Thomas Paine was an English/American political activist, author and political theorist, whose words helped shape modern Britain and France, Born to a Quaker family of Thetford, England, on January 29th , 1737 ( or February 9th, 1737 according the Gregorian calender) ,the son of an artisan, he was well educated at Thetford Grammar School
but soon chafed at the constraints of his home town. His chequered
career eventually led him to the American colonies where he emigrated in
1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin. There he found his calling, as
a revolutionary writer.
Thomas Paine played a
crucial part in the American Revolution of 1776 and the French
Revolution of 1789, after his popular pamphlets Common Sense and The American Crisis swept
through the Western worlds, both new and old, placing before the public
eye in simple, yet dramatic terms, the virtues of self-government and
individual liberty.
On January 10 1776, his pamphlet Common Sense was published for
the first time ( though anonymously,because of its treasonous
content.). Here he delivered his uncompromising message to the common
people, which set the seeds for the American Revolution.In this
important document, he passionately urged the American to create a new
form of government - a modern republic, based entirely on popular
consent. He believed all men were born equal, so saw no need for Kings
and Queens, he also distinguished between governments and society, at
the root of all governments is evil but the root of society lay good.
The pamphlet called for the end of British tyranny in the American
colonies and a break with a country ruled by kings. Common Sense made its appearance at a crucial moment as the debate for American independence reached a tipping point.
Common Sense ignited a wildfire.The numbers were astonishing—150,000 copies were in print within a
few months (roughly equivalent to 15 million copies today). But its real
impact can best be measured in the way that colonists from
Massachusetts to South Carolina moved in the direction that Paine
prescribed. “Without the pen of Paine,” as one contemporary wrote, “the
sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”
He became a champion of equality and liberty and went on to support
struggles in Britain and France, he despised tyranny and oppression, the divine right of kings, organised
religion, the death penalty and slavery. He loved reason, freedom, the
emancipation of mankind and was the first person to coin the term “the
United States of America” and to use the term “democracy” as something
other than a pejorative.
Paine thought the revolution in America did not go far enough since it
did not abolish black slavery and he thought the revolution in France
went too far since it became entrenched in medieval violence and
bloodshed. He took bold private stands in both revolutions against his
own friends, colleagues and comrades, never willing to compromise his
conscience, but always ready to go it alone if that’s where the courage
of his convictions took him – and it nearly always did.
Returning to Europe in 1787, and in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, he published his most famous work, The Rights of Man, 1791-2, dedicated to Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, Rights of Man extensively lays
out Paine’s Republican utopianism and envisions a society where man’s
natural rights are respected, all forms of hereditary government such as
monarchy and aristocracy are abolished, and the welfare of the poor are
taken care of. Paine’s work resulted in him receiving honorary French
citizenship as a reward, as well as a seat on the French Constitutional
Committee.
Paine fled to France and was briefly elected to the French
National Convention. Imprisoned in the Bastille for opposing the execution of Louis XVI
in 1793, Sentenced to death by Robespierre, he escaped his fate only by a
miraculous accident (the executioners marked his cell door on the wrong
side). Free again, Paine lashed out at President Washington, whom he
blamed for not coming to his rescue.This alone would have been
enough to secure his lasting ignominy in America, but Paine had more in
mind.
In 1795, he released the final, and most daring, chapter of his classic trilogy. The Age of Reason,
an attack on traditional religion and the Christian church, made him
one of history’s great apostates. He returned to America in 1802, his promotion of the concept
of human rights greatly influenced the American Constitution and the European
Convention on Human Rights.
However scurrilous attacks followed him
in his waning years. It was symbolically appropriate that, as he
tottered around New York City, he could find no place to be buried.
(Even the arch liberal Quakers spurned his request.) His last years in America often depressed, drunk and in poverty.
When he died on the 8th of Jine
1809, tragically only six people attended his funeral in New Rochelle, New York, and his
tombstone was desecrated soon afterward.
His isolated grave was all but forgotten until a onetime foe, then later
admirer, radical newspaper editor William Cobbett, dug up his skeleton,
without permission ten years after his death. Cobbett was horrified
when he visited Paine’s neglected grave in 1819
and deeply felt that the man had not been given his posthumous due. He
decided that since America had turned its back on its revolutionary
hero, he would rebury him in England,with grand plans for a memorial that would inspire England’s democracy movement.
