“The time has come for the peers to go”. This was the call from a variety of critics this week as they responded to the scandal of another peer of the realm being caught with his pants down and his nose in it – literally this time! The twist in the tail was that the aforesaid member of the House of Lords has been responsible for enforcing standards in the Upper chamber.
The scandal surrounding Lord Sewel gave rise to more general condemnation of the House of Lords. Most critics agreed with the view that the House of Lords is too expensive (783 unelected peers cost taxpayers £100 million a year), but also lamented the fact that we can’t get rid of the Upper chamber regardless of what is done by its members.
Probably the quote of the week goes to the journalist and television commentator Kevin Maguire: “Lord Sewel of Orange Bra is a symbol of an utterly corrupt political system. But the prostitute-paying, cocaine-snorting peer inadvertently does democracy a favour by exposing the injustice of the House of Cronies. A medieval anachronism, it is (the House of Lords) an unaccountable palace of patronage.”
In a rare show of unity, all four candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party were unanimous in supporting reform, at the very least, of the House of Lords and, to take reform to its logical conclusion, the abolition of the second chamber in its present form. It would seem to this writer that a “shake-up of the system” is an insufficient response to what is slowly but surely becoming a crisis within one of the British government’s central pillars.
The facts pertaining to the House of Lords render its continuing existence as a severe anomaly to governance in this country. The following are a sample of these anomalies:
* The House of Lords is the second largest legislative chamber in the world (China being at the top and also without democratically elected representation);
* the cost to the exchequer of maintaining this second chamber is an excessive £100m per annum (allowing members to sign-in and sign-out half an hour later and pocket £300 for the privilege of doing so);
* admittance to the House of Lords is by selection (not election), largely owing to prime ministerial patronage, with the result that there is an over-representation of former members of the House of Commons, lawyers and big business donors – chiefly to the Conservative Party (there are few representatives from the trades unions).
The House of Lords is both top-heavy and too heavy, with David Cameron poised to add at least another 50 peers to the assembly (courtesy of the equally outmoded post-election honours list and from which, at the very least, the matter of a peerage should be totally separate).
So too, membership of the second chamber is discriminatory. Apart from the previously-mentioned generally narrow categories of those considered the “good and the great” in British society, bishops of the Church of England have automatic seats in the House.
At a time when the UK markets itself as a multi-cultural and multi-faith society, it is a gross exhibition of religious discrimination to maintain the presence of a state church in the governmental system (at present there are 26 bishops in the House of Lords). The fact that this state church has an unelected monarch as its head is a further indictment of its suitability to participate in secular national governance.
This also takes no account of the equally outrageous and anachronistic title given to the British government of the day as “Her Majesty’s Government”. The British people are citizens of a nation and not the subjects of a monarch – the same monarch who presides as the head of the Church of England!
So too, what is there to suggest that, in a democracy, Anglican bishops are any more worthy of governing than the clergy of other Christian denominations or non-Christian faiths? Indeed, what is it that makes clergy-persons of any religious denomination or faith more worthy of taking part in a non-elected governing body than any other profession or trade?
The time has long gone, or surely should have, where the UK tolerates any theocratic elements in its governing institutions.
A campaigner for the Electoral Reform Society, Darren Hughes, in commenting on the scandal presently occupying the House of Lords (see above), said: “Every year there are stories like this about our Upper House and every time the need for reform becomes more pressing. The idea peers can totally lose the public’s confidence and never be held to account is bewildering to most people. We can only get real accountability through an elected chamber, not through the cosy arrangements that exist now.”
What is surprising is that there is apparently no House of Lords rule stating how the chamber can be brought into disrepute. This is astonishing. Perhaps it is an indication of the hubris of peers and a sign of the cosy comfort that membership of the upper House can bring.
No doubt, there are some members of the House of Lords who regard their membership as an honour and who strive with the utmost effort and honesty to take their responsibilities seriously. Integrity and hard work, however, are qualities to be seen elsewhere than parliament and are not, in themselves, guarantors of appropriate governance in 21st century Britain.
It would seem that the life style of those in the House of Lords is aided and abetted by restaurants, cafes and bars that receive £1.3m a year from the public purse. What is also of note and of concern to many is that, according to figures released last year, the average peer is aged 70, compared to the UK average age of 38 for men and 40 for women. Further, only two peers were under the age of 40, but 29 members are already aged 90. Furthermore, only 25% of the 783 peers are women.
Wisdom is not the prerogative of age or gender.
For many outside of the British parliament, even outside of the UK, the existence of the House of Lords borders on the absurd and the ridiculous. The ermine mimics the pantomime. This being the case, it would appear that reform of the institution is pointless. What is required is its total abolition and replacement with a democratically constituted and elected assembly.
What is appropriate for other modern democracies, for example, Australia, the USA, Canada and many of our European neighbours, is surely appropriate for contemporary Britain. We are no longer the last word in democracy – sad, but all too true.
RSC
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Tagged abolition, anachronistic, discrimination, House of Lords, legislative chamber, multi-cultural, multi-faith, pantomime, patronage, peerage, reform, scandal, theocratic, unaccountable, unelected, wisdom
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“For all the issues Republic campaigns on our focus has never wavered. Our mission is simple: to achieve the abolition of the British monarchy in favour of a democratic republic. That’s a tall order, a tough challenge and there are no quick fixes or silver bullets that will get the monarchy abolished next week or next year. Yet Republic remains as committed as ever to achieving that goal as soon as possible. I believe we can do it a lot quicker than most observers might assume.”
These were the words of Graham Smith, the CEO of the Republic movement, as he addressed Republic’s members prior to their annual conference last week. The conference was held in Stokes Croft, a fascinating urban area of Bristol. The conference theme, as might be anticipated from the above quotation, was “Growing to win”.
Republic campaigns for an elected head of state and an end to any political role, or state funding, for the royal family. The movement proposes replacing the monarchy with a directly elected, largely ceremonial head of state.
In a publication called “Royal secrets must end”, it is shown that the governing principle of democracy is at the very heart of the movement’s thinking and acting. “Hereditary public office goes against every democratic principle. And because we can’t hold the Queen and her family to account at the ballot box, there’s nothing to stop them abusing their privilege, misusing their influence or simply wasting our money. Meanwhile, the monarchy gives vast arbitrary power to the government, shutting voters out from major decisions affecting the national interest.”
It is the view of Republic that “the monarchy is a broken institution. A head of state that’s chosen by us could really represent our hopes and aspirations – and keep politicians in check.”
With a membership of over 35,000 republicans from across the political spectrum (30% of whom have joined within the last six months), everything that Republic does is aimed at raising the level of debate about the monarchy and persuading British people to support the movement. Republicans are active in numerous areas – representing republicans in the media, protesting at royal events, exposing royal corruption and putting pressure on politicians. The annual conference is just one of a lively programme of events that seeks to spread the republican word as wide as possible.
