who have died fighting for Britain. The bulk of them never went to war to defend an ideal of a militarised Britain, they went because they had to or at least because they felt it made their families safer. Many of the people who died fighting for Britain were not white and were not Christian but they still died fighting for a country that seems increasingly likely to deny their right to be acknowledged as Britons. We need vigorous steps to depoliticise remembrance, to bring militarism out into the open and keep it away from the proper remembering of those who sacrificed so much. Otherwise this trend will simply create a country eager for a larger military and even more battles across the world which will lead to even more mutilated and dead service people and civilians.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Thursday, 5 November 2009
My 2009 Whitby Gothic Experience
Perhaps I am not the best person to comment on the Whitby Gothic Weekends. I have attended the October occasions (there are ones in April too) now for two years running, but in both cases I have been working on a stall so have spent my days busily selling people stuff and the evenings falling asleep very early, so missing out on the broader experience, in particular the bands and cabaret. However, being in one of the prime trading venues of the weekends, I do get to see a large portion of the people attending. I also pop out to get fish & chips and so do get the chance to see something you are unlikely to see anywhere else, which is a town which (even if for three days) appears to have a population which in the main is Goth. Of course, that is just the Goth visitors (and there are others notably caravan enthusiasts but they are often indistinguishable from the resident population) laid on top of the people who live there the rest of the year. This fantasy is made more realistic by the age range of Goths at Whitby, you can see every age from Goth babies to Goth elderly people. I think for a Goth you never feel anywhere as at home as in Whitby over these few days.
I was told by locals that more people attended than ever before. I have no way to judge the accuracy of that, but it was certainly well attended. Sunny weather on the Friday and Saturday meant it was easier to promenade in your full glory. Sunday morning had very heavy rain and winds remained strong in the afternoon even when the sun came out. However, the reasonable weather (in contrast to the hail that lashed me as I unloaded last year) helped bring things alive, though I have to sympathise with the leatherwear trader who has a tent outside the leisure centre which blew away.
Looking around Whitby you would have the feeling that Gothic culture is alive and well. Though there are always people you have seen before, it is very heartening that there always seem to be people for who are coming to the event for the first time. In addition, it is good to see in this age when chav culture seems so dominant among young people that there are Goth teenagers, there is another generation following on behind us, we are not the last.
Goths tend to be well off and they save up for the Whitby Gothic Weekend and this may counteract any damage that the recession is doing to the sale of Goth items. Sales seemed no less vigorous than last year (on the stall I worked on, in fact much better). The range of items always seems to expand and this year I saw Gothic style collars for cats and dogs as a new area. Clothing is obviously an important part of the business as is jewellery but it is good to see Gothic artwork around too in terms of pictures and sculptures. The number of Goth bands releasing both CDs and DVDs seemed undiminished. Though I did not get to it, I noted that there was a Goth wedding fair on. I know that Goth styling is leaking into muggle wedding styling too, so it is nice to see that we can make a proper claim from where it came from, because, of course, Goths are romantic and Romantic and a lot of muggle couples could learn from the intimacy, the passion and the caring that you see in many Goth relationships.
One of the highlights of attending the Whitby Goth Weekend is to see the outfits that people are wearing and the range was certainly impressive once again. Clearly black is the dominant colour, but this year dark green, especially on some Victorian dresses and some jewellery was making an appearance. After a brief appearance in mainstream fashion a couple of years back, it was probably not surprising to see numerous fascinators on show, not least, as one woman told me, they stay in place in better in high winds than standard hats. I also noted that there was more 18th century garb alongside the more usual 19th century outfits, many of which, especially on the women, were stunning. Talking with wearers, it is clear that many make their own outfits and it is good to see that the Gothic culture is keeping alive such skills. I doubt you will attend many events where people are working with sewing machines on their stalls, these days. Of course, the spectrum is wide, and at one end you have the futuristic techno outfits and there did seem to be more gas masks apparent than before, giving a truly alien appearance to the wearers. At the other end is the 18th century stylings. Whilst tricorns are far from rivalling top hats, they did seem more numerous than last year with long coats, waistcoats and breecher to match; as a adjunct there were quite a few Jack Sparrow-styled men. This may be an area for expansion for Gothic culture in the coming years. Steampunk has been growing in significance among Gothic culture. In the USA it is large enough to be having its own events, but in the UK it comes in alongside the 18th centuryers. The distinction tends to be that the leather is brown rather than black and with ubiquitous brass goggles. Paired couples in complementing steampunk outfits were quite numerous; stunning were various steampunk 'angels' wearing folding metal wings, some stretching a metre above their heads. Not easy to manoeuvre in a busy trading area but impressive all the same; apparently they were made by people local to North Yorkshire.
There were some other notable outfits worn by men. In particular, an excellent Blade, the only black person I saw attending the event. The swirls cut into his hair combined with the shades and especially the armoured waistcoat really brought it to life. Of course, these days in the UK even replica guns and swords are out. I saw a larger than life Beetlejuice, for those of you too young, check out 'Beetlejuice' (1988) of course directed by Tim Burton and starrring Michael Keaton as the eponymous annoying, jester-like ghost, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis and a young Winona Ryder. Apparently for some reason the costume is back in fashion for mainstream dressing up but a Goth produced a great home produced version. Rather leftfield, but impressive still was the Malchik or Droog from 'A Clockwork Orange' (novel 1962; movie 1971 which provides the costume details) in a kind of longjohns and bowler hat. I have clearly been missing trends in costumes as again there seems to have been an explosion in such attire, even Drac-in-a-Box sells the bowlers now. I guess people are raiding every corner of culture over the past 300 years for new outfits. I suppose men find it harder than women to find something distinctive. Anyway, I admired the man who had gone to so much effort at Whitby, down to the single false eyelash, included in the original movie due to a 'wardrobe malfunction' when the other one fell off.
Of course, traders come and go, but it was good to see the bulk of the long-standing ones there. It was a shame that there was no charity stand as there was last year, but running a stall needs a lot of commitment and energy. I would liked to have seen some literary input. I know there was a poet trading in the Rifle Club last year, but it would be good if there was an event bringing together Gothic authors and poets. There might have been one, but I was oblivious to it. A session of readings and Gothic writers and poets talking about their work would be excellent, though I have heard that the bookshop in town gets rather pestered with such writers wanting book launches there, perhaps another venue could be found. Crime and romance writers seem to be welcomed in every town, I feel an outlet for the numerous Gothic writers out there would be a real plus.
I heard criticisms that the cabaret had too much burlesque and not enough variety in performers. Not having seen it myself (by then I was asleep) I cannot comment directly, but imagine it is difficult to find Gothic style performers. It would be good if the Circus of Horrors or even some of their performers could come to Whitby during the weekend to perfom, but I guess they make enough money playing larger towns and mainstream venues. Perhaps a Gothic talent show could be instituted.
There was discussion of a new Gothic event in York in July, DV8. I suppose it depends on the weather, because whilst the winds will be lower, the heat is liable to be higher, rather sticky for Goth outfits. Saying that, York is a lot easier to reach than Whitby. You can get from London to York in under 2 hours on the train but the remaining sixty-four kilometres to Whitby can take another hour or more; even driving up from Scarborough, the next nearest town to Whitby, twenty-five kilometres away, can be rather tortuous. The centre of York has suitably historic streets and the town has numerous hotels, just like Whitby. The key problem is, in July York has numerous mainstream tourists and the Gothic hordes will be competing with them for hotel rooms and street space. However, there are insufficient Gothic events in Britain and any addition is all for the good.
I know there has been tension among the different organisers of the Whitby event, but I guess that is inevitable when something has been running since 1994. I was glad to find that the rumours that a Christian group equating Gothic culture with unChristian viewpoints had tried to book out the venues usually used by the event, such as the Metropole Hotel, were actually unfounded and the non-use of some venues simply came from disagreements with individuals. However, after what was a very successful year, it seems that the weekend will continue to prosper. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and recommend it to all Goths, book now for 2010. Hopefully one time I will be able to indulge in more of the events and not simply see all the excitement from behind a stall.
I was told by locals that more people attended than ever before. I have no way to judge the accuracy of that, but it was certainly well attended. Sunny weather on the Friday and Saturday meant it was easier to promenade in your full glory. Sunday morning had very heavy rain and winds remained strong in the afternoon even when the sun came out. However, the reasonable weather (in contrast to the hail that lashed me as I unloaded last year) helped bring things alive, though I have to sympathise with the leatherwear trader who has a tent outside the leisure centre which blew away.
Looking around Whitby you would have the feeling that Gothic culture is alive and well. Though there are always people you have seen before, it is very heartening that there always seem to be people for who are coming to the event for the first time. In addition, it is good to see in this age when chav culture seems so dominant among young people that there are Goth teenagers, there is another generation following on behind us, we are not the last.
Goths tend to be well off and they save up for the Whitby Gothic Weekend and this may counteract any damage that the recession is doing to the sale of Goth items. Sales seemed no less vigorous than last year (on the stall I worked on, in fact much better). The range of items always seems to expand and this year I saw Gothic style collars for cats and dogs as a new area. Clothing is obviously an important part of the business as is jewellery but it is good to see Gothic artwork around too in terms of pictures and sculptures. The number of Goth bands releasing both CDs and DVDs seemed undiminished. Though I did not get to it, I noted that there was a Goth wedding fair on. I know that Goth styling is leaking into muggle wedding styling too, so it is nice to see that we can make a proper claim from where it came from, because, of course, Goths are romantic and Romantic and a lot of muggle couples could learn from the intimacy, the passion and the caring that you see in many Goth relationships.
One of the highlights of attending the Whitby Goth Weekend is to see the outfits that people are wearing and the range was certainly impressive once again. Clearly black is the dominant colour, but this year dark green, especially on some Victorian dresses and some jewellery was making an appearance. After a brief appearance in mainstream fashion a couple of years back, it was probably not surprising to see numerous fascinators on show, not least, as one woman told me, they stay in place in better in high winds than standard hats. I also noted that there was more 18th century garb alongside the more usual 19th century outfits, many of which, especially on the women, were stunning. Talking with wearers, it is clear that many make their own outfits and it is good to see that the Gothic culture is keeping alive such skills. I doubt you will attend many events where people are working with sewing machines on their stalls, these days. Of course, the spectrum is wide, and at one end you have the futuristic techno outfits and there did seem to be more gas masks apparent than before, giving a truly alien appearance to the wearers. At the other end is the 18th century stylings. Whilst tricorns are far from rivalling top hats, they did seem more numerous than last year with long coats, waistcoats and breecher to match; as a adjunct there were quite a few Jack Sparrow-styled men. This may be an area for expansion for Gothic culture in the coming years. Steampunk has been growing in significance among Gothic culture. In the USA it is large enough to be having its own events, but in the UK it comes in alongside the 18th centuryers. The distinction tends to be that the leather is brown rather than black and with ubiquitous brass goggles. Paired couples in complementing steampunk outfits were quite numerous; stunning were various steampunk 'angels' wearing folding metal wings, some stretching a metre above their heads. Not easy to manoeuvre in a busy trading area but impressive all the same; apparently they were made by people local to North Yorkshire.
There were some other notable outfits worn by men. In particular, an excellent Blade, the only black person I saw attending the event. The swirls cut into his hair combined with the shades and especially the armoured waistcoat really brought it to life. Of course, these days in the UK even replica guns and swords are out. I saw a larger than life Beetlejuice, for those of you too young, check out 'Beetlejuice' (1988) of course directed by Tim Burton and starrring Michael Keaton as the eponymous annoying, jester-like ghost, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis and a young Winona Ryder. Apparently for some reason the costume is back in fashion for mainstream dressing up but a Goth produced a great home produced version. Rather leftfield, but impressive still was the Malchik or Droog from 'A Clockwork Orange' (novel 1962; movie 1971 which provides the costume details) in a kind of longjohns and bowler hat. I have clearly been missing trends in costumes as again there seems to have been an explosion in such attire, even Drac-in-a-Box sells the bowlers now. I guess people are raiding every corner of culture over the past 300 years for new outfits. I suppose men find it harder than women to find something distinctive. Anyway, I admired the man who had gone to so much effort at Whitby, down to the single false eyelash, included in the original movie due to a 'wardrobe malfunction' when the other one fell off.
