Gerrard Winstanley (10/10/1609- 10/09/1676) Vision Still Burning Bright

 

Pioneering English revolutionary Gerrard Winstanley who  was the founder of the Diggers, a visionary, land squatter , early communist pamphleteer., political and religious reformer, died  on this day 1676. Regarding the earth ‘a common treasury’, Winstanley was the leader of the agrarian Civil War-era Diggers movement that established communities across England to cultivate waste and common land. His writings, as well as the Digger manifestos, advocated absolute human equality - and the emphasis on the common ownership of land and natural resources, as relevant today as when they were first written. Less concerned with individual scarcity than in sharing what little there was, and in increasing it for and by the community. The Diggers or True Levellers as they described themselves anticipated the conservationist and commune movements of the present day.
Born in Wigan, Lancashire on 10th or 19th October 19th 1609, he moved to London in 1630, where he became an apprentice in the cloth trade and became a freeman in 1637. In September 1640 he married Susan King and the couple moved to Walton-on-Thames.  Influenced by the ideas of John Lilburne and the Levellers he commenced to see his own visions, from his earlier mystical writings he developed his own thought, that clearly displayed a revolutionary design,  which led him to a form of communism. Although influenced by Christian thought, his movement was not just symbolic, it was a political one, using religion as a dialectical base, he boldly declared that it was the Diggers not the priests who observed true religion. By action and deed.
He denounced the domination of man by man, proclaiming the equality of women, basing their reason not just on God's but also Nature's Laws. The times that these activities were happening, were set at the backdrop of the English Civil War,  and a time of great social unrest in England where old reasonings were being cast away,  a time of revolution and change. He and the Diggers were part of a radical ferment that was sweeping the country at the time, a broad movement which had at its heart a radical template, a yearning for something new, a society based on harmony and happiness and a sense of community. Though Winstanley infused these ideas with a religious sensibility he also bought with it a  reasoning grounded in living here on earth.
In 1649, the Parliamentarians had won the First English Civil War but failed to negotiate a constitutional settlement with the defeated King Charles I. When members of Parliament and the Grandees in the New Model Army were faced with Charles’ perceived duplicity, they tried and executed him.
Government through the King’s Privy Council was replaced with a new body called the Council of State, which due to fundamental disagreements within a weakened Parliament was dominated by the Army. Many people became active in politics, suggesting alternative forms of government to replace the old order.
Royalists wished to place King Charles II on the throne; men like Oliver Cromwell wished to govern with a plutocratic Parliament voted in by an electorate based on property, similar to that which was enfranchised before the civil war;  a radical group of agitators called the Levellers, influenced by the writings of John Lilburne, wanted parliamentary government based on an electorate of every male head of a household; Fifth Monarchy Men advocated a theocracy;but it consisted of small property owners who argued for universal manhood suffrage. The Levellers in the army came nearest to all of the radical groupings in winning their gains. But the Levellers disowned the landless poor to avoid the accusation that they were against private property. They ignored the issue of enclosures until they realised that Cromwell was not going to implement their demands for reform of the franchise. As small property owners, the Levellers were actually scared of the revolt of the radical poor, unlike the Diggers.
Winstanley was the spokesman for a much wider layer in society. He generalised from the struggle that was already taking place, articulating a way forward for the dispossessed, giving it shape and form. While the revolution benefited the wealthy capitalist, it made things worse for the poor. However, the Diggers were more than just a reaction to economic hardship. The execution of the king was a traumatic act that cowed the nobility and thrilled the radicals, many of whom expected wonderful things to happen. God was 'shaking the heavens and the earth', throwing down the thrones of kings. The Diggers felt that they had won the war and they were due their just rewards. Was it going to be the few rich or the many poor who would control the common lands? Winstanley had a worked out programme of how to achieve his new society, based on a movement of the poor that was already taking place. This was despite the fact that Winstanley claimed that his idea to dig the commons was revealed to him in a vision from god!
Winstanley’s vision was as much religious as political; he was strongly influenced by the mystical writings that were so popular among seventeenth-century radicals, and he shared fully in the millenarian excitement of the age. He used the Bible to justify his actions, as did every other person in the 17th century. Religion was central to the English Revolution. Radicals believed it was not the king or priests who interpreted the Bible but the individual. This doctrine meant that the word of god could be in each person, and because any one person could be talking directly for god this led directly to equality.
It did not concern Winstanley whether the Bible was true or not. He used it to justify what he already believed in. For Winstanley the biblical stories were, at best, allegories. Many of the religious ideas that Winstanley expressed were not new. They had existed in society before and persisted after Winstanley. What made him radically different was that he put into practice what his religious theory preached. It was this synthesis of theory and practice that created the revolutionary challenge that was the Digger colonies.
On  April 26 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and 14 others published a pamphlet^[ in which they called themselves the “True Levellers” to distinguish their ideas from those of the Levellers, and contained many of their key demands, which they would repeat in other pamphlets. I reprint it here.

The True Leveller's Standard Advanced

' The State of the Community opened, and presented to Sons of Men: A Declaration to the Powers of England, and to all the Powers of the world, showing the cause why the Coommon People of Engald have begun, and gives Consent to dig up, manure and sow corn upon George Hill in Surrey, by those that have subscribed and thousands more that gives consent.

In the  beginning of Time, the great Creator, Reason, made the earth to be a Common Treaury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes and Man, the Lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Dominion given  to him over the Beasts, Birds and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another.

   And  the reason is this, every man, Male and Female, is a perfect creature of himself; and the same Spirit that made the Globe dwells in man to govern the Globe; so that the flesh of man being subject to Reason, his Maker, hath him to be his Teacher and Ruler within himself, therefore needs not to run abroad after any Teacher and Ruler within himself, therefore needs not to run abroad after any Teacher and Ruler without him, for he needs not that any man should teach him , for the same Anoynting that ruled in the Son of Man, teacheth him all things.

  But since human flesh (that king of Beasts? began to delight himself in the object of Creation, more than in the Spirit and Reason and Righteosness... Covetousness, did set up one man to teach and rule over another; and thereby the Spirit was killed, and man was brought into bondage and became a greater Slave to much of his own kind, than the Beasts of the field were to him.

 And hereupon the Earth (which was made to be a Common Treasury for relief for all, both \beasts and Men) was hedged in to the Inclosures by the teachers and rulers, and the others were made Servants and Slaves; And that Earth that is within this Creation made a Common Store-House for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of a few, whereby the great Creator is mightily dishonoured, as if he were a respector of persons, delighting in the comfortable livelihood of some, and rejoicing in the miserable povertie and straits of others. From the beginning it was not so.'

 Once they put their idea into practice and started to cultivate common land, both opponents and supporters began to call them “Diggers”. The Diggers’ beliefs were informed by Winstanley’s writings which envisioned an ecological interrelationship between humans and nature, acknowledging the inherent connections between people and their surroundings. Winstanley declared that “true freedom lies where a man receives his nourishment and preservation, and that is in the use of the earth”

On April 1 1649 he and his comrades took to digging and manuring land on St George's Hill, and later at Cobham in Surrey, in order to encourage the people to dig and plough up the commons, parks and other untilled lands, to break down the pales of the enclosures that existed at the time. Their struggle was essentially against private property in  land, civil law and tyranny in matters of government.  As Winstanley expressed it, ‘To dig up George Hill . . . we may work in righteousness and lay the foundations of making the earth a common treasury for all, both rich and poor. . . . Not enclosing any part into a particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together; . . . not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals’. Moreover, ‘every single man, male and female’ should have equal access to what is a ‘common store-house for all’.
What Winstanley envisaged was a movement from private to communal ownership. At first the two systems would co-exist, but increasingly, with the withdrawal of hired labour, the privately owned estates would cease to be viable and the communal system would prevail. As he explained,
No man can be rich, but he must be rich either by his own labours, or by the labours of other men helping him. If a man have no help from his neighbour, he shall never gather an estate of hundreds and thousands a year. If other men help him to work, then are those riches . . . the fruit of other men’s labours as well as his own.
Winstanley knew very well that ‘all rich men live at ease, feeding and clothing themselves by the labours of other men, not by their own; which is their shame, not their nobility’. And when the rich give charity, as if this justified oppression and exploitation, ‘they give away other men’s labours, not their own’. Without the labour of others, the rich would have to work the land themselves and it would become impossible for them to continue to maintain their large estates. In such circumstances, he argued, the rich would join the poor in the communal cultivation of the land. The result would be the end of private property, buying and selling, alienated labour, and the political authority which helped produce and reproduce all three.