With the concern for democracy being at the very centre of Republic’s life and activities, it comes as no surprise that this year’s annual conference had a particular focus on this matter. A special feature of the conference programme was the group discussion that took place on a set of six questions appropriate to the subject. The discussion topics included the following:
1. How would a republic work better than what we’ve got?
2. What would be the social and cultural impact of being a republic?
3. What would be the political impact of moving to a republic?
4. Why is a republic a good thing?
5. Is getting rid of the monarchy enough?
6. What is so great about democracy?
There are linkages between some of the above questions. However, as a package they have a clear concern for the impact a republic would have on the life of the UK and, indeed, wider.
The questions themselves demand critical thinking about the nature and role of monarchy in a truly democratic society, as well as a thorough appreciation of the democratic system of governance – upon what is democracy based and what exactly does it offer a nation. So too, there is a demand that the demise of the monarchy requires a mature approach to decision-making based on an understanding of our nation’s history and the changing nature, role and context of historical institutions, for example, the Church of England.
The campaigns and conferences of Republic are supported by a growing list of publications. The following is a selection of the available pamphlets:
1. Monarchy must go – a campaign for a democratic alternative to monarchy.
2. Royal secrets must end – the secrecy surrounding the institutional machinations of monarchy.
3. Royal expenses-£334m per year – counting the real cost of the monarchy.
Each of these pamphlets focuses on various aspects of particular issues, but overall they seek to inform the public about issues, many of them controversial, involving the royal family.
These issues include: the fact that royalty is shrouded in secrecy and beyond the reach of freedom of information laws; the power the monarchy gives to politicians to declare war, sign treaties and change the law (all without parliamentary scrutiny) and the influence on government as a result of lobbying by royals; the substantial hidden costs of maintaining a monarchy (a fact admitted even by such a royalist newspaper as The Daily Telegraph) and the lack of public accountability for these costs; the myth of the boost to tourism that the monarchy provides.
Republic seeks to raise the level of understanding and debate – and hopefully decision – about the above and other matters relating to the British monarchy and its place, or otherwise, in a 21st century UK democracy.
Republic is a movement that is making an impression on the imagination of the British public.
Republic has shown that it has a voice to be listened to; a content to be argued; and a context that is very much at home within contemporary Britain as, through its various campaigns, it seeks to “grow to win”.
For those who are members of the Republic movement it is axiomatic that “Britain deserves better than to be lumbered with such a secretive, self-serving institution that stands so firmly against all our best instincts and values”.
Let the last word belong to Graham Smith: “I know we can and will win this campaign. I know also why it’s so important we do succeed – I don’t need to tell you that! The monarchy is a core part of Britain’s ailing political system, it is clearly wrong in principle and bad for British politics, and it is simply not fit for purpose”.
RSC
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Tagged British, campaign, democracy, freedom of information, head of state, history, institutions, monarchy, public accountability, republicanism, royalty, secrecy, society
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In his Easter message this year, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that the UK was “still a Christian country”.
As he was saying this, a National Secular Society posting for Wednesday, 8 April, 2015, was publishing the finding of a YouGov poll in the run-up to Easter. In its latest poll on religion and belief, YouGov found an overwhelming lack of religion in the UK.
The YouGov poll found that 62% of Britons described themselves as “not religious”, compared to just over a third who said they were. Of the latter, 68% said that religion was “not important” to them. So despite just over a third of Britons claiming they were religious, less than a third of these said that religion was “important” to them.
As found in previous polling and research, younger Britons were more likely to say that they were not religious compared with those aged over sixty. 68% of 18 to 24 year olds said they were not a practising member of a religion, compared with 59% of the over 60s. Likewise, only 31% of 18 to 24s said they were practising members of a faith group, eight points lower than the 39% of over 60s who said the same.72% of 18 to 24 year olds said religion was “not important” to their life.
Since 2013, when identical questions were asked, the total number of people saying religion was not important to them rose by two points, whilst the corresponding figure of people saying religion was important dropped from 31% in 2013 to only 29% today.
The above statistics prompted Clive Field, writing in the British Religion in Numbers blog, to comment that “when comparing this polling from identical questions asked in 2013, it is noticeable that, for all the indicators, the movement is in the direction of the least religious position.”
He further elaborated that, as with the decline in a belief in God, there has been a similar falling in the number of those who believe in a “spiritual higher power”. 35% said they believed in God, with 20% saying they believed in a “spiritual higher power” and 34% of the general public said they believed in neither. Field also re-iterated the YouGov poll that belief in God showed another sharp difference between younger and older demographic groups.
It is important to recognise that the foregoing statistics do not differentiate between religious faiths in the UK. However, keeping in mind that David Cameron’s opinion was broadcast at Easter this year, it would suggest that Easter, with its Christian connotations, was an important time for the British. The YouGov poll figures do not sustain this view.
The YouGov figures showed that Easter was devoid of religious meaning for most Britons, with only 13% saying that religion was the “most important part of Easter.” Among under-24s this figure was just 8%. Church attendance over Easter has declined as well, with 83% saying they were not intending to attend church over the Easter weekend. This is four points higher than when that same question was asked in 2013.
Belief in the key tenet of Easter – the resurrection of Jesus – has also fallen, with 50% saying Jesus did “not come back to life after crucifixion.” The under 24 generation, again, were far more likely to not believe than those aged over 60. 63% of 18 to 24 year olds said the resurrection did not happen.
Despite this, David Cameron in his Easter message said that “we should feel proud to say, ‘this is a Christian country.’” Moreover, as if to add insult to injury, the Prime Minister repeated that whilst the UK “welcomes and accepts all faiths and none”, Britain was “still a Christian country”.
The Prime Minister praised Christians for living out their religious beliefs in faith schools, as if faith schools were established for and provided incontestable evidence for the children and young people of those schools actually being committed Christians and living-out their Christian faith in and through them. Notwithstanding, these comments of Cameron’s took no account of non-Christian faith schools and the possibilities extant for British education and culture in the living-out of non-Christian faiths.
David Cameron took credit for investing “tens of millions to repair churches” and for the passage of the Local Government (Religious Etc. Observances) Act, which enables councils to hold prayers in their official meetings (with, of course, Christian chaplains leading these prayers, as was the case in the recent mayoral inauguration ceremony for my local Borough Council – with Islamic councillors present).
This prompted the National Secular Society’s campaigns manager, Stephen Evans, to comment that “for a long time polling and research has shown that the UK is not a practising Christian country. Politicians sound hopelessly out-of-touch when they claim otherwise. Britain’s rapidly changing religious makeup demonstrates how inappropriate and foolhardy is it to increasingly look to religious groups to provide public services, including publicly funded education, around a third of which is now under church control.”
The findings of other polling and research organisations have generally supported those of the NSS, YouGov and blog writers such as Clive Field. One of these, the Pew Research Centre, recently published research which forecasted that by 2050 just 45% of the UK population will be Christian. However, by other measures, including the recent YouGov poll, the percentage of Christians in the UK has already fallen far below 45%.