Of course, traders come and go, but it was good to see the bulk of the long-standing ones there. It was a shame that there was no charity stand as there was last year, but running a stall needs a lot of commitment and energy. I would liked to have seen some literary input. I know there was a poet trading in the Rifle Club last year, but it would be good if there was an event bringing together Gothic authors and poets. There might have been one, but I was oblivious to it. A session of readings and Gothic writers and poets talking about their work would be excellent, though I have heard that the bookshop in town gets rather pestered with such writers wanting book launches there, perhaps another venue could be found. Crime and romance writers seem to be welcomed in every town, I feel an outlet for the numerous Gothic writers out there would be a real plus.
I heard criticisms that the cabaret had too much burlesque and not enough variety in performers. Not having seen it myself (by then I was asleep) I cannot comment directly, but imagine it is difficult to find Gothic style performers. It would be good if the Circus of Horrors or even some of their performers could come to Whitby during the weekend to perfom, but I guess they make enough money playing larger towns and mainstream venues. Perhaps a Gothic talent show could be instituted.
There was discussion of a new Gothic event in York in July, DV8. I suppose it depends on the weather, because whilst the winds will be lower, the heat is liable to be higher, rather sticky for Goth outfits. Saying that, York is a lot easier to reach than Whitby. You can get from London to York in under 2 hours on the train but the remaining sixty-four kilometres to Whitby can take another hour or more; even driving up from Scarborough, the next nearest town to Whitby, twenty-five kilometres away, can be rather tortuous. The centre of York has suitably historic streets and the town has numerous hotels, just like Whitby. The key problem is, in July York has numerous mainstream tourists and the Gothic hordes will be competing with them for hotel rooms and street space. However, there are insufficient Gothic events in Britain and any addition is all for the good.
I know there has been tension among the different organisers of the Whitby event, but I guess that is inevitable when something has been running since 1994. I was glad to find that the rumours that a Christian group equating Gothic culture with unChristian viewpoints had tried to book out the venues usually used by the event, such as the Metropole Hotel, were actually unfounded and the non-use of some venues simply came from disagreements with individuals. However, after what was a very successful year, it seems that the weekend will continue to prosper. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and recommend it to all Goths, book now for 2010. Hopefully one time I will be able to indulge in more of the events and not simply see all the excitement from behind a stall.
Are Britons Only Socialist in Times of Crisis?
Many people argue that the British population is inherently conservative and for most of the time, Conservative, i.e. supporting the policies of the Conservative Party. I suppose that most people who are generally comfortably off, no matter where they live have a tendency not to want that disrupted and to keep out others from enjoying what they and their families have. It is a trend even in states such as China, which is Communist and founded on revolution and in which a lot of things still need to change, let alone countries, that whilst suffering from a recession currently, are far better off than those countries where the bulk of the world's population lives. Recently I have noted people who whilst they want to reduce pressure or upset for themselves actually want other people to suffer more 'for their own good'. Of course, the standard thing about pressurising unemployed people to take low-paid work and uproot and move right across the country or face punishment have been wheeled out again as the level of unemployment has risen. However, I have encountered people saying Sweden is now lagging because its policies of equality means there is no 'edge' to drive people to work harder. These people love having the whip cracked as long as it is on other people not themselves.
You might ask, well, 'what has this to do with Socialism?' You may ask 'what is Socialism, anyway?' It is a term that even the Labour Party dropped more than a decade ago. The wealthy actor, Alan Cummings, when interviewed recently listed it as the extinct thing he would like see revived. A lot of people equate it with Communism and they think that died the day the Berlin Wall was knocked down in 1989. Of course, saying all Socialists are Communists is like saying all Conservatives are Fascists: inaccurate and ignorant of how the political spectrum works. Of course, that was how many people have liked it. In particular, Margaret Thatcher (British prime minister 1979-90), who, on more than one occasion said she wanted the elimination of a spectrum of political parties and preferred to have simply two very close to each other as is the case in the USA, often equated not only Socialism but the Labour Party (which often had more Liberal than Socialist policies) with the Communist. In that way she could portray them as a the 'fifth column' or 'the enemy within', in league with the USSR to undermine democracy in the UK during the Cold War. Of course, Socialists are passionate defenders of democracy as are most Conservatives.
What is Socialism? Well, the key word is 'social', it is a political philosophy which sees the benefit of the whole of society as the key driving force. Of course, Margaret Thatcher argued that there was 'no such thing as society' and emphasised that it was individuals' desires and units no greater than families who should drive what happened politically and economically. Socialism argues that people are different, they have different needs and abilities but they should be looked after when they cannot look after themselves (such as when ill, pregnant, unemployed or elderly) but also that they have responsibilities to the rest of the community and that whilst they are free to make their own way in the world and make profits (this is crucially where Socialism differs from Communism) they should not do so by exploiting people whether in their own country or in other countries. This means employers should pay decent wages, have reasonable working hours and conditions and listen to the people that they are employing. A key objective of Socialism is that everyone has equal opportunity, whether it is in terms of access to health care or education or to get on in their lives. Vitally Socialism is against people being barred from certain jobs or other opportunities simply because of what social class they come, what gender, age or ethnicity they are. In the 1960s this approach, seen with the creation of numerous new universities to allow people greater opportunity to go into higher education, was condemned as 'meritocracy', i.e. that people with ability could succeed. Of course, this has been turned around from a negative term to a positive one. As I have noted regularly on this blog since the 1980s we have moved too far away from a meritocracy to too many people simply getting good positions because of what family they were born into or which elite school they attended. Opportunity is now less than it was thirty years ago.
A lot of Socialist principles overlap with Liberal ones and probably the most Socialist governments in British history, those under Clement Attlee 1945-51 actually pursued a Liberal policy. Rather than having a controlled economy in line with what Socialism advocates, after 1948 they used Liberal Keynesian approaches, manipulating rather than directing the economy, notably through shifting interest rates. In terms of health and social welfare, though they created the National Health Service, they permitted private, fee-taking doctors to continue practising and rather than funding a lot of health and social welfare from direct taxation as you would expect a Socialist government to do, they widened welfare insurance, which had been introduced in the 1910s and created National Insurance in line with what the Liberal, William Beveridge had advised during the war. The idea is that you pay into national insurance as you would any insurance so that you build up a fund that you can draw upon when you need it, for example, when ill or elderly or out of work. Of course, as with all insurance, some people never make a claim whereas others claim often, but that reflects the diverse needs of our society and that is not something we should try to restrain.
The most Socialist element was nationalisation of key sectors of British industry. The focus was on the 'commanding heights', i.e. those sectors of the economy that fed through into many others. Thus, coal mining and the railways were nationalised. The fact that these industries had been run poorly or inefficiently before was a good reason for the state to take over. Gas extraction and provision; electricity generation; water supply; coach transport; airlines; freighting and later steel manufacture were all nationalised; though some steps, such as with airlines had been taken before the war. Other countries, notably France did the same kind of thing. The British, however, even with nationalisation, tempered Socialism with Liberalism and had a very 'arms length' control by the state of these industries and did not direct them in the ways they should stimulate the economy the way that even right-wing governments in France did especially with the largest state-owned company in France, Electricite de France (now EDF Energy). Often, as with the example of gas and water supply what we saw in the UK was really just grand 'muncipalisation'. Many suppliers had been established by city councils in the 19th century and the regionalised approach to gas and water supply (and some water regions, such as City of York, were very small) was continuing this 19th century approach rather than moving to a really Socialist method.
In later years nationalisation in the UK was not used as a way to try to stimulate the economy but rather to bail out failing companies such as Rolls Royce in 1971 (nationalised by Edward Heath's Conservative Government), British Leyland car manufacturers in 1976 and British Aerospace made up of a number of aeronautical manufacturing companies and British Shipbuilders, the same for that industry, in 1977. It is unsurprising that nationalised industries that had failed continued to suffer but it meant that nationalisation was now seen as a failed economic policy and this was at the time when New Right ideas were rising both in the USA and the UK emphasising the reduction of all state control or even regulations and clearly nationalised industries were an anathema to such thinking (notably the economic viewpoint held by Margaret Thatcher). Ironically Thatcher's government nationalised collapsed chemical company, Johnson Matthey in 1984.
Despite the emphasis on nationalised industries the state sector was never larger than 20% of the economy compared to 90%+ in Communist countries. In the 1980s and 1990s the nationalised industries were sold off by the government which brought revenue to the state. The idea was ownership would be held by numerous small shareholders but generally they were bought out by large companies and increasingly ones from abroad. Whilst there have been regulators of these former nationalised industries control over prices and profits and trying to keep up quality has not really worked; many have a near monopoly and as has been seen in the past couple of years attempts by government to stop them charging high prices and providing poor service have failed.
Conservative propaganda about Socialism has always been pretty successful. In 1992, Labour did not win the election after a successful campaign arguing that its policies would lead to higher taxation, a view that even Labour supporters seem to come to believe. In the 1950s the Conservatives argued that Labour's nationalisation was akin to a command economy and though Winston Churchill shot himself in the foot in 1945 likening the Labour approach to the Gestapo by the 1950s the Conservatives were successful in portraying themselves as the party of freedom against Labour's restraint and austerity. In the late 1940s, of course, the public had been used to both restraint and authority so that argument had little impact. In addition, Labour does seem to offer solutions to ingrained problems and in 1945 the public had been really voting on the problems of 1931 rather than the post-war era.
The reason why Tony Blair was so focused on manipulating the media was because he knew from history how long it had been manipulated against anything Labour had done. However, he went so far in making the Labour Party seem acceptable to the media that he sheared it of the bulk of its Socialist principles. Clause 4, the part of the Labour Party constitution which advocated nationalisation, was scrapped in 1994. On coming to power in 1997, Labour in fact went further than the Conservative governments by denationalising the Bank of England and so giving up even Keynesian control over interest rates. I believe that Tony Blair was neither a Socialist or really a Conservative, he was a Blairite and created a personal party out of the shell of the Labour Party; using Christian Democrat principles as the covered, but really based on his own ambitions and simply what he felt was 'right'. This is why people feel Socialism is dead in Britain, but in effect we probably have not even seen a mildly Socialist government in Britain at least since 1976 if not since 1970 and that is the way company bosses like it.
The key problem for Labour, aside from the fact that the financial sector always tries to make a run on the pound and destabilise the economy, in fear of what constraints they will be put under, is that trade unions see an opportunity to get the deals that they have battled to achieve under a Conservative government. Now, as in 1978/9, they are busily undermining the Labour government with demands and strikes that make it appear to voters, ironically most of whom will be workers, that the government has no control. Of course, part of the problem is that no British government has been able to tackle the greed and huge profits of those who run business, so it is unsurprising that workers want more. If the utility companies had been compelled to pay a windfall tax and bankers to limit their vast bonuses, ironically I think we would be seeing less industrial action.
Anyway, having cantered through Socialism, you might be thinking why is that relevant now? Well, it is my suggestion that the British population while Conservative most of the time, turns to Socialism when things are going wrong. In 1945 Socialism was seen as the way to avoid a return to the Depression of the 1930s and the economic slump that had followed the First World War. In 1964 Socialism was seen as the way to stop Britain's industrial stagnation, unwillingness to modernise and thus its slipping competitiveness from worsening. In 1974 Socialism was seen as a way to heal the sharp rifts in society and especially in industrial relations. Of course, there has always been ambivalence as the elections of 1951, 1964 and 1974 showed and the wealthy always pull out the stops to prevent the advent of a truly Socialist government. This is one reason why Gordon Brown who, unlike Blair, is a Labour leader, has come under sustained media attack throughout his term in office. However, it is clear that the British public is drifting back in a Socialist direction once more.
Of course, it is not pure, unadulterated Socialism, there are other trends such as blaming problems of immigrants, which are an anathema to Socialism but almost seem to have become a norm in much discussion. However, adherence to the National Health Service and a national innoculation programme to combat swine flu is one characteristic of a more Socialist outlook. People do not seem to realise that in the USA they would have to have health insurance for things they currently get for free and once they were elderly they would find it difficult to get cover. Most likely they would be paying for innoculations. I know prescription charges have risen but no-one pays for innoculation and the elderly and people like me with a lifelong condition, diabetes, who need constant medicines, do no pay.
There are, in fact, demands that the NHS expands it role and does more to provide treatment for the elderly, and for example, one-to-one care for premature babies. Such things are costly and perhaps people are unwilling to tolerate the tax to pay for these. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, whilst re-inforcing pride in the military among the British population, are seen increasingly as hopeless and people are calling for an exit. The Conservatives argue that Labour has not provided the military with the equipment it needs, something I agree has been a problem, but how does anyone expect David Cameron with all his emphasis on cutting public spending to be able to afford to send even one more helicopter to Helmand province?