A famous rhyme written at around the same time still has much potency, you can here it below as sung by the band Chumbamwamba

The Diggers Song

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,
You noble Diggers all, stand up now,
The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name
Your digging does maintain, and persons all defame
Stand up now, stand up now.

Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down to fright your men in town,
But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

With spades and hoes and plowes, stand up now, stand up now,
With spades and hoes and plowes stand up now,
Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold
To kill you if they could, and rights from you to hold.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now, stand up now
Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now.
Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin
To make a gaole a gin, to serve poor men therein.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The gentrye are all round, stand up now, stand up now,
The gentrye are all round, stand up now.
The gentrye are all round, on each side they are found,
Theire wisdom's so profound, to cheat us of our ground.
Stand up now, stand up now.

The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now, stand up now,
The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now,
To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,
The devill in them lies, and hath blinded both their eyes.
Stand up now, stand up now.

The clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,
The clergy they come in, stand up now.
The clergy they come in, and say it is a sin
That we should now begin, our freedom for to win.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The tithe they yet will have, stand up now,stand up now,
The tithes they yet will have, stand up now.
The tithes they yet will have, and lawyers their fees crave,
And this they say is brave, to make the poor their slave.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

'Gainst lawyers and gainst Priests, stand up now,stand up now,
'Gainst lawyers and gainst Priests stand up now.
For tyrants they are both even flatt against their oath,
To grant us they are loath free meat and drink and cloth.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,
The club is all their law, stand up now.
The club is all their law to keep men in awe,
Buth they no vision saw to maintain such a law.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now, stand up now,
The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now;
The Cavaleers are foes, themselves they do disclose
By verses not in prose to please the singing boyes.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

To conquer them by love, come in now, come in now,
To conquer them by love, come in now;
To conquer them by love, as it does you behove,
For he is King above, noe power is like to love,
Glory heere, Diggers all.

Powerful stuff, but at the time the diggers were seen as mad extremists and were  brutally dealt with. It quickly became clear that the Diggers represented something new; they were not squatting in the hope that local landowners would take pity on them and allow them to stay; rather, they were challenging the very idea of land ownership.
The attack on the Diggers included an economic boycott, harassment, violent assaults by hired thugs, and legal actions. It was all organised by local landowners. They even employed a clergyman, whose sole purpose was ‘to preach down the Diggers’. The men of property were determined to prevent the Diggers establishing themselves on the commons and the example this would set. When the Diggers moved their activities to Cobham Heath in August 1649, the opposition intensified, continuing what had gone before, but now burning dwellings and furniture, and hiring thugs to chase the Diggers from the area.
 In 1651, after the defeat of the communes, Winstanley produced a utopian blueprint entitled Law of Freedom. His previous writings were a savage criticism of existing society and a direct appeal to ordinary people to take action. This later pamphlet was a detailed plan for a future society. While during 1649 and 1650 he appealed to Cromwell and the army merely not to interfere with the communes, in 1651 he directly addressed Cromwell, asking him to create the new society. The experience of the communes and the violence of the landlords had led Winstanley to abandon pacifism.
Though they were short lived and as a movement they were unsuccessful, their various manifestos and pamphlets continue to hold much resonance,  inspiring people to search out new ways of living, feeding our dreams. Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers were prepared to put their beliefs into action, and since that time many political movements have come to recognise the Diggers as pioneers of their own beliefs, their hostility to rule of law and strong governments still resonates with much appeal. Their ideas can be seen in modern movements that put people first and not the thirst for profit, echoed in environmental groups and the occupy movements and others seeking social justice. His message too, rings loud and clear at the moment with the present governments austerity measures, leaving many people vulneravble, and facing the prospect of losing their homes, and their attacks and criminalisation of the squatting movement. Little is known of Winstanley's later life, he died in a place called Cobham, pm the 10th of September 1676 but his contribution to our countries radical spirit looms large and his vision, for all its limitations,continues to inspire, making sure his legacy will surely live on.
As with the Levellers, Winstanley and the Surrey Diggers struck a blow at the halls of wealth and power of 17th century English society. Their efforts and their philosophy were not wasted on later generations seeking the same spirit of liberty and freedom in a more democratic social structure and s have since been celebrated as precursors of land squatting and communalism. Winstanley's memory, and that of his fellow Diggers, has in recent years also been invoked by freeganists, squatters, guerrilla gardeners, allotment campaigners, social entrepreneurs, greens and peace campaigners; and both Marxists, anarchists and libertarians have laid claim to him as a significant precursor. In 1995 The Land is Ours activists set up camp at the disused Wisley airfield in Surrey and briefly invaded the fairways of St George’s Hill golf course. Four years later, on the three-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Digger experiment, activists marched to St George’s Hill – now an exclusive housing estate – and set up their tents, yurt and compost toilets on North Surrey Water Company land near the summit. The occupation lasted for just under a fortnight, when the site was abandoned before a possession order could be put into effect. Other land occupations soon followed. TLIO’s activities and their thoughtful publicity material helped draw attention both to pressing land-access issues, and to the continuing relevance of the Diggers’ example for modern activists.  In 2011, an annual festival began in Wigan to celebrate the Diggers. The memory of Winstanley and the Diggers will no doubt be kept alive,so that future generations of activists will be reminded of the example and relevance of their seventeenth-century predecessors. The following song written by Leon Rosselson,  The World Turned Upside Down,  powefully resonates  today, it  opens with the words ‘In 1649 …’ and still feel like it was ripped from the headlines. Billy Bragg later popularised it further, but personally much prefer the following version by the inimitable Dick Gaughan.

Dick Gaughan - The World Turned Upside Down..

In sixteen forty-nine to St. George's Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords, they defied the laws
They were the dispossesed reclaiming what was theirs
'We come in peace,' they said, 'to dig and sow'
'We come to work the land in common and to make the wasteground grow'
'This Earth divided, we will make whole'
'So it can be a common treasury for all'
'The sin of property we do disdain'
'No one has any right to buy or sell the earth for private gain'
'By theft and murder they took the land'
'Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command'
'They make the laws to chain us well'
'The clergy dazzle us with heaven or they damn us into hell'
'We will not worship the god the serve'
'The god of greed who feeds the rich whilst pepole starve'
'We work, we eat together, we take up swords'
'We will not bow to the masters or pay rent to the lords'
'We are free people though we are poor'
You Diggers all stand up for glory, stand up

'Action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing' - Gerrard Winstanley


Further Reading:

The World Turned Upside Down; Radical Ideas During the English Revolution
- Christopher Hill, Penguin

Gerrard Winstanley and the Republic of heaven - David Boulton
Dales Historical Monographs 1999

  Gerard Winstanley The Diggers life and legacy - John Gurney

Their is also in my opinion a rather fine film , Winstanley that came out in 1975 , made by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollow, that is very good for historical accuracy, that deals with Winstanley's life and that of the Diggers. It has recently been reissued in D.V.D by the British Film Institute.