Why, then, in the face of the evidence, do politicians and others continue to insist that the UK is “still a Christian country”? Do they mistrust the pollsters? This seems unlikely as the whole political life of politicians is dependent on recognising the findings of polls. Is it wishful thinking on their part? Perhaps it is what they want to believe as this fits-in with the narrative of their own life and belief, or, at least, what they want their public to accept about them. Or is it that those who still consider that the UK is a Christian country cannot differentiate between the philosophies and ethics by which a nation was initially and historically shaped and what is the contemporary reality?
Or is it simply that David Cameron (and others) that mouth such platonic platitudes that the UK is “still a Christian country” is just out of touch with the spiritual and cultural disposition and direction of the nation over which his political party has governance? If David Cameron is genuinely of this opinion, then perhaps the most appropriate occasion to test this proposition is with his personal behaviour during Prime Minister’s Question Time in parliament!
*****
I have no wish to defend the beheadings, suicide bombings, shootings and other atrocities being perpetrated by Islamic State. Such actions are indefensible. Yet, it is only twenty years since the Srebrenica massacre – when over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, including women and children, were slaughtered by Serbian military and Greek volunteers during the Bosnian War. These forces were ostensibly Christian. Many of the victims were discovered in mass graves and were unidentifiable – numbers of them headless. Rightly, that action at Srebrenica was branded a war crime.
Perhaps the expressions of outrage at the atrocities of ISIL by contemporary Christians, including ministers of the present British government, require some thoughtful moderating.
RSC
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Tagged atrocities, belief, chaplains, faith schools, ISIL, platitudes, polls, reality, religious faiths, Srebrenica, war crimes
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My favorite composer of classical music is Gustav Mahler. In my view, the music of Mahler, especially his symphonies, has a range of emotions and a depth of meaning possessed by no other composer. Mahler’s final completed symphony, the ninth, was written after the death of his four-year old daughter in 1907 and the simultaneous diagnosis of his own fatal heart disease.
As I write this article I am listening to the Ninth Symphony of Gustav Mahler. This symphony – outwardly traditional, yet in a musical sense, internally subversive – uses a central technique known as “anamnesis” as it builds the structure of the symphony.
Anamnesis is the process of remembering what we already know. For Plato the philosopher, it was “the process by which the soul remembered knowledge gleaned from previous incarnations”; in Christian liturgy it became “the ritual remembrance of Christ’s passion, resurrection and ascension”; in secular medicine it is “the patient’s narration of their own history” and, for Freud, “the return of the repressed to consciousness”.
So, when applied to a variety of disciplines, anamnesis is “the uncovering of the truth through a restorative process that leads to enlightenment, wisdom, healing or even salvation”. The process can also be applied to story-telling, as in theatre, film or the writing of novels, where the remembrance of things past brings justice and the resolution of conflict. It can, however, also bring further suffering. These factors – justice and the resolution of conflict, and further suffering – are the stuff of “tragedy” in literature and music.
In the above sense, the Ninth Symphony of Gustav Mahler properly deserves to be called ‘tragic’.
In the sleeve-note of my version of Mahler’s Ninth (Karajan, Berlin PO, 1982), the music critic and commentator, Arnold Whittall, says that: “From one standpoint, it is a resolution representing the defeat, or acceptance, of all the horrors revealed earlier in the work, and progressing to a peaceful ending of the most profound restraint. The other view gives greater emphasis to moods of regret, rising to outbursts of despair and sinking to abject resignation, the music of a man who knew – as Mahler did in 1909 – that he might die at any time.”
Death haunted Mahler all his life and permeates his works. Apart from his symphonies, the subject is strongly present in his song cycles, most notably The Song of the Earth and Songs on the Death of Children. The immanence of death is wordlessly present throughout the Ninth Symphony. One critic goes so far as to state that “the faltering rhythm of the opening motif mimics Mahler’s irregular heartbeat”.
The final movement of the symphony, one of my favorite movements in the whole of Mahler’s output, is an elegy and, unless I am mistaken or my memory is playing tricks with me, has a main theme which recalls the famous hymn Abide with Me. The musicologist and Jungian analyst, Sally Kester, speaks of the work’s “emotional program” and how, in its final moments, the music is to be played “as if dying away”. This sense of “farewell” may be seen as reflecting Mahler’s life history.
When Mahler left Vienna for New York in 1907, among the group of admirers who gathered to farewell him at the railway station was the symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession, Gustav Klimt. Klimt is said to have murmured as the train pulled away: ‘It’s over.’ He said more than he knew.
Humphrey Bower, a music critic with the Australian publication Daily Review stated: “The Ninth Symphony is not just Mahler’s swansong but a lament for the passing of an era, perhaps even an entire civilization. Crucial to the emotional and technical progression of the symphony as a whole is the effect of things remembered: feelings, thoughts, melodic and rhythmic fragments, musical forms and structures – both endogenous to the work itself and from other sources – which change their meaning and become transfigured by the process of memory itself.”
The evidence of anamnesis in the music of Gustav Mahler is incontrovertible. This is, perhaps, best illustrated by the anecdote (divulged by Mahler during his brief analysis with the Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud) about the composer’s childhood memory of fleeing the house during an argument between his parents and encountering an organ-grinder in the street playing a banal popular tune; or the similar experience towards the end of his life of overhearing the muffled drumbeat from a fireman’s funeral through the window of his apartment in New York. Such sounds were incorporated into his music.
Arnold Whittall described Gustav Mahler as “the great tone poet of existence and extinction in confrontation”.
I am not too sure what it was that motivated me to listen again to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Perhaps, amongst a variety of reasons, musical or otherwise, it was the surfeit of recent exposure to that other monument to existence and extinction and of things past. I speak, of course, of the war memorial.
The Family section of one weekend newspaper carried an article called “A poppy for Archie” and told the story of how, exactly 100 years to the day after her great-grandfather met his death in a first world war POW camp, Camilla Palmer and her family searched for and found his grave. The article gives a poignant account of why this expedition to the former East Germany was so important to the whole family.
The important underlying motivation for the visit to Germany by this family was that “they wanted to find Archie’s grave and say hello and goodbye in one go.” But why? Why is it that we’re so often fascinated by long-dead people we never knew? Perhaps the reason is to be found on the war memorial they visited. The words “Their Names Liveth For Evermore” were written bold on the memorial stone.
Camilla Palmer was clear as to the meaning for her of the crusade to Germany. From the moment, in September 2014, her mother had called her from “the Tower of London’s Blood Swept Land and Seas of Red installation as soon as she’d seen the red moat, the falling stream of poppies.” It’s about feeling connected to her family, both dead and alive. It could be called “family anamnesis”, the remembrance of family things past, the family’s narration of its personal history.
Gustav Mahler wrote his ninth, and final, completed symphony following the death of his daughter in 1907. Mahler himself died in 1911, never having heard the Ninth Symphony performed in public. On March 12, 2014, the Palmer family visited the grave of Captain Archibald Alfred Sutcliff, a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 100 years after he died of typhus looking after patients at the Wittenberg POW camp.