The key area where we are seeing a return of Socialism is, ironically, in terms of the previously most controversial aspect of the ethos, nationalisation. We now have a larger nationalised sector in the UK than at any time since about 1986. The British government took over the Docklands Light Railway in 1997 and effectively the railway track of Britain is run by Network Rail a company without shareholders but underwritten by the government. In 2008 Northern Rock building society and the mortgage lending part of Bradford & Bingley building society were nationalised. The government took over 60% of the Royal Bank of Scotland and 40% of the HBOS-Lloyds-TSB banking conglomerate giving it a large slice of the British banking sector, especially in mortgage-lending which has always been a key element in shaping the British economy.
It is unlikely that even Clement Attlee would have been able to control such a large aspect of the financial sector. The closest we came was when Roy Hattersley, deputy leader of the Labour Party said around the time of the 1992 election that the investment group 3i would be nationalised under a Labout Government to form the basis of state investment in private industry. The uproar was such that the idea seems to have been entirely forgotten almost immediately. Interestingly, this year, finally, the government is compelling credit card companies to raise the minimum repayment level on the amount people owe. This should have come in at least 10 or 15 years ago and could have restrained some of the overheated consumption and massive debt that amounted during the late 1990s and early 2000s that has distorted the economy in an unhealthy way.
All of these steps have been taken with no dismay from the general public. When there is a crisis they expect the government to step in and sort it all out for them. The rest of the time they whine about over-regulation, the 'nanny state', that taxes are intolerable and so on, not realising that lack of regulation has led to much of the crisis we are now in and that expensive bail-outs can only be funded by taxes. Again nationalisation, which seems such a dirty word in most years, is seen as the solution. Again, however, as in the 1970s, it is being used to catch falling businesses. This is the wrong way to approach the economy. Northern Rock should have been nationalised before it started its mad approach to mortgage lending. I would have taken it over in 2005 at the latest and then, rather than it being a drag on the British economy it could have been used to stabilise house prices and provide stimulus to new business.
With the first £1002 train ticket for the journey from Newquay in Cornwall to Kyle of Lochalsh in western Scotland, a distance of 2,720 Km (a round the world air ticket can be bought for £800 and you can travel from London to Zurich on the luxury Orient Express for £1000 or from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway - 5,806 Km for only £995) and most inter-city rail fare prices having trebled in the past 15 years, a period in which inflation has been below 3%, it seems apparent that if we want a mobile population using the greenest form of transport around, i.e. electric trains, then we need the whole rail system back in state control. You find that the only people who praise the privatisation of the railways are people who never travel on trains.
So, are we seeing a Socialist conscience developing among the British population, wanting a tax on bankers' bonuses, limits on the pay of the wealthy, better value public transport and a health service expanding its scope combined with a tolerance, possibly even an enthusiasm for privatising what are now the controlling sectors of the British economy? People would argue, as historian Corelli Barnett did in the 1980s that the British have become too used to the 'teat' of state intervention and would be traumatised to have it taken away from them and left to fend for themselves. However, of course, with Thatcherite policies a great deal has been taken away and yet there are still billions of pounds of benefits that people who are entitled to them do not claim. Britons are an independent people that still like to make their own way as best they can, despite all the propaganda about benefit swindlers and dole scroungers. Ironically no-one goes after the tax defrauders who owe millions in total to the British economy but they have taken out to tax havens. We need to go after these people and make them contribute the way I and the large bulk of ordinary British people do. We have no choice about paying or not paying tax, so why should the wealthy get to make that choice? Hopefully people are beginning to realise that only a tiny fraction of the population are ever going to win the lottery or set up a business we can sell for millions or become a pop star or some other kind of celebrity, so instead of thinking it is alright for the rich to get away without pulling their weight because one day we might be one of them, more of us need to make sure there are opportunities for a decent life for all.
The veteran Socialist politician Tony Benn often recounts when he was on a train that broke down and how it suddenly seemed as if people were becoming Socialist, sharing out the food and other supplies they had, working together to make the best of a bad situation. When the train was running smoothly of course they did none of this. People often refer back to the 'wartime spirit' when people supposedly collaborated in the way that Benn saw them do on that train. Historian Nick Tiratsoo has shown that a lot of that was exaggerated and we know that 'outsiders', often Jews, were kept out of air raid shelters and whilst the bulk of the population was struggling to feed their families on rations, those who could afford to, could eat unrationed food in restaurants. However, though it might have been exaggerated it does seem that, possibly counter to what you might expect, in crises Britons become less rather than more selfish. It is a shame that they cannot maintain that attitude in the better times. I know David Cameron thinks he will walk into being the latest Conservative prime minister but the recession has reawakened the dormant Socialist tendencies in the British population and if Labour appeals to those rather than trying to be a pale version of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party, it may win at the next election.
You might ask, well, 'what has this to do with Socialism?' You may ask 'what is Socialism, anyway?' It is a term that even the Labour Party dropped more than a decade ago. The wealthy actor, Alan Cummings, when interviewed recently listed it as the extinct thing he would like see revived. A lot of people equate it with Communism and they think that died the day the Berlin Wall was knocked down in 1989. Of course, saying all Socialists are Communists is like saying all Conservatives are Fascists: inaccurate and ignorant of how the political spectrum works. Of course, that was how many people have liked it. In particular, Margaret Thatcher (British prime minister 1979-90), who, on more than one occasion said she wanted the elimination of a spectrum of political parties and preferred to have simply two very close to each other as is the case in the USA, often equated not only Socialism but the Labour Party (which often had more Liberal than Socialist policies) with the Communist. In that way she could portray them as a the 'fifth column' or 'the enemy within', in league with the USSR to undermine democracy in the UK during the Cold War. Of course, Socialists are passionate defenders of democracy as are most Conservatives.
What is Socialism? Well, the key word is 'social', it is a political philosophy which sees the benefit of the whole of society as the key driving force. Of course, Margaret Thatcher argued that there was 'no such thing as society' and emphasised that it was individuals' desires and units no greater than families who should drive what happened politically and economically. Socialism argues that people are different, they have different needs and abilities but they should be looked after when they cannot look after themselves (such as when ill, pregnant, unemployed or elderly) but also that they have responsibilities to the rest of the community and that whilst they are free to make their own way in the world and make profits (this is crucially where Socialism differs from Communism) they should not do so by exploiting people whether in their own country or in other countries. This means employers should pay decent wages, have reasonable working hours and conditions and listen to the people that they are employing. A key objective of Socialism is that everyone has equal opportunity, whether it is in terms of access to health care or education or to get on in their lives. Vitally Socialism is against people being barred from certain jobs or other opportunities simply because of what social class they come, what gender, age or ethnicity they are. In the 1960s this approach, seen with the creation of numerous new universities to allow people greater opportunity to go into higher education, was condemned as 'meritocracy', i.e. that people with ability could succeed. Of course, this has been turned around from a negative term to a positive one. As I have noted regularly on this blog since the 1980s we have moved too far away from a meritocracy to too many people simply getting good positions because of what family they were born into or which elite school they attended. Opportunity is now less than it was thirty years ago.
A lot of Socialist principles overlap with Liberal ones and probably the most Socialist governments in British history, those under Clement Attlee 1945-51 actually pursued a Liberal policy. Rather than having a controlled economy in line with what Socialism advocates, after 1948 they used Liberal Keynesian approaches, manipulating rather than directing the economy, notably through shifting interest rates. In terms of health and social welfare, though they created the National Health Service, they permitted private, fee-taking doctors to continue practising and rather than funding a lot of health and social welfare from direct taxation as you would expect a Socialist government to do, they widened welfare insurance, which had been introduced in the 1910s and created National Insurance in line with what the Liberal, William Beveridge had advised during the war. The idea is that you pay into national insurance as you would any insurance so that you build up a fund that you can draw upon when you need it, for example, when ill or elderly or out of work. Of course, as with all insurance, some people never make a claim whereas others claim often, but that reflects the diverse needs of our society and that is not something we should try to restrain.
The most Socialist element was nationalisation of key sectors of British industry. The focus was on the 'commanding heights', i.e. those sectors of the economy that fed through into many others. Thus, coal mining and the railways were nationalised. The fact that these industries had been run poorly or inefficiently before was a good reason for the state to take over. Gas extraction and provision; electricity generation; water supply; coach transport; airlines; freighting and later steel manufacture were all nationalised; though some steps, such as with airlines had been taken before the war. Other countries, notably France did the same kind of thing. The British, however, even with nationalisation, tempered Socialism with Liberalism and had a very 'arms length' control by the state of these industries and did not direct them in the ways they should stimulate the economy the way that even right-wing governments in France did especially with the largest state-owned company in France, Electricite de France (now EDF Energy). Often, as with the example of gas and water supply what we saw in the UK was really just grand 'muncipalisation'. Many suppliers had been established by city councils in the 19th century and the regionalised approach to gas and water supply (and some water regions, such as City of York, were very small) was continuing this 19th century approach rather than moving to a really Socialist method.
In later years nationalisation in the UK was not used as a way to try to stimulate the economy but rather to bail out failing companies such as Rolls Royce in 1971 (nationalised by Edward Heath's Conservative Government), British Leyland car manufacturers in 1976 and British Aerospace made up of a number of aeronautical manufacturing companies and British Shipbuilders, the same for that industry, in 1977. It is unsurprising that nationalised industries that had failed continued to suffer but it meant that nationalisation was now seen as a failed economic policy and this was at the time when New Right ideas were rising both in the USA and the UK emphasising the reduction of all state control or even regulations and clearly nationalised industries were an anathema to such thinking (notably the economic viewpoint held by Margaret Thatcher). Ironically Thatcher's government nationalised collapsed chemical company, Johnson Matthey in 1984.
Despite the emphasis on nationalised industries the state sector was never larger than 20% of the economy compared to 90%+ in Communist countries. In the 1980s and 1990s the nationalised industries were sold off by the government which brought revenue to the state. The idea was ownership would be held by numerous small shareholders but generally they were bought out by large companies and increasingly ones from abroad. Whilst there have been regulators of these former nationalised industries control over prices and profits and trying to keep up quality has not really worked; many have a near monopoly and as has been seen in the past couple of years attempts by government to stop them charging high prices and providing poor service have failed.
Conservative propaganda about Socialism has always been pretty successful. In 1992, Labour did not win the election after a successful campaign arguing that its policies would lead to higher taxation, a view that even Labour supporters seem to come to believe. In the 1950s the Conservatives argued that Labour's nationalisation was akin to a command economy and though Winston Churchill shot himself in the foot in 1945 likening the Labour approach to the Gestapo by the 1950s the Conservatives were successful in portraying themselves as the party of freedom against Labour's restraint and austerity. In the late 1940s, of course, the public had been used to both restraint and authority so that argument had little impact. In addition, Labour does seem to offer solutions to ingrained problems and in 1945 the public had been really voting on the problems of 1931 rather than the post-war era.
The reason why Tony Blair was so focused on manipulating the media was because he knew from history how long it had been manipulated against anything Labour had done. However, he went so far in making the Labour Party seem acceptable to the media that he sheared it of the bulk of its Socialist principles. Clause 4, the part of the Labour Party constitution which advocated nationalisation, was scrapped in 1994. On coming to power in 1997, Labour in fact went further than the Conservative governments by denationalising the Bank of England and so giving up even Keynesian control over interest rates. I believe that Tony Blair was neither a Socialist or really a Conservative, he was a Blairite and created a personal party out of the shell of the Labour Party; using Christian Democrat principles as the covered, but really based on his own ambitions and simply what he felt was 'right'. This is why people feel Socialism is dead in Britain, but in effect we probably have not even seen a mildly Socialist government in Britain at least since 1976 if not since 1970 and that is the way company bosses like it.
The key problem for Labour, aside from the fact that the financial sector always tries to make a run on the pound and destabilise the economy, in fear of what constraints they will be put under, is that trade unions see an opportunity to get the deals that they have battled to achieve under a Conservative government. Now, as in 1978/9, they are busily undermining the Labour government with demands and strikes that make it appear to voters, ironically most of whom will be workers, that the government has no control. Of course, part of the problem is that no British government has been able to tackle the greed and huge profits of those who run business, so it is unsurprising that workers want more. If the utility companies had been compelled to pay a windfall tax and bankers to limit their vast bonuses, ironically I think we would be seeing less industrial action.