The Arrogant Face of the Conservative Party

This  is the true face of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. Arrogant, smug, entitled, complacent. Rees-Mogg is such a clear example of the British Establishment, that the Torys truly represent at work at play, with absolute no care in the world or concern about protecting workers jobs, or our living  and environmental standards. He and his chums have absolutely no plan, and simply left to their own devices, they'll leave Britain barreling towards chaotic no-deal Brexit, that will  only serve to benefit the richest 1%. They are jumped up, self serving egoistical scum, the Conservatives with their feelings of self entitlement believe they are born to rule. Unconcerned by any principles except their maintenance of power, but in just two days Boris' I'd rather die in a ditch   Johnson ' has become the first prime minister since 1894 to lose his first parliamentary vote, and has managed to transform his majority of one into minus 43 by sacking 21 rebels. And then on Thursday his own brother resigned from his government and anounced  he  was also stepping down as an MP. Jo Johnson, who backed Remain in the 2016 election and favours a second referendum, said  he could no longer reconcile" family loyalty and the "national interest". This has let incumbent Bo Jo suspended  in mid- air unable to govern, and in absolute chaos, with a general election, imminent, possibly within the next two weeks.
As Jeremy Corbyn has said, this is a government with no "mandate, no morals and no majority." Despite their utter conceit, they have no authority to govern, the current implosion of the government, has has  managed to galvanise opposition forces, and at least given a reason to cheer for the millions of people who have been treated with contempt and  forced to suffer a relentless diet miserable Tory diet of Tory austerity for over a decade. 
As a direct result of their policies we have got the growth of foodbanks, rising homelessness, the rise of racist hate crime, dodgy benefit assessments, the trebling of university tuition fees, a boom in xero hours contracts, while anti-democratically forcing fracking on people who have clearly stated they don't want it, while at the same time passing new laws to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy, taking the side of big business while eradicating workers rights and continuing their attacks on young people, single parents, maintaining a hostile environment to refugees, slashing education and social security budgets, persecuting the poor for simply being poor .while  at same time they give their friends the millionaires tax breaks and award themselves pay rises.
There is irrefutable evidence that the policies of the Conservative government have caused people to actually die. They have not changed policy in the face of this, and the deaths and suffering continue. In a time where everything is about Brexit, it is vital that we as a country stop and reflect. Is it okay that we live in a country where we accept this. Can we as a nation really avoid the victims much longer? Over seventeen thousand others cruelly lost due to Tory conscious cruelty and ideology. 
The Conservatives have their blood on their hands and, with a General Election looming, we must do everything we can to ensure the  arrogant, pernicious faces of Rees-Mogg, Johnson and the rest of this cabinet don’t find a way to stay in government, it is time to kick them out of parliament,  before they inflict any further damage to this country, and confine them to the dustbins of history where they all truly deserve to belong.

E. F. (Fritz) Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and it's continuing relevance today.

Ernst Friedrich Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany on the 16th of August 1911 and grew up in Bremen and would become one of the most influential economic thinkers of the 20^th Century. Often seen as ‘a prophet who stood against the tide’, Schumacher pioneered the ideas of environmental awareness, sustainable development, and human scale organisation and technology in the 1960s and 1970s.
He studied economics in Berlin, then at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and later at Columbia University in New York. He returned to Germany, but disgusted with the Nazis,and his hatred of Adolf Hitler, Schumacher moved to England before the beginning of the Second World War  After the outbreak of war he worked for a time as an agricultural labourer, before being offered a job as an economist at the 'Oxford Institute of Statistics' which had connections with Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatam House. He wrote articles for the Observer and other papers, and worked with William Beveridge on plans for the welfare state,  he would  remain in Britain for the remainder of his life.
Forty two years after his death, the ideas of E.F. Schumacher still resonate through the environmental movement. With his deep spiritual vision and rejection of Western materialism and economic exploitation, Schumacher saw the need to give societies, communities and individuals practical tools for change, and argued that Earth could not afford the cultural and environmental costs accompanying large-scale capitalism. Known as a great thinker he warned the world that bigness, specifically large industries and large cities, and continued over-consumption of oil would bring higher living standards at the cost of deteriorating culture and depletion of natural resources.
Schumacher’s subsequent career, given his later views on economics, was one of considerable contradiction, surprisingly, for someone we see as an environmentalist, he was a strong advocate of continued coal production in the UK. He served  as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. At its height the NCB controlled over 1,600 mines, possessed more than a million acres of land and employed 700,000 people. Much of Britain’s industry relied on coal, so the NCB and hence the Government were at the very heart of the country’s economy. In terms of scale, importance and (literally) power, the NCB was big. Very big. Schumacher stressed the importance of both producing and conserving the coal (at a time when oil production elsewhere in the world had led many to suggest that coal production could be scaled down significantly). He was also an opponent of nuclear energy, because of the issue of dealing with nuclear waste. Schumacher came to believe that the state had a central role to play in directing and planning a nation’s economy. Schumacher was convinced that such planning would address the instability and inequality of capitalism while also using the vast concentration of resources and power available to governments to deliver a more efficient and innovative economy. With such convictions Schumacher was perfectly placed to take on the chief economist role at the NCB.
However, around this  Schumacher broke with the script. To the utter bewilderment of his colleagues and friends, this man brimming with intellectual self-confidence began to question the very principles around which he had built his career and which underpinned the economic policy and business practice of the time. Schumacher was discovering that the great things promised by big government and big corporations amounted to far less in reality. When he finally summarised all of his thoughts in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered,in 1973 he found a world enormously receptive to his ideas.,and it was hailed as an “eco-bible” by Time magazine, and one the 100 most influential books published since World War II  by The Times Literary Supplement. This riveting, richly researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and vital with each passing year since its initial groundbreaking publication during the 1973 energy crisis.

The phrase “small is beautiful” became a counterculture slogan against the industrial threat to the environment and the scarcity of resources. Arguing against excessive materialism and meaningless growth, he promoted the use of small-scale technology to benefit both humankind and the environment. As an economist trained in a market-oriented discipline, his thinking evolved from believing that large-scale technology could be salvation for industrial civilization to believing that large-scale technology is the root of degrading human beings and the environment.

The title of his book was coined by Schumacher’s teacher, Leopold Kohr. Leopold described himself as a philosophical anarchist (someone who believes that the State has no legitimacy and we should not be required to obey it or its laws). He argued against the “cult of bigness” and centralisation, while promoting the ideal of small community life. In his own words: “…there seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness”

What made Schumacher’s  book unique, as it’s subtitle suggests, was Schumacher’s appeal for a move away from technological gigantism to smaller and more human scale technologies and economies. He was also concerned that the environment be regarded as precious resource to be conserved rather than exploited. “Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility,” he wrote. This is now a common refrain, but when published in 1973 it was radical stuff.

In Small Is Beautiful, he argued that although capitalism brought higher living standards, the cost was environmental and cultural degradation. Large cities and large industries caused correspondingly large problems, and raised their cost beyond what Earth could bear. Small, decentralized, energy-efficient production units would better serve human needs.He thought that traditional economics is based on the fallacy that commodities and goods, and money and materialism, are all more important than people and the good things that people can do and create. In that sense, his was a people-centred economist. He particularly applied it to developing countries, suggesting an alternative to the dominant modernisation theory of the period, that suggested that all countries should follow a path through industrialisation to eventually become based on mass consumption.. Instead, economics and technology should ensure that people have enough - there is no need to create excess and deplete resources beyond what is actually required. Developing world economics should be self-reliant and use the appropriate technology for their society (what he called intermediate technology). His ideas about the developing world were partly based on his personal observations on a trip to Myanmar (then Burma).
Influenced by people as diverse as Keynes, Marx and Gandhi, it is Schumacher's work on the finite nature of resources that has had the greatest impact on environmentalism. The economic orthodoxy of the 20th century was one that would lead to us running out of the natural resources upon which our economy was based: a sustainable economy needed to be based on quite different principles.
To pursue his ideas he established the Intermediate Technology Development Group in London in 1966.Complementary to Intermediate Technology was his involvement with sustainable agriculture; he spent much time on his organic garden and became President of The Soil Association. He spent the last few remaining years of his life basking in the reflected glory of his best-selling book, secure in the knowledge that he had radically changed the outlook of millions of people. By 1977 his views had become so popular that he was invited by President Carter for a half-hour talk in the White House and the President was keen to be photographed holding a copy of Small is Beautiful.
Hugely overworked through endless travel, lectures and meetings with the powerful, Fritz Schumacher died suddenly on September 4, 1977whilst travelling on a train through Switzerland on yet another speaking tour. He was 66. His ideas though are just as relevant today, and continue to be influential and attract new adherents. After his death the Schumacher Circle was formed in his memory and to help continue his work.
Although I don’t necessarily agree with everything he wrote,  many of  his prophetic warnings have come to pass, but he bought a profound wisdom and humanity on  the practical  challenges of our time , his ideas are well worth considering as we struggle to deal with the worlds continuing environmental problems, such as global warming, and the recognition that oil (upon which so much of modern civilisation depends ) is a finite resource, and we struggle to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalization. We should remember EF Schumacher’s advice: “Do not break down problems into isolated compartments, but look at the world and see it whole”. Had we acted on this advice when it was first given, we might be better equipped to deal with the many inter-locking financial, environmental, security and social problems which we face today, and it just about conceivable that  if our leaders over many years had acted more intelligently to address some of the concerns he expressed, we would perhaps be in less dire straits today.
Schumacher also suggested we “widen the concept of violence beyond human warfare”, and include the environment and social wellbeing as well. The loss of community and of place should be included, alongside the loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation. If the march of industrial society is towards ever-bigger size, complexity, capital intensity, and violence, “then it would seem to follow” said Schumacher, “that the cure must be sought in the opposite direction.” What with the continuing concern about the influence of corporate wealth on culture and politics, his  message of extraordinary universality,and  exploration of a socially and environmentally just way of living is as relevant today as it was in 1973, when his seminal book was first published, still, speaking clearly today to all those working for a better future for our planet.His thinking can help turn our present crisis into a more kind, just and ecolofgically sustainable society.where surely the planet matters more than profit.
 