On this day, three years ago, I left the UK for Melbourne, Australia. I returned to my home city in order to conduct the funeral service of my mother. Anamnesis, remembering what we already know, a restorative process that leads to enlightenment, wisdom, healing or even salvation.
RSC
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Tagged anamnesis, classical music, death, enlightenment, existence, extinction, family, Gustav Mahler, healing, resolution, salvation, symbolism, symphonies, tragedy, transfiguration, wisdom
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If it fell on a weekday there would be a public holiday. There would be the solemn 6.00 a.m. service at the Shrine of Remembrance in St. Kilda Road, followed by the military parade through the streets of Melbourne. Then, from around 1960 onwards, there developed the traditional Aussie Rules football match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This was Anzac Day, Aussie style, and growing-up down-under there were plenty of opportunities in the 1950’s and 60’s to learn about the significance of ANZAC Day. Gallipoli had legendary status.
The last time I was in Melbourne for ANZAC Day was in 1991. However, there is a current view that there is an over-saturation of ANZAC content on Australian television and generally, as Australians remember the military landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey. This year is the event’s centenary.
There are those, however, who don’t feel much of a connection to the ANZAC legend and question its ongoing relevance as a foundational part of the “Australian character”. This suggests a limited tolerance for the legend that “the spirit of the nation was forged on the shores of Gallipoli”.
Still, in this centenary year and amongst all of the documentaries, tele-movies, mini-series and plays that have apparently been on offer down-under, there have been those who, in the words of one critic, “have been quite willing to help those with no family history of the military to understand why so many Australians have such a strong emotional connection to ANZAC Day which extends so far beyond those lost in war.”
This is especially the case when it is considered that Australia has become such a culturally diverse nation. Why is it that in Australia, a country that now regards itself as very much a member of the South-East Asian family of nations, a very specific Anzac legend endures as a fundamentally Australian image in a nation defined by its diversity?
With the above in mind I have just read a review of the 90-minute documentary “Why ANZAC?” which recently aired on Australia’s ABC TV broadcaster. The program was written and hosted by the New Zealand actor Sam Neill – who is probably best remembered for battling with dinosaurs on an island off the coast of Central America. The program promised a fresh take on the ANZAC legend and an expose of the realities behind the myth. It could be seen as the latest in a long line of films that can be traced back to Peter Weir’s Gallipoli in 1981 and brought up-to-date with Russell Crowe’s contemporary offering The Water Diviner.
Neill’s motivation in writing and presenting the documentary is stated as: “To understand why we choose to elevate our biggest military catastrophe into an Australian and New Zealand foundation myth.” This has “puzzled and troubled” Sam Neill. It seems that his film covers much ground that has already been trodden He does, however, manage to add some details beyond those we usually hear, including “the involvement of indigenous people from both nations and how censorship worked to build a heroic ANZAC legend back home while the war was ongoing.”
Sam Neill traces the development of the legend over the century since Gallipoli, as it strengthened Australasian resolve in World War II and the fierce opposition during the Vietnam War. In referring to Gallipoli and the European countries, he notes that “almost every country in the world built statues for its winners, but when it comes to the military history of both Australia and New Zealand, there’s no great victory to point to.” Perhaps it has something to do with both nations being subsumed under the British Empire that was.
Whilst he recognizes and understands ANZAC Day as “a moment of national remembrance and a day to pay respect to those who have served and sacrificed their own personal safety and lives”, he goes on to opinion that “reaching back to Gallipoli as the bedrock of Australian values remains particularly difficult.”
Then comes what the reviewer seems to consider the most valuable insight in the program -Neill’s view that Gallipoli was part of a war that “we were involved in to support Great Britain, but it is often characterized as a more significant moment in moving away from the motherland than Federation, just 14 years earlier.” Further, Gallipoli also allowed Australia to “shift its focus from its ugly colonial past. And if you must have a bloody massacre as a defining moment in a nation’s history, the military disaster that was the Gallipoli campaign is probably preferable.”
In the words of the historian, Peter Stanley, “ANZAC grows to fill a void”.
*****
I am writing this article on the eve of ANZAC Day. Whilst writing, I have received an email from a movement to which I subscribe, “No Glory in War: 1914-1918”. Their latest emailing is headed with the words, “ANZAC Day 25 April: Gallipoli 100 years on”.
The movement’s newsletter (to which I am indebted for much of what follows) states that 25 April, 2015, marks the hundredth anniversary of the start of the British-led military invasion of Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula. This campaign resulted in over 200,000 dead and wounded in an eight-month period.
Gallipoli was a military disaster. Yet, a century on, politicians seeking to glorify the First World War, are calling the huge loss of life at Gallipoli “a price worth paying”. No doubt, at the various remembrances around the nation, the usual personages will be rolled-out and the expected platitudes will be uttered.
The Australian government is spending $A300 million (around £150 million) commemorating the WWI centenary, and using it to promote militarism and nationalist myths. Veterans’ groups have condemned the “nationalist circus” that ANZAC Day has become.
The UK government, which is spending £60 million on its own nationalist circus commemorating WWI, has a number of ANZAC Day events, in both London and Turkey. There will, of course, be little mention of Winston Churchill’s role as the prime mover of the Gallipoli catastrophe, the circumstances of which led to his dismissal from the British government 100 years ago.
Rather than celebrating the rewriting of history to promote new wars being waged on this 100th anniversary, it is important to remember what really happened at Gallipoli.
*
He held the warm mug in his lap, shut his eyes and resumed his reverie. Watson sat beside him, eyes wide open. He sipped his tea and fixed his eyes on the void of the porthole. As he sipped, small bubbles fizzed at the side of his mouth where his flesh recoiled from the scalding liquid. The liquid was hot and bitter, and he knew it was tea, but couldn’t quite taste it. The fluid sat uneasily in his gut. Must be rising seasickness, he tried to convince himself.
“I can see Hall with the scouts. He’s signalling from the Hill,” Watson whispered to Mayer beside him. “What’s the message?” said Mayer. Watson began to decipher the signal spelt out by the flag. As he listed the letters to Mayer, a shell burst over the plateau. Hall fell, face forwards into the ground, flag firmly in his grasp. Watson waited for him to get up, keeping the binoculars steadily on the same spot despite the rocking of the little boat. Then he lowered the binoculars and turned to Mayer. “Signal did not get through.”
(Extracts from the book Watson’s Pier, by Joshua Funder, great-grandson of the Australian soldier and signalman, Lieutenant Stanley Watson. One of the first ashore at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, Watson believed the Anzacs landed at the wrong place – and he believed it still when he revisited Anzac Cove 60 years later)
RSC
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Tagged Anzac, centenary, colonialism, diversity, Gallipoli, legends, memorials, military, myth, remembrance, war
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The hills and dales, the villages and cities of this country are alive with the sounds of electioneering. There is little music in this, but much of what purports to be hard fact – but, in all probability, is nothing more than election padding dressed-up as promise. In the midst of all these words from politicians of various hues, I have been watching some television documentaries, reading some stories and have come across much information that has proved to be most interesting.