Anyway, having cantered through Socialism, you might be thinking why is that relevant now? Well, it is my suggestion that the British population while Conservative most of the time, turns to Socialism when things are going wrong. In 1945 Socialism was seen as the way to avoid a return to the Depression of the 1930s and the economic slump that had followed the First World War. In 1964 Socialism was seen as the way to stop Britain's industrial stagnation, unwillingness to modernise and thus its slipping competitiveness from worsening. In 1974 Socialism was seen as a way to heal the sharp rifts in society and especially in industrial relations. Of course, there has always been ambivalence as the elections of 1951, 1964 and 1974 showed and the wealthy always pull out the stops to prevent the advent of a truly Socialist government. This is one reason why Gordon Brown who, unlike Blair, is a Labour leader, has come under sustained media attack throughout his term in office. However, it is clear that the British public is drifting back in a Socialist direction once more.
Of course, it is not pure, unadulterated Socialism, there are other trends such as blaming problems of immigrants, which are an anathema to Socialism but almost seem to have become a norm in much discussion. However, adherence to the National Health Service and a national innoculation programme to combat swine flu is one characteristic of a more Socialist outlook. People do not seem to realise that in the USA they would have to have health insurance for things they currently get for free and once they were elderly they would find it difficult to get cover. Most likely they would be paying for innoculations. I know prescription charges have risen but no-one pays for innoculation and the elderly and people like me with a lifelong condition, diabetes, who need constant medicines, do no pay.
There are, in fact, demands that the NHS expands it role and does more to provide treatment for the elderly, and for example, one-to-one care for premature babies. Such things are costly and perhaps people are unwilling to tolerate the tax to pay for these. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, whilst re-inforcing pride in the military among the British population, are seen increasingly as hopeless and people are calling for an exit. The Conservatives argue that Labour has not provided the military with the equipment it needs, something I agree has been a problem, but how does anyone expect David Cameron with all his emphasis on cutting public spending to be able to afford to send even one more helicopter to Helmand province?
The key area where we are seeing a return of Socialism is, ironically, in terms of the previously most controversial aspect of the ethos, nationalisation. We now have a larger nationalised sector in the UK than at any time since about 1986. The British government took over the Docklands Light Railway in 1997 and effectively the railway track of Britain is run by Network Rail a company without shareholders but underwritten by the government. In 2008 Northern Rock building society and the mortgage lending part of Bradford & Bingley building society were nationalised. The government took over 60% of the Royal Bank of Scotland and 40% of the HBOS-Lloyds-TSB banking conglomerate giving it a large slice of the British banking sector, especially in mortgage-lending which has always been a key element in shaping the British economy.
It is unlikely that even Clement Attlee would have been able to control such a large aspect of the financial sector. The closest we came was when Roy Hattersley, deputy leader of the Labour Party said around the time of the 1992 election that the investment group 3i would be nationalised under a Labout Government to form the basis of state investment in private industry. The uproar was such that the idea seems to have been entirely forgotten almost immediately. Interestingly, this year, finally, the government is compelling credit card companies to raise the minimum repayment level on the amount people owe. This should have come in at least 10 or 15 years ago and could have restrained some of the overheated consumption and massive debt that amounted during the late 1990s and early 2000s that has distorted the economy in an unhealthy way.
All of these steps have been taken with no dismay from the general public. When there is a crisis they expect the government to step in and sort it all out for them. The rest of the time they whine about over-regulation, the 'nanny state', that taxes are intolerable and so on, not realising that lack of regulation has led to much of the crisis we are now in and that expensive bail-outs can only be funded by taxes. Again nationalisation, which seems such a dirty word in most years, is seen as the solution. Again, however, as in the 1970s, it is being used to catch falling businesses. This is the wrong way to approach the economy. Northern Rock should have been nationalised before it started its mad approach to mortgage lending. I would have taken it over in 2005 at the latest and then, rather than it being a drag on the British economy it could have been used to stabilise house prices and provide stimulus to new business.
With the first £1002 train ticket for the journey from Newquay in Cornwall to Kyle of Lochalsh in western Scotland, a distance of 2,720 Km (a round the world air ticket can be bought for £800 and you can travel from London to Zurich on the luxury Orient Express for £1000 or from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway - 5,806 Km for only £995) and most inter-city rail fare prices having trebled in the past 15 years, a period in which inflation has been below 3%, it seems apparent that if we want a mobile population using the greenest form of transport around, i.e. electric trains, then we need the whole rail system back in state control. You find that the only people who praise the privatisation of the railways are people who never travel on trains.
So, are we seeing a Socialist conscience developing among the British population, wanting a tax on bankers' bonuses, limits on the pay of the wealthy, better value public transport and a health service expanding its scope combined with a tolerance, possibly even an enthusiasm for privatising what are now the controlling sectors of the British economy? People would argue, as historian Corelli Barnett did in the 1980s that the British have become too used to the 'teat' of state intervention and would be traumatised to have it taken away from them and left to fend for themselves. However, of course, with Thatcherite policies a great deal has been taken away and yet there are still billions of pounds of benefits that people who are entitled to them do not claim. Britons are an independent people that still like to make their own way as best they can, despite all the propaganda about benefit swindlers and dole scroungers. Ironically no-one goes after the tax defrauders who owe millions in total to the British economy but they have taken out to tax havens. We need to go after these people and make them contribute the way I and the large bulk of ordinary British people do. We have no choice about paying or not paying tax, so why should the wealthy get to make that choice? Hopefully people are beginning to realise that only a tiny fraction of the population are ever going to win the lottery or set up a business we can sell for millions or become a pop star or some other kind of celebrity, so instead of thinking it is alright for the rich to get away without pulling their weight because one day we might be one of them, more of us need to make sure there are opportunities for a decent life for all.
The veteran Socialist politician Tony Benn often recounts when he was on a train that broke down and how it suddenly seemed as if people were becoming Socialist, sharing out the food and other supplies they had, working together to make the best of a bad situation. When the train was running smoothly of course they did none of this. People often refer back to the 'wartime spirit' when people supposedly collaborated in the way that Benn saw them do on that train. Historian Nick Tiratsoo has shown that a lot of that was exaggerated and we know that 'outsiders', often Jews, were kept out of air raid shelters and whilst the bulk of the population was struggling to feed their families on rations, those who could afford to, could eat unrationed food in restaurants. However, though it might have been exaggerated it does seem that, possibly counter to what you might expect, in crises Britons become less rather than more selfish. It is a shame that they cannot maintain that attitude in the better times. I know David Cameron thinks he will walk into being the latest Conservative prime minister but the recession has reawakened the dormant Socialist tendencies in the British population and if Labour appeals to those rather than trying to be a pale version of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party, it may win at the next election.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Nick Griffin on the BBC
What is interesting about the appearance of the leader of the fascist British National Party (BNP), Nick Griffin on the BBC political programme 'Question Time' on Thursday, is how it has actually made politics headline news. The particular episode of the programme attracted 8 million viewers, three times the normal level and for the first time exceding the popular entertainment show on BBC1 on Saturday nights, 'Strictly Come Dancing'. If you missed the programme a lot of it is available online (for the moment) at: Http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/default.stm
Everyone seems upset about the event. The BBC said it went ahead with featuring Griffin because it feared that if they did not feature the BNP on the programme they would be sued. At present, though its policies on the race of members has been condemned as illegal, the BNP is a legitimate political party in the UK and it has two MEPs in the European Parliament. The BBC thus seems to have acted out of fear. You could also argue that any party that attracts sufficient votes to get two MEPs is sufficiently significant that it could be ignored and if it had been then the BBC could not have featured other small parties such as the Green Party.
Others fear that featuring Griffin gave free publicity to his racist views. Peter Hain, MP, a strong campainger against apartheid condemned the decision to let Griffin appear. Ministers are concerned it has given publicity to the BNP's views. Listening to BBC radio it was clear that of those who rang in, more supported the BNP's views than those who opposed them. Griffin and his supporters were far from happy about the event despite getting the widest coverage the party has received. The questions on 'Question Time' come from the audience and the BBC over the thirty years the programme has been running has always tried to get a balance of gender, ages, ethnicity and political perspective from audience members no matter what part of the country the programme is coming from (it moves from town to town each week). In my view the real left has always been under-represented, but I respect the BBC's efforts. Griffin complains the BBC put together a 'lynch mob' that only had questions directed at him and in a negative way. Clearly, very arrogantly, he had expected to go on the programme and be able to expound his racist views with minimal challenge. I think because the BNP feels its views are 'common sense' they think the bulk of white British people will accept them without challenge, whereas in fact the majority of us are abhorred by them.
Griffin whines that only a couple of questions were not directed at him. Again, he shows terrible naivety. Members of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties appear weekly and people like Jack Straw (currently Justice Secretary) have been on the programme numerous times; there has been loads of opportunity to question them on this programme and in other places. This was the first occasion anyone from a neo-Nazi party has appeared on a British political programme, no wonder people are going be fascinated. Even if he or one of his colleagues appears again in the future, I imagine they will never have such a fascination for the audience as he did on this first occasion. In addition, of course, Griffin sees his policies almost as bland, common sense and seems oblivious (wilfully or not) to the fact that they provoke a harsh reaction from people across British society. Griffin does not consider blacks or Asian British people as British, he gives them no designation, but say he sees them as foreigners, would he expect any different response to his views if he was speaking to a French audience or an American one? Griffin's horizons are so narrow that he does not realise the implications of the arena he is wanting to step into.
Griffin claims that the particular episode of 'Question Time' was 'not a genuine Question Time' and that it was distorted to discredit him. He is angry that it was held in London (though he would have known this in advance) saying the city was 'no longer British'; he feels that London is 'not my country any more' which seems a bizarre statement. He says it should have been held in Burnley, Stoke or Thurrock, places 'where there are still significant numbers of English and British people and they haven't been ethnically cleansed from their own country'. It is clear Griffin lives in some fantasy world. Ethnic minorities make up only 17% of the UK population, the large majority of Britons are still white and the bulk of the audience, even in London which Griffin sees as some strange country, rather than housing 10 million (71.2% of whom are white) of Britain's 65 million people. Does this suggest that Griffin envisages a UK like South Africa was under apartheid with different 'tribal' groups assigned to 'homelands'? Or does he, even more sinisterly, envisage tufing millions of Britons, at least 7 million of whom are white, out of their homes in London to 'bring it back into' the UK. Now we are moving into the realm of ghettos and deportation so characteristic of Nazis.
It is clear that the programme was a shock to Griffin who clearly believed if he could get his message across he would be welcomed with open arms. The BNP claim that since the programme they have gained 3000 new members. That is not surprising, fortunately the BNP does not get much coverage so simply appearing is going to stir people who support his views to join him, I am sure the same would happen if a member of the Green Party or the Scottish Nationalist Party appeared.
Griffin is going to whine because that is what he does. Everything about the politics of the BNP is based on a distorted view of people and of the UK and then whining about it. What was more worrying was Conservative Baroness Warsi also on the programme telling Justice Secretary, Jack Straw that the mainstream parties need to be 'more honest' about immigration policy to see off the spread of the BNP. Personally I feel that the current government already distorts the news about immigration in favour of the racists and the policies of the Border Agency have helped to whip up racism. However, it does show that any future Conservative government is liable to be tempted to adopt even more racist policies and poor Peter Hain is likely to find himself living in a country increasingly like the South Africa that his family fled.
The danger, shown by Warsi's comment is that the Conservatives, who many are assuming will form the next government, are the ones most in fear of the increase of the BNP (and probably even more so of the less-racist nationalist party UKIP which has 17 MEPs) and so will begin introducing mild racist legislation as a way to draw support away from the BNP. Of course, there have always been racists in the Conservative Party but they had tended to be kept under control by moderates within the party and by those who actually believe in multi-cultural Britain (which the BNP denies is reality). However, in the context in which the BNP might be appearing to win support from the Conservatives it will allow the extremists within the Conservative Party to press for discriminatory policy. Whilst that will not bring on the dystopia the BNP want, it will lead to tens of thousands of individual tragedies and will stoke up racist attacks and discriminatory behaviour rather than defuse it.