After disinterring Paine’s grave, he shipped the bones in a common
merchandise crate and predicted their momentous effect. “…those bones
will effect the reformation of England in Church and State.”
Unfortunately for Cobbett, the bones failed to stir England and Cobbett
became a laughingstock, the subject of vicious caricatures and grim jokes.
Despite Cobbett’s noble motive, the public
responded in horror to the desecration of the grave, especially because
of the surreptitious way he went about it. Lord Byron even wrote about
the incident, which was quoted at the time:
“In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, Will Cobbett has done well; You visit him on earth again; He’ll visit you in hell”
The memorial never materialized and when Cobbett died a bankrupt in 1835, Paine’s bones remained above
ground, in debtor’s limbo. Surviving the auctioneer’s hammer as a matter
of taste, different fragments or parts of Paine’s bones were then over
time dispersed and scattered over four corners of the earth.Parts of Paine might still be in England, possibly in the form of
buttons made from his bones. There might be a rib in France. A man in
Australia who claims to be a descendant says he has Paine’s skull. No one really knows where the skull that held the
mind which one day long ago opined, “These are the times that try men’s
souls.” For such a 'Citizen of the World', his mortal remains have no final resting place.
Paine remains ,an icon of defiant, unorthodox idealism. and his promotion of the concept
of human rights influenced the American Constitution and the European
Convention on Human Rights.After his death, Napoleon is said to have suggested
that every ‘free-thinking city’ should have a gold-plated statue of
Paine. Instead, he is commemorated with a gilded bronze statue outside
Thetford town hall commissioned by American philanthropist Joseph Lewis,
who believed Paine was the true author of the American Declaration of
Independence. Paine’s work continues to be a great
inspiration to politicians and activists he was a truth-teller, contentious and bold, who was adamant about holding accountable the brokers of authorised versions of history,calling out their hypocrisy, omissions and mistruths. I wonder what he would say in this age of tyranny, the rage spreading across the land of liberty, the urgent global crisis that we collectively face.would he still be speaking truth to power?, His own basic philosophy, “The world is my
country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion,” has
never been more timely. Hail to thee Tom Paine.
Here is Dick Gaughan singing about the revolutionary 18th century thinker and propagandist The song was written by Graham Moore.
Dick Gaughan - Tom Paine's Bones
As I dreamed out one evening
By a river of discontent
I bumped straight into old Tom Paine
As running down the road he went
He said, "I can't stop right now, child, King George is after me
He'd have a rope around my throat
And hang me on the Liberty Tree" But I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones
I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones "I only talked about freedom
And justice for everyone
But since the very first word I spoke
I've been looking down the barrel of a gun
They say I preached revolution
Let me say in my defence
That all I did wherever I went
Was to talk a lot of common sense"
Old Tom Paine he ran so fast
He left me standing still
And there I was, a piece of paper in my hand
Standing at the top of the hill
It said, "This is the Age Of Reason
These are The Rights Of Man
Kick off religion and monarchy"
It was written there in Tom Paine's plan
Old Tom Paine, there he lies
Nobody laughs and nobody cries
Where he's gone or how he fares
Nobody knows and nobody cares But I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones
I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones
The writer/artist Paul Fitzgerald from Hulme in Manchester also known as Polyp,has been busily working to take Tom Paine out of stuffy lectures on
politics and philosophy and onto the illustrated novel page.Important update: copies of Paine are now on sale here! The result of his labours is now out in the world, and is itself a cause for celebration. Paine: Being a Fantastical Visual Biography of the Vilified Enlightenment Hero, by his Ardent Admirer ‘Polyp’ quite lives up to its title.
The book was funded through a Kickstarter appeal,
On March 8, International Women’s Day, around the world women organize
rallies, marches and gatherings of all kinds to assert their claim as
women to a say and control over all the affairs of society. Their
struggle to affirm their collective rights is part and parcel of the
fight to defend the rights of all.Today I celebrate International Women's Day with the recognition
that it's not simply one day a year, but it is every day that women take the
lead in protecting our communities, and our rights.
I also do not forget the radical history of the day itself. Ever since women fought for the right to vote in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, the essence of their fight has been political. They
have put forward their claims on society as a matter of right, facing
all kinds of state-inspired discrimination and violence against them and
state-sanctioned attempts to relegate them to second, third and fourth
grade citizenship based on brutal identity politics and exploitation.