In one of the TV programmes, a journalist stood outside a house in a Wolverhampton street and spoke these words: “A young mother called Christine McKenzie lived in this house not long ago. While she was here, pregnant with her second child and without a husband, she was asked fill-in a questionnaire. She was asked: ‘In the past two weeks, have you gone a whole day without a meal?’ She answered ‘Yes’, and added, ‘The baby had some porridge.’ She was asked to list a typical day’s meal. She wrote, ‘Breakfast: nothing. Midday: toast, jam or an egg. Supper: nothing.’ ‘Have you any general comments?’ she was asked. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she wrote.”
The journalist explained that Christine McKenzie is one person who represents the true crisis in this country. “Tonight”, he commented, “more than two million parents will go to bed hungry in order to give their children something to eat”. He further explained that “the documentary was not about the perennial poor, it was about falling living standards in Britain.” It was, he stated, “that for the first time since the Great Depression, Britain – the so-called Welfare State – is deliberately cutting back the means of survival of its poorest, and their children.”
The journalist further reported that an increasing number of parents could no longer afford to feed their children. The Director of the Child Poverty Action Group informed the journalist that “benefits for the unemployed were falling in real terms.” Other parts of the documentary told how the situation in the country was similar to “Ramsay MacDonald’s Britain in 1931, when mothers in desperation contemplated taking up prostitution in order to feed their children.”
Later in the same programme, the journalist returned to the story of the 21 year-old Christine McKenzie. He explained that he was unable to again feature Christine in the programme, “as she was now dead, having suffered a rare infection shortly after the birth of her second child. Her miserably low social benefits could not keep pace with the uncontrolled rise of food prices,” he said. “This government’s minute increase in social benefits,…are effectively cut-backs, imposing a direct threat to the survival of the growing number of the poor. Unless we regain our sense of priorities, which amount to our civilisation, there will be more Christine McKenzies.”
Another documentary that caught my attention focused on the National Health Service (NHS). The programme recalled the establishment of the NHS in 1948 and the then health minister Aneurin Bevan’s declaration that the “silent suffering of the old, young, chronically sick and handicapped had no place in a civilised society.”
Of particular interest to me about this programme was that it contained a report that a substantial number of senior doctors, from my local hospital in Northampton, had criticised financial cutbacks in the NHS. “The doctors’ statement, issued in desperation, was the first of its kind in Britain,” stated the programme’s commentator. The programme was not just about cutbacks in the NHS. It was about the “dismantling of the NHS, a tearing down of whole sections of what was once Britain’s most civilised post-war achievement – the health service.” The silent suffering had stealthily returned!
Now, you could be reading the above and agreeing that it all sounds familiar. At a time when the political parties are announcing their manifestoes for the forthcoming General Election, you might well be saying that you have heard it all before. This, in fact, might be the truth. What I have recalled in the above is not material intended for the present General Election campaigning. It is taken from television documentaries, reports and books that recall the period in British political and social history between the establishment in 1948 of the Welfare State and the early 1970’s. For many the last fifty years have seen, relatively speaking, little advancement in the general well-being of the people of this nation – particularly the poorest.
Much of the detailed information in the above was taken from the book Breaking the Silence, Anthony Hayward’s excellent summary of UK political and social reality reporting in the early decades of British television. As his book shows, Hayward is well-placed to comment on this history as he has been closely associated with such legendary documentarists as James Cameron, David Munro and John Pilger.
It may be that present-day reporting on the political and social history of the nation, including the General Election, is done by journalists who, as yet, do not have the stature of Cameron, Munro or Pilger. However, to recall some words written in one of the book’s dedications, such reporting needs to have humanity as its subject, the material to be factual, the expression of it to be powerfully emotional, and the context to be present-day.
That being the case, then perhaps someone writing fifty years from now will be able to say that the voting in the 2015 British General Election resulted in the election of a government that truly made a difference for the ordinary people of this country – that the majority were left with more than porridge.
*****
Before and after the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, there was much talk about what effect an independent Scotland would have on the British Constitution. I recently attended a debate whose subject was “The British Constitution after the General Election”. It was a joint venture of The Federal Trust and The Federal Union. The referendum and the debate made me think: what is the British Constitution and where, in any event, could I find a readable copy.
From further investigation I learned that, unlike many other nations, the UK has no single constitutional document. This is sometimes expressed by stating that it has an uncodified or “unwritten” constitution. Much of the British constitution is embodied in written documents, within statutes, court judgments, works of authority and treaties. It seems, moreover, that this lot is constantly changing.
So when I came across the term The New British Constitution and asked what that might be, one answer is that the British constitution, because it is always changing, is always new. Surely this has implications for its interpretation and, therefore, the governance of this nation?
One notable political scientist, Vernon Bogdanor, goes further. His thesis is that “since the election of the Blair government in 1997 the pace and depth of constitutional change have increased to a point where a new shape of the state, though still fuzzy in outline and incomplete in detail, can be discerned and described with some confidence.”
Amongst other things, Bogdanor’s writings sharply focus the allocation of power between Parliament and the courts, a polarity he identifies as the site of a potential constitutional crisis.
If that is the case, then surely the time has come when the British Constitution should be brought together in a discernible written form, so that it is available to be read and understood by more than the politicians, judges, lawyers and political scientists. Perhaps even to be available to the ordinary, intelligent, enquiring, yet patronised, British public – people who are fed on a constant diet of political porridge.
RSC
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged British Constitution, change, constitutional crisis, contemporary, crisis, elections, emotion, fact, humanity, hunger, National Health Service, poverty, reporting, social benefits, Welfare State
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What has Charles Windsor, the heir to the British crown, been saying to government ministers? For the past nine years or so that has been the question asked by The Guardian, ever since that newspaper requested copies of 27 pieces of correspondence between Charles and ministers in seven government departments between September 2004 and April 2005.
The Guardian newspaper – supported by a number of organisations that wish to see greater government transparency and accountability, as well as more evidence of democracy in action in the UK and less license to permit princely privilege – has fought numerous court battles to argue that there is a genuine public interest in disclosing these letters. The government, that erstwhile guardian of parliamentary democracy, has fought back every step of the way.
In 2010 the government amended the Freedom of Information Act (FIO) so that until quite recently, if similar requests to release Charles’s letters were made, there would be no chance of disclosure. Late last year the case ended up in the Supreme Court. This past week the Supreme Court published its decision – the government must release these letters.
This issue goes to the heart of any campaign that opposes royal secrecy and raises the fundamental question of whether or not Prince Charles has some kind of constitutional right to lobby and influence politicians in secret. A number of people who have served in government consider that these letters represent serious attempts by Charles Windsor to alter government policy. Dominic Grieve, a former Attorney General in the British Government has stated that, if Charles’s views on some matters that are being kept secret were to be made known, he would be considered unfit to assume the role and function of a British monarch.