National Welsh Rarebit Day.

Happy National Welsh Rarebi tDay! No, I didn't just make it up - September 3 really is National Welsh Rarebit Day. A famous dish, although it can’t be officially proven, it’s widely accepted that the venerable dish known as Welsh rarebit originated in  the South Wales Valleys, where it was the staple diet of Welsh men and women .The word 'rarebit' is a corruption of 'rabbit' 

The first written narrative of  'Welsh rabbit'  appears in 1725 in Literary Remains, the diary of an impoverished  poet by the name of  John Byrom, who wrote : ‘I did not eat of cold beef, but of Welsh rabbit and stewed cheese.’
Described by some as a kind of ‘posh cheese on toast’, ingredients vary but mostly include Welsh cheese, ale and mustard mixed up and served on toast. It's an old favourite of mine, and I don't really do posh, but today when its cold and wet outside and well as usual the kitchen cupboards aren't overflowing,  most of the ingredients for this rather nice comfort food can be found to quickly tantalize my taste buds.
It is thought that the dish was attributed to the Welsh because of their historic passionate fondness for cheese,which was used as a substitute for meat as a source of protein by poor peasants.It has been popular since at least the 1500s under the name of caws pobi, which is Welsh for toasted cheese. Indeed, according to a 16th-century joke, the Welsh were famous for their love of toasted cheese – St Peter was said to have got rid of a troublesome "company of Welchman" who were troubling the peace of heaven by going outside and shouting caws pobi –  "that is as moche as to say 'Rosty'd ches!' Which thynge the Welchman herying ran out of heven a grete pace".
St Peter was said to have got rid of a troublesome "company of Welchman" who were troubling the peace of heaven by going outside and shouting caws pobi – "that is as moche as to say 'Rosty'd ches!' Which thynge the Welchman herying ran out of heven a grete pace". Probably all this seemed far much funnier back then.
Anyway according to many sources, the name Welsh Rabbit came about as an ethnic slur against the Welsh by the English, part of an age-old British tradition - having a dig at the Welsh.It was used to describe something as 'foreign.' The English also used the adjective Welsh to describe an item of inferior quality. A Welsh pearl, for instance, might have a low grade or even be counterfeit, and using a Welsh comb meant brushing your hair with your fingers. By this reasoning, Welsh rarebit was used condescendingly by the English  towards their Welsh neighbors who saw it as a main dish for people who couldn't  put real meat on the table. the idea being that the impoverished and uncouth Welsh had to eat this melted cheese on toast instead of the rabbit they couldn't afford, and though rabbits ran wild in Britain, the Welsh  people couldn't even manage to put one on their table.
Also, there may have been another connotation: that  the Welsh, in their uncivilized state, thought the dish was fine dining, and as good as eating rabbit, which, if you get my drift, means that they didn't even know what fine dining was. As the dish gained in popularity, the name rarebit became more common. The name change was probably an attempt to make the name more fitting to the dish and drop some of the more patronizing overtones.
Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1763) wrote about the dish in Some words with a mummy (1845):
' I am exceedingly fond of Welsh rabbit. More than a pound at once, however, may not at all times be advisable. Still, there can be no material objection to two. And really between two and three, there is merely a single unit of difference. I ventured, perhaps, upon four. My wife will have it five; — but, clearly, she has confounded two very distinct affairs. The abstract number, five, I am willing to admit; but, concretely, it has reference to bottles of Brown Stout, without which, in the way of condiment, Welsh rabbit is to be eschewed. Having thus concluded a frugal meal, and donned my night-cap, with the serene hope of enjoying it till noon the next day, I placed my head upon the pillow, and, through the aid of a capital conscience, fell into a profound slumber forthwith.' 
Wherever it originally came from, the Welsh's love of cheese has ensured that Welsh rarebit has become a staple throughout  the centuries and today it is enjoyed  throughout the country, holding a special position in Wales due to its status as a traditional dish, and today even has its own national day, Welsh Rarebit Day, so if you've never had it  before, today is a great opportunity to try it for the first time!.It's's certainly sustained me over the years. The French have a fondness for it too,which they sometimes called ' lapin gallois' and sometimes simply ' le welsh'.

The following recipe is one I use. It should be able to serve two people. Delicious, incredibly comforting and quite easy to make. Their are many others. with more variety out there online, some add spring onions to it, chopped leeks, sauteed shallots,some versions add a poached egg, tomatoes or local bacon, but traditionally did not have any of those additions so I tend to use  just the basics, most recipes  call for cheddar, but there are other options:and if you want to keep it truly Welsh in flavor there are  lots of Welsh cheeses about, caerphilly is a wonderful option. If you've never had Welsh rarebit before, National Welsh Rarebit Day is a great opportunity to try it for the first time. Go forth and toast that cheese...

Ingrediants 

350g (12oz) mature Cheddar
2 eggs, lightly beaten 
2 tbsp beer (preferably stout) or milk 
Worcestershire sauce 
1 tsp English mustard 
 black pepper (preferably freshly ground)
dash or two  of cayenne pepper or paprika
2/4 thick slices brown or white bread, 

Method

Grate the cheese, mix  with the egg, beer or milk, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and cayenne to form a paste
Preheat the grill to high and toast 1 side of the bread on the grill.
Spread the cheese mixture onto the non-toasted side of the bread and add a few drops of Worcestershire sauce on top.
Place the toast back on the grill until bubbling and golden brown.
Serve immediately.
Enjoy.

Jack Monroe - Niemoller Updated

 

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the following quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
 
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
 
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
 
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The following is  it updated by food writer Jack Monroe. I thought it deserved a wide audience.

                                                   Niemoller Updated - Jack Monroe

First they came for the socialists
But you did not speak out
Because you were definitely not a socialist
Those mad bastards campaigning for decent wages
and universal healthcare
Waving their hand painted placards through
Westminster
You were definitely not a socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists
And you did not speak out
Because Unions are awful
The Daily Mail said so
Those people representing ordinary workers
And fighting for decent pay
And human working conditions
And maternity and paternity leave
And adequate rest between shifts
And making sure people have a voice
They’re definitely terrible self-aggrandising egotists
And they get paid to represent people
And you had to get a bus to work once because of a
strike you didn’t bother to research beyond a
screaming scheming headline
So you are not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Muslims
and the refugees
And you did not speak out
Because they are not your people
Coming over here
Why can’t they integrate?
Religion causes all the problems, right?
All the wars
Leave them to it
Close the borders
We’re full up
Can’t take any more
Of this PC multicultural bullshit
Who do they think they are?
You spoke over
And you spat and you raged
in hatred and fear
But you did not speak out
Because you were not a Muslim
nor a refugee.