Anyone of my generation (I am now 42) can probably remember the 'no platform' dispute of the 1980s. This was the argument at colleges, polytechnics and universities over whether people expressing racist views should be allowed to speak at campuses. The argument from groups like the Socialist Workers' Student Societies (SWSS) was that to allow such people to speak was to give them 'the oxygen of publicity' which would attract support to their cause. Others such as the Labour clubs, argued that in a democracy you had to let everyone speak however vile their views, because otherwise you were imposing censorship something you were fighting against fascists to prevent happening. Policies ebbed and flowed with various speakers barred or allowed to speak. I always favoured letting these people speak so that everyone could at least see what their views really entailed rather than making judgements on assumptions and rumours. In addition, it meant those who opposed them had to have policies that addressed the kind of concerns that such speakers raised. If left-wingers and moderate right-wingers do not face challenges then they get complacent and do not work out or articulate policy (part of the problem with the Conservative Party at present).
Extremists are often their own worst enemies, particularly as so much of their policies tend to be one dimensional and simply complaining about how they feel things are rather than offering any positive alternative. Griffin was caught out when asked about his previous denial of the Holocaust and his persisting dispute over the number of people killed by Nazi Germany and its allies. He admitted he did not know why he thought about it the way he had before (outright denial) which for a politician seemed very weak. To natural BNP supporters even if they were not already in the party, no matter how weak Griffin's performance had been they would have seen it as wonderful and now are complaining that effectively he was not able simply to make a party political speech based on his distorted assumptions of history and of Britain today. However, to more wavering viewers, I can expect that at least some have seen that Griffin is simply full of hatred founded on a perception which bears relevance to the actual UK we live in.
Naturally the focus is on his policies on ethnic minorities, but no-one I have heard has asked him, assuming the BNP came to power, it would treat the Irish population of the UK. He keeps on mentioning the British and the English forgetting that one of the four components of the UK, Northern Ireland, actually has English and British (Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales; the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) minority. Would people from Northern Ireland be barred from coming to the mainland? Would they be barred from jobs in Britain? That is just one element in the many holes in Griffin's nasty set of policies.
I am happy for any BNP member to appear on political programmes because they cannot but help show how mentally weak they are and that all they do is based on policies of complaint and destruction of British society and its economy. They have to learn that their previously privileged position of being able to stand above the political scene and simply snipe is over and that they will face hostility when they speak in public arenas. These are not closed BNP meetings where Griffin and his cronies are speaking among friends, these are places where an audience exposed to virulent, hateful policies are more than likely to respond equally as forcefully, just as we saw on Thursday. Grow up Nick Griffin, you are in real politics now, do not expect the easy ride you have had up until last Thursday to last any longer.
Everyone seems upset about the event. The BBC said it went ahead with featuring Griffin because it feared that if they did not feature the BNP on the programme they would be sued. At present, though its policies on the race of members has been condemned as illegal, the BNP is a legitimate political party in the UK and it has two MEPs in the European Parliament. The BBC thus seems to have acted out of fear. You could also argue that any party that attracts sufficient votes to get two MEPs is sufficiently significant that it could be ignored and if it had been then the BBC could not have featured other small parties such as the Green Party.
Others fear that featuring Griffin gave free publicity to his racist views. Peter Hain, MP, a strong campainger against apartheid condemned the decision to let Griffin appear. Ministers are concerned it has given publicity to the BNP's views. Listening to BBC radio it was clear that of those who rang in, more supported the BNP's views than those who opposed them. Griffin and his supporters were far from happy about the event despite getting the widest coverage the party has received. The questions on 'Question Time' come from the audience and the BBC over the thirty years the programme has been running has always tried to get a balance of gender, ages, ethnicity and political perspective from audience members no matter what part of the country the programme is coming from (it moves from town to town each week). In my view the real left has always been under-represented, but I respect the BBC's efforts. Griffin complains the BBC put together a 'lynch mob' that only had questions directed at him and in a negative way. Clearly, very arrogantly, he had expected to go on the programme and be able to expound his racist views with minimal challenge. I think because the BNP feels its views are 'common sense' they think the bulk of white British people will accept them without challenge, whereas in fact the majority of us are abhorred by them.
Griffin whines that only a couple of questions were not directed at him. Again, he shows terrible naivety. Members of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties appear weekly and people like Jack Straw (currently Justice Secretary) have been on the programme numerous times; there has been loads of opportunity to question them on this programme and in other places. This was the first occasion anyone from a neo-Nazi party has appeared on a British political programme, no wonder people are going be fascinated. Even if he or one of his colleagues appears again in the future, I imagine they will never have such a fascination for the audience as he did on this first occasion. In addition, of course, Griffin sees his policies almost as bland, common sense and seems oblivious (wilfully or not) to the fact that they provoke a harsh reaction from people across British society. Griffin does not consider blacks or Asian British people as British, he gives them no designation, but say he sees them as foreigners, would he expect any different response to his views if he was speaking to a French audience or an American one? Griffin's horizons are so narrow that he does not realise the implications of the arena he is wanting to step into.
Griffin claims that the particular episode of 'Question Time' was 'not a genuine Question Time' and that it was distorted to discredit him. He is angry that it was held in London (though he would have known this in advance) saying the city was 'no longer British'; he feels that London is 'not my country any more' which seems a bizarre statement. He says it should have been held in Burnley, Stoke or Thurrock, places 'where there are still significant numbers of English and British people and they haven't been ethnically cleansed from their own country'. It is clear Griffin lives in some fantasy world. Ethnic minorities make up only 17% of the UK population, the large majority of Britons are still white and the bulk of the audience, even in London which Griffin sees as some strange country, rather than housing 10 million (71.2% of whom are white) of Britain's 65 million people. Does this suggest that Griffin envisages a UK like South Africa was under apartheid with different 'tribal' groups assigned to 'homelands'? Or does he, even more sinisterly, envisage tufing millions of Britons, at least 7 million of whom are white, out of their homes in London to 'bring it back into' the UK. Now we are moving into the realm of ghettos and deportation so characteristic of Nazis.
It is clear that the programme was a shock to Griffin who clearly believed if he could get his message across he would be welcomed with open arms. The BNP claim that since the programme they have gained 3000 new members. That is not surprising, fortunately the BNP does not get much coverage so simply appearing is going to stir people who support his views to join him, I am sure the same would happen if a member of the Green Party or the Scottish Nationalist Party appeared.
Griffin is going to whine because that is what he does. Everything about the politics of the BNP is based on a distorted view of people and of the UK and then whining about it. What was more worrying was Conservative Baroness Warsi also on the programme telling Justice Secretary, Jack Straw that the mainstream parties need to be 'more honest' about immigration policy to see off the spread of the BNP. Personally I feel that the current government already distorts the news about immigration in favour of the racists and the policies of the Border Agency have helped to whip up racism. However, it does show that any future Conservative government is liable to be tempted to adopt even more racist policies and poor Peter Hain is likely to find himself living in a country increasingly like the South Africa that his family fled.
The danger, shown by Warsi's comment is that the Conservatives, who many are assuming will form the next government, are the ones most in fear of the increase of the BNP (and probably even more so of the less-racist nationalist party UKIP which has 17 MEPs) and so will begin introducing mild racist legislation as a way to draw support away from the BNP. Of course, there have always been racists in the Conservative Party but they had tended to be kept under control by moderates within the party and by those who actually believe in multi-cultural Britain (which the BNP denies is reality). However, in the context in which the BNP might be appearing to win support from the Conservatives it will allow the extremists within the Conservative Party to press for discriminatory policy. Whilst that will not bring on the dystopia the BNP want, it will lead to tens of thousands of individual tragedies and will stoke up racist attacks and discriminatory behaviour rather than defuse it.
Anyone of my generation (I am now 42) can probably remember the 'no platform' dispute of the 1980s. This was the argument at colleges, polytechnics and universities over whether people expressing racist views should be allowed to speak at campuses. The argument from groups like the Socialist Workers' Student Societies (SWSS) was that to allow such people to speak was to give them 'the oxygen of publicity' which would attract support to their cause. Others such as the Labour clubs, argued that in a democracy you had to let everyone speak however vile their views, because otherwise you were imposing censorship something you were fighting against fascists to prevent happening. Policies ebbed and flowed with various speakers barred or allowed to speak. I always favoured letting these people speak so that everyone could at least see what their views really entailed rather than making judgements on assumptions and rumours. In addition, it meant those who opposed them had to have policies that addressed the kind of concerns that such speakers raised. If left-wingers and moderate right-wingers do not face challenges then they get complacent and do not work out or articulate policy (part of the problem with the Conservative Party at present).
Extremists are often their own worst enemies, particularly as so much of their policies tend to be one dimensional and simply complaining about how they feel things are rather than offering any positive alternative. Griffin was caught out when asked about his previous denial of the Holocaust and his persisting dispute over the number of people killed by Nazi Germany and its allies. He admitted he did not know why he thought about it the way he had before (outright denial) which for a politician seemed very weak. To natural BNP supporters even if they were not already in the party, no matter how weak Griffin's performance had been they would have seen it as wonderful and now are complaining that effectively he was not able simply to make a party political speech based on his distorted assumptions of history and of Britain today. However, to more wavering viewers, I can expect that at least some have seen that Griffin is simply full of hatred founded on a perception which bears relevance to the actual UK we live in.
Naturally the focus is on his policies on ethnic minorities, but no-one I have heard has asked him, assuming the BNP came to power, it would treat the Irish population of the UK. He keeps on mentioning the British and the English forgetting that one of the four components of the UK, Northern Ireland, actually has English and British (Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales; the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) minority. Would people from Northern Ireland be barred from coming to the mainland? Would they be barred from jobs in Britain? That is just one element in the many holes in Griffin's nasty set of policies.
I am happy for any BNP member to appear on political programmes because they cannot but help show how mentally weak they are and that all they do is based on policies of complaint and destruction of British society and its economy. They have to learn that their previously privileged position of being able to stand above the political scene and simply snipe is over and that they will face hostility when they speak in public arenas. These are not closed BNP meetings where Griffin and his cronies are speaking among friends, these are places where an audience exposed to virulent, hateful policies are more than likely to respond equally as forcefully, just as we saw on Thursday. Grow up Nick Griffin, you are in real politics now, do not expect the easy ride you have had up until last Thursday to last any longer.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
'Rain, Steam & Speed': A Steampunk Anthem?
For some reason, I guess it is because of the steampunk novella I am currently writing (I am on the third part so hope to be able to post it at the start of November) I had the phrase 'steam is the burn' in my mind and realised it came from a song that I had not heard in many years, 'Rain, Steam & Speed' (1989) by The Men They Couldn't Hang. I played it once as a student DJ and had a cassette recording of it, but guess I have not listened to it in about 15 years. I went looking for it on the internet and found one YouTube video of it: http://www.youtube.com./watch?v=PrfV4ZMn4EE It is a song which celebrates/commemorates the work that went into building railways in 19th century Britain. To some extent The Men They Couldn't Hang are what you would expect from a folk rock group aware of labour and radical history; such issues permeate the bulk of their songs. To some extent I imagine they were probably channelled into stereotypical looks by video makers, especially in the 1980s as when they appear in 'navvie' clothing in the video.
In some ways The Men They Couldn't Hang seem to stem from the legacy of that 1970s combination between folk music that was very popular at that time, an interest in 'everyday history', i.e. history of ordinary people rather than monarchs and politicians which began to be taught in schools at that time and political, especially labour, radicalism. Folk music has not disappeared, there is a weekly programme on Radio 2, annual awards and a number of festivals, but it seems to impinge less on the mainstream than it did in the 1970s and it is very rare that you hear anything even folk-influenced in the charts; Seth Lakeman being the notable exception. Certainly in our apolitical times none of it has any political flavour even to the extent of praising the efforts of workers let alone making any more political-orientated suggestions. Workers are not lauded in contemporary pop music, only those who make money through performing and the use of that money to lead a hedonistic lifestyle is the only 'acceptable' path shown. Alright, have aspirations, but do not forget the bulk of us will never come close to that lifestyle, but that does not make us worthless; take pride in the ordinary things you do. I suddenly seem to be turning into an advocate for folk music which was not my intention at all!