One area in which secrecy has made an impact is in the matter of royal funding. A significant amount of detail about royal spending is being hidden from public scrutiny. Royal secrecy is also backed up by royal power – the ‘royal veto’, otherwise known as royal consent, is a rule that says the Queen and Prince Charles must consent to any new law that affects their private interests. That enables these royals to demand changes to laws that personally affect them and to pursue their own political agenda behind closed doors. No other UK citizen has this privilege.
It was with this in the background that I recently read an article about “Orders in Council”. This is a political process used in the UK and many countries of the Commonwealth where legislation is formally made in the name of the Queen by the Privy Council (the Queen-in-Council). Although the Orders are officially made by the Queen, in practice, royal assent is a formality only.
What actually happens is that “a representative of the government (generally a cabinet minister or the Lord President of the Council) reads out batches of Orders in Council drafted by the government in front of the Queen, who, after each order, says “Approved”. They then come into effect.”
Orders in Council can be used in a variety of way, for example, making political appointments, issuing simple laws as a sort of decree and, occasionally, may be used to effectively reverse court decisions applicable to both the UK and British Overseas Territories without involving Parliament. There is one example which, more than any other, exemplifies the gross injustice and undemocratic nature of the use of Orders in Council.
In 1965, the government of Harold Wilson used this “behind closed doors” method of passing legislation in order to remove the Chagossian Islanders from their homeland in the Chagos Archipelago of the Indian Ocean. This action was ostensibly part of a deal to grant independence to Mauritius, another former colony, after the British had initially excised the Chagos Islands from Mauritius. The Chagos Archipelago was subsequently named the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
Under threat, including their starvation, shooting or bombing, as well as the actual evacuation of their precious dogs, around 2,000 Chagos islanders were eventually removed to Mauritius and forbidden to re-enter their homeland. Mauritius got the people, but not the land! The whole business was imposed unilaterally without any referendum or consultation with the Chagossians and it envisaged no democratic institutions.
In due course, the true nature and purpose for the forced expulsion and dispossession of the Chagossians was revealed. The Wilson government had agreed with the USA to “establish a United States air and naval base on Diego Garcia (the main island of the Chagos Archipelago), with a population of between 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. soldiers and support staff, as well as a few troops from the United Kingdom”. (See my article Caught in a trap, 3 March, 2013)
However, the story does not end there.
Both the initial appropriation of the Chagos Archipelago and its aftermath were brilliantly captured and exposed by the intrepid Australian journalist, John Pilger. In a remarkable revelation of secrecy and “behind closed doors” deals at the heart of British government, Pilger’s 2004 documentary film “Stealing a Nation” showed how successive Labour and Conservative British Governments had uprooted and disenfranchised a whole population of a British Crown Colony in order to appease and protect the military strategies and practices of the USA. It was as if “all the way with LBJ” was substituted by “another push for Bush”.
Today, Diego Garcia is one of the biggest USA military bases in the world. As the Pentagon calls it, the island fortress “is an indispensable platform for policing the world.” Furthermore, it was established and developed during the United States’ prosecution of the Vietnam War. A more than adequate cover!
Some forty years after Harold Wilson’s chicanery involving the Chagos Islanders, Orders in Council were again controversially used by the government of Tony Blair in 2004 to overturn a UK court ruling which held that the exile of the Chagossians was unlawful.
Then, in June 2006, the same government successfully appealed against the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal’s ruling that the Chagossians were entitled to return to their homeland. The government’s appeal was to the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords – an unelected body! Pre-eminence was given to the “behind closed doors” decisions of the government and the view that “it was not for the courts to substitute their judgement for that of the Secretary of State as to what was conducive to the peace, order and good governance of the BIOT.”
Secrecy, whether by members of an unelected royal family or by elected politicians, is repugnant, or should be to a democratic nation. Cohorts of people such as the Privy Council, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, or Charles Windsor meeting in private with government ministers, affects the democratic process and the making of laws by elected parliamentarians.
Political orders made at the discretion of government ministers, with or without the presence and collusion of a monarch, and which has the same effect as primary legislation, opens the door to abuse, discrimination and injustice. Further, it is an affront to due political process and law. This is especially so in view of there being no public record of what goes on at these secretive meetings, thereby, as pointed out by the charity Justice a few years ago, “evading one of the important checks and balances of the Human Rights Act of 1998.”
Formulating and expediting government policies “behind closed doors”, especially with the connivance or collusion of royalty, is archaic and feudal. Such a political system needs reform so that a modern, democratic alternative may emerge.
RSC
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged accountability, consultation, documentary, expose, Freedom of Information Act, Human Rights Act 1998, independence, John Pilger, legislation, lobbying, militarism, Orders in Council, political reform, privilege, royal veto, secrecy, transparency, unilateral, USA
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Save the Children is a charity that I have long been an advocate for and supporter of.
It was with great interest, therefore, that I recently learned that this charity was to award its “global legacy award” to Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister. It seems that the United States arm of Save the Children wishes “to recognise Blair’s vanguard leadership on the world international development stage, particularly for his ‘commitment to Africa’”.
In its role as an international children’s charity, Save the Children’s choice of Tony Blair to receive this award is, to say the least, controversial. The public campaigning movement 38 Degrees has pointed out that “many see him as the cause of the deaths of countless children in the Middle East, with damning allegations relating to his role as Middle East envoy and businesses dealings with autocratic rulers and others in the region”.
So too, the former prime minister is central to Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into Britain’s controversial and protracted war in Iraq.
According to research by 38 Degrees in late 2014, it emerged that “Blair had signed a multimillion pound contract with a Saudi Arabian oil company in 2010 to broker secret deals on the firm’s behalf with Chinese state officials. The revelation raises serious questions over the former PM’s diplomatic role as Middle East envoy, as well as his personal vested interests in the region”. So too, earlier that year, Blair managed to “successfully quash a Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged corruption regarding an arms deal with Saudi Arabia”.
It is for these reasons, amongst others, that 38 Degrees believes that Tony Blair should not have been awarded Save the Children’s Global Legacy Award. The movement considers that “his ‘legacy’ in Iraq overshadows his achievements in Africa”. In excess of 120,000 signatures appeared on a petition from 38 Degrees as a campaign was launched for this award to Tony Blair to be withdrawn. My signature was included. It seems that, had it been possible for those without UK postcodes to sign the petition as well, an even greater number of signatures would have been achieved. This is still a very good result, however, and the petition has certainly made its point.
The petition from 38 Degrees was delivered to Save the Children UK’s Chief Executive, Justin Forsyth, in January of this year.
Although it was mentioned that “Save the Children UK claim no responsibility for the award”, that is not entirely true. It seems that Justin Forsyth was “a former adviser to Tony Blair and was asked by the American branch to pass the award onto his former boss. Forsyth had the opportunity to advise the USA that it was inappropriate, but chose not to do so”. Even had the US branch of Save the Children acted autonomously, it was a very unwise action for an international charity.