And then they came for the poor
and the unemployed
the single parents on benefits
the workless
And you did not speak out
Because you thought they were lazy
Loads of jobs out there innit?
Easy to eat cheaply on the dole, you claim
Having never had to make £71 last a week
with a broken refrigerator
or holes in the bottom of a pair of school  shoes
Bet they’ve all got Sky TV and iPhones
and how did she pay for her tattoos?
And you saw someone smoking outside a food bank  once
So you did not speak out.
Then they came for the disabled
Shame, you thought, but you did not speak out
Most of them could probably work, you thought
You saw that chronically depressed woman smiIe  once
And the guy in the disabled parking space
looks young and healthy to you
We all get down sometimes, you shout
What’s wrong with you anyway?
Bunch of fucking scroungers, you thought
So you did not speak out.

  
Then they came for the teachers
And the doctors
And the nurses
And the fire-fighters
And the domestic abuse workers
And the rubbish collections
And the rape crisis centres
And the social workers
And the children’s centres
And the education funding
And by the time they come for you
By the time they fucking come for you
There will be nobody left to speak out for you
Nobody left at all.

-Jack Monroe

So please  remember to defend and speak out with all your might.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters to perform Wish You Were Here London in solidarity with Julian Assange

Roger Waters, bassist and vocalist for Pink Floyd, will reportedly perform his iconic song Wish You Were Here in front of the British Home Office, in solidarity with Julian Assange. Award- winning journalist and filmmaker  John Pilger who is a guiding light in the struggle for Human Rights Press Freedom and a personal friend of Julian Assange. will also speak ' on solidarity with Britains political prisoner.'
Waters is a vocal supporter of Assange, and said he was “ashamed to be an Englishman” after the UK arrested the whistleblower in April. He has used his concerts to draw attention to Assange’s case, and recently took aim at Twitter, calling it “Big Brother” after it suspended a prominent account supporting the WikiLeaks founder. 
According to WikiLeaks on Twitter, the performance by the famous musician, also known for his political activism, will be on Monday at 18:00 local time, as part of a campaign for freedom of expression, and against the eventual extradition of the founder of Wikileaks to the United States.
 Assange was arrested last April 11 at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after the government of that country withdrew the political asylum he was granted seven years ago.
 Expeditiously tried by a British court, the Australian cyberactivist is now serving a 50-week prison sentence in Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison for violating bail granted in 2012 in connection with alleged sexual offences committed in Sweden.
 In addition to being requested by the Swedish justice system, Assange is facing an extradition order issued by the United States government, which seeks to hold him accountable for the disclosure on Wikileaks of hundreds of thousands of documents and secret files of US diplomacy and the US Army. The 17 charges filed by the US Attorney's Office, including conspiracy to commit espionage, carry a total sentence of 175 years in prison.

 Last February, when Assange was still in the Ecuadorian diplomatic mission, Waters was among those who urged the Australian government to take action on the case.

Free Julian Assange, before it's too late. Sign to stop the USA  Extradition

http://chng.it/VTZJ7ZXmnS

(Post script  3/09/19 Roger Waters Sings Wish You Were Here In Support of Julian Assange )

Alistair Hulet (1951-2010) - Dictatorship of Capital

Alistair Hulet was an acclaimed Scottish acoustic folk singer, revolutionary socialist and committed political activist, who was  committed to fighting for a better world, a world based on the principles of justice, equality, love and respect for all of humanity.
Born in Glasgow, in 1968 he and his family moved to New Zealand, where he established a reputation on the folk circuit, with a large repertoire of ballads and other songs. In 1971 he moved to Australia, and sang in many festivals and folk clubs. In the early 1980s he founded the folk punk group, Roaring Jack, which combined  Celtic reels with radical and revolutionary lyrics, they  opened for international acts such as Billy Bragg and The Pogues and The Men They Couldn't Hang.
In 1991, the Gulf War led Hulett to join the International Socialist Organisation, and, in 1995, he co-founded the Australian Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Alternative, often playing political benefits and rallies with Roaring Jack.
Hulett wrote songs in support of Indigenous Australians, the BLF (Builders Labourers Federation), the Maritime Union of Australia and former Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.
Hulett's first solo CD, Dance of the Underclass (1991), was completely acoustic, with contributions from other members of Roaring Jack, the album was instantly hailed as a folk classic and proved to be the turning point in Alistair's return to the folk fold, establishing Hulett as a key contemporary songwriter and underlined his significance as a documenter of social issues. His position as one of the most influential musicians on the Australian scene was now beyond dispute.
In the UK his song, "He Fades Away", was picked up by Roy Bailey and by June Tabor and later by Andy Irvine. All three performers recorded uniquely different but thoroughly compelling interpretations of the song. established Hulett as a key contemporary songwriter and underlined his significance as a documenter of social issues.
In 1995 he met  the late great fiddle player Dave Swarbrick, who was living in Australia, and they became a duo. Hulett and Swarbrick made two fine albums together, Saturday Johnny and Jimmy the Rat (1996) and The Cold Grey Light of Dawn (1998) after making another fine solo album, In Sleepy Scotland, he worked with Swarbrick on perhaps his crowning achievement, Red Clydeside. Hulett's song suite told the story of the Glasgow workers' revolt and their attempts to form a republic in response to conscription in 1914.
After returning to his native Glasgow in the late 1990s, Alistair was an active member of the Socialist Workers Party. Hulett became acutely ill on New Year’s Day 2010 and was hospitalised on 5 January with suspected food poisoning.Liver failure was later diagnosed and it was hoped that he could receive a liver transplant, but further investigation revealed a very aggressive metastatic cancer which had already spread to his lungs and stomach. Hulett died on 28 January 2010 at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
Following his  untimely death,  two memorial funds were established in his name; one in the UK and one in Australia. Both funds were established with the aim of honouring and upholding Alistair’s legacy of actively campaigning through his music and his songwriting on behalf of the poor, the oppressed and the disadvantaged.
The following song of his from Dance of the Underclass  still holds much resonance today. as  out of control  dark forces undermine us with their'smash and grabs for power, it reminds us that for a  long time now we been under the dictatorship of capital 

 Alistair Hulet - Dictatorship of Capital

You're trying to tell me capital has won at last
And anyone who's not convinced is just being shown the door
You're trying to tell me competition turns the wheels
Smart money never deals in welfare any more
Survival of the fittest keeps the species strong
Change is always painful but it doesn't last too long

Excuse me friend,
I think you could be wrong.
When some of us are free to rise and some are free to fall,
All of us are under the dictatorship of capital.

You're trying to tell me profit is the bottom line
Cancer is sometimes benign, it eats the cells that leave themselves defenceless
You're trying to tell me market forces must prevail
Some succeed while others fail
Failure has to face the consequences
Weeding out the weak is mother nature's song
 Existence is a game like chess, Monopoly or Mahjong.

Excuse me friend, I think you could be wrong.
And it did not take me by surprise when the revolution from above began to cave in.
Like a New Town built by an architect, a concrete wasteland no-one wants to live in.
When some of us are free to rise and some are free to fall,
All of us are under the dictatorship of capital.