Anyway, back to The Men They Couldn't Hang. I saw them perform at a university in the late 1980s probably when they were at their peak of success. Like most acoustic bands they are great to see live because atmosphere is important for that kind of music and I suppose it would be a step a way from what their songs talk about if they were on a huge stage with numerous special effects. They started releasing records in 1984 and they covered the whole range of labour movement history from their first single, 'The Green Fields of France' (1984) about a First World War veteran. 'Ironmasters' (1984) linking historic and current working conditions; 'Ghosts of Cable Street' (1985) pretty self-explanatory; 'Shirt of Blue' (1985) about the 1984-5 Miners' Strike; 'The Colours' (1987) about a mutineer in the Napoleonic Wars and 'The Crest' (1987) about a stretcher bearer in the Second World War. By 1990 they were supporting David Bowie on tour, though I do wonder how Bowie's fans received them. 'Rain, Steam and Speed' was released as a single off their 'Silvertown' (1989) album, but by 1990's 'The Domino Club' album they had left behind folk for more conventional rock. It is interesting that this was the time when The Manic Street Preachers, though formed in 1986, were coming to much greater public attention with the release of their first album, 'Generation Terrorists' in 1992 and whilst touching on some similar themes to The Men They Couldn't Hang did it using a rock/pop approach. The Men They Couldn't Hang split in 1991 but reformed in 1996 and played their 25th anniversary gig earlier this month. The lyrics you can find online generally come from this latter period of recording.
The title 'Rain, Steam & Speed' comes from a painting by J.M.W. Turner, 'Rain, Steam and Speed - the Great Western Railway' first exhibited in 1844. It is also the name of a 1999 album by the New Zealand band, the Mutton Birds. I know there is much discussion about what steampunk encompasses and the modern manifestation of the genre was very young when this track was produced, but to me, it seems a suitably steampunk anthem in both celebrating steampower but also recognising the human cost of its application. Like some other songs by the band it also draws parallels between historical developments and current ones.
I guess the denizens of The Smoking Lounge steampunk site will not be happy with me linking a song from a politically-interested group (though as you will see below, this song itself makes no blatant political points) and the steampunk genre. I suppose that is partly because many of them are located in the USA where politics is an even dirtier word than it is even in the UK. In addition, a lot of steampunk involves the writers, artists and commentators naturally projecting themselves into the roles of people of the Victorian elite, such as nobles, scientists and military officers, I do this myself. The thing is, with that comes an attachment to the Victorian-style hierarachy which in the UK is pretty much as it was 150 years ago. Thus, politics, especially labour politics seems to jar with elements of this take on the genre. In reflecting on this I think I have come to understand Michael Moorcock's complaint that what is being written now is 'steam opera' rather than 'steampunk'. I have no problem with that and will happily portray myself as a steam opera writer, but this does not mean that those who adopt a more '-punk' approach should be disparaged. The Smoking Lounge denizens seem to be very exercised by any connection, even in passing, from politics to their genre; I guess this stems from a fear that such an association will endanger them with censure from those who loathe any reference from politics and instead they want what they produce to continue to appear 'harmless', especially to the US public.
Despite extensive searches I have been unable to find a full set of lyrics for 'Rain, Steam & Speed', though you can find quite a few others by The Men They Couldn't Hang. Consequently, I have to apologise as these lyrics are derived from me listening to the track and writing them down and as with many songs, I could not work out everything that was being sung. I have put the bits I have guessed at in [ and ] and if you know what the real words are please email me so I can put the correct ones in.
One man blows a bugle and another lights a fuse.
Blow, pick and shovel it; carry earth away.
Brains and brawn with hammers [strong], blasting through the glade.
Chorus
Rain is the cold; steam is the burn;
Speed is the way the World turns;
Speed is the way the World turns round.
Draughtsmen and surveyors work at pegging out the shaft.
Ten of us to breathe the dust; ten to do the graft.
Underneath the Pennine waste, the bodies lie in rags;
Forty miles of steel and [soil] follow in their tracks.
Chorus
Some men build a monument; some men build a tomb.
Some men move the World around to give them breathing room.
And some men carve a statue of Isambard Brunel;
Some men carve a tunnel into Hell.
Chorus
Spoken:
Drill the hole; pack it tight; [sound the horn];
Blow the rock; swing the pick;
Spade and hand will carry it.
Soon they'll build a tunnel under England through to France.
Will it make the tide run quicker? Will the [port] trade advance?
Underneath the ocean there's land of chalk and sand,
But coming up through the virgin rock will be a human hand.'
Chorus x 4
In some ways The Men They Couldn't Hang seem to stem from the legacy of that 1970s combination between folk music that was very popular at that time, an interest in 'everyday history', i.e. history of ordinary people rather than monarchs and politicians which began to be taught in schools at that time and political, especially labour, radicalism. Folk music has not disappeared, there is a weekly programme on Radio 2, annual awards and a number of festivals, but it seems to impinge less on the mainstream than it did in the 1970s and it is very rare that you hear anything even folk-influenced in the charts; Seth Lakeman being the notable exception. Certainly in our apolitical times none of it has any political flavour even to the extent of praising the efforts of workers let alone making any more political-orientated suggestions. Workers are not lauded in contemporary pop music, only those who make money through performing and the use of that money to lead a hedonistic lifestyle is the only 'acceptable' path shown. Alright, have aspirations, but do not forget the bulk of us will never come close to that lifestyle, but that does not make us worthless; take pride in the ordinary things you do. I suddenly seem to be turning into an advocate for folk music which was not my intention at all!
Anyway, back to The Men They Couldn't Hang. I saw them perform at a university in the late 1980s probably when they were at their peak of success. Like most acoustic bands they are great to see live because atmosphere is important for that kind of music and I suppose it would be a step a way from what their songs talk about if they were on a huge stage with numerous special effects. They started releasing records in 1984 and they covered the whole range of labour movement history from their first single, 'The Green Fields of France' (1984) about a First World War veteran. 'Ironmasters' (1984) linking historic and current working conditions; 'Ghosts of Cable Street' (1985) pretty self-explanatory; 'Shirt of Blue' (1985) about the 1984-5 Miners' Strike; 'The Colours' (1987) about a mutineer in the Napoleonic Wars and 'The Crest' (1987) about a stretcher bearer in the Second World War. By 1990 they were supporting David Bowie on tour, though I do wonder how Bowie's fans received them. 'Rain, Steam and Speed' was released as a single off their 'Silvertown' (1989) album, but by 1990's 'The Domino Club' album they had left behind folk for more conventional rock. It is interesting that this was the time when The Manic Street Preachers, though formed in 1986, were coming to much greater public attention with the release of their first album, 'Generation Terrorists' in 1992 and whilst touching on some similar themes to The Men They Couldn't Hang did it using a rock/pop approach. The Men They Couldn't Hang split in 1991 but reformed in 1996 and played their 25th anniversary gig earlier this month. The lyrics you can find online generally come from this latter period of recording.
The title 'Rain, Steam & Speed' comes from a painting by J.M.W. Turner, 'Rain, Steam and Speed - the Great Western Railway' first exhibited in 1844. It is also the name of a 1999 album by the New Zealand band, the Mutton Birds. I know there is much discussion about what steampunk encompasses and the modern manifestation of the genre was very young when this track was produced, but to me, it seems a suitably steampunk anthem in both celebrating steampower but also recognising the human cost of its application. Like some other songs by the band it also draws parallels between historical developments and current ones.
I guess the denizens of The Smoking Lounge steampunk site will not be happy with me linking a song from a politically-interested group (though as you will see below, this song itself makes no blatant political points) and the steampunk genre. I suppose that is partly because many of them are located in the USA where politics is an even dirtier word than it is even in the UK. In addition, a lot of steampunk involves the writers, artists and commentators naturally projecting themselves into the roles of people of the Victorian elite, such as nobles, scientists and military officers, I do this myself. The thing is, with that comes an attachment to the Victorian-style hierarachy which in the UK is pretty much as it was 150 years ago. Thus, politics, especially labour politics seems to jar with elements of this take on the genre. In reflecting on this I think I have come to understand Michael Moorcock's complaint that what is being written now is 'steam opera' rather than 'steampunk'. I have no problem with that and will happily portray myself as a steam opera writer, but this does not mean that those who adopt a more '-punk' approach should be disparaged. The Smoking Lounge denizens seem to be very exercised by any connection, even in passing, from politics to their genre; I guess this stems from a fear that such an association will endanger them with censure from those who loathe any reference from politics and instead they want what they produce to continue to appear 'harmless', especially to the US public.
Despite extensive searches I have been unable to find a full set of lyrics for 'Rain, Steam & Speed', though you can find quite a few others by The Men They Couldn't Hang. Consequently, I have to apologise as these lyrics are derived from me listening to the track and writing them down and as with many songs, I could not work out everything that was being sung. I have put the bits I have guessed at in [ and ] and if you know what the real words are please email me so I can put the correct ones in.
Rain, Steam & Speed
'One man drills a powder hole, the colour of a bruise.One man blows a bugle and another lights a fuse.
Blow, pick and shovel it; carry earth away.
Brains and brawn with hammers [strong], blasting through the glade.
Chorus
Rain is the cold; steam is the burn;
Speed is the way the World turns;
Speed is the way the World turns round.
Draughtsmen and surveyors work at pegging out the shaft.
Ten of us to breathe the dust; ten to do the graft.
Underneath the Pennine waste, the bodies lie in rags;
Forty miles of steel and [soil] follow in their tracks.
Chorus
Some men build a monument; some men build a tomb.
Some men move the World around to give them breathing room.
And some men carve a statue of Isambard Brunel;
Some men carve a tunnel into Hell.
Chorus
Spoken:
Drill the hole; pack it tight; [sound the horn];
Blow the rock; swing the pick;
Spade and hand will carry it.
Soon they'll build a tunnel under England through to France.
Will it make the tide run quicker? Will the [port] trade advance?
Underneath the ocean there's land of chalk and sand,
But coming up through the virgin rock will be a human hand.'
Chorus x 4
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Daniel Merriweather: New Blues
This posting is well over due. I meant to write it about two months ago but it got lost in all the other stuff I have been doing especially the creative writing. I hope to be able to post a steampunk (or as Michael Moorcock prefers, a 'steam opera') novella next month. In the meantime, as noted in recent postings I have been listening to a lot more mainstream pop music and critiquing some of it as I have been going. Perhaps it is my age, but some of it seems very silly. There is strong music around and possibly as a reaction to rap music in rock seems to be having a revival. Muse, Green Day, The Kings of Leon, The Lost Prophets all seem to have become mainstream even though some of their songs are challengingly about sex and politics. The 1980s revival is patchy but provides a bit of variety to another slew of talent show winners and losers, especially solo female artists, though even Alexandra Burke seems to have adopted a rockier approach to dance music and it has given her a No. 1, with something a bit better than another Whitney Houstonesque power song.
Anyway, my focus in this posting is none of these, but a man who is very difficult to categorise. Wikipedia lists him as performing 'r&b and acid jazz' which is a rather eclectic mix. Of course, r&b, these days bears very little similarity to 'rhythmn and blues' of say the 1960s and is really more about rap music with less rap. There is a clear identification between r&b and black American culture so it has become a catch-all. The references to getting rich and having lots of sex, to some extent can be related back to such sentiments in soul music of old, though sheared of any real heart and certainly any real tension or trauma. In addition, the female perspective is generally missing from r&b in a way it was not from many soul songs.
I think this is what really struck me when I came across 'Red' by Daniel Merriweather. To British listeners his name makes him sound like a folk singer from Somerset and with Seth Lakeman with pop/folk crossover with 'Lady of the Sea' in the past year and Mumford & Sons more recently, you could be forgiven for thinking Merriweather was another, that is until you hear him sing. His career is interesting, he is in fact Australian, born in Melbourne in 1982. His music has been eclectic, encompassing r&b (he supported Kanye West on tour) and some rap on his records (not by him), yet he appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2008. He has done a lot of work with producer Mark Ronson who in himself is difficult to categorise musically but whose greatest hit in the UK has probably been Amy Whitehouse's cover of 'Valerie'. Merriweather sung on Ronson's version of 'Stop Me If You've Heard This Before' (originally by The Smiths) which is an incredibly camp song, though even there Merriweather provides the heartache in his singing especially in the line 'I love you only slightly less than I used to'.