The saddest part of giving such an inappropriate recipient an award is that Save the Children could have given it to someone more deserving. 38 Degrees has mentioned a number of persons in this regard – including Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, as well as Ebola nurse William Pooley. Such choices by Save the Children would have done itself a great deal of good and, moreover, generated substantial positive publicity.
Of course, it was not the intention of those who organised the petition for 38 Degrees to damage Save the Children as a charitable organisation. On the contrary, it was to help them regain the trust of those (myself included) who have supported them over the years. Those that presented the petition were able to have a discussion with Save the Children representatives about the “differences in the perception of Tony Blair and (Save the Children) policy in the Middle East compared to that of the UK branch”.
Further, there was a chance to discuss “the shortfall in our own UK government’s response to the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the overall political situation of occupation and oppression”. It seems to me that the time has gone when global charitable organisations can ignore issues of social and political justice and economic inequality.
Since the petition was handed in and the discussions have taken place, Save the Children have acknowledged that: “In retrospect we should have foreseen the controversies this (award to Tony Blair) might generate. For a number of reasons this is not a decision Save the Children UK would have taken. This isn’t because Tony Blair doesn’t deserve recognition for the leadership he showed on Africa – he does – but because his other actions, particularly those on Iraq which Save the Children opposed strongly at the time, overshadow how the public see him in the UK. In the US his public profile is very different”.
Save the Children’s response concluded with “we wanted to assure you that work is ongoing within the global Save the Children movement to look at what lessons can be learnt as we want nothing to distract us from our work to make the world a better place for children and their families”.
This being the case, I hope and trust that Save the Children, or for that matter any other charity, will consider all the implications before acting so unwisely in the future.
*****
Presenting a petition by concerned citizens to charities, governments, football clubs, etc., is not the only way of enabling the voice of protest to be heard.
If you lived, as I did, through the experiences of the 1960’s you will know that the voice of protest was voluminously heard in the popular music of the day – war and racial prejudice being primary targets of the dissidents’ views and foci of their voices. Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Donovan, John Lennon, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joan Baez, are some musicians who come to mind and who represent a wide spectrum of music.
It would seem that the musician’s voice of protest is still being heard.
I recently came across an article in the “Daily Review” of the Australian publication “Crikey”. The article spoke of an Australian pop group with whom I am not particularly familiar – “The Basics”. Apart from writing and performing protest music and songs, it appears that this group is having a fair crack at starting a new political party.
The focus of their protest is quite obvious from the press release for their new EP, The Lucky Country. The group’s leader, Kris Schroeder, says: “We’re songwriters but we’re not just here to talk about love, heartbreak and getting drunk … Thinking that respect for other cultures enhances our nation rather than diminishes it doesn’t make you unpatriotic … We’ve got this toxic culture fostered on ‘what’s in it for me?’ … maybe someone needs to take Australia by the wrist, give it a shake and say ‘WAKE UP’. And why not a bunch of musicians?”
Why not, indeed! Musicians, in Australia as elsewhere, have an excellent track record of being a voice of protest. If “The Basics” are anything to go by, it is a tradition and track record that is being impressively maintained.
RSC
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged campaign, charity, corruption, dissidence, global, humanitarian crisis, integrity, leadership, musicians, patriotism, petition, protest, self-aggrandisement
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The newspaper headline boldly announced: “Top Tory: I Am Entitled To More Than £67K Salary”.
After being caught in a cash for access sting, the former Conservative Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, made a pitiful attempt to defend his part in the scandal by declaring that he needs more than his £67K MP’s salary to live on. “I want a standard of living my background entitles me to.” That being the case and in knowing the financial settlement afforded MP’s, why did Mr Rifkind enter politics in the first place?
The millionaire Tory was not the only former Foreign Secretary to be caught-up in the scandal. Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary in the Labour administration of Tony Blair was also, along with Rifkind, caught in the sting offering to use their influence on behalf of a fake Chinese firm, charging fees of up to £8K a day. The two MP’s have been suspended from their parties. Jack Straw said he was “mortified to have fallen into this trap” as he was only trying to secure his future income after he leaves Parliament. Really!
We have been here before with MP’s and the chances are that we will revisit this scenario in the future. It calls to mind a recent undertaking by the public campaign group 38 Degrees with a focus on the current Conservative MP Stephen Dorrell. In what follows, the writer acknowledges information from 38 Degrees.
From 1994 to 1997, Stephen Dorrell was consecutively the Secretary of State for National Heritage and Secretary of State for Health in the Conservative Government of John Major. Stephen Dorrell has just taken a job with KPMG, a private company that wants to bid on a £1 billion NHS contract. But Dorrell is refusing to give up his parliamentary seat.
Mr Dorrell has admitted that his new job is “incompatible” with his role as an MP. But he is refusing to step down until May, 2015. How can that be OK? Who is his boss for the period before the General Election – KPMG or his constituents? 38 Degrees organised a petition to David Cameron in order to express public outrage against Dorrell.
As with Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, the case of Stephen Dorrell presents a serious conflict of interest and a misuse of his privileged position.
For four years, Stephen Dorrell MP was the chair of the powerful Health Select committee, helping to open up the NHS to privatisation. His new job is with a private company bidding on the NHS. One of Dorrell’s constituents had this to say about his actions: “Public trust in politicians is currently at an all-time low. Dorrell’s action in joining KPMG displays a cynical lack of integrity amongst MPs,” and makes Dorrell “unfit to continue as an MP.”
From campaigning for a law to allow voters to sack rogue MPs, through to fighting to protect the NHS from private healthcare vultures, 38 Degrees members have a history of challenging politicians who act against our democracy – and in the interests of themselves, or client groups or companies.
A number of Mr Dorrell’s extra-parliamentary business interests during the time he has been an MP have come under closer scrutiny. A shareholder in one of his deals compared the deal to “a spider eviscerating a fly it has caught, taking all the good bits, then dropping the carcass, which is the creditors, the shareholders, and of course the taxpayer.”
At the time of writing, Stephen Dorrell remains an MP and an employee of KPMG, as well as a private business man. Hard to believe, but true!
*****
It may be that being caught up in the cash for access scandal is not the only matter about which Jack Straw should feel “mortified”. He might want to think back to the affair of Diego Garcia.
For years, the British government denied any involvement with CIA torture flights – until ministers were forced to admit that planes carrying ‘rendition’ victims had landed on Diego Garcia.
Diego Garcia is a British-owned island in the Chagos Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia has been leased to the USA for use as a major base for the USA Air Force. We now know that the island played a central role in a number of ‘extraordinary rendition’ operations – a practice in which prisoners are flown to countries where they are then tortured. For years, the UK government denied that any British territory had been used for rendition flights, a key feature of the US-led ‘war on terror’.
In 2005 it was Jack Straw, speaking as the British government’s Foreign Secretary, who said “Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop.”