You're trying to tell me I'm living in democracy, everyone is always free
To either live with ugliness or beauty
You're trying to tell me that undermining revolutions
When they threaten institutions is a major power's democratic duty
With Batista, Marcos, Pinochet you got along
But not with the Sandinistas and not with the Viet Kong

Excuse me friend,
I think you've got it wrong.
Because when some of us are free to rise and some are free to fall,
All of us are under the dictatorship of capital.
All of us are under the dictatorship of capital.
All of us are under the dictatorship of capital.

 http://www.alistairhulett.com

As Boris Johnson treats the people of Britain with contempt with his decision to proroque Parliament, now is the time to stop the Torys misrule

Like many I am currently completely dismayed by oafish  Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to  prorogue Parliament. The Queen  having approved his request at such a critical time for the UK. has sparked outrage across Britain. It's really so hard to believe that the Government could even contemplate closing the door of Parliamentary democracy (which has for a long time  not exactly been a shining example,and in serious need of reform, but that's another story) for a period of 5 weeks, in order to guarantee a No-Deal Brexit, with no time for alternative plans, debate or opposition, in what is just another example of their utter contempt for the people. We should not be held to ransom  by Johnson with his attempt at a coup, that will only end with the continuing right wing onslaught on our lives, with the result  that many are left in misery.
At end of the day Johnson and the Torys do not represent us, but just carry on with their own vested interests,to big business, and the capitalist elite, at a time that millions of people are being driven into poverty. Trump wannabe Johnson  is now acting in  such a brazen tyrannical manner, even though he  does not even have a parliamentary majority. In fact he barely has a parliamentary mandate at all. He does not have a popular mandate either, and was not chosen in a general election, but was nominated, instead, by a mere 93,000 members of the Conservative Party. Without Parliament, without the public, without any real legitimacy, he nevertheless believes he has to make Brexit happen by the deadline, Oct 31, because that is what he promised during his leadership campaign , because otherwise his party might not survive to the end of this decade. To be frank he's playing a dangerous game and is simply taking the piss out of us all.
As a friend has made clear ' his decision will ensure millions are pushed further into poverty, leading to the loss of our NHS, social services  and our human rights will be cut to shreds. As always, the most vulnerable within our society will suffer the most.' Johnson wants to distract us from other news, the growth of foodbanks, rising homelessness, the destruction of the NHS and the figures that emerged earlier this year from the Department of Work and Pensions, that showed more than 17,000 people had died waiting for Personal independence Payments after registering between 2013 and 2018.
And in May, the UN's rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights concluded a series of reports on the UK by repeating that the country is "failing to uphold human rights". It confirmed that disabled people had been hardest hit by austerity. These policies it concluded, "continue largely unabated, despite the tragic social consequences. At the time, the DWP denied  the UN's findings, describing it report as a "barely recognisable" picture of the UK".but  the evidence and the personal testimony have kept on mounting up. The reports findings are now irrefutable.
 Brexit was meant to return 'sovereignty ' to the Brtish Parliament, instead it has made us a laughing stock all over the world. For those that can't remember the last time their was a constitutional crisis of this magnitude was in the 17th century when Britain  had a bloody civil war. While they scheme and distract  lets not forget  their economic  murder of  the poor and vulnerable with  their systematic conscious ideological cruelty in what amounts as a true testament to the last 10 years of this abhorrent government.
We should all be outraged and do everything that is possible to thwart the Tory's misrule,so that generations to come can be protected from their harm. Protests have been called across the country, in an effort to stop the Tories before they unleash any further damage, it is time to end the relentless suffering bought to millions by their vicious  austerity driven policies, it is time for the government to fall. If Johnson really is so sure, that he is in line with the will of the people, there' is a very easy way for him to find out, and that is for him to call a general election, one that many commentators are saying he is not guaranteed to win, in the current unstable political climate that he has helped stir up.

Edward Carpenter ( 29/8/1844 - 28/6/1929) - Love's Vision

Visionary, mystic , English socialist and radical philosopher poet and  humanitarian, Edward Carpenter was born  on Sunday, 29th of August 1844 into a wealthy household in Hove, Sussex, the son of a school governor who had made a mint on the stock market. Educated at his father’s school, the independent Brighton College.. Domestic pursuits included learning the piano and taking long horse-rides out over the Downs. 
He went to university at Trinity College Cambridge, where he realised both that he was gay and"felt a friendly attraction towards my own sex, and this developed after the age of puberty into a passionate sense of love". also realising that his family wealth was built on the immiseration of working people.
Initially he began a career with the Church of England as a curate, before turning against it and instead moving to first Leeds and later Sheffield to work as a lecturer. While there he was heavily involved in pushing socialism forward in the city, representing the Social Democratic Federation there in 1883 and later joining the Socialist League alongside William Morris https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/03/william-morris-2431854-3101896-no.html.Carpenter purchased a property near Sheffield and began promoting a socialist lifestyle that included market gardening. His political writings over the years to come became the very basics of British Socialism. He supported trade unions and called for industries to be controlled by workers. But he also argued that socialism must mean a total transformation of society,,including changes to personal life and relationships.
An early champion of homosexuality, animal rights, ecology, women's suffrage, recycling, prison reform, and sexual freedom, opposing  imperialism and war, striving for a simpler more sustainable way of living. A man so ahead of his time, who throughout his life campaigned and wrote on a whole range of issues, an early champion of homosexuality, animal rights, ecology,vegetarianism, womens' suffrage, recycling, prison reform, naturism and sexual freedom, opposing imperialism and war,while  advocating for s simpler, more sustainable way of living. A man so ahead of his time, who throughout his  life campaigned and wrote on a whole range of social concerns, he is  a huge inspiration ( who incidentally also happens to share a birthday with me).
Influenced by the work of John Ruskin, Carpenter began to develop ideas about a utopian future that took the form of a primitive communism, that still resonates strongly today.He sought a personal liberation of brotherhood and emancipation, a life of liberty and love,a world free of class struggles,ways of life he embraced himself,ideals that we should all be proud of.
In Sheffield he found both connections to working-class people and explored his sexuality through encounters with “railway-men, porters, clerks, signalmen, ironworkers”. Over time he patched together a political philosophy mixing spiritualism and socialism in a Tolstoyan manner, which infuriated many especially when he opened the doors of his co-operative farm Millthorpe to a sexually liberated group of men. In the early 20th century, Carpenter was a celebrity. Hordes of men and women – but mostly young men – had beaten a path to his rural retreat in Millthorpe, near Sheffield, to sit at his vegetarian, be-sandalled feet, or to take part in his morning sun-baths and sponge downs in his back garden.
.The spiritual side to his writing were both influenced by Walt Whitman.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/05/happy-birthday-walt-whitman-legendary.html .Although Whitman was not a socialist, his writing had a profound effect on Carpenter, who made the long trip to America primarily as a pilgrimage to his literary and spiritual inspiration. He visited the poet for several weeks in 1877 and again in 1884. In 1906 he published an account of his visits to America, Days with Walt Whitman, writing a respectful, even somewhat glorified, portrait of his ido . In his emulation of Whitman, Carpenter became one of the first of many disciples, spreading Whitman's message into another country and another century.
Carpenter’s openness with his homosexuality, spiritual inclinations, proto-beatnik lifestyle and strident anti-imperialism led to repeated censure from elsewhere in the movement, with George Orwell memorably excoriating him as  “the sort of eunuch type with a vegetarian smell, who go about spreading sweetness and light.” His philosophical and political writings were nevertheless among some of the most influential of his era, and Carpenter went on to become one of the founding figures of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. In
1890 Carpenter met his long-term lover George Merrill, a young working class man who surprised Carpenter's friends by his frankness about his sexuality.They lived openly and remained partners for the rest of their lives, a remarkable achievement  that defied Victorian sexual mores and the British class system at a time when hundreds of men were prosecuted for homosexuality.
Carpenter was pro-feminist and a close friend of the lesbian novelist Edith Lees Ellis [wife of sexologist Havelock Ellis]. Carpenter and his ideas became an inspiration to many. Artist CR Ashbee was inspired to found the co-operative Guild of Handicrafts in London in 1888, and agreed with Carpenter on the glorious love of comrades.
Carpenter courageously published Homogenic Love (1895), Love’s Coming of Age (1896) at the time that Oscar Wilde's trial had recently scandalised the country, and wrote one of the early textbooks on homosexuality The Intermediate Sex. It was published in 1908, and was so popular that it went through 3 impressions in 4 years. By this point his writing was positively celebrating the homosexual condition as "a forward force in human evolution". Same-sex love was, according to Carpenter, ‘not only natural, but needful and inevitable.’This book formed the basis with which people came to understand LGBTQ identity over the next hundred years. He also called for a critique of the way that gender roles oppressed women and wrote extensively on the harm of institutionalized marriage , an argument that persisted into the modern marriage equality movement, with many activists insisting that queer people can do better than just imitating heterosexual couples.
Edward Carpenter also engaged in spirited critiques of capitalist exploitation of workers, calling for an end to social inequality, again mirroring the modern-day observations that capitalism will always victimize disadvantaged minorities.He was also a great ally to the anarchists, and quite clear about his inclinations towards anarchist-communism. He worked with Peter Kropotkin  in his research on small industry and defended anarchism in the courts. 
The last years of Carpenter's life saw him admired throughout the left. On his 80th birthday in 1924 he received greetings from the first Labour Party cabinet, the TUC and dozens of other organisations.George Merrill and Edward Carpenter moved to Guildford after the First World War, and in 1928, after 30 years together, died within a year of each other. They are buried together at the Mont Cemetery in Guilford. .
 Carpenter was a truly inspirational man, seriously ahead of his time in terms of his ideas on nearly everything. A real pioneer who laid the groundwork for the freedoms and struggles we experience to this day.His eccentricities are easy to mock, but they are the least important thing about him. Far more significant is his determination to live according to his principles. One of my favourite books  by him is called Towards Democracy which has served me well over the years, acting as a kind of personal bible. Nearly every word contained within its covers, glistens with beautiful reasoning, a poetic and spiritual summons to human improvement. I would urge anyone to seek out this vivid book, and carry on hungrily building upon the seeds that are contained within. How come though, we are still seeking?