'Red' really showed off Merriweather's talents and added another element to his musical persona. As with many white male singers with a rich voice, I assumed he was black before I saw the video. In fact he is a rather baby-faced (though also scarred) man who looks like a rockabilly, the clothes he wears makes you think he just stepped out of a pick-up truck somewhere in Kentucky. He does look like he is on the verge of tears at time, but the emotion he conveys in his singing comes over as authentic. 'Red' is almost a song about torture, seemingly about a man whose female partner is suffering depression or some kind of mental breakdown and he is at his wit's end trying to work out how to deal with this and also how to help her recover. It is not a theme for an r&b scantily-clad women dancing round the pool video, and naturally the video is dark, simple but powerful. Merriweather shows his vocal range and really packs power into his singing. You really feel he is working for his pay in a way that Tinchy Strider, for example, as yet, has never done. 'Red' got into the top 10 in the UK charts, despite being very different to a lot of other tracks around at the time and I think will endure as a song.
In seeking my own categorisation for Merriweather's song, I came back to The Rolling Stones, not the bloated stadia-filling performers of now, but them pre-1973. A lot of early Rolling Stones is original rhythmn and blues covers of US performers with a style that you could believe you were hearing them performing live in a bar. In line with issues of the 1960s a number of the songs they released in 1966 are about mental health, especially '19th Nervous Breakdown' (1966), 'Mother's Little Helper' (about tranquilisers - 1966), 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?' (1966) and, of course, 'Paint It Black' (1966). Other melancholic tracks include 'Heart of Stone' (1964) and 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' (1969). They have more positive songs, and that soul-influenced references to sex, as in 'Let's Spend the Night Together' (1967). By the 1970s they had moved away from the introspective material (I suppose you can even put 'Get Off of My Cloud' (1965) in there even though it is a forceful tune) to make more explicitly rocky and positive songs.
I feel what runs through both 'Red' and this Rolling Stones material is a blues baseline. After all, blues is about unhappiness and the burdens of life. It is music that is about resilience despite all those challenges. Rhythmn and blues moves it on, gives it a more popular musical setting, more accessible to the average listener, but it does not tear away the blues sentiment in the way that contemporary r&b seems to have done entirely (though even then occasionally as with 'I'll Be Missing You' (1997) by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans it does remember you can have a heart and that song stays just the right side of being schmaltzy). I doubt Merriweather and 'Red' will spark off blues flowing into current popular music, but it is nice to have heard a strong performer and hear a song which is about something more than how many women the singer can sleep with or how big his car is.
Anyway, my focus in this posting is none of these, but a man who is very difficult to categorise. Wikipedia lists him as performing 'r&b and acid jazz' which is a rather eclectic mix. Of course, r&b, these days bears very little similarity to 'rhythmn and blues' of say the 1960s and is really more about rap music with less rap. There is a clear identification between r&b and black American culture so it has become a catch-all. The references to getting rich and having lots of sex, to some extent can be related back to such sentiments in soul music of old, though sheared of any real heart and certainly any real tension or trauma. In addition, the female perspective is generally missing from r&b in a way it was not from many soul songs.
I think this is what really struck me when I came across 'Red' by Daniel Merriweather. To British listeners his name makes him sound like a folk singer from Somerset and with Seth Lakeman with pop/folk crossover with 'Lady of the Sea' in the past year and Mumford & Sons more recently, you could be forgiven for thinking Merriweather was another, that is until you hear him sing. His career is interesting, he is in fact Australian, born in Melbourne in 1982. His music has been eclectic, encompassing r&b (he supported Kanye West on tour) and some rap on his records (not by him), yet he appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2008. He has done a lot of work with producer Mark Ronson who in himself is difficult to categorise musically but whose greatest hit in the UK has probably been Amy Whitehouse's cover of 'Valerie'. Merriweather sung on Ronson's version of 'Stop Me If You've Heard This Before' (originally by The Smiths) which is an incredibly camp song, though even there Merriweather provides the heartache in his singing especially in the line 'I love you only slightly less than I used to'.
'Red' really showed off Merriweather's talents and added another element to his musical persona. As with many white male singers with a rich voice, I assumed he was black before I saw the video. In fact he is a rather baby-faced (though also scarred) man who looks like a rockabilly, the clothes he wears makes you think he just stepped out of a pick-up truck somewhere in Kentucky. He does look like he is on the verge of tears at time, but the emotion he conveys in his singing comes over as authentic. 'Red' is almost a song about torture, seemingly about a man whose female partner is suffering depression or some kind of mental breakdown and he is at his wit's end trying to work out how to deal with this and also how to help her recover. It is not a theme for an r&b scantily-clad women dancing round the pool video, and naturally the video is dark, simple but powerful. Merriweather shows his vocal range and really packs power into his singing. You really feel he is working for his pay in a way that Tinchy Strider, for example, as yet, has never done. 'Red' got into the top 10 in the UK charts, despite being very different to a lot of other tracks around at the time and I think will endure as a song.
In seeking my own categorisation for Merriweather's song, I came back to The Rolling Stones, not the bloated stadia-filling performers of now, but them pre-1973. A lot of early Rolling Stones is original rhythmn and blues covers of US performers with a style that you could believe you were hearing them performing live in a bar. In line with issues of the 1960s a number of the songs they released in 1966 are about mental health, especially '19th Nervous Breakdown' (1966), 'Mother's Little Helper' (about tranquilisers - 1966), 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?' (1966) and, of course, 'Paint It Black' (1966). Other melancholic tracks include 'Heart of Stone' (1964) and 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' (1969). They have more positive songs, and that soul-influenced references to sex, as in 'Let's Spend the Night Together' (1967). By the 1970s they had moved away from the introspective material (I suppose you can even put 'Get Off of My Cloud' (1965) in there even though it is a forceful tune) to make more explicitly rocky and positive songs.
I feel what runs through both 'Red' and this Rolling Stones material is a blues baseline. After all, blues is about unhappiness and the burdens of life. It is music that is about resilience despite all those challenges. Rhythmn and blues moves it on, gives it a more popular musical setting, more accessible to the average listener, but it does not tear away the blues sentiment in the way that contemporary r&b seems to have done entirely (though even then occasionally as with 'I'll Be Missing You' (1997) by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans it does remember you can have a heart and that song stays just the right side of being schmaltzy). I doubt Merriweather and 'Red' will spark off blues flowing into current popular music, but it is nice to have heard a strong performer and hear a song which is about something more than how many women the singer can sleep with or how big his car is.
Monday, 19 October 2009
The Block Warden Arrives
None of this is original research, it is something which I read in 'The Guardian' newspaper, but seems to mesh with the developments I have been reading about from different sources ever since Tony Blair came to power in 1997 and particularly since 2001. As we all know, the terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists against the USA in September 2001, unlike previous such attacks, allowed the government of George W. Bush to adopt a policy they termed the 'War on Terror'. Elements of this included supposed justification for the invasion of Afghanistan and of Iraq by US-led alliances and the introduction of authoritarian domestic legislation in the USA and many of its allied states which have severely reduced the civil liberties of citizens of those countries as well as foreigners. Consequently in the 2000s we have seen a ramping up in the use of torture and detainment without charge or trial particularly by the USA and the UK, notably in collaboration with Pakistan. I have written before about how house arrest and 28 days' detention without charge, which in the past would have been totally unacceptable in the UK have become to be seen as the norm, and in fact, by some, as mild measures. Fortunately, the change in government in the USA and the work of the independent judiciary reviewing such steps in the UK has begun rolling back such policies, at least a little.
What is interesting is another element that has come to light in the UK about steps to target those people who are seen as being 'at risk' of becoming extremists, notably males with origins in South Asia. These are seen as the easy representation of Islamist terrorism and such attitudes have helped fuel racist groups and attitudes in the UK. Back in October 2006 and again in November 2008, university lecturers were encouraged to monitor Muslim students and report to the security services if they saw behaviour that was felt to indicate these students were becoming extremist: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/16/highereducation.topstories3 and
http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5087-lecturers-asked-to-spy-on-foreign-students-again Unsurprisingly, given that universities pride themselves on their autonomy and welcoming people from across the world, notably from countries where they face oppression, they were not happy to be told to adopt this spying role: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7774949.stm
Parallel to these high profile developments in universities it seems less apparent has been the development of such monitoring at community level. The 'Prevent Violent Extremism' programme, termed 'Prevent' launched in 2006, has received £140 million (€152 million; US$228 million) has aimed at targeting these 'at risk' Muslims, and using language borrowed from the Communist Chinese dictatorship, 'deprogrammed'. As with the university lecturers, the government has set out to recruit community group leaders and workers to being their surveillance force. Those who have expressed a reluctance to do the government's spying have been terrified that they will lose their jobs or face threats from the police and security services themselves. It is becoming apparent that some college teachers are collaborating with the authorities in reporting 'suspects'. However, others are being pressured such as a mental health project in the Midlands and various youth projects across the country. The project is run by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism and its head, Charles Farr and local leaders of the scheme, are former intelligence officers. The youngest suspect was aged 9 and he was sent for deprogramming.
'Deprogramming' is a term, which in English, is usually associated with helping people who have been rescued from cults to allow them to have a more normal perspective on society and people around them. It is a common way of translating what used to be termed 're-education' in China under Chairman Mao, punishing those, usually with imprisonment and hard labour, who were seen to hold views different from the state or came from a social class that was deemed to be a threat to the state. 'Re-education camps', which still exist in China, most of us would see as being identical to concentration camps (as opposed to extermination camps) of the Nazi German design. 'Deprogramming' is probably a correct term to use, but if this is being imposed on a 9-year old, one has to see it as being very severe. In the UK children do not even have criminal responsibility until the age of 10, one of the lowest ages in the world. So, can a 9-year old even be an 'extremist'? I was speaking to a 7-year old recently who was talking about chopping up girls and eating them, should he simply see a child psychologist or is he a genuine threat to the security of the country? If a child espouses fundamental Christian views and wants people struck down for stealing or coveting their neighbour's wife is he a potential terrorist? If he espouses the Five Pillars of Islam it seems he is much more likely to be seen as one.
Of course, a lot of this, trying to predict future crime, sounds very like something out of a science fiction novel or movie, in particular 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' (1948) in which dissidents are tortured and terrified into accepting without question, the totalitarian regime they are living under. The science fiction nature of this scary policy continues when you read quotations from Ed Husain, head of the Quilliam Foundation (which has received £700,000 from the Prevent fund), believes it is morally right to stop people committing terrorist offences before they occur. This is naturally the role of security services. However, there is a difference between stopping some conspirators who are sitting around assembling bomb making equipment and stopping someone, a child even, who perhaps might some many years into the future think about carrying out terrorist activity. No-one has used the term 'thought police' (from thinkpol in 'Nineteen Eight-Four') in the popular media for many years, but it is effectively what we are now moving towards. Other science fiction that we seem to be basing policing policies on includes 'Minority Report' (novel 1956; movie 2002) in which people with psychic powers are used by the police to predict crimes before they happen and in 'A Philosophical Investigation' (1992) by Philip Kerr in which scientists try to predict which men are going to commit violent crime by studying the lay out of their brains.
The key issue is that the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' has gone. The principle of 'innocent until plans/commits a crime' has gone. In its place is 'innocent until someone believes that sometime in the future you may commit a crime'. There seems to be no monitoring of the quality of the assumptions about these 'potential' extremists, not even some pseudo-scientific explanation that people with a particular physiology or in specific circumstances are far more certain to commit a crime in the future. It is just a case of someone reporting someone else. As someone who has worked in different parts of the civil service, I know people are being reported on a daily basis. Every mail sack arriving at every job centre or tax office, every working day, has letters reporting people in it. The bulk of these are simply the disgruntled taking it out on the people they do not like the look of, or simply just a random person so they can make themselves appear more important.
Most of the public forgets that the authorities generally have a good idea on what people to target based on a mix of their own experience and own prejudices, generally they do not need help from the public. What involving the public is about, is developing an air of paranoia which helps foster compliance among them, so they do not complain when they have to undress, have their luggage opened in their absence or are searched repeatedly at an airport or when public transport is closed or the road blocks are put up. Paranoia in the UK tends to fade quicker than it does in the USA. I think because the British have faced far more real threats in their recent history than the Americans ever have. We have develop an awareness of genuine and falsified threat and have a natural scepticism which seems less common among Americans, but perhaps, more common among, say, the French, Germans, Spanish and Italians.