It seems that, even back then, Mr Straw was caught in a trap of his own making. Just three years later, the UK government was forced to admit that Straw’s claims were untrue. David Miliband – Foreign Secretary in 2008 – told Parliament that CIA torture flights had in fact made use of the British territory of Diego Garcia in 2002. Straw’s claims, he said, were due to “an administrative error.” Truth is stranger than fiction.
The British government has yet to come clean on the full scale of the former British colony’s involvement in the rendition and torture programme. Key evidence on rendition flights through Diego Garcia has either been withheld or destroyed. In 2014, ministers announced that “extremely heavy weather” meant that records had suffered “water damage…to the point of no longer being useful.” The government refused to explain how this had taken place during a month which turned out to have seen relatively little rain.
As with so much of the recent history of the Chagos Island, and particularly Diego Garcia, there is ample evidence of cover-up, conspiracy, hypocrisy and blatant lying from a succession of British governments. In 2004 the British-based Australian journalist, John Pilger, made a film documentary about the damning and shameful events surrounding Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islanders.
In this documentary, called “Stealing a Nation”, Pilger tells a story literally “hidden from history”. In the 1960’s and 70’s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, it was principally from Diego Garcia that the US launched bombing missions on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Through deceit and subterfuge, the British government has prevented the Chagos Islanders from returning to their homeland – and the story, as with the scandals involving British MPs, goes on.
Yes, Messrs Rifkind, Straw and Dorrell, truth is stranger than fiction, whether it is the matter of British foreign policy or earning extra money as a British MP. Beware of being caught in a trap.
RSC
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged conflict, conspiracy, deceit, integrity, NHS, privilege, privitisation, rendition, scandal, stealing, trust
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There is an old saying that “the family that prays together stays together”. The thought, if not the reality, behind these words implies a unity or agreement of feeling or action, usually of religious faith. This is the idea of solidarity. This idea can be applied, of course, to areas other than religious faith.
Several weeks ago, following the terrorist killings in Paris (at the offices of the publishers Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket) which left seventeen persons dead and the French capital on high alert, the word “solidarity” was on everyone’s lips.
Politicians and public figures from across the globe went to Paris in order to be seen, heard and link arms as they marched against terrorism – extreme Islamic or otherwise. Newspaper editorials and numerous articles lauded the virtue of solidarity and, as the banner-carrying crowds gathered in the public places, the street-corner conversations spoke of the necessity of standing solid against terrorism, anti-Semitism and all forms of racism.
For a short while, at least, solidarity was the catch-phrase of civilised citizens, uniting disparate peoples against fundamentalist ideas and barbaric actions.
Then, an incident on the Paris Metro train system.
Travelling supporters of England’s Chelsea Football Club, en-route to the game against Saint Germaine, the pride of Paris, forcibly prevented a black man from entering a Metro train on which travelled a considerable cohort of Chelsea fans. A section of the Chelsea crowd were heard to proudly chant racist slogans as several times the man tried, unsuccessfully, to get into a train carriage. Each time he was forcibly ejected from the train carriage and onto the platform.
Could it possibly be construed that the unfortunate black man was a Chelsea supporter? Fortunately, mobile telephone video captured the event and identified the perpetrators.
However, what made this incident more palpable were the actions of others on the station platform. There were at least a dozen persons standing adjacent to or passing by the train carriage where the incident took place, as well as interested onlookers from further down the train. It can be assumed that some amongst this number were Parisians. Not one of these bystanders, most of whom were male and white, made an obvious move of any kind to become involved in the incident and offer support to the mistreated black man.
The entire incident was hardly an example of anti-racist solidarity. Au contraire!
Of course, there were the usual and expected outpourings from football clubs and associations, past and present players – especially those who are themselves black and have experienced racist behaviour at British venues, and interviews amongst the public as to what should be done to prevent incidents like this from happening again. Much the same public exercises took place when the terrorist attacks and killings occurred in Paris in early January. The public relishes the chance of a word.
It is urgent to realise that, in matters relating to terrorism and racism, more is required than mere words – or praying alone or together. Solidarity is more than good thoughts and words, though these are not to be despised. Solidarity in the face of terrorism and racism is not fundamentally a legal matter – though laws can be enacted to mitigate the effects of both. Solidarity is about the way that people think, their attitudes, the unity they feel as a result of their education, interests, objectives, standards and sympathies.
The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who died in Paris in 1917, said that people feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle.
It should be seen, therefore, that solidarity, especially in advanced or post-industrial societies, and the social cohesion it brings about, comes from the dependence individuals have on each other. It is, or should be, an integral aspect of a healthy society. Even where a society is composed of persons with differing values and interests, the solidarity of that society will depend on the effort and reliability of individual components performing their specified tasks.
In short, the mutual aid, the supportive activity that occurs between people, does not result from an expectation of any reward, but rather from instinctive or developed feelings of solidarity. Anything which contributes to this breakdown of solidarity – be it political, economic, social, religious, or whatever, provides the conditions in which are spawned and nurtured the attitudes that lead to incidents like those recently occurring in Paris.
If and when such incidents occur, the outcome is not helped by those of us who stand and watch – or just pray! More than words are required. Another old saying comes to mind – “actions speak louder than words.”
*****
Amnesty International UK (AIUK), an organisation that does anything other than stand and watch and where any words are definitely followed by actions, is currently calling for support in its campaign for the release from a Louisiana prison of Albert Woodfox. What follows is largely drawn from information provided by AIUK.
Albert Woodfox has been held in solitary confinement for nearly 43 years for a crime – that of murdering a prison guard – he maintains he did not commit. The evidence appears to agree with his claim and suggests that racially and politically motivated circumstances are the cause of his condemnation.
Sent to solitary confinement in 1972, Albert has just reached 68. As a result of his confinement, he is said to be in a mentally and physically frail condition. A UN Special Rapporteur on torture has called on the US authorities to release Albert Woodfox from solitary confinement with immediate effect.
Woodfox is the co-founder of the Angola prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. He formed this chapter with the hope of demanding basic rights for inmates from within a discriminatory and often corrupt system. He believes that his political activism and demand for racial equality have been a large factor in not only charging him with the crime, but keeping him in solitary confinement.
AIUK is of the view that the Louisiana authorities have no legitimate reason for keeping Albert Woodfox in solitary confinement: his prison records are exemplary, and clearly state that he poses no threat to himself or others. Yet, still the prison authorities have refused to conduct a meaningful review of Albert’s isolation since 1972.
On 2 March Albert Woodfox is to have a bail hearing – his third. AIUK is calling, indeed demanding, that state officials do not appeal his bail request and that Albert is given a long overdue chance at justice.
With the bystanders on the Paris Metro station platform in mind, here is a more than prayerfully-considered chance to be involved in a clear issue of injustice and racism. Further information, and the opportunity to register a protest, may be obtained from Amnesty International UK.
RSC
Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged action, activism, Amnesty International UK, anti-semitism, education, equality, interests, justice, law, lifestyle, prayer, racism, social cohesion, solidarity, standards, sympathies, terrorism, values
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Robert Stewart Culbard 