Women, however, speak in their own name and refuse to accept any
limitations on their right to decide all matters which affect their
lives. Their courage and determination in the front ranks of the
struggle for a society which recognizes everyone as equal members of the
body politic with equal rights and duties inspires everyone to also
fight for the rights of all.
In 1909 the Socialist Party of America organized a New York City
march commemorating a garment workers’ strike the previous year when hundreds of women workers in the New York needle trades demonstrated in
Rutgers Square in Manhattan’s Lower East Side to form their own union
and to demand the right to vote. This historic demonstration took place
on March 8th. It led, in the following year to the ‘uprising’
of 30,000 women shirtwaist makers which resulted in the first permanent
trade unions for women workers in the USA. The famous slogan bread and roses made its debut at this protest . The Socialist Party of America declared National Woman's Day, to be celebrated on February calling for better pay and working conditions as well as the right to vote.
It was at the second annual meeting of the International Conference of
Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, that Clara Zetkin, a prominent Marxist
activist from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, proposed the following motion at the Copenhagen
Conference of the Second International: “The Socialist women of all
countries will hold each year a Women’s Day, whose foremost purpose it
must be to aid the attainment of women’s suffrage. This demand must be
handled in conjunction with the entire women’s question according to
Socialist precepts. The Women’s Day must have an international character
and is to be prepared carefully.” The conference agreed.
During the First World War, she along with Karl Liebnecht, Rosa
Luxemburg, and other International SPD politicians, had rejected the party's
policy of Burgfrieden , which was a call to refrain from strikes during
the war. Among other anti-war activities she also
organised an international socialist womens anti-war conference in
Berlin, 1915. She however was not just an organiser, but also a great
writer and thinker. That still remains an inspiration today.
Because
of her anti-war opinions, she was arrested several times, during the
war and in 1916 was taken into 'protective custody'.She
also held the view that still holds much resonance today, that the
source of women's oppression was in capitalism, and that any form of
liberation, could only be served with the self-emancipation of the
working class.
IWD, consequently, was celebrated for the first time in Austria,
Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911. Women in these
countries demanded the right to vote, to hold public office and the
right to work. Russian women began celebrating IWD in 1913, and on IWD 1914, across Europe there were marches against the impeding imperialist war and for a women's right to vote.
In 1917 in Russia, International Women’s Day acquired great significance
, it was the flashpoint for the Russian Revolution. On March 8th
women workers in Petrograd held a mass strike and
demonstration demanding Peace and Bread in protest at the deaths of more
than 2 million Russian soldiers in the war. The strike movement spread
from
factory to factory and effectively became an insurrection. After the Russian Revolution, in 1922, in
honour of the women’s role in 1917, Lenin declared that March 8th should be designated officially as women’s day in the Soviet Union.
From there, it was primarily celebrated in
communist countries such as China. But on the heels of the U.S civil
rights movement in the 1960s, as women fought sex discrimination in the
1960s
and ’70s, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women’s
Year. In 1977 the U.N. officially marked IWD by inviting member
countries to celebrate women’s rights and world peace on March 8. It has since been celebrated in more than 100 countries, and has been made an official holiday in more than 25. Ever since, International Women’s Day celebrations have been held on
March 8 in countries across the globe — serving as an annual reminder of
the revolutionary potential of working women. Over the years though, these celebrations have drifted far away from the day's political roots.
Is a sad fact that for many women in the present day, little if anything has improved, since all those years ago when women initially marched. Many women are still not paid equally to that of their male
counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business
or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence
against them is worse than that of men. This day then is also an appropriate occasion to remember the too many gaps
hindering, sometimes in a brutal and cruel manner, the process towards
the full recognition and protection of women’s rights as universal
human rights. In times of war, women as well as children are those that have to bear
the major brunt of the abuses and human rights violations committed, in conflict zones across the globe.Wars and
famine also means that tens of millions of women are on the move and homeless
as refugees. Across the world, they suffer sexual exploitation, rape,
violence and murder from people they know as well from strangers.Many ordinary women still struggling to put food on the table.
We must continue to stand in unity and solidarity on March the 8th
with all all those internationally who are still fighting sexism and the
inequality, exploitation and hardship that is still rife under the combination of capitalism and patriarchy and keep celebrating the social, political and other achievements of women, who continue to try and promote gender equality and political justice, who still try to make this world of ours a better place for everyone.
( This post dedicated to all my sisters whose every day is steeped in struggle )