Edward Carpenter - Love's Vision

 At night in each other's arms,
Content, overjoyed, resting deep deep down in the darkness,
Lo! the heavens opened and He appeared-
Whom no mortal eye may see,
Whom no eye clouded with Care,
Whom none who seeks after this or that, whom none who has not escaped from self.

There- in the region of Equality, in the world of Freedom no longer limited,
Standing as a lofty peak in heaven above the clouds,
From below hidden, yet to all who pass into that region most clearly visible-
He the Eternal appeared. 

Edward Carpenter - So Thin a Veil

 So thin a veil divides
Us from such joy, past words,
Walking in daily life- the business of the hour, each detail seen to;
Yet carried, rapt away, on what sweet floods of other Being:
Swift streams of music flowing, light far back through all Creation shining,
Loved faces looking-
Ah! from the true, the mortal self
So thin a veil divides!

 
Further Reading :

 Edward Carpenter: A life of liberty and love, By Sheila Rowbotham (Verso)

Mashrou' Leila: The voice of Middle East youth

As a music enthusiast, I'm  always trying to find new music, and follow new bands, one such discovery recently is a  Lebanese four piece indie band based in Beirut, by the name of Mashrou leila. Their songs  provide an alternative soundtrack to the watered-down ‘habibi’ pop that dominates the mainstream music industry in the Middle East and their socially conscious lyrics have addressed the concerns of their generation. They are, arguably,one of  the most potent force in Arabic music today.
 Described as ‘The voice of their generation’ and ‘The Arab world’s most influential independent band’ by CNN and The Financial Times respectively, this year marks their 10th anniversary, and have recently released their fifth record  ‘The Beirut School’- a compilation of their classic tracks and new material.
The album brings together key songs from their first four albums, and also features three new songs ‘Cavalry,  which is about the cruelty and machismo of militarized oppression:,‘Salam’ and ‘Radio Romance’ that were produced by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip from sessions in the band’s studio in Beirut and at the legendary La Frette Studios in Paris.
‘Salam’ features Roisin Murphy on vocals. The original version was first released as part of ‘Block9’s Creative Retreat’, created at Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel, Palestine.
Jessy Moussallem, the acclaimed Lebanese director,  directed  the video for lead single ‘Cavalry’. Her first collaboration with Mashrou’ Leila since the video ‘Roman’ (2017) which won numerous awards and international attention, including a Gold Award at the Cannes Lions.

 Mashrou leila - Cavalry

“Best stop brandishing that sword of yours
Lest you fall right off of your throne
If I fail, if I die
I’ll come back every time
Till I’ve seen you through
Every head you cut turns into three
I burst into armies of me”

Their rousing, sensual electro- pop anthems about political freedoms, LGBT rights, race, religion and modern Arabic identity have challenged the status quo of the Middle-Eastern pop industry.Through their relevant and politically charged electro-pop anthems about LGBT rights, race, religion and modern Arabic identity, addressing  the need for self-expression and a judgment free culture. Mashrou’ Leila music has resonated with fans all over the globe, gaining worldwide acclaim. They’ve undertaken four US tours to date and played headline shows at London’s Barbican and Somerset House receiving plaudits from the likes of the NY Times -“sexy, soulful definitely joyful music’, The New Yorker, and 4 star reviews from The Guardian, while the. Financial Times called them "The Arab world’s most influential independent band, " 
Their popularity across the Arab world has seen audiences grow from 400 capacity venues to audiences in excess of 35k in their ten years to date.They were also the first Middle Eastern artists to grace the cover of Rolling Stone.
They brilliantly  reimagine the vibrant sound of contemporary Beirut with guitars, drum machines, samples, razor-sharp violin and magnetic frontman Hamed Sinnos mercurial voice.Riding on the wave Arab Spring uprisings that swept the Middle East, the band was embraced by Arab youth who see its music as part of a cultural and social revolution.
Mashrou’ Leila began attracting the attention of Western media outlets in 2009 and 2010, as their witty wordplay and rambunctious sound began saturating the airwaves in Lebanon and neighboring countries. Immediately, they were typecast as a politically renegade music group. “Just because you’re brown means you can’t make indie pop,” says Sinno. “It's ‘Arab indie pop.’ Which I think can be a really, really dangerous discourse to entertain. A blues musician from Lebanon is just a blues musician.”
Mashrou’ Leila initially emerged as the hobby project of a group of architecture and graphic design students at the American University in Beirut in 2008. There, academic instruction provided them with progressive, leftist frames of reference for the world. These ideological discourses saturate their music in both form and substance. So it is true that Mashrou’ Leila’s music is, in fact, political, sometimes provocatively so if not in intent, then in effect. Mashrou’ Leila's themes and satirical Lebanese lyrics reflect the many faces and flaws of Lebanese society which are not addressed by mainstream Arabic music. The band is critical of the problems associated with life in Beirut and they are known for their liberal use of swear-words in some of their songs. Their debut album's nine songs discussed subject matters such as lost love, war, politics, security and political assassination, materialism, immigration and homosexuality. Their oft-cited hit song “Shim El Yasmine,” from their debut album, narrates a queer relationship between two men, hinting at a still-present taboo in Lebanese society. But it’s a love song too, and one that is rhythmically engaging.

 
 With the advent of the 2011 Arab upisings, Mashrou Leila’s fans conceived new explications for the music.  Songs that previously gestured at discontent were reappropriated as calls to revolution. They were played at political rallies in Cairo, Tunis, and Amman, where the band has massive audiences. “Inni Mnih,” a song on their 2011 album El Hal Romancy—in which Sinno sings, “let’s burn this city down and build a more honorable one”—was misread as an anthem for the Egyptian revolution.