Simply thinking about a crime let alone having some vague resentment towards the government, should not be a crime, otherwise they will have to ban all crime novels and series and prevent anyone complaining about the service they receive from the government. Of course, that might be on the cards. What Prevent has helped do, is divide the very communities that policies following the Bradford and Oldham riots of 2001 were supposed to be assisting. It is pressurising more and more public servants in an insidious way to spy for the state.
The Prevent approach also blinkers people. The assumption that young Asian males from particular districts (Prevent currently only works with 82 councils; rising to 94 next year) are the only threat leads lots of 'blind spots' neglecting other threats and terrorism from different groups like the far right and Irish terror groups. That is if you believe, as the government seems to, that extremism leading to terrorism is so pervasive in our society. In the UK, partly due to public apathy, extremist views have never been popular. Even in states like Libya, Syria or Saudi Arabia, Islamist extremists are a small minority.
Of course, security services like to be well funded, so if to get more cash they have to adopt an approach of trying to be pre-emptive and in someone's view stop scores of young people coming terrorists, they are going to go with it, even if they have little faith in the approach. The UK government has got so wrapped up in the Bush myths that it cannot see straight. If terrorism is so widespread why did the UK never face a war over Ireland with the large Irish (869,000 of the UK population were born in Ireland; 6 million have Irish ancestry compared to 1.6 million Muslims) population here? Why was there not extreme left-wing terrorism in the UK in the 1970s when there was in Italy and West Germany? Why was there no neo-Nazi terrorism in the late 1970s? I suppose they would argue that somehow South Asian and/or Muslim young people have different 'mental wiring' to Irish or other white people, but that is not based on any scientific fact at all or the fact that many Muslim states, though facing incidents as the UK has faced, have also not had massive terrorist activity in the way the Prevent method envisages it coming.
I titled this section 'The Block Warden Arrives'. This refers to the role in Germany during the Nazi period (1933-45) though similar positions were used in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-74) and in Argentina (1976-83). A block warden is a representative of the dominant party/state regime who in Germany oversaw around 40-60 houses and not only spreads propaganda in favour of the regime but monitors that his/her neighbours are complying with the regime's wishes, not simply passively but in an active way. Anyone, in the individual's judgement, who is not complying or without insufficient vigour or that the block warden simply dislikes, is arrested by the secret police and imprisoned/tortured/killed. The example from Argentina which brought the term 'the disappeared' to the world, is probably the model most likely to be adopted in the UK. Most simply people would disappear usually for long-term imprisonment or execution without their families ever knowing what happened to them.
What we are seeing in the UK at present with people reporting Asian neighbours plus the government trying to compel community workers to spy for them is a back door introduction of the block warden approach. Once in a while they may catch someone who is a real threat, but recent evidence shows that even the security services with their high tech equipment have arrested innocent people. Such powers are quickly abused especially by small-minded people who see their personal quirks as issues of national security, so people will be put under suspicion, not because they have any genuine terrorist sympathies but because some neighbour simply dislikes them or they parked in 'their' slot or their children were noisy or something. Such an approach actually wastes the time of the police and security services and creates so much 'traffic' of denunciation and counter-denunciation that it provides good cover for genuine criminals and even terrorists, though of course, their numbers are in fact tiny.
It is clear that more and more British people, often those very individuals who have been working hard to keep their communities in a fit state, are being compelled to work for what is increasingly a state machine aiming to police people's thinking. These people are often reluctant but history has always shown us there are always the 'little Hitlers' who relish such roles and you can imagine the bullyboys of the English Defence League queuing up to become these monitors in their neighbourhoods. I have noted before how local authorities have been abusing anti-terrorist laws to carry out their own agendas often in punishing people for violating (or for being suspected, however wrongly, of trying to violate) local regulations. The Prevent approach is simply giving them yet more abilities for them and even simple members of the public with which to beat the people they do not like in their neighbourhood.
What is interesting is another element that has come to light in the UK about steps to target those people who are seen as being 'at risk' of becoming extremists, notably males with origins in South Asia. These are seen as the easy representation of Islamist terrorism and such attitudes have helped fuel racist groups and attitudes in the UK. Back in October 2006 and again in November 2008, university lecturers were encouraged to monitor Muslim students and report to the security services if they saw behaviour that was felt to indicate these students were becoming extremist: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/16/highereducation.topstories3 and
http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5087-lecturers-asked-to-spy-on-foreign-students-again Unsurprisingly, given that universities pride themselves on their autonomy and welcoming people from across the world, notably from countries where they face oppression, they were not happy to be told to adopt this spying role: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7774949.stm
Parallel to these high profile developments in universities it seems less apparent has been the development of such monitoring at community level. The 'Prevent Violent Extremism' programme, termed 'Prevent' launched in 2006, has received £140 million (€152 million; US$228 million) has aimed at targeting these 'at risk' Muslims, and using language borrowed from the Communist Chinese dictatorship, 'deprogrammed'. As with the university lecturers, the government has set out to recruit community group leaders and workers to being their surveillance force. Those who have expressed a reluctance to do the government's spying have been terrified that they will lose their jobs or face threats from the police and security services themselves. It is becoming apparent that some college teachers are collaborating with the authorities in reporting 'suspects'. However, others are being pressured such as a mental health project in the Midlands and various youth projects across the country. The project is run by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism and its head, Charles Farr and local leaders of the scheme, are former intelligence officers. The youngest suspect was aged 9 and he was sent for deprogramming.
'Deprogramming' is a term, which in English, is usually associated with helping people who have been rescued from cults to allow them to have a more normal perspective on society and people around them. It is a common way of translating what used to be termed 're-education' in China under Chairman Mao, punishing those, usually with imprisonment and hard labour, who were seen to hold views different from the state or came from a social class that was deemed to be a threat to the state. 'Re-education camps', which still exist in China, most of us would see as being identical to concentration camps (as opposed to extermination camps) of the Nazi German design. 'Deprogramming' is probably a correct term to use, but if this is being imposed on a 9-year old, one has to see it as being very severe. In the UK children do not even have criminal responsibility until the age of 10, one of the lowest ages in the world. So, can a 9-year old even be an 'extremist'? I was speaking to a 7-year old recently who was talking about chopping up girls and eating them, should he simply see a child psychologist or is he a genuine threat to the security of the country? If a child espouses fundamental Christian views and wants people struck down for stealing or coveting their neighbour's wife is he a potential terrorist? If he espouses the Five Pillars of Islam it seems he is much more likely to be seen as one.
Of course, a lot of this, trying to predict future crime, sounds very like something out of a science fiction novel or movie, in particular 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' (1948) in which dissidents are tortured and terrified into accepting without question, the totalitarian regime they are living under. The science fiction nature of this scary policy continues when you read quotations from Ed Husain, head of the Quilliam Foundation (which has received £700,000 from the Prevent fund), believes it is morally right to stop people committing terrorist offences before they occur. This is naturally the role of security services. However, there is a difference between stopping some conspirators who are sitting around assembling bomb making equipment and stopping someone, a child even, who perhaps might some many years into the future think about carrying out terrorist activity. No-one has used the term 'thought police' (from thinkpol in 'Nineteen Eight-Four') in the popular media for many years, but it is effectively what we are now moving towards. Other science fiction that we seem to be basing policing policies on includes 'Minority Report' (novel 1956; movie 2002) in which people with psychic powers are used by the police to predict crimes before they happen and in 'A Philosophical Investigation' (1992) by Philip Kerr in which scientists try to predict which men are going to commit violent crime by studying the lay out of their brains.
The key issue is that the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' has gone. The principle of 'innocent until plans/commits a crime' has gone. In its place is 'innocent until someone believes that sometime in the future you may commit a crime'. There seems to be no monitoring of the quality of the assumptions about these 'potential' extremists, not even some pseudo-scientific explanation that people with a particular physiology or in specific circumstances are far more certain to commit a crime in the future. It is just a case of someone reporting someone else. As someone who has worked in different parts of the civil service, I know people are being reported on a daily basis. Every mail sack arriving at every job centre or tax office, every working day, has letters reporting people in it. The bulk of these are simply the disgruntled taking it out on the people they do not like the look of, or simply just a random person so they can make themselves appear more important.
Most of the public forgets that the authorities generally have a good idea on what people to target based on a mix of their own experience and own prejudices, generally they do not need help from the public. What involving the public is about, is developing an air of paranoia which helps foster compliance among them, so they do not complain when they have to undress, have their luggage opened in their absence or are searched repeatedly at an airport or when public transport is closed or the road blocks are put up. Paranoia in the UK tends to fade quicker than it does in the USA. I think because the British have faced far more real threats in their recent history than the Americans ever have. We have develop an awareness of genuine and falsified threat and have a natural scepticism which seems less common among Americans, but perhaps, more common among, say, the French, Germans, Spanish and Italians.
Simply thinking about a crime let alone having some vague resentment towards the government, should not be a crime, otherwise they will have to ban all crime novels and series and prevent anyone complaining about the service they receive from the government. Of course, that might be on the cards. What Prevent has helped do, is divide the very communities that policies following the Bradford and Oldham riots of 2001 were supposed to be assisting. It is pressurising more and more public servants in an insidious way to spy for the state.
The Prevent approach also blinkers people. The assumption that young Asian males from particular districts (Prevent currently only works with 82 councils; rising to 94 next year) are the only threat leads lots of 'blind spots' neglecting other threats and terrorism from different groups like the far right and Irish terror groups. That is if you believe, as the government seems to, that extremism leading to terrorism is so pervasive in our society. In the UK, partly due to public apathy, extremist views have never been popular. Even in states like Libya, Syria or Saudi Arabia, Islamist extremists are a small minority.
Of course, security services like to be well funded, so if to get more cash they have to adopt an approach of trying to be pre-emptive and in someone's view stop scores of young people coming terrorists, they are going to go with it, even if they have little faith in the approach. The UK government has got so wrapped up in the Bush myths that it cannot see straight. If terrorism is so widespread why did the UK never face a war over Ireland with the large Irish (869,000 of the UK population were born in Ireland; 6 million have Irish ancestry compared to 1.6 million Muslims) population here? Why was there not extreme left-wing terrorism in the UK in the 1970s when there was in Italy and West Germany? Why was there no neo-Nazi terrorism in the late 1970s? I suppose they would argue that somehow South Asian and/or Muslim young people have different 'mental wiring' to Irish or other white people, but that is not based on any scientific fact at all or the fact that many Muslim states, though facing incidents as the UK has faced, have also not had massive terrorist activity in the way the Prevent method envisages it coming.
I titled this section 'The Block Warden Arrives'. This refers to the role in Germany during the Nazi period (1933-45) though similar positions were used in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-74) and in Argentina (1976-83). A block warden is a representative of the dominant party/state regime who in Germany oversaw around 40-60 houses and not only spreads propaganda in favour of the regime but monitors that his/her neighbours are complying with the regime's wishes, not simply passively but in an active way. Anyone, in the individual's judgement, who is not complying or without insufficient vigour or that the block warden simply dislikes, is arrested by the secret police and imprisoned/tortured/killed. The example from Argentina which brought the term 'the disappeared' to the world, is probably the model most likely to be adopted in the UK. Most simply people would disappear usually for long-term imprisonment or execution without their families ever knowing what happened to them.
What we are seeing in the UK at present with people reporting Asian neighbours plus the government trying to compel community workers to spy for them is a back door introduction of the block warden approach. Once in a while they may catch someone who is a real threat, but recent evidence shows that even the security services with their high tech equipment have arrested innocent people. Such powers are quickly abused especially by small-minded people who see their personal quirks as issues of national security, so people will be put under suspicion, not because they have any genuine terrorist sympathies but because some neighbour simply dislikes them or they parked in 'their' slot or their children were noisy or something. Such an approach actually wastes the time of the police and security services and creates so much 'traffic' of denunciation and counter-denunciation that it provides good cover for genuine criminals and even terrorists, though of course, their numbers are in fact tiny.
It is clear that more and more British people, often those very individuals who have been working hard to keep their communities in a fit state, are being compelled to work for what is increasingly a state machine aiming to police people's thinking. These people are often reluctant but history has always shown us there are always the 'little Hitlers' who relish such roles and you can imagine the bullyboys of the English Defence League queuing up to become these monitors in their neighbourhoods. I have noted before how local authorities have been abusing anti-terrorist laws to carry out their own agendas often in punishing people for violating (or for being suspected, however wrongly, of trying to violate) local regulations. The Prevent approach is simply giving them yet more abilities for them and even simple members of the public with which to beat the people they do not like in their neighbourhood.
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