 
Once, at a music festival in Beirut where the group Gorillaz was also playing, the band sang an Arabic rendition of Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood” as a tribute. The clip found its way online, where it was reinterpreted as a rallying call for protesters in Tunisia.  
Over the years, Mashrou’ Leila has released music that has continued to deepen the affinity between the band and its ever growing fan-base. They do so by mixing the stylings of pop and electronic music, and what they call a “punch of stadium rock.” They also sing in Arabic, in contrast to most Lebanese rock, which is often sung in English, even though Sinno’s voice does not resemble those of traditional Arab singers. Thick and not without some dissonance, his exceptional voice challenges the sound of traditional Arabic tarab by banking on the power of emotionality and the influence of the music. They also regularly use their voice as a tool for activism, all the while knowing full well what dangers that can cause to their physical safety. 
In August 2010, during a concert at the Byblos Festival Sinno unfurled a rainbow flag that was handed to him by a member of the audience. This was the first public display of a gay pride flag by an artist in Lebanon. During that same festival appearance, the band performed songs denouncing police brutality and corrupt politicians while then prime minister Saad el-Din Harim was in attendance.
Their unflinching, uncompromising attitude has seen them get into trouble from the Conservatve society they inhabit.Mashrou' Leila's satirical lyrics and controversial themes led to an unofficial ban on performing in Jordan on April 26, 2016. The band announced on its Facebook page that their planned concert was denied approval by the Amman Governate.The ban was reverted by the relevant authorities two days later^. On June 13, 2016, the band again posted a message on their official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mashrou3leila/  that claimed their upcoming concert in Amman had been cancelled by the Jordanian Minister of the Interior, "The inconsistency of the Jordanian authorities in this respect (inviting us, then banning, then cancelling the ban, then inviting us again, then banning us again - all within the course of 14 months - has culminated in a clear message, that the Jordanian authorities do not intend to separate Jordan from the fanatical conservatism that has contributed in making the region increasingly toxic over the last decade."
In September 2017, while the band was playing in Egypt, members of their audience were arrested for unfurling rainbow flags in support of LGBT rights. One man was sentenced to six years in jail for 'practicing debauchery' on his way home from the concert; seven other concert attendeed were arrestedThey were supposed to recently perform at the Byblos International Festival in Lebanon on August 9. https://www.byblosfestival.org/ However, the concert was halted by the organizers “to prevent bloodshed and maintain security and stability” after critics of the band on social media threatened to attack the concert, and following pressure from Christian groups,  led by the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Byblos  accusing the band’s songs of undermining religious and human values’ and ‘directly opposing the Christian faith’. The office of the town’s archbishop also published a statement that said the group “undermine religious and human values and attack sacred symbols of Christianity”, while the country’s Catholic Information Centre called them a “danger to society”.
A social media storm ensued as internet users hurled insults and violent threats at the band, and .Lebanon  joining  the ranks of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan in censoring a band that has put Lebanon on the global indie rock scene .On July 30, the band released a statement in response to the concert’s cancellation that described the series of summer happenings as “shocking events” and attempted to counter some of the lies and misrepresentations circulating around them. For example, some falsely claimed that their name, Leila, refers to the “the night of eternal oppression.” The band’s name, which for some brings to mind the name of Qays’ lover in old Arabic poetry, is said to date back to the night of the band’s first ever concert at the American University in Beirut in 2008. 
On their website, the band says they are born out of a nocturnal encounter. The band chose to spell their name as ‘Leila’ instead of ‘Leilah,’ the latter being the Arabic word for night, while the former, pronounced the same, is a female name. The name Leila is perhaps more romantic, but also more playful as it suggests different meanings. This playfulness will remain with the band and its growing sound. 
The recent  hostility specifically targeted two 2015 songs called ‘Asnam ‘ and ‘Djin’ from their 2015 album ibn al-leil (son of the night) which were removed in July from the band’s official Youtube channel and a 2015 social media post by lead singer Hamed Sinno, who is openly gay, portraying the pop star Madonna as the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ as a ‘fanboy’.
In a statement, the band felt obligated to provide an explanation for the meaning of the  two songs.. While the band didn’t explicitly outline the meaning lyrics to their 50-song catalogue, they noted the difference between literal meanings of words and how they can be read in the context of art. 

 Mashrou’ Leila - Asnam

Mashrou’ Leila  - Djiin

“Suffice it to say, and remind everyone, that works of art carry multiple meanings, especially when taken out of context, and that the nature of metaphor is to divert from words’ literal linguistic meanings. This is the reason for this uproar,” the band said in the statement. The seriousness of the accusations was shocking as were the misinterpretation of our songs, the lies that were told, and the doctored pictures. The orchestrated campaign culminated in direct death threats,” the statement added. Concluding: “We are not on some sort of mission to arbitrarily blaspheme and disrespect people’s religious symbols”.

 In response to the cancellation, the band said that their songs had been misinterpreted, and a number of falsehoods about them had been spread online. 

“We feel true and genuine regret towards anyone who felt their creed and beliefs were targeted in our songs. We assure them and everyone that these songs do not breach sacraments or faiths, and that the offence was due mainly to smear campaigns, defamation, and false accusations,” they said in a statement. 

“Our respect for others’ beliefs is as firm as our respect for the right to be different,” they added.

In the aftermath of the concert cancellation, a number of human rights organizations voiced concern, condemning the decision, and the wider campaign against the group.Human Rights Watch called the cancellation “the latest in an escalating campaign of repression against peaceful speech in Lebanon”.
“This incident demonstrates how criminal defamation, incitement, and insult laws in Lebanon are exploited by powerful groups and how they fail to protect marginalised voices and those who have divergent opinions,” said Lama Fakih, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Lebanon is joining the ranks of abusive governments in the region that trample on free speech rights, pushing out the talent and debate that has made this country what it is.” 

 And writing on Human Rights Watch, Lebanon and Bahrain researcher Aya Majzoub urged the Lebanese government to reform laws that criminalize protected speech: ‘Lebanon should decide what kind of country it wants to be: one that controls and dictates public discourse, or a beacon of tolerance and a centre for art, music and culture.’
The rights group criticised the Lebanese government for its reaction the campaign of violent threats against the band. It said the Interior Ministry hauled two members of the band in for an interrogation that lasted for six hours, after which security officers forced them to pledge to censor content on their social media accounts.
An earlier statement from Amnesty read: “It is unconscionable that there continue to be such calls emanating from institutions that are meant to serve as role models to their constituencies, and can and should be upholding the right to freedom of expression and protection of vulnerable groups, instead of enabling hate speech, including homophobia.” 
In parallel, activists from different walks of life quickly launched a solidarity campaign in support of the band, and on August 4 2019,Dutch  metal band Within Temptation who was set to perform at Byblos on August 7 pulled out of the festival in solidarity with Mashrou Leila and "in support of tolerance, freedom of speech and expression". The cancellation of the Mashrou Leila concert triggered protests and a solidarity campaign on social media. Supporters described the cancellation as a shameful and dangerous precedent. On the date of the concert, independent activists gathered to put on a show in solidarity with the band and against censorship under the banner “The Sound of Music Is Louder.”  A hashtag for the concert read al-qamea mesh mashrou’ (oppression isn’t legitimate). Besides being part of the band’s name, mashrou’ is a versatile Arabic word that can mean ‘legitimate’, as well as ‘project.’ The event gathered dozens of sympathetic musicians, bands and comedians at 'The Palace' venue in Beirut's Hamra district. Over a thousand people attended the show while hundreds waited in droves at the venue's entrance in waiting. At 9pm, pubs and restaurants across the city played Mashrou Leila songs in solidarity with the band.
Mixing different musical styles and artistic expressions, the concert was also an opportunity to express support for LGBTQI+ rights. Many attendees waved the rainbow flag, a strong political gesture given the homophobic attacks on Mashrou’ Leila’s lead singer in the preceding weeks.
The cancelled concert also epitomizes three years of declining public freedoms. In recent months, several films have been banned, books censored and the Brazilian metal band Sepultura denied visas for being ‘devil worshippers’.
On 12 August, the radio station Voice of Lebanon reported that a satirical show due to be performed in the town of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon had been cancelled. Although the exact details of the cancellation remain unclear, it followed alleged political pressures resulting from concerns over the women performers’ lack of modesty and the nature of some of the jokes.
Coming just weeks after Mashrou’ Leila’s ban, this latest incident suggests that ‘the alarming crackdown on free speech in a country that officials have long boasted offers more freedom than the rest of the Arab world and was once proud to embrace diversity’ is far from over.
 In Greek mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus try to escape from Crete, where they have been exiled. The father and son make wings made of feathers and wax so they can fly. However, Deadalus warns his son against flying too high and getting close to the sun, but Icarus objects, and flies higher anyway. Mashrou’ Leila sings for Icarus and his quest to fly high. This is their brand of boundary-pushing politics.

As the whole world seems to be regressing into illiberalism, the fact remains is that Mashrou' Leila  with their powerful  rebellious attitude and the perpetual debate their wonderful passionate music generates,and the stimulating questions they deliver gives them even more value as a band, and makes them the success they have become today. Long may they continue fearlessly doing what they do, releasing their potent mix of sweet sounds and heady lyrics and people generally, keep making a stand against hatred, homophobia and discrimination, and to all those that haven't  given up,  Love is Resistance.

Mashrou leila - Radio Romance

I will end with this music video Mashrou’ Leila made in cooperation with Greenpeace, filed on a raft in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea during the bands residency aboard the Rainbow Warrior.

Mashrou leila   x Greenpeace - Bahr